Chapter 9- Gatecrashing
Come to think of it, Naomi would've loved Delta Delta. Everything was about technology. So was she. She loved getting the next upgrade. Sure, most kids always wanted the next new Apple thing, but Naomi loved to actually see how it worked; she loved exploring the fuse boxes in our apartment and Just Desserts (an interest that made me worry, especially when she was younger) and trying to figure out how to make it run better. She was the only one able to fix the microwave when it broke a few years ago. Naomi would've loved Delta Delta.
The Doctor led me into one of the tech stores, brightly lit and built, of course, from the cloudy glass. There was a large sign in the back, bearing the name, "Digital Outlet" in creative lettering. Another Nodan, with a more professional aura than Algo, waited at the counter.
"Hello!" the Doctor greeted jovially. "I was wondering if you might be able to help us…"
While the Doctor and the sales clerk began hashing out details, I took to wandering around the store again. Honestly, some of the gadgets in there…it was like Steve Jobs' toy box. There were several patrons milling around in the store—just enough to be popular, but not crowded. I watched them use all the products, since figuring them out myself was useless: one group was using a strange trio of what looked like eight-sided dice to record their voices in one and have their words play back in the other two. A group of smaller Nodans- children or teens, maybe- were giggling over a slab of cloud-glass that distorted their reflections hilariously. Two adult Nodans were laughing as a strange, five-legged metal spidery thing crawled over their bodies.
"Skymall has nothing on this," I whispered.
A Nodan hurriedly pushed past me, quickly making its way toward the door. I thought nothing of it until someone shouted out, "Thief!"
Years of running my own business kicked in, and I began bolting after the Nodan, who had made it to the thoroughfare. The store crowd followed after me, and I could hear the Doctor shouting, telling me to come back. Though the thief had twice as many legs as me, it seemed to trip over them more than I, and I caught it quickly by tackling it to the ground.
"Did you think you'd get away with it?" I hissed, pulling the lumpy arms behind its back. I finally noticed the object the Nodan had stolen: a chrome ball with spokes sticking out of it at regular intervals, lights softly glowing at the tips. I tried to pry it out of his hand, but the thief had an unbreakable grip. "What, did you need the next upgrade that badly? What do you need this for?"
"The journey home," the thief answered flatly. It didn't seem to be scared or anything: in fact, he seemed completely calm. I've seen criminals get tackled to the ground, but they were not as calm as this one.
I shrugged it off—I was on an alien planet, maybe they ran things differently here. "Come on, just give it—BACK!" I yanked on the device again just as I heard footsteps I could tell belonged to a two-legged creature.
"Don't do that!" the Doctor admonished, finally catching up.
"But I got him!" I retorted, pulling on the device hard. I was trying to pry the fingers off when suddenly metal-sounding ticks echoed, like the sound of pulling a lapbar down on a roller coaster.
"What the hell…?" Suddenly, the thief's hand slackened and then snapped around the device, causing more ticks to sound. The blue skin shorted and then fizzled out like a projection, leaving—an Aligrena.
"Erica!" The Doctor flung his hands under my arms, pulling me off and away from the monster. The chrome orb with the spokes was clenched in one of the metal claws; I was too shocked to grab it while the Doctor dragged me away and set me down on the ground, so far that none of the metal limbs could reach me. One of the Doctor's arms flew outward, the sonic screwdriver ablaze and pointed at the Aligrena; the other hovered uncertainly behind him and in front of me, keeping a barrier between us. Suddenly, a bright light flashed and heat seared the area, and I caught the Aligrena's eye screen, flaring bright red, for just a second before the whole thing was gone.
I had so many questions in that single moment of shock; but if I tried to put a single one into writing, I don't think I could. They were the sort of wordless questions you think when something completely changes, like when a star basketball player misses a basket or when you're writing a huge paper and suddenly the computer freezes and you can't remember whether or not you saved. Circumstances that make you question everything for a split second, wondering how something happened and how you can fix it.
I was thinking those wordless questions as I stared at the bit of floor the Aligrena occupied a second before in shock, my legs splayed like a small child's. The Doctor pulled me to my feet and dragged me away from the crowd of onlookers. Green Nodan eyes followed us, but neither of us cared. I couldn't tell where the Doctor was leading me, but I soon found myself standing in a small alley with a fire exit at the end, empty except for the Doctor and I. The Doctor glanced toward the opening of the alley, on the lookout for eavesdroppers. I leaned numbly against the wall, my horror still not overcome.
"The Aligrena are here," I said. The sentence was difficult to say, as if it didn't want to pass my lips. "They're here."
"Erica, they might not be the same Aligrena that took Naomi," the Doctor explained hurriedly, hoping I'd understand. "Remember, we're at a different point in space, they might not be related at all—"
"But they are," I interrupted. He bit his lip and gazed back worriedly, wondering how to correct me without damaging me further.
"You don't know that for sure—"
"Yes, I do," I said, meeting the Doctor's eyes. "I asked why it needed the—whatever it stole. I asked why it had stolen it. It said it needed it for 'the journey home'." The Doctor was watching me, his eyes huge with worry. "Doctor, that's the exact same thing the Aligrena said in Chicago."
He looked away, processing the new information. He ran his hand over his face and looked anywhere but at me, pacing back and forth in the alley. We always end up in alleyways, don't we? I thought. I know it was a rather strange thought to have when you've just had a hell of a shock, but I had retreated into that part of my mind that was content to watch everything unfurl and make little notes of small details. I couldn't handle the big picture, not yet. I watched as the Doctor stopped pacing and walked up close to me, his head bent so our eyes could meet.
"Are you sure?" the Doctor asked seriously. "Are you absolutely sure that that was what the Aligrena said?"
"I swear on my mother's grave," I said. It might sound dramatic now, but I could tell the Doctor still doubted me, and I had to make him absolutely sure. "Doctor, I know what I heard. This Aligrena's involved, too."
The Doctor blinked and chewed on the inside of his cheek, inhaling deeply through his nose. He stepped back a bit, giving me my personal space back. "Well then, I suppose we have no choice," the Doctor said. He held out his hand to me. "Let's go see who knows what."
I took the Doctor's hand carefully into mine, molding my fingers carefully around it. Then I let go of his hand and flung my arms around him. His hand held the back of my head as my own gripped at the back of the green coat, holding fast. It was over in three seconds or so, but those three seconds of solidarity had made me feel infinitely better: I was back in the real world, ready for action instead of sitting back and passively watching everything happen around me. I wasn't just going to think—I was going to do.
The first place the Doctor and I stopped at was Digital Outlet, the store the Aligrena had successfully robbed. The manager, a Nodan whose eyes were wider horizontal than vertical (the Doctor had finally explained that that was what identified the females from the males), was at the counter, questioning her employees. The Doctor pulled the psychic paper that had caused so much strife in Athens out and flashed it to the owner, who dismissed her employees with a wave of her hand.
"Can I help you?" she asked, her four legs crossing gracefully as she moved toward us.
"Hello there!" the Doctor greeted cheerfully, putting the psychic paper away. "We're just a few ambassadors from the Kappa Pi system, and we thought we'd see what's the matter here."
The Nodan sighed irritably. "Yes, hello," she said. "My name is Tolla. I've been managing the shop for eight years, and we've never had such a bold theft."
"Have you identified what had been stolen?"
Tolla nodded. She reached far behind the counter and pulled out a cloud-glass slab, about the size of an iPad and thickness of the wooden blocks made for children to play with. She touched a light finger to it, and suddenly an image of the store blossomed on its surface. A bar appeared on the bottom of the screen (because that's what it was: a screen on a futuristic glass iPad) and she slid her fingertip across it, the image quickly accelerating backwards. Handing it to us, Tolla said, "Here's the video feed. You'll see the lost item clearly."
The Doctor took the glass slab and held it between us, tapping it so it would play at normal speed. And there we were, in Digital Outlet before the unthinkable happened. The Doctor animatedly talked with the sales clerk at the very counter we stood at now, while I wandered around, looking dazedly at the items on the shelves. Suddenly, a Nodan began running out of the store, holding the weird chrome-sphere-with-spokes tightly in its hand. The sales clerk helping the Doctor pointed at him and shouted, "Thief!"
And there I went, sprinting after the criminal like my life depended on it. I shoved people left and right (which I can't recall actually doing) in my haste, but no one seemed to take offense—they were confused, too confused to be angry. A few seconds after I bolted out of Digital Outlet, the Doctor chased after me, muttering apologies to everyone I'd shoved.
As the Doctor and I watched the crime get played out, Tolla narrated, "It was one of our high-demand products: the newest model of atom accelerators from Dornden, Inc." She shook her head.
"Atom accelerator, did you say?" the Doctor asked, pausing the footage.
"It was a fine piece of inventory, and one of the last left."
The Doctor gave the screen back to Tolla, chewing thoughtfully on his lip. In a few more exchanges of meaningless questions, we took our leave, our minds stewing.
"What's an atom accelerator?" I asked. "In English," I added preemptively.
"It's sort of like a steering wheel," he answered. "A big, science-y wience-y steering wheel in space. The TARDIS has one."
"Why would the Aligrena need it?" Find the motive, find the criminal.
The Doctor didn't answer, leaving me two inferences: either he didn't know (which I very highly doubted) or he didn't want me to know. Realizing that my question would be left hanging, I supplied another one. "So what do we do now?"
"Let's go back to Algo's," the Doctor said after a thoughtful pause. "I got everything he needed. He can fix the Aligrena."
I scanned the Doctor from head to toe. "Where is it?"
Smiling, the Doctor patted his coat pockets. "Bigger-on-the-inside pockets," he explained. "Ideal for shopping sprees."
I felt myself smiling before I could stop it. The motion felt unfamiliar after the shocks of the last fifteen minutes. The Doctor offered his arm to me and I looped mine through his, and we strode back to Algo's, our hearts lightening again.