first_in_time | Copy Cat

The taxi pulled up outside a rather tall and grand looking hotel. Barbara stepped out to stare upwards. There were tall buildings in London but there was something about being in a different city which made the buildings unique and fascinating. Despite how tired she felt after such a long flight, she could almost go for a walk to see some more but there would be time for that later.

A finely dressed man dashed toward the from where he had been standing next tot he doors. "Shall I take your luggage?" he asked Ian and Barbara once the cabbie, or taxi driver, had hauled it out of the boot.

"Yes, thank you," Barbara replied. She reached out. For Ian's hand and offered him a smile before they walked into the hotel lobby together.

Once they had signed in at what appeared to be a marble desk, taken the lift up to near the very top, and stepped into their room, Barbara turned to thank the man for bringing their luggage. She gave him a small tip, since she didn't have a lot of money on her, and shut the door behind him.

"Would you look at this!" she said to Ian, gesturing to the entire room. "You must be valuable to have the board so generously pay for you to stay here!"

Barbara trotted over to the window to look out, passing a bottle of champagne and a note which wished them both a happy first anniversary.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

first_in_time

No matter how many times he did it, Hank was always amused at the reactions of humans. It seemed that he could dangle a sneaky invasion in the eyeline of any human and they wouldn't notice.

What idiots.

Once he'd finished chuckling over Ian Chesterton, he stepped forward and whispered something into 'Sue's' ear. She nodded then left. He turned toward Ian with a large grin and and a wink before following her out. Let's see how the human likes that!

From:

splendid_roman

Ian frowned. There was something going on, he just didn't know what. He finished his tea quickly and followed Sue and the unfamiliar man. He'd clearly known something and Ian was determined to find out what it was.

From:

first_in_time

"Are you attending the second day of the scientists' conference?" asked another woman who looked and sounded exactly like Barbara. She wore a pleasant smile and dress which flared out at the bottom. Her hair was pinned back, unlike Barbara's, and she was pulling a tray of small bags to be handed out to each of the attendees. She had pulled up right in front of Ian, blocking his way.

Edited Date: 2013-11-22 09:31 pm (UTC)

From:

splendid_roman

He paused for a moment. "No, I'm not," he said gruffly. It was the truth - he wasn't going back to the conference before he'd found out what was going on. "Now get out of my way." Since she wasn't Barbara, he had no problems in putting his hands on her shoulders and moving her out of his way.

From:

first_in_time

The woman stepped aside under his hands, a shocked look on her face. "You only had to say no," she replied. Sounding exactly like Barbara when she was completely and totally offended.

From:

splendid_roman

"I'm sorry." He looked back apologetically, unable to carry on without apologising when she sounded like that. Maybe Sue was the only person who looked like Barbara to know what was going on. Or she didn't and it was just the man with her. Either way he had to find them.

From:

first_in_time

A little ways ahead, Hank turned a corner. His hand was firmly clamped on the arm of the clone as though she might run at any moment, despite the smooth look on her face. He had that stupid human's attention now! All he had to do was draw him in a little closer for the taking.

Of course, it was always easy to point guns and order them about but sometimes the psychological affects of playing with them was all the more rewarding.

Hank opened the door of a cleaner's storeroom and roughly pulled her in. The door shut moments before there was a muffled cry and a delicate thump. Hank cleaned his blade with a handkerchief, watching with satisfaction as a crimson stain bloomed over her stomach. So many clones had been made over such a short time that the sacrifice of one would hardly be noticed. Besides, ending their lives was almost more fun than capturing humans. He felt like a god.

He flicked a hidden switch and the back of the cupboard rolled away, opening up an interdimensional doorway to his ship as it orbited the miserable Earth. Green flashing lights blinked at him in the semi-darkness of the cupboard. He gave the dying clone a smirk and stepped away, shutting the door behind him.

Edited Date: 2013-11-24 07:25 pm (UTC)

From:

splendid_roman

Ian thought he'd heard something, but when he turned the corner there was no one there. There was no one further down the hall either. He cursed himself for being slow enough to lose them and started opening doors and checking the rooms.

When he opened the cupboard that had Sue in it, he gasped. For a moment he felt the pain as if it was Barbara lying there, but he reminded himself it wasn't her. At least he hoped it wasn't. He bent down and touched his fingers to her neck, but felt no pulse. There was nothing anyone could do for her now, except to find the man who'd killed her.

As he stood back up, Ian leant his hand on the wall. But what he thought was just a wall turned out to be a switch and all of a sudden the back wall of the cupboard became a door to the ship.

From:

first_in_time

There was a low hum from the depths of the ship. Green and yellow lights dimly lit a long corridor. Doors were widely spaced along the wall Ian just stepped out of. Each door led to a different part of the world. Australia. Ireland. Greenland. Zimbabwe. Everywhere in between.

A harsh voice shouted over an announcement system: "clone 348 ready for deployment. Clone 349 ready for deployment. Clone 350 ready for deployment."

From:

splendid_roman

That was unexpected, to say the least. "350?" he repeated. Were they all clones of Barbara? And what were they doing with them? He tried one of the doors, but it just led out into another cupboard. As much as he wanted to see where it went, he didn't want to risk not getting back here, so he shut the door again and carried on down the corridor.

From:

first_in_time

The corridor went for a long time when one considered how long corridors went for, and ended in a t-intersection. A sign read: "birthing pods" and pointed to the left. The other sign pointed right and read: "bridge and captain's quarters".

From:

splendid_roman

Ian hesitated at the junction. On the one hand, the bridge might get him answers - or it might get him captured. On the other hand, the birthing pods might be worth a sabotage. He chose the birthing pods.

From:

first_in_time

At the end of a short corridor, a wide door marked "birthing pods" stood slightly ajar. Inside, the room was impressively large but wide, long pods suspended from the low roof prevented a visitor from seeing just how large it was. Toward the door, the most developed clones hung.

Every few seconds, a pod would open and a naked, sleeping clone would slip out in a gooey mess onto a conveyer belt on the floor. The pod was zipped backwards on a kind of line, leaving the clone and it's mess to be taken through a doorway to the left, where it would be cleaned and given clothes and an assignment.

Further into the room, the clones ewe under developed; still producing limbs and owing in size like a foetus. Looking upward, hundreds of cables provided a track for the pods to move about on.

In the very centre of it all, special stationary pods held the original copies. There weren't many but there ewe enough. Men. Women. Some children. Old. Young. Each with a varying look of malnourishment. To a casual on-looker, they might have been asleep except for the tubes stuck to their skin and face.

Barbara lay in one pod, suspended in the orange goo. She looked thinner than usual, and her hair had taken a slightly different colour. Had her eyes been open, they'd have been bloodshot. Her skin even looked more pale than usual.

"We really need to start finding planets that are strong enough to stand the Copier," said an approaching voice. It sounded male, younger than Ian but old enoug to have left school.

"If that was the case," replied a female voice, roughly the same age, "wouldn't invading be so much more difficult?"

From:

splendid_roman

Ian wanted to do something about everything he saw, but he kept going, knowing that there was a better way than doing something about them each individually. And then he found Barbara. He put a hand up to the pod and whispered her name. She looked so ill that he was considering pulling some of the tubes, but then he heard voices.

He looked around for somewhere to hide. He contemplated getting into an unoccupied pod, but that was risky - if it attached to him there'd be no one to rescue him. There were a great deal of hiding places, so he decided to tough it out.

He stood in the middle of the room, arms folded, chin raised and looking a lot more confident than he felt. "You're not invading Earth," he said, as the man and woman rounded the corner.

From:

first_in_time

They stopped in their tracks, confused.

"Has one of them escaped?"

"We'd know if they had - the computer would have let us know."

"But what if it has gone rogue? It has reached the next stage of development; look at what it's wearing?"

"Copy: what is your number and assignment? Speak," said the man.

From:

splendid_roman

At least they hadn't guessed the truth. Yet. He could probably the on both of them, but then what? "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, trying to look and sound confused. He hoped that would at least keep them guessing long enough for him to get the lie of the land and come up with a plan.

From:

first_in_time

"I think he has defected," the woman said to the man and looked up at him curiously, "we could ignore him and-"

"Don't be stupid! We'd loose our heads! Then we'd be sent back without a body for a full trial for treason. No thank you. This might not be my own body but things like head chopping still hurts. We'll have to dump him and then come back for the dead one."

The man and woman advanced on Ian as though he were a troublesome child rather than an original copy that had managed to sneak on board their ship.

"I've always wondered," said the woman, "what happens when a copy is dumped?"

"They burn and their charred pieces released into some poor planet's atmosphere."

From:

splendid_roman

Ian stepped back, looking scared. He was worried about what was going to happen to him. "I won't cause you any trouble," he protested, doing his best impression of a naughty child. "I'll come along quietly." He put his arms out in surrender.

It meant that pair weren't expecting anything from him as they advanced. He let them get close, then aimed a punch at the man and a kick at the woman - telling himself that these weren't their bodies and he wasn't hitting a woman, just someone who looked like a woman.

While they recovered, he applied the nerve pinch to the woman, leaving himself only the man to face. And he did, just dodging his punch to get in one to the stomach. While he was doubled over, Ian nerve pinched him too.

He didn't know how much time he had before someone missed them. Or security noticed they had an intruder. He ran back to Barbara's pod and looked round it for an off switch. There wasn't anything obvious, so he started pulling tubes.

From:

first_in_time

From where each tube had been connected, there was a nasty looking red spot. Three had appeared before she woke up and panicked. Her limbs flailed, pulling at the tubes still attached. She gasped and coughed and looked down at Ian with wide eyes.

"Ian! What's going on?!"

When the last tube had been removed, her legs gave out. She felt terribly weak. She looked down at her arms. The last thing she could remember was being in the hotel room. She had...found a man there...and there's been a gun...oh, her head hurt! Her arms hurt to, and her legs and-oh!

Barbara sluggishly raised her arms to cover herself. "Where are we? Why...where are my clothes?"

"Oi! What are you doing?!" an unfamiliar voice called out.

From:

splendid_roman

"It's all right." Ian quickly pulled off his jacket and put it round her and then put his arm around her waist, helping to hold her up and cover her with his body.

"We're leaving," he said, looking up and then blinking. The man who had called out was the same one he'd just knocked out. Except that man was also still lying on the floor unconscious.

The man looked down at the unconscious duo and then up at Ian and Barbara. "You won't get far."

From:

first_in_time

The man was about to reply when he froze for a moment. A look of anguish spread over his face before he crumpled onto the floor.

"Well done," said another voice, "you've ruined everything."

From out of the shadows stepped a short, green alien. He was so thin that even his torso was smaller than the width of Barbara's arm. He carried a weapon, almost the same size as his entire body, in a holster attached to his back.

"Leave them alone. You've done the same in a similar circumstance," another said as it stepped out of the shadows. "Cut them some slack."

More of the little, green men appeared, the same weapons carried in the same way. It was a small army by the time they'd all come out. Barbara pressed herself to Ian more firmly as they walked toward the pair.

From:

splendid_roman

Ian looked at the green men and stayed where he was, his arm tightening protectively around Barbara. There wasn't much he could do against all those aliens with all those guns, but he wasn't going to let them know it.

"Good," he said to them. "I planned to ruin everything. You're not going to take over the world and you're not going to clone any more of my wife."

"You misunderstand," one of the men said. "We want the same thing as you do."

From:

first_in_time

"We've been fighting these people since they attacked our planet. We had no idea just how far spread they are but each battle brings us one step closer."

Barbara clutched at Ian's shirt, wiping more of the good off on him. It was the best she could do. She looked up at Ian a little, wondering if he knew what was going on.

From:

splendid_roman

Ian relaxed a little. "Your help would be much appreciated," he said, smiling at them. "It sounds like they have 350 clones, but I don't know how far they've got." Or how many people they'd cloned.

"We'll find out," one of the green men promised. He turned to face his troops, waved at them and a few at the back peeled off and went back to the corridor.

"They're going to invade," Ian told Barbara, now the immediate danger was past and he could focus on her. "They're using clones, but I don't know what their plan is."