Not much has changed from last week, I still can't claim any ownership whatsoever of Doctor Who but I do happen to own a pinstripe suit.
The Rather Ravenous Garden
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CHAPTER TWO
"What?!" Rose looks over to the Doctor in alarm.
"How do you not know?" Jack watches the creatures even more closely now, "You're the Doctor!"
The Doctor turns the sonic screwdriver on the nearest metallic rustle of leaves. Some of the unnatural light reflects off the metal plants- returning back to the Doctor and his companion as small flecks of blue on their faces. A rustle to their left draws their attention and the Doctor watches as another five of the thin black legs become visible.
The three glimpse the body of the creatures- each had a dark round body that had occasional highlights of a bold silver, they all had the distinct sign of an arachnid in the form of eight spindly legs. They were spiders, huge spiders- monstrous even. Each of the bugs stood at least two feet tall and were about three and a half feet in length from what the Doctor had seen. Every one of them had nine large eyes that appeared to have a tint of green or teal and silver fangs that stood out against their black bodies. They all looked desperate.
"Well," the Time Lord begins, "they just look like garden spiders."
"A little large for garden spiders aren't they, Doc?" Jack watches one as it moves forward then back, watching his every move.
"Maybe a little. They're definitely alien… And they must be unique to the planet too, haven't seen them anywhere else... 'S not every day you see a creepy crawly that's larger than a house cat," The Doctor takes a step forward and looks out into the dark, "I've seen a bug the size of a- Wait!"
The Doctor pauses, listening hard, "What is that? Didn't either of you notice it...? It doesn't make any sense… Nothing out here can cause that type of noise."
"What are you talking about?" Jack glances over to him.
"But it's still there. What could i be-?" the Time Lord stops mid sentence, and excited look spread cross his face, "No. No, no. It couldn't be. There's no way!"
The Doctor ignores his question and crouches down to the ground. He sweeps the glow of his sonic screwdriver across the ground before running a hand across the cold, hexagon shaped slabs of smooth marble that were pressed into the earth.
"I knew it! It's cobblestones," He states, "But there's still that isn't there...? The ground wouldn't be enough to cause it by itself... Hmm."
"What?" Rose watches the Doctor rise and look out into the dark to the spiders, his sonic screwdriver acting as a flashlight.
"They're clicking," The Doctor summarizes, he then turns to Rose, "Spiders don't click."
"What are they then?" Jack walks over to the two, stopping near the Doctor.
"Must be inorganic," he continues, "Maybe made of some type of metal…like those plants over there."
"Robots then?" the blonde turns to the Doctor, alarmed.
"There's a very good possibility," he pauses correcting himself, "Not necessarily good, there aren't many good robots that I know of... So it's a very likely possibility that they are robots."
The Doctor stops suddenly and quickly circles the platform that the silver column-device was on. He watches as the spiders follow his movement in the metal weeds surrounding the platform and his confusion grows as he notices something strange.
"That's unusual."
Captain Harkness looks to the Time Lord, "What is?"
"Haven't you noticed? Its just- for some reason they aren't coming within ten feet of this device here… It has to be emitting some sort of wave-"
The Doctor moves back to Rose's side and crouches at the base of the column and uses his screwdriver to open up an invisible panel at the machines side. Placing the sonic tool between his teeth, he then reaches for the sides of the metal plate and sets it on the ground. The Time Lord stares into the mass of pulsing lights and metal coils, after a moment of thought he raises his hand to his mouth and lowers the screwdriver to the machine.
"Like I thought..." he begins after a moment, "It's sending out a 9 GHz longitudinal terrasonic wave that practically disables any thermal imaging scanners within a ten foot radius… All this post is doing is harnessing the elements of corundum and lithium neonate so that any heat waves coming from our bodies can't be detected. All they can sense are our movements, but without that they'd be completely blind.
"There must be another shield that isn't allowing them to get near this machine. Something that doesn't like the type of metal they're made of…" the Doctor mutters, "That's what's keeping them away. But they've seen our movements- they're too curious to leave this area alone."
"What about the waves, can they hurt us?" Rose says as she looks down to the panel.
The buzz of the screwdriver cuts into the conversation as the Doctor continues to work on the machine. The blue light lights up his face as the sonic screwdriver buzzes on and off.
"No," he says as he works, "Well, they might give you a bit of a headache after a while but if it's part of what's currently keeping us from being attacked then I guess we're safe until either they go away or the power runs down…"
"How long do we have until that happens?"
The Doctor pauses his work with the column to answer Jack.
"I'd say about twenty minutes-" The Doctor is cut off as the machine gives a low hum and it's lights dim.
"Or now," The Doctor hurries to find a way to power the machine back up, "Now is just as inconvenient."
Rose stares out at the spiders as they continue to step back and forth in the grass, they circle the platform tirelessly as if nothing had changed. It took her a moment to realize that they were growing in number. Even though Rose couldn't see more than three of the spiders together at a time, she notices that the clicking that the Doctor had mentioned earlier was getting louder. She could hear them, millions of the tiny clicks as the metal legs tap against the ground.
After a moment she looks to the Doctor in confusion, "Why aren't they trying to kill us?"
"It'll take them about two minutes and forty-nine seconds to realize that we don't have any power. They're thermal imaging cameras will be up soon too." The Doctor answers as he hurries with his work, "Then..."
"And then what?" Jack says, looking out at the legs weaving in and out of view in the copper field.
Miss Tyler stares out into the sea of thin black legs. The sight was an arachnophobes worst nightmare. She listens as the clicking continues, then glances to Jack as he looks out at the spiders. She could see now that they both didn't know what to do. They both looked to the Doctor for guidance in that one moment where decisions could mean the difference life or death. The Doctor was what kept them alive through all this, all of these wonderful adventures through time and space. What if this was one of those times when he didn't have the answer? When the Doctor couldn't fix things and make them better? When everything ended in pain and suffering?
She glances to the Doctor as he stops to look up at Jack. Rose sees the excitement and worry and his eyes and she knows that she has to trust him no matter what the odds are. Because he's the Doctor. And she knows he's seen situations far worse than this, when there are things more terrifying than spiders that get in the way of his saving the universe or trying to get them all out alive.
"Then we're in trouble." The Doctor replies as he glances to the ex-time agent.
"Big, ugly, fanged trouble." Jack agrees as he watches the creatures.
It's seems a bit short but there was such a nice cliffy there I couldn't pass it up. Maybe the bit with Rose doubting the Doctor didn't match the tempo of the rest of the chapter but it couldn't fit anywhere else and you have to wonder if any of the Doctor's companions ever doubt him. Even a little bit... I've decided that the fic should be updated weekly, so expect to see Chapter Three soon!
~Amethyst