He opened his eyes.
Where was it? What was it. It was cold and dark. He felt lost. And so he made his way down the tunnel. He had to find a way out. He had to find the light.
The Doctor emerged from the TARDIS with a broad grin on his face. He looked like the cat that got the cream as he locked his box back up and flicked the screwdriver in the air, caught it with the same hand and then swiftly popped it inside his blazer pocket.
“Any luck?” said Mary.
“Mmm-hmm,” said the Doctor, remembering his stick was lent up against the side of the TARDIS. “They’re holed up in a flat in one of the suburbs of Cologne. Ollehauerring. About a 40 minute tube trip from here.”
“How can you possibly know all that?” said Tylaya, trying her best not to sound too astounded.
“I connected the sonic screwdriver to their GPS tracking system inside the van.”
“But surely they wouldn’t have been so stupid to have left that on?” said Maxus, remembering how the history books had explained what GPS was.
“No,” said the Doctor. “They’d switched it off, but the sonic discreetly switched it back on again. They arrived a few minutes ago at their location. We have them.” He smiled again.
“But Ollenhauerring? Are you sure about that?” said Mary.
“Quite sure,” said the Doctor.
“But it’s just a quiet little neighbourhood. Why would they be there?”
“Hiding amongst normality,” said the Doctor. “It’s the oldest hiding trick in the book. If you start building underground lairs or renting out hotel rooms you’re bound to get caught sooner rather than later.”
“Which means these people are definitely local to Cologne,” said Mary.
“Not necessarily,” said the Doctor. “Come on, we need to get there as quickly as possible.”
“But the tube systems closed off,” said Maxus.
“And the roads are sealed,” said Tylaya. “It’s all over the news. The army have everything on lock down.”
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll easily slip past the guards at the station entrance.”
“Don’t tell me you can drive a train,” said Maxus, rolling his eyes.
“No, no, no,” said the Doctor. “We’re going to walk through the tunnels.”
“You’re joking!” said Mary. “After what we just went through down there?”
“I admit it’s dangerous, but I’m afraid it’s the only way out.”
“But the trains are still running past the city perimeter at the moment. We might run into one. It’s madness!”
“Good,” said the Doctor, clapping his hands together. “It just means we can catch a train the rest of the way.”
“I’m not coming with you,” said Maxus, folding his arms. He then looked at the Doctor. “And before you say it, it’s not because I’m a coward. But I do know what a suicide mission looks like. I‘ve been on that many now.”
“It’s alright, Maxus, you’re not invited,” said the Doctor dismissively. “But Tylaya-”
“No,” said Maxus, getting in front of the Doctor. “She’s not going.”
Tylaya hadn’t intended on following the Doctor anywhere, anyway, but after the mood he had been in these past few days added to his domineering attitude now, she felt like rebelling. “Excuse me?”
“I, ah, think we’ll leave this two to their squabble,” said Mary, guiding the confused Doctor back inside the hostel.
“Ty-”
“And just why have you decided that I can’t go with the Doctor?”
“Well,” said Maxus, stumbling over his words, “why would you want to?”
“I wasn’t going to go,” she said, looking at him with those big, brown sad eyes that Alice always used to use to her advantage, “but I’ve never been one to be bossed about. Especially not by a man. And especially not by my future husband.”
“Ty-”
“No, Maxus. I’m going to prove to you that I’m still the same Tylaya that you fell in love with. The same Tylaya that you proposed to back on Oahu. It’s still me.”
“I know-”
“But you don’t know,” she said, looking even deeper into his eyes. “But you will do soon.”
“Ty-”
She put her finger to his lips, a smile playing on hers. “Shut your face.”
The Doctor was pacing up and down outside the hostel impatiently. When Tylaya and Maxus finally emerged the Doctor frowned at them.
“What?” said Maxus.
“We need to get a move on here,” said the Doctor, indicating the helicopter that was still whirring overhead.
“So you want me to come now?” said Maxus.
“Safety in numbers,” replied the Doctor.
“I’m…not going,” said Mary slowly.
The Doctor looked down at her, frowning. “Why not?”
“I can’t go back in those tunnels. Not after what I saw them do to you. What the almost did to both of us.”
The Doctor nodded. “It’s not safe here either.”
“I know,” said Mary, “but I’d feel a little safer with the army at my doorstep,” she said as another group of soldiers ran past, one of them barking for them to stay inside.
“Then I’d like Maxus to stay with you.”
“What? No,” said Maxus. “I’m coming with you and Ty.”
“You’re staying with Mary,” said the Doctor.
“No I’m not.”
The Doctor turned to him, his grey eyes burrowing deep into Maxus’s. “Please.”
That was the first time Maxus had ever felt as though the Doctor genuinely needed him. Since him and Tylaya had joined the TARDIS all the Doctor had done was snap and snap at them. But now, however reluctant he appeared to be, he was genuinely asking for help.
Maxus sighed. “Take care of Tylaya.”
The Doctor smiled sadly. “Thank you, Quinn.”
Mary reached up and quickly pecked the Doctor on the cheek. She smiled at him. “You be careful in those tunnels, yeah?” Her voice cracked with emotion.
And then she turned and disappeared into the hostel with a slight run.
The Doctor lightly touched where Mary had kissed him. “I’ll try,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.
The Doctor and Tylaya had decided to make their way on foot through the city rather than risk heading down into the same tube station again. It was much too busy not to mention dangerous. So they took a westerly route along Trankgasse, walking through the underground road way, eerily quiet now that most of the traffic had been moved out of the area. They were quiet, but nobody really noticed them. The soldiers were too busy up top.
They eventually emerged back into the sunlight beside the cathedral which towered above them. There now looked to be more trees than ever, looming over them and swaying. Swaying even though there was no breeze. And the snow had stopped now, lightly powdering the trees with flakes.
They were now out onto the main road which passed various shops and a McDonalds on the corner. Tylaya suddenly felt her stomach rumble. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast and she was starting to feel it.
They past a small, but still impressive, church and then the Deutsche Bank building. Tylaya noticed that more and more trees were beginning to slowly break through the concrete. Small cracks could be seen in the middle of the road.
“How is this even possible?” she said.
The Doctor frowned. “They must be creeping through the earth underneath the roads and pushing their way up. If we don’t stop this soon they’ll rip this city to bits.”
The continued up the road, past what would normally have been a pretty busy junction and passed more and more grand buildings.
They finally turned the corner and arrived at Appellhofplatz station. As they descended the steps into the station Tylaya gazed up at the huge tree that loomed over them ominously. She half expected its branches to suddenly lash out like a snake and attack her, but it didn’t.
“Not all of the trees are as alive as the others,” said the Doctor, almost reading her thoughts.
“Maybe not,” said Tylaya, “but that doesn’t mean that they won’t be soon.”
Mary and Maxus, meanwhile, had left the relative safety of the hostel and had headed back over to the Corkonian. It was empty, of course, and Maxus pulled up a chair, leaning back in it and resting the back against the wall behind him.
“Watch the woodwork,” said Mary as she went behind the bar.
“You okay?” said Maxus. Mary’s eyes were puffy and red and she hadn’t said much during their walk to the pub.
“I’m fine.”
“Tell me,” said Maxus. “Please.”
She sighed. “I just wish I’d gone with him.”
“The Doctor? Then why didn’t you?”
“Because it’s not the life I want,” said Mary. “I thought I would do and I can tell what he’s thinking.”
“Which is?”
“He wants me to go with him. Travel with him. But I just can’t do it. I want to stay here. I love this city. I have my friends and my life. I can’t just leave.”
“You like him, don’t you?”
“He’s a very dear man. I’d be over the moon if he’d stay here with me, but that’s never going to happen. He isn‘t the same as everyone else. I think that’s why I like him so much.”
“You know he’s dying, don’t you?” said Maxus. He hadn’t meant to sound as cruel as it came out.
Mary nodded. “I know. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the time you have left though, does it?”
Maxus got up and crossed over to the bar. “I’ll have a pint please,” he smiled.
“And what about you, Maxus? Where do you come from?”
He smiled. “The future. A long way from here.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “It wasn’t meant to be like this.”
“We all make mistakes,” said Mary filling up a pint glass and putting it down on the bar.
“It wasn’t a mistake,” said Maxus quickly, “but I wish there had been another way. And I feel like Tylaya is slipping away from me.”
“Aren’t you two getting married?”
“Yeah,” said Maxus, smiling. “When that will be, I don’t know. Y’know, my father used to tell me that no matter what it takes you must always do the very, very most for the one you love. But what I did was just…wrong. She’s lost her face. I’m starting to find it difficult to still see Ty in that body.”
The conversation was interrupted when they were both distracted by a sound from outside. The sound of concrete breaking apart.
“Oh god,” said Mary.
“Stay there,” said Maxus, taking another sip of his pint and heading to the door. He pushed it open and glanced outside. More trees were pushing their way through cracks in the concrete. “We have to leave.”
“Okay,” said Mary, looking around her at a loss. And then her eyes brightened. “We should get to the other side of the river. We might be safer there. It looked more or less tree-less.”
“Let’s go then. And quickly,” said Maxus.
The Doctor and Tylaya had made their way along the tunnels and so far there hadn’t been any kind of incidents like had happened back at the cathedral. There were a few minor twigs snapping backwards and forwards, but the further away from Appellhofplatz that they got the less they saw any “tree activity”.
Tylaya didn’t like the tunnels. She was beginning to wonder why she had come. It had reminded her of a mission she had been sent on during the early days of the Eyeglass. She was serving on the science ship Deep and had been despatched with her team to a moon that reportedly contained thousands of rubies in its tunnels.
They’d located the tunnels and spotted the shining, red glints coming from the rubies, but when they tried to examine more closely they were attacked by something from under the ground. Even to this day she didn’t know exactly what it was. There seemed to be many, large, scaly grey arms that clawed out of the ground and tried to grab at her shipmates. The rubies were the eyes of the creatures.
One of them, Dando, was dragged into the ground. The last thing she had seen was the grey arms pressing his face further down into the dirt.
They had run and made it back to the Deep more or less unscathed, but they had never found out what had happened to Dando or what those creatures were.
After her captain, Jackson Hawk, had reported the incident to General Helix, he had taken the Victorious and blown the entire moon out of the sky.
And she could still hear the screams of those creatures to this day…
She tripped on a twig and the Doctor, to her surprise, caught her.
“Be careful,” he said. She could tell he already regretted breaking her fall. “I’m struggling as it is. I can’t drag you along as well.”
“Oh, get a grip,” Tylaya found herself saying aloud.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your heard,” said Tylaya. “I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the dirty looks and the anger you’ve got towards me and Maxus. Yeah, we made a mistake, but now I’ve had enough. I know apologising can’t ever bring back Alice, but you’re just gonna have to lump it, aren’t you?”
“How dare-”
Tylaya stopped and held a finger out to him, pointing up at his shocked face. “You’re not the Doctor I read about when I was growing up. The one who forgives and gives people second chances. I wasn’t the one who pulled the plug on Alice, was I?”
The Doctor looked down at her unsure of what to say.
“It was Maxus. He did wrong, but it’s done now. The least you can do is be bloody civil towards us.”
The Doctor was about to reply when they were both distracted by a shuffling from ahead. They could see the light from the next station a little in the distance, and silhouetted against the light was a jagged shape. It looked like a tree, but it was moving - no, walking - towards them.
Maxus and Mary had arrived at the river. It was still and looked cold and uninviting. They had made their way fairly quickly through the deserted streets and onto one of the main roads that led to the Deutzer Bridge. It looked strange to see it so quiet. There were a few abandoned cars beside the bridge, but most people had managed to get away and find shelter.
Mary looked back towards the cathedral and almost gasped when she saw the tops of its spires peeking over what looked like a forest.
“Crazy, huh?” said Maxus, noticing her looking.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in my days,” said Mary. “I hope the Doctor can sort this out.”
They walked onto the two-lane bridge with the tram line running down the middle and walked faster and faster.
And then stopped.
About halfway over the bridge were three army-camouflaged officers. The three of them aimed their rifles at them.
“We just need to get across,” said Mary. “It’s safer in Deutz. The other side of the river.”
“I know what Deutz is, miss,” said the soldier, “but I can’t let anybody cross.”
“Come on, man,” said Maxus impatiently. “Why keep us here?”
“We don’t know who caused this,” said the soldier. “We need to make sure everybody stays this side of the river. We can’t have it spreading to the other side.”
“Give me a break,” said Maxus, shaking his head and flinging his arms to the side.
“I suggest you go and find shelter. The Jolly Hotel in Mediapark is being used as a shelter. It’s not far from here.”
“I know where it is,” said Mary. “I’m not a tourist.”
“No,” said Maxus, “we need to get across.”
The soldier tightened his grip on his rifle. “I’ve already said, sir, that you can’t cross. The bridges are closed off.”
“Like hell they are,” said Maxus, edging forward a little.
“Maxus, be careful,” said Mary.
Maxus was about to make another move when suddenly, like some great sea monsters tentacle, a huge branch emerged from the river underneath the bridge, crashing down on the road and almost breaking the bridge in two.
“What the hell?!” said Maxus, frozen to the spot.
Another branch came from the other side and grabbed one of the soldiers around the waist. The remaining two began shooting at the branches, trying to free their comrade.
“Now’s our chance!” said Maxus. “Run!”
Mary and Maxus bolted towards the imminent danger. The soldiers would be distracted just long enough.
Bang.
Maxus stopped dead in his tracks. He stumbled and almost fell forward. He frowned and looked down at his shoulder. In the black material of his coat was a rough-edged hole and a slow trickle of blood was starting to flow out of it.
Mary grabbed Maxus to stop him falling and looked up. The younger soldier was stood looking as the branches thrashed about behind him. It had been an accident. Just a stupid accident.
Maxus fell to the floor and clutched at his shoulder as he began to slip out of consciousness.
Next time: Mary and Maxus fight to survive whilst the Doctor and Tylaya stumble upon the truth. Coming Sunday 28th September 2014.
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