Earth's Electrician

Certainly not for the first time in its life, a blue police box sat to the side of one of the streets of Cardiff. It was 2015, October 10th to be exact. But the date didn't matter too much for the man inside the police box.

The Doctor had been without companion for a few weeks now. He was lonely, but used to it. What he wasn't quite used to just yet was his new face, and the body that came along with it. The regeneration had gone smoothly, as far as regenerations go. It's always a weird process, getting a new body. Especially because you never know what you're going to end up with. The Doctor's new body seemed fine. It had all the right numbers of body parts in all the correct places. It was just a lot different than what he'd gotten used to.

He was a bit taller this time, and slightly bulkier around the middle. His skin was pale, his eyes were a bright green, and his head was topped with bushy light auburn hair. That it itself was quite a drastic change. However, the biggest difference was probably the muscles. The Doctor definitely didn't look like a body builder by any means, but he had very little fat and could definitely be described as muscular.

Being a bit of a nomad with no specific place to call home, the Doctor wasn't going to let something as simple as a new face deter him from his explorations of time and space. However, a quick pit stop was necessary first. As cool as his bowtie was, the rest of his outfit simply wasn't fitting him the way it was supposed to. As anyone who has paid even a hint of attention to fashion trends would be quick to tell the time lord, trousers should not stop several inches above the ankle.

So the Doctor was on a mission to find a new clothing style to compliment his new physique. Considering his personal fashion expertise, he was concerned that he may be about to face one of his biggest challenges yet. He'd always just grabbed whatever was around when it was convenient. When was the last time he'd actually gone shopping?

After several moments of fiddling with his new hair and considering simply going around looking like he was waiting for a flood, the Doctor accepted his fate and stepped out into the sun. Cardiff was just how he'd remembered it, as he'd expected it would be. People were wandering around, living their lives as though nothing was different. Nothing was different for them, of course. By contrast, everything had changed for the Doctor since his last visit. But he was used to change. He was on his 12th body, after all.

Claire Hopewell was hard at work at the electronics shop where she had recently been promoted to manager. It was a real honor for a tech enthusiast like her, but her mother wasn't as impressed as Claire had hoped she'd be. Not that she was surprised; she just tried to take a more optimistic view of life. Still, it would be nice to see her mother get a bit more excited about her career for once.

"Does this mean you'll be spending more time in that computer shop than usual?" Claire's mother had asked after hearing the news. "How do you expect to find a husband if you're working there all day? That's not the sort of place that men go to find girls."

"Mum, this is a wonderful opportunity. I'll be gaining such great experience! This company doesn't hire any management staff that don't really know their stuff," Claire had replied.

"Because every man is looking for a woman who can fix their computer!"

Claire knew that her mother was a lost cause. Even in the year 2015, the idea that a woman in her early 20s could be more focused on her career than marriage was too modern a concept for Laura Hopewell.

It had been a pretty slow day, and it was made slower still the minute an elderly man approached her with a fancy laptop he'd recently purchased.

"I tried calling tech support," the elderly man, who had introduced himself as Mr. Nelson, was saying. "And I was talking to this nice young man, but I got confused when he started telling me to click on stuff. My old computer has this thing called a mouse that I use for clicking. Does that make sense?"

"Yes sir, but-" Claire began.

"But I don't think I have a mouse for this thing," Mr. Nelson interjected, lifting the laptop a few inches off of the counter and peering under it as if expecting the mouse to be hiding under there.

"Actually sir, laptops don't really come with a mouse. You can purchase one to use with your new computer if that would make you more comfortable, but it's not necessary. Just move your finger across the track pad to move the cursor, and tap it to click."

"Track… what?"

Claire took a deep breath. "The track pad. Do you see the rectangle at the bottom of the keyboard?"

"Here?" Mr. Nelson asked, pointing to the space bar.

"No, sir. Here," Claire replied, pointing to the track pad. "See? You move the cursor and click like this." She proceeded to demonstrate by opening up Mr. Nelson's Internet browser.

"What's that you just clicked on?"

"Um… That's the internet, sir."

"Inter… what?"

Thankfully, or perhaps not so thankfully, right at that moment, a set of speakers that were on display across the store exploded, seemingly without cause. They were followed by the explosions of several other electronics, and accompanied by the lights flickering before going out completely. The handful of customers that had been browsing the shop and the two other employees that were currently on the clock screamed and ran for the exit. Mr. Nelson forgot his computer in his haste, which was pretty fast for a man of his age.

"Everybody remain calm!" Claire exclaimed, trying to remember the emergency procedures she learned during her training period. This proved to be of little help, however, because this was one emergency that had, apparently, not been anticipated by the nice men and women who were in charge of spelling out company policies and procedures. It didn't really matter, anyway. These people were hysterical and not particularly interested in proper emergency protocol. They were all nearly out the door, anyway.

The Doctor stared at his reflection in the dressing room's mirror. He had eventually settled on an outfit and was fairly pleased with the results. His new body was now adorned with a simple pair of dark wash blue jeans, brown leather shoes, a royal blue button-down shirt, and a brown blazer. The tricky part would be paying for these new clothes without any money. He supposed he could pull something off with his psychic paper.

Just as the Doctor was about to exit the dressing room, the lights began to flicker and the sound of a small explosion came from somewhere inside the store. Quickly grabbing his sonic screwdriver from the inside pocket of his blazer, the Doctor threw open the door and assessed the scene in front of him.

People were screaming and running, clearly having no idea of what to do with themselves. Judging by the money scattered across the floor and the oddly disfigured state of the cash register, it was the cash register that had exploded. But what caused the explosion? And why?

"Everybody out!" the Doctor exclaimed as the shop's occupants were nearly all out of the door. "Right, survival instincts," he muttered to himself before running over to the register and scanning it with his sonic screwdriver. The Doctor had been expecting signs that some sort of bomb had gone off, possibly in some robbery attempt. But he quickly noticed that there were two problems with this theory. One was that there was nobody left in the shop but him. Nobody had come to claim any of the currency that now decorated the floor. The other problem was that the readings were showing that the register had been electrocuted. With an extraordinarily strong electrical current, too.

The streets had gone mad. People were panicking and running out of shops, leaving behind unexplained explosions and power failures. Those who had driven into town today were jumping into their cars, and were horrified to discover that their vehicles would not start.

After deciding that he'd gained all of the information he could from this abandoned clothing shop, the Doctor stepped out into the chaos. He took in the scene quickly, knowing he needed to figure out his next move before the situation worsened. Power failures were usually not a huge cause for concern, of course, but this was no ordinary power failure. Ordinary power failures don't cause the explosions of electronic devices.

"I was in the electronics shop, Lawrence! Things were exploding all over the place!" A hysterical woman was saying to her male companion. The Doctor's eyes widened.

"Excuse me, but did you just say electronics shop? Which way would that be, exactly?" the Doctor inquired quickly.

"Well it's… just a few blocks that way," the bewildered woman replied, pointing to her left. The Doctor began running down the street in the direction the woman had indicated. If the problem had to do with electricity, what better place to go than an electronics shop? "But I wouldn't recommend going there now with the state it's in!" the woman called after him.

It wasn't a long run to the electronics shop. The doctor had no problems spotting it, what with all of the smoke in there and all. There had been way more explosions in this particular shop than on any other shop on the street. Bracing himself for the scent of fried electronics, the Doctor ran into the shop… and right into a person.

Claire had decided to stay behind and take care of the shop in its most vulnerable hour. Sure, it was dangerous, what with all of the unexplained explosions and all, but the shop meant a lot to her. She felt a bit like a captain, going down with her ship.

"What am I doing?" Claire muttered to herself. Had she actually just compared herself to a ship captain? Maybe her mother was right. Maybe she was a bit too obsessed with her job. She had just propped open the door to air out the smoke and was trying to fan the less than pleasantly scented air toward the opening when a large mass zoomed into the shop and knocked her to the ground. Claire screamed, and so did the man that had just landed on top of her.

The Doctor wasn't entirely sure of what he would encounter upon entering the electronics shop, but he certainly hadn't anticipated crushing a skinny blonde girl and knocking her glasses off.

"Hello," the Doctor said politely before getting the girl and him to their feet and retrieving the fallen glasses. "I'm terribly sorry about that, I wasn't expecting anyone to be in here. What are you doing in here, anyway?"

"I work here," the girl replied proudly. "I'm a store manager. And I'm sorry to say that, in light of recent events, we are currently closed." The Doctor grinned.

"Not about to let a few freak explosions scare you off, eh? I like that. What's your name?"

"Claire Hopewell," Claire replied, pleased that someone had finally recognized her dedication.

"Pleasure to meet you, Claire Hopewell! I'm the Doctor, I'm here to help."

"The Doctor? Surely you've got a proper name? And what kind of doctor?"

"Of course I've got a proper name, doesn't everyone? And I dabble in this and that, you know. The real question is; what's going on with all of these electrical problems?" And with that, the Doctor moved further into the shop to take a look around.

Claire abandoned her attempts at finding answers to her previous questions, and even her attempt at asking him to leave the shop. She wasn't sure what it was, but there was something about this strange man that made her believe he really could help, even though she, a technology expert, was at a complete loss. Maybe it was just the way he took control of the situation.

"Some of the battery powered devices have exploded, not just the ones plugged into the wall. So we know the problem definitely didn't start at the power plant," the Doctor said as he examined a shelf of merchandise.

"What do you think happened, then?" Claire asked.

"No idea," the Doctor replied as he brought his good old sonic screwdriver out again.

"What's that?" asked Claire who had a puzzled stare fixed on the bit of metal with the flashing green light on the end that the Doctor was now holding over destroyed electronics.

"This," the Doctor began, taking a quick sonicing break so that he could show Claire the device properly. "…is a sonic screwdriver."

"Sonic… screwdriver? What does it do?" The Doctor smiled, never tiring of talking about his toys.

"Of course, you're a tech expert aren't you, Miss Manager? Naturally you should be interested in a device like this. It does all sorts of things! It controls technology, does medical scans, even unlocks things, though it doesn't work on wood."

"If it can do all that, then why can't it work on wood?" Claire asked, skeptically. She'd never heard of any such thing as a sonic screwdriver.

"Hey, I don't make the rules! This thing is really cool, you'll never see anything else like it. You know, you ask a lot of questions."

"And what's wrong with that? You won't find answers if you don't ask questions."

"Oh nothing's wrong, I love it!" the Doctor replied, his grin widening. "And you make a good point, Claire Hopewell. We don't seem to be finding any answers here. So we need to find the right questions to ask."

"So, what now?"

"You said it yourself, we start asking questions. Come on!" the Doctor said as he began moving toward the door.

"You want me to come with you?"

"Yeah, why not? I could always use another inquiring mind. Besides, these are technological issues we're dealing with here. Your area of expertise, right?"

Claire grinned, the Doctor took her hand, and they both ran out of the shop and into the street, where the confusion and panic were dissipating and the police were starting to arrive.

"Perfect! Hello, officers. Any insight on what went on here, today?" the Doctor inquired.

"Right now, we're advising everyone to stay away from the street until it is declared safe. We'll be keeping everyone informed as much as we can," one officer replied.

"Oh, I'm going to be needing s bit more of an explanation than that," the Doctor said, pulling out his psychic paper. "Detective John Smith. This is my assistant, Claire Hopewell. Now, what do you know so far?" The officers seemed to give in reluctantly.

"Well, Detective, we're ruling out a mass bombing at this point. We think there may have been some sort of electrical accident involved."

"Oh, it was no accident," the Doctor interjected.

"And how would you know that?"

"Just trust me for the moment. Humor me. So, are there security cameras on this street?"

"Of course!" one of the officers exclaimed, clearly offended by the notion that the police would ever not take every measure to ensure that every citizen is safe.

"Brilliant! Let's take a look at the footage, shall we?"

Claire held back a chuckle as a bewildered police officer led them to a building a few blocks away and around the corner.

"Detective John Smith and my assistant?" Claire whispered, amused.

"Psychic paper. It says whatever I want it to say," the Doctor whispered back.

"But… that's impossible!"

"In human technology, maybe."

"You say that as if it were made by aliens or something."

The Doctor winked in response. Claire raised an eyebrow, but didn't have time to ask any more questions. The officer, who had introduced himself as Officer Dan, had just led them into a rather small room that was filled with various buttons and screens. Officer Dan sat down and pulled up images of the street they'd just been on from several different angles.

"The incident was reported to have happened around 2 o'clock, so I'll start the footage a few minutes before then."

For the first few minutes, nothing of interest happened. It was just a typical day, with people roaming around on their daily errands. Then, when the clock in the corner of the screen read 2:02 PM, confusion struck. Lights went out, and panicking customers ran out into the street.

"I don't know, Detective. I don't see how you can rule out a power failure," Officer Dan said.

"If it's a power failure, then why didn't all of the lights go out at the same time? There was some sort of domino effect. And what about the explosions?" Claire pointed out.

"Well put, Claire. Officer Dan, I'm afraid we've got something much bigger going on here. Would you mind watching it again? And this time slow it down a bit, would you?" the Doctor requested. Having no answers to Claire's questions, Officer Dan obeyed the Doctor's orders. "There, pause it!" Officer Dan paused the footage, and the Doctor pointed to the upper right-hand screen. There was an odd shiny clump in the middle of the street.

"What is that?" asked Claire.

"I'll zoom in on it," Officer Dan suggested, grateful to regain control of the situation, if even for an instant.

The zoomed in image proved to be not a ball of light, but some sort of creature. It had a long, slender body that appeared to be made entirely out of lightning bolts. A smug grin was stretched across its electrifying face.

"I…I should go tell somebody about this," Officer Dan said before running out of the room as if the image on the screen were going to come to life right in front of them. Not that something like that hadn't happened before, but Officer Dan had no way of knowing that.

"Doctor, exactly what is that?" Claire asked as soon as Officer Dan was gone.

"I don't know," the Doctor admitted.

"And your psychic paper, your sonic screwdriver, I've never heard of those! And now there's this thing. We're dealing with aliens here, aren't we? And what about you, with your alien technology? Are you even human?"

"Um, yes to the we're dealing with aliens bit, no to my being human."

"Okay, so you're a real, live alien, then? You're not one of those, are you? Like in disguise or something?" Claire asked, pointing to the as of yet unidentified creature on the screen.

"This is my true form, I promise. I'm just here to help."

"Okay," Claire said after a moment. "So, I suppose our next step would be to find this thing?" The Doctor smiled.

"Right you are."

The Doctor and Claire stepped out into the street once again.

"The current question is; How do we find this thing?" the Doctor asked as they began to walk.

All of a sudden, a scream could be heard from not too far away. The Doctor and Claire briefly glanced at each other before running off toward the sound, which was closely followed by more screams. When they arrived on the scene, people were as panicky as they had been during the earlier incident. But this time there was a woman crying hysterically. The Doctor honed in on her immediately.

"What's happened? What's wrong?" he asked. The woman looked up at him through tear-filled eyes.

"My-my husband!" she exclaimed before bursting into another fit of sobs. Claire wrapped an arm around the woman, her womanly instincts kicking in.

"Where is he? Where is your husband?" the Doctor exclaimed.

"He-there was this-thing!" the woman sputtered. "I dunno what it was. But it just… electrocuted him or something! He's gone… My husband…" Claire gasped. It would appear that their alien was doing a lot worse than temporarily closing down a few shops.

"Ma'am I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry," said the Doctor. "I'm here to catch that thing so it can't hurt anyone else. But I need to find it. Can you tell me where you saw it?" The woman sniffled and nodded.

"Just down there," the woman replied, pointing down a nearby street. "Then the second left. That's where we saw it, and started to run to get away, but my husband…" The woman burst into tears yet again.

"Thank you. I'm so sorry, I truly am. I'm going to catch this thing, that's a promise," the Doctor said sincerely. He then turned his head to address Claire. "Claire, you stay here with her. Whatever this thing is, it's deadly, and we don't know how to fight it yet."

"Then how do you plan on doing anything?" Claire asked.

"I'll think of something. I'm brilliant, after all." The Doctor and Claire shared a smile.

"Be careful!" Claire called as the Doctor ran off.

"I always am!" he replied as he rounded a corner.

The Doctor walked along the street where that poor woman said she'd seen the creature. It wasn't there anymore, as he'd anticipated, but he hoped that it hadn't gotten too far. He still didn't know what he was going to do when he ran into the thing, but he certainly didn't have a better plan. In the meantime, he found himself in the midst of an unsettling scene. There were 3 dead bodies, one of which had to be the woman's husband. It would appear that most of the people had gotten away, but there were already 3 deaths too many. The Doctor wasn't about to let there be a fourth.

"Where are you, then?" the Doctor called out into the quiet. It was strangely unpopulated here as apposed to the street he had just been on. Probably because everyone who had been here to see the lightning creature had run over there to get away from it.

After wandering around for a bit with no luck, the Doctor was starting to think that the creature had moved on. Just when he was about to head back to Claire and regroup, he heard screaming.

"Why am I never in the area when the screaming starts today?" the Doctor asked himself as he took off running once again. This was way to much exercise for a brand new body.

"Tell me about your husband," Claire prompted.

"He's… Well I suppose it's was now. I can't believe he's gone!" the woman, who Claire discovered is named Grace Dawson, exclaimed, tears streaming down her face.

"I know. I'm so sorry. The Doctor is going to get this thing, I know he is."

"Is that the man who was here?" Grace asked. Claire nodded. "Who is he?"

"I don't really know to be honest," Claire admitted. "I've only just met him. All I know is that he seems to understand all of this a lot better than anyone else. And he genuinely cares about helping to protect all of us."

Their conversation was interrupted by screams coming from down the street.

"It's happening again!" Grace shrieked. And she was right.

Turning her head in the direction of the screams, Claire saw the creature that, up until now, she had only seen on a computer screen. And it was terrifying.

"Run! Save yourself!" Claire exclaimed, nudging Grace away from the monster. Claire refused to run. She was the captain, and she would go down with her ship. Maybe she was crazy. Or maybe the short time she had spent with the Doctor, the man that had just ran off by himself to find this thing with no idea of how to stop it, had been enough to remind her of how much she cared about these people.

"Hey!" Claire called to the alien before her. "Lightning Face! What do you think you're doing?" She groaned inwardly. Lightning Face? It would appear that she needed to work on her insults. If she survived this. The creature turned to the direction of her voice.

"What do you think you're doing, Human?" the alien asked, its voice like an electrical hum.

"I'm trying to figure out why you're messing with my species!" Claire replied in a voice that was braver than she felt. The monster laughed, a sickening sound like a series of powerful electric shocks.

"Your species means nothing to the Elecdrones!"

"Elecdrones? Is that what you are?"

"I am an Elcdrone from the planet Toron."

"Alright, Mr. Elecdrone. What are you doing on Earth? I'm assuming you're not just here to go on a killing spree."

"The Elecdrones wish to explore more of the galaxy. But Toron is far from here. We require a refueling station."

"What does that have to do with Earth?"

"This planet is the perfect candidate as it's mostly made out of water."

Claire was suddenly reminded of the reason why hairdryers remind their users not to dry their hair while in the bathtub.

"Are you here by yourself to kill the entire human race? Or are there more of you?"

"I was sent here to scope the place out. To see for myself if this planet will suite our needs. More will be along later, after I relay the message to Toron. I figured I might as well begin the job while I'm here. But you won't have to worry about meeting the rest of us. You'll be long dead when they get here."

Claire squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself as the Elecdrone went in for the kill. She had managed to keep it distracted long enough for the others to escape, and she was proud of that. Her only hope now was that it would be quick and painless. Even as she waited to die, she couldn't help seeing the irony. She was a technological expert, about to be killed by an alien that was made out of electricity.

Suddenly, the thought occurred to Claire that she should be dead by now. She also became aware of a sort of buzzing noise coming from behind her. Upon opening her eyes, she was greeted by the sight of the Electrode frozen in place and flickering like an old television set that's having a hard time finding a signal. And, over her right shoulder, was none other than the Doctor brandishing his beloved sonic screwdriver. Claire let out a relieved chuckle.

"I told you this thing was cool!" the Doctor exclaimed.

"How long have you been standing there?" asked Claire.

"Pretty much the whole time."

"Why didn't you say anything? I was scared to death, I thought I was going to die!"

"Well, you were doing so well, I didn't want to interrupt."

Claire didn't know whether to laugh or slap him. She settled for rolling her eyes.

"And how did you know that would work? I thought you didn't know how to fight this thing," Claire pointed out.

"I told you I would think of something."

"Okay, Alien Boy. What do we do now?" she asked.

"Well, now's the tricky part."

"Because this day's been a cakewalk so far."

"I'm glad you think so, because you've got your work cut out for you."

"Okay… What do I have to do?"

"You're going to have to build some sort of a trap made of strong, reliable materials that don't conduct electricity. And I can't be of much help, I have to keep using my sonic screwdriver so that the Elecdrone won't get away."

"Okay… Okay, sure. Don't worry, Doctor. I'll figure something out. I'll go get some of the other people to help me."

"Hurry, Claire! I don't know how much longer this will work."

So Claire ran down the street in search of people to help her save the world. This wasn't exactly how she'd planned on spending this day. But maybe this was better than her plans.

"Excuse me!" she called to a small group of people she saw walking down the street. "Look, my friend has caught the alien, but now we have to build a trap for it, and there's not much time, and I was just wondering-"

"Are you crazy?" one of the people interrupted. "I'm getting far away from here! It's not safe! People have died!"

Claire had no more luck with any of the other people she asked. Most of the people had already cleared the area anyway. Why would they stay? All of the shops were now closed, and there was a deadly alien hanging around.

"It looks like I'm on my own," Claire muttered to herself. All she needed was a plan.

First things first; she needed materials. Not wanting to waste any time, Claire walked into the nearest store. Lucky for her, this particular shop sold all sorts of things. There were coloring books, yarn, oven mitts, inspirational decorative pillows, Halloween masks, British flag coasters, hermit crabs… Anything you needed, you could probably find it there. Unless you're looking for an electric alien trap.

Claire walked down one of the aisles, past the rulers, cotton balls, Christmas wreathes, and neon-colored teacups, and was slowly beginning to lose faith. The Doctor was waiting for her. Surely an intelligent woman like herself could think of something.

And then she saw it. There, between the snorkeling equipment and the safety scissors, was a big cooler made of sturdy, durable plastic. That's what it said on the product description, anyway. There was just one problem. It had a padlock on it to discourage theft. At first she thought that wouldn't be a problem, the Doctor could just sonic it open. Then she remembered that the sonic screwdriver was a bit busy at the moment.

Feeling the pressure now, Claire ran to the front desk to try and find the key. She sifted through the desktop items, but, as she expected, the key wasn't there. Then she tried opening the drawers, but they were locked, and her desperate tugging was fruitless. Her plans were falling apart one by one, and she was running out of options. For all she knew, the Doctor would be forced to let go at any second.

"Thnk, Claire, think!" she exclaimed, digging her knuckles into her forehead. The thought occurred to her that maybe she could pick the lock. She'd watched a YouTube video on lock picking once, just in case some sort of lock picking emergency ever came up, as they so often do. "Okay, what do I need?"

A tension wrench and a pick. That's what she needed. But she doubted she could find those in this shop, despite the fact that they seemed to carry everything. Thankfully, Claire remembered that she could make some out of paper clips. And she was pretty sure they carried those. It was just a matter of finding them.

Claire was getting more and more desperate, and was now ripping merchandise from the shelves in an effort to find what she needed. She could feel the pressure of the situation pushing down on her harder than ever. Finally, behind a bag of dog biscuits, she found a box of paper clips. Wasting no time in celebration, she ripped into the box and pulled out two of its contents. After bending them into the proper shapes from memory, she had the tools that she needed to get the job done.

Now it was time to put her lock picking skills to the test. She had never actually tried it before, but she didn't have a better plan at the moment. Nor did she have time to come up with one. So, Claire set to work on the lock. First, she inserted the tension wrench. After putting a bit of pressure on it, she inserted the pick and moved it around a bit, hoping the lock would pop open. No such luck. Claire was getting more and more frustrated as she tried again and again. Finally, on the 5th try, the lock popped open.

"Yes!" she exclaimed before placing the lock into her pocket, grabbing the cooler, and running back to the Doctor as fast as her feet would carry her.

"Doctor!" Claire called as she approached. "Doctor, I did it! Has he moved?" she asked suddenly. The alien was definitely in a different position than it had been when she left. She was sure of it.

"Yes, yes, I lost my grip on it a couple times! Now, hurry! But be careful, that would be one nasty shock if you touched it," the Doctor replied quickly, strain in his voice.

Quickly and carefully, Claire approached the Elecdrone. Just being this close to it made her blonde hair stand up. She slowed down now, moving forward with the cooler open.

"This will teach you to mess with my planet!" Claire exclaimed before encasing the Elecdrone in the cooler and slamming the lid shut. The Doctor let out a relieved laugh as Claire quickly set the cooler on the ground and put her weight onto the lid so that their alien monster couldn't escape. The Doctor ran over to help her keep the lid shut while she put the lock back on. Then both the Doctor and Claire stared at each other, their exhaustion showing.

Claire sat on top of the cooler, guarding it. The Doctor had informed her that he'd arrived in some sort of space ship, and was going to go get it so that he could take the Elecdrone away. Claire was imagining some sort of flying saucer or something. What actually happened was way cooler by anyone's standards.

All of a sudden, Claire was aware of a noise unlike any she had heard before. It was kind of an airy, creaky sound. That's the best way she knew how to describe it, anyway. Just a second or two after the noise started, a big blue box materialized out of thin air. It was labeled Police Box, but Claire had never seen the police use anything like this before. Could the Doctor be on some sort of intergalactic police force? Was that why he had saved them all?

The box's door opened, and the Doctor stepped out. Claire recognized the grin on his face from when he was telling her about his sonic screwdriver only that morning.

"What do you think?" the Doctor asked proudly.

"Are you the police?" Claire asked in response.

"What? No. Oh, you mean the box. The TARDIS, that's what it's called by the way, changes based on where it is so that it can take on the appearance of something that won't attract attention."

"But I've never heard of a police box."

"Yeah, well. That function hasn't worked properly for years." Claire grinned and shook her head.

"Whatever, space man. The real question is; how do you expect to ride around in the spaceship of yours with this cooler inside? Your box is tiny enough as it is."

"Oh, don't be so quick to judge a book by its cover! Come have a look." Claire raised an eyebrow and got up off of the cooler. The Doctor stepped back to let her into the TARDIS. Instantly, her jaw dropped.

Claire found herself in a huge room, way bigger than the blue box she'd just been staring at. In the center was some sort of tall tube that was surrounded by loads of buttons and levers. This was a tech enthusiast's dream.

"It's… It's bigger on the inside!" Claire sputtered.

"I love it when people say that!" the Doctor exclaimed.

"But… You could fit the entire outside of your spaceship in here!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Claire, that's impossible. The only way to get the outside of something in the inside of that something is to turn that something inside out, and that's one function the TARDIS can't perform."

"This is amazing! You can drive this thing anywhere?"

"Anywhere through all of time and space!"

"Wait, it's a time machine?"

"Yeah, a time machine… space ship… thing."

"And you just travel around in here all by yourself?"

"Well, not always by myself exactly. Let's go load up that cooler, shall we?" And so they did.

"What are you going to do with it?" Claire asked as they carefully maneuvered the cooler through the door.

"I'm going to take it to a planet made entirely out of sand, where it will live out the rest of its days, unable to hurt anyone ever again," the Doctor replied. Claire nodded. That sounded nice.

"But the rest of them, back on Toron. They're not going to give up, are they?" The Doctor's expression was suddenly serious.

"No," he replied.

"Then we haven't heard the last of this, have we?"

"No." Claire sighed.

"And when we hear from them again, you're going to need some help, aren't you?" The Doctor's mouth formed a bit of a grin.

"I suppose I will."

"Like you said, it's my area of expertise. Who better to help you than me?" The Doctor's grin grew into a wide smile.

"No one. Come with me?"

"Well, if you insist."