Earth Grazer || Doctor Who

XXXIV. Total Conspiracy

~unedited~

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Cathica led the group of time travelers to the same broadcasting room they were in earlier, "look, they only give us 20 minutes for maintenance. Can't you give it a rest?"

"So, you've never been to another floor? Not even one floor down," Ella voiced as the Doctor took a seat in the broadcasting chair and she leaned against it. Rose took a spot against the bars surrounding the area, still close enough to Ella but not right next to her.

"Well, I went to floor 16 when I first arrived. That's medical. That's where I got my head done and then I came straight here. Satellite Five, you work eat and sleep on the same floor. That's it, that's all." Cathica took a good look at the group finally, "you're not really from management, are you?" She crossed her arms as much as she could with her clipboard and Ella was a big fan of how in charge she looked.

"At last, she's clever!" the Doctor sighed exasperated that it took this long to get here.

She stared at the three of them for a second longer, trying to decide if she should report them or not. "Yeah, well whatever it is, don't involve me. I don't know anything."

Ella furrowed her eyebrows, "don't you even ask?"

"Well, why would I?" she walked around the room doing the routine maintenance and checking stuff off her checklist.

"You're a journalist! Where is that inquisitive spirit?" Asking questions is usually what got you noticed by a certain time traveling alien, "why is all the crew human? There's no aliens on board, why?"

"I don't know. No real reason. They're not banned or anything."

The Doctor decided to chime in, "then where are they?"

Cathica considered his question, "I suppose immigrations tightened up. It's had to, what with all the threats." She must have sensed the next question about to be asked because her next words were, "you know, usual kind of threats. Also, the price of space warp doubled so that kept the visitors away. Oh, and the government on Chavic Five's collapsed so that lot stopped coming, you see ... just lots of little reasons, that's all."

Once she was done talking her words echoed in her head and she started to see that something was indeed wrong here. All these little reasons adding up to one big thing and Cathica was too ingrained in her upbringing to try and do something about it now. Already the words of denial were pouring out of her mouth before she could stop them, "Doctor I think if there was any kind of conspiracy, Satellite Five would have seen it. We see everything."

"I can see better. This society is the wrong shape, even the technology."

The words of defense broke out of her mouth quickly, "it's cutting edge!" why am I arguing back? Stop it.

"It's backwards! There's a great big door in your head, you should've chucked this out years ago."

"So, what do you think is going on," Rose piped up when she noticed Ella was too busy staring at Cathica to ask.

"It's not just this space station, it's the whole attitude." Ella got knocked out of her reverie and lowered her head towards the Doctor to listen. "The way people think. The Great and Bountiful Human Empire is stunted, something ... is holding it back."