(Hello Outlaw Gentlemen and Shady Ladies, who is ready for an announcement? So, I'm sure that many of you are wondering what Captain Jack Harkness is up to during the events of A Night in Killcrest Manor. Although he will pop up much later, a lot of blanks will need to be filled. Well, myself and partner-in-time-crime BannerFanner would like to announce our next cooperative project, The Harkness Files. What will Jack discover on his hunt for The Doctor? What secrets will be unearthed? What dangers will he face? Keep tuned in my lovelies. All in good time ;) Enjoy the next chapter)
The Doctor continued to fiddle with the front door, as the crowd dispersed, leaving only he, and Sarah Jane. She knelt down next to him, eyeing the lock the same.
"Electronic keys?" She questioned knowingly. He nodded.
"Likely, very likely. Makes them un-pickable. I doubt that if someone went to all the trouble to fill the doors with nearly unbreakable ore, that their going to just let us escape via bobby pin. Besides, I don't want to leave anyway," he answered.
"We can't. Pierce doesn't deserve it. We need to figure this out," she agreed. She was just as driven as he was; he had always liked that about her.
"I'm starting to see a pattern here though, aren't you?" she continued, crunching up her face, as she so often did, "this is three killer robots right near each other... am I just being paranoid?"
"Saying your hair dryer is trying to kill you is paranoia, noticing that for some reason every robot we run into is killing people, is just good sense," he returned.
"So, if your not actually looking for a way out, what are you doing?" He smiled in return.
"Letting them get settled, see what they all do. It could be telling," he shrugged. Someone was playing a deadly game of chess here, and he had every compunction to play back, and he was going to win.
"Maybe we'll see someone plugged into the wall, charging up, hmm?" she joked sarcastically.
"How easy would that be? If we were to just figure it out within the next half hour? Then get on with the interesting stuff?" he mused.
"Oh come on, you know we don't have that kind of luck," she chuckled.
"I think we've given them enough time to meander about, want to go have a look, see what the suspects are up to?"
"I would say so," she nodded.
The pair began their walk about the house. He wanted to get a bird's eye view of what each guest did in the following hour after Pierce's death. To him, it could give him an idea of who his main suspect could be. No robot acted completely naturally. They were mimicking people. Like any computer, glitches were possible. One just had to catch them. Some were even so sophisticated that they understood the psychological toll murder took upon the mind, and could even manifest guilty behavior, once again as deep cover.
The first person they found was Silas. He was on the first floor, in one of the dens. He walked around, testing each window, knocking on the glass, and pulling on them. He was too, trying to find a way out. Was he just a man trying to get out, and get help? Or was he a killer looking for an escape.
Next they ran upon Winston. The butler was organizing the bar in the dining room, in a very stilted manner. His hands were deliberate, though absent, sometimes picking up a bottle, and moving it, only to place it back where it had just been. Though calm was his exterior, this betrayed how flustered he was. Though understandable after seeing a murder, was this someone guilt ridden after committing a heinous act? Sure, their opponent was robotic, but it would have the programming to mimic the after-murder nerves. Was that what this was?
They found Barlow at the same time, eating in that same room. He shoveled a meal of rice, and chicken into his mouth greedily, seeming unconcerned with what had gone on. It looked almost cold. He was a career military man, so perhaps he had become so desensitized by death, that it no longer bothered him. Or perhaps he was so unconcerned, because he had committed the crime, and he was more concerned with looking unconcerned than anything.
The pair moved upstairs next, finding Felicia dusting a hall table. Her liquid eyes were vacant, and her duster moved over the same area over, and over, in a circuit. She seemed to be attempting to busy herself, and not think about the corpse in the ball room. Or, maybe, she was attempting to blend into the background, and go unnoticed, as her gun fired from the dark.
Near by, in a sitting room, was Ricard. To no one's surprise, he had found the alcohol, and was drinking heavily. The Doctor had noticed his hands shake as he put the glass to his lips. Was that an android faking nerves following a terrible crime? Or just the shakes of an alcoholic, who had not poisoned himself enough today?
Drucille inhabited the same room. Her fur coat was off, laying across the back of the sofa, as the skeletal woman chain smoked cigarette after cigarette. This conundrum was the same as Ricard's; guilt, or merely a bad habit?
In the near-by bed chamber, Varrillo sat cross legged on the carpeted floor. Her eyes were closed tightly, her hands on her knees. Meditation, not uncommon for a so-called "Guru" as herself. Or perhaps, she was temporarily powering down.
The final guest, Genevieve had situated herself in a chair in the hall. She said nothing, but sat humped over, her mouth covered by her hands. She stared ahead, not looking at anyone, or anything in particular. Perhaps it was disbelief at her current predicament. Perhaps it was deep thought, in an attempt to divine who it was that would commit such a heinous act. Maybe it was a ruse, and she was contemplating her escape strategy.
It was all too frustrating to The Doctor. He had hoped he would have seen something, anything ,that could have cast suspicion on any of them. Instead, everything did. He could see a murderer in all of them, see the robotic killer beneath the skin. All it did was add fuel to a paranoid fire.
"Doctor... this door here is locked," Sarah Jane wondered aloud, breaking his chain of thought. She referred to a pair of double doors in the upstairs foyer. She pulled briskly on the pair of knobs, to no avail. That was odd. It made him wonder what was inside. Could be nothing, like a closet, or a wash room. Or maybe it could be a room housing a killer.
"Let me take a look," he said, kneeling down peering into the lock, "I can't use the sonic on it, because of the deadlock... I think I have a bobby pin around here somewhere," he continued to mutter, rifling through his pockets. He felt his yo-yo, a bag of jellybabys, few loose Jammy Dodgers...
"This door, is it infused with Azbantium like the front one?" His partner asked. He shook his head.
"I doubt it," he knocked on it with his knuckles a few times. Azbantium infusion made an alien tinny sound when knocked on inside of wood. This did not. "No, this one is just wood." It did not matter, he just could not find his pin.
He looked up as Sarah Jane's shoulder smashed into the door with a thud, followed by a crack of splintering wood. It swung free, and he looked at her, shocked. He had seen her knock in a door before, most recently when they ran into an angry Ice Warrior. It still surprised him. He couldn't help but sometimes remember that young girl he met so many years ago, when they were both so young.
"What? We don't have time for this, with an assassin on the loose," she shrugged.
"I'm just surprised you could do that in a cocktail dress," he shook his head, standing.
"I can run in heels too," she winked with a wry smirk. The pair entered the locked room.
This was Pierce's office, without a doubt. The gigantic, oak table that dominated the room was neatly organized. An tidy stack of papers sat in front of Pierce's computer, the holo-sceeen of which was powered down. More paintings hung on the walls, though none were by any artists The Doctor could note. They were all of pretty landscapes, one of a snowy forest, one of a shining waterfall, and another of a grassy field. A pair of windows revealed the view outside, the night sky rivaling those painted scenes.
What caught The Doctor's eye the most however, was Pierce's safe. It was embedded in the wall, and made of a black metal. An electronic pad glowed a dark blue, waiting for a code that would open it.
He wondered, what was in that safe. It could be nothing of importance; money perhaps, or business documents. Just maybe, something there would reveal a killer, or why someone would want his old friend dead.
He ambled over to Pierce's desk, and switched on his computer.
"Lets see if we can figure out why someone would want Mr. Killcrest dead," he muttered. Sarah Jane had already begun sifting through his papers, like the good investigator he knew she was.
Much to his chagrin, he was met with a log in screen, and a password bar. He sighed. He liked it so much better when people didn't give a damn about their own privacy.
If he weren't in a deadlock, this wouldn't even be an issue. He could just hack it with the sonic screwdriver, or force it to remotely interface with the TARDIS, and let his ship hack it for him. He could get into that monitor in five minutes, on a bad day. But like this, on top of having not seen Pierce for decades, he had no reference as to what his password could be. He knew almost nothing of his life, no pet names or anniversaries; he did not even know Pierce's birthday.
With no hope of breaking into his computer, he ticked away on the keys, typing in anything he could think of that may be important to the man. He tried a few key terms; Cyberman, Drucille, Killcrest; even Silas or O'Brian. They were all longshots, and he knew it, and none of them worked. All he was met were bright red letters shouting "Access Denied".
"Find anything, Sarah?" he asked frustrated by their situation.
"Not unless you're interested in leasing mining equipment, or ordering a refractive laser-cannon. Apparently those are very cheap right now," she muttered with a chuckle.
"Wait until the Dark Reach War in about six months, those will be a commodity," he murmured absently, "no codes to the computer, or safe?"
"Because you always leave your important codes just laying on your desk," she replied sarcastically.
"My second version used to. I wasn't very safety conscious back then..." he trailed, then waved his hand, clearing his head, before stroking his chin, "I can't help but feel there's something in that safe. I can't explain it..."
"Remember what you told me a long time ago," Sarah Jane smiled, "trust your gut." The Doctor nodded. Always using his own advice against him...
"Excuse me, may I speak with you for a moment," a voice interrupted them at the door. The Doctor looked up from their investigation, surprised to find Drucille standing in the doorway. She still clutched a cigarette between her wrinkled fingers, and her fur coat was draped loosely across her shoulders. How theatrical of her.
"As long as speaking isn't a euphemism for shoot me in the chest, come on in," The Doctor answered. She shot him a derisive look, before walking in, taking another drag off her dwindling cigarette.
"I think I know why someone may have wanted Pierce dead," her eyes were cold. Their was a calculated air to them. He did not see the love of a woman, nor the grieving of love lost. He saw nothing at all, just emptiness.
"No one here benefits more from Pierce's death than his nephew, Ricard. Despite his incompetence, Pierce has faith in him. This company is left entirely to him if Pierce dies before his retirement."
"Who was it to be handed over to otherwise?" Sarah Jane asked.
"Silas."
"So, what your saying, is that Ricard could effectively steal this company out from under his rivals. Interesting..." The Doctor contemplated.
"I don't believe that Ricard is your assassin, but I think he knows who among us is," Drucille clarified.
"Why are you coming to us with this information, you seemed less than helpful before," Sarah blurted. The Doctor had been wondering the same thing.
"Despite what the news will tell you, I did love Pierce once..." she sighed, stopping to take one final puff of her cigarette, "even if I hate his cheating, lying guts now. I owe him something..." That was very altruistic of her, but The Doctor could see another angle. She had simultaneously made herself look good, while throwing suspicion on Ricard. Actual concern? Or covering her bloody tracks?
"You wouldn't happen to know the code to that safe would you? I'm trying to find other reasons why Pierce was assassinated." The Doctor asked.
"It isn't that we don't believe you, we just need to look at all angles," Sarah added, ever the diplomat.
"No... he never let me in that safe. I don't even know what he keeps in it. He had a lot of secrets," she justified. The Doctor caught her posture change. She stood a bit straighter while answering that one, her eyes moved away from his face, and her right index finger ticked. She was lying to him. Humans had so many tells. Not very good for an actress, Drucille.
But why lie? In the face of death, with someone supposedly important to her laying dead down stairs, why hide anything? Even the most scandalous materials were nothing compared to a killer on the loose. Unless something in that safe would implicate her.
He was about to press her, when a sudden, blood curdling screech tore through the house. He recognized the high-pitched voice; Genevieve.
"Oh no, not another one," The Doctor growled, and he shoved passed Drucille, bolting through the door. Sarah Jane was close on his heels, with Drucille lagging behind her.
He followed the sound of the voice, and the commotion of all the guests rushing there, just as he had. When they arrived at the spare, second-floor bedroom, he knew who their next victim was.
All the party guests but two had gathered in the bed room, standing in a circle. One, Genevieve kneeled on the ground, head buried in her hands.
Next to her Varrillo lay on the floor. Her body was contorted unnaturally, her left arm pinned behind her back as she lay flat, and her head tossed back. He could tell she had been blown off her feet by her attacker. This theory was further backed by the gaping wound in her ribs.
A massive, messy, cauterized hole had erased her left side completely, scorching her blue skin black. It still smoked, white wisps rising from her, almost as though her soul was leaving her husk behind.
The Doctor set his jaw, and took a breath. It was as the feared. They were to be picked off, until none remained. This was death two. A dark feeling came over him; tonight was going to be long, and bloody.