Text Key
"Audible speech."
'Directed thought, telepathic speech.'
School Reunion
Chapter 12 - Know More
A short drive, an all-night dinner, and one ruined K-9 Mk. III later, I was wrist deep in in a mechanical dog's guts while everyone else was up to their tits in personal drama. Counting my lucky stars that I wasn't at the center of that for once in my miserable lives, I focused on the task of cleaning up K-9's processor, though one ear was kept tuned to the Krillitane swooping around outside.
There were at least two now, and I would've put money on the chance that the one wearing Giles' face was one of them.
After all, I thought, taking a sidelong glance out the window to the dark shape standing atop the building across the street, the bastard had a very distinct loom.
"I can't believe you let him get this bad," the Doctor said to Sarah Jane as he looked over my shoulder.
"It's not like getting parts for a Mini Metro," Sarah Jane shot back. "Besides, who was I supposed to show him to? UNIT?"
"Please, they haven't had a decent roboticist since I stopped working there…"
I tuned out the conversation, focusing more of my attention on K-9. He had very nice systems, one that the Doctor had clearly modified to be mildly dimensionally transcendental at some point, though I'd definitely seen bigger and flashier examples over the years. Still, for the intended use of 'help Sarah without regular expert maintenance', the little fellow was well designed for his purpose.
His system design reminded me a bit of Canti's systems actually, which made sense, given that they were both originally medical diagnostic robots upgraded to more generalist use after the fact. That K-9 had a laser nose where Canti most definitely not was just splitting hairs.
'More that connector over to the sixth slot there - after you wiggle a bit of that dirt out first,' Zeke advised, pointing me towards the area in question. 'Admittedly, while I believe old Teeth and Curls tried to make this model a little less finicky than the earlier ones, I don't believe any of us really anticipated this kind of neglect… but every dog has his down days, I suppose.'
'Yeah, and I'd say that this puppy's been playing dead for the last decade,' I replied as I pulled out a processor-turned-dust bunny convention center and shook the crap out. As I turned to the time-honored tradition of 'blow it out, plug it in, and see if it plays now', a thought occurred to me.
The idea of adding a little something extra, a little personal touch I tried to give to almost every robotic project I'd ever worked on, which could give K-9 just the bit of edge he might need in the future.
Carefully, I plucked at the edges of my soul, picking off a few fragments of our combined metaphysical self from areas that felt appropriately K-9ish. Wit, analysis, loyalty, a desire to heal and protect… I bundled all those bits into a little soul seed.
Nothing flashy, nothing too loaded with expectation or existential issue, but enough to give K-9 a kickstart to growing a proper one, with all the benefits inherent to it.
And as for the fact that I'd just cut out parts of my own shared soul to do that?
Well. It'd hurt for a while - a few days at most, really, with how little I shaved off - but it'd grow back. It always did.
"Going well?" the Doctor asked, peeking around K-9's blocky body to look at me.
I took one of the toothpicks I'd been working with and started working out the most stubborn bits dust and anonymous gunk out of another section. What I wouldn't have given for a toothbrush and some isopropyl alcohol… alas.
"Well, I'm getting a whole bunch of gunk out. How well 'clean' translates into 'actual working robot' is a bit of a crapshoot at the moment, but I've never met a computer that worked best when choking on grunge."
"I take it you're the Doctor's actual assistant then," Sarah Jane said, casting a slightly irritated eye over Rose as she said it.
"I suppose you could call me that, though the day he starts telling me to hand him tools or anything like that… well, I won't say," I demurred as I swapped out my own tools again, grabbing a coffee stirrer to focus another puff of air at a specific dusty spot. "Bet I know a few things he doesn't."
The Doctor smirked, a teasing twinkle in his eye. "Oh, like what?"
Heaven, hell, magic, mayhem, a language that was born of pure primal Time, the fluid nature of fact and fiction… even his own backstory and a few possibilities as to his future.
"How to make a mac n' cheese that'd make you question the nature of your universe, for one," I said instead, popping the processer - finally clean - back in place before popping out another piece in need of TLC. "As for anything else? You'll just have to fuck around and find out."
I really hoped he didn't, but this was the Doctor, after all. He'd do something that'd require I pull out the stops to fix it.
"Were you there during that invasion?" Sarah Jane asked me. "Last Christmas over London."
Yes. "Nah. Rose was, I think," I said, sweeping out the inside of the crystal focus I'd grabbed before holding it up to the light. Part of K-9's laser array? Whatever it was, there were no obvious cracks of flaws in the matrix, because that would be a bitch to replace at short notice without doing something excessively flashy. "The Doctor picked me up later."
"Three weeks later for me, about ten or so hours after for her," the Time Lord clarified, his grin finally coming out in full force. "The fun of living in a time machine, eh?"
Sarah Jane shook her head. "Make sure he drops you off close to where you live when you leave, alright?"
Oh, that's not even close to being possible.
"Hmm? Didn't I?" the Doctor asked, missing my eye roll completely.
"I live in Croydon, Doctor."
"I know that."
"You dropped me off in Aberdeen," Sarah Jane said.
The Doctor's face blanked. "That's close to Croydon, right?"
I rolled my eyes as I twisted the focuser back into position and tested the connection of a couple nearby wires. "Of the two answers that readily come to mind, you either have a difference of about five hundred to five thousand miles."
"Oh." There was a beat before the Doctor turned to Sarah Jane. "I didn't accidentally drop you off across the pond, Sarah?"
"No, it was the Scotland Aberdeen," Sarah Jane said before giggling. "I don't think I could have forgiven you if it had been America."
"The West Coast isn't that bad," I said, though the protestation didn't have that much heat to it.
Something sparked between my fingers and I jerked back as K-9's internal mechanisms started whirring and lights suddenly hummed to life. The mechanical dog's head raised slowly, his red 'eye' strip glowing a dull fire red.
"You didn't turn him off before we started working?"
The Doctor offered up a sheepish smile. "Best way of knowing we were headed in the right direction."
Of all the careless, stupid - "Someone could have been hurt, you idiot!" I snapped. Not me, but he wouldn't have known that, so yes, the blame was entirely appropriate. A person had to account for the risks to more fragile work partners, so that way they could get through a project like this with all fingers and synapses intact.
Before I could even start to articulate those points though, I was cut off by a whining robotic voice.
"M-Maaaasss-ass-ass-asster," K-9 whined, voice pitching up and down as his vocalizer tried to get a grip on turning input into output again. I reached in - with the aid of a bit of telekinesis for delicacy's sake - to twist it a few degrees to the left and the voice took a swerve into a sharp squeak. A minute adjustment to the right and the robot dog was back again, this time without the distortions and stutters.
"Unit K-9 Mrk III back online. Identify users, Sarah Jane and Doctor –" K-9's crisply robotic voice abruptly disintegrated into garbled static but, before I could make any other surreptitious adjustments to his internals, snapped back to normal. "Hello, Master. Miiisssstress number threeee."
Well, almost normal.
Sarah Jane's right eyebrow rose by a couple centimeters. "Number three?"
"Hm. Probably shouldn't have included Mrk I and II memories during the programming stage," the Doctor muttered, tapping the sonic screwdriver against the casing of K-9's head.
"What, were you just giving robot dogs to all your old girlfriends at some point?" Mickey asked.
The Doctor ignored that, instead focusing on K-9. "Feeling up to a little analysis work?"
"Affirmmaanegatiiii– systems damaged, but funct-fuc-functional."
"Your dog said the fuck word," I said, pointing the finger of accusation, like I wasn't the person who used profanity like it was punctuation.
"Forget that; I still can't get over that voice," Mickey wheezed.
"Careful, you two," Sarah Jane warned, her tone just playful enough to say that she was fine with the teasing for now. "That's my dog you're talking about there."
The Doctor cleared his throat. "Anyway," the Time Lord said, holding out his hand to Rose. "The oil if you please."
The blonde girl fished a small jar out of her pocket, viscous yellow liquid sloppily sliding around inside like it was waffling on whether or not it wanted to obey the laws of gravity or not.
"Careful with that," Rose warned. "One of the dinner ladies got splashed with that stuff and she lit up like a candle."
"Rose, I'm not a dinner lady, I'm a Time Lord. And don't assume that's a common sentence for me," the Doctor said as he unscrewed the jar, stuck his thumb into the oil and swiped it across the little scanning suction cup embedded in K-9's face. "Here we go, K-9. Now what's our mystery substance?"
"Oi-oil ex-extract. Annalyyzzzzing…" the robotic dog clicked and whirred for a few seconds, his internal diodes lighting up and dimming as they processed the information. "Substance appears to be… Krill-i-tane oil."
The Doctor stared for a moment before reaching up to drag a hand down his face, smile gone in an instant. "Ah. Krillitane. Great."
"Sorry to be the one askin' stupid questions, but what's a Krillitane?" Mickey asked. "And where does it fit on a scale of 'bad' to 'awful'?"
"Oh, somewhere in between 'absolutely no good at all' and 'suitcase dirty bomb full of badness just waiting to explode and render the city uninhabitable'," the Doctor answered before finally pulling his hand away from his face, looking exhausted. "They're… a composite race. Sort of like how humans adopt certain cultural aspects from each other, except Krillitanes do it with their genetics and not in the 'melting pot' way that you lot do it."
"No," he continued, a glacially icy dislike creeping into his tone. "They like to cherry pick the 'best' traits from their targets – be they genetic, cultural, or technological – and then, once they've got everything they want and have distributed it throughout their species, they destroy everything that's left so completely it was like no one was ever there to begin with." He shook his head as if to dispel some image that had traced itself into the Etch-A-Sketch of his mind's eye. "Probably been ten generations or more since I ran into any of their lot. Enough time for them to stop being long-necked humanoids and start being bat people allergic to their own oil."
"So what are they doing here?" Rose asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" I asked, taking care not to look up at the winged figures looking down at us from the building across the street. "They want something. And they're using the children to get it."
"So, the tin dog… was the Doctor's?" Mickey asked as he helped pack the thing back into the boot of Sarah Jane's car. It was odd to think of this lady, who was easily Jackie's age - maybe even a touch older, even if she wore it better - and the sort of 'cool' he thought was mostly reserved for the nicer school librarians, as being like Rose… but something about her must have struck the Doctor at one point, and if Mickey turned his head and squinted a bit, he could almost catch a glimpse of it himself.
Sarah Jane simply smiled.
"Oh, yes. He likes to travel with an entourage, you know. Sometimes they're human, sometimes they're alien…" she gave K-9 a gentle pat on the head before shutting the boot. "And sometimes they're tin dogs."
"So! Where do you fit in, Mickey Smith?"
"Oh, me?" Mickey pulled himself up. "I'm their man in Havana! I'm their technical support! I'm…" he grimaced. "I'm… I'm the tin dog."
Sarah Jane let loose a small giggle before patting him gently on the shoulder. "So tell me about your friends. Rose and Delaine."
"Uh…" This was entering potentially dangerous territory. Mickey shot a glance over to Delaine, who was watching the sky from across the street, something hidden in her hand that felt a bit weaponish in the way that she was holding it. "Er, I only met Delaine little bit earlier, so I can't tell you much beyond 'American' and 'weird' which you probably figured out yourself by now, but Rose… well, we used to go together. On and off, whenever she needed some stability after another bloke didn't work out –"
"Ah."
That sound was a little too understanding for Mickey's liking.
"She's a nice girl," He threw out quickly. "But she just tends to do what she wants without really thinking about consequences. Impulse shopping, weekend parties, that sort of thing. Went off with the Doctor the first time and didn't come back for a year. No calls, no letters. Her mum thought I'd murdered her, til Rose came knocking on the door, Doctor in tow. Jackie smacked him good for that."
Not one of Rose's better moments, but talking her down when she couldn't defend herself hardly set right with Mickey.
Where the conversation might have gone after that was cut off by the sudden appearance of the Doctor and Rose, apparently arguing - well, at least Rose was arguing. The Time Lord seemed to be ignoring every question the blonde was throwing at him.
"How many were there before me?"
"Does it matter? Does it really matter?"
"Yes, it does, if I'm just the latest in a long line," Rose snapped, throwing a hand out to gesture in Delaine's direction. "Is that why you picked her up? Is she my replacement? Is that the Time Lord way of doing things? Get yourself a new model every few years and forget about the old one? Is that why you don't ever talk about Sarah Jane?"
Oh god, Mickey thought as his ex-girlfriend's voice kept rising, this was worse than EastEnders. He was almost surprised that he didn't hear some soulful and lonely piano solo at work in the background, because this was a scene straight out of a daytime drama.
"Rose–"
Wherever the conversation could have gone after that was derailed by an inhuman screech and the falling figure of a very, very large bat.
"Get down!" Delaine yelled, pulling a weapon - was that a stake? She'd been carrying a wooden stake up her sleeve the whole time? - out of her sleeve, moving to intercept the Krillitane's path, only for the alien to bank to the side, just far enough to stay out of her reach.
The only good thing, Mickey would later figure, after he'd managed to get his heart back to skipping at a natural beat, was that the same evasive movement that had kept the thing from getting stabbed had also kept those nasty claws from catching him or Sarah Jane - and even then, there had only been a literal inch or two to spare.
And as quickly as it had come, it was gone again, leaving nothing behind but the fading echo of its terrible scream and a speck of a silhouette against the moon.
"Where did that even come from?" Rose asked, running over.
"Nearby. They were watching us the entire time," Delaine said as she tucked the stake back into one of her pockets, staring so hard at the moon that Mickey would have sworn those creepily dark eyes had taken on a glow of their own. "And I'd put money on that little stunt being a way of giving us notice of the fact."
The Doctor shoved his hands deep into his pockets as he turned back towards Sarah Jane's car. "Well, that just moves up the next part of the plan, doesn't it? Come on."
Walking into Deffery Vale with my limiter on was probably a mistake. Oh, I was flipping it in and out of active mode - a nervous tic for situations like this - but it would have been more prudent to have just left the damn thing in storage. Even if I could have it off in a second, seconds counted as small eternities when it really came down to the wire.
Was my want to not be noticed more important than the lives of the people in this building? Probably not, but the moment the Doctor had chosen me, of all available people, to shadow him for this confrontation with Finch, the fear of getting caught had outweighed both my better sense and nature.
Maybe it was nothing at all - the Doctor kept companions around to bounce ideas off of, to make himself less intimidating.
Or maybe he wanted to keep an eye on me after my slip with the Slayer-reflexes last night.
Again, I would be kicking myself for that even more with the benefit of retrospect.
"So what do you think his endgame is?" the Doctor asked as we walked through the school, students passing around us like white water rapids rushing around rocks.
I spared a glance for a straggling pair of students rushing in the opposite direction. "Using the data we have… despite their adaptability, these kids can do something that the Krillitane can't. Whatever that is involves feeding them both the oil and the numbers to achieve… something physics breaking, considering that they're working with FTL equations. It's big, so that's why they're using a whole school as a think tank instead of just a handful of kidnapped children, and it's probably criminal as all fuck given that they're taking a lot of care not to get caught, despite you establishing that it's not really their usual pattern of doing things."
I turned to look at the Doctor, who was watching me with a - for once - unreadable expression.
"So, you're the brilliant Time Lord; what sort of question meeting those qualifications needs this sort of set-up and brainpower to answer?"
He looked away. "Oh, there's a very short list, believe me."
A misgiving I'd been stewing on finally made its way past the block in my throat. "This… Finch, or whatever his real name is, is looking for intelligence," I said carefully. "You've made no secret of yours, Doctor. What do you think he'd be willing to do - or offer - to get you on his side?"
"There's not many threats that work on me and absolutely no price that I'll take," the Doctor said. "And believe me, in nine hundred years, I've had quite a few good ones in either category."
And it'd only take one moment of weakness to ruin that perfect track record, I didn't say. Which would be all too easy when you, Doctor Number Ten, announced your weak spot every other time you made a dramatic speech.
The title 'Last of The Time Lords' was no mark of pride, after all, and the chance to scour that mark from history… now that would be bait good enough hook a Time Lord, especially this Doctor.
The pool room was empty and, compared to the rest of the school, obviously neglected, leaving only the lazy splash of barely disturbed water and the sting of chlorine our only company besides the Krillitane across the room, standing in the corner like a lurking nightmare.
Somehow, the daylight pouring through the windows and the peeling pale blue paint on the walls didn't do much to diminish that effect. A threat was a threat, even more so when wearing a familiar face.
"So I believe proper introductions are in order," the Doctor said, breaking the silence. Despite the casualness of his tone and him sticking his hands in his pockets, there was a cold steel in his posture. Any affability in the Time Lord's usual demeanor was gone, replaced with a cold ice that threatened an unpleasant and miserable death if underestimated. "Because I really don't think that 'Finch' is a traditional Krillitane name."
"Very astute of you," 'Finch' purred. "I am known among my kind as Brother Lassa - one often must sacrifice their proper name in favor of a title more… palatable for the small minded, as I'm sure you know."
The Doctor didn't blink. "I wouldn't, actually. I'm the Doctor to anyone - including you."
Lassa hummed, eyes fixed squarely on the Doctor. "So you say. But let's move on from that - I can see the questions just burning behind your eyes. Ask them."
"Alright. Here's the first one; since when do the Krillitane have wings?"
The Krillitane made a show of studying the ceiling, head tilted to the side. "Oh, ten generations or so. Our ancestors invaded Bessan. The locals had some rather lovely wings, as I recall the story going," he said before his mouth morphed into a cruel curve of a smile. "They made a million widows that day."
The anecdote didn't land with the Doctor. "And now you're shaped human."
"Oh, a personal favorite, nothing more," Lassa demurred, his humility as fake as the rest of his image. "You know how it is; you go window shopping and just find the most darling -"
Absolute hatred flared to life in my chest before I smothered it down into a white-hot coal of contempt, but I must not have hidden it fast enough, because Lassa's attention had immediately shifted to me.
"You know this face, I take it?" he said, smirking. "I rather like it; just happened to see it when I first arrived on this planet and I just had to have it. Even if it rather reduces my flying opportunities - the wings ruin the lay of the jacket, you know."
He was talking about Giles - not necessarily Giles, but someone just as real and with Giles' face - like he was a designer purse and not a person.
That bastard.
My fists clenched, something cracked, and - after a moment of process to figure out that what I was experiencing was physical pain instead of the abstract kind - I realized that the sound had been that of a finger bone breaking. Not a complex fracture, but painful enough for the moment to be grounding.
It was a reminder that I was pretending to be a very normal, very fragile human.
I'd heal it after. Once I was far enough away from Lassa not to nail him to the wall the instant my self-control slipped.
"Oh, you humans are such fascinating creatures," Lassa said, watching me with eyes that did not belong to him. "Passionate, imaginative creatures. I suppose you've turned your imagination to all the ways you wish you could kill me right now. And all over one piddling little life. Such delicious dramatics."
I let out a low, rattling, snarling breath that would have caused heat haze if not for the limiter. As it was, it was still a sound human throats weren't quite meant to make. "That's not your face to wear."
"Is it not the way for a hunter to keep trophies? And it wasn't like the previous owner wore it nearly as well-"
"That's enough of that," the Doctor said, stepping between us. "What about the others? How many-?"
"None at all. They weren't so willing to give up their wings; whatever you see there is mere morphic illusion. Scratch the surface and the Krillitane is revealed." Lassa took a few steps along the edge of the pool. "And what of the Time Lords? I always thought of them as such a pompous race; ancient dusty senators, willing to rest on laurels millennia old, yet so frightened of anything that could change their status quo… what lay under that surface? Ah, but I suppose no-one will ever know now that they're extinct."
"Except for you."
"The Last of the Time Lords. The renegade. So much power and legacy… and you waste it surrounding yourself with these meagre, ephemeral creatures." A pointed glance was thrown my way. "To what? Forget?"
The Doctor didn't quite flinch, but there was enough of a movement to know that it had happened.
There it was. The Achilles Heel of everything Ten was. The spot that Lassa was now absolutely certain he could use, because of that 'almost'.
"This plan of yours. What is it?" the Doctor asked.
Lassa tilted his head again. "You don't know."
Oh, that tone wasn't good.
"That's why I'm asking," the Doctor said, leaning forward.
"Oh, I'm sure you can work it out," the Krillitane said, slipping into his prowling walk as he closed the space between us. "Show me how clever you really are, Doctor. I've heard such good things."
"Then you know that if I don't like what you're up to, I will stop it."
"Oh, you really are a fascinating one," Lassa breathed, staring at the Doctor as if he were a particularly clever puzzle rather than a person; though to a manipulator, they were often the same thing. "Your people were peaceful to the point of indolence, but you… you're something different." Again with the head tilt, the wide stare of false, mocking confusion. "Would you declare war on us, Doctor?"
The Doctor went still while my mind raced, moving the proverbial chess pieces as I deconstructed the plays in real time.
Playing on both sides of the Time War as he twisted the narrative; laying open old wounds and laying on the guilt, but also retouching the old portrait of the Time Lords as a good benevolent force; slaughtered sheep rather than the complicated and often awful politicians they were.
The image, distorted as it was, would appeal to the Doctor, particularly this incarnation; the Lonely God who 'does something', who could comfortably perch on the pillar of high and mighty pacifist who by merit of being a different species was automatically 'better than you', right up until the point when he changed his mind.
And war was a trauma button for this one, the one thing that this Doctor wanted to be as far removed from as possible.
"Maybe," the Doctor said, just loud enough to be heard over the water. "I'm old now. Not as full of mercy as I used to be. And that was your one warning."
The combined threat and plea of 'don't make me destroy you' went unspoken.
"But we're not even enemies, Doctor," Lassa called as we turned to leave, the Doctor's coat flaring behind him. "You'll realize that soon enough. And you will embrace us. The next time we speak, you will join us."
Over my dead body. Or, if it came down to it, someone else's.
"You're angry," the Doctor said, speeding up slightly to catch up to his companion.
"Fucking furious actually," Delaine answered. "But thanks for noticing, Captain Obvious."
"Because he killed your friend?"
"That, and because he was so fucking smug about it, while wearing his fucking face," the girl said, eyes flinty as she took a look at the Doctor. "And I get it; you don't like violence. That's fine. Nobody should. But people like that? The minute you have their make, you don't give them a second chance. You get rid of them before they can hurt anyone else."
"And that's why I took this before we went in," the Doctor said, pulling the stake he'd stolen from Delaine out of his pocket. He'd had a feeling it was smarter to take the weapon off of her before walking into that confrontation, and Lassa's mocking 'conversation' had only proven that instinct correct.
"Yes, I noticed."
"Why would you have something like this in the first place?"
"Last school I had to sneak into at night had a vampire problem. Figured it'd be practical."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. While wooden stakes weren't strictly necessary for most types of vampires, there were a few that would respond to it in the stereotypical fashion. "Same one you were an assistant librarian at?"
"Actually, yes," Delaine said, playing with her wrist strap. "Among other things, it was also where I met Giles. He was one of our 'experts' on vampires and everything else."
"And Giles would be…?"
"The person Lassa's wearing the skin of."
Ah. Well, if that's what happened to the 'expert', then the rest of the team was likely… "I'm sorry."
"What did I say about apologies?" Delaine snapped, eyes flashing as she rounded on him. "Focus that energy on not falling for Lassa's bait. He was manipulating you with the easiest plays in the goddamn book and you were listening."
"No, I wasn't-"
She snapped the leather wrist strap apart again. "Show me how clever you are, Doctor. You're so fascinating, Doctor. You're something new, Doctor," she spat in a near perfect mimicry of Lassa's voice, save for the same incandescent acidity that had been coloring her tone since they left the Krillitane behind.
That was a rather remarkable talent, even outside of that frankly unsettling growl she'd managed earlier.
Delaine snapped her wrist strap closed, dropping Lassa's voice as she went, though none of the venom in her tone. "The general implication that you are a superior creature compared to the others of your race? Oh, that was a tasteful compliment for sure, even if he tacked on an offer to bring them all back with his super-secret mystery power if you just join his boy band at the end."
"Really, I know this face is rather nice, but I'm not really boy band material-"
"Don't even try to derail this conversation from the real problem," Delaine interrupted. "He was playing on your pride, calling you special and so-much-better-"
Now it was the Doctor's turn to interrupt. "Well, who's to say that I'm not?"
How many Time Lords stole a TARDIS? How many times had he saved the universe from destruction? And forget how many times he'd saved the Earth.
Delaine's eyes went hard at that.
"That wasn't my point," she ground out. "He's appealing to that sense of pride and self-importance while also digging his fingers into what's clearly an open wound in your history. He knows that you're angled against him right now, but he thinks that he's better served by getting you on his side, not killing us at the first opportunity. What does that mean?"
The Doctor brushed off the concern. "That he knows how good I am at-"
"It means that he thinks you'll be a good catspaw, you absolute-!" Delaine snapped, making a sharp motion that might have been meant to be a go at shaking some sense into him if she hadn't caught herself in time and forced her hands down again. "Look. I know damn well now manipulators work. They play on your doubts, stroke your ego, all while pouring pretty poison in your ear. It's nothing new to me."
'It seems like we've found someone's sore spot,' Seven noted, leaving the current model to shake off the sensation of a non-existent umbrella handle thoughtfully pressed against his bottom lip. 'But as much as I don't entirely trust this companion yet, she's not wrong; you are giving Lassa's offer far too much consideration.'
'Oh, shut up. You didn't trust anyone by the end, including yourself, and see where that got you,' the Doctor shot back before turning his attention to Delaine. "I'm not that easy to fool, Delaine. You don't need to worry about it."
"Ha. I worry about everything."
"Then what do you suggest I do about it?"
Delaine gave him a look that was downright scathing. "How about 'don't'?" she offered. "Don't take the bait, don't get distracted by pretty words or drama bombs, don't give him the secret key to 42 or whatever the hell the thing is. He's a murderer and manipulator without an ounce of scruple or ethics; the only thing he follows is his wants and what he wants now is your mind - so don't give it to him."
"You make it sound easy."
"Cause it is, dumbass."
The Doctor rolled his eyes - really, mouthy companions were such a chore sometimes - before pausing in place. "What was that last thing you said?"
"That you're a dumbass?"
"Before that."
"Don't get manipulated like a chump?"
"Not that part," the Doctor said before finally pulling the thread that had tickled his mind. "Something about 42. What is it about 42 -"
"It's the Answer to Life, The Universe, And Everything. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, 1979, recommended for ages twelve and up," Delaine rattled off without nary a stutter before catching herself. "Don't even think about exploiting that reflex-"
The Doctor cut her off. "Right. That. Should hunt down a copy of that book now that you've mentioned it, but I think that's what this situation is right now -" he paused. "Well, maybe less 42 and more…"
"Anti-Life Equation?"
"I already hate the sound of that. Comic book?"
"It's only Darkseid's whole thing, Doctor. You can't tell me that you don't know who the biggest baddie in all of DC Comics is."
"I'm a Marvel, not a DC - and don't ask me about the cartoons either, because I've generally got much better things to do on my Saturdays. Like saving the world and such for real," the Doctor said as he pushed open the door to the computer lab he'd sent his other companions to… only for Sarah Jane and Rose to start laughing at the sight of him.
"Oh, like this?" Delaine ask as she walked past the poleaxed Time Lord. "You should tell me when it's time for you to pop up on Comic Relief then."
'This is fun,' one of his past selves said miserably, right as the Doctor decided that introducing his hand to his face was the most reasonable reaction to this course of events. Oh, for the days when companions had respect for him…
Of course, this would be the time that the klaxon went off and the PA system announced that all students needed to be in their classes and all members of the staff were required in the teacher's lounge.
'And here's the part where nothing is fun anymore and people start dying,' one of his past selves said.
The Doctor couldn't bring himself to disagree.
The code flashing across the screens was a keysmash of barely directed stream of consciousness characters that ran across two dozen alien languages before slipping sideways into the realm of equations and mathematics, with inclusions seemingly being inserted at random.
'So it turns out that you can use the infinite monkey theorem to break reality,' Kourtefour said, watching the green pixels dance before our eyes. 'This might have been more surprising if I hadn't been there for Zim's Florpus incident.'
Ah yes. Because the great unifier in warping space/time/reality was exploiting the power of children. No wonder the goddamn Skasis Paradigm was illegal, if this mess was supposed to be a reality breaker.
Still, there was enough there to make the Doctor draw a shallow, sharp breath. "No. No, that can't be-"
"Oh, but it is," Lassa said as he stepped into the room, smug as could be. "But please, Doctor, do elucidate the less educated on exactly what's happening here."
"What is it, Doctor?" Sarah Jane asked.
"It's the Skasis Paradigm," the Doctor said, eyes never leaving the ever-changing pattern of alien symbols spread across the computer screens. "It's a reality breaker. Universal theory. Forbidden in forty-seven systems, not that it stops people from trying."
"After all," Lassa added as he came closer. "What is 'law' when you can control the building blocks of the universe with a handful of keystrokes?"
"That's why you're here," the Doctor said, a cold realization taking over his tone. "The Krillitane don't have the psychic potential to create the collective unconsciousness needed on their own, so you're hijacking these children. Earth's backwater enough to fall outside the surveillance circles for this kind of activity, nobody local is advanced enough to stop you, and all these children need to do the work is that little push from the oil to make them into a chain of wetware computers working to give you -"
"42," I finished. "Computed through mind, body, and soul."
"Oh, Adams," Lassa said, an admiring tone sneaking in for a split second. "I should first compliment you on solving the riddle. But now comes the real test."
Everyone stepped back, but the Krillitane simply continued speaking, his eyes fixed on the Doctor as he drew closer.
"Do consider the possibilities, Doctor. Of everything we could do if you just… give us that last little push to solving the Paradigm. All the things that could be done if the universe was just… that much more flexible. That much more moldable. It could be shaped, improved."
"Oh, yes. All of creation given the face of 'Mister Finch', sounds lovely," the Doctor muttered. "Call me old fashioned, but I prefer the universe as it is."
Lassa twisted his head at that all familiar angle. "You act like such a radical, but are you really that dedicated to preserving the old order? Everyone that made those rules is dead, gone. You're the only one still in the way. Think of all we could do with this power. All the changes that could be made for the better."
"What, by you?"
"No, Doctor," Lassa breathed, finally coming close enough to the Doctor to be nearly touching noses with the Time Lord. "By someone like you. The Paradigm gives us power, but you… you could give us wisdom."
Don't do it you idiot.
"You could become a god. Just imagine what you could do, Doctor, if you would just stand at my side. The civilizations you could restore. Perganon, Assinta… Gallifrey."
The Doctor's steady look folded. Not by much, but enough to shift 'steadfast' to 'shamed'… and 'on guard' to 'interested'.
Appeal to grief, appeal to pride, appeal to power, appeal to nostalgia. Lassa was hitting every possible weakness the Doctor had, even with the most unsubtle hooks in the universe, and the Time Lord was failing.
I could understand. I could sympathize. There were things that I would love to change in my own history as well.
But that's not how it worked. Not here. Not now. And not at the price of selling out reality and free will. Not when all it would buy was a shallow 'fix-it'.
Sarah Jane knew that too. "Doctor, don't listen to him!"
Lassa turned to her. "And you. Miss Sarah Jane Smith. So old now. Replaceable. If you wanted to, you could be with him through all eternity; fresh, young, never fading, never touched by death or disease."
The Krillitane flashed the Doctor a shallow smile. "Human beings; so fleeting and fragile. So little time. So many goodbyes. How lonely you must be, Doctor, to surround yourself with such temporary creatures," he cooed softly. "Join us. Make it better."
"I could save everyone," the Doctor murmured, barely audible yet so unmistakable for what it was.
Dammit.
"Yes."
"I could stop the War," he continued, eyes beginning to sharpen with dark resolve.
"In the name of Peace and Sanity."
I could have imitated the voice. I could have done it perfectly.
But to really capture the Hurt Doctor's voice - not the sound, but the essence -, you needed the weariness, that tiredness that went past the bones and down into the soul, that screamed of hopeless battles without raising its voice above a rasping whisper. The sound of an impossibly tired soul, still trudging forward against the storm, terrible baggage in tow, because it was still not yet time to stop and sleep.
Harmless.
To anyone who didn't know those words.
The Doctor, however, did and I got to watch in slow motion, a shudder go down his spine and his posture straighten in the most dangerous way I could imagine as those seven little words settled in.
Honestly, that was probably enough. But I was never content with the bare minimum.
"Death is part of life, the final transition to making room for new things. A world without death stagnates, never truly living, because without it, nothing changes. Without age and sorrow, there's no joy or learning," I said, measuring out the words as the Doctor slowly turned to face me, a terrible blankness overwriting his features. "Without loss, what is love? Is grief not love persevering? The world turns, the sun burns, planets come and go, stars fade, everything has its time, and everything ends."
The Doctor stared at me for a moment. Long enough for me to know that there were going to be consequences to that little speech.
And then he grabbed a chair and slammed it into the computers next to Lassa, right as a crash of metal and glass came from outside.
We ran through the school, dodging Sarah Jane's mostly intact car as the animalistic shriek of Krillitane primed to kill tore through the building, the aliens already beginning to swarm. There was just barely enough time to pull K-9 free of the wreckage before we had to run again, the robot dog managing to zap a couple of the aliens as we rushed through the halls.
"Kitchen!" the Doctor snapped, even as I grabbed a kid who had somehow gotten locked out of the classrooms with my free hand. "Mickey! You get everyone unplugged."
Reaching that space, we barricaded the door, just in time for heavy bodies to slam against it.
"That's not going to hold them for long," the Doctor said, informing us of the obvious as a long nail punched through the glass window. "Need a plan… need a plan…"
"What's going on?" the kid asked.
"Big nasty bats."
"Oil!" the Doctor shouted, making everyone jump. "Rose, you said that one of them started melting when it got exposed to the oil, right? They must have altered their physiology enough that their own oil is toxic to them. We can use that."
"Should be in storage right around here," Rose noted, looking around the kitchen. "They've got barrels of it just laying around."
"Oh, then the plan works then," the Doctor said, sounding almost surprised. "Usually I have to skip through a few and do a lot of running before - never mind that! We still need time and that requires a distract-"
The kid punched the fire alarm and the screams of fury outside abruptly changed into screams of pain.
"-tion," the Doctor finished, blinking. "Suppose that works. If something else happens, I'm going to start asking why I even bothered showing up, given that I seem to be as useful as the furniture."
He'd spoken too soon.
"Of course, they'd have deadlock seals on the barrels," the Time Lord hissed as the sonic screwdriver failed to release the lids. "Typical. You know, I'm really starting to dislike this Lassa."
The Doctor almost expected Delaine to cut in with some sort of sarcastic aside at that - perhaps something to the effect of 'so the child exploitation and wearing the skin of his murder victim wasn't enough?' -, only to catch himself as to why she wasn't saying anything now.
Because she'd said something impossible, while somehow knowing its context, and had been all too ready to use those words to stop him.
'Because there was a very real chance that you weren't going to stop on your own.'
The Doctor didn't reply to that, instead trying the barrels again on another setting. Still deadlocked.
"Master," K-9 said, trundling closer from where Delaine had set him down, blaster muzzle out and making that little buzz that said it was armed. "The material of the vats cannot withstand a direct hit from my photon beam at its highest setting."
"Which I safety locked on your previous model," the Doctor said, doing a quick scan of K-9 just to be sure of that fact, only to find out another wrinkle in the robot-dog's plan. "And your batteries couldn't manage more than one of those blasts before failing."
"Affirmative. But the batteries will fail regardless. And Priority One is the protection of Mistress Number Three, which can only be achieved by-"
The wailing fire alarms from outside abruptly silenced.
"I calculate that the Krillitane will breech the door in under two minutes, master," K-9 added helpfully.
Alright. Since he'd clearly come too close to failing that big choice earlier, he'd make the hard call this time… without anyone's help.
"Right, everyone out!" the Doctor yelled, before taking a moment to point at Delaine. "And you."
Delaine stopped.
"Don't wander off," he said.
His companions left through the back doors. Hopefully they wouldn't linger too close to the building, the Doctor thought to himself as he helped K-9 get into the proper position, because while the matter of how big the coming explosion would be was up in the air, the fact that it would be was no question.
"I could do something clever, right now," the Doctor said to K-9. "Rig up some explosive or something - I must have some Nitro-9 somewhere in my pockets…"
"There is no alternatives possible within the available timeframe, master," K-9 replied. "The Krillitane will have access to this room within the next twenty seconds."
Right. Right. It still didn't make it any easier.
"Goodbye, old friend," the Doctor whispered.
"Goodbye, master."
"You were such a good dog, you know that?"
K-9's tail waggled. "Affirmative."
The Doctor spared one last look to his dog before running out the back door to join his companions, only pausing long enough to lock the doors behind him.
"Where's K-9?" Sarah Jane asked.
"We have to run."
"What have you done to my –"
Sarah Jane was cut off by the explosion. Doors and windows shattered outwards from the force and flames were visible from within what once was the kitchen, as what was left of the Krillitane oil caught fire.
Children were screaming, though with a certain shocked glee - after all, school was evil to young people and explosions were fun - instead of the usual fear and pain the Doctor was used to. That was, at least, a very small reassurance to his conscience.
'Skas- crisis- Skrisis averted? No, that's a little forced…'
The Doctor pushed aside the voices of his past selves. There would be time for jokes later. For now, he had to deal with his next problem; Delaine.
Author's Notes
Updated 12/4/2021
I think it's important to explain a lot of the references because; 1) a lot of Doctor Who information counts as arcane knowledge because getting access to past episodes, novels, comics, and audios depends on connections (either to dubiously legal torrents or friends willing to share), money (if you like legality), and free time (to actually enjoy the things regardless of the means they were acquired by) and 2) I've had too many experiences with mentioning something that seems obvious to me and then having the person I'm talking to immediately go 'what? What's that?' or make a mental connection to some very different unrelated thing. So footnotes like this make everyone's life a lot easier and from there you can usually find a wiki to explain things that I cut out for space.
Update changes: a few tonal changes, more inclusion of past experiences with Delaine's jumpchain, Doctor gets POV command for the last section.
Uberch01: A lot won't be changing in the immediate future (I mean, there's only the rest of School Reunion, The Girl In The Fireplace, and Age Of Steel / Rise Of The Cybermen) but hopefully I've set up some good threads to work into other stuff as the story gets to going off the established rails, something that I'm still working on in my fanfiction writing.
Canti is a robot from FLCL. If you haven't seen or heard of FLCL, it's a six episode anime by Studio Gainax that's like Neon Genesis Evangelion except lots less sad and lots more crack; lots of lunatic action matched with a story, great animation, a kicking soundtrack, and a whole lot of nonsense. The Dub is awesome and the sequels (which have come out since the original posting of this chapter) are very good as well.
Mistresses Number 1 and 2 would be Leela (already explained in a previous author's notes) and Romana, a Time Lady who travelled with the Fourth Doctor for two of her incarnations after Leela left with K-9 Mrk 1. Mrk 2 ended up in another universe or something with Romana, though she left him behind when she decided to return to Gallifrey.
Fun fact! This fic was named after a Doctor Who/EastEnders' crossover that almost happened in '93 and definitely doesn't actually exist called Dimensions In Time. Seriously, don't look for it. It's bad. Or it would be if it was real. But it isn't so everything is fine.
To those interested, planning for the Buffy story is in the early stages (as in there are a number of broad stroke planning for certain chapters and character arcs, but nothing actually written yet), but I have access to all the televised episodes and the wiki so hopefully everything there goes well…
loneliness + alienation + fear + despair + self-worth ÷ mockery ÷ condemnation ÷ misunderstanding × guilt × shame × failure × judgment n=y where y=hope and n=folly, love=lies, life=death, self=dark side
The Anti-Life Equation, to those of you not into superhero comics, is basically a hard override on the free will of any sentient being exposed to it. There are a couple interpretations as to what it actually is, but the sum of it is that it presents the person in control of it of being the only thing that matters in the universe and thus reduces the victim to only existing for that person. Naturally, a despot overlord like Darkseid is very interested in that sort of power, so locating it is his big thing.
*updated the conversation to make the Doctor more accurately aware of pop culture, given how much he references it. Also a minor nod to when Marvel was responsible for doing Doctor Who comics.
The idea of a 'collective unconsciousness' was hijacked from other parts of Doctor Who (cough – Ten's Tinkerbell moment), which hijacked it from Carl Jung. You know how stories and characters fit into certain patterns, even if they're written millennia and continents apart? The Chosen One, the Wise Old Man, and so on? That's it. It's the collective 'memory' of humanity taking familiar roles that we revisit in stories over and over again. Combine with psychic powers and science fiction for more drama.
Forgot to mention this last chapter (which was probably for the best because the author's notes were running really long there), but the exchange between Mickey and the Doctor on the subject of rats referenced the Fourth Doctor story, the Talons of Weng-Chiang. It's not a bad serial, but it is like. very racist.
Also, every single thing mentioned in Delaine's dissection speech really happened to me (except the Dark Harvest, that's just an Invader Zim joke). I am… still not sure why we did most of them.