Ohh, a long one, hey?
How exciting! At least, it is for me... I hope it is for you.

Got some more good Doctor/Fyffe moments, some more irritating Madison (but I love her really, cause she adds such a good dynamic to the group) and a brief nod to the wildlife of the planet.

Comments are always welcome, I thrive on them :)

Streams of sunlight filtered down through the dust clogged air of the city and shimmered in the heat, presenting an almost calming, magical image, if it weren't for the raging fire, fractured buildings and occasion heart rendering scream that issued from beneath.

Since the primary shock and confusion of the bombing had begun to fade, the city streets had emptied themselves of people in their rush for sanctuary. Only an occasional flicker of life was seen as someone would hurry across a broken street and, even through the scattered bursts of noise from the bombs, Tendra had adopted an almost eerily and desolate personality: a feeling of emptiness and lost hope.

Despite the fact that there appeared to be no sign of any enemy, the Doctor, Fyffe and Madison automatically crept through the deserted streets, keeping close to the edges of the buildings as though they did not want to disturb the strange haunted atmosphere that had seemed to settle.

Pausing at a corner, Madison silently pointed down a long street, indicating the way towards the fabled computer data base. It looked the same as every other road they had come across; dirty, dusty and filled with smoldering lumps of brickwork.

On the world of Pericolo, there were no such things as birds - in fact, the closest thing to a bird upon the planet was a small, strangled looking thing known as a Leaper-Lizard, and it was one of these which was now soaring through the smoky air above Tendra. If it had had half a brain cell, it would have watched with curiosity at the three little black shapes that were winding through the streets below. The one far in the lead was moving at a steady gait, and looked to the lizard like a little golden blob. The figure behind was constantly twisting its blob if short brown hair, as though looking around. Of course, this meant nothing to the Leaper-Lizard as it now swooped lazily above the Doctor and Fyffe, just as they, far below, were oblivious to the sinewy creature in the air above them. The girl stopped in the middle of the road and turned to look at the Doctor.

'I don't know how old I am,' she said spontaneously.

The Doctor paused in confusion and then ran his eyes quickly over her as she stood in front of him. 'You look about… fourteen?'

Just as he had seen her do before, she put her head on one side and twisted her mouth in consideration. As Madison caught up with them, Fyffe shrugged one shoulder and said: 'that means nothing to me,' before wandering off again.

The Doctor watched her with his mouth slightly open and Madison followed her drifting movement, wondering what insane comment she had just missed. As she turned to speak to the Doctor, she realized that he was already halfway down the road, following the girl. She did a small double take and then scuttled after them. As she once again caught up with the Doctor, she began whispered to him in a never ending stream of thought.

'…So, lets see if I can understand this, cause you didn't give me much time to take it all in. You were in your ship, called the Tardin –'

'– TARDIS,' interjected the Doctor.

'That's what I said,' quipped Madison, the Doctor rolled his eyes; 'anyway, your Tardisen broke or something, so you crashed out in the woods and lost your shoe. When you woke up, part of your Tardic was missing which meant that you couldn't fix it… because it was… dead?'

'My TARDIS, is… was a living ship. It was alive. And the bit of it that made it alive, the heart of the TARDIS, the part that was on a parallel time flux to the vortex, is gone. So now my ship is, well, in simple terms, its dead. Got it?'

Madison face adopted a sarcastically blank expression. 'Yeah,' she said cynically, 'I know. So, anyway, as well as finding out your Tardet was dead, you also discovered a blond girl who was sitting on a long and watching you. When you asked her who she was, she paused as though she didn't know, and then told you she was called Fyffe. She then led you off through the forest, picked up a twig, stared at it for a while, and you two had a nice heart to heat talk...'

The Doctor frowned as he pressed his back into the blackened brickwork of a building. The quietness of the street was beginning to pry on his mind.

'Then you arrived here…' the incessant voice of Madison continued. 'God knows how you made it through that burning gate, but I'll put that down to your general Time Lordyness, and after that you saved my life, followed me to my house, ransacking the place while looking for food, shoes and information, and now,' she paused for breath, 'you've persuaded me to take you right to the opposite end of the city, into the most civic building we have, down into the hugely important data base, so that you can find out information about this planet and city, so that you and Fyffe can apparently stop this war single handedly.'

The Doctor peered around the corner of the building, then darted his head back round again. He glanced at Madison, 'uh… basically… yeah.'

She shook her head, 'and none of that strikes you as downright stupid or odd?'

In response, the Time Lord shrugged one shoulder and said, 'you should have seen the day I had when I went to Satellite Five.' Madison frowned in confusion and as the Doctor darted around the corner, she was just able to hear him murmur, 'Daleks and Ann-droids and stupid naked Jack.'

Once around the corner, the Doctor found Fyffe standing frozen in front of him, gazing blankly forwards as though deep in concentration. When the Doctor turned to see what she had been looking at, he found his eyes begin to itch and a strange sensation creep over the back of his head, like an icy hand running its fingers through his hair. He frowned and squinted at the giant marble building that loomed up in front of him. Of the whole city, it was the only thing that was beautifully white, clean, and completely un-bombed. A wide grin spread slowly across his face.

'Perception filter!' He said eagerly to Madison as she appeared around the corner, 'Brilliant!'
'You what?' said Madison slowly. Fyffe said nothing, but frowned at the building.

'Of course, you wouldn't know anything about it, and it would effect you 'cause you know its there, you wantto see it,' the Doctor said, as though he was making perfect sense.
'What filter thingy?' asked Madison, glancing at the building in confusion.

The Doctor rubbed his eyes, growing used to seeing the looming brickwork. 'A perception filter has been put on this building,' he explained rapidly. 'That means that it alters your perception so you justdon't notice it. Its what my TARDIS has…had.'

'And the filter doesn't affect me because…?'
'Because you know that building's there, you probably saw it being built, and because of that, you want to see it.'

Madison nodded, 'and you can see it because you're used to it… because the Tardise had one as well?'

The Doctor beamed at Madison's understanding, frowned at the misuse of the name of his ship, and smiled again at the fact that she was accepting things rather than trying to break his ear drum.

Fyffe stared at the building. 'It's a good defense mechanism, especially if it's the key to important information. But…' she shook her head, not wanting to go on. The Doctor glanced down at her, but when he saw she had nothing more to say, he raised his head to the splendor of the building.

'Shall we?' he asked, grinning widely and indicating with his arm for Madison to proceed.

After winding their way through the clean, yet deserted halls, and wandering through the maze of stairs, they found themselves in the lowest, deepest corridor of the building, standing in front of a chipped wooden door.

Madison gingerly gave it a push and it swung easily open with a spine chilling creak. The Doctor and Fyffe stepped into the room and stared blearily around.

'This it?' asked the Doctor.
'Yep,' said Madison pulling the door ajar behind them.

The room was small, square, and very white. At least, it had been small, square and very white before the years of neglect had sauntered along and kicked it in the face. Now it was just small, square, and a crumbling grey with dust and grime. But despite the smallness, it still managed to look extremely bare and empty. In fact, it put the Doctor in mind of the kind of small, square, white room that mental patients were locked into for their own apparent good. He sighed and his eye was drawn to the little pool of light in the middle of the room where, perched on a wobbly looking desk, sat an old, primitive and extremely dirty computer.

'That's… it?' he said.

Madison had a pinched expression on her face, as though she had been thinking the exact same thing as the Doctor. It wasn't exactly the most impressive thing. In fact, it was downright unimpressive… it was downright pathetic to be truly honest.

'Wow,' said Fyffe blandly and she drifted over to the computer and sniffed at it.

'You know… I would have thought it would have been more, I dunno, exciting than this,' Madison gazed forlornly at the little grey blob of the machine. 'Better guarded or, or cleaner or something… it does have all the information ever gathered from this planet on it.'

The Doctor shrugged. 'Sometimes looks can be deceiving,' he said, 'like screwdrivers.' Madison turned and gave him a curious look as he continued. 'You should never doubt a screwdriver; they've got so much potential. And yo-yo's. You should never mess with someone with a yo-yo… imagine the damage it could do.'

'Have you finished?'

Turning towards her, the Doctor gave Madison a resigned look. Behind him, Fyffe lent sharply back from the grey computer and let out a loud sneeze. She wrinkled her nose and the dust from the computer ticked it, then let forward slowly with a concentrated expression on her face. She flicked the machine. To her surprise, the blank screen suddenly lit up and it began coughing and spluttering into life. Tearing his gaze away from Madison, the Doctor's face split into a wide grin.

'That's more like it!' he said, and rushed to sit at the desk. Fyffe stood behind him and gazed at the screen, her blue eyes sparkling with excitement as the Doctor's hand began to scuttle across the keyboard. Madison stood by the doorway and watched, unsure if she wanted to join in.

'I'll, er… I'll just keep watch shall I?' she said at last, and lent out of the room. The corridor that they had come through was unsurprisingly empty, but it gave time for her to collect her thoughts and calm her mind: something which, until now, she had not been able to do. From inside, she could here the continuous clicking of the computer keys and had a brief moment of doubt as she wondered if she was doing the right thing. Then she thought about it harder and realized that she already completely trusted the strange man and even stranger child.

In the small, square, white room, the computer hummed merrily, happy to be doing something after thirty years of simply sitting. Its little screen flickered and crackled as files and lists jumped open to be viewed by two pairs of eyes, one blue and one brown. However, unknown to the little machine, it was doing something unspeakably amazing: it was giving up information that the Doctor didn't quite understand.

'What?' said the Doctor quietly to himself.
Fyffe leaned over his shoulder. 'What?' she asked.
The Doctor gazed at the ancient computer screen, and then looked up at the girl as though he only just realized that she was there.

'Hmmm?' he said distractedly.
'What was all that about then? She asked.
'What was what?' said the Doctor.
'That what…' she said, 'what was it?'
There was a moment's pause where the Doctor looked nonplussed.
'You what?'
Fyffe nodded her head towards the screen. 'What for the what,' she explained.
The Doctor stared hard into her face. 'What?'
Somewhere from the region of the door, Madison let out a groan and spun around before the tedious conversation could continue any further. 'She wants to know what you were whatting!' she said impatiently.

'Oh,' the Doctor glanced from Madison, to Fyffe, down at flickering screen, and then back at Madison. 'Oh… nothing…' he scratched his earlobe, 'it was just a general… y'know, exclamation of confusion and disbelief.'
'Oh, good grief,' said Madison.
'You like saying it don't you?' chimed in Fyffe.

The Time Lord shook his head distractedly and peered at the computer. After a few moments, he looked up at Fyffe, realizing that she had said something.
'I'm sorry,' he said, 'I like saying what?'
'What,' explained Fyffe.
'What?' asked the Doctor.
Madison put her head in her hands.

'Oh!' said the Doctor as his brain caught up with his ears. 'Oh… right, I likesaying what…that is... the word "what", not what do I like saying… right.' Fyffe raised her eyebrows and said nothing, while Madison peered out of the room again and wondered if she would be able to locate some form of aspirin… or a mallet.

The Doctor leant backwards in his chair and placed his feet on the table with a softthunk. For a moment he frowned, seemingly lost him his own thoughts. His five muddy toes on his single bare foot waggled experimentally in the cool air of the room while the Doctor tilted his head and stared upwards, a remote expression plastered upon his face. After scratching his cheek thoughtfully, he finally shrugged one shoulder in a half-hearted agreement.

'It's a good word,' he concluded, 'rolls of the tongue.'
'So does the word "influenza",' said Fyffe absently.

Madison gritted her teeth and swung herself back into the room, shooting a quick glance at Fyffe and saving her most venomous glare for the Doctor. Surely they must be aware of how idiotic they were being? They couldn't have that short an attention span, surely?

'I thought you two wanted information,' she muttered, 'and now you're wasting time talking about influenza, and the word what!… I don't even know what an influneza is!' She strided around the back of the desk and sharply slapped the Doctors bare foot. He flinched as her palm of her hand made contact and sheepishly removed both his feet from the desk. Giving him a curt nod of approval, Madison leant over him and began tapping on the keyboard.

'Alright then,' she said, pouring over the dusty screen. 'So… what was the problem?'
'What, before or after we started 'whatting' to much?'
'Shut up,' said Madison absent mindedly.
'Good point,' said the Doctor.

Fyffe wandered around the edges of the room and ran her hand distractedly over the grimy brickwork. From behind her, she could hear the Doctor trying to explain to Madison what he had been whatting and why. But it didn't matter to her anymore… Not only had the Time Lord not been able to comprehend the information, but neither had she. Not that that was surprising... she was sure the letters were familiar, but she still couldn't work out how to think in the right way in order to understand them. Everything was to… confusing.

The Doctor's voice drifted over from the computer. '… with my TARDIS dead, there are only so many languages I can translate. And this language,' there was a small thunk as the Doctor tapped the screen, 'I've no idea about.'

Madison shook her head at the unfamiliar blobs.

Without warning, the door to the room suddenly burst open with a shattering sound. As the three inhabitants of the room sprang upwards at the sound, they found themselves staring into the barrels of six black guns. Between the splintered doorway, came the over-enthusiastic, wide eyed General of Tendra's army. He stopped in the centre of the room and glowered at the Doctor, Madison and Fyffe as they were ushered into a line in front of him.

'Well well well,' he said, in perfect imitation of a stereotypical villain, 'what do we have here then?'

Onwards we go...
I've got big plans for the next section. Well... probably not that big. But good enough to excite me.

Hope you enjoyed