R/Revolution, Chapter One
“Don’t know who he’s trying to fool…” a sharp male voice said.
“Leave that to me,” Rose answered. “I’ll get the necessary information.”
The Doctor woke up to find himself restrained in a chair. He could barely make out Rose’s figure in the doorway. Whoever she was talking to was walking away, cloaked in a bright white lab coat.
“Just be careful,” the man was saying. “Your interrogation techniques are a little…unorthodox. I’m trusting you, Agent R.”
Rose let her tongue poke out from her teeth as she whirled around, closing the door behind her.
“Doctor,” she sang invitingly. “Time to wake up.”
The Doctor squinted past a brilliant white light hanging down over him. Rose slinked toward him and mounted his lap while pulling on his tie. The room was barren, little more than a concrete enclosure. There was nothing to focus on other than her.
“Can you hear me, Doctor?” she asked close to his ear.
He moaned and shook his head at the sound, aching slightly.
“That was a nasty treat,” he complained as his voice rumbled low in his chest.
Rose smiled lightly and lifted his chin with her finger, angling his face up to hers.
“That’s why you shouldn’t take things without asking,” she scolded.
The Doctor breathed in sharply as Rose squeezed his legs between hers and rested her hands on either side of his face.
“So beautiful,” she whispered as she observed his light freckles and dark brown eyes. “So like him.”
“I am him,” the Doctor said urgently. “Believe me, please. I’ve crossed the last barrier between our universes, Rose. I’ve done the impossible to get back to you.”
“I thought that would rip the fabric of space-time,” Rose answered with bitterness in her voice.
“Should’ve done,” he agreed. “But I guess I got lucky. I’ve always tended to be that way…til now. My Rose Tyler’s turned into some psychotic, steroid-addled assassin. Not quite what I was hoping for.”
“What you were hoping for?” Rose asked with fire in her eyes. “Did it occur to you that you lost your say after you abandoned me in an alternate universe?”
Her grip tightened around his face, and she dragged her fingers into his hair, pulling hard.
“You left me,” she growled. "Or rather...he did."
“I did,” the Doctor answered evenly. His eyes watered slightly. “I’d do it again. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”
The Doctor felt his fingers twitch, signaling that some life was coming back into his nerves. Slowly, he began to work free of the rope restraints while Rose was distracted.
Rose sniffed and rested her forehead on his briefly before distancing herself and letting her fingers fall down to caress his chest.
“Do I look safe to you?” she asked, completely vulnerable for a moment. Her hazel eyes sparkled with unshed tears, and the Doctor felt his hearts clench.
“This place is a nightmare,” she continued. “I’ve done nothing but fight for my life since I came here. I’ve even taken lives, when necessary. I’m not the same person that I was. And I never will be again.”
The Doctor sensed his moment of opportunity, and thrust up from the chair with enough force to send Rose flying backward. He grabbed her by the waist and toppled her over his bent knee, so that she landed on the ground with her hands behind her. Using the loose rope, the Doctor wrapped here wrists together. In mere seconds, she was bound and helpless on the floor.
“You bloody bastard!” she screamed. She thrashed on the ground but was caught under the Doctor’s surprisingly strong hold.
“Now that’s enough,” he scolded angrily. “I’ll not have you rude on top of everything else. You listen to me Rose Tyler, and listen well, because I’m going to do this with or without you. I know your history because I was in it, but I know that isn’t enough for you. I’ve got to prove my identity, and even then, it looks like I’ve got a long way to go before I earn your trust again. Unfortunately, I don’t have time for that right now. And I can’t afford to spend the next several days locked in an interrogation room, while everything out there goes to hell.”
“You’re not exactly winning me over here,” Rose growled back, trying to mask some of her fear.
“Rose,” the Doctor said more gently, “I know that I deserve to suffer for all I’ve done, but believe that I have suffered without you.”
Rose stilled beneath him and looked up with frightened eyes and he leaned closer and placed one finger on her cheek.
“My life without you has been pain. Pain in a way that I never thought possible…not the kind I was used to. I walked a dark path without you, Rose. I’ve done unforgiveable things, but that was for me to bear. I’d never anticipated that you would be forced to do the same. My Rose…you should never have suffered. I wanted you to have a fantastic life...”
Rose went limp in his arms and hiccupped softly as he tightened his grip on her. When he pulled away, he could see the tears streaming down her face.
“I want to do this with you,” he said softly. “But I don’t think that’s possible right now. I’m going to find out what the hell happened here, and see what I can do to set it right. When you see me again, maybe I’ll have proved myself…”
Rose tightened under his arms, and her face turned to stone before his very eyes. Her red hair fell loosely around her shoulders, making her look like living fire.
“When I see you again,” Rose breathed, “I am going to kill you. So you’d better run fast and far…Doctor.” Her emphasis on the last word reinforced her disbelief in his identity, much to the Doctor’s despair.
“Gonna need this,” he said in a low voice as he unclasped her utility belt. Inside were the security cards he’d need to escape the facility. “But I can’t have you chasing after me or warning the guards.”
Rose braced herself and shut her eyes tight, anticipating a bruising blow, but it never came. Instead the Doctor pulled her up to meet his face, and kissed her forehead tenderly.
“I would never,” he breathed outwardly, “And you know it.”
Rose blinked in surprise as the Doctor fumbled in his pockets instead, producing a tiny spray bottle that he aimed over her face.
“Amplified Melatonin mined from Yanacoca Seven,” he explained. “You won’t even suffer a hangover. Sweet dreams, Rose Tyler.”
“Wait,” she tried to argue. “You don’t know what you’re doing…”
The last thing she felt was a fine mist dancing over her face.
**
The Doctor swiped a white lab coat from just outside the room, and made his way through the long hallway with his head down. Thankfully, Rose had taken the time while he was unconscious to wipe the blood from his face, making him less conspicuous. As he maneuvered through a series of unguarded doors before him, he passed a few people who were deep in conversation. He tried to catch bits of information as he went.
“That must be Vitex’s latest addition,” one woman was saying. “They’ve been mixing it directly into the water supply.”
“More thought control,” a man next to her added as he looked over a confidential file. “The people are little more than puppets with this stuff in their system.”
He moved into a nearby room when the couple turned toward him, and found himself inside a hasty laboratory set up around a central monitor, where a woman with bright orange hair was delivering a briefing.
“R complex is much more elegant than its predecessors,” she was explaining. “You’ll find the molecular structure to be based around a double helix, so that the chemicals are delivered directly into the cerebral cortex via DNA.”
“What can you tell us about Agent J?” one of the scientists asked hopefully. “Was he able to infiltrate Tyler’s facility and corner the genome experiment?”
The woman on the screen lowered her head and sighed. “Agent J has been terminated. We’re starting over from scratch, but next time, we’ll be more careful. Tyler’s operatives are getting smarter. We’re going to have to do the same.”
The Doctor slid through the room undetected, and made his way into a larger area divided into several cubicles. In each were various agents making and receiving communications that the Doctor assumed were to other operatives in the field. The buzzing of their voices made distinguishing any individual person impossible, so the Doctor found himself drawn to a large symbol at the front of the room instead.
A huge red “V” with a line drawn through it was painted directly onto the wall, and mimicked the pattern and texture of blood. The Doctor was staring at it so intently that he hardly noticed a mousy young woman who had come to stand beside him.
“S’ beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked him.
The Doctor shot her a wary glare and shifted closer.
“How’s that?” he asked gravely.
“Because it represents our freedom,” the woman responded meekly, a little afraid at the Doctor’s overbearing attitude. “Real freedom. It allows me to imagine a world without Pete Tyler and Vitex…all of those horrible things. One day we’re going to take back this world, and bring an end to tyranny.”
“And who are you then?” the Doctor asked while ruminating over Pete’s apparent defection to the dark side. He wondered about poor Jackie’s fate alongside him. It was no wonder Rose had gone rogue.
“Just another revolutionary,” the woman said, bringing him back to the present. “We don’t use names in the hub.”
She pointed directly behind her to implicate the room.
“I can tell you’re from another section,” she explained, looking at his coat. “Must be research and development, am I right?”
“Exactly,” the Doctor bluffed. “But…no names? Why is that?”
“Because every time you get to know someone…they disappear. Tyler’s rounding up more and more of us everyday. Who knows what happens to them? Probably become experiments in his lab. But I’ve got big plans, me. I’m going to work my way up to the elite squad, and take on Pete Tyler directly. There’s only five of them, though, so it’s going to be a lot of hard work.”
The Doctor looked her up and down approvingly.
“So what do you call yourself then?” he asked.
“I’m known as Agent A,” the woman responded as she reached out her hand.
The Doctor shook it and smiled disarmingly. “Well Agent A, I wish you best of luck. Oh, and can you point me toward the exit? I’ve gotten a little turned around down here.”
Agent A smiled back and directed him toward the other end of the room.
“Just up those stairs,” she said cheerfully. “You’ll recognize your way out from there.”
She held up two fingers and made a slashing movement with the pointer finger on her opposite hand before walking away. The Doctor assumed it was a covert sign used between agents of the revolution. He tried to mimic the gesture with his own hands before turning to walk the way she’d indicated.
When he passed the main security door, the Doctor found himself outside in an abandoned alley. He immediately shed his white lab coat and dropped it into a nearby dumpster. He assumed he'd only have a few hours before Rose woke up, and he'd better get some answers before she came looking for him. Her threat still lingered in his mind, and haunted his continuing steps as he made his way from the hidden facility.
He shuddered against the cold night made colder by such disconcerting thoughts and flipped his collar up before disappearing into the darkness.
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