Each chapter is getting progressively more and more difficult for me to write, as I have to make sure that every loose end is adressed and the clues I've planted are all leading to the same conclusion.
I have yet to recieve any comments addressing the major recurring thematic elements in this story, and nobody's guessed the answer to these riddles so far. This is probably your last chance to do it and still feel smart, as the next two chapters will explain everything.
10
That Famous Doctor
I possess the two qualities required to see absolute truth: I am brilliant. And I am unloved.
-Miss Evangelista
"I didn't want this. I never wanted this."
The death count in the city of London numbered in the hundreds, all a direct result of the chaos caused by Gabriel's plots against the Doctor. Fear and panic hung over the city like a thundercloud, tangible to those sensitive to psychic energies.
Citizens were abandoning the city in droves, as crime rates skyrocketed and law became meaningless. The police force began to fall apart as more higher-up officers were murdered, and bombs went off in two more stations within the city limits. The government had begun talks on dispatching the military to restore order to the city.
"This is wrong… I just wanted… my family…"
It was the same rooftop where he had first met Gabriel, months ago. Today the light rain had washed the sky free of the smoke and dust that was now constantly rising from the city
"You made the choice to help this man carry out his plans, even though you knew how dangerous he was." Lilith said sourly, "And when the man we should have gone to right away offered to help us, you continued to agonize for days over whether or not it was the right thing to do!"
Asiman turned away.
"Have you decided now?" she continued, "Or are you going to let hundreds more innocent people die while this madman gambles with the lives of everybody in this city? Those citizens might be our prey, but… they are people, at least. With lives, and families, just like ours. And what he's doing to them is wrong!" (She actually added the exclamation mark at the end, projecting a sharp image of it)
Asiman gazed for a moment at the ruined city spread before him. The smoke still hanging in the damp air stung his nostrils slightly. "I'll never understand just why he loves this little planet so much," he whispered.
"What was that?"
Asiman vaulted from the rooftop, and Lilith followed him. "Fine. We go to the Doctor. Tell him we're ready to help him bring this guy down. Ask what we can do to help. And…"
"…Ask him to ensure our family's safety," Lilith finished.
Asiman would have continued, but he spotted a solitary figure walking towards the warehouse that hid their underground home. Gabriel looked up and waved cheerily. He was carrying two large shopping bags.
"Asiman. Lilith. Out enjoying the weather?" He trod through a puddle.
"Hello, Mr. Gabriel," said Asiman. "What have you got there?"
They stepped inside the deserted warehouse and Gabriel set the bags on the concrete floor. Reaching into one of them, he withdrew a lavish black dress that wouldn't look out of place at a function hosted by royalty. "Well, I was out shopping, and I just couldn't decide between these two. I bought them both, but I'll still have to choose one of them. What do you think?"
He pulled out the other dress, a vibrant blue one, and held them up to compare.
Asiman and Lilith didn't say anything for quite a long time. Presently, Lilith looked cautiously at her husband, then at Gabriel, and then finally at the two expensive evening gowns he was still holding patiently in his hand.
"Um." She hesitated. "I… like the blue one."
"Excellent!" Gabriel beamed. "What about you, Asiman?"
He was thoroughly confused. "Uh. Blue for me too, I guess."
"Well, then," he nodded briskly. "Thank you very much!"
Gabriel stepped into the invisible elevator- very similar to the one used by Torchwood Three- that led underground. "Seeya."
As soon as he was gone, Asiman turned to his wife. "My God. He's completely insane."
Lilith shook her head. "Maybe he's just acting that way. Everything he's doen so far has been a part of some complex script he's got in his head. He's far too precise to be doing everything on impulse."
Asiman supposed that Gabriel's unpredictability was a result of his genius- but there would be know way of knowing for sure without personally taking a look inside the man's head. At that was too dangerous to even seriously consider. "Okay," he decided, "I'm going to the Doctor, and I'll tell him that he can find Gabriel and his daughter here. You need to stay and watch him. If he leaves, follow him. I'll be as quick as I can."
Lilith nodded, her red hair falling over her face as she did so. Asiman gently brushed it out of the way, leaned forward, and kissed her softly.
"Be careful," he said.
"You too," she replied.
Asiman smiled, and then turned and was gone, his predator's speed carrying him swiftly over the rooftops of the city.
He was focusing more than ever on the Ri game he and Gabriel were playing.
Six high-ranking police officers had been murdered in the past week and, at the scene of each there had been a note written in a cryptic language that none of the government's codebreakers could decipher.
The Doctor, of course, understood that the complex code was actually simple Judoon. Each note detailed another move in the game, and the Doctor adjusted the pieces on the holographic board accordingly.
Once he had decided upon his own move, he would scrawl a graffito detailing it in the same language on the side of a building. Within a short while, Gabriel would respond with another murder and another note.
The Doctor had thought that perhaps if Gabriel had no move to make, he would refrain from committing more murders in order to pass on the message. So, he had gone two days without writing a response.
Gabriel had simply murdered another sergeant, and this time the attached note read, "Might as well take advantage of the opportunity."
The Doctor had grimly done so, and so they had continued with the increasingly high-stakes game.
"D'you ever think that maybe we're losing sight of the real issue here?"
He didn't respond to Jack's question right away, and continued to pace the TARDIS projection room.
"I mean, there are more… proactive methods we could be taking towards stopping this guy. Maybe by continuing with this game, you're endorsing his way of communication through assassination."
Jack was seated cross-legged on the floor, amidst a small pile of disassembled firearms. He was cleaning and then reassembling each in turn. Mickey lounged against the wall, eating slices from the pizza box perched on a nearby table.
The Doctor snatched a piece for himself. "You saw that one note of his. He's gonna continue with the killing until we stop him, so I might as well use the means of communication he's given me."
"I still think it's kinda cold," Mickey spoke through a mouthful of pepperoni. "Lacks respect. You know?"
"And I'm still not sure that a board game is going to help us stop an insane terrorist." Jack snapped a clip into one of the handguns he was assembling and laid the weapon aside. "You're a doctor. You could at least be helping those people."
Again, the Doctor didn't answer.
There was no question that the pieces on the Ri board had now entered endgame. The two factions had been whittled down to one last attacking force and one hastily assembled defence.
This game was unique, perhaps, in that both sides were drawing inexorably closer to the piece representing the opponent. Endgame would normally mean that defeat was inevitable for one side, but in this particular game, it was inevitable for both. The defences were no match for the surrounding attacking pieces, it had become a matter of who could manoeuvre quickly enough.
For one side or the other, victory would come within the next few moves. Which meant that every action now was crucial.
"Think for a moment. What was the very first thing that Gabriel did? His first move?"
"He sent you that data stick. The one with the game on it."
The Doctor smiled. "Now, we've been theorizing that maybe this game is a ruse, a distraction- I obsess over it while he carries on with his plot to rule the world. But there's something missing from that equation, isn't there?"
"The plot," said Mickey.
"Exactly. If this game is a distraction… then what is it distracting me from?"
Jack made as if to say something, and then stopped.
"As far as we can tell, he doesn't want anything. There's no clear reason behind any of what he's done, save to antagonize me. So what if the game's not a distraction from his plots…"
"…It's the other way around," Jack finished. "You think that all those people he's killed, all those things he's done… you think that he's doing it to distract you from the game the two of you are playing?"
The Doctor shrugged. "It makes more sense than anything else I can think of."
Mickey raised a hand. "Am I the only one that finds that terrifying? That he's doing all this for the sake of a board game?"
"But it's not just a game to him, is it?" The Doctor mused, "To him, it's something more. It's a way for him to prove that he's smarter than me- that he's better than I am."
"But is he?" Jack squinted at the holographic pieces, trying to make some sense out of them. "Can you beat him, Doctor?"
His mouth was a grim line. "It's going to be close."
Just then there was the sound, audible throughout the entire bowels of the ship, of the TARDIS door opening and closing. Feet on the metal grating, and a muffled question. And then a familiar voice shouted out: "Doctor! Jack! Mickey! Are you in here? I can smell the pizza!"
The three of them glanced at each other, and then scrambled out of the projection room to meet Martha. She wasn't alone.
"Put the gun down, Jack."
Jack hesitantly lowered the handgun he had drawn and pointed at Asiman as soon as he had seen the vampire. Asiman's hands were held out in front of him in a gesture of acquiescence and he was looking pleadingly at the Doctor.
He spoke first to Martha. "What are you doing here? I thought you were with your family."
She sighed. "I explained the situation to them, and they've gone off in hiding with Tom- my fiancée," she clarified, clearing up the Doctor's momentary confusion. He hadn't seen her in so long- had forgotten she was engaged.
"Anyways," she went on, "Asiman here had tracked down my mother's address and showed up just as they were all stepping out the door. He told me that he needed to talk to you, but had no idea where to find you."
The Doctor nodded. "So then. Why should I listen to you?"
Asiman sputtered. "I- I- Doctor, I'm so sorry- I can tell you where he is. Where your daughter is. But we have to hurry."
There was a moment of silence as he scrutinized Asiman's face, analyzed his words, probed his mind- and saw nothing but honesty.
"Jack, Mickey. Grab guns. As many as you need. Martha. Go pull up a car outside, as fast as you can. We take no chances- if you need to kill him, kill him."
Jack and Mickey vanished into the depths of the ship, and Martha sprinted outside, leaving the Doctor and Asiman alone.
The Malsangurian slumped into a nearby chair. "I made a terrible mistake. I let my family down. I deserve to die because of it."
"Don't be stupid. You're coming with me, and we're going to put a stop to this. Right now."
He was shaking his head desperately from side to side. "I just pray we're fast enough. That he hasn't already sensed my betrayal."
The Doctor shifted nervously from foot to foot. "Where's your wife, Asiman?"
"I told her to watch him. Keep an eye on him. If he does anything, try and stop him."
"Lilith is perfectly capable. I'm sure she's fine."
He nodded agreement wordlessly, but his face said something different.
Jack and Mickey strode back into the room with half of World War Two on their backs. They said nothing, but Jack smiled with evident satisfaction that unnerved the Doctor. He was back in his element.
The Doctor wondered if he was making a mistake.
There was a honking from directly outside- Martha had pulled up in one of the Torchwood cars. Still silent, the group stepped outside of the blue doors and began to step inside the waiting car. It was Asiman who broke the silence, suddenly, as he made a sharp sobbing noise and sank to his knees on the pavement.
The Doctor was at his side as the vampire collapsed into a tearful heap, and it was then that it struck him as well- a sudden outpouring of a terrible energy, and an equally abrupt scream of fear and despair.
To the Doctor, it was just a twinge that he wouldn't have noticed had he not been focusing on it. To Asiman, it was a heart-wrenching wail inside his head, so overwhelming as to be incapacitating.
It was only natural. He had been so close to her that her pain was his pain, communicated along the invisible bond that held their minds together.
He looked up at the Doctor. His handsome face had somehow become hideous in its loss and its agony.
"We're too late. I was two late. Lilith..." His eyes were horrible empty things. "Something horrible is happening."
Gabriel bustled about busily, zipping back and forth throughout the underground complex and happily carrying out the most inane tasks as if they had the utmost importance.
He dutifully prepared two roast beef sandwiches on white bread, measuring every ingredient with exaggerated care. He disassembled and then reassembled all the firearms he owned, examining the components and counting the ammunition. He washed and pressed a set of formal clothing, including the blue dress he had shown her earlier and a custom-fitted black suit. He cleaned and polished the two duelling swords that he always carried with him, winding tape around the handles and testing the grips. He removed a number of DVDs from the collection perched on the shelf next to their television. He went through and sorted piles of medical textbooks, scientific documents, religious scriptures, novels, and picture books.
Lilith watched all of this out of the corner of her eye, keeping as low-key as possible. She sat in one of the armchairs by the invisible elevator and read for a while, as Gabriel dashed past one way and then back the other, busying himself with innumerable small tasks.
Finally, he stopped walking past her and stood directly in front of her, waiting patiently for her to put down the book she was reading. She did so and looked up. "Yes?"
"Where is Asiman?" he asked.
She only hesitated for a moment. "I don't know. He must have gone out."
"Oh." He nodded agreeably. "If he gives you a call, can you tell him that we've run out of sandwich meat?"
"Y-yeah. Sure."
"Great." His face lit up. "Well, then, I'm off to have a nap. Seeya, I guess." He sauntered off to his private rooms, and Lilith, after a moment's confusion, returned to her book.
She read for another hour before a voice interrupted her thoughts.
...if he's put the clues together yet. If he has, this will be much more difficult…
It took her a moment's looking around to realize that the voice wasn't a noise- it was coming from inside her head.
…destroyed so very many. Gallifrey. Logopolis. Traken. Really, when you look at it, the responsibility is…
It was Gabriel's voice.
In his sleep, the normally impenetrable mass that was his mind had unwoven, and strings of his thought had come loose. It was almost as if Lilith was hearing a conversation through a closed door, which explained why she had first thought it was a noise.
Now that she thought about it, she couldn't ever remember Gabriel sleeping before.
…simply hilarious. You can't make this stuff up…
She furrowed her brow, wondering whether it was worthwhile to eavesdrop on his thoughts. True, there might be valuable information contained within, but she had a nasty feeling that the thoughts of the insane were best kept to themselves.
…those stupid vampires have no idea. If they did…
What was this now?
…doubt they'd be anywhere near so willing to help me. Ha! They'd probably eat me alive…
Lilith stood and craned her head. That had sounded like something important.
…now, if I had to rank my favourite cheeses, how would the list go…?
She clenched her teeth in frustration. His thought were leaping all over the place, making it next to impossible to discern anything of importance.
…the truth. Hidden throughout all of time and space. He'll never find them…
Hesitantly, Lilith closed her eyes and concentrated. She sensed Gabriel's powerful mind almost instantly- it was like looking up in the sky and trying to find the sun. He was in a state of unconsciousness, and the psychic defences around his mind had worn away.
…don't like any of my music. They don't say it, but they think it…
Still, those thoughts were a jumbled mass of twisted genius and random nonsense. She probed his mind gently, sifting through countless streams of thought and looking for one that might betray his true intentions.
…can't underestimate them. Lilith especially- she's always been suspicious, even from the start…
This whole mess stemmed from the fact that Gabriel's reasoning made sense to him alone. But if she could get inside his mind, and see his innermost thoughts, then she could take that advantage from him.
…the Doctor. Oh, that famous Doctor…
The barriers he had set in place opened before her like unlocked doors, and more and more of his mind streamed into hers.
…think I don't know where Asiman is. I'm not that stupid…
She followed thoughts that flitted throughout layers of distortion.
…Lilith…problems must be dealt with…
Lilith frowned slightly. It had almost seemed as though that last thought was directed at her.
Hello, Lilith.
The sleeping consciousness two rooms away snapped down on hers like a steel trap. Desperately, she tried to close her own thoughts, but he was hopelessly powerful.
Lilith clutched her hands over her ears, but the noise was coming from inside her skull. Gabriel's mind continued to bombard her with his twisted thoughts and reasoning and… knowledge.
She opened her eyes. She hadn't even been aware that they were closed.
He was kneeling over her- she had collapsed at some point previously. "Don't you know it's impolite to eavesdrop- regardless of how it is done?"
She forced the words out. "N-no. Stop… no… more…"
Gabriel shook his head. "Why were you in my mind, Lilith?"
She could see it, now. The way he thought, the way he saw the world. It made an awful sort of sense now.
"You wanted to know what I was thinking." He smiled and cradled her head gently. "Here you go."
She screamed. He had thrown the door to his mind open wide, and she saw everything that he knew. Past, present, and future were open before her, and the workings of the universe itself flooded her innermost thoughts.
He was full of chaos and death. He was full of an angelic light. He was full of logic and cold scientific reason. He was full of passion and hatred and burning emotion. He was full of beauty and wondrous imagination. He was full of atrocity and hideous reality. He was all that was right, and everything that was wrong.
Gabriel's mind, a maelstrom of contradictions, overwhelmed Lilith's mind; a mounting noise that drowned out all hope of rational thought.
She screamed. She could not stop screaming. Not now, not ever.
Gabriel exhaled tiredly and brushed a tangle of black hair from his eyes. He continued to kneel, and waited.
He was not disappointed. The pain rocked him like a bolt of lightning, and for the briefest of moments he was dying, and his screams joined hers.
The familiar surge of energy blanketed the pain, wending its way through his twisted inner workings, and after a moment the pain had vanished.
He stood and, whistling a cheerful tune, went about his work.
He found a pen, and some paper, and wrote a short note, placing the paper in the writhing Lilith's hand. She clenched it reflexively, and held it as she continued to voice her anguish.
Gabriel changed into his custom-fitted black suit and tie, adjusted his hair so that it framed his face neatly, and brushed his teeth. He buckled one of the two duelling swords not in the small of his back, but on waist, so that it hung at the side of his leg. The traditional position for a duel. The other sword he slung casually over his shoulder.
He walked back to his own rooms and found Jenny sitting tersely in one of his chairs.
"Hang on just a second." He rustled through his belongings and came up with a plastic shopping bag. Tossing the bag away, he revealed a stunning backless blue dress. "Here you go!" He tossed it at her.
Jenny let it fall to the ground.
There was a moment of silence and then Gabriel said, "Put it on."
"Why?"
He rolled his eyes. "Well, we have to look our best if we're going to meet your father."
Jenny looked at the dress, and then back at him. "If I put this on, you'll take me to my dad?"
"The Doctor, yes. Now come on, hurry up."
He sat and watched dispassionately as Jenny undressed and put on the gown. With a kind of amusement she noted that this was the first time she had ever actually been dressed in formal wear. She might have enjoyed it, in other circumstances.
While she changed, Gabriel withdrew a mobile phone from his suit jacket and typed a short text message. "There we go," he said, once he was finished, "Your father is on his way."
"Here?"
"No, no, of course not, Jenny." He rattled a pair of handcuffs at her. "If he was coming here, he'd bring his friends, and that's the last thing I want. We're going to meet him. I'm afraid you'll have to be handcuffed for this one."
Wordlessly she held out her hands.
"Behind your back, please."
She put her arms behind her back, and in an instant they were bound with a metallic click.
"Very good! Now, then, we must hurry if we want to arrive in time." He beckoned for her to follow him out of the door.
Jenny followed him. Gabriel was practically dancing his way along, humming delightedly. A jarring screeching noise echoed throughout the hallways.
"What is that?"
"Oh, that's just Lilith," he said. "You met Lilith, right? Small-minded sort of girl, I'm afraid." He giggled.
Jenny was about to ask him to explain, but then she saw.
Her first impression was of a writhing mass of red and white. Lilith's skin had gone deathly pale, and her red hair was tossed violently back and forth as she continued to scream. Her eyes were horrible empty things.
"W-what did you do?" Jenny realized that she wasn't just hearing Lilith's screams with her ears. Some of that agony seemed to be inside her own head.
"She wanted to know," Gabriel waved a dismissive hand. "I showed her."
Jenny didn't want him to explain what that meant. They stepped into the elevator, but Jenny could still hear the screams until long after they drove away from the warehouses in the car that had been waiting outside.
Asiman clutched his head and breathed heavily as the Torchwood car sped through the London streets.
The Doctor bent down beside him in the back of the car, laying a hand on his back and projecting as much psychic reassurance as he could.
"Asiman," he said. "I can help her. Whatever he's done, I can make it better. But first we have to stop him- do you understand?"
Asiman shook his head. "Oh, God, Doctor. Whatever he's done- it's horrible. She's screaming. She can't stop screaming."
There was the sudden ring of a cell phone.
"That's mine." Jack took one hand off the wheel and pulled his mobile from his pocket, and handed it to Mickey.
"Hello." Mickey turned. "It's Sarah Jane. What's up?" He listened momentarily, and then swore harshly.
"What? What's going on?" The Doctor was sick of everything going wrong. Why couldn't he get some good news for a change?
"It's the aliens," Mickey explained. "Either they're not as loyal as Asiman tells us, or Gabriel's done something to them, because they've taken hostages inside a bunch of government buildings. Sarah Jane's there now, with Gwen, but they don't know what they should do."
"Doctor," Jack said, "Where do we go?"
He hesitated briefly. "Keep going. Gabriel is our first target- I've got to stop him."
"Mr. Gabriel can't be stopped," moaned Asiman.
"Now don't you talk like that." The Doctor hoped that Asiman was more reassured than he was himself. "He's doing this one purpose. It's the end of his game- and he's going all-out with the offense. If we can counter with our own, then we can still get him."
"Doctor," said Martha. She was seated on the opposite side of Asiman.
"Your wife is still alive. Hold on to that for now. If we let ourselves be overwhelmed, then we lose sight of what needs to be done. We have to stop this. We can stop this."
"Doctor!" Martha repeated, more insistently.
"What is it?"
She handed him her own mobile. On the screen was a brief text message:
Hello! It's Mr. Gabriel. Jenny and I are at the Church of St. Christopher. If the Doctor is not there- alone- in five hours, then Jenny will die. See you soon!
He stared at it blankly for more than a minute. Then, "Martha, when did you get this?"
"Just a few minutes ago. I tried to tell you, but-"
The Doctor thought for a moment. "Church of St. Christopher- where is that?"
"We're headed towards the warehouses on the Thames," Jack said. "That church is this old one on the edge of town- part of it collapsed a few months ago, it's supposed to be demolished."
"But where is it?"
Jack thought briefly. "It's in the opposite direction. If I turned around now- maybe an hour away."
There was a tap on his shoulder- the Doctor tuned and Asiman's eyes were fixed on his. "Please, Doctor," he begged. "My wife. Please."
He came to a decision. "Drive fast. Warehouses first."
Jack slammed his foot even further down on the accelerator and the world was a blur. The Doctor rapped his fingers on the window glass in anxiety, and his mind turned at a speed comparable to that of the car.
They passed Gabriel and Jenny going the other way, but they were driving far too fast and everybody was far too preoccupied to notice.
Beginning to feel guilty ending with all these cliffhangers. But all these chapters serve a purpose, and the next chapter will answer questions instead of raising them. NEXT: ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE... ON FOX!
Thanks to everybody who reads, and a huge thanks to everybody who reviews- the feedback is what's keeping me going.