A/N: Okay, I finally felt like continuing with this. Still struggling with it, but I quite like the challenge of it. I'm trying to make Dominie as much of an anti-companion as possible, which then makes it extra difficult to work out how the Doctor would plausibly react to her. I'm still treating this as an experimental fic, but it's good to get some of my ideas out in the open.

All reviews are appreciated, even (perhaps especially) if you want to flame me and tear this fic to pieces. Strong reactions are what I'm aiming for, particularly now that I feel I'm getting stuck into the main plot at bit more.

Chapter Seven – Arrival

There was a periodic whooshing noise as the Tardis materialised on the artificial concrete ground of Altager Four. A moment later the door opened and the Doctor stepped out, followed by a rather hesitant Dominie Nova. She was scowling slightly and very much looked like she didn't want to be there, whereas the Doctor seemed quite at ease as he looked up at the towering metal and concrete buildings that surrounded them. "Here we are, IFA HQ on Altager Four. Big place, let's try not to get lost. So, where should we start?"

Dominie just continued to scowl at him. "How the fuck should I…" she was beginning to answer, but he seemed unfazed by her aggression and simply talked over her as he spotted the sign on a building in front of them.

"I suppose reception would be a good idea," he said as he began to walk towards the entrance labelled as such. Dominie shut up and cast an uncertain glance from him back to the Tardis, before sighing and firmly shutting the door behind her.

"Alright, I suppose we may as well," she muttered to herself as she set off after him. She was still uneasy about the whole situation and the inexplicable trust she'd felt towards him earlier was wearing off. Was he doing this because he genuinely wanted to help her, like he'd said, or was it for some other reason entirely? She couldn't work it out, but since the police were probably now after her and her home had just been blown to pieces by a lunatic with a plasma cannon, she knew she didn't have much choice but to go with him. There was still the worry that if he was doing this just to satisfy his own curiosity he might end up making everything worse, but so far he'd seemed nice enough and she was prepared to give him a chance. Not that I really have any other option, she thought rather bitterly as she followed him towards the reception.

Coming up behind him she noticed the small tear on the shoulder of his coat, and grimaced as she remembered he'd been hit by a laser blast from the shooter. She'd been so busy thinking about herself she hadn't even thought to ask if he was alright, and she knew that was unfair. Frustrating as he was, she had to admit that without him she'd probably have been arrested and be facing questioning by now. Perhaps she ought to at least make the effort to be nicer to him. "Sorry, I forgot to ask if you were alright. You know, after that psycho took a shot at you," she said as she caught up with him, sounding rather apologetic.

He looked at her and raised an eyebrow, as if surprised that she seemed to be showing genuine concern, but then shrugged. "Sure, I'm fine. Like I said, he had his weapons on a low setting for some reason. Didn't hurt all that much."

Dominie seemed perfectly satisfied with that answer and gave a nod, as if she didn't care enough to ask more. "Ok," she said simply as she continued to walk alongside him.

If he found her reaction odd he chose not to comment on it, and instead spoke about something else. "When we get back remind me to check the Tardis' engines, will you? They did that whiny thing again just as we set off."

Dominie looked mildly alarmed for a second but quickly hid it. "Your ship's not likely to crash, is it?" she asked, trying to make the question sound as casual as possible.

He shook his head. "Of course not, but I'd just like to check none of the parts have got stuck or anything, just to be sure."

Again, she just nodded and gave a very simple answer. "Alright."

As they approached the entrance the transparent glass door slid upwards to allow them into the reception. On the other side they found themselves standing in a large semicircular room with a plain white floor, plain white walls with no apparent doors and a plain white ceiling. In front of them was a white, seemingly unmanned reception desk that was curved slightly to fit the shape of the room. Dominie immediately began to walk towards it, but the Doctor reached out to grab her arm and pull her back. "Wait a moment, there's…" he began, and then noticed where he'd grabbed hold of her and muttered, "Sorry," as he quickly let go.

She frowned at him in confusion for a moment. "What for?" she asked, but then glanced down and realised he'd been gripping her where she'd been burned. "Oh…yeah, that's no problem," she said with a shrug, "But what…"

She broke off as she suddenly saw a blue light flashing in her face and blinked in surprise, but the Doctor didn't react at all as a computerised, disembodied voice suddenly sounded from somewhere, "Please remain still while our systems conduct a security scan."

The seemingly sourceless blue light flashed for a few more seconds before going out and the voice announced. "Security scan complete. No unsafe items detected."

Dominie glanced at the Doctor and then began to walk forward again, but he reached out to grab her wrist this time to hold her back. "Yeah, don't go just yet."

"Oh, what now?" she snapped in frustration, but then the room turned a shade of pale green as another light was switched on and the voice spoke out again.

"Thank you for your co-operation. You may proceed."

The Doctor let go of Dominie as he began to walk towards the desk, and she gave him a look as if to say "What the hell was that all about?"

"Always wait for it to tell you to," he explained as they reached the desk. "They can be a bit funny, Securautons. Make any move out of turn and they'll beam you straight to a holding cell until they can get a real sentient being to verify you're not a terrorist."

"I know what a Securauton is, Doctor," Dominie said defensively, "I just assumed that the IFA would have more up-to-date software, that's all. I can't believe they're still using the light-code version when the tempo-pattern one's pretty widely available."

He raised an eyebrow at her once she'd said that. "Really?"

She frowned at him, wondering why he seemed so puzzled. "Yeah, I know it's a pretty novel idea for the government to actually have up-to-date computer systems but the IFA's usually a little further ahead than all the other ministries."

He shook his head and looked thoughtful for a moment, "No, it's not that, it's just that I wouldn't have called tempo-pattern Securauton software widely available. Actually, I don't think it's going to enter the commercial market for another thirty or so years."

Now it was Dominie's turn to look confused. "What the hell are you talking about?" she said, but he didn't have chance to answer before the room suddenly turned purple and the voice addressed them again.

"Welcome to IFA Primary Facility Epsilon 503, Altager Four. Which department do you require?"

"Um…" Dominie began, and she and the Doctor exchanged glances.

"Official Records?" he suggested.

"I would have gone for Recent Commissions, if we want to find out who the shooter was."

He looked thoughtful for a second as he deliberated. "Do we want to find out who the shooter was or do we want to find out who you are?"

Dominie thought that the only person here with a particular interest in finding out who she was was him, but she supposed she had agreed to this after all. "Well, both, preferably. I think," she replied, not sounding too sure of herself.

He nodded, seemingly oblivious to her uncertainty. "Right, well let's do it one at a time shall we?"

She nodded back in agreement, and then turned back towards the desk. Neither the voice nor the purple light had any apparent source, so she just looked vaguely in the direction of the back of the room as she spoke out in answer to the voice's question. The Doctor did so at the same time.

"Official Records."

"Recent Commissions."

The purple light suddenly went out and Dominie was faintly surprised to find the room had gone completely black. "Um, Doctor…" she began to say, but then a yellow light was switched on and she looked around to find herself standing in a completely different room altogether. In front of her were rows and rows of metal shelves stacked with v-files that seemed to stretch on forever, and glancing up she could see the ceiling which appeared to be hundreds of metres above her. The Doctor wasn't beside her anymore but she could see a few dozen people were walking among the shelves at ground level while many more were in hover pods floating among the towers all the way up to the ceiling. Dominie was only momentarily confused before the digital voice explained things to her. "Welcome to the Official Records Bureau, Estate 76ADN."

"Fuck, no he wanted the ORB, I wanted Recent Commissions," she muttered in irritation at the computer, but she was beginning to feel too self-conscious to raise her voice amongst all the other people here. She knew she only had visitor's clearance, which meant the only records she'd be able to get hold of would be in the declassified section. And they wouldn't be much use to her for anything. "Fuck," she murmured again, wondering if she should try asking the computer to beam her to the Recent Commissions Office where she suspected the Doctor would be, but then she thought that actually she wouldn't mind having chance to wander off on her own. If he was so interested in finding stuff out about her then she was quite happy to let him, but while she was here she thought she might take the opportunity to find out more stuff about him.

With her sense of irritation beginning to fade, Dominie found her way to the foot of one of the shelves where a vacant hover pod was docked and waiting to be put to use. She climbed inside and waited for the red activation light to switch on before speaking out, "Declassifieds, subject match, search terms 'Doctor', 'Tardis', 'Time Lord'." There was just the faintest of hums as the pod elevated itself to a couple of metres off the ground and sped off to find the files that matched the search terms specified.

Dominie allowed herself a faint smile as she thought that perhaps her search for the Doctor's history might end up being more successful than his search for her own, but she wasn't paying much attention to anything else. She didn't notice the blond man standing at the foot of the shelves watching her zoom off, and didn't see the dark expression on his face as he raised a comms unit to his ear and spoke into it in a grim tone. "Belman, we've got a problem."