Programmed to Kill Part 3 By The Whoniversity

Amanda had been returning to her quarters after composing herself, when she had found the lifeless corpse on the ground; she was hunched over Dave, down on one knee, with a tear down her face. His face had already been drained of colour, grey and pale as a ghost. She didn't even know the man that well, yet she still felt the pain of grief. There were marks around his neck, black marks, where circulation to his blood had been cut off; whoever had strangled him had to have immense power. That's when she realised what the Doctor and Nyssa had said after the murder of Becky. They'd said Becky had to have been strangled by a service robot due to the markings on her neck - they said no woman or man could possess such strength. She stood up, after closing the man’s eyelids; which while open encompassed all of the fear and pain he felt during his final moments. Amanda tapped her communications device, and spoke into it. “Hello, Scott? Alex, is anyone there?” she asked, and awaited a reply. The radio hissed, but there was no reply. “Hello?” she repeated, again and again, but still no reply. Amanda was beginning to feel the cold; the heat shields around the exterior of the ship was beginning to fall due to the power being cut. It was almost as if somebody had deliberately shut down the power. Of course! Amanda rushed down to the engine room.

“Look, you don’t have to do this, Scott, please!” The Doctor said, gesturing with his hands for the captain to lower the weapon. “You murdered our second technician, Becky, and infected our scientist Peters with an alien virus, and you expect me not to shoot?” he asked, jolting the gun forward violently. “Yes!” Nyssa exclaimed, hands behind her head, “You have to see, we didn’t do anything! We haven’t murdered or infected anyone, we just want to help!” she said in a final desperate attempt to stay alive, and hopefully change Scott’s mind. The captain wasn’t convinced; “You don’t have proof. All you claim is to have answered a distress call. A distress call that doesn’t exist!” he shouted. “Well it might do in the future if we don’t sort of the power,” the Doctor interrupted, nodding to the fission reactors all around them. They were all dying down one by one, and once they’d dying down completely all power would be revoked from the ship. There’d be no fuel, no lights, no exterior shields, and without the shields, the crew would be exposed to the harsh below freezing environment outside, and humans weren’t built to withstand those temperatures. Scott was still thinking it over, when Amanda came running down the steps into the engine room. “SCOTT! DON’T SHOOT!” she exclaimed, and ran in the way of the two strangers.

“Why not?” he asked, “They’re murderers, Amanda!” he shouted.

“No, no they’re not! They aren’t the murderers,” Amanda pleaded.

“I don’t believe you, you can’t prove a single word of it!” Scott said, pushing the gun out. “Now get out of the way. This has to be done.”

The Doctor interrupted; “No it doesn’t!”

“I can’t exactly prove it right now, but you have to believe me! First, we have to get the power back online, and we could use all the help we can get,” she said, and Scott lowered the weapon.

The ships tannoy, dying down, stated; “HEAT SHIELDS LOWERING….YOU Will be exposed to EXTERIOR TEMPERATURES IN APproximately 2 minutes----”

“Did you hear that?” Amanda said, urgently, “Two minutes!”

Scott threw the weapon completely to the ground, and panicked, “What do we do?” he asked, and the Doctor was thinking, “Well, I’ve never actually fixed fission reactors before,” he said, “And the only person who could have a chance of fixing it is dead,” Amanda added, solemnly. “Right!” the Doctor said clasping his hands together, with a plan, “This might not work, but it’s worth a try!” he declared, darting over to a control panel. He started tapping in random numbers on the adjacent keypad, not breaking concentration for a second.

Alex was in the bridge, sitting in the captain's chair and observing the readings, or was he? Pulling up a separate interface, Alex began to speak into the microphone on the control panel. “It’s done. Heat shields are decaying as we speak. We’ve got two dead bodies, courtesy of the service units.” he explained, calm - the exact opposite to his usual behaviour and demeanor. “Good.” a muffled voice said, sounding as though it was a faulty machine. “And the engines?” the voice asked.

“Beyond repair,” Alex stated. “There’s no escape off this planet. It’s looking Iike everything is panning out the way we thought it would,” he said.

“Excellent. This, Doctor, you were informing me of - is he a threat?” asked the voice.

“No, actually, he couldn’t be further from it,” Alex said.

“You’ve done well. We’ll speak again soon,” the voice cut off, but Alex wasn’t ready. However, the second the conversation was over, he climbed into an exo-suit, so that when the shields had decayed, he’d be protected from the temperatures of the planet outside.

“There!” The Doctor said, tapping in a final digit. The alarm came to a halt, and the tannoy announced; “EXTERIOR SHIELDS RISING!” Despite the announcement, the tannoy was on the verge of shutting down. “That should do it!” he said, and turned to face the others. Amanda was amazed; “You’re a genius!” she exclaimed, and the Doctor smiled, “You restored reserve power to the base and then converted it all--” she began. “--So that all remaining power would go towards keeping the shields intact; but now’s not the time to thank me! It’ll give us about thirty minutes maximum. Now we’ve got to go and find Alex, the only living crew member not here. That’s if I take your words for it!” The Doctor said, pushing past them, Nyssa ran after, followed by Amanda, and finally by Scott, who before joining them picked up the weapon off the cold metal ground.

Peters stumbled through the corridors of the base, now fully transformed. He had no emotions, nothing to make him human. As he looked around, all he saw was evil. Pure hatred was flowing through his veins, and with the mind and aspirations of a parasite now infecting his entire mind, Peters only dreamed of one thing; to find a new host.

“What exactly did he look like?” The Doctor asked, and Scott began to stutter, unsure of how to describe how Peters had looked when he’d shot him. “All green, with veins running up to his face. His eyes were red, and bloodshot. When I saw him, there was still something human about him, he wasn’t pleading for my help! But I couldn’t take it, in the heat of the moment…” he trailed off and the Doctor nodded; “I know, there was nothing you could do, and if it really was a virus, you could’ve saved us all from contracting it!” The Doctor said. “There’s so much going on; but how is it all connected!” Scott asked and the Doctor replied in a way that made it seem as though he knew the exact answer. “A virus, two murders, and sabotage. It could be simpler than it seems; the mission was doomed from the start, you have a saboteur within your ranks, who releases a virus and damages the ship. That way there’s two options to fall back on if the other fails. The murders could be the result of them discovering the truth,” he said, before adding; “But that’s just my initial theory,”

Walking through the corridors sent a chill up her spine; Amanda had ventured into an ancient cavern, into the unknown and the darkness, but nothing compared to the fear she was experiencing now. Now was different, she was headed to find Alex, along with the Doctor and Nyssa, and Scott; one of them could be the murderer. She sort of trusted the two strangers, but couldn’t rule them out, and she definitely couldn’t rule out Scott - when she’d arrived in the engine room, he was holding them at gunpoint. Who knew how that event had played out.

As they continued down the maze of corridors, and there was still no sign of Alex, Amanda began to lose hope. After all, they only had at least thirty minutes, and that number was decreasing with every passing second. They had to hurry up so Amanda took charge and picked up the pace, eventually catching up to, and matching the pace of the Doctor.

“Amanda,” the Doctor said, welcoming, although not quite paying attention.

“Doctor,” she returned.

“What is it?” The madman asked.

“Well, I just thought we’re wasting our time; we still haven’t found Scott. If we continue at our current pace - we’ll never cover the entire ship before the exterior shields drop!” she stated. The Doctor nodded, “Good point, Nyssa!” he called, and his companion ran up to his side. “What is it?” she asked. Amanda could see in her eyes that she clearly trusted him with her life. “I want you to analyse Peter’s blood samples, but be careful, the virus Scott describes could be very lethal if it’s what I think it is.” The Doctor said, and Nyssa agreed. “I’ll see if I can synthesise an antidote, if it’s not too late” she said, running off, almost like she knew exactly where to look.

Most of the robots on the ship were standing in rows, as if in the military, while Alex paced up and down, almost angrily - although he was oddly calm. “What on Earth could’ve happened! The shields should be down by now!” he was speaking rhetorically, but he just wanted an audience. Alex wasn’t used to failure, and he couldn’t afford such a thing now. This was the most important job of his life, and he couldn’t let this go downhill. It was his only hope. His last hope.

M4-63, one of the service robots, titled its head to the left as Alex continued to speak, as if trying to understand what the man was saying. “I bet it’s that Doctor,” he said, sighing, and looking outside, saw the vast desolate planet below. As if on cue, the doors parted, and Alex pivoted around to face the doors, which were being pushed open by Amanda and Scott. “Amanda! Scott! You’re both ok!” he said, deciding to once again put up an act. “Barely! Someone’s sabotaged the engines, and cut the power, that was until the Doctor intervened!” Scott said, his face displayed extreme stress. Alex walked over to the raised up position of the captain’s deck, and sat in the chair, sinking into it, letting go of all worries. “The Doctor? You let a criminal -- For all you know, he could’ve sabotaged them in the first place!” Alex said, trying to appear as paranoid as possible. “Why would he do that?” Amanda asked. “To gain your trust, to appear like a hero!” he said.

“Not my sort of thing, I’m afraid!” The Doctor’s voice carried through the bridge, and soon after, he had entered through the door, which was half blocking the entrance. “But I do have some questions for you,” he said, not trusting the military-mind of the operation. “Go ahead. You’re not gonna find anything!” he said, sounding as confident as he could.

Nyssa was beginning to wonder why the TARDIS always threw them into danger; they could never go anywhere danger-free. Never! Even Castrovalva had been a trap; a planet that appeared to be peaceful on the surface, but had been built on lies, and ultimately turned out to be a psychic world created by Adric. If Adric were here, he’d probably be able to repair the fission reactors easily, but Nyssa couldn’t dwell on the past, Adric wouldn’t want that. She decided to carry on, and stormed through the corridors, making a good pace. As she walked, she knew she was up against the clock, thirty minutes until the shields decayed.

She turned a corner, and stopped, looking down on the ground, Nyssa could see the body of Dave, face grey and drained of colour. She ran over to him, and she saw the black marks around his neck. The robots again; whoever had control of the machines were twisted, as were most of the madmen she met on her travels with the Doctor. Standing back up, deciding to continue with her search for Peters’, she was met with five robot units. All of their eyes were lit up; blue. All of them expressed no emotion, yet Nyssa had the impression they were examining her with sinister intent. They marched towards her, backing her up against a wall; it was a dead end, and the robots were closing in. These must be the robots that had murdered Dave, the mechanic. And now they were going to kill her. Arms reaching towards her, Nyssa was preparing to face death.

The robots fell to the ground; the moment was over as quick as it had begun. Nyssa looked down the corridor, and standing behind the robots, was a man. A creature. It was humanoid in appearance, but alien in its features. The creature was covered by vine-like tendrils and huge green boils which reassembled buboes. Its face was dark green in colour and sunken, resembling a skull. Vines were gripping to one side of the face, the other was bare. It was only just identifiable as Peters; his facial features were somewhat present, although his skin was tight to his face, as if life had been sucked out of him. His eyes were black in colour, and she could tell there wasn’t a single cell in his body that was human anymore.

“Peters? I’m here to help!” she said, knowing he wouldn’t understand. She was scared; she was told he’d been shot - he should be dead right now. She’d avoided being murdered by machines, but instead been saved by an alien parasite that had completely infected and taken over Peters’ body, who would no doubt want to murder her, or spread the contagion. The host began to walk towards her, but this time she could move around him, and attempted to run around the creature to the other side of the corridor. The creature slowly turned and grabbed her by the arms as she tried to pass.

“Let go of me!” she cried, and using her free hand, hit the creature in the neck with the palm of her hand. It fell to the ground, unconscious, or so she hoped.

Brushing off any dirt, Nyssa straightened her cuffs, and examined her hands. The back and palms of her hands were now green, and she could tell from her travels with the Doctor that whatever this was, it was guaranteed to be deadly.

The Doctor was pacing up and down, “Where were you during Becky’s murder? Why was her body outside of your quarters? And why have you got a gun?” he asked, and Alex looked down at the gun in his holster. Alex stood up, but the Doctor started again; “Ah, looks like you were hoping I didn’t notice that. You also probably don’t like the questions I’ve just asked, well.” he said, holding his hands out in front of him, hoping Alex would put down the weapon. “You’re correct, Doctor. I didn’t exactly want you to see the gun, nor did I like the questions.” he said, calm, but in such a way that made Amanda and Scott realise the terrible truth. “Why would you do this?” Scott asked? “After everything we’ve been through!” he asked. Alex shrugged, “Did you really think you meant that much to me?” he asked, and shot the captain in the leg. Scott cried out in pain, and Amanda started to run over, but Alex shot further along her path, causing her to stop out of fear. “One more move, and I’ll kill him,” he instructed, and Amanda stood still as if she’d been turned to stone. The Doctor was speechless; “Well, I thought we’d have to wait longer to find out who was behind it all,” he joked, but immediately became serious as ever the second after, “But you obviously couldn’t wait to reveal yourself,” he said, and Alex turned to him, “Restrain them,” he said, almost whispering. Nobody moved; The Doctor and Amanda remained rooted to the ground, and Scott was holding his leg, writhing in pain. “I SAID RESTRAIN THEM!” he demanded, raising his voice as loud as he could. The service robots began to march over, and herded them together, before carrying out his order. Alex sighed, “You know, I don’t really care anymore,” he threw the weapon to the ground. “About life?” Amanda asked, and Alex nodded, “Unfortunately for you.” he replied; “Do you know why I don’t care..” he asked, rhetorically. He was going to tell them anyway. He sighed deeply before speaking another word; “Life is just pointless because everything is out to get us. Everything. Everything in the entire universe is designed to act against us and everything in the universe is designed to kill us. The only thing we all share in common is death, we’re all going to drop dead one day. So why not quicken the process. Not like you lot have much to live for; you’re the worst of the worst. The absolute dregs of society. Ever wondered why nobody was invested in the project, it's because they knew it was pointless.” he started, and the three of them in his audience, well, against their will, knew he was going to break into a speech. “I learnt the truth, so in the final moments of your life, I thought I’d share with you my findings….” he began.

Nyssa had managed to drag Peters, who was still stunned, all the way to the laboratory. Here she was concocting various chemicals in the hope that one of them would act as an antidote, or some sort of drug to slow down the process. She'd been experimenting for a few minutes, so Nyssa was conscious Peters could reanimate any second. She had to be quick. Especially now she'd been infected; this information allowed her to come to the conclusion that this was highly contagious. Judging by the state of the monster/former scientist, and her own hand, she'd transform into the same creature within an hour. That gave her exactly an hour to find a cure. But that was impossible; that was of course considering she retained complete intelligence until the transformation was completed. But assuming she wouldn't, Nyssa reckoned she had about half an hour to discover a cure. As well as that, they only had thirty minutes before the exterior shields died down. While the vine-covered plant-like corpse lay on the ground, Nyssa took a blood sample, injecting the needle in a part of his arm in which the flesh wasn't covered by the parasitic growth.

After about five minutes of experimenting, Peters reanimated, and sat up, getting to his feet quickly. Nyssa hadn’t noticed yet, and didn’t have a clue until she heard the sound of glass smash against the metal ground. She shot a look over at the corpse, and moved away from the desk in which she was working. The vine-covered corpse shot out a vine from its hand, like a rope; the tendril wrapped around Nyss’s throat, and she tried to pull it loose, hands gripped tight around the vine. It was slowly beginning to suffocate her. Nyssa reached out with her hands, looking for an instrument to cut the connection. First she gripped a scalpel, but upon contact, the metal surgical knife shattered. She then grabbed a metal device, resembling the basic structure of a saw. Running from end to end of the structure was a beam of blinding light. She plunged her newfound weapon towards the vine, which was slowly killing her, and managed to cut the connection. The second the vine was released Nyssa began taking deep breaths, composing herself. Nyssa looked at her hands; the infection was spreading. Peters collapsed, as if cutting the vein had in some way been like severing a connection to the brain. Using the time she had left, Nyssa continued with her experiment, and examined samples of Peters’ blood.

“The population was increasing too rapidly. Planets were overpopulated, burning or being invaded, and as a result, new ones had to be found. But the amount of Earth-like habitable planets were decreasing so the government of the Human Race, “Humanity Intergalactic”, decided to send expeditions to the far reaches of the galaxy. They'd populate these expeditions with the worthless. The working class and the unintelligent. They didn't want wasted space, and decided anyone with a high intelligence or an “important” job, such as doctors, nurses, politicians, mathematicians and engineers had highest priority. This was called “The Purge”, or “Society Purification”. They sent billions of expeditions out as part of this programme. This was one of them. Everybody knows there's no life in the Outer regions. Did you honestly think you'd discover something? “ he asked rhetorically. “Everything has been a lie.” Amanda was horrified, “How could they do that to people?” she asked. “Once we started expanding outwards, do you really think anybody actually cared about anyone? No. The political side of our worlds became corrupt, and they began treating the rest of humanity like cattle.” The Doctor was taking it all in. Similar things had happened in other galaxies to other civilisations. “You seem to know an awful lot about this considering that according to your logic, you're a lower classed citizen.” The Doctor said. Alex laughed, “That's because I found out. Blackmail is surprisingly useful, Doctor.” he explained.

“Well..Not really,” the Doctor replied, “Because if you blackmail the wrong person, you could end up like Becky and Dave. Dead.” Alex thought about this, and laughed, “You think that was clever?” he asked, menacingly. He gave a subtle nod to the robots, and the machines tightened their grips on the prisoners, nearly crushing their ribs. They all cried in agony to some extent; The Doctor was silent, but his face showed the pain of the moment, Amanda and Scott were both literally struggling to breath and at the same time in agony. Alex gave yet another nod, and the robots loosened their grip. The three prisoners all sighed and captured their breath. “That’s what you get for being clever, yes?” Alex said, in a tone that was both sort of ‘asking’, but also ‘stating’. “So I suggest you don’t say or do anything clever. Just a suggestion, but unless you want my machines to murder another three humans, ontop of the mechanic and second technician, I strongly advise you adhere to it.”

Under the magnification of the highly advanced microscope, Nyssa could see a mixture of regular human blood cells and an unidentifiable, new bacteria. No, it was a virus. The cells were multiplying at an alarming rate, and although Peter’s transformation had technically been complete, since he no longer thought like a human (his mind had been taken over by the parasite), this phase might not be the last; who knew what would happen when all of his original blood cells had been infected and taken over by the virus. She could go and find the Doctor, and inform him of this discovery, but it might take a large amount of time to reach him, and she couldn't risk spreading the infection.

It was up to her to synthesise a cure, or at least any sort of chemical that would prevent the spread.

The Doctor decided not to try anything Alex would deem as clever, so instead opted to ask basic questions. “So, after you blackmailed presumably one person, maybe an entire party, maybe even the entire government - where next? And what on Earth possessed you to do such a thing?” The Time Lord asked. “Well, I was low ranking, yes I was in the military and I'd been on other expeditions with the likes of Scott before, but I was demoted for recklessness. I couldn't live with it, so when i eventually found out about this new scheme, I persuaded them to fulfil a couple of tasks to ensure I didn't let out their secret. I requested a top position: they have this role they assign to men and women they can trust, a Purge Guard. On every expedition, there's one of these guards. In this particular scenario, I'm the guard. It's my job, thanks to blackmailing. I have to make sure you all either die on the ship via brute force, or mess up the engines enough so that it can't be repaired.” Alex explained, calm and calculating. He was wondering what to do with the prisoners. “So I figured; why not do both?” he laughed, but it was a sort of laugh that sounded like a sigh, and lasted about a second. “I thought I could trust you,” Scott said, with more than just hints of despair. Watching his friends’ true nature unfold before him felt like everything had been taken away from him. Alex was one of the only men in the galaxy that he trusted. Or at least he used to be. “Yeah well, I thought I could trust our government. But unfortunately, you can't trust anyone in this universe. Except for, of course, machines like these service Robots,”

Out of nowhere, Alex shouted a command, and the robots obeyed “I'm bored of them now, take Amanda and Scott and throw them out of an airlock. Leave the Doctor with me…” the robots began walking out with their prisoners. Alex turned to another batch of robots,.. “You lot, find his companion and kill her!” again the batch of robots marched out on their orders, while the Doctor was restrained, and watched as the half-army of machines advanced towards their target, until they were all out of sight.

Nyssa was making progress, despite studying a viral strain that didn't exist until now. Anywhere. She'd not seen anything like it before, yet she was trying to find a cure nonetheless. Peters hadn't reanimated, not yet anyway, he lay on the cold hard metal ground, unconscious. It better stay that way until Nyssa had finished the experiments: perhaps she could even administer him the drug and save his life, that was of course if his cells hadn't been taken over by the time it had been found… if it was found..

Scott and Amanda were struggling to escape the iron grip of the Robots, which was also symbolic to them - they weren't just trying to escape the Robots, but the entire government. The system. They wanted to be free of them: the people that had sent them to death and lied without remorse. How could a government do that? There must've been some other way: Amanda recalled watching the news months before she left for this falsified expedition. It had been reported that millions, maybe even billions of vessels had left for the far reaches of the galaxy. Some had drifted into black holes. The news Channel that was broadcasting this news then switched from footage of the dying crew, to the party leader of Humanity Intergalactic expressing grief and acting as though they'd lost part of their soul with every dying expedition. When really it was all part of their plan. They weren't depressed or upset in the slightest. Behind the scenes, they were cheering and celebrating; their plan to reduce the population was working with every lost expedition. It was no use, the grip seemed to become harder and harder every time more force was added and when they struggled more, eventually they'd taken away mountains of energy from them; reducing the two crew members to panting for breath and becoming useless. They were ever nearing the airlock, and they were still trapped. “If it's the last time we see each other, I want you to know…” Scott said, before being cut off, he'd looked ahead and saw the airlock only a few paces away. Panicking, he couldn't finish the sentence and started trying to escape once more. Three seconds. Two. One. The Robots were reaching for the airlock, and the two finally gathered strength to overpower the machines. Darting away, Amanda and Scott began their journey through a maze of corridors, in the hope they'd find Nyssa before the service Robots did. Their first stop; the laboratory.

Time was running out. The shields would only last another fifteen minutes. A storm was brewing outside, a storm with more force than the previous.

Nyssa hadn't long left to discover a cure, but a breakthrough was a long way off. The cells kept dividing, and it seems that any chemicals or medicines that would usually treat and cure an infection only increased the rate of division. The hundreds of cells became thousands. The thousands became millions. But Nyssa believed she could do it. She'd done hundreds of impossible things over the course of her travels with the Doctor. Nyssa was too focused on her experiments to realise the corpse reanimated. And as well as that, she didn't even hear the stomping of metal boots on the ground until it was far too late. An army of service Robots marched into the laboratory, smashing cylinders of flammable liquids, microscopes and any sort of expensive scientific equipment as they advanced. Nyssa grabbed the glass slide (the slide in which Peters blood stained), and ran to the other side of the laboratory.

Nyssa knew she couldn't make an EMP or an amplifier at this time, so she had to create a short but powerful and not-to-violent, contained explosion within the space of a few seconds. She made her way towards a worktop, on which were two flammable liquids and some sort of crushed metal. Instinctively, Nyssa threw down the jar containing the crushed metal-like substance and then created a flame using the liquid…The explosion went off with huge force.

Alex and the Doctor were alone. Once the doors had locked shut, Alex had instructed the robot to release the Doctor from its grip, obviously sure that the Time Lord wouldn't escape. How would he? There was no way out, no way in, Alex had a gun: the Doctor didn't. But what the Doctor did have was his wits. His intelligence. “Any questions?” Alex said, deciding he wanted to explain everything he'd missed out, after all there was nothing to lose. The Doctor was going to die anyway, and he couldn't be threatened with murder, the Doctor didn't care if he died. “What was your plan? You clearly didn't think this through. It seems logical to me that these guards are sent to ensure the failure of falsified expeditions, so they also must be willing to die, otherwise there'd be one person from every expedition that makes it out alive, and people would begin to suspect a plot. What makes this any different?” The Doctor asked, strolling from left to right, pacing up and down and thinking of a plan, as he always does. “Well, you see. That's where you're wrong. The purge guards see to it that a mission is completed. No survivors. No way out. Then we're sent coordinates. There, all purge guards receive new identities. Facial reconstruction, passports, everything is forged, and we become new people, free to go anywhere with the money we earn from completing our assignment.” he explained and as if on cue, a static sound echoed through a comms device. Alex knew what this meant and ordered the remaining twenty Robots in the room to guard the Doctor while he took the call. “It's all done. The engines are damaged, as I said before, Amanda and Scott are both dead…” The Doctor looked around the room, desperately trying to find a way out. He didn't have many options, although he could run for the door, or maybe… He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cricket ball, dusting it off on his lapel. “The Doctor is with me; he only has a few minutes left… “ There was a pause, the voice was speaking but the Doctor couldn't quite hear yet; he was focused on escaping, and as a result almost drowned out all other noise.. ''Yes, the Robots are on their way to killing his friend.” the commander/purge guard stopped, allowing the voice to speak. “The coordinates are being sent over to you as we speak.” the voice instructed. “We look forward to meeting you.” it said before cutting off. Alex turned round to face the Doctor, only to be met with a cricket ball headed straight for him. Dodging out of the way, Alex essentially allowed the centuries-old cricket ball to hit a series of controls on the panel, and the doors flung open violently. The Time Lord ran for the doors and Alex screamed for the robots to follow him; it was less of a scream, but it was said in haste, and in a raised tone.

Nyssa had a ringing in her ears that wouldn't just go away. All she could hear was that ringing. Looking up, and grabbing her ears in pain, Nyssa could see the explosion had worked. The Robots were deactivating; the liquid and the metal-like substance created a reaction that thankfully assisted the situation. But it could've easily killed her; luckily she was only leaving with mild tinnitus and a shard of shrapnel in her left arm. Running in at exactly the right time, Amanda and Scott burst through the entrance to the laboratory, and sighed with relief when they found Nyssa alive and sort-of well. “Nyssa!!” they exclaimed, as they ran over to her and helped her off the ground. “Any news?” they asked, and Nyssa nodded; “I’ve tried all of the usual chemicals and medicines available and discovered none of them slow down the process, instead they’re the exact opposite. I believe we should try the opposite effect!” Nyssa explained. Scott was lost, but Amanda knew exactly what she was talking about. “You mean using dead viral strains and toxic chemicals?” Amanda asked. “Yes, but do you have any!?” The two searched for any toxic chemical compound or strain of a previous virus, while Scott stood there being useless; he had no idea what he’d be looking for.

The coordinates were set and Alex was ready to go - to teleport to a new life; a life full of hope. A life spoilt with riches. He could buy anything he wanted and be a new man. His previous self would be but a dream.

The Doctor had run out into a series of corridors but had no idea where he was going; his path was restricted anyway, as an army of robots advanced from one corridor, blocking off that section. He was forced into one corridor, but led to the laboratory; it seemed like either all of the robots were blocking him off, or were headed towards the laboratory for some reason. He ran down the corridor until he reached the entrance to the lab, and darted in, only to find Scott standing around, and Amanda and Nyssa tearing the place apart. “You’re all alive!” he exclaimed, and they were just as excited to see him. “We thought Scott was going to kill you!” Amanda said, almost demanding the Doctor to explain. As if he could read her thoughts; “He just wanted a chat. That’s all. But a call interrupted that unfortunately, but I have learnt an awful lot.” he went on, “But there’s no time to explain this all now. First we need to focus on surviving the shields falling!” he said, but Nyssa turned to him. “First we need to find a cure,” and she showed her arm, half infected, but getting worse by the second. “Any luck!?” The Doctor asked, running to the microscope and peering into the lens, observing the cells. “Well, we think we need to use another virus or toxic chemical to stop the division of this strain!” Nyssa explained, “Nothing else works,” The Doctor nodded, “Ah, yes, I see what you mean. That could work - this particular virus appears to resemble a genetic disorder caused by contact with a Krynoid.” he explained, “Krynoid are sentient planet life that can infect a host and take over whole planets. This resembles that in a way.” he added. “But is it a Krynoid?” Nyssa asked. “No.” the Doctor said bluntly. “No, I’d need to see the pod or plant in which the original organism came.” he stated, and Amanda picked up the nearby shell of the hostile alien plant. “Ah, yes,” The Doctor said as Amanda handed him the shell. The time lord examined the shell, and came to a horrific conclusion. “This is like nothing I've ever seen. I don't think this can be cured.” he said, and Nyssa looked down at her arm, accepting her fate.