ED NOTE: This is an unfinished work that is not much more then a proof of concept. It may or may not be worked on and completed within any given time period.
This story is part of The IHA Project. For more information about The IHA Project please PM the author. If you ask nicely they might respond. And read the other stories that I have published. Infomation about IHA and The IHA Project is scattered across all the stories I have published, so read the editors notes on them all.
The Police Box materialized behind the apartment, dead-on its threaded location. Rose looked out the viewport. It was dark. Local time was 3:26 in the morning. And it showed. On a Thursday night the clubs were all shut, and the bars had cleaned out a long time ago. The City was finally asleep, for an hour or two.
"Time to get moving", Rose thought.
The Doctor was standing at the centre console, overseeing the readouts. According to the panels this was the right place. Dimension G4XTW8, system 1, Milky Way, Planet: Earth. Rose mentally sighed. She missed the otherworldly adventures she'd had with the Doctor. Travelling to unknown planets in far off worlds. Unfamiliar places. Exciting places. No handler requesting status reports or delivering orders. Just her, The Doctor, and anyone they found wherever they arrived. Still, this wasn't too bad. A big, fat, dirty American City. Struggling to prevent its' own population destroying themselves. Very loose sense of reality as well; you could preform a lot of OUA here before destabilizing anything. Good place to hide out from the IAA then. Rose walked out into the biting night air, thankful for her IAA issue field jacket. The alley was cold and bleak surrounded by walls of grey concrete slowly going black from the rain. No colour anywhere.
"Bit a Graffiti would do these walls some good" remarked The Doctor. Rose turned around as he walked out of the TARDIS.
"Mmm", she agreed, "lacks a bit of character".
"Well, it is concrete", he replied, "not the most expressive material in the world but you can't fault it for being reliable and readily available".
"True", said Rose, "Where's the Arbiter?" she queried.
"He's coming" The Doctor answered, "He's just localizing".
The "He" in question had the hard, chiselled features of a well built Chinese man. He was quite tall compared to the average Chinese man, 6ft 3", and despite the biting cold he wore only a plain black business suit. If anyone asked he would give his name as Mr Wu. To be honest he didn't mind the outfit. Rose said it "suited his localization". Strange sense of humour the English. Nice enough country though; slightly boring sometimes, and damp and cold most times, but very green in colour. Not at all like India. Nice place that. Walking through one of the many corridors the TARDIS had inside, he wondered why the designer had chosen to put so many in. Surely it wouldn't have been too hard to have a bit more variety. Maybe put in a staircase or an elevator, or even just different doors. Maybe the designer had a fascination with near-death experiences? He would have to ask about that sometime. He stepped out though a set of blue doors into the groping blackness and out of an alleyway into a dimly lit street.
The Arbiter briskly walked into the light without a sound to indicate his arrival. Rose and The Doctor were waiting for him underneath one of the few streetlights along this dark avenue. The area didn't look like one of the city's prouder areas. There were a couple of small stores squished in between the medium density housing apartments that covered the broken ground. The sound of an engine starting came from another dark alley across the street. A large white SUV lumbered out and headed in the groups direction. It pulled up on the other side of the street. The drivers side door opened and a small bag was dropped on the pavement, it's clinking reverberating across to the other side. The SUV moved off with a lurch and disappeared around the corner. The Doctor ran across the road leaving Rose and The Arbiter on the other side. He reached into his coat and took out his sonic screwdriver. He reached the dropped bag, about the size of a housebrick, and poured the contents out onto the sidewalk. The tiny internal parts of a watch fell out. He activated the sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the parts, the tiny pieces assembling themselves in front of him. Seconds later the delicate ticking sound of a watch met The Doctor's ears. Task completed, he ran back across the street and stood under the streetlight with Rose and The Arbiter.
The driver of the SUV rounded yet another corner on the curcit he was following. He turned onto the avenue he had dropped the first test on, noteing the group of three where still standing under the streetlight.
"Deh still be a-standin' deh" he announced to his passenger in his heavy Jamaican accent.
The white SVU stopped where it dropped the bag of watch parts beforehand. The passenger door opened and a tall man stepped out. Hidden from view by the SUV he picked up the watch while the driver kept his gaze fixed on the trio under the streetlight, his index finger resting on the trigger of a suppressed MP5K.
Writing this now. Will update within 5 days
Rose flashed him her IAA badge.
"Rose name. Level 4 IHA member."
The Arbiter did the same.
"Arbiter #33, Level 2 IHA member."
Followed by The Doctor.
"Doctor. Just, 'The Doctor'. Well, 'The Doctor" #10. Level 1 IHA member."
The man in the passenger seat checked his IAA issue Smartphone-like device.
"That matches deh data I 'ave 'ere."
He flashed them a badge of his own.
"Jacob Hughes, Level 4 IHA member."
Hello from the Author. This is a notification stating that (due to much confusion) no further works set in the IHAverse shall be worked on until the pilot story, MI6ED, is published. Until then I shall bring Training For Two up to three chapters and then suspend work on all of my current stories. In case you couldn't figure it out all of them dumped you into a world that only I know about. I published them as a publicity stunt but ran into personal problems along the way. Now that these problems are starting to be sorted out I can get back to writing for the IHAverse. To tell you the truth I need to take some time off as honestly, I really had very little idea of what I was writing. I've only just now (23/11/10) got a clear idea of how everything fits together.
Read the other stories I have published, they contain more information on IHA and The IHA Project.