Rose stepped out of the Tardis into a dark London. She recognised the familiar English streets. Obviously the type of housing wouldn't change in the next hundred odd years. She looked all around and there were street lamps on and in the distance she could see four kids playing with a football in the street. She looked up at the sky, or what she believed to be the sky. It was completely black no stars no moon nothing just blackness greeted her eyes. She looked down the urban road and saw many of the houses looked very un-repaired and that it almost looked as though no one was living in them. She looked at some of the lampposts and saw that a few weren't lampposts. Some had screens suspended from them. There were these screens every hundred meters or so.
She heard the Doctor walk up behind her.
"How come there's no stars? Too much pollution by now?" she asked feeling quite intelligent about the questions.
"No…" The Doctor replied his mind obviously lost in his own thoughts. "That's not the sky up there."
"What?" she asked shocked, not possible understanding what the Doctor could mean.
"That's a ceiling or a floor depending on which side you're on. That's the floor of a Metropolis, a city on top of a city." He said staring up at the sky/ceiling very confused by the whole thing.
"A floating city?" Rose asked struggling to handle the idea.
"Uh huh" The Doctor said continuing to stare open mouthed at the ceiling. "Thing is, these types of cities shouldn't be around for another five hundred years according to my reckoning" He said as he looked around at the ground around him. He then looked at the screens suspended from the ground a frown making it's way onto his face.
"Another Mystery?" Rose asked smiling; she liked the thought of yet another adventure with the Doctor.
He looked at her in the eyes. "Looks that way" he replied grinning.
"Let's meet the locals then." He said walking of down the street his hands in his pockets. He marched down the street and Rose rushed after him.
He strode down towards the kids were all sat in the gutter one of them had a football under his arm. They all wore clothes that looked as though they'd seen better days.
"Kids?" Rose asked.
"Tend to tell you the truth, they've got less to hide." The Doctor replied aside to her as the approached the kids.
As they got closer the smallest member of the group noticed them approaching and they all stopped their conversation.
"Hello" The Doctor said cheerily, in the way that only he could.
The kids seemed to be frozen and didn't really speak in response, one made a sort of greeting noise to him.
"Just playing some football eh?" he asked crouching down to their level.
One of the kids nodded. The others sort of scuffed their feet in the dirt and look any where but at the Doctor.
"What's your name?" The Doctor asked the youngest looking member of the group who had been the only one to give some sort of response so far.
"Billy" he responded
"Billy" One of the kids gasped, "you know we ain't supposed to talk to them" He looked like the oldest and probably the leader out of them.
"What do you mean us?" Rose asked joining in the conversation
"You" The kid replied again pointing up to the ceiling.
"Oh" Rose gasped.
"Why not?" The Doctor asked his usual grin dying to his serious face.
"We aren't suppose to, the last men we spoke to hurt us." Billy continued.
"The Inspectors" Another kid added to the conversation obviously taken along by the Doctors friendly tone.
"Why did they hurt you?" Rose asked.
"They don't like us speaking to them, they saw we're scum we're not supposed to speak to them, we're not chosen." Billy explained.
"Chosen?" The Doctor asked.
"Yeah the ones who live up there." The leader said him to being drawn into the Doctors friendly tone.
The Doctor looked over his shoulder at Rose.
They suddenly heard a shout from the end of the street. Rose and the Doctor and the four kids all looked down to see two men and a woman run past being chased by three what looked to Rose like Police officers she presumed they were the Inspectors that the kids had referred to.
"There's something defiantly not right here." The Doctor said watching the people disappear down an alley.