Second half of this chapter, have to admit I'm struggling a little with the next one so be patient.
On the good news side of things, the wonderful JaneScarlett has agreed to Beta this for me, and it's already better thanks to her contribution. Any mistakes left are all mine.
Hope you enjoy!
"How hard can this be?" River asked herself, looking at the tool kit laid out on the table before her. She picked up a laser key and loosened the screws on the side of the access panel, disregarding the small seal which stated that 'all warranties void if seal is broken.' She confidently disconnected each item of internal wiring until the workings of the sonic probe were laid out on the tray, then began reconnecting the components in a slightly different order.
She was perched on a stool in a basement workroom, weak sunlight spilling through the high windows to illuminate the bench at which she was working. None of the lights were on as River was not entirely authorised to be there. She hadn't even needed to resort to hallucinogens to talk her way into the building, just pretended to be visiting the university engineering department while on sabbatical from a teaching post. Judicious flirting had distracted the security guard from asking for ID, the robust young woman had seemed more concerned with getting River's phone number than whether she was authorised to be there.
That had been three equipment thefts and six hours ago, and River had been far less frustrated at that time. Since then she had stripped down and rebuilt this probe four times. The psychic interface had been achieved with the implementation of a single microchip. Boosting capacity had involved creating a feedback loop in the power limiting capacitors. The grip was more stylish and fitted comfortably in her hand, and there was a micro-grapple which would prevent the probe from being dropped or lost. She'd linked the probe to her handheld computer using both cables and IR links, and updated the custom programming she'd created based on the suit schematics Doriam had provided.
River pointed the probe at the test-suit, changed the settings, and pressed the button. The probe flashed a single green light to indicate the program was working, and River smiled. Finally she'd succeeded!
She stood, picked up the handheld computer which was linked by a cable to the suit, started the suit-control program, and hit the key to start the suit walking, then picked up the probe again and activated the over-ride. The space-suit continued to respond to the computer instead of the probe, and River began swearing profusely.
"Why won't you work," she looked at the probe. "That program's supposed to over-ride the original controls on the suit. I need to be able to control the suit remotely."
The words echoed oddly in the empty workroom, and River shivered slightly before sitting back at the bench and deconstructing the probe again.
"Come on, the program works," she laid the pieces out in a careful order, the precision of her movements suggesting a calmness which was contradicted by her tone. "For heaven's sake, he managed to get this kind of functionality into a cane, and a screwdriver. How hard can it be to reprogram a probe?"
She worked through the entire process again, re-ordering components, moving the wiring, attempting to remove and replace different features. Again and again she started over, referring back to the textbooks and schematics which she'd stolen from the library. She attempted to re-write the over-ride program. Every time she tested it from the handheld computer it worked perfectly. The probe, however, continued to fail.
She linked her computer to the university servers, and looked for any other applications that could be added to a sonic probe. Each one that she tried worked perfectly: everything except for the one program she needed, her over-ride program.
A couple of hours later River's hair was hanging limply around her face, her cargo-pants smudged where she had repeatedly wiped the sweat from her hands each time they became clammy. She pointed the probe at the suit once more, then swore when the suit continued responding to the handheld computer. If she could have given up she would have, but giving up would mena that she really had killed the best man she'd ever met. She'd gotten so sick of the repeated testing process that she'd programmed the suit to continuously walk backwards and forward, an empty mylar suit pacing the room exactly as if it were as frustrated as she was, walking to and fro in an empty basement, while River fought desperately to override the commands.
She searched once more for any probe applications which might help her, anything similar enough to her requirements to assist her in controlling the suit. It was hard to believe the types of programs people had written, she found one which made the probe act as a torch, another which tested for ticklish zones on most humanoids, even one which would allow the probe to function as a screwdriver. River couldn't help but be surprised that anyone other than the Doctor would think of using a sonic probe to fasten screws. She even checked out the name of the person who'd written the application, just in case it was him, but she didn't really believe he'd ever have picked "ginjaninja" as a screen name.
It was a moment of whimsy that led River to upload the screwdriver application. She remembered Amelia as a young woman talking about the her imaginary friend and his whirring sonic screwdriver. It still seemed like a ridiculous tool, but it reminded her of the Doctor, and her mother. Like a memento of her innocence, of the days when she still had some say in what she did. The blessed time between when she overcame her training and chose to save the Doctor, and when Madame Kovarian ripped all control over her actions away from her.
River never actually considered that the probe would work when she hit the button, so her head whipped around in shock when the suit stopped mid-step. She hit the button again and the suit resumed its pacing. One more press on the button and the suit was frozen. Now came the tricky part, and River focussed intently on the psychic interface, trying to tell the probe exactly what she needed. The suit raised one arm, palm outstretched, and released the energy from the weapons in a diffuse cloud which had no effect on anything in the area.
Why had she ever thought a sonic probe would do the job? But if this worked there was no way she would ever admit to the Doctor that she'd saved his life with a sonic screwdriver.
River shivered as she waited in the depths of a cloudy lake. The scuba gear enabled her to breathe comfortably, but the wetsuit was insufficient against the wintry chill that lingered in the water. It was so cold, but this was her only chance. She had to wait.
She'd arrived early enough that she could be hidden in those depths before her younger, self was teleported into the water. River waited, watching as a space-suit enclosed figure appeared and drifted unconscious in the water. She looked oddly peaceful, floating amongst the fishes, until the suit jerked and her younger self woke up, eyes wide and terrified. River could remember the panic, the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in the suit, depending on it to breathe under that water, dreading what was to come.
River shivered as she looked at her chronometer, her mind awash with conflicting emotions. It was cold, she was reliving a dreadful memory, and she was terrified of what was to come: but there was also hope. This had to work, it was her only chance to save the Doctor and thwart the Silence.
The suit drifted down to the bottom of the lake, feet settling into the deep sediment, and took its first step up towards the lake's edge. River swam slowly in the suits wake, keeping as close as she could without being seen. . She didn't remember seeing a figure in scuba gear in the lake, and therefore she mustn't be seen. It was a fixed point in time, she must try to change as little as possible, just that one little detail of the Doctor's death.
River lost sight of the helmet as the suit broke the lake's surface. She drifted as close to the edge as she could without being seen, keeping the suited figure between herself and the group picnicking on the beach. The timing would have been difficult if she hadn't known exactly when this was going to happen. She kept a careful eye on the time, and at exactly 5:02:53 pm the Doctor was scheduled to die, and as the chronometer clicked over to 5:02:00pm she remembered the words they'd spoken replaying them in her mind.
"It's ok, I know it's you," he'd said, and River remembered lifting the visor, looking into his eyes as he spoke. "Well then, here we are at last."
"I can't stop it," she'd felt like crying. "The suit's in control."
"You're not supposed to, this has to happen."
"Run!" she'd begged him.
"I did run, running brought me here," he'd explained, and her heart had been breaking as she pled with him.
"I tried to fight it, but I can't, it's too strong."
"I know, it's okay, this is where I die. This is a fixed point, this must happen, this always happens..."
River forced herself to stay focussed on the time, ignoring the little voice in her mind which was echoing the words she'd spoken, "Please my love, please just run."
She hit the button on the sonic screwdriver, freezing the suit in position.
"Time can be re-written," she begged him.
"Don't you dare. Goodbye River."
She remembered that he'd closed his eyes in anticipation of the shots that would kill him. Instead she hit the next control on the sonic and heard the weapons blasts. And now, she could feel her consciousness reaching out to the suited figure on the beach, as if that figure were part of her again. River knew that her physical self was hidden in the shallows of Lake Silencio, but somehow she was also on the beach looking into her Doctor's eyes.
"Hello sweetie," she said to the shocked Doctor.
"What have you done?"
"Well," she said smugly, "I think I just drained my weapons systems."
"But this is fixed," he sounded almost offended. "This is a fixed point in time!"
"Fixed points can be re-written."
"No they can't, of course they can't, who told you that..."
The light grew stronger, blinding River, and suddenly she found herself back in the lake in a scuba suit, trying to work out what had happened. She sank, slowly, as she tried to work out how her consciousness could have flowed between different temporal versions of herself, and why that flow had suddenly stopped. Then her feet hit the bottom of the lake and she realised that something was incredibly wrong, because she couldn't feel it anymore. She'd always been able to feel the earth spinning under her feet, sense the passage of time. Now she felt nothing. She looked at her wrist, and saw that the chronometer was frozen with the numbers just turning to 5:02:53 pm, confirming what she already knew.
Something was wrong with time.