[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.”
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