Author's Note: Okay, well, the TV show Alison was talking about, yesterday, was called "Out of this World." Just in case you were wondering about my little trivia question.
Hehehehe... enjoy this section. It's very funny.
"No Seo, this time," Jack noted, as Buffy entered the Torchwood Hub.
Buffy shrugged, walking over to the computers and dropping her weapons bag to the floor. "You said whatever this monster was, we were going to have to kill it."
Owen sat back in his chair, hands behind his head. "You know, you never had a problem with us killing evil aliens until Seo came along."
Buffy crossed her arms. "I, personally, think the bastards get what's coming to them." She looked off into the distance, her face bending into a frown. "But… it's not about the aliens. It's… Seo. I can't kill things in front of Seo. I'm her mom, I have to set a good example."
"And… that's the only reason you came here alone?" Owen said.
"Yes."
Owen nodded, then popped out of his chair. Strolled over, yanked the weapons bag up onto the desk and unzipped it — all before Buffy had a chance to even register what he was doing, let alone stop him.
"Weapons," Owen observed. Then raised up a spare set of panties Buffy had packed. "And… an overnight bag."
Buffy jerked the panties out of Owen's hands, threw them into the weapons bag, then swung the bag back around her shoulder. "That's private."
Owen leaned over the desk. "Nothing's private round here, love."
"All right, Owen, that's enough," Jack cut in. With only a wink at Buffy, he sat beside Tosh, feet up on the desk. "Tosh. Show us what you got."
"That's him!" Alison shouted, racing forwards, as they saw the hoodied man with a bar of chocolate in his hand. The man was standing in the shadows, face hidden, looking creepy and disturbing and almost sinister, clearly up to something with that chocolate.
So why was everyone just passing him by without even giving him a second glance?
"He's offering chocolate?" Seo said. She sounded almost offended. "But… that's my thing!" She gave him a dark, steady glare. "All right. This time… it's personal."
As they got closer, Alison realized… Seo was right. The man did have six fingers. Six gray, snarled-looking fingers. Six obviously non-human fingers.
She stopped Seo, a short ways away. A sudden, terrible fear rising up in her chest, although she didn't exactly know why. "Why… why isn't anyone else noticing him?" Alison whispered.
Seo reflected on this. "I don't know," she said. "Perception filter, I'd guess. Why are you whispering?"
"I…" Alison frowned. "I… have no idea."
Seo reached out, touching Alison's hand. "You're shaking."
Alison yanked her hand away. Damn, she was. And for no good reason, either. "Shut up."
Seo thought this through, her forehead creasing as she seemed to muse over the possibilities.
"It's… his hands," Alison admitted. Her voice was trembling, too, and she couldn't control it. "His… his hands…"
"Six fingers," Seo agreed, "gray skin. Alien. Is that surprising? You knew that before…" She stopped. Her eyes went wide. "Oh. I see. You're getting what the others got. But in a smaller dose."
Alison couldn't take her eyes off the hoodied man. "What?"
Seo grabbed Alison up by the shoulders and spun her around. "Alison," she said, very calmly. "Look at me. Look into my eyes. You're safe. You understand? Whatever he's trying to do to your mind, he can't. Can't even touch you."
Alison, using every scrap of willpower, managed to tear her eyes away from the hoodied man, and towards Seo. Looking into Seo's eyes. Staring into those deep, deep brown…
A flash through her head… a flash filled with… shapes, monsters, demons, evil things and good things and magic and space and this almost river of time roaring through, sprinkling droplets of water across the inside of Alison's own head, and a rush of questions and enquiries and thoughts and…
Alison stepped back, hands over her eyes, as the connection broke.
"Sorry!" said Seo, rushing over to steady her. "Sorry, I wasn't trying to… I just wanted to calm you down, I wasn't thinking, and… are you all right?"
Alison took a few deep breaths. The good news was that the intense fear from the alien creature was gone. But she now had a blinding headache.
"What did you do?" Alison asked Seo, peeking out at the girl, again.
Seo fixed her eyes on the ground. Digging her shoe into the pavement. "I'm… sort of… rubbish at hypnosis," she muttered.
"You were trying to hypnotize me?" Alison demanded.
Seo glanced back up at Alison. "I… um… sorry?"
Alison crossed her arms.
"Well, you were being acted upon by an outside mental influence," Seo explained. "And I wanted to stop you freaking out, and my instincts all said to do that hypnosis calm-down thing, so I…" She paused, large, worried eyes fixed on Alison. "You're never going to forgive me, are you?"
"Why wasn't David afraid?" Alison asked.
Seo frowned. "What?"
"Everyone who looks at that… alien… freaks out," said Alison, pointing. "But David didn't. The other kids didn't. And you didn't."
Seo looked back at the alien. A small grin appearing on her face. "Oh!" she cried. She glanced back at Alison, beaming. "You know, I think I like having a Scooby."
Then grabbed Alison up by the hand, and yanked her along behind, racing forwards towards the hoodied alien. Alison barely had time to catch her breath, let alone process the fact that… for whatever reason… the hoodied alien wasn't sparking any reaction in her mind, this time.
Not even a drop of fear.
"It's age," Seo called back, as she ran. "It only wants pre-pubescent kids. So it scans your mind, picks out your age, and then beams out the 'go mad' or 'come closer' command accordingly."
"And… you?" asked Alison.
"I don't know," Seo said. "Should have sent me mad. Maybe my mind doesn't pick up that kind of psychic signal. Or maybe the alien didn't understand how to send it to me. Maybe it only works on full-blooded humans. No idea!"
They stopped, just beside the alien. Slowly, carefully, he swiveled his head around, to show them his face. No… not them. He was staring right at… Alison.
Alison gasped, a ripple of fear spreading through her body, once more.
Seo broke out into a wide grin, examining the face. "Oh, you're an android!" she exclaimed. "So that's why I got nothing from you!"
She squeezed Alison's hand a little, which made Alison feel better — although she wasn't sure how — then yanked the chocolate bar out of the android's hands, and examined it. Brought it up to her eyes, squinting.
"It's… it's…" Alison shook her head, closing her eyes. Why was she freaking out? It was just a metal face. Dull, gray metal, inlaid with designs that could look almost like wrinkled skin from a distance. There wasn't anything weird or creepy about it.
Get a grip, Alison. Hold yourself together.
She opened her eyes.
Seo sniffed at the chocolate. Then licked it. She made a face, yanking it away from her. "Yech! That's disgusting!"
"What?" asked Alison. Her heart racing. "Is it… poisoned?"
"No, it's enlaced with a chemical compound that allows teleports to target you, specifically," Seo said. "But it tastes all metallic and tingly and yucky." She pointed an accusing finger at the android. "You are giving chocolate a bad name. You know that?"
The android tapped a button on its wrist.
Nothing happened.
It tapped it again.
Still nothing.
"Yeah, not going to happen, Scotty," said Alison.
"Scotty?" asked Seo, glancing over her shoulder at Alison.
"Yeah, you know, the guy on Star Trek who beamed people up to the ship, when…" Alison noticed the entirely blank look on Seo's face, and shook her head. "Are you sure you're not from another planet or something?"
"I'm from Earth!" Seo insisted. "Born October 1st, 2000, at Sunnydale Memorial Hospital, California!"
Alison blinked. Then blinked again. "Wait, you're seven years old?"
"No, I'm ninety eight," Seo corrected, turning back to the android, and grabbing it by the head. "Now, let's see what makes you tick."
And with a great big thrust, Seo jerked the head off the android's body.
All traces of fear left Alison, as the android slumped to the ground, no longer operational. Seo knelt down on the ground, prying casing off the android's skull and body, tossing it over her shoulder and analyzing the insides, carefully.
98.
Uh… huh…
"Simple snatch and grab android," Seo observed. "Hooked up to the main ship overhead."
She jerked the casing off the robot's chest, and her eyes glowed.
"Ha! Brilliant!" Seo cried, as she began scrambling around in the robot's insides, dissecting and then pocketing items seemingly at random.
"What?" asked Alison. She knelt down by Seo. "Are you getting the teleport functions out of him or something?"
Seo snapped her head up. "What? Oh. That." She bent down, again, resuming her dissection. "No. No, this is so I can repair the dishwasher."
"What?" Alison cried.
"Well, Mom's going to be really mad at me if I don't fix it by the time she gets home," Seo explained, pocketing a few more items, "and I'm pretty sure, using some of these systems, I can construct something that will at least clean dishes, although maybe not in the way she's used to, and…"
"Seo!" Alison snapped. "Alien space ship. Orbiting Earth. Kidnapped five year old brother!"
Seo paused. Looking a little guilty. "Priorities. Right." She bit her lower lip. "Sorry. I'm… not very good at this kind of thing, yet."
Alison just leveled the same determined glare at Seo.
"Anyways, I can't use a teleport," Seo told her, turning back to the robot.
"Why not?" asked Alison.
"But, lucky for us, looks like there's an emergency system installed," Seo continued, without answering. "A tractor beam retrieval mode." She grabbed up a small, humming black box from the robot's insides, and plopped it down on the ground, opening the lid and analyzing the interior, carefully. "We can tap into that."
"Why can't we teleport?" Alison asked, again.
"I never said we," said Seo. "I said 'I'."
"All right, why can't you teleport?" Alison asked.
Seo didn't answer. She was staring at the inside of the box, thinking, carefully. Then, a spark appeared in her eyes, and she yanked a complicated looking gizmo out of her jacket pocket.
A gizmo… that was definitely far too big to fit in that little pocket.
"Where… did that come from?" Alison asked.
"Well, I definitely didn't steal it from Torchwood," said Seo, as she slipped it out of a clear plastic box that had housed the gizmo, and promptly began to dissect the alien gadget, placing bits and pieces inside the black box. Tweaking and altering the internal wiring of the box as she went. "And I certainly didn't take it out of Jack's special secret safe."
Alison picked up the casing, studying it. A scratched up looking box with see-through panels on the side, each glowing a faint blue. "It says, 'DO NOT USE'," Alison pointed out.
"I'm not using it," Seo replied. "I'm dissecting it."
The black box Seo was working on gave a click, then a clunk, then whirred with increased power. Seo grinned, clapping the top of the casing back on the box, and handing it to Alison. "Here."
"Me?" asked Alison, taking it.
"Oh, and… I'm going to have to hold onto you," Seo explained. "Or the beam won't pick me up. Sorry."
"You're…?" Alison began.
But then the box began to whine at her. Whine higher, and higher, and she felt the entire world going fuzzy nearby, a beam of light snapping out and fixing on herself, Seo, and the partially dissected android. Seo threw her arms around Alison, clinging to her in a desperate embrace, as Alison felt herself suddenly jerked up through the air, screaming as she raced up towards the clouds, then through them, faster and faster, barely able to take in her surroundings, until…
Alison blinked, as she realized… she was standing back on solid ground.
No, wait.
Not solid ground.
It was… the heavy, steady vibrating pulse of engines, rippling through a dark, metallic surface underfoot. Alison looked around herself, and saw… that same dark, stark metal, encasing them. A metal room. A few flashing lights on the surface of the far end of the room, but… other than that…
Seo jumped back, unhooking herself from Alison. Her eyes glowing, as a look of utter wonder and delight spread across her face. "A space ship!" she cried, racing around. Tapping the hull, analyzing the flashing lights, pressing buttons at random. She laughed in complete joy. "An actual, moving space ship! Drifting through space! Brilliant!"
"Space ship," Alison breathed.
One of the buttons Seo pressed made a panel at the far side of the wall slide away, revealing a large window, filled with the picture of stars twinkling against a black back-drop. And, hanging there, just in front of them…
"Earth," said Seo.
Alison stumbled forwards, her hands resting against the window panel.
Seo sprinted over to join her, the two standing, shoulder to shoulder, looking out on the planet beneath them. The clouds whisping across the surface, the oceans twinkling beneath the sunlight, the colors almost blending, one into another, as the planet continued its dance through space.
"It's beautiful," said Alison.
"Amazing," Seo agreed. Then she turned on her heel, and raced back to the buttons. "Still!" she continued. "If that button opened the window, then this…" banging her fist against another button, "should open…"
The door hatch just beside Seo slid aside to reveal a large, dark area. Almost cave-like in its gloom and desolation.
Alison hesitated, before crossing the room to where Seo was. "What's… in there?" she whispered.
"Don't know," said Seo. "I've never been on a space ship before."
"Your dad's an alien, though, right?" said Alison. "Doesn't he have a space ship?"
Seo's happiness tumbled off her face, and a trace of a deep sadness spread through her. "You mean… my father." She took a long, deep breath, one that seemed to tremble with the effort of holding back an emotion too deep for words. "Not… my dad."
And Alison realized… whoever Seo had called 'Dad', he'd not been her biological father. But he'd been very close to her. Very, very close. And she… had lost him.
"My father's ship is… different, anyways," said Seo, trying to dismiss the slip in her emotional mask. "And I only rode in it once."
Alison took Seo's hand in hers. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."
Seo said nothing for a few long moments, her eyes stuck to the ground, her entire body emoting pain and grief and a deep, deep sorrow.
"Your brother," she said, determinedly, at long last. She looked over at Alison. "David. Let's… focus on finding him. He's what's important."