Chapter 3
The TARDIS suddenly rocketed to one side, sending Rose flying across and banging into the rails as the Doctor gripped the control panel with all of his strength.
"Seems we may have encountered some turbulence...Not much really, just may make the journey a tad bit bumpy." The Doctor called to Rose as he wrenched down a lever. "But nothing we can't handle."
"We hope!" Rose cried back as the TARDIS began to swing round, juddering and jumping all the way, making Rose's stomach churn. "Anyway, we're only going to the BGT building, couldn't have just walked?" The Doctor gave her a cheeky grin.
"In my condition?" He whined mockingly, still smiling as he thwacked a button with a small sledgehammer. "You wouldn't want me having another sudden..." He rolled his tongue, trying to think of a good word to place in his obviously brain-boggling sentence. "Episode..."
Rose laughed, shaking her head, still clinging on to the rails as the TARDIS seemed to begin bucking. With a final groan of wood and alien material, the TARDIS came to a standstill. The Doctor remained where he was for a moment, gazing into the screen and pressing buttons with haste.
"Something up?" Rose asked, gingerly prising her fingers from the bar and making her way slowly over to him.
"You could put it that way..." The Doctor murmured slowly, flicking a blue switch and slowly turning a rather interesting instrument which Rose had somehow become familiar with. A Time-Self-Combustion-Tuner as the Doctor had quickly explained. Could alter things, such as weather and reality and such and such as he had gone on rambling.
"We changing something about Earth?" Rose said, frowning at his hand is it kept turning, emitting timed ticks. The Doctor followed her gaze.
"Oh, no, it's changeable." He said off the top of his head, not looking at her as he said it. "Good memory there. Just flip it over and it becomes a Brake-Accelerating-Fromage Frais..."
"It's braking then accelerating yoghurt?" Rose asked, dumbfounded. The Doctor paused, staring at her form over his shoulder.
"A braking accelerator of yoghurt? Rose Tyler, where did you get that from?" His face, stupefied was enough to make Rose brake down into fits of laughter. The Doctor was still looking surprised before a beeping brought him back to TARDIS.
"There's something different in the air...Not chemical...Nor physical..." He muttered, tapping keys as different symbols flashed out at him.
"What?"
"Well, you get your usual London chemicals, which may include yoghurt..." The Doctor flashed Rose a quick glance before continuing. "Then your mobile, satellite readings and basic energy. Birds and planes are physical, but it's just not reading. "
Rose raised her eyebrows.
"Stealth ship?" The Doctor shook his head.
"Physical..." He replied. "It's some kind of energy, something you lot shouldn't have yet...Nor will ever have for that matter." He rapped his knuckles on the edge of the panel. "Serranomian..."
"You what?"
"It is a Satellite reading, just more compact...Which is resulting in the Serranomian!" He suddenly cried. "Oh, you're bunch are amazing and they don't even know it!" That boyish, comical grin was spreading across his face as his fingers began to fly over the keys.
"Ah. Restart button." He suddenly said. "But restarting what?" The Doctor grabbed his coat off the side.
"Restart button...Doctor, what are you on about?" Rise blurted out, her head slightly blank by the sudden information bursts from the Doctor.
"Well, some very clever yet stupid person has created some kind of button which is able to restart something, which I do not know." He replied quickly, wiggling his eyebrows as he strode to the door, Rose in quick pursuit. "Like Alexander Flemming..."
"Isn't he the bloke who created antibiotics?" Rose asked quickly.
"Penicillin to be exact. He found that mould would eat away at bacteria which harmed the body, but didn't know what he could do with it. So another chap took over."
They had landed on a roof building. The ground was still shining with the previous rain and the wind whipping through their hair as they looked over London. Great storm clouds were brewing over Buckingham Palace with quick pace, like a giant pot they seemed to boil over and over, tucking into themselves and rolling forwards.
"This the BGT building then?" Rose asked, a tone of sarcasm tainting her voice as she continued. "I wouldn't want you to have to go to far, seeing as you're in such a terrible condition..." She grinned at the Doctor, who looked suddenly hurt.
"They way you say it sounds like you don't even care..." He said sadly, sighing and turning away, hiding his face as a grin tugged at his lips. Rose bit her lip, feeling suddenly guilty and began to say something when she was suddenly cut-off by a blood-curdling scream.
The pair whirled round, searching for the source of the noise before darting over to the side, both peering down. Both spotted the figure, plummeting down through the air like a stone in water, falling ever closer to the hard ground below.
Rose felt her heart stop. She was used to seeing death, but this was just...Different. Different to being zapped by some alien or transformed into Cybermen. This seemed more real, more close to home. Her eyes began to sting with unwanted tears, her skin a ghostly pale and she pulled her gaze away with a faint mumble.
"Oh my god..."
The Doctor was still staring down, his whole body rigid with a grim familiarity. His face looked like stone as he clenched his jaw. But, before he too turned away, his eyes suddenly narrowed. Rose spotted this, but didn't dare ask. She didn't want to know.
Now he was leaning right over the side, in danger of falling too if he wasn't careful, his mouth dropping open and his knuckles blanching white as they gripped ever harder on the brickwork. Rose could hear the shouts from below, could almost see people pointing but opened her eyes when she managed to distinguish someone's words over the cries.
"What is that?!"
Rose rushed over to again, the part of her that didn't want to see what should be at the bottom silence by the part that wanted to see what wasn't at the bottom. There was a massive crowd, all backing away as something else began to struggle, opening what looking like a pair of massive bat wings and flapping them wildly. She hadn't seen the first time, but now she could see why.
It was as grey as storm clouds, blending in with the new London pavement that had just been placed. The blue of the person's suit, which Rose could now see was a man, had stood out quite well.
Now, the grey thing began to catch wind, beginning to glide to the side, twisting a long tail to try and gain height, but looked more like it was going to crash. Which, of course, it did.
Normally, the Debenham's store manager would leave the doors open, but recently, as he wad suddenly discovered after watching a British Gas lecture, had begun to close them to try and save on the heating bill.
Strutting round, looking as proud and as full as pride as if he had just been given knighthood from the Queen for energy saving, he came to a halt, smirking at the doors as though he had just won some victorious battle over them. Then, he spotted the creature wobbling madly in flight; come straight towards these very closed doors. Instead of moving, his jaw dropping and his eyes widening, he just stood there and stared.
Thankfully, someone who had been at the till behind him, spotting something come hurling towards the doors had leapt over the cashier, muttering an apology to the woman he was serving and grabbed the jacket of the Manager's suit, yanking him back just as the glass doors caved in, sending great pieces flying everywhere. Customers screaming, ducking and covered their eyes. The Manager was speechless, his mouth still open, luckily free of glass as the winged animal rolled across the floor, snarling and growling.
Back up on the rooftop, the Doctor and Rose were making their leave via the stairs down, jumping from each small flight until coming to the service door. The Doctor turned the knob, only to find it was locked and whipped out his sonic-screwdriver, pressing it close to the key whole and pressing down sharply. There was a high-pitched hum and the door swung forward.
The secretary, who had been watching the event outside, had to look twice as the two people rushed across the room.
"Hey!" He called; waving his hands about, unsure what to do. "What are you...You shouldn't be...Get out!"
"Don't worry, we're going now anyway!" The Doctor called back over his shoulder, stopping briefly to let the automatic doors swing open before gabbing Rose's hand and pulling her out.
The crowd was growing thicker and thicker, making a journey through more difficult than running through deep mud. However, the Doctor was already pushing his physic paper into their faces, explaining himself and his fake identity, the battered wallet handing in his hand like a passport.
"Constable Jones, please move." He rushed. People immediately moved, though there were odd mutters, one of which said, "Doesn't look like a copper."
"Soon enough, you'll realise that not all coppers are in uniform and carry handcuffs." The Doctor muttered back, coming close to the front of the cluster. There was no grin on his face, seriousness the main occupation of his wild brown eyes.
Finally, Rose felt the rubbing shoulders and the enclosed space lift as she came passed the final pair. Already she could hear sirens and knew the Doctor had to be quick. Slipping his hand from hers, he darted forward, stepping through the glass and into the store. Rose followed, trying not to imagine all of the eyes that were fixed on her as she entered, trying to stay close to 'Constable Jones'.
Inside, the customers were looking terrified, pressed back against the till stand, looking in horror at the creature which was lying on its side, its chest rising slowly, its eyes closed. Shards of glass had pierced its skin, but the small flesh wounds already seemed to be healing rapidly.
The Doctor walked slowly forwards, pulling his glasses out of his pocket and placing them on his nose. He knelt slowly down, staring at all of the great stitches and lines that crossed all over its skin.
"I think we've found the experiment, Rose." He murmured. "The living, breathing experiment of BGT." He reached out a firm had and placed it on the creature's side.
It flinched, the muscles contracting, but didn't try to raise its heavy head and its eyes remained shut off to the world.
"It's like a massive life-scale puzzle." The Doctor whispered. "Impossible. It's been parted and then put back together." Rose fidgeted in the background, twisting her hands, thinking back to the moment when she had seen...
"Doctor, where's the..." She said suddenly, looking all around. The Doctor too stood, looking round, whipping off his glasses and chewing on an arm. The crowd outside began to glance around at each other.
"What?" A man stepped forward, looking annoyed mixed with worry. "Where's what?" The Doctor took a moment for thought.
"There was a man." Rose said, looking confused. "Didn't you see him?" She looked round at the Doctor, who was frozen to the spot.
"Oh come on, you must have seen him! It was him who was screaming all the way down, something pretty hard to miss if you ask me." He growled gently.
"We saw nothing!" The man spat. "If this is one of those hoaxes or jokes, you ain't seeing any of us laughing, mate! What the hell is that?" He jabbed a grubby finger at the experiment. Rose looked slightly stunned. The Doctor was looking gob smacked and appalled. He stepped away from the creature, his eyes wider then ever and his eyebrows could have been on ten-foot poles.
"Nevermind that for a minute!" He barked, waving his hand at the animal. "Are you telling me, that you did not see a man falling as well? From the very same building at the very same time as this!"
The crowd shifted, looking like sheep, muttering and looking at each other, looking at the Doctor as if he was the Dip.
"No! All we saw was that...that thing!" Piped up an elderly woman. People nodded their heads, as though taking these words as some sort of shield. Both Rose and the Doctor were gaping. Their eyes were flicking from one person to the next, trying to see some hint of give in there eyes. But there was nothing. There faces looked blank as a piece of paper.
"This isn't right. Not right at all." The Doctor muttered angrily, backing. "What's blinding them? What's stopping the signals?"
"What in God's name are you going on about? You out of the nut house or something?" The man who had spoken before snapped. "I'm calling the police."
"You do that."
"But wait a minute, ain't he the police?"
The man paused, the words like treacle through his brain.
"Constable Jones, he said. That's what he said and I don't do lying!"
Rose gave a quick look to the Doctor, who was looking slightly worried, nevertheless confused at the moment of time.
"Yes, sir. Shouldn't we...err, get back up, sir?" She said slowly.
"Back up?" The Doctor replied, narrowing his eyes at her. Then it clicked. "Oh oh, back up. Yeah, err, don't worry, they're already on their way, but do call them. I think I got through during coffee break, so, you know, they still might be um...breaking." The Doctor said, not thinking straight. He signalled to Rose. "But, we must be on our way. Come, Officer Smith."
The pair walked off the scene, ignoring the cries of the store manager, complaining about his window and customer compensation. They continued on down the street, passing sirens and cars as they sped on through. Finally, they turned down an alleyway and headed back towards BGT tower.
"Shouldn't we have stayed with that...thing?" Rose asked quietly as the Doctor walked slowly beside her, thinking hard about something. He didn't raise his eyes to hers when he was replying, as though the effort may make him loose track in his mind.
"No. The authorities would have been asking too many questions."
"We've dealt with stuff like that before. Nothing new really, if you think about it." The Doctor clenched his jaw.
"If I recall correctly, which I always do mind, the last time I intervened with the ways of human policing, I got punched." Rose suddenly snorted.
"Yeah, well...But still, what if that was..."
"Decoy."
"You what?"
The Doctor suddenly stood still.
"It was a decoy. That whole experiment was a decoy!" He cried. "The stitches were way too fine! And it all looked so, so...Not put together. Is there a word for that? I don't think there is. There should be now."
"Right...But what about everyone not seeing the guy?" Rose asked, his outburst starting to make some sense. "They genuinely couldn't see him!" The Doctor bit his lip for a moment.
"The stuff in the air..." He said, making weird movements with his hand. "That substance the TARDIS found when we came...It's doing something. It's blinding the city of London..."
Hello, welcome to 2007...If you already didn't know..
Well, this chapter is pretty long...Keep in mind on the original, its written all in font size 9 and with some other font which I can't be bothere to spell, but it begins with T the first bit and...lets not go into that.
As reminded by my sister, I haven't but on a copyright on anything, so...All Doctor Who characters Copyright to BBC 2007...Any others, such as my rather cute creature belong to me. Muhaha. Anyway, look, I know this is getting really really annoying, but please please please review! Be anomyous or whatever, please tell me what you think! My proof-reader tells me good things, along with the bad (kidding) but a great response from you guys would be fab!
TheNextTitan. (PS- I'm no n00b, thank you, I just like hearing about what people think. Ask my proof-reader, I have terrible self-esteem (is it me, or does anyone else find that when someone says that to you, you feel like a steam train 0o) and highly low confidence. Not doing this for pity...No, don't do pity nor sympathy. 'Tis annoying)