The first thought was about smell. The smell of dirt, and sweat, and... no, it's impossible... nature. The guard walked forwards through the metal corridor and stood, stunned - or no, this was too much of a word, because it was nothing but rage that not all rules were accomplished. In the rudest way possible!
There were two children in front of him - a boy and a girl, and both dressed unappropriately brightly. Even more than that: their cheeks were blushing with living blood! The guard could feel the smell of their tension, fear and every single emotion - rubbish of centuries. There hadn't been such cases of breaking the laws for ten years at least! Priceless! Every person who found a mistake and corrected it could get the most precious reward - whatever he or she wanted - so the guard wasn't going to lose the chance.
But as soon as he reached out to the kids, something sharp hit him in the fingers, having made see-through liquid flow out of it. There was a small blade in the boy's fist, and the kid was protectively standing in front of his friend, his expression more of a grown-up rebel than of a child.
Spoilt rotten. But that's even better. The reward will be bigger, and the process will be more delightful.
Annett Robinson felt a bit guilty when she plopped the paper bag onto her chair. She wasn't allowed to play with anything, but today her pal - her only pal - Alexis had given this pack to her. It would've been impolite to reject (and Annett felt very pleased that someone cared about her). Now she was alone at home, so sparing a few minutes before preparing homework wouldn't be wrong.
There was a doll in the package. It was unlike all the dolls that Annett had seen before. It was one foot tall and described a man in well-worn old-fashioned attire, which was all real cloth, and the material from which its face and hands were made was (even eerily) similar to real skin. Even its mop of black hair was incredibly lifelike, and there were tiny skin folds on its face. Truly weird. Any girl would say that it was an ugly doll and any grown-up would say that it was "wrong", but Annett quite liked this little chap.
Now to the homework. Annett put the doll onto the top of the book pyramid on her table and began doing her Maths task - just to get rid of it.
One equation, two, three... mistake. Annett ripped the sheet from her notebook and rewrote everything. It was a usual procedure. When she spotted a mistake in her tasks (even if it was a crossed-out letter), she would always rip a sheet out mercilessly. There was no other way if she wanted to avoid the punishment.
She wanted to toss the spoilt sheets into the rubbish bit, but something caught the corner of her eye. Yes, it was that doll. A new addition, it always catches the eye when you're not used. But here there was another story.
The doll was moving!
Its blue eyes blinked once or twice, then it turned its head to Annett and stared at her.
"Oh crumbs. Have I woken up on a planet of giants?" it asked.
Annett fell off her chair.
The little boy was similar to a wild animal scaring off its enemies - one hand clutching the blade, the other squeezing the hand of the little girl. And every attempt to touch them was finished in a short wave of the knife, causing the new hand to bleed gel or other chemical liquid.
"Weak, but rebellious", the leader guard said. "Take them both. Maybe it's not too late".
The children managed to cause trouble even when they lost the opportunity to move: their crying and screaming echoed through the corridors. The sound of years! How could people of the past bear it for so long? Never mind. It will soon be gone forever.
"Why are you all afraid of things you don't know?" the doll asked, its arms crossed. "I'm smaller than needed, at least now, but it's not the reason to fear me".
"W-who are you?" Annett pressed out, staring at it in disbelief. Now she could see that it was not a doll. It was breathing and blinking, pulsing with life head to toe.
"Well... as far as you've understood, I'm not a toy, but a living being. I'm the Doctor", the little person replied, having bounced off the books onto the table. "And I don't like this at all. Why did you tear those pages out?"
"Em... My parents want to make a perfect person out of me. They would punish me even for a small correction, so I've got to", Annett admitted.
"Perfect?" the Doctor asked, knitting his eyebrows together. "I don't really like the sound of this... Do they punish you when you greet other adults not loudly enough? Or when you speak not quietly enough to them? Or when they find an item that doesn't belong to you?"
"Yes, yes and yes... How do you know?"
"Perfection is a frozen thing", the Doctor replied. "But we'll deal with it later, okay? I've got urgent things to do. My friends are stuck in another world, and I'm pretty sure that if your parents saw it, they would give their ideals up... Listen, it's awkward, but can you help me get to my TARDIS?"
"Your... what?"
"It looks like a big blue box. Should be somewhere around, but..." The Doctor shrugged. "Short legs is only part of the problem. And before you can object, I guarantee that you will return here in ten seconds after you leave".
"How?"
"Fifteen seconds, if you ask too many questions".
Water, water everywhere. How could humans of past produce so much garbage in both senses? Either there were insane old-believers that didn't know they will be caught, or someone else had already filled their minds with rubbish, which was fighting against the needed knowledge inserted.
The little dark-topped girl was all wrinkled, and droplets of water were oozing from her tightly closed eyes, while the wires attached to her temples were pushing the signal into her mind. At her age, children already could fix any damage in any electronic device, and she could only yelp and run. Shame! Her friend wasn't better. Nothing could damage the guards due to their artificial adaptation to their work, but the boy was waving his fists even when his blade was removed.
Never, never, never. We will never make it possible for the elders to take the ruling positions.
"It's just a police box. Old-fashioned".
"Have you noticed that your mobile phones fit much more than it seems?" the Doctor asked from Annett's bag - he was giving her directions from there. "Just push the door and enter. No more words".
Annett thought that nothing would surprise her after this "doll" coming to life, but she was mistaking. As soon as she pushed the blue door, she found herself in a vast greyish white room, in the center of which there was a mushroom-like hexagonal table with a glass column in the middle. The air smelled with antiseptics, and it was warm here.
"W-where are we?" she asked.
"First of all, don't stand like a monument. See the red knob on the control panel? Pull it".
Annett obeyed, and the double doors closed behind her with a "whirr". Meanwhile the Doctor climbed out of her bag and onto the console:
"It's the TARDIS".
"Is this some kind of a spaceship?" Annett gasped.
"Actually, yes. Spaceship and timeship, all in one!" The Doctor squinted at a small screen in front of him. "Hmm, reverse the coordinates... input... Hold on!"
The whole place shook in a violent way, and Annett collapsed onto the floor, having almost smashed her nose against the console in progress.
The Program taught that child memory was as elastic as child bones, and that meant that all sciences could be learned by the age of three at most. But, since these two children were spoilt, at first their minds were to be cleaned.
This worked perfectly well. After some minutes all rubbish was removed from their heads, replaced by white noise, which soon was to become real knowledge. At the same time the process of extracting the useless body liquid and replacing it with fresh plasma which allowed to live longer and be resistant to all kinds of harm was going on.
But then an unexplainable thing took place. A different noise filled the place.
Woooosh. Wooooosh. Wooooosh.
The guards turned in all directions, but all the devices resumed their work without any trouble. While their minds were taken by watching the mechanisms, their ears didn't catch the more natural sounds - gentle patting of feet against the floor.
"Did you see how huge they are?" Annett whispered, running out of the TARDIS which had landed in some kind of a spare room (its outer shape had hardly fitted), while the Doctor was sitting on her shoulder and holding for dear life.
"Are you telling it to me?" the Doctor snapped.
"Oops..."
Annett hid herself behind the hugest control block (the room was filled with them, trembling with their humming), peeked out and held her breath against her will. Opposite to her there was a row of steel chairs, all occupied with children not older than three or four, whose ears were covered with large headphones.
"Brainwashing", the Doctor muttered. "Neverending cycle..."
"Who of them are your children? And how are you going to turn normal?"
"Wrong questions. I am their guardian, not their father. And I'm normal, just shorter than usually... See? They are in the third row, fourth and fifth from the left". The Doctor listened to the machines' noise. "Aha. See the main control block up there? Bring me close to it, and I'll take care of the rest. And remain quietly until there's signal... you won't miss it".
Annett nodded, though her heart pounded like a church bell. The guards were wearing helmets, so she hoped that they didn't hear her. Or thought it was somewhere away... The Doctor slid down her arm and vanished behind the control block.
Now what? Annett bit her fist not to burst into anything that could make the guards turn around. But then the whole place burst into yells and sobs of fear: all children that had been sitting quietly woke up and reacted as all normal children would. The Doctor rolled from behind the control block:
"Get rid of wires! Now!"
"Wh-what about you?"
"DO IT!"
Annett, trembling from head to toe, squeezed between the chair rows and ripped the headphones off the needed children's heads (and some more in addition - this sight was unbearable, so she just was to break some of it, and besides her parents weren't here). She continued getting rid of the metal prisons - not only taking the headphones off the kids' heads, but breaking them with her feet as well - until the Doctor, now of perfectly fine height of a grown-up man, grabbed two dark-haired kids from the third row, and they ran.
After Annett was transferred home, the Doctor decided to finally take care of Jamie and Victoria. He was afraid that at first they wouldn't understand him - after such a shock! - and now it was high time to do it. Jamie was seemingly sleeping on the seat next to the console room's back wall, while Victoria was sitting next to him, her head lowered down. The Doctor scooped her up and placed her onto his lap.
"Victoria? Victoria, my sweet, can you hear me?"
The girl rubbed her temples (which held tracks of something scratchy or attached for too long), blinked at him, and tears immediately welled up in her eyes.
"It's all right, Victoria. I'm here".
Suddenly for himself the Doctor realized that he was slowly trotting Victoria on his lap, whispering into her dark hair, while she was crying all of her tremendous fear out, having nuzzled into his shoulder.
"There you go..." When the girl stopped weeping and was only sniffing her nose, the Doctor wanted to place her on the seat next to him, but her little fists latched to his lapels and her bottom lip wobbled. "I'm not going to leave you. Do you believe me? Then let me see what's with Jamie".
Jamie wasn't reacting to anything taking place around him, even to Victoria's tears - he was standing like a salt column. Or no, as if he was a wax figure, not even blinking. The tension was in every single bit of him - he felt rough to touch.
"Jamie? Jamie, say something, please..."
The boy did not respond, frozen.
"Oh no. Oh my word, oh no..."
There had been an interruption. Doubtlessly, and it was to be neutralized as soon as possible, otherwise... No, it's better not to think what could take place otherwise!
Victoria knew that something was wrong with Jamie. He had never been so white and not responding to anything. But there was something else, apart from horrid noise that those robot-people had pushed into their ears, because Jamie was stronger than her.
The Doctor was fixing it, but she didn't dare to watch the process being done (somehow she knew it included horrid-looking devices). Victoria knew that she should be very very quiet, if she doesn't want to make things worse.
When it was over, Victoria finally made herself look at the result. Jamie was unharmed, if not to count two see-through wire-like tubes attached to his arms - one was filled with dark cherry-colored liquid, the other with pale white.
"See, they have already started to mix certain liquids instead of blood into him", the Doctor started. "I don't know what they wanted to make out of him, but it's better to perform a counter-deed before it's too late. He will be fine in some time".
"Wh-wh-why?" Victoria asked, hoping that the Doctor heard the same that she heard from herself.
"I've heard about such projects". The Doctor walked to the farther end of the room and allowed Victoria to climb onto his lap again. "It's for resistance. For example, chemists need resistance against various acids, poisonous mixtures and their relatives... Victoria, Jamie is going to be fine. I promise".
Victoria cuddled up to him in search for comfort again.