Ultimate ReMaster: Rehabilitation

888

"Incoming unregistered TT Capsule!" A corpsman called as klaxons gonged in the background. "Its flight is erratic…internal emergency is being transmitted, medical emergency!"

"What kind of medical emergency?" a woman asked as she stepped forward in heavy, red armor. Her hair shorn to the scalp as her dark brows furrowed.

"Internal capsule sensors suggest regenerative cascade…" The corpsman replied looking up. "Regeneration is still in progress…"

"Lower transduction barriers, activate the chronion tethers, bring it into Bay 16, and erect a containment field." The woman said as she turned and started to march to the doors.

The klaxons bonged through the hallways and streets as the General moved quickly through the groups of people. She slipped through throngs of cadets, corpspeople, civilians and technicians. A large door opened in front of her as she walked forward a young man appeared to her side.

"Ma'am, it may not be-"The man started.

The General lifted her hand sharply silencing the man as she stared into the middle of the room. Her eyes narrowed watching as a form struggled to form in the center of the bay. Tall and thin, first it was a marble pillar, then an old-style timepiece, and then it looked briefly humanoid, though a malformed one.

"What's going on?" The General asked.

"The chronion tethers are interfering with the capsule's outer plasmic field; the chameleon circuit is trying to adjust." The young man replied.

"It's down, shut down the tethers." The General ordered, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the young man tap on a pad. Her eyes slid back to the middle of the bay. The form in the center seemed to finally coalesce into a final form that seemed to be a twisted metallic shape, chaotic in its twisted almost beauty. A light seemed to fizzle out around the capsule; and the General walked slowly forward. As she did, a part of the metal twisted, sliding and revealing a portcullis from which a humanoid form staggered out and collapsed. The General rushed forward and turned the body over, darkened skin, soft and plush, male, cloaked in simple dark robes. She reached down and touched the vital areas. "He's alive, but he's not going to be for long." She looked up to see medics at the edge of the room. "Get down here, immediate evac to a zero room containment zone; now people or you're going to see a Time Lord burn out!"

888

"It's a miracle that they survived, General." A voice gurgled into the ears. "A high amplitude full spectrum burst should've destroyed every cell at a genetic level, rendering regeneration impossible…"

"Which makes the point of identity all the more important." Said a female voice.

A painfully tedious amount of effort allowed one eyelid to slowly grind open. The light of the room burned, the reflex caused a pained wince. However this action seemed to go unnoticed by the speakers.

"I have taken multiple biodata samples; I can find no records in the matrix that match the biodata." The first voice said this time clearer.

A second painful exhaustion of energy reopened an eyelid, though this time with much more care and bracing for the room's light. For the first time he could see the red, burnished armor worn by the General. The white clinical robes of what must have been a physician of some design a regenerative rehabilitator.

"He awakens!" The physician said as they swept forward in flowing white robes like some sterilized angel.

A shadow passed in front of the physician as the General stepped forward looming over him. "You must have some stories to tell…a Time Lord appearing out of the fires and the wild, mostly dead, in a TT capsule falling out of the sky. No records to who you are."

"General, now is not the time for an interrogation!" The physician complained, as they pointed different devices at him that whirred and binged and warbled. "He has finally stabilized; a little but he's not out of the woods yet…"

"I-made it…" He whispered trying feebly to sit up.

"Who are you?" The General asked, her face contorted into a frustrated scowl. "Not just any Time Lord has their records expunged…and most are criminals of some fashion, or worse."

He looked at the General as best as he could. But her face was fuzzy, fading in and out of focus; he could feel the wooziness building again. He thought he could hear singing. He turned his head, maybe too quickly, maybe not quickly enough either way in the corner was a girl, a child, lying there like him on a lab table. He felt a stabbing pain in his head, and his head snapped back to the General's face looking at him angrily.

"Answer me!" The woman shouted, in frustration.

"General, he's still under stress, even stable he probably-"

"It is my responsibility to keep Gallifrey safe, and until I'm satisfied he is a potential risk to Gallifrey!" The General growled in retort, before turning her attention back to him. "Who are you?"

A memory, from long ago flashed in his mind. A memory of before, before the cruciform, before the end of time, before the great burning death, before he'd lost himself. He smiled, a contented smile, as he remembered the memory, as it was with all his fondest memories, it was of him watching someone else burn. His eyes swam in the memory before briefly finding the General's face.

"Cacophony- sings the song of victory…" he said quietly before the darkness came again, deep and tortured.

In the tortured nights that would come, he would see flashes, not of dream, not of memory, but they came none the less. Of children, no not children, a child, tethered to a table, stabbed with needles. He sometimes was the stabber, he sometimes was the stabbed, and sometimes he was both. The needles would dig into his flesh, her flesh, their flesh, our flesh. He watched the child burn and reform, change and retrofit. He did not understand why.

In coughing apoplexies he awoke, sitting up stock still in a bed, in a medical ward. The genteel strawberry lighting seemed to flood his body with calm. Yet his mind, his mind was tormented by the dreams of the nights before.

"Ah, you are awake now." He turned his head to see the physician from before, an elderly man in white robes that walked to him swiftly. "Zero room therapies, action of last resort for cases like yours. How do you feel?"

"Alive." He said quietly. He turned swinging his legs slowly over the edge of the bed. He stood tentatively before more confidently walking forward. "How long have I…?"

"Six weeks, three days." The physician said. "It was very severe, your regenerative cascade. Worst I've seen in many a century. I have many questions…but I think if you are strong enough, the General has more pressing ones."

He sneered almost instinctively, but grabbed hold of that feeling, pulling it back. "Yes, I'm sure she does…"

"I have set aside some clothes, if you wish…" The physician indicated to a small rack in the corner of the room, long robes of differing colors. He grimaced slightly but strode over to the selection. The physician nodded. "I'll leave you to it then."

He dressed in a dark red robe and then proceeded to the edge of the zero room, only to find two chancellery guards waiting for him. Though his instincts were to resist he did not, relenting and allowing them to lead him to the offices of the General. She was sat stoically behind the desk her burnished red armor replaced by elegant if modest robes of a clerical official.

"Sit." She commanded, not indicating where with anything but her voice.

He was loathed to submit but seeing no other option did so at a high back chair in front of her desk. She sat back in her own chair, with large gem embedded arches that sloped like the great frills of the Time Lord regalia behind her head.

"Is it really you?" she asked looking at him.

"What do you think?" he asked quietly, leaning slightly forward, looking her in the eye.

"I think that only one Time Lord would have known that phrase. It's meaning, it's purpose." The General replied quietly, narrowing her eyes. "But if you are who you are, then where the hell have you been?"

"You know what they say." He smiled quietly to himself as he sat back in his chair and slowly crossed his legs. "Better late than never."

"You're the only one to have ever come back." She said. "Of the four of you that we sent out to find a refuge from the fire."

"Pity, but what can I say." He said quietly as he shrugged. "I got lucky…"

The corner of the General's mouth pulled slightly upward as she almost coughed a single chuckle. "I suppose the Minister of Chance would be, wouldn't they?"

"Indubitably." He said with a quick smile.

She laughed, maybe the first time decades as she looked at him. He smiled as she seemed to inspect his actions, his body language. Interrogate his very being with her eyes. Then she finally relented and leaned forward.

"Did you find refuge? Out there in the multiverse?" She asked, her voice filled with excitement like a child awaiting a gift.

"You saw how I came back." He said quietly, leaning forward almost nervously. "It's a rough multiverse, General. You'd never guess the horrors that go unspoken of out there. I will, of course, need to make a full report to the matrix." He slid back in his seat, and laced his fingers together in front of himself. "The sooner the better, this regeneration, I fear has really loosened some bolts in the memory. I would hate to lose anything of value for the posterity of Gallifrey, and I have so many questions as to what's been going on since my departure."

"Of course, of course." The General said sitting back. "I'll send a dispatch to the Keeper." She smiled as she tilted her head. "I can't believe you actually came back. It's so good to see you. There are so few of us now, hidden here in the death throes of reality, the silence falling on all sides."

"Now that I'm back, I'm sure I can add some noise to this old universe yet." He said, a sharp smile on his lips as he stood, bowing graciously to the General. She inclined her head a smile playing on her lips.