“You still blew up the school?” she asked incredulously.
“I can’t go off what they said,” he put the lights down and made his way to the control panel. “It’s an imperfect way to communicate. It’s…” he searched for a way to describe it. “It’s as if they have to talk in a language they aren’t quite fluent in yet, always struggling with the right words. I’ll just do a quick scan of the city…” He started messing around with some dials and watched as figures came up on the screen. “It looks like I blew up your school for nothing. We’re too late. There are millions of them all over Austin. Dozens of people could be dead by now. Not one person will survive the night.”
“My family,” Michi said. “My friends…you’re telling me they could all be dead.”
The Doctor looked at her sadly. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Michi took a deep breath, trying to grasp what that meant. “They could be dead, not they are dead,” she reminded herself forcefully. “Don’t let yourself mourn yet. They might still need you.”
“What’s the next step,” she finally asked.
The Doctor was silent for a moment before he answered. “I can take you home. You can pack a bag and I can take you and your family someplace safe. The TARDIS isn’t big enough for me to take everybody in the city but…’
Michi thought of her best friend Miki. She thought of Caleb and Nathan and Moose and Thena and all her other friends. There were hundreds of people in Austin. She couldn’t leave them behind to die.
“It wouldn’t be right,” she told him, shaking her head.
The Doctor nodded understandingly, and gave Michi a small smile. He looked almost proud of her decision. Then he clasped his hands together. “Right, what stops the Vashta Nerada? Light…I might be able to get enough energy but where would I find enough lights to cover the whole city? What else…” He started to pace again and run his fingers through his hair. “I convinced them to let an entire planet evacuate once, but I can’t speak to them now. But the P.A. system in the school…the P.A. system! That’s it! There are dozens of buildings with P.A. systems; we just need to find one the Vashta Nerada can use. Like…a hospital! We’ll start with the hospitals. People are always on the intercoms there.”
He set out at the controls with the push of a few buttons. The screen changed to a map of Austin marked with green moons (“The intergalactic symbol for hospital,” the Doctor explained). He ran around the control column, arms a blur, pushing buttons and pulling levers. Michi held on tightly as the ship began to toss about and the engines started up with their distinct noise. One of the most amazing sounds anybody could ever hope to hear, Michi thought. It meant the infinite possibilities of time travel, and the arrival of the amazing, impossible Doctor. Michi couldn’t help grinning. She was riding in the TARDIS with the Doctor at the controls! No matter what the situation, that was still freaking awesome.
Finally they came to a stop. Again the Doctor aimed a light at the door before opening it. They were just outside St. David’s Hospital. The Doctor pulled out his detector. “Still dinging, they’re in there.”
This time the building’s power was still on, but the Doctor insisted they carry as many lights as they could with them. Most got shoved into his pockets.
“How are you fitting all those lights into your pockets?” Michi had to ask.
“They’re bigger on the inside,” the Doctor explained. “Like the TARDIS.”
“Won’t we stand out carrying these around?” Michi asked.
“Who said we needed to blend in? That’s so boring!”
Inside the hospital they went up to talk to the receptionist at the front desk. The Doctor gave her his most school-boyish smile. He set down his lights and after a bit of searching pulled out the psychic paper.
“Hello, John Smith, Health Department,” he introduced himself. “This is our new intern, Michi. I was just doing a…routine inspection, nothing out of the ordinary. Just, you know, checking up on the hospital and all that. Have you noticed anything unusual going on around here?”
The woman gave the Doctor a suspicious look as a call for a Dr. Wills went out over the intercom. “Nobody said anything about an inspection,” she said.
“Yeah, well, it was kind of last minute,” the Doctor said, still smiling. “Wanted to show the intern what it was like working out in the field, so to speak. Kind of a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Tell me though, has there been anything odd happening?”
The woman raised an eyebrow at him. “Not a thing.”
“Dr. Wills please report to the O.R.” the intercom requested.
“Are you sure?” the Doctor asked. “Nothing at all? No sudden deaths or missing patients or employees? No fake skeletons popping out of nowhere for Halloween?”
“How specific,” the woman said pointedly. “The only thing I can think of would be the outbreak and we’ve reported that to the CDC. We’re following all protocols and taking the proper precautions.”
“And what outbreak would that be?”
“Dr. Wills please report to the O.R.”
“The outbreak we’ve been facing the past two or three days,” the woman said. “Surely they told you about it. Some of the patients have died of an unknown contagious disease. We’re told to keep away, as is everybody else. Not even the families get to say goodbye to the bodies.”
“What have they told you about it?” the Doctor asked.
“Only what I’ve told you.”
“Doctor…Doctor…Doctor…” The voice on the intercom took on a familiar, broken speech.
“Doctor,” Michi said.
“I noticed,” he said, and then he turned back to the receptionist. “Where are the controls for the P.A. system?”
The woman pointed down the hall. “Third door on the left.”
“Thank you,” the Doctor told her. But before they made it to the hallway the lights at the far end went out. Then the lights before them, and the lights before them, all the way down the hall. People started to scream.
“Lights!” the Doctor yelled. They started setting up the lights to cover as large an area as they could, making a refuge in the middle of the lobby. “Everybody, stay out of the shadows!” the Doctor called out repeatedly, trying to make himself heard over the mass confusion.
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