Oh dear...the Whispering. Again. Just the name sends shivers down my spine - the same spine that it broke, I'll remind you now. The thing nearly killed me! Would have done if it weren't for the Doctor.
But we stopped it! How can it be back? Why is it here of all places? Time will tell. Basically, we're gonna use the sonic spear (and yes, we are calling it that) to track it down, then we're gonna bombard it with Dimension Traps. Perfect plan, eh? Foolproof, right? Safe as houses.
No, no and no again. But it's the best that we (all right, he) could come up with. Despite our history with the thing, we know so little about it's true nature. We don't even know what it really looks like, or the full extent of it's powers...
The First Adventure Part 3
Myself, Rose and the Doctor crowded around the city's map. We were in the labs, in the right side tower of the Principal Building. On the map (a generic above-view layout of Ravrock, detailing all the streets, train stations and places of interest), were several red blotches of ink - all the murder sites. It was big. Very big, consisting of four distinct districts. To the right, it was mainly suburbia. The centre (where we were now) was the commercial hub of the city, consisting mostly of office blocks and banks. To the west, the smoky, sultry industrial zone of the city - factories, foundries and power plants. That left a tiny little section at the north of the city, which was effectively the slums.
"Fantastic!" The Doctor said shouted, making me and Rose jump.
"What?" We said together.
"Look 'ere," he said, pointing at a random murder side (somewhere off to the north of the city).
"Yep, looking." I said. "And?"
"Now look 'ere," he said, jabbing his finger at another site.
"Okay." I said.
He stared at me. "Serious?"
"What?"
"The subway stations, Perron, the subway stations! Lookit - every site 'as been near a subway station, right? Apart from one which was in a subway station!"
"So you think there's a connection?" Rose asked. "But look how many subway stations are marked on here! You'd be lucky to find a spot that isn't near a station."
Rose did have a point; the subway lines were marked in yellow, the stations represented as yellow dots on the square. And yes, there were a lot of them. Hundreds, even.
"Fair dinkums," I said evenly, "she's right. Basically everywhere is near a subway station here."
"Nah, nah, nah," the Doctor said flippantly, waving his hand through the air as if he was trying to swat away our dissent to his theory, "nah, I'm sure of it girls. Wanna know why?"
"Tell us."
"Coz I ain't got any better ideas whatsoever." The Doctor said firmly. "So this is what we're gonna go with. Any questions?"
"Yes." I said. "I'd like to know how this even helps. Just say it does live in the subway system...that don't narrow it down much. Look how many bloody stations they got!"
"Dat's true dat." The Doctor said, trying to be hip. Me and Rose cringed in unison. "But I've got a little idea about that..."
"You have got to be kidding." I exclaimed an hour later, looking up at the huge, bottle green steam train.
"Ha ha!" The Doctor cried, leaping up into the driver's footplate and examining the controls. "Fantastic! Look at the attention to detail!"
We were in a subway station - South Quay, a two minute walk from the Principal Buildings. It looked exactly like the one we'd seen on the cam footage, though it wasn't actually the same station. It looked identical though - grey, aside from an eye-catching yellow safety line by the platform. It smelled faintly of bleach, and the floor was a little slippery to walk on. There were adverts on the walls. Adverts advertising space fuel. Hypo-meat burgers. Grav-Bikes. It's little details like this which made me remember just how far I was from home. I felt strangely alone in those moments.
The steam train, however, might have been from 1920's Earth. It was a huge great beast, with monster sizes green wheels, and a long green boiler which radiated heat. Attached to the back was a green tender where the coal was stored. There were no coaches. The coaches had been disconnected, and the whole subway system closed down. That was evidence of how much the Mayor trusted the Doctor with this. I only hoped that trust wouldn't be misplaced.
"Course, it ain't really a steam engine," the Doctor explained, "runs on sugar, but-"
"-Excuse me?" Rose interrupted. "On sugar?"
"Yep." the Doctor said flippantly. "Sugar. The design's just for show. Retro, innit? People like a retro lookin' train. Get up 'ere you two."
Me and Rose stepped up onto the driver's footplate, with a hand up from the Doctor. In the cab were two things; the sonic spear, it's blue lights pulsing on and off, and secondly a brown sack of Dimension Bombs. I examined the controls. I didn't know much (anything) about steam trains other than that they used coal. But I guessed that the controls I was looking at now were also retro. There was a dummy firebox, and the coal in the tender was all one solid mass of plastic, made to look like hundreds of blocks of coal. But the large, stiff looking levers and the twisty-things and the dials looked like they belonged on a steam locomotive as opposed to an advanced sugar powered engine.
"Get comfy," the Doctor told us. "If we're lucky, the sonic'll pick up the Whispering pretty soon. If we ain't lucky, if we don't find nothing, then the loop round the whole city'll take all night. Migh' be a late one."
"Does this thing run quietly?" I asked.
The Doctor shrugged and pulled a wire that hung overhead in the cabin. An ear-splitting wail erupted from the engine. Me and Rose clapped out ears.
"Choo-choo," the Doctor said, grinning. "Nah. Get ready for a lotta noise."
So off we set - into the dank, unlit tunnels below the city, The locomotive operated very much like an old steam one - harmless vapour rose from the funnel, and it made all the appropriate noises. But thankfully, there was no fire to light, nor any coal to shovel. And, unlike the old steam trains, there was no nice country view to watch as we travelled. Only blackened, filthy walls which enclosed us underground as we trundled along the line, our speed somewhere less than sixty miles per hour. Not very impressive.
I said as much to the Doctor. "Ach, it's sugar power for ya," he replied, "neat idea, but it ain't got much of a kick. Green, but not very mean."
"Fair enough." I replied, glancing at the sonic spear, which was propped upright against the cabin wall, scanning the area around us for any strange energies. It's weird...although the Doctor had all but admitted this was a bit of a fools' errand, that it could very easily not be down here at all, there was no real doubt in my mind that we'd find it. I could tell the Doctor and Rose were thinking the same...any moment now...
In fact, it took four hours.
We were still chugging down the line, me and Rose half-asleep, when the sonic spear gave a frightening, ear-splitting whine.
"Chuggin' heck!" I cried, clapping my hands to my ears. Rose did the same.
"Blimey," the Doctor exclaimed grabbing the spear and somehow quietening it down. He started talking sternly to it (of course). "Now I know ya excited, Mr. Big Sonic. But don't deafen me, eh? I couldn't hack being deaf, me. I like the sound o' me own voice too much."
"Never," remarked Rose, "has a truer word been spoken."
The Doctor ignored her and brought the train to a screeching, stomach lurching halt. I heard a hideous scraping noise below us as the stationary wheels grinded along the lines. I could smell burning as the friction shot up sparks. The Doctor waited until the train had slowed right down, and then got off. Me and Rose, being sensible, waited until the train had actually stopped before jumping off ourselves.
We helped the Doctor up from the floor and he dusted himself off. He held the spear out in front of him, his face screwed up with concern.
"Ay up," he remarked as it gave another (quieter) whine. "Weird reading a-this way!"
Without waiting for us, he set off at a quick pace down the track, the way we'd just come on the train. I looked around and shivered. We were stood in the tunnel, a black cavern with a curved ceiling, and two tracks, one for each direction. I thanked my lucky stars that the Mayor had agreed to close the network - the Doctor would no doubt have come down here regardless.
But this was creepy down here, and not only because of what we thought (knew) lurked down here. Where we were standing, it wasn't for the public. It was meant to be seen, seen through train windows, but never accessed. Not by us. It had a horrible, forgotten feel to it. We all had headlamps, and I turned mine on now. We hadn't needed them inside the lit footplate of the engine.
Me and Rose jogged on after the Doctor. He didn't wait up. "Come on slowcoaches!" He called back without looking around.
"Where are we even going?" Rose asked. "There's nothing down here. Just the tunnel. And we've already come this way."
"Stop ya whining, troopers!" The Doctor called back. "Come on, let's sing. Keep the morale up. Everywhere we go!"
"Everywhere we go." Me and Rose repeated without enthusiasm.
"People always ask us!"
"People always ask us." We echoed, speaking not singing.
"Who we are!"
"Who we are."
"Where we come from."
"Where we come from them."
So we tell them!"
"So we tell them."
"Keep ya're big ugly nose out of our business!" The Doctor finished. "Now enough o' that rubbish. Look what I've found!"
We looked. My mouth dropped open; there, situated in the dark stone wall of the tunnel, was a small iron door. It was so small that it might have been built for a child. And clearly locked. A heavy padlock hung on the latch. But of course that meant nothing for the Doctor. He zapped the padlock with the sonic spear and it popped open at once. I pulled it off the handle and let it drop to the floor, making sure I didn't leave it on the railway track itself - I'd hate to be responsible for a derailing whenever the trains got up and running again.
The Doctor wrestled the door open, and as he did I was hit quite suddenly by the most ghastly smell, a foul air of such a putrid, rotten nature that my stomach turned the second I took a breath of it. I clapped my hands to my mouth, but it was too late. Staggering away from the open door, I knelt down and succumbed to a violent retching attack. Doubtless, I'd have been violently sick if I'd eaten in the past few hours. But I hadn't. I took several deep, shuddering breaths and managed to regain my composure. That smell!
"Nice," the Doctor remarked, "real nice."
"What is that?" I moaned. "I've never smelled anything like it!"
"It smelt like...is it..." Rose stared at the Doctor.
"Happen it is," the Doctor nodded grimly, "yeah."
"What?" I exclaimed.
The Doctor shrugged. "Puke. Lots and lots of puke. Gallons of it."
At this point, my retching fit returned. If they were right (and of course they were; I could recognize it for myself now) then through that little doorway had to be a bloody lake of the stuff! I laid down on the dusty floor panting. "That's disgusting."
"Understatement much." Rose gasped, clutching her nose. "What is it? I mean...why does it smell like that? It can't really be puke, surely?"
"I gotta hunch." The Doctor replied. "It ain't one of me nicer hunches. In fact, I don't like it at all."
"Well?" I gasped, rubbing my watering eyes.
"Look what's in 'ere," the Doctor told me. I rose unsteadily to my feet and staggered over, my hand clamped firmly over my nose as I breathed through my mouth. Through the doorway was a set of uneven stone steps, leading down into the blackness; our headlights didn't reach the bottom. On both sides of the staircase was a iron handrail.
"Where does that go?" Rose demanded.
"Dunno," the Doctor replied, "wanna find out?"
"Tell us your hunch before we agree to anything." I said at once.
"Well...okay. I reckon that down there is some sorta...I dunno...could be access to the sewers, which might go some way to explaining the smell. Ha. Wouldn't that be grand, if it was just a sewer. Better than the alternative."
"Which would be?"
"That this leads to some sorta old service tunnel, maybe. Or a store room. Some enclosed space anyway. Perfect place, in short, to build a nest."
Me and Rose exchanged a horrified glance. "A nest?" I repeated, my mouth dry. I recalled with horror how I'd once found it hiding in my locker at work - nesting, as the Doctor put it back then.
"Well sure. Like insects build nests with old paper an' stuff, mixed with saliva. I reckon it's the same principle but - judging by the smell - on rather a larger scale. It builds nests."
"So what your saying," Rose said, "is that down there we'll either find a sewer...or a monster sized insects' nest."
The Doctor shook his head. "It ain't a sewer girls. That were me being 'opeful. Ha. Hopeful about finding a sewer. Sums this day up. But nah...there are...blimey, 'ow to put this...er...key smells missin' if ya get what I mean."
We agreed that we did.
"So I think," the Doctor continued, "I think probably we've found our monster. Shall we go say hi to it?"
For the life of me, I'll never understand why I answered "yes" to that question.
The Doctor's Diary, Entry 1963 Part 3
Commandeered a train! That were good fun actually. We had a nice little drive around for a few hours, but then finally I got a blip on the big sonic (I was partial to "sonic spear" at first, but I think big sonic sounds better now) and we came upon this weird little door in the tunnel wall.
Got a real shock opening it though. Blimey what a stench! Horrible. But I knew at once that we'd found the right place. A certain someone was very reluctant to come down there with me. But eventually she agreed to. Good on her! Like I say - that's why I like her so much. That's why I'm glad I asked her along. Most people would run screaming from the tunnels, right? Not her. Nah.
So down we went.
Down into the dark...