CHAPTER 52
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THE SURPRISE
Lee's meeting with the High Council and Lady President Karen Pond was going very, very slowly. They had Lee tell them in minute detail each and every thing that he had memorized from the records of the C.I.A. which as it turned out was far more than just the names of their members and major leaders. Lee had been telling them all about every major C.I.A. operation for the last fifty years. By their request, he was telling them every excruciating detail that he knew about them as a matter of fact.
Donna was bored stiff as she sat there for what she knew had to be the second hour listening to all of this information about scores of people who she knew nothing about and a small amount of other people that she knew of only from the Doctor's memories that she could care less about personally. If she had known that this meeting was going to be this boring, she would have just dropped Lee off and come back later. Much later.
Where's a Dalek when you need one? Donna thought to herself as Lee went on and on.
Then suddenly Donna's eyes went wide with surprise, and she was far from bored when she heard Lee mention a name that she knew all too well. She had to pinch herself to make sure that she wasn't having a nightmare but it was true. Absolutely true.
"Uh, excuse me? Your highnesses? Is this the same Calliope who is the Doctor's mother?" Donna asked in shock.
"Unfortunately that is true, Donna Noble. Obviously since you have the Doctor's memories and did not know this that confirms that he knew nothing about her activities with the C.I.A. just as Drax surmised," Chancellor Flavia said.
"I don't buy that. I just don't. I know Calliope and she's a nice, sweet person. She'd never do the kinds of things that I've just heard that the C.I.A. do. There has to be some kind of mistake or something. Either that or someone's lying," Donna protested.
"Are you trying to accuse your husband of such a thing?" Flavia asked.
"He's not my husband . . . yet. No, I'm not accusing him of that. I know that he would never lie, and neither would Drax. I'm just saying that her name could have been added to whatever he saw in order to frame her for some reason. It could also be the work of someone who can manipulate reality. There are a lot of people like that, and the Doctor has made enemies of pretty much all of them. Any of them would frame his mother just to get back at him," Donna said.
Flavia smiled at her for a brief moment before saying, "Your loyalty to your step-grandmother is very commendable, but it doesn't alter the facts. Calliope Ariel of the House of Lungbarrow was an agent of the Celestial Intervention Agency. She didn't perform any murders or any other major crimes from the evidence given to us by Drax, but she still assisted them on several occasions of her own free will. That in itself is a crime."
Donna began to get very upset as she asked, "What's the punishment for that?"
"It could be anything from exile to execution depending on what was done for them. Don't worry, Donna. I don't believe that she would be killed. Her likely sentence would be to have her remaining regenerations taken from her. She would of course be allowed to live out her current life without any further punishments," Flavia said in a kind voice.
"She is of minor importance in this matter. Her actions had minimal impact on the timestream. Can we please move on to more important matters now?" a Council member asked impatiently.
"Just one more thing. Can I leave? Is that alright?" Donna asked.
Lee looked at her like she'd kicked him as Karen answered for the Council by saying, "Of course, Donna. I'm surprised you didn't ask to do it a lot sooner. It's a regular snorefest I know. If I didn't have to be here, I'd be joining you. Believe me."
"Lady President Cliodna, that is a most impertinent attitude. This is a very important matter and should be treated with the highest of reverence and respect," a Council member complained.
"I am treating it with respect. I'm just stating for the record that it's boring. I'm also stating for the record that I agree with Donna about Calliope. She's not guilty of anything. I know her and she would never do anything like what she's being accused of. At least not without a good reason anyway. Did you ever think that maybe she had been under some kind of mind control or had been impersonated somehow? It's got to be something like that," Karen argued.
"A shapeshifter! I never even thought about that. It could have been a Zygon for all you lot know," Donna said with a renewed look of hope on her face.
"Yeah, it's not like any of you would be able to tell them apart from the real thing. The Doctor certainly never could," Karen said.
"This matter is irrelevant. Calliope will get a fair trial when the time comes; and if she is innocent, she will be allowed to go free. For now, this matter is irrelevant and will no longer be discussed," the same Council member from before said irritably.
"Go on, Donna, before they get all huffy," Karen warned.
"Fine. I'll make sure and prove that she's innocent though. You'd better believe that. I'll see you later, Lee. Just call me when it's finished if it ever is," Donna said as she started to leave.
"D-d-donna, a-are you angry at me?" Lee asked.
Donna looked at him in confusion as she said, "No, of course not. You were just telling what you saw. You had to tell them the truth. You didn't do anything wrong."
"Thanks," Lee said as a look of relief came over his face.
Donna smiled at him reassuringly and then left. Her face took on a serious look as soon as she got outside. She was a woman on a mission now. She was going to prove Calliope innocent and clear her name no matter what she had to do in order to do it.
As soon as she entered her TARDIS, Donna contacted the Doctor's TARDIS and said, "Doctor, it's Donna."
"Hello, Donna. How are you doing? I was wondering how long it would take you to get out of that boring old C.I.A. meeting. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. It looks like I lost the bet," the Doctor said.
"Bet? What bet?" Donna asked already annoyed with him in the first minute of their call.
"The bet that I made with Clara about how long that you'd last. I didn't think that it would take this long. You just made me have to go a week without wearing any of my hats. I love my hats," the Doctor said as he started to sulk.
"Doctor, will you shut up about your stupid hats and listen to me. This is serious," Donna said.
"My hats aren't stupid. In fact, one of them is sentient and quite intelligent for its species. It's a rare fez from the planet Zeta Chronis that's made out of a gestalt alien species called the Mercuros. They form the shape of a fez on command. It's a very cool culture there," the Doctor babbled.
"If you don't stop talking, Spaceman, I swear I'm going to burn each and every one of your stupid hats!" Donna threatened.
The Doctor suddenly went silent as images of Lily torching his previous hat collection flashed through his mind, and a tear came to his eye. He couldn't ever let that happen again. It was just too horrible. He'd sooner kiss a Dalek.
"That got his attention," Clara said off screen with a laugh.
Then Donna told the Doctor and Clara everything that had been said about his mother in the High Council's meeting chamber. The Doctor became furious immediately, and his expression became completely serious automatically.
"I don't care what Drax saw, that's not true," the Doctor said.
"That's what I said but nobody listened. Only Karen backed me up," Donna said.
"I'll back you up too. Cydonia knew Calliope back then when she was supposedly in the C.I.A., and she trusts her completely," Clara said.
"We've got to prove her innocent or they're going to steal her regenerations from her or worse," Donna said."
"We'll do it together, Donna. It'll be just like old times. Me and you working together to save someone," the Doctor said with a fond smile.
"Only this time instead of a complete stranger, it's someone that we both love," Donna said.
"We'll prove her innocent, Donna. I'm sure of it," the Doctor said confidently.
Clara frowned as she wished that she could do more. She had the information of thousands of lifetimes at her disposal, and none of them had the information that she needed to clear the Doctor's mother. What good were they?
"Let's go talk to Calliope and see what she can tell us that will help," Donna suggested.
"We'll go to Wilf and Mother's house right away. You meet us there, Donna," the Doctor said as he signed off.
As Donna and the Doctor both headed off to see Calliope, Michelle was still on her date with Mark. She had been having a hard time concentrating on it though after having to listen to the Queen of the Racnoss constantly yell at her for the last two hours to set her free.
She was close to losing her mind, and her nerves were on edge by the time that Ileana came running toward her. First Donna and now her. Were all of her friends in a conspiracy to break up her relationship with Mark?
"Michelle, there's a . . ." Ileana started to say.
"I don't want to hear it. First Donna bothers me and now you. Just leave me alone. I'm trying to have a date here!" Michelle said in a very angry voice.
"Michelle, listen to her. She's very upset about something," Mark pointed out.
"Yes, I am. I'm being chased by . . ." Ileana started to say again.
"Whatever it is, I'm sure you can handle it by yourself. I mean you're a freaking vampire. Why are you coming here to bother me for? Fix it yourself!" Michelle said in a grumpy voice.
Both Ileana and Mark looked at Michelle in shock. This wasn't like her at all. She was usually so nice and the first one to volunteer to help someone.
"I'm sorry. It's just that I've been listening to the Racnoss Queen scream at me so much that I want to smash something. What were you trying to tell me? Who is it that's after you?" Michelle asked in a calmer voice.
"Them," Ileana said as she pointed at a huge group of people who were heading toward them with murderous looks in their eyes.
It was obvious to both Mark and Michelle that something was wrong with the people from the shambling way in which they walked. It was almost as if they were having trouble walking for some reason. In fact, the way that they walked reminded Mark of all of those horror movies that he had watched as a kid.
"Please don't tell me that those are what I think they are," Michelle said.
"That's not possible though. They're not real. You only see them in movies or on TV," Mark protested.
"You do realize that you're saying this to a vampire, right?" Ileana said as she rolled her eyes at him.
"So they're really . . ." Michelle said stopping herself before she could say the word.
"Zombies," Ileana said as the people completely surrounded the three of them.
"This can't be real," Mark said in disbelief.
"Why didn't you warn me?" Michelle asked.
"I was trying to but you wouldn't stop interrupting me. We could have gotten away in plenty of time if you had just listened," Ileana said.
As Michelle and Ileana got ready for the fight of their lives, the zombies suddenly stopped right in front of them. One of them suddenly started to speak at long last as he said, "We require bodies. Many more bodies. We must be saved. We were stopped before by the Time Lord, but this time we will be triumphant. This time the Gelth will survive."
"Gelth? So you're not zombies?" Mark asked hopefully.
"No, we are the Gelth, and we require bodies to save ourselves. Dead bodies," the Gelth said.
"Here I was thinking that we were safe. Well, there goes that idea out the window," Mark said.
"Don't worry about it. I can handle them. It's about time I paid the Queen back for all of that yelling anyway," Michelle said with an evil look on her face as she banished the Gelth to the MirrorVerse.
Now the Racnoss Queen was screaming for a different reason.
"Oh, don't look so smug with yourself. You didn't solve the problem at all. The Gelth are coming here through a rift in time and space. We have to find that rift and close it or they'll just keep coming and occupying every dead body that they find," Ileana said.
"How do you know that? Have you met them before?" Michelle asked as she chuckled to herself while listening to the Racnoss Queen fighting with the Gelth.
"No, but the Doctor and Rose have. They told me all about them. Their bodies were turned into gas during the Time War, and now they can only survive in other gaseous environments like the gases inside of a decomposing human. If we can't stop them, they'll kill everyone on Earth so that they can have their bodies," Ileana warned.
"It's too bad that Donna's not here. She could probably find the rift easily. How are we supposed to locate it without her? Neither of us knows anything about time rifts," Michelle asked.
"I guess it's a good thing that we have another Time Lord on the team now then, isn't it?" Ileana said with a grin as she gave Emmy a quick call and told her the whole story.
Emmy's TARDIS soon materialized right next to them, and she and Lilith quickly emerged from it. Emmy scanned the area immediately with a small portable time rift detector that she had jury rigged on the way over from spare parts she had lying around her TARDIS.
"So do you know where the rift is?" Ileana finally asked Emmy after several minutes of following her around in silence.
"Not yet but I'm getting close to it. It should be in this immediate area somewhere. I wish that I knew where," Emmy said as she looked around her with a perplexed expression on her face.
"Do you think it might be in that funeral home over there?" Michelle asked.
"What makes you say that?" Emmy asked.
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe the huge amount of walking corpses coming out of it?" Michelle said in a panic as she pointed ahead of them.
They all looked to see dozens of walking corpses coming out of the funeral home directly in front of them, and then they looked across the street to see yet another funeral home with even more corpses rapidly coming out of it as well. As they were quickly surrounded in all directions, Ileana said with a groan, "What idiot put two funeral homes across the street from each other?"
"Yes, I'm sure that the competition between them is just murder. I bet people are just dying to get in," Mark joked.
Everyone glared at him as he said, "Sorry. I couldn't resist."
"Leave the boyfriend at home next time we have a case," Ileana said to Michelle.
"Excuse me. We didn't have a case! You interrupted my date," Michelle said in anger.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that," Ileana said as she looked at her apologetically.
"You seem to be having short term memory problems. Getting old, dear?" a very familiar voice to the vampire said from nearby.
They all turned to see Carmilla standing there with a smug look on her face.
"Excuse me, dear, but aren't you supposed to be dead?" Ileana asked.
"Been there, done that, got bored. Eternal destruction just didn't appeal to me I'm afraid. Besides that I've got friends in high places now. It seems that you and your group have attracted some big attention. Then again your leader has had the eye of the Pantheon of Discord for quite some time now. I was brought back by the Queen Bee of the Pantheon herself. She told me something about doing it in order to corrupt the youth of this country or some such nonsense. That automatically lets you out of course, Lana, since you're older than dirt," Carmilla said with an evil grin.
"You're older than I am," Ileana protested.
"True, but I'm young in spirit. I've kept up with the times. I know where it's at. I'm hip and happening. I'm down with the funk or whatever rubbish that they're saying nowadays," Carmilla said obviously enjoying herself immensely.
"You're behind the return of our friends over there, aren't you?" Ileana accused.
"Little old me? Surely you jest," Carmilla said with a sarcastic grin on her face.
Suddenly she disappeared from where she stood and reappeared standing right next to Ileana. Ileana immediately went into a fighting stance, but Carmilla continued to stand there with a smug grin on her face as if she didn't have a care in the world.
"You know instead of wasting time with me you might want to deal with the real problem. Them," Carmilla said as she pointed to the rapidly approaching Gelth.
"Did you do this?" Lilith asked her.
"Nope. I've gotten a power upgrade from my new friends, but I'm not that powerful. No, this is all the Gelth's doing. I just came to watch. I'm a complete and total innocent bystander this time. Well, I hope you solve everything in time. If you don't, it's been nice knowing you. See ya!" Carmilla said as she disappeared right before the Gelth would have gotten to her.
"What was that all about?" Emmy wondered.
"We don't have time to worry about that right now. We need to close that rift," Ileana said.
"Your wish is my command. I've found it. It's right between the two funeral homes as a matter of fact. It's a hairline crack in the middle of the air that you can barely see but it's there," Emmy said.
"Can it be closed?" Michelle asked nervously as the Gelth came closer and closer to them now.
"You bet. Lilith, do your thing," Emmy said with a grin.
"I command this rift to close and leave this area just like it was before the dead arose," Lilith said as she gestured in the direction of the rift.
The others looked around them in amazement as the Gelth were sucked out of the bodies of the dead and back into the portal. As soon as the gaseous forms of the Gelth were all back inside, the rift automatically sealed itself behind them.
"You're good," Mark said to Lilith with an awed look on his face.
Lilith looked embarrassed and flushed while Michelle said, "Hey, you're not supposed to compliment other girls just me."
"I didn't mean anything by it," Mark said with a frightened look on his face.
Michelle smiled and kissed him as she said, "I'm just playing with you. Sorry, I couldn't resist."
"This is revenge for my bad pun earlier, isn't it?" Mark said with a sigh.
"Yep," Michelle said as she kissed him again and quickly turned his frown into a smile.
Ileana grinned at the two of them happy that their date hadn't been completely ruined after all. She was still bothered by the sudden reappearance of Carmilla though. What was that witch up to?
Several feet away and out of their earshot, Carmilla chuckled at the woman in front of her who had been young only moments earlier and who was now rapidly becoming older and older by the moment. She was merely touching her bare shoulder, but this was all that she needed to do to suck the life out of her now. It was much better and much more efficient than fangs.
"Now this I could get used to. I'd definitely rather suck the time energy away from someone instead of their blood. It's nowhere near as messy afterwards. Besides that it's just so satisfying feeding off of the unfulfilled potential of someone's life. Feeding on what might have been gives me a rush like I've never felt before in hundreds of years of existence. It also makes me feel young and alive. I mean your unused years look good on me. Don't you agree?" Carmilla asked her rapidly aging victim.
"Please let me go," the now old woman said in a terrified voice.
"I will, dear. Soon. Don't worry. I'll leave you your declining years intact. You'll have about five to ten years left to live I promise. That's more than enough," Carmilla said with mocking laughter.
Carmilla continued to laugh to herself as she marveled at how she was managing to do this right under the Wolves' nose. That made this particular little feeding even all the more special. That and the fact that no one would ever suspect a thing. Who was going to believe that someone was going around stealing the youth of people? It was the perfect form of vampirism. It was completely invisible and entirely untraceable to her.
She had to admit that she had had misgivings about what Discord had done to her at first. Now though she had quickly grown used to it. It seemed that this new life of hers was going to work out after all.
Meanwhile at the Mott household, the Doctor, Clara, and Donna were getting the shock of their lives as Calliope didn't seem to be shocked at all by what they had just told her. In fact, she was quite calm about it. Too calm.
"Mother, why aren't you furious about this? Aren't you bothered by this in the slightest?" the Doctor asked upset.
Calliope took a deep breath and then she said, "Theta, it's true."
"What?" the Doctor said in an unbelieving voice.
"I don't believe it," Donna said.
"Neither do I. What's really going on here?" Clara asked.
"It's a long story, and I guess now it's finally time to tell it," Calliope said.
"Tell what? Exactly what happened?" the Doctor asked.
"I was in the C.I.A but it wasn't because I believed in what they were doing. I was an undercover agent, Theta," Calliope said.
"Hear that, Chin Boy? Your mum was James Bond," Clara said with relief.
"Alright, Lizzie, spill it. What's the real story behind all of this?" Donna asked.
Next: Calliope tells the full story of what she was really up to in the C.I.A. Meanwhile Carmilla is on the loose once again and getting more and more powerful by the moment. What can the Wolves do to stop her?
