"Do we wait for Tegan?" Turlough asked as he made his way up the short walk to the porch. "I haven't seen her."
"Nor have I." He bit on his bottom lip pensively. "I'd prefer it if we could spare her this encounter, if at all possible. Let's just have a quick look see…" He took the steps two at a time. At the top, hands thrust in his trouser pockets, he waited for Turlough. "Besides, she may already be inside."
Turlough paused at the top step to the house and stared at the pink rabbit foot that dangled from the lock of the open front door. "It looks exactly the same as the key chain that's in the gate."
The Doctor squinted at the little clump of faux fur. "It is. It's a security system: the same key has to be in two different locks simultaneously. Only transtemporal entities can cross the threshold. Anyone else tries and all they'd find inside is an empty house."
"Gallifreyan technology…" Turlough muttered, not wanting to be the first to enter the dark house. "What is this place?"
"It's a Watchtower. Or it was." The Doctor straightened, shifting the heavy device on his back. "Blends into the environment and allows observers to study the entire history of a planet- without moving of course. It's anchored to the planet's gaiacore. Sort of an early TARDIS, but without the dimensional transcendentalism and… well, without the time travel of course. They were really only used as safe houses for teams to observe historic events or long term studies… it has been here, it will be here, it will always have been here, for the planet's entire history. I'd assumed there were a couple still lying around, I've just never run into them until now."
"And she's inside waiting for us..."
"Yes, well. Probably. Someone certainly has used the keys; as a safe guard, the field around the house prevents direct materialization, so she couldn't have just landed the TARDIS inside. Unless you have the codes of course. Now then," he put a hand on Turlough's shoulder. "You ready?"
Turlough squirmed. The Doctor had never touched him touching him before and he was even less thrilled about entering what amounted to a Gallifreyan hunter's nest. "Of course," he forced a tight grin, stepping slightly to the side. "After you."
The floorboards creaked theatrically under their feet as they stepped into the hall, pausing to adjust to the faint light that bled in through the boarded windows and tattered drapes. Turlough took one step at a time, testing the floor with each step, terrified that the groaning planks would give way. Hallways stretched in each direction, leading into dusty rooms stuffed with furniture draped in yellowed sheets. Turlough started towards one of the rooms, before the Doctor placed a restraining hand on his shoulder again.
"I don't think we'd need bother," the Doctor said, leading Turlough towards the back of the main stairway that sat, bloated in the central hall.
"Why?"
"Well, just a guess," the Doctor came to a halt next to a half-open door, its paint once gray and slick was now bubbled and stained with age. "Its the cellar. Its always the cellar."
Turlough followed as the Doctor thumped and clunked his way into the cellar. Turlough found a string dangling next to his face, and with a panicked swat, managed to turn on the light bulb that hung from a thick, fabric covered wire in the middle of the room, which was bare, aside from stacked boxes, old bicycles and a folding cot. "She's not here…" Turlough breathed thankfully.
"Mmmmmm," the Doctor agreed, pacing about the room, his head bent, his feet kicking the dirt floor.
"What are you looking for?"
"Controls to the Watchtower, or at least to the link to the gaiacore… the anchor controls should be down here somewhere…"
Watching him wander about aimlessly through the barren room, Turlough kept casting anxious glances up to the top of the stairs, wondering when sex-incarnate was going to thump her way down the stairs, hefting her Feathers of Death. "I don't see anything…" he ventured.
"No, you wouldn't. That's the problem with cloaking technology; mind you it's much more primitive than chameleon technology…" The Doctor poked blindly into one of the darkened corners, inadvertently scooping up a mass of cobwebs.
Turlough stood dead still, looking about the shadowy room uncomfortably. "Doctor, when you say 'cloaking technology'…"
The Doctor froze, turning slowly on the heel of his foot to face Turlough, his pale expression ghastly in the harsh yellow lightbulb. "Oh, dear-"
The air beside Turlough shimmered as Tegan towered above him, fierce black battle suit and all. Sweeping him aside with a casual flick of her hand, she leapt for the Doctor, her finger blades gleaming, yelling for death as she plunged her hands deep into the Doctor's chest.