NOTE: Again, sorry about the wait between chapters. Working so many jobs takes its toll! I hope I haven't lost yer interest!
Lots of Classic Who reference in this!
Chapter twenty-four
"This is seeming like a worse idea by the second."
"Have some faith in me, Pond."
The Doctor yanked another set of wires out from the exposed panel in the wall and looked them over. Kraid was vibrating his wings in what Amy deiced was probably anxiety as the Doctor tore apart the carefully engineered Matrix. Rory was standing by with a heap of wires looped over his arms and around his neck that the Doctor had asked him to hold. After having reconnected several dozen circuits the Doctor finally pulled away with single wire in his hand. Cutting the wire into two pieces he stripped off the plastic covering.
"Okay, all set." The Doctor announced. "Rory you can put those wires down, I found what I was looking for."
"Doctor," Kraid clacked his mandibles "I must agree with your companion, this is unwise. Without the Crown you risk exposing yourself to the entirety of the Matrix."
"That won't happen." The Doctor stepped up and kissed Amy's cheek. "I'll see you in a few minutes."
"Wait..."
The Doctor didn't give Amy any time to further voice her concerns. With his sonic in hand he brought the exposed ends of cut wire up to his lips he bit down on the foul tasting metal. Flicking the sonic open caused the two severed wires to jump to life. With a flash of pain the Doctor arched back and everything went to black.
Waking up on the shimmering floor of the raw Matrix the Doctor took a moment to orient himself to the new micro-Universe. The rainbow glitter that raced colours across the floor and up the walls to the ceiling far above had a hypnotic effect to it. Getting to his feet the Doctor looked around the vast desolate landscape of mind numbing colour. A sudden rush of noise forced him to cover his ears, although it did little to block out the millions of voices that were all speaking at once. Welding his eyes shut as the chaotic noise became increasingly painful the Doctor concentrated on blocking them out.
"Stop!" The Doctor roared.
Just as quickly as the voices had come they were gone. Opening one eye the Doctor hesitantly lifted his palms from his ears. Finding that it was safe he dropped his hands back to his sides and opened his eyes again. The dizzying flicking colours were still nauseating. Concentrating to control the world around him the Doctor managed to recreate the very first control room of the TARDIS in the space around himself. Looking around at the simple console design the Doctor smiled to himself. He had been trying to reconstruct the look of the current TARDIS, but he decided that he liked this one better for now anyway.
"Hello, Doctor."
The Doctor turned around at the sound of the delicate feminine voice and discovered a beautifully familiar face. The woman that was standing a few feet away had her hair pulled back in a complicated set of braids and a white flowing Gallifrean gown. The Doctor broke into a bright smile at the sight of her, but she stared at him without any trace of emotion.
"Romana?"
"I am not Romana. I am a construct of Romana's personality created by the Matrix to act as an interface." Romana's construct smiled. "However, you may call me Romana for connivance."
"I think that I will." The Doctor smiled. "Of all the faces of Gallifrey I have always missed yours the most."
"State your purpose, Doctor."
"Purpose? I was just being friendly."
"There is no need to be friendly, Doctor, I am an interface." Romana explained once again. "Your presence in the Matrix appears to be unauthorized, my security systems are getting conflicting reports about you. State your purpose before the Matrix comes to the decision to throw you out."
"Ah, there, you see?" The Doctor chuckled. "There is some Romana in there, any other personality would have just kicked me out without even given me a chance."
"Your purpose, Doctor."
"I need all of the bio-data information on the Valeyard."
"Do you have permission to access those records?"
"Permission?" The Doctor repeated confused. "Permission from whom?"
"Access is granted to Time Lords for bio-data by the Lord President of Gallifrey."
"Romana...there is no President, there is no Gallifrey." The Doctor replied.
"Explain."
"How can you not kno...oh, of course, this is still the old version of the Matrix, copied into my head before the end of the Great Time War." The Doctor sighed. "You don't know what happened. Usually I'd let you learn it from my mind, but I'm not really comfortable making that kind of connection with you without the Crown of Rassilon."
"You are not making any sense, Doctor."
"Never mind." The Doctor shook his head sadly. "Please, Romana, it is of the utmost importance that I learn everything I can about the Valeyard."
"The Matrix requires permission for access to bio-data."
"You know I was wrong, you are nothing like Romana." The Doctor said sourly. "She loved to bend the rules."
"I can not allow you access to bio-data with permission from the highest Time Lord." The construct repeated.
"The highest Time Lord? These days that's me."
"The Doctor was given the title of Lord President of Gallifrey by Councilman Flavia, however, if my memory serves me, and it always does...after pretending to accept you ran away from that responsibility."
"I didn't run." The Doctor said indignantly. "Wait, I did accept though, that makes me Lord President even if I wasn't, you know, exactly in office long. And as President I hear-by give myself permission to full access to the Matrix and all bio-data."
The Romana construct narrowed her eyes suspiciously at the Doctor. He smiled brightly at her in hopes that she would accept his mostly faulty logic. Suddenly looking very much like Romana she rolled her eyes and sighed in defeat.
"Very well, Lord President."
Romana turned to the side and brought her hands up. A flat panel appeared in the air that the Doctor stepped up to for a closer look. Bio-data and saved memories from the Valeyard streamed across the panel. Everything from his attempts to have the Doctor executed for breaking Time Law to the gruesome murders in the London streets from when he had taken on the persona of Jack the Ripper.
"No, no this is useless." The Doctor growled in frustration. "This is Valeyard that I knew, the one I fought in the past, but that entire destiny was erased along with Gallifrey. This one is something new."
"I can only supply you with the information that I have." Romana replied as she snapped the panel out of existence.
"Fine, how about we look at what started all of this. I want the information on the Timonic Fusion Device. What really happened to the Minyan home world?"
Romana nodded and her eyes lost focus for a moment. She went to raise her hands to recreate the information panel however she lowered them again.
"I'm sorry, Doctor, that file is corrupted."
"Corrupted? How?"
"There are multiple versions of events that all occur at the same time. Two of them involve President Romana, but they are in-congruent. So is the third version which states that Minyos was destroyed by Civil War."
"One must be the truth. I know the war on Minyos is a lie, but why make two cover stories? That doesn't make any sense, unless...Romana did you go back on your own Timeline?"
"That would be a breach of Time Law."
"And you're just the person to do that." The Doctor pointed out. "What happened?"
"Those files are corrupted." Romana insisted.
"No, you're just trying to protect yourself. Romana, what made you break Time Law?"
"I am not Romana I am a..."
"Stop it, the Matrix is more complicated than that." The Doctor snarled. "You are an chemoorganic replica of Romana's whole mind, her whole personality, you *are* Romana. Now tell me what you did!"
Romana opened her mouth to protest once again, but she suddenly hung her head in defeat. The Doctor reached out to touch her but she pulled away. When Romana looked up once again tears streaked her pale cheeks.
"I did what I had to, Doctor." Romana confessed. "Behind my back the High Council had commissioned for construction and testing of the Timonic Fusion Device, a device that turned time into energy. One second taken out of time and transformed would yield the energy of a hundred super novas."
"This was long before the Time War, what did the Time Lords need with a weapon of that power?"
"It was being developed as a preventative measure."
"And they tested it, it destroyed the Minyos home world."
"Yes."
"And you went back to stop them?" The Doctor asked. "Is that how you went back on your Timeline?"
"No." Romana whispered. "The tests went as planned I would have never known, if not for the fact that a great enemy of mine went back and stole the device to use it to dethrone me as proof that I was supplying lower creatures with Time Lord tech. So I went into the Matrix to learn all that had happened and all that should have happened. In the end I went back and stopped the theft."
"Knowing that a world would be destroyed once you did?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you stop it?"
"I couldn't let anyone know I had broken Time Law to go back and change things to my advantage."
"Billions died so that you could keep your job?" The Doctor snarled.
"It was more complicated that than and you know it, Doctor." Romana said defensively. "The Time Lord scientist never meant to destroy Minyos, that was an accident. They only removed a thousandth of a second from time, the explosion was far more devastating that they could ever have imagined."
"Did the Time Lords ever learn about the side effects of their 'experiment' had on those who survived?"
"There were no side effects, the Minyans who escaped found their Race Bank, with your help, and live on."
"No, there were others, locked in agelessness by the radiation caused by the device. Who is to say that they were the only ones? You know the dangers of such a weapon, don't you?"
"Of course I do, I am the Matrix." Romana said indignantly. "Removal of a second of time from a fixed point could result in the sealing of time. Past, Present, Future, they would all become independent."
"It would time time up into knots! There would be the potential for paradoxes everywhere, time travel would become infinitely simpler and there is no telling how many species would master it and shred time as they bounced through it. They would have no way of understanding that each change would then result in a whole new set of circumstance without erasing the old. It would be chaos that could not be repaired."
"The project was closed after the first test, Doctor. There is no more danger from the Timsonic Fusion Device."
"I'm not so sure, I think the Vale..."
The Doctor was stopped when the cacophony of sound from the Matrix returned twice as loud as before. Dropped to his knees the Doctor clamped his hands over his ears once more as the noise cut through him. The interior of the TARDIS and even the construct of Romana dissolved as the Doctor lost his control of the Matrix. Back in the vast chamber of silver and rainbow glass the Doctor cried out as the entirety of the Matrix tried to speak to him at once.
The Doctor didn't understand how he had suddenly lost control over the Matrix as he battled to regain his hold on it. Above the mind splitting din of the Matrix a single voice rose above the others in a cry of agony. At first the Doctor doubled his efforts to block out the sound, but when finally recognized the voice he switched his full attention to it. Pain seared at his temple and he cried out in unison with the frightened voice in his mind.
"River?" The Doctor gasped. "River?!"
Looking around the Doctor could only see the glittering rainbow labyrinth. Scrambling to his feet the Doctor raced to the nearest iridescence wall and slammed his shoulder into it. Striking his palm against the diamond hard surface he returned to throwing his shoulder into the wall until sweat rolled off his skin.
"Let me out! Now!" The Doctor demanded. "Let me out or I will tear this place apart!"
Usually it would be his control over the workings of the Matrix that would allow him a graceful exit. However with River still screaming for help in his mind and the rest of the Time Lords trying to impart their wisdom and experiences on him there was no hope of harnessing the massive living computer once more. Working hard to keep his sanity through the onslaught of information the Doctor slammed into the wall once more.
The wall didn't so much shatter as just vanish and the Doctor pitched forward and sprawled out on a marble floor. Looking up he was just in time to see Rassilon attacking his Eigth regeneration who was pinned to the floor with his hands bound behind his back. Rassilon tore at his prey's shirt before pressing his hands against each one of the Doctor's hearts. Watching his past from a different point of view the Doctor's eyes widened in shock as the all too familiar pattern of golden spirals and lines lit up the Eighth Doctor's chest. Rassilon got to his feet and looked down on the Doctor as the pattern vanished.
"Wha...what did you do to me?" Both incarnations of the Doctor asked in unison.
"I bestowed you with a blessing and a curse, Doctor." Rassilon smiled cruelly before turning about to face the current Doctor. "Haven't you figured it out yet? Here's a hint."
The Doctor took a step back as Rassilon approached only to knock into a cold metal table. With the scene suddenly changed the Doctor turned to find himself in a dimly lit morgue. The Doctor jerked back from the sight of his Seventh body stretched out and cold on the table. His chest was cracked open where they had at first tried to save him, and then had turned into an invasive autopsy of his unique physiology. The Doctor rubbed at his own ribs remembering the bullet wounds that had landed him in the unfortunate care of Walker General Hospital. He had woken with a new face in the morgue, but he didn't have any memories of how devastating the injuries had been.
"I...I died...I was properly dead. How..."
Before the Doctor could question how he had managed to raise from the dead a powerful force struck him in the chest. Suddenly on his back the Doctor ground his teeth together against a metallic taste as the blow to his chest repeated itself. Someone was trying to yank whatever it was he was biting down away from him and he was determined to not let it happen. The third and most powerful concussion to his chest knocked his breath away and he reflecivly released the wires he had been holding between his teeth. Blinking a few times he looked up at Amy who was kneling over him. Rory was straddled over his hips ready to give his chest another thumping if need be.
"Amy?"
"Doctor?" Amy asked worried. "Are you with us?"
"I am...what happened?" The Doctor ask as he pushed Rory off and sat up.
"We figured you couldn't get out." Amy explained. "Everything was okay for a few minutes but then you clampped down on that wire with nearly enough force to break your jaw. What happened?"
"Alkinar!" The Doctor gasped sharply as he recalled River's cries.
"Alkinar?" Rory asked.
"Alkinar was a prison, a nightmare, a den of torture and misery." The Doctor panted in panic as he briefly recalled the conditions in the derelict prison planet. "A long time ago I spent a month in Alkinar, but someone told me it had been a thousand years...I would have believed them."
"Dare I ask why you're bringing it up now?" Amy asked hesitantly.
"Because it is the spot where the Valeyard has made his first and last mistake." The Doctor snarled darkly as he got to his feet. "Come along, Ponds."
"Where are we going?"
"To War."