Chapter 2
18 December 2025, Royal London Hospital
The Doctor opted to leave the TARDIS where it landed rather than materialize right near Kate's location in the basement. The walk would give him a better idea of what had happened to cause such drastic changes, and he'd rather not materialize into an unknown situation that might prove even more dangerous.
He exited the TARDIS wearing a lightweight radiation suit and carrying a haversack with an array of tools and supplies that might be useful, given the conditions. Instead of using his sonic to light the way he opted for a more conventional torch. He was glad of his choice immediately. The hospital was black as pitch.
The route to the stairwell had sustained significant damage recently, whether from a natural disaster or a man-made event was unclear. The hallway was an obstacle course of debris from a ceiling collapse. The Doctor shined his torch on an overturned gurney and wondered what would produce a strong enough force to knock over such a heavy object while the walls were still, at least in this hallway, intact. Perhaps someone had turned it on its side to use as a barrier, if there had been some kind of skirmish.
As he moved further down the corridor, he became aware of the strong smell of human waste. Perhaps the toilets were not working. The ventilation system certainly wasn't, with the power off.
He found the entrance to the stairwell partially blocked by more debris, this time broken cinderblock, a ballast from a lighting fixture and an overturned food cart. He managed to shift enough of it to access the stairwell.
Shining the light down the stairs, the Doctor confirmed that it seemed intact before he began his descent. The smell of waste was less noticeable here; in its place there was a musty smell, as if the stairwell had been flooded at some point. His footsteps echoed on the stairs.
After lifetimes of adventures on hundreds of worlds, many of them on this world, with every imaginable dark cave, ghost town, battlefield, graveyard or even haunted house, the Doctor was not one to fall into superstitious paranoia. But in the musty dark of the stairwell, he couldn't ignore the feeling he was being watched. Watched, and perhaps followed.
He paused when he reached the next landing. In the absence of his own footsteps he heard the echo of someone else's. From the sound, his observer was one flight above him, and considerably lighter than he was.
"I know you're there, you can come out," he said, shining his torch up the stairs he'd just descended. After a few moments of hesitation, A shadow split off from the gloom and approached the top of the stairs.
His observer was a little over four feet tall and wearing a radiation suit. One of the sleeves of the suit was pinned up at the elbow—the wearer was missing his or her right forearm. The observer held a rubber plumber's mallet defensively in his or her left hand. The observer's face was not visible through the shadows and the hood of the radiation suit.
"It's okay. No need to be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here to help."
The observer descended one cautious step and then paused.
"Who are you? Where did you come from?"
The observer's voice was squeaky with either fear or puberty, probably both. Nonetheless, the Doctor decided this was an adolescent boy. The Doctor climbed one stair. The boy did not retreat.
"My name is the Doctor. I've come here looking for a friend, Kate Stewart. She's with UNIT. She asked me to come. Do you know her?" The observer made a relieved gasping sound and his shoulders relaxed. He lowered the mallet and descended the stairs.
"You're the Doctor? You don't look like I expected." Given the many faces he'd worn throughout his lives, the Doctor bristled a little.
"Well, what were you expecting, then?"
The boy studied him openly. The Doctor shined his torch under the faceplate of the radiation suit to accentuate his hawk like countenance. Regeneration was a lottery. The true secret to living successfully through multiple lives was recognizing and leveraging the unique features one ended up with. While originally disappointed in the perpetually cross eyebrows, the Doctor had come to revel in the amount of gravitas he could command through the severity of his gaze.
"I dunno. The way Kate talks about you I thought you'd look like a superhero or a mad scientist. Or both. You know, like Doctor Strange." Now that the boy was closer, the Doctor thought he was younger than his original estimate, perhaps twelve.
"Well who are you, then?"
"I'm Peter."
"Not Peter Parker of Spiderman fame?"
"Who?"
How embarrassing. "Never mind."
"C'mon, I'll take you to Kate." The Doctor stepped closer and shined the light of the torch under the hood of Peter's radiation suit.
He was a young boy with ginger hair and freckles. A painful looking bruise stood out on his right cheekbone. It was hard to read Peter's expression in the shadows, but the Doctor thought he looked wary. Understandable.
Peter took the lead in descending the rest of the stairs, the rubber mallet slung casually over his shoulder.
"So, Peter, what happened here? And why are you alone in a London hospital with a plumber's mallet?"
"You don't know? You come from the future. I thought you'd know all about it." The Doctor bristled again. What had Kate been telling this kid?
"I'm not 'from the future', exactly; I'm a time traveler. It doesn't mean I'm omniscient. You've been reading too many comic books, Pete, they're melting your brain."
"I don't read comic books. Nobody reads comics anymore. Before all this I played 3D holo games."
"Whatever. Answer my question."
"Which one?"
"What happened?" They'd reached the end of the stairs. Peter opened the door that would take them out into the basement.
"It's a long story. Better if Kate tells you. I don't really understand it. There was a war. A lot of people died, including my parents and sister. We're what's left."
He saw her as they turned a corner and entered an area of the basement with dim lighting. Apparently they had a generator, or some other means of producing electricity. Kate sat at what looked like an old receptionist's desk, her boot-clad feet propped up on the desk's surface. She was not wearing a radiation suit, but several suits hung from a hook on the wall directly behind the desk.
She was slouched down in the office-style chair, her head turned to the side, asleep. A large green book that looked like an accountant's ledger or perhaps a journal, lay face-down across her lap.
As in the video, her hair was cropped short. The Doctor noted a sore over her lip and another at her right temple. She was very thin, but perhaps not as thin as she looked in the video.
The Doctor's observation of Kate Stewart was interrupted by the sound of Peter unzipping the hood of his radiation suit and taking it off. His ginger hair was damp from the condensation inside the suit. The Doctor admired how deftly the boy managed the task with just one hand.
"You can take your suit off now, it's safe down here." Peter gestured toward Kate. "She's off shift. Best to let me wake her," he whispered.
The boy approached Kate quietly. He gently shook her shoulder. "Kate, the Doctor's come."
The UNIT Chief Scientific Officer startled awake, immediately drawing a pistol and training it on the Doctor. The Doctor raised his hands above his head.
"You're not the Doctor." She looked uncertain, though, as if she'd seen him before.
"Yes, I am. I know you haven't seen this face before. I got a message from your future self, asking me to come. Hi Kate." He smiled winningly. She raised the gun higher, holding it with both hands, pointed toward his chest. Her aim was steady.
"Prove you're the Doctor. Tell me something only he would know."
The Doctor searched his memory. It was always a little difficult to access memories from other regenerations. Time passed. Kate's finger tightened on the trigger.
"The last time you saw me I jumped through a painting into the year 1572. Among other things."
Kate's arms relaxed. "Thank God, Doctor. I was hoping you would come but had no way of getting a message out to you. Our infrastructure is in tatters, I'm afraid. When did you change your face?"
"That's not important right now. About two weeks from now you called me for help. Please tell me what's happened."