The Beast Below is surprisingly, only going to take up two chapters.
Oh from now, on, I thought I might give y'all a fun/interesting Doctor Who lore fact at the beginning of each chapter.
This Weeks Fun Fact: It's implied that Timelords, (or at least the Doctor) consume ginger for, let's say, recreational purposes.
Ok, now to the thank yous!
Thanks to the following person for favoriting: Goddess-of-the-Forest1013
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Thanks to the following person for reviewing: UzuRunner
Marion wasn't sure what force was dragging her across time and space. She didn't know if it was an entity or the universe itself. She didn't know if it was a she, he, or they. She didn't know if it was all of or none of the above.
What she did know was that it either hated her or thought that they had a good enough relationship where it could do funny stuff like drop her so her torso was over a railing of a stairwell and nearly making her fall over.
Either way, it was a dick.
Marion let out a little "Oomph," noise. The landing on the bar had knocked the wind out of her. She pushed herself down so that she was safely on the platform of the stairs and took in several deep breaths.
She took this time to get a look at her surroundings.
'Ok, first observation, not glaringly white with round thingys so that narrows it down, it's not brightly lit in here at all, so that narrows it down a bit more,'
She took in the fact that she was on a stairwell (another point narrowing things down) leading down to the console and the tan color of basically everything except for the bright green accents coming from the temporal column and giving off a soft green glow (yet another narrowing point).
All in all, Marion was 95% sure that this was the Eleventh Doctor's TARDIS, likely from earlier one. Pre-Uncle at least.
"Now do you believe me?" Marion heard a voice say.
Correction. Marion was 100% sure that this was the Eleventh Doctor's TARDIS. She brushed some of the sand off her clothes and walked down to join Amy and the Doctor.
"Okay, your box is a spaceship. It's really, really a spaceship. We are in space! What are we breathing?" Amy sounded excited as she spoke.
"The Doctor activated the air shell. Worry not Amy!" Marion called, making her presence known.
The Doctor and Amy turned around.
"Hello, Marion! Where've you been?" the Doctor asked, noticing the sand still stubbornly clinging to her pants and in her hair.
"That planet with nothing on it but a mountain and a beach. Before that, the Sandminer and the killer robots,"
Marion turned to the woman, "Before I forget, nice to meet you, Amy,".
Amy looked at the hand in confusion, "Marion, we've already met,"
"Oh well from your point of view, sure, but I experience time in a different order than you do. You met the Associate, that's the me who I'm not yet. I'm just meeting you for the first time,"
Amy looked at Marion in confusion.
"Let me explain. I'm somehow connected to this guy's," she thrust a thumb towards the Doctor, "timeline," she turned to the Doctor, "If you know, don't tell me," she turned back to the redhead, "Only, here's the tricky bit, I don't get to experience it normally. I meet him and everyone who hangs out with him out of order. The number of times you've met me is rarely going to be the number of times I've met you and, even if it was, that doesn't mean I've met you at the same times that you're thinking of. Am I making sense?"
"Sort of," Amy said, sounding like it in fact, didn't make much sense.
Amy turned away from Marion. Something had caught her eye, and she looked down, below the TARDIS "What's that down there?"
Amy crouched down at the TARDIS entrance and the Doctor joined her. Marion remained standing.
"Starship UK," Marion said without looking,"
"Now that's interesting," the Doctor commented, "Twenty-ninth century. Solar flares roast the earth, and the entire human race packs its bags and moves out till the weather improves. Whole nations,"
The Doctor moved away from the door and moved to the console. Marion grabbed Amy by the wrist and pulled her inside the TARDIS and away from the door before it could close and trap her outside.
"Some put themselves into hibernation for thousands of years on satellites with carefully selected crews until the earth was habitable," Marion said, "And others...,"
"They migrated to the stars," the Doctor said, flipping switches on the console to bring the TARDIS closer, "Isn't that amazing?"
"Well, come on. I've found us a spaceship," the Doctor directed them towards the raised platform where the main TARDIS console was. The Doctor pointed to the large circular porthole shaped scanner in the wall of the TARDIS. He looked at Marion for a moment and then turned back the scanner.
"This is the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland. All of it, bolted together and floating in the sky. Starship UK. It's Britain, but metal. That's not just a ship, that's an idea. That's a whole country, living and laughing and shopping. Searching the stars for a new home,"
"Can we go out and see?" Amy asked, bouncing on her toes.
"Course we can. But first, there's a thing,"
"A thing?"
"An important thing. In fact, Thing One," the Doctor brought a magnifying glass to his eye, "We are observers only. That's the one rule I've always stuck to in all my travels. I never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets,"
Marion snorted.
"What was that Marion?"
"Nothing,"
Marion looked over at the smaller scanner resting on the TARDIS console. She saw little Mandy in her red sweater, sitting alone and sad.
Marion moved towards the TARDIS exit without a word.
When she was at the door, she heard the Doctor say, "Ooo, that's interesting," letting her know that he had seen the same thing that she had. She walked out of the TARDIS.
The London Deck of the starship reminded Marion of the courtyard at the hotel in her state where all the nerd conventions happened. The only real difference was that the hotel was surrounded by too much light pollution for there to be that many stars visible through its skylight. Ordinarily, the sight of so many stars might have thrilled her. But considering what she knew of what was below deck…
It was hard to just gaze at the night sky. She turned her head away.
The Doctor joined her just outside the TARDIS.
The Doctor walked over to the crying girl.
"Hello Miss, Are you-" before the Doctor could finish, the little girl left. The Doctor moved to follow her, probably to 'bump' into her to get her ID.
"No need," Marion said, "her name's Mandy,"
"Welcome to London Market. You are being monitored," said a voice over the intercom as Amy stepped onto the deck.
"I'm in the future," she said, looking around in astonishment. "Like hundreds of years in the future, I've been dead for centuries,"
"Oh, lovely," said the Doctor "You're a cheery one,"
"Never mind dead, look at this place. Isn't it wrong?"
"What's wrong?"
The Doctor grabbed Amy by the shoulders and spun her around, more or less dragging her around to look at the different sights. Marion had to quickly to keep up with them, but she wasn't unused to this. She stopped growing in eighth grade and was used to having to keep up with fast-moving people with long legs.
"Come on, use your eyes. Notice everything. What's wrong with this picture?"
'Well, the way it's moving for starters,' Marion thought, looking at the ground, 'But it's not like everyday people can "see" that,'
"Is it the bicycles? Bit unusual on a spaceship, bicycles," Amy reasoned.
"Says the girl in the nightie,"
Amy looked down at herself, "Oh my God, I'm in my nightie,"
"You're fine dear," Marion assured her, "most people won't know it's a nightie unless you tell them,"
"Now, come on, look around you. Actually look,"
The Doctor started to talk quickly sounding like he was both talking to the two of them and thinking out loud.
"Life on a giant starship. Back to basics. Bicycles, washing lines, wind-up street lamps. But look closer. Secrets and shadows, lives led in fear. Society bent out of shape, on the brink of collapse. A police state. Excuse me,"
He rushed away from there and to a table where a man and a woman sat. They looked baffled as he took a glass of water from their table and set it on the ground. The water settled and then remained still.
Marion looked at the couple apologetically. The Doctor looked back up at the two people staring at him in confusion.
"Sorry. Checking all the water in this area. There's an escaped fish.,"
He turned back to the two women and they continued walking.
"Now where was I?"
"Police state?" Marion reminded him.
"Why did you just do that with the water?" Amy asked the Doctor, missing nothing.
"I think a lot," said the Doctor "It's hard to keep track. Now, police state. Do you see it yet?"
"Where,"
"There," Marion nodded her head towards Mandy, sitting alone and crying on a red bench. She sat on the bench not too far away from Mandy, but close enough that they could see her and was joined by the Doctor and Amy.
"One little girl crying. So?" Amy asked.
Marion reached into her bag, and pulled out her pen and her notebook and started to write. "It's not that she's crying, it's that she's crying silently and when the Doctor went to ask her what was wrong, she moved."
"Children cry because they want attention, because they're hurt or afraid. But when they cry silently, it's because they just can't stop. Any parent knows that,"
"Are you a parent?"
The Doctor stared at Amy silently for a second. Perhaps thinking about Susan and/or whoever Susan's parents were.
Marion didn't look up from the notebook as she spoke."There's got to be a large number of parents walking around on deck right? None 'em stopped to ask her what was wrong. It can't be that none of them care, so they must already know. So if they know what's wrong, why hasn't anyone comforted her?"
"Simple," the Doctor said quickly, finishing Marion's thought, "It's something they're afraid of. Shadows, whatever they're afraid of, it's nowhere to be seen, which means it's everywhere. Police state."
Marion saw the Smiler's head turn to the side.
Marion clicked the Sonic Pen and looked down at her note.
"Don't worry," it read, "Timmy is safe. Scared perhaps, but safe. You'll see him later again today. -M"
She folded it in eighths and wrote, "Mandy," on the outside in orange letters. The little girl left upon hearing the elevator door "DING"
"Deck 207" she handed Amy the note, "Take this would you? You can open it if you want, but it's important that it gets to Mandy,"
"Who's Mandy?" Amy asked, confused.
"The little girl; her name's Mandy."
"How do you know that?"
"The same way that I know most things," Marion responded as if that answered everything instead of offering more questions.
"Ask her about those things. The smiling fellows in the booths," the Doctor said, pointing to a nearby smiler, "They're everywhere,"
"But they're just things,"
"Sure but they're clean," Marion pointed out, "This is a city. Normally, either everything is kind of dirty, or everything is more or less clean. Those booths? Them and the area around them is much cleaner than the things that surround them. If they were just cleaned, then why not clean the windows and street?"
"No one's laid a finger on those booths. Not a footprint within two feet of them. Look. Ask Mandy, why are people scared of the things in the booths?" the Doctor told Amy.
"No, hang on," Amy sputtered, "What do I do? I don't know what I'm doing here and I'm not even dressed,"
"You're dressed well enough!"
"It's this or Leadworth. What do you think?" the Doctor got a bit closer to Amy's face and while Marion put an elbow on her knee and leaned facing Amy with her chin resting in her palm,
"Let's see. What will Amy Pond choose?"
After a bit of intense eye contact, Amy turned away from the Doctor and stared straight ahead.
"Ha ha, gotcha," the Doctor laughed, he looked down at his wrist, "Meet us back here in half an hour,"
"What are you going to do?"
"What I always do. Stay out of trouble,"
"And you Marion?"
"Making sure he doesn't get into trouble,"
The Doctor vaulted over the back of the red bench while Marion just walked around it. Before the two of them could get too far away, Amy called to them.
"So is this how it works?" Marion and the Doctor turned around to face her, "You never interfere in the affairs of other peoples or planets, unless there's children crying?"
"Yes,"
"That's about right,"
Amy turned around and so did they. After walking for a bit, the Doctor leaned down and asked Marion quietly,
"Something really really bad isn't it?"
Marion stopped walking, "Anything, in particular, that makes you ask?"
"There's a huge skylight full of visible stars and you're either looking down or straight ahead. If everything was fine, you'd have moved under the skylight and planted yourself with your head bent back gazing up at them. If something at the normal level of bad was going on, I'd at least catch you glancing at it every now and then. But you've hardly given it a glance. Something else is on your mind. You haven't talked much, so whatever's distracting you can't be something good otherwise you'd be telling me about it. It's not something from where you were before, because if it was, you'd be fidgeting with the Autodrive in your pocket. I'd say it's just the current police state of affairs, but that doesn't seem like the whole reason. No, something is happening on this ship and you don't like it,"
Marion was silent for a moment. While no one except for weirdos on public transport who didn't understand that a woman with headphones in her ears staring out the window and/or at her phone didn't want to talk to them would describe Marion as an "Ice Queen", Marion didn't exactly wear her heart on her sleeve true, but she wasn't exactly stone faced. When she felt a certain way, it showed even if only in her eyes and body language.
That being said, it still felt super weird to have a person that she had seen on TV for years, and who'd only known for a couple of days to clock her mood that easily.
Marion scrunched her nose, "Something bad is happening. You're right though. It's more than just a police state. I don't think I can tell you what it is though, not this early. What I can say is that it'll make you angry,"
"On a scale of one to ten?"
"Eight,"
"Any hints?"
"Someone's going to make a choice. She'll think it's the right choice, and she'll make the choice with the best intentions but," Marion said, thinking about Amy "the choice will make you angry, very angry. Please, forgive her,"
The Doctor looked as if he was considering what she had said, "I'll keep that in mind,". He stopped leaning down and stood up straight.
"Well then Marion, where to next?"
"Well," Marion said, "Shall we investigate the engine room?"
The engine room was surprisingly easy to get to. It was at the end of a short alley and marked with an "ENGINE ROOM. UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL PROHIBITED". The door itself wasn't even locked when the Doctor pushed it open.
'I suppose that makes sense. Everyone here is too scared to go where they don't belong and even if they weren't, it's not like there's anything in here to guard,'
The room behind the door was about the size of a janitor's closet with grey metallic walls and the concrete floor. There was nothing of note about the room save for a service ladder leading downwards. "I'll head down first," Marion said, looking at the ladder. She looked down, it was only a dozen or so feet. She made it to the bottom with ease. The lower level of the "engine" room had walls made of brown metal instead of dark grey and, due to a lit panel on the wall, was awash with a warm yellow glow. Across the room was a corridor that was dark save for a cool blue panel. Marion could hear the hissing of the steam, but for obvious reasons, couldn't hear the low rumbling that would come with being this close to an engine room.
Marion leaned against the wall, noting the lack of vibration against her back as she watched the Doctor climb down the ladder himself and jump down, skipping the last couple of rungs.
"Hey Doc, something feels off," Marion commented, gesturing to the wall. The Doctor put his hand on the wall and looked at the wall in confusion. Marion moved out of the way. The Doctor put his ear against the wall, knocked on it twice, put his hand in a different spot, and moved his ear away. He looked at the wall in confusion.
"There's nothing!" he said, baffled, "But it can't be. That doesn't make any sense," He took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the room. His eyes widened slightly. The Doctor looked down to the floor and noticed a glass of water. The Doctor got down on the floor, partially supporting himself with his arms like he was getting ready to do a push-up, and examined the glass of water. Like before, the water didn't move despite the fact that, if this had been a real engine room the water line should be shaking. Marion, already knowing what was going to be found and why it was found, remained standing as a woman approached. The woman had dark curly hair and wore a deep red cloak and a white mask. The mask obscured most of the woman's face save for some gaps through which Marion could see her eyes and dark skin.
"The impossible truth in a glass of water. Not many people see it. But you two do, don't you?" the woman asked in a whisper, partially muffled by the mask.
The Doctor looked up from the glass to see who was talking and did a double-take. He seemed to examine the woman for a moment. Marion didn't know what he was looking for, but he didn't seem to see it. "Do you know us?" he asked finally.
"Keep your voice down. They're everywhere. Tell me what you see in the glass,"
"Who says I see anything?" the Doctor responded.
"Don't waste time. At the marketplace, you placed a glass of water on the floor, looked at it, then came straight here to the engine room. Why?"
"Water doesn't move," Marion responded, "in the glass I mean. An engine's vibrations would make water in a glass shake if you placed it on the floor. And yet, the water's still,"
The Doctor walked towards a circuit cabinet and opened it. "It doesn't make sense," he exclaimed. "These power couplings, they're not connected. Look," he opened another cabinet "Look, they're dummies, see?" He moved across the room and pounded his fist against the wall, "And behind this wall, nothing. It's hollow. If I didn't know better, I'd say there was..."
"No engine at all," all three of them said at the same time.
"But it's working. This ship is travelling through space. I saw it," the Doctor said, moving back to the two women.
"The impossible truth. We're travelling among the stars in a spaceship that could never fly,"
"How?" the Doctor asked.
"I don't know. There's a darkness at the heart of this nation. It threatens every one of us. Help us Doctor, Marion. You're our only hope. Your friend is safe. This will take you to her. Now go, quickly!"
The woman handed a Marion small machine about the size and weight of a digital camera.
"Thank you," Marion said, he held the beeping machine up so that the Doctor was able to see it as well. The woman turned to leave. Before she did, the Doctor called out to her.
"Who are you? How do I find you again?"
"I am Liz Ten, and I will find you," the woman responded.
The lights in the room flickered as the yellow light washing over the area flickered. The Doctor looked around in confusion, but Marion leaned against the wall and didn't take her eyes off Liz as she left back the way that she came. By the time that the Doctor turned back around, Liz was gone.
The Doctor held out his hand and Marion handed him the device without looking at him. She figured that he knew more how to use it than she did.
"Can we trust her?" the Doctor asked Marion, "Is she telling the truth?"
Marion considered this question with a tilt of her head, "She's telling the truth. As far as she is aware anyway,"
Marion pushed herself off the wall and began to climb up the ladder. When she was halfway up, she heard the Doctor call to her.
"Hm?", she stopped climbing.
"Does this," Marion couldn't see him, but had a feeling that the Doctor was referring to the engine room when he said "this", "have anything to do with the 'really really bad thing'?"
"It's got everything to do with it," Marion resumed climbing. Once she got close to the top, she pulled herself up the rest of the way and brushed the dust off her pants.
"Let's just go to Amy,"
The tracker led the pair to a small hall that reminded Marion of the waiting room in a courthouse. Across from one of the rooms was one of the many red benches that were found all over Starship UK and on that bench sat Mandy. When they were about a few feet away from the door, they stopped running. Above the door was a sign showing that the room was occupied. Along with it, was a green strip informing them that voting was in progress. A few seconds after they got there, the strip flickered off and the door opened. Mandy stood up from the bench and the Doctor and Marion moved to the door's entrance.
"Amy?" the Doctor asked, opening the door.
Marion could hear Amy's recording beginning to repeat itself. "You've got to find those two and-."
Amy shut off the recording.
While she understood her motives, Marion would be lying if she said that she agreed with Amy pressing the "Forget" button. However, she also knew that it was easy for her to think that from her perspective; that being an outside observer who had been brought in.
"What have you done?" the Doctor asked. It sounded more like a statement. Amy didn't answer. She just stared straight ahead.
"Erased her memory," Marion said, "Check out the thing hanging over her chair,"
The Doctor scanned the light fixture looking device.
"Marion's right. Your basic memory wipe job. Must have erased about twenty minutes,"
"But why would I choose to forget?" Amy asked.
"Because everyone does. Everyone chooses the Forget button," said Mandy from outside of the room.
"Did you?" the Doctor asked, crouching down to be closer to eye level with the girl.
"I'm not eligible to vote yet. I'm twelve. Any time after you're sixteen, you're allowed to see the film and make your choice. And then once every five years,"
"People see what's in the video, and they wish they hadn't. Luckily, there's an option to unsee it," Marion said, pointing to the forget button, "They give the people what they want,"
'I'd be lying if I said that I didn't sometimes wish that videos on the internet had a 'Forget you saw this' option," She said, side eyeing it.
"How do you not know about this? Are you Scottish too?"
'Sorry love, you're a face early,'
"Oh, I'm way worse than Scottish," the Doctor said, a smile in his voice, "I can't even see the movie. Won't play for me. Doubt it'd play for Marion either," He continued to examine the voting booth.
"It played for me," Amy replied.
"I'm American," Marion said, "Also, come to think of it, I might not legally exist. And even if it did play for me, it wouldn't play for him," she pointed her thumb towards, the Doctor, "He's not considered human,"
"Why not?" asked Amy. The Doctor looked away from the four screens of the booth. "You look human," Amy moved closer to the Doctor.
"No, you look Time Lord. We came first,"
"So there are other Time Lords, yeah?"
Marion stood behind the Doctor, tilted her head, and shook her hand back and forth near her neck trying to communicate to Amy to drop the topic. Either Amy didn't see her, or, and this was more likely, Amy had seen her too late.
The Doctor stopped messing with the console and looked up, " No. There were, but there aren't. Just me now. Long story. There was a bad day. Bad stuff happened. And you know what? I'd love to forget it all, every last bit of it, but I don't. Not ever. Because this is what I do, this is what WE do every time, every day, every second. This. Marion, you do the honors?" The Doctor pointed to the white button with the word, "PROTEST" written on it in thick, black letters.
"Certainly," Marion said. She moved the autodrive to a pocket in her bag far away from her phone.
"Back up Mandy," Marion called to the girl who was still standing next to the door. Marion slammed her fist on the button.
"Try forgetting THAT babe,"
The door slammed shut, fortunately, despite the fact that the door opened outwards, it didn't clip Mandy as it closed. They heard a mechanical sound behind them and the three people turned to the smiling figure whose head was turned to reveal an angry-looking scowl and red eyes. They moved towards the wall as a mechanical sound emerged from the floor. It pulled back, revealing a long drop from which, a sinister red light appeared.
'WOW,' Marion thought, 'Nothing says "Democratic Process" like "Pick what you want. If we don't like, it, you'll see an angry face and we'll hurl you down into a fuckin' hell pit,"'
"Say Wheee," the Doctor shouted.
"Whee!" said Marion, grabbing the Doctor's left hand.
"AHHHHHHH," Amy screamed as the Doctor grabbed her hand with his left. Marion felt her stomach drop as the three of them freefell down into the place below the deck of the ship.
Next Chapter: Understanding Does Not Equal Agreement
The Doctor: I NEVER get involved with the affairs of other people and planets.
Marion: Sure, and I'm straight.
Fun Fact: Considering that they're both 29th-century solar flares, it's likely that the humans in "the Beast Below" are fleeing the same disaster as the humans in "the Ark in Space,". I headcanon that all the folks that the planet deemed "Genetically Viable" or whatever BS were on the ark and everyone else piled into the Starships. Either that or the folks fleeing in the starships fled earlier in the century, like the first few decades and the folks on the Nerva Beacon fled towards the end of the century.
But then again, what is and isn't Doctor Who canon and continuity is a bit of a muddled topic. If someone tells you that they've consumed every possible piece of Doctor Who content, has absorbed all the lore, and not only understands it all, that person is, fun fact, a liar.
What episodes will be covered next you ask? Well, the poll says that y'all want to see one. While I'm positive that the people who were voting for that were actually voting to see the Unearthly Child, I uh, still have some things I want to do before showing that. So the next arc, I'm 90% sure, will be "Gunfighters," I'm in a "Yee Haw" sort of mood. After that, we'll bounce over to 12 and, assuming that the stars align and I can figure out which 2 serial I want to do, we'll do that. If not, IDK. It depends on what the polls ask.