Author's Notes:
Wishing you the best on Memorial Day for US readers, and happy Spring bank holiday to folks in the UK!
Chapter 12
Sagacity, The Universal Collaborative for Temporal Insight, the TARDIS
The Doctor wobbled a little when they materialized in the TARDIS control room, but this time he managed to keep his feet. Once he was sure he wasn't going to puke or pass out embarrassingly again, he pushed Matheson away roughly.
"How are you feeling? Any better with the new coil?"
"Maybe. Hard to tell yet," The Doctor replied a little huffily. He eyed Rex and was annoyed to see that the agent seemed just as perky as he was before they left Torchwood. He also seemed to have taken in his surroundings without a ripple of shock or surprise.
The Doctor made his way to the console and pulled up the time study, quickly finding the segments including the 2016 Democratic primaries. He studied both timelines carefully.
"What are you looking for?"
"Just wanted to confirm that Shaw really did end his campaign. Looks like he made a press announcement within an hour of our departure."
"Any sign of Starck?"
"Looking for that now." He plugged the sonic into its slot and watched the screen as the analysis results began to appear. Rex looked on from his spot directly behind the Doctor. The Doctor considered toggling the screen to show English text instead of Gallifreyan, but he was still a bit miffed at Matheson's lack of reaction to the TARDIS. His crankiness abated when he looked at the analysis results.
"Well, this is interesting. The scan picked up plenty of artron energy, and also trace genetic material."
"How can you be sure it's Starck's genetic material, though? I mean, it's a hotel room. I'm sure there's plenty of trace genetic material from the guests and housekeeping workers."
"True. This DNA is close to that of a human, but not identical. What's the likelihood that a member of the housekeeping staff or another guest is not entirely human?"
"Good point." The Doctor turned his attention back to the two timelines, searching for Starck's bio signature.
"Starck doesn't show up on the true timeline, but he's all over the corrupt one, and not just in the US."
"So, is the future still all screwed up? Or did getting Shaw to pack it in straighten things out?"
The Doctor scanned through the next few years of the timeline. He sighed tiredly when he saw that not much had changed.
"The American presidential election of 2016 appears to be sorted, and I see no further discrepancies in critical events in the US. The rest of the world, however, still has some serious trouble."
"Show me."
"Show you what?"
"C'mon, Doctor. I'm human. This is my first time away from Earth and traveling through time. Help me understand how big the problem is. Show me the future."
"Okay. Fine. I can't take you there, but I can show you on the chronoscanner."
Instead of taking requests, the Doctor pulled up the coordinates for Saint Paul's Cathedral in London in December of 2025. The view from the steps of the cathedral revealed a London in ruins. Although it was noon local time, the sky was gray and thick. The Doctor stepped aside and invited Rex to stand in front of the chronoscanner, demonstrating how to move the view.
Like Senator Shaw, the Torchwood agent spent considerable time studying the landscape.
"And that's what 2025 looks like if you don't correct what's going wrong with the timeline?"
"Yes."
"What can Torchwood do to help?"
Sadly, without Jack and his vortex manipulator, there wasn't much the Torchwood team of 2016 could do. After some discussion, the doctor and Rex agreed the best use of Torchwood's time was to continue to search for signs of unusual activity and investigate it and call the Doctor if they should discover more information about Starck. To facilitate this, the Doctor grudgingly gave Rex the TARDIS phone number. He also emphasized that if the time agent saw or heard from Jack Harkness, to urge him to get in touch.
The Doctor deposited Matheson back at Torchwood in 2016, then returned to the TARDIS. While he didn't feel the violent nausea that accompanied most of his time vortex jaunts, he still felt alarmingly shaky, sore and tired.
He checked on Peter on his way to med bay. The twelve-year-old had rolled onto his back and was snoring gustily. Finally, he steeled himself and entered med bay.
The TARDIS turned the lights up automatically. He heard the whole-body scanner powering up in the corner of the room. Clearly the old girl wanted a more comprehensive evaluation than he had planned. He positioned himself between the plates of the scanner, took a deep breath, and held it while the scanner did its work. The news wasn't good. Not even close to good.
Fortunately, there were three remaining vials of acaer in the medicine chest. He took one and injected it into his arm, trying to ignore the unpleasant burning sensation as it traveled through his vascular system. His hearts sped up sharply and the Doctor found himself panting involuntarily. The med bay suddenly felt fiendishly hot. He armed sweat off his brow. Gradually, the initial rush from the acaer subsided, and the Doctor was left feeling marginally better, though still not great.
While there was no cure for chorenn toxicity, the acaer would take care of the worst of the symptoms for a few hours. Hopefully that would buy him enough time to complete a few more adjustments before he needed another dose. Assuming that the new field coil solved the problem with the vortex manipulator, the chorenn would leave his system over the course of several weeks. While a healing trance would help him clear the chorenn in a matter of hours, he didn't have hours to spare if he wanted to solve the time fracture before the suns rose on Sagacity.
Back in the console room, the Doctor studied the time study results and determined that the next critical divergence of note was in Nice, France, on Bastille Day, 14 July, 2016. On the true timeline, a terrorist drove a truck through the crowd at the Bastille Day parade, killing 86 people and wounding hundreds. On the corrupt timeline, the attack was aborted narrowly when someone observed something was amiss and alerted authorities.
Rather than study the incident in detail and develop an intervention strategy, the Doctor opted instead to look in on Kate Stewart and company at Royal London Hospital. While he knew from the chronoscanner that the timeline was still corrupt and the nuclear crisis had still happened, he was curious to see if his intervention with Shaw had any kind of knock-on effect, no matter how small, in that horrific future.
He did take a few moments to gather some additional supplies in a backpack. Sadly, he had no more radiation tablets or radiation stabilizers, but he did have more rations, a nearly unlimited power source that could replace at least a few of their petrol-powered generators, and a few other gadgets that might come in handy.
Packing a bag like this was just the sort of thing that would land him in hot water with an inquiry, if Romana ever got wind of it. As he had so many times before, and always with the best of intentions, introducing alien futuristic tech to help out in a crisis carried its own burden of timeline risk.
Backpack securely on his back, the Doctor entered coordinates for one day after his last visit to Royal London. If he bounced back, he would do as he'd done before, backing up his arrival time by small increments until he was successful. Of course, it was also possible that he still could not reach Kate beyond the date and time of his first visit. If that was the case, then it was likely that Peter would be stranded here in the TARDIS until the timeline was completely repaired, or, if the Doctor failed to correct the timeline, possibly forever.