Chapter 2: The Alien

"Just sit back and relax, Donna. This won't take long."

"It better not, 'cause I want to enjoy my coffee break!" Donna said with a light chuckle as she leaned back and breathed deeply. She was now two weeks into her new job at Satellite Industries, and was enjoying the light working conditions and friendly manner of her co-workers.

"Trust me, the coffee pot will still be full when you get back." Ed had called her down to one of the basement laboratories "to run a simple test", as he had put it. The test turned out to be a way to monitor a person's electrical activity in the brain, and was something that all employees had to get done. Two electrodes had been stuck to Donna's temples, and thin wires connected them to a machine that displayed the results.

Ed was sitting across from her, pale blue eyes fixed on the machine's monitor, while a technician made sure all the equipment was running smoothly.

"Interesting…" he muttered, leaning forward and typing on the keyboard attached to the machine. Donna raised and eyebrow, but remained silent. As she watched Ed's face, she thought she saw a strange expression flick across it, but she just brushed it off as speculation.

"Everything ok?" she asked after a few moments.

"Hmm? Oh, everything's fine. I just thought I saw something, but it must have been a random neuron firing."

"C'mon, I wanna see what my brainwaves look like! You did promise." Donna said with a slight pout, after another minute of silence .

"Alright…but it'll make no sense to you." Ed replied with a smile, pressing a few keys and spinning the monitor around so she could see the results. Donna saw several rows of squiggly lines displayed on the screen, colour-coded with dots marking certain points.

"Looks complicated."

"Yes, it is quite complex. Basically, all you have to know is that everything is normal."

"That's good."

"Indeed. Also…" the man paused to twist to monitor back to him, peering closely at the screen, "I think I see something that is indicating your brain is coffee-deprived, so I better let you out before you go nuts from lack of caffeine and start destroying the lab." Ed said with a smirk, motioning for the technician to remove the electrodes.

"Very funny, Ed." Donna replied, pulling a face. Grinning back, he rose and walked her to the door. "Thanks for dropping by on your break, Donna. Now, go before the coffee runs out."

"Ha ha ha." Sticking out her tongue at the pale man, she then smiled and walked towards the elevator.

- - -

"No!" Donna woke up with a yell, chest heaving. Sitting up, she untangled the sheets from around her body, then sighed. Another one of her strange dreams had happened, this one involving a giant wasp and a murderer on the loose at a country estate. She had been in a room, looking for clues about the most recent murder with a ridiculously large magnifying glass when a giant wasp had burst in through the window and had flew right at her.

Donna shivered at the thought and ran a hand through her hair. But compared to her other dreams, that one was tame. Giant rock men, killer shadows, and talking tin cans that shot electricity out of a plunger were just some of the things that haunted her dreams. A faceless man who wore a suit and called her name was sometimes present in those dreams, but only rarely.

Shaking her head, the woman tried to calm down so she could go back to sleep, but jumped when her mobile phone started to ring. Wondering who would be calling so late at night (or so early in the morning, since it was past midnight), Donna quickly grabbed it and flicked it open. "Hello?"

"I'm sorry if I woke you up, but it's important."

"It's alright, Ed. I was awake anyway."

"Night owl, eh?"

"Something like that. So, what is so important that you'd call in the middle of the night?"

"One of the computers when haywire and printed out a whole bunch of incorrect invoices, then crashed. We haven't been able to get it booted back up, and it holds all of the invoice files. We do have a back-up disc with the files, but we recently changed the format of our invoices so the files are out-of-date. And we're sending out a big order in the morning, and need those invoices to be correct."

"Basically, you're in a jam and need a fast typist to do up some correct invoices?"

"Yes, pretty much. We'll pay you double over-time if you come in."

"Sure, but I was already planning on coming in anyway. See you in a bit."

"Thanks, Donna. I owe you one." Smirking, Donna flipped the phone shut and scrambled out of bed. Luckily for Ed, she was an incredibly fast typist, so she should have everything squared away by the time the company opened. "What would they do without me?" she muttered.

- - -

Dona came to slowly, trying to piece together what had happened. She had pulled into the parking lot at Satellite Industries, gotten out of the car, and had just turned towards the building when something had hit her on the head from behind. The blow had knocked her out, as well as probably leaving a nasty bump. Whoever did this was going to get an earful from her!

Opening her eyes cautiously, she blinked and gasped.

"Finally returned to the land of the living?" Ed asked, standing over her with a pleasant smile on his face. Speechless, Donna tried to sit up, but couldn't.

"Why…why am I tied up?" she asked, staring to get angry at whatever cruel joke Ed was pulling.

"Because I'd rather you didn't attack me." Ed answered crisply, smirking at her repeated attempts to move.

"Fine. 'Cause whatever you're playing at, I don't like it! Now let me go!" she snapped, glaring at him.

"Oh, you are not going anywhere, Donna Noble. I have you right where I want you…helpless, alone, and confused."

"So…there was no emergency."

"Nope. Although the company does have a large order going out later this morning."

"What do you need me for, then?!"

"Remember the brainwave test? I faked the results. Your brain is anything but normal, and I want to find out why."

Donna gaped at him, struggling to understand what was happening and why it was happening to her. Tears filled her eyes as she realized Ed probably didn't care what pain she was about to go through.

"But…why me? I'm nothing special, just a secretary." she asked, voice trembling as she tried not to cry.

"You're not even that. You, Donna, are nothing more than a temp who just happens to be go with a keyboard. Goodness knows, your personality and looks don't do much."

Donna sniffed, biting her lip at Ed's words. The pale man had already attached several electrodes to her temples, and was now easing some sort of helmet onto her head. Stepping back, he narrowed his eyes and studied her, then nodded. "That should be enough for now." he murmured, walking away to sit at a laptop. Donna could just make out something blue and glowing resting on the table beside the laptop, but had no clue as to what it was.

"Time to learn the truth. Enjoy!" Donna's entire body stiffened as a wave of pain coursed through her, straining against the straps that held her down. Her head felt like it was on fire, but she couldn't even draw a breath to scream as the pain increased. She let out a faint moan when the pain stopped, but her relief was short-lived as her body arched again. This time, she did scream, a loud screech that could probably be heard throughout the building. Not that there was anyone to her it.

Donna kept screaming as the torture continued, the pressure inside her brain mounting alongside the agony. Finally, when it felt like she would endure no more, her mind simply exploded, and a rush of sound and images threatened to overwhelm her. Faintly, she heard Ed yelling in triumph, then saw a deep blue cloud roll towards her. Right before she fainted, Donna felt her body go cold and her world turn blue.

- - -

Donna groaned as she regained consciousness yet again, glad that the pain had finally stopped. But what was that strange blue cloud she had seen? And why had her body gone ice cold?

Opening her eyes, she swore viciously and stared in shock. All around her was unending blackness, except for two spots that hovered a few feet in front of her face. They were like windows, oval-shaped and showing what was on the other side of the blackness. Donna was also tightly bound to a hard object, arms stretched out on either side while her feet hung downwards. "Great, I'm mimicking Jesus." the woman muttered angrily, noting the similarities between her current pose and the image of Jesus nailed to the cross.

"Couldn't you have gotten me a more attractive body?" Donna froze, eyes wide. It sounded like…her voice. But she hadn't spoken that words.

"What's going on?" she asked nervously, not at all sure she wanted to know the answer. The view through the windows shifted, turning from side to side until they focused on an object.

"Oh my God…" Donna breathed, hardly believing her eyes. She was seeing herself. Her body, acting on its own, arranging her tousled hair and smacking her lips as she peered into the mirror.

"It's not my fault that she's not pretty." Ed muttered from off to the side. "Besides, I went through all the work finding the right person."

"True enough. But still, she's not exactly a model host for one of my rank. Still, it'll have to do. Right now, it's her insides that matter more that her outside look." Donna heard herself say.

"Oh? Do explain, O mighty one." Ed replied sarcastically.

"What the hell is going on?!" she shouted, frightened and angry at the same time. Chuckling, her body answered both questions.

"I, the last surviving member of the Family of Chi, have sought to find a host worthy of my high-born status. It has taken me many centuries of waiting, but I have finally claimed a body equal to my superior mind. And what a body it is.

"This plain little human body contains a mind that shouldn't exist. Since the power of such a mind was too much for her body to handle, something caused it to be sealed away, along with all of the memories and knowledge it held. It was an impressive mind-block, but the mind still produced a massive amount of electrical energy even though it wasn't being used. Your primitive scanner picked this up, and you duly passed the information along to me."

"Get to the point!" Ed snapped, looking irritated.

"Very well. This host is home to a Time Lord's mind, something that should be impossible. Technicalities aside, I have now claimed total control over both the human body and the Time Lord's mind. The host's human mind still exists, but I have blocked all access to the Time Lord mind. She is nothing more than an unwilling observer now."

"Time Lord…" Ed muttered, scowling at the words.

"Yes, Time Lord. Editor, it has been a long day for you, and I need time to adjust to my new body. Shall we get some rest?"

Donna gazed out through her own eyes at the man who had done this to her, perplexed by the name the Chi alien had called him. "Editor? What kind of name is that?" she muttered softly, suddenly overwhelmed by what had occurred. She was a prisioner in her own body, unable to communicate with anyone. A sob shuddered through her as she dropped her head. What was going to happen to her now? And what was so important about this Time Lord's mind?

"I just want to go home…" she whispered, her tears falling into the unending darkness beneath her feet.