The trip through the time window Ace had opened up was a lot longer than Katie had imagined it, but somehow much shorter too. It was like the moments leading up to and during a car crash; it takes very few seconds to actually occur, but the mind takes in so much information during that short span of time that when you remember it, it seems impossible that it took so little time.
First was the bike itself. It didn't move the way a motorcycle usually did, but seemed to glide, almost as though it was hovering. When they broke through the air pillar, Katie could sense it collapsing behind them, like a wave of water flowing in behind them. There was absolutely so sound, not even that of a heartbeat, or a breath. The smell of singed titanium had grown stronger, and had been joined with the scent of apples. Through it all, Katie had the sensation that wind was rushing past them, but from behind the motorcycle.
They broke through the other side of the vortex tunnel they had been traveling through. Ace pulled to another controlled skid. She looked over her shoulder at Katie and the Doctor, almost certainly smirking at them under her visor. "Packs a punch, huh?"
That was a serious understatement. Katie felt like she had been punched several times in the stomach, and as though her lungs had suddenly been flattened. She could tell the Doctor was also working on re-inflating his own lungs.
After she was able to breathe again, Katie looked about her. The area was very similar to the one they left, just minus the building. Ace pointed straight ahead.
"Right, the person I got the call from should be about 5 minutes that way."
"I thought you said your hopper goes through space as well," Katie said. Ace didn't turn around as the Doctor answered,
"To planets. Specific places on the planet are harder to manage. It's like, the difference between a city and a house in that city."
I prefer TARDIS. Kaite thought. Ace answered the unspoken comment, almost as though she could sense it.
"May not be the TARDIS, but it gets me where I need to be. The ride is a lot smoother too."
"TARDIS doesn't suffocate you after you land," Katie acidly said.
Ace ignored the comment, revved the engine, and drove forward.
Ace's initial estimate was correct. Five minutes later, the bike flowed over a hill. Ace stopped at the top. She tore off her helmet, brow furrowed in curiosity and horror.
It was like cliché twist in a movie. Three heroes riding over the hill to save the town, only to find that it was
"Gone. The whole thing is just…gone," Ace said, stunned.
Katie had to agree. She had expected a town of some kind, houses, people, maybe a few farms. But there was absolutely nothing. Not even wreckage. It was all just flat dirt, except for a single furrow, possibly 3 meters wide, stretching out towards the horizon. Every so often it would disappear, and then show up again, as though whoever had made it had come up for air now and again.
"That's certainly not Cybermen's work," the Doctor said, motioning Katie to get off the bike. She did, and he followed, both of them leaving Ace were she was.
"Probably a bad time, but what's a Cyberman?" Katie asked. "You and Ace both seemed to expect it."
"Well," the Doctor said, the word coming out almost as a half groan, "Cybermen are what you come to expect when someone gives you a report that silver men are attacking a large area of people."
"It wasn't very large," Ace said, joining them, her previous composure having returned. "At this point in time, 200 people, max."
"No offense, but you still didn't answer the question," Katie said.
"Cybermen are a race of human brains devoid of emotion that are placed inside metal bodies," Ace answered her. "Their one goal is to make everyone else a Cyberman. How long have you been traveling with the Professor?"
"I've been traveling with the Doctor for about two months, and the Cybermen haven't shown yet. How long have you been waiting for him to come back?"
Sensing a fight, the Doctor spoke up. "Ace, what interest might another species have in this area?"
"None that I know of," Ace said, giving Katie a look. Katie returned it stonily as Ace continued. "They were a farming community. Rain like the Amazon, but the soil has something in it that almost forces things to grow twice as large as they would anywhere else."
The Doctor crouched down and picked up a handful of black soil, studying it. Katie half-expected him to eat it, but instead he addressed a question to her.
"Kathryn, can you see anything?"
"An area of dirt that's gray with a weird tunnel/trench thing stretching out and away." She saw what he was getting at. "Something's been pulled from the soil. But what?"
The Doctor seemed a bit surprised. "Well, actually, I hadn't seen that, but it's a good observation. I was really asking if there's anything left to see."
Katie gave him a half-lidded look. Ace spoke up, confused. "Left to see? There's nothing here, Professor."
"Only as far as we can tell," the Doctor responded, looking at Katie expectantly. She wore the same expression.
"Fly-boy, let me clarify something for ya." Her voice put on a slight Southern twang as she spoke. "Now, I don't expect ya'll to know this, bein' one sighted folks, but energy ain't all it's cracked up tae be! It's constantly shiften and being replaced by other kinds. Heat? This whole planet's coated in it like an apple double-dipped in caramel. Light? Sun provides enough to fill in any cracks and erase whatever clues there may be. Sound? That stuff flies off and fades faster than a duck eats a June Beetle. Mental energy? Sometimes it stays, but for a non-telepath, it ain't worth a grain of salt." Her normal voice returned. "In essence, nothing useful. Go fish and ask something else."
"How far do you think that tunnel goes?"
The Doctor and Katie turned to look at Ace. "Love to find out," the Doctor said with a grin.
Half an hour later, they were still finding out. Whatever had made the trench/tunnel had created it in an extremely erratic fashion. Sometimes it followed the surface for half a mile, and then dropped into a pit. On occasion it went down for a good distance, then suddenly rose up, or stopped all together, forcing the three bike riders to turn around. Once in a while the wall of dirt was obviously a cave in, caused by non-existent shoring. In these cases, Ace would look at it like she wanted to blow it up, but didn't for fear of starting another dirt fall.
It was dark when the trio decided to stop for the night. They still hadn't found the mysterious creators of the ditch, or what they were after, but it would have to wait until morning. Ace started to pull out dry rations when Katie smugly produced three Meals Ready to Eat, or MRE's. She passed them around.
"Okay, so this sort of chicken pasta doesn't taste as good as fresh, but hey, better than biscuit."
"What would sweets have to do with anything?" the Doctor inquired. Ace and Katie both gave him a look, as if they couldn't believe he had actually asked.
"Biscuit, my dear Doctor, is what you would probably call a roll. Over in America, we have cookies, your biscuit, and biscuits, your rolls. Do try to keep up with the lingo." Katie turned to Ace. "Has he always had thick moments like this?"
"Constantly. Be careful though, he's got a lot more going on in that mind of his then he lets on." Ace and the Doctor shared a look, full of shared memories. They both returned to their dinners.
The meal was eaten in silence. Ace's bike kept giving off a glow, and Katie had a headlamp, so they were good on light.
When all had finished, Ace shifted, looking purposefully at the Doctor.
"So tell me," she said, her voice both threatening and worrisome. "What's happened to Prydon Academy?"
*Constructive critisisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*