Faces from far-off places
Title: Faces from far-off places
Author: deadlybeauty32
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,530
Summary: Amy runs into a new face, a face that knows her, and a face that disappears all too soon.
(Very first fic to big_jumps written for the Free For All challenge! You should do it too../winkyface .)
Well, it all starts with this big space ship that isn't going anywhere and every citizen has replaced their names with numbers in order to keep the space ship organized. (“Everything's backwards” The Doctor says, “This is all wrong! This isn't how it happened! The colonization of the Earth's moon is...different.”)
Amy's got a bundle of wires in one hand and she's crouched beside the Doctor as he's sonic-ing this computer.
“I can't...someone else is overriding it to get the codes!” The Doctor gives a small huff of aggravation before taking some of the wires from Amy's hand and tying them together with these other wires. Everything looks identical-Amy's impressed he can keep it all straight in his head.
“Someone else is here then? Someone like us?”
“OR someone else is overriding the system in order to stop me from getting the access cod-Aha!” The computer monitor starts broadcasting all these numbers and symbols. The Doctor's words rush out of his mouth as he hops to his feet, “It's not to keep it organized for the citizens benefit, not at all, this place is collecting them. Humans, I mean. Collecting them-but, but why? They need to meet a certain quota before returning to their home planet...”
“Which is where?” Amy joins his side as they start weaving their way in and out of the masses of people. “And why do they need humans?”
“I don't know, but I'm working on it.”
“Amy, what do you do when there's a problem on a ship?” He smirks at her.
“You...” She begins, watching that smile spread across his face, “Talk to the crew?”
“Exactly. C'mon Pond!”
Amy bumps shoulders with a blonde woman but doesn't have time to apologize.
The Doctor goes to investigate the engine room and Amy makes her way to the kitchen. There are robots serving all sorts of strange food and the citizens on the ship don't even seem to notice what their eating. Amy makes a face as a plate of purple spaghetti? passes by her face. Amy slips into the kitchen, unnoticed, and she's met with dozens of identical robots all preparing similar dishes. It's more like an assembly line for food than anything else. “Ugh. It smells awful.” Amy mutters, as to not offend the robot servers, especially when some of them were holding very sharp objects.
The Doctor scratches his head, the engine room is working properly, but... “Where is the crew?”
“We have no need for a crew. People can be swayed too easily by external forces, an unbiased, user-friendly software is the only option.” The Doctor spun around on his heel to face...ah well...a face on a monitor screen. The voice was female but she didn't have many features, it was like a plain, white mask coming to life.
“Who pilots the ship?”
“We do.” The computer answered simply.
“And what's it for?”
“That information is classified.” Its voice is painfully monotone.
“Then un-classify it!”
The computer was silent for a moment; “We cannot do that.”
The Doctor gave a small sigh, one day-that would work. “But I can.” The Doctor pulls out his sonic screwdriver and the computer begins spitting out all these warning messages to him. The sonic whirrs, its sound tiny compared to the thundering of the engines beside them.
“Oh. Oh this is...this is very not good...very, very bad.” The Doctor had to get to Amy and quickly.
As the Doctor ran off, two words sat blinking on the computer screen: Quota Reached
Amy leaves the kitchen, a little red light blinking as a stoic message was released overhead, “Attention Citizens: We are now beginning our journey into the great beyond. Please return to your rooms...” The message repeats and everyone began moving all at once. Amy pushes her way through the crowd, because the only way to stop this ship from taking all these innocent humans far, far away into some unknown planet for some unknown reason; she was going to need to find the Captain.
There's a map of the space ship but there's a gray area, which can only mean; keep out, which also means...that's where the Captain is.
“Amy? Amy!” The Doctor is moving against a sea of people and they keep pushing him back. He doesn't want to go back, he needs to go forward and find Amy and stop this ship. It wasn't going to the Moon as all the little brochures advertised, these people were going to be dumped off and then hunted by the home planet's wealthy class for sport.
Amy rushes up the stairs and nearly trips over an unconscious body, “Don't worry, Amy.” A voice says, “I just knocked him out, he'll come to soon.” Amy looks up to see a woman with her light blonde hair pulled back, and she's busy at the control pad in front of a large red door. She's got combat boots and she's wearing a long jacket. (Amy wouldn't be surprised if the woman had a weapon on her as well.)
Amy steps forward, “How do you know my name?”
The blonde looks at her, her eyes are blue and kind, but also quite confused. “Oh.” She looks guilty for a moment, “I'm Jenny.” The conversation ends there as the big red door opens, revealing several computer terminals and wires hanging from every ceiling beam imaginable.
“And, I'm gonna need your help.” Jenny says, tossing Amy a small square chip.
“Oi! How do you know me? We haven't met before.” Amy presses, now she really knows how the Doctor felt with River, someone in the universe knowing things about you...knowing what you do, what choices you make, all before you even make them.
“It's a long story.” Jenny says with her back to Amy, “Alright, I'm going to need you to slide that chip into here...” She points at a slot underneath the monitor, “and I'm going to need you to read me the third number that repeats seven times.”
The information sounds overwhelming, “I didn't expect this to be easy...”Amy takes a breath and finally joins Jenny's side at the computers, “Okay.”
Jenny smiles, 'Now it makes sense why he likes you',
The space ship shakes violently and the Doctor falls over but, is faster to his feet than everyone else is. The message on the intercom changes, urging everyone to stay calm, that there is nothing wrong and they should continue to proceed to their rooms. He scrambles around toppled over vending machines, “There needs to be a second, a back-up mainframe somewhere...if I can find it, I can stop the ship.”
“..Eleven...uh...two....” Amy blinks a few times as the numbers race across the screen, “Ten...zero...”
Jenny bites her lip as the computer fights each control she puts in, firewalls and anti-theft systems and virus blockers, only all of it was re-vamped and extremely difficult to override or decode. “Seven....”
“One more number, Amy.” Jenny urges, her body lurching to the left as the ship shakes again.
“Nine!”
“Got it!”
The ship quiets all of a sudden and the messages stop blaring out the speakers. Lucky for them, it didn't travel too far out of Earth's solar system, “Someone will just need to pull her back into Earth's orbit.” Jenny pats the computer screen that reminds Amy of the way the Doctor would pat the TARDIS.
“What happened? How did you know what was going on?” Jenny wasn't listening; she was looking at her watch. She gave a final smile.
“I gotta go. Bye, bye Pond!” Then she was gone, a flash of blue light and no trace of the blonde woman was left. Amy pulled the chip from the computer and slid it into her pocket to show the Doctor. She knew me...knows me...and she saved this ship, with my help, but...all I got was her name.
“Doctor!” Amy grins at the sight of him, alive and well. There's the left over adrenaline racing through her veins. He opens his arms and Amy gathers him up in an enormous hug, her ear pressed to his chest; listening to the two hearts beating. The adrenaline is slowly smoothed away with relief; no matter how grim the situation, Amy and Her Raggedy Doctor manage to get out OK.
He kisses her forehead, “Did you save another star ship?” He asks, holding her at arm's length. Amy laughs and pokes his chest, “No help from you!”
“Hey!” But his warm grin tells Amy that he isn't at all offended by her comment. Amy reaches into her pocket and pulls out the small chip Jenny gave her just moments ago. “This is what stopped the ship...and I had some help.”
The Doctor's eyebrows raise in surprise, “Help? From who?”
“It's a long story...” Amy echos Jenny's worlds before she takes his hand to pull him to the TARDIS. From the way Jenny talked; they were going to see her again at some point in time.