Episode 1 - Part 3 - The Ocean's Call
Asuna had certainly led what many would have considered an interesting life so far.
Being born into a wealthy family, and the situations that had stemmed from that life, had led to her becoming curious, and in what she had later realised had amounted to looking for an escape from that suffocating life, she'd tried her brother's NerveGear. If she'd thought of her life as anything unusual up to that point, then - to paraphrase the King of Rock of Roll, she hadn't seen nothin' yet...
The day she'd logged in was November 6th, 2022, and the game was Sword Art Online, the first Full Dive VR game, and the rather literal embodiment of the phrase ''death trap of a game''.
After a rather questionable start, and a first month that could best be described as ''disheartening'', the players of Sword Art Online made remarkable progress in clearing the game, and of the ten thousand who started... only six thousand came out the other side. Asuna had survived the death game, and come out of it with a renewed sense of purpose in life - a husband in the form of Kirito, and an adopted daughter in the form of an abandoned prototype counselling program that had taken the form of a young girl. Her life had certainly not been normal, but if she thought that had certainly not been the end of that mess, it wasn't. Not by a long margin...
November 7th, 2024 was the day when the death game was officially cleared - precisely 731 days after it started, and yet, Asuna was one of three hundred unlucky players who found themselves perceived as nothing more than toys at the hands of a madman on a power trip. That hadn't stopped her from attempting to free the other 299 hostages, even at massive risk to herself. Nor had it stopped Kirito, who, alongside a gathered mass of players, the number of which could only be described as a small army, had led a rescue effort to free them.
Even after the rescue, she'd found herself jumping between adventures in the virtual worlds. From the barren hellscapes of Gun Gale Online, to the soaring islands of Alfheim Online, she'd often been on the frontlines alongside her friend group, and had a reality check through a cheerful and chirpy young imp, Yuuki, who'd become almost like a sister to her...
That had been... rough, to find the young girl suffered from an incurable illness, and it had been a colossal gut punch when she'd passed on. It had given her a new perspective on life though - live whilst you can.
All of which would go a small way to explain why she was currently standing outside a blue police box, alongside Tomo and a random, and quite possibly mad, stranger, with what felt like an entire battalion of soldiers holding all three of them at gunpoint...
''Hands in the air! Code Blue, I repeat, Code Blue!'' The commander called out through his radio, his rifle's stock hold against his shoulder, eyes down the iron sight (if Asuna remembered the pointers that Sinon had given her when they all joined GGO), aiming the rifle towards The Doctor.
''Ah.'' The Doctor vocalised, his hands held above his head as he realised the affiliation of the soldiers.
''Ol' friends o' yers, Doc?'' Tomo asked, her eyes fixed forward as she refused to move any more muscles than were absolutely necessary to breath. Asuna agreed with her - the last thing she wanted was to be shot for sneezing...
''Sort of.'' He answered, looking around them. ''Well, I say friends...'' He corrected himself quietly. A man came from nowhere, having clearly sprinted down the corridor at the radio call that had gone out. The man had clearly not had time to make himself look presentable, still wearing a robe... yet, also wearing sunglasses indoors. As the man approached, a realisation came over Asuna - she recognised the man. All too well, in fact... it was Kikuoka, and for once today, she was hardly surprised at the man's involvement here.
''Stand down! They aren't hostile!'' He tried to look authoritative, as unlikely as that was for a man in a robe and sunglasses. Despite this, the troops did indeed lower their weapons, and the girls felt a weight off their chests - the weight of having about twenty rifles pointed at them to be precise. Kikuoka sighed in relief too, before he spoke. ''Apologies for the... rather warm welcome, Doctor, but you of all people know how tight UNIT security is! I'll admit, I was expecting Miss Yuuki, and possibly Miss Hosaka too, but you Doctor? That is a surprise... '' He chuckled to himself, much to the confusion of everyone present.
The confusion on the two girls was at the acronym - what the heck was UNIT? She'd initially assumed the soldiers were JSDF of some form, possibly an elite unit, given the black uniforms and red berets, though that seemed unlikely given the equipment - she'd remembered the equipment that was listed as Japanese in origin in GGO, and none of it looked familiar by that standard. She looked over at Tomo - if anyone would know what they were looking at, it'd be her. As Argo, she'd been the premier information broker in the death game, and prided herself on how thorough she was. She simply shrugged, equally confused...
''Right, bit old me-'' The look on The Doctor's face was one of a man underselling himself. It was one that betrayed his youthful looks, Asuna thought to herself, as she watched him rubbing the back of his neck. ''-but have we met before?''
''Ah, no, of course not. Silly me, I'm Kikuoka, Seijirou Kikuoka. Welcome to the Ocean Turtle, Doctor. On behalf of the JSDF and Unified Intelligence Taskforce - Pacific Division, of course.''
''Ahh, of course. Interesting place you've got here, Kikuoka. Floating international incident waiting to happen, mind you, but you could hide anything out here, weapons development, alien tech...'' The Doctor spoke, as he looked around a number of crates, noticing a number of things that definitely didn't belong in a normal UNIT base... ''Could even get away with keeping missing teenagers here, and no one would be any the wiser...'' The Doctor reappeared from behind the crates, and continued... ''Why do UNIT even want a comatose teenager anyway?''
Spotting a lull in the conversation, she took her chance to speak up. ''Where is Kirito-kun, Kikuoka!'' She ignored any formalities, and skipped straight to the question on each of their minds.
''I can promise you, Miss Yuuki, he's as well as can be, all things considered.'' That wasn't anywhere near an acceptable answer to Asuna, and something about the looks on Tomo and The Doctor's faces told her that she wasn't the only one thinking that either.
'' ''All things considered''? What's that s'ppos'd ta mean, Kikuoka?''
''Considering the nature of the... incident, it's frankly a miracle he's in as good a condition as he is. His vitals are fine, at least as far as we can tell, but...''
''But...?''
Kikuoka looked around the room, and rolled his eyes, inevitably damning them in his mind for being quite so stubborn. ''His mind is damaged. Very badly, in ways that conventional medicine simply cannot help him recover from. We bought him here because we think we stand the better chance of helping him to recover.''
''Recover how? This isn't a hospital, it's a military base!'' The Doctor asked, looking at the markings on the sides of a crate before he popped his head back around. Asuna and Tomo both looked at the markings; ''Origin: Van Staten Industries, Utah. Handle with Caution.'' ''Ohhh... you're UNIT's R&D division, aren't you?'' He looked surprisingly happy, as they continued walking. ''Always wondered what you lot had hidden away here!''
''In a way, I suppose so, Doctor.'' Kikuoka shrugged, before Tomo interjected.
'' 'kay then, now that's sorted... the heck is UNIT?''
''We, Miss Yuuki, Miss Hosaka, are the people who defend the planet from... less than savoury creatures.'' Kikuoka turned towards The Doctor, and continued speaking, but almost with an accusatory edge to his words. ''Well, when he isn't here, anyway...''
''Sorry, but I musta misheard ya... aliens!? As in ''we come in peace'' an' all that?'' Tomo asked, almost as if she hadn't seen an impossible police box, less than thirty minutes ago. Honestly, the fact that the Earth was defended wasn't so much the bit that surprised her... so much as the countries of the world all working together? That was more surprising.
''Well, most of them do. We handle the ones that don't.'' The look on The Doctor's face was one that Asuna could identify easily. It was the same look she often had on her face whenever Kirito did something really stupid. A look that was both smugness, and ''I told you so.'', but in The Doctor's case, she figured it was more likely that he knew far more than he was letting on...
''Does... do we get invaded that often?'' She asked the only question that came to mind after that answer.
''It depends, Miss Yuuki.''
''On what?''
''What day is it?'' Kikuoka answered, before bursting into laughter, and Asuna felt a shiver run through her spine at the laughter. Kikuoka had always been... less than trustworthy in her eyes, and the knowledge that Kikuoka was involved in something so shady, really hadn't helped that image of him. ''I kid, but it's more often than we'd like. Since 2005, there has been a notable uptake in alien activity on Earth, and we... we weren't always as prepared as we should've been.'' The almost self-loathing tone in Kikuoka's voice became quite apparent. The man had evidently seen some things... ''And we can't always rely on him to save us.''
''If yer defendin' the Earth, then why would ya need someone else ta save it?''
''There is only so much we can do, Miss Hosaka, and sometimes... we do the wrong thing.'' Kikuoka's tone became far darker, with an anger there that threatened to simmer over as he spoke. ''I was there, back in July 2009. I watched as the children of Earth all stood still, talking in unison, and I watched as children were gathered up...''
''What happened?''
''The Earth was threatened, and we- well, the politicians, caved to demands. The only reason we didn't lose a tenth of all children that day, was a single man...''
''The Doctor?'' Tomo asked, looking towards the man expectantly.
''No.'' The Doctor answered her almost instantly, a much darker underpinning to his voice. ''Jack... what did you do...'' He muttered under his breath, an obvious sense of concern in his voice.
Despite this, Kikuoka continued. ''I realised that day, that Earth isn't defended. Not really, not if a single man can achieve more than the world's governments combined...''
''Still don't explain why ya wanted Kii-bou though, Kikuoka...'' Tomo pointed out that, for everywhere in his story, nowhere had he mentioned what they'd asked about originally - Kirito's whereabouts.
''That's simple.'' The Doctor answered, his voice becoming significantly more upbeat, though with an almost razor sharp tone to it. ''He needed a way to test this new medical treatment, and who better than someone who couldn't give their permission?''
''Doctor, you may still outrank me in this organisation, but I would appreciate less of the libel, thank you very much.'' Kikuoka almost snapped back, a clear anger in his voice as he retorted. Not that The Doctor noticed, as he continued to walk around, only barely acknowledging Kikuoka. Asuna looked at The Doctor with a sense of confusion as she processed that information. He certainly didn't look military, she thought, but today had been a day for challenging such prejudices - she'd seen an impossible box appear from nowhere and she had found herself on a military base, floating in the Pacific Ocean...
''Wait, ya outrank him!?'' Tomo seemed equally surprised at that revelation. ''Yer don't look that old!'' Even Asuna winced at that one. She knew Tomo meant well, but that certainly sounded like a backhanded compliment, and she noticed just how blunt that sounded. ''I meant, err, are you a captain, or...?''
''Ohh, I can't remember. ''Chief Technical Advisor'', I think. That was back in the seventies though, whole different me. Whole different UNIT, come to think of it.''
''Wait, that means ya in yer...'' Tomo paused, quickly doing the maths in her head. ''Seventies, at least!'' The Doctor simply gave her a knowing grin in response.
''I moisturise.''
/-/
The journey through the Ocean Turtle carried on, and the more that The Doctor saw on this base, the more curious he became. Technology from far flung planets, being... repurposed for other uses. Some military, but some clearly had civilian applications in mind... though what exactly they planned to do with a mildly hypnotic musical instrument, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
''Well, now that we're here, I suppose I should show you. Miss Hosaka, Miss Yuuki, I understand that this may be... unpleasant for you to see, but I assure you we are doing our utmost to rehabilitate Kazuto.'' Kikuoka pressed a series of commands on a touch screen, and the darkened room they were in lit up. In the middle of the darkened room lay a bed with a comatose male in it - Kazuto... or was it Kirito, The Doctor supposed - his head encased in some kind of helmet like device, markings advising that mobile phones were, under no circumstances to be used around it, along with a small inscription - STL.
''What's an STL?'' Asuna asked, looking towards the boy in the machine.
''The STL is our designation for it, rather than a name. If you had to say, where would say the human soul is?'' Kikuoka turned to ask the girls, both of whom looked almost bewildered at the question.
''Err, not sure, the head or heart, I guess?'' Tomo answered, unsure of herself and her answer. It was an understandable reaction, even to someone who had had hundreds, if not thousands of years to think that particular question through, and even with that long, he'd never really found a satisfactory answer for it. The human soul wasn't really something that could be located, it was a nebulous concept and more of a metaphysical one - the human soul was whatever you really wanted it to be. To some people, it was the spark that gave them hope in the darkness, whilst to others, it was their belief manifested.
''Well, that is what the STL is - a Soul Translator. A device to read, interface and if absolutely necessary, build a human soul.'' Kikuoka explained.
That was enough to pique his interest, possibly too much so - the technology to not only find, but to produce a person's soul? Whatever UNIT had going on here, it certainly wasn't 21st century technology, not by a long margin. That sounded more like magic, and Kikuoka certainly sounded more like a travelling magician showing off his latest magic trick to an audience, than a scientist...
That being said, something felt badly off about this - the Soul Translator, the ''Full Dive Virtual Reality'', almost all of it felt out of place. A technology that no human should've been able to develop, not this early on, anyway. Perhaps in a hundred or so years, maybe, but in the 21st century? No chance. As he walked around the STL, he scanned the device with his trusty sonic, the beeping of the device looking for unusual signatures, traces of where the device could've come from, anything notable... until a few seconds had passed and the sonic gave him an answer.
An answer that made even the Doctor's blood run cold, an impossible answer. One that, if it was right, signalled the end of everything. Not just Earth, not just the solar system, but the end of reality itself, of the universe... the end of time itself.
The signals picked up by the Sonic Screwdriver... were Galifreyan in origin.
{Author's Comments}
Sorry for the long wait on this one, but I hope it was worth it. As always, if you enjoyed it, follow the story, and any feedback is always appreciated.
Signing off,
Midland 2541.