The False Reality

Ben Patterson, a name tossed around by those in the center of London and outwards. The man who walked day in and day out, out of a local coffee shop, Jeff's, it was his favorite, obviously. It is where his girlfriend just so happened to work, it's where his job was almost nearly located; just across the block. Coincidences that shaped his life..that shapes our lives and steers us to our various destinies. Until we question this destiny...we question our existence...we question reality.


"What is reality, but our false deliberations and imaginative outlooks on what our mind tells us is right" Ben read aloud from an article in the local newspaper, his index finger and middle finger taking the cigarette from his mouth, allowing him room to exhale a cloud of smoke. His eyes were fixed on the printed, black ink, words displayed in front of him; they eventually found their way down to a name, the creator of the article, Joesph Herbert. Looking up to the window, that overlooked the desk which he sat at, reading the newspaper that was sprawled across it, Ben stared out to the news tower, it's elongated structure like a beacon to him, calling out.

"Why not" Ben muttered to himself, spinning up from his chair and snagging his coat from the rack beside his apartment door and burst out of his room, shutting the door behind him. Within twenty minutes, Ben stood outside of the very tower he was just staring at; those twenty minutes going past him within a blink of an eye. Opening the doors, Ben shook his head stubbornly, forcefully ignoring what had just happened to him. He thought of the place, walked out of the room, then he was there..his mind telling him it took him twenty minutes but his body showing no signs that it indeed happened. "Excuse me" Ben politely called out, leaning over the front desk just slightly to project his voice further out to the woman who sat in a roller chair, her back to him.

Rolling around in the chair, she forced a friendly smile, "Yes sir?" , "Umm..i'm looking for a Joesph Herbert. I just read his article and i'd like to speak with him", the woman looked at him with a baffled facial expression, "Sir. There is no such person working here". Ben shook his head, gesturing over to todays newspaper on the front desk beside him, "Well he's in your paper" he insured, but upon opening the paper to the page where he thought the article had been, it was gone. Disappeared and replaced with an advertisement for cleaner teeth. The woman looked worriedly at Ben, "Sir..is everything alright?" she asked, Ben, completely shocked and nearly frozen with amazement and fear, nodded his head, "Yeah. Yeah..sorry" he muttered, his eyes wide as a chill ran down his spine, What the hell is going on

On a rooftop across the street from the London news tower, a tall figure was looking on at the tower. It was dressed in a trench coat, gloves, tinted glasses, hat, scarf pulled up to cover the mouth and nose, and large boots. The figure obviously wanted to keep its identity a secret. However, Au'Nvratyis was not here to walk the streets. He was here to investigate an anomaly. He tossed a small disc on the concrete he was standing on, and a 3D map of London came up. The map seemed to shift and change, but it was nothing major. Just the signs on buildings, words in the newspaper, the nature of buildings. He looked back across the street, and spotted someone through the glass doors in the lobby of the news tower, a newspaper in his hand. He pulled out his binoculars. Yes, he definitely did look confused about things, the way he opened the newspaper to show the clerk something, and seemed to freeze up afterwards. He would keep an eye on this one.

Ben tossed the paper down causing it to slide across the marble top counter a few inches until coming to a stop upon hitting a small rack at the end of the able. The woman released a sigh and turned her attention back to her work, looking away from Ben as though he were never there as he turned and made his way out of the building. He lowered his head, keeping his eyes sadly to the ground, solemnly glancing up to make sure he was not about to run into something and or was going the right way. Although his body was set on home, his mind was pondering the thought of reality, what Herbert had spoke about in his article, the very article that was now seemingly a figment of his imagination.

Pausing in the middle of an intersection, Ben looked up and gazed around him, immediately noticing the abnormalities that were presently prominent. For one was the amount of people. It was noon time, Monday and there was hardly anyone out and about which was highly unlikely and impossible. "Downtown London.." Ben mumbled to himself, raising his eyebrow and starting to mentally process what was going on around him, making a note of the things that were wrong, "Noon time and literally nobody out. By now i should have been hit. In addition, half the stores have a now hiring sign out front which would have at the very least drawn in some wanting possible employee's. Yet there's nobody out here..not even cars...unless of course there is a quarantine in process that i was unaware of".

Au'Nvratyis kept his binoculars trained on Ben, but for a moment he lifted his binoculars, wondering why he was so easy to track in the square, and was confused. Where were all the people? How had he not noticed that before? He put his binoculars away, tracking Ben by sight, leaping between buildings on the rooftop with the greatest of ease, his cloven feet tapping against the concrete. He would continue tracking Ben, to see the part he played in all this.

Ben peered across all of the surrounding buildings, eyes dancing across the rooftops until finally coming back down to the street where instinctively looked both ways before crossing the street. In front of him was his favorite coffee shop, where the image of his former girlfriend, Jessica, stood at her usual place behind the hostess counter. Smiling, Ben hopefully ran over to the front door and yanked it open, only for his smile to peel off of his face as he witnessed the image of Jessica wavering back and forth like a holographic image malfunctioning. "Hello?..." Ben hesitated, extending his hand out, only for it to pass through, much to the despair of Ben who lowered his head and walked over to and sat down at his usual booth.

Flipping out a cigarette, Ben quickly lit it and began to smoke, running his free hand through his hair, "Alright Ben think...." he mumbled to himself, trying to grip onto the last bit of stability he had, "What could be doing this? I've eaten and had my med's so it's not me....some sort of perception i'm guessing..i don't know. What am i doing?! It's not like i am some ruddy bloody cop or detective...".

Au'Nvratyis followed Ben to the coffee shop, where he lost visual of him. He considered what to do. Should he reveal himself? Should he aid Ben? He was conflicted about these things. He feared that he had revealed his true form to too many humans, and even to several Timelords. How soon would it be until the Daleks realized were he was and finally finished exterminating the Kathractian race? He didn't know. But he did know that something was terribly wrong here in London, something that threatened the lives of million. He sighed and looked down the side of the building to build a sort of "fall path" down to street level. There was a fire escape and a street light between him and street level. More than enough. He walked off the edge of the roof, landing on the railing of the fire escape with a loud clank before frontflipping off of that, landing on the square bit that housed the lightbulb itself with one hoof before dropping down across the street from the lightbulb. He stuck the landing perfectly, like he almost always does (street lights can be a tad fragile sometimes), and walked up to the door. He reached for the handle, but seemed to pause, before opening the door and walking in. He had never been into one of these "coffee shops", nor had he ever indulged in "coffee", although he had to admit the small place had its charms. He sat down in the booth in front of Ben's, his back turned to him, and pulled out the newspaper, wondering what the headline had changed to now.

Ben yanked his head from the engulfment of his hand as his ears picked up on the echoing footsteps of another person entering the shop. Pausing, he kept his head low, waiting, pondering if this was even real. If the person that entered the shop was really real or it was a figment of his imagination just as Jessica had been or was, that part he wasn't entirely sure as he could look over to where she was and she wouldn't be there one moment but be there the next. It was as if it were a glitch, a game glitch where instead of a game, it was his life, his world, his universe breaking and glitching all over the place. Standing up, he cautiously peered over the side of the booth in front of him, checking if the man was there; once he was sure that he was indeed there, Ben made his way over and sat down in front of the man.

First he looked over the back of the man's newspaper, to see if anything changed then he looked at the mysterious figure, "Have you seen anything odd?...Or out of place?" he finally asked him, tapping his index finger on the booth center table as he spoke then stopped once his question was posed, "I don't know if i'm going completely mad...or something inside of me needs desperately to be fixed but....this last few days..ever sense reading that article i read..it's like..this world has been broken. Glitched...like inputting a code into a computer when you're not supposed to".

"Yes, there does seem to be something wrong." He agreed, folding up the paper and setting it down in the middle of the table, the headline of the minute being "MAN ABDUCTED BY ROBOTS!". He placed his hands together (the visible ones) and collected his thoughts. Maybe a reveal of the arms was too much, maybe just the eyes would do. He reached up to his tinted glasses, and pushed them up, the artificial light of the coffee shop causing them to glimmer dangerously. Inside the scarf that covered his mouth and nose, his long, whiplike tounge was licking his teeth. He stood up and walked over behind the coffee shop counter, and turned on the latte machine while putting a mug in it. "The machines still work, but the people are another story, correct?" He continued, passing an arm through the holographic Jessica as the machine turned out a latte. He took the mug in one arm, and rested the other on the counter. "I usually don't take interest in events like this, but the erasing of the entire population of one of the largest human cities on the face of this measly blue marble called Earth..." He started. He reached up and took off his tinted glasses, revealing his almond shaped, jet-black eyes. "...Now that's interesting" he finished. He held the latte up to where his mouth would be, and his long tounge poked out through the scarf and tasted the latte. "Mmm, that's good." He muttered to himself.

Ben jolted up nervously, almost shaking as though overwhelmed with energy as he walked to the side of the man he had just began a conversation with, "Yes but how?" he asked the man, looking over to Jessica, "It's as if everything is broken...damaged for some reason. Everything is just falling apart". Pausing for a moment, he slowly turned and walked out of the diner and into the middle of the street, looking both ways before finally he spotted a car. A black male was driving, his eyes focused purely and attentively on the road in front of him. Extending out his arms to his side, Ben looked upwards to the sky as if welcoming the car, ordering it to kill him, to strike down his body with furious speed and velocity.

The man inside of the car continued driving, as though he had not seen Ben, not even as nor after the car passed through him. The car rushed through the form of Ben, causing it to waver for a moment before connecting back together just as the car turned a corner and zoomed out of sight. Ben pat himself with widened eyes, spinning around to Au, "What the hell is going on?!" he said with a gulp.

Ben jolted up nervously, almost shaking as though overwhelmed with energy as he walked to the side of the man he had just began a conversation with, "Yes but how?" he asked the man, looking over to Jessica, "It's as if everything is broken...damaged for some reason. Everything is just falling apart". Pausing for a moment, he slowly turned and walked out of the diner and into the middle of the street, looking both ways before finally he spotted a car. A black male was driving, his eyes focused purely and attentively on the road in front of him. Extending out his arms to his side, Ben looked upwards to the sky as if welcoming the car, ordering it to kill him, to strike down his body with furious speed and velocity.

The man inside of the car continued driving, as though he had not seen Ben, not even as nor after the car passed through him. The car rushed through the form of Ben, causing it to waver for a moment before connecting back together just as the car turned a corner and zoomed out of sight. Ben pat himself with widened eyes, spinning around to Au, "What the hell is going on?!" he said with a gulp.

Mal had been leaning on the counter of her coffee shop for hours. There was no one here, no one around. Taylor never came into work today and the place was dead. Coffee shops weren't suppose to be dead, there were too many people in London who relied on the caffeine and pastries to get them through their day. From opening and beyond the place hadn't had a single customer. It was a bit creepy. She folded the paper she had been idly reading and rubbed her hands together before pushing herself from the counter and walking over to the café door. Peering out the glass she was startled to find the streets were completely empty. That wasn't right. Was there an eclipse? Quarantine? Alien invasion? There was no ash falling like blackened snow so that was a good sign.

Curious and utterly nervous, Mal pushed the door open and took a small step outside. She leaned out so she could look left and right. Empty. Utterly empty. Where were the people? The cars? It was freaking her out. The brown haired girl stepped out completely and started walking down the street. "Hello?" The call was quiet and she waited for any form of response. When there was none she shouted, "Is anyone there?" Her voice echoed off the buildings and it caused the hair on the back of her neck to rise.

This couldn't be happening. Mal started to run down the street, head moving back and forth in desperation to catch sight of anyone. And just like that a little old lady with a walker was walking down the street and toward Mal. Thank the lord. "Uh... 'scuse, ma'am. Could you tell me what's going on here?" There had to be something and usually older people watched the news and stuff, right? Mal hadn't caught anything out of the ordinary in the paper.. but then again she wasn't the most observant of people. The lady didn't answer her and kept shuffling forward. Raising an eyebrow, Mal walked beside the old girl for a bit before attempting to ask her question again. Still no answer. So she waved her hand in front of the lady's face and there was nothing said or done. Weird. Maybe she was blind. But why would a blind old lady walk the streets of London?

Mal reached out to pat the lady on the shoulder, figuring that would catch her attention but instead found her hand to go right through the other person. Startled, she yelped and leapt back like her hand was burnt. That was not right at all! "The hell's happening?" She shouted, completely dumbfounded and frightened.

After Au continued to stare at him in complete silence, Ben peered around him, looking for someone, anyone who saw what he saw. Then, there she was. Her form a more than welcoming site to Ben as he raced towards her, instinctively looking both ways before crossing the street, "Hello?!" he called out, hoping she was really, "Hello!?". In all his life, he never knew something like this could ever happen to him, especially him, a normal man in all sense of the word. But maybe that wasn't just him, maybe, just maybe, there was someone else witnessing this catastrophe. What was this place? Everyone see's it as Earth but was it really? Why were people ignoring him? Why were cars driving through him? What the bloody hell was going on?!

Were her ears deceiving her? It wouldn't be the first time she heard someone call out. Wishful thinking did weird things to a person. Mal turned with wide eyes to see someone running towards her. She had to fight with her instinct to turn the other way and run away from this man. Normally if a bloke from London ran at a woman it meant trouble... But if he was here and actually saw her maybe he could explain a few things. Swallowing down her growing fear she took a few steps in the man's direction but he had reached her already in his fast race over. "Hi...?" She reached out and hesitantly poked him in the forehead. "Good, solid! What the hell is happening? Where is everyone? I saw one person... and she was a bloody ghost! D-did I miss something here?" Her throat was dry but she pointlessly swallowed anyway, trying to satisfy the feeling of discomfort. No doubt this was the work of aliens. It always was.

Ben stared at the woman for a moment, over took at first by the very sight of Mal, before snapping out of it and returning the poke to the forehead playfully, "To understand what's going on...well..to be quite honest i myself have no clue what's going on..but to grip what might be happening now, you have to understand the beginning". Extending his hand down into his coat pocket, Ben yanked out the newspaper and flipped it to Mal, immediately pointing to the article that first caught his eye, "It's the only newspaper that has it" he began to explain, "It speaks about a false reality..that this world..isn't ours...that we were placed here for a reason. It just so happens that the author has never been heard of before..hell..was never born according to that newspaper agency. After reading that all this started happening..like putting a trojan horse into a perfectly balanced computer causing it to crash..everything starts to fall apart".

Mal nodded dumbly in an attempt to convince herself he was making sense. The Doctor has told her weirder things but this just seemed a bit... unbelievable. Okay so a single newspaper has an article no other one has. "Why?" She pondered aloud. How did that make sense? What ever was happening why would there be a single indication to be caught? Unless the person or thing behind all of this wanted someone to catch on. Nah, why would they want that? Mal's head started to spin so she brought a hand up and placed it on her forehead. Steady...

"Well... I honestly don't know what to make of this."

Ben lowered his head with a sigh, rubbing the back of his head before looking back up to Mal, "So i guess there's no way that'd i'd be able to ask you out on a date then?" he asked her, a smirk appearing on his face, "If this reality isn't real then it wouldn't be real until we got out.". Looking away from Mal, he glanced around the marketplace around them before moving his attention back to her, "Well i'm not a ruddy bloody detective so unless you know someone who might be able to help..look's like we will be here for a while then".

"Wh-what?" Mal gaped at Ben. Jesus, did he really say that? Surely he didn't mean a date-date. The kind of date people went on to get to know one another better... to see if you could be potential partners. He didn't mean that, right? Why did it seem more and more people were hitting on her or at least hinting towards.. that. Curious, Mal looked down at herself to examine her body. Well, she was maturing and all. Maybe she was releasing a truck ton of hormones for these poor men to pick up on. No, no... okay.. just stop thinking about it.

"Er.. uh.. right. Uhm." She turned away and started to walk back the way she came, trying to put space between herself and the man so she could think again. Awkward situations were not her forte. After she gathered herself a bit she walked back over and cleared her throat, "Eh, so you're saying this is sort of like a dream? A dream reality? It feels real but in terms of reality it isn't. How do you know, though? I don't mean to go in this direction but... I once heard that even if you think something it makes it very real, at least to the person thinking, you know? I hope that makes sense. Oh, I didn't even introduce myself. The name's Mal." She thrust her hand into his gut and turned red a bit. Wow, that was one way to reveal her true nature. If Sonya found out about this she was going to go off her rocker with mockery and crude jokes. Pulling her hand back she just let it drop to her side, stared at the ground, and muttered an apology.

Ben grabbed his gut in pain, bending over as he released an exhale of air, trying to inhale the best he could before looking up at her and giving her a thumbs up, "I'm..i'm good" he muttered with a chuckle. Just as he managed to get up in a standing position, he took a step forward and tripped over a rock, plummeting back down to the ground where he tumbled and quickly regained himself. "Sorry.." He mumbled, brushing himself off as he walked back over to her, watching out for the rock, "I'm a bit clumsy sometimes. Nice to meet you Mal, i'm Ben. Ben Patterson. And yes...like a dream or..some sort of program we've been placed into. Like...what's that movie...the matrix! That's it..i'd guess it would be something like that..where if we, the person inside, does something we aren't or see something..then things start falling apart around us".

Mal took two steps back to give the poor man some space. She was mentally chastising herself until the guy tripped. "Oh my god! Are you okay?" She moved over awkwardly and attempted to help him up. "You're preaching to the choir, man. I'm pretty sure I'm the queen of klutz. Don't got to apologize for that. Ah, Ben? Another three letter name. There good, those ones. Short and sweet. Well except your tall so I guess... never mind I'm rambling." She moved away from Ben again and looked down the street, finding it empty still. This was a bit eerie, wasn't it? "Falling apart... man, I hope we don't run into Mr. Smith, then. Well if this is the matrix then we could learn to fly and stuff!" Mal was obviously not taking this very seriously but her nerves were to blame. If she took something like this too seriously she might just cripple herself and become useless. Much like she normally does around Sonya, Theta, or the Doctor. God, those three have been coming up a lot lately.

Ben eyed Mal carefully, looking at her for a moment before shaking his head, "I've obviously came to the wrong person then" he mumbled, beginning to walk past her as he did so, "You can enjoy your time here but i've got better plans. Plans to get out of whatever this is...this hell. Nice meeting you though..try and have a nice day then". Turning his attention away from Mal as he continued to walk away from her, he shifted it over to the looming newspaper building where he recently left, having thought he had lost his mind when he could not find the article to show the front desk woman. There must be something more to this. It can't just be me seeing what's truly going on...no..i won't accept that. Not this far in anyways...

Mal blinked at him in confusion and followed even though she assumed he was trying to leave her behind. "Whoa, dude, who said I wanted to stay? It's freaky here... I was just kidding around. Lessens the blow and all that. Look, I can try and help you out, yeah? Help each other fix this... whatever this is." She didn't want to be left alone quite honestly. So even if Ben told her to beat it she would rather stay and be a bother to him. What high expectations she had of herself! With a sigh she ran her hands over her face. "Well obviously our focus is gonna have to be on the newspaper company, right?" At least it was a start..

Ben released a sigh, glancing over to the returning woman then back over to the building just in time to yank the front, glass made, door open, "Yes" he replied, stepping in to the building, his eyes dancing around the lobby, "This is where that article was created whether they say so or not. Something here peaked through into whatever thing we're in.....so..if we're thinking that this is like a computer then if whatever that was, was a virus then it should have left behind a signature. A ghost of what it was if you will..trick is..finding it without alerting the security system". Forcing a comedic smile onto his face as he glanced back at Mal, Ben then turned and jogged up the glass stairs that stood parallel to the front desk, which was oddly empty.

Mal huffed in exasperation. Technology was not her forte... so it looked as if Ben would be doing most of the thinking for this one. But wasn't that what usually happened? The more 'adventures' Mal was pushed into the more useless she felt. The only good she was was during the day Ash fell over London. A single example out of dozens of events. How annoying.

She couldn't say anything in response and rubbed the back of her neck, eye brows raising as Ben smiled at her. He was suddenly running up the steps so she bounded after the man. "Do you have any idea what this 'ghost' will look like? What if that newspaper was the ghost? I mean, we did trace it to here." She really hoped she wasn't making herself sound dumb.

Ben stopped, pausing in the middle of the stairs, his mind lighting up with the the image of the ghost of whatever this was, being the building they were in. Spinning around, "You're a genius!" Ben proclaimed, dashing and jumping down the staircase and straight back down to the front desk. Peering over the front desk, Ben jet behind the front desk, immediately beginning to scavenge through the papers that were piled together and around the desk in front of him. Then. His eyes caught sight of a document, for some reason, it grabbed his attention almost immediately. Picking it up, he looked over the article entitled, Two intruders found in Daily News station, dead of unknown circumstances followed by a picture of Ben and Mal laying on the floor dead next to one another.

Looking over to Mal, Ben gulped, "Yeah..i think you were right about this being the ghost.." he stuttered, showing Mal the paper.

"I am?" Mal asked with a surprised blink as Ben praised her. She shook her head and huffed when he started running back to where they came but followed at a slower pace so she could avoid falling down the stairs. Oh, wait, she was right. Yay! It was always a good but rare feeling to be right. Right then she felt very clever until she actually got a decent look at the paper Ben was holding up in her face. No.. what was that? Mal instantly reached out and snatched the paper from his hands so she could take a closer look. Her eyes were popping from her head and she began to gape. "N-no.. but.. how?" Oh, maybe it wasn't the greatest being right...