The Time of Change

Eye of the Atraxi

The very first thought I have is not one of fear, or confusion, or nervousness. It's that I knew this thing was real.

"Doctor—?" He takes my hand, entwining our fingers and giving me a gentle smile, and I fall quiet, staring at the alien.

"You think you're so clever, Doctor," it spits at him in a warbling voice. "But your time is coming, just like hers. Silence will fall!"

The way it speaks makes my skin crawl. What does that even mean? As if on cue, the beam that has the creature captured begins retracting it. I look up into the sky to find its origin and gasp. There are about a hundred little spaceships floating in the air high above our heads, waiting for Prisoner Zero to be safely detained again. The largest is what has the alien in its hold.

As soon as the beam and Prisoner Zero have fully disappeared, the spaceships fly off impossibly fast, and everything is once again totally calm. The Doctor drops my hand and strides forward a few feet. He seems agitated. "What was that thing?" I ask tentatively.

"It's called a Multiform," he explains. By the barely-detectable strain behind his patient words, I have a feeling that this isn't quite over yet. "It's prisoner to the Atraxi, a good species in general but kind of naïve. Can I borrow your phone?" he asks suddenly, breaking the topic.

Without a word, I remove it from the pocket in the lining of my dress and hand it over. He touches the screen with the tip of his finger and pulls out the sonic. He scans it across the surface, then flips it over to do the back, too. "There," he says proudly as he stows the sonic away, unlocks my phone, and opens up the keypad to call someone. "Now you can call anywhere, anytime. Literally." I want to ask what exactly that means, but he presses the phone to his ear and starts talking.

"Oi, I didn't say you could go!" he says irritably. "What, you threaten to destroy this planet—my planet—and then run off when you get what you want? I don't think so." There's a pause, and I know he's gathering thoughts, not listening to anyone else. Who would dare reply to that? "You lot," he growls. "Back here. Now."

He tosses me the phone, and I follow him as he turns back to the ballroom, slipping my heels off in the process. I cradle them in my hand along with the hem of my dress and attempt to ignore the biting cold on my toes. When we get inside, he leads me up several flights of stairs until we reach the very top. We go through a trapdoor in the ceiling, which leads to the roof of the building. We climb through it, and out of instinct I glance up at the sky. What I see knocks the breath out of me, even if I was somewhat expecting the sight. The Atraxi spaceships are returning, every last one of them. The Doctor simply straightens his bowtie.

The biggest ship, I now see, has a ginormous eyeball sticking out of the bottom. There are white-hot electrical currents visibly dancing all around it. "So this was a good idea, was it?" I ask, tiptoeing up behind him as he approaches fearlessly. "They were leaving!"

"Leaving is good. Never coming back is better," he tells me without looking back. "Come ooooonnn then!" he shouts up at the ship, smiling slightly. "The Doctor will see you now!"

The eyeball detaches from the ship and flies down at him rapidly, looking him up and down. I stumble backwards a couple steps. The iris is such a pretty blue, but it's not like anything I've ever seen. Most eyes typically hold some sort of emotion within them, a hint of life existing behind the color. This one, however, consists of nothing but a cold electricity. A beam shoots out of the pupil and scans his body. As my heart drops in fright, the Doctor stands perfectly still.

In a deep, judgmental voice, the eye says, "You are not of this world."

"No, but I've put a lot of work into it," the Doctor replies honestly.