Chapter 20

[So just a heads up, this will be the last chapter I post this week. I'll try to do the usual 3 chapters next week, but the schedule is a little messy.]

The Doctor, Lilly behind her, ran to the base of the tower as fast they could. She heard the sound of people crashing through the jungle around her as she passed, probably people who had volunteered to throw the dustballs off the scent.

They reached the base of the tower to see Sue standing by the door, taking the lead of the group there.

"Oh, hi again," the Doctor said. "Thanks for waiting. Where's Phil?"

"He went out to cause distractions," Sue said.

"Did he?"

Sue shrugged. "Phil figured it was a hard sell, and that more people would volunteer if he offered himself."

"Did it work?" the Doctor asked.

"Um, excuse me?" Lilly tapped her fingers together nervously. "If we're short on time, shouldn't be get into the tower now?"

Sue seemed to agree. She nodded, with a desperate look in her eyes. "Right. Let's go."

Wow. She really must've been in a hurry if she didn't even ask who Lilly was.

One of the people from town picked the lock on the door. Probably for the best. The Doctor might've been able to use her sonic screwdriver, but the lock actually looked a little basic for that.

The group entered the tower, which instantly split in two directions. In front of them was a hall going straight to the end of the tower, where there was a staircase. But there was a second hall curving off to the right.

"Let's go," Sue said. She started straight ahead, towards the stairs.

"Uh. I really don't think-" the Doctor tried. She cut herself off. Everyone was following Sue. The people here really didn't listen to her. It was annoying. She knew what she was doing. She pouted. "Come on Lilly."

She hung a right. Lilly looked confused, but at least she came along.

The Doctor reached what was seemingly the end of the hall and started pressing her hands against the wall, sometimes knocking and listening.

"Doctor? You said I was here because you wanted me to be?"

"Mhm."

"Pride said I was around to be your moral compass," Lilly said ruefully.

"Oh is that what he said. Well don't listen to Pride. We're friends." Pride had sort of forced her hand when she asked Lilly to come. After all, all the people she'd met with this face had asked, but she couldn't wait around for someone to ask with Pride with her. But that wasn't the point. "If I only needed help with morality, I could just do the opposite of whatever Pride suggested. It works just as well."

She glanced at Lilly out of the corner of her eyes. Good, Lilly was smiling. She'd hoped for that. Just then, she pressed a part of the wall and it moved inwards. A ladder came down from from where the wall had been.

"Right. I thought the stairs were a little obvious. Come on Lilly."

"What about the others? Are they in danger?" Lilly asked.

"They're in danger no matter what, as long as they're here," the Doctor pointed out. "It's why I'd like to get to the top and get them out as soon as possible. You can go back for them if you like."

But the Doctor wasn't stopping. Lilly stayed at the base of the ladder for a moment longer, thinking. Then she started climbing. The Doctor smiled to herself slightly.

The two moved up the tower that way. The way up was narrow and dark, mostly a vertical tunnel cut off from the rest of the tower. But occasionally the Doctor could make out the main rooms. They were mostly empty. The dustballs didn't actually need all this space. It was just to discourage intruders. Though, as they got higher, they passed a bedroom of sorts. Only three beds, so that was a good sign.

They reached the top floor, Lilly breathing heavily. The Doctor pressed her hand against the ceiling. There had to be a way up to the top room from here. They couldn't have gone all this way only to be forced to go back down.

After pressing her hand up for a while, she decided that was enough of that. She took out her sonic and pointed it above them. A bit of the ceiling opened up. It wasn't directly over the ladder, only about half of it overlapping. Probably part of what had made it hard to find.

The Doctor climbed out into the room above.

"Come on out. It's empty."

"Good," Lilly panted.

"Okay. This shouldn't take too long," the Doctor said. "Just stand guard. I know how this technology works."

"Finally."

The Doctor wasn't going to ask what that meant. Lilly leaned against the doorway, looking out at the empty staircase, the one that went down the bedroom. The Doctor set to work with the controls. (They were very similar to the ones back in the human's dimension.) She was so busy with them, she didn't notice a closet behind them opening.

"Doctor!" Lilly cried.

Suddenly, the Doctor was being shoved to the floor, while some sort of ray from a weapon shot above her, hitting the controls.

"Hey!" the Doctor shouted, pushing herself up off Lilly, who had clearly been the one to ram her. "I needed those!"

"So did we, but if I can't hit you, that will have to do." They both turned to see one of the dustballs standing in the now open closet.

The Doctor took a step closer to the controls, carefully moving the device Pride had brought with them out of her pocket, keeping it hidden with her coat. She reached for the cords, both on the device and the main controls. She let the dustball see the wires from the main controls. Let him think she was just trying to salvage the main controls.

The dustball looked amused, actually smiling, a bit of shine in his eyes. "That's pointless, you know? You can't repair what's not there."

No. But I can replace it with what I have. I just need a little more time. "You attacked the humans. You've treated them like cattle to be killed."

"Actually, we've treated them like wild animals. That's what they are, isn't it?"

Lilly scowled.

The Doctor forced herself not to. She had an audience. "You've made me very cross," she said. "But I'm warning you anyway. Get off this tower." She let the device slide into the controls, now adequately attached. Then she turned around. "Go down, now."

"How stupid do you think I am?"

"Very actually." She pressed a button and the image of the tower began to flicker out. She stepped aside to reveal what she'd done, watching the dustball get wide eyed and take a step back. He should've hit a wall when he did that, but the wall kept fading in and out. "We're going back to the town you took all those humans from, in the exact spot we were in in this dimension. And there's nothing as tall as this tower in town. In other words, you're going to fall."

"Doesn't that mean we're going to fall too?" Lilly asked.

"One problem at a time Lilly."

The tower flickered out again, and didn't return, leaving them in the sky.

"Can we focus on this problem now?!"