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“What are you doing out here?” S’rana whispered urgently, walking down the hallway towards you. “It’s after hours, you’re not supposed to leave your rooms! The doors should be locked!”

Your brow furrowed.

“Really?” You frowned. “That’s weird. I mean, it’s a resort, not a prison.” You looked at the Doctor. “Or is that just how space hotels work?”

“No, it’s a bit odd.” He frowned, and folded his arms, tapping his sonic screwdriver against his chin. “See, I knew something was wrong. Should’ve trusted my instincts. Last time I was here, this was Human Colony 106993. I’ve never even heard of Tulvirax Resorts. What’d it do, just—pop out of nowhere?”

“No, of course not, it’s been around for nearly three centuries!” S’rana said, indignant. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“’Course you don’t,” the Doctor said dismissively, walking over to the door to the suite next to yours. “You never bothered to ask questions, did you? You heard that scream—ever wonder what that was about?”

S’rana crossed her arms, her hair wriggling and slithering on her head. “Yes, I did! I went and asked the management just a moment ago—“

“And what did they say?” You asked.

S’rana hesitated. “Well—they said that Mr. Karthska—that’s the man who rented the suite, Mr. Karthska—they said that he’d… he’d just checked out. Just a moment ago. There’s nothing to worry about.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. It looked as if he were trying to pour every ounce of exasperation he possessed into that one facial expression. He was sort of succeeding. Not that you’d ever tell him that. “Oh, and you believed them, then?” he said.

“They’re the management, why would they lie?” S’rana asked.

You looked at her. “S’rana, do you remember when Mr. Karthska checked in?”

“It was just… just yesterday,” S’rana said. “It’s a little strange, guests leaving like that, but it’s not really rare—“

“It’s happened before, and you’ve never even asked?” The Doctor said, incredulous, as he aimed his sonic screwdriver at the door, ignoring S’rana’s protests. It buzzed and flashed blue, and the door opened. He looked at you, and raised an eyebrow. “Is that dodgy, or what?”

“Yeah, just a little.” You followed him into the room.

He paused, and glanced back at S’rana, who was standing in the doorway, tugging fitfully at a loose thread on her sleeve.

“Well, are you going to stand there all day? Come on!” He said impatiently, gesturing for her to follow.

“God, I am so going to get fired for this,” she mumbled.

The Doctor closed the door behind you.

Overhead, the lights flickered on.

The suite was set up exactly like yours and the Doctor’s—one giant bed, a bath, a small hot tub (yes, it was that kind of resort) and something that might’ve been a fridge and a freezer stowed away in the corner. It was extravagant. It was spotless.

It was also completely empty.

“Right,” you said. “Okay, so there’s no one here.”

“Yeah, I can see that, thanks,” the Doctor replied absentmindedly.

“But something definitely happened. Something loud,” you mumbled, more thinking aloud than actually talking. “So it probably happened in the room closest to our suite, which would be—“

“The bath,” he said. “It must’ve been in the bath."

You frowned in his general direction. “Hey, I had that one.”

He flashed a teasing grin. “Better be quicker next time, then.”

“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind,” you said, as you headed towards the bathroom door, which was still closed. “You could also just pretend to be a little more stupid, you know, just to make me feel better—“

You turned the handle, and stepped inside. The walls were bare, painted a light yellow, and you could see your face in the mirror. Idly, you realized you hadn’t so much as even looked at your own reflection in nearly two days. Time travel and saving the world sort of did that to a person.

“It’s empty,” S’rana said, from behind you. She’d been almost deathly quiet as you and the Doctor searched, and you’d almost forgotten she was there. “I told you. Nothing happened. You were wrong.”

You scrutinized the perfectly white tiled countertop, squinting. And then you sighed. “And here I was hoping for an adventure.”

The Doctor frowned, and walked into the room, casting the blueish light of his sonic screwdriver over the walls. “You’ll get one. I’m never wrong.”

“Hold on,” you said, your brow creasing. There was a feeling, like an itch in your mind, that you just couldn’t place, something you hadn’t really noticed until it was so strong you couldn’t ignore it. “No, there’s something—hold on, can you smell that?”

You took a step farther into the room, pausing next to the bathtub. There it was again, that nagging feeling in the back of your head—you knew that smell, minty and cool and just a little too strong, you knew it, where did you know it from—

“I think that stuff took off a whole layer of skin. I feel all new, and shiny. Minty fresh.”

Oh.

Oh.

“Doctor,” you said urgently, tugging on his sleeve, “Doctor, I know what it is.”

“What? What is it?” He asked.

“It’s the cleanser, the gel—remember, when we first got here?”

The Doctor froze.

“But what does that have to do with anything?” S’rana interrupted.

“(Name),” the Doctor said slowly, “What did you say? About your skin, afterwards, what did you say?”

You frowned. Was that important? It must be. “I said—I said it felt like it took some of my skin off. Like an exfoliating cream, or one of those things they advertise on TV, the ones with the acid stuff, salicylic acid or something—“

You stopped, and fell dead silent, as you realized just what, exactly, the Doctor was getting at, what he had already figured out.

Salicylic acid.

It was acid.

Your mouth was suddenly dry.

Death by acid. That was not an image you had wanted in your head. Like, ever.

“Oh my god,” S’rana murmured from the doorway, her eyes wide. “You’re saying it’s acid. You raise the concentration and then—“

“And then,” the Doctor said, smiling grimly, “You’re soup.”

You swallowed.

The room was very quiet, all of a sudden.

“That’s… morbid,” you managed, suddenly feeling just a little bit unsteady. You leaned against the countertop. “That’s… really, really morbid, and definitely not what I was thinking when I said I wanted an adventure.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” the Doctor replied, kneeling down to examine the bathtub, where the smell was the strongest. “Now—all we’ve got to figure out is how it got in here in the first place. It’s not as if it just rains down from the ceiling.”

“The pipes,” S’rana said, her voice wavering. “It’s—it’s the pipes.”

The Doctor stood up, and looked at her. His expression turned deadly serious. “Did you know about this?” he asked.

S’rana let out a little huff of breath, and shook her head. Her skin, which you swore had been a very vibrant green, now looked almost sickly. “No—no, I swear, I just—the cleaning crew fills the tubs with cleanser after every guest, to get rid of dead skin cells and allergens and things. They send it up through the pipes.”

“All right, so that means it has to come from somewhere,” you mused. “But where?”

The Doctor walked out the door, back into the main room of the suite. He glanced back at S’rana. “Is there anywhere you’re not allowed? A hidden room, a storage closet, anything,” he asked.

She chewed her bottom lip nervously, tugging at the hem of her uniform. “The maintenance room. In the basement, it’s—it’s always locked, nobody has a key except level three workers. I can’t get you in, I’m just level one.”

The Doctor grinned. “Oh, but I’ve already got a key,” he said, tossing his sonic screwdriver up in the air and catching it deftly.

“Right, then, showoff,” you interrupted, nudging him with your shoulder and rolling your eyes. “Let’s get down there, before any other people get liquefied.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Who runs this place, anyway? Who’s in charge?” The Doctor asked, as he poked and prodded and sonic’d at a tangled mess of piping, his brow furrowed in concentration. You couldn’t exactly tell what he was trying to accomplish, but knowing him, it was probably something complicated.

“I don’t know,” S’rana said.

The Doctor paused what he was doing, and gave her the most long-suffering look he could possibly muster. “Do you even think at all, or what?” he said.

You frowned. He seemed more agitated than normal. Like there was something else on his mind—something besides acid and people-soup, something that he wasn’t telling anybody.

Or maybe you were imagining it.

S’rana cleared her throat.

“I know the level threes are all one species,” she said. “They’re all the ones with the gray skin, my friend Sylvic said so. He used to do cleaning in the hall near here, and he’d see them coming and going all the time. Does that help?”

“Depends,” the Doctor said, not looking up. “What species are they? No- wait, let me guess. You don’t know.”

You elbowed him gently, and frowned. “Don’t be rude.”

“Actually, I do know,” S’rana said from behind the two of you, her voice betraying her irritation. “They’re native Tulviraxians.”

“That’s impossible,” he said flatly.

“What do you mean, ‘that’s impossible’?”

The Doctor sighed, and held his sonic screwdriver between his teeth for a moment as he disentangled himself from the mass of pipes. “I mean, that’s impossible. This planet doesn’t have any native life forms. At least, not intelligent enough to do this.” He gestured around the room, at the fancy little dials on the wall, the panels of controls, the rather impressive array of tech covering every surface imaginable, turning the room into one big tangle of wires. “And believe me, I would know.”

“All right, so if those impossible things, whatever they were, were always coming down here, what were they doing?” You asked, nudging a particularly pointy piece of space junk with the toe of your shoe. “It’s not exactly the most comfortable secret hideout.”

“Fair point,” The Doctor said, brow creasing as he scanned the room. His eyes lit up, and he pointed towards the far side. “See that? Over there. You’ve got every wall in this place, jam packed with buttons and levers and switches. But here—“ he walked over to a corner of the room, pressed his hand up against the smooth concrete. “Not a single one.”

“What is it, a door?” S’rana asked.

“Oh, I love secret doors,” you said.

The Doctor grinned. “Me too.” He aimed his sonic screwdriver at the wall, and clicked the little button. The blue light at the end flickered and sputtered uselessly. “Oh, come on,” he muttered, tapping it against the concrete uselessly.

“Try turning it off and turning it on again?” you suggested, managing to keep a completely straight face despite the fact that you had just made what was perhaps the worst joke of your entire life.

The Doctor gave you a look. You grinned sheepishly. “Sorry.”

The sonic screwdriver sputtered one last time, and then it buzzed to life.

The door, like all the other weird doors in this place, didn’t open like an actual door, because this was an alien planet and things functioning normally would be too much to ask for. It sunk into the ground.

Beyond it was a brightly lit hallway, and a spiral staircase leading down.

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

“What are you doing out here?” S’rana whispered urgently, walking down the hallway towards you. “It’s after hours, you’re not supposed to leave your rooms! The doors should be locked!”

Your brow furrowed.

“Really?” You frowned. “That’s weird. I mean, it’s a resort, not a prison.” You looked at the Doctor. “Or is that just how space hotels work?”

“No, it’s a bit odd.” He frowned, and folded his arms, tapping his sonic screwdriver against his chin. “See, I knew something was wrong. Should’ve trusted my instincts. Last time I was here, this was Human Colony 106993. I’ve never even heard of Tulvirax Resorts. What’d it do, just—pop out of nowhere?”

“No, of course not, it’s been around for nearly three centuries!” S’rana said, indignant. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“’Course you don’t,” the Doctor said dismissively, walking over to the door to the suite next to yours. “You never bothered to ask questions, did you? You heard that scream—ever wonder what that was about?”

S’rana crossed her arms, her hair wriggling and slithering on her head. “Yes, I did! I went and asked the management just a moment ago—“

“And what did they say?” You asked.

S’rana hesitated. “Well—they said that Mr. Karthska—that’s the man who rented the suite, Mr. Karthska—they said that he’d… he’d just checked out. Just a moment ago. There’s nothing to worry about.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes. It looked as if he were trying to pour every ounce of exasperation he possessed into that one facial expression. He was sort of succeeding. Not that you’d ever tell him that. “Oh, and you believed them, then?” he said.

“They’re the management, why would they lie?” S’rana asked.

You looked at her. “S’rana, do you remember when Mr. Karthska checked in?”

“It was just… just yesterday,” S’rana said. “It’s a little strange, guests leaving like that, but it’s not really rare—“

“It’s happened before, and you’ve never even asked?” The Doctor said, incredulous, as he aimed his sonic screwdriver at the door, ignoring S’rana’s protests. It buzzed and flashed blue, and the door opened. He looked at you, and raised an eyebrow. “Is that dodgy, or what?”

“Yeah, just a little.” You followed him into the room.

He paused, and glanced back at S’rana, who was standing in the doorway, tugging fitfully at a loose thread on her sleeve.

“Well, are you going to stand there all day? Come on!” He said impatiently, gesturing for her to follow.

“God, I am so going to get fired for this,” she mumbled.

The Doctor closed the door behind you.

Overhead, the lights flickered on.

The suite was set up exactly like yours and the Doctor’s—one giant bed, a bath, a small hot tub (yes, it was that kind of resort) and something that might’ve been a fridge and a freezer stowed away in the corner. It was extravagant. It was spotless.

It was also completely empty.

“Right,” you said. “Okay, so there’s no one here.”

“Yeah, I can see that, thanks,” the Doctor replied absentmindedly.

“But something definitely happened. Something loud,” you mumbled, more thinking aloud than actually talking. “So it probably happened in the room closest to our suite, which would be—“

“The bath,” he said. “It must’ve been in the bath."

You frowned in his general direction. “Hey, I had that one.”

He flashed a teasing grin. “Better be quicker next time, then.”

“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind,” you said, as you headed towards the bathroom door, which was still closed. “You could also just pretend to be a little more stupid, you know, just to make me feel better—“

You turned the handle, and stepped inside. The walls were bare, painted a light yellow, and you could see your face in the mirror. Idly, you realized you hadn’t so much as even looked at your own reflection in nearly two days. Time travel and saving the world sort of did that to a person.

“It’s empty,” S’rana said, from behind you. She’d been almost deathly quiet as you and the Doctor searched, and you’d almost forgotten she was there. “I told you. Nothing happened. You were wrong.”

You scrutinized the perfectly white tiled countertop, squinting. And then you sighed. “And here I was hoping for an adventure.”

The Doctor frowned, and walked into the room, casting the blueish light of his sonic screwdriver over the walls. “You’ll get one. I’m never wrong.”

“Hold on,” you said, your brow creasing. There was a feeling, like an itch in your mind, that you just couldn’t place, something you hadn’t really noticed until it was so strong you couldn’t ignore it. “No, there’s something—hold on, can you smell that?”

You took a step farther into the room, pausing next to the bathtub. There it was again, that nagging feeling in the back of your head—you knew that smell, minty and cool and just a little too strong, you knew it, where did you know it from—

“I think that stuff took off a whole layer of skin. I feel all new, and shiny. Minty fresh.”

Oh.

Oh.

“Doctor,” you said urgently, tugging on his sleeve, “Doctor, I know what it is.”

“What? What is it?” He asked.

“It’s the cleanser, the gel—remember, when we first got here?”

The Doctor froze.

“But what does that have to do with anything?” S’rana interrupted.

“(Name),” the Doctor said slowly, “What did you say? About your skin, afterwards, what did you say?”

You frowned. Was that important? It must be. “I said—I said it felt like it took some of my skin off. Like an exfoliating cream, or one of those things they advertise on TV, the ones with the acid stuff, salicylic acid or something—“

You stopped, and fell dead silent, as you realized just what, exactly, the Doctor was getting at, what he had already figured out.

Salicylic acid.

It was acid.

Your mouth was suddenly dry.

Death by acid. That was not an image you had wanted in your head. Like, ever.

“Oh my god,” S’rana murmured from the doorway, her eyes wide. “You’re saying it’s acid. You raise the concentration and then—“

“And then,” the Doctor said, smiling grimly, “You’re soup.”

You swallowed.

The room was very quiet, all of a sudden.

“That’s… morbid,” you managed, suddenly feeling just a little bit unsteady. You leaned against the countertop. “That’s… really, really morbid, and definitely not what I was thinking when I said I wanted an adventure.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” the Doctor replied, kneeling down to examine the bathtub, where the smell was the strongest. “Now—all we’ve got to figure out is how it got in here in the first place. It’s not as if it just rains down from the ceiling.”

“The pipes,” S’rana said, her voice wavering. “It’s—it’s the pipes.”

The Doctor stood up, and looked at her. His expression turned deadly serious. “Did you know about this?” he asked.

S’rana let out a little huff of breath, and shook her head. Her skin, which you swore had been a very vibrant green, now looked almost sickly. “No—no, I swear, I just—the cleaning crew fills the tubs with cleanser after every guest, to get rid of dead skin cells and allergens and things. They send it up through the pipes.”

“All right, so that means it has to come from somewhere,” you mused. “But where?”

The Doctor walked out the door, back into the main room of the suite. He glanced back at S’rana. “Is there anywhere you’re not allowed? A hidden room, a storage closet, anything,” he asked.

She chewed her bottom lip nervously, tugging at the hem of her uniform. “The maintenance room. In the basement, it’s—it’s always locked, nobody has a key except level three workers. I can’t get you in, I’m just level one.”

The Doctor grinned. “Oh, but I’ve already got a key,” he said, tossing his sonic screwdriver up in the air and catching it deftly.

“Right, then, showoff,” you interrupted, nudging him with your shoulder and rolling your eyes. “Let’s get down there, before any other people get liquefied.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Who runs this place, anyway? Who’s in charge?” The Doctor asked, as he poked and prodded and sonic’d at a tangled mess of piping, his brow furrowed in concentration. You couldn’t exactly tell what he was trying to accomplish, but knowing him, it was probably something complicated.

“I don’t know,” S’rana said.

The Doctor paused what he was doing, and gave her the most long-suffering look he could possibly muster. “Do you even think at all, or what?” he said.

You frowned. He seemed more agitated than normal. Like there was something else on his mind—something besides acid and people-soup, something that he wasn’t telling anybody.

Or maybe you were imagining it.

S’rana cleared her throat.

“I know the level threes are all one species,” she said. “They’re all the ones with the gray skin, my friend Sylvic said so. He used to do cleaning in the hall near here, and he’d see them coming and going all the time. Does that help?”

“Depends,” the Doctor said, not looking up. “What species are they? No- wait, let me guess. You don’t know.”

You elbowed him gently, and frowned. “Don’t be rude.”

“Actually, I do know,” S’rana said from behind the two of you, her voice betraying her irritation. “They’re native Tulviraxians.”

“That’s impossible,” he said flatly.

“What do you mean, ‘that’s impossible’?”

The Doctor sighed, and held his sonic screwdriver between his teeth for a moment as he disentangled himself from the mass of pipes. “I mean, that’s impossible. This planet doesn’t have any native life forms. At least, not intelligent enough to do this.” He gestured around the room, at the fancy little dials on the wall, the panels of controls, the rather impressive array of tech covering every surface imaginable, turning the room into one big tangle of wires. “And believe me, I would know.”

“All right, so if those impossible things, whatever they were, were always coming down here, what were they doing?” You asked, nudging a particularly pointy piece of space junk with the toe of your shoe. “It’s not exactly the most comfortable secret hideout.”

“Fair point,” The Doctor said, brow creasing as he scanned the room. His eyes lit up, and he pointed towards the far side. “See that? Over there. You’ve got every wall in this place, jam packed with buttons and levers and switches. But here—“ he walked over to a corner of the room, pressed his hand up against the smooth concrete. “Not a single one.”

“What is it, a door?” S’rana asked.

“Oh, I love secret doors,” you said.

The Doctor grinned. “Me too.” He aimed his sonic screwdriver at the wall, and clicked the little button. The blue light at the end flickered and sputtered uselessly. “Oh, come on,” he muttered, tapping it against the concrete uselessly.

“Try turning it off and turning it on again?” you suggested, managing to keep a completely straight face despite the fact that you had just made what was perhaps the worst joke of your entire life.

The Doctor gave you a look. You grinned sheepishly. “Sorry.”

The sonic screwdriver sputtered one last time, and then it buzzed to life.

The door, like all the other weird doors in this place, didn’t open like an actual door, because this was an alien planet and things functioning normally would be too much to ask for. It sunk into the ground.

Beyond it was a brightly lit hallway, and a spiral staircase leading down.