Doctor Who: Panic Moon Ch. 11

'Yes. Set to take out our orbital scanners without our knowing about it,' Kanaria frowned. 'We're effectively blind out there, which makes me think that something is coming. Soon.'

Sander spun, eyes burning, and stalked over to Marduk, 'Who the fuck sent you? Who is coming? What are we dealing with, asshole?'

'You know, I'm beginning to think that I was never meant to kill you all,' Marduk said, bitterness creeping into his voice. 'Master... I was meant to fail, wasn't I? My whole reason for being was killing you...' A pair of insubstantial, glowing eyes flicked up to meet Sander's, 'But I can still fuck you over, bitch. I'll stay quiet, I think.'

'Alright, fine,' Sander shrugged, turning on his heel and making for the door. 'Kana, delete him. Salvage his code, keep anything interesting, but make sure this fucker isn't getting up at the end of it. Tear him apart. Be merciless.'

He kept walking as he spoke, back to the pair, hands in his pockets. Projecting nonchalance like a physical force. But, where the others couldn't see, he grinned. He could hear Marduk's panicked little noises. He might have been all data, but he was based on a person, he had to have survival instincts.

It was an odd thing, listening to an A.I panic. They had no centralized voice of their own; everything they said, every single vocalization, came out of the nearest set of speakers. Effectively, it was like listening to the entire room freak out.

'Wait!'

He stopped. Just right.

'What?'

'You want to know who my master is?' It was strange, hearing Marduk try to be appeasing. 'I'll tell you. Just... Come on, don't delete me?'

'Make it fast, and make it good, fucker.'

There was no build up, no fanfare. Clearly the fear of death had made Marduk far more cooperative, and far less chatty. One name. Two words.

Sander's eyes widened as a wave of cold dread swept through him. He found himself backing up, step by step, toward the door as Kanaria watched, and Marduk grinned smugly. Finally, a rational thought made it through the fog of panic:

'Mara!' He headed off down the corridor at a dead sprint.

There was silence, for a moment, as Kanaria blinked in confusion. She shrugged, and spun in her seat to regard Marduk with a nasty smile, 'I think he said to delete you.' She turned back to her computer.

'Oh, motherfu-!'

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

Sander ran, as fast as he could. Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

He hit the next corner without slowing down. It barely made any sense, but sense no longer meant anything. A nightmare was coming to his home, and when it got here, it would kill each and every one of them. He had been lucky, the last time, and...

Fuck! Where did Mara say she was going to be, again?

Comm. station, right! Two lefts, third door. Big, heavy steel thing, made to keep people out. High importance location, needs protection.

They all need protection, right now.

One left. Two... Fuck! Third door's open, he skidded as he reached it, grabbing onto the frame for support. Threw himself into the room.

'Mara-' He found himself alone. Mara wasn't here. Where was she?

And there was a message, scrawled on the wall in black ink: "Duck, Sander Hackett. Duck right now!"

The spark of the familiar, recognition to be found there. Without properly thinking it through, Sander threw himself to the cold, unyielding steel floor...

...Just as a hail of gunfire slammed into the wall opposite him.

To be continued...