As promised, the next installment. Enjoy.
The Rani paused on the street and frowned. She had been expecting the Doctor to head towards her but he seemed to have decided to go towards Donna's house. She quickened her pace and wished again that she had brought the equipment to fix Donna. Then all three – four if you counted her grandfather – would be able to deal with the problem at once. Then she felt Donna's mind brush against her and nearly swore. The damage that the Vortex was doing to the mental walls surrounding Donna's mind was enormous. This was something that she needed to deal with at once. She started running. Several people looked oddly at her and, thinking fast, she waved to one of them.
"Excuse me, are the trains still running?" she asked and saw them relax as her reason became apparent. The person she had asked nodded and she continued running. Humans were very good at ignoring inconsistencies once they had an idea in their head. She rounded the corner and hissed in anger as the Doctor's TARDIS disappeared. "You have got to be kidding me!" she shouted at the empty street.
"What are you doing here?" came a voice from the porch. It was Sylvia Noble. The Rani looked at her and then past her at Donna.
"We have an alert from UNIT," she said, improvising quickly. "There's someone planning to destroy this part of London. They should be able to stop them but we need to get into a secure location." She gestured towards the car urgently.
"Let me get my stuff," Donna said and rushed back inside. Her mother was right behind her. The Rani pointed her sonic screwdriver at the door and it opened easily. She slid into the driver's seat and tried to remember how this sort of mechanism worked. As Dr Anne, she had been fairly proficient but it was hard to remember what was in a mere fraction of her lifespan. Still, it was a fairly simple mechanism at least.
"You're driving?" Donna asked as she sprinted up to the door. She had a large backpack and a trunk of dubious lineage in her hands. "Didn't know you could," she added.
"It looks simple enough," the Rani said cheerfully and dumped the luggage into the trunk. "Get in, quickly. The Master is about to begin something and I need you under cover of our shield." She broke off as she noticed Sylvia Noble exiting her home with an ever larger trunk than Donna's and hurried towards them.
"Should we warn people?" she asked as she reached them. The Rani shook her head.
"Most people aren't in the city because of stuff like this," she said and laughed. "Sensible people, I've often thought." She waited until her passengers were buckled securely and then peeled out of the driveway at what seemed to Donna to be more than a hundred miles an hour.
"Are we in that much of a hurry?" she asked as the Rani actually accelerated.
"I'm not really sure," the Rani said with a shrug and took a corner without slowing. "Better safe than sorry," she added as she threaded the needle between two other cars. Donna would have pointed out the inconsistencies in this statement if she hadn't been crushed against her seat by the G-forces. Idly, a portion of her mind calculated the rate that the car was going and she was surprised to realize that they were only going 80 miles an hour. Once she'd stopped worrying about crashing, it was actually very fun.
"Do we need to worry about attacks at us?" Donna asked as they reached their lab. The Rani shook her head and dragged the luggage from the trunk with the same surprising strength that Donna somewhat remembered from before.
"No one knows about us," she said and dragged the luggage inside before Donna had opened her mother's door. Sylvia Noble did not seem more than slightly winded by the drive but she was looking at Donna with a worrying expression. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," her mother said and walked up the drive with her. "How much have you remembered?" Donna looked up sharply and met the piercing gaze that had seen right through her excuses throughout her childhood.
"Quite a bit," she said and then her head jerked up as she felt something odd happening. Sylvia saw a face suddenly superimposed on her vision and shuddered.
"Get in!" the Rani shouted and the two of them ran down the walkway. The Rani slammed the door and the vision was gone from Sylvia's eyes. "The shield will hold, but I'm not even sure what this is!" She bent over a keyboard and then froze suddenly. "No," she said softly. "That sort of technology should have been dealt with before anyone could use it."
"What technology?" Donna asked and strode over to the screen. On it, there were pictures of people standing still and blurring.
"Healing technology of this caliber is highly restricted because of this," the Rani said, tapping several controls. "It relies on the base state of health, and if you change that."
"You mean someone is overwriting humans?" Sylvia said incredulously. Both Donna and Dr Anne looked at her in surprise. "I paid attention in university," she said and frowned at them. "Biology is easy to remember. Someone is overwriting the DNA of humanity and replacing it with something else?"
"Yes, that's exactly it," the Rani said with surprise. She had not expected such quick understanding. "There should be a way around it but I need to know what kind of device they are using." She picked up a device and twisted several knobs. It emitted a humming noise and she muttered something under her breath.
"I take it that is a bad noise," Donna said. The Rani shrugged.
"On the plus side, it isn't one that is permanent," she said and set the device down. "But I'm going to have to physically go to it and break it." She looked at Donna's mother and then at Donna.
"When did you figure out what happened?" Sylvia asked bluntly. The Rani rocked back on her heels and darted another look at Donna.
"As soon as I saw her, I figured there was something odd going on," she said and shrugged. "I saw the residue of time travel on her, but I assumed she had been a victim of a Weeping Angel or something like it. When she told me about her lost memories, the pieces began fitting together." The Rani picked up an odd helmet-like device and handed it to Donna. "This will give you all your memories back and adjust your mind to fit them," she said and then turned to Sylvia. "That was actually what we were working on for a Christmas present for you and her granddad. Sorry about the secrecy, but she wanted to surprise you," she added and gave a rueful grin. Donna placed the helmet on her head and reached up to flip the switch. The Rani grabbed her hand. "Sit down first," she said pointedly.
"And that will give her all her memories back without hurting her?" Sylvia asked worriedly. The Rani nodded briskly. Sylvia had learned enough about her that she could tell this nod was both confident and faintly indignant that she should be doubted. Donna sat down and closed her eyes and flipped the switch.
Martha Jones was very close to panicking as the whole world was transformed around her. Fortunately the shields had worked but they could easily see the outside and it was very unpleasant. The Master had somehow copied himself onto everyone not protected, and the result was terrifying.
"How could he have done this?" she muttered aloud and glanced to her left. Captain Jack Harkness shook his head in horrified wonder.
"This reminds me of how I met the Doctor," he said and shuddered at the memory. "Nanites were spreading outwards from a crashed medical ship and they were using the wrong template for humans, a boy who'd been badly injured by a bomb. This was during the Blitz, by the way. The Doctor fixed it but I never thought that someone would – or could – do something like this!" He glared at the screen and then closed his eyes. "My team is all accounted for," he said and Martha breathed a sigh of relief.
"Most of our people were on alert when this happened," she said and walked over to her desk. "With Project Indigo fully operational, we were able to get our people inside the shield in time, but that won't help if we can't reverse this." She collapsed into her chair and wondered again how the Doctor dealt with the stress. She had never fully appreciated how hard it was for the leaders of UNIT until she had had her duty thrust upon her. Now she was responsible for the defense of Earth and its environs, and she was not sure what to do. Then the phone rang.
"A very impressive shield, Martha Jones," said a very familiar voice. Martha smiled.
"Glad you like it Harry," she said. She remembered the Doctor's attitude and tried to relax. "I see you've got your ugly mug on TV again," she added.
"Every TV," said the Master and he laughed. "I see you haven't changed a bit."
"Why would I?" she asked, trying to keep him talking. There was something odd about his tone.
"You really are in trouble," he said. "Perhaps you've noticed that I now control the arsenal of your planet. I could easily simply bombard those shields until they crack." Martha laughed.
"The missile defenses are just as advanced as our shields," she said with a trace of scorn in her voice. "Any missile that is sent will be shot down, even if you could breach the shields."
"Anyway, all we have to do is wait for you to mess yourself up as usual," Jack said, pressing the speaker control. "From what I've read of your last exploits, I'm not impressed."
"Very arrogant for a pathetic primate like you," the Master snarled. "Be seeing you." He slammed down the phone and turned towards the Doctor, tied up in a chair. "How did they develop those shields?"
"I honestly don't know," the Doctor said. He had been relieved and very bewildered to see that UNIT had shielded against the Master's attack. As far as he could tell, it was at least ten thousand years ahead of their technology and that was a conservative estimate. "I'm as surprised as you are."
"I'm not as surprised as you might think," the Master said and glared at him. "I expected them to want a defense against enemies. What I didn't expect was a shield that worked against me." Then he turned swiftly as a phone rang. "They seem to be calling you Doctor," he said and then realized that it was coming from the human, Wilfred Motts. He crossed the room quickly and grabbed the cell phone. "Why would UNIT call you?" he asked and then read the name. "Who's Donna?"
Donna paced worriedly around the lab, her concern rising with every ring. Finally it was answered and she breathed a sigh of relief.
"Granddad?" she said. "This is Donna. Is the Doctor there as well?"
"I'm sorry, but he can't come to the phone," said a voice that resonated with several memories. "He's rather tied up at the moment."
"I see," Donna said. "Well, tell him that we figured out some moron named the Master has used a healing device to convert humanity to his twisted image. Frankly, from what I've heard, I'm surprised he didn't blow himself up but he must have gotten lucky there." She grinned at the choking sounds coming from the phone. "And now that I've suitably entertained you, why don't you give my grandfather the phone so I can get on with things?"
"Who are you?" the Master said with a venomous snarl. Donna made a tsking noise into the phone.
"I don't recall calling you, whoever this is. It's rather rude of you to use someone else's phone without asking." She stifled a laugh at the noises that emanated from the phone. It really was too easy.
The Doctor wasn't sure what was going on but he knew that tone of voice. Donna had her memories back and was somehow not dead. He grinned and the Master glared murderously at him.
"It's not too late," the Doctor said. "I don't want this to end like last time. Let me help you."
"Who is Donna Noble?" the Master snarled. "What is she?"
"You could ask me that y'know," Donna said. "I could tell you that easily."
"Then what are you?" the Master asked in a vexed voice.
"What are you?" Donna asked in return. "You answer that one first."
"I am the Master," he hissed after giving the phone a look that should have made it burst into flame.
"That would explain your temper," Donna said flippantly. "I'm Donna Noble, and I had the mind of the Doctor copied onto my mind. I know all about you by the way," she added with a laugh that sounded rather creepy and left the Master slightly worried about her sanity. He looked at the Doctor and saw the shock but also that he did not disbelieve it.
"So what are you, his daughter?" the Master asked with a laugh. "A human cannot survive that for very long, you know." There was a faint laugh from the phone, but the Master stiffened as his ears picked up the anomaly. The sound had come from his end. He turned suddenly and stared into eyes that glowed with the fires of time.
"Hello Koschei," the Rani said as she closed the teleporter in her hand with a snap that echoed in the silence. "It really has been too long."
Enjoy and please review.