Chapter Five
Rose and Martha pushed their way through the panicking crowd.
"To'lan!" Rose yelled. "To'lan, why are you doing this? Stop it!"
They stopped short when To'lan picked up a screaming woman and threw her directly at them. They ran out of the way and gasped when the woman hit the pavement with a sickening thud.
"Oh God, we have to stop him!" Martha said.
Rose nodded.
"I'll go for his legs and you fall on top of him. We'll pin him down."
Martha watched while To'lan effortlessly knocked a man out of the way.
"You think that'll work?" she asked Rose hesitantly.
"I don't know. But we gotta do something before he kills someone! Just follow my lead!"
Martha nodded. She followed Rose while they pushed their way through the screaming mass of people. Rose gritted her teeth and with a grunt dived at To'lan's legs. She yelled in surprise when To'lan caught her and wrapped his hand around her throat. She coughed and gasped as he lifted her off the ground.
"Put her down!" Martha yelled at him.
She grunted when To'lan smacked her hard on the side of her head. Her head snapped to the side and she fell to the ground unconscious. To'lan looked at her for a second and then turned his attention back to Rose. He glared at her as he prepared to snap her neck.
"LEAVE HER ALONE!"
To'lan jerked his head and looked over Rose's shoulder at the Doctor and Mickey who were running towards him.
"I SAID LEAVE HER ALONE!" the Doctor screamed. "DROP HER, TO'LAN, NOW!"
Rose screamed when To'lan threw her aside like a rag doll. She landed hard on her stomach. Mickey ran to her side while the Doctor aimed his sonic screwdriver at To'lan.
"Calm down, To'lan," he said to him. "Just calm down."
He glanced quickly at Rose and saw Mickey helping her to her feet. He glanced over at Martha lying unconscious nearby and slowly inched his way towards her keeping his screwdriver trained on To'lan.
"To'lan, what's going on?" he asked him. "Why are you doing this?"
To'lan glared at him. He started to run off, but the Doctor stepped in front of him.
"Tell me why you're doing this," he said.
To'lan said nothing.
"I'm the Doctor. We met earlier in the apothecary's waiting room. Do you remember that To'lan?" he said calmly.
To'lan frowned.
"A…pothecary?" he said slowly.
The Doctor stared at him. He looked at his eyes and noticed they were unfocused.
"To'lan, what's happened to you?" he asked. "Can you tell me?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Rose was walking towards him. He quickly put up his hand to stop her.
"No, stay back, Rose," he said.
Rose obeyed and inched back towards Mickey. The Doctor came closer to To'lan.
"What's the last thing you remember, To'lan?" he asked him.
To'lan's brow furrowed.
"Remember?" he said slowly.
"Yes, what did you do after you left the apothecary?"
"I…went…"
To'lan froze. His eyes went wide.
"To'lan? What's wrong?" the Doctor asked.
To'lan's body began to spasm. The crowd around the Doctor screamed and began to back up while To'lan fell to the ground in an epileptic fit. The Doctor watched horrified as To'lan let out a gurgle and blood began to run out of his mouth. The spasm lasted for another minute and then suddenly To'lan's body relaxed and with one last gurgle, his life left him. The Doctor was so shocked; he didn't realize at first the Rose had put her hand on his shoulder. He glanced over at her while Mickey ran to Martha and crouched beside her.
"Oh my God, what happened to him?" she murmured.
The Doctor looked around at the crowd. He narrowed his eyes when he heard the words Nok flu being whispered among them.
"Before this gets out of hand and causes a panic which I suspect is what is about to happen, I just want to tell everyone that this man did not die from the Nok flu," the Doctor said.
"It is the Nok flu!" a man screamed from the crowd.
"No, it isn't! This was not caused by the flu. This man had an epileptic seizure."
"Yes, that's part of the flu!" a woman said.
The Doctor frowned.
"It is?" he asked her.
"Yes, that's how all the other victims died. They went into seizures right after catching the virus."
"Madam, I don't know where you got this information from, but I can assure you that he didn't die from the flu. There was absolutely nothing wrong with this man an hour ago."
"Yes, that's what it does. The flu kills you in an instant. It's killed over a hundred so far!" a man yelled.
The Doctor looked at him.
"No, that's wrong. There's only been four people affected and three have died from it, not a hundred."
"You're lying! The holonews just said this morning that there have been over a hundred deaths from Nok flu so far."
"And do you believe everything the holonews tells you?" the Doctor shot back.
He pointed to the patch on To'lan's arm.
"This man was just vaccinated, so how could he have died from the flu?" he asked the crowd.
"The vaccination didn't get into his system fast enough," a woman said. "The flu got to him before the vaccine could work."
The Doctor let out an angry sigh and shook his head.
"They're not listening to you," Rose said.
"No, and they're not going to listen. Apparently, the Terserian government's scare tactics are working."
"You don't think there's an epidemic?" Mickey asked.
"No, I don't."
He pointed at To'lan.
"To'lan did not die from the Nok flu. Granted there are some diseases like Pallidome Pancrosis that will kill you that fast. But Pallidome Pancrosis is not a flu virus. You can't catch the flu, any flu, and just die in under an hour. No, there's something else going on here and I intend to find out what."
He looked around as the panicked crowd began dispersing and shook his head.
"Apparently the government is using this to their advantage. Plant a few news stories, inflate the number of the dead, and scare the populace until they are begging to get vaccinated."
He looked down when Martha groaned and opened her eyes. He and Rose bent down beside her.
"Ooooh," Martha moaned, "in future, I think it'll be a good idea not to try to take the crazed lunatic head on."
He looked up at the Doctor, Mickey, and Rose.
"Um…I guess Rose is okay now," she murmured.
They helped her sit up.
"To'lan…is he okay?" she asked.
"He's dead, Martha," the Doctor said, pointing to his body.
Martha looked over at him.
"Oh God, what…what happened to him, Doctor?" she asked.
"I don't know, but we are going to get to the bottom of this and I think the place to start is Ba'zon's office. I wanna know why he told me three people have died from this flu when the media is saying one hundred."
"One hundred?" Martha asked.
"Yes, that's what someone in the crowd said. The holonews has been telling people that over a hundred people have died from the Nok flu and I want to find out the reason."
"But, wait, what if Ba'zon is the one who's lying?" Mickey asked.
"Then I want to know why," the Doctor said to him. "Someone is lying and we're going to find out who and why and then we're going to sort it out before the panic spreads off the planet."
They stood up and looked over when they saw a white bubble-like vehicle pull up with a green moon on the side of it followed by a black vehicle with the words Bel'nok Police Department written on the side of it.
"Let's go. We can let the professionals do their job. I want to catch Ba'zon before he leaves his office."
Mickey started off. The Doctor grabbed his shirt collar.
"The food," he said, pointing back to some white boxes sitting on a nearby bench. "We just paid for it and we can eat it on the way there. No sense in wasting it."
Mickey nodded. They walked back to the bench, grabbed the boxes and hurried back off towards the apothecary.