resort_link | [Video] Time is relative.

You'd be right. It'd certainly have to be after you left, anyway, since time here doesn't work that way.

How did it go?

I expected that the time would be later here. Much later.

Ah well. It has the advantage of me not having missed as much as I thought I might.

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The universe hasn't ended yet.

That's about the best I can say about it.

Actually, that's not entirely true. We found a way home, and a way to undo the Dogma virus that had been spreading across Gallifrey. Not a cure, exactly, more like restoring biology to original factory settings.

Edited (left out a word) 2014-11-29 08:31 (UTC)

Well, at least you got what you wanted. [He doesn't know about Narvin's misfortune with regenerations.] Sounds like it was time well spent.

And you didn't miss much. People put things back together, went about as normal. Gotta admire 'em for being tough.

Got what I wanted, yes.

Somehow it didn't turn out quite as I'd planned. Or hoped.

What exactly happened? [Kay isn't very good at consolation, but he's used to asking about things at least in a professional capacity. It might not be what Narvin needs right now.]

Gallifrey is on the edge of a war that I'm not sure we can win. And my agency is spinning out of my control. Operatives carrying out actions without my approval, ignoring orders...I've had to create a new rank with expanded authority just to deal with the mess. Things got so bad that I had to ask a renegade for help because I couldn't trust my own people.

The Celestial Intervention Agency needs to be strong, now more than ever. But instead it's going rogue.

That's the problem with corruption within an agency. Or too much ambition. Sounds like it's become a liability.

Sorry about that. It's rough.

[He doesn't say it must be rough. He says it is.] All it takes is one corrupt asshole or guy with delusions of grandeur to make a real big threat.

My absence while I was on an alternate Gallifrey didn't help matters. It left a power vacuum. Ambitions were stoked and corruption was allowed to manifest unchecked.

I couldn't be here now if I didn't know that I could return with no time passing back home. But I need time away. Time to think.

[He tilts his head.]

The way you talk about it, it sounds as if you have some experience in these matters. What did you do about it?

We usually neutralize 'em- return 'em to society if we catch even a hint of it. It's not worth the risks. The one that got away nearly brought hell down on the planet.

[Narvin nods.]

I've been trying to weed out the worst, but I don't know who to trust anymore. My fellow operatives were never the most trustworthy sorts to begin with, but now sometimes I feel like I'm watching an irreparable schism build. Or a mutiny. I've tried to make changes to the agency for the better but have been met with intransigence and insubordination.

[He sighs. This must have been what Romana felt like when she was trying to push through her reforms against Darkel's...and his resistance.]

It's almost enough to make me start to believe in cosmic punishment. [He mutters to himself.]

Cosmic punishment? [He has to ask, wondering if it was relating to all that civil unrest Narvin had been discussing with him before.]

It sounds like it's gotten out of control. Think you'll get out if it seems like there's no way to fix it?

Let's just say that I've been a difficult underling in the past.

If I step down, I fear who might take my place. And I can't abandon my president. It's better for her if she has someone on the inside. But if the situation continues to deteriorate, I may have to do something...drastic. I'm hoping I can think of another solution.

[He wipes his hands down his face.]

Rassilon's ghost, I'm tired.

Good thing is you can take a break here as long as you need. You're not gonna get held up for more time than you need- I'm sure the temporal discrepancy between this universe and that one's gotta pay you some benefit.

It was why I accepted the offer. Extra breathing room to consider my future plans and recover from recent past ordeals.

My apologies, I didn't intend to drop all my woes at your doorstep. CIA business is usually kept within the agency, and since I don't trust anyone within my agency at the moment, there have been few people with whom I could discuss the situation.

Better dealt with than in your head leading to potentially stupid decisions. If you did this same sorta mess yourself, you should also know how ruthlessly you gotta shut it down before it gets out of hand.

You've seen it get out of hand.

[He huffs a single wry laugh.]

One of my operatives sabotaged a transport that was evacuating human colonists. It is most definitely starting to get out of hand.

But at least I'm not being challenged by a past regeneration of myself possessed by the evil mind of a deceased Coordinator, so I suppose it's not as bad as it could be.

Well.

At least you're prepared for the wierdest, it sounds like.

And no, it's not that bad. They just figured out someone turned on those spawners intentionally and they don't know who did it. [Which is public information. He's not going to mention it's an import.]

Where I come from, the weirdest is altogether too likely.

[His mouth thins in a grim line.]

So it was an attack.

That's all that we can say. [Not all they know, all they can say.] So if you hear anything more, you need to inform one of the patrol.

But remember, you're on a break.

[Honestly he has a feeling the museum is going to need as many scientists as possible to understand these spawners. And he remembers Narvin's problem from before.]

Yes, yes, understood. No vigilantism from me, I promise. [But he sounds almost disappointed.]

Do we have the disabled skeleton spawner in the lab and available for study? From the sounds of things, if I'm to be engaged in research, the most practical application currently would be to find out how they work, see if there's a way to detect these things in advance, or even deactivate them from a distance if that's possible.

Everything we had was turned over to the museum. You should have access to it there.

We got all we could out of it.

I'll have a look at it once I've settled in.

[His lips thin as unpleasant thoughts come into his mind.]

Do we have any remnants of the skeletons? I want someone to verify that they're purely mechanical and not...

[He doesn't believe in the walking dead in a magical sense. But after fighting against the Eminence and the Infinite Warriors, the idea of something possessing, altering, and animating corpses is foremost in his mind. He's visibly rattled by the memory, eyes growing a bit wider and darting, brow furrowed.]

They're easy enough to get. They're out every night. But we discovered the sun makes them mostly degrade.

So we'd need to store the remains in a lightless container and study it under artificial light only.

Pretty much, yeah.

The odd thing about those spawners, they seem to have stuck things in the rooms where they left 'em. Maybe they wanted to protect them but they're not always important stuff.

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