Chapter 34.
The Cold Light of Day.
Grace was not allowed to walk. She was carried down the hall by one of the hulking red aliens, and the smell of being bundled up under his arm reminded her of a bog. He was silent, walking dutifully behind the Curator, even when she tried to bite him.
Despite the lack of answers she had gotten so far, she kept trying. "What do you want? What did you call me? What does that mean?"
The Curator stopped by a metal elevator, waving his hand over a light panel on the wall. He had an accent similar to the one shared by the Doctor and Rose, but his voice was lofty, like he was above everything. "You will join the exhibit in the third quadrant."
"But what does that mean?"
"You will be preserved." He glanced at her, still seeming delighted. "It is the responsible thing to do. You are a rarity, and not even fully grown, you are invaluable."
"I'm human! How many times do I have to tell you that?"
He didn't respond, and she realized it was useless to try and convince him. His little machine had done the talking. But what did it mean? She was sure she had heard the word before. Lightbringer. Perhaps the Doctor had spoken of it.
She only knew of one creature that seemed sure of what she was.
She asked the Curator.
"What am I?"
"Poor little lost creature." The Curator patted her on the head. "It is surely a travesty, to see one of you so isolated. But you shouldn't worry. Yes… I have just the place for you."
Grace didn't like the way he said that. She imagined being pressed and preserved like the ancient butterflies in her university. Everything he said made him sound more sinister.
The elevator doors opened and the alien carried her inside, setting her on her feet in the corner and then standing so she barely had room to move. Grace peeked around him as the doors closed, getting a last look at the hallway before the elevator started going down.
"Oh, you must see the museum." The Curator was beaming. He had his little device out and he seemed to be flicking through things on the screen. "I consider it the most definitive collection of Lightbringer history in the universe. It has not even been announced to the public yet. But this… this changes everything."
The elevator plummeted for several minutes, until Grace started to feel a little strange. When it finally stopped, the Curator was the first out, and the alien picked her up again. She squirmed around, getting glimpses of a massive open area, and a series of cages with living creatures in them. She only had a moment in the cave before it vanished, and her face was squished into a rough leather seat. The alien grabbed her and pulled her upright, allowing her to sit up.
The Curator was across from her. He put his device down and waved around. "Welcome to the Network. It goes through the whole planet."
It was a cave, as she had imagined, but it was nothing like anything she had ever seen. The ceiling was jagged, arching up above, sometimes ending in darkness. Huge pillars of stone ran along the dirt road they were driving down. Behind them, the cages were rapidly disappearing, and on all sides there was only darkness. No lights. No other vehicles. Just darkness.
"I think you will be very glad for how I have pieced together your history." The Curator went on, insisting on talking to her. "It was an honor, of course."
Grace lunged for him, but the red alien batted her into her seat like she was made of feathers. She hit the leather so hard the breath was knocked out of her.
"Calm down. It's always the little ones, isn't it?" The Curator looked at his bodyguards, nodding to himself. "Anyway, as I see it, you seem to have no concept of what you are. Is that true?"
Grace ground her teeth. That was true for both her species and her life. She had two lives interacting in her head – false memories, real memories. The difference was unclear.
He made a clicking sound with his tongue. Did he have a tongue?
"I can remedy that."
"Just let me go."
"I can't do that."
"Why?" Grace groaned. "I don't want to take your stupid tour. Just do what you're gonna do and get it over with! Or let me go."
"I choose neither of those options."
"It's an either-or. You can't choose neither."
"Hot-headed, aren't you? I suppose I can allow it, considering your youth."
"I'm really not that young."
"For a human, maybe not. But for a Lightbringer…" He checked his device again, and the truck gave a little sideways heave, almost throwing Grace out of her seat. He was unbothered by the motion.
"What does that mean?"
"I thought you didn't want my tour?"
She had the sudden urge to lunge again, but something was coming up beyond the vehicle. It was a stone shaft with an elevator tucked into it. It had the letters DMP engraved over the doors.
The alien set her on the ground beside the elevator, and the Curator waved his hand over the button again. He noticed her looking up and nodded. "We have many names for this part of the planet. We group the carbon-based sentient lifeforms together, and this one is right beside the DME, and not far from the DMG. I am sure you are familiar with the latter, since you are traveling with a Time Lord."
"W-What does that mean?"
"DMG means Definitive Museum of Gallifrey – the Time Lord home world. It has a much longer history, so the museum is several times larger than the DME."
"What about this one?" Grace motioned to the letters above them. "What does DMP mean?"
"Definitive Museum of Parrsus, home world of the Lightbringers."
Grace swallowed. The elevator doors opened. She walked in willingly, now more curious than afraid. Parrsus. She had a home world. She had a species. Were there others like her up above them? Were there answers for who she was, and what she could do?
The elevator ascended, and her mind raged with questions.
The Curator noticed. "If you would like that tour after all…"
"Yes." Grace nodded to him. "Give me the tour. Tell me everything."
When the doors opened, they were another dark grey, metal hallway, like the one in the DME. This time the Curator led her to an unmarked door, checked outside, and then motioned to one of his bodyguards. "Remove her restraints. We won't be needing them."
Grace was surprised. She had literally obliterated someone not long ago. When the vest came off of her arms she checked them for glowing veins, but there was only plain skin.
"Come with me." The Curator stepped outside, holding the door for her.
Grace followed him.
They were in the lobby of another museum. It was globe-shaped, like the Earth one, but the lights splaying the walls were very different. Instead of the blues and greens of the planet she knew, there were bright reds, intense oranges, and paler greens. Images of landscapes beyond the possibility of even her wild dreams were displayed and captioned all over the place. In royal green letters across the first arch, the origins section, were the words "Lightbringers: The Guardians of Life."
The Curator walked to the first arch, nodding. "This way."
Grace stepped into a dizzying display of the origins of an ancient planet. Videos and commentaries from scientists explained the formation and the first few million years.
"Parrsus had four moons at the start," the Curator said, his hands folded behind his back like he was teaching a lecture. "It was also within range of two stars, giving it an odd, but somewhat perfect, recipe for life. Creation myths from the planet itself claim that Parrsus was always there, since the dawn of the universe, and that the Lightbringers always existed, but modern discoveries have given us new information – and we know now that this planet was not the first, but it was certainly one of the originals, and the Lightbringers were Celestial Peoples."
"What does that mean?"
"There is no definition, but the Time Lords are among them, if you need a reference point."
Grace swallowed.
"The way that I understand it is that the Celestial Peoples each possess great power over the universe. The Time Lords were, of course, the Lords and Keepers of Time, whereas the Lightbringers were the Lords and Keepers of Life. While the Time Lords worked with the little understood Time Vortex, the Lightbringers manipulated the Dust of Creation."
Grace ran her hands over a series of plaques showing the myths of the Lightbringers. Beautiful colors displayed the origination of the universe, with Parrsus at the center, and two strange green stars twinkling nearby.
The Curator motioned to the next room. "Shall we?"
"Did that mean… did that mean they could bring things back from the dead?"
"Come along. Your answer is this way."
Grace followed him again, scanning the next series of exhibits. It was history. Stuffed animals were displayed in cases in the center. Two green stars were hanging up above.
"For millions, perhaps billions, of years, the Lightbringers, the Shapers among them, breathed life into the universe, planting the seeds – according to legend – for no less than a million species. Of course, the war with the Time Lords severely stunted their-"
"The what?"
"The war." He frowned. "I keep forgetting how little you know."
"What war? Why would they fight the Time Lords?"
"The Time Lords were very peaceful, with an innate respect for life, and a strong desire to preserve the natural order of the universe, despite their capacity for time travel. Of course they fought."
"But you said the Lightbringers gave life."
"They did. All of the legends say that Shapers could literally pull apart the components of life and rearrange them as they pleased – granting life, and taking it away. It is the latter that sparked their feud with the Time Lords."
"…taking it away…"
"Yes. You exercised that ability on one of my guards, though I've never heard of a child who could."
"I'm not a child."
"But you are."
Grace took a deep breath, turning around and around and finally finding a caption that matched her thoughts. She went to the illustration, which showed two warring cities. She had seen one of them before. She had helped the Doctor bring a memory to the front of his mind, and that city was in it. But in this picture, the other city, the Lightbringer city, was bombarding it.
"Yes, I was surprised to see you come in with a Time Lord." The Curator joined her, shaking his head. "Particularly that one. He has a long and storied history of saving lives, and the Lightbringers, as a species, are singularly responsible for wiping out billions."
"What?" It got darker with everything he said. She barely believed him.
He was grim and serious. "Yes. They were a monstrous species from the moment they originated to the day they were wiped out."
"They were… wiped out? How?"
"The Time Lords got fed up, I suppose. We have little information on that time period. But if there was one thing in the universe they loathed, historically, more than the Dalek, it was Lightbringers. But that was ages ago. We thought the species was extinct. Seeing you gave me renewed hope."
"But you said..."
"I have artifacts, and skeletons, and pieces of your home planet, but nothing more. Tell me, little one, where do you come from? How did you survive?"
Grace backed away from him, letting his words settle in. She had been curious about what she was since she was little, being clearly nonhuman, but not clearly anything else. But now she didn't want to know. She didn't want to be a part of this race. She didn't want to know that the Doctor, the only real friend she had in the world, was responsible for the destruction of her people. She didn't want to know that they deserved it. Billions, the Curator had said. Billions wiped out.
And she could not deny it, because the dog had come back to life. She had seen it in her mind and felt it stir inside, and brought it back to life.
Did the Doctor already know what she was? How could he keep this from her? If he didn't know, what would he do when he found out? The Curator said Time Lords hated her kind. They destroyed her kind. The Doctor thought life was sacred – would he kill her to protect the universe from what she could do? What could she do?
The Curator regarded her sadly. "I never knew of a Lightbringer dying of old age. Legends tells us that some of them lived for thousands of years and died in glorious combat. You are but a child. You are just beginning. You are like the little Time Lords who possess minds like no others, but are unstable because of it. Think of the damage you could do. Think of the power you could wield, with no rules or boundaries, because the keepers of those rules, the Time Lords, have perished."
Grace thought of the hallway, of the alien dissipating into dust at the touch of her hand. The Curator was right. She was dangerous. Perhaps that was why the Doctor invited her along.
"Oh, no. I know what you're thinking." The Curator was nodding, using a frustrating, calm voice. "But I know of your friend, and he is too young to have witnessed the war. Millions of years have passed, will pass. Which, again, begs the question… how did you get here?"
Grace swallowed. "I don't know. I thought you knew."
"No. And no Time Lord would ever spare a Lightbringer. So who did? Who helped you?"
Grace backed toward the next archway as the Curator approached. He was becoming more excited, more frantic, as his questions went on.
"Is there another Lightbringer? Where is it? You must tell me!"
"I don't know!"
"Foolish child!"
She thought to turn and run, but the red aliens were gathering, sensing the distress of their superior. Grace was trapped in a circle of them, with the Curator nearing. He produced a large needle with a glowing blue liquid inside.
"Seize her. The tour is over."
One alien took each of her arms, preventing any movement. Grace jerked against them anyway. "What was the point of this?"
"I thought I could draw it out of you, but I suppose it can be dissected. Same result." The Curator bore his needle, expelling a little of the liquid. It hit the carpet and sizzled right through it.
"Draw what out?" Grace careened backward, away from the tip.
"Where is the Dust? Give it to me!"
Suddenly the presence weighed down on her again.
It did not simply stir this time, but awakened all at once.
Her hands twisted of their own accord and her palms flattened on the arms of the aliens that held her. Without so much as a whisper, they became nothing. They became the air. Dust settled where they had been. Grace felt the room grow colder at their absence.
The Curator stumbled back, dropping his needle.
Grace hit her knees, and then staggered upright, pursuing the Curator. The red aliens converged on her, and every time one was close, she struck out at it – she didn't even touch them this time, and they burst away as grains of sand, sprinkling the floor.
"No! Wait! You can go! You can leave! I'm sorry!"
The Curator stumbled to a crawl, and made it to a corner, where he turned and pleaded with her. His hands were clasped together.
Grace almost walked away.
But it occurred to her that the Curator and the aliens in that room were the only ones who knew this horrible secret. They knew what she was, and what she could do, and how many she had already killed. She counted five.
Two red aliens appeared in the archway and ran for her.
Six. Seven.
Sirens sounded up above, and three human guards came from the opposite direction.
Eight. Nine. Ten.
Grace kept her thoughts locked away, but every time one of them fell, and the dust settled, she felt a stab of fear and emptiness. It was the last thing they felt. It was the end of their life.
The Curator continued to wail for his life. "I only wanted to complete my collection!"
"No…" Grace held out her hand, watching the veins pulse with that eerie green light. It was beautiful. "No… you wanted the Dust. Isn't that what you said? What does that mean?"
"I wanted… I wanted to bring my specimens back to life!"
It was something else. It had to be.
"Liar!"
He flinched. "With power like that… I could do anything."
"You want power? Do you know what I want? I just want to live. I want to be happy, just one stupid time! And you know what? The Doctor makes me happy. He's my friend."
"He will never forgive you. Look at what you have done!"
Grace placed her hand on his skull, and like the others, he became nothing. He was nothing. She felt his fear as it faded from the room.
Eleven.
And she spoke to the dust that remained.
"He'll never know."