Rose and the Doctor queued patiently for the Tunnel of Love, the Doctor amusing himself by making sarcastic little comments, which also served to distract him from his rapidly beating heart. If Rose had noticed his odd behaviour, she certainly didn't show it.
"Well this is certainly the ride to go on if you want to be jumped on by an eager human," the Doctor said as a pretty, dark haired girl wandered past him batting her eyelids. Rose gave her a glare and she quickly walked away.
"Stop moaning," Rose said, punching his arm affectionately, "I just want a sit down."
"Tyler women always get their way!" the Doctor said.
"Only when there aren't stubborn Time Lords stopping them!" Rose said.
"Who are you calling stubborn!" the Doctor said with a wide grin.
"Oh let's just get on the ride!" Rose said as the gateway opened up before them, letting them into a dark room that smelled faintly of flowers and perfume. All the lighting was deep red and the decor was overly romantic. Already several couples ahead of them were giving each other lovey-dovey faces and holding hands.
"Isn't this more Jack's department?" the Doctor asked.
"Even Jack isn't this cheesy," Rose said with a grin, then took the Doctor's hand. For the first time ever he didn't act like it was completely natural.
"We've got to fit in!" Rose said when he looked at her, eyebrows raised.
"Whatever you say, ma'am," the Doctor said.
They were escorted into a boat by cheery staff, who presented them with a bottle of champagne and a couple of glasses, much improving the Doctor's first impressions of the ride.
"This is much more like it!" he said, popping open the bottle, spraying Rose a bit with champagne teasingly as she read through the hand book they had been given.
"'The most spectacular Tunnel of Love experience," she read out loud as the Doctor poured her some champagne, "timed exactly so you never see another soul during your half hour voyage, the Tunnel of Love is the most intimate ride in the entire theme park. Please enjoy your complimentary bottle of champagne and the company of your chosen passenger, the Tunnel Team.' Half an hour! Wow, it's a wonder they had enough red paint."
"Well, may as well make ourselves comfortable if we're going to be here half an hour," the Doctor said, putting his feet up on the table in the middle, narrowly missing the champagne.
"Hey watch it!" Rose said, "We can drink all that in half an hour."
"Oh dear," the Doctor said, "a whole bottle of champagne? You won't be able to walk in a straight line!"
"I'm not a complete light weight!" Rose protested, "and you're gonna help me drink it!"
"You seem to be playing a dangerous game here, Rose Tyler – if I drink a whole bottle of champagne, there's no telling what I might do. I could pilot the TARDIS right into a planet where the entire population like to eat visitors for breakfast by accident."
"You do that when you're sober," Rose said with a grin.
Amber's lungs burned as she continued running backwards firing bullet after bullet at the head of the T-Rex, which seemed to bounce off its thick skin, causing it no more irritation than an insect. Amber ran straight back into a wall, marking the edge of the game arena. The only other way through the narrow valley was forwards, but there was a rather large T-Rex in the way.
Oh well, at least she would go out with style.
She continued firing off her guns as the Rex approached, shaking the ground as it charged. Amber's heartbeat quadrupled as it roared.
It's just a game, she tried to think, but her heart wasn't slowing down at all. She aimed her guns a little higher as the T-Rex got ever closer. She continued shooting as fast as she could until she heard the dry click of the trigger trying to fire an empty barrel.
Amber looked down at her gun, the gun that kicked like a real gun. In games you weren't supposed to run out of bullets. The basic guns always had an unlimited supply. No suits either… Didn't even the most up-to-date VR game need suits? Only the Time Lords had telepathic technology.
Amber raised a hand to her cheek again, touching the now drying scratch she had been given by the Raptor only a few minutes ago. No suits, but she was hurt. Something was horribly wrong here.
Amber looked at the T-Rex charging at her, closer every second that passed. She made a grab for the high powered laser gun she had strapped to her back and aimed it. For a moment she doubted. This was a game, she couldn't die. She'd fire the gun, trash the electronic systems and cause a load of trouble. She'd also be ridiculed by Jack for forgetting for one second that she was in a game.
The T-Rex was so close she could feel its sticky breath. Any minute now she'd be dinner, unless she pulled the trigger. Or it would be game over and Jack would win, if he hadn't had game over already.
Amber closed her eyes and blocked out the sound, trying to calm herself, and make sense of her mind's frantic ramblings. Even the lack of sight and sound, the only senses that could really be affected by VR, didn't calm her nerves any. Acting entirely on instinct, Amber aimed and fired.
A loud roar echoed across the plains, drowning out even the sound of the cranky engine of the jeep. Quinn's eyes took on a manic glint and he slammed on the brakes, turning the steering wheel sharply, making the car spin, churning up the grass.
"Keep your head down, Jack," he said, "We're going to hunt the Rex."
"What?" Jack called above the revving engine, "No!"
"I've been waiting for ages to face this challenge," Quinn said, "No crazy kid is going to stop me."
"You're calling me crazy?" Jack asked, shaking his head.
Quinn pressed a few buttons on the radio of the jeep. A computer screen slid out, revealing a simple map of the arena with a blinking dot to show their location. They were quite near the boundary of the arena.
"This is good!" Quinn said, "We have him trapped, at the edge of the park he can't outrun us."
"Which means he's all the more likely to eat us!" Jack said, wishing he'd brought his compact Laser deluxe along with him.
"Shut up and get the Rocket Launcher ready!" Quinn said, jumping the jeep off a small verge. The vehicle bounced on its wheels, kicking up a load of dust from the rocky ground. Quinn directed it into a valley.
"I hope this thing has a really good reverse gear," Jack said, more to himself than the manic Quinn, who in his frenzy to catch the T-Rex seemed to have lost all sense.
They turned a sharp corner, the walls of the valley rising in height around them, closing them in from every direction. Above them were cliff like rock faces, in front of them was a T-Rex, behind them a narrow, winding path through the valley, and the only way out.
The first sight they got of the Rex was towards the end of the valley. It was chasing something, or someone, and not paying them much heed as Quinn screeched the car to a halt and began setting up his Rocket Launcher.
Jack squinted down the valley, beyond the large mass that was the Rex, and god this thing was huge! Jack had seen very few things more terrifying. Beyond the dust that its enormous feet was shaking from the ground, there was definitely the outline of a person.
"Quinn wait!" Jack said, grabbing the arm of the crazed hunter, "There's someone down there, if you fire you'll kill them!"
"And you think the Rex won't?" Quinn said, "It's not my fault if some Rookie thought they could take on a Rex when they couldn't!"
"Can't we lure it out?" Jack asked, the soldier section of his brain going into tactical over drive as he looked around.
If they began backing up then shot at the T-Rex with a shot gun, something with a bit more power than a handgun, they could lure it out, and hopefully get it far enough away from it's current prey to kill it without hurting them. It was a slim chance, but it might just work.
Quinn was aiming the Rocket Launcher, balancing it on his broad shoulders, looking down the barrel as he aimed at the back of the T-Rex's head. He had a Rocket loaded and was waiting for the perfect moment, the manic glint in his eyes letting Jack know there would be no reasoning with him.
"Quinn!" Jack tried calling, but there was an ear-splitting explosion that drowned him out, and it didn't come from the Rocket Launcher.
The look on Quinn's face was priceless as he watched his prize fall to the ground, now minus most of its head where it had been hit by a powerful laser weapon. The dust cleared to reveal a skinny woman dressed in combats, holding a powerful laser weapon with a very confused look on her face.
"Quinn," Jack said, putting a friendly arm round the disappointed hunter's shoulders, "I'd like you to meet my girlfriend!"
"Alert! Unexpected energy signature detected…"
"Powerful laser weaponry present…"
"Non-contemporaneous technology, alert!"
"Send park into full meltdown, open all security gates, destroy all!"
"That was not funny Harkness!" Amber called out as she walked over to him, arms folded angrily.
"She only ever calls me 'Harkness' when she's really angry…" Jack said to Quinn, grinning smugly like this was an achievement.
Amber marched right up to him and slapped him sharply across the face.
"What was that for?" Jack asked, nursing his wounded cheek.
"For telling me this was a game!" Amber said, "It's a good job I carry this with me everywhere!" she added, waving her laser gun at him.
"Hey watch it, the safety isn't on on that thing!" Jack said.
"I know, hopefully I'll blow your pighead off by accident!" she snapped.
"Woah, calm down! If it makes you feel any better I nearly got eaten too!" Jack said, "I didn't know it wasn't a game either! Quinn here rescued me."
"I'd feel better if you had got eaten!" Amber said begrudgingly, then pushed past him to the jeep.
"She loves me really," Jack whispered to Quinn, who seemed to have gotten over the shock of having his prize blown up before him, and moved on to the shock of Jack actually telling the truth about his alien friend.
"Something is wrong here," Amber said, turning to Jack, taking off the jacket she had fashioned for herself and throwing it at him. As it left her hands and entered his, it changed back to the futuristic material it normally was. Jack nodded at Quinn, pointing from the jacket to Amber. Quinn looked dazed.
Completely over his slap and ready for another one, Jack glanced over Amber as she rummaged through Quinn's jeep for some bullets to reload her guns.
"I know you are checking me out Harkness, stop it or I'll shoot you somewhere that will wound you in more ways than one…" she said without even looking up.
A loud siren stopped Jack from checking out Amber, and Amber from carrying out her threat. They both looked around searching for the source of the noise. Quinn looked at the car satellite computer. It was flashing 'Warning'.
"The doors are opening!" he said, "all of them! The Park security has gone into complete meltdown!"
Amber and Jack looked darkly at each other. Amber didn't need to be telepathic to know that the thought crossing both her and Jack's mind was 'Not again'.
"That was definitely the best bit of the adventure," Rose giggled, "never would have thought I'd be a Glenn Miller fan, my Nan listened to Glenn Miller…"
"Glenn Miller's fantastic!" the Doctor said, "and are you saying our little dance beat your romantic twirl with Jack?"
"Oh definitely!" Rose said, "because you weren't trying to sweet talk me into being conned at the same time…"
"Honesty is a virtue," the Doctor said.
"So is an invisible space ship," Rose said teasingly.
"Invisibility beats time and space travel?" the Doctor asked.
"I thought Jack's ship did time and space travel too?" Rose asked.
"Well yes…" the Doctor admitted.
"And so will Amber's when it's fixed," Rose continued, "So your ship isn't that 'fantastic'."
"It may not be unique in the space/time travel department, but only the TARDIS is bigger on the inside…" the Doctor said smugly.
"Touche!" Rose said and drained her glass of champagne.
Feeling a little bolder for the alcohol, she swapped sides so she was sat next to the Doctor, and rested her head on his shoulder.
"Rose?" the Doctor asked uncomfortably. His heart was racing again.
"I'm so glad you came back," she said, looking up at him adoringly.
The Doctor looked down at her, trying to keep his expression controlled and blank. He couldn't let her know just how much he cared for her, poor young and innocent Rose who had no idea what she was messing with really. He couldn't ruin her life more than he already had. He was far too old for her, he couldn't let her tie herself down to his lifestyle, just because she didn't want to leave him behind. He had killed her once already, died for her to repay his actions. He couldn't bear to lose her again, so he could never truly have her. Never the less he edged slowly closer to her, despite all the voices in his head screaming at him not to.
Before he could touch his lips on hers however, there was a loud crash, and the boat rocked violently, dust showering down from the ceiling.
"That doesn't sound like part of the cruise to me," he said.
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