The Universe's Mixer

It had not been a good few weeks for the Doctor. It was exceptionally rare that something managed to get one over on him; it happened, but infrequently enough that the occurrence was a surprise every time. He was worried - about Pond and Rory trapped on a strange planet (just imagine the trouble Pond could get herself into), about Lyra and Fred and Sherlock Holmes, trapped as he was in this strange place, about the designs behind the abductions. Things like this didn’t just happen. They took effort and knowledge and planning.

So? He’d paced about like a madman. The Doctor didn’t sit still easily, and exploring the City made him feel productive. Perhaps he could find where his crafty Urban Overlord had hidden the TARDIS. Perhaps he’d meet someone with some answers - or at least someone interesting.

He’d give the City one bit of credit: it had provided him with a suitable wardrobe. Tweed, ties, proper comfortable shoes for running about, and even a whole shelf of headgear. Now he could choose among fedoras, bowlers, a Stetson, three different takes on the fez, and what could only have been a Phillip Treacy original. It was in zebra print and had little ears on the sides.

The Doctor chose a broad-brimmed tartan fedora. ( It felt jaunty. It felt dashing and heroic, like Indiana Jones mixed with the Scottish Highlands. )

Eric moved through the front spaces of Fangtasia, confused and more than a little irritated. He'd stayed here last night in a special place reserved for himself and Pam. He'd gotten up, expecting the night to be like any other night. Of course, when he'd opened the doors he realized that nothing was the same. Looking around for that stupid idiot of a day girl and not finding her just confirmed it. She might have been lacking most of her brain cells, but she knew enough to do her job, do it on time, and do it well.

He couldn't be sure how he'd gotten to this new place, or what this new place even was. It was just not his place, that much was obvious. He was pretty sure it wasn't even Louisiana. His home state had a certain feel, a certain smell, and of course a certain look. This place had none of that. None of it at all. He was in some new, very unusual city, and he was quite sure he wasn't going to like it. At the moment, he wasn't even willing to give it a chance.

At the moment, he was actually trying to get rid of the fucking "Help Wanted" sign that was on the front door. Every time he took it down and threw it away, or crumpled it up and then threw it away, or tore it to tiny little bits and then threw it away, it just reappeared on the door where it had been. He didn't need help. He didn't want help. He had a staff. He would find them and bring them back. Or he would find a way out of this place, where ever it was. Or he would just hole up in Fangtasia until whatever drugs he was on wore off. The thing he would not do? Hire new help. It was out of the question.

Eric sat at the bar on one of the stools. Trying to think of what he should do, how he could get out of this. Trying to control his whirling emotions, though they didn't show on the outside, he had a storm on the inside. Things he wasn't used to feeling normally, things he didn't like feeling. Like confusion. It was not often in his life, even in his life as a human, that Eric had found himself truly confused about anything. That he was now, at this moment, made him more than a little angry. Angry at himself, and the place he was now in. Angry at everything that he could conceivably be angry at. Or about. How does somebody go to sleep one morning and wake up upon sunset in an entirely different place, yet in the very building they went to sleep in?

( Fangtasia. That was new. )

George was being released. She signed some forms under her alias Millie, put her clothes back on and then signed more forms. Besides a package of blank post-its George didn't possess many personal items.

"So I can go now?" The nurse she spoke to bore a striking resemblance, both in personality and appearance, to her former boss Deloris Herbig. It made it hard for George to look particularly sour or annoyed. George even avoided swearing.

"Just one more thing!" The nurse came out of the office with a sleeping orange cat, putting it in George's arms before she could protest.

"I'm not really good with pets," George mumbled.

"Oh don't worry, dear! Cats are very self reliant. He just had a sedative not too long ago so he's fast asleep."

"He has a cool collar."

"Hm? That's nice, dear. Now run along!"

George was shoved unceremoniously out of the asylum with the cat. Having no idea what to do with a cat, she continued walking with it in her arms. Part of her worried that the cat was going to claw the shit out of her face when it woke up, but given her horrible track record with accidentally killing pets she couldn't see herself putting it somewhere defenseless on the ground. If George had learned anything there were a lot of freaks in The City.

Which meant George didn't want to put the cat in a shelter, either. Since he wasn't a kitten the reaper worried if anyone would want him. No dumping the cat into the wild. No shelter. Maybe she could put an ad in the paper?

"There has to be someone out there who'd really like having a cat."

George frowned.

Eleven steps to the door, turn left four steps and down two flights. It wasn't the entire key to this place, but it was a start. Frank felt the effects of anti-psychotics coursing through him. Little firemen, designed to quench the flames that burned inside his mind for so long. How nice of them.

The frontal assault did not quite work as intended. It took The Punisher four seconds to make it to the stairs... sorry about the neck Doctor. Another nine seconds down the stairs, the last two after the taser hit him on the back. Fuck... plan B.

Torture and interrogation were nothing new to Castle. Sure they called it "therapy" and "counseling." Same difference. If the CIA, the GRU, and Vietcong could not break him, there was no way bipedial pill dispensors asking him how he felt about his mother would get anything accomplished. Ask him about his wife and children one more time. The clipboard would do the job quite adequately... later.

Smile and wave, tell them what they want to believe. The door gets closer, and burning this place to the ground could wait a couple more days. If he played nice he would get group therapy. Frank simply couldn't wait for that.

Karen felt like she hadn't had anything to "eat" in weeks. On a normal day, she was okay with things as long as she fed at least once. But apparently when you got yourself shot by your psycho ex girlfriend and then blown up by her, it took a lot out of you. Literally.

Her stomach was tugging at her in a way that she'd never felt before. Especially not in 'life'. She'd supplemented herself with booze and pills and hadn't really been very into the whole food thing.

Now she felt like she might be dying. And her hands looked gray and almost skeletal. It was ugly. Karen didn't like being ugly. That was the whole purpose to becoming a vampire in the first place. Not being ugly. Never worrying about being ugly again. Like a permanent round of plastic surgery that lasted forever.

She reached over the side of her tub and picked up the phone she kept there. Dialed the number that she'd memorized without even having to try and listened to it ring.

"George. I need you tonight. Load up on jello. Hell, make it jello shots. I'm dying here."

[Open]

What had happened?

He remembered meeting Deb, walking in the park, discussing their pasts and maybe their future. It had all been so pleasant. He hadn't even thought about Xanadu, the lovely woman who had so bewitched him just days before. For sure, he had not worried about Fred and her growing attachment to this Sam character who she seemed to think was an American version of him. What was wrong with the British version?

Bloody hell.

Somehow, he ended up alone again. Sitting by himself on a bench in the park, wondering what had happened to his life.

He needed a drink. And a hug. Maybe both at the same time.

George's temporary solution to the cupid dilemma was to walk around The City under the protection of the umbrella. It wasn't the falling in love part that bothered her, it was the potential for sleeping with someone and never getting a call back that the reaper didn't wish to repeat. Sometimes the living caught glimpses of Cupid. It was sort of like a graveling in that George could follow its movement perfectly. Cupid was bloated and pudgy like a baby with an old man's face.

It sort of scared George.

Staring up ahead on the street George spotted a kid. This struck George as a very bad idea. She didn't want to see some creepy adult man get shot with an arrow and while George was loathe to get involved, she started booking it forward. "Hey! Kid! Look out!"

If they could get indoors somewhere, maybe they would be safe from the insanity outside.

George had been perfectly happy to wait out the storm in her own apartment. As long as the water was running and the toilet was working, she didn't care if all she had to eat was ramen noodles. Then the post-it came. George stared down at the small piece of yellow paper, her expression a picture, perfect expression of indignant shock. Wrapping up the best she could she went out into the storm and was caught in it.

Hypothermia, unlike other times George had been hurt, had the one advantage of a numbing factor. The shivering itself wasn't so bad at first until it became more violent. On the bright side, the stabbing pain in her fingers and toes became numb, and she didn't need coordinated control in order to knock on the apartment door when she finally reached it. Her lips and nose were an odd shade of blue but the reaper's only concern was that she didn't have a line of frozen snot down her face because that would be gross. She didn't.

When the door to the apartment listed on her post-it didn't open (at least she thought it was the same address but her mind wasn't functioning at one-hundred percent), she tried grasping the handle with her fingers a few times. The door opened (though she couldn't tell if it was her doing or not) and George stumbled in.

She mumbled a little incoherently to herself: "It is really warm in here..."

Der Waffle House was home.

Death sat down in a plush, olive green seat, testing out the restaurant booth with a light bounce. Although she didn't eat Death vaguely remembered what it was like to eat from the few times she'd spent as one of the living. George and Betty would really have to share what the culinary delights of modern junk food were like with her. She read over the menu both pleasantly overwhelmed and fascinated.

A middle-aged and overweight waitress dressed in the sort of dress one might see at an Octoberfest celebration approached the booth. "You ready to order, sweetie?"

"I'm waiting on some friends," Death explained. The waitress nodded and left.

Anita was not known for letting things go easily. The words 'pitbull', 'leg' and 'teeth' came to mind, though not necessarily in that order.

So it was no surprise that she followed the blond woman staring at her, trying to make sense of what she had seen and felt her do.

This woman had pulled the soul out of the zombie while it was alive. The zombie was still animated by another force, that Anita had no trouble dealing with - but she did not deal with the soul. In fact, she did not raise zombies until at least three days after the death to allow the soul time to move on somewhere else. She could feel souls and ghosts but those were matters she was glad not to meddle with at all.

Didn't mean she wasn't curious, though.

"Hey! You never answered my question. I don't exactly give up easily."

Anita felt the woman with her necromancy, hoping that might give her an idea of what she was dealing with....or, barring that, at least freak the woman out a little.

George never saw a check with so many zeroes on it in her life. Twenty-thousand dollars. Up front. It occurred belatedly to George that she was in a vampire's pocket now and that it might be a very dangerous place to be.

Then again, Karen couldn't have been so bad?

It was the new wardrobe that worried the reaper most. She secretly looked forward to the clothing itself, but if it required a shopping spree and trying clothes on for an audience, that was the torture George wasn't looking forward to.

Until their first meeting, George needed to figure out how to get all those pretty numbers from a useless piece of paper and onto a bank account. With her name on it. Quite a challenge for someone who was dead. What kind of place could you go to and arrange something like that. She subconsciously patted her pocket to make sure the check was still there.

"Fuck fuck fuc--"

BLAM. George turned a corner and walked squarely into someone. He was taller, and a little soft in the middle so at least it didn't hurt too badly. George took a half step back to get a closer look at him. He looked older and friendly, like someone's reassuring Dad. Maybe he would know where to go with a check almost useless to her.

"...Sorry. Uh, you look kinda like you know stuff?" (What she meant to say was old, but she didn't want to offend him so soon. Still, with the way she said stuff her meaning wasn't exactly mysterious.) "Where would someone go if they needed help with money stuff? Like not a bank but maybe accounting stuff?"

You're in a funhouse maze, but it's no ordinary funhouse maze. The mighty minotaur is stalking you through it, and you have to get to the center of the maze to save the virgins and get back out before it reaches you.

Karen sat at the secretary's desk at the place where she supposedly worked, Ghostbusters somethingorother. There weren't a lot of phone calls coming in, and those that did went straight to voicemail. Or at least, they went there when Karen pushed the ignore button on the phone. That button was the best thing that had ever been invented, in her opinion.

She was doing her nails. Might as well get something done while at work. The paper filing was being ignored. She was pretty sure she'd said something about not doing that sort of thing. Also not doing windows. She might have also told him that she didn't answer the phone, but he would figure that one out in time.

There was a coffee mug on the desk near her. Previously it would have held vodka. Now it held nothing. The scent of the alcohol was still strong enough to bring back wistful memories. But there was no reason for having it anymore. She couldn't drink it. Looking at it wouldn't get her anything.

Karen sighed.

God, work was so boring.

One problem with being a reaper was that darned metabolism. Getting drunk wasn't terribly difficult if she followed enough shots one after another, but staying drunk for more than thirty minutes was something else entirely. It required either spending lots of money or the kindness of strangers. Since George wasn't the sort of person to flirt, or attract the sort of attention she would have despised in the first place, she found herself out of money and alcohol very quickly.

Her head started to ache.

"Water please."

George slapped her hand on the bar twice before taking her clear plastic cup and finding a moldy couch to sit on. One eye squeezed shut as a band on stage began to warm up. The crowd (many of them covered with fresh marks and scars of the recent undead epidemic) started wail and shout. If any of them recognized George as the girl who cured them, no one acted on it. That suited the reaper just fine.

(This happens prior to this)

Simon was walking on a cloud, or more he was happy that his life was actually looking up. Sure, he was still surrounded by those who were suffering from what they had done, but he had kept his promise. He had saved Jennifer. He had saved everyone. So what if Hannibal had isolated the cure to begin with, or a possible cure? Simon had discovered how it could be implemented and mass produced to save everyone who could be saved. He was the big damn hero.

With this feeling of elation, he decided that a nice quiet moment with his cup'o'soup was in order. He'd managed to find his own office, whether it was shared or not didn't matter, since his "colleagues" were out. He'd even bother with going through his messages and files. Things were certainly looking up. Well, they were looking up for a little while anyway.

As he lifted his cup to taste that salty chickeny goodness, he spotted the memo. Dean of Medicine? There was a Dean? The Hospital was a medical school? Well, that would explain a few things, he supposed. He read over the memo and nearly suffered from burns in areas no man should ever suffer burns in. The cup fell to the ground, and Simon, having learned a few things on Serenity, jumped out of the way just in time. Even Jayne might have blushed at the language Simon used. Wilson! Wilson was Dean, and Wilson was summoning Dr. Tam to his office?

Things really couldn't get worse.

George looked a bit like a gunslinger. She had two separate hypospray devices that delivered the cure without the hassle of a giant needle. Just press the barrel of the gun-looking medical tool against someone's neck or the chest and pull the trigger. It even made a neat little sound when it activated. (Zzzt!) There were, of course, complications.

Some zombies were missing body parts, some would not survive the cure process. After enough people had the cure delivered to them, there was just barely enough organization to herd the more damaged to either a) the hospital to have the cure delivered there where they could get immediate medical attention or b) to Arkham Asylum to be kept there until city officials decided what to do with the undead who were possibly too damaged to come back.

But not all the citizens of The City got a happy ending. For some there was just an ending. Volunteers were gathered up to collect the bodies. There was a graveyard and a memorial in the works for those who had died in the plague. After getting several filled post-it booklets of names and places, George went to the impromptu morgue that was set up for the more unfortunate until or if friends or family members were able to identify the deceased. It was one of the easiest jobs George ever had. Her hand brushed along the dead like some strange ghostly domino effect, and many started to take their leave. A few still chose to linger. The death toll was estimated to be in the thousands.

What seemed like a slow process felt very quick to George. She cleared out the hospital first, then the park, and so forth. After a while she wasn't alone. Recently cured policemen who were healthy enough to serve dressed up and riot gear, slowly retaking The City. Hotlines were set up for zombie sightings. It was all very efficient.

After today, George wasn't going to be quite as anonymous as she once was. A lot of people were going to remember her face. She at least tried to be a little considerate, hosing half eaten flesh and blood from some of the soon to be formerly undead before administering the cure, providing blankets to others that didn't have much left in the ways of clothes.

It was a bit like reaping in reverse. George liked it.


( OOC! )

Simon stared at the samples.  He'd been able to duplicate it, making a slight change here and there due more to the lack of supplies and time.  He just had to hope he wasn't cutting too many corners.  The good doctor needed to test everything before he could simply run around giving injections.  He also needed to find a faster way than syringes.  Pneumatic syringe seemed the best solution, but he'd have to make sure the cure was actually the cure.

Sure, he could have found Jennifer and tested it, but he couldn't take the risk that something worse might happen.  He didnt' want to find out that once the..zombification had been cured, she was dead.  They were dead after all.  The tissue samples he'd taken from her said as much, and it certainly didn't look much better when he tried testing the cure on those same samples.   So he opted for finding one of the slow types that didn't look as if they were missing body parts.  He just had to hope that his coming out of the office wasn't going to get him bitten.  Sure, he'd have a test subject, but would it be worth it?

He ran full tilt at the zombie, knocking it down, and tried to make the injection.  Damn zombie wasn't really in the mood to be cured; it just wanted that delicious meat, which meant the doctor was now fighting to get the needle into the dead skin, all without getting bitten.

He hadn't done a whole lot since he'd been overcome by the zombies. They'd caught up to him, and he'd done everything he could to keep their attention on him, and away from Sweeney, for as long as he could manage. They'd overtaken him and started biting. Emotion might have been foreign to him, but physical pain was not. It was possibly the only time in his life that he wished he was less human.

Of course, it wasn't long before he got his wish.

The infection ran it's course in a matter of hours. He'd hidden himself in hopes that he could avoid further bites. He felt he'd given enough flesh to the zombies. There hadn't been a whole lot he could do to make himself comfortable. The idea of blowing his own head off crossed through his mind more than once. Of course, he didn't have a gun, and by that point, didn't have the energy to get up and find one.

So Dexter Morgan died.

When he rose, he wasn't all the way absent like he'd seen the other zombies be. Mindless flesh eaters massing on one victim at a time. Thousands of teeth gnashing and gnawing. He had more. Perhaps it was the Dark Passenger that made it possible, but he was still thinking on a very limited basis. He knew that he was fundamentally different. He couldn't reach the higher brain function that he'd had before - that he knew he'd been capable of (that memory was fading quickly anyway), but he could still think. He knew there was food out there. And he knew he could hunt it better than the others. He knew that a group wasn't the best way to go about it. Solitary feeding would produce more food for him.

He was wandering the street, still slow, still incapable of reflexive movement in any sort of timely manner - the bird flying into his face and his painfully slow reaction to it attested to that - the only thing he had was determination. A will to feed himself. To find his own way.

For all the purpose in his movements and choices, it was a little like running around as a chicken would with it's head cut off. He didn't stay still for long, and he was constantly going back and forth to check for people. There were key individuals that he felt he needed to look out for. Simon, because he needed to talk to the other doctor about this infestation. And River. Because he needed to be with her, and be sure that she was alright.

But no matter where he went, neither one was there.

Hannibal needed to rest, and he knew it. If he was going to do any good, he needed to sleep. He also needed to eat. He was running his body ragged.

He'd just left the hospital for the last time. He was going to hole himself up in River's apartment and stay there until she turned up. Simon hadn't been in the office. The monkey had looked fairly confused and slightly manic. There was nothing left for him to do but leave a note and hope that Simon found it.

Simon,

The last syringe is in the locked cabinet. Before it can be used, it has to be duplicated. I'm going to find your sister. I'll be back once I know that she's safe. Get started as soon as you can.

-H

The key was hidden, but in a fairly obvious place. If Simon put a moment's thought into it, he'd be able to find it easily. Probably he should have stayed put, and started work on this thing himself. The sooner the better. But he couldn't stop worrying and thinking of River. She could take care of herself, but she had yet to encounter things like this in her life. And he hadn't either. They were both facing the unknown. He had to find her.

When he got to her building, there were hundreds of those things milling about in front of the doors. They hadn't been there on his last stop by. Hannibal wondered if he could get around them. Through them would have been a bad idea. Even he knew that much. He'd seen it. He started looking for a way to get to the door.

Perhaps he spent too long standing still, but the ones in front of him didn't seem to notice he was there. They hadn't moved. One or two looked at him, but they seemed to be ignoring him. It caused a sense of untrue safety. He didn't notice the one behind him. The one that had noticed. They all smelled so horrible, that even his heightened senses couldn't pick up the difference from one rotting corpse from another.

It bit into his shoulder. Wrapping it's lanky dead arms around him in a pseudo bear hug. Hannibal managed to break free, leaving a shred of flesh behind. He looked at the thing that had tried to eat him. The others began to take notice. The scent of fresh blood filling the air.

Hannibal ran until he found a place to duck into.

Jake, having seen the zombies (or at least zombies of some sort) once before when he met Jo, wasn't so surprised when they returned. Of course, he wasn't sure what it was he was supposed to do. Being a cat, his natural instinct was to run and hide. But he remembered what Jo had told him about zombies. They were bad and scary and dangerous. Especially dangerous to people. Jake didn't know if the zombies could infect him (he certainly hoped not!) but he decided it was best to remain on the safe side. He tried to stay as far away from them as possible. They didn't seem to be too interested in him though. Cats must not have been their preferred meal. But he was still worried.

He and Jennifer were going to rent a truck and move his spaceship today. At least, that had been the original plan. Jake had almost forgotten about his ship entirely after moving into Jennifer's place. It was pretty nice for a human home. It reminded him a lot of Jake's apartment (only not as messy.) Scientists were naturally messy people. Mostly because they were so scatterbrained.

Jake couldn't rent a truck. At least, not on his own. That was going to be Jennifer's job. Jake's job was to meet her at the site of his ship and help her with the loading. But Jake had been there for almost forty-five minutes and she hadn't arrived.

She's probably just delayed. Traffic or paperwork or something, he told himself.
( Zombies milling about in the park. )