The corridor they walked down ended up narrowing to a point that they could only go through one person at a time. The Doctor in the Opera Cape had stepped through first, wary of any more traps and the rest followed.
"What is all this? What is this place?" Jamie asked.
"Apparently, these under passageways belonged to Rassilon and the Omega. They are where those two conducted their experiments. What they were experimenting with, however, we have no way of knowing." The Doctor in the Opera Cape explained.
"So, everyone keep your eyes and ear peeled for anything that looks off." The Doctor who'd had the recorder commanded.
"We couldn't even see the door before, Doctor, what makes you so certain we'd be able to see traps coming?" Jamie snarked back.
"Try then." The Doctor snarked right back, when suddenly the tight hallway opened up into a cavernous room up head. The machine at the centre of the room was huge, circular and about 8ft in width. There were 4 pathways leading in towards it on a circle platform. There were four gaps on either side that dropped off into a seemingly endless abyss. The group all approached at different speeds, the Doctors all made their way over, Graham and Zoe included. The others all took a second to look over the railing into the drop next to them. Susan leaned over somewhat far, Barbara behind her with a hand held out ready to catch her in case she tipped too far over.
"So, is this what's being used to block you being able to mentally contact the Doc?" Graham asked, hands on his hips as his head tilted up in order for him to try and see the entirety of this enormous structure. There was an offended scoff to his left and he looked around just in time to see the first version of the Doctor raising an eyebrow at him.
"My name is not 'Doc', young man, you'd do well to remember that." Graham almost let out a huff of amusement at the prospect of being called 'young man' but at the serious offence on the Time Lord's face he nodded and schooled his expression into something serious.
"I'm sorry, you're right. My version of you's alright with it, is all."
"Yes, well," he humphed slightly then stepped forwards towards the machine to take a look at it, "and yes, it appears to be what's blocking our ability to communicate with our future self."
"Any clue what it is, exactly?"
"Erm, no. Not entirely. What about you chaps?" he looked to his future selves who had also both stepped forward and began to inspect the device at different sections around it.
"I'd say it was some kind of transmitter, but it appears to be hooked up to something else. It's doing multiple things at once."
"Could we just start pushing buttons at random, and hope for the best?" Jamie suggested with a light shrug, leaning in close to inspect a panel of buttons.
"Probably not. That would be a bad idea, wouldn't it Doctor?" Jo sat a hand on Jamie's arm, aiming to pull him away from the panel before he did something silly like actually pressing something and maybe getting them killed. Everyone, then, was surprised when the Doctor's all shared a look and a shrug and Jo's Doctor turned to her with a shoulder raised still in said shrug.
"You know, that might not be a bad idea Jamie."
"Doctor?" Jo exclaimed, "but what if it sets something off? Press one button and it could explode the whole place, send out more traps? What if something goes wrong?"
"And what if something goes right?" Jamie's version of the Doctor stepped forward, sitting his hands on her shoulders to try and calm her in some way, "we don't know what this machine does," he moved one hand to point to it, "so pressing some random buttons may be our best option."
"And if it kills us?"
"Then we die in the pursuit of knowledge, the only admirable way to die, I think."
"I think it'd be more admirable to get it without dying." Ian pointed out, drawing Barbara closer to him.
"Yes, I agree." Zoe pointed out, "it would be much more logical to inspect it for longer than a few seconds before resorting to desperate actions."
"Well, it's not your future selves that are under attack right now, is it?" The Doctor next to Jo exclaimed with a put-out pout. "If any of you have a better plan, I'm sure we'd all love to hear it."
When no one said anything else the Doctor in the Opera Cape took in a deep breath and reached up to flick up a switch. Nothing seemed to happen. He frowned and pressed another button. Still nothing.
"I'm sure these should be doing something?"
"So, where do you fit in in my future?" The Edwardian looking Doctor asked River as the group made their way down the final hallway. River smirked, drawing her eyes over him as she spoke in a teasing manner, and shrugged slightly.
"Oh, spoilers, sweetie. That would be giving it all away." He raised an eyebrow at the term of endearment but said nothing more.
"I get the feeling that you're always this enigmatic."
"Well, we all know how brilliant those gut instincts of yours usually are." Lucie made a face behind the woman at the clear flirting, halfway between uncomfortable and disgusted and her version of the Doctor bit back a smirk of amusement when he glanced back to her.
"Indeed." He said that part then quickly tried to move the conversation on, if for nothing else than his companion's benefit. And Ace's, who was making a clear expression of disgust further back. "You were in this future version of our's TARDIS when we all first arrived, did you travel with her?"
"I don't travel with any specific you. I have the ones that I like." River laughed softly at the quizzical expression that appeared on his, and the other him's faces. "It's a long story, but no. I don't travel with her. I only met that version of you today. Gave her my vortex manipulator to use."
"A vortex manipulator? A rather primitive type of travel." The Doctor in question marks spoke up and River simply rolled her eyes.
"We don't all have TARDISs to whisk us around time and space. At least mine is more reliable in getting me where I actually want to go." She pointed out with a smirk sent his way and the three men bristled.
"The old girl's more than reliable." The Doctor in the leather jacket grumbled, "just takes us where we're needed, more often than not."
"And I love her for that too. Don't knock the manipulator."
"Exactly." Jack spoke up, flashing a grin to River as he stepped forward, "nothing wrong with them, old reliable." He winked at her, "we match." He held up his wrist with his still busted manipulator and River tried hard not to be too obvious as she smirked back at him.
"Oh, you have no idea."
"Doctor?" Rose exclaimed suddenly, reaching forward for her Doctor in leather's arm when a doorway opened up next to her. The group all stopped to look at the now opened doorway in the wall next to her that had been hidden just a moment ago.
"How'd that get there?" Ace asked, looking to her version of the Doctor in question marks, "that wasn't there a second ago."
The Doctor in leather stepped forward first, peering into the room curiously. When he could find no immediate dangers, he stepped further inside. The others following him in. The room that had opened up had clearly been a lab once but now seemed to have been emptied out. Only the odd flask or sheet of paper or scroll lying about.
"What is this place?" Lucie asked.
"A lab, once." Her Doctor answered as he leaned over to inspect one of the scrolls strewn about the room, "Rassilon's? Or maybe Omega's? Unused now, who knows for how long?"
"Subject, after period of great illness, has also not survived injection of Thremix virus." The Doctor in question marks read out loud from one of the scrolls, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion, "Peylix's suggestion of introducing the virus into the looming process should be looked into with more consideration. This is the formal request for the introduction of the virus into the next batch of infants from the looms."
"Who wrote it? Who's Peylix?" the Doctor in leather asked, the three Doctors clearly disturbed by what was written down.
"No idea. That's all it says." He sat the scroll back down onto the countertop.
"What's it talking about?" Rose asked hesitantly, "what's the Thremix virus? What're looms?"
"No idea what the virus is. But Time Lords aren't born naturally, the way humans are, we're loomed. Artificially. A more advanced version of 'test tube babies' is a way for you to understand." The eighth Doctor explained softly, "what that scroll suggests sounds barbaric. But I can't imagine it's that much different than anything else Rassilon did."
"Come on. This is a dead end, let's go." The Doctor in leather spoke up quickly, his face schooling itself carefully into blankness as he headed back towards the door. The other two Time Lords shared looks with one another but started to follow. And then they heard a distinct metallic stomping and in seconds there were two Cybermen in the doorway. The Doctor in leather was quick to reach for the door controls to make the door slide shut before he cried out to the room, "run!"
"This thing doesn't seem to do anything," the Doctor who'd had the recorder pouted unhappily, mashing a handful of buttons and flipping up a collection of switches.
"Doctor!" Zoe exclaimed, eyes wide, "you don't know what this thing could be doing elsewhere. I highly doubt every button on it controls something in this room! It seems large enough to be powering the entire underground network, however far out they stretch. Who knows what kind of havoc your wrecking out there!"
Ryan stepped further into the room, eyeing up the collections of statues with wide eyes. They looked like people, frozen in a split second, the terror still on their faces. Not all of them were that detailed though. Others further down the room lost their shape, began to hide their faces and there were three statues at the back of the room that all hid their faces and were shaped like angels. The second the Doctors saw them he was tugged backwards.
"Stay back." The Doctor with the celery had been the one to pull him back, "everyone, keep looking at the statues."
"Simply blinking could be a matter of life or death with these creatures." The Doctor with the huge scarf continued, voice slightly breathless as everyone in the room was suddenly on alert and all looking around at different statues. It was only after a few moments of heavy unease that the Doctors seemed to realise that something wasn't right here.
"Are they not doing anything because we're looking? Or doesn't it feel like they aren't actually… alive?" The Doctor in the monstrous coat asked, glancing to his other selves.
"What are you talking about?" Peri asked, risking tilting her head away from the statue, her body still tense with anxiety over what may be happening.
"Could everyone… turn around for a moment?" the Doctor in celery asked and they all threw him incredulous looks.
"You just told us it was matter of life and death just blinking in front of these things," Turlough cried, "and now you want us to turn our backs to them?"
"Just for a moment. We'll be watching them." He tried to reassure the other man in a calm voice. Turlough looked like he wanted to argue more but the rest of the group of companions all turned their backs and so he let out a long-suffering sigh and wearily turned his back, resistance in his every movement.
With his back turned Ryan spotted something lying in a dust filled corner of the room on a collection of abandoned desks behind two of the less angel-like statues. He glanced round to the Doctors to tell them, but they all seemed much more interested in the three angels at the end of the room, so Ryan made his way over to it to pick it up. The notebook that was revealed from the thick pile of dust looked ancient. Bound in a leather looking material and covered in a circular script that Ryan had no hope of every translating. He flipped it open and began flicking through it, not understanding its words but the drawings and illustrations inside of it helped him to understand.
"These things were created out of people." He spoke up, his stomach nauseous at the thought as he looked back to the half-finished versions. The ones that looked like people still. Their faces still visibly in terror.
"What?" everyone turned to look to him, the Doctors all looking away from the angels to him when they heard him speak. The Doctor in the monstrous coat was closest to him, so was the first to reach out for the notebook which Ryan handed to him. He held it open and read it, his face going pale as he looked up at all the statues, "dear gods… what were they thinking?"
"Give me that." The Doctor in the celery reached out to take hold of the notebook to read it and he too paled at the prospect, "poor souls."
"Perhaps then these ones weren't finished." The Doctor in the scarf suggested, looking up at the three angels at the back of the room. "So, they aren't dangerous like a true angel?"
It was at that moment the lights started to flicker on and off. Like someone was playing with the light switch. And in time with the light flickering off the three angels at the back began to shift, as though something had brought them to life.
"You had to open your big mouth." Sarah Jane muttered to him sarcastically.
"Everyone, out the door, quickly now!"
"What about the Cybermen?" Ryan asked, already backing towards the door anyway.
"We can run from those. There's no chance against these angels if the lights go off." The Doctor with the celery informed him, reaching up for the door controls as he awkwardly stuffed the notebook into his pocket for further reading later when it was safe for them to do so.
A/N I have a tumblr btw guys? In case you wanted to ask any questions or see some excerpts of stuff that I was thinking of posting. (Some hints to stuff that might not be up for a while because two ongoing stories is quite enough. I don't want to kill myself here XD)
I'm chrisswearicho on tumblr! I usually don't post my writing in there but if you guys wanna see it there then I'll start doing that :D Just shoot me a message on there! I'd love to chat with you all!