Every few seconds, the searchlights picked out the elderly woman, a ghostly figure against the backdrop of shadows and forest. Regardless of her age and frail form, the woman was giving the Time Lord, with his heightened agility, a run for his money.
As the searchlights made another pass, the Doctor caught sight of the woman darting into the forest and he followed suit. Under the cover of evergreens engulfed in nightfall, impenetrable to the searchlights, the Time Lord extracted a pair of glasses from his coat pocket. While making his way swiftly over ridges of roots and rocky terrain, he flicked a switch on the rim of the glasses, instantly bathing his face in a crimson glow. The forest then came alive around him infrared heat spots--rodents, owls and several deer--flickering among the cover of trees.
A human-sized heat spot zigzagged between tree trunks several yards ahead to the right; the Doctor changed course accordingly.
Drooping branches of pine needles whipped his face and channelled away beads of cold sweat. His body tensed up when hiss target suddenly disappeared from view.
"Dear me," he muttered between breaths . . . and then the world collapsed beneath his feet. The Time Lord hit the ground with a thud and tumbled down the steep decline in the forest floor like a rag-doll, over rocks and fallen tree branches. His body came to a halt beside a creek at the base of the recessed clearing. Trickles of blood ran down the Doctor's forehead and diluted into the stream of water.
A frail, withered claw stroked the face of the limp Time Lord.
"Are you all right, my dear? You took quite a nasty tumble."
The Doctor returned to life with a painful groan and a deep gasp of breath. The old woman helped turn him over on his back. "Thank you kindly."
"Why did you follow me, you poor thing?" She sat down on a fallen log nearby.
"Instinct, I guess. Whatever are they prescribing to you at that hospital? You were running as if possessed!"
The woman pulled her shawl tighter over the thin hospital gown as a cold breeze filled the clearing. Her small, frail form was silhouetted against the moonlight. "I'm tired," she whispered.
"I would think so!" the Doctor said with a chuckle, followed by a bruised-rib-induced groan.
"No, I meant I'm tired of the treatments, the tests, the dark."
"How long has Doctor Carson been treating you, Miss . . ."
"Call me Margaret." She stared at him with fatigued, hollow eyes. "Days, months, years--they all mean nothing to me now; it's been so long . . ."
"What about family, Margaret?"
"Family? Yes, but they stopped coming." She looked away, taking in her surroundings. "They couldn't stand a little gloom in their lives to brighten my own with a visit. And no doubt they were paid off to forget about me and the cause of my maladies."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Not to worry; I've put that all behind me now." Her eyes caught his compassionate glance. "Do you ever watch the sun rise?"
"When I have the time. Binary star sunrises are especially attractive," the Doctor replied. His remark went unnoticed.
"My husband and I would watch them together every morning, but now they burn my eyes. The day and night are one for me under the moonlight."
The Doctor recalled the strange fungus from Carson's lab. "Did you take Luna, Margaret?"
"'The end of depression,' the ad said. And for a few months it was right: I got over my sorrow for my son and returned to my nursing job refreshed, eager to work and help others." A smile took root on her pale, withered face.
"How long ago was that?" the Doctor cut in.
"Nineteen sixty or sixty-one, I believe. I looked quite good and healthy for my age then, but look at what living the nocturnal life has done to me . . ."
He reached for her hand and gripped it affectionately. Her smile took full blossom, but the Doctor yelped as a thousand needles pierced his palm--or so it seemed. He jolted his hand from Margaret's grasp and a puff of smoke dissipated around her outstretched hand.
"I'm sorry," she whispered and rotated her arm to reveal grey, bulbous spores dotting the underside and extending to her palm.
He quickly glanced at his aching hand to see a large blister forming on his own palm. "What have you done?" he cried in disgust.
"They want to hear your thoughts, to understand you." Her face was void of compassion.
"Who are 'they,' Margaret?" His entire body tensed as a prickling sensation spread up his arm, his chest, his spine and eventually to his brain. His mental efforts to combat the spreading entity resulted only in an agonizing headache.
"Don't fight it, my dear. They don't wish to harm you." She walked slowly towards him.
"St-stay back!" he cried, his head throbbing. He held up a hand to prevent her approach, but his limbs went numb. The Doctor knelt down on the forest floor and gave up his mental resistance. The headache ceased immediately.
YOU ARE NOT HUMAN. The deep booming voice echoed in his mind.
No I'm not, and you have no manners invading my mind like this, he thought in reply.
ACUTE MENTAL CAPACITY, BI-CARDIOVASCULAR, EVIDENCE OF PHYSICAL AND MENTAL REGENERATION--
Thank you for reminding me. What kind of sick experiment are you conducting on the humans?
BASED ON PHYSICAL EVIDENCE, YOU ARE NOT FROM THIS GALACTIC QUADRANT. WHERE IS YOUR PLANET OF ORIGIN? WHO ARE YOU?
I am the Doctor, he thought. The Time Lord was losing patience with the parasite. He made another mental attempt to regain control, which was met with sharp throbbing in his forehead.
DO NOT RESIST US, DOCTOR. PROVOKING THE SPORE WILL LEAD TO MENTAL COLLAPSE AND DEATH.
Splendid. What do you want with me?
WHERE ARE YOU FROM?
You said yourself: not Earth. Why don't you tell me where you're from; let's turn this into a conversation, shall we, instead of an interrogation.
WHERE ARE YOU FROM?
Now you're repeating yourself. Look, if you won't explain yourself, I don't see why I should reveal my favourite colour to you, let alone my home planet. The Doctor awaited a reply, but his mind was silent save his own thoughts.
Margaret broke the silence: "Take my hand, Doctor."
"Sorry, I'm not falling for that one again. Let's get you back to the hospital; I'd like to have a closer look at those spore on your arm."
The woman held out her hand. "They want to see us in person, Doctor, but you must take my hand first." She cautiously approached him. "The spores will have no effect now that you've been exposed to them."
The Time Lord backed away. "I'm sorry Margaret, but I don't care for blind dates--especially with psychic fungi aliens." Suddenly, footfalls and barking dogs echoed around them. "The guards have arrived. I'm afraid your excursion from the hospital has come to an end."
"It is time to leave, Doctor. They are sorry for this."
"For wh--" The Doctor convulsed violently as throbbing surges of energy swept through his mind. Margaret seized his hand and the world disappeared in an explosion of the colour spectrum.
Tamara sighed ruefully, her dark lips pursed. She stared blankly down at the low wooden table, slumped into a rickety chair, lacing her fingers together as her elbows rested on the polished work-surface.
It was two hours since he had gone, yet still there was no sign of him. The extensive search of the dense woodland had turned up nothing--not even the faintest trace of the woman he had been pursuing.
And look where that left her: stuck in a backwater hospital with all hell breaking loose around her, cut off from the slightest hope of assistance, without a clue as to what was really going on.
Which means--she thought with a tight grin, clambering to her feet--business as usual.
She gently prodded the panelled wooden door, wincing as it creaked stiffly on rusting hinges. Everything outside was still enveloped in tendrils of gloom, hanging over the walls and groping down from the ceiling to the floor, but the atmosphere felt more oppressed. Guards now filed along the passageways, beady eyes flashing warily, stationed on most of the major junctions, hands hovering mere inches away from the guns holstered at their sides. They paid her little attention, though, as she wandered from the room; they either had more important things to worry about, or were simply past caring.
Spots of blood sprinkling down a wall marked the site of the Doctor's disappearance, but the guide's body had been removed. Her sense of direction honed by the years spent as an agent, Tamara found that navigating the building came as second nature. In five minutes, she was back before the large laboratory that she had been led to earlier--where she could hopefully find some answers.
Her footsteps took her over to the long, low bench. Here the lighting was all harsh and bright, a clinical white; it made her feel slightly sick. She tried not to look up to the lamps strung along the flat ceiling as she leant over and perused the contents of the tabletop.
A battered leather diary, diagonally across from some slides and a rack containing several cracked test-tubes, caught her eye. She reached forward slowly, taking it by the edges, the dark cover dull against her skin, opening it carefully, fearful of it dropping to pieces in her hands. The pages inside were lost under a sea of spidery handwriting, the black ink fading; Tamara had to squint to make out each word.
"1944: The end of the Second World War leaves millions dead and entire cities in ruin, blasted down by technology never before dreamt of. As fears run wild that the same technology will soon bring about total destruction of mankind, depression and paranoia sweep the nations of the world, threatening to bring about a new level of conflict."
Her thumb flicked over the page.
"1959: Mecca Drugs Ltd.--parent company to the dying MKULTRA scheme--develops a revolutionary anti-depressant in response to growing fears of a never-ending Cold War. Trekkers into the Amazon rainforest disclose details of the local tribes employing the powers of a new breed of fungi in their ceremonies, believed to be extra-terrestrial in origin, which subsequent raiding parties bring back to form the body of the substance. The substance is tested originally on ten patients, suffering from chronic depression since their losses in the war, then introduced months later onto the shelves. Details of the drug have long since been lost, which researches believe explains our present condition, but it is rapidly placed under scrutiny by watchdogs-"
Tamara found her words met by a gravelly echo: "--after a unique condition, Luna, a fatally high intolerance to sunlight, develops in the victims . . ." Frowning, her gaze fluttered from the book to the corner of the table. The voice continued. "Half of the first batch of patients are found dead on the streets; similar cases are reported all over North America. Two years after its initial release, the product is pulled from the market; tens of people already find themselves forced to live in semi-darkness. Unique chemical reactions observed in the bodies of the afflicted attribute the blame to the mixing of the drug with other depressants; Mecca claims that such a warning was printed on the box."
She took several, tentative steps along to the end of the low bench. The quiet murmur drifted around the corner. "1964: After many deaths and the beginnings of a public outcry, the CIA is brought in to deal with the matter; the Minaki Holiday Lodge is purchased from the Canadian government in return for secrecy over the Luna incident. CIA forces move quickly into the area and establish a tightly guarded hospital for the treatment of the thirty remaining Luna patients. All surviving sources of the fungi are now missing; to save face, the CIA is forced to stop research into the cause of the disease and to treat the patients, giving them the greatest possible quality of life."
Slowly, Tamara swung her body around the corner, shaking her head sadly at the sight before her.
Carson sat hunched against one wall, his knees drawn up tightly to his chest and his tie and jacket crumpled, stained by the tears that slid down from his black-ringed eyes, across his haggard face. He sniffed as he felt her gaze wandering over him
"A thousand times I must have read that page . . . A thousand times . . ."
Tamara shrugged as she set herself down beside him, the harshness gone from her voice, now cool and soft. "And?"
". . . to help myself understand what went wrong. When I was moved on from MKULTRA, to this, everyone laughed . . . I'd fail again, they all told me . . . But no: this was my dream opportunity . . . A chance to change; a chance to do some good--to atone for my earlier crimes . . ."
She touched his shoulder. "And what went wrong?"
A lump rose in his throat, his whole body shaking. "I don't know . . . I really don't know . . ."
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
A steady rhythm of colour splashes smeared the opaque canvas. Roughly cut time. Several bars later, the sensation of dripping water accompanied the beat. Flickers of crimson light backlit the canvas as the Doctor's eyelids flickered open.
High overhead was a miserable grey sky weeping tears of rain over him and his surroundings. Beads of water dripped on his forehead from the leafy shrub above. Beneath his fingers he felt thick, wet grass; he shivered as a cold breeze blew over his damp clothes.
The smell of a pasture after a heavy rainfall filled his nostrils and he inhaled contentedly inhaled.
It's like Earth after a thunderstorm.
"Same cause and . . ." The Doctor sat up and took in his surroundings: a lush meadow stretching to the hills in the horizon, with rows of poplars creeping over the grass like garden snakes. A gentle tingling sensation filled the air and soothed his aching limbs and mild headache. He sighed pleasantly; it definitely put his sonic shower to shame.
"I think he's recovering." The voice emanated from the young man with ginger hair crouching beside him.
So much concern in those bright blue eyes. "I've never felt better, Turlough--at least not in this life."
"Let's take you back to the TARDIS just in case." He helped the Time Lord to his feet; a pretty brunette wearing a peppery fur coat helped shoulder his weight.
"Thank you, Tegan. I'm quite all right now." They passed under a stone archway; the TARDIS stood obediently nearby. A blue monolith against a background of rolling green hills. The Doctor struggled free of his companions' grasp and pointed to the distant mounds: "Over those hills are the ruins of the Orion Kingdom; let's head for there first." But after only a few steps, his knees buckled and he grabbed Turlough's arm for support. "Or maybe not."
"You've had quite a shock to the system, Doctor." Tegan helped him unlock the TARDIS. "It looked as though you were having a heart attack."
Funny, only his head and limbs ached, not his chest. "I think I need to sit down and regain my strength."
They entered the console room and the Time Lord darted for the mahogany Edwardian chair in one corner. Turlough depressed a lever and the interior doors closed shut with a gentle hum. "Where to now?"
A blur of Tegans hung up their fur coats on the decorative hatstand while a whirlpool of blinking lights enveloped the console.
"He's losing consciousness again, Tegan." The deep voice groaned like a buckling ship's hull. The Doctor shielded his face from the flames engulfing Turlough's head. A dizzying mosaic of coloured squares soon filled his vision.
"Let's get him into the Zero Room!"
The floor of the console room lurched nauseatingly as his companions again helped him to his feet. They passed through a doorway into a twisting hallway dotted with glowing roundels; a mouse passing through the belly of a porous snake likely had a similar view.
"Hold on, Doctor!" The shrill, grating voice filled his mind with an unsettling echo. He covered his face with his hands to block out the swarm of staring eyes that swam through his subconscious.
His body shivered and he longed to curl up in a ball on the floor, to block out all his senses. "Please, make it stop . . ." he moaned.
His companions came to a halt and the distraught Time Lord peered through his fingers. They stood before a menacingly large doorway overshadowed by a stone archway; vines of ivy wrapped around its fluted columns, threatening to lash out at him. To his dismay, his companions pushed him closer to the doorway; before he could protest, the door opened inward and the Doctor was bathed in a rosy glow.
Instinct led him through the doorway. Standing in the centre of the room, he leaned back to an impossible angle. Just as gravity would have sent him crashing to the floor, he raised his legs and hovered weightlessly in midair.
As he desired, all his sensations were blocked out save the overwhelming feeling of full inner tranquillity.
Carson got up with a start, sharply straightening his body. "It's beginning," he muttered; now Tamara noticed the beads of sweat glistening on his cheeks under the brilliant light. "We have to leave."
She jumped to her feet, her heart racing from the sudden shock of his movement. "What do you mean?"
A roar rumbled down the corridor outside. The metal clanged. She heard wood crack and splinter.
"The woman who left before the Doctor--she was the sixth case."
"The sixth?"
He nodded swiftly. "Yes. It began a week ago, shortly . . . after the others started dying." He turned away from her incredulous stare. "First, an old man just vanishes; his warder swears he ran through the walls and disappeared. Three days later, the same--this time a young gentleman. The next day, another"--he snapped his fingers--"just gone--and the day after that, two more."
Tamara tutted as she pulled his long sleeve, forcing him up the steps, away from the table and the racks. "The frequency is increasing."
"Indeed." A sob wracked his body. "I still don't know enough about Luna to change anything . . . No matter how hard I try . . ."
Her eyebrows flashed skyward. "You might want to explain a few things before we continue, just so I know where we stand."
Carson stopped suddenly, letting his head hang low; he sniffed and wiped his nose with his dangling sleeve. "I've been a bad man . . ."
Tamara took hold of his lapels, gritting her teeth, forcing him round so her own eyes bore fiercely into his. She had the look of an interrogator about her as she pushed him forward. "You haven't just been trying to cure these people, have you?" Her gaze darted back to the lines of tubes and vials scattered across the work surface. The cultures of the fungi that she had seen earlier had not meant much, and neither had the vast array of chemicals placed out alongside them--but now, after what had happened, they spoke volumes. She shook her head in disgust, clenching her fists.
"At first, it was just an interest, a pass-time, you know?" His voice broke as a tear glimmered in his eyes. "I just used the samples provided to try and find out as much as I could about the disease, about Luna . . . But it didn't work like that. I'm a scientist, you see?" He nodded quickly as though that one point justified everything. "It isn't enough, just to know. I had to understand. I promised myself that the first time would be the last. One of the patients was near death; I thought she wouldn't be missed. I tested a new drug on her, to cure the Luna. It accelerated the process, shriveled her to dust, even under the shadows of the blackest night. But I needed to know why all this was happening, under what conditions it would work most and least effectively, how the introduction of new factors would affect the process . . ."
"Hence all the deaths here?"
"Yes . . . I had to understand. Maybe the Doctor was right; maybe some people cannot change."
Tamara sighed, letting him drop to the floor. He pulled himself onto his knees, uncreasing the long folds in his lab-coat, his bedraggled hair caught behind his ears. "It's inter-dimensional," he muttered under his breath, looking hopefully up at her. "It doesn't just exist in the normal three. It sees more than we do; everyday obstacles don't prevent a barrier. I discovered that a couple of days ago."
She narrowed her eyes, the contempt evident in her glare. "As soon as people started vanishing you began introducing new tests, just to find out why? And even that only to sate your own curiosity . . . Didn't it ever occur to you to try and stop it?"
His voice was a hoarse croak, barely audible over the steady whine of the fan high above. "No . . . I didn't want to . . . The longer it goes on, the more time I have." He struggled to his feet, dusting down his trousers. "But it explains why they keep disappearing through the walls. The virus is driving them mad; the patients just lash out, anyway they can."
She managed a dry, humorless chuckle. "The virus? Don't you think it might be your tests that are causing the breakdowns?"
He shook his head quickly, refusing to accept this. "No . . ." In a flash, he spun on his heel to the door. "We have to get out of here . . ." There was a sudden crash outside; Tamara heard a snap as something shuddered; the walls shook awkwardly, swaggering and swaying. She nodded. "Agreed."
A whiff of rotting cabbage-more like a field of rotting vegetables-awoke the Doctor from his serene state. He opened his eyes and the definition of a floor, vaulted ceiling and walls appeared in the dim rosy glow of the Zero Room.
He willed himself down from his hovering state, lowered his feet and stood facing the immense doorway. With his fingers, he traced along the large roundel-one of many dotting the walls in a honeycomb pattern.
They wish to see us, to hear our thoughts.
Startled, the Doctor turned towards the whisper's origin. A figure affixed to the adjacent wall disappeared with a blink. "Who's there?" he whispered, staying put at the doorway. The room dimmed further in response.
He was startled again by a knock at the door. "How are you feeling, Doctor?"
"Turlough? I-I'm fine. Yes, the Zero Room's taken years off my life; you should try it yourself some time."
"May I come in?"
The Time Lord felt along the surface of the roundel. "It must open from the outside."
They apologize for this. That voice again; his eyes darted to the back wall, but he was alone.
"Try the handle, Doctor," Turlough said, his voice muffled by the doorway.
"What han-" A decorative brass latch had appeared at the centre of the roundel. A TARDIS silent of thoughts, whispering ghosts, magical door handles-this was very disconcerting indeed! "All right, I'm coming out now."
A gush of warm, moist air greeted him as he pulled the door open. He winced at the acrid stench of fermentation that hung over the empty hallway. The only movement the Doctor could make out through the darkness was streams of condensation trickling down the walls.
"Turlough?" His cry echoed down the hall and dissipated among the shadows.
"We're in the console room, Doctor," Tegan replied, her voice a faint echo.
He reached into his coat pockets, finding only a Minaki Lodge brochure; his glasses must have fell out during his tumble in the forest. "Just my luck," he muttered, removing his trenchcoat and fanning himself with the brochure. "The climate control's stuck on humidify and I'm stuck in a horror film without a torch." He proceeded cautiously down the hallway. "Cue the hideous beast around the corner."
Tamara's arms dropped to hang limp by her side as she careered out into the corridor. Or, rather, what was left of it.
The entire right-hand wall had vanished--it simply wasn't there any more. The edges were shimmering slightly as moonlight from outside shone through in shafts, the walls bubbling and shifting as their fabric distorted. She could see the woodland looming high above, tall, stunted trees bearing down on them, hooked branches groping out and sweeping everything in shadow. Vegetation was beginning to creep in; tufts of grass stretched over into the corridor and pockets of flowers ringed every metre. All around them, things were growling, out of sight but certainly not out of mind.
Carson shook his head. "It's starting: the dimensional collapse of this place." He looked up at her with fascination. "I never imagined it would happen so quickly." He pulled off his glasses and ran a hand across his eyes. "Such unforeseen consequences are a rarity in my field."
The walls crackled. A sudden whorl of light gusted down the corridor, golden tentacles splaying out in fury and melting what they touched. A second later, it had gone.
Tamara took a firm grip on his arm, spinning to march down the corridor, aware of eyes playing over her from afar. "We need to hurry."
The overshadowed, foreboding stretch of hallway aside, the walk to the console room was taking an unusually long time. The Time Lord's hearts beat quickly and the muggy climate wasn't helping his breathing. He heard nothing up ahead save his echoing footfalls.
Since leaving the Zero Room, his goatee had become uncomfortably itchy; no amount of scratching would relieve it. "Would either of you care to open the console room door and shed some light down here?"
No reply. Splendid.
B-bump.
B-bump.
B-bump.
The surrounding walls pulsed rhythmically, sending droplets of water to the floor and resonating deeply in his chest.
B-bump.
B-bump.
B-bump.
Faint whispers drifted to him from around the upcoming corner, causing the hairs on his neck to stand on end. Composing himself, the Doctor quickened his pace to prevent his knees from trembling. Rounding the corner, he stood at the end of a short, empty corridor, the console room door lying at the other. To his dismay, the door stood slightly ajar with only the faint glow of the time rotor visible within.
The door opened further, stopping him in his tracks. Blood pulsed in his ears, in time with the omnipresent pulsing from the walls.
He took a deep breath before marching into the room. The limp, frail body of an old woman affixed to the TARDIS' outer doors caught the Time Lord's eye, her bare feet dangling above the floor. Sprouted from the walls, a crown of fungoid tentacles held her limbs and torso in place. The woman's drowsy head, held against the door by another tentacle, nodded gently; fibrous strands had woven themselves into a throbbing mesh over her nose and mouth.
Was she the elusive figure in the Zero Room? The dim light emanating from the console highlighted her deeply lined face. The woman in the moonlight . . . Margaret. He shuddered as realization set in.
"Margaret, who or what is responsible for this?" he whispered gently. His words had no effect on her laconic state. "Let's get you down from there." He crouched below her and seized the tentacle around her legs. Before he could get a firm grip, he was jerked forcefully to his feet. He turned on his heels and yelped in surprise.
The withered corpses of Tegan and Turlough stood before him; their white eyes, sunk deep in their sockets, gleamed blue in the light of the time rotor. Their tarnished, threadbare clothing hung loosely on their bony frames.
Avoiding their morbid, eerie glare, the Doctor's chest heaved as he took quick, sharp breaths. "Enough!" he yelled into the air. "Stop this charade and show yourself." The pulsing from the walls resonated even deeper in his ears, but he returned to Margaret and resumed his effort to free her.
A bony claw grabbed his shoulder, but the Doctor seized his oppressor's arm and flipped the figure over his shoulder. Turlough's corpse slammed into the wall and shattered within his crumpled suit. The Time Lord turned his eyes away in shame from the broken body and seized one of the tentacles around Margaret's legs with both hands. Tugging forcefully, the fungoid mass ripped from the wall, oozing heavily. Before seizing another tentacle, he glanced over his shoulder, but Tegan was gone.
He snapped his head around only to catch a fist's impact full on to his face. The blow knocked him off his feet and he hit the floor shoulder first. Shaking the stars from his head, the Doctor crawled away from the approaching deathly form.
"This is all an hallucination! Tegan, Turlough, the Zero Room, the TARDIS-none of this is real. Stop subjecting my mind to these creepy illusions and show yourself at once!" He backed into a corner as Tegan closed in on him, her feet dragging heavily.
The Doctor raised an arm to shield himself from another strike, but his companion's corpse stretched and contorted under some unseen force; in seconds he was showered in chips of bone and leathery skin.
Rippling like gelatin, the console room walls distorted to the limits of perception and reality; the result seemed like a collaboration between Escher and Dali. The pale grey walls blurred and faded, coarse cavern walls taking their place. The porous, rocky surface was lined with alternating crimson and black stripes-iron and carbon strata. Stalactites several feet in length poked out from the darkness overhead. The humid climate and deep pulsing remained.
The Time Lord attempted to scratch his goatee only to realize he was unable to move his arm. To his dismay, he could move neither his limbs nor his head. He peered down and noticed a sticky, fibrous mesh covering his nose and mouth; it irritated his chin to no end. Talk about an itch you can't scratch!
Straining his eyes to peer further down, the Doctor caught a glimpse of the fungoid tentacles holding him against the damp cavern wall. "Free me at once!" he cried out through the mesh. He struggled wit what little movement his bounds afforded him.
A bulbous fungoid mass crept into his field of vision on a bed of tentacles. "The humanoid has arisen," it hissed. Tiny spores on its "head" inflated and deflated while it spoke. The creature was soon joined by a second, larger fungoid mass.
"Release him," it hissed as it came to a halt beside its companion. In response, the tentacles holding the Time Lord released their grip and he dropped to the floor; his legs tingled with pins and needles as normal circulation returned.
"You're too kind," he muttered and reached to pull the sticky fibers off his face.
"Do not remove the filter, Doctor; your olfactory senses and respiratory system would be harmed by the Lair's atmosphere."
The stench of rotting vegetation reaching his nostrils was foul enough, so he took their advice and let the filter be. "Nice of you to finally show yourselves; do you have a name?"
"Ongimpcha."
He glanced at the smaller being. "And you?"
"We are Ongimpcha."
"I see." He glanced around; a maze of cavern walls and stalactites extended in every direction before fading into darkness. Phosphorescence likely provided the dim, green light. "Where are we exactly? Below the Earth's surface? Another galaxy perhaps?"
"You are in the Lair," the larger mass missed.
"I gathered that." He ran his fingers through his damp hair. "But where in the galaxy, or the universe for that matter, are we?"
"Universe?"
"Yes, on what planet, near what star-"
"The Void," the smaller being hissed.
"Yes, I suppose." Planets, stars and nebulas only filled a small fraction of the universe's vacuum after all.
"The Lair exists outside of the Void," the larger being hissed.
"Within the space-time vortex?"
"The Lair exists outside of time."
Fascinating . . . but he was digressing from serious matters. "Where is Margaret-the human female who brought me here?"
"We are clearing her mind of Confusion."
Confusion? No doubt some sort of brainwashing. "Please take me to her."
The beings were silent a moment, their fungoid skin pulsing gently. Both then crept away around a corner and the Doctor followed cautiously.
Wilmore was thinking that the situation could not get much worse. He'd seen the movies; he knew that this was a very bad sign. But even so, his estimation of life at that moment was not particularly high.
He shivered. Even after five years with Mecca, living in this establishment, he still found the thick gloom unnerving. The paintings hanging from the walls and the plush carpet across the floor made things seem ever more abstract. Tapping one foot against the wooden floorboards was the only distraction he had to get him through each shift.
The patients were inside their restaurant now, eating their meals by soft, flickering candlelight, mumbling softly to each other. The dull drone of conversation made his spine tingle. Every day, he chided himself for this: they were only cripples, trapped in a life of darkness. But somehow, knowing what they were, he was terrified of them.
He stopped breathing as a sudden clatter of plates tore the strangled atmosphere in two. His heart pounding, he closed his eyes, straining his ears. Something metal dropped to the floor with a loud bang, followed by the crash of broken crockery.
Slowly, his trembling hand reached out for the door handle. He pulled it down, turning it, letting the door creak sharply as it opened. A faint gurgle emanated from within.
His jaw worked to form words, as it swung open in ghoulish fascination. Low moans and louder cries of pain sounded in the blackness. Narrowing his eyes, squinting desperately ahead as the door slammed shut behind him, Wilmore gasped in horror.
Chairs, tables and cutlery were strewn across the floor, the faint shapes cracked and split. A seething mass of flesh and loose limbs rolled over them, slowly advancing, swallowing any obstacles whole through wide, gaping orifices that clawed out from the fungoid ooze. He could see tattered strips of clothing wrapped around the monstrosity, bits of jewelry clinging on in places. Beside it, standing hunched with long, crooked limbs, human figures shambled past, tufts of grey, wispy hair whistling in the cold breeze that blew in from the shattered windows. Some were still screaming as their clothes burst open and thrashing tendrils split through the skin, glazed and sunken eyes wide open; others moaned as they marched on, arms flailing at nothing, their faces wrapped in a thin growth of dotted fungi growing down onto their chests, bubbling as it consumed what it touched.
Wilmore fumbled for the gun at his belt as he stepped slowly backwards.
Carson looked to the floor as a dying scream rang through the corridors. "Things are starting to fall apart . . ."
Tamara took him by the shoulders and pulled his face close to hers. "Now, listen to me. There must be something we can do."
He shook his head solemnly, tears staining his face. "I don't know . . ."
"People are dying, here!"
"I know, I know . . ." He pulled away from her, dusting down his jacket, turning to look up and down the corridor as it shuddered violently. "We were briefed on this, long ago."
"Good." She began to march away from him, down the corridor, towards the screams, her heart pounding as the shadows deepened around her. "Tell me about it."
He followed uncertainly. "We have to radio the National Guard. If these people are exposed to a wide area, if they get out into Canada . . ."
"You'd have a fair few questions to answer, hmm?"
He crossed his arms defiantly. "Tens of thousands of people would die."
She raised an eyebrow. "Is this thing contagious, then?"
"No . . . But I haven't yet had the chance to discover what happens when it reaches maturity."
The sound of the last scream echoed about in her head. "Oh . . ."
"Exactly."
She quickened her pace, aware of the darkness drawing thicker and the high moon streaming slivers of light through the cracks in the wall, tracing silver lines across the corridor. "How do we contact the Guard?"
"We need to reach the communications room. I know exactly where to go; it isn't far." He shivered. "I could try dialing through from the lab, but the power is all out, and I very much doubt many more of my staff are alive."
"Then we'll have to cross the base?"
"Yes . . ."
Margaret appeared as in the Time Lord's hallucination: pinned to the cavern wall by a half dozen fungoid tentacles-all intact-with her nose and mouth covered by a filter like himself. He turned to the Ongimpcha pair.
"Now, if you would be so kind as to release her, we'll be on our way." He hoped to take full advantage of their unusual compliance.
"Her mind is not yet clear of Confusion," said the larger being.
"More mind control?"
"No. The Confusion was caused by human physicians-"
"Carson?"
"Yes, and others in her past. The chemicals they prescribed her have confused the Feeding."
"What about the fatigue," the Doctor asked, "the loss of memory, the intolerance for light-are they part of the Feeding?"
"These side-effects are minimal during the Feeding, but the prescribed chemicals have amplified them. This one," the larger entity approached Margaret, "we attempted to heal remotely after physicians initially halter her prescription. However, the physician Carson conducted further, more harmful tests. We had no choice but to bring her here."
"Did your spores pester her for information, too?"
"The Seeds are intended to relay information and initiate the Feeding; they are not meant to harm."
But they deliver one hell of a headache1/4 But perhaps the Time Lord had been quick to judge his hosts. "If you exist outside of time and space, I suppose your spores-your 'Seeds'-are interdimensional, your connection to the Void?"
"Correct," said the smaller entity. "The Seeds fill the Void."
"But what about the Seeds covering Margaret's arm?" He glanced at the old woman, but the patch of spores was gone. The spore on his palm was gone as well.
"Another side-effect of the prescribed chemicals," said the larger entity. "The others we are healing showed similar signs."
"The Healing has prevented the Seeds from enveloping them and altering their physiology," concluded the other.
The Doctor shot the Ongimpcha a worried glance. "Alter to what extreme?"
"By our observations, Carson's treatments have caused the Seeds to fully envelop the remaining patients and revert them to a primitive state, guided only by the instinct to feed on the living."
"Zombies?" The Time Lord shuddered. "But Tamara's still there; can't you stop them?"
"Not without harming the other Seeds," hissed the smaller entity.
"Many people will die!"
"The altered humans will be stopped by sunlight."
"And what if they find shelter in darkness? What if they infect others?"
"We will deal with the situation."
"Not good enough!" the Doctor snapped. "What happens to spores beyond the influence of the Lair?"
"They remain inactive until sentient life is detected," replied the smaller entity.
"And do they remain inactive if you ignore them?"
"Yes." The fungoid mass began to shiver.
"Then leave Earth! Home in on Seeds elsewhere in the Void; Earth is but one of the billion planets in this galaxy alone. When the Seeds become inactive, the altered patients can be dealt with humanely."
"We cannot."
"You must!"
"We cannot." The small Ongimpcha shivered violently, blue slime oozing from unseen pores.
"Enough," its companion interrupted with a piercing hiss. "We cannot relocate with ease, Doctor. As you have experienced, the Seeds occupy the minds of sentient life. We feed off the resulting chemical reactions."
"Then why not find a planet of docile, nocturnal creatures?" cut in the Doctor.
"Strength of the chemical reaction varies with the complexity of nervous tissue. Humans are barely sufficient hosts for the Feeding."
Although the Time Lord stood outside time and space, he couldn't shake the feeling Tamara was in imminent danger, along with the rest of the hospital. Worse still, noting the harm to the patients caused by the minutest source of sunlight, he had no intention of allowing them to be caught-zombies or not-in the fatal corona of a sunrise.
"What's wrong with your friend?" he asked the larger entity; the other still shivered violently.
"We are dying. Our numbers decrease steadily, impeding our search of the Void for a more suitable host."
Time catches up with the timeless. "Hence your interest in myself and my homeworld?"
"Yes," hissed the entity. "Your brain is far more active and convoluted than those of humans. We brought you to the Lair for further study-"
"And tried to probe my mind while inducing a serene, subconscious state."
"Correct, but you were eventually able to resist the Feeding. An impressive feat."
"Perhaps." The Doctor frowned. "But with nightmarish results." He turned his attention to Margaret, still in a comatose state. "As small as the side-effects may be, is it your intention to subject all humans to the Feeding?" If not to conquer Earth, he added to himself.
"You forget, Doctor, I can read your thoughts; we have no intention of conquering Earth."
A small grin upset the Doctor's look of concern. "I hear that all too often: the Silurians, the Urbankans, the Daleks, the Nazis-"
"I am unfamiliar with those species. Your resentment of us, Doctor, is clear," hissed the entity. "The Ongimpcha require only a small fraction of the human population to survive. And relative to their feeding habits, we are far more 'humane': we do not domesticate, we do not butcher, we do not hunt to extinction, we do not destroy ecosystems to harvest crops and raise livestock."
The Doctor glanced at his feet. "You make a good point," he muttered.
"The Ongimpcha are a pacifist species, Doctor, the Feeding our only intention. Hosts are kept to an optimal minimum like our own population. Greed and gluttony are not in our nature."
With a final spasm and a burst of blue ooze, the smaller Ongimpcha lay still.
"I am the only Watcher left now," hissed the lone entity.
"Where are the other Ongimpcha?"
"They sleep; if a superior host species is not found soon, they will also die. I do not have the strength to create a fellow Watcher."
The Time Lord closed his eyes, his mind racing to formulate a plan.
"Will you help us, Doctor?"
He opened one eye. "Although they can be quite closed-minded, my people could similarly resist the Feeding in time."