2022-08-12: Oversight

• Log: 2022-08-12: Oversight
• Cast: Doctor Salamedes
• Where: Dublin, Ireland
• Date: U.C. 0096 08 12
• Summary: The Doctor is in.

---

       An unmarked civilian transport has been sitting in a field near Dublin for most of a week now. The crew assigned to it are very, very nervous. You see, they were given a job -- a very simple one -- and they have somehow, completely and utterly and irredeemably, fucked it up. What was that job you ask? 'To keep an eye on an eleven year old girl.' Somehow, twelve adult men who can keep track of every single bolt and plasma welder onboard and never mislay their cargo have lost track of a child.

       And now their employer is coming for them.

       Some of the crew becoming increasingly panicked as the days roll by, but things get >really< nuts on August 8th, when they receive a call from space. From their boss.

       "How is Ten doing, hm?"

       The captain hemmed and hawed a bit, trying to give a vague answer. "Oh, you know how kids are! Haha! Haa..."

       A pause from the other end. "We cannot say that we do. Please elaborate."

       More waffling about, searching for someone else on the bridge who can provide an excuse, someone else who will take this burden. They all just stare at him, pale and wide-eyed, like he's already dead. "Ah, well... She was out in a rainstorm a few days ago... Darndest thing, she just wouldn't come inside!"

       Silence on the other end of the communications link.

       "B-but we kept an eye on her, and didn't interfere, just like you said!"

       "I see." the Doctor says calmly, switching how they refer to themselves. That's bad. It's >always< bad when they start using singular pronouns to refer to themselves. "Where is she now?"

       "Ah, well, the funny thing about that, I, uhh... Hm. She's probably around here somewhere, right? Right, guys?" the captain asks around as his crew continue to betray him by remaining silent. "J-Jonas, you were watching her last! T-tell the Doctor what you saw!"

       Jonas looks like he wants to glare daggers at the captain, but is too busy trying not to hyperventilate. The Captain knows that feeling very well. He's feeling it right now.

       There is a tense, chilly silence from the communicator.

       "H-haha! That Jonas! Such a kidder! He says she's, uh, she's gotta' be around here somewhere! Right?"

       Continued silence.

       "Doc? Doctor Salamedes? Sir?"

       Still nothing.

       "I-I-I'll go look for her myself! Right now! I won't leave any stone unturned, you can take my word on that--"

       Click.

       The silence on the bridge that followed was deafening.

---

       Now it's the twelfth of August, and the transport is no longer in Ireland. Nowhere near it. Deciding that self-preservation was the better part of valor, several crew abandoned ship and deserted, while the captain took himself, his vessel, and anyone else desperate enough to come with him the hell AWAY from there. They had negotiated passage with the authorities in multiple countries as they just kept flying, zig-zagging and make random stops and double-backs to try to foul up their trail.

       But eventually, they had to stop. Maintenance was needed and so was refueling. They hadn't delivered any cargo recently so their funds were running short, and they didn't want to spend anything anyway so that they couldn't be tracked by their financial interactions.

       The Captain was a nervous wreck, pacing the halls mumbling to himself, unable to sleep in the past seventy hours and absolutely falling apart. The remaining crew are little better, and if they weren't parked in the middle of some fucking woods in who-the-fuck-knows-where, they'd probably have ran off like the smart ones who did so back in Ireland.

       But they didn't. To their credit, they were sticking with their Captain and the ship they served aboard. The Captain took that as small comfort. Absolutely exhausted, he decided he had to get someone else to stand watch while he tried to sleep. He was getting to the point where he was hallucinating after all. He just thought he saw Jonas's flayed skin slapping against the bridge observation windows, leaving a wet streak of blood so dark that it would have looked black even if it wasn't the middle of the night.

       Turning around, the Captain saw another hallucination. The walls appeared to have gaunt faces all over them, mouthing, 'Get out! Get out!' over and over, but producing no sound. Those silly hallucations! As the Captain left the bridge and began heading through the corridor, the Captain stopped to look at the patch of hall where that 'Ten' girl had left her shoe prints on the walls and ceilings somehow. It almost seemed comical now! But his laughter was choked out when he turned back to the corridor and saw a cloaked and masked figure standing in the hall with him.

       Salamedes tilted their head to the side like a predatory bird and asked calmly, "Where is she?"

       "D-Doctor! What a sur--"

       "Where. Is. She?"

       In his panic, the Captain tried to deflect the blame back onto the Doctor. It was the best his exhausted brain could come up with. It was a mistake. "You told us not to interfere, so we didn't--!"

       The hallway had suddenly contracted to a pinpoint, it seemed, the cybernetic doctor approaching steadily and slowly. ">I< told you to >observe her<. So, tell me, Captain, when was it that you last >observed< her?"

       The Captain began screaming for his remaining crew to help him while he ran to his quarters, intending to get his sidearm and shoot this fucking monster dead.

       "They can't help you now." came the Doctor's voice from back in the corridor, drifting to the Captain's ears like insects buzzing them.

       In fact, there were black butterflies flapping all around him now. Where'd they come from? He must be even more tired than he thought, because he can't seem to find his gun with all these butterflies in the way.

       Then the Captain looked down and realized his arms were completely covered in butterflies. "That's so strange," he said in wonder as he watched more and more of them pour out of where his arms used to be. "I thought I had blood in there."

       The last thing the Captain saw as he lay dying were his arms across the room, and the glowing red mono-eye of the Doctor as they continued their steady approach, inevitable as death.

       Then, everything went dark.