"There, I unlocked it!" Five said, opening the door from the other side. The other three rushed into the building, fleeing from the sentinel drones which stormed into the cave, firing aggressively. He then tapped a panel located just beside it and the door sealed itself shut. "That should hold them, I hope."
The windowless outpost had walls of reinforced metal, several filing cabinets, a table with chairs and a weapon rack mounted on one of the walls. This was just the first room. Two metallic tunnels stretched, one to the left on the way in, the other dead ahead. The left tunnel led to a bedroom complete with a holographic television screen, a first aid kit mounted on the wall and a large monitor station. The other tunnel led to an enormous indoor farm with many cuboid shaped hydroponic bays which grew many alien plants. At the end of the farm lay a inactive circular teleporter.
"I'm getting hungry, are those plants edible?" Josh asked the Doctor.
She scanned them with her sonic and replied. "That's odd, they are all somehow edible for every species, or at least, that's what the sonic is telling me, metaphorically speaking of course, the sonic doesn't actually talk." She chuckled.
The indoor farm contained multiple storage units housing harvested plants. She unlocked each one with her sonic screwdriver and foraged some of the more sweet smelling flora.
"The sentinel drones seem to have given up!" Poison said, looking out through the window of the reinforced door.
"They might be waiting outside, pretty common for assassins in my experience, I wouldn't go out just yet." Five replied.
"I guess we're stuck here for a while, anything could happen." She eyed the Doctor as she said that.
"Don't you have a boyfriend?"
"It's an open relationship, he lets me sleep around if I want, which I do. Frequently."
"I don't want to know the details if that's ok lady."
The four then gathered in the first room, sitting together at the table for an alien yet somehow pleasant meal. The Doctor knew a thing or two about cooking and produced portions for each person. Josh felt apprehensive about trying the new foods, though after all that he and the Doctor had been through, trying pleasant smelling greens was not exactly the most stressful scenario. Conversing with others he barely knew on the other hand...
"So, as I mentioned earlier, I'm the Doctor, this is my companion, Josh, say hi Josh."
"Hi Josh." He answered nervously.
"Ooh, Dad jokes, from a teenager! I love Dad jokes." Said Poison.
Josh couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or joking or even being serious. He wanted to stay quiet if he could.
As the conversation continued, the Doctor explained how two met, going into some detail about the event involving the Weeping Angels and Josh's past life with the hacker group Dedsec. Meanwhile Five told the rest some fairly vague information about his siblings, the Hargreeves family and his time travel abilities.
"Incredible!" Said the Doctor. "I've never met anyone with the direct ability to travel through spacetime naturally, without any technology!"
"I still haven't exactly mastered it, I accidentally de-aged myself once, hence my teenage appearance."
Eventually, the four finished the meal which Josh found surprisingly pleasant, if only other vegetables tasted that good, he thought.
By now, Josh had gotten used to the nomadic lifestyle of the Time Lord but even still, he had a strange hunch that they were staying here a while.
"There's only one bed." Explained the Doctor. "So we're going to sleep shifts. I only need a couple hours a night, but I reckon you three need eight. Josh has been awake for nearly twenty hours, he should sleep first."
"I guess I should."
"Good, now as for you two, by my calculations we can stay here for about a week on current supplies, so keep the rations."
The Doctor took her sonic screwdriver and used it to alter Josh's brainwaves, putting him unconscious as he lay down on the foam bed. Josh felt everything turn to darkness and silence.
Swirling patterns of stars and nebulae filled his vision along with pleasant sounds of an electronic synthesiser, heavily reverberated. He felt his body floating in space with a sense of calmness. The electronic sounds played a simple, consonant chordal progression, weaving in and out to the interstellar patterns. His vision zoomed out from stellar level, to galactic level. Entire superclusters of galaxies formed where there used to be only stars, before condensing into a singular bubble containing an uncountable number of superclusters. Other similar bubbles became visible nearby, each slightly different in its pattern, with variations on colour pallets and arrangements of super-superclusters. Now, the number of bubbles had become uncountable themselves.
The bubbles darkened and the synth faded, leaving behind an aching note of fear. The darkened bubbles formed an unspeakable, demonic shape. A corrupted vision of a feminine, red eyed abomination took hold. The details of this figure were difficult to make out. Her number of limbs seemed to change every time Josh tried to count them. Red eyes of fury covered her entire, shifting form, with teeth instead of eyelashes, blinking in an irregular pattern. She raised five of her arms and an army of red skinned humanoid husks came forth, assimilating each universe into more of itself. Time sped up, slowed down, ran backwards and forwards, sideways and stood still all at once. The cavernous note reached a crescendo, building an agonising ache in Josh's skull. He wanted the scream but only a whimper escaped his lips. The abomination grew, obliterating entire bubble universes until there were none left before turning to face Josh, and smiling from every, tooth covered eye.
"Josh? Are you ok?" The Doctor frantically asked as he awoke, the surroundings reforming in his mind.
"Your vitals were all over the place!" She continued. "I was getting worried, it's been a long time since I've seen something like this!"
"Yeah dude! Your entire body was shaking!" Poison added. "I thought you were having a seizure!"
"I'm fine!" He answered, realising that he was covered in cold sweat and hyperventilating. "How long have I been out?"
"About five hours." The Doctor replied.
"Who are you? And why are you here?" Asked a deep, unfamiliar voice. Josh looked up and saw, at the end of the room, a bipedal robotic looking being, with a glowing white orb where their head should be, orbited by curved metal poles.
"I take it this is your place?" The Doctor asked.