Hello people!
I hope everything is alright for all of you, and for those who are getting back to school: brave heart! And I wish you all a year filled with A+!
I'm sorry I haven't been updating for like 10 days, but I was also preparing myself to go back to school, and in my case it means moving out and in. So between two trains and two car trips, I wrote Chapter 40.
Plus, I wanted it to be longer than the previous chapters as I noticed that they were getting shorter and shorter, so I thought I'd try to go back to write longer chapters.
I hope you will like this one, really, I don't know why but I don't feel very confident about the rewriting of the Bells of St John. Maybe because it's necessary to write it but that I don't really feel at ease with it? Anyway, I still love this episode so yeah, I hope you'll like the chapter.
Turtle: Thank you for your support, you never fail at drawing a smile on my face!
Thank you to Freya Astrid Nova for the proofreading! :) OH AND BY THE WAY! I think some of you who are following my profile know it already but my friend Freya Astrid Nova is writing a Doctor Who fanfiction and she decided that I'll publish it on my account, so it's called The Starving Ones, you should go and get a look at it guys :) it's her first proper Doctor Who fanfiction, she needs advice :)
I'll let you get on with the chapter :)
Enjoy!
Melody - x.
P.S.: I recommend you to read the first part of the chapter listening to Clara's theme, as in the episode :)
Chapter 40
In the soft and warm light of a bed lamp, Clara was laying in her bed, unconscious.
The Doctor waltzed around her room, putting a jug filled with fresh water, and a glass on her bedside table. Wanting to do things right, he added some flowers in a mug and a plate with Jammy Dodgers on it. He could not resist to smell the delicious biscuits and bit in one, appreciating the flavour. Unaware that this was not the kind of things polite people do, he put back the biscuit he had started to eat on the plate and began to look around her room, snooping in her shelves. A tall and thin book called his attention and he took it, looking at the cover.
"101 Places To See"
The book looked old.
He opened it to find a series of numbers written under a child's handwriting saying "Property Of Clara Oswald." The counting was starting at nine and ending at twenty four. He guessed this was the years young Clara counted, waiting to go somewhere and see some wonderful places.
A soft smile lightened his face before becoming intrigued at the sight of a red dried maple leaf on the following page. He carefully took the leaf between his fingers and looked at it closely. He smelled it, and being way too curious, finally licking it, making him pull a face as the taste was not to his liking.
He put it back between the pages where he found it, and left the book on her desk before taking her computer and leaving the room.
A few moments later though, Clara frowned before opening her eyes, their brown and copper sparks laying upon the half eaten biscuit.
Something had happened.
She suddenly sat up on her bed, trying to remember what exactly had occurred, but a slight headache made her wince. She got up and headed towards the little window of her attic room, thinking some fresh air would relieve her. Looking down on the street she saw the big blue box parked just by the Maitlands' house, the Doctor sat on a chair looking at her computer with a weird metal thing next to him.
"Hello?" she called.
"Hello!" answered the Doctor, glad she had awoke, standing up from his chair. He put her laptop on the ground and asked: "Are you alright?"
"I'm in bed."
"Yes."
"Don't remember going…"
"No."
"What did I miss?" she asked.
"Oh… Quite a lot actually." he said, taking a little notepad out of his inside pocket and skimming through the pages. "Angie called, she's going to stay over at Nina's, apparently that's completely fine and you shouldn't worry like you always do, for God sake, get off her back. Er… Also, your dad phoned, mainly about the government, he seems very cross with them, I've got several pages on that, I said I'd look into it. I fixed that rattling noise in the washing machine, indexed the kitchen cupboards, optimized the photosynthesis in the main flower bed and assembled a quadricycle."
"Assemble the what?"
"I found a disassembled quadricycle in the garage."
"I don't think you did." she said.
His eyes suddenly sparkled with the light of a mad scientist whose invention was a success.
"I invented the quadricycle… Ha!" he whispered. Looking satisfied, he looked up at Clara.
"I don't remember what happened to me."
"Don't you remember?" he asked, a hint of worry coming across his face."
"I was scared… Really scared…" Clara said. "Didn't know where I was."
"Do you know now?"
"Yes."
"Well then!" he smiled. "You should go to you're safe now, I promise." He awkwardly crossed his fingers while looking down at his feet before briefly looking back at her. "Goodnight Clara." he said, turning around to go back working on this robot, his head bowed, as though, somehow, he would have prefered to stay there and talk to her.
A little smirk curled Clara's lips before she asked, mischievous:
"Are you guarding me?"
"Well… Yes. Yes, I am." he said, sitting there and looking satisfied with this responsibility, making Clara chuckle, which made him smile.
"Are you seriously going to sit down there all night?"
"Yeah! I promise I won't budge from this spot." he answered, flipping his sonic screwdriver before slipping it inside his pocket and sitting back, arms crossed.
She smiled again. To be honest, why would she trust this guy? After all she called him for help for the Wifi, and the next second he was at her doorstep, dressed like a monk, calling himself the Doctor and carrying a big blue police box. Then she got attacked and he saved her, now wearing an old fashioned but somehow charming outfit, he took care of her, fixed everything in the Maitlands' house, and now he was protecting her. He seemed very attached to her, and although all of this was completely bonkers, she trusted him and felt connected to him.
"Well then, I'll have to come to you." she said, closing the window.
"Eh?"
He got up and awkwardly fixed his bow tie, waiting for her to come outside. He could not help but feel nervous.
"I take the girl is inside. And alive." said Miss Kizlet. Mahler and her were looking at Alexi's screen over his shoulder, displaying a view from the streets of the Maitlands' home with the blue box parked next to it.
"Yes." simply answered Mahler.
"Alexi." she started with a smirk and taking her tablet. "I need you to do something creative about that." she said, going to Alexi's file and rising his IQ slider, making the boy type faster on his glass keyboard.
Clara carried a chair and two cups of tea by the blue box.
"I like your house!" said the Doctor, working on the walking base station.
"It's not mine." she said. "I'm a friend of the family."
"But you look after the kids. Oh!" he said, realising and tapping his forehead with the metal key he was using. "Yes, you're a governess aren't you, just like…" he stopped, not wanting to mention the Victorian Clara, tapping again his forehead, telling himself he was stupid.
"Just like?" she said, giving him one of the mugs filled with hot tea.
"Just like, err…" he said, sipping some tea. "I just thought you probably would be."
"Are you going to explain what happened to me?" she asked, looking at him sitting down in front of her.
A little smile briefly lightened his lips. She was as stubborn as the Victorian Clara. And also as much as Melody… His hearts missed a beat as he thought of her, but curiously, the tingling sensation he was feeling on his skin when he was around Clara made the memory come with a soft and endearing feeling, more than a wrenching pain.
"There's something in the WiFi." he started, leaning in. "This whole world is swimming in WiFi, we're living in a WiFi soup. Suppose something got inside. Suppose there was something living in the WiFi, harvesting human minds, extracting them." he said. "Imagine that. Human souls trapped like flies in the world-wide web. Stuck forever, crying out for help."
"Isn't that basically Twitter?" said Clara, sipping into her cup of tea.
The Doctor clicked on the WiFi button of her laptop, all the WiFi names being listed, almost every of them being named with weird symbols. He frowned as his eyes looked up at her.
"What's that face for?" she asked.
"A computer can hack another computer, a living, sentient computer." he thought out loud. "Maybe that could hack people, edit them, rewrite them."
"Why would you say that?"
"Because a few hours ago you knew nothing about the Internet." he said, pointing his fingers at her. "And you just made a joke about… Twitter!" he stated, though you could hear in his voice how much he was not keen on the social network.
"Oh… Well…" she said, shrugging. "Doesn't mean I know nothing about social networks, you know."
"Are you sure?" he asked, his forehead drawing sceptical lines on his skin.
"Yeah, I mean… Okay I'm not good with the machine and put the wifi and everything, but once I'm connected I know about social networks and find my way through it."
"Okay." he nodded. "Then I need to find out what they are up to, because once people are downloaded, their body is dead. So why?"
"Maybe they need the bodies." she said, sipping again in her cup of tea.
"Why?"
"I don't know, I'm not the expert, just… suggesting."
He nodded again, thoughtful. He closed her computer and got up, looking around the street lightened up by the street lamps. A few people were not very far away. Maybe two or three. Observing them closely, the Doctor started to feel uneasy seeing they were not moving, just staring at them.
"Clara…"
He stepped back, towards the doors of the blue box as suddenly, the figures on the other side of the road stepped forward. Looking at Clara, she was rubbing her forehead, eyes closed and eyebrows frowned.
"Hey, you okay?"
"Yeah, just a bit of a headache, nothing more.
"Good! Clara, we need to go. See these people on the other side of the road, they aren't people they are walking base stations just like the one I disassembled, I think they want it back, and by the same occasion harvest our souls."
She looked at him, then at the people dangerously walking up to them.
"You and me, inside that box, now."
"I'm sorry?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.
"Just get inside."
"Both of us?"
"Oh, trust me, you'll understand once we're in there." he said, getting what she understood.
"I bet I will! Is it like a snogging booth?" she asked, teasing him.
"A what?!"
"Is that what you do, bring a booth? There is such a thing as too keen." she kept on teasing him, sipping the rest of her tea.
"Clara…" he said, calling her attention to the people as their heads was turning, revealing a spoon head as their were getting really close. "You, me, box, now!" he said, grabbing her hand and leading her inside the box, where all the lights were going round and the rotor already ready to take off as though she knew they needed to go, and quickly.
"Yes, it's a spaceship, yes, it's bigger on the inside. Now, I don't have time to talk about it!" he said, running to the console and switching buttons on the main panel and on the side panels.
"Where're we going?"
"Shut up, short hops are difficult!" he retorted, pushing the handbrake lever, making the room shake suddenly as the Tardis was taking off. After a few seconds, the machine stabilized and he headed towards the door, passing past Clara who sat in one of the seats. She got up and asked again:
"Where're we going?"
"Breakfast!" he said with a smile, taking her hand in his and leading her out in the morning sunlight, under the applause of people.
"Thank you, thank you! Yes, magic blue box!" he said, pulling a fez out of nowhere, like a magician. "All donations gratefully accepted, roll up, give us your dosh! Pennies, pounds, everything you've got!" he said, giving the fez to Clara while people were dropping some change in it. "Keep collecting, we need enough for breakfast. Just popping back to the garage."
She chuckled thanking the people donating, until she heard a big motorbike exit the blue doors, making the people around applause again.
"Thank you, thank you!" he said, wearing a black round helmet and glasses. "Tomorrow, a camel!" he added, handing a helmet and glasses to Clara, and giving the now empty fez to a kid.
They were sitting at a coffee table on a terrasse overlooking some streets of the City of London, skyscrapers reaching out to the sky behind them in the blue gray weather.
Clara, sipping some warm tea in her cup was looking at the Doctor, who was using her laptop, trying to track down who was controlling the walking base stations. After a moment, he just leant back and sighed, crossing his arms as he was not getting anywhere.
"You know, they probably are far away if it's working all by WiFi." she said.
"And? You've seen the Tardis, you know I can go anywhere and anywhen in Time and Space!" he said, frowning and looking at her like she was stupid.
"Just letting you know that you'll probably never find them." she shrugged.
"And what do I do? Eh? Let people die because these people are uploading them? You better write down one of the rules of travelling with me: we never give up!"
"Don't give me that look Doctor, you know you're stuck for now, these people are too clever."
"People… These people…" he pondered on her words, not even paying attention to the message she was giving him. A smile came across his face before he said "It's not about the security, it's about the people!" he exclaimed, typing again on her laptop, hacking the lowest level of security to take mugshots of the people working at controlling these base stations. He then used a basic facematch website and had the list of all the people on social networks in less than a minute. Looking up at their profiles, he searched for a common point, and soon found it. Looking up at Clara with a satisfied smile, he said: "Gotcha! The Shard. They all work at the Shard!"
"Oh well you are clever indeed." Clara spoke up.
This was not right.
"I've been warned that you were, but I never expected that you'd be so… astute."
His frown deepened as her voice sounded different. It was still the same voice, but the way she was talking…
"Clara?"
"Miss Oswald is, I fear, rather unable to talk to you and hear you right now."
"What have you done to her?" he asked, his voice suddenly trembling like the growling thunder and his eyes darkening.
"She's rather pretty, isn't she?"
"Leave her."
"Look around, and see how impossible your situation is. Go on, I do love showing off." she said, getting up and walking inside the coffee shop. He followed her as she kept talking. "Just let me show you what control of the wifi can do for you. Stop!" she shouted, opening her arms as to show him.
And all the people present in the coffee shop froze, like statues.
"I saw what you can do last night."
"And clear!" she said, and all the people left the room. "We can hack anyone in the WiFi once they've been exposed long enough."
"So there's one of your walking base stations here, somewhere close." he said, still surrounded with a dark aura, looking around the now deserted room.
"There's always someone close." she said, calling his attention again. "Human minds, preserved beyond their bodies, as my client requires them."
"It's obscene. It's murder." he said, his voice growling.
"It's life! No one loves cattle more than Burger King." she said with a smirk. Suddenly she staggered, holding her head. "Doctor!" she called, looking behind him.
He turned around, taking out his sonic screwdriver, but the walking base station right behind him did not leave him a chance and the blue ray instantly hit his face, trying to upload him.
"No!" Clara shouted, regaining the control of her body. Instinctively, she stretched out a hand in his direction as the protestation escaped her lips. A bright light ray, white and golden, came out of her stretched hand and hit the base station, cancelling the uploading and making the Doctor fall on his knees, panting.
"Doctor…" she faintly said, her lids heavy as her legs could not support her anymore. Everything around her was so… blurry.
She looked at the blurred shape of the Doctor trying to reach her. Everything was looking like on slow motion. It soon darkened and she fell to the ground, unconscious.
I hope you liked it, tell me what you think :)