We're getting closer and closer to the end of this story...
38 - The Game Station
Overlap. The Doctor had mentioned it, a long time ago. With the Tardis sending her seemingly randomly across time and space, she could sometimes end up in the same spot of some other version of herself. All of time and space, well, statistichally, it's not impossible, but very unlikely. Bullshit. This had happened a lot of times now, way more than unlikely.
Zoe groaned, feigning nonchalance.
"I was just looking for the Doctor", she said. Truth was, she didn't know Rose that well. Also, Rose being there meant the Doctor didn't know Zoe that well, too. Best keep quiet, she ordered herself. Don't say anything unless needed.
"Uhm, look", Rose said, walking to the doors. "I don't think... I mean, I don't want to sound... Better if you go downstairs as you were saying before". She added, walking outside the Tardis. They were in a room labeled as Archive 6, which led to a big room, not much different from a broadcasting station control centre, a lot of batteries, power boxes and wiring. It was basically empty, apart from the Doctor. Big ears, leather wearing Doctor.
Shit.
"You still here?", he said with a smirk when he spotted her. "Look, if you want to go, just go. I've got enough work here without you messing up".
Shit? Shit. Despite expecting it, Zoe's heart skipped a beat at the coldness of this Doctor, who hardly knew her. She mentally cursed the Tardis. Cold Doctor and just one lead, to go downstairs, where she'd probably run into herself. Great, just great.
"Is...", she started, biting her lips. "Is there anything I can do to help?".
Rose looked at her, puzzled, as she walked to the Doctor to strip a bundle of wires. He smirked again at Zoe. "I think you helped enough, thank you". Rose sighed behind him, but she didn't seem too happy about her presence too.
"I'll just go downstairs, then", she said, quickly making a bee-line to the elevator, closing at the other side of the room. "Wait!", she called at the man walking in, running.
She jumped right in as the door was already almost close, breathing hard.
"I thought you were already downstairs", a voice said, as she exhaled deeply.
"Yeah, well I'm not-...", whatever she was saying died on her lips, as she realized the man standing beside her was captain Jack Harkness, impossibly handsome, holding a giant blazer gun. "What... why... Jack?".
"I'm afraid you're late, the shuttles already left. So if your vortex manipulator got fried like mine, you're stuck with us. And I gotta say, I've never seen one before, but I love that gun of yours".
Dumbstruck, Zoe couldn't speak. The Doctor's hand was in Jack's Torchwood hub in the future, and his name had dropped sometimes in conversation with the Doctor, but she had no idea that Jack was... travelling with the Doctor? That long ago? She knew he was a time traveller too, but how old was Jack, really? Groaning, she bent over her knees, still breathing hard.
"Ehi, you all right?", he said, placing his hand on her shoulder. "We have to be at our best if we want to get out of here alive", he added.
"Don't know", she replied, honestly, before her ironic usual mockery took over. "But, you know, at least I have a gun. Although I don't...". Did he mention a vortex manipulator?
"About that, I didn't notice it bef- wait, did you change your clothes?".
Zoe stood up and looked into his eyes, without replying. "Jack", she just said, knowing he was clever enough to figure it out on his own, as he did, closing his eyes in frustration.
"You're never alone, are you?", he blurted.
She rolled her eyes, masking what just came across her mind. The last time she had seen Jack, he retorted that he'd never seen her without-
"Chloe", Zoe called as the elevator opened. Not only she recognized herself immediately, but the clever smirk on the girl's face left no doubt of who she was. The room, labeled Floor Zero, was crowded with people, clearly panicking, except for a girl with pigtails and a man and a woman wearing office clothes, who looked expectantly waiting for Jack. Beside them, Chloe's familiar ironic grin caught sight of Zoe.
She walked closer to them. "I knew you'd show up".
"Pretty obvious. Why are we here?", Zoe asked. It was a while since she'd last seen her, and everytime she was more annoyed by her presence.
"You know, the usual. I had a plan, the Doctor fucked it up, but as it turns out, things aren't looking too bright here, so now we all have to rely on him to solve the situation. Or, well, you have. I'm getting out of here as soon as I can".
"What? Wait, I-".
"Oh, please, grow up", she smirked.
"Girls, can you please leave whatever this is for later? I hate to agree with her, but things have escalated. We gotta move", Jack interrupted, then turned to climb a box in the middle of the room, surrounded by the crowd of people who were babbling away with anxiety, looking stranded. Zoe could catch just a few words, something about games, prizes, and... daleks?
Jack fired a few shots in the air to catch their attention. The crowd jumped, and then fall silent. "One last time. Any more volunteers?", he yelled.
Zoe was impressed. He was wearing a white skinny t-shirt with a leather vest which showed off his built, but apart from clothing, his voice was what most struck her in noticing how different he was from the last time she'd seen him, sad and secretive in the Torchwood hub.
The room stood quiet in deadly silence.
"There's an army about to invade this station. I need every last citizen to monitor defence", he insisted, louder.
A man pushed forward, shouting. "Don't listen to him! There aren't any Daleks! They disappeared thousands of years ago!"
Despite his words, a woman with a badge identifying her as Floor Manager put herself forward, nodding at Jack, who nodded back gratefully.
"Thanks", he said, turning angrier. "As for the rest of you... the Daleks will enter the station at Floor 494 and as far as I can tell, they'll head up. Not down. But that's not a promise. So here's a few words of advice; keep quiet. And if you hear fighting up above... if you hear us dying... then tell me that the Daleks aren't real", he said, glaring at the man who had spoken before.
A short silence followed his words. Again, Zoe was surprised. Jack had never struck her as a charismatic leader, but he was making himself very clear. She understood now why Gwen and his team in Cardiff never made a move without him.
"Don't make a sound", he replied, icy, to the crowd, then turned to the volunteers. "Let's go". He jumped off the box, heading towards the lifts.
Zoe looked around. Including Chloe, who Zoe wasn't certainly going to rely on, there were just ten volunteers bundling inside, as the doors closed on them. Now, Zoe had never actually seen a Dalek, not even during the famous battle of Canary Wharf. But one thing she was bitterly sure of: any alien she had dreamed of, engineered, designed, even just sketched, had turned out to be exactly as depicted in what she thought was her imagination. Even the Silence, for which she was sure she had read a script she couldn't remember about, turned out as creepy as the latex masks she and her assistants had shaped.
So, Daleks. Not good, for what she could tell. She remembered ironically how she had insisted on making them with those ridiculous kitchen equipment as weapons: they're going to look scarier if we can install in the audience the thought of them being dangerous with something that looks so innocuous. Exactly. She shivered, giving a glance to Chloe.
She listened in silence as Jack gave indications to the few volunteers, but she made sure to stick by his side as they built barricades and tried to turn the leftover droids from the games to work for them too. Jack explained how they all had a transmat beam, and Zoe was seeking to turn that into a laser, similar to the one on her gun. She was struggling with the wiring though, and she sighed thinking about her future lab on the Tardis.
"Give me that", Chloe blurted, suddenly popping at her side
"Ehi, I was-".
"Let me do it. You just need to increase the power of the beam, exclude the transportation function and let the laser sparkle its magic. Easy", she explained.
"How do you know about that?", Zoe asked suspiciously. "Did you- oh, no, no, please", she said, defeated.
"Oh come on, I knew the controller would bring the Doctor here. I didn't know the... big plan..."she replied, gesturing, "...was to destroy the humans, end of the worlds, blah blah blah. Give me some credit, kid".
Zoe stood speechless and doubtful, but the simple instructions she had given really helped. Besides, she was willing to take any advice if it meant they could result in holding the Daleks back. Jack had extended a protection shield working down from floor 500, where the Doctor was building a wave to destroy the Daleks' army, but they still had to manually defend themselves to the last inch of ground.
Jack walked to the intercom at floor 499, Zoe still at his side. "Rose, I've called up the internal laser codes. There should be a different number on every screen - can you read them out to me?", he asked.
"She's not here", came the Doctor's voice.
"Of all the times to take a leak!", Jack protested. "When she gets back, tell her to read me the codes", he instructed.
"She's not coming back", he said. Thinking about it later, Zoe realized that was when she started to sense it, that feeling of doom on them all. Rose couldn't just have walked away. She knew instantly, before Jack asked, before the Doctor explained. If Rose was gone, things were definitely bad.
"What d'you mean? Where'd she go?", Jack insisted.
"Just get on with your work", he instructed, coldly.
Realization hit Jack as he turned to look at Zoe. "You took her home, didn't you?".
"Yeah".
Jack nodded, not at all surprised. Just as Zoe, he realised how hopeless their situation was. He put a hand over her shoulder, blinking slowly, exhaling loudly before talking again.
"The Delta Wave... is it ever gonna be ready?".
"Tell him the truth, Doctor". Zoe shivered in surprise but knew that was their enemy speaking as the Doctor drew his eyes from the monitor to look somewhere else. A chill ran down her spine as she listened. "There is every possibility that the Delta Wave could be complete, but no possibility of refining it. The Delta Wave must kill every living thing in its path - with no distinction between Human and Dalek. All things will die. By your hand".
The Doctor didn't answer. Zoe felt suddenly sorry for him, for the burden he was carrying for the sake of them all.
"Doctor... the range of this transmitter covers the entire Earth", Jack pointed out, warningly.
"You would destroy Daleks and Humans together. If I am God, the creator of all things, then what does that make you, Doctor?", the Dalek Emperor kept talking.
"There are colonies out there", the Doctor said, again looking at the screen where the Dalek was transmitting from. Zoe and Jack realized that he wasn't just figuring it out now, he must have known from the start, trying anyway to change the course of things. "The human race would survive in some shape or form, but you're the only Daleks in existence. The whole universe is in danger if I let you live".
The Doctor looked back at Jack and Zoe on the other screen.
"Do you see? That's the decision I've got to make for every living thing. Die as a Human or live as a Dalek".
"He's right", Zoe whispered to Jack, recognizing in the Doctor's icy blue eyes the familiar despair of his other faces, as he appealed to Jack for an answer, completely helpless. "What would you do?".
"You sent her home. She's safe. Keep working".
"But he will exterminate you", the Dalek commented.
"Never doubted him, never will", Jack said resolutedly as Zoe nodded in approval by his side. The Doctor left the monitor range to keep talking to the Daleks, while Zoe and Jack turned around, where they caught sight of Chloe again.
"Guess it's goodbye then", she said, grinning. "I'm leaving", she said, tapping her vortex manipulator.
"What? You can't just go...", Zoe protested.
"Of course I can. You live through this, fair enough. It makes no sense for me to stay here if the Tardis is already gone", she explained, under Zoe's disappointed look. No way she was going to become that selfish girl, not in a year, not ever, she kept thinking, as the girl shimmered away.
"Great. Now we're one less left", Jack stated coldly. "We need to put someone to monitor the Daleks' attack. Lynda!", he called to the girl with pigtails.
"I can do that", Zoe volunteered.
"Oh, I'm sure you could. But as long as you don't point it at me, with that big fancy gun, you stick with me", he said in a tone that cut any possible protest from the start.
"Jack... me... Chloe, what did she do before?", she asked as they made their way to the observation deck.
"Do you think now it's the time to discuss that?", he smirked. "Didn't you hear what the Doctor just said? The part where the delta wave-", he stopped.
"Yes, that's why I'd like to die with the satisfaction of knowing who the hell that girl is!", she blurted, annoyed, failing to register that Jack had stopped walking. "What?", she snapped when she saw him.
"You didn't even flinch", he said.
"What?", Zoe repeated, frustrated.
"The Doctor basically just said we're all going to die, and you didn't even flinch".
"Neither did you", she pointed out.
"I trust him. But you, well, you don't even know him that well".
Zoe giggled bitterly. "I think I know him a lot better than you do", she said, sadly. Time could be rewritten, so maybe it wasn't the end after all. There was a future version of her around. Jack at Torchwood asked about the game station. She put her hopes into thinking they would make it out of there alive.
Jack was right, though. The Doctor had just announced their imminent death and not a single doubt had crossed her mind. It wasn't the first time she faced death, and just like every other time, she would have given her life to help the Doctor.
"If that's the case, I must have misjudged you the last time I saw you", he admitted, smiling. "Or you really must be older than then", Jack added, nodding at Lynda who was approaching them at the entrance of the observation deck.
"1941?", she said, tilting her head in complicity. "You're quite different yourself", she winked.
Jack shook his head, smiling against the current mood as he drew Lynda over a terminal.
"Right, Lynda - you are my eyes and ears. When the Daleks get in, you can follow it on that screen and report it to me", he explained.
"Understood".
"They'll detect you but the door's made of Hydra Combination. Should keep them out", he added, as Zoe cleared her throat, giving him an eye at his last words.
"Should?", Lynda alarmingly repeated.
"It's the best I can do", he said, apologetically, then spoke into the vortex manipulator to the programmer they left before. "How long till the Fleet arrives?".
"They've accelerated".
Zoe turned to the big observation window. Far, but fast, the Dalek fleet was already on its way, their spaceships flying around the Satellite and the Earth below them.
"This is it, ladies and gentlemen! We are at war!", Jack screamed, leaving the deck. Through the glass, Zoe was paralyzed, still looking at rows and rows of Daleks flew smoothly from their ships and across space, towards the Satellite. "Zoe", he called, nodding at the door, snapping her off her thoughts. She blinked and followed him up again to floor 499.
"Stand your ground, everyone... follow my commands", he shouted. "And good luck", he added, as Zoe and the programmer started distributing guns to the others.
"You were right!", Lynda said from the intercom. "They're forcing the airlock on 494", she reported.
"I'm going with them", Zoe said, and sprinted away to a few floors below, where the other volunteers were already putting themselves in defence position, waiting for the first slinding Daleks to approach them. "Okay", Jack instructed over the intercom. "Activate internal lasers. Slice'em up!".
The floor manager walked to a touchpad to activate the control, but there was nothing to see as a result.
"Defences have gone offline", Lynda said, nervously, from the intercom. "The Daleks have overridden the lock".
Zoe rushed the floor manager back with the others, as a row of Daleks moved dangerously down the corridor. She gulped in fear - she really didn't expect them to be that big - but still, she pulled her gun .
"Position! Ready to shoot", she and Jack shouted simultaneously.
As soon as the Daleks turned the corner they started shooting. Zoe took down the first one ,but the others' bullets seemed to melt away before even touching the armour. "You lied to us! The bullets don't work!", the floor manager cried into the intercom.
Zoe was doing her best to shoot, but the laser firing from gun needed time to cut through the Daleks' protective shield. By the time her partners were slumped on the floor, she had only killed three Daleks. As she saw the death ray charging again to shoot at her, she jumped at the side of the elevator, closing it in front of her, hoping the lift would go up even if the door was being melted by the Daleks' rays.
She was so scared now that she didn't notice the elevator moving, and when the door opened again, she almost shot at Jack.
"Easy, girl", he screamed, relieved he didn't shoot her as well. He already had his guns drawn out.
"The lasers takes too much to cut through their shields. I need to power it up".
"Be careful, that thing could just blast your hand away if you increase its power a notch too much", he said. "And be quick, for fuck's sake".
"Advance guard have made it to floor 495", Lynda reported.
"Jack, how're we doing?", the Doctor asked from the intercom.
"495 should be good. I like 495", he said, smirking uneasily.
"Identify yourself", they heard the Daleks metallic voice.
"You are the weakest link. Goodbye", one of the Anne-droids Zoe had fixed earlier with the help of Chloe said, and Zoe closed her eyes, hoping it didn't work against them. She heard three fires, and the sounds of three different explosions.
"Yes! Daleks down. Good job, Zoe", Jack winked at her, as his face turned suddenly down as he heard the droid repeat her line, interrupted by a firing sound.
A faint, disturbed goodbye came again through the intercom as the droid lost power, and then the voice of the Daleks was heard again. "Proceed to next level".
"They're flying up the ventilation shafts!", Lynda warned. "No... wait a minute... oh, my god... why're they doing that? They're going down!", she cried.
They stood in silence, listening to the shrieking sounds of death rays and people screaming coming from Lynda's open end of the intercom, until she couldn't endure it anymore and turned the audio off. "Floor zero", she sobbed. "They killed them all".
"Lynda! What's happening on Earth?", The Doctor asked through the intercom again.
"The Fleet's descending... they're bombing whole continents. Europa... Pacifica... the New American Alliance...", she said, her voice going slightly sadder with each name she called.
"Australasia's just... gone".
Jack blinked in respect, eyeing at Zoe as she clicked her gun mechanism close.
"Floor 499. We're the last defence", he stated, as they joined all the other few volunteers remaining. "The bullets should work if you concentrate them on the Dalek's eyestalk. I've got the forcefield at maximum so the Dalek fire part should be at its weakest".
They took position with the other volunteers behind the barricade, waiting for the Daleks to arrive.
"I'm only here 'cos of you. I joined the Programme because... you were on it", the programmer said to the woman beside him, without taking his eyes off the elevator.
"Am I supposed to say, when this is all over and if we're still alive, maybe we could go for a drink?", she replied.
"That'd be nice".
"Yeah, well, tough", she winked at him, as they smiling at each other before releasing the safety catches on their guns, ready to fire. Zoe listened to them smiling too, a faint last sparkle of hope still clinging to her. How could the human race end then and there, when humans were capable of romance even in the face of death, she thought.
As soon as the door slid open, Jack screamed his orders. "Open fire!"
They all started firing madly, as the Daleks advanced towards the barricades, apparently unaffected. "It's not working!", the man said, jumping down.
"Aim at the eyestalk!", Zoe said.
"Concentrate your fire! Two o'clock!", Jack said.
They kept firing, Zoe managing to get two Daleks, but they were too many, coming out of the doors. The bullets kept falling to the ground before touching them, until one finally hit the Dalek upfront right in the middle of its eyestalk.
"My vision is impaired. I cannot see", the Dalek said mechanically.
"We did it!", the woman cheered, letting her guard and her concentration down. She was hit and dead an instant later.
"No! No!", the man cried, letting his anger take over, climbing to the top of the barricade to shoot aimlessly, not caring about the consequences, but he was taken down soon enough.
Jack and Zoe were the only two left now facing the Daleks. They kept shooting until they could, but the Daleks were getting too close. "Retreat", he said shaking his head, pulling her elbow to guide her backwards.
"I've got a problem", Lynda said, her voice nervously low. They could hear her shaking in fear as she talked. "They've found me", she added, her breaths loud through the intercom. Zoe almost stopped to listen, while Jack caught her arm again and pulled her to keep running.
"You'll be allright, Lynda. That side of the station is reinforced against meteors", the Doctor said, trying to calm her down. Liar, Zoe thought.
"Hope so!", Lynda cheered, trying to keep it light. "Know what they say about Earth workmanship...", she joked, although it took the Daleks just a few seconds to blast whatever protection was left and kill her too.
Zoe and Jack were now running backwards, the Daleks advancing on them at the entrance of floor 500. She kept shooting them, but they seemed to be infinite.
"That really is a great gun", Jack joked, still firing.
"Thanks", she said, blowing a Dalek's eyestalk off.
"You say that as if you built it yourself", he commented.
"Maybe I did", she smiled, exploding another Dalek. She took position to hit the one immediately following, when the ray caught her gun.
She only had time to draw her hand back before the weapon exploded into pieces. There goes another paradox, she thought bitterly.
"Last men standing!" She called Jack, still running backwards to the corridor.
"For god's sake, Doctor, finish that thing and kill them all!", Jack cried, pushing Zoe behind him.
"Finish that thing and kill mankind", the Dalek Emperor's creepy, metallic voice boasted.
Zoe looked around, wondering if she could use anything around as a weapon. Damn futuristic space stations, all clear and metallic surfaces with nothing as a rod or a good old fire extinguisher. She focused on keeping Jack on the track, looking briefly behind them as they walked into a corner and she realized there was only a little space left between them and the signal room. She nodded to Jack as they nervously realized the defabricator rifle Jack had been using was running out of bullets.
"Doctor, you've got twenty seconds maximum", Jack warned him in the intercom, before tossing the rifle. He pulled out another small, firegun, and started shooting with it, with no results.
The Daleks advanced on them until the gun clicked empty and Zoe and Jack found themselves cornered against a wall, defenceless.
Jack turned to her, smiling proudly. She read into him, he hadn't lost hope that the Doctor would save the humans. Despite her foreknowledge, Zoe wasn't so sure now.Time can be rewritten, time can be rewritten, her mind kept repeating furiously against her will.
He breathed heavily, looking into her eyes. "See you in hell", Jack said, winking.
"Exterminate", the Daleks in front of him ordered.
"I kinda figured that", he smirked to them, then quickly stepped in front of Zoe, protecting her as he opened his arms to face the death rays.
She held back a gulp, feeling about to throw up as she felt his lump body falling down against the wall, pulling her with him, his weight pinning her down.
Jack was dead.
Tears were about to corner her eyes, as she still struggled to accept what had just happened, not believing it. She had seen him. She had met him. He fought her and locked her up, and it had been later. And yet, the truth made her chest throb, as she blinked to keep her eyes open, fighting the tears.
She wasn't going to die begging, she thought. She had fought the Daleks, she was the last one standing. She lifted her chin proudly as she saw the death rays charging.
I honestly don't know what happened with the formatting. Please review! xx