A/N: This adventure is from the BBC New Adventures book, Apollo 23, by Justin Richards. Lines of dialogue and description have been copied out just as they are in the book for authenticity's sake, but I took liberties with some descriptive parts and 'he said, she said' parts. I do not own Apollo 23 by Justin Richards.
"You knew, didn't you," Alex accused the Doctor as they followed Jackson through the long, narrow room.
"I guessed, but only when I saw this room," the Doctor told her. "There'll be a whole penal colony here in a few hundred years, not just a dozen cells in an isolated block down vacuum corridors."
"I suppose you know because you were locked up in it?"
He grinned at her. "Pretty cool, huh?"
Alex sighed and shook her head. "This is horrible though! This must violate Miranda or the Constitution or something!"
It was the Doctor's turn to sigh and he pulled her in close. "I know, I know," he said into her hair. "I wish we could change it, I really do."
Alex didn't get a chance to reply for they were now in Professor Jackson's office. The office was a stark contrast to the neat military efficiency of the rest of Base Diana. His molded plastic desk was piled high with papers and journals. An in-tray overflowed onto a nearby chair. Shelves strained to hold their contents.
The clearest shelf was occupied by a large, upright, steel cylinder with a tap at the bottom. There was a black plastic lid on the top and the Doctor pried it open and peered inside. Steam drifted out past his nose as he sniffed at the contents. "Earl Gray?" he guessed.
"That's right," Jackson confirmed. "My tea urn. My one vice." He smiled. "That and a passion for tidiness, as you see. Let me get you a cup."
"Thank you. No milk."
"Quite right. I don't have any milk." Jackson turned to the girls. "And for you?"
"No, thanks," Amy said. She didn't fancy tea without milk, not even Earl Gray.
Alex's stomach twisted at the thought of drinking tea. "I'm good," she said quickly. The only way she would drink tea was if it was iced and sweetened within an inch of its life, and even then, she probably wouldn't drink it.
"Find yourself seats. I'll only be a moment. Just move anything that's in the way. Once we've had some tea, I'll show you the quantum displacement equipment and with a bit of luck, you can fix it and be on your way."
Jackson busied himself at the tea urn while the Doctor, Amy, and Alex liberated two upright chairs of their contents. Alex sat in the Doctor's lap, him wrapping an arm around her waist to keep her steady. Alex leaned back against his chest, feeling his double heartbeats beneath her back.
The Doctor attempted to distract himself from the knowledge on how close Alex was by looking around the rest of the room. His eyes settled on Jackson's desk, which was almost the full width of the room. Behind it, a large window looked out across the desolate lunar surface. "Nice view," he commented. "So, tell us about the prisoners."
"We have eleven at the moment, in the cells you saw." Jackson sat at his desk, blowing on his tea to cool it. "The corridors from the reception area to the prison hub are kept airless unless we need to get to a cell, or to have a prisoner come to us. They're kept in solitary confinement, obviously, but they have everything they need."
"Everything except freedom and company," Alex pointed out, feeling her liking of Professor Jackson drop dramatically.
"They're well looked after," Jackson assured her. "They get food sent over from the canteen, just like we eat. If we need to evacuate, the cells open automatically and the access tunnels are oxygenated. If a prisoner gets ill, we take them to the medical section."
"Haven't seen that yet," the Doctor said.
Jackson shrugged. "Not much to see."
"So why are these prisoners here?" Alex questioned. "What did they do to get sent here?"
"I don't ask too many questions."
"That's handy, especially for a scientist," the Doctor muttered, not liking this as much, if not more, than Alex. "Nice tea, by the way."
"They're all recidivists," Jackson went on. "All criminals that have resisted any conventional attempts to rehabilitate them. Re-offenders."
"So are half of the people in regular prisons on Earth," Alex argued.
Jackson nodded, conceding her point. "But most of the prisoners here are here because of what they know, what they learned from their crimes – from hacking government systems or stealing sensitive information and documents. That makes them too dangerous to set free, or to keep in the standard prison system back in the States. Most of them can't even see that their behavior was wrong. No moral judgment or ethical awareness whatsoever."
"That's ironic," the Doctor observed. "So, you just keep them locked up here? How moral and ethical is that?"
Jackson set his tea down on one of the few empty spaces on his desk. "They're here for their own good."
"I've heard that before," Amy retorted.
"No, I mean it," Jackson insisted. "They're here for treatment."
There was silence for a moment as the trio took this in. Then, the Doctor said, "I thought you told us they were beyond help."
"Beyond conventional help, yes."
"Ah!" As one, the Doctor and Alex leaped to their feet. Tea slopped over the edge of the Doctor's cup, but neither noticed. "Your research," the Doctor realized, "you're experimenting on them, right?"
"Yes," Jackson said, apparently relieved that the Doctor had worked this out. Then he saw the Doctor and Alex's faces harden. "No," he corrected himself. "Not experimenting as such. We have a process. It works. But we. . ." His voice trailed off.
"You're experimenting on the prisoners," Amy said. "Aren't you?"
"Well, I guess so. But it isn't like you think."
"Tell us what we think," Alex challenged, her eyes switching from light brown to a dark, angry green.
"It isn't scalpels and brain surgery. It isn't dangerous. It won't harm them."
The Doctor nodded. "So you do it up here on the dark side of the moon for convenience, then. Not because what you're up to is dangerous or illegal or would offend the sensibilities of any decent human being on the planet where you daren't use this process of yours."
"I thought you had an open mind!" Jackson snapped. "But you're jumping to conclusions without knowing anything about our work here."
"I know. . ." the Doctor said slowly. "I know that you believe what you are doing is for the best. I don't doubt your motives for a moment."
"Thank you."
"But that doesn't mean we have to agree with it," Alex said lowly.
"Then perhaps we must agree to differ."
Amy watched the Doctor as his expression relaxed from grim determination to a boyish grin. Alex, however, remained the same. Her posture was tense as though she might pounce at any second and her face was stony, trying to mask the raging fury that was surely running through her.
The Doctor, noticing this, drew her into his side, feeling the skin beneath her tank-top crackle and pop with anger. "Yeah, maybe," he quickly agreed before draining the rest of his tea in a single gulp. "First things first, though. Where's this quantum displacement equipment of yours?"
~Living the Life of Ally~
The Doctor was in his element. Amy was bored. Alex was enraptured by what the Doctor was doing. She was hanging on to whatever he said like he was murmuring sweet nothings into her ear.
Professor Jackson had led them down an incongruously old-fashioned metal stairway to a level deep below the main base. The corridors down here were formed not from walls, but from pipes and cables. The idea that people might have to navigate through them seemed to have been very much a secondary consideration.
"So where's the quantum stuff?" Amy asked as they walked past pipes that leaked jets of steam and tubes that dripped oil.
"It's here," Jackson said simply, gesturing around them. "All of this."
"Could be better maintained," Alex observed. This place looked like a health inspector's nightmare.
The Doctor nodded in agreement, running his finger along an especially oily plastic tube and showing them the resulting stain. "But the design is basically sound," he admitted.
"But we can fix it, right?" Amy asked.
The Doctor winked at her. "We can fix anything."
Ahead of them, through the maze of cables and wires, tubes and pipes, Alex and Amy saw something move. Just a glimpse of gray overall.
Alex looked at her to silently ask if she had seen that. Amy nodded and quickly asked, "Are there many technicians working down here?"
Jackson shook his head. "No one comes down here."
"We thought we saw someone," Alex explained.
"Only us," Jackson insisted.
"The girls are right," the Doctor interjected. "Someone else is down here. Wearing size seven boots."
"You can tell the size of their shoes just from a glimpse of someone through the pipes and stuff?" Amy asked, impressed.
"That is quite impressive," Alex complimented, thinking of his Time Lord abilities.
"Probably," the Doctor said. "You can estimate from their height, weight, speed. But it's much easier if you just look at the print they've left in the spilt oil." He pointed down at the ground to a smudged, oily black boot print close by.
"Okay. Less impressive," Amy decided.
There goes that hypothesis, Alex thought, nodding her head in agreement.
"It's Major Carlisle," the Doctor announced.
"That's more like it!" Alex complimented. "You checked out her boots and can recognize the distinctive pattern of the sole?"
It was Jackson who punctured the illusion this time. "No, she's standing right behind you two."
Amy and Alex almost yelped with surprise but caught themselves in time, though Alex did jump back and into the Doctor's awaiting arms. "Didn't hear you sneaking round from the other side," Amy said.
Carlisle frowned, but ignored her. "It's time for the process run on Nine," she said to Jackson.
Jackson glanced uneasily at the Doctor and Alex, both of them already having figured out what Carlisle was referring to. "I thought we'd postpone, under the circumstances."
"Don't mind us," the Doctor said.
"We'd love a chance to watch you at work," Alex added. And truthfully, she was rather curious about this whole process of Jackson's. She didn't approve of it, but it would be nice to see just what she didn't approve of.
"The circumstances have nothing to do with the process," Carlisle said. "Colonel Devenish is happy for you to go ahead. He knows you like to stick rigidly to your schedule."
"By 'happy', I assume you mean 'insisting'." Jackson sighed and looked at his watch. "Very well. We still have a little time."
"You'll have to set up yourself, remember," Carlisle reminded him.
"Shortage of staff?" the Doctor guessed.
"Professor Jackson's assistant is . . . unavailable," Carlisle said, looking a little uncomfortable. And from the way Jackson shifted uneasily at her words, Alex gathered that this was information he wasn't going to volunteer any time soon.
"We can help," Amy offered brightly. "We're good at setting things up."
"And knocking them down again," the Doctor added. "In fact, there's no end to our talents."
Major Carlisle just regarded them all impassively. "Imagine that," she said flatly.
~Living the Life of Ally~
Prisoner Nine was a tall, thin man. He didn't look to Alex like a hardened and uncontrollable criminal, only reinforcing her beliefs about the moonbase prison and these experiments. He was brought into the Process Chamber by two armed soldiers. His head was bowed, revealing a bald patch in his dark brown hair. The overall effect was to make him look rather like a monk wearing plain gray overalls.
The Process Chamber itself was a small room that looked rather like a surgical room. Instead of an operating table though, there was an angled chair like a dentist might use. On the wall facing the chair was what looked a bit like a CCTV camera pointing at the subject as he sat down.
The man's dark brown eyes were as weary as his general demeanor, and Alex suspected that he had been here before, knew what to expect, and was resigned to it. For a moment, his eyes fixed on the girls. There was a frown of interest, or possibly suspicion. Just as the Doctor pulled Alex so that her back was touching his chest, Prisoner Nine quickly looked away, as though embarrassed.
"You know the routine," one of the soldiers said to the prisoner. "So no trouble this time, right?"
Yes, he looks ready to run for it, Alex snidely thought.
The man grunted what might have been an agreement or a threat, but he didn't resist as the other soldier strapped his wrists to the arms of the chair, then fastened a belt tightly across his waist. Straps across his ankles were the final measure in making sure the man couldn't move an inch.
The Doctor was watching Professor Jackson as the scientist busied himself at a control panel behind the operating chair. Alex stood next to the Doctor, also observing. At one point, Jackson turned and glared at the Doctor when the man leaned right over his shoulder. Otherwise, he seemed to ignore the extra attention.
"So what happens now?" Amy asked as Jackson straightened up.
"We operate the process from the observation room," Jackson explained. "Like X-rays, brief exposure is harmless enough so the subject is in no danger. But we don't like to prolong exposure more than we have to."
"How nice of you," Alex muttered. Thankfully, the Doctor was the only one who heard it.
To try and distract herself, Alex studied the room she was now in. The observation room was behind the wall in front of the chair. The wall itself was actually a window, though it looked just like another wall from the prisoner's point of view.
The device that ended in the camera-like projection from the wall extended back through the observation room like a large articulated metal arm. There were controls set into the side of it, and Jackson adjusted several of these.
"I think we are ready," he finally decided. The prisoner stared back at them. Alex was sure he knew they were there, watching him.
"What happens now?" Amy asked. "How's this thing work?"
"It is rather complicated and difficult to explain in a few words," Jackson told her dismissively. Clearly, he wasn't willing to share.
Alex arched an eyebrow. Fair enough. There was another person here who could tell them what was going on. "Doctor?"
"Oh, it's simple enough, from what I can see." The Doctor ignored Jackson's irritated glare and went on. "Looks to me like it bombards areas of the brain with adapted alpha waves in an attempt to overwhelm the neural pathways and neutralize the electro-activity."
"Brainwashing," Amy said, hoping that this vague, blanket term was in some way applicable.
"Exactly," the Doctor agreed.
"You've been reading my classified research reports!" Jackson accused.
The Doctor's already high level of excitement immediately increased. "Really?! You mean I'm right? That's terrific! It was just an educated guess. But hang on. . ." He tapped his chin with his finger. "That means. . ." His eyes suddenly narrowed. "You're not actually treating the patient at all. You're not correcting the impulses in their brains. You're removing them. Wiping them. Like Amy says – washing them away."
"Only the bad, negative inclinations," Jackson clarified. "The Keller-impulses."
"And who gave you the right to decide which impulses are good and which ones are bad?" Alex demanded, her eyes narrowing into tiny little slits.
Jackson was saved from having to answer as the door opened and Major Carlisle came in. With her was another woman, wearing a simple nurse's uniform. She looked about Amy and Alex's age, with mouse-brown hair cut into a bob and a scattering of freckles across her nose.
"This is Nurse Phillips," Jackson said quickly, evidently eager to change the subject. "We have to have a medic on hand whenever we process a prisoner. And now, we are already behind schedule, so allow me to begin."
"Begin what, exactly?" Amy asked.
"Despite the Doctor and Miss Locke's reservations, this is a very minor procedure. We target a single memory strand – the memory of the trigger that sent our subject off the rails. That was identified in a previous session, and we are now going to remove that memory."
"And replace it with what?" the Doctor and Alex simultaneously asked.
Jackson raised an eyebrow at their simultaneous speaking, but decided not to comment on it. "With nothing," he said instead. "We leave it blank. Wash it out, as you so eloquently put it."
"The brain's like nature. Abhors a vacuum," the Doctor said quietly. The hum of the machine became louder, and it seemed that only Amy and Alex heard.
"You mean, they have to put another memory in to replace the old one?" Amy asked the Doctor, talking loudly above the increasing noise.
He nodded. "Yes, otherwise the pattern will simply return, like remembering a dream a few hours later."
"So their experiment will fail," Alex stated. She was rather happy about that.
Her words were almost drowned out by the noise. Not the sound of the machine as the power built and increased, but the sound of the screams from the prisoner strapped to the chair in the control room.
Jackson turned from the controls, his face an expression of sudden surprise and fear. Nurse Phillips' hand went to her mouth. Clearly, something like this had never happened before.
Major Carlisle was just pulling the door open when the Doctor pushed past, sprinting out of the room with Alex in hand, Amy just a step behind them. "Cut the power!" he yelled as he raced into the Process Chamber. "Cut it now!"
Upon reaching the Process Chamber, the Doctor and Alex each dove to a side of the chair, hurriedly unstrapping the prisoner. By the time Amy got in there, Prisoner Nine was free. The hum of the equipment died away, leaving a noticeable silence.
The Doctor listened to the man's chest. He straightened up and gently peeled back a closed eyelid. "Just unconscious, I think," he decided. "Let's hope there's no permanent damage."
"What went wrong?" Amy inquired.
"Goodness knows," the Doctor answered. "Could be anything. The tiniest mistake when you're messing with people's minds can be fatal. Power spike, powder dip, power fluctuation."
"Could be something to do with the power, then?"
Alex nodded. "Or not," she mumbled.
"Can he be moved?" Major Carlisle abruptly demanded.
"Moved where?" Amy asked.
"Back to his cell. This man is a dangerous criminal."
Alex snorted. Yeah, he looks real dangerous!
"Oh, you're all heart, aren't you," the Doctor told Carlisle, summing his and Alex's feelings up perfectly.
"Can he be moved?" Carlisle repeated, but this time she asked Nurse Phillips, who was watching them from the doorway.
"I don't know. I expect so." She sounded nervous. This only reinforced Alex's belief that this process had never gone wrong before, at least not in this way.
Looking down, Alex noticed that the prisoner's eyelids were fluttering. Alex reached over and tugged the Doctor's jacket sleeve, alerting him. The Doctor whirled around and leaned over the prisoner. "Are you all right? Can you hear me?"
The man's breathing became ragged as he struggled to speak. His hands bunched into claws, which then tightened into fists. His back arched and his eyes snapped fully open as he screamed again. The Doctor grabbed his shoulders, trying to hold him down. Alex hastened to help, throwing both her hands on the man's left shoulder. She could feel his whole body convulsing and see how his teeth were tightly clenched and that sweat was breaking out on his forehead.
"Not good," the Doctor muttered. "This is so not good."
"Sedative!" Major Carlisle snapped. Nurse Phillips hurried to a drawer.
"Too late for that," the Doctor told them. He leaned down and murmured to the prisoner, "I'm really sorry about all this."
For a brief moment, the man's vision seemed to clear. The convulsions became less extreme. He stared up at the Doctor, and Alex clearly heard him say, "Doctor, is that you?"
The Doctor looked over at Alex, then over to Amy. "Who told him my name?" he demanded.
Amy shook her head. "How could he know you?"
"Doctor, help me," the man gasped.
His voice was barely more than a whisper. Major Carlisle didn't seem to have heard. Jackson observed the scene from the doorway. Nurse Phillips flicked a syringe full of clear liquid with her finger to release any air bubbles.
The prisoner's hand grabbed the Doctor's. "Help me, they're here!" he begged.
"Who are? What are you talking about?" the Doctor whispered back urgently. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"Remember?" The man frowned as he strained to concentrate. "Everything's so muzzy, lately. Since they came. But before that I was in here. I was setting the equipment for the first tests."
"The equipment?" Amy looked at the Doctor, then at the prisoner. Alex stayed silent, struggling to figure out what the prisoner's words meant. "Why would they let a prisoner set up the equipment?"
"I'm not a prisoner," the man weakly protested. His voice was fading rapidly. He slumped back in his chair. "I built this. I set all this up. You have to believe me. I'm—"
But his voice was cut off as a syringe stabbed into part of his upper arm. His eyes closed and a great shiver ran through his body. Then he was still. Nurse Phillips calmly removed the syringe and stepped back.
"Oh, thanks," the Doctor said sarcastically as Alex frowned. "That was a big help!"
"The man was distressed, in convulsions," the nurse argued. "He needed sedating. Normally—"
"Normally?!" the Doctor and Alex cried. The Doctor gave a mirthless laugh.
"What exactly is normal about this?" Alex demanded. "About any of this?"
The Doctor shook his head sadly, like a frustrated parent giving up trying to explain something simple to an unhelpful child.
"Can we move him now?" Major Carlisle asked, not seemingly fazed by the two's reactions.
"You can do what you like with him," the Doctor said, striding from the room, one of his arms wrapped around Alex's waist, guiding her away from everyone. "He's dead."
~Living the Life of Ally~
Amy found the Doctor sitting at a table in the small cafeteria, Alex perched on the tabletop beside him. They were the only people there. The Doctor leaned back in his chair with his feet up on the table, fingers laced together behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. Alex's feet were sitting in the chair before her and she was absentmindedly playing with the owl charm on her necklace.
"Did the nurse kill him?" Amy asked them, sitting down next to the Doctor.
"Not on purpose." The Doctor swung his legs off the table, allowing Alex to scoot down to sit right in front of him, and he jolted upright in his chair. "No, that's not fair. It wasn't her fault at all. The sedative was just the last straw. He'd probably have died anyway."
"I still don't trust her," Alex announced. There was something fishy about all of the people here, like they were constantly acting like something they weren't.
The Doctor nodded, acknowledging her point.
Amy then asked, "And how come he knew you?"
"We figured that out," the Doctor answered. "Well, Alex did."
"And?"
"Remember I said the memory they were erasing had to be replaced with something?"
Amy nodded. "Otherwise it just sort of reappears like the memory of a dream popping up later."
"Maybe it wasn't intentional," Alex piped up, her voice expressing that she believed it was intentional, "but we think that Prisoner Nine got a bit of someone else's memory."
"So, what did he mean by 'they're here' and all that stuff?" Amy asked, impressed that they had managed to figure out this much.
"Don't know," the Doctor admitted. "Maybe nothing."
"I suggested mind parasites but the Doctor shot that theory down," Alex provided.
Amy looked at the Doctor, who only rolled his eyes. "He was confused – well, he was dying, let's face it. Perhaps he meant the new memories in his head, who can tell? But something went wrong with Jackson's process." His eyes suddenly flicked to the side as he looked past Amy.
Alex followed his gaze. "Speak of the devil."
Amy turned to see that the Professor had come into the cafeteria. He looked tired and worried.
"There was a power surge," Jackson said, joining them at the table. He stared down at the plastic surface. "Never happened before. And now the man's dead. I didn't even know his name – he was just Prisoner Nine." He looked up at the trio, exposing the haunted look in his gray eyes. "It must be connected to the same problems as the quantum displacement systems."
"Possibly," the Doctor agreed. "I'd need to look at the receptors out on the lunar surface to be sure. Once I've checked the calibration of the equipment in the basement level, that is."
"Can you really fix it?" Jackson asked.
"If I want to."
Jackson looked confused. "Why might you not want to?"
The Doctor met the professor's gaze. For several moments, he said nothing. Then, when he did reply, his voice was level and almost devoid of emotion. He was holding back his real feelings, helped a little as he clutched Alex's hand, but everyone could tell what they were. "I've seen enough of your process to know what your ultimate goal must be, Professor Jackson. Oh, you make a good case for rehabilitating the prisoners, for erasing selected memories, maybe even replacing them."
"But that isn't what you're really aiming for, is it?" Alex inquired. Her voice was stiff. She had barely been able to believe it when the Doctor told her and it was taking all her willpower not to go over and slap Jackson into common sense.
"You want to wipe the mind completely clean, create a blank template," the Doctor picked up. "And then overwrite it with a new personality. Am I right, or. . ." The Doctor leaned back in his chair and sniffed. "Well, there's no or is there, because I am right."
Jackson looked like he had actually been slapped by Alex. But he recovered quickly. "You're a very perceptive man, Doctor. But I don't understand your concern."
"Concern?" Alex repeated shrilly. "Concern?" The Doctor's hand quickly moved to her knee, his thumb twirling around in small circles on the cool skin in an effort to calm her down.
Jackson held his hand up. "I offer the chance to swap the mind – the life – of a worthless criminal for someone who would otherwise be taken from us. Imagine it, the opportunity for a great musician or thinker, who is terminally ill, or just very old, to live on. To renew themselves, literally to have a new life in a new form. To become someone new, but with all that brilliance preserved."
It didn't sound so bad put like that, but Alex still wasn't convinced. Based on the Doctor's expression, neither was he. "It's not all it's cracked up to be," the Doctor said quietly. "A great musician who finds his new body is tone deaf? A thinker whose thoughts inhabit the mind of a simpleton?"
"But it wouldn't be random," Jackson argued. "You'd get to choose, to fit the mind to a suitable donor. No problem."
"The donor has to die," Alex pointed out. "That's the problem."
"As I said before, perhaps we should agree to differ, until the systems are fixed," Jackson proposed. "My process is far from that stage, and under the current circumstances, I shan't be doing any more tests."
The Doctor nodded thoughtfully. "I'll fix your systems," he agreed. "After that, we'll talk again."
"Fair enough. I look forward to it." Jackson stood up. "I suppose we have rather overlooked the ethics of what we're doing while we've been caught up in the excitement of actually doing it."
No problem with that, Alex thought. The FDA will never allow it!
Amy waited until Jackson had left before posing her next question. "Can you really fix their quantum thingy systems?"
"Oh, probably." The Doctor leapt to his feet, jumping up and down a few times before reaching over and lifting Alex off the table. "I'd have thought a power surge would affect the artificial gravity, but it's fine. That's lucky."
"Unless Jackson's lying about the power surge," Amy pointed out.
"Not sure why he should. Why don't you two go and see Nurse Phillips?"
"See if he's lying about whether there have been any other accidents, you mean?" Amy asked.
"Exactly," the Doctor confirmed. "Jackson said she was there for every process session."
"And she's young enough to be a bit chatty," Alex realized. "Being on a top-secret moonbase with no one her own age must be rather constraining."
"Good job, Ally," the Doctor complimented. "A bit chatty and a bit indiscreet."
"And a bit intimidated?"
"If need be." The Doctor grinned at them. "Don't frighten her too much, scary ladies."
Amy's eyes widened. "As if!" she retorted.
"And you," Alex said, "don't go getting into trouble."
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "You think so little of me, Ally."
~Living the Life of Ally~
It took the girls a little while to find the sickbay, but they eventually did. There was only one patient in there. Nurse Phillips was checking the equipment that monitored a sleeping woman's vital signs. As clever as she was, Alex had little idea on what the equipment actually did, aside from monitoring heartbeat and brain activity. Despite Lacey's attempts, Alex had never gotten into ER.
"What's wrong with her?" she asked.
If the young nurse was surprised to see them, she did a good job of hiding it. Her pale gray eyes flicked back to the woman in the bed. "I wish I knew," she replied.
"Who is she?" Amy asked.
"Liz Didbrook. She is, or was, Professor Jackson's assistant."
Alex studied the sleeping woman. She was restless. Her head twisted on the pillow and she murmured quietly to herself. She looked to be in her early thirties. Her dark hair was damp with sweat. "Does she have a fever?" Alex inquired. "Is she infectious?" Liz's eyes flicked open as Alex spoke.
"Neither," Nurse Phillips said. "It's some sort of nervous breakdown. Brought on by stress, Professor Jackson thinks. We keep her sedated."
Maybe she realized what Jackson is really doing to the prisoners and was unable to process that she'd helped him, Alex thought. It was a theory.
Amy leaned over the bed, listening to Liz's mutterings. "What is she saying?"
"Just nonsense. We'd get her to a hospital in Texas, only. . ." Her voice trailed off.
"Only the quantum displacement stuff is broken," Alex finished.
Nurse Phillips nodded, then noticed that Amy was still listening to Liz. "It's just gibberish," she insisted.
Liz was now staring at Amy and Alex, her expression suddenly alert. "You're new," she stated.
"Yes. I'm Amy."
"And I'm Alex. We're here to help."
"Giant turtles live for ages," Liz recited, causing Alex's eyebrows to shoot up. She hadn't been expecting that kind of gibberish! "Evolution is all about survival of the fittest."
"You see – nonsense!" Nurse Phillips exclaimed, before turning and walking out of the room.
"But fittest doesn't mean strongest," Liz went on. "It means most apt. That's why they want us."
"Why who wants us?" Alex asked, trying to make sense of Liz's mangled words.
"The white rabbit is running late. X marks the spot where the treasure is buried. When the sky is dark, the wolves are running."
"She's right," Amy said quietly. "Just gibberish."
"I'm not so sure," Alex murmured. Something seemed a little off.
But Amy didn't hear her. "Hey, get well soon," she said, patting Liz's shoulder gently. "We'll see you, yeah?"
"Don't go! They're here!" Liz protested as she struggled to sit up. "I have to. . . Trains are delayed on all routes. Even Route 66. Distraction. They're delayed by the distraction."
"The trains?" Alex frowned. There was something in what Liz was saying, something that was close to making sense, but distraction clouded the rest of it. She leaned closer to Liz. "Are you saying that you have to distract them? Can they hear us? Are they listening?"
"Listen from the inside – it's so much clearer. So much clearer inside the mind. Distractions abound. Distractions are good. Good, bad, and ugly. Spaghetti Westerns for tea and lunch and dinner and breakfast and making a meal of it." Liz's hand shot out from under the sheets to grab Alex's wrist. "I can't tell you if they're here. Flies in the ointment. Rain in the wind. Spanners in the works. Wolves in the wood." Her eyes were a startling blue as she stared at the girls intently.
"What are you telling us?" Amy asked. "You mean the systems here? Spanners in the works – is that what you mean?"
"Spanners in the works," Liz confirmed. Her grip on Alex's wrist tightened urgently, causing the girl to grit her teeth a little. "Gremlins in the process."
"The process?" Alex repeated. There was a sound behind her and she turned, wrenching her arm away from Liz's grip.
"She really should rest," Nurse Phillips said. "It's just nonsense, all of it. Pay no attention."
How long has she been there? Alex wondered. She turned to look back at Liz, giving her time to hide her worry. Liz was now slumped down in the bed, the color seemingly drained from her eyes now, so that the blue was almost gray. Why does everyone have gray eyes here? It started off as interesting, but now it was suspicious.
"The gray African elephant is the largest mouse in the western hemisphere and comes in nine different shades of pink," Liz murmured. "Remember what I said." Her eyes slowly closed and her words became just mere mumbles.
"I'll remember," Alex whispered. Louder, to Nurse Phillips, she said, "You're right. Poor thing's obviously delusional. She's just talking rubbish."
A/N: And here's the second part of 'Apollo 23'! I'm glad you all are liking it so far! I was nervous about putting it up, but it's starting to look like I've worried for nothing. :)
Notes on reviews. . .
SopherGopherroxursox - I know! There's GOT to be a moon-base! :) Hmm, not really sure about that. That's how it was described in the book. My guess is since the psychic paper was damaged, it showed up that way. I know, fluff is good! :)
SopherGopher'sAwesomeSister - Alphas. . . I'll have to keep that in mind. :) I'm sorry you're sad about the lack of flufflessness, but I think the Pandorica chapters will make up for it. :)
Lazyandloveit - Glad you're looking forward to the Pandorica chapters! And thanks! I'll try! :)
jesterlover - Glad you loved the chapter! :)
LavenderAndTime - I'm glad you decided to start reading the story and that you like Alex! I try really hard to keep her from being a Mary-Sue. Well, he won't ALWAYS call her Ally, but more often than not... :)
TheGirlWhoWaited - Resist the urge, no matter how strong it may be! :) Glad you liked the chapter! :)
rycbar15 - Wow, I'm happy to hear that! Whenever I read a Doctor Who novel, I usually get distracted because I'm imagining my own OCs in them. :) Glad you enjoyed the chapter! :)
ElysiumPhoenix - Lol, the psychic paper part is pretty funny, isn't it? I wish they'd do that on the show. :) Glad you liked the chapter! :)
Timey-Wimey Somn-Like Lass - I know, she should have kept the cat! Darn Doctor, ruining it! :( On the bright side, glad you like Alex's inclusion into 'Apollo 23'! Don't worry, Alex will have some awesome moments in this adventure and the Pandorica episodes. :) You're right, the Doctor has become a bit more compassionate and Alex is letting her guard down, becoming more open and happy with others. :) Lol, she would ramble about science awesomely, wouldn't she? And, I'm assuming your question refers to the story I'm writing where Alex goes into the Doctor's past, so, she would have inklings of what is supposed to happen, but not everyone can know every little detail, so some things will take Alex by surprise. }:)
Doctor - Sorry about that! I can't say when that will happen, just that it will. :)
