Day 9

Among the city's most famous sights – that is, famous and gorgeous even by its extraordinary standards – was the theater house contained in one of the central town's foremost pleasure gardens.

Indeed, the garden itself was only slightly behind in renown and splendor, being historically known as the aristocrat's park thought it had been open to the citizens for most of said history – the eponymous aristocrats had, in actuality, been its sponsors and taken great pride in outdoing each other with lavish grants to the public, reserving for themselves only the right to access the installation's most exclusive services and finest facilities whenever they so pleased, though even the gaudiest luxuries were so ample in their availability that they could accommodate them without causing a big dent – if anything, they were offering the most distinguished citizens easy access to themselves.

The park itself was a dreamscape of arches, columns, fountain-studded waterways and fragrant plans, without doubt carefully planned, yet appearing to flow almost naturally, a highly man-made paradise inviting you to casually find its many pleasures as you would fruit in an orchard, and indeed, fruit trees and vines were a common feature, as were stylized wells – the classical-looking buildings were half-hidden among the plants, yet both structures and greenery were so placed so that they offered relative privacy, and as any kind of rain or harsh weather was not an issue under the enormous dome, delicate facilities could be placed in the open air.

Hidden on the grounds like secret gardens, yet placed so that visitors would be subtly guided towards them, one could find all manner of leisure facilities, from a library to a gymnasium, vast baths, what one might call a spa and various services related to health, fitness and beauty, all the way to vast zoological and botanical collections, museums, art galleries, exhibition houses and an amphitheater for miscellaneous shows and speeches, opportunities to engage in various sports and games and free high-end banquets – only in a decadent post scarcity economy would you find such a thing as a free lunch. There was even a forum for public discussion and debate, as well as some parts of the gardens reserved for festivalsor poetic expression, and others yet intended to house orgies and prostitution – though the design of the place was such that even at the height of its activity, it would never have seemed too busy or packed, and rather more like the golden age of legend, when no man had to labor and the gods mingled freely with the mortals, and idyllic setting out of fantasy and myth.

Every way one looked, there were lavish plants, artistic little waterways and boastful statues; Few buildings were higher than three stories. It was an environment from a dream, designed to make you get lost in it, a vast garden to play and entertain yourself with without end, especially down here, where no changes of the light or the weather could remind you of the passage of time – but it was never intended to be wholly silent, like it was now – there ought to have been, at least, the distant sound of music, birdsong and laughter, and perhaps then, the place would have lost some of its dreamlike quality, or maybe it would be the people themselves who'd take on mythical, otherworldly attributes, their pride and wrath suddenly put into jarring perspective once one considered that this was their normal-

Wandering under marble arches, amid columns and platforms, waterways and fruit trees, hung with jewelry and flowing robes as it was their custom, amply augmented and decorated like Christmas trees, the Fabronians themselves may have been easily mistaken for the giants, nymphs and demigods they had confused themselves with, children of this artificial paradise where everything was fashioned to their liking, needing merely to reach out their arms to command the machines to service them, or, simply, to reach for the ripe fruit that hung from the branches and vines that had been conveniently placed near the walkways, so innocuously and playfully scattered as to appear natural, but unmistakably recognizable as managed upon closer glance: The different kinds of fruits were all ripe at the same time, and all of them perfectly formed, there wasn't a single one that was overripe or compromised by parasites, and they felt firm, but not hard to the touch, flawless in color and smell.

The Doctor reached out for one small, orange orb as it still hung on the vine, and scanned in more for interest in its alterations and bioengineering than for safety concerns, though the results quickly persuaded him to let it be and perhaps pick another plant to 'patronize' – Not that didn't contain an admirable about of vitamins and electrolytes, but while a lot of those fruit-bearing plants had indeed been placed here to offer convenient juicy snacks, the scan revealed that this particular one was here to serve a different purpose, as its fruits contained significant amounts of substances with hallucinogenic and entactogenic properties, at least, to the Fabronians – but Time Lords, and, indeed, humans, were close enough in their biochemistry that he preferred not to risk it; He was already seeing things, and the last things his idle thoughts needed at the moment was chemical encouragements.

The discovery did, at least, further illustrate the kind of debauchery must have gone on here, and, indeed, put certain design properties in the buildings and plant arrangements into perspective; It was easy to supplement his vague, eyes-rolling imagination of the jewelry-hung, half-naked Fabronians with a few distinctly inebriated individuals; His mental picture of the kaleidoscope of dream-like paradise and infernal decadence beginning to resemble a Hieronymus Bosch painting.

In a sober state, he was probably missing a third of the typical experience, or two thirds without the people themselves, as there was no service personnel to serve banquets or hand out massages, or, indeed, 'massages', nor were there other patrons with whom to debate politics, discuss art or to hug in a drug-addled rush.

With the sober mind of a later historian, the abandoned garden seemed much like an exhibit in a museum, imbued with a serenity that the real place may never have possessed – at the very least, there must have been the occasional arguing couple or overly inebriated, nauseated fellow, and others such distinctly un-glamorous consequences of this being a real place that was used;

One need to merely apply logic to conclude that it was likely a popular tourist designation, with all the dreadful realities that implied.

Anything could become "just stuff" if you stared at it long enough, even this fallen city, and even the most famed of its jewels.

That, of course, was not a viewpoint conductive to enjoying it, so the Doctor chose not to dwell on that point of view for too long, instead continuing on his path toward what was considered the Pearl of the aristocrat's garden: The central theater house, a circular building of white marble with a white dome, its outline circles with closely places white columns, beyond which the actual gate waited, several stories high, with lavish metal decorations, the central lock being shaped as a relief statue of a feminine deity peeking out from the wall; The door alone stood higher than any other structure within the park.

There were actually several stage rooms inside, as well as a large foyer with an enormous chandellier at its center, all of them lavish, though varying in style and relative modernity – at the height, there would have been several stage plays a day, sometimes even concerts or dance acts, with artists from all over the magecity and beyond coming to perform here.

As one of the most prestigious theaters in Xalax, the aristocrat's park theater could never pledge itself to one particular art style or tradition of performance, allowing the visitors at its height to witness something different every day, from all historical periods and art styles of this world, even some alien plays picked up during the Fabronian's more expansive spacefaring periods, everything from highly sophisticated performances in gandiose period costume and highly artificial language to lowkey improvisational pieces with minimal requisites.

The same eclecticism was incorporated into the seven stages in total that were incorporated into the building, two on top of each other in the east and west, two in the north, one underground and another right beneath the dome, utilizing almost its full volume for dramatic effects surrounding the seats at its center, and the large, southern opera hall that was the largest and most splendorous of them all, framed by many stories of VIP boxes including several "throne loges" for the I-est of VIPs.

Despite its name, it weren't just Operas being performed there but the full, sophisticated Orhestra is incorporated was almost always a central feature of the performances it hosted.

Each of the rooms was designed in a different style, with different perks and attributes – though all of them were lavish and impressive, their styles varied, so that stepping into each of them was akin to stepping into a different world, or perhaps, another subset or part of a person's mind, inhabited by a different emotion... but for the largest, most stunning room, the architects had decided to go with a classic, timeless look, or what passed for such in Xalax: One did not have to see it to be certain that it would be gaudy as hell, a hell of vermillion curtains, golden curtains and intricate fractal patterns of opaque jewel plating the floor.

To express it in Earth Terms, one could say that it was Dresden's Semperoper times one-hundred, except with much more stained-glass window-like patterning on the walls, golden metal where of-white paint would have sufficed and a few mythology-themed paintings near the room, all in colors dark enough not to be too distracting when the lights were dimmed for attention to focus on the stage – even the lowest seats were luxurious.

But even in this blindingly coruscation utopia, it still took weeks or months for a theater group to practice and perfect a play, and for the jewel of the holy city, the selection was only discerning, the incentive to polish and perfect even greater – even here, a 24 hour program was just not possible, but for the Xalaxians, that would not do – so, the very best performances of each season were put up for the vote, and the most popular of them captured with a holoprojector, so that at any given time, at least one stage that wasn't currently being used for practice would have something on display – the visitors, especially frequent ones, were even encouraged to vote on which plays to record and which holographic recordings to play, and since the system had been in place for many, many years, there was a large repertoire of performances to pick from, or for the theater staff to screen as part of themed exhibits – at the touch of a button, the likenesses of long dead actors and actresses could be summoned forth to relive the performance that immortalized them, some of them so old that even the long-lived Fabronians had considered them ancient masterpieces by the time the city was abandoned –

It was part of what made the aristoctat's park theater so famed and so intrinsically connected with a sense of awe and legacy, a legacy to which new pieces had been added until the city's abandonment. There had, of course, been debates about people's likenesses, given the later attitudes toward personal depictions, but the general consensus was that these moving snapshots of other times were too valuable to destroy, the tradition to revered to be discontinued, and besides, quite different from a static image or even the statues whose continued existence was tolerated – one was looking not so much at actors, but the fictional characters and universal concepts they had chosen to lend their forms to, every detail so easy to miss if one didn't pay attention.

An attraction like that was, of course, impossible for the Doctor to pass up, so from the moment he reached the lower city, it was unavoidable that he should find his way to the largest of those stages, in one of the lower seats, transfixed on the holographic ghosts of the distant past.

He'd opened up one of VIP boxes, though he could not stand to stay here with all the ostentatious bling and oversized rubies embedded in the columns, but when he left for the lower seats, he'd taken a souvenir, a little something the theater offered to its most prestigious guests, because they could not be expected to bring their own & carry annoying baggage all this way, nor to do without, a gesture intended, with some quite apparent symbolism, to tell them to feel as much at ease as they would in their own homes – It was, he supposed, a garment, comparable to being issued a borrowed bathrobe in a sauna club, though he'd joke that it was the Fabronian answer to a 'human burrito', if there had been anyone here to hear that remark.

At the most basic level it was a piece of expensive cloth, a thin blanket or loose wrapping to be worn indoors, and, indeed, was commonly left on the local equivalent to coat racks while their owners substituted them for their outdoor cloaks (which, for the dweller of a subteranean city, or the later biodomes, was a mostly decorative article) – you'd wear it for comfort and to keep your limbs warmed while you were seated, and would transport it wrapped around your body while changing locations, held in place with a brooch or just by pinning the folds between your upper arm and torso – the one he'd snatched was off a smooth, glittery navy blue fabric, with silver embroidery depicting an annotated map of the night sky, and it served him well enough in adding a little more of an authentic touch as he watched the performances of centuries past, the impassioned speeches and sung laments of the lost city's former masters.

It did, however, proceed to stab him in the back by being a little bit too comfy, allowing the last few days' sustained wakefulness to finally catch up to him during a centuries' old musical performance he was rather enjoying before he nodded off.

He didn't recall much of what he'd dreamed, but he knew for certain that there had been water, glittering, moving slowly but steadily, spreading from all the artificial creeks, flowing into the ridges in the relief that formed the jewel pavement, flooding the ancient streets and falling off the aqueducts in sheets.

When he woke, there was a glittering, too, but not of water, hanging diffusely into his field of vision, and escaping its view because his eyes could focus on it.

Immediately, he was alert, rushing to his feet before his mind had even fully been roused from its sleep, carelessly dropping the cloth to the floor and contending with a split-second struggle to stay on his feet and refrain from unbalancing himself with a half-baked conscious thought while his instincts were already leading his ganze and posture to dart in the direction of that unclear stimulus.

He thought he may have heard steps and perhaps the rustle of hair and clothing, but by the time he had clearly surveillance the room, there was no motion anywhere, especially not anywhere close by on the lowest floor.

Even on the stage, the recording had ended, and the afterimages of long gone actors remained frozen in their last bow, standing side by side in a line.

He couldn't say why he didn't pull out his sonic screwdriver and scan right away, perhaps because such sophisticated concerns were far from the reptilian rush of survival instincts that had driven his initial actions – by the time he thought to scan the perimeter, there was noting left to be found, and perhaps, there had never been, granted, his reaction had not been as fast and effective as it would have been if he hadn't been asleep, he was much too seasoned a vagrant and, indeed, a technician to make such a mistake while fully aware – he may just have missed a very critical time window.

If some kind of cloaking or concealment technology was being used here, there was a much lower chance of it working interference-free in close quarters, but this city was gigantic, and being somewhere else than where he was should not be the slightest problem, that was probably why whoever it was hadn't bothered to confront him.

Then again, those same facts would pose the question as to why they'd go near him in the first place, if they had managed to hide from him their technology should not be much less sophisticated than his own, at least as far as sensor equipment went, and their visits to the central maintenance system would suggest that they surveiled the place, perhaps contributing to its ongoing peak condition – would they risk such a vulnerable, hidden-away position just for curiosity?

Perhaps, if they were as interested in him as he was in them.

There was, of course, also the possibility that there was no them, and that anything he'd thought to have glimpsed was just a trick of the light, a minor mistake or misconception brought on by his overactive mind.

This was precisely what he disliked about sleeping, there was never a way to know.

At least, he was properly rested now, there'd be no more of that inconvenience for a while.

With a sigh, he went back to his seat, but decided to drop the wrapping cloth as soon as he picked it up, throwing it over the seat he'd spent his nap on for no particular reason.

He felt he was done here – though he hadn't spent nearly enough time to fully explore the diversity of an entire culture's artistic outputs, he simply no longer felt like sitting around and decided to keep moving.

He'd already mostly discarded the idea that he'd heard an actual person by the time he passed one of the doors that led out of the large opera hall back into the foyer – so, he was all the more struck when he noticed.

It wasn't strictly the first time, he'd been vaguely aware of the little, floral-patterned golden table next to the entrance and the chairs next to it, he'd assumed that it had once served to sell or check tickets or whatever else they did to make sure everyone had paid, or at least that no one got in after the hall was full – he couldn't recall if the second chair had already been across the other, which on its own seemed contrary to the table's purpose, but could have had any number or possible explanations.

The plates and tea set left on the table, however, did not. They and the cutlery around them were every bit as fancy and ostentatious as the architecture around them and may somehow have belonged to the building in case of buffets or to consume snacks being sold here, but they had no business being on this table. And just in case he was still skeptical, just to make sure that he'd notice even if he hadn't paid attention to whether the table had been empty before, the plates contained stray crumb of what may have been bread or cake, and the cups were filled with faint residues of still-hot, steaming tea of a rich, tangy aroma –

Even without knowledge of the cleaning robots that ought to have put it away if it had remained out here for too long, one could not deny that it had been recently touched, indeed, there was some tea left in the pot, which the owners may have meant to consume before they heard him awakening – this setup suggested at least two individuals, but they'd been leisurely, almost playful in dining so close to where he'd slept, he chairs were arranged slightly sideways, he could just imagine them sitting here fully casually, chatting bemusedly about the unexpected presence of this curious extraneous creature – they had not behaved like the cautious guards of a hidden civilization, duty bound to social responsibility and pressured by fear of the discovery that would change their world forever, but more like they'd generally prefer to remain undisturbed, but would have absolutely nothing to lose if he stumbled upon them – they moved through their world with the same post-apocalyptic abandon as he had.

Something about this gave him the strong impression that they must be very few in number, much unlike their ancestors from the Second Apocalypse – He still reserved judgment and in the end, he had no proof for that supposition other than a mere whisper of the mind – years of experience had taught him to neither blindly trust nor fully disregard his intuitions.

They must known that he was here, what more, they must have been well aware that he was alien, with his, to them, foreign clothing and his lack of purple forehead spots – And he would have no luck passing as a human when homo sapiens had yet to reach this galaxy and no one had even seen terran style clothing yet.

After a brief period of disbelief, he accepted the evidence, moved on, and allowed it to galvanize into curiosity and determination – the first step he took was to approach the table and sample both the tea (vaguely like a spicy chai but less "milky") and the breadcrumbs (not cake, but still sweet, like very dark, crumbly bread infused with bits of dried, candied fruit).

They were without a doubt fresh but the pastry was likely mass-produced rather than hand-baked.

With the tea still warm, they could not have gone far – That began his search, he ran multiple automatic scanning programs while at the same time having a physical look around – they could deceive his instruments but if he'd truly seen them just now, they couldn't deceive his eyes, or at least not all the way.

He was looking not so much for the stragglers themselves, as for further signs of their presence – in this large a city, locating a pair of humanoids would be next to impossible.

Still, if he were to be lucky enough to find them, it would probably not be out in the open, but rather 'backstage', where one could actually be expected to hide, somewhere between the changing rooms, the stage technicians' hiding places or wherever they kept the requisites – so that's where he went to look.

There was something surreal yet familiar about a room filled with all manner of random objects with no seeming connection to each other; The connection was even stronger in the costume room, whose ample collection and overall dimensions could contend with his own changing room back in the TARDIS.

There were a variety of costumes from both Fabron's history and the inhabitant's imagination, and his own fantasies were taking more and more solid shape, picturing the 'residents' fingering through the racks to pick out clothes that had never belonged to them and, at times, been donated to the public, and the personality that must have gone into choosing to take up residence here, in a house of the arts, in what had been a palace of the public where no single person would have been allowed to dwell had the city not been abandoned – It spoke of self-righteous pride, but it also told of a certain sense of poetry, as, he supposed, did everything down here. Having often described the actions of his companions as 'very human', he thought that at this point, he knew enough to describe this choice of as 'Very Fabronian'.

This place was, after all, public property, and if the 'public' consisted of only a few people, it was all theirs to use – that perspective, of course, deliberately overlooked that they were keeping the city's wealth, secrets and comforts all to themselves.

Having already seen the city after its destruction made it easy to forget, but ultimately, he did remember that right now at this point in time, there was still a 'public' out there on the surface, contemporary Fabronians with just as much right to this place as whoever had set up camp down here.

He was sure that whoever lived here were bound to be some very interesting individuals, but he wasn't sure if he would like them, with the entitled, superior way that they were saving up all this material, technological and cultural treasure all for themselves like some super-rich art collectors or old misers... which may be exactly what they were.

Old, that is – With so small a number, so little concern about discovery, such a haughty yet undoubtedly direct connection to the prestige this building once held, everything that made it a prize and not just another big building, there was a good chance that they'd had their lifespans artificially extended... Immortals perhaps. He could see it, picture them seeing themselves as the true heirs to the city, finding it preposterous that some politician could throw them out, and deciding to hide themselves and stay.

Whatever made them immortal might in itself have kept them off the bioscans, or , they simply used old technology. If they were immortal, that opened up the possibility that they still lived after the surface towers had molten down – had they still been here at the time of his last visit, somewhere beneath his feet, still being catered to by the city's machinery like puppeteers in a kingdom made of marionettes?

Perhaps they were.

It would also explain the irregular accessing of the maintenance computers, if it was a handful of individuals deciding to go up there and check according to their needs and whims, rather than a robot or a society where a certain regularity in the duties would be instated to assure that they are taken care of.

He could easily picture all of this as he walked through the ample costume room, noticing how lavish clothing of a certain size had been accumulated on a rack near the door. Really fancy clothes, even by Fabronian standards, the sort fit for a queen of myth – if that queen were a short woman shaped like a cello.

So now he even had an idea of what at least one of them looked like, and how she liked to dress – Her taste was ostentatious and pompous, even for a Fabronian, but it was also more extravagant than 'classic' or 'antique', containing some rather modern outlandish pieces, the sort a fancypants fashion designer would concoct with little expectation than anyone other than his company's models was ever going to wear it.

What his imagination wouldn't have included, however, was the piece that was laid out on a chair next to the lady's apparent personal rack – an Earth Style baroque dress.

Not 'baroque' in an aesthetic, comparative sense, but the exact same cuts that would have been worn in the 17th or 18th century on Earth – he'd been using the adjectives 'baroque' and 'rococo' before because there truly was an amazing parallel development and similarity which perhaps may have made similar Earth clothing appealing to this place's residents, but they should not have known or had any contact with Earth, the match was far too exact to be simple parallelism, and too disparate from purely Fabronian dresses and robes to be merely coincidence.

Even at the height of their empire and spread through their home galaxy, they had never reached the milky way – never.

And yet, it was an Earth baroque dress, or perhaps a later reproduction inspired by those, a rose-colored mess of expensive, silky cloth and embroiled decorations, with white frills lining the sleeves, shoulders and neckline, silver decorations, corset straps and artificial flowers creating an artful relief that must have been a lot of work to get into – heaven knows he'd never bother with so much flourish if he had a whole city to himself, and he'd often been considered quite a bit of a fashion victim over the years – whoever it was went through all the trouble to wear those sorts of things all for herself and her companion(s) down here... then again, so did he, in a sense. It was not nearly as inexplicable as where she'd get the Earth clothing.

In one adjacent room, once a changing room for actors, he found a bed, a personal, king-sized one with rich velvet curtains and filigree decorations.

There was no need to wonder whether the jewelry on the vanity table or the bed had belonged there once upon a while, or what purpose they may have served in its theater days: The room was very clearly lived in, by someone other than the lady, their choice of clothing scattered across the room with much less loving attention – the second person's clothing was somewhat simple, overall androgynous in style but also indicative of modest height.

There were various tight-fitting overalls and dark-colored robes, including a moss green one much like the one that had been missing from that shopping window. The whole room featured the bed, some cupboards, two luxury sinks and multiple vanity tables some of which were being used as desks or bookshelves, and was rather messy and disorderly, like a teenager's room would be.

There was a personality profile to be filed here, too, they were certainly not of the orderly sort, and somewhat less concerned with aesthetics, at least not all of the time – they seemed to like jewelry, though this may just be common culture on Fabron, however, they'd clearly made the room their own and transformed it from its changing room days, using the clothing hooks to hang baskets to hold their position, the bed, multiple slippers that didn't match in color, and a an extension cable to which they'd connected multiple upper-city style devices including a portable food synthesizer to avoid leaving the room – a shower and water closet was right adjacent to the room itself; Overall, the room had a rather used and improved feel to it despite the luxury furniture and decorations, which, in conjunction with everything else, only served to give the room a dark, heavy cave-like feeling –

After all he'd seen, there could be no more doubt that there were indeed people living here.

It was frustrating.

He knew they were down here, yet he also knew that he would most likely never find them.

Two people in an enormous megacity, and they might well be the only ones – needle in a haystack.

He could try, but he'd probably fail to find them, miss all of the city, and provide them with a whole lot of amusement. He'd have a better chance if he went back to the TARDIS to collect supplies, but that would give them time to prepare as well, and going all the way back up seemed like overkill for downright hunting some people who had never done him any harm and might prefer to maintain their privacy – it was not like he couldn't understand them, though he wondered if they didn't get bored all by themselves... then again, if they had the means not to be detected, they might just have the means to leave.

A big sigh later, having taken a moment to stew in the nagging curiosity he may not be able to satisfy, he decided to move on and let the disorderly fellow back into their room.

He would just continue his exploration of the city, and if he met them, it'd be fine, and if he didn't, it would be fine, too, and he'd at least confirmed their existence.

It irked his competitive spirit that they might have gotten their eyes on him when he hadn't, but in the end, this was their home turf and it had likely been that for a very long time, so it's not like the game had been fair to begin with – His best hope was that they'd tried to observe him before or at least didn't seem too perturbed by his presence, so they might come near him again, and until they did, he might as well enjoy the rest of the city without wasting his time and energy looking for these elusive Phantoms of the Opera.

So, he departed.

He did not find the immortals.

What he did find, however, was a secret pathway in the crypt of the central temple, not find as in 'discover', but truly, simply 'find', as in, it was already gaping wide open though it possessed a sophisticated locking mechanism, not that he couldn't have detected or opened it, but, the very fact that it stood open like that suggested that it saw frequent enough use to make the opening of the door mechanism a bit of a hassle.

The crypt, like the rest of the temple, was built in a geometric, semi-cubist style that he'd personally compare to a 'castle' build with colorful building blocks for children or neon tiles in a glass floor, the saturated colors of the individual blocks providing a surreal sight – the tunnel itself, however, was of distinctly different make, older perhaps, or younger, in contrasting crystalline blues with pictogram-lines that seemed etched in but were probably a kind of metamaterial, a clearer, sparklier one than the one before which looked kind of like massive ice, if it had been stable in the city's agreeable climate.

A broad grin spread across his face, dragging the folds of his skin.

Now if that wasn't some consolation prize.