Chapter 3
The Doctor had been sitting in the captain's chair, staring at the small black object that had taken Donna, still in his hand. It had been only a few hours since she was taken but still he couldn't fathom where she had been taken and how he was going to get her back. He had tried various things on it including scanning it via the medical bay but he had found nothing. Well, he had found it wasn't organic. He had even tried to trace any signal of the transport beam in order to trace where it was linked to but even that didn't work. Nothing seemed to radiate or penetrate the device, which had left him feeling, frustrated.
"Think! Think! Think!" he exclaimed to himself. This really shouldn't be that difficult, even for him. He wondered if he was losing his touch, that his age was finally catching up with him. Nah, he thought, he would think of something. All he needed was to let his mind work. He just wished it would hurry up.
"AH!" he thought, "What about other missing people? There has to be other missing people!"
He scrambled to the control panel, flicking and twisting switches here and there. He pulled the small view screen towards him to check the results,
"BINGO!" he screamed to the open air.
After a few minutes looking over the results, a puzzling fact buzzed inside the Doctors brain. There was no cause and more importantly there was no sign of who was behind it. Surprise, surprise, he thought.
"Well," he said to the open air, "all there is to it then, I suppose, is to go, investigating. I love investigating!" he exclaimed, with a wide grin tugging at his lips.
"I know you do, my Doctor" a voice inside his head replied. The Doctor only smiled. "Please be careful. I don't want you to be hurt!" begged the voice.
"Have you ever seen me purposely harm myself?" asked the Doctor, looking up towards the ceiling of the TARDIS.
"Yes" replied the TARDIS, "whenever you go to any planet, fight an enemy or when you try and stop people."
"Ok, fair point but most of the time, it's not my fault, I'm always the victim. I can't help people getting the wrong end of the stick, can I?" replied the Doctor.
"Try not to get hurt, Doctor… Just look after yourself," pleaded the TARDIS.
"OK, I will but I can't be held responsible for someone not obeying the rules. Although, in some cases rules are there to be broken… well, at least bent but not when they help keep you safe!" replied the Doctor.
He thought of the incident with Rose on the Gamestation, all those years ago. In an attempt to save him, she had looked into the heart of the TARDIS. Nobody was supposed the look into the heart of the TARDIS, not even Time Lords. But, she had eliminated the Daleks and had resurrected Captain Jack Harkness but at a cost. He remembered that, the time vortex was killing her and so he had to save her and that led to him regenerating. Even to this day, he was glad she had saved him and came back when he had sent her away. And, this just enforced the respect and love he felt for her then, and even now. God he missed her.
An impatient hum could be heard emanating from the TARDIS, bringing him out of his reminiscent thoughts and back to the real world.
"Sorry" said the Doctor, "I'll get going! But, remind me next time to get a dictionary so companions can look up the word 'rule' because they obviously don't know what it means; a leash to keep them from wandering off and disappearing, and lastly, oven gloves so they can't pick anything dangerous up! Oh, and remind me to get a locator so I can find them again!"
"You love the chase and you know it! As you have said, you love investigating!" replied the TARDIS, with a melody that sounded like a giggle echoing around the control room.
"Another fair point!" replied the Doctor, scratching his chin "Am I that obvious? Actually, don't answer that. Well, better be off, companions to find, a planet to save, and an enigma to solve! Keep concealed, alright!" He patted the console and headed for the door, grabbing his coat on the way out.
He locked the door of the TARDIS and made to walk back up the alleyway. At the place where Donna had gone missing, the Doctor made a last ditch attempt to trace the signal the transporter used to send Donna to wherever she was. It was faint but as the Doctor upped the frequency of the scan the signal seemed to become stronger. But, the most frustrating thing about it was the fact that it didn't give a precise location to where Donna had gone. All the Doctor had found out was that she was still on the planet and not to far away. How far he couldn't tell but that didn't matter. The only important fact was that she was still on the planet.
He replaced the sonic screwdriver back into his jacket pocket and carried on towards what he hoped was the end of the alley. It had seemed like the alley had gone on forever, and for a moment the Doctor thought he would never get out but finally the alley opened out into a very wide plaza. Each side of it was lined with buildings of all sizes surrounding its perimeter, glistening in the light produced by the three suns sitting majestically in the sky.
A large hospital like building dominated the skyline and from the bottom, it looked like it was piercing the sky. Something felt very wrong about it all although he couldn't put figure out why. As he looked around the Doctor noticed, one fundamental problem, there were no one around. Every street, building and transport vehicle looked deserted or abandoned.
"Very odd," he thought, "No people, but why?"
He took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the area. In truth, he didn't know what he was looking for but maybe there could be something influencing this tranquil but disturbing atmosphere. After a few minutes he had found nothing, and he began to tinker with the settings. As he turned the device towards the hospital like building, it suddenly began to bleep erratically.
"Oooo, what's this? Interesting" he thought, as he honed onto the signal. There was something very familiar about it, but he wasn't sure. It was some kind of dampening field but for what? As he got closer to the building, the signal was becoming stronger and more localised. He fiddled with the dial to strengthen it even more and raised it towards the signal. It seemed to come from a room very high up the building, to what looked like the 50th floor, if it had a 50th floor. There were a few theories running around his mind but there was a strong contender. But it couldn't be could it?
"Donna?" he whispered.
Suddenly, like an explosion, everything began to make sense. He had given the bio-damper to Donna years ago and some how she had kept on wearing it. Lucky for her, he thought, and lucky for him because the signal it provided could be traced if someone was deliberately looking for it and he had found it. Donna had been taken to this place, whatever it was, and she was being kept there. He hoped she would be alright, but he knew she could look after herself. However, he had to find her and make sure.
He had an immense dislike for hospitals, because in his experience something bad always happened to him there and like he said to Rose on New Earth, they always gave him the creeps. Things like dangerous virus's being on the loose or interstellar bounty hunters such like the Jadoon, who had taken the Royal Hope to the moon, just to catch a criminal. Good sense, he thought, but that didn't mean it was the right thing to do. It wouldn't be the way he would have done it. That was when he had met Martha Jones for the first time, and he was glad he did but like everyone else in his life, she left. But, the point to all this, is the fact that he didn't like hospitals, nice on the front but downright creepy in the background and he had a feeling that this was going to be no different. He hoped he was wrong.
He was suddenly brought back from his thoughts by a sudden bleeping noise coming from the silver device in his hand. It was signalling that there was another alien object within the building. He couldn't tell what it was from the signal but he thought that would take the charm out of investigating.
So he moved towards the entrance, replacing his sonic screwdriver into his pocket. When over the threshold he plastered on his most 'mildly interested' look onto his face, while his eyes darted here, there and everywhere intent on discovering the creepy side of this situation.