'The Cerberus Protocol'
4. Wardrobe
The Doctor had no idea what he'd been thinking; perhaps, in that crucial moment, he'd known that the creature was going to force them into the shaft anyway, or knock them over the edge. He and Sophie fell like stones, the cold air whipping past them.
The Doctor, one arm still pinning Sophie to his chest, began to fumble with his other hand into his pocket. A few weeks before, his sonic screwdriver had been destroyed following a shuttle crash on Ford XVII. He'd managed to defeat the Daleks without his trusty gadget, but still he'd felt as though a part of him was missing.
Finally, his fingers found purchase around the thin, cylindrical device and he pulled it free from the pocket of his coat. He held it out, and activated it.
The screwdriver, much like the TARDIS, operated using telepathic circuits., Most of the time all he had to do was point and think. The screwdriver, using those same telepathic circuits, communicated any information it was able to obtain with its vast suite of sensors right back to him.
As he fell, his only thought was keeping Sophie alive.
The screwdriver's tip glowed, and it emitted its familiar high-pitched fluting noise, which the Doctor could barely hear over the roar of the winds around them as they fell.
"Doctor!" Sophie screamed, but he just closed his eyes and thought as hard as he could.
He knew the bottom of the shaft was rapidly coming up to meet them, that'd he only have a second more at best; then, a scant moment before they hit the ground, a burst of energy sang through the air. Blue light surrounded them. They were born aloft. Instead of falling, they were suddenly soaring.
The Doctor laughed, and let go of Sophie. He was sure, however, to keep a hold of her hand. Somehow, and he didn't know why, his anxiety at the prospect of what the Protocol was planning to do was tempered by the feeling of her hand in his.
"Oh my God!" she whooped, grinning, unable to believe the feeling of flying, unaided, through the air. "This is incredible."
The walls of the shaft were glowing blue, the same shade as the time rotor in the console room. The Doctor watched as floor after floor shot past them, and he pulled Sophie towards the edge of the lift.
Finally, the two of them were nudged past the anti-gravity envelope of the lift, and the two of them landed softly on the decking of a corridor just like the one they'd leapt from. There was, thankfully, no sign of the Protocol. Their feet touched down gently, and Sophie took a moment to recover.
The Doctor was still grinning, invigorated by their flight. Sophie, however, was recuperating from the adrenalin, and she'd realised just what the Doctor had done. She whirled on him, and threw a punch, connecting with his jaw.
The Doctor took a few stumbling steps backwards, eyes boggling.
"What was that for?" he demanded.
"For throwing me down a bottomless pit, you idiot!" Sophie hissed, and she sized up, fists clenched at her side.
The Doctor began to laugh. A few moments later, Sophie couldn't help but join in, and the last of the fear and tension that had gripped her began to die away.
"I can't believe you did that," Sophie said, and she collapsed against the nearest wall, sliding down to sit on the decking. She was suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion, emotionally, physically and mentally.
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, and he sat beside her for a moment. "The Protocol was going to force us over the edge anyway. I thought it was better to go out on our own terms."
Sophie smiled. "I'd like you to ask me next time."
A distant roar echoed through the corridor towards them, and Sophie was suddenly reminded that they were far from out of the woods yet. The Protocol would be sending more beasts after them and they still needed to find warm clothes soon. The air, she was realised now, was positively freezing.
"Come on," she said, and pushed herself up. "We need to get out of here."
"Indeed," the Doctor agreed, and got to his feet. "Come on, the wardrobe is just down this way."
They continued down the corridor for a few more minutes, and by the time they reached a wide, hexagonal door, Sophie was shivering violently. The Doctor took off his coat and draped it around her shoulders, before using his sonic screwdriver to force the doors open. They stepped into a broad, cavernous chamber, twice the size again of the console room, roughly the same size and shape of the storage room they'd been in earlier.
It was, however, much more cluttered than even the storage room had been. In the centre of the enormous chamber was a slightly raised platform, ringed by a set of wireframe mannequins wearing unusual clothes, two steps above the level on which the Doctor and Sophie stood. Around the edges of the chamber were antique, freestanding wardrobes and clothes racks, all of them overflowing with garments. Sophie had been in here many times, and it awed her constantly.
She'd come aboard the TARDIS with just the bag she took each day to uni; she'd brought her laptop and her smart phone, which had spent the last few months collecting dust in her room, but not even one change of clothes, and she hadn't been back to Newcastle to collect the rest of her stuff. Why bother, she had thought, when she could go back at any time, half an hour, half a minute, after she'd left. Instead, she'd relied on the vast array of outfits in the TARDIS wardrobe.
Jeans, shirts, some surprisingly fashion-forward pieces and some stuff that quite literally belonged in the Victorian era. Ancient Roman togas, chainmail, even a leather loincloth or three. Sophie had had a lot of fun playing dress up in here, but now the situation was utterly dire.
"So what are we looking for?" Sophie asked, through chattering teeth.
"Cold weather gear," the Doctor said, seemingly unaffected by the cold despite the fact that he'd given his coat to Sophie. "Over here."
He led her around the outer ring of stand-alone wardrobes. Sophie had barely managed to explore a quarter of the wardrobe so far, and she'd never managed to find the cold weather gear. Somehow, she'd been able to find countless items of clothing that had fit her absolutely perfectly.
Finally, he reached a wardrobe and pulled open the door, withdrawing an enormous fur coat and handing it to Sophie.
"Fur, Doctor?" Sophie asked, lifting an eyebrow. She was obviously unimpressed.
The Doctor, for his part, didn't look guilty. "It's fake."
Sophie frowned. "It doesn't seem fake."
"Of course it doesn't," the Doctor said, and helped her put the coat on. "What would the point of a faux fur coat be if it didn't feel like fur? It was made for me personally by one of the Grandmasters of the Guild of Polyester Artists on Hadrivor Gold."
Sophie pursed her lips, clearly disbelieving. "Really, Doctor?"
"Yes, really," the Doctor said, and began to usher her further along the circular row of wardrobes. "Warm enough for you?"
"It'll do," Sophie agreed. "What's the plan now?"
They'd reached a space between two over-stuffed wardrobes, into which was crammed a writing desk.
"How is a raven like a writing desk, Sophie?" the Doctor asked her, as he began to root around in the desk's drawers. Sophie didn't answer. "Fine. I'll tell you how. They're not. But I have a writing desk."
"Yeah, I can see that," Sophie said. He continued going through the desk, and didn't look up at her. She folded her arms. "Doctor, what are you doing?"
"Trying to find a floor plan," the Doctor explained.
"A floor plan?" Sophie repeated. "A floor plan of what? Also, what is a writing desk even doing in the wardrobe?"
"A floor plan of the wardrobe," the Doctor explained. "And if I didn't have a writing desk in here, then where would I keep the floor plans?"
"Yeah," Sophie agreed, and stepped into place beside him. The writing desk was crammed with papers and what looked like flexible plastic sheets with writing etched into them. There were notes in English and in Gallifreyan. "What is all this stuff?"
"Receipts," the Doctor said. "I need to keep track of what I buy. Even the TARDIS can't get away from the tax man."
Sophie almost laughed. "Really?"
"No," the Doctor said, continuing to root through the desk. "They're notes. Pages from journals or diaries. Some of them actually are receipts. IOUs. Christmas cards."
"Why are they in here?" Sophie asked, fishing one of the Christmas cards the Doctor's had mentioned out of the desk. On the front was a chocolate box painting of a snowbound village. She opened it, and read it quickly. "Who's Madge Arwell? And why's it addressed to 'Caretaker'?"
"A friend of mine," the Doctor said, and held out his hand. He finally looked at Sophie, clearly unimpressed. "Give it back."
"Sorry," Sophie said, and handed it to him.
"All of the stuff in this desk," the Doctor explained, as he slotted the Christmas card back into place, "is stuff that's been left in these clothes, in the pockets and inside the lining or tucked away in hats or whatever else, when they've been put away."
"Oh," Sophie said, satisfied. "Where are all the sweets? The paperclips and stuff?"
"Paperclips are in the bottom drawer," the Doctor explained. "All the sweets are long gone."
"Why?" Sophie asked.
"I ate them," the Doctor replied.
"If all this stuff was in the clothes," Sophie said, "then how did it end up in the desk? I mean, did you go through them all?"
The Doctor shook his head. "Every now and then, the TARDIS does a clean out. Gets rid of all the junk, saves the old stuff, builds me some new stuff. A nice spring clean, really. I suppose, the last time she reorganised the wardrobe, she took all of the junk out of the pockets and put it all in this desk."
"Did the TARDIS build the desk?" Sophie asked. It really was, beneath all the paper and junk, a beautifully designed piece of furniture. It looked oak, with a dark varnish, and was intricately carved.
"No, no, no," the Doctor said. "I got this at a garage sale in Liverpool in 1981."
Sophie laughed. Finally, the Doctor pulled out a folded piece of paper, somewhat like a map. He handed it to Sophie, and gave the desk a cursory tidy. Even as he did, the hum of the TARDIS engines changed pitch.
"What's that?" Sophie asked.
"The Protocol has got enough energy to bring the engines fully online," the Doctor said, and he swallowed. "This is bad. This is very bad."
"But that means…" Sophie began.
"That it'll start trying to take us to Gallifrey in the next couple of minutes," the Doctor said, evidently deeply disturbed.
"Okay," Sophie said, and took a deep, calming breath. "What's our plan, Doctor?"
"Our what?"
"Our plan!" Sophie repeated, trying to keep him focused. "I need to know what we're going to do next."
The Doctor nodded. He turned back to the writing desk and brushed aside some of the junk, unfolding the floor plan and anchoring it open with a pen that had rolled free from the junk. He studied the map for a second, before turning to Sophie.
"We need to get to the secondary control room," the Doctor explained.
"All right," Sophie nodded, "so how do we get there?"
The Doctor shrugged. "I don't know. Like I've said, the TARDIS reconfigures its internal geometry from time to time, and I haven't needed to use the secondary control room for a few hundred years now…"
That statement momentarily disconcerted Sophie. Intellectually, she knew that the Doctor was over a thousand years old, but he honestly looked like a human man, in his mid-thirties at the oldest. She was lured, more often than not, into forgetting that he was a Time Lord, more ancient than she could understand.
"The wardrobe's meant to be close by, though," the Doctor said. "There are a few entrances, spaced throughout the ship. One near the living quarters, one near the primary control room, one near the swimming pool, one near the library and one near the secondary control room."
Sophie blinked. "The swimming pool?"
The Doctor nodded. "I really should have given you a more extensive tour."
"Would have been nice, considering," Sophie agreed, waving a hand around to indicate their surroundings. The Doctor understood, however, that the gesture was intended to encompass their situation itself. "Which entrance did we come through?"
"The library," the Doctor told her. He placed one finger on the floor plan of the wardrobe, "here."
"And we're looking for the secondary control room exit?"
The Doctor nodded. "Once we get there, we need to find a way to hack into the TARDIS control systems. The Protocol will have bottled up her Matrix, will be keeping her in the distant, darkest corner of the ship's circuitry. We need to find a way to let her out. Once she's free, the Protocol will be absolutely no match for her."
"How come?" Sophie asked.
"The TARDIS has had over a thousand years of experience," the Doctor explained. "She knows her circuits inside and out. The Protocol has probably been given all the necessary data, all of the plans and blueprints the Time Lords would have used when they initially built her, but the TARDIS has changed so much since I first left Gallifrey."
Sophie paused. A question that had long simmered in her mind finally bubbled up to the surface. "Why did you leave Gallifrey?"
"Long story," the Doctor said, not missing a beat as he went on "The only problem is that the Protocol would anticipate that this would be my plan."
"And it can hear us, surely," Sophie said, remembering from their brief telepathic communication just how deeply the Protocol had infiltrated the TARDIS' systems.
"Oh, yes," the Doctor nodded, "it's probably been listening to everything we've been saying."
"So what are we going to do?" Sophie whispered, suddenly conscious of being overheard.
"No point whispering," the Doctor told her, not even bothering to lower his voice. "The TARDIS' internal security systems are powerful enough to pick up a mouse skittering about in the lower decks. It'll be able to hear you whispering."
Sophie nodded, and swallowed. "So if the Protocol has infiltrated the TARDIS' systems, then what? We need, well, something that it hasn't infiltrated to establish a connection. A way to access the TARDIS Matrix that the Protocol hasn't gotten its hands on. So to speak."
The Doctor looked up, grinning. "Oh, Sophie Freeman, you are brilliant!"
"Obviously," she said, sticking her tongue out at him. She shivered, brought back to their dire circumstances by the cold that suffused the air. "We need to hurry, Doctor, the temperature must getting close to freezing now."
"Right you are," the Doctor agreed. "The trouble is, we need to find a computer that the Protocol can't access. As long as it's been linked to the TARDIS' systems, then every computer aboard will have been infected."
"Not every computer," Sophie said, remembering the laptop in her bag. "When I first came aboard the TARDIS, I had my uni bag with me. Books, my phone, and my laptop."
"Perfect!" the Doctor said.
"The laptop?" Sophie asked, hopeful.
The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, no. It's been in your bag for weeks now, surely, and if it has then its battery will be dead. If you've charged it aboard the TARDIS, her telepathic circuits will have networked with it, and if that's the case, then the Protocol will be able to get into it."
"Then what?" she asked, bewildered.
"Your phone!" the Doctor crowed. He turned back to the map, and quickly found the exit leading to the living quarters section. "You have a smartphone, right?"
"Yeah," Sophie nodded. "An iPhone 3."
"Oh, wait until the seven comes out," the Doctor said, as though momentarily awed by his memory of the product. "It'll blow your mind."
"That's great," Sophie said, annoyed that she still had to keep him on focus. "But what's the difference? That'll be out of battery, too. I haven't used it since the morning I came on board."
For a brief second, Sophie remembered that morning. She'd met the Doctor in a bubble universe created around her consciousness and memories, and together they'd defeated the creature that had created that universe, a member of the mysterious Trickster's Brigade. Then she'd woken up the next morning, and everything had gone back to normal. Another week had passed before the Doctor had returned to invite her aboard the TARDIS, and in that time she'd become almost certain that the entire thing had been a dream.
"Yes," the Doctor nodded, "but the sonic screwdriver will be able to shunt enough energy from its own power cells into the phone to get it working."
"And then?"
"And then we get the phone to the secondary control room, and use it to access the TARDIS' systems. I'll be able to find her, wherever the Protocol's left her. Only one problem," the Doctor said.
Sophie sighed. "Oh?"
"It'll probably destroy your phone," the Doctor told her, blanching apologetically.
Sophie almost laughed. "You think I care about the phone? Stopping the Protocol has to be our number one priority. Besides, if this doesn't work…" she trailed off, remembering the information the Doctor had imparted upon her earlier.
"If this doesn't work," the Doctor repeated, finishing off with "then we'll have to destroy the TARDIS."
Sophie nodded. "I know. I don't… no, that's not true."
"What isn't?"
"I was about to say that I wouldn't mind if we had to do that," Sophie answered. "A few months ago, before I met you, I honestly don't think I would have. Now, though? Now I've actually started living my life, not just enduring it, and I want to hold onto that with everything I've got. I think I owe myself that. That's why this has to work. If it doesn't, we'll destroy the TARDIS. We have to, I know that, and I understand it and I'm peace with it. I just don't… want to destroy it. I don't want to die. You know?"
The Doctor gave her a small smile. "Yeah. I know."
She smiled back; it wasn't a smile of happiness or mirth, but one of understanding. She knew, in that moment, that they were kindred spirits, two people who understood each other entirely. Whatever difficulties they'd faced, whatever they themselves might want, they knew their responsibility and they knew their duty, to themselves, to each other and to the universe itself.
"We should get going," the Doctor said, and Sophie agreed. He took her hand, and began to lead her through the darkened wardrobe. Sophie blinked, realising that the lights had grown steadily dimmer.
"Is it just me…" she began, but the Doctor cut her off.
"No, it's definitely darker in here," he agreed. They continued towards the centre of the wardrobe, planning to cut across the centre towards the exit that led to the living quarters.
They were almost at the raised platform in the centre when Sophie heard movement.
"What is that?" she asked.
She remembered that a few wireframe mannequins, showing off a few rather outlandish outfits, ringed the centre platform. Other than that, it was mostly bare, though it did display a rather beautiful abstract mosaic. The wardrobe, now, was pitch black and freezing cold. Only the mosaic glowed gently, leaving the Doctor and Sophie standing in a rather dim twilight.
"I don't know," the Doctor said, and frowned.
There was a scraping against the deck, and Sophie gasped, spinning about. She froze, staring out into the darkness.
"Get down!" the Doctor roared, before a closed umbrella swiped towards Sophie. She ducked beneath it, and the Doctor pulled her back as it came after her again.
Sophie stepped beside him, heart beating in her chest, as the Doctor lifted up his sonic screwdriver and activated it. High above, the lights of the wardrobe were suddenly brightened. The Doctor and Sophie found themselves surrounded by those same mannequins. The closest was shorter than the others, and featured an off-white safari jacket, red paisley scarf and a pullover complete with a red question mark motif. It wielded an umbrella, a Panama hat worn jauntily atop its head.
Its elbows bent, and it moved in a jerky, marionette-like manner.
"I knew the TARDIS' penchant for nostalgia would come back to bite me," the Doctor muttered darkly.
"What are these things?" Sophie asked, eyes wide.
"Mannequins," the Doctor explained, stating the obvious. "Wearing some of my favourite clothes."
Sophie was horrified. "But why?"
"I don't really know," the Doctor answered. "Get down!"
The mannequin wearing the Panama hat lunged again, but this time its attack was only a feint. Another, wearing a long brown coat and an incredibly long multicoloured scarf slipped around it; it lashed out, striking for Sophie, but she managed to dodge, only to find herself right in front of a mannequin dressed like a cricketer in a bone-white coat. It even wielded a cricket bat; a cricket bat that was coming right for her face.
She ducked under the bat, and turned to see the Doctor menaced by another short mannequin, this one wearing a fur coat not unlike Sophie's and baggy, checked trousers, as well as a significantly taller mannequin wearing a garish coat of brilliant, clashing colours and horrific yellow trousers.
He was directing his screwdriver at them, dodging blows from their wire hands, but the sonic was having no effect.
"Watch out, Doctor!" she yelled, as a mannequin wearing a leather jacket lunged for him. He didn't move in time, and was knocked to the wardrobe floor.
Before she could help him, however, the umbrella-wielding mannequin was upon her again. She sidestepped one riposte in the nick of time, carried only by the adrenalin coursing through her. She grabbed the umbrella, and wrenched it free of the mannequin's hand. She hit it over the head, and it toppled, motionless, to the ground.
The cricket bat-carrying mannequin leapt at her again, but this time she parried its attack with the umbrella and it was caught off guard. She slipped past it, and battered away the mannequin in the multicoloured coat and its baggy-trousered friend. The Doctor was freed from their assault for a moment, and Sophie helped him to his feet. He looked bloodied, but was clearly unbent.
"Thanks," he said, wiping blood away from his chin.
"Don't mention it," Sophie said, tone clipped.
The mannequin with the overly long scarf was coming at them now. The Doctor grabbed the scarf, though, and with a wrenching twist he pulled it free of the mannequin's neck; the momentum of that motion brought the thing spinning around and dumped it, unceremoniously, at their feet.
Its place was taken by two of its fellows a moment later.
"God, how many of them are there?" Sophie demanded.
"Far too many," the Doctor answered, as the mannequin with the cricket bat came at them again. "I must have a talk to the TARDIS about things like this…"
The Doctor caught the mannequin's hands before it could bring the bat crashing down upon them, and Sophie went around to the side, thrusting the umbrella into its chest. She noticed that a stalk of celery was pinned to the lapel of its jacket. The mannequin collapsed, but the leather jacket-wearing mannequin and the mannequin in baggy trousers were renewing their assault.
The Doctor pulled the cricket bat from the hand of the felled mannequin and swung at the attackers, knocking Leather Jacket aside.
Sophie joined his attack, managing to trip up Baggy Trousers. More mannequins were massing about them now; the Doctor saw that the way to the exit was clear now, but would remain so for only a few moments. Even the mannequins they'd knocked down were starting to get back up.
"Come on!" the Doctor said, his free hand snaking out to grab Sophie's.
They began to run, together, across the wardrobe floor, but the mannequins followed, surprisingly swift. The chamber began to darken again, and before they were halfway towards the exit, they were plunged into inky blackness.
They heard movement. Rustling fabric.
"What's happening?" Sophie asked, as the Doctor came to a stop.
"I used the sonic screwdriver to activate the lights and lock the Protocol out of the system," the Doctor explained. "It must have found a way around the firewall."
"How did it do that thing with the mannequins?" Sophie asked.
"I have no idea," he answered. "It's more powerful than I thought."
They were still moving towards the door, but more slowly than they had been; in the darkness pressing in upon then, they could hear movement. The mannequins were circling.
"They can't really hurt us, can they?" Sophie asked. "I mean, they just can't, right? They're only wireframe mannequins."
"And that thing before was only a hologram," the Doctor reminded her. "If the Protocol can animate them, maybe it's electrified them. Maybe they'll just suffocate us."
"Yeah," Sophie said, her voice hollow and reedy. "I'm not having fun, Doctor."
"Neither am I," he assured her, and squeezed her hand.
That disturbed Sophie more than anything else. Throughout their adventures, even in the direst of circumstances, with the exception of their encounter with the Daleks on Ford XVII, the Doctor had always seemed to have, quite a lot of fun, at least on some level. He enjoyed their adventures, even as he mourned those that had fallen. His fear now, though, was palpable.
She returned the hand squeeze.
"This is my home, Sophie," the Doctor explained. "I thought, of all the places in the universe, that I'd be safe here. To know that there was this Protocol, this creature, lurking about, waiting for a chance to strike…"
"I understand, Doctor," Sophie said. She'd never really had a home, not since her parents had died; just places she'd lived. The TARDIS, though, had rapidly filled that void. As much as anywhere else she'd ever lived, perhaps far more so, the TARDIS was her home.
"I know," the Doctor said, and suddenly froze. "Get down!"
He took her by the shoulders and threw her to the ground, as a pair of wireframe hands plunged towards her, gripping the air where her neck had been a moment before.
Swinging his cricket bat, the Doctor connected with the head of the attacking mannequin, decapitating it. That didn't stop the mannequin, however, from advancing.
The lights came back on.
They were utterly surrounded by the mannequins now, and though none of them were armed, they were pressing in around the Doctor and Sophie.
Helping his companion to her feet, the Doctor saw that she'd dropped the umbrella. "Stay behind me," he told her, and he began to lash out with the bat, swinging it back and forth. He managed to clear a path through the mannequins, and with a gentle shove, he pushed Sophie through it. She began to run, as the Doctor continued to fight off the mannequins.
She was almost to the door when her foot caught something. She fell, seeing that the mannequin with the long scarf had strung it between two wardrobes. She landed hard, with her ankle at an unnatural angle.
She cried with the pain. The mannequin began to lumber towards her.
The Doctor suddenly leapt between her and the mannequin, and with a well-time swing of the cricket bat managed to decapitate it, too. Another swing sent it toppling to the ground.
He turned back to Sophie, and helped her up.
"I think I sprained my ankle," she said, groaning.
"Come on," the Doctor said, and helped her hobble towards the door, now only a few metres away. "We're almost there."
The mannequins were regrouping once again. Finally, they'd reached the door, and the Doctor tossed away his cricket bat, retrieving the sonic screwdriver from the pocket of his coat. Aiming it at the door, he tripped the circuits and it slid open.
Sophie glanced over his shoulder, and saw the mannequin with the safari jacket had found the umbrella she'd dropped and was lunging towards them, umbrella pointed directly for them.
"Doctor!" Sophie cried.
The Doctor spun. The umbrella struck him, right in the torso. The Doctor gave a cry as the pointed end of the umbrella pierced his coat, and ploughed into his body.
