200200: A Space Odyssey

Nios

"Well, well. It looks like some of our lab rats have found their way out of the maze."

"Good joke, did it take you long to think of that?" the Doctor said coldly to the smarmy, male voice coming over the radio. Adam Mitchell was still locked into the infospike behind them. "If there were a ten-year-old girl here, she would have been very impressed, I'm sure." Nios didn't bother to point out that she was under ten years old. It wasn't the sort of thing she really informed people of. "Why are you not in your 'maze', then?"

"We're merely observers," said the voice, "Besides, it's filthy there. A quarantine zone. If any of the authorities found out about it, it would probably be blown up to avoid any contagion spreading."

"Interesting, considering vaccines and medications exist and all these people could easily be cured."

"Population is an issue," the voice said offhandedly, "I'm sure any of the human empire's governing bodies would want to keep this under wraps and wouldn't want any of you subjects talking about it."

"We're not your subjects," said the Doctor, "We're just tourists. And we're going to make sure that these 'governing bodies' find out about this place, and so does everybody else. What are you even experimenting on them for?"

"Various things. If the body has developed any natural defences against certain diseases, how people react when randomly assigned classes-"

"If you want to know how people react, then why are you killing the ones who try to help?" Nios asked.

"They're not the desired results the company funding the experiment wants. They want to prove that empathy is a weakness."

"Clearly it is a weakness since you're murdering anybody who displays it."

"It's not murdering, it's just initiating the failsafe."

"Is that what helps you sleep at night?" Nine challenged, "Failsafes? Backups?"

"They're all expendable, really."

"Expendable!?" Nine was getting furious. So was Nios, but she had a sudden inkling to back away from the Doctor slightly, "They're humans! Every last one of them! Individuals whose lives are worth ten times yours! At least they've shown that they care, that they can change, they're not watching people die from some observation deck a few hundred lightyears away. It's disgusting. A fake experiment risking real people's lives? Letting them die out here after making them believe it would be better? They'd be rewarded? I can't wait to deal with you."

"Sorry to tell you this, whoever-you-are, but you're probably not going to get the opportunity. There's more than a few failsafes in Eutopia Bay, it's even rigged to explode. As part of the quarantine procedure, if we deem there to be a risk."

"You'd throw their lives away that easily? Just because we've found your mainframe?"

"The validity of the experiment is well and truly compromised." the Doctor paused and thought for a few moments, radiating a powerful sense of anger which finally made him command Nios's respect – and she had never really cared much for him before. Then again, she didn't consider herself to have a great deal respect for the other Doctors, either.

"What are your names, then? Who are you? What company do you work for?" the Doctor questioned, "What do they hope to get out of this?"

"We're not going to tell you that."

"Really? Even with your explosive master-plan? You won't even give me the pleasure of knowing exactly why I'm being blown up?"

"It's to do with population control."

"Do you mean controlling the amount of people or just controlling the people?" Nios asked.

"Controlling the people. To prove that it can be done through very simple means, like artificial currencies and disease and tricking them into believing in a puppet authority – in this case, Max. Despite all the laws against AI, people still seem drawn to them," he said. Nios wondered if that were true.

"A true AI would care about these people a whole lot more than you would," Nine said angrily. Nios sensed he was talking about her. She didn't think Sprite was standing for it either, however. Adam Mitchell was still trapped in the chair behind them with the bright blue stream of data shovelling itself into his skull; was it painful? How would they know if he was in trouble?

"We make them think that we have ultimate power – or that, the computer has ultimate power – but that they don't deserve it. They believe in the objectivity of the computer, so they never want to revolt."

"So you've brainwashed them."

"We haven't done anything to their brains. The only one with any brain modifications is the boy messing around with the spike behind you; we didn't allow anybody with an infospike to come to Eutopia Bay in case they found their way in here. Not that they would be able to control Max, of course. You'd need to be some kind of genius to do that."

"Some kind of genius, eh?" Nine mused, glancing back at Adam Mitchell. Nios supposed the question now was, how much of a genius was Adam Mitchell really? He didn't really compare with Oswin, but not even the Doctor compared with Oswin. And she wouldn't be surprised if these scientist-types were being very arrogant about what they did and didn't consider 'genius.' They probably thought themselves geniuses, sitting thousands of miles away and pushing buttons to remotely execute people from afar, watching diseases spread with no care for the consequences or the lives they were destroying. But intelligence without empathy wasn't genius, it was psychopathy.

"You didn't tell us who you work for," Nios prompted again.

"Rich people. The people who really run things, behind the scenes."

"The Illuminati, you mean?" the Doctor asked.

"No, nothing so ridiculous as the Illuminati. An ancient folklore story."

"Right. Just sounds a bit like you work for the Illuminati, that's all."

"We work for rich benefactors who have a vested interest in the direction of society, and who want their contributions to remain anonymous."

"So, what you're saying is, you work for the Illuminati? You're their puppets, just like Max is your puppet? Are you a fake authority, too?"

"I assure you," the voice was getting annoyed now, "There's nothing fake about us or about our ability to blow up Eutopia Bay. The detonation is in progress at this very moment. There's very little left to draw out of the experiment anyway, it and the people involved have outlived their usefulness."

"Is that what your masters over at the Illuminati will be saying to you once you give them the results? That people still wanted to do good, and help each other, and you killed them for their trouble? Going against Max's authority because they cared too much? Their hearts were too big? And you murdered them? Is that what you're going to tell them, or just lie?" the Doctor questioned, "Because if you lie, they'll carry out these shadow-tactics – in fact, people like them have been doing similar things for thousands of years, but people always revolt. Humanity is resilient and so many more of them are good people than bad."

"But the bad ones are the ones with the influence and the money."

"This is about money, then? They're going to pay you off? Buy your silence? You don't think they'll just throw you away because they don't want any loose ends? Exactly like you're trying to do to Eutopia Bay with this supposed detonation sequence?"

"I assure you, the detonation sequence is certainly real."

"Are you sure? Because I haven't heard any detonating yet. And I've been listening, too. Bit hard to miss."

"You're insolent and you're going to die because of it, I hope you know that."

"Thanks for the compliment. Make sure to tell the Illuminati I said hi. It's the Doctor, by the way – just 'the Doctor.' Tell them that, and, uh, I'm not sure they'll really want to put the fruits of your labour here into practice. They're going to get backlash if they try this on an unisolated population. Maybe the people here can't do anything, but there's no way you anybody could exercise this scale of control outside of laboratory conditions."

"For god's sake – we don't work for the Illuminati."

"Funny, because that's exactly what you'd say if you did. Oh, I know, maybe you're just as stupid as all the people here you're infecting if you genuinely believe you're anything other than expendable? It doesn't take many scientists to put a kill-switch into a fake arm or order a supercomputer to dish out multivitamins. I promise you, they'll just get rid of you with a sweep of their shadowy, all-encompassing hand."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Are you going to blow me up yet? It's a bit chilly in here with your fragile mainframe, a nice explosion would would warm me up, though."

"Oh, the countdown sequence has begun."

"Really? Can you play it to the opening theme of Thunderbirds? That's my dying wish. I've always liked Thunderbirds. Thunderbird 5 is my favourite. What about you?" he asked Nios.

"I… what's a Thunderbird?" she asked.

"What's a-? God, and you say you care about human philosophy and culture. It's about a bunch of puppets who fly around in advanced rockets and ships and save the world. I'm sure the idea of being puppets is very familiar to these scientist boys, eh?" the Doctor continued to insult the voice over the radio. "It's set in the 2060s. They do smoke a lot, though. You know, for puppets."

"Right…"

"You're on the brink of death, Doctor."

"Fantastic. It's about time. Gets so boring sometimes, with so many people threatening to kill me but then never quite being able to follow through. Hope you weren't premature with your threats, though," Nine said, grinning, even though they couldn't see him. Concerned, Nios spared yet another glance for Adam Mitchell, who was now clenching and unclenching both his fists. The chair around him was steadily covering itself completely in ice; it would be encased before long. Was he going to freeze the station so that the explosives couldn't go off?

He didn't say anything anymore, just stood with his hands in his trouser pockets, waiting. The voice didn't say anything either.

Nios leant over rather awkwardly to speak: "What are we doing now? Do you have a plan?"

"We're being blown up, didn't you listen? He's right on the cusp of blowing us up. Aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Should hurry up with it, then. Can't be that hard to do a detonation if you have this live feed to talk to us. Can't you give us a verbal countdown? So we at least know when we're going to die? What if we have to make an important phone call? Or text a girl back?" He looked at Nios very pointedly then, and she suddenly took out her phone because it didn't appear like he had any plan to get them out of the mess where there were some people literally trying to blow them up.

Finally, Nios got up the courage to reply to Dr Cohen:

Hi, I'm sorry I didn't text you back. I do want to come over, I was just nervous and didn't know how to reply so I've been obsessing about it all day. I never know what to say to you because I like you so much and I'm sorry I don't know what to do but I'll see you later?

As soon as she pressed 'send', she expected the entire station to blow up. It still didn't though.

"Something wrong here…" muttered the voice over the radio to somebody other than them.

"What's going on?" Nios asked. The Doctor shrugged.

"Only a genius with an infospike can work Max and potentially disable the explosives."

"This doesn't – I don't-"

The voice on the radio and every single amber light in the mainframe room went off, including the vivid blue infospike. They were plunged into complete and utter silence.

"…Am I dead? Did we just die?" Nios asked. She couldn't see anything, it was pitch black. At least until her phone went off a second later. Given that she still had the ability to check her phone, she assumed that she was not dead, especially when the message was Dr Cohen telling her 'it's okay' along with her address and a time. She was over the moon.

"What was that? You look like all your Christmases have come at once," asked the Doctor, who could see her face illuminated by the glow of her phone screen, and her wide smile.

"Nothing. I just have a date. That's all."

"Finally. We can stop hearing about it now."

After just a few seconds the station rebooted. The amber lights switched back on and all the reactors kicked into gear, but the equipment the scientists had been using to talk to them with did not reconnect. The infospike didn't resume, either. Adam Mitchell began to sit up in the chair, holding both his hands to his head, groaning. The chair looked even more like an icicle now.

"It'll look just like the top floor of Satellite Five in here when you're done with it," the Doctor said, swaggering over to Adam.

"What a niche joke…" he muttered, "I hated doing that with you two here… feels like I'm naked…"

"Are you okay?" asked Nios. Sprite went to check on Adam like an obedient pet, despite the fact Adam got jittery around him.

"I'm just tired and feel a bit sick. It's sort of like a hangover." She didn't know what that felt like but took his word for it. "It's just a bit draining, you know, copying your entire personality onto an intelligence mainframe to make an all-powerful artificial clone of yourself can be exhausting." The colour disappeared from the Ninth Doctor's face.

"You what? You did what? You copied your personality onto Max!?" he was angrier now with Adam than with the twisted scientists. "You would do something so stupid!? Create a monstrous god-like supercomputer version of yourself!? And here I thought your ego wasn't nearly so inflated anymore, that maybe you'd learnt something from-"

"I'm kidding! Oh my god! It was a joke!" Adam exclaimed.

"…Oh. Well. Wasn't very funny."

"What did you do?" asked Nios.

"I just hacked into Max and overwrote his programming and completely cut off any ability for that station to connect here or detonate those explosives. And I put in blocks to stop Max from doing anything to hurt anybody, including withholding medicine, and to give everything out equally by erasing the entire social currency system and the level system. Oh, and I recorded what they were saying and spliced it with all their Big Brother CCTV footage and sent it to the authorities out here. So, you know. They'll be caught and punished, and the people here will be fine. Because I'm not a piece of shit," he glared at the Doctor.

"I suppose maybe you have redeemed yourself. A bit. A tiny bit. Maybe."

Adam sighed, "I suppose that's basically as good as I'm going to get, for literally using my brain to hack into a supercomputer and save all these people, while exposing the corruption of this wider experiment to the general public of the entire human empire." Then he stood up and nearly collapsed. It was Nios who steadied him, used to having to act so reflexively to do the same for Oswin. Apparently, she was the de facto carer for both of them.

"I texted her back," she told him proudly, because at least he had tried to help her with the chronic shyness she didn't know she had until meeting Cohen.

"Texting a girl back is almost as impressive as what I did."

"Are you being sarcastic…?"

"No, I'm… I'm pretty bad at talking to girls as well, so… yeah. Can we leave now? I'm really tired of being in a bad Deus Ex fanfiction, at this point…"