Rose and Grandad

Peter Tyler - Pete to his family and friends was born the 15th of September, 1984 to parents Harold 'Harry' Tyler and Rosa Tyler. A family that had made its wealth off of real estate during the Industrial Revolution, the young Pete had want of nothing. Until 1968, when Harry, perhaps wanting for a Tyler return to prominence, squandered away virtually all of the family wealth and properties on failed investment schemes. At 13 Pete left school and began to work every odd job he could find, driven to return his family back to a respectable status in the world. In 1974, after years of failed attempts, his mother was diagnosed with cancer. The Tyler heir pursued a career in inventing, hoping to create the next big thing and get Rosa the help she needed. Unfortunately, she died within the same. Pete, devastated, left his father and London behind, but continued his entrepreneurial inventorships. Friends he met around this time would often say he was an ambitious if scatterbrained, entrepreneur. It was 11 years later that Tyler, now the last of his family, found happiness. In 1985 Pete married his girlfriend of three years, Jacqueline Prentice and had a baby daughter later the next year. Pete Tyler is survived by his wife and his daughter, Rose Tyler, whom the late Tyler named after his mother.

224. That was the number of words that made up all of the tangible information that Rose Tyler had on her late father. She had a love/hate relationship with those words. On one hand, she was grateful for that eulogy; it composed a picture of her father that she would not have otherwise. On the other hand, she hated its existence. That and the fact that her mother gave it to her on the first day of primary school. Why would any daughter want the first impression of her dad to also be the last? Why did she have to carry on the grief of a man she would never have known personally?

'I would have demanded to know about him eventually' Rose reminded herself. She always did; no matter how much she wished she didn't love a man whom she could never meet, Rose knew that she would have demanded information on him if she hadn't been given it so early.

One thing Rose found out she had in common with her dad was a sense of ambition. Not ambition in the traditional sense mind you, being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company wasn't her style. No, this young woman wanted to grab the world by its horns, go on adventures, be the change that her father was never allowed to be. Unfortunately though…

"Oi! Rose!"

She was startled and looked up. It was Gus, the security guard. His arm was stretched out towards her, his hand holding out a bag full of money used for lottery ticket purchases for the day.

'Of course.' Rose rolled her eyes while taking it, walking back into the store that she worked in. That's right, the young woman who dreamed of adventure worked at Henrik's Department Store. So much for dreaming big. Making her way downstairs to give Wilson, the chief electrician, the lottery money she regretted for the hundredth time taking the job at Henrik's. Her mother and her needed the money though, and this was all that she could find in a pinch.

The nineteen-year-old was downstairs and she noticed that it was much darker than usual in the basement. Also, Wilson was nowhere in site. 'Strange' she thought, 'he's usually right here waiting for me.'

"Wilson!" She called. "Hello, Wilson? It's Rose. I've got the lottery money!"

She waited a few seconds. There was no response. She tried again.

"I can't hang about 'cos they're closing the shop. Wilson! Oh, come on!"

Rose turned to leave when she heared a clatter down the hallway. Concerned, she started slowly down the hallway towards its origin. She came upon red double doors. 'Wilson's office. Maybe.' She opens the door.

It was not Wilson's office but a storeroom. Weirdly, the lights were already on, but there was no human inside aside from some human-looking plastic mannequins. Still, she called out for him, hoping he was about. "Wilson! Wilson!"

This was apparently a mistake; the double doors shut behind her in a loud SLAM. Panicking, she ran to them, trying to pry them open but they were not budging. "You're kidding me" she gasped, finally accepting that they would not budge. 'What the hell is going on?'

She hears another clatter behind her. Whipping around she again saw no one...save for the plastic mannequins. "Is there someone mucking about? Who is it?" That finally got a reaction. The store dummy nearest her slowly creaked its head in her direction.

'Wow...really outdid yourself, Derek' she thought both scared and annoyed. He had always been a practical joker but this was taking it too damn far. "Yeah, you got me. Very funny."

But Derek didn't reveal himself. Nor Wilson, nor anyone. In fact, two other dummies creaked their heads toward her and began staggering towards her. 'What the actual hell?'

"Right, I've got the joke. Who's idea was this? Is it Derek's? Is it? Derek, is this you?" There was again, no response. The dummies then started towards her, awkwardly scuffing the floor with the rubber contact. Rose was petrified with fear. What could she do? The door was locked and in every direction, strange men in dummy outfits that could probably mess her up real bad. She was backed up into a corner. 'Is this how it ends?' she asked, back against the wall. Peering up she saw the lead dummy raise its arm. Steeling herself for the blow, she's surprised to feel a hand grab one of hers. A non-plastic one!

Looking to the side she saw an older man who she's never seen before, looking absolutely frail, but with command and experience in his narrow brown eyes that drew her attention away from the dummies and squarely on him.

"Run!"

And so they did.

Rose and the man quickly came upon the double doors. She slowed down despite herself. 'They're locked, there's no way we're getting through.' This did not stop the elderly stranger a bit though. Barely pausing he pulled out a strange cylindrical device, pointed it at the door and opened them. 'Oh shit.'

She quickly caught up to him. She was about to mention a lift they could take when he grasped her hand tightly and took her further down the basement corridor, farther than she had ever been before, to another lift. They entered.

Facing the back, Rose turned around when she heard a metallic clang. The ringleader of the dummies had stuck its arm through the door and her rescuer was wrestling with it. His grunting grew more and more frustrated and it culminated with one of the weirdest things Rose had seen in her life. He dropped one hand into his coat pocket and swiftly pulled out a weapon and fired it squarely at the prankster's face. The prankster fell away but left its arm in the man's grasp. 'Did he just kill a bloke?' The lift started to ascend.

"You...you shot him!" She said in shock

He turned around to face her. "Yes," he responded plainly.

"And pulled his arm off" she continued.

"Mhm. Plastic"

"You killed somebody! Yeah, he scared me half to death and was chasing us but why'd you have to do that huh? He could've been a student!"

The man seemed surprised at her outburst and it also reminded him that he was still holding his gun and the plastic arm. He pocketed the weapon in his bulky mucked up leather jacket and handed the arm to Rose. "Students? Why would they be students?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"Well, you said it. After accusing me of murder. Why students?"

"'Cos to get that many people dressed up and being silly, they got to be students. Like a prank."

"Hmm," he said. "I hadn't thought of that. Makes sense though."

"Thanks."

"They're not students. And this," he pulled out the weapon again. "was on stun." Rose looked at the gun. It was shiny and larger than any handgun she'd seen (though she hadn't seen many). Maybe he was from the government? A government? Regardless...he had saved her. She decided to let the gun thing go. For now.

"Fine. On stun. Whatever. Whoever they are, when Wilson finds them, he's gonna call the police."

"Who's Wilson?"

"Chief Electrician."

"Wilson's dead," he said.

As the lift opened, the man briskly turned and exited the lift. Rose followed right behind, now seeing that they had been taken to the back of the store.

"That's not funny. That's sick!" she said in disgust. This man was really making it hard to be grateful towards him.

"I never said it was, girl." he turned towards a lift close to the back exit doors and started fiddling with it with the strange tool he had used on the red doors.

"My name is Rose!" she yelled. "Who the hell are you? What's that lot down there?" He continued with his work, ignoring her.

"I said who are they?" she repeated.

He stopped his work, huffing. The man stood up, turned to her and walked outside the exit doors with her.

"Okay, Miss Rose. They're made of plastic. Living plastic creatures. They're being controlled by a relay device in the roof, which would be a nasty big problem if I didn't have this." He pulled out a makeshift bomb that was making soft beeping sounds. "So, I'm going to go up there and blow them up, and I might well die in the process, not like that would matter anymore. I do this for someone lost to me long ago. You go home. Go and have your lovely beans on toast, or whatever people eat this decade. Don't tell anyone about this, because if you do, you'll get them killed. Forget me, forget my face." With this, he ran back inside, shutting the door hard.

The amount of information was overwhelming. Living plastic creatures? Blowing up Henrik's? He's going to die, but not for himself.

"Wait! Hey!"

The door propped open, the man halfway out of it, still holding that bomb. "Yes, what is it? Kind of busy here!"

"You said you're doing this for a someone else? A friend?"

For the first time since she'd known him, he smiled.

"Not a friend. A Doctor. Now go, Rose! Run for your life!"