She stepped into an open doorway, seeing the control room through the opening. But what she saw made her stop cold. She ducked back into the hallway, spinning around and pressing her back to the wall. She didn't even dare to breathe for a moment, straining her ears to hear what was happening.
"What about the girl?" a gurgling voice asked, surprisingly in English.
"Leave her, the extra dose of toxin she received will be fatal, she won't last a day," another voice said, also in English. "You two, stay here in the box with the girl. You two, come with me, we will bring this device back to our ship for study."
"What about that man, the alien? We haven't found him yet," one voice asked.
"We will let our superiors worry about him. As far as I'm concerned, our mission was a success and the alien is likely dead," the second one, the leader, answered.
The girl could hear some shuffling about, and then three pairs of footsteps leaving the ship, the door shutting behind them.
"What do you suppose they'll do with those boys we captured?" one of the guards asked the other.
"Probably experiment on 'em like the others," the other guard replied. "Pity too, that brunette was cute."
"Good enough to eat," the first one added, and they both laughed; it was a gargling sound, almost like someone drowning.
The girl let out her breath and silently cursed their stupidity. The ship had seen them after all, when they were on the tracks, in their buggies, and it had kept an eye on them. They had led the aliens straight to the box! And what's worse, they had left the door open for them. The thought made the girl freeze even more than she already was; she realized that one of the boys had left the door open, but which one? And had it been intentional, or an oversight? The latter seemed unlikely, as they all had known that there were hostile aliens hanging overhead, ready to capture or kill. So, did that mean that one of the boys was working with the aliens? Or, had one of them been replaced?
Suddenly, the girl remembered the first name on the list: Asudine; they were shape shifters. Had she recognized the signs of a shifted alien in one of the boys? Or had it been the technology? She didn't know, but something felt off, and she was certain that if she saw the aliens onboard the ship, it would all fall into place. But exposing herself was risky, they might see her, and she might get caught. Right now, she was the only one of the group that was free, so if she was captured, that would be the end of it.
She inched closer to the door way and peeked around the wall, cautiously looking into the control room. She saw them, two fish-faced aliens, with large black eyes, bright blue scales, gills, and delicate looking ruffles at the tops and sides of their heads. When they opened their mouths, the girl saw rows of long, sharp teeth, and black, viscous goo. The girl knew they were one of the aliens on the list, that they were the other name she recognized: the Svinge'vat. As she watched, one of the aliens pulled out a small cylinder from its belt and pushed the top of it, spraying itself with water. The girl recognized the device, it contained highly compressed water, and so it could store quite a bit of it. Just one of those cylinders could last for days. As the alien replaced the device, the girl saw the aliens' guns sitting in their holsters, looking like harmless toys. But she had seen what one of those could do, and she knew better. And then she noticed a third gun lying on the floor beneath the steps, likely lost in the struggle with the boys. They didn't seem to notice it, which was good, and it could even come in hand, if she could get to it.
She felt around her pockets and searched the inside of her satchel, looking for some way to get out of this situation. She found the wand device she had used to open the box, and wondered what else it could do; she doubted it was just a key. But the device looked complicated and tricky, with different buttons and no way to know what they all did. Then she remembered how easily she had opened the door, and then how the ship had maneuvered her to the different rooms; it was like they could read her mind, and maybe, just maybe, it could. If this technology had some kind of telepathic interface, that could explain everything. The ship didn't have to be sentient, and neither did the wand device, they could just be programmed to react to her thoughts and situation.
She really hoped that her theory was right. She peeked out of the doorway, barely exposing her face and hands, pointing the wand at one of the guards. Then she pressed a button and imagined what she wanted to happen as clearly as she could. The guard's gun started smoking. The other guard was the first to notice, and when the first guard noticed his smoking gun, he quickly reached to take it off, but found it was too hot to touch. He fiddled with the holster's clip on his belt. The girl pointed the wand and did the same to the other guard's gun, and he reacted much in the same way.
The girl used this distraction to creep out of hiding and make her way to the third gun, going as quickly and quietly as possible. She reached the gun, pointed it at the guards, and froze. With her finger on the trigger and an alien life in her sights, she found that she couldn't take that final plunge, even though they were threatening her life and the lives of everyone she knew, she couldn't do it, she couldn't pull the trigger.
The guards were still distracted, they had gotten their holsters off by now, but their guns were ablaze on the ground and they were trying to extinguish the flames. One of the guards was using his jacket, and the other was squirting the flames with his misting cylinder, thinking the condensed water would be enough. Neither was particularly effective. But that did give the girl an idea. She examined the gun, found the controls, and set the beam to a high intensity, narrow, non-lethal setting. Then she aimed her gun and shot.
One of the small, spherical devices attached to one of the guard's belts suddenly started gushing out purple smoke. The guards realized what was happening, but too late, they reached for the breathing filters on their belts, but forgot what they were doing and froze mid action. They stood there dumbly, looking out into space. The girl had guessed correctly, they were carrying smoke grenades, filled with the memory gas, which they were not immune to. As the smoke spread throughout the room, quickly closing in on the girl, she reached into her satchel and drank the liquid from one of the orange vials. The antidote should be effective for twelve hours, but even if it wasn't, it would do the trick for now.
All at once the ventilation system kicked in, as did the sprinklers. And a few minutes later the girl found herself alone in a soaking room, drenched to the skin.
She went over to the woman, still unconscious, and quickly gave her the antidote, trying to keep the two alien guards in her sight. She was pretty sure that they would be unconscious for hours, and be forgetful for much longer; considering the effects of the gas, it must have been very concentrated. But she still didn't want to take any unnecessary risks.
It took a few minutes, but eventually she had dragged both guards to a corner of the irregular room, placing them both halfway underneath a staircase and tying them up with their belts. When the girl had finished tying up the guards, she returned to the woman, and it was like magic, she was awake and up and fairly lucid.
"Whoa, are you alright?" the girl asked.
"Huh, who are you?" the woman responded. "And what are you doing in the Tardis?"
"Huh, Tardis?" the girl said, confused.
The woman motioned around, indicating the ship. Then she slowly got to her feet, glaring at the girl, but as she tried to stand, her legs wobbled so badly that she had to sit back down.
"That's the effects of the memory gas," the girl explained. "I gave you the antidote though, so you should be alright… and as for who I am, I don't really know, I still don' have any memories, even though I took the antidote I still haven't gotten them back. And for your other question: me and four guys found this box with you in front of it and opened it up with one of these wand things," the girl held up the device.
"The Doctor's sonic screwdriver!" the woman exclaimed, a blush of indignation starting to creep up her face.
"So anyway, these bad alien guys broke into the Tardis and kidnapped the guys I was with," the girl said. "And, I knocked two of 'em unconscious, they're over there," she pointed to them. "I used their memory gas on 'em, so they should be fairly useless for hours."
The woman looked back at the girl, the indignation falling away and being replaced with a reserved respect.
"I'm Clara," the woman introduced herself.
"Nice to meet 'cha," the girl said. "….So, um, who's this doctor you were talking about? Is he a friend?"
"Yes, he is. And, I don't know where he is, or even if he's okay," Clara responded.
"So you're looking for him?" the girl said. "Are you… aliens?"
"He is. I'm human," Clara answered. "This is his ship, a time machine called a Tardis, it's an acronym for Time and Relative Dimension in Space."
"Are you good guys?" the girl asked.
Clara laughed. "You could call us that, yes. We do fly around time and space helping people after all."
"Are you going to help us with these aliens?" the girl asked, handing Clara the sonic screwdrivers and gun she had with her.
"Yes, that was the plan. But then we got captured, and the Doctor got hurt. I escaped, and I've trying to find him ever since. And I thought I had found him, but it was one of those aliens, they looked like him, copied him right down to the boots, and I got knocked out again."
"What does he look like?" the girl asked. "Maybe I can find him, and then we can stop these aliens together."
Clara looked at the girl apologetically. "That's just it. I'm not sure what he looks like: whenever he's seriously injured his body regenerates, and he looks like a completely different person, different personality too, but same Doctor underneath it all."
"Then how do we know when we find him?" the girl asked. "I mean, if he was in the city when those aliens dropped that memory gas on it, then he won't remember anything, and he'll probably be confused too."
"They dropped memory gas on the city!" Clara exclaimed, not remembering; a touch of anger returned to her face. "Well, we'll set those aliens straight. They're not going to get away with this. As for the Doctor, all we have to do is scan him with one of the screwdrivers. Let me show you."
She managed to stand up, the gas's effects wearing off.
"But first… you should keep this," Clara said, handing the other screwdriver back to the girl, explaining. "This way we can both look for him."
The girl took the screwdriver, feeling a flush of pride in being entrusted with the device. Clara went to the control panel/ console in the middle of the room to continue her explanation.
"The Doctor's physiology is different than ours," Clara explained. "So after you scan someone, all you have to do is check the results," Clara ran her screwdriver over the girl and then put its head against a nearby monitor that was suspended at eyelevel.
"The Doctor's race, the Time Lords, they have two hearts. This is fairly rare, and as you can see, us humans only have one… heart?" Clara said, pausing as she looked at the monitor.
"But that's… impossible" Clara said. "There must be some malfunction."
Clara scanned herself and put the image up on the monitor, it showed one heart, like it should. Then Clara scanned the girl again and put the image up; there were clearly two hearts.
"Doctor?" Clara said, looking at the girl.