Authors note: (I have posted a Rose and Ten video on YouTube called the Doctor and Rose. The Rain after Doomsday. Check it out if you are interested.)

Chapter 3

Decoding the hum

M4 Motorway.

Westbound Carriageway.

'So we're going all the way to Bristol to record a hum?' "Other Craig" Owens asked his field partner in the back of the Range Rover. 'Here . . . Hmmmmmm,' he hummed into his tablet PC. 'There you go. Don't need to go to Bristol for that.'

Amy rolled her eyes. 'We're not going just to record it, we're going to investigate it. Haven't you read your mission briefing?'

'What mission briefing? You just told me we were off to Bristol and I should grab my gear,' Craig complained.

'Of all the agents in Blue Watch, I had to get lumbered with you,' Amy said with a lopsided smile.

Camera Director David Rea chuckled to himself as he filmed the interaction from the front passenger seat. The viewers had really taken to these two new recruits, and loved their sniping banter.

'It could be worse,' Craig started to say and then paused for thought. Amy crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to tell her who he thought could be worse. 'No, actually . . . I think you've hit rock bottom with me.'

'Wellll. I suppose it's good to have a field partner who knows his limitations. So, what have you found out about the nineteen fifties?'

'Ooh. Elvis. Mods and Rockers,' John said enthusiastically from the driver's seat. 'And chicks in pink tulle dresses on the back of scooters.'

'Er, yeah. There was all that,' Craig said. 'But from a technological viewpoint, CERN was established in Switzerland. The Russians opened the first nuclear power plant. The first transistorised computer was built in Manchester, and of course, Sputnik was launched into space.'

'Ah yes, I remember them well,' John said with a wistful smile. 'All good possible sources for phenomena that hadn't been seen before the fifties.'

'So what have you found out?' Craig asked Amy.

'Okay. So two percent of the world's population have green eyes. Could that be it?'

Craig stared at her face. 'Not unless you're wearing coloured contact lenses. Your eyes are brown.'

'Oh yeah. You're right. Ooh, here we are though. Less than two percent have two copies of a recessive allele on chromosome 16 which produces an altered version of the MC1R protein which produces red hair . . . And before you say anythin', I'm not wearin' a wig.'

'Never crossed my mind,' Craig said with a smile.

'Always wanted to be ginger,' John said distractedly, out of the blue. 'Never quite made it though.'

Craig and Amy gave each other knowing looks. They really liked Doctor Smith. He was your typical example of an eccentric scientist, thoughts all over the place and saying random things.

'I prefer the term redhead myself,' Amy told them. 'Although I also like it when Rory calls me "flame haired".'

'When's that then?' Craig asked with a cheeky smile.

'Never you mind,' Amy told him, and went back to her research. 'This one's a bit disturbin'. Psychopaths and Sociopaths make up two percent of the population. I hope that's not the one we're lookin' for.'

'Two percent of the people think, three percent of the people think they think, and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think,' John said.

'Eh?' Amy and Craig said together.

'George Bernard Shaw. Not much use in finding the hum, I grant you. But I quite like that quote.'

'O-kay,' Craig said uncertainly. 'So I get that stuff in the fifties could have started the hum, and I get that somehow only two percent of people can hear it. But why are we having to go to Bristol to hear it? Why isn't it everywhere?'

John turned in his seat to look at them. The car was driving itself. 'Ooh, look out Amy. You've got competition. My guess would be something like harmonic antinodes, where the amplitude of a waveform rises from zero, curves to its peak, and then falls back to zero.'

'And Bristol is on a peak?' Amy queried.

'Sorry Craig, she's back in the lead,' John said with a grin.

'So what's the plan when we get there?' Craig asked.

'We scan the area for the hum. See if we can identify a cause for it, and try to locate the origin,' John told them.

'Simple huh?' Craig said.

About an hour later, the car drove itself along The Portway on the outskirts of Bristol, and turned onto the new housing development where Amy's friends lived. John was reminded of Dame Kelly Holmes Close in the old universe where he and Rose had helped an Isolus find its way home.

They climbed out of the Range Rover, and John licked his finger before sticking it in the air for no apparent reason. He looked around and sniffed the air. 'Can you hear it? That "thrumming" sound?'

Amy nodded. 'Yeah. That's it.'

Craig frowned and held his head on one side. 'Nah, I'm not gettin' it.'

John gave him an intense stare. 'Nothing? At all?'

Craig shrugged his shoulders and tilted his head to the side as he listened. 'Traffic from that main road . . .'

'The Portway,' Amy informed him.

'Yeah, that's the one. Birds singin'. A dog barkin'.'

'And a hum humming,' John said as he took out his sonic screwdriver and walked over to Craig. He scanned his head and frowned at the readings. He then pulled on Craig's earlobe and looked inside. 'Nothing in there.'

Amy spurted a laugh. 'That's what I've been saying.'

'So why can't I hear it?' Craig asked him.

'Well. For a start, you're not a red haired, green eyed psychopath.' He gave Amy a cheeky smile. 'I think the signal has a perception discriminator encoded in it. Only people with a specific synaptic engram programmed into their genes can hear it without listening for it.'

'Eh?' Craig said.

'You hear millions of different sounds every day,' John explained. 'You only listen to a few of them when your brain brings them to your attention.'

John put his hand on Craig's shoulder. 'Take a deep breath, and relax your shoulders.'

Craig drew in a deep breath and worked his neck around. 'Good lad. Now go "ommmm".' John instructed.

'Ommmm,' Craig intoned.

'Now close your eyes and listen . . .'

Craig closed his eyes and listened.

"Hum-um-um-um-um-um-um-um-um" he heard, apparently from all around him. 'What is that? It seems to be coming from everywhere.'

'That, you numpty, is what we've come to find out,' Amy told him with a lopsided smile.

They took out their scanners and started moving away from the car. John walked to the middle of the road, got down on his hands and knees, and listened to the tarmac. He then stood up and looked up and down the street. He walked over to a manhole cover and took his sonic screwdriver out of the inside pocket of his brown, pinstriped suit. He crouched down and scanned the metal cover, before inspecting the results on the holographic display.

'Fifty six Hertz modulated waveform at about six to eight decibels,' Amy reported from her scanner.

'No wonder it's easier to hear at night,' Craig said. 'That's barely above the sound of a gentle breeze. Can't seem to get a fix on it though.'

John had gone back to the car, and reached what looked like a loud hailer out of the back of it. 'That, is why I brought this.'

'Wha? A loud hailer?' Amy asked with a frown.

John smiled. 'It's not for hailing loudly,' he said, and then leaned forward in a conspiratorial fashion. 'It's for listening very, very quietly,' he whispered.

He straightened up and gave them an open mouthed smile. 'Isn't that brilliant!'

On the back of the "listening very, very quietly" device, was a LCD screen and a numeric keypad. 'Right. We just key in fifty six, set it to "listen", and then wave it about until it picks up the strongest signal.'

He started walking around the street, holding the device at arm's length. After a few minutes, he stopped and frowned at the device. He scratched the back of his head and thumped the side of the display. 'That can't be right.'

'What is it Doc?' Craig asked as he saved the data on his scanner.

'This thing doesn't seem to be working right.'

'Why? What's wrong with it?' Amy asked.

'Well. It's a directional microphone, and when you point it in the direction of the source of a sound, the amplitude shows maximum. But no matter where I point it, the reading is always the same, and that's not possible.'

'What? So the sound is coming from everywhere?' Amy asked.

'Can't be. Like I said, this thing must be faulty . . . Have you finished your scans?'

'Yeah. The data is saved and uploaded to Torchwood,' Craig informed him.

'Good, then I think we should get back and analyse that data. Something's not right here.'


In the Multimedia Lab, John was processing the data that had been uploaded from the scanners. Rose came up behind him, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and kissed his cheek.

'Whatcha found then?' she asked him.

'Well. There's a lot going on with this data. The fifty six Hertz is just a central carrier frequency. There are a number of side-band frequencies in there as well.'

'Meanin'?' Rose asked with a raised eyebrow.

'Meaning that this hum is a frequency modulated, perception discriminated signal. Rose, there's a message in this hum . . . a message for two percent of the population.'

'A message?! Oh my God. What message? What's it say?' she asked as she sat beside him and looked at the digitised waveform on the screen.

'That's what I'm trying to decode at the moment. The signal's being distorted somehow. It's like it's phase shifted somehow.'

'What? Like when the Crucible was out of phase with the rest of the universe in the Medusa Cascade y'mean?'

He gave her a grin. 'Same principle yeah, but a different kind of shift. If I can find out how it's been shifted, I can correct for it and remodulate the message.'

She gave him her tongue between the teeth grin. 'I love it when ya talk technical. So how many ways can you phase shift a signal?'

He gave her a quick peck on the lips. 'And I love it when you talk technical. It gets me thinking on the right track. So, we have a message that appears to come from everywhere at once. We know that's not possible in this universe, don't we?'

'Er, yeah. But when we're in the TARDIS, in the Vortex, then we are everywhere and everywhen at once . . . aren't we?' she said tentatively, trying to remember what he had told her about the nature of the Vortex.

'The Vortex . . . of course!' He stood up, grabbed her shoulders, and snogged her. He then put his mouth in gear and started talking excitedly. 'So this message is from somewhere else and is mapping itself onto this universe so that it appears to be everywhere at once. If we take the TARDIS into the Vortex, we can extrapolate the origin of the signal and compensate for the distortion.'

She took his offered hand and grinned. 'Come on then, what are y'waitin' for?'

They went down to the Standby Room, and Rose went to Andy McNab's office where she found Duncan Prescott filing reports.

'Dunc. John's found a hidden message and we need to take a quick trip in the TARDIS. Are you okay to take over the Watch for a while?'

Duncan smiled at her. He knew if the Doc was onto something, he wouldn't give a thought to protocol. He'd just up sticks and go, taking the watch supervisor with him. 'Yeah. Go for it. I'm nearly done with these reports anyway.'

'Thanks Dunc. You're the best.'

John took his smart phone out of his pocket and selected the TARDIS app. A few seconds later, the Standby Room was filled with the trumpeting brouhaha of the TARDIS shouldering its way onto the landing pad. He unlocked the door and pushed it open for Rose to enter, before following her inside. At the console, he put the TARDIS into the Vortex and went to the monitor to start analysing the signal.

'Right then, let's start pulling this apart and putting it back together.'

Rose listened to the audio output, which sounded like radio static and a station not quite tuned in.

['. . . Use . . .'] came out of the speaker, distorted and phase altered.

'Did you hear that?' Rose asked excitedly. 'Was that someone sayin' "use"?'

John grinned and nodded. 'Yeah, I do believe it was.'

'Use what? Are they tryin' to tell us to use somethin' to hear the message?'

'I doubt it. You'd need to be able to hear the message in the first place to hear what they wanted you to use.'

'Oh yeah.'

['Slash apple . . . ctor offset . . .'] the voice said with less distortion.

'That was clearer that time,' Rose told him.

'This is weird,' John said with a frown. 'The message seems to originate outside of our universe.'

'Outside? What, like from the Void? It's not the Daleks or the Cybermen is it?' Rose asked, but he was too busy fiddling with the console to answer.

'Nah . . . Oh!' he said suddenly and straightened up from the console, crossing his arms. 'Oh that is just too weird.'

'What is? What?'

'It's coming from a parallel universe.'

Rose looked puzzled. 'But parallel universes are closed off.'

'They are now, yeah. But at some point, when they were open, this message snook through to the nineteen fifties and got stuck in a time loop,' John explained.

'So what does it say?'

'Well. Now I know what's causing the distortion, I can do this.' He twiddled and twisted knobs and dials, and pulled down a lever.

['I could use a lift sweetie. Eight seven three five, slash three four nine by ten, zero twelve slash apple, vector offset nine zero epsilon,'] a woman's voice said from the speaker. ['I could use a lift sweetie. Eight seven three five, slash three four nine by ten, zero twelve slash apple, vector offset nine zero epsilon,'] it repeated on a loop.

'Those were coordinates,' Rose realised. 'And who the hell is that anyway?'