Disclaimer: I don't in any way own the series Doctor Who. Those are the sole property of the BBC.
Return to Satellite 5 AU: "Bad Wolf", "The Parting of the Ways" and "Born Again".
Chapter Eight: Wolf Moon Rising
The Games Station previously known at Satellite Five revolved slowly in the vastness of space. The five hundredth floor was bustling with activity; most of the people were busily work at the desk. There were two that stood away from the crowd.
On the screen the two techs could see the marauding contestants roaming about without any deterred. "This is ridiculous, we going to need to enter the records to find out want is wrong." The dark skinned woman sighed.
The brown eyed man looked up huffing he nodded. "Well okay. I'll take this to the Controller. You'll look into the Archive to check on the transmat timetables. Remember that would be Archive Six."
"Gee thanks. I know which one." The female tech said smartly even though she could feel the apprehension filling the air.
The brown haired tech ignored the woman's remark. Pulled off his headphones he shifted straightening trying to gather his courage. He strode deliberately across to the aisle way in front of the Controller. "Ahh… Controller… there seems to be a problem."
A woman with white unseeing eyes stood ramrod straight at the other end covered in wires attached to her head and body. She murmured a stream of numbers before answering. "You need to continue working." Her voice was raw and whispery.
The man swallowed and cleared his throat. "Controller there is a problem with security. It needs to be addressed."
The Controller didn't blink or recognize that the tech hadn't gone back to work. Her body twitched as if becoming aware that the man still continued to protest. "You need to go back to work. Seven… six… five…"
"Truthfully Controller I can't go back to work. Contestants have gotten outside of the games. Security hasn't been notified it's as if the alarms have been turned off." The agitated tech seemed to be pleading with the female in control of the station.
The Controller twitched again. "There will be no security. Everything will continue as normal." Her voice rose still raw.
The male tech smiled in confusion at the woman's amendment refusal to acknowledge there was something wrong. "But Controller… it's not normal. They can't simply be left to wander the station."
"They are unimportant. Continue working." The Controller dismissed the tech's concern.
The man stared even more baffled than before his brow furrowing in his confusion. "Not important. How can you say that? Their out of bounds of the games and running amok in the Station."
The Controller's attention was diverted away from the male tech's concern. The blind woman's body spasmed, and an involuntary gasp escape, in pain as she felt the other technician try to gain entrance to Archive Six. The Hindi woman pulled her hand away in shock at the Controller's obvious distress. "I just need to, erm… Sorry…"
"Archive Six is not available." The Controller trembled trying to compose herself.
The dark skinned woman frowned at the new information. Archive Six had never been unavailable before, but then there hadn't been a need in recent years. "But the transmat logs need reviewing. It's possible something has corrupted the files that need to be repaired." The female tech tried to appeal to the Controller's need to have order.
"No one is to enter Archive Six. It is not available to anyone." The Controller's voice rose to an unnatural level making everyone pause in their work. Though the woman was unable to see her whole body vibrated and her bland expression transformed into terrifying loon, she once again returned to muttering another sequence of numbers. As if sensing that all the workers were still looking at her the pale woman's voice rose again but without the desperation. "Everyone continue to work. Reminder to staff… solar flares are in delta point seven. Fifteen… Sixteen… Seventeen…"
Smoke still billowed in the studio of 'What Not to Wear', Jack was once again dressed in black leather pants, a white shirt and a black leather vest. The Captain was tinkering with the defabricator. The Compact Laser Deluxe quickly became a part of the machine.
Jack whooped and almost patted himself on the back. "All right systems are in sync… adjusting the wave length signatures… Haha…" The ex-time agent grinned in triumph.
"Great kid! You just made yourself a bigger gun." Jack unhooked the former defabricator admired it for a moment.
He shifted his attention to the headless blue and purple droids. "So ladies, it was a pleasure… Of course it was all mine. Which in a game like this that's the most important thing in the end." Jack gave a brief salute to the smoldering remains before heading out to find his two friends.
Jack looked around on the side of a wall there were large numbers painted, two hundred ninety-nine; he only gave it a passing thought before heading to what looked to him like a lift. Checking it over, the brown haired man deduced it was a genetically coded to open with the blue hand plate. The ex-time agent grinned, he was glad to know that his time with the agency would be of some use. They had trained him for getting around that type of technology which was being used on the Game Station, not that the tech was anywhere near 51st centuries. He placed his hand on the pad and the lift door immediately opened.
He hurried into the lift then studied his vortex manipulator that also doubled as anything else the ex-con man wanted. "All right Doc, where are you? Ha… Two hearts, that's gotta be you or the human biology of this time is off." Jack highly doubted that. He quickly pressed the buttons on the side of the lift. The doors closed to hopefully take him to the Doctor's location.
Several floors down from Jack, the Doctor and his newest companion Lynda finally managed to find a door that would allow them entrance. Upon entering, they saw the planet through the large viewing window, the sight of a ravaged Earth; it was an ugly sickly grey sphere that had only a bare few areas that had yet to be taken over.
Lynda went straight to the view awed by the sight. "Isn't that a picture! This is the first time I've ever seen the Earth! Well the first from orbit that is."
The Doctor couldn't take his blue eyes off the devastation that the Planet Earth had become. It wasn't supposed to be that way. "Bloody hell, what happened? How did it get this way?"
Lynda looked perplexed at the blue eyed man. "As farther as I know it's always been this way. Do you see that?" The blonde woman extended her arm and pointed a finger at a swirling mass in the planet's atmosphere. "It's the Great Atlantic Smog Storm. I think it's been around for about twenty years. You have to wait for reports to come through to when the outside has breathable air."
"So, you're telling me that all the people on Earth are divided into the haves and the have nots, but the world has to watch the telly no matter what?" The Doctor couldn't hold back the disgust in his voice.
Lynda not knowing the Doctor very well smiled brightly at his complete understanding of the situation. "Yep, transmitting from here are at least ten thousand channels."
The Doctor shook his head at the thought. All of Planet Earth was covered in an atmosphere of decay. "So, the humans have become the prey. Being mentally fatten…" The Doctor's mind flitted to another thought mid-sentence. "You wouldn't happen to know if the program with the three people having to live with a bear was revived?"
The blue eyed woman grinned wider than ever at the Doctor mentioning that show since he seemed to be bordering on darkness she'd only brief glimpse and nothing that could be consider his Oncoming Storm look. "That one's great. It's 'Bear With Me'."
"Yeah, that's a favorite of mine. Do you remember the Celebrity edition you know the one where the bear got into…" The Doctor's voice trailed off and his manic grin also vanished as Lynda finished his sentence. "The bath!" Lynda laughed at the end, not yet realizing that a storm was brewing.
"The thing is Lynda with a Y, all of it is wrong. History… it's all gone wrong. A second time, The Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire is gone. I had put it right that last time." The Doctor frowned in consternation at the discrepancy that had happened again. He just couldn't understand what could have gone so wrong.
Lynda looked at the dark haired man with pity. "That's just it. That is when it all started to go wrong. It was hundred years ago. The news was gone. Overnight it all just shut down."
The Doctor gazed at the blonde woman is bewilderment. "But that was me and Rose, we were here. You're saying that's when all this happened."
"Well there wasn't anything there. All the information was gone. Everything just stopped. Without knowing what was going on… well it all fell apart didn't it. Governments… the economy; it all collapsed. That's when it began really. It's been called the hundred years of hell."
The Doctor stared down at the once beautiful Planet Earth. All it took was hundred years to fall to waste… and it was his fault. "Bloody fantastic…" He closed his tired ancient eyes against the tormenting image. "It was me. I created this." The Time Lord's voice was filled with self-loathing.
TBC…