The Time of Change

The Mother Superious

The sound of something like a fog horn shatters the silence around us like cheap porcelain, and Clara jolts. "What was that?" she asks. I yank the doors open again, and now we look at, not the planet, but at a ginormous, Borg-style square spaceship. A small smile curves my lips upward. "Papal Mainframe," I explain in a rush. "It's like a great big flying church. The first ship to arrive. They're the ones who shielded the planet. They can get us down there."

A holographic face appears, well over ten stories tall and at least twenty meters wide. She has a very thin face, sharp features and full, pursed lips. Rather cold eyes. A face I know and know well. I bow from the threshold of the TARDIS, and the hologram gives me a smirk. "A friend of yours?" Clara clarifies. "Tasha Lem, the Mother Superious," I tell her confidently, loudly. Tasha's face smiles wider, and her hand appears, beckoning us forward. I grin. "Oh, she's inviting us aboard."

"Why?"

"Because I asked her. Here, swallow this," I add, handing her a small white pill. She stares at it apprehensively. "What is it?" I close her fingers around it as I close the doors and start toward the console again. Handles twitches slightly. I'll never really understand how he moves of his own accord, but it doesn't matter. Well, it matters, of course it matters, but it's not the most important thing presently. "Your hologram projector," I tell Clara. Now I smirk, a little to myself but mostly at her. "You can't go into church with your clothes on."

I push a lever on the panel forward, and feel the TARDIS lurch slightly, flying into the unloading dock on the Mainframe. I watch on the Scanner as the gigantic metal door slowly falls to let us through, and I have to remind myself to breathe. Should be a basic function of the brain but for some reason I'm having some trouble doing it. It's like the inner workings of my body are gradually going into manual mode, where I have to tell it what to do and when to do it. I have to force myself to even function. The mechanical autopilot most people are usually in is wearing off on me, for some reason. I straighten my shoulders as the TARDIS shudders to a stop inside the dock, and I stand as tall as I can. Try to seem impressive, confident. Feign it, if you have to.

I lead Clara out into the ship, walking briskly across the worn steel floor and through an arch at the end. We come across no living things as we walk. Dimly I notice how scarcely decorated these halls are, but this has to be the deepest parts of the Mainframe. Not really a place where people would go just to stand and chat.

"I don't feel like I'm wearing anything," Clara muses, pulling at her holographic skirt. I can still see her clothing, though no one else we will meet will. "I know," I reply soothingly. "Relaxing, isn't it?" She gives me one of her signature looks, with her mouth slightly quirked upward and her nose a little wrinkled and her eyebrows raised. I smile, attempting to give off an air of indifference. She reminds me so much of her that it hurts.

Now we turn a corner, Clara following my lead, and walk between two rows of military personnel. They are flanked near a pair of white, shining double doors at the end of this hallway. They are shut. Clara stares as we pass, and I want to tell her not to, that she's the abnormal one here, but I know enough about her to know that I'll get hit if I say something like that. But really. Must she stare? As if she hears me thinking, she turns her head toward me with a questioning look. "The Church of the Papal Mainframe, security hub of the known universe."

"A security church?"

"Yep. Keeping you safe in this world and the next." I turn to one of the guards, who is watching us with a wary expression. When I meet his eye, he straightens. I say in my most official, commanding tone, "I venerate the exaltation of the Mother Superious." Now I bow lowly, and nudge Clara to do the same. She curtseys. A colonel standing nearest to the door nods at me once, and turns the knob. At once a woman steps out, like she was expecting us. And she was. Wearing deep blue robes with her hair pulled severely back on her head, the Mother Superious raises her head ever so slightly my way. Upraising me. In this lighting, she almost looks pretty. Almost. Her dark eyes shimmer but it's not with friendliness, really. Something along the lines of the fact that she knows she controls everything right now, and she likes that idea. I see it in the way she holds herself, the self-confidence radiating off her. But she likes me, and that helps my case at least a little. I smile flirtatiously, warding off the uncomfortable feeling her gaze gives me. Whatever it takes, Doctor...