I own nothing. Least of all this.
1:14
"Really, I expected better language from you, Mr. Rikkin. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Don't you know God is watching?"
"...What have you done?"
"Oh, you know, little bit of this, little bit of that. I am the original Renaissance man, after all."
"WHAT DID YOU DO?"
"Jeesh, bit loud there Ricky. Now I'm tempted not to tell you... Oh, who am I kidding, of course I'm gonna tell ya!"
I pulled over the seat with Astrid's body in it, and then stared down at it. "...Well, I was gonna take a seat, but looks like someone already took it. Oh well."
I pushed the seat back out of view. "Sorry 'bout that."
The man was doing a pretty good impression of a corpse himself. Honestly, I was tempted to double-check I wasn't talking to a projection.
"Any who, what I did. Quite a lot, honestly. But for now, let's talk about what you did!" I held up one finger. "Firstly, you managed to lock up every single Assassin left. And when I say every one, I really do mean every. One. You would not believe how long I've gone without a good philosophical discussion. Good on you for that one. Secondly," here I dropped my first finger and moved to my second one, "You orchestrated not only the uncovering of Torchwood, but also John Lumic's plan to convert humanity to a single unthinking, unfeeling organism. Honestly can't say how I missed that the first time, it was blindingly obvious in hindsight. Just your double standard to say humanity should have access to all the information it can, and then go behind their backs and dictate what they can use said information for. Thirdly," next finger, "you found out exactly what went wrong with both ends of your scheme: namely, the Tyler family. And then you did what you do best: you arranged to have it removed. All of them, one... by... one. Even to a guy like me, that's cold. But it was the Doctor that truly scared you. You thought maybe you could control him by threatening his precious Rose, that he would willingly climb into that ice to save her, all the while planning to take them both. But because you are truly one of the dumbest individuals that has ever had the misfortune of meeting me," here I smiled, '' You forgot, just for a moment, that wasn't the real Doctor. You forgot were he was born: in fire. And so, when he took the fire within himself to burn you to the ground, you had no choice but to kill him as well. And it's here...that you did the fourth thing." My final finger went up. "What I consider to be an absolute abomination. You ripped apart their DNA; the Doctor and Rose Tyler both. And then you started changing it. Trying to make it better, stronger, faster, smarter, more obedient. And you tested every single change on Her. But you didn't stop there, oh no, that was just the tip of Project Rewrite. To top it all off, as your piece-de-resistance, you made...clones. You placed their pods directly in front of Her, just so she could see the only children that would ever be hers, grow up to take their places with you. Even I know that souls are something you don't just go changing on a whim. You went and threw out the whole manual just to write your own, and anything that disagreed with you... well, lets just say, I'm sure you have quite a lot of closets, let alone skeletons. And they say I like to play God."
His anger was visible now. He had gone from white to red rather quickly. But the whisper remained. "...What do you want."
"You. Downstairs. I dearly want to spend some good quality time together. I'll even bring marshmallows!"
"You're insane!"
"Duh! Hello! It's me! ...That being said, there is something I will gladly take as a consolation prize."
He ground his teeth."And what. Is. That."
"Your face. Specifically, the expression it makes when you realize I never answered you when you asked exactly what I had done...Ah! There it is! There! It! Is! Oh,it's even more beautiful than I imagined! You have no idea how much I wish I had a camera!"
I didn't think it was possible to show that much horror and terror on a face. Dude looked like he'd come across a scene from a Lovecraft story.
"The answer is, of course, that I haven't done a single thing. It was you. It was all you. I've always been a sucker for ironic endings. The moment this call went through, your computer connected to the one I'm currently standing in front of. Lots of little ones and zeros, flying through the air, from here to there. Relaying more than just this conversation, I'm afraid. Specifically, relaying a bunch of nasty little programs I wrote on the very nice desktops you have upstairs here. I had intended to just tear down this one little part of your Crusade fan club, but I never know when to stop, so I'm afraid I may have gone a bit overboard. Still, it's what you get for trying to control everything. Your computer is connected to pretty much every other one owned by Abstergo, and if not, I'm sure they're just a hop and a skip away. And for the past," I pretended to check my watch, "six minutes, you've been passing along my handiwork to every single thing you have hooked into it. So, in order, here's what's going to happen: every single potato you have with even a bit of data stored on it is gonna start chewing its way through every secure file it can get its teeth into; and then dump what's left of that file all over the Web. And when it finally gets knocked out by your security, the whole thing will simply jump over to the next potato, and keep chugging away. By now well over half of your computers should be permanently disabled, if not spitting flames."
Finally, he moved, desperately pressing any and all buttons he could think of to cut me off.
I clutched my heart with a shocked expression. "Really! Of all the nerve! Hanging up in the middle of a conversation! I guess chivalry really is dead. And if not, well, then it's certainly about to be. I wouldn't bother, Ricky, it was just too, too easy to jam this thing wide open. We haven't even gotten to the best part yet! Because, you see, I also managed to find those nasty little additions on each and every single one of your building projects."
That froze him on the spot.
"Oh, yes, I know all about them. How you designed them, how you hid them, and, best of all, how you controlled them. Controlled. As in, you don't anymore. I now have the ability to take the lives of each and every single person whose soul you've stolen. Each and every person you've ever sucked into this abomination of an organization. Including yourself. All I have to do is say the word, and a lovely mixture of both cyanide and the equivalent of breathable aspirin will be sprayed over every inch your empire. Extermination at its finest, I must say. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were a Dalek. One word. That's all it takes. Then, *poof*! Genocide. So tell me… would you like to know the word?"
"No ...no, no, no,..."
I snarled "Too bad! Because the word… is… Sinnerman."
And just like that, the room was filled with the piano keys of Nina Simone's classic.
"Oh, Sinnerman,
Where you gonna run to?
Oh, Sinnerman,
Where you gonna run to?
Oh, Sinnerman,
Where you gonna run to,
All on that day?"
"Well? Where you gonna run, Ricky? Cause boy, you better start. Me? I got plenty of time. Might even pop over to the West Indies, then right back again. Can you outrun the Devil Myself, Ricky boy? Time for you to find out. Now…..RUN!"
The screen finally went black. His computer had finally run out of connections, and so was forced to turn on the only one left: itself.
Despite what I had told Rikkin, I did not, in fact, have plenty of time. I was just as susceptible to death via aspirin spray as anyone else here. Everyone, that is, except for one person.
I turned and ran towards the back of the level. There was only one place in this entire accursed place that hadn't had the bug sprayers installed: the cryo-freeze chamber. Personally, I thought it was hilarious. The one room that actually contained someone all too willing to burn the world was missing the one method known to guarantee that they never would.
And it was conveniently missing an occupant.
Back on my mask came. It wouldn't hold up against the amount of poison I knew was coming, but it would work for now. Plus, I needed my visor. To not only get into the freezer, but to insure I wouldn't go stark raving mad after eight hours with my eyes open.
The outer door of the chamber slid open. A wave of cold came blasting out. I forced myself through it, then closed the door behind me. The doors I set to open again after all of the poison had settled. The tube on the left beckoned me in. In I crawled.
As the ice around me grew, I realized the Sergeant was probably going to die after all. Shame. I doubt he knew what had gone on down here. If he had a family, I would do what I could for them.
The ice closed over my visor.
I whispered one last thought. "Catch you on the flip side."
Then black filled my vision.
