To understand a particular social event or interaction, one must take a multitude of factors into account. Generally, it is impossible to make predictions with absolute assurance. One can frequently predict what most people will likely do under a particular set of circumstances, but one can offer no guarantees.
-The Practical Skeptic (6th Edition), Lisa J. McIntyre (2013).
"Doctor," Gilly declared. "This is all your fault."
"My fault?" The Doctor sputtered. "Since when is it my fault?!"
"Since you decided to help our muggers with grammar!" She snapped before deftly using her foot to kick at an attacker that was about to hit her with a pipe.
And to think that this had all started out calmly enough…
The two of them had left the flat by breaking another window to Gilly's silent displeasure, and, after sneaking gingerly across several decrepit walkways, they had entered yet another building and descended to the ground floor at the young woman's insistence. The two of them walked on the ground, which appeared to be a giant metal travelator. It didn't work anymore and rubble was scattered on it, parts of the buildings that had broken away with neglect. They had been making little headway, so they climbed up onto the monorail line that ran through the city, in the hopes to avoid the worst of the damage, as neither of them were exactly wearing the proper footwear at the moment.
Before, it had been hard for Gilly to really see that the city was in ruins with her limited long-range vision, but after traipsing around in it with the Doctor, it would have been impossible to deny it now. There wasn't any traffic from those strange, supposedly-flying vehicles that the Doctor had pointed out to her earlier in a garage. While the buildings were, for the most part, intact, there were cracked and missing windows, water run-off that formed grooves into the sides of the buildings, and long streaks of rust.
In the distance, there was a bridge that was vaguely reminiscent of the Golden Gate Bridge, looking as if it was about to collapse any moment, barely holding on with over half of the supporting cables snapped. Ivy began to conquer and hold dominion over the tall skyscrapers, determinedly clinging to the metal sides with a tenacity unique to plants on their road of conquest. Fires had broken out at some point during the fifteen years. Various towers and buildings reduced to charred skeletons of their former glory, leaving crumbled remains of blackened metal.
There was a surprising lack of rot, from what Gilly could see, mostly just rust, crumbled chunks of rubble, and corrosion from years of weathering without any intervention. In fact, the opposite of rot was occurring, growth in the form of delicate plant life was taking over the spaces between the metal and concrete that seemed to consume the city. Weeds, grass, saplings, and flowers spouted between the cracks and holes, showing that nature was an indomitable spirit, able to outlast the people who had once thought to have conquered it.
It reminded Gilly of the big cities back at home. They weren't nearly as awe-inspiring or grand as Arcopolis had once been, but they were just as much metal and concrete as this city once was. For a moment, the albino felt a sense of satisfaction from the plants taking back the land. She walked on the planks and on the metal sides of the monorail to avoid trampling the plant life, not wanting to hinder the ongoing war between Nature and the fading remains of a long gone civilization.
The Doctor suddenly froze, coming to an abrupt stop and making Gilly jolt in the middle of her make-believe circus balancing act. Her arms flapped in the attempt to keep herself steady and avoid falling off the side. Wobbling, she regained her equilibrium and frowned at her tour guide who had been quiet for some time, having been enjoying the sites as much as her. He whirled back around and retraced his steps before crouching down to peer at something, whipping out a rather sharp-looking pair of glasses.
Self-conscious of her pair of not-exactly-aesthetically-pleasing glasses, Gilly fiddled with them as she hopped down from her perch to a nearby plank. He was looking at a footprint, and the ex-mortician couldn't help but gasp in surprise. The Doctor looked up at her, an amused glint in his eyes. "It appears were not alone," he chirped. When Gilly continued to stare at the footprint speechlessly, he continued in an attempt to be reassuring, "Culture shock, happens to the best of us."
"I don't know if this really counts as culture shock," she murmured dazedly. "I've heard of hexadactylism but…" She shook her head. "I guess this means a native or two survived?"
"Yes, it appears so…" But the Doctor looked troubled by this, as if this news was something to be dreaded rather than rejoiced. Looking up, something seemed to catch his attention, for he stood up quite suddenly.
"What?" She asked, turning to look in the hopes to see what her guide had seen. There was nothing of interest. "What is it?" The Doctor said nothing in answer, abruptly taking off instead, clambering down from the monorail line and running down the road. "Hey!" The ex-mortician cried out in protest. "Wait!" Hurriedly, Gilly gingerly climbed down and chased after the Time Lord. As she approached the corner the Doctor had turned around, she could hear a voice shrieking something unintelligible. Sprinting at this point, Gilly skidded around the corner to see the Doctor stumbling back, as if he had been hit. "Doctor!" She cried out, hurrying over. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," he answered gruffly. "Just a bit off balance."
Gilly only looked at him dubiously, the Time Lord having displayed the impeccable balance that any feline would envy up until that moment. She sincerely doubted that he had merely stumbled or that the earlier shriek had been him. Speaking of shrieking, Gilly noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and turned her attention away from the Doctor. The two of them were surrounded by a mob of eight children.
Not one of them above the status of preteen, some of them as young as seven. Most of them appeared to be boys and none of them wore clothes that were the right size. The clothes were surprisingly made of what appeared to be good quality material, decorated with random bits of colorful foil and ribbons, as if a magpie had designed it all. They carried bags that clinked and clanked as they moved, reminding Gilly of the bag ladies found in old movies. The children eyed her and the Doctor in both suspicion and fear.
"Ghosts," one of them muttered.
"We caught ourselves some ghosts," another concurred.
The Doctor laughed, "We're not ghosts! I'm the Doctor, and this is Glenda Hopkins."
"It's Gilly," she corrected in a resigned manner before waving. "Hi."
One kid warned, "The blue man should stay back from the ghost unless he wants to be taken."
"Stupid, he's a ghost too!"
"No, he isn't. He's not pale like her. She's the ghost."
"But he's not one of the parents! They are… they is ghosts."
"No, you were right the first time," the Doctor offered trying to be helpful. "The right auxiliary verb was 'are', as in 'we are ghosts' or 'they are ghosts—"
"He admits it!" One of them accused, pointing at the duo, causing the mob of children to chant the word 'ghosts' repeatedly. And from there, it only escalated, the mob circling the Doctor and Gilly, occasionally one of the pack moving forward as if to attack before the Doctor or Gilly rebuffed them by redirecting the weapon of choice or tripping the kid up. Leading them to have the conversation that the two of them were having earlier, the Doctor on the defensive.
"Well, it wasn't as if I was intending for them to take it as a confession," the Doctor snapped as he continued to keep his eyes on the armed children. He attempted to reason with them, "Ghosts? That's ridiculous. Surely, you can see right through that flimsy excuse. Get it? See through? Ghosts?"
Gilly groaned, "So not the time for awful jokes, Doctor. We're trying to not get killed or maimed here."
"Well, I'm sure this lot can appreciate the idea of a couple of victims with a sense of humor."
She snorted, "Yeah, right, they sure look appreciative, Doctor. Why don't you tell them another, see what happens?" None of the children were laughing, smiling, or giving any indication that they had, in any sense of the word, 'appreciated' the Doctor's joke.
"Right," the Doctor sighed. "Everyone's a critic." He tried again. "Look, is there any way that we can prove that we're not ghosts?"
There was a pause before a kid that was out of Gilly's line-of-sight suggested, "Ghosts don't bleed. We could see if you two do."
"While they lack a sense of humor, they do seem to favor the scientific method," the Time Lord noted.
"Not helping, Doctor," the albino got out through gritted teeth as she fended off another would-be attacker.
"Right, right," the Doctor's mind worked furiously as he tried to find a way out of this particular situation. An idea occurred to him as he remembered Gilly's earlier question of whether or not the natives were hexadactyly inclined. "So, any of you have six-toes? Eh? You're not barefoot, all wearing nice shoes, look almost brand new…" He paused. "Actually, I've got trainers, look." The Doctor pointed at his own feet. "Teenagers love trainers, right? A bit big for you, but you can have them if you'll let us go… If this is a mugging, that is."
"A what?" One of the kids snapped, obviously irritated and confused with all the talking going on.
"If you're mugging me for my shoes," the Doctor clarified.
The same kid scoffed. "Why would we do that?"
"Don't you like my shoes?" The Doctor asked indignantly, feeling rather insulted by this.
Gilly let out a laugh at his expense before piping up, "Look, we're not ghosts, we're… the Ghostbusters." She felt the Doctor stiffen in surprise. "Yeah, we catch them. I'm the bait, see? I trick the ghosts and the Doctor zaps them. We're a couple of experts on them. Got a bit lost when we followed one here all the way from Brecon."
The children began to mutter to one another at this.
"They knows about the ghosts—"
"—who's Brecon? —"
"—bait, she's ghost bait—"
"—Ghost is tricksy, she's tricking other ghosts—"
"—can't be trusted—"
A loud whistle broke the silence and drew the Doctor, Gilly, and the group of six kids' attention to a stocky girl and a slouching boy. Silence reined as she spoke up in the sudden silence, "You say you know about the ghosts?"
"Er, yes, it's what we do. Stop trouble before it starts…" Gilly trailed off, losing her train of thought and unsure how to continue.
The Doctor picked up where she left off, "Basically, if you got a ghost problem, we're the ones to call. Ghosts, we can help with."
"They help ghosts!" One of the kids shouted in alarm.
"Uh, that's not quite what I—"
Another kid interrupted, "He's the Ghost Doctor and she's ghost bait."
"Wait, just — just wait," the Doctor tried, almost pleading for calm.
"What do the ghosts want now?" A boy asked, shifting his heavy pipe from one hand to another threateningly.
The stocky girl from before spoke up again, "They're not ghosts, he helps them and she tricks them." Clearly, this was not much of an improvement in the eyes of the other children and both of the time travelers were quick to realize this.
The Doctor made to say something else when a kid jabbed a finger, shouting, "Ghost bait summoned a ghost!" The duo turned to see what they had been so adamantly accused of being.
The ghost shimmered like a mirage, fuzzy details hard to make out, and roughly in the shape of a human, dressed in white robes. He, if it was indeed a he, almost looked like he was from Greece with the toga he was wearing. The ghost looked absolutely petrified with grief, fearful with despair as if he had lost everything that mattered and had no idea how to go on. The ghost stared despondently at them with reproachful, bitter eyes.
Something in Gilly shattered. She knew that look, had worn that look for so long, for years until she had finally started to pick up the pieces, many having been lost never to be found again. That deep, agonizing loss where there was nothing left but the ashes of what once was, that final nail of the coffin hammered in, the empty coffin with no body. It had been the final breech in her defenses, her last stronghold against reality having been destroyed in the siege that was the funeral after many fruitless months of searching and searching… Missing and presumed to be dead, a grave with no body.
"I know," the Doctor said quietly, making Gilly tense as she slowly turned her head to face him. But he wasn't looking at her. No, he had been speaking to the ghost, a wraith with hollow eyes that looked at them so jealously, a fierce longing as it began to reach out for them. The Doctor reached forward, too, to bridge the gap. "I know," he whispered again soothingly, his voice hoarse with loss. "I know."
"Don't let it touch you!" A boy, the one who had been holding the metal pipe, screeched in warning. It had been his undoing, the ghost had turned to him and had only barely grazed him. The child disappeared, his screams of terror cut off. Gone without a trace.
"Frad, no!" Another cried out in despair, and Gilly could only watch, frozen where she stood. The ghost had already begun to fade away, its wispy form dissolving. It was looking at the grieving boy now, another target selected. The albino then realized what would happen next, the ghost would erase this one too from existence, leaving another empty grave and irreparably broken hearts.
"Leave him alone!" Gilly shrieked. "Don't you dare take anyone else! You—!"
The ghost was distracted, facing her head on. The young woman found her words dying in her mouth, being choked and strangled in the throat. She couldn't stand it, the ghost. Couldn't stand to look at it with those dead-eyes gazing back at her. She was scared, those eyes resurfacing memories best left to be buried. Had she really looked like that once, too? Too horrifying for words. The gaze that would bring you down with it as it withered away into nothingness. The blank and desolate regard of the already dead, etched with resentment and condemnation for the living, promising them that they, too, will experience the ruin of utter loss without equal.
The ghost had dissipated, losing its form and disappearing into nothingness. But Glenda Hopkins could still see its stare burning into her mind's eye, vowing that she would return to the darkness eventually and wouldn't ever escape it again.
Gilly followed the Doctor's back unseeingly, the two of them headed towards the Fortress. She hadn't spoken once since their encounter with the ghost. The mob of children had long since scattered, leaving her and the Doctor in an empty alleyway. The Time Lord hadn't said much either, both shaken by the experience and the painful memories that the spirit's presence had triggered. He hadn't told his plans, nor had she known, until they had come across two of the kids from the group of children from before, the stocky girl and the slouching boy.
The Doctor had exchanged some words with them that Gilly hadn't paid much attention to until the Fortress had been mentioned, and a piece of the puzzle fell into place concerning the events from fifteen years ago. The stocky girl, Alsa, as she had introduced herself, explained that the Fortress had suddenly appeared one day with very little warning, destroying anything in the immediate vicinity while leaving 'half buildings' which used to be full buildings that happened to be right on the edge of the radius of destruction, half inside it and half out. Three days after its appearance, everything electronic had broken down and every living thing had disappeared from existence, erased as if it had never been.
The only thing that had escaped total erasure were the thirty-seven people who had been trapped underground in something similar to a subway. They had escaped to find themselves all alone, the last remnants of their people. These survivors were the 'parents'.
Something that the slouching kid, Gar, had asked struck Gilly, haunting her in its familiarity. "We did something wrong, didn't we? We was punished."
"You were punished alright," the Doctor murmured quietly, not bothering to correct the bad grammar this time. "But not for anything you did."
Alas eyed him speculatively. "Do you know what happened?"
"I know enough," he evaded. "I'm going to the Fortress, the source of all the trouble."
Gar scoffed, "You can't get inside, there's no doors, and if a person gets too close, they get zapped with lightning!"
"Bet they do, maybe you should follow your parents' advice and stay away. As for doors, well," the Doctor gave a secretive smile that he attempted to share with Gilly. It fell rather flat since she wasn't looking at him at all, only staring pensively out to their destination. He continued with a slight frown, "That hasn't stopped me before. There's always a way in if you know where to look."
Alsa continued to eye the two of them with an analytical gaze. It was almost too cold, too clinical and calculating for someone of her age, but this went unnoticed as Gar was used to it and the time travelers were too preoccupied at the moment. "Can I take you pictures with my comm?" She asked, bringing out the device that she had been using to report their presence to a parent earlier.
The Doctor was thrown off-guard by the non sequitur, "Um, yes, I s'pose. Glenda?"
He got a half-hearted shrug, which made the Doctor concerned as he didn't hear the correction that he had become accustomed to. Meanwhile, Alsa took the gesture as permission, making holograms of the both of them. The Doctor set aside his worry to deal with later while he finished the issue in front of them now. The Doctor watched her, posing with a fixed grin on his face the whole time, like one was wont to do when having their picture taken. "How does that run?" He asked through bared teeth. "I thought you said there wasn't any power."
"Batteries," came the simple reply. She was about to replace it, signifying that she was done, when the Doctor asked to see it, dropping the fixed grin that had been more than a little unsettling to look at. By this point, Gilly had begun to tune the three of them out and looked back to the ominous Fortress, wondering just what the Doctor thought he was going to do once he got there. He hadn't mentioned anything about this intention of his earlier, and she wondered if he ever was going to during their tour of Arcopolis or if this was something he had come up with while they were in the alleyway after the ghost had left.
Then the Doctor was grabbing her hand in his and dragging her away hurriedly from the two children he had just distracted, the comm he had borrowed firmly clenched in the other. After long moments of merely running and sneaking around, the Doctor finally let go of her hand and slowed down. Gilly panted from the exertion while the Doctor brought forth the whirling tube from before. They had been walking for close to a quarter of a mile with nothing but the warbling noise being emitted from the tube before Gilly finally spoke, "What is that?"
The Doctor looked back with a cheerful grin that masked his relief, "Finally, she speaks! Got me worried there for a mo."
"I tend to not feel like talking much after witnessing things like what we saw in that alley," she murmured back tiredly.
She didn't need to elaborate, the Doctor understood as he uneasily thought back to the ghost and his stirred memories of the dark times he had been in. Before Rose, after Rose, and after Donna Noble and his friends had left for good. He swallowed thickly. "Right," he said. "It's called a sonic screwdriver."
"Looks more like a laser pointer, only noisy and without a concentrated ray of light."
"Oi," he protested without any heat, unsure if he should be insulted or not. "It's brilliant, is what it is."
"I guess." She paused. "Why are we going to the Fortress?"
"It's a dangerous weapon that needs to be destroyed," he informed her gravely, all pretense of joviality gone as if a mask had been slipped off. "What had happened fifteen years ago… it could happen again unless I stopped it, and if it did go off again, there would truly be no one left."
"No one but the ghosts," Gilly agreed solemnly. "Do you think the Fortress is behind them?"
"I can't say," the Doctor told her, pursing his lips. "Normally, I would think them to be imprints, but after what we saw… Well, I can't be for sure anymore. Maybe it is, and if so, it's all the more reason to shut the weapon down before anyone else gets hurt."
No more words were shared as the two of them continued on their long trek towards the looming presence that the Fortress presented in the light of the dying sun as it set. They would be at the metal walls in close to a half an hour, if they continued at the same pace. The two of them were currently in what had either been a sewer main or a railway tunnel that had caved-in, leaving an unintentional aqueduct of fresh water in its place. Plants thrived there, reeds and moss growing along the banks that Doctor and Gilly were walking. The albino was thankful that, unlike her big brother Benny, she didn't have hay fever or was in any way allergic to pollen which was thick in the air. Everything was clean, having been cleansed from years and years of rainwater, everything having been washed away until there was nothing left but this river and the plants. Seeing this was a pleasant surprise and change from the rather grim atmosphere that the city above had been beginning to present. If only it hadn't been so muddy; Gilly had nearly lost a ballet flat twice.
The Doctor, who was still leading the way, suddenly stopped under an archway and pressed against the wall before motioning for her to do the same. She sidled up beside the Time Lord as he began to creep closer to the corner to peer around it. "What is it?" Gilly breathed in a voice so quiet that she could barely hear herself.
Somehow, the Doctor had heard her. He answered, his voice a quiet murmur, but louder than her words had been, "The Fortress is right around this bend… Snuck up on me." Carefully, slowly, he peered around from behind the shelter the archway provided, getting a very clear view. The collapsed buildings helped to form something of a basin where water had built up and collected over the years until it had formed a giant lake. One side of the Fortress was protected by the lake, while the rest was embedded into a huge, curved building made of an immaculately white material that caused the Fortress to stand out starkly from it.
The Doctor had extremely good eyesight as a Time Lord and had been able to make out things that Gilly hadn't back at the apartment. Now that he was up close and personal to the Fortress, he could make it out clearly. What Gilly had perceived to be spikes and sharp angles, were actually buttresses, ramparts, and watchtowers. Plates of metal had been haphazardly bolted onto the sides as if to reinforce the intimidating structure, doing little to assist in its appearance, which was decidedly unsightly and menacing.
With the lake being something like a moat, the Doctor found himself stymied for a way to access the Fortress. He hadn't exactly thought to bring a canoe with him, and he wasn't completely sure if he would have been able to fit so much as an oar in his transdimensional pockets… As he searched for another access point, something caught his eye.
It looked like glass, standing there in the middle of the lake. It appeared rather ghostly with his transparent and vague shape, like a pencil drawing by Alex Kanevsky come to life. Despite it looking like a statue with how still it stood in the middle of the lake, the Doctor had a feeling that it was, in fact, alive. Ghost-like though it was, it didn't look much like the ghost in the alley.
"Two types of ghost?" The Doctor muttered to himself, vaguely noticing that his words made Gilly stiffen next to him. She's definitely not going to like this, the Doctor mused to himself before waving his arms like a lunatic, trying to get its attention. "Oi! You there! Hello, I'm the Doctor!" He bellowed, his voice echoing quite fantastically across the water along with his companion's horrified cry of 'Doctor!'
Of course, what happened next wasn't much of a surprise to him. There was an extremely good reason why he had lived to be sixteen hundred odd centuries, give or take a few decades here and there, as he had lost track some time ago: he was always half-expecting to be shot at whenever he showed his face in decidedly-hostile territory. So when he caught the first glimpse of a bolt of blue energy streaking towards him out of the corner of his eye, he reacted instantly. Whirling around, he tackled Gilly to the ground, covering her with his body and bracing himself as the energy bolt hit.
He could feel the heat, and the wall was still ringing from the force of the blast. The attempt to shatter the archway had failed, but it had been a close call. He wondered if the glass man or one of the turrets from the Fortress, which he had spotted earlier, had fired at him. There was screaming and shouting back the way he and Gilly had come from, the Doctor realized. The shrieks belong to children… Alsa and Gar had followed them.
A/N: Wow, I actually updated within the second day of another update... Don't expect this to happen often, I just had a lot of time on my hands. Plus, I tend to do short chapters, which tend to do quicker updates anyway.
This chapter and the last one were unbeta'd. Emptyvoices's dad is in the hospital. Pray for him, yeah?
Alex Kanevsky is... an interesting artist to say the least. In the book, the comparison used was Antony Gormley's statues, but I'm attempting to not get everything straight from the book. The same will apply to the episodes, I'll attempt not to take everything from the script.
And yes, it appears that I had added some angst to Glenda's past. However, much like the Doctor, she tends to bury her past and move on, so it will be slow in being revealed. As I said before, I always leave hints, one of which was planted about two chapters ago.
As always, I want to know what my readers think. Doesn't really matter if it's in a PM or a review, but reviews are always less effort. And even if you don't have an account, you can do it. Just start typing in the space below the author's note...
And, yes. Yes, I am being passive-aggressive about asking you to leave a review. If you want, you can complain about it in a review. Or PM. Whichever. We can engage in a lengthy discussion about my attitude problems and everything, I won't mind.