Short Trips - The Doctor Who Audio Dramas

He’d been certain that he was nowhere near the edges, and indeed the curving
stone arches prevented him from getting close to them, but he let out a
whimpering cry as he dropped forward, but only a short distance. Something cold,
thick and wet sucked at his legs, and the chemical smell grew stronger.
Dillion realized he’d fallen into some kind of shallow well a moment before he
lost his grip on the torch and it plunged into the water and immediately went out.
Everything went dark.
The Doctor had carefully navigated his way through the gloom. Since both he and
K9 could see rather well, and he’d neglected to have another torch in his coat, it
left Susie-Jo clinging onto the Time Lord’s scarf for dear life as he crept towards a
control console.
‘Now, what do we have here?’ he asked, brushing some dust and dried weeds
from the control desk. There seemed to be some kind of plaque above the console
with writing on it, but it was too dirty to read. The Doctor took the remaining end
of his scarf and rubbed the plate until it clear enough to read.
‘‘‘AI Generation Unit,’’’ he recited for his companions’ benefit.
There was a tug on his scarf; Susie-Jo wanted a clearer explanation.
‘Hmm? Oh, AI means Artificial Intelligence, a kind of thinking computer.’
Susie-Jo looked curiously down at K9.
‘Yes, rather like K9. Of course, this is on a much larger scale,’ the Doctor
explained, examining the controls again. ‘In fact, if I’m not mistaken, then this
computer mainframe is woven throughout the structure of the space platform.
We’re actually inside the computer itself!’
‘Affirmative,’ said K9 patiently.
‘And I suppose that the life form we detected is actually this computer’s
intelligence?’ the Doctor demanded. ‘Why didn’t you tell us earlier?’
‘Life sign is not clearly defined as a mechanical intelligence, Master,’ the robot
dog replied, sounding defensive. ‘There is a distinctive psycho-spoor comparable
to recognized organic life forms.’
‘Is there really?’ asked the Doctor, his irritation replaced by intrigue. ‘How very
curious. In the meantime, K9, you better go and find Dillion and call off the
search now we know what... or rather who... we’re looking for.’
‘Affirmative, Master,’ replied K9, rotating 180 degrees and whirring back the
way they came, leaving the Doctor and Susie-Jo in the gloom.
‘Now, Jo, let’s see if I can find a light switch,’ the Doctor pondered, and started
to operate controls in a very haphazard and dangerous-looking manner. ‘That
one? No. No, nor that one... could it be this one?’
The Doctor’s fingers tugged down a central-looking lever...
Dillion was struggling to get out of the square pool of water he’d fallen into. The
liquid seemed thicker and more viscous than he’d expected, and like quicksand it
was almost impossible to escape from. Worse, even if he managed to get free, he’d
be completely and utterly lost not to mention virtually blind with no way of
rectifying either problem.