"Well, I guess you're right. Maybe Andrew was just not good enough for me."
"I don't know why you didn't dump him earlier. He was a total jerk!"
"I was just too lovesick to see, I guess. How about you, Crystal?"
Crystal Dean finally took her gray eyes off of the sunny Florida outdoors that glinted outside the window of her mother's car. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"
Jessie rolled her eyes and said, "We're talking about how Portia dumped Andrew. Weren't you listening?"
Crystal's friends—Jessie, Portia, and Gema—glared at Crystal. "You've been acting weird all week, Crystal. Are you all right?"
Crystal nodded, obviously preoccupied. "Uh, yeah. I'm fine."
Gema shrugged. "Oh, well. She's Crystal, what can you expect? Oh, by the way, Mrs. Dean—thanks for the ride."
Mrs. Dean looked like Crystal in a lot of ways. She had her daughter's brown hair, squared jaw and petite frame. Unlike Crystal, though, her eyes were brown, not her daughter's grey. Mrs. Dean smiled at Crystal and her friends in the rear-view mirrors. "You are all quite welcome. I wasn't able to go to the beach to celebrate my high school graduation. It's nice to live my life vicariously through you."
Crystal nodded, still thinking. She had a serious sense of déjà vu…she'd never been to this particular beach before, but she still had a feeling that she really had. But when?
Crystal's mother made a right turn, and the beach appeared beyond the windshield. "There it is," Mrs. Dean said. "Silver Sands beach. Crystal has wanted to go here since she was five. It's hard to believe that was almost thirteen years ago."
It was true. Crystal's 18th birthday was fast approaching; only a month away. But Crystal wasn't thinking about her birthday. Her sense of déjà vu was getting stronger.
"Yep," Portia agreed. "Yet you still haven't sent us invitations to your party, Crystal. What sort of surprise do you have in store for us this year? ...Crystal?"
Crystal got out of the car, eyes locked on the ocean in front of her. "I've been here," she whispered. "I've been here before."
She lifted a hand, one finger extended, and slowly gestured to her right. "There's a bit of rock sticking out of the ocean over there," she said, not looking where she was pointing. "And there's a boulder over there." She pointed in the opposite direction.
Gema approached Crystal first and looked where she had gestured. "Yeah, you're right," she said. "You must have seen pictures of this place, haven't you?"
"I saw this in a dream," Crystal murmured, as if in a trance. "I was here…the beach was empty, and it was later at night…but I've been here…"
"Crystal?" Jessie called as she opened the back hatch of Mrs. Dean's car. "Are you all right?"
This snapped Crystal back to reality. "Yes," she said, looking behind her at Jessie and flashing a quick smile. "Yes, I'm fine."
"Good," Jessie replied, "because if you aren't, you won't be able to teach us how to boogie-board. Come on; help me get the boards out!"
Crystal ran to Jessie's aid, pulling out her own turquoise board and Portia's deep blue one. She pulled both boards down to the beach and picked a spot to set up the group's things.
The whole day at Silver Sands, Crystal tried to have a good time. Every time she had that déjà vu, she would just push the thought away and cover it up with a joke and a laugh. But the feeling remained.
When 3:00 rolled around, Crystal aided her friends in packing up and preparing to head back home. By then, she had successfully kept the feeling from returning for a whole hour.
"I had so much fun today," Crystal announced. She turned on the hose near the beach bathrooms and washed the sand out of her hair. "Did you see that last wave? It was huge!"
"Massive," Gema agreed. "You must've gone what, 20 feet on that one?"
"I don't know, maybe even thirt—" Crystal suddenly paused midsentence.
"What?" Gema teased. "More déjà vu?"
"No," Crystal said, "but have you ever seen a man dressed like that at the beach?"
Gema followed Crystal's gaze and caught a glimpse of a man. He wasn't decked out for the beach, nor was he in normal, everyday clothes. From what Gema could tell, he was wearing a brown jacket over a stone-blue suit.
"That's odd," Gema said. "Why would he be dressed like that?"
"Crystal! Gema! You girls done yet?" Mrs. Dean called.
"Coming, mom!" Crystal said, turning in her mother's direction. When she looked back, the man was still there, staring directly at her.
Gema took one last look at the strange man before she went to Mrs. Dean. Crystal remained for a moment, eyes still locked with the man's.
"Crystal! Aren't you coming?" Mrs. Dean cried.
"Yes," she replied. She glanced back at where the man was, but nothing was there. Crystal shook her head in confusion as she walked back to the car.
That night, Portia, Gema, and Jessie spent the night at Crystal's house. Because her father was a major scientist at NASA, Crystal's house was more than big enough for four teenage girls. Crystal's parents were out for the night, but they trusted that the girls were old enough to take care of themselves.
Thunder crackled outside as Portia popped a DVD into the TV in Crystal's room. Crystal sat by the window, staring out at the rain that was now pouring down. Her house was in the middle of the woods, and every time the lightning flashed, the swaying branches of the trees were momentarily illuminated.
"That's interesting," Gema said. "It wasn't raining earlier today. There wasn't a cloud in the sky."
But Crystal wasn't listening. There was a figure in the rain, their shadow projected for a brief second by the lightning. They were facing Crystal's house, staring up at the second floor where Crystal was sitting.
The figure was there for another flash of lightning, then another. Portia was growing impatient. "Crystal, what is it?" she said angrily. "The movie's almost started."
The lightning flashed one more time, and the figure was gone. At that moment, the power went out.
"Ah, crud," Jessie exclaimed. "Now what are we going to do until the power comes back up?"
Crystal fumbled around her bedside table, almost knocking over her lamp. She picked up a flashlight and turned it on, sending a beam of light into the enveloping darkness.
It was at that time that the TV flickered to life. It showed a blank white screen, nothing else.
"That's weird," Portia said.
A man entered the view, his shoulders and face filling the screen. He had brown hair that stuck up all over the place, large brown eyes, and a large-ish nose. He looked oddly familiar to Crystal. . .
"Hey," Gema said. "That's the man we saw at the beach!"
Jessie turned to Gema, a wry smile on her face. "You humored Crystal? Really, Gema?"
Gema blinked. "I. . ."
"I'm sorry," the man said, his accent thickly British. "I'm so, so sorry, but I had to cut the power to give you this broadcast."
"A willing sacrifice, believe me," Jessie grumbled.
"Don't panic—please don't panic—" the man continued, "but something's coming. Actually, a lot of somethings. Just—stay in your homes, keep the lights off, don't go outside. Whatever you do, do not go outside. Stay inside, all of you!"
Crystal looked intently at the screen. The man on the screen seemed to be looking directly at her—not like he was looking directly at a camera, but if he were actually looking at her.
"It'll be safe when dawn comes. I'm going to keep the power off. Stay inside until the sun rises. And don't turn on any lights. I'll contact you again. Good luck."
The screen became black again.
Crystal turned the flashlight off as soon as the message was over. "W-what are you doing?" Jessie said. She felt around for the flashlight in Crystal's hands and wrested it from her grasp. "You're going to go on the word of the man on the TV?"
Just as Jessie switched it on again, Crystal stole it back and turned it off. "Yes, actually. Why, are you scared of the dark?" she mocked.
Jessie got a hold of the light. "No," she growled, "but are you sure we can trust him? He could just be some kind of hacker or madman."
"For what it's worth," Gema said, "I did see that man at the beach today. . ."
Jessie turned to Gema and opened her mouth to retaliate, but something stopped her. Every eye in the room turned towards the window. It was as if some kind of unearthly force was drawing their eyes towards whatever was outside in the pouring rain.
A grotesque, half-formed thing was outside, stalking slowly up the road. All Crystal could see of it, from the vague shadows it made when lightning struck, was it was about the size of a small car and had four long, insectoid legs. It made absolutely no audible noise as it moved—it couldn't be heard over the rain, wind, and thunder—but it made some kind of deep rumbling that vibrated through the floorboards and up through Crystal's body.
"What," Crystal whispered, "is that."
Jessie put the flashlight down on the floor as quickly as she dared. "What do we do now?"
A bolt of electricity lit up the sky for a split second, illuminating the creature again. Every time there was enough light, Crystal could see that the creature was facing the lightning, but it was always a little bit closer.
"All we can do," Portia reasoned despondently, "is wait, I guess."
"For what?" Jessie said.
At that moment, there was a knock on the door, somewhere downstairs. The monster was still about a hundred yards away, so it couldn't have made the noise. Crystal and her friends tiptoed down the stairs, trying not to trip over anything in the darkness. Peering out the window on the door, the girls saw the distinct shape of a human being, lit for a short moment by the storm.
Everyone looked at Crystal. "Your house," Portia whispered.
Crystal opened the door slowly, but the man on the other side simply brushed past her to get into her house. Crystal looked at the man, the picture of insult, but her expression changed to one of incredulity when she realized who the man was.
"Bit empty," the man said. It was the same voice as he had on the TV—just a bit clearer and louder. "Bit big, too, but it'll do." He turned to face the girls and held up something which, when he turned it on, was seen to be a blue flashlight. It shed the blue glow on his face, lighting up his kind, yet mischievous smile. "'Ello," he said, "I'm the Doctor."
He was very tall in person, and skinny, and wore the same brown coat and stone-blue suit that he had worn at Silver Sands earlier. His right eyebrow seemed permanently in the UP position.
"Who are you?" Crystal growled.
"What do you mean?" the Doctor said, taking something out of his front jacket pocket. It looked like a fancy ballpoint pen, but much longer and thicker, and it was silver with a blue bulb at the end. He pressed a button on the device and the bulb lit up, causing it to make a high-pitched noise.
"I saw you at Silver Sands," Crystal said. "Why are you here?"
The Doctor pointed the silver-and-blue pen-device at the walls, moving it up and down. "I got a reading of abnormally high radiation there. Not enough to kill or even make a measurable difference, but just enough to notice on a radar."
"That doesn't answer the last part of my question," Crystal remarked.
"Why am I here?" the Doctor asked, as if the answer was obvious. He gestured out the front door with his flashlight. "Did you see that thing?"
Crystal opened her mouth to reply, but Portia, noticing the flashlight, said, "You said we can't turn on any lights."
"Yes, I did." The Doctor looked up at Portia, his eyebrow going up even higher on his forehead.
"If we can't turn on any lights," Portia reasoned, "then you shouldn't be able to use a flashlight."
"That's true," he said. "All I know about these creatures is that they don't like light." He paused. "That," he added, "and they have a fondness for the taste of human."
"Great," Portia muttered.
"But," the Doctor continued, "it can't seem to see blue light. If we use only these blue torches, it will seem as bright as the dimmest stars in the sky."
Crystal watched the Doctor with a strange fascination that she could neither understand nor define. Why did he seem so enthralling? He seemed oddly calm and even pleasant, under the circumstances. But he had just barged into Crystal's home and started using. . . whatever that little silver thing was. So why did Crystal suddenly trust him?
The Doctor looked at his watch. "We've got. . . hmm, 2, 3 hours until daybreak? I'm guessing two. Wow, you've stayed up a long time. All you young ladies need to do is sit tight here."
"Young lady?" Crystal said, offended. "I'm seventeen!"
He turned towards her. "Seventeen?" he mused.
After a pause, the Doctor gave Crystal a blue flashlight. "Take these," he said, handing them to each of Crystal's friends as well. "Go to the safest point in your house and stay there."
Jessie, Portia, and Gema each turned to leave, but Crystal said angrily, "We're not going anywhere."
The Doctor gazed into Crystal's eyes for a moment, then sighed and looked away. "Oh, it's always the same way. You want answers, you want to know why those monsters are here, you want to know who, exactly, I am besides 'the Doctor.' Am I right?"
"Actually," Crystal muttered, "I wanted to know what you're doing."
The Doctor shrugged and went back to using his blue-and-silver pen device. "I can't tell you any of those things yet," he said, "but I can tell you that you need to go."
"Look," Gema said, "if he says we need to go, then we need to go."
"Why are we trusting him?" Jessie wondered aloud, with a hint of distaste.
The Doctor rubbed his cheeks, then fingered his nose. "It's the face," he whispered. "Now, get to safety. That thing's coming any minute. It's not too fast, I don't know why yet, but go!"
Crystal's friends ran off to the half-bathroom in the middle of her house, but Crystal herself stayed adamantly at the Doctor's side. He let out a breath of exasperation. "If you really want to help me, you can come with me. But if you want to stay safe. . ."
"I want answers," Crystal said coldly, "and I have a feeling I'll have to be around you a long time before you tell me."
The Doctor turned around to face her, his face twisted in confusion. "Why is it you're so hostile? You seem like a nice girl."
"Maybe it's because you come into my house like you own the place, and start using that. . . that. . . whatever-it-is!"
"I don't know if you noticed," the Doctor said, "but I'm trying to help."
"How?" Crystal said. "How can you help? What are you doing? Why are you at my house of all places?"
"Listen, miss. . ." The Doctor paused.
"Crystal."
"Crystal." The Doctor stood up and placed his hands on Crystal's shoulders. He was almost a foot taller than her. "I'm trying to save all of us from those creatures. I don't know what they are. But you have got to trust me. You either need to get yourself to safety. . . or help me."
The Doctor stood there for a moment, his eyes having no lie in them. After a few moments, Crystal said, "I'll help you."
The Doctor patted Crystal on the shoulder. "Good girl. Now, to explain what this is."
He held up his blue pen-device and pressed a button, making the end light up. "This is my sonic screwdriver. It. . . well, it. . ." The Doctor rubbed his head. "It does. . . stuff. Wibbley-wobbley timey-wimey stuff."
"Timey-wimey," Crystal repeated in disbelief. "So, what are you doing with the sonic. . . the sonic whatever?"
"Screwdriver." The Doctor looked at the side of his screwdriver intently. "It appears that all excess power is being drained from this house."
"What?" Crystal said, alarmed. "Why?"
"Oh, don't worry, it's a good thing."
"Why is that a good thing?"
"Well. . . I didn't really need all of that power from the plant downtown to air that broadcast. I shut down all the power to keep people from turning on the lights. I also had to divert the power to my. . ."
The Doctor trailed off. Crystal watched his expression as he slowly turned his gaze towards Crystal's front door. "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what—" Then Crystal heard it.
Scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch. . . scratch-scratch-scratch. . .
"What," Crystal whispered, "was that?"
Scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch. Lightning flashed. A shadow was projected onto the door, a huge, hulking shadow in the window of the door.
"It's here," the Doctor said. Crystal could've sworn she saw a ghost of a smile on his face.
The Doctor ushered Crystal into the family room, off of the front hallway. The Doctor peered around the corner at the front door, a fascinated glint in his eye. There was a long pause before the door rattled as the creature threw its weight against it.
"What's happening?" Crystal said, almost hysterical.
The Doctor, however, didn't seem scared at all. He just stared as the monster crashed through Crystal's front door, staggering into the front hallway, seemingly disoriented. It was massive and black, and had a seemingly ever-changing shape. One thing remained constant, though—its four insectoid legs, its pitch-black color, its eight red eyes, and the spines on its back.
It stepped over the splinters that were once the door, not seemingly able to see the Doctor as he poked his head out into the hallway. The creature had formed a massive, crudely-shaped head on the end of a thick neck at this point, and was waving it back and forth.
It poked its head up into a corner, where the ceiling met the wall, and sniffed something—a spider web. The creature's form shifted, and it had become the vague shape of a spider with four legs and spines on its back.
"Fascinating," the Doctor said quietly.
"What?" Crystal said. "I can't see."
The monster turned its head towards the Doctor and Crystal, its eight eyes blinking in unison. The Doctor slowly lifted his flashlight out in front of him and, flicking a switch, pointed it directly at the monster's face. A ray of pure white light shot through the hall to the monster's eyes.
In fury, the monster let out a deep roar, clawing at its face with its front legs. The Doctor grabbed Crystal's arm and said one word, as loudly and clearly as he could: "Run!"
Pulling Crystal along at top speed, he shoved past the monster in the brief few moments while it was stunned. Crystal tried to keep up, but almost tripped over the remains of the doorframe. "What, are you crazy?" she asked. "That thing's gonna kill us!"
"Either that," the Doctor said, dragging Crystal out of the house and into the pouring rain, "or your friends die, too. That thing may not have been able to see us with its eyes, but it could smell us or sense our heat signatures or something."
"Or something?" Crystal said accusatorially.
"I don't know," the Doctor said. He took a turn for the woods, and Crystal followed to the best of her ability. "I haven't been here very long. I just knew that they hate light, they're bloodthirsty, and they can't see blue light. That's all I know."
"You say here as if here weren't this neighborhood," Crystal said.
"It's complicated." The Doctor paused at a large, gnarled tree. He turned first left, then right. "This way," he said, running off again.
"You didn't even say it like here was this planet," Crystal joked.
The Doctor's lack of response as he tore across the underbrush made Crystal wonder if he really was from Earth. The rain was less noticeable now that the trees were covering them, but the water droplets still fell and the lightning was still striking. Crystal heard the monster roaring behind them and crashing through the bushes.
"Where are we going?" Crystal asked, barely able to keep within sight of the Doctor's brown coat.
"The power plant downtown," the Doctor called over his shoulder. "There's something I have to do."
At that moment, the forest began to thin out, and Crystal could see the mass of wire and metal that was the power plant. She'd been to the power plant before on a field trip once, in the fifth grade. It was familiar to her.
But what wasn't familiar was the blue box.
There was a blue box in the middle of the power plant. It was about ten feet tall, four feet wide, and it had an open door in one side. A tangled mess of wires were going inside the box through the door, over which was a sign that said "Police Public Call Box." There were windows around the top of the box, which Crystal didn't understand. On the very top was a blue light.
"What is that?" Crystal said.
"That," the Doctor explained, "is a time machine."
Crystal stopped running and stared at the Doctor. "It's a time machine," she said skeptically.
"Yeah," the Doctor said. "Well, actually, it's called the Time and Relative Dimension in Space, or TARDIS, and its chameleon circuit broke, say, fifty years ago when it turned into a police call box—ah, it's a long story, don't ask—"
"I'm going to stop you there," Crystal said, "because I think that thing's getting closer."
Sure enough, there was the sound of branches breaking. As Crystal and the Doctor looked towards the forest, they saw small trees being snapped in half and bushes rustling. "Time to go," the Doctor said urgently.
There was a hole in the fence surrounding the power plant, and a pair of the strangest-looking wire cutters Crystal had ever seen was lying next to the hole. The Doctor slid through the hole, and Crystal followed cautiously, almost tripping as she stumbled through the hole. The Doctor stepped over the mass of wires as he entered the blue police box—what had he called it? A TARDIS?
The Doctor motioned for Crystal to follow, but she was hesitant. The box looked awfully small for two people. . .
The sound of the creature coming behind Crystal made her choose the TARDIS over death. She raced inside and turned around, shutting the door.
There was a soft, blue glow coming from behind Crystal. "What do you think?" the Doctor said, behind her and much further away than she'd expected him to be.
Slowly, Crystal turned, taking in the inside of the TARDIS. It definitely looked very Sci-Fi, with metal floors, grates, steel arches holding up the ceiling. The inside was much bigger than the outside, and as Crystal looked around, she saw passages that could have led to other parts. There was a contraption in the center of the room, with all sorts of weird gadgets on it and a clear cylinder in the middle, running all the way to the ceiling. The wires running through the door were hooked up to the contraption in the center. It was all illuminated by the light from some strategically placed blue flashlights.
"Wow," Crystal said. "This is pretty crazy."
"Yes," the Doctor said, "it's very crazy."
"It. . ." Crystal spread her arms. "It's bigger on the inside."
Silently, and while Crystal wasn't looking, the Doctor fist-pumped victoriously. "I love it when they say that," he said placidly. "You know, it's the size of a city in here. There's a pool; a library; dozens of bedrooms in any shape, size, and design you can imagine. . . I think there might even be a dance floor in here somewhere playing some classics from the late 4900's. . .
BANG. The room shook. The Doctor ran up to the contraption in the middle of the room and used his sonic screwdriver on a screen. It fizzled to life, showing a dim and fuzzy image of several shapes.
"There's more of them," he said grimly. One of the creatures raced towards the camera and smashed into it, sending another shudder through the room.
"It's right outside," the Doctor said, pressing buttons and turning dials. A beep was announced, and something glowed red on a panel. "Three years!" he said incredulously. "We don't have three years!"
"What?" Crystal said, going up to the Doctor as there was another BANG. The little red light might have been a warning or something, but whatever language it was written in used circles and dots and curves for letters and words.
"The reason this is hooked up to the power plant is because it. . . broke." The Doctor shrugged. "Something happened, something ridiculously powerful and time-related happened after I touched down. I was able to travel to the power plant on the emergency power, but it'll take a long time to regenerate all of that power."
"Three years?" Crystal said sardonically.
"Three years," the Doctor confirmed. "Ah, why did I have to touch down before ionic power plants were invented? I could have used a new store of self-replenishing fuel. . ."
The room shook again. "Why are they still smashing into us?" Crystal said. "It's not like this thing is gonna break, is it?"
The Doctor shook his head. "I have a feeling that that won't stop them," he sighed.
"They don't have much tact, do they?" Crystal asked. "They could all slam into us together and tip this thing over, but they don't seem to have a sense of teamwork. What are they, anyway?"
Suddenly, the Doctor paused. Slowly, he turned towards Crystal. In his eyes, Crystal could almost see a spark, a flicker of an idea. "Tact," he said. "They don't have any tact, do they?"
Confused, Crystal shook her head.
The Doctor took another look at the screen showing the monsters in their ever-changing forms. "Shapeshifters," he said. "Insectoid. Many eyes, spines, four legs. Think, brain, think, think think. . ."
The Doctor pounded his head with his clenched fists. "They hate light, they can't hunt, they can't shape-shift all the way. . . what are they?"
"They're black, too," Crystal offered. "And they have a taste for human flesh."
"Thank you," the Doctor said shortly.
"I was just trying to be helpful!"
"And you were. Really. Think, think, think. . ." The Doctor looked at Crystal again. "They have a deep roar. They're fast. What else?"
"When it changed forms in my house," Crystal said, "it kinda turned into a spider-looking thing. Why?"
"It looked at a spider," the Doctor said absently, "and turned into it. . ."
Trailing off, the Doctor lowered his hands. The glint in his eyes turned into a flame. "That's it," he breathed. "That's it!" he repeated, running to Crystal and grabbing her by the shoulders. "They're Amithenes!"
"Oh, yay, Amithenes, woo hoo." Crystal shook her head, eyebrows furrowed. "What are Amithenes?"
"Nocturnal, insectoid shapeshifters, and a pretty intelligent race, too. They go through the same stages as any normal insect—larva, which can't shape-shift, pupa, then adult. Unfortunately, the babies have a strong instinct to hunt and kill that can pass into their adult stages. So, when they become pupae, the adults load the babies onto a spaceship and send them off with special software that is pumped into their minds to erase their instincts."
The Doctor stepped away, rubbing his head with his hands. "A few years of my time stream ago, I heard about a spaceship of one of these species suddenly running out of power, even though they'd recently shown that their power was at a normal level. The ship had lost power before the babies could be fully brainwashed, so they still had the dominant instinct of killing, but they'd forgotten how to hunt and weren't able to shape-shift fully."
Crystal looked lost.
"They're baby shapeshifters!" the Doctor exclaimed. "They're innocent children, killing vermin because they don't know any better!"
"Oh-h-h," Crystal said. "I get it now."
"But how do we contact the parents?" the Doctor said. "The TARDIS would be able to send the signal, easy, but it's. . . you know. . ."
Crystal shrugged. "The sun's coming up soon, anyway."
"Yeah," the Doctor said glumly, putting his hands into his pockets. "Those things will go crazy once the sun's up. Light sends them into a rage, especially sunlight."
Another spark appeared in the Doctor's eyes. "Sunlight!" he said. "Of course, sunlight! The sun has so much energy, with the proper equipment. . ."
Trailing off, the Doctor picked up a flashlight and ran off. Crystal sighed and hurried after him.
"Nowadays," the Doctor said as he walked, "solar panel technology is the most basic it's been in human history. Pop about, say, ten thousand years into the future—every ounce of sunlight is absorbed by solar panels and turned into energy with very little loss. I've got ten of those panels around here somewhere. . ."
The Doctor walked down a corridor, shining his flashlight on the metal doors lining the hall. He stopped at one and pointed his sonic screwdriver at it. With a high whirr, the sonic screwdriver lit up, and a mechanism clicked. The Doctor slid the door upwards and walked into the room, which looked like a storage closet for alien technology.
The Doctor rifled through the pieces of metal and old-looking machinery. "I put them back here," he said, holding up something that looked like a cross between a small helicopter and a washing machine. "Ah, so that's where I put my trophy. Moving on. . ."
"Why do you need these solar panels?" Crystal asked, propping herself against the doorway.
"I can hook them up to the TARDIS," he said, "and we could charge it up in a matter of seconds. One solar panel is incredibly powerful and can power a whole city for a day on just thirty minutes of sunlight. All you need is the proper kind of cable. . ."
The Doctor held up a large, black rectangle of pitch-black material. When the Doctor shone his flashlight on it, none of the blue light was reflected. "Found them!" he said, handing it to Crystal. It was about the size of a skateboard, but weighed very little for its size. Attached to it was a wound-up cable, maybe three inches thick.
"These," the Doctor said, handing Crystal two more, "are the solar panels I talked about. Just a few of these bad boys, placed in the right position, and the TARDIS will be charged up in no time. Let's take these back to the control room."
Crystal carried five back to the room that they'd first been in. The Doctor plugged the ends of the cables into the machine in the control room and said, "Once the sun comes up, the parents can get the signal, and they'll take the children away and do what they need to do with them. Put them back into artificial cocoons, put them on a spaceship maybe."
The control room rocked. The Doctor paused and looked up. "That's right," he said sadly. "They're still out there."
"What are we going to do?" Crystal said.
One last idea spark came to the Doctor's eyes, but it was more of a sad little ember than an excited one. "I have one idea," he said. "But you're going to have to do exactly as I say, and don't worry about me."
The Doctor used his sonic screwdriver on the machine, pointing at various places. "Once the TARDIS comes back online, it'll send the signal to the parents. I'll distract the monsters, you go and place each of the solar panels facing the sunrise exactly. Not tilted to the left or right, or it could take longer, but facing the sun directly. Got it?"
"But—" Crystal looked at the Doctor, her eyebrows furrowed. "You could get killed!"
The Doctor looked deep into Crystal's eyes. "I'll be fine," he said. "I'm going to go out there, making as big of a show as I can, and I'm going to keep the monsters away. Don't worry about me. Hundreds, maybe millions of lives depend on you."
Crystal nodded, and the Doctor gave Crystal the solar panels he was carrying. Because they were so light, Crystal could easily hold them, but she couldn't stop the Doctor from running to the TARDIS door and opening it. He paused, and made eye contact with Crystal one last time.
"Good luck," he said.
"You too," Crystal managed.
The Doctor held up his flashlight and pointed it into the early morning darkness. "HEY!" he called. "OVER HERE!" He ran away from the TARDIS at full speed, not looking back but shining his flashlight white over the Amithenes' faces. They followed him, running as well, maybe faster than the Doctor. . .
When the monsters were a safe distance away, Crystal looked at the solar panels in her hands, then at the thin line of lighter sky that had appeared to the east.
"Well," she said aloud, "I might as well put these in place."
The panels had built-in stands that could hold up the panels. To keep them from blowing away, Crystal positioned branches and rocks around them. She tilted each one very precisely, remembering the Doctor's last request.
It was slow work, because Crystal took great care to make each of them face the sunrise directly. When Crystal looked up, the line of light had grown, and Crystal was certain that the sun would appear any second.
The first rays of true sunlight hit the solar panels moments after she'd finished. Crystal shielded her eyes from the sunlight and turned her face back to the TARDIS. With the door open, she could see lights in the control room slowly come on. It was slow at first, with only a couple lights coming on here and there, but eventually a cheerful glow was emitted by large, domed bulbs lining the walls.
The blue light on top of the TARDIS lit up, and Crystal knew that the message was being sent. She turned around to look at the sunrise, now that her work was done.
A sound like a jet engine came from over Crystal's head. She looked up and saw something dark hovering down about twenty feet away. It looked like a typical sci-fi spaceship—maybe a cross between the USS Enterprise and the Millennium Falcon.
It extended a few arms for landing gear and touched down gently with a loud hiss. As the engine died, Crystal walked cautiously towards the ship, unsure of whether or not these were the Amithene adults.
A hatch opened on the front of the ship and out walked three grey-skinned humanoid creatures. They walked upright and had about the same anatomical outline as a human, but on their backs they had elongated spines like one would find on a porcupine. They also had literally almond-shaped eyes with red irises.
The foremost of the creatures, dressed in what looked like a military uniform, regarded Crystal warily. "Are you the one who sent us the message of our missing children?" it said in perfect English. Its voice was masculine, as was its form, so Crystal felt it was safe to say the creature was male.
"Y-yes," Crystal stuttered.
The well-dressed alien seemed to immediately relax. "I am Lethen," he said, "current representative of the Amithene race, general of Quadrant A-7 of the Amithene galactic army, and father of one of the children who crash-landed here. And you are?"
Crystal looked from Lethen to his comrades before saying, "I am Crystal, er, current representative of the human race, and, uh, I don't have any fancy ranking or anything. . ."
Lethen stepped forward. "Where are the children?" he said grimly, his original professionalism returning. "I want to know where my daughter is."
"I-I. . ." Crystal didn't know what to say. She simply pointed. "They went that way," she stated. "The Doctor. . . he. . . had to distract them. . . I don't know where he went. . ."
Lethen nodded stiffly. "Thank you. We will continue to search for them from the skies. We will send a message back to your blue box when we have found them."
Crystal nodded, suddenly realizing how dead-tired she was. "You're welcome," she said, stifling a yawn and trying to remain polite.
Lethen turned on a dime and walked back into the ship. The other two, dressed in all-black uniforms, followed him in a military fashion. The hatch closed, the engine started up again, and the ship lifted off. Crystal, who was already starting to feel horribly groggy, sat down where she was, blinking against the bright sunlight.
Eventually she stood back up and turned dejectedly back towards the TARDIS. When she looked up, there, leaning in the doorway, was. . . the Doctor.
"Doctor?" Crystal said. She scoffed. "I thought you were dead! I thought those Amithenes had gotten you for sure!"
"Nah," the Doctor said, lifting himself off of the doorway and absently kicking at the tangle of wires. "I lured them to a secure place and came back here. And, now that the TARDIS is charged up, I can leave."
"Oh." Crystal took a sudden interest in the grass beneath her. "Where will you go next?" she asked.
The Doctor shrugged. "I don't know. Someplace else that needs me."
"Are you always like this? Going off alone, fighting monsters every day, unmasking them for what they really are like some kind of Lone Ranger Scooby-doo?"
The Doctor laughed. "No. But you're right about one thing—I'm usually alone."
There was an awkward silence. Crystal thought about what she'd seen. After knowing that aliens existed, that humans weren't alone in the universe, she couldn't go back to her daily life. She couldn't live on, knowing that there was more to life than routines and schedules and deadlines and death and life.
"Unless. . ." The Doctor smiled. "Unless you'd like to come with me?"
Crystal could hardly believe it. "Wh-what? Go with you?"
"Just one quick little trip," the Doctor said. "Go see, for instance, Mars. Mars in the year 2102, when it's first colonized by man. Or," he added, holding up one finger for emphasis, "we could see the Andromeda Galaxy. Visit the ten top sightseeing spots—which, incidentally, are all in the same solar system."
Crystal shrugged. "Right now, I'm just really tired. So, if I could see one of your dozen or so bedrooms. . ."
"Of course," the Doctor said understandingly. "You've been up a long time. Long day, full of aliens and action. Don't worry." He guided Crystal to the TARDIS control room. "I have just the right destination in mind for tomorrow."
"Okay." Crystal yawned.
The last thing Crystal thought about before she fell asleep was that she was still wearing her pajamas and slippers from her sleepover, and that she didn't know what her friends would think of all this.
After Crystal was safe in bed, the Doctor went to the control room and unplugged all of the wires. As he brought the cables inside, he took a look at a screen on the engine. "Ah, Crystal," he said, staring at the image. "What mysteries do you hold, girl?"
The screen showed Crystal's face, and her name, gender, residence, various information. The Doctor had looked it up when he'd seen her at Silver Sands. But there was something that vexed him. . .
Under her age, one word flashed:
"UNKNOWN."