Arcadia:
"What's wrong?" I asked the TARDIS, both dad and I worried as she forced a landing. "You're not happy. Why aren't you happy? Tell us."
"Come on! we're on a roll!" Clara complained, her and ma both stood in the TARDIS doors. "Monsters, things blowing up. Oh, hey, can we go back to that place where the people with the long necks have been celebrating New Year for two centuries? I left my sunglasses there."
Yeah, that wasn't all you lost. "And most of your dignity."
"Why have you brought us here?"
Ma pulled them both out, closing the doors and hugged her arms around herself, pushing up her glasses. They were a new addition, but I didn't like them, made her look a lot older. "Here being?"
Da wrapped an arm around her, not a hug, he didn't do hugs, but he loved being close to her. "Underwater, so you're here with me. Some sort of a base. The technology's twenty second century. Maybe military, maybe scientific."
"Is there a crew?" Clara asked.
Well, yeah. "Must be, somewhere, if there's oxygen."
We started to walk through the corridor, and our companion, my Aunt Clara, was complaining still. "I want another adventure. Come on, you're all feel the same. You're itching to save a planet, I know it." It was like having two da's.
There was a big mural of a dragon threatening men in a sail boat in the mess hall, their clothes, like ST:TNG, but there was stuff thrown everywhere. It looked like SJ's room, or the entirety of hers and Sherlock's flat. She was there again, she'd gone back right away. "Da, ma, look at this."
"Well. Looks like you got your wish." They replied, looking at Clara. Ma was wearing very sensible shoes, and they looked more like a pair of SJ's, though she had bigger feet. I was the small one, taking after ma. Weird.
I twanged a knife in the wall. "Food fight? Could be us, I remember the kitchen."
Ma smiled a little, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. "I think there was more to it than that, Brilliant Dove. Whatever it was, it happened pretty recently." She put her finger into a cup. "Seven or eight hours ago. No bodies, though. I can't sense anything, we need Sarah Jane, really."
"And they took provisions." Clara called, looking at the kitchen. "Okay, so something or someone forced the crew to abandon the base. Maybe they went for a swim in the creepy flooded village outside." The window was murky, like there was a lot of water there. "Oh, yeah. You see, this is more like it." She then wanted a high five from me. What? "Oh, come on. Don't leave me hanging, Cadia."
Ma and da had already started walking out the room, and we scurried after, into another identical corridor. "Look. Told you. Crew." They pointed to some people squatting with their backs to us. "Hello, sailors!"
The figures stood, turning with their lips moving. "Right, I did not expect that. Hands up who expected that." I muttered, backing away as they followed us. "Wait, wait. I don't think they're going to hurt us. I think that they're just curious."
Where an alien stood nose to nose with da, a man looking down at Clara. "Are you sure?" She asked hesitantly.
"Well, I mean, define sure." I replied. "Look at you lovely chaps. What's happened to you, then?"
They turned away, still muttering to themselves. "Come on."
"What are they?" Ma asked da, rubbing her eyes.
"I haven't a clue. Isn't that exciting?" He realised she was in pain. "Are you alright, that headache hasn't left yet."
"I'm fine, it's just getting used to Missy being out there, we're key's remember."
Da didn't get a chance to argue, as we reached what looked to be the main hanger, the doors closing behind us. "Where did they go?" Clara asked, staying close to me. "What is it, some kind of submarine?"
I shook my head, heading up the ramp. "No, it's alien." Da and I ran our hands over a rectangular object, before seeing symbols on the wall. "That's weird. The TARDIS hasn't translated it."
There was a strange hissing, and Clara and I turned. The men were back. "Hey, look, they're back."
"Hello!" Da smiled. "Did you want to show us this? It's very nice milk sack."
"Wait, are they saying something?" Ma muttered to herself, frowning as though trying to make it out. I thought she could lip read?
And then one grabbed a heavy axe. "Okay, they now appear to be arming themselves, now."
"Yes, I spotted that, too, Dove." We backed out of the craft as the other one took a harpoon gun. I was the only one who phase... "Was it something he said? He does that. My husband once had an argument with Gandhi!"
Then he swung the axe, and it went right through me. Lucky me. "I'm starting to see why the crew did a runner." And then I had to quickly phase again to avoid a harpoon, and followed my parents and godmother. We kept running, dodging the man when he went to grab Clara, and ran towards a woman at the end. o Clara. She cries out. Moran emerges, making them back away down the corridor, then the other rises up through the floor behind them. Clara grabs at the Doctor's arm.)
"In here! Quick!"
The ghosts peered in though the round window in the door, but didn't enter as we ran in and the doors closed, da and I returning the stare. "What are you?"
"Who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?" One of the guys asked.
"This is Clara, my son Arcadia, my wife, and his mother, Seraphina and I'm the Doctor." We both showed our psychic papers.
He sighed a little. "You're from UNIT."
"Well, if that's what it says." We both muttered, then looked at each other and looked away.
"I'm Pritchard, this is Bennett."
And then a woman got very excited. "O'Donnell! Are you really Seraphina? I'm a huge fan! I mean, er, you know Nice work." Ma blushed, looking sheepish. She was more infamous.
Another man smiled. "Tim Lunn, I sign for Cass." Oh, she was cool.
"Tell me, what about those things out there?" I asked. "What are they? Why are they trying to kill us? Well, you guys, I've already avoided it twice."
Bennett frowned a little. "Well, they're er, they're ghosts."
"They're not ghosts."
Signing guy, Lunn, made a start. "Cass is saying-"
Da then took over. "Thank you, but I actually don't need your help. I can speak sign." Successfully signed Go ahead. Then the woman tried to reply, but he hadn't an idea. "No, no, actually, I can't. It's been deleted for semaphore. Someone get me a selection of flags."
"Da, move over. One of the ghosts is our previous commanding officer. The other, um moley guy, we don't know what he is. He's from the planet Tivoli, Cass."
Bennett now spoke up. "See? I told you he was an alien. Didn't I say that?" OK, that was as bad as most of UNIT.
"Weird thing is, they're not violent." Ma muttered, playing with her hair, then hid her hand behind her back. Did her hair just fall out? "They're, they're too cowardly. They wouldn't say boo, boo to a goose. They're more likely to give the goose their car keys and bank details. When did they first appear?" Was she still out of breath too?
"Oh, did you see that spaceship in the hangar?" O'Donnell asked, still looking at ma. "Yeah, we found that on the lake bed and we'd just got it on board and one of the engines started up and then Moran got-" She paused, looking nervous. "Moran was killed."
Lunn translated for Cass again. "Then they appeared and pretty much straight away started trying to kill us. So we grabbed what we could and we were looking for somewhere to hide, and that's when we realised the ghosts couldn't come in here."
"What is this place?" Clara asked. Couldn't she tell?
"It's a Faraday cage, Aunt Clara." I told her softly, wrapping my arm around ma. She was icy, even with her eyes burning gold. "Completely impenetrable to radio waves, and apparently, whatever those things are out there. Not even sure I could phase through it. So, who's in charge now? Da needs to know who to ignore."
"That would be me." Cass.
"Actually, that would be me." He handed me and ma his card. Richard Pritchard, Vice President of Sub-aquatic Resources. "I represent Vector Petroleum. We've obtained the mining rights to the oil." Perfect. Admin.
Da frowned slightly. "The oil? Where are we?" This was as I let the card fall through me to the floor.
"This used to be a military training site." Bennett replied as it was picked up again. "There was a dam overlooking it, but the dam burst and the valley was submerged."
Admin was talking again. "Then twenty years ago, we discovered a massive oil reservoir underneath it."
A computer then told us it was day, the lights brightening. "Okay, it's morning. We can go outside now."
"Thank God for that." Lunn sighed. Really?
"At last, we can get out of here."
Why did that matter? "Morning?"
"Yeah, we're too far below the surface for daylight, so we have to demarcate artificial days and nights. " Bennett told me as he grabbed a towel and O'Donnell opened a door.
"I'd like to have a further look at that spaceship, but what about those things that aren't ghosts?" Da asked, taking over trying to warm ma up.
The Number One Writer fan smiled. "Oh, it's all right. They only come out at night."
They both sighed. "Weird how that is not comforting." We started to follow them. "If whatever they are-"
"They're ghosts." Not possible. I'd seen ghosts
I shook my head, walking backwards to face them. "They're not ghosts. Have been trying to kill you, why haven't you abandoned the base?"
"That was my call." Admin told me. This guy was going to get annoying. "We've got about a trillion dollars worth of mining equipment here. We're not just going to abandon it What? If it all goes pear-shaped, it's not them that lose a bonus." Seriously?
I nodded at him. "It's okay. I understand. You're an idiot, even more than the usual ones. Come to mention it, why is there a Faraday cage on the base?"
Bennett was actually intelligent. "It's the mining equipment. It runs on nuclear fission. The Faraday cage has been lined with lead to act as a shelter in the event of a radiation leak." Ah, nice plan.
"So, we are fighting an unknown homicidal force that has taken the form of your commanding officer and a cowardly alien, underwater, in a nuclear reactor." Da nodded, walking with ma tight on his arm. "Anything else I should know? Someone got a peanut allergy, or something? Arcadia's allergic to tomatoes, and SJ is actually allergic to nuts." Yeah, and she hated that. Found out the hard way, and she loves Kinder Beuno's.
"It all started with this ship." Ma muttered, walking into the kitchen. "This is where the answer will be." Then she removed a hatch. "What's happened to the stuff you've removed? This is for long-haul flights. There should be a suspended-animation chamber for the pilot right here. Plus, one of the power cells is missing."
Admin got excited, running up to the ship. "Power cell?"
"Yeah. You can see the casing is empty."
Then I could see that Cass and Lunn were having a massive conversation, before Aunt Clara and I went down to see them. "What's the matter?"
Lunn was a little frustrated and I saw how much they loved each other. "She won't let me look inside the spaceship. She says it's not safe. I'm saying it's not safe out here."
"I imagine they're pretty valuable."
I was in the middle of two conversations. "What?"
"I mean powerful." Yeah, I'll bet. "Those power cells. I imagine they're pretty powerful."
"Well, they can zap a vessel from one side of the galaxy to the other, so, you know, take a wild stab in the dark." I told him, folding my arms. "Well, I could build better, but yeah."
Admin was still talking. "And the missing one must still be out there."
"Yes, well, otherwise." I looked at O'Donnell. "Sorry, why is this man still talking to me? I'm not here to listen to some pencil pusher who likes to make more money than he's worth."
"We haven't removed anything. There hasn't been time." Admin left at that, ma and da walked back out of the ship. "So what have we got? Moran dies, and then those things appear. They can walk through walls. They only come out at night and they're sort of see-through."
Aunt Clara stared at me. "Arcadia, wait, you're not saying-" I was already moving, faster than da as he pulled ma and Clara along.
Computer stations, control panels on walls, and a nice illuminated map of the base, definitely bridge. "They're ghosts! Yeah, ghosts"
"You said there was no such thing. You actually pooh-poohed the ghost theory. So did your dad."
"Yes, well, well, there was no such thing as, as socks or smartphones and badgers until there suddenly were." Da shrugged, ma typing at a lot on one of the monitors. "Besides, what else could they be? They're not holograms, they're not Flesh Avatars, they're not Autons, they're not digital copies bouncing around the Nethersphere. No, these people are literally, actually, dead. Wow. This is, it's amazing! I've never actually met a proper ghost."
"Moran was our friend." Cass.
Clara and I looked at da, muttering; "The cards."
Then he realised, running to ma and taking something out of her bum pocket. Really? "Oh! Oh, right you are." Da fumbled through them, and I grabbed them, looking for the right one. I completely understand why it was difficult not to get captured. It was my fault, I should have known you didn't live in Aberdeen. I didn't mean to imply that I don't care. No one is going to get eaten / vapourised / exterminated / upgraded / possessed / mortally wounded turned to jelly we'll all get out of this unharmed. I handed him the next one. "Ahem. I'm very sorry for your loss. I'll do all I can to solve the death of your friend slash family member slash pet." Clara gave him the Look, before taking the card and putting it in his pocket this time.
"But don't you see what this means?" Ma asked, suddenly being more lively than I'd seen her since she and Auntie Missy faked their deaths. "Death! It was the one thing that unified every single living creature in the universe, and now it's gone. How can you just sit there? Don't you want to go out there right now, wrestle them to the ground and ask them questions until your throat falls out? What's death like? Does it hurt? Do you still get hungry? Do you miss being alive? Why can you only handle metal objects? Oh, I didn't know I'd noticed that. Okay, so they'll try to kill you, blah, blah, blah. What does that matter? You come back. A bit murder-y, sure, but even so!" Then she broke off, suddenly out of breath. "Calm, Phina, calm. You were like this when you met Rachel Caine. Okay. Question one. What is a ghost? Question two. What do they want?" And then the lights went out. "Wasn't me, promise!"
O'Donnell frowned, looking at the lights. "Whoa, what's happening?"
The computer spoke up. "Good evening. Entering night mode."
"That's not right. We're switching back into night mode again. This can't happen! No, no, no!"
She sat at a computer terminal, next to ma who was trying to hide herself by working herself. Then a distant bell started to toll. "Er, what's doing that?"
"Doctor, Phi, Cadia?" I did prefer Arc, but no one seemed to use that besides Courtney and Danny.
"The TARDIS Cloister Bell!" Da suddenly realised, breaking out in a run, letting me and Aunt Clara follow, ma still working.
"Da, what's wrong?"
He was pacing along the console room. "It must be the ghosts. That's why she was upset when we got here. Maybe why your ma is off."
Clara frowned. "Why? I don't understand."
"It's just what Seraphina was saying. You live and you die. That's it. The ghosts are aberrations. A splinter of time in the skin. They're unnatural. She wants to get away from them, same with her." Ma seemed more like she was happy to find them, like it meant something more.
"So, what do we do?"
I turned a handle on the console, the Cloister Bell stopping and the engines powering down. "Put the handbrake on." Aunt Clara took off her jacket, heading to the door. "Whoa! Ho, ho, ho, ho! Where do you think you're going?"
She looked back at me in confusion. "Out there, where the action is."
Now I turned to da, and I knew he was thinking the same, but Clara was still about 7 years older than me, so he said it. "Look, you, er-" Clara got really confused. "Oh, this is my own fault. I like adventures as much as the next man. If the next man is a man who likes adventures, like Arcadia. Even so, don't, don't go native."
"What do you mean? I'm not."
Oh, she was really in too deep, I was only stuck because I grew up doing this. I was a child of the universe and never wanted to leave. "Look, there's a whole dimension in here, but there's only room for the three of us."
Clara was staring at us as ma came in, grabbing her long tan coat. "Wait, wait a second. You just raved about ghosts like a kid who had too much sherbet. Your wife did too."
"Do you know what you need?" Ma asked her, knowing our conversation right away. "You need a hobby."
The woman backed away with a small laugh. "I really don't."
Da was off now. "Or even better, another relationship. Come on, you lot, you're bananas about relationships. You're always writing songs about them, or going to war, or getting tattooed-" Yeah, lets not mention SJ's doves on her shoulder. Da would kill her.
"Phi, Doctor, I'm fine."
They both shook their heads, and ma pressed herself into his side. "I just felt that I, I, I had to say something."
She nodded. "I know. And I appreciated it."
"Because I've got a duty of care. Even of SJ, and now Otter Face, and Hedgehog man." She was going to kill you.
Clara was still nodding from the doorway. "Which you take very seriously, I know."
Da was looking terrified. "So can I stop now?"
"Please. Please do."
The Doctor:
Right, so Pritchard, or Admin as Cadia was calling him was dead, and one of the ghosts, that was now trying to hurt Clara and Phi who were helping Bennett collect supplies. So Arcadia and O'Donnell were working on something to help. "Come on, come on. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on."
And then the lights came on, Pritchard leaving as the chair fell to the floor. "Good morning. Entering day mode."
We then watch CCTV of what happened to Pritchard on a wall screen, my wife close to my side. She was always close now, after the year with her sister. The alien ghost was a few steps behind Moran as they cornered him. "No! No, Moran! Don't!" And then he was flooded.
"They're working out how to use the base against us." Phi muttered, picking at her nails. "Altering the time settings so they can go about uninhibited, opening the airlocks. They're learning."
Clara nodded. "And now there's three of them."
Bennett turned to his boss. "Cass, what do we do?"
"We abandon the base." Cass replied through Lunn. "Topside can send down a whole team of marines or ghost-busters or whatever." Perfect, all we needed, but then she turned to us. "I can't force you to leave, so you can stay and do the whole cabin in the woods thing and get killed or drowned, if you want. But my first priority is to protect my crew." I liked her.
My son and best friend lent over to me. "But we're coming back, aren't we?"
"Yes, we're coming back."
"O'Donnell, contact Topside. Tell them we're abandoning the base on my orders." Cass.
She did as she was told, using an old style telephone. "Topside, Topside, this is Lance Corporal Alice O'Donnell from Drum Control. Over."
"Drum Control, this is Topside. We have received your message. Submarine on its way. Over." That wasn't right.
"Repeat, Topside. Over."
"We've received your request for a rescue sub. It's two minutes away. Over."
This was really, really not good. "Topside, who did you speak to and when was this request made? Over."
how was this happening? "Drum Control, it was in Morse code and arrived maybe half an hour ago. Said it was urgent, comms were down, two crew members critically ill, full paramedic team requested. Over."
Arcadia snatched the handset. "Topside, this is the Engineer, son of Seraphina and the Doctor, brother in law to Luke Smith, Second Scientific Advisor, UNIT security visa seven one zero Apple zero three. You may be familiar with my family's work. Call back the sub."
"Engineer, why would-"
He wasn't listening. "Call it back! We have a hazardous and undefined contagion on board. This base is now under quarantine."
Then the handset was down, and Bennett was staring at him. "What did you do that for?"
Surely that was obvious? "Well, none of us sent the message, did we? So that means that the ghosts sent it, which means they want that crew down here."
"Why would they do that?" Lunn asked without Cass signing.
Phi sighed, rubbing her eyes under the glasses. I loved them, made her look cleverer. "Well, I don't know, but I'm pretty certain it's not so they can all form a boy band, those are horrible. Okay. We solve this on our own. The ghosts can only come out at night so they change the base's time settings. Why? What's different at night?"
O'Donnell shrugged. "It's mainly atmospheric. The lights are dim, the noise from the engines is muffled."
Cadia shook his head. "No. Something, something else."
Lunn spoke for Cass again. "The diagnostic sweep. When the systems are checked, that stops at night to save power."
"What systems specifically?" I asked, looking at them
"Life support, the locks. They're electromagnetic. They have to be secured in case of flooding, so throughout the day, they're checked, one by one, every few seconds."
No, that wasn't it. "The answer is in there somewhere, I can smell it."
"Phi, Cadia, Doctor, what do we do?"
"O'Donnell." Phi smiled brightly. "Excellent work, returning the base to day mode."
What was she up to? "Shut up. It was nothing You really think so?"
"Now put it back into night mode."
"What!"
She shook her head, pacing slowly. Slow, Phi? "We know nothing. We don't know what they want. That's what's getting us killed. Well, I won't run, and I know my son and husband won't. Not any more, no point." Huh? "So, O'Donnell, kindly put the base back into night mode. We want to know what these ghosts are after? We ask them. We're going to do the impossible. We're going to capture a ghost."
We got to work, and the lights went down again in the mess hall, where Bennett entered nervously. Morna was on the ceiling, Pritchard half in the way, and the alien on the wall. "H-Hey, how's it going?"
He started to run as they followed, and we were all waiting for our points, Clara and Cadia in the next position. "Bennett's got them moving, Arcadia's and Clara's in position."
I was at the big wall map of the base, Phi working with O'Donnell on the computers. "Dove, Clara, Bennett is going to run across the top of the T-junction to your right in about ten seconds. Draw the ghosts towards you. Turn right, and then take second left, through the wall to the next corridor, they'll follow."
They did as my wife said, all three following them, and my son kept running, phasing them both through a wall, ready for Lunn. "Lunn, they're coming your way. They're going to duck down to their left. You've got to keep the ghosts going on the same route they're on now. Then, after about fifty yards on your left, there is a flood door."
"O'Donnell will close the door once you're through." I added after as Phi sneezed. If she was coming down with a cold...
"I, I can hear them."
"Lunn, don't let them see where you go."
There was radio silence for a moment as Phi wiped her nose on a black hanky very discretely. But then there was something wrong, more than a bit of bacteria. "We've got a problem!"
O'Donnell sounded worried. "They've separated. Moran and the mole guy are going after Clara and Arcadia. Guy's look out. Two ghosts are still on your case. Right behind you both."
"I'm beginning to think we should have let the ghosts in on the plan, Da." Oh, haha, Arcadia.
"Little Doves, there's a flood door at the end of the corridor, around the corner to your right. We'll close it from here. Listen to me. You've got to get through that door before Moran and the other ghost sees you." Phi said, dropping the dripping wet hanky in the bin. Gross.
And then they were through. "Ma, Da."
I looked at the number one fan of my wife. "Now, O'Donnell, fast as you can!" The door closed, and my son and best friend were safe as the ghosts walked past them.
"Guys, I'm nearly at my door." Lunn called, going through an open doorway.
Finally, it was going to plan. "Now, Lunn, quickly."
The door closed after him, but he came back with a panicked tone. "It saw me. Oh, God. It saw me. It's coming through. It's coming through the door." We watched as the ghost of Pritchard stepped through the door, but nothing more.
"We don't have a camera in there." O'Donnell told me, as Phi quickly moved to stop Cass from leaving. I boat it, or whatever that old Tumblr term was.
"No, no, Lunn. Lunn, can you hear me, Dove? Can you hear me? Dove, what's happening?" There was no reply. "Lunn, can you hear me? Lunn? Lunn? Can you hear me? Lunn, Lunn? Lunn, Lunn! What's happening? Lunn? Lunn? Can you hear me?"
And then there was finally a reply. "I'm okay."
Phi turned with a smile to the deaf woman, signing for her. How come you could remember it? "Cass, he's alive."
"It didn't hurt me. I'm okay-"
There was a slightly more pressing interesting matter. "What? What's wrong with you? Why didn't it hurt you? Bennett, you're on again. Bennett, where are you?"
O'Donnell got up the CCTV. "There. Oh, God, look."
"Bennett, can you hear me?" Phi called again, loosely tying her blue and silver hair up with a sapphire ribbon. Was that SJ's? I didn't think she took it off... "There are two ghosts just around the corner from you."
"Yes, thanks," he muttered in reply, "I'd noticed."
The alien and Moran were swaying and muttering at each other, mere meters away. "The Faraday cage is across the intersection and down the corridor to your right. This last bit is down to you."
Then he ran, the ghosts following and the other one joining them. "Okay, so, the good news is, they aren't split up any more. Cue Arcadia and Clara!"
My son appeared in the door to the Faraday cage, and the ghosts walked in and right through him as he then ran out again, locking it. Shadow Cat. Phi and I headed through, putting on my sonic glasses as I reached the outside of the Faraday cage, Phi shivering through her coat. "We need to talk. Sorry, chaps. My son can be a ghost too. You play a little bit too rough."
"Da, I'm not a goddamn ghost. I'd rather be Kitty Pryde."
Well, you said it. "Cass, are you seeing this?"
O'Donnell came back through. "Sonic glasses Wi-Fi locked in. On screen B2."
"She says she can't see them properly." Lunn told us. "The glass is too thick and they're too far away."
Cadia then spoke up again. "Open the door." Oho, no.
"What?"
"Son, you can't go in there, they will kill you!" I told him.
My son shrugged. "They don't have any weapons or access to any of the controls. They can't hurt me as long as I stayed phased, so open the door, or I walk through it."
Then I relented, and the door unlocked, letting him go inside and close the door behind him again. Oh, Arcadia... "Cold, isn't it? Take away your weapons and you're not so scary, are you? Is that better, Cass?"
"She says they're saying the same thing, the same phrase, over and over. They're saying the dark. The score. No, the sword. The for sale? No, the forsaken. The temple."
That didn't make any sense. "What? Arcadia, get out, now."
"Yes, she's sure. The dark, the sword, the forsaken, the temple." Why was it, one you knew what you were looking for, it seemed obvious? "Just that. Over and over."
Arcadia was still in there. "Dark, sword, forsaken, temple. What does that mean? What are you telling me, big man?" And then he backed out through the door. So, a Faraday cage didn't stop him. "Bennett! I need maps. I think I just worked out what our friend here is telling us."
He started running as I pulled Phi along, and she seemed sluggish still. It was a cold, really. "They're coordinates." My son told us as we were in the bridge.
"How can they be coordinates?"
That was obvious. "The dark? Space. So, whoever's following the coordinates knows they're going to another planet. The sword?" I handed an apple to Bennett, a knobby ball to O'Donnell, a table tennis ball to Clara, and a Vector Petroleum place mat to my wife, getting them to hold it in a diagonal line. Interactive teaching. "Orion's sword. The sword, the three stars, although one isn't actually a star but the Orion Nebula, hanging down from Orion's belt. But if viewed from back here, the Earth becomes the fourth bit of the sword. So, narrowed it down to a planet now. Getting closer."
"The forsaken." Cadia told me, taking the items back. "The forsaken or abandoned or empty town. See, it's a location, beaming out to someone or something across the universe, over and over. And every time they kill one of us-"
"It strengthens the signal." Clara realised. "Another ghost, another transmitter."
Now O'Donnell was getting it. "Which is why they sent for that rescue sub."
Phi nodded, blowing her nose. "Get more people down here, kill them, make even more ghosts to beam out the coordinates."
"But why are they beaming out the coordinates? Is it a distress call?" Cass through Lunn.
I liked this lot, they were all pretty smart. "It could be. Or a warning. Might even be a call to arms. It could mean, come here, they're vulnerable, help yourself. Wait a minute, though. Wait a minute. Do you know what this means? It means that they're not a natural phenomenon. It means that someone is deliberately getting people killed, hijacking their souls and turning them into transmitters." And why did Phi now look upset?
O'Donnell looked at my wife and I. "But what do the coordinates lead to, though? To us? To the ghosts? What?"
"Ah! What the coordinates are for." Cadia nodded, messing with his sleek, streamlined phone that did a lot more than it did when he first got it. "That is part of the answer to the other question you're all thinking."
They all stared at us. "Really? Come on. None of you? Surely just being around us makes you cleverer by osmosis? What is the other question?"
Cass got it, using Lunn again. "The temple. The fourth part of the directions. What's the temple?"
"Finally. It's like pulling teeth." Except that was more fun. "This is the flooded military town. Shops, houses, town square, and this." I pointed to the map.
"A church?" Phi asked, looking at me with heavy lidded gold eyes. My beautiful Seraphina...
It was a long narrow building with an annex projecting off at right angles at one end, according to an old aerial photograph. "Whatever the coordinates are for, it's in that church. Find that and you're a hop, skip and a jump to stopping them."
Bennett frowned a little. "Wait, you're not suggesting that? But we're safe now. The ghosts are in the cage. We can get out of here."
Well, duh. "No one has to stay. In fact, I would prefer it if you went. You'll all get in the way and ask ridiculous questions. But, you know, " I indicated Cass, Lunn and O'Donnell, "you have chosen to protect and serve." Indicating Bennett. "You have given yourself to science and the pursuit of knowledge. None of you have chosen anonymous or selfish lives. Go, and a part of you will always wonder, what would have happened if I'd stayed? How could I have helped? What would I have learned? I want you to go. But you should know what it is that you're leaving."
Cass was signing so Lunn translated. "Cass says we should go, but everything that happens here is her responsibility now, so she's going to stay. So I, er, guess I should too." Definitely Boated it.
"Well, count me in." O'Donnell grinned. "Who wants to live forever, anyway?" Well.
"Sorry, er, have you gone insane? We can go home." Bennett reminded everyone, and the girl that liked him did a one shoulder shrug, grinning. OK, if I could see they were supposed to be together, they were supposed to be together. "They're ghosts, though. How can they be ghosts? Well, at least if I die, you know I really will come back and haunt you all." That was one way to put it.
Phi:
Bennett was controlling a drone submarine by virtual reality goggles and remote controls on his fingers, left hand for steering, right hand for power as I wiped my nose again. The Doctor, my amazing Doctor, had given me flu pills, trying to help, and I'd taken them, but all they did was make me woozy. Oh, Legacy... "Okay, the sub is approaching the town square. Which way is the church?"
"North-north-west, one hundred and fifty yards." O'Donnell told him, looking at the map. "That's it. Starboard two degrees."
Clara looked at us, as I wrapped an arm around my son, letting him rest into me. "What are we looking for, exactly?"
Wasn't that obvious? "Something that has the power to raise the dead and turn them into transmitters. I expect we'll know it when we see it."
"Wait, I've found the church." Bennett called.
"That's it, keep going." The Doctor told them, looking intently at the screen. His eyes were so bright and sparkling, like the ocean reflecting the sun when he was excited, working things out so fast, faster than I could now. Oh, my head, the pressure of my spine... But then there was a large, white object in the water. "Wait. What's that? Move closer."
The Doctor worked it out then, and headed into the main hangar as it was brought in. "It's the suspended-animation chamber from the spaceship."
"So the pilot could be in there." I added. "There's something inside there. But it's deadlock sealed, and I'm not letting you phase through the thing. We can't open it. It should be the pilot, it should be. So why do I think it isn't?" My head was not helping, stupid flu pills. "More questions. Everything I solve, just more questions. I have to go back to the beginning. We arrive, we see the ghosts. They don't kill us. They lead us here, they show us the spaceship. Then they try to kill us."
Arcadia was in the ship still, and we went up to him as he looked at the symbols. "Not translated by the TARDIS. Why?"
His gorgeous da cleaned his sunglasses, then put them on to look at the scratched marks. Whirring that drove my teeth on edge. Then he took them off and pulled me with him to talk to Cass. "Lunn, translate for me. Whenever I step outside, you are the smartest person in the room. So, tell me, what's weird about this? I know that it's all bonkers but, you know, when you think about it, one thing keeps snagging in your mind. What is it?"
"The markings on the inside of the spaceship."
He loved that. "The markings on the inside of the spaceship. Yes! Why?"
She shrugged. "I don't think they're just words."
No, there was no such thing as just words. "They're not. They're magnets. Sorry, my Angel Dove, but I got it when you did, sort of." I didn't do visions now, they made my head worse so the gold was just contacts. "A localised and manufactured electromagnetic field, to be precise. The dark. The sword. The forsaken. The temple. When we heard the coordinates for the first time, did anyone expect them not to be that? No, exactly. Me neither. It's like we already knew, somehow. Like the words were already in us."
"So that writing is the coordinates?" O'Donnell asked, and I really liked her, but was wary of the fact she was a fan. It was Malcolm all over again.
"Everything we see or experience shapes us in some way." Cadia explained. "But these words actually rewrite the synaptic connections in your brain. They literally change the way you are wired. Ma, Da, why don't I have a radio in the TARDIS?"
Uh, really? "You took it apart and used the pieces to make a clockwork squirrel. Really annoyed Sarah Jane as her Sherlock violin CD was in there."
He blushed a little. "And because whatever song I heard first thing in the morning, I was stuck with. Two weeks of Mysterious Girl by Peter Andre." Yeah, we had to deal with your crappy singing. "I was begging for the brush of Death's merciful hand. Don't you see? These words are an earworm. A song you can't stop humming, even after you die."
Clara frowned slightly. "Okay, so, the spaceship lands here. The pilot leaves the writing on the wall so whoever sees it, when they die, they become a beacon of the coordinates, while he slash she slash it snoozes in the suspended-animation chamber."
"Waiting for his slash her slash its mates to pick the message up." The Doctor agreed, holding me close as I started shaking more. So cold... "My God. Every time I think it couldn't get more extraordinary, it surprises me. It's impossible. I hate it. It's evil. It's astonishing. I want to kiss it to death." So he kissed me instead. Perfect. He might not like kisses, but I loved him kissing me.
And then an alarm sounded, messing with my head completely. "Attention, all crew. Evacuate base immediately. Emergency protocols have been initiated. This safety message was brought to you by Vector Petroleum. Fuel for our futures."
O'Donnell ran to a wall touch screen that said Flooding Initiated. Reactor Malfunction. Emergency Cooling. "Oh, no. The ghosts tampering with the day-night settings caused a computer malfunction. Its its first priority is to keep the reactor cool, so it's opening the hull doors and it's flooding the base." What the hell?! No, no, no, too much water...
"Cass says, close the internal flood doors. That'll contain the water in the central corridor."
"Where's the TARDIS?" The Doctor wrapped an arm around me, realising that my old phobia was playing up. "Phi, Phi, calm..."
"On the other side."
Then he pulled me with him. "We need to get there. It's our only way out."
My biggest fan sighed a little. "Okay. We've got thirty seconds before the flood doors close."
My husband then picked me up and started running with me, Arcadia with Clara as he tried to get Lunn. O'Donnell and Bennett made it with us to the central corridor before the flood door closed. My son was on the other side. "Ma, Da!"
We managed to dive under the other door at the last moment, and he activated the intercom right away. "I'll get you and the others out. Sit tight, I'll come back for you."
"Just come over here in the TARDIS now." Clara told him
I shook my head, struggling to breath for wanting a panic attack. Arcadia trapped by water. "The TARDIS won't go there. It won't go near the ghosts. Arcadia, maybe-"
My son shook his head. "No, no, the pressure of the water would shatter my molecules if I phased. We're stuck. You can't just leave us!"
"Listen to me, son. We're going back in time to when this spaceship landed. If I can understand why this is happening, I can stop them killing anyone else. I can save you. You trust me, don't you, Arcadia, Clara?"
Then water filled the central corridor between us, making me back away, my breathing quickening again, feeling light headed. "Wait, you're going to go back in time? How do you do that?"Bennett asked, looking at us as my husband picked me back up, carrying me to the TARDIS.
"Extremely well." He hesitated. "Well, Seraphina does it very well, I'm sort of mediocre." Then I was down on one of the chairs, and the handbrake was off, and we were dematerialising. "Back to before the flood. Phi, now would be a great help of a vision." Oh, Doctor...