Wind blew through a park as the TARDIS materialized, blowing leaves across the grass.
The door swung open and the Doctor poked his head out. "Sarah Jane! You will not believe what El did! Wait…" The Time Lord looked around. "This isn't her attic…"
A loud bang tore through the Doctor's ears as he was pushed out of the TARDIS, the doors swinging shut by themselves as he fell to the ground.
"El!" The Doctor rolled over, watching as the TARDIS flickered unsteadily before vanishing. "El!"
"Ah!" El grunted, holding onto the console as sparks showered from the ceiling. She pulled the scanner down, looking at it. "Dad, it says we're somewhere called Essex!"
The console room finally stabilized as El looked around. "Dad?"
"Okay, think, um…" El muttered to herself, walking around the console. "There's got to be something that can tell me what's wrong…"
'Fault… locator…' The TARDIS replied. If she had been human, she'd sound like she'd had the wind knocked out of her.
"Fault locator… fault locator…" El repeated, mumbling. "I don't know what that is."
'Helm panel… the lights…'
El walked over to the helm panel, looking up at the LEDs arranged on a black square. "Okay… I don't understand."
'Dispenser…' The TARDIS guided, sounding rather out of it as something was deposited from the underside of the fabrication panel.
El walked over, and took it out, revealing it to be a book.
"'Type 40 TARDIS Operations Manual.'" El read. "Hm… didn't dad say he threw this into a supernova?"
'Can make… more.' The TARDIS explained. 'Look in… environment systems. Fault locator.'
"Okay, okay…" El hurriedly flipped through the book. Despite being no bigger than a small paperback, the amount of pages El flipped through numbered in the hundreds, before she finally got to the section for the fault locator. "'When programmed to run a Basic Reality Check, this device gives a Ship Status Report, which lists all of the ship's in-stru-men-tation in coloured alpha-num-er-ic code.' Alphanumeric?"
'Letters and numbers… quickly…'
"Okay… 'To in-it-i-ate a Systems Check, locate the fault locator display panel on the primary control unit and hold down the button in the panel's upper left corner for 3 seconds.'" El looked up from the book, walking over to the helm panel. "Why didn't they just say find the lights and hold the button?" She wondered, nevertheless doing as the manual instructed.
The panel blinked, lights flashing in combination of letters and numbers, before looking back at the book.
"'The fault locator will display readouts of all systems in order. Green displays signal that the system in question is working properly. Yellow signals a standby status. Red displays a malfunction notice. Upon finding a malfunctioning system, the System Check will momentarily pause to allow the operator to view the error code.'"
El looked up from the book to the fault locator.
'A113' Was displayed in flashing text on the LED's flipping to a different section of the guide, but keeping her hand on the information for the fault locator, El found the list of systems and their codes. Moving down through the list, El found the one.
"'System A113: chameleon circuit.'"
'That… probably isn't the problem, little one. Press the button to… resume… the sequence.'
El nodded, and reached up, hitting the button. The system check proceeded along, stopping just every once in a while, El checking with the TARDIS to try to work out the problem. By the end of it, the systems check was complete, but there was a problem.
According to the fault locator, and the TARDIS herself, everything was working normally. Shouldn't say fine given the Doctor's track record with maintenance, but nothing was out of the ordinary.
This issue was external.
El frowned, about to speak when the whole console room rocked. "Ah!" She held onto the control unit as the engines warbled. "Uh… stabilizers!" She remembered, running around to the navigational panel, hitting the blue button.
The console room calmed again. She was still adrift in a runaway TARDIS, sure, but at least she wasn't stumbling around.
"El, El, hello? El!" A voice came out from a speaker on the console.
"Dad!?" She looked up.
"If you can hear me, and I hope to God you can, go over to the mechanical panel." The Doctor recommended. "There's a little microphone on a hook, hold down the button on it to speak."
El reached up for the little silver microphone, holding down the button. "Hello? Dad, can you hear me?"
"Oh thank God…" The Doctor let out a relieved sigh. "Quick, talk to me, what's going on?"
"Um… the TARDIS had me read through the manual." El explained. "She and I couldn't find what was wrong."
"…she?"
"Yeah, she talked to me. She sounded like a woman."
"El… not even I can hear the TARDIS. The closest thing she and I come close to talking like normal people is Morse code through the console."
"Oh… wow." El breathed.
"Yeah, wow… wait a minute, stupid Doctor!" A sound echoed through like the Doctor had smacked himself. "Never mind you being able to hear the TARDIS, are you okay?"
"A little shaken." El answered, rubbing a little bruise where she'd slammed into the console. "But fine. I turned the boring-ers on."
"Ah, that's my girl! Only your second lesson, and you already know your way around the console like a pro!" The Doctor's proud smile was in his face. "Now, first thing's first, situational update. What have you been doing in there?"
"We looked at the fornicator-"
"MY GOD! FAULT LOCATOR, EL, FAULT LOCATOR! You're going to give me a heart attack…"
El rolled her eyes. "But there's nothing wrong with the TARDIS."
"No, no, there are plenty of things wrong with the TARDIS, most of them my fault, but never mind that. Since we're getting external interference you need to do a scan. Pull around the monitor so it's above the navcom keyboard."
"Okay," El did, pulling the microphone across.
"Now, find the switch on the monitor and set it to mode seven."
"Right."
"You should see a little system menu called TARDOS. Time And Relative Dimension Operating System. In the topmost menu, you should see an option that says 'Initiate Local Scan.' Use the arrow keys to navigate to it and hit the enter key."
"Okay… it's asking for… para-meters."
"Set the search zone to local time and a hundred-mile radius."
"Got it."
"Now, let that run, and when it's finished, let me know what it says."
"Okay… 'Temporal Anomaly: Localized time loop causing engine interference.'" El recited, not really understanding what any of the words meant.
"Okay, okay…" The Doctor anxiously sighed. "Time loop means that the fourth-dimensional structure of time is going all wibbly. The TARDIS can't land because it'd be like… an airplane trying to land dead in the middle of a thick jungle without a runway. I've got to shut the problem down here that way the TARDIS can land."
"Can't I just… fly her somewhere else?"
"…I wouldn't try it." The Doctor answered. "The time vortex for this area is going to be full of nasty anomalies. If you keep the TARDIS inside the area of effect, it should be safe… relatively."
"Relatively?"
"Safer than trying to pilot her out. You'd have to disengage the materialization protocol and if you don't do that properly, then… Well, let's not worry about that. Just focus on keeping the TARDIS under control."
"Under control." El repeated, nodding. "How?"
"Well, you're going to have to keep her within the boundaries of our little… Vortex Hurricane. Yeah, that's a good name… Staying close to the eye of the storm will keep the TARDIS stable, like an actual hurricane… I wish I was onboard with you, El, but you're going to have to do this on your own. Use the directional pointer to steer the TARDIS further back into the Vortex Hurricane's eye, use the throttle to slow down, but don't try to land her."
"H-How will I know when I get close to the edges?" El asked.
"You're psychic already. The TARDIS will alert you when you get close to the safe zone."
"Okay…" El pulled the throttle back, but not all the way, the engines slowing, as the TARDIS sent a warning for her to turn around, the girl moving the little lever to twist the bronze telescope around, pointing away from the edge. "What are you going to do?"
"I have absolutely no idea- Oh. Hold on…"
"What is it?" El inquired.
"A card in a shop window… With your handwriting. Least, I think it's yours. Haven't seen you do very much writing since you came on board the TARDIS but it's addressed to me and signed '011' so it's the only thing that makes any sense… I'll need cash, my UNIT account should do nicely… I'll be back in a tick, don't go anywhere!"
El was about to respond before the line went dead. "Not like I can." She grumbled, placing the microphone back.
El had stood around inside the console room for, what was from her perspective, only about twenty minutes. Being in the Time Vortex meant that, while about a day had passed on Earth for the Doctor, time for El was much shorter.
Passing her time by reading a book, she waited either for the Doctor to call back, or for the TARDIS to warn her to tend to the controls.
Eventually, one of the two happened.
"Earth to El, Earth to El. Come in, El."
"I'm here." El replied.
"Oh that's not good, not good at all." The Doctor, even though El couldn't see him, was obviously shaking his head. "We need to fill you in about proper radio procedure."
El sighed. "Maybe later. Did you fix it?"
"Well, I think I found the source at least. That card in the shop window was posted in front of an advertisement for a prospective lodger." The Doctor explained.
"Lodger?"
"Someone who pays you to live in your house but they're not related." The Doctor answered. "But never mind that. How's the TARDIS coping?"
"Hm… Listen." El held the microphone up to the Time Rotor, the sickened engines going unsteadily.
"Oh, poor old girl… Has she talked to you since?"
"Just to warn me." El replied. "I think it's hurting her."
"Well, she's caught in a materialization loop while at the heart of a Vortex Hurricane." The Doctor replied. "I'd be more surprised if she wasn't in agonizing pain."
"…Is there anything I can do for her?"
"Being there, I think that's all that matters."
"Can you stop it?" El requested. "I can feel her pain."
"Well, I don't know what it is yet." The Doctor replied, springs squeaking in the background like he was standing on a bit of furniture. "Anything that can keep the TARDIS from landing is big… Scary big."
El swallowed, as her eyes widened. "Are you scared?"
"…It's not exactly a comforting prospect." The Doctor sighed. "Whatever it is, I can't just go up there until I work out what it is and how to deal with it, and it is vital that the man upstairs doesn't realize who or what I am. So no sonicing. No advanced technology. I can only use this cause we're on scramble, to anyone else listening this conversation sounds like complete gibberish!"
El sighed, rubbing her face. "Do you actually have a plan?"
"Course I do! I always have a plan. All I have to do is pass like an ordinary human being. Simple. What could possibly go wrong?"
"Don't say that!" El commanded.
"Why?"
"Because, you say: 'Oh, what could possibly go wrong?'" El deepened her voice, exaggerating the Doctor's erratic gesticulating, "And then, something bad always happens!"
"Oh, so you're just going to be snide, then? Well, you can forget about gyros with Hercules when I get back! Come on, El, you're a human, tell me what humans do."
"Uh…" She tried to draw on her only experience with being around other people in a normal capacity. "Video games and junk food?"
"Hm… I dunno. This fella I'm rooming with seems more like a football sort. Hang on!" The Doctor suddenly changed tracks. "Wait, wait, wait! El!?"
The engines banged, sparks showering as the console room remained stable, but that wasn't saying much.
El covered her head as the lights in the room flickered, before going back to normal, the TARDIS stabilizing once again.
"Okay… I'm okay." She sent back to the Doctor. "What about you?"
"Fine." The Doctor replied. "Listen, I'm trying to work as fast as I can, but I need you to hold on. Go to the zig-zag plotter, set it to full."
El reached down for the gearshift like device, the TARDIS letting out a mechanical purr in response.
"Good. That'll keep you protected, at least for a little while." The Doctor told her. "Now, I must not use the sonic… I've got work to do, need to pick up a few items."
As the Doctor talked, El's eyes locked on something across the console room. Its head was enormous, with sunken-in eyes and grey skin, four long fingers on its hands. It was wearing a suit, like the one the bad people had worn, but it was… leathery, almost like it was a part of the creature itself.
"HEY!" She shouted to the alien, getting ready to throw it across the room.
The TARDIS rocked and her line of sight to the creature broke.
El frowned… 'Wait, what was I doing?' She wondered, the creature having been completely forgotten.
"Right, so, I'm going out," The Doctor's voice came from the console about five minutes after the previous conversation. "If I hang around here all the time, him upstairs might get suspicious. Notice me."
El nodded, looking through a magnifying glass to a spot on the ceiling. Did the Doctor ever clean the place?
"What are you going out for?" El asked.
"Football! Perfectly normal, perfectly human sport. And look, this jersey has 11 on it! I might keep it… Anyhow, TTYL, LOL, ROFL, YOLO!"
El blinked as the line went dead. What in God's name…?
"El? El!" The Doctor called over the TARDIS engines and the sparking.
The girl held onto the console, trying to keep steady as the room shook, the stabilizers overwhelmed this time.
"It's happening again!" El replied. "A lot stronger this time!"
"What does the scanner say!?"
"Um," El looked up, "A lot of nines! Is that good!?"
"…yeah? Zig-zag plotter! Move it!"
El reached over, hanging on as she moved the shifter, looking at the screen. "Okay! It's gone down to fives…" She reported as the console room stabilized again.
"Good…" The Doctor let out a sigh of relief. "Still, it means the effect is unbelievably powerful, and dangerous, but don't worry. Dad's a-coming."
El let out another sigh as, for the fifth time in the past half hour, she switched the TARDIS around.
"Are you going to be okay?" She posed aloud to the timeship.
'I… don't…' The TARDIS hazily replied, like she was caught in a dream or was just very, very confused. 'Not well.'
"Don't worry…" El replied, before awkwardly patting the console to try and make the TARDIS feel better. "Dad's going to fix it."
"El." The Doctor radioed.
"That's Eleven!" A different man in the background spoke up. "From the lab!"
"Of course, you can understand now, hurrah!" The Doctor grumbled in response. "El, I need you to do me a favor. Pull the scanner back around to the navcom keyboard, access the TARDIS databanks, and do a search for 79 Aickman Road, can you do that?"
"On it." El replied, using the keyboard to navigate through the data system. "It might be a minute."
"Well, in any event, I've worked it out!" The Doctor boasted. "With some help from a cat."
El looked up. "A cat?"
"Yeah! Actually, did you know, all cats in the universe, even the species on Earth, are descended from Gallifreyan cats? Bet you didn't know that."
"Makes sense." El shrugged, still searching. "The whole nine lives thing. But what does that have to do with what's happening?"
"Oh, right, it doesn't. He's got a time engine upstairs and he's using innocent people to try and launch it." The Doctor explained. "Whenever he does, they get burnt up, hence the stain on your ceiling." He directed to the man he was lodging with.
"From the ceiling!" He finished in time.
"Well done, Craig, and you, little miss El, almost get sent flying into a Vortex Hurricane strong enough to rip the TARDIS to pieces."
Something on the other end of the line banged.
"People are dying up there!" Craig exclaimed. "People are dying- People are dying- People are dying-"
El yelped as she found the information, but the TARDIS hit another patch of catastrophic turbulence.
"Someone's up there!" The Doctor recognized, pulling Craig out of the loop.
The lights in the console room flickered, a deep ringing reaching El's ears.
"Dad!" El shouted. "The Cloister Bell!"
"Don't worry, El, we're stopping it! Craig, come on, someone's dying… up there…"
"Sophie. It's Sophie that's dying up there, it's Sophie!"
El looked at the building plans on the scanner, and gasped. "Dad!"
"Don't worry, we're upstairs now!"
"No, but you can't be!" El replied.
"Why not?" The Doctor questioned.
"It only has one floor!" El replied, staring right at the plans for the building. "There is no upstairs!"
She could hear the sonic screwdriver and a door creaking open.
"What!?" Craig breathed.
"Oh… Oh. Of course! The time engine isn't in the flat, the time engine is the flat… Someone's attempt to build a TARDIS. Better than the Eldridge, at least."
"B-But, there's always been an upstairs!"
El rolled her eyes. "Time travel!"
"Has there?" The Doctor questioned Craig, not relaying El's words. "Think about it."
"Yes! …No. I don't…"
"Perception filter." The Doctor explained. "Keeps you from noticing anything out of the ordinary."
El jumped, the TARDIS still shuddering like a car going highway speeds down a gravel road, as a woman's scream tore through the speaker.
'Poor woman… she sounds like… I feel right now.' The TARDIS coughed. Did she have vocal cords? No. Did she even have a throat? Also no.
Which should give you an idea of just how painful it was for her.
"Sophie! Sophie!" Craig called. "Oh my God, Sophie!"
"It's controlling her!" The Doctor shouted. "It's willing her to touch the activator!"
"No!" Craig bellowed. "It's not going to have her!"
Suddenly, the screaming stopped, and yet, the TARDIS kept shaking
"What?" The Doctor questioned. "Why's it stopped?"
"You will help me." A different voice stated.
"Right! Stop!" The Doctor commanded. "Crashed ship, okay. Hello! I'm Captain… Jack Harkness, Torchwood! Good, pin the blame on him if this goes pear-shaped… Please state the nature of your medical emergency! Well, not medical, but you understand."
"The ship has crashed. The crew are dead. A pilot is required."
"And you're the crash program!" The Doctor recognized "A hologram. What? You've been luring people here so you can burn them out?"
"You will help me, you will help me, you will help me." The voice glitched, switching between ages and even genders.
"Hush." The Doctor ordered. "Human brains tiny, they just burn, but you're stupid, aren't you? You just keep trying!"
"Seventeen people have been tried. Six-billion, four-hundred-thousand, twenty-six remain."
"Dad, hurry it up!" El ordered.
"The correct pilot has now been found."
El rolled her eyes. "Great, he means you!" The TARDIS rocked like it had been hit, El holding herself up by the monitor's handles. "What's happening!?"
"The system's selected me to be the new pilot!" The Doctor grunted, as he was evidently being moved against his will.
"That's good, right!?" El asked. "Can't you fly it out of there!?"
"No!" The Time Lord quickly replied. "I'm too much for this ship! My hand touches that panel, the planet doesn't blow up… the whole solar system does! No, worst choice ever, I promise you!" He directed to the crash program. "I'm telling you, stop this!"
The TARDIS banged again, El having the wind knocked out of her as she was sent into the console.
"Dad!" El screamed. "It's getting worse!"
"It doesn't want everyone, Craig, it didn't want you!" The Doctor began.
"I-I spoke to it, it said I couldn't help it!" The man remembered.
"It didn't want Sophie before, now it does! What's changed!?" The Doctor howled in pain. "Augh! No! I gave her the idea of leaving! It's a machine that wants to leave! It wants people who want to escape and you don't want that Craig! You're mister Sofa Man!"
"Sofa Man!?" El repeated in confusion, as the glass floor under her began to crack. "Dad!"
"Craig, you can shut it down! Place your hand on the panel and concentrate on why you want to stay!"
"Craig, no!" Sophie shouted.
"Will it work!?" Craig questioned.
"Yes!"
"Are you sure!?"
"…Yes!"
"Is that a lie!?"
"OF COURSE IT'S A LIE!"
"It's good enough for me… Geronimo! …AAAAAAAAA-!"
El lost her grip, falling back into the railing around the upper platform as Craig's screaming split her head. "Dad!"
"Craig, think about it! What's keeping you here!? What makes you want to stay!?"
"Sophie! I don't want to leave Sophie! I can't leave Sophie! I love Sophie!"
The viewport by the door exploded. "DAD!"
"Oh, not now Craig, the planet's about to burn! For God's sake… KISS THE GIRL!"
"KISS THE GIRL!" El echoed.
'Kiss the girl!' A snippet of music blasted from the TARDIS's radio.
The shaking suddenly stopped, before El heard a thud, and the Time Rotor stilled.
The TARDIS had landed.
The girl excitedly checked the scanner.
"Dad… you did it!" El laughed. "The TARDIS landed and the screen's zeroes now! Minus ones… minus twos… minus threes… Woo!"
"…big uh oh. Emergency shut down, it's imploding! Everybody out, now!"
The moment those words left his mouth the line went dead.
"…Dad?" El questioned. "Dad?" A couple of seconds passed.
"Right, sorry. Just had to look at the fireworks." The Doctor replied.
El sighed in relief and flopped against the console.
"Right, back in time," The Doctor pulled one of the levers, back at his proper place behind the TARDIS's controls. "Here, copy this over for me." He handed El a tiny square of paper, a pen, and the note from the shop. "Just a quick pop-back to set things up and then we can go on our way." He put a stethoscope in his ears, running over parts of the console.
El nodded and began to follow the lines on the note.
"Oh, rectifier's playing up again…" The Doctor groaned, "Oh, I need to remember to change that will, too."
El tilted her head. "Will?"
"The room was only vacant because the previous lodger got a huge inheritance. Done yet?"
"Here." El handed the scrap up to the Doctor.
"Right, be right back." The Time Lord told her, dashing down the stairs to the door.
El looked up to the ceiling. "Okay?"
'I'm… fine, little one.' The TARDIS replied. 'Don't fret. Now… I believe your father said something about gyros with Hercules?'
