Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC
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Milo followed close behind the Doctor, Romana and K9, into the maze of corridors, that, they realised too late, he knew much better than they did. Finally, they came to a locked door.
The Doctor blasted it with bursts from the Sonic Screwdriver, but the ship refused to open the doors.
'Can't you open it?' Romana asked.
'Even the screwdriver cant force open a man's fist. This ship has a brain now. It's not just a machine anymore.' The Doctor said, quietly.
Milo appeared, starting his radiation gun. Blue light glowed around the Doctor, Romana and K9, who tried, and failed to use his laser gun in reply.
'Sephy wants you dead,' Milo said, justifying it to himself more than to them, 'if it's not me now..' he carried on, beads of sweat forming on his face.
'Milo, you've got to stop listening to her! It's not your friend in that centre anymore. It's lost whole parts of its mind, the parts that made it human, that made it your friend. It's obsessed with it's task, and it's going to go on and on, causing chaos, death and misery! That's not Sephy, is it? Don't listen to it.' The Doctor said, desperately. The relentless throbbing attack of the radiation gun boring into his mind.
Milo looked almost ready to cry, miserable and confused.
'She'll make an enemy of me.' He said, shakily.
'She'll destroy you. Either way, you die. It's only using you, it's not your friend. The paradoxes will eat away everyone on this ship. Everyone around here, everyone vaguely related with this place,' The Doctor said, panic getting more and more obvious in his voice.
Milo glances from the Doctor to Romana and back again, eyes wide, face pale. The gun slipped from his clammy hands, and the blue light faded away.
'Go and talk to it, you'll see. It's not your friend.' The Doctor repeated, quietly.
Milo went. The Doctor let go of Romana's hand, mopping his face and hands with his scarf.
'What do we do now, Doctor?' Romana asked.
'It's dangerous, but we've got to find out who's been here.. there could be hundreds of paradoxes, to put straight.'
'But surely, the operation's quite new, otherwise, wouldn't we have noticed it before?' Romana thought aloud.
'Yes, I suppose so,' The Doctor said, relieved.
Milo returned, still confused, but not as pale or shivery. He carried a large metal box in outstretched arms, like a fragile bomb. He set it down in front of the Doctor, and lit a cigarette. He looked towards Romana, as the Doctor crouched.
'He's right, that's not my Sephy.' He took a drag of his roll up, and offered it to Romana. She refused, politely.
'What have you done?' Romana asked.
'I ripped out her time travel capability.' He said, staring down a the box.
'Good man.' The Doctor stood up. 'Now, we've made an enemy of the ship, we'll have to be careful.'
'This is the furthest into the future we've ever been, I made sure of that before I ripped it out.'
'How? How did you control where you were?' The Doctor asked.
'I've.. got this connection with her. Limited, very limited, but I managed to lie to her. Said there was a catastrophe where there wasn't one.' He said, grimacing, and quickly taking another drag on his roll up.
'Connection?' Romana queried.
'Yes. A metal plate inserted into my brain. I'll probably die soon.' He said, calmly. He closed his eyes, and breathed in, heavily. He sank down the wall, until he was sitting on the floor, moaning softly, dropping his cigarette, that spilled acrid-smelling white powder on the floor.
'He's…?' Romana began.
'Disintegrating his brain. That's not just marijuana, there's acids fit to melt the plate that controls him.' The Doctor said, grimly. He squatted down, getting Milo's attention.
'Milo, you understand, don't you, we've got to undo what this ship's done.' The Doctor said, seriously.
'Yes, Doctor,' Milo sighed, weakly. He'd have a few more days until his brain got too muddle for him to be in control, and then he'd die. He knew the theories behind this, they'd speculated before, about this sort of thing, mostly in that joke sort of way, with morbid fascination. But now. The Doctor was intent on destroying what was left of his wonderful Sephy, he'd made an enemy of his home, and therefore his crewmates, his best friends, it was either die fast, due to intoxication, or painfully slowly, as the ship took control of him wholly, nerve by nerve, poisoning the blood supply, so he became no more than a robot, unquestioning and brain dead. He should have seen it coming. Threats like that were unlike Sephy, he should have seen the change earlier. Being encased in metal was burning away parts of her mind, scorching reasoning and compassion completely.
No, he'd go on his own terms. He felt light headedness take over the pain oozing through his mind, as the acids he was inhaling fought with the ships own virus. He began to trip, dragging memories of supernovas high above his head, to the front of his mind. Lying back with Sephy, before anything. Passing a joint around the circle, singing softly, old earth songs, with friends and lovers. That was his Sephy. Her feet softly stroking his, flowers that refused to stay upright in her hair, that smile. Milo suddenly felt anger swoop down, like a hurricane, dragging back the memories that haunted him, the government finding them, Sephy's screams, her blood. He screamed, yelled, how dare they, how could they? He tried to come out of the trip, but couldn't.
He pulled at the strains that held him, as the police broke her pretty little body, got bored and went away. Left her hanging in the noose.
Romana watched, horrified, as Milo scrunched up into a little ball, whimpering, calling out.
'What do we do, Doctor?' She said, urgently. The Doctor was lost in his thoughts, staring, eyes wide, mind racing, at the howling human on the floor. Romana dropped to her knees, touching his shoulder, 'Milo? Milo, d'you know where you are? Milo?!' She said, beginning to get anxious.
She helped him to sit upright, and he, tentatively, opened his eyes, seeing Romana at his shoulder.
He stopped clawing at the air, at his clothes, and face, and calmed down a bit.
'Are you alright?' She asked him.
'M'yeah,' he panted, closing his eyes again. 'The come down,' he explained.
'Doctor,' Romana stood, as Milo went to sleep, 'you cant just destroy the ship, can you, though, because not everyone is still on board.'
The Doctor looked at the floor, his hand straying to his jacket pocket.
'I don't know. I think we'll have to go far back, maybe even before this ship was created, or before it had a brain..'
'And stop the brain being connected? Doctor, surely that's much worse meddling than anything on this ship!' Romana protested.
'Someone alive when they should be dead causes far worse than something never existing to keep the dead man, that is, the man who should be dead, breathing.' He answered, pulling out a paper bag from his pocket.
Romana tried to make sense of what he'd just said. 'So.. you're going to make sure this girl's, Sephy's brain stays in her body?' She said, finally, 'meaning the ship never got the ability to control itself, the races that would have been saved by this ship wouldn't be, meaning wars wouldn't be started, atrocities suffered, crimes committed, eco-systems ruined, leaving the universe paradox free?'
The Doctor grinned at her.
'But, Doctor, how do you know you can? And that the universe wont be torn up by Bacteria?'
'They're called Reapers. How many species are there on this ship?' He asked, sure that Romana would work it out for herself.
Romana looked to K9.
'Over 80 species, master,'
'80. And there have been more, haven't there? So, how come the ship isn't being disintegrated by the bacteria, hmm?' The Doctor asked her.
'An alternate reality is possible..' Romana worked it out, 'If it wasn't, everyone on the ship would be dead anyway, but it is, so the universe continues with either reality.'
The Doctor grinned again, 'Jelly baby?' he offered, holding out the paper bag.
'But Doctor, you said you couldn't change timelines. How come you can now, just because this ship has?'
'If I'm right, some point in the past, before the brain was removed, there was a cross roads, where the two realities met, and at that point, either was possible. We just need to make sure we effect the change to the other instead of this one.'
'So, are we going to leave in the TARDIS?'
'I don't want to make an enemy of the ship,' The Doctor said. He paused, 'Ship, listen to me!' The Doctor barked, 'You've got to co-operate with us. If you don't you'll be the cause of more and bloodier wars than ever thought possible.'
'She wont listen, Doctor,' Milo sighed. 'And her circuits are already being fixed by members of the crew. She will continue to function in what vein she thinks correct. You cant stop it.'
'He's changed his tune,' The Doctor said, as Milo stood shakily.
'My sensors detect random figures in his brain, Master,' K9 said.
'His brain is being scrambled?' Romana said in disgust.
'Countering what he was doing to himself with the acids.' The Doctor nodded, 'He's losing his identity. The drugs are taking control, he's just the battle ground now. A husk.'
'But that's horrible. What can we do?'
'We cant do anything to stop it. Roll him a spliff and help it along.' The Doctor shrugged. Romana did as she was told.
Milo clung to Romana's arm, taking deep draughts on the spliff she was holding for him.
'Who was Sephy?' She asked him, watching his pupils go fuzzy around the edges, as his brain lost control of them.
'A friend. We lived together, slept together,' Milo fumbled, wobbling slightly. Romana gently put pressure on his shoulder, and he sank to the floor. 'She was one of the victims of the new regime, when the earth caved in to pressure and became a purely industrial planet. We protested, petitions. Thousands at first, but the numbers went down dramatically. Finally they blew up the third moon, that was the last straw for my Sephy. She made a speech, a personal attack on the high Minister, in public. They came and found us out on the last night in Hyde Park, beat us around a bit, but they went for Sephy. Strung her up in the middle of London, all bruised and mangled. Still breathing, still tripping.' He finished, breathlessly. 'We got so mad. Me, Kit, Jackson, the guys. Went nuts, shooting and stuff. We cut her down… she was babbling, off her face, goin' on about how we could do all this.. the ship was already set up, we'd already planned were gettin' outta there. We just… she came down, off the LSD, she was so scared, in so much pain. She begged us to do something. She didn't want to die. so. I cut her brain out.' He finished, tears in his eyes. 'And now… god, she's a monster.' Milo moaned, still leaning heavily on Romana.
The thought terrified Romana. The poor woman, dying, her brain being snatched and encased in a ship. She blanched.
The Doctor watched the young man struggle with himself, mournfully. He just hoped he could go back and alter the time line. He was sure, that moment could lead on to two alternate realities. One, where Sephy's mind was taken from her body, creating a super machine, leading to this reality: a young man's suicide, and Reapers slowly gnawing at the time-space continuum. Or a second leading to natural progression in species, including the death of some of them. He knew which was right.
He pulled out his sonic screwdriver, tugged the circuit covering off the wall, and he and K9 set to work destroying the circuitry workings of the ship.
Milo was gently rocking, hugging his knees, humming his favourite earth song. Romana, reluctantly, prepared another joint for the young man to take. It was evident he needed it. He wanted it. And, though it was assisting suicide, Romana felt sure it was better than letting him become a puppet for this ghastly ship. She pushed the doubt away: she'd deal with the guilt later.
She emptied the phial of white acid, from Milo's pocket, into the cigarette paper and rolled it up.
Milo took it, 'thank you,' he whispered, smiling a weak smile of defeat.
Milo watched her roll his joint, and tried not to be reminded of Sephy. Young, blonde and disconcertingly pretty, she did look very similar. He hugged her arm, rubbing his cheek against her shoulder. He took one final drag, and sank into oblivion.
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