A Stranger at the Funeral (Part 2 of 2)
Rating: PG/All Ages
Characters: Susan; William Howie (OC)
Author: uncledark
Betas: slashpervert, brknhalo241, worthyadvisor
Spoilers: Nothing major, some reference to locations from "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday"
Notes: AU; I use certain story elements from New Who, but do not conform to New Who continuity
Ownership: Susan, the TARDIS, and all Doctor Who-specific elements belong to the BBC. The Daleks are property of the estate of Terry Nation. The rest is mine, and only I can be blamed for it.
Summary: Investigating the deaths of Steven and Susan Campbell leave the man from Torchwood chasing a mysterious woman... And being chased by something that crawled out of the ruins of London to threaten humanity's future. (Follows 30 years after the events of "The Dalek Invasion of Earth.")
Canary Wharf was an island of debris in the middle of a swamp. Once part of the London docklands, the rise of the Thames had left only a few blocks above the brackish water. Broken towers stood on that island, and in the shell of the central tower was a closed salvage site.
Howie parked his car under one of the tarpaulin-covered scaffolds at the edge of the site. “You’re sure we’ll find what we need here?” he asked.
“This is the place that started it all,” she said. “Well, most recently.”
“How do you mean?”
“This was the discovery that resurrected Torchwood.”
Howie stopped in his tracks. “I know that Torchwood was started up early on, after the Daleks left, to collect and control all the alien technology they left behind. I never knew that there was a particular find that started it all.”
The woman was walking along the southern wall of the site, splashing through puddles and peering under the old tarpaulins hung on the walls. “Yes, well … our Torchwood is the second incarnation of that institute. It seems that, before the invasion, the government was collecting evidence of aliens on Earth and studying it in secret.”
“Aliens on Earth? Before the invasion?” Howie wasn’t quite convinced.
“Happened more often than one might expect,” she said. “The government - all of them, really - were fairly good at hiding it. Eventually it got out, of course .…”
She found what she was looking for, and pushed a tarpaulin aside. “But this, they kept secret.” There was an alcove in the wall, and at the back of the alcove was a metal door. There was no knob or handle, but there was a keypad. A red light glowed above the pad.
“This site is supposed to be shut down,” Howie said. “How do you know all this? Are you Torchwood?” They’d spent the drive over talking about how to handle the Dalek.
She looked back at him and smiled. “Not in this lifetime.” She tapped six digits into the keypad. The light changed to green, and the door opened. Inside was a flight of stairs, heading down.
Howie was surprised at the lack of water. In most every salvage site this close to the Thames, all the basements and tunnels ought to be flooded. “Torchwood pumped this out?”
“No,” she said. “They didn’t have to.”
They reached the bottom of the stairs, which opened out into a darkened vault. Howie heard the woman step to the right, and the lights came on with an audible snap. “Welcome to Torchwood,” she said.
The vault was huge. Her words echoed among the boxes, crates, vehicles, and assorted racks of unidentifiable equipment. Howie stood, speechless, as the woman headed off into the vault. After a moment, he started to follow, sputtering.
“Right,” she said. “In order: They didn’t use this stuff during the invasion because the Daleks struck too quickly. All over the world, all at once. The resistance didn’t use them, because no one who knew about it survived the first strike. The government doesn’t want to admit how much they’re relying on alien technology. Did I miss anything?”
Howie stopped again. “Who in Hell are you? Who?”
He could have sworn that he heard her laugh, under her breath. It was not a mirthful laugh.
She turned a sharp left, and walked to the side wall. There were half a dozen doors set into that wall, each locked with another keypad. “The weapons ought to be in one of these.” She opened the leftmost door, first, finding a closet full of forty-year old cleaning supplies.
The next two held curiosities of alien technology, but not the ones they were looking for. The third .…
The third held a large blue box. Windows of frosted glass were set into the sides, under a ledge bearing the words “Police (public call) Box.” There were two doors set in the front of it, closed, and a dark lantern on the top.
The woman stopped, gaping at the box. She spoke, her voice barely above a whisper, “Grandfather?” After a moment, she threw herself against the doors, pounding on them with her fists, kicking them, screaming “Grandfather! Grandfather, you bastard, let me in!” Her screams turned to sobs, and she slumped to the floor, leaning against the box.
This woman, who seemed to know things Howie needed to know, also seemed to be losing her mind. She seemed to believe that her grandfather was in a box in a locked closet in a sealed vault.
“Hey …” he said, wishing he had a name for her. “Listen, we can come back for, for your grandfather.”
She started laughing, in between the sobs.
He crouched next to her, and said as gently as he could, “That Dalek is out there. We need those weapons.”
“Of course. The Dalek. Always the damn Daleks.” She struck the box, hard. “Sometimes it seems my entire life is about the Daleks.”
Howie grinned. “I feel the same way.”
“No,” she said, “you don’t. But you’re right.” She extended a hand. “Help me up?”
The next door opened onto the weapons closet. “See?” she said, “Bigger guns.”
“That,” Howie said, “is what I’m talking about.”
* * *
Howie’s car sped down the road, plowing through the shallow pools and sending up sprays of dirty river water when he had to swerve around bits of fallen buildings. Muzzle flashes and energy beams lit the sky not far ahead. It seemed that the military had drawn the Dalek away from populated areas, to the swampy edge of the old ruins.
His passenger mumbled something around the bit of cabling held in her teeth. The big gun from the Torchwood vaults was balanced in her lap, its upper casing opened, and the woman’s hands were buried in its guts as she tinkered.
“What?” he asked, turning the wheel and bouncing up onto the sidewalk as they raced past a place where the road had fallen in.
She pitched up against the door, dropping the cabling from her mouth and one of the tiny screwdrivers from her hand. “I said, ‘Try not to do that, this is delicate work I’m doing here.’” Her exasperated tone again recalled to Howie’s mind the image of the ill-tempered school teacher.
“Sorry,” he said, “but I thought that falling into a tube might be a bit more jarring.”
Still watching the road, he did not see it when she shot him a sullen pout. He felt it, though, and smirked.
She plugged the cabling back inside the gun’s housing, and snapped the casing shut. “There. That ought to clear up the power compatibility problems.”
“What did you do?”
“I reversed the polarity of the neutron flow,” she said, knowing that neutrons have no charges to be polarized. She didn’t have the time to explain enough of the physics to give him an honest answer.
“Ah,” he said, suspecting that he’d just been put off, “Well done, then.”
The guard at the perimeter of the combat zone waved them through after getting a look at Howie’s Torchwood ID, though Howie suspected that the rather large weapon his passenger held up was the more persuasive argument.
They could only drive so far, however, before the large lorries blocking the street forced them to go on foot. The sounds of gunfire were near and loud, along with bursts of a strange, electronic hum. That sound was always followed by the screams of the dying. Over it all was a distorted, inhuman scream, providing rhythm in perfect time to the destruction: “ExTerMinAte! ExTerMinAte!”
Howie and the woman ran less than half a block, turning the corner, and stepping into the chaos. The military had the Dalek surrounded in an old round-about. Soldiers were crouching behind available piles of rubble, in doorways, and behind concrete barriers blocking off the four roads that emptied into the circular drive. The two newcomers entered behind such a barrier, and were immediately pulled down by the soldiers.
The Dalek was standing in a large, cracked basin in the center of the round. It’s bump-studded lower half was partly submerged in the defunct fountain, while it’s upper half whirled about, firing with great speed and terrible accuracy. Two round lights on its domed top flashed in time with its screeching, and it waved an improbable toilet-plunger-like arm about. The thing would have struck Howie as comical, had not people been dying with every burst it fired.
A blinding white bolt struck a soldier in a doorway as Howie watched. His flesh glowed, incandescent and translucent with the energy. The black shadows of his bones showed, momentarily, before the light cut off and the body fell.
“What in the hell do you two think you’re doing?” demanded a young man wearing sergeant’s stripes. “Any fool knows not to run towards gunfire!”
Still lying on his back, where he’d fallen when the sergeant pulled him down, Howie held up his credentials. “Inspector William Howie, Torchwood. We’re here to help.”
“I don’t see how,” the sergeant said. “Damn thing seems to be immune to bullets. Best we can do is scratch it.”
The woman held up the large gun, a metal pod with a trio of barrels pointing out of one end and a long power cord sticking out of the other. “A few shots with this ought to do for it,” she said. “You’ll have to rig a tripod for it, and plug it in.”
“Don’t worry about the neutron flow,” Howie added. “It’s already been reversed.”
The sergeant grunted and waved back in the direction of the roadblock. “Technician!” He shouted over the sounds of fighting and dying.
Another soldier, who looked like he was a bit older than the sergeant, came up in a crouched run. The sergeant said, “It looks as if Torchwood deigns to loan us one of their ray guns. See what you can do with it.”
The technician took it from the woman, hauling it up just behind the barrier. He spoke, low and rapid, into a radio, and began giving orders to the machine gunners at the wall. They unmounted their gun, freeing the tripod for the new weapon. A pair of soldiers carried a boxy-looking fuel cell unit up from the trucks.
It was then that everyone noticed the silence. Peering over the barrier, Howie saw that no one was firing on the Dalek any more. Bodies lay in the streets, the doorways, and draped over piles of brick and concrete. Smoke rose from behind the shattered remnants of the three other barriers.
The Dalek rolled toward them, then levitated up and over the edge of the basin. It continued to approach. “SurRenDer! Your WeaPons Are UseLess AgAinst The DaLeks!”
The machine gunners responded with rifle fire, while the technician set up the alien gun.
“SurRenDer! You Will ProVide InForMaTion!”
“Aim for the eye-stalk!” the woman said. “That stick pointing out of the dome on top!”
The Dalek continued to approach, ignoring the bullets ricocheting of its shell. It continued to promise death and demand surrender in its grating voice.
“Oh, bloody hell,” the technician said. He was holding up the plug-end of the gun’s power cord. Three identical, triangular bars stood out from the plug. There was no matching socket on the power box.
“Can you jerry-rig something?” the sergeant asked.
“Not in time.”
The woman muttered something in a language Howie did not understand, though he thought it sounded quite unladylike. More audibly, she said, “You’ll have the time,” and sprang up, vaulting the concrete barricade.
"Get back here!" Howie called after her. She ignored him.
“Dalek!” she shouted as she walked toward it. “Stop right where you are!”
The woman had placed herself directly between the Dalek and the soldiers, blocking its view of their work.
"Why hasn't it just killed her?" The sergeant asked.
Howie just shook his head. At this point, he'd given up counting the number of mysteries surrounding the woman. "Maybe it recognizes that she's not a soldier. Maybe that confuses it."
"Sure, and maybe it knows her from old school days," the technician added.
Howie wondered about that. The woman knew too much, had mentioned too many old things to be just another Torchwood technician.
Beyond the barrier, the Dalek demanded, “IDenTiFy YourSelf!”
“I don’t think so, just yet.” The woman replied. "You do realize, you're the last Dalek on Earth? When your fleet fled, they left you behind with the rest of the rubbish."
The technician, busily stripping the power cable from a nearby spotlight, said, "What, is she trying to make it angry?"
"It's a Dalek," Howie said. "I'm pretty sure they're born angry."
The woman and the Dalek closed the distance between them, stopping just a couple of meters apart.
“IDenTiFy YourSelf!”
She looked it up and down, noticing the gouges where bullets had struck. A few of the domes on its lower half were broken open, revealing smashed machinery within. “You’re a bit worse for wear, aren’t you? What’s wrong, is your force field inoperative?”
The Dalek pointed its gun-stick at her “You Will IDenTiFy YourSelf!”
“Not very creative, are we?” she said. “No, of course not. You had all the creativity bred out of you generations ago, didn’t you?
“Is she some kind of Dalek expert?" the sergeant asked.
"Yes," Howie said. He didn't want to have to explain to the soldiers that he'd placed all their lives in the hands of a potentially unstable amnesiac.
"Your BioMetRic SigNaTure Is AnOmAlOus." Howie saw the woman's back go stiff, as with fear or surprise, but she stood her ground. “Your Body TemPerATure Is Too Low For A HuMan. IDenTiFy Your SpeCies!”
"Thirty years underground must have left it a bit funny," the Sargent said.
The Dalek turned slightly, and began to move back and forth in front of the woman, as if pacing while it thought. “BiNary CirCuLaToRy SysTem. UnUsUAl NeuRal AcTivItY.”
"Who's it talking to?" The tech said. He had separated the three lines inside the power cable, and was hurriedly splicing them onto the leads from the gun.
It stopped in front of her, suddenly, and backed away a bit. “You Are A Time Lord!”
She started to wave her hands in front of her, saying, “Not at all. No idea what you’re on about, no one here but us humans .…”
"What's a Time Lord?" the sergeant asked.
"It's above your pay-grade," Howie said, wishing that he knew the answer.
Sparks shot out around the plug when the technician connected the spliced cable to the fuel cell. A low hum came from the gun itself, and three tiny cyan lights started blinking, then held steady. "I think we're good to go," the technician said.
“Get Down!” Howie shouted, as the soldiers swung the gun around and squeezed the trigger.
The woman dived to her left as a continuous scarlet beam sliced through the air, starting fires where it struck flammable material across the round-about.
The Dalek turned to face the gun just as the beam touched it where the upper and lower halves of its shell met. A grating, metallic shriek sounded and stopped abruptly as the beam split the Dalek in two. Flames and noxious, greasy smoke burst from its lower half.
The soldiers leapt across the barrier and rushed forward, rifles trained on the burning Dalek. Howie followed, stopping and kneeling by the woman. “That was almost anti-climactic,” he said, offering her his hand.
“Yes, well, perhaps I set the power a bit high,” she replied, as he helped her up. “I was expecting it to have its force field in order.
“Look,” she said, “I need you to get me back to the vault.” She started to walk back towards the barrier as the soldiers started looking for survivors among the bodies. Unsure of what else to do, Howie followed.
“What?” He was still looking around. The soldiers were not finding survivors. The one left to guard the Dalek gave a startled shout and fired into the top half of the shell, spattering the pavement with something wet and green and faintly luminescent.
“There’s something there I need,” was all she said before they got underway.
* * *
She was silent, all the way back to the vault. Howie had pressed her for an explanation of the Dalek’s last words. For a while, she’d just stared out the window, not looking at the ruins they passed. The third time he’d demanded to know what a Time Lord was, she’d fixed him with a grim stare, and he decided that questions could wait.
Once they re-entered the vault, she’d located a cart laden with tools and technical equipment whose purpose was unknown to Howie. She pushed it over to the closet containing the blue box. Immediately, still refusing to answer Howie’s questions, she set to work on the lock in the front door.
“This hasn’t been here long,” he said, not expecting an answer. “Everything else is covered in dust, but this looks fairly clean.” The surface looked like wood, and when he touched it, he could feel the faintest of vibrations from within. He walked around the box, trying to open the windows. A dim light shone through them, but Howie could not see in.
Howie heard the woman scream with frustration, and a crash. He came around the last corner of the box, to see her leaning against the still-closed doors, the cart knocked over, and tools scattered about. Howie leaned a shoulder against the frame of the closet’s door.
“You’re her, aren’t you,” he said.
The woman’s eyes were tightly closed, and tears leaked from under the lids. She did not move or speak.
“Susan,” he said.
She opened her eyes, and her expression softened from fury to mere petulance. “Not anymore.”
“You showed up the night the car went off the bridge. You know about Torchwood, and you’re more familiar with Daleks and alien technology than anyone I’ve worked with.
“I’ve yet to figure out how you gained four inches and lost twenty years, but I’m sure there’s an explanation.” He smiled his no-pressure, trust-me smile. “No doubt something to do with you not being human.”
“Something like that,” she said. “My grandfather and I came here during the last days of the Dalek occupation. We knew them from previous encounters, and it was our experience that allowed the resistance to really hurt them.”
Howie nodded, knowing better than to interrupt once someone starts confessing something.
“I met David, fell in love, and got left behind. Grandfather is like that, always assuming he knows what’s best for everyone.
“So I settled down, and worked with the reconstruction. Suddenly, Earth was my home, so I thought I ought to do something to clean it up.
“All that’s over, now. David is dead, Grandfather’s back, and I can finally get off of this rock. If I can ever get back into this thing.” She pushed away from the box and knelt on the floor, gathering up the scattered tools.
"If he's in there, why doesn't he just let you in?" Howie asked. She ignored him, continuing to collect the tools she'd scattered.
“Susan,” Howie began, but she interrupted him.
“Don’t call me that. It was never my real name, anyway. It was just a travelling name Grandfather insisted I use, for anonymity’s sake.” Having gathered a few of the odder-looking pieces of equipment, she stood and turned back to the box.
“I have to call you something,” Howie said, standing up and putting his hands in his pockets.
“I’ll think of a new name sometime, I suppose,” she said. “I left my birth-name behind when we started travelling. Then I was Susan Foreman, two hundred years ago and just a few miles north of here. Then I was Susan Campbell, the hero’s wife.
“I have no idea who I am, now. Or how I’m going to open these doors.”
Howie felt something warm in his pocket. Drawing it out, he found himself holding a faintly glowing handkerchief. Unfolding it, he saw that the strange key he'd found in the muck was shining. Stepping up next to the woman who insisted she wasn’t Susan, he put his hand out and showed her the key.
She gasped, and snatched it out of his hand.
“We found it in the mud near the place you washed up, after the accident,” he told her. “Like everything else associated with you, it’s quite odd.”
Without a word, she stepped forward, unlocked the doors, and went inside.
Howie stepped up to the box, and looked in. He couldn’t see anything beyond a kind of darkened vestibule. Stepping in, he saw that there was another doorway, ahead of him, and that the woman was just through it. Something struck him as odd about this, but he couldn’t quite identify it.
He stepped forward, into a room far too large to be inside the box. It was paneled in dark wood, with brass fixtures and railings. The woman was a little ways away, down a short flight of stairs. As Howie entered, the image of an old man flashed into existence.
The image was just slightly grainy and flickered almost imperceptibly. Given the sophistication of the key, this had to be intentional, as if to demonstrate that the image was a projection of some kind. The old man was short, with an aquiline face and white hair swept back from a high forehead. His hands grasped the lapels of his black frock coat.
He spoke, “Ah, granddaughter. There you are.”
“Grandfather?” she said.
“Hmm. Not exactly,” the projection replied. “If you are viewing this recording, then it means, I am afraid, that I am dead. The TARDIS is yours, and so is all of space and time. Everything that is mine, I leave to you.”
She looked up at Howie, fighting tears. “I suppose you can call me ‘the Doctor’ from now on.”
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