taxonomites | 009: Hunting for the Hunter [Visual]

It had been a long and difficult night, but, at nine o'clock the next morning, Martha opened her surgery as usual. Despite the relatively low numbers of prisoners, she always had more than enough patients to keep her occupied. She treated Extras for coughs and colds and broken limbs and stomach bugs. She gave the young Extras their childhood inoculations. And, now, she treated them for vampire bites.

They didn't have vampires in her world, but her time on the TARDIS and her experiences at UNIT had taught Martha to trust her instincts and, occasionally, to improvise when treating non human patients or extraterrestrial illnesses. (There were no medical text books available for her line of work. There were just a few determined individuals - like Martha, like Doctor Elizabeth Shaw at Cambridge, like the Torchwood team - who always tried to do the best for their patients, no matter who or what they were.) The marks on the neck of the Extra that Fitz had rescued were real bite marks. The attacker had left bruises as well as bloody holes, not just the twin pinpricks that you saw in horror movies.

The Extra that had taken a seat in front of her desk - marched there by an Extra that, if asked, Martha would have guessed to be a concerned partner - had the same sort of wound. Which meant that this wasn't an isolated incident.

She cleaned and dressed the wound, prescribing lots of rest and fluid for the patient. (And he was a patient, whether he was programmed to be one of not. In fact, the idea that the aliens were programming illnesses and injuries to give her something to do was physically sickening. But she had to treat them. Leaving them would have been barbaric.) Then she washed the blood off her hands and picked up her tablet.

"It looks like last night's attack wasn't an isolated incident," she informed the people of the city, "I had an Extra with exactly the same bite marks in here this morning."

After a brief pause to give them a chance to digest that information, she carried on.

"Which means we've got two options. Either the aliens have created a vampire Extra to keep us on our toes ... or it's one of us."

She wasn't keen on either option.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well this is interesting. Party clicks on the visual and the look is that of slight amusement--wherever he is, it's not the jailcell.

"Don't look at me," He states. And, after a few seconds, tilted his head to the side.

"Pretty slaughtermatic, though. Vampires aren't real." Pause.

"...Are they?"

"They're not real in your universe," Martha corrected, "Or in mine. But we've got a large population in Taxon."

He had to realise that there were worlds other than his own and that the people of Taxon came from a variety of places. Including places other than Earth.

Although she doubted that the knowledge would change his opinions about doctors. That sort of distrust would take years to overcome.

"So... The whole bitey, dracula thing? That's all here?" Party's face is unreadable, though there's a slight amount of confusion that seeps through something else.

"That's messed up."

"Is it any stranger than anything else you've seen since arriving here?" Martha asked, raising an eyebrow. "Hatches that can create whatever you want. Programmed people. Bracelets that you can't take off."

She could have gone on and on, but he hadn't been in the city for long and he was already on edge. She had no desire to push him too far.

"I'd say Taxon is more than messed up."

Party opens his mouth to counteract with something. Anything. Come on, show your dry wit, Killjoy.

"...I never thought about it that way." And--yup. That's a pout, right there. "I guess the concept of being frightened of fairytale monsters seems silly when what's in front of you is a helluva lot more spooky."

And, after a brief moment of looking thoughtful: "They come from where you are?"

"I've never met any in my world, but that doesn't mean that they're not out there. There's a lot of life out there in the universe."

One of her best friends was a time traveller with two hearts and another of her best friends was an immortal from the fifty first century. She'd encountered extraterrestrial friends and extraterrestrial foes. Her definition of 'spooky' was very flexible indeed.

There's a long pause as Party hears what she has to say. Something guarded, slightly apprehensive.

"...Not in my world there isn't. But vampires.. Cool. Not cool, but...Cool." Like that makes the best sense in the world.

"I know what you mean," she said, a distant expression crossing her face briefly. "It's impossible and it's ridiculous and it's almost frightening. But it's still amazing."

Just like travelling with the Doctor and visiting plants beyond the imagination.

009: Hunting for the Hunter [Visual]

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