Chapter 26 - Recalibrating
Adie woke with a start and blushed furiously. She had never had the opportunity, nor the inclination, to lie with another person. Her mind had been bent on survival for so long, that she'd ignored that entire issue for centuries. Now, she was lying in her bed, aching inside for more of the tender sweetness that she'd experienced in the dream. The shattering desperation, the connection that had sung between them, pouring light into them, binding them closer to each other, had left her craving more of the same.
She buried her head in her pillow. She wasn't sure that with all the new thoughts and experiences in her head that she could bring herself to leave her room just then.
She felt as though she were transformed, that she was suddenly a completely different person, and that the minute she showed her face, everyone would know. She lay there for a while, not sure how to feel and then forced herself out of the bed. She was being silly, she decided.
She suddenly wanted to laugh, to sing, to twirl around her room and she did giggle, realizing that she was madly in love and she felt instantly guilty for such frivolous feelings, when so much danger surrounded them all. She had better get her head on straight, and in a hurry.
She wished momentarily that she had someone to talk to, someone who'd understand. She was surrounded by friends, all of whom she liked and trusted: Susan, the Doctor, Koschei, and even Guinn to a certain extent. None of them, however, were her age.
The Mashas all treated her like some sort of saviour, or possibly a mother figure, which was not what she needed just then.
Plus, while dreams were very nice, if they didn't find his bubble, and soon… well, it would likely be the last dream she would ever have with him.
That thought sobered her right up.
Rose had chosen their room on Susan's TARDIS and her delight in simple things was in strong evidence here. She'd chosen a sort of minimalist nautical theme of painted white furniture with blue and white striped fabric. Brass lamps and warm braided rugs, it wasn't anything fancy, but it was comfortable and homey.
The Doctor was lying in the big four poster bed, cuddling Rose to him, listening to the sound of her breathing with a sharp feeling of constriction in his chest. He loved her so much that sometimes it scared him. What would he have done if she'd died? He'd nearly lost her on the Ice Planet and now those waves of entropy threatened their lives again. How could her ever live without her?
She was so fragile. Everything was perilously fragile, like soap bubbles. He would build something to stand against the darkness and then it would get swept away from him again and again.
Rose murmured and turned in his arms, snuggling closer to him, and he buried his face in her hair, breathing her in and trying to stop the frantic pounding of his hearts.
She was still alive and still here and the children were still alive, he could hear their songs in his mind, sweet and clear, and it was going to be okay. He told himself that over and over, but it was so hard to make himself believe it.
Koschei lost himself in Susan, finding comfort in their bond, in the intense closeness of what was between them. Guinn twined around them both, being pulled into the bond and tied ever more tightly to them.
He'd been scared before, scared of Guinn causing a disruption of the bond between Susan and himself, scared that she might might love Guinn more, but it hadn't turned out that way. Instead, he'd found himself expanding, growing to encompass Guinn as well, coming to love his other self and to feel protective of him.
Now his fears were all for Guinn. He hated how the guilt and sorrow was eating at him. He understood Susan's grief and pain for all these years and felt an easing in his own guilt. They had done great harm, but he could clearly see now that it wasn't who they really were and that made it so much better.
He dropped a kiss on Guinn's brow and another on Susan's lips and then thought was driven away again as the three of them moved together to wind themselves around each other.
Taydin sat quietly, watching the stars above as they peeked shyly from behind the clouds. The heavens were clear now, the roiling purple gone, and he was weary to the bone, but also feeling deeply satisfied. He had his arm around Aislynn, as she slept against him, and he smiled down at her, glad that she was so much better.
He remembered another face, another Singer. His wife, now long dead. It hurt, it twisted him up inside thinking about her. Aislynn murmured against his shoulder and he felt her shiver a bit. He carefully slipped his coat off and put it around her, settling her more comfortably against him as well.
She was lovely. Looking at her energy was like staring at a complex dance, or an equation of glorious elegance, she was fire and passion, her intellect sharp and fierce, her compassion, her kindness like a warm blanket he could curl up in.
He laughed at himself. He was over two thousand years old and was a battered and bedamned soul. He'd been used, abused, torn apart, and was barely half healed. He could hardly be a figure of romance to a girl less than half his age, with so much promise ahead of her.
Besides, he knew himself. He'd lost his wife to the Dalek Nanites, shot her himself, as she tried to murder him, the sprouting eye of a Dalek in the centre of her forehead and her eyes filled with tears.
He couldn't do that again. He couldn't care again, not so soon, and not for someone who, despite her progress, could still end up that way.
So, he sat there, in the gloom of the night, holding her as they waited for dawn, reminding himself that he was playing a dangerous game by even staying at her side, but already unable to to move away from her.
He cursed himself for a fool and watched the stars fading as the dawn came.
Tomoko woke and pulled out her notebook. The nap had helped and the speed healing that her symbiote gave her had helped as well. She tapped quietly on the keyboard, the light from the screen illuminating her face. She was still tired, but there was so much work to be done. There was always so much work to be done.
She was terrified of recalibration. She had had far more work done on her than the rest of her sisters combined, and was much more intimately familiar with the horrors of such things. However, with the situation so dire, she couldn't let her fear show, not even to her own mirror. Guinn had said he would be careful… but if he wasn't?
No, he would be careful, she was sure of that. If she tried the recalibration and said a word against it, that would be the end of it.
But just once, she wished that someone else could go first, that someone else could be the one to brave something terrifying, while she hung back and watched. Just once… For a moment she had an insane wish for something to hold. A stuffed animal, maybe. Mad, but quite clear.
She shook her head impatiently. What right field had spawned that notion? The others were depending on her. There was a lot riding on this. It had to be done, so best to set out and do it. She got a refill of her drink, sat back down at the keyboard, and continued her research on the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe. The sooner she could find any information to hand over to Dar, the better.
"So… everything is ready?"
Adie smiled at them all hopefully.
"Yes," the Doctor told her. "We've redesigned the chamber from the ground up, it has an entertainment console inside, so that they can play games, read, or do puzzles while they wait. It'll take about an hour for the changes to go through. We've got them as a gentle succession of alterations with a brief pause between each one, to allow us to monitor for any problems or issues," he explained, bouncing around the room in excitement. "We've totally shielded the equipment, so no brain lightning!" He tapped her nose with a finger, grinning like a loon.
"Great! Um… how would you feel about playing tour guide? Guinn, Koschei, I think Susan baked up some cookies for the occasion, you could duck out if you wanted."
Koschei nodded and he and Guinn exited the room and headed for the kitchen and Susan.
"That was thoughtful of you," the Doctor told her approvingly.
"We'll see if you still think so in thirty minutes." She smiled at him, walked across the room, and opened the opposite door. All of the Mashas were crowded on the other side of it.
The Doctor clapped his hands together and went into what Adie had heard Koschei call 'manic tour guide mode'.
"Hello Mashas!" he called out. "Come in! Come in! Plenty of room! Let me show you all around." Grinning like a madman, he escorted them all over to the device and began explaining it to them, fielding question, handing out jelly babies to the more nervous and both charming and baffling the whole lot of them, never slowing through the whole tour, just keeping up a running patter that was strangely soothing, even to Adie.
The Mashas had many questions. but it was Moira-3 who finally asked the one question that they most wanted an answer to.
"Look, you're expecting us to do all this, but we need to know something as well. Has the Master really changed?" she asked, frowning. The others all looked at the Doctor with a desperate need for reassurance.
The Doctor went still and looked at them all, his eyes sad and rather grim.
"You want to know if he's changed? Then the answer is 'no', he is the same person he always was. He's the same person who was my best friend when were children, the same person who fought to keep his sanity all through our years at the Academy. He's the same man that, when he got free of Rassilon's control, threw himself to what he thought would be his own death to save me. He's that man, the man who always wanted to help, to make things better for everyone else, the man who loved everyone so much that he was willing to die for them, willing to do whatever it took to save them. That's who he always was and always will be."
"Everything else? That was the controls laid on him. That was the false personality that Rassilon shoved into his head, smothering his true self under all the programming and lies. The Master was a lie. He was a construct, an artificial creation that Koschei and Guinn couldn't fight and couldn't escape. For nine hundred years they were bound and gagged and forced to watch themselves do the most appalling things." He paused.
"So, yes, I suppose he actually has changed. He's much sadder now, much more grief-stricken, far more vulnerable, more fragile than he was. Did he change? Yes and I wish to the stars above that he hadn't. I wish he was still that laughing little boy, who wanted to help everyone around him." The Doctor fell silent, his eyes damp, and he turned abruptly away from them to fiddle with some of the controls.
Adie quietly came and put her arms around him, and then Evie-44 did the same, and then he was surrounded by girls who saw he was sad and wanted nothing more than to comfort him.
He pulled as many as he could reach into his arms and held them tightly, fighting back the tears that were threatening to break out.
"But, I got all of you out of it, so some good can come from even the worst evil," he sighed.
"It'll be okay, Doctor," Adie told him.
"I think," Evie-44 added. "That we'll be okay too. All of us."
This sentiment was echoed among the group and chattered about. There was a general feeling that it would, indeed, be okay.
Someone offered him a peppermint hopefully and he took it with a somewhat damp laugh.
"Thank you," he murmured and popped the peppermint in his mouth. "Now go on, all of you, go and watch the monitor, so that we can work!"
All of the Mashas nodded, but every last one of them gave the Doctor a hug before heading out the door.
"Was that your plan, Adie?" the Doctor asked her with a raised eyebrow and a small smile.
"Um… no, not exactly, I just thought… if they could see the equipment they might feel better, and I thought that Koschei and Guinn would be nervous, and so I asked Susan if she would bake cookies… that didn't quite come out the way I had planned." She looked at him, her brows furrowed. "Is that normal?"
"Susan is a Seer, like you. She tells me that probability vectors oddly around me, that she can barely see my future, even a moment ahead, because I alter probability somehow, so I suppose it is normal," he told her, his eyes deep, fathomless, and filled with secrets.
"I am not a Seer any more," she mused, and then paused. "At least… I don't think I am." Her brows furrowed even more deeply momentarily, but then she shook it off. "If you are all right, I am going to go tell Koschei and Guinn that it is safe to come back in."
"Adie, you are a Seer, you just don't have a mind fractured enough to walk down all the paths anymore. The thing is, Susan discovered that it isn't necessary to fracture your mind to see the probabilities as they rise and fall, you just won't see them as clearly, or as consciously. Follow your instincts, it will be all right." He patted her shoulder and sent her off after Guinn and Koschei, his face enigmatic.
When Adie returned, she had not only Guinn and Koschei, but Tomoko and Susan in tow. Tomoko had been the only Masha missing from the group earlier, and now she nodded at them all.
"Everyone is settled around the projector in the other room, so it looks like the technical side is all working properly… you guys ready to do this?"
"Let's begin then, my dear, if you are ready?" the Doctor asked her with a smile, no sign of his earlier distress showing.
Susan pulled out her notepad and smiled at Tomoko.
"I'll be monitoring your vitals, so not to worry. There is an emergency cut off switch, in case anything goes wrong, and I can have you out in a trice," she assured her.
Tomoko nodded, but her sharp eyes focused for a moment on the Doctor.
"You okay? We didn't run you too ragged, did we?"
"Seventy-three of you will still never equal the running ragged that Jenny, by herself, can put me through," he teased. "I'm fine."
She gave him a quick hug anyway.
"I'm not worried about being pulled out," she said to Susan, "Just make sure you can flood it with coolant if you need to." She stripped out of her outer clothes, wrapped herself in the cooling blanket, and got up in the padded bed. "Ready when you are."
Guinn stepped back behind the controls, letting Koschei be the one to help Tomoko into the coffin-like apparatus.
"There is a game console and entertainment selection inside the lid, just relax and read a book, if you like." he told her.
"I know, I added a few things to it earlier this afternoon," she told him, and got comfortable.
"I really wish you'd ask before you did things like that," the Doctor groused. "These are rather sensitive calibrations, you know."
"Don't mind him," Koschei whispered to her. "He just likes to be the cleverest person in the room."
"I didn't touch anything except the entertainment console," she pointed out.
"Humph," the Doctor muttered and Koschei winked at her, before closing the lid.
"Second, clearing," came her voice from underneath, slightly muffled, and then, "Ready."
The Doctor started up the machine, glaring at it, and Guinn shook his head in amusement.
Koschei stepped up to his own board, grinning at Susan, who winked back at him, and then the Doctor began.
The tricky part with Tomoko was the mind/body interface, which was unstable and prone to heat spikes. Guinn had dedicated a large portion of his own work to detecting and countering these, sometimes swearing under his breath at himself for not taking the time to make something more stable in the first place.
Other than that, Tomoko did well. She had uploaded a lot of work she had meant to do, and spent an hour determinedly plowing through it. She was terrified; but only those who were actually monitoring her vitals were able to tell. She was obviously determined to put on a proper show for the camera.
In spite of how well her transition was going, Guinn's mood was growing darker and darker. Knowing he was on camera, he didn't allow the expressions to cross his face, but when he glanced up at Susan, he saw her awareness of his emotions in her eyes.
/This interface isn't going to make it. Not what we are doing this afternoon, that's fine and irrelevant. The heating factor is… damn it all, why didn't we do something more stable?/ he was frustrated out of his mind, as he sent the message, privately, to Susan. /This is not going to hold long-term./ He was beyond enraged at himself.
/I know love, I've talked to her about bumping her up to full Time Lord, but she is ... reluctant./ Susan sent back and her mental voice was tired and sad.
/What? Why the hell would she be reluctant? She trusts you! And ultimately she isn't going to have a choice./ He hated himself in that moment. /Rassilon's breath, I designed her to burn out. I designed her that way! One-time use. Fire and forget. Like plastic, to be used and discarded./ He blinked hard, his mouth a thin line.
/You were constrained by your programming, yet you still managed to create a young woman of great intellect, ingenuity, and cunning, one who could very well have derailed the entire Project. I'd say that you were fighting hard against Rassilon through it all, whether you were conscious of it or not,/ she replied gently.
/I just… I am so sorry. Rassilon's breath, I am so sorry./
/I know my hearts, my own, I know. I love you so much,/ she sent back, waves of love and warmth, flowing back to him.
"She's spiking," Susan called out suddenly, her voice calm, and Guinn worked the controls frantically, trying to dump the excess heat as fast as he could.
"She's too hot, it's going to fry the machine!" Koschei growled and added his efforts in. He ripped the control panel open and began rewiring on the fly, energy still flowing into Tomoko, while at the same time bypassing the damaged areas and shunting the heat away from the more delicate circuits.
"She's going back down," Susan updated with a tone of relief.
The Doctor nodded as the readings stabilized.
"I think we've done it," he told Guinn, who nodded back.
Koschei went over and squeezed his shoulder.
"Worst is behind us, Guinn," he murmured. None of the others would have those cooling issues after all. He then went and opened up the coffin, peering in at Tomoko.
"Oh! Wait… wait… let me bookmark…" her fingers reached out for the interface and touched a few holographic buttons, then let go. "All right, I'm ready," she sat up and nodded at him. "Nice job on the cooling."
"Come on, get out and let someone else have a turn," Koschei chuckled. "You can thank Guinn for that, he was on cooling duty."
Tomoko turned to Guinn.
"Good job on the cooling," she told him.
"You're welcome," he replied. "Just keep the blanket on for a bit, okay?"
"All right, let me go talk to everyone, and we'll send in the next girl," Tomoko said, as she threw her cooling blanket over her shoulder, and headed out of the room.
One down, seventy-three to go, Guinn thought grimly to himself.