Gently, but with undeniable will divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. (Pt. 5: Chances)

[cityship]

The plan was...well, it wasn't simple, but it sort of was.

While the CLF attacked multiple Clone Processing centers to distract the government, the group with the CLF would target one particular one in the region that'd once been New Jersey. The group with the government would offer their services in putting down their own people.

In the center, they'd split up into several groups. One would fight a fake fight, create a massive diversion, and blow up the room where the samples their DNA were being kept in the process. Another group would secure a teleporter pad. That team would teleport out other teams to steal a ship, steal some med tech to teleport to said ship, and steal a medical database. Another team would go to the main command center and hack into the government mainframe to down the sensornet around the planet so they could escape. And Nightwing himself would accompany the clones to upload the harvested memories to the Mother Brains, left unguarded because of the diversionary fighting, and make sure that was all they did.

Meanwhile, there'd be a standing order for all teams to avoid killing other crewmates, and avoid killing guards unless absolutely necessary.

It was a complicated plan. If a single part fouled up, they might find themselves dead, trapped, or worse. But if it worked, it'd work pretty spectacularly and leave them with medtech, a medical database, the clones helped, and possibly a grateful Council depending on how the fight went, because of the ones seemingly aiding the government.

In some worlds, things that were a million-to-one-chance (exactly a million-to-one) by their nature had to work. Let's hope this world is one of them, eh, mission crew?

[ooc: Only comment to threads if it says they are open here. All threads: OPEN. Characters may get injuries up to and including 7 on the Injury Scale (scroll to the bottom). Any higher, and they must ask permission of the plot-runners, just to make sure everyone isn't immobilized without enough people to help move them.]

Comments

[makeherblue]

Luckily for Daniel they hadn't quite got to that point.

"I'd tell you to stay back," the Doctor held up a hand. "But it's probably too late for that, I'd imagine."

Daniel, you really did insist on having the most fantastically bad timing, ever! It had to be an art or an achievement or even worthy of those shiny little plaques the Doctor was so fond of. The Doctor felt that pressure lessen as Other-Him turned toward Daniel, taking in his very first archeologist in the flesh. He peered at him with open interest. Lack of control and inhibitions aside, this clone of him was very him -- the Doctor watched as his double stared at Daniel, frowned at him, and then frowned at that hat. Definitely him. No matter where he came from or how old he was. The Doctor tried to steer most of the memories and sensations psychically leaking out of Other-Him away, more for Daniel's sake than any attempt at privacy. Too many at once and they could very well have a brain-dead Otter Soother on his hands. Their hands. Collective hands.

Still, try as he might, the Doctor couldn't quite stop some things from leaking out at the human:

A need to get out. Chronically borrowing something. He told himself it was only borrowing, that was all.

Flashes of red. Donna Noble. Massively ginger. Shouty bride. The Empress throwing her last chance in his face. All that water roaring toward the core. Fire and water and that ugly face snarling at him screeching about her equally terrible children. Looking down at his hands, his and yet it was another man's, and it was so easy to watch as the last of the Racnoss drowned underneath his feet. He'd gotten rather good at it --

The Doctor reached the clone in those few seconds, grabbing him by the arm and jerking him sharply away from Daniel. The memories drifted away.

"Don't let the hat fool you," the clone suddenly decided to chime up. He was still staring at Daniel with a thoughtful frown, "Not a fan of those snakes, I'd say. Nasty little things!" Other-Him clutched at the Doctor. Apparently he was fond of physical contact, practically clinging to him in a way that was so very Jamie McCrimmon. All those memories and he was still sorting out who he was. Trying them on for size. Better hope he didn't get it in his head to try Time Lord Victorious for a bit of fun.

Apparently he decided a cling was in order. The Doctor decided he'd rather deal with a harmless cling than his clone deciding to attack, like he'd been ordered. Then again, they hadn't ever been much good with orders, had they? Boring stuff. Dreadfully dull. Mindboggling dull, he'd even say.

But hats? And what did snakes have to do with anything? The Doctor wasn't quite sure what that remark was supposed to mean, glancing over at Daniel and ducking a piece of shrapnel that came whistling overhead.

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel started to ask why he should stay away when the other Doctor turned and looked at him. It was like running into a sudden force. The archaeologist rocked on his heels, gun slipping from his fingers. His face went blank.

Images, smells and sounds, knowledge flooded into his head so fast that he had a hard time picking everything out.

A red head. That was the first thing he picked up on, a red head in a wedding dress getting into his face and yelling at him, even though he was trying to get her back to her wedding. Loud, obnoxious, abrasive, and you know what, he didn't even want her there anyway! It wasn't like he wanted her around! He didn't need anyone else. Not after Rose. And yet there was something so sad and lonely about her that Daniel found himself harboring the temptation to ask her to come with him. Like she was meant for greater and better things than being ground beneath her family.

Impossibly, even more images played during those. The urge to get out from the stifling, from the stagnation. It was so intense it made his head hurt. Blood red. An alien, a mix between a spider and a woman. The Empress of the Racnoss, Daniel thought, then wondered how he knew that in the first place. He tried not to judge a person based on their looks or way of life, but somehow he knew she was terrible, a terrible species that was a scourge on the universe. He tried to offer her and her children a chance to live but deep down, he'd been counting on her to throw the offer away. The darker part of him had been hoping she would, and he'd drowned them and not cared at all-

Daniel was suddenly back on Abydos, as if it were happening right before him, crystal clear. Remembered deciphering the walls with Sha're. He was standing in the room, watching Kawalsky alternate between foaming at the mouth as a Goa'uld and pleading for them to kill him. He saw his wife look back at him on Chulak, and it wasn't his wife anymore. He remembered confronting Jack on his suicidal mission, and then later the look on the Colonel's face when they'd said their good-byes, how he'd actually smiled. Jack had been ready to live again. He remembered Ra too. Daniel would never forget the way Ra had looked at him as the false God caressed Catherine's medallion, as if he were a new toy, or the way he'd answered his questions about the bomb, like Daniel was some child he was indulging for the moment. And underlying every single memory was the anger and hatred he had for the Goa'uld.

The other Doctor was saying... something. Daniel couldn't tell what. It was hard enough even registering he was talking in the first place, as if the man was trying to talk through a heavy fog. Dazed, Daniel shook his head, trying to get himself together. He blinked. The movement was an odd one, more suited to a cat or bird, one eye closing and opening and then the other. He swayed, almost drunkenly, on his feet, seemingly oblivious to the shrapnel and explosions nearby.

[makeherblue]

That was exactly what the Doctor was afraid of. Of course Daniel had to wander right into his duplicate's sights.

And...now he was just standing there. Weaving slightly, but yeah. Still just standing there. He might as well have a target drawn on his forehead

The Doctor suddenly dived at Daniel, which was a great deal harder than it had to be when you were jerking your own clone to the ground with you. Clumsy bit of a dive. A giant chunk of what was probably an ex-wall came spinning overhead, exploding into powder several meters away with a deafening whud. The Doctor coughed on the cloud of dust as he tried to sort out who was where and that clone was still leaking memories even as he lifted his head. Hell of a time to go thinking about dropping in on Mark Twain's birthday!

Trying to pointedly ignore being impressed by Twain's incredible mustache, the Doctor tugged on Daniel's elbow. The human was actually doing quite well for his first encounter with a Time Lord psychic snoop, all things considered. Bit dazed but that would wear off.

He could see Other-Him looking at Daniel, as if he wanted to see right through him into his very soul. Whatever that exchange had been, the clone's interest was focused on Daniel all of a sudden and less on trying to convince the Doctor they should take the TARDIS and go wherever they wanted in space-time.

"You'll be fine," the Doctor said to Daniel. He motioned for the three of them to inch to the closest thing to a shelter.

"They're very fragile, aren't they?" the Other Doctor said in the worst whisper ever. "You could break one by looking at him wrong! My! No wonder you pick up so many, rate you keep going through them."

The Doctor glanced at his clone, startled. It was the exact sort of thought he'd had in the past -- perhaps not something he'd always say to his companions' faces -- and hearing himself putting it out there so casually was a bit of a shock.

[hi_there_aliens]

Uh, what? Mark Twain's birthday, that sounded like fun. Daniel watched, bemused, as the Doctor decided to take a spontaneous flying lesson. He was a lot less amused when that flying lesson ended up including him and the cloned Doctor.

Daniel hit the ground hard, just as the world exploded overhead. The impact ended up doing the trick, rudely jogging him out of the daze and back into the real world, just in time to get doused with ash and soot. The archaeologist suddenly looked a lot like he'd just been caught in a snowstorm, or maybe some archaeological find at Pompeii. He sneezed. Then he sneezed again and again and again...

"Wha... What just happened?" Daniel asked when he finally could again, inching towards the shelter. He could remember all those images before, all the emotions and smells too, as if they'd been his own. But as interesting as the experience was, it was also too much at once. He didn't want to go through it again. The New Doctor didn't seem to notice, too busy being astonished at how frail humans apparently were.

Picked up so many? Going through them all? "What are you talking about?"

Btw, we need to split the clone from Doctor/Daniel soon.

[makeherblue]

"You. Or humans in general. Loads of human friends all over space and time, popular fella isn't he? Us. We are, I think," the Other Doctor said helpfully. He peered over the Doctor's impressive head of hair at Daniel. "You'd like Mark Twain. Hell of a funny man!"

If not one of the funniest. The Doctor shifted some rubble aside with his hands, privately glad Daniel hadn't had come attached with some sort of internal magnet for shrapnel. The good thing was his clone wasn't at all violent so far. Incredibly invasive and hardly helping matters, yes, but at least he wasn't trying to burn out Daniel's mind just because it might look interesting. The Doctor reached out and shoved both his clone's head and Daniel's down as another piece of rubble came thudding overhead, skidded across a wall's top and then smacked into the side of a building. Actually, it looked rather like a strike missile impact, only without half the radiation and the Doctor had to take a moment to pause and realize that thought? It wasn't his. Or it was, only it was coming from him.

He turned slightly and there was his new clone, staring at the impact site with a critical eye.

"Come on, this way!" The Doctor half crawled, half scurried for cover, grabbing at whatever sleeve was closest.

Sure thing

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel wanted to believe this guy got around and made friends everywhere, because he seemed friendly enough but who talked about their friends like they weren't a living being but a new car? That didn't actually answer his first question. Daniel wanted to know what the hell just happened to him when the clone looked at him, and for some reason, besides being in the middle of a battle, the Doctor wasn't answering.

"I know his work," That must be what he meant, but his wording was bizarre, as if he really believed that they could get off world and go meet him. Or that this was a good time to even talk literature. "But what just happened-"

Daniel nearly smacked his chin into the ground when the Doctor shoved them both down. Something went shooting over head, impacting into a building. It was like a strike missile hitting-

As if he knew what one of those looked like in person. Why did he even think it just now? The Doctor grabbed at them both and scuttled for new cover like a crab. Daniel scrambled after him, feeling a lot like he was being dragged around by a leash.

Re: Sure thing

[makeherblue]

"I'll explain later," the Doctor insisted in the middle of his crab-scuttle. "As in now is hardly the time for silly things like explanations and there's a perfectly logical explanation that I won't go into right at this very specific second."

They'd crawled and snuck and lurked over to a temporary safe spot; the overhang had taken a few stray hits and he doubted it would be for much good than a bit of a breather but that was all they needed, wasn't it? Just a bit of a breather. Or that was what Daniel was needing, because he was a human and humans at least liked to be easy with simple needs every now and then. Taste in hats aside. His clone, on the other hand. The Doctor turned toward his clone and found him curling up into a ball, those memories compressing inward in a way that was painfully familiar -- they were hardly the oldest Time Lord in existence ever, but there was a definite downside to being centuries old enough to beat every failing you ever had to death. He didn't even have to imagine what it felt like to the clone next to him, old and yet far too new at the same time.

He peered at his clone.

"Oh dear," he said, in one of those rather massive understatements.

The Doctor's face blanched as he felt his clone projecting what it felt like to have to use the Moment against his own people.

Right now it was mostly this almost animal hurt, not the specific details, but it was enough. This bleeding sadness, fresh and raw and going right to the core. It'd been so long ago the Doctor himself hadn't forgotten - he could never forget Gallifrey's final days -- but somehow it had...hurt slightly less over time. Hurts usually did. The decision was already made. But for the clone with no proper perception of just how long they lived, it was new. Practically the present. Exchanging looks with Daniel, who he was pleased to see was keeping his head down (smart man), the Doctor scooted over to his clone and reached out to touch him.

"Oh dear" was right. The Doctor touched his clone's temples, letting their foreheads brush as he tried to get the Other Doctor sorted.

At this point, the only thing keeping the two of them safe was Daniel Jackson with his "borrowed" gun.

Re: Sure thing

[hi_there_aliens]

Which wasn't much good when said archaeologist was suddenly getting the equivalent of a Time Lord memory word vomit.

Nothing prepared him for the sudden rush of feelings, memories, sights or sounds that followed. It was so sudden and so strong that it was like getting sucker punched. Daniel clutched the gun, fingers whitening, and huddled under the temporary shelter, barely aware of the other Doctor doing the same.

The sorrow was so intense it physically hurt in his chest. Nothing he'd ever gone through could even compare, not even losing Sha're. A planet and millions, billions of lives snuffed out in an instant under him, and in the fraction of a second, he had the presence of mind to know he'd done what had to be done. The right thing. Doing the right thing also left him alone, the very perfect definition of the word in this entire universe.

Then the aftershock hit the TARDIS and it threw him back against the console. The TARDIS ripped and tore around him, space-time distorting with the blow he'd dealt it. He knew, kind of, what to expect when he'd used The Moment, and the merciful thing was that there was a good chance, an eighty percent chance or a ninety percent one if you were feeling optimistic, that he wouldn't survive too long to feel what alone really was. Dying hurt. It always did. Worse was Daniel felt himself dying. This was different than the other times, because somehow he could feel every single cell dying, right after he watched his own planet go under his own hand.

The last thing he remembered was the TARDIS taking on a queer golden color, and then a snapping sensation, of something, space? closing around him. The gold turned to an aqua color. Life was coming back to him, a rush of yellow energy and then the images and feelings abruptly ended.

Daniel gasped and jerked up. He managed to pull himself upright,and looked over, to find the Doctor with the other Doctor. They had their foreheads pressed together, and for all he knew, they were dead to the world. That left only one archaeologist to protect them all. Shakily, Daniel loosened his deathgrip on the gun, and carefully peered around their temporary shelter, looking for anyone coming at them. He looked down, to find his fingers starting to tighten around the weapon again, knuckles whitening.

What the hell was all this?