Chapter Four: Spaceships and Tears
[Tardis]
Amy is floating in space, with the Doctor holding on to her ankle from the open door of the Tardis, while Emily just sat there taking in the view.
"Now do you believe me?" The Doctor asked as he pulled Amy back inside the Tardis.
"Okay, your box is a spaceship. It's really, really a spaceship. We are in space! What are we breathing?"
"I've extended the air shell. We're fine."
The trio's eyes were drawn to the city that was floating in space.
"Now that's interesting. Twenty ninth century. Solar flares roast the earth, and the entire human race packs its bags and moves out till the weather improves. Whole nations."
Emily follows the Doctor as he runs back to the console and the doors close.
"That's so cool."
"Doctor?"
"Migrating to the stars."
"Doctor?"
Emily and the Doctor continued, oblivious to Amy's calls.
"So, what? They just built whole nations on top of spaceships and flew away?"
"It's amazing, isn't it?"
"Doctor!"
The Doctor and Emily realise that Amy had been locked outside and pull her back in.
"Well, come on." The Doctor said. "I've found us a spaceship. This is the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland. All of it, bolted together and floating in the sky. Starship UK. It's Britain, but metal. That's not just a ship, that's an idea. That's a whole country, living and laughing and shopping. Searching the stars for a new home."
"Can we go out and see?" Emily asked.
"Course we can. But first, there's a thing."
"A thing?"
"An important thing. In fact, Thing One. We are observers only. That's the one rule I've always stuck to in all my travels. I never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets."
Emily could tell straight away that he was lying. It becomes even more obvious when an image of a little girl waiting by the lifts appear on the scanner and the Doctor stares curiously at it.
"Ooo, that's interesting." The Doctor remarks.
Score one for Emily.
"So we're like a wildlife documentary, yeah?" Amy said sadly. "Because if they see a wounded little cub or something, they can't just save it, they've got to keep filming and let it die. It's got to be hard. I don't think I could do that. Don't you find that hard, being all, like, detached and cold?
Amy sees the Doctor and Emily on the scanner, speaking to the weeping girl.
"Doctor? Em?"
He gestures for her to join him, while the girl runs off.
[London Market]
"Welcome to London Market. You are being monitored."
"We're in the future. Like hundreds of years in the future. We've been dead for centuries." Amy said in disbelief.
"Oh, lovely. You're a cheery one. Never mind dead, look at this place. Isn't it wrong?"
"What's wrong?" Emily asked.
"Come on, use your eyes. Notice everything. What's wrong with this picture?"
"Is it the bicycles? Bit unusual on a spaceship, bicycles."
"Says the girl in the nightie."
Amy looked horrified. "Oh my God, I'm in my nightie."
"Now, come on, look around you. Actually look."
"London Market is a crime-free zone."
"Life on a giant starship. Back to basics. Bicycles, washing lines, wind-up street lamps. But look closer. Secrets and shadows, lives led in fear. Society bent out of shape, on the brink of collapse. A police state." He runs over to a table with two people. "Excuse me."
He takes a pint glass of water from the table and puts it on the floor. He looks at it for a moment then returns it to the table.
"What are you doing?"
"Sorry. Checking all the water in this area. There's an escaped fish. Where was I?"
Emily was confused. "Why did you just do that with the water?"
"Don't know. I think a lot. It's hard to keep track. Now, police state. Do you see it yet?"
"Where?" Amy asked.
"There."
He pointed to the weeping girl, all alone. The Doctor and the two sisters go to her and a Winder watches them.
[Tower]
A field telephone rings. A thin faced man answers whilst watching the Doctor on a screen.
"Are you sure?"
"Saw it myself. Are you going to tell her?"
"We're under orders to tell her." He replied, taking a moment to think.
"Well done. Keep tabs on him. Have there been any sightings of Her?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure it's Her? The one from the painting?"
"I'm positive."
"Good. You know what to do."
He hangs up and dials different number.
"Sorry to interrupt. There's been a sighting. London block, Oxford Street. A man."
"Did he do the thing?"
"Apparently."
"I'll have a look on the monitors."
[London Market]
"One little girl crying. So?" Amy questioned.
"Crying silently." He replied.
Emily saw her sisters confusion. "Children cry because they want attention, because they're hurt or afraid. But when they cry silently, it's because they just can't stop." She said sadly.
"Any parent knows that." The Doctor agreed, looking at Emily.
Amy looked at him in surprise. "Are you a parent?"
The Doctor ignored her. "Hundreds of parents walking past who spot her and not one of them's asking her what's wrong, which means they already know, and it's something they don't talk about. Secrets. They're not helping her, so it's something they're afraid of. Shadows, whatever they're afraid of, it's nowhere to be seen, which means it's everywhere. Police state."
A Smiler watches Mandy get into a lift.
"Where'd she go?"
"Deck two oh seven. Apple Sesame block, dwelling 54A. You're looking for Mandy Tanner." The Doctor gives Amy a colourful wallet. "Oh, er, this fell out of her pocket when I accidentally bumped into her. Took me four goes. Ask her about those things. The smiling fellows in the booths. They're everywhere."
"But they're just things." Amy said confused.
"They're clean." Emily realised.
The Doctor nodded.
"Exactly. Everything else here is all battered and filthy. Look at this place. But no one's laid a finger on those booths. Not a footprint within two feet of them. Look. Ask Mandy, why are people scared of the things in the booths? Emily, you go with her."
"No, hang on. What do we do? I don't know what I'm doing here and I'm not even dressed." Amy complained.
"It's this or Leadworth. What do you think? Let's see. What will Amy Pond choose?" She looked at him, defeated. "Ha ha, gotcha. Meet me back here in half an hour."
"What are you going to do?"
"What I always do. Stay out of trouble." Emily gave him a pointed look and he relented. "Badly."
"So is this how it works, Doctor? You never interfere in the affairs of other peoples or planets, unless there's children crying?"
"Yes."
Amy started walking away, but Emily hesitated.
"Doctor?"
"Yes?"
She bit her lip. "I don't know what it is, but . . . I've got a bad feeling about this place. A really bad feeling."
"Em! Hurry up!"
She left the Doctor to catch up to Amy.
The Doctor sat there for moment before getting up to investigate his hunch.
Me too Emily. Me too.
[Deck 207]
Amy and Emily leave footprints in the dirt of Dean Street. They were looking for Mandy when a voice made them jump.
"You're following me. Saw you both watching me at the marketplace."
It was Mandy.
"You dropped this."
"Yeah, when your friend kept bumping into me."
"What's that?"
Emily's bad feeling intensified. Trying to block it out was getting harder and harder.
"There's a hole." Mandy said. "We have to go back."
"A what? A hole?" Amy asked incredulously.
Right outside Magpie Electricals is a striped workman's hut with yellow flashing lights and a keep out sign.
"Are you stupid? There's a hole in the road. We can't go that way. There's a travel pipe down by the airlocks, if you've got stamps." Amy made her way over to the hut. "What are you doing?"
"Oh, don't mind me. Never could resist a keep out sign."
Emily turned to Mandy. "What's through there? What's so scary about a hole? Something under the road?"
Amy started at the workman's hut padlock.
"Nobody knows. We're not supposed to talk about it."
"About what?" She asks.
"Below."
"And because you're not supposed to, you don't?"
"Amy." Emily warned. Her sister ignored her.
"Watch and learn." Amy picks the lock with a hairpin, the trio oblivious to the watching Smiler.
"You sound Scottish."
"I am Scottish. What's wrong with that? Scotland's got to be here somewhere." Amy mutters that last bit.
"No. They wanted their own ship."
Emily smiles. "Ha! Good for them. Nothing changes."
"So, how did you get here?" Mandy asked Emily.
Neither girl noticed the Smiler change to a Frowner.
"Oh, just passing through, you know, with a guy."
"Your boyfriend?"
Emily scrunched up her face. "What? No."
"Oh." Amy breathed out in realisation.
"What?" Mandy asked.
"Nothing. It's just, I'm getting married. Funny how things slip your mind."
"Married?"
Emily raised her eyebrows at her sister. "Seriously? First you call it 'just stuff' then you call it 'nothing'. What's next?"
Amy ignored her.
"Yeah, shut up, married. Really, actually married. Almost definitely."
"When?"
"Well, it's kind of weird. A long time ago tomorrow morning. I wonder what I did?" The padlock unlocks. "Hey, hey. Result! Coming?"
"No!" Mandy shouts.
Again, no one noticed as the Frowner turn into a Scowler.
Amy shrugged. "Suit yourself."
"Stop! You mustn't do that!"
Emily looked anxiously at the hut. "Amy, I have a bad feeling about-"
"Oh, you and your bad feelings." She dismissed.
After a moment, Emily sighs heavily and follows her sister inside the workman's hut with, which is pulsing with red light. Amy finds a wind-up torch and starts winding it up.
"Oh, my God. That's weird. That's-"
A tentacle lashes at them. Amy backs out while Emily stays, gazing sadly at the tentacle. As Amy gets out, she finds herself surrounded by Winders. One points his ring at her. It emits a gas and she passes out. They next drag a drained Emily out of the hut, silent tears running down her face.
[Engine room]
The Doctor climbs down a ladder and starts feeling the walls.
"Can't be." He mutters to himself.
He scans the walls with his screwdriver before noticing a glass of water on the floor and a woman wearing a porcelain mask.
"The impossible truth in a glass of water." She said. "Not many people see it. But you do, don't you, Doctor?"
"You know me?"
"Keep your voice down." She hissed. "They're everywhere. Tell me what you see in the glass."
"Who says I see anything?" He challenged.
"Don't waste time. At the marketplace, you placed a glass of water on the floor, looked at it, then came straight here to the engine room. Why?"
"No engine vibration on deck." The Doctor said reluctantly. "Ship this size, engine this big, you'd feel it. The water would move. So, I thought I'd take a look. It doesn't make sense. These power couplings, they're not connected. Look. Look, they're dummies, see? And behind this wall, nothing. It's hollow. If I didn't know better, I'd say there was-"
"No engine at all." They chorused.
The Doctor continued, unfazed. "But it's working. This ship is travelling though space. I saw it."
"The impossible truth, Doctor. We're travelling among the stars in a spaceship that could never fly."
"How?"
"I don't know." She admitted. "There's a darkness at the heart of this nation. It threatens every one of us. Help us, Doctor. You're our only hope. Your friend is safe. This will take you to her. Now go, quickly!"
She hands over a tracking device and turns to leave.
"Who are you?" The Doctor asks. "How do I find you again?"
"I am Liz Ten, and I will find you." She said, disappearing into the shadows.
[Voting cubicle]
Amy wakes up in a chair in front of four screens and two large buttons labelled Forget and Protest. A Smiler sat staring at her.
"Welcome to voting cubicle three thirty C." The computer announced. "Please leave this installation as you would wish to find it. The United Kingdom recognises the right to know of all its citizens. A presentation concerning the history of Starship UK will begin shortly. Your identity is being verified on our electoral roll. Name, Amelia Jessica Pond. Age, thirteen hundred and six."
"Shut up." She exclaimed, slumping in her seat.
"Marital status . . . " Amy sat up straight before slumping again. "Unknown."
A man appears on screen.
"You are here because you want to know the truth about this starship, and I am talking to you because you're entitled to know." He said. "When this presentation has finished, you will have a choice. You may either protest or forget. If you choose to protest, understand this. If just one percent of the population of this ship do likewise, the programme will be discontinued with consequences for you all. If you choose to accept the situation, and we hope that you will, then press the Forget button." He pause. "All the information I'm about to give you will be erased from your memory. You will continue to enjoy the safety and amenities of Starship UK, unburdened by the knowledge of what has been done to save you. Here then, is the truth about Starship UK, and the price that has been paid for the safety of the British people. May God have mercy on our souls."
The presentation is fast, and leaves Amy reeling. Before she knows it, her hand is slamming down on Forget and there are tears in her eyes. The screen displays 'Message Waiting'.
Play.
"This isn't a trick. This is for real." Amy on the screen said. "You've got to find the Doctor and get him back to the Tardis. Don't let him investigate. Stop him. Do whatever you have to, just please, please get the Doctor off this ship!"
The door opens. Mandy can be seen waiting outside and the Doctor bounces in.
"Listen to me. This isn't a trick. This is for real."
"Amy?" The Doctor questions.
"You've got to find the Doctor-" Amy turns off the message.
"What have you done?" The Doctor scans a device in the ceiling.
"Yeah, your basic memory wipe job. Must have erased about twenty minutes."
"But why would I choose to forget?"
"Because everyone does. Everyone chooses the Forget button." Mandy informed.
"Did you?" The Doctor asks.
"I'm not eligible to vote yet." She said. "I'm twelve. Any time after you're sixteen, you're allowed to the see the film and make your choice. And then once every five years."
"And once every five years, everyone chooses to forget what they've learned. Democracy in action. "
Amy finally noticed Emily wasn't there. "Wait, where's Emily?"
The Doctor shrugged. "I don't know. They probably put her in a different cubicle."
"How do you not know about all this?" Mandy asked the Doctor. "Are you Scottish too?"
"Oh, I'm way worse than Scottish." He said. "I can't even see the movie. Won't play for me."
"It played for me." Amy said.
"The difference being the computer doesn't accept me as human."
"Why not? You look human." Amy asked him, confused.
"No, you look Time Lord. We came first."
"So there are other Time Lords, yeah?"
"No. There were, but there aren't." He said. "Just me now. Long story. There was a bad day. Bad stuff happened. And you know what? I'd love to forget it all, every last bit of it, but I don't. Not ever. Because this is what I do, every time, every day, every second. This. Hold tight. We're bringing down the government."
The Doctor hits the Protest button. The door slams shut, trapping him and Amy inside. The Smiler becomes a Scowler and the floor opens up to reveal the long drop.
"Say wheee!"
"Ahhhh!"
Outside Voting Cubicle 330C, the sign changes from Occupied to Empty and Mandy turns to see the masked woman.
"It's all right, love." She removes her mask. "It's only me."
[Waste disposal]
The Doctor drops down a chute into what appears to be organic waste. Amy follows a few moments later with a scream.
"Argh!" The Doctor yells. "High speed air cannon. Lousy way to travel."
"Where are we?'"
"Six hundred feet down, twenty miles laterally, puts us at the heart of the ship. I'd say Lancashire."
"What about Emily?"
He dismissed her. "Oh she'll be fine. What's this then, a cave? Can't be a cave. Looks like a cave."
"It's a rubbish dump, and it's minging!" Amy exclaimed, disgusted.
"Yes, but only food refuse. Organic, coming through feeder tubes from all over the ship."
"The floor's all squidgy, like a water bed."
The Doctor ignored her. "But feeding what, though?"
Amy bent down to feel the floor.
"It's sort of rubbery, feel it. Wet and slimy."
A distance animal noise sounded and Amy shot up.
"Er, it's not a floor, it's a. So . . . "
"It's a what?" She asks warily.
"The next word is kind of a scary word. You probably want to take a moment, get yourself in a calm place. Go omm." He said.
Amy repeated him. "Omm."
"It's a tongue." He said, like a little boy at Christmas.
"A tongue?"
"A tongue. A great big tongue."
Amy looked disgusted. "This is a mouth. This whole place is a mouth? We're in a mouth?"
"Yes, yes, yes. But on the plus side, roomy."
"How do we get out?"
The Doctor either ignored or didn't hear her. "How big is this beastie? It's gorgeous. Blimey, if this is just the mouth, I'd love to see the stomach. Though not right now."
"Doctor, how do we get out?" Amy demands.
"Okay, it's being fed through surgically implanted feeder tubes, so the normal entrance is closed for business." The Doctor said, staring at a wall of lovely big teeth.
Amy starts moving towards the entrance of the mouth. "We could try, though."
"No, stop, don't move." The Doctor warned.
The 'floor' vibrates.
"Too late. It's started."
"What has?"
"Swallow reflex."
The Doctor started buzzing his sonic around the mouth.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm vibrating the chemo-receptors."
"Chemo-what?"
"The eject button."
"How does a mouth have an eject button?"
"Think about it!"
A wave of vomit approaches.
"Right, then." The Doctor straightened his bow tie. "This isn't going to be big on dignity. Geronimo!"
[Unknown Room]
Emily groans as she starts to wake up. Already, different emotions were coursing through her like a movie on fast forward. The one that stood out the most was pain. Like there was thousands of bolts of electricity were ripping through her seconds at a time.
She tried to gain some control again but was distracted by a man entering the room.
"Hello Emily. It is Emily, yes? Emily Pond? From the painting?"
She tried to get away from him but found she was secured tightly to a chair.
"What the hell is going on? Where's Amy? Where's the Doctor? What bloody painting?" Emily demanded.
"I'll take that as a yes. Can I just say, it is an absolute . . . Honour to meet you in person."
Emily stopped struggling in confusion. She studied the man in front of her, who was gazing at her with something akin to awe.
"Now, I'm not technically allowed to ask but-" He leaned in close as if he were sharing a secret. "Is it true? Is what they say true?"
She stared at him blankly.
"Is what true?" She questioned warily.
He glanced discreetly around the room before answering.
"That you have the gift of Empathy."
She froze.
•|•
Ooooohh, what do you think? Did you see that coming?
What do you reckon happens next?
Why did the Winders kidnap Emily specifically?
Will the Doctor and Amy find out about Emmy's little secret?
And how about that?! Two updates in one day.
Who da man?
. . . .