[Day 19] A Rose by any other...

[purplerhino.livejournal.com]

By the third day, Rose was getting frustrated with the questions. They were not asked in any seeming order. One about time travel, one about Scott’s telepathic range, one about how Locke will react now that Daisy was gone. That last, Rose knew, was as much a reminder as any real need for an answer.

For the most part, Rose answered the questions she knew the answers to, but she threw in facts that were completely unbelievable.

”How big is your ship inside?” That got answered with, “it isn’t my ship, but I still haven’t seen it all. I do know it has at least two Olympic sized swimming pools, a room full of nothing but butterflies, an atrium the size of a small forest, an invisible stow-away creature that sings if it likes you and a cricket field.”

Her observations on her fellow cast-aways were equally truthful, but unbelievable. “Ami is a lightweight when it comes to alcohol. Faith can do a damn sexy ‘I’m a little teapot’ and Clarice evidently likes lots of flowers and fluttery fabric.”

When asked rather bluntly, and yet inevitably, if she had a sexual relationship with the Doctor she’d laughed and told them she didn’t think he had any real interest in that sort of thing. Maybe as an intellectual exercise, but not much otherwise. However Jack once flirted with a robotic tea pot and a fern.

She had to list the alien species she knew of and what she knew about them. She gave them names, appearances and something outrageous about each. Like those on Balhoon consider spitting in your eye a great honor, and Jaxatroptians smell your bum like a dog.

She had also set down a few well placed lies, mundane bits compared to the wild truths.

In her short time here she was starting to feel a bit more confident. She was fair certain Ami wouldn’t be hurt, not much. Because they knew she had psychic abilities. But Claire was still very vulnerable.

It was the middle of the third day when the cramps started. Her low grade fever had risen that morning, and she had been feeling distinctly nauseous. But in the middle of the interview her legs began to cramp, then her arms, abdomen, and back. It HURT. They had been injecting her with something from day one, something besides that bit of knock out juice, she was certain, and she was reacting badly.

Her captures got her into bed, and cuffed her to the rails once more, hooking up monitors and taking samples.

”What are you doing to me?” She couldn’t keep her eyes from watering from the pain, but she refused to scream for them. She grit her teeth instead. They didn’t answer, but seemed fascinated.

The agony rippled through her, burning in her gut.

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[purplerhino.livejournal.com]

Dr. Sakai was looking pleased as Dr. Wilson looked over the transparent film anyone who watched television knew to be DNA charts.

“You’rew certain there was no possibility of contamination?” Wilson lay one transparency atop the other. Most of it lined up perfectly. But one film had extra markings, and some were not quite were the others had read.

“Absolutely. Have you seen the pictures yet?” Sakai was very excited about that.

“It looks like a cell, with protrusions.” Wilson tapped the pictures from the electro-microscope. “Mutation?”

“Bringing on mutation. It’s artificial. A nanite, to be precise. Evidently she had a few of them in her system, whether they were deliberately placed there or left over from some procedure she underwent in some other time and world, I can’t say. What I can tell you is the alien energy bonded to her cells is getting stronger the more we inject her with the prep solution. Instead of preparing her for gene therapy, it seems to have allowed whatever is already present in her system to take over. Those nanites appear to be multiplying. Building, or spawning, new nanites from the energy source and dead cells usually flushed from the system naturally. They are reproducing, and they are starting to rewrite her DNA.” Sakai tapped the transparencies.

“She’s still human?” Wilson appeared curious and interested.

“Yes, but the changes being made make it appear one of her ancestors might not have been. The nanites and this alien energy may end up rewriting her DNA so she isn’t human eventually. But right now there aren’t enough of these things in her system. There may have been… a dozen or so to start, but they’ve multiplied to a few hundred now. If there were more, they’d doubtless do whatever they are doing quickly and with little pain. But the small number are making the changes slow, and evidently painful. We tried harvesting some of those little gems, but evidently the energy source is activating them. Once they leave her system, they’re inactive. Dead, if you will.”

Wilson looked up. “I want blood tests every hour. Transfuse her if you need to, but study this. Find a way to keep these nanites active outside their current host.”

Sakai smiled. “Already on it.”

Wilson looked at the monitors he had set up. On number three Rose Tyler was writhing, handcuffed to the sides of her hospital bed. She would occasionally arc off the bed, as if seizing.

Yes. It did look rather painful.

[purplerhino.livejournal.com]

Rose was so very tired, sore, and feverish. She didn't know what was happening, but eventually exhaustion won out, and she fell into a deep sleep.

Once her conscious mind shut down, something else awoke.

Her eyes opened, and they glowed with an eerie golden light.

"I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I see what was, what is, and what could be. All is as it should be. The Wolf wishes to be whole, to fulfill the greater purpose. They come, I come, and all will be set to right. I am the guardian and the defender.” Rose’s voice reverberated.

At the same moment all the monitors and equipment, including the cameras sparked and sputtered. An electrical current surged through them and shorted them all out.

Unfortunately for the captors, there was no sound, so they did not hear the words. But anyone within the complex and its defenses with any psychic ability did. The words echoed in their heads, and sent a shiver of hope and fear in equal portions through them.

[aliencrabcakes.livejournal.com]

eep! Wil the doctor be able to sense *this*?

[purplerhino.livejournal.com]

He'll feel a vaugue unease, mostly due to his link with the Tardis. But the time bubble they're in would make it seem a blip to those outside. Even a Time Lord.

[island-muses.livejournal.com]

Just so you know, I'm finishing up the ebil I had planned for Ami before responding to this. Not ignoring Rose and the Bad Wolf, though.

[purplerhino.livejournal.com]

For the past six days Rose suffered. She was hooked up to more machines than she could ever recall seeing before monitoring everything about her. She was in agony, but she didn't give her anything to lesson it, in case it would alter the process. Whatever the process was. Her fever rose and broke five times, the convulsions and pain left her weak and shaking. There were moments she just wanted to die to make it all stop. But she held on, thinking of the Doctor, of a rescue that had to be coming. Although she was going to have to have a word with those potential rescuers about timeliness.

The odd thing was she was hungry. Almost constantly, when the pain should have been making her stomach flip. Whatever was happening needed fuel. Food.

Half the time Rose was delirious, she saw things, heard things, thought she heard people talking when no one was in the room. Then there were the numbers. She had never been exceptionally good with maths, but there were equations swimming into her head. The aspect ratio of space divided by time and adjusted for dimensional flow.

She was fairly certain she was going barking mad.

The Jaxion rebellion was 72 apple slash seven point five was a spectacular failure however it did result in an upsurge in vegetarianism that eventually destroyed the meat industry on that world.

She felt time. Every second, every minute, she felt the passage of time, like a background hum, in her mind. There was something else, a muffled sense of time folded, like an intricate bit of oragami, nearby. This was madness. Whatever they had been giving her was making her lose touch with reality.


But in the back of her mind, almost alongside of this awareness of time, there was singing. A beautiful sound of comfort and strength. It was familiar, this unearthly voice, though it wasn't words.

Today she felt better, however. No fever, and the pain was a background ache. She did have something akin to a migraine. Her head hurt, badly. But better her head then her entire body.