This is another standalone story that came from a writing prompt. The required things were a sweet or sandwich, fixing or repairing something, and an earthquake or falling building. I tend to treat them as suggestions rather than rules, so I'll leave it up to you to decide how well the story fits the prompt.

This is supposed to be Dan Barrister Jr's first proper adventure with Doctor Fung, but I'm not sure how well that comes across. I might write another "first adventure" later, but see what you think...

Somewhere in Arizona, 26th January 1938

The waitress slid their breakfasts onto the table and asked whether they needed anything else.

"Not at the moment, thank you," said Doctor Fung.

Once the waitress had left, Dan Barrister took a few bites of the eggs and bacon. Better than he was used to eating for breakfast, he had to admit. He lowered his fork, took a mouthful of coffee—​a lot better than he was used to—​and gazed at the top of the Doctor's head.

"So, Doctor, are you going to tell me why we're here?" They'd spent a week travelling across New Mexico and Arizona, going from town to dusty town without the slightest hint of adventure or anything out of the ordinary. He'd thought he was honouring his father's memory by teaming up with the Doctor, but the old man must've had a lot more patience than Dan did.

The Doctor gave a knowing smile and took a worn envelope from his jacket. From it, he removed an equally worn sheet of paper, which he unfolded and placed between the two men's plates.

"I received this almost a year ago," said the Doctor, "while staying in a city that I had never visited before. I was there for only one night, and when I checked out of the hotel, the clerk gave it to me. He could not account for how it had come to be in the pigeonhole for my room."

The sheet was headed notepaper, from the hotel they were staying in now. The ink had faded, and the handwriting was uncertain, as though a child or a foreigner had been practicing their letters. It read,

Most excellent Doctor Fung, yo! Forsooth, it wouldst be totally rad if thee and your winsome squire would come to Pueblo Rio Seco in Arizona in the United States of America on the twenty sixth of January one thousand nine hundred and thirty eight (Gregorian calendar). I need you to clear the stones away from the shield in the cellar of the mead hall before eleven of the clock ante meridiem. Yours in faith, your ever-fashing buddy Sandy.

Dan read the note several times, then drank some more coffee. It had gone cold, and he refilled the cup from the carafe.

"What do you make of it?" the Doctor asked.

"What do I make of it? I thought you were the detective."

"I am, but I often find it useful to get others' perspectives on a matter."

Dan stirred his coffee and scratched his cheek, trying to recall anything from all the detective stories he'd seen and read. "Is it a joke?" As soon as he'd asked, he thought that was a stupid question.

"In this profession," said the Doctor, "intentional humour is rare."

"Right." Dan felt his face grow warm. "If you thought it was a joke, you wouldn't have come all this way. So I guess the next question is, who's Sandy?"

The Doctor grinned. "I have not the slightest idea."

"Then why's she acting as if she knows you?"

"Again, I have no idea."

"And what's with all the weird words?" Dan asked. "Did she learn English by reading Shakespeare?"

"Perhaps she did. If she is foreign, that might explain why she felt it necessary to point out that Arizona is in the US, and that the date is in our calendar, rather than, say, the Hebrew one."

"So she wants to meet you today, somewhere near here."

"She did not say that she wants to meet, merely that she wants us to do something there."

Dan read the note again. "You're right."

"Sometimes, what a person does not say is as important as what they do say. No doubt we will learn presently whether this is one of those occasions."

They finished eating, and went to the reception, where the Doctor asked about Pueblo Rio Seco. Apparently it was a ruined Indian settlement, about five miles out of town, next to a dried-up river bed. Dan had thought Indians all lived in teepees, but some of them had evidently learned how to build in brick, even before the Europeans arrived.

Dan and the Doctor got into their rented Chevrolet, and Dan drove along the highway to the point where the clerk had told them to stop. To the left of the road, the ground, dotted with bushes, sloped gently down.

The Doctor pointed to what Dan had taken for a natural rock formation, about a mile from the road. "There."

They walked towards the ruins, kicking up dust. Already the air was warmer than his home town of Portland, Maine was in March. He didn't want to think what it might be like in summer.

The settlement consisted mainly of small two-room dwellings, with a few larger buildings scattered among them. The buildings were made of rough-cut stone blocks, mostly the same colour as the land, that varied in size from a few inches to a few feet. No building had a roof, and most of the walls were barely higher than Dan's waist. A few buildings were just piles of rubble, as though an earthquake had hit them.

"So, which of these is the mead hall?" Dan asked.

"None of them, since no Indian tribe drank mead. Or if they did, it was not important enough to be worth constructing a building specifically for that purpose."

"Then why... oh. She learned English from Shakespeare, right? So 'mead hall' is her name for some big, important building."

"With a cellar," the Doctor said, "containing a lot of rubble." He checked his watch. "We should split up to search for it."

Dan wondered how he'd tell whether a building had a cellar, but he soon came to one where the walls surrounded a pit. A staircase in one corner descended into it. So the floor at ground level had been removed or rotted away. No pile of rubble lay in the cellar, so this probably wasn't the mead hall.

He found a couple of other buildings with cellars before coming to what he thought had to be the right one. It was bigger than the others, perhaps the size of a tennis court, and had two staircases going into the cellar. A pile of stones lay against the middle of the cellar's north wall, not quite covering a rectangular grey stone slab that was mounted on the wall.

"Doctor Fung!" he called.

The Doctor hurried to Dan's side. He agreed with Dan's reasoning, and pointed out a hollow on the outside of the south wall. In the middle of this part of the wall was a vertical slot that would allow sunlight to strike the inside of the north wall.

"Now I see why she wants us to clear the rubble by eleven," the Doctor said. He checked his watch again. "We have about twenty minutes."

They entered the building through a doorway in the east wall. The cellar didn't take up the full area of the building—​there was a ledge all around it, except for a gap in the south wall for the slot. The ledge gave them easy access to the stairs.

As they descended the stairs, a low moaning came from all around, like wind passing along an empty street.

"Did you hear that?" Dan said.

"Hear what?"

Dan described the sound, and the Doctor said he hadn't heard it. They began clearing the rubble from the north wall. The stones were lighter and smoother than Dan had expected. Now and again, white flashes appeared in the corners of his eyes, like the sun reflecting off the sea on a calm day.

"Is this place supposed to be haunted?" Dan asked.

The Doctor gave him a curious look. "I had not thought you believed in ghosts, Mr Barrister."

Dan grunted as he moved another stone. "I don't, but... if I did, this is the sort of place I'd expect to have them."

"Indeed."

The slab that the rubble had concealed was covered in angular carvings of animals and people. "Interesting," said the Doctor. "The decoration seems to be Incan, but as far as I know, they never reached this far north."

In the centre of the slab was a fist-sized hole. Something glinted within it. The sun had risen above the south wall and illuminated the top of the slab. The sunlight coming through the slot was an inch to the right of the hole.

The Doctor studied the floor for a moment. "Perhaps we should go upstairs to watch what happens next."

"What's going to happen next?" Dan asked.

"I do not know."

"Then why go upstairs?"

"Call it a hunch."

As they climbed the stairs, Dan said, "My Dad told me your 'hunches' often saved your life or his."

"He was being generous. I would not say that I often saved a life in that manner. Once or twice. Three or four times, perhaps."

"That's enough to make me listen to them."

When the Doctor was about to pass through the doorway, a sound like a choir singing came from all around, and a gust of wind swept over them. The Doctor lost his balance, but Dan caught him before he could fall into the cellar. The Doctor panted and fanned himself with his hand.

"Thank you, my friend."

They turned to see what had happened in the cellar. A cone of shimmering light emerged from the hole in the centre of the stone slab, making a circle on the cellar floor. The circle was darker than the floor around it.

"How'd the Incas hide a film projector in there?" Dan said.

"I am not certain that that is what the light comes from," the Doctor replied. "Observe that the rocks within the circle cast no shadow."

"Oh yeah..."

Within the circle, dust swirled, as though stirred by the wind, but outside it, the dust remained motionless.

"Interesting," said the Doctor, half to himself. "Perhaps it projects heat as well as light. If the air above the floor is suddenly heated, that would cause localised currents." To Dan, he said, "Is there any sign of our mysterious correspondent?"

Dan checked the surroundings. "I don't see anyone."

Running footsteps echoed. Instinctively, Dan turned to the circle. A woman appeared at the far edge, coming into view a bit at a time like an actor walking onto a movie screen. She had a shock of blonde hair and wore a shiny red dress. The top half was skin-tight, but the lower half was free-flowing, and split to halfway up her thigh. Her outline had a soft haze, as if there was a light behind her.

She bent over to catch her breath, then stood straight and waved at them. Dan took a pace towards the stairs, intending to help, but the Doctor put a hand on his shoulder and whispered, "Not just yet."

The woman crossed the near edge of the circle. Dan half-expected her to disappear. The haze around her did, but the dress became brighter. She gave them a radiant smile. "Doctor Fung. Mr Barrister. It's good to see you again."

Dan's shock at the fact that this woman already knew him was immediately overtaken by his shock at realising she was actually a man. The long hair and the dress had made him overlook the square jaw and the flat chest. The deep voice just confirmed it.

"I'm afraid you have the advantage of me, ah, sir," the Doctor said.

"You don't remember me? Hasta mañana and all that?" He had an accent that Dan had never heard before, but Dan had no trouble understanding him.

"I doubt I would have forgotten someone who could make such a spectacular entrance."

"Not even—​wait. What year is this?"

"Nineteen thirty-eight," said Dan.

"What calendar?"

"Gregorian," said Doctor Fung.

The man clapped his hands. "Oh, boomerang. I should've said Julian."

"You are nearly three hundred years late, if you expect to find someone using that in this part of the world."

"No, I'm about two weeks early. But it's all rad. We'll just fash our way through it, like we always do—​or will, in your case." He turned at some sound coming from the circle. "Oh, Mars it." He hurried towards the staircase. "You'd better close the portal—​I mean, block the sunlight from the crystal."

Dan started down the stairs, but the man said, "Not there. Cover up the slot in the wall."

Dan stepped over the south wall and moved to the hollow, where he stood in front of the slot. A gust of wind blew some sand at him, then the choir sang again, and the circle vanished. Dan couldn't be sure, but he thought the cellar had rather more stones than before.

"Gadzooks, that was close." The man touched a stone at the corner of the east and south walls, then hissed and blew on his fingers. "Mr Barrister, you need to stay where you are for another... forty-five seconds, and then I guess I owe both of you an apology."

"I would rather you started with an explanation, sir," said the Doctor. "For instance, how do you know so much about my movements that you were able to deliver a letter to me in a city that I had never visited before, and in a hotel in which I stayed only one night?"

"The letter? You're going to tell me when and where to send it."

"And why do you imagine I will do that, sir?" the Doctor asked.

Never mind "why?" How could the guy send a letter that the Doctor had already received?

The man shrugged. A wave of yellow rippled down the dress, from shoulders to waist. "I can't twist you, I guess, but if you don't, it'll probably cause one of those paradoxes that my Uncle Harvey is always rapping about."

"Paradoxes?" said the Doctor. "Do you mean to tell me you are a time traveller?"

The man laughed and snapped his fingers in a fast rhythm. "You've only just sussed that? I thought you were, like, the master sleuth of the Orient."

Doctor Fung huffed. "I would never be so arrogant as to call myself that, sir."

"I didn't say you did." He turned to Dan. "You can step away from the slot now."

Dan went to stand by the Doctor. The top of the stone that the man had touched had become smooth, as though cut with a saw and then polished.

"If you're a time traveller," Dan said, "where's your time machine?"

The man tilted his head and smiled. "Somewhere safe." He waved a hand in the direction of the cellar, and the rocks that Dan and the Doctor had spent a good twenty minutes moving piled themselves against the slab in a matter of seconds.

Dan gasped. "How'd you do that?"

The man smirked. "Sufficiently advanced technology."

"What do you mean?" said the Doctor.

"Some scribbler—​I think he's from this century—​said it can't be distinguished from magic."

"I see," said the Doctor, though from his expression, it was obvious that he didn't.

"So, did you bring the letter? I'm going to need to refer to it when I write the original."

The Doctor took the envelope from his jacket. The man opened it and took out the letter, then another piece of paper.

"You even brought me a blank sheet. Rad."

The Doctor gave a modest cough. "Would you expect anything less from the master sleuth of the Orient?"

"I guess not." The man put the papers back in the envelope, then slid the envelope down his chest. It disappeared. He grinned at Dan and pulled it back into view, then hid it again. "So, we'd best make ourselves dangered. There shouldn't be any way for those knaves to figure out where and when I jumped, but they're clever. You got transport?"

"What, you can't just fly to where you want to go?" said Dan.

"I could, but then how would you get there?" He pointed up the hill, to where the car was parked. "Is that it?"

"It is," the Doctor replied.

He ran towards it for a few paces, then stopped and turned back to them. "Sorry—​I keep forgetting this is the first time you've met me. I've already met you several times in what's the future for you. I'd better not say too much about it, but we had—​we're going to have—​so much fun!"

Dan wasn't sure that any time spent with this bozo would count as "fun," but he said nothing.

The man set off again, at a more sedate pace, and Dan and the Doctor walked alongside him. "I should introduce myself. My full name is Quintal Sandeep Aleph-One, but most people on this continent in this century call me Sandy Quinn. I'm originally from... oh, gadzooks, the fortieth century in your calendar. I grew up on a moon of Saturn, called... oh, apparently I'm not supposed to tell you the name of it, because your astronomers haven't discovered it yet. That doesn't make any sense, does it?"

"At the moment," said the Doctor, "I am not sure what should make sense and what should not."

"So my Uncle Harvey invented a time machine, and I, ah, accidentally became a test pilot for it, and I, ah, borrowed it for a while to see all the most rad parts of history."

The Doctor gave him a stern look. "By borrowed, do you mean stole?"

"Well, I, ah, may have been touristing, um, a bit longer than I firstly intended. But I can take the machine back to the time and place I started at. From Uncle Harvey's point of view, I'll only have been gone five minutes. Five hours, maybe. Five days, tops."

"Who are the people who are chasing you?" the Doctor asked.

"I don't rightly know. At first I thought Harvey must've built another time machine and sent some bouncers after me, but these guys are vicious. Sometimes I think they don't care if they take me alive. You saw what they did to that rock by my head, right?"

"I did."

"Maybe they're, like, Time Police," said Dan. "Trying to make sure you don't change history."

"Could be," said Sandy. "But if they null me out, that'll change history."

"If you weren't supposed to have been there," Dan said, "they're just putting history back the way it was originally."

"Supposed is quite an oily word when you apply it to history, even without patching time travel into the board."

They crested a ridge, and the rental car came fully into view. Sandy clenched his fists under his chin. "It's so cute!"

"Speaking of which," Doctor Fung said, "we will need to obtain some clothes for you that are more suited to this era. You had better lie on the back seat as we approach town."

Or in the trunk, Dan thought.

"No need for that," Sandy said. He studied each of them for a few moments, then passed his hands over the dress. Suddenly he was wearing a suit, of a cut like Doctor Fung's, but in the sober blue colour of Dan's, rather than the dandyish dark purple of the Doctor. Weirder than that, the length of his hair now matched theirs. He stepped to the driver's door and looked expectantly through the window.

"That's where I sit," said Dan.

"Rad," said Sandy, moving to the rear door. He didn't open it until Dan had opened his. Did he not know how they worked? In a way, that was stranger than anything else about him. He didn't slam the door after getting in, so Dan got out to close it properly.

"So," said the Doctor, once Dan had turned the car around and they were heading back to town, "what sort of 'fun' do you propose having?"

"First I need some calories and hydration," said Sandy. "Maybe a Big Mac and a hot milkshake?"

"I have never heard of anyone eating a mackintosh," said the Doctor. "And milkshakes, at least in this era, are customarily served cold."

"A Big Mac is a... proprietary type of beefburger. Oh. It hasn't been invented yet. Mars it. A hot milkshake is coffee and steamed milk."

"That is what I believe the Italians call a caffè latte," said the Doctor, "but I would be surprised if any establishment in this town serves it."

"Oh. Well, anything they've got should be rad. You don't time travel for long without genning a strong stomach. After that, maybe we could go witness a sport event? Olympics? Super Bowl? Formula One?"

"I have not heard of the second or third," said the Doctor, "and for the first, you are two years early or two years late."

"Meet someone famous? Karlheinz Stockhausen? Marilyn Monroe? Richard Feynman?"

"I have heard of none of those people."

"Oh, gadzooks, they're all still in education. These eyes seem to be running on the wrong calendar. They give me what I ask for, but they don't give me what I really need until two minutes after I need it." He looked at the passing scenery for a moment. "Tell you what, fash-buddies—​seeing as this is your first time, I'll let you pick the fun."

"In that case," Doctor Fung replied, "I can heartily recommend the best entertainment that the mid-twentieth century has to offer."

"Oh yes?"

"We passed a movie theatre on the way into town yesterday. It is showing Way Out West, starring Laurel and Hardy."

Historical Notes

Sandy and Uncle Harvey appear in a text story called Lost in Time, in Fantastic Comics #4 (March 1940). The English module of Sandy's translation software was evidently written by someone who believes the language didn't change from the 17th to the 23rd century.

In 1938, the Gregorian calendar was 13 days ahead of the Julian one, so 26th January in the Gregorian calendar was 9th February in the Julian one.

The first McDonald's restaurant opened in 1940, but the Big Mac wasn't introduced until 1967. The first Super Bowl was in 1967, although it wasn't called that until 1969. The first Formula One race took place in 1950. Karlheinz Stockhausen, Marilyn Monroe and Richard Feynman were, respectively, 9, 11 and 19 in January 1938. Way Out West was released in April 1937, so it's quite likely that a cinema in an out-of-the-way town would still be showing it.