Doctor Who: Panic Moon Ch. 08

The blonde was still very much in the throes of sleep; her hair all akimbo, her eyes heavy lidded and flat. She was still wearing pajamas; a long, fluttering shirt that ended mid-thigh, covering... well, not much, if Lysithea was any judge. The shirt itself was emblazoned with a picture of a happy, smiling cartoon watermelon. Most people would hesitate to venture out of the safety of their bedroom in such a state, but Mara? Hell no. Fuck decorum.

'No more talking, Dulsie,' Lysithea considered it rude to head up a telepathic conversation while a physical one was going on in front of her. 'Mara's here.'

Out loud, she said, 'Can I talk to you about your sister?'

Mara yawned, leaned more heavily against the wall. Her inability to handle mornings was common knowledge around here, although Lysithea was given to understand that this was a fairly recent trend. Tsugi had once tried to wake her up, and the incident that followed was spoken of only in hushed whispers, and never around Tsugi himself. As it stood, the poor guy still refused to even walk past hers and Sander's room until midday.

All this went through Lysithea's mind in the few moments between first speaking and Mara's response. She couldn't help but tell herself: tread lightly.

'Which sister?' Mara said languidly, eyes closed.

'Older one.'

'Ren? Sure, but that's a long conversation, if it's about her, yeah?' Mara drifted forward, swaying, and turned Lysithea around, putting an arm around her shoulder. She guided the Trine-form down the hall, 'So let's mosey on down to the kitchen, Ly, so's I can get me some fucking coffee. Fuck, it's early...'

Lysithea wasn't aware nine in the morning qualified as early, but she wasn't about to argue. Together, they drifted leisurely down toward the kitchen, a thoughtful expression spreading across Mara's face. She took a breath in the silence, and spoke slowly, carefully.

'It's early in the morning, so maybe you should cut me a break, but for what it's worth... I promise never to use the word mosey again.'

********************************

Kanaria stared at the frustratingly blank screen, teeth grinding together. Her eye twitched.

It wasn't supposed to happen like this... A.I programming was supposed to be the easy goddamn option, especially given the fields her sisters had settled into. This career? Supposed to set her up, a woman who was supposedly delicate. But this... This was too goddamn much.

'Jericho, anything?' She sighed, leaning back and taking off her glasses.

'Nothing, Miss Kanaria,' The A.I sounded altogether too composed, given that it was becoming increasingly likely that something bad was spreading through his brain. But then, when she thought about it, she had placed strictures on his software to keep him calm. Nobody wanted an agitated A.I. That always seemed to end badly.

The problem was that this bug, Marduk, seemed to be actively resisting attempts to locate and quarantine it. This indicated that it wasn't so much a bug as a particularly vicious viral program, which was impossible given the level of security Kanaria ran around the core system. She hadn't detected even a hint of intrusion, meaning quite simply that there wasn't one. Kanaria wasn't one to brag, but even she freely admitted that she was the best at what she did. No virus could slip by her unnoticed.

But that was the thing, wasn't it? It was easy to say that outside interference into the Trismestigius system was impossible, but something was definitely wrong with Jericho. Kanaria believed in her skills completely, and she knew everyone else did too, but she was also aware that the universe was far larger than merely what she knew about it. There were still surprises out there; the first time she had seen a Cyberman she had been simultaneously horrified and curious about what made it tick. Machines like that were fun. And Trismestigius had a machine that...

The Eternity Engine. A miracle of modern engineering. Sander was a genius, but even he required a lot of help to build and maintain that thing. That was why he had assembled the crew, but more than that, he had needed to call in a lot of favors with some less than savory individuals in order to obtain the materials he needed. Sander had sworn them to secrecy, but it wasn't exactly like criminals were inherently trustworthy. Kanaria had always assumed that if any of them talked, they would find themselves the next target of the Engine they had helped build, but the universe was big, and there was still a risk.

Something like that was too dangerous to simply stand by and watch, if there was even the remotest possibility that outside forces were attempting to gain access to it. It wasn't even necessary to know how to work the damn thing, the fuel cells alone were capable of cracking the entire moon in half and send it flying off into the time vortex.

Kanaria gave a resigned sigh and stood up, leaning her palms against her desk, 'Jericho, keep searching. I'm going out for a bit, and for god's sake find something before I get back.'

'Acknowledged, Miss Kanaria,' Jericho affirmed. 'If you are contacted here before you return, what shall I say you are doing?'

Again, she sighed, 'I'm going to go ask Sander for help. I just hope I'm not interrupting anything...'

**********************

Setton Dulcimer Heskelyn has no eyes, but that does not mean she cannot see. She has no ears, but she can hear. No voice, but she has words. No head, but she has a brain.

In fact, she has a rather intelligent brain, set somewhat lower in her body. Well, it was more like a neural lattice... network really, distributed throughout her physical form. This, coupled with the Dullahan's remarkable tissue regeneration rate, and it was incredibly hard to inflict brain damage on a Dullahan.

The point was, she was beginning to figure things out. It wasn't hard, when you didn't exactly perceive time in a linear fashion. It was a lot of little things, but they were all happening at once... The Marduk issue, for one. And the far more troubling fact that someone, somewhere, was claiming that Sander Hackett was still alive.

It had been all over the networks for months now; rumors and whispering on message boards and the like. Sander Hackett, the first planetwide governor in history to be deposed by his own people, the infamous xenocide, with the blood of the Vesper race on his hands, alive? Even if it was just some anonymous troll on some backwater world making shit up, it had unsettled Sander because... Well, it was true.

The other possibility, that someone had discovered him and was posting about it, wasn't exactly any better. Not that it really mattered; all attempts from Sander to uncover the identity of the original poster had come up unsuccessful, and regardless of the source, people were beginning to put some feelers out. To investigate. Sander was well hidden, nobody knew he was here, but suddenly being out in the world again and discussed as a fact rather than as history was freaking him out a little. It was the uncertainty that really did him in, but that was only just ahead of the idea of Sander Hackett being a person, again.

And didn't it make the people of Vesperia angry?

To them, it was either a cruel hoax in very poor taste, or it was license to begin a manhunt. Either way, they were pissed. Add in the fact that the day his wife had died was edging ever closer, and you had one unhappy Sander. It came upon him periodically, that profound ennui that came when any genuine sadness had been pounded out of a person by the years. A frowning Sander was not a fun Sander to be around, but he masked it well, usually. Dulsie could tell, though, even without eyes.

And all these things happening around him provided a distinct possibility that someone, or something, was out and looking for him. She had no real proof of this, but Dulcimer had been around for long enough to know when something wasn't right.

Which is why it wasn't terribly surprising when she heard her door lock itself for no reason.

She stood, at that, but did not move herself from her cushion. A Dullahan's field of vision was essentially three hundred and sixty degrees, so she could see her door, locked tight without any intervention from herself, and- she could tell- nobody on the other side of it. That was... ominous.

It was at times like this that she wished she could sigh, but without a voice or a person to project to that would understand why, she was sadly unable to.

That desire only intensified when the power across the entire base failed, plunging her into darkness.

************************

'Sir, everything is ready. We can proceed whenever you want to. Although the feeling among the men is that we should do this sooner rather than later.'

'And I see no need to delay, Huxley. Sander's waiting, and I'd hate for him to think that I've forgotten about him. It's a sad thing, to be forgotten.'

'Shall I tell him to go ahead, then?'

'Yes, yes,' The man smiled, an expression that even now chilled Huxley to his core. It was intensely distressing to think that a human being could look like that, 'I'll be interested to see what he can do. Are the toy soldiers particularly angry that they don't get a turn?'

Huxley shifted uncomfortably, 'They're angry in general, sir. And they aren't hugely enthused about having to work with you to get what they want, either. It's really a zero-sum game for them, and they know that.'

'That's too bad, then,' A tilt of the head, somehow making his expression even uglier. 'I look forward to the show, but it does make me wish I knew who my dear Sander's friends are, really. I bet they're interesting. What do you think they're like?'

'I don't want to speculate, sir,' Huxley said, skimming over the fact that he didn't really care, either. This was a mission, not a soap opera.

'I bet they're interesting...' He repeated wistfully. 'Although I suppose it only really matters that my dear Sander and his girlfriend are there, doesn't it? Well, you have the go ahead, Huxley. Let's watch the scene unfold. Go, tell him he's free to begin.'

'Yes, sir,' Huxley retreated from the room as fast as he could without seeming like he was fleeing. Whenever he was facing away from his employer, he felt like there was a distinct possibility of being shot in the back. That man terrified him, but sometimes you had to make a deal with the devil to get what you wanted...

He knew he was being watched, those intense eyes boring into his back as he left. And that rhythmic, slow tapping as his finger poked at the arm of his chair. Huxley had noticed that habit early on, and it had been fairly consistent over the course of... whatever this was. But this time, the tap, tap, tap was interspersed with speech.

'Run, run, run, run, run, Sander Hackett... Run, run, run away...'

To be continued...