Chapter 2

A sudden rush of warm air hit Ann’s face as soon as she opened the door to the blue box; the rain was beating down on her skin even harder now, but her mind didn’t care, she was more interested in the box, without her glasses it was hard to see what the interior was like, so she slowly stepped over the threshold as the raindrops quickly dripped from her clothes.

  She was now completely inside the box and its inside was clear. It was a large hexagonal chamber with gleaming white walls and roundels fitted on. In each corner were white solid pillars, one of the walls had a large screen with a smooth white shutter covering it. To her left was a wooden oak hat stand and to her right was a large computer bank with flashing lights, dials, levers and switches. On the far wall was a door but one thing that caught her eye was a hexagonal console in the centre of the chamber. It was covered in levers, screens and lights and in the middle was a large multicolored crystal in a cylindrical transparent casing.

  Something began to move in the corner of her eye, she looked down to see that it was the Doctor, again in the same clothes. He was sitting on the gleaming white floor operating on a complicated piece of circuitry with a screwdriver.

  It was only then that it hit her, she only just began to question how a large room like this could fit in a small box in the middle of a junkyard, and there was the Doctor, sitting down like nothing was wrong. Her mind was going to blow any second, the questions kept spinning around but there were no answers, she just couldn’t find a rational and logical explanation.

  The Doctor then noticed she was there. “Ah, Ann, glad you could make it,” he said as he climbed up off the floor and walked towards the hexagonal console, he then inserted the piece of circuitry he’d been working on into a small slot on one of the panels like you would feed a floppy disk into a computer.

  Ann stepped forwards as the doors gently closed behind her, she then seized the moment and decided to ask questions, but it was difficult getting the words out. “How can this, it’s just a box,” she struggled, but the Doctor knew the questions she was going to ask. “I can see that you’re wondering how the dimensions are bigger within than without.”

“Yes, it was just a wooden box, there was nothing behind it, I’m confused.”

“When you where standing in that junkyard, you thought the Tardis was just a box,” said the Doctor but he was quickly interrupted.

“Tardis?”

“Yes, a ship like this has to have a name.”

“Ship, you mean it can move?”

“More than that, this is a fully operational time machine.”

“How is it bigger on the inside than the out?”

“It’s dimensionally transcendental.”

“What does that mean?”

“Its means it’s bigger on the inside than the out,” said the Doctor with a smug grin across his face. “Well I don’t believe a word of it, you’re just playing some stupid prank, I thought you were different, the kind that doesn’t act out stupid charades like this.”

“How about a test flight?”

“No thank you, just open the doors so I can go home,” said Ann, a look of shock spread across the Doctors face. “That’s odd, we’re in flight,” said the Doctor as he began to tinker with the console. “Of course, I left the distress signal receiver on automatic.”

“Doctor, this joke has gone far enough, now open the doors!”

“I cant, someone’s sent out a distress signal and I have to answer it.”

“Doctor please! I just want to get out of this madhouse,” roared Ann, she had only just noticed that the central column had began to rise and fall, the crystal inside it was glowing a bright red. “If you could walk across the alien soil, and see two suns rise in the distance, would you believe that I’m telling you the truth, and this really is a time machine?”

“Yes.”

“Then prepare to believe, please, just wait a few minutes and I’ll show you that I’m not lying,” said the Doctor, Ann slowly let out a smile. “Alright then, but I know I’m just going to see the same junkyard when I walk out of those doors.”

  “Good, now that you’re here, why don’t I give you the grand tour,” said the Doctor as he began to gesture towards the hexagonal console. “These instruments help me control our flight and program in any co-ordinates and don’t fiddle with it, you might blast us into infinity,” the Doctor then escorted Ann over to the computer bank on the right. “This is my computer and fault locator. It helps me work out sums and can detect the slightest hiccup in the Tardis’ systems,” he then quickly walked back to the console and turned a small white knob anticlockwise. Ann realized that it made the shutters on the screen slowly lift up to reveal a moving image of a multicolored swirling vortex. “This is the scanner, as you can see we are traveling down the time vortex.”

“Time vortex?”

“Yes, it’s a sort of road the Tardis travels along in order to reach a certain destination.”

  The Doctor was then interrupted as a sound like a beat of thunder echoed throughout the chamber, followed by the groaning wheezing noise of an engine. “Ah, we’re materializing,” he said as he tinkered with the controls on the console. Ann was slightly scarred by the mystery that was about to happen. The sound suddenly stopped and a new image appeared on the scanner. It was a snowy white landscape with a violent blizzard blowing throughout the air, from what she could tell it was daytime and no one could live in such conditions. “There you are, an alien world, I wasn’t lying after all.”

“Rubbish, that could just be a television picture, give me some concrete evidence.”

“No, not yet, we’ll need some warm clothing, the temperature out there is below freezing so we’ll need some thermal jackets, I’ll just get some from the wardrobe,” said the Doctor as he walked out through the door at the opposite end to where Ann had came through, she caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a long corridor with the same gleaming white walls with glowing roundels.

  She slowly began to think that all this was true, but she knew that this technology was not human, which made her wonder if the Doctor was human as well.      

Cold slowly began to eat away at Drast’s skin, even the thick fur coat that he wore wasn’t enough. The only comfort he had was from the snowmobiles heating system.

  Everyday he would trek across the violent icy surface in his snowmobile, it was cheap and small but sufficed for Drast’s purposes, it had four hard plastic seats, one windscreen and four doors. It ran along on caterpillar track wheels so it wasn’t very fast, he would take it out onto the surface every morning to watch the sunrise and get a chance to think. But on this morning, it was hard to see because of a violent blizzard thrashing throughout the land, the windscreen wipers struggled to clear the glass of all snow.

  He would soon have to get back to the colony. But something happened, something that wasn’t usually expected, he quickly stopped the snowmobile and looked through the thick transparent glass of the windscreen. He could see something in the distance, it was distorted and blurred but he was able to make out what it was, a tall blue box.   

A few seconds later the Doctor came back into the room holding two pairs of thick black gloves, four black rubber boots and two thick woolen grey coats with hoods. “What are those,” asked Ann as the Doctor handed her two gloves, two boots and a coat. “Thermal clothing, like wearing a radiator but much more comfortable, just be a good girl and put them on.”

“Your just doing this to waste time, I must warn you, I’m beginning to grow tired of this charade,” said Ann as she quickly fitted on the gloves, they quickly swept a breeze of warmth throughout her body, she then proceeded to fit on the coat, the same thing happened, it was a satisfying experience considering she was soaked through with rain. Just as she began to fit on the boots she looked up to see the Doctor already fully clothed.

  “Now then, let the truth be revealed,” said the Doctor as he rubbed his gloved hands together in excitement; he then proceeded to tinker with the console. “Are you ready,” he asked as he looked up to see Ann fully dressed in the thermal clothing. “Doctor, can I ask you something first?”

“Fire away,” said the Doctor, he looked into her eyes and saw that it was going to be an important and serious question so he put on a serious face. “When you open those doors and there really is another world out there, will it mean that you’re an alien,” asked Ann, there was a long silent pause.

“If I said yes, would it jeopardize our friendship?”

“No, but it would be a shock.”

“Then yes, I am not human, the earth is not my home,” Ann was slightly set back, the way he had said those words made her realize that there was a huge chance that he wasn’t lying.

  “Open the doors,” she slowly said as her heart began to race violently. The Doctor lowered his gloved hand onto the console and gripped a large red lever, slowly he pushed it forward and the thick entrance doors smoothly swung open. The Doctor then looked up to see that Ann had her eyes tightly shut. She took a deep breath and opened them; beyond the doors was what she had saw on the scanner earlier, a freezing snowy landscape with a violent blizzard thrashing through the air.

  She began to breathe quickly and heavily. “Please, take me home, I want to go home,” she pleaded in an innocent voice. “I can’t, we received the distress call and must answer it.”

“No, you got that distress call, not me, you! Its your job, I belong back home,” said Ann, she was on the verge of bursting into tears.

“I’m sorry Ann, I’m not an expert on piloting the Tardis, I could spend months trying to get you back to earth.”

“You had no right to even invite me here, because of you I’ve been taken away from my family and friends!”

“Do you think I would want to deprive you of your lifestyle? The distress signal receiver was on automatic, it took us here so it wasn’t be choice,” said the Doctor, he saw a small tear rolling down Ann’s cheek. He slowly began to zip up his coat and flip up the hood. “Come on, we’d better see who sent the signal, please Ann, I promise to get you back to earth, but it may take a while,” Ann said nothing, she simply flipped up her hood and walked out onto the alien world, realizing that she was cut off from home.