The Mind of The Daleks

Chapter 27: Interface

She went through the whole thing, like reading it off the page, and stopped at the end, awestruck and very scared.

"Splendid," said the Doctor with a pleased grin. "Now, just to be sure, recite page – 249 – the same way."

Isabel placed her cold hands behind her on the concrete and leaned back on them. "I'll begin at the new chapter, 'cause I'm not going through the whole thing. 'Chapter 11, In What Spirit the Americans Cultivate the Arts...'"

She was only two sentences in when a police car pulled to the shoulder behind them. The Doctor motioned for her to go on and she obeyed automatically, without a good reason.

A big policeman climbed out of the car and walked towards them. "Is everything all right, sir?"

"Oh, yes, everything is quite all right, constable!" the Doctor replied, with a merry little skip, his eyes still glued to the book. "Isn't this absolutely incredible? Isabel here has never before read this book and yet she can recite it perfectly after only looking through it once!"

"'But I propose to go further, and, after having...'" Isabel finished hurriedly. "I wouldn't exactly call it incredible! What am I supposed to do about everything I don't want to remember?"

"Avoid them!" the Doctor said promptly. "Of course."

"Um," the policeman interjected, his eyes getting wider. "Is there anything wrong? Your car is pulled over, but the emergency lights aren't on."

"An oversight, officer," the Doctor sighed, suddenly sober. "This most certainly is an emergency."

"Is anybody hurt?"

Isabel thought of the three bodies in the warehouse and held back a sob.

"Well," the Doctor replied, looking at Isabel. "Not exactly."

"There was this rumble a few minutes ago," the officer suggested. "Like an explosion or an earthquake. Know anything about that?"

"An earthquake?" the Doctor turned and blinked at him diffidently. "I don't think I noticed. Did you, Isabel?"

Isabel, who was gazing at the police car with her mouth open, looked back at him and took the hint. "Uh, an earthquake? No..."

"No." The Doctor looked at the policeman again and added consolingly; "Well, some people are more sensitive to seismic activity than others."

"Ok," the policeman said slowly, looking at them both suspiciously. "But neither of you are injured?"

"Uh, Doctor?" Isabel interjected, but in such a strangled voice that the other two didn't hear her.

"Well, not exactly injured," said the Doctor. "Not physically, at least. Mentally, Isabel will be quite all right soon enough."

"And your car isn't damaged or incapacitated at all?"

"Oh, no; it's quite functional, thank you."

"All right then," the policeman concluded, taking a step backwards and openly looking over the whole scene for anything at all out of place; "if everything's fine I'll be going. But, uh, the middle of a freeway isn't the best place to pull over to have an intellectual debate, so just be moving along, okay?"

"Quite right, officer!" the Doctor said, waving a good-humored and highly respectable goodbye. "Nice of you to drop by, but we're really quite all right! Good night!"

"Um, officer!" called Isabel before he could get into his car. "Do you have a computer with you?"

"Uh, yeah. The department just issued new notebooks to all patrol vehicles."

"But if it's new," Isabel objected weakly, "why does it still have Windows XP on it?"

The policeman looked at her in amazement, and heightened suspicion. "How did you know-?"

"You have a cell phone, too," Isabel continued, her respect and fear of the law almost vanishing in the ridiculous and horrifying series of discoveries that she was in the process of making, "with a two-year Sprint service plan. You have two text messages waiting and five missed calls. And you get a pretty good internet connection out here."

"Isabel," the Doctor said in a low voice, "what is it?"

"I can hear them, Doctor," she explained, shrinking back against the cold concrete barrier like it was the only solid thing in a world that had suddenly turned to Jell-O. "I can hear those computers going over and over endless streams of information! What is going on? What did you do to me?"

"Wait a minute..." the policeman sputtered.

"Hmmm, this is very odd! You say you can hear the information coming from those computers? An actual, audible sound; or something in your mind?"

"In my mind. Images, words, sounds – everything!"

"Oh my goodness," the Doctor exclaimed. "This is even more extraordinary than I imagined! Er, officer, would you be kind enough to lend us your cell phone?"

The policeman stared at both of them in blank astonishment, but tossed his cell phone to Isabel after a moment, interest sparking in his eye. She caught it easily, but then dropped it with a cry.

"What happened?" asked the policeman and the Doctor at once, as the latter quickly bent and picked up the phone.

"It knows me!" Isabel groaned, sinking slowly down to the dirty asphalt. "It said my name."

The Doctor flipped the phone open and blinked at the screen. "I believe you're right, Isabel. It's the read-out for a text message. It says; 'Isabel – "Ouch!" Stan's phone – "Hello, Isabel".' And then there's a bit of gibberish from you. How fascinating! I have seen people who could connect to any computer that they wished, but not with the ease that you seem to suddenly possess."

Isabel moaned and covered her face, stunned and angry.

"Wait. You can talk directly to a computer?" The policeman looked from Isabel to the Doctor, and a curious smile twitched at his lips. "Awesome!"

"Yeah, awesome; now I have a stupid superpower," Isabel muttered, and looked up accusingly at the Doctor. "At least having a photographic memory might be a bit useful, but what am I supposed to do with this? What happened? And how long is it going to last?"

"I can think of a lot of things you could do!" the policeman observed quietly.

The Doctor, who had been gazing with concern at the cell phone, suddenly jumped into life and handed it back to its owner. "Thank you very much, Officer Stan! I've deleted Isabel's contribution, so you needn't worry about that. There's no need for you to stay any longer. Like you said earlier, the side of a highway is no place to hold involved conversations, so we should all be moving along. Isabel just had a little run-in with a computer, but she'll be perfectly all right in no time at all. Thank you for checking on us! Goodbye!"

He practically pushed away the officer, who was reluctant but made no objection, and then returned and helped Isabel into the car.