A/N - Don't worry. I didn't forget about you guys. Come tomorrow or Tuesday, we'll be going to updates every other day or so. Maybe I'll start the Outtakes/Deleted Scenes book soon so I'm still giving you content.
Loud music played through the speakers in the console.
It was some rock song that Elise had never heard by a human band she'd never heard of. Elise decided she didn't like Rock n' Roll.
Amy and Rory played darts while Elise was sitting on the stairs sketching Idris while the Doctor stood in front of the monitor.
"Forty six. Rubbishy, rubbishy, rubbish," Amy told Rory.
Elise rolled her eyes. She'd never understand human games. She and the Doctor played football sometimes when the Ponds were sleeping and she wasn't too tired.
"Hello? It's a double top," Rory argued.
"Wrong side of the wire, mister."
"You're on the oche, Red."
The music abruptly cut off.
"Who wants fish and chips?" the Doctor asked.
Rory raised his hand. "I'll drop you both off. Take your time. Don't rush."
"Er, and you?" Rory asked.
Elise had once again been forgotten. Maybe she needed to speak up more.
"Things to do. Things involving other things."
"Well, we'll stay with you. We'll do the other things," Amy said, joining the Doctor on the platform.
"Nope."
"Whatever you're up to, I'd personally like to be a part of it."
The Doctor looked at her apprehensively.
"What?"
An alarm went off and the TARDIS lurched.
Elise was thrown from stairs. The Doctor grabbed her before her face could slam into the console.
"Solar tsunami. Came directly from your sun. A tidal wave of radiation. Big, big, big."
The Doctor pulled levers as he tried to direct the TARDIS.
"Oh Doctor, my tummy's going funny," Rory moaned.
"Well, the gyrator disconnected. Target tracking is out. Assume the position!"
"What does that mean?!" Elise yelled.
"Do I what do," Amy told her. Amy ran to the jump seat and put her head between her knees.
Elise copied her.
Rory knelt down on the platform and did the same.
The TARDIS landed and everything was quiet.
The Doctor jumped up. "Textbook landing."
They made their way to the TARIDS doors and the Doctor threw them open. "Behold, a cockerel! Love a cockerel."
They all stepped out.
"And underneath, a monastery. Thirteenth century."
"Oh, we've gone all medieval," Amy commented.
"I'm not sure about that," Rory told her.
"Really? Medieval expert are you?"
"No, it's just that I can hear Dusty Springfield."
There was indeed music coming from the monastery.
The Doctor knelt beside a hole with an exposed pipe. "These fissures are new. Solar tsunami sent out a huge wave of gamma particles. This is caused by a magnetic quake that occurs just before the wave hits."
"Well, the monastery's standing," Amy said.
The Doctor took a snowglobe out of his jacket and shook it. Elise failed to see how that helped anything. "Yeah, for now."
"Doctor, look," Rory told him.
"Yeah. It's a supply pipe." The Doctor scanned it with his screwdriver. "Ceramic inner lining. Something corrosive. They're pumping something nasty off this island to the mainland."
"My mum's a massive fan of Dusty Springfield," Rory commented.
"Who isn't? Right, let's go. Satisfy our rabid curiosity."
The Doctor and Amy took off for the steps leading to the monastery. Rory and Elise cautiously followed after them. The steps led to a courtyard.
"So where are these Dusty Springfield loving monks, then?" Amy asked as the Doctor scanned their surroundings.
"I think we're here. This is it."
"Doctor, what are you talking about? We've never been here before." Rory said.
"Hmm?"
"We came here by accident?" Amy reminded him.
The Doctor turned to face them. "Accident? Yes, I know. Accident."
Rory reached out to touch one of the pipes, only to yank his hand back. "Ow!"
"Acid. They're pumping acid off this island. That's old stuff," the Doctor reassured him, "Fresh acid, you wouldn't have a finger."
Amy inspected Rory's hand as the Doctor walked off.
"Intruder alert. Intruder alert."
The Doctor walked back to them. "There are people coming. Well, almost."
"Almost coming?" Amy asked.
"Almost people."
Amy and the Doctor ran off.
"I think we should really be going," Rory said.
Elise nodded, agreeing with him.
"Come on!" Amy yelled.
"I'm telling you. When something runs towards you, it is never for a nice reason."
Amy grabbed onto his jacket, pulling him after her.
Elise ran to catch up with them.
They ran into a room full of people in harnesses.
"What are all these harnesses for?" Amy asked.
"The almost people?" Rory guessed.
"What are they, prisoners, or are they meditating, or what?"
"Well, at the moment they fall into the "or" what category," the Doctor told them.
"Halt and remain calm."
"Well, we've halted. How are we all doing on the calm front?"
A group of people, the same people in the harnesses, came running into the room. They were all brandishing spears of some kind.
"Don't move!" a man told them.
"Stay back, Jen. We don't know who they are," another said.
"So let's ask them. Who the hell are you?" Jen asked.
"Well, I'm the Doctor, and this is Amy, Elise, and Rory, and it's all very nice, isn't it?"
"Hold up. You're all. What are you all? Like identical twins?" Amy asked them.
Two people in odd looking suits came down a set of stairs.
"This is an Alpha Grade industrial facility. Unless you work for the military or for Morpeth Jetson, you are in big trouble," the woman said. She seemed to be in charge.
"Actually, you're in big trouble," the Doctor said, pulling out his psychic paper.
The woman snatched it out of his hand.
"Meteorological Department? Since when?"
"Since you were hit by a solar wave."
"Which we survived."
"Just, by the look of it. And there's a bigger one on the way."
"Which we'll also survive. Dicken, scan for bugs."
"Backs against the wall. Now," one of the men in the orange suits said.
The Doctor, Elise, Amy, and Rory did as they said.
"You're not a monastery, you're a factory. Twenty second century army-owned factory," the Doctor said.
"You're army?" Amy asked.
Elise smirked as she remembered Amy in Churchill's bunker.
"No, love. We're contractors, and you're trespassers," the woman said.
"It's clear, boss," Dicken told her.
"All right, weatherman, your ID checks out." She held out the psychic paper as the Doctor came towards her. "If there's another solar storm, what are you going to do about it? Hand out sunblock?"
The Doctor took it from her and laughed. "I need to see your critical systems."
"Which one?"
"You know which one."
The woman, named Cleaves, led them into room with a vat full of a milky white substance.
"And there you are," the Doctor said, wonder in his voice.
"Meet the government's worst kept secret," Cleaves said, "The Flesh. It's fully programmable matter. In fact, it's even learning to replicate itself at the cellular level."
"Right. Brilliant. Lost," Amy said.
"Okay. Once a reading's been taken, we can manipulate its molecular structure into anything. Replicate a living organism down to the hairs on its chinny chin chin. Even clothes. And everything's identical. Eyes, voice..."
"Mind, soul?" the Doctor added.
Elise's eyes met his. She narrowed them, wondering what he was up to. What was he thinking? She knew by the way he was acting that they hadn't landed there by accident. An idea hit Elise. Was this to do with Amy? She'd seen the Doctor scanning Amy for pregnancy, but the monitor couldn't make up its mind.
"Don't be fooled, Doctor. It acts like life but it still needs to be controlled by us, from those harnesses you saw," Cleaves told him.
"Wait, whoa. Hold it. So, you're Flesh now?" Rory asked.
"I'm lying in a harness back in that chamber. We all are, except Jennifer here. Don't be scared. This thing, just like operating a forklift truck."
"You said it could grow. Only living things grow," the Doctor said.
"Moss grows. It's no more than that. This acid is so dangerous we were losing a worker every week. So now we mine the acid using these doppelgangers. Or Gangers," Cleaves explained, "If these bodies get burnt or fall in the acid..."
"Then who the hell cares, right, Jen?" Buzzer, one of the men, asked.
"Nerve endings automatically cut off like airbags being discharged. We wake up and get a new Ganger," Jennifer said.
Rory nodded, understanding.
"It's weird, but you get used to it," the other man, Jimmy, commented.
"Jennifer, I want you in your Ganger. Get back to the harness," Cleaves ordered.
Jennifer left as the Doctor scanned the Flesh.
"Hang on, what's he up to? What you up to, pal?" Buzzer asked.
"Stop it." The Doctor jerked his hand back and pocketed his screwdriver. "Strange. It was like for a moment there it was scanning me." He placed his hand on the surface.
"Doctor...Get back, Doctor! Leave it alone," Cleaves told him.
He finally pulled his hand back. "I understand."
"Doctor? Are you all right?" Amy asked.
"Incredible. You have no idea. No idea. I mean, I felt it in my mind. I reached out to it, and it to me."
"Don't fiddle with the money, Doctor," Cleaves said, her tone patronizing.
"How can you be so blinkered? It's alive. So alive."
It finally dawned on Elise.
"You're piling your lives, your personalities directly into it."
There was flash from outside and the monastery shook.
"It's the solar storm. The first waves come in pairs. Pre-shock and fore-shock. It's close," the Doctor said.
"Buzzer, we got anything from the mainland yet?" Cleaves asked.
"No, the comms are still too jammed with radiation."
"Okay. Then we'll keep pumping acid until the mainland says stop. Now why don't you stand back and let us impress you?"
Elise did not like Cleaves one bit.