Chapter 2: Picking Up the Pieces
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of all the rookie mistakes to make, she'd had to make the biggest one of the lot. Brilliant job, Dorothée McShane, she scolded herself. She remembered the last time she'd met Rose and the Doctor. The meeting had been pure chance. At least on her part. For all she knew, they'd been looking for her. Knowing the Doctor, she certainly couldn't discount that possibility.
A Caxtarid invasion force had decided to use her Rift as a handy incursion point for their assault on Earth. She'd just happened to be there in time to stop it. With a little help from the Professor and Rose, of course. Though, strangely at the time, the Rift had fluctuated wildly whenever Rose ventured close to it. It was only later that she'd found out about Rose's experiences with the Vortex.
And now she'd almost done it. Almost killed Rose, almost lost Rose's mind, all because she'd been so bloody careless. Just had Rose jump onto the bike, and a quick trip in the Vortex later, she'd thought they were safe. That was when she'd realised that something was wrong. It'd been a nerve-wracking minute - or was it a century? - before her companion had begun to respond to her.
At least now, colour had returned to Rose's cheeks and she seemed much better. Despite the fact that she couldn't tell Rose what she'd wanted to know. Of course she'd want to understand what had happened. But it was the Doctor's place to tell Rose. Not hers.
Right. Enough contemplation. She had a Doctor to save. She perched on the edge of the small coffee table and regarded her companion thoughtfully. "What've you seen while you've been here?"
"You mean besides the sights and smells of the alleys of Nova Paris?" Rose asked dryly. The other woman shrugged. "Been to the marketplace, checked out a few shops, and generally wandered. Tried to get the lay of the land, that sort of thing."
Rose picked up her mug of tea and took a sip before continuing. "An' after a while I started seein' things. Things that seemed out of sorts. No one was talkin' to each other, they were just walking. They kept on walking with these fake smiles without looking left or right, like they were on a mission or something. But the ones that did look, they did it sneaky-like. And each time I tried to say 'hello' or smile at them, they'd get nervous and look away. There were police everywhere too."
She was impressed. Nova Paris tried its hardest to present itself as a perfect utopia to the rest of the world. No crime, happy people, plenty for all. Generally that picture-perfect view of the city was hard to get past. Unless it was someone like Rose who saw that picture and immediately picked up on the under-currents.
She grinned. "Exactly. I've been here about two days. Knew something was off the moment I set foot here, but it was only after a few hours - and seeing someone get hauled off by the Constables for asking a question - that I realised what was going on. It's a classic dystopia, really. Complete with bad uniforms, cheesy slogans, and curfews. Anyone who disobeys gets thrown into gaol. Anyone who asks a question - specifically about the regime or anything else about the way of life - is arrested and, apparently, killed for their dissent."
"We've got to get them out of there! Knowin' the Doctor, he'd've asked something about the regime an' that'd get him and Mickey killed. We can't just sit here!" Rose protested, standing to pace the small flat.
"Sitting here's exactly what we've got to do, Rose. But not idle. Can't go in there with all guns blazing, we need a plan." Which would've been somewhat ironic had she been a few years younger. A plan. She would've been right on the frontlines, toting some Nitro and an attitude and trusting that that would've freed the Doctor. She'd, thankfully, grown up a lot since then. Somewhere on her armour she had a tiny personal computer...
Ah, there it was.
She shot her companion a grin. "So, Rose, ever staged a jailbreak before?"
He was too young to die. Really. All he'd wanted to do was see the universe, see what it was that made Rose go out there for himself. Prove that he wasn't a tin dog. And he wasn't! He was Mickey Smith, mechanic, companion to the last Time Lord, and a condemned man.
Bollocks. He wasn't supposed to die like this. Not now. Not here. Not in this stupid century. It couldn't work like that. It just couldn't.
He couldn't be born in the last twentieth century and die in the late twenty-first.
Right?
Somehow, he knew differently. He could die in the past or the future, on an alien planet, on the TARDIS, or on Earth. This life that the Doctor and Rose led wasn't safe. Could never be safe. He'd seen what it was like, what could happen. He'd seen the Doctor abandon them to save a French aristocrat. He'd known that it wasn't a joke. If it was a game, it was a game of life and death.
It looked like this time he'd drawn the short end of the stick. Death it was.
Not death. Not here, actually. Oh, no, they'd condemned them to 'serenity'. Well, he certainly didn't feel serene. He felt anything but.
The Doctor shook his head, forcing himself to his feet. "Serenity? Serenity! Death? What? And no trial? Where's my jury of peers? Though they'd be hard pressed to find any of those. My barrister? Where're the men in silly white wigs with too much powder and too much ego? And the accommodation leaves much to be desired. Can't say this is going on my top ten list of best places to go when I find myself condemned to death. It's a little boring, really. What about last requests? A last meal? A last phone call? How about a pardon? Or, failing that, a jelly baby?"
"Or our clothes and belongings?" he suggested. His reward was an approving look from the Doctor. Amazing, really, how much that encouraged him.
"Enough!" LeMoreau snapped. "You have heard your sentence. Serenity comes with the dawn. Enjoy your last evening on Earth." Their captor spun and walked out of the room with a flourish, trailed by his brutish bodyguard.
"Oi!" he found himself protesting. "How 'm I supposed to enjoy it when I'm locked up in here?"
As he'd suspected, there was no answer. Wonderful.
"There goes the charm and wit portion of our evening," he groused.
The Doctor grinned at him. Grinned! "Oh, never call it quits before the cow moos. Or was that the fat lady sings?"
He fought the urge to groan. Being stuck in jail with the Doctor was certainly not on his 'must-do before he died' list. Nor was getting sentenced to 'serenity'. "Got a plan?"
The Time Lord opened his mouth, closed it, looked at the ceiling, looked at the floor, stuck his hands into his trouser pockets, pulled them out, shuffled his feet, and finally met his gaze. "Nope."
Great. Just great.
They were doomed.
Was this was it was like to be a Time Lord? To feel the seconds slip into minutes slip into hours? To feel the turn of the Earth as it sped instant by instant toward the dawn? To feel each beat of her heart as it sounded out an urgent plea to save the Doctor, to save Mickey, from death?
However, despite the urgency that pulsed through her body, she pushed it aside. There would be a time to worry later. After the fact. After the rescue. There would be a time to worry about the what-ifs and could've-beens. For now she listened and learned.
According to Dorothée's portable computer - not quite the wristcomm that Jack had, but similar enough to produce a wave of loss that she'd quickly suppressed - the gaol was located in the centre of Nova Paris, occupying the space that had once been home to some of the greatest art treasures in all of human history.
It was gone now, Dorothée had sadly explained. The Louvre had been one of the first remnants of the old regime to be destroyed. All of its works of art had burned with little to no protest. To see art was to dream of a better world. To draw, to paint, to sing, to dance, and to read was to dream and imagine. All had been banned. Without objection. Without fail. To protest was to die. To ask questions was to die.
Free will had no place in Nova Paris. Questions had no place. Dreams had no place. Life, true life, had no place.
It sickened her as much as it angered her. She couldn't imagine giving in so easily. She couldn't imagine giving up her freedoms for the sake of a government. But she hadn't lived here when the famines had struck. Hadn't lived in Nova Paris when the economy collapsed. Hadn't lived in Nova Paris when the terrorists began to attack. Hadn't witnessed the slow decline of freedom in favour of safety and food and protection.
But she could imagine it. She could see it. She liked to think that she wouldn't've given in, that she would've fought the decline, would've fought the loss of personal freedom, would've fought this particular future. She wouldn't consider the other possibility, especially since it wasn't important.
Knowing the past was essential. Knowing the lay of the land was mandatory. Enough thought. It was time for action. "So how're we going to get in?"
Dorothée grinned. "There's one good thing about a totalitarian government. And that's that they like schedules. Love them. Can set watches by them. One hour before dawn, the gates of the gaol are thrown open to allow a designated few women enter the grounds. These women are paid mourners. Every daybreak, the prison guards drag out the condemned and, just before they kill them, they allow the women close. It's a gesture, or so the government says, that they do care for the people. In death, the condemned find their release. And, to let them know that they are cared for despite their faults, they let the women close. That's our 'in'. Well, that, and -" The other woman reached into one of the satchels slung at the side of her motorbike and pulled out a small, metallic sphere. "-this."
"Which is?" she asked, mystified. A ball was going to help them save the Doctor and Mickey? Sure, it could be something useful like a sonic whatchamacallit, but it wasn't something obvious. It was a bloody sphere. What good was that going to do them?
"A little something from my days as a D.K." At her mystified look, Dorothée explained. "I was a Dalek Killer in Spacefleet. Back when there were such things."
A shiver ran up her spine. Daleks.
I sang a song…
She shook off the words, realising that her companion was still talking.
"This stuff registers ten on the Richter scale. Bit more potent than my earlier attempts at explosives and, not to mention, it's got a better fuse. It's a smart bomb. I can tell it what I need and it'll do it. Useful things, really. Have about five of them readily available along with some older explosives, but they should do the job. We're gonna need a distraction, though. And that'll be my job. You're going to go rescue the Doctor and your friend and get the hell out of Nova Paris."
Yeah, right. That'd be leaving the job half done. "You know as well as I do that we wouldn't leave. Not yet. Not without sorting this particular temporal mess. This isn't how the future's supposed to go. You know it, I know it, and the Doctor knows it. He's not gonna just swan off this time. He's got to fix it."
Dorothée sighed. "I know. No matter how many times he changes his face, he's just the same as ever. But it didn't hurt to say. Just get out of the gaol. I'll take care of the rest."
She frowned. "What about you?"
"What about me?" Dorothée repeated. "I'll just hop on my handy bike and get the hell out of there. Nice and easy."
Why was it that whenever someone said that - be it the Doctor, Dorothée, or, really, anyone - she was convinced that Murphy was about to strike against them?
Oh, right.
That was from experience.
How many times could one have a 'last night on Earth'? Once? Twice? A dozen? Or, as in his case, a couple hundred? It really started lose its charm after a while.
Enjoy your last night on Earth.
What if he couldn't? Or wouldn't? What if he decided he'd rather be, oh, spending his last night on Raxacoricofallipatorious? He didn't, of course, but that wasn't the point.
There really wasn't a point. At least, he didn't know of one. Pointless, really. A pointless death all for the sake of a question. A very, very important question, but a question all the same.
Something was wrong, ergo he had to fix it. Duty and all. Time's Champion, Destroyer of Worlds, Ka Faraq Gatri, the Deceiver. Labels, names, definitions. If it was broken, he had to mend it. Especially when time was the victim.
So, here he was. Sentenced to death, again. Faced with an impossible decision, again. Separated from Rose, again. Stuck in a cell with Mickey, a…er, that was new. But, otherwise, it was the same. Exactly the same. Same, same, same-ity same.
And now he had to come up with a brilliant plan before Rose, as she was apt to do, came up with one of her own. Before she got caught or hurt or worse because she'd decided to rescue them. He knew she would try, though. She was Rose Tyler. She wouldn't sit idle in the TARDIS, waiting for them. She'd find out what had happened, maybe find some sort of resistance group along the way, and then try to stage a rescue. Alone, if she had to.
Assets. It was a good place to start. He had a chain shackled to his leg, bolted to the wall. He gave it an experimental tug. A chain firmly tied to the wall with little to no give in its length. He had a bench that had definitely seen better days - probably back in the early twenty-second century if he had to guess. And, as he tried to move it, he realised that it was bolted to the floor. There was a refuse bucket...
No.
Not even considering that one. He had his belt. He had Mickey.
Well, there went the assets listing. Too bad the trusty 'play sick' routine wouldn't work here. Now if he had a handy rebel group, or, even better, his sonic screwdriver...
Right. No use in crying over spilled coffee, or was that milk? He'd have to talk his way out when their guards returned.
"So that's what you're gonna do? Just sit there? Doin' nothing?" Mickey asked, bitterness lacing his words.
"Oh, I'm doing plenty," he protested. "Solving one of the Faradi Equations, inventing a theory on the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Strangely enough, it does have something to do with the number 42. And trying to come up with a plan. Which would be much easier if you'd just keep quiet. Thanks for that." If he had a spoon, he could dig a tunnel. Now that was just silly. Damnit anyway. He was better than this. Despite the chains, despite the death sentence, he was better than this. There just had to be a way...
"Is this what you do with Rose? Just sit there, come up with a plan, and then you're out of whatever mess you found yourselves in? Flying by the seat of your pants? But, no, that isn't what you do, is it? You let her in. Tell her a bit about what you're thinking. You won't tell me. 'Cause I'm nothing more than the tin dog, aren't I?"
"I really liked that dog," he replied absently, not really registering his companion's words.
"Like now. You're not even listening to me!"
He blinked, finally focusing upon the other man. "What is it?"
Mickey sighed loudly, shaking his head. "Never mind. Doesn't matter."
Humans. He'd never understand them. No matter how much time he spent in their company. He suspected that there was more to it than just that. More to what Mickey was saying than 'it doesn't matter', but there were far more important things to worry about.
Like the fast approaching dawn. And 'serenity'.
Good thing he worked best under pressure. "So, Mickey, how're you at playing sick?"
That earned him a rather astounded look to which there really was only one answer.
He grinned.
To be continued...
