1 [Holo] I know exactly where I am, it's everywhere else that's lost

[ialwayscomeback.livejournal.com]

No sooner had the TARDIS come to a stop than the Doctor was throwing open the doors and dashing outside with a cheerful shout of "Come along, Ponds!", eager to see where they’d arrived this time. That was one of the fun things about connecting up the old randomiser every so often. Enter a few basic guidelines to avoid places that might end up with them all collapsing from something unfortunately terminal the moment the stepped outside or into the middle of a war zone (he’d been shot exiting the TARDIS once before, thank you very much, and had no desire to repeat the experience), then let the TARDIS do the rest. Guaranteed mystery the moment they opened the doors.

It was a little unfortunate then that it looked like 'mystery' in this case was...

"A white room with a sort of... thing on a pedestal. Not really what I'd call exciting but maybe there's something more out there. Like a ship or a space station or a..."

He trailed off, alerted by the silence even before he turned around to find no sign of the TARDIS or his companions. Just himself on a raised platform in an empty room in a place he wasn't familiar with. There was also something strange hanging overhead, and the Doctor frowned at it, his mind racing to fill in the blanks in what he knew.

"Some sort of teleporter maybe... I’ve been kidnapped?" The idea wasn't impossible, he knew for certain, since it had happened a few times before. But it had been a while since anyone had tried. "I suppose whoever’s behind this must be feeling pretty satisfied with themselves right now?"

His wrist felt odd, he realised. Well, he’d realised it earlier, in a vague sort of way, but it was only now that it persisted in feeling odd that he scratched at it and found what seemed to be a metal bracelet fused to his skin. "Did you go and tag me?" he asked the room incredulously. "Who goes around fusing jewellery onto people? ‘Oh, I know, he’d look so much better with a silver bracelet grafted to his skin’?"

The room remained silent, so obviously whoever had brought him here didn't feel like turning up to do the gloating bit. Which left him with the thing on the pedestal, the thing in the ceiling, and a door that proved to be locked when he tried opening it.

"If that's how you want to play it," he muttered, his hand delving into his pocket to produce his sonic screwdriver. It warbled reassuringly as he waved it in quick, apparently random patterns over the walls and door, but quickly escalated to a high-pitched shriek not unlike something in pain the moment he ventured too close to that thing hanging from the ceiling. Whatever it was didn’t want to be scanned in a hurry.

"Let's see what we've got then," the Doctor commented, extending the end of the sonic screwdriver with a practised flick of his wrist. Unfortunately, the answer turned out to be ‘not much of anything’, which really only left the device sitting on the pedestal. Snapping the sonic closed again and returning it to his pocket, the Time Lord wandered over to it curiously, taking his time looking it over before reaching out and picking it up. Whatever it was, it was active and had been recording and uploading information to somewhere the entire time.

"Hello," the Doctor said, shifting his hands on the tablet to get a better look at it. "Been having a good look at me, have you? Let’s see... text, holo seems to be active... visual, voice... Oh, maps! Yes, let’s start with that then. Always a handy thing to have, a map." His finger hovered over the icon for a moment as he paused in thought, his brow furrowing. "Not that I normally use them. But I’ve heard they’re handy if you get lost easily and don’t like the fun of finding your way back on your own. Personally I always think that’s the best bit, seeing where getting lost takes you, but I suppose some people might—Oh?"

Cutting himself off suddenly, the Doctor’s eyebrows shot up as the map loaded, revealing this to be a decent sized city apparently named Taxon. But the really interesting and surprising part was how the map displayed people’s names next to some of the glowing dots on the map. Or, more accurately, the surprising part was what some of those names were. "Martha Jones? Charlotte Pollard? Fitz Kreiner? That’s... No. It can’t be. It’s just not possible..."

For a moment there was the barest flicker of uncertainty in his face, before it was quickly hidden again and the Doctor addressed whatever unseen audience he had. "I think I need some answers."