Too Rich for My Blood (short story)

Too Rich for My Blood was the seventh short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: Seven Deadly Sins. It was written by Rebecca Levene. It featured the Seventh Doctor, Chris Cwej and Bernice Summerfield.

Summary
The Doctor has taken his friends to Las Vegas. They enter a casino that looks like a spaceship, and Benny heads off to play a game of poker. Chris wants to watch a hot dog-eating contest.

Chris finds the contest in the atrium, and makes his way to the front. He sees that one of the contestants, whose name is Jimmy Lilly, is very skinny, and Chris doubts he will do well until a man named Tom suggests putting his money on Lilly.

Bernice is playing a hand against a woman named Vivienne Jones. Vivienne is low on chips, and goes all in. To make up the pot, she adds an entry ticket for "the big game upstairs".

The Doctor wanders the casino and eventually follows a couple of waitresses. When they reach the changing room, they change out of their costumes and the Doctor sees they are aliens.

Benny, having won the pot against Vivienne, is escorted upstairs to the big game. She can tell they are playing for big stakes, and not only is she nervous, but the other seven are nervous too. Four casino guards watch the players.

The contest starts, and Lilly quickly eats his hot dogs and asks for more. When all the hot dogs are gone, he takes hot dogs from the other contestants, and when those run out, he bites off the hand of the man next to him.

Bernice isn't doing so well. She has been playing cautiously, and has been slowly losing chips. She and the other players are playing like this game is the "most important game of their lives".

At first Chris attempts to help the man bit by Lilly, but then that man turns and bites the man next to him. Chris and several others decide to run, but the door is locked. Those who are closest to the deranged contestants are caught, but Chris and the others find a corridor and head out. The Doctor watches these events on a security screen, and hits the button to lock the casino doors. He can't let whatever this is out onto the streets.

Chris' group heads for the main floor of the casino, and they try to convince the slot machine players to leave. However, they have little success, and soon their pursuers arrive. Chris and his party of fifty people keep running, and the pursuers stop to attack the slot machine players.

The Doctor finds the nerve centre of the casino and enters. Inside, several aliens are eating. The Doctor tells them they must take their casino spaceship and leave before anyone else gets infected with their disease. They don't know what he's talking about. The casino really is a casino.

Benny goes all-in against Joan, who also goes all-in. Benny wins the hand, and Joan is taken away by one of the guards.

The aliens explain to the Doctor that they had crashed on Earth long ago, and decided to stay. They started a casino, but they had to design a serum for themselves to survive in Earth's atmosphere. They have prospered here in Las Vegas.

Chris and the others put some distance between themselves and their pursuers when their pursuers stop to eat at the buffet. Chris notices that the "infected" people have metabolisms hundreds of times that of a normal human. When they can't eat, they eat themselves up from the inside. Chris learns from Tom that Lilly was given a serum of something to fix the competition. They got the serum from someone who needed some money to pay for entry into the big poker game.

Benny and a man named Chuck are the only players left. Chris and his eight fellow survivors hide in the freezer.

The Doctor and the aliens figure out that some of their serum was taken and given to the humans. Meanwhile, Benny learns that the prize for winning the big game is to stay alive. When she wins, she learns that Chuck is an alien. He sold serum to Tom for money to enter the big game.

Since Chuck's life is now forfeit, the Doctor has a suggestion. The enzymes in Chuck's body can cure the infection, so he is sent to the location of the remaining infected humans. As they devour him, they begin to recover, and soon the infected are dazed and confused.

The aliens have memory-erasing technology, which they will use on the survivors. Chris' group emerges from the freezer to find the fight is over.

Characters

 * Seventh Doctor
 * Chris Cwej
 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Vivienne Jones
 * Tom
 * Joan
 * Chuck
 * Slim
 * Betty
 * Alien leader
 * Jimmy Lilly

Worldbuilding

 * Bernice notes that her poker hand is halfway to the hand that Wild Bill Hickok had when he was shot in the back.
 * The Doctor scoffs at humans' use of musical door keys.
 * The aliens are eating steak and fries.

Continuity
to be added