Mission #5-B: Worthless
Being a continuation of the macrovirus/invasion tie-in begun in "A Very Wicky Problem." This mission turned out to be very long and thus is divided into three parts instead of my usual two.
A thank you to
greencat3 for beta-ing!
Disclaimer: The PPC is the creation of Jay and Acacia. Doctor Who and Torchwood are the property of the BBC. “Worthless” is the creation of horns-halos4ever, and she is more than welcome to keep it. I sure don’t want it.
Living Typo Disclaimer: The Mini-Major-General Sir Rodric Murgatroyd is from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore continuum and was adopted from Tawaki. The Mini-Brick Enjorlas is from Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables continuum and his adoption was approved by Miss Irene of UDÉM. Benjamain Barker is from Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd continuum and was adopted from BattleHamster. Beethoven “Moonlight” Sonata was found in “Blood in the Stars,” a Firefly fanfic by phoenix catcher.
Warning: This mission contains spoilers for the first part of Tawaki’s macrovirus crisis (Episode #16 of Tawaki’s mission log), specifically in the form of a certain character death. Anyone strongly invested in PPC canon will wish to read Tawaki’s mission first. It can be found here: http://community.livejournal.com/tawaki_ppc/5882.html
In addition, it contains references and minor spoilers to the RP session of April 17-21, 2008, on the PPC Posting Board. These are minor and participation in the RP is not necessary to understand this fic. The threads can be found here: http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=199610;article=166244;title=PPC%20Posting%20Board
And here: http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=199610;article=166470;title=PPC%20Posting%20Board
The Mission:
The interior of the TARDIS looked almost exactly like their Response Centre, down to the three minis singing showtunes around a bowl of blood. Maria scooped up Sir Rodric and Enjorlas and snuggled them, patting Benjamain so he wouldn’t feel left out but not letting him get too close to her throat. She joined in their rendition of “Nothing’s Gonna Harm You.”
Crispin examined the manual. “Okay, so these buttons set horizontal coordinates, those ones do vertical, this thingy over here does temporal-hey, did Techno-Dann say what year we were supposed to get there?”
“Don’t think so,” said Maria. “Present-day, I guess.”
“Right. This is…2008? May…no, March. Or is it April now?” Crispin punched in the coordinates for PPC-HQ. “And to activate, we just press this, spin this, and ding the bicycle bell.”
Crispin’s hand came down on the bell just as the PPC console (which is different from the TARDIS console, despite having a similar name) let out a familiar and unwelcome sound.
[BEEEEEP!]
[Ding!]
The TARDIS lurched unpleasantly, and a sound that Crispin identified as the Cloister Bell began to echo through the room. Moon squeaked in alarm and ducked behind the door that, back in HQ, had lead to the corridor. The minis scrambled to hide behind Maria.
“What did you do?” Maria shouted over the sound of the Cloister Bell. Crispin searched through the manual.
“I don’t know! The two consoles must have interfered with each other! Check the console-no, not that console, the other one! See if it says anything!” He gave up looking at the manual-the Doctor never used one, anyway-and started pressing random buttons.
Maria went over to the PPC console and looked at the screen. “I don’t believe this,” she muttered. “HQ is under attack by giant viruses and they’re still sending us on missions? I thought we were supposed to go to that town!”
“Apparently, no one told the console. Where’s the Sue?”
“Cardiff, Wales, twenty-first century. Torchwood-verse.”
“Sweet!” Crispin punched the air. “First a TARDIS, now we get to go to Torchwood! This is great!”
“Did you forget the part where HQ is under attack, a man is dead, and said TARDIS seems to be hurtling us to our doom?”
“Oh, yeah.” Crispin paused for a moment, looking sufficiently chastened. Then he began dashing around the console, messing with things in a manner reminiscent of a certain Time Lord. With Crispin’s long coat, the resemblance was actually quite striking. “I’m setting coordinates for Cardiff. Maybe the Rift can pull us out of…whatever’s going on. Where’d Moon go?”
Maria pointed at the door. She then let out a yelp as Benjamain attempted to gain her attention by stabbing her in the boot. The Mini-Razor motioned that it wanted to be picked up. Maria carried it back over to the other Minis, keeping it away from any major arteries. “I can’t play with you right now, okay? We’ll have some fun later.”
The TARDIS lurched again, sending Maria sprawling on the floor, then everything was still.
“Cardiff!” Crispin shouted triumphantly. “I knew the Rift could get us through! Hey, Moon! We’ve got a mission!”
“Just a second!” came Moon’s muffled reply.
Maria got to her feet. “Are you sure we should take the mission?” she asked. “Techno-Dann did say to go to New Caledonia.”
“We’re in a time machine,” Crispin reminded her. “We can get there whenever we want. It’s Torchwood, Maria!”
Maria rolled her eyes. Sci-fi geeks. “Fine.”
Crispin did some last-minute fiddling with the controls, making sure everything was secure. As he pressed the last button, there was a beep from the chair where he’d left his equipment.
[Beep!] beeped the CAD. [Can I have a hug?]
Crispin awkwardly picked the device up and gave it a hug. “Um, are you all right?”
[No!] it wailed. [How can Makes-Things die? He was my father! Who will fix me now?]
“Um, I’ll take care of you. It’ll be okay.” How exactly did one comfort a grieving technological gadget?
[Wah! He’s DEAD! Nothing’s going to be okay!]
Maria snatched the CAD out of Crispin’s hands. “Listen. Everything will be fine. Now stop freaking. We need you for the mission. You’re very important, don’t you know that? Wouldn’t Makes-Things want you to do the job he made you for?”
[Well, yes…]
“So, no moping. You’re going to help us and make Makes-Things proud of you. Okay?”
[*sniff* Okay.] Maria gently turned it off and handed it back to Crispin, who stared at her.
“That was…kind of sweet,” he said. “I didn’t know you did sweet.”
Maria shrugged it off. “Moon!” she shouted. “We’re going!”
“Coming!” There was a loud crash, and Moon appeared with a guilty look on his face and his violin in his hand. “Do I get to kill this one, or are you going to make me hold the portal open again?”
“Sure, you can kill the ‘Sue,” Crispin said, cutting off Maria’s negative reply. “There shouldn’t be much need for portals in this one, anyway.”
Maria pulled open the TARDIS door and looked out at the rainy streets of modern-day Cardiff. “Let’s kill this thing.”
Crispin’s CAD beeped, turning itself back on. [For Makes-Things!]
***
However, her mother looked at the book and asked, “Why do you even try?” Angela looked at her mother with a confused look. Only to have her grab the book from her hands, throw it into the tomato sauce that was going to go with dinner. “Why in the HELL do you try so hard, when we all know that you will never succeed at anything?”
“Mom!”
“You are worthless. How can you even live with yourself? You are NOTHING! You are WORTHLESS!”
“Oh, look!” said Maria, “Angst! How original!”
From their hiding place in a poorly-defined hallway, Moon stared at the Sue’s mother. “Why would you throw the book in the tomato sauce? Now you’ve spoiled dinner.”
Crispin gave the obligatory explanation of how one should never apply logic to a Suefic, then wrote down ‘excessive angst’ on the charge list. Maria pulled the two boys into a closet as the Sue came running past in a fit of angst. The agents followed her out into the street.
Moon kept a few feet behind his partners. So, they couldn’t get back into Headquarters, could they? They were completely cut off from their floral masters. This was his chance. He tucked his hands in his pockets in order to assume a cool posture, and his fingers brushed against something metallic. He pulled it out and examined it in the dim evening light.
It was a silvery cylinder, with assorted buttons and switches on it. Moon recalled seeing something similar in the possession of some agents he’d passed back in Headquarters. He pressed the most prominent button.
A blade of red energy shot out from the cylinder. Moon made a sound somewhat like that of a distressed gerbil and dropped it on the ground. The blade cut through a hedge as it fell, and a piece of shrubbery fell from it, sizzling. Moon bent down and pressed the button again, making the blade disappear, before Maria and Crispin turned around.
“What was that?” Crispin asked. “Sounded like a lightsaber. This isn’t a Star Wars crossover, is it?”
Moon shoved the thing back in his pocket. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“Pay attention,” Maria told them. “The Sue’s about to get rescued from presumed Daleks.”
“What’s a presumed Dalek?” Moon asked. He kept his hand curled around the thing in his pocket, taking care not to press the button of doom.
“Something that we think is a Dalek because it sounds like one and Sues aren’t very creative, but is never actually called a Dalek.”
“Oh.” Moon had no idea what a Dalek was, but he nodded as if he did. The sooner they thought he was informed, the sooner their attention would go elsewhere. He wanted to focus on this thing in his pocket. It was a weapon, certainly, something from one of the multitudes of universes to which the talking flowers had access. The real question was how it had gotten in his pocket. He certainly hadn’t put it there, and he hadn’t been in close contact with any of the flowers’ agent minions, other than Crispin and Maria.
Then he remembered. There had been a man without any distinguishing features, who’d talked to him in the nondescript grey hallway. Moon’s memory of the event was slightly fuzzy, which may have been the result of hitting his head on the wall too many times, but they had talked long enough that the man might have had a chance to slip it into his pocket.
Perhaps the man had not been a loyal minion of the talking flowers, as Moon had thought. Perhaps he had slipped Moon this weapon because he recognized Moon’s motives. He had claimed that he’d wanted to help. Maybe there was some sort of resistance out there, fighting against the flowers and their leafy reign of terror.
Maria and Crispin, a few steps ahead of Moon, were oblivious to their partner’s plotting. Maria was completely occupied with forcibly holding Crispin back as he tried to lunge at the Sue, brandishing the pen with which he’d been writing charges.
“Why…would Jack…tell her…that he’s immortal?” Crispin forced out through clenched teeth. “He didn’t even tell his TEAM for ages! Can’t we kill her?”
“Just a little longer,” Maria assured him. “Moon, can you give me a…Moon?” She looked back over her shoulder to see the typo disappearing around the corner of the Sue’s house. “Hey! Glaurung it all, what’s he doing now?”
Crispin stopped his struggling to look back at the fleeing Moon. “Do you have a bad feeling about this? Because I’m getting a really bad feeling about this.”
“Yeah, ‘bad feeling’ describes it pretty well. You know the canon better than I do-you follow the Sue. I’ll go after Moon.” She nocked an arrow in his bow. “I’ll try not to kill him too badly.”
Continued...