Short Trips - The Doctor Who Audio Dramas

The junior Time Lord had easily navigated his way through the arches and
ramps, though in fairness the network was now well-lit instead of in pitch
darkness. He now stood by a larger-than-average arch which appeared to have a
control unit built into it, but Landon’s attention was firmly fixed on Dillion.
Or at least, what was left of Dillion.
He was standing in the heart of one of the pillars, which had risen up from the
shallow pool he’d been standing in and formed around him. The blurred shape of
the Canisian, contorted in fear and horror, was frozen still as the water seemed to
thicken like amber. Landon stood before the pillar, thinking furiously.
Not long after, K9 appeared around a corner, motoring along the walkway
towards them. ‘Alert! Alert!’ the little robot dog was bleating. ‘Heuristic neural net
has been activated! Full alarm! Danger!’
‘You’re a little late,’ Landon scolded. ‘Dillion’s already walked straight into one
of the wetware interfaces when they were activated!’
K9 buzzed and whirred. ‘Analysis suggests Doctor-Master was responsible.’
‘You amaze me.’
‘Flattery is unnecessary,’ K9 replied. ‘Speed is vital.’
‘I know,’ the Time Lord said, glaring at the liquid pillar. ‘Without proper
programming, Dillion will have been reduced to raw data in the fluid matrix. Lost
in Cyberspace with no safety protocols...’ Landon trailed off with a sigh.
K9’s voice sounded tight with worry. ‘Probability of Tarrence Dillion
undergoing fatal cerebral disintegration... 87 per cent and rising.’
And his chances of survival would be getting smaller every second that passed.
Landon gnawed at his knuckle. ‘His mind has been absorbed and it will
discorporate unless he gets a proper sense of self,’ he reasoned, ‘so we have to
give it back to him. We just need something he can interrelate to, something he
recognizes and understands from the outside world...’
A plan began to form in the Time Lord’s mind.
‘And if we send in one of us to interface with the network, that will solve that
problem and allow us to retrieve Dillion all the more quickly.’
‘Negative,’ K9 protested. ‘Data accessing systems not calibrated for this task.
Manual adjustments and reprogramming will be required.’
‘Then it’s up to you,’ Landon said, taking off his suit jacket and tossing it
elegantly over a stone outcrop. ‘Being stuck in the wetware network will be far
easier to remedy than being annihilated by the flow.’
‘This course of action dangerous and uncertain,’ K9 began.
‘Go and find your master, K9!’ Landon snapped. ‘And make sure the fool
doesn’t touch anything else that takes his fancy in the meantime!’
The robot dog obediently spun around and left at top speed as Landon reached
out, placing the palms of his hands against the pillar of water and...
Tarrence Dillion was spinning off into the depths of infinity, swirling through
dream-like currents of limbo nothingness. His senses blurred as he was swept
down, down, down through the long shimmering vortex. Dillion realized numbly