Chapter 3

Rachel immediately swiveled round on her chair to see who had just offered to pay for her drink; it was a 32 year old tall dark shady man, unshaved with short black hair. He wore a black leather jacket with a shirt underneath and baggy black trousers. Next to him was a young woman with short red spiked hair, she wore the same leather jacket with a tight blue jumper underneath and a pair of black flares.

  The two of them quickly sat on each side of Rachel. The service droid placed a small glass of lemonade on the bar, the man handed it two dull silver coins. “Thank you,” said the droid in an unemotional voice and drove off to serve other customers.

  “Sorry I don’t believe we’ve met,” said Rachel, trying to avoid eye contact with the two strangers. “I’m Chris, this is Sareena,” said the male, Rachel had just noticed that he was wearing black leather gloves. “Nice to meet you, I’m Rachel.”

“We know, me and Sareena did a little bit of work with your father,” said Chris, is voice was deep and hardly friendly. “We supplied your father with a snowmobile and license,” said Sareena, she too had an unfriendly voice. “No offence, but I don’t think my father is the type to be around you two, he’s the old fashioned stereotype,’ said Rachel.

“I know what you mean, but we were interested in the experiments in the ice mountain as much as he was, and he knew that we were his only hope of getting the right transport,” said Chris.

“We planned to leave together, but he’d left earlier in the morning, it was obvious that he didn’t want us two tagging along,” said Sareena, Rachel knew that the two of them were telling the truth, they described her father exactly.

 “It’s taken us ages to get another snowmobile, but now we’re going up to the mountain, we might at least give him a decent burial. We thought that you’d want to come,” said Chris.

  “There are five seats in the snowmobile, so you can bring two others if you want,” said Sareena, an image of Andrew immediately popped into Rachel’s mind. “I have a service droid I’d like to bring, that’s it,” said Rachel.

“A service droid, why would you want to bring a rusty piece of junk along with us, it’ll only slow us down,” said Chris, a large wave of anger quickly built up inside Rachel. “Don’t you dare speak that way about my droid, he’s coming whether you like it or not,” roared Rachel. She knew what Chris was, his kind were slowly building up. He was an anti-droid protester, his kind were afraid of how technology was slowly taking over their lives, to give machines personalities and voices was almost like a nightmare to them. They wanted to be in control of everything in their own lives. There was one incident when a group of them bombed a droid mechanic factory.

  Sareena could feel the anger and tension in the air and quickly acted. “We’ll come round later to pick you up, come on Chris, we’d better leave,” said Sareena as she grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the bar. He still kept eye contact with Rachel, his eyes burned with fury like a tiger as it watches its prey, waiting for the right moment to leap.

Ann was immediately greeted by a gush of freezing air, a blizzard roared at her body, the specks of snow stuck to her clothing but not melting.

  The Doctor shut the doors to the Tardis behind them and then locked them with what was presumably a key; it was shaped like a long semi circle with strange markings engraved on it and attached to a metal chain. Once he had finished he hung the key around his neck.

  “What do we do now,” asked Ann, she had to speak loudly through the roaring blizzard. “Well whoever sent the signal can’t be far,’ said the Doctor, he squinted his eyes and looked around into the landscape. He began to focus on the main feature within his view. It was a large ice mountain, no rock, just ice, layers of snow nestled over its outer shell and into every nook and cranny. It seemed to spread for miles, what was inside remained a mystery. But he did make out one thing, at the base he saw a large entrance and something was inside. A glow of some sort was pulsating in the darkness of the entrance; his eyes became hypnotized by this sight.

  While the Doctor stood fixated by the glow he was unaware of the experience his companion was feeling. Ann began to feel the cold eat away at her skin, like rust to a piece of iron. Even the thermal clothing didn’t help, she felt as though icicles were beginning to form in her lungs and heart. Then the situations got worse, a stinging headache began to pulsate in her brain, it quickly became sharper and more painful. Her body seemed to be collapsing; she quickly fell back against the doors of the Tardis and slid down onto the snowy ground. The Doctor immediately turned around to see what was happening. “Ann,” he cried as he kneeled down and began to tend to Ann, she was now unconscious; her face was turning a pale blue with cold. “Ann, can you hear me, please Ann,” he said as he listened to her pulse, she was still alive.

  As he tended to her he was quickly distracted as a loud noise like an engine howled through the wind. He turned around to see two bright headlights glisten through the blizzard. The Doctor began to wave his arms frantically to attract its attention. 

Drast squinted his eyes as he gazed through the windscreen; his headlights were illuminating something in the distance. He made it out to be a man waving his arms, behind him was an unconscious woman slumped against a large blue box. He immediately reacted and quickly drove the snowmobile towards the two people; he would always help someone in trouble.

  It reminded him of when his father took an overdose and found him unconscious on the kitchen floor, he called for an ambulance but he died a few hours later. Most people who came to the colony such as himself had tragic pasts, it was a place where you could start a new slate, forget and look to the future. But the cold seemed to swallow up any future, the cold; it rusted your skin everyday, the cold and the ice.

  Drast realized that he was about to hit the man, he quickly slammed on the brakes and undid his seatbelt. His gloved hand opened the snowmobile door and he was immediately greeted by a blast of icy winds and the thrash of the blizzard, his feet dipped into the pit of snow as he climbed out. The man that caught his attention was now visibly clear, he looked mid 30’s and had long black hair with a black goatie, he was now picking up the woman who had long black hair and dark green eyes. Both of them were wearing thick thermal coats with gloves and boots.

  Drast then returned to the matter in hand, the woman had obviously suffered from hyperthermia and staying out in the cold wasn’t helping. “Get her into the back,” said Drast; his voice was muffled on the roar of the blizzard. He quickly opened the back right hand door of the snowmobile; the Doctor then gently lifted Ann inside and rested her across the three back seats. Drast then slammed the door and climbed into the driving seat. The Doctor entered the snowmobile through the back left hand side and seated himself next to the still unconscious Ann.

  “Thank you,” muttered the Doctor as he flipped down his hood and unzipped his jacket, he then covered it over Ann to keep her warm. “Hyperthermia, should have realized. Just keep her warm and she’ll recover,” said the Doctor as Drast started up the engine and slowly drove through the fields of snow. The Doctor then took of his gloves and placed them in his right pocket.

  “I’m Drast by the way, Drast Sullivan.”

“I’m the Doctor, and my unconscious friend here is Ann.”

“But what on earth were you doing out here on the surface, without a snowmobile, have you got a death wish?”

“Well we just arrived on the planet; we picked up a distress signal. Wait a minute, what do you mean, out here on the surface?”

“Well don’t you know? There’s a colony set up here, hardly the brightest. We nicknamed it the Colony of the Lost, since there’s so much depression around here, most of the colonists have tragic pasts,” said Drast still keeping his eyes on the path he was following. “Why set up a colony here? It’s hardly suitable to sustain hundreds of people.”

“No no no, the colony isn’t on the surface, its underground, this planet holds thousands of underground ice caverns, perfectly suitable for living conditions.”

“So what are you doing up here,” asked the Doctor as he saw a tint of color appear back on Ann’s cheek. “Most of us who have the privilege to own a snowmobile, come up here to watch the sunrise, couldn’t see the damn thing today because of the blizzard.”

  For the next ten minutes of the journey they were all quiet, the Doctor was busy caring after Ann when he suddenly realized about the glow in the mountain. “Drast,” said the Doctor, “do you know anything about that ice mountain back there?”

“Who doesn’t? There were rumors about an illegal genetic corporation setting up a base in the heart of the mountain; I think their name was Genetic Industries.”

“What did Genetic Industries do?”

“Cloning, DNA altering, that sort of stuff, they were the kind of people that thought everyone should be perfect, survival of the fittest, they wanted to wipe out any flaws in the human race, load of old rubbish if you ask me.”

“Quite, has no one ever journeyed into the mountain?”

“My neighbor; Rachel, lovely girl, well her father went into the mountain but never came back,” said Drast as he scratched his unshaved cheek. “I would take her into the mountain but you need a pass to go up onto the surface, hey, that reminds me, we’ll have a hell of a time getting past security, I suspect you don’t have a pass?”

“I like to keep any information about myself secret,” said the Doctor, he looked out the window to see that the blizzard was dying down and his body temperature had returned to normal.

  “Here we are,” said Drast, the Doctor looked through the windscreen to see a large square building; the material it was made of was unknown since it was covered in snow and frost. At the front of the building a large metal door lifted open to reveal nothing but a dark void beyond, Drast then drove the snowmobile into the shadows within. Once inside he put on the brakes, a few seconds later the Doctor shook with fear as a loud bang echoed throughout the blackness, he turned his head to see that the door had closed, the only light to be seen now was that within the snowmobile. During the Doctor’s life he had learnt not to become a slave to fear and merely examined the situation as it came.

  His stomach jilted, the snowmobile was slowly going down, they had parked in some kind of lift, a faint light was slowly seeping into the Doctor’s eyes. He looked out the window as they descended down into the colony. “Welcome Doctor, to my home,” said Drast as the lift stopped to reveal an enormous ice cavern that seemed to stretch for miles, in the cavern was a metal city covered in snow and frost, it was one of the most amazing things he’d ever seen, an underground city.

  Drast wound down the window as a large droid glided over towards them, it ran on caterpillar tracks and had a built in laser blaster, it was obviously a security droid. “Please display your identification pass,” it said, the droids voice was unemotional and metallic. Drast took a small piece of laminated card out of his fur coat, it had a picture of him on it and identification information written by it. The droid looked at the card and turned to look at Ann lying on the back seat. “Scan detects two human life forms, only one has displayed identification pass,” said the droid.

“She’s sick, she cannot display her pass, we must get her medical help,” said Drast, the droid paused for a second before speaking again. “Permission granted, proceed,” Drast then drove the snowmobile onto the streets of the underground city.

  “That’s odd, the droid said that it only detected two humans onboard, why didn’t it detect you,” asked Drast.

“It didn’t detect me because it’s only programmed to scan for humans,” said the Doctor.

“But you’re human.”

“When did I say I was human?”