Chapter 11 - Interrogation
Tomoko stuck very close to Dar, and took a deep breath when she stepped out of the Trans Mat. She wasn't sure what to expect and, even though she knew that no one would hurt her, she still found herself fighting down a certain amount of fear.
They were headed towards the Architect's office and, even this far in, she could see the evidence of heavy repairs. It gave her a queer feeling in her stomach, knowing that she was the cause of it all. Jake knew his way around and she hastened to follow him. She could track the damage by the several closed corridors and warning holos here and there.
She was twisting her hands together, feeling the sweat on her palms, and was fairly certain that everyone wasn't actually staring silently at her, despite how her imagination was insisting that they were. Nevertheless, she was very glad to have Dar at her side. His size alone made him a comforting presence, like having a giant Mastiff pacing along, guarding her from harm.
They walked silently through the corridors. People nodded at Jake from time to time, but none of them spoke. At length, Jake opened a door.
"In here. You can't come, Dar, sorry."
"It's okay," Tomoko said and kissed Dar on the cheek. "See you in a bit."
The interrogation room was basically what Tomoko had expected. It was a plain, beige room, with two uncomfortable looking chairs and a dingy table. She recognized the cottony feel of psychic dampeners, pulled out one of the chairs, and settled in to wait. Somewhere, she was sure, someone was summoning the Architect and whatever Shadow Proclamation forces would be assigned to her case.
It was some time before the interrogation officer entered into the room. She was a human officer, with blue and white streaked hair, silvery eyes, and very pale skin. Tomoko wasn't sure whether the selection of a member of her own race, well, her former race was a good or a bad sign, or if the fact that she looked a bit like a Vampire was intentional or not.
Tomoko stood up and bowed.
"Sit down," the woman's voice was sharp and uncompromising and Tomoko sat obediently. "My name is Officer Slater. I will be evaluating your psyche. If you attempt to harm me in any way, you will be sedated and jailed. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Officer."
Officer Slater sat down across from her.
"Name."
"Tomoko."
"Surname."
She hesitated for a brief moment.
"Six."
"Gender."
"Female."
"Age."
"About three hundred."
The officer nodded.
"I'm not going to ask you what happened. We're going to look at that. Are you ready?"
"Yes," said Tomoko, and then she was somewhere else.
The Valiant looked just like Tomoko remembered it, except that everything was perfectly still. Nothing was moving, except for themselves. Her hands stung, and she was surprised when she looked down at them, and saw strings attached.
"Marionette strings?"
"Mmm," Officer Slater took her hands and looked at them, but made no further comment. "Where is this?"
"This is a life pod." Tomoko put her hand on it. The door had been tagged with spraypaint, reading, '1 of 42.' "The Captain is inside. He's unconscious."
"What did you do with the pods?"
"I scattered them around the quadrant in fairly close proximity. I numbered them to be sure that they would know how many pods they were looking for." She put her hand on the side of the pod, where there was a flashing light. "I boosted the tracking signal to give it a bit of extra range, and ran a pod-based diagnostic scan, including the navigational coordinates, just prior to launch to ensure that each pod had the most complete possible data for its originating point. I launched them one by one in a predictable pattern. I told myself I was being efficient. I believed that I was helping Rassilon by tying up Shadow Proclamation resources in the search."
Again, the officer didn't speak. She simply gestured, and she and Tomoko walked to the bridge.
Bit by bit, Tomoko went over what had happened; the raid on the station, the crash on Azari Bal, the battle with the Singers, and the point where she herself had been knocked out.
After the tour, the officer brought up an image of Justinian's slender frame, with his thin sensitive face and limp brown hair.
"And this is Rassilon?"
Tomoko shook her head.
"No, he was possessed, like I was. That's Justinian."
Officer Slater looked surprised at her response.
"Can you show me Rassilon?"
Tomoko considered the request.
"Can you pull up a memory, if I think of it?"
"That's what we have been doing the entire time," she pointed out with a touch of asperity. "Concentrate and I will do the rest."
The scene shifted to the metal decks and coppery metal pillars of the Command Centre. Like before, the scene was frozen, as if it had been a photograph. There was a group of Mashas being marched towards the labs, where the storage tubes waited, but, by looking down the corridor to the left, it was possible to see into the room at the end of the hallway.
Rassilon was there, with his handsome face, crisp black hair, and long, red robes. Adie was sitting next to him, her head on his shoulder. Her eyes were half-closed, and the look on her face was dull, almost drugged-looking. Rassilon was stroking her hair with a predatory look on his face.
Tomoko squinted. Even her own memories looked different with her new Time Lord vision. There was something under his fingers, something she had never perceived before.
"Wait," she squinted, "I can't tell… What is he doing…? Is that… gold…?"
"Don't seek to analyze, that's my job and you aren't trained for it," the Officer informed her and walked through the door, moving around Rassilon's still image with a thoughtful frown on her face.
"I just don't understand what he's doing to her and she's my sister," Tomoko rebutted. "It worries me."
"It ought to," the Officer replied. "He's reweaving her energy matrix. I have read about it this, seen this in ancient memory crystals, but I have never heard of it being done in recent memory. He's exceptionally powerful and completely amoral. The residue of him in your memories is, by itself, quite disturbing. I would not like to meet him in person."
She walked around him again and Tomoko blinked. For an instant, just a tiny flicker of a moment, she thought that Rassilon had shifted, that he'd slid his eyes over to observe her. She rubbed at her face and looked again, but everything was exactly as it had been before.
It was just her mind playing tricks on her. That had to be it.
Once the Mashas were all onboard and settled, Adie called up the Doctor. It was rather loud in the console room, as several of her sisters wanted to watch them fly the ship and others just wanted to chat up Gaige. He seemed slightly flustered by the extremely forward suggestions that several of them were making, edging closer to Adie with an alarmed air.
"We're ready when you are, Doctor," Adie reported to her uncle, while she tried not to snigger at Gaige's twisting, evasive maneuvers, as he struggled to reach her side.
"Yes, yes, go pick up the soldiers, I'm still trying to pry Susan out of her lab," the Doctor grumbled over the comm screen, looking harried and irritated.
"Is she being difficult?" Adie asked in surprise.
"No, she's just being Susan," he retorted and rolled his eyes.
"Tell Adie she has to share!" added Devorah.
"I never said anything about sharing!" Adie pointed out.
"Diana shared Jake!" London added, looking at Gaige expectantly.
"Bondmates!" Gaige squeaked. "Can't share! Sorry!" he explained, looking not at all sorry. "Jake was right! You all are quite inappropriate!"
"Leave him alone!" Skye scolded. "He gets to choose too!"
"We'd include Adie! We're just fine with that! We wouldn't leave her out!" But Madison looked much more teasing than serious now, winking at Adie.
"Enough!" Moira snarled and shooed the girls into the interior of the craft. "Leave the poor wee thing alone!"
Behind her, Gaige blinked and looked at his own height and then back down at where Moira's head barely approached his shoulder.
There was a general chorus of "Aw!", but the others made way as requested.
"Poor wee thing?" he whispered to Adie, who just shrugged.
"Just let it go," she advised him with a shrug, Moira's grasp on reality was sometimes a bit tenuous. She still acted like she was in a Loop, just a really big one, with a very long reset time.
"You'd better explain to them about the destined bondmates thing, you know. I literally cannot feel attracted to anyone but you, love," he told her with a frown.
"I know," she said. "It is just that they are accustomed to sharing everything… personal property is a bit of an unknown in some ways. Well, property is the wrong word. But the only other males with whom they have had extended contact have been Guinn and Jake."
"I seriously doubt that Guinn was sleeping with any of them, though, because he's also bonded!" he protested. "Not to mention being their father, which would be weird, even for Time Lords!"
"Right, which leaves Jake."
"Who is a great deal younger, more athletic, and not bond-mated like I am!" he reminded her.
"Granted, but none of them can directly perceive that psychic attachment. They would never make you do anything; they're just trying to see if they can convince you."
"There are lines and they didn't just cross them, they stomped all over them! We don't touch another person without explicit consent! We certainly don't grab their privates," he complained, looking unhappy. "I'll try to remember that though they may be Gallifreyan, they weren't exactly raised in our society, but I think I really need to have a serious talk with them. They are going to get slapped down hard if they act like that on Apalapucia, or anywhere else in the civilized universe."
Adie looked awkward.
"That's true, but it was not like anyone ever asked their consent… I think it is something they never learned, and it's never been all that much of an issue. This is going to be their first big social encounter."
"Which is all the more reason for them to learn it now, as it ought to apply to them as well!" he pointed out. "They need to know that 'no' is a word that they can use too."
"So? Go teach them! Give them lessons!"
"I think I'd better," Gaige agreed, "Before we pick up soldiers with weapons!" he muttered and stomped off to talk to his wife's sisters.
Rose was finishing up the packing for the kids, which mostly consisted of telling the house AI where they would be going and for how long, and letting it get everything sorted and packed. Once that arduous task was completed, she sat down and checked her tablet for messages.
Her inbox was filled with notes from friends and family back on Earth, a series of questions from Logopolis, condolence messages from the Mashas about the explosion and Davian's death, and a maths professor from the University Planet with a question about some abstruse theory. She started answering and felt Malla stirring in her head.
"Is this what we do now?" she asked and Rose blinked, trying to fathom the question.
"Excuse me?"
"Wife and Mother, with a little Maths Consulting on the side?" Malla muttered.
"Uh... is that a problem?" Rose asked and Malla snorted.
"I was lured into this with the promise of adventure, excitement, and a lot of running," she pointed out and Rose frowned.
"We just got back from Logopolis, from fighting Rassilon, Ice Planets, and near death!" she pointed out.
"During which we did some brilliant maths," Malla conceded. "However, I have noticed a trend lately, towards more sedentary habits. You are turning into a Housefrau, to use a term from your Earth." Rose was flustered by the accusation and cast about for some excuses, before sighing.
"You're right. I let myself get into a rut based on the traditional roles of my home world," she admitted. "I just... Well, never mind about that. What do you think I ought to do about it?" she asked the much older Time Lady, who chuckled.
"Time for an adventure," she suggested and Rose found herself getting excited at the prospect.
"You know, you're absolutely right. Let's get the children through this holiday and then we are off running!" she told Malla, suddenly realizing how much she'd been holding herself back.
"I'm looking forward to it," Malla replied and Rose grinned, feeling much more like herself again.
It was about an hour and a half before the TARDIS had landed at UNIT, in the designated space for 'Incoming Alien Spacecraft', and Adie exited the craft, leaving Gaige still fielding questions from the Mashas about 'consent' and 'safe words'.
"I have a pickup?" she said to the receiving Sergeant, who gestured towards where about eighty soldiers were waiting, all of whom had rucksacks, sunscreen, and huge grins.
"Hi! I'm Captain Yates," a skinny young man, with dark hair and eyes, introduced himself. "We were told that there was a beach?"
"On Apalapucia," smiled Adie. "Yes, there are lots of beaches. You'll love it."
"Brilliant!" he replied and waved the soldiers forwards.
Adie was surprised by how many female soldiers there were. She'd gathered that Earth society was primitive and patriarchal, but UNIT seemed more equal than she had expected.
They were all quickly aboard and off wandering through the endless corridors of the TARDIS, gathering together in little lounges and such. The TARDIS could have housed thousands with no crowding, but Adie was worried that someone might get lost, so she took careful count of Mashas and soldiers to make sure that everyone who got on the ship, actually made it off again.
"We're ready to go, Doctor, any luck extricating Susan yet?" Adie asked over the comm and the Doctor shrugged.
"Not to worry, I'm being very persuasive," he assured her with a smile and Adie wondered exactly what that meant, before deciding that she probably did not want to know.
The Doctor being 'persuasive' probably involved much wheedling and possibly blackmail. Neither of which she wanted at all to be a witness to.
With a grin, she went back to piloting the TARDIS, while listening to the laughter and merriment that was drifting to her from down the corridors. So far, the holiday was going rather well.