Happy Holidays. I hope you like this chapter. I enjoyed writing it.
I really, really, really, really gotta do an outsider POV of someone reacting to Inspector Henson's whole thing.
Oh also, new art!
tumblr [PUT A DOT HERE] com/superwholocked2016/769153545675161601/my-favorite-inspector
Marion took off after the men. Not overtaking them. She could have. She could have easily. But she didn't want to leave them behind for one thing, she didn't know where the elevator was, but she didn't think that she could make the fact that she didn't know obvious. For another thing, even if she got to the elevator, she'd have to wait for them. It turned out to just be at the end of the hall. Marion ran inside with the three men just after her.
The robot started to get closer and closer. The man in charge of the other two started pressing buttons on the elevator. Despite how frantic he was, the door didn't close. The button was stuck.
"Let me try."
Marion took out a pen and jabbed it into the close door button. She heard something crack. Not the plastic casing of the button. But something flaky around it. Marion licked her thumb and grabbed a piece of it. It felt sticky. It could have been plastic, she supposed.
But it could have also been chipped glue.
"This is going to be in the report," Marion said pointedly. She made her face blank. She tapped rapidly on the side of her leg, largely in thought but in a way that likely looked like anxiety. Her voice sounded distant. She wanted to sound shaken and shocked, but like she was clinging to some kind of normalcy. As if she needed to focus on her job and not on the fact that she came ever so close to dying. She wanted to appear anxious. She wasn't feeling anxious herself outside of an on-and-off flair of worry and concern. She wasn't quite sure where that was from exactly. It was possible it could have been internal. She didn't know enough about Mel and Seven to know whether or not they would listen to her when she told them to stay away from the weird old ladies.
She had told them, right? She was pretty sure that she had.
"It's got to go into the report," Marion repeated. Maybe she was a little bit anxious. So she was talking. The words out of her mouth didn't matter as much as the fact that talking made her feel better. "They've got to remake the manual. They've got to include that for future reference so people know how to run. They've got to run. What the hell was that!" she finished, her voice raised.
She knew what it was of course. But Inspector Henson shouldn't know that. She needed to sound frightened.
Eventually, the elevator came to a stop.
"This way," said the Deputy.
Marion nodded. She walked alongside those men and down a hall until they came to a metal door. The door was carved and molded in a way that almost looked like wood, but it was most certainly metal. It clicked to the side with a soft whirring noise.
The office reminded Marion of a waiting room, like for a doctor or a dentist. It was wide and open and had chairs against the side of the wall. The only thing that made it stand out was a wall of thin TV's against the wall with a black Bakelite telephone in front of them and a grey metal desk that was the only explicitly looking sci-fi thing in the room.
"Chief!" the man in charge of the other two greeted as Marion walked right next to her.
"Later Deputy" the Chief insisted. And. Wow. Interesting. That was a very particular sort of mustache for the leader of a fascism allegory to wear. It was just barely rectangular enough to not be a Hitler mustache. But it was the kind of "just barely" where it was pretty clear that its close resemblance wasn't a coincidence.
"Hello" Marion, said with a nod striding towards the desk, her arms crossed behind her back.
"I am the-"
"Chief Caretaker," Marion nodded, cutting him off and reaching into her bag. "Yes. I know. I'm Inspector Henson. I've been sent to do an audit of the towers." She flashed the psychic paper again.
"I wasn't informed of such an audit."
Marion shook her head. She closed the paper holder with a soft snap and then tucked it back away. "Well, I don't know about that Chief Caretaker. I mean it's no surprise that they didn't inform the Deputy and his subordinates about my arrival. You know, to make sure they were acting as they normally do instead of changing their behavior due to my presence. But I would have thought that they might have told you."
"My superiors?"
"And do you know why they called you here?"
"Why would I have asked? They tell me what to do and where to go and who to investigate and I say 'Will Do' and then I do as I'm told. I don't stop to ask those kinds of questions. Why should I? Do your subordinates? The only kind of questions you need to ask when you've been given an order is clarifying questions that help you to do your job more efficiently in the event that the answers aren't in the rulebook."
Now. Something key was that the man was very much aware of the robot that was killing people and feeding their bodies to a monster in the basement. And the reason why he was aware of this, was, of course, because he was the one that was sending a robot to kill people so he could feed their bodies to a monster in the basement.
However, Inspector Henson should not know that he was doing that and Marion Henson didn't really care if he knew that she knew that.
What was he going to do? Order her death? Good fucking luck with that.
"But enough about that, the Deputy and I came across something terrible in the corridors. I think something is wrong with your cleaner robots. Perhaps an error with the calibration?"
"Oh?" There was a sort of dangerous tone in his voice. Marion could hear it easily. But Inspector Henson chose to ignore it handily.
"Yes. It attacked us in the hallways. Perhaps someone programmed them to believe the hallways should be completely empty and that anything there is trash and forgot to account for people! This is a terrible oversight. Someone could be hurt!" Marion realized that she had been pacing back and forth and stopped. "I think someone might have been hurt? Some of the children scrawled a monster on one of those walls. A monster with white claws attacking one of them. Do you think that that could be depicting such an attack,"
The man stood up and stepped closer to her, "Oh well, I'm sure that it's nothing."
"Nothing?" Marion took a step back. Not because she was intimidated, but because that was the type of thing that she imagined Inspector Henson would do. Inspector Henson was a bureaucrat. She wasn't particularly brave, especially in the face of authority figures.
"Do you know who sent you?" the man asked quietly.
"My superiors. Who else?"
"And do you know who directs your superiors? Who asked them to give the inspection?"
"I told you! I don't ask those kinds of questions! I don't need them to do my job. Asking too many questions takes up too much time. And don't think I didn't notice you avoiding the question! Do you have something to do with the cleaning robot's odd behavior? As chief caretaker. Surely you're aware that unauthorized tampering is dangerous. Why would children be scrawling monsters on the wall instead of coming to one of you with their concerns? What have you been-"
"Who was that man with you?"
"Pardon?"
"That man you were with. Do you know him?"
"I-"
"Do you know who that man is?" the chief got closer and closer to her face. "I do believe that that man is none other than the Great Architect of Paradise Towers itself!"
Marion stared at the man thoughtfully. Did he actually think that? The real Architect was the monster in the basement that he was feeding, but while Marion knew that, did he?
"The Great Architect?" Marion replied slowly. "You mean K-" Marion forgot the rest of the man's name. "No, that's- that man can't be the Great Architect. The Great Architect hasn't been seen since construction of the tower was complete. And he doesn't look nearly that old! Why on Earth would he-" Marion shook her head again. "No no no no. And you keep distracting me. Why do you keep distracting me? That robot was attacking people and it could be attacking caretakers and residents and we were lucky that we were close to an elevator and that it closed in time and there was SOMETHING wrong with the buttons and you're bringing up a man who disappeared decades ago. What you should be bringing up is an outline of a protocol for next time"
"And what makes you so certain that there'll be a next time!"
"What makes me- Chief Caretaker, You are awfully nonchalant about a possible attempt on the lives of your men."
At this point, Marion was admittedly goading the man a bit.
"How dare you! Inspector Henson-"
The phone rang. The Chief stared at her challengingly.
"No, go ahead and answer that. I'm sure it's important."
The Chief picked up the phone and brought it to his ear. "An unfortunate accident has happened to Caretaker number three four five. I am required by the rulebook to go and investigate. You are to stay here until I return. And when I return we will discuss this issue with the cleaners and the Great Architect."
"But- you-"
The man left without replying to her. Marion stared back at the door that he had gone through. The frustration in her tone and the way that she gripped her hair was her doing it and not Inspector Henson.
Marion moved to follow him out the door, and the Deputy stopped her. His two subordinates blocked the door.
"Inspector. The Chief said that we were to remain here."
Marion put her hand on the door handle and lightly flicked her wrist. It wasn't locked. "He said that you were to remain here." Marion replied sharply. She needed to leave now. The Chief could run into the Doctor and Mel and the two of them could get hurt.
"You three. Not me. Didn't say you four. Something very wrong is going on at Paradise Towers and it is my job to investigate and report it. Your chief is acting strangely and he acted even stranger when I mentioned something unusual and concerning that I had spotted during my inspection. And then he just suddenly gets a phone call telling him that he needs to leave." Marion's voice got lower and even so slightly sharper. "Accidents happen. Sometimes there are glitches and bugs, and little things that go wrong that aren't even anyone's fault. People get in trouble for that of course, but nothing too bad. More frequent inspections. Maybe a fine. Unless of course, someone attempts to cover it up and people go along with it. When that happens, it stops being an accident. People get in big trouble for not-accidents. If this turns out to be an attempt at the chief covering things up and you are helping him to cover things up…" Marion kept her palm on the door and stared at him.
The Deputy caught her eyes, and then stared at her for a moment. And then he looked away. He stared over her head at the two guards and then looked back at her.
"We can't escort you." He said finally. "He held up the book. One six one, section twelve."
"I understand." She didn't. Not really. "I can handle myself just fine. Let me do my job."
The Deputy stared at her for a moment longer.
"Let her pass."
His subordinates moved aside and one of them pushed open the door.
"Thank you!" Marion said, "I will of course be referencing your willingness to assist in my final report. Farewell." and then she walked out of the door. It slid shut behind her. The moment she was out of sight, Marion was still for a moment. She took a deep breath in and a deep breath out.
She walked for a bit, realizing that she had no idea where she was meant to go next. She considered picking a direction to wander down and then she decided that it would instead, be smarter to retrace her steps. She was fairly certain that she could make her way back to the Elevator, and from there that main square wasn't that far. If she could find the main square, she could find a Kang and possibly find her way from there.
And it was almost certain that one of the Kangs might know where she needed to look next. The Doctor and Mel might even be still with them and if they weren't Marion would simply try to make her way to the roof with the pool on her own and wait for them. But that was more of a last resort than anything. Down in these lower floors is where all of the action was. And she didn't want to miss out on it and someone get hurt.
As a Plan B, she supposed that she could duck her head in to visit the old ladies. She knew their game and wasn't going to be tricked into thinking that they were harmless. She would simply duck her head into the door.
"MARION! DOCTOR! WHERE ARE YOU? MARION?"
Or not. She just had to follow the sound of Mel's voice. Marion recognized the hallways that she was darting down anyway and she ran until she could see a flash of blue and curly ginger hair in the doorway. She ducked through the door. Mel and a man, Pex, if she was remembering correctly were standing on the catwalk over the square they had started in roughly at the point where they had all been when the Caretakers had rushed in. Pex stood up straight with his arms by his side and his head darted around the room. He noticed her before Mel had. He practically jumped when Marion called out "Mel!"
The woman quickly turned her head.
"Marion!" she marched towards her. "There you are? Where did you go? We started running from those men, the Caretakers and then when we looked back, you were gone! We thought that you were taken."
"I went with them." Marion replied.
"Why ever for?"
"Diversion and some light impersonation. You know how it is."
Mel stared at Marion in a way that told Marion she knew EXACTLY how it was.
"It's all about diplomacy Mel. Diplomacy! You would be surprised what you get done if people think that you're someone they should listen to and walk around with and let snoop. And all the things you can learn. For example! Robots! Evil murderous! Probably under the control of the Chief Caretaker-" Marion cut herself off and realized that she was being rude. She turned her head. "My apologies. Hello Pex isn't it? Lovely to meet you. I'm Marion. Friend of Mel and the Doctor. You've met the Doctor haven't you? I should hope you've met the Doctor?" Something occurred to Marion, "Where is the Doctor? I had hoped that the Doctor was with you."
"I hoped the Doctor was with you. We split up to find you. He thought you might've gotten into trouble?"
Marion grimaced.
"Oh. Of course. That's great."
"What's great about it!" Pex asked.
"Nothing!" Marion replied in the same tone.
The Doctor was out wandering Paradise Towers. The Chief Caretaker was out there and he thought that the Doctor was the Architect and he wanted to have him killed (which, considering what the Architect had done was, that was kind of fair, but also ironic because if Marion was remembering correctly, he was using his robots to kill people to feed his pet in the basement that was in fact the Architect himself).
"How long ago did you split up from the Doctor?" Marion asked.
"Not very long ago. Why?"
"Did he say where he was going?"
"Well, no he just said that he was looking for you."
"Of course!" Marion replied, "I don't know why I expected anything different. Things are never simple. Things can NEVER be simple." Marion's hand began to dig through her hair.
Marion didn't feel nauseous. She wasn't in pain. She was pretty sure that the Doctor was okay. But she didn't know for how long that would last. And as much as she wanted to travel with Mel, she didn't want to walk with her and Pex and then for the Doctor to get cornered and-
Marion was confident that her breathing was normal.
"Marion?" Mel asked. "Is everything alright? Is something wrong with the Doctor?"
"Wrong? Hopefully not! At least I don't think so. There might be. I'm not sure."
"Is the Doctor in trouble?"
"I don't know-" Marion said quickly. Marion looked at Pex for a moment, and then then back at Mel.
"Did you talk to the old ladies with the snacks?"
"Yes. They were incredibly friendly. Much more than the Kangs" Mel stared at Marion. Which makes sense, because her remark had come out of nowhere. "And then Pex kicked down the door."
"Ah." Marion nodded, "Good on your Pex." Marion nodded at the man. She realized she hadn't really let him get a single word in edgewise.
"Good on him?'
"Yeah, they were trying to lure you in to eat you."
"Marion, that's not funny."
"Mel, I'm not joking."
Mel stared at her. "Oh- oh you're not not joking. Why didn't you say anything?"
"Didn't I?" She guessed that she didn't. "I meant to. I honestly didn't expect for us to get separated. But then we did. So we were." Marion's leg started to bounce, "And now, I must leave I'm afraid, because I worry that the Doctor might have gotten himself into danger." Marion paused, "Oh, speaking of danger, we'll still try to meet up at the pool, but don't go in it." Marion said, already walking off quickly, getting ready to go off in a full run.
"Why Marion? Is the pool going to try and eat me too?"
Marion turned for a moment so that she was running backwards. "Kind of"
"What?"
Marion then turned and kept running down the hall before Mel could say anymore.
Assuming that didn't go into the pool and didn't go back to the old lady's apartment, she was pretty sure that Mel would be okay. She wasn't supposed to have any kind of close encounter with the cleaners, outside of the one that had happened inside of the old lady's apartment.
Marion considered make a brief stop in order to warn them to stay away from their sinks before she went back to searching for the Doctor. But they were, you know, cannibals so…
If Marion happened to be in the room when the robot claw reached through the wall and grabbed one of them, then like, fine. She'd say something. Maybe pull one of them away. But she wasn't going to make a whole detour specifically to help them. And certainly not a detour when the main path was checking on the Doctor and making sure that he was alright..
Marion had only the vaguest ideas of where she needed to head. She ran back to where she had been when she heard Mel's voice and she quickly swung her head around until she found a small staircase. She was fairly certain that the Doctor had gone up that staircase and had just missed Mel. It hadn't been that long. And while the hallways were long, they were also mostly empty. The hallways weren't exactly bland. And they had been designed in a very maximalist way, but that didn't change the fact that they pretty much all looked identical to each other more or less. The only way she could tell things apart was an occasional window to the outside and the Kang Graffiti.
Marion passed a wall with a panel of glass windows. It was too foggy outside for Marion to see anything outside but white. But, Marion was pretty sure that she recognized the window. Marion tapped her fingers on the glass for a moment thoughtfully just to feel something cool under her fingertips as she hummed thoughtfully for a moment.
"MARION!"
Marion turned her head sharply. The Doctor's voice didn't sound panicked. Which was good. He just sounded like he was yelling her name because he was looking for her. Marion cupped her mouth and called her name.
"DOCTOR!" Marion shouted back, as she ran in the direction she had heard the Doctor's voice coming from.
"I'M OVER HERE."
He didn't sound like he was much further away. Marion eventually found the Doctor in front of where the Kang's had scrawled a drawing of one of the rogue cleaners with "no entry" written on the front. He was copying it down into a notebook.
"Doctor?"
The Doctor looked up.
"Ah! Marion, there you are. He gestured her over with his head. You know Mel and I have been looking for you all over! She's with a young man called Pex. Quite an interesting fellow. I wonder if he's the only boy here the Kang's age." the Doctor stopped writing for a moment, "By the way Marion, have you seen those lamp posts over near the main square."
"I have."
"You could quite easily bend one with your bare hands, couldn't you?"
"I mean I haven't tried, but probably. I mean I have lifted a car before."
"Yes, you have haven't you. Speaking of have's and haven't where have you been?"
"Tripped, fell, got taken in by the Caretakers. You haven't run into them have you?"
"No, I can't say I have. I've managed to avoid them, intentionally or unintentionally. I managed to avoid them thus far. Why? Are they taking care of things properly?"
"Not especially, no."
"They didn't hurt you did they?" the Doctor lowered his notebook and started staring at her intently. First at her face and her neck and her hair, and then at her clothing.
"No, I'm fine."
"Marion, are you sure?"
"I'm fine."
"It still counts even if your body is quick to forget the injuries inflicted upon it."
"I'm fine."
"Even if it wouldn't have been something fatal."
"Doctor," Marion put her hands on the man's shoulders, he lowered his head to look at her in the eye. "I'm fine. I got a little bruised from falling down the stairs, but all I did was flash them my psychic paper and say a few words and we were getting along alright."
"Ah, I see. And I suppose I am speaking to Inspector Henson."
"Precisely." Marion plucked the brim of his hat and stood back.
"Am I speaking to her as one of her colleagues? An assistant perhaps?"
"Ah-. So here's the thing-"
"No?"
"No. The chief caretaker is under the impression that you're the Great Architect of Paradise Towers. I didn't tell him that. He saw you in a video feed and just kind of decided that you must be him."
"Oh, is that a good thing?"
"He wants to kill you. If you had gone with them instead of me you would have had to weasel your way out of an execution."
"Unless you weasled me out first."
"If I'm the one doing it, it might be less weasel and more wolverine."
"What I don't get is why. Who would want to kill an architect?"
"Engineers and Construction workers. Possibly window washers."
"Jealousy?"
"Their hubris."
"The Engineer's?"
"The Architect's"
"That can't be why they want to kill the Architect is it? And, well, me?"
"Well no."
"Then why?"
Marion thought for a moment, "I'm not quite sure. I mean, there are a handful of perfectly valid reasons to want the Great Architect dead. Serious reasons. But I'm not sure that they even know about those reasons. It's not a group-wide thing. It seems to just be the Chief Caretaker. Of course, he's the guy who's controlling the Cleaners, so…"
"The Cleaners? Are those the other men?"
Marion shook her head. She slapped her hand against the wall scrawl the Doctor had been examining. "These. The things that the Kangs didn't want to talk about. I take it you never ran into them?"
"No."
"Well, good," Marion replied, "Let's keep moving. It's very possible that we might be able to avoid the cleaners altogether."
"One moment." said the Doctor, "I'm trying to copy this down. It might be something important for later. Look. It seems like some of the Kangs have been documenting their encounters with these cleaners. That could have something to do with the way that the Caretakers are diligent in erasing and covering this all up."
Marion looked over the Doctor's shoulder at his notepad. She thought for a moment, and then she reached into her bag for a moment until her fingertips brushed against her phone.
"Do you want me to take a photo?" she asked.
"Oh!" The Doctor stopped writing. "Yes. Of course, I'm going to keep my own documentation, but it would be useful if you could take a photo as well."
"Of course."
Marion took out her phone and swiped at the bottom of the lock screen. She snapped a couple of photos of the wall that the Doctor was looking at, and then she was suddenly hit by a wave of nausea that almost felt like something physical smacking her on the back of the head. Marion turned her head sharply to the right to see an approaching cleaner rolling towards them.
Marion shook the Doctor by the arm to get his attention and pointed towards the robot.
"We should go now." Marion said firmly.
"Marion,-"
"I took photos." Marion turned his head towards the cleaner. "We've gotten enough stuff and we need to go!" The Doctor jumped for a moment, and then he stared at the cleaner. It looked much like the one that Marion had seen earlier.
"Oh," said the Doctor, taking a step forward and sending a sharp pain in Marion's chest. "Look at that."
"I am looking."
"It's impressive workmanship. Look at its automotive bicurval scraping blades."
"Doctor why on Earth are you-" Marion grabbed the Doctor by the back of his shirt. "Don't get closer to it!" Marion's voice got high towards the end of the sentence.
"Marion, where's your sense of curiosity."
Marion felt like she was going to lose her mind. Marion walked backward tugging the Doctor along with her still by his shirt, all but being dragged along.
"Where's your sense of curiosity?"
"Where's your sense?" Marion said seriously. Marion had expected the machine to lift up a claw, but instead, it began to extend a nozzle. Marion wasn't sure what was going to come out of that, but whatever it was, it wasn't good. "Let's Go."
Marion yanked him back just as acrid mist began to pour out, and it seemed to finally occur to the Doctor that they needed to go.
The Doctor took a step back, and then another. With Marion of course running next to him keeping as even pace with him as she always did.
The Doctor had more endurance than most people. But he wasn't Marion. Eventually, he had to stop in a triangle shaped doorway and take a breath.
"I should have started running as soon as you said."
Marion hummed but didn't really give an answer. She could still smell the smoke from the cleaners. It smelt of burnt chemicals that someone had tried to cover up with the scent of something that smelled as sweet as it smelled fake. The smell wasn't helping the nausea. She wondered if she would eventually throw up.
"Marion,"
"Yeah?"
The Doctor tucked the hook part of his umbrella in the pocket of his coat, and moved towards a black telephone. There was red labeling and an arrow pointed downward towards the phone.
"There's somewhere we can run off to. I assume. We can't just keep running from the cleaners indefinitely. Well, I suppose you could."
"I could probably carry you if I needed to." Marion said, the words nearly automatic, but no less true."
"Would be best to not let it come to that." The Doctor started to dial numbers on the emergency phone, although Marion could not guess who or what it was that he was dialing.
Marion tilted her head to the side. She heard an echo in her ears. Or, no, no that wasn't an echo at all. It was a second cleaner. Whoever it was, he wasn't able to get it. He slapped the side of the wall in frustration and quarters started to flow out with a rather annoying high pitched clinking noise.
"Jackpot!"
The noise was seemingly less offensive to the Doctor's ears than it was to hers. The Doctor removed his hat and to collect several of them. He held up one of the coins close to his face.
"Issued by the Great Architect, Kroagnon. Kroagnon? Should that name sound familiar to me?"
"Maybe, perhaps, who knows?"
Marion wasn't just hearing the first cleaner at this point. She was seeing it as well. The Doctor turned his head abruptly. Marion's chest hurt, but the Doctor himself didn't seem frightened, merely incredibly frustrated.
"There's far too much to think about right now and you really aren't helping." he shouted at one of the robots that was progressively getting closer. "What do you want anyway? Is it my death?"
"Why even ask that!" Marion said, just as the second robot started to turn around the corner.
Marion felt along the sides of the doorway near the emergency drop. She felt the door open slightly but not enough. Marion pushed her hand into the two or three inches of space that had opened before the door got jammed or whatever. Marion gave it a sharp yank as the Doctor put his hat back on his head and began to back away.
"Marion, what are you- oh there's another one."
Marion placed her hands on the side of the door and braced one of her feet in the wide open area where she could brace her leg and shoved the door open with a quick burst of effort. The door protested for a moment, and then shoved itself open the rest of the way.
She grabbed the Doctor by the shoulders and she knew that it was the right choice because she stopped feeling like she was going to be sick.
"Marion?"
She shook her head towards the open door.
"Marion-"
Marion took a deep breath and then held onto the Doctor tight and shoved them both through the little open closet space and then they were falling.
It was dark for a moment, but only a moment. The shute wasn't that long after all. Marion's guess was that they were on the floor just below the one where they had been. Still, it was far enough that the landing hurt.
Still, the Doctor and her had gotten away.
The man in question had half next to her with his head on her back. Marion sat up and pointlessly rubbed at the side of her head. She blinked slowly as the last dredges of the nausea combined with the fact that the little light in the Red Kang base there was making her feel like someone or something was stabbing her in the brain. Marion raised herself on an elbow to try and sit up and the movement seemed to wake up the Doctor was well.
She doubted that the two of them had been out for more than a couple of seconds. The Red Kangs were only just now walking over to them to investigate.
The Doctor sat up and Marion finally turned around to see Bin Liner looking over them.
"Build high for happiness!" she exclaimed in a tone of voice that was slightly too loud and high pitched for her only newly fixed concussion to be able to handle. The pain didn't last long enough for it to matter so she didn't say anything. She just let out a low hiss of air and pressed the heel of her hand against her eye.
"Build high for happiness." Marion said, blinking slowly.
The Doctor shook his head and then look up towards the girl. "Oh! Build high for happiness. What happened?"
"I sent us careening down what was probably a cleaning chute." Marion's eyes flickered upward and she saw the hole. It wasn't that up high.
"You dropped down," said Fire Escape, "Whoosh! Into our Brainquarters. Where is the girl who is not a Kang?"
"Last I checked she was on her way up to the pool, or at least trying to. P-" Marion cut herself off. She was pretty sure that if she said Pex's name it would cause the conversation to be diverted into them just calling him a coward. "Well, someone was with her." She stood up and leaned down. She grabbed the Doctor by the hand and pulled him to his feet.
"Oh, why didn't you stay with her?" the Doctor asked. "Not that I'm not always thankful to have your help."
"Well, I gave her a few bits of warning and advice and then I ran after you. I trust her to stay out of trouble."
"And you don't trust me?"
Marion thought about the fact the Doctor had to be dragged to keep him from getting a face full of whatever it was inside of the of the cleaners nozzles and the fact that she had to pry open a rusted closet door with her bare hands when the button didn't work. Clearly, even if the Doctor did put value in his own safety, random chance would silk happen to potentially screw him over. So the answer to the question was no, but it wasn't entirely his fault. Marion didn't say any of that. She didn't say anything at all. The Doctor clearly saw her lack of an answer as what it was and directed his attention to the Kangs.
"I don't think you want me to answer that."
"Fire Escape, Bin Liner, I never expected to see you again. Still less, I didn't expect to be glad to see you again. But I've got to go." the Doctor snatched his umbrella away from Fire Escape (who Marion hadn't even noticed was holding the umbrella to begin with) "There's much to be done." The Doctor moved to walk towards the exit and then all the Kang's were suddenly there.
"You know you could just ask us not to leave." Marion said, lightly pushing the Doctor backward, "And stop aiming those crossbows at people. It's rude." Marion was thankful that she wasn't in a more horrific mood than she was.
Fire Escape, who was the only one not pointing a weapon at them, snatched away the Doctor's umbrella.
"No ball games, no fly-posts." she lifted the umbrella and poked the Doctor in the stomach before returning his umbrella to him, "No out-going."
"Why are you here?" asked Bin Liner.
"Oh, don't ask me!" said the Doctor, "Ask her."
The Kangs stared at her expectantly.
"We were running from Cleaners and-"
Fire Escape stared at them carefully. "Cleaners?"
"Yup," Marion nodded, "Two of them on either side of us. I shoved open a door and the two of us ducked inside. The two of us dropped for a bit and apparently, that pit we dropped down led here. Couldn't have been too far above. Considering we landed and didn't- well, 'become unalive'"
"I expect they're gone by now."
"I don't know that the two of them could see through the smoke they were putting out." Marion said, sounding more like she was thinking out loud than actually talking, "They might've crashed their drills into each other."
"Check for safe and sure on the Talkyphone." Fire Escape told one of the other Kangs.
"Do I get the impression I'm not believed?" asked the Doctor.
"Cleaners make Kangs unalive." Fire Escape said. The last word came out in almost a hiss.
"Oh, do they, now?" the Doctor leaned forward, "Why don't you tell me about it?"
Fire Escape quite sharply turned her back to him.
"What is the matter with everyone in the Towers? I simply don't understand. I mean, the Cleaners go 'round killing people and carting them off and no one does anything to stop them. All you Kangs can do is draw wall scrawls on the subject all over the place. Marion, are the Caretakers any better?"
"With the exception of the Chief Caretaker, they're all a bunch of brain-addled bureaucrats who've outsourced their critical thinking skills to a book of bylaws. I mean it makes it easier to-" Marion vaguely gestured with her hand as she couldn't think of a way to reword "manipulate them" that didn't make her sound like some kind of supervillain. "De-escalate with them."
"But the Cleaners have to-"
The Doctor raised up a hand to cut her off.
"I know, I've seen them."
"The Cleaners are attacking the caretakers too." Marion said, "Most of the Caretakers don't know about it, and the ones that do aren't allowed to talk about it because of the Chief."
"There's a wipe-out of Caretakers as well?"
"Told some caretakers that I was- nevermind. Point is some cleaners nearly killed a group of caretakers I was with because there wasn't anything about them in their big green books."
"What is going on?" the Doctor started to raise his voice, "I mean, what is behind that door belching out smoke that you Kangs are so keen on painting pictures of, eh? Any ideas?" he stared at Fire Escape, "Or is that simply just another mystery?"
Fire Escape turned away from the Doctor.
Bin Liner leaned over to talk to Fire Escape. "Cleaners were in the carrydoor with sprinkle gas. They're no more."
Fire Escape turned back
"Thank goodness for that." the Doctor leaned over a bit, "Marion, do you have anything that you could tell me."
Well, Marion could try.
"The Chief Caretaker" is feeding people to the Architect under the towers.
"There is a-," monster underneath the towers.
"Marion?"
"Chief Caretaker bad." Marion finally got out. When that got through, she spoke slowly.
"And the other caretakers?"
"They don't know."
"Don't know what?"
"That he's-" feeding people to the Architect under the towers.
"They don't know that he's bad." the Doctor said with a nod, understanding that that was the extent to what Marion could say. The Doctor stood up straight and walked towards the emergency phone against the wall. He took the phone off the hook and turned it over in his hands.
"You know," he was addressing the Kangs now, "you really are very stupid for such clever people. If I were you I'd find that door and discover what's behind it." he started pressing buttons on the back of the phone and listening for tones. "Because until you do, we're all at risk, You, Me, Mel, everybody." the Doctor held up the phone again and waved it around. "Are these antiques dotted around all over the building? It really is a splendid piece of auditoryarchitectatonicalmetrasyncocity." The Doctor pressed buttons against the side of it. The machine let out a loud, high pitched, beeping noise.
Fire Escape stared at it for a moment. "It works!"
"I'm sure."
Bin Liner took the headset away from the Doctor, pressed a few buttons, and then handed it back to the man.
"Hello? Sorry. Wrong number." The Doctor hung the phone up. "Just one other thing. You probably haven't realised that this machine has another purpose."
The Doctor spun the box around. It was a vending machine. If it had had lights, they weren't on. It was yellow with black spots and had "Fizzade" written on it twice in slanted red letters and was covered in what was either dirt or ash.
The Doctor tipped his head forward. His hat fell into his hand with a jingle of coins. He flipped one Marion who caught it in her hand.
It was a nice coin she supposed. It had a nice weight to it. And it seemed like the kind of thing she would end up fitting in her pocket to fidget with.
"Oh incidentally, yet another Paradise Towers mystery. Issued by the Great Architect, Kroagnon. Kroagnon? Marion, do you recognize that name? This from your century after all. The twenty-first"
"We're a bit after my time Doctor."
The Doctor nodded, "I thought so. I must say, I do wish I could place him. I mean, what's happened to him since he's finished this building. No one seems to know." the Doctor looked up and realized that the Kangs were staring at him, "Sorry."
Marion went to put the coin inside of the vending machine. Bin Liner gasped and raised her crossbow. Marion turned her head to glance at back at them for a moment. Her eyes flickered down to the weapon for a moment.
"Is there an issue?"
The Doctor snatched his umbrella back from Fire Escape and knocked the crossbow away.
Marion popped the coin into the vending machine and it fell down with a loud clatter. The girls quickly backed away from the machine as if it was viable to explode. There was a much louder clatter as the machine dispensed the can. The Doctor leaned down and took the can and popped the tab. It let out a loud hiss. The girls screamed and jumped away, hiding in bunks and behind things, staring back at them in fear.
Marion looked at the way the Doctor was holding the little tab thing like a ring on his finger. She wondered if the girls thought that the machine dispensed some kind of grenade.
The Doctor pretended not to notice their fear and took a sip.
He nodded thoughtfully.
"Oh, very refreshing."
Bin Liner got up quickly and took the can from the Doctor and took a sip herself. She smiled and passed the can to Fire Escape who also took a sip.
"Ice Hot, Doctor!" Bin Liner exclaimed.
"Ice Hot!" "Ice Hot" said the two girls again.
Seeing that none of the three who had drunk from the can where kneeling over and dying or exploding or the other Kangs were suddenly interested in trying it for himself. The Doctor put coin after coin into the machine until everyone in the room who had wanted to try a can of Fizzade was able to try a gain of Fizzade.
It was cold, although that could have been because of the room and the fact that the cans were made of metal. It certainly tasted more like actual orange juice than any other orange soda she had had before. And the liquid was even the correct color. As a bonus, because Marion had no idea what year it was, she could convince herself that the liquid in the cans wasn't expired.
Next Chapter: Keep Talking
The Doctor: Another nice thing about Marion is that when I'm with her, I can get a closer look at dangerous things!
Marion: Is this some kind of psychological experiment of yours to see if I'm capable of aneurysms? Is that what this is?
I've learned that I enjoy writing Seven.
Btw I am allowed to dunk on architects. I am one.
Also sorry if this chapter has typos. I did look through it. But I might have missed a couple things.