Beta: Miral-Romanov

Chapter 2

The Matrix (Or, The What-If Machine)

The Doctor instructed Rose, upon her agreement, to tell her people where she was going, as it was quite possible they could be gone for several hours and it wouldn't be best to have them sounding the alarm if and when they found her missing. Once she had made her way back up to the Citadel, the Doctor quickly grabbed his now fully repaired (and quite pleased) ship and popped in on Romana to request what he needed. She had graciously given the Doctor full access to whatever he needed at any time— quite literally, as a matter of fact. He felt the tremendously important item he'd acquired under these very special circumstances, which he'd slipped into his waistcoat pocket, thumping gently against his hip as he walked back up to the Citadel. He was amazed he, let alone Romana, was able to acquire it at all, despite the goal here only being to educate a well-meaning but slightly naïve human girl. After all, it wasn't as though the last time someone had procured such an item went too well.

Rose was waiting for him at the base of the steps, looking slightly annoyed, but perked up yet again when she saw him approaching. He, on the other hand, frowned at her expression.

"Whatever is the matter?" he asked her with concern.

She gave him a small smile and waved aside his apprehension with a gesture of her hand. "S'nothing," she insisted. When he gave her a look, she shrugged one shoulder and said in explanation, "Just some of my teammates don't think I should be givin' you a chance."

The Doctor felt a bit put out but said reasonably, "Well, it isn't as if Time Lords have given much reason for trust."

"Suppose not," she said, but still looked irritated by her teammates' behaviour. Quickly changing the subject, she asked him, "What are we doing first?"

She looked like she was trying to tamp down excitement, which made him grin. Looking around quickly and noticing Rose's team sending him glares of death from the top of the steps, the Doctor leaned in close to her — before promptly leaning back again when he found she smelled almost stiflingly sweet — and muttered, "Not here."

Rose followed his gaze and, upon reflecting her team's glare back at them, allowed herself to be led into an empty antechamber. Looking around at the chamber, she cocked an eyebrow and asked, "Is this it?"

He chuckled. "No. This is it."

With his words, he plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out a golden key, spindle-thin and intricately crafted with the Seal of Rassilon carved into the top. Perhaps it was the way he himself was holding it, but Rose seemed in awe of the key, despite not knowing what it actually was, as demonstrated by her quiet whisper of, "What is it?"

"The Key of Rassilon," the Doctor said just as softly. "We have been granted access to it."

"What's it for?"

"It is one of the ways we can access the Matrix. Gallifrey's resident supercomputer," he explained, when Rose looked confused. "It contains a simulated environment in a micro-universe used to store information and memories, and predict potential futures."

"O… kay…" Rose said slowly, briefly sending him a glance like she thought he was bonkers. "And we're going to… use this computer?"

"Specifically, we're going to enter it," the Doctor said, holding up the Key again. "But essentially yes, we will use it." At her blank look, he attempted to elaborate. "I've explained to you a little bit about timelines, yes?" She nodded, and he continued, "Well, they don't just surround people. Everyone and everything in the universe has timelines. Something as simple as an asteroid could be either totally insignificant or be the starting point of all life in a galaxy."

"Really?" Rose exclaimed in awe.

He smiled at her enthusiasm. "Yes. Time Lords use the Matrix to simulate the future consequences of, say, destroying that asteroid before it can reach habitable space. And that, Rose Tyler, is what we're going to do today."

"We're gonna go into the Time Lords' what-if machine and see what destroying an asteroid will do?"

The Doctor laughed. "Well, something like that, but not exactly. We're going into the Time Lords' supercomputer and seeing what changing a significant event, even slightly, will do to the future. And it's not a 'what-if machine'," he added with a smirk.

"But it uses stored information to predict the future, yeah?" He nodded, and she reiterated, "What-if machine."

He sent her a mock-stern look but brushed it off, extending his arm. "Shall we, Rose?"

The look of amazement on her face was answer enough.

Rose was surrounded by utter darkness. She couldn't feel ground underneath her feet and found she couldn't move her body even an inch, just in case she found there really wasn't ground underneath her feet. The only thing that kept her from crying out in fear was the Doctor's warm hand around hers, and his quiet murmuring of, "Don't worry. This is just the unshaped environment."

Rose didn't answer, still afraid that if she opened her mouth she'd either scream or choke on the inky blackness. He gave her hand another comforting squeeze, as if sensing her distress, and suddenly the darkness began to take form. She blinked at the confusing swirl of colours and shapes, until the world around them finally settled into a proper environment. And almost immediately, Rose wished for the endless darkness from earlier.

The ground was nothing but scorched terrain covered up by piles of greyish snow, which reached up to their shins. The sky was utterly blocked out with what looked like a massive, whirling storm of the same strange snow, the air was frigidly cold and the wind was so strong it whipped her hair back and made her clutch at the Doctor's arm to keep from falling over.

"What—" Rose tried to say, only to get a mouthful of ashy-tasting air as a result. Taking a moment to cough, she held a hand up to her mouth and shouted over the roar of the wind, "What the hell is this stuff?"

"It's a mix of snow and ash," the Doctor said loudly, raising his arm and using his coat to block them both from the whipping 'snow'. "This is Earth, 1989."

"What are you talking about?" Rose exclaimed. "This never happened!"

"No, but it could have happened," the Doctor said. "Have you ever heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Rose?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Don't think so."

"It happened a long time ago, from your point of view. Back in 1962, there was an event that lasted thirteen days between the Soviet Union and the United States, regarding missiles being stationed in and shipped to Cuba." A particularly violent gust of wind nearly knocked them both over, but the Doctor grabbed onto her waist to steady her. After both of their blushes faded away, he continued, "The current President at the time, John F. Kennedy, formed a blockade to stop this from happening, which was received by the Soviet Union as an act of aggression."

"I remember now," Rose said, immediately recalling the event used in a presentation of Torchwood's Temporal Division as an example of disaster averted.

The Doctor nodded. "Your people predicted that, had the event gone sideways, it would have prompted World War III. They were correct."

"This is World War III?" Rose exclaimed in horror.

"Specifically, this is the consequence of it." He looked off sternly at the destroyed wasteland, and Rose followed suit, expecting to see something. "Total extinction of the planet in its entirety. And a fifty year nuclear winter as an aftermath."

Rose's jaw dropped despite herself, but she quickly closed it when she received another mouthful of ash. "What went wrong?"

He looked almost bizarrely amused, in a grim way. "Kennedy lost the election. Nixon took his place and botched the entire negotiation."

It was nerve-wracking, to know how closely her entire beloved planet had come to mass extinction— and that it had been prevented by something as arbitrary as an election of a country she didn't even live in. She had to firmly remind herself that none of this was actually real, and that she'd only recently left a fully intact Earth, several centuries later, behind.

"This is what would happen if one of us went back in time and… I dunno, change the votes?"

"Well, only if the paradox wasn't fixed quickly. I'll explain that later," he added, when she looked confused.

Rose stayed quiet for a few moments, contemplating what she'd seen. It was clear that one wrong move from herself or somebody else could honestly cause total extinction of their race. Or, God forbid, something worse.

With that in mind, she squeezed the Doctor's arm and asked him, "What else could happen? If something changed, I mean."

He smiled down at her, looking almost fondly proud of her question. The scene immediately began disappearing around them, forcing Rose to look away from the lovely expression. This time, the ashen storm and blackened, lifeless terrain melted into an utterly beautiful scene. She looked around, awestruck; they were now standing in the middle of a flowering alien field, with swaying blue grass that grazed their hips and blossoming flowers that looked like sleeping butterflies. The sky was a blanket of almost too-bright stars, with a swirling nebula in one corner and a gigantic glittering planet taking up another corner, and just over the hill was a twinkling city full of arched, white buildings.

"Wow," Rose exclaimed in delight, spinning in a circle to take in as much as possible and totally missing the Doctor's warm look. "What is this?"

"Beta Aquilae," the Doctor said cheerfully, watching her tentatively poke one of the butterfly flowers. "Second planet from the suns. Most evolved out of the four habited planets in this system."

Tearing her attention away from the flowers, she asked him with interest, "So, why are we here? Please tell me nothing awful's gonna happen here," she added, suddenly nervous.

"Not at all," the Doctor said kindly. "Actually, a catalyst of the planet's history is about to occur. The northern continent's scientists have recently perfected an inexhaustible, recyclable and environmentally-friendly power source and are beginning to hook up their generators to every city." Almost immediately after he'd finished speaking, the lights from the city below them began shutting off, until the entire place was dark and silent. "Watch this," he added, when he spotted the darkened city.

Rose obediently watched the marble buildings, shimmering slightly under the light of the nearby purple planet. Then, suddenly, all the lights in the city turned back on with a motion resembling a luminous wave, and were somehow brighter than before. A resounding, happy cheer sounded from below, making Rose grin.

"This is the first city to have received a generator," the Doctor explained, much more interested in watching her brilliant reaction rather than history in the making, for some reason.

"Wow," Rose repeated, beaming and leaving unnoticed the way he smiled in response. "But why are we here?"

"Well, in a few weeks the Emperor of the planet's prime continent will make the decision over whether or not to share this technology with the other planets in the system."

Rose frowned. "But I thought you said they were less advanced than this planet."

His grin widened. "I did."

"So then, that would probably be a really bad idea," Rose concluded, raising an eyebrow when the Doctor continued smiling.

"The Emperor eventually decided so as well. The other planets were allowed to evolve naturally until they were ready to share this technology without any repercussions. One of them actually invented something similar before Beta Aquilae had the chance to share it."

The image of the barren wasteland that had been Earth after nuclear war flashed through Rose's mind again, making her immediately apprehensive. "And what would've happened if he'd chosen to share it?"

His expression dimmed again, and their surroundings began to blend away for the second time, except this time instead of turning into an entirely different scene, they remained in the same spot. This time, however, it was clear they'd moved into the future, as the field and the city below were now blanketed with blue-tinted snow. There was something different about the place, beyond the seasonal change, that Rose couldn't quite put her finger on, until the Doctor pointed to the sky and said softly, "Look."

It was immediately apparent the second she looked up to the sky— the massive nearby planet was now gone. At a second glance, Rose realised it wasn't gone but utterly darkened, the lights from civilisation having disappeared; and, after a further examination, she saw that the planet's atmosphere was swirling with a thick black fog and had a scattering of debris orbiting the planet.

"What happened?" Rose asked in a low voice.

"This is what would have happened if the Emperor had shared the technology with Betas Serkis, Kaitos and Giana. Beta Kaitos—" He paused to point at the blackened planet, "— was the first and only planet in the system to receive the technology. They almost instantaneously used it to create inexhaustible weapons to continue their war with another continent. Beta Giana, the smallest planet, tried to intervene, and were annihilated." The debris, Rose realised with a start. "In a few years, Beta Kaitos will be destroyed by their own weapons, bombarding the neighbouring planets — including this one — with debris and killing over eighty-five per cent of the population. The rest die out from starvation."

"But none of this really happened, yeah?" Rose said, needing the assurance. "He didn't give it to them."

"No, he didn't," the Doctor answered kindly. "None of this ever happened, and was never meant to. But this is the most likely possibility, and thus it's the most significant. And," he added, looking a bit apprehensive, "it was only narrowly avoided. That's why the Time Lords have it at the top of the archives."

"But wait," Rose said, her mind a whirlwind as she tried to process everything she'd seen. "All of these things were problems that were resolved, or prevented. What about the opposite?"

"I'm sorry?" the Doctor said with confusion.

"You know, what the Time Lords think we plan to do with time travel," Rose stated, not rudely. "Stop a horrible event from happening instead of the other way around."

He looked almost stunned at her question for the briefest moment, before he nodded curtly. "I know just the thing."

Yet again, the environment around them faded away, and was replaced with another alien planet. This time, Rose and the Doctor were situated in the middle of an urban street with tall black buildings, only to nearly be toppled over by a nervous, bustling crowd of aliens when things properly solidified. The Doctor quickly took Rose by the hand and pulled her through the throng into the tiniest of empty corners, forcing Rose up against him in an awkward half-hug. She blushed hotly and was about to comment, but the alien people currently trampling each other caught her eye.

"Wait a minute," she exclaimed in shock. "Those are the Kraylor and the Rolyark!"

It was difficult to see at first, but undeniable. All of them, young and old, were thin and wearing the same kind of springy jumpsuits, and would be utterly unrecognisable if not for the differences of their skin. The Kraylor had green skin patterned with blue swirls, while the Rolyark had blue skin patterned with green swirls. What struck her as odd was the fact that both races were together, in the same place, without attacking each other.

"Yes they are," the Doctor confirmed, breaking her out of her thoughts. "You've heard of them?"

"Of course. Sor' of hard not to have heard of them, after that war they've been having for ages." She paused for a moment to watch the two races, glad to see them all together even if they all looked equally distressed, before adding, "Kinda sad they still haven't realised that one of their names is the other spelled backwards." He sent her an amused look that she answered with a nonchalant shrug. "Well, s'true."

"Yes it is," the Doctor grinned.

She sent him one of her signature tongue-touched smiles, which faltered slightly when she noticed the way his eyes immediately zeroed in on her mouth, but instead of commenting she instead asked, "So, what, is this after the war ends?"

"No," the Doctor said, apparently shaking himself out of whatever stupor her smile had put him into. "This is what the future would look like had the war been prevented." Rose looked up at him in shock, apparently leaving unnoticed the short distance between their faces. Uncomfortable with her proximity, he turned towards the crowd as an excuse to look away from her, remarking, "You did want to see what would happen if a massive disaster were to be averted. This is it."

She looked at the crowd of near-identical aliens as well, frowning. "What's the story this time?"

"Well, this time when the Kraylor and the Rolyark discovered each other, they made an alliance instead of warring over which was the superior race," the Doctor began to explain, feeling a bit of a thrill when he noticed Rose listening intently to his lecture. Preening a bit, he continued, "The lack of fighting gave room for technological development outside of defence and weaponry. Unfortunately, this means that the Rolyark's planet didn't have the advanced shielding that protected it from Kraylor attacks, and the planet fell victim to a massive solar flare. The Rolyark were quickly evacuated to Kraylor—" He stopped for a moment to gesture at their surroundings, "— but the planet is far too small to handle both races."

Rose felt her chest clench with pity. "So, what happened? They died out of starvation, or something?"

"No," the Doctor said, shocking her. "Actually, the Krillitanes in the neighbouring Banscrin system took advantage of the overpopulation problem and assimilated them all. But odds are, had the Krillitanes not intervened, the two races would have in fact perished from starvation."

"Blimey," Rose said aloud, watching the two races fall over each other in an effort to move. A near endless war for stupid reasons seemed almost better than cooperation that ended in total destruction by a race of… whatever Krillitanes were. That seemed like something she'd need to know, so she asked him, "What are the Krillitanes?" Before he could answer, she added, "Are they one of those 'time-sensitive' creatures you were tellin' me about?"

"No, they aren't."

He didn't answer her first question, but if he had she wouldn't have paid attention anyway, too caught up in her own thoughts. The lessons the Doctor had taught her had opened up an entirely new world to her, and she felt completely ignorant. A few hours earlier, Rose was utterly certain she'd thought of everything that could possibly go wrong, but now she felt like she'd only grazed the surface.

Determined to fix this, Rose ignored their closeness and looked up at him with a firm expression. "You said something about archives?"

"Yes, I did," the Doctor answered, trying to follow suit and overlook their proximity and succeeding only a little.

"I want to see them. Can I do that?"

Their gazes met, Rose's determined, the Doctor's stunned and harbouring the same intrigued curiosity from the first time they met. "All right."

A/N: Sorry for the wait. I just moved into my new college dorm and started class this morning, so things are getting super hectic. I hate to say it, but expect more long updates :( On a happier note, the Doctor's first lesson :) Every example shown in the Matrix is a reference to a science fiction show: the first one was mentioned in a bunch of different shows, the second one was based off of a Stargate: SG-1 episode, and the last one is a reference to an episode of Star Trek (original series). And, as a bonus, I've referenced the Kraylor and the Rolyark in past fics; do feel free to hunt for them, they add a bit of dimension to the races. Thanks go to Auua Ytjoml, micbb, RogueHales, alias093001, Technokitty818, moviemaniac217, DuShuZhi, Godric'sGrl01, Fleur24, MirrorFlower and DarkWind, GinnyBloomPotter, SolemnlySwearToManageMischief, Kathryn Hart, a Guest and an EpicGuest.

PS forgive me for any potential canon mistakes; I researched the Matrix like mad and it seems, between the books, the show and the comics, that everyone has their own interpretation of how it works. So I kind of said 'screw it, now it's Vamp's turn to add to the lore'.