Chapter 7 (Waste Not, Want Not)
Holly and Lilly were both awoken by the lights shining out across the sea. Lilly raced out of her bed and clambered onto Holly’s so they could both look out of the window. The dark shapes of the patrol cars were zooming out from the top of the spike and towards the shadowy cliffs in the distance. The lights from the spike were shining down on the beach area and they could just make out a figure.
“Do you think it’s the Doctor?” said Holly, hopefully.
“I hope not,” said Lilly.
“What? Why not?” Holly couldn’t understand why Lilly wouldn’t want to be rescued.
Lilly stared at Holly and then thwacked her on her arm. “Because what are we gonna do if Shrall blows this place and the Doctor’s inside.”
“Oh my god,” said Holly, putting a hand to her mouth.
By now there was an excited commotion outside. Prisoners were cheering and the guards were barking orders for them to keep order and go back to sleep.
“What do we do?” said Holly, desperately looking around her as if expecting an answer to appear through the wall.
“There’s nothing we can do. We need to get to Shrall though.”
There was a tap on the cells bars. Standing there was Charlie Banks, his face turned away from them.
“Charlie!” said Holly, running up to the cell door. “You need to stop Shrall. My friends out there. He’s gonna come and rescue us.”
“I don’t know about your friend,” said Charlie, “but the reports are coming in about a metal man on the beach.”
“Oh,” said Holly. “Okay.”
“And I can’t stop Shrall now,” said Charlie. “He’s set to go off in an hour.”
“Oh god,” said Holly. “This is not happening to us.”
“Cool it, Dangerfield,” said Lilly. “What’s this metal man doing then?”
Charlie turned to face them. “He’s just walking up and down the beach firing off obscenities and a big gun. They’re likely going to destroy him.”
Lilly went back to the window to look out. “Then I just hope the Doctor’s not out there.”
The Doctor, Ziggy and Nao had reached an overhang in the cliff where it was impossible to abseil any further down.
“We’re gonna have to lower ourselves down from here,” said Ziggy.
The Doctor craned his neck to look down. It looked to be a 50 foot drop, but slowly and surely they lowered themselves down.
“The sea is likely to be cold,” said the Doctor as they hit the surface and then jumped the rest of the way in.
Nao gasped, her eyes wide. “No kidding!”
“We’ll be fine,” said Ziggy. “These suits have special layered material in them.”
“Nice of you to offer me one,” said the Doctor, his teeth chattering.
“We need to swim,” said Ziggy. “Come on.”
“Lead the way,” said the Doctor.
The swim wasn’t as bad as the Doctor had first feared. Although they were cold, the swim helped to warm them up. Slowly they approached the looming, towering spire. It’s beam of light still illuminating the beach.
The Doctor looked back. The patrol cars were on the beach and T23 was still trying to evade them. He had taken up a stance by some rocks and was firing at the beach. None of the shots hit the guards - that was done on purpose - but it was still proving to be an excellent distraction.
“We need to go under now,” said Nao as she gazed up at the spire.
“This better work,” said the Doctor as the three of them took a huge breath and then dived under the water.
It was murky and dark and the Doctor could barely see where he was going. Ziggy produced a flashlight and it illuminated the surrounding water just enough.
And then the light struck something. It was moving quickly, but it was a large, dark shape. Whatever it was had just swum past them.
The Doctor span around in the water, trying to get a glimpse of it and Ziggy shone the flashlight around frantically. There it was again.
The Doctor grabbed Ziggy’s arm and then prodded his finger towards the surface.
Ziggy nodded and the indicated for Nao to swim up as well.
They headed for the surface broke through, all three of them letting out huge gasps, coughing and spluttering in the cold water.
“What the hell was it?” said Ziggy.
“No idea,” said the Doctor, “but we can assume that it’s there to protect the spire from people like us.”
Nao closed her eyes and let out a frustrated growl. “We can’t turn back now.”
“No. Definitely not,” said Ziggy. “Zia’s up there and we need to get her out of there.”
“This creature - if it is a creature - could kill us,” said the Doctor.
“It hasn’t attacked us yet,” said Nao.
The Doctor had to agree. So far they’d be in the water for five minutes and all the creature had done was swim past them a couple of times. Maybe it was just a random, harmless sea-creature.
“We need to go on, Doctor. Unless you have any other suggestions?”
The Doctor shook his head. He was out of ideas. They needed to get into the spire and this was the only way.
Agreeing to continue on the three of them dived under again and continued to swim for the base of the spire.
So far everything had remained fairly quiet and there had been no sign of the dark shape. Eventually the large, looming bowls of the spire came into view through the murky water.
The Doctor looked at his two companions. Nao was struggling to hold onto her breath and Ziggy was concentrating. He had always been better at this so he swam ahead as quickly as he could. His pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his trouser pocket and aimed it at a panel which was about 2 meters wide and 1 metre high. There was a clicking sound and the panel slid open.
The Doctor turned around to signal his success to Ziggy and Nao - and they were no where in sight.
He span around frantically, trying to see any sign of them. Even he was starting to find it difficult to hold onto his breath now.
And then, like a freight train emerging from a darkened tunnel, he saw the sea creature emerge. He was momentarily taken aback. There was a flashlight attached to it’s head. No - it wasn’t attached. It was Ziggy who was holding on to the large unicorn-horn-like spike that stuck up from the top of it’s head. Ziggy had a hold of it with his right hand and the flashlight in his left.
The creature was about 5 metres long, quite sleek-looking with four large, barbed fins either side of it’s body. It’s tail had two flippers and flicked about wildly as it tried to shake Ziggy off itself. Its head was terrifying. As well as the horn it had three, beady-dark eyes and a huge mouth that was almost the length of its entire head with rows and rows of jagged teeth.
What was in its mouth horrified the Doctor. It’s jagged teeth were clamped around Nao’s right leg. The rest of her body was flailing about wildly as she tried to break free. She was clearly in agony and a steady stream of blood flowed from the wound on her leg, turning the sea around her a cloudy-red colour.
The Doctor pulled his jacket off as the creature zoomed towards him. Then, like a matador at a bull fight, he flung the coat over head of the creature. It was momentarily confused and released Nao.
Ziggy pushed himself off the creature and floated towards the Doctor, who had grabbed Nao and was hurriedly swimming with her towards the open waste hatch.
Ziggy followed suit, constantly looking to his side.
And then it came again.
Out of the darkness the creature aimed its head at Ziggy. The coat was ripped and part of it was in its mouth. Ziggy drew his arm back and, as easily as he could in the deep water, swung the flashlight at the creatures head.
There was a dull, watery crack and everything went dark.
Ziggy swam as fast as he could. He couldn’t see anything, but he hoped he was heading in the right direction.
He banged his head on something and then felt himself being hauled out of the water and then deposited on a hard, metal surface.
Ziggy let out his breath and breathed long and hard, his eyes remaining closed. He could smell the most undesirable smell he had ever had the misfortune to smell and tried not to think about it as he sat up, coughed out some water and then almost retched.
“Not nice, is it?” came the Doctor voice.
Ziggy opened his eyes. They were sat on a metal ledge that ran the circumference of the base of the spire. It disappeared into the darkness. The water they had come out of was full to brim of all manner of things he didn’t want to think about. Up above was a large tube, which presumably dumped the waste.
Nao was sat with her back up against the wall breathing deeply. The Doctor had ripped his shirt arm and had bandaged up her wound.
“Is she gonna-”
“She’s gonna be fine,” said the Doctor, “but she can’t come up there with us.”
“What?”
“She needs to stay here,” said the Doctor. “She’ll be quite safe.”
“That thing-”
“That thing isn’t going to come in here. And even if it did, she’s out of the water.”
“I’ll be fine,” said Nao, out of breath. “I’ll be just fine. You need to go and find Zia and come back down.”
“And then we all get out of here,” said the Doctor. “And I can find myself some new clothes!”
“I don’t like this.”
“I haven’t liked any of this, Ziggy my old friend, but we have no choice. Zia, Holly and Lilly are counting on us.”
“I hope Shrall knows what he’s doing,” said Holly. “We’re counting on him.”
“BANKS!” came the deep, booming voice of Shrall from around the other side of the cell block.
Charlie blew air out of his cheeks and closed his eyes.
“He’s ready, isn’t he?” said Lilly.
“Yep,” said Charlie. He turned to Lilly and Holly. “When Shrall blows it’ll knock out the electrical systems. The gates will automatically open.”
“And then what?” said Holly, we just curl into a ball while this place falls down around us.
“No,” said Charlie. “You head to the lift shaft. The lift won’t be working, but you can climb through the released service hatch at the top.”
“Climb the lift shaft?!” exclaimed Holly.
“Climb the lift shaft,” said Charlie.
“And then?”
“The lift will take you right to the command deck.”
“Where the guards will be to kill us escaping,” said Holly.
“No,” continued Charlie. “The guards won’t be able to use the lifts, so they’ll be coming down the stair wells. Although I can’t promise that they won’t have put a guard or two up there.”
“BANKS!” shouted Shrall again.
“Once you’re on the command deck head for emergency exit 5. There’s a ladder that leads all the way down the spire to about 20 feet from the surface of the water. Then you’ll have to jump.”
“Jesus,” said Holly.
“Woman-up, Dangerfield,” said Lilly.
“But this place is going to blow! It’s going to collapse.” said Holly.
“It’s not going to collapse,” said Charlie. There will be structural damage, but that’s it.”
“It sounds too risky,” said Holly, biting her fingernail.
“Better to take a risk than spend the rest of our sentence in here.”
Charlie nodded.
“What about you?” said Holly.
“I’ll be fine. I’ll mingle with the guards. They’ll never suspect me.”
“You’re a good man, you know?” said Holly.
“Thanks,” smiled Charlie.
Lilly reached her hands through the bars and grabbed at Charlie’s uniform, pulling him close to her. She planted a huge kiss on his lips.
Holly stood and watched, her mouth open in surprise.
And then Lilly released him. Charlie just looked straight at Lilly, confused.
“Good luck, soldier,” said Lilly.
“Thanks,” said Charlie, still in shock, as he made his way back towards Shrall’s cell.
“Well that was a bolt from the blue,” said Holly, her arms crossed.
“It was more for him than me,” said Lilly with a smile. “He’s a brave guy. Now he’ll be even braver.”
The Doctor and Ziggy had managed to climb the 10 foot wall of the waste tank area and had reached the ceiling. It was trick as it sloped upwards to the tube that was about 4 metres in diameter. Using one of the suction cups that Ziggy had packed they managed to fire the climbing wire across to the edge of the funnel and pull themselves across, their legs dangling over the edge.
Ziggy looked down at Nao who gave them a little wave. She looked ill, but still with it. He smiled back at her.
The Doctor grabbed a hold of the inside of the tube and aimed his sonic screwdriver up at a hatch a metre in. It opened with a satisfying click and then Doctor turned to look at Ziggy.
“You ready for this?”
“Ready than I’ll ever be,” said Ziggy, nodding.
“Good.”
“What do we do when we get up there?” said Ziggy.
The Doctor shook his head. “I really don’t know, but let’s hope the girls don’t have any other plans to escape.”
To be continued...
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