The first rule of clearing one's To Do list, no matter how long or ridiculous that list might be, is to identify which pairs of birds might be knocked from their perches with single missiles.
Oh, no, that's horrible, I quite like birds. Not all planets have birds, you know, and the people of Earth are so horrible to them. If they're not melting down the habitats they're calling them rats-with-wings. Pigeons are lovely.
No, to put it more simply, one must first identify if any two items on one's To Do list might be managed at once. This is what leads me to have Bracewell's office guard bring me a portable monitor with access to the prison security cameras, whilst simultaneously demanding that the Little Ghost's incineration be delayed until I can get to speak to her.
I'm really demanding that she not be incinerated at all, but I'll tell them that when I get there.
I hand the monitor to Pond. "What do I do?"
"Find River and Rory."
"Right." She's ready, she's willing, she hasn't a clue how to work it.
"Think of an iPad." And off she goes like a pro, flying out of the blocks, dear, sweet girl. Bracewell, finally, manages to prise his cheesy girth out of his chair to take us to the Little Ghost. With typical selflessness and diligence, Amy is still working, so I guide her up by the arm and keep her from walking into anything on the way out. "This prisoner Eighty-Four," I call up to Bracewell, "had she ever shown any intention of escaping before?"
"Nothing. Altogether very placid prisoner. Used to sit in her cell writing grammar exercises. This morning they went to take her lunch and she knocked out three guards and bolted into the service areas."
"And that didn't strike you as odd?"
Amy cuts in, "Doctor, I've found them."
"Governor, just you have a think about that one." I take the monitor from Pond, give her back her arm and indicate that she should take mine.
On screen, the cameras of the fourth circle follow River and Rory as they run. Not that they're being chased. No, I've never seen a Silent sprinting, come to think of it. Suppose I could have and just not remembered. No, it's just that they're there. Wherever River and Rory might run, there they are. I'm trying to mark them off on my arm. Ultimately I write the word, 'Many' and put the pen away.
I am interrupted by walking into a wall. This is because Amy, rather than looking forward at Governor Bracewell and helping us to follow him, has been watching worriedly over my shoulder. Now, nobody could blame her for not wanting to look at Bracewell, but I've just walked into a wall. I try not to glare when I look at her.
"Sorry."
"Ask Governor Bracewell if he's thought about my question." She looks up, and again, she's all ready to go, only she hasn't a clue where to start. "Think of him as Churchill." There's a bristle from on up the corridor, "Oh, don't get flattered, I mean you're both short and fat."
Again, as soon as I put him into context, Pond is fine to go ahead. So I trust her guidance again and look down at the screen.
I'm rather glad Amy's no longer watching. She might have a bit of trouble walking at the same time as this.
River and Rory are in a corner. There are four Silents in the same frame, and the shadows of more beyond them. My To Do list expands to include interfering in some very fast and effective way that will nonetheless not cause panic in my immediate vicinity. Something is occurring to me, I promise, it's just taking its time. Something to do with the security system and alarms, and maybe calling the guards to their aid, no, not stunners, stunners are electric, don't give them electric, no.
This time, the interruption is entirely welcome, and saves me. Out of apparently nowhere, but probably the ceiling, a new player drops into frame. In prison overalls, though they are torn down the sleeves by a pair of very familiar blue stakes. Luckily, this new third person is turned entirely towards the gathered Silents, not Rory and River.
I know her face too, and her long dark hair, and she was wearing a midnight blue evening dress when she handcuffed me to a chair and said, 'Am Jessica'.
Is Prisoner Eighty-Four, is what she is, it's on her overalls.
She stands with her arms out, sizing up the competition. I don't have sound, but Rory leans forward, maybe asking who she is at the worst possible moment, as is his wont, but River pulls him back. Tight, in fact, close in behind her.
Prisoner Eighty-Four is in discourse with the lead Silent. The Silent, it would seem, says something she does not like. She tosses her head, draws back one arm and dives as though to run it through. She doesn't, but falls amongst the Silents. The four of them on screen fall around her.
She is, in fact, standing on one, which makes me laugh a little bit, and nearly distracts Amy from her distraction with Bracewell. "Nothing, nothing," I say, a little too loudly. I fold the screen up against my chest. "Just… Rory's face, that's all." She thinks about poking out her tongue, you can see it, then decides this isn't the time and goes back to her conversation.
By the time I look back to the screen, everything is much better than it was before. Really, I should look away more often. River and Rory are no longer in the corner. Rory is trying to stop, probably still asking who Prisoner Eighty-Four is, or trying to thank her, if I know him at all. River pulls him away and starts to run.
For some reason, the Silents are not attacking the Prisoner.
Perhaps because she is holding something small between thumb and forefinger. She looks up, directly into the camera, directly into my eyes from two floors away, and tilts this object towards me. A small round disc with a hole in the middle. I've seen it before, or one just like it.
It's all going so well. I like this Prisoner Eighty-Four, she seems a helpful soul, and brave and true.
River, though, I'm not so mad about right now. Because it all just seems to be coming together a little too neatly for her. As Prisoner Eighty-Four climbs back into the ceiling she deus-exed her way down from, I go looking for River on the other cameras. Just to see if she's being appropriately grateful as regards what she just got away with. I'd like her to be happy with this now, so that when I tell her off later, she's already had a chance to enjoy it. I'm nice like that.
But it would seem that River and Rory ran out of one ambush and into another.
Two Silents have River by the arms, and she is telling Rory to run. Really shouting it, so much so that I can read it even over the camera. Ultimately he does. He's no use to her if they get him too.
I'm standing here willing Prisoner Eighty-Four to drop down out of the ceiling again, but she doesn't. And I'm standing here, which means I'm not walking, which means Pond has noticed and is watching too. Standing rapt with her hand over her mouth. I look from her to Bracewell.
"Well? Nobody told you to stop walking. You take me to that Ghost and don't stop again. It's even more enormously important now than it was when it was just about her not burning to death." Bracewell would answer me, but the radio in his pocket starts to crackle. "No, don't bother," I say, when he goes to answer it. "The Prisoner Eighty-Four they thought they had and were taking to burn has bolted at the first sign of fire, and is currently at large."
He answers it anyway.
They only confirm what I'd already told him.
Time-wasters, every last one of them.