Title: The Age of Ice
Characters: Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler
Basic summary: Ice sculptures are turning up from nowhere, looking suspiciously lifelike. The source of the problem: 14,000 years in the past. It's up to the Doctor and Rose to embark on this icy adventure, figure out the mystery, and save the day. NineRose.
Long summary: Something suspicious is happening in the UK of 2010. Strange ice sculptures are turning up from nowhere and they look suspiciously lifelike. The Doctor traces the source of the problem: 14,000 years in the past. It is Britain's last known ice-age, where its inhabitants still sew clothes out of deer hide. With Rose in tow, he sets about to find out just what's going on. What is the Strange Mist? Why is the weather unnaturally warm? Who is that keeps sending messages to his psychic paper that the TARDIS can't translate? If they don't find out soon, it could spell extinction for the human race...
Genre: Action/Adventure, Sci-fi, Mystery
Rating: K+ (for language, possible suggestive themes, and general concept)
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not mine at all. Aside from the totally bull science fiction, but I don't really want to take responsibility for that.
Author's Note: I got inspired to write this (shockingly) after being atop Snowdon. I do intend general shippyness between the Doctor and Rose, but it's not the main basis of this story (for once). I felt like an adventure whilst I wrote the horribly in-depth character study series! Also, this is un-betad. So please excuse any typos.
-I-
The Age of Ice - Prologue
Doctor Stephanie Mikane sighed and put down her clipboard. Every test showed the same result. They had been doing work on these sculptures for months now and – since the first revelation that yes, they were pure ice, yes, they never melted, and yes, they were over 10,000 years old – nothing new had been discovered. Every scan they ran pulled up the same results no matter what they tried. It was a mystery beyond any hypothesis they could come up with.
When Doctor Mikane had done her PhD in the Study of Natural Phenomena, she never even dreamed of anything like this.
With a frown set into her youthful features, she looked up at the sculpture. It had been found on a beach just off the coast of Scotland and had given a number of the tourists a shock. When this had first started to happen, people had been flabbergasted, even scared, but now it was almost like it was part of their every day lives.
Humans, Stephanie mused with a wry smile; how quickly they adapt.
This ice sculpture was a perfect replica, in every way, of a Greenland shark. The tiniest detail had been chiselled in so that there was no mistaking it. It was true to size, weight, history. Even its eyes seemed to hold expression.
There were many other sculptures now; so many that the research labs couldn't cope with the sheer number of them. As a result, a museum had been set up in London, where all the sculptures were stored. It was accessible to the public for a small fee, which in turn funded the research to try and find out the secret behind this strange mystery. It was, originally, a way of keeping track of the sculptures by keeping them all in one place; the fact it was open to the general public was simply to keep suspicions at bay.
Course, they had been fed some cock-and-bull story about a new form of ice that wouldn't melt, and a hidden sculptor who lived in the North. He was said to carve these creation, then export them to sea for the publicity. Stephanie didn't believe a word of it; but then, she was part of the research team, so she knew the real reason behind it.
Her colleagues, for the moment, were on their lunch break, but she had wanted to just finish things up here.
She let out a breath and got up from her desk. Pacing around the creature she took it all in. There wasn't a single imperfection. Not one. Which only fuelled her own suspicions: that this shark, once upon a time, had been living and breathing. The fact that it was purely made of ice and proved to be thousands of years old argued against her point. But this species of shark had not been evolved for thousands of years, either. It was a mystery shrouded in an enigma and wrapped in a secret.
Doctor Mikane slowed in her pacing as the noticed, for the first time, something peculiar on the sculpture. Frowning with confusion, she stepped up to the pedestal the icy glass was resting on. Through eyes that were due another appointment at the optician's she peered at the ice. There was no doubt about it – there was a crack woven into its side.
It was deep and prominent and, as Stephanie listened, she heard a chilling trickle as the crack grew before her eyes.
She stepped backwards in startled shock and reached for her radio. They couldn't lose this specimen: it was impossible to know when they would be allowed another.
"Problem in Research Lab," she spoke urgently into the black transmitter. "This is Doctor Stephanie Mikane, I request urgent backup."
No answer came.
She watched in horror as the cracks spread all the way over the sculpture. Then, at once, it fell to hundreds of thousands of pieces which scattered all over the floor. Stephanie let out an anguished cry of dismay. She stared in silent shock at the months' worth of work, now shattered over the floor. Then she noticed something and frowned. A strange mist was rising above the particles, like hazy blue steam. It thickened, convalescing not three feet away from her. She stared, gobsmacked.
A strange sort of hissing noise seemed to emanate off it and she began to reach reach for her radio again; but it made no difference. The next thing she knew, the mist was rushing towards her and everything was cold and dark.