It was Annika's first day. She had successfully applied for a job at Lord, a new technology firm specialising in new forms of energy production. She had contacted the head of Lord, Sir Giles Crockham, about a job vacancy she had noticed in The Edinburgh Times. Apparently they needed a new Asset Manager and she had plenty of experience in the world of managers. She had previously worked at the Citadel prior to the last day of the Time War before it fell. Luckily for her, it fell on her day off. She had been in Southampton when the Cyberman had arrived. Her house had been destroyed and so she had moved to Edinburgh and looked for a new job ever since. Two years on from that incident, she had found a job that suited her perfectly and she was about to start it. She entered the impressively looking modern building and headed for her lab, which was almost on the other side from the entrance.
On the way to her lab, Annika encountered Sir Giles Crockham, a smartly dressed individual with a slight beard forming and a face that Annika was certain she knew. Perhaps she may have seen him on an advert on the back of a bus or a poster somewhere but she was certain she knew his face.
"Sir Giles?" she asked, clearly surprised to see him, "What are you doing here? I wasn't expecting to see you this early on my first day."
"Oh, I just checked to see if you were alright." he replied, enigmatically smiling at her, "I have a visitor coming to see me in my office later today and I think you might want to meet them." "I see. Who's coming to see you?"
"I would rather prefer if you didn't know. It would make the moment far more enjoyable. In fact, I think I'll just go. I like the idea of being mysterious."
He walked off, giggling like a child who was about to pull off a prank nobody would ever forget.
Later that day, Annika headed to Sir Giles's office and found that a young woman with short, sharply cut blond hair and a pair of bright red high heels was stood next to Sir Giles. The young stranger didn't seem to fit in with her surroundings, almost as if she was from another planet.
"Close the door, Annika." Sir Giles instructed her and Annika did as she was told. Strangely. Since when did she start helping her boss without question?
"What have you done to me?" Annika asked Sir Giles, feeling a shiver of fear run up her back.
"I've just made you more susceptible to my commands." Sir Giles explained, "Because I am the Doctor, Annika, and you are my puppet."
Annika didn't like this. She wasn't anyone's puppet. She worked for the Time Lords. She never worked for the Time Lords. Her memories of the Time Lords no longer existed. What was the Time Lords?
"Thank you for the memories of the Time Lords by the way." the Doctor continued, "I happen to have encountered them before, especially Rassilon. What a pain he was. He isn't around here though."
"Can I begin the process yet?" the young stranger asked the Doctor, revealing a metal bracelet on her left arm that was firmly clamped on. She seemed eager to do something. "No, not yet. I need to tell Annika what's been actually going on because this plan has been spectacular."
He now addressed Annika.
"Three years ago, Annika, I created a human using a genetic pool that I stole from a Eurbankian Geneship. That human's mind was linked to my mind because some of my DNA was inside her. I left her here while I became your prime minister and eventually my TARDIS received an alert saying that you had joined the Time Lords. I popped back here and established Lord, leaving an idea inside your mind to try and get a job here."
Annika was horrified. She was the daughter of a maniac. None of her life was hers to own. "Why?" she uttered, afraid to say anything more.
"That's what I'm getting onto." the Doctor said, indicating his young friend, "This is a Dalek. It's been living in Edinburgh for the last few years and I contacted it, offering my services in return for its' freedom."
"Its' freedom?" she asked, before noticing the bracelet on the Dalek's hand and understanding what he meant. It was presumably some sort of imprisoning device.
"I will let it impregnate you with its eggs and then you will become pregnant with a Dalek child. The mother will soon come to rip you open and take the child."
"No." Annika simply said, almost managing to run out of the room. She froze perfectly mid-step, the Doctor's presence in her mind. A sinister whisper, telling her to help him. A
doorway into a madman's mind. She decided to follow that doorway and she found herself looking at herself, frozen by the door.
Annika and the Doctor had changed minds.
The Dalek wasn't aware of this unexpected alteration to the Doctor's plans. This was something Annika could use to her advantage.
"I'm a woman?!" the Doctor roared, using Annika's vocal chords to declare his anger, "Why have I changed bodies with a mere human?"
"You made this happen." Annika replied, now triumphant and in the body of a Time Lord, "And now the Dalek is going to make your life a misery."
She clapped his hands and the Dalek surged forwards, now with savage fangs and slightly grey-red eyes and sharp claws. It snarled at the Doctor as she ran around the room, eventually reaching Annika and trying to fumble through his pockets. She eventually found his laser screwdriver and aimed it at the Dalek. But that didn't work. The device was isomorphic and only worked when Annika used it.
"I could kill the Dalek." Annika offered, picking up the laser screwdriver, "Although you'll have to teach me how to use this."
It was too late for killing the Dalek however. It had bitten the Doctor's arm and now the Doctor was lying on the floor of the office, clutching her arm tightly in pain. The Dalek had returned to Annika's side and now Annika was kneeling by the Doctor, his knees resting on the green carpet.
"Do you know that pain?" he asked her, punching her bitten arm sharply, "I felt it when you told me you created me to be a host for alien eggs. Now I hope you enjoy your reward."
He stood up, took the sonic screwdriver from his pocket and aimed it at the Dalek, striking it down instantly. He then walked off, feeling pleased with the fact that he had had his revenge on the Doctor.
The Doctor lost consciousness for a while and decided to generate a dream state. He pulled Annika's mind into this dream state and decided to base the dream state in the Citadel's top floor. They were both stood by a large white wall and, a few metres away, there were several computers and a glass wall. This was the Ghost Machine Room.
"Did you really think you could beat me?" the Doctor asked her, his stomach aching with pain as he remembered that he could not take his old body back. He clutched it toughly with one hand as he swung one other hand towards her, attempting to strike her down. Annika simply moved away.
"Yes." she replied, "You created me. You are my father but that genetic pool contained the minds of seventy thousand Eurbankians. I have the intelligence of seventy thousand individuals and now your body has allowed me to break free of my mental constraints. I am now your Doctor and you will suffer for what you have done to me."
She snapped her fingers and the white wall they were standing by became brighter. It changed from a solid wall into a doorway leading into another dimension. A nowhere place. The Void. The immense power of the doorway was sucking the Doctor and Annika into it and Annika didn't care. The Doctor, on the other hand, was now feeling terrified. This was one of few times he had felt terrified and the last time he had felt terrified was when the Dalek Emperor had taken control of the Crucible, back in the days of the Time War. It had been a long time since then. He had never felt afraid since then.
The landscape within the dream changed to absolute blackness. The Doctor's appearance had also changed: he was now in his decayed body he had worn centuries ago. Annika's appearance had stayed the same. The Doctor was getting ever more irritated by Annika's ever growing power. He was the one who should have the power. Not her.
"I presume you're smug now you've won." he said, unable to do anything else.
"Oh, very." she replied, walking towards him and whispering into his ear, "Do you want some cream for those burns?"
"Don't patronise me, human. This is who I used to look like. It appears that, in my weak state, I have regressed back to this emaciated form. How irritating."
"I'm leeching all of your energy and intellect. This is your fault though. If you had never decided to create me simply to aid the Daleks, you wouldn't have ended up like this."
The Doctor walked away, his stomach aching and the pain exacerbated by the state he was in. He regretted setting up this dream state for him to converse with Annika. She was far worse than him. That was probably what would have happened though. The Doctor had inadvertedly created an all-powerful being who had taken everything from him and left him pregnant and, mentally at least, in a decayed form. He hadn't woken up yet but dreaded to see what he looked like in reality.
"I can't even regenerate." he noticed, seeing his already shrivelled hand decay into the hand of a skeleton, "I can only decay and decay until nothing is left."
"Good. The universe doesn't need people like you." Annika answered, placing her hand on his head and closing her eyes. She drained every last memory from him, an ability perfected by the Eurbankians, and left him as a drained, decayed corpse. Unable to move. Unable to remember what had gone on.
Annika woke up and found himself inside his TARDIS. He really should start calling himself the Doctor given all the chaos he had unleashed on the old Doctor. Annika was the Doctor of the Doctor.
"No, that's too silly. I'm trying to get rid of the Doctor not become him." he said out loud, subconsciously activating the dematerialisation control and making the time rotor rise and fall in time with the wheezing and howling of his time ship. There was another sound though. Underneath the symphony that heralded the TARDIS's departure, Annika could hear a whisper.
"I am your Doctor, Annika. I am your Doctor and you will come to regret every action you took upon me."
The voice was that of the Doctor. The decayed version of the Doctor. The version of the Doctor he had last seen in the dream state.
"You are not the Doctor of me!" he cried, pressing every button on the console, "And if you're dead, you'll be in trouble with the Dalek and not me!"
"The Dalek is irrelevant. One of my past selves has dealt with it. The only problem lies with you, Annika. You threw me out of my own body. You made me become nothing more than a lifeless husk in your weak human form. I think now is when you made your first mistake though."
"Tell me more."
"Within every TARDIS, a copy of the owner's mind is stored in something known as a Memory Helmet. If the owner has their mind drained by a lifeform, they put on the memory helmet and they are restored to their old state. As I have power over you, you weak thing, I want you to put on the memory helmet."
"No."
Annika found that his legs moved without him telling them to. They moved him closer to a golden helmet that was within one of the many purple roundels inside the ship and his hands, also without him controlling them, reached up and put on the helmet.
The mental exchange was painful and immediate.
The Doctor picked up the memory helmet and placed it back within the roundel before shutting it away and heading back to the console. Annika had somehow managed to enter the console and become a spirit lodged within his TARDIS.
"You know, I could just turn everything off and kill you." he said, now with his confidence regained, "But I won't do that if you help me. You are what I need to get around and you're also relying on my ship to keep you alive. Am I right?"
"Yes." came the reply from Annika, out of the scanner's speakers. "Then you will help me if you don't want to die. Do you agree to this?" "Yes."
He grinned, satisfied with her response.
THE END