It had been almost two hours, and Javis Nine was incredibly bored.
"I have an appointment to make, I shan't be long," she remembered the Doctor saying before he had popped out of the TARDIS, "don't go anywhere, I'll be right back. If you get bored, have a look round inside, I believe I've got a raquetball court in there somewhere…no pool thought, lost that a while back. Should build a new one, now that I think of it…ah well, nevermind! Time marches inexorably on, and I must march likewise. Things to do, people to see, et cetera. I'll be back shortly, Javis…take care."
"Hmph," Javis sniffed, her booted feet propped up on the center console, "right. 'Have a look round.' I can barely find my own room, let alone a flipping racquetball court."
She had managed to find a few miscellaneous cogs in one of the many fruitless storage rooms, and she was amusing herself by tossing them lazily at the coat rack on the other side of the console room.
"And what did he mean, 'take care?' I'm not some infant," she sniffed indignantly, even though she knew what it really meant. It wasn't so much a caution to her, but for their newest lodger, the little Miss Colleen. Basically, the Doctor had her playing nursemaid to a scared little self-pitying cyborg. She knew she was letting her boredom turn her sour, but after an hour of TARDIS ring-toss she felt she deserved it. She had checked on Colleen at regular intervals, but found her either sleeping, or pretending to be. Apparently she had begun to recognize the schedule as well. All the better, Javis thought, that she did want some time alone, because Javis had no idea what she would have been able to do in the event of Colleen's cybernetic brain hopping out of her cranium or something.
So, it was back to this. It wasn't so much that Javis was in the TARDIS because, indeed, it had almost anything she could have wanted to be entertained with…it was the fact that the Doctor had left her to go out and have his adventures, his "appointment," without her. As a fighter, she wanted to be in the thick of it at all times, and the idea of the Doctor getting into temporal mischief without her frustrated her more than Colleen's reticence, the TARDIS' labyrinthine interior, or the fact that she just couldn't manage to get the top spire of the coat rack hung with a ring. She didn't even know where she was, and fat lot of good this console was, with all of its bleeping and blinking, none of it she could ever hope to understand. Only her wristwatch told her the amount of time transpired, but not what time it was. For all she knew, it was time for tea, or time for bed, or time for the end of the world.
"Ah well," she muttered, flinging another cog, "I never much liked tea anyway. Not even sleepy. And as for the last…what in blazes am I going to do about it?"
She tossed the last cog with an irritated growl, but surprised herself when it neatly slipped itself over the top of the coat rack. Before she had time to smile at her final success, the Doctor burst through the door of the TARDIS with his usual bombast. However, if he hadn't spoken in that usual, clipped, upper-crust dialect, she would have thought a vagrant had wandered into the ship. Dressed in shredded, soiled rags, he sported an immense, hooked false nose, along with several boils and pustules that had been affixed to his normally youthful face. His eyes, usually a bright blue, were made to look milky and mysterious, most likely through the use of lenses. A half-bald wig was plopped on top of his head, complete with straggly, unsavory tufts of matted gray hair sprouting from the temples. Topping it all off was a pointed, clefted false chin, which jutted out almost as far as the nose and gave the entire picture a terrifying appearance.
"There we are, there we are! Great fun, great fun!" the Doctor raced to the console and gave it a sharp kick to the undercarriage. With a slightly offended squeak the TARDIS opened a deep drawer underneath the main console, which the Doctor began using as a rubbish bin, tossing in the prosthetics and the bulk of the rags. "I really should use the word 'ides' more often, it's a fantastic word, really…and the food! An entire roasted pig, a massive beast, absolutely succulent! The wines, too, fantastic vintage. Felt a little bad about nicking them, but it's not like there wasn't going to be leftovers! Wasteful folk, always so gluttonous with their to-dos, throwing away so much of it too, makes you want to invent refrigeration a few centuries early!"
He turned around, arms outstretched, hair askew, one lens out. He was down to a dull, brown, woolen kilt-like ensemble, with what appeared to be a stained canvas smock covering his upper body.
"I'm back!" he called triumphantly.
Javis hadn't moved, her feet still defiantly on top of the console, precisely where the Doctor told her they oughtn't.
"I can see that," she said drily, "you've never looked better."
The Doctor sighed and shook his head, shooting Javis a half smile that, if it weren't for the lens in his right eye, would have seen very fatherly and adoring. Finally blinking out the other contact and tossing it into the bin, he took a large breath.
"So…how is our lodger?"
"Lethargic, bordering on comatose," Javis muttered.
"I see you've been doing a bit of reading," the Doctor grinned, noting her enlarged vocabulary.
"It's all I can do, that damn girl won't even open her eyes or breathe in either of our directions."
"Now now, Javis," she Doctor attempted to straighten his hair, but to no avail, it was a wavy mess, "she's been through an awful lot, just give her time. Poor little thing, really…"
"Just another misfit," Javis grinned.
"Quite," the Doctor responded with his own smirk, "But we've got to hop out of this timestream, some bad things are set to happen in a moment or two, let me see if I can just get us comfortably into temporal orbit."
He flicked a few switches, batted a few buttons, and that familiar groaning TARDIS motor started. The center column oscillated up and down, up and down, up and down, then stopped with the trademark soft thud. Glancing at the flatscreen scanner, the Doctor seemed pleased.
"Good girl," he mused, patting the console. The machine seemed to coo in reply. "Now, one more thing…" the Doctor turned a dial with a sort of malicious glee, and the entire console room listed suddenly to the right. The Doctor was ready, steadying himself, but Javis suddenly found her feet almost on top of her head. With the practised agility and skill of a fighter, she swiftly regained her balance and managed to place her feet back on the floor of the console room, rather than propped on the console itself. Turning the dial back to its original position, the Doctor righted the console room and glanced over at Javis. After making sure she was sufficiently balanced, it suddenly hit her what the Doctor had just done. Wrinkling her nose, she pulled a face at the Doctor for his sneaky enforcement of the house rules. The Doctor responded with a wink and, with that trademark speed of his short legs, bustled back into the console room.
It was silent again in the room, except for the ever-present hum of the motors at stand-by, ready for the next time-traveling jump. Javis was just about ready to start picking up the cogs when she heard a strange voice echo around the console room, disembodied but very, very perturbed. It was the voice of an old man, even more clipped than the Doctor's, an acerbic bark:
"I know now who's responsible… You are! You sabotaged my ship."
"Hello?" Javis called, not quite sure she was actually hearing what she was hearing.
"You're the cause of this disaster! And you both knocked Su.. you knocked both Susan and I unconscious!"
"I'm sorry, I don't know a Susan," the name seemed odd and foreign on Javis' tongue, "Has something gone wrong? Do you need help, sir?"
"And when we were lying helpless on the floor you tampered with my controls." the voice continued accusing.
"I haven't done anything!" Javis cried.
"A charade! You attacked us!"
"I DID NOT!" Javis shouted, her own voice echoing around the room now. She had no problem being accused of attacking when she was attacking, but she was not a liar.
"Surely you don't expect all the people to welcome you with open arms?" the voice continued, mockingly. It then occurred to Javis that perhaps this voice was not talking to her. She tried again in vain to make a connection.
"Sir? Sir, please, my name is Javis Nine and I can help you! You seem to be in trouble, but I have a friend, he's called the Doctor, he can help you, if you just listen to me and–"
"Javis, why are you shouting into thin air?" The Doctor said, re-entering the console room and pulling on his blue jacket. He was back to his navy blue pinstriped suit, complete with matching argyle pullover, white shirt, and navy necktie. His trousers were once again converted to plus-fours, and tucked into a long pair of navy argyle socks, matching the pullover. Instead of the original brown shoes matching the brown newsboy cap, he had switched this time to a pair of black wingtips and a gray, wide-brimmed fedora.
"It wasn't into thin air, Doctor, there was this voice, and…Doctor, please."
"What?"
"The trousers?"
The Doctor gave an irritated sigh.
"Fine."
He un-tucked his pant legs and let them fall again to his ankles. At that moment, the voice returned.
"You can't rewrite history. Not one line!"
Javis turned the Doctor, her eyes pleading the question "You heard that, right? I'm not going mad?" In response, the Doctor's eyes grew very wide, and a little color seemed to drain from his usually energetic round face. His mouth, which was usually turned into some sort of grin or smile, was suddenly a tightly drawn straight line, his hands still frozen to his lapels as he stood, transfixed by the voice. Then, as if re-animated, he leaped into action, flicking controls on the central console like mad.
"Doctor? What is it? What's wrong?" Javis felt vindicated, but at the same time a little scared at the change in the Doctor's demeanor.
"I know that voice," the Doctor responded with all severity, "I think he's trying to patch a way through. I'm going to open up the other end of the connection and see if I can get him in here…" he smashed a few more buttons, "he wouldn't dare try this unless it was a dire universal emergency, I have to find out what's going on. He wouldn't do this for just anything…I know him." he slammed one last dial into place and there was a crackling in the air, followed by a tremendous boom. There was still no one visible in the TARDIS but Javis and the Doctor, yet a presence lingered on the air.
"Doctor, you know him? Who is it?"
The Doctor had only one reply.
"It's me."
The older gentleman's voice came through clearer now, almost into their very heads. It was clear that they were now the focus of the disembodied speech. As if testing the connection on a transatlantic wire, the grandfatherly voice rang out.
"Mm? What's that, my boy?"
"It's me. It's…the Doctor."
"What did you say, my boy?"
The voice was crystal clear now, as if the person was actually here, although Javis could see nothing.
"Doctor," she slowly stepped nearer him, as if afraid she might crush the voice by the slightest movement, "why can't we see him…you?"
"There's two of us in the same place, we're crossing one individual timeline, and it's shorting out the time differential. Basically, I'm being stretched very thin temporally. This chap, being almost a thousand years ago in my own personal history, is fairly more than a zephyr through the mist of time…I'm lucky I've even got him on audio."
"So this is you, a thousand years ago?" Javis' voice was skeptical.
"Yes indeed."
"But you sound so…old."
"I was… older back then, older when I was younger, you know how it goes. Anyway, why not let the genuine article tell you a little about himself, mm?"
The Doctor turned to the outer walls of the console room and hailed.
"Hello there! Been a while, hasn't it? Why don't you tell us a little about yourself?"
"I don't discuss my private life with strangers," the voice shot back.
"But we aren't strangers, I'm you! See? Take a look at the genetic material, you can't be mistaken. I believe I'm even wearing an old hat of yours, maybe?" he adjusted the gray fedora.
"What do you mean, 'maybe'? What do you think it is, a space helmet for a cow?"
"Oh, that's right, he always was a bit of a crank," the Doctor muttered.
"Completely unlike yourself, right?" Javis smiled.
The Doctor gave her one of his mock serious looks and introduced her.
"This is Javis Nine of New Earth, my companion. You know, like Susan and Ian."
"Chatterton?"
"Chesterton." The Doctor rolled his eyes oh-so-slightly.
"And Javis…" the Doctor smiled, "this is the Doctor, the first and original."
"I am a citizen of the universe, and a gentleman to boot!" The voice quipped back.
"I see you've always been this modest," Javis laughed.
There was another crackle in the air, and a few warnings beeped on the TARDIS console. The Doctor looked immediately worried and began administering.
"No no no no no no, not know, not know! Hold the connection, hold! I've got to find out what's going on!" He jammed a switch into place and the crackling stopped.
"No time to waste, I'm losing you over the massive differential, you've got to tell me what's wrong, what made you do all this, what kind of universal terror is so strong that you risk ripping a fabric in reality?"
"We're always in trouble! Isn't this extraordinary – it follows us everywhere!" The old voice called back.
"Focus! Focus! I know you're slipping away, I can't hold long, you've got to tell me! Is it the Daleks? Cybermen? Are you stuck in the old West again?"
The voice was wistful, nostalgic. "Our lives are important – at least to us – and as we see, so we learn… Our destiny is in the stars, so let's go and search for it."
"Stop it! Give me answers! I can't hold the connection must longer, I'm going to lose you, please! Tell me what catastrophe I can avoid!
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's all my fault. I'm desperately sorry."
The Doctor whipped off the hat and tore at his brown hair in frustration.
"No, it's not your fault, it's…wait! No! The connection…damn! Time is righting itself, I can't hold it any longer!"
Sparks erupted from the console and the Doctor was forced to release the last switch and the old man's voice died off with a ghostly whisper.
"One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back…"
The Doctor found himself slumped against the console, frustratingly beating his head against one of the dials. The ship moaned in empathy.
"Doctor, are you all right?"
"If I could have just held the connection a little longer…I could have…I could have kept the differential from ripping apart, but I would have lost the ship…"
"Doctor, there's no use talking about it now. Obviously it was just too long ago to bring back, we have to work with what we have."
The Doctor lifted his head and fanned his flush face with the fedora.
"You're right. It's that fighter's instinct, isn't it? Go with what you have and attack, eh?" The Doctor gave her a wink, then replaced the hat on his head and began pondering, stroking his chin in thought.
"What do we have, Javis?"
"That beard's getting awfully long," she observed.
"It's called a goatee, Javis, and that's beside the point. Don't distract me. Now, obviously my first incarnation would not have contacted me unless it was some sort of dire, pan-dimensional peril. There's only a few things I can think of that would have inspired such a call, and I've defeated most of them already…oh! If only he would have said something useful, instead of waxing philosophic! So unlike him, er, me, especially when there was trouble."
"It was unlike him?" Javis said, her brown eyes shining.
"Yes, he was…I was, very crass and to the point. You know, like he was with you."
"So do you think the failing connection caused it?"
"Impossible. We're Time Lords, we look into the vortex when we're children, we can handle a little bit of galactic angst. So why did he do it?"
Javis leaned against the console next to him, smiling.
"Doctor, you really can't see it?"
"No! There's no reasonable explanation for it."
"So start thinking unreasonably, Professor," she tweaked his nose affectionately.
The Doctor smiled warmly. "You know, it's been ages since someone called me that. So go on, tell me what you've got." he took an old briar pipe out of the inside of his sportcoat and began chewing on the stem agitatedly.
"Doctor, I didn't know you smoke!"
"I don't, Javis. What's the point of inhaling a toxin? Always seemed daft to me. But I do still chew on this old thing from time to time, helps me think…in fact, I think I got it from my first incarnation, how's that for a synchronicity?"
"Synchro-what?" Javis said, shaking her head, "Focus, Doctor! Look, if someone doesn't act like they are supposed to act, what do you think?"
"They're lying?"
"Yes! And why?"
"Because…they're deceitful?"
"That's awful self-incriminating, Doctor. Remember, he is you."
"But I wouldn't do that! Especially that me!"
"What if you were being forced to? What if someone had me hostage and was forcing you to do something? Wouldn't you still try to get the message across to the one person who could help you? Maybe you would speak in code so the hostage-taker wouldn't understand?"
"…wait, do you mean?"
"I think someone made you do what you just did, and that rambling wasn't just rambling."
"You mean…he was trying to tell us something but he couldn't?"
"Yes! Whoever's causing this huge problem must have something valuable that your first incarnation doesn't want to lose!"
"Susan…" The Doctor's eyes suddenly got very distant.
"Who?"
"My granddaughter."
"Your WHAT?!" Javis exploded, but then regained her composure, "Okay, you'll tell me about that (and why you hadn't told me about that yet) later, but for now, we need to look at what he said, and what it meant."
"All right, let me see if the TARDIS data banks recorded it."
He punched a few keys and the First Doctor's voice came back to life.
"We're always in trouble! Isn't this extraordinary – it follows us everywhere!"
"Here's where it started getting wonky," Javis nodded.
"Yes, let's take a look, shall we? 'Always in trouble,' well, that's nothing new, is it?" The Doctor grinned, spooling the recording onward, "but this bit…'it follows us everywhere….' that's preposterous. Nothing can follow a Time Lord everywhere."
"Okay, so what's next?" Javis asked, ignoring the momentary pretension on the Doctor's part.
"Just a bit, wait… 'Our lives are important – at least to us' he must mean Susan."
"But he said 'us,' Doctor, that means more than one," Javis corrected him.
"You always see the little things, don't you?" The Doctor smiled, "so, maybe he meant Susan and himself…or Susan, himself, and I, or…oh my…maybe Susan, himself, I, and my other incarnations!"
"Hm?" Javis cocked a quizzical eyebrow.
"I've got almost a thousand years of time travel and experience here, more than probably anyone has ever seen. My temporal footprints are deep, I've created a lot of ripples in the river of time."
"And you've mixed a few metaphors," Javis grumbled, but the Doctor didn't hear her.
"Someone could be looking to use that energy, to feast on me. A Chronovore, perhaps, or…no, did the Weeping Angels re-awaken? No, impossible! So who is it, then…?"
Javis spooled the recording forward a little.
"Our destiny is in the stars, so let's go and search for it."
"In the stars? What could that possibly mean?" The Doctor was frustrated again.
"There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things that act against everything we believe in. They must be fought."
Another voice echoed around the TARDIS console room, this one a little lower, still older, but with a definite lighter tread that the crass old man.
"You?" The Doctor looked up, incredulous.
"Who is it this time?" Javis looked up as well.
"It's Number Two." The Doctor said, grinning.
"Number two?" Javis looked about.
"Oh, we can't quite get a thorough connection here either," the Doctor mumbled, his mouth turned downward, "Pity, I should have liked to talk with the old ones."
"Well now I know you're mad," the cheerful, impish voice echoed around the console room.
"Yes, yes, I know…we never really do get along, do we? But still, to see…me again, it would be nice…oh, the curse of nostalgia! Everything looks better once you look back on it. Let's see…" he slammed the lever into place he had done for the First Doctor, "there! Clear connection! We may have a little more time with this one, but the differential is always tricky when it's being disrupted. Hello, is that better?"
"Oh, yes."
"Do you know what's going on? I'm afraid my first, er…One was having a little trouble with the connection."
"This stuff, or whoever sent it, is cleverer than we are. Unfortunate, isn't it?"
"Stuff? What do you mean… stuff?" The Doctor's eyes had widened.
"They wanted superior intellects. Thats why they made the trap so complicated!"
"They? Who is they? Why are you speaking in riddles?" It dawned on the Doctor slowly, "have they gotten to you as well? What is going on, what is the problem?"
"A trap. A very special sort of trap too," The Second Doctor quipped, almost as if he were impressed.
"A trap? By whom? How many versions of me are involved in this?" The Doctor was trying his best to direct comments at nowhere.
"Thats why they made the trap so complicated!" Two shouted back again.
"They, they they!" The Doctor was beginning to become frustrated again, "why can't you tell me who this 'they' are! Have they gotten you too? Tell me, you must tell me! If they have you too, I can help, we can help! Please!"
There was an excruciatingly tense silence. Finally, the Second Doctor responded quizzically.
"People spend all their time making nice things and then other people come along and break them…"
Then, there was a sharp crack, and silence. A different kind of silence than before, like someone had hung up on the other side of the telephone. Javis glanced at the switch, and noticed it was still in position. The Doctor didn't cut off the transmission, someone else did.
"Aagh!" The Doctor groaned, chewing on his pipe ferociously, "who could possibly be inspiring this much fear in my past incarnations? Why are they keeping everything in riddles and mystery? Surely they can trust me, I can save them!"
He began maniacally pressing buttons and switches on the console, and the entire ship lurched. Javis picked herself off the floor with a snarl.
"You sure don't like not knowing the answer, do you Doctor?"
"I've never not known the answer, Javis!" The Doctor shot back, perhaps a little too ferociously, "No one has been able to keep an answer from me. This is not normal. I…" his head sunk down to the console, "I don't know what to do. These are my past incarnations, these are parts of me, and I fear I am failing them. If I can't find the answer, then this…thing could very well destroy them AND destroy me! Irreparable damage could be done to the timestream, reality itself could be rent asunder! I've got to find the answer, but I've been told nothing!"
"Then let's make something out of nothing," Javis said comfortingly, reaching out to pat the Doctor's shoulder. She smiled a little and shook her head, "come on, you can't tell me you're already out of miracles!"
The Doctor's head snapped up, a smile dawning on his round features.
"You're right. I'm the Doctor, they're the Doctor, we're all the Doctor, and we always know what's going on, don't we?"
"Absolutely," Javis was going to allow him a bit of conceit. It was obvious he was distressed, "so, what do we have?"
"Something from the stars, setting a complicated trap, trying to ruin a 'nice thing,' by which he…I…probably meant myself and my life."
"So, what does that point to?" Javis was back in her seat, head in her hands.
"Could be several things, judging by those criteria…but all of my incarnations seem to be afraid of them. It must be something that cannot be destroyed, something that cannot be defeated, something that is truly eternal."
"That can't be right," Javis said, furrowing her brow, "you taught me that nothing lasts forever. You even showed me the Old Earth Mountains collapsing with time, you showed me oceans drying up, ancient formations crumbling as the years wore on, and…are you even listening to me?"
The Doctor wasn't. He was now standing bolt upright, his blue eyes were shining. He swiped the fedora from his head, tossed it into the air, and caught it with a bellow of laughter.
"Haha! Brilliant! Brilliant, Javis, brilliant! Ah, all I needed was a little blue-collar sensibility, eh?"
"Excuse me?" Javis' eyes narrowed.
"You're right that nothing lasts forever…to an extent. However, matter cannot be created nor destroyed, it just moves from one place to another. A piece of paper burns," he produced a small piece of flash paper from an inside jacket pocket, which immediately burst into flame and flickered out, "but the paper is turned into other things by combustion and scattered about. There is the same amount of matter in the universe as there was five thousand years ago, and there will continue to be the same in another five thousand years, it just gets all jiggled about, you see?"
"So nothing really dies, it just breaks down and rearranges into something else?"
"Exactly! The tiniest forms of existence, whereupon something can no longer be broken down, do not change, they just float around the universe being re-calibrated into, well, everything!"
"So what does that all mean?" Javis leaned back in her chair, bored with the science lesson.
"We're dealing with a mythical series of sentient atoms…the Escorix. They were thought to be a myth, 144,000 separate atoms that are sentient…and pure evil. It is said that the worst crimes in the history of the universe were done under the influence of just a few of the Escorix, but there has never been a time when more than four have come together…unless now…now, if they have found a way to combine themselves, yes! If they are massed together, it could be one of the greatest terrors creation has ever seen! That's why my previous incarnations are afraid! And the Escorix must be singling me out because I'm not only one of the oldest beings in the universe, I'm absolutely brilliant," he allowed himself a grin, "and they know I'm the only one to stop them!"
"So they're holding your past incarnations hostage?"
"I think so, Javis. They know if they destroy enough of my past I don't have a future, and they have free reign to spread chaos and mayhem across the whole of existence. However, I think they're still missing something and, if I do this just right, I think I can get a hold of him, er, me."
He jiggled a few more switches, pressed a few buttons, and slammed that same switch into place. There was that crackle and the presence of another in the TARDIS console room. The Doctor looked up, trying to feel the presence.
"Who are you?" He asked tentatively, testing the connection.
"It's all quite simple," A cultured, intelligent voice proclaimed, "I am he and he is me."
"Welcome to the TARDIS, Number Three!"
"Ah, looks like the crossing is getting easier and easier!"
"Crossing?" The cultured voice echoed around the console room.
"The connection, the way in which I'm able to bend time and space just so so I can have a little chat with you," The Doctor put his hands in his trouser pockets in a satisfied manner, "Sadly, things are still just too far away temporally to get an actual physical connection, so you're stuck with Doctor in stereo for the time being and, mind you, this particular incarnation of mine is a little unsettling to hear in voice only…so commanding, so macho…I would almost rather prefer he were here, at least then I could see the Venusian Aikido coming…"
"Oh, please be quiet!" The voice snapped back. The current Doctor couldn't keep a grin from appearing around his features.
"Ah, that's right…you were always the adventurous one, James Bond in a TARDIS. You never quite had the time for clowns like me or number two. Well, I've got bad news, I've got myself a tin whistle, no doubt it'll drive you mad just as Two's recorder did back in the old days…"
"Doctor, you're being a little rude," Javis said with what kindness she could muster, "and a little childish."
The Third Doctor's response was surprising. "What's wrong with being childish? I like being childish."
Javis was a bit taken aback. The Doctor kept on smiling.
"We all have our little foibles, don't we? But we're still the same person, eccentricities and all. You should have seen this one, Javis, a model of high fashion: velvet jackets, lace cuffs, the man was an absolute superstar! I miss it, sometimes…especially looking at this podgy exterior I've inherited on this incarnation…"
"Don't worry, my dear fellow," The Third Doctor's voice seemed comforting.
"Easy for you to say!"
"ENOUGH!" Javis hollered through the morass, "Please, enough! Isn't there some sort of universal catastrophe being perpetuated, Doctor?"
The Doctor looked a little sheepish, removing his fedora and running the brim round in circles in his hands.
"Right, Javis, sorry…what can I say? That nostalgia is a killer. Now, Number Three, we," he gestured to Javis and himself, something that made her swell ever so slightly with pride, "are under the impression that this is a crime of the Escorix. It's really the only thing I can think of that would get that old crank Number One to worry or be afraid of. One hinted that perhaps they have some companions hostage, and both One and Two seemed to be a little out of touch before the connection was terminated.
"Such as a little touch of brainwashing?"
"Perhaps. As sentient atoms the Escorix would have been able to infiltrate any of our molecular structures easily, and with the right moves could have affected a few thought patterns…but this must be on a massive scale. It would take thousands of them to pull off something like this, they must have been planning this for years…this could very well be the greatest terror the universe has ever faced! Why, the last time the Escorix caused a problem was with the Nazis, and that was only about seventy of them…look what they did! They must be infiltrating, they must be finding some way across time and space to abduct my incarnations. They know I'm the one that could stop them, they know my amount of temporal clout could rival their own, they-"
"Look. Much as I admire your stoic acceptance of the inevitable, I would appreciate it if you would shut up for a moment." The Third Doctor's powerful voice cut him off.
"Right…yes…" the Doctor was slightly cowed, but aware he had been going a little off the beaten path.
"Don't worry, my dear fellow, I'm having a whale of a time," The Third Doctor comforted his Eleventh incarnation.
"Yes," the Doctor muttered sarcastically, "if it wasn't a colossal strain on the timestream I'd have a yearly reunion. Now, what do you think the Escorix could be up to?"
"Some sort of… wind effect, I should think," Three responded.
"Wind effect?" Javis sounded incredulous.
"Well, not exactly wind, but a sort of celestial breeze," The Doctor clarified, "The Escorix are riding little bits of cosmic energy waves to get to me, in fact, the same kinds of waves they are riding were the sort of intergalactic, inter-dimensional waves I used to make these emergency connections, and…oh no…No!"
His eyes grew immense as he suddenly began furiously banging and slamming around the TARDIS controls. Wrenching the flatscreen scanner into view, he groaned with utter dismay.
"You got some freeloaders, Doctor?" Javis said, trying to stay light.
"They're in the TARDIS. They've gotten into the time rotor. All 144,000 of them." He rubbed his eyes like a man who hadn't slept in days, "There's a reason why I had them add that bit about the 144,000 in their big old books, because the Escorix are the nearest thing to Hell you'll be able to find! And… they used me. They used my past incarnations. They created a situation in which they knew I would have to open the right communication channels for them to drift in…now they're in the TARDIS, my TARDIS, the last TARDIS…and they could feast on that energy forever, they could unmake everything if they wanted! I let them all in, they knew I would trust myself…they played me for a fool!"
He slammed his fist down on the console and the ship whined in an attempt at comfort. The Doctor continued on his malaise, so involved that he didn't hear the Third Doctor shout out "Great Balls of Fire!" the connection be severed, or a tremendous crack echo around the console room.
"I've failed them all…I walked right into the trap. Stupid, nostalgic old man! So happy to see another, so happy to talk to the others…you wanted them to be impressed, didn't you? You wanted them to be proud of what they had become…you wanted their blessing…but in effect you've doomed them, you've doomed yourself, you've doomed us all!"
All of the color had drained from Javis' face. She stood gaping at the other side of the console room, away from where the Doctor was moping. After a few minutes of mute mutterings, she managed to summon enough sound to catch the Doctor's attention.
"Doc-Doctor…you might want to turn around. You…you have guests."
The Doctor, fearing for his life, all life, whirled around to face the adversary. He wasn't expecting what he saw.
There was an old man in a battered hat, buccaneer boots, a mismatched ensemble and an immense scarf, whose eyes shone with a glee that betrayed his age. Next to him was a much younger looking, but still older gentleman in a beige cricketer's uniform, topped with a panama hat and a stick of celery in his lapel. Next to him was a man in a garish outfit of patchwork colors, clashing with each other in a horrendous mess…but the man didn't seem to mind. The next man was a bit better, with a dark brown jacket and red waistcoat, but his plaid pants, playful upturned straw hat, and bizarre umbrella still signaled that something was…interesting. After him the men began to look younger, and their outfits a little less outlandish. One still looked an Edwardian dandy, but with soft, elegant colors. Another looked all business, clad in a leather jacket and unadorned jumper. Finally, a rail-thin man stood in a brown pinstripe suit, grinning like a fox behind thick-rimmed square plastic spectacles.
The Doctor allowed himself a quick survey of the situation, then whipped his head back to Javis. His words tumbled out in a frenzied waterfall, preceded by a confused gasp.
"…fourfivesixseveneightnineten ."
The one on the far left, the one with the big scarf, tipped his hat and exposed a graying expanse of what was one a curly mass.
"Hello," he said, beaming with teeth that seemed almost too large for his mouth, "do you mind if I sit down? That time differential takes quite a bit out of you."
"Still," said the one in the rainbow jacket, "it's not as bad as the time on Argolis."
"Pffft, you should have seen what the Master did to me once," the skinny one scoffed.
The seven Doctors began to fan out through the console room, swapping anecdotes and stories of past battles and villians, all the while taking stock of little odds and ends, mostly how the TARDIS had changed since they were the pilot.
"Sheesh," Javis whispered to the current Doctor, "you'd think they-"
"Owned the place?" The diminuitive Doctor in the turned up hat suggested, "well, we all did, in a manner of speaking. But then again, one could argue that this isn't our TARDIS, yet it is…sort of. Strange business, time, don't you think?"
"Erm, yes…" Javis murmured, taking the man's hand and shaking it, "which one are you, then?"
"I suppose I must be Seven," the little man thought, his index finger to his bottom lip, "the one with the scarf is four, the cricketer in beige is five, that gaudy proclaimer is six." Javis noticed that when he said "proclaimer" he rolled his R with a certain gusto. In her mind, she thought them all a little gaudy and proclamatory, even her own.
"So what about the rest?" Javis looked about at the Doctors, one of which had managed to find a jar of marmalade in one of the console's many cubbyholes. Dipping his finger into the jar, he nibbled a little and finished the introductions through mouthfuls.
"Well, that dandy-looking fella over there is eight, that leather-clad bad-boy is nine, and that makes me, I suppose, ten."
He set down the now-empty jar and set about cleaning his finger of any spare bits. Javis was curious how someone who ate like that kept such a slight figure. Before she could even think of asking, however, the Doctor seemed to regain his composure and addressed the masses.
"Well now," he announced with all the superiority he could muster, "now that introductions have commenced, why not start telling me why you've all time-crashed into my TARDIS?"
The other Doctor's were less than cordial in response. Javis figured it must be a shared trait.
"Hm. So you're the new one, yeah?" Nine said in a strong Northern accent.
"Not sure if I like the outfit," Eight said, adjusting his own green frock coat.
"Needs a scarf," Four grinned.
"I don't know, the trousers could work as plus fours," Seven mused. This allowed the Doctor to shoot a small satisfied look at Javis before the onslaught continued, "and I do like the sweater."
"You would," Six laughed, "but I don't know if anything could save it," he waved a hand dismissingly.
"Like you're one to talk in that rainbow wreck!" Ten pointed with a now marmalade-free finger.
"At least I'm not… festooned in punctuation like my replacement!"
"I threw that jumper out years ago!" Seven cried in indignation.
"I don't know if I like this TARDIS," Five said, looking around, touching a wall here and there, "this…coral thing doesn't sit well with me. And these cobbled controls…looks like the poor ship's been through a war!"
"It has." Nine said, his eyes deadly serious.
This caused a lot of the squabbling and action to stop. Four, Five, Six and Seven looked aghast. Eight, Nine, Ten and Eleven looked sadly knowledgeable.
"Who was it?" Four said with trepidation.
"Daleks." Ten said, his once flippant attitude replaced by a dark shadow on his soul.
"Impossible!" Seven shouted, "I destroyed them!"
"As did I, if you'll remember," Six said, his proud voice ever so slightly deflated.
"As did I," Five agreed. "They have a habit of constantly returning…like a bad penny."
"I should have destroyed them when I had the chance," Four said in a baleful whisper.
"Now, You remember what One said…" Eleven was quick to remind them all.
"You can't change history," they said in unison, "not one line."
"So this is all supposed to happen?" Javis said, her mind trying to keep Doctors straight. They all seemed so different, yet so…familiar.
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Yes."
Each replied in their own voice, in their own way. Javis found that infuriating but, if she knew the Doctor, he liked to be heard.
"But how? If the Escorix were after me, and they are, all of you shouldn't exist, especially not in the capacity to influence the time differential on such a massive scale!" The Doctor said, pulling his goatee to a point agitatedly, which only served to cause more agitation among the previous incarnations, who apparently had finally noticed it.
"Oh good heavens, is that a beard?!" Four's old eyes goggled.
"Are you trying to be the Master?" Five's face was contorted.
"Why in the universe…?" Six shook his head.
"Next you'll be sprrrouting cat's eyes!" Seven rolled his r's again.
"Just as long as he's not possessing ambulance drivers," Eight rolled his eyes.
"Well, to be fair…" Ten began, his Converse sneakers slapping around the floor of the console room as he walked, "the last time I…we…saw the Master he didn't have a beard…technically."
"Still, that's no excuse," Nine was still indignant, "and what's up with the podge round the middle, you?"
Javis tried to be helpful. "He was shot by a Dalek. The regeneration process held the excess energy of the death ray around his midsection," but it only drew more scorn.
"He told you that, did he?" Nine was nearly laughing now, an immense smile creeping from ear to ear.
"Well, it's very clever," Eight suggested, "I suppose we should be proud of that."
"I wish I would have thought of that one, instead of being force-fed that detestable carrot juice," Six pulled a face.
Javis was a little crestfallen, thinking the Doctor could lie to her. Seven, who had remained sneakily nearby, seemed to sense her thoughts (or read them?) and threw a comradely arm around her shoulder.
"It's okay, my dear, we all lie to our companions sometimes," he smiled in a way that somehow made it okay.
"Strange business, time?" Javis smiled back.
Seven felt a familiar kind of spirit.
"Smart girl."
"PLEASE!" The current Doctor had almost pulled his beard out in frustration, "can we stay on task?" he exhaled in frustration, "Nostalgia officially has a shelf life of five minutes, then it becomes such a bother!"
"That's not very nice," Eight said, constantly playing peacemaker with his calm voice, "After all, we endangered time and space to come and help you."
"Then WHY?!" the Doctor managed to choke back a shout, but not by much.
There was a general scuffing of shoes and lack of eye contact.
"You see, the thing is…" Five attempted an explanation.
"We don't know," Nine cut to the chase, "all we know is what we are supposed to be here."
"Damnable paradoxes." Four grunted.
"Well, let's look at this rationally," Eleven steepled his fingers, "we are dealing with the Escorix."
"Correct." Five.
"Absolutely." Four.
"Of course." Six.
"Yes." Eight.
"Indeed." Seven.
"Yep." Ten.
"Yeah." Nine.
"So…sentient atoms…any ideas?"
"If they have gotten into the TARDIS," said Ten, "it would be…well…very bad."
"Perhaps we should dismantle the old girl?" Four began.
"It's barely held together as it is, I'd rather not," Nine responded.
"Yes…it would not be prrrudent to find ourselves floating in the vortex," Seven postulated.
"So how do we get them out?" Five thrust his hands into the pockets of his striped trousers.
"And how do we defeat them?" Six gripped his mismatched lapels.
"It's always defeat with you, isn't it?" Eight shook his head, "you never live and let live."
"I do what needs to be done!"
"NO!"
All heads turned to Eleven, who was flailing his arms.
"No no no no! No more fighting! No more sniping! None of us is perfect, and we're all our own favorites, but we're all the Doctor, so let's stop bickering amongst ourselves and save the flipping universe!"
The seven other doctors looked cowed, and once again immersed themselves in thought. After a few minutes of multiple-Doctor pacing, there appeared to be no answer.
"Nothing!" Five spat in despair.
"It's like there's some kind of block on our brains!" Six ran a hand through what was left of his curly blonde hair, which had been ravaged by the differential.
"Could be the Escorix," Four held up a finger as if it contained the idea.
"If it's inside us, messing with our heads," Nine began, "it must have used the telepathic link with the TARDIS. Those little mights're smarter than we thought, they knew we'd never mistrust the ship."
"Brrrriliant, rrrreally," Seven voiced his approval.
"So it's in our heads, in the TARDIS, and it wants to consume our collective temporal energy to eliminate us?" Eight placed one hand in one pocket of his Edwardian vest.
"And to gain a corporeal form. The amount of energy would allow it to play with time and space like putty," Four nodded.
"Aren't we all clever?" Ten grinned.
"Eight heads are better than one," Five suggested, "but only if we could find the solution, the Escorix has our minds at ransom!"
"But it doesn't have mine."
Eight Doctors spun round to look at Javis Nine.
"At least I bet it doesn't. I'm just a regular person, and I'm not the smartest anyway. I prefer to think with my fists, so the little blighters probably passed me over."
"Brilliant." Four smiled.
"Incredible." Five gaped.
"Fascinating." Six's eyes shone.
"Brrrriliant." Seven said.
"You used that already," Six scolded him.
"Does that really matter?" Eight shrugged.
"STOP!" Eleven shouted, and they did, although grudgingly, "Now, Javis, what are you suggesting?"
"Well, those Escory-thingies aren't in my head, because I'm saying what I'm saying, right?"
"They don't exist because you can openly defy them," Nine's blue eyes were like jewels.
"Sure," Javis nodded, then turned to the rest for approval, "right?"
All nodded.
"So I bet they didn't look at Colleen either?" Javis smiled.
Eleven snapped his fingers. "You're right! And even with her cybernetically-altered brain, it would take them ages to adjust to the unknown, unique technology and assimilate! There might still be time! Javis, thank you. That must have been it, and–Javis!"
She was saved from crashing onto the floor by Seven, who managed to get an arm out before her head struck metal.
"They've gotten to her. Forced her into a coma. She'll be okay if we can get rid of the Escorix," the ghost of a smile flitted around his featured, "They're scared. We have their weakness."
"Well, then," Ten said, leaping off a chair and drawing out the 'l' of well, "let's get cracking!"
Eight Doctors exited into the interior of the TARDIS, first to deposit Javis in her room, then to head off to Colleen's.
Colleen's green eyes flitted open to see eight very oddly dressed men looming over her bedside. At least one of them seemed vaguely familiar, except he was in blue this time.
"Doctor?" she said in a sleepy brogue.
"Yes?" Eight voices responded instinctively, almost overwhelming the young girl.
"She means me," Eleven said, slightly agitated. Turning back to Colleen, he adopted a fatherly tone.
"Are you feeling all right?"
"…sleepy," she muttered, rubbing her eyes.
"Initial Cyber-conversion is probably very taxing on a human body, especially when only done halfway," the Doctor theorized, and his other selves agreed.
"You'll be sure to take a look at her?" Four quipped with a grin.
"He wouldn't be the Doctor if he didn't!" Six blustered in response.
"Who are all of you strange people?" Colleen said, pulling herself into a seated position.
"Well, they're, erm…other Doctors," Eleven scratched his cheek and looked about. Colleen's reply was strangely monotone.
"Your biodata confirms the presence of a similar underlying genetic code. It would be foolish to assume but impossible to deny the probability that these are all versions of yourself from different points in space and time, created eight times over by a process of reconstitution-"
"Regeneration," Five tried to be helpful, but it only seemed to snap Colleen out of her stupor and throw her into an uncomfortable fit.
"Oh no, I really shouldn't do that! I'm sorry, all of you, I'm so sorry! Please, I'd like it if you all left now, I'm terribly embarrassed and only in my nightclothes-"
"Not yet, if you please," Eight's voice always had a soft quality to it, "We're suffering a bit of writer's block, you see, and we'd like you to think of something for us."
"It's not…that kind of thinking, is it?"
"I'm afraid so," Eight's eyes oozed compassion, he seemed almost human.
"We really do need your help," Ten crouched down next to her nightstand, "We've got a very small problem that could wind up being a very big problem."
"Right, and before it's a big problem we have to make sure the small things stay small," Nine leaned against the door jamb of the crowded room, arms folded across his chest.
"Small…things?"
"Sentient atoms," Seven said, his head well below the towering statures of the others, making him seem impish and slightly less overbearing, "we have 144,000 troublesome little atoms that we need to get rid of. So can you help us, little one?"
Colleen's eyes were emerald and lantern-like for a moment, before they lost all luminosity and became glassy.
"Atoms are the fundamental particles of matter. They cannot be created or destroyed, merely re-arranged, combined, or dissipated. By using a simple–WARNING. UNIT INFILTRATED BY UNKNOWN VIRUS. COMMENCING RECOVERY OPERATIONS IN 5…4…3…2…1…"
Suddenly, Colleen's eyes were her own again, and so was everything else. Wailing in pain as her cybernetic brain sought to fight off the Escorix invasion, she passed out almost instantly on account of the pain, leaving the Doctors to ponder yet another mystery to defeat the foe they could not grasp.
Doctor Number Eleven slowly rose, inhaling as he did so.
"Right. Ten, Seven, your psychic abilities are the best of the lot. One of you goes with Javis, one with Colleen. See if you can't coax, wheedle, or force the Escorix particles out of them. Eight, Five, and Four, come with me: we need to cobble something together that will force all of the particles into the heart of the TARDIS, and back out again. Six and Nine, you're the best at flying this thing, I need you to set coordinates for Waxahachie, Texas, in the year 1993 AD."
"Excuse me," Six raised a hand patronizingly, "but why are we listening to you?"
"Age and experience?" Eleven offered a smile.
"But why are we going to Texas, of all places?" Five was confused.
Then suddenly, it all hit them.
"The Superconducting Super Collider."
"The Superconducting Super Collider."
"The Superconducting Super Collider."
"The Superconducting Super Collider."
"The Superconducting Super Collider."
"The Superconducting Super Collider."
"The Superconducting Super Collider."
Eleven nodded.
"The Superconducting Super Collider."
"But it was canceled in 1993, they never finished it!" Ten voiced his frustration.
"I dare say," Eleven said, glancing around at the present company, "that we have hundreds of years of experience and, if I may be so modest, eight incarnations of one of the finest brains in the universe…we're going to finish it."
"Impossible!" Now Four was skeptical.
"Now now… nothing is impossible, only impassible. The minute you show me how to poss something, I'll find a way to make it impossible." Eleven took center stage, adjusting the fedora on his head, "Now, off we go, battle stations!"
Eight Doctors set off in their various directions, save Ten, who stayed in the room with Javis. Eleven was in his element, taking full advantage of the part he had cast himself in.
"Blow wind, come wrack…at least we'll die with Escorix off our back!"
"Dear me…" Eight shook his head as he walked by Six, "and I thought you were bad!"
It was all a flurry of movement as the TARDIS popped out of temporal orbit in what appeared to be a large open field on a warm Texas night. It was the work of moments for four advanced Time Lords to finish constructing the primitive Earth technology into a structure that was meant to accelerate particles to the point of subatomic revelations. The other four had successfully landed the ship within the massive facility, and had succeeded in placing all 144,000 particles within the time rotor of the TARDIS using a thought transfer system cannibalized off of Ten's chameleon arch technology. With the companions resting and the threat raging inside the time machine's engine, the eight Doctors stood round the console, listening to the shrieks of protest the Escorix were creating inside the TARDIS. Then, in a terrifying move, the Escorix managed one final, desperate move, gaining control of enough of the TARDIS to broadcast one malignant message:
"YOU WILL NEVER DEFEAT US, TIME LORD! WE ENDURE FOREVER! WE WILL BE VICTORIOUS! THIS ACCELERATION STRUCTURE WILL DESTROY ALL OF YOUR INCARNATIONS AND YOUR TRANSPORT, YOU WILL NOT BE SPARED!"
"Apparently," Eleven grinned, "you don't know us very well."
With eight simultaneous slams of levers, pushes of buttons, and flicks of switches, there came an enormous roar from outside the TARDIS as the Hadron Collider warmed up. Gripping onto the console for dear life, the Doctors felt themselves being flung around the space at incredible, stretching the TARDIS to its limits. Only the protection of the ship kept all of their atoms from being dissipated into the universe, but it couldn't last long.
"We have velocity!" Nine shouted, checking a gauge on the console. Slamming an old bicycle pump in and out, he shouted along with the rest of the Doctors with a warrior's ecstasy as each of the Escorix particles were fired out of the top of the TARDIS and into the accelerated environment, moving at such an accelerated speed that they each broke free of the structure and flew off into 144,000 arbitrary points in the universe, probably never to see each other again. As the final particle was dissipated, Four replaced the switch and the collider wound down to nothing once again, once again a large, empty space, albeit with a peppering of microscopic holes in its surface.
Gasping from the exertion, each Doctor straightened up on the console, some adjusting their prematurely aged backs. Each breathed a collective sigh of relief as the fight with an intangible enemy was finished.
"Well," Ten said, grinning, "that was fun, wasn't it?"
"I do enjoy our…reunions," Four said with a grin of his own.
"We really shouldn't make a habit of this, however fun," Six commented.
"Yes, we've damaged time and space quite a bit today, haven't we?" Five's brow arched with a modicum of concern.
"As we learn about each other, so we learn about ourselves."
That cranky, old voice echoed around the TARDIS once more. One had re-established the connection.
"Ah! Hello there, old fella! Good to hear from me again! Never thought I'd see the old gang!" Ten cried jovially into thin air.
"You know that time is relative," came Two's voice, friendly like a schoolmaster.
"What about Three then?" Eight questioned into thin air, "I always liked his jacket."
"It seems that I'm some sort of galactic yo-yo!" Came the cultured voice in reply.
"Aren't we all," Eleven chuckled, his mind full of memories, "However, there is still one problem. This structure we're inside isn't supposed to exist. Does anyone have anything that might take care of that?"
"I might…" Seven said, rummaging in his pockets for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, he produced what appeared to be a can of aerosol deodorant, "Nitro-9. A present from an old friend, matured a few hundred years due to time differential…it should be enough to take care of the place."
Each of the Doctors following Seven backed away, knowing full well the dangers of Nitro-9.
"Yes, yes, good…just…just toss that out the door, will you?" Eleven said, trying to put the console between himself and Seven.
Seven did as he was told and, with the help of seven other pairs of hands, the TARDIS was back in temporal orbit in no time, able to watch the fantastic pyrotechnics on the scanner.
"Makes one almost feel…patriotic," Five sighed, "homesick for old Gallifrey.
Four, Five, Six, and Seven sighed with wonder. Eight, Nine, Ten, and Eleven became strangely reticent and morose. A deep clang echoed throughout the console roomed, doing a good job to dispel any kind of emotion besides a state of urgency.
"The Cloister Bell!" Four shouted, "we really can't stay much longer, the strain is becoming too great!"
"Right, right…give me a minute," Eleven's fingers flew over the console, and within a minute all of the visible former Doctors were lined up in their original entrance order. Doctor Number Eleven barely had time to say a heavy "goodbye" before the Cloister Bell clanged again, and he had to slam the last switch into place, each incarnation bidding goodbye in his own way: some tipping hats, some giving a slight bow, some waving.
Then, silence.
The Doctor couldn't stop a stray tear from running down his round cheek, but he wasn't sure why. It could be for the joy of seeing the old again, reliving old stories and fighting a seemingly unbeatable foe with his equal and beloved other selves. Or, perhaps, it was the sadness of knowing what was to come for each of them, who would die, what worlds would be snuffed out like a flame, what hard decisions lay ahead, and so on. Then again, he thought as he headed into the interior to check on his recovering companions, maybe it was a mix of the two…when a relative comes over for holiday, you love seeing them, but they each can often out-stay their welcome, and by the end you're joyous just to see them leave! Still, they were him, but yet they were all themselves, and he was proud of each and every once of them.