Doctor Who - 02 - The Art of Forgetting

.11. For Your Dear Life

"Run!"

Josh obeyed immediately, like a good little soldier. They dashed through the forest's thick undergrowth, brushing aside lianas and leaves. Josh's magnetic boots skidded on the muddy surface, but he did not slow down. The Doctor was running abreast with him; his dark hair, up till now fashionably straggly, was soaked with sweat. He did not seem terrified, but he also did not try to look behind or to stop. Josh could hear thudding and cracking of broken branches behind their backs. Something was chasing them.

They ran into a clearing so suddenly, Josh almost lost his balance. He stumbled, weaved his arms and halted, surprised. They were running through the jungle so far, but the clearing belonged to another adventure – it was surrounded by pine trees and mountain tops visible in the distance. And there were people there.

The Doctor came to a stop next to Josh. He gasped for air, rested his hands on his legs just above his knees and let out a long, painful breath.

"Right..." he wheezed. "We're through."

"Players?" asked a man standing in front of several people, all of them dirty, scared and armed with long staffs.

"Players," the Doctor confirmed.

"You have to calm down," the man said. "Whatever it was, stop thinking about it."

"I've no idea what it was," growled Josh angrily. "It was breathing at my back, and that's enough for me!"

"Yeaah, sorry, that was my memory, I'm really sorry," said the Doctor. "Eerm, that jungle, it reminded me this one time when I went to Tanzania to look for brachiosaurs, but I ran into a carcharodontosaurus and..."

"Shut up!"

And the Doctor did shut up. All in all, he looked quite funny now, still bent in half, his head tilted, eyes bulging and an expression of real fear painted across his face vividly like graffiti. He was staring at a woman wearing a dark-grey dress, her face painted blue, who stepped in front of the group of players.

"Just shut your bloody gob, spaceman!" she yelled. "You and your babblefests! I can hardly control them; what were you thinking; having fun, are you; cause you look like you do; so listen carefully – THIS IS NOT A GAME!"

"Donna..." the Doctor mumbled. "What...? Where? I wasn't thinking about you!"

"Tell me something I don't know!" she snorted.

"Not now," he corrected hurriedly. "I wasn't thinking about you now; I was thinking about the carcharodontosaurus following hard on my heels..."

"You should control your thoughts!" she screamed. "Ordinary human beings have their minds under control, and bloody Time Lord acts like a schoolboy!"

"Time Lord?" repeated Josh with the lip movement only, feeling that his eyebrows climb high up his forehead. "What the hell is that?"

"It was you who pushed me into my memories before," the Doctor sulked.

"Me? Before? What are you gabbling about?"

"What do you mean what am I gabling about? You treated me to the trip to Gallifrey, remember? You took Jenny's memory hostage; you killed her in front of me, for Pete's sake; so don't you ask me what am I talking about! I hardly got away!"

"Could you wait with domestic until we are out of the projection?" interrupted the man who had spoken first. "This level of emotion, you're going to reset any moment, both of you, and she promised to show us the way."

The Doctor looked at the people standing in a semicircle around him and Donna, and gawking at them as if they were actors in a street performance. He raised his hand and ran his fingers across his damp hair. His eyes were so wide, there were full, white circles around his dark irises.

"The way? Her? You're showing them the way? The way where, if you don't mind me asking?" he shouted.

"Listen, suit," the man stepped closer, his long staff at the ready. "I don't know who you are, but I don't like the way you talk to her! Donna led us out of real shitty adventures; we owe her our lives, each and every one of us. Another insult and I'll flip your jaw vertically, bro. Mind your tone!"

"But... You... She..." For a moment the Doctor ran out of words. "She's not real! She's a projection! She's my memory!"

"Ah, that's curious, cause she was here long before you appeared." The man twiddled the staff. "If I were to bet, I'd say you were a bloody projection. Are you trying to provoke emotions?"

"What? Emotions? I'm... not trying to provoke anything, I know she's not real, because..."

"Everything went completely pear-shaped once he appeared," said Josh quietly, moving away from the Doctor. "I was in control... sort of... but when he interfered... Damn, I should have known!"

"Known what? Josh! I got you out of your adventure!"

"Into the jungle, where we almost got eaten by a tyrannosaurus!"

"Carcharodontosaurus, and it didn't eat us, we're here..."

"No thanks to you." Josh stepped into the group of people standing round the Doctor in a hostile semicircle.

"Right," the Doctor snorted angrily. "Nothing new. Midnight. No, no, no, no, no! I won't think about it! Wait! Just a moment! Donna! Donna, tell them I am not a projection! I came back to the game to help them get out! The computer cannot be powered down as long as they are in adventures; too risky; so I've come back to find a way out of games, to find a way of waking up players!"

"And have you found a way?" Donna smiled sweetly, which looked rather ghastly in conjunction with her extreme, blue make-up.

"Not yet, but..."

"Right." She pivoted on her heel, reached to her belt and took a long, primitively decorated, bronze knife out of the scabbard. "So far you're satisfied with chases across the jungle?"

"What? No! I..."

Donna raised a hand holding the knife and then lowered it in a swift motion, as if she intended to cut the air open. And she did cut the air. In front of her face a long, narrow aperture in reality appeared; there was a clearing in the forest on both sides, and a shimmering, warm night inside the rift.

"Let's go," said Donna. She looked at the Doctor, staring at the rift with his face elongated with surprise. "You to, spaceboy."

"What did you do? How did you do it?" He produced a small, white utensil out of his pocket and pointed it towards the aperture, hardly noticing people squeezing through the hole.

"Codes," he murmured. He shook the device. "You're entwining codes. You didn't cut the air; you connected two adventures. But how?"

"We'll talk on the other side," said Donna, pushing Josh in front of her and placing one foot on soft moss on the other side of the tear. "Well, come on then, you prawn, I'll explain everything."

Josh looked back, curious. Shaking his head the Doctor finally moved from the spot. He pocketed the white device, held his breath, lifted one foot and put it across the tear's rim. He made a cautious step...

But he did not come through.

Josh heard a muffled scream, bright flash of light made him close his eyes, and when he opened them again, the Doctor was gone. Josh looked at Donna. She seemed surprised and angry. She moved quickly toward the rift, but just then the tear sealed with a quiet smack.

"Riiight," growled Donna. "Things just can't be easy, can they? The number one rule when travelling with the Doctor: Everything that can get complicated, will get complicated."

"Sounds very much like one of Murphy's laws," Josh murmured.

"Yeaaah..." she snorted. "Believe you me, Murphy could shine the Doctor's shoes!"