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The Doctor joins UNIT.

With a refreshing breath, the Doctor woke up and she found herself back in the hospital ward after those strange figures had taken her out.

She had completely her regeneration now, and her mind and her body were one and the same again. Everything in her mind was clearer now she had finished her healing coma, and she touched her forehead where the remembered phantom pain of the bullet wound caused by that idiot soldier. The pain was gone; her automatic self induced coma had helped her recover from the attack, but out had been a close call.

The Doctor sat up and looked around, thankful the nurse and Henderson were gone; that meant they wouldn't be able to stop her. She stood up, rubbing her face, her plan set. She would leave the hospital, find the TARDIS and see about resuming her travels….

That's supposing the Time Lords hadn't caused too much damage. She had not bothered to really check her brain to see if the Time Lords' promise to block off her knowledge of the TARDIS were true, yet.

And then the Doctor realised the TARDIS key was not in her hand. Quickly she made a small search in the room, but she couldn't find the key. It was gone. She knew that the key had been squeezed in her hand when she was shot, which meant either a soldier had taken it or Henderson had gotten hold of it.

She rubbed her face again, thinking quickly. She didn't see any reason why it should stop her plans, and in any case, if she could find her sonic screwdriver she could pick the TARDIS lock and get inside. She couldn't stay here forever, and she didn't want to be here forever. Grabbing a dressing gown, the Doctor strolled confidently out of the room, occasionally she met a passing nurse or patient who was stretching their legs. She did stop and exchanged a few words of conversation. But she was careful. Sooner or later, she was bound to meet Henderson or her own nurse.

It's good to know I can pull it off, the Doctor thought to herself in relief as she passed another patient, who barely even noticed her pass by; her gender might have changed, but her strategy of acting as if she belonged here seemed perfectly valid still.

The Doctor suddenly stopped by a door and paused when she heard the familiar sound of Henderson's voice. "Good journey down, sir?"

An unfamiliar voice replied. "Terrible! You know, there's no room for a decent car on the roads these days."

Desperate to escape when she realised Henderson and whoever was with him - by the sounds of it, it was somebody in authority, and she really did not want to be around anyone like that, she looked around and smiled when she saw the door was labelled 'Doctors Only.' How convenient. Opening the door, the Doctor went through a series of doors that looked like it was the staff area of the hospital. To her relief, there were changing rooms, for the Doctors and nurses in the hospital. To her delight, there were lots of clothes on hangers and in lockers.

The Doctor opened a few of the lockers in the female side (it took her a moment to remember her current gender, she almost went through the men's changing room by mistake; another reason she wished this regeneration had happened without Time Lord's involvement if she still had her ship she would be free to explore the possibilities and appreciate getting the chance to know more about her new persona and the gender rather than be forced to make these steps) of the changing rooms.

She rifled through the lockers, guessing some of these clothes belonged to patients who had died or something like that, looking through the variety of clothes to see what was right for her. She tilted her head when she saw the mini-dresses that she found; she thought them rather inappropriate, but perhaps she would change her mind as the years passed and the regeneration had settled and she felt more confident.

No hats. She had a good head of long brunette hair, and she didn't want to hide that. No, the Doctor quickly decided that she wanted something…comfortable, simple, perhaps elegant? She wasn't too sure herself right now. But she did find an elegant hair tie, but she would need to make use of a mirror to put it on her hair.

Finally, she found a simple white blouse followed by a black leather jacket, black trousers (again, the Doctor found a skirt, but decided not to risk it for now; there was plenty of time to experiment) and running shoes. A quick check showed the shoes did fit her, to her relief. Taking her clothes, the Doctor went through another door, and she found she was in a bathroom with a grand Victorian marble sunken bath with cast iron shower unit designed like a crown. The Doctor smiled before she locked the door, placing the clothes on a nearby seat before she turned and smiled again at the shower. She could do with a wash.

As she slipped off her pyjamas, the Doctor paused when she saw the familiar curled biodata tag on her skin. It resembled a tattoo, but it was the sign of a Time Lord prisoner.

Grimacing at the sight, the Doctor got into the shower cubicle and she turned it on.

As she washed herself, making sure to miss out her hair, remembering seeing some of her female companions from Barbara all the way through to Polly putting more effort into their hair that she hadn't grasped at the time, the Doctor took a moment to think.

She knew the clothes she had belonged to different people over the years, but that meant her old self's clothes were still here, likely in the male dressing area. After she was finished here, she would go in there, find her clothes and hopefully get everything still in them. Once she had them, she would just have to find some transport and see if the TARDIS was in the woods or not, and if not she would just have to find the old girl and get her back.

But the attempted kidnapping had her worried. Who were those men? Why did they seem so strange? Why would they take such a risk to kidnap her in the first place? With UNIT involved, the Doctor suspected alien activity, but in truth, she wasn't sure if she could care or not. Once she was finished cleaning herself - this body was very strange, but at the same time, she felt herself beginning to settle into it - the Doctor grabbed a towel and quickly dried herself off before she grabbed her clothes. Once she was finished putting on her blouse and her trousers before topping it off with the jacket, the Doctor nodded in approval.

The Doctor walked out of the washroom and she found a handbag lying on the ground. A quick look inside it showed it was empty, so she took it.

When she was sure the other changing room was empty, the Doctor sneaked inside and spent a few minutes looking for her old clothes. When she found them she ran her fingers over the tattered, stained frock coat sadly before she checked the pockets and chuckled with relief. The Doctor had installed a basic perception filter on the pockets to stop anybody from looking through them, although it didn't normally work.

Quickly she emptied the pockets, cursing her predecessor for having so much junk inside them.

"Sonic screwdriver," she mumbled slipping out the small penlight shaped device and putting it in her pocket, "TARDIS detector, that will come in handy…."

When she was finished and she slipped out into the hospital corridor, the Doctor risked a quick glance at the detector shaped watch to make sure the TARDIS was nearby, but her eyes widened in alarm when she realised the TARDIS wasn't close by. She hoped UNIT were the ones who'd taken it, and not those people who had tried to kidnap her.

The good news was her TARDIS was still registering. All she had to do was follow the trace and hope she didn't get shot again by some idiot soldier. Suddenly the Doctor heard Henderson's voice again.

"An error in that report-," the human doctor was saying as footsteps came closer.

Quickly she slipped back inside, closing the door and listened as the footsteps went past. "These anomalies are completely inexplicable. Sir, I am convinced that this woman is not human. I was there with a duty nurse, and we saw her hand glow!"

"Then what do you think she is?" There was scepticism in the other man's voice, and the Doctor narrowed her eyes, she had told Henderson enough about her origins for him to fill in the details but it was clear to her he was trying to make it clear to his colleague, who was likely someone high up, she was closer to Earth.

"Let's go and see this, er, this freak. I shan't believe it until I see it with my own eyes," the man said as they walked down the corridor, giving the Doctor time to poke her head out of the door cautiously.

"She isn't a freak, sir. I assure you, sir, that everything I've told you-," Henderson was saying as the pair of them rounded the corner leading off to the Doctor's old ward. The Doctor took her chance and slipped out of the room and she hurried off down the corridor to the exit. Nobody paid any kind of attention to her as she got outside to the car park.

All of the cars were locked when she checked them and she didn't have the time to unlock them, but when she checked the very handsome antique roadster she climbed inside. Aside from one or two false starts while she tried to get the car started, the Doctor quickly worked out how to start the engine.

Before she left, a tall man in smart clothes came waving out, "Hey, stop thief!" He yelled with Henderson right behind.

The Doctor just waved at them, putting her foot down hard and drove off down the road, taking a quick look at the TARDIS detector to get the bearing she needed. As the Doctor drove out of the car park and down the road to the woods, she noticed the army patrols, still searching. She narrowed her eyes curiously, guessing that the Brigadier had put them up to a search. But it wasn't much of an interest to her. She had only one idea in mind; get to UNIT, find the TARDIS, and its key, and see what had happened to the console before she resumed her travels in time and space. She glanced at her watch. It looked very much like an ordinary wristwatch, but instead of dials, there was only a single needle. That needle was always pointing towards the TARDIS, so as long as she kept checking the bearings she would get back to her ship.

X

In the laboratory at UNIT, the Brigadier smiled in satisfaction. "Oh well, at least she won't get very far."

Liz glanced at him briefly. A few minutes ago, they had gotten a call from the Ashbridge hospital where the mysterious woman who called herself the Doctor had escaped, but Liz still found it hard to believe in aliens despite her scientific interest since nothing in her knowledge could ever glow like that. The woman had stolen a car and left the hospital and nobody had seen her since.

"You mean before your men shoot her again?" Liz asked sarcastically.

The Brigadier glared at her. "I don't find that funny," he snapped before he turned and walked over to the battered old police box - why the Brigadier had had the useless old thing moved here, of all places, Liz would never understand. "Without this machine, the Doctor's stuck. He - she - can't leave Earth."

"Do you think that woman is the Doctor?" Liz asked sceptically.

The Brigadier was silent for a moment, reflecting on the two moments where he had met the Doctor. "When I first met him, the Doctor told me he had a ship capable of travelling through time and space. I found - although I didn't believe it at first - that both of his companions came from different times in history; according to Professor Travers, the girl, Victoria, came from Victorian England but when the Doctor came back, she was gone. He was travelling with another girl who had a remarkable knowledge of computer technology. But Captain Knight, my UNIT second in command at the time, was there when the Doctor and his friends left in a field. He reported seeing them wandering around with their hands outstretched as if looking for something when they found it. Knight reported that they vanished before there was a strange engine sound, and a battered police box appeared. A few moments later, they left in it, and I've been looking for that police box for months."

Liz was not sure how to take all of this. "You were about to open it?" The Brigadier was quiet for a moment before he nodded decisively. "Yes," he said, pulling out the key.

"I think you should. There might be a policeman locked inside," Liz joked.

The Brigadier ignored her and he put the key in the lock. But it wouldn't move, no matter how hard he tried moving it. Finally, he gave up and he pulled the key out of the lock and stared at it. "That's odd," he commented. "Wrong key."

"No, it fits into the lock without any trouble. It just would not turn," the Brigadier said before he slapped the police box door. Suddenly he turned and frowned, puzzled. "Miss Shaw."

Liz sighed. She was in the midst of a number of experiments. She might be hiding it, but she was fascinated by the plastic material that made up the shattered meteorite. It was like nothing she had ever encountered before. The last thing she wanted to do was to be taken away from her work. "What is it now, Brigadier?"

"Come over here, and feel this."

Liz sighed again and walked over to humour him. She placed her hand on the police box… and she pulled it away instantly, gazing at the police box in surprise. "It's vibrating!"

"I know. But it can't be. It's not plugged into anything; you saw my men push the wretched thing in here," the Brigadier told her with a smile. "It's hardly your conventional police box."

Liz glared back at him.

X

The Doctor grinned as she drove her stolen car into an underground garage, risking a last minute check of her detector watch while she risked slowing local time down so she didn't crash into anything as she turned and was thankful that the Time Lords had not completely removed every one of her abilities. The TARDIS was right here. After a straightforward journey, that was the best news she had had. As she drove through the garage, she stopped when a security guard approached her.

"All right, all right," the Doctor said as she finished stopping her car, "I suppose you want to see my pass? Yes, well, I haven't got one," she said, speaking over the guard as he went to open his mouth. "I am the Doctor. Now you just tell Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart that I want to see him. He has two things of mine, and I want them back, thank you very much. Well, don't just stand there arguing with me, man! Get on with it!" She snapped. For a while, the guard looked disgruntled about something although she wasn't interested in what that was.

X

In the UNIT laboratory, the Brigadier listened to the security guard's report with growing incredulousness. "The Doctor?" He repeated the name in surprise, but also growing excitement although he hid it better. He was certain that this was the best news that he had received in the last half an hour, following the unfortunate accidental death of Corporal Forbes who was driving back one of the meteorites that had been found by Munro.

The Brigadier was becoming more and more convinced someone or something was desperate to make sure UNIT didn't get the chance to examine the wretched things. And that worried him because it meant there was something about the meteorites that someone was determined to hide. "Yes, sir. She says you know her. Er, she also says you took some of her property and she'd like it back," the guard finished apologetically.

"What does she look like?"

"Er, brunette hair, brown eyes, reasonably tall in a blouse and trousers with a black leather jacket. She came with an old fashioned car come to that."

The Brigadier nodded. That fit in with the report of the Doctor's escape. "Whatever you do, don't let her go."

"That's the point, sir. She doesn't want to go. She wants to see you."

"Show her up at once. How the devil did she find this place?" The Brigadier turned to Liz, who was still at work.

"Your mystery woman with the police box?"

The Brigadier nodded. "Yes."

"Well, we could wait and ask her, can't we?" Liz suggested practically. A few minutes later, the Doctor entered the laboratory. She beamed when she saw the Brigadier and she walked over to him and shook the astonished UNIT commander's hand. "Ah, hello, Brigadier," the Doctor smiled, "I expect you're wondering how I found you here?"

"Yes."

"Fortunately I had this with me, you see. It homes on the TARDIS," the Doctor showed them the wristwatch which was bleeping before she looked around and patted the old police box affectionately. "Oh, there she is. How nice of you to look after her for me. Do you happen to have got the key, by the way?"

"I do," the Brigadier replied slowly, "but it won't work."

The Doctor chuckled. "Ah-ha! But it will for me. The lock is keyed to my biodata. Only I can open it; the version of me you knew was quite worried about security."

From where she was standing by the laboratory bench, Liz was taking note of the whole conversation with great interest. The Doctor, if this was the Doctor that the Brigadier had told her about, seemed to have fully recovered from what had happened to her. She was now no longer the figure who'd been drifting in and out of consciousness in the hospital. She looked smart in the clothes that fit her so well. On top of that, she was crackling with life and energy, and she was overwhelming the Brigadier much to Liz's personal amusement.

Valiantly the Brigadier tried to get some sort of control back. "Not so fast. I have a lot of questions to ask you."

"Brigadier, it's no good asking me a lot of questions. I've lost my memory, you see?" The Doctor explained before she added helpfully, "Well, some of it."

Liz quirked a brow. That seemed a bit too good, really. Apparently, the Brigadier seemed to think so as well, because he asked suspicously, "How do I know that you're not an imposter?"

"I might have lost some of my memories, but I certainly remember you, Brigadier. I remember how we met in the London Underground tunnels and you escorted me to the HQ in Goodge Street before Professor Travers was kidnapped by the Great Intelligence, and the Intelligence wanted to drain my mind of all of its knowledge before I left with Jamie and Victoria. A short time later, for me and Jamie, we were travelling with Zoe, a girl from the 21st century and a computer genius. You were investigating International Electromatrics run by Tobias Vaughn. Some people had been placed under his control thanks to the Cybermen. You lost men when Jamie, Isobel and Zoe made the stupid decision to go into the sewers to get pictures of the Cybermen. It really is me, Brigadier. On that topic….What do you think of my new face, by the way?" The Doctor asked as she wandered off and found a mirror and she studied her own reflection. "I wasn't too sure about it myself, to begin with, but that's the trouble with regeneration in the early days; it takes time for you to get used to the new appearance, the new mindset, the new everything. But it sort of grows on you. Very flexible, you know. Very young. This is the youngest physical appearance I've had so far, and by that, I mean my original two lives."

The Brigadier stared at her. "When we first met, you said you had a time machine."

"That's right. That's it, right over there," the Doctor pointed to the police box.

"I tried to find that police box for months," the Brigadier told her.

"You wouldn't have had much luck on Earth, I'm afraid, Brigadier. How long has it been since we last saw each other?"

"Months. So where did you go?"

"Dozens of places. Jamie, Zoe, and I visited the planet of the Gonds, where we helped them overthrow the crystalline based Krotons, dealing with those robberies with you, stopping a gang of space pirates…. But then it all fell apart."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm stuck here, Brigadier. My people caught me when I needed to call their help because I was dealing with a situation I was unable to deal with naturally on my own, so I had to summon them. But they captured me, put me on trial, sent Jamie and Zoe back to their own times and wiped their memories of their travels with me, and put me to work to sort out some problems; they sent me back in time to the Napoleonic wars to stop a group of time-travelling trans dimensional beings who had gotten bored with their immortal existence so they passed the time playing dangerous games with history, a case of time-travelling experiments that were endangering the fabric of space-time, and many more. In short, Brigadier, for you it might have been months, but it's been a long time for me. I am a time traveller, after all. For me, I can step inside the TARDIS and disappear for a minute, but I can come back to the same instant a hundred, or a million years later, from my perspective," the Doctor said.

Both humans looked at each other in surprise, overwhelmed by what they were hearing, and were both uncertain of whether or not to believe the Doctor or not. The Doctor just watched them, knowing they were both sceptical. It didn't surprise her since humans were a species who preferred proof and evidence before believing anything they were told.

But it seemed she had persuaded the Brigadier she was who she said she was. "All right, all right, if I accept that you are the Doctor, despite your….change in appearance," he stumbled over the best way to describe her new gender, "there are still a lot of things.… Oh, by the way, this is Miss Shaw," he introduced when he realised the young scientist was even there.

The Doctor grinned at the human scientist. She walked over to her, holding out her hand. "Yes, we met at the hospital. Delighted, Miss Shaw delighted." Liz returned the handshake, wondering if it was something to just accept, she was touching an actual alien.

"What are you a doctor of, by the way?"

"Practically everything," the Doctor said, turning to examine the laboratory equipment keenly. Keen to get the whole conversation back on track, the Brigadier walked over, "From what we can gather, you arrived last night in the middle of a shower of meteorites."

The Doctor barely looked up, but she did turn to the Brigadier with a smile. "Did I really? How terribly exciting."

And then she turned back to the equipment and let the Brigadier carry on somewhat sheepishly despite his best efforts to carry on. "Well, objects from space, at any rate. You must realise that I can't let you go until I'm sure there's no connection."

The Doctor sighed wearily. "Brigadier, I've no recollection of last night. That's most unfair. I was barely conscious when I landed on Earth after going through with the change. How could I possible…Wait, what on earth are these?" The Doctor broke off as she spotted the tray filled with the fragments of one of the meteorites. Liz leaned over next to the Doctor, watching as she picked up and examined one of the fragments.

"Those are bits of what the Brigadier thought might be a meteorite." She explained sceptically, still not entirely sure what they were, and truly not caring about who knew of her opinion. The Doctor caught her tone and the implication of her sceptical attitude. "But you're not entirely sure. Plastic?" She turned questioningly to Liz, who nodded, a frown on her face.

"It's a plastic I have never encountered before. It's not thermo-plastic and neither is it thermo-setting. I've tested several of the fragments already, but in all of my tests, I can't identify anything of the chemical composition. And there are no polymer chains."

The Doctor, meanwhile, was sniffing the piece of plastic she was holding. "I know one or two tests I can conduct, providing I can get to my laboratory in the TARDIS. But this is still interesting. I wonder what was inside."

"Inside?" Liz hated sounding like a parrot, but she couldn't help it. Picking up the larger piece of the meteorite, the Doctor showed her what she meant. "Yes, well, you can tell from the shape this was a hollow sphere. I should think the space inside was about three thousand cubic centimetres, wouldn't you?"

Liz stared at the Doctor with newfound respect. She didn't know if the calculation was accurate, but it had been done so quickly that it surprised Liz, who hadn't even thought about measuring the space herself.

"Was anything else found during the search; strange liquids, canisters, something they knew they shouldn't touch?"

"No," Liz replied. Suddenly she realised what the Doctor was implying. "You think there might have been a bioweapon in the globes?"

"I don't know. But the shape of the globe is hollow, isn't it? But at the same time, anything could have been in there, but I am convinced these globes are important, and they're connected to whatever is happening, such as that kidnapping attempt at the hospital. It's the only thing that makes sense."

Meanwhile, the Brigadier was watching the pair of them together, impressed by the rapport between them. They would make a good team, providing… "Do I gather you're going to help us, Doctor?"

"If I do, will you give me the key to the TARDIS?" The Doctor challenged back.

"Possibly."

"Alright, I'll help you; you want my help, and I need UNIT resources to help me repair the TARDIS; my people took away my ability to travel through time and space, and I need technology and a space to work on discovering just how far the damage has gone. But in the meantime go away and let Miss Shaw and I get on with our work, there's a good fellow,"

Suddenly she turned to Liz. "Look, do I really have to call you Miss Shaw?"

Liz laughed at the Doctor's expression. "No, Liz, just Liz."

The Doctor smiled. "Liz. That's much better. How many of these things actually came down?" She asked the Brigadier curiously.

"About fifty, as near as we can estimate."

"And you found only fragments, no whole ones?" The Brigadier nodded gravely. The loss of Corporal Forbes was still painful for him. "One, yes. But there was an accident. It disappeared."

The Doctor stood up and looked between the two of them. "I doubt it was an accident, Brigadier. The answer to your question's obvious, isn't it? By the time your search party arrived, the rest of these things had been collected. Collected and taken somewhere. The question is, where?"

The Doctor paced up and down the laboratory for a moment, the Brigadier noticing how longly she looked at the TARDIS. For a moment she was lost in thought, but then she snapped out of it and turned to the Brigadier. "You said there was an accident, have your soldiers and search parties seen anyone spying on them?"

The Brigadier caught on. "You think the death of the driver- Corporal Forbes- was done deliberately?"

"Or it was a convenient accident. Its clear that someone else knows about those meteorites, and they've either gotten good leads on where they are and got to the ones that were easy to find, while leaving a few others that haven't been found yet, or ended up like that," the Doctor gestured towards the bits of plastic on the tray. "But have your men reported seeing anyone?"

The Brigadier looked down thoughtfully for a moment. "Shortly after you were taken to the hospital, there was poacher who was seen, but he was sent on his way, but aside from him and a few dog walkers there was nobody suspicious. I'll tell the other parties to be on the alert."

"Do that, but also tell them to be cautious; your corporals' death was a tragedy, but we don't know what these people are, or what they want, and I'm convinced they have something to do with that attempted kidnapping of me," the Doctor said.

"Why do you say that?"

"There was something inhuman about them, and besides it makes sense," the Doctor sighed and turned to the Brigadier. "You'd better go, Brigadier, let me and liz take a look at the meteorite fragments."

"Right, I'll let you get on with it."

Liz looked uncertainly at the Doctor. "How do you want to do this?"

"Well, we can start with the basics; let's see what these fragments are made from." As the two of them worked in sync around one of the fragments, the Doctor chuckled as she took off her jacket and sat down on a bench and prepared the equipment in front of her. "He hasn't changed much," she commented.

"The Brigadier?"

"Mm, when I first met him, he showed that he was adaptable, and he was more capable of accepting the reality of alien life compared to other soldiers I've met over the years, its good to see him again after this length of time. Perhaps that's why the Time Lords sent me to this point in history," the Doctor added thoughtfully.

Liz was intrigued by the Doctor. She had already shown herself to have incredible healing abilities, which went without saying about her power to transform her appearance. But the Time Lords were something she was interested in. "You said you've done this before at the hospital, change your face…?" She said.

"You mean how many times I've changed my face?" The Doctor smiled at Liz while they worked. "Two before this one, this is my third incarnation."

"Incarnations? How do you change your face, is it through cloning or do you swap bodies with other bodies?"

"Oh, nothing like that. Whenever my body is on the point of being fatally injured, or if I let it get really old, then my body is reconstructed on a cellular level through a blast of temporal energy; its almost as if the change is altering my body to resemble what it might have been if I been born like that; it's a complicated process at the best of times, but it works, and it can work twelve times, granting me thirteen lives," the Doctor smiled while Liz blinked in confusion as she tried to mesh her mind with what the Doctor had just said.

She couldn't grasp all of it, but she decided to focus on it another time while they worked. But that didn't mean they couldn't get to know one another.

"And these Time Lords? They sent you here?"

"In exile, yes," the Doctor's cheerful expression darkened. "They put me to work at first. They sent my friends back to their own times, and they made me work for them for a couple of centuries before sending me here. But before they did that, they told me they would take my knowledge of the TARDIS away, and they would change my appearance."

"What does it feel like, when you change your appearance?" Liz wondered now if she was pushing the limits of the Doctor's tolerance.

The Doctor didn't like explanations, but she supposed it was a good thing for Liz to know. "It's painful. When it starts, it feels like a slow-burning fire is building up in your body, and that fire accelerates faster and hotter until it feels like all the cells in your body are bursting from the inside out. And it goes into your muscles, your bones…but in the brain, it feels like someone's poured acid into it. And then you've got a brand new body, one that you need to get used to. A new body feels like a new house, it takes time to settle in. But in my case, right now, I'll need time to get used to the fact I'm no longer living in a male body. When I regenerated the first time, I swore never to go through it again unless I really had too."

Liz wasn't sure what to say then, but judging from the Doctor's suddenly stiff posture, she wasn't likely to speak anymore about this topic. She focused instead on the work. The testing equipment was sophisticated, Liz had to give UNIT credit for being efficient. Over the course of the next hour, the two of them conducted virtually every single test in the book.

But they always got the same result.

Nowhere.

"Doctor, are you getting a reading?" The Doctor seemed just relieved they were no longer speaking about her. She was totally focused on her work. "No, nothing. Liz threw her hands in the air in frustration, "Well, that's it. I can't think of anything else we can try."

"We both knew it wouldn't be easy, and….Well, don't worry, Liz. We've done our best."

"I know, its just I can't understand it. We've tried a dozen different methods of analysis and haven't identified a single element."

"Yes, what results can you expect with this primitive equipment?"

That was too much for Liz. "Primitive? We've got lasers, spectrographs, micron probes…"

The Doctor flinched. She was still coming to terms with the fact that she was a part of UNIT now, and she likely would be for a long time unless the Time Lords let her go, or she found another way off Earth, but she was going to have to adapt to her new situation here. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, I know all that." She sighed, "I'm sorry, Liz, its just I'm more used to working with more advanced technology, but But what we really need is a lateral molecular rectifier."

"What on Earth's that?" The Doctor chuckled humourlessly. "Not on Earth, unfortunately. But I think I have one in the TARDIS."

Liz gestured to the police box. "In there?" The Doctor nodded, "Yes. I'm sure I have one somewhere. But I'm sure I used one some time in the past, or was it the future?"

Liz had learnt enough about the Doctor to know she was special, unique, but she had problems accepting the fact the battered old police box which looked like a puff of wind could be a spaceship was something she found hard to take. "Doctor, you really do have scientific equipment in there?"

The Doctor looked hurt. "Liz, I have an entire laboratory."

Liz didn't mean it, but she laughed. "Yes, yes, I'm sure you have."

"You don't believe me. It's true. Well, you think that the TARDIS isn't big enough, don't you? That's because you keep looking at it simply as a police box."

"Well, it is only a police box."

"No, its not. The police box is just a disguise; it's a system within the TARDIS. When she lands, she should take a different shape; I'll have to look into fixing that, but once you get inside it, the illusion is shown as the mirage it is You see, Liz, the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental."

Liz didn't have a clue what that meant. "Oh. I see."

The Doctor knew she hadn't, of course. "Yes, it would take far too long to try and explain that to you. But we can get into a detailed discussion about dimensional physics later, right now, the important thing is that we've got to get this material analysed," she pointed at the collection of plastic shards on the tray. "And you could do that with your equipment?"

"Yes, it should be easy enough. The only trouble is Lethbridge-Stewart has taken away the key and I can't get inside. Liz believed the Brigadier was a little heavy-handed herself. "Well, I suppose it is your property." "How good are your powers of persuasion?"

X

Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart was thankful his experiences since taking command of UNIT had prepared him to listen to stories like this, but there were times he wondered if he was prepared to listen to accounts like this. A few minutes ago, this man Ransome had been brought into UNIT HQ after a sent found him, terrified in Oxley Woods. Captain Munro had sent word that he had been attacked by some kind of strange creature. Munro hadn't heard the full story, but now the man had calmed down, the Brigadier was having trouble believing it.

Ransome had recently returned from America from a business trip when he had found a letter from his business partner who ran a plastics factory who had agreed to work with him to sell plastic dolls and other products, but now the letter had basically told Ransome they'd changed their mind. Ransome had gone to the plastics factory to demand an explanation, only to find his partner and friend, Hibbert, had changed and was cagey, saying they had a new policy, and was terrified at one point before his whole demeanour changed and altered. Later Ransome had broken into the factory in the hopes of demanding more answers - only he was attacked by something in the factory.

Some kind of creature made completely out of plastic. The Brigadier had listened to the story twice, but while some elements of the story rang a bell for him, and almost made him call the Doctor and Miss Shaw in, he wanted to get the details before he did it. Ransome was calmer now, more coherent and he was able to focus on the story rather than the more terrifying parts of it.

Ransome was becoming tired of telling the same story again, but he had the feeling the Brigadier was truly interested and was only after the finer details, "The face was smooth, shiny. It was plastic! Made in the factory."

The Brigadier remembered the description of the men who'd tried to abduct the Doctor; eyewitnesses nearby had described their skin as unusual, but plastic? It was too fantastic. Still he was interested. "Why do you say that?" He asked, this was a part of the story he hadn't really heard in full detail yet.

"Well, just before this thing came after me, I passed a whole line of them. They were all exactly the same."

The Brigadier stood up, "It's quite a story, Mister Ransome," he began, only to frown in annoyance when there was a knock on the door. "Yes?"

Liz Shaw walked in, "Can I have a word with you, Brigadier?"

The Brigadier held in his patience. "Not now, I'm busy."

But Liz refused to leave. "This is rather important. You see, the Doctor thinks…"

The Brigadier was outraged at this affront to his authority. "Miss Shaw, your work in this laboratory is part of one big exercise. You'll have to be patient. You say this, er, creature was armed?" He asked, turning his back on Liz.

"It took off its hand," Ransome held up his own hand for emphasis while Liz snatched up the TARDIS key from the desk and left the office, "And there was a sort of tube, and the whole of the arm appeared to be hollow. Well, you should see the hole it blasted in the wall!"

The Brigadier frowned, "Then there was an explosion?" Ransome wished he had a better way of describing what he saw, but he had been in a hurry to get out, but when he had seen that hole, he had known he had to escape before that thing killed him. "Yes, I suppose so. Not loud, but it was more like a sort of whoosh that a rocket makes." "And this didn't attract anybody's attention?"

The Brigadier found that hard to believe; surely if there had been a loud bang, it would attract attention? That was another problem with Ransome's story. Ransome looked even more worried. "Well, I didn't see a living soul in that part of the factory. They seem to have sacked all the workers. It's completely automated now."

The Brigadier went back to his chair behind the desk, "How long have you been away in America, Mister Ransome?"

"Er, six months."

"None of this was in evidence before you left? New production lines, changing over to automation, not steps that occur overnight, are they?" Ransome groaned inwardly when he realised the Brigadier didn't believe him, or he was still sceptical. But he had to make them believe him. "I agree with you, sir, but it's happened!"

But the Brigadier was no longer listening to him. He had just glanced down thoughtfully at the surface of his desk when he saw the key to the Doctor's TARDIS was gone. "The key," he whispered before he realised what had happened.

X

In the UNIT laboratory, Liz handed the Doctor her TARDIS key. The Doctor looked at her impressed, especially when she told her how she had just taken it from the desk.

"I think he's - er - going to be awfully cross with you," the Doctor said sheepishly, not liking how she was essentially gotten her new friend in trouble. Liz shrugged. She needed the Brigadier to see she was not going to be a pushover. "Well, if you're quick, he mightn't even miss it."

"Thank you," the Doctor replied sincerely before she walked over to the TARDIS, and opened the door, much to Liz's surprise. "It didn't turn when the Brigadier tried to open it."

"You can thank my last self for that; I was a little paranoid at times. The lock has a metabolism detector," the Doctor explained before she walked into the TARDIS. A few moments later, the Brigadier entered the lab. When she registered his presence, Liz leaned casually against the TARDIS.

"Miss Shaw, where's that key?" Angrily, the Brigadier walked over to her, quickly realising where the key - and the Doctor - were. "You've given it to her."

"She said she needed some equipment." The Brigadier scoffed, remembering his last encounters with the Doctor, and how they always slipped away. "Equipment? I had no idea you could be so gullible. That's an excuse. We shan't see her again."

"Oh, what do you mean?"

Suddenly a deep sound like some ancient, but still awesomely powerful engine boomed through the laboratory, but it was stuttering like a car out of gas. "Listen. She's going. Something like a small explosion came from the TARDIS, and some white, foul-smelling smoke came out of it before the noise of the engine ground to a halt. The Doctor slowly emerged from the open door, coughing and spluttering as she held her mouth.

The Doctor's expression was sheepish when she registered their presence, seeing both humans were truly unhappy. Inwardly she groaned when she saw the look in Liz's eyes. "I was just testing. I wanted to see if the controls-."

But Liz was too angry at being tricked so easily to listen or even care what the Doctor was saying. "Doctor, you tricked me. Don't even think of denying it."

The Doctor sighed and realised she really didn't have a choice. "I'm sorry, Liz. Yes. I did trick you, but the temptation was too strong. I told you earlier the Time Lords had exiled me, but I wanted to see what they'd done… It's just…it just that I couldn't bear the thought of being tied to one planet and one time. I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

The Doctor walked over to a lab stool and threw herself on it before she buried her face in her hands. "Now I know how the Monk felt when I stranded him in 1066….," Liz thought she heard come from the Doctor, but the Brigadier either didn't hear her, or he didn't care. Either way, he focused on what she had said before.

"It won't?" the Brigadier stepped forwards and held out his hand. "Give me the key, Doctor."

The Doctor looked up at him in surprise. "Must I? What's the point? The TARDIS doesn't work anymore, and you saw it!"

The Brigadier couldn't help but feel sorry for her when he saw how upset she was by that fact. Still he wasn't going to let anything like this happen again. "Well, will you give me your word not to try to escape again?"

"Brigadier, I've been exiled to Earth. I'm not going to escape. I couldn't escape now if I wanted to. They've trapped me here!" Suddenly the Doctor leapt off of her stool so fast that the Brigadier had to leap back in shock, but the Time Lady didn't pay him anymore notice than someone would when walking across ants scurrying underfoot, "That mean, despicable, underhanded lot! I know what the Time Lords have done now. They've changed the dematerialisation code."

The Brigadier glanced at Liz in his peripheral vision, pleased she didn't understand what that meant anymore than he himself did. "The what?"

"The dematerialisation code. When the TARDIS begins to dematerialise, it creates a wormhole but its activated by a code generated by the genetics of my body. The Time Lords have changed the code in my ship, so I can't leave Earth, and Gallifrey only knows what else they've done," the Doctor sighed when she saw the two humans still looked bewildered. "I knew it, you don't understand it. I shouldn't have tried to explain, even if that was the easiest explanation I could give."

She sat down again, broodingly. The Brigadier wanted to get this matter under control, but now he knew the TARDIS was useless to the Doctor, he didn't see why he could not let her have the wretched key back. "There's a great deal that I don't understand. But one thing I did understand, Doctor, was that you promised your help." The Doctor lifted her head. "Yes, I have, and I intend to keep that promise. But it's hard. I've tried to help you the best way I can, but I need more evidence. I need more to go on. I need facts."

Suddenly the Brigadier remembered Ransome. "Well, I think I may be able to help you," he suggested.

The Doctor looked up at him, perplexed. "What do you mean?"

"A frightened man in Oxley Woods has an interesting story. I was going to bring it to you, but I wanted to understand a few points. Apparently he was the business partner to the owner of a plastics factory, and he left for the United States to further a business deal but when he came back he found some changes. The owner of the factory, Hibbert, also seems to have changed, but Ransome was attacked by some kind of plastic creature," the Brigadier said.

"Plastic? Like the pieces of the meteorite," the Doctor frowned. "That's too much of a coincidence. Let's go and talk to him, I want to listen to the story for myself."