Chapter 3

"You're Amelia Pond!" The Doctor finally blurted out. He followed the two humans down a paved pathway leading toward the town's little park and playground.

She tugged down her skirt in an odd, self-conscious gesture. "You're late."

"You were the little girl?"

"We established that. I'm Amelia and you are late."

"What?"

They slowed to a quick walk, but The Doctor did his best to puzzle out their main dilemma. Unfortunately, what kept invading his thoughts was how an adorable seven-year-old girl turned into a buxom, fiery nineteen-year-old in all of five minutes. He looked from Amelia to Rose and back again, finally shrugging.

Amelia refused to meet The Doctor's gaze. "Twelve years and four psychiatrists late."

"Why four?"

She hesitated. "I kept biting them. They said you didn't exist. Now not only do I find you're real, but I catch you alfresco with this blonde."

"In flagrante," The Doctor corrected.

"What?"

"You meant 'red-handed'. Alfresco just means 'outside'."

She gave him another dirty look. "You know? It really bothers me that this is what you chose to take issue with."

"Sorry. I'm still not running on all cylinders yet."

They neared the park entrance when something caught The Doctor's attention. Ahead lay a truck of some sort with a scratchy sound system blaring away. His brow creased as he heard a garbled but understandable drone issuing forth from its speakers. "Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence." The Atraxi ultimatum looped over and over.

But this was no government vehicle monitoring alien broadcasts. It was an ordinary ice cream van, bright painted in some areas and a trifle rusty in others. Its occupant leaned out the side window, fussing with wires on the bullhorn. He looked just as confused to hear the strange message.

Amelia looked like she might just break into hysterics, probably wondering why they were being staked out by an a dessert vendor. Rose wore a familiar expression hinting she enjoyed the recent action, but dared not admit it.

They approached a middle-aged man with a round, pink face and whiskers jutting to the east and west, peering at him and his van. The vendor appeared hopeful for a potential sale, beaming them his most salesman-ish smile. But when he realized the onlookers were only window shoppers, he went back to his sullen repair task.

"Why are you playing that?" asked The Doctor.

He answered apologetically. "It's supposed to be a jingle for the kiddies." He watched The Doctor pick up his radio and cycle through the dial. Every station broadcast an identical ultimatum.

A needle of ice, not at all the fresh or creamy kind, worked its way down his spine. The Doctor did a full circle, taking in everything he could in that brief glance. From it, he noticed a half dozen joggers fighting with the receivers on their personal radios. Not far away, a woman's cell phone dispatched the message from its speaker. He felt his jaw clench.

Amy and Rose stared at him, clearly waiting for him to explain. However, foreboding sealed his lips. The Doctor pulled out his screwdriver and fired a hypersonic burst at the radio. Then, turning the knob again, it cycled through languages instead of stations. German, French, Chinese, and others spilled out the speaker as he listened.

"Oh. That's not good," he said at last. "That's not good at all."

"What?" asked Rose and Amy simultaneously.

The Doctor continued to bustle.

"Amy!" called the ice cream man, beaming again. "I didn't recognize you in that getup. Are you a police officer now?"

She did an uncomfortable mock curtsey. "I am sometimes."

The man frowned, confused. "But I thought you were a postman. Or was it a nun?"

Amelia gave a little gasping laugh. "I can be. I dabble."

Rose smiled. "So you didn't just put that thing on this morning as a bet?"

Amelia wrinkled her nose in distaste.

The Doctor eyed her. "You're Amelia. Who's Amy?"

She pouted. "Amelia is a 'storybook' name. A became Amy when I grew up."

"Don't I know you from somewhere?" asked the man, addressing The Doctor.

"Not likely, new face and all." He paused. "What kind of job is a kissogram, anyway?"

"I can tell you," Rose interjected. "She goes to parties and kisses people. With outfits."

"It's a laugh!" Amy defended.

"You were a little girl five minutes ago," he scolded.

"Sheesh, you're worse than my aunt."

"I'm The Doctor. I'm worse than everyone's aunt... which sounds a good bit less impressive when I say it out loud."

Rose just laughed at him.

Amy fumed. "Okay. Less talk about me. What isn't good?"

"The Atraxi are broadcasting to the whole world."

"So?"

"They're not talking about your house, Amy. The Atraxi have surrounded the planet. They're going to sterilize the Earth to prevent Prisoner Zero from escaping."

Rose gaped at him.

He didn't blame her. Questions flashed across his mind like heat lightning. How would they do it? Atraxi ships used crystalline lattice, quartz-lined hulls. Enough of them could excite molecules in the atmosphere and cook the planet like a potato in the microwave. They would need to power up first. How long would it take? Again, it depended on the size and armament of the warships. He knew little about the Atraxi, but from what he had heard, they moved in numbers when provoked.

They probably had between five and thirty minutes, and what could he do with that?

He needed resources. With his TARDIS he could solve this problem in thirty seconds. Without it, all he had was a battered screwdriver, what looked like a closed post office across the way, and a bright red phone box.

They stalked away from the befuddled vendor, The Doctor making a beeline for a little pool by one of the park gates. "What's this?" he asked offhand.

"It's a duck pond," Amy replied.

Rose frowned at it. "There are no ducks in it. What makes it a 'duck pond', Pond?"

She shook her head. "It just is."

"That's okay. The amount of sense this day has been making can fit in a sardine tin without removing the sardines first. Why do I never have a chance for a lie down after regenerating? It would be so much better than all this." The Doctor pointed a stern finger at her. "I'm not as young as I used to be, no matter what the face may suggest."

Rose laughed to herself. "Yeah, but at least it's not going so badly as last time."

He shrugged. "Good point. If only... what?"

She looked a bit dizzy. "I said 'at least,'" she trailed off, cocking her head sideways. "Sorry. Lost the thought there."

"Don't worry about it," he replied. Only he could not abide by that advice himself. That slip frightened him. Yet another oddity, perhaps more important than all the others, but it would have to wait lest the world burn.

An instant later, the thought fled his mind as well when a surge of pain twisted his gut into knots. He collapsed backwards onto a ledge surrounding the pool. A rush of energy surged through him, venting from his mouth in a burst of gold light. Both young women watched him in alarm.

Grabbing his chest, The Doctor gritted his teeth through the pain. "Like I said, I'm not done yet. This is just too soon."

oOo

Before the others could respond, a muted umber cast itself over the sun. Amy peered into the sky in trepidation. The darkness of twilight spread from horizon to horizon. The sun remained at the pinnacle of its arc, but despite this it seemed to have lost its command of the heavens.

Amy felt the blood rush from her cheeks. All over the park, joggers and picnickers alike stopped what they were doing to stare, spellbound by the remarkable spectacle. Many of them took out cameras and other devices to snap off a few four-by-sixes of the phenomenon to upload to their Facebook accounts.

The Doctor watched them, exasperated. "Terrific. The end of the world, right here, seen as it was always meant to be; through the lens of a picture phone."

Smiling despite herself, Amy did not answer, preferring to maintain her sour demeanour a little longer.

"How can the Atraxi get away with this?" asked Rose.

The Doctor eyed her. "They might not, but we'll be just as dead." He went back to cleaning his sonic screwdriver, muttering to himself as he worked. Relative silence settled between them. The silly blonde took out her phone, fussing with it like she very much wished it had a camera as well.

Amy, bottling her thoughts, bit her lip in anxiety. The sun had gone bonkers, her childhood imaginary friend had returned out of the blue, and an alien living in her house had attracted its unrelenting jailers to come and capture it. To wit, this day was not going quite as she planned.

"Amy," The Doctor called.

She barely heard him.

"Amy!" he repeated, grabbing her arm and pulling her towards him. She stumbled, looking annoyed, and snatched back her wrist.

"What?"

"I'm still missing something. I'm sure of it. Give me a hand here." He slapped his forehead and stomped around in a tight circle.

"Are you just winding me up?"

"Why would I do that?"

Amy wrung her hands together. "I don't know. This isn't exactly normal, is it?"

"For me?" He grinned. "This is routine." The Doctor staggered to his feet. "Wait. That's it. I looked right at him and I missed it." The grin broadened. He had obviously recalled the information he wanted. "We can still do this. Come on. We've got a few minutes, and I'm going to buy us some more. Run to your loved ones, or stay with me."

Something snapped in Amy's head. Her lower lip curled, eyes growing more intense than ever. For her, Prisoner Zero, Earth's immanent destruction, and all the rest no longer mattered. She straightened to her full height, seized The Doctor by his ragged tie and yanked his face to within an inch of her own. "No!"

His expression slipped. "Sorry, what? That wasn't one of the options."

"I said no!" She took off, dragging the protesting, helpless man behind her. Out the park gate they went, Rose following at a close distance, not sure how to react. Amy marched to a little parking lot, reaching a car just as its driver stepped out.

The old man lurched back when he caught sight of the fierce redhead. She took advantage of his confusion to snatch the keyring from his hand. Then, slamming The Doctor's tie in the door, she pressed the car's electronic lock, pinning him in place as emerald eyes burned into him.

"What are you doing? We don't have time for-"

"Uh, Amy?" prompted the bewildered old man. "I will need this back again in a few minutes."

She turned the blazing green coals on him. "You'll be fine. Toddle away, yeah? Pop off and have tea."

He swallowed hard, moistening his lips. Then, not commenting further, he literally ducked out of the conflict like he expected it to come to blows. He had seen her like this before, though not for many years, and wanted no more to do with such a tantrum now than in days gone by. After all, he was the second psychiatrist thrust upon her by her aunt.

The laser-like stare shifted back to The Doctor. "Who are you really?"

"You know me. I'm The Doctor." Sweat matted his hair. Amy knew she was not the best judge of character, but she recognised earnest panic when she saw it. This man honestly believed the world would end any minute.

She screwed her eyes shut, drumming on her cheeks before continuing. "Things like this don't really happen. I finally get you out of my head and you show up again."

"Amy!" called Rose. "We don't have time to waste here. Now let him go!"

She craned her neck to take in the other girl. Tears threatened to master her, but Amy fought them down. "And you," she said, voice tremulous. "Are you why he never came back? He met you and forgot all about keeping his promise. Is that it?" Amy's heart hammered against her breastbone. Anger, fear and jealousy vied for supremacy but she rejected them all.

If The Doctor spoke truth, this teenybopper Londoner stole the place on his ship he reserved her. Amy lost the greatest adventure of the ages to some ditzy girl barely her own age. If he lied, none of this mattered. It meant she was as crazy as her aunt always told her she was. Neither possibility exactly appealed her.

Rose shook her head firmly. "It's not like that. I was there on the TARDIS when we crash-landed in your yard twelve years ago. If you followed The Doctor, you might have heard me call up to him from inside."

Amy felt her own face scrunch into muddied disorder. "I thought that was the ship."

Rose shook her head again.

Gaze lingering, Amy thought long and hard before responding. A cold ache in her chest settled into the pit of her stomach. "I don't believe you."

A flicker of movement brought her attention back to The Doctor. He pulled something red out of his pocket, tossing it into the air. She caught it out of instinct, and Amy realized she held an apple in her hand. The sight startled her, imagination transporting her back thirteen years in an instant, to a kitchen table and an auburn-haired woman who's smiling face she could barely remember. Her heart broke then and there.

Oh, mum! This time hot tears spilled over burning lids. In the past, she often tried to see that face as she rested on the border of wake and sleep, but the memory would not force. It felt more a shadow, old and faded like a sun-soaked photograph. A detached part of herself noted with wonder that she did not collapse in wild hysterics, but suffice it to say, she remained standing.

The smiling face carved into the apple's skin seemed like her mother's handiwork, but not just like it after all. It looked like the work of weaker, but no less determined fingers. The muscles in her throat contracted.

She looked into The Doctor's eyes, but he gently took her wrist and forced the sight back into her vision. "I'm The Doctor. I'm a time traveller Everything you've seen is real, and if you don't let me stop this, all you know ends today." He paused, squeezing her hand. "Look, Amelia Pond. Look at this apple. It's fresh as the day you gave it to me, because from my perspective, you only gave it to me a short while ago. And you know it's the same one."

Amy blinked away the last vestiges of her tears. The Doctor's eyes met hers, but she looked right through them. Her heart mourned the undiscovered country, a lifetime of adventures that the child Amelia had longed for but would never know.

Her other hand rose of its own volition, the key fob still clutched between finger and thumb. The conflict did not lessen, but her torment did. She punched the unlock button.

Rose sighed in relief as The Doctor freed himself.

"What do we do?" Amy questioned.

Wild darkness warmed his every feature. "We have a nurse to catch."

oOo

Rory Williams stood staring, but not at the spot everyone else in all Europe likely fixed their collective gaze. He snapped off another picture of the impossible man walking his equally impossible dog. The fact that he found him here in the park scarcely surprised him. The rub was that he found his patient out of the hospital at all. However this man, like all of the coma patients, refused to let a little thing like chronic unconsciousness hinder his Sunday strolls.

Out of the blue, a man nearly tackled him, seizing his wrist like he meant to take off with phone and arm alike. Rory recoiled, but abated slightly when it registered that the man looked vaguely familiar. He twisted Rory's arm so he could get a better look at the last picture taken, seeming satisfied by what he saw.

"Everyone else is looking at the heavens, but you take pictures of a man and a dog. Why?"

Amy and another girl arrived on the man's heels, the former tugging down her skirt in a show of modesty he knew she did not equal. Rory greeted her. "Hi, Amy."

"Hi!" she wheezed between breaths, entwining her arm in his cheerfully. She turned to the man. "Yeah. Rory. This is The Doctor and Rose. Doctor and Rose. This is Rory. He's a friend."

"Boyfriend," Rory corrected, eyeballing the man in suspicion. He finally decided to bite the bullet and ask. "What's wrong with the sun?"

"Nothing. You're seeing it through a filter. The Atraxi erected a force dome around your upper atmosphere. All the better to boil the planet. Where have you been?"

Rory gaped at him.

"Forget about it," The Doctor finished. "Pictures. Man and dog. Why?"

Sizing the other man up, Rory made a connection that nearly took his breath away. What had Amy called him? Rory pursed his lips, felt his jaw drop, and finally pulled himself together. "Oh dear. It's him!"

"Just answer the question, Rory," Amy almost snapped.

"It's him though. The Raggedy Doctor." Rory could not help but point.

The Doctor snatched under the nurse's coat and pulled Rory to him by his scrubs. "Man and dog. Why? Now!"

"Well it's just that he can't be there. He's-" here The Doctor joined him word for word. "In a hospital. In a coma."

Rory blinked. "Yeah. Exactly."

A smile ghosted onto The Doctor's lips. "I knew it." He slapped Rory on the shoulder. "It's an alien shape shifter. It needs a living but dormant mind to maintain its form."

They both spun to face where the wandering coma patient should have been, but no one stood where the man once waited.

"Does your phone have internet access?" asked The Doctor. "Give it here."

Rory complied. He watched as the man pulled out a pen-shaped device and ran its glowing blue tip over his mobile's screen. "What are you doing?"

"I'm upgrading your phone so I can follow the Atraxi signal back to its source." He glanced up at the two woman. "Amy. Rose. Hold up your phones." When they had done so, he ran his instrument over them as well. "There. Now we'll all be able to keep in touch even if the service goes down."

The Doctor pushed several keys on the cellphone's touch screen, then started dialling. "That ought to do it," he said, more to himself.

oOo

The Doctor waited as the phone's rewritten GPS software tracked the extraterrestrial broadcast back to its source. The speaker continued to click a rhythmic pattern of audible tones, representative of alphanumeric algorithms required to tap into the receiver circuits of an intergalactic race such as the Atraxi. He could not be sure it would work, but he had done enough jiggery-pokery with alien technology to make his attempt with relative confidence.

"How can it be him?" Rory blustered in Amy's ear. "He was just a game. All those cartoons you did when you were little."

"Cartoons?" The Doctor repeated, the word almost sticking in his throat. That was a first. The line clicked one more time and began ringing. He held out a hand to silence the others. Far aloft, a communicator came to life.

"This is the Atraxi warship, Saffron Spire. Who is this that desires communication?"

The Doctor put on his most official hat. "What do you think you're doing? Under article fifty-seven of the Shadow Proclamation, this is a fully established, level five planet. Are you just going to burn it?"

"We do not subjugate ourselves to those constrictions," answered the emotionless voice.

"Do you think no one is paying attention?"

"Prisoner Zero is sentenced to a thousand lifetimes in solitary confinement, the greatest punishment we can meet out. It must not be allowed to escape under any circumstances."

"A little late for that, don't you think?" The Doctor shot back. "And what exactly did this Prisoner Zero do to deserve that?"

"Prisoner Zero was a professional assassin, hiring itself out to the highest bidder. It has been the downfall of a hundred planets, leaving anarchy in its wake. We only captured it because Prisoner Zero, in an attempt to flee Stavros IV's destruction, imitated an army regiment to force its way aboard a departing bulk cruiser."

"Well that was silly. Who would believe a whole army populated by soldiers who never stop touching each other? Preposterous don't you think? Well, I suppose some armies…" He bit his tongue.

"Though Prisoner Zero must not be unleashed upon the galaxy, the Atraxi take no pleasure in the destruction of any world. We shall not, however, desist."

The Doctor shuddered. He ground his teeth in silence, pulling his fingers through his mop of unruly hair. "Work with me. You say you take no pleasure in death. What if Prisoner Zero could be found? You're searching for him. I'll search too. Together we can't fail, but you have to give me time!"

Silence met this last appeal. The Doctor felt his eye twitch in anticipation. He breathed deep and slow to prevent himself from hyperventilating. Tapping a hand against his thigh, he soon found himself synchronizing with the brisk rhythm of his heartsbeat.

Then, when he thought he could not wait another instant, the Atraxi leader returned. "We have conferred." Another intolerable pause. "We are agreed. Now that Prisoner Zero is alerted to our dragnet, it must not be allowed the opportunity to get off planet. We grant you one hour to apprehend the fugitive. After this time, the Atraxi Collective shall radiate the planet through ionic excitement of its atmosphere.

Though sorely tempted to point out that the Atraxi themselves were responsible for Prisoner Zero's awareness of their presence, he behaved himself and took what he could get.

"I accept your offer. In the name of justice, we will recapture Prisoner Zero and send you a signal when we find it. But believe you me, we are going to have a long chat about this when I'm done."

Maybe he was telling the truth too, about justice at least. The Atraxi sense of justice might be entirely black and white, without all the little wobbly bits he so favoured in his own interpretation of the universe, but they obviously did a great deal of good. Keeping Prisoner Zero out of mischief for as long as they had managed proved them earnest in the ways of galactic policing. For them, justice embodied the beliefs and absolutes that structured their entire perspective. They believed in justice after the same manner he believed in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Take away their personal brand of justice, and they would become abject and lost.

"What is the nature of the signal you plan to send?"

The Doctor grinned, deciding to make up for his forbearance of a few moments earlier. "You'll know it when you see it." He hit the phone's end button. Then, keying up the device's onscreen keypad, he prepared to make good on that promise when a cacophony of snarling and barking brought him out of his reverie to recognize Prisoner Zero.

The middle-aged, balding electrician and his dog, serving as cover for the renegade alien, raged against them, stomping and pawing its way toward the quartet of mono-form bipeds. The Doctor let just a little of his antipathy show in his face. He stepped between the alien and his companions, brandishing his sonic screwdriver like a sabre.

"Ah. Prisoner Zero. How convenient to save us the trouble of tracking you down."

From behind him, he heard Rory whisper, "There's a Prisoner Zero now too?"

"Yes," Amy murmured back. "It's complicated."

Prisoner Zero kept coming on. "Hold it!" warned The Doctor. "Or do you want another taste of my sonic screwdriver?" It had the desired effect. Prisoner Zero traipse to a halt, both heads bearing wicked needle teeth. Rory started. Amy and Rose gathered closer around The Doctor.

The two adversaries faced each other, a stand-off reminiscent of the days of pistol duelling or a scene out of an old Spaghetti Western. Then, Prisoner Zero's attention strayed past him. The Doctor's ears picked up the hissing roar of an anti-gravity engine.

With relief and joy, The Doctor saw an Atraxi warship descend from the sky about half a kilometre away, just behind the bell tower of an old church. The craft reminded him of an ice-clad porcupine or demented snowflake. He could not help wondering who thought that was actually clever ship design. It made his worn out blue box look elegant by comparison.

Suspended by a force field at its core, a single, gigantic, eye-like structure darted about on its axis, searching the immediate vicinity. A scanning beam shot from the vessel's pupil, sweeping the town in what looked like a rather haphazard fashion.

"You know what?" The Doctor shrugged and turned back to Prisoner Zero. "That ship over there is searching this area for non-terrestrial technology." He tossed his screwdriver into the air like a baton thrower, catching it easily on the way down. Adjusting the control with his thumb, he aimed its emitter skyward. "And nothing says 'non-terrestrial' like one of these babies."

An intense whirr pulsed across the park as The Doctor depressed his sonic screwdriver's activator. He felt the device vibrating in his palm and clutched it all the tighter. An abrupt siren resounded as a nearby fire engine came alive, its radio spewing static. The windows in all the surrounding buildings began to crack and splinter, shattering inward. Not far off, the cell phone of a gawking bystander went to pieces as its screws spun themselves out of their holes.

"I think someone's going to notice this, don't you?"

Prisoner Zero watched, its expression changing from baffled rage to one of fear. It could not change form or use its shape shifting powers to escape without being detected, but remaining there might prove just as dangerous. The few remaining onlookers ran for their lives, thinking the Devil himself was on their heels, and still the Atraxi warship took no heed.

Out of sheer frustration, The Doctor ramped up his screwdriver's frequency and pointed it directly at the alien warden. Several lampposts switched on and then blew out an instant later. The red phone box he noted earlier erupted in a fountain of sparks.

Then, in its final act, The Doctor's sonic screwdriver failed catastrophically. A cloud of ionic gas scalded his fingers, and he dropped the flaming contraption onto the park's manicured lawn. He knelt over it, hoping to salvage something, but the tool was utterly ruined. Its telescopic barrel lay half ejected, twisted out of shape, its blue tip blackened and scorched. Fumes still billowed from the device, and if he'd learned one thing about electronics in his nine hundred plus years, it was that after you let the blue smoke out of them, they tended to never work again.

Amy, Rory, and Rose recoiled from the rain of flickering cinders. The Doctor pulled on his hair, snatching the device with his free hand, but it broke in two at his first touch. He dropped the white hot metal back to the ground and fumed.

"No, no. No! Don't do that to me!"

A dreadful sound followed. The Atraxi ship's gravitational engines engaged, its scanner beam deactivating as the pursuer abandoned its search to take it up elsewhere. The crystalline lattice craft spun on its horizontal axis, disappearing from view over a stand of old growth pine trees. All of them watched it go, The Doctor's incredulity perhaps surpassing that of the rest.

Amy brushed the hair from her face, looking confused, Rose more concerned. Rory looked somewhere neatly between angry and panic-stricken.

The Doctor? He wanted a lie down more than ever. "Where are you going?" he shouted. "Come back. He's right over there!" He threw his arms up in disgust, shouting more invectives at the departing ship.

"Doctor!" shouted Rose.

He turned just in time to see Prisoner Zero, a smug smile on its face, cascade into a billion sandy flecks and pour through the drain off grate it had been standing over all that time.

"The drain!" called Amy. "It just sorta melted and went down the drain."

"Well, of course it did."

"And what do we do now?" Amy insisted.

The Doctor thought about that for longer than he should have. His mouth went dry. "It's gone into hiding. We need to drive it into the open so it can be detected. Now our only option is to follow it into the sewers," he sulked. "Can't say I like that at all. Probably end up dead. No TARDIS. No screwdriver. Fifty-six minutes until the end of the world. Here's what we're going to do. Rory. Your mobile."

"You're still holding it," the nurse pointed out, annoyed.

The Doctor looked down at his hand in surprise and found he was correct. A few touches on the phone's screen brought up a text editor. Punching buttons faster than even his eyes could distinguish, lines of programming code appeared, scrolled and disappeared again as more and more characters pushed them off the screen.

"That thing hid in my house for twelve years?"

The Doctor did not even glance up. "Multiforms like that can live for a millennium. Twelve years is the proverbial pit stop."

"So why does it and that lot show up on the same day you come back?"

The Doctor noticed an error in his code, scrolled up to delete it, and went back to typing. "The aliens saw me through the crack. You're one of six billion, so they couldn't get a proper fix on you. I'm unique. They're only late because I am."

She appeared unconvinced, but let it go.

"Rory. Do you have pictures of all your coma patients on this thing? Or rather the multiform masquerading as your patients, I mean."

He nodded.

"Very good. Excellent work. Brilliant even. You may well have helped save the planet."

Rory turned bashful in a heartbeat, triggering an eye roll from Amy. Rose, tapping The Doctor on the shoulder, finally asked him what he was doing.

"I'm writing a computer virus. A very good one too. Quick to spread, a tiny bit alive, and a bit of a joke because it's going to delete itself in just over fifty-five minutes." He saved and compiled the file, opening up the phone's texting window. "Rose. I already know your number. What's yours, Amy?"

"It's in the contact list," Rory answered for her. "But what are you going to do with a computer virus?"

"It's a reset command. I'm sending it to Rose and your girl Friday. It's going to be your responsibility to send it to everyone on your contact lists and every other number you can think of. We need to spread this thing around like nobody's business. Whoever receives it needs to keep passing it on. Questions?"

"How do we convince people to unwittingly send around a computer virus?" asked Amy.

The Doctor froze. "I dunno. Good question," he said rapidly. "Oh! Make it a chain letter. No one can resist those. Now Rose and I are going to see about flushing Prisoner Zero out of that sewer." He finished saying it before he realized he had probably just made the all time worst pun. "Rory and Amy. You two get to the hospital and clear out the coma ward; the entire building if you can manage it. Move the comatose patients far enough and it should break the psychic link that allows Prisoner Zero to exploit them."

"How's that work?"

"If it doesn't know where to look for its pattern, then it can't make a proper copy. No more silly questions. Go!"

Amy grabbed Rory's hand and they were about to obey, when Rose called out to the redhead, halting her. "It's funny. Me and my mate Shareen. The only time we ever fell out was over a man." An odd expression crept onto her face. "I don't want The Doctor to become a wedge between us."

Amy laughed, taking Rose's hands in hers. "If we don't kill each other before the end of this, we might just become friends."

And then they were off, both pairs running in opposite directions. While Amy and her boyfriend ran toward his old heap of a car, The Doctor and Rose made their way toward the nearest manhole cover.