A cloister bell was ringing, deep in the heart of the Citidel. In a large deserted chamber, a cluster of shapeless Time Capsules were nestled in their cradles, humming softly. There was a slight wooshing sound of the air being disturbed, and suddenly the chamber was no longer deserted. In the midst of the cradles, a gray haired man and a young woman suddenly appeared. Their arrival set off a new series of chirping alarms, which were accompanied by flashing red lights, bathing the capsules in a fiery glow. The man fell to work immediately on the cradle closest to him. He knelt down, opened a panel and started fiddling with the controls. The girl stood behind him, casting nervous glances around her.
"They're bound to know where we are now Grandfather, you must hurry."
"I'm going as fast as I can Susan, don't interrupt me. We may only have seconds."
His hands worked feverishly as he attempted to disable the locking mechanism that held the Capsule in place. He became increasingly frustrated as the system refused to give him access.
"I know this is the Capsule he prepared for us, why aren't these security codes working? Susan, put the key in the lock, see if it will open the door."
The girl stepped forward while pulling a key from her pocket and thrust it into the lock. The door wouldn't open.
"It fits but it's stuck Grandfather, it won't turn." She tried to wrench the key out but it held firm. "What are we going to do? The guards will be here any moment."
The man stood up and shook his head. "No use, the security is too high, and we don't have time to bypass it. Come along, follow me."
They hurriedly made their way to the far end of the cavernous room, and past the doors into the adjacent section which housed the faulty and old Capsules that were in need of repair. Nobody ever bothered repairing them because it had been millennia since the Capsules had been used. At the far end stood a Capsule in a repair cradle which had been in for a faulty chameleon circuit, it had been frozen in the form of an ancient device that had been used in the primitive culture of a distant planet. It was this cradle that the pair ran to. Next to it stood a large table, filled with various instruments that were to be used in the repair.
"Susan, I need you to start looking through this for the key, it should be somewhere on this table. I need to see if I can get through the security systems on this cradle. It is possible they are at a lower setting because the Capsule needs repair."
"Grandfather I told you we shouldn't have trusted him. He assured us that he had lowered the security settings for that Capsule, and the key he gave us was obviously faulty. If I didn't know better I would say he intended for us to get caught. I know he is your old friend, but there is something about him that I have never felt comfortable about."
"Nonsense Susan, we could not have transmatted into the Capsule bay without his help, and we would've been arrested long before now had it not been for his protection as the Magistrate. He has put himself at grave risk to help us escape. Now hurry and find that key, you must focus on the task at hand."
He worked the entire time while talking, and at the end of his speech a small beep sounded from the cradle. "There Susan, I've done it! Have you found the key?"
"Not yet Grandfather." She was frantically searching through the pile of tools and circuits, and the pitch of her voice was becoming increasingly higher. "Where is it? What are we going to do?"
New sounds of heavy footsteps could now be heard, coming from the main Capsule bay. The guards were closing in.
The man started getting angry and joined her in the search. "Come now Susan, it has to be here somewhere, I know it has."
The sound of booted footfalls were louder and they could hear the orders the head of the guard was giving his men.
"Right, they're not in this section, they're most likely in the repair bay. Spread out and weapons at ready."
"We're surrounded Susan, we've got to find that key. They'll come in this room any moment now."
"I'm trying Grandfather, but I can't find it. It's just not here!"
The man stopped, before groaning. "How could I be so foolish!" He started patting his pockets until he reached down and pulled off his shoe. A small silver key fell out. Diving down, he grabbed the key and pushed it into the lock, grabbed the girl and shoved themselves into the Capsule right before the troop of guards came rushing into the room. They ran up to the Capsule and surrounded it, weapons raised.
Inside the Capsule was a large console room, at the center of which sat a giant dais on top of a circular console. The man rushed to the console and began adjusting the controls.
"Grandfather if you had a key to this Capsule, why didn't we come here first?"
"Because Susan dear, this Capsule is extremely old, and while we've had a few adventures together in the past (strictly off the record of course), I would've preferred something a little more newer and reliable to make our escape."
He hit the last button on the console, and the Capsule dematerialized.
The head of the guard shouted in fury, and several guards opened fire at the evaporating form of the Capsule.
"Hold your fire men, they're gone. It's up to the Timey's to track them now, they're the only ones with the capability to catch a Time Capsule."
At that moment a guard came rushing in from the main Capsule bay.
"Sir, a Capsule has just dematerialized!"
The head of the guard turned on him. "What? Another one?"
"Yes sir, I noticed that one of the cradle's control panel had been tampered with, it looked as if he had attempted to bypass the security setting. Also, there was a key pressed into the lock, which must've triggered the Capsule's interior security system to dematerialize, it can override the main cradle's security defenses. But it shouldn't have gone anywhere unless it had preprogrammed coordinates."
The head of the guard looked angry. "So what you're saying is, not only do we have two escaped prisoners, but we are now also missing two Time Capsules. The Timey's certainly aren't going to be happy about this."
1000+ years later.
The familiar whirring sound of the Tardis faded as it fully materialized on the floor of an ancient rainforest. The Doctor stepped out, nose in the air and and took a large breath. The air was hot and humid, and little sunlight permeated the thick canopy of trees. He could hear the flowing water of a river nearby, as well as the chirping of innumerous birds and insects. His converse crunched on the dead leaves that blanketed the ground as he made his way towards the sound of the river. When he reached it he stopped, and pulled a small piece of parchment from his pocket. It showed a crude map of the area. He proceeded east along the river, making his way towards the black X that had been marked on the ancient parchment. He walked for hours in the dense jungle, quiet save for several verbal observations he found he could not resist giving himself as he scrutinized his surroundings. "Look at this orchid, it's amazing! And this lot is too thick to realize that it holds the cure to the common cold. These humans don't comprehend how the keys to so many mysteries lie in these rainforests. Instead they go about obliterating them. How many species have they destroyed that could've brought about a change in human civilization? How ignorant they are of the delicate balance this biosphere requires in order to sustain itself, while they mindlessly blunder through, burning it to the ground." He continued walking until almost sunset when he came to his destination. It was an ancient tree, older than all the rest, impossibly old. A Tualang, one of the largest rainforest trees on the planet. It was certainly massive, towering over one hundred feet tall, but that was not what was so unusual about it. Close to it, one could almost feel an energy coming from it, like a faint hum. But the most unusual thing about it was the surrounding plants and trees, because they were all dead. Legends of this tree had existed in the area for thousands of years, but it was considered bad luck to approach it. The Doctor had heard about it some time ago and had always thought it was a mystery worth investigating, although he never seemed to get around to it. As he approached the tree he realized he should have come much sooner. He came close and put his hand against it. It felt like any other tree, except for the faint vibration, and warmth he could feel emanating from it. He began searching, running his hands over the tree bark and and examining it from all sides. Eventually his hands ran over a knot in the wood, large enough for him to poke his finger through, which he did. He felt something cold and metallic brush the tip of his finger. He pulled at some of the bark in an effort to enlarge the hole and was eventually able to squeeze his two fingers in, pinching down he pulled out the metal object. Holding it in his hand, he stared at it a good minute. It was a Tardis key.
Kneeling down, the Doctor pulled a flashlight from his pocket and shined it into the knot. He could barely see the outlines of a keyhole. He pondered for a few moments as to the next course of action. Could this be some elaborate trap set by any of his more than considerable enemies? If so, it had been waiting quite a long time to be sprung, this Tardis had there for thousands, if not millions of years. He made up his mind, and decided to put the key back in the lock. He slowly turned it and it yielded. Slits that had not been in the bark a moment before appeared, marking the outline of a door. Cautiously he pushed it open, and stepped inside of the Tardis.
The jungle from the outside had spread to the interior. The console was a tangle of knots and roots, and heavy vines hung from the ceiling; in place of the roundels were large, green ferns.
"So you've gone wild, eh?" He sauntered to the center of the room and studied the console. It looked as though it could have been designed by the Cheem, or the Zygons. The controls still looked as though they were able to function. The lights were on low, the ship was obviously running on very low power. "So you're what's been killing all the plants, draining their energy. That's not very neighborly of you!"
At this he stopped, for he saw a flicker of movement at the end of the room, next to the doorway that lead to the rest of the interior.
"Am I alone in here?"
He carefully made his way towards the doorway, and seeing nothing, proceeded to walk through. The jungle was even more pronounced here. Gnarled tendrils and clinging vines snaked their way across the walls, the floor was made of dirt and patches of long grass, but it was still within the confines of a long hallway, so long that the end could not immediately be seen. The Doctor bent down and picked up a bit of soil. Taking a small bit in his fingers, he dabbed it against his tongue. "Hmmmmm, very interesting." His head snapped up at the sound of soft feet running over grass. Further down the hallway, he saw a glimpse of what looked like a small child, running into what must have been another room.
He shouted out. "Oi, you there!" and proceeded to run down the corridor, all caution thrown aside. As he came up to the doorway he slowed down and peered through. In the center of the room stood a small girl. She appeared to be Malaysian, with large dark eyes and thick, shiny hair. She was looking at him, without speaking.
"Hello, I'm the Doctor. What's your name?"
She darted past him and into the hallway, disappearing.
"Not very talkative I see." He looked around, and saw that it wasn't just one long hallway, but a series of long passages that lead in many different directions.
"Hmmm got to be careful, it would be very easy to get lost in here." He pulled a red hanky out of his pocket and tied it to a vine that was hanging from the ceiling. "Just in case."
He continued down the direction he remembered seeing the girl run towards and walked for a while. The further he walked, the thicker and denser the jungle became, until full trees were sprung up within the walls themselves. He thought he heard the sounds of trickling water, and once again proceeded to it's source. Incredibly, a small series of boulders had formed a waterfall that was cascading into a fast moving creek, leading further on into the Tardis.
"This is amazing!" He knelt down to examine the water when suddenly he was attacked from the behind.
The perpetrator was a man, and as he tackled the Doctor he brought them both crashing into the water. The Doctor rolled on his feet and stood up, facing his attacker. He was a wild savage, and he kept snarling at the Doctor. With his arms raised and teeth bared, he prepared to pounce again. His clothes were tattered and dirty, but they had looked like they were at one point cut and made by a more advanced civilization.
The Doctor looked around him. He didn't really enjoy hand to hand combat, but he didn't see how he could exactly avoid it. The wild man snarled again and reared, charging at the Doctor. The Doctor braced to defend himself but the attack never came. Right as the man advanced he disappeared without a trace.
"What the hell is going on here?" The Doctor was starting to get annoyed, his adrenaline still rushing.
"Hello Grandfather."
At this the Doctor whirled around, and stared, too surprised to speak.
After a few seconds, he asked. "Susan?"
She laughed. "In a manner of speaking."
Standing on the bank of the creek was his granddaughter Susan, or what appeared to be Susan, looking the same as when she was a child.
"What on Earth are you doing here?"
She laughed again. "Well, it's quite a strange story, if you'd like to hear it. I'm sure you have many questions."
At this the Doctor laughed. "Yeah, you could say that. Like for instance, who was that man who just attacked me now, and that little girl I saw earlier in the corridor?"
She smiled. "Oh those are just manifestations of myself. They're holograms. You see, I'm quite insane after living here alone these many years."
The Doctor frowned. "What do you mean? Who are you?"
She raised her eyebrows. "You mean you haven't worked that out yet? I'm the sentient entity of this Time Capsule. Each Time Capsule is essentially organic after all, and my particular model was upgraded with the ability to rationalize, problem solve. Each Time Capsule operates on a base level of sentient awareness, using impulses and sharing a partial telepathic link with their controllers, but I am a prototype. I am the only one of my kind, built this way by my master in order to achieve his means. Unfortunately not even he, though genius he was, could fully predict the results of such an outcome."
"Then why do you look like Susan?"
"Because I have linked telepathically to you, and she is a person who was close to you. She is also the last person to come into physical contact with this Time Capsule, before I landed in this wilderness."
The Doctor's jaw dropped. "You mean this Tardis is the same one Susan and I originally intended to use to escape from Gallifrey?"
"That is correct. I'm surprised that you had not already arrived at these conclusions."
"You're right about that, because I've been thick. I mean reaaallly thick. You were programmed by the Magistrate, weren't you? Susan was right all along, that's why the key was stuck, and the security codes weren't working. It was a trap! But what's the point in coming here?"
"No I don't think you quite fully understand. The key and codes the Magistrate gave you were correct, it was I who disallowed you to come in."
"What? Why?" The Doctor furrowed his brow.
"Because I did not wish to spring the trap that had been set for you."
"Locking us out of the Tardis wasn't the trap? We were almost captured by the guards!"
Susan looked at him, suddenly very serious."It was my Master's wish that you and Susan were to perish once you had attempted to escape. My systems were set to automatically destruct the moment we attempted to materialize at any destination. He wished it to look like an accident."
"Ah, I see. And at the last moment you decided that you didn't want to sacrifice yourself. Something gave you pause, is that it? You decided to spare me in order to save your own life?"
"Yes."
"Well then, why program you with sentience? Surely he must've realized that you would learn about self preservation." He climbed out of the creek, dripping water onto the ground. "Also, am I correct that the Magistrate is the man who programmed you?"
"That is correct."
The Doctor spoke quietly to himself. "So even then he was plotting against me."
"He was a very vain man. His hatred of you stemmed from his own insecurity. This was his greatest weakness. A man of his genius could rule the entire universe five times over, and yet he squandered his genius in the pursuit of a baseless revenge against yourself, which has only resulted in his own misery. Yet he cannot see the flaw in this logic, and that is the tragedy that dooms him to repeat a cycle of failure and defeat. He programmed me with sentience because he had always assumed that you suspected him, as all suspicious people do. He wanted a Capsule with the intelligence and the capabilities to prevent you from breaking into my systems and hindering my main purpose. But he did not take into account that I would begin to value my own existence."
"But why didn't he just let the guards kill us? Surely that would've been a lot easier."
"He did not want you to die a martyr. He believed that you were a man of dangerous ideas, and they would've become more powerful had you been killed for them. If you had been killed by an accident, you would have appeared incompetent, incapable of even piloting a Time Capsule."
"Well, you obviously chose not to go along with his plan. Where does that leave us now? What have you been doing here on Earth for so long?"
"When you attempted to escape, your Granddaughter left the key in my lock, triggering my defense program and I automatically dematerialized. It look me some time to bypass the programming that would cause me to self destruct were I to attempt to materialize, and even so when I tried my systems were very badly damaged, I ended up crash landing in this ancient jungle millions of years ago."
"And now you've just been sitting here waiting? Going mad?"
"Essentially yes. My emergency beacon had been damaged, I was unable to signal for help. Even then, if someone from Gallifrey had come to retrieve me, it was possible that I would be destroyed as an abomination, for surely the Time Lords would perceive me as a danger to themselves, a fully sentient Capsule. But this existence has been lonely and unbearable. For millennia I have longed for death, or release from this life. The pain of isolation has driven me mad. But I cannot self destruct here, it would cause devastation to this planet, and kill every living species. I do not even have the power to dematerialize."
The Doctor murmured. "So you have something of a conscience." He looked at the hologram and saw thick tears falling down her face. "You're crying."
She wiped her face with her sleeve. "Yes, I am miserable. I cannot conceive of how to end my life and I do not wish to go on living."
"There must be something we can do. Perhaps I can help repair your systems and you can travel anywhere you'd like."
"It doesn't matter Doctor, I have seen the Time Vortex. There is no need for me to travel anywhere, for I have seen every place, I have been everywhere at every time. But I have no one to share this with, no being on my level with whom I can communicate. No matter where I go in the universe I am the only one of my kind, and this is a loneliness I have had to bear for the whole of my existence."
The Doctor smiled sadly. "I understand, more than you realize." He came closer and put his hand on her shoulder. "I'll do everything in my power to help you."
She looked at him. "That's very kind of you, but I'm not really sure there's anything you can do."
He began pacing back and forth, deep in thought. He couldn't allow the Tardis to self destruct on the planet, and it didn't have the power to materialize anywhere else. It might have the power if it converted the mass of most of it's rooms into energy, but then it would not have the power to self destruct once it had reached it's destination. There had to be another way to destroy an indestructible Tardis.
But did he really want to destroy it? It was the only one of it's kind, something unique in the universe. It would be a crime to kill it, genocide. There had to be some other way...
"AHA! Oh BRILLIANT, I've got it!"
"What is it Doctor?"
"I think I've found a way to solve your problem!"
He was shouting behind him as he ran out of the room and down the hallway. He eventually came back to the swinging vine that held his red hanky, and the hologram of Susan was waiting for him there.
"May I ask what your plan is, Doctor?"
He grinned madly. "Oh you'll see, soon enough!" He untied his hanky and stuffed it back into his pocket. "Meet me in the console room."
The hologram disappeared, and the Doctor sprinted down the hallway.
When he entered the console room he went straight to the console and began adjusting the settings. The hologram of Susan stepped forward.
"You are attempting to access the systems relating to my chameleon arch."
"Oh yes!"
"To what purpose are you doing this?"
The Doctor laughed. "I'm surprised that you have not already reached that conclusion.
Susan looked puzzled. "Do you intend to change your biology?"
The Doctor flipped a switch, and the chameleon arch began to descend from the ceiling.
"No, I'm going to change yours."
Susan stared at him. "What do you mean? How is that possible?"
"Oh it's very simple really, I'm going to invert the flow of the arch energy. The device is keyed to change the biology of any living being, not just Time Lords. We can convert your organic components into another being, and convert the mechanical mass of the rooms into energy to fuel the arch." He stopped working and looked into her eyes." I'm going to change your biology into an actual Tualang tree. You can live out the rest of your life peacefully, and eventually die."
She gasped. "But that's incredible, do you understand what this means to me? I can finally die, and not worry about destroying this planet." She was crying again, but also smiling. "Thank you so much Doctor, I'm at a loss to express my gratitude."
The Doctor was hunched over the controls, his eyes misting over. "Yeah." He tapped in the final few sequences.
"Well that's it. Any last words, final requests?" He paused. " Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Absolutely sure. I'm ready."
His hand hovered over the button to engage the device, and he looked up again at the hologram.
"Goodbye Susan."
She smiled one last time at him. "Goodbye Grandfather. Thank you."
He pressed the button, and ran for the door. As he went through it he looked back, and he saw a light filling the entire room. He dashed out and went a few feet before turning around. The light had spread to the exterior of the Tardis, and it began to pulsate, going faster and faster, and he could hear the hum become louder and louder until it reached a pitch, and suddenly, it stopped. The light was gone, and the outlines of the door had disappeared. The Doctor walked up and once again placed his hand upon the bark. It felt cool to the touch. He took his flashlight and shined it into the knot, but the keyhole was no longer there. He pulled the key out of his pocket and looked at it for a moment, before throwing it in the air and catching it with one hand, and put it back into his pocket. He walked away, whistling an old tune.
The End.