The Time of Change

Twelve Minutes

"No!" the Doctor yells. "Annalise!" In vain he grabs at the loose soil, then begins to pound on the concrete floor. "No, no, NO!" He rips the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and points it at the hole, pressing the button so furiously that his hand shakes. The object whirs and glows, but nothing happens.

Hearts dropping into his stomach, the Doctor deflates. His chest feels as if it collapses in on itself, the empty cavity within now holding a fragmented mess. "No," he whispers again, hoping against logic that she will hear him and rise back up. The seconds pass in slow motion, and he wants nothing more than to remain exactly where he is and dig his way to where she has gone.

    But there is work to be done, a voice in his head reminds him.

    "Where is she?" asks a worried Nasreen as she and Tony reenter the room.

The Doctor takes a deep breath, then carefully gets to his feet, ignoring the fear-weakened state of his legs. He turns to them with slow, measured movements. "She's gone," he says brokenly. "The ground took her."

    "Is that what happened to Mo?" Tony demands at once. "Are they dead?"

    "It isn't quicksand. She didn't just sink," he says in a rush, disregarding Tony's question and trying to work it out for himself. "Something pulled her in. It wanted her." He bends to look at one of the other patches of earth with a scrutinizing gaze. The longer he stares, the angrier he becomes.

    "The ground wanted her," repeats Nasreen skeptically.

    The Doctor wrings his hands, thinking. "You said the ground was dormant," he says. "Just a patch of earth when you first saw it this morning, and the drill had been stopped."

    "That's right," Nasreen supplies.

    "But when you restarted the drill, the ground fought back," he continues.

    "So what? The ground wants us to stop drilling?" she scoffs. "Doctor, that is ridiculous."

    "I'm not saying that, and it's not ridiculous," he shoots back. "I just don't think it's right." He pauses, collecting the evidence in his mind. All his senses go toward this one problem, toward solving the mystery of the vengeful ground. It almost seems too preposterous to be real, yet he saw its wrath with his own eyes. The answer sits right in front of him and taunts him with its simplicity. What could it be?

As he knew it would, soon enough a lightswitch flicks on in his brain. "Of course!" he exclaims. "It's bio-programming!"

    Nasreen furrows her brows. "What?"

    "Bio-programming. Oh, it's clever," he replies, chuckling lightly. "You use bio-signals to resonate the internal molecular structure of natural objects. It's mainly used in engineering and construction, mostly jungle planets, but that's way in the future and not here. What's it doing here?" He rubs his chin thoughtfully.

    Nasreen peers at him closely. "Sorry, did you just say jungle planets?"

    "You're not making any sense, man!" declares Tony.

The Doctor raises his eyes to him. "Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up." Tony retreats a step with a roll of his eyes, hands up in a half-surrender. The Doctor continues, "The earth, the ground beneath our feet, was bio-programmed to attack."

    Again Nasreen scoffs. "Yeah, even if that were possible—which, by the way, it's not—, why?"

    "To stop your drilling," he answers simply. Now he touches his hands together once more and begins to pace. "Okay, so if we find whatever's doing the bio-programming, we can find Annalise. We can get her back. Shush, shush, shush." He waves at no one in particular to be quiet, a peculiar scrunched expression on his face. "Have I gone mad? I've gone mad..."