The shot hit Verity dead centre in the chest, the blast narrowly missing her heart. It knocked her off balance, and she fell backwards, her legs collapsing underneath her. She took a few wobbly steps away from the furious figure of Amy and suddenly was encased in a bright blue beam of light. The stumbling figure, who had now crumpled onto her knees, had accidentally triggered the energy prison and was trapped inside, dying.
"You've killed her. Why would you do something so stupid?" The Doctor snatched the small laser pistol from Amy's hand and threw it on the floor in his anger. "Haven't you a brain inside your head? What would possess you to do… to do… something so idiotic?" He bellowed this into Amy's face before turning away from her to the energy prison with Verity within. She wasn't moving and there was no way to reach her.
Amy stuck her chin out defiantly. "You can't kill what isn't alive. It would have killed you and you were willing to let it walk all over you. It's got some sort of mind power!" She gestured wildly, flapping her hands around her head.
"What?" The Doctor snorted disbelievingly, refusing to even glance at Amy, and squatted down next to the still body of Verity. He had only seen stillness like that when movement was no longer an option.
To his immense surprise and to Amy's smugness, Verity's head flicked up with a movement so quick and so sudden that he fell backwards, completely caught off his guard. To add insult to injury, he landed heavily on his backside, causing Amy to burst into hysterical giggles. She had been wound up tightly by the tension upon this ghost ship that it now came bursting out unbidden, unstoppable even when she crammed her knuckles into her mouth. She laughed until her sides hurt and tears rolled down her face.
Verity watched the two of them with the golden glowing eyes of a snake. Her head flicked from the dishevelled figure on the floor to the shaking figure standing up. She made no noise. She did not even breathe or blink.
"L-look I'll show you what I mean." The hysterics had almost abated, leaving behind only a chuckle or too, and Amy began tapping away upon the communicator device still bound on her wrist. "I knew about the energy device thing because I overheard you on the internal coms. So I thought that if that synced up, then the other technology on the ship would be able to send information between each other. 'Cos you need to watch this…"
The time stamp left on the screen by Ava's message was replaced by another video. It was Verity sat, reading a large book most studiously at her desk in her room. It was what could be presumed to be a normal scene in the small and convoluted history of the girl, and she was silent apart from the occasional turn of a page.
"Right. There's Verity and there's Verity. What point are you trying to make Pond?"
He had spoken too soon. There was a ventilation hatch set in the wall above Verity, and slowly, silently, a golden gas began seeping into the room. It rolled in like a storm fog, thick and heavy in the air so it flowed to the floor, lugubriously inching across the floor to mill around Verity's ankles. It then rose like a wave, gaining height behind her shoulders. Fronds spread out like fingers and glided through the air to clasp around Verity's thin white throat. She gave a piteous cry, like a small child, and with a chilling crack her head was twisted sideways and upwards.
Her body fell, yet remained supported by the gas cloud, so that she looked like a doll held up with strings. Her limbs were limp and slack, her head flopping around unnaturally on her broken neck. With an immense groan, the gas all at once was absorbed into the body through her mouth. Verity glowed gold, the colour oozing from her skin, beams radiating from her eyes. It faded as soon as it had appeared, and Verity shook her head woozily, and picked herself up from the floor.
"Silly. I must have fallen from my chair." The girl on the film muttered as she sat back in her chair.
Amy pushed a button on the wrist device and the image froze on the screen. "She's always been dead. The whole time we've been here she's been dead. Whatever it is inside her killed the crew members and has been keeping her alive all this time."
The two of them looked to the energy beam where Verity now stood silently watching the two of them, her hands by her sides, her eyes glowing gold.
"So you shot her to trap her inside the energy prison where she – or rather, the creature inside her – couldn't get to either of us. I presume she gave you the weapon? It makes sense. Don't give those hunting you something that could actually hurt you. Clever. Very clever. No matter how much Verity's personality seems in control of the operation, the gas cloud monster is aware of what's going on." The Doctor picked up the small laser pistol and examined it minutely. "This just fires bursts of energy, not much use as a weapon. Sort of a fashion object that ladies liked to carry around in bags to use at parties. A toy." He said this as if the idea of guns as toys was extremely distasteful to him. He threw it across the medical bay again and walked up to the watching figure of Verity.
"So… why the elaborate con? And why for so long? There's thousands of ships around the Columbus, you could have hopped aboard one of them and zoomed off to whatever planet you came from and Bob's your uncle end of monster."
"I am just above my planet. Why for would I go to another world?" Amy could hear the difference now in the voices. This was a dull, grating monotone with no emotion or feeling in the words. It was like… there was no life in her voice.
"So you come from New Earth? Your race are the original inhabitants of New Earth and you made way for humanity?" Amy chipped in, approaching the girl who turned her blank gaze to her. The eyes felt like they were burning into hers and a sneer broke across her face.
"Made way for humanity?" Now there was something in the voice. It was rage, pure and adulterated. Verity's hands clenched into fists and she launched herself at the wall of her prison. She pressed her face into the beam, as close as she could get to Amy and snarled like an animal. "We were peaceful creatures, with no higher intelligence. We were no threat to anyone. We did not understand when the ships came. So when they started to burn the skies, we willingly walked into the flames and did not scream when the flames caught."
A wave of sadness spread through Amy. No matter what it had done or the people it had hurt there was something so tragic in those words. It reminded her of Friday history lessons about the Nazis and the terrible knowledge that things like that had happened and weren't prevented. She'd always thanked herself that people didn't behave like that anymore. Now it seemed that destruction and death followed humanity like lightning followed thunder. They would forever be entwined and this poor creature was the result.
The Doctor meanwhile was dashing around the energy beam with the sonic screwdriver, scanning every inch. He would occasionally look at the screwdriver and scowl. "Ionic traces. It sends out hallucinations built out of ionic power to trap its' prey. That's why Verity didn't notice anything and why I stopped fighting its' influence. Clever little trick and no doubt why we didn't notice anything amiss. It doesn't change anything, just our perception. A psychograft creature no doubt. It's like a flea, a very sophisticated flea. It feeds off creatures, leaving inside their bodies in a symbiotic relationship. The scientific name would be endosymbiosis, but then I just sound stuffy." He had come back round to face Verity and stood close to her, his face a bare inch away from her snarls.
"We have no name. We are nothing." She returned to her previous monotone and stared blankly at him.
"You keep referring to 'we'. I'm guessing then that all your species are connected somehow, probably some sort of psychic link. Where are the rest of you then? Waiting on the sidelines for us? What's the plan – to take back New Earth from the humans? Why wait a thousand years?"
"I do not know where the rest of them are. I cannot sense them anymore. Before I escaped they all disappeared. There was… a hole in the sky, I do not have the words to explain it, but there was a hole and they went through it. I was left behind and I was afraid. A human was talking on a machine, so I used it to be sent across the stars. I transmitted myself with the data and came to this ship. And here I have remained ever since."
"But why take Verity? Why kill her if you were existing perfectly well without her?"
A bright smile, a smile so full of love, lit up the creature's face. Amy had never seen such a smile before. It was a look of complete and utter devotion. Her eyes glowed with happiness. "She was but a girl when I first saw her. A little child of five human years and she was beautiful. You never saw such a beautiful child! She had little rosy cheeks, and bright chestnut ringlets, and such beautiful blue eyes… I saw her in that moment and knew that I loved her." The look of love faded and was replaced with a scowl. "They were dragging her to a medical test. She was screaming in fear! Bone marrow examination! Do you know what they do to you? Six needles into your hip. That is no thing to do your child! I couldn't understand why they would do such a thing until I found out what was really going on."
"That they were going to use her to breed a new, improved version of the human race." The Doctor interjected and the creature nodded. His previous anger had long since receeded; now he spoke sympathetically, with an understanding tone that to Amy indicated that perhaps he had experienced something similar. The pain of a loved one? A love so encompassing that you would kill others for it?
"Yes. They'd fiddled with her DNA. Made her twice as fertile. Shortened her gestation period so she could have more children. Done things to her womb so that she could hold more foetuses in her belly." The creature slapped her own belly passionately. She was fuming, the gold in her eyes burning with fury again. "And so many medical tests! Never any privacy. They were always taking blood samples and hair samples and sticking things inside her to check the development of her womb. It was indecent! I had to stop it. I had to punish them all for the suffering they put her through. The only thing that made her happy was reading but they wouldn't let her continue that! She'd be forced to have hundreds of children and never finish her work! I love Verity. I couldn't let it continue. I watched her her whole life and knew that when we drew close to New Earth that she'd be forced into marriage. So I rescued her so that they could never hurt her again. Out of love."
"Love her? Love?" The Doctor laughed out loud. "You killed her! You knew that if you took her body she'd die in agony! You would compress her personality to death so you took the coward's way out and broke her neck. You didn't let her live. You were selfish and took her for yourself. She had no choice in this. This is unfair." He ran a hand through his hair madly and the Verity-creature watched him and for some reason she smiled.
"So what shall you do in your philosophy? She is mine. I made her and I love her and she is mine. She belongs to me. I shall feed upon the energy of you and your woman as I have done to all others who found us. She gave me intelligence and my … you-ness. I am now self aware. I count as a life form and moreover, if you kill me, then you kill Verity. What shall it be Doctor? Shall you kill both of us just to spite me?" She drew herself up to her full height (which wasn't that impressive) and actually spat on the floor in contempt. "You've split in two halves haven't you?" She put on a ridiculous mimick of the Doctor's voice."Shall I kill them or shan't I? So go on physician. Heal thyself."
This is the longest chapter yet, and it is quite dense but consider it the showdown element of an episode. This should explain all querries raised by the last chapter and I know there's a lot of talking and not much action but now you know the great dilemma of the story as there is in every episode. Should Verity die so the gas creature inside her is stopped from eating loads of people's energy to keep her alive? Verity isn't even consciously aware of any of this. She still thinks it's been five weeks.
Thanks for all the support! And it doesn't matter if you've jumped on board a little later than most. As long as you stick around for uh, two more chapters? There's still a twist or two left in the gas creature/Verity/perfect human.
And lugubriously is a cool word. I know it means 'Morose' but gas clouds can has feelings too.