Vansell
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I do this gladly...
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Post by Vansell on Sept 29, 2014 10:43:09 GMT -5
They couldn't really have called themselves the Celestial Intervention Agency these days. It was only out of adherence to old formalities that they even adopted any name these days, known to the few members of the High Council who were permitted to know about them simply as the "interventionists".
But adherence to old formalities was why they were still here, this motley group of aging bureaucrats and former agents brought out of office-work to once again take up their stasars and time-rings. Adherence to old formalities had kept them corporeal, kept them alive. Often had they wondered, in the spans leading to the War, whether they were the only ones who still believed in their oaths of allegiance to Gallifrey; then came the day when they knew for certain.
Not one of them had regretted their decision since that day. If they had had it in them to doubt, they would have caved and fled with the rest. They had never been many in number, and that had only dwindled over the centuries - now, they were a mere six, none younger than their tenth regeneration. Sequestered in a base constructed from a damaged pocket of subreality, a chamber between two atoms of the mighty Citadel's ancient foundations, they clung on.
Events came and went, rose and fell, tangled and intertwined and burned. Hope, that rarest and most precious of commodities these days, came within the grasp of the High Council in the form of a single prion - before being blasted away by the laser-fire of a Dalek fleet, at the behest of a spy.
But the Daleks were not the only ones with spies as cards to play. The Celes-...the interventionists...swept the time-ways, spied on the spy, tracked its time-trace and caught, out of the corner of a bugged eyestalk, a shooting star.
There were complications, of course. It would take more than a skilled agent to bring hope back to Gallifrey this time. They weren't without resources, though - in fact, there was one such resource quite carefully filed and labelled as such already on their own territory. And there was a suitable handler for that resource within reach of the long arm of the law.
The Space Station Zenobia was officially lifeless. Abandoned for centuries, it drifted outside time, a great rusting hulk, a ghost-ship in space. It had been built to last, though; all systems fully functional, scans showed, save for the broken Matrix screen and two disconnected Matrix Doors.
Lifeless, it may have been, but now it was stirring. A dome in the roof of the thirteenth sector peeled open, a neon-blue glow issuing forth and piercing the walls of the time vortex to seek the biodata and TARDIS that it had been programmed to once, a very long time ago.
Wherever he was, the tractor beam would seize him, enveloping him in a rush of blue light and dragging him back into his TARDIS, before sweeping up the TARDIS and drawing it inexorably through timespace to deposit him in the dark, dusty foyer of the Zenobia's Sector Thirteen, a place he hadn't visited for several lifetimes now. The instant he touched down, the TARDIS's lights would dim, her systems falling silent as they became completely unresponsive to the touch of the Time Lord's calloused hands.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2014 22:06:19 GMT -5
Splayed flat over the rise of a gritty sand dune, the Renegade held the scanner closer to him. Around him were the littered remains of the initial Dalek assault wave, bashed, blasted and cracked casings spilling onto the ground. It could not be called a victory. Not yet. There was a final move that would be made, any microspan now. It would be a deciding factor, as much as there could be deciding factors. Time locked, time twisted, time war. He'd been fighting for so long that it felt eternal. He had been consumed by war, each battle a breath in time.
When the crackle of blue light enveloped him, he thought first that he was under some new type of attack. It was clear that this wasn't the case as he was moved as if by invisible hands, dragged bodily towards his own TARDIS. He could not move, he could not budge an inch no matter how hard he tried. Meters away, his TARDIS hid waiting for him to return. The doors opened and still he was taken inside, held aloft by the tractor beam. Normally a welcome sight to see, the white, gray and stone console room felt like a betrayal. The beam held him long enough for him to be unable to stop the dematerialisation from beginning. Dropped like a hot stone, he ran to the console, fighting for control over his own destiny. But it was to no avail, no matter what he did, no matter what trick, his TARDIS would not respond to his commands. Enraged beyond belief, he slammed at the buttons, flicked switches, pulled power cables and levers. Nothing. Nothing NOTHING!
Then they were arriving somewhere and his TARDIS, his beloved ship that had endured so much, fell dim and dormant. He felt the humming pulse of her quiet, a sonombulant thread of her life remaining connected to him. There was no way to tell where he had landed except the most straightforward. He went to the door and opened it. And walked through into his past.
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Vansell
16+ Members
I do this gladly...
Posts: 297
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Post by Vansell on Oct 12, 2014 22:45:49 GMT -5
There was very little debate these days about who would be the best to select for fronting mission briefings like this - they simply didn't have the numbers to choose from any more. As Riquen positioned himself beneath one of the holoscanner, he cast a glance across the chamber towards the agent who would be accompanying him. A former Commander, if the records were correct, and thought to be dead centuries ago until the distress signal from her time-ring had been picked up from a human galactic freighter orbiting Androzani Minor, with no explanation as to how she had got there.
She hadn't been as fortunate as she had seemed, though. Listlessly, she shuffled together her records, picked up her portable projector, rose and crossed the chamber to the other holoscanner. Riquen couldn't help the flicker of anxiety as she came within arm's length. Her auburn hair was dull and dry, her face was pallid and pinched, and her sunken eyes were glazed from too many administered sedatives, but at least they were free of the colourless static of the infection that was debilitating her further with each regeneration. Levith was dying, and that made her a liability, but she was loyal and well-trained.
Riquen himself appeared hale and hearty in his present regeneration - his eleventh - tall, with an athletic build, olive skin, dark eyes and hair. Young-faced, but that couldn't be helped - there wasn't time to sit in a Zero Room for a controlled regeneration during a Time War.
A beam of crimson light flickered on, and played about the hems of Riquen's and Levith's tunics, before sweeping up and down their bodies repeatedly, faster and faster until it became a humming shimmer that surrounded them, gathering every detail of their appearance and every movement they made. Riquen clipped a microphone to the collar of his tabard, Levith raised the portable projector, and the agents at the desks turned back to their screens and controls.
The TARDIS door slammed shut at the War Doctor's back with a bang, disturbing a fine layer of dust that fell from the TARDIS's exterior. Two steps forward, the lights in the foyer flickered on - revealing not only the derelict state of the once-magnificent space station, but also the figures of the two interventionists who stood side by side on the steps leading up to the old courtroom.
"This is an urgent message for the renegade Time Lord known...formerly...as the Doctor," Riquen announced, the head of his holographic projection appearing to turn towards the TARDIS and the Renegade, but his eyes not quite coming to rest on him. "We are emissaries on behalf of the High Council of Gallifrey. The following message contains details of your mission, and will not be repeated."
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2014 22:37:40 GMT -5
Before the dust even had a chance to settle, he was already scowling intently at the figures. He squinted, watching the motes of light as the danced between them, the words from the figures seeping into his mind. Taking one step after another, he bellowed, "What is the -meaning- of this nonsense!"
Emissaries...High Council! Mission!!!! The words stopped at a logjam of fury in his mouth, nearly choking him. He looked them up and down critically, finally settling on fixing them with a burning glare. Holograms! To add insult to injury, they couldn't even be -bothered- to tell him in person or via secure communique. No, they had instead hijacked his TARDIS and brought him -here- to this dust bin.
"Well, get -on- with it then," he growled in annoyance, punctuated by an impatient wave with both of his hands at them. The dust stirred, revived by his gesticulation. As soon as they'd delivered their piece, the faster he could figure out how they'd snagged his TARDIS and get back to the battle before it was lost.
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Vansell
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I do this gladly...
Posts: 297
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Post by Vansell on Oct 14, 2014 1:04:47 GMT -5
"Complaining, of course," one of the interventionists at the screens muttered. "That's to be expected, I suppose." Eyes still fixed intently on the screen, she tweaked the volume control on her headset with one hand. Behind her, Riquen had half an ear open to the rest of the interventionists' words, on the off-chance that there was something that could cause him to deviate from the plan.
"We know what you want, Doctor," he continued, forcing his voice and that of the hologram to affect a calm, reasonable tone. "What we all want - the end of this terrible War. That can only happen with the complete extermination of every Dalek from history. Now, at last, we may have discovered a way to achieve that - with your help."
Beside him, Levith raised her projector and sketched a command in midair. The dusty, stale air in the space station foyer shimmered in front of her hologram, and an image flickered into view - a solar system, which zoomed in on one planet, and then panned across the landscape. Green seas, lush blue forests, and spiralling honeycomb structures reaching for the sky above the forest canopy - alien buildings of some description, on a world primitive compared to Gallifrey but not without their own civilization and culture.
"You see the planet of Trioebus as it once was, populated by a race of pygmy bipeds called the Gyns'abu. In the third quarter of the 112th span by that planet's reckoning, the planet as you see it was devastated by an apocalyptic solar storm, which wiped out most of the population..." As he spoke, Levith gestured again with the projector, and the image changed, showing a series of stills - a montage of the planet being laid to waste.
"Those who survived this completely natural event in their planet's history became underground-dwellers, safe from the deadly radiation on the surface, but affected nonetheless. A combination of the genetic bottleneck and the mutagenic radiation caused them to rapidly evolve and adapt to their changed environment."
Another gesture from Levith, and the landscapes vanished, replaced with a slowly-revolving 3D image of a figure bizarre by all known Gallifreyan standards, and which Riquen might have found rather distasteful to look at, if he hadn't known what hinged on the creature. It was short and squat, most of its body covered in thick, shaggy black fur, save for elongated, unsettlingly-humanoid hands and its head. The visible skin was the ghastly pallor of sunlight-deprivation, and wrinkled. The eyes took up most of its face - perfectly round, with no visible sclera or iris around the massive black pupils almost permanently dilated for sight in near-total darkness. No ears were present on the sides of the bald head. The rest of the face drew inwards towards a long, trunklike appendage nearly twice the length of its head, fleshy and corrugated, narrowing to a point with no mouth or nostrils at the end - the length of the trunk itself was microscopically honeycombed with pores that took in air and passed it through epithelia of detoxifying cells, filtering out dust and poisons.
"Their visible adaptations, while unique, are by no means the most significant feature of the Gyns'abu. A mutation also occurred in an infective protein of their brains, enabling communication through empathic thought-forms, and as the species lost the ability to communicate through vocalization, selection favoured the persistence of this prion in the population, and thus the adaptation of their brain tissue to tolerate the presence of this prion without damage. The structure and function of this prion was studied once at the Academy, by an Aspirant pursuing the field of biochemistry - several of the creatures were captured, and the protein isolated - but attempts to transfer it to other species and grant them empathic abilities failed, and so the research was all-but-forgotten. Until now."
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Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2014 23:44:49 GMT -5
"A pretty preamble...what do you think that I've been doing? Taking a holiday?"
He scowled. This was really too much. It was virtually propaganda. As if he needed to be reminded what was at stake. Of course, it was a hook to reel him in, appeal to his good graces. Appeal to his natural inclination to help. That they felt that they should tell him what he wanted...of all the arrogant ways to begin a solicitation.
"Perhaps if you'd have bothered to -check- before displacing me here, you would know that I was quite busy trying end the War." He wondered idly what manner of large weapon they felt that he should deploy this time on their behalf. Their methods of achieving ends to the War had, to date, not gotten the Time Lords very far at all. "A simple 'we need your help, please,' might have gone over better. For your future reference," he said in a sarcastic tone.
The lecture began. Suddenly, he was back in his seat during his schooldays listening to lectures about the lesser species, other worlds, history and the Time Lords place in the universe. He'd been curious enough about the unknown species that populated untold worlds then, of course. But the sensation of being bored to tears by otherwise fascinating material seemed to be an innate Time Lord trait that had yet to be loomed or bred out. He forced himself to pay attention, if or the only purpose of being able to detail exactly why he was not about to follow along with the script for their little plan.
Even if the manner of delivery was as dry and stale as a packet of biscuits left to age untouched in the wilds of Gallifrey, he was drawn in by the plight of the aliens on the planet. He'd met many varieties of aliens in his travels but none quite like the Gyns'abu, not before nor after their fantastic transformation at the hands of solar mutations. They were not anything like a shrew, an elephant and an anteater combined into a chimera of sorts, yet he thought briefly of those Earth creatures in passing.
"This is all quite interesting, I assure you. And if I didn't have a battle to complete, I might in my copious spare time allow myself to be drawn in again by the splendor of the universe and its unique ability to continue on, despite the overarching threat of an incomprehensible Time War. But I simply -haven't- and I -do- have a battle to win. So, you'll pardon if I simply say: what the devil has this got to do with me?"
It was all too well rehearsed. There was no haste in it. All he knew now was haste, the continual pressure to win the war, to win it now at all costs. Despite the lip service to the contrary, these two were drawing it out, elaborating on it to the point of embellishment. And for what? "Spit it out and be done with it!"
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Vansell
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I do this gladly...
Posts: 297
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Post by Vansell on Oct 17, 2014 19:53:15 GMT -5
The interventionists at the screen were noting down every protest and interjection that came from the Doctor. None of it would make any difference to their plan, of course, but it was procedure to have a record of everything.
He seemed harried and impatient, they observed. That was good. The mission was urgent, they couldn't deny that - the trembling of the Citadel walls around their base was testament to that. They had bought him a brief reprieve, though; drifting outside time itself, the Space Station Zenobia was the one place where they could take the time to carefully and methodically lay out all of the details of the mission. Behind them, and in the foyer of the Zenobia, Riquen and Levith continued their pre-planned script with only the briefest pause for dramatic effect.
"You know, of course, of the Dalek Pathweb - the artificial telepathic network connecting all Daleks, developed with the knowledge their species gleaned from experimentation with the Apocalypse Element during the battle for Archetryx. You also know that the Daleks consider their greatest strength to be their lack of emotion, and their complete detachment from other species, which allows them to hate without reserve."
This time, the image that Levith brought up was a representation - scattered tiny figures of Daleks suspended in midair, with threads like fine silver hairs arcing between them, zipping backwards and forwards across the space that divided them until they appeared to be hanging from a delicate silver lattice.
"Imagine, then, what might happen if it were possible to chemically interfere with the Pathweb - and enable the Daleks to experience the emotions of the races they wage war against."
Above the silver lattice, a shining speck appeared - a drop of golden light, rather like a fleck of post-regenerative artron energy. It fell, splashing onto one of the silver threads - and from there, it spread rapidly through the represented Pathweb, racing along the threads, splitting at the intersections, contaminating the whole lattice...until it reached the Daleks themselves.
Now, the image of one of the tiny Dalek figures enlarged to become the main focus, just as the golden contaminant drove into its brain like a knife - the righteous golden spear of the Time Lords. The Dalek-figure lowered its ray gun, and its domed head turned this way and that, eyestalk moved up and down, as if it were seeing something strange and intriguing for the first time. There was a pause - and then it visibly convulsed, spinning on the spot, its dome whirling in panic and distress. Its speech-lights lit up, but instead of the pulsing rhythms of their mechanical speech, they remained lit, growing brighter and brighter - one might almost have imagined the creature screaming - before the lights exploded. Moments later, the hemispheres flew from the Dalek's body, surrounding the creature's shell in a sphere which filled with cataclysmic fire and light: the Dalek self-destruct process.
And that righteous spear that would be cast from the Doctor's hand?
"This is what our scientists have discovered. The Dalek Pathweb, designed to make use of the technology and knowledge of other species, will automatically interpret and employ the Gyns'abu prion - and being an artificial construct, will not be damaged by it as other species' brains would."
Again, Riquen paused - not quite for dramatic effect, he told himself, but to give his audience a chance to process the revelation. With a wave of the projector, Levith dispelled the hologram of the dust and smoke of atomized Dalek.
"Unfortunately, Dalek spies revealed our plan to their Emperor before it could be put into action, and the Dalek fleet immediately destroyed Trioebus and time-locked its remains. However...we have located a small band of surviving Gyns'abu who escaped in a primitive shuttle and crash-landed on the planet Sarn."
"As you know, the binary star system of Sarn is currently occupied by the Dalek Emperor. Additionally, retrieving those Gyns'abu and bringing them back to Gallifrey will be made more difficult for you by the fact that the only way to communicate with them is through empathic thought-forms. To that end, we have allocated you a former special agent with attributes that you can make use of in the pursuit of your mission."
The image that Levith brought up was again a lone, revolving figure - a woman this time, a Time Lady, conventionally attractive with her wavy, dark hair, slim build and a hardened look in her dark eyes. After a few turns, the figure morphed into another - smaller, slight of build, with coppery hair hanging to her waist and sea-green eyes.
"She was known to you once. What may not be known to you is that Special Agent Ailla, designation 49232, is a psychic empath, a rare genetic variety of telepath who will be able to communicate with the Gyns'abu. Records also indicate that it has yet to be revealed to you that Ailla is your daughter; you have permission to disclose this to her in order to gain her trust."
Once again, the image was dispelled and replaced. A three-dimensional transparent mesh of a structure now hung in the air - a bulky, ring-shaped shape with a spire jutting out of the centre, and a blinking red dot in one of the sectors that comprised the ring. The red dot moved at Levith's gestures as Riquen spoke, through the model of the old courtroom, through several smaller rooms, down a narrow passage, around the main ring, off down another passage, descended several flights of stairs, and stopped in a large hall, leaving a red thread behind it, mapping the way.
"Special Agent Ailla was put into cryogenic storage many centuries ago. Her pod is now located on this space station. Commit this route to memory, along with the label of the pod, and the following security code to open it." Here, Levith gestured again, and two rows of circles and chords appeared in projected blue writing above the model of the Zenobia. "All of the systems are fully functional - you will find the medical equipment you need for a controlled revival in the next room from that hall."
The hologram of Levith appeared to remain still for several seconds behind her projected images. She blinked slowly, and shook her head - and then her hologram flickered and winked out, and Riquen's hologram glanced to one side, to the spot where she had been, then back in the direction of the Doctor.
"Gallifrey will be grateful for your service," he added - and then, after a glance over the Doctor's shoulder, "Will that do for your 'we need your help, please'?"
And with that, he was gone, his hologram switched off by the interventionists at the desks before the Doctor could see him draw out a modified stasar gun and dart the crackling, raving Levith back in the base at point-blank range with enough tranquilizer to immobilize a hammelhorn.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2014 23:14:40 GMT -5
"Of course, of course I -know- why are you telling me things I already kn--...and it's not a -lack- of emotion, it's that they only can feel one emotion, hate...unending hate, without reserve, anger and aggressiveness and rage...they say 'hullo' with a gunstick blast and 'goodbye' with a gunstick blast; everything to them is an invitation to attack, a provocation just by existing and not being a Dalek. If they -lacked- emotion, they wouldn't be able to hate in perpetuity, united in mind, to denigrate everything else alive in the vastness of the universe. Instead, that is all they can feel...not detachment, you fools...a misguided sense of -superiority- and demented xenophobia..." He broke off abruptly in his rant as Levith was now showing him a display of malevolent pepperpots, hanging on gossamer threads, swimming throughout existence. Unified in their chants to 'exterminate!'
He frowned, the crags in his face darkening. They'd taken these beings who had overcome such disaster and subjected them to tests. As a weapon against the Daleks, to shift their minds..make them susceptible to the suffering they themselves inflicted. It was as ingenious as it was brutal and wholly immoral. Was this, then what they were asking him to do? To deliver and introduce this prion into the Pathweb?
Ah, so they'd not quite got that far, did they? No, they wanted him to capture one of these Gyns'abu, the last of their race. So that they could make them into a weapon! He grit his teeth. The Daleks destroyed their planet, and they'd fled...and now he was to come and take them for experimentation? He wondered who these people thought they were talking to!
Sarn...so long ago. When things were simpler, though he supposed they hadn't felt that way at the time. Ha! Retrieving the Gyns'abu and bringing them back to Gallifrey was going to be made more difficult by the fact he was not going to do it. He was not going to kidnap the remaining members of a dying species and tote them away for Time Lords to toy with them. What lows his people were sinking to, what incredible lows! Perhaps he would save them and find them another planet instead. Find some other way to access this prion.
His thoughts were interrupted by another set of images. To add insult to injury it seemed they were planning on sticking him with someone to look over his shoulder. Again. But no! He felt his eyes widen in recognition, stepping closer to the visage of his daughter, their words nearly washed out against the beating of his hearts. Ailla!
"Yet to be revealed to me!" he bellowed and then fell into a deep, impenetrable silence.
Sentris! Sentris had told him that she was -dead-! His hands closed against his sides, sliding from the images of his daughter and pinning the two C.I.A. agents as if they were mere flies on a corkboard. His outrage was clear in the very angle of his body, the set of his shoulders, the tilt of his head. But instead of a tirade, instead of words he felt it crystalize into a towering rage.
They had no idea! No, they wouldn't, he reminded himself. Sentris, her whole timeline had been erased. It did nothing to quell the anger he felt, still directed towards the two agents that shimmered in the dim near him. His anger sharpened the memory of Ailla's path on the Zenobia, cut it into his mind, carving out the security code, the pod...every detail. Finally, he knew where he was. And what he must do. He would revive Ailla and leave this accursed place! If the Time Lords were to fall so far as this, then he wanted nothing to do with this plan but would instead make another that would be better, one that would actually -work-...
"Grateful. When have -any- of you been grateful for any--"
Before he could say more, the holograms vanished. Just as he thought he couldn't be any more enraged! The audacity...they'd been active the entire time! His fingernails had bitten into his palms. They were gone. Ailla! He blinked once and then hurried for the chamber adjacent for the medical equipment to revive her. He would find her. He'd had enough of the CIA and their -plans.-
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Ailla
16+ Members
"Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones... but you still have to choose."
Posts: 729
"My Doctor" is: My Adonai
My favorite villain is: Koschei Oakdown
My favorite monster is: My beloved Zagreus
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Post by Ailla on Oct 27, 2014 6:10:37 GMT -5
They said that those suspended in cryonic stasis could not dream. They said it was physically impossible, due to the cessation of neuro-chemical processes in the brain.
They lied.
Or perhaps their research had never extended to the consciousness of a psychic empath.
For Ailla, at least, there was no peace in her stasis, no blessed loss of awareness. Her cold, artificial sleep was haunted by an endless myriad of ghosts, pursuing her relentlessly across an icy dreamscape.
Fire. War. Horror. Destruction. Death. Spaceships fighting, people dying, their lungs exploding in vacuum as they screamed and fell away into space. The causal nexus torn asunder, over and over again...
Drawn into her unconscious mind, the translucent images swirled around her, ephemeral and untouchable, like distant voices crying in the wind. Lost and alone, she found herself wandering barefoot, driven on through the howling blizzard by the crystalline memory of a sneering face and eyes that were devoid of the slightest trace of mercy.
“All you ever had was your name, you see - the honey trap, ailla gaiste."
Ailla... Ailla... Wherever she stumbled, her own name went with her, taunting her, spiralling down from the icy mountain crags like an accusation, a constant threnody of blame and betrayal. Ailla... Ailla...
Fire and ice. Ice and fire. None of it real; and yet, all of it real, a seemingly endless torment of her own making.
Until, with the suddenness of a revelation, she was no longer alone. Ahead of her, an indistinct figure stood at the heart of the bleak wasteland, silhouetted against a blaze of refulgent white light, his arm raised, beckoning to her. In the dazzling brightness, she could not make out her rescuer's face, but somehow she knew he was no stranger. Shielding her face against the storm, she took her chance and followed, her tiny footprints erased from the snow by the wind as if they had never been.
And at that moment, lying in the ovoid cryo-pod back on the Zenobia, her jade-green eyes slowly flickered open.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2014 22:13:14 GMT -5
He had followed the curve of the Zenobia, tracing the route in his mind's eye as his steps took him closer. Down the stairs and then into the adjacent chamber. Reviving someone from cryosleep could be dangerous if done improperly, or done too quickly or if some of the equipment had become damaged or defective. Yet, according to the instructions the process itself was very straightforward (assuming nothing went wrong). The irony was not lost on him.
When he first entered the chamber, the lights turned on to a dim glow along the flooring, showing him a cavernous space with cryogenic pods lined in neat rows, up and down, to the dimming horizon. There had been empty pods as he'd passed to get to his daughter, their occupants already awoken for whatever deed the CIA had deemed them capable of accomplishing for their own ends. Yet there were many that held frozen Time Lord lives, perhaps hundreds of lives that he could not spare, that he could not wake from their perpetual slumber. Their cold minds and stilled hearts chilled him as he wound his way to the right pod. Within one particlular white, sterile looking capsule lay the daughter he had been told was dead. How cruel that their meeting should again entail mechanations and maneuvering by the CIA?
Before he had entered in the sequence to begin the thawing process, he had allowed himself a moment to look at her. His hearts were heavy at the thought she would be seeing this face, of all his selves. But there was no help for it. Once the code had been inputted into the panel, the matter became one of waiting.
A warm sounding hum alerted him to the fact that Ailla may be awakening. He peered back at her, waiting to see if she needed any of the post-awakening apparatus that he had nearby, at the ready. Or a blanket, after all that time being cold. It figured that the CIA would leave him items to ensure she could breathe but nothing for comfort. For the first time in his life, in -this- life at least, he could not find the words that he wanted. Perhaps there were no right words for such an occasion. He felt a burning anger towards the CIA and yet deep concern for Ailla, knowing that the next few moments would be one shock after another. He found himself stripping off his battered leather coat, still waiting. This time, waiting for the tidal wave of questions.
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Ailla
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"Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones... but you still have to choose."
Posts: 729
"My Doctor" is: My Adonai
My favorite villain is: Koschei Oakdown
My favorite monster is: My beloved Zagreus
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Post by Ailla on Nov 4, 2014 17:50:28 GMT -5
Disorientation and confusion lurched through her brain. Suddenly, there was no blizzard...no cold mountain pass...no apocalyptic War raging in the heavens above. Instead, she was lying on her back, in a vast room that was both gloomy and silent. Her eyes flickered back and forth, dazed and bewildered. None of it seemed familiar to her. She had no idea where she was or how she had come to be here.
The cold still bit deeply into her bones, as if her body was encased in a shroud of ice. Was she dead? The unsettling thought wandered unbidden into her mind and would not leave. Had the figure that had beckoned to her through the snow been some kind of denizen of the Time Lord afterlife? Had she arrived in hell?
Filled with dread, she struggled to move her arms and legs, only to find herself as weak as a kitten. She exhaled, a stifled sound like a small moan. A great shudder ran through her from top to toe, her small hands clenching helplessly.
Dimly, she became aware that someone was leaning over her. A craggy male face, weathered and lined. Greying hair and beard, a pair of steady greenish-brown eyes, a furrowed brow. She stared up at him, her mind numb and frozen. She knew she had never seen this face before.
But the more she looked, the more the psychic cloister bell situated in the back of her head began to ring. Slowly, the realisation trickled through to her that, even though the man's features were strange to her, the mind behind them was not. All at once, a different face seemed to superimpose itself over the one looking down at her. A man with an untidy mop of black hair, quizzical blue eyes, wearing a battered old frock coat and a bow tie.
A man she had last seen escaping with his companions in his TARDIS, leaving her to face the wrath of the Celestial Intervention Agency alone.
With extreme effort, she parted her blue-tinged lips and managed to force out just one hoarse, strangled, incredulous word.
“Doc...tor.”
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2014 22:15:06 GMT -5
It was strange how one simple word could have so much attached to it; so much meaning, so much history. Meaning and history that he'd felt that he'd stepped away from, turned his back to, walked to the march of a different drummer. A name was a powerful thing, encapsulating a swell of discrete parts, intersecting them into space and time and the whole of the universe. Into memory. Those memories that he had of this woman, of all that she represented, all that he had been told of, and all the regret that followed held his tongue for longer than he would have liked. Longer than she deserved. At last, when it unfroze (as she too was thawing, coming back to life), he felt that he could not begin this with lies or prevarication. Those tools of the past would not serve him now. He'd leave those to the CIA, with their lies of omission and sanitising of history to newer and better versions.
His eyes caught hers, held them and then looked down and away. "That is a name that I no longer am entitled to use. I am not worthy to claim it as mine, yet...yes, I was called by that. Once. Long ago." He looked back up to her, hesitating to continue, unsure where to even begin. Instead, he acknowledged just that. "There is much to be said between us, I know. Including the reason why you have been awoken and why I am here now. Too much that you do not know, that I did not know then all those years ago. But first, you need to warm up." He lay the battered coat over her, hoping to coax warmth through to her. He knew the pod itself should be heating her but it couldn't be rushed otherwise she could be injured.
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Ailla
16+ Members
"Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones... but you still have to choose."
Posts: 729
"My Doctor" is: My Adonai
My favorite villain is: Koschei Oakdown
My favorite monster is: My beloved Zagreus
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Post by Ailla on Nov 12, 2014 17:44:09 GMT -5
"That is a name that I no longer am entitled to use. I am not worthy to claim it as mine, yet...yes, I was called by that. Once. Long ago."
Long ago? Ailla's head felt packed full of cotton wool as she tried to make sense of what he was saying. She had seen him just hours before, on board the Piri Reis, escaping with Jamie and Victoria in his TARDIS. With a different face...a different body...an entirely different state-of-mind. This Doctor felt infinitely older to her empathic senses, infinitely more weary. Clearly, this had to be a future incarnation of the same man. But that was impossible. The Protocols of Linearity required Time Lords to always remain relative to each other within the causal nexus, unless sanctioned by order of the High Council. What in Shada was going on here?
Her questions ached to burst free, like water building behind a dam, but her tongue felt thick and heavy and refused to function.
"There is much to be said between us, I know. Including the reason why you have been awoken and why I am here now,” he continued.
Real fear began to stir inside her at his words. Awoken? What was he talking about? Had she fallen asleep in the CIA interrogation room? It hardly seemed likely. She tried to move her limbs again, but the cold was too intense, and they still would not respond. Her panic deepened, as renewed memories of her frozen dreams began to filter back to her. An endless journey over that icy tundra, searching for something she could never find. Oh gods, what had that old bitch Sentris done to her?
“Too much that you do not know...” the Doctor said, as if reading her frantic thoughts. “...that I did not know then all those years ago. But first, you need to warm up."
He laid something over her, and she realised that it was a coat of some kind, made of worn and battered leather. The warmth of it seeped through to her rime-dusted skin, causing it to tingle, as if she had a bad case of pins and needles.
“Where...am...I?” She finally managed to get her voice to work, but it sounded hoarse and disused, like the creaking of a rusty old gate. “Where's...S...S...Sentris?”
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2014 2:03:26 GMT -5
"Sentris? Coordinator Sentris...dispersed herself through the Oubliette of Eternity."
If only that had been the end of her - but her attempted end had only been the beginning. He frowned, face grim with troubling memories, memories he knew that hardly anyone else shared or could recall. What Sentris had done, what she had caused to happen, could very well take an eternity, if he explained the details. Suffice to say he was less than keen on doing so. With a pang, he thought of Charley - of Zagreus and the madness and strange horrors of the anti-time universe. He hadn't expected Ailla to talk about Sentris of all people. Sentris, meant to be forgotten, timeline erased by the Oubliette, become a Neverperson. How did she recall her? And Sentris, with her casket of anti-time, sent to Gallifrey. The TARDIS had done its best to absorb what it could, but it was too much, leaving him vulnerable, the anti-time consuming him, sitting inside his head...And then after, after all of that, the CIA trying to use Zagreus and his daughter as weapons! He'd tried to distance his thoughts from Zagreus, hoping that he would stay with Omega until the War was through at least. Because if not....
He closed his eyes and told himself to focus. There was too much that had happened, too much to let his mind wander. "What is the last thing you remember, before going to cryosleep?" he asked instead, knowing it was likely that the CIA were listening, watching, even now.
He needed to know where to start, there was so much...so much! An overwhelming anger rose up again. The CIA, such as they were, would never have even told him that Ailla lived, had it not been that they were both useful to them. Did she even know? Did she? As he hadn't, until Sentris told him that she was dead. Or had they not even told her, had they locked her away in here for untold years. All the lies and misdirections left him cautious to believe anything that they had ever told him.
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Ailla
16+ Members
"Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones... but you still have to choose."
Posts: 729
"My Doctor" is: My Adonai
My favorite villain is: Koschei Oakdown
My favorite monster is: My beloved Zagreus
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Post by Ailla on Nov 16, 2014 18:49:42 GMT -5
"Sentris? Coordinator Sentris...dispersed herself through the Oubliette of Eternity."
Shuddering violently as her circulatory system began to return to normal, Ailla could hardly manage to process his words through the chattering of her teeth. The Oubliette of Eternity? But that was a myth, wasn't it? All the children in the Facility had heard tales of it, but none really believed. A legendary device stored in the darkest and most secret depths of the CIA Headquarters, used to disperse criminals convicted of high treason, erasing them from history so that they never existed.
Even if there was such a thing – even if it wasn't just a fairy story designed to frighten recalcitrant children – who in their right mind would ever choose to disperse themselves through it? Especially Sentris, with her cold, hollow, merciless hearts. No, Ailla could never imagine Sentris making that sort of suicidal sacrifice, for any reason.
"What is the last thing you remember, before going to cryosleep?"
The question cut through her thoughts and hit her like a slap across the face. Cryosleep. Of course. As soon as he said the word, everything made complete sense, and she finally understood what must have happened. The icy cold, the haunted dreams, the years she had lost... the evil old harridan had packed her away into deep storage, just in case the Agency had ever needed her again. Like a broken toy they no longer wanted to play with.
“Her face,” she bit out, the words hoarse and jagged with pain. “Looming...over...me - as they held me...down.”
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