Kiley's Adventures, Part the Final.
"It's been 3 weeks," Rachel grumbled, "I have been pulled into being involved in a writer's nightmare - a place that looks & sounds like it would be a simply wonderful paradise. What we forget is all the work that has to go into constructing & supporting the infrastructure." The TARDIS's holographic interface had been quiet until now. "There is always the exit route through Austen's rendezvous to consider." "What is that?" Rachel perked up, "Is that some Gallifreyan equation or protocol that solves this world's problem of Silence?" "No Scribe, it is the alternate destination which you deferred by coming here - Tea with Jane Austen the author. There now exists a probability problem in a time loop - You are not the Scribe unless Jane Austen entitles you as such during your meeting. However, until you resolve this planet's menace of the Silence, the interference issues will not allow the egress functions to take effect." "Why didn't you tell me about this before?" Rachel stopped her pacing. "I di-" the hologram started before Rachel facepalmed. "You did, didn't you - all those bloody error messages. I thought it was one of those quirky time travel issues, the obscure balancing act that the Doctor always has to keep track of in his eons old TARDIS. Only he has almost 1000 years of experience to match them. I am a horrible heroine. I just want to go home, write LBD episodes, hang with Kylie & MK in coffee shops and bars."
Rachel straightened, "What if I never go see Jane? Then I will no longer be the Scribe who is supposed to solve the Silence problem." "Inadvisable - I have run that scenario as you were suggesting it. The results are an 87% probability of you warping out of time altogether, 7% that you will hit an alternate universe, 4.67% of dimensional malfunction results in a timequake between streams, and 1.23% that we will explode from the strain of running against a hard patch of redundancy logic." Rachel considered, "None of those options appears to be successful. What is the .10% remaining?" "General standard of margin of error in calculations. Even a core as sentiently skilled as I cannot prepare for every variable involved. You requested an adventure & a drink when we started this jump. Here lies your adventure - as stated on your interim planet's history. 'It is a bitter cup to drink, but it is the one I have chosen.'" Rachel nodded. "So, no escaping this time? Why did I ever want to be the Doctor? I'll view episodes of the show in a whole new light after this." She walked over to the box of elephants, patting Dumbledwarf on the ear as she emptied the waste into a cone of crumpled manuscript. At least it was being useful for something.
From what Rachel surmised of the scattered conversations, the Silence was indefeatible - any time someone came up with a solution for eliminating the creature, its natural amnesiac defense wiped their short term memory - the notes to the solution were scattered among the reams of failures. The creature didn't appear hostile, only that its continued existence appeared to frustrate the inhabitants for some unlearned reason. Tired, frustrated, and disheartened, most of the people lay as scattered as their work on the planet's surface, sleeping and wracking their brains for a solution. Rachel walked over to Simeon, one of the believers in the Scribe movement. Leaning over, she tapped him on the shoulder to wake him from his nap. "Hullo Sim, just so I understand this a little better, can you explain the Movement to me one more time? This go 'round, keep it short and to the point - all these other interviews have tended to be peppered with sob stories of previous failures."
Sim yawned, then brightened for a moment, "See, this place is a dream planet to which writers throughout the galaxy visit through their subconscious astral forms when they sleep. Story logic is translated to dream logic over the journey." Looking up at Rachel, he noted her confusion. Sim swept the ground clear and used the other end of a pen in the dust. He illustrated a series of roughly circular points surrounding a larger central point. "When writers dream, their internal genius and creativity come here to play around with ideas in a solidified form." Sim drew lines radiating from to the central point. "When the issues concerning the writers are resolved here, the consciousness returns to the writer, translating back to story logic to be captured in narrative form back home." At this point, Rachel was skeptical of the reality, but curious as to how Simeon and the others rationalized this concept. "And if the problem isn't resolved?" She gestured at the general chaos. Sim gave a nod. "Sometimes, a problem baffling one writer becomes a parasite of their concentration, and the mind which brought it to life starts asking others how to resolve the issue. Things... Escalate as the problem isn't solved. Soon, it is too big for any of us to solve and without a resolution, we all become stuck here until it is. Thus the term 'Writer's Block' - we cannot return to our writers without a solution to whatever vexed them to travel here in the first place." Rachel smiled despite herself: What a fanciful concept. Still it was better than a lot of explanations for the term's origins. Sim continued, "That is what happened with the Silence. So while brainstorming, a group of us hit upon the idea that maybe some other writer could conjure up the Silence's bane. Thus the Scribe movement."
Rachel felt like this was about all the history she could take. Now for more practical matters. "So, what have you tried so far?" Sim frowned, "We tried standard combat measures and weapons - Its hands shock like a taser when engaged head on by one of us. If we bring any offensive construct to confront it, the Silence has a sort of 'negation field' which dissolves the object's corporeal density before it is a threat." "Have you tried talking to it?" Rachel asked. Sim laughed. "Sorry, that is such a girlish stereotype - I can't take it seriously." He paused wheezing. "No, we were not equally prone to the cliche - we tried. But no matter how much we bargain, plead, cajole, threaten, or reason - the thing just looks at us with those unsettlingly empty voids it has for eye sockets." Rachel felt the beginnings of an idea, then fed it slowly with the reasons why she might have been brought here as the Scribe. Throughout these weeks she had been asking the right question the wrong way: "Why her?" She tested her hypothesis with a question. "You said it never replies at all?" "Yes!" Sim responded, yawning again, "Just stays silent." He chuckled sleepily at his own joke. "But that is it! You stupid, brilliant, literal-minded scribblers - It is silent because it was written to be that way. Why would a living breathing concept of Silence talk?"
"Thank you!" Rachel chortled as she dash-hopped away.
Rachel arrived near the TARDIS and looked around earnestly. "Oy! You! Silence!" She yelled, "Where are you? I am the freakin' Scribe for a reason and I think I know why!" She turned in a slow circle, only to find the creature 6 feet to her right. She focused on it. It stood looking sad and expectant in its black jacketed suit, familiar with nothing but attempts on its life and abuse. "You look lonely all by yourself, and I think that is the problem at hand. I may not know much about combat, but I do know about relationships and their problems. I am the queen of free shipping!" Rachel paused in her enthusiasm - somehow that had come out wrong. "So, anyway. You know what I never saw on Doctor Who? A female Silence. It figures that no writer on this planet ever thought of a solution that didn't involve punching away their problems. (Wait, that is another stereotype. Whatevs)." Rachel drew her sonic sharpie and uncapped the end. Picking up a discarded tablet computer, she shipped with her sharpie as if her trip home depended on it. Blotting over the Ariel font on the screen with bold black strokes, she wrote the other half of the Silence into existence.
After she signed the endnote of her work, she looked up to glimpse the Silence embracing for the first time. The two negations cancelled each other out of existence on the dimensional plane. The TARDIS door swung open behind her. "Ready for another adventure?" The interface inquired. Rachel limped in on her tweaked ankle. "I've had my fill of adventures, where the devil are my ruby slippers?"
