AFTER A TIME
The Doctor stepped forward and opened the door, just a smidge, just enough to see and hear. He peered through the narrow opening and saw Martha sitting on the floor against the wall, bound at her wrists and ankles. This sight seemed to him the last straw. One kind of insidious monster snatches people and consciousnesses using data – that was bad enough. But it's a total savage who keeps them prisoner by tying them up.
He clenched his teeth. Unable to stop himself, he whispered, "Oh, you are so going down."
"What did you do?" Windselt asked her calmly, pacing slowly back and forth like a proper villain.
"I assimilated them into my mind," Martha answered with a confused frown. "I guess. I mean, I think."
The Doctor smiled a bit, and again, whispered to himself, "Clever, clever girl."
"How did you do it?"
"I don't know, I guess I had some residual Time Lord mojo left, after you took..." she sighed.
Windselt stopped and looked at her squarely, with angled eyebrows. "Tell me how it works! Tell me now!"
"I don't know!" she shouted.
"What?" he shouted back. "How can you not know?"
"I just don't! I did it – that's all I know!"
He put both hands on his hips. "Well,one thing is for sure. You can't remain very long with all of those broken girls in your mind, or you will implode somehow," he announced. Then he cocked his head to one side. "Won't you?"
She smiled in spite of herself, and shrugged as much as she could. "Why are you asking me? I have no idea!"
"Rubbish!" he cried out. "Tell me everything, or so help me!"
"So help you what? You'll disperse my data? Kill me? Aren't you going to do that anyway?"
"Playing fast and loose with your life. Very brave, and also very stupid. I didn't think the Doctor was wont to surround himself with imbeciles, let alone sleep with one."
She chuckled, dispairing for anything better to do or say. "At this stage, Windselt, you know everything that I know."
"Oh, to hell with you, Martha Jones," Windselt said angrily. "I'll bloody well figure it out for myself!" He took a deep breath, and seemed to become corporeal. Martha reckoned that this was exactly how he had been able to tie her up and bring her here.
He stalked toward her and yanked her sideways by the arm, and tried to drag her toward the computer. She had no leverage to fight, nor to move along with him – she was just a bit better than dead weight.
"Cooperate, or I will take you by the hair!" he yelled.
The Doctor, still watching the action, felt another mad surge of anger well up in his chest, but he waited. He didn't know quite what the fiend was planning on doing now, and he knew that most of the innocent bystanders were safe. Martha was, after all, his partner. Though he loved her and hated seeing her manhandled, she had taken on this life with him, and he reckoned she could handle a bit of the rough, especially if it would reveal more about the bad guy's plans.
Martha was trying her best to move her feet, though neither the Doctor nor Windselt could tell whether she was trying to work against being moved across the room, or whether she was trying to speed the process along.
Windselt all but dumped Martha behind the main computer, then his figure went back to the see-through, wispy vision, as he usually appeared. She lay on the floor on her side, still bound, watching. He punched in a few numbers, and then took the microphone from the desk.
"Thank you, Doctor," he muttered. "How very kind of you to make this so convenient for me."
Martha had seen when she was snooping through Windselt's computer, that the Doctor had rigged it so that a breath into the microphone would make a perfect imprint of a person's energy signature-cum-data code. She knew what Windselt wanted from her, and he wasn't going to get it.
She may not be a Time Lord for the moment, and perhaps even if Windselt "replaced" her data, she would simply wind up in Robert Oliver's hard drive. But she had witnessed him becoming flesh and bone. She knew what he could do. And she had the distinct feeling that if he found out that she really didn't have anymore powers, he would resort to a punishment that was a bit more hands-on than data transfers.
He held the micronphone near her mouth. "Blow."
She held her breath and shook her head, not daring to let out a breath, or to speak.
"Do it!" he screamed, losing patience.
This ellicited no response from her, other than silence.
"Do it, or I will draw out your Doctor, and force him to give up his powers for you," he threatened. Then he smiled. "It will be so romantic, just like Superman II. Won't that be nice?"
She rolled to her left, away from him, and attempted to sit up. She was in good shape, but it had been a while since she'd used her stomach muscles properly, and she strained rather unduly.
Windselt let out a cry of frustration at her. He took another deep breath, this time concentrated a little harder, and became corporeal again. From watching the effort this took, the Doctor guessed that he couldn't do it forever at will. It was sapping energy from him.
He pulled her down, and forced her lie on her back. Martha hit her head on the floor as he did this, and she let out a slight grunt, but didn't dare make any other noise. He knelt with one leg across her hips, and one leg across her chest and arms. She gasped with the pressure, but tried very hard not to cry out or let out any air.
Windselt pressed his elbow against her forehead, now properly restraining her, holding down virtually every part of her. He shoved the microphone against her mouth and said, "You'll have to exhale sometime."
That was it for the Doctor.
Within a few seconds, he typed a message into the terminal at his side, then threw open the door.
"Let go of her, right now," the Doctor growled.
"I don't think so," Windselt replied whimsically. "I'll have those powers off her, one way or another."
"Let her go right now, and I might not kill you." Having watched Martha dragged and abused by an alien foe had been difficult to do, but he had put up with it for a purpose. Now, he was done.
Windselt laughed. "Oh, Doctor. You forget, I know you. Your people, peaceful to a fault. And you… the universe's great flower child. Love everyone, never kill, no violence, ever!"
The Doctor made eye-contact with Martha for a couple of seconds, and her eyes were pleading. He looked toward her legs. They were flailing as much as possible, but the angle of Windselt's body would not let her move much.
"Take heart, Doctor," he said. "It's better her than you. Besides, I'm more than just a wisp of data now, that you can just dispatch with your sonic screwdriver. I am…"
He was interrupted by a blow to the face from the rubber toe of a white Converse trainer. He recoiled and flew back into the wall. Martha let out a huge exhale, grateful to have air flowing through her lungs again.
"Blimey!" the Doctor exclaimed. "You talk too much, mate. And that's saying something, coming from me."
Windselt blinked several times and seemed to try to gather himself. He seemed shocked. He put his hand beneath his nose and felt a trickle of blood, and looked at it with total bewilderment. "That… hurts! And look – blood! I have blood?"
The Doctor knelt and began to untie Martha. "That'll happen when you get yourself kicked in the face."
"No, but… it hurts! I feel pain! How inappropriate is that?" the now-once-again wispy being continued. "Like a common corporeal being! I was kicked, and now I feel discomfort – actual pain! How dirty I feel! How low class! How…"
"Oh, shut up!" the Doctor whined. He pointed the sonic at the babbling man and literally muted him. Windselt put his hands to his throat, again in wonder, and seemed to try in vain to yell.
"You all right?" the Doctor asked Martha, helping her stand up.
She smiled weakly and nodded, just barely. "Considering."
"Don't worry," he said, before taking her by the jaw with both hands and planting a firm kiss on her. "We'll get everyone back the way they're supposed to be. Everyone." He looked at her meaningfully, searched her eyes.
She gulped. She had almost forgotten in all the chaos, when she had begun this journey, she had been pregnant. Now she wasn't. She nodded again at him.
"Oh, but Doctor, I have to tell you," Martha said, suddenly remembering. "I have…" she couldn't quite articulate what she wanted to say. She put both hands on her head and looked at him desperately. She had eight women's energy signatures within her mind, and she couldn't find the words.
"I know," he told her. "I heard what you did. Heard you talking about it."
"Yeah," she sighed. "Why didn't you tell me before that we could do that?"
He shrugged. "Never came up. Now you know. I'm just glad you worked it out in time to…"
"But that's just it, Doctor. It wasn't in time, really. Those women – they're not right. I don't know if you'll ever be able to get them back the way they're supposed to be."
"What do you mean, they're not right?"
"Well…" she said, looking round the room, trying to think fast. She was noticing a marked slow-down of her faculties ever since being dragged here by Windselt. She hated it – she had always considered herself rather intelligent. God, what dolts humans must seem to the Doctor. She was just now gaining perspective on that.
She was inside the internet. She had surreal tools all around her, things that she never would have thought possible. She had met a non-corporeal being who could literally program himself to do almost anything he wanted. Entire human beings could disappear with a keystroke, be uploaded and downloaded and changed with just the right set of ones and zeroes. There had to be some way of expressing, showing the Doctor what she meant when she said that the women were "not right."
"Is there a way to see back in time?" she wanted to know. An hour ago, she would have known the answer to that question.
"Not a specific moment, not like what you're talking about. Not from here, anyway," he told her. "I'd need the TARDIS."
She sighed with frustration.
Just then, they heard Windselt make a noise. Whatever silencing cloak the Doctor had put on him, he'd managed to undo it.
The Doctor wandered over to deal with Windselt.
Martha glanced around the room again, searching. Then it hit her, as she watched the Doctor kneel down and incapacitate the villain with a flick of the sonic. The single greatest tool she had, the single greatest thing in the universe, was a Time Lord.
"Doctor! You can see them!" she shouted, kneeling down with him. She grabbed his hands and pressed them to her temples. He reacted with surprise. "Just look! You can do that, right?"
But suddenly she felt funny. She began to tingle. It was a familiar sensation, but it was building much more slowly.
He looked her up and down. "Yes, I could have, but I can't now, Martha," he said to her quickly. "I'm sorry – you're being downloaded. I'll see you on the other side. Okay? I love you."
Her face melted into worry, and hurt. "What? You told Robert Oliver to download me? How could you? I've got to stay with you!"
He'd known she would probably react this way. And he felt the hypocrisy of this decision, given that he had, just a few minutes earlier, decided to wait to "rescue" her from Windselt, because she was his partner and it had been her choice to fight alongside him. But there were now things to consider, over and above Martha's hurt feelings or personal comfort, and he was certain that she would understand. If not now, then later.
"You're not alone in there, Martha," he said, trying to touch her head, which had already gone a bit transparent. "We have others to think about. Plus, sorry love, but you're not equipped anymore to have other people bouncing around inside your brain. Haven't you noticed your thinking slowing down?"
"I just thought it was because I'm not an honorary Time Lord anymore."
"Well, sort of. But not just that. It's because you must have worn down your Time Lord energy assimilating them, which turned you back into a regular (if extraordinary) human being, which means you can't hold them for long without burning up."
"That's why? So, as a Time Lord on my own, I'm of absolutely no use? That's a catch… what is it?"
"A Catch-22. Martha, you're really slowing down. You have to get out of here now. If you stop talking, it'll go faster."
She sighed. "Why is it so slow?"
"He's downloading you as a Zip file," he answered. "It takes longer. All those pieces of living data inside you…"
She faded into almost an invisible screen of white. "Oh, Doctor! Reconstitute us in the TARDIS!"
"Why?"
"It's all wrong, Doctor! Just do it!" she shouted before disappearing completely.
"Alone at last," the villain said in a deep, silky voice as he got to his feet. Once again, he had managed to reprogram himself.
The Doctor turned and faced him, without a word.
"I hadn't wanted it to come to this, Doctor, but I suppose it is for the best. Your Time Lord brain will be much more effective for me than that of your girlfriend. Especially now. Humans – pff."
"You were right to hope it wouldn't come to this, Windselt."
"Why's that?"
"Because you messed with my family. You don't want to be left alone with me."
"Oh, come off it. I know who you are. I know you won't…"
"What? Resort to violence?" the Doctor asked, with a smirk. He shoved his hands in his pockets and stepped forward a couple of feet. "How's your nose, Windselt?"
Instinctively, Windselt touched his bloodied nose and scowled. But then he stood up straight and smirked right back at the Doctor. His corporeal form faded back to ghostly. "My nose is much better, thanks. Especially now it has no nerves."
The Doctor crossed his arms and sighed, waiting to see what would happen next.
"If you're going to resort to violence, you'll have to be a lot cleverer than…"
The Doctor coolly pressed a button on the sonic, and Windselt's molecules, such as they were, began to hum.
"I don't like committing mindless acts of destruction, but I will," the Doctor growled.
"You wouldn't."
"A flick of my thumb would disperse your data throughout the entire internet. You'll never see yourself again."
"Unless I do what?"
"Oh, I'm not giving you an ultimatum. I'm just pissed off. You've already done the damage."
"Hm. I suppose I have."
"Yep. You've basically killed (or tried to kill, anyway) seventeen people, one of whom is my child, another of whom is his mother. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't splatter your ones and zeroes all over the walls."
"One good reason?" Windselt asked. He moved carefully one step, and planted himself in front of his computer terminal. The Doctor could see what he was about to do – he knew that Windselt's computer held his data code, since he had put it there – but he knew where all data would end up, should it come to that.
The Doctor's body began to hum as well.
"How predictable of you," the Doctor said.
"I believe we are now at an impasse," said Windselt, his finger on the button that he believed would replace the Doctor's data.
"I guess we are," the Doctor agreed.
"It's a question of who is the quicker draw."
"I guess it is."
They stood staring at each other for several moments, each with his finger on the trigger, as it were.
But as he tended to do, the Doctor had one last trick up his sleeve. And as they tended to do, the villain had underestimated the Doctor.
The ghostly being taunted, "Come on Doctor. Disperse me. Kill me. Rid the world of my menacing presence. You know you want to!"
The Time Lord flashed the sonic screwdriver at Windselt's computer, and caused a minor explosion out the back of the monitor. In panic, Winselt hit the button and disappeared.
"Oh, go download yourself," the Doctor muttered, shoving the sonic back into his pocket.