Doctor Who: "Two Legacies" (10/12)
Title: Two Legacies
Author: Poetry
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Characters: Jack, Ten, Martha, OCs
Summary: Jack must find the Chameleon Arch before it falls into the wrong hands. Along the way, he encounters fragments from his past.
Previous chapters here.
"Death is a dialogue between
The spirit and the dust.
'Dissolve,' says Death. The Spirit, 'Sir,
I have another trust.'"
- Emily Dickinson
"I won't tell you," spat Martha. "Why don't you ask one of your experiments?" She looked at the poor, suffering creatures who wore pieces of her flesh like burning chains. The stronger ones, the ones who could coordinate their twisted limbs, threw themselves at the plexisteel walls of their cages; whether it was an attempt to escape or to end their suffering, Martha didn't know. The weaker ones lay in contorted heaps, gasping their misery if their vocal cords were whole enough.
"Their minds are incomplete." Garet stood beside the stretcher to which Martha was chained, speaking with infuriating calm. "The neural template is present, but on a fundamental level, they retain their consciousness. They know how you think and feel, but they know on a fundamental level that they are not Martha Jones. Your memories are distant to them, stories from someone else's life. I need the information from you."
Like John Smith, Martha thought. The Doctor was always there, just beneath the surface. "Why me?" she said, just to keep him talking, to keep him from using any of the cruel instruments that glinted on a tray at the foot of the stretcher.
"You were the simplest to imprint. In the device's data banks, there was a fabricated template. Vastly inferior to using a true personality, but it contained knowledge of you. Since the device had imprinted a part of you before, it was better at reconstructing you than any of the others." At last, a note of emotion colored Garet's tone. It was complacence. "I have learned much from my experiments. I learned to add elements to the neural template, such as the ability to speak my language. I can also produce perfect replicas of you at will. Therefore, there is no need to be delicate with this interrogation. Should you die in the process, I shall simply create another copy of you."
Suddenly, Martha wondered if she wasn't the first. Maybe she was just another successor in a long line of Marthas, each one yielding new information as Garet's torture methods became more and more effective. She shuddered, then hated herself for the show of fear. "Why are you telling me this?"
"It is to show you that any attempt to withhold information is useless." Garet's multifaceted eyes were blank and inscrutable as he retrieved from the tray a vial of liquid that Martha knew from UNIT training would make her go slowly and painfully blind. "I repeat the question. To whom does the triple-stranded DNA belong?"
"How should I know?" Martha bluffed. She tried to banish from her head the diagrams from medical training of what the yellow liquid would do to her eyes.
"The biodata was collected regularly over the course of centuries. The evidence suggests that it is the DNA of the device's owner. Who is it?" He tilted the vial so that its contents glittered amber in the dim light.
"He's the Doctor," said Martha, her voice suddenly as even as Garet's. "Look him up. Then run far, far away, because when he finds out what you've done - " Garet produced a syringe from the tray and jabbed it in her arm. The world became small, fuzzy, and dark.
What came next could have been dreams or hallucinations; Martha's thoughts were too muddled to know the difference. A thousand strangers who wore her face were all whispering at the same time, but she couldn't make out what any of them were saying. She shrank to the size of a dandelion seed and floated on the wind forever.
Heaviness weighted her, and Martha was fettered to the ground again. She awoke with a tiny sob. Her dreams were cold and dark, but at least he wasn't there. Once the fog in her mind dissipated, she could make out Garet saying, "The Time Lord is dead."
"You're wrong," said Martha. Her words emerged painfully from her cracked lips. "He's centuries old. He's immortal. Better start running, Garet."
"I have researched this Doctor. He was not immortal." There was something new in Garet - from the way he gnashed his mandibles, Martha guessed it was hunger. "He was something very near it, however. It is thought that he was well over a millennium old when he died."
"He's not dead!"
"Sorry, Martha," said Garet, cool and clipped. "The Doctor will not rescue you. He died on the planet Emmeras some time ago. Your information was valuable, however. You might say I have a reward for you today. I will show you someone I believe you know well." His legs clicked against the sterile floor as he left the room.
Martha trembled with the effort not to cry in front of the alien. Garet never lied to her, not once. She wanted to believe that this was the exception, but her gut was sick with the feeling that it was true. The Doctor is dead, she thought. It sounded like an inherent falsehood, like saying that two plus two equals five.
Garet with another stretcher in tow. There was a human figure on it, covered by a sheet. It wasn't one of the experiments; its outline was smooth and whole. Garet parked the stretcher next to Martha's and pulled off the sheet. Her breath caught. "Cor Thal. Abraxas. Lucilius. Captain Jack Harkness. Judging by your physiological response, your friend."
Jack was still breathing; Martha guessed that he got the drug she did. She fought the urge to be sick as Garet leaned down and caressed her friend's face with his antennae. The fact that Jack might have enjoyed the contact under very different circumstances only made it worse. Slowly, Garet pulled away. "Is it true? Is he immortal?"
"I'm not telling you anything about Jack." She watched him breathe. "Oh God, he's going to kill you. Horribly." The thought of her smiling, caring Jack, tearing Garet apart limb by limb -
"I could find out." Garet held a scalpel to Jack's jugular. "Or you could tell me."
A leaden sense of futility crawled through Martha's veins."You don't know what it's like," she whispered. "He told me. He's had to watch his lovers die, his family. Everything he cares about just fades away."
"I have no family." Garet's voice went feather-soft. "I have only my life." He pressed the scalpel to Jack's jugular, and watched with serene calm as the life's blood ebbed out onto the stretcher and the floor. Martha raged and cried and strained against her chains. It made no difference. If the Doctor was dead, who could save them?
Garet kept silent vigil over the body for what felt like eternity. He didn't come back to life.
"I believe my biodata is incomplete. Tell me, Martha," said Garet, clasping the vial of blinding fluid in a pincer. "How can I trap the immortal?"
Next chapter here.
Author: Poetry
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Characters: Jack, Ten, Martha, OCs
Summary: Jack must find the Chameleon Arch before it falls into the wrong hands. Along the way, he encounters fragments from his past.
Previous chapters here.
"Death is a dialogue between
The spirit and the dust.
'Dissolve,' says Death. The Spirit, 'Sir,
I have another trust.'"
- Emily Dickinson
"I won't tell you," spat Martha. "Why don't you ask one of your experiments?" She looked at the poor, suffering creatures who wore pieces of her flesh like burning chains. The stronger ones, the ones who could coordinate their twisted limbs, threw themselves at the plexisteel walls of their cages; whether it was an attempt to escape or to end their suffering, Martha didn't know. The weaker ones lay in contorted heaps, gasping their misery if their vocal cords were whole enough.
"Their minds are incomplete." Garet stood beside the stretcher to which Martha was chained, speaking with infuriating calm. "The neural template is present, but on a fundamental level, they retain their consciousness. They know how you think and feel, but they know on a fundamental level that they are not Martha Jones. Your memories are distant to them, stories from someone else's life. I need the information from you."
Like John Smith, Martha thought. The Doctor was always there, just beneath the surface. "Why me?" she said, just to keep him talking, to keep him from using any of the cruel instruments that glinted on a tray at the foot of the stretcher.
"You were the simplest to imprint. In the device's data banks, there was a fabricated template. Vastly inferior to using a true personality, but it contained knowledge of you. Since the device had imprinted a part of you before, it was better at reconstructing you than any of the others." At last, a note of emotion colored Garet's tone. It was complacence. "I have learned much from my experiments. I learned to add elements to the neural template, such as the ability to speak my language. I can also produce perfect replicas of you at will. Therefore, there is no need to be delicate with this interrogation. Should you die in the process, I shall simply create another copy of you."
Suddenly, Martha wondered if she wasn't the first. Maybe she was just another successor in a long line of Marthas, each one yielding new information as Garet's torture methods became more and more effective. She shuddered, then hated herself for the show of fear. "Why are you telling me this?"
"It is to show you that any attempt to withhold information is useless." Garet's multifaceted eyes were blank and inscrutable as he retrieved from the tray a vial of liquid that Martha knew from UNIT training would make her go slowly and painfully blind. "I repeat the question. To whom does the triple-stranded DNA belong?"
"How should I know?" Martha bluffed. She tried to banish from her head the diagrams from medical training of what the yellow liquid would do to her eyes.
"The biodata was collected regularly over the course of centuries. The evidence suggests that it is the DNA of the device's owner. Who is it?" He tilted the vial so that its contents glittered amber in the dim light.
"He's the Doctor," said Martha, her voice suddenly as even as Garet's. "Look him up. Then run far, far away, because when he finds out what you've done - " Garet produced a syringe from the tray and jabbed it in her arm. The world became small, fuzzy, and dark.
What came next could have been dreams or hallucinations; Martha's thoughts were too muddled to know the difference. A thousand strangers who wore her face were all whispering at the same time, but she couldn't make out what any of them were saying. She shrank to the size of a dandelion seed and floated on the wind forever.
Heaviness weighted her, and Martha was fettered to the ground again. She awoke with a tiny sob. Her dreams were cold and dark, but at least he wasn't there. Once the fog in her mind dissipated, she could make out Garet saying, "The Time Lord is dead."
"You're wrong," said Martha. Her words emerged painfully from her cracked lips. "He's centuries old. He's immortal. Better start running, Garet."
"I have researched this Doctor. He was not immortal." There was something new in Garet - from the way he gnashed his mandibles, Martha guessed it was hunger. "He was something very near it, however. It is thought that he was well over a millennium old when he died."
"He's not dead!"
"Sorry, Martha," said Garet, cool and clipped. "The Doctor will not rescue you. He died on the planet Emmeras some time ago. Your information was valuable, however. You might say I have a reward for you today. I will show you someone I believe you know well." His legs clicked against the sterile floor as he left the room.
Martha trembled with the effort not to cry in front of the alien. Garet never lied to her, not once. She wanted to believe that this was the exception, but her gut was sick with the feeling that it was true. The Doctor is dead, she thought. It sounded like an inherent falsehood, like saying that two plus two equals five.
Garet with another stretcher in tow. There was a human figure on it, covered by a sheet. It wasn't one of the experiments; its outline was smooth and whole. Garet parked the stretcher next to Martha's and pulled off the sheet. Her breath caught. "Cor Thal. Abraxas. Lucilius. Captain Jack Harkness. Judging by your physiological response, your friend."
Jack was still breathing; Martha guessed that he got the drug she did. She fought the urge to be sick as Garet leaned down and caressed her friend's face with his antennae. The fact that Jack might have enjoyed the contact under very different circumstances only made it worse. Slowly, Garet pulled away. "Is it true? Is he immortal?"
"I'm not telling you anything about Jack." She watched him breathe. "Oh God, he's going to kill you. Horribly." The thought of her smiling, caring Jack, tearing Garet apart limb by limb -
"I could find out." Garet held a scalpel to Jack's jugular. "Or you could tell me."
A leaden sense of futility crawled through Martha's veins."You don't know what it's like," she whispered. "He told me. He's had to watch his lovers die, his family. Everything he cares about just fades away."
"I have no family." Garet's voice went feather-soft. "I have only my life." He pressed the scalpel to Jack's jugular, and watched with serene calm as the life's blood ebbed out onto the stretcher and the floor. Martha raged and cried and strained against her chains. It made no difference. If the Doctor was dead, who could save them?
Garet kept silent vigil over the body for what felt like eternity. He didn't come back to life.
"I believe my biodata is incomplete. Tell me, Martha," said Garet, clasping the vial of blinding fluid in a pincer. "How can I trap the immortal?"
Next chapter here.