The Time of Change

Countdown

After a momentary pause, the Doctor eyes Tony, who wipes perspiration off his temple with the back of his hand. "Tony Mack," he says, walking over to him. He crouches to peer into the man's downcast face. "Sweaty forehead. Dilated pupils. What are you hiding?"

Without much reluctance, Tony unbuttons his shirt to reveal thick, pulsating, sickly green veins that have spread from a point on the side of his neck all the way to his chest. They branch out unevenly from each other like vines on the side of a building. My blood turns to ice at the sight. Elliot touches one of the infected veins on his grandfather's stomach tentatively, not sure what to make of it.

Nasreen gasps, "Tony, what happened?"

He looks at her, miserable. "One of them stung me," he dully replies. "Alaya said there is no cure. I'm dying, aren't I?"

This is directed at the Doctor, who tells him thoughtfully, "You're not dying. You're mutating."

Tony shivers despite his obvious sense of overheating. "How can I stop it?" he asks. His voice cracks somewhere in the middle and causes my heart to ache.

"Decontamination program," the Doctor replies at once. "Might work. Dunno, though." He gestures to Eldane. "Can you run the program on Tony?"

"Doctor!" exclaims Mo. "Boatload of those creatures coming our way. We're surrounded in here."

"So," says the Doctor in a strangely high voice, "the question is, how do we stop the drill, given we can't get there in time? Plus, how do we get out, given we're surrounded?" Agitated and nervous, he paces around the room as Eldane silently hooks Tony up to a machine. The Doctor's hand presses to his chin in thought; a second later, he drops it back down so he can rub his hands together, a familiar sight that brings me an ounce of peace despite the tense situation. My fingers grip my phone tightly as it almost slips from my sweaty palm.

"Nasreen," he suggests out of the blue, turning to her, "how would you feel about an energy pulse channeled up through the tunnels to the base of the drill?"

"To blow up my life's work?" she demands in reply.

"Yeah. Sorry. No nice way of putting that."

Nasreen rolls her eyes. "Right. Well, you're going to have to do it before the drill hits the city in, um—"

"Eleven minutes forty seconds," I supply.

"Yes," says the Doctor, clapping once. "Squeaky bum time."

I laugh against my better judgment.

"Yeah, but the explosion is going to cave in all the surrounding tunnels," Nasreen points out. "We have to be out and on the surface by then."

Hunter looks up from the computer screen, standing behind Elliot with a fatherly hand on the boy's back. "But we can't get past Restac's troops," he reminds her.

"I can help with that," inputs Eldane humbly. "Toxic fumigation. It's an emergency failsafe meant to protect my species from infection. There'll be a warning signal to occupy the cryochambers. After that, citywide fumigation by toxic gas. Then the city shuts down."

My heart drops into my stomach. I say quietly, "You could end up killing your own people."

"Only those foolish enough to follow Restac," he answers, giving me the same reassuring and kind smile I gave him a few minutes ago.

The Doctor takes a step toward him. "Eldane, are you sure about this?" he confirms.

The old Silurian straightens both importantly and exhaustedly. Those wise yellow eyes glint in the laboratory's clinical light. "My priority is my race's survival. The Earth isn't ready for us to return yet."