Chapter 1
1984
Los Angeles, United StatesThe night was cool and low clouds caused clinging mist that happened to make everything damp and gave the illusion that a thin coat of slime covered the streets. A small group of trick-or-treaters were moving from house to house as fast as they could, maximizing their candy amount. All were dressed in their latest costumes. A small boy pretended to fly dressed in his blue and red super hero outfit, red cape fluttering behind him as the boys and girls ran down the sidewalks, sneakers making sounds that unexpectedly echoed off the buildings and seemed amplified with dozens of other shouts, squeals, haunted house soundtracks and the roll of cars that mixed into a dull roar.
It was a magical night as mischief and candy collecting were the main goals that night, mixed with a bit of fright. An adult dressed in a scary scarecrow costume leaped from behind a fake ragged fence, creating the fight or flight response in the children. All of them ran.
It was the fight that worried some.
Down the street a creature shambled past the lines of parked cars that were a constant sight in the residential neighborhoods. It stood far above most people, even without slouching slightly due to the massive bulk surrounding the flesh on its head and torso. It had a vague humanoid shape, with long sweeping arms, a thickly muscled chest and two legs that propelled it forward. It was hulking and awkward, moving west and toward the oceanic waters. Large dark glassy eyes spun around at the slightest movement, its hearing was limited due to the writhing tentacles on its face. It was a marine creature and somehow it wound up far away from its intended destination and needed to get to water.
What it didn’t know was that someone was following it. Carefully picking her way along the right side of the street was a young human woman. Her small form was utterly unnoticed by the beast as it moved down the left lane of the paved road. Dressed in a gray wool pea coat and blue jeans she seemed to fit right into the landscape of parents corralling children around the houses. She just considered it good luck that the monster had landed on Halloween and no one would think it weird that a scary alien was walking down the street.
The problem was that he was in the middle of the street and she didn’t see any way to get him off of it before the inevitable vehicle came by. All she was supposed to do was follow the creature and redirect it when necessary. Looking for a bit of guidance on the matter, the woman reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small gray cell phone rimmed with a band of bright pink. She turned it on and quickly looked at her friend’s list and tapped a button.
She put the device to her ear as a distinctive voice touched with a northern accent came through. “Yea?”
“I’ve got a bit of a problem,” she said.
“It isn’t eating anyone, is it?” he said, a slight whirring sound came through in the background.
“No,” she confessed, though she wondered how she was suppose to stop it if it did attack anyone. “It’s walking down the street and toward the ocean, just as you said.”
“Of course it is,” the voice confidently said. “Their brains are remarkably uncomplicated. Easy to predict.”
“Yea, the problem is it’s walking down the middle of the street.”
The voice on the other side of the conversation paused. “I was afraid of that. Look, I’m rather busy at the moment getting these circuits in place. Don’t do anything for the moment and just hope that nothing bad happens.”
The young woman frowned, her brown eyes becoming slits in the darkness. “What do I do if something bad does happen?”
“Just do what I would do.”
“That’s no help,” she muttered.
“Think on your feet Rose,” he said. “You’re surprisingly good at that.” Then the line cut.
“Right,” she grumbled and slid the cell back into its place. A truck was coming down the lane, its headlights brightly illuminating the monster in the road. It raised a large webbed hand to shield dark eyes. Rose could only look on in silent horror as the pickup came to a screeching halt, its tires sliding slightly on the moist pavement. It had stopped shortly before the sea creature, the driver quickly rolling down his window and leaned outside. He started screaming strings of profanity, telling the beast in no uncertain terms to get off the road. The creature adjusted to the light beaming on its body, flung its arms wide and gave a garbled shout that sounded like a cross between a whale bellow and a lion roar.
The driver quickly decided that this was someone he didn’t want to mess with any further, pulled his truck into a hard reverse and spun it around. The creature lumbered forward, ready to lash out at the bed of the pickup with a long taloned hand. The dark claws only scraped a bit of red paint from the vehicle as it sped away.
Confusion racked the mind of the sea creature as it tried to think about what it just witnessed. Some sort of mechinoid had challenged its authority. The creature won the battle of courage. Then with the matter resolved it snorted and continued down the street.
Rose openly sighed with relief. She thought for sure that someone was going to get killed there. How long would it be before an incident like this occurred again? She tried not to dwell on that.
She followed it for another two blocks. Thankfully what other cars had come down the street only swerved and went around the monster. Whatever irritation the people inside had, at least they were wise enough to do so inside their vehicles and at a distance away from the being. Most probably chalked it up to the holiday.
Another group of children decided to cross the street, seemingly oblivious to the creature shambling along.
Oh, God no, Rose thought. She had a sickening feeling that she would have to do something quickly. Ideas tried to force their way to the surface of her consciousness, with little success.
Some of the kids stopped, their faces looking out beyond the molded plastic masks they wore. “Cool,” one of them gasped as it looked up at the monster lurching at them. Wide eyes stared at it in wonder. “That’s an awesome costume mister!”
The sea creature grumbled and raised a hand to swipe at the young children.
Rose didn’t think anymore about it, she scanned the sidewalk and picked up a chunk of concrete that had fallen off the old sidewalk curb. She threw it at the monster, but missed. The projectile hit the road just behind the alien. Pieces flew off and struck its large feet at the heel. Screaming the kids ran back to the other side of the street and Rose silently gave a prayer of thanks.
The monster turned its entire upper body with eyes glaring at Rose. It roared again, coming straight at her. The human female didn’t hesitate in taking off down the sidewalk.
Well, she mused to herself in the flight for her life,
at least you’re getting it off the road and away from the kids. She could hear its grunts and squeals as it followed her at a slightly slower gait.
If I keep this up, at least it won’t be able to catch me, she thought and reached back to her phone. She pressed a rectangular button and then selected the menu option without looking at the screen.
“I haven’t the time Rose,” The male on the other line said, slightly annoyed.
“You had better find the time, because I had to think on my feet and how it’s chasing me,” she puffed.
“How far away are you?” he asked.
“Four blocks. Maybe.” she told him before the connection was cut. He wasn’t finished, she knew it. She hoped that he would complete the net before she got there. Her blonde hair was flailing in the breeze kicked up by her sprint and she look a second to glance behind her.
The creature was slowly making up the distance between them. It had more stamina than Rose did, even though she was faster. Breathing was coming much more difficultly for the human woman now, her gasps were shallow and her chest hurt. She rounded a corner and nearly slipped on a plastic bag lying on the ground. She stumbled forward but remained standing and continued running. The creature was unphased and screeched in delight that she wasted valuable space between them. Rose then ducked down an alley, between a set of old brick buildings that used to house an assortment of shops but now were used as apartments. She could easily hear the padding of its feet on the slick pavement and didn’t dare look back, worried that she might slip on something else and take a tumble.
The Doctor can’t help you yet, Rose told herself.
Just keep running.The space suddenly opened up to a small deserted parking lot and the rears of two stores that faced one another. Off to the left Rose spotted the small glow of a blue light and hoped that it was a good sign. A dark form moved along the edge of the roof of the two-story building, holding a silver instrument in his hand. When Rose slipped past a well placed line of devices located on the buildings he pointed his pen-shaped tool at a small round disk attached to the brick facing on the wall of the store and turned it on.
A web of white light shot out from a series of identical disks arranged in a line down the outside of each building, attached directly across from one another. The monster was caught up in the outline of bright light, it was far too cumbersome to stop in time. Electricity flowed through the alien, it screamed in terror as its whole body suddenly shut down and it collapsed into unconsciousness.
Rose had stopped running. She leaned forward, resting her hands on her knees and struggled to get her breath back. Her mouth was dry and she smacked her lips as she glanced over at the fallen form of the sea creature. The amount of energy released by the devices caused moisture around the monster to evaporate in curls of steam. It looked like the climatic ending of some monster movie.
“Fantastic job Rose!” The man standing on the flat rooftop called down to her. “I couldn’t have done it better myself!”
She let a breath puff out her cheeks and then Rose stood straight. “Right,” she simply said and walked over to the prone being. She felt a twinge of sympathy knowing that she helped to arrange his currant condition. Quickly joining her was the man from the roof, dressed in an olive t-shirt, dark brown leather coat and dark blue jeans. He was beaming with joy. “I suppose you finished it just in the knick of time,” she said to him.
“Absolutely and it worked better than I had imagined,” he chirped, his face still contorted into a bemused grin.
Rose looked at him. “Lovely,” she said. “So Doctor, how exactly do we get tall, dark and ugly into the TARDIS?”
The smile never left him. “I haven’t figured that bit out yet.”
“Thought not,” she muttered. “He’s got to weight three hundred kilos.”
He tilted his head to the side slightly, examined the creature for a second and then announced “It’s more like three hundred sixty-five point five kilos, give or take a few.”
“Now you’re just showing off,” she told him.
“Yea,” he admitted, “and I’m also a lot stronger than I look. Let’s get this bloke off the street before anyone comes to investigate the fireworks we set off.” He paused and looked off into the hideously brown hazy sky that was night in Los Angeles. “I could use a drink afterwards.” Rose cleared her throat and the Doctor turned to her. “What?”
“I’m nineteen,” she said.
“You‘re an adult,” said the Doctor, as if she didn‘t know that already. Then he realized what she was telling him. "And how is it that you know what the legal drinking age is in the United States, but you have no idea where the country of Jordan is located?"
She shrugged, ignoring the slight. “And my ID says I was born in nineteen-eighty-six. Two years from now.”
The Doctor's smile faded. “Oh, right,” he said and reached into the inner pocket of his coat. “Use this.” He tossed her a wallet containing what by all appearances was a blank slip of paper. “Just imagine it says you’re twenty-one when you flash it.”
She grinned. He had never let her use the psychic paper before. The paper was a strange bit of technology that would partially read the thoughts of its presenter and transfer the data to the brain of the reader, making it look like whatever it needed to be. It made her feel slightly giddy.
“Now help me get him in the TARDIS,” the Doctor said, reaching around and grabbing an arm on the alien.
With a bit of effort Rose and the Doctor managed to drag the bulky creature toward a small structure parked next to one of the shops. It looked like an overgrown telephone booth, square and made of paneled wood painted a lovely shade of deep blue. At the top was a small light box that glowed slightly with the words Police Public Call Box illuminated on all sides at the top. Rose was delighted to see the Doctor drop the arm he was holding and pulled out an ordinary key from his coat pocket and placed it inside the lock. When it turned and clicked open he grabbed the alien’s arm once again and grinned at the young woman. “Ready?” he asked.
Rose gave an exhausted sigh. “Yea,” she replied.
“All right then,” he said and gave a great tug, with Rose’s help he pulled the creature inside the police box and deposited the brute on the entrance ramp just inside the door.
Though the exterior of the blue box had been no more than a few feet, the interior was huge. Large textured columns that resembled a golden coral reached into the domed ceiling like an artificial forest. Levels of honeycombed metal rose up like a great dais, a massive console that resembled a flower bulb sprouting tubes of glowing green matter serving as the throne at the top. Everything hummed like a well tuned engine.
Rose carefully stepped over the monster and followed the Doctor as he dashed up the ramp to the control station. He flipped on a few switches and checked some readings as Rose waited patiently behind him. “He’ll be out for a while yet,” the Doctor beamed and whirled around, gazing at the pretty face of his companion. “Now let’s get that drink.”
