((Hello this is GunslingerAngel giving you chapter 4 of The Engineer: Installation. I hope that all of you are enjoying the story so far and are looking forward to other Engineer stories (if any of you are curious about any upcoming stories you can check out my profile to see some story ideas). Please review! P.S. I do not own Doctor Who (I have only seen the first season) and I do not own the book The Engineer. Enjoy!))
Key: Thinking is /…/ and Speaking is "…"
The Engineer: Installation
Ch. 4: Gozenhozer 2.0
I'm no longer the woman I once was…I'm something else now, something new…I guess you can say that this is my own form of regeneration…
The next day, Kara slowly opened her eyes and sat herself upright on her bed. She slowly looked from one side of the room to the other side of the room. She caught sight of a side table that was on her right which had her goggles and mouth mask. The room appeared to be the same hospital room that she was in not too long ago…or was it longer? She placed her right hand on her head in order to straighten out her thoughts but with no success. /How long have I've been a sleep? What happened to me and where am I/ she asked herself. It was then that everything started to come back…well almost everything. Images of the battle and of Clockworks jumping in between her and the Dalek's beam raced through her head. The last image she could remember was a man in strange clothing grinning at her and calling her a "broken angel". She was trying to remember his name while she threw off the sheets and checked herself out. Her red jumpsuit was gone and was replaced with a short sleeve white shirt, a pair of long loose white sweat pants, and pair of white slippers.
She then remembered the shrapnel in her body and looked at her left arm and pulled her left pant leg up. There were no scars or even the slightest hint of cuts or blood, her arm and leg looked like as if nothing had happened. It was then that more of her memories came rushing back to her but only faintly. She specifically remembered some one mentioning the word "cybernetics" but she didn't know why and the man in strange clothing was named the Doctor. /The Doctor/ she said inside her head.
/Yes/asked the Doctor which surprised Kara because she wasn't really expecting an answer from that. She quickly looked around the room for anyone but there was no one in the room.
/Where…where are you/ she asked as she continued to look around the room.
/I'm coming into your room in five, four, three, two, and one/ said the Doctor and after he said one, the door to Kara's room opened and in came the man in strange clothing whom she remembered in her memories. "The patient seems to have completely recovered from the operation. Fantastic!" said the Doctor with a wide grin. He pulled out a chair, sat right next to her, and began looking at her left side.
"Operation?" asked Kara as she moved her left side away from his sight. It felt weird to have some guy she barely knew look at her that way.
"What you don't remember? It's okay really, I suspected that to happen on account of all the things you've seen two days ago, your fatigue, and me picking at your brain during the operation," said the Doctor.
"You picked at my BRAIN!" yelled Kara with her eyes widened, "What did you do to it? Did you take some chunk of it so that I won't be able to do something or maybe even remember something!"
"No! Nothing like that!" said the Doctor in order to defend himself, "Listen, we didn't take anything from your brain, no shrapnel made it to your brain thankfully. We were actually implanting some Caprithian devices into your brain in hopes of advancing your mental capabilities from just calculating equations and figuring out technology."
"Like what?" asked Kara with a concerned expression on her face.
"Like transmitting messages to other machines that are connected to your brain, interfacing and hacking into any computer, and maybe some other things once your Whisper evolves," said the Doctor.
"My Whisper?" asked Kara.
"Yeah since you're a cyborg now, I just assumed that you might develop a Whisper because of the Whisper Effect. Am I right?" asked the Doctor.
"Yeah…You're right," she said as she looked down at her left arm and leg, "So that was what the whole operation was all about? You replaced my left side with cybernetic parts."
The Doctor nodded and said, "Roboteer cybernetic parts actually. We had to replace your heart, left lung, and some other organs on your left side. Thankfully, your androx gland was on the right side so nothing to worry about. I had to read your mind in order to obtain that knowledge though, since the Time Lords don't have any form of reconstructive technology like what the Roboteers do."
"Why?" asked Kara. She was curious as to why the Time Lords didn't have any form of reconstructive technology. She barely knew that much about Time Lord Anatomy or anything of that sort.
"We have this little trick that we use when we're on the verge of death but I'll tell you later anyway. For now, I'm sure there are other questions that you want to ask, so ask away!" said the Doctor with a grin.
Kara was opening and closing her left hand when a question popped up in her head and she asked, "Doctor, my people! Are there any survivors?"
That question filled the Doctor with dread, he didn't want to tell her and so he decided to show her. "Come with me…I want to show you something," he said with a weak smile and offered his hand to her for support, but amazingly she hopped out of bed and was standing on her own two feet. The Doctor's eyes widened with surprise as he saw this amazing feat. He usually assumed that people who had just undergone a cybernetic operation would usually have trouble adjusting to their new limbs and such.
"Did you forget? Roboteers can understand and operate any form of technology within a matter of minutes and since you said these were Roboteer cybernetic parts, I already know this technology so ha!" said Kara with a smile, unaware of the bad news that the Doctor was about to show.
He didn't want to show her now, he didn't want to crush this young woman's spirit, but he had to. He forced a wide grin upon his face, took Kara's right hand into his left, and led her outside of her room and the infirmary. Once they were outside, Kara started looking right and left at this new environment. She had never seen a place that was so beautiful. "What is this place?" asked Kara as she continued looking around. Even though the place was beautiful with orange skies and silver trees, the inhabitants dressed even more strangely than the Doctor with all their headdresses and heavy robes.
The Doctor stopped, turned towards her, and said, "This is the Capitol of the planet Gallifrey, which is about ten thousand light years away from Caprithia."
"Dang, I must have been a sleep for a very long time," said Kara.
"Not at all, you actually slept through the remainder of yesterday," said the Doctor.
"How? I mean even the most advanced warp engine would have taken at least two days to get to someplace that was ten thousand light years away" asked Kara, curious as ever.
"I'll tell you later, but now you need to see this," said the Doctor as he took her hand once more and lead her to a big garden in the middle of the Capitol.
"Where are you taking me?" asked Kara. Her curiosity was now replaced with concern and a little bit of fear.
"The Memorial," said the Doctor in a lowered tone. Kara was about to say something when the Doctor stopped before a large white monitor in the middle of the garden. The contents of the monitor broke Kara's new artificial heart into a million pieces. There were large red letters on the top of the monitor screen which said:
Caprithian War Fatalities and Survivors:
The name bars of the dead were scrolling up in red lettering. Kara let go of the Doctor's hand and walked towards a small silver keyboard that was attached to the bottom of the monitor. She looked at the keyboard and by two minutes she understood how to use the computer. She wanted to be sure, she wanted to know if they were still alive but every time she thought about it she knew that she was just lying to herself. But she still wanted to know and began to type two names onto the search bar of the screen:
Jaks Harlen Frida Kozler
She pressed the enter button and the scrolling name bars suddenly disappeared except for the two names that Kara had typed. The two name bars then grew into rectangles and revealed:
Name: Jaks Harlen Name: Frida Kozle
Age: 23 Age: 21
Sex: Male Sex: Female
Race: Caprithian Race: Caprithian
Status: Killed in Action Status Killed in Action
Kara fell to her knees as tears began to stream down from her eyes. The Doctor knelt down beside her and was about to touch her shoulder when she pushed his hand away and said, "No! I have to see something else." She then got up and typed in the words:
Survivors
The computer replied with red letters:
Yes…Total Survivors: 3
And the computer showed her three names:
Name: Kara Gozenhozer Name: Clockworks Name: Tock
Age: 23 Age: 9 Age: 2
Sex: Female Sex: Male Sex: Male
Race: Caprithian Race: Caprithian Race: Caprithian
Status: Survivor Status: Survivor Status: Survivor
The computer then showed two numbers underneath the three names:
Total Fatalities: 399,997 Total Survivors: 3
Kara looked at the last name and quickly dug into her shirt for her locket but with no success. "My locket is gone…Doctor? Did you happen to find my locket before or during the operation?" asked Kara franticly.
The Doctor was about to answer when a male robotic voice called out, "Kara!"
Kara looked behind the Doctor and covered her mouth with her hands. Tears streamed down her eyes as Clockworks started to hop towards her. His entire left side was still torn up and he was leaning against a crutch for balance. When he was close enough to her he lifted up her locket with his remaining arm and asked, "Is my brother safe?" Kara quickly took the locket and opened it. Tears continued to stream down her eyes as she looked upon an undamaged AI chip. She looked up to Clockworks with a weak smile and nodded.
"He's safe," she said weakly and wrapped her arms around Clockworks. Clockworks dropped his crutch and did the same with his only functioning arm. Kara dug her face into his right shoulder and began to cry uncontrollably. "We've the only ones left…There's no one else," she sobbed. Clockworks did his best to comfort her but it was no use. The Doctor stood close behind them, feeling powerless to do anything to comfort this poor woman and her friend. All that he could do was wait.
After a few minutes, Kara stopped crying and they loosened their embrace. She walked towards the Doctor with her head down and said that she has seen enough and wanted to return to the infirmary. The Doctor nodded and led both Kara and Clockworks back to the infirmary. As they walked through the Capitol, Kara caught sight of some people looking at her and whispering to one another. It was quite obvious that she and Clockworks were not welcomed to Gallifrey wholeheartedly. She still had her head down when they returned to the room. The Doctor and Clockworks had pulled out chairs to Kara's bed and began to think of something to cheer her up or at least lighten the mood. It was then that the Doctor remembered something and dug into his coat pocket to reveal two framed pictures. He put them on the table that had the goggles and mouth mask next to Kara's bed and said, "I think you might want these back. I found them crumpled in your left hand before the operation."
Kara looked at the pictures and found out that they were the pictures of her family and unit. She grabbed hold of both of them and held them close to her chest. "I almost forgot about these pictures. They're the only things that I have left of my friends and family now," she said weakly and looked up to the Doctor with a smile, "Thank you for saving them."
The Doctor smiled and said, "You're welcome Kara."
Clockworks then asked, "Doctor…What will become of us?"
The Doctor looked at Clockworks and said, "I don't know yet, but you can stay here for a couple of days, I'll inform the staff of your presence. I'm sure that after a couple of days the Time Lord High Council will have decided about what they should do with the three of you. And during that time, if you want, I can show you a couple of things in the Capitol."
"You really don't have to do that Doctor, you've already done so much," said Kara.
"But I want to. It's been a while since I've shown someone something. More or less had a descent conversation with someone and I swear, if I don't talk to anyone soon I'll go INSANE!" said the Doctor. The last part he said was only an exaggeration but the truth was that he was lonely and didn't have a companion for some time. He was almost to the point of desperation in which he was beginning to think of kidnapping someone from their home just so that he wouldn't be lonely anymore. He actually found it amazing that his loneliness could lead him to such an attempt.
Kara couldn't help but laugh at this and said, "Alright then. In order to help you from going senile, Clockworks and I will gladly accompany you on a tour of the Capitol."
Doctor gave a huge grin and said, "Fantastic! I'll see you tomorrow then. Now get some sleep, I think you need it and if you need anything just think out my name." Soon after that he left the room.
Kara placed her pictures back on her table and started going back into her covers with a smile on her face, but when she covered her head under the covers her smile quickly disappeared. Clockworks looked at her form under the sheets for a couple of seconds and said, "I'll be sleeping over at a corner if you need me," said Clockworks and touched her shoulder, "Remember Kara, I'm here for you."
"Thank you," said Kara under the sheets and tightly shut her eyes in attempt to go to sleep, but she couldn't. The images of the war and the names of the dead kept her awake. Sorrow and grief overwhelmed her, causing her to cry once again. /We're alone now…I've lost almost everything now…My home, my family, the left side of my body, and most of my friends are all gone now…Why did we survive only to suffer even more/ she thought to herself. Eventually, Kara cried herself to sleep with the images of the war and the screams of the dying still running in her head.
Meanwhile, at a far corner of the room, Clockworks was still awake and remained awake for the entire night. He was watching Kara sleep. Images of her smiling lovingly at him sometime ago ran through his head and he thought /I wonder if she will ever smile like that again…I wonder if she will ever smile like that to me again…/
When he realized what he was thinking about, he began to push the images and thoughts back deep inside his head. Suddenly, a voice that sounded like his own began whispering inside his head/Admit it…/
It was then that Clockworks stopped fighting back and said to himself, "Well, I guess I can't fight something that's a part of me," and let the thoughts and images that he was so afraid of once fill his head and to tell you the truth, he liked this feeling…whatever it was.
((I hope you guys liked this chapter and are looking forward to Ch. 5, Will You Come With Me? Please review, please tell me about how you feel so far about the story, and please ask questions (I really do like answering questions). I'm sorry that this chapter and the last were not so action packed like Ch. 2, but there will be another action packed chapter sometime in the near future, hopefully. Please review and I hope that all of you have enjoyed the story so far!))