Health and Safety: Chapter 14 – In the Eyes of the Beholder
The Doctor motioning for us to stop climbing as we reach the landing of the second floor comes as quite a relief.
Every. Single. Step that we have taken up the twisting metal staircase has made the whole thing groan audibly, which is not helping my already frayed nerves. Usually our running about involves a lot less stealth and a lot more headlong charges, this has not been a normal trip out in the TARDIS… Even by the standards of traveling with the Doctor, this has not been a typical outing from the moment I awoke from a time trance inducing soporific to find him staggering around the Maitland house in a blindfold.
The wide open space before us looks like some kind of storage room, with large crates piled high against the walls and crammed next to strong looking steel support beams. Nearer to the middle of the room there are vinyl tarps covering oblong rectangular objects. Mindful to make as little noise as possible, I pull up the corner of one of the tarps, revealing an odd looking vehicle.
"Hover car." The Doctor says simply after making a quick scan of it, which confirms our earlier suspicions.
Across the room a ways, Ria has climbed to the top of a stack of crates, and is trying to pry a lid off of one of them while being careful of her balance. The Doctor makes some waves with his hands at her, like he is worried about her falling…
When the lid finally comes free, she lets off a little whistle, apparently impressed with the content.
"Silver plated conductors, usually only Fredonia Freight can get their hands on this kind of thing, these are Energy Marketers alright, high end ones." She calls down to us in a harsh whisper.
"Local jargon for the mob. Energy becomes the new black market commodity. It's strictly regulated by the government, but that just makes it more desirable to trade in. People who can pay for it want the ability to purchase bigger and better things." The Doctor tells me as Ria carefully covers the box again and slides back to the ground.
A door opens farther down the room, sending us all scrambling for cover.
"Just our luck that those hosers would try and make a move for the girls right now, with the boss trying to woo Mister and Misses I'm from space hear me roar." One voice complains, presumably to another person.
"Yeah, well if we got the right girl it don't matter what they do. We'll be set for life and then some." A second voice replies. They don't look around at all, and walk right by us, climbing up the staircase without a care that they are making the whole thing groan and squeak.
The Doctor gives me a face before leading the way towards the door the two people had just come out of, using his body to keep me physically behind him.
When we step through the still open doorway, the feel of the space around us changes immediately, from sparse and spooky warehouse to suave office building. The skinny corridor is lavishly decorated with wall hangings and fancy wooden furniture, if we get caught here there is nowhere to hide, and not a lot of places for us to run... Farther down the hall, the sound of faint voices is echoing from behind a set of oak double doors.
The Doctor points the sonic at the door, flicking it open with a flourish as he reads it.
"This is a sort of gallery over the room below, and there are some shelves that we might be able to hide behind." He tells us.
"Might?" I ask, quirking an eyebrow in question.
"Hopefully yes." He replies, easing the doors open carefully. Fortunately these ones seem to be used more often than the ones downstairs, and don't creak at all. The three of us slip inside, to find a sort of study. One grand desk, a few other chairs and a pair of bookshelves as promised, all arranged on a balcony.
"Did you hear that?" The voice of an older man carries from somewhere below us as we edge towards the shelves, tucking ourselves in behind them. It's frustrating that we can't see from our hiding place, but at least we can hear…
"I have heard a lot of rumbling noises coming from all around us. You keep promising that they will stop soon, but… well… We have yet to see any results." Replied a woman's voice that practically purred with disapproval.
"It's nothing but an annoyance, I can assure you, the boys will sort them out soon enough and we can get back to business as usual."
"Now Reginald, we offered your organization the opportunity to make this transaction because we thought you were up to the task. Your resourcefulness impressed us; we assumed that with the added advantage of the technology we have put at your disposal, you would have delivered by now."
"And we've been grateful for your good faith and this opportunity Captain Kelvia, and let's be fair, we have been of great assistance to you thus far."
Another male voice replies, one that has a similar cadence to the woman. "Oh we remember. We now know that whoever this magnificent temporal anomaly is, she cavorts with another rarity, a humanoid alien that has trouble blending in… fashion wise, dressed for quite the wrong period of earth time apparently. That will be most useful."
My head snaps up to the Doctor, who looks oblivious that whoever this is has to have meant him. How many other time traveling aliens are there with bowties and occasionally Victorian worthy frock coats around?
"As soon as the commotion outside is dealt with, we will take you downstairs to the vault for your final confirmation, and to discuss our final payment of course." Reginald states.
"Naturally. I do hope your people handle this situation quickly, I am most eager." The woman coos.
"Did you give anyone else an energy scanner? Or do you really have such faith in us?"
"Oh Reginald, we know very well that you have sappers within the other cartels, that man who successfully scanned the target was not of your organization, but he was one of yours."
"Is one of mine." Reginald asserts with indignity, there is honour among thieves apparently.
"No, was, he was discovered and appropriately dealt with by your competitors, why else would this lot be so ungraciously pounding on your door? We made it abundantly clear that we were willing to shop around for a buyer, if they could beat the Canadian Government's price that is. We are all businessmen here, it makes no matter to us who gets to use our technology, we only desire to be appropriately compensated for it. And you know what price you are trying to match of course, you hacked those records quickly enough. This human girl is the only way you can hope to top that."
"How do you know that we know what the feds offered you?"
"We hacked the hackers of course."
The Doctor grumbles something about wanting to be able to see whoever is talking, and starts to inch away from the bookshelf, but I put a hand on his chest, pushing him back. We can't afford for him to be seen, not dressed as he is, I have a better idea…
Ignoring the fact that I can feel both of his hearts beating from where my hand is still settled firmly on his chest, I reach into the pant pocket where he stowed his mobile phone, not the TARDIS, but his actual mobile camera phone.
I give him a firm look that means 'you stay put,' to which he huffs and puts his hands up in a sort of surrender as a reply. Oh I am the boss…
Daring to peek around the edge of the shelf, I catch a glimpse of the people below us. Lounging in a squishy armchair is an older man dressed in a crisp suit, who looks very anxious about the whole situation, he can't seem to keep his hands still, first tapping them on the arm of the chair, then wringing them together and playing with the edges of his lapels.
Across from him are the people he is talking to, both sitting rigidly upright, wearing the same long uniform just in different colour schemes. Possibly denoting their ranks? He called the woman a captain right? The only way that you could describe their faces would be to call them absolutely beautiful, both of them. They look almost human, except for the sharp angles of their faces, as well the raised markings that curl under their eyes and back around their necks trailing off under slightly pointed ears.
Raising the phone, I snap pictures of them both before retreating to our hiding place, passing the phone back to the Doctor.
"Time to get out of here?" I whisper.
"This room at least." He replies, one hand shuffling through the images, the other absent mindedly finding mine and leading me from the room.
"What are they doing here?" He mumbles, more of a thought that escaped from his mind than an actual question.
"Who is here?" I ask anyways, prompting his thoughts to hopefully leave his brain and come out as an explanation to us.
"They're Etulians. When Bod said someone was coming to deal in energy he wasn't kidding, they are the best in the business anywhere at this time, actually in most times..."
"How so?"
"The sun of their home planet went out, it just died, they had no advance warning and about two hours of light before their entire race would have been swallowed by darkness and the cold of open space."
"So they abandoned planet and are now looking for a new home?"
"No, their scientists actually managed to create a makeshift energy wave to hold in the heat and buy them more time, which they used to create a sort synthetic sun in their atmosphere; it takes massive amounts of energy to power but it works, mostly, keeps them alive and in the light. They have gone through at least a dozen models of the sun, trying to find something that will last, they've tried atomic power, saluric fusion, tranjil catalysts, nothing lasts for long, but it buys them enough time to come up with something else. They refuse to give in and leave."
"And you called us stubborn before…"
He raises his faint eyebrows and purses his lips a bit, appearing to revaluate his earlier statement.
"If the Etualians actually traded some of their technology to earth, the whole planet would be up and running in weeks. Powering the needs of several billion people is nothing compared to powering a false sun. But they aren't known for their generosity, I don't know what they could possibly want, or how double dealing would serve them at all. What can this seedy lot give them that the government of the second largest country on earth can't?"
"That woman, the Captain, she said that this organization had hacked the government records, that they knew what they had to beat." Ria chips in.
"Yes, and we need to find those records, I want to see what this price is, and hopefully that might show how some human girl is considered to be so valuable to them..."
I'm not sure if he is denying the increasingly obvious, or if he actually hasn't pieced it together. What do we know? That whoever it is that these people want, they are a she, a she with dark hair, who is considered a 'temporal anomaly,' which has to be a fancy word for time traveler I think, and she is known to 'cavort' with an ill-dressed human looking alien...
All of this can only mean that it really is Jenny they want, or that it is me that they are after, I think at least… I don't know why they kept grabbing the other women, maybe as a distraction or maybe just because they didn't have enough information…
"If I had a study like that, I would want it near wherever my business records were kept." I suggest, trying to keep my own thoughts from wandering away from me. The Doctor and Ria nod in agreement.
After only a few steps down the hallway, the whole building rocks, knocking us all against the wall as the sound of tearing metal sheets can be heard from far away. The Doctor gulps, and grabs my hand, pressing ahead farther down the corridor. We check a variety of doors, but find only a cellar full of what looks like vintage wine, another smaller study, and a poorly lit room with nothing in it except for a metal chair bolted down to the floor, worn leather belts draping off of it. I don't want to think about what happens in here...
At the last door in the hallway, we come to another balcony, with a set of steps leading down to a large open room like the one we had seen before. This one has smaller crates stacked around it, with several tables covered in tiny parts and metal bits. At the far end of the room is a large metallic box that looks like a hard drive, wired up to a touch screen computer.
"That looks promising!" I say, taking advantage of our still joined hands to pull the Doctor towards the stairs and down to the machine, hauling him along despite his protests as he almost trips over his own feet.
"Hand grabbing is not always your job!" I tell him with a grin as we come to a halt in front of the machine.
"I didn't tell you it was Clara." He replies carefully.
"Yes you did."
"Clara-"
I shush him dismissively; placing both my hands on the flat touch screen of the machine.
Alright, time to work out the best way to sort out the mess of information before me and find what we need so we can get out of here…
A/N: Hello all! Hopefully I will be able to post more regularly for the next little bit. Plot business abounds for us right now, hang tight! Thank you everyone who is reading, reviewing and whatnot, it's been a lot of fun to see people's theories as to what is going on and to get the wonderful feedback. Thank you all so much! Songaboutsleep, I can't PM you to thank you properly for the beautiful comments you have left across my stories, so just, wow… thank you!