From: Clive@cj4386.demon.co.uk (Clive May)
Subject: {DOF} Zero Room Interlude. 1/1 complete.
Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 22:21:51 +0000 (UTC)
Desert Of Fear
Zero Room Interlude
The copyright of Dr Who is the property of the BBC.
The copyright of the characters Cain, Babydoll, Bella, Jubal and Seraph
belongs to BKWillis.
This is a work of fan fiction; no money has, or will, change hands with
regard to the story; and no infringement of the owners' copyrights is
intended.
WARNING - contains material unsuitable for children.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Seraph? Why does Babydoll taste of strawberries?" Bella asked.
"That's another story."
"Tell it to me."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because it's not your story...And the telling cannot help with your healing
unless, and until, it becomes your story."
"Will it ever be my story?" Bella asked, sighing.
"Perhaps? Perhaps not? Now. Miss Bella...Prepare yourself...Seek the
Centre. Touch the Stillness. Accept my peace into your heart. Embrace the
Serenity gathered here for you; and we can begin the healing...Are you
prepared, Miss Bella?"
"I suppose so." It was a reluctant admission.
"This will be painful, Miss Bella. You must be properly prepared?"
Bella wriggled herself into a more comfortable position on the floor. She
closed her eyes and let herself sink into the enfolding silver hum of Cain's
TARDIS. "I'm ready, Seraph. Bring on my monsters!"
"Good. Once, there was a nameless girl child who dwelt in secret among
monsters..."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bella crouched behind the grill in the half darkness of the air duct. She
was naked, emaciated and filthy. Her brown curls were a matted tangle. In
her right fist, she clutched a prize beyond price. Though the Masters were
close, she could not resist any longer, and bit into the haunch of meat.
Tearing off a bloody gobbet of the half cooked flesh, she chewed ravenously.
The humming of a Master drew closer. She froze in terror, meat juices
dribbling down her chin. The machine creature glided past her hiding place,
halted, backed up and rotated to face the grill. Its weapon came alive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Noooooo! Please Nooooo" Bella whimpered, sitting bolt upright on the Zero
Room floor. "Not that one...Please Seraph...Please, not that one..."
"Be calm, Miss Bella," the disembodied voice urged in gentle tones. "Seek
the Stillness at the Centre. Call the room's Serenity into your soul.
Relax. Remember, it was all so long ago. It cannot harm you now."
Bella hugged herself a long moment, then half nodded. "Alright," she said
only half convinced. "But, please, not that one. Not now."
"It must be faced some time, Miss Bella. The scar on your soul cannot begin
to heal until it is faced."
"I know. But not now."
"Alright. But what will you hear then?"
"Tell me why Babydoll tastes of strawberries?"
There was an indulgent sigh from the disembodied voice. "Alright, Miss
Bella. Get comfortable again. Seek the Stillness at the Centre. Open your
heart and surrender to Serenity."
Bella lay down. Her eyes were shining with a mischievous glint of triumphal
anticipation. It was so easy to manipulate Cain's TARDIS.
"It is like this..."Seraph began.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Seeker Pack! Oh Jeel's Gonads! Crucking Seekers!"
Janko's voice over the com made Babydoll's gut tighten. The barely
suppressed panic rang clear, even through the comm jamming. Babydoll chinned
the command override switch and said in a tightly controlled voice: "This is
Tiger Leader. Report."
Crouched in a fold of rock, barely deep enough to afford proper cover,
Babydoll peered through the head up display on the inner surface of her
visor. On the airless dusty surface of the asteroid, nothing of the life and
death struggle raging for control of the Earth Consolidated Holdings' depot
could be seen. Overhead, in the black sky the eternal stars shone,
indifferent to the disaster that had just overwhelmed Tiger Patrol. Here and
there, the stars were masked by sharp edged shadows of boulders.
Switching her scrutiny to the starry heavens, she watched for that tell-tale
perturbation as the propulsion field of a Seeker Bomb made the starlight
shudder. It would be the only warning she'd get that one of the nasty
Bio-Mechs had locked onto her. If that happened, she was as good as dead;
they were harder to avoid than fate, and a hundred times as deadly.
Janko didn't answer - not that she'd really expected him to.
Ducking her head, she chinned "send". "Tiger Leader to Pack. Rally to my
beacon. Call off by numbers."
The only response on the patrol's frequency was the anguished whistling of
the enemy's comm jammers.
Keeping a wary eye on the sky, Babydoll flipped to Command Band. "Did you
get that, Stoat? There's a pack of hunting Seekers out. Tiger has taken
fatal damage."
"We heard, Tiger Leader," came the calm, almost bored voice of the
Operational Commander. "Sit tight. We're implementing counter measures now.
We'll have them cleared soonest."
"That shouldn't be necessary. What happened? Those jerks in Scanning foul
up again? Jeel's Gonads! But somebody ought to kick some arse over there in
Scanning. This whole smegging party's going down in flames."
"No scan for Seekers was implemented, Tiger Leader," said the disembodied
voice of her Commander.
"What! Why the hell not?"
"It was deemed an unnecessary expense."
Babydoll swore volubly.
"Cut that crap, Tiger Leader," came the sharp reprimand. "You've been around
long enough to know the Corp's priorities. Always got an eye on the bottom
line. We're all expendable. You know that. So quit bitching and clear the
frequency."
It was just dandy for him, Babydoll thought bitterly, sitting up there in the
security of the Command Pod. He wouldn't be taking it all so crucking calm
if he was down here with a Seeker Pack zeroing in on his arse.
Her arm came up and she loosed off a burst of fire at a red star which had
just winked at her. A soundless explosion actuated the visor's automatic
energy damper for a second, dimming the brilliant flash.
Now she was for it!
It would be death to stay here, and suicide to move...unless....
Before setting out on this job, she'd spent some time with the tactical
battle computers working up some routines for evading Seekers. The strategy
she'd devised had worked - sort of. Some friendly coders had polished up her
rough routines into a really neat computer game. With the marketing division
of Enright Consolidated Industries behind it, the game had done well. She'd
got a pat on the back from Senior Management, and a fat bonus in her next
pay- check; but, of course, it was ECI who raked in the big bucks. Still,
she wasn't going to complain if her work with the computers kept her in one
piece.
She moved.
The Seeker zeroed in.
She implemented the strategy; and it almost worked.
Babydoll was suddenly engulfed in an expanding ball of searing gas, spiked
with shards of red hot shrapnel. It spanged noisily off the armour plating
of her pressure suit, making her ears ring. She was hurled from her feet.
In slow motion, she tumbled among the rocks, her arms windmilling uselessly
in the low gravity.
Landing awkwardly, she cried out in pain as a red hot agony exploded in her
side. One part of her mind noted the sudden drop in internal pressure. She
was leaking air. If she didn't get to an air tight refuge in seconds, she
was in deep doo doo.
The automatic drug dispenser shot her full of Antipain; and the agony in her
side faded into a dull growling. A terrible tightness gripped her chest; and
she found it increasingly hard to breath. Anoxia clouding her mind, Babydoll
crabbed along in slow motion towards a distant hope of safety in one of the
surface warehouses. The yellow light of an air lock was wavering before her
greying vision, beckoning her onwards. It seemed a god awful long way.
Febrile hallucinations jittered in her mind. She was acutely aware of the
tight band of pressure gripping her chest.
Desperately, she shoved at the hands mauling her.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Billy Deaken yelled in surprise as he went backwards over the rail. He
landed in the shallow muddy pond with an almighty splash. Scrambling to his
knees, he whined reproachfully: "Whatcher do that for?"
Mary turned her back without a word. She walked off buttoning her shirt.
Inside she was seething. The nerve of the lunk. Alright, so she'd let him
have a grope; but that didn't entitle him to get stupid ideas like that.
Marry her!
Mary's round face screwed up in disgust, her blue eyes flashing with outrage.
"No way!" she swore vehemently. She'd only let the jerk feel her up because
she'd wanted to know what it felt like, and because "good" girls were not
supposed to do that sort of thing.
Emerging from the trees hiding the little pond, she cross the dirt track and
leaned on a wire fence. In the pasture, fat cows grazed lazily in the
benevolent sunshine, cropping the lush grass. Others lay in the shade
chewing the cud reflectively, their big moist eyes staring vacantly at
nothing.
Did they know they were slaves of the Corporation? Did anyone in the Back
Doubles know the depth of their degradation? Did anyone care?
Babydoll cared.
She felt a sudden resurgence of the sullen anger that had been growing in her
since that ECI man had come to the farm last year, with his brief case,
waving papers and talking "business", his affable manner barely masking the
threat of the overwhelming power of the Corporation backing his outrageous
claims. The deference her Papa had shown to this little jerk had killed
something inside her impressionable young mind. She still loved her Papa;
but she no longer worshipped him.
They were all slaves.
That realisation had wounded her self-esteem; but not as much as the opening
of her eyes to harsh realities when her big strong Papa had failed to run the
shitty little runt off their land.
Only it wasn't their land.
It was ECI's land. The whole damned system of the Back Doubles was owned by
the corporation, lock stock and barrel - including the inhabitants.
Mary pushed herself off the fence and stepped back onto the rutted way. She
plucked a long-stemmed grass and put the end between her teeth. Then,
recognising that the habitual action epitomised all the things she most
despised about the people who inhabited the Back Doubles, she spat the grass
out again. Stuffing hans into the pockets of her hand-me down grey work
denims, she stalked back towards the farm buildings, whose red roofs showed
in the distance, softened by haze.
Clambering over the fence into the home pasture, Mary hesitated, undecided.
If she returned home now, there'd be the chores. Before, she hadn't minded
them, no more than any other farm kid, and had endured them with a cheerful
resignation. Now, now that she understood that all she did served the
Corporation, she resented them with a sullen savagery.
She couldn't face them today.
She turned her steps towards the corral where Raja was penned. The big grey
stallion, seeing her approach, trotted over to nuzzle against her chest and
sniff expectantly at the vest pockets for a treat. Mary rubbed the velvety
softness of his nose, making soothing sounds. The big horse nodded its head.
The noble creature's proud bearing re-fired her spirit of rebellion that had
made her let Billy fondle her. Rather than submit to chores, she would ride
Raja, even though it was strictly forbidden.
There wasn't any tack for the horse because, as her father oft times
repeated: "Stallions are for stud, my girl, not for riding."
In defiance of her Papa's stern injunction, she clambered up onto the rail
and swung across the back. Urging the horse away from the rail, and
directing him with a hand in his mane, she heeled the horse into a canter. A
grin lit Mary's face as the air fluttered her long, blond pig-tails. The
powerful surging body between her thighs awoke the very devil of mischief in
her. She urged Raja into a gallop. The horse was only too glad to oblige.
She set him at the rail bounding his pasture; and her spirits soared with
excitement as Raja flew the obstacle with contemptuous ease. He landed
gracefully, and took off in a wild gallop across the grass, both she, and the
powerful creature, revelling in the freedom to run.
Their mad career scattered a flock of sheep. The animals fled, baaing in
panic.
The far boundary was a tall thorn hedge. Undaunted, Mary set Raja to the
task. The animal answered willingly, launching them at the impossible
obstacle. They crashed through the top of the hedge, the thorns raking
Mary's thighs. The elated girl just laughed and jabbed her heels more
urgently into the heaving flanks. She was completely carried away by the
overwhelming excitement that thundered through her entire frame in time to
the pounding hooves. She was screaming at the sheer wantonness of it all as
the thrilling sensation flooded through her. This wild elation, she knew,
was how Billy's feeling her up ought to have made her feel, but had not.
At the far corner of the next field, Raja slowed, and came to a stop. Mary
lay for a long time, clinging passionately to the heaving back of the horse,
wishing the delicious excitement of the wild ride could go on forever.
At length, she slid to the ground. Nearby was a gate, which led through into
one of the few paved roads in the locality. Mary leaned on the top while she
caught her breath.
As she came slowly down from the adrenalin high, the tediousness of her
existence bore in on her once more. All about lay the familiar farmlands
amidst which she'd e grown up. The pastoral landscape stretched away
forever, flat, green, and divided up into neat fields. Each enclosure had
its complement of cows or sheep, all dutifully slaving for the Corporation.
The stultifying sameness of it all oppressed her.
The soporific droning of insects in the still air seemed to mock her longing
for excitement. In the hedge, a bird chip, chipped dryly. A terrible fear
gripped her that she would drown in the endless pastoral calm.
Even Raja had succumbed, his noble spirit broken by the lure of lush grass.
The horse was contentedly cropping nearby, his tail whisking lazily at the
flies. His petty betrayal hurt.
Mary felt a scream of frustration building in her chest. She couldn't
breath. In a sudden burst, she vaulted over the gate and began running down
the road toward the village.
It was little more than a few dozen soulless pre-formed buildings, huddling
together for company under the wide sky. Desolate as it was, the village
held the only promise of excitement to be had in hundreds and hundreds of
miles - the Poster. Whenever she felt her adored devil of mischief drowning
in the crushing tedium, Mary would come to stand before the Enright
Consolidated Industries' recruiting poster.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mary crashed to a stop five yards from the abstract design, executed in
garish colours on the end wall of the local Enwright Consolidated Industries
Agent's office. Somehow, the confusing smear of colours contrived to suggest
a troop of ECI Mercs heroically storming to victory.
Mary stood a moment, catching her breath, and staring into the swirling
patterns, waiting for the magic to begin. There was a horrible, endless
moment of suspense before the embedded psychic stimulators drew Mary into the
dream.
With explosions blooming all about her, and energy fire weaving a deadly and
impenetrable network of death, Troop Leader Babydoll led a devastating
assault on the pirate base. The immunity from the murderous fire was not
magical, but all thanks due to Enwright Consolidated Industries' brilliant
training, battle strategies, and superior weapons technology...
...SO MAKE CERTAIN TO SECURE YOUR PREFERENTIAL STOCK OPTION! - INQUIRE
WITHIN TODAY!...
Inside the sparely furnished office, the automatic monitoring equipment
clicked on. It began to run a pre-programmed assessment routine. The
program was barely begun, when an alarm signalled for attention as the scores
began to exceed the maximum parameters.
The local ECI Company Agent jerked wide-awake. He paused the grotesque "skin
flick" before which he'd been dozing. One glance at the Psychometric
read-outs, and a greedy smile enlivened his pasty face. With scores like
those, it could only be HER!
Harmon reached out a pudgy hand to change channels on the vid. The picture
of three naked, lewdly entwined bodies was replaced by a close up of Mary's
face. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement. Her round baby face was
animated by the violent visions she was experiencing. They were being
created by the equipment from the desires that motivated her at her most
fundamental level.
Harmon smiled wolfishly. With those innocent blue eyes, and pig tails, she
looked a real baby doll. He'd been at the recruiting game for thirty years;
and yet, it never failed to surprise him how deceptive outward appearance
could be. This one had potential (and how) to be a reeeeal hell cat. There
was a murderous savage hiding behind that innocent face.
Enwright Consolidated Industries could make good use of that savage, very
good use indeed. Harmon's palms began to itch with excitement as he
contemplated the bonus that'd be coming his way for netting this particular
little spitfire.
He hunched closer, studying the screen as the girl's face contorted with a
spasm of pain. The expression twisted quickly into a look of stoic
determination. Harmon wondered idly what vicious little fantasy the psychic
stimulators had just now re-created in the girl's mind.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even when the inevitable happened in that murderous hell, and a Seeker Bomb
found her, Troop Leader Babydoll bore the pain bravely. Ignoring the wound,
she stormed on to victory, her pig tails fluttering. Those braids were her
own personal battle standard, the rallying point for her loyal troopers as
Babydoll built her name among the cadres of the ECI Military Division.
She never noticed the point of changeover - the moment when the thrilling
fantasy of the Recruiting Poster became an unpleasant reality. She knew only
that all the romance went out of the heroic wound; and her side began to hurt
like stink.
Lying on her side on the cold concrete, Babydoll groaned, and fumbled another
pain patch against the hot skin of her throat. She pressed it home with a
firm finger. The tiny prick of the injector went unnoticed in the general
pain rolling in waves from her smashed side. The agony dulled instantly.
She pushed herself up into a sitting position. Forcing her eyes open, she
peered around.
Half seen shapes of packing crates loomed over her. They cluttered a vast
expanse of concrete, lit by a diffuse yellow radiance cast by light globes
set in a low ceiling. She was sitting under a small access lock door in a
blank wall. At her side lay the dome of her pressure suit.
So, running on ingrained conditioning, she'd made it into the air tight store
room. The ECI methods of training were pretty ruthless; but they sure paid
dividends in times of need. Without it, she'd be just another blob of frozen
blood, metal and bones out on the airless surface - like the rest of her
patrol. Carefully, Babydoll eased her aching body back against the lock
door, and checked her weapons status.
The next second she was rolling aside as a flicker of movement, reflected in
the visor of her helmet, caught in the tail of her eye. The semi automatic
response, enhanced by ECI training, sent her rolling across the concrete
smearing a bloody trail in her wake. She hunched up behind the nearest
crate, and began searching the shadows for the danger.
Fifteen feet away stood a slight woman, who had not been there a second
before. Dark curls framed her oval face, which seemed unnaturally pale,
emphasising the redness of her mouth. She was wrapped in a black cloak.
Despite the business end of Babydoll's handgun aimed unwaveringly at her
middle, the woman seemed totally unconcerned.
"Don't move!" Babydoll commanded.
"I wasn't going to," the woman said in a pleasant voice, undershot with a
mischievous amusement, apparently unimpressed by Babydoll's antics. "And you
might as well put up that silly toy...You can't kill me with it."
"Really?" said Babydoll, an was half-minded to put that assertion to the
test; but there was something in the utterly careless manner of the strange
woman which rattled her certainties. Babydoll didn't like the situation one
little bit - and the woman could be concealing anything under that cloak?
"Let's have those hands where I can see them," she ordered, "very, very,
slowly."
The woman considered this a moment, a tiny grin tugging at that too vivid
mouth, stretching and parting the full lips, before she nodded. "OK," she
said, and carefully eased her hands into view. She lifted them slowly,
spreading them wide, palms up. The cloak spread back to reveal her slender
form, draped in a heavy, dark dress. "But it's not my hands you really need
to worry about," she added, widening the smile.
Even at that distance, and in the poor lighting, Babydoll could clearly make
out the elongated incisors gleaming wetly in the dark cave of her mouth.
A sudden shiver of distaste ran through Babydoll. "What the cruck are
you?...Some kind of new Bio Weapon?"
"Not exactly...Can I put my hands down? It's very uncomfortable like this."
"No," Babydoll snapped. "Unit Number?"
"I don't have any."
"This is an ECH military installation. No civvies allowed, sister...So who
are you?"
"Nobody."
"Don't get cute. I've got a hole in my side you could run a heavy cruiser
through; and I'm not in the mood. Who the cruck are you. Straight answer
this time, sister...Or I cut my losses and burn you."
"It's the truth. I am quite literally 'nobody'. I haven't been anybody for
a long time...A very long time...If, indeed, I ever was anyone in the first
place?" The woman's voice fell away into a reflective silence. The amusement
in her face was clouded momentarily by a shadow of dark emotion. Then, with
the glint of mischief back in her eyes, and a cheeky defiance, she lowered
her hands and slid onto a crate.
Every conditioned instinct in Babydoll was yelling at her to burn the
"thing". Time wasn't on her side. Already the large calibre weapon felt
unbearably heavy. It was only her iron will that kept it rock steady on the
target.
The room was developing a disturbing tendency to waver in and out of
solidity; and the pain in her side was becoming a major distraction again.
Gingerly, she felt the wound through the charred armoured suit. Her whole
side felt pulpy - like a squashed melon. It was only the suit that was
holding her together. She didn't have long; the life support built into the
suit was good, but not that good. Unless she got some drastic medic
attention soon, she could kiss goodbye to the company pension.
She ought to call in; but the com was part of the helmet; and that was
several feet away across open ground. She wasn't even sure she could crawl
that far now anyway.
Damn! That was sloppy.
The woman sat quietly on the crate, watching her work through the dilemma.
When she spoke again, it was several seconds before Babydoll realised that
the woman was not talking to her. There was some other person in the store.
The bitch had played her for a succor. Well, she'd take out the bitch right
now! Then she'd deal with the other hostiles as they presented. She
squeezed the trigger. At that moment, a shadow fell across her.
A powerful hand wrenched the gun from her grip. Babydoll's other hand was
already in motion, driving the dagger up at the big man's groin. The blade
went home with a solid thud, somewhere in his upper thigh. She heard him
grunt. Then a heavy hand slammed her in the face. Babydoll did her best to
ride with the blow; but the hand came with lightning speed, and stunning
force. Her head hit the floor with a brutal crack. Her senses went
walkabout. When she phased back in, the woman was speaking.
"...Getting slow, Cain. She almost had you."
A gruff male voice muttered something Babydoll did not catch.
The woman spoke sharply. "No. Leave her. I've got to feed soon. She'll
do."
Babydoll was vaguely aware of a shadow coming down on her. Silken ringlets
brushed over her face. A powerful animal musk ravaged her senses; and
something warm and moist touched her throat. There was a sharp sting - like
needles; and the world dissolved into dancing lights.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The shifting patterns of light, shining through closed lids, took on a bloody
hue.
The weight pressing down on Mary eased suddenly. The strands of hair
brushing her face lifted clear. She opened her blue eyes to see Sonia's
slavic features inches from her own. The girl's head of dark brown curls was
haloed by the golden sunlight, dappling through the leaves of the trees. A
broad smile was curving her full mouth, showing even, white teeth.
The well-built girl was pinning Mary down with blunt fingered hands. The
sleeves of Sonia's blue denim work shirt had been rolled up, exposing her
powerful arms, which the benevolent sun of the Back Doubles had tanned to a
tawny gold. As she squatted, studying Mary's face, her brown eyes came alive
with a playful challenge.
"D'yer give up, Mary?" she asked, filling Mary's nose with a waft of
strawberry scented breath.
"Never! Mary Rokossovsky never gives up!" The pig tailed blond, pinned to
the ground, affirmed. "Haven't you learned that yet, Sonia Maskowice?" The
girl straddling her pressed harder on Mary's shoulders, squeezing with hands
made powerful by farm work. "Give in!" she demanded.
"Never!" Mary gasped, and went limp.
She drew in a deep breath, then suddenly bucked under the girl straddling her
hips. With a grunt of effort, she flipped Sonia onto her back. In a fluid
continuation of the same movement, Mary was astride the girl, pinning her
wrists down in the leaf litter. She grinned triumphantly at the larger girl.
"And Mary Rokossovsky never loses. You ought to know that by now
Sonia...BABYDOLL NEVER LOSES!"
A little fearful of the sudden vehemence in Mary, Sonia's struggles fell away
to stillness. She gazed up into Mary's china blue eyes, suddenly uncertain,
seeing in them some quality of suppressed savagery from which her mind
instinctively recoiled.
In the suddenly serious silence, a gentle breeze rustled through the trees of
the little wood. It brought the sound of lambs in a nearby pasture, and the
vibrant scents of spring flowers along the hedgerows to the two girls. The
breeze ruffled Mary's work denims, and pulled playfully at her long pig
tails, before bustling away across the farmlands, intent on its own business.
"C'mon, Sonia. Give in..." Mary said. "...And I'll let you have another
strawberry."
Sonia smiled, and nodded . Mary released a hand and plucked up one of the
strawberries they had liberated from the patch managed by old Mr Greggor
Patakowsky. Sitting back, she held the ripe, red berry tauntingly before
Sonia's lips; but every time Sonia stretched up her mouth to take the prize,
Mary moved it teasingly out of reach. So Sonia put out her tongue to lick
the fruit.
At this new tactic, Mary went still. The challenging grin on her face faded,
like water draining into sand. A delicious tension tightened in her belly.
She became painfully aware of the exact shade of brown of Sonia's eyes - and
found it, in that still moment, the most perfectly beautiful shade of brown
she could imagine. The moment stretched out, haunted by the susurration of
the warm breeze through the trees.
Mary found she could not breath. While she remained captured by the magic of
the moment, Sonia lunged for the strawberry, snatching it with her teeth.
Grinning madly in triumph, she began to chew the juicy berry. A tiny trickle
of juice seeped from the corner of her mouth. Mary could not have stopped
what happened next. Even had her life depended on it, she could not have
prevented it.
Mary lowered her head, put out her tongue, and licked the trickle of juice
from the corner of Sonia's mouth. Somehow it turned into a kiss, then
inexorably into a mutual kiss, which lingered; but as the kiss deepened,
Sonia went rigid under Mary. The girl's eyes went suddenly wide with an
appalled comprehension of what was happening between them. She gave a great
heave. Hurling Mary from her, Sonia scrambled to her feet in a flurry of
dead leaves. She scrubbed at her mouth with a hand, spitting out pinkish
saliva and fruit pulp.
"That's dirty! Dirty!" Sonia spat out. "You're sick, Mary Rokossovski,
SICK!"
"Sonia..." Mary began, alarmed by the passion of Sonia's reaction. Mary
stretched out a hand towards the retreating girl. The kiss had not been
exactly innocent...Mary knew enough to know that, but even so... "Sonia!
I'm sorry!...I didn't mean..."
Sonia jumped back away from the hand as though it were coated in a slime of
unspeakable depravity. "Don't touch me, you filthy pervert!" she shrieked.
"Don't you dare come near me...You...You... "
"Sonia?..."
The quivering girl turned and crashed into the undergrowth. She pushed
through the thickets that hid their secret dell, unmindful of the briars
bloodying her bare arms. As she broke into the sunlight, she turned and shot
an intense look full of reproach at Mary, sitting bemused amid the wreckage
of the picnic.
Then Sonia spun about, and was gone.
Left alone among the trees, Mary's mind became a whirling mix of confused
feelings by her best friend's abrupt departure. She had been taken unawares
by the violence of Sonia's reaction to the impulsive expression of her own
adolescent feelings.
Her one little piece of secret self knowledge, which she had kept from her
friend, was out - and it now looked far less innocent than she had so far
persuaded herself it was. With a sinking heart, Mary understood by some deep
instinct that an ill-defined (yet precious to her) trust which had existed
between Sonia and herself had just been broken beyond all hope of mending.
There would be no more innocent play-fighting with Sonia. Mary also knew, by
that same instinct, that the smell of strawberries would haunt her to her
dying day.
After this fiasco became public, she'd be further alienated from all "decent"
and right minded folks. She entertained no illusions that it could be kept
quiet. Sonia was unlikely to keep the matter to herself. Already, Mary's
longing for excitement and adventure had set her apart from her fellows, who
were depressingly complacent with their lot.
Forcefully, Mary wrenched her mind away from those thoughts, and began to
plan in earnest how she was going to get off world. Now, more than ever,
Babydoll felt the need to get away.
Her going would cause pain to her family, particularly her Papa; but staying
would be even worse. The thought of her Papa's disapproval made her cringe
inside. No. After this, she definitely could not stay in the Back Doubles."
Sighing regretfully, Mary stretched out on the carpet of dead leaves.
Putting hands behind her head, she closed her eyes, and watched the sunlight
dappling her eyelids with bright patterns. Tears were sparkling in the
corners of her eyes - the very last tears she would shed in a very long time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A deep shudder ran through Bella's slim form where she crouched over the
body. lifting her head from the blond woman's throat, she pushed herself
back to squat over the thighs. In the emergency lighting, the woman's round
face was pale, the lips tinged with blue. For a long moment, Bella sat
motionless, regarding the face and the lips relaxed in unconsciousness. She
was troubled by some elusive impression.
"You don?" Cain asked.
Bella continued to gaze into the waxen face of the woman for a long moment,
before using a corner of the cloak to wipe the blood from around her mouth.
She glanced up at the dark bulk of the Time Lord towering over her in the
dimness. She nodded. "I'm done," she said.
"She finished?"
"Not yet."
"Get on with it. We ain't got all night, Babe. We gotta get finished up
here and get off this pile of rock while the corp troopers are still going at
it."
Bella looked back down at the face. Something about the two long pig tails,
which had been wound up and pinned across the head, served to bring into
sharp focus the elusive impressions which were troubling her.
Eyes widening in sudden comprehension, Bella's mouth crimped into a tight
bud. Her hands clenched in sudden passion. A tiny gasp escaped her,
sounding loud in the stillness.
Slowly, Bella unclenched one hand. She reached out, and with an infinite
gentleness, caressed the woman's cold cheek. It was the only movement to mar
the breathless stillness.
From deep inside, the oh so carefully buried memories came welling up,
bringing with them a rancid mixture of a first love, betrayal and shame.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lying on the floor amid the folds of Cain's trenchcoat, Bella writhed in
sudden panic. Her eyes snapped open. She stared into the vast blank spaces
of the Zero Room; but there was nothing there to distract her mind from the
welling memories.
The look of panic was chased from her face by a look of chagrin. Then she
chuckled in wry amusement at how neatly Seraph had out- manouvered her. She
closed her eyes once more, settled back into the folds of Cain's trenchcoat,
and readied herself for a rough ride. Clinging tightly to the golden braid
of Babydoll's hair, Bella went to meet her monsters.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The beginning she remembered with savage clarity...
...She recalled the large, airy room, the bare walls painted in pale blue,
with a tall, arched window thrown wide, the sunlight streaming in to fill the
room She remembered the way his naked body looked, seated in the window seat,
one leg to the ground, the other beautiful golden limb stretched out across
the seat, and the way the sunlight made love to his perfect form. He was
holding up a glass of red, red wine, inspecting it critically with a
jaundiced eye, while the bottle jutted up from his loins like a phallus of
dark glass...
...And when he sipped from the glass, the sunlight made the wine glow
blood-red, filling her with foreboding...
...And the red on the white, like a deformed rose, her virgin blood staining
the bed sheets...
...And she remembered the smell of the linen on the bed where she lay,
regarding her golden god...And the smell of their combined sweat on the
soiled sheets, and the smell of his semen cooling on her naked flesh. She
remembered the way it mixed and mingled with her scent and his cologne in a
cloying aroma which was faintly distasteful, against an ambient perfume of
roses born on the air from the neatly manicured garden beyond the window.
The suppression collar had an unsettling quality of slickness as she turned
it around and around and around in fearful fingers. He had removed it from
her neck against all good sense and in casual defiance of the strictest
prohibitions of the law. She recalled the way it imparted a tingle to her
fingers - a stinging counterpoint to the flutter of panic in her heart as she
asked: "Jason? You do love me? Don't you?"
She remembered the way his head turned to regard her...And the way his
beautiful face fell into shadow while the sunlight crowned him with a halo of
golden curls...And his voice, the beautiful voice...And the words, the ugly,
ugly words.
"Love? Good Lord! What a naive little trollop you are! No, my dear child,
not love...Nothing more than a mildly exciting way to pass a few idle hours."
She remembered the disbelieving shake of his godlike head. "Love! Good God!
Bella! How could someone like me love you. One does have standards you
know. And what are you but a pathetic, maimed brain little lunatic after
all? Suitable to spark a frisson of danger to liven up a dull
afternoon...But Love!"
Like the touch of hot iron, the eight digit number tattooed on the inside of
her left wrist burned into her flesh.
And all the while the merry fluting of a bird filled the air from its perch
atop a rose tree in the garden.
After that, her perception of reality became disjointed. The next thing she
recalled clearly was his mutilated body. It was sprawled on the cream carpet
as the center piece of a spreading stain of dark blood...And how the waves of
hate and fury surged within her heaving chest as her arms rose and fell, rose
and fell, her fingers white knuckled on the shards of the bottle...
...And the screaming, screaming, screaming.
Her next memories of that time came to her through a shimmering veil. She
grew aware of dark uniforms, of strong hands...And the chill of steel biting,
biting, biting into the flesh of her wrists.
There were long stumbling walks down endless white tiled corridors, gripped
between hard faced women in Prison Service grey. The air echoed with the
cries of the damned, the clanging of metal doors, the jangling of keys, the
air cursed with the acidic stench of stale urine and old cooking.
Next there was a face, disembodied, bloated, and red. Eyes of flint scraped
away at her mind. The mouth moved as the face asked questions, endless,
questions, repeating them in a language she knew was her own; but the meaning
of whose words she could not fathom.
Finally, she remembered the solitude of the small white tiled cell. She
recalled sitting on a bench in a coarse grey coverall...And fretting,
fretting because there was no window. If only there had been a window, she
felt that things would have been alright. But there was no window, only the
bare walls...And the waiting in the timeless white vacancy.
The blankness of the walls recalled to her the slave pens where she had been
born; and where she had pursued a precarious existence under the eye stalks
of the soulless creatures that had bred her - until the day when her own kind
came with flame and thunder, raining down death upon her former masters.
"You are a free citizen of the Earth Federation," the warriors cloaked in
black armour told her.
And when she could not seem to grasp the concept, shaking their heads sadly
at the maim brain, they tattooed the eight digit number on the inside of her
left wrist, fixed the suppression torque about her neck, and put her in the
care of a "Guardian".
Long after she had ceased to dwell upon these memories, the big, hard faced
women in Prison Service grey came for her. She once more walked the endless
white tiled vistas of the blind corridors. The Warders brought her to a room
full of corporation executives in business grey.
"...Psychosis too deeply ingrained," they explained.
"...Not fit for society..." they concurred sadly.
"...Not fit to live," they said.
"A terrible waste and shame, but...Will have to be put down..." they assured
her sadly. "...Unless?...Unless?..."
She remembered the tiny red hairs on the back of the manicured fingers as
they guided her trembling hand while she signed the forms, signed over and
over again the endless forms they put on the table before her.
She recalled her last journey under sunlight as a rushing blur of green, and
was elated that she had been granted this last chance to gather it into her
soul; for she knew that she would need these bright memories in the dark time
that was coming. So she sat in the back seat between the big grey men and
gulped down greedily the brightness that flowed past the window of the
speeding transport.
In the distance, the tall white towers of the Enwright Consolidated
Industries' complex speared into a sky of aching blue. Soon the transporter
turned in through gates guarded by anonymous men in corporation grey.
Beyond, the car dived into a dark tunnel...And she never again looked upon
sunlight without fear in her heart. There were corridors, carpeted in blue,
and rooms full of shiny equipment. White coated techs laid her on a table,
pricked her skin with needles; and soon they brought Old Harry to inspect his
accommodation. With a satisfied sigh, the monstrosity settled into her soul.
She never again enjoyed the caress of sunlight on her body. At the last, it
became Bella's only enduring regret.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cain shifted slightly, favouring his wounded leg. "What's the matter, Babe?
C'mon, finish her, and we can get moving."
"I can't," cried Bella, her voice an anguished squeak. She half shook her
head. "I can't!"
"Why not?" Cain grunted, impatience showing in his voice. "C'mon, Babe,
we're on a tight schedule...Finish the bitch."
"Cain!...I can't," Bella cried again, a note of pleading in her voice.
"Why not?"
Bella glanced up at the big man looming over her. Her eyes were wide and
full of confusion. She shook her head again. "I don't know...There's
something?...Something?...She tastes of strawberries!"
"It's no kindness to leave her alive," Cain pointed out. "If the ECH goons
get their hands on her? It won't be pretty. C'mon, Babe. Finish her now,
nice and clean."
"I can't, Cain. I CAN'T!"
Cain glared at her a long moment through his one good eye. Dark shadows
masked his expression. Then he shrugged. "Ok, Babe. Don't fret yourself.
Get the others moving. I'll finish up here." He limped forward, the woman's
knife, still wet with his blood, in his hand.
Bella stared at him in rising panic for a moment. Then she moved. In a
single flowing motion, she was on her feet, and confronting the huge man.
Resolutely, she stood before him, barring his way.
"No," she said. Even though it was said quietly, there was such menace in
her tone that Cain halted in surprise. He was not a man to be crossed, or
denied, or draw back from danger; yet, for the first time in a crazy, violent
existence, he felt a tiny tremor of fear. He dwarfed Bella, and knew he
could brush her aside; yet he made no move.
After a slow consideration, He shrugged, turned and limped away into the
gloom of the cavernous store room. "Do what yer damn well please. But We've
got a lot of stuff to get done here and only so much time. before the
Regulators come sniffing around."
"Cain?" Bella called softly after the big man; but he neither hesitated or
made any sign that he had heard. , "Cain?" she called again in a forlorn
whisper as his huge form vanished behind the packing crates.
Bella remained still a long moment, her features a study in anguish, before
she cast her gaze down at the woman; and her eyes set hard with resolve.
"Jubal?" she called out.
As though by magic, a powerful black man materialised at her side. "You
shouldn't rile him Bel," he warned. "You know what Cain's capable of when
he's trashing Regulator operations."
It was obviously sound advice; Bella ignored it. She waved a slender hand at
the prone form. "Jubal. Fetch her into the TARDIS."
"Why? She's just a ECI goon."
"Just do it."
Jubal shrugged. "Whatever you say Bel," he said. In one fluid movement, he
scooped up the body, and bore her towards a packing crate. Bella stood aside
for him to enter, and then passed inside the TARDIS.
In the medical facility, Jubal set the woman on the floor. Bella knelt and
stripped off the armoured suit. She cast the pliable but tough metallised
fabric into a heap. She stripped off the under suit. Instantly, there was a
rush of blood from the woman's mutilated side. Bella sat back. "Quick,
Jubal, get her into the tank or she'll bleed to death."
Rising, Bella quickly threw open the lid of one of the clear sided tanks
lining the wall. Holding back the cover, she motioned for Jubal to place the
body inside. He swept up the lax form and settled it into the cradle, then
stood back to regard the naked body. Blood was already pooling in the floor
of the tank.
"Bel? This is crazy," he said. What's got into you?"
"The taste of strawberries," Bella said enigmatically. She leaned into the
tank to fit the woman's head into the support cradle.
"But, Bell? She can't come with us!" said Jubal.
"Why not?" Bella asked. She closed the cover and moved to the controls at
the end of the tank.
"What are the others gonna say?"
"I don't care what they say," Bella said. She operated a control. The tank
began to fill with greenish fluid.
Bella checked the read-outs. "Please don't let her die on me, Seraph!" she
pleaded. She moved to peer in at the woman floating in the green liquid.
Under her cloak, she had fingers crossed on both hands. "Please make it,"
she whispered. "Please don't die on me!"
Alarmed by the intensity of Bella's passion, Jubal asked: "Bel? You ok?"
Bella nodded. She made a visible effort to compose herself before she turned
to face the concerned man and said: "Thanks Jubal. I owe you one."
"That's ok - always glad to help you Bel."
Abruptly, Bella moved towards the exit. "We had better get after
Cain," she said. "Someone has to watch his back for him."
"Granted...But does it always have to be you, Bell?"
"Yes. Come on!"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"How do you feel about the name Jason Regis now?" Seraph asked.
"Pretty shitty, actually," Bella answered, her unaccustomed crudeness
emphasising the depth of her feelings. "That was a rotten trick, Seraph,
sneaking one in like that without warning. It was downright underhand."
"what if I told you that much good for others, who shared your wretched
situation at that time, flowed from his death?"
"How so?"
"You know that he was the head of the Regis Clan?"
"Yes. What's that got to do with anything?"
"He had a sister."
"I know - Dora. She was my appointed Social Integration Mentor and
Guardian," said Bella. "Where is this leading?"
"You'll see in a moment. Be patient. She was as fine and noble a person as
he was rotten. She wanted to use the Regis fortune to set up a foundation to
help the repatriated Dalek slaves reintegrate into society. Which is how you
came to meet Dora, and through her that despicable cur, Jason. You recall?"
"I recall," Bella admitted reluctantly, unwilling to dwell on the painful
memories.
"Well, Jason was opposing her in every way he knew. And as Head of Clan
Regis, he had the vast resources of a powerful Trading Clan at his disposal.
Your killing him moved Dora into the position of Head of Clan Regis, and put
the family fortune under her control. She dedicated that fortune to helping
to re- settle the returned Dalek slaves. So although it didn't help you, it
did incalculable good for your fellow repatriatees. Now, how do you feel
about Jason's death?"
Bella thought about it for a long moment. Then she dropped her gaze to her
slender hands clasping Babydoll's braid in her lap. She was silent for a
while, then she lifted her gaze and stared challengingly into the vast
blankness of the Zero Room.
"I still feel really shitty about it, Seraph. But I'm not sorry I did
it...Not even with what the Corporation did to me because of what I did...I'm
not sorry. He deserved to die...And not just for the way he used me."
"Good, Miss Bella. That's very good. We're making progress...And now, I
think you should find Cain, because I fear he is about to do something
exceedingly stupid."