Anachrophobia by Jonathan Morris

Author:Jonathan Morris [Morris, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780563538479
Publisher: BBC Books
Published: 2002-03-03T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Fitz had made something of a habit of being held at gunpoint. And the reason it had become a habit, rather than a one-off, was because he had also made a habit of doing whatever the person with the gun told him to do. Which in this case involved hurtling down a stairwell as the entire station shook itself to pieces.

His gloves slipped on the railings, his boots skidded on the grille steps.

He could hear a gigantic rumble that juddered him from the insides out.

Lamps flickered, some snapping from their brackets to swing by their cables and send sparks fizzling over the damp metal.

Then all the lights went out and Fitz found himself falling into pitch darkness.

Water sloshed over his legs and arms. He scrabbled around himself, arms outstretched, until eventually he hit a metal wall. He followed it along to reach the bottom of the stairwell.

A torch snapped on and the tunnel was picked out in grey. Through the water that had collected in his goggles, Fitz saw his own shadow stretching across the ceiling. Water gushed out of one of the overhead pipes, flooding the passage. The reflected torchlight bobbed with the motion of the murky water, sending rippling patterns across the walls and ceiling.

Shaw splashed over to Fitz and holstered his gun. ‘You all right?’

Fitz coughed and nodded.

‘Come on,’ said Shaw. The torchlight swept down the corridor to where the water swirled and frothed. Shaw waded in up to his waist.

‘Where are we going?’ breathed Fitz.

Shaw’s reply was lost in a jarring howl, a howl that made the heart thump. An air-raid siren.

‘– breached!’ yelled Shaw in his earphone. ‘The further down we are, the more TR barriers we’ve got between us and the –’

Fitz didn’t understand. He turned to go back to the stairs, his boots dragging under the torrent. ‘But the Doctor –’

‘Look,’ said Shaw, and the torchlight picked out the wall-clock.

Fitz looked. The hands on the clock were rattling round, the minute hand crossing over the hour hand. The spinning accelerated. The rattling became a drone, rising to a buzz, then a whine.

‘There’s a breach. Accelerated time displacement,’ yelled Shaw. ‘Quick, you idiot –’

A gust of freezing air hit them. A storm rushed down the stairwell and howled through the tunnels. Fitz leaned against the battering wind.

There was a metallic creaking from above them, as though the base itself were coming to life. A bulkhead slammed down.

Fitz remembered Shaw’s speech about the base’s defences. At the first sign of a time-based attack, every bulkhead in the affected area would shut…

The storm died as quickly as it had arrived. The hands on the wall-clock halted. Overhead, some bulbs sputtered and sent cascades of sparks into the water.

Fitz shivered. He was wet, cold, and trapped with a lunatic with a gun.

But he was alive.

Anji felt the vibration first in her legs, then in her stomach. Something was approaching. Then the wind blasted its way into the corridor.

The Doctor gripped her by the arm and shoved her against the wall, shielding her with his own body.

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