Back to the Doctor

Alien Expectations Part 4

The Doctor and Celox began their search the last place Celox had seen his brother, their home. They, like most of the inhabitants under the Final Marketplace, lived in something closer to a janitor's closet than an apartment. There was just one room, and if the Doctor spread his arms out he could touch both walls.

"This is where you live?"

"Yes, what of it?" Celox asked in an annoyed tone.

"Nothing. It's lovely, really lovely. I mean, what do I know about homes? I live in a blue box."

There was no hint in their home of where Velox might have gone, but Celox was fairly certain his brother would have been going to work. As they began going down the hall Velox would have taken, Celox immediately noticed something was wrong.

"There's a detour," Celox said, reading a notice of construction.

"Interesting," the Doctor looked around, but couldn't see anything specifically suspicious about the detour. It might have just been a coincidence.

"He either turned back, or…" Celox and the Doctor looked down a small dank hall that smelled like mildew.

"Or continued on," the Doctor began down the hall, and this time it was Celox who diligently followed behind.

The subterranean complex was poorly managed and it was clear this was only a place the dregs of society were meant to inhabit or even visit. It wasn't surprising to the Doctor that someone would want to kidnap people from here, because no one would even notice them go missing – no one except the Oslunctus, of course.

They hallways they were walking down zigzagged in every possible direction, but for a long time didn't connect to any others. Finally the Doctor and Celox came to a point where they had three possible paths to go down. Two of them looked like the hall they had come down, the third was a darker hallway, punctured by a flickering light.

"He could have gone down any of these," Celox said with aggravation.

"Yes, but if I were some unspeakable evil there really is only one hallway I would have come from."

They both looked down the long, dark hallway.

"I don't think I want to go down there," Celox said quietly.

"Which is exactly why we ought to," he grinned. "Don't you think?"

Celox took a deep breath of stale air, and started walking down the ominous pathway. It was clear this hall had been abandoned for years – maybe even decades. The Final Marketplace was thousands of years old, whole sections of the underground had been abandoned over the centuries as it expanded and changed. It would have been so easy for something to slip in and hide there, something that only came out once in a while to… what, feed? What was this thing the Doctor had found himself hunting?

There were several doors lining the hallway, their hinges rusted shut, and the smell of the rotting metal became stronger with every step they took.

The Doctor stopped suddenly next to one of the doors.

"Celox, what do you make of this?"

"What of what?" Celox turned and looked at the door the Doctor was examining. It didn't look any different from all the other doors to him.

"The hinges, the rust around them has been broken."

"It's been opened recently," Celox looked down at the ground. "And there are scrapes on the floor where the door must have opened."

"So there are," the Doctor grinned. "I knew you were clever, Celox."

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and scanned over the lock. Celox saw a blue light emit from it as it gave off a metallic whine, then there was a quiet click as the door unlocked itself.

"Shall we?"

"After you," Celox took a step back.

The Doctor opened the door, holding his sonic screwdriver at the ready, but nothing sinister jumped out at them. Instead the two just looked into a dark closet – until they noticed a spiral staircase descending through the metal.

"New," the Doctor scanned the staircase. "Well, relatively new anyway. Someone modified this to make a hideout."

"Shouldn't we… um, call the police?"

"What? Wait for me all this time and then just call the police?"

"Well…"

"Where's the fun in that?" The Doctor then jumped onto the staircase and raced into the abyss. "You coming Celox?"

"Yes," his voice squeaked and he followed the Doctor.

Their decent was significantly shorter than either had expected. Whoever had made this little hideout and done so between the floors 59 and 60. The Doctor had to stoop to keep from banging his head on the low ceiling. They were inside the floor, surrounded by pipes and wiring, all of which had fallen into the same decay as the floor above them.

Celox didn't have to ask which way they should go next, both of them could see a dim light at the end of this new corridor. They quietly, and slowly, made their way towards it.

Every inch of Celox's tiny body screamed at him to turn and run back up the stairs, but the confidence the Doctor had comforted him. He felt that so long as he stayed close to the Doctor he would be safe. That, Celox realized, was the Doctor's power: to make others better, stronger. That was why the Oslunctus knew they had to wait for him, that was why Celox knew they could save his brother.

The corridor led to a room larger than what Celox expected. Walls had been taken away to make, what? A laboratory? There were all sorts of machines and computers in there that Celox could only stare at in confusion. Most of them looked rusted beyond use.

Lit by only one light-bulb it was hard to make out everything in the lab, so it took a moment for either investigator to notice the stacks of cages lined up along the back wall, and there, lying in one of them, was a familiar figured.

"VELOX!" Celox couldn't contain the joy and relief that flooded through him. He ran towards his brother, who sat up at the noise, looking around in confusion. "Velox, it's me."

"Celox! How? When?"

"The Doctor helped me find you!"

"Who? Wait, how did you get past them?"

"Past whom?" Celox asked, trying to find a way to unlock the cage. "Doctor, where's your shinny-zappy thing?"

"It's not a shinny-zappy thing, it's a sonic screwdriver," the Doctor said, zapping the lock with the shinny thing. "And these are deadlock sealed."

"What does that mean?"

"It means no sonic device will open it."

The Doctor frowned, looking around for a switch to unlock the cages.

"Get out of here," Velox pleaded in a hushed tone. "They must have heard you by now. Run while you can."

"I'm not leaving you."

"But he'll hear."

"Who, Velox? Who took you?

"I don't know, I never saw his face, but he's not on his own. There's something else in the other room. Someone else was here with me, but he was taken to the other room- he called him spare parts. He treated him like he wasn't alive."

"What happened to him?"

"I don't know- I don't know! But I heard the screams. Oh god, I couldn't hear anything but the screams…"

"Then you heard your future," came a gravely voice. It stood in the doorway, its head just barely touching the ceiling. It was incredibly thin, and held a silver stun gun, pointed directly at the Doctor, who dropped the sonic screwdriver back into his jacket pocket without this new threat noticing. "So, I guess there are two humans running around today."

"Are there?" The Doctor asked.

"Master will be so pleased," he pulled the trigger.

The Doctor felt the blast hit him, not an electrical jolt, but something chemical he couldn't fight. He crumpled to the ground. Velox screamed out for Celox to run, but it was too late, another shot and then his brother fell to the ground as well.

The creature laughed, and his voice echoed down the corridor.

To Be Continued…

(The first Marty-less chapter. I knew at one point the two would need to be separated, the Doctor always manages to wander away from his companions. I guess what I didn't realize is that the story would naturally replace Marty with a one-shot companion. The Doctor simply works better as a character with others around him. He might give strength to others, but others give the Doctor meaning.)