"You"re just not listening to me, constable. What"s wrong with you?"
"We"re evacuating everyone from the local area, due to the inclement weather. ." the policeman began.
"You just said that..." Sarah felt a chill of terror as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She looked intently at the features of the constable. It was a placid, well-meaning face but the eyes were glazed over, lifeless. Something was very wrong.
He began dragging her towards the gathering up ahead.
Sarah squinted through the gloom. She could see people being shoved roughly into the back of a Black Maria. Some were protesting, among them an elderly man waving a stick. He was clubbed to the ground by a truncheon-wielding policeman.
Despite the savagery of the blows being inflicted, the policeman"s face was completely blank and expressionless. An old woman in the back of the van began to scream.
"Leave my husband alone! He"s done nothing wrong!
Nothing!" She was silenced with a single blow to the head, knocking her unconscious.
Sarah looked away, horrified. She had to get away, otherwise she would be trapped like the people being herded into the vehicle. But Sarah also wanted to save them too. Hodge was dragging her ever closer to the van. If she was going to act, it had to be now.
"Excuse me, constable, but I think you"ve got something on your foot," Sarah said benignly. Then she rammed the heel of her shoe downwards on to the policeman"s ankle, which gave way beneath him. He let go of Sarah"s arm and sank to the ground, his face still a blank.
Sarah ran off down a side street on the left, away from the stricken constable. She had to get back to Tabernacle Street. She had to warn Tommy and the others. She tried not to think about the people she had left behind.
The Doctor ventured out of the TARDIS, a cape, scarf and hat added to his usual attire. He held the tracker out in front of him, staring intently at its display. It indicated the source of the weather disruption was less than five minutes" walk away, beyond St Luke"s Church. The Doctor pocketed the device and began striding towards the Xhinn vessel.
Tommy Ramsey sat down, having described what happened outside St Luke"s Church only twenty-four hours earlier. It seemed like a lifetime ago now. He looked around the dining room table. Fingers Blake and Stratford Simon were plainly puzzled, unable to take in what he had said. But there could be no doubting what Steve MacMa.n.u.s thought of it all.
"You know, I"ve heard some tall stories in my time," he began. "Wild excuses from men who knew they had earned my anger. Packs of lies from gamblers who can"t cover their debts and just need one more chance to get themselves straight. But I"ve never heard anything to match what you"ve just described."
Fingers and Stratford looked at each other, waiting for the coming storm. MacMa.n.u.s swiftly obliged them, pushing his chair back and standing up to pound on the table.
"What a load of tripe! People turning into floating creatures!
Incinerating your men with blue lightning bolts! Do you call us here just to insult our intelligence, or was that just a happy coincidence?" he raged.
"I know it sounds impossible " Tommy began.
"Sounds impossible? It is impossible! Where"s your proof?
Where"s your evidence? Why should we believe a single word you"ve said, Ramsey?"
"Because it"s the truth!" Tommy shouted. "When the creature killed my men, the bodies disappeared like G.o.d winked and took them away."
"G.o.d winked? G.o.d winked!" MacMa.n.u.s sat back down and sighed. "It"d be funnier if it wasn"t so pathetic!"
Tommy looked desperately at the three visitors. They were his best hope of taking on this threat. Without them, he and his men stood no chance. If they fell, then all of the East End would follow.
"You won"t think it"s so funny when you"re facing one of those monsters!"
"Do you see me laughing?" MacMa.n.u.s snarled.
Fingers and Stratford shook their heads. This was not going well.
The Doctor was close to the Xhinn vessel. According to his tracker, it should be within sight but the smog was making seeing anything almost impossible. His quest was not helped by having little idea of what the s.p.a.ce craft should look like. Did the Xhinn possess stealth technology? For all the Doctor knew, he could be standing on top of the vessel.
A croaking diesel engine spluttered into earshot and twin headlights appeared from the smog. It was a black police van.
The Doctor ducked behind a tree as the vehicle rumbled past.
Just before it disappeared from view, the tail lights dipped, and then were gone almost as if the van was going down a slope.
But this part of the East End was almost perfectly flat.
"Of course! The Xhinn must be underground there"s nowhere else to conceal a ship of the size necessary to travel vast distances through s.p.a.ce." The Doctor ran forwards, after the vehicle. But he was stopped by a blinding light which burst into radiance in front of him. It was a Xhinn. The creature raised its right arm and gestured at the Doctor.
A blue energy bolt surged forth, engulfing the Time Lord.
He cried out in agony, then collapsed to the ground. Blue tendrils of light danced around his body. Then he winked out of existence...
In the back of the Black Maria, Rose Kelly"s hopes for a happy break from London were rapidly diminishing. As they were driven through the smog-choked streets, the pa.s.sengers began to grow apprehensive. The driver would not talk to them when they asked questions. Instead he accelerated, driving ever faster along the dim, dank streets. It was almost as if he could see in the smog when n.o.body else could. Rose was just thankful there were no other vehicles on the road, for they would certainly crash.
Suddenly the van was going down a steep slope, into pitch darkness. She could not help crying out and hugged her husband. Frank was trying to keep a brave face, but his hands were shaking with fear. As the vehicle descended, warm air flowed up to meet them. It was cleaner and clearer. For the first time that day, Rose"s eyes stopped watering. She looked at their surroundings through the back window as the van drove on.
They were going down a steep tunnel, which moved from dark to light. But this was like no tunnel Rose had ever seen.
Once she had walked all the way to the Isle of Dogs, then through the tunnel under the Thames for a family picnic in Greenwich. This tunnel was grey and b.u.mpy, the walls glistening. It reminded her of a wet crocodile skin handbag.
After several minutes the tunnel levelled out and the Black Maria entered a vast white chamber. The back of the van was opened and Rose clambered out, followed by Frank and the other pa.s.sengers. The walls were so high Rose could not see the ceiling. She looked around. There were half a dozen vans, all unloading pa.s.sengers. She recognised neighbours from roads near Great Sutton Street. The police were obviously being very systematic, evacuating the East End one suburb at a time.
"I"ve never seen anything like this where do you suppose we are?" she whispered to her husband.
"During the war the Government built dozens of secret tunnels and rooms under London. In case of emergency, Churchill could run the country from underground. Maybe this was part of that," Frank replied, his words soothing. But his eyes betrayed an inner terror to his wife.
"What"s wrong, Frank? What is it?" she asked.
"I don"t know, Rose but something ain"t right here."
Rose gave him a little hug. It was the first time he had called her by name since their honeymoon.
The Doctor came to and promptly began dry-retching. He hadn"t eaten for days and his body had nothing to eject, but that didn"t stop it trying. After a few moments of meditation he was able to restore the natural equilibrium and the spasms pa.s.sed. He opened his eyes and looked around.
He was lying on a bench in an empty, oval-shaped room. All was white and the walls curved seamlessly down into the floor, and up into the ceiling. He could see no corners, no edges and no evidence of a doorway.
"An oubliette," he muttered. "Quite ingenious." He laid a hand against his abdomen. The vomiting had no doubt been brought on by the use of such a crude, short-range matter transmitter. At least now he knew where all the corpses had been disappearing to.
The Doctor knew he was a captive of the Xhinn. But why had they taken him alive? Presumably for observation. So the oubliette was probably a test, to determine his intelligence levels.
He decided to talk out loud. It would help mask his thoughts, in case the Xhinn were trying to probe him telepathically.
"Hmm, no doors, no corners so no weaknesses. But perhaps this is simpler than it seems." He began fishing around in his pockets. His fingers touched the sonic screwdriver but he pulled out a small rubber ball instead. The Doctor crouched down and rolled the ball along the floor at speed. It went up the curved walls and then began a series of spirals as it rose and fell.
After a few elliptical circuits of the chamber it suddenly disappeared.
"Ah! The seamless walls are an illusion!" He rose from the bench and walked to the point where the ball had vanished, reaching out with his hands to touch the wall. The perfect whiteness of the oubliette made it almost impossible to know where the walls actually began.
The Doctor soon found the hole in the illusion. Viewed from the right angle, the narrow opening was blatantly obvious.
But to have found it by touch alone could have taken hours. The Doctor peered into the hole. Inside was a white circle. He reached forward to press it.
Logically, this had to be the escape mechanism. It could be a death-trap, but his captors had already had ample opportunity to kill him. He pressed the circle. It turned black and the walls of the oubliette folded backwards, like the petals of a flower opening. Beyond was only darkness. The Doctor took a slimline torch from his pocket and stepped out of the room into the void. What would the next test be, he wondered.
Steve MacMa.n.u.s had heard enough. He walked out of the dining room in search of his bodyguards. Tommy Ramsey called after him.
"Wait! You can"t leave yet!"
"Try and stop me," MacMa.n.u.s replied coldly. He found his men sipping cups of tea, served by Mrs Ramsey. "You two we"re leaving. Now." The bodyguards immediately put their cups down and fell into step behind their boss. He hurried down the stairs and began pulling on his coat, scarf and hat by the front door. Jack Cooper hurried down the stairs after him.
"Mr MacMa.n.u.s! Stop!"
The gangster opened the front door. "Why should I? Did Tommy send you? Have you heard that c.o.c.k and bull story he"s peddling?"
Jack put a hand out to stop MacMa.n.u.s. "It"s true what Tommy told you, it"s all true. I was there. I saw it with my own eyes!"
"Not you as well. I expected better from you, Jackie boy."
MacMa.n.u.s shook his head sadly. "You can forget our agreement I don"t make deals with nutters. You"re on your own. Now take your hand off me before I get one of my boys here to take it off permanently."
The two bodyguards stepped forward, eager to a.s.sist. Jack pulled his hand away hurriedly. MacMa.n.u.s walked out to his Rolls Royce. The driver opened the rear pa.s.senger door and MacMa.n.u.s got in. The two bodyguards followed him into the vehicle. MacMa.n.u.s gave Jack a final glance.
"You showed promise lad. But I also reckoned you were a little too fond of lighting fires. It"s a sickness.You should get it seen to."
The Rolls Royce drove away, quickly being swallowed up by the smog. Jack shut the door and went back upstairs. Stratford Simon and Fingers Blake were also preparing to leave. Tommy was pressing them for an answer.
"I"ll call you tomorrow morning nine o"clock sharp."
Fingers offered. "It"s the best I can do." Stratford Simon made the same promise. Tommy accepted, grateful to get something out of the meeting.
"Thanks. I appreciate you sticking your neck out for me. It"ll be well rewarded, if we get out of this alive, you mark my words."
Tommy slapped both of them on the back. The pair collected their minders and departed.
Jack reported MacMa.n.u.s"s dismissive comments, but Tommy was not concerned. "If either Fingers or Stratford join their firm to ours, we"ve got a real fighting force to be reckoned with. Things are looking up!" Tommy said.
The Doctor emerged from the darkness into a narrow corridor.
Sarah was chained to a post at the other end of the corridor. She was dressed in a green velvet trouser suit with a white shirt. A Xhinn was hovering over her, its arm raised and pulsing with energy, ready to fire at her.
"Sarah! What are you doing here?" the Doctor asked. He began running towards her.
"They captured me! They they"re going to k-kill me!"
The Doctor stopped abruptly.
"Doctor! What are you doing? Help me!" Sarah pleaded.
"How do I know you"re really Sarah, and not an illusion?" he asked thoughtfully. The Doctor closed his eyes and concentrated.
"Doctor, please! It"s going to fire! Please!" The Xhinn blasted an energy beam through Sarah, who died screaming in agony.
Once her cries had finished echoing in the corridor, the Doctor opened his eyes again.
Sarah and the chains were gone. Only the Xhinn remained, now aiming its arm at the Doctor. He smiled at it.
"That"s very good. Plucking an image of someone dear to me from my memories and then giving it form and reality. I presume you scanned my mind while I was unconscious. But you made one mistake her clothes. Sarah wears dresses in 1952."
The Xhinn floated towards him, its arm pulsing with ever increasing energy. The Doctor refused to be frightened. "Now, I think I have taken enough of your tests. I want to meet with the triumvirate!"
The real Sarah hammered on the door of 15 Tabernacle Street.
She kept glancing over her shoulder, convinced she could still hear the police constable running after her. Mrs Ramsey opened the front door and Sarah fell inside, coughing and gasping for breath.
"Oh, my dear, you look parched. Would you "
"Tommy I need to see Tommy."
"Thomas is upstairs in the dining room," Mrs Ramsey said.
Sarah took off her coat and scarf in the hallway before running up the stairs. She burst into the dining room, startling Tommy and Jack. They were just sitting down to lunch. Tommy threw his fork on the table in disgust.
"Where the h.e.l.l have you been? I told Brick to make sure you stayed here today. The meeting"s already over!"