Hunger Moon: Chapter Thirty-Four

[amberfocus]

                                                                banner by angelfireeast

Title:  Hunger Moon (34/?)
Series:  Better With You (Book 2)
Author: amberfocus
Characters/Pairings:  Alt!Nine/Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler/Pete Tyler, Sarah Tyler, Kyle Tyler, Davin McBain, Mickey Smith/Suzie (Costello) Symmonds-Smith/Jake Symmonds, Toshiko Sato, Ianto Jones, Katie Harper/Owen Harper, Andy Davidson
Genre:  Action/adventure, romance, alternate universe, fluff, angst, humor, smut ,jeprdyfrndly
Rating:  Adult, some chapters NC-17 with graphic sex
Betas: amyo67, jeprdyfrndly 
Summary:  The psychic attacks of the Monoc'teru on the population of Pete's world sidetracks the Doctor and Rose's search for the spheres of Thessalameka, the second assignment on their quest to save the fabric of reality from unravelling forever.  Set ten years post-Doomsday in a world where Journey's End never happened.  Sequel to Wolf Moon http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/259862.html.

Previous chapters:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/263134.html

Chapter Thirty-Four: Battle Plans

The Doctor steadied the hand holding the sonic screwdriver with his other hand, bracing it against his wrist. The shakes had started an hour ago. They’d be barely discernible to all but the sharpest of eyes. Suzie certainly hadn’t noticed. Not yet anyway. He hoped he’d be able to complete the device before it got too bad. He just hoped that Suzie would be able to do what she’d said she could do. It might all come down to her in the end.

“Tell me again,” the Doctor said hoping to distract himself from the symptoms he was starting to feel at his enforced separation from his mate, “how exactly you do this thing you do. You said you can make any computer network in the world obey you. Start at the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.”

“When I was little there was an accident. I was riding my bicycle and got hit by a car speeding down our street. They were going so fast that the force threw me across the street and headfirst into a tree, cracking my helmet in half. I was dead at the scene, but my brother knew CPR and kept my body breathing until the paramedics arrived. I was lucky. I wasn’t brain dead, quite, but there was severe brain injury.”

She took a breath and continued as the Doctor made a small adjustment on the device. A bit of gold flared up from the back side of his hand. “My mother, who was in the tech division of Torchwood London, had been working on a device that allowed the human brain to interact directly with a computer network. The idea of it was supposed to be that a human wired with her implant could interface with any computer network in existence.”

“And how did you plug in to the network?”

“Well, the early test subjects actually were jacked in. They had a physical port at the back of their necks and a cable that plugged in to both the person and the mainframe they needed to access. Well, I don’t know how up on Earth pop culture you are, but it was sort of like in that old film, the Matrix. Have you seen it?” The Doctor nodded. He had quite a large collection of science fiction and fantasy films from Earth, mostly so he could make fun of how badly they’d gotten almost everything wrong.

“Data burnout in the first few years was pretty bad, but as the hardware evolved she found a way to link it into the part of the mind that controls the transfer of thoughts from the conscious mind to memory storage. Somehow a couple of the college students in the third trial were able to jump from their own memory storage into the memory storage of any computer available.”

“How’d they do that then?” the Doctor asked.

“My mother said it was some kind of cognitive leap brought on by the way the implant was stimulating the brain. It was pressing on the place where some of the psychic talents are stored. She thought maybe it was some kind of transference of telekinetic energy.”

Suzie shook her head. “After that the test subjects were able to form a network with each other any time they were near a computer. It was like sharing one consciousness, but without becoming a hive mind. With the advent of the internet my mother knew something huge was on the way. One of her colleagues was working on a memory restoration device that could help brain damaged minds recover. She stole it, merged it with her own new prototype that would be able to remotely plug into the new internet and she had it implanted in my brain.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t want to lose a child. She wanted to further her research. I recovered and I felt the same as I always had. Internet usage became common and the first time I went on it, about two years after the implant was put in, I…” Suzie trailed off.

“You were able to access everything available to you.”

“No. I mean, yes, but it was more than that. I could see all of the data, sort through it, read patterns that hadn’t yet formed in the real world. When I went online, I wasn’t just seeing the internet. It was like I became the internet. Eventually I didn’t even need a computer anymore. I could become one with the web simply by closing my eyes and thinking myself there. It was amazing and terrifying and for a long time I wanted nothing to do with it.”

“What changed?” the Doctor asked quietly.

“When I was eighteen my mother died under mysterious circumstances. No one would tell me why and there was a huge cover up. I put myself online and traced every pattern that led up to my mother’s death. And when I found out who had had her murdered, I discovered that I could manipulate information with just a thought. I…I tracked down her killers, but I left a trail a mile wide. And it came with a price. I couldn’t get out again. That’s when Torchwood found me,” Suzie said.

The sudden quiet caused the Doctor to jerk his head upright. “And?”

“And they were able to send in a telepath to guide me back out again,” she said. “I’ve only done it again twice. Once to track down who assassinated the president of England and once when the child of a Torchwood employee was kidnapped. The telepath went with me, made sure I didn’t fully mesh my mind into the internet again like I had with my mother. When I heard about the psychic neural nets that were going up…well, I was afraid to say anything. I’m pregnant and my children…I was afraid I’d be putting them in danger if I tried anything. But then all of the nets became one net, the giant force field, and what is this neural net but a giant network of minds?”

“It’s a billion times more powerful than the internet, Suzie,” the Doctor said.

“I know. I know it is. But it still boils down to the same thing. If I can gain access to it, I can become it long enough to destroy it. My only fear is that I will get lost in it.” She paused then met his eyes with her clear, calm, brown ones. “But you, Doctor. You’re a telepath. You can anchor me to reality. You can guide me out again,” she said.

“Suzie, the babies…”

“The babies won’t have a world to grow up in. Not mine. Not any of them. You know what the Monoc’teru will do to their minds. You know what it’ll do to their bodies. I want them to live free and I’m willing to die trying to make that happen. For them. For everyone. Will you protect my mind while I do this?”

The Doctor was silent for a long time as he finished screwing a panel into place on his machine. He pressed a button with shaking determination and flashing lights came on across the surface. “All done. How will you get in?”

“I just need the answer to the cipher that Davin and Tosh have been working on. If we time it right, if we do it when your machine rips a hole in their force field there will be a weak spot I can take advantage of. We can go in and wreak havoc. Tell their ships to attack each other. They’ll destroy themselves and we’ll tear their neural net to shreds.”

“We’ll have to make sure we get out in time,” he said.

“Then you’ll do it?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said grimly, “I’ll do it.” A wave of nausea washed over the Doctor and sweat broke out on his brow. “But it better be soon. If I don’t get back to Rose in the next 24 hours, I’m going to be useless to you.” He hauled himself up off the floor and ran for the loo.



Rose lay curled up in the back of the jeep while Jake and Mickey helped Sergeant Reed with the refugees from Laugharne settle into the warehouse. Her skin hurt, her head hurt, and she felt a literal pain in her heart. Her body was longing for the Doctor, but not nearly as much as her mind. She did not have that same intensive drive for him that had overwhelmed them both in their first days together. This was different. Where that had made her feel like she was losing her mind, this made her feel as if she’d lost all hope. It was a struggle to remember the Doctor’s words of just a few hours ago.

At least the vomiting had stopped, but the shakes had gotten worse. She was wrapped up in several army blankets and the men had left the heater blasting, but she still couldn’t seem to get warm. She felt so useless. She should be at the forefront here, making sure the people they were settling for the duration had everything that they needed. She was just thankful so much had been worked out before they’d left the dig site.

Sweat suddenly broke out all over her body and she threw the blankets from her, scrambling out of the jeep and into the cool night air, desperate for relief. She panted trying to breathe sweet air deep into her suddenly burning lungs. She tore off her body armor and her jumper, leaving herself in a thin t-shirt that she flapped against her skin, trying to bring her temperature back down to normal.

She sank to the ground, her back against a tire, trying to wish the heat out of her body. She took off her shoes and socks pressing her feet into the cold concrete. In irritation, she scratched violently at the itch that was tingling through her arms and noted in consternation that she was starting to glow that soft golden color that sometimes lit her skin when she and the Doctor were together, but hadn’t been able to make love in a while. She damned her hormones and wrapped her arms around her knees, rocking slightly to and fro.

“Rose, are you all right?” a masculine voice asked.

She looked up into the worried eyes of Luke and Maria. Luke cradled one of the boxed orbs in his arms. She didn’t answer him. “They getting ready to set that up?” she asked instead nodding at the box.

“Yeah,” Luke said. “Just a few more minutes and we’ll be on our way.”

Maria dropped down onto her knees and put her hand on Rose’s forehead. “She’s burning up, Luke. Can you get a canteen and a clean cloth from the supplies?”

“Yeah.” He handed Maria the box and disappeared for a few minutes before returning with the requested items. Maria poured some water onto the cloth and gently washed Rose’s face with it. Rose nearly cried out in relief at the sudden cold bathing her skin. Next Maria held the canteen to Rose’s mouth and encouraged her to drink.

“Come on, Rose. If you’re sweating like this, and after all the vomiting you’ve done, chances are you’re getting dehydrated.” Obediently Rose swallowed some of the soothing liquid. They stayed with her for several minutes, until Luke was called away to set up the orb in one corner of the warehouse. The other one would go with them to Torchwood, leaving a half mile stretch between the warehouse and the hub protected from the influence of the neural net. Maria stayed with her, trying to make her as comfortable as possible until it was time to move on.

Mickey helped her back into the jeep and Sergeant Reed turned on the air conditioner full blast to compensate for Rose’s new condition. They traversed the final half mile in an hour’s time. It was four a.m. when they arrived at the hub. By then Rose was burning up with fever again and so weak that Mickey had to carry her inside.

“Was she injured?” asked Domina as they entered the hub from behind the desk of the travel office.

“No, she’s ill,” said Jake as Mickey walked past her and into Torchwood proper.

“Bring her in to the conference room where Lee and I are staying and go get an extra zed bed. I’ll take care of her. What are her symptoms?” Domina wanted to know.

“They keep changing,” said Jake. “We’ve just been trying to keep her comfortable as best we can. The vomiting seems to have stopped. The Doctor said to only allow her clear liquids until he can get back to her.”

Mickey set Rose down on Domina’s bed then went to help Jake bring another zed bed up to the conference room. They shifted Rose into it. She’d gone into delirium while they were gone. “If the Doctor’s like this, and he’s alone with Suzie, how is she going to manage everything on her own?” Jake asked. “I don’t think she can fly the TARDIS even with instruction. Rose can’t and she’s been with him a while.”

“From what Rose was saying earlier, he won’t be as bad off. The TARDIS will be able to cancel out some of the effects, maybe give him some medication to take the edge off,” Mickey said.

“Cold,” said Rose as she broke into shivers. “So cold.”

“Give her my blankets,” said Lee from his corner of the room where he had been watching quietly.

Domina stripped all of the blankets off Lee’s bed but one, and added them to the ones Rose was already snuggled under. “Find some more blankets,” she told Jake and Mickey. “Her skin is like ice.”

They hurried to do her bidding, returning a few minutes later with several wool army blankets and a feather mummy bag. Mickey lifted her up while Domina unzipped it and then he placed her down in it. They zipped her into the snug sleeping bag, her face the only thing visible as the hood came around her head. Domina placed the rest of the blankets on top of Rose then retrieved a water bottle with a sports lid.

“Rose, try to drink,” Domina said. Carefully she dribbled some water into Rose’s mouth and with a light brush against her throat, coaxed her to swallow. “I’d like Katie to come see her as soon as she’s free. She might need an IV line.”

Jake nodded. “I’ll tell her.”

As the men left the room, Domina shoved the new zed bed over next to the one Rose was lying in, so she could hear if Rose needed anything during the remainder of the night. She laid down on it and tried to get some sleep. She managed to doze a bit, despite Rose’s fitful noises, and was awakened when Katie appeared a couple of hours later to examine Rose just as Rose’s temperature had heated up again and she was trying weakly to get out of the mummy bag with ineffectual fingers.

Quickly and efficiently the two women worked together to get Rose out of the bag. She was still delirious and was whimpering pitifully for the Doctor. Pain racked her body in waves until Katie finally decided to start an IV in her hand and dosed her with enough pain and sleeping medication to put her into a deep sleep for several hours, as well as a saline drip to rehydrate her.

“Is there anything else I can do?” Domina asked quietly.

“No. She’ll sleep now. You should try to as well. Morning will be here soon and I have a feeling it’s going to be a very busy day,” Katie said. With a final check of Rose’s pulse, she said good-night to Domina and went to catch a few hours of shut-eye herself. With an exhausted sigh, Domina settled herself back into bed thinking she’d never be able to manage to sleep but barely completed the thought before she was out like a light.



“We’ve done it!” Tosh exclaimed. “That’s the last digit.” Her eyes widened as the data on the screen began rapidly translating itself into English. Davin, who had yet again fallen asleep on his keyboard, awoke with a start when Tosh came over and shook him by the shoulder. “Davin, wake up, we’re in!”

“What?”

“We’ve broken the cipher, Davin,” she said.

Davin shot to his feet in excitement and threw his arms around Toshiko, picking her up and whirling around in circles with her, laughing with joy. “We’re going to do it. We’re going to survive!” he said jubilantly.

Tosh laughed as he set her back down on the floor. “This is brilliant. Come on, let’s go tell Ianto.”

Mickey, who’d been asleep in the next room but had heard their excited chatter, stumbled out to see what was going on. He joined them on their visit to Ianto’s office. Toshiko had to quietly wake him as he’d fallen asleep with his head on the desk. He quickly blinked awake and didn’t seem the least bit affected by being woken from a sound sleep.

“Yes?” he asked.

“We’ve done it,” said Tosh. “We’ve cracked the code.”

“Then all we need to do is get a hold of the Doctor and Suzie and see if they’ve finished the device for opening a hole in the neural net,” Ianto said.

Mickey opened his mobile and brought up the number for the TARDIS phone then handed it over to Ianto. Ianto put it onto speaker phone and dialed. It was Suzie who answered.

“Hello?”

“Suzie?” asked Ianto.

“Yeah. Hi, Ianto. What’s up?”

“Where’s the Doctor?” Ianto asked.

“He’s not doing so well. He’s got the shakes pretty badly and he’s stopped eating because nothing is staying down.”

“Is he delirious?” Mickey asked. “Rose is.”

“Hey, Mick. No. He’s still got full control of his cognitive abilities.”

“Thank goodness,” said Tosh.

“Suzie, we need to know if the Doctor finished his device yet,” Ianto said.

“Yeah, he finished it a little while ago. He’s pretty sure it’s going to work.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“Do you have the code for breaking into the neural network?” Suzie asked.

“Yes. We’re decrypting files as we speak,” Davin said.

“Okay, give it to me. We’re going to need it once we get inside.”

“Inside? Suzie, don’t you dare tell me you’re going in!” Mickey exclaimed.

“I have to Mickey. It’s the only way to tear it up. From the inside. The Doctor is a telepath. He can anchor me,” Suzie said calmly.

“But the babies.”

“The babies are fine, Mickey. They’re thriving now and the Doctor says he can protect their minds.  Give me the code.”  Quickly Davin read it off to her and she repeated it.

“If he gets any weaker, if it advances like it is in Rose, he’s not going to be capable of anchoring you or protecting the twins.”

“That’s why we need to do this soon,” said the Doctor.

“You shouldn’t be up,” Suzie said. “Go back to bed.”

“I’m fine, Suzie. The TARDIS gave me some medicine that will hold back the worst of it for another twelve hours. We need to do this as soon as possible,” the Doctor said.

“We’ve got the code now, Doctor. We just gave it to Suzie.”

“Then let’s do this.”

“It’ll take an hour to launch Sheldin, and a further hour for him to reach the hole in the net.”

“Okay. Go and get him ready then. Call us back when it’s time to launch,” the Doctor said. Then in a quieter, less commanding tone he asked, “Can I speak with Rose?”

“I’m sorry, Doctor. She’s unconscious. Katie gave her something for the pain and to sleep. She was out of her head and the pain was too much for her,” Mickey said.

“Okay,” said the Doctor. “Let’s get this ball rolling. The sooner we save the planet the sooner I get back to Rose.”

They said their good-byes and hung up the phone and everyone stared at each other for a long moment. “All right,” said Ianto. “It’s crunch time. Let’s take back planet Earth!”

Ch. 35: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/324842.html