Vanishing Point
Part One: Exodus
Featuring the Doctor
London, 2019.
Samuel Jacobs, currently, was having the dullest day of his life. He was in a board meeting, discussing a potential new asset that could expand the company, and earn even more profit than ever before.
But, to his ears, it was one long, slurred noise. At one moment, he almost fell asleep, only to have heard his name being mentioned, and snapped back into life.
Right now, he was looking out of the window, onto London. The beautiful city, where streets were containing the hustle and bustle of everyday activities: cyclists, tourists, and workers on their lunch breaks.
A few seconds after he had eyed a sushi restaurant which he thought looked like a nice place to go after the meeting was all over, he noticed something odd had happened: everyone on the street below had vanished. A bicycle that had suddenly lost its owner collapsed onto the gravel below, landing with a large looked round the office: everyone else had vanished as well. Frantically, Sam dashed out of the room, and called to see if anyone was still in the building: there was nobody left inside the building.
Samuel Jacobs was one of two people that were left on Earth.
Meanwhile, in the Time Vortex, an endless tunnel of swirling blue light, a large police box whizzed through, its lamp flashing. This, naturally, was the TARDIS, and its pilot, a Time Lord known as the Doctor, was inside the console room, studying the scanner screen, which was embedded within the console.
"Good, good. All systems working perfectly, and hopefully, I'll be able to retire to my cottage on Drendos." he said to himself, smiling.
However, at that moment, an alarm began to blare, and a series of co-ordinates flashed onto the scanner screen. He took one look at them, recognised that they were the co-ordinates for Earth, and pulled the materialisation lever, making the time rotor rise and fall.
At 56 Vexmore Drive, Linda Fox was asleep. But that was fine: she'd got the day off, and her husband had gone to work. Or so she thought. She sat up, and walked over to the window: outside, there was nobody, which was odd, as she'd thought that people would be rushing to work, or taking their kids to school.
But this was not the case: the street was completely empty.
After getting changed into a smart shirt, trousers and boots, Linda emerged from her house, locking the door behind her, and checked to see if there was nobody on the street - she was alone.
She ran across the road, and rang the doorbell of number 57 frantically: no response. Linda now had two options: either break the window and see if anyone was inside, or go back home. She walked up to the large glass window that was next to the door, and punched it several times, in order to make it crack. When the glass finally cracked, she placed her hand on the window, and gave a gentle push, shattering the window.
Before she could do any more damage, a large blue police box began to materialise behind her, wheezing and groaning as it did so. Once the box had fully materialised, the doors opened, and an old man, who had a bald head, and wore a brown leather jacket, white shirt, dark brown jeans, and dark boots.
"Are you a burglar, or just very intrigued?" the old man asked, intrigued to see her by a smashed window.
"Very intrigued." she replied.
"And why would you be so intrigued?"
"Everyone's vanished. Nobody in the streets, nobody at home."
"I see. But, I think there's something even more strange going on."
"What do you mean?"
"If everyone on Earth has vanished, then why are you still here?"
Linda thought about the man's question, and nodded in agreement.
"You're right. Why am I still here? And how do we get everyone who's vanished back home?"
"I don't know. I think we could find some answers if we explore this house. See if there's anything strange, or suspicious."
"Who are you, by the way? Are you qualified to do this?"
"I'm the Doctor - I'm qualified to do everything."
The Doctor then strode up to the door, took out a small tube of silver metal which had a purple crystal at one end, and zapped it at the door: it swung open, much to the surprise of Linda. He walked in, Linda closely following him.
Inside 57 Vexmore Drive, the Doctor looked around the kitchen, examining the room intently: everything was perfectly laid out, but no evidence of any occupants could be seen.
"You know, this would fit in on an episode of Sherlock. A house which was occupied a few moments ago, but now, it's as if nobody's lived here."
"This makes no sense. 6 million people disappear, and all evidence of their existence has been erased. Yet you remain here, along with one other person."
"There's one other person? Not just me?"
"Yes. The TARDIS told me that, just before I arrived."
"What's a TARDIS?"
"Oh yes, I haven't told you. I am a Time Lord, from the planet Gallifrey. I travel in time and space in a blue police box called the TARDIS, occasionally with a companion."
"Really? Are you travelling alone now?"
"Yes, I am. But I won't bore you to death with the details. What I'd rather like to focus on is what technology's been used to make the house look like this, because whatever's happened here, a human couldn't have done this."
Linda looked at the Doctor, surprised.
"You talk about us as if we're just apes who've got above themselves."
"Oh, you're more than that. Now, what do we have here?"
The Doctor walked over to the dining table, which was laid out with cutlery and glasses of wine, and picked up a small metal sphere, which glowed and pulsed a bright red.
"This definitely isn't human, and yet somehow it's ended up in every household and home on Earth, except yours and somebody else's. But how?"
Samuel Jacobs was stood, in the middle of Hyde Park, glancing around him, amazed to see that the park was completely empty. There were no park runners dressed in bright tracksuits, no dog-walkers, there weren't even any ducks in the lake.
"Hello?!" he called out, hoping that there was somebody else. But no response came. He took out his phone, and tried calling his wife, Anna: no response came from that. He tried to call several other numbers, but he was greeted by the dull crackle of static.
After a few minutes, he'd attempted to call almost every number in his contact list, except one. That number had been saved until last for a good reason: it was the phone number of his old psychiatrist, Linda Fox. He used to go to her for councilling, after his parents had died in a car crash. During their last meeting, she had given him her number, in case of emergencies. Well, if everyone disappearing isn't an emergency, I don't know what is, Sam thought. He dialled Linda's number, and waited for a response.
Just as the Doctor was about to explain what the strange device was, Linda's phone rang. She took out her mobile, and held it to her ear.
"Sam? ... Well, thank goodness I know you're still alive. Us two are the only two people left on Earth. ... Yes, Earth. ... There's this man, called the Doctor. He's an alien from the planet Gallifrey, and he's come to get everyone back to Earth. ... Yeah, sure. Where are you? ... Hyde Park? ... Okay, we'll get there as quickly as we can. Bye, Sam. Bye." Linda said, before hanging up.
"Who was that?"
"My old patient, Sam Jacobs."
"I never knew you were a psychiatrist."
"You never asked."
"And where did he say he was?"
The Doctor was now rushing towards the door, device in hand. Linda was closely following him, as she felt that she now had a part to play in this strange mystery, and, secretly, she also had nothing planned for today, so it was nice to have something to do.
"Hyde Park. I was hoping that you'd be able to use your TARDIS to get us there."
"Us?"
"You're going to need help with this, aren't you? Or are you just a one-man show after what happened to your friend?"
"Oh, alright then. But this will be dangerous, I'm warning you now."
The two of them then left the house, and entered the Doctor's TARDIS. Once the doors were closed, the TARDIS dematerialised, wheezing and growling, its lamp flashing as it faded.
Inside the TARDIS, Linda was gazing around the large room, amazed by how such a large room could fit inside such a small police box.
"This is impossible." she remarked.
"Linda, welcome to what stands between you, me, and everywhere. If I wanted to, I could go back to Ancient Rome, fly forward to the planet Peladon, then take you back home, and it would be as if we'd never left."
"But you aren't going to do that, are you?"
"Of course not. We just need to do a short hop to Hyde Park."
The Doctor entered the words "HYDE PARK - 2019" into the TARDIS' scanner screen, and pulled the dematerialisation lever, making the time rotor rise and fall.
He smiled at Linda, who smiled back immediately. She then flung open the doors, and looked outside.
The TARDIS had landed a few metres away from the Serpentine Gallery, under a large oak tree. Linda looked around her, surprised by how a small police box could move from Dorking to London in under a minute.
"Stop looking amazed." the Doctor ordered, before adding, "It's just a short hop. Plus, here comes your friend Sam."
Sam was stood, dressed in a suit and tie, outside the gallery. Once he had noticed Linda, he walked over to her, a pleased smile on his face.
"Linda, so good to see you. And I take it that this must be the Doctor?" Sam asked, indicating the Doctor, who was busy studying the metal sphere that he had taken.
"Yes, Sam, that's the Doctor. So, do you know anything so far? Found out anything?"
"No, not exactly. You?"
"Well, the Doctor's found a strange device which he thinks is the reason why everyone's vanished so suddenly."
The Doctor strolled over to Sam, and showed him the device.
"This, Sam, Linda, is a temporal life form displacer." He announced, earning looks of surprise from Sam and Linda.
"Which means what, exactly?" Linda questioned.
"This device has the ability to displace any life forms in time. When activated, presumably these sent everyone to a different point in time."
"Which point in time though?"
"Exactly. Sam, do you have a watch?"
"Yep."
"Would you mind checking it for me?"
Sam rolled back the sleeve of his suit to reveal a metal watch. He watched the clock face, and noticed something peculiar was happening.
"The second hand misses out every other second. Does that mean that everyone else is still here, but for them, their second hands miss out every other second?"
"Precisely. 6 billion people are in a different second of time, and we have to try and get them back."
Sam looked at the Doctor, concerned about what he had just said.
"6 billion people are in a different second of time? Has this happened before?" he asked.
The Doctor frowned, and shook his head.
"I've seen it done to the occasional person now and again, and that was easy to deal with. All that I had to do was to reverse the temporal life form displacer..."
He paused, and then smiled with joy. He then hugged Sam tightly, clearly pleased with himself.
"Is that all you need to do? Reverse the temporal life form displacer?"
"Not just that: dozens of these were activated simultaneously, meaning that a single signal would have needed to be sent in order to have activated them all. If I can
just send out a signal to order the other displacers to bring everyone back..."
The Doctor trailed off, as he took out his sonic screwdriver, and zapped it at the displacer. Once he had finished zapping, he pressed the large purple button at the top of the sphere, making the ball glow with purple light. It continued to glow even brighter, as ghostly figures began to form all around the trio. The ghostly figures then reformed into humans, as 6 billion people came back to Earth, to the Doctor's joy.
Once the sphere had burnt out, the Doctor walked back to the TARDIS, followed by Sam and Linda. They then entered the TARDIS, and the Doctor strolled up to the console. He placed the sphere in his pocket, and pulled the dematerialisation lever, making the time rotor rise and fall.
Sam couldn't believe what he was seeing - one minute he'd been in Hyde Park, the next, he was in a large room which was crammed inside a blue police box.
"This is impossible." he uttered.
"Great minds think alike, eh?" the Doctor remarked, beaming, as he pulled the dematerialisation lever once more, and the TARDIS landed on Vexmore Drive, a few moments after they'd left.
As soon as the TARDIS had landed, however, an unusual thing happened: there was a knock at the door. The Doctor shared a look of surprise with his two companions, before walking up to open it.
He swung open the blue wooden door, to reveal a young man with combed brown hair, dressed in a brown leather jacket, white shirt, and boots. There was a holster on his left trouser leg, which carried a blaster pistol.
"Missed me, old man?" he said, doing his most charming grin.
The Doctor stared, shocked, at Kerring Harrison, surprised to see him.
TO BE CONTINUED...