Chapter CXI

Mira

They had found a place serving food and drinks at the outskirts of the huge market place. The Doctor had waved with his Psychic Paper and a young girl had brought them big glasses filled with pink liquid, which tasted almost disgustingly sweet, as well as bread which was actually not too bad. She put the glass back on the table with her right hand, hiding the left one under the table, regretting that she wasn't at least wearing a jacket or something with slightly longer sleeves, covering her hands. They had been in a rush, sort of - the TARDIS had landed and instantly the Doctor had thrown the door open, no time at all to grab some clothing apart from the simple long sleeved black shirt and black trousers she was wearing today. Not to mention some equipment.

"As the TARDIS is off limits," Jack said, "What's next?"

"We'll figure out what this is all about," the Doctor replied. "Someone's searching for people with psychic abilities, marking them, disabling them, and on top they're turned into outcasts. I wonder how it all started. And what's behind that huge station."

She only listened with half an ear whilst watching at the people around, still trying to accept their existence even if they seemed to be hardly more than projections to her. Under different circumstances it would have been a fascinating experience – she never had her psychic abilities so completely switched off, leaving any other part of her brain more or less untouched. She didn't feel drugged or otherwise impaired. Just normal, like any other human did. She just hoped it was reversible once she got rid of that thing in her hand, because she already had enough. It was annoying, it was distracting and outright frightening. Not that she had never wished before to be alone. Really, actually alone. Just she herself, uninfluenced and -bothered by other people's emotions. Well, she could always have that experience alone in a space ship somewhere, but she would then still felt the universe. Something she took for granted without even thinking about it. Now, as soon as she closed her eyes, she felt like free falling into nothingness only filled with sounds and voices of non-existent people. Normally she could feel people even with eyes closed or through walls, being able to tell the direction and rough distance from her. Now the voices could just as well be an old recording. And even with eyes open and able to see them they still seemed unreal. Flat. She closed her eyes again. All alone. Eyes open. Surrounded by dead people. Great.

"I don't think the people here still know about the original purpose of it," the Doctor's voice reached her ears. She couldn't even feel his presence with her eyes closed, she thought, opening her eyes again. "It's like a generation ship, and maybe- Mira?"

"Hm?"

"You're all right? Did you get something in your eyes?" the Doctor asked.

She slowly turned her head and looked at him, shaking her head, studying his face. It looked somehow different, but she couldn't put her finger on it. The dark, brown eyes framed by wrinkles when he smiled; now they were narrowed. The pale skin with the freckles. Human, she thought. That's it. Absolutely human. Was that how others saw him? No wonder people tended to be frightened by her or other mutants. Frightened by everything she could see which was forever hidden to them; or even worse, they tried to hide from her but in vain. On a purely rational level she had known it, but now, as she could see the difference for herself, she fully understood. "No, why?" she finally asked

"You're blinking like you did," Jack said.

"Let me blink," she snapped, studying the frown on his face. It could mean sorrow. Or annoyance. "Not sure if you think that's funny or whatever, but I blink as much as I want and-"

"It's okay, Mira," he replied, lifting his hands in defence. At least it looked like that to her. But did he actually mean it like that? And what about that slightly annoyed tone in his voice? "I don't think it's funny. Why would I?" He looked at her, but she couldn't bother to reply, so he continued, "Anyway. When we're stuck here for the next few days we could try to help those poor guys. I don't think it happened to them by choice."

"Guys?" she replied. "We've seen one of them. How can you know there are many more? Humans with psychic abilities are not that common." Well, there were more. She remembered what that guard had told her. "And even if. You've seen how bloody big this station is. We could spend weeks, months, if not more, wandering around learning exactly nothing. We should try to head back to the TARDIS. Find another way."

"And leave them here like that?" Jack asked.

"They have to solve their own problems," she replied, surprised by the sound of her voice and the level of annoyance she felt. Why was she feeling so irritable? There had been occasions when she, just as the rest of the mutant corps, hadn't been able to rely on their abilities, and it had never left her in such a bad mood. Nor had it kept her from helping others if there was nothing else, nothing more important to do.

Jack and the Doctor stared at her. She knew she should explain, apologise, or something like that, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Instead she crossed her arms and stared back.

"She has a point," Jack said eventually. "Where do we start? This station is huge. We could spent months here searching."

"Well, who says we have to search?" the Doctor said quietly with a boyish smile. "Happens that I received a signal. And-" he pulled out the Sonic Screwdriver, holding it up as if trying to locate something. She took a quick look around, but the other people seemed to ignore it. "I should be able to trace it. Ha!"

She jumped and took another look around. He would alert the whole station with his yelling.

"What signal?" Jack asked.

"Don't know," the Doctor admitted and shrugged. "But it's a start, isn't it?" He held the Screwdriver to her left hand. "And it seems to track these devices. Now we only need to find the source."


Doctor

The station was really huge. And rather empty. That was nothing out of the ordinary, as Mira would confirm would she actually contribute to his and Jack's conversation and not just glance suspiciously at him from time to time. So the talking-part was on him, as Jack just nodded from time to time. And there was a lot to talk about. In fact, this station was as empty as interesting. Not that the emptiness was a surprise. Structures like this needed machinery, storage, processing plants, engines to keep it in place, and thus creating a lot of space around these things. Space for corridors for easy access for maintenance, simply empty space for insulation against noise or radiation or emergency lock down. He had seen it on the HECATE, and most conventionally build space stations and space ships looked like that. Well, at least after a certain point in the evolution of a species, they all started out with cramped, tiny, rocket-like thingies. Then, if they didn't destroy themselves, they would find more advanced solutions. And yet, it seemed the station was build for more people than currently living here. Much more. Not the main occupants of most parts of this station seem to be cleaning-robots.

"I know all that," Jack finally interrupted his monologue about the whys and hows of this station.

"What?"

"Nevermind. You're sure we're still going in the right direction?"

"That depends. What is the right direction?" he replied. "The signal is coming from there," he pointed roughly in the direction they were coming from. "I think now we're heading towards area D."

Mira had told him where most likely the others were, according to the guard who had caught her. He doubted he would learn more from them – he had already talked to the other, 'normal' people, but they didn't know anything. It had been like this since forever, so at least the last few generations. They also had no idea what they were doing here – they had just laughed at him and told him they were working. All the normal jobs a society needed. Cook, guard, cleaner, food production, technician. The interesting thing was that they seemed to be able to maintain the basic parts of this station – they even knew they were living on a station. But there was nothing else they knew. Not why they were here, or for how long.

But he did not only want to talk to the psychic people. He was worrying about Mira, and he hoped they knew more about these devices. And probably he could leave Mira with them when he and Jack were heading to the source of the signal. She wasn't fit to help them and her condition was getting worse. Not only was she unusually cranky and irritable, but also physically in bad shape. This, and a walking beacon to whoever was responsible for the tracking-signal.


Mira

They had stopped at a computer terminal. Again. They were build inside large alcoves or small, open chambers along the long walls of the never-ending corridors. Occasionally the Doctor stopped, opened the small hatch for maintenance below them, did something she wasn't remotely interested in unless it was to help them to get closer to the TARDIS, and off they went again. She was tired, cold and generally angry. Could he not hurry? Did he even want to get back to the TARDIS? Or was he just prolonging their stay here so he could solve whatever riddle there was? No, he would never do that to her. If there was a way to the TARDIS he would bring her there, wouldn't he? They could then try to work out what was going on here, once she'd got rid of that thing in her hand.

"Now that you're on it anyway, do you think you could turn up the temperature of air conditioning a bit? It's freezing." She shuddered and rubbed her arms.

"Is it?" the Doctor mumbled, fiddling with the wiring. "Doesn't feel cold in here to me."

"I totally believe that," she replied. "But humans are freezing at those temperatures."

"It's really not cold here Mira," Jack, watching the corridor, threw in.

"It is, and it's getting colder."

"No Mira," the Doctor said, "It's the same temperature since we've arrived." He straightened up, closed the hatch and looked at her out of narrow eyes. "It's just you freezing. You have a fever. For the last few hours actually. But mind you, it's getting worse."

"What? I- God, get that ice-cold hand out of my face!" She took a step back to evade his hand which he had put first on her forehead and then on her left cheek, like one would do it with a sick child. But she had to admit that her head was feeling hot and there was a nasty pain in her bones and joints, a dull pain in her head, accompanied by a creeping cold feeling which had gotten to a point where she had to make a conscious effort to keep her teeth from chattering. "I don't get fevers. I can't even remember how-"

She stopped mid-sentence. It had been so long ago that she had completely forgotten how it felt to have a fever. How it felt like being sick. She had been injured countless times, and she knew for almost every bone in her body how it felt when it broke. But the feeling of a cold or an infection? No idea. Probably just as she felt right now. But how? She hadn't been ill since she had gotten the cell-activator. Suddenly her knees grew week as a wave of panic rushed through her. She put her right hand on the egg-shaped pendant, but of course it was still working; she could feel it's light impulses in her hand. But how had she then managed to catch something?

"I'm not sick." She walked back into the corridor. "That's impossible."

Then suddenly her knees grew week and before she could reach the wall to support herself, the Doctor was at her side and slowly lowered her down to the floor where he was crouching opposite of her.

"Technically, you're not sick," he said and looked at her intently. For a moment she wondered if he was reading her mind and wanted to free her hands of his grip. "You're body is fighting the device. It is a foreign body, and the reaction is the same as it would be to anything else, like viruses or bacteria. Well, rather like anything else sticking in your body, like a splinter. Well, not really. It's sort of both. Anyways. It's also creating substances which block certain synaptic paths in your brain. Sorry, I would've told you earlier, but they weren't there the first time I scanned you. And then we were... Busy. Seems it took a while to start."

"What?" she stared at him in shock. "So finally now it's a good time to tell me... What? That I'm dying when I don't get rid of that thing?" She almost choked on the words. He hadn't put it like that, but suddenly fear, panic and the thought of dying was filling her mind. How much time had she got left? Enough to wait until they could go back to the TARDIS? And there was no way of getting rid of that thing, was there? Well, apart from getting rid of her hand. Not an option. Yet. Well, At least in her universe it would be an option as it was possible to grow a new one, maybe that existed here as well, but still... No. She didn't feel particularly like amputation right now. "Anything else I should know whilst we're at it?" she hissed at him.

"Doctor, Mira, I really hate to interrupt you, but we might have a problem," Jack said behind her.

"Jack, no need for panic, it's all-"

"Doctor, we do have a problem," she interrupted him, looking up and past him at what Jack had spotted.

"Mira, look at me, you're not going to-"

"No, seriously," she said and nodded over his shoulder. "We have another problem."

A small crowd had silently gathered in the corridor behind the Doctor's back, staring at them. They looked ragged, yet not dirty, and just stared at them in silence. She couldn't tell for the life of her if they were a threat. Probably, but they didn't look like attacking them at any moment either. And, on a second look, she could see the left hand of some of them.

Finally the Doctor turned his head. "Oh." He got up, pulling her up with him

"Uhm, hello. I'm the Doctor," he said and took a step towards them, smiling broadly.

To no avail, as even she could recognise the hostility on their faces.

"It's okay," she said, got in front of the Doctor, trying to keep her balance. Then she hold out her left hand, the palm facing them. "I think we've found them."


Sorry for the rather long time since the last chapter. I totally lost inspiration and really needed a break from this story. (plus, as I started another FanFic for Perry Rhodan in German, I noticed that all the thinking+writing in English influences my writing in German negatively. So I had a struggle as on what to focus, but I hope both together will work out)

I really hope this chapter isn't too bad, I have to get into it again, but now it's all back on track :-)

djmegamouth, NicoleR85, lautaro94, bored411, OneWhoReadsTooMuch, MiaEther, skye-speedy and Guest(s): Thanks for leaving a review :-)