Mass Foundations: All the World's a Stage thread 2 (Doctor Who/Fallout/Soul Calibur)

[Nord Ronnoc]

SYNOPSIS: Something had brought the Doctor and the TARDIS to an alternate Earth ravaged by nuclear war, and he had no idea why. That wasn't the only issue, however. He had to contend with strange creatures and supernatural, powerful beings, all with the help of a lone wanderer with a troubled past. All in a day's work in the life of the Doctor.
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Hey, everyone. It took me a bit to decide whether I should do a rewrite of All the World's a Stage, but going by this prologue, you can guess what that answer was. I want to do it because, to me, the original version was lacking in some areas. There were some things left unexplained, the plot point regarding the glass creatures was rushed, etc. I hope that this would be an improvement.
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Mass Foundations: All the World's a Stage

Prologue: Opening​

"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."

—Murphy's Law

A spaceship, either very cleverly or very clumsily disguised as a police box, tumbled through the space-time vortex. As it landed on a street in London, a strange wheezing and groaning sound echoed in the night. Inside was a large control room sprawling beyond the deceptive doors; its many surfaces and devices awash in a golden glow. Everyone who passed through those police box doors for the first time all commented on the most remarkable thing about the box: not the many dials or central component of moving glass, but how much bigger it sprawled on the inside.

By the many-sided room was a pale, tall man with a thin face and a mop of wild silver hair. His hair went along quite well with his thick eyebrows, sharp blue eyes, and a hooked nose. His dark coat and trousers would give anyone the impression that he was a rock star still on tour. That old man was a time traveler, a Time Lord from the lost planet Gallifrey, and he was known as the Doctor.

"Whew! That was quite an adventure there, Doctor."

He wasn't alone. He turned away from the monitor. In front of him was a lithe young woman, short and rosy-skinned. Her brown hair held by a headband, she wore a red dress and a pair of sneakers with matching colors.

"Indeed, Clara. At least we made it the night before the parent-teacher conference, no?" The Doctor grinned rather awkwardly. "Never a fan of them myself. I wasn't so well-behaved when I was a child."

Clara Oswald, the young woman, rolled her eyes. "Of course. Can't say I'm surprised." She walked to the only exit.

"Try not to get yourself into trouble while I'm away," she called out like a parent requesting their child to behave. "And don't be late, okay?"

With that, she stepped out of the TARDIS and closed the door behind her.

The Doctor smirked and crossed his arms. "Ah, you know me better than that, Clara. I always find trouble, wherever that may be," he said to no one in particular.

As if on cue, frantic numbers flashed on the screen. The alarms blaring out caught the Doctor by surprise. Before he could analyze the data, the whole room—no, the entire TARDIS—shook violently, as if in the middle of an earthquake. He could barely keep his balance as he held onto the console.

Sparks flew in all directions, and loose wires dangling about. The lighting flickered a fiery red before everything turned pitch black.

In hindsight, the Time Lord wished he hadn't said those words.​

 

[Ttw1]

As if on cue, frantic numbers flashed on the screen. The alarms blaring out had caught the Doctor by surprise. Before he could analyze the data, the whole room—no, the entire TARDIS—shook violently, as if in the middle of an earthquake. He could barely keep his balance as he held onto the console.

Click to shrink...

Ah yes, a nuclear blast and the accompanying EMP.(Those are annoyingly hard to shield against and even then the shielding doesn't always work(unless you are in a bunker deep under a mountain and the bunker has a faraday cage built into the walls of the entire bunker.).)

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Ah yes, a nuclear blast and the accompanying EMP.(Those are annoyingly hard to shield against and even then the shielding doesn't always work(unless you are in a bunker deep under a mountain and the bunker has a faraday cage built into the walls of the entire bunker.).)

Click to shrink...

Gotta get all atomic!

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Chapter One: Big Empty​

Consciousness returned to the Doctor. With a pained groan, he stood up to his feet, clinging onto the console as support. The lighting in the main control room was still well-lit, sparing him the pain of stumbling around in the dark. He moved the monitor toward him and pressed buttons and flicked switches. The screen lit up, revealing an image gathered from one of the satellites. He would have dismissed it as his own world… if not for a brown, sickly glow over select parts of the planet.

"Something happened to this world. Radiation, most likely," he muttered to himself, his expression turning grim. He took another look at the readings. According to his current coordinates, he was somewhere south of the state of Nevada. Also, this part was one of the least radiative locations on this Earth.

He looked around the room. "Something's not right here," he mused. He stood up straight and started pacing around the console. His hand on his chin, the Time Lord fell deep into his thoughts.

"Normally, traveling between parallel universes would drain the TARDIS of all energy. Without the Time Vortex, it would be out of commission. Now, if I were prepared, it would be a temporary setback." He snapped his fingers together.

"Question: if all that applies, then why does the TARDIS still have power? Why is it still running?" He pointed his finger upward. "Answer: There is one of two possibilities. One: The Time Vortex also connects to this universe. Two: A rift in time and space has appeared, preserving the TARDIS's energy."

He stopped, as if something clicked together inside his head, and turned around slowly toward the exit. "Let's go with the latter. If that is true, then something with a vast amount of energy, enough to create a wormhole, brought me here."

He walked to the door and opened it, finding himself blinded by a burst of bright sunlight. He whipped out a pair of sunglasses from his jacket and put them on. It wasn't any ordinary pair of sunglasses. Rather, it was much like his sonic screwdriver, but wearable technology. He was so over his screwdriver, anyway.​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

He stepped out of the TARDIS, his fancy shoes touching the rocky sand beneath him. His eyes adjusted and he found the TARDIS had landed by a large crater. Looking around, there was a giant dome-shaped building southwest of where he stood, surrounded by a series of branching sidewalks, ventilation shafts and pipes, satellite dishes, and old coils.

Looking up, the sky was blue and partially cloudy, if the weather was anything to go by. Judging by how high the sun was, it was close to the middle of the afternoon.

A blinking light appeared at the corner of his vision. The sonic sunglasses read: Rift Detected. Severity: Low. Size: Smaller than Belgium.

"Well, that sounds more than anticlimactic," the Doctor said to nobody and took off his sunglasses. "Still, wouldn't hurt to check it out." He stepped away from the blue box and climbed up the edge of the crater, hoping to take a better look.

The crater was about the size of a building. In the middle of it were debris, steel beams, and pipes gathered up. It looked like the whole mess had turned into a ball and landed on the ground with a splat. Some of the pipes were leaking water, so the Doctor concluded it was recent.

He squinted, not only to adjust his eyes, but also noticing a shimmer waffling in the air. Without warning, the shimmer grew bright, turning into a glowing crack midair. It looked familiar to the Time Lord, reminding him of the rifts in time that erased anyone unfortunate enough to be in its vacancy several centuries ago. From his perspective, anyway.

The crack vibrated, sending out waves as it slowly opened. It grew large enough it became a gray and black miasma of chaos.

The Doctor started to get worried. "Oh, that can't be good…"

He stepped back and braced for the worse…

…only for the wormhole to make a strange, high-pitched "pat-too-ee" noise as something small spat out. The Time Lord skirted back as the object landed by his feet.

He frowned. "That was even more anticlimactic. I probably should complain to whoever was in charge of this place."

With an incredulous look, he bent over to pick it up and dusted it off with his sleeve. Gazing it, it was a tape in cased in orange, yellow-lined plastic. He wondered if he could find something that could play it. Would he have a suitable tape player somewhere in the TARDIS?

Unfortunately for him, his thoughts were cut short as he looked up to see something made of metal slamming into him, losing his balance.​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

"Oh, dear me! I'm sorry for that, sir!" That was an obvious—and rather stereotypical—British accent if the Doctor had ever heard one. Come to think of it, he had met people who fit that mold like a glove.

The Doctor grunted as a heavy weight went off his chest. Literally, in this case, having the wind knocked out of him. He got up to his feet and found himself staring at a jet-powered, three-armed, and three-eyed robot floating a few feet off the ground. One arm had a buzzsaw on it, and the other had what looked like a flamethrower to him.

"Do you need help?" the robot asked.

"Oh no, I'm fine, thank you!" the Time Lord insisted, his hands in front of him. "I do appreciate the concern, though. Really, I do! Now…" He straightened his stance as he adjusted his jacket. "Do you mind telling me who you are?"

"Me?" The strange robot was taken aback slightly. "As a Mr. Handy crafted by the finest folks at General Atomics, I am quite offended. Shocked, really!"

"Well, I…"

"If you must know everything, then I suppose I can tell you. I'm Wuffles. Laugh at your own peril. Though these days, you could add in test subject in my resume."

The Doctor arched his eyebrows and blinked at the robot's name. Wuffles, he said to himself. It was not every day he could get to know that name, that was for sure.

"Though it is good to see a Scotsman," said Wuffles.

"Oh, was it the eyebrows that gave it away? I tell you, they're quite cross," the Doctor shot back, circling around the Mr. Handy. His eyebrows wiggled, as if to prove a point.

"Yes they are indeed, sir. Now what can I help you with? Another disastrous experiment for me to perform, hmm?" Its nearest eye leaned toward the Doctor, following him around.

The Doctor stopped and pointed at the rift. "Could you tell me why there's a tear in time and space? How did you get out, anyway?"

"It's… a tad bit difficult to explain, sir," said the robot. "One moment, I was commanded to activate the 'improved' teleportation device of that Courier's, the next I was in… hmm… some extradimensional and rather colorful void, perhaps?" it muttered before continuing.

The Doctor could hear something humming and whirring inside the robot's metallic round body. "How odd. I did not record any additional findings. Pity." It sighed as much as a robot could sigh. "My data storage has been wiped due to an automated command to save up space. Bloody selective… never mind about that!"

Though tentative, the Doctor whipped up the orange cassette tape he held in his hand. "What about this thing?"

Wuffles' lens narrowed. "Is that a holodisk. I do remember seeing that Courier making a recording just before the experiment. If you happen to find a working RobCo terminal or wore a Pip-Boy, you can play whatever's on the tape."

"Who's this… Courier you've mentioned?"

"Why, he's the one who's in charge of his experiment," Wuffles answered, brightening up. "Though we had a bit of a… terrible first impression, him being heavy armed after X-84 had emerged. Do you know where he is, perchance?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I have no idea whatsoever. Did he make that rift?"

"Yes. Accidentally." That robot was sure blunt. "To be fair, he did everything by the book. Not by Big MT's standards, of course. A more… reputable standard. Didn't consider that random element, I suppose."

The Time Lord groaned and rolled his eyes. In frustration, he tightened his lips and paced around, fighting off the temptation to hit himself on the head and utter the word 'stupid' multiple times.

He stopped once again, his eyes widened as something hit him like a bag of bricks. He muttered, "RobCo. Pip-Boy." Why do these terms suddenly become familiar to him? That was several lifetimes ago…

"Are you all right, sir?" the concern in the Mr. Handy's voice was palpable.

The Doctor pocketed the holodisk after finding he held it tight. He turned and looked at the robot with a small smile. "Just something I suddenly remembered. Now…" He clapped his hands together. "You mentioned a terminal?"

The robot's eyes lit up, almost literally. "Why, of course! I do remember a functional terminal somewhere in the Forbidden Zone."

"The Forbidden Zone?" the Doctor asked. "That sounds… forbidden." He almost grinned at that crack of a joke.

"Well yes, redundancy aside, it is forbidden to all," the robot replied, taking it in stride. "It's up north. That-a-way." Its only caw pointed to a large dome sitting among the cliffs and other ruined stuff. There were harsh, hellish red lights surround the building—the complete opposite of a welcoming environment, even from this distance. "For your safety, you should follow me.

Before the Doctor could insist otherwise, the Mr. Handy marched forward. Or however its method of movement would be called. "Tally ho!" it bellowed.

The Doctor sighed, letting his arms out in exacerbation, and catch up to the robot in a weak attempt to run, like a penguin's tail was on fire. "As if I had nothing better to do," he muttered.​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

It wasn't the weirdest thing the Doctor had ever encountered. To be more precise, it was rather silly. Although fascinating by human standards, the giant red crystals popping out of the earth wasn't the only thing the Doctor noticed, nor was the long railroad that ended in a bundle of red car boxes that had long crashed into one another.

Rather, it was the entrance, what happened to be a massive door. There was a red handprint on the door with the words: NO ACCESS—AUTHORITATIVE PERSONNEL ONLY. Which to him, that meant, "Come on in! I got secrets they don't want you to know!"

The Doctor blinked and stared up and down at the door. "Were they expecting guests of unusual sizes? He asked Wuffles without looking.

"More like bringing something out than in," Wuffles guessed. "In any case—and I hope this is the right place—Welcome to the Forbidden Zone!"

The Time Lord stared silently at the robot.

"Er… I've been programmed to say that, sir," the Mr. Handy admitted sheepishly.

"By whom? The Courier?"

Wuffles was taken aback. "Dear me, no! It was the Think Tank. And Mobius. I assume they have a flair with the dramatic."

The Doctor couldn't help but chuckle a little. One too many of his adversaries fit that description, some more than others. Even eh wasn't immune to it on every occasion. "I take it they're mad scientists?" he quipped.

Without warning, the large door slowly, slowly opened. Only darkness inside greeted them, beckoning like a not-so-suspicious stranger assuring them from a not-so-empty alleyway.

"Well, now," Wuffles remarked.

It was the first to enter inside. The Doctor soon followed.

Inside, harsh yet colorful lights flashed all over a giant dark room one by one. Soon, it revealed a ginormous object resting in the center: A robot yellow scorpion with red pincers and tail, its orange electronic eyes flickered up. Bells rang in correspondence to the lights.

The loudspeakers clicked, drowning out feedback that would irritate anyone's ears—or a robot's audio receptive arrays for that matter.

"Attention: Visitors." The voice from the speaker was that of an eccentric old man. It reminded the Doctor too much of one of his previous incarnations. Now he thought about it, that could also fit the description of who he was right now.

"Combat experiment in progress—"

That was the time when the Doctor and Wuffles made a run for the balcony room just to their right. "Oh my!" the Mr. Handy exclaimed.

"—Please put on your goggles and take your Rad-X now."

"Rad-X?" the Doctor asked, just as curious as he was confused. He looked through the window behind a pair of blocky computers, one of them had charred and hollowed out. Another was functional, having a green flickering screen.

A terminal with a green flickering screen? The Doctor realized what he just saw and his eyes widen with elation, a toothy smile appearing on his face. "Is this the right terminal?" he asked the smaller robot.

"Well, yes. Any RoboCo terminal should do the trick," Wuffles answered. "Do you have the tape with you?"

"That I do!" The Doctor whipped out the holotape.

A beam of lightning struck the giant robot, spurring it to life. Wuffles could only float on the spot, its lens wide with fear.

"The X-4s Giant Robo-Scorpion is alive once more!" the now crazy old man voice from the loudspeakers bellowed out and echoed into the room. "Now it's bigger, faster, and better, armed with far more weapons than your feeble human minds could possibly comprehend! And best of all, it comes with Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis! Astonishing, isn't it!

"Good lord, is that even a real word?" a very much flabbergasted Wuffles asked, not believing what it just heard. "This Dr. Mobius is mad!"

"Yes, it's a real word. Lung disease caused by inhaling very fine ash and sand dust," the Doctor replied. "Besides, didn't you just say that?"

"Yes. I wasn't expecting him to be this insane!" the Mr. Handy shot back.

The Time Lord sighed and rolled his eyes before going to at the functioning terminal and shoved the tape into the slot below the screen. Some giant killer robot was the least of his worries. He had a feeling it won't go well for it. Besides, he hoped he put the holotape in correctly.

"Awaken, my pet! Initiate your search-and-destroy protocol in the name of all that is Mobius!" A slight pause. "Again!"

The giant roboscorpion raised its pincers and tail, ready to execute its primary functions. A ball of electricity manifested in the tip of its tails. Now the giant robot raised on the top of his list of things to worry about now. The Doctor quickly ejected the tape and snatched it, backing away from the window. Wide-eyed, he braced for the worst…

…only for sparks to start flying out of the roboscorpion's joints, bringing in more illumination. Before anyone knew what happened, it exploded in an instant, sending giant pieces of itself everywhere. One of its pincers smashed on the room the Doctor and Wuffles resided in. The lower one slammed hard, rattling the room. The other smashed through the window, knocking over the terminals away and slammed the Mr. Handy against the wall behind it. Sparks flew as it was crushed before it knew what happened.

The Doctor stood there with a blank stare, his jaw wide open.

"Oh poo!" the loud speakers cried out. "That wasn't quiet right. It malfunctioned! It was not ready for a proper experiment! Have I forgotten something? Maybe? Perhaps I shouldn't have cared the two over the zero… Hm… some Mentats would help clear my mind. Mmmmm… Mentats…"

That would had been a very silly thing for the Doctor to behold, if it wasn't for Wuffles' sudden death.

"Oh, it seems that I have a guess. Or were there two?" the old man from the speakers pondered. "Eh, no matter. More shall be done and perfected in the name of SCIENCE! Do come in."​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

I made a couple changes in the last segment. I hope you'll like them.

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Codex Entry - Species: Time Lord

The Time Lords were a humanoid species hailing from the planet Gallifrey. Time Lords, as the name implied, had mastered time travel. As the result, they reigned over their civilization for countless millennia. Some said they lasted for tens of millions of years; others said they had been around since the dawn of time.

A cursory glance would inform anyone that Time Lords look exactly like humans. However, further analysis would dispute that. One feature unique to the Time Lords would be having an additional heart. In addition, Time Lords have the ability to cheat death (albeit temporary) known as regeneration. However, regeneration had its limits, as it can only be used twelve times, often shifting the Time Lord's mental and physical attributes, seemingly at random. In rare circumstances where an individual did an extraordinary service to the Time Lords, as with the Doctor and the Master, they could be provided with additional regenerations. Barring incidents, Time Lords could live forever.

To many, the Time Lords were no better than the monsters they face. That assumption grew over time, as the Time Lords went to war against the genocidal Daleks and took on more extreme measures that threatened to tear the very fabrications of the universe apart. In the last days of the Great Time War, many thought the Doctor had wiped out both his own people and the Daleks. In reality, he and his other incarnates had sealed Gallifrey in a pocket universe.

Somehow, the Time Lords had returned, hiding away at the end of the universe…​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Codex Entry - Persons of Note: The Doctor

The Doctor was a renegade Time Lord, his age spanning millennia. Long ago on Gallifrey, the first incarnation of the Doctor took an old TARDIS and fled the planet with his granddaughter, Susan. He traveled the stars since then. For eons and over a dozen lifetimes, he defended the universe and his favorite planet Earth against many adversaries, from the Daleks and the Cybermen to the Weeping Angels and the Zygon among them.

Almost always, he was seen with a companion at his side. With them, the Doctor would be able to appreciate their awe of the universe, as he saw many things many times over. Their journeys with the Doctor had left a tremendous impact on their lives, though some had met tragic and grisly fates.

While committed to the idea of peace, the Doctor had a dark, ruthless side to his personality, which manifested more in some of his previous incarnations. He was manipulative and cunning to friend and enemy alike, often playing a part in his enemies' defeat or, worse, demise. Indeed, the word 'doctor' can be translated into 'warrior' in some languages. However, many saw him as a compassionate savior and hero, worthy of their admiration.​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

With no other place to go, the Doctor climbed down a series of stairs and paced across the ginormous room.

"Why build a giant robotic scorpion if it doesn't have anywhere to go?" He asked to himself he stopped for a moment to look down at the also large, circular trapdoor. He curled his lips with a nod. "Ah. I wonder where it goes." He hurried his pace. "Maybe later."

After climbing yet another set of stairs turning around to walk through another observation room, and reached a large balcony. By that time, he stared to tire. He stopped to take a breath, hunched down with his hands on his knees. He was used to running and walking a lot, usually by being chased. But walking in blistering heat and on several flights of stairs? No wonder Americans preferred to take an elevator instead.

He met upon a metal door with a cog in the center across a short catwalk. Twisting the cog, the center part descended into the ground as the two outer parts latched to the wall.

The Doctor stepped into a narrow hallway, rimmed with wires and thin pipes. The only way was to go forward and up, and so he followed the path. Emerging in a giant dome, he stepped on a hexagonal platform rimmed by a glowing green light.

Scanning his surroundings with a look of awe on his face, the first odd thing he noticed were scrawls of notes and formulas etched all over the room. They were on the floor, on the two hexagonal pillars flanking his sides, on the terminals and mainframes, and on sets of stairs leading to a floor above. The equations stuck out among the sickly green lighting like a glow stick.

The whole place creaked and groan. It was obvious that this place hadn't been maintained for a long time. How this managed to get through environmental regulations was beyond him.

Another thing he noticed was what looked like three TV screens attached to a human brain in a spherical, floating jar. And it did not notice the Doctor stepping in, focusing on the formulas and such above instead. But he had to wonder: would this strange creature be friendly or hostile? There was one way to find out.

"Hello there!" the Time Lord bellowed, his hands circling his mouth.

The brain jolted, or at least its screens did. "Mmm? Y…" For a moment, it was unsure of what to do, what to think, as if it forgot what it was supposed to do. In an instant, the Doctor recognized that voice. The one who called himself Dr. Mobius. "Oh…"

The brain-in-a-jar turned. Two of its rustic screen showed a black-and-white, human-like eye in the right screen, and a pair of lips in the bottom. The left screen was smashed and cracked, likely short-circuited somehow. "Hello there. Eh… you are here, aren't you? Forgive me, it's getting harder to tell these days."

The Doctor blinked several times, his confusion palpable.

"A little bit off, don't you think?" Dr. Mobius asked. "Would it be better if you stand still while I get down here?"

Like Wuffles, however his method of levitation would suffice, the brain-in-a-jar made his way down the stairs, then another but short one to get off a platform, and went too close to the Doctor, probably more than he would've liked. He leaned back, hoping this strange man's brain would at least respect some personal space.

"Ah, yes yes. Hmm, it's still a little hard to see you," said Dr. Mobius. "Can you walk to my left… er, right FOV cone?" The Doctor stepped to the right. "Ah, that's it! You're coming into focus nicely."

"Does that help?" the Doctor asked.

"Depth perception is still a problem with this old monitor of mine. Went black a while ago. That's old age for you," Mobius explained. "I should get that Courier to look at fixing it again. He has been very helpful in getting rid of that… hm… what is it he called again?" He paused for a moment. "Ghost reception? Yes, that must be it. Good thing the flying tortoises are gone."

"You're… not exactly who I expected," the Doctor remarked.

That piqued the brain's curiosity, judging by how he tilted his remaining eye-screen like arching an eyebrow. Either that or irritation. "Really, now. Please elaborate. Were you… like him, expecting some mad scientist hellbent on destruction?"

There was a brief, awkward silence between them until it was broken by the Doctor admitting, "Something along those lines."​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Codex Entry - Technology: TARDIS

Short for Time and Relative Dimension in Space, a TARDIS was a sapient vehicle that can travel through time and space. A specific one the Doctor took on Gallifrey was an old Type-40 model. Whenever they materialize, they made a wheezing and groaning sound. To some, that sound was enough to bring hope to anyone, no matter how lost they were.

There were many types of TARDISes, sharing many functions with one another, including advanced security features and computer systems. One such was the chameleon circuit. It allowed the TARDIS to blend in her surroundings, depending on the time and place. The circuit for the Doctor's TARDIS broke down when it first landed on Earth in the mid-20th century, retaining the appearance of a blue police box. Another was the TARDIS' ability to have the size of her interiors being bigger than her interior. This was known as dimensional transcendentalism, thought to be impossible by many since it violated three-dimensional Euclidean geometry.

As sentient beings, they can create telepathic bonds with individual users, giving them benefits such as translating various languages into their native tongue. TARDISes were also capable of taking independent action, including mourning their pilots' deaths.​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

"It might be worth a cognitive re-alignment if your theoretical Mobius is better than I could ever be," the brain replied, somehow a little sad. "Then again, I should lay off on Psycho. It's bad for your health. The years have not been kind…"

He trailed off and stared off into the distance, either lost in his thoughts or had forgotten something. He didn't even pay attention to the Doctor waving in front of him. "Oh my, am I running out of Mentats?" The brain quickly floated by a desk with nothing but a few tools and some rotten books on it before flying by a broken mainframe. He returned to the Doctor soon after. "Would you… care for a Mentat?"

The Doctor stepped back and shook his head. "No, no. No thank you." He sighed, rubbing his temples together. "Why on Earth would you take these drugs? They're obviously bad for you!"

"Mm. I love Mentats. They are delicious and smarty! Helps me have all sorts of fantastic thoughts and ideas zipping through my biogel. Though I tend to forget them all not long after."

"Forget I asked." The Doctor curled his lips together. He started to get rather cross about this whole silly thing, but he couldn't help but pity the sorry bastard. Even as Dr. Mobius's brain in a chassis managed to outlive his body, the signs of old age were there, and he lasted longer than any human should have. The Time Lord had seen it more than he would've liked.

He sighed, putting his hands on his hips. Maybe he should try to be a little bit more patient. Clara would hate to see him like this.

"And that giant robot scorpion you made? Why would you build something that couldn't go anywhere? Why was it unstable?"

Dr. Mobius' screen turned toward the Time Lord suddenly. "Hm? What's that you said?"

The Doctor repeated his question.

"Oh. Every scientist needs an army, and mine came to me after some rather large scorpions kept coming into Big Mountain from the dessert. Like dangerous frosting."

"You mean 'desert'?" the Doctor asked, but the brain ignored him and continued.

"Then I thought: why not add in energy bolts and make them bigger while I'm at it? The possibilities were endless!" The brain's voice module piqued with excitement.

It would have been exciting to the Doctor as well—or at least interesting—but he was in no mood for it. "Okay. But why, exactly?"

"Nowadays, it's mostly for old times seek. Or do I have that case of the Old World Blues? Ever since that Courier stopped by and made things interesting, I couldn't help myself but further perfect my roboscorpions. I don't remember any failures I've encountered."

The Doctor paced around the crazy scientist, following him as the brain randomly paced around the dome. "And who is this Courier you keep mentioning?" he asked, wagging his index finger around

Dr. Mobius stopped right on cue. "You see, the Courier was quiet special, and I don't mean it in a cranially-challenged way. He was a subject of a successful brain extraction experiment. It was a pleasant surprise when he convinced his own brain to pop right back inside his head."

The Doctor struggled to maintain a straight face. "Ah, bet hundreds of scientists would punch the air right about now," he muttered under his breath. He dug out the holotape and showed it to Dr. Mobius. "I found this out of a rift that manifested by my TARDIS. Mr. Wuffles says it belongs to the Courier. Do you have something that can run it?"

"Is that right? If only I have hands. That's the downside of this chassis, unfortunately."

The Doctor could barely say a word before Dr. Mobius set off to zip all over the dome, f top to bottom, through every room, and on every floor available. Without warning, and much to the Doctor's bemusement, he went through another sweep just to be sure. When he came back to the Doctor once more, his eyes had titled, probably signifying his disappointment. The Doctor guessed it was disappointment.

"Well, pool. That is unfortunate. Oh well. At least I tried."

"That's a no, then?" the Doctor asked, more than a little let down. "At least you tried."

"Indeed." He hummed and mumbled and grumbled for a moment before his eyes lit up, almost literally in this case. "Wait a minute! Perhaps you could try your lock at the Sink. Maybe he had a terminal

"You call it the Sink?" the Doctor asked with arched eyebrows. "Compared to the Forbidden Zone, it sounds quite boring. It doesn't even sound very… forbidden, in my opinion."

"Indeed, I would agree with your assessment," Dr. Mobius replied. "On the surface, it sounds boring, but you should be careful nevertheless. The Think Tank… my friends and colleagues… even if the Courier made them none the wiser, they would be rather picky with you."

"What? They're dangerous and had to be contained?" the Doctor guessed. He'd know the answer, but it wouldn't hurt to ask.

"He made them remain unaware of the outside world," Dr. Mobius answered in hushed voices, shivering and looking around in fear. "If they ever found out…"

The Doctor nodded. It sounded like this Courier made the right call. He would hate to mess up this universe's order of things. "I understand. I'll do my best to be careful," he promised.

"Indeed. Well, I'll have to get back to… what was I doing again?" the now-confused brain asked. The Doctor suspected he would forget this conversation had ever happened. "Oh yesss. The… goodbye of our little chat. Uh... goodbye. Please watch your step."

"Goodbye, then. If anything happens, you'll be the first to know."

With a small grin and a fixed jacket, the Doctor turned with confident gesture and skipped down the stairs. Before the Time Lord made his way out of this dome, the last things he heard were the brain musing, sadly and almost to himself, "I wonder if all of our experiments were the answers to the wrong question…"​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Chapter Two: The Think Tank​

It started to become nighttime. As the sun settled behind the edges of the crater, the whole of Big Mountain lit up like a Christmas tree. Bright lights trailed along with the pipes, and the pillars the Doctor passed by earlier had glowed a pale green.

Stepping on top of a hill, he looked up at the night sky, hoping to see some stars. "Ah, that's a pity. If only there weren't so many lights on," the Doctor muttered to himself. He hung his head with a sigh.

He looked down and peered on. Ahead of him was a dome-shaped building, much like the Forbidden Zone. What was different was the blue lights surrounding it instead. Was this really the Think Tank? Hopefully, the lights wouldn't give him much of a headache, if he could get one at all.

He slid down the hillside and hoped on a sidewalk. He clapped his hands and made a silly pose with a silly smile spread across his face. No one was around to witness that, but he couldn't help it, really. With that silly antic over, he made a short walk over to what he assumed was the entrance, judging by the two strange, doors with glowing circles underneath a giant, faded sign that read in giant white letters saying BIG MT.

However, he came to a halt when he noticed blue grass in the area surrounding the dome. He knelt by a small body of grass and whipped out his sonic sunglasses. As he put the pair on, he yanked a single blade of grass off the ground and tapped at the corner of the lens. Green circles appeared in his vision and whirled around the grass blade. Numbers and chemical compounds were next. Within seconds, the scan confirmed that yes, it was grass and yes, it was blue somehow.

"I was hoping it would come from Kentucky," he grumbled to no one in particular. He tapped his sunglasses again, only for the word UNKNOWN to pop up in view. "Well, that's a shame." He wondered what else would this Big Mountain have in store.

After pocketing his sunglasses, he stood up and walked over to the doors. A slight, cool breeze from both sides stirred about. At least it was a nice pace of change in contrast to the intense heat earlier today. It wasn't as good as the air conditioning in the TARDIS, but that wasn't the most important thing right now. What was more important was where to go next.

Each door had a door. The left door read Think Tank. "So if I go this way, I could meet this Think Tank, have a lovely chat and hope nothing bad would happen. If it does, that would be bad," he said to no one in particular. "Sure, that could happen, but I could fix it just as easily. No harm done, everybody can have a merry laugh and go on their way."

The right door read The Sink. He chuckled to himself. He couldn't help but see himself falling in a giant kitchen sink as soon as he stepped inside.

His eyes dart left and right. His fingers followed along. He stood there, scratching his chin in deep contemplation, only to sigh. A casual dig into his pockets led to a British penny laying in his hand. One side had the portrait of the Queen, the other a woman wearing a Roman helmet and a gown, armed with a trident.

"Why not leave this to chance. 50-50. Sounds about fair, no?" he talked to the coin now between his index finger and thumb. "Heads, I go to the Think Tank. Tails, the Sink."

A flick of his thumb sent the coin flying in the air, flipping as it does. It landed on his palm and, in a swift motion, the Doctor slapped his palm on his left wrist.

"Moment of truth," said the Doctor after taking a long breath.​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Codex Entry - Person of Note: Dr. Mobius

Before the Great War, Dr. Mobius was one of the Big Mountain's executives, arguable one of the more versatile researchers at the facility. Like his colleges, he placed his brain in a robotic body in order to continue his work after the war.

Over the years, Mobius became disillusioned with the other members of Big Mountain and grew tired of the constant horrific experiments he and others had conducted. Afraid his colleagues would wreak havoc on the post-apocalyptic world, he built a radar fence around the facility, manufactured robotic scorpions, sent threatening broadcasts to the Think Tank, and programmed a recursion loop not only on his colleagues but on himself in hopes of keeping them contained. Like them, he had forgotten his real name and his humanity, naming himself after the Mobius strip.

In the Courier's journey to recover his brain after arriving in Big Mountain, he confronted Mobius and ultimately spared him. Since then, Dr. Mobius continued his research undisturbed, creating better scorpions and attempting to do so with humanity, with less success. Once the rush of Mentats wore off, he forgot he had failed in any event. After all, the Courier had already exceeded his expectations.​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Codex Entry - Locations: Big Mountain

Referred to as Big Empty or Big MT for shot, Big Mountain was a privately-owned defense contractor and research center location prior to the Great War. It was located somewhere in the southwestern States (also referred to as the Southwest Commonwealth). Originally, it was built inside a cave system underneath a mountain until an experiment vaporized the mountain, leaving behind a crater that exposed the facility.

The goal of Big Mountain was to create the world of tomorrow without any moral or technical restraint, welcoming some of the most gifted scientists in the world. While the research there was considered to be groundbreaking, it was also unethical on many grounds. The scientists conducted experiments on human subjects, both American volunteers and Chinese-American detainees) and constructing a concentration camp for the detainees. However, due to budget cuts, Big MT had to improvise, making deals with third parties, exchanging experiment technical for money and other privileges, even canceling non-military projects and exhuming burned US civilians.

Big Mountains had few visitors; most assumed the crater's edges to be remnants of a massive nuclear explosion. Most who visited the facility were lobotomized by the think tanks to act as organic automata. The few who escaped gained knowledge by the Think Tank deemed dangerous​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Chapter Two: The Think Tank​

It started to become nighttime, the Doctor noticed.

As the sun fell behind the rugged edges of the crater, the entire Big Mountain lit up like a Christmas tree. Lights trailed along the pipes, and the pillars the Doctor passed by earlier today glowed a deep green. The Time Lord would more than be happy to gawk at the sights he passed by, but he had to resolve the thing with the holotape he had in his pockets.

Standing on top of a hill he looked up at the now night sky. "Pity. I was hoping to see stars," the Doctor muttered to himself and sulked a little.

He looked at what was ahead of him. It was a dome-shaped building, much like the Forbidden Zone. The one difference was the blue lights. That should be where the Think Tank was at, the Time Lord noted.

He ran down the hill, his arms spreading out to keep his balance, with a rather silly smile on his face. As his feet landed on the sidewalk, he clapped his hands together and make a silly pose. No one saw that, but he couldn't resist doing it, really.

With that out of the way, he made a short brisk over to what looked like the entrance to the dome. There were two strange doors with glowing circles in the middle underneath a giant, fading sign that read BIG MT.

Immediately, he stopped when he noticed blue grass surrounding the dome. He knelt by one patch and put on his sonic sunglasses. After yanking a few blades of grass of the ground, he tapped the corner of his lens. Green circles surrounded the blades, followed by a sharp buzzing noise. Numbers and images of chemical compounds were next to appear. Within seconds, the sunglasses' scan confirmed that yes, it was grass and yes, it was somehow blue.

"Ah, I was hopin' it came from Kentucky," he grumbled to himself. "But then again, it's not blue." He tapped on his sunglasses again, only for the word UNKNOWN to pop up in view. "Well, that's a shame." He tossed aside the blades in disappointment.

After pocketing his sunglasses inside his jacket, he stood up and walked over to the doors. Each had a sign on it. The left door read THINK TANK, the right THE SINK.

The Doctor sighed, placing his thumb under his lips and his fingers on his forehead.

His eyes darted left and right. "So if I go this way, I could meet this Think Tank, have a lovely chat and hope nothing bad would happen. If it does, that would be bad," he said to no one in particular. "Sure, that could happen, but I could fix it just as easily. No harm done, everybody can have a merry laugh and go on their way."

"But if I go to this Sink, I could find what I was looking for." He nodded as he lowered his hands. "Yes. That could work."

He approached the door to his right, placing his hand near the center. The lower half of the door descended into the ground, and the upper half ascending to the ceiling. He stepped into the elevator, and the door closed in front of him. The moment he took rubbing his hands together was how long the elevator took him to his destination.

The door opened, and he found himself in a small and metallic, yet well-lit, room. It was even well-ventilated here too, judging by the cool air he just felt.

By the elevator he exited was another one that would take him to the Think Tank below, according to the glowing sign behind him. In front of him, by an opening that led to a larger room, was a red vending machine, resembling the ones back in the 1950s, the words Nuka-Cola etched in a dull yellow cursive. Next to it was another vending machine, dark-red and yellow. This one had a Western motif to it, marked with SUNSET SARSAPARILLA.

A closer inspection told him both vending machines were functional, but he didn't have any American change on him, but that wasn't what intrigued him. What intrigued him was this world's level of technology. He couldn't help but ponder why everything he saw here maintained that 1950s style. Did everything stagnate at that era?

The other room ahead was hexagonal in shape and rimed with white lights, a bit dulled with age. In the center was a futuristic command center table that contrasted most things he saw, seemingly powered on.

The Doctor looked around the room. Chairs planted next to two workbenches packed with random junk, a lamp on top of a locker, lightbulbs hanging down from one of the wall-mounted cabinets, and other containers laying all over the place. It was obvious someone had lived here for a long time.

"Perhaps sir would like to put sir's feet up, and I might serenade sir with the dulcet tones of a light opera?" a voice spoke with a very British accent.​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Hm, I'm thinking of cutting the Big Mountain arc out of story. I meant to focus around Jocelyn Song, my take on the Lone Wanderer from Fallout 3, and how she fared after the events of that game and how she would rise back up. I had in mind with the Doctor as a deuteragonist. So the Doctor would show the holotape that featured the Courier explaining what happened to him and his experiment in improving the Transportalponder, which would prompt her to find him. Plus, I had a plan of another storyline for her, which doesn't involve finding the Courier. That made me realize that wouldn't make sense. Don't worry; I have plans for the Big Mountain part.

I just don't see a clear direction with this part. The prologue stays, of course.

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Chapter One: A Touch of Glass​

Consciousness returned to the Doctor. With a pained groan, he stood up to his feet, clinging to the console for support. The main control room was still well-lit, sparing him the pain of stumbling around in the dark. He moved the monitor toward him and pressed buttons and flicked switches. The screen lit up, revealing an image gathered from one of the satellites. He would have dismissed it as his own world by the early 2010s, if not for a brown, sickly glow over select parts of the planet, the year being 2286.

"Something happened to this world. Radiation, most likely," he muttered to himself, his expression turning grim. He took another look at the readings. According to his current coordinates, he was somewhere in the city of Baltimore, Maryland.

He looked around the room. "Something's not right here," he mused. He stood up straight and started pacing around the console. His hand on his chin, the Time Lord fell deep into his thoughts.

"Normally, traveling between parallel universes would drain the TARDIS of all energy. Without the Time Vortex, it would be out of commission. Now, if I were prepared, it would be a temporary setback." He snapped his fingers together.

"Question: if all that applies, then why does the TARDIS still have power? Why is it still running?" He pointed his finger upward. "Answer: There is one of two possibilities. One: The Time Vortex also connects to this universe. Two: A rift in time and space has appeared, preserving the TARDIS's energy."

The Doctor looked at the monitor after pressing more buttons. The monitor now read:

RIFT DETECTED

SEVERITY: LOW

SIZE: SMALLER THAN BELGIUM

"Well, that sounds more than anticlimactic," the Doctor commented. "Question is, where is it?"

Another command prompt and the monitor now read:

SCANNING – IN PROGRESS…

He scoffed. "Of course, you ol' girl. Of course."

He was about to step away from the console, if not for the sudden buzzing coming out of the radio attached to the console. The Doctor recognized it was a distress signal.

"This is Knight Jefferson of the Brotherhood of Steel, requesting backup," the man on the radio spoke. By the tone of his voice, he was trying to stay calm despite whatever chaos went on in the background. "We have arrived at Baltimore at 0432 hours today. Something has been picking off my men. They're not deathclaws, super mutants, not even those ferals. Whatever these creatures are, they're worse. Much worse." The radio buzzed as the man paused before continuing.

"There were… eight of us. Now, there's me and Initiate Samuel. There's a RobCo facility in Baltimore. You'll recognize it when you see the sign at the front. We're holed up in one of the storage rooms. Whatever you do, avoid the broken pieces of glass. I repeat, avoid the broken glass. They form bodies around them. That's how they got to my team!"

There was a faint echo, almost like a growl, followed by banging noises soon after. Another voice, that of a younger man, said in a panicked tone, "Sir? They're here."

The older man sighed as if he resigned himself to his fate. "I see." A hum sounded out. It wasn't the man humming. It was a machine humming to life. "Relay the signal and loop this message. Steel be with us."

The message ended right there before looping back to the start. The Time Lord turned off the radio. He heard enough.

"I don't know if I'm too late to save him," the Time Lord stated. "But whatever is causing this nightmare, I'll put an end to it. Wherever the universe—or any universe, really—call for help, it shows its true face. I show mine by my response."

He set out to the exit behind him but paused, nodding with a small smirk on his face. "Hm, I probably should say that again someday. With some refinement, of course." He smiled. "Bet Clara would love to hear it."​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Stepping out of the TARDIS, he looked around and saw crumbling, ruined buildings that stretched for miles. The streets were filled with rusted and broken down 1950s-style cars, something that made the Time Lord raise an eyebrow. What inconvenienced him as he walked around was the debris that randomly fell from some old building many years ago. Centuries, from the looks of it.

Another thing that hindered him was the street lights. He dreaded that at any moment, a streetlight could shorten out and leave him in utter darkness. Either that, or it would flicker in an out.

He looked up at the nighttime sky, still pacing around. "At least there are stars," he remarked to no one in particular.

Aside from the howling winds and the scuttles of old paper flying about, there was an uneasy silence filling the air. He never saw a single soul nor creature.

Of course, he mused. Pockets of radiation, a ruined city; it was clear this Earth had suffered from atomic annihilation, as some had predicted back on his Earth.

Going down another block away from the blue box and around a corner, he saw a sign flashing and flickering on the front side of an otherwise unassuming office building, only about a few stories tall. There was only one word plastered on the wall: RobCo.

With a determined look, the Doctor brisk across the street and opened the double-doors. Inside was a large lobby room complete with formerly comfy chairs and a desk at the other end of the room. What was surprising was that the lights were still on and functioning, abet yellow and worn down from neglect. The plain paint had peeled off from the walls and ceilings due to centuries worth of worn and neglect.

He even tasted something in the air. "Mold. And… dust particles." He licked the dust off his fingers before spitting them out. His face wrinkled in disgust. "How this managed to get through environmental regulations is beyond me," he remarked sardonically. "Oh, right…"

There were also inert robots placed on display all around him. Most of them were biped in shape with stiff legs and wiggly tubes for arms, like they shameless ripped off The Forbidden Planet and other b-movies. One robot that stood out was very large and very bulky, standing on four-legged wheels; the other was a round torso with three arms and eyes folded toward it.

There was no doubt this Earth stuck with everything about the 1950s to the bitter end.

Much to his disappointment, however, each inscription was scratched off in some chaotic pattern.

Everywhere he looked, from some of the bathrooms to the offices, there were signs of an intense battle that he was glad he missed out on. Scorch marks on the floor and the walls, random metal pieces laid out everywhere, and strangely enough, claw marks, three parallel to each other and in equal length and depth.

And on every occasion, he could hear heavy footsteps above him, bits of wood falling off, trailing along with them. While the Doctor's hearts nearly leap with joy, he couldn't help but wonder: was it Jefferson? Samuel? Or was it someone else, a guest like him?

While exploring another office adjacent to the lobby, he spotted a glowing screen in the darkness. When he crept closer, he found it was a blocky computer with an integrated keyboard. He couldn't find a mouse, though.

A smile spread wide across his face. "Oh, I do love those pop-up buttons. Everything was so swipy these days!" he made a sweeping motion with his right hand before pressing the red power button next to the screen.

A series of green letters line out as a block of the same color traveled to the right, spelling out:
​

ROBCO INDUSTRIES UNIFIED OPERATING SYSTEM
COPYRIGHT 2075-2077 ROBCO INDUSTRIES
-Server 16-​

Welcome, Kevin Ross.

Below were several lines marked as dates. Pressing the enter key on the first one brought him to a log detailing his first day on the job. He found it really boring, so he skipped that one out. The next one detailed his date, claiming that how his girlfriend would always belong to him, and all that creepy and melancholic stuff.

The next log entry, and the next, and the next were all boring to him.

8/16/2077 – Nerd brought something

Intrigued, the Doctor selected this one and pressed the enter key once more.

Out of the blue, one of the researchers came from another facility in Portland with a glass orb. He said he got it from an expedition in Afghanistan. He showed it to the others and I admit it does look rather pretty. Why he didn't bring it over to the government, a museum, or whatever was beyond me. Never got the chance to ask some questions.

My shift ended early, so I'm outta here.

********************

8/30/2077 – That look in his eyes

All I did was ask him how he was doing, and he gave me that look—the one that screamed, "I am going to kill you." Aside from him muttering about the orb, said he kept it in the basement, he said nothing. That creeped me out bad. I filed a complaint to HR and they said they would look into this. Matter of fact, he was never transferred here, like he decided to live here or something.

********************

9/17/2077 – Whispers

I swear to god, I thought someone was standing right next to me, whispering in my ear. But no one was at my desk. What the hell is going on?

I'm leaving early. My boss will understand.

********************

10/19/2077 – Incident

Bastard scientist tried to attack my coworkers. All he got was being institutionalized. Good riddance. That wasn't the end of it, however. Things have gotten worse since he left. It started out with glass breaking, mostly mirrors and windows. Our janitor wasn't thrilled about cleaning up the mess. Neither was our boss.

We've been on a shoestring budget for a while, so we were had to cancel some projects to pay for the mess. Thrilling.

The other guys went in to investigate in the basement but didn't bring anything up. All they told me was not to go in the basement and not to tell anyone. Didn't stop me from writing this down. Idiots.

********************

10/25/2077 – Friend got hurt

Malcolm was at the hospital. He got cuts and bruises all. How he was alive was anyone's guess. Someone or something attacked him with something sharp, which would explain a lot. I stopped by to check to see if he was okay. In the meantime, the police stopped by my workplace. Their investigations turned up empty. Were they slacking off or am I missing something here?

I got a bad feeling about this.

Strangely enough, the next entry did not have a date, but it was titled. It was labeled 'THAT ORB'.

As if the bombs falling wasn't enough, the orb that paradise in comparison.

The same thing that happened to the egghead was happening to me right now. It called to me, whispered my name. I couldn't help myself, so I unlocked the door to the basement and looked inside. Now I wish I hadn't.

Something had been killing my friends. I'm getting out of here with that spare hazmat suit I conveniently found. To hell with the radiation. If you want to live, then whatever you do, if the colors of the glass don't match, AVOID THEM!

If you don't, well... don't say I didn't warn you.

The sound of breaking glass from a nearby room broke the Doctor's concentration.​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

The Doctor craned his neck backward with a sigh. "Can't I get a moment of peace to myself? Is that so hard to ask?"

More glass broke, this time from the hallway outside.

He turned around and stepped away from the terminal, his right foot stepping on something that crunched under his weight. He knelt to inspect what he stepped on. Some of the pieces of glass to the floor were of different colors, and they seemed to be moving on its own. Seconds later the small pieces formed into a smile and it wasn't the friendly type.

His thoughts turned to what the last entry log on the terminal warned him about. Chitters, like glass pinging together, could easily be heard. He was not alone here.

A quick survey of the room revealed a plain, metal cabinet on the well-lit side of the room. With quiet footing, he hurried across, avoiding the ever-shifting pieces of glass on the floor. As he made it, he searched every inch of the cabinet, both in the inside and on the outside, for any piece of glass with mismatched colors. Finding nothing, the Doctor squeezed into the only spot he could fit into and shut the door.

It was dark and very difficult to move it, the worst nightmare a claustrophobe could ever have. The Time Lord slowed his breathing down to not draw attention to whatever was out there, looking for him. Aside from that, the other things he heard were more glassing pining along with growling and hissing.

The noises went on for minutes. The Doctor considered himself lucky that whatever hadn't found him yet.

Everything went quiet after that. He opened the door and hopped out of the cabinet. He made his way out of the office and surveyed the well-lit hallway. He did not want any nasty surprises waiting in the dark.

Finding nothing, he went to the stairs and onto the next floor. This one was very much like the one below: well-lit and empty but had several doors on both sides. As he stepped in, there was a loud crack, bringing his attention to the source, which came from the end of the hallway in front of him. He froze, his eyes wide open.

Something emerged from the shadows, and it was not organic.

It was roughly in shape of a lizard—larger than a dog—and made of glass shards of every possible color and opacity, with four legs of slightly varying lengths. Its head resembled that of a spider with three dark orb-like eyes at each of its face and perfectly smooth pincers at the front. Each spike lining on its back, from the tip of its tail to the base of its head, was a spiral. Its tail had curved upwards in the shape of a question mark, and larger shards jutted out from its underside at such extreme angles.

It wasn't like any other creature he had seen and indeed it seemed impossible just by looking at it, but the Doctor had seen the impossible many times before.

The glass creature seemed to be going through the glass from a terminal that crashed on the floor. It sorted through the larger glass shards from the smaller ones with its tiny crystalline claws, sniffing at them.

The Doctor could barely make a move before the creature took notice of him.

"Good… kitty-spider… glass…" he whispered, his hands raised in front of him.

The creature hissed and pounced, zipping down the hallway like a lightning bolt. He would have made a run for it, if not for a sudden of blue light appearing behind the creature, disintegrating instantly.

He looked and saw a large, imposing figure in the room at the end of the hallway.

"Are you alright?" the stranger asked as she stepped out of the room with footsteps that sounded like hydraulics doing its work. Her gray armor was massive, covering her from head to toe. Her helmet's visor had angled downward, giving her quite a menacing look. The armor's bulkiness, especially in the shoulders and torso, made her look like a tank on legs.

"I'm fine, thank you," the Doctor answered, finally lowering his hands. He flared and rubbed his nostrils, then his lips, together to settle his nerves.

The woman approached the Doctor, towering over him by about half a meter or so. She took a glance at him, almost as if she was studying him. He couldn't tell what she was thinking, no thanks to her helmet.

"Most scavengers to dirtier than you are. And they also carry junk and other stuff," the stranger pointed out. "Who are you?"

The Doctor stepped past her and stared at the ash pile. "I'm the Doctor." He turned at the armored stranger. "Nice to meet you." He turned back at the pile and took a pinch of it. "So you came here to investigate Jefferson's signal?" He tasted the pinch, only to spit it back out. Nothing out of the ordinary, he noted. "Either he and this Samuel were very good at hiding or these things have already disposed of them already."

"They're dead," the stranger replied. She showed him dog tags hanging from her right hand. One tag informed him of a man's expiration date, which went back hours before; the other had his name on it—Seth Jefferson.

"I see." He hung his head low. "What a shame. Were you planning on retrieving them?"

"I just happened to be in the neighborhood." She put the dog tags in a pouch on wrapped around her waist. "Not a good time to talk about my dealings with the Brotherhood of Steel right now. One of the terminals I hacked into said some orb was causing this."

"Of course." The Doctor stood up. "Same terminal by Kevin Ross?"

"No, different person," she corrected him.

He turned to her, finding himself gawking at a rifle that resembled a grenade rifle but with a blocky rifle held in her hands. "What's that?"

The woman in armor lowered her rifle and briefly investigated it. "It's a holorifle. A friend gave it to me years ago."

"What happened to your friend?"

She paused, and he could sense that sad sign behind her helmet. "He's gone." With that, she went past the Doctor. "You coming? The terminals say the orb's in the basement. If destroying it could save more lives to come, I'm all for it."

"Of course," the Doctor replied. Nice to find someone willing to risk their lives for a good cause. He started to head out and follow her, only to stop midway through. "Oh, what's your name?"

"My name's Jocelyn Song. A lot of people called me the Lone Wanderer back in the Capital Wasteland," the woman replied, looking back. She turned back to her general direction and continued walking, and the Doctor followed close behind.​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

They spent the next several minutes traversing from one room to another, their eyes alert for any of the glass creatures. Unfortunately, they had to travel upstairs to traverse around debris that blocked their way to the basement. Up there, on a walkway, as they snuck through the assembly line, they saw two of the creatures gnawing on one of the dome-shaped robots' head.

Jocelyn was ready to fire her holorifle as she leaned against the rail. She hesitated when the Doctor laid a hand on her wrist, silently urging her not to get unwanted attention. She nodded in response and they passed through without incident, despite her armor making some noise with each step she took.

They arrived at a storage room on the ground floor, and the Doctor gazed around the area. The room was overfilled, stuff with empty cabinets and broken terminals laid top. At the end of the room was a metal door with a cog in the center. To the right was a terminal mounted on the wall. Jocelyn hung her gun around her chest and approached the door. With steady hands, she gripped the cog and twisted it. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't get it open, let alone move it slightly.

"Need help?" the Doctor asked in a slight snide tone as he watched nearby.

"Nope, I'm good," she grunted.

He cocked an eyebrow in confusion. "Doesn't that armor enhance your strength? I mean, just look at you! You're huge wearing that thing!"

"Yeah, but… size isn't everything, Doctor." The wanderer had let go of the cog with a shake of her head and a sigh. "This door's tougher than I thought. The RobCo guys who sealed this orb really did not want it out."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Well, of course they don't want it out! It didn't really work out for them, don't you think?"

She ignored his remark as she turned her attention to the terminal. When she pressed the power button, the keyboard unfolded into view. "Gimme a moment. I just need to hack through this terminal's security system. Once I get in, I can unlock this damn thing. And keep an eye out, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am," the Doctor nodded with a smirk, watching Jocelyn do her thing. A casual glance around the room, finding yet again none of the glass creatures in sight. He got a bad feeling about this.

With his arms folded in front of him, he couldn't help but ponder in his mind. If this all could go well, then they would part ways without incident, and he would surely lose his chance to inquire about her history. Given her hesitation, it wasn't a pleasant one. Still, it wouldn't hurt to try.

"Earlier, you mentioned you this… Brotherhood of yours," the Doctor spoke.

Jocelyn said nothing. He hoped she was focused on the terminal and not ignoring him. Because that would be rather rude of her.

He sighed as he rubbed his face. "Look. If you don't want to talk about, that's fine. Really. I understand. Not everybody wants to talk about their past traumas. But I don't think you'll, you know…" He shrugged with curled lips. "Find closure. Get the chance to get that it off your chest. Cathartics. Because if you don't, you're going to wonder for the rest of your life whether you would get another chance and regret not taking it the first time 'round." He paused for a second before taking a deep breath. "Wouldn't you want to take that chance? It would do you a whole lot of good. Trust me on this."

Finally, as if on cue, Jocelyn pressed enter on the right word flashing on the screen among lines of random symbols and other words that made no sense in rhyme or pattern. "Alright, we're in," she said, relieved her hacking attempt worked. Inputting another commanded made the door open of its own accord. The cog sprung as the two outer parts sliding into the walls, the metal lowered into the floor with metal grinding against each other. It wasn't a pleasant sound, to say the least. At least nobody else in their vacancy had heard it, judging by the silent response.

Ahead of them was a passageway wrapped in a thick blanket of darkness.

The Doctor took a step toward her. "Have you listened to a word I said?" he asked firmly, his mouth forming into a stern frown.

The Lone Wanderer turned on the lamplight at the side of her helmet, as if controlled by her thoughts. The headlight revealed a stairway just after a sharp turn to the left. "Yeah, I hear you."

"Since we'll be going down these stairs, don't you think this would be an excellent time?" He pointed his finger at the passageway.

"You can say that," she picked up her rifle and braced it against her shoulder. "If anything happens to me, do you know how to defend yourself?" she asked.

"That seems a little dark." He looked at Jocelyn. "Have I told you I'm not big on guns?"

She turned to the Doctor. With the way she tilted her helmet, he had this feeling she was giving him a curious look. "No, I haven't. You're not from around here, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not," he quickly answered. "I'll explain later."​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

"Okay, then," said the Lone Wanderer, talking it in stride. Either that, or she wasn't sure what to expect.

She was the first to enter, and the Doctor was next. Since her headlight was the only source of light here, they had to take it slowly of where they stop as they descended on the stairs.

"Why don't we start things out with you?" the Doctor asked. "So… where did you come from?"

"I grew up in a fallout vault not long after my mom died giving birth to me," Jocelyn answered.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. My dad really loved her. He said he was passionate about a lot of things. About life."

"Sounded like your mother was a good person," the Doctor commented.

"Yeah."

"What was your vault like?"

That question made her go quiet for a moment. "It was like paradise back then, when I was younger. I was safe there, I had people looking after me, I didn't have to worry about anything, and there wasn't much fighting…" There was a wistful tone in her voice. "Until my dad left."

The Doctor furrowed his eyebrows, his mouth forming into a frown. "Your father doesn't exactly like a role model to me, abandoning you like that."

"He had a good reason," she insisted. "And besides, my vault and many others like it weren't meant to save anyone."

"They were experiments, then," the Doctor guessed.

"Exactly. I've heard of a few vaults that did what they were advertised to do back before the War," the Lone Wanderer explained. "My vault was designed to make sure nobody would enter the vault, and nobody would ever leave. My dad was looking for a GECK that would make Project Purity work properly. The GECK's short for the Garden of Eden Creation Kit. It's designed to terraform the landscape to something livable for part of the planet."

"And this project does what, exactly?"

"To provide clean water in the wasteland," the Wanderer answered. "Where I came from, it was one of the worst places you could live in. It was my parents' life work that the project could purify the whole of the Potomac River. I searched for my dad far and wide, and I did find him. We resumed the project afterward, but…" She paused. "…But he died protecting me and his work."

"And you went to the Brotherhood of Steel for help."

"That's right. It took a lot of effort, finding the GECK and retaking the facility, but we did it," said Jocelyn. "With the help of a giant robot they found."

"A giant robot." The Time Lord had to resist forming a smile on his face. "I would love to see that."

She let out a small chuckle. "You should've seen the thing in action." She stopped in her tracks, and the Doctor nearly slipped and fell, bumping behind her. Luckily, her armor was bulky enough to fill the space ahead of him and sturdy enough to have her hardly notice. As he regained his balanced, she turned behind her toward him. "Have you ever did so much and worked so hard to make things right, only to have everything just... fall apart around you?"

The Doctor sighed deeply, letting her words sink in enough to make his hearts throb. "More times than I can count."

She said nothing, even as she looked away and went on ahead.

Just as the Doctor began to wonder if they would ever reach the bottom, their feet met the flat floor beneath them, her left hand meeting the handle of a plain metal door.

"Looks like this is the place," she said. "Ready?"

The Doctor nodded. "Are you? I mean, you clearly are ready."

"That's a given."​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Codex Entry - Locations: The Vaults

Designed by the Vault-Tec Corporation and collaborated by RobCo Industries, the Vaults were advertised as fallout shelters to the American public, promising them protection from nuclear war and every luxury available.

Construction began in the 2050s and by 2063, most Vaults had finished construction. Each Vault was designed to hold up to 1,000 residents, but due to the size of the population, it would take approximately 400,000 Vaults on average to build, and according to public records, Vault-Tec had only built 122 Vaults.

However, they were never designed to save the people that lived inside them. They were a vast, unethical social experiment orchestrated by the United States government, designed to study pre-selected segments of the population to test their reactions to isolation and how successfully they can recolonize Earth after the Vaults were reopened. Each Vault had different approaches on the experiment.

Out of the 122, only 17 did as they were advertised to the public. Most experimental Vaults were complete failures, becoming vast graveyards, their corridors picked clean like the tombs of pharaohs. The remaining few that survived the experiments greeted the harshness of the wasteland.

The lesson was clear. The Vaults were never meant to save anyone.​

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Jocelyn opened the door quietly as it cracked softly, and they both stepped inside.

The basement was large and had little light, supported only by a single flickering light bulb attached to the ceiling. One of the few things in here was a plain pillar placed in the center of the room, crowned o top by a glowing, transparent orb. Surrounding the orb were marks all over, all glowing blue.

The other thing—or rather, things were the glass creatures by the dozen. They all seemed to be in a resting position, but they didn't react when Jocelyn shone her lamplight on each of them. None of them made a move nor noise as if they were still as statues.

The Doctor went past his new companion and looked at one of the markings on the floor with furrowed eyebrows. It didn't like anything that lacked rhyme or reason. Rather, these ones were complex mathematical equations, dealing with the uncertainty principle, the measurements of a wormhole, and others that relate to wavelengths, quantum mechanics, and particle physics. Many of them were all about the many-worlds interpretation. A couple equations seemed far too incomprehensible for any human being to write.

He looked up at the orb as he rubbed his chin. Something bothered him about that thing. How did it survive for so long in such perfect condition? And how did it manage to withstand against a nuclear war, of all things? To be fair for that last question, it was stored here. But that begged another question: Why didn't anyone bother to destroy the orb? What, exactly, was stopping them?

For some reason, he wanted to touch it, just to see how it would react.

"Doctor?" the Lone Wanderer called out through a whisper. "Are you okay?"

The Doctor blinked as he spurred himself out of his thoughts. Before he even realized it, he was muttering to himself, and his hands was hovering centimeters away from the orb. He lowered his hand and straightened his posture, clearing his throat in the process. "Sorry, I… uh, got carried away."

"That's obvious," she deadpanned.

A hum vibrated in the Time Lord's teeth, which he found particularly odd. He looked back, and the orb suddenly lit up, taking on a blue hue like it reflected off a daytime's skyline. As if in response to the orb, the glass creatures woke up and raised their heads. All of them screamed in unison, like multiple tuning forks playing all at once. The equations on the floor glowed of its own accord.

Before either of them knew it, the orb grew so bright they had to look away and close their eyes, lest they go blind. He collapsed in pain as a jolt of electricity coursed through his body.

When he came to, the Doctor stood up and found himself back in the TARDIS control room, same as he had left it. He looked around, and saw Jocelyn also coming to her senses.

The back of Jocelyn's armor suddenly unfolded as it made a hissing sound, and she climbed out, standing almost as tall as he was. The back of the armor folded back into shape.

This woman with chestnut skin had a weary and tired look on her face (for that he could relate), her messy black hair tied in a bun. Her facial features, such as her narrow brown eyes, an angular jawline, and a wise nose pointed slightly upward, were signs of mixed heritage.

Her tattered trench coat shared a similar story to her hairstyle, a hood hanging behind her neck. Over that and underneath the vents were green ballistic plates all over her body. Given she lugged around who knows what in her backpack and pouches without wearing herself out, along with her weapons, he had to assume she was heavily built.

The one thing that caught his attention was a contraption strapped on her left forearm, the interface glowing green on its screen. "What's that on your arm?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It's a Pip-Boy. Standard equipment for vault dwellers, like me. But that's not the…" She made her way to the exit and opened the door, looking outside. It didn't take long for her to close it quickly before going back to the Doctor. "Okay, I have to ask you something."

The Doctor nodded, his back leaning against the railing. He saw this one coming. "Go on."

"Why is on bigger in the inside, and how the hell did we get on a space station?"

END OF CHAPTER ONE​