A/N: I do not own anything relating to Doctor Who. I only own the ideas of my OC. The outfit for this chapter is on Polyvore (/long_game/set?id=154244434) Thank you so much to those that review. I really do appreciate it. Sorry this chapter took so long to put out. I've had a lot of things going on with my family (family in the hospital, taking care of family members, a death, overall just a mess) so I haven't had much energy to write. I'm going to try and start updating once again but things are still a bit rough. As always, I LOVE reviews and I hope you enjoy!
I thankfully didn't have any dreams that night. It was a welcome relief to wake up normally. I was even awake before Rose. I quickly got dressed in flare jeans, a teal tank top, a blue and purple plaid shirt, and my usual converse. When I was ready, I went to the kitchen to grab a soda then made my way to the console room. The Doctor was looking at a monitor. He looked up when I entered the room.
"Morning." He greeted me. "How'd you sleep?"
"Morning. I slept pretty well. Did you get any sleep?" I walked over and sat on the jump seat, drinking my soda.
"I don't need sleep as much as humans do." He waived it off. I rolled my eyes. He may not need as much sleep as me but he did need it at some point and I don't think he had been to sleep once since he met us. "Have you eaten breakfast yet?"
"Breakfast of champions." I raised my soda up. He chuckled.
"Where should we go today?" He beamed.
"Somewhere Rose can show off for boy toy." I teased.
"Good idea. If you distract the boy, I can inform her of where we land." He suggested as he messed with the console a bit.
"She'd like that. Are they up yet?" I asked. I felt the Tardis agree in my head.
"Yeah." I excused myself to tell Rose the plan. She agreed happily. Next I found Adam and got him something to drink while The Doctor landed us and did a quick explanation to Rose. When Adam and I got into the console room, Rose peaked in to see if we were there yet.
"Adam? Out you come." She beamed. I followed him out of the Tardis. The Doctor was leaning against the door smiling. I shook my head at him but smiled as well. Rose seemed so excited and Adam looked shocked.
"Oh my God." He breathed as they walked forward a bit.
"Don't worry, you'll get used to it." Rose assured him.
"Where are we?" He asked, looking around at the large room we had landed in.
"Good question. Let's see. So, er, judging by the architecture, I'd say we're around the year two hundred thousand. If you listen," She started. I was trying my hardest to hold in my laughter. The Doctor nudged me gently. He was chuckling softly as well. "engines. We're on some sort of space station. Yeah, definitely a space station." She explained. "It's a bit warm in here."
"You're telling me. You'd think this far in the future they'd have better cooling." I muttered, unbuttoning my over shirt.
"Yeah. They could turn the heating down. Tell you what – let's try that gate. Come on!" She led Adam to a side gate. The Doctor and I followed them. We went through a gate and up some stairs to a large viewing window. It showed the Earth. There were extremely tall towers all over. It was strange seeing it different from what it looked like on Platform One. "Here we go! And this is... I'll let the Doctor describe it." I bit my lip to keep from laughing. The Doctor stepped forward a bit.
"The Fourth great and bountiful Human Empire. And there it is, planet Earth at its 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." He beamed excitedly. I walked close to the glass to get a good look at everything. I turned around when I heard a thud. Adam had passed out.
"Great choice with this one." I pointed at him. "Anyone going to help him?" I asked. The Doctor and Rose looked at each other.
"He's Rose's boyfriend." The Doctor tried, crossing his arms.
"Not anymore." She huffed. I rolled my eyes and tried to wake Adam up. After a couple minutes he finally started coming to. He groaned but I was able to get him upright with the help of Rose. I gave the Doctor a small glare. He smirked at me and started walking off. We followed him into a larger area than where the Tardis was.
"Come on, Adam. Open your mind. You're going to like this. Fantastic period of history. The human race at it's most intelligent. Culture, art, politics. This era has got fine food, good manners." The Doctor started explaining as he had an arm around Adam. Suddenly a man came rushing past us.
"Out of the way!" He called. The area quickly filled up with people and the food stations started serving people. I looked around and frowned.
"Good manners my ass. I've met nicer people on the streets." I huffed. From what I can remember before meeting Jackie, most of the people I met on the streets were quite nice. They offered suggestions on where to go for rest and where to get food. Rose walked up to a food stand to look at the different options.
"Fine cuisine?" She asked with a wrinkled nose. I listened as a chef was rattling off food names, one of which was something called a Kronkburger. It didn't look all that appetizing. It looked greasy and sloppy. I shuddered at the thought of how it must taste.
"My watch must be wrong." The Doctor looked at his watch strangely. "No, it's fine. This is weird." He looked around, as if trying to figure out why things weren't the way that he had expected them.
"That's what comes of showing off. You're history's not as good as you thought it was." Rose teased him. I smiled.
"My history's perfect." He pouted.
"Sure it is. This is the pinnacle of good manners and fine food." I gestured around me at the people running around, yelling and eating their less than ideal meals. He wrinkled his nose at me and I started laughing. Rose snickered next to me.
"They're all human. What about the millions of planets, the millions of species? Where are they?" Adam questioned. Rose and I turned to look at him.
"Good question." The Doctor seemed to just notice that Adam was the one that had asked this. He quickly turned to look at him with a look of shock on his face. "Actually, that is a good question. Adam, me old mate, you must be starving." He put his arm around Adam once again. Adam looked uneasy.
"No, I'm just a bit time sick." He tried to excuse his nervousness.
"No, you just need a bit of grub." The Doctor moved closer to the vendor in front of us. "Oi, mate. How much is a Kronkburger?" He asked.
"Two credits twenty, sweetheart. Now join the queue." He finished with a frown. The Doctor moved back to us.
"Lovely personality." I frowned. The man must have heard me since I looked at him and he was glaring at me. I gave him an overly sweet smile. He sneered and returned to his customers.
"Money. We need money. Let's use a cashpoint." The Doctor was rambling. We all followed him over to a machine marked 'Credit Five Cashpoint'. He pulled out his sonic and used it on the machine. It produced a silver chunk of plastic. The Doctor took it and handed it to Adam. "There you go, pocket money. Don't spend it all on sweets." He smirked.
"How does it work?" Adam asked, looking over the thing the Doctor had given him.
"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. Or is that just me?" He joked.
"Not sure, never been to Paris." I added. He laughed at me.
"Well, we'll have to visit Paris some time. Anyway, Adam, stop asking questions, just go and do it. Off you go then." He gestured him on. Rose looked back to see if I was coming. I shook my head. "Your first date then." The Doctor smiled at her.
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Hell, don't do half of the things that I would do." I teased.
"You two are going to get a smack, you are." She pointed at us. I held up my hands in surrender. She gave me a smirk and walked off with Adam. I rolled my eyes and turned to the Doctor.
"So, where do we start?" I asked.
"What do you mean?" He was smiling. I shook my head slightly.
"You said your history was perfect but things aren't the way you said they would be. There's no sign of aliens around. Something is off. I'm assuming you want to figure out what it is. So, where do we start?" He looked proud.
"We start with the locals." He beamed and we walked over to two young women. "Er, this is going to sound daft, but can you tell me where we are?" He asked the women.
"Floor One Three Nine. Could they write it any bigger?" One woman scoffed while pointing to a large sign that read Floor 139 just a few feet away from us. I chuckled softly.
"Floor 139 of what?" He continued.
"Must have been a hell of a party." The woman chuckled.
"You're on Satellite Five." The other woman explained since the first wasn't.
"What's Satellite Five?" The Doctor asked.
"Come on, how could you get on board without knowing where you are?" The first woman asked. She seemed to be getting annoyed with his questioning.
"Look at me. I'm stupid." He joked.
"He can be quite thick at times. It's easiest to just humor his questions." I suggested.
"Oi, now who's the rude one?" He frowned at me. His voice was still humorous so I figured he was just joking.
"Hush. Just because you haven't been rude yet, it doesn't mean you aren't going to be at some point." I pointed out. He held up his hands.
"Hold on, wait a minute. Are you a test? Some sort of management test kind of thing?" The second woman asked when we had finished our little back and forth.
"You've got us. Well done. You're too clever for me." He pulled out his small wallet with the psychic paper. He showed it to them. This time, when I looked at it, it was completely blank. There was no fuzzy or glitching image. Just blank paper.
"We were warned about this in basic training. All workers have to be versed in company promotion." The second woman said with a smile. The first woman's attitude changed drastically. She no longer had the attitude that she was better than us. She stood up straight.
"Right, fire away, ask your questions. If it gets me to Floor 500 I'll do anything." She smiled.
"Why, what happens on Floor 500?" The Doctor asked.
"The walls are made of gold. And you should know, Mister Management." She leaned into him slightly, as if the second woman and I weren't there. It was a little strange. I ignored it though. "So, this is what we do." she led us over to a wall that had a couple screens on it. "Latest news, 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 explained. I looked at the video of the Face of Boe. We had seen him in the year 5 billion. Now I was seeing him again. I wondered how long he lived. I wanted to ask but the Doctor continued talking to the women.
"I get it. You broadcast the news." He said.
"We are the news. 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." She explained. I thought for a moment.
"Would it be a trouble if we were to observe you while you work?" I asked. She and the Doctor both looked at me.
"It wouldn't be a trouble. If you'll just follow me." She smiled. We followed her. An alarm sounded and all the people began getting up and running off back to work. When I spotted Rose and Adam I nudged the Doctor and pointed to them.
"Oi! Mutt and Jeff! Over here!" He called. They got up from the table they were sitting at and joined us, though Adam seemed to be taking a little longer to get moving. We continued down some hallways. "Good idea Phoenix." He smiled at me.
"Don't look so surprised. I have good ideas every once in a while." I chuckled. I looked at Rose. "How was your date?" I asked in an overly sweet voice. She wrinkled her nose at me but didn't say anything. We walked into a room that had what looked like a dentist chair and 7 seats on the floor around it. The second woman joined the others on the floor.
"Now, everybody behave. We have a management inspection." The woman announced before turning to us. "How do you want it, by the book?"
"Right from scratch, thanks." The Doctor said. She turned back to the others.
"Okay. So, ladies, gentlemen, multi-sex, undecided or robot, my name is Cathica Santini Khadeni. That's Cathica with a C, in case you want to write to Floor five hundred praising me, and please do." She shot a smirk to the Doctor. "Now, please feel free to ask any questions. The process of news gathering must be open, honest, and beyond bias. That's company policy."
"Actually, it's the law." The second woman from earlier pipped up.
"Yes, thank you, Suki. Okay, keep it calm. Don't show off for the guests. Here we go." Cathica said as she got settled into the strange main chair. I popped my neck, there was an uncomfortable tension building in it. Rose gave me a confused glance. I shook my head. She really did worry too much. "And engage safety." Cathica called. The seven people seated on the floor put their hands over the system in front of them. Lights started turning on around the room. Rose and I looked around the room nervously. Cathica snapped her fingers and a small hole opened on the front of her head. Her brain was exposed. Suki and the others placed their hands into hand print indents on the console. "And three, two, and spike." A beam of light shone into Cathica's head. I blinked in surprise for a couple seconds before turning to the Doctor.
"That's intriguing. Care to explain?" I asked.
"Compressed information, streaming into her. 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." He informed us. Rose and Adam were leaning on the railing, trying to get a good look at what was happening. I took a step back.
"If it all goes through her, she must be a genius." Rose mused, still looking at Cathica.
"Nah, she wouldn't remember any of it. There's too much. Her head would blow up." He explained as he started walking around the room. Rose and I followed behind. "The brain's the processor. As soon as it closes, she forgets."
"So, what about all these people round the edge?" Rose asked gesturing to Suki and the others.
"If she's the processor, what are they for other than a safety measure?" I asked. The Doctor looked at me with a quirked eyebrow.
"How do you know they're a safety measure?" He questioned.
"Well, Cathica said something about engaging safety. That's when they put their hands down. I figured they're some kind of safety so she doesn't get overloaded." I shrugged. He smiled.
"Good. 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. Now that's what I call power." He leaned against the railing by Adam. Adam looked uneasy. I stood on the other side of the Doctor as Rose moved to stand by Adam.
"You alright?" She asked him.
"I can see her brain." He said weakly. I popped my neck again.
"How about you, Phoenix? You doing alright?" The Doctor asked. I looked at him. He was watching me carefully.
"Yeah. Just a bit tense. No worries." I shrugged it off. He nodded and continued to watch Cathica.
"Do you want to get out?" Rose asked Adam.
"No. No, this technology, it's amazing." He said excitedly. The Doctor and I shared an uneasy look.
"This technology's wrong." The Doctor corrected.
"Trouble?" Rose asked with a slight smile. The Doctor looked between us.
"Oh yeah." He smiled.
"Of course you think trouble is fun." I shook my head but smiled nonetheless. Suki suddenly pulled her hands away from the console, almost like she had been shocked. She massaged her hands as the others on the floor opened their eyes and lifted their hands. The beam of light stopped and Cathica sat up. The portal on her head closed as well. She looked livid.
"Come off it, Suki. I wasn't even halfway. What was that for?" She demanded, glaring at Suki.
"Sorry. It must have been a glitch." She muttered sheepishly. I felt bad for the girl. The wall that the chair faced lit up and announced a promotion. We all turned to look at it.
"Come on. This is it. Come on. Oh, God, make it me. Come on, say my name, say my name, say my name." Cathica almost chanted. I glanced to Rose and the Doctor. They were both looking as confused at Cathica's actions as me. She seemed much too eager, almost desperate. I mean, if the walls were indeed gold on floor 500, I guess I could see why she would want to get there. It just seemed like she was much too eager. It made me uneasy. The announcer speaking brought my attention back to the screen in front of us.
"Promotion for Suki Macrae Cantrell. Please proceed to Floor five hundred." It announced. Suki looked shocked when she stood up to look at the screen. Cathica looked devastated and angry.
"I don't believe it. Floor five hundred." She walked a little closer to the screen almost as if she didn't believe it.
"How the hell did you manage that?" Cathica demanded. "I'm above you." Suki turned and looked at her for a moment.
"I don't know. I just applied on the off chance and they've said yes." She looked so excited. If that whole place didn't make me so nervous, I would have been overjoyed. She seemed like such a nice girl. Cathica didn't seem to share my opinion.
"That's so not fair. I've been applying to Floor five hundred for three years." She snapped and crossed her arms over her chest.
"What's Floor five hundred?" Rose asked the Doctor. He was still watching everything in the room.
"They say the walls are made of gold." I explained. She quirked an eyebrow in confusion. I just shrugged in response. Everyone started filing out of the room. Suki ran off to get her bags.