amberfocus | Of the Vortex Born: Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven: No Way Out

“Can we use the TARDIS?” ssked Rose, “to go after their pod?”

“Sorry, Rose. The TARDIS is grounded. The crash damaged her systems. It’s going to take me at least two weeks to sort out.” The look of hope in her eyes died at the Doctor’s words.

“But Torchwood, they can’t get their hands on Jamie. They can’t!” Rose said trying very hard not to make it a wail.

“Or Luke,” the Doctor added grimly. “He’s not completely human.”

“He’ll pass, won’t he, though?” Rose asked.

“Blood tests, possibly if they only test on a superficial level. DNA scans might or might not turn up what he is. But a physical check? He doesn’t have any scars on his body that are older than three years, no birthmarks, no antibodies from the usual childhood illnesses. Rose, he doesn’t have a navel. And there’s no scaring, it’s just flush. They’ll know he wasn’t born. They’ll know he was grown in a lab!” the Doctor said.

“And with Torchwood, grown in a lab means they’re free to experiment,” said Rose. “There’s nothing for it. I’ll go all Bad Wolfy and bring them back.”

Rose stood up and focused, thinking about the power and how to draw it out when she felt a hand on her arm. “No, Rose. You can’t,” said the Doctor regretfully.

“What? Of course, I can.” Rose shook his hand off.

“Rose, you just regenerated. If you call on the Vortex energy now you’ll destabilize your new body,” he told her.

“So? If I get Jamie and Luke back here safely what does it matter?” she demanded raising her arms to summon the power.

“You’ll also jeopardize the baby,” the Doctor said.

Her arms fell to her sides. “What do you mean jeopardize the baby?”

“If you channel Vortex energy through your body right now, this soon after conception, it’ll rip the embryo apart, Rose. You’d be sacrificing your unborn child to save your living one,” the Doctor said.

Rose sank back down into her chair. “We’ll find a way,” said Jake.

The doors to the war room flew open and Landon slammed into the room. “Dome Phi’s cracked,” he said. “I only got out in time.” He threw a sheaf of papers down on the table. “The observatory at Moon Colony Two was able to send me their tracking information for the past two hours before the university mainframe went down. They managed to get a detailed photograph of the source of the dome busters.” He snagged that picture out of the stack of papers and put it down in front of his father. “Do you recognize it?”

The Doctor looked down at it and his body stiffened, his eyes going cold. “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

“Are you doing all right, Jamie?” Luke asked when she stopped trying to fill the silence with incessant talking and had begun to fidget.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I just really have to pee.” It had been six hours since they’d launched and mind over matter was no longer working.

“Is the pod set up for that?”

“Yeah, there’s a head down below our feet. It’s just…well, there’s no privacy to use it.” She could feel herself blushing in embarrassment. “In a one person pod, that’s not usually a problem. The two person pods at least have a privacy curtain.”

“I’ll keep my eyes closed,” Luke said amiably. “Plug my ears, too, if you want me to. Though it’s a perfectly normal bodily function, so I don’t know why you’re embarrassed.”

“Because I’m a girl and you’re a boy, that’s why!” she burst out.

“Well, yes,” Luke said without sarcasm. “I had rather noticed that.”

Jamie froze, then realized that Luke was just being his usual straight-forward self. If she’d been trapped in a pod with Evan and he’d made that kind of remark she’d have thought it was him flirting with her. But Luke was too sweetly oblivious to her for him to have been.

She pulled her arm from behind him and turned slightly, her hand reaching up to press a button on the ceiling. She had to squirm a fair bit to reach it and even then the button was just out of reach.

“’What are you doing?” Luke asked. Was it her imagination or had his voice just changed pitch?

“Trying,” she said, wiggling a bit more against him, “to reach that green button.”

“Why?”

“It lowers the cushion board until it’s flush with the floor. Then there will be enough room for me to get off of you and scramble down to the toilet,” she said. “But I can’t quite reach it.”

“Hold still,” he said tightly. Jamie rolled back into her former position, but kept her hands up on top of him as he pressed the button and the board began to lower. When it had finished receding into the floor she put her hands down on the floor and pushed herself down Luke’s body until she was able to crawl backwards into the rear section of the pod.

“Close your eyes and plug your ears,” she said.

“I am.” Jamie completed her task as quickly as she could, returned the chemical toilet to its former position and washed her hands. Then she started the crawl forward up Luke’s body again. She pulled his arm away from his ear.

“Do you need to use it?” she asked. He nodded. “Okay, we’re going to have to switch positions. Kind of roll so you’re on top,” Jamie told him. Luke gulped. Together they managed to squirm around so that Luke was able to make his way back to the toilet. “There are instructions right above the green box.” Jamie plugged her ears and closed her eyes tightly. All she could think about was how embarrassing this all was. A few moments later she felt Luke making his way back up from the head. He pulled her finger out of her ear.

“What about food?” he said.

“That’s at the other end. I’ll get it, if you’d get…just roll sideways…yeah, like that.” She squirmed forward a foot and managed to hook her fingers through a compartment handle. She tugged and a couple of packets came free. She scooped them up, found a couple of squeeze bottles of water in the next compartment over and then wiggled her way back to Luke who had become quite tense for some reason. Maybe he was a little more disturbed by their situation then he let on. She decided to ignore it.

“I think it’ll be easiest if we stay on our sides to eat,” she said. “Can you bring your arm up?”

“Yeah,” he said and squeezed it past her to take the items she offered.

“Just tear the edge open with your teeth and then you suck out the food inside. It tastes good, really, even if it does look funny. The astronauts used to have to eat their food this way before they invented individual gravity containment units.”

“Is that why we’re not floating around in here? It has a…what did you call it?” Luke asked.

“Individual gravity containment unit. IGCU for short. And yes, that’s why.” Luke tore into the packet and started sucking the soft brown food out.

“That is good. Taste’s like beef stew,” he said in surprise.

“It is,” said Jamie. “It has beef, potatoes, carrots, and peas, but it’s all kind of been pureed so you might not notice the individual bits. The packs have 400 calories each. It’s recommended that while in the life pod we eat about every 3 hours to maintain a steady metabolic rate throughout our waking hours.” She finished her packet and then pulled the lid up on her squeeze bottle and began to suck out some water. Luke did likewise and when they were finished she took the waste materials and put them in the recycler unit, which involved another squirm forward and back.

Luke who had relaxed considerably while they were eating was back to looking tense. “I think the most comfortable position is to resume the one we were in previously,” Jamie said. “It's best for circulation, too, so nothing goes numb or gets pinched.”

“Okay,” Luke said his voice getting that strange squeak in it again as they resumed their former position on the cushion board.

“Press the same button twice,” said Jamie. Luke reached up to do what she asked and then she wrapped her arms around him and he brought his up around the outside. Jamie moved about, trying to get comfortable after the cushion board had locked back into position.

“Jamie?”

“What?”

“Can you not do that?” Luke asked his voice strained.

“Do what?” she asked in confusion.

“Wiggle around so much,” he said.

“I’m just trying to get comfortable. Do you have something in your pocket? Because I--.”

“No, Jamie,” he interrupted his voice getting flustered for the first time since she’d met him. “There’s nothing in my pocket. So could you please not squirm around so much?”

“Oh,” she said and froze, her face flaming in embarrassment as she realized there was really no way out of this situation.

“Yeah, oh,” he muttered. “Sorry. If you just…don’t move…it’ll go away.”

“Okay.” ‘Well,’ thought Jamie, ‘At least now I know he’s not oblivious to me. But this wasn’t really the way I wanted to find that out. I suppose I really shouldn't make a crack about this being a perfectly normal bodily function like he did about the toilet. Probably embarrass me more than him if I did.’ And if he could be mature about the toilet then she could certainly be mature about this. “We should be at the station in another sixteen hours.”

Luke sighed. So did Jamie. It was going to be a long sixteen hours.