.5. The Barrier of Thoughts

"I still don't really get it," said the Doctor as they were jogging down the green corridor; running wasn't exactly the Ood's cup of tea. "Can you elaborate? What happened to the computer? And what are the Cells? I've never heard of any Cells."

"The computer generates adventures based upon the set of elementary scripts, which undergo several stages of personalisation, initially with a preferential questionnaire..."

"Yes," the Doctor interrupted. "I know; it's the questionnaire I... The questionnaire I didn't fill up. Too many personal questions; way too personal, if you ask me."

"Subsequently the user enters his or her own data, which in turn enables the second stage of personalisation..."

"Ooo, yes, what the author was thinking and what the author was thinking," the Doctor chipped in, with a wink towards Theta, who wasn't even looking at him. "Personality and preferences analysis based upon the uploaded script."

"And finally the user creates his or her avatar, thus finalising the adventure's personalisation," finished Theta, completely unfazed. "As a result there is a possibility of nearly unlimited expanding of pre-existing elementary scripts."

"That's where I have to disagree," the Doctor murmured. "My script was far from limitless. Of course I couldn't use any elementary script as a background; the closest to my needs was the "Time Machine" and this is... how should I put it... It's not even the same galaxy!"

"True," said the Ood, pausing to catch his breath. "After some time, repeatability begins to appear in all computer generated adventures. And repeatability creates the plush."

"Plush?" the Doctor repeated, not sure if he heard it right.

"A perceivable artificiality; denominated the perceivable-logistic-uncomplimentary-shortcomings or 'the plush' by early technicians," the Ood explained.

"The best computer in the universe generates plush," mused the Doctor. "I was right; I did make a serious mistake."

"Regulating Cells diminish the appearance of the plush," finished Theta.

"How?"

"I don't know." The Ood's translator ball stripped his words of all intonation, but the Doctor clearly picked whole loads of plush in this brief statement.

"Is there any legal clause that forbids you talking about it?" he asked gently.

The Ood's slanting eyes turned towards his face. Again the Doctor was surprised with the intensity of his gaze; it seemed that the Ood was consciously trying to project something other than words and facial expression, something that would directly reach the Doctor's brain. The Doctor could hear his song; a broken harmony of anxiety; but he certainly wasn't able to pick any words or images.

"What are the Cells, Theta?"

"I am not allowed to ask about it. Or to talk about it."

"You said that there was a serious malfunction and that we needed to inspect the Cells. Why? What do you need me for? How can I be of any use, if I don't know what I am dealing with?"

The Ood slowly turned his eyes away.

"We'd better hurry," he said. "The human song is fading."

"Yes." The Doctor also averted his eyes. "Right. There should be lifts somewhere here?"

"Just round the corner."

"So... we'll get to the Cells..." the Doctor began.

"You will get to the Cells," Theta corrected. "I... can't do it."

"Is it some kind of religious ban? Like a taboo? A superstition? Maybe it's cultural? Or perhaps just a plain temperamental incompatibility?"

The Ood turned his head slowly and looked at the Doctor just like a grown-up could look at a stubborn three-year-old insisting that the sun is blue.

"So, you don't want to tell me. All right." The Doctor paused in front of the lift's door, pressed the button, lifted his hands and started massaging his temples. "I'll have to find it out for myself. Easy. No, wait, I must've gone completely bonkers... Why won't we simply turn off the computer? You said the computer was the problem. Let's just switch it off and the problem's gone."

"Resetting the computer would put the humans in a serious danger." The Ood looked away. "It had been proven that a sudden interruption of computer's projection may cause a wide spectrum of brain activity disorders, from amnesia, through coma and catatonia, to the sudden-cyberpahsic-brain-death syndrome. That's why the buffers are being used at all times."

"And the buffers...?"

"Have been removed."

"By whom?"

The Ood shrugged in a very human gesture of impatience.

"I don't know."

"Yeeeah..." The Doctor waited for the lift's door to open. He got into its spacey interior lined with mirrors. In their tinted glass his reflection acquired a healthy, happy skin tone, absolutely un-achievable in real life, regardless of hours spent in solarium. Theta caught up with the Doctor, squeezing into the lift's corner. He slid a cryskey into a small aperture below the control panel and chose the underground level five from the restricted mini-panel pulled out from the wall. The door closed. Boring muzak, seriously clashing with Theta's restless song ringing in the Doctor's head, started playing inside the lift.

"Yeeeah," the Doctor repeated. "That brings us to the most important question. Who's behind all that mess?"

Theta's almond-shaped eyes scanned him intently but without understanding.

"In my experience; such things never happen without reason," the Doctor explained. "At least usually. All the Emporium's employees die while the players get trapped in their adventures? It could be a random malfunction, sure, but I'll ask – who's behind it? And what does he want? And I think we're probably making a big mistake going to the Cells. I can bet that we are heading straight into a trap. The longer I think about it the more I want to do... this!"

He pressed an emergency stop button.

"Know your enemy. Theta, perhaps I should examine these people first... the Emporium's employees. Their bodies. To establish the cause of their death. Can you take me to them?"

"No."

"Oookay... Another taboo? Because it surely can't be a temperamental incompatibility issue this time?"

"I don't know where their bodies are," the Ood said.

"How do you know they are all dead, then?"

"Their song died away."

"Theta, it doesn't have to mean they're dead," the Doctor said seriously. "Prolonged loss of consciousness, coma, can almost completely silence the mind's song, the telepathic transmission."

The Ood blinked twice before he answered:

"I don't know where the Emporium's employees are located at the moment. I looked for them in most of the places they used to populate. To no effect."

"Wait a tick." The Doctor produced his sonic screwdriver and started fiddling with the control panel. "I'll just redirect the security cameras signal to the screen here... just... just... a moment... there!"

The perspective of an empty corridor appeared on the screen. The Doctor clicked with his sonic. Another corridor. And another. And yet another. Hundreds of desolate passageways, all painted identical, bottle-green colour, lighted with same, identically spaced lamps. The restaurant at level forty. At level thirty. Level twenty. And ten. Sauna. Gym. Solarium. Reading-room. Five bars and ten pubs. Locks' control rooms in between the levels. Crew's quarters. Several terraces cluttered with plastic deck-chairs. A swimming pool with a still, sapphire coloured water. Six clubs. Two supermarkets and several shops. A central steering room, with a wall made up of hundreds of screens, and with a holographic Emporium logo rotating slowly in the air. An engine room. Robotic bays – there at least was some movement – hoovers entering and leaving their boxes; mechanical maids preparing towels and bed linen; butlers sparkling with plastic and fresh paint. But there was no sign of human beings anywhere.

"I can't see people in the chambers," said the Doctor switching off his screwdriver. "There's a deadlock seal."

"Yes," Theta confirmed.

"But we can enter their chambers, right?"

"We can enter but we cannot wake up the players." Theta moved again with something that resembled restlessness. "Please. We must go to the Cells, there's no other way. And we should hurry."

For a while the Doctor remained still, with his arms folded on his chest. Finally he shut his sonic and stuck it back into his suit pocket.

"Yeeeah," he murmured. "Let's hurry up, then..."

He pressed the button on the control panel.

"But we shall stop at least one floor above our destination, okay?"

The lift went down; increasing speed making their bodies feel lighter than usual. Theta closed his eyes and lowered the hand holding the translator ball. He looked exhausted. The Doctor raised his hands to his temples again. He was rubbing them in circular movements with his fingertips, painful expression on his face. It seemed to him that the pain was increasingly more agonizing with the lift's downward movement. When the lift passed the tenth floor, he was sure of it. He looked at Theta. The Ood hunched his shoulders. His eyes were closed, his fists clenched. His song was full of high-pitched, jarring notes, boring their way into the Doctor's mind, causing him even more anguish.

They reached the fifth floor and the pain become unbearable. Gropingly, the Doctor reached out and stopped the lift.

"Umm... Theta?" he gasped. "Why can't you reach the Cells?"

The Ood lifted his eyelids. His eyes were coated with a subtle red tint; the symptom disturbing enough for the Doctor to take a step back. The Ood did not intend to attack him, though.

"Theta is afraid of the Cells," he said quietly. Suddenly there was agitation in his song; another piercing dissonance. "The Cells hurt in an empty place. They hurt in the broken thread."

"The Cells... hurt...?" For some reason thinking became a very difficult task. "Wait... The Cells are emitting a telepathic signal, right? The Cells are telepathic. They can create a telepathic field, unnoticeable for most humans, but readable for the Ood. Are the Cells Ood?"

"No." Theta shook his head. "Alien. So alien."

"But they are alive, aren't they? They are not software, or machinery; they are alive and conscious, yes?"

"Theta... Theta... doesn't know..."

"That's why you needed me, am I right? You needed a human being. Because you can't; you physically can't approach the Cells. Because they can hurt you. Because they create some sort of telepathic obstacle, some sort of barrier of thoughts you cannot overcome."

The Ood just nodded.

"Theta," the Doctor moaned. "Trouble is, I'm not human."

He swayed and leaned against the wall.

"And I don't particularly fancy pain as well," he added, pressing the button at the top of the control panel. When the lift's floor jumped slightly underneath their feet, the Doctor wiped a narrow streak of blood which had trickled from his nose.

"We seem to be in the same boat, you and me," he said. "And our boat is going up."

A lot of 'tech-talk' (well, sort of, it is not a real tech-talk, you know:D). Sorry for that. But it serves a purpose. I wanted Theta to be smart; not a simple Ood slave, but almost an equal to the Doctor. And I wanted him to be alien. Hence the artificiality (or plush) of his speech. As it adds to the artificiality of my own English, it may be a wee bit hard to read. Please, comment - HermitsUnited.