And the power of the people shall come to believe they do rule

[mickey-cops.livejournal.com]

((Continuing from this post.))

In the passageways beneath the park, where a group had gathered to break down a long-closed door, a laser beam was widening, and a broad circle began to blacken the surface of the wood, the locks melting and streaming down in shining rivulets, to puddle at the doorstep. The room was getting hot, now.

Outside, all at once, the rides all stopped. Animatronic figures jolted still; boats bumped each other confusedly; rollercoasters fell to the bottom of their tracks and did not continue up. The lights inside the buildings flickered off; the perpetual background noise of music and soundeffects went silent.

Below, the hole in the door began to crackle and spark around the edges, and for just a moment all the eyes trained on the door could see through it a fathomless darkness. An odd, organic silence filled the air; everyone's breathing and small movements were audible, but so too was a new absence of sound, as though the walls were all holding their breath.

And then the air around the door began to shimmer.

Comments

[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

"Careful," John said from the back of the room. It was one of the great mysteries of his life how he so often turned up when conjured by pure coincidence. In this case, after the interesting explosions and whatnot had stopped, he'd got tired of standing around in the dark and came down to see what the hell they'd managed to fuck up down here. "Big black nothings aren't usually as empty as they look."

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

"Really?" The Master dropped his jaw in a campy expression. Then he rolled his eyes. "She can take care of herself." –centuries ago, Magnus had learned the same lesson about this sort of thing (I told you, idiot, she's more capable with a few flora samples, a scalpel and some string than you would be with an entire Academy lab at your disposal complete with assistants) and it hadn't been pretty–

You just didn't talk to the Rani that way unless you were on her level.

Three guesses at which two people qualified.

[markoftherani]

The Rani's primary attention was absorbed in her scanner –and frankly, the "magician" didn't even rate the fifth tier of her attention to begin with– but someone looking closely might have seen the faintest smile flicker across her face.

"And I don't need you to say that for me," she said to the Master, but it wasn't especially venomous. In fact, to the right ears (again, three guesses as to who might be the owners of those ears), it might have sounded almost affectionate.

[dangeroushabits.livejournal.com]

John shrugged. It wasn't the first time he'd been told off by someone with more brains than sense, and if something big and bad and decidedly unbound by scientific principles snatched the woman through that hole and regurgitated what was left in so many slime-covered bits...well, that wouldn't be a first, either.

He also wasn't sure these people had much to be superior about, considering they appeared to have just broken the park without any real idea whether there was anything to be gained from it or if things would right themselves again, but this didn't seem like the time to say so. So he just leaned on the wall and smoked, watching with one hand absently fingering a talisman in his pocket he really hoped he wouldn't have to use.

[mickey-cops.livejournal.com]

Typically for its use in the park, the scanner's readings were more peculiar than helpful. Held outside the door, the data being received concerned everything but the space on the other side: it provided perfectly normal detail about everything to the last molecule on the edge of the opening, but beyond that was nothing. And not the same sort of nothing that was beyond the gates, where "nothing" had been the data received; this was simply a sort of goodnatured utter refusal on the instrument's part to believe that she meant to scan further beyond that point.

When pushed out into the space, though it remained as fully visible as her hand, its effective range shrank instantly to zero. Of the environment it was now in, it reported a temperature of 37 degrees centigrade and a balmy radiation level of 108, the chemical composition being similar to the air outside with a very slightly higher amount of nitrogen and oxygen. But as to what lay before it, or around it, the scanner flatly declined to speculate.

[markoftherani]

She scanned the interior of the room one more time, then reached through the gap one more time, to confirm that the ridiculous, impossible readings were exactly what they seemed to be, and that her equipment wasn't actually broken.

Having confirmed this, the Rani muttered a particularly vile Gallifreyan curse concerning hypothetical unnatural doings of the two founders of the Time Lord society and stepped back.

"Ridiculous. Even the vacuum of space has ambient radiation of one form or another," she snapped.

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

The Doctor wrinkled his nose at the Rani -in the familiar ever-old complaint.-

"That is so wrong. Even in comparison to what's going on right now." He glanced down at her device and suggested thoughtfully; "The outside could be temporally out of phase with us. Or exist on a different spatial plane. Which actually seems pretty likely, when you think about it."

The most obvious planes were ruled out, since the Time Lords would be able to see those, but there was a broad spectrum of higher and lower planes that he could identify with the sonic screwdriver, and any others that were unfamiliar should at least trigger some sort of reading. Though it would still leave them with the question of how to align the two disparate planes of existence, if that turned out to be the problem.

He crouched down and started flicking through settings at a rapid pace and studying the returning information.

[late-born-myth.livejournal.com]

Psyche, having settled down a little from her panic, was now looking rather self-conscious as she continued to hold both hands in the hole. She cleared her throat, and with a quick glance around at all the non-Gallifreyan members of the expedition, said to the Time Lords (and Lady):

"Excuse the interruption; I can see you're a little confounded by what you've found out so far," (she let the "so what else is new around here" go unsaid in both word and tone, as she figured it was pretty damn obvious to anyone paying attention) "but would you mind summing it up for the rest of us? With particular attention to whether you've found anything through there likely to be damaging to normal humans?"

[caycep]

There was a tiny snicker from the direction of Cayce Pollard. Who, contrary to common sense and fed up with the Time Lord superiority act, was about to reach into the gap with her flashlight to wave it around and see what happened.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

Honestly, the Master wouldn't mind the if the humans did start sticking their limbs around in dark holes. Because at this point it didn't amount to superiority, it amounted to three scientific minds analysing the situation in a way that best suited them. If the rest of the crew didn't like it, they were more than welcome to risk their ordinary, non-immortal human hides as they saw fit.

"We will offer an update as soon as we have gathered enough information to have some sort of general picture." If there was one thing he hated, it was being rushed. "If you would prefer to do a half-arsed job of it, you're welcome to; it might even work. But do us all a favour then, and don't accept our assistance in the future." A brief glance of irritation in Cayce's direction. They didn't need or want the love of the group (at least he and the Rani didn't), but they damn well deserved their respect.

You see? he said to the Doctor, via the link. This is why I don't bother. A little cryptic, but the Doctor would be able to feel the emotions that carried along with the comment. It was clear enough.

Out loud he said, "Anything?"

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Adam, unsurprisingly, saw things a little differently. He turned frank grey eyes to the Master, but didn't speak.

[late-born-myth.livejournal.com]

Shifting aside to let Cayce wield her flashlight, Psyche caught that glance and gritted her teeth a little.

In her politest voice: "Certainly any assistance you may be capable of is appreciated, but I was under the impression that we were all acting as equal partners in a common endeavor, out of a common interest."

If they were going to talk about respect...it wasn't that she minded being a doorstop, but it seemed inefficient, especially since (it seemed quite obvious to her) they were dealing with a holy place, and she had serious doubts that scientific testing was going to turn up anything.

[caycep]

"Oh, the hell with all of you," Cayce muttered under her breath. Maybe it was the heat; maybe it was just that she'd had enough of, what, two, three years of this; maybe it was just that same bullheadedness that kept her after the Footage—anyway, she no longer particularly gave a rat's ass what anyone thought of what she was doing, least of all the Master. While everyone was arguing, she leaned her head and shoulders into the hole, waving her flashlight around.

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

Honestly, the Doctor hadn't meant to leave anyone out -although he had sort-of forgotten that everyone couldn't automatically do the readings the way they could, a feeling he hasn't had in a long time, and he knows he's going to miss it terribly-

"Nothing all that useful, yet," he told the group at large. "The Rani can't get much of a reading…. Everything outside the door doesn't scan, as though she had set the parameters to read only exactly on the surface of the device itself. Which is why I thought perhaps that everything on the other side of the door might be either spatially or temporally out of phase with this one. At least in our Universe, that would be a good way of creating what people here have been calling the park- a pocket dimension."

He slapped the screwdriver sharply against his palm a few times, and then returned to his scanning.

"Funny thing about this place," he continued, almost absently. "The laws of everyone's separate, and very disparate, Universes still apply. Different sciences that aren't compatible. Different magics. The powers and associated abilities of beings from more than one religion." A glance at Psyche. "Makes me wish I had taken more classes on multi-Universal cross-spatial theory, but as far as I know, the best way to have a place like that would to be to pull a section of real-space apart from the rest of existence and… and shift it, for lack of a better term." English didn't have the right words for this. "Not that have much of an idea that's what this is, but if someone made me come up with a theory, that'd be it. I should be able to detect that there's a difference between this spacetime and that beyond the door, which is what I'm scanning for doing now."

An easy, understanding in response to the Master's comment, meant to be soothing, as the Doctor turned a cautious and slightly suspicious gaze toward the blond-haired boy who was looking at the Master like he understood something.

Happens to the best of us.

"We never said we were the experts," he pointed out, in response to Psyche's comment but meant for the room at large. "And we're not stopping anyone from doing anything."

It was at that moment that Cayce stuck the top half of her body through the hole. The Doctor automatically put up a hand on her back and waited to see what would happen.

[mickey-cops.livejournal.com]

The flashlight's beam stopped at the edge of the clear plastic it ought to have been shining out from, and nothing was visible beyond but the living darkness. Cayce could only see herself, her own arm reaching out. The air was breathable, but it was rather like plunging one's head into blood-warm water: there was a faint feeling of pressure, and the silence cut off most of the sound.

If she turned back to look at the opening from this vantage point, she would see the room behind her hanging like a picture on an absent wall, a round opening in the darkness that seemed, paradoxically, dimmer than what surrounded her. Oddly, though, the portions of Psyche's arms which ought to have been poking through weren't visible at all; they disappeared as they reached the darkness.

Meanwhile, the sonic screwdriver was having a bit more luck than the other devices had, picking up a reading with relative ease. What it was reporting was not so much a difference in spacetime, however, as a density, the "normal" spacetime readings for the park, such as they were, actually radiating out from here.

((Last paragraph is profoundly crappy science, I know. Tried to come up with better physics-based metaphor: failed.))

[caycep]

"What the fuck?" Cayce said out loud. She squinted at her flashlight and waved it around some more. Still no beam anywhere. She rubbed her ears at the feeling of pressure and took a deep breath. Nothing weird about the air, at least. Not a vacuum. And wasn't she lucky.

She glanced back over her shoulder and felt slightly queasy at what she saw. It reminded her of something she'd read in a book once, about a picture on a wall that started moving ... that story had been about crossing into another world, hadn't it? She felt a faint chill that had nothing to do with ambient temperature on either side of the hole.

And then—"Psyche," she said. "I can't see your arms. I mean the part of your hands that are on this ... this side." Pause. "Can you guys hear me back there?"

[late-born-myth.livejournal.com]

"Yes," answered Psyche, concernedly. "Quite clearly. Can you hear us? Are you all right?"

(Her voice was muffled to Cayce's ears, like sound coming from above the surface of water.)

[caycep]

"I—I'm fine. I can breathe and all. And I can sort of hear you, but it sounds like I'm underwater or something."

She reached back and ran her hand around the edge of the hole, and then moved her hand to touch the place on the darkness-side where she expected a wall to be.

[a-lonely-god.livejournal.com]

"Hang on hang on hang on!" the Doctor exclaimed suddenly, waving the sonic screwdriver at the assembled group as though to get their attention (the other hand still clinging rather obstinately to Cayce) before bringing it back close under his nose. "I've got something. It's…" a pause, as he frowned at what he was reading, then grinned a little in delight. "Oh, that's weird. That's really weird. It's actually the same as the park, except…" he paused to think of an explanation that everyone would understand equally as he mentally shared the exact readings with the Master. "Like this is the real thing. Like what we saw in the park, everything we interpreted as space or time or… or matter at large… was really this. Or at least was coming from this place."

He scanned again, just to be sure, and then he stuck his head through the hole next to Cayce's and stretched out his Time senses as far as he could.

"So what, this is… is… raw firmament?" he questioned the group at large. But mostly he was questioning the Master in his mind, offering back every scrap of information he could perceive with any of his senses. -there was, though he didn't realize it, a very familiar, enormously eager and yet slightly timid feeling to his rather desperate questions-

[caycep]

Cayce felt the Doctor move up beside her and she shifted a little to give him room. It was getting sort of crowded, there.

An unpleasant thought occurred to her, in light of the non-visibility of Psyche's hands, and she turned to look right at the Doctor, afraid of what she might—or might not—see.

[hear-the-drums.livejournal.com]

It didn't matter what the Doctor tried to ask, or what information he relayed. The inquiries didn't make it very far past the build happening in hthe Master's head.

The look from Adam had triggered it more than anything, but really, it had been coming since the sniping had started, all the aggravated looks and less-than-helpful comments about science and non-inclusion and what they had done had worked, damnit, and if they had nothing helpful to contribute other than jibes and judgement and general pissiness, than he honestly couldn't give a--

"Nope," he said aloud, suddenly. "Thanks kids, it's been fun, but I think I'm done for the day. Amuse yourselves, find a way out or don't - I really don't care." He detched thelaser screwdriver from the equipment he had set up, turned on his heel and walked out.

[mickey-cops.livejournal.com]

There hadn't been any wall there to feel, when she'd searched for it with her hands. Just more of the same dark air. There was a faint feeling of resistance around where it met the opening, though, like surface tension on water.

The Doctor's head, as he pushed it through, wasn't visible to Cayce. Neither of them, suddenly, were visible to each other; to Cayce's hearing the Doctor's voice was cut off as he entered. They could still see themselves, and the parts of each other that were touching on the other side (which, considering the size of the hole, were quite squeezed in together) but it all seemed to cut off at the opening.

The Doctor's link to the Master was still fully functioning, however.

[late-born-myth.livejournal.com]

Which meant they were all jammed in incredibly closely.

"Maybe just...one or two people at a time?" said Psyche, sounding rather strained.

[caycep]

Well, Cayce was about to take care of that.

The absence of wall, vaguely anticipated but still discomfiting, was bad enough. But even though she expected it, when she turned and saw nothing where the Doctor's head ought to have been, she screamed and lurched backward out of the hole.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh god that was weird. He just -- he -- he wasn't THERE."