The spider wove its web quickly and brutally. The stench of a decaying squirrel eluded the spider, but there were enough flies for a bountiful dinner. Once woven it waited hidden for some movement its way.
The movement swooshed past the net, to hit the back of the stairs. A peachy, chubby stick flew in, swinging this way and that. The next moment, the wen was destroyed.
Melody jumped in disgust, shaking the web off her hand. She leaned over the wooden stairs to get a better view of the ground. The ball had to be there somewhere.
There. It was too far to reach, so she crawled on both knees. Gotcha! Looking up at the wooden horizontal surface, she saw a camera attached. It was turned towards her. Click.
Every visit to Stormcage was like walking through a giant time paradox. River was incarcerated for murdering the Doctor. The same Doctor who flashes a "Get Out of Jail Free" card to visit her in secret every evening.
"Well, at least, that's how he imagined what it would be like. He hasn't actually tried it yet. "I just can't think of any other way we'd be able to meet in a semi-orderly fashion. I wonder what the guards have to say about it."Propped up next to the button was a stuffed TARDIS toy. The Doctor admitted that the doll was not a proper conversationalist. There was the Ood he had picked up recently but who knows where it would turn up in the TARDIS? He sighed and plotted some coordinates.
The Doctor whizzed around the TARDIS control deck, turning this lever, pushing that button. A red protrusion in the console caught his eye, and he touched it fondly. Yes, he finally gave into the temptation to install a Big Red Button. It didn't have a use yet, but he was sure it would turn out marvelous. The Doctor gave it a chef's kiss. With an energetic lift off, he mentally transitioned back to the present-slash-future.
His goal wasn't to jail break River. At least not yet. but maybe this would make it easier for River to leave on her own.
The TARDIS's wheezing strengthened, then quickly ended. He patted the console and left her a quick kiss. Checking one last time that everything was in order, the Doctor pushed the TARDIS door open and stepped into a corridor. All was quiet. All staff would probably be in the floors 20 and below, sleeping or shopping or visiting the nature trail or whatever people do when stuck on a planet-sized company store in outer space. He had freedom to explore.
Starlight filtered through window slits, giving him a decent vision despite all electric lighting being off. The room was massive- the North wall was little more than a blip, while the ceiling stretched for hundreds of feet. Still, it had all of the basic amenities an ordinary 21st century office would need- paper clips, copying machines, a water cooler, snack room, and a never-ending labyrinth of cubicles that stacked on top of each other as much as side-by-side. He wasn't worried. Always faithful, the TARDIS had parked him right where he needed to be: a full Tessellated Room! He pumped his arms and wrung his hands with anticipation.
A Tessellated Room wouldn't be possible to find on a planet unless the dominant species were developed enough to produce Terraforming technology. Humankind wouldn't make those advances for a few thousand years, but the diverse alien population could provide that technology in a cinch. It could morph into almost any environment- a high security locker, a video game arena, an auditorium or stadium, a roller coaster- if you could think of it, you could make it so long as company policy allowed it. This was probably limited to conferences, video calls, and on-demand support service. It could be like a giant entertainment station, so he couldn't understand why they wouldn't make the Tessellated Room more accessible.
Suddenly, a creak intruded on his thoughts. The Doctor turned, alarmed.
"How may I be of assistance?" The Ood held its translator ball and seemed to smile with a slow blink of eyes as it stepped outside the TARDIS. The TARDIS must have brought the Ood back to the control room. Relief swept over the Doctor. It would be more exciting with a companion. And safer. It may be an office building, but the cubicles were stacked on top of each other and seemed to stretch on for miles. He hugged the Ood. "Will you come with me?"
—
At the control panel, the Doctor admired the controls. It took only a few seconds to activate the power and switch off any internal security protocols that would alert security to his presence. He had already sonicked the external ones. The Ood patiently watched as the Doctor fiddled with the controls. The Doctor, enjoying the audience, began narrating.
"I'm embedding a virus into their software matrix. Don't worry it's not sentient like the TARDIS. Even if it were, I'm sure it won't mind this virus. Our friend River is locked up, so I just want to make sure we will have some bargaining chips. The virus is dormant right now but with one click of a button it will infiltrate the files relating to River Song, the Doctor, and Co. We could do whatever we wanted with them. Download or destroy the files, draw mustaches on our portraits." He leaned onto the counter, twisting to face the Ood. The Doctor patted the interface and pressed the interface button. "Call this insurance."
"Really, Doctor? Sounds to me like it's more like sabotage."
Like lightning, sweaty palms and racing hearts smacked him before he could understand what was happening. The Doctor gave a start, then spun around to face the voice. "River! What are you doing here?"
He couldn't contain his jitteriness and nerves. In desperation, he leaned over and whispered to the Ood. "How could she have known I'd be here? I didn't go around announcing my plans."
The Interface answered. "Archoron energy spikes. The TARDIS leaves traces before you arrive at distinct points in time." The Doctor smacked his forehead in embarrassment. Of course! River was standing there, but glitching in and out of focus. A hologram. The visual interface should have been generic, not to mention much higher quality. A company-controlled Tessellate shouldn't be able to take in the face of someone familiar.
"I am not River Song, just a fellow hacker." At fellow hacker, the voice dripped with irony as though acknowledging they were criminal buddies. "But that doesn't matter right now. The readings indicate you were at Demon's Run a few hours ago. Now you are at Stormcage, Inc. only a few hours before River Song will set foot in her jail cell in a separate craft."
"Yes, I got that but already. What are you doing here?"
"A warning and instructions meant to keep you and River safe. Stormcage is not a separate from the Office. You have to understand. The whole spaceship is a Tessellated Room. In fact, there are several, like nesting dolls.
"Oh, what a loaf of poppy-wuck! That's impossible. The corridors would be endless and everywhere. Like a TARDIS. But it's not a TARDIS-"
"I'm not saying what is possible. I am telling you what is. If they find out someone has broken into the mainframe, then you can be sure this is an unbreakable prison."
"It's good news I'm leaving, then. But I'm curious: why did you take River's form?"
The hologram unceremoniously shut off. The Doctor lunged forward, arm outstretched. "Waaait!"
The Doctor sabered his sonic screwdriver, trying to get the holo to reappear. No luck. His earlier enthusiasm was dampened with the realization that he hadn't been turning off the protocols at all.
The Doctor turned to the Ood, filled with trepidation. "Someone granted us access. The question is why?"
"You are distressed. Could I help?"
"He led the Ood back onto the TARDIS. To the Doctor's surprise, coordinates had already been keyed in. He didn't know who could be powerful enough to interfere with the TARDIS. Curiosity peaked, he decided he would follow the breadcrumb trail.
"After nabbing some lunch and dropping you back off." The Ood blinked kindly. "Naturally."
Cocoa, Florida, 1966
"The greatest source of information we have on the Ais people came from Jonathan Dickinson's accounts. He stayed with the Ais for several weeks in 1696 after he and his crew were shipwrecked…"
The tour guide had to raise their voice to be heard through the din in the museum reception. They droned on as the group walked into a local archeological finds exhibit. Gradually the tour guide's voice faded away till the chatter of tourists and click clacks of shoes and typing came to the fore. Five minutes pass before a husky voice crescendos over the symphony- the second tour guide. As like the first, the second soon quiets down. And so on the pattern continued with minor variations each time. the third tour guide's voice monotone and soft. Dr. Curtis Renfrew noticed the ensemble- not just the music. The color: how the blues darkened as shadows flitted around or how the bird in the window was tinted with shades of purple and grey. The touch: how a slight rattle shook his seat every time the door opened and how the close seats warmed the air. Maybe it wasn't all pleasant, but it was the miracle of being alive.
It was a Saturday, so the Museum was predictably filled. The local area had seen tremendous growth since the Space Race was declared in 1955. Plus, the "Space Coast" was morphing into a popular tourist destination. It was impossible to achieve greatness without glut, it seemed.
Dr. Renfrew wondered how many people in the room were living and absorbing the wonders this place offered. How many people listened to the tour guides? With a tinge of sadness, Dr. Renfrew suspected not many.
Dr. Renfrew felt a warmth and soft weight envelope his leg. He looked down. Melody had swung from holding his hand to embracing his leg. While earlier she seemed as curious about the surroundings as him, now she was observing the other children, curious and shy. Dr. Renfrew smiled and lifted Melody onto his hip, cradling her. She curled her arm around his neck, still looking at the other children.
He was so grateful that he was able to arrange this trip for Melody. His Director duties were demanding and left little time to care. It was difficult for him to give children individual attention within the orphanage walls; trying to arrange it in the bustling, chaotic city was like sticking his head in a hydra's mouth. But, the arranging had gotten easier latelt. Graystark Hall had come under increasing strain as public support shifted from propping up community homes to investing in foster care and family units. This was good: children from Graystark Hall were being counseled and placed in loving homes when possible. Dr. Renfrew heartily endorsed solutions that would benefit the children, and hoped it would be successful enough to never need the orphanage. Plans were already underway to slow down operations, producing for him slack time. Still, the change was bittersweet. He knew he might never see the children again, and restructuring the childcare system meant the orphanage now had to compete for resources and funding.
Of course, Dr. Renfrew wasn't complaining- it was wholesome getting to know children for real and help each heal. For all the exhausting work, got to see the children was wholesome. Of course, this was temporary; this paradise had a poison fruit. Melody was precocious- it wouldn't be long before she starts asking about her real parents, as all his children eventually do.
In all her five years of life, Melody Pond's excursions without other orphans were very rare. The last one, about a year earlier, was to the ER for an emergency appendectomy. Today would be the first time Melody had been allowed to go somewhere "alone" (i.e., with adult supervision) for fun. It wasn't uncommon for children in the orphanage to believe their circumstances were typical. Dr. Renfrew suspected Melody was probably wondering why children were accompanied by two adults. She opened her mouth to ask exactly that. Or maybe just to ask if she could say hi to the other children.
A white woman caught Melody's eyes and called her some obscene words. The woman- Dr. Renfrew couldn't bring himself to call her a lady- snapped her blistering gaze towards Dr. Renfrew. She addressed him with similar juicy language. "...You control that n* child of yours."
River was a beautiful child. Her skin was as black as it gets. Her curly black hair – contrasted with the vivid yellows and reds of her outfit. He vaguely recalled she looked different when she first came into the orphanage's care, but what child change as they grow?
Melody seemed unconcerned by the woman's behavior. However, Dr. Renfrew, accustomed to being a second class citizen, felt a charge run through through his veins. Like a knight defending a fort through a long siege, Dr. Renfrew had his daily battles against racism. Outright prejudiced attacks like this were becoming less common, but felt his lesser status in the every day glares and opportunities that never within his reach. It was no less painful than it had been as a child, but he learned how to cope. He was alright.
No, it was Melody's happiness and future on the frontline. Graystark was multi-racial, and the staff strive to ensure all children would consider one another equal. It was easy to hide the ugly racism when the children had never stepped into the world and had no way to compare livelihoods. He knew she would have to _ come to terms with the cruelty in her own time and way, as every child of color had. Maybe it didn't hurt her yet, but it would wear her down eventually. He ached just thinking about a child as bright and innocent as River experiencing similar vitriol as himself. She was already growing up without her parents. Why should she have to carry society's burdens?
That was an existential question better saved for another time. He had to help right then. He asked God for the wisdom and patience to keep peaceful in the time between.
The worst stance Dr. Renfrew could take any kind of offensive. It was his word against a white woman's; if the conflict escalated, it was clear who would be favored. Melody was at risk. He didn't want to jeopardize Melody's first chance to see the world on her terms.
Ignoring white folks' intimidating stares, Dr. Renfrew let his emotions boil quietly. He gently redirected her gaze to the origami lining the reception desk, which they both admired. And tried to replicate using scrap paper from the front desk. In a few minutes they reached the receptionist desk and checked in. Dr. Renfrew squeezed River's hand reassuringly.
She wouldn't have the patience to sit through a 45 minute tour, so he let her pick an exhibit from the map. Local history, dinosaurs, native plants, and the Space Race. The dinosaur exhibit was jam-packed, of course. Hoping to avoid another incident, he steered Melody into the next room over: local history. She couldn't touch the artifacts, but Melody seemed amused anyways. As Melody skirted around to play, still holding his hand, Dr. Renfrew silently read the plaques with facts about each item. Despite being a local history exhibit, the curators didn't seem to understand the artifacts. One item looked like a laser gun- just like in those in that show- um, Star Trek. The exhibit said it was a hand crank used to start fires from friction. Little did Dr. Renfrew realize that Melody Pond and her team of archeologists will work with Earth experts hundreds of years later to correctly ascribe the technology to a Sontaran invasion in the 1500s.
She pretended to be an explorer and unsheathed a make believe machete. The entire selection hinted at civilisations long gone, worlds that faded with time.She especially liked the brightly colored arrow tips inside a glass case. She thought about what she could do with them. Shaved down, they could make brilliant tools to break into forbidden rooms and chests.
"Hello there!" Crouching on a panel near Melody's side of the glass, a staffer carefully set an artifact back into the case and locked it shut. He hopped onto the glass case and scooted over till he was a foot to the right of Melody. "They look cool, don't they?"
"Yeah! I think you could use them to hang pictures from the wall. Or Or pick locks. Or something…" her voice trailed off.
"Yeah, that's a clever idea." He leaned closer to her and his voice hushed into a mischievous whisper. "Want to know what they were originally used for?"
She looked at him waiting. In response he jumped up off the counter to face Dr. Renfrew and another other visitor.
"The official tale I'm supposed to give is that these were found in 1950 at the bottom of the Banana River. Geologists determined it to be a fusion of meteoric iron and fulgurite- a fancy way of saying lightning struck an area with metal from space and created a fanny looking rock with unique properties. Archeologists hypothesize that the Ais, Miccosukkee, and Seminole tribes found these and fastened them into tools and religious totems."
He was an animated speaker. And when he said meteor, he moved his hands down through the air and ended with spaced out, as though demonstrating the meteor path and mushroom cloud on impact. Dr. Renfrew listened with budding interest, even if the man spoke too fast for him to understand everything. His narrow, skeletal face made him seem very old, but judging by his youthful, wrinkle-free face, Dr. Renfrew surmised he couldn't be older than 30. The other visitor listened attentively and fielded questions, which the staffer answered. Gradually, more people gathered around to observe the spectacle.
After a bit, Dr. Renfrew sensed the question the staffer wanted them to ask. He took the bait and slowly reasoned. "You said this is the official tale. What are you not telling us? What is your tail?"
"I'm so glad you asked!" the man exclaimed, swinging his arms into a clap. "What am I not telling you?" He paused and looked at the crowd. " The truth."
"What is my tale?" With the same pause and tone as before, he added, "The truth."