CHAPTER II
Martha exchanged the Doctor's beige dress shirt for a dark green corduroy blazer with a black tank top, frayed denim capris and her favourite brown leather sandals. She pushed her hair away from her face with a wire headband and threw on a bit of makeup, then packed up her things, getting ready to leave Paris.
The sun wasn't up yet when they checked out of the hotel, and Martha hadn't slept a wink. The Doctor had had perhaps ninety minutes' rest before waking up to phantom noises in his brain. This was going to be an exhausting adventure – each of them secretly hoped it would be a short one, at least.
Martha could feel the connection re-established as soon as she entered the TARDIS, parked in an alleyway just off Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle. She smiled big, and said, "Aw, I've missed you."
The Doctor made a beeline for the console and began to stroke the time rotor, staring up into the column of light, as if to ask what's wrong. Martha did not interfere, but simply waited until the Doctor was ready to speak.
Before saying anything, however, he went to the computer screen and began punching numbers and symbols, checking readings and adjusting things. Finally he furrowed his brow as if to express confusion, and as he slumped back into the seat, he said, "Weird."
"What?"
"The TARDIS is detecting a disturbance in time," he explained, not frantically or with any upset in his voice. "It's telling me that there's a high concentration of time… disappearing."
"Okay," she said, walking slowly toward the console. "Time disappearing. I can't even begin to wrap my mind around that one."
He took a deep breath, and exhaled through billowing lips. "Hard to explain. We Time Lords, we can see the whole of the time continuum, across spaces, sometimes across dimensions, we can see what's happened and what will happen, cause to effect, even the wibbly wobbly bits, yeah?"
"Yeah, okay."
"The reason we can do that is... time is tangible. Like matter."
Martha's eyebrows shot up nearly into her hairline. "Time is matter? Wicked!"
"Not matter, exactly," he corrected. "Like matter. It can be moved and displaced in infinitely small or large blocks, toyed with, put in a box and locked up…"
"Or destroyed?"
"Yep. And that's the sort of thing that my people used to regulate. I mean, it's not like we could just pick up last Wednesday with our hands and lay it down on the kitchen table, iron it out and return it to a different week, but we did have instruments that could do almost anything with a block of time," he explained, patting the TARDIS console, smiling a bit. "Mostly, we prefer to travel in time, rather than move things about from the outside. Leave the bricks where they are, and just change some composition of the mortar so the pieces fit together a bit better."
"That makes sense," Martha agreed. "Actually sounds safer. But why did you hear noises in your head?"
"It was the TARDIS in pain. Its heart is made up of time matter (or not-matter, as you like), the swirly, stretchy bits that allows us the flexibility to travel. All time is connected, Martha, so what do you think happens to the TARDIS when pieces of time disappear or are destroyed?"
"It's heartbroken," she said.
"In a manner of speaking," he answered. "Only in a much more literal sense than the human conception of heartbreak. It's more like heartworm in dogs. Something eats away at it."
"Has this ever happened before?"
He shrugged. "Off and on. There are a dozen or so phenomena that could cause it, and it happens in little patches all over the universe. But the TARDIS never made that kind of continuous cry, like it did a little while ago. It's never seen fit to let me know."
"It's not still crying?"
"No," he said. "You'd be able to hear it now, if it were. It's quiet now because it knows we're on the case."
"That we are," she agreed. "So where do we go?"
"Across town."
"So, you said there are different phenomena that could be causing this," Martha said as they each found a seat on the Métro. "Like what?"
"Well, it could be that someone's opened a dimensional portal, and we're connected to a place where time moves faster," he offered. "Could be a rift opening, like the one in Cardiff. Could be someone travelling in time without a capsule – that's rough on all parties involved. A rip in reality sucking things into the void. A time-hopper changing the past or someone making bad decisions which shorten the future – or both. A localised paradox of crossing timelines…"
"Okay, okay," she said. "You're starting to do that thing where you talk so fast you're omitting syllables."
"Sorry."
"Any idea which one it is?"
"Well, I did once have a bit of trouble in Paris with an alien bloke who travelled back four billion years to stop an explosion and almost destroyed humanity," he said. "My goodness, that was a long time ago! I'd forgotten about that – I met Leonardo Davinci!"
"So what's that got to do with today?"
"I don't know. Maybe nothing. Just saying."
When they resurfaced in the district known as La Défense, it was like they'd been magically transported to a different city. They were used to this feeling, of course, but usually it didn't happen while using an underground railway system. This area was modern and had a 'downtown' feel about it, as opposed to the 19th century buildings populating the rest of the city. La Défense had high-rises, proper skycrapers, in contrast to the six-floor limit throughout most of Paris.
They stopped walking suddenly, and the Doctor pointed. "That's where we need to be," he said, taking Martha's hand and indicating a building in front of them. It was a crescent-shaped building, and Martha counted eighteen floors.
"You can feel something there?" she said.
"No, the TARDIS produced GPS coordinates for me," he said. "It's very handy."
Martha shook her head, then she asked, "So what's in there?"
"It's a residential building," he answered. "Ultra-modern flats with a lot of chrome and marble, I'd expect. For the chic businessman who works hard and plays hard and dies hard."
"Cheerful."
"Mm. Now listen, there's probably going to be security in a place like this, so take this," he said, reaching into his pocket. He handed her the psychic paper. "Just follow my lead."
As they began to cross a pristine city square, a sound caught their attention. It sounded like a voice, breaking, echoing from far away. And it could very well have been calling the Doctor's name, but it was so distant, it was difficult to tell. It was close enough to the word Doctor to get their attention, however, and they both stopped and looked about, but saw nothing. They caught one anothers' eye and frowned eerily, then turned once more toward the building.
