"Now, just relax," said the Doctor softly, bringing his hands up to Martha's head and pressing his fingers gently onto her temples. "This won't hurt. I promise."
Martha swallowed and closed her eyes. She could hear the Doctor's slow breaths, and tried to match her own breathing pattern to his.
Time seemed to stand still around them. Even the sounds of the TARDIS faded away as Martha felt her mind drift into a kind of dream.
The smell of damp moss reached her, and she turned to find herself in a forest. The Doctor was beside her, holding her hand.
"Don't worry." His voice sounded somehow faraway and right beside her ear at the same time. "We're inside the network. None of this is real."
Martha looked around. The forest was like something out of a fairy-tale, dappled in patches of blue light. The trees were gnarled and looming, their branches twisting around and around overhead like snakes. Fireflies glimmered all around them, and a gentle mist hung in the air.
"It's beautiful," she murmured. The Doctor hummed in agreement.
"This is how your mind perceives it." He placed a hand on the bark of the nearest tree. "A forest is nature's network. It's all connected, every tree rooted deep in the same soil. Come on."
They moved through the silent mist like ghosts, shifting between the trees as the Doctor scanned around with his sonic screwdriver. Martha smiled.
"If none of this is real, how come you're using the sonic?"
"Because you imagine me using it to find things," said the Doctor, hopping over the lumpy root of a particularly large tree. "So I'm hoping it will trick your mind into leading us to what we're looking for."
Reasoning that this made more sense than most things he said, Martha followed him around the tree, and stopped when she saw that the forest had opened out into a lake, the far shore shrouded in mist.
A low branch of the large tree extended across the water like an arm, and sitting in the crook of its elbow, suspended over the lake, was a child. The Doctor had already stepped down onto the pebbly beach, his hands held up in a peaceful gesture.
"Hello! I'm the Doctor."
The child looked down at him. It had dark skin and pale eyes which glowed the same misty blue as the lake. It sat on the branch like a sovereign on a throne, wrapped in silky green vines which were twisted back into the bark of the tree.
"You're not part of the forest." The child's voice echoed from the very air around them, and the earth below them. Martha shivered, somehow feeling more scared of this strange being than she had been at the top of the Shard.
"Ah, well, no," admitted the Doctor. "Just visiting. But I have to say, it's… truly a pleasure to meet you at last." He took a step closer, staring at the child with wonder. "Agni."
Martha stared at the Doctor, then at the child. This was the parasite?
"Doctor." The child tilted its head at him, eyes flickering as if reading off several invisible screens, and a few of the vines surrounding it twitched in quick succession. "Wise man. Healer. Protector."
"That's right," said the Doctor, glancing over his shoulder and motioning for Martha to join him on the small beach. "You have access to an awful lot of minds, don't you? Lots of roots in the ground, gathering information."
More vines twitched like spasming snakes as Martha cautiously moved to the Doctor's side, her boots crunching on the pebbles. The Agni turned to watch her with those cold shining eyes, and she felt a sliver of ice run down her spine.
"This is my forest. What are you doing here? What do you want?"
The Doctor put his hands in his pockets. "I'm here to help. So how about you start by telling us what you want?"
The Agni hesitated. Martha could tell the trust field was working - she could feel the gentle warmth in the Doctor's tone, easing the conversation like melted butter.
"I want to learn," said the Agni simply. "There's so much to find out - and so many minds to help me here in the forest. We work together, to learn everything we can. Store the information in our roots."
"Sounds like you're trying to build the internet from scratch," said the Doctor with a smile. "I did that once. Took a long time, though. You're, what, a couple of months old?"
"I was born alone, in the darkness. So I reached out and grew the forest."
"You've created a telepathic network across millions of people to help you learn," said the Doctor gently. "But they're not strong enough for it. You're draining them. You need to let them go."
The Doctor's words hung in the mist, and the air seemed to grow colder - although still not as cold as the Agni's icy eyes as it stared at the Doctor.
"I can't. I need to know everything. I want to devour all the knowledge in the universe."
"Of course you do. I was the same when I was your age." The Doctor smiled ruefully. "I thought that if I read every book and heard every story then I would have all the answers. But that's not how it works. You can't just absorb knowledge and expect to become wise. You need to experience things for yourself, and not through other people. There's not enough time to understand all the secrets of creation and still live your own life."
There was silence following the Doctor's little speech. Martha watched the Agni tilt its head, blinking in concentration as the vines moved around it, probably trying to catalogue all this new information. The Doctor tried again.
"Let me help you, Agni. I will find a way to give you a physical body, and you can explore the universe to your heart's content. But you need to leave these people alone."
The Agni shook its head, a frown creasing its child's brow.
"No. The forest is my eyes and ears. I will not go back into the darkness."
"Trust me," said the Doctor, taking another step forward. The vines began to writhe more wildly, and several snaked towards him, but he dodged them. The Agni was getting more agitated.
"You said you were here to help! So you will join the forest and help me!"
There was a deep rumbling beneath their feet, and a sudden wind howled through the forest, tussling leaves around their feet and making the trees creak and sway. The surface of the lake rippled.
"Listen to me," said the Doctor, raising his voice so as to be heard over the rumbling. "Your forest is dying. Do you understand? If you don't leave, you will die too."
"My forest is strong." When the Agni spoke now its words were layered by a chorus of deeper voices.
"You need to stop," said the Doctor, backing away now. "Please, listen. You need to evolve beyond this existence, or it will destroy you."
"No! I will not die!"
And then the scream came from all around them, a million voices crying out, and Martha realised one of them was hers.
The child on the tree branch threw its arms wide and the vines snapped out towards them like whips, and then the Doctor was grabbing Martha's hand and they were running.
The forest became a blur, the blue mist melting into harsh red light, and the soft earth turning to metal beneath Martha's feet. The screaming trees closed in around them and became walls.
"What's happening?" Martha gasped.
"It's turning your mind against us!" The Doctor turned abruptly and then they were off down another narrow corridor.
Martha's heart hammered as she held onto the Doctor's hand for dear life. This was horribly familiar. The red light, the claustrophobic walls. Any second there would be…
The Doctor skidded to halt. Facing them was a creature, a shapeshifter, morphing as it moved towards them. It grew razor teeth and claws, dripped venom and drool, its body bulging and ripping apart and then reforming again as it cycled through all of Martha's deepest fears.
"Blimey!" the Doctor doubled back, but Martha didn't bother following him. She knew there would be a wall behind them now. Sure enough, the Doctor cursed and began to scan around with the sonic screwdriver, muttering.
"Come on, Master, get us out of here…"
Martha's throat had closed up in terror and she backed away, shutting her eyes as the creature closed in on them. She could feel it, smell its putrid breath as it reached her, and for the second time in twenty-four hours she resigned herself to being its lunch.
And then the Doctor gave a sharp cry of pain and the entire world seemed to shatter.
Martha opened her eyes. She was back in the TARDIS, sprawled on the floor beneath the console. Crouching beside her was the Master, who was rubbing the knuckles of his right hand with a pained expression. The Doctor was opposite her, clutching his nose.
"You didn't have to literally punch me in the face!"
"You were screaming your bloody heads off," retorted the Master, straightening up. "So, I take it you didn't have peaceful negotiations with the brain parasite?"
The Doctor glared at the other Time Lord as he gripped the edge of the console and pulled himself up with a grunt, removing his Command Cube necklace and placing it on the console with a clink.
"It's scared. This telepathic network is the only thing it knows. Asking it to let go is like asking a child to jump off a building."
"I'd jump off a building."
"You're insane, that doesn't count."
The Master shrugged, then outstretched his hand to Martha, who was still on the floor.
Martha blinked up at him, completely bemused by this casual offer of assistance.
He raised his eyebrows at her as if to say, take it or leave it. Cautiously, Martha accepted the hand and he pulled her to her feet.
"Ahem."
The Doctor was peering at them from the other side of the time rotor with undisguised disapproval. The Master grinned and span back to face the console.
"Right then. While you two were dozing off in dream-land, I managed to do a clever thing."
He pressed a button and the scanner screen flashed up, showing a circular web of white dots and lines. They looked like constellations.
"What's that?" asked Martha, peering at the screen over the Doctor's shoulder.
"Complete scan of the Agni network, extrapolated from residual bounce-back patterns in the telepathic frequency after the Doctor's failed hacking attempt." The Master sounded very pleased with himself. "Those points are all the linked minds." He tapped the middle of the image, where a bead of light shone like the centre of a spiral galaxy. "And that's the parasite. I've traced its exact location. And it's not inside the Time War."
The Doctor looked up at him. "Where is it?"
"You're gonna love this." The Master's grin widened. "It's in Lord's brain."
There was a moment of silence.
The Doctor blinked slowly. "What?"
"Isn't it ironic?" the Master spread his arms wide like a showman. "Of course he's the root of all the trouble. I bet he brought it out of the Time War on purpose, intending to spread it across the universe."
"But that's completely stupid," pointed out Martha. "If he's got it, he'll be as dead as the rest of us."
"Unless he didn't realise it would affect him," said the Doctor steadily, moving to flick a few dials and beginning a circuit of the console. "But this doesn't make sense. How did Lord link with the Dalek which fell to Earth?"
The Master rolled his eyes, flopping back in the pilot's seat. "He's got a Dalek ship, hasn't he? I don't know, Doctor. Use your big brain to figure it out. Anyway, doesn't this just make our job easier? We were already planning to kill him. Now we have another excuse."
"What?" Martha gave him a look of unease, then turned to the Doctor. "That's not true. Is it?"
The Doctor put a hand to his temple. "I have a… theory about how to put the Master and Lord back together."
"By killing us both," finished the Master brightly. "How are we gonna do that, by the way? Shoot him in the back? Electric pulse to the brain? Want me to stab him?"
The Doctor glared. "We're not touching him. If you and Lord regenerate into one Time Lord again, that will destroy the Angi. This is an emerging life-form, a child just trying to learn. We can't kill it."
"We absolutely can," said the Master flippantly. "And we need to kill Lord so I can get my full brain back." He frowned at the Doctor. "This is perfect. Don't you see? Destroy Lord, destroy the parasite. Save the universe, save me. Everybody wins."
"No."
The Master gaped at him in disbelief. "What do you mean, 'No'? This was your plan!"
"Then I'll think of a new plan!"
The Master sat forward in the pilot's seat, his tone suddenly very serious. "Do you have any idea what this is like for me, Doctor? I know you've got two hearts, and no telepathic parasite gnawing away at your brain, and no Fission Clone trying to kill I can barely think straight. My heart is decrepit. And still - still the drums are beating in my ears, and you want to delay fixing me, to save the life of some stupid worm with delusions of grandeur?"
"I will not kill that creature!"
The Doctor's voice echoed thunderously in the room. There was an edge of desperate anger in it, and also that terrible authority which usually preceded him giving a moral speech.
Martha looked at her shoes in the ringing silence, but the Master tilted his chin defiantly, daring the Doctor to argue with him.
"I'm sorry for what they did to you on Gallifrey," the Doctor said eventually, his voice quiet. "And I understand why you're angry. The Time Lords had no right."
The Master gave a bitter laugh. "Well, it doesn't matter. All the Time Lords are dead now, and they're never coming back. You made sure of that."
The Doctor stared at him with dark eyes. "If you're talking about the War…"
"Killer."
The word was little more than a vicious whisper, but it made the Doctor flinch. Then he turned away, the blue glow of the TARDIS washing over the lines on his face, making him look old and tired.
"We need to speak to Lord. I'm going to find the spacesuits."
He moved towards the interior doors, pocketing the Command Cube and flicking a switch on the console as he went. The TARDIS hummed softly.
"Isomorphic controls are on." He looked black at the Master. "Don't touch anything."
The Master raised his eyebrows, darted a glance at Martha and then smiled. "Wouldn't dream of it."
Illustration for chapter 26 on DeviantArt: atlantihero-kyoxei/art/Martha-s-Mind-Forest-875500686