Quinn turned another watery spoonful of soup back into the bowl in front of her before pushing it away in disgust. It was too salty - she just couldn't manage to take more than a few bites. The sooner they got out of here, the happier she was going to be, guaranteed. She just wanted to get the TARDIS back - not quite as single-mindedly as the Doctor seemed to, but it at the top of her list of concerns, no doubt about it. The only way that was going to happen, it seemed, was for the Doctor to help the submarine crew accomplish whatever it was they were trying to do. Even then, she still wasn't 100% certain that they would help them get where they wanted to go, but at least it was a chance, and she'd take it in a heartbeat.

"Show me everything you've tried so far," the Doctor said, sitting down with Evan and Odell as they spread out a series of blueprints and technical diagrams all over the tables.

"We've tried hitting it with everything we can think of," Evan said.

"Everything we're capable of generating," Odell corrected.

Evan nodded. "And we've never come as close as we did when you arrived yesterday."

She sat a few tables away, not wanting to disturb them while they were working. This new Doctor didn't seem to be anywhere near as confident in his own genius as the old one was. Then again, she wasn't sure she was confident in it either. Something still seemed off about him, to say the least. He was at least working now, and she wasn't going to interrupt his train of thought if she could help it at all.

"How long is it between spontaneous events?"

"It's not a fixed time frame," Evan said.

"And you're sure you're not the cause of them?"

"They were happening for over a year before we were ever on site," Evan replied.

"Not likely then."

She hadn't really had a lot of time to think about it since they'd landed, but now that she was going over events in her head, the Doctor hadn't ever said - what was it he wanted to accomplish back on that planet? They'd left because his life was in danger, that certainly made sense, but… she was surprised that it hadn't required any further examination on their part. Where was his unbound curiosity when she would have expected to see it manifest the most?

If she was really honest, despite the fact that she was trying to be supportive and helpful, she missed the man she'd known before, the one who'd come out of nowhere and saved her from the very lowest point of her entire life, the one who'd saved all her friends' lives, who'd probably saved the whole city from destruction just because it was the right thing to do. He was still here. He was alive and well, and she should have been happy about that. So why was she mourning his loss as if he were dead and buried? OK, new face and all - that was weird. But at least it was the same guy behind it all. Right?

The Doctor was pouring over all the data from the artifact. "Wait a minute. Just show me the readings from the spontaneous events," he said.

"Uh, right, OK,' Odell said, typing a few commands into the laptop and turning it back around towards the Doctor.

"Now filter out the readings for anything that you've tried to do to activate the device," he said.

"Done," Odell said, then looked back up at the screen. "Oh…"

"What?" Evan asked, standing up and peering over the top of the laptop screen from above. "Oh."

"Oh, oh," Odell agreed.

"You can say that again," Evan said. Odell did. Nobody laughed.

"You are sure the time index is correct?" the Doctor asked.

"Yeah," Evan said, distractedly, still staring at the screen, then seemed to come to his sense. "Uh, checking. Yes. Double checking. Triple checking… still yes."

The three men were still staring slack-jawed at the monitor before them, nobody saying anything. Finally, Quinn sighed, hoisting herself up from the uncomfortable metal bench, and went to stand behind them. Nobody noticed her presence, so she cleared her throat, finally getting a quick glance from Evan. He didn't say a word, just gave a barely perceptible nod of acknowledgement, then went back to staring at the screen. Nobody was volunteering anything. Apparently she was going to have to take a more direct approach.

"So," she said. "What'd you find?"

"Huh?" Even asked, so she inclined her head towards the monitor and raised her eyebrows questioningly. "Oh, right, right," he said. "Basically, the Doctor's discovered that there's a minor discrepancy between the onset of the non-standard localized spatiometric distortions that's happening, and that-"

"English, please," she said, holding up a hand to stop him.

The Doctor turned around. "Whatever they're doing to try to activate the device themselves, it's not working," he said. "They're getting closer all the time to stabilizing it enough to finalize the activation, but none of the things they've tried are changing at the time the spontaneous events start."

"I don't get it."

"X-rays, for example," the Doctor said. "It's one of many things they've tried. But whenever the thing starts to activate itself, there's no increase in X-rays in the area."

Realization dawned on her. "So whatever they're doing isn't going to work, right? It never will?"

"No, no, no," the Doctor said. "I mean, well, yes, but that's not what's important."

"Then I still don't understand."

"We haven't been able to generate whatever's activating the artifact," Evan said. "And if we don't look at any of the metrics we've tried, there's no change in the immediate area whatsoever. So that means, either whatever is responsible for the activation isn't something we're capable of measuring whatsoever…" he trailed off.

"Or?" Quinn asked.

"Or it comes from somewhere else entirely."

Hesketh was unusually quiet on the tram ride back to his home with Dr. Smith in tow. He didn't regret what he was doing, not after seeing the way the man was in action, the way he'd leaped into the fracas with no compunctions whatsoever about his own well being. He was certainly brave, compassionate, and with a ferocity in those few moments confronting Sivin that was terrifying to behold.

The unfortunate thing was, there was a very real chance that they were already on to his plan. The memory graft had already proved itself unreliable, so Dr. Smith would be under heavy monitoring - that included all the medical supplies assigned to his case. If the night orderly took inventory of all the vials like she was supposed to, then they had only a few hours before his deception would be discovered. He had to prepare before then. He gripped the phial he'd stolen in his pocket, reassuring himself that it was still there but not daring to take it out for fear that someone might see.

They kept a quick pace through the glass corridors outside the residential block, the sun once again setting over the barren, ruddy landscape that seemed to stretch on infinitely around them as far as the eye could see. John tried to engage him in conversation several times, but he barely responded, and finally the younger man gave up.

The door opened into Hesketh's living quarters. "Father! Mr. Smith!" Tenga said, beaming at them from across the room and running up to them for a hug. Hesketh ignored her, moving to get something from the kitchen.

"Hello, Tenga," John said, scooping her up into his lap in the hoverchair. Once again, he'd been dispatched from the medical wing in a chair with strict orders not to stand from it - not because it was a danger to him to walk, but so the scanners hidden in the back of the seat could analyze his brain patterns.

"Don't bother with her," Hesketh said. "She isn't important."

An uneasy silence fell over the room, Hesketh still browsing through compartments in the kitchen while John and his daughter looked on. "Why don't you go upstairs and-" John started, but the child had already stood and was approaching her father carefully, tentatively, clearly trying to hold back tears.

"What do you mean I'm… I'm not important?" she asked meekly. Hesketh continued to ignore her, completely engrossed in what he was doing.

After a few more moments of silence, John couldn't take it anymore. "Hesketh, your daughter…"

"She is not my daughter," he said with an air of finality.

"How can you say that…"

"She is only here for your benefit," Hesketh said, finding what he was looking for. He had a syringe that he'd slotted the phial of blue-ish liquid into.

"What?"

"Here, you will need this," Hesketh said, approaching him with the phial. "It is merely synaptic enhancer. Stand up."

"They told me if I did the alarms would…"

"I said, stand up," Hesketh replied sharply. "We have little time."

Slowly, tentatively, John stood, waiting for the sound of an alarm. Hesketh came closer, pressed the syringe to his neck. Granted, no needle was necessary - they'd use air pressure to deliver the medicine, but it was still intimidating. "Hesketh, whatever you're doing, don't. Stop, think it over, don't do anything you'll regret."

"I have already done what I regret," Hesketh said. "Now I am attempting to correct it."

"Father," Tenga said, still near tears. "Father, don't you care for me?"

"How can you ignore her cries?" John asked, still backing away.

"I told you, she is not my daughter."

"But…"

"She is not even real," Hesketh said, and in frustration at not being able to focus on the more important issues, he slid aside a compartment on the wall next to the door, turned a key, and Tenga disappeared. "She's just a hologram."

"What?" John asked. "What is this? What…"

Taking advantage of his confusion, he leaned over and gave Dr. Smith the injection of synaptic enhancer. "That will restore your memories shortly. Give it time."

"Hesketh, I don't understand," John said. "I'm Dr. John Smith, here on loan from a university to help with your experiment."

"No," Hesketh said. "You are the Doctor, and I am here to help you. Come. We must get out of here, quickly."

Quinn was sleeping peacefully when her arm shook slightly. She tucked it under her pillow and continued to sleep, not stirring in the least. She'd gotten used to sleeping with all sorts of strange movements happening lately.

"Quinn," a whispered voice hissed in her ear, but she just turned away.

The Doctor sighed, then gave her shoulder a heavy shove. Finally, she started awake, and he held his finger to his lips to indicate that silence was called for.

"What is it?" she drawled sleepily, her brain apparently debating whether she needed to get up and active or just roll over and go back to sleep.

"Come on," the Doctor said, "We've got to get out of here and back to the TARDIS. It's critically important. We've got to go now."

"How do we get back to it?"

"We do the only thing we can do," he replied. "We can take the ship with the two of us if we lock down the control room."

"It sounds like you're planning a coup," she said, still barely keeping her eyes open.

"Not a coup," he said. "Just a mutiny."