Special thanks to Slipgate, MrDrP and gerbilHunter for their thoughts and reviews! And a bag of Jelly Babies to MrDrP for beta-reading the chapter!
Thanks to everyone for reading!
I.
"I'm sorry," Ron whispered.
He gently laid Michele down on her futon in the middle of her bedroom floor. As he went to drape a blanket over her, he thought better of it. During the summer, the apartment tended to get stuffy. And he had no idea how long she'd be asleep.
"I told you she'd be fine." Elda huffed.
Unaware that the vampire had followed him as he carried his unconscious friend to her room, Ron was understandably startled by this pronouncement.
"What's wrong with you now?" Elda asked.
"Could you please not sneak up on me like that?" Ron asked, standing up.
"I don't know what you're talking about, human."
Ron took a deep breath. "Actually, you didn't tell me that she'd be fine. You just said that she wasn't dead."
"Well, she isn't, is she?"
"Why didn't she wake up when Wade did?"
"I wasn't fully in control when I wiped her. I was with him."
"What does that mean?"
"It means because she attacked me, I was defending myself with more power than I needed."
"She wasn't—" and here Ron remembered the futility and risks of arguing with Karin's grandmother. Still, a part of him was so tempted to do so—mainly because anger felt so much better than despair. Yet, he needed information from her and did not want her to stalk off without replying (at best) or destroy the rest of the apartment (at worst). He took another deep breath. "Sorry, Elda. I meant what will happen to Michelle?"
"Like I said, she won't die."
Another deep breath. "How long will she be asleep?"
"A few hours, maybe less," she replied absently. She was inspecting Michelle's pictures of friends and family with looks of mild disgust.
He took another deep breath and then asked THE question. "How much of her memory did you wipe?"
Elda had picked up a framed picture of Michelle holding her dachshund "Peanut" who had remained stateside. "Why do you humans keep mementos of your vermin?"
Ron snapped. "Elda, I need you to tell me. Did you wipe all of Michelle's memories!"
"What?" Elda cried, dropping the picture which, fortunately, bounced on the tatami mat undamaged. "How stupid do you think I am, human?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" Ron asked heatedly.
Elda shook her head and took her own deep breath. "Do you actually believe that I would erase the entire memory of a human that is so important to my granddaughter's best friend?"
The revelation that Elda considered Kim Karin's best friend was something of a shock to Ron. He hoped his reaction wasn't too obvious.
"What is it now?" Elda snapped.
"Sorry, Elda, sorry," Ron said covering his face with both hands. When he dropped them, he was wearing what he hoped was an inoffensive expression. "How much of Michelle's memory is gone?"
"A day's worth of hours maybe less." Elda uttered these words slowly, as if she were speaking to a child.
That wasn't too bad, Ron reflected. But it wasn't great, either. Mondays were the worst days for Michelle, caseload-wise. Not only would she forget everything she'd learned, she'd forget that she had even gone to class. She'd likely wake up thinking it was Sunday evening or she'd sleep until morning. And in either case she'd think it was Monday and go to all the wrong classes. At this point Ron noticed that Elda was leaving the room.
"Hold up, got one more question."
Grinding her teeth very audibly, she slowly turned to face him. "What?"
"Why were you outside Kim's apartment tonight?" Ron asked. The question had been hovering on the edge of his thoughts ever since he recognized her laying in Kim's bed. Now that he had all the other crucial questions more or less answered, he gave voice to this one.
"To protect her, obviously." Elda seemed more than annoyed. She seemed … well, hurt. "I overheard you talking about those monsters last night underneath the bamboo tree. I figured if you two weren't going to take precautions, I should."
"Oh," Ron said after this had sunk in. "Thank you. Thank you, Elda."
"What for?" Elda asked, genuinely confused. "I failed."
Ron was trying to find the right words to explain both that Kim's abduction wasn't her fault and that he appreciated and knew that Kim appreciated what she had tried to do, but by the time he had something half-formulated, Elda had already hurried from the room.
II.
When Kim opened her eyes, there was light in her cell. It was streaming from a slot, about four inches tall and about a foot in length, that was located just below the ceiling on the left wall. She wondered if it had always been there or had been opened recently.
The next thing she noticed was the awful smell. As bad an odor as the cell had when she arrived it was so much worse now. She sat up and immediately discovered the source: the ends of both her pants legs were caked with dried vomit.
Waitaminute!
There had been no pain when she sat up. She leaned back and then, carefully, felt the area around the tear in her shirt. Anticipating a burst of pain if she touched the wrong spot, she did this with her teeth on edge. But there was nothing, not even mild soreness. Untucking her shirt, she examined her wound for the first time. She expected an infected gash and, at the least, a good amount of dried blood. So, she was surprised to see only a thin blue streak of raised skin around her bellybutton. It was ugly but could have been much worse. Gingerly, she touched it. There was some soreness on the cut itself, but otherwise it seemed fine.
She gave a relieved sigh and then refocused on the pants sitch. With no source of water in the amenity-free cell, there was no way to clean them.
Fine.
Kim began to work the fabric of her left pants leg back and forth until it started to rip. Then, as carefully as she could, she tore off the stained end. She did the same to her right pants leg and then tossed the filthy ends into a far corner of the cell. The improvement in air quality was almost immediate. However, she hadn't done a perfect job. Her right pants leg had ripped lengthwise up to the knee. And she had gotten some of the sick on her hands.
"Hello!" she called toward the slot. When she didn't receive a response, she called again, louder. Again, there wasn't a response. Kim sighed and gazed through the floor.
A shadow fell over Kim's figure. She looked up, and there was someone staring at her from the slot.
"What is it, War Criminal?" asked a brusque female voice.
From the thin opening, it appeared to Kim that the Lorwardian woman had orange skin and yellow eyes. "I'd like to wash my hands," Kim said.
The woman stared at her for a long while but said nothing.
Guessing her visitor hadn't heard her, Kim repeated her request.
The woman closed her eyes and shook her head. "There is but a half dormin until you meet Justice, War Criminal."
"I don't know what that means," Kim said.
"Soon. It will be soon."
"Okay," Kim nodded. "What does it mean to 'meet Justice'?"
The woman was silent for a bit. "You will be terminated."
"I see," Kim replied. She looked at the floor briefly and then looked back to the Lorwardian. "I would still like to wash my hands."
"There is no point, earther," the woman replied in a softer tone.
"The point," Kim explained patiently, "is that I would like to wash my hands."
The woman was quiet for over a minute. Finally, she said, "Very well. I will provide a cleansing sheet."
"Please and thank you," Kim smiled.
III.
"So, is the Doctor going to … I don't know, beam in?" Wade asked.
"Like in Space Passage?" Jack asked with a bemused smile. "Oh no, this'll be much more impressive."
Ron walked leadenly through Kim's fractured door frame.
"Don't worry, Ron," Jack said clapping his shoulder, "the Doctor will be here shortly."
"How's Michelle doing?" Wade asked
"Sleeping. I think she'll be okay."
"Maybe we should call an ambulance," Wade suggested. "When she fainted, she might have hit her head. She should be checked for a concussion."
"She didn't hit her head," announced Elda sullenly. She was sitting awkwardly on Kim's bed.
"Are you sure?" Wade asked.
"Of course, I'm sure!" she snapped. "I was there when it happened."
"Oookay," Wade said, shooting a worried look to Ron.
"She'll be fine, Wade," Ron said encouragingly. His smile was weak.
To break the tension Elda's last statement had generated, Jack attempted to change the subject. "So, Ron, when you and Kim met the Doctor, what did he look like?"
"Uh, he looked like the Doctor," Ron shrugged. "Funny haircut, dressed very laid back, played a flute … I mean, a recorder."
"Hmm," Jack said thoughtfully, "I don't believe I've met that version."
"Version?" Ron asked, "What do you—"
"Do you guys hear that?" Wade interrupted.
An odd noise began to fill the room. The wheezing, groaning sound rapidly got louder. As it did, flashing lights began to appear in the corner of the room nearest to where the wall had been.
"Here we go boys!" Jack announced happily. "Man, I forgot how much I love this sound."
Wade stood, and he and Ron stared transfixed at the corner as both the sound and the lightshow increased until an object materialized. There was a thud, and the room went silent.
"That's it," Ron breathed with the beginnings of a smile. "That's the Tardis."
"It's … a box," Wade said with a note of disappointment.
"That it is, Mr. Load. That it is," Jack favored him with a broad smile.
"What is a 'Police Call Box'?" Wade asked after reading the wording on the top of the object.
"I think the Doctor explained what it was," Ron said, "but I wasn't paying attention."
One of the doors to the box opened inward, and a young woman poked her head out. "Ron? Ron Stoppable?" she smiled.
"Uh, yeah?" Ron said, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Come on!" she waved him in.
"Hey, Yaz!" Jack announced.
She turned in his direction and gave him a dry look. "Hello, Captain Cheesey."
"Hah, you remember," he smiled.
"I guess you can come, too," she sighed.
Jack gripped Ron's shoulder and whispered, "I have been dying to meet this version."
Ron shook off the confusion the word 'version' once again generated and asked, "What about Wade?"
"Oh my gosh!" Yaz said. "I'm so sorry, Wade! I didn't expect you to be here. Of course, you can come."
"I should probably stay here," Wade said.
"Are you sure?" Yaz asked, disappointed.
"Wade?" Ron asked.
"Someone should look after Michelle," he explained.
"Yeah, I guess so," Ron nodded.
"If you can, keep me posted with the Roncom," Wade said. "I'll do whatever I can to help."
Ron gave Wade a hug and was hugged in return. "I'll get her back safe, Wade."
"Human, you're insane if you step inside this thing," Elda said, eyeing the Tardis with extreme suspicion.
"Maybe," Ron admitted.
She silently regarded him for a moment. "If you know what's good for you," she said finally, "you won't come back without her."
He gave her a slight nod and replied sadly, "I know."
After he followed Jack into the Tardis, the door shut. Almost immediately, the sound and light show commenced. A few seconds later, the box vanished, and the sound faded away.
After a minute of intensely awkward silence, Wade began, "Well, I guess …"
"Leave the room," Elda ordered without looking at him.
IV.
Kim was in the middle of stretching exercises when she heard a commotion outside her cell.
"The War Criminal is wanted," announced a gruff voice.
"It is too soon," spoke the Lorwardian that Kim had begun to think of as her guard.
"The Synod commands that the War Criminal be brought."
There was silence and then the slot in the left wall vanished and the wall itself slid open. Next to the orange female guard stood two green male Lorwardians dressed much like the two who had escorted Kim from the courtroom cave. However, they were not the same duo. The one on the left had a diagonal scar across his face. The one on the right had an eyepatch.
"Stand," ordered the scarred one.
Kim did as she was commanded.
The Lorwardian with the eyepatch snapped his fingers, and panels from the cell's walls formed restraints that quickly bound Kim's hands and feet. As she floated out of her cell, she glanced at her guard and told her, "Thank you."
Kim was escorted along the narrow hallway, a guard in front and a guard behind. It was hard for Kim to orient herself, but she was pretty sure she was being led in the opposite direction from when she was brought to her cell. Dingy and dull, the hallway reminded her of the corridor on the ship. However, as they proceeded, she noticed significant differences. Multiple pipes were running along the ceiling. Sporadically, steam would escape one. At one point, Kim felt a drop of liquid hit her head. As to what these pipes contained, she couldn't hazard a guess. However, they seemed to multiply the further they went. In addition, the hallway was at a slight incline. And this incline gradually grew steeper. It got to the point that her head was even with the leading guard's waist and the trailing guard's head was even with her waist. Since she was floating, it was no burden for her. But what if the guard in front of her lost his footing and slid backwards? She couldn't imagine what madman would design such an impossible corridor.
It's like I'm in a steampunk Alice in Wonderland.
This mental comment didn't make her smile, not that much could under the circumstances. Rather, it depressed her. She recalled how much Ron hated the Lewis Carroll Alice books. And why he hated them. And this put her in mind of THE WORST THING. She shook her head and tried hard to focus on something, anything else.
Then she noticed an umber glow about thirty yards ahead that reminded her of the Lorwardian sky.
Are they taking me outside?
The glow gradually became brighter and seemed to cover everything. And suddenly, the trio was standing/floating at an even level within a blinding radiance. Unable to shield her eyes, Kim blinked and squinted repeatedly until she could see clearly.
However, it wasn't the Lorwardian sky they were standing under. Rather, there was a slightly opaque surface hovering high above them and beyond it was the sky. Kim assumed it was made of the same substance as the 'bubble' that shielded the hover port. Then Kim looked down and realized they were traversing across a walkway located in the middle deck of a vast stadium. There were small groups of Lorwardians of all hues already filling the tiers of seating both above and below them. Looking down to ground level, Kim found, instead of a playing field, only more rows of seating. These too were filling with spectators.
And then her eyes fell upon the focal point of the stadium, the very heart of any would-be spectacle. Not fifty feet from their present position was a large disc-shaped platform, tangentially connected to the walkway by a handful of thin, evenly-spaced supports. And in the center of the disc was a device. Covered in brightly-colored pictograms she couldn't hope to decipher and constructed from materials that she had never seen; the object was at once completely alien and unmistakable. It was a guillotine.
Kim released a sigh that seemed to empty all the air from her lungs. Her head sank.
A second later, she raised it again. She stared fixedly at the device and kept staring at it even as the guards walked her past the disc-shaped platform and led her toward a large ornate door at the far end of the walkway. She was staring so intently at the device that the rear guard ordered her to keep her eyes straight ahead as they neared the door.
Once they reached the door, the guards stopped with Kim floating between them. As they waited, Kim's eyes traced the sky, or, at least, the sky as seen through the shield that was sheltering them from it. She absently noticed in the distance a wisp of a funnel extending from the base of the giant green storm cloud. She watched as it languidly moved from right to left on the horizon. And then she noticed that the peak of the only visible mountain seemed to be in the funnel's path. With renewed focus, she wondered if there was a monument atop the mountain. A monument that would be crossed by the 'Eye.' Her thoughts were interrupted as the doors began to part and disappear into the sides of the building. The interior of the revealed room was a cluster of shadows.
"Bring her," thundered a voice from within.
The lead guard stepped into the room, and Kim was pulled inside after him. The rear guard remained outside, and the doors closed.
For what seemed the hundredth time that day, Kim found herself adjusting her eyes to a sudden light change. When they cleared, she found herself in a surprisingly cramped room. On the far end was what appeared to be a small viewing deck or patio with an unbroken line of sight to the device. Along the left-hand side of the room was a disparate collection of what she guessed to be furniture. However, the irregularly-shaped grey lumps could have been anything. On the right side of the room was a long narrow desk composed of a dull mineral, parallel with the wall. Seated behind this desk and giving her glances that ranged from apathetic to withering were the three judges from earlier. The blue judge sat at the edge of the desk closest to Kim; his two displeased confederates had seated themselves as far away from her as possible.
Everyone was silent for a very long time. So long, in fact, that Kim once again got the odd feeling that she was supposed to say or do something before events could proceed. Finally, the blue judge's high voice broke the silence, "War Criminal, make your request."
Say what?
After a dumbfounded moment, Kim found her voice. "I do not understand."
The look of disdain this statement produced in the judge seated furthest away from her could have melted steel. The second judge showed his displeasure by slamming his fist against the desk's stone surface.
"Having defeated two of our Marauders," the blue judge explained patiently, "you have earned Tribute."
This statement only confused Kim further. Up until that moment, she had believed the reason behind her abduction and her receiving "Justice" had been her perceived single-handed thwarting of Warhok and Warmonga's invasion of Earth. And now she was being told that it had earned her a reward of some kind.
Her confusion must have been writ large on her face because the two unfriendly judges began to speak harshly in Lorwardian to the blue judge. He raised a hand, and they ceased.
"Tribute is a request prior to Justice," he said evenly. "Final meal, music, what brings you joy."
"A final request," Kim replied, "before I am terminated."
He nodded.
She had no idea how to respond. If anything, a last request just seemed to make what little time remained more fleeting. Even if she felt like eating (and she so didn't) and was able to digest Lorwardian prison food, each bite would just mentally bring her closer to the end of the meal and to her end. Music, same sitch. The entire time she was listening she'd be anticipating the last note. As for "What brings you joy," she so wasn't going to explore what that meant. Still, there was something that she wanted.
The green judge at the far end of the table took his turn to impatiently smash his fist into the desk.
"Okay," Kim said, "I know what I want."
"Proceed," said the blue judge.
"I want to know why you believe I am a War Criminal."
The eruption this caused from the two far judges was so violent that Kim's guard made a defensive motion. Only when he pointed his spear in their general direction did they retake their seats.
"Believe?" the blue judge said shaking his head. "You are a War Criminal." She could sense that even this judge's patience with her was starting to fray.
"But why?" Kim pleaded to him. "I honestly do not understand. I thought you were angry because I defeated Warhok and Warmonga. I really don't know why this is happening, believe me!"
The look he gave her was one of stone. However, she continued to stare right back at him, and, eventually, he looked away. "Very well."
The two other judges began speaking harshly to him in Lorwardian again. He raised his hand and pointed to the door. Grumbling, each stood up, brushed rudely past her guard, and waited impatiently for the doors to open so they could exit.
"You are excused," the judge told her guard, and he, too, left the room.
Once the doors closed, he shot her a fierce look. "You had better not be lying, earther."
She shook her head.
He snapped his fingers, and a screen, about a quarter of the size of her family's television in Middleton, descended from the ceiling. "Four decadormins ago, one of our scout ships intercepted this transmission from your planet." He turned brusquely to face the wall, and a silent video began to play.
When it had finished, Kim was reeling mentally and emotionally. When she had collected herself enough to form a coherent thought, it was to give thanks that the Lorwardians had known enough to abduct her and not the fifteen-year-old actress portraying her in the video.
For a half second, she almost found it funny that the she and the Lorwardians shared the same feelings about that Warhok/Warmonga-themed promo clip. Then she realized that wasn't true. They didn't feel the same about the clip. Not at all.
"Do you deny responsibility?" the judge demanded shrilly. "For this slanderous, mocking propaganda!"
"No," Kim said without hesitation. "I take full responsibility. It was all my idea."
He nodded. And then he asked, "Are you still confused as to why you are a War Criminal?"
"No," Kim said.
He smiled thinly.
"But it doesn't say much for Lorwardian culture, does it?" she continued.
He stared at her dumbfounded.
"The Pride of Lorwardia must be pretty fragile," she said in a chiding tone, "if it can be threatened by something as ferociously stupid as that video."
The judge stood abruptly and snapped his fingers. Even before the doors had opened completely, he was signaling the guard.
He pointed coldly at Kim and hissed, "Take this back to its cell."
As she began her journey back to her "quarters," she again looked intently at the device in the middle of the stadium. However, she also stole a few glances at the rock formations that boarded the walkway on her left. And the several pathways that weaved among the rocks.
V.
Once inside the Tardis, Ron felt very disoriented. Instead of the brightly lit, uniformly white interior he was expecting, he found himself inside what appeared to be a cave. A room temperature, cozy kinda cave, but a cave nonetheless. The general darkness of the place coupled with the presence of several giant glowing stalactites (stalagmites?) gave him this impression.
Suddenly, the young woman who had invited them in was shaking his hand. "It's a real honor to meet you, Ron," she gushed.
"Really?" he replied. "Thanks."
"Name's Yaz. I have been following you and Kim since I was little," she smiled and then her expression turned serious. "Never fear, we're going to get Kim back."
"Cool, Yaz," he nodded absently. "Where's the Doctor?" he asked
"Talking to Captain Cheesey," she said with a roll of her eyes. "Old mates," she shrugged.
"Oh, come on!" Jack's complaining voice emanated from behind one of the glowing stalagmites.
"Sounds like the reunion's over," Yaz smiled and pulled him by the hand into the center of the console room.
It was much brighter here. In large part this was due to the ginormous glowing stalagmite, surrounded by console panels, that seemed to be growing out of the dead center of the room. Well, maybe not growing. Rather, it seemed to be going up and then going back down.
Ron was just getting adjusted to his new surroundings when a short blonde woman in a trench coat ran up to him and gave him a hug. "It's so good to see you, Ron!" She swiftly broke the hug and smiling, gave him a onceover. "My, you certainly have grown."
"Uh, yeah," he nodded. "I guess I have. G-good to see you again, too. I think."
At this point, Rufus stuck his head out of Ron's cargo pocket.
"Rufus!" the woman cried. "Look at you! You've grown as well!"
The mole-rat jumped onto the woman's sleeve, ran up her arm, and began to nuzzle her under her chin.
The puzzled look Ron was giving his pet did not go unnoticed by the woman. "You don't recognize me, do you, Ron?"
"No, of course, I do," he nodded but then shook his head. "Yeah, sorry, I don't."
"Let's see," she said scratching Rufus under his chin, "what was that charming nickname you gave me? A-ha, yes, 'MrD.'"
"'MrD?'" he asked.
"Well, I guess it's 'MsD' now," she corrected.
"Wait, y-you're the Doctor?" he stammered.
She nodded.
"Okay, let's pretend Rufus doesn't understand how that could happen …"
"Long, complicated explanation," she interrupted, "that we don't have time for right now." She took up his left hand and pulled him over to console. Flipping a switch, she produced a hologram of a star field that floated over the console.
"This is where they've taken KP," she explained, pointing to a small dot next to one of the brighter stars in the field.
"Lorwardia?" he asked.
"Correct," she nodded. "Fourth planet circling the star Bellatrex in the constellation of Orion."
"Right in the armpit of Orion," Jack added. "Where else would you expect to find the Lorwardian home world?"
"Adopted home world," the Doctor corrected.
"Really?" Jack asked. "What's their original home world?"
The Doctor sighed, "The sister planet of Raxacoricofallapatorius."
"And what's the sister planet of Raxacoricofallapatorius?" he asked.
"Clom."
"Seriously? Clom?" Jack shook his head. "So, they're really the Cloms. I can see why they rebranded."
"Yeah," Ron added with a weak laugh, "'For the Pride of Clom' doesn't have much of a punch."
Depressed by the sound of his own voice, Ron said, "I think that's the first time I've laughed in like forever."
"Come on, Ron," Jack said in an assuaging tone, "she's only been gone a handful of hours."
"Yeah," Ron nodded, "that's what I said." He rubbed his forehead absently. "So are we plotting a course there …"
Laying a hand on his shoulder, the Doctor replied, "We've been on our way since you got on board, Ron. We'll be there momentarily."
From his new perch around the Doctor's neck, Rufus gave his human an encouraging look. And a thumbs up.
VI.
Kim had only been back in her cell for maybe forty minutes when the guards came for her again.
Voices in the hallway alerted her, so she was able to remove her hand from her right cargo pocket before the door could open.
"Justice," the guard with the eyepatch announced.
"Okay," Kim replied and stepped to the center of the room.
With a snap of his fingers, her feet and hands were again in restraints.
As she floated past the orange Lorwardian, Kim shot her a glance and said, "Bye." Although the woman's expression remained fixed, Kim thought, for a second, she saw a twitch around her eyes.
Her second journey along the narrow retrofuturistic hallway was pretty much the same as her first. This time, however, she could not detect the hiss of the steam periodically escaping from the pipes. A low rumbling noise obscured it. As they continued down the hall, the rumbling increased in volume. As they began their climb up the steep incline, the rumbling became more than a noise. Even though the restraints kept her floating smoothly in mid-air, she could tell from the leading guard's gait and the shaking of the pipes above her head that the corridor was vibrating. She could well guess what was causing the commotion.
As they exited the hallway, the rumbling was indeed revealed to be the cacophony of thousands of Lorwardian voices in the now capacity-filled stadium. Instead of proceeding to the device, the guards held her back near the opening, so that she could not be seen by the crowd. From this vantage point she could just make out a platform on the other side of the disc. When she recognized the three Lorwardians on the platform, she concluded this platform was the 'patio' she had seen from the Synod's chamber room. The taller of her green judges held up his hands and gradually the crowd became silent.
Two extremely large Lorwardians, one orange and one blue, appeared on the far right of her line of sight. They were carrying what appeared to be the trunk of a tree.
Where did they find that?
Some thirty feet in length, it was the first bit of vegetation Kim had seen since she had arrived on the planet. As they marched with it to the device, Kim observed that it wasn't very thick, maybe a foot at most. When they reached the device, they proceeded to insert one of its ends through the largest of its three openings. After pushing a fair bit through, they stopped and stood back. Kim's eyes were glued to the device. Although she could see no movement, she did detect in the complete silence a slight groaning noise that went on for a while and was followed by a sharp click. A few seconds later, a large curved blade dropped from the tall crossbar and cut through the trunk with a sickening thud.
The noise from the masses in the stadium was ear-splitting. The blade was retracted to the top of the crossbar, and the two Lorwardians pushed more of the trunk through the opening. The cheering of the crowd drowned out the groaning and the click on this second practice run, and once the trunk was cut again, their pitch reached an even higher crescendo. This same cycle repeated four more times, and each time the tree was cut, the deafening din increased. At the end of the demonstration, Kim felt a few tears trickle down her cheeks. She credited them to the pain she felt in her assaulted ears.
She looked in the direction of the rock formations to the right of the pathway and realized that her view was partially blocked by a squadron of guards that were evenly stationed along the pathway's link.
"Spanking," she groused. Saying the word aloud, even if she couldn't hear it, helped keep her spirits buoyed … somewhat.
She looked back at the device and saw that the two 'tree guards' were hurling the cut sections of the trunk over the edge of the disc. Apparently, into the crowd far below. Instead of terrified screams, these violent acts were greeted with whoops and applause. After the last stump had been tossed, the stadium grew deathly quiet.
Shooting a glance to the 'patio' she noticed that the blue judge had both of his arms raised. He cleared his throat and then began to speak in the Lorwardian tongue. As he spoke his inflections grew strident and then they became shrill. Each time he paused, boos and screams could be heard from multiple points in the stadium. The speech seemed to drone on and on and although she didn't understand any of the words, Kim realized that she was recognizing some of them. And these cropped up again and again as if the speaker was trying to drive home (or belabor) a point. Five minutes into this tirade, the negative reactions from the crowd were reaching the same decibel range as the cheers produced by the 'demonstration.'
So much for having a friend at court.
Although not a shield, sarcasm was proving to be a somewhat effective balm for Kim's emotions.
The judge suddenly ceased to speak; the guards on either side of her started to move forward. Just as Kim came out of the shadows and became visible to the assembled masses, the glare bleeding through the stadium's shield momentarily blinded her. By the time she had blinked her eyes clear, she could no longer hear. The sounds of outrage her appearance generated were literally deafening.
It's not going to work. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. It's not going to work.
As the guards reached the midway point of the pathway and turned so that Kim was directly facing the device, tears were streaming down both her cheeks. It wasn't merely the severe pain the howls of rage were causing her ears. It was also because she had reflexively retreated into her mind to escape that pain. And the first thing she had encountered there was Ron. Ron and THE WORST THING.
Suddenly, she realized that instead of the full roar of the crowd, she was hearing it's dying echo. Everything was silent again. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the profile of the blue judge, his arms raised. If 'Justice' followed the same pattern as the 'demonstration' had—utter silence before the eruption of sadistic joy, there was still a chance.
The guard to her left snapped his fingers and her restraints were gone. She landed unsteadily on her feet.
Here we go.
In the instant before her guards could grab her arms, Kim collapsed to the ground in a fetal position.
The guards hesitated for a few seconds, but then swiftly picked up her limp form. Each one held her firmly by an arm. Her head lolled about on her neck and eventually fell between her shoulders. The guards stepped over the thin chasm between the pathway and the disc and carried her directly to the device. When they reached it, they lowered her gently, so that she was kneeling right before its three openings. One guard held her steady while the other lifted the piece of the device that contained the upper portions of the three openings. He adjusted the sizes of the openings to fit a person of her small stature. As he completed his task, Kim seemed to snap out of her daze and return somewhat to herself. She raised her head and then compliantly placed her own forearms through the lower half portions of the smaller openings and allowed the guard behind her to maneuver her head through the lower portion of the larger one. The top portion was replaced, securing her in the device. And the guards stepped away.
Kim discovered what hurt the most about being in this extremely uncomfortable position were her knees. The angle of her body coupled with the height of the openings meant that she was kneeling right on their points. It was agony, and it didn't lessen as time wore on. Fortunately, the pain wasn't enough to distract her.
She heard the device's groaning begin. She sighed.
As the groaning continued, she weakly struggled at the smaller openings.
When the groaning ceased, she quickly eased her buttered left wrist free, and slipped it into her left pocket.
When the sharp click came, she pulled out the Doctor's recorder.
In the two seconds before the blade fell, she lifted and angled the recorder so that it was lying directly across the blade's path and right above her neck.
The blade fell.
And everything went crazy.
VII.
Kim dropped her mother's flashlight. It bounced a couple of times before coming to rest near the base of her ladder.
She stood on the top rung, bathed in the shadows created by the night light. Unable to make a sound, she could only stare and count her heartbeats.
There were strangers sleeping in her bed.
Initially, she assumed that they had innocently ended up in the wrong house. And then she began to suspect that she was in the wrong house.
She didn't know how long she stood there trying to decide what to do or not to do.
Well, she had an approximate idea of how long. The song, that was coming from some unseen source, had already played through twice.
To be continued ...
