I would say that the next chapter is going to be something with the Third Doctor, because that's what I plan on doing next, but that's subject to change since I'm posting this the Thursday before the fall semester starts again, and honestly, I know very well that I could change my mind when I finally am able to sit down and write for once. So I'm just going to say that the PLAN is for the next chapter to be Three, but that's subject to change.
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"Oh good. Y'all are still here!"
Marion threw herself through the door. Marion imagined that she might've looked tired and out of breath if being out of breath was a state of being that she could still be in.
Rose and the Doctor were sitting on top of the stairwell on either side. Marion hadn't heard any talking, so she was pretty sure she hadn't just but into the middle of their conversation. At least she hoped that she hadn't.
"Where have you been?" the Doctor asked.
"Saving lives!" Marion replied, taking a deep breath. As she sat down just on top of the stairs, just next to the Doctor. "Saving lives."
"How so?" Rose asked.
"Oh you know, the usual," Marion shrugged. The Doctor slung an arm around her shoulder. Marion's eyes flickered to him for a moment, before flicking back to Rose. "Making sure no one's at the wrong place at the wrong time. Speaking of which," Marion looked back at the Doctor. "If anyone asks, I was sent by the corporation to make sure that no one was sabotaging the ship. You know, with there being so many important people on board."
"Were we sent as well?" the Doctor asked.
"I said I have colleagues, plural, but if you don't want to be the other one, that's fine. I can claim that I was contacting my colleagues over call or something. We'll make it work."
"Sorry, is something trying to sabotage the ship?"
"Rose, this ship is full of incredibly rich and influential people. Of course, there's sabotage."
Marion glanced towards the metal ball next to Rose's hand.
She could destroy it now.
Oh, but the element of surprise was rather important. She didn't want Cassandra to get the idea that Marion was absolutely onto her. She might try plan B early and do something Marion didn't know how to undo. Maybe if she could catch one of those metal spiders out of their ball. She'd crush it then.
"Anyway, that's something I'm going to deal with later. What's important right now is you, Rose." Marion turned fully to face Rose.
"Me?"
"Yes, this is your first trip, how are you holding up?".
"Great. Yeah, fine," Rose said, sounding like it was anything but. "Once you get past the slightly psychic paper. They're just so alien. The aliens are so alien. You look at 'em and they're alien."
"This is a ship full of aliens yes,"
"Good thing I didn't take her to the Deep South," the Doctor said with a light laugh.
"Where are you two from anyway.?"
"Earth," Marion replied. "At least I am. I mean, not that Earth. Not your Earth. But an Earth. A different one. In another universe. A bit in your future."
"How far?" Rose asked.
"Not too, too far. I'm not from the 40th century or anything. I'm twenty-three. You're from 2005?" Marion did some quick math in her head. "If there's a version of me on your Earth, you aren't old enough to be her mom, but you're about the right age to be her aunt if you had an older sister or brother or something."
"What about you Doctor?" Rose asked. "Where are you from? Is he from another universe too?"
Marion carefully maintained the same facial expression. SHE knew that the answer to that question was yes. The Doctor, however, did not know that the answer to that question was yes. Unless she'd told him.
Which, who knows, maybe she had. Because honestly, the fact that Marion hadn't told the Doctor yet had far less to do with a desire to hide it from him or because of "spoilers" or whatever and more because Marion frankly had no fucking idea how to go about dropping that information on the Doctor.
"Your whole life is a lie, you were found as a child and a scientist used to create regeneration cycles for Time Lords. You used to work for what is basically the Time Lord Black Ops division, but they stole your memories and turned you into a child."
Yeah, no.
Marion didn't know what the CORRECT way to tell the Doctor that, but that wasn't it.
The Doctor, either not noticing any change in Marion's expression or choosing not to bring it up simply shook his head.
"I'm from all over the place."
"They all speak English."
The Doctor swung his legs so they weren't dangling over the side. He took his arm off Marion and leaned back a bit.
"No, you just hear English. It's a gift of the Tardis. The telepathic field gets inside your brain and translates."
"It's inside my brain?"
"Sort of,"
"In a good way,"
"Your machine gets inside my head," Rose said very slowly, "It gets inside and it changes my mind, and you didn't even ask?"
"Most people are completely unable to notice that the TARDIS is translating for them in the first place. The fact that you actually noticed is really impressive," Marion tried.
"So that fact that you didn't think I would notice makes the fact that you let your machine get inside my head and didn't even ask? Or tell me?"
"Ah-," Marion opened and closed her mouth and then shrugged. "fair enough,"
"Who is he then! Who are you, Doctor? What are you called? What sort of alien are you?"
The Doctor sat up and looked straight ahead. "I'm just the Doctor,"
"From what planet?"
"Well, it's not as if you'll know where it is!"
"Where are you from?"
"What does it matter!"
"Tell me who you are!"
The Doctor wasn't exactly shouting, but his voice was definitely raised.
"This is who I am, right here, right now, all right? All that counts is here and now, and this is me."
Rose's voice raised with his.
"Yeah, and I'm here too because you brought me here, so just tell me."
The Doctor got up and walked down the stairs, right in front of the room's large window.
Rose turned her head towards the other woman.
"Marion, can you tell me where he's from."
Marion shook her head. "Nope."
"You mean you've been travelling with him for years and even YOU don't know?"
Marion shook her head again.
"No, I mean that I'm not about to sit here and tell you something about the Doctor he literally just said he didn't want to tell you. What kind of friend does that?" Marion lifted a knee, rested an elbow on her knee, and rested her chin in her open palm. "I get why you're asking. I get why you want to know that information. And I even get why you're upset that the Doctor won't tell you. But, the question you're asking is a whole lot more complicated and personal than you think it is. He'll tell you when he's ready."
The ship's computer announced to the ship that there were twenty more minutes until the Earth blew up. The timing was astounding.
Rose looked over at the Doctor for a moment, and then to Marion, and then back to the Doctor. She looked like she was thinking about something for a moment, and then she stood up and walked down the steps to the man.
"All right," Rose said, in the same tone a person might use to apologize. "As my mate Shareen says, don't argue with the designated driver."
Rose reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.
Side note, seeing someone casually pull out a flip phone felt surreal.
"Can't exactly call for a taxi," Rose remarked. "There's no signal. We're out of range. Just a bit."
"Tell you what."
Marion saw the Doctor reach over, presumably to take Rose's phone and mess around with its wiring.
"With a little bit of jiggery-pokery-"
"Is that a technical term, jiggery-pokery?"
"Yeah, I came first in jiggery-pokery. What about you?"
"No, I failed hullabaloo."
"Oh, there you go,"
Rose brought the phone to her ear and started to talk to her mom. The Doctor walked back up the stairs to where Marion was still seated.
"The Associate told me that the next time I'd see you you'd be pretty young."
Marion groaned,
"God, when's it gonna be my turn to be the one who's warning and not the one who's being warned about huh?"
"You'll be older soon enough. Anyway, I was asking if you needed me to fix your phone. Give it the kind of connection Rose's got,"
Marion took her phone out of her bag and held it out to him.
"Ah- you can look, but I think you already did. Or will. Far off in your future, the second time I met you. Same time you gave me the psychic paper."
The Doctor examined her phone for a moment and then passed it back to her.
"You're all set!"
"I figured I was. Not sure how else I'd be able to get a phone call from the Brigadier several decades before the stuff you need to make calls with in the first place was set up."
Rose finished up her phone call and closed her phone. She looked down at her device incredulously.
"Think that's amazing," the Doctor remarked walking back to her, "you wait to see the bill."
"That was five billion years ago. So, she's dead now. Five billion years later, my mum's dead."
"You must be at fun at parties," Marion called over to her.
The ship started to shake under them. Like strong winds slamming up against a plane. Or, more accurately, like when a bunch of robotic spiders owned by a bitchy trampoline had started fucking around with the wiring.
Fortunately, the Steward was outside of his office. And if he wasn't?
Marion wasn't callous or desensitized enough to say she wouldn't feel bad about it. But she'd done everything short of following him around herself. She'd taken him out of the room, and warned him not to go back inside. She'd told him pretty much everything except for who the saboteur was and the fact that she knew the future. If he still went inside, then that wasn't her fault.
Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that and she wouldn't have to convince herself that that was the truth.
"That's not supposed to happen!" The Doctor remarked. His words said concern. But his tone of voice and the way his head tilted to the side and the curious smile on his face suggested excitement. "Is this the sabotage you were talking about?"
The three of them raced back to the observatory. Marion was delighted to see Raffalo standing more or less at attention next to the Face of Boe and the Steward standing at the podium looking down at his tablet.
All she had to do was pull that switch so that Jabe didn't get turned into charcoal and she would be three for three.
"That wasn't a gravity pocket," the moment the Doctor was through the door, he spun on his heel and tapped the side of a doorway. A panel lit up on the side and several numbers scrolled across the screen with an electronic sounding whirring noise. "I know gravity pockets and they don't feel like that." Jabe walked over to them to see what she was looking at. The Doctor turned his head to address her. "What do you think, Jabe? Listened to the engines. They've pitched up about thirty Hertz. That dodgy or what?"
Jabe shrugged and looked to the side for a moment like she was thinking.
"It's the sound of metal," she said after a moment, "It doesn't make any sense to me."
"Where's the engine room?" the Doctor asked.
"There's a maintenance duct near one of the guest's rooms," Marion remarked.
"Could you take us there?" The Doctor asked Jabe.
"Yes. I could show you and your wives,"
"She's not my wife," "We're not married."
"Partners?"
"The Doctor and I have been friends for a while,"
"And she is your-," Jabe gestured towards Rose.
Marion said, unintentionally cutting Rose off before she could say anything.
"Friend," Marion said pointedly. "A new friend."
"I see," Jabe said. "Well does this friend of yours want to join us?"
"Do you mind?" Rose glared at them. "Tell you what," Rose waved them off, "you two go and pollinate. I'm going to catch up with family. Quick word with Michael Jackson." Rose started to walk off.
"Don't start a fight" the Doctor called.
"Rose, wait!"
Marion put her hands on Rose's shoulder.
"Rose, I need you to listen to me carefully. Please, please be civil,"
"I will,"
"No, no, Rose. Listen. You're gonna want to start a fight and you're going to want to get snippy and I'm respectfully asking you to hold your tongue a bit. At least until the Doctor and I get back. Okay?"
"Marion-"
"Okay?"
"Okay."
Marion was pretty sure that Rose was only saying "Okay" so that she'd let her go, but she didn't want the Doctor going down into the maintenance tunnel without her.
"Marion," The Doctor called over to her. Jabe holding onto his arm. "You're coming, aren't you?"
Marion let go of the Rose.
"Of course!" Marion called back. "I'll be right over."
Rose gave Marion one last "I mean it. Play nice." and then joined Jabe and the Doctor.
Knowing the fact that she was listening for metal spiders made the sound of them scuttling through the duct so much more obvious. The clink of metal legs on metal was pretty distinct, especially the way it got fainter and fainter the further they got inside of the shaft.
The shaft was cramped. Marion wondered if it was because control only intended for there to be one person working there at a time or if it was because, with the exception of the Steward and Raffalo, all of the employees looked to be about 4' 4".
The Doctor and Jabe had to duck down to fit through. Marion meanwhile, only had to bend her neck a little bit. The Doctor was in the front with Jabe in the middle and Marion in the back. She reached into her bag and casually held onto her hammer in case one of them jumped out.
Speaking of jumping out, the robo-sphere that had been given to her and then swiftly shoved into the metal lined back onto her back was still sphere-like. Marion wished her pants had had belt loops that she could slide the hammer into for quick use.
"Who's in charge of Platform One?" the Doctor asked, "Is there a Captain or what?"
"Just a Steward," Marion replied. Marion walked behind them, her eyes looking back and forth for the metal spiders as they walked. She fidgeted with the strap of her messenger bag trying to resist the urge to fidget with the hammer instead. She didn't want it to fly out of her hand, slam into something, and do Cassandra's job for her.
"Everything else is controlled by the metal mind," Jabe added.
"You mean the computer? But who controls that?"
"The Corporation. They move Platform One from one artistic event to another."
"But there's no one from the corporation on board to control the ship," The Doctor's eyes flickered towards Marion.
"They're not needed," Jabe remarked as the three of them squeezed their way down a corridor. This place was definitely built with much smaller people in mind. No question. "This facility is purely automatic. It's the height of the Alpha class. Nothing can go wrong."
"Oh I don't trust places who repeatedly insist that nothing can go wrong," Marion remarked.
"Why not?" Jabe asked.
"Because it means they have no plan for when things go wrong."
"I was on board another ship once. They said that was unsinkable. I ended up clinging to an iceberg. It wasn't half cold," The Doctor stopped walking and turned to look at Jabe. "So, what you're saying is, if we get in trouble there's no one to help us out?"
"I'm afraid not."
The Doctor gave Jabe what looked like a smile but was unquestionably a grimace.
"Fantastic!" The Doctor moved ahead.
"I don't understand," Jabe called after him. "In what way is that fantastic?"
The corridor continued forward in one narrow direction. Was this a fire hazard? Marion thought that that might be a fire hazard. Shouldn't there be safety corridors for escape or something? In case something went wrong? Then again, from what Jabe had said, this had been built under the assumption that nothing would go wrong in the first place so that might explain the reason why things were built the way that they were.
Somewhere up and to the side, Marion could hear the metal clink-clink of one of Cassandra's robots running across the upper levels on top of some machinery. Right then, Marion could only hear the one, but she listened carefully for more.
"So tell me, Jabe," the Doctor asked, "what's a tree like you doing in a place like this?"
"Respect for the Earth."
"Oh, come on," The Doctor scoffed, "Everyone on this platform's worth zillions."
"Well, perhaps it's a case of having to be seen at the right occasions."
"In case your share prices drop? I know you lot. You've got massive forests everywhere, roots everywhere, and there's always money in land."
"All the same," Jabe replied with a smile. "we respect the Earth as family. So many species evolved from that planet. Mankind is only one. I'm another. My ancestors were transplanted from the planet down below, and I'm a direct descendant of the tropical rainforest."
"Oh, that's interesting,"
Marion was curious to know how trees could evolve into sapient life forms. But like, five billion with-a-B years was more than enough time for that to happen probably. And also, Marion was fairly sure that "how did you evolve" wasn't a question that was appropriate to ask another person. The TARDIS had a library where she could read up on the evolution of the Forests of Cheem.
"Excuse me," The Doctor started to sonic a wall panel.
"And what about your ancestry, Doctor?" Jabe asked, "Perhaps you could tell a story or two. Perhaps a man only enjoys trouble when there's nothing else left. I scanned you earlier. The metal machine had trouble identifying your species. It refused to admit your existence. And even when it named you, I wouldn't believe it. But it was right. I know where you're from. Forgive me for intruding, but it's remarkable that you even exist. I just wanted to say how sorry I am."
The entire time Jabe spoke, the Doctor seemed lazer focused on whatever he was doing with the wall panel. The only hint that he gave that he was hearing what she was saying was the fact that he was silent (the Doctor, Marion had noticed, talked a lot while he worked).
Finally, the door clicked open.
"I wouldn't say I've got nothing left," the Doctor said in a reply. His voice was melancholic.
Which, as far as he knew, he'd blown up his entire planet and everyone on it in order to win a war, so that would explain that pretty well.
The maintenance room hadn't been unbearably hot, but when you have that many machines in one spot things are going to feel warmer than they ought to. It had been a gradual heat, and Marion hadn't noticed it until they stepped inside of the fan room and felt the difference. The spinning blades filled the room with cool, refreshing air and reached just above the catwalk leading from where they stood in the back of the room and the reset button. Marion's eyes flickered from the spinning blades to the large lever that would slow them down enough to let him go through.
This would be the last time Jabe set foot in this room.
"Is it me, or is it a bit nippy?" The Doctor remarked. Marion crossed her arms. The Doctor stepped forward and walked towards the fan's control lever. "Fair do's, though, that's a great bit of air conditioning. Sort of nice and old-fashioned. Bet they call it retro."
The Doctor crouched down in front of the panel that the fan control was hooked up to and started to scan for something.
"Gotcha."
The Doctor remarked.
He removed the panel and scuttled one of Cassandra's robotic spiders. Before it could get too far, Marion snatched it up, holding it upside down with its head on her palm. The red light on its side blinked rapidly for a moment and then dimmed. The legs curled in on themselves. Not unlike what a spider did when it died.
Marion held the thing out to the Doctor for him to scan.
"What the hell is that?" the Doctor remarked.
"Is it part of the retro?" Jabe asked.
"I don't think so. Hold on." The Doctor took out his screwdriver and began to scan the device over. "Now then, who's been bringing their pets on board?" He looked down at whatever he used for readouts on his device and tucked it back in his pocket.
"What's it for?" Jabe asked.
"What else?" Marion replied, "Sabotage,"
"Earth Death in ten minutes."
The computer reminded cheerfully.
"And the temperature's about to rocket," the Doctor took the machine from Marion and tucked it into one of his seemingly endless pockets. "Come on!"
When Marion, Jabe, and the Doctor got out of the maintenance area, Marion noticed these things in this order.
First, that Toxic by Brittney Spears was on blast.
Second, the Stewards Room was billowing smoke.
And Third, the fact that she couldn't smell burning flesh intermingled with the smoke.
That last one was a relief. Sure, Marion had seen the Steward outside of his office after the time when he was supposed to die, but that didn't mean he hadn't ducked back into his office to grab one more thing and get burnt.
Several of the ship assistants were crowded around the door. The Doctor reached into his pocket and started to use his sonic on the ship's smaller panel.
"Hold on. Get back," he ordered. He started doing something with the panel and from the other end, Marion could hear the words
"Sun filter rising. Sun filter rising." from the computer on the other end.
What Marion wanted to know was why sun filters were something that could rise and fall on a ship like this.
That seemed a bit like having a button on a submarine that would lower the ship's windows.
"Is the Steward in there?!" Jabe asked, alarmed.
"He shouldn't be," Marion gestured with her head towards the observation deck. "Last I saw him, he was back there. In the observation room"
"Hold on, there's another sun filter programmed to descend." The Doctor ran off and down the hall back to Gallery Fifteen.
"Is anyone in there?" The Doctor shouted, the question directed at both Marion and whoever was inside.
Before Marion could say "No!" there was shouting from inside of the door.
"WE'RE IN HERE!" Marion heard Rose scream. "LET US OUT!"
"Oh, well, it would be you," the Doctor remarked.
"Who's we, Rose?" Marion shouted through the door. "Who's with you?"
"Me miss. Raffalo,"
'Of course!' Marion thought. Recognizing Raffalo's voice. The whole reason that she'd been killed in the first place was that she had known too much. Why didn't Marion think they'd try again? This should've been obvious.
"Of course!" Marion said aloud.
"Open the door!" Rose shouted.
"Hold on," The Doctor called back, "Give us two ticks. Marion," the Doctor didn't look up from his work. "I'm going to try to fix the solar filters. Do you think that you could get the door open?"
"Sun filter descending. Sun filter descending."
"How?"
The Doctor did something at the panel.
"Sun filter rising. Sun filter rising."
"You've broken down doors before haven't you?"
"It's a sliding door,"
"So?"
"Sun filter rising. Sun filter rising."
"You can pry it open? Can't you?"
Just-
Oh! Wait. Marion reached her whole arm down her bag until her fingers gripped around the pry bar. She angled one end of it into the door with one and took out her hammer. She slammed her hammer against the side of the wall as hard as she could. It didn't go in as far as she was hoping that it would and the moment she let go of the bar, it fell to the ground.
"Sun filter descending."
"Just what we need."
"The computer's getting clever."
"Stop mucking about!"
"The station's computers are built to withstand cyber attacks," Raffalo explained.
"Are they?" Marion replied, hitting the hammer again. "Are they really? Because these computers seem pretty tampered with."
"OPEN THE DOOR!" Rose shouted.
"We're trying!" Marion shouted. "The Doctor is trying to stop the solar filter, and I'm trying to get this door open."
"STOP!" Marion heard Raffalo shout from inside of gallery fifteen.
"What do you mean stop?"
"The door's thick enough to keep the light from breaking through the door. If you open the door, you'll burn."
Marion wouldn't. But her pry bar might. Which might make the door harder to open later. Stopped hammering.
"The lock's melted!" Rose yelled.
"I think the Doctor's close!" Marion shouted back. "You're close right!"
"I just need to-"
"Sun filter descending. Sun filter descending."
Marion glanced over to the Doctor.
"Sun filter rising. Sun filter rising."
Marion went back to trying to shove the prybar through the crack between the door, around where the lock should be.
"The whole thing's jammed." The Doctor remarked.
Marion let go of the prybar again, it didn't fall down this time, but it clearly wasn't anywhere near as embedded as would be ideal.
"And I can't get the bar through to try prying it open."
"We'll be right back." The Doctor said quickly. "Don't move!"
"Where am I supposed to go?" Rose called after them rhetorically. "Ipswitch?"
The moment she was through the door, Marion was greeted by the Steward.
"Inspector, have you found anything? I haven't been able to contact Control. The solar filter lowered in my office and fried all my equipment."
Oh right. That.
Marion cleared her throat. "Well, we certainly found something alright." Marion gestured towards the robot in Jabe's hand. "It fits the description of what Ms. Raffalo says tried to drag her inside of the vents when I spoke to her earlier today. The Doctor, Jabe, and I found this thing inside of the engine room hiding inside one of the panels. Doing sabotage. At the very least, they've disabled two of the platform's solar filters and nearly killed two employees and a guest. Whoever is behind these robots is an attempted murderer."
"Who's behind these robots then!" The Moxx demanded.
"This whole event was sponsored by the Face of Boe. He invited us," Cassandra accused, "Talk to the Face. Talk to the Face."
"Ok so it's definitely not him. We all got these from the Adherents of the Repeated Meme, right?"
Marion retrieved the metal ball from the drawstring bag. Marion guessed that the foil must've been some sort of Faraday cage because the moment it was out of the bag it emerged and came to life and dropped on the floor.
"Easy way of finding out where they came from. Someone bought their little pet on board. Let's send him back to master."
The Doctor dropped the one that Jabe handed him on the floor as well and lightly kicked them forward.
"Go on," the Doctor said lightly.
The two robots scuttled forward towards the center of the room, their red lights darting back and forth. They both stood in front of Cassandra for a long while before turning to walk towards the dark-cloaked Adherents.
"The Adherents of the Repeated Meme," Cassandra said dramatically, "J'accuse!"
"Cool so the thing about that is-" Marion said stepping towards one of the black-cloaked figures. It swung down its arm to knock her down. She grabbed it by the wrist before it could hit her and yanked. The arm came off effortlessly. Thick white wires stuck out of the machine's arm in a way that would've been incredibly gristly and gory if the wires had been red and wet. "these guys aren't real."
"It's really kind of obvious," the Doctor said walking to Marion's side. "but if you stop and think about it"
Marion held up the back end of the arm to the Doctor. He looked at it for a moment and then reached for one of the wires.
" A Repeated Meme is just an idea. And that's all they are, an idea." He yanked at it and all of the robots went tumbling to the ground like puppets who had had their strings cut. Marion opened her hand and let the arm drop to the ground with a soft thud. "Remote-controlled Droids," the Doctor explained. "Nice little cover for the real troublemaker. Go on, you two. Go home."
This time, the two robots made a beeline straight to Cassandra. She glared at the Doctor as much as a flap of skin was capable of doing so.
"I bet you were the school swot and never got kissed. At arms!"
Cassandra's two attendants held up their spritzer things and aimed them at them.
"What are you going to do," the Doctor asked sarcastically. "moisturise me?"
"With acid. Oh, you're too late, anyway. My spiders have control of the mainframe. Oh, you all carried them as gifts, tax-free, past every code wall. I'm not just a pretty face."
"Oh, you aren't even that." Marion shot back.
"Sabotaging a ship while you're still inside it?" The Doctor shook his head, "How stupid's that?"
"I'd hoped to manufacture a hostage situation with myself as one of the victims. The compensation would have been enormous."
"Five billion years and it still comes down to money."
"Do you think it's cheap, looking like this?" Cassandra retorted, "Flatness costs a fortune. I am the last human, Doctor. Me. Not that freaky little kid of yours"
"Arrest her, the infidel" shouted the Moxx.
"Oh, shut it, pixie. I've still got my final option."
"Earth Death in Three Minutes" the computer cheerfully reminded them.
"And here it comes. You're just as useful dead, all of you. I have shares in your rival companies and they'll triple in price as soon as you're dead. My spiders are primed and ready to destroy the safety systems. How did that old Earth song go? Burn, baby, burn."
"Then you'll burn with us." Jabe reminded.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," Cassandra said, sounding everything but. "I know the use of teleportation is strictly forbidden, but I'm such a naughty thing. Spiders, activate."
Platform One shook violently with the sound of explosions. And great, there came that strong sense of dread. Great great great. Super. She was wondering when that was going to come up.
"Forcefields gone with the planet about to explode. At least it'll be quick. Just like my fifth husband. Oh, shame on me."
"Safety systems failing."
"Bye, bye, darlings. Bye, bye, my darlings."
With that, Cassandra and her two attendants disappeared in a flash of white light.
"Heat levels rising."
"Reset the computer!" The Moxx shouted at the Steward. The man started to frantically tap at his tablet.
"I can't access the system from here. It needs to be reset manually using the-"
"-manual system restore switch in the maintenance shaft. I know where that is. Doctor, you're with me. Everyone else, just, chill and get in the halls as far as you can from any windows."
At some point, while they were running Marion and the Doctor were holding hands again. This was good. Marion was starting to get vertigo and the heat wasn't helping matters. Not needing to pay much attention to where she was going other than the fact that she was going was ideal.
What wasn't ideal was how incredibly hot it was inside of the corridor. It had absolutely been hot before but it had gone from a mildly warm server room to the inside of a car that had been parked in the middle of the parking lot with no shade in the middle of summer.
Marion hoped that she wasn't swaying on her feet and that was just her vision swimming a bit. The Doctor seemed to notice the fact that she was still feeling a little bit peaky, and kept holding onto her hand as the room got narrower until they made it back to the control room with the spinning fans.
The fan was spinning much, much faster than it had been before, which was nice. It was a lot easier to breathe in this room than in the one they had just come in from.
The computer reminded them that not only were the heat levels critical, but they had only two minutes before the earth when kablooey and took them all with it.
The Doctor stared down at the other end of the fans.
"That's the control switch on the other side of those fans, isn't it?"
Marion grimaced.
"Yup. And someone's got to hold down the lever while the other person goes through. By someone, I mean me."
Marion walked over to the lever and pulled down the sleeves of her shirt so that they covered her palms completely.
"Marion you know that-"
"The heat's going to be redirected right where I'm standing. Yeah. So I'd appreciate it if you moved quickly."
"Heat levels rising. Heat levels rising." The computer informed them. "External temperature five thousand degrees."
Marion took a deep breath, swung the breaker, and held down the lever. She leaned her weight down on it, just in case the heat got too much and she passed out, her body weight would keep it level. The fans slowed down and Marion could already feel the room steadily get hotter and hotter.
The good thing was that the moment the Doctor stepped towards the spinning fans, she no longer felt like she was going to throw up and her vision wasn't spinning anywhere near as much.
Of course, the bad thing was the fact that she was clutching onto a metal bar with only her knitted long sleeves protecting her hands in a room that was rapidly getting hotter and hotter and hotter. Marion glanced over and saw that the Doctor had only just passed through the first fan.
Cool. Cool. Great. Super. Stupendous even.
The computer repeatedly reminded them that the heat levels were rising. Marion didn't need to be told that.
"Heat Levels Critical"
OH? Critical? Super. Super Duper.
The Doctor finally made it past the second set of fans. He turned back around to look at her.
"KEEP GOING!" Marion shouted at him.
The Doctor turned around and prepared to walk past the third fan. And that's when the pain really started.
On the plus side, Marion's top was made of 100% cotton. And the thing about cotton is that it's a natural fiber. It comes from a plant, not plastic. It doesn't melt, it burns with a smell that's not too dissimilar to paper. This meant that when her shirt caught fire, she didn't have to deal with melted plastic burning her skin.
On the minus side, of course, her shirt sleeves were literally on fire. It's not that Marion hadn't expected that this would happen.
But ow.
Marion grit her teeth and let out a very very slow and very very sharp exhale. If she cried out, the Doctor might turn around to look and see what was wrong. Whatever seconds he spent looking at her would be seconds that he wasn't trying to get to that lever. Seconds that Marion they really couldn't afford to waste.
"Heat levels rising. Heat levels rising."
Not to mention the fact that she couldn't let go of the lever until the Doctor got past the last fan.
Wearing a shirt that was in flames from the middle of her wrist to her hands and slowly rising up her arm actually hurt less than being zapped by a cyberman. The difference is that that had killed her in seconds and this was a continuing sensation.
Admittedly, it was hurting slightly less now, than it had been hurting a few seconds ago, but the way the feeling of heat was replaced by a cold numb sensation that was starting at where her fingers touched the lever and was slowly traveling up her arm in the same route as the more painful initial burn wasn't exactly putting her mind at ease.
Once burns got bad enough, they stopped hurting. But this wasn't a good thing. It was a "my nerves are severely damaged" thing.
Marion leaned an elbow down on the bar and continued to take deep steady breaths. Was she crying? She was probably crying. But she wasn't screaming. She didn't want to distract the Doctor. She hoped that he was too focused to hear or smell anything off. She also was very pointedly not looking down at her arms. She could feel and hear the flames and taste and smell the smoke that smelled like burning paper and something else that she knew but didn't want to name.
She didn't need to see it.
The computer started to count down to when the sun was due to expand and destroy the Earth.
"Ten, Nine, Eight-"
And then Marion heard the most beautiful sounds she had ever heard in her life.
The sound of a lever being pulled down as hard as the person pulling it could manage and the Doctor's voice shouting "RAISE SHIELDS"
Another soothing noise.
"Exoglass repair. Exoglass repair. Exoglass repair."
The room got cooler. Marion assumed. It was hard to tell.
And then a less soothing noise.
The Doctor yelling her name.
"MARION!"
He'd finally turned back around and he could see that she was on fire. And the flames had reached even further up her sleeves.
Marion turned her head to look at her. She didn't open her mouth because she knew that if she did the only sounds out of her mouth would be screaming. And she didn't want to scream. It wasn't a matter of not being a distraction anymore. She simply didn't want to.
When Jabe had burned to ash and the Doctor raised the shields back up, on his way back, the fans had slowed down significantly.
But in this version of events, where Marion was able to keep holding on, the fans were practically stationary. Which meant that the Doctor could run over to her side in seconds. The moment he was back on the other side of the catwalk and she was clear that he was clear from the blades, Marion let go of the lever, dropped to the ground, and started to roll across the floor until the flames that had reached up to her collared shirt were successfully smothered.
Marion lay down on her back for a while. She took deep and heavy breaths that her lungs didn't appreciate.
The numbness was gone from her arms now. But now her arms felt like they were freshly burned again and also incredibly cold. She experimentally wiggled her fingers. It hurt.
"Marion?" The Doctor was crouched down next to her. She looked the man in the eye so that she wouldn't be tempted to look at her arms the way the Doctor clearly was. He looked worried. That wouldn't do.
"Nothing to worry abou- ow." Marion's voice got higher at the end as the cold burning numbness spread to her fingertips. She could feel her upper arms again. That was something. Marion felt a hand at her back helping her sit up. It felt cool.
Its owner had a body temperature of sixty degrees Fahrenheit, so that explained it she supposed.
The movement made her arms move and it hurt. Marion didn't say so though. She started speaking instead.
"How's it looking Doc?" Marion asked. "How do my arms look? Do they look cool? Because it feels cool. Literally. Temperature wise. They don't feel numb anymore. I'm not in shock. At least I don't think I'm in shock? My arms are freezing, they feel like they're covered in ice? Are they covered in ice? I don't think they are. I think my body's pushing out the heat and that's why I feel cold."
"You were burned terribly, Marion."
Marion blinked. "I know. I was there."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
Marion turned her head to stare at him blankly. It was just her forearms and wrists that felt freezing now. Carefully not to move her hands she lightly bent her elbow. Pain didn't increase. So that part of her arm was fine then.
"What was I supposed to say? 'Hey, I know you're moving as fast as you can to raise the shields and keep everyone from blowing up but can you move faster my arms are on fire? What would be the point? You were already going as fast as you could. I didn't want to distract you."
"Distract me?"
"Yes, distract you! You were already going as fast as you could. I don't see how my screaming could help." Marion shrugged and looked at her shirt. It was dark blue, which made the scorch marks less visible, but that did nothing to cover the fact that there were holes burned into it. I wanted all of your attention to be on the lever, not me. Besides, I'm fine. It's not like I'm made of wood."
Marion leaned back for a bit and then pushed forward so that she was able to be on her feet without moving her hands and stood up. Her hand felt mostly normal now. Marion's curiosity overwhelmed her and she looked down at her hand as the last of it healed. What looked like smoke or ash traveled from the middle of her palm to her fingertips leaving behind reddish skin which slowly turned into her normal light tan. Marion closed and opened her fists.
No pain.
"See, I'm fine." She spun her wrist around and punched once or twice in the air. "Nothing hurts, I'm fine. My shirt's not." Marion said with a soft laugh. The shirt was basically gone up to her wrists and there were burn holes further up. Marion brushed her fingers against one of the darker marks around the holes and her finger came back covered in soot.
"Ugh," Marion wiped her hands on her pants. "C'mon, we need to head back to the observation bay,"
"Did you know that you were going to catch fire?" The Doctor asked as they walked.
"I think we both knew that the heat was going to be redirected through here once the turbines were turned off. I'm just glad that my shirt wasn't polyester or acrylic or some other plastic that would melt. That sounds like it would suck."
Marion stepped through the maintenance vent thingy and entered back into the main hallway of the platform. The whole area was several degrees hotter than it should have been, but nothing unreasonable. Nothing dangerous.
"Who would've gone with me if you hadn't," the Doctor asks as he stepped out and to the side. "Who held onto the lever in the Omega Timeline? Was it Rose?"
Marion shook her head. "No, she antagonized Cassandra so she had her droids knock her out and toss her in Gallery 15."
"Then who was it?"
"Jabe."
"But she's made of wood."
"Yes."
"But wouldn't she have-"
Marion cut him off. "Yes. But she didn't," And then before the Doctor could say anything. "Let's get Rose and Raffalo."
Setting the computer systems had somehow made the Gallery 15 door unjam. The Doctor used his Sonic on the main panel and the doors slid open slowly like Before the doors were fully open, Rose rushed through the door as soon as she could with Raffalo close behind her.
"Are you two alright?"
Marion looked them both over. Their clothing didn't look burned. Rose's skin didn't look burned. Her skin seemed a little bit pink, but that was probably alright. Marion didn't know how burns would look on Raffalo, what with her blue skin. But she looked fine. A little bit shaken, but fine. They both did.
"We're fine. What happened to your shirt?" Rose asked.
"Little fire. Nothing to worry about. I'm fine. Stop, Drop, and Roll and all that."
"We need to get to the Observation Deck." the Doctor said looking up from the panel. "We can't let Cassandra get away with this. She'll try it again somewhere else and people might die this time. Come on you three."
The Doctor started to walk back toward the observation desk. Marion wasn't sure which direction was the correct direction, so she was glad that the Doctor had a much better sense of direction than she did.
"Ostrich egg?" The Doctor asked as they stepped through the threshold.
"Ostrich egg," Marion replied.
Marion was pretty sure that everyone who had been on the observation deck in the omega timeline had survived, but it was nice to walk into a room with a distinct lack of burned corpses.
"I'm full of ideas," The Doctor said loudly to the room, "I'm bristling with them. Idea number one, teleportation through five thousand degrees needs some kind of feed. Idea number two, this feed must be hidden nearby.?"
Marion grabbed ahold of what Cassandra had claimed to be an ostrich egg and slammed it as hard as she could on the side of the table. It cracked in a way that was less like an egg and more like a brittle coconut, but with a silver device inside instead of liquid. Marion thought about tossing it to the Doctor, but if she missed or he didn't catch it and it broke, she'd have to walk into space. So she instead held it out to him.
"Thank you, Marion. Idea number three, if you're as clever as me, then a teleportation feed can be reversed." The Doctor fidgeted with it for a moment and then twisted a dial on the front of it sharply.
In the center of the room, there was a bright blue light. They could hear Cassandra's voice before they could see her fully."Oh, you should have seen their little alien faces- oh." The woman fully materialized.
"The last human." the Doctor addressed her with a grimace.
"So, you passed my little test. Bravo. This makes you eligible to join, er, the Human Club."
"You intentionally sabotaged the platform with the intent of killing everyone on board for what?" Marion shouted. "A better stock portfolio? If we hadn't gotten to the override switch in time, they'd all be dead! People would have died. Because of you!"
" It depends on your definition of people. And of course, whether or not you can prove that I was the one responsible. All you have is hearsay. That's to keep your lawyers dizzy for centuries. Take me to court, then, Inspector, and watch me smile and cry and flutter-"
"-and creak." the Doctor finished.
"And what?"
"You're creaking."
It was a terrible sounding noise. Like a rope moments from snapping.
"What? Ah! I'm drying out!" Cassandra's body was starting to look flakey. Marion backed up and turned her head away. Mostly because she didn't want bits of Cassandra's flesh to hit her in the face. "Oh, sweet heavens. Moisturise me, moisturise me! Where are my surgeons? My lovely boys! It's too hot!"
"You raised the temperature." the Doctor reminded.
"Have pity!" she shouted. "Moisturise me! Oh, oh, Doctor. I'm sorry. I'll do anything."
"Help her!" Rose asked the Doctor and then when the Doctor simply replied: "Everything has its time and everything dies." She looked at Marion who shrugged.
"She'll be fine."
Moments later, Cassandra cried out. "I'm too young!" and then Marion heard the sound of dull pop and something wet squelching on the ground. Marion tried not to dry heave.
"Gross."
The attendants and Raffalo started to clean up what was left of Cassandra's skin and help to clear all of the guests out and back to their exit ships.
The Doctor had gone off to figure out where exactly they put his TARDIS and Marion talked to the Steward trying to convince him not to bring up her name since it would look bad if things weren't as under control as they should have been to Control and that he should simply take the credit for everything and not mention her at all to anyone and that she really would mind that, honest. And that she was serious about it. And also that Raffalo had been very helpful and she should get a raise and also a paid vacation of some kind.
Once she could get away, she joined Rose in looking out the Observation Deck's large window. The sun was a red giant and where Earth had once been was just a bunch of asteroids floating around in a loose orbit.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Marion asked so that she wouldn't accidentally startle the woman again.
"You said she'd be fine. And then she exploded."
"I did and she did and she will. She's got extra skin and her brain is still intact, so she's going to make herself into another skin trampoline and you'll meet are at-" Marion cut herself off. "That was spoilers. I shouldn't have said that. I should not have said that. Forget I said anything."
"How can you know a thing like that?"
"I just know things."
"Like that, someone would try to sabotage the ship?"
"Yes, like that."
"How?"
Well, Marion couldn't exactly say that she knew because she'd watched them on TV, could she? No, no she could not. But- she'd come close.
"Life is a story and I got to read ahead," she said simply. "I mean, kind of. I don't know my own future. And I know for a fact that my knowledge isn't completely accurate. Because I'm not there. I know how things would go if I didn't exist. So I make changes where I can."
"What kind of changes."
"Saving people mostly. People who would've ordinarily died. There are some people who would go on to do big era-defining things. And there are some people who the universe doesn't care if they live or die. So if the universe doesn't care one way or the other, they might as well live right?"
"Who?"
"Jabe for starters." Marion stuck a finger through one of the burned holes in her shirt. "We had to flip a switch to reset the breaker and it redirected a lot of heat into the room. For me, that wasn't really a problem. Yeah, my shirt caught fire, but like, I heal super fast. You can't even tell I was burned. But if I wasn't there, Jabe would've gone with the Doctor. And she's made of wood. You do that math. The Steward was stuck in his cabin when the solar filter lowered in his office and Raffalo got dragged into the vent by robot spiders a little bit after you talked to her. I don't know if she died then or when the heat got sent through the vents, but-"
Rose's eyes went wide.
"Was I supposed to-"
"Die? No n-n-no no," Marion shook her head, "As far as I know, you're going to get to have a long and happy life and I don't plan on doing anything that would make that not a thing. I would not have let you on the TARDIS if you were going to die the next place you landed."
"But you knew where we were going. Platform Five to see the world burn."
"Yeah…"
Marion looked out at the bright sky. She could hear footsteps from behind them, and in the faint reflection on the window, she could see that it was the Doctor/
"We didn't even see it. The end of the Earth. It's gone. We were too busy saving ourselves. No one saw it go. All those years, all that history, and no one was even looking. It's just-"
The Doctor took Rose's hand in his.
"Come with me."
The Doctor landed the TARDIS back on Earth, presumably in the middle of London. The place was bustling with people. Marion wondered when was the last time she was standing somewhere surrounded by normal humans. She didn't know if UNIT counted. They were human, sure but they also knew about aliens and whatnot. Most of these people didn't.
"You think it'll last forever," the Doctor said carefully. "people and cars and concrete, but it won't. One day it's all gone. Even the sky." The Doctor looked up into the air and paused for a bit. "My planet's gone. It's dead. It burned like the Earth. It's just rocks and dust before its time."
"What happened?"
"There was a war and we lost."
"A war with who? What about your people?"
"I'm a Time Lord. I'm the last of the Time Lords. They're all gone. I'm the only survivor."
"What about Marion is she-"
Marion shook her head. "Nope. I'm human."
The Doctor slung his arm around Marion's shoulder. "Marion's one of my oldest friends. It's been just been me and her. Traveling here and there."
"You've got me too."
"You've seen how dangerous it is," the Doctor asked Rose seriously, "Do you want to go home?"
"I don't know," Rose shook her head and looks away. "I want-" Rose turned her head sharply to the side. "Oh, can you smell chips?"
"Yeah," the Doctor laughed, "Yeah."
"I want chips"
"Me too"
"Oh, I'll take some,"
"Marion, You do know what kind of chips we're talking about don't you." The Doctor asked, teasing.
"Of course I know," Marion said, lightly poking at the Doctor's side. "Don't be mean"
Next Chapter: Not-Ghosts (This Time)
Marion, literally on fire: Well, this isn't ideal.
Couple things in this chapter I wanted to note. The first thing is that Marion's actually incorrect about the casualty count on Platform One. There were actually four people dead with the fourth being the Moxx of Balhoon. He dies from being too close to the window when Earth is moments from blowing up. Luckily, for him, even though Marion forgot about him specifically, her shouting at everyone to back away from the windows saved his life.
The second thing is something that I didn't know how to input into the story. But Rose wasn't as openly antagonistic towards Cassandra as she was in canon. However, when Raffalo stepped off to the side, Rose noticed her and went off to talk with her. One of the adherents knocked Raffalo over the head since they still wanted to get rid of her since she knew too much about the robo spiders or "crabs" as she called them. Rose witnesses this, so they knock her over the head too. That's why they were both in Gallery 15.