the sun is here today, but I requested a storm

[sortofaman]

Life had not seemed to go the Doctor's way lately, which was less that it hadn't gone well and more that it had gone entirely too well, was almost good to the point of complacency. Even so, something was hiding under the surface, always just lurking there and ready to emerge. Yeah, people came and people went, and apparently some mass

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[polly_okeefe]

What on earth was that noise? Whatever it was, it seemed insistent. Curiosity got the better of me, and I stepped off the path and made my way through the jungle. I realized that I was heading for the treehouse when I heard another sound beneath the everpresent 'ding's -- the sound of someone swearing.

When I emerged into the clearing, I wasn't particularly surprised to see the Doctor there.

"Your, um, thing seems to be trying to tell you something," I said, giving him a wry grin.

[sortofaman]

"How astute, Miss O'Keefe," the Doctor replied, though not with any vitriol, just some slight frustration. He looked up at her, brows raised in exasperation at the detector, then jammed the switch again.

It kept dinging. And dinging.

"It's telling me that we're all in a spot of bother. Like it'll be if it doesn't.shut.up."

[polly_okeefe]

I came up to into the Treehouse, popping my head into the entrance, and saw the Doctor staring down his device. Or trying to. I looked around at the mess of tools and parts and came up with something he might be able to use.

I held out a hammer.

[sortofaman]

ding. ding. ding.

The Doctor looked slightly reluctant to take the hammer, but then the dinging seemed to get just a bit louder and a touch more frequent.

"Percussive maintenance. A good thought, Polly." He tapped the switch with the hammer, then harder when it didn't work.

[misanthrope_md]

House glared at the Doctor just as the thing pointed right at him, still dinging. And dinging. And dinging.

"And just when I thought you couldn't possibly come up with more ways to annoy me," he said irritably.

[sortofaman]

"You seem to be emitting quite a bit of artons, Greg," said the Doctor, who looked marginally less annoyed when House appeared, looking terribly miffed. "You should really have yourself looked at for that, I didn't know there was a dimensional rift in Princeton. Explains a bit about New Jersey though."

[misanthrope_md]

House just crinkled his nose, looking at the Doctor like he'd lost his mind. "God, somehow you just keep getting weirder."

[sortofaman]

The Doctor shrugged. "Maybe I was always this weird and you just never processed it. Genius or savant or whatever, you're only human."

The device dinged almost in punctuation.

[dr_robchase]

Chase heard the sound and abruptly grasped Nate up from what they were doing (which had been a rousing game of blocks and an attempt at learning certain medical terms) and was outside before he even realized that the Doctor had a hand in the noise. "Please tell me that's just some weird alarm and not a bomb?"

[sortofaman]

"It's a bit too cheerful a ding for a bomb, really," said the Doctor, who had set the timey-wimey device on the table while he stood and observed it from above, hands behind his back. "Unless you were being bombed by a mass of primary school teachers. Rather Kubrickian."

He frowned at it, then looked up at Chase and shrugged. "It detects stuff. Time anomaly stuff. And apparently we are all swimming in it."

[dr_robchase]

"That's..." Chase made a slight face that involved his forehead, nose, and lips looking pinched before it fell away. "Oddly reassuring and disturbing at the same time," he admitted. "So, what," he joked mildly. "Does that mean I'm dripping in it too, because I feel pretty good after having been all of like, five years old the other year."

[sortofaman]

"Probably." The Doctor was internally quite amused by the face, but he didn't let on. "It doesn't really affect anyone, not directly, it doesn't pickle your brain or anything. It's just startling that it's this thick and indistinguishable. Like fog. Pea soup fog."

[captainjack]

"Oh, no way," Jack exclaimed, drawn to the device that was dinging. As he reached out to touch it, it dinged again...twice.

"Is this what I think it is?" he asked, looking over at the Doctor.

[sortofaman]

"Depends on what you think it is," said the Doctor, who was looking a bit dinged out, really. "Also that whatever the Time Agency uses for temporal transit doused you in a metric shittonne of artrons.

"Metric shittonne being a technical term, by the way."

[captainjack]

"An artron detector? You made an artron detector?" he asked, picking the device up. It kept dinging and finally Jack had to put it down and walk away from it.

"I think I got a little more than a metric shittone...but not half as much as you. "

[sortofaman]

The dinging for Jack almost sounded like a tango, and the Doctor wondered if Jack could even charm that level of machine. "It's set to ignore me. And yes, I'm following the scientific method, try not to pass out."

[scottysous]

Whatever that sound is, Scotty wants it to stop. Sure, it's a new and different noise to hear out in the jungle -- whose sounds he's still getting used to -- but it's also downright annoying. It reminds him vaguely of microwaves beeping insistently when they're done, which is a noise that always prompts Scotty into action.

On a mission, Scotty wanders off the path and tries to follow the source of the noise, and once he does, he stops and sets his hands on his hips. Quirking an eyebrow, he nods at the beeping... thing, flicking his gaze up to the stranger.

"I think something wants your attention."

[sortofaman]

"Wow," said the Doctor, utterly deadpan, as he looked up over his shoulder from where he was zapping the living daylights out of the device with his sonic screwdriver. "You know, mate, I never would have guessed that in a million trillion aeons."

He turned back, cursed under his breath, and reset the sonic to a different level. The dinging now was slightly syncopated.

[scottysous]

Scotty watches for another minute, unruffled at the sarcastic retort, more fascinated with the... thing in the person's hands. More curious now than 'tude-y, he drops his hands from his hips and steps forward, his brow furrowing.

"What is that? Is it supposed to be making at that noise? ... it's not a bomb, is it?" he adds, just in case.

[sortofaman]

"You don't half ask questions, do you?" noted the Doctor, who was probably a bit less patient than usual, all things considered. Human nerves now. Human nerves that went on edge when things Kept On Bloody Dinging.

"It's complicated, yes but not this much, and no--why the hell would I be making a bomb in the middle of the jungle anyhow."