Perfectly Comfortable, 1/2
Still working on the epic Drained. Should have the next chapter up shortly. In the meantime:
PERFECTLY COMFORTABLE
The telepathic contact was overwhelming. If he had limbs he would have thrashed, if he had a voice he would have shouted for it to stop. All he could do was be still, be flattened under the sheer weight of it, the sheer noise of it, louder than any roaring speaker, colder than any cell.
The contact was released, with almost violent abruptness. He took a tearing breath and tried to sit up. The restraints clutched at him and he fell back onto the bed. Breathe, breathe.
This was the medical wing, almost at the top of the tower. Brilliant sunlight flooded in through wide, unbreakable windows. He squinted into it, trying to take stock. Three medical technicians. He was covered in electrodes, as usual, and as usual their machines couldn't make much sense of him.
Out there, hanging in the sky, one of the Chariclo discs. It looked like an electric blue yoyo.
'Can I have a glass of water, please?' he grated out. In the medical wing, the answer was usually yes.
Half an hour later he was recovered. Whatever had been in the tranquilliser dart, there had been a lot of it. And now they knew it worked. They could never be sure of their chemicals, with him. They might easily have killed him with the wrong dose of the wrong stuff.
They'd cranked up the bed so he was sitting up, and taken away the electrodes and some of the restraints. One of the mandatory pair of guards was sitting, one standing. They pretended not to be paying him much attention, like cats testing their prey to see if it was exhausted yet.
Not yet.
The telepathic wave was coming from the Chariclo ships - where else? He hadn't managed to learn much from Hartman, but if that wave was being sent all the time, anybody on Earth with even a hint of psi would be hearing it. There would be individuals who had gone mad, or died, or both, peppered all over the planet.
Why not him?
Hartman came into the room. The sitting guard stood.
'It's time for your weekly visitor,' she said. 'Unless you're not well enough-?'
'I'll manage.'
#
They took him in a wheelchair as far as the door of the room with the see-through wall, where he insisted on getting up and walking the rest of the way. It wasn't easy, chained as he was, but as always he stood up straight and gave her the best smile he could as he shuffled to the wall. It was only fair: she always dressed up a little and made herself up and bit down on her tears and smiled back. He was aware he looked faintly ridiculous with his tangled hair and stubble and fluroescent lime-yellow jumpsuit.
He sat, and the guards unlocked the chain between his wrists and passed it through a metal loop on the desk. They sat facing each other through the barrier, near the paired metal speakers that carried their voices. As always, he raised his hand as high as he could, and pressed the palm against the plastic. She did the same.
'They brought mum in for questioning,' said Rose. 'She panicked and got a ticket to Australia, and they picked her up at Heathrow. She was gone for a day and a night.'
'Is she all right?'
'She's not hurt. But she's so scared... I dunno how much more she can stand.'
'Tell her how sorry I am,' he murmured.
'Course.' She could see it in his face. He should know better by now. 'What have they done to you?'
He shook his head, and chose his next words carefully. 'They've asked me to do something I can't do. I won't do.'
Rose's eyes automatically flicked to the guards on the Doctor's side of the wall, but it wasn't enough information for them to stop the visit. They'd both got very good at judging how much they could say.
'Oh God, I'm so sorry,' said Rose, her fingers curling against the plastic. 'If only we could get away...'
'I think I know how you could,' said the Doctor. This time the guards tensed.
Rose stared him in the eyes. 'I wish you could tell me,' she said. 'We've tried all sorts of things but they're always one step ahead of us. I wish I could read your mind.'
The Doctor laughed sadly. 'It's no good my coming up with clever plans if you'd have to be slightly psychic to hear them,' he said.
After all these weeks Rose knew better than to show any reaction. She just laughed. It made no difference. The speaker whined, and Hartman's precise tones said, 'That's enough.'
Rose was shouting a protest, but the Doctor could no longer hear her voice. He pushed his hand against the plastic until the tendons strained. wanted to touch her hair. His hand actually twitched with the sense memory of it. He wanted to slip his arms around her small shoulders.
'I don't like where this is heading,' said Hartman. 'These visits are a privilege, not a right. This one's terminated. Show her out.'
The Doctor watched as the guard physically dragged Rose out of the other room. She was mouthing, 'Don't do it, Doctor! Whatever it is they want - we're not worth it!'
'If she tries anything,' said Hartman's voice through the speaker, 'I'll bring her and her mother in together. What doesn't work on you will work on them.'
The Doctor said nothing.
'Put him in his room and let him think,' said Hartman.
#
He couldn't even kill himself. He couldn't switch off his respiratory bypass system; hanging would take too long, even if he could get hold of something to do it with, and they'd find him and stop him. He'd tried refusing to eat the awful food, but they just put the nutrients in through his arm. There was no point, anyway. It wouldn't do Rose and Jackie and Mickey any good if he did; they'd be brought in for questioning before he was even cold.
They knew a great deal about him by now. They knew that he barely needed to sleep. They knew that sensory deprivation didn't bother him and that nakedness didn't humiliate him. They knew that, under stress, he had an exceptionally twisted sense of humour. They knew he could remain silent in the face of anything except their threats to the people he loved. His 'pets', Hartman called them.
After so many months, he and Hartman had struck a rhythm. He drip-fed her as little information as he could get away with, she did as little harm to his 'pets' as she thought would keep him in line. Rose and her mother and her boyfriend - his ersatz, patchwork family - were terrified, but they had not been raped or beaten or disappeared. Yet.
Now two things had happened. One, the Chariclos had arrived, and the whole Earth was terrified. The ships just hovered, ignoring all communications, doing random and bizarre things - making a perfect cube of Brazilian rainforest vanish, dropping thousands of pellets of iridium into the Arctic Sea. Two, Torchwood had managed to lever out the heart of the engine of the J'thar ship. Never mind the crude guns they'd used to destroy the Sycorax ship; this was a doomsday weapon. Hartman wanted her new British Empire, and to trump the other superpowers, even the United States, with a captured alien device - it would do the trick.
If anything went wrong, if it leaked even a little, half the planet would be razed to the bedrock. He couldn't even begin to tell them anything about that engine, except how to handle it without scorching most of the European Community into a layer of gritty ashes.
Why hadn't he sensed the Chariclos' standing wave before? He had to think for a while before it came to him. The tranquilliser had compromised his normal psychic defences. Like the respiratory bypass, there was a level of protection there that he couldn't turn off, any more than a human being could hold their breath indefinitely. At this moment, those defences were filtering out the Chariclos' booming message. But he'd heard enough of it to get the gist: Let's talk. If you can hear this, respond.
Respond, respond, respond. We want information. He had to laugh. With their skull-splitting demand how different were they to Hartman?
'This isn't Cuba or Iraq,' she assured him one day. 'Your handlers are highly trained and carefully monitored.'
'They're very professional,' he'd said. 'They never seem bored or stressed.'
'Nothing that happens to you here happens accidentally.'
'It's all on your direct orders,' he said.
'Exactly my point.'
Maybe he could kill her. He hadn't worked out a way to do that, either.
PERFECTLY COMFORTABLE
The telepathic contact was overwhelming. If he had limbs he would have thrashed, if he had a voice he would have shouted for it to stop. All he could do was be still, be flattened under the sheer weight of it, the sheer noise of it, louder than any roaring speaker, colder than any cell.
The contact was released, with almost violent abruptness. He took a tearing breath and tried to sit up. The restraints clutched at him and he fell back onto the bed. Breathe, breathe.
This was the medical wing, almost at the top of the tower. Brilliant sunlight flooded in through wide, unbreakable windows. He squinted into it, trying to take stock. Three medical technicians. He was covered in electrodes, as usual, and as usual their machines couldn't make much sense of him.
Out there, hanging in the sky, one of the Chariclo discs. It looked like an electric blue yoyo.
'Can I have a glass of water, please?' he grated out. In the medical wing, the answer was usually yes.
Half an hour later he was recovered. Whatever had been in the tranquilliser dart, there had been a lot of it. And now they knew it worked. They could never be sure of their chemicals, with him. They might easily have killed him with the wrong dose of the wrong stuff.
They'd cranked up the bed so he was sitting up, and taken away the electrodes and some of the restraints. One of the mandatory pair of guards was sitting, one standing. They pretended not to be paying him much attention, like cats testing their prey to see if it was exhausted yet.
Not yet.
The telepathic wave was coming from the Chariclo ships - where else? He hadn't managed to learn much from Hartman, but if that wave was being sent all the time, anybody on Earth with even a hint of psi would be hearing it. There would be individuals who had gone mad, or died, or both, peppered all over the planet.
Why not him?
Hartman came into the room. The sitting guard stood.
'It's time for your weekly visitor,' she said. 'Unless you're not well enough-?'
'I'll manage.'
#
They took him in a wheelchair as far as the door of the room with the see-through wall, where he insisted on getting up and walking the rest of the way. It wasn't easy, chained as he was, but as always he stood up straight and gave her the best smile he could as he shuffled to the wall. It was only fair: she always dressed up a little and made herself up and bit down on her tears and smiled back. He was aware he looked faintly ridiculous with his tangled hair and stubble and fluroescent lime-yellow jumpsuit.
He sat, and the guards unlocked the chain between his wrists and passed it through a metal loop on the desk. They sat facing each other through the barrier, near the paired metal speakers that carried their voices. As always, he raised his hand as high as he could, and pressed the palm against the plastic. She did the same.
'They brought mum in for questioning,' said Rose. 'She panicked and got a ticket to Australia, and they picked her up at Heathrow. She was gone for a day and a night.'
'Is she all right?'
'She's not hurt. But she's so scared... I dunno how much more she can stand.'
'Tell her how sorry I am,' he murmured.
'Course.' She could see it in his face. He should know better by now. 'What have they done to you?'
He shook his head, and chose his next words carefully. 'They've asked me to do something I can't do. I won't do.'
Rose's eyes automatically flicked to the guards on the Doctor's side of the wall, but it wasn't enough information for them to stop the visit. They'd both got very good at judging how much they could say.
'Oh God, I'm so sorry,' said Rose, her fingers curling against the plastic. 'If only we could get away...'
'I think I know how you could,' said the Doctor. This time the guards tensed.
Rose stared him in the eyes. 'I wish you could tell me,' she said. 'We've tried all sorts of things but they're always one step ahead of us. I wish I could read your mind.'
The Doctor laughed sadly. 'It's no good my coming up with clever plans if you'd have to be slightly psychic to hear them,' he said.
After all these weeks Rose knew better than to show any reaction. She just laughed. It made no difference. The speaker whined, and Hartman's precise tones said, 'That's enough.'
Rose was shouting a protest, but the Doctor could no longer hear her voice. He pushed his hand against the plastic until the tendons strained. wanted to touch her hair. His hand actually twitched with the sense memory of it. He wanted to slip his arms around her small shoulders.
'I don't like where this is heading,' said Hartman. 'These visits are a privilege, not a right. This one's terminated. Show her out.'
The Doctor watched as the guard physically dragged Rose out of the other room. She was mouthing, 'Don't do it, Doctor! Whatever it is they want - we're not worth it!'
'If she tries anything,' said Hartman's voice through the speaker, 'I'll bring her and her mother in together. What doesn't work on you will work on them.'
The Doctor said nothing.
'Put him in his room and let him think,' said Hartman.
#
He couldn't even kill himself. He couldn't switch off his respiratory bypass system; hanging would take too long, even if he could get hold of something to do it with, and they'd find him and stop him. He'd tried refusing to eat the awful food, but they just put the nutrients in through his arm. There was no point, anyway. It wouldn't do Rose and Jackie and Mickey any good if he did; they'd be brought in for questioning before he was even cold.
They knew a great deal about him by now. They knew that he barely needed to sleep. They knew that sensory deprivation didn't bother him and that nakedness didn't humiliate him. They knew that, under stress, he had an exceptionally twisted sense of humour. They knew he could remain silent in the face of anything except their threats to the people he loved. His 'pets', Hartman called them.
After so many months, he and Hartman had struck a rhythm. He drip-fed her as little information as he could get away with, she did as little harm to his 'pets' as she thought would keep him in line. Rose and her mother and her boyfriend - his ersatz, patchwork family - were terrified, but they had not been raped or beaten or disappeared. Yet.
Now two things had happened. One, the Chariclos had arrived, and the whole Earth was terrified. The ships just hovered, ignoring all communications, doing random and bizarre things - making a perfect cube of Brazilian rainforest vanish, dropping thousands of pellets of iridium into the Arctic Sea. Two, Torchwood had managed to lever out the heart of the engine of the J'thar ship. Never mind the crude guns they'd used to destroy the Sycorax ship; this was a doomsday weapon. Hartman wanted her new British Empire, and to trump the other superpowers, even the United States, with a captured alien device - it would do the trick.
If anything went wrong, if it leaked even a little, half the planet would be razed to the bedrock. He couldn't even begin to tell them anything about that engine, except how to handle it without scorching most of the European Community into a layer of gritty ashes.
Why hadn't he sensed the Chariclos' standing wave before? He had to think for a while before it came to him. The tranquilliser had compromised his normal psychic defences. Like the respiratory bypass, there was a level of protection there that he couldn't turn off, any more than a human being could hold their breath indefinitely. At this moment, those defences were filtering out the Chariclos' booming message. But he'd heard enough of it to get the gist: Let's talk. If you can hear this, respond.
Respond, respond, respond. We want information. He had to laugh. With their skull-splitting demand how different were they to Hartman?
'This isn't Cuba or Iraq,' she assured him one day. 'Your handlers are highly trained and carefully monitored.'
'They're very professional,' he'd said. 'They never seem bored or stressed.'
'Nothing that happens to you here happens accidentally.'
'It's all on your direct orders,' he said.
'Exactly my point.'
Maybe he could kill her. He hadn't worked out a way to do that, either.