After a few minutes they had an island of light set up with the survivors huddled together shouting about skeletons and lights and shadows. All of a sudden Michi felt a hand on her shoulder. She spun around, and there was a girl, surprisingly calm, with long black hair down to her knees and silver eyes. She looked to be maybe a few years older than Michi.
“Hi Michi,” she said. She was smiling a little, and didn’t seem at all disturbed by what was going on around her.
Michi didn’t know what else to do.
“Hi. Um, do I know you?” Michi asked her. She did seem a bit familiar.
“I’m Robin,” the girl said. “I’m in your math class.”
“Oh,” Michi said. “Right, of course. Sorry, I guess I don’t see you much.”
“That’s all right. Not many people notice me.” Robin was still smiling.
The conversation was getting uncomfortable, so Michi pushed past the subject.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’m visiting my brother,” Robin told her.
“Oh,” Michi looked back at the Doctor who was waving his arms around, trying to get her attention. “I’m sorry, um, I’m a bit busy right now. Do you mind…?”
“Of course,” Robin said.
The Doctor was trying to explain something to Michi, but he could barely make himself heard over the loud nervous chatter around them.
“There’s no…killing people…was the…Nerada…you hear…?” was all she could make out.
Michi gave up. “HEY! If you don’t mind could you please just shut up?!” she shouted. The crowd fell silent and turned towards her. “Thank you. Doctor, I don’t think you’re going to be able to get the Vashta Nerada to give up this time. Is there any way you could get the lights back on?”
“Well the only way would be to rewire the power supply. It could be used to…that’s it! Michi you’re brilliant!” he wheeled around to talk to the receptionist again. “Slight change of destination, could you tell me where the electrical room is?”
At this point she was too shocked to protest. “Second door to the right.”
The Doctor handed Michi a light. Then he pointed to Robin. “You…what’s your name?”
“Robin.”
“Right, Robin, grab some lights and come with us. And whatever you do, stay out of the shadows!”
Robin did as she was told, more than willing to help. Making sure everybody was safely in the center of the lighted area they set off down the hall.
Once they’d made it to the electrical room the Doctor put on his glasses, took out the sonic screwdriver and started messing with the various controls. He started yanking on wires, tossing seeming random pieces of metal over his shoulder and a million other things that made no sense whatsoever to Michi or Robin. The one constant was the sound of the sonic screwdriver.
And to Michi, it looked exactly like something from the show. The Doctor, with his black-framed glasses he wore just for the way they looked, working on a machine with that determined, focused look at his face. She felt herself slipping back into fan mode. Michi wished she had paper to draw it.
“What are you staring at?” the Doctor asked without looking up.
“Um, I was…I was just wondering. Where do all these lights get power from? They don’t have any cords or places for batteries or anything.”
“Self-charging theta particles,” he told her as he worked, tossing a screw to the side. “The Time Lords developed them. At the core of those lights are super-charged, highly energetic particles, dozens of them. They’re the only particles that naturally stay in an energized state, and so they power themselves up again after burning any energy. They virtually never run out of power.”
“That’s amazing,” Robin said. She didn’t seem at all put off by talk of alien technology. She seemed to be keeping up with everything really well.
The Doctor made one final adjustment and then all the lights came on brighter than ever. Michi shut her eyes against the sudden brightness.
“There we go, molto bene!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Worked like a charm.”
“How’d you do that?” Michi asked as the lights dimmed back down to normal.
“Simple enough really,” the Doctor said, putting his glasses back into his pocket.
“I basically made the system a thousand times more efficient energy-wise and rerouted all the excess power to the lights.”
“I basically made the system a thousand times more efficient energy-wise and rerouted all the excess power to the lights.”
“Did it kill the Vashta Nerada?”
The Doctor spied a shadowy corner and stepped out of the light before Michi or Robin had a chance to stop him. Michi sighed with relief when he turned around, still in one piece, to finish explaining.
“No. You can’t really kill the Vashta Nerada, but something that bright should weaken them for say, oh, around 24 hours. The lights just need to come on again every night. Everything’s back to normal.”
“What about everywhere else?”
The Doctor smiled. “I’ve got an idea about that.”
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