Michi was glad when she got back in time for Great Ideas. It was the one class she looked forward to. She wouldn’t be able to warm up any from the late October chill in the school, though; every room in there was freezing.
Michi noticed that the school was very quiet. A building full of teenagers should never be this quiet. It was a bit unnerving. But, Michi thought, if everybody was in class then maybe it would seem to be a bit quiet from the outside.
She was almost to the building when somebody called out to her.
“Oi!”
She turned around and saw a tall, skinny man with spiky brown hair running towards her. Michi stared in amazement. “He looks like David Tennant!” she thought excitedly. The man was even wearing a long coat and sneakers like the Doctor, David Tennant’s character from the T.V. show Doctor Who.
“Listen to me, don’t go in there,” he said. Michi noticed that, strangely enough, he had a Scottish accent like David Tennant. The Doctor, however, spoke in a British accent and it was the only way the man seemed different from the character. “There’s something inside there, something dangerous. I’ve been keeping an eye on the school and something’s not right. Just turn around and go home right now.”
Michi looked at the man like he was crazy. “What do you mean something’s not right? It’s a school! Of course something’s not right about it. Who are you anyways?”
The man sighed and pulled out a tattered brown wallet and showed her an I.D. card that read “John Smith, Texas Department of Health and Public Safety.” Michi couldn’t help but think the I.D. was similar to the Doctor’s psychic paper Thena had told her about. She’d said it would show you whatever the holder wanted you to see. Also, she remembered, Thena said that the Doctor often used the name John Smith.
“I think there’s some kind of infestation in the building,” the man continued. "It could be very, very dangerous and I can’t have you going back in there until it’s safe. I’ve already evacuated everybody else.”
Michi stared at him. “Wait, how’d you do that? I was just here a few hours ago, and classes were going on as usual. I hadn’t heard anything about this.”
Michi stared at him. “Wait, how’d you do that? I was just here a few hours ago, and classes were going on as usual. I hadn’t heard anything about this.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a very…convincing person,” he said. “I’ve got an honest face. Anyways, that’s not important. There’s something in there. You have to listen to me!”
“What is it?”
The man paused, obviously surprised by her calm cooperation. Clearly he wasn’t used to having people pay serious attention to him so quickly. He opened his mouth, but seemed unsure of how to answer her.
Michi gave a small smile. “Your name’s not John Smith is it?”
“No,” the man had seemed to decide lying wasn’t going to work. “Oh I hate when they see through the psychic paper, so much easier when you don’t have to start from scratch. I’m the Doctor, hello!”
“I knew it!” Michi cried out.
The man seemed really thrown by this. “I’m sorry, have we met? Things don’t always happen in the right order around me.”
“No, but you’re the Doctor!” Michi said. She thought about the Doctor from the show, a 900-plus-year-old Time Lord, the last of his kind, who saved the universe thousands of times. Then she realized she was talking to somebody who was supposed to be a fictional character. That might be something to worry about. She didn’t really mind though, this was much more exciting than school.
The Doctor was still obviously confused, so Michi quickly said “Let’s just say your reputation precedes you. Anyways, what’s really in the school?”
Almost immediately the Doctor got over his confusion. “I think it’s the Vashta Nerada,” he said, storing the wallet away in the depths of his coat pocket. Michi just gave him a blank look so he continued. “The Vashta Nerada live in shadows, hunt in shadows. They’re a colony of carnivorous creatures that are found on almost every planet. They feed off the meat of any living thing, strip it clean in seconds. They’re why most species have a fear of the dark. But usually you find them in forests.”
“But then what are they doing in a school?”
“Plenty of paper in a school, paper comes from trees, trees come from forests. Some of their seeds could have been transferred. They could’ve grown and set up hunting grounds here easily enough.”
“So what makes you think they’re here?”
The Doctor pulled out a device from his pockets. It looked like a little remote control of some kind, with dozens of buttons and a little spinning satellite-looking dish at the top. “My detector’s dinging. It dings when there’s stuff. See, look, the little dish is spinning.” He became more serious. “And students have disappeared haven’t they? I asked around, and just this morning a girl didn’t come back from decorating.”
Michi was sick with sudden realization. “That wasn’t a fake skeleton I saw earlier was it?”
“I wish I could say it was.”
Michi took a slow breath. She’d seen a dead body. Somebody she knew had died. She didn’t want to think about that. It was horrifying.
But she realized something. Ignoring it might mean more people ended up that way. “Right, how can I help?”
The Doctor looked at her and raised an eyebrow. Not many people were so quick to volunteer. “You sure you want to?” he asked. “It’ll be dangerous.”
“I don’t want anybody else to die.” The look of shock and sorrow on Michi’s face was replaced by one of determination. She met the Doctor’s gaze, ready to help.
The Doctor gave her an approving look. “Right. Ok, then—I’m sorry, what was your name again?”
“Michi.”
“Alright Michi, first rule is stay out of the shadows. The Vashta Nerada could be in any of them. Not a finger in the shadows, understood? Unfortunately the way you lot have got the lights covered makes getting into the school a bit tricky.” He started to pace. “You said there was a skeleton, what was it like?”
“I…I just thought it was fake,” Michi said. “It was…clean, white like it had to either be really old or fake. It was inside a school! It couldn’t have been there that long; somebody would’ve noticed a dead body. But…it was wearing clothes. Nobody puts clothes on a fake skeleton. It…it was in the shadows. They had other fake skeletons around the school, I just thought…”
The Doctor continued his pacing, oblivious to Michi’s shock. He began to talk out loud, letting his thoughts run through his words “Definitely the Vashta Nerada. Right, quarantining the school wouldn’t work. Humans can’t resist a ‘Keep Out’ sign. And they’d want to come back, build again at some point. I could seal up the school with the sonic screwdriver, but I can’t be sure that’d last. Besides I need to know how they got here to make sure there aren’t any more in the city. But I can only be sure of that, or make a deal with them, if I can talk with them, and I’d need a data ghost to do that…”
“Data ghost?”
“Something from your future,” The Doctor murmured in response. He seemed to be only half-listening to her, too busy with his own thoughts. “There are devices that can temporarily hold an impression of the electrical pulses of the brain after death. The dead can keep talking, just rambling on, for a day or two. The Vashta Nerada can take advantage of this and talk to others but…”
“Somebody would have to die,” Michi finished.
“Simplest option left would be to blow up the school,” the Doctor concluded. “That should wipe out all of the Vashta Nerada.”
“Just blow them up, simple as that?” Michi asked, shocked that the Doctor was even suggesting that. She couldn’t believe she was hearing this.
“I don’t have any other choice,” the Doctor looked at her. “It would be so much better for you if you just went home right now and forget you ever met me. But I don’t think you’d do that.”
“Not a chance,” Michi said. “This is…amazing. You’re talking about an alien species inside my school! And I want to help, so tell me what you need.”
The Doctor hesitated. “I don’t know what you’ve heard about me,” he said. “You’ve probably heard about a strange man who comes out of nowhere whenever there’s trouble. And it probably sounds incredible. But this is the real thing, and I can’t promise you’ll be safe.”
“That’s kind of what makes it more exciting,” Michi told him.
The Doctor grinned. “Come with me”
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