The Doctor glanced at the other sectors of the Moonbase through the windows, almost pressing his nose against the glass, and concluded that the lights had been cut there, too.
"What's happened?" Charlie asked, fighting to concentrate through a feeling of wooziness.
"The power's been cut. And if I'm not wrong, it's happened all across the Moonbase."
The Doctor dashed over to the door, the sonic screwdriver blazing.
"It's not opening!" the Doctor declared.
"If the power's gone, can't you just push it open?" Charlie suggested.
The Doctor grappled with the door, with no success.
"It's deadlocked. So the power hasn't simply gone. The entire base has been… hacked!" the Doctor conjectured.
Less than a minute later, the lights blinked back on, and with a buzz, the power returned.
The Doctor hammered on the intercom panel.
"Professor?" he called.
The response was static. The Doctor frowned.
Charlie took a few deep breaths. What had happened? Were they still alive?
"Professor!" the Doctor yelled.
Professor Lakowsky's voice grunted through the speakers. "Yes, I heard you the first time. You'll have to forgive the delay – we are a little busy. We've just had to restart the entire system. The whole base went down."
"Everything's back online now, isn't it?" the Doctor deduced. "Only, all your systems are running faster. Your computers are more efficient. Your coffee machines actually dispense what you asked for." The Doctor frowned. "Everything's working better than it was."
"It would seem so," Lakowsky conceded after a moment.
Charlie could hear the commotion, bordering on panic, coming from the operatives in the control room. He could hear Lakosky barking orders at them. As the Doctor had suggested, the voices were surprisingly clear.
"Put the base on red alert," the professor commanded. "What do you mean, you can't?"
"Ah," realised the Doctor. "I think it's safe to assume that the Moonbase is no longer under your control. Whatever's been causing those power failures has finally finished the job."
"If what you say is true, then the Earth could be in grave danger," Lakowsky stated.
"We've lost contact with Earth, ma'am," an operative spoke up.
"Hmm," Lakowsky grunted.
Charlie could almost picture her nonplussed expression from here.
"Is the emergency defence system still operational?" she enquired.
"Not sure, ma'am."
"Emergency defence system?" queried the Doctor. "Oh, you don't mean…"
"What?" Charlie asked.
"This is what I hate about military organisations," the Doctor grumbled. "I'll wager there's a nuclear warhead buried beneath the Moonbase, ready to blow us into atoms, to 'stop the base from falling into enemy hands'."
"What!" uttered Charlie. "Nuclear…?"
"It's a last resort," interjected Lakowsky.
"Why should it be any sort of resort?" the Doctor complained. "You're not blowing up the base!"
"Just sitting underneath us…?" continued Charlie, his imagination racing away with the thought of what could happen at any moment.
"We still can't re-establish contact with sector three," another voice informed them. "Absolutely no response."
"Sector three?" mused the Doctor. "How far away is that?"
"If you're thinking of going down there, you're not going unaccompanied," Lakowsky warned.
"I've got Charlie," the Doctor grinned.
"That's not what I meant."
"Right!" declared the Doctor, clapping his hands. "Then I want a security detail."
He turned to Charlie, and shrugged. "Whatever that means."
Charlie smirked and nodded, the sense of panic at the thought of a nuclear warhead suddenly going off… lifting slightly.
"Oh, and make sure you send Lieutenant Shah," the Doctor added.
"Why?" queried the professor.
"He has more brain cells than the others," the Doctor stated, as if that were obvious.
The professor sighed. "Yes, very well."
"Excellent. Let's go!" the Doctor cried, bounding through the doorway.
"You'll have to bear with us. We've just had to reboot the system," the nurse replied politely, as Private Lazarov lowered himself into a chair in the med-bay.
Lazarov rubbed his pounding ear, as the nurse bundled some remote controls into a drawer.
"We completely lost all power to our equipment. And the lights went out, so I stubbed my little toe," the nurse griped.
Lazarov nodded. The noise, like newspapers being crumpled, amplified from the other end of a tunnel, growing in his ear.
"What seems to be the problem?"
"Well," Lazarov began, "I was attacked in my quarters."
"Oh?"
"I didn't get a chance to see what it was. I've reported it to my CO, but there's no sign of it."
He rubbed his ear again. It was really starting to ache.
"Anyway, the thing attacked me. I don't know if it bit me or something. But now it feels like my ear's blocked. It's like there's a… a shuffling noise? Thought I'd better get it checked out."
"I'll take a look," the nurse offered, locating a torch, and began examining her patient.
Simmons hammered on the instrument panel. It still refused to work.
If she couldn't restart it, there would be no way for them to perform a simulation, showing the effects of their antitoxin on the human body. So far, they had produced a few samples, currently stored in a test tube rack on the workspace the Doctor had been sitting at. Whether any of the antitoxins would be effective was an entirely different matter. That's what they needed the machine to confirm.
"Oh, come on!" she urged, resetting the switches again.
Anita glanced over, amidst flicking through some scribblings in her notepad.
"There's something wrong with this," Simmons grumbled, grinding her teeth.
"I would call a technician," Anita suggested, "but we've just had a comm saying the base is on red alert. Only the red alert isn't actually working."
"Everything else is working fine. I wonder if it's one of the circuit breakers," Simmons muttered. "Must have cut when the power went out."
"Not that you'd ever ask for a technician's help," Anita admitted, chewing thoughtfully on her pen.
Simmons grappled with the panel, and dislodged it from the casing. There was something very odd about it. It didn't feel like metal, or plastic. The panel was soft, smooth – like silk, or nylon.
Simmons frowned. It was warm, and she could feel it undulating under her fingers.
"There's something…" Simmons announced aloud.
Anita looked over.
"Just give it a yank," she offered with a shrug.
"I don't think that will help," Simmons grunted, tugging at the panel.
The panel resisted, and Simmons took a step back. She felt an unusual pulse through the surface of the machine, and immediately let go, staring at the glowing circuits in mystification.
The instrument panel was still lodged in the machine, suspended by a mass of bristling cables.
Simmons gulped, watching in amazement, as the panel began to wriggle by itself. It nuzzled its way out of the machine, and two thick, hairy legs unfurled from the darkness.
There was a large, quivering body living in the machine.
"Oh my god…" muttered Anita. Simmons backed away, her voice trapped.
There were not just two legs, but three… four… tentatively resting against the machine, searching for a purchase. The thing heaved itself through the rectangular gap, reaching out with more of its legs.
Simmons gaped at it. The sight of the thing made her skin crawl.
The creature backed out of the hole carved in the metal, and scuttled up the wall. It twisted round, glaring at her with numerous, glistening black eyes.
She realised in horror that she had just been grappling with the abdomen of a huge arachnid, larger than her head. It had the intricate pattern of the circuit board etched into its bulbous rear, perfectly blending with the lab equipment.
"That's been in there…" Anita gasped.
Simmons couldn't hold back any longer, and she screamed.
Author's Notes
They're in your homes! They're in your computers! They're hiding inside the cardboard tubes in toilet rolls! Spiders - they're everywhere!
That arachnid was inspired by the Ravine Trapdoor Spider, which has a rather cunning way of concealing itself. If you're interested, you might want to check it out.
Then again, you might not…
Oh yeah, so spiders just happen to be number one on Simmons' list of least favourite creatures (native to Earth). What were the chances…?