Freed from their cell, Theodore and Lila went through the creamy-coloured hallways with Jamie and Ròs guiding them while watchful of the cameras and any lingering soldiers patrolling the hallways of the building.
They're brought to the lock-up where inside, they retrieved their possessions stowed away in the aisles, Theodore rejoined with his Sonic Screwdriver, the exterior swapped to look more like a pen, nothing that indicated anything unusual about it.
"Now, what are you going to do?" Jamie asked Theodore as he covertly looked around the corners of the hallway, they're in, before telling him, he wants to see the patients.
"We're already risking it breaking you two out, you can't expect to walk through those doors," Ròs tells Theodore that it isn't simple like he thinks it is, however Theodore showed her his pearly whites as he tells her, he has a plan.
"What plan could you possibly have, that paper's no good, everyone knows your face!" Jamie spat at this before Theodore showed him something he brought along for such an occasion.
His father's old pocket watch, adapted to fit Theodore's needs, he says that he fiddled with it over the weekend, now they're in business.
"Maybe I can't walk through those doors, as you say, but I never said I was, did I?" Theodore gave a mischievous grin to Jamie before opening his pocket watch.
With a tap of the button, the four became obscured, though they were never there, before Theodore's guided towards the doors leading into the medial bay.
There, he gave instructions to Jamie and Ròs, though no one can see or hear them, they ought to know that if they stray too far from Theodore, the 'obscura' fails.
Should be mindful where they walk, they're able to interact with objects and people, but Theodore warned against doing it unabashedly, again, the 'obscura' fails.
Timing the charge in the pocket watch, Theodore concluded they have roughly three hours before it needed charging.
Old and all that, Theodore tried his best, but he didn't have the means to upgrade it further than what he and Al found around the TARDIS.
"What're we looking for?" Lila asks Theodore as he pushed the doors open, leading them through, watchful of anyone walking through the hallway.
His icy blue eyes darting as he led them, Theodore tells her that he wants to scan the patients with the Sonic Screwdriver, seeing if they get their answers that way, then afterwards, find the paperwork regarding the patients.
Nodding, Lila trailed closely behind him as Jamie pointed them the way, Ròs watching for any doctor or nurses coming through the hallways.
Strangely, Ròs noticed that there weren't any petering between the rooms, nothing but the sounds of machines dully beeping.
Noticing this, Theodore looked towards Jamie for guidance, and he replied that since it happened, the medical ward's always busied.
"Something's wrong," Ròs concluded that something happened, hair on the back of her neck stood up, Jamie tried reasoning with her, but she tells him that they wouldn't leave the medical ward exposed like this.
Curious, Lila asks about patrolling through the medical ward, which Ròs informed her that when the incident happened, it became restricted, no one's allowed to patrol through the medical ward.
"The doctors thought it would agitate the patients," Ròs recalled the reasoning for why the patrols started stopping short of the doors leading into the medical ward.
Blinking, Theodore asks if that's happened before, Ròs telling him that it never did until, now.
Seeing open doors, Theodore poked his head through, seeing no one manning the lab, no one in the break room, the offices empty, and Jamie confirmed that no one leaves the medical ward empty.
The doctors and nurses have a different schedule they follow from UNIT soldiers, obviously, but they have it where when shifts change, it's seamless.
If they have staffing issues for whatever reason, they condense the workforce and have more patrolmen walking through the hallways.
An emergency, everyone would've known instantly, and they'd work to evacuate the patients, guard them, whatever the case presents itself.
Seeing the empty rooms, Jamie felt the same nervousness as Ròs, going far as pulling her close to him, while they investigated more rooms, seeing them empty.
It worsened when they discovered the patients absent from their beds.
"Ian? Cody? Richie? Where did they go?" Jamie's aghast seeing the empty beds, he reached for a clipboard, but it didn't say anything about a procedure scheduled for this hour, and he showed this to Theodore as he moved around the empty room that once held twelve patients.
Seeing the empty beds, Theodore deduced that the patients weren't taken out of their beds, rather, it looked like they simply got up, themselves.
Snorting, Jamie pointed out that on the clipboard, it's impossible for them getting out of bed on their own, they're all in medically induced comas.
"How's this possible?" Ròs found it difficult believing that the soldiers gotten up from their medically induced comas without the nurses and doctors knowing.
Looking over another clipboard, seeing it's the same as the one Jamie read from, Theodore frowns as he responded with, "The meteorite, of course."
The exposure to the meteorite caused changes within the soldiers, it was methodically slow, now the effect reared its head.
Reaching out to Al, Theodore received word that Al gone out, and looked for the meteorite, wanting to study it more, but found that it's been removed from where it landed.
"Did the science branch take it?" Theodore asks if it was possible that they took it for their curiosity, but Al says nothing showed up in his attempts for answers, that to him, it looked like someone else took the meteorite.
Curious, Theodore asked what purpose would taking a meteorite serve, which Al says that outside the usual suspects, studying it, making something neat with the diamond cut meteorite shards, he can't come up with an idea that isn't ludicrous.
"Ludicrous sounds about our luck, Al, the soldiers already started showing further symptoms and gotten out of their beds from their medically induced comas, how's that possible?" Theodore informed him what he and the others found, causing Al to mumble as he searched through his scanners, before replying that if he had to bet his last poker chip, it sounds like something's in the meteorite, but not an alien in the sense that Theodore's familiar with.
"Can't get much of a sample, though, everything burning up when it descended and all that," Al informs him.
Hearing this, Theodore sucked air through his teeth, asking where Al hid, and he told him that he hid in the one place that UNIT didn't think to look.
Inside the huge satellite dish on the hill.
It's large enough that he hid with relative ease and managed to work his way into the power source, so no one can spot him on the scanners. They'll think it's the satellite dish itself and won't get curious.
"Fine, stay there until otherwise," Theodore ordered him before turning his attention towards one of the beds he passed over, an idea crossed his mind.
He asked if Al's capable of obtaining the results from the Sonic Screwdriver and Al exclaimed that it's easy!
With his Sonic Screwdriver, Theodore waved it over the empty bed, before sending the results to Al for processing, and he confirmed that he reads the same signature as the hole made by the meteorite.
"Fresh, that's good, yeah. That's weird…" Al sounded confused at the end and Theodore asked what he's talking about, causing Al to tell him that the signatures from the bed show mid-levels of radiation.
It wouldn't be anything noteworthy considering that the soldiers encountered the meteorite, but as Al went through the scanners, he says that it's impossible, even if they spent some time by the meteorite.
"What are you thinking?" Theodore asked Al's opinion and Al told him that when the soldiers stumbled over the meteorite, the noxious fumes produced by the high heat as the meteorite traveled would have been enough to knock them off their socks if they were foolish enough to stick their heads over the hole.
They would've felt the heat radiating where they're standing, no reason for them getting that close to the meteorite in the first place, they would've radioed it in to the science branch and headquarters, leading Al into suspecting that there's a rat in the nest.
"Someone had to have gone out there, either before or after it came down, someone with enough weight to make sure no one knew it happened, and they had to known where those soldiers were going for their exercises," Al summed what he believed's a conspiracy.
Someone knew the meteorite would land, did everything in their power preventing anyone from finding out, made sure the soldiers went out to the exact area where the meteorite landed, and ensured they're exposed to it long enough to show symptoms, further preventing them from telling the doctors and the nurses.
"Why?" Theodore questioned the conspiracy Al's trying to legitimize and Al informed him that it takes less to start a conspiracy.
Pointing out that Theodore encountered his share during his time as the Doctor, he should've had the knack to spot the threads earlier.
"Just, keep us posted on anything that changes, hm?" Theodore sighed as he sent Al off from his head, continuing their search for answers, while Al worked in the background looking for anyone sticking out that had enough clout and the rank that went with it that nobody suspected unusual.
Of course, Theodore reminded him of coverups and ways avoiding detection, but Al swears he's good at his job, now Theodore ought to do his.
In another part of the medical ward, Theodore tasted something funny, bubbling on his tongue, and when they approached the lockup where the soldiers' belongings went after they were brought to the medical ward, his icy blue eyes widened.
Preventing them from stepping closer, Theodore warned them, "It's radioactive!"
Impossible, he knows, but the clothes used by the soldiers during their exercise became as radioactive as their wearers.
"How on earth could've that happened?" Theodore heard Ròs as she stared at the door leading into the lockup, looking unassuming, but Theodore warned against going towards it.
Chewing on his inner lip, it prompted Theodore to tell her, "Someone is conspiring, Corporal Ramsay, I don't know who, but it's someone here."
The fact no one's alerted by the radiation seeping through the lockup as Theodore herded the three away from, it led credence into Al's theory that someone among them isn't who they say they are and have an agenda involving the radioactive exposure of the soldiers.
What reasons, difficult to say, but considering the soldiers aren't where they should be and they haven't found anyone working in the medical ward, it's enough for Theodore to warn the three to stay close to him.
Unfortunately, as expected, the radiation's messing with the pocket watch, he sees the power blimp periodically, even despite them far from the lockup, causing concerns the medical ward became a hotspot.
He's forced into turning it off and stowing it in his stitched pocket, conserving what little charge's left on it for another time, leaving him to tend with the realization that the medical ward's becoming impossibly radioactive.
Wanting no risk of exposure because of their proximity, Theodore had Jamie and Ròs lead them out of the medical ward, Lila helping him tape off the doors while he locked them with the Sonic Screwdriver.
"How's this possible?" Ròs questioned how this happened on their watch, which Theodore informed her that it was like he said, someone among them isn't who they say they are, and conspired against them.
Baffled, Jamie goes, "What do they get out of doing this, we're not even a major branch, we don't even have the logistics like one?"
Some would think taking over a UNIT branch served plenty of purposes, Theodore would agree with them, but he says that he can't be sure until they rule everything out or capture an affected soldier to interrogate.
Easier said than done, Theodore's aware, but he wanted to rule everything out while Al worked in the background, now with the knowledge that radioactivity's spiking in areas of UNIT.
"What are we supposed to do other than sucking on iodine pills?" Jamie looked towards Theodore for guidance as he's unnerved that the medical ward's turning into a radioactive hub despite no indicators prior.
Sucking air through his teeth, Theodore told him that he can track the radiation with his Sonic Screwdriver, but he wanted Jamie and the women finding iodine pills and warning anyone who isn't affected of the situation.
"What are you doing?" Lila raised an eyebrow at him as she sees cogs in his head turning, before Theodore tells her that he planned on searching for the hottest part of the building.
Find that, find the soldiers.
He sees the doubt in her chestnut eyes, before he comforted her, telling her that he'll be fine, but she didn't believe him, reminding him of the radiation.
"Worry not, my dear Watson, I'm the Doctor, remember?" Theodore winks at her, still unconvinced.