ELEVENTH WAVE

[astrogate]

CHARACTERS: any and all
LOCATION: Gravity Couches and beyond
WARNINGS: maybe some swearing, or even some violence, and more than likely some implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness.
SUMMARY: Another month, another jump, another round of new faces.
NOTES: Keeping up with the tradition and copy pasted like always from the last one


You wake up in darkness.


There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're deposited on the floor of a stark, sterile medical bay.

You are not alone.


There are others who have come before you, others who are awakening beside you. Some may be familiar to you, perhaps even friends. Others have much less amiable plans. Some are merely alien and inexplicable, but there are always those who might mean you harm.

After you catch your breath and your vision returns, you notice a number on the inside of your forearm. Maybe it's a familiar number. Maybe it means something. Maybe it's just a number. But the number—completely unique to you—is a tattoo, and it does not come off.

If you enter the room adjacent to the medbay, you will find a small locker with your number on it, surrounded by rows upon rows of identical lockers. Inside, you will find a few of your personal items, a communications device, and a ship's uniform in your exact size. The comms device is fully powered and connects directly to the ship's network; it's your only means of communication beyond physical conversation. Upon turning the device on, a neutral, automated voice will say, "Please take the blue lift to the passenger quarters." Any other attempts at communicating with the rest of the network are met only with static.

This is your welcome party.

Comments

[andyouwill]

[Faintly indignant/appalled] My memory banks have not been altered, insofar as I can tell, and there are a number of failsafes in place. I would greatly prefer to believe that we were taken using a modified Time Scoop, or by an Eternal, than that my internal programming has been compromised.

As I have said, a TARDIS's defenses are formidable, but not impenetrable, and Time Lord technology has progressed a great deal since the Doctor's old Type 40 was commissioned.

[backwardscompatible]

[And now she feels the very rare thrill of true surprise] Are you telling me that you're a Time Lord?

[andyouwill]

[Eyebrow] This surprises you, my dear Ms...? [She'd been tossing out references to "the TARDIS," and he was very nearly positive she was one of the Doctor's pet humans. Why would the presence of another Time Lord be so astonishing?]

[...Oh. Well, naturally. The Master tips his head in wry acknowledgement.] I admit appearances are against it, but this android body was constructed with every attention to detail by myself and the Doctor, for the express purpose of housing my consciousness. [Really, it was much better in some ways than other bodies he'd had the misfortune of having to deal with in the past. (In other ways it was infinitely worse.) He'd been changing forms for so long that although it was still a constant trial and profound frustration not to be inhabiting a real Gallifreyan body of his own, he hardly thought of it as potentially surprising.] I assure you my memories and mental capabilities are intact.

[backwardscompatible]

[The Doctor finds another Time Lord in the future. She's not sure how to feel about that, after so long thinking she was the closest thing to another Time Lord he'd ever find again. It should be impossible, but if there's one thing she's learned in her life it's that there is very little that is impossible.]

Professor, actually. Professor River Song. And I'm sorry, but how did you survive?

[andyouwill]

Survival is rather my specialty, Professor Song. To which life-threatening event do you refer?

[backwardscompatible]

The Time War.

[andyouwill]

...Do you refer to the recent unpleasantness with the Daleks?

[backwardscompatible]

[The beginnings of a hypothesis begin to click into place. Is he from before the War?]

I might, but if we're speaking of the same unpleasantness then where I come from it was far from recent. It's long over.

[andyouwill]

To be sure, there have been no shortage of conflicts between my people and the Daleks. [Thank you for that, Doctor. If you hadn't kept poking at them, or if you'd been sensible and wiped them out when you had the chance during your fourth life...] The unpleasantness to which I refer was a result of the Daleks evolving the ability to use artron energy as a source of power.

[He doubts that will mean much to her. But why wouldn't he have survived?]

[backwardscompatible]

[Details of the Time War are so thin on the ground as to be practically non-existent and she should know, having spent years tracking down every last shred of information the universe had about the Doctor. But even if she did know more, it's clear that this man doesn't know what the Time War was. And the last thing she's about to do is to tell him what's in his future.]

You're right, there have been rather a lot of incidents. We could be here all day trying to work out if we're speaking about the same thing or not when there are far more interesting topics. To begin with, what should I call you?

[andyouwill]

[...He sees that change of subject, Professor Song. But for now he'll allow it, since there are more pressing matters at hand.

Here's the test to see just how well informed this one is.] I am generally referred to as the Master.

[backwardscompatible]

[That wipes the smile from her face. She came across stories of the Master when researching her thesis, enough to have a fair idea of how dangerous he could be. She had been tempted to go back and meet him, but not under circumstances like these.]

I've heard of you. The Doctor built you a body just to stop you from dying?

[It does sound like something he might do... anything to avoid being alone again.]

[andyouwill]

[A gentle curving of his lips, and an unholy light of amusement in his eyes.]

My reputation does at times precede me.

I was of aid to the Doctor during certain...dramatic events. Out of what he claimed was a sense of obligation he offered me this alternative to a slow, painful death. I accepted.

[Pause] Is he here?

[backwardscompatible]

Yes.

And you should know that if you do anything to hurt him, I will kill you. And it will be a slow, painful death.

[The steel in her voice says that she believes herself perfectly capable of carrying out that threat.]

[andyouwill]

Ah.[A small sigh, possibly of satisfaction. Or anticipation. His eyes are dark for a moment before he reengages with the conversation.

Dear me. [The companions have been getting sharper teeth, it seems.] And what would he say to such a threat, do you think, Professor Song?

[backwardscompatible]

I don't much care. I'm afraid you'll find that we're very different people when it comes to the topic of mercy.

[andyouwill]

How very intriguing.

And yet, alas for my curiosity, I currently have no plans to hurt the Doctor. [Always a mistake to make plans in advance of any information, after all. Though if his current regeneration is wearing a particularly ugly coat I cannot guarantee its safety.

[backwardscompatible]

[and just like that, she drops back into casual conversation mode. She's given him his warning and whether he listens to it or not is his business]

It's not the coats you have to worry about with this one, it's the hats. And the bowtie.

[andyouwill]

...Does it have question marks on it? Is it rainbow-colored?

[backwardscompatible]

What sort of person would I be if I let him go out in public like that? No, he usually keeps things to a marginally acceptable level of awful.

[andyouwill]

That is a great and unexpected relief. Usually he's at his worst when I'm not around. I take it I'm not, in your time with him?

He left off the reasonably becoming if inexplicable cricketing gear and changed to the, ah, coat of many colors, checquered tie, and question mark collar directly after burning me alive, you know. Insult to injury.

[backwardscompatible]

Yes, I know. But he hadn't met me yet.

[Actually, he had. But it didn't count if she made sure he didn't remember it]

[andyouwill]

[Very confident of her own abilities and importance to the Doctor, this one.] He attends to your opinions on the subject? In my experience he seeks out whatever clothing he can find in the first day or two after regeneration - however hideous - and imprints on it beyond all that rhyme or reason can say against it.

[backwardscompatible]

Where reason fails, there are other methods. He can't wear it if it's been blasted into its constituent atoms.

[andyouwill]

[Respectful nod.] Indeed.

Are any more of the Doctor's young friends present?