CHAPTER 2: Secrets and Lies
"Doctor?" asked Amy. She and Rory were already approaching the TARDIS doors. "Is everything alright?"
Still rooted to the spot mid-step, the Doctor whipped his head around to face the advancing companion. "Stay back!" he barked, eyes wide with urgency. "Stay back there!"
But curiosity carried Amy right through his orders as she sidled up beside him and craned her neck to inspect her new surroundings. And no sooner had she done so that she let out an involuntary shriek of horror.
"What is it?" asked Rory, his view now obscured by two people.
"Ood," said the Doctor simply, resigning himself to Amy's disobedience as he continued to process the sight before him. "They're Ood. A wonderful race that has-" he checked his wristwatch "-and will give so much to the universe... and they're..."
BZZZZZZZZ! BZZZZZZZZ!
A jarring emergency siren filled the room as an intense light turned the white walls to an angry red. The Doctor looked at the windowed panel across from him to see the man behind the glass frantically barking orders into a phone, his gaze remaining firmly locked on the TARDIS intrusion before him.
"That's... not a good noise, is it?" noted Rory, almost needlessly.
"Only in Opposite Land," the Doctor replied. And then, wistfully: "I really wish I was there right now."
A sliding doorway opened up on one of the side walls, the bulky steel cross-section revealing just how thick and heavy those walls actually were. Into the room burst two human figures, clad head to toe in yellow biohazard suits equipped with oxygen tanks that fed air into enclosed helmets fitted with reflective black visors. Their faces totally masked, they rushed immediately to the TARDIS and grabbed the upper arms of the Doctor and Amy with vice-like precision, and began forcibly dragging them away from its doors.
"Oy! Let me go!" bellowed Amy, furiously resisting against her captor.
Rory noticed. "Amy! Hang on!"
"The TARDIS!" shouted the Doctor, himself being inched across the smooth floor. "Close the TARDIS!"
His jaw agog, Rory looked around frantically - the Doctor was evidently addressing him. Protective instinct for his partner took over as Rory rushed past the threshold, pulled the blue door shut behind him, and followed Amy and the Doctor as they continued to be dragged out of the room. He caught up to them just in time to have the thick steel door close with a heavy thump, enclosing all five in a second, much smaller room, barely taller than head height, that revealed itself as an airlock when sharp jets of air washed down from above and shut off again just as quickly.
Squashed against Amy and their captors, the Doctor looked around and suddenly registered Rory's presence. "What are you doing here?" he asked, clearly taken aback.
"You said close the TARDIS?" Rory replied.
He grimaced and slapped his forehead. "I meant from them," he said, jerking his head towards his biosuit-clad intruders. "From them, not behind you! Oh, my kingdom for a human who knows when to stay put!"
A second door opened ahead of them into a pristine white corridor, and Amy and the Doctor were dragged out. As Rory followed limply behind, their captors released the pair in the presence of a man standing sternly before them, arms crossed - the same man the Doctor saw behind the glass. As stern as he was, he was clearly a dashing figure, sporting a sharp suit-and-tie combo, a Hollywood-grade jawline, pristine skin, and hair that held every strand in an immaculately combed style.
The biosuit pair stood aside as he looked the Doctor, Amy, and Rory up and down. "Who are you and how did you get in there?" he demanded.
"Well, I'll tell you," said the Doctor, straightening his bow tie, "it was a lot less painful than getting out. Your hired help's going to leave a bruise, you know."
"Smart answers aren't smart enough in this place. That's your first and last warning."
"Oh, cheer up, handsome. I promised these two ice cream - we don't even know where 'here' is."
The man cocked his head. Amy leaned in. "Men and directions," she said, deadpan. "Go figure."
A brief pause passed as the man weighed the situation in his head. Deciding whether to believe their story or their ignorance. He finally broke the silence with a piece of information: "Nhire 4. The Quercon Cluster."
"The Quercon Cluster?'' The Doctor repeated his apparent location in disbelief. "Quercon? But that's... that's on the far fringes of the universe! That's dark space! How did we get out here? It was left at Krutahn and..." He trailed off in realisation. "Oh, the wobbly lever must be acting up again. I thought I fixed that thing! Note to self: re-fix the wobbly lever."
"And who are you?" asked Amy, redirecting the conversation as she covertly took in the handsome sight before her.
The man responded in kind, for his demeanour instantly became softer, less defensive. "My name is Joseph Edwin Banks," he said, eyes locked onto hers. "CEO of Equality Enterprises and owner of the facility you're in."
"You own this place?" asked the Doctor, looking around at its spotless walls and distant doors.
"Own, built, designed," Joseph responded. "The universe's most desolate and barren planet is now the site of humanity's future."
"I'm Amy," Amy remarked, extending a hand to Joseph in greeting. Rory looked over to see his fiancée's gaze was unwavering - and if he didn't know better, he'd have used the word 'smitten'. Jarred, he attempted to none-too-subtly wedge in with a handshake of his own.
"I'm her fiancé," Rory said pointedly. "I'm her hubby-to-be."
"And I'm confused," frowned the Doctor. "You said we're on Nhire 4?"
"That's right," said Joseph.
"And this is your base?"
"Yes."
"And what was that room we were in?"
"The gas chamber."
Amy immediately withdrew her hand. "The what?"
"Surely you can't be surprised that we had to get you out as quick as we did," Joseph replied. "We'd just processed another faulty batch and then you two come-"
"Three," corrected Rory.
"-come whirling inside before the fumes had a chance to clear. How you got in at all is one thing, but having civilian deaths on my watch is something else altogether."
The Doctor tapped a finger against his chin. "Sorry, when you say 'faulty batch', you're talking about the Ood?"
"Correct."
He let the blasé delivery hang in the air for a moment before responding. "The Ood that you kill. Tell me, what's a company CEO doing in a control room ending dozens of lives at a time? Shouldn't you be up in your ivory tower throwing coffee at the interns?"
"Help is a little hard to come by around here," Joseph smirked. "We're a small operation on the edge of space, not a thriving metropolis. I lend a hand in the day-to-day business as much as the next guy."
"But killing Ood? What for? Fun? Friday night, nothing on the telly, 'I know, I'll just mercilessly slaughter a room full of innocent creatures and then call Bob around for a pint'?"
Joseph bristled. "Your bleeding heart has no place here, Mister...?"
"Hearts, plural. And you can call me the Doctor."
"The Doctor," he repeated. He looked at the three once again before making an internal decision. "Come with me."
He led the way down the stark white corridor and guided Amy, Rory and the Doctor through his maze-like layout, their footsteps clacking against the tiled floor as they struggled to keep up.
"Tell me, Doctor," said Joseph as he rounded a corner. "Do you like to travel?"
The Doctor smiled knowingly. "Somewhat."
"Ah, so you're familiar with the thrill of the journey. I'm an adventurer at heart, you see. I love to explore, to experience new places. But the only thing better than seeing a new place is to discover one for yourself. Some years ago I led an expedition into the far reaches of space, not knowing what we'd find. For too long we searched aimlessly, until one day, out of the blackness, we found this planet - Nhire 4. At first glance it seemed like just another rock: it was dry, desolate. It looked worthless."
"So what kept you here?" asked Amy.
"Bones. Buried beneath centuries of dust and sand were millions upon millions of bone fragments. Too many to catalogue, but even a cursory glance revealed they were all from the same species - one that had fallen countess eons ago. Think about that. An entire species, extinct and eroding on a planet that no-one has ever known about."
"I can only imagine," the Doctor replied.
"So we searched for answers. We dug. We excavated an area that was seemingly made of bones until we broke through into an enormous underground cavern with something that... hang on a second."
They had arrived at a locked door, which Joseph opened with a keycard from his pocket. The door slid open to reveal an opulent office, furnished with classical wooden chairs with plush crimson cushions, an ornate woven carpet, and a heavy oak desk. The décor was in stark contrast to the facility's crisp, modern white hallways, but the room itself played at right angles against the oversized screen set into one of the walls, jarring technology against tradition.
"Nice office," marvelled Rory, truly impressed by his surroundings.
"What can I say?" replied Joseph. "I like the old style." He lowered himself into a contoured yet classy swivel chair behind the desk and waved the three newcomers towards a set of seats positioned across from him. As they settled down, he picked up a remote control from the desk and pointed it at the giant screen, bringing it to life with a giant test pattern.
"We came out here, not sure what we'd find," he continued. "But that cavern, only a few miles from here, housed nothing short of a miracle. It's what you and I would describe as an underground waterfall, except..."
The image on the screen changed to reveal just what Joseph was referring to: pre-recorded surveillance footage of a natural rock formation within an expansive cave, but flowing downwards in a raging torrent was not water.
"Pure energy," the Doctor realised.
"A natural reserve of light, electrons, plasma, geoparticles, and several thousand other elements we don't even have names for. To be honest, a lot of it remains beyond our knowledge. We're not entirely sure of its composition or its origin, but we do know what it can do."
The scene changed, and what replaced it indicated a significant advancement in time - the once dark, dank cavern now housed spotlights, steel support beams, meshed walkways, and was populated by a handful of people fitted with masked biosuits similar to those worn by the earlier man-handling intruders. In the footage a crane arm gradually swung into view, and beneath it dangled a simple steel cage containing a lone Ood, outfitted in the typical grey garb complete with translation globe and obedient demeanour. It silently stood there as the crane extended the cage into the downward energy flow, and didn't react as it washed over it in a furious froth.
"You know how a prism works?" asked Joseph. "How it splits a beam of light? This energy flow works more or less the same way, but uses a lifeform as the prism." And as he spoke, the recorded video showed a distant movement: something was walking out from behind the tumbling energy curtain and out into view, standing simply and dutifully.
A second Ood.
And then, following it, a third. Then a fourth. A fifth.
"Like I said, we don't fully understand it, but the results speak for themselves. Put a living being within the energy flow and a duplicate version is created - a fully-formed, living, breathing duplicate, completely self-sustainable. The longer you leave the original sample, the more duplicates are created." And indeed, the monitor showed ten, fifteen, twenty Ood all walking out into view, standing shoulder to shoulder and awaiting instruction.
"My word," said the Doctor, genuinely gobsmacked.
Amy cocked her head. "So that wasn't many different Ood in the gas chamber, but copies of the same Ood?"
"That's right."
"And that's why you're killing them? Because you made too many?"
"No. What we discovered - and what continues to plague us today - is that the duplicates will degrade. They emerge from the procedure as totally perfect replicas, but as soon as we ship them over to our main facility they start to go... wrong. Their appearance and behaviour will fragment entirely. They become aggressive. Dangerous. We have no choice but to remove each faulty batch while we investigate the cause."
"Oh, I can tell you the cause," said the Doctor. "Red eyes, right?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"The Ood. When they become hostile, they have red eyes. 'The circle must be broken' and all that?"
Joseph shook his head. "On the contrary, Doctor. Each Ood emerges as a one-hundred percent perfect duplicate, no red eyes whatsoever. But afterwards, they're completely unusable. One theory is that the Ood biology simply cannot handle the procedure, but as it stands we're still no closer to finding out the real truth."
Rory leaned forward in his chair, curious. "Ever copied a human?"
"Of course not!" exclaimed Joseph, aghast. "That's immoral!"
"But your morals don't prevent you from mass murder at the hands of your own foolishness," retorted the Doctor. "A high-rolling chap like you needs to sort some things out if he feels the need to create a dedicated gassing room as part of his operations."
"It's painless!" Joseph declared. "They feel nothing! The state they're in, they're too far gone to even feel a crowbar to the head - and believe me, we've tried. Look, we need to continue our research, but we also need to discard of any unsuccessful results. It's simple economics."
"But to what end, exactly?" asked the Doctor, shifting in his chair. "Why invest the time and money to copy Ood at all?"
Joseph seemed to relax. "Ah," he smiled, hitting another button on the remote. "Because as much as I am an explorer, I am also a businessman."
The image on the giant screen changed from the grainy surveillance footage to a sleek, polished commercial, cutting quickly between numerous smiling families, each featuring the presence of a uniformed Ood. A peppy, cheery female voice narrated the footage.
"Busy lifestyle? Need help around the house, office, or construction line? You need the Banks Ood! Specially engineered to the highest quality, your Banks Ood will mean more time for you!"
The footage then depicted an Ood involved in decidedly less domestic situations: inspecting a firearm, sitting in a star fighter cockpit, and strapping on army fatigues. "Also in production: the Banks Homeland Protection Ood, designed to keep our front lines safe and secure from threats home and beyond. Rest easy knowing your nation's borders are secured by the finest, most obedient Ood available. Never lose a loved one in armed combat again!"
Fading into a static logo, a cartoon depiction of an Ood zoomed into view, giving a thumbs up and a cheerful wink. "The Banks Ood," said the glistening voice-over. "Always there, always yours!"
The screen cut to black, and a stunned silence hung between the Doctor, Rory and Amy. Joseph grinned proudly. "Man has always cautioned man against reinventing the wheel," he declared. "I say that man is a fool for not taking the wheel and selling a better version for a cheaper price. High society already has Ood service, but give luxury to the common people and they'll be forever in your debt. With my discovery, I can create an infinite Ood supply at zero cost and sell them at a price that undercuts the competition! And that-" he thumped the desk with a hearty fist "-is why you're staying for dinner."
Rory did a double-take. "Umm... come again?"
"Indulge me. I'm tired of the company around here. Same old faces day in, day out - who's to say we can't all enjoy a nice steak and a glass of red?"
An awkward pause filled the room, and Rory leaned over to whisper in Amy's ear. "Very James Bond villain of him, isn't it?"
"He's just trying to be nice," she whispered back.
"Oh, sure. Three people just appear out of thin air in the gas chamber of a specially-built base on a planet that no-one knows about, and you don't think there's anything suspicious about being asked to hang around for a meal."
The Doctor joined the whispered exchange. "Oh, there's plenty to be suspicious about. Plenty more things he's not telling us, too. And that's why I'm absolutely famished."
Immediately, he jumped to his feet and clasped his hands together, looking at Joseph expectantly. "Famished! Dinner! Good! A chance for us to hang around, to really get a feel for the place, and for you and I to have a good old chin-wag about all sorts of important businessy stuff. We'd love to stay. Tell me, Joseph, do you have any fish fingers?"
CHAPTER THREE COMING SOON!