Chapter Three

In Which Rose Comes to the Rescue

"Why?"

There was no answer.

"Try something else! This is important, I can hardly just go hunting through a strange city when there's aliens after me!"

Rose heard a voice from outside the ship. "We know you're in there. By the power given us by Chronis, we command you to come out."

"No, I don't think so," she shouted. "I have no clue what Chronis is, and I don't really care. I need to find my friend, so you need to go away, yeah?"

"Come out, in the name of Chronis!"

"Right, didn't think so," she muttered. "It was worth a shot." She drummed her fingers on the console. "TARDIS, what method of location are you using?"

"You cannot hide in there forever!"

"Watch me," she called. The screen flashed. ATTEMPTING TO TRIANGULATE. Rose shook her head. "No, TARDIS, that's not going to work. Locate the largest amount of time energy in the city."

She waited. A second later, the words flashed on the screen. LARGEST AMOUNT OF TIME ENERGY LOCATED.

"Is it the Doctor?"

NEGATIVE.

She scowled. "Find the next-largest amount of time—no, never mind. Take me there."

UNABLE TO EXECUTE COMMAND DUE TO PREVIOUS ORDERS. ORDERS MUST BE OVERRIDDEN BEFORE COMMAND CAN BE EXECUTED.

Before any more text could appear on the screen, Rose said, "With the Doctor missing, I , as his Companion, temporarily assume highest ranking in hierarchy for TARDIS command, and I say, override all previous orders."

LOGIC DOES NOT FOLLOW. ORDERS MUST BE--

"Override all previous orders, now, because if you don't then the Doctor's as good as dead, and so am I."

ORDERS MUST--

"I don't care. Override, now. And...the password's "foreverwrose," if that helps."

OVERRIDING PREVIOUS ORDERS.

Rose glared at the letters. "Reading that hurts my head. Isn't there a better way to communicate? I mean, you are a telepathic hi-tech time-traveling spaceship."

Apologies, Companion Rose.

Rose nearly jumped out of her skin as she heard an inhuman voice in her mind, a voice that wasn't speaking English but she could somehow understand anyway. "Right," she said, rather alarmed. "I guess I knew you could do that," she added after a pause. "You translate in my head all the time."

Activate transport to location of largest nearby source of time energy?

"Yes."

The engines kicked in, and Rose called, "Bye, creeps!" as loudly as she could to the aliens outside as the TARDIS faded away. A second later, there was a jolt, and she opened the doors.

The hallway she was in was dimly lit with poor lightbulbs. She could see the wiring hanging limply from the ceiling. The walls were made of brick and the floor was plain dirt. She had the nasty feeling she was underground. She shuddered. The hall—tunnel?--was well constructed, but even so, it wasn't a nice thought.

"Right," she said softly. "There's more time energy here than even the Doctor has?"

Shaking her head, she walked slowly down the corridor. Around three corners, left when she reached a T, and another ten meters, she came across a flight of stairs. The stairs were covered with smooth, polished wood.

"Wood here, but not everywhere else?" she asked herself. And then she realized that it would be to save money. "Time will march on and on, and five billion years later money will still be the most important thing to the vast majority of the universe," she muttered in disgust, and hurried on.

She came to a door about halfway to the end of the hall. She stopped and looked at it for a moment. It was metal and looked like it might be codelocked and alarmed, but judging by the state of the lights and the dirt floor, whoever had built this place wasn't spending any unnecessary money. She didn't think she would have any trouble with the door.

"I'm coming in there," she said in her most threatening voice. "You'd better give me what I want because otherwise...otherwise...you'll be in big trouble." That's lame, she thought, but it didn't matter. She opened the door.

The lights were even worse in here, mostly because more than half of them had burned out. She strained her eyes to see through the darkness. The floor in her was tiled, she noticed, and the walls were made of cinder blocks instead of bricks. She failed to noticed the single most interesting and important thing in the room until a voice called, "Rose? How did you get here?"

"Doctor?" She saw him, then, pressed against the wall. "What is this place?" There was another flight of stairs in this room, leading up through the ceiling. "What's going on?"

"Yes, no idea, same." He shifted around, and she heard a clinking sound. "Could you possibly use the sonic screwdriver to unlock the metal things on my feet? It's not very comfortable to have them there, the fact that I can't move besides. I would do it myself, but my hands are cuffed as well and the combination of the two makes it quite hard to reach. And you haven't answered my question. Did they get you? Did you slip away? You can't fly the TARDIS, so how did you get here?"

"Told her to come. Emergency protocol."

"But you needed to override my orders to do that," he said, confused. She ran over and grabbed the screwdriver from his hand.

"Yeah." She attacked the cuff on his right hand.

"The TARDIS won't let you do that without the password." The cuff sprang open. He took the screwdriver and worked on freeing himself.

"I know."

"You know my password?"

"Mm-hm." She leaned against the wall, while he whacked his sonic screwdriver against the floor. "You know, you're missing a character."

"What?" He shook the screwdriver violently and tried it again. "I think it died. How do you know my password?"

"I found your note to yourself telling you what it was. No, I wasn't sneaking around in your room, it was in the hallway. No idea. Anyways, when you shorten with to a w you add a slash, yeah? You know, the diagonal line?"

"I know what a slash is, Rose. Aha! Finally!" He sprang to his feet. "Much better. Now, what do you say we get out of here?"

"Sounds good to me." She thought. "And I probably could have guessed your password. You're the most spontaneous person in the universe—improvise everything, don't even know what you're saying until after you've said it—but sometimes you can be so predictable."

He scowled. "I am never predictable. Except sometimes, a little bit, when I sort of not exactly but in a roundabout way...well, when I am."

"Let's go."

He started to nod, then froze. "Sounds great. Except one thing."

"What?"

"Look behind you."

Slowly, Rose turned around. For a moment, she stared. She swallowed hard and took a step back. Then, she screamed.