San Francisco's secret

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, the BBC does. All I own are my own characters and my own plot (except for the part of the plot that's inspired by San Andreas… I don't own that movie either.)

Chapter 1
Prologue

Hoover Dam, Nevada, USA
Year, 2578

Professor Utah stood leaning against the stone railing, a computer screen propped up on the stone in front of him. In his ear, an earpiece was attached and he could hear every report that his dear friend and colleague told him. Seconds after his colleague's latest report, the same readings would come to his screen so that he could double check it before uploading it onto the nano-stick.

He had devoted his life into this work and he felt quite excited about finally having a lead to something that might just be an answer to their questions and theories. His colleague, Erik, was inside the Hoover Dam's lower tubes, being able to pick up readings of the small earthquakes that were going on underneath them. They were tiny and no one could feel them underneath their feet, but they might mean something and if they did, all future catastrophes caused by earthquakes might be able to be stopped. They were both semiologists, working with exactly this, earthquakes. It had been Erik who had ran into the Professor's study with the readings of tiny quakes happening near Hoover dam and had it not been for him, neither of them would've managed to get there in time. The readings showed that it was only going to be a small earthquake, nothing that would need an evacuation or anything like that. Though, the readings could help them create a new machine that could prevent earthquakes from creating massive destruction. A lot of people thought it was against the law of nature, though their idea was not to prevent earthquakes from happening. Their idea was to make the very surface unaffected by these earthquakes, at least as unaffected as they could make it.

Erik was a bright young man and the Professor had no doubt about the fact that Erik would, one day, be able to take over the work of the Professor completely, maybe even enhancing it. They had been close all their lives, to creating a machine that could save thousands of cities from mass destruction, and had it not been for the two of them, the theory of tiny earthquakes being the first sign of a big earthquake with a major magnitude wouldn't have every come to use in a machine that could prevent it so early, that entire cities could be evacuated before the major earthquake hit them. Their creation had saved so many lives that one would think that they were satisfied. However, evacuation took a lot of time and effort. To make the surface completely safe to live on would save more energy and more lives as not all the people always managed to get out in time.

"Is this going to escalate into a big one, Erik?" asked the Professor through the ear piece, watching some tourists far away from him taking a picture of the Hoover Dam, accidentally causing him to be in the picture as well.

"I highly doubt it," replied Erik through the ear piece. "These readings are too small for that. Though, we can use it for our machine."

"Good," said the Professor, nodding his head once.

He straightened his back, looking around at the people around him. There were families, couples and groups of friends scattered all over the place, either taking pictures of the dam or simply walking across it. He himself found the dam rather impressive as well. On one side, there was water almost reaching up to the side of the stone railing while the other side of the dam was completely dry. Two mountain walls existed there, having once kept the water at bay. Now, a couple miles away from the mountain walls, a city was located. It was newly built and there were almost only skyscrapers higher than the third empire state building. The view amazed him and therefore, his eyes were not on the screen of his computer where the readings were spiking drastically and illogically now.

"Professor?" said Erik through the earpiece, causing the professor to hum an answer, his mind on the view in front of him. "The readings… They're… They're spiking."

Immediately, the professor's eyes went down to the screen in front of him, seeing the readings of the quakes going up to three… four… five…

The stone railing that the professor had propped his screen up on started to shake, making the professor grab his screen, his eyes wide with shock. This was illogical. It was near to impossible for an earthquake to grow so big so fast. Most of the time, the machines they used to keep an eye on the blocks of the Earth in order to make sure that there wouldn't be a large catastrophe, were hours too early with sending out signal. Now, they hadn't even noticed that this was going to escalate.

"Erik, get out of there!" called the professor as the ground beneath his feet suddenly lurched, causing everyone to fall over.

There was a loud noise in a low frequency that resonated of the mountain walls, the ground suddenly calming down. The Professor stood up again, watching his screen as the earthquake they had just felt moved. It was an odd quake as this had been just a simple lurch and nothing more. It made him wonder what these quakes really were. However, he soon realized that the quake had done more damage than he had originally thought. Most of the pieces of the bridge that they were all standing on was cracked in several places and some people had gotten hurt in the fall. A group of friends were screaming for help as they leaned over the railing, reaching out for one of their friends who had fallen over the edge, hanging loosely from the railing and risking a deadly fall to the ground beneath him.

The professor, still shocked about the quake, looked behind him at the water to where several tourist groups were pointing. He saw the water was unruly, throwing itself against the side of the dam fiercely. The low pitched sound stopped and for a moment, everything was dead silent. Earlier, the professor had heard birds sing but now, even they had stopped. A small beeping was heard from the screen he held in his hands and he looked at it, eyes widening when he suddenly saw the readings of another earthquake at the exact same spot that the Hoover Dam was on. His eyes widened and he started screaming for the others to move away from the dam, knowing full and well that the dam might just not survive another quake as big as the last one.

When the ground lurched again, the professor and the others started running away from the dam, fighting their way towards the solid ground. Cracking was heard behind the professor and as he reached solid ground, he turned around, seeing the water become more and more wild with every second that went by. The dam itself started cracking, the ground on which some people were still running was slowly moving and giving way to the strong water.

The professor had a moment of pride as he realized that everyone was safe away from the dam itself, the ground still shaking furiously underneath their legs. Though that feeling was soon gone as he saw Erik running towards him, jumping over cracks in the ground that were too large for him to walk over. In his hands, he held the equipment that he had used inside the dam structure itself and his eyes were wide with fear as water splashed onto him, the stone railing already being drenched by the water.

"Run, Erik!" called the professor as he watched the ground behind Erik crack and disappear.

It wasn't until the ground stopped shaking that the dam itself stopped getting destroyed, however it was not over yet. Erik had launched himself over a large crack in the stone ground that he was running on, being quite close to the professor and solid ground. However, as the ground stopped moving, the dam had cracked one last time, causing the ground beneath him to shift. A small metal pole had popped out of the dam, it being part of what made the dam strong enough to withstand the water. Though, this was not something Erik had thought of and he had landed right were the pole had appeared from the ground.

People screamed and the professor froze as he saw Erik hoover in the air, his eyes still wide though his body not moving. Blood seeped out of his mouth, his gaze locked on the ground which he had wanted to land on. Although he wanted to, the professor couldn't move towards his colleague. He had been impaled and he knew that there was nothing else for him to do, which pained him greatly. However, the equipment that Erik still had in his hands could help them stop anything like this from ever happening again. He let the screen in his hands fall to the ground, not caring that it cracked into a million pieces. His eyes and mind were set on the equipment of the young boy not too far away from him.

Had the screen not cracked as it did, the professor might had seen the readings of an after quake coming in, though he didn't see this. And therefore, he started running towards Erik's dead body. It wasn't long until he regretted this decision. Not just because he found it stupid that he was running for equipment and not for Erik, but also because he could feel the after quake now, not to mention the fact that the ground was cracking again. He knew the dam was going to break and that he, if he kept on running, risked to be washed away with the water that came after the dam had broken. But he kept on going, knowing that that equipment and the readings on it had the potential to save millions of people not to mention that Erik had given his life for this and that he needed to at least do something to make it up to him.

As he reached Erik, he could barely look at him, grabbing the case with the equipment instead and immediately turning back around again, wasting no time by looking at the dam that was slowly falling apart. Water was already starting to gush over the edges and for a split second, the Professor looked over at the newly built city and mourned the people in there, knowing that they were in grave danger by now and that no one had time to warn them or evacuate the city. The moment the dam broke, the water would flow over the city, drowning it. Perhaps the skyscrapers that survived the pressure of the water and they might hold some survivors at the top, but there would still be thousands of people that were going to drown.

He jumped up to solid ground, the dam giving way to the water only a split second before he managed to get to safety again. He turned around, seeing Erik's body wash away with the water and all the structure of the dam. His eyes followed the water as it washed over the city like a tsunami. Never had the professor's job as a semiologist caused him this much pain. Throughout his life, he had predicted many quakes as big as this one and he had even taught many people to do exactly what he did. The fact that those people down there were now dead because of him and not being able to save them caused his heart to fall down to his stomach. Not only had he lost Erik, he had also lost all faith in his work.

San Fransisco, California, USA
Year, 2578, two hours after first earthquake

The TARDIS landed in an alley of the city, the ship having drawn no attention to her whatsoever as no one had been around to see her. The doors creaked open, revealing a man and a woman. The man wore a striped suit, a leather coat and converse on his feet. Although it normally shouldn't have fit together, on this man it suited him quite well. The woman next to him was young and quite beautiful. She had short, blonde hair, thick eyelashes thanks to mascara, and ordinary clothes on; a pair of jeans, an orange shirt and a jeans jacket covering her shirt. She had a wide smile plastered on her lips as she grabbed the Man's arm, walking away from the TARDIS with him.

"New York! I've always wanted to go here," said the woman, her name being Rose. "Thought it looked a bit more… stylish than this though."

"Oh! This is just an alley, Wait until you see the streets! Oh, we need to go to Harlem. Have a friend there that…" said the Doctor, the man whom Rose was with. He trailed off at the end of this sentence as they both exited the side alley they had landed in, his smile going away and a confused look replacing it instead. "Hold on…"

"Why is everything so… modern?" asked Rose as she watched the people walk by.

They wore strange clothes that didn't seem to be what Rose had seen in the magazines that she read during her spare time. In fact, none of it looked like anything she'd ever seen in the magazines. The buildings looked different and the cars… they looked different. They barely made a noise as they swished past them and they didn't have any wheels either. They seemed to be floating in mid-air.

"This isn't even New York!" said the Doctor, earning a look from one of the passing by people who overheard what he had said.

Letting go of Rose's arm, the Doctor started to walk towards one of the many shops which existed at the bottom of each skyscraper. He looked inside of a window, pressing his face against the glass in order to see and seeing the shop was for buying the latest Weyland-screens, which resembled an old fashioned television though it being much more advanced. It was a simple square with which you could watch shows or do homework. Although it was see-through square screens and quite small, you could make them bigger simply by pressing a few keys, the biggest setting being the size of a seven meter high, square wall. On one of the screens, he saw the news being broadcasted and he quickly grabbed Rose, dragging her inside.

He walked over to the screen with the news broadcasted on it and stared at it, shocked to find himself in the 26th century.

"Latest news have just been reported. The city of Hoover was just hit by the Colorado River after a 7.1 earthquake. The after shakes of the quake have been reported were the reason of the Hoover dam cracking and-"

"Impossible," said the Doctor, causing Rose to look between him and the screen in front of them.

"Doctor?" she asked.

"We're in the 26th century!" he exclaimed. "And in San Francisco if I'm not mistaken."

He turned towards Rose, looking her in the eyes. "What happened? I thought we were going to New York… in the 21st century."

"We were. But the TARDIS must have sensed this," he said, pointing back at the screen with the news still being broadcasted.

A picture of the Colorado River running through a city, skyscrapers falling down and debris following with the water, was seen and Rose raised her eyebrows.

"That's never supposed to happen," said the Doctor. "Something's wrong."

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