Rose: The Nestene Consciousness
Outside would find the two in Westminster at night time on the north back of the Thames next to the RAF monument.
"I lost the signal, I got so close," I groaned after trying to pick up the signal again with my sonic screwdriver.
"We've moved," Rose said after looking at where they are with astonishment. "Does it fly?" She thought it was just a box. How can a box move?
"Disappears there and reappears here," was the easiest way for her to understand. She wouldn't understand anything else. "You wouldn't understand." At least at the moment I don't think she would and we haven't got the time.
"If we're somewhere else, what about that headless thing? It's still on the loose," she didn't want it to kill loads of people.
"It melted with the head. Are you going to witter on all night?" I can't concentrate if she kept on talking. I needed to find how to stop the Autons so they wouldn't kill anyone.
"I'll have to tell his mother. Mickey. I'll have to tell his mother he's dead, and you just went and forgot him, again! You were right, you are alien."
"Look, if I did forget some kid called Mickey."
"Yeah, he's not a kid." He is in my eyes. She's really making me annoyed. It takes a lot to make me angry.
"It's because I'm trying to save the life of every stupid ape blundering on top of this planet, all right?"
"All right."
"Yes, it is!" Finally I can concentrate.
"If you are an alien," great. "How comes you sound like you're from the North?" Oh, I didn't really realise that, but what's the problem with sounding like that.
"Lots of planets have a north," and a south, east and west.
Rose looked at the TARDIS. "What's a police public call box?"
"It's a telephone box from the 1950s," didn't she do history in school. "It's a disguise." The Chameleon circuits broke on my first trip to Earth. I could change it but the Doctor really like the TARDIS like this and I must admit I agree.
"Okay. And this, this living plastic. What's it got against us?"
"Nothing. It loves you. You've got such a good planet. Lots of smoke and oil, plenty of toxins and dioxins in the air, perfect. Just what the Nestene Consciousness needs. Its food stock was destroyed in the war, all its protein plants rotted, so Earth, dinner!" I worked out that it was the Nestene
Consciousness in charge of all this.
"Any way of stopping it?" There's got to be some way so we can save the Earth.
I bring out a tube of blue liquid out of my bigger-on-the-inside-pockets and hold it up to show Rose.
"Anti-plastic," I answered to her questioning face.
"Anti-plastic."
She repeats a lot of things I say. "Anti-plastic. But first I've got to find it," referring to the Nestene Consciousness though I haven't told that to Rose yet. "How can you hide something that big in a city this small?"
"Hold on. Hide what?" What was she talking about?
"The transmitter. The Consciousness is controlling every single piece of plastic, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal."
"What does it look like?"
I just said it looks like a transmitter, what else does it look like? "Like a transmitter. Round and massive, slap bang in the middle of London: a huge circular metal structure like a dish, like a wheel. Radial. Close to where we're standing. Must be completely invisible. What? What?"
I turn and look at what Rose is staring at on the south bank but I don't see what she's staring at. "What? What is it? What?" I look back and forth between Rose and what she is looking at a few times before it finally clicks. It's the London Eye. "Oh. Fantastic!"
~TI~
A few minutes later will find me and Rose running across Westminster Bridge hand in hand.
"Think of it, plastic all over the world, every artificial thing waiting to come alive. The shop window dummies, the phones, the wires, the cables," I say to Rose as we stop at the end of the bridge
"The breast implants." Ooh, she seems quite clever.
"Still, we've found the transmitter. The Consciousness must be somewhere underneath."
"What about down here?" Rose had walked over the parapet and saw a large manhole entrance at the bottom of some steps.
"Looks good to me."
We run down and I open up a hatch where we see a red light inside.
~TI~
Inside the chamber we climb down a short ladder into a brick-built area with lots of chains. From there we go through a door and down a flight of steps into a multi-level chamber. We move forward and look over a railing to see the Nestene Consciousness. It looked like it was made of a bright orange magma that kept bubbling and sizzling.
"That's it, inside the vat. A living plastic creature," I explained to Rose.
"Well, then. Tip in your anti-plastic and let's go."
Why does she think I'm going to kill it? It's not what the Doctor would do and it's against my nature to kill anything. "I'm not here to kill it. I've got to give it a chance." I go down to a catwalk overlooking the Consciousness. "I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract according to convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation. Something in the Consciousness flexes. Back on my planet we have a place called the Academy where we learn all about ourselves and other species including how to understand their languages. It also helps when you've got the TARDIS translations circuits that will help translate anything for you except if it's in Gallifreyan. "Thank you. If I might have permission to approach?"
Rose spots someone on a lower level and runs down to help them. It was Mickey. The real Mickey. "Oh, God! Mickey, it's me! It's okay. It's all right." She hugs him and he doesn't let go.
"That thing down there, the liquid. Rose, it can talk!"
"You're stinking. Iris, they kept him alive."
"Yeah, that was always a possibility as I told you earlier."
I continue downwards to get closer to the Consciousness. "Am I addressing the Consciousness? Thank you. If I might observe, you infiltrated this civilisation by means of warp shunt technology. So, may I suggest, with the greatest respect, that you leave?"
The humans and I watch as a face forms in the vat of plastic. "Oh, don't give me that. It's an invasion, plain and simple. Don't talk about constitutional rights. I am talking! This planet is just starting. These stupid little people have only just learnt how to walk, but they're capable of so much more. I'm asking you on their behalf. Please, just go."
"Iris!" Rose shouted to me. I looked over to her to see her pointing behind me. Before I can do anything a Pair of Autons grab me. One of them takes the vial of anti-plastic from my pocket.
I turned back to the Consciousness. "That was just insurance. I wasn't going to use it. I was not attacking you. I'm here to help. I'm not your enemy. I swear, I'm not. What do you mean?" I turn my head to look behind me to see a door sliding back to reveal the TARDIS. "No. Oh, no. Honestly, no. Yes, that's my ship. That's not true. I should know, I was there. I fought in the war. It wasn't my fault. I couldn't save your world! I couldn't save any of them!"
"What's it doing?!" Rose asked me.
"It's the TARDIS! The Nestene's identified its superior technology. It's terrified. It's going to the final phase. It's starting the invasion! Get out, Rose! Just leg it now!"
As the plastic in the vat keeps roaring, Rose just ignores my warning and takes out her phone. She phones her mother. "Mum?"
Outside a police station Jackie answers her phone. "Oh, there you are. I was just going to phone. You can get compensation. I said so. I've got this document thing off the police. Don't thank me."
"Where are you, mum?"
"I'm in town," she said outside Queen's Arcade.
"No, go home! Just go home right now!"
"Darling, you're breaking up. Listen, I'm just going to do a bit of late night shopping. I'll see you later. Ta-ra!"
"Mum! Mum!" Rose shouts before she realises that her mom's turned off the call.
~TI~
Jackie goes into Queens Arcade, which contains the Underground station entrance.
~TI~
The Consciousness starts throwing energy bolts around.
"It's the activation signal. It's transmitting!" I explained to Rose. The Eye above lights up with energy.
"It's the end of the world," Rose said dramatically.
~TI~
Inside the Queens Arcade would find Clive and his wife doing some late night shopping. "There's no point creating a spreadsheet if you're going to spend summer money in winter months."
Near them a shop dummy moves. "Oh, my God! I thought they were dummies. I nearly had a heart-attack," Caroline, his wife exclaimed.
Everyone stopped to watch the show in all the store windows until one dummy smashes the glass and comes out.
As this is happening Jackie is coming down the escalator.
It's true," said Clive to his family. "Everything I read all the stories. It's all true." An Auton's fingers drop and it shoots Clive causing Carol to scream and run.
~TI~
The plastic in the vat is getting extremely agitated.
"Get out, Rose! Just get out! Run!" Why wouldn't she go? Does she have a death wish?
"The stairs have gone." Ah so that's why. The Autons that grabbed me try to push me into the vat. Rose and Mickey run to the TARDIS.
"I haven't got the key!" Rose said to Mickey after trying to get the doors open.
""We're going to die!" Mickey said before he slumped down to the floor and leaned on the TARDIS doors. Rose looked around for other possibilities.
~TI~
Back at the shopping centre, Autons start coming down the escalator, shooting at anyone. Jackie finally screams, throws away her plastic bag and runs. But outside the Arcade is just as dangerous. The Autons shoot a passing taxi driver. She hides behind the crashed vehicle, and then three brides smash their way out of the shop behind her.
"No!" I shouted at the Consciousness.
"Time Lady." Yep, that's what I am. The last of my kind.
Rose stands up and looks at me, then runs round the chamber.
"Just leave her!" Mickey shouted over to her. "There's nothing you can do!"
"I've got no A Levels, no job, and no future." She grabs an axe.
~TI~
The three bride Autons prepare to shoot Jackie.
~TI~
"But I tell you what I have got," Rose continued. "Jericho Street Junior School under 7s gymnastic team. I've got the bronze!" She lifts up the axe and chops through the rope holding a very long chain to the wall and takes a firm hold of the chain. She runs and swings out along the side of the catwalk, kicking the two Autons into the vat. The second one also drops the vial of anti-plastic into it. The Nestene screams as it starts to turn blue.
"Rose!" I call as I notice her swinging back my way. I catch her when she comes close enough and give her a quick once over to make sure that she wasn't hurt.
"Now we're in trouble." I was looking at the Consciousness as I said that as I knew it was soon going to explode. To confirm that explosions started and the signals from the Eye stop. The shop dummies start to stagger then fall over causing the human to come out of hiding, revealing Jackie from behind the taxi safe and sound.
Rose and I run into the TARDIS after I unlock the doors. I notice that Mickey is holding on to her for dear life before Rose pulls him inside.
The TARDIS materialises on the Embankment by a row of shuttered kiosks and Mickey runs out, terrified. Jackie answers her mobile phone.
"Rose, Rose, don't go out of the house. It's not safe. There were these things, and they were shooting! And they… Hello? Hello?" She was just glad her mother was safe.
Rose goes over to Mickey, who is trying to hide behind a pallet. I stay in the doorway of the TARDIS.
"A fat lot of good you were."
"Nestene Consciousness? Easy."
"You were useless in there. You'd be dead if it wasn't for me."
"Yes, I would. Thank you. Right then, I'll be off, unless, err, I don't know, you could come with me. This box isn't just a London hopper, you know. It goes anywhere in the universe free of charge."
"Don't. She's an alien. She's a thing."
"He's not invited." I will not take anyone as useless as him. "What do you think? You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep, or you could go anywhere." She could be my very first companion. I've liked what I've seen of her so far and I feel's she's the one.
"Is it always this dangerous?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, I can't. I've err… I've got to go and find my mum and someone's got to look after this stupid lump, so."
"Okay. See you around." I was really upset that she didn't accept my offer. She was the first person I ever made that offer to. She would miss the chance to see the stars and I miss the opportunity to have my first ever companion.
The TARDIS dematerialises.
"Come on, let's go. Come on. Come on." She was really upset that she turned down the offer. She would have liked to go but she had too many responsibilities here.
The TARDIS materialises. "By the way, did I mention it also travels in time?"
"Thanks," rose said to Mickey.
"Thanks for what?"
"Exactly." Rose kisses Mickey on the cheek and runs into the TARDIS. Ready for another adventure with The Iris.