So... I'm back

It's been a pretty intense month for me. Like, incredibly intense. My whole life basically just got flipped on it's head. But I'm back! And yes, I've been watching series 11. And tbh, as much as I think Jodie makes a good Doctor, I'm not impressed with the episodes. But whatever. You're not here to hear my opinion on series 11, you're here to read about June. So I won't keep you any longer.

Happy Reading!

Chapter 20

The Long Game part 1

They were in a large room that screamed the early 2000's image of the future. The Doctor analyzed everything right from where he stood and began to spit out information. "So, it's two hundred thousand, and it's a spaceship," he told Rose. June leaned against the doors and watched his face morph as he made a correction. "No, wait a minute, space station, and er, go and try that gate over there." He pointed to a metal gate in the distance. "Off you go." He crossed his arms and leaned against the TARDIS next to June.

"Two hundred thousand?" Rose asked.

The Doctor nodded. "Two hundred thousand."

"Right." Rose turned and opened the TARDIS door. "Adam? Out you come."

Adam stepped put of the TARDIS and the dopiest look of shock appeared on his face. "Oh my god," he gasped. June couldn't help but snicker a little.

"Don't worry, you'll get used to it," Rose told him, grinning.

"You seem like you're feeling better," the Doctor whispered to the brunette.

June looked up at him and smiled softly. "Yeah, yeah I really am."

"All thanks to me," he grinned. The TARDIS had many cures stored in the med bay. A cure for the common cold, a cure for any sort of poison, cures for a large amount of venomous alien bites, and a cure for the stomach flu. One quick gulp of a thick, green, bubbling liquid that tasted as flavorful as water and an hour-long nap later, June felt as good as new.

"Where are we?" Adam gaped.

June shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Don't give yourself too much credit."

"Good question," Rose said. "Let's see. So, er, judging by the architecture, I'd say we're around the year two hundred thousand. If you listen… engines. We're on some sort of space station. Yeah," she nodded, "definitely a space station. It's a bit warm in here. They could turn the heating down. Tell you what—let's try that gate. Come on!" She ran towards the gate. Adam just stood there, slowly blinking and unable to say anything. "Come on!" Rose called again, glancing over her shoulder at him. Adam quickly followed after her.

June and the Doctor followed, letting Rose lead the way. "She's good," June laughed

"I'm a good teacher," the Doctor said.

"Sure," she said. "If someone wants to learn how to sound like they have a massive ego, you're the best teacher around." He shot her a look and she snickered.

Rose pushed the creaking metal gate aside. A staircase was stuck in the dark small hallway in front of them, leading upwards into a different room. She grabbed the railing and hauled herself up, Adam following carefully behind her. June and the Doctor exchanged curious looks and followed the duo.

"Here we go!" Rose exclaimed. "And this is—" her words fell and she wandered across the room. "—I'll let the Doctor explain it."

They were in another dark observation room. Outside the large window, the Earth curved and shone. June smiled, her mouth slightly agape. No matter how many times she saw it, a view like that still stunned her.

"The Fourth great and bountiful Human Empire," the Doctor explained. "And there it is, planet Earth at it's height. Covered with mega-cities, five moons, population ninety-six billion. The hub of a galactic domain stretching across a million planets, a million species, with mankind right in the middle." Even with all the trouble humans could cause, June felt pretty proud of them.

And then Adam collapsed on the floor. June spun around and stared at him. "Oh my god."

"He's your boyfriend," the Doctor told Rose.

Rose shook her head and smirked. "Not anymore."

"Guys, he's passed out." June knelt down to try to wake him up.

~*O*~

The chatter of civilization got louder and louder as the group of four roamed through the space station. The Doctor rambled on to a now conscious Adam, his arm balanced on June's shoulder, guiding everyone forward. "Come on, Adam. Open your mind," he said. "You're going to like this. Fantastic period of history. The human race at its most intelligent. Culture, art, politics. This era has got fine food, good manners—"

"Out of the way!" A man on a bike sped past them.

They had walked into what reminded June of a mall's food court. People bustled around, chattering and laughing. Food carts opened up out of nowhere and handed fast food out to the people standing in the long lines in front of them. Rose wandered away and looked closer at one of the food carts. "Fine cuisine?" she asked.

"My watch must be wrong." The Doctor glanced down at his watch and frowned. "No, it's fine. It's weird."

"That's what comes of showing off," Rose said. "Your history's not as good as you thought it was."

"My history's perfect," the Doctor argued.

Rose shook her head. "Well, obviously not."

"You're one to know about showing off," June reminded her, nodding her head. She turned to the Doctor. "And if your history is as perfect as you claim, what's going on with all this?" It looked nothing like the utopia he had described.

The Doctor shook his head. "I dunno."

"They're all human," Adam said. He had walked further into the busy group of people. "What about the millions of planets, the millions of species? Where are they?"

"Good question," the Doctor said. "Actually, that is a good question." He suddenly perked up, clearly putting on a front. "Adam, me old mate," he wrapped an arm around the boy, "you must be starving."

"No," Adam said, "I'm just a bit time sick."

"No, you just need a bit of grub," the Doctor insisted. June raised her eyebrow at him as he dragged Adam up to one of the food stands. "Oi, mate—how much is a kronkburger?"

"Two credits twenty, sweetheart," the chef grumbled. "Now join the queue."

"Money," the Doctor said. "We need money." He bounded away, leaving everyone to follow after him. "Let's use a cashpoint." He walked right up to what June could only describe as a space ATM and began to sonic it.

"So, you're stealing money now?" June asked, crossing her arms.

"What they don't know won't hurt them," the Doctor said.

"What who don't know?" she asked.

He quickly pulled a long, oval shaped card out of the machine and handed it to Adam. "There you go, pocket money. Don't spend it all on sweets." He took June's hand and began to walk away, pulling her along with him.

"How does it work?" Adam asked.

The Doctor spun around. "Go and find out. Stop nagging me. The thing is, Adam, time travel's like visiting Paris. You can't just read the guide book, you've got to throw yourself in. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double, and end up kissing complete strangers." June laughed at the thought. "Or is that just me?" Of course, it was just him. No one could travel like he did. "Stop asking questions, go and do it." Adam nodded and walked off. "Off you go, then," he told Rose, urging her to go after the boy. "Your first date." June snickered.

"You're going to get a smack, you are," Rose retorted. "You two look after each other."

"Of course," June nodded. Rose turned and disappeared after Adam.

June looked up at the Doctor and watched the large grin slide off his face. "So," she said, "now that you've gotten rid of them," for reasons she didn't know, "what are we going to go do?"

"You and I, June Bug, are going to snoop around." He spun her around and pulled her along behind him.

June picked up the pace to catch up with him. "What did you call me?"

"June Bug," he said as if he had been calling her that for forever.

"Why?"

He grinned at her. "I gave you a nickname."

"Again, why?"

"Why not?"

June gaped at him and shook her head. The Doctor looked away from her, a large smile still on his face. "Right then, June Bug, where do you think we should start?"

June shook her head. It was a ridiculous nickname. "I guess we could talk to someone. I don't know."

"Good idea."

The Doctor approached the first two people he spotted. Two young women standing to the side of the crowd, chatting to each other in soft tones, and ultimately minding their own business. The Doctor took this lack of activity as a go ahead. "Er, this is going to sound daft," he started, catching their attentions, "but can you tell me where we are?"

The women stared wide eyed at them, both completely baffled. One of the women, a tall, dark-skinned brunette, pointed somewhere off in the distance behind them. "Floor One Three Nine. Could they write it any bigger?" June looked over her shoulder and sure enough, there was a large sign that read, "Floor 193." She sighed. They must've looked stupid.

"Floor one three nine of what?" the Doctor asked.

The brunette narrowed her eyes and shot looks between the two. June forced a smile which made the brunette frown and look away from her. She focused back on the Doctor. "Must've been a hell of a party."

"You're on Satellite Five," the other woman said. She looked like one of those girls whose sweetness could strike someone down. Her voice fitted the profile, light and airy, not sassy and suspicious like the brunette's.

"What's Satellite Five?" the Doctor asked.

"Come on," the brunette sighed, "how could you get on board without knowing where you are?"

"Look at me. I'm stupid," the Doctor grinned. June snickered. "She's not quite as stupid," he rambled on, nodding at her. "Just more lost and out of it." June frowned at him.

"Hold on, wait a minute. Are you a test?" the sweet one asked. "Some sort of management test kind of thing?"

"You've got us," the Doctor lied. June quickly nodded along in agreement. "Well done. You're too clever for me." He held the psychic paper up to the women.

The sweet one's eyes went wide and she turned to the brunette. "We were warned about this in basic training. All workers have to be versed in company promotion."

The brunette nodded and turned stiffly to the Doctor and June. "Right, fire away, ask your questions. If it gets me to floor five hundred I'll do anything."

"Why, what's floor five hundred?" the Doctor asked.

"The walls are made of gold," the brunette said. "And you should know, Mr. and Miss Management." She smiled an obviously forced sweet smile. "So, this is what we do." She led them towards a large wall with dozens of TVs imbedded in the steel. The sweet one gave them a nervous smile and scrambled on after her coworker.

"Latest news," the brunette began, "sandstorms on the new Venus archipelago. Two hundred dead. Glasgow water riots into their third day. Space lane seventy-seven closed by sunspot activity. And over on the Bad Wolf channel, the Face of Boe has just announced he's pregnant." She didn't even have to look back at the screens to know what was displayed on each of them. It was like the news had been beamed into her head.

The Doctor nodded. "I get it. You broadcast the news."

The brunette crossed her arms. "We are the news," she corrected. "We're the journalists. We write it, package it, and sell it. Six hundred channels all coming out of Satellite Five, broadcasting everywhere. Nothing happens in the whole human empire without it going through us."

Satellite Five wasn't just a news station, it was its own city. There were hundreds of employees piled into the station along with hundreds of more employees that did jobs to help out all the news employees. They might as well just have kept all of it on Earth.

The Doctor continued to chatter on to the two women, and besides listening long enough to learn the names of the two women, June decided to focus on other things. She scanned the crowds of Satellite Five. And oddly enough, she noticed that not one single person had their nose stuck in their phone. No phones and old-fashioned news with a futuristic twist, but no social media. Satellite Five almost seemed cut off from the world. They just dealt out the news, never participated with it. It all felt wrong to her.

Suddenly, a loud alarm sounded and all at once, like clockwork, the crowds stopped. Everyone picked up their things and began to disperse behind giant doors. "What's going on?" June asked, raising her voice so it had a fighting chance against the alarm.

"That's the alarm telling us to get back to work," Cathica explained.

"Oi!" the Doctor shouted somewhere across the room. "Mutt and Jeff!" June looked over her shoulder and spotted Rose and Adam sitting together at a lunch table, both slightly alarmed and confused. "Over here!"

Rose grinned, grabbed her drink, and jogged over to join the group. But Adam hesitated. He just stared down at the table, like he was stuck.

"Hello, you two," Rose greeted cheerily. "Have fun without us?"

"What's he doing?" the Doctor wondered aloud, eyes on Adam.

"What'd you get to drink?" June asked, deciding to ignore Adam's off-ness.

Rose shrugged. "Dunno actually. Something that tastes like beef."

June cringed. "Sounds gross."

"It's actually not bad," Rose admitted. "Could be better."

Adam joined them a second later. He seemed a little lost. More than he had been when they had left him and Rose. The Doctor greeted Adam with a clap on the shoulder and the question, "How was the food?"

Adam nodded rather weakly. "It was alright."

"Now that you've got your team together, we can head off to the news room," Cathica said. "Just follow me."

~*O*~

They stepped into this blindingly clean room, pure white and shining. A chair that almost looked like a dentist chair sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by a large circular desk. Other employees, including Suki, sat around the desk in front of these large bumps with hand prints pressed into them. A huge, bright, circular light with too much wiring and mechanics hung dangerously close to the dentist chair. It almost looked like it was about to fall. Cathica left the Doctor, June, Rose, and Adam behind safety rails that didn't look like they could protect them from anything that went wrong. She stood next to the chair and spoke to her coworkers. "Now, everyone, behave. We have a management inspection." She looked over at the Doctor. "How do you want it, by the book?"

The Doctor nodded. "Right from scratch, thanks."

"Okay. So, ladies, gentlemen, multi-sex, undecided, or robot, my name is Cathica Santini Khadeni." She glanced back at the Doctor. "That's Cathica with a C, in case you want to write to floor five hundred praising me, and please do." She forced a smile. "Now, please feel free to ask any questions. The process of news gathering must be open, honest, and beyond bias. That's company policy." She sent another dazzling yet obviously forced smile to the group she thought was the management team.

"Actually, it's the law," Suki piped up.

Cathica's voice turned harsh. "Yes, thank you, Suki." She straightened and settled down into the chair. "Okay, keep it calm. Don't show off for the guests. Here we go. And engage safety." Every reporter around the desk held their hands up, completely in synch. Bright lights clicked on behind the walls. Cathica snapped her fingers. Something in her forehead opened, and her brain sat, exposed. An almost visible wave of confusion and shock went through the group, but everyone else thought it was completely normal. Everyone lowered their hands into their molds. "And three, two, and spike." A harsh blue beam of light shot from the bulb in the ceiling and connected to Cathica's brain.

"Um, what?" June turned to the Doctor. He didn't say anything. His narrow eyes were trained on the scene in front of them, but June couldn't read what he was thinking.

"Compressed information, streaming into her," the Doctor said. "Reports from every city, every country, every planet, and they all get packaged inside her head. She becomes part of the software. Her brain is the computer." June ran her hand across her own forehead to stop the faint feeling of something embedded inside.

"If it all goes through her, she must be a genius," Rose said.

The Doctor shook his head. "Nah," he started to walk around the safety rail, "she wouldn't remember any of it. There's too much. Her head'd blow up." Rose followed after him. June felt perfectly fine observing from behind the railing. "The brain's the processor. As soon as it closes, she forgets."

"So, what about all these people around the edge?" Rose asked.

"They've all got tiny little chips in their head, connecting them to her and they transmit six hundred channels. Every single fact in the Empire beams out of this place." He leaned against the safety rail. "Now that's what I call power." Rose squatted between two reporters in the circle, looking between them.

June leaned forward and looked over at the Doctor. "There's got to be a more convenient way of doing all of this, right? Seems like a lot of trouble."

The Doctor nodded. "There is. I dunno know why they're still doing this."

Rose joined them at the safety rail again. "You all right?" she asked Adam, who seemed completely shocked but what else was new?

"I can see her brain," Adam muttered.

"Do you want to get out?" Rose asked.

Adam shook his head. "No. No, this technology, it's amazing."

"This technology's wrong," the Doctor said.

"And let me guess," June said, "you want to sort it all out." She raised her eyebrows at him.

The Doctor smiled. "Oh, yeah."

Suki suddenly recoiled away from the controls, grabbing at her hands. The whole operation shut off. Everyone else seemed dazed and not quite sure of anything. And as soon as Cathica's head closed, she turned on Suki. "Come off it, Suki," she snapped. "I wasn't even halfway. What was that for?"

"Sorry," Suki murmured into her hands. "It must've been a glitch." Cathica sighed, rolled her eyes, and got up from the chair.

"Promotion," an electronic voice announced through the room. A blue screen appeared on the back wall.

"Come on," Cathica muttered, clenching her fists. "This is it. Come on. Oh god, make it me. Come on, say my name, say my name, say my name."

"She really wants that promotion," June whispered to the Doctor.

He nodded. "No kidding."

"Promotion for Suki Macrae Cantrell." Her name appeared on the blue screen. "Please proceed to floor five hundred." June tilted her head. They made Suki mess up the reporting process just to give her a promotion?

Suki gasped, wandering towards the screen. "I don't believe it. Floor five hundred."

"How the hell did you manage that?" Cathica asked. "I'm above you."

"I don't know," Suki said. "I just applied on the off chance and they've said yes."

"That's so not fair," Cathica grumbled. "I've been applying to floor five hundred for three years."

"What's floor five hundred?" Rose asked.

The Doctor seemed just as suspicious about the whole situation. "The walls are made of gold."

~*O*~

"Cathica, I'm going to miss you," Suki said, grinning from ear to ear, gripping her luggage in her hands. Cathica rolled her eyes. Suki turned to the Doctor. "Floor five hundred, thank you."

"I didn't do anything," the Doctor said.

"Well, you're my lucky charm," Suki told him. June stood awkwardly with her hands shoved in her pockets. She didn't know if either Suki or Cathica even noticed that she was there in the first place.

The Doctor shrugged. "All right. I'll hug anyone." Suki giggled and hugged the Doctor. June rolled her eyes. He liked the attention whether he would admit it or not.

A weight shifted in the corner of her eye and June turned. Rose had walked away towards an utterly stunned Adam who still seemed like he was coping. He had been basically silent, well, the whole time, but even more after the whole brain display. It was almost like he was scared. She supposed that she couldn't exactly blame him for that.

Suki and the Doctor made small talk and Cathica stood with her arms crossed looking particularly annoyed with the whole situation. June hung next to the Doctor, occasionally looking over her shoulder to glance at Adam and Rose. She stood out among all of them. They were all talking to one another and the only other silent one, Cathica, belonged on Satellite Five.

And then the familiar computer voice spoke over the speakers, "All staff are reminded that the sixteen forty break session has been shortened by ten minutes. Thank you." Rose joined the group again with that wide smile of hers and when June looked over her shoulder, Adam was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh my god!" Suki exclaimed. "I've got to go. I can't keep them waiting. I'm sorry." She ran towards the opened elevator doors and turned back to look at them. "Say goodbye to Steve for me. Bye!" and the harsh metal doors closed on her.

While the Doctor and Rose gave polite little waves and June smiled at the excited woman, Cathica scoffed. "Good riddance." June almost wanted to tell her off for being rude.

"You're talking like you'll never see her again," the Doctor said. "She's only going upstairs."

Cathica shook her head. "We won't. Once you go to floor five hundred you never come back."

June frowned and watched the closed elevator doors. No one would ever see Suki again unless something came in and changed everything. She had a feeling that that something, or someone, had arrived.

So my next update is not going to be next month, I will try to update sooner. I need to get back into the grind. Again, I had a super intense month and I've been struggling with that.

What did you guys think of the chapter? I'm not fond of this episode, but it does sort of prove to be important.

Reviews, follows, and favorites are very much appreciated

Until next time,

~ C.C.