Chapter 1: The New Guy
[SYSTEM: Running Mimic System diagnostic. Analyzing new user: Adam.]
[SYSTEM: Warning. User consciousness is fragmented. Recommend immediate stabilization.]
[SYSTEM: User is attempting partial-mimic of indigenous asteroid lichen. Probability of success: 12%. Probability of user-harm: 98%. Proceed with caution.]
[Time – ??? – ???] [Location – Derelict Asteroid, G-12 Sector] [Date – Stardate 7315.4]
Adam's head throbbed with a pain that felt both internal and external, as if his very thoughts were being pulled apart and reassembled by some cosmic sculptor. He was on his knees on what felt like a rock, but the light, a sickly pale purple, cast strange, moving shadows. He looked down at his hands, which were now a mottled green and black, covered in what looked like veins of pulsating, crystalline material. It felt like his skin was screaming.
"What is this? What am I?"
A voice, chipper and annoyingly polite, chimed in his mind.
[SYSTEM: Welcome, Host. You have successfully activated the MIMIC SYSTEM. Your current state is a partial biomimicry of the surrounding lifeform, an indigenous Crystalline Fungus.]
"No, no, no," Adam muttered, pushing a hand against the rock, which felt soft and strangely warm. The lichen, or whatever the Mimic System called it, pulsed beneath his touch, and he felt a cold, sharp feeling of panic flood his mind. It wasn't his. It was the lichen's. A psychic scream of loneliness and deep, unyielding cold.
He recoiled, his hand reverting to a normal, pale human hand, and the pain spiked into a white-hot agony. He screamed.
A familiar groaning sound, like a dying elephant, filled the air, and a blue box materialized with a thump and a wheeze. The door opened, revealing a man with a furious brow and a long, dark coat, followed by a woman with an intense, skeptical look.
"Right, what have you done to my TARDIS?" the man grumbled, his eyes scanning the area with a hawk-like intensity. "Honestly, a simple planetary landing and it feels like a tin of biscuits just exploded. Who are you? And why are you covered in… is that sentient moss?"
The woman, Clara, stepped forward, her expression softening slightly as she took in Adam's panicked, disheveled state. "Doctor, he's just a boy. He's scared. Are you okay?"
Adam could only shake his head, the psychic echo of the lichen's loneliness still reverberating in his skull.
[SYSTEM: Caution. New subjects detected. Designation: The Doctor (species: Time Lord, likely) and Clara Oswald (species: Human).]
"I'm not sentient moss," Adam managed to stammer out, his voice shaking. "I'm... I don't know what I am. This thing... it won't stop."
He held up his hand, and it flickered, the green veins reappearing for a split second before vanishing again. The Doctor's eyes went wide, and he pulled a long, metal stick from his pocket, aiming it at Adam. A strange, humming sound emanated from it.
"Don't. Touch. Me," Adam said, pulling away, a raw, protective instinct rising in his chest.
The Doctor ignored him. "Fascinating. Not a parasitic lifeform. It's an internal-… a system. It's responding to something. A psychic link, a network... it's Gallifreyan. Old Gallifreyan. But that's not possible."
Clara watched, her expression a mix of concern for Adam and deep confusion. "What's he talking about?"
"I think," Adam said, his voice calmer now as a bizarre sense of resignation settled in, "he's talking about the cheeky, cryptic voice in my head."
[Time – A Few Minutes Later – TBD] [Location – TARDIS Console Room] [Date – TBD]
The TARDIS interior was a swirling, chaotic symphony of sound and light. It hummed and groaned, a living, breathing machine. Adam sat on the stairs, holding his head, the psychic noise from the lichen finally fading.
"This is impossible," the Doctor said, pacing back and forth, the sonic screwdriver still in his hand, though now he was pointing it at the console. "The linguistic structures, the sub-routines... it's a quantum-locked language. And it's right there, in your... in your head. How did you get it?"
"I don't know!" Adam snapped, the frustration finally boiling over. "I woke up in a desert, and then I was here, and this voice just started talking to me, telling me I had a Mimic System! I'm just a guy, I think. I don't know."
Clara approached him slowly. "Look, I know this is a lot. A man in a box, an alien planet, and whatever that is," she gestured to the sonic screwdriver, "but we can help you. The Doctor knows things."
"I know things," the Doctor confirmed, not looking at them. "I know that this 'System' is impossible. It's a paradox in a paradox, and it's whispering in a language that shouldn't exist outside of the High Council archives. Now, unless you're a rogue Time Agent, which I highly doubt, you're something new. And new things are usually a problem."
[SYSTEM: Warning. The Doctor is correct. The System is a paradox. Recommended protocol: Deny all knowledge of origins.]
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Adam said, quoting the System's own advice. He looked up, and his gaze met a figure standing in the corner. An Ood. It was holding a mop and bucket, its face serene and its glowing orb a soft, pulsing blue. It looked like a janitor.
The Doctor, still engrossed in his console, didn't notice.
"You are not a new thing," the Ood said, its voice a soft, melodic hum that only Adam seemed to hear. "You are an old thing, returned. We have watched over you."
Adam's mind went blank. "What... what are you talking about?" he whispered.
The Ood's eyes, normally so placid, glowed with a new, intense light. "The anchor has been released. The seed has been watered. The garden will grow. But you must be wary of the root. The Root will seek to consume you. It is a part of your System, but it is not of you."
Adam felt a psychic surge, the Ood's voice filling his mind, not through his ears, but as if it were part of his own thoughts. He saw a flash of a massive, black ship, and then a strange, ancient symbol—a spiraling, fractal pattern that seemed to be made of light.
The Doctor finally looked up from his console. "Clara, have you seen a... what's that Ood doing in the corner?"
He turned to look, but the Ood was gone. The mop and bucket remained.
"It was just there," Clara said, bewildered. "Are we alone?"
Adam stared at the empty space, a cold dread settling in his stomach. "It gave me a warning. About the System. It called me a… an anchor."
The Doctor scoffed, but there was a flicker of something else in his eyes—curiosity, and a hint of fear. "An Ood? Nonsense. They can't just... disappear. What was the warning?"
"The Root will seek to consume you." The phrase echoed in Adam's mind.
He decided to lie. "Nothing definitive. Just that this... Mimic System... is more than it appears. It's... a part of me."
The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "Everything is more than it appears. That's a fundamental principle of existence."
He turned back to the console, but for a moment, Adam caught a glimpse of the Doctor's inner turmoil. He was afraid. Not of the System, but of what it represented. A living paradox, a secret he couldn't unravel.
"Right then," the Doctor said, a sudden manic energy taking over. "This ship needs a test run. And you, whatever you are, need a tour of the universe. Come on, we're off."
He pulled a lever, and the TARDIS lurched, a new, jarring noise taking over the old groan.
I just want to go home. Adam thought, but even as he thought it, he knew. This was his home now. This crazy blue box, this mad Time Lord, and this... this system in his head.
And the Ood. The Ood that had just vanished, leaving only a cryptic warning and a sense of profound unease.