Chapter 10 - Hearts of Glass
Tomoko went to Dar and beamed at him. Dar met her gaze and his brain stuttered to a halt. This was the first time he'd seen her, since she'd been turned into a Time Lord and the shock of what she was now, left him speechless.
She was glorious. The hot bright spark of her had unfolded, like a butterfly finally escaping it's cocoon. She was radiant and glowing and he was instantly lost, feeling himself tumbling into her eyes with a sensation of wonderment mixed with horrified dread.
"I am so glad to see you are awake… ooo, that's a lump, isn't it? Hang on, I've got some supplies…," she chattered cheerfully at him and he forced a causal smile to his lips, trying not to show how desperately shaken he was.
"Hello, kid, yeah, bit of a concussion," he told her, struggling for words. For centuries, he'd been glib and smooth and just then, a reed-thin girl with huge hazel eyes was robbing him of speech and breath in a way that utterly terrified him.
"See if this helps," she pointed a tissue regenerator from the first aid kit at the wound and pressed the button. It hummed and the pain in his head vanished, but the confusion in his hearts only grew. She was being controlled by Rassilon and, at some point, in order to save everyone else, he might have to kill her. He knew now though, that doing so would cost him even more than he'd already known it would.
"Thanks kid, didn't want to die with a headache," he snorted, keeping his tone wryly amused and allowing no hint of his inner turmoil to be seen. This near to him, she was like a huge gravity well, pulling at him, and he had to fight to keep himself upright and away from her. He crossed his arms over his chest protectively, praying that the golden cord shimmering faintly between them would be lost in the general noise of all the other energy that was swirling around them.
"You're too useful for him to kill, especially if you behave," she informed him. "Right now, he's busy dealing with the Black Archive. Now come on, I am taking you both to the Main Computer Room to meet Rassilon."
"We've met before," Dar said dryly. It was an honour he would much rather have foregone, especially with his new found vulnerability. If Rassilon saw the cord between them, well, things could get even worse than they already were. Dar was of Rassilon's own line, a fact that he'd tried to ignore for a long time. However, it made him acutely vulnerable. He was a close enough biological match, to his less than esteemed ancestor, that he could be used as a bio-receptacle, if Rassilon decided he needed to switch bodies. A bond to a potential Arkytior channel could be quite a temptation for him.
"Well then perhaps the term would be 'Reunion?'" she chirped and Dar found this cheerful stranger to be a painfully bad copy of his own Tomoko. Terrified for her, as well as for himself, he forced a bland expression to his face.
"Yippee," Dar dead-panned, while nearby, Guinn just looked grim-faced.
Tomoko turned to address Freeya, who looked very small and frightened in the huge chair, wrapped up like a parcel and immobilized.
"You can stay tied up here, or go back to your cell, which would you prefer?" she asked and Dar eyed her measuringly. Just how much leeway was Rassilon giving her anyway? He didn't know for sure and he was being careful not to hope too much. Anything he said or did could be reported back to Rassilon by her, so he couldn't trust her, as much as he desperately longed to.
"I want to stay here," Freeya replied, her eyes on Guinn and her face very worried. Dar supposed that she wanted to be as close to Guinn as she could be and he understood that. Guinn, Koschei, and Susan were as near enough her parents now as made no difference.
"Fine," Tomoko agreed, still with that unnaturally cheery air, and waved Guinn and Dar off of the bridge. "This way," Tomoko paused, listening very intently, as several of the fireflies in her hair lit in patterns, then shook it off.
They followed after her through the bridge doors, which opened with a bit of a wheeze, rather than their usual whooshing sound. Guinn noted that there was a great deal of damage being repaired, presumably from when they had stolen the ship from the Shadow Proclamation. They went down several corridors where Manifold were working away at repairs.
"Are these the same Manifold from the Loops," Guinn asked, curious about how they came to be here, and Tomoko turned to answer him.
"Yes, these few survived the firing of the Lens and hid. They returned to where they were created, looking for their Mother," she explained and Guinn nodded his understanding.
"So they went back to the Command Centre looking for the Rani. What happened to them after that?" he asked.
"They were scared," Tomoko murmured, stroking a beetle as it wandered across her shoulder. "They can't function without a Mother and they were so few and they couldn't replicate without dying." She looked at them sadly and Guinn was struck by how gently she touched the insect. "So, they waited."
"And Rassilon found them?" Dar asked and Guinn tried not to notice the bond between him and Tomoko, or how Dar had his arms crossed and his head lowered in a self-protective stance.
"Yes!" Tomoko enthused. "He reached out to them from the computer systems and gave them a purpose, a mother who could guide them with wisdom." She looked exalted and Guinn felt sick. She'd been brainwashed, her natural rebellion and fire turned to a near religious fervour. He thought of how he'd wiped her personality, planned to upload something less 'difficult' into her and the self-loathing that triggered nearly made him vomit.
"Wonderful," he replied, hoping that his pained look would be put down to his injuries.
"Isn't it?" Tomoko agreed, smiling broadly, and then she resumed their trek to meet the monster that still haunted Guinn's dreams.
The Doctor looked up at Koschei and saw the way he was sitting. He was hunched over his tablet, shoulders drawn down and face looking pinched and he frowned.
"What's wrong?" he asked and Koschei looked up at him.
"I... I've been trying to reach Guinn," he admitted.
"And?" the Doctor prompted after a long silence.
"I can sense that he's still alive, but he's shut up tightly and there is something really wrong."
"Let's get to the Command Centre then, right away!" the Doctor replied, jumping to his feet.
"I don't think he's there anymore," Koschei told him, looking up with worried blue eyes.
The Doctor sat down slowly, running various thoughts through his head, calculating the various factors of how Rassilon thought.
"You think Rassilon has him." It was a statement, not a question.
"Yeah... I think that if it were anyone but Rassilon, he'd be yelling for help from me, rather than trying to hide his distress," Koschei explained and the Doctor nodded.
"We need to call Susan, tell her what happened," the Doctor pointed out and Koschei winced.
"I don't want to bother her while she's taking care of the kids, not when I only have a suspicion and no real facts," he protested and the Doctor leaned back and crossed his arms.
"It's your funeral," he finally replied and Koschei blinked at him, looking startled by the sentiment, but the Doctor knew how much Susan hated having things kept from her and was fairly sure that she'd go absolutely spare when she found out. Still, he also knew that interfering in another couple's marriage was always a bad idea. Unless he really wanted to.
Just then though, he had other things on his mind. Like stopping Rassilon.
The door to which Tomoko led Dar and Koschei had clearly been forced into the frame and then welded there, by the Manifold, judging by the little octagonal cells here and there.
Tomoko entered and bowed politely at Rassilon.
"One mechanical engineer, as requested," she told him. "And I brought along the spy too, since we're basically dealing with security."
"Thank you, Tomoko," he replied and then turned to look at them.
Dar tried not to feel sick, as the little boy's eyes turned to appraise him.
Justin had been a dark haired boy with blue eyes and a thin sensitive face. Now, he was inhabited by something so vile and terrible, it was like a horrible fat toad was squatting on his soul.
"Keep Captain Darginian under close observation," Rassilon instructed and then turned to look at Guinn. "Would you be so kind as to open these files for me? You are far too clever to have failed to figure out the consequences for disobedience."
With an abrupt nod, Guinn went to work and Dar noted that he couldn't seem to bring himself to look at Rassilon at all.
Tomoko had directed several fireflies towards Dar, who had settled on his shoulders and the cuffs of his sleeves, and then she had fallen into conversation with them. They would glow and Tomoko would move her hands around, as if she were speaking, but never said anything audibly.
He could feel tiny claws digging into the fabric of his sleeve and, despite himself, found himself feeling comforted by their presence. He knew what they were, knew that they could kill him in a heartsbeat, but even so, they seemed... friendly.
"Oh," she caught herself, and turned back to Dar. "I expect there are security protocols and things. If Guinn has trouble with them, I thought you could take a look."
"I very much doubt that he'll need my help," Dar replied, not wanting to have his hands occupied around Rassilon, just in case he had the opportunity to push him out an airlock or something.
"Then you get to stand around and do nothing, don't you? Like a holiday."
"Oh yes, very jolly," Dar replied.
"Do stop twittering you two," Rassilon scolded. "There is work to be done. Tomoko, get the good Captain a proper cell, summon the Singer, and then see if you can get this ship repaired."
"Repairs are at…" Tomoko looked at one of the fireflies, who glowed back at her, "Fifty-seven percent."
"You Tomoko, can go now and actually put your hands to work!" Rassilon explained to her in a tone of extreme patience.
"Of course," Tomoko agreed and Dar felt a little stab in his hearts as she beamed at Rassilon genially. He kept his arms crossed over his hearts and concentrated on not allowing Rassilon to get even a glimpse of what had happened between them.
She took him to his cell. It didn't look like much. It was the standard cot-and-forcefield arrangement typical of the Master's cells. She gestured, and several fireflies entered the cubicle with him.
"Ah, the Honeymoon Suite," he quipped and she chuckled and gestured at the fireflies.
"Here. These will keep you company." She paused. "You can talk to them, you know… they understand what you say," she told him and there was something hesitant in her manner just then, as though she wasn't quite sure why she was telling him that.
"Sure, kid, I'll tell them the unexpurgated accounts of my exploits," he replied and then looked at them. "On second thought, they seem a bit young for that, I'll edit out the dirty bits." She giggled.
"Will there be anything left after that?"
"Not a lot, no," he told her, with a mournful air.
"Well, then..." She stepped back, her hand on the forcefield control.
"Later, kid," he told her and then sat down on the cot and eyed the bugs. "Right, let's start with a little history lesson, shall we?" he began and his voice, telling stories to the fireflies, was what she heard as she headed back to do Rassilon's bidding. Dar sat in his cell, talking to the fireflies and wondering what he was going to do.
Tomoko rubbed her hands together as she came back onto the bridge.
"Hey, kid," she smiled at Freeya. "Afraid I've got a job for you; we're going to put you to work. You too, Aislynn."
"Doing what?" Freeya asked in an uncertain voice.
"You'll be doing what you are best at." Tomoko was working with Aislynn's bindings. "As for you, Aislynn, Rassilon wants to see you."
Aislynn's head jerked several times, strangely, but then she lifted her head again and looked at Tomoko with eyes that seemed somehow blanker than before.
"Off you go then, go on."
Aislynn stood up and moved rather robotically down the hallway.
"So," Tomoko returned to Freeya, worked with the bindings, freed her hands, and put a tablet in them. Several fireflies came and perched on it. Then she undid the rest of the child's bindings, and helped her to stand up.
"What's all this then?"
"I'm taking you back to the cell block. You can't stay on the bridge any more."
"But…" Her head turned to look down the hallway, towards where Guinn had vanished.
"I know, but it is the way it has to be." She took Freeya's hand and gave it a gentle pull, and the child followed her. "We have a problem… here, check it out. Go on."
Freeya turned on the tablet and looked at the damage report. In a moment or two she had spotted something that worried her, and zoomed in on it.
"Is that the Charged Tassadar Array?"
"It is," confirmed Tomoko.
"We're not going to be able to drop out of warp! We'll be stuck out here forever!"
"Don't be scared," Tomoko soothed. "We can drop out of warp. All it means is that we have to fix that panel."
"But it's on the outside of the ship!" Freeya's eyes were very round. "You're not going outside the ship while we're in warp, are you?"
"That's about the size of it." Tomoko replied and Freeya just stared at her with her mouth open. Tomoko nodded, it wasn't as though she didn't know how dangerous it was going to be, but there was a part of her that was almost looking forward to it.
She wasn't sure if her second thoughts were trying to get her killed, or if she was just pleased that she might be able to die for Rassilon, but either way, she was ready.