Moving Forward Series - Part 04 - Chapter 16 - Deception & Betrayal
“Didn't think I was going to make it!” As I step into his view he shouts, “It's that man again!” and I wonder what he is on about.
“He's my good luck charm! Come in! Don't be shy! You came by just as I thought I was done for.”
The stuffy woman states, “Any friendship expressed by the Duke of Manhattan does not constitute a form of legal contract.”
I nod at her odd statement as the Duke states, “Winch me up” and I watch as he gives me a thumbs up. The stuffy woman near him presses a button on a remote and the bed tilts forwards and he states in delight “Ah! Look at me! No sign of infection! Petrifold Regression! Turning to stone I was and now every trace gone!”
It all seems rather surreal as a waiter comes by and asks, “Champagne, sir?”
“No thanks.” I state absentmindedly to the waiter as I his words catch my attention. “Uh... you had Petrifold Regression?”
“That being the operative word! Past tense! Completely cured.” I watch as he laughs joyfully.”
“But that's impossible.” Suddenly, impossible again is not so positive.
At my statement another cat nurse comes by and states, “Primitive species would accuse us of magic, but it's merely the tender application of science.”
“How on Earth did you cure him?” There isn’t a know cure for Petrifold regression for another thousand years yet and I know with sickening certainty that something is dreadfully wrong here.
“How on New Earth, you might say.” The cat nurse replies and suddenly I am very curious as to what it is they have been giving him. Nodding to the IV still attached to the Dukes arm, “What's in that solution?”
“A simple remedy.”
Dropping ice into my voice and standing a bit taller, I state, “Then tell me what it is.”
Her pat answer alarms me even more. “I'm sorry, patient confidentiality. I don't believe we've met. My name is Matron Casp.”
“I'm the Doctor.” I state in chill tones that are intended to ensure she knows I don’t intend to be trifled with.
“I think you'll find that we're the Doctors here.” Is her snide reply and before I can say another word Sister Jatt returns.
“Matron Casp - you're needed in intensive care.”
With a completely false smile she turns and quickly leaves, “If you would excuse me.” I nod knowing that regardless of my feelings that this is a hospital and she obviously is needed elsewhere. That does not mean that I intend to let this mystery go and the sooner Rose gets here the better.
I can't help but wonder what they are up to as I watch them walk away.
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I listen to Chip state, “This Doctor man is dangerous,” and can’t help but think how little he knows about how dangerous my Theta can be and if I have anything to say about it, he will very soon be finding out exactly how dangerous.
I can’t help the fury that flushes through my system as I hear Cassandra say, “Dangerous and clever. I might need a mind like his. The Sisterhood is up to something. Remember that Old Earth saying...? Never trust a Nun, never trust a Nurse and never trust a cat. Perfume?”
I watch as Chip takes a small tube of perfume out of his pocket and gives it to her and I cringe as I feel her push it down our cleavage as she strides out of the room with purpose.
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As I move upward in the elevator I try desperately to reach Theta, almost unaware of the disinfectant bath we endure as we move up to Ward 26, and I can still feel Cassandra smoothing down our hair as she spots Theta examining various IV drips. She smiles when he notices her and I want to grit my teeth in frustration but even that is denied me.
“There you are! Come and look at this patient!” Lifting the arm of the patient who’s IV he was examining I notice how very red he is, and wonder what mystery he has found even as I have been dealing with my own drama with Cassandra. Listening intently in the hopes that I can find some way to let him know what has happened, I struggle trying to reach for his mind only to run into Cassandra’s jamming presence. Oblivious to my struggles he continues, “Marconi's Disease. Should take years to recover. Two days. I've never seen anything like it; they've invented a cell-washing cascade, it's amazing. Their medical science is way advanced and this one!”
As I try to reach him, he moves to another bed sporting a completely white skinned man. “Pallidome Pancrosis. Kills you in ten minutes, and he's fine!” He waves cheerily to the patient.
‘DOCTOR!’ I scream at him unwilling to have Cassandra hear his name, but oblivious to my cry he continues, “I need to find a terminal. I've got to see how they do this. Because if they've got the best medicine in the world... then why's it such a secret?”
“I can't Adam and Eve it.” I hear Cassandra say.
I want to cheer as he asks, “What's-- what's with the voice?” looking at her oddly7
“Oh, I don't know... just larking about New Earth... New me...” I watch as she sizes him up like a cat looking at prey and I notice his eyes drift to the buttons Cassandra has undone.
‘NO!” I scream as she starts to speak, and I suddenly know what she intends “Mmm... Aren’t you just...” She very suddenly pulls his face towards her and plants a smacking kiss on his lips and I cringe as I feel our hands in the soft leather of his jacket ensuring he can't back away. When she does finally pull away, he looks extremely shocked and she's slightly breathless. He stares at her gobsmacked as I rage impotently and hope that he finally gets it after this uncharacteristic public display.
I can only hope he has figured it out as I look at his dazed expression and she almost staggers off saying, “T... terminal's this way,” exhaling and out of breath as she walks us away.
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As soon as I spot her coming out of the elevator I know something is wrong as our link hasn’t automatically returned its normal strength but is more like she is deeply unconscious. So I rattle on about patients and medicine advances as I watch her reactions. Everything about how she is moving is also wrong and what has happened? When she grabs and kisses me, I know without question that something is in possession of my Rose. Now the question is what to do about it, and who or what has her under its control.
As she wanders off, I just stare for a moment wondering what I am going to do. Then follow her over and begin enquiring of the terminal to find out what I can, since that is obviously, what this being is expecting. I watch out of the corner of my eye and each word and gesture she makes betrays Rose’s lack of control. I desperately want to just turn and demand that they tell me who they are and try to think of what may have happened. Even as I do, I am trying hard not to think about the possible consequences to Verity and Rose if this is interfering with their connection as badly as it is blocking the one between Rose and I. Their minds are so fragile right now, Rose’s even more so then Verity’s, and nothing I know of that would allow someone this much control over Rose’s body is going to be gentle on her brain.
So I bide my time babbling on about departments and other things of little consequence trying to tease out more information on who this unknown entity is that has hijacked Rose.
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As he stares a the terminal I just glare at him wanting to so bad to grab him by his ears and force him to look at me, make him see that it isn’t us in control. Instead, he prattles on as I glower in frustration as his clueless behavior - you would think he would notice that he couldn’t reach our minds. “Nope... nothing odd... surgery... post-op... nano-dentistry... no sign of a shop... they should have a shop. No, it's missing something else. Those Nurse, Cat/Nuns were talking about Intensive Care. Where is it...?” I hear him mumble, “Why would they hide a whole department?” as he pulls his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket.
I almost jump for joy as Cassandra say, “It's gotta be there somewhere. Search the sub-frame.”
I hear the suspicion as clear as a shout as he says, “What if the sub-frame's locked?”
“Then try the installation protocol...” is Cassandra’s snappish reply.
My joy is quickly replaced with despair as he quickly states, “Yeah, course. Sorry. Hold on.” I realize he may have been surprised by the response but it is obvious that he now considers it be my knowledge that Rose has tapped into and I want to scream. He still doesn't know we are trapped in here that Cassandra is slowly draining the life out of us because we can’t fight her. I can’t make her leave our mind and she is crushing us with her presence. It’s too much too soon and in spite of how hard I am trying to hold on it is getting harder and harder to do. I watch numbly as he clicks his sonic screwdriver off and the entire wall moves downwards, revealing a secret corridor behind. I feel Cassandra smile and as she walks straight into it.
“Intensive Care certainly looks intensive.” I hear him say from behind us and I stare around us as Cassandra takes it all in thinking of ways she can use this knowledge to get what she wants from the Sisterhood.
As we go down metal steps into Intensive Care, we find ourselves in a huge cavernous chamber, looking upon row and row of green doors. I watch as Theta walks over to one of the doors and opens it with his sonic screwdriver. A man, covered in boils and surrounded by smoke looks back at us and I can feel Cassandra’s disgust as she recoils and asking, “What's wrong with him?”
I listen to Theta oft said words of, “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,” and my hearts break, I know how much he feels for the man trapped in this horrendous purgatory of existence. Considering my own predicament at the moment, I can’t help but draw parallels that give me chills as I empathize with how utterly helpless he must feel.
I feel Cassandra hold our nose whilst the Theta closes the door gently and reluctantly opens another revealing yet another victim in this house of horrors. I feel Cassandra’s complete revulsion at the condition of the woman exposed in the next cylinder as she asks, “What disease is that?”
I want to cry but even that is denied us as I hear the deep sadness as he answers, “All of them. Every single disease in the galaxy, they've been infected with everything.”
I rage impotently as all Cassandra can think about is, “What about us? Are we safe?” She is totally oblivious to the anguish of my Theta and that of the people trapped in this existence so like my own at the moment.
I hear him quietly reassure her, “The air's sterile, just don't touch them,” knowing it is just his nature to do so but still wishing he wouldn’t, she doesn’t deserve his compassion. I watch as he dejectedly closes the door and then leans over the railing, looking upon the rows and rows of doors and like a person watching an accident, unable to look away I hear Cassandra ask, “How many patients are there?”
I already know the answer but it doesn’t hurt any less to hear him say it aloud. “They're not patients.”
At Cassandra’s response, I realize she just doesn’t get the full scope, “But they're sick.”
Finally I hear what I have known was coming, the fury that comes when he shoves aside his grief at how truly abominable a species can be to each other in their selfishness and greed and moves on to determined to make it right no matter what it takes. “They were born sick. They're meant to be sick. They exist to be sick. They’re lab rats, no wonder these Sisters have a cure for everything. They've built the ultimate research laboratory a Human farm.”
Finally I think Cassandra is beginning to get it but then she asks, “Why don't they just die?” as if she just can’t quite get her head around the scope of the heinous crime in which we are standing.
His words are bitter and cold as he replies, “Plague carriers; the last to go.”
One of the cat nurses shows up in the hallway behind us. “It's for the greater cause.”
“Matron Casp. When you took your vows, did you agree to this?”
"The Sisterhood has sworn to help."
His fury is cold and deadly as he asks, “What, by killing?”
“But they're not real people. They're specially grown. They have no proper existence.”
At those words, I know she has made a very bad mistake because he knows better. “What's the turnover? Hm? Thousand a day? Thousand the next? Thousand the next? How many thousand? For how many years? How many?” by the time he finishes speaking he his shouting at her and even in spite of Cassandra I feel his fury throbbing through our bond.
Her reply does nothing to cool his anger and makes me just as furious as he. “Mankind needed us. They came to this planet with so many illnesses. We couldn't cope. We did try. We tried everything. We tried using clone-meat and bio-cattle... but the results were too slow. So, the sisterhood grew its own flesh. That's all they are, flesh.”
“These people are alive!” is his furious reply.
“But think of those Humans out there... healthy... and happy, because of us.”
If I weren’t so helpless and furious, I would cheer at his observation. “If they live because of this, then life is worthless.”
Now I know she has gone too far and I hope he can hold it together as she asks. “But who are you to decide that?”
“I'm the Doctor and if you don't like it... if you want to take it to a higher authority, there isn't one. It stops with me,” are his rage filled words.
Just when I thought I couldn’t get angrier at everything that has happened I hear Cassandra ask, “Just to confirm... none of the Humans in the city actually know about this?”
“We thought it best not…”
Just then, he asks the question I had been hoping for earlier and had begun to despair of him ever realizing to ask. “Hold on, I can understand the bodies. I can understand your vows. But one thing I can't understand, what have you done to Rose?”
“I don't know what you mean.”
As I listen, I want to cry with joy, he knows my precious Theta knows and he will get us free now. “And I'm being very, very calm. You wanna be aware of that, very, very calm and the only reason I'm being so very, very calm is that the brain is a delicate thing. Whatever you've done to Rose's head, I want it reversed.”
“We haven't done anything.” I hear the nurse explain.
Thankfully, Cassandra is not smart enough to know when to keep her mouth shut. “I'm perfectly fine.”
His response it to glare at them both, “These people are dying, and Rose would care.” And I realize he has deliberately not informed her of our new connection and I wonder why it has taken him this long to confront her.
I rage as she flirtatiously pulls him around to face her, “Oh, all right, clever clogs.
Smarty pants.” Then thinking she can seduce him she asks in a sultry voice, “Lady-killer”
Almost in despair, I hear the pain in his voice as he asks. “What's happened to you?”
"I knew something was going on in this hospital, but I needed this body and your mind to find it out."
Even in spite of the way Cassandra's presence is crushing me I can feel his boiling wrath at this close distance, "Who are you?"
Horror settles in more deeply to our hearts as Cassandra slides our body up against him and we stand on tiptoes to whispers into his ear. "The Last Human."
I feel him jerk back from her repulsed by the idea of who is in possession of us, "Cassandra?"
'No! No! No, you can't do this!' I rage as I sense her plan for betrayal. Using his trust and his need to protect us against him and for the first time since she took possession she answers my rage. 'Oh yes, I can Rose Tyler and this will be all the better because it will actually be your body I use to get my justice.’ 'No, please Cassandra I'll do anything just don't hurt him’ 'Ha! As if you could stop me.' with that I feel her reach between our breasts and pull out her knock out spray, even as I beat against the mental wall of her possession. "Wake up and smell the perfume," with that she squirts him full in the face.
'Nooooooo!' I scream silently as I watch in terror as he keels over, unconscious.
Chapter 17 - Run!
Moving Forward Story Index 1