So sorry about the wait! I am an abysmally slow writer, and hopefully I will finish sooner next time!
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Chapter 6-Answers
When Rose went out to look for the Doctor, she wasn't expecting this. She sat in the back of some vehicle native to the people of this planet, silently fuming. She hadn't even been walking for ten minutes before being apprehended by a group of people who she assumed were in the Kahler military. They had odd designs on the sides of their faces, which the Doctor had told her identified them as the Kahler. They had effectively immobilized her with some kind of invisible bonds, and packed her into the truck, where they were apparently heading to some camp they had not too far from here.
All of her attempts to demand answers had been met with glares and silence. She eventually just gave up and brooded silently, watching the landscape go past.
The convoy had reached the base without incident, but before they got out of the vehicle, a soldier she thought must have been a medic injected her with a syringe, whispering an apology.
She felt her eyes slide closed and her body relax, but remained awake, which Rose found a bit odd. The solution he had given her must have been meant to have a greater effect than just closing her eyes and paralyzing her. Maybe it had been meant to knock her out. Well, it certainly wasn't working. She could hear every bit of the conversation two of the soldiers were having.
"I know, sir, I just feel bad. These people we're kidnapping could have lives, families. We're fighting a war to protect these people, but end up taking their memories. It doesn't make sense," the medic stammered nervously.
"Your job is not to question. You will do as you're told by your superiors without asking questions," Rose heard a burly man reply with acid in his tone.
They kept arguing as Rose felt herself being lifted up and put on a stretcher. She was wheeled into another room, where the clattering of metal and beeping of monitors indicated she was in an infirmary.
Another minute later she felt another injection slide into her arm.
"This will erase your memories. I'm sorry," he said, not knowing Rose could hear him.
Just before she fell unconscious, she thought she heard a wolf howl.
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"Why hello. And who might you be?" A pleasant voice startled Rose out of sleep. She sat up with a start and looked around in a panic, not knowing where she was, until she took in the surroundings and gathered where she must be. It looked like some sort of prison, albeit a very clean one. The word that came to mind was sterile.
Even though this wouldn't normally be a good thing, Rose knew that this meant that she had ended up exactly where she had intended. She was one step closer to the Doctor.
The Doctor!
She jumped up off the mattress she was currently sitting on and saw that there was a man sitting directly across from her against the opposite wall. He too sprang up when she did, smiling brightly.
"Doctor! Fancy meeting you here," Rose laughed as she hurried over to hug him. She didn't think they'd be so fortunate as to be put in the same cell. She went to put her arms around him, but stopped when he quickly backed away, giving her a strange look.
"What is it? Doctor, what's wrong?" she questioned, concerned. He normally never passed up the chance for a hug from her, especially not when they were in the middle of danger. Which they certainly were now; in deep, and they both knew it.
So when he jumped away from her so fast he almost backed into the wall, Rose naturally assumed the worst. Maybe their captors had done something, like given him a virus? But that wouldn't explain his strange look. His eyes were almost… empty. They still were full of emotion, but utterly unfamiliar. The way he looked at her, though… it gave her shivers. Like he didn't trust her, didn't know her.
In fact, he wasn't acting like himself at all. Sure, he had the same bouncy exterior and bright outlook, but underneath lurked something else, something suspicious. He was the most guarded that he had been around her since she had first met him, before he had opened up to her.
"Doctor? Are you feeling alright?" she asked cautiously, stepping back, because it was clear he didn't want her so close to him.
"Doctor? Doctor who?"
Rose's heart dropped into her stomach. Either he was concealing his identity, which she had no idea why, he had been possessed or something like it, or… he honestly didn't know who he was. That could explain his really odd behaviour towards her.
Well, this could certainly complicate things. Staging a rescue would be infinitely harder if the one being rescued wouldn't go with her. Not to mention she wasn't sure if he had lost his memory or not. She knew she hadn't, for some unexplained reason.
"Do you remember me?" she said softly, watching his face for any signs of recognition, a wink, that grin she loved so much, anything. But there was nothing there but confusion, and a slightly apologetic expression.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he replied quietly, not sure how to break this to her. It was obvious that this young girl knew him and cared deeply for him, but he currently did not reciprocate those feelings. He knew that she was probably a nice girl and regretted letting her down, even if it wasn't his fault.
"You see," he said, scratching the back of his neck (something Rose noticed), "Jackson and I here seem to have lost all of our memories."
With that one simple sentence, any last tiny thread of hope Rose had been holding onto vanished. Her heart froze for a minute before her brain caught up with her emotions and she forced herself to take a deep breath. She didn't know if this could even be reversed, like some types of amnesia could. Stop right there, she told herself. He had to get his memories back. Rose didn't even want to think about what would happen if he didn't. They just had to keep calm like they always did and think a way out of this.
Then something else he had said registered in her frantic thoughts. "Jackson? Who's Jackson? Are there more people here?"
With that, a familiar accent rang out from the cell across from Rose and Johnson. "Well hello there. And who do I have the pleasure of meeting in this wonderful place?"
There could only be one person that suave voice could belong to. Add in the unmistakable accent and smooth attitude…
Rose turned to see somebody in the opposite cell casually lounging on a mattress identical to the one she'd woken up on, looking for all the world like he enjoyed being here. Rose immediately recognized him, though she wasn't sure how he could even be here. It just wasn't possible.
"Jack?!" she shrieks out, surprising everybody with the volume of her outburst. "But- how- you were dead!" she stammers loudly, before finally spitting out a coherent sentence.
Jack stares at her for a moment before smiling nervously at the odd girl across from him. "I don't know about that, sweetheart, but I certainly don't feel very dead." He took a moment to appraise himself. "Nope. Definitely very much alive."
Rose took a deep breath to try to calm down after all of these new revelations. It was almost too much to handle.
"And why'd you call me Jack, anyways? He told you my name was Jackson." He jerked his head towards the Doctor, whom he only knew as Johnson.
Rose fumbled for a moment before saying, "Oh, you know, Jackson's sort of a mouthful; I just thought Jack might be easier to say."
Jackson shrugged it off, unconcerned. "Whatever works for you, sweetie. Not like I can correct you, anyway."
Rose groaned and flopped back down on the mattress. So nobody here remembered who they were except her. Fantastic, as her first doctor might say.
"Is there any way to get out of here? Have you tried the sonic screwdriver on the force field yet?" she asked, although she was pretty sure that checking for a means of escape would have already occurred to them.
"As far as we can see, there's no way in or out of the cells besides de-activating the force fields; the people who run this whole place seem very technologically advanced. They've clearly got this running cleanly." he listed off quickly, pacing across the length of their small cell. "What's a sonic screwdriver? This?" he added, holding that very thing out to Rose.
"Yep. So, you don't remember how to use it, obviously," she commented absent-mindedly while inspecting it and trying to remember what settings the Doctor had taught her. She had memorized which settings helped heal broken bones, stopped bleeding, and (obviously) unlocked doors, but she couldn't quite remember what setting it was for disabling a big electrical thing.
At random, Rose tried a setting she thought might work, pointing it at the force field.
Nothing.
She hadn't expected it to work, anyway, and was just glad it hadn't blown up or strengthened or something.
However, they had not had the chance to grow bored when, not five minutes later, the sound of hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor. Rose straightened up immediately and tried to peer around the corner of the cell she and the Doctor were sharing. The force field got in her way though, and she wasn't able to see the source of the noise until a figure arrived in front of their cell.
It was the same burly man Rose had heard arguing with the medic earlier, and the Doctor had talked to, though he didn't remember.
The man pressed a long sequence of numbers into a keypad on the wall, but unfortunately, neither of them was able to see what it was.
Both of the force fields dissipated, leaving an open space all of them eyed surreptitiously. The man didn't miss it, though, and stared at them. "Don't even think about it." He pulled out his gun. "Give me the sonic device and come with me," he ordered.
Rose, Jack, and the Doctor glanced at each other; the latter were questioning, Rose's affirmative. Rose was not used to not having the Doctor know what to do; not used to this stranger that knew nothing of her, of their life together.
The soldier walked swiftly back down the corridor; the prisoners fell into step behind him. Rose plucked up the courage to ask the question that was on all of their minds. "Where are we? What do you want with us? Who are you?" she demanded of the stranger.
His pace didn't slow; he answered without turning around. "You'll find out soon enough," he said infuriatingly.
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They were led down so many different corridors, that they all soon lost all sense of direction. Rose began to wonder if he was purposely taking a maze-like route in an effort to confuse them.
At last, he stopped in front of a heavy metal door, and typed in yet another long code. He positioned his body in front of the keypad, though; not taking any chances that one of them might see it.
It slid open noiselessly, which was quite a feat, considering. The tall man walked in without waiting for them.
They were greeted with the sight of a bustling community. Squadrons walked back and forth across the huge area, receiving orders. Others were attending to huge aircrafts. The trio watched all of this for a moment before rushing to catch up with the big man, who hadn't waited for them, already being used to the sight.
He led them through the bustling crowd, which was parting automatically, giving them a wide berth. This man was obviously very influential based on the respect everybody seemed to give him.
They passed under yet another doorway, though this one scanned each of them as they walked through. No alarms or anything went off, so Rose assumed that meant they had clearance to be here.
This doorway entered into a smaller room, what looked like an office, with a clear table in the center with a chair behind it. Occupying the chair was a man with a green design covering part of his face, like a tattoo. Rose and the Doctor immediately recognized him as a Kahler, the Doctor having known him by the markings on his face and Rose remembering what little the Doctor had told her about the species.
The man was occupied with working on something on his desk, which had lit up and projected a hologram in the air in front of him. He was in the process of manipulating the image (kind of like Tony Stark in the movie Iron Man,) Rose thought.
However, upon seeing them enter the room, he turned the desk off and stood. "What is the meaning of this, Rak?" he demanded angrily. "I'm in the middle of something! Why have you brought me these prisoners?"
"Mas, they were concealing a weapon that was able to damage the containment unit they were in. And this one," he gestured to Rose, "appears to have retained her former knowledge of these two. They have met before, it looks like, and she was able to remember everything."
The commanding officer's demeanour immediately changed. "How does that work? How have you managed to beat our systems?" he muttered as he slowly walked around the desk to get a better look at Rose.
This man was starting to creep her out at this point, what with him being in her face, so she said loudly, "Do you mind? Personal space, yeah?"
He stepped back immediately, wearing an insincere smile, and apologized coolly. "Of course; forgive me. It is… intriguing having a subject such as yourself who has escaped the fate of so many others here. You will pardon my curiosity."
"Yeah, mate, listen, I'm not exactly in the mood to have a nice, long, meaningless chat right now, so I'll get straight to the point. Why the hell are you doing this? What do you need us for?"
He bristled noticeably, a bit put off by Rose's forward attitude, but kept a calm exterior. "I am not going to simply reveal to you all of our plans for this war," he said scathingly, but then paled visibly as Rose's eyes began to shine with a golden light.
When she spoke, her voice was smoother, more elegant. "You will tell them why you need innocents to fight your war for you. I am the Bad Wolf. I see everything in you, everything you are, and I look down on you."
Mas was intrigued, and (though he would never admit it) a little intimidated. This… thing, whatever it was, (for he knew it could not have been Rose who had spoken) could be interesting. He made a spur-of-the-moment decision to tell them what he had planned. At best, it would gain the Bad Wolf's trust and save him from whatever the Bad Wolf would do. At worst… He didn't want to think about that.
"Pull up a chair," he said as the light in Rose's eyes faded.
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"We developed a serum comprised of midazolam and scopolamine to help with the amnesia. This way, the people would have no memory of their lives before we administered the drug, making them more willing to comply with us. The brilliant thing about these chemicals is that they only affect personal memory, not general knowledge. The people given the injection would then become the perfect soldier, ready to fight in a war we desperately need help in," he finished.
"So that's what you gave us, then?" Jack interjected, trying to understand their part in all of this.
"Yes. Though, for some reason, it didn't work on her." He gestured to Rose.
"Why Jack, though?" Rose asked, confused. "He's just a normal bloke from Earth! Not even from this planet! Why would you need him, instead of just snatching other citizens around the planet?" Rose demanded, angry at having her friend dragged into this mess for seemingly no reason.
"We are running low on resources. We send out teams regularly to seek out people who have a strong moral code, and draft them into our army," he explained patiently.
His behavior seemed to aggravate Rose further. How could he be so callous about this? They were actively kidnapping people off the streets, and this man just sat there, perfectly fine with sending them to their deaths without them even remembering anything about themselves!
There was no point in angering him, though; he was clearly the commanding officer here, and could easily have them killed on the spot if he so wanted.
"So what's your plan for us now, then?" the Doctor asked. "We certainly aren't going to fight in your army. Not that we would have anyway, but…"
Mas just smiled and said, in a tone that sent chills down everybody's back, "Oh, I think you can be very useful to us."