Chapter 2 – Part III – Felica's Quandry
Kiara saw Felicia enter the elevator, after the culprit had used another. Unfortunately there were only two elevator doors on that floor. ‘I will have to use the stairs,’ she thought.
When Kiara managed to get to the ground floor, Felicia and the poisoner were nowhere in sight. ‘That is just great!’ She thought. She went to elevator to go back up to the eighth floor.
The Doctor saw Kiara re-enter the ward. “Why are you back here?” he asked.
“I lost sight of Felicia and the person she was pursuing. They could be going anywhere in the city,” Kiara said.
“You could have tried,” the Doctor said.
“I could have, but it would have been a waste of time,” Kiara said.
“It wouldn’t have been a waste of time!” the Doctor said.
“With how large the city is, I think it would have been.”
“You could still have tried!”
“Only possibly!” Kiara said.
“You gave up too easily!”
“No, I didn’t!”
Tamsin stepped between them. “That is enough,”
The Doctor backed off. “Tamsin is right,” he said.
“What do we do now?” Nathan asked.
“We will look for Felicia, that is what we are going to do,” the Doctor said.
“How are we going to do that?” Kiara asked.
“It would be rather difficult, she forgot to give us her phone number,” Tamsin said.
“That was silly of her,” Kiara said.
“I agree,” Tamsin said.
“There goes that idea. Then we will attempt to gain access to the hospital’s security cameras. Perhaps they recorded the direction that she and the poisoner went,” the Doctor said.
“Let’s go, then,” Tamsin said.
“Yes,” the Doctor said.
‘I hope we’re not hacking,’ Nathan thought, as they followed the Doctor out of the ward.
---
Felicia crept into the subway station. She saw the culprit board the train, so she dashed into the train a few cars behind him..
Once the train started moving, she dashed forwards to the carriage that she saw him enter.
The man was alone in the carriage Felicia slammed the door shut behind her.
“I saw you back there, at the Hospital. You killed that patient!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Don’t give me that, I followed you from the hospital!” Felicia said.
“You have me confused with someone else!”
“I saw you in that ward on the eighth floor of the hospital, and I saw you again running from that hospital.”
“I see,” the person said in a low voice.
“So, tell me, for what reason?” Felicia asked persistently.
“What is it to you?”
“I arrive in this city and find a conspiracy in progress in which people have died! I’m interested in stopping it!”
The person of interest reached into his pocket and produced a small weapon. “Haven’t you heard of the phrase ‘Curiosity killed the cat’?”
“Of course I have!” Felicia said defensively. She moved backwards a step – towards one of the emergency stop buttons.
“Now, you’ll go and the tell the Doctor, that he cannot stop the conspiracy.”
“The Doctor?” Felicia asked, wondering how the man could have known that it was the Doctor at the hospital. She moved her hand closer to the emergency stop button.
“Yes, he looked different to the images that my employer showed me, but what I could see matched the legends.”
“Right, so I travel with the Doctor! My questions are still valid.”
“No, they’re not.” The person of interest tightened his finger on the trigger of the weapon. Felicia ducked and pressed the emergency stop button.
Felicia was prepared for the sudden change in velocity. The antagonist was not. As such he fell over. Felicia took the opportunity to grab the weapon off the floor...
The antagonist quickly stood up from the floor, but Felicia pointed the weapon at him. “You wouldn’t use that!”
“What makes you think that?” Felicia asked, her hand shaking. She stepped backwards.
“I can see it in your eyes,” the antagonist said. He lunged forwards as the train started moving again. Felicia took a shot. The blast caught the antagonist on his left shoulder, causing him to move to the right. “Aagh!”
Still holding the weapon, Felicia dashed out of the carriage the way she came. Once out of the carriage, she fired at the linkage between the carriages, and then grabbed the door of the other carriage. The plastic covering between the carriages ripped as the forward part of the train accelerated away. There was a gust of wind as the air in the carriage was sucked out into the near vacuum of the tunnel. After a brief struggle Felicia managed to enter the carriage and slam the door. She then ducked down and breathed deeply as the emergency systems replenished the air in the carriage.
‘How much more am I going to endure?’ According to her body clock it was still the same day as the Drahvin invasion hundreds of years prior.
‘Too bad I don’t have the sonic screwdriver, then I could’ve hacked into the train and found where he got off.’ She hated going back to the Doctor without any information.
The Doctor reviewed the hospital’s security files. ‘The culprit and Felicia went to the west, back towards the subway,” he said.
“Then we go to the subway ourselves?” Tamsin asked. ‘That is a likely thing for him to do,’ she thought.
“No, we are going to look at the news articles for the last few weeks. See if there is any evidence of a conspiracy,” the Doctor said.
“I will do that,” Tamsin said. Immediately she reopened her phone and brought up the Ilkona Telegraph site.
“I think that Tamsin’s right,” Nathan spoke up.
“What?” Tamsin asked.
“Someone has to go to the subway,” Nathan said.
The Doctor thought. “Ok, you can go look for Felicia.”
---
“There is a pattern here, but nothing particularly unusual for a Terran colony,” the Doctor said after Tamsin had shown him what she’d found.
“Really?” Tamsin asked.
“Of course, there may be a deeper pattern that haven’t recognised.”
“Certainly,” Tamsin said.
“We have to look at other newspapers,” the Doctor said.
“I will look at one,” Kiara said.
“Good,” the Doctor said as he searched for another newspaper site on Tamsin’s phone.
9 February 2710
Ilkona City
Felicia heard her phone ring. ‘That’s weird. I didn’t give the Doctor or Tamsin my number,” She thought as she brought it out.
Unknown Number
‘That’s not good’ she thought. She answered it. “Hello?”
“Finally!” It was Kiara.
“How did you reach me?”
“The Doctor’s upgrade to my device allowed me to connect to yours without knowing the specific identifier.”
“Ok...” Felicia responded. “That’s interesting.”
“What happened?”
“I confronted him, but I had to get away, he had a weapon on him.”
“Oh, you're safe then?”
Felicia told Kiara about what she did to the train.
“Sounds dangerous. I like it,” she said.
“I doubt the Doctor would.”
“...You're right. He would like to know where you are though.”
“At a hotel next to the Pioneer Park. The Terra Palace,” Felicia answered.
“I'll tell him.”
The Doctor, Kiara and Tamsin arrived at the Terra Palace an hour later. Felicia was waiting in the Main Parlour. “That was quite reckless!” the Doctor told her.
“I escaped didn't I?” Felicia asked.
“That's not the point!” the Doctor said. “I have lost others to reckless behaviour before...”
Felicia could see something strange on the Doctor's face. Confusion. “Doctor?”
“At least, I think I have lost someone to reckless behaviour. The memory... isn't there.”
Felicia could tell it was something the Doctor didn't want to talk about. 'What else is new,' she thought.
“So, don't do something like that again.”
“At least not in a train, or with an energy weapon,” Felicia quipped.
“This is serious!” the Doctor said.
“Look! I will be more careful,” Felicia said.
“Are we done?” Tamsin asked.
“For now,” the Doctor answered.
“I hope so,” Felicia added.
“But what are we going to do?” Tamsin asked.
“We need to look for him again,” the Doctor answered. “You let him get away.”
“...And you talk about reckless...” Felicia commented.
“I mean, you could have followed him, seen where he went.”
Felicia considered this. “I suppose so,” she said.
“And now we'll have to figure out where he got off the train afterwards.”
“We could try the records at each station after where my 'reckless action' occurred,” Felicia suggested.
“Worth a shot,” Tamsin considered.
“He may have deleted the records, but we'll try,” the Doctor said.
Twenty minutes later, they arrived at the first of the stations. The Doctor looked around. He found the security station. He approached it, holding up the psychic paper. “Ilkona Investigation Agency. I'm looking for information on a breakdown near this station.”
“All the information on that can be accessed here,” the security agent said.
“Thanks,” the Doctor said. He then used the sonic to access the surveillance system.
He soon found a problem. “The video has been deleted over a ten minute period immediately after the incident.”
“But that's impossible!” the agent stated.
“And yet it has been!”
“I'll have a look.”
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