Thanks to Des for Beta'ing~
Please review! More to come.
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Chapter 1: Amelia
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To: The Committee of the Free Alliance
From: Madam Kovarian of the TLW Project.
Subject: In reply to your memo
For the past eight years, this facility has been working non-stop to create a secret weapon which will turn the tide on the war. In that time alone, we have made life-changing discoveries, many of them altering the way we view time and space. But, equally, we have also encountered barriers and setbacks which have slowed our progression, (we would like to remind the Committee that each of these have been overcome and we are currently ahead of schedule).
We urge the Committee to remember that the slow development of the weapon is unavoidable and necessary, but when it is complete, it will be used to bring the war to a victorious close. For this reason, we urge the Committee to be patient, and in return for continued support, we have decided to speed the project up considerably, bringing the end of the war closer. This is a risky move, but we are confident of its success.
In the matter of your insistence to see our progression, we are sorry to say that we can not comply at this time, as we are at a crucial stage of the weapon's development. However, we would be delighted if a representative of the Committee would take a tour of our facility in the near future.
Signed,
Madam Kovarian of the TLW Project.
…
"How are the readings, Jefferson?" Madam Kovarian barked, at the young scientist on duty as she entered the Observation Room.
The young man started, jumping up from his chair in a fright and sent papers flying everywhere. Kovarian groaned. She found it surprising that a bumbling idiot like him had even been considered for the project.
"Ma- ma'am!" The man stuttered, hurrying to pick all of his papers up off the floor. "We weren't expecting you for another few hou-"
"A situation has arisen that needs my immediate and undivided attention."
Jefferson gulped like a goldfish and she smirked.
"Now, the readings. Show them to me."
"Yes Ma'am!" Jefferson jumped to work immediately as if he had been electrocuted, busying himself with one of the monitors.
Kovarian took the time while he was typing almost frantically at the keyboard to walk over to the large window set along the left side of the wall which looked down into the child's containment room.
It looked, as usual, like a paper bomb had hit it. Every surface was covered in the stuff, from the walls to the floors. The bed was unmade, books were unevenly stacked upon the bookcase and toys became tripping hazards scattered across the floor. It made her shudder at the very sight of it, the disorder and chaos.
It disgusted her, but it was necessary. The child needed to believe that it had free will. That it was just like any other child or the whole plan would disintegrate in front of her eyes.
"Ma'am," Jefferson called, and she walked over to him, high heels clicking on the polished floor, and peered over his shoulder at the report displayed upon the screen. The numbers and symbols would have been confusing and complicated to anyone else (for that was the idea), but a smile played at the edges of her mouth as she interpreted their meaning.
"I'm bringing the date of initiation forward," she said and Jefferson furrowed his brow.
"To when, Ma'am?" He asked, obviously concerned.
Madam Kovarian smirked at him again. She rearranged the brown package in her hand and tucked a stray strand of hair back into place, turning towards the door. "Today."
Jefferson, who looked taken aback, jumped to his feet. "What?" He said, looking frantic, "Today? Ma'am, it's too s-"
She laughed humourlessly at him, "You saw those readings, Jefferson." She said venomously, pointing one of her manicured fingers at the monitor. "We reached our absolute minimum two weeks ago."
Jefferson was biting his lip and looking uneasy. He obviously had more to say, but Kovarian had had enough. She turned once again to leave, and had her hand on the doorknob when he finally spoke, sounding a little too eager.
"Ma'am, I know I shouldn't be asking, but... how are you going to do it?"
Madam Kovarian laughed again, high and cold she vaguely remembered an old earth saying her mother had told her, something about curiosity killing a cat.
"My methods are my own business." Ineptly veiled disappointment flashed across the man's face as he turned back to his work.
"Although…" she said, deciding to throw him a bone. "I'm sure you've noticed how attached the child is to that photograph of her mother."
…
Melody. That was her name. Melody Pond.
At least… that was what they called her when Melody was around.
Sometimes at night, when she was falling asleep, she heard them whispering, calling her 'the child', in emotionless voices like she was some kind of experiment instead of a human being.
Not 'Melody'.
Not even 'Pond'.
Just 'the child', and nothing else.
It made her sad sometimes, to think that the people she was growing up around, the only people she had ever known didn't even think of her as a person.
For Melody had grown up in extraordinary circumstances. She lived in the Orphanage. Not just an ordinary orphanage, but the Orphanage. Though it was less like an orphanage and more like a hospital, with its white walls and sterile atmosphere, the people who worked there called it the Orphanage. Everyone walked around wearing white coats and carried important looking papers and wore smart black shoes that sometimes made marks on the floor, although they never stayed there long because the entire place was always unnaturally clean.
It was a grim and boring place to grow up. Melody had figured that out years ago.
There was, however, one place in the Orphanage that was always messy and untidy and normal.
Melody's room was a bit brighter than the rest of it. That was mostly due to the numerous drawings she had stuck everywhere. She had a big room, with really high walls. A single bed with bright bed sheets on them sat with its headboard against one of them, the sheets were messy and twisted, as she rarely made them. The small desk in the corner, where she did her drawings, was littered with spare bits of paper and various coloured pencils, and next to that a small bookcase held several books and all the toys that weren't littered across the floor.
She liked her room for all this, but one thing she didn't like was the large glass window set high on one of the walls, looking into a white-walled room covered in monitors and screens. The "Observation Room", they called it. Another thing she didn't like was the big, heavy door that was the only way in, and was always locked and bolted shut at night.
They told her it was there to protect her. But Melody had a strange feeling that that wasn't the only reason.
Every day the people in white coats came and visited her, bringing their clipboards, doing tests and generally using big, complicated words that she didn't understand. They asked her questions, although that was all they said. They weren't very talkative, as whenever Melody tried to have a conversation and ask her own questions, they simply ignored her and concentrated on their work. Sometimes they looked at her oddly, like they were scared of her. But she had no idea why.
The one person who did talk to her was the only one in the Orphanage who didn't wear a white coat. Her name was Madam Kovarian.
She was a middle-aged woman, who always wore her curly hair up and seemed to have a never-ending supply of lipstick. But her most distinguishing feature was a silvery metal eye-patch covering her right eye, which danced on top of her cheek when she spoke.
After years of knowing her, Melody still didn't quite know if she liked Madam Kovarian. She was nice in her own way, and Melody was glad that at least someone talked to her, as she got quite lonely. But at the same time, something wasn't quite right. The way she smiled at Melody, although seemingly kind and caring, had an edge to it that creeped her out.
Madam Kovarian came to visit Melody once a week, to 'check up' on her. She never knew exactly when she would visit. But every time she did, the bolts of the door were drawn back with their usual bang, and she always entered with a smile on her face. The same smile that always made Melody feel extremely uncomfortable.
"Hello Melody," she would say, and Melody would look up from whatever she was doing (either drawing at her desk or reading in her bed) and say, "Hello Ma'am."
She'd called her Ma'am for as long as she could remember. Hello Ma'am. Thank you, Ma'am. Goodbye, Ma'am. Melody didn't even know her first name, even though she'd asked several times for something else to call her.
Every week, the same routine, over and over and over and over again.
Hello Ma'am.
Hello Ma'am.
Hello Ma'am.
Hello Ma'am
Hello Mum- whoops.
She hadn't meant to. One day, it had just slipped out. Melody had been reading a book about a family, a Mum and a Dad and their children the night before. She figured that was where it had come from.
Madam Kovarian had seemed taken aback, and for the first time in Melody's memory, the smile had faltered. Then she had looked angry.
"Sorry," Melody said quickly, scared for the first time she could remember. "I-I didn't mean-"
"That's all right, dear." Madam Kovarian's smile had come back then, though it had seemed much creepier than usual and Kovarian took several deep, steadying breaths. "I understand." And then she turned and left, without saying another word, leaving a very confused and hurt Melody behind.
Madam Kovarian hadn't come for two visits after that.
She didn't actually consider Kovarian as a Mother-figure. She didn't seem the type, for one. Mothers cared and loved for their children and Madam Kovarian was the sort of person who didn't care for love.
Melody didn't know her real mother. All they had told her was that her mother had left when she was only one month old. Left, as in abandoned. At least, that's what they always implied.
She felt sad about it sometimes. And other times she felt angry. And then some days she didn't feel anything at all. But every single day, in one way or another, she always thought about her Mum.
Melody had only one picture of her. It was a framed photograph, which she sometimes kept on her bookcase, to make it seem like her mother was there watching over her, and other times buried deep under her bed.
Most nights, however, she made the sheets of her bed into a tent, holding up the fabric with her head while she shone a torch onto the photo and looked at it well into the night.
"Why? Why did you leave?" She would sometimes say.
They should have been a happy family, like in the books. They should have been together forever, with her mother loving her and being there for her, not just once a week, but every day of the year.
Instead, she was stuck in some bunker under the ground. She hadn't seen the outside world in a long time, and she was starting to run out of things to do.
When her mother didn't answer her question, she would throw the frame across the room, only to immediately rush over with a cry and pick it up again. Surprisingly, the glass never shattered, although the frame holding it together was slowly becoming more battered and scratched and would soon need replacing.
She would apologise, over and over, and carefully place the photo back in its special place on the bookcase and gaze at it for several minutes, burning the image into her mind before turning away. She never wanted to forget her mother's face, half-covered in a waterfall of ginger hair and her eyes shining with joy as she looked down at the new-born baby which was Melody that she held in her arms. It was hard to believe that barely a month later she would abandon that same baby and leave forever.
One day, as Madam Kovarian had turned to leave for another week, Melody had an overwhelming urge to know something, anything, about the woman who had brought her into the world.
"What was her name?" She blurted out, and the older woman looked around in surprise.
"Whose name, dear?" She had replied with a falsely cheerful voice and a fixed smile.
"My mother's," Melody replied softly, suddenly shy. Madame Kovarian didn't seem to look surprised at all-if she was, then she was a very good actor- but stared at Melody with a cold, calculating look.
The little girl's heart sunk. She's not going to tell me, she thought, hanging her head in defeat. Her whole life she had dreamed of her mother, and now she had blown her only chance to know her in some way.
"Amelia." Madam Kovarian said suddenly, and then quickly left the room, the click clack of her heels soon dying away. But Melody had not noticed, for finally she had a name to match the face in the photograph, a name to associate with their shared red hair. A name to replace the formal and emotionless title of 'mother'.
"Amelia Pond." She said aloud, smiling wider than she ever remembered. She liked the name. It was like a fairytale.
She raced over to the bookcase, and pulled down the picture, excitement making her fingers fumble on the edges of the frame. "Hello, Amelia!" She squealed, grinning from ear to ear.
But all of a sudden, something else occurred to her and her smile vanished. "Amelia Pond," she repeated, this time with an angry tone. She now had a name to associate with the woman who had abandoned her. The woman who had decided there were more important things than her daughter.
Melody suddenly felt very sad.
…
