Doctor Who - 02 - The Art of Forgetting

.7. Into a Slumber

The Doctor bent down over the game bed, quizzically scanning a teenage boy, tracking emotions passing across his face, watching his eyes moving quickly under his closed eyelids. The boy's dark hair was damp with sweat, his breathing rapid and shallow. A greenish glow radiated from underneath a narrow band of the sublink on the boy's forehead, casting a pale glow on his high cheekbones. The Doctor snorted quietly and turned to Theta.

"I know him," he announced. "I stumbled upon him maybe half an hour ago. In the adventure."

Now, a safe distance between them and the Cells, the Doctor reverted to his seemingly carefree demeanour. He examined the sublink with his sonic screwdriver.

"A deadlock seal again." He grimaced. "I'll try to access it from the steering panel."

"You can't wake them up," said Theta. "I've tried."

"No offence, but I'm slightly better at this neuro-techno-transmitting... stuff." The Doctor, already standing next to the panel and fiddling with his sonic, smiled importantly. "Ooh, that's not good. Levels of neurotransmitters are sky-scrapping. And stress hormones... oww... such amount of adrenaline can kill... It must kill, unless adrenaline is burned up. The problem is; this boy is not moving. Not really. He may think he's running, or fighting, or doing something else, but his body is quite inert, really. He's just slumped on his game bed, and in the meantime adrenaline is destroying his heart, brain, liver and whatahell else."

"They can't be woken up," Theta repeated.

"No, not like that, no," the Doctor agreed. He stood for a moment engrossed in thoughts, tapping the tip of his sonic screwdriver against his chin. "Not from the outside."

He pivoted on his heel and gave Theta an inquiring look.

"What about the inside?"

"The inside?" Theta blinked.

"The inside of the adventure. Can they be accessed from the inside of the game?" The Doctor pointed the screwdriver's tip in Theta's direction very much like a teacher questioning a student. The Ood's expression remained unchanged.

"I was barely able to reach you. Now that I am analysing it, I am almost sure it was made possible only through your telepathic abilities, Doctor," said Theta. "You must remember, however, that my own abilities are vastly diminished. I might not be able to get through to you again."

"Right. Your hind brain." The Doctor sighed and scratched his forehead with the sonic. "You are not a full-blown telepath without your hind brain, are you?"

"I can hear the song," Theta said calmly. "I no longer perceive its meaning."

"Still, you are much better at it then I am," noted the Doctor. "I can hear you, only 'cause you're so loud. Humans, they're quiet. Can't read them, no way, maybe just a tiny bit; it's what they would call intuition. My ship's telepathic though. At least I think so. Can't you hear her? Can't you? I swear, she's singing all the time."

"No," Theta blinked again. "She's not singing to me."

"Oh." The Doctor arched his eyebrows. "Didn't know she was so... fussy. You live and you learn, I guess. Even about my dear old TARDIS."

He shrugged and twirled the sonic in his long fingers.

"Right then. I'll need a game bed. Wait, I'll need a drink and something to eat before I go. Who knows how long I'll be stuck in the game. And I need you to oversee my vital signs. My blood pressure, breathing, hearts rate and so on. And that's plural by the way – hearts – a binary cardiovascular system, a state-of-art biology if you ask me. And I'd like a blanket; my feet are getting cold."

Theta didn't smile, apparently not able to grasp the Doctor's humour.

"How do you plan to wake them up?" he asked.

"No idea, really," the Doctor shrugged. "I'll think of something."

"You'll think? It is not much of the plan, is it?"

Theta's surprise was so human, the Doctor faltered for a moment, quizzical look on his face.

"That's what I do," he said after a while. "I make things up as I go."

"How does it work?"

"Never failed me." He flashed a bright smile at the Ood. "And I was in a few tight spots."

"And yet when you planned to use the Everdream system to simulate a problem you wanted to solve," said Theta, "you didn't try the 'make things up as you go' approach."

"No... See, my problem is... It is... Well, there's no room for..." The Doctor took a long breath. "Anyway, can we go?"

Theta nodded briefly and moved towards the door. They walked down the corridor, arm in arm, an Ood and an entity that appeared to be a man, but with biology and mental capacity so far from anything human. Theta's fingers leafed through his cryskeys. Their quiet chinking was the only sound in the corridor – the thick carpet completely muffled their footsteps.

"Is it possible that it was your intervention that caused the malfunction?" asked Theta suddenly. "Your attempts at increasing memory space, at reaching the central pillar? Could it be you who damaged the computer?"

The Doctor did not even lose the rhythm of his steps, but the Ood clearly picked a dissonance disrupting his mind's song.

"Yes," answered the Doctor. "Yes, it's possible, definitely. It could be me. So often it just could be me. So many times."

"In that case I shouldn't ask you to help me." Theta came to a sudden halt. "I should arrest you."

"Do it then." The Doctor furrowed his brow. "Arrest me."

"You are needed," decided the Ood after a moment of consideration.

"Yeah, that's also quite common," the Doctor sighed.

They remained silent for the rest of their way to the Penthouse One Thousand. They kept silence when the Doctor was gobbling down all edible (but not causing an alcohol intoxication) products found behind the mahogany buffet (a canned pineapple, a lemon, a packet of peanuts, a packet of crisps – onion flavoured, six small sachets of sugar and a pint of milk); they kept silence when Theta was preparing the sublink and programming the game bed. They were silent when the Doctor unbuttoned his suit jacket and lay down on the bed. Theta adjusted the sublink's circlet on the Doctor's temples. Finally he covered him with a plush blanket, procured apparently out of thin air.

"It crossed my mind as well, you know?" said the Doctor, avoiding Theta's gaze. "Outcomes of my actions. I never cared. But then, who does? Do you wonder if by pouring milk over your cereals in the morning you may cause an earthquake somewhere across the globe? Do you ponder the consequences of choosing a different route to your work? If you turned right, or left, you could save a life of someone who in turn could save the world. It's just too unpredictable. Too many variables. But in my case variables include time and space, and dimensions inaccessible for human beings. How I live, what I do, how many years... If I said 'no' when she decided to go with me..." he stopped suddenly. "Maybe I should forget. Unfortunately, I can't. My mind... is full of memories... like geological strata, like grain in the tree... I am the sum of my memories, Theta, but then, so is she..."

"I am not sure if I understand," hesitantly said the Ood.

"No." The Doctor closed his eyes. Green glow radiating from underneath the sublink's circlet deepened the shadows under his eyes, sharpened his features. "I am not sure either."

"I am initiating the procedure," Theta announced.

The Doctor's eyes snapped open, filled with deepest pain.

"But if it was my fault," he said urgently, "if what happened here was my fault, then... I can't do it... I can't... can't...can't...I..."

Theta's finger pushed the button initiating an adventure already, so the Doctor's feverish words drowned in an incomprehensible mutter. His frightened eyes closed slowly, his face relaxed, breathing became deep and regular. Theta adjusted the blanket. He remembered that the Doctor's feet were getting cold.