River of the Universe- Chapter 3

The professor read and re-read the printout before her, none of it made any sense to her.

Only yesterday there were no reports of their work having any side-effects. As she read the report again she heard the ding of the lift door opening and looked up from the paper.

To her surprise it was the man from earlier, he must be the replacement she had requested.

***************

The Doctor stepped out into a large brightly lit hangar with what looked suspiciously like a particle accelerator at one end.

This must be the place he thought as he wandered across the floor. He saw a woman approaching and turned on his heel to face her.

“Good morning,you must be Doctor Stephens.”

“I must be,” he smiled cheerily as she approached.

“Good, I’m Professor Chapman, perhaps you can get on with some work. What do you specialise in?”

“Oh, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but I do have a fondness for particle accelerators,” he gestured towards the chamber.

The Professor watched him as he approached the chamber and stepped forward to stop him when he ventured too close.

“I wouldn’t get too close.”

“Really and why is that?” he looked her straight in the eye.

She shifted uncomfortably under his gaze and swallowed before answering.

“Unfortunately one of our staff, probably the one you’re replacing had an accident in the chamber. Apparently he forgot to tell anyone that he was inside.it was unpleasant to say the least and telling his wife was even more unpleasant.”

She looked away as the picture flashed through her mind.

“It always is, isn’t it?” he replied after a pause, a sorrowful tone to his voice.

She looked up at that and saw in his eyes that he knew exactly what she meant, a look that seemed like they had seen too much.

“Anyway, such things happen, perhaps you can pick up where his work stopped. I’ll just go and get you his notes.”

She came back out of the filing room to find him examining the chamber from outside, a pair of thick rimmed glasses perched on the edge of his nose.

“Doctor Stephens,” she called.

The Doctor wandered over. “Please just call me Doctor, everybody does,” he peered at her over his glasses.

“In that case you can call me Susan, I never was into titles,” she replied as she handed him a thick file.

“I’m sorry, but he didn’t like computers much, he preferred to write his reports by hand, paranoid I guess”.

“Same here, just don’t trust computers, never know what their thinking.”

*************

The Doctor flicked through the pages, he would read them properly when he got back to Martha.

He mentally slapped himself, he had completely forgotten about Martha, he was so caught up with the mystery.

He looked at the clock on the wall and decided he could stay for a while longer.

*****************

Professor Chapman was still puzzling over the printouts when the Doctor knocked on her office door and gestured to the clock on the wall.

“Professor,” he began.

She interrupted. “Please call me Susan,” she reminded him.

“Sorry, Susan, I’ve just had a call from reception, apparently there’s a problem at my temporary lodgings, something about a water pipe.”

The Professor waved a hand without really noticing him. “Of course, just make sure you sign the absence register before you go.”

She returned to puzzling over the report in front of her, so she didn’t notice that he still had his predecessor’s notes in his hand.

The Doctor sighed, if they were as advanced in their research as he thought they were then it was worse than he had imagined.

He had to get back to Martha and try and formulate a new approach to the problem.

**********************

The sound of the Doctor bursting into the room woke Martha.

She was about to scald him for leaving her behind when she saw the excited glow on his face and the way he fidgeted in his chair.

“Well, you look like the cat that got the cream”.

The Doctor beamed at her. “That place is definitely ground zero.”

He held up a file that was stuffed with paper. “I think whoever wrote this must have found out what was going on and came to a nasty end. Someone doesn’t want their secret out.”

Martha leaned forward. “So, I take we’ll be going back tonight to stop it?” an excited tone to her voice.

The Doctor responded to the tone with a frown. “We, did I say that we would be going back tonight?I think it will be only me going back tonight.”

Martha stood up and placed her hands on her hips. “Oh no, not this time, you know we work better as a team. You may need an extra pair of eyes or hands.”

The Doctor was about to protest but the look on Martha’s face was the familiar stubborn and determined look that he loved.

“Alright, but be careful. If someone’s’ killed once, then they not going to be worried about killing again.”

********************

Rain began to fall steadily as the Doctor and Martha set out towards the steep path that led to the back way into the facility.

The Doctor had managed to finish reading the rest of the report and its’ contents had worried him, in fact it had frightened him.

They stopped just short of the steep incline, the rain made it a difficult climb and they stopped several times to catch their breath.

The Doctor pulled Martha up the last incline and stopped by the security fence. He reached a hand out and felt the current running through the wire.

“Electric, a few hundred volts I’d say, they definitely don’t want anyone taking a sneaky peek.”

He took out the sonic and held it against the fence for a few seconds.

With a sizzle as the rain fell on it the wires melted to produce a man size hole, he squeezed through and held the wire apart for Martha to pass through.

“Won’t that set off the alarms?” she asked.

“If it does, the reading will say it is nothing more than some poor furry critter that had the misfortune of running into it. Anyway if we do get caught, we might get to see whoever is behind this quicker.”

He flashed her a dangerous grin.

******************

The Professor had decided to go home and come back in the evening; she couldn’t concentrate on the problem at hand.

She decide to go back and perform a test run , she hoped that the readings she had been giving were not repeated tonight.

She stopped at the gate and showed the guard her pass; she hated the fact that the guards were armed and drove quickly away.

She took the stairs as the lifts were shut off a night. She was about to open the door when she heard voices, one sounded vaguely familiar.

Taking a deep breath she opened the door and stopped in her tracks.

******************

Martha jumped at the sound of the door, but the Doctor didn’t even turn “Hello Susan didn’t know this place had night shifts.”

Susan was too shocked to reply at first, but she soon recovered her composure.

“Doctor Stephens I hope you have a good explanation for security when I call them.”

As if by magic a deafening whoop filled the air.

The Doctor looked up “Oops, must have missed something, we’ll have unpleasant company in a minute. Professor, is there another way out of here?”

“If you think I’m helping you get way!” she began indignantly.

“I think you’ll find it’s not just me and Miss Jones that they’ll be after. After all you haven’t exactly screamed help,” the Doctor fixed her with a steady gaze.

“They can’t possibly think that I’m with you,” she retorted.

Martha had listened to them and with a growing impatient she moved between them. “Look, both of you, if we don’t get out of here it won’t matter whose with who!” she shouted over them.

The sound of boots in a hurry made up her mind for her. “ This way, there’s a fire exit that has no camera on it, we can get out without being seen.”

The sound of heavy boots echoed in the lab as a group of armed men stormed in, one man gestured for them to split and search the whole area, but the place was empty, just an open fire door that let the rain in.

*********************

Martha had managed to get some dry towels from the landlady and knocked on the bathroom door.

“Professor, I’ll put some towels just inside the door for you.”

Martha looked up as Susan came out of the bathroom and gave her a broad smile, she could see the shell-shocked look on her face. It was the same look she had when she had seen the moon from the hospital window, the same look when she had heard the two heartbeats of a certain patient.

“ I know, you feel like this can’t be real, like your life has become a roller coaster. The Doctor does that, he’s a bit like a roller coaster ride.”

“Just a bit, I’m still not convinced that the guards were after me. After all you’re the ones breaking and entering. Are you sure you’re not working for someone? This Doctor seems well versed in particle acceleration.”

“No, we’re not, the Doctors’ kind of a freelance. But there must be something about your research that’s important, something about it having side effects.”

Susan frowned. “Wait a minute, there was report that landed on my desk just before he came into the lab. Damn, I wish I had taken it with me, it said something about side effects.”

**************

“Are we decent?" a familiar voice floated thorough the door.

Second later the Doctor breezed into the room. He was still wet from being outside but didn’t seem to notice.

“The report is right, there are side effects. The only way to stop it was to shut it down, but I think we can safely say that’s impossible now. My problem is, Professor, someone has been shadowing your work, possibly copying it. Those side effects aren’t just local anymore, they’re global.”

“You can’t be serious, sure the effects couldn’t possibly be global?” she laughed nervously.

The Doctor narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. “Oh, I’m deadly serious, you don’t know the half, and yes I do mean global.”

“Wait a minute Doctor,” Martha interrupted. “What if it’s not the Professor, what if it’s whoever is funding her research?”

She could see the cold glint in his eyes and was trying to calm the situation.

“She’s right,” Susan nodded. “Just three months ago we were on the verge of being closed down when a backer came form out of the blue."

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck as he mulled over the information, and as quickly as his mood had darkened it lightened.

“Right then, we need to get back in your lab.”

“Doctor, we can’t get back into that place, we’d probably be shot on sight!” Martha exclaimed.

“Lucky for you I never did trust my new employer, so I made back ups of everything. I keep them at home on my laptop.”

The Doctor smiled at her “Clever girl, then we need to get to your house.”