taxonomites | 005 ∞ [visual || location: Amy's House]

The tablet turns on and all one can see for a moment is Amy's blurry hand before she moves it back to pick up her fork. She's eating a salad, and the glitched vegetables are making her want to spout as many lies from her lips as she can.

"This ice cream is amaaaaazing," she says, tilting her bowl away from the tablet that's propped up on a couple cookbooks, though the close observer would have already seen the leafy greens.

"Much better than any you guys get from the hatch. I tweaked it, using the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, to give me better tasting food."

She twirled her fork in the air. "You know, these hamsters aren't so bad once you get to know them. I played bridge with a couple last night and then we went to karaoke. The big brown and white one can't carry a tune, but that's all right. He paid for my drinks, so that makes up for being tone deaf."

Propping her leg up on the kitchen table, the tablet goes clacking against the table surface, filming the ceiling.

"Oi, did you guys feel that? Taxon just had an earthquake." One could hear the sound of Amy crunching on lettuce and croutons for a moment before her other leg joined the first on the table and the tablet shook.

"Whoops. Aftershocks."

[ooc: I'm taking advantage of the glitched foods to make Amy a liar. She's going to lie about everything your characters try to talk to her about for two hours.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What do you mean? In this place, there's just so much going on. No day is filled with the boring humdrum of being a prisoner under lock and key. Nope, not at all.

You're not eating ice cream, you're eating a salad. And Taxon definitely hasn't had an earthquake. So why are you saying that it did?

Did you talk to the hamsters?

[Maybe they'd tweaked her mind during the karaoke.]

[She frowns and sets her bowl aside.]

Do you know what? I think you're just jealous that a hamster in a fetching fedora bought me drinks all night. Well, not all night. We went water skiing down the Thames afterward.

I'm not jealous, I'm worried.

[And, at the moment, her worry was increasing every time Amy opened her mouth.]

Where are you, Amy?

In the Caribbean, soaking up the sun.

So ... your house, then?

Maybe I'm in your house!

I can see your kitchen in the background.

Look, I'll be there soon. Just ... try and stay where you are, ok?

[She shrugs and makes a noncommittal noise. She wasn't planning on going anywhere.]

When she reached the house, Martha elected to her herself in. Amy's current mood was unpredictable at best and there were no guarantee that she'd respond to a knock at the door.

It had to be a glitch of some sort. She knew that much. She just needed to work out exactly what sort of glitch and how she could keep Amy out of trouble until it passed.

"Amy?" she called, making her way carefully up the hall, "Amy, it's Martha."

"There's no Amy here," she called back from the kitchen, where she was setting her empty salad bowl in the sink. Turning on the water, she called out over the noise. "Try next door. I hear they have a litter of Amys over there."

It wasn't worth replying to that. There were lots of questions that she could have asked, but the answer would have been nonsensical anyway. Instead, Martha made her way into the kitchen. Physically, Amy seemed to be unharmed. That was a start.

"How was the salad?" she asked, then: "If you're not Amy, what is your name?"

"Terrible. Tasted like dirty socks." She rinsed out the bowl and turned around to look at Martha with amusement.

"You may call me Lady Macbeth."

"I'll stick to Amy."

The pieces were starting to fit into place now. It wasn't a glitch that made her spout nonsense. It seemed to be a glitch that made it impossible for her to tell the truth and there was one very simple way for Martha to confirm her suspicions.

"Do you miss travelling?"

Leaning back against the counter, Amy let out a "Pfft," sound, waving a hand in the air.

"Not at all. I like staying in one place, thank you very much."

She was right, then. That was a blatant lie.

"Right. I don't know how it's happened, Amy, but you've been glitched. You couldn't tell the truth if you wanted to. I don't know how long it's going to last, but I'll try and keep you out of trouble until it's over."

It would be over soon.

"Don't know why you should do that," she replied with a frown. "I never get in any trouble at all."

"It's just a precaution." And it was a good job that Martha had the patience of a doctor used to dealing with difficult (and occasionally alien) patients. "I'm sure it won't be necessary. Better safe than sorry, though, right?"

Still frowning a bit at being watched like a toddler, she moved over to her stash of tea and held a bag aloft.

"Coffee?" she asked politely.

"Yes, please," Martha answered, raising her eyebrow at the bag of tea and smiling a little. "Don't put any milk in it, though, will you?"

If she said that, she was almost certain to end up with milk.

005 ∞ [visual || location: Amy's House]

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