The Time of Change

Playing Soldiers

"The transport has returned," Eldane tells the five of us, unprompted. "Your friends are here."

The Doctor and I exchange a look, wondering how he knows this, but not three seconds after he announces their presence, Hunter, Ambrose, and Tony appear in the threshold. The first thing I notice is that Tony carries something wrapped in a bluish-gray tarp; it is large and limp in his arms. The second is something I only know after years of an incredibly close friendship, and it's that Hunter is trying to hide the fact that he is very, very nervous.

"Here they are!" the Doctor says happily, if not a bit surprised.

"Mum!" Elliot shouts, running to hug her around the middle. Mo follows and plants a kiss on her lips. She hugs them both to her tightly, pointedly avoiding the Doctor's gaze. He picks up on the unease filling the air as I rise from my chair. "Something's wrong," he mumbles.

"Doctor, what's he carrying?" I whisper. The third thing I notice is that I don't see any lizard people in their group.

"No," the Doctor says, his tone hard but frightened. "Don't do this. Tell me you didn't do this." Tony also does not look at him as he walks forward, unbalanced, and lays the tarp-covered object on the floor. I can very clearly see the outline of two legs underneath the thick plastic. I turn my head, suddenly afraid I might cry. The Doctor keeps his voice calm, but I hear the strain in it as he demands, "What did you do?"

Ambrose raises her hand across the room. "It was me," she says rather remorselessly. "I did it." Elliot looks up at her in confusion. She strokes the hair away from his innocent freckled face. "I just wanted you back."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor spills out in a rush as he approaches Eldane, who stands at the end of the table staring at the form wrapped in the tarp. "I didn't know. You must believe me. They are better than this. Humanity is better than this."

"This is our planet!" yells Ambrose.

"We had a chance here!" he snaps, all reserve gone.

"Leave us alone," she replies. Now she sounds like a girl who got picked on wrongfully. I have to resist the urge to scoff. Mo and Elliot shift away so that they are no longer touching her, and she looks quite smaller than she did when she first came in. Hunter watches me, the sharp anxiety in his multicolored hazel eyes reminding me of tout wires.

The Doctor tells Ambrose angrily, "In the future, when you talk about this, you tell people there was a chance, but you were so much less than the best of humanity."

The ice in his statement sends shivers down my spine even though the words themselves mean relatively nothing to me. Ambrose, on the other hand, flinches as if he struck her. Mo stares at her, disappointment darkening the fatherly light in his greens.

Without warning, a rumbling rather like a roll of thunder echoes toward us from the hallway outside the chamber. After a few moments I recognize that it is the sound of hundreds or even thousands of heavy footsteps. Everyone looks at the door as Restac charges forward with armed and masked troops behind her, pouring into the room like an unstoppable stream. In her hand is a gun similar to the ones that Mo and I took from the sleeping Silurians. The Doctor protectively pushes me behind him. Elliot appears frozen right in their path, and I grab his hand, pulling him close to me. His mother shoots me a look that could wither a plant as her son's arms fearfully encircle my waist.

Restac comes to an abrupt stop, the army following suit, when she notices the tarp on the ground. With an air of apprehension, she walks to it and lifts a corner slightly. At the sight of what is beneath, she lets out an animalistic howl of rage and sorrow. I feel Elliot trembling. "My sister!" Restac bellows. "Oh... and you want us to trust these apes, Doctor?"

"One woman," the Doctor responds immediately, defending himself and the rest of us. "She was scared for her family. She is not typical."

"I think she is." There is vicious, unbridled hatred in Restac's tone.

"One person let us down, but there is a whole race of dazzling, peaceful human beings up there. You were building something here," he adds desperately to Eldane. "Come on, please. An alliance could work!"

Ambrose interrupts, "It's too late for that, Doctor."

His body tenses, and I see his head turn slightly to look at her. "Why?"

"Our drill is set to start burrowing again in fifteen minutes."

"What?" Nasreen shouts. Tony looks at her regretfully, and her face falls. "What choice did I have?" he asks. "They had Elliot."

I move to stand by my husband, Elliot still pressed tightly to my side, and I take his hand in mine. He, too, is shaking. "No, don't do this," the Doctor tells them with fire in his eyes. "Don't call their bluff."

"Let us go back," Ambrose orders Restac, who watches her stonily, "and you promise to never come to the surface ever again. We'll walk away, leave you alone."

Restac seems to consider her for a moment, and I glance back and forth between them. This silence is thick and electrifying, as if the tiniest spark could blow us all away. I tighten my grip on the Doctor's hand when finally, after a full minute, Restac takes a deep breath and lets it out impossibly slowly. Elliot peeks at her around my hip.

"Execute her," Restac tells the warriors.

"No!" the Doctor yells. He runs forward, dragging me behind him—and also dragging Elliot by extension—, and grabs Ambrose by the upper arm. He shoves her out the door before the Silurian army can even draw their weapons.

"Everybody get back to the lab," he calls to them as I plant myself firmly on his right. "Run!" The other four follow at breakneck speed, Mo lifting Elliot up onto his shoulder and hauling him out. Hunter pauses by the doors for a millisecond, staring at the Doctor and me, before running after them.

Restac roars, "Execute all the apes!"