Fic: Alien Abduction. Chapter 1/5.
Aaand here's Chapter 1. Not sure this is the best time to post, but I managed to find a few minutes. Un-beta'd, so all mistakes mine... It's been interesting, actually, getting back to this. When I first started it, Matt and Josh were mere ciphers, but thanks to 'Dating the Cleverest Boy in the World' they developed as properly fleshed out characters, so now I can write them much better. That said, a lot of their behaviour in 'Dating' ties back to what happens in this story (what with having had it planned out for years...) Hey look at me rambling. I'll shut up now.
Prologue here (and very short it is too).
Summary: This story begins with abduction and ends with waffles. In between there's some adventuring and some heartache and a fair few truths are revealed.
Setting: 2023 (Alex is 16).
Characters: The Doctor (Tenth), the Master (Simm), Lucy, Jack, OCs (Alex, Matt, Josh)
Rating: PG-13.
Word count: 4000+
Feedback: *looks hopeful*
Chapter 1
First there was a sudden and terrifying awakening, and if Matt had been able to scream he would have called for his mum... But even as he tried to open his mouth the whole world - himself included - disappeared in a bright, white light.
Next thing he knew he was lying on a floor - a rather hard floor. Slowly he tried to sit up and looked around. He was in a small room - 20 feet square he reckoned - floor, walls and ceiling all made out of the same pale grey faintly glowing material. There was a door in one of the walls - fitting flushly into the frame and with no handle. He could see Josh and Alex similarly try to get their bearings as they too sat up, and even as he tried to deny to himself what had clearly happened, Josh spoke up - voice as shaky as Matt felt:
“Oh god... We’ve been abducted.”
It wasn’t that everyone didn’t know that aliens existed or anything, but... Just like meeting a genuine movie star, seeing aliens - never mind being abducted - wasn’t something Matt had ever thought would happen to him.
As the reality sank in he could feel panic beginning to take over. This was it... he would never get home, never see his family again, and he would die some horrible death-
Then Alex let his head fall back against the wall, sighing deeply as he looked around.
“Oh great. Jack will never let me live this down.”
Matt’s mounting panic suddenly stumbled, before turning incredulous.
“What? We’ve been abducted by aliens who will do goodness knows what to us, and you’re saying... what?”
Alex shot him a wry look. “Calm down Arthur Dent, things could be a lot worse!”
“Excuse me?” Josh exploded, clearly on the verge of breaking down. “How could things possibly be worse? Please tell me that Alex, I’d love to know!”
Alex smiled a little. “Well Earth could have been blown up and this could be a Vogon ship!”
Then frowning he slowly stood up, studying the room. Matt watched him as he stood there, in his stripy pyjama bottoms and grey Sex Pistols T-shirt, blond hair somewhat ruffled and head tilted the way Matt knew so well - meaning that Alex was trying to figure something out.
There were times when Matt wished that he wasn’t as smart as he was, and this was one of those times. Because in a sudden flash hundreds - thousands - of different memories fused together in one perfect whole - and even before Alex started talking Matt knew that his best friend wasn’t who he seemed.
“Actually... what kind of ship is this?” Alex bit his lip and tapped the wall. “Interior structure of luminous kartillium - simple, hard wearing... and used by lots of different species. Not helpful. Now...”
He walked over to the door and stared intently at the inscription above it, written in odd, strangely official looking, squiggles.
“OK, it looks like... Karth? No... they don’t have those glyphs... And not Anstoan either... Glattian? They have those dot-things... yes, and the dips in the secondary units... I think. Or is that the Nu-thenians?” He dragged a hand through his hair and sighed. “Guess this’ll teach me to do my homework and not plan out imaginary laboratories instead...”
Matt made up his mind and stood up; then said, voice as level as he could make it: “You’re an alien!”
Alex turned his head and shot him and Josh a dazzling smile, the one that was pure, unalloyed Saxon and always reminded Matt of Ford Prefect - it was just that little too wide and unnerving.
“Yes I am! I’ve been waiting for you to figure that out for ages now!”
Then he turned back to the writing on the wall, absentmindedly turning the bracelet on his wrist round and round.
“Right... we’re in holding chamber 375... or possibly 1375, I can’t remember what that little squiggle means... on level 6 of a Glattian ship. And that symbol at the end is the official sign of the... 28th Dynasty - all of which means that we’re in our own time and if we’re lucky haven’t even left the solar system yet...” He smiled triumphantly, and then took in the way Matt had edged closer to Josh, both of them silently staring at him.
“What?”
“You’re an alien!”
“Yes, we covered that already.”
Matthew shook his head. “You’re our best friend and you’ve lied to us. For years!”
Alex looked somewhat taken aback. “I didn’t lie, I just... I just didn’t tell the whole truth.”
They both stared at him, incredulous. Josh found his voice first.
“I don’t believe this. We don’t... we thought we knew you, but now... Who - no, what are you? Is Alex even your name? What... what do you really look like? Where do you come from - do you have some home planet somewhere that you report back to? Are we here because of you?”
“What? No!” Alex was staring at them, pained and angry, and clearly trying to hold himself back.
“I’m just... me! This is what I look like and you’ve known me since I was 4 years old! Earth is my home, just the same way it is yours - I mean my mum’s human and all!”
“So... you’re half-human?” Josh asked, and Alex’s eyes widened in what looked like genuine horror.
“God no! I’ve not had a proper look at my genetic makeup - yet - but whatever part of me is human is infinitesimally small, bordering on non-existent, thankfully.”
He bit his lip. “Um, no offense?”
“Oh. Well it’s nice to know how you really feel about us.” Matt hadn’t meant to sound so snippy, but it was easier to be angry than take in all the implications of the situation.
“I didn’t mean it like... well, OK, I totally did, sorry, but you don’t understand...”
Alex stopped, and rubbed his face tiredly. He stood still for a moment, then looked up, a resigned - and yet somehow proud - look on his face.
“I’m a Time Lord. I... I don’t have time to explain what that means, but my people - and their planet - were destroyed in a war long before I was born. The only survivors were my father and my uncle. I’ve - I’ve wanted to tell you for so long, but I wasn’t allowed. And I promise to tell you anything you want to know after we get home, yeah?”
Matt stared at him, his anger and incredulity suddenly overtaken by breathless hope. They could get home?
And then things slotted together again - his friend was an alien! What exactly was he capable of? With an internal sigh of relief he decided to fall back into old patterns - because Alex had always been the leader. Alex had the sharpest mind, the most expansive imagination, and was never flustered or nervous... He just seemed to float above everything, calm and capable...
And apparently this extended to places as weird and frightening as alien spaceships.
“You can get us home? How?”
Alex shrugged. “I’ll find a way. I mean we’ll be rescued sooner or later whatever happens - my family are probably already looking for us - if they heard me...” His voice trailed off, a little uncertain. “Anyway, they will come as soon as they realise I’m gone. But I’m not gonna sit around uselessly, waiting to be rescued like some third-rate Companion; so - let’s see what we can do.”
Josh’s face was a picture. “What we can do? In case you haven’t noticed the door doesn’t even have a handle!”
Alex turned to the door, and slowly stroked it. “Yeah, that’s a bit awkward. Hmm... Glattians, Glattians...”
Matt and Josh looked at each other. “So, Alex... what are these... Glattians?”
“Huh?” He shot them a look, then obviously realised that they didn’t have a clue.
“Oh - they’re...” he thought for a moment. “They’re a bit like Victorian explorers - running around the universe scooping up interesting stuff and taking it apart. Some of them are rather good to be honest, and some are blundering buffoons - some are both at the same time...”
“So we’re like... what... to them?”
Alex shrugged. “Curious life form to be explored. They took all three of us, so I’m guessing they’d use one of us to cut open, one to experiment on, and one to stick in a museum.”
Matt began to feel sick again, a terrified emptiness like he was falling and falling and he had to fight to focus on Alex and the fact that his friend didn’t seem bothered in the least.
Then Alex tilted his head, eyes narrowing as he turned to the door.
“What?”
Josh was looking at him, but Alex now had is ear pressed up to the door, eyes closed.
“Someone’s coming... Sh! I need to concentrate.”
He frowned and kept completely still for a long while, before a tiny triumphant smile crept into the corner of his mouth.
“Yes... that’s it... come closer...”
Then with a silent ‘whoosh’ the door opened, and outside stood a tall, three eyed alien brandishing a scary looking weapon. Its skin was blue, and it wore some kind of uniform, with strange alien artifacts attached. Matt, without realising it, stepped backwards, until his back was against the wall. Josh was next to him, clearly as terrified.
A real alien... right there, all... alien. Three eyes and blue skin and weapons...
The fact that Alex had just been revealed to be non-human was suddenly much less of an issue.
But Alex’s smile never wavered as he looked straight into the creature’s eyes, before slowly moving aside so the alien could walk in.
Matt stared from the alien - a Glattian he presumed - to Alex, and swallowed somewhat nervously, as the blue creature made no sound.
“Have you... hypnotised him?”
Alex nodded, and Matt asked, looking back and forth. “So - you’re like Paul McKenna?”
Alex turned abruptly, the same look on his face the same as that time when Matt’s aunt Georgia had called him a mini Carol Vorderman.
“I’m nothing like Paul McKenna!”
Then he quickly stepped out the door and the other two followed. They were in a long corridor with numerous doors along the walls and doors at the end. All doors were closed, probably locked. Alex sighed.
“More doors! If only Uncle would let me have my own screwdriver - but no, that might actually be useful!”
Josh shook his head. “What good would a screwdriver be?”
Alex turned, an impatient look on his face. “It’s a sonic screwdriver! It can do all sorts of things, including opening doors like these.” He waved his hand. “It’s... an alien thing, OK?”
Then frowning he walked back into the small chamber and looked the alien over speculatively. “We’re gonna need codes and stuff to get out of this place, and it’ll take forever to work them out on an individual basis...” He swallowed and bit his lip, then looked from Matt to Josh.
“This is an emergency, right? So it’s OK to do... questionable... things, right?”
Matt nodded uncertainly, because he didn’t have a clue what Alex was talking about, but there was a look in his friend’s eyes that he didn’t like.
Alex obviously made up his mind, and took a deep breath. “OK. Here goes...”
Then carefully he put his fingertips on the Glattian’s temples and closed his eyes.
After a moment’s silence, in which Josh and Matt looked at each other, not sure what to do or say, Alex frowned.
“Jeez, these guy’s brains are like... upside down! Where is... ew! Wrong place! Wrong place! Oh wait... that’s... that’s it!”
For a while he stood completely still, concentrating, before letting go and stepping back, looking a little unsettled.
“Never done that before. Not allowed to, obviously, what with it being way rude to go looking inside people’s heads, but since they did abduct us... Still the- my uncle wouldn’t approve...”
Matt swallowed somewhat nervously, and realised that he and Josh were side-by-side again which felt comforting. Alex really, really wasn’t anything like McKenna... Then the alien suddenly grunted a little, and Alex looked worried and stared at it intently, until it appeared frozen again.
“I’m not used to... controlling others... Not like this anyway. Not sure how long he’ll stay quiet if we leave him like this.”
Then a wicked little smile suddenly crossed his face, and he snatched the alien’s weapon up off the floor. Swiftly he looked it over, pressed a few buttons and made a row of lights switch on.
“That’s more like it - thank you Jack!” Carefully he aimed the nozzle at the Glattian and fired, and the alien sank down against the wall in a crumpled heap.
“Did... did you just kill it?” Josh asked, eyes wide, and Alex shook his head vehemently. “Just zonked him for half an hour or so. He’ll be fine.”
He flicked a switch and then tossed the gun at Matt, who clumsily caught it. “Hold that a minute, will you? I think I saw-”
“How did you know how to use that? Something... about Jack?” Matt asked, as he stared at the alien gun in his hands. He was holding an actual alien gun... his head began spinning, and he almost didn’t hear Alex’s reply.
“Jack lets me mess around with his weapons collection sometimes, and has given me some basic training - figured it might come in handy and he was right!” Then suddenly his eyes grew, and he looked at both of them.
“Oh - and don’t tell my Uncle, OK? He’d seriously freak and Jack and I would be in so much trouble! You have... no idea, trust me!”
“Um... OK,” Matthew answered. He was a bit freaked out by this latest revelation, but somehow he didn't find it hard to believe that Jack had lots of alien weapons... They'd wondered for a long time what exactly Torchwood did.
“So your uncle is like a pacifist?” Josh asked, and Alex looked up from the alien’s side, slowly shaking his head. “No... Well yes. He’s...”
He lowered his eyes and was silent for a long moment.
“He fought in the greatest war ever, and doesn’t want me involved in anything violent at all. Probably wouldn’t let me near a gun before I was five hundred, if it was up to him. I get why - I really do, especially what with my dad and all - but it’s not very practical.”
Matt wondered if that 500 was literal, but was then distracted by Alex’s mention of his father. He remembered that back when they were younger Alex had often talked about him, but at some point - when they’d been around 8 or 9 - Alex had suddenly stopped mentioning him at all. Matt didn’t really know how to broach the subject however, and just then Alex finished looking the alien over, pulling off a cylindrical device strapped to its arm.
“Better take this... If I can just fix it a little...”
A moment later he had done something or other, and handed the thing to Josh. “Just hold it near to your mouth whenever you speak and it’ll pick up English.”
Then he grinned widely and took the gun out of Matt’s hands.
“So? Wanna go explore this boat and find out how to get home?”
Silently they nodded, and Matt could feel his heart beating excitedly as they followed Alex out the door and down the corridor. Apart from being scared shitless and feeling generally unsettled, this could turn out to be the best holiday ever... Although Alex seemed to pick up on something or other that the other two couldn’t as they walked past the different doors.
“Alex... what is it?” Matt asked, voice barely above a whisper, their bare feet making no sound against the cool floor.
Alien floor. He was walking on the floor of an alien spaceship...
“Well, what do you think is behind all the other doors?” Alex said, and Josh and Matt looked at each other.
“You mean they abducted more people?” Josh asked, and Alex nodded.
“And they’re all as scared as you...”
“But...” Matt put a hand on Alex’s arm. “Shouldn’t we... let them out?”
Alex stopped, slowly shaking his head.
“It’ll be hard enough just for the three of us. The more we are, the more likely we are to get caught. And some of them are angry and they'd want to fight... Some of these species are very aggressive.”
With that he turned and kept walking, and Josh shrugged and followed. Matt still felt that he was right, but there was nothing he could do.
When they got to the end of the corridor, Alex swiftly tapped a code into the panel beside the large doors, and they found themselves in another corridor, identical to the one they'd just left.
This went on for quite a while, and the thrill of being in an alien spaceship was beginning to be overtaken by the realisation that even aliens could have very boring interior design. Now and again they had to hide when Alex sensed Glattians nearby - and Matt began to wonder if maybe he was dreaming the whole thing.
“Do you have any idea where we’re going?” Josh asked at one point, and Alex rolled his eyes impatiently.
“Why do you think I bothered to look through that guy’s brain? Of course I know! But it’s a big ship, and I’d really like to find a communication point so I can send a message to my Uncle.”
He tapped in another code, but this time when the door opened they were standing at the entrance to a huge room, full of glass cases - every case housing a different alien.
“This is the centre,” Alex said, looking around. “Which is where they keep their museum - in here is a perfectly preserved specimen of every creature they’ve found since they set off. We need... We need to get to those doors over there...”
Following their guide, as he weaved in and out of the cases, Matt and Josh found it hard not to linger between all the fantastical displays - having never seen a real alien before, they were now treated to the sight of hundreds...
Then Josh stopped in front of a case holding an ethereally beautiful elfin creature, its skin a delicate pale purple, and its eyes oddly compelling - as bewitching as a mermaid and twice as alluring.
“Alex,” Josh asked, “What’s this one?”
Alex turned and sighed.
“Of all the times for you to start channelling Jack...”
He ran a hand through is hair. “Um... It’s a Star Poet, from Arcateen V, and I’m sure Jack can introduce you to one that’s actually alive.”
“Introduce me...” Josh said blankly, as Alex grabbed hold of him and pulled him along.
“Yes, introduce you. He’s a fifty-first century kind a guy, our Jack, and he can even tell you the best ways of chatting up a Malmooth. And will you hurry up!”
They’d barely set off again when Alex suddenly froze on the spot at the sight of the glass case in front of them. Inside it was what looked like a red human-spider hybrid, about the size of a hand.
“This- this shouldn’t be here!” he said, not taking his eyes off the creature.
“Why? What is it?” Josh replied, wrinkling his nose.
“It’s a Racnoss - and it’s supposed to be extinct!” He looked more serious than Matt had ever seen.
“Like a dinosaur?” Josh asked, getting interested. “That’s cool!”
Alex shot him an irritated look. “No, not like a dinosaur. Dinosaurs are only extinct now, but from a non-linear, objective point of view they’re alive and kicking. It’s perfectly possible to nip back in time and catch a pet pterodactyl, for example. No really, I’ve done that. This however, should not exist! It’s dangerous...”
He walked right up to the case staring at the Racnoss and reaching out a tentative hand, stopping short by a few centimeters. “It’s alarmed. I can’t...”
“Um... aren’t we supposed to be hurrying?” Matt asked, and Alex turned, looking from them and back to the case.
“Yes...” He appeared to struggle with himself, biting his lip. “I don’t know what to do!”
This was a ridiculous statement, Matt realised, as he and Josh just stared at their friend. Alex always knew what to do - always. It was infuriating at times, but right now this sudden hesitation was a double shock.
“How can you not know? What is there to decide?” Josh asked, exasperated, and Alex just looked at him silently for a endless moment, before snapping out of it.
“Of course - we have to go. Come on.”
Matt and Josh looked at each other and shook their heads. Apparently Alex was even weirder than they had previously thought. And they noticed that he kept turning his head and looking behind them. Why had a tiny spider alien shaken him so badly?
As the doors closed behind them however, Alex caught sight of a console on the wall and almost bounced.
“Yes!”
Although after a moment a deep furrow appeared in his forehead.
“This is problematic. They’ve got a perception filter around the whole ship... Very clever of them, but it means that they’re almost impossible to find. Hmmm.”
Matt and Josh didn’t know what to say, but Alex didn’t seem to need their input anyway.
“OK, look at this.”
Pointing to the screen, they saw a model of the space craft.
“See? We are here, and there are escape pods here...”
He tapped a few more keys and smiled triumphantly as a 3-D image of the pods came up on the screen. “Aren’t they brilliant? Very Invader Zim actually. Now I’ll send my Uncle a message, explaining where we are and so on, but to be honest I don’t think we need him - we can perfectly easily make our own way back if we’re lucky... ”
He started typing again, and Josh blinked.
“You mean - you can fly one of those?”
“Oh yeah,” Alex replied, hands never stopping as they flew over the keys, “I can fly like... anything. But will they let me have a space ship? Oooh no! It’s ‘too dangerous’, apparently. Just because I almost crashed the TARDIS that one time when I was twelve, but even Uncle does that on a regular basis... well he ends up in the wrong place half the time at least. And it’s not like I’d have to have a Millennium Falcon or anything, just a simple, little ship would do. Hey - maybe they’d let me keep the escape pod?”
Matt listened silently. Part of him was still somewhat blown away by the whole alien thing, but as Alex chattered on Matt began to realise that on some level at least Alex was definitely the same boy he’d known for all these years - the slightly peevish tone seeping into his complaint was very familiar indeed, even if the things he spoke about were fantastical.
“All done!” Alex smiled, pressing a final key. “Let’s go home!”
Having an actual plan made thing easier, even though Matt began to feel uncomfortably claustrophobic as they got into a lift taking them to the right deck.
But nothing could have prepared him for the sight that greeted him as the doors opened. His entire field of vision was filled with a giant window, the whole of the Milky Way apparently on the other side of the glass.
Wordlessly they all three walked over to the window. Matt turned to ask Alex to tell him where they were, but stopped at the faraway look on his friend’s face. Seeing the stars reflected in the other’s eyes somehow brought home on a whole other level that Alex really wasn’t human. And the look on his face wasn’t the same awe and astonishment that Matt felt. It was... something slightly different, something he couldn’t work out.
Instead Matt turned to Josh, and together they started attempting to place the different stars. They had always been very keen on astronomy, and trying to make this view fit into the star maps they used at school somehow helped them deal with the unreality of the situation.
Then Matt turned to ask Alex if they hadn’t better be leaving, and froze.
Down the corridor he saw 20 Glattians, fully armed, walking towards them.
Interlude.
Prologue here (and very short it is too).
Summary: This story begins with abduction and ends with waffles. In between there's some adventuring and some heartache and a fair few truths are revealed.
Setting: 2023 (Alex is 16).
Characters: The Doctor (Tenth), the Master (Simm), Lucy, Jack, OCs (Alex, Matt, Josh)
Rating: PG-13.
Word count: 4000+
Feedback: *looks hopeful*
Chapter 1
First there was a sudden and terrifying awakening, and if Matt had been able to scream he would have called for his mum... But even as he tried to open his mouth the whole world - himself included - disappeared in a bright, white light.
Next thing he knew he was lying on a floor - a rather hard floor. Slowly he tried to sit up and looked around. He was in a small room - 20 feet square he reckoned - floor, walls and ceiling all made out of the same pale grey faintly glowing material. There was a door in one of the walls - fitting flushly into the frame and with no handle. He could see Josh and Alex similarly try to get their bearings as they too sat up, and even as he tried to deny to himself what had clearly happened, Josh spoke up - voice as shaky as Matt felt:
“Oh god... We’ve been abducted.”
It wasn’t that everyone didn’t know that aliens existed or anything, but... Just like meeting a genuine movie star, seeing aliens - never mind being abducted - wasn’t something Matt had ever thought would happen to him.
As the reality sank in he could feel panic beginning to take over. This was it... he would never get home, never see his family again, and he would die some horrible death-
Then Alex let his head fall back against the wall, sighing deeply as he looked around.
“Oh great. Jack will never let me live this down.”
Matt’s mounting panic suddenly stumbled, before turning incredulous.
“What? We’ve been abducted by aliens who will do goodness knows what to us, and you’re saying... what?”
Alex shot him a wry look. “Calm down Arthur Dent, things could be a lot worse!”
“Excuse me?” Josh exploded, clearly on the verge of breaking down. “How could things possibly be worse? Please tell me that Alex, I’d love to know!”
Alex smiled a little. “Well Earth could have been blown up and this could be a Vogon ship!”
Then frowning he slowly stood up, studying the room. Matt watched him as he stood there, in his stripy pyjama bottoms and grey Sex Pistols T-shirt, blond hair somewhat ruffled and head tilted the way Matt knew so well - meaning that Alex was trying to figure something out.
There were times when Matt wished that he wasn’t as smart as he was, and this was one of those times. Because in a sudden flash hundreds - thousands - of different memories fused together in one perfect whole - and even before Alex started talking Matt knew that his best friend wasn’t who he seemed.
“Actually... what kind of ship is this?” Alex bit his lip and tapped the wall. “Interior structure of luminous kartillium - simple, hard wearing... and used by lots of different species. Not helpful. Now...”
He walked over to the door and stared intently at the inscription above it, written in odd, strangely official looking, squiggles.
“OK, it looks like... Karth? No... they don’t have those glyphs... And not Anstoan either... Glattian? They have those dot-things... yes, and the dips in the secondary units... I think. Or is that the Nu-thenians?” He dragged a hand through his hair and sighed. “Guess this’ll teach me to do my homework and not plan out imaginary laboratories instead...”
Matt made up his mind and stood up; then said, voice as level as he could make it: “You’re an alien!”
Alex turned his head and shot him and Josh a dazzling smile, the one that was pure, unalloyed Saxon and always reminded Matt of Ford Prefect - it was just that little too wide and unnerving.
“Yes I am! I’ve been waiting for you to figure that out for ages now!”
Then he turned back to the writing on the wall, absentmindedly turning the bracelet on his wrist round and round.
“Right... we’re in holding chamber 375... or possibly 1375, I can’t remember what that little squiggle means... on level 6 of a Glattian ship. And that symbol at the end is the official sign of the... 28th Dynasty - all of which means that we’re in our own time and if we’re lucky haven’t even left the solar system yet...” He smiled triumphantly, and then took in the way Matt had edged closer to Josh, both of them silently staring at him.
“What?”
“You’re an alien!”
“Yes, we covered that already.”
Matthew shook his head. “You’re our best friend and you’ve lied to us. For years!”
Alex looked somewhat taken aback. “I didn’t lie, I just... I just didn’t tell the whole truth.”
They both stared at him, incredulous. Josh found his voice first.
“I don’t believe this. We don’t... we thought we knew you, but now... Who - no, what are you? Is Alex even your name? What... what do you really look like? Where do you come from - do you have some home planet somewhere that you report back to? Are we here because of you?”
“What? No!” Alex was staring at them, pained and angry, and clearly trying to hold himself back.
“I’m just... me! This is what I look like and you’ve known me since I was 4 years old! Earth is my home, just the same way it is yours - I mean my mum’s human and all!”
“So... you’re half-human?” Josh asked, and Alex’s eyes widened in what looked like genuine horror.
“God no! I’ve not had a proper look at my genetic makeup - yet - but whatever part of me is human is infinitesimally small, bordering on non-existent, thankfully.”
He bit his lip. “Um, no offense?”
“Oh. Well it’s nice to know how you really feel about us.” Matt hadn’t meant to sound so snippy, but it was easier to be angry than take in all the implications of the situation.
“I didn’t mean it like... well, OK, I totally did, sorry, but you don’t understand...”
Alex stopped, and rubbed his face tiredly. He stood still for a moment, then looked up, a resigned - and yet somehow proud - look on his face.
“I’m a Time Lord. I... I don’t have time to explain what that means, but my people - and their planet - were destroyed in a war long before I was born. The only survivors were my father and my uncle. I’ve - I’ve wanted to tell you for so long, but I wasn’t allowed. And I promise to tell you anything you want to know after we get home, yeah?”
Matt stared at him, his anger and incredulity suddenly overtaken by breathless hope. They could get home?
And then things slotted together again - his friend was an alien! What exactly was he capable of? With an internal sigh of relief he decided to fall back into old patterns - because Alex had always been the leader. Alex had the sharpest mind, the most expansive imagination, and was never flustered or nervous... He just seemed to float above everything, calm and capable...
And apparently this extended to places as weird and frightening as alien spaceships.
“You can get us home? How?”
Alex shrugged. “I’ll find a way. I mean we’ll be rescued sooner or later whatever happens - my family are probably already looking for us - if they heard me...” His voice trailed off, a little uncertain. “Anyway, they will come as soon as they realise I’m gone. But I’m not gonna sit around uselessly, waiting to be rescued like some third-rate Companion; so - let’s see what we can do.”
Josh’s face was a picture. “What we can do? In case you haven’t noticed the door doesn’t even have a handle!”
Alex turned to the door, and slowly stroked it. “Yeah, that’s a bit awkward. Hmm... Glattians, Glattians...”
Matt and Josh looked at each other. “So, Alex... what are these... Glattians?”
“Huh?” He shot them a look, then obviously realised that they didn’t have a clue.
“Oh - they’re...” he thought for a moment. “They’re a bit like Victorian explorers - running around the universe scooping up interesting stuff and taking it apart. Some of them are rather good to be honest, and some are blundering buffoons - some are both at the same time...”
“So we’re like... what... to them?”
Alex shrugged. “Curious life form to be explored. They took all three of us, so I’m guessing they’d use one of us to cut open, one to experiment on, and one to stick in a museum.”
Matt began to feel sick again, a terrified emptiness like he was falling and falling and he had to fight to focus on Alex and the fact that his friend didn’t seem bothered in the least.
Then Alex tilted his head, eyes narrowing as he turned to the door.
“What?”
Josh was looking at him, but Alex now had is ear pressed up to the door, eyes closed.
“Someone’s coming... Sh! I need to concentrate.”
He frowned and kept completely still for a long while, before a tiny triumphant smile crept into the corner of his mouth.
“Yes... that’s it... come closer...”
Then with a silent ‘whoosh’ the door opened, and outside stood a tall, three eyed alien brandishing a scary looking weapon. Its skin was blue, and it wore some kind of uniform, with strange alien artifacts attached. Matt, without realising it, stepped backwards, until his back was against the wall. Josh was next to him, clearly as terrified.
A real alien... right there, all... alien. Three eyes and blue skin and weapons...
The fact that Alex had just been revealed to be non-human was suddenly much less of an issue.
But Alex’s smile never wavered as he looked straight into the creature’s eyes, before slowly moving aside so the alien could walk in.
Matt stared from the alien - a Glattian he presumed - to Alex, and swallowed somewhat nervously, as the blue creature made no sound.
“Have you... hypnotised him?”
Alex nodded, and Matt asked, looking back and forth. “So - you’re like Paul McKenna?”
Alex turned abruptly, the same look on his face the same as that time when Matt’s aunt Georgia had called him a mini Carol Vorderman.
“I’m nothing like Paul McKenna!”
Then he quickly stepped out the door and the other two followed. They were in a long corridor with numerous doors along the walls and doors at the end. All doors were closed, probably locked. Alex sighed.
“More doors! If only Uncle would let me have my own screwdriver - but no, that might actually be useful!”
Josh shook his head. “What good would a screwdriver be?”
Alex turned, an impatient look on his face. “It’s a sonic screwdriver! It can do all sorts of things, including opening doors like these.” He waved his hand. “It’s... an alien thing, OK?”
Then frowning he walked back into the small chamber and looked the alien over speculatively. “We’re gonna need codes and stuff to get out of this place, and it’ll take forever to work them out on an individual basis...” He swallowed and bit his lip, then looked from Matt to Josh.
“This is an emergency, right? So it’s OK to do... questionable... things, right?”
Matt nodded uncertainly, because he didn’t have a clue what Alex was talking about, but there was a look in his friend’s eyes that he didn’t like.
Alex obviously made up his mind, and took a deep breath. “OK. Here goes...”
Then carefully he put his fingertips on the Glattian’s temples and closed his eyes.
After a moment’s silence, in which Josh and Matt looked at each other, not sure what to do or say, Alex frowned.
“Jeez, these guy’s brains are like... upside down! Where is... ew! Wrong place! Wrong place! Oh wait... that’s... that’s it!”
For a while he stood completely still, concentrating, before letting go and stepping back, looking a little unsettled.
“Never done that before. Not allowed to, obviously, what with it being way rude to go looking inside people’s heads, but since they did abduct us... Still the- my uncle wouldn’t approve...”
Matt swallowed somewhat nervously, and realised that he and Josh were side-by-side again which felt comforting. Alex really, really wasn’t anything like McKenna... Then the alien suddenly grunted a little, and Alex looked worried and stared at it intently, until it appeared frozen again.
“I’m not used to... controlling others... Not like this anyway. Not sure how long he’ll stay quiet if we leave him like this.”
Then a wicked little smile suddenly crossed his face, and he snatched the alien’s weapon up off the floor. Swiftly he looked it over, pressed a few buttons and made a row of lights switch on.
“That’s more like it - thank you Jack!” Carefully he aimed the nozzle at the Glattian and fired, and the alien sank down against the wall in a crumpled heap.
“Did... did you just kill it?” Josh asked, eyes wide, and Alex shook his head vehemently. “Just zonked him for half an hour or so. He’ll be fine.”
He flicked a switch and then tossed the gun at Matt, who clumsily caught it. “Hold that a minute, will you? I think I saw-”
“How did you know how to use that? Something... about Jack?” Matt asked, as he stared at the alien gun in his hands. He was holding an actual alien gun... his head began spinning, and he almost didn’t hear Alex’s reply.
“Jack lets me mess around with his weapons collection sometimes, and has given me some basic training - figured it might come in handy and he was right!” Then suddenly his eyes grew, and he looked at both of them.
“Oh - and don’t tell my Uncle, OK? He’d seriously freak and Jack and I would be in so much trouble! You have... no idea, trust me!”
“Um... OK,” Matthew answered. He was a bit freaked out by this latest revelation, but somehow he didn't find it hard to believe that Jack had lots of alien weapons... They'd wondered for a long time what exactly Torchwood did.
“So your uncle is like a pacifist?” Josh asked, and Alex looked up from the alien’s side, slowly shaking his head. “No... Well yes. He’s...”
He lowered his eyes and was silent for a long moment.
“He fought in the greatest war ever, and doesn’t want me involved in anything violent at all. Probably wouldn’t let me near a gun before I was five hundred, if it was up to him. I get why - I really do, especially what with my dad and all - but it’s not very practical.”
Matt wondered if that 500 was literal, but was then distracted by Alex’s mention of his father. He remembered that back when they were younger Alex had often talked about him, but at some point - when they’d been around 8 or 9 - Alex had suddenly stopped mentioning him at all. Matt didn’t really know how to broach the subject however, and just then Alex finished looking the alien over, pulling off a cylindrical device strapped to its arm.
“Better take this... If I can just fix it a little...”
A moment later he had done something or other, and handed the thing to Josh. “Just hold it near to your mouth whenever you speak and it’ll pick up English.”
Then he grinned widely and took the gun out of Matt’s hands.
“So? Wanna go explore this boat and find out how to get home?”
Silently they nodded, and Matt could feel his heart beating excitedly as they followed Alex out the door and down the corridor. Apart from being scared shitless and feeling generally unsettled, this could turn out to be the best holiday ever... Although Alex seemed to pick up on something or other that the other two couldn’t as they walked past the different doors.
“Alex... what is it?” Matt asked, voice barely above a whisper, their bare feet making no sound against the cool floor.
Alien floor. He was walking on the floor of an alien spaceship...
“Well, what do you think is behind all the other doors?” Alex said, and Josh and Matt looked at each other.
“You mean they abducted more people?” Josh asked, and Alex nodded.
“And they’re all as scared as you...”
“But...” Matt put a hand on Alex’s arm. “Shouldn’t we... let them out?”
Alex stopped, slowly shaking his head.
“It’ll be hard enough just for the three of us. The more we are, the more likely we are to get caught. And some of them are angry and they'd want to fight... Some of these species are very aggressive.”
With that he turned and kept walking, and Josh shrugged and followed. Matt still felt that he was right, but there was nothing he could do.
When they got to the end of the corridor, Alex swiftly tapped a code into the panel beside the large doors, and they found themselves in another corridor, identical to the one they'd just left.
This went on for quite a while, and the thrill of being in an alien spaceship was beginning to be overtaken by the realisation that even aliens could have very boring interior design. Now and again they had to hide when Alex sensed Glattians nearby - and Matt began to wonder if maybe he was dreaming the whole thing.
“Do you have any idea where we’re going?” Josh asked at one point, and Alex rolled his eyes impatiently.
“Why do you think I bothered to look through that guy’s brain? Of course I know! But it’s a big ship, and I’d really like to find a communication point so I can send a message to my Uncle.”
He tapped in another code, but this time when the door opened they were standing at the entrance to a huge room, full of glass cases - every case housing a different alien.
“This is the centre,” Alex said, looking around. “Which is where they keep their museum - in here is a perfectly preserved specimen of every creature they’ve found since they set off. We need... We need to get to those doors over there...”
Following their guide, as he weaved in and out of the cases, Matt and Josh found it hard not to linger between all the fantastical displays - having never seen a real alien before, they were now treated to the sight of hundreds...
Then Josh stopped in front of a case holding an ethereally beautiful elfin creature, its skin a delicate pale purple, and its eyes oddly compelling - as bewitching as a mermaid and twice as alluring.
“Alex,” Josh asked, “What’s this one?”
Alex turned and sighed.
“Of all the times for you to start channelling Jack...”
He ran a hand through is hair. “Um... It’s a Star Poet, from Arcateen V, and I’m sure Jack can introduce you to one that’s actually alive.”
“Introduce me...” Josh said blankly, as Alex grabbed hold of him and pulled him along.
“Yes, introduce you. He’s a fifty-first century kind a guy, our Jack, and he can even tell you the best ways of chatting up a Malmooth. And will you hurry up!”
They’d barely set off again when Alex suddenly froze on the spot at the sight of the glass case in front of them. Inside it was what looked like a red human-spider hybrid, about the size of a hand.
“This- this shouldn’t be here!” he said, not taking his eyes off the creature.
“Why? What is it?” Josh replied, wrinkling his nose.
“It’s a Racnoss - and it’s supposed to be extinct!” He looked more serious than Matt had ever seen.
“Like a dinosaur?” Josh asked, getting interested. “That’s cool!”
Alex shot him an irritated look. “No, not like a dinosaur. Dinosaurs are only extinct now, but from a non-linear, objective point of view they’re alive and kicking. It’s perfectly possible to nip back in time and catch a pet pterodactyl, for example. No really, I’ve done that. This however, should not exist! It’s dangerous...”
He walked right up to the case staring at the Racnoss and reaching out a tentative hand, stopping short by a few centimeters. “It’s alarmed. I can’t...”
“Um... aren’t we supposed to be hurrying?” Matt asked, and Alex turned, looking from them and back to the case.
“Yes...” He appeared to struggle with himself, biting his lip. “I don’t know what to do!”
This was a ridiculous statement, Matt realised, as he and Josh just stared at their friend. Alex always knew what to do - always. It was infuriating at times, but right now this sudden hesitation was a double shock.
“How can you not know? What is there to decide?” Josh asked, exasperated, and Alex just looked at him silently for a endless moment, before snapping out of it.
“Of course - we have to go. Come on.”
Matt and Josh looked at each other and shook their heads. Apparently Alex was even weirder than they had previously thought. And they noticed that he kept turning his head and looking behind them. Why had a tiny spider alien shaken him so badly?
As the doors closed behind them however, Alex caught sight of a console on the wall and almost bounced.
“Yes!”
Although after a moment a deep furrow appeared in his forehead.
“This is problematic. They’ve got a perception filter around the whole ship... Very clever of them, but it means that they’re almost impossible to find. Hmmm.”
Matt and Josh didn’t know what to say, but Alex didn’t seem to need their input anyway.
“OK, look at this.”
Pointing to the screen, they saw a model of the space craft.
“See? We are here, and there are escape pods here...”
He tapped a few more keys and smiled triumphantly as a 3-D image of the pods came up on the screen. “Aren’t they brilliant? Very Invader Zim actually. Now I’ll send my Uncle a message, explaining where we are and so on, but to be honest I don’t think we need him - we can perfectly easily make our own way back if we’re lucky... ”
He started typing again, and Josh blinked.
“You mean - you can fly one of those?”
“Oh yeah,” Alex replied, hands never stopping as they flew over the keys, “I can fly like... anything. But will they let me have a space ship? Oooh no! It’s ‘too dangerous’, apparently. Just because I almost crashed the TARDIS that one time when I was twelve, but even Uncle does that on a regular basis... well he ends up in the wrong place half the time at least. And it’s not like I’d have to have a Millennium Falcon or anything, just a simple, little ship would do. Hey - maybe they’d let me keep the escape pod?”
Matt listened silently. Part of him was still somewhat blown away by the whole alien thing, but as Alex chattered on Matt began to realise that on some level at least Alex was definitely the same boy he’d known for all these years - the slightly peevish tone seeping into his complaint was very familiar indeed, even if the things he spoke about were fantastical.
“All done!” Alex smiled, pressing a final key. “Let’s go home!”
Having an actual plan made thing easier, even though Matt began to feel uncomfortably claustrophobic as they got into a lift taking them to the right deck.
But nothing could have prepared him for the sight that greeted him as the doors opened. His entire field of vision was filled with a giant window, the whole of the Milky Way apparently on the other side of the glass.
Wordlessly they all three walked over to the window. Matt turned to ask Alex to tell him where they were, but stopped at the faraway look on his friend’s face. Seeing the stars reflected in the other’s eyes somehow brought home on a whole other level that Alex really wasn’t human. And the look on his face wasn’t the same awe and astonishment that Matt felt. It was... something slightly different, something he couldn’t work out.
Instead Matt turned to Josh, and together they started attempting to place the different stars. They had always been very keen on astronomy, and trying to make this view fit into the star maps they used at school somehow helped them deal with the unreality of the situation.
Then Matt turned to ask Alex if they hadn’t better be leaving, and froze.
Down the corridor he saw 20 Glattians, fully armed, walking towards them.
Interlude.