Legends of Sanyago (Act 3)
[Part 4 of a Doctor Who/Steam Powered Giraffe crossover for pandoraslittleblackbox ]
Fact: Stairs are easier to go down than they are to go up.
Fact: Tae had been fine with the push-ups, but tended to slack on the burpees and jumping jacks.
Fact: Tae was now deeply regretting this.
She could no longer see the bottom of the enormous, spiral staircase. But she couldn’t yet see where the top was. It was a very easy thing, sitting and catching her breath with only a floating lantern for company, to begin imagining that she had not only died and gone to hell, but that her hell was to endlessly climb a staircase that went on forever.
Tae knew that she’d already been gone far too long for Ops’ comfort. She also knew that the Admiral would be looking for any sign at all that anyone was alive. Which was why Tae, when resting, spasmodically knocked her own heartbeat onto the massive bannister with a handy lump of metal.
With any luck, Ops could hear it, somehow.
*
Down in the garage/survival shelter, busy repairing Hatchworth at all possible speed, the Doctor grinned.
“Now that’s a good beat. Clever girl, Tae…”
“Care-ful of the vor-tex,” cautioned Hatchworth.
“I know. I’ve made sure I’m temporarily vortex-proof. Aaaaaannnnnd *that* should have you next to good as new. How’s it feel?”
“Ship-shape and Bris-tol fash-ion,” Hatchworth smiled.
“I thought he w-w-w-w-was Hatchworth-shaped…”
“Not now, Rabbit…” The Doctor reattached the chassis plates and ushered Hatchworth off the bench. "All right, The Spine. Up you pop. Hatchmeister, I shall be needing that vortex. Let’s hurry.“
If he knew soldiers like he thought he knew soldiers…
*
"Admiral! We have a signal.”
“From where?” Admiral Jamisson lifted her fingers from the ‘go’ button.
“From… the Labyrinth… It’s weak, but it’s a definite pattern.” Bixby put it on the speakers.
A heartbeat. A human heartbeat. “Tae’s still alive,” she breathed. “Do we have any data?”
“The signal stops every twenty minutes,” reported the comms officer. “And in another twenty minutes, it starts up again. Stronger. I’m tempted to guess that she’s on her way back up.”
Admiral Jamisson put the cover back over the 'go’ button. Her entire army were waiting, but they had been waiting for months. They could wait a few minutes longer. “Try sending down a comms probe. See if we can get a report. We need to know what’s going on.”
*
Thirteen more steps. Twelve. Ten. “Don’t stop yet,” she panted. “Ten more. Then rest.”
Nine. Eight. Seven.
Was she hallucinating, or was there a light coming towards her?
Tae was ready to bet on hallucinations. She already had bubbling spots swarming in her field of vision. All sorts of interesting colours.
Well. Except for puce.
Six. Five. Four.
What divine being ever decided that humans could hallucinate puce?
The light was coming closer. Whirring.
Three. Two. One.
Tae landed butt-first on the next step up and gulped at her water while tapping her heartbeat on the bannister anew. She was sweating in places that she was certain had never had pores.
“When I geddup there,” she panted. “I’m gonna ask th’ boss… for all'a th’ ice cream…”
“You may have earned it, Lieutenant,” said the voice of God. Or the nearest equivalent, Admiral Jamisson. “What’s happening? How are you alive?”
“Th’ Guardian… *Is*… th’ treasure.” Tae gulped more water. “She w’s… protectin'er fam'ly. Gotta… calloff… th'troops.”
Admiral Jamisson did not get her rank by believing the first thing she heard. “Stand by. A medical drone will be coming down with supplies for you.”
Tae leaned back on the stairs. An uncomfortable way to rest, but she needed it all the same. “Glad t’ hear it… Admiral…”
“And in the meantime, I’d like a full report on the events since we lost contact.”
*
Down in the garage, another probe came to see him and the robots as he was busy repairing Rabbit.
“Ah, Good day, Admiral. I would like to give you a *proper* scalding for sending soldiers to do your diplomatic work. Soldiers are rotten at diplomacy, people like you teach them to shoot first. As you can see, your force for good is under repairs. I have one or two more things. Three, possibly. Maybe four. I have a few more things to fix up down here and then we will. See! What. Happens. Next.” He finished his current work with a flourish and seized the probe. “Remember when I asked how the force for good would be judging you? This lot have seen plenty of wars and they do not like them. Not one bit. But they *will* stop your war, oh yes. They’ll stop it good and hard.” He pushed the probe away. “Consider that your only warning. Now go away, you’re distracting me.”
*
The medical probe had helped immensely. She’d almost reached the top.
Then there were lights. Bright, blue lights that filled the entire space enough to hurt her eyes. A rising whir and clunks as machinery came to life.
Tae wanted to swear when she saw the elevator rising to greet her. Seven figures were inside. Six of them, dressed neatly in black.
“Step lively, Tae,” scolded the Doctor. “We have an army to stop.”
“Already stopped 'em,” she managed, catching her breath. “I thought they were only three…”
“Well… repairing Walter Robotics robots… bit like eating potato chips. Can’t stop at one. And, face it, I’m brilliant. So!” He clapped his hands. “Rabbit. The Spine,” he gestured at each of them as he said their names, “Hatchworth. The Jon. Upgrade and Bebop. I scaled him down so he can actually look after the rest while you’re waiting on getting Walter Girls in. Assembled gentlebots, meet Lieutenant Taeril… *Walter*.” He bounced on the balls of his feet. “You all are going to stop a war.”
“Me? But… I’m not– I can’t…”
“Nonsense,” soothed the Doctor. “You still have the blood of inventors, tinkerers and innovators in you. Who else could have thought of using Walter Manor itself as a means to let the Admiral know we were all alive and well? Clever girl,” he ruffled her hair, “you are going to go far indeed. Use what you have to solve the problem at hand! And what you have now are six. Very clever. Very advanced. Robot pacifists! Who better to halt a war in its tracks?”
“But I’m not–”
“Yes you are,” said Rabbit. “Y-you’re very much so! And we-we’re gonna prove it.”
“Together!” The rest of the robots cheered.
All Tae was certain of was that the Admiral was going to go *spare*.
[THE END!}
[AN: Yes, I ended it up in the air. Consider in a springboard for a whole bunch of DW/SPG AU head cannons and have fun. Share and enjoy.]
Legends of Sanyago (Act 2)
[Part 3 of a Doctor Who/Steam Powered Giraffe crossover ficcy for pandoraslittleblackbox ]
“…we'regonnadiewe'regonnadiewe'regonnadie…” Tae recited under her breath. She had a string tethered to her left wrist and, at the other end of the leash, a floating lantern made of ceramics and a slow-burning flame.
Instead of boots, she had slippers.
Instead of armour - plain cotton garments she usually wore for the physical regime, every morning.
Instead of weapons… nothing.
There were no comms. If they wanted to get back up, they’d have to tug on the ropes that let them down.
The Doctor did not seem at all disturbed, or vulnerable. He walked through the gloom, in the halo of his own lantern, like a man who had all the armour he ever needed on the inside. Or like a curious child who hadn’t yet realised that the world could hurt them. It was hard to tell.
He was digging into his pockets and scattering things all over the floor. Nuts. Bolts. Cogs, gears and springs. Assorted other bits and pieces of metal bobs.
“What are you doing?” Tae whispered. “If it really likes metal, you’re gonna draw it right to us.”
“Well, yes,” he whispered. “The point being that we don’t have anything on us that it wants.” A generous handful went skittering and scrattling down the dark hallways.
At the end of this one… was a door.
An actual door. Closed. Pale. And threatening for its presence. On the floor in front of it were metal shapes. The one dangling from one fastener above the lintel was a perfect circle. The two on the floor resembled a zigzag, and a ladder with a single rung.
The Doctor turned away from it, scattering metal shards into the side-rooms as he went.
Tae had no real desire to see what was behind the only door in the labyrinth. For all she knew, it was there for a reason.
“You mean… apart from all those things you’re scattering around like you’re feeding the birds?”
“Shh,” he said.
Tae strained her ears. Listening for any sign of life beyond theirs. She swore she could hear the blood in her ears more than any other sound.
The Doctor knelt and bowled a handful of metal pieces into the darkness in front of him.
There. In the distance. Two lights. One blue. One green. Moving in a vary unnatural way in the darkness.
“Ah-huh,” said the Doctor. “I thought it might be something like this…”
Another bowled handful of metal.
Tae edged away from the space where The Doctor knelt. If she waited to see what happened to him, then started running for the harnesses…
Now he was digging into another pocket. Producing a bottle of machine oil. This, too, he rolled into the darkness.
“Come on, now,” he cooed. “Let’s have a look at you.”
She could hear the ticking. See wisps of something white. Drifting in the still, stygian air like ghosts. Tae couldn’t help but yawp at the sight of a metal hand, scooping up the bottle of oil.
Something in the darkness… drinking. With grateful little ‘mmmph, mmmph’ noises.
TSSSSSSSS…
“D-d-d-doc… tor?” came a mechanical croak. A machine with a malfunctioning speaker. Full of static and noise.
“Bet you want some water, too,” Another bottle. Bowled into the gloom. But not nearly as far.
It was crawling on limbs that were almost coming apart. A third, brilliantly blue light illuminated the floor under its chest as it approached. The thing snagged the bottle and Tae could see its gears turning. Its insides working as it took in water with an alarming bubbling noise.
The thing spotted her and froze. One mangled arm raised as if it was defending itself.
“It’s all right, now, Rabbit,” the Doctor cooed. “Tae isn’t going to hurt you. She’s helping me.”
What?
Glowing eyes, one blue, one green, regarded her with suspicion.
The Doctor approached the machine. Someone, a long time ago, had made it to look human. Now it was mostly broken and oxidised. “Who did this to you?” he clucked. “Who’s the bad people?”
A copper digit indicated Tae. “Sol-sol-sol… d-d-d-d-d-d-d-diers.” The hand dropped. As if pointing had exhausted it.
“It’s going to be all right. I promise. What about your brothers? Where are your brothers, Rabbit?” His hands moved quickly. Rearranging clockwork. Repairing it with a small, buzzing tool from inside his coat.
“K-keep,” Rabbit rasped, “'em sa-sa-saffffffe. T-t-t-t-t-till a… W-W-W-W-W-W-Walt-t-t-t-t-terrrrrr… comes b-b-b-back.”
“But there’s nobody called Walter here,” blurted Tae. “We’re all girls.”
“It’s not a given name, it’s a surname.”
Tae gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth. O sweet celestial powers, so that was why…
“You remember that force for good, Tae?” The Doctor said as he worked. “That thing that was going to stop your war?”
“Mmm-hmm?”
“You and your soldier pals have been shooting part of it.” Gone was the air of childlike innocence. Gone was every atom of happiness he had had. Now, he moved like barely-contained rage. “All you had to do was try to *talk*. None of you noticed. Not one. Not *one* of worked it out.”
“I don’t understand,” Tae confessed.
“Even after this long alone, even faced with repeated invasions from people who shoot first and ask questions later… They never killed anyone. They only hurt you enough so that you’d go away.” He turned with love and admiration back to the machine called Rabbit and took it into his arms as a parent would hug a child. “They’re still pacifists. The ultimate instruments of peace.”
*
Rabbit, once the Doctor had patched her - Tae learned the machine was female - together enough so that movement was easier for her, lead them right to the rest without a murmur of protest.
“How’d you know–” that “–her?”
“Oh, Rabbit and I are old friends. I helped her Pappy build her and her twin brother. Brilliant machines. Colonel Walter was quite the character. Couldn’t hold a tune in a bucket, but positively brilliant with machines.”
Rabbit laughed. “That’s my Pappy,” she said. Her mismatched eyes lit wherever she looked. “Y'aughta trust th’ Doctor, g-g-girly. He knows things.”
Down. Down past all the red zones and into a space that had once been a garage. It was still a garage, but now two other machines were using it as a sort of shelter.
A tall, thin, silver one sat by a repair bench and a stout, short, bronze one was propped on a tray/trolley with an old filing cabinet near by.
If they were human, they would be holding grimly to their last thread of hope.
The short, stout, bronze one opened a hatch in his chest and painfully bought out water, oil, and a handful of gears before drifting into what looked like slumber against the cabinet. The silver one fed the bronze one a portion of oil, and a portion of water, before taking some for himself. And leaving a diplomatic third for Rabbit.
“We-we been helpin’ each other since… we was left b-b-b-behind,” said Rabbit. “We need a Wa-Wa-Wa-Walter…”
The Doctor smiled for them all. “Tell you what. Until we find one, how about I help you all?”
The silver one brightened and smiled. “Thanks, Uncle…” And with slow, painful movements, moved the stout bronze one onto the repair bench. “Look after Hatchy, first? He… He can make… everything you need.” Talking seemed to be a great effort for this bot.
Rabbit crossed the distance between them and pushed her rations on the silver one. Physically forcing him to take in the supplies. “St-st-stop shortin’ y-y-y-y-yerself, d-d-d-d-dummins.”
The Doctor tied his lantern to the former seat of 'Hatchy’ and ran his buzzing tool through the air above it. Him. “This is going to take a while. How about you go upstairs and tell your boss exactly how daft she’s been?”
*
Upstairs…
“We’ve lost all contact. We can’t even hear them with the listening equipment down the shaft.”
“Then that’s it,” sighed the Admiral. “The beast’s escalating. We’re going to have to take the element by force.” She had really hoped to avoid this. But in a battle between madmen and guns, she would take guns any day.
“Ready the troops. We’re going to use every soldier we have to get this thing.”
[Ad break]
Legends of Sanyago (Act 1)
[Part 2 of a Doctor Who/Steam Powered Giraffe crossover ficcy for pandoraslittleblackbox ]
Imagine the future. No, not the bright and shiny one where everything’s so brightly lit that you’re amazed people don’t have filters installed on their retinas so that they don’t go blind. And no, not the dark and dismal one where you’re surprised everyone isn’t carrying around lighting equipment because you can’t see a thing. The other one. No, the other, other one.
Okay. Fine. Just picture today with better stuff.
Most of which is lying in boxes in a storeroom where, for currently unknown reasons, a breeze is picking up. Then there’s an oscillating light. And a noise not entirely unlike someone dragging a house key up and down a piano wire[1]. And then… there’s a box.
It’s big. And most of it is blue.
All of this is lost on the rest of the crates. Which are dull and beige and are more informative than the words “Police Public Call Box” on this new container. But none of them open from within to reveal a smiling face. “Hello-ooooooo San Francisco!” said a strangely-dressed man as if greeting an audience.
He looked around, realising that his audience was nothing but crates and shelves.
“Fine. Be like that.”
Someone in the distance was screaming. So, of course, he went towards the noise.
*
“We’ve got you now, Tae. We’ve got you!”
Tae, stretched on the gurney, kept shrieking. She had been shrieking since the beast had got her. She had been screaming and crying all the way back to her abandoned harness. Weeping as they hauled her back up.
She was bleeding, but not profusely. That’s the thing about blood. It stands out and draws attention to itself. Hey, look at me, it seems to say, one of your fellows is in some pretty deep trouble!
We don’t measure blood by volume until after the fact. During the fact - we measure it by area.
Beside her, a medtech was chanting the things that were wrong with her and the things that might be wrong with her, as well as trying to patch it on the fly whilst simultaneously steering the gurney to medical. Another was just trying to get Tae to stop screaming.
Which was why none of them stopped the stranger when he barged in.
“Hello. Did I wind up in another hospital[2]?” He took one look at Tae and drew something shiny out of a pocket. “There now. Here. Take a good look.”
The golden, flickering light and the slight hum it made instantly fascinated her.
The stranger was singing.
“Klokeda partha mennin klatch, aroon, aroon aroon… Klokeda shunna teerenatch, aroon, aroon, aroon…” and so on. It made no sense, but it lulled all the scream out of her. Dissolved her fears.
“…aroon…” He put the device away and smiled warmly for her.
“Who *are* you?” said the leading medtech. “How did you do that?”
“I’m the Doctor, not that kind of Doctor. I’m here to help,” he flashed around a black wallet containing some form of ID that Tae didn’t quite catch. “What’s going on?”
“Silly buggers is what’s going on,” said the junior medtech. “These crazy fools are all trying to get to the treasure in the centre of the Labyrinth of W'r. They think it’s going to stop the war.”
“A weapon?”
“No. Um. I mean. We don’t know. There’s legends about this place. About the Labyrinth. About all the people who tried to get to the treasure and failed. They all say there’s an immense power for good in the middle of there, but… there’s also fearsome guardians.”
“Well, of course. Anything like that’s bound to have guards. Can’t have a force for good without *guards*.” He rolled his eyes as if it was the most obvious thing in the universe. “What’re they like? Tae, is it?”
Tae managed a nod. Now that she was calm and in the light, the wounds didn’t seem so bad. “I didn’t see. They were fast. Faster than I could follow. I lost my gun. I lost my helmet… and then there was only the dark and I didn’t know how to get back…”
The Doctor shook his head. “Why is it, whenever you humans go anywhere, the guns have to come to?” He shook his head. “What else is missing from Tae’s gear? Do you know?”
“Lots of things. Sensors, transmitters, relays. A water bottle. All her tools. Why?”
“And what do they all have in common?”
The only answer was a shrug.
*
The Doctor found the ops centre by finding the nearest stiff-necked corridor guard and reciting, “Take me to your leader.” A simple expedient that worked with surprising frequency.
There, an overworked and harassed lady worried at screen after screen of data. Trying to arrange things and come up with a plan when so much of the rotating map hovering above the main table was red.
“There has to be a way. There *has* to be a way…”
The Doctor peered over her shoulder. “Archeological dig? Looking for lost treasure? Or is it treasure that doesn’t like being found?”
“It’s hope,” sighed the leader. “And we’re losing.” Now she looked away from her data streams. “Who are you?”
“I’m the Doctor. I’m here to help. First, are you absolutely positive that this is a force for good, and not something that should definitely stay at the bottom of a labyrinth with a bunch of ferocious and unstoppable guards making certain nobody gets to it?”
She looked at him as if he’d just wet himself. “The legends of Sanyago speak only of the treasure being a force for good. Nothing else. Just a force for good. This war has us all in such dire straits that we’re determined to dig for fairy tales.”
“And you don’t care what this force would do if it judges you to be evil?”
She stared him down with eyes that had seen too much. He knew that look. He’d seen it far too often in a mirror. “Anything to stop the senseless killing. Anything.”
Not all of the news feeds were from the dig. Many were from space fleets and other planets. News from the front. Neither side were willing to stop.
“I’m going to help,” he decided. “I’m going to need all your files. The legends, the labyrinth, the guardians. Everything. And the stuff about the people who went down.” He found a chair and flopped into it, making it spin a fill circle before he faced her again. “And Admiral… are you very familiar with fairy tales?”
“Why?”
“Just curious. Just curious.”
*
Tae woke to find the Doctor draped across the visitor’s chair. Idly flipping through an info-tablet as if he wasn’t paying attention to it at all.
“Welcome back,” he said, “Feeling better?”
Tae checked. She’d seen other survivors. Other exiles from the Labyrinth of W'r. Many of them were now under tranquillisation in the ever-expanding psyche ward. “Amazingly… yes.”
“So you sent down probes, and they never came back. So you sent down cams, and they got destroyed. Then you sent down soldiers and they… got every last scrap of metal taken off them, then got subdued, and this is the telling part… dragged back to their point of origin and put back in their harnesses by the aggressor.” He looked up from the info-tablet. “Do you know of any enemy that lets their enemies go back home?”
“Uhm. I’m just here on prison detail,” she said. “They said, fight or take your chances and… I took my chances.”
“Okay. That makes me like you a bit more.” He nodded. “BUT… do you know of any combat where they let the other side get their soldiers back?”
“No. Not really.”
“First time for me, too.” He found a button and showed a typical soldier in full gear. “This is how they all go in. And this,” a soldier in torn scraps and incidental scratches, “is how they come back. Spot the difference.”
Under his semi-critical eye, Tae looked. Really looked. “Whatever’s down there… it takes all the metal. Why’d it only need metal?”
That earned a friendly smile. “An excellent question, Tae. I have another one. How would *you* like to help *me* find the answer?”
“What… go down there again? Face it again?”
“I need someone who’s been there, before. And don’t worry. I’ve figured out how we can protect ourselves.”
“You have an armour that can withstand that thing?”
“Better. We’re going down with no armour at all.”
[1] Nerd fact: This was how they made the TARDIS noise in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. A sound effect they still use to this day.
[2] Just be glad he’s not nicking the clothes again.
[Ad break]
Legends of Sanyago (teaser)
[A Doctor Who/Steam Powered Giraffe for pandoraslittleblackbox ::smooches::]
“Entering Cavity Three Seven Niner Delta,” said the humanoid on the end of the abseiling rig. “Are you still getting vid pickup, Investigator Base?”
“We got your cam feed good. Audio’s coming through clear. You’re good, Explorer Five.”
“…m’ name’s Tae,” the humanoid mumbled. Aloud, she reported, “Floor’s stable. Well made or well-preserved, I can’t tell. I can see furniture. Not many relics in this level, any more.” Tae knew better than to try and touch the books or the papers. If she tried, they’d crumble to uninformative dust. “No doors, of course.”
The muzzle of Tae’s gun followed the beam from her helmet as she looked around. Empty darkness with hints that people had once lived in this maze. So many empty doorways and no doors.
So many before her had gone down, and met… resistance.
The creature that dwelled here did not permit explorers anywhere near the legendary treasure of Sanyago.
Thus, Tae was extremely cautious when she found the stairs that seemed to lead all the way down to Hell. She was so cautious in testing each step downwards that she didn’t see the signs that this staircase, like many other places in the Labyrinth of W'r, had been repaired.
And she didn’t hear the ticking of the beast that stalked her.
“I found another set of rooms,” Tae reported. “What used to be the beds have fallen to pieces. Somebody’s taken all the metal springs out. There’s… no metal on this level, either…”
“Wrong,” said a voice.
And then it struck.
Something fast stripped her of her gun, first, and then her helmet. Plunging her into darkness.
“There’s yours.”
[Cue opening credits]
Another fun game for the tag.
Reblog this with your favorite thing about Bunny. Length doesn’t matter— just one word, a sentence, a paragraph. Whatever! Only positives, though, please. c:
My favorite thing about Bunny is her strength.
-Mod Bip
i love her brain and the pretty things it makes
I love her art. I love her smile. I love her style. I love her creativity.
(via spacemuffinz)
You heard it from David
The most important thing of all: Vice Quadrant is coming Winter 2014
Or, for us in the southern hemisphere: Summer 2014 :)
Let’s talk about that please?
Watching Bunny clean out her Tumblr Inbox and thinking: If I keep up with the flow, I’m never going to get tonight’s 500 words in. OTOH, if I write my 500 words, I may never find out what this is about.
…or see any of the things I sent her…(stop being selfish, ‘Nutter!)
And I note that there’s more positive messages than negative ones. I hope that means something.
And Bunny’s turned her ask off, so I can’t send her my own daft little message.
bunnybennett: Nil illegitimi carborundum :) You’re gorgeous and you make/made things that changed my whole world. Never stop.
Reblog this if you have never in your life said or done anything that could be viewed by anyone as disturbing/troubling/politically incorrect.
[I just want to prove something to the Fanmily. I know I’ve done/said problematic things in my lifetime]
I’m getting my hair colored (radioactive ginger) and all I have is my phone. Which won’t load many images :(
Send me fun steam-powered things in my ask and I shall babble accordingly :D