The lobby was hauntingly devoid of life. The lights glimmered unnaturally, high overhead. A pin falling to the ground would have sounded like an anvil dropping; a whisper like a thousand snakes hissing. The bolted gates across the staircase and the chameleon-esque doors that sunk into the walls made the room feel like a stretched out prison cell to Amy and the Doctor, who looked around for anything that would signal their next move.
''We need to find his ship,'' motioned the Doctor. ''If you were sucked into a black hole and transported to another dimension, where in a mostly real and even more mostly fake ex-hotel would you hide a spaceship?''
''I'll let you know when I've finished deciphering that sentence,'' affirmed Amy. ''We still don't know how the hotel is connected to the ship, now that you mention it.''
''Or what it's even doing here,'' added the Doctor, spinning around looking for nothing in particular. ''An entire skyscraper can't just fall out of the sky, somebody would have seen-'' the Doctor stopped mid-sentence and ceased revolving on the spot. He stared blankly at another.
''Amy,'' he continued, ''tell me I'm a genius.''
''Like you need the ego boost,'' Amy responded drily. The Doctor looked baffled. Amy shook her head in a 'never-mind' way.
''You're a genius,'' she commiserated. ''And you look dashing in that jacket,'' she added facetiously.
''Do you think so? I've been considering moving up to leather late-''
''Don't push it.'''
''Anyway, it's right there in front of me. It has been the whole time. I should have seen it before now.''
''Maybe you're not as smart as you think,'' sassed Amy.
''Amy, what have I said about being ridiculous?'' the Doctor tittered back. Amy rolled her eyes and half-smiled.
''Alright, brainiac,'' she said, ''ramble away.''
''The meteor,'' stated the Doctor simply.
''The one that destroyed the hotel?''
''Think about it. Surely there were people watching the sky yet no one saw the meteor coming. No astrologists, no scientists, no one. Huge big chunk of rock flying towards the biggest holiday destination, the biggest building in the country. The people inside were all locked up and blocking out the rest of the world so it makes sense for them to not notice, but the rest of the world didn't see it coming either. It's like the meteor was cloaked. Like it was-''
''-wasn't a meteor at all,'' finished Amy. ''You think it was the ship?''
''I think now we know what happened inside the black hole,'' the Doctor suggested. ''The bad guys and their ship both arrived here but not at the same time. The smoke… things, and their pets, got here first and started doing the only thing they knew how.''
''Sucking the fun out of the place,'' Amy chipped in. ''Literally.''
''But it had to have been for a purpose,'' the Doctor continued. ''You saw what they were like in the memories. They even spoke about how the ship was here, and that was before the 'meteor' came down.''
''So how can the meteor be the ship if the ship was already here when it crashed?''
The Doctor considered this.
''Maybe the 'meteor' wasn't the whole ship,'' he thought out loud. ''Naros told his brother not to leave the lower deck, and where did we find him? The maintenance rooms. How many buildings have tunnels leading to an underground, glorified janitor's closet?''
''So if that's the lower deck of their ship,'' said Amy, realising what the Doctor was onto and puffing up her cheeks with a grin, ''and there's nothing above it but the lobby, then the upper deck must be-''
''-very high up indeed. It fell apart. The must have fallen apart in the black hole. Or, more accurately, two parts.''
The Doctor suddenly looked to the corner of his eye. He rushed around the other side of the administration counter and began rummaging through the drawers.
''What are you looking for?'' enquired Amy.
''Everything we figure out, every piece we put together, none of it explains how there's a massive structure just conveniently standing here for it all to be figured out in the first place,'' complained the Doctor while tossing rubbish over his shoulder and digging deeper into the hardwood mines of Alison's clerical files. ''There's no way the Reaper could reconstruct this hotel with such few resources.''
He found what he was looking for: the scanning device Alison used to check people into the hotel. He held it in his hand and perused Amy with its red detector. Checking the back once he was done, the Doctor's face lit up like a light bulb was shining above his head.
''Haven't you already got enough toys to play with?'' Amy jested.
''Recognise this red light? Scanners like these are usually green. Well, always, green. Well, mostly green. There is this one place on Mars that insists on everything being shades of magenta. Or at least the owner does. He's afraid of the other colours, they were mean to him in the Rainbow Sky of Bellray Four-''
''Doctor,'' Amy interrupted drily.
''I've been wanting to get a look at this thing since we got here,'' the Doctor continued. ''This must be connected to the signal shooting up the centre of the building, so it can alter the perception of its user. That's how Alison never got suspicious when people arrived who weren't on the guest list.''
''How many more things have you noticed that you aren't going to tell me?'' asked Amy.
''I've noticed things that I haven't told myself yet,'' the Doctor answered. ''They'll come around eventually. Anyway, maybe we can use this scanner to see what this place is really hiding. We just need to get back to the lower deck of the Reaper's ship. That seems like the best place to start.''
''We can't go back there,'' cried Amy, ''It's filled with Raxer-… those dogs and smoke-guy's smoke-brother.''
''Ever the master of articulation, Pond,'' the Doctor jived.
''Oh, shut it space boy.''
''Oi, space man I can handle but space boy is just… just degrading.''
Amy pulled a face that had indifference written all over it.
''Okay, into the ship we go, but you first,'' said Amy. ''Space boy,'' she added quickly. The Doctor glared at her before they made their way across the desolate lobby to the maintenance door. Shutting the door behind them, they left the empty wasteland of the once grandeur filled room in its quiet state of melancholy.
Down the bleak tunnel and back into the perilous cesspool of the maintenance room the Doctor and Amy went. An old, poorly kept room hiding an even older one, the alien spacecraft was as decrepit as when they had first found it. They crept around the many chattering computers and muffled the delicate splash of water droplets with the careful patter of their own footsteps.
Reaching the veiled door in the corner, they went through as quietly as they could into the room with eight doors. From the shadows of the ceiling, several Raxillion crawled into the light, discreetly watching the duo trespass in their home.
''Alright, Amy, pick a door,'' the Doctor chirped.
''All of them,'' Amy spoke without hesitation.
''Good answer,'' said the Doctor, ''but let's find out the easy way.''
He held the sonic screwdriver high above his head and activated the switch. It buzzed annoyingly, like it was struggling to live up to its purpose. Sparks flew out of the end and the power in the sonic, along with the light in the entire room, died out.
''Oh, this place just isn't your friend, is it?'' said the Doctor to his sonic like a mother to a baby. Plunged into total darkness, the Doctor and Amy waited quietly until the mysterious red light around one of the doors faded back into view, stronger than before.
''I guess we're going that way,'' shrugged Amy, skipping over to the door and waltzing through. The Doctor was still paying attention only to the sonic.
''When we get out of here,'' he muttered, ''we'll find a nice door for you to open that won't make any-''
He looked up and realised there was nobody else in the room.
''Oh,'' he said, gaping awkwardly and looking back down to the sonic in horror. ''I'm talking to a screwdriver.''
Putting it discreetly back in his pocket as if there was someone watching him, he trotted out after Amy.