As if the adventure couldn't get stranger, here they were, looking at a tall, dark, and petrifying Drekker, casually standing on the corner of Union Street. Since neither two were sick, it disregarded them as nothing more, lest they antagonize it, and have it come after them with disdain.
There's no way that Samuels Argyle knew anything about the Drekker and there's no chance he'd know what they looked like, either.
How the stolen equipment interpreted what the Drekker is and looked like, it's a tossup that it overheard Theodore and Lila talking about the creature and drew from that… or something more.
This Drekker, it's tall, taller than Theodore, that he deduced it's one of the big ones, something deeply imprinted in him since he encountered it back at UNIT's base.
"What do we do?" Lila whispered to him as her eyes never moved away from the Drekker as it remained stationary.
Thinking, Theodore tells her that if the equipment interpreted what the Drekker is, it may've picked up on what makes it attack people.
Since they're not sick, not threatening or aggravating the Drekker, it means they can pass without issue.
"Just don't look it in the eyes," Theodore warned her not to look the Drekker in the eyes as they pass by it, lest it take issues with that.
Lila's feet dug in as she heard they must move forward, past the Drekker, but Theodore reminded her that the Drekker doesn't have any reasons to attack them.
"And there's no reason for it being here, either, but here we are," Lila murmured as she begrudgingly walked with Theodore, her heart beating against her chest, her arm clung to his as they braved themselves, walking opposite of the Drekker, eyes forward, and their hearts beating loudly.
Theodore comforted Lila as he held her hand over his arm with his free hand, as he led them forward, closer to the Drekker, now, trying hard not to look it directly in the eyes.
In the database, apparently, one of the unwise things to do when dealing with one of these things's looking at it directly in the eye, it could construed as a challenge or a threat, may even charge at them just to see what they'd do.
Getting their untoward attention's a dangerous prospect, that it's safer not to cross eyes with one, especially the aptly dubbed big ones, as they aren't hesitated in attacking any threats to their flocks.
Their legs wobbling, Theodore and Lila forced themselves to continue, as they're directly across from the Drekker, now, hearing it as it chattered.
Nearly leapt in the air when they heard a man scream and the Drekker turned its head, the beak swaying in the breeze as it cut through it, its dagger eyes squarely on a man in the distance, wearing the plague doctor costume.
Theodore and Lila halted in their spot, frozen in fear, as they heard a low hiss coming from the Drekker.
His hand firm on Lila's, Theodore heard the low hiss into a guttered growl, as he sees the man in the plague doctor costume recoil in fear, his heavy breathing echoing inside the mask.
Al mentioned the Drekker weren't keen on seeing people dressed in that outfit, how he mentioned an incident where someone gotten killed over it, and Theodore sees that they're witnessing something like it, only there's no way to save the man, due to him and the Drekker being a simulation.
He hoped.
Instinctively, Theodore grabbed Lila and held her close as he heard the Drekker gave chase after the man as he panicked before running away as the Drekker went after him.
Theodore sees with his own two eyes how fast the usually lumbering Drekker can become when enraged or hunting.
From lumbering to fast, within seconds, it closed the distance between it and the man as he ran into the thick fog, screaming at the top of his lungs.
Only when they stopped hearing the shouting, did Theodore and Lila animate, and shared looks with each other as Lila gripped Theodore.
"Even in simulation, it scares the… ugh… out of me!" Lila coughed mid sentence as Theodore rubbed her back, comforting her as she laid her head on his chest, trying to gain back the feeling in her legs as she heard his two beating hearts.
Calling out to him, Theodore requested Al's presence, but the AI didn't appear, so he reached out to him telepathically, and Al finally answers.
"Al, something isn't right, the simulation animated Drekker!" Theodore tells Al about what just happened and Al says he saw it, too, in code!
Al says that something happened and the simulation added the Drekker into it, which he says shouldn't been possible possible, but somehow it accurately replicated the creature.
As Theodore suspected, Al says he doesn't see any references to the boorish creatures in this universe, meaning there isn't any way for Samuels Argyle to know about them enough to add them to the simulation himself, even accidentally.
The equipment somehow drew from what Theodore and Lila said, somehow put everything together, and simulated it with an uncanny accuracy.
"Listen, you two spent enough time in O' Victoria, let me get you out of there. There's a pub near you, O'Malleys, get inside, and you'll be out of there in no time!" Al instructed Theodore in getting out of the simulation and back into reality, nodding, Theodore says they'll make their way to the pub while Al's trying to understand how the equipment gotten the Drekker accurate.
Breaking off from the telepathic conversation, Theodore relays it to Lila, and she's agreed with the assessment of them leaving the simulation before anything else happens!
Together, the two made their way to the pub, Theodore went to the door, it didn't open initially, but he forced it open with his strength.
Opening it, Theodore led Lila inside, and they're standing in a different area, completely.
When they turned their head back, the door behind them's gone, and as they turned back, they see their new surroundings.
Well, not sure how to explain it, but it wasn't like they're in another part of history, rather, Theodore isn't sure how to describe it.
"Um, Al, this isn't the way out," Theodore tells him telepathically as he surveyed the unusually spacious area with no detail, colours muted, looked like a new age art piece as his icy blue eyes glances around.
Al gotten back to him as he says the equipment found out that he's messing around and is forcing him out despite his attempts at circumventing it.
He's trying to force it to let Theodore and Lila go, but the equipment's overwriting his attempts as he's trying.
They're in the negative space of the simulation, a test area, if you will, where it periodically tested simulations before enacting them.
It wasn't meant for people to experience, it was something to watch from the computers, to make sure things worked before Samuels Argyle sent people through to test it for real.
"I'm trying my best, but I think it recognizes you, kid, I don't know how, but I think it knows you're the Doctor," Al warns Theodore the equipment's potentially sentient, recognizing him easily as the Doctor, and is attempting at thwarting Al's attempts at overwriting it in order to do something to him.
What that is, Al doesn't know, but he's struggling.
"I keep seeing a word, "Almar," in the coding. Don't look like any coding language I ever heard of," Al tells Theodore he's seeing a word periodically in the coding for the equipment as he's trying to crack it and force it to allow Theodore and Lila out of the simulation.
Almar.
Doesn't translate into anything that Al's capable of deducing, doesn't seem to be anything that a coding used.
None of this made any sense and he's trying to do fifty things at once!
Relaying what Al's telling him to Lila, Theodore then asked Al where the nearest door out of the simulation would've been and Al told him, "Try next to the swirly columns."
With the knowledge, Theodore hurried with Lila to the swirly columns as their footsteps made no sound under them, above them, there's even pink effects that highlighted around their feet as they're running.
Reaching the flat wall, Theodore reached out and felt it, looking for a door, and the wall felt unusually textured, despite looking flat, it felt like he's touching cobbled stone.
Lila attempted to help him find the door, but the moment she touched the wall, she nearly toppled backwards from an electrical shock from hell, causing Theodore to break from the wall, rushing to her side as she held her hand in agony.
It felt like she gotten shocked by touching live wire, her hand wobbled as the muscles retracted from the shock, as Lila felt her legs wobble, Theodore holding her up.
Immediately, Theodore checked to make sure she's fine, his large hand gingerly touching her face, as she animated, responding that she's fine, the only causality's the hair product she used to get her hair to look nice for tonight.
Ensuring that she didn't suffer from any permanent damage, Theodore turned back to the wall, his icy blue eyes flickered with anger as he reached into his pocket, and brought out his Sonic Screwdriver, using it on the wall, trying to force it to reveal the door out of the simulation proper.
It didn't work, like a puddle, the wall animated from the jolt, but it wouldn't stubbornly reveal the door.
Seeing it didn't work, Theodore telepathically tells Al, he's going to use a different method escaping the simulation.
It's the one thing he suspects the equipment didn't know about him outside the title.
"If you can work it, kid, it could be enough to get out of there, but I don't think you're getting out of there!" Al tells him that the equipment's starting malevolently affect the museum outside the exhibits due to the sensors.
Even if they escape the testing area, they're still in the simulation, and worse, the equipment's also starting to reject the changes made to it by Samuels Argyle.
Panicking, Theodore asks if there's anything Al can do in stopping the equipment, only for Al to tell him that he can't do much, now, he had to pull out of the coding or else the equipment would've locked him down.
"I can't even access the sprinkler system, it's locking down everything!" Al warns Theodore that the equipment's locking down everything from phones to sprinkler systems, keeping everyone inside the museum.
Ushering him, Al said he'll keep trying, but for now, for him and Lila to escape.
Relaying this to Lila externally, Theodore reached out into the open space, channeling what his late father taught him, and his hand disappeared into the unseen tear he forced open.
Holding Lila close, they entered, and at the end, they're out of the testing simulation, and in the main area with the entrances to the different exhibits.
For the most part, it remained normal, but as they glanced around, they saw the entrances to the different exhibits closed off, no way of getting inside them.
On his mind, thoughts raced, as he's trying to come up with a way to save the guests, Theodore chewed on his inner lip.
The equipment's capable of deducing what they're talking about and make it so, what else was it capable of?
"Almar, Almar, what kind of word is that?" Theodore murmured as he tried to think.
He was stopped when he noticed a presence near them and turned his head to look.
It was the Drekker.
It's blue eyes squarely on Theodore's.
"Can you understand me?" Theodore asks the Drekker, hoping to communicate with the equipment himself. "If I'm the one you're after, let them go."
The Drekker let out a low hiss at him, but Theodore persisted as Lila hid behind him.
"Almar, what is it?" Theodore pointedly asks the Drekker. "What is your purpose?"
Instead of telling him anything, the Drekker let out a guttered growl, before lunging after Theodore and Lila as they fled through the winding halls, evading the angry projection.