The Doctor didn't stay still for long. He had always refused to enter into any kind of a depression. Maybe there was some way out of here. Even if he wasn't going to use it yet, it would be good to know that there was an out.

He grimaced as he turned towards the door, rubbing the back of his neck. It still hurt where the rectangle sat, something that was very odd. He had expected the pain to dissipate. Ignoring the ache, the Doctor stuck his fingers in the door grate with the intention of pulling himself up to look outside and judge the distance to the keypad. Instead, the door swung in. The Doctor instantly let go. It slammed shut of its own power.

"It won't get you anywhere."

He glanced behind him. Only one of the people, a forty something woman by herself in a corner, was looking at him. Somehow, she seemed to have retained a small spark that the others had lost.

"The door's open," the Doctor said to her.

"The door is always open. Just like every other door in this place."

"Then why haven't you left?"

The woman simply blinked, as though the answer were painfully clear. Curious, the Doctor grabbed the handle and pulled. The door opened easily.

Despite the obvious simplicity, the Doctor stepped forward. Nothing happened, so he took another step, placing himself in the hallway.

Sounds of grating stone wracked his ears as the floor dropped away in front of him. He gasped and swayed on the edge. Staring across the gap, he noticed the walls around him shifting as well. A new hallway opened at the same time the original one closed off, and all down the new hallway walls were moving.

The Doctor pushed back against the door. It opened and he fell back into the cell. He heard the stone shift again, and when he looked he saw it had reverted back to the way it was before.

"Okay. Moving walls. Unlocked door, but moving walls and vanishing floor. That's new."

"You knew it wouldn't get you anywhere," the woman's voice said.

"Why does it do that?"

"The Labyrinth is a living thing," the woman answered. Her voice was toneless except for the barest hint of irritation. "Step beyond the door to your cell and it all moves one way. Stay in your cell and it all moves back. No possible way out, because it's always changing. Only the guards can get through. They've got something installed in their heads that directs them."

"And the collars?"

"The only thing we have to mark our time here," the woman said in the same voice. "You should know all of this. It isn't as though you're some new Fiver fresh from the field."

"Fiver? Is that what they call new prisoners?"

"Yes. Why are you asking this?"

The Doctor gave one of his sideways nods and came to sit down next to the woman. "I guess you could call me a Fiver then. Only just got processed."

"Impossible," the woman said, her voice picking up just a hint of life. "No one new ever comes to Level Three. Let me see your collar."

The Doctor obediently moved his head to the side. He could feel the woman lightly touching his neck around the collar.

"No chaffing yet…no rust or stains of any kind…newly attached…definitely a red…" Her voice trailed off as she took her hands away. "How did you manage to get into Level Three so fast?"

"No idea," the Doctor said, putting his head up again. He gestured to the woman's neck. "May I?"

The woman rolled her head to the side, moving her short brown hair out of the way. The Doctor shifted so that he was crouching instead of sitting, mindlessly taking note of the thread-like vine pattern on her neck. Another hybrid, that was all. He ignored that and looked closely at her collar. It looked a little tarnished, and the red marks around it showed that it had been around her neck for a long time. The small rectangle at the back of her neck was glowing red, with a string of blinking white lights right in the center of it.

"It looks like it's connected to your skin."

"Close to it," the woman said, putting her hair back down and looking at the Doctor. "As near as I can figure, it's attached to the spinal cord. Possibly the brain stem, but it seems a little unlikely. But who knows? It's not like I can take x-rays down here."

"Nurse?"

"Doctor actually. I worked the field as a medic before I got captured." She held out her hand. "Jennifer Nance."

The Doctor took her hand. "I'm the Doctor."

"You got a last name?"

"No, just the Doctor."

Jennifer smiled stiffly, as though she hadn't forced her muscles to do it in many years. "Bit proud of your degree, aren't you?"

The Doctor gave a smile in return. "Depends on who you talk to. So, Doctor Jennifer Nance, what's with the levels in this place?"

"Whenever it is that you're first captured, arrested, or whatever else, you get placed on Level Five. That's the lowest level here. You start with a green light, then eventually it changes to orange and you move to Level Four. Red gets you here."

"How long do you spend on a level?"

"There isn't any real limit," Jennifer said with a shrug. "Not that I'd be able to tell anyway. You lose track of time in a place like this. You just wait. Your light changes, guards show up, and you get moved. That's all."

"So this Labyrinth," the Doctor asked after a moment's silence, "they have all the walls changing…why?"

"Don't know. Just how it's always been. It's more of a psychological prison than anything. Doors open, and there's nothing really keeping you in, but if you step out that door and start walking you never know where you'll end up. That and the collars don't exactly help with the human feel. It's all just waiting. Nothing to do but wait."

"That must get old."

"Or you do," Jennifer mused cynically. "What exactly are you in for, anyway? Must be something right on the line."

"The line? Is that slang for something?"

"Not popularly. It's my way of thinking of crimes, that's all. Well, crimes according to the Ranngour. If you're in the opposing army, you might as well be a serial killer, in which case you've crossed the line. If all you did was steal a loaf of bread or something else small, then you haven't really crossed the line, in which case you go to a normal penitentiary. You must be right on the line. What'd you do, beat someone almost to death but not quite?"

"I guess you could say it was destruction of public property. Fell in through the barracks roof."

A small flame lit Jennifer's eyes. "Did word about the Labyrinth finally make it back to base? Did they send you in as a scout or something? Are we finally going to be pulled out?"

"Who's they?"

The flame died. Jennifer sighed. "Of course not. The Ranngour would never let news of this prison make it back to the Iuhins. Gotta keep the myth a myth, or the prisoners alone would act as a number boost against them, not to mention the new ways in."

"I take it the Iuhins are at war with the Ranngour."

"Where have you been for the past fifteen years?" Jennifer scoffed. "Everyone on Beriin is up to their neck in this war."

"I've been off planet for a while."

"Off planet," Jennifer repeated, obviously not believing him. "If you had been off planet, you wouldn't have been able to come back. You probably wouldn't have wanted to. Beriin is boony of the boonys."

"Boonys?"

Jennifer smiled again, this time just a little wider. "Boondocks. The sticks. The middle of nowhere. We're the planet no one cares about in an Empire that's falling apart. Half the time they don't even remember to collect the taxes."

"Then why didn't you leave while you were still able to?"

Jennifer smiled again, this time with pride. "Because I'm willing to fight for my scrap of homeland no matter how bad it looks. So, where are you really from?"

"Oh, nowhere really. Just a traveler."

"You picked a poor place to travel. Why are you here?"

"I'm an alien who travels through time and space in a big blue box."

Jennifer shook her head, almost looking like she wanted to laugh. "I don't know why, but I believe you Doctor."

"Oh, I just have one of those faces." He gestured around him. "You said that the Iuhins didn't know about the Labyrinth."

"They do, but not in any real sense," Jennifer explained. "The Labyrinth is a myth, one of the many legends this planet has. Stories say it goes under the skin of the entire planet, but people have discounted it for at least a good three-hundred years."

"But the Ranngour discovered it was more than a legend, and they've been making good use of it."

Jennifer nodded. "Yep."

The Doctor sat pensively for a few moments, reviewing everything in his mind. He was certain there was something he had missed, but wasn't sure what that was. Everything felt sort of repetitive, but that could have been because he had been in impossible situations before. Didn't matter, it would come to him eventually. It always did.

"So what's this war about?"

Jennifer grinned again. "It's a good old fashioned space race, Doctor. A good old fashioned space race."

Four floors above the Doctor, General Logan Lathezia was in his office making a call. But he wasn't using the office phone.

"He's here. I've gone through the medical files three times, and there's no doubt that it's him…Yes, he seems to be at the right point in his timeline, but Scorch isn't here…We tracked what looked to be a meteor in the Northern Hemisphere, but I think it's the TARDIS, in which case she's with it…I've placed him on the third floor, and if he's as clever as we believe he'll get the signal to her…Once she's here, what do you want me to do?...Nothing! But…yes, of course. I understand. Should I continue with this life when she appears? Understood. If you will permit me, I have one more piece of good news. I was able to take a TARDIS key from his coat. Recall on Scorch will be that much easier when she's ready."

Lathezia listened for a few more moments before closing the communicator. He closed and pocketed it before reclining in his chair. He held up the TARDIS key, contemplating it.

"So plain. Blink and you miss it. But it's my ticket to living my own life. I'll have to think of a suitable name. Jahra Delta-009 might get me some odd looks if I used it outside of the Laboratory."

*Constructive critisisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*