Something Nasty In The Tunnel
“This is never going to work,” James muttered as the Doctor approached the nearest security assistant, greeting him with a cheery smile and the psychic paper in his hands.
Loki just grimaced, wishing they were wearing something other than the working dark blue overalls the Doctor had dragged out from the vast Tardis wardrobe – not long after those not familiar with the Tardis wardrobe had marvelled over how the Doctor had such a collection of so many different styles of clothing for almost every occasion and from just about every single time period that ever existed – since they were making him feel a bit too human. The others didn’t seem too fazed by having to put them on over their normal clothing, although Hannah seemed a little miffed about changing her favourite blue high-heeled boots for a pair of flat black working shoes, the Doctor having pointed out to her that people in their supposed line of work wouldn’t wear such things to close off a section of the Underground, and Sherlock seemed to be taking it all in his stride, too busy concentrating on solving the next part of the mystery than complaining about his clothing.
“Mycroft’ll back us up, right?” Hannah muttered to him. “You know, if anyone wants to check?”
“They won’t,” Sherlock muttered back. “Look at the man, no relationship, a mortgage to pay and still recovering from a diabetic fit. People like that want to keep their heads down at work, they won’t think twice about whatever’s on that paper. See?” he added, as the security man finally nodded and waved the Doctor through. Whistling a cheerful tune, the Doctor beckoned to the others and they followed him down the steps and onto Victoria. Once there, the Doctor pulled out his map whilst the others rummaged in Hannah’s rucksack for the reels of yellow and black tape she had stuffed in there earlier at the Doctor’s urging.
“Now, let me see...” The Doctor mused, examining the map. “Once we’ve blocked these ways off, and the people upstairs have diverted the train lines to not make any stops here, we need to try and contain whatever’s going to come through the Void here. These have been the only places so far where they’ve been coming through, so it’s safe to assume that the walls of time are weaker here, therefore it’s the best place for them to try...”
“How do you plan to contain them, Doctor?” James asked, sceptically.
“Like this,” the Doctor replied, pulling a few pieces of strange-looking equipment from the gym bag he had brought down with him. The others blinked, taking in the seven speaker-like devices polished up like mirrors and connected with a wire, followed by a small box topped with an alien-looking satellite dish. “Easy to put together, although only small, only enough power to contain one Cyberman or Cybershade or whatever comes through the Void next.”
“How?” Loki asked. “How can something like that capture a living creature?”
The Doctor set up the equipment, arranging the speaker-boxes in a half circle with the satellite dish in between the third and fourth box, before pressing a button on top of it. Immediately, an eerie bioluminescent blue-violet light emitted from the thing with a low hum, forming a large tube of what looked like a force-field circling nothing. “Like that, Loki,” the Doctor replied, smartly, as the others stared at the field, impressed. “Once something’s in there, it can’t get out unless I switch the field off.”
“Or unless it blows up,” Hannah added.
“Or unless it blows-” the Doctor began to agree and then shot her an annoyed look. “Oh, very funny, Hannah!”
“Alright, I admit, that’s impressive,” James agreed. “How big would one of those have to be to contain more than one Cyber...being?”
“About the same size as the Houses of Parliament,” the Doctor replied, casually, switching off the device before turning a dial on one of the speakers. “There, now we’ll get a bit of warning for when the Void opens again, give us a chance to set up.”
“How much of a chance?” Hannah asked.
“About ten seconds,” the Doctor replied.
“Ten seconds?” John repeated.
“Oh, don’t look so worried, John, you can get a lot done in ten seconds,” the Doctor replied, picking up his equipment by stacking the boxes on top of one another and the satellite on top of them. “I once helped Einstein work out his theory of relativity in ten seconds.”
“Right,” Hannah murmured, following him as the Doctor ducked under the tape and made his way to the next platform to be shut off, which was Gloucester Road. Of course they got some odd looks from commuters as they passed by, but then that was to be expected. This was, after all, London.
“Attention, all passengers needing to disembark at Victoria, Gloucester Road, Edgware Road, Moorgate and Blackfriars, these platforms have been temporarily disabled owing to repair work; we advise you to disembark at your next nearest station! The Underground staff apologise for the unexpected inconvenience this may cause, please listen out for further announcements!” the metallic voice rang out through the speakers as the seven overall-clad men and one overall-clad young woman made their way down the steps.
“Yes, sorry about this,” the Doctor called cheerfully to passers-by. “Bit of a leak, nothing to worry about. Leave it to the professionals.”
“We don’t exactly look very professional, Doctor,” Harry muttered.
“No, but this is London, they’ll go with it,” the Doctor reported, cheerfully. The tube had already sailed past and Merlin stopped for a moment to admire the swift whoosh of brightly-coloured metal that looked something like those odd contraptions on wheels they had passed outside on the roads, but much larger and sleeker.
“How fast do they go, Doctor?” he asked.
“Faster than a carriage, but not faster than the speed of light,” the Doctor grinned, placing the equipment on the platform. “They can go up to about 50-60 miles per hour. Fast,” he added, when Merlin still looked confused.
“When they’re not delayed by problems on the line or something,” James added, shaking his head. “I almost missed catching a couple of villains because of signalling problems once, that was not a pleasant day!”
As the Doctor began fiddling with the equipment again, Loki cast an uneasy glance in the direction in which the tube had disappeared. The tunnel was eerily dark, like a starless night on Jotunheim, and something about the unnatural chill it gave off made him feel he was staring straight into the jaws of Hel.
“AH!” the Doctor exclaimed, recapturing everyone’s attention again. “Ah-ha-ha!”
“What?” Merlin asked, eagerly.
“The Void’s opening up again!” The Doctor threw Hannah a triumphant glance. “I told you shifting a bit into the future so we could use the Visualiser was a good idea!” Hannah just rolled her eyes. “Everyone stand back, and get ready...just in case this doesn’t work!”
“What are the chances of it not working, Doctor?” James asked, frowning.
“About forty eight percent!” the Doctor called back, cheerfully.
The friends backed up as something was indeed materialising between the speaker boxes, although none of them could make out a proper shape. It looked, for want of a better word, like a blob of grey nothingness, but all seven of the Doctor’s companions felt a shiver run down their spines knowing what they were looking at was nothing less than alien. The Doctor remained calm as he switched on the machine, trapping the creature inside the force field whilst the others, remembering what he had said, readied themselves in their usual defensive positions just in case of attack.
“It’ll manifest itself properly soon, don’t worry!” the Doctor called out.
Sherlock squinted at the being inside the force field. Something was off about it, something about the shape of it, or was it the size, felt off somehow. Before he could say anything, though, there was a sudden bang and the Doctor yelped “OOPS!” as the “ghost” vanished in a crackling of energy that sounded very much like a sparkler being lit on Bonfire Night, before the machine fell apart completely, whilst his friends shielded themselves, and each other, from being singed by flinging their arms in front of their faces until the crackling had stopped.
“What did you do, Doctor?” Hannah squeaked as the others coughed and waved away the acrid smoke that had been left behind.
“Er...I may have accidently set the voltage too high and, um, destroyed it,” the Doctor admitted, sheepishly, bending down besides what was left of the Cyber-figure. “Looks like most of it got projected back to wherever it came from.”
He picked up something white, stringy and sticky from the floor.
“Urgh,” Hannah shuddered.
“Come on, Hannah, you’ve seen flesh before,” the Doctor said, getting to his feet.
“I know, but still...”
“That’s flesh?” Harry asked, pointing to it. “That’s what happens to humans when they get converted into Cybermen?”
“I’m afraid so,” the Doctor answered, grimly.
“To think that could have been me once,” Hannah muttered.
“You’d have made a very cute Cyberwoman, Hannah,” the Doctor replied, fondly.
“You think so?”
“Yep! Here!” The Doctor tossed the flesh remains to John. “You’re a doctor, see what you can do with it! That was a joke, by the way.”
“Something’s odd about this, Doctor,” Sherlock said, stepping up to examine the equipment. “I can feel it.”
“Can it be fixed?” Merlin asked as the two began to fiddle with the wires.
“Yes, it won’t take long,” the Doctor replied, whipping out the sonic screwdriver. “Next time, though...”
As he started to mutter to himself and Sherlock, Loki glanced again in the direction of the tunnel, wondering what it was about it that made him so uneasy. It was the same feeling he usually got on the middle of a battlefield when an ambush was about to be sprung on him. James followed his gaze. “What’s up?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Loki admitted. “I’ve just got an uneasy feeling...call it instinct if you like...”
James glanced at the Doctor and coughed to get his attention. “Tell you what, Doctor, would it be worth having an explore around here anyway, just in case we’ve missed something?”
“By all means, do, but be careful,” the Doctor replied, waving carelessly over his shoulder at him. “If a tube comes towards you, throw yourselves against the tunnel walls and hang on.”
Wordlessly, the group split themselves in mutual agreement; John opting again to stay near the Doctor and Sherlock just in case of argument and the others taking the tunnel that had so unnerved Loki. Hannah felt a shudder go through her as they stepped inside, her own instincts telling her that danger lay ahead, although she reflected, they were, after all, in a dark train tunnel, such a place was always going to be dangerous.
“I get what you mean, Loki,” James said, automatically pulling his gun from his back pocket and holding it at the ready just in case he needed to use it. “This does feel sort of...unnatural. Careful with those flames, Merlin,” he added as the latter had just conjured a ball of fire in his hands to help light their way, followed shortly by one of Harry’s “Lumos” spells. “There could be flammable chemicals down here.”
“I thought these places were supposed to be painted with luminous signs,” Hannah sighed, watching her feet carefully in case of lose tracks or large stones.
“Perhaps they need repainting,” James shrugged.
“Or perhaps the Cybermen did something to them,” Harry suggested.
Hannah burst out laughing. “I think they’ve got worse things planned for the human race than petty vandalism, Harry.” That earned a few chuckles all around and served to make them all relax a little more. They had just rounded a corner and Loki was beginning to worry whether he had just imagined that feeling of danger earlier when they were all stopped in their tracks by a loud, hollow roar that could only be described as inhuman. Merlin and Harry lifted their lights but whilst the path in front of them looked clear, their magic didn’t reach far enough to light the spot of blackness in the distance. As a second roar rang out, the five noticed two things; one, that they had all automatically taken a step backwards, and two, the second roar was closer than the first had been.
“Please tell me that’s just another “tube?” Loki ventured.
Hannah furrowed her brow. “I know that roar...” As a third roar rang out, louder again this time, somewhere between a groan and a growl, her eyes suddenly widened. “Run!”
The others had already worked out that that was when they needed to do, and as they turned tail, they could hear what sounded like a multiple-tentacled body scrabbling over the tracks after them. Luckily, fear and adrenaline can make a person move faster, and before long the five of them emerged from the tunnel, only to see that the Doctor, Sherlock, John and the equipment were nowhere in sight.
“Now where’ve they gone?” Hannah yelped.
Loki turned as the creature following them let out another roar and caught a glimpse of the thing for the first time. The reason they hadn’t spotted it earlier was quickly explained because the creature was completely black in colour, it’s body consisting of skin that had a jellyfish-like sheen to it covering a large, blobby frame. Two almost completely white eyes dangled from thick waving stalks atop its head, its mouth narrow and gaping and filled with the sharpest teeth any of them had ever seen on a creature, even a Bilgesnipe. It didn’t appear to have a nose or nostrils, none that were visible at any rate. Two large clawed arms dragged its body along as the tentacles behind it flared out, reaching over its head to grasp at its chosen prey. Leaping aside, Loki conjured his staff and sent a blast of energy at the creature that sent it sprawling back into the tunnel. His actions spurred the others to react; James opened fire, Merlin threw the flames he was holding into the tunnel, Harry shouted “Expeliarmus!” and Hannah shouted “Wait! Listen!”
As the noise died down, Loki realised what she had felt, the vibrations of the tracks beneath their feet. Remembering the Doctor’s advice, he shouted “Get against the wall!” and no sooner that they all done that, a tube train, with a very charred, very dead monster stuck to the front of it, came thundering past them. Everyone held their breath as the carriages whipped the air around them before the train rattled off into the distance, and then made their way quickly onto the platform out of harm’s way.
“Hannah, what was that?” Harry demanded.
“It’s called a Slyther,” Hannah panted, catching her breath. “I’ve met them before, back on-”
“What?” James asked as she cut herself off, her eyes almost popping as a look of realisation crossed her face. “What is it?”
“We’ve got it wrong,” Hannah murmured. “The Doctor got it wrong. Come on, we’ve got to tell him!”