Earth
The Doctor, Harry and Sarah Jane materialised on the earth. It was barren, nothing was growing, and there were almost no signs of life. The only features it had were great craters, some containing murk, or water, and high piles of rock. Feeble wind blew clouds of dust and chunks of crusty earth a few feet of the ground.
"Doesn't seem to be anything here." Harry said, looking about.
"What d'you expect after a solar flare? And anyway, all the humans are in the Arc." Sarah Jane replied.
"Well, it's 10 thousand years after the flare." Harry reasoned "And Noah was saying they'd left 'regressives' behind, and there was also a bunker under the surface of the earth, that one of the techies mentioned." Harry said, "He was saying he'd rather have tried his luck there than have been on the Arc."
"Would they've been able to survive in concrete bunkers?"
"I don't see why not," Harry said.
"Even if they did, wouldn't they all be dead by now? It has been 10 000 years."
"Just because they've been underground, it doesn't mean the race hasn't continued. You're a pretty sturdy bunch when you want to be." The Doctor said.
"Bit cold." Harry observed, buttoning up his overcoat.
"Maybe not in his case, then," The Doctor muttered, under his breath.
"Thought 'solar' implied heat." Harry said, glaring at him.
"The flares were thousands of years ago." Sarah Jane reminded him. Harry shrugged.
"Mountains?" The Doctor squinted at the horizon. "How do huge rocks just pile together like that on a planet with barely the wind power to carry a fly, and only stagnant water." He wondered to himself.
"We've always had mountains, Doctor. It's something to do with plates and volcanoes." Harry said, shoving his hands into his pockets.
"Yes, proper mountains are all due to plates of the crust pushing together and pushing them upwards, due to currents underneath. These, though… just huge rocks piled up…"
"Built, you mean?" Sarah Jane asked. "The people in the bunkers built them?"
"Or something else." The Doctor said, lightly, setting off towards the horizon.
"Doctor, What about the people on the Arc?" Sarah Jane asked.
"Tell them to wait."
"Why?"
"I don't know." He said, "And, Sarah, don't wander off." He said, as she turned.
"Alright. I was just looking around."
"Yes, and the last time you were 'looking around', you ended up being cryogenically frozen." The Doctor said, eyebrows raised. He left, and she returned to Harry.
"How do we get back up to the arc, d'you think?" Harry asked her. Sarah peered up into space, though all she could see was murky cloud.
"You don't still have the radio, do you, Sarah?"
"No.. I think the Doctor had it."
"Damn.. Where are you going?" Sarah had set off after the Doctor.
"We've got to get it back to contact Vira, Harry." She reasoned. Reluctantly, Harry followed her.
"D'you even know he's got it?"
"What?"
"The radio,"
"No." Sarah shrugged.
"What if there are Wirran here, eh? Or worse. Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
"Harry, we cant just hang about waiting for the radio, can we? Or do you want to just try to yell and hope they'll hear you?" She said, and Harry scowled at her.
"Harry, would a solar flare cause mutations?" Sarah said, stopping.
"Shouldn't think much more that UV light does. Why?"
"Would it be strong enough to change a life form completely?"
"Shouldn't think so.. Just cause several cancers. Why?"
"There's a tentacle sticking out of that hole." Sarah pointed.
There was a shot, and Harry jumped, leaving his boot, now with a neat bullet hole through it.
"Bullets? Why would they be using bullets? If these are the-" Another shot went off, and she put her hands up. Their attackers hastily came out of their hiding places, and stood, their guns still pointed at Sarah Jane and Harry.
They resembled human beings, they had four limbs, a head, 2 eyes, but no obvious signs of ears, a nose or a mouth. Their fingers were longer, and didn't seem to have knuckles, though, they looked slimy, and seemed to have pores on them, or suckers, and were webbed lower down. Cut into their thick necks were gills, and they had thin, cloudy films over their eyes.
The guns lowered. A flap emerged from the face of one, a finely cut mouth, that would shut, air tight, preventing anything entering.
"Human," it said.
"From the Arc?" another asked.
"No. Not the man. She may."
"Warren, The sweeper," Another said, quietly.
They turned, and started hurrying, stooped, towards their holes. Sarah felt a barrel in her back, and realised she was meant to follow.
The holes dropped down into wide, but low tunnels. They followed the tunnel down a steep slope. They eased their way down, suckering themselves to the walls and floor and moving slower. Harry and Sarah Jane struggled slowly, putting their feet against either metal plated wall of the tunnel, and walking down, awkwardly.
The tunnel ended in the bunker, so did about 20 others, hundreds of the left humans were in the bunkers. The group that had brought them down moved away.
"Well, it's not only radiation.. It's evolution." Harry said. "There must be miles of tunnel that these poor chaps have to go through to get to the surface. No wonder they've grown suckers."
"Still doesn't explain the rock piles." Sarah pointed out.
"No. Couldn't it just be a hiding place?"
"Pretty rotten hiding place. If we can see it."
"We cant see what's hiding in it." Harry said.
"Well, the Doctor can find that one out. What d'you reckon the sweeper is?" Sarah wondered.
"No idea."
Sarah hugged her knees, and Harry joined her on the floor, his back to the concrete.
The bunker's inhabitants whispered to each other, then they fell silent. A loud hum could be heard, from above the surface. Thick metal, and concrete doors slid over the entrances. Sarah and Harry could see everyone closing their mouths and noses, and some of them even their eyes. The hum faded away. The doors opened, and through an opening at the other end of the bunker, a thick scarf dropped to the floor, followed by the Doctor, and two other mutations, both with guns. As the Doctor got up, he caught sight of Sarah Jane and Harry.
"I thought it might've been you." The Doctor said, coming over.
"Being shot at? Yes." Harry said.
"I suppose this means you didn't contact the Ark."
"You've got the radio." Harry said.
"And you didn't think to just go back into the beam of the matter transmitter? No, I suppose not."
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