Title: Angels of the Silences
Author: E.A. Week
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Summary: The tenth Doctor goes undercover at a small American college to unravel the mystery behind a brutal murder, but he's not the only incognito time-traveler on campus.
Category: Doctor Who.
Distribution: Feel free to link this story to any Doctor Who or fanfic site, or distribute on a mailing list, but please drop me at least a brief e-mail and let me know you've done this.
Feedback: Letters of comment are always welcome! Loved it? Hated it? Send me an email and let me know why!
Disclaimers: Copyrights to all characters in this story belong to their respective creators, production companies, and studios. I'm just borrowing them, honest! The story title and all chapter titles are shamelessly stolen from Counting Crows.
Story rating: This story is rated M for language, sexuality, and adult themes.
Possible spoilers: This story takes place after the fourth season of the new Doctor Who series.
Chapter Three
Insignificant
"Dr. Smith?" Cassie grabbed him by the shoulders. "Are you all right?" Holding him upright with one hand, she fished into her backpack with the other, wishing she had something scented, like perfume or body lotion to hold beneath his nose. Her fingers closed around a plastic bottle, and Cassie drew out a half-empty Coke.
"Here." She thrust the bottle into his hands; he was shaking, but he managed to get the beverage down in a few noisy swallows. The caffeine and sugar did the trick, and he stopped looking so ill. Then he just sat slumped in his seat, glassy-eyed, motionless except for his trembling hands.
What could have startled him so? Cassie stared around the room, but everyone's attention was focused forward, on Dr. Holland, who was giving an update on the college's enrollment numbers. Cassie wondered about the timing: Dr. Smith had swooned right after Shira Nahar had introduced herself. Down near the front, Cassie could just make out the top of the tech's head. Did Dr. Smith know her? If so, passing out was a peculiar way to react to her presence.
The meeting droned on. When Dr. Holland reached the announcements, he signaled Cassie, and she bounded down to the front of the lecture hall.
"Hi, I'm Cassie Sterlin, with the Ethan Allen TRIpods. We're a club that trains for and participates in triathlons. So if you like to run, swim, and bike, and you wanna push yourself to the limit, come see Diana Wollcinac in the Sports Center for the training schedule. We're not competitive, and everyone trains to their own ability level, so anyone who's interested is welcome."
"Thank you, Cassie," Dr. Holland smiled. Cassie slipped back to her seat, half-listening to the next announcement. The meeting ended half an hour later, and after a quick goodbye, Dr. Smith made his escape, not giving Cassie a chance to ask any questions.
(ii)
When she finished solving a crisis for a professor in the science complex, Shira Nahar took a stroll down to the main lobby, in no hurry to return to her office, to the incessant phone calls, the pleas for help. The limitations of technology in this era made Shira alternately laugh and grind her teeth. Still, the job was good cover, occupying only a small fraction of her mental energy, leaving the rest of her time free to address the true reason for her sojourn in this silly backwater.
The floor had been tiled with scientific diagrams and formulae: Shira trod across a good depiction of a neuron. There were diagrams of plant and animal cells, the molecular structures of chemicals. Twisting up each staircase was the spiraling double helix of a DNA molecule, the fundamental building blocks of all life, everywhere.
Shira leaned over the balcony, looking out across the sun-filled atrium. Suspended from the ceiling hung a model representing the local solar system: a good, medium-sized star and its nine satellite planets. Shira had read extensively about Sol 3, first as a student, then in preparation for this mission. Five billion years since the star's birth, and the denizens of Earth were only just discerning the possibility of intelligent life beyond their solar system, a revelation that would alter its civilization irrevocably. In another century, humanity's outlook would be very different; at the moment, Shira found the planet's people pleasant but dull, painfully myopic.
In historical terms, Earth's importantance could not be underestimated: it was one of the primary cradles of humanoid lifeforms. One day, the descendents of these short-sighted people would step out among the stars, colonizing other worlds and seeding themselves across the universe. Shira's own ancestors had come from this fertile world, and it amused her to think that some of these people might be her distant kin: great-great-great-grandparents, or cousins many times removed.
She went still when a familiar figure came into view, striding across the lower level of the lobby. Shira regarded him with great interest. She'd noticed him before—wherever he went, he stood out, like the only living thing on a painted backdrop. Ostensibly, he was here as a replacement for a murdered science faculty member. Most people in this community—students, faculty, staff workers—didn't pay him much notice. A few sensitive types seemed to have detected something odd about him, something they couldn't consciously pinpoint. To Shira, he was like a horn blaring on a silent morning. His visible intelligence, his regal bearing, the way he wore his clothes like an extra layer of skin—all marked him as an outsider. But the eyes told Shira everything. He was an alien, like her, only much more obviously so—a stranger not just from another world, but from another species.
Shira flipped open the leather band on her wrist, displaying a tiny computer inside. She touched a couple of buttons, holding the device so that it could scan him. A moment later, the reading popped up: a string of zeros. She tried again: nothing. Whatever species this man belonged to, it had not been cataloged by the Time Agency. Shira knew he couldn't be an android or some other mechanical construction: that would have registered as well. And she was experienced enough, anyway, to recognize an organic life-form when she saw one. The mystery about this man deepened.
She watched him circle the displays of student work before he turned and strode off toward one of the main doors, the long brown coat flowing behind him like a cloak. Everything went quiet in his wake; even the molecules of air seemed to collapse in on themselves, as if they'd lost all purpose and meaning.
(iii)
"You got him?" Dr. Smith asked.
"Yeah," said Cassie. In her gloved hands, a healthy male squirrel chattered a loud, indignant vocalization. He kept twisting, trying to bite her, but she had immobilized his head. "Go for it."
Dr. Smith slipped off his heavy gloves, and said, "Watch this." He placed his fingertips on either side of the squirrel's head. A moment later, the little rodent stopped barking and went as limp as rope in Cassie's hands.
"What'd you do?" she squeaked.
Laughing, Dr. Smith said, "You can let him go now."
"Is he awake?" But the squirrel's eyes were open, its breathing relaxed, its expression benign. "Is he okay?" Cassie lay him down on a nearby towel.
"He's fine." Dr. Smith uncapped a syringe and gently slipped the needle into one of the squirrel's rear legs. Blood flowed into the tiny vacuum tube. With the sample collected, Dr. Smith removed the needle.
"That's amazing," said Cassie. "How'd you do that?"
Dr. Smith winked. He labeled the tube and placed it in a metal rack with a dozen others. "There, I think that gives us a representative sample." He touched his fingers again to the squirrel's head, and the animal sprang up, fully alert, dashing for the safety of the nearest tree. "And now for some DNA analysis."
Climbing to her feet, Cassie said, "Seriously, how'd you do that?"
Dr. Smith, she had discovered, never answered questions when he didn't want to.
"Allons-y," he said, scooping up the box trap that had been baited with walnuts. Cassie collected the test tubes and put the used syringes into a leather pouch, to be disposed of back at the lab.
She followed behind Dr. Smith, perplexed and frustrated. How had he made the squirrel so docile? Some kind of hypnosis? He strode ahead of her, Cassie almost running to keep up with him.
Their path back to Klugman took them past the college center, and Cassie discerned an unusual amount of activity for this hour of the morning. A few worried-looking students were clustered on the walkway in front of the building.
"Hello, what's all this?" Dr. Smith veered to the right.
"What's going on?" Cassie asked the first student she saw.
"Vandalism, I heard," the boy responded.
"Where?" asked Dr. Smith.
"In the student activity offices."
Dr. Smith hurried into the lobby, Cassie on his heels. A security guard tried to stop them, but Dr. Smith brushed him off like a fly.
"Has Dr. Holland been alerted yet?" asked Dr. Smith, suddenly commanding.
The guard sputtered.
"Well, get on it, man!" Dr. Smith ordered, and he pushed through the door to the stairwell, magnificent even with the squirrel trap in his arms.
The student activity offices occupied the upper two levels of the student center, a warren of cozy cubicles.
"Don't touch anything," Dr. Smith warned Cassie.
"I won't," she promised.
He set down the rack, and Cassie placed her test tubes on top of it. They went from office to office. The first two were untouched, and the third had been trashed: posters torn to shreds, files strewn about, a computer smashed.
"What's this?" Dr. Smith asked. "Whose office?"
Cassie checked the wall tag. "Christian Alliance."
Somehow, she knew what they would find even before they moved on to the next cubicle. All the offices for the campus religious organizations had been vandalized, their property destroyed. The Jewish Student Union, the Interfaith Council, the Islamic Student Alliance, the Buddhist Society, the Newman Association, Green Mountain Pagans—all had been quite deliberately trashed.
"Nothing else was touched?" asked Dr. Smith. He kept his voice low, though they were the only people on the floors. Cassie felt a creeping sense of horror, despite the sunlight streaming in through the tall windows.
"Nothing—the student government offices, the class offices, Campus Republicans, Campus Democrats—the secular organizations are fine. Here's where they print the campus newspaper." On a bulletin board, someone had tacked up the front page of a New York Times from the previous June, the headline printed in a huge font reserved for the assassinations of presidents and declarations of war: WE ARE NOT ALONE.
Cassie and Dr. Smith ventured up to the third floor, but paused when they heard an odd noise coming from down the hall, a low krrrrrrk and a quiet rustling.
Dr. Smith put a finger to his mouth, and they crept on tiptoe down to the end of the corridor. Inside, the office for the college Gospel Choir lay in shambles. And standing on an upturned chair was an enormous black bird, ruffling its feathers and shifting from one foot to the other.
"It's a raven," Cassie whispered.
"Yes, I see that," Dr. Smith whispered back.
"What're we gonna do? You can't catch something that size in a mist net."
"I'll distract it, and you go open the window."
"Are you kidding?" Cassie hissed.
Dr. Smith began to imitate the raven's call, such perfect mimicry that the great bird turned its head and stared at him, mesmerized. Dr. Smith gave Cassie a little nudge. She crept into the office, keeping as wide a berth as possible from the creature: that raven could do a lot of damage with its big beak, and the thing was agitated from its confinement. But Dr. Smith held its attention rapt. Cassie clambered across the piles of junk, finally reaching the window. She undid the two latches and pushed the window up, then unfastened the screen and pushed that up as well.
"Duck!" Dr. Smith ordered.
Cassie dropped, crouching in a corner. Dr. Smith began to yell, flapping his arms and lunging toward the raven. The bird let out a loud krrrrk, hopped up, and made a flying dive for freedom. Its broad wingspan just cleared the window frame on its way out.
"Good work!" Dr. Smith praised.
"Holy shit!" Cassie gasped.
Dr. Smith surveyed the room. "Quoth the raven, 'nevermore,'" he murmured under his breath.
"Who the hell put that poor thing in here?" asked Cassie, closing the window. "And look—it shit everywhere." Bird droppings splattered the upturned furniture and scattered papers, and the small space reeked of ammonia.
"The symbolism," Dr. Smith said, his focus turned inward. "That's why they did it. Ravens and crows are traditional symbols of death."
Though Cassie enjoyed folklore, she'd never been able to muster much grace in the face of unscientific attitudes. "Probably because they're carrion-eaters—people saw the birds feeding off dead things and must've assumed they were involved with the afterlife."
"Nevertheless, whoever put that bird in here must be trying to scare people."
Scornfully, Cassie said, "They don't scare me. Mad, maybe, but not scared."
"Indeed," said Dr. Smith, smiling, and Cassie felt wobbly in the legs for a moment.
They heard voices, and a moment later, Dr. Holland appeared, accompanied by the indignant security guard.
"We haven't touched anything," Dr. Smith said. "Some prankster trapped a raven in here, but we let it out the window."
"It's the same as in the meditation garden." Dr. Holland appeared troubled. "Anything connected to religious expression is destroyed."
Cassie said, "Does someone have something against God?" Then she said, "I hope this isn't some atheists trying to make a statement. We'll never hear the end of it."
Dr. Smith glanced at Dr. Holland. "Do you think that's possible?"
Dr. Holland said, "I couldn't even tell you who the atheists on this campus are, let alone how many we have."
"Cassie?" asked Dr. Smith. "Any ideas?"
"I dunno," she said. "I don't think there's any kind of formal organization. I only know one kid, off the top of my head, who's an atheist. He was in one of my classes freshman year—I can't even remember his name. My take is that as long as they're not being forced to pray or go to chapel services or anything like that, they're happy. I can't see any of them doing something this extreme."
"I'd say that's accurate," Dr. Holland nodded. "There might be one or two atheist faculty, but I doubt they'd destroy property as a means of protest."
They heard the faint chime of the chapel bell, and Dr. Smith said, "Cassie, if you don't mind, I need to speak with Dr. Holland in private."
"Okay," she said. "I'll put the stuff in the lab."
"Thank you," he said.
Cassie hurried down to the first floor, picking up the squirrel trap and blood samples along the way. Something about the whole incident disturbed her, the same way the vandalism of the meditation garden had disturbed her. While she wasn't a deeply religious person, she felt strongly about people's rights to express their beliefs, and it bothered her to see the angry desecration of such a fundamental ideal. Beneath the obvious destruction of property, though, lay something darker, something sinister, something Cassie couldn't quite pinpoint, but which nevertheless made her feel frightened and sick.
She emerged into the bright sunlight, grateful for the warm sunlight and the presence of other people, though the unsettling sense of malevolence lingered in the corners of her thoughts for the rest of the day.
(iv)
The faculty apartments occupied a street adjacent to the campus, a row of dreary, functional buildings, lacking the grace of red brick and green ivy and tall windows. Shira wrinkled her nose at the concrete and cheap vinyl, glad she'd been able to secure better accommodations for this mission. A few apartments showed signs of life: curtains in the windows, pretty mailboxes, baby strollers, toys. Others were unoccupied, the drawn blinds lending a blank look to the properties.
One advantage of working for IT was that hacking into the personnel database had been ridiculously easy. Shira had discovered that John Smith wasn't on payroll, which must mean that he had no official identification number. The Time Agency, of course, had provided Shira with all the documentation she'd needed, including the nine-digit number without which employment in this part of Earth was impossible. John Smith had a college e-mail address, an office and phone extension, and an address at one of these apartments, but beyond that, nothing.
Shira had also checked his schedule to ascertain that at this hour of the afternoon, he'd be occupied with a lengthy biology lab. Perfect. She hurried down the road, checking apartment numbers. On this side of the avenue, the numbers were all even. Eight, ten, twelve—there it was: number fourteen.
She checked the black metal letterbox out front: unmarked and empty. No name on the door, either, and the drawn blinds made the place appear unoccupied. A small, rusty automobile sat in the dilapidated driveway. Residents of Sol 3, at least in this region, seemed very fond of their conveyances. Shira wrinkled her nose: the humans here still burned fossil fuels. How could they tolerate getting about in these slow-moving, inefficient, smelly things? A layer of pollen dust and dry leaves covered the vehicle, suggesting Smith hadn't used it for a while.
Shira rapped at the door. Silence. Satisfied that he hadn't nipped home unexpectedly, she extracted a set of lock picks from a leather envelope on her tool belt and used one of the tiny devices to let herself into Smith's apartment.
She took care not to touch anything: marks in the dust would betray her presence. By the look of things, the shabby furniture hadn't been used for some time, and Shira saw no evidence of personal possessions. The kitchen was bare, empty, nothing in the musty fridge, no food in the cabinets. In the bedroom she found a couple of stripped mattresses in a metal frame, an empty closet, an empty chest of drawers.
Stumped, she circled around again. Where did he sleep? What did he eat? Even the water in the toilet had evaporated. She checked behind each door, finding only empty closets. But there was a locked door off the kitchen. Shira reached again for her lock picks.
A flight of wooden steps led down to a basement. Shira flicked on the electric light, and here, at last, she found signs of habitation. A clothes washer and dryer stood against one concrete wall, and from rope lines strung overhead hung a couple of men's button-down shirts, undershirts, shorts, and socks. Smith, she'd observed, always wore the same suit, though he varied his shirts. Hanging by their laces were two pairs of athletic shoes: one black, one white.
His laundry, however, didn't interest her. In one corner of the room stood a tall blue box, ostensibly made of wood, though she suspected it was only a surface veneer. The thing hummed and vibrated, faint light glowing through the frosted windows near the top. Shira placed her hands flat against two of the panels, feeling the mechanical throb of an engine within. She tried the door: locked. She tried every pick in her kit with no luck; the door must be dead-locked. Shira consulted her wrist strap, noting with satisfaction the readings that suggested recent time travel. Yes. He was the one. Grinning, she hurried up the steps, switching out the light and shutting the door, then let herself out of the apartment and locked the exterior door as well. At last she was getting somewhere.
(v)
When the workday ended, Shira returned to the apartment. Night had fallen, chilly darkness settling over the mountainous community. She hunched down into her sweater, making a mental note to pick up some warmer clothes: winter here would be snowy and cold. Lights had come on in the other apartments, but Smith's lay in darkness.
She waited in the living room: if Smith wanted to get to the basement, he'd need to pass through this room. Shira crouched in the shadow behind an armchair, waiting. Her left hand went to the handcuffs on her belt, while in her mind she reviewed her plan of attack.
An hour later, with Shira growing cold, hungry, and impatient, the front door opened. Smith didn't bother with lights, striding toward the kitchen, just as Shira had expected.
She coiled like a spring, then leaped out, colliding with his long body and punching him in the temple, knocking him clear to the floor. A leather satchel hit the carpet beside him; Shira pushed it away. Smith was tall but very thin, and Shira wrestled him onto his back with less effort than she'd expected, straddling him with her legs. Before she lost the element of surprise, she cuffed one of his wrists, grabbed the other arm, and cuffed his hands together.
"Right," she said, unclipping her tiny flashlight and shining the bright yellow beam in his face. He was still stunned from the blow to the head, but he showed more irritation than fear. "There's no point playing games, so why don't you tell me right now: what did you do with the Mouth of Quincunx?"
To be continued…