Chapter Twenty-One
The Ringing of the Bells: Spoonheads

There weren't many times when Clara would freely admit she had been downright baffled. Instead, she would do her best to apply logic to the situation, because perhaps she was confused due to a lack of knowledge. That was what often catalyzed dispute and misunderstanding, was it not?

However, she found the events of today to fall into another category. They could not be rationalized by ANY of her standards. No, today was a completely different beast.

The Doctor, an enigmatic man who had seemingly dropped onto her doorstep, possessed a time machine. She had stepped into the aforementioned time machine. Then, the next second she had been aware of her existence, she was skidding through the aisle way of a crashing plane, trying with all her will and might to preserve her life for at least one more day.

(Taking into account her current ability to reflect upon the experience, her mind hazily concluded that she must have succeeded with this.)

Now, how would Clara know it was a time machine, one might ask? And she might reply meekly that it was simply a good guess. "But you only described it traveling through space," they would further insist, crossing their arms with just a spark of saucy attitude.

Well, it does that too. Apparently.

Frankly, Clara knew what she saw with her eyes and felt in the deepest reaches of her body. Her internal clock was completely messed up. The Doctor had dragged her to the next morning when her body should have been preparing to go to bed. She was exhausted.

Instead of sleeping, however, she found herself riding on the back of a vintage motorbike, with her arms wrapped securely- in a death grip- around the Doctor's skinny waist. Wind was coursing past them as they rode, picking up the corners of her dress and the heavy fringe of her hair and dancing with them. A book bag that carried only her laptop was slung over her shoulders. Her muscles tightened instinctively as she leaned with him, turning a sharp corner onto Westminster. Her life was now securely in his hands. Forget time machines, there was something new. She wasn't normally so trusting.

In ways, she felt like a rebellious teenager, the kind who got swept off her feet by one of those enticing young men with a sweet ride. It was amusing, because she was never that sort of person when she was young. No, she was the child who had her nose stuck in a book all the way through secondary school. But ignoring the reservations she had, she found herself secretly enjoying this strange turn of events. This was what she always wanted, wasn't it? An adventure.

There was no denying it, this certainly counted as one of those.

"Where are we going?" she asked him over the roar of the world passing around them. She tried glancing over his shoulder, but quickly jerked back when a cab came barreling past them. Her grip around him strengthened again.

"Away from the TARDIS, somewhere they can't find us," he called back, and revved up the motorbike's engine.

~8~

Clara quietly thanked the man at the counter and took her chocolate shake and receipt. She walked through the small café to the porch outside, where quite a few people were still eating breakfast. There at a table by the railing sat the Doctor, who was pouring over her laptop. (Back in his ship, he requested they go back to the Maitland's momentarily to retrieve it. He was using it to find the spoonheads' base, she believed.) Behind him, the heart of London, with a rather picturesque sunrise creeping up over the building tops. It was not a foggy morning for once.

She plopped down in the metal chair across the table from him, and set her shake in front of her. His eyes glanced up briefly through the lenses of his framed glasses, making note of her arrival. Before she could say anything, however, they had fallen upon the computer once more. He was typing rapidly. Clara grabbed the cherry that sat atop the mountain of chocolaty goodness, and nonchalantly put it in her mouth.

"So," she began after chewing the cherry, peering curiously at him.

"So," the Doctor echoed. He closed the laptop, propped his arms up on the table, and took on the appearance of a man ready to listen. This was encouraging, as after minutes of ceaselessly reflecting upon the matter, she had one doozy of a question to ask. It was the sort of question that, if answered in a certain way, might change her entire worldview. Her lips parted.

"Are you an alien?"

The silence was deafening.

Clara could only hope she had not offended him. She was almost ready to take back her stupid, childish question and apologize, but something stopped her. Was it the hint of humor etched upon his face? Was it the way his eyes roved around, as if yearning to find an suitable answer to her question?

Amusingly enough, however, she found that his attention was focused more on her chocolate shake than answering this question. Before she could swat him away, he had snatched her drink, picked it up, and taken a sizable sip from the straw. Seeming well-satisfied, he peered directly at her, with the straw still perched in the corner of his mouth.

"To me, you're the alien," he replied mysteriously... then winked.

He winked. He had winked! What was that even supposed to mean? And if he was trying to be vague with his clever reply, he had completely succeeded. Oddly, she wondered if it was supposed to be some sort of rhetorical statement... Then she began to realize it from his point of view, if he were an alien. People from other worlds would see humanity as the aliens instead of vice-versa, yes? Put into this light, his statement made a lot of sense.

She paused thoughtfully for a bit, though still a teensy bit cross at the kidnapping of her frozen drink. "I'll take that as a yes. So, that means you have a home planet somewhere out there, yeah?"

Seeing him place the glass down, she sneakily threw out her hand and dragged it back to her side of the tabletop. He failed to stop her in time. Ha! Victory!

"I did, yes," he answered with a pathetic little pout on his lips.

She ignored this, and proceeded to take her own sip of the drink. (After wiping off the straw with her napkin, of course.) With a twinkle of mischievousness in her eye, she snatched the straw out of her drink and hid it in her lap. Hopefully, he wouldn't be ridiculous enough to drink directly from her glass...

"And your police box, that-"

"TARDIS," the Doctor completed.

"TARDIS," she nodded, trying the strange word out for size. "It's your spaceship?"

"Yeah," he confirmed. "It can travel everywhere. Anywhere you'd like, any time... you can be there in minutes with the press of a button!" The corner of his lip quirked up, just a tad. It wasn't quite a smirk, but it wasn't exactly a smile. It was enough, however, to show the pride he had for his time traveling box.

Clara snorted as she saw him reach out and steal the shake again. By golly, he was that ridiculous. He brought it to his mouth and drank a bit more.

"Why'd we use a motorbike, then?" she queried, her eyes tracking the glass in his hands like a hawk. "We could have immediately come here."

"Oh, but see, the Spoonheads keep surveillance all around us, in the data, the speakers, the cameras... If we took the TARDIS, they'd have found us quicker. She's a streamlined ship, but she'd stick out like a sore thumb."

"Streamlined is made out of wood?" she challenged, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

He chortled, exaggerating the small laughter lines at the corner of his eyes. "And humans think they can time travel with a DeLorean and a rod of plutonium!" he shot back, and plunked the now half-empty shake back down on table. "It's inventive, yeah, but completely wrong. Seriously. You'd need something way more potent than plutonium to get the job done."

She reached over to once again stake her claim on the shake. "Yes, very funny," she groaned, rolling her eyes. Apparently he was well versed in human culture, then. "But don't we have ourselves a teensy bit of a gigantic problem to solve over here?"

While she was downing as much chocolate shake as she could in one go, the Doctor opened her laptop back up. "Already on it," he murmured, though his attention was partly still attracted to her drink.

Clara smiled devilishly, suddenly knowing how she could manipulate this situation to her liking. While still keeping her gaze pinned on the alien man, she slid her tongue around the entire perimeter of the glass's rim. She then slammed it down on the table in satisfaction and pushed it as close to him as she could, daring him to make his next move. There. It was now covered in spit.

"Find them yet?" she asked, suddenly very chipper at the thought of her chocolate-y victory.

However, his expression was quickly becoming sour. "They're definitely based in London from the signal distribution," he told her quietly, his head now wearily resting in his hand. "Highest concentration of spoonheads, right here. Also, the highest percentage of comatose patients in the world; probably because so many minds have already been uploaded."

"You're frowning," Clara noted. "I take it that's not good."

The Doctor ignored her question, and continued with his thoughts. "The problem is, I can't seem to pinpoint an exact location. Security's too advanced; it'd take days to break through."

Grimacing, she contemplated the details of this situation. A mysterious group with an unknown agenda was uploading human minds. They tried to upload hers, but the Doctor reversed the program's progress. Due to this, she now had information on computers running around her head. (The extent of this knowledge was still uncertain.) Now they were on the run from this group, who seemed to want both of them- or at the very least Clara- dead. If they wanted to live, they needed to find these people and stop them, but here they were hours later with no more progress than earlier.

"And we don't have days, do we? Doctor?" she said, seeing his face go blank. "We don't have time, is that it?"

He arced his back in a stretch. The stress he seemed to be currently experiencing was most evident in the odd way he began to breathe: his breaths were short but heavy, and at one point he even puffed out his cheeks. It reminded Clara a bit of a chipmunk.

"Yeah," he finally admitted, without looking up at her. "They could be here any minute."

Most of her short-found joy now diminished, Clara's lips turned down into a determined line. Her hands grasped the laptop and pulled it towards her side of the table.

Gimme," she commanded rather pushily.

"I was working on that!"

"You're having troubles, and I've got computing stuff in my head! My turn."

"Even if you can figure out how to log into your user account now, there's no way you could get past their firewalls," he insisted adamantly. "Too many cyphers, even I can't break them."

Her thin brows creased together, as she shot an incredulous look at him. Was his mind even whirring? Did he remember their conversation that happened nearly thirty minutes prior?

"I've got insane hacking skills!"

"Yeah, well, I'm a Time Lord," he blurted desperately.

"You're a boaster, is what you are," she replied with a hearty laugh, and flipped the lid of her computer up. "Five minutes, and I'll have their location plus photographs of all employees, guaranteed. Go on; go get us a coffee or something."

Her fingers landed on the keyboard and began to type rapidly. Moving unnoticed in the corner of her peripherals, the Doctor slowly reached for the milkshake, wiped off the spit-covered rim on his sleeve, and finished it off. He was about to set it back down, but Clara had already seen his sneaky act. Her eyes narrowed in mock contempt.

"No. Scratch that," she told him after a moment of contemplation. "You owe me a shake."

~8~

The Doctor couldn't hide the content smile growing on his face as he strode inside the café. Sure, he arguably had major issues to deal with- the Shadow Proclamation were just being sloppy if they couldn't control the illegal use of neuron spatial-transferal technology on a class five planet- but he was happier than he had been in a long while.

He had a lot to be thankful for. Clara was within sight once more, and she didn't seem to be adverse to the hard truth that the universe was teeming with life. Whether or not she'd be willing to explore this vibrant universe was unknown, but for now he could hope. For just this hour, she was the beam of starlight cascading through his darkness.

He retrieved a handful of coins from his overcoat pocket, and hastily sorted through them in his hand. They were all of differing values and planetary origins, to his annoyance. And this was why he hated carrying currency... When he found a reasonable sum of money for a milkshake in 2013, he stepped up to the counter. The barista who stood behind was staring into the hazy distance of the café with glossed-over eyes, as if his body had woken up and arrived at work that morning, but his mind had rebelled and slept in. The shape of his nose and his olive skin suggested Italian heritage.

"I'll have a milkshake," the Doctor declared, and slid the coins across the counter. "Banana, if you have it."

The barista nodded. "One moment, sir." He was beginning to reach for the pile of coins when his entire body trembled- for just a minuscule fragment of time- barely even a millisecond. Before the Doctor could know what was wrong, the man was shooting a steely glare towards him.

"You realize you haven't the slightest chance of saving your little friend," he said, his words laced with acid.

"Excuse me, what?"

He trembled again, and suddenly reverted back to the normal, unaware (and perhaps a bit scatterbrained, if his ceaselessly roving eye were to be taken into account) barista. "One moment, sir."

The Time Lord found that he was holding his breath, and the hairs on the back of his hands prickled up in anticipation of trouble. He always knew when something felt awry, because every sense became magnified in an instant, like a light switch being flipped on. Colors grew sharper, voices and sounds more distinct, and his awareness of the tilt of time more prevalent in his mind. These matters- along with his crude observations of his surroundings- quickly added up into one full sum of knowledge: something was wrong with this Italian barista.

The barista's body jerked once more, scatterbrained being replaced by stoic no-nonsense.

"I said, there's not the slightest chance of saving your little friend," he stated matter-of-factly. His brow twitched upward in a rigid manner that almost appeared unnatural. "And don't annoy the old man. He isn't, in fact, speaking."

The Doctor frowned, and was about to challenge this, when he felt an icy cold hand grab his shoulder. He jerked around, his brown eyes wide.

"I'm speaking," a young waitress standing at his side boasted. "Just using whatever's to hand."

He could have sworn he'd seen the hints of a twisted smirk developing on her face.

~8~

Clara Oswald felt like a genius.

Her fingers were breezing through the motions; she was typing so fast her digits would be tangled in a ginormous knot if she made one false move. They were deconstructing firewalls, solving ciphers, uploading server commands... Before, she barely knew how to find a document in her computer files. Now, she could do everything.

Inside her mind, she discovered, was knowledge she'd barely scratched the surface of. She was the curious student left in the classroom after hours, and the teacher's filing cabinet full of countless secrets had been left wide open. Every scrap of information about computers was waiting there patiently to be considered. It was more than just facts and data- it was empowerment. It meant that she no longer had to rely on others to complete simple tasks that, until now, had utterly perplexed her.

A line of text on her laptop blinked to let her know that the firewall was down. Clara sighed in relief. She sat back in the café chair.

"That's one problem solved," she muttered, whilst kneading the knot that had developed just to the side of her left shoulder. She had caught herself hunching over while typing.

Their issues were not yet finished, however. The organization's security firewalls may have been shattered, but no location had been pinpointed yet. All she knew was that they were somewhere within London, just like the Doctor had said. And 'somewhere within London' heralded a damn good sum of searching.

There was no point in giving this up now, though. She'd already come this far, and she had promised the Doctor; why not see what else could her newfound knowledge do?

~8~

"Now I want you to take a look around," the waitress taunted. "Go on, have a little stroll, and see how impossible your situation is. Go on, take a look. I do love showing off."

The Doctor observed his surroundings, while trying to keep the anxiety he felt impalpable. He didn't want this adversary having any sort of power over him, and his fear would only supply them with a lot of it. Instead, he stuffed his hands in the pocket of his overcoat, and turned in place to scrutinize every waking corner of the café. It seemed like there was nothing out of the ordinary. Just people. Food. A television screen sat in the corner, playing the morning news. It was a typical Earth set up he'd seen many times before.

He was almost beginning to think the waitress was bluffing before a little pigtailed girl marched up to him with a satisfied smirk on her face.

She crossed her arms haughtily. "Just let me show you what control of the Wi-Fi can do for you. Stop!"

As she held out her hand, a flickering blue light flashed through the shop. Every single living creature halted in their tracks. Some were in mid-bite, while others were just standing up to clear their trays. It was like life had frozen and turned into the most perfect painting. His eyes narrowed. It seemed this mysterious group was capable of way more than he had ever imagined.

"And clear," she commanded, and immediately turned on her heels. Every individual in the café followed, scattering like flies. Those standing began fast walking towards any door they could find. Even the people who had been eating their breakfast sandwiches and bagels got up and left, forgetting their food and belongings on the tables. The shop was empty now.

"We can hack anyone in the Wi-Fi once they've been exposed long enough," declared the announcer on the telly's news program then. Her smile was dazzling, but her cheery tone as fake as can be.

Inside the Doctor's vast mind, he began slotting the pieces of the mystery together. If all they used to gain this sick advantage was the Wi-Fi, then-

"Oh, no way!" he breathed. "It's the signal! All that time, I was so blind... On the plane I thought you lot were hackers- you'd probably found some way to sabotage the cabin pressure controls, I'd said- but it was always the signal!"

The woman on the television's eyes narrowed, which suggested to him that his educated babbling was creeping closer and closer to the truth. Now the tables had turned. No longer was he being tested, he was testing them.

A grim smile crept across his lips. "You can use the signals transmitted from the Wi-Fi networks to manipulate human minds. If we were on the same side, I'd almost be tempted to call you clever. Well, for a human," he said, tilting his head to the side. "Well, if you are human. I guess I really wouldn't know. Anyways," he drawled, and began to pace closer to the screen. "Moving on to a more important topic. Let's talk about your uploads..."

"What about the uploads?" the voice asked cautiously.

He pushed his face so close to the screen that he could see his the condensation from his breath upon it. "Why upload anything?" he interrogated, muscles taunt. "What is it for?"

"I have a client," she explained without skipping a beat. "My client requires a steady diet of living human minds. Healthy, free-range, human minds."

"And intelligent," the Doctor added. "The minds need to have a wide range of intelligence. So when you tried uploading technologically uneducated Clara Oswald, you filled in the gaps. And suddenly she's a computer genius," he spat.

"That is correct, to an extent," the woman nodded. "We wouldn't want to eat meats or produce with imperfections, would we?"

The Doctor's furry grew stronger with each and every word she spoke. Was that all Clara was to them? A woman whose mind had imperfections? The very thought nearly made his blood boil. Still, he managed to keep it bottled in. If this adversary chose their words wisely, he might find the mercy to let them go with only a strict warning.

"All my client needs is a diet that will sustain and nourish for years to come. What it comes from does not matter."

Or not.

"I don't care what your client needs," he seethed, "this is murder!"

"It's life. If I were you, I wouldn't tamper with it," she challenged. Then she paused, a cheery smile appearing suddenly. It was surprising, considering the circumstances. "We've pinpointed your location, in case you're interested. Your helpful little friend has been... very... busy."

And that was the last straw. They had entirely crushed it. No, worse than that. They'd twisted the staw, ripped it into pieces, and then torn those pieces into even tinier pieces.

"Listen to me, you will not touch her!" the Doctor exploded. "Not a finger, not a fist, you will stay away. If you take her- which to better suit your situation, I'd frankly not- then you'd best know what's coming. Because I will hunt you down all the way to the ends of the Earth." His eyes were peeled wide open with a ferocity that could topple empires. "I'm so done playing games."

"And so are we," the woman casually replied, as if his words had failed to make any sort of impression. "Prepare for uploading."

"No! You CAN'T!"

"You fool..." she leered.

Breathing with such an intensity he could have nearly burst his lungs, the Doctor began to pace towards the door that lead to the outside porch. Clara was in danger, and he just wouldn't forgive himself if she was uploaded again. He had to warn her. Before he reached the door, however, he spotted her walking towards him. Good. There'd be less time explaining, and more time running.

"Clara, hi, change in plans," he said, catching her by her shoulder, "we have to run!"

"We have to run," she agreed, nodding her head.

"Yes, I know! Just take my hand!"

"I know," she repeated. "Take my hand."

Strangely, it seemed like his presense didn't even register in her mind. He peered closer at her, only to notice how blank and emotionless her eyes were. Realization hit him in the gut. Horrified, the Doctor hastily shuffled through his pockets for his sonic screwdriver, as the robotic Clara began twisting her head around. His hand had sucessfully sought out his screwdriver, but then there was a flash of blue light, the same light that he had witnessed minutes earlier. Quite suddenly, he found that he couldn't move a single muscle.

All he could do was stare at his reflection in the spoonhead in front of him, and watch as the 'upload in progress' bar increased from zero, to fifty, to seventy percent...

Oh, you are kidding me, he thought.

The last thing he tangibly heard with his ears was the newswoman's mocking voice.

"Like I said, my client requires a diet of well-rounded, living human minds," she reminded him. "Yours may not be human, but it'll definitely fit the bill. Night-night."

Then his consciousness was fully consumed, and everything went black.

~8~

The Doctor's long absence was the first hint that something was wrong. It had been nearly fifteen or so minutes since he had left, and he still hadn't returned.

Then there was the strange behavior of all of the café's patrons. Clara had finally found where the spoonhead's base was, when quite unexpectedly; every last person in the area stood up- not speaking a word- and left. Just like that. Nobody bothered to pick up their half-eaten food, or their purse left slung over the chair. In seconds, the entire area had become deathly silent, the only noise coming from the roar of London below.

Suddenly very weirded out, she closed the lid of her laptop and slid it into her bag. She'd had too many weird experiences today, the last thing she needed was yet another. Her eyelids were nearly drooping; her legs numb with exhaustion. All of this business with minds being uploaded into the Wi-Fi was exciting and all, but right now what she really wanted was to go home, fall into bed, and pretend it was all a dream. Because, quite frankly, her world was expanding too quickly for her to keep track of.

Aliens exist in the here-and-now? Ha! Who would have ever thought?

She shook her head, and pulled herself out of the chair. Might as well check on the Doctor, she figured, just to make sure everything was fine.

When she walked into the interior of the café, her surroundings were the same. The rush and bustle of people who had been here for breakfast was gone. There wasn't a soul to be seen. Except...

Clara gasped. In the distance, the Doctor was lying on the floor. Standing motionless above him was one of those vile spoonheads. It was a mirror image of her. Same red dress, same jacket, same everything. She couldn't see the face, but she would bet her hat that it was identical as well. Her fists clenched in anger, so hard that she could feel her nails pressing into her skin. They'd tricked him.

Determinately, she threw herself to her knees next to him. He was unconscious. Her fingers went to his neck, searching for a pulse. She wasn't very experienced with things like this, but after a few seconds she thought she might have found one. It was very fast, however- the man's heart must have been beating double-time.

"Clara?" she heard his frantic voice call. Her head snapped up, and her gaze quickly landed on the concave surface of the spoonhead. There he was, his eyes anxiously flitting about, trying to reconcile his mind with what he could not feel. She remembered the sensation well. She'd been aware of her own existence, and she could think, but to be abruptly separated from the tangible world was a nightmare. It was like living in a black hole.

"Oh, Doctor," she whispered remorsefully, and looked back down at the body of the man whose mind had been uploaded. Now he seemed like an empty shell, a mere echo of what he really was.

"Clara?" his voice repeated. "Clara? You're not safe! Can you hear me? Run, just run! They're after you. Clara?"

Tears built up in her eyes. She barely even knew him, but the possibility of losing him was too much for her to handle. How would she be able to stop the spoonheads if she didn't have him? She couldn't. She'd be uploaded into the Wi-Fi right alongside him, and then what could they do?

The answer? Nothing. The both of them would be comatose forever, souls screaming out from the data stream.

Unless... Unless she could save him. She could save the Doctor. She had computer skills, right? He had stopped her mind from being uploaded, so surely there was a way to un-upload his.

Adamantly, Clara Oswald yanked her laptop from her bag and popped it open. He had already saved her life once. It was time to return the favor.