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

[meddler]

[ For perhaps one brief moment, the Doctor almost gives his arch-nemesis a playful smile. Or rather, as playful of a smile as anyone can give when they're talking to an android version of their arch-nemesis from an alternate universe. ] Somehow, I just knew you'd say that. I'll have my eye out for the unusual as well.

[ But, back to more pressing matters. Since the Time War (with the exception of that one uninvited occasion, the Doctor hasn't let another fully into his mind. Oh, there was Reinette and Craig, but that was different.

Regardless, actions did speak louder than words, and what better place to start than with four simple beats.

Tap tap tap tap. ]

[andyouwill]

[Really, the Master would have been surprised if he had been let in entirely. The Doctor was often naive, but when he wasn't having one of his miserable self-destructive episodes he did possess some sense of self-preservation, at least with regard to the Master.

So this wary half-permission was all very well. Except: what the sepulchasm was that supposed to mean?

A Gallifreyan heartsbeat? The Morse code for "H"? The opening notes to "Love Is Like A Bottle of Gin" or a Venusian waltz?

There were few things the Master liked less than admitting ignorance to the the Doctor, but he couldn't help but be curious about why four beats were so significant.

He pushed an annoyed, baffled ? back as reply.]

[meddler]

[ Maybe he should've expected that reply. An alternate universe where the Time War didn't quite happen would mean that the time lords didn't quite have a reason to send the transmission back, which meant...

No drums. No drums, and the Master still seemed to have done everything exactly as he had. Or maybe he never heard them until the Time War. Always and never. Wibbily wobbily and all that.

But no. Back to everything at hand.

Of course, the Doctor wasn't eager to give everything away, but he does have an answer for the Master. A memory (from another lifetime, when he was even skinnier, and a bit older-looking) of a half-dead half-madman that he was sure not to be overly thrilled about.

But he might as well hear it from his own mouth.

It hurts, Doctor. The noise. The noise in my head, Doctor. One two three four, one two three four, one-two-three-four! Stronger then ever before. Can't you hear it?

Tap tap tap tap.

The Time Lords had tricked them both. ]

[andyouwill]

["Not overly thrilled" would be one way of putting it, yes.

The Master takes that memory and all its implications in for a moment. His psychic control is too good for whatever he's feeling in reaction to bleed over into the Doctor's consciousness, but the speed and harshness with which he slams his mental shields back in place and breaks the connection in the next moment is fairly telling.

He stares, impassive, at the Doctor. The Master is suddenly more than ready for this conversation to be over. There are doubtless many matters that will need attending to in settling in on the ship.

One in particular, in fact.] There is something I am obliged to give you, having found myself outside the confines of our TARDIS. [His tone is distant and indifferent.]

[meddler]

[ He might have expected that reaction. At the very least, the Doctor hoped that it all but ensured the Time War wouldn't be brought up again for some time (and all that came with it). But, given the sort of men that the both of them were, he knew that eventually, he'd have to face that particular truth again.

But he might just run from it as long as he can. ]

What is it?

[ And he might just be a little bit more shaken up than usual as well. Any discussion about the Time War is bound to take it out of him ]

[andyouwill]

You placed a number of conditions on your offer to construct a body for me to inhabit. This was the first, and non-negotiable.

[He abstracts from one of his suit pockets a small, black remote control, equipped with a single button and a little red light.]

Your programming of my electronic brain was quite clear on this point. I am not capable of leaving the TARDIS by my own will. In the event, however, that I am somehow nevertheless removed from her confines, I must attempt to locate you - or a version of you - and present you with this control, explaining its function and the rules connected to its use.

[He holds it out on the flat of his hand, like a sweet to a child or a dagger to the murderer half of a murder-suicide pact. The recitation goes on, dispassionate.] If no version of you appears to be in attendance, I am required to seek out any of your companions who may be present and offer it, and my services to them. The parameters for the explanation I am to give differs slightly for them than for you, though the essentials remain the same.

Failing that, I must use it to switch myself off.

[meddler]

Well, I'd hope that I did. [ Given the Master's penchant for... destroying parts of the universe, or attempting to rule it (sometimes both at the same time), it'd only make sense for his... counterpart to do something to curve that tendency.

Though he cannot help but imagine how difficult that must be for the Master, as he listens on.

But, in the long run, it was very definitely for the best. ]

So... you're just giving it to me?

[ That was the gist of it, clearly. But, he couldn't help but think that there was some kind of catch. Robotic body designed by himself or no, the Master still was the Master.

And if the Doctor knew anything, he knew that he had a habit of getting himself out of sticky situations. ]

[andyouwill]

[You really can't imagine how difficult it is for the Master, Doctor, but you are cordially invited to try.

If anything the Master's expression has just gotten more pleasantly blank, but the ambient temperature figuratively drops another several degrees. And it was already pretty figuratively icy.] I don't think you quite grasp the phrase "your programming of my electronic brain," my dear. Or the word "must."

Only you are permitted to make changes to my behavioral commands. [Because obviously the first thing the Master would have changed for himself would be that condition, and however determined his Doctor had been never to take on another human companion, obviously he couldn't have the Master just conning the first new person they came across into doing a little creative rewiring.

Oh, and of course the Master had tried many approaches to overcome this little problem, and had many more still up his sleeve. But his Doctor had a lot of free time to foil his live-in Master's schemes, and very little compunction about switching him off whenever it was necessary or convenient.

He'd have to see how this iteration of the Doctor compared. But since the immediate alternative was to give him the remote or face automatic systems shutdown...

Blandly courteous, and still holding it out, like a salesman giving a scripted product demo he's not all that keen on:] Do you understand the remote control's features as I have explained them to you, Doctor?

[meddler]

[ It is... a lot to take in, if he's being perfectly honest. Alternate universe, Android Master (living in the TARDIS), Time Lords alive. It almost sounded like a better universe.

Almost. But, the Doctor wasn't going to let his thoughts get the better of him just yet. No, back to the conversation at hand. ]

Of course. I know you. So, it only makes sense that I... he... me [ Tenses are rather troublesome at times. You know how it is. ]... I'd be the only one. And don't think I'd change anything. Can't have you going out trying to take over the universe again, can I?

[ The Doctor's just about to take it, when a thought crosses his mind. ]

If I say "no", do you have to repeat all that again?

[ But thankfully for you, Master, if that happens to be the case, the Doctor is not a sadist by any stretch of the imagination.

Probably. ]

[andyouwill]

[That universe's Doctor wouldn't agree with you, and the Master would be amused by that assessment given the amount of time he has to deal with a drunken, morose TARDISmate loudly proclaiming that he's not going to be at the beck and call of the Time Lords and the Celestial Intervention Agency any longer, damn them.

But the Time War is probably unimaginable for anyone who didn't live through it. This Master hasn't quite figured out that Gallifrey is gone, since a civilization that's controlled the universe for a hundred million years seems pretty unassailable to one of its children, however estranged. (Well, there was that time he was going to destroy it himself in order to extend his life, but the Master wasn't really at his best just then.)

But something has happened, something involving a Time Lock, something that made River Song astonished to meet him and put that weariness in this Doctor's eyes. And ...damaged... his counterpart somehow. The Master is torn between curiosity and a suspicion that he might really not want to know, and suspects he now has another reason to hate his own species and his oldest friend. As though he needed one.

Nevermind all that for now. He can think of it later, when he is alone.

In response to his second question, the Doctor gets a flat look. ...No.

Do you have any questions, Doctor, relevant to the remote, my programming, or my functions?