"Come on Graham, roll up your trousers and give it a go." The Doctor beckoned Graham over to the edge of the water.
"I am not getting out of my boots for a dip in that." Graham held his hands to his mouth and attempted to warm them up.
"Your loss Graham." The Doctor took a few steps into the sea. "Very unique these Earth Oceans. Once you remove the plastic and other waste you're left with quite an unusual sodium chloride solution rarely found elsewhere in the universe." She kicked at the seafoam around her.
"If I want salt I'll go for chips and if I want hypothermia I'd prefer it wasn't on Brighton beach at 5.30 in the morning - if you want me Doc I'll be at that café we spotted on the way down." Graham looked at The Doctor but she wasn't listening. She had stepped further into the sea and was reeling at the waves which had lapped upon the bottom of her trousers. Graham was used to her distraction and steadily clambered off towards the promise of a hot cup of tea and a bacon sandwich.
Graham sat clutching his steaming foam cup and listened to the weather report over the café's radio. He checked his phone to see where Ryan and Yaz were. If he had to be awake at this ungodly hour he wasn't going to let them get off lightly. Back when he was a bus driver it wouldn't have been a problem. As a young man, heading off to work doing something he loved was motivation enough - the burned-out remnants of Brighton Pier at this time of life were not as alluring. Graham looked up from his phone and nodded a thank-you to the waitress who had silently placed a bacon sandwich down in front of him. The waitress took her place behind the counter, looked Graham in the eyes and did not react. Instead, she began shifting a pile of napkins from one side of the counter to the other, from left to right.
Perhaps he was losing his charm he thought. He grabbed the plate and eagerly pulled it forward. Graham lifted the sandwich to his mouth and as he went to take a bite his phone vibrated. He chucked the bacon sandwich back onto the plate and checked the message.
How's the sandwich gramps? - The message was from Ryan.
Haven't tried it yet - when are you and Yaz getting down here? Graham replied. He put his phone back down on the table and caught a glance of the waitress who was now shifting a pile of napkins from one side of the counter to the other, from the right to the left.
"Are you alright there?" he asked. The waitress didn't reply. She had been pleasant enough when he placed his order. Graham stepped up to the counter. " 'ave I said something or is something not right?" She stopped moving the napkins and looked Graham in the eyes. Her pupils had shrunk and the blood vessels surrounding the blue of her iris had flooded. She flicked her eyes furiously from side to side. Her head twitched and muffled sounds tried to escape her mouth. "It's okay love, it's okay, I'll get some help. I know some first aid too." Graham stepped back and grabbed his phone from the table. The muffled cries from the waitress grew louder and without warning she jerked forward over the counter. Graham rushed to the waitress and continued to dial The Doctor. "Alright now I'm just trying to get some help. Let's get you in the recovery position." He attempted to help the young girl back into an upright position but as he lifted her back he noticed the ferocious movement of her eyes had caused them to fill with blood. Her hand gripped his shoulder tightly and she opened her mouth. The strong stench of raw pork emerged. Graham tried to retreat but the waitress's grip grew stronger. "I'm not being funny but I'm just trying to help." Her mouth opened wider and her jaw cracked as it dislocated. From the reddish depths of her throat, a cluster of shapes wriggled and crawled upwards, over her tongue and lips.
Graham struggled the best he could against her grip pushing his weight against hers. Realising that they were equally matched he looked across the counter. "I'm sorry about this." He grabbed a small tomato shaped bottle and squirted ketchup into her eyes. The red liquid did nothing to dissuade her grip. "Perhaps I should have tried brown." said Graham. The wriggling fleshy things started emerging from her mouth and began falling onto the counter. The worms writhed and slithered up the sleeves of Graham's leather jacket. "Okay, this is officially gross. I hope you've visited your GP about this." he quipped.
"Well it's murder trying to get an appointment..." said a familiar voice from behind Graham. "But I'm up for house calls." The Doctor's hand gripped Graham's shoulder and pulled him from the waitress's grip. Graham swung around and tossed his jacket to the floor. He brushed his hands across his body, sweeping the crawling worms onto the floor. The Doctor swung her sonic towards the radio and ordered Graham to cover his ears. The radio presenter's voice grew in volume, the sound of their voice began to resonate through the cutlery and surfaces of the café vibrating them. There was a short silence in the broadcast and, breaking the silence, the opening bars of ELO's Mr Blue Sky stomped the airwaves. The café began to dance with the music and the worms crawling back towards the waitress suddenly shook from side to side in apparent confusion. Graham rushed to the door and pushed it open with his elbow. He attempted to call out for The Doctor but she had leaned over the counter to look at the waitress who was twitching quite rhythmically. The Doctor picked up a few napkins and wiped the ketchup from her face and said something Graham couldn't make out.
The Doctor looked down at the worms on the floor and stepped around them towards the door, twisted the small sign in the door from Open to Closed and slammed it shut behind them, The Doctor aimed her sonic at the lock and gripped Graham's forearm. She pulled him to the other side of the road, the pair still facing the café the condensation in the windows obscured their view of its interior. The Doctor mouthed something at Graham and took his hands from his ears. "I said you can put those down now." The wind blew her hair across her face, she swept it aside. "What happened in there?"
Graham recounted the fairly normal encounter with the waitress and her repetitive napkin sorting. "...and I didn't even get to eat my bacon sarnie. Although, I'm sure their hygiene rating is gonna take a beating after this." The Doctor leant across Graham's shoulder and pulled a worm from his back.
"Now let's see…" she said, holding it firmly between to fingers. "...where are you from little fellow?" As she finished asking her question the worm curled itself into a tight spiral and dehydrated before their eyes. Its flesh blew away in the breeze revealing a spinal structure like that of an eel. "So we don't do well on our own. I know that feeling." She held her sonic to the creatures remains and nodded her head as if agreeing with somebody. "Right Graham."
"Right Doc'." Graham said.
"I think we know what we have to do don't we?" said The Doctor crossing the road towards a side alley beside the café. She opened the lid of a bin and beckoned Graham over. Reluctantly, Graham crossed the road and looked into the bin. Inside he saw an unusual sight. There were clusters of the alien worms crawling between the plastics and cardboard which had discard by the café. The Doctor lifted an empty box and examined it. There were holes through the material which made it resemble a piece of cartoon cheese. She dropped it back into the bin and closed the lid.
"They eat cardboard and plastic and yet they slipped their way inside that poor girl in there...to do what? Eat her? To stop you eating a sarnie? And it wasn't like they stopped her making you a cup of tea is it? So either they were already inside her dormant or they didn't get inside her until the bacon sandwich came into the equation…" She looked deep into her companion's eyes. "I think it's a good thing you didn't eat that sandwich, Graham." The Doctor eyed up the side entrance to the café and gave the door a swift kick. It swung open. "Well I'm only getting answers in there and you're only getting cold out here without your jacket. Come on." She stepped into the fluorescent lighting of the restaurant's kitchen and Graham hesitantly followed.
The kitchen was relatively clean. The metal work surfaces had clearly been wiped recently, the grill was still warm and the sink had a few pieces of cutlery in and nothing else. "They haven't been open long Doc. There's a chiller back here we should check it out." The pair stood to the left of the chiller door and tossed it open. A thick smell of rotten meat poured out and a gaseous red cloud swelled around the foot of the door. The Doctor fumbled her hand inside the door frame. The light flicked on. "It's on the outside." said Graham with a smug grin and his hand on the switch.
The blue light of the bulb cast a cool hue across the red clouded floor of the chiller. The Doctor stepped inside and covered her mouth. She pushed Graham back slightly as if to keep him outside. She swung an arm through the cloud to reveal piles of worms writhing around her feet. She pushed aside a box and dropped her hand from her mouth. Below the cardboard lay a creature which resembled a dollop of seeded jam. About a foot across, the gelatinous body was transparent and littered with what Graham could only describe as 'bacterial-organs' which looked like the colourful illustrations of a cell's interior he could recall from a school textbook. "Oh no no no." said The Doctor scanning the creature. "You poor things." She stood and carefully stepped out of the chiller.
"Now you tell me what that is." said Graham.
"You mean what they are...were. That Graham was a Gjilixian Orb." The Doctor closed the chiller door and leant on it. "Think like a jellyfish but instead of floating through the ocean they float through hyperspace. Each Orb is like a colony, filled with creatures which support each other and nurture each other to thrive. This one here must have tried to jump, failed and ended up somehow, in this café." The Doctor examined the bacon beside the grill. "Those worm things must have been part of the Orb, they probably tried to seek somewhere else to live and in doing so found the meat in the chiller."
"Wouldn't she have questioned that cloud of red smog and the blob in the chiller when she came in this morning?" asked The Doctor's companion.
"She probably didn't even put the light on to get the bacon out, and I reckon that gas is a sort of nutrient-rich-protein-fog, a failsafe to keep the organisms which originally formed the orb sustained for a period in case something like this were to happen. Maybe the temperature in the chiller slowed down its release. You see in hyperspace the rules are different and they'd…"
"Wait, hang on a second and back a moment, you think the waitress had a cheeky bit of my bacon and…" said Graham.
"Yep. Those worms are just looking for a new colony and they seem to think she might be it."
"Well Doc, maybe you'd like to ask them to vacate the premises because I think they want to try and occupy us next." Graham said rushing to The Doctor's side. Through the door leading to the counter, the waitress staggered, worms pouring from her mouth. Her rigid frame reached out and lurched towards The Doctor and her companion. "And now you tell me your plan to get us out of this."
"Yes, I'm thinking." The Doctor said. She stepped in front of Graham. "I've noticed the radio has stopped, not fans of ELO?" smiled The Doctor. The girl continued to blunder forwards. "Okay that girl you're inside, she isn't a home for you, she hasn't agreed to this, you're putting her through pain. You have a chance to leave right now and I will help you find somewhere." The girl continued towards The Doctor.
"They ain't listening Doc', time for plan B."
"Okay I tried the nice way and I gave you a chance and maybe you just don't understand me so..." Her eyes glanced around the kitchen. "Graham get me the..." The waitresses' hands gripped The Doctor's throat as worms began to slip and slide along her arms. The Doctor pointed over and behind Graham's shoulder to a large tub whilst trying to loosen the girl's grip from her neck.
"Really." He grabbed the tub and twisted off the plastic cap; the strong scent of black pepper filled his nostrils and he held back a sneeze. He bumbled behind the waitress and poured the contents over her head. As she inhaled the scent filled her nostrils causing her to sneeze.
At first, she sneezed with the same force one would upon spilling a small pot of pepper, it was small and inconsequential but unaccustomed to the involuntary reaction which was occurring in their unwilling host the worms began to panic. The second sneeze propelled worms from her nose. A third forced her arms to grip at her chest. With no comprehension of how to respond the worms began to escape through their host's nostrils and mouth spewing forth onto the ground. The Doctor sneezed, swiftly opened the door to the chiller and allowed the floor to fill with red fog.
"I knew they didn't sneeze in Hyperspace." said The Doctor rubbing her throat.
"...and we're just gonna give them a lift to home." said Ryan examining the stainless steel pan which The Doctor had filled with worms and a portion of the red gas.
"Not a lift. Can't go there ourselves. We'll just drop them off at a point where the veil between our spaces is thin enough they can jump." The Doctor flicked a switch on the TARDIS console.
"The waitress will be fine tho'." said Yaz. Graham looked up from the worm-pan.
"Apparently last time she went to hospital she had suspected glaucoma. These little fellas sorted that out for her."
"Oh that's good then." said Ryan.
"Well she did have worms pouring out of her face and total loss of control of her bodily functions but yes Ryan, all good." Graham smirked.
"Okay we're here." said The Doctor. "Just open the door, lift the lid and they should be able to jump. Hopefully they can find themselves a home out there."
Ryan carried the pan towards the TARDIS door and lifted the lid. Outside was a sheer wall of purple light pulsating with blue shards of spatial distortion (as The Doctor would later inform her crew). The worms slithered more irately, shaking the pan in Ryan's hands. Small specks of green luminescence irradiated from their plump curling bodies and one by one the worms glitched from existence.