Chapter 4

Rachel’s heart was racing with excitement as adrenaline built up inside her, finally she would be able to find the secret to her father’s disappearance, even though it would involve breaking the law it would be a small price to pay.

  She had just reached Coroner Avenue, she wasn’t far from home now, she couldn’t wait to tell Andrew the news, but that put another worry into Rachel’s head, what if Andrew’s safety was at risk, most anti-droid protesters such as Chris had violent reputations, he might snap and try to smash up Andrew’s circuitry.

  She quickly forgot about this as she reached her front door, it was opened by a card swipe panel on the left hand side. As she reached into her trouser pocket to pick out the card she was disturbed as the roar of a snowmobile engine echoed into her ear, she turned around to see her neighbor Drast parking the vehicle, on the back seat were two strangers, a man and a woman.

  Drast turned off the engine and the familiar friend named silence returned, he then climbed out onto the frost covered pavement, his boots made a small crunching sound as they scraped against the ice. The back door opened and a man with long black hair and a goatie stepped out, he looked friendly and warm, in his arms he carried a young unconscious woman. “Oh my goodness,” said Rachel, she didn’t know if the woman was dead or ill. “Bring her inside,” Rachel fished out the blue plastic card key and swiped it into the panel. The large metal door lifted open and Rachel greeted the three of them into her home, she immediately directed them through the hallway and into the living room where the man lay the woman down on her sofa, it was black and leather with a soft touch that suited Ann’s purpose to rest.

  The Doctor had his thermal coat in his arm and laid it over Ann to keep her warm; as he removed his gloves and placed them into his pockets he examined the living room. It had bright white walls with a television screen in the right hand wall and an old gramophone in the corner, he saw Drast falling back into a comfy leather black armchair with exhaustion, the room was plain and dull with no style.

  He saw a woman standing in a large archway; she had smooth skin with brown eyes and short black hair. The archway she stood by lead into the kitchen again it was dry and dull, the walls were the same and all the cooking equipment and draws were fixed into the walls.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met, I’m the Doctor, my friend over there is Ann,” he said as he held out his arm and shook the woman’s hand. “I’m Rachel, Rachel Anderson, Drast’s neighbor. What happened to her then?”

“Hyperthermia, she isn’t used to temperatures on the surface of your planet,” said the Doctor as he sat down next Ann and checked her pulse again, it was slightly slow but normal, luckily her skin was quickly warming up.

  “Why are you here, I’ve never seen you in the colony before,” said Rachel.

“Ah yes, we received a distress call coming from this planet. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to pinpoint its location,” said the Doctor as he examined Ann, “she should be alright soon enough, the colors come back to her skin and her temperature is slowly returning to normal.”

“Tea anybody,” Rachel was known to ask this question to most guest in her home.

  “Yes please Rachel,” said Drast.

“Doctor?”

“Ah yes,” the Doctor was distracted as he fished his hands into his pockets, Rachel then left the room through the archway and into the kitchen.

  The Doctor slowly took out various items from his pockets and laid them out on a small wooden coffee table in the middle of the room. Drast watched as he took out a yo-yo, a coil of metal wire, a magnifying glass, torch, cricket ball, pen, notepad, a small yellow crystal and a strange tool with some kind of sonic cone on top. Drast picked it up and began to examine it; the object had a warm feel to it and was obviously some kind of important instrument, to operate it there was a small trigger near the sonic cone. “Do you mind, that’s my sonic screwdriver,” said the Doctor as he snatched the tool off him and threw it on the table.

  “Ah ha,” the Doctor took out a small hand held tracking device; it had a small screen displaying a compass and a metal switch. The Doctor pushed the switch forward and the needle on the compass began to point towards north-east as a small bleeping noise began to emanate from the device. After a few seconds he switched it off and began to place all the items back into his coat pockets.

  “What direction is the ice mountain,” asked the Doctor as he placed the magnifying glass back into his left pocket. “North-east, why,” said Drast, he heard Rachel in the background pouring the boiling water into three mugs. “I have a feeling that the distress call is coming from the mountain, I just need to have a look and take some readings.”

“I suppose you want me to take you?”

“That would help, someone might be in danger, why else would they send a signal,” said the Doctor, he heard the slam of a fridge door in the background. “Well we might have a problem getting passed security, but OK then, best not mention it to Rachel, what with her father and all that,” said Drast as he climbed out of the leather armchair.

  Rachel then walked in carrying a large metal tray with three white mugs of tea, they were all too milky and were slightly spilling over the side, she slowly set them down on the coffee table.

  “Excuse me for just a second,” said the Doctor as he slipped passed Rachel into the kitchen; he then walked over to a large plastic work surface. From his pockets he produced his notepad and pen, he then tore out a blank page from the pad and began to write.

  “You couldn’t do me a favour Rachel,” asked Drast.

“What?”

“Well the Doctor and I need to pop out for a minute and we were wondering if you could look after Ann for us, we won’t be long,” Rachel then heard the sound of deep footsteps as the Doctor entered the room. “Well I suppose so, how long for?”

“Only half an hour at the most,” said the Doctor, “come along Drast, no time to waste.” The Doctor tugged at Drast’s arm and dragged him out of the living room into the hallway. The smooth metal front door slid open immediately greeting the three of them with a cold breeze, flakes of frost blew into their hair from the sheets of ice that covered the front of the house.

  “What if she wakes up,” asked Rachel, Drast was already out on the icy street and walking towards his snowmobile. “Tell her not to worry, she’ll be full of questions so try to answer as many of them as you can,” said the Doctor as he opened the front door to the snowmobile, the engine roared to life as Drast turned the key.

  The Doctor climbed in and slammed the door, without his thermal coat a slight chill was shooting through his body causing the hairs on the back of his neck to freeze into position; luckily the snowmobile central heating was there to comfort him, through the frost covered window he saw Rachel’s face as she slowly retreated back into her home.

  A sudden jolt churned the Doctors stomach as Drast and he began their journey.

The door slammed shut behind Rachel as she made her way through the hallway and into the comfort of her living room, she spent most of her time in there as she revised for exams to give her ownership to an identification pass onto the surface, unfortunately she was hardly the brightest girl and every time she took the test, failure greeted her. She had taken the exam six times now; it was to test your history of good behavior to make sure you wouldn’t do anything illegal on the surface.

  If you were to look at Rachel in the street you would think that she was the polite sensible girl, unfortunately in her teenage years just after her mother had died she took her anger out in acts of violence, spray painting walls, vandalism, she even set fire to an old abandoned warehouse, she was caught and fined.

  Rachel was then disturbed as the sound of some kind of electronic device filled the air, she looked to see Andrew coming in from the hallway. “Good afternoon Rachel, I was just tidying your room,” he said in his gentle soothing voice.

  “Andrew we’ve got a visitor, she’s had a bit of hyperthermia, she’ll wake up soon, and her name is Ann.”

“Does Ann or you require a beverage or food?”

“No, but you’ll never believe what happened today.”

“As a robot I am equipped to believe almost everything.”

“Well anyway, I met these two people who were friends with father and they can take us up to the surface and explore the ice mountain.”

“You do not have a license, this would mean braking the law, I am not sure that my programming will permit me to do this action,” said Andrew, Rachel felt slightly depressed by these words. “Well you’ll have to stuff your programming, you and I are going whether you like it or not,” Andrew tilted his robotic head.

  The two of them were unaware that Ann was starting to stir, she began to shake her head and made a slight groaning sound, she was beginning to regain consciousness, her brain felt bruised and her body was stiff. She quickly shot her eyes open and looked to see where she was, it was a small dull living room, in the doorway was a woman and a strange machine, she thought it was some kind of robot. “Where am I,” she screamed at the top of her voice, she screamed so loudly that her throat began to burn.

Drast’s hands began to shake as he gripped the leather coated steering wheel, he couldn’t believe how the Doctor was remaining so calm, breaking the law was hardly Drast’s specialty. He quickly pulled the brake lever as they reached the lift leading to the surface. He then collapsed back in the seat as he began to bite his nails nervously, he hands were trembling and his heart was pounding violently.

  “How can you be so calm? If we’re caught I’ll get a fine and you might be arrested,” said Drast, he felt slightly calmer after getting it out of his system.                                       “I take the situation as it comes, if you were more like me you’d learn that   worrying only makes things worse,” said the Doctor, he peered out through the windscreen to see a security droid dealing with the snowmobile in front.  “That’s another thing, I don’t even know who you are, and what’s this    nonsense about you being an alien, there is no such thing as aliens.”

  “What year is it?”

“You mean you don’t know what year it is?”

“Well if I knew I wouldn’t ask,” said the Doctor in an angry tone of voice.

“2356, fancy not knowing the year.”

  “Ah, humans don’t come in contact with aliens for another thirty years,”    mumbled the Doctor to himself. “What was that,” asked Drast.

“Nothing, just talking to myself. Hey, its show time,” said the Doctor as he pointed towards the security droid slowly trekking towards them.

  Drast wound down the window, a few seconds later the droid poked its metal head through. “Identification pass please,” it said in its unemotional voice. Drast fished his trembling hand into his right hand pocket and pulled out his laminated pass and displayed it to the droid. “See everything’s fine,” said the Doctor as the droid scanned the pass. “What was that noise, alert, there is another vessel in this snowmobile,” squeaked the droid.

“Ah yes, you can still here me can’t you,” said the Doctor as he looked at Drast, he was sweating with panic. “My optical circuits must be faulty; any other units in this mode of transportation must display their pass!”

  “The DX14 security droid has a unique system of circuitry and it is highly unlikely for any faults to occur in its systems,” said the Doctor as he opened the snowmobile door and climbed out. He slowly walked towards the security droid, it still couldn’t see him. “Now if any faults were to occur in your systems it would be advisable to get them fixed straight away,” said the Doctor as he fished into his pockets and produced his sonic screwdriver.    

  “Correct, I shall report to a technician immediately,” said the droid, it seemed to be frightened at the thought of something being wrong with itself.           

  “Oh no, you don’t want to go to a technician, you’ll have to go through a whole lot of fuss and I’m sure they’ll want to speak to us as well and we don’t want that do we? No, why don’t you let me fix you,” said the Doctor as he removed a large metal plate from the front of the droid’s torso to reveal a large circuit board covered in computer chips and wires.

  “Alert, an invisible being has removed a section of my outer shell,” the droid squeaked as the Doctor pulled the trigger on his sonic screwdriver, it began to emit a small vibration. “Don’t you worry, everything going to be alright,” said the Doctor, he then placed the sonic screwdriver back in his pocket.

* * *

DX14 security droids are all alike; they come out of the factories identical, even down to the tiniest screw.

  One of the most important components in the security droids system is a small device that can detect any faults and any damage, if this is detected it operates a small transmitter that acts on a very high frequency, this signal is sent to security control, a large metal tower in the centre of the city, you might describe it as a sort of police station.

  On level 31 of the tower is a small computer room that monitors all security droids. Five men operate at five different computer consoles at all times making sure that everything is in order.

  At this moment, Jon Goldberg at computer console three was picking up the emergency signal of DX14 security droid 9 Alpha. He then picked up a small headset that was resting on the controls and placed it over his head, he then began to tinker with the levers and switches on the panel.

  Above the control terminal was a large monitor screen, it immediately came to life and showed a scientific diagram of a number of complicated circuitry, a red light began to flash over a small section of the circuitry. Jon then pressed a small button on his headset and began to speak into a small microphone attached to the side of the set.  

  “This security terminal 3, we have droid 9 Alpha on lift duty being sabotaged, please respond immediately, this is not a technical fault,” said Jon, he waited a few seconds before there was an answer.

  “Thank you, a squadron is being sent down immediately,” said a deep male husky voice from the microphone. “We’ll send another droid just a soon as you’ve finished down there,” said Jon.

“Thank you, we’ll keep you informed, over and out.”

The Doctor slowly grasped his fingers around a small black computer chip attached to the circuit board. He then gave it a tug and then pulled the computer chip out into his hands, the droid immediately dropped its head and the small lights in its eyes went out.

  “Such a shame, he seemed like such a nice little fellow,” said the Doctor as he pocketed the computer chip. Suddenly a bright blood red light began to flash as an alarm roared throughout a small speaker system embedded in the cave wall. “Come on, I think he’s been missed,” said the Doctor as he raced round the side of the snowmobile, his feet skidded across the icy ground before he jumped in.

  “What do we do,” pleaded Drast, he could no longer cope with the situation. “I think we have company,” said the Doctor as he looked out through the window to see a squadron of 4 troops assembled behind, they wore special dark blue bullet proof armor with helmets and armed with strange looking machine guns, it was obvious that all this weighed a great deal. They were all fit in health and had a company logo branded over their armor.

  “Halt, you are under arrest, step out of the vehicle or we will be forced to fire. Any attempt to escape will cause immediate execution,” said one of the troopers through a speaker phone, he was male with an unemotional dark voice.

  “Drive,” roared the Doctor, he could see sweat pouring down Drast’s forehead from fear.

“Open fire,” ordered one of the troops, he was presumably the squadron leader. The rest of the troops quickly pulled the triggers on their weapons; each was loaded and locked on target.

  A herd of bullets quickly surged through the air, each one knew its destination, some would hit the back of the snowmobile, some would skim across the side of the craft and others would bury themselves in the ice of the cave wall. Several hit the metal shell of the snowmobile causing small sparks, this caused Drast get even more nervous.

  Luckily they made it inside the lift, as Drast pulled the brake lever the lift slowly began to rise. More sparks began to appear as bullets buried themselves into the lift walls. Out of luck, none of the bullets hit the engine, it was only a matter of seconds before the Doctor and Drast were out of range.

  “What do you do for an encore Doctor,” shouted Drast as he collapsed back into his seat and the lift began its journey upwards.