"Lets see, where are we? Ah, Sector C! Brilliant!"
"Wot's Sector C?"
"Haven't the foggiest... 's not a ship, not a station... gravity's Earth-normal..."
The Doctor frowned as he stepped through the rubble filling the hallway. Distant machines crackled and bleeped miserably. He turned a corner and stopped.
"Rose, go wait in the TARDIS."
"But - "
"Go wait in the TARDIS."
She pouted a bit, but did as she was told - mumbling under her breath, of course.
"Sure, soon as we come somewhere fun lookin' 'e's got to go off on 'is own..."
"Don't move!"
"Easy! Easy! I'm not going to hurt you!"
The security guard eyed him a second or two more, then lowered his gun and nodded.
"Didn't think there was anybody else still in here. Especially not a Brit."
"Ah, well, I... sort of came in here by accident. I'm the Doctor, by the way. Pleased to meet you... Barney?"
The guard frowned. "It's Steve. Stupid budget cuts - it was easier for them to order a huge batch of the same ID than to get each of us our own. And then this..."
"Speaking of this, what exactly, ah, is it?"
The Doctor gestured at the room in general. It was slightly bloodstained, with a wall of monitors opposite the hallway the Doctor had just come out of. A heavy steel door that seemed to be the main entrance was stuck half open, and a command console of sorts was situated in the middle. This was where Steve had been sitting, aiming his glock at a small hole in the wall behind him. A ventilation grill lie nearby, bent and twisted.
"It's a real bloody mess, that's what it is, Doctor... ah, Doctor who?"
"Just the Doctor, thank you. Lemme just take a look at this for a sec?"
Slipping his brainy-specs on and his sonic screwdriver out of an inner pocket, the Doctor glared at the screen inside the command console. Steve pushed his chair back to get a better view of the vent opening.
"Resonance cascade... that's brilliant, ah, that is just brilliant - mind you, extremely dangerous and stupid, could have torn apart the space-time continuum. That's humans for ya, though, always poking, poking away at the fabric of reality... Now, where'd they... Xen? That's not so bad, let's see, wot's on Xen..."
The Doctor was interrupted by a quick one-two blast from Steve's Glock.
The security guard glared at him, then pointed with his gun at the mutilated carcass of a four-legged eggnog-coloured crab creature.
"Wodje you do that for?" the Doctor demanded, getting up to inspect the creature. "Poor little thing..."
Steve continued to glare. "Mr. Doctor, you better take a look at this."
Heading around the console, he gestured the Doctor over to the steel doors. The Doctor, intrigued, came over.
"Ah, wot is that smell?"
"Take a look, Doc."
The Doctor's eyes grew wide in horror.
"No..."
"Yes."
"No!"
"Yes."
"Nah - well, okay, yes, but wot are they?"
"Dunno. Those crab-things just leap at you, start eating your head, shove their claws up your chest, turn you into these in minutes. Dr. Freeman and I killed these ones, but he left through that vent there. Started hearing explosions and screams - doubt he made it. He only had a crowbar."
Steve went back to his chair at the console. He was shaking.
"One of 'em came back alive when I was trying to fix the coffee machine. Managed to kill it again, then started dragging 'em over. Thought I could close the doors, block out the smell and stop 'em from getting at me."
The Doctor processed all this. Then, quietly, he went back to scanning the computer for information.
"Just keep a look out, Steve. I'll get you out of here, I promise you."
"Hah! How do you plan on doing that?"
"If you really must know, I've got a space ship down the hall a ways. Just take you back to the surface, back to your family, you'll be fine."
Steve was quiet for a while.
"Lesse, New Mexico, underground government research facility - well, I suppose that's better than a private museum in Utah..."
"Doc?"
"Yes, Security Guard Steve?"
"Can you send a message with that thing?"
"I don't see why not, certainly."
"Can you find the message I was writing? My sister'd sent an email - she's in Florida. Took me forever to find it after the system crash, then halfway through my reply, everything goes skyward..."
"Two ticks - okay, three ticks - aaand done! There you are, Steve. I'll leave you to that, then."
There was another computer in the corner, so the Doctor headed over to that one.
"Seems Dr. Freeman's doing well," he commented to Steve. "Lot of chatter on the mili'try channels about him. Now, Xen... Xen... wot is it about Xen? Gah, think, Doctor, think!"
"Done, Doc. Can we get outta here now?"
"Of course! Xen!"
"I really don't buy into that new-age stuff. You said you had a space ship?"
"Xen, the Vortigaunts - brilliant species, really, great poetry - and now they're here on earth with, it would seem, quite a few of the wildlife..."
"What a moment. Aliens? That what these are?"
"Oh, where've you been. Of course, aliens! Don't you remember the past... oh, four Christmasses? Spaceships over London?"
"Kinda been living in this underground bunker in New Mexico, so, no." Steve furrowed his brow, shot a glance to the vent again. "Wait. Backtrack. You're not a scientist, not even government - at least, not ours. How do you know any of this? Aliens and - you have a space ship? You're just a doctor!"
"Ah, ah! The Doctor."