Chapter Ten
Irene
The Doctor sees the fear in my eyes at once, and (After checking behind him, of course) moves to a kneel.
"Hey. Tell me what's wrong."
"I don't remember," I squeak. I see we are in a new part of the ship. "I don't... what did I do? Why do you want to see my neck?" I giggle nervously a little as I tease, "Are you a vampire?"
"You... really, you can't remember?"
"Do I look like I remember?" I snap. His panic fades all of a sudden, but I don't understand why.
"Irene," he says softly. "What kind of brain tumor do you have?"
I take a step away from him. I didn't need to think about cancer right now. I had just managed to push it to the back of my mind. Why did he have to bring it up again?
I've recited it so many times in my head that I feel like I'm reading from an invisible script when grind out, "I have a rare form of cancer stemming from a Glioblastomic brain tumor, or GBT for short."
"I thought as much. And what lobe of your brain is the tumor in?"
"The temperish one," I manage.
"You mean Temporal," is all he says as he turns me around with my back to him, and places his hands on my shoulders.
"Why on Earth does it matter to you?" I bark. He doesn't reply to the question, but begins only to talk in my ear, directing my gaze with a gesture of his hand.
"Look at that hallway. Imagine walking down that. That glass room is a waste tank, though strictly speaking, the glass may be a bit softer. Remember the Seffmarine we found on the ground? Good. Imagine two of the same species as him standing and looking at you. Think of a door keeping you and I apart there."
The more he speaks and points, and the more I look, I start to be sure that I know what he's talking about. I'm not sure whether or not it was possible that his words triggered it, or if the memory loss was only temporary in the first place, but I start to remember a vague, gray memory. By the time he finishes speaking, I remember almost perfectly what happened, with only a few moments where it's a little squiggly, like a scratch on a record. Yes, I know, shocker for all of you: I'm a teenager from the twenty first century, and I actually know what a record is. I get my fair share of looks for it.
"I remember," I say.
"Good. Memory loss can occur with disturbances in the Parietal lobe. And..."
He doesn't finish, and I pull my arms in to my sides uncomfortably. "And, a brain tumor is one hell of a disturbance. I figured as much." I blink quickly when I feel the arrival of tears in my eyes, and The Doctor nods, and takes my hand in his.
"Yeah. Let's go, before the rest of the repair team finds us."
So we continued down the hall in silence. The Doctor explains how all of this feels too deliberate. He tells me that the stabbing couldn't have been an accident, that there had to be a reason the ship crashed where it did, and ultimately that he thinks it was crashed on purpose.
"So, like a sabotage?" I ask, looking up at him as we walk. "Or something?"
"Sabotage," he agrees, going forward to open a door. "Yes."
"I get the feeling this excites you," I fold my arms. "Surely this kind of thing doesn't make you happy?"
"Why shouldn't it?" He asks suddenly, looking at me with a gaze that could melt granite. I shrink away a little with surprise. I bite my tongue before I say something I'll regret, and follow him through the door he opens. We slide through too many doors and tiptoe through too many hallways for me to possibly count off for you.
We finally reach a room that The Doctor seems satisfied with, but not before I've grown cold and tired from the walk. The room is well lit but that's all it has going for it. It's damp, and cold, and smells like preservatives.
The Doctor locks the door we came in through.
"So, what now?"
"Watch that scanner there," he tells me, going to a separate computer monitor. "Tell me if you see any Mentals."
"Okay." I lean over the monitor. My eyes study the screen like crazy.
"So what do you like to do?" He asks. I look over my shoulder at him, but he apparently doesn't grace people by looking at them when he speaks. I turn back to watch for Mentals.
"Why did you ask me that now?"
"I work well when I'm multitasking. So, what do you like to do?"
"Well, I'm in debate," I start, but the rest of the thought falls off my tongue before I can speak.
"You enjoy it?" He prods.
"I do." Well, that got us absolutely no where, I think. I hear The Doctor pull apart some wires. "I volunteer with the daycare down the road," I say carefully. "I work with kids who have disabilities. Mostly dyslexia, and autism. I love working with kids."
"You have kids in your family?"
"My family is the reason I love kids. And also, sometimes the reason I get so sick of them."
He chuckles. I wonder if I've been too blunt again.
"I like having conversations, and learning things, you know? I guess that's why I take debate." I fold my hands behind my back.
"It's hard to believe you're your age with how you speak," he says off-handedly. "I'd want to say you're nearly seventeen."
"Oh," I laugh, "I assure you I'm not. Mom says I managed not to be the baby of the family, even though I'm the youngest." I scratch the back of my neck, laughing as I add, "She means, of course, the family who only lives in our house, because we have three younger cousins who live across the street."
"Oh, there one is!" I gasp. The Doctor is by my side in a moment, and we are both looking at the Seffmarine, standing in the hall outside our door. "Overcooked clams."
The Doctor is back at his computer console. He pauses. I look at him guilty, knowing the question that's coming for me. "Overcooked clams?"
I giggle his confusion, "Mom makes me find regular words to take the place of bad ones so I don't curse."
He goes back to his work with a shrug.
"Oh look, another friend has joined us," I say, looking at the screen. "Ooh, another one. I'll bet you ten bucks that his name was Bill."
"That's enough, Irene," he says, "I get it."
I shut my mouth, and watch the Mentals pile up outside the door.
"Why are they just standing here?" I bite the tip of my thumb. "Why don't they do something?"
"Now," he said, "I imagine they're hacking into the mainframe. What's the use in knocking down the door if they can just unlock it?"
"How?"
"They're made of technology. It's their charade."
"Can't you use it against them?"
"How so?"
"I don't know," I admit. "You used the teleport against the a Vashna."
He gives me a small smile. And his body goes slack, like he's almost given up hope. It's almost as if he's reminiscing. "I did. Give me one thing, Irene. One thing to go off of."
I chew on my lip. I rack my brain for anything to help us. Why is he asking me? Can't he figure it out himself? I don't bother trying to ask. I see in his eyes that he's testing my capability. If I don't get this right, he'll take it from me. Or maybe he wouldn't. Could I fight that stress? I guess that's what he's trying to find out.
"Look at it like the book," I tell myself. "What is it that's staring you in the face? What's the common thread?"
"The tech," I say. "Everything but the void down here works with technology." I look at the computer monitor, studying the Mentals. "They're all technology. Can you hack this stuff?"
A smile smears The Doctor's face. "Yes. Of course I can. But Irene, we are going one better than that." He tapped in a few numbers to the keyboard. "I'll hack them as they unlock the door. The extra surge of power will momentarily, for a fraction of a second, wake up the Gubb."
"What is that going to do?" I ask.
"Nothing, on it's own. But this place is churning with dying power. I'll wake it up. I can use it to rip open the void."
"What?" I cry. "That won't help!"
He starts typing faster than he talks on what looks like a keyboard projection only with too many keys. "Ah, but all the stuff that came creeping out are still connected to it. Like... like the cord that connects a baby to their mother. Once the void opens, it'll suck all the nasty creepy crawlers right back in, and then I can hopefully use the remaining power of the ship to reshut it again."
"You do realize that that isn't how childbirth works, right? And hang on, 'hopefully'? Who said anything about 'hopefully'?"
"You're descended from a species of creatures of hope, Irene. Hopefully is your lucky word."
"Except I'm I pessimist."
He sees the smile in my eyes, and returns it.
"Hold onto something, Irene. This isn't the right kind of puncture to pull you and I in. But hold on tight anyway."
He finishes typing just as the door is unlocked. The thought came to me: would the void suck in every body, or just the monsters that inhabited them? I thought of the crew back on the ocean base.
I put on my helmet with caution, and hold onto the edge of the table as he instructed me.
But I don't feel a thing. I just see the Mentals slowly lumber into the room. I yell The Doctor's name, but he doesn't have on his helmet, therefore cannot hear me.
Then, one by one, the Mentals are plucked from the ground, and snagged against a wall. They are all crowded against the same metal wall, and dragging tensely to the left as if an unknown force pulled on them. Each of them squirms like a worm picked up by it's tail end, but their limp bodies are slapped against walls repeatedly as they are dragged along. I find myself gagging. Once they are yanked through the air and from the room. And from where we are, we can hear them smashed through weak metal walls.
I feel no disturbance to myself, so I abandon my table and go to peer out of a small port hole. The Mentals (somehow they aren't crushed by the water pressure) float away towards a bright light (it was faintly green) that looked both far away and like you could touch it by extending your arm. I feel sick as I notice a stream of humans very far away, coming from the general direction of the ocean base. The big orange fish we had seen earlier that day is dragged through the water despite it's desperate wriggling, and disappears into the light.
"Doctor," I wonder, "if they've broken the wall, then won't water..." I looked down and saw water swimming around my ankles. The Doctor is putting on his helmet.
"It's time for us to get going?" I guess. He nods, and I walk over to take his hand as we listen to the whole structure creak and groan as water pours in. We make it to the doorway, when all the lights in the Gubb flash brightly, and then are extinguished. We stand in knee high water in the inky darkness, and an eerie light begins to flash behind us, in the control room. The Doctor is the first to notice and to turn around; then, I follow suit.
On a the now bright white screen above the control panels the following words flash:
"Don't wait up."
"Doctor?" I ask quietly. The only sound is the steady crash of pouring water. Then, something sparks, and the screen goes out. We are left in even colder darkness than before.
"Hold my hand," he says gravely. I don't argue. We fight our way out of the ship only pausing to make sure we are still together. We swim back across the giant pit. Silence engulfs the walk back to the ship. What is there to say? Even when the intercom opens back up, all Captain Chrysanthemum says is that she's glad we're okay. She sounds like she's been crying.
Inside the flood bay, things are completely still. Captain Chrysanthemum and Mr. Rye are nowhere to be seen. I think of Oswald. All those humans who had families, who didn't belong the the void, but were infected, thus sucked in anyway.
The Doctor and I find our way out of our suits on our own. It's good to be back in my regular clothes. The door opens, and Captain Chrysanthemum walks in.
The Doctor and I both can't help but look at our feet.
And then, rounding the door frame from the hallway, there's a miracle. Mr. Rye is walking supporting a limping figure at his side. I barely recognize the figure to be Oswald. Her whole body is covered in scabbing cuts and what I hope aren't bites, and she smiles weakly at us.
She takes hold of The Doctor, and he looks to the captain for explanation.
"Rye has been working on a serum," Captain Chrysanthemum explained. "He wanted it to cure the Mentals. It's been one dead end after another for the past few weeks, so there wasn't any point in telling you. After the com cut out, we used the controls to depressurize hallways one at a time to drive the Mentals back to their safe. Then Rye went to give the serum one last go. It turned out that whatever he tried worked. He had time to cure about a half dozen of them before..."
My stomach drops. "Before we murdered the rest," I whisper.
"You did what you had to do," the Captain says, but the weight of the dead presses down her shoulders.
Rye finally speaks: "The others who are cured are in the med bay. Oswald insisted on seeing you. She's temporarily lost her voice. They all have. They haven't been cured from the metal- they're still mechanical. But they're not being controlled by it anymore. They're humans." He smiles at Oswald as he says this, and she smiles back.
Oh, but it isn't over quite yet...
Read On, Awkward Ferrets!
~TheLivingParadox