And You Will Worship Him
John hesitated. "We might have a problem."
The Wolf was all ears. "What problem? What happened with your phone?"
"There was a voice. It just said, 'He is awake'. But first the Ood say 'We must feed', and then, when I was getting the food, one of those Ood said something about a beast rising from some pit with armies to fight God," John told her. "There is something weird going on, and I think the Ood are part of it."
The Wolf nodded. "You're right. That's too much to be a coincidence." She jumped to her feet. "Come on. We're going to go pay a visit to Danny and his odd Ood." She reached down her hand, helping John to his feet. He kept a hold of it when she went to move away, needing the reassurance.
They found Jefferson, who directed them over to the Ood habitation room. Danny's head shot up nervously when they entered. "Evening," the Wolf greeted.
"Only us," John added.
Danny relaxed, going back to his computer console. "The mysterious couple," he said drily. "How are you, then? Settling in?"
"Yep. Sorry, straight to business," the Wolf said. "The Ood. How do they communicate? I mean, with each other."
"Oh, just empaths," Danny shrugged. "There's a low level telepathic field connecting them. Not that that does them much good. They're basically a herd race. Like cattle." He waved over the railing, where a story below them, the Ood were calmly sitting on benches.
"This telepathic field. Can it pick up messages?" the Wolf asked.
"We're only asking 'cause one of the Ood said something strange to me at dinner," John said.
"Is that right?"
"Yeah, and then I got another message on my mobile communicator," he added.
"Oh be fair," Danny dismissed. "We've got whole star systems burning up around us. There's all sorts of stray transmissions. Probably nothing." He pointed at his screen. "Look, if there was something wrong, it would show. We monitor the telepathic field. It's the only way to look after them. They're so stupid, they don't even tell us when they're ill."
The Wolf's eyes narrowed, but she let the callousness go for the moment to concentrate on the subject of more immediate importance. "Monitor the field. That's this thing?" She indicated the reading that denoted the number Basic 5.
"Yeah," Danny confirmed, "but like I said. It's low level telepathy. They only register basic five."
John looked back at the number, which jumped from seven, to eight, to nine. His headache was making itself known again, and the buzzing in his ears was also making a reappearance.
"Well, that's not basic five," the Wolf said. "Ten. Twenty. They've gone up to basic thirty."
The Ood lifted their heads. John grimaced, the pain getting worse. "But they can't," Danny said in disbelief.
"Wolf, the Ood," John said, trying to keep his voice steady. "What does basic thirty mean?"
"Well, it means they're shouting. Screaming inside their heads," Danny told him.
"Or something's shouting at them," the Wolf said grimly. John flinched hard as a shock of pain ran through him. "John?"
"I can hear it," he gritted out.
"What?"
"The screaming. I can hear it. It hurts!" John cried out. "The Beast. In the Pit. He is awake."
"And you will worship him," the Ood quoted as one.
John dropped to his knees, hands gripping at his hair as he moaned in pain. The Wolf dropped with him, holding him up. "John. John look at me," she called urgently, frightened. "Focus on me."
"The screaming," John groaned as he looked up at her, shaking. "Make it stop," he begged her. "The TARDIS and the Ood. They're all screaming. Can't you hear them? Why can't you hear them?!" He cut off, leaning against the railing. He let out a cry of pain and squeezed his eyes shut.
"Has he gone mad?" Danny asked fearfully.
The Wolf shook her head, speaking but concentrating on John. "No, he hasn't. The telepathy is too loud. Too undirected. He can't separate the voices."
"He is awake," John repeated.
"And you will worship him," the Ood said as one.
The Wolf stood, looking out over the railing at the Ood, who gazed back up at her from their seats. "Worship who?" she asked, but there was not reply. "Who's talking to you. Who is it?!"
They were silent but John was rocking back and forth, the heels of his hands digging into his forehead as he tried to dispel the voices to no avail. The Wolf knelt next to him again, placing her hands on his temples. "I'm going to make it go away," she promised him quietly. "I'm going to fix this." John didn't seem to hear her, but he relaxed slightly at her touch. Closing her eyes, the Wolf entered John's mind for the second time.
As quick as she could, the Wolf set up barriers against the telepathic messages in the part of John's mind that was receiving them. They were similar to the ones she maintained in her own head to keep out stray telepathy, but John's mind was wide open – unable to block anything coming in. So the Wolf set them up for him. They would impede all messages, keep him from hearing any of it. She hoped that solved the problem.
She looked up from her work, and again saw the golden door in John's mind from the Game Station. Instead of being locked shut, it was now cracked open. The Wolf took a step toward it, but was immediately pushed back. When he is ready, the glowing, echoing voice from before repeated its words from months ago.
The Wolf shook her head mentally. I sure hope you know what you're doing with him, she told it. As she was leaving, the Wolf 'tripped' and accidentally stumbled into a different section of John's mind. Her 'eyes' widened at what they saw.
Laid out before her was John's timeline. It was a long and winding path – far longer than any human's had a right to be. John was going to live longer than any human should be able to. His timeline was also a bright, glowing golden color, identical to both the hidden door within his mind and the power of her own Bad Wolf. The Wolf usually saw timelines as normal, everyday colors: red, orange, green, blue. Uncommon or important people may have white lines. The Time Lords were bronze, the corrupt ones had been laced with black. Her own was a dark silver, shot through with the gold of her Bad Wolf.
But she had never seen a pure gold one. It was unsettling. John was something new – something she hadn't seen before. The Wolf fled his mind as quickly as she could, having a feeling that she'd overstayed her welcome. As she opened her eyes, she put the strangeness of John's timeline behind her to worry about later.
"Better?" she asked him out loud when John's eyes fluttered open.
John nodded, still holding his head. "Loads. What did you do?"
"Your mind was picking up all the mental chatter flying around and you couldn't filter it. I did it for you," the Wolf explained gently.
John shook his head. "But I'm not telepathic," he pointed out.
The Wolf hesitated. "Little bit, yeah," she admitted.
There was a moment of silence, then, "What?!" John yelled.
"Can we discuss this later?" the Wolf asked uncomfortably.
"No, I really think now would be a good time! Since when?" he demanded.
The feeling of the entire base shaking badly saved the Wolf from having to answer. "Emergency hull breach," the computer announced. "Emergency hull breach."
"Which section?" Danny asked, panicking.
"Everyone, evacuate eleven to thirteen," Zach ordered over the intercom. "We've got a breach. The base is open. Repeat, the base is open."
The trio took off running, making it to Habitation 3. Jefferson caught up with them as they were running to the next corridor, herding a couple other crew members.
"I can't contain the oxygen field," Zach told them. "We're going to lose it."
"Come on!" Jefferson yelled, pushing them on. "Keep moving! And you too, Toby!" he shouted down another corridor when he saw the boy, who looked dazed.
"Breach sealed. Breach sealed," the computer said.
The group stopped. "Everyone alright?" the Wolf asked. "What happened. What was it?"
"Oxygen levels normal," the computer announced.
"Hull breach. We were open to the elements," Jefferson explained once he recovered his breath. "Another couple of minutes and we'd have been inspecting that black hole at close quarters."
"There wasn't a quake so what caused it?" the Wolf asked, but she went unanswered.
"We've lost sections eleven to thirteen. Everyone alright?" Zach asked.
"We've got everyone here except Scooti. Scooti, report," Jefferson said into his communicator. "Scooti Manista, that's an order. Report."
"She's alright," Zach said. "I've picked up her biochip. She's in Habitation 3. Better go and check if she's not responding. She might be unconscious." As the rest of them were headed that way, the captain spoke again. "How about that, eh? We survived."
They entered Habitation 3, but Scooti wasn't there. "I've checked Habitation 4," Ida said. "Can you hear me?"
"There's no sign of her," Jefferson replied. "The biochip says she's in the area. Have any of you seen Scooti?"
Toby shook his head. "No, no, no. I don't think so."
"Scooti, please respond," Ida called. "If you can hear this, please respond. Habitation 6."
"Nowhere here," Jefferson told her. "Zach? We've got a problem. Scooti's still missing."
"It says Habitation 3."
"Yeah, well, that's where I am, and I'm telling you she's not here," Jefferson replied impatiently.
"I've found her," the Wolf said quietly, head turned upward. They all looked up to see Scooti floating in space, drifting toward the black hole. "I'm sorry," the Wolf murmured. "I'm so sorry."
"Captain. Report Officer Scootori Manista PKD, deceased. Forty three K two point one," Jefferson said somberly.
"She was twenty. Twenty years old," Ida murmured, tears in her eyes.
Jefferson quoted a reference John didn't recognize, but their attention was soon drawn to the silence that permeated the base.
"It's stopped," Ida said.
"What stopped?" John asked.
"The drill," the Wolf told him.
"We've stopped drilling." A bit of life reanimated Ida's features. "We've made it. Point Zero."
"Explain to me again why you're one of the people that needs to go down into the Hellpit of Doom?" John drawled.
"Because, Johnny, I am quite a bit more durable than any of you humans on board. If there is something down there, as it seems clear there is, I am best equipped to survive. Also, the TARDIS is down there somewhere. I might be able to find it," the Wolf explained for the third time.
John shook his head. "I don't like it," he informed her.
The Wolf rolled her eyes. "You, are a worry wart. I'll be fine," she promised.
"You'd better be." The Wolf moved to go talk to Zach but John pulled her back by the hand. "Listen. With you down there and just us up here, I want you to undo those barrier things you put on my brain," he requested.
"John, no," the Wolf denied immediately. "The Ood are still reading at least basic thirty, and its probably gone up by now. The noise will overwhelm you, damage your mind. Maybe permanently."
"Then at least lessen them," John said. "I need to know if they're going to be getting up to anything funky. We need to have a warning system. I can do that if you dampen the blocks."
The Wolf sighed. "Why do you always have to make sense when you argue with me?" she muttered.
John grinned. "One of my numerous charms."
"Yeah, right. Fine. I'll fix it so you can hear them, but you won't get much. It's not a matter of turning the volume up or down. It's more like being on a near frequency and catching static. You might miss some messages," she warned.
"I'll take what I can get," John agreed.
It took a matter of moments for the Wolf to undo some of the barriers. John was able to just barely hear the Ood's screams, but they were muted. Intermixed was a darker voice that was muttering unintelligibly in the background. That voice was the one John was afraid of. "Why didn't you hear them?" John asked, curious.
"The barriers around my mind are total and complete. Nothing gets in unless I reach out," the Wolf answered, face expressionless.
"Why? Why cripple yourself that way?"
"Because it hurts, John. Reaching out for someone that isn't there. It's like when you're walking up the stairs, and you think there's one more step than there really is and you get that sinking feeling in your stomach? Only imagine it a thousand times worse," she explained, eyes staring into the distance. "I reach for something that doesn't exist anymore, and it hurts. So I choose not to. My people weren't good. They were corrupt, indolent, I would go so far as to say many were evil. But they were mine. Being closed off may put me at a disadvantage at times, now being an example, but it's the only way I know to survive the silence in my head."
The Wolf wouldn't look at John, but he took her by the shoulders and pulled her into a tight hug. "I'm sorry," he whispered. The Wolf gripped him fiercely for a few moments before she stepped away.
"I should go talk to Zach about the plan," she murmured.
"Right." John hesitated, but tugged her toward him one more time to place a soft kiss on her forehead. "I want that spacesuit back in one piece, you hear?" he ordered.
The Wolf grinned, looking slightly more like herself. "Yes, captain, my captain." She placed the helmet on her head and latched it into the suit.
"And don't think we won't be discussing this whole telepathic thing later," he warned. "Because we will be. Having a discussion. Where we will – discuss things. About my head."
The Wolf laughed. "I'll see you later."
"Not if I see you first."
John set himself up by the comm in the drilling area as the capsule descended, wanting to be ready at a moment's notice. He wanted to talk to the Wolf, but didn't want to disrupt anything the captain might need to tell her and Ida about. Bioreadings, or chemical layouts, or other things he knew nothing about. So he stayed silent.
"You've gone beyond the oxygen field," Zach informed them. "You're on your own."
The cable shuddered moments later and suddenly released. The capsule dropped. John heard a crashing sound over the comm. "Wolf? Wolf, are you alright?" he called into the radio. The screen in front of him told him that the capsule had reached the bottom of the cavern.
"Ida, report to me," Zach ordered. "Wolf?"
"It's alright," the Wolf's voice finally came over the comm. "We've made it. Getting out of the capsule now."
John breathed a sigh of relief.
"Can't really see much of anything. We're in some sort of cave," the Wolf went on. "Cavern. It's massive," she said, sounding awed.
"Well, this should help. Gravity globe," Ida said. John assumed that a gravity globe was some kind of light up thing. "That's – that's," Ida whispered. "My God, that's beautiful."
"John, you can tell Toby we've found his civilization."
"Sounds like you've got some work to do Toby," John called over to where the younger man sat, rocking back and forth nervously.
"Good, good, good," Toby replied distractedly.
"Concentrate people," Zach reprimanded. "Keep on the mission. Ida, what about the power source?"
"We're close," Ida reported. "Energy signature indicates north-north west. Are you getting pictures up there?"
"There's too much interference. We're in your hands."
"Well, we've come this far. There's no turning back."
"Aw, did you have to?" the Wolf complained, making John grin. "No turning back? You went there? That's almost as bad as nothing can possibly go wrong, or this is going to be the best Christmas Walford's ever had."
"Are you finished?" Ida asked drily.
There was a pause. "Yeah. Finished," the Wolf replied.
John chuckled, but then was distracted when the constant noise in his head suddenly went quiet. Eerily silent.
"Captain, sir," Danny interrupted just then. "There's something happening with the Ood."
"What are they doing?" Zach asked.
"They're staring at me. I've told them to stop, but they won't."
"Danny, you're a big boy." Johnny could hear Zach's smile in his voice. "I think you can take being stared at."
"But the telepathic field, sir," Danny insisted. "It's at basic one hundred. I've check. There isn't any fault. It's definitely one hundred."
"But that's impossible."
"What's basic one hundred mean?" John asked.
"They should be dead," Danny answered.
"Basic one hundred's brain death," Jefferson jumped in.
"I can't hear them anymore," John realized. "They've all gone quiet inside my head. But they're all still alive?"
"Every single one."
"But they're safe. They're not actually moving?" Zach asked.
"No, sir," Danny confirmed.
Zach ordered them to keep guard on the Ood. Jefferson armed his security team.
"Is everything alright up there?" the Wolf asked.
"Yeah, yeah," John hurried to say.
"It's fine," Zach added.
"Great," Danny said unconvincingly.
The Wolf looked at the huge round surface she and Ida had found in the floor of the cavern. She flicked her comm on. "We've found something," she reported. "It looks like metal. Like some sort of seal. I've got a nasty feeling the word might be trapdoor. Not a good word, trapdoor," she mused. "Never met a trapdoor I liked."
"The edge is covered with those symbols," Ida noted.
"Do you think it opens?" Zach's voice filtered through.
"That's what trapdoors tend to do," the Wolf replied ominously.
"Trapdoor doesn't do it justice. It's massive, Zach. About thirty feet in diameter," Ida described.
"Any way of opening it?"
"I don't know. I can't see any sort of mechanism."
"I suppose that's the writing," the Wolf said. "It'll tell us what to do. The letters that defy translation."
"Toby, they need to know that lettering," John said. "Does it make any sort of sense?"
"I know what it says," the blonde man said, voice quivering.
"Then tell them," John urged.
"When did you work that out?" Jefferson asked suspiciously.
John froze. Toby was still as well, facing away from them, but John felt something – 'click' – in his mind just before the boy turned around. When he did, John could see the ancient lettering covering Toby's face in black ink. His eyes widened.
Beware, a faint voice whispered in the back of John's mind.
"These are the words of the Beast," Toby growled in an unnaturally deep voice. "And he has woken. He is the heart that beats in the darkness. He is the blood that will never cease. And now he will rise."
Jefferson raised his gun. "Officer, stand down," he ordered. "Stand down!"
"What is it? What's he done?" the Wolf asked frantically. "John, what's going on up there?"
"Jefferson, report!" Zach ordered.
"Officer, as Commander of Security, I order you to stand down and be confined. Immediately!" Jefferson yelled at Toby.
John backed away from Jefferson to get back to the comm. "Wolf, he's come out in those symbols all over his face," he whispered into the comm. "I think it's the Beast. It's gotten to him somehow."
"Mister Jefferson," Not-Toby tilted his head at him. "Tell me, sir. Did your wife ever forgive you?"
Jefferson flinched. "I don't know what you mean."
"Let me tell you a secret," the Beast rumbled. "She never did."
"Officer, you stand down and be confined," Jefferson ordered.
"Or what?"
"Or under the strictures of Condition Red, I am authorized to shoot you."
Not-Toby paused. "But how many of us can you kill?" He threw his head back and opened his mouth. The symbols flew out of him and over to the Ood, who jerked to attention. Toby collapsed to the floor, shaking.
"We are the Legion of the Beast," all the Ood said at once on both the physical and mental planes, their eyes glowing red.
There were multiple voices sounding over the comm, both the Wolf and Zach speaking over each other, but John and Jefferson focused on the Ood.
"The Legion shall be many," they continued, "and the Legion shall be few."
John slowly picked up the comm. "It's the Ood," he said quietly.
"Sir, we have contamination of the livestock," Jefferson said into his wrist comm.
"The Beast moved on from Toby into all the Ood," John described. "Now they're possessed. I can hear the Beast speaking to them in my head. Directing them."
"They won't listen to us," Jefferson said.
"He has woven himself in the fabric of your life since the dawn of time," the Ood droned. "Some may call him Abaddon. Some may call him Kroptor. Some may call him Satan, or Lucifer. Or the bringer of Despair, the Deathless Prince, the Bringer of Night." There was a pause, then, "These are the words that shall set him free."
"Back up to the door!" Jefferson yelled, covering John with his rifle.
"I shall become manifest," the Beast gloated through the Ood. "I shall walk in might."
"The door! Get it open!"
"My Legions shall swarm across the worlds."
Far below, the trapdoor sunk and the earth shook as it opened. The Wolf ran to solid ground.
"I am the sin and the temptation and the desire. I am the pain and the loss and the fear."
"We're moving!" Zach yelled. "The planet's moving!"
"Get that door open!" Jefferson ordered.
"The gravity field, it's going! We're losing orbit! We're going to fall into the black hole!" Zach yelled into the comm.
"I have been imprisoned for eternity. But no more."
"Door sealed," the computer announced.
"Come on!" John shouted, punching at it.
"Door sealed."
The Wolf peered over the edge of the now fully open trapdoor, which revealed a deep shaft leading into blackness. A voice suddenly resonated up from the bottom of the pit, echoing around the cavern.
"The Pit is open. And I am free," the Beast growled.
Then it laughed.
