Chapter 7

Maggie paid the cab driver as she waited for Sam to follow her out of the cab. Taking a deep breath, she turned towards the Prometheus Institute building, a six-story glass office building that gleamed in the Australian sun. She had to admit that she was more than a little nervous about their mission. After all, the Doctor was right. Everything about stopping the Master and Lothos relied on their getting the bioelectric field down to allow the Doctor and the others to enter the building. "You ready?" she questioned Sam, looking at him with an anxious smile.

"As ready as I'll ever be," he said. He smoothed down his skirt and started walking towards the building. In all the times he'd been a woman, he'd never really gotten the knack of walking in heels.

Maggie grinned slightly as she walked beside him. "Maybe I should have let you wear the flats, even if they looked atrocious."

"You had flats?" Sam asked, wishing he'd asked about that earlier.

"Well, you were complaining that my muffins looked like rocks and you didn't actually ask if I had flats. I figured that I had the right to not offer them," she told him as they walked through the door.

"All because I innocently disparaged your muffins? They did look like rocks. Tasted pretty good though."

"You asked if we were going to use them as weapons," she pointed out.

"When I thought they were rocks..." he pointed out.

"Rocks in a muffin tin? Seriously?"

"And I apologized..." he added.

She gave him a wicked grin. "If I have to suffer, so do you."

"Yeah, but you're used to them," Sam groused.

"Doesn't mean I like them," she sing-songed back as they approached the reception desk, which was on the far side of an expansive lobby.

A well-dressed man sat on the other side of the desk, apparently focused on the computer screen in front of him. He raised his head the moment Sam and Maggie walked up. "May I help you, ladies?"

Maggie walked over to the desk with confidence. "Yes. I'm Dr. Margaret Hawthorne. This is Dr. Sarah Tyler. We're from the University of Melbourne. We'd like to speak with Harold Saxon, please."

The man looked at his calendar. "Do you have an appointment?"

Sam nodded. "Yes, we do. Mr. Saxon said I should show you this and we'd be badged and sent on up to his office." He pulled out the psychic paper and showed it to the receptionist.

Maggie blinked, trying not to show how stunned she was when the receptionist did exactly that, providing both of them with clearance badges up to the fourth floor. Both she and Sam thanked the receptionist for his help and moved to the elevator. Maggie said nothing until both she and Sam were in the cab, going down rather than up as they had claimed. "Psychic paper, I'm guessing," she commented.

Sam nodded. "Used it before at the University of Chicago. Amazing stuff."

"I just bet. Maybe the Doctor will give me a sheet."

"Who knows. Anyway, we need to find that cache. See a map with a 'you are here' anywhere?"

"Looks like a bog standard office to me," she grumbled as she looked around. "I thought you were supposed to have eidetic memory. Surely you memorized the blueprints."

"I did. But the blueprints were of the building awhile back and it appears there have been some renovations. I need a point of reference."

Margaret took a slow breath. "From what I could tell, we want to go left. I suggest we start there before we draw attention to ourselves."

"All right, let's go."

The corridors seemed to go on forever, mostly because they had to stop every once in a while to avoid being detected. Then, with a gesture, Maggie pointed out an odd inconsistency in the wall. "Is that it?" she questioned.

"Maybe," Sam stated with hope. He went to a molding on the wall and, after examining it, pressed against two small, well-hidden squares. There was a click and then the wall moved, leading into a hidden corridor. "Quick, Maggie, get in here," he encouraged. Once she followed him, he closed the wall again. "Jack thinks it's likely at the end of this hall."

The two moved along the corridor as the wall closed behind them.

"The Torchwood stuff, right?" she questioned as she walked with him. "I hope he's right about there being something in here to help us. I'd hate for us to have gone all this way for nothing."

"Jack seemed to be pretty sure there'd be something we could use. I tend to believe him where this stuff is concerned."

"And he's basing his suppositions on the hope that Lothos hasn't found this place and that this branch of Torchwood actually stockpiled things in here," she reminded him.

As they approached the end of the low-lit corridor, they came across a door with a keypad on the side. "Electronic lock," Sam noted. "Jack gave me several codes. Hopefully one of them will work." He spent the next few minutes keying in the numeric information. On the fifth try, the door slide open to reveal a room filled with lockers.

"That is definitely bottler," the Australian woman exclaimed with a wide grin.

"Are you thirsty?" Sam asked, not at all sure what she said.

"I thought you were supposed to be a linguistics expert."

"Only with actual languages."

"Oi! I speak English and that's an actual language."

"English is a language that changes dramatically depending on the slang used. Australians have a rather rich well of phrases to use. It's confusing if you're not from here."

The indignation she'd expressed vanished at his explanation but she still shook her head. "Get a bloody tourist book next time then."

"If I hadn't dropped in via timeship and wasn't having to help plan our attack on an alien maniac, that might have been my first activity," Sam quipped back. "Sure would make it easier to understand you."

"Bloody oath!" she stated with a laugh, deliberately using her native slang. "So, now that we've got to the cache, I think it's time we had a look around, don't you?" She grinned as she opened a locker and pulled out an odd dodecahedron. She turned it in her hand for a moment, studying it before returning it to its place. "For all we know, all of this is alien office equipment."

"Yeah," said Sam. "Let's move on." They went to another locker. Opening it, they found a cloak. "Why would this be put here?" Sam questioned.

"Maybe someone left their Halloween costume down here accidentally," Maggie joked. "You know, going as a warlock or something like that."

Sam laughed. "Yeah." He pulled it out and shook it. "It's beautiful though." The cloak looked like blue silk with embroidery.

"Yeah, it is. Try it on," she suggested. Sam seemed somewhat reluctant. "Hey, if nothing else, we might need something to keep us warm. You know how cold computer rooms can be."

"How would you know? You hate computers," he teased her.

"Doesn't mean I don't know how to use them," she countered with a sickly sweet smile.

Sam shrugged. "Right," and put the cloak on. As he did, he asked, "So how does it look?"

Maggie's jaw dropped as she watched Sam put on the cloak. "Umm... I really can't answer that question since... well... it doesn't."

"What do you mean?'

"Ever read or seen Harry Potter?"

"I'm not sure. What was that about?"

"It's a series of young adult books about a boy who goes to wizard school." She shook her head slightly. "Never mind. Sufficed to say... well... you're invisible. I can't see you at all. It's just like Harry Potter's invisibility cloak."

"Oh." With that, Sam took the cloak off. "In that case, I think Jack was right. We can certainly use this."

"Yeah, I'd say so," Maggie agreed. "Makes me wonder, though, if J.K. Rowling had an invisible alien around her when she dreamed up the idea of the invisibility cloak in her books."

"Well, I certainly have a different take about things since I met the Doctor."

"I think that can be said for anyone who has ever met him," she responded as she started searching the other lockers. "Darn."

"What?"

"There isn't a second one of those cloaks anywhere." She grimaced slightly. "And I'm not sure I even want to try any of these other things."

Sam looked into the next locker. He pulled out a small item. "Hmmm." He took the small cylindrical device into his hands and examined it. "Looks sort of like the Doctor's sonic screwdriver only it's not blue."

Maggie took the device from him. "This doesn't look anything like his sonic screwdriver. I mean, what is that thing on the tip? A miniature radar dish?"

"Yeah, but the general look of it sort of reminds me of the one he has."

"We'll take this along, just in case," she stated, tucking the device in her purse. "Besides, if it is a sonic screwdriver, I want it."

Sam smiled at her statement and continued looking into lockers. He found a ball accompanied by a hand held device with a screen on it. He took out the device and pressed a button. Suddenly the ball levitated. With the control he was able to move it out of the locker and into different positions. The screen showed what the ball was seeing. "This might be helpful."

"Bring it along then," she told him as she looked at her watch. "We'd better get going. The rest will be waiting for our text and we still have that generator to take care of."

"Okay." He put the ball and cloak into a bag he'd been carrying. "After you."

They headed back along the corridor and, after making sure that they weren't seen, walked into the hallway. Sam made sure that the wall was closed behind them, wanting the hidden cache to remain hidden from their enemies.

"Part one is done," Maggie commented. "What about part two, the generator?"

"Coming up."

The two then carefully wound their way to a service door on the other end of the building. As they came to the stairway that would lead them to the generator, they heard the sound of personnel walking by. Pulling into a side corridor, they waited. After several long moments, the coast was clear.

Letting out the breath he didn't know he was holding, Sam nodded. "Okay, they're gone," he said. Making sure that they were indeed alone, they entered the stairwell and headed down. It was only a minute before they arrived on the next level down and exited the stairwell. Carefully creeping along the corridors, they came up to a door with a glass window. Glancing in, Sam noted that the room looked like a laboratory. In fact, it looked as if all the rooms on that level were labs. "One more level down?" he suggested. Gaining a nod of agreement from Margaret, the two returned to the stairwell and continued further into hostile territory. When they reached the next level, Sam tried the door only to find that it was locked. "Give me that tool we think is a sonic screwdriver," he requested.

Maggie dug into her purse and pulled out the object in question. She looked at it for a moment before handing it to him.

"If it is a sonic screwdriver, I should be able to set it to unlock this door. That is, if it's like the Doctor's." He looked at the controls. "I've seen him use his but I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing. You might want to step back in case I'm wrong," he said making an adjustment and using the device. There was a high-pitched whine and the sound of metal clicking into place.

"Sure sounds just like the Doctor's sonic screwdriver," Maggie commented.

Sam agreed before once again trying the door. He grinned as the door opened and the two slipped through, at last on the floor for which access had been denied. He looked out at the almost sterile environment. The corridor in front of them had no pictures on the wall, no carpeting on the floor. It was also colder, as if things electronic might need to be cooled. It didn't look like many people worked here. "This looks like the computer floor."

"That's a lovely observation," Maggie commented sarcastically. "What does it matter what it looks like? Where's the generator?"

"Okay, so it's stating the obvious but it also means we're close to our goal." He paused and then turned to his comrade. "I think the generator might be in this direction."

"Let's go take a look then," she suggested, following the direction Sam had indicated. As they approached an intersection with Maggie in the lead, the geologist stopped abruptly, her eyes on the corridor in front of her. "Sam, there's a couple of people heading our way and they can see me," she whispered, trying not to move her lips too much, knowing that Sam hadn't been seen due to his not yet making it to that point. "Put on the cloak," she ordered.

"Maggie..." Sam started but was quickly told again to put on the cloak as there wasn't time for an argument. He did so reluctantly.

"Hold it there!" one of two guards demanded as they approached Maggie with their guns drawn. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"Dr. Margaret Hawthorne. I was looking for Mr. Saxon's office and... well, I got turned around."

"Only authorized personnel are allowed on this floor. You obviously do not have authorization."

The other guard had been calling on his radio. "Control says to bring her in for interrogation."

Maggie gave a weak smile. "You'll see this was just a simple mistake." In a harder voice she said, "But I really would like to see a Doctor around here." She hoped her words would get across to Sam that he needed to press on. Time was running out.

"Oh, you're going to need a doctor, lady, if you don't cooperate," the lead guard told her. "Get going."

Maggie went with them but spoke a last message to Sam. "You've got to succeed. The fate of the world depends on it."

"She's a right loon, isn't she?" the guard that talked on his radio commented as they escorted their catch from the area.

As the group left the hallway, Sam cried under his breath, "Damn it!" He knew Maggie was right. Before he could help her, he had to make sure the Doctor, Jack, and Glad could get into the building. But as soon as he'd completed that, he was going to find Maggie and he was going to free her. He moved down the corridor, finding the temperature getting colder as he moved into the bowels of the project. Finally, he found another door that was locked. Using the sonic screwdriver again, he was able to open the door. Entering, he saw a large mainframe that looked like the schematic the Doctor had drawn for him. Taking off the cloak so that he could work, he pulled out the paper that the Doctor had given him and quickly made the required changes. The sound of the equipment changed pitch. He then pulled out Rose's cell phone and called Jack's phone.

"I thought the agreement was that you were going to send a text message," the Doctor's voice answered the phone, the Time Lord having snatched it from Jack's hand the moment it rang.

"Maggie's been taken."

The moment the Gallifreyan heard Sam's words, he didn't speak for a long moment. "How?"

"We were on a floor that they knew she didn't have access for. They're going to interrogate her. I've lowered the biofield. Let me know when you're in and I'll make the other changes."

"Are you in a safe area?"

"As safe as I can be. I can always put on the cloak again." Realizing the Doctor wouldn't know what he was talking about, he added, "Tell Jack that cache paid off. There was an invisibility cloak. I just wish there'd been two."

The Time Lord couldn't help but grin at his words. "Invisibility cloak. Sounds like good ol' J.K. Rowling." He gave Jack a glance before continuing. "Do that, then. Stay out of sight. Don't do anything to attract attention to yourself. We're just across the street in a local coffee shop. Give us five minutes then readjust the field just like I instructed. And from now on, text only, just in case."

Sam acknowledged the message and then both of them signed off. He put the cloak back on and waited. About five minutes in, the door opened and another set of guards came in. They looked around.

"There's no one here."

"Well, security said there'd been a breach in the door."

The first guard guffawed. "If there'd been a breach, we'd see someone here, right?"

The second one shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so. The whole system is probably knackered. Would explain how that woman got down here."

"Well, there you go. Now go on up to level four and see if you can help them with her. Maybe if they get her story, we'll know exactly what's going on. In the meantime, I'll let security know it was a false breach."

"Right," the guard agreed, leaving the room to go up to level four as instructed.

The first guard looked around once more. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he turned and left again making sure the door was locked behind him.

As the two men left, Sam let out the breath he was holding. "That was close." He hoped that the five minutes the Doctor told him to wait would pass quickly so that he could get to level two. He wouldn't abandon Maggie.