Chapter 5
River's World
'. . . It for?' Rose asked as they appeared in a penthouse suite of the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane.
'Whoa!' John said as he looked around the plush suite. 'Won't using a teleport attract the attention of Torchwood?'
'Everyone uses them in this world. Apparently, Torchwood confiscated the technology from some off world visitors and retro engineered them.'
'That's why there was no traffic,' Rose realised.
'That's right. No cars, no trains. There are still a few light aircraft doing sightseeing flights, and boats doing pleasure cruises up and down the river.'
Rose looked around the apartment. 'How long have you been here? You seem to have landed on yer feet. This place must cost a fortune.'
'About two weeks,' River replied. 'The manager is such a sweetheart. He's let me . . . "borrow" the apartment while I waited for you to answer my call. Would you like a cup of tea? I'll call room service and get them to send a pot up.'
'Ooh, that'd be lovely thanks,' Rose replied.
John raised an eyebrow. 'How did you persuade him to lend you a penthouse suite?'
'Let's just say he likes my lipstick.'
'And how did you end up here anyway?' John asked.
'Oh, that was an old friend of yours. The Exalted Holgoroth of All Tagkhanastria.'
'Who?' Rose asked.
'A very clever, and not very nice character who has the technology to produce transdimensional manipulators,' John explained.
'He's cross with you for stealing that orb,' River said. 'Not to mention the emissary from the Crab Nebula. Apparently it took years for diplomatic relations to thaw.'
John scratched the back of his neck. 'Wellll. He'd only have used it to build a space empire. And I needed it to stop a Starman. So, what did you steal from him then?'
River had a hurt expression on her face. 'I resent that accusation.'
'Resent it, but not deny it,' John said with a lopsided smile.
'Wellll. As you said, he'd only have used it to build a space empire.' River said as she reached into her bag and took out an object the size of a tennis ball. It was an icosahedron made up of twenty triangular mirrors.
'A Dimensional Manipulator. I managed to distract Holgy and hide it in my bag. He was a surprisingly good kisser,' she remembered with a smile. 'But I digress . . . I made my excuses and left. When I tried to use my Vortex Manipulator to make my escape, Holgy had remotely activated the Dimensional Manipulator at the same time to try and get it back. The two devices must have interfered with each other and I ended up here.'
At that point, room service arrived with a tray of tea, and River poured them each a cup.
'So how did you send a message across the void?' Rose asked. 'And why can only two percent of the population hear it?'
'Two percent? Really? I used a sample of my DNA to modulate the carrier through my Vortex Manipulator and patched it through the Alexandra Palace transmitter on a chrono-loop.'
'The Ally Pally!' John exclaimed. 'That's why the hum started in the fifties. It's when the BBC started transmitting television signals.'
'I was trying to send a message to my parents as I know they travel with the Doctor. I thought I stood a better chance of rescue if they heard the message.'
Rose snorted a laugh. 'The Doctor's travelling with pensioners now? Blimey!'
'Ah. Er, actually, Amy and Rory are in their twenties,' River informed her. 'It's a bit, how does he say it, timey-wimey.'
'Amy?' Rose asked with raised eyebrows. 'Cute redhead with great legs?'
It was River's turn to look surprised. 'You've met her?'
'And Rory,' John added. 'An outstanding nurse with a worried expression?'
'You have met them. But how? You don't meet them until you . . . Well, you know, change your face.'
'Did the Doctor you know ever tell you about the Daleks creating a reality bomb in the Medusa Cascade?' John asked her.
'Yes. That was when a lot of your companions came together to defeat Davros,' River remembered. 'And it was when Donna Noble had to have her memory wiped to save her life.'
'Right. And did he tell you the side effect of Doctor Donna being created?'
'What side effect?' River asked.
'That's a no then,' Rose said.
'Instantaneous biological metacrisis,' John explained. 'The human body of Donna Noble got a Time Lord brain, and a Time Lord brain got a human body . . . Namely, this one.'
Slowly, River realised what was going on. 'So, the battle of Canary Wharf has already happened for you.'
'Years ago,' Rose confirmed.
'And you have come from the alternate reality where you live with your parents.'
'Well, not in the same house,' Rose joked. 'But yeah. Same universe.'
River turned to John. 'And he left you there with Rose?'
'To live our lives, day after day. He sacrificed his own happiness so that Rose could spend her life with me. He loved her that much.'
River had tears glistening in her eyes. 'Oh that man. Just when you think you've got the measure of him . . . Thank you for telling me. It certainly explains a lot. He made me think that he'd left you with your parents in the other universe so that you wouldn't be alone and that he wouldn't have to watch you grow old and die,' she told Rose.
'How was he after he left us?' Rose asked.
'Pretty bad after he took Donna home. He went off the rails a bit, "Time Lord Victorious" he called himself. Started breaking the rules, and that led to a situation where he had to sacrifice one of his lives to save Donna's grandfather from a lethal dose of radiation.'
'What, Wilfred Mott?' Rose asked.
'Yes. Do you know him?'
'I met him briefly when I was sent across to find the Doctor. The Doctor did the same thing for me once.' Rose saw the questioning look on River's face and looked over at her husband. 'I looked into the heart of the TARDIS to save him and it was killing me. He took the energy into himself to save me and it killed him instead.'
'I couldn't let you die,' John said. 'Even back then I loved you.'
River continued. 'It was a slow, lingering regeneration for him. It gave him chance to reflect on his life. He told me that he revisited all his old friends and companions before he regenerated.'
'Right then,' John said, disturbed by what he'd heard about his alter ego. 'So what's going on with Torchwood, and why have they grabbed this worlds Doctor and Lucie?'
'From what I can gather from the internet, over the last few months, the government have passed legislation which gives Torchwood new powers to arrest suspected aliens and hold them without trial. It's like a police state if you're an alien or an outsider.'
'If it's alien, it's ours,' John said to himself, quoting Yvonne Hartman from the original universe. 'And apparently, if you're an alien, you're an enemy of the state.'
'What will they do to the Doctor?' Rose asked.
'I can imagine,' John said. 'I remember what Henry van Statten did in that vault of his. It wasn't pleasant, and these guys have equipment that make van Statten's bunker look like a garden shed.'
'But he's the Doctor,' Rose said. 'He'll be able to take care of it.'
'Don't forget Rose that we only got out of Torchwood that time because the Cybermen and Daleks kicked off. Who knows what they'd got in store for me before they were rudely interrupted.'
'Oh yeah. So what we gonna do?'
'Well, first of all, we need information,' John told her.
'Know your enemy,' River said.
'Exactly! Do you have a computer in this apartment?' John asked River.
'On the desk over there.' River indicated an area out of sight in the "L" shaped room.
'Good. Rose, see what you can find out about Torchwood. River, show me the teleport devices you used to get us here.'
On River's right wrist was her Vortex Manipulator in the leather bracer. On her left wrist was something that looked like a smart phone. 'You can type in a street name, postcode, map reference, or use the map to locate your destination. All public areas and buildings are accessible. Private dwellings need an access code so that burglars can't just jump in and pinch stuff.'
'Sensible,' John nodded. 'And what are these key fobs?'
'Drone teleports. They're slaved to this one so that you can give people a lift.
John took out his sonic screwdriver. 'Good. Now let me have the teleport. I want to see what I can do with it.'
River unclipped the bracer and handed it over. John started scanning it, and asked questions as he worked. 'Who's in charge of Torchwood over here?'
'A woman called Yvonne Hartman,' River informed him.
John tutted. 'Oh it would be her wouldn't it.'
'You know her?' River asked.
'Well, the other "her", in the old universe. She was a megalomaniac, hell bent on establishing the British Empire all over again.'
'Oh-my-God,' Rose said from the computer desk.
John hurried over to her with River right behind him. 'What is it? What have you found? What are Torchwood up to?'
'Torchwood? Oh yeah, them,' she said sheepishly. 'I thought that before I start looking them up, I'd have a quick look at the Tyler family.'
John raised his eyebrows and gave her a withering look. 'And what did you find?'
'I married Jimmy Stone!' Rose said in amazement. 'I mean this worlds me married him.'
'Who's Jimmy Stone?' River asked.
'An old flame of hers,' John said.
'A waster,' Rose told her. 'Except in this world he's the front man of a rock band. "Jimmy Stone and the Pantheon of Discord".'
'And the Tylers?' John asked.
'Pete Tyler runs a small business from the flat on the Powell Estate. Jackie runs a hairdressing salon in Peckham, and Rose is a TV celebrity. It says here that she won the hearts of the nation when she just missed out on the gold medal at Athens and broke down in tears,' Rose read.
'The crowds and the commentators disagreed with a judge's marks and felt she should have won the gold. She did interviews with all the major channels and came over really well. When she returned from Athens, she married her boyfriend Jimmy Stone, and was offered a job presenting a TV sports quiz.'
'Hah! Isn't it brilliant how things turn out when you make a different choice,' John said.
'Yeah,' Rose agreed. 'But Jimmy still chose to fool around with Noosh Jansen, the daughter of the band's manager. Rose recently found out and filed for divorce on grounds of infidelity.'
'Still a waster then,' River said. 'Although, a bad boy is SO attractive.'
John rolled his eyes. 'Can we get back to finding information about Torchwood and rescuing the Doctor.'
Rose guiltily turned back to the computer and started searching the internet. John went back to modifying the teleport.
'So what's the plan?' River asked.
'He doesn't do plans,' Rose told her.
'Don't I know it,' River said distractedly. 'Okay. What's the thing you're going to do?'
'Well. Right about now, if this world's Torchwood is anything like the old world's version, they should have detected the TARDIS and be moving it to the warehouse in Canary Wharf.'
'WHA?!' Rose exclaimed. 'But if they've got the TARDIS then we're stuck here!'
'Ah, yes. I can see where that might be a problem,' John said as he worked on the teleport. 'How's your Greek history?' he asked Rose.
'Eh? What have the Greeks got to do with Torchwood?' Rose queried.
But River understood the reference. 'Are we talking Odysseus at the siege of Troy?'
'We are indeed. Not so much a wooden horse as a wooden box though.'
'The Trojan Horse,' Rose said as she too got the idea. 'But didn't it have the soldiers in it before they took it into the city?'
John grinned. 'It did yeah. But I think it's time we updated the legend.' He finished "sonicking" the teleport and went over to Rose at the computer. 'Have you found anything?'
'I managed to get limited access with my Torchwood login and download some info before they realised I wasn't legit and locked me out.'
'Oh good girl,' John said, kissing her on the cheek.
'Your Torchwood login?' River asked with a frown.
'Yeah. We work for Torchwood,' Rose informed her. 'Our Torchwood has been reformed by my dad. It's a force for good in our world.'
John was looking at the computer. 'Heads up. It looks like Big Brother has been watching. They've rumbled us and are tracing the connection.'
'I've downloaded the data onto my phone so that we can take it with us,' Rose told him.
'Right then. Hold onto these key fobs,' John said, handing them the teleport drone units. 'I've modified the matter stream demodulator to tap into the TARDIS emergency call protocol. Instead of the TARDIS coming to us . . .'
He pressed a button on the teleport, and the penthouse suite faded away, to be replaced by the domed, Edwardian interior of their TARDIS.
'. . . We go to the TARDIS.'
'Ooh,' River said as she looked around. 'This is your TARDIS?'
Rose smiled. 'Yeah. D'ya like it?'
'The wood panelling and the corniche décorative are a nice touch.'
'Yeah,' Rose agreed. 'We love it.'
John had moved to the monitor and checked the display. 'Rose. Plug your phone into the console and upload the data.'
'Okay.' She put her phone into the cradle and pressed "send". John watched the data scroll down the screen.
'Blimey. Parallel worlds,' he said, blowing out his cheeks. 'Hang on. I know what it's like? It's like those twins that are separated at birth and then live their lives the same.'
'Why? What have ya found?'
'Lots of people we know who won't have a clue who we are.'
