Fic: Leap in the Dark (PG, 1/2)
Mar. 8th, 2008 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nonelvisTitle: Leap in the Dark
Characters/Pairings: Ten, Donna
Rating: PG
Word count: 8,200
Spoilers: Through S3
Summary: The 10th Doctor and Donna crash an unusual party, and discover they aren't the only uninvited guests.
Beta:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
platypus
Disclaimer: Not mine, obviously.
Author's Notes: This story is not chaptered, but is posted in two parts so as not to break LiveJournal's tiny little head. A link to the second part appears at the end of the first one. Also, I have posted the story's timeline of events, but I don't recommend reading it until after you've finished the story, or you'll spoil yourself for how it works.
Special thanks topeebles for assistance with some of the chemistry in this story, and especially to platypus, who caught logic and flow problems in the narrative I could no longer see after four months of working on it.
::xposted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
marriedonmars, dwfiction, and tennant_love and archived at Teaspoon
10:54pm, Red Room, Third Floor
Spring Term was over, and that could only mean one thing: a post-Review party, preferably as loud, drunken, and outrageous as possible. The party currently in swing at Esbie House was a spectacular example of post-Review debauchery, comprising multiple dance floors, coolers of liquor in almost every room, and significantly more guests than allowed by local safety codes, most of them jumping up and down in time to the rhythmic thumping of the music.
"Thumpin' party, Graham," said Mae, a blonde girl wearing a blue and white-striped vinyl minidress. Though the red lights in the room made her face hard to distinguish, Graham would have recognised Mae anywhere: he'd had a crush on her since his first year at university, and had only just worked up the nerve to ask her to the party, albeit via a friend of a friend of a friend.
"What?" Graham cupped a hand to his ear. The other hand was occupied with a drink he was trying very hard not to spill.
"I said, THUMPIN' PARTY, GRAHAM!" Mae had to lean close to Graham to be heard. At least deafening music had its advantages.
"YEAH!" Graham grinned at her. And blinked, and coughed nervously, and realised he had no idea what to say to her next.
"Bar's in the next room, right?" Mae asked. "I'll be right back." She moved nimbly through the crowd, unruffled by the number of people colliding with her as she crossed the dance floor toward the dark, narrow hallway that led to the nearest bar.
Graham watched her disappear and tried to come up with his next line, preferably one with at least two or three more syllables than "what" or "yeah." Why did girls have to be so much trickier than physics? And what if getting a drink was simply an excuse to avoid him? It wouldn't be the first time he'd been ditched at a party, or anywhere else, for that matter.
She'll be back soon, he told himself. And we'll dance and I'll show her the machine and she'll think it's cool and then ...
In the hallway, halfway between jangling keyboards in one room and pounding bass in the next, Mae walked by a shadowed door. She had nearly passed it when a leathery arm and clawed fingers reached out to grab her, dragging her inside as she shrieked in terror.
There was a cracking sound, then a crunching, then a dull thud as the bones in Mae's body were cracked, then crunched, then dropped to the floor by a creature beginning to feed. But all anyone else at the party heard was thumping.
9:53pm, Bubble Room, Second Floor
The dance floor was so full when the TARDIS arrived that she had to materialise around the only bucket of nonalcoholic drinks.
No one outside the ship noticed the bucket had gone missing.
9:54pm, Bubble Room, Second Floor
"Doctor, did you order a bucket of lemon fizz?" Donna poked through the round cooler full of iced bottles that had mysteriously appeared in the console room. "No, hang on, it's not lemon. Label says it's ... zolbert, whatever that is. Yellow, though. Do zolberts taste like lemons?"
The Doctor frowned and joined Donna by the cooler. "No, they taste mostly like raspberries. Well, raspberries and chalk, really, with the tiniest hint of lemon. And spinach. How did this get in here?"
"Don't ask me; ask your sodding ship. Keeps moving the swimming pool around on me, no reason she couldn't make zol-whatever-it-is fizz appear out of thin air, is there?"
"Well, of course she could, but the question is why." The Doctor looked down at the bucket, then over at the time rotor, which had stopped moving a minute ago. "Where'd you drop us, old girl?"
He swivelled the scanner towards himself and watched the output cycle madly, circles upon circles. "That's not right," he said, thwacking it hard with his hand. "Come on, behave. Tell us where we are and why you've suddenly developed a fondness for zolbert fizz."
The screen continued to flash, never stopping long enough for a fix, and the Doctor sighed, wiping his face with his hand. "Oh well, Donna, have to do this the old-fashioned way." He bounded toward the door, retrieved his coat from a coral strut, and put it on.
"All right, all right, I'm coming," Donna said, frowning and smacking her lips. "But only because that zolbert stuff was so foul you owe me a real drink."
9:55pm, Bubble Room, Second Floor
Stepping out of the TARDIS, the Doctor and Donna barely had room to stand in the throng of bouncing, gyrating students, none of whom, incredibly, had noticed the appearance of a large, blue, wooden box in a corner of the dance floor.
"A party!" the Doctor said happily. "Oh, I love a good party. Let's see ... green and white striped flag on the wall ... average age in this room, mmm, twenty years old ... vintage Star Wars poster in the corner ... Donna, my dear, I think we've arrived at Tech, the greatest technical university in the Northeastern Alliance, created when New England seceded from the United States in 2157." He elbowed her and winked. "Not bad for less than thirty seconds out of the TARDIS, eh? I am brilliant sometimes, yes I am."
"Yes, yes, completely brilliant, as always. You couldn't have picked a party with better music? Whatever they're playing, it's rubbish."
The Doctor leaned forward, peering into the darkness, only to be knocked back by some of the more enthusiastic dancers. They caromed off him, bumped into Donna, then rebounded into the fray.
"I'll go have a chat with the DJ about putting on some Kylie, that'll fix things. You like Kylie, don't you, Donna?"
Hearing no response, he looked from side to side, searching for his companion and seeing nothing but the ocean of people jumping and laughing among strobing red and blue lights and streams of soap bubbles wafting down from the ceiling.
"Donna?" The Doctor looked around again, more anxious this time.
If there was one rule he set for his fellow travellers, one simple rule, it was no wandering off. And yet none of them seemed to follow it. On the other hand, he mused, half the time a companion wandered off, it meant trouble was involved, and trouble could be fun.
The Doctor grinned madly at no one in particular and began shoving his way through the crowd.
9:56pm, Bubble Room, Second Floor
"Oi! Let go of me! I don't want to be part of some bloody mosh pit!" The crowd was spinning Donna around, sucking her into one whirlpool and shooting her into another, and by the time she found a wall she could rest against while she caught her breath, she could no longer make out the TARDIS through a mass of bubbles and winking lights.
And then the whole room blinked, and disappeared.
10:33pm, Jungle Room, First Floor
The lights glowed green and yellow, illuminating small potted palms, giant ferns whose fronds cast sinuous shadows on the walls, and a ceiling garlanded with fake lianas with stuffed monkeys hanging from the ends. The dance floor here was as full as it had been in the Bubble Room, but the music rumbled with the rhythm of bass drums.
Donna found herself seated in an oversized planter, her new cerise skirt littered with mulch, her back propped against the thickly matted trunk of a palm.
"What the hell just happened?" she yelled.
10:34pm, Jungle Room, First Floor
Extracting herself from the planter was awkward but not impossible, even if Donna was certain she'd be picking mulch out of her knickers later. Judging by the animated way several couples were flailing about – if that's what the kids called dancing these days – at least she knew how she'd ended up in the planter, if not in the room.
A table with multicoloured bottles of liquid was pushed against the far wall. Damn it, if she were going to figure out where she was and how to find the Doctor, who'd obviously ditched her somehow, she was going to need a drink.
Rum, something pink with a torn label, something fizzy ... ah, orange juice, good; vodka, better. A high-pitched, squeaky voice from somewhere nearby said, "Cups are to your right."
"Thanks." Donna mixed herself a screwdriver and looked around for the source of the helpful voice.
"Down here," said the voice. "On the table, next to the Absolut Zolbert."
Donna scanned the bottles, seeking a familiar silhouette. In front of the vodka was a ceramic plant pot filled with what looked like phosphorescent moss, topped with a miniature skull, wires, and circuitry.
"You have got to be joking," Donna said.
"Hello," the skull said cheerfully. "I'm Bernard."
"Of course you are. Who else would you be?"
"Excellent question, ma'am! But I would have to be BERNARD, which stands for Bio-Engineered Roboform Neurologically Active Recreation Device."
A month ago, talking to a tiny robotic skull in a flowerpot would have seemed ludicrous. Now, it was just another day with the Doctor. Donna picked up Bernard to observe him more closely. His brown eyes, uncannily round without flesh or brows to frame them, stared up at her.
"I was made by Lisa Loomis for Advanced Topics in Bioengineering: Thesis Project. I am a cybernetic biodevice. I can answer questions Lisa has trained me to answer and make logical decisions and assertions based on my sensory perceptions." Bernard's jaw clacked as he spoke. "I am also lots of fun at parties."
"I'll bet you are, Baldy."
"'Baldy' is not my name, but you may call me that if you prefer. What is your name?"
Donna took a large swig of the screwdriver, which was becoming increasingly necessary. It figured, she thought, that the first bloke to chat her up at this party didn't even have a body he could follow through with.
"I'm Donna. But just so we're clear, I don't usually date disembodied heads."
Bernard's servos whirred at her. "That is acceptable, Donna. Lisa has programmed me to refuse all requests for sexual intercourse."
Donna spat out a mouthful of vodka and orange juice.
"It has been enjoyable speaking with you, Donna," Bernard continued. "But please put me down now, because it is nearly 10:40pm."
"10:40?" Only a few ounces of Donna's drink were left, but damned if she was going to let any more of it go to waste. She took another swig. "What's so important about 10:40?"
"It will be time for the next jump. Please put me down, because I do not want to fall. I could be damaged."
"What d'ya mean, 'next jump'?" Donna put Bernard back next to the bottle of Absolut, but leaned over the table to continue speaking with him. "Damaged? Who's getting damaged?"
"Please put your drink down, Donna, or hold on to it tightly. It is nearly –"
And again the room blinked, and disappeared.
10:49pm, Hologram Room, Third Floor
Electronic music, all pings, pops and whirrs, jangled throughout the room as students clumped together in little groups: some with bug-eyed VR helmets; some matching dance moves with a flickering, ghostly figure; some wearing antique anaglyph glasses as they laughed and pointed at a wall projection in which an amphibious creature emerged from a swamp, roaring and searching for its prey.
They were still laughing when a gash appeared in the projection and a reptilian creature tumbled through the wall. It howled in pain, lifting an arm to shield its eyes from the room's strobing lights, then fled into the much dimmer hallway.
"Damn," said one of the students with the anaglyph glasses. "Twentieth century three-D was the shit."
11:12pm, Foam Room, Second Floor
The Foam Room took its name from the misshapen blocks of upholstery foam that lined the walls and littered the floor, creating a flexible, squishy carpet. The Doctor, who appeared out of thin air and immediately slipped on a sofa cushion, dumping him flat on his arse, found himself surprisingly grateful for the university students who had decorated the room.
He hoped they weren't the ones he could see engaged in a rather differently tangled and writhing mass than the group of students he'd been watching a moment ago.
"Um," he said, going very, very red. "I think I'm supposed to be somewhere else." He got up and reached for the doorknob, but stumbled on the foam, giving him another look at the room's occupants.
"Have to mention that one to Jack," he muttered, and closed the door behind him as he left.
11:35pm, Jungle Room, First Floor
When the room reappeared, Donna found herself in the opposite corner from where she'd been a moment previously. The dancers were no longer milling about randomly; now they were yelling, shouting, and milling about in a slightly more organised fashion, snaking around the room in a conga line.
At the head of the line, held aloft by a very drunken young woman in a fuchsia tube top, was Bernard. His tiny head was jiggling back and forth in his pot, wriggling in time to the music, and as they passed Donna, she could hear him chanting "Everybody conga! Everybody conga!"
Miraculously, Donna's screwdriver had survived the jump unharmed. She drank the rest of it in a single gulp and tossed the cup on the floor, where it rattled and spun briefly before the room disappeared again.
11:13pm, Central Hallway, Third Floor
Donna arrived in the upstairs hallway in time to be jostled by a girl walking arm-in-arm with two boys. The impact shoved Donna backwards into a darkened room.
"Right," she said. "I have had just about enough of this."
She stumbled as she regained her balance, feeling one heel caught in something sticky on the floor. Spilled alcohol, no doubt. She steadied herself against the wall while dragging her shoe across the wooden floor to clean it, and tripped a light switch with her hand, filling the room with a soft glow.
Whatever drink had spilled was unusually red. Too red, she noticed quickly, and far too much of it on the floor unless someone had dropped an entire bottle.
Donna turned around slowly and immediately clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. There was a girl's body on the floor, limbs twisted and bloodied, chunks torn from her neck and midriff. Blood pooled around the body and trickled toward the door, a trail ending in smudged footprints from Donna's pumps. There were other footprints visible in the room as well, large and four-toed, tapered at the ends. They reminded her of a silly pair of monster-foot slippers she'd once bought for her nephew's eighth birthday.
"Just about enough," Donna repeated softly, closing her eyes to block out the body and concentrate on not fainting, screaming, or causing a panic. If she could find a phone, she could call the police, or whatever passed for police in the Northeastern Alliance. And the Doctor would certainly know what to do, assuming she could locate the wayward bastard, wherever he'd managed to hide himself.
Donna took a deep breath and opened her eyes. The body was still there, not that she'd expected it to disappear on her, but everything else was tonight, so why not that? No phone in the room, though. Most likely everyone had mobiles, and if she borrowed someone's long enough to call the authorities, people would quickly find out about the murder ... and with this many partygoers, there'd be a stampede.
That left the Doctor as her best hope. He was somewhere in this house, and she was going to find him if it killed her.
Bad turn of phrase there, she thought, wincing, and closed the door to the room behind her. She headed toward the nearby stairwell and began her search.
11:13pm, Foam Room, Second Floor
Directly opposite the Foam Room was a staircase where the Doctor could hear drums and bass throbbing from below. He'd no idea how he'd landed in the room full of foam in the first place, but figured he could wrestle with that problem after finding Donna, who with any luck would be at the nearest bar.
He found the source of the music downstairs in a room decorated to look like a rainforest, and promptly banged his head against a stuffed monkey suspended from a vine. There were still too many people here for him to easily pick out Donna from the crowd, but he had to begin somewhere: he tapped a girl on the shoulder to catch her attention, startling her in the process and causing her to spill part of her umbrella drink.
"Oh, very sorry, here you go." He handed her a handkerchief to blot her shirt, then gestured toward her drink. "That looks festive and tropical."
"William's mixing 'em next door," the girl said. "I'm pretty sure this is my third one. Or my fourth? You really can't taste the alcohol."
"Ah. Well, I was going to ask you if you'd seen a friend of mine, but I suspect after three or four of those, you've no idea where she might be. Or where you might be, as a matter of fact."
"Nope!" she giggled. "But it's an awesome party so far. It's got everything."
The Doctor looked around the room again. "Seems that way. Except how can you have a tropical party without a conga line?"
"Great idea!" the girl said. "Lemme chug the rest of this, I'll get it started."
The Doctor sighed and plunged deeper into the crowd, calling Donna's name, though he doubted anyone could hear him over the music. As he neared the doorway on the far side of the room, he ran headlong into a woman running the other way.
"Oi!" Donna said. "Where the hell have you been?"
"Me? You're the one who went wandering off. Haven't I told you never to go wandering off? And there you are, wandering like a ... wandering thing."
Donna glared at him. "I've just come from upstairs, where I found a dead girl, all chewed up in bits, which I'm sorry to say seems like a typical day travelling with you." She poked the Doctor in the chest for emphasis. "It's not like I didn't sign on knowing there'd be trouble, but I at least figured you'd be around to clean up the mess."
"I've been around. Well, here and there; there was that bit in the room full of upholstery and the, um, actually, nevermind that. Anyway, you're the one who disappeared, not me! And hang on, did you say 'dead girl'?"
"Yes! I said –" Donna's sentence was cut off as she was shoved out of the way by a burly blond-haired boy laughing and waving a tiny flowerpot in front of him.
"Put me down! Please, Joe, put me down! It is nearly 11:20pm!" cried Bernard, his pleas fading into the distance as the boy carrying him vanished into the crowd.
"You there, put him down!" yelled Donna. "He could be damaged!" She shook her head. "Wanker."
"Donna," said the Doctor slowly, "was that boy carrying a talking skull?"
"Bernard. The skull's name is Bernard."
"I see ... good to know you're making friends."
Donna flashed him an exasperated look, then furrowed her brow. "Wait, how can it be 11:20? I've only been gone 15 minutes since I met Bernard, and that was 10:40."
"Maybe you lost track of the time without me around."
"Yes, that must be it, because you've been terribly helpful so far. God, you really don't have a clue what's going on, do you?"
"Donna, I may be a genius, but it's still a little hard to add up 'dead girl chewed up in bits' and our mutual disappearances and come up with an answer."
"Marvellous. I could get whooshed out of here any second now, and you've –"
Blink.
11:44pm, Rear Hallway, Second Floor
"– got your head up your oh bollocks."
Donna was now standing in a lengthy queue of young women chatting to each other and craning their necks toward a closed door, which one impatient girl had started pounding on. "Quit fixing your makeup! Some of us have to pee!"
Donna sighed and slumped against the wall. She'd been bounced around again, and still had no idea what to do about the body in the upstairs room, but queues for the ladies' loo were, apparently, a reliable and unchanging fact of life.
If she couldn't count on the Doctor to fix this, she'd have to deal with it herself. Soap bubbles floated past her, tickling her nose, and she brushed them away, trying to determine what she could possibly do to help before things shifted on her again. Perhaps the TARDIS had some kind of monster detector hidden away in the cutlery drawer? After all, that was where the Doctor kept his paperclip chains and ratchet spanners; no reason there couldn't be more tools hidden away among the mismatched knives and forks as well. But where had they left the TARDIS? Maybe Bernard would know, assuming she could find him; he really did seem to be popular.
Soap bubbles.
There had been soap bubbles in the room where the TARDIS landed.
Donna's head snapped up. The bubbles were drifting haphazardly along the corridor, gliding in from the right. She shoved past a knot of chattering girls waiting for the loo and bulled her way into the next room, where the music was still loud, the dancers still clustered too tightly together, and a familiar stubby blue shape lurked in the background shadows.
It took her several minutes to navigate the dance floor and reach the TARDIS, but once inside, she leaned against the interior doors, catching her breath.
"There you are! I've been wondering when you'd find your way back," the Doctor said, and Donna shrieked in surprise.
"There's no need to shout," he continued, and gestured to her with a rubber hose. "Come here and hold this while I attach the ends to the motor."
"How on earth did you get in here?" She stalked over to the console and grabbed the hose he wiggled at her. "You were downstairs a minute ago; I saw you. But the way I've been tossed about this place, I suppose I should be grateful you showed up again at all."
The Doctor carefully threaded one end of the hose to a small motor, and attached a smaller hose between the motor and what appeared to be a petrol can. "Time jumps. Long story. But we're safe here – the TARDIS is in a state of temporal grace." He noticed Donna's face reddening the way it always did when she was about to yell at him, and hastily added, "That means the TARDIS is protecting us as long as we stay inside."
The Doctor retrieved the hose from Donna, dropped his contraption on the captain's chair, and clamped the motor to the petrol can with a large metal band. "There! All ready to go."
"Fine. Good." Donna leaned against the console and glared at the Doctor.
"You're glaring at me. You know I hate it when you glare at me. It makes me think I've done something wrong. And I'm just standing here not doing anything!"
"That's right," Donna said. "You're just standing there not telling me what the bloody hell has been going on around here."
"Oh. Well. That. Have a seat, and I'll explain. But it'll have to be quick; I've got something cooking in the lab." The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. "I worked it out after I was jumped away from you, right after you told me about the body ..."
Continue reading part 2 »
Characters/Pairings: Ten, Donna
Rating: PG
Word count: 8,200
Spoilers: Through S3
Summary: The 10th Doctor and Donna crash an unusual party, and discover they aren't the only uninvited guests.
Beta:
platypusDisclaimer: Not mine, obviously.
Author's Notes: This story is not chaptered, but is posted in two parts so as not to break LiveJournal's tiny little head. A link to the second part appears at the end of the first one. Also, I have posted the story's timeline of events, but I don't recommend reading it until after you've finished the story, or you'll spoil yourself for how it works.
Special thanks to
peebles for assistance with some of the chemistry in this story, and especially to platypus, who caught logic and flow problems in the narrative I could no longer see after four months of working on it. ::xposted to
marriedonmars, dwfiction, and tennant_love and archived at Teaspoon10:54pm, Red Room, Third Floor
Spring Term was over, and that could only mean one thing: a post-Review party, preferably as loud, drunken, and outrageous as possible. The party currently in swing at Esbie House was a spectacular example of post-Review debauchery, comprising multiple dance floors, coolers of liquor in almost every room, and significantly more guests than allowed by local safety codes, most of them jumping up and down in time to the rhythmic thumping of the music.
"Thumpin' party, Graham," said Mae, a blonde girl wearing a blue and white-striped vinyl minidress. Though the red lights in the room made her face hard to distinguish, Graham would have recognised Mae anywhere: he'd had a crush on her since his first year at university, and had only just worked up the nerve to ask her to the party, albeit via a friend of a friend of a friend.
"What?" Graham cupped a hand to his ear. The other hand was occupied with a drink he was trying very hard not to spill.
"I said, THUMPIN' PARTY, GRAHAM!" Mae had to lean close to Graham to be heard. At least deafening music had its advantages.
"YEAH!" Graham grinned at her. And blinked, and coughed nervously, and realised he had no idea what to say to her next.
"Bar's in the next room, right?" Mae asked. "I'll be right back." She moved nimbly through the crowd, unruffled by the number of people colliding with her as she crossed the dance floor toward the dark, narrow hallway that led to the nearest bar.
Graham watched her disappear and tried to come up with his next line, preferably one with at least two or three more syllables than "what" or "yeah." Why did girls have to be so much trickier than physics? And what if getting a drink was simply an excuse to avoid him? It wouldn't be the first time he'd been ditched at a party, or anywhere else, for that matter.
She'll be back soon, he told himself. And we'll dance and I'll show her the machine and she'll think it's cool and then ...
In the hallway, halfway between jangling keyboards in one room and pounding bass in the next, Mae walked by a shadowed door. She had nearly passed it when a leathery arm and clawed fingers reached out to grab her, dragging her inside as she shrieked in terror.
There was a cracking sound, then a crunching, then a dull thud as the bones in Mae's body were cracked, then crunched, then dropped to the floor by a creature beginning to feed. But all anyone else at the party heard was thumping.
9:53pm, Bubble Room, Second Floor
The dance floor was so full when the TARDIS arrived that she had to materialise around the only bucket of nonalcoholic drinks.
No one outside the ship noticed the bucket had gone missing.
9:54pm, Bubble Room, Second Floor
"Doctor, did you order a bucket of lemon fizz?" Donna poked through the round cooler full of iced bottles that had mysteriously appeared in the console room. "No, hang on, it's not lemon. Label says it's ... zolbert, whatever that is. Yellow, though. Do zolberts taste like lemons?"
The Doctor frowned and joined Donna by the cooler. "No, they taste mostly like raspberries. Well, raspberries and chalk, really, with the tiniest hint of lemon. And spinach. How did this get in here?"
"Don't ask me; ask your sodding ship. Keeps moving the swimming pool around on me, no reason she couldn't make zol-whatever-it-is fizz appear out of thin air, is there?"
"Well, of course she could, but the question is why." The Doctor looked down at the bucket, then over at the time rotor, which had stopped moving a minute ago. "Where'd you drop us, old girl?"
He swivelled the scanner towards himself and watched the output cycle madly, circles upon circles. "That's not right," he said, thwacking it hard with his hand. "Come on, behave. Tell us where we are and why you've suddenly developed a fondness for zolbert fizz."
The screen continued to flash, never stopping long enough for a fix, and the Doctor sighed, wiping his face with his hand. "Oh well, Donna, have to do this the old-fashioned way." He bounded toward the door, retrieved his coat from a coral strut, and put it on.
"All right, all right, I'm coming," Donna said, frowning and smacking her lips. "But only because that zolbert stuff was so foul you owe me a real drink."
9:55pm, Bubble Room, Second Floor
Stepping out of the TARDIS, the Doctor and Donna barely had room to stand in the throng of bouncing, gyrating students, none of whom, incredibly, had noticed the appearance of a large, blue, wooden box in a corner of the dance floor.
"A party!" the Doctor said happily. "Oh, I love a good party. Let's see ... green and white striped flag on the wall ... average age in this room, mmm, twenty years old ... vintage Star Wars poster in the corner ... Donna, my dear, I think we've arrived at Tech, the greatest technical university in the Northeastern Alliance, created when New England seceded from the United States in 2157." He elbowed her and winked. "Not bad for less than thirty seconds out of the TARDIS, eh? I am brilliant sometimes, yes I am."
"Yes, yes, completely brilliant, as always. You couldn't have picked a party with better music? Whatever they're playing, it's rubbish."
The Doctor leaned forward, peering into the darkness, only to be knocked back by some of the more enthusiastic dancers. They caromed off him, bumped into Donna, then rebounded into the fray.
"I'll go have a chat with the DJ about putting on some Kylie, that'll fix things. You like Kylie, don't you, Donna?"
Hearing no response, he looked from side to side, searching for his companion and seeing nothing but the ocean of people jumping and laughing among strobing red and blue lights and streams of soap bubbles wafting down from the ceiling.
"Donna?" The Doctor looked around again, more anxious this time.
If there was one rule he set for his fellow travellers, one simple rule, it was no wandering off. And yet none of them seemed to follow it. On the other hand, he mused, half the time a companion wandered off, it meant trouble was involved, and trouble could be fun.
The Doctor grinned madly at no one in particular and began shoving his way through the crowd.
9:56pm, Bubble Room, Second Floor
"Oi! Let go of me! I don't want to be part of some bloody mosh pit!" The crowd was spinning Donna around, sucking her into one whirlpool and shooting her into another, and by the time she found a wall she could rest against while she caught her breath, she could no longer make out the TARDIS through a mass of bubbles and winking lights.
And then the whole room blinked, and disappeared.
10:33pm, Jungle Room, First Floor
The lights glowed green and yellow, illuminating small potted palms, giant ferns whose fronds cast sinuous shadows on the walls, and a ceiling garlanded with fake lianas with stuffed monkeys hanging from the ends. The dance floor here was as full as it had been in the Bubble Room, but the music rumbled with the rhythm of bass drums.
Donna found herself seated in an oversized planter, her new cerise skirt littered with mulch, her back propped against the thickly matted trunk of a palm.
"What the hell just happened?" she yelled.
10:34pm, Jungle Room, First Floor
Extracting herself from the planter was awkward but not impossible, even if Donna was certain she'd be picking mulch out of her knickers later. Judging by the animated way several couples were flailing about – if that's what the kids called dancing these days – at least she knew how she'd ended up in the planter, if not in the room.
A table with multicoloured bottles of liquid was pushed against the far wall. Damn it, if she were going to figure out where she was and how to find the Doctor, who'd obviously ditched her somehow, she was going to need a drink.
Rum, something pink with a torn label, something fizzy ... ah, orange juice, good; vodka, better. A high-pitched, squeaky voice from somewhere nearby said, "Cups are to your right."
"Thanks." Donna mixed herself a screwdriver and looked around for the source of the helpful voice.
"Down here," said the voice. "On the table, next to the Absolut Zolbert."
Donna scanned the bottles, seeking a familiar silhouette. In front of the vodka was a ceramic plant pot filled with what looked like phosphorescent moss, topped with a miniature skull, wires, and circuitry.
"You have got to be joking," Donna said.
"Hello," the skull said cheerfully. "I'm Bernard."
"Of course you are. Who else would you be?"
"Excellent question, ma'am! But I would have to be BERNARD, which stands for Bio-Engineered Roboform Neurologically Active Recreation Device."
A month ago, talking to a tiny robotic skull in a flowerpot would have seemed ludicrous. Now, it was just another day with the Doctor. Donna picked up Bernard to observe him more closely. His brown eyes, uncannily round without flesh or brows to frame them, stared up at her.
"I was made by Lisa Loomis for Advanced Topics in Bioengineering: Thesis Project. I am a cybernetic biodevice. I can answer questions Lisa has trained me to answer and make logical decisions and assertions based on my sensory perceptions." Bernard's jaw clacked as he spoke. "I am also lots of fun at parties."
"I'll bet you are, Baldy."
"'Baldy' is not my name, but you may call me that if you prefer. What is your name?"
Donna took a large swig of the screwdriver, which was becoming increasingly necessary. It figured, she thought, that the first bloke to chat her up at this party didn't even have a body he could follow through with.
"I'm Donna. But just so we're clear, I don't usually date disembodied heads."
Bernard's servos whirred at her. "That is acceptable, Donna. Lisa has programmed me to refuse all requests for sexual intercourse."
Donna spat out a mouthful of vodka and orange juice.
"It has been enjoyable speaking with you, Donna," Bernard continued. "But please put me down now, because it is nearly 10:40pm."
"10:40?" Only a few ounces of Donna's drink were left, but damned if she was going to let any more of it go to waste. She took another swig. "What's so important about 10:40?"
"It will be time for the next jump. Please put me down, because I do not want to fall. I could be damaged."
"What d'ya mean, 'next jump'?" Donna put Bernard back next to the bottle of Absolut, but leaned over the table to continue speaking with him. "Damaged? Who's getting damaged?"
"Please put your drink down, Donna, or hold on to it tightly. It is nearly –"
And again the room blinked, and disappeared.
10:49pm, Hologram Room, Third Floor
Electronic music, all pings, pops and whirrs, jangled throughout the room as students clumped together in little groups: some with bug-eyed VR helmets; some matching dance moves with a flickering, ghostly figure; some wearing antique anaglyph glasses as they laughed and pointed at a wall projection in which an amphibious creature emerged from a swamp, roaring and searching for its prey.
They were still laughing when a gash appeared in the projection and a reptilian creature tumbled through the wall. It howled in pain, lifting an arm to shield its eyes from the room's strobing lights, then fled into the much dimmer hallway.
"Damn," said one of the students with the anaglyph glasses. "Twentieth century three-D was the shit."
11:12pm, Foam Room, Second Floor
The Foam Room took its name from the misshapen blocks of upholstery foam that lined the walls and littered the floor, creating a flexible, squishy carpet. The Doctor, who appeared out of thin air and immediately slipped on a sofa cushion, dumping him flat on his arse, found himself surprisingly grateful for the university students who had decorated the room.
He hoped they weren't the ones he could see engaged in a rather differently tangled and writhing mass than the group of students he'd been watching a moment ago.
"Um," he said, going very, very red. "I think I'm supposed to be somewhere else." He got up and reached for the doorknob, but stumbled on the foam, giving him another look at the room's occupants.
"Have to mention that one to Jack," he muttered, and closed the door behind him as he left.
11:35pm, Jungle Room, First Floor
When the room reappeared, Donna found herself in the opposite corner from where she'd been a moment previously. The dancers were no longer milling about randomly; now they were yelling, shouting, and milling about in a slightly more organised fashion, snaking around the room in a conga line.
At the head of the line, held aloft by a very drunken young woman in a fuchsia tube top, was Bernard. His tiny head was jiggling back and forth in his pot, wriggling in time to the music, and as they passed Donna, she could hear him chanting "Everybody conga! Everybody conga!"
Miraculously, Donna's screwdriver had survived the jump unharmed. She drank the rest of it in a single gulp and tossed the cup on the floor, where it rattled and spun briefly before the room disappeared again.
11:13pm, Central Hallway, Third Floor
Donna arrived in the upstairs hallway in time to be jostled by a girl walking arm-in-arm with two boys. The impact shoved Donna backwards into a darkened room.
"Right," she said. "I have had just about enough of this."
She stumbled as she regained her balance, feeling one heel caught in something sticky on the floor. Spilled alcohol, no doubt. She steadied herself against the wall while dragging her shoe across the wooden floor to clean it, and tripped a light switch with her hand, filling the room with a soft glow.
Whatever drink had spilled was unusually red. Too red, she noticed quickly, and far too much of it on the floor unless someone had dropped an entire bottle.
Donna turned around slowly and immediately clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. There was a girl's body on the floor, limbs twisted and bloodied, chunks torn from her neck and midriff. Blood pooled around the body and trickled toward the door, a trail ending in smudged footprints from Donna's pumps. There were other footprints visible in the room as well, large and four-toed, tapered at the ends. They reminded her of a silly pair of monster-foot slippers she'd once bought for her nephew's eighth birthday.
"Just about enough," Donna repeated softly, closing her eyes to block out the body and concentrate on not fainting, screaming, or causing a panic. If she could find a phone, she could call the police, or whatever passed for police in the Northeastern Alliance. And the Doctor would certainly know what to do, assuming she could locate the wayward bastard, wherever he'd managed to hide himself.
Donna took a deep breath and opened her eyes. The body was still there, not that she'd expected it to disappear on her, but everything else was tonight, so why not that? No phone in the room, though. Most likely everyone had mobiles, and if she borrowed someone's long enough to call the authorities, people would quickly find out about the murder ... and with this many partygoers, there'd be a stampede.
That left the Doctor as her best hope. He was somewhere in this house, and she was going to find him if it killed her.
Bad turn of phrase there, she thought, wincing, and closed the door to the room behind her. She headed toward the nearby stairwell and began her search.
11:13pm, Foam Room, Second Floor
Directly opposite the Foam Room was a staircase where the Doctor could hear drums and bass throbbing from below. He'd no idea how he'd landed in the room full of foam in the first place, but figured he could wrestle with that problem after finding Donna, who with any luck would be at the nearest bar.
He found the source of the music downstairs in a room decorated to look like a rainforest, and promptly banged his head against a stuffed monkey suspended from a vine. There were still too many people here for him to easily pick out Donna from the crowd, but he had to begin somewhere: he tapped a girl on the shoulder to catch her attention, startling her in the process and causing her to spill part of her umbrella drink.
"Oh, very sorry, here you go." He handed her a handkerchief to blot her shirt, then gestured toward her drink. "That looks festive and tropical."
"William's mixing 'em next door," the girl said. "I'm pretty sure this is my third one. Or my fourth? You really can't taste the alcohol."
"Ah. Well, I was going to ask you if you'd seen a friend of mine, but I suspect after three or four of those, you've no idea where she might be. Or where you might be, as a matter of fact."
"Nope!" she giggled. "But it's an awesome party so far. It's got everything."
The Doctor looked around the room again. "Seems that way. Except how can you have a tropical party without a conga line?"
"Great idea!" the girl said. "Lemme chug the rest of this, I'll get it started."
The Doctor sighed and plunged deeper into the crowd, calling Donna's name, though he doubted anyone could hear him over the music. As he neared the doorway on the far side of the room, he ran headlong into a woman running the other way.
"Oi!" Donna said. "Where the hell have you been?"
"Me? You're the one who went wandering off. Haven't I told you never to go wandering off? And there you are, wandering like a ... wandering thing."
Donna glared at him. "I've just come from upstairs, where I found a dead girl, all chewed up in bits, which I'm sorry to say seems like a typical day travelling with you." She poked the Doctor in the chest for emphasis. "It's not like I didn't sign on knowing there'd be trouble, but I at least figured you'd be around to clean up the mess."
"I've been around. Well, here and there; there was that bit in the room full of upholstery and the, um, actually, nevermind that. Anyway, you're the one who disappeared, not me! And hang on, did you say 'dead girl'?"
"Yes! I said –" Donna's sentence was cut off as she was shoved out of the way by a burly blond-haired boy laughing and waving a tiny flowerpot in front of him.
"Put me down! Please, Joe, put me down! It is nearly 11:20pm!" cried Bernard, his pleas fading into the distance as the boy carrying him vanished into the crowd.
"You there, put him down!" yelled Donna. "He could be damaged!" She shook her head. "Wanker."
"Donna," said the Doctor slowly, "was that boy carrying a talking skull?"
"Bernard. The skull's name is Bernard."
"I see ... good to know you're making friends."
Donna flashed him an exasperated look, then furrowed her brow. "Wait, how can it be 11:20? I've only been gone 15 minutes since I met Bernard, and that was 10:40."
"Maybe you lost track of the time without me around."
"Yes, that must be it, because you've been terribly helpful so far. God, you really don't have a clue what's going on, do you?"
"Donna, I may be a genius, but it's still a little hard to add up 'dead girl chewed up in bits' and our mutual disappearances and come up with an answer."
"Marvellous. I could get whooshed out of here any second now, and you've –"
Blink.
11:44pm, Rear Hallway, Second Floor
"– got your head up your oh bollocks."
Donna was now standing in a lengthy queue of young women chatting to each other and craning their necks toward a closed door, which one impatient girl had started pounding on. "Quit fixing your makeup! Some of us have to pee!"
Donna sighed and slumped against the wall. She'd been bounced around again, and still had no idea what to do about the body in the upstairs room, but queues for the ladies' loo were, apparently, a reliable and unchanging fact of life.
If she couldn't count on the Doctor to fix this, she'd have to deal with it herself. Soap bubbles floated past her, tickling her nose, and she brushed them away, trying to determine what she could possibly do to help before things shifted on her again. Perhaps the TARDIS had some kind of monster detector hidden away in the cutlery drawer? After all, that was where the Doctor kept his paperclip chains and ratchet spanners; no reason there couldn't be more tools hidden away among the mismatched knives and forks as well. But where had they left the TARDIS? Maybe Bernard would know, assuming she could find him; he really did seem to be popular.
Soap bubbles.
There had been soap bubbles in the room where the TARDIS landed.
Donna's head snapped up. The bubbles were drifting haphazardly along the corridor, gliding in from the right. She shoved past a knot of chattering girls waiting for the loo and bulled her way into the next room, where the music was still loud, the dancers still clustered too tightly together, and a familiar stubby blue shape lurked in the background shadows.
It took her several minutes to navigate the dance floor and reach the TARDIS, but once inside, she leaned against the interior doors, catching her breath.
"There you are! I've been wondering when you'd find your way back," the Doctor said, and Donna shrieked in surprise.
"There's no need to shout," he continued, and gestured to her with a rubber hose. "Come here and hold this while I attach the ends to the motor."
"How on earth did you get in here?" She stalked over to the console and grabbed the hose he wiggled at her. "You were downstairs a minute ago; I saw you. But the way I've been tossed about this place, I suppose I should be grateful you showed up again at all."
The Doctor carefully threaded one end of the hose to a small motor, and attached a smaller hose between the motor and what appeared to be a petrol can. "Time jumps. Long story. But we're safe here – the TARDIS is in a state of temporal grace." He noticed Donna's face reddening the way it always did when she was about to yell at him, and hastily added, "That means the TARDIS is protecting us as long as we stay inside."
The Doctor retrieved the hose from Donna, dropped his contraption on the captain's chair, and clamped the motor to the petrol can with a large metal band. "There! All ready to go."
"Fine. Good." Donna leaned against the console and glared at the Doctor.
"You're glaring at me. You know I hate it when you glare at me. It makes me think I've done something wrong. And I'm just standing here not doing anything!"
"That's right," Donna said. "You're just standing there not telling me what the bloody hell has been going on around here."
"Oh. Well. That. Have a seat, and I'll explain. But it'll have to be quick; I've got something cooking in the lab." The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. "I worked it out after I was jumped away from you, right after you told me about the body ..."
Continue reading part 2 »
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on 2008-03-09 05:29 am (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-09 02:30 pm (UTC)