Mind Heist
Donna Noble rummaged around her assortment of luggage strewn haphazardly around a far corner of the TARDIS control room. She'd acquired quite the collection of souvenirs from her travels, from the sunlight scarf she'd gotten on Illiosus to the ourolobe scratcher she'd gotten from a friendly Pythmian (she didn't have an ourolobe and wasn't quite sure what part of the Pythmian's body it was, but she'd accepted the gift, anyway).
Interesting as these artifacts were, they were not the target of her efforts. She swept them aside as she continued to search, her eye out for something much more important. Much more valuable.
Finally Donna sat back on her knees with a defeated sigh and wondered into the TARDIS's cavernous interior, "Doctor, have you seen my watch?"
The Doctor raised a confused eyebrow in her direction, looking up from buffing his glasses on the hem of his jacket. "You're in a time machine, what in the world would you need a watch for?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Habit I picked up from my dad, I guess." She placed her fingertips to her temples, then motioned to the pile of luggage, explaining, "I just… I remember taking it off… and I put it away… but I can't for the life of me remember where I put it. You know how that is?"
The Doctor pursed his lips and slowly shook his head. "Can't say I've ever had a problem with that."
Donna flopped her hands into her lap in disbelief, then stood up. "Oh, come on! I've seen you doing your whole pacing around in circles, hitting yourself in the head trying to think of something that won't come to you. 'Yes! No… Wait, yeeees! That's it! No, wait…!'" she mimicked.
"That isn't being forgetful, that's called 'taking the scenic route to your mental destination'," he defended.
She folded her arms, a look of doubting disbelief crossing her face. "You're telling me that even though you're a nine-hundred-and-whatever year-old Time Lord, you've never forgotten anything in your entire life?"
"Not that I can remember," he teased. Tugging on his ear absently, he looked away and explained, "See, Time Lords process information differently from humans. A Time Lord mind is brimming with all the knowledge of the cosmos, big and small." He let out a little shrug. "It might be haphazardly filed, yes, but it's there. Because you never know what might be important later. For instance, if you'd taken care to remember where you put your watch, even if it didn't seem important at the time, you wouldn't be in this situation now." He glanced towards her, then nodded his head in the direction of her right hip. "It's in your pocket, by the way."
Donna reached into her pocket, and sure enough, there it was. Upon finding it, she suddenly remembered she'd put it there the night before so that she'd remember to take it with her, but apparently she'd forgotten that she'd reminded herself. With a disgruntled huff, she strapped the watch to her wrist and muttered, "Oh, sure, you can go showing off your big space-brain to prove how much better than everyone else you are. Now are you going to impress me by reciting what you had for lunch every day since the moment you were born?"
"I could, but that would be a waste of 900 years," he replied, fiddling with the dials on the TARDIS console. "But you've given me an idea. Have I ever told you about a race called the Kykenline? One of the oldest civilizations in the universe, with a history stretching back billions of years. Sort of like the Time Lords but less stuffy and unfortunately no stomach for time or space travel, so all of their history only has to do with themselves. But not many planets can boast a university that was founded three billion years ago and is still graduating students today." He kicked the lever on the console, and the TARDIS jerked to life with a "VWORP VWORP".
Donna stumbled and held the railing as the TARDIS rocked and shuddered its way through the time vortex. "Oh, you're just going to take me someplace where I'll feel even more dim, is that it?" she accused.
"No, actually…" he admitted, scratching at the back of his head. "Compared to three billion years of knowledge, 40 years and 900 years come out about the same, so we'll both be equally out of our league."
The TARDIS materialized with a thump, and the Doctor fetched his trench coat from where he'd discarded it over one of the coral supports. He tugged at the lapels as he put it on, explaining, "To be honest, what I've just told you is pretty much the limit of my knowledge of the Kykenline due to their secluded nature. So instead of being intimidated by someone who knows more than you, let's go exploring with both of us starting at the same level. Sound good?" He extended an arm to her and Donna took it with a pleased smirk.
"Oh, all right, but I know that you're going to be figuring everything out ten times faster than I do, but it's the thought that counts. I do like old buildings."
The two exited the TARDIS, stepping onto a landscape lit dimly red by an ancient star that was well into its red giant stage and filled half the sky. A sheen in the atmosphere appeared to form a protective barrier around the planet from the harmful solar radiation, allowing life to still sustain itself on the planet's old and well-worn surface.
The TARDIS had materialized on the outskirts of a city characterized by cone-shaped buildings with spires that looked to extend upwards for miles. The once-smooth exteriors of the cones were pocked with evidence of erosion from millennia of weathering. A few beings clothed in various-colored tunics wandered the spacious streets while others reclined against the inclined walls.
"They don't all look the same this time!" Donna said excitedly. When the Doctor gave her a curious look, she explained, "Whenever we've met aliens like the Ood or the Sontarans or the Hath, they all look and dress exactly the same. I was starting to think humans were the only creatures in the universe that wore different clothing. I mean, is that brown suit a sort of Time Lord uniform? I rarely see you in anything else."
"The universe has its quirks and that happens to be one of them," he explained vaguely. "Now, the Kykenline have met outsiders before but probably aren't terribly used to them, so don't do or say anything that could be considered threatening. Although the Brachioids greet each other by punching each other in the face, so it's always hard to tell what constitutes 'friendly' versus 'threatening' when dealing with a new race." His eyes lit up and he dragged Donna into the street. "Time for some culture shock!"
They approached a Kykenline in a faded yellow tunic walking down the center of the main street. The Doctor held up a finger and announced, "Excuse me, can you help us?" The Kykenline slowly turned to him and cocked its head, revealing a face that looked something akin to a tortoise but smoother and paler. The Doctor motioned between himself and Donna, explaining, "Yes, hello, I'm the Doctor and this is Donna Noble. We are here as guests to bask in your long and storied culture and were wondering if you would be so kind as to direct us to your most prestigious university."
Donna bounced in mock excitement, "Oh my gosh, I am such a fan of Kykenline history. I'm just… oh my…" She fanned herself with her hand. "Being in your presence is the most amazing thing ever. Can I have your autograph?"
The Doctor nudged her with his elbow. "No, that's… that's probably a bit much."
The Kykenline slowly blinked at them, then turned and continued on its way. The Doctor tentatively began following, but admitted, "You know, I'm not sure if it's leading us somewhere or if it just didn't understand us. Though obscure, this culture is known, so the TARDIS should be able to translate it."
"Should we try punching it in the face, then?" Donna suggested.
"Not yet, but we'll save that as a backup," replied the Doctor. "For now, let's just see where our friend here takes us."
They followed the Kykenline as it hobbled towards one of the cone-shaped buildings that didn't really look particularly distinct from the other cone-shaped buildings. In fact, the sign out front, which was translated into English, thus confirming the Doctor's assumption that their language should be understandable, read "Special bonus today and tomorrow only!"
The Kykenline walked into the building. Literally. It hit the wall, then continued to shuffle its feet in an attempt to keep moving despite the stubborn wall pressed against its face impeding any progress. The Doctor and Donna looked quizzically at each other, then Donna raised a finger and said, "We'll just… go take a look inside, if that's okay. Thanks." As the two of them walked into the building (through the door), she whispered, "Not really what I was expecting from an ancient, wizened race steeped in history. I was thinking more along the lines of, you know, scholarly types with glasses and beards carrying books everywhere."
"Intelligence manifests itself in a myriad ways, so don't ever judge an alien race by its outward behavior," the Doctor warned quietly. "There's a method to madness, and I should know."
Donna, however, was only half listening as she turned in a slow circle, gazing around her. Finally, she pointed towards the floor and declared, "This… is a shop. A shop selling baskets of…" she peered into one, "green slimy things with spots on them that smell like wet mold."
The Doctor lifted a basket containing one of the blob things and slime began seeping out the bottom. He picked it out of the basket and held it closer to his face for better scrutiny, then gave it a test lick, which caused Donna to involuntarily convulse and turn her head away. He smacked his lips a few times before announcing, "This thing is absolutely disgusting."
"You couldn't tell just by looking at it and smelling it?! Ohhh no, you had to taste it, too!"
"No, I mean it's rotten," he said, standing back up and wiping his hands off on his pants. "It's been sitting out here for days and no one's tended to it. Where is the person who runs this shop?"
"Out there walking into walls, maybe?"
The Doctor pointed at her sternly. "Donna, this is an unknown culture, that could be perfectly normal behavior for them." His eyes then widened. "Oh no… no, wait. Donna, what was that you said when we first got here? About their clothes?"
Donna shrugged. "I just said it's refreshing that they all wear different clothes. I mean, I wasn't trying to judge the other aliens, it was just…"
The Doctor clapped his hands, then ran back outside, looking around frantically. Kykenline, in all their various clothing color and styles, were wandering about aimlessly, some stuck against walls, some having fallen over without the apparent ability to right themselves, some prone on the ground as though dead. He tugged at his hair and began muttering to himself, "Intelligence is independent from motor function, social skills, activity preferences, language ability, and societal structure, and yet they all wear different colors." He turned to Donna in a panic. "They all wear different colors!" Holding her shoulders, he babbled, "Donna, different races may have different societal norms, but they have those norms for a reason. If they all wear different colors it means they have the capacity for color preference. They chose those colors because of how they wanted to see themselves and how others were to see them. That means that they should have a keen interest in interacting with the objects and people in their surroundings, yet they don't. Those baskets in there weren't meant to hold those slimy things in that rotted state, and yet they are." He spun around, continuing to gaze every which way at the wayward aliens. "Something is wrong here."
"But… we don't even know how things are supposed to be, so how do we judge what's wrong and what's not?" Donna wondered.
The Doctor knelt beside the Kykenline that had brought them here, which had now fallen on its side but was still moving as though it was attempting to walk. He snapped his fingers in front of its face but received no reaction. With a few clicks of his screwdriver, he set it to a medical scan and waved it over the alien's head with a blue glow and a soft whirr.
"Strange…" he observed as the screwdriver began to return readings. "Its synaptic activity is at almost nonexistent levels. Like its brain just… shut off."
"Well if it's happening to all of them, is it some kind of plague?" Donna wondered worriedly.
"I can't say," the Doctor replied. "I don't know anything about Kykenline biology so wouldn't know which microbes on the scan were normal and which were pathological." He rubbed his hand over his forehead, fretting, "These people have existed for billions of years, staving off the effects of the death of their own sun and avoiding the Time War entirely. What could possibly have done this to them?"
His eye caught a white card protruding from a fold of the alien's tunic. He gingerly gripped the card between two fingers and slowly slid it out, even though the alien wouldn't have reacted if he had simply ripped open its tunic and forcefully removed it. He flipped the card over in his hand as Donna peered at it over his shoulder. "It's blank," she observed. "What is it?"
"It almost looks like my psychic paper," he said, peering more closely at it. He reached into his coat pocket to take his out for comparison, but at that moment the paper in his hand flashed and burned an image into its surface with blue light. Donna shielded her eyes, but noted that the image that appeared looked just like the Doctor's screwdriver. The image faded after only a second, leaving the card apparently blank once again.
"What was—" she was about to ask, but the card ripped itself from the Doctor's hand and flew away of its own accord. She watched it fly off and commented, "Well, at least that thing seems to know where it's going."
The Doctor jumped to his feet and began running after the retreating card. "That's the first glimmer of action with intent that I've seen since we got here. That means that there has to at least be something here that can still make decisions."
They chased the card through the city as it weaved between the peaks of the cone-shaped buildings. "There!" the Doctor pointed as it flew into an upper window of one of the cones. He raced to the door and threw himself at it, but found it to be locked. He fumbled for his screwdriver and pointed it at the door, but paused.
Donna looked between him and the door and wondered, "What is it? Is it deadlock sealed?"
The Doctor twitched his head, his eyes flickering. "… No. No, it's…"
She rolled her eyes. "Made of wood? I mean, seriously, universal lockpick and it can't handle wood. Look, if you need me to just bash it down…"
The Doctor's hand began to shake. "No… it's… I…" His voice was filled with panic, and his eyes started to mist. "I can't remember how to use it!"
Donna threw up her arms. "And here you were telling me this morning that even though you're a 900 year-old Time Lord, you never have senior moments. Okay, look, you're a bit stressed here, just take a deep breath and clear your head and it'll all come back to you."
"No, Donna, you don't understand," he retorted, almost angrily. "This isn't some kind of mental infarction where my synaptic pathways lead me astray and bypass the intended result. This is my synaptic pathways leading me to the correct result, except it's not there. Donna, something has reached into my head and ripped out a piece of my mind."
"Oh…" she replied apologetically. She then waved her hands and exclaimed, "Wait, so do you think that's what happened to the Kykenline? And now it's happening to you, too?" She held her head. "Ohmigosh, is it happening to me, too? Have I forgotten anything? Umm… umm… the judges on The X Factor are Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne, Louis Walsh, and Dannii Minogue, Mika wants to be like Grace Kelly, Mars Bars help me work, rest, and play…"
The Doctor was ignoring her, instead frantically examining the locking mechanism, something which he was unaccustomed to having to do thanks to his usual simple lockpicking technique. Donna anxiously rubbed her hands together and voiced her concern, "You know, the longer we stay here, the higher the chance that we may end up like them. Walking into walls, not being able to talk, not knowing how to do anything… Maybe we should get out of here while we still know how to get out of here."
"Hairpin," the Doctor commanded, holding out his hand. Donna sighed and removed a fastener from her hair and handed it to him. He jammed it into the lock and twisted it around, muttering, "A Time Lord's mind is his greatest asset. He only shares it with those he deems worthy. It's not something anyone is allowed to simply reach in and violate. I'll leave this place, all right, but only with my mind fully intact." He twisted his shoulder and strained against the lock, until there was a quiet "click" and the door eased open. He tossed the hair pin back to Donna and added, "Besides, if this is the same thing that turned a billion year-old race into vegetables, I'm not about to just let it continue on its merry way."
He slipped in the door, holding his screwdriver ahead of him as one might a weapon, even though he had no idea how to use it should the need arise. Donna tiptoed behind him into the darkened room and whispered, "So… do you have any ideas what it might be? Is there some kind of alien race that conquers planets by wiping everyone's mind first?"
The Doctor proceeded up a spiral staircase that wound around the wall of the cone building. "That card was made of psychic paper, but of a different construct than I've ever seen. Normal psychic paper like mine will display whatever a viewer expects to see and is primarily used to fake credentials. It's heavily regulated by the Shadow Proclamation and can usually only be obtained on the black market. But that… that, as far as I can deduce, psychically transfers a piece of information from the viewer's mind onto the paper."
Donna nodded. "And by 'transfer', you don't mean 'copy', you mean it actually removes the information from your brain and puts it on the paper. Like some sort of cut-and-paste."
The stairs ended at a room that hung above the lower chamber, though narrower due to being further up the cone. The Doctor pressed his back against the door and thudded the back of his head against it. "The question, though, is 'why'? Some criminal trying to steal information without anyone knowing it was stolen? A way to erase a secret that's gotten out? But to do that to the entire collective knowledge of a whole civilization… what's the point?"
"Maybe someone just wants to be smarter than everyone else in the universe," said Donna, shrugging.
The Doctor's eyes widened, then he looked to the ground, a twinge of fear twitching into his eyebrows. "No… no, that's impossible… They've been extinct for eons…"
Before he could fill her in to his thoughts, the door behind him swung open, causing the two of them to stumble into the upper room. The Doctor whirled around and brandished his screwdriver threateningly, while Donna made a mock kung-fu gesture. Both were bluffs, but it's not like whoever was in the room knew that.
Except no one was in the room. It was empty save for some scattered electronic tablets atop tables and dusty monitors that looked to be years in disuse. Atop one of the tables sat a pure white orb about a foot in diameter that seemed unusually smooth and pristine in comparison to the other dusty and forgotten items in the room. The Doctor immediately took note of it and approached the object warily. There was no sign of the psychic paper card that had made off with his knowledge of screwdriver usage, even though the window it had flown in from streamed hazy red light into the room and was the only way in or out save for the door that had just opened.
The Doctor examined the orb from a safe distance, recalling what happened with the card. However, this orb was not made of psychic paper, but was nonetheless technological in nature. He studied it suspiciously, wondering aloud, "What are you…?"
Suddenly, the orb let out a soft hum and began to glow a pale white as it lifted off the table. The Doctor retreated backwards and held up his screwdriver out of habit, not really certain of how he intended to ward this thing off if it did try to suck his brain dry.
The glow of the orb pulsed softly a few times, before it announced in a friendly female voice, "Sleep mode deactivated. Welcome to the Archive. How may I help you today?"
"Blimey, she sounds just like the teller at Barclays," Donna observed.
The Doctor slapped his hands together and pointed at Donna. "Yes, that's exactly it! This has to be Xerocleft technology!" He stepped forward and declared to the floating orb, "All right, Archive, here's how it is. You've got something of mine and I'd like to make a withdrawal."
The orb hummed a moment, before responding, "Withdrawal request pending. My records show that you already have a deposit in progress. Withdrawal cannot commence until deposit is complete. Resuming deposit."
The Doctor waved his hands, "No, no, no, you're not getting any more! Stop! Cancel deposit!"
"Action cannot be interrupted. Please wait while your deposit completes," responded the Archive. The orb rose further into the air, now bathed in the red light streaming in from the window. A procession of about a hundred white cards ticked out of it and hung about it in a spiral pattern, giving it an appearance akin to a wind chime. "Resuming deposit."
"Oh no no no, RUN!" the Doctor shouted, pushing Donna to the door. She scurried through the door just as all the cards circling about the orb flashed blue. The Doctor stumbled out behind her and pulled the door shut, then flourished his arm pointedly down the stairs. "Go! Keep going!"
The two barreled down the spiral staircase as the door at the top creaked open and the Archive slowly floated out. It ticked out another few hundred cards, adding to the bulk of paper already floating about it in a serpentine trail. "Please wait while your deposit completes." The Doctor glanced up the cavernous room to the top of the stairs, but the one glance was enough. The psychic paper surrounding the orb flashed again and he shook his head, stumbling into Donna at the bottom of the stairs.
Donna grabbed his shoulders as the Doctor held his head. "Doctor, are you all right? What is it taking? Can you still understand me?"
The Doctor held his hands over his eyes and said, "I can't look at it. Psychic paper's power relies on a viewer and takes effect whenever someone looks at it. It's after my mind, not yours, so you're going to have to watch for it and move us away from it."
Donna nodded and took his arm, leading him out of the building and onto the street. The Kykenline were still milling about aimlessly, like zombies, Donna had originally thought but hadn't voiced her opinion, but now it turned out that was pretty much true.
If they could make it to the TARDIS, they would be safe. There was no way that thing could follow them in there. The problem was that, despite the Kykenline having refreshingly distinct tastes in clothing, their cone-shaped buildings all looked pretty much the same, and she hadn't paid very close attention to their route when they were chasing down the card. This morning she thought the Doctor was picking on her for being absent-minded, but now she was cursing herself for not paying better attention.
"Please wait while your deposit completes," came the deceptively cheery voice from within the building they'd just escaped. Donna picked a street and took off with the Doctor in tow, scanning for any familiar landmarks. She didn't make it very far as the fluttering sound of paper in the wind approached behind her. A line of white cards sped past her in an orderly row, circling in front of her and blocking the street. Donna slid to a halt, gripping the Doctor to stop him as his momentum threatened to crash him headlong into the awaiting paper.
"Donna…?" he questioned with worry, pressing a hand over his eyes to force himself not to take in their current situation for himself. "What's going on?"
"Nothing you need to worry your overly-gelled head over," she retorted. "You're with the best temp in Chiswick, and no heap of paper ever got the better of me!" She removed her jacket and swatted at the wall of cards before her, which were surprisingly steadfast despite being made of paper.
The orb hovered in behind her and requested, "Please wait while your deposit completes."
"Oh, shut it!" she shouted, whirling around and lobbing her jacket at the hovering orb, knocking it into a wall. The cards around her faltered and fell to the ground, and Donna took this as an opportunity to make a run for it, dragging the Doctor along with her.
"That's it then!" she exclaimed. "We just need to smash that round part like an egg and it'll stop chasing us! It's brilliant!"
The Doctor tugged back on Donna's arm and caused her to stumble sideways into a wall. His eyes still squeezed shut, he breathed heavily and intoned, "No, Donna, listen…" His voice trailed off as his mouth moved, trying to find words. "We can't… it's… everything it took from me… everything… this planet…" He gritted his teeth in frustration. "We can't…"
Donna nodded meekly. "Oh… right. Never crash the computer that's got the only copy of company records… So… do you have any ideas of what we should do about it? It's acting like some sort of bank, and you seemed to recognize what it was before. A Zero-something."
The Doctor's face contorted, almost as if he were in pain. "I… I can't…"
Donna glanced over his shoulder, then shoved him into the door of the building they were leaning against, diving in herself before slamming the door behind her. The interior was completely dark as there were no windows on this level, but Donna could make out where the Doctor was from his labored breathing. She tentatively crawled over to him and wondered, "Hey… you gonna be all right?"
She felt around in the dark and her hand came in contact with his spiked, ruffled hair. She felt her way down until her arm rested behind his shoulders and held on to him firmly. He was shaking, his breath coming in uneven pants. It tore at her heart to see him behave so un-Doctor-ly, but that thing out there was tearing out everything that made him the Doctor piece by piece. He was still aware of himself and what was going on, and was aware that he should be able to figure through this, yet couldn't. To someone whose entire existence centered around his vast knowledge and deductive skills, this had to be absolutely terrifying.
Suddenly, the entire building shook. Donna stiffened, keeping her grip on the Doctor firm as she peered around the dark room. The tremor struck again, and the wall of the cone structure began to crack, letting in a thin band of red light from the outside. Donna stood up and announced, "Oh bloody hell, now what? Look, paperface, I've had my experiences with banks hunting me down for payments, too, and I'm warning you, I know how to deal with your type!"
Another tremor, and an entire piece of the wall fell away. The building groaned, and Donna realized that they'd probably have better luck with the brain-eating paper-pusher outside than a collapsing building, so yanked the Doctor from the ground and dragged him outside just as the lower supports of the cone failed, causing it to collapse down on itself.
As the dust cleared, she waved her hand in front of her face and wondered, "Blimey, when did it get so bloody hot out here?" The ground shook again, and the tip of a cone building across the street began to sag and flop over like a spent party candle. She looked up to the sky, then shook the Doctor's sleeve in a panic, shouting, "Doctor… Doctor…! That heat shield thing from before… well, I'm thinking that whoever's job it was to run it is on permanent teatime with the rest of the planet!"
It may have been because he was no longer in his right mind, it may have been some sort of ingrained instinct regarding fiery death from the sky, but the Doctor couldn't help but crack his eyes open and assess their latest threat. The sheen that had uniformly permeated the sky before was now wobbling like a tarp caught in a typhoon, distant cracks beginning to allow solar flares to pour in onto the planet, melting the surface into pools of magma.
The Doctor whipped his head around him, trying to take in his assets to deal with the situation. There were buildings… buildings… they held things, didn't they? They were triangles… no, not triangles, what was that other word? What was it? He couldn't think of the word! Stuff was red and glowing and… and what? What about it?
He gripped his head in frustration. His Time Lord train of thought was built to meander, allowing his thought processes to pick up any tangentially-related information along the way, as there was no telling what might prove helpful. But his synaptic pathways were all eventually leading him to dead ends. Nodes of information that formed the vertices of the web of his mind were just gone, leaving the paths beyond inaccessible. He recognized things around him, but their significance was lost to him at just a few layers deep.
Donna pulled on his arm and shouted, "Well let's not stand here staring at it, if we can just get to the TARDIS, we'll be safe!" She rounded one of the buildings…
And ran right into a wall of paper a hundred cards to a side. The orb floated overhead, pulsing its light gently as a falling flare exploded a building behind it. "Thank you for your deposit."
If the Doctor's synapses were in their correct arrangements, he might have been able to process the threat before him in time to close his eyes. However, due to all the main routes in his mind now pocketed with pitfalls, it took an extra second to route the information from his eyes to his brain to identify what he was looking at, and another extra second to find its way to the appropriate reaction.
The wall of cards had finished flashing blue after a second and a half.
The Doctor fell to his knees as the Archive paused to collect its latest haul, funneling the new cards into the mass of paper trailing behind it, amplifying its bulk several times over. The paper portion of its body now exceeded a hundred feet in length and ten feet in height, giving it the appearance of a paper serpent with a ball for a head.
"Processing…" it announced, not moving as fire continued to pour from the sky in the distance, shuddering and cracking the ground further. Even a mass repository of knowledge was having trouble handling the contents of a Time Lord's mind.
Donna lifted the Doctor's face to look at her and asked in a panic, "Doctor, are you still in there? How much did it take this time? Can you still talk?"
"Oh… hello…" he said, smiling. "Fancy meeting you here."
She dragged him to his feet and shouted, "Come on, it looks like it bit off a bit more than it could chew this time. We can't be far now!"
The heat was becoming almost unbearable. Waves were visible in the air in front of her and all the buildings had begun to sag and cave in on themselves. Everything was just a brilliant red in every direction. Everything except…
Blue. Blessed blue. Fifty yards ahead of them, wavering into view through the scorching air, was the familiar police box, weathering the extreme conditions without a crack. Donna breathed a sigh of relief, choking as her throat parched in the vaporizing air. Almost there…
Something crashed behind them, and the Archive slithered into view, rearing up behind them on its hulking paper form. "Please wait while your deposit completes," it commanded happily.
Donna stumbled, fishing her TARDIS key out of her shirt as she scrambled towards the TARDIS, the Doctor thankfully running of his own accord behind her, though still attached to her arm. The Archive slithered after them, rearranging its body into paper-scaled reptilian arms and legs to help it scurry along the battered ground. Twenty yards… ten yards…
Donna hit the door and jammed the key inside, pushing the door with all her might and throwing the Doctor inside. She leapt in herself and slammed the door just as the Archive struck it, a few pieces of paper fluttering into the TARDIS, but the bulk of the body safely locked outside.
She panted in relief, her chest aching from the harried run in the hellish heat. They were safe now. Well, physically safe. The Doctor had lost a lot of himself to that thing, and with it trapped outside, it was only a matter of time before it was destroyed by the solar flares once the heat shield failed completely. The Doctor's knowledge would be lost forever, but… what else could they do? She wasn't used to being in the position of having to make these kinds of decisions.
She glanced up at the Doctor, who had made it up to the console and was gazing around the TARDIS interior in awe. He looked back down the entrance ramp to her and grinned. "This is amazing! It's bigger on the inside!"
Donna's face fell. She slowly walked up the ramp and queried, "Wait… don't tell me… do you have any idea where you are?"
"Oh, I will tell you where I am. I am in a box. That's bigger on the inside!" he said excitedly, raising his arms.
The TARDIS shook from the planet outside slowly succumbing to its dying star. Donna held onto the railing to steady herself and further wondered, "I take that to mean… you don't know how to fly it."
His mouth gaped open at her for a full five seconds. Finally, he whispered, "Boxes can fly?"
Donna ran to the console and frantically pulled at levers and twisted dials. He'd let her fly the TARDIS before, but nothing that he did had made any sense to her and the controls felt like their function was arbitrary and changed every time they were used. The TARDIS refused to budge, save from the sporadic tremors from outside, which made the Doctor sway on the platform along with them saying, "Wheee!"
Donna pounded her head on the console helplessly. "That's it then… we're stuck here." She rolled her head and looked at the Doctor, who was scampering about the control room and examining all the fascinating things it held with the energy and curiosity of a young child. She had to smile in spite of herself. Before, he'd been so angry and afraid, and in so much pain. But now… he'd lost so much of his mind that he didn't even realize it was gone anymore. He was blissful in his ignorance, and eager to regain what he'd lost the old-fashioned way: by learning.
But from the way things were going, he only had a few minutes at most to rediscover the universe before the planet and the TARDIS were consumed by the expanding sun and destroyed. The Kykenline outside… if any of them were still alive, at least they had no way of comprehending what was happening to them and therefore couldn't fear their own demise.
It wasn't fair, though. An ancient civilization, and worse yet, the Doctor, were about to get wiped out forever along with all of their intellectual contributions to the universe. The knowledge bank, whatever it was, was outside their door demanding its dues despite the world ending. Donna's mother had told her that even the end of the world wouldn't deter a bill collector, and it turned out she was right.
The Doctor perched on the railing beside her and excitedly rocked forwards and back. "So, what are we going to do now?"
Donna gave a self-derisive snort. "Well, our two options are to sit in here and burn to death, or go outside and give up our minds to a psychic piñata before that so that we at least won't realize we're burning to death."
She pulled one of the psychic cards out of her pocket. She was here with the Doctor, physically, but the Doctor himself was already gone. She was going to die on an alien planet, all by herself, and no one would know. Her grandfather would be worried sick. Her mother would be annoyed at her absence. She didn't like to think about the people she'd leave behind. So it was tempting…
"Your deposit is almost complete. Please step forward to complete your deposit," came the muffled voice from the other side of the TARDIS door. In order to wipe her own mind, she'd have to let it have its way with the Doctor first. But could she let herself do that? Throw her best friend out to the paper tigers in order to selfishly end her own suffering? Especially when he was no longer of any mind to understand what she was doing?
The Doctor ambled to the door, saying, "Ooh, I think someone's out there. Let's see what they want."
Donna tackled him to the metal grating. There wasn't even a decision to be made there, and she was furious at herself for even momentarily entertaining it. He was blissfully unaware of the situation, but how could she possibly sacrifice him for her own sake? He meant too much to her, even what little was left of him.
He kicked in her grip, surprisingly strong for his lithe form. "Let me go!" he shouted. "I want to know! I want to know what's out there! I want to know so much!"
She held him tightly, tears starting to well in her eyes. "I know, Doctor, I know. There's so many things out there that you have every right to know. But what's out there… I can't let you. Because I'll tell you what's out there. It's something that wants to take you away from me forever. And I can't let it do that."
The Doctor pouted, but stopped struggling. She wasn't even sure he'd understood half of what she'd said. The TARDIS rocked again, even more violently, and she held the Doctor protectively to her as though he were a child both in body as well as mind. This was hardly the way she wanted things to end, but she wouldn't have traded her time with him for anything.
"Your deposit is almost complete," came the voice from beyond the door again. "Withdrawal pending upon completion of deposit."
Donna's eyes snapped open. Withdrawal? Of course! She pushed away from the Doctor and shook him, saying excitedly, "That's it! You requested a withdrawal! Except your withdrawal request is in the queue to be processed once the deposit completes! If we let the deposit complete, we'll be able to get your knowledge back!"
The Doctor's head rocked from side to side, then he giggled uneasily. "I have no idea what you just said."
Donna's face became serious. "I know…" she said softly. "And… honestly, I have no idea if what I said will actually work. I don't have you to back me up anymore. I just…" she held his shoulders and sighed. "I need you to trust me. And whatever happens… I want you to know…" The Doctor peered at her intently, but she couldn't finish. Finally, she wiped her eyes and reached into her pocket, pulling out the handful of psychic paper cards that had made it into the TARDIS. "Could you just look at these a moment?"
The Doctor examined the blank cards eagerly, his face full of such trust and expectation.
The cards flashed blue. His eyes went dull.
Donna cradled the Doctor's head as he fell forward limply into her arms, the cards falling from his hands. She stroked his hair for a while, mentally trying to justify to herself what she'd just done, as the TARDIS continued to rumble uneasily.
Finally she rose, gently laying the Doctor's body on the metal grating and collecting the discarded papers. She made her way to the door of the TARDIS and announced somberly, "I have the rest of your deposit. Please complete the transaction."
She cracked the door open, letting in a blast of heat as the cards floated in the air and slipped out through the opening. She opened the door wider, and the Archive hovered there, collecting the last of the cards containing the final vestiges of the Doctor's mind. The orb hummed and pulsed with soft light, before announcing, "Thank you for using the Archive, your business is always appreciated. Please stand by while I process your next request."
Donna's heart leapt to her throat. This was it. This had better be it. The Doctor was coming back to her, and then he would set everything right. She only hoped that he would be understanding and forgive her for what she had to do to him.
The Archive hummed and produced a single card from its body, which floated over to the Doctor and rested against his forehead. It glowed blue for a moment, then faded and fluttered to the ground like a regular piece of paper. Donna wondered how the sum of his knowledge could be contained in a single card when it had taken tens of thousands to remove it from him, but she supposed all cheques were the same size regardless of denomination.
The orb hummed again, then happily announced, "Your requested transaction is complete. Thank you for using the Archive."
Donna rushed to the Doctor and shook him. "Doctor? Doctor?! Can you understand me? Is it all back now? Do you know where you are?" But his head merely limply rolled to one side, his eyes still gazing into nothing. But… but why? It should have worked!
A sinking pit formed in Donna's stomach. No… no the Archive had given him back exactly what he'd initially asked for: the card containing his knowledge of his sonic screwdriver. And now he knew how to use his sonic screwdriver, but didn't know how to speak, move, or process any other information, so it did him precisely no good.
The Archive continued to float silently at the door, the remaining thousands of cards containing the remainder of the Doctor's mind still hovering about it. Well, if it could process a withdrawal once, it could do it again.
Donna walked before the Archive and demanded, "I'd like to make another withdrawal."
The Archive hummed. "My records do not list you as one of our customers. Would you like to open an account?"
"No!" Donna replied quickly. "It's not for me, it's for him! I want to close his account and liquidate all his assets."
The orb hummed again. "Only the account holder or authorized representative may perform this operation."
Donna stamped her foot. "I'm bloody authorized! I'm Donna Noble!"
"Please present proof of authorized representation," the Archive requested.
Well, she just had the Doctor's word to go by there, and he was currently in no condition to give it. But if it was proof it was looking for, she hadn't spent months travelling with the Doctor without picking up a few tricks.
"Oh, you want authorization? I'll give you authorization," Donna growled. She dug her hand into the Doctor's coat and pulled out his folding ID holder. Psychic paper vs. psychic paper. It all came down to whose will was stronger. Donna flipped open the badge and declared, "Take a good look at this, missy, and don't you ever sass me like that again! I'm the Doctor's authorized representative, and if you've got a problem with that, you've gotta take it to a higher authority!"
The Archive floated silently before her, the hum of its processor working longer than usual. Donna didn't falter, glaring the pale, featureless orb square down its center. Finally, the glow pulsed back to life and the Archive replied, "Authorization confirmed."
Donna gave it a curt nod. "Thank you."
"Please be aware of the closing fee," the Archive continued.
Oh bloody hell. Closing fee? Apparently even technologically-advanced alien institutions still looked for ways to bleed your dry to access your own assets, and she highly doubted that meant offering the thing a tenner and calling it good. She straightened up and cleared her throat, hoarsely wondering, "And what is the closing fee?"
"Acceptable payments are a retention of 1% of the original account value, or the payment of one unique item of knowledge."
Well, that first option was certainly right out. The Doctor had nearly gone mad at the loss of only one piece of his knowledge, much less 1% of it. Plus, it was his knowledge and was rightfully not hers to pay with. But that meant that she had to come up with the payment to satisfy option two herself. A unique item of knowledge…
Donna clapped her hands. "Oh, oh, I know… did you know that if you stare at something red for long enough, then look at a white piece of paper, it looks green?"
The Archive hummed. "Knowledge already on file."
She shrugged. "Okay, I'm sure someone else had already figured that one out, too. That's fine. Um… okay, how about this? The peanut is neither a pea… nor a nut. Isn't that wild?"
A hum. "Knowledge already on file."
Donna's shoulders slumped. Right, then. If she wanted to get into the truly unique knowledge territory, she'd have to start pulling things from her travels with the Doctor. Except whatever she picked, she'd lose forever. What experience with the Doctor would she be willing to give up? Nothing, that's what. She would be devastated at ever having to give any of it up. But if she didn't… the Doctor was doomed to remain a vegetable and they would die here on a planet about to be consumed by a star. For his sake, then…
"Okay…" she steeled herself. "Mount Vesuvius erupted because the Doctor stopped the Pyroviles from conquering the earth." She supposed she could just ask the Doctor to give her the details again later, even though she wouldn't remember the event herself.
The Archive processed that information. After a moment, it replied, "Knowledge already on file."
What?! How could it possibly know that already? She racked her brain for something else. "How about… Ood hold their brains in their hands?"
"Knowledge already on file."
"Agatha Christie was kidnapped by a giant wasp!"
"Knowledge already on file." What was going on? Everything she and the Doctor had been through, it somehow already knew!
And then realization struck her. It still had all the Doctor's knowledge on file. Everything they had done, it knew through him. Everything the Doctor knew, it knew. So the only way she could give it a unique piece of knowledge was tell it something that no one, not even the Doctor, knew.
What could she possibly know that the Doctor didn't know? She was just a temp from Chiswick. He was a time-travelling space-faring centuries-old alien with a thirst for knowledge. He knew everything she knew a hundred times over.
With a defeated shrug, Donna stuttered, "I… I don't know. I don't think I have that kind of payment…"
The orb glowed brighter white than it had when it was merely processing. "Scanning for suitable knowledge…" it announced. Donna flinched as a soft white light bathed over her, feeling somehow violated as it probed her mind for something it could take as payment.
The Archive finished its scan and stated, "One item of unique knowledge found."
Donna blinked. One? In the entire universe, there was one thing. One thing she knew that made her special. And she didn't even know what it was. And now she'd have to give it up in order to save the Doctor.
But you know what? That was okay. Knowing even a hundred unique things that no one else knew weren't what made her special. The Doctor was what made her special. And if it would get him back, she'd trade it all without question.
A blank card floated before Donna's face. She swallowed roughly, then straightened her shoulders and stated, "I'm ready to pay." She took the card in her hand, and it flashed blue only for an instant. An image burned into it, but it was too quick for her to see.
The Archive retrieved the card from her just as quickly, then began processing at full power. "Payment accepted. Closing and liquidating account…" The orb hummed loudly, and the mass of paper hovering about it began to spin in a whirlwind. The whirlwind unraveled and streamed towards the Doctor's prone form, circling around him. The spiral of cards intensified around him, as each began to flash blue, like so many Christmas lights. The spinning, flashing mass was too much to look at, and Donna had to turn and shield her eyes. Please work this time… please…
The glow subsided, and the cards fell away, fluttering to the floor like a light snowfall. The Doctor came into view from the retreating mass, no longer lying prone on the floor, but standing upright with one foot perched on the lower railing, examining the sonic screwdriver in his hand. Once he seemed satisfied with what he saw, he turned to the orb hovering in the TARDIS doorway, now bare of any encircling paper, and said, "Right, where was I?" He sniffed and collected his thoughts, then pointed, declaring, "Yes, you're a Xerocleft bank! I should have known." A pause as he lowered his brows and looked upwards. "Actually, I did know, no thanks to you."
"Welcome to the Archive," the orb stated cheerily. "Would you like to make another transaction?"
The Doctor slowly pointed his screwdriver at the orb in the doorway. "Just one." With a whirr, the orb shuddered and fell to the ground.
The Doctor waved his screwdriver over the disabled white orb, connecting another wire from the TARDIS console into its processor. "Interesting race, the Xerocleft. They valued knowledge so much that they used it as a form of currency. Actually invented psychic paper, they did, so that they could physically process their transactions." He squinted, adjusting his glasses before fiddling with another wire. "Thing about currency, though, is that it loses its buying power the more commonplace it becomes. They had to come up with a way to exchange knowledge in a zero-sum transaction." He stood up and brushed off his hands. "Unfortunately, greed is a universal property, and you end up in a situation where the bulk of the resources fall into only a few hands. And when you have a civilization of billions where only a few know how to do anything, well…" he sniffed. "Suffice to say, the Xerocleft died out a long time ago."
He spun around and gave the orb a slap. "But then look at this baby! Artifact of a bygone era, roaming for millennia looking to expand its collection of the universe's most precious resource."
Donna sat perched uneasily on the edge of the captain's chair, absently looking over his setup. "Will they be okay, though? The Kykenline?"
The Doctor nodded a bit insincerely as he removed his glasses without looking at her. "Yeah. Yeah, they should be fine. Those on the night side of the planet didn't suffer as badly during the time the shields were failing, and now their knowledge has been returned, albeit to significantly fewer heads than from which it was taken." He straightened and rocked on his heels, shrugging. "They'll survive. They have for billions of years, after all."
He ran his hand over the smooth surface of the orb, his face becoming more serious. "Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the thousands of other civilizations the Archive has already consumed. I could save the Kykenline because I was already here, and they were still alive. But those other civilizations are dead, and their deaths are now a part of history. The most I can do for them is download the Archive's databanks into the TARDIS, where at least their histories will live on forever."
Donna rose from the chair and strode slowly over to him, looking over the mass of wires connecting the Archive to the TARDIS. Finally, she wondered softly, "And what about you, then? Are you going to be okay?"
The Doctor gave her a confused look. "Of course I'm going to be okay. My brain's all back to normal, good as new, no harm done."
She put a hand on his arm, sighing. "I'm just saying… when you lost a piece of your mind… I'd never seen you so afraid. Losing yourself, your identity, your experiences, your connections… I can't believe you can just get over that."
He looked hazily at the pillar at the center of the TARDIS, almost hypnotized by its rhythmic pulsing. "I've had to more than a few times before now, and I have a feeling I'm going to have to again relatively soon." He didn't elaborate on that further, and before Donna could pester him for details, he straightened up and reached into his suit pocket, pulling out a white card. "And speaking of losing knowledge, hopefully you've learned to be more careful with yours from now on."
"Is that…?" Donna wondered, gasping.
The Doctor grinned cheekily, holding the card over his head out of her reach. "Donna Noble, it has come to my attention that there's something you know that you're not telling me."
Donna clenched her fists. "Oh, stop it. I don't even know what was on that card, and now I guess it doesn't even matter if you've gone and snooped at it for yourself."
He lifted his chin, then slowly brought down the card and offered it to her. "Knowledge can be both a blessing and a curse. And if there's anything that this incident has proven, it's that it's unwise to keep it all in one place." He twitched an eyebrow at her. "I promise I didn't peek."
She snatched the card from him and strode purposefully to the other side of the TARDIS. The Doctor trotted after her and called, "Well, that doesn't mean I'm not at least curious!"
"Can it, space man, this belongs to me!" she shouted back at him. She turned her back and peered intently at the card, her heart fluttering in anticipation. This was it, then. The one thing in the entire universe that she knew that even the Doctor didn't.
The card flashed, and she saw an image in her head. It was a street, in London. She recognized this street; it was where she'd parked her car the night she'd reunited with the Doctor. She saw herself walk to a bin on the side of the road and toss in her keys, then ask a nearby woman to inform her mother of where she'd left them if she happened to show up.
The image ended there. Donna's eyebrow twitched in irritation as she dropped the empty card to the floor. "Are. You. Bloody. KIDDING ME?!"
"Something good?" the Doctor wondered cheerily.
Donna slowly turned around, her hands on her temples, a look of utter disbelief on her face. "Of all the things in the universe… of all the things I've seen… of all the things I've been through since I met you… that thing," she pointed poignantly at the orb on the console, "took my memory of where I left my car keys!"
"Oh," replied the Doctor, looking a bit surprised. "Well…" he admitted, tugging on his ear. "To be fair, I'd say mind-wiping aliens are inordinately fond of stealing that particular memory."
Donna gave a defeated chuckle, rejoining him at the console. The Doctor grinned and pulled a lever, powering on the main engine. "Though the best thing about knowledge is that it's never complete. Just because you don't know something now doesn't mean you'll never know it. Ready to add a bit more to your collection?"
Donna nodded. "Always."
He beamed excitedly, opening the TARDIS engines to maximum. "Allons-y!"
fin
Hi there. I'm not British, but my country was once a colony of theirs, if that counts. That being said, if I completely botched British lexicon, grammar, and cultural references to the point that the characters sound like cheap American imitations made in China, feel free to lecture me on how to write proper English dialogue, and I will be eternally in your gratitude and say happy American-y things like "awesome", "kickass", and "elevator" in your general direction.