Egyptian Tahtib: Bits and Pieces
His nerves tingling and twanging, expecting every step to hear a metallic-voiced challenge, Jared forced himself to continue stomping stiff-legged over to the little building he'd picked out, staring straight ahead all the while. It wasn't until he'd reached the piles of cloth and metal surrounding it and started between them that he actually took a glance at them – and then it was all he could do to continue on. He staggered a step, then managed to jerkily get himself to the corner of the building and around it, out of sight, before his knees gave out, and he collapsed against the wall, unexpectedly retching.
They weren't just scrap.
They were body parts.
Hundreds of arms and legs and torsos, tossed in heaps all around. The building was instantly identified: the Cyberman transformation hub, where the brains and other vital parts of all their latest victims had been encased inside metal monsters, and the unused leftovers just tossed aside, so much scrap.
He found himself muttering his habitual apology over and over. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He wasn't even sure who he was apologizing to. The victims? They didn't care. Not now.
With a superhuman effort, he dragged his mind back to his task: finding the parts needed to make his Rose detector. Considering again, he realized those parts were still likely to be found inside the hub. He'd just have to be extra cautious (not his usual M.O.) every second, making certain that he didn't inadvertently trip some circuit that turned the machinery on, with himself as the next victim.
Some forty excruciating minutes later, he had what he needed, and exited the abattoir with a huge sigh of relief. Squatting down again on the far side of the little building from the construction site with his booty, he did his best to keep the piles surrounding him on Ignore, while his sonic screwdriver got a thorough workout. Before another twenty minutes had passed, the detector was working, and he carefully fed in the target DNA samples from the cloth in his pocket, then began scanning the area for Rose.
It stubbornly refused to admit she was within range, and he didn't know whether that was a good sign or not. He scanned the area again and again, cranking the distance up and down repeatedly, until finally, he got the faintest blip, from the direction of the black pyramid!
Night had fallen unnoticed while he was at it, and although the work – whatever it was – continued on the construction site unabated, the lights adorning the growing structure didn't stretch all the way to his hiding place. He crept back to the pyramid again without arousing the faintest notice, and recommenced scanning.
Nothing on the outside. Glancing around again to make sure he was still alone, he mounted the stairs and once more entered the pyramid.
The first, outer chamber seemed untouched, except for evidence of traffic: scrapes and scratches and dirt along the floor, stretching between the inner doorway and the outside. Apparently a whole lot of something had been brought through – probably much of the material for the construction next door. Additionally, a thick black cable – possible for some sort of power supply – snaked across the floor as well, disappearing into the sand outside. The portal didn't seem to be in use at the moment, though. The detector beeped once for a faint trace, then fell silent again.
Creeping on through, he peered through the inner door, and stopped, gaping. THIS chamber was MUCH changed. Numerous lights were on – and the fact that he could see things plainly told him the freeze-frame mechanism was still inoperative, so he stepped on through the door to gape some more.
The walls, which he had never been able to scan, let alone open, had been ripped off in several places, revealing the mass of conduits and wires behind them. The power cable on the floor was attached to one side – and he noticed another trailing through the doorway beyond, as well. Jared stood for a few minutes staring around, trying to make sense of the technology, and came up with a few ideas, although no clues to the original builders leapt out at him. Then the detector in his hand beeped again – and again, excitedly. The traces of Rose's DNA were definitely stronger here.
But how could that be? The answer hit him at once. It was from their earlier visit. She'd never returned to this spot.
Then where could she be? Or when? Jared closed his eyes and concentrated, reliving the last jump. He felt the "bump" which had ripped them apart – that definitely happened at the same instant. Then he had been wrenched – no, propelled – to this point. No change in location, since there had been no space travel programmed into the jumper; but only time.
So what had happened? That bump... His eyes flew open as it hit him. He'd unlocked the freeze-frame chamber before they stepped back in time through the portal, which had apparently let the Cybermen through. They must have taken over and converted the local population – including Napoleon, in all likelihood. That had been what changed the flow of history, splitting the time stream and creating Beta around him. And the split must have been the bump!
So where was Rose?
Back in the other universe!
Jared groaned in agony, slumping against the nearby wall panel still in place. He was separated once again from her by the void, a solid wall between them. How to find her and get her back? He glanced at the time jumper on his wrist again, thinking hard. He could jump forward to their own time, go through their dimension cannon back to Alpha, jump back to find her, and then reverse the journey entirely to return here. Just thinking about all those steps, though, gave him the willies: far too many things to go wrong at each turn. (The tiny voice in his head which constantly monitored the differences between himself and the Doctor noted the unaccustomed caution and snickered; he squashed it ruthlessly.)
No, there had to be a shortcut. A shortcut! Eyes flaring wide, he stared around the chamber. Well, is this a dimensional portal or isn't it? Going between parallels is just another kind of step from going between times!
Pulling out the sonic screwdriver once more, he dove into the machinery, glorying in the frantic, manic, joyous, driven genius, one step this side of insanity. For the first time since leaving the TARDIS, he felt truly, completely, one-hundred-percent awake.
^..^
Some unknown time later, Jared stepped back, pulled his creaking back straight, and grinned. He'd done it! The portal doorway was now framed by a jerry-built contraption of tubes and wires and blinking lights, busily redirecting the wisps of void energy he'd discovered in the chamber walls through a half-remembered set of patterns, last seen back in his dim, distant memory, visiting one of the dimensional doorways his people had built, suffering through yet another boring technical lesson in the Academy. He hoped he'd gotten it right. No way to know but to try it!
He wasn't about to step through it himself, though. That would have put him back in Alpha, and he and Rose STILL wouldn't be where they needed to be. No, he had to find her and bring her here. It didn't take a genius to figure out how to do that, either; he had the memory of being on the sending side of that last holographic conversation, and how he'd gotten her there, too.
Ignoring the growing pangs of hunger now emerging from his midsection – he'd not eaten since before they'd left Suez! - he sat down on the floor between the be-decorated portal and the sword. He'd taken that off many hours before and propped it up against the wall, out of the way but close at hand. Stretching his long legs out before him, he settled back and closed his eyes, concentrating. He'd not tested his telepathic abilities once since waking up in this new body, shying away from the possibility of their loss; one more thing to add to the debit column along with his second heart, one more thing that said he was no longer a Time Lord. But now he needed to face it squarely.
He sat utterly still for several long minutes, finding each muscle and concentrating it into relaxation, then slipping into the old mental mantras for collecting and focusing his mind. For a long, heart-stopping moment, nothing stirred at the back of his mind, and he fought down despair. Then... long unused, rusty-feeling mental gears suddenly shifted, and he found the hidden psi source again. He wasted no time on jubilation or relief, but quickly harnessed the power, shaped it, and sent it out into the void.
*Rose... Rose... Hear me...*
He couldn't have said later how long he sat there calling her. It might have been minutes, or days. But at long last, he felt something stir at an impossible distance in response. Making a last supreme effort, he reached further for it, and found it glowing with her colors, her mental scent, just as he'd sensed it before.
Finally, a word seemed to come, awkwardly, from her human brain. He could barely *hear* it; although it seemed to have been screamed from the same impossibly long distance. *Jared!* It was Rose. A tear slipped down his face, unnoticed.
He took a moment to consider. This felt like real physical distance, and possibly time, as well as across the void. She must have left the area around the pyramid.
*Come back to the Portal,* he sent. The message had to be simple; there was no time nor psychic energy enough to explain. *I'll bring you across.*
Another long, wait, then he heard her scream again. *I'm coming!*
How could he ever express the joy those words gave him? Only one way. *I love you!*
Suddenly, completely exhausted, he broke the connection, and came back to himself, slumping over, gasping for breath. Something felt different inside the chamber, but he couldn't put his befogged mental finger on it. He pried his eyes open -
- and froze, staring, at two huge metal feet, standing on the floor just beyond his Converses.