Walking through the atrium of a prestigious complex somewhere in the Nebulas System, her hands behind her back, her ruby hair tied back in an elaborate ponytail, Taylor sees the many trophies lining the walls of the atrium.
Awards for designs, patents, name it, the atrium's filled to the brim with the awards.
Somewhere in the complex, Paul was off looking for the owner, he seemed perplexed during the brief com-link before it went dead, and well, it's in their nature to go looking when something seemed awry.
The complex's devoid of anyone and the TARDIS confirmed that there's only one occupant, the owner, a doctor by the name of Ivo.
A rather eccentric man of an unusual quality, he'd been working nonstop since he was a small boy to now, when he became a renowned doctor known for his clever inventions and his scientific inquiries.
Indeed, he's an odd duck to the committee, but to Taylor and Paul, he was no different than the people they've met over their adventures.
Whatever happened, either one is sure to figure it out, though.
Nothing exploded, nothing on fire, no visible signs of anything wrong, didn't seem like anything was out of place, but Doctor Ivo did seem distressed in his brief com-link with Paul, so evidently something happened.
Just didn't see anything and neither did Paul.
He didn't find Doctor Ivo in his lab and went looking for him somewhere else in the complex.
Meanwhile, Taylor went looking for the missing doctor in the opposite direction.
Going over the mental notes of every adventure she and Paul went through, Taylor looked for the usual signs of something wrong.
The TARDIS didn't pick up on anything unusual on its scanners and it's thorough enough that there's no chance it missed something.
It pulled every resource on Doctor Ivo within a millisecond and nothing in his dossier suggested him as someone potentially causing problems.
Going through the dossier more, the doctor didn't work on anything advanced such as creating black holes and other, so it wasn't that.
Even then, the TARDIS would've warned them of unusual energy spikes.
And the whole complex gone to the black holes formed.
Leaving the atrium, having not found signs of Doctor Ivo, the curious Taylor continues her search for him elsewhere, memorised by the architect that the eccentric doctor used that looked industrial, even gothic in places, not out of place for someone like the doctor.
"Grace, have you found him?" Taylor heard Paul in her mind, curious if she had any luck.
A frown on her face, Taylor responded that she didn't, asking the same.
Sighing, Paul replied that he hadn't found Doctor Ivo, either.
"Are you sure he's here?" Taylor began questioning if the doctor was even here at all, if he had left, and the TARDIS simply didn't account for that.
Adamant, Paul believed he was, but, until otherwise, keeping looking, and if they don't find the doctor, they'll find each other by then.
And of course, if anything should happen, well, Taylor knows the answer for that.
"Stay safe," Taylor habitually warned him and he did the same.
With that said, Taylor continued looking for Doctor Ivo among his unusual architect.
From what she gathered by looking at the gun grey pipes and slightly worn steel walls, Doctor Ivo took reusing resources to heart.
The dossier mentioned that Doctor Ivo liked challenges and reusing recovered metal in this fashion certainly proved it.
"Now, where would he be…?" Taylor wondered as she had already checked the usual places one would think to check when looking for someone, but she turned up empty-handed.
It almost felt like she'll reconvene with Paul before finding Doctor Ivo, when she turned the corner and began walking down the second to last corridor before she entered the section that would've led her back to the entrance of the complex.
Her footsteps echoed throughout the corridor, bouncing off the metal sheets, if not for the industrial air conduit that keep the temperature steady and the air from becoming stagnant, it'd be the only thing Taylor hears until she catches up with Paul.
There's one door that she hadn't checked yet just before the next corridor and Taylor walked over to check it.
It slid open without issue and she gone inside it.
Much colder inside the room than outside in the corridor, Taylor saw her own breath as she walked through the room.
It's different than the other rooms she investigated looking for Doctor Ivo.
Pistons in the wall pumping unknown liquid through tubes going through the holes in the floor.
Low-light above that gave the room a faint glow as Taylor gone through it, as she sees there's another door at the end.
Covered with warning labels, the black and yellow stripes, the usual markings of something that caught Taylor's interest.
Going up to it, Taylor sees there's a keypad next to it with QWERTY keys instead of the standard numpad.
Glimpsing around, Taylor doesn't see anything that'd indicate Doctor Ivo thoughtlessly left a sticky note with the password to the door.
"Paul, I found a door," she called to him in her mind, expecting an immediate response, but he didn't respond.
Calling his name, Taylor didn't hear him, but it felt as though he's still in her mind.
It's like something's blocking them from communicating with each other.
That's strange.
Glimpsing around the room once again, Taylor didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but if she can't communicate with Paul with his shared telepathy link with her, then it's obvious that there's some sort of blocker in the room.
Well, if Taylor finds Paul, then that won't be a problem, they're supposed to meet at the entrance of the complex, and once Taylor leaves the room, she should be able to communicate with him in her mind without fail.
Though, it's surprising there's some sort of mental blocker in the room that didn't have anything except the pistons and the door.
It piqued Taylor's interest.
Something's behind the door that Doctor Ivo didn't even want someone with a telepathic mind to communicate about its contents freely.
Hm, now how many telepaths did Doctor Ivo know that this would be considered a problem?
Not many aliens have that attribute, humans almost never have it, either.
Stranger and stranger.
Returning to the door she just came in from, Taylor attempted to reopen it, but found that it locked her inside.
Twisting the red valve on the centre of the door as she tries, Taylor couldn't open it.
"Oh, bother…" Taylor showed annoyance as her button nose scrunched up.
There's no keypad on the sides of the door for her to attempt typing out an exit code, either.
Turning back around, Taylor's stumped, trying to think of a way out of the room.
Thinking like Doctor Ivo, he'd want a way out of the room should anything happen, eccentric or not, he knew better than playing with the possibilities of lock failures or the stubborn valve doors.
Maybe this was a type of a security protocol, Taylor tripping a silent alarm, and the room locked her inside until Doctor Ivo intervened…?
Not idling, Taylor struggles as she scoured for anyway out of the room, something to that nature.
It looked like Doctor Ivo thought about everything, he thoroughly made sure of everything when he set out to construct his elaborate complex.
Seeing no other way, Taylor headed back to the keypad to the marked door at the end of the room.
"Oh, what would it be…?" Taylor murmured as she tried to guess the password.
Going back to when she first began looking for Doctor Ivo, Taylor investigated every room she could get herself into, they were all crates of whatever the eccentric doctor thought about bringing into his complex.
Food, water, the standards, and everything he needed for his inventions.
Nothing that pointed to what the password was for the keypad.
Chewing her burgundy Cupid's bow lips, Taylor tried thinking about the password, well, she had nothing else to do, everything's secured and fastened to the walls, no way for her to breach to escape through a vent, and with the mental blockers, there's no way of her contacting Paul or vice versa.
Well, mother always said she had a stubborn disposition.
No other choice but to mess with the keypad, maybe Doctor Ivo overlooked something, with him reusing components and the like, there's a good chance Taylor can use this to get out of the room.
Although, if Doctor Ivo's concerned about telepaths, then who knows what else he uses to prevent thievery and the like…?
Pleasant thoughts, Taylor, pleasant thoughts, this isn't your first adventure, this is your umpteenth adventure, this should be your average day, at this point!
Hard to believe that's a sentence, but here she was, going from a museum curator to an adventurer.
"If only mother were alive…" Taylor whispered as she wished her mother hadn't perished in the flames.
To this day, she daydreamed what her mother would say and do when Taylor introduced Paul to her, the conversations they'd have, if her mother would accept Paul, at all.
She would, if she knew how much Taylor grown to love him, but it's been so long since Taylor spoken with her mother, that she's beginning to doubt herself.
She's even struggling to remember what her own mother sounded like, that's how long ago it felt to her since that damned fire took her, that without the little things she has of her, dare say Taylor would forget what her own mother looked like.
Expectedly, Paul figured this out, of course he would, he's the Doctor for a reason, and also her paramour.
He comforted her over her fears, bringing up how his own father dealt with losing his mother from illness, and how he overcame his fears.
Taylor will never forget her own mother, not her face, not her voice, not even her own name.
It's enough to quell the concerns Taylor held.
Intensely looking at the keypad for wear, Taylor stared at the individual keys, but Doctor Ivo was careful ensuring not to allow the buttons to wear out or become shiny from using them constantly.
Not even a pinprick spot from a finger on the steel grey keys.
Kneeling underneath the keypad, Taylor used a thin piece of metal she kept in her pocket, allowing her to pop out part of the chassis surrounding the keypad.
There's insulated wiring and ties that kept them attached to the wall; the way they're grouped together would make it difficult prying them loose without risking snapping the wiring.
And Taylor would rather not have any wiring break without her input.
Doctor Ivo was careful about this, one wrong move, she'll be trapped here perpetually until Paul rescues her.
"Come now, Taylor, you should be an expert, by now," Taylor tells herself as she worked to try and rewire the keypad herself.
Slowly, like phantom hands guiding hers, Taylor's hands moved silently, cutting, stripping, twisting the wires together, until she heard the sound of the door beside her opening on its own, the air pushing through the crevices.
Cheering herself for discovering a way out of her situation, Taylor went through the opened door way leading into a part of the complex that wasn't detailed in the TARDIS's initial scan.
Seeing how there's mental blockers, no doubt Doctor Ivo was just as much as paranoid someone discovering a detailed blueprint of his complex.
Through the sickly green hue that covered the corridor, Taylor walked, basked in the green hue, she maneuvers through it to find it opened up in a large spacious room.
There's a familiar smell of petrol and other liquids used for machinery, but there's nothing in the large spacious room.
Walking through the spacious circular room, Taylor didn't see anything in the green hue, only smelling, until she heard movement.
Turning her head, she sees something coming out of the wall, a hidden conveyer leading elsewhere in the complex masked by a fake wall.
Taller than her or Paul, she couldn't see it well with the green hue from the phosphorus lights.
Looked almost like a nesting egg with a gold flat top, maybe copper.
Hesitantly, Taylor looked on, as she watched the object starting to expand its appendages, unfurling itself from its position to tower her.
Instantly, Taylor saw its left arm was a converted plasma canon that is held up by the right hand with the handle on its side.
On its chassis, Taylor sees there's a number etched into it.
101.
It slowly moved, large enough it created mini quakes as it walked, scanning everything in the room as it adjusted to its new environment.
The ocular lens on what was its face adjusted automatically as they scanned the room around them, until resting on Taylor.
"I…dent…ti…fy…" the monotonous, neither male or female, voice called out to her.
Clearing her throat, Taylor answers, "T-Taylor!"
