The Time of Change

The Front-Door Approach

The Doctor rounds the corner and peers down the narrow tunnel. It branches into another a few feet off. "We're looking for a small tribal settlement," he calls to Nasreen as she starts down the tunnel on his left, "probably housing around... a dozen Homo Reptilia? Maybe less."

"One small tribe?" Nasreen asks lowly from her passage.

"Yeah," the Doctor replies absently.

"Maybe a dozen?" she clarifies.

He feels some unease at her tone and follows her. The moment he turns the corner, he understands, and a wave of frozen surprise washes over him.

"Ah."

A large square opening in the muddy wall makes the tunnel they stand in sort of like a viewing platform, and through it, they look down on a vast dirt chamber with hundreds upon thousands of Silurian warriors in sleeping capsules. There is a fine mist surrounding all of them—one the Doctor identifies as most likely being a gas to keep them all dormant—, and a handful roam, fully awake, between the glass cylinders, examining their suspended sleep with clipboards and interest. He sees tables with vials of multicolored liquid on them, test tubes and steaming beakers: advanced science and a ready-made, prepared-for-action army.

It is the perfect combination for an all-out war.

"Maybe more than a dozen," the Doctor says, rubbing his temple. "Maybe more like an entire civilization living beneath Earth." He pauses and attempts to recover his wits. The pair of them need to move before one of the wakeful lizard-people notice their presence. He leads Nasreen away from the viewing window and quips offhandedly, "This place is enormous but largely deserted." He looks around for any sign of life as they stride quickly through the tunnels. They encounter none. "The majority of the race must be asleep." Silence spans out between them for a moment. "We need to find Annalise," he adds, the sentence spilling out without his conscious knowledge.

Nasreen peers sideways at him, something warm shining in her eyes, but he does not notice. She says with feigned nonchalance, "You must really care about this friend of yours if you're willing to go up against an army of this size."

He stops short and glances at her, worry gnawing at his stomach. With a short sigh, he replies, "They have the most important person to ever live, and they don't even know it. I'd stand alone and unarmed in front of every race in existence if it meant my wife would be returned to me."

Nasreen gives him a touched smile, and he looks away, suddenly embarrassed. "Looking for heat signature anomalies," he says, starting off again.

With a lighter heart, Nasreen follows him, and she notices a few green straggles growing between the cracked clay stones. She stoops and picks one. Sure enough, it is a perfectly healthy little weed. Its arms reach out to her as if wanting her to show it some compassion. She strokes the tiny tendrils with the tip of her finger. "Doctor," she says, catching up to him, "how can all this be here? I mean, these plants..." She holds out the weed for him to look at, but he does not turn.

He seems to be acutely aware, now, of all the life teeming around them that he had not noticed before. "Must be getting closer to the center of the city," he muses.

Within seconds of that statement, they reach a large metal door at the end of the tunnel. There's a polished knob on the right side, the wall next to it housing a keypad. The Doctor stares at both in turn for a few moments before reaching out his hand to grasp the knob. Nasreen puts a hand on his shoulder. "You're sure this is the best way to enter?" she asks, skeptical.

"Front-door approach," he says, grinning confidently. "Definitely. Always the best way."

The moment the skin of his hand touches the doorknob, alarms blare around them. The keypad flashes a warning red, and the floor rumbles slightly. A monotone computerized voice sounds over an unseen intercom, "Hostile life forms detected, area seventeen."

The Doctor turns to Nasreen sheepishly. "Apart from the back-door approach. That's good—sometimes better." He grabs her hand and runs the opposite way of the threatening sound of footsteps that follows them. The voice says again, "Hostile life forms detected, area seventeen." Abruptly the Doctor stops, a line of Silurian warriors forming into a strong line that blocks their path. He retreats a few steps, pushing Nasreen behind him, and whips around only to find another group coming closer. Each holds a gun with a sort of funnel-like structure on the end. There is the same announcement from the computer again, and the Doctor shouts over the alarms, "We're not hostile. We aren't armed. We're here in peace!"

One of the warriors steps up, apparently to observe them closer, and without warning, it blasts both the Doctor and Nasreen in the face with its gun. It emits the same thin gas they saw in the chamber of sleeping Silurians, and though he tries his hardest to fight it, the Doctor loses consciousness almost instantaneously.