The Doctor looked down at his wrist, and saw nothing. Not even the silver device he had slipped on to it moments before. He could feel the energy field that the bracelet was creating flowing around his body, reflecting so much light away that it made him totally invisible. Looking down at where his body should be once more, the Doctor had to quickly tell him self off. He had no time to waste admiring this piece of, quite frankly, marvellous technology. Every second he used it presumably used more of the reflective energy from the bracelet, which in turn meant it had to absorb more. And he wanted to absorb as little as possible.
Quickly the Doctor set on his way, heading towards the road the Unseen had been running down. Looking at his feet he could see the subtle greys of the concrete turn in to the harsher ones that seemed to be taking over this part of the city. He sped up, looking around him for any clues as to where to go. Instinctively he reached for the Sonic Screwdriver but stopped himself after realising that the reflective bracelet probably wouldn't affect the sonic device. The whole point of using it was to remain undetected whilst trying to find the Unseen ship, and a floating Sonic Screwdriver was more than likely to draw attention to him.
The Doctor's attention was quickly bought back to where he was going, as he almost hurtled straight in to a middle-aged man in a suit, presumably off to catch a train, surprisingly calm considering the pathing in front of him was slowly losing its colour. Mind you, the change in the concrete was so subtle, he may not have even noticed. Normally the Doctor wouldn't have minded knocking in to him a little, if he was in a hurry, but not today. To avoid contact, the Doctor turned quickly throwing himself off balance, out of the mans path, but tumbling into a flowerbed which lined the path.
As the man continued on his way, oblivious that anything had happened, the Doctor brushed himself off, hoping that he had gotten all of the soil from his jacket. Running a hand through his hair, he looked down at the flowerbed, the brilliants reds now faded, replaced by a depressing grey.
"I'm sorry." He sighed. "I'm so sorry." The Doctor stopped for a moment, looking up to the sky "It's a good job no one can see me talking to plants! They'd think I'm mad!"
**
Back at the cinema, Terry had just about managed to keep everybody inside, with various free food from the concessions counter, after convincing his boss that they would be sued other wise, and free showings of whatever films they happened to have on hand. After finding one of the screens that hadn't been drained by the Unseen, it seemed that everything had finally settled down. He was just glad that it wasn't a weekend, so the cinema wasn't scheduled to open until midday.
Terry was surprised at how well he had handled the whole thing. Once the Doctor had left, he had half expected everything to descend in to chaos, not for them to listen to him, who in all fairness was just a young projectionist. But as soon as he had acted authoritive, like the Doctor, they had just fallen in line. Part of him felt that something was wrong, that they should be asking questions, but he wasn't going to complain. They were staying here, just as the Doctor had asked him.
**
The Doctor stood at the edge of a large park, staring across the huge stretch of grey grass that lay ahead of him. This had to be it, the Doctor thought. Where else cold you park a, presumably, huge invisible spaceship in London? He licked his finger, impressed at how easy it was to find his mouth without being able to see his finger, and held it in the air. "Yep." he said, to no one in particular. "Can feel it in the wind. Now," he sighed, "this will be the tricky part."
Cautiously, he stepped forward, his arms out in front of him, as if trying to navigate in the dark, which, for all intents and purposes, he was. Eventually, he found something, a metal surface, cold to the touch. Next, it was just a case of finding the door. Easier said than done, he thought to himself. Although he didn't want to get ahead of himself, he'd done that before, big ol' paradox, the Doctor did have to wonder how he was going to navigate around inside the ship. And, on that point, how the unseen even managed to fly something that was invisible.
After a few minutes of working his way around the exterior of the ship, the Doctor came across a small set of stairs. Carefully feeling his way up them, he heard a hissing noise as the invisible door slid open.
"No security." He mused, looking down at the ground now a few feet below him. "Though I guess they don't really need it."
As he stepped through the door, his earlier question was answered as the interior of the ship suddenly popped in to view. As expected, the corridors were a dull grey, including the two lights on the door panel behind him, which changed from grey to duller grey as the door slid closed. Looking at his own arms, the Doctor was relieved to see, or not see, that he was unaffected. The personal reflective bracelets appeared to work on board, where as the ships larger reflector somehow managed to restrict its effect to the exterior of the ship. Made sense really, the Doctor thought to himself. What would be the point in having a completely invisible ship? Mind you, he added, what was the point of the Unseen remaining invisible on board?
Heading down the circular corridor, which led the doctor to conclude that the ship was dome-like in structure, he looked for any signs of life. Footsteps, Unseen banging in to walls, anything, but to no avail. For all he knew, he could have passed any number of Unseen, with the luck of not bumping in to them.
Eventually, he came to a doorway, conveniently labelled "Bridge". Pressing a button to the side of it, the Doctor smiled to himself as the door slid open, revealing a circular room, with a line of consoles on the back wall. From what he could here, there were two Unseen inside.
"I shall report to command." One stated. "The discovery at the cinema was most unexpected. However, it does mean that our emergency landing was not in vain."
"Indeed." The other replied. "The plan can be moved forward several stages. Rather than draining the planet via the bracelet devices and replaying it through several ship cores, we shall be able to gather energy for the Mass Reflector from across the Universe."
The Doctor leant forward with interest, as he saw two grey cables float across the room towards a corner. Part of him felt relieved that they did appear to have made an emergency landing, but now it seemed that they had found something that had changed their plans. He hadn't heard enough to find out what they were just yet, but if it involved draining energy from across the universe, he knew it couldn't be good.
Careful not to make a sound, and slightly surprised the Unseen hadn't noticed the open door, the Doctor slipped in to the room, eager to lay his eyes on whatever the discovery the Unseen had made.
Both his hearts dropped, however, as he caught sight of the large box in the corner, its double doors wide open, revealing its massive interior, from which two cables trailed. The deep blue of the wooden exterior had gone, replaced by a soft grey, emphasised by the black panel at the top, which read "Police Public Call Box". Looking inside he could tell that the reflectors had begun to effect the interior dimension of the TARDIS too, although to a lesser extent.
Running a hand through his hair, the Doctor sighed a little too deeply. How had he forgotten to lock the door again? And, more importantly, how was he going to get the colour back? He would always love his TARDIS, but had to admit that it just wasn't the same in black and white.