Chapter Seventeen
Rose twitched her fingers nervously against her side as Jack cleaned out one of the stasis pods for her, lifting the clothed remains of a body out. A small flinch ran through her when it snapped into pieces in his hands. The dust and bone fragments made him cough, but he dispersed the fine pieces with a wave of his hand and set about removing the skeletal parts one piece at a time, doing his best to keep them in some sort of order in case the Krakovians required them for their funerary traditions. She watched him, attempting to ignore the Doctor and Zoe behind her who were speaking so quickly and emphatically to each other by the computer station that it was like they were speaking another language. From their tones and gestures, it sounded as though they were having a disagreement, which was disconcerting when she was about to go into a computer system.
The fact that her brain was the only one compatible with the machinery didn't sit well with her either. She liked her brain, and she had suffered through enough sci-fi shows and films with Zoe during their youth that she was worried her brain might leak out through her ears if something went wrong; she didn't want to become brain soup. While she trusted the Doctor and knew that Zoe and Jack wouldn't let anything happen to her, she was still going to be entering the simulation alone.
"Hey," Jack said, appearing before her, hair was dusted with the remains of the freshly evicted skeleton. "Don't worry, everything's going to be fine. This is such a common piece of technology where I'm from. We use them for generational ships and the dangers are minimal."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," he said, catching her hand and kissing it. "And I used something similar during my training at the Time Agency. They were simulation systems that projected straight into your brain but the basis of it's the same as this. And I was okay, a little headache after but that's normal when something is in your brain."
She worried her bottom lip. "I s'pose."
"You know we won't let anything happen to you, right?" Jack asked. "Even if the Doctor and I were willing to risk your life, which we're not, Zoe would never let us. We've got your back, Rosie."
She managed a smile. "I know. I'm just...scared."
"You'd be silly not to be," he said, glancing over at the Doctor and Zoe whose conversation had become reduced to gestures, frowns, and annoyed grunts, which meant they would soon be reaching a conclusion about their next steps. "Come on. I'll help you get in."
Rose exhaled long and slow before rising and letting Jack help her climb into the stasis pod, his coat a warm cloak of protective familiarity around her that she readjusted beneath her legs. She remained seated, the back of the pod cutting into her back, not willing to lie flat in something that strongly resembled a coffin before she had to, and waited for the Doctor and Zoe. It took five more minutes before they came looking as though they hadn't spent the last ten arguing with each other; she looked between their faces and put on her bravest face.
"So, how're we doin' this?"
"It's a little complicated but we think we've figured it out," Zoe said, taking her hand and twining their fingers together. "You okay?"
She nodded her head.
"We need a way to communicate with you while you're in there," the Doctor explained. "Because we don't actually know what you're going to be walking into. It's not likely to be dangerous as these systems are meant to provide positive stimulation not negative, but better safe than sorry."
"Jack's going to keep an eye on your life sign and at the first sign of trouble, we're going to pull you out," Zoe finished.
"How?" Rose asked, and they stared at her. "You said the switch is on the inside."
"That's what this is for," the Doctor said, holding up a small circular metallic thing between his fingers. "I'm going to attach this to your temple and it's going to act as your own personal override so that we can pull you out through that instead of through the system. It'll be a little rougher than we'd like but you'll come back to us."
"You just had this to hand?" Jack asked, curiously.
"No." He shook his head. "We took apart Zoe's phone for the bits we needed."
"Zo..." Rose stared at her. "You love your phone."
"I love you more," she said, taking the device from the Doctor and leaning over her, pressing it to her temple; Rose winced when it bit into her. "Give it a couple of seconds. You're going to feel dizzy –"
The world dipped and swam. She grasped the edge of the stasis pod, stomach churning. "Oh god."
"– but it'll pass."
Even as Zoe spoke, the world righted itself. Rose blinked the dazed spots of light away, a slick taste of bile in her mouth that she swallowed back.
"You're going to talk to her through that?" Jack asked, leaning close to examine it, finger pressing against it. "How?"
The Doctor leaned against the pod. "We're going to use telepathy for that."
Rose blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I'm going to create a temporary telepathic connection between you and Zoe," he told her. "The TARDIS will help support the connection and Zoe's going to anchor it so you don't have to think about it. I'm not sure how strong it'll be because neither of you are telepathic, or actually have any genetic inclination towards telepathy that I know of, but you're sisters, and I'm hoping the changes in Zoe's biochemistry from what I had to do to her after Mondas is going to help here. Even if it doesn't, you both have a strong emotional connection to each other so it should work."
"Basically," Zoe said with a smile, "yell, and I'll come running."
"Okay," Rose nodded, swallowing. "That's...okay."
"You good?" She asked. "Because we don't have to do this if you don't want to."
"No, no, it's fine, it's good. I'm good," Rose said, ignoring the sympathetic tilt of Jack's gaze. "Just – just tell me what I need to do when I get there. Please."
Zoe and the Doctor exchanged a look, and Rose watched as they had one of their silent conversations that she never understood before they looked back at her. The Doctor switched places with Zoe and took Rose's hand between his.
"When you get there, we don't know what it's going to look like," he said. "It'll probably be a representation of something that you find comforting, familiar. These systems are meant to be kind, and the switch shouldn't be hard to find. The system is protecting it, guarding it, but only because that's what it's been told to do. It doesn't want any accidental activations so you might have to figure out a way to get to it, but pressing the button should be easy enough."
A thought struck her. "If they can get to it, why haven't they?"
"Time probably passes a little differently in there," he replied. "It's like when you're dreaming, time doesn't have the same meaning. They may not know they're past their wake-up date, all you have to do is push the button. If it's anything more complicated like inputting a code, shout Zoe's name and she'll be able to talk you through it. If she can't, she can pull back from the connection and talk with us."
Zoe smiled at her. "I won't let anything happen to you."
"All right," Rose said, bobbing her head, still nervous. "Go in, find the switch; if in trouble, shout for Zoe."
The Doctor grinned. "It's like a haiku."
Jack leaned over and kissed her forehead before moving to the computer station so that he could monitor her life signs. It took Zoe and the Doctor a few minutes to get her properly attached to various wires before the Doctor touched his fingers to Zoe's temple and his other hand to Rose's, a gasp pulling from them at the feeling of the other's presence in their minds. It was a strange sensation, as though they were in a vast empty space together where they were aware of each other but unable to properly touch, reminding Zoe of the weightlessness she felt when she hadn't existed a decade before.
"This is weird," Rose muttered, rubbing her head. "I can feel you. You're hungry."
"I am a little peckish," Zoe admitted. "I was hoping to have a hot dog or something here. I should do what Mum does and bring a sandwich every time I leave the TARDIS."
She laughed. "Cheese an' pickle. You're thinkin' about a cheese an' pickle sandwich right now."
"Don't remind me," she grinned. "Otherwise I'm going to be thinking about it when I need to focus." Zoe tentatively reached out and prodded at Rose's mind. "Feel that?"
"Ow, yes!"
"Sorry," she apologised. "Just needed to check." She leaned over, face hovering above Rose's. "I'll be there if you need me. All you've got to do is shout."
"Geroff," Rose complained, pleased by the concern. "I'll be fine."
The Doctor touched Zoe's back lightly. "It's time."
"Okay," she said, pulling back from Rose, addressing her one last time. "See you in a few."
Zoe sat on the hard ground, folding her legs beneath her and rolling her shoulders back as she tried to get comfortable even though the cold air seeped into every pore on her. A shiver rolled through her, her eyes shut, and she felt a warm weight drop around her. One eye popped open to see the Doctor pulling back, his coat about her shoulders, and she smiled softly as she threaded her arms through it, mouthing her thanks at him. Warmer, she closed her eyes again and breathed deep, focusing on the connection that linked her to Rose. Grabbing hold of it, she poured all of her attention into keeping it firmly within her grasp, anchoring it to ensure that Rose was able to find her way back.
Without opening her eyes or moving an inch, she spoke.
"I'm ready."
The Doctor looked down at Rose, hand running over the top of her head, fingers pushing her hair back with an encouraging smile. "Here we go then."
Claustrophobia clawed at her when the Doctor's face became distorted by the glass closing between them, shutting her into the pod. Drawing a deep breath in through her nose, she tried to stay calm as a white mist hissed from small tubes around her and filled the space, and goosebumps erupted even beneath the thickness of Jack's coat. It ran across her skin and pricked at her bones, her heart beating faster; slowly, like treacle stretching off a spoon, her consciousness drained from her, eyes growing heavy as she fought against the gas. Feeling out of control, panic swelled and she slammed her hands against the glass, trying to push it open. Almost immediately, she felt Zoe in her mind as the Doctor said her name through the glass, voice muffled.
Between one blink and the next, her surroundings changed.
Appearing upright on her feet, she stumbled and caught herself on some wood. Her head span and she struggled to orient herself before she looked up and realised that she was at the entrance of the Funfair; except, where it had been old and abandoned, everything was fresh and vibrant. The wood was polished and firm, and the paint splashed across the front of it, displaying the name of the funfair, was bright and golden. The noise hit her next as her ears popped, joyful music bubbling up over the top of a din of chatter and laughter. She pushed away from the entrance gate and stepped inside.
In front of her, men, women, and children were all enjoying the funfair. Children ran about, screaming with laughter as their parents looked on fondly. Food stalls were busy with queues that wove like snakes through the grassy pathways, and the sweet smell of cotton candy and roasted nuts filled the air, Rose's stomach rumbling. The Ferris wheel glimmered in the sunlight as it made its slow progression through the air, carriages swaying in the warm breeze beneath the bright blue sky.
It was the funfair that they should have visited, and Rose looked around in amazement, drinking it all in just as there was a touch on her mind that startled her. Zoe was stretching out telepathic fingers, clumsy in her inexperience, poking a little too hard and deep, but Rose focused on the feel of her sister – solid and warm – and sent back a message that she hoped was reassuring. Whatever it was, it reassured Zoe who fell back to the very edges of her mind, allowing her to return her attention to the funfair.
It was incredible, but she soon became aware of the problem that faced her.
How was she supposed to find the wake-up button amongst the lively chaos?
Before she was able to think, a face appeared in front of her. Rose pulled back, a yelp leaving her mouth as she jumped and stared, wide-eyed, at the face that was simply a face – there was no body or head, nothing that gave it size or shape; it looked as though a child's drawing had been lifted from the page and thrown into the air. Odd and uneven lines, clumsy in their inexactitude, had dawn the outline and coloured heavy brows; the mouth was wonky and too large; and one eye was the size of a one pound coin while the other was the size of a dinner plate.
"What's this?" It asked, turning upside down. "Someone new?"
She cleared her throat. "Hi, I – I'm Rose. Rose Tyler."
"Hello, Rose, Rose Tyler," the face replied. "I'm Poona. Welcome to the Krakov Funfair, the best and most amazing funfair in the quadrant! Do you like games, Rose, Rose Tyler?"
"I – yes?" She said, uncertain if the face was the part of the system that was meant to welcome people; if it was, she needed to have a word with the designers about how creepy the thing was. "I s'pose so."
"Then you can come and play," Poona trilled, spinning in the air so fast that Rose only saw flashes of colour through its see-through face. "We haven't had anyone new to play with in years!"
Her eyes tried to keep up with Poona's movements but nausea settled in her stomach. "Can you stop? Please? I can't –" Poona stopped abruptly. She sighed with relief. "Thank you. Look, Poona, I'm here to help. I'm from the outside where everyone's sleepin'. I'm here to find a button that wakes everyone up. D'you know where that is? Can you help me?"
"Button?" Its badly drawn mouth drooped, mismatched eyes wide. "Why do you want a button?"
"Or a switch, maybe even a computer," she said. "I don't actually know what I'm lookin' for, I just know what it does."
"Why do you want it Rose, Rose Tyler?"
"To wake everyone up," she said, and Poona's mouth opened, a pained, fearful cry cracked through the space between them. Rose's eyes darted around, worried and a little embarrassed. "What are you doin'?"
"No, no, no." It shook its head. "Rose, Rose Tyler can't be here. Momo won't be happy. Momo won't like this. No, no, no."
"Who's Momo?" Worry that the whole situation was going to be more difficult to deal with started to creep in. "Poona –"
"Momo is Momo," Poona said, unhelpfully, fading away with a desperately sad look on its face. "Oh, no, no, no. This is bad. This is very, very bad."
"Wait," she cried but Poona faded from the space in front of her, leaving her yelling at nothing. "Great. Just great. Now what do I do?"
Feeling off balance from the odd meeting, she cast her eyes around and paused when she saw that while the music was still playing and the sweet smell of food was coating the air, the laughter had stopped. People stood there, their eyes sneaking glances at her as though afraid to look at her directly, and a small frown rippled across her forehead; she raised her hand in a greeting, mouth opening to call out, but panic flared across their faces and they hurried away. Her hand fell limply to her side, mouth snapping shut, and she experienced the same thing when she moved into the funfair and tried to greet others that she met. It was as though she was infected with something, people turning away from her, fearful of catching what she had. It didn't help that the sky was turning dark and a chill wind was setting in, biting at her exposed flesh. She shivered, at a loss for what to do, and tightened Jack's coat around her, wishing he was there with her.
He'd know what to do, she thought, walking slowly through the empty grass pathways, eyes peering nervously out of tents at her.
She leaned against the side of the bumper cars, arms folded across her chest, when a voice from behind her interrupted her thoughts.
"You shouldn't be here."
Rose spun on her heels, the coat flaring out behind her. With a jolt, she realised she recognised the man. "Ulster Pren. That's your name, isn't it? You're Ulster Pren."
He eyed her cautiously. "How do you know that?"
"I saw your hologram," she said, gesturing vaguely towards the exit that was out of sight. "Outside, in the real world, my friends an' I saw your hologram. We're here to help."
"You saw...?" He began before his eyes darted around; he moved forward and grabbed her so quickly that her scream didn't have time to leave her throat. "Say nothing else. Come with me. Quickly."
"Wha –?"
"And quietly," he hissed, manhandling her out of view of the main thoroughfare and pushing her through the tents that were erected to contain attractions. She heard the roar of lions and the sound of instruments being tuned as he made her twist and turn until she was stumbling into a small tent that was empty of everything except a handful cushions on the floor. "Sit down."
"No, ta," Rose said, pulling herself out of his hands. "What the hell are you doin'?"
"You're from there? Krakov?" Ulster asked her, closing the flap on the tent and sealing it tightly. "Really?"
"Well, I'm actually from Earth," she said. "But my friends an' I came to Krakov for the funfair an' saw it was abandoned. We found you in stasis under it."
Ulster released a breath, and years' worth of tension drained from him. "Thank the maker. I thought – I hoped someone would come. How long has it been? How long have we been in stasis?"
"About a hundred an' fifty years." Horror seeped into his face, and she regretted the blunt delivery. "Sorry."
"A hundred and years?" He repeated. "We've been in stasis for an extra fifty years? I thought...it felt like longer, but also shorter. I don't –"
"It's okay," Rose said, feeling sorry for the man. "We're goin' to help you. That's why I'm here. The computer system's sort of turned the off switch inside out so that it's in here an' not out there. I'm here to find it an' press it, or flip it, I don't know. D'you know where it is?"
Ulster looked at her, defeat etched into the lines of his face. "Momo has it."
"Momo, that name again," she said. "Poona said Momo won't be happy that I'm here."
"She won't be," he sighed, exhaustion ageing him before her eyes. "And she'll already know that you're here. Poona will have told her."
Rose frowned. "Who's Momo?"
"She's the system," he said. "Something went wrong and it became corrupted. Momo is the manifestation of the system but she's more as well. She has all of our lives in her head and she plays with the memories; she's like – like a child in constant need of attention and entertainment."
"Right," she said, slowly, trying to understand. "That's...I don't fully get it, but okay. So, she has the off switch?"
"Yes." Ulster rubbed his eyes. "Momo didn't manifest herself until decades into our time here. Something must've happened on the outside to corrupt the code because she just appeared one day. At first we thought it was an aberration but she kept growing more and more powerful, and more and more unstable. She runs everything now. You stay here long enough, you'll see what I mean."
"If you know where the switch is," Rose said, "why haven't you tried to get to it."
He sank down onto the floor, bracing his arms on his knees. "We did, in the beginning, when we realised how dangerous Momo was. We figured that whatever was waiting for us out there had to be better than what was in here, so we tried and people died. We haven't tried again."
"Is it everyone?" She asked. "From the planet? Or just the people from under the funfair here?"
"It's everyone," he answered. "We don't always see the funfair. Sometimes it's a child's birthday party, other times it's a game of hide and seek. It varies but everyone in the system is represented here. Momo controls everything and everyone. She's in our heads."
The tent flickered, darkness dropping over it, the flap whipping as though caught in a fierce wind.
"And I always know everything."
Fear froze Rose in place as she took in the monstrosity that was Momo. Draped in the form of a small female child, roughly the size of a ten-year-old, Momo was distorted. Her skin was so pale that Rose could see Ulster's terrified face on the other side, tiny numbers running rapidly around her body, coding instinctively; her hair was dark and greasy, plastered across her egg-shaped head, and her large, bulbous eyes protruded from her face. She had no eyebrows, and her skin was stretched tightly across the idea of cheekbones and forehead as she didn't have bones. It was her mouth though that rendered Rose speechless, cutting across her face in a V-shape and jutting out over her teeth; where Rose's mouth stopped low on her cheeks when she smiled, Momo's reached all the way up to her ears.
A dirty and tattered pink dress floated about her knees, revealing spindly legs that were pale beneath the dirt.
"Hello, Rose Tyler," Momo said, her voice high and warbling like a child's. "I'm Momo. Poona says you've come to kill me."
"What?" She looked around to Ulster whose eyes were turned to the ground, fingers curled into tight fists on his lap that flexed. "I'm not – no. I'm not here to kill you. I'm here to help."
"They don't want your help," Momo said with an edge of petulance that sharpened in anger. "They have me."
Rose took a small step forward, hand splayed before her in peace. "But Krakov's fine now. The danger's passed, an' they can't stay in stasis for much longer. They're already fifty years late. They need to wake up."
Dank hair clumped against the side of her neck as she shook her head vigorously. "No."
"Look, this is –" Rose started but Momo interrupted her by screaming, the sound so high-pitched it made her jaw ache. "Stop it!"
Momo's hair lifted from her neck and floated around her, her foot stamping against the ground again and again, making the world shake.
"No! No! No! No!"
"What's happening?" Rose cried as she fell to her knees. Ulster reached out for her, grabbing hold and keeping her steady as the entire world tilted to one side like they were on the bridge of a ship in the midst of stormy waters. "Tell me!"
"You've upset her," Ulster said, mouth bent low against her ear as he curled himself around her protectively. "And that means Court."
"What?"
"Don't let go!"
Rose screamed as the ground dropped from beneath them and they fell.
The only thing connecting her to any sort of up and down was Ulster's hand in hers as they fell spinning through the air, a scream ripping from her lungs as they plummeted. In the back of her mind, she felt Zoe pressing against her in response to her distress, but fear blinded her, chasing from her mind everything except the terror of the fall. Even forming Zoe's name was too much for her, everything blurring around her before she was twisted the right way round and dropped heavily into a wooden chair in the middle of a large, expansive courtroom, pain spreading out from the back of her thighs and into her hips.
Around her, a terrified silence consumed the room.
She twisted to take in the rows and rows of people that rose high above her, thousands of faces staring down at her, blank expressions hiding their fear. She was willing to bet that the number of spectators matched those who were still alive in their stasis pods all over Krakov, and she breathed brokenly in an attempt to catch her breath from the fall and painful stop. Feeling flooded back to her hand, skin prickling as blood rushed into her fingers, when Ulster released it.
"What is this place?" Rose asked, chest heaving. "Where are we?"
"Court," Ulster said, tightly, face frozen in a fearful rictus. "This is Court."
"An' what's that when it's at home then?"
"This is where Momo punishes us," he said, eyes darting around. "Make sure that we remember who's in charge."
"Punish you how?"
The line of his throat moved with a hard swallow, and his eyes met hers, stealing the breath from her lungs at how frightened he was. The pads of her fingers pressed into the hard wood of her chair in an effort to ground herself, closing her eyes as she began to chant Zoe's name over and over again in her mind, hoping to call forth her sister like a protective spirit – or a malevolent one, she didn't care, she just wanted her sister.
Zoe, Zoe, Zoe, Zoe, Zoe, Zo-
The loud boom of a trumpet made Rose's eardrums ache and her eyes snap open as everyone rose to their feet as one. Gestured urgently for her to stand, Ulster hissed her name that cracked open on a plea; it was only for fear of something happening to him if she disobeyed that had her pushing out of her seat, rising warily and much more slowly than anyone else. Down a faded red carpet that was edged with fraying gold, Momo skipped down it with doll clutched in her hand and her tattered dress fluttering around her translucent thighs. To Rose's eyes, she looked like a child resurrected from the dead and then left in the strange, half-human form it had crawled out of the grave with.
"Be seated," Poona called, the face floating behind Momo as she took her seat on a throne that was too large for her, forcing her legs to jut out.
Everyone sat back down, and there was half a minute of shuffling until everyone was situated and the heavy, fearful silence grew pronounced once more. For a long time, Momo didn't speak. Wilfully inattentive to the fear that was sparking in the air, she brushed the hair on her doll and readjusted its dress before tiring of it and setting it to one side, tucking it between her strange body and the edge of the throne. She scooted forward and swung her legs, the back of her heels creating a sharp beat with each kick against the bottom of the throne.
Ulster flinched in time with the sound.
"We have a visitor," Momo said on a giggle that carried on an echo. "Rose Tyler."
Rose turned her face to the ground, throat sticky with fear, and raised her hand, giving her fingers a small, nervous wriggle in greeting. "Hello."
"Be quiet," Momo snapped, tears swelling into her large eyes that seemed to grow in size. "Only I get to talk! Not you!"
"Just sayin' hi."
"She wants to kill me," she accused, heels pausing their abuse on the throne. "She came here to kill me because she's horrible and mean."
"That's not true," Rose protested before gasping as her breath was knocked out of her. Restraints appeared from thin air and wrapped around her chest, squeezing and making the blood rush to her head; her fingers tore desperately at the restraints and they loosened. She surged forwards, sucking in desperate air. "Stop it!"
"I said be quiet!"
"I'm here to help," she snapped, temper flaring, pleased her voice carried as well as Momo's. "I'm here to help you all wake up. Krakov is safe now. I just need to –"
She was cut off mid sentence. Her eyes widened as she tried to move her mouth, unable to shift her jaw, and her hands shot to her face and touched. The tips of her fingers pressed against where her mouth should be but there was nothing. It was gone. Only firm flesh and muscle greeted her touch, and a scream echoed in the sealed chamber of her mouth, eyes flashing with fear and anger as she strained forwards, claustrophobia sweeping over her. Panic made her chest surge and nostrils flare, colour sweeping over her face, before Ulster dug his nails into her arm to calm her and keep her seated. Momo giggled, bouncing up and down on her seat, clapping her hands together as though Rose's suffering was the best thing she had ever seen.
ZOE! ZOE! ZOE!
Along the connection, she felt Zoe struggling to reach her, something blocking the path. Feeling the force with which Zoe was fighting to get to her helped to calm her down, the scream dying in her throat.
"Nobody gets to leave, Rose Tyler," Momo sang. "This is their home. No one needs stupid and smelly Krakov. Not when I give them everything they need. They're happy with me. Aren't you all happy here with your Momo?"
In unison, the people spoke. "Yes, Momo."
Rose stared, beginning to understand that they were either brainwashed or simply so filled with ingrained terror that they couldn't imagine fighting against Momo. She knew that feeling. Jimmy Stone was her Momo and she knew how preferable it was to not fight back; she always knew what Jimmy would do to her within the confines of their relationship, she didn't know what he would do if she tried to leave. That uncertainty sent fear trickling through her even years later, thousands and thousands of lightyears from home where the name Jimmy Stone would never be spoken. She understood why the Krakovians didn't fight back, they had been trained not to.
"See?" Momo smiled down at Rose. "We don't want you here."
Rose screamed at her, fear giving way to anger. The pressure against the side of her mind where Zoe was trying to reach her was making her nauseous, and the sudden thought of what might happen if she threw up without a mouth made her push back hard. Zoe retreated, pulling back only so the pressure eased but she remained there, hovering behind whatever obstacle separated them.
"Momo..." Ulster said, slowly and carefully. "Please. We've been in here fifty years longer than we were meant to. We're losing people every day. We can't keep this up forever. Let us go. Please."
Momo tilted her head to one side and examined Ulster closely: his hair was white when it had once been only sprinkled with signs of advancing age, and his shoulders were slumped under the weight of life within the simulation.
"No," she said, and his eyes flickered shut. Her voice rose to address the audience. "Mr Pren wants you all to leave me. He wants to toss me to aside like I'm nothingafter everything I've done for you. That's not very nice, is it?"
"No, Momo," the Krakovians chorused.
From the shadows beneath the throne, emerging from either side of the carpeted stairs, two clowns stepped out and made their way towards Rose and Ulster, their shoes squeaking as they walked, the noise amplified by the silence in the tent. Next to her, Ulster made a low, pained sound as they descended on him, seizing him under the arms; Rose shot to her feet, grabbed the arm of the nearest clown and yanked, receiving a sharp, throbbing pain across her jaw was her reward. She hit the ground, blood trickling from her nose, forced to watch as the clowns dragged Ulster off, his feet dragging impotently across the ground, leaving tracks in the loose mud behind him.
She drew her hand under her nose and stared at the streak of crimson blood, amazed that she was in pain. Dreams don't hurt, she thought, dazed, and pushed herself up only to come face to face with Zoe.
"Rose?" She asked, eyes widening at the sight of mouth. "Oh my god, what happened?"
Rose threw one word at her translucent sister with all the strength she had in her – HELP!
"We'll pull you out," she promised, turning as though talking to someone. "Rose. Hang on, we're com – AH!"
Zoe disappeared with a scream, Momo stepping through where she had been, and Rose fell back into her seat. Closer and closer Momo came until her flat-nosed face pressed against hers, cold sweat trickling down her back as her large eyes stared into her.
"That was naughty," she chastised, reaching up with long, skeletal fingers to touch the side of Rose's temple where the recall device was embedded. There was a sharp shock of electric that hurt and then Momo was peeling the device from her skin and crushing it to dust between her skeletal fingers. "I told you, Rose Tyler. No one gets to leave." A slow smile stretched her face apart. "At least not alive."
Her cold giggle bouncing around the tent, madness seeping into the air, and she bounced back to the throne where she threw herself into her seat with excitement spilling from her. Legs folded under her body, she leaned forward, eyes bright as she took in Ulster's kneeling form, a lion pacing back and forth in front of him, shaking its mane on a rumbling growl, the two clowns holding him in place.
Momo, too excited to sit still, jumped up onto her throne so that she stood upon it, feet placed on either arm rest, arms flung out wide.
"OFF – WITH – HIS – HEAD!"
Horror crashed through Rose as the lion's jaw gaped widely before it wrapped around Ulster's head and bit down in the pressing silence.
She screamed.
Outside the simulation
"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!"
"Hold still."
"Stop shouting."
"I'm not," the Doctor said, forcing Zoe's hands from her head, her skin slick with sweat and colour drained from her face. "Keep your eyes shut. This'll help, just give it a minute." He took her jaw and applied a small amount of pressure so that it popped open, setting a painkiller on her tongue that dissolved into the saliva. Unable to stay and make sure it worked, he reluctantly left her in pain and hurried over to Jack. "What's the situation?"
"Rose is fine, he's dead," Jack said, bluntly, scanning the stasis pod in front of him. "A massive dose of epinephrine went through him before he died, and his body released a large amount of oxygen and energy – way too much for just lying here. It put too much of a strain on his heart."
"A heart attack then."
"And an aneurysm," he said. "But I don't think this is a coincidence. Look at him, does he look familiar to you?"
The Doctor looked down at the grey-haired corpse. "It's the hologram man."
"The system's fighting back and Rose is in trouble," Jack said, eyes flashing urgently. "We need to pull her out."
"Not yet," Zoe said from behind them, hunched over and squinting against the light of the room. She heaved herself forwards and leaned heavily on Ulster Pren's stasis pod. "She's in trouble, definitely, but the system threw me out like I was nothing. I can't feel Rose any more. I think it destroyed the recall device."
"Shit," the Doctor swore before glancing at her, reaching up to curl his hand around her upper arm. "How are you?"
Her head felt as though it had been cleaved in two and she was so dizzy that the only thing keeping her upright was the fact that Rose needed her. Her vision was blurred and she felt that she was half a minute away from upending the contents of her stomach onto her shoes; she was also coated in a thin sheen of sweat that rapidly cooled in the refrigerated air, sending chills and shivers through her.
"Fine," she lied. "Do we have a plan?"
"Not really," Jack admitted, scrubbing the back of his neck. "How did the recall device even break?"
"Massive electrical feedback," the Doctor said, eyes lingering on Zoe before he moved them away to focus. "It ran along Rose's neural network and is probably the thing that pushed Zoe out. It's why you feel so bad."
"It's like I touched an electric wire with my brain," Zoe said, swallowing hard. "But there was something there. I couldn't see it but I knew it was there. Rose is in trouble because this thing – whatever it is – it took her mouth."
The Doctor and Jack turned to stare.
"It took her what?" Jack asked.
"Her mouth," she repeated. "Her face was normal but where her mouth is supposed to be there was just this dome of solid flesh. She was standing in the middle of a tent, like the kind that you might see at a circus or a funfair where all the big performances take place. You know, the ringmaster, acrobats, lions, those sorts of things."
"That's weird," the Doctor decided. "The system knows that she's there to wake everyone up but it's fighting against her. Why?" They looked at him, waiting for him to answer his own question. "No, I do actually need suggestions here. Why would a system fight back against her?"
"That's what it's been programmed to do," Zoe suggested, drooping over Ulster's pod. "Rose isn't Krakovian so it recognises her as a threat."
"Or Rose's entrance into the simulation has disrupted something," Jack said. "Maybe disorganised things and, again, she's perceived as a threat, like she's a piece of bad code that needs to be dealt with."
"Maybe, maybe." The Doctor nodded his head, forehead creased in a frown. "What if she is viewed as a threat, but not because of all of that. What if it's the system itself that's been corrupted?"
Zoe mopped at her forehead with a the edge of her jacket, sweat rolling off the faux leather. "Explain."
"It's not bad code that's the problem, it's a bad environment," he continued. "Think about it. This isn't the central system, this is just one of the satellites. If the centre is closer to the nuclear fallout then there's a possibility that the nuclear waste's infected the computer systems just enough that it's effecting the operating system."
"I've heard of chemicals altering computer systems before but not radioactive ones," Jack said. "Wouldn't it just eat away at the wires?"
"Maybe, maybe not," he said, a thought striking him. "Outside, near the entrance, I saw this viscous liquid soaking into the soil. If it's in the soil then it won't be directly touching the wires, it'll just be surrounding it, releasing small amounts of toxic energy at a time."
Zoe shifted with a grimace. "This is all well and good, but how does it help us with Rose?"
"It doesn't," he said. "But it's important to know where we're starting from. So -" he clapped his hands and strode away only to spin and face them. Lecturing mode: enabled, Jack thought, turning to share a grin with Rose only to be reminder of the danger she was in by her absence. "If we accept the hypothesis that the system's been corrupted by the toxic waste in the soil, then it's not going to act with any sort of pre-programmed logic. It's going to react defensively to any attempts Rose makes to shut it down. Why?"
Jack shrugged. "Because it doesn't want to die?"
"Exactly!" The Doctor pointed at him. "It doesn't want to die. Zoe said it herself –"
"I did?"
"Self-adapting code," he said. "It's learning and developing and it wants to be alive but because it's a simulation, it needs the minds of the pod people to keep it alive. Of course!" They jumped at his exclamation, and he spun on the spot. "Rassilon, this is brilliant. A new life's been created out of this disaster – completely accidentally but that's life for you – and it wants to survive. That's what it's fighting for."
"It's threatening Rose," Zoe reminded him. "And it killed someone just now."
"Defensively," he argued. "It thinks we're trying to kill it."
"I love a good discussion on morality just like the next person, but not when my sister's in danger," she said, the pain in her head making her sharp. "How do we get Rose back? That's our only priority right now."
He stared at her. "Of course it is. That goes without saying."
"Does it?"
"Zo –"
"Can you two save this for later, please?" Jack asked, pointedly. "Rose's vitals are settling but her heart rate is still way too fast."
"What about the TARDIS?" Zoe asked. "Can't we use her computer system to link in with this and project one of us inside?"
"It'd take too long," the Doctor said, a tight feeling in his chest that he tried to ignore. "And the risk of having the TARDIS infiltrated by this system is not something I want to consider."
The TARDIS computer system was an intricate web of coding and machinery that didn't even closely resemble what it was meant to. Already a museum piece when he stole her out of the junk yard, pushing Susan along in front of him as he looked over his shoulder for the guards, her navigation system had been knackered and her internal computer had been stripped apart and barely worked; it was a miracle he and Susan had ever got her into flight let alone off Gallifrey. They had spent months working together to repair her, stopping at ports and junk yards around the universe while trying to avoid the Time Lords on their trail. Improvising with what they had to hand, patchwork repairs had been made – and adapted over the centuries since – but while she held together brilliantly, he did worry that her computer systems weren't as protected as other TARDISes might have been, so he was a little more cautious about exposing her to an adaptive potentially vicious programme.
"Rose is on her own then?" Jack asked. "We can't do anything to help her?"
"We can't pull the people out of stasis because they're too integrated," the Doctor said. "If we shut down the power, the shock might kill them: they need to be released from the inside. With no way of contacting Rose, we can't advise her or get updates on what's happening."
"So she's on her own," Zoe said, heavily, pulling herself over to Rose's stasis pod and looking down at the form of her sister within. "We put her in there and now we've left her."
Inside the simulation
Rose stared at Ulster's body that twitched on the ground, blood spurting from where his head used to be, soaking the dried mud beneath her feet. Momo's laughter filled the room, and there was no time to react beyond blank horror when the world shifted again. She tipped forward out of her chair, hands flying out in front of her. She fell through the floor and tumbled down and down before warm grass pressed against her hands and knees, gasping when her mouth reappeared. She sucked in panicked lungfuls of air and touched her face desperately, pressing at her lips, teeth, and tongue to make sure it was actually there.
Adrenaline and fear crashed through her, making her like a leaf in the wind. Part of her believed that Ulster wasn't dead because to die in the simulation seemed impossible but she had seen so many impossible things since she met the Doctor that she knew, deep down, that Momo had executed him in the simulation and beyond.
Nausea turned her stomach, but she tightened her fingers int the grasp and breathed deeply, slowly calming until she felt in control of herself once more. Pulling herself together, she pushed up onto her knees and took in her surroundings. She was inside the funfair again, abandoned in the middle of the food stalls where people stepped around her, the music and laughter back. Beneath the cheer, she heard the strain and fear that she had missed the first time around, forcing themselves to enjoy the fun that Momo demanded they have. Getting her feet beneath her, she staggered off to the side and sat down, arms draping over her knees.
"Fuck," she muttered, looping her fingers around the back of her neck. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."
There was a small, prickling sore on her temple where the recall device had been embedded, forcing a sharp headache to drill into her skull that was as painful as it was distracting. With the device gone, there was no way to get her out of the system without going through Momo first, and, as she was all-knowing, flying under her radar was going to be near-on impossible. There had to be a way to do it though, of that she was certain – as Zoe liked to say, nothing was impossible, just improbable. Besides, Rose had seen the Doctor talk himself out of all sorts of situations, and Jack was crafty at wriggling his way out of tight spaces – the four of them were excellent at beating the odds when together, the only problem was that she was alone.
"Fuck," she said one last time, leaning into the word emphatically before she straightened up and tied her hair back. "All right, Rose, think."
If any of the others were in her place, Rose was certain they would already have solved the problem. She wasn't like them: smart, computer-minded, quick thinking; although, she knew that they would all disagree. Sometimes she felt as though she was being left behind, particularly with Zoe's change in circumstances - nearly thirty years old, a university graduate, a widow, and so much more. At least when Zoe had been normal, Rose hadn't felt as though she was struggling to keep up because Zoe would always ask the Doctor to explain but she understood more things now and Rose felt left behind again; not all the time, but enough to make her feel more than a little useless when the three of them got going on a technical or scientific conversation.
The weight of over 100,000 lives pressed down on her, suffocating her. She held her breath, cheeks puffed out, as she thought her way through the problem.
Ulster died because he had spoken to her; therefore, she couldn't expect help from anyone else – not even her friends on the outside now that her connection with Zoe was severed. The odds were against her but they had been against her months before when they were on Tolandra in the days before Jack Harkness was someone integral in their lives. Zoe and the Doctor were been taken from her and she managed to rescue them without their help; that time, she used local dissidents angry at the isolationist policies of their authoritarian government, but this time, she needed to find something that she could use to her advantage, something that would give her an edge.
Except she had nothing.
You've got a brain in your head, use it, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Zoe's said.
"I'm not clever," Rose muttered, rubbing her face. "I don't know what to do."
That's all right, it said, snidely, morphing into Jimmy Stone's cruel tones. Just sit and wait to be rescued. You're good at that.
She shot to her feet, cold sweeping over her, and she shook the shadow of Jimmy from her as she pulled Jack's coat tighter around her body. As she walked, people stepped out of her way to avoid her, their eyes not quite meeting but she felt them on her back when she passed. The signs of abuse were common to her, and she found it difficult to look at them and see herself reflected in their fear. By the time she realised that something was wrong with her relationship with Jimmy, she was in too deep; she felt as though she couldn't leave regardless of how many bruises he left on her body or how filthy he made her feel during sex because she had cut ties with Jackie and Zoe, ignoring her little sister with tears on her face when Zoe had tracked her down and begged her to come home. The shame of shutting the door in her face, listening to her sobbing on the other side of it, crawled through Rose, an old injury Zoe had long forgiven her for.
And, in the end, she hadn't left Jimmy, he left her.
She hadn't been able to break the cycle of abuse, so she didn't fault the Krakovians for not being able to either.
She walked the full circuit of the funfair and found that Momo was nowhere to be seen, though Rose imagined that she was watching, curious to see what she was doing. Climbing up the steps to the carousel, she sat herself on top of a heavy plastic horse, remembering how difficult it was to peel Zoe off the one in Rye Park when they were younger. Free for them to use as Jackie had been dating the operator for a summer before it ended badly – as most of their mother's relationships did – Rose tired of it quickly, but Zoe had loved it; she used to beg Rose to take her down there every afternoon after primary school let out. In her memory, Zoe was dwarfed by the faded horse, her little legs flying out to the side as she went round and round in circles, gurgling with laughter and delight and again, Rosie, again!
"Are you really here to wake us up?"
Rose looked to the horse next to her, a round woman with red cheeks and flyaway ginger hair was clutching at the bar, a small child with a look of blank boredom on its face in front of her.
"I am."
"Momo won't let you," she said. "Ulster...he was a warning to the rest of us, and to you too. She won't let us go easily."
"Yeah, I get that," Rose said. "But why?"
"Because without us she ceases to exist," she replied. "She's only alive because we're here. She's an amalgamation of all of us: we helped give her life. She lives because of our memories. Without them, she's nothing."
"She's what?" Rose asked, confused. "Feedin' off you?"
"In a manner of speaking," she said, kissing the top of her son's head who blinked slowly. Rose wondered if he was even aware of where he was, or if he was somewhere better in his head. "It's been so long and even though she's bored, it's better than the alternative."
"Bored?" Rose repeated. "How can she be bored? She has all your memories."
"They got old after a while," she said. "The funfair is the one that she keeps returning to because it's the most exciting but there are never any new rides, no new people, and the more people that die because she kills them or their stasis pods fail...the less memories there are to play with. She's clinging onto us because it's all she knows."
Rose shook her head. "I don't understand how she killed Ulster. This is a dream, an' that lion just..."
"A chemical reaction," she told her. "When fear and adrenaline run through you, it releases chemicals into your body that can shut down your system. So, Ulster's head wasn't really bitten off but the fear of it is what killed him." A smile twisted wryly across her face. "We've had a lot of time to figure things out. Too much time."
"I bet," Rose said, shoulders sagging even as an idea poked the back of her mind, looking for attention. "Why are you even talkin' to me? After what happened with Ulster I thought no one'd want to speak with me."
"It takes a while for your mind to fully integrate into the system," she explained. "She won't be able to see you clearly for a time, and we've found a way to block her, temporarily. We can't do it all at once or she'll know, but we can take some time here and there, never too long, just enough to remember what privacy is."
Rose looked at her hands. "I'm sorry. I came here to save you, but I don't know what to do."
"It's okay," she said with a small shrug as though she hadn't expected anything different. "At least we'll have new memories to walk through. I hope you've been to some nice places because they're all we've got now."
"Actually, I've been to pretty amazin' places," Rose laughed, tilting her head back to look at the faded paint on the ceiling of the carousel. "You wouldn't –" she trailed off, the faint idea coalescing into something stronger and harder until it gleamed in her mind like the Koh-I-Noor had in the Doctor's hands. "I know what to do. Shit, fuck –" her eyes darted to the child who had shifted his eyes and started showing signs of life as he watched her. "Sorry. I didn't mean – I can save you. God, I can actually save you!" She laughed, a grin stretching across her face. "What's your name?"
Alarmed by the sudden change in mood, she eyed her cautiously. "Nia."
"Nia," Rose said. "I hope you're ready to wake up."
Before the ride even started to slow, she swung her leg over the saddle of the horse and carefully timed her jump, grunting when her knees buckled and she tumbled face first into the grass, but she immediately picked herself up and waved to Nia and her son. Taking a deep breath and holding onto the hope that the Doctor and the others would be able to figure out how to save her later, she spun on the spot, Jack's coat flying around her.
"Momo, I want to talk to you," she shouted, sending people scurrying away from her, ducking into tents to hide. "Momo, can you hear me? Momo!"
Momo appeared before her, sulky. "What?"
"Let them go," Rose said, the taste of triumph in her mouth. "An' you can keep me."
Her V-slashed mouth turned down. "No. You're boring. You're only one person."
"You're wrong about me, I'm not borin'," she said, eyes gleaming. "I'm excitin'. I'm a traveller in space an' time. I travel through the universe visitin' alien planets an' savin' people from trouble. I've met all sorts of people an' seen things you can't even begin to imagine. You ever heard of a planet called Drana?" Momo shook her head, silent. "It's got purple oceans an' mermaids. I went there for a picnic only a few weeks ago. New Earth? I was there an' had to run through a hospital because some cat nuns were experimentin' on people. Charles Dickens? Met him an' some ghosts. The Face of Boe? Oh, we're old mates me an' Boe. Tolandra? A planet drippin' in jewels an' I helped stage a prison break. You think I'm borin', Momo? You've never been more wrong about anythin'. I'm the most interestin' person you're ever goin' to meet, an' my memories are yours if you let everyone else go."
Momo stared at her, mouth gaping to reveal the code swirling within. "Are you telling the truth?"
"Yes," Rose said, shoving her hands into the pocket's of Jack's coat to keep the tremor from Momo's eyes. "I'm from a planet called Earth in a completely different galaxy to Krakov. I've seen things that'll you keep you entertained for centuries, an' it's all yours if you just let everyone else go."
She hesitated before shaking her head, exactly as Rose expected. "No. I want it all."
"You can't."
"I can too!"
"All right, then, I'll kill myself," Rose bluffed, watching it land on Momo and the slight widening of her eyes. She was hungry for new experiences, and Rose knew that she had her. "I'll hang myself from the nearest ride an' you'll never get my memories. You'll be stuck here with all the same experiences, an' no one else'll come because my friends will make sure that this entire planet is quarantined. You'll live forever but only with the memories an' experiences that you have now...or, you accept my offer."
Momo leaned forward, wanting, but she remained hesitant. "How do I know this isn't a trick? You might be a big fat liar.""
"You don't, but it's not an' I'm not," Rose said. "You're too smart for me. I can't get out of here if you don't let me go. My friends won't risk killin' me, so they won't pull me out, which means I'm stuck here. It's like you said, no one leaves alive." She stepped closer, desperate not to overplay her hand. "But everythin' I know, everythin' I've lived, it's yours. All you need to do is let these people go."
Momo thought about that before peering suspiciously at her. "What if you're lying?"
Dammit, she thought, impatience running through her as she thought quickly. "Can we test my memories? Just the two of us, so you know I'm not lyin'?"
Her mouth moved unpleasantly, but Momo eventually held out a slender, delicate hand that Rose took in hers. Around them, the scenery started to fade, the funfair melting into the darkness that left Rose and Momo alone together.
"Give me your memories," Momo demanded, a petulant, hungry child. "Now."
"Okay, okay," she said, tongue wetting her dry lips. "I know the perfect one. How do I...?"
Momo rolled her bulbous eyes. "You think, Rose Tyler. It's not hard."
Rose stilled her face and closed her eyes, heart beating heavily in her chest, not sure if it was going to work. Pulling to the forefront of her mind a scene that haunted her, she tried to find a way to stop what had already happened. It took a while to remember the details – the smell, the noise, the fear – but when she opened her eyes she was there again in the thick, dense jungle of Mondas, watching as the Cybermen made their way through the trees. In front of her, Jack grabbed Mickey and shoved him deeper into the jungle, and Rose caught sight of herself, her blonde hair disappearing around thick vines, shouting for her mother who stumbled and fell. Behind her, out of view, the Doctor was yelling for Zoe, his throat opening on raw fear that made Rose's heart pound even though she knew what was happening there.
At her side, Momo was awed, her strange mouth open. "Where are we?"
"Mondas," she said, swallowing against the dryness in her mouth. "It doesn't exist any more. It was destroyed, a long time ago."
A long, pale finger pointed. "What's that?"
The Cyberman turned its blank, terrifying gaze onto them, and fresh fear shot through Rose. "That's a Cyberman. Why –" her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. "Why don't you go say hi?"
"Is it going to be my friend?"
Shame slashed through Rose at what she was doing. Momo looked at her with wide, innocent eyes, her loneliness broadcasting from every part of her, but there was an entire species of people that were counting on her.
"Yeah, Momo, it's going to be your friend," she lied with a smile that crinkled her eyes.
Momo beamed and skipped off, her dress sticking to the back of her thighs in the humidity, doll held in one hand as she approached the Cyberman. Rose watched as she stopped in front of it, the memory becoming a new, living thing.
Be like the lion, be like the lion, Rose thought, desperately.
"Hello, I'm Momo."
The Cyberman lifted its hand and placed it on top of Momo's head, a small giggle slipping from her mouth, electricity sparking along its fingertips.
"DELETE."