Chapter Four
Plans of Infiltration

Placing on his old UNIT hat, the Brigadier examined the overall effect in the study mirror. It hadn't been a long while since he'd worn this old thing, almost five or so months really, but he still found it hard to imagine that he was wearing this at seventy-five. And to foil a hostile takeover of UNIT...!

"I'm starting to get a bit old for this..." he groaned to himself, as he sat down on the chair while loading his gun. After a brief moment of contemplation, he decided to just go with the simple lead bullets- the Cortez Project was unlikely to be working with Cybermen, and demons were even less of a possibility. Anyway, Miss Spencer would probably be able to get access to some more damaging weapons if the need arose.

"Are you done, dear?" Doris asked, walking into the study. She had her coat and scarf on. "My bags are all packed and the taxi's here, but I just wanted to say goodbye."

"Good to hear that, Doris," he smiled at her. "Have fun, while you're away."

"I will. At least, I'll try to manage without worrying about you too much," she replied, a little sheepishly.

"I'll survive, dear. I always do," the Brigadier smiled.

"Good luck," she replied. The two of them embraced, and she kissed him. "Don't get killed, whatever happens." Then she turned around and went out the door, heading for the taxi.

As the Brigadier looked out the window, the taxi was already driving away. Sighing a little, he slipped his gun into its holster and reached over to a nearby drawer. Opening it, he pulled out what looked like an old cash register with a small circular antenna attached to it. Although it didn't look like much, the Brigadier knew that it was his only means of contacting the Doctor, his old friend, former Scientific Advisor, and right now, his best hope for assistance.

"Doc-" he began, when he was suddenly interrupted by a wheezing, groaning noise. Looking around the corner of the door, the Brigadier saw the familiar blue form of the TARDIS's Police Box shell, slowly fading into existence in his main living room, just beside the fireplace.

"Never thought he'd ever show up before I've even finished asking for his help. Wonder which one I'll get this time?" he mused.

Just as he'd said that, the Police Box form solidified and the door opened. Out of it came a little man in a brown coat, trousers and shoes, a white shirt under his blood-red waistcoat, a straw hat on his head, and carrying a red question mark handled umbrella. The Brigadier allowed himself a little sigh of relief- the Doctors he'd encountered recently were mainly predecessors of this one, so at least he wouldn't have too much problems with mentioning something that this one wasn't aware of yet. "That was quick, Doctor."

Looking up, the Doctor stared at the Brigadier, with one expression on his face that the Brigadier wasn't used to seeing on the face of this incarnation of his old friend. Bafflement.

"What are you talking about?" he asked his old friend. "I just came here on my own initiative. You never even sent a call."

"What?" the Brigadier asked, staring at the Doctor. "Then why are you here?"

"Time problem," the Doctor replied, looking at his friend. "I've just come from the future, and it's not the same as I know it. What's the crisis you tried to call me about?"

"What?" the Brigadier asked. He couldn't understand the sudden change of subject from what they had been talking about.

"Well, if it required me, it must be serious," the Doctor replied. "Therefore, there's a good chance that it's what caused the problem I've discovered. What is it, the Master?"

"No, Doctor," the Brigadier said. "At least, not as far as I know. It's the Cortez Project. They've taken over UNIT central command and replaced all senior field officers with their own personnel."

"Ah," the Doctor said simply, as he walked in the kitchen and slumped down in a nearby chair. "Well, that would certainly qualify."

"Sorry I can't give you better news," the Brigadier commented. "I know you were hoping they'd been dealt with."

"I was," the Doctor replied, as he raised his eyes to the ceiling. "My last encounter with them wasn't very successful. They nearly started an interplanetary war, almost wrecked one of my most complex plans, and shot Sarah-"

"Shot Miss Smith?!" the Brigadier cried, spinning around. "I was never told that at the meetings!"

"Really?" the Doctor said, looking up at his old friend. "That's suggestive, isn't it?"

"How?" the Brigadier asked.

"Simple," the Doctor said. "The investigation into the Cortez Project, was it dropped because nobody could find anything?"

"Right," the Brigadier replied, wondering where his friend was going with this.

"But if you'd known about Sarah getting shot, you'd have continued your investigation until you turned something up?" the Doctor asked.

"Naturally," the Brigadier replied, as he began to absorb just what the Doctor was saying. The only way he could have not been told about Sarah having being shot was if there was a high-ranking officer at UNIT in the pay of the Cortez Project... "How high up does this go, Doctor?"

"Unknown," the Doctor replied. Tipping his hat back from his head, the Time Lord looked over at his friend. "Anyway, it could just be a simple dupe- someone who thinks the Project is just a country's branch of UNIT. We need an inside source to the Project if we're going to get any more information. Have you any ideas who we could use?"

"One," the Brigadier replied. "Miss Spencer, current Scientific Advisor to UNIT. You met her a year or two ago- at least, the last you...is the one in the rainbow-coloured coat the previous you?"

"He is," the Doctor commented. "Oh, and that statement of yours isn't quite right, Brigadier. It may have been only a year for you since I met Nina, but for me it's been nearly sixty years. Still, let's see how she's doing. Can you arrange a meeting with her?"

"One's already set up, Doctor," the Brigadier smiled. "I'm meeting her in McGregor's Tavern at four to discuss what to do about the whole problem. Gives us a little time to have a drink and fill each other in on the problem as we see it."

"Excellent!" the Doctor smiled. "If we're going to a tavern, then alcohol now wouldn't be the best idea, but I have a few bottles of sparkling water if that would do?"

"Perfect," the Brigadier smiled, as he followed the Doctor into the TARDIS.

*****

Three forty-five, Nina groaned to herself as she slumped down in the chair at the tavern. Fifteen minutes until my meeting. Why am I always so damn punctual to these things?

Of course, that question was easy enough to answer. Her uncle had constantly drummed several things into her after she said she wanted to join UNIT- in headquarters, if it moves, salute it, and if it doesn't, whitewash it; in the battlefield, if it moves, shoot it, and if it doesn't, shoot it just in case it does; and always be a few minutes early for meetings. She'd taken them all in, but sometimes, Nina had to think to herself that she was taking the last one too far, on occasions like this one. She made a mental note to herself to cut down on being so early for some meetings- at least five minutes early the next time round. Sighing, she shrugged her brown coat off, her lab coat having been left in her lab for the night, hung it behind her chair, and waited.

A waiter came over to her table and asked what she wanted. Not being in the mood for an alcoholic drink, and not seeing much point in ordering a real meal when the Brigadier would be showing up soon and the two of them would be talking too much to bother about eating, she just asked for a glass of cranberry and apple, and sat back in her chair as the waiter went off.

Reaching over to her bag, she pulled some files out and began to idly flip through them. This was about everything she'd managed to acquire on the Cortez Project, and she had to admit, it wasn't that much. A few things about when they were set up (1993, they'd been around a lot longer then she'd thought), who the highest-up officers were (A General Marinna Kyle and a chap called Commander Chris Harper, neither of which rang a bell in her memory), and a few things about their defensive strategies against any attacking aliens (Nothing different from UNIT methods, baring the notes on attacking friendly aliens, like orders to shoot the Doctor on both sides of the chest if he appeared).

She briefly broke off her train of thought to take a quick sip from her newly arrived cranberry and apple, noting with relief that it was nice and cold. The bar was a little hot, and a cold drink was exactly what she really needed.

Turning back to the files, Nina tried to spot anything out of the ordinary. No matter how big the Cortez Project was, they couldn't have just managed to take over the whole of UNIT central command after one or two attacks, so they had to have a high up inside man.

Or at least an expert hypnotist, Nina thought to herself briefly. It wouldn't be the first time that had happened- she recalled early files of the Doctor's time in UNIT about that other Time Lord, the Master. That chap had managed to hypnotize so many people- at least two Cambridge scientists, a prison governor, a policeman, even one of the Doctor's own assistants...!

Hope it's not him, Nina thought to herself, as she turned around to slip the files back into her bag- only two or three minutes until the Brigadier was due to show up. The last thing I need is an enraged time-traveller on my hands. I rather like my life- don't want to be erased from existence by some jerk with an odd little beard...

"Nina?" a voice said from the other end of her table. Looking around at the source of the voice, Nina saw two men sitting at the other sides of her table. One she recognised at once- it was Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, in his civilian clothes of a brown jacket and trousers, a blue checked shirt, and black shoes. The other man, however, was a complete stranger to her. He was a short man, a little shorter than the Brigadier, and he was wearing a brown coat, trousers and shoes, a white shirt under his blood-red waistcoat, a straw hat on his head, and carrying a red question mark handled umbrella. However, what Nina really noticed about him was that he was grinning at her as though he already knew her well, when she'd never seen him before in her life.

"Hello, Brigadier," she smiled, looking at her old friend.

"Good to see you again, Miss Spencer," the Brigadier replied, nodding at her. Returning the nod, Nina looked over at the other man.

"Um, you'll forgive me if I say that I don't recognise you, right?" she asked the man. "I mean, I normally never forget a face, but you're not ringing any bells, I'm afraid."

"Oh, don't worry Nina," the man smiled back at her. "You're not losing your memory. I'm the Doctor."

"Ah," Nina commented, looking at the man. That wasn't exactly comforting, either- now he was claiming to be a man who wore clothes that made a circus clown look like the picture of elegance and style? Well, she had read about how the Doctor changed his appearance at times, but she'd always thought he was just good with disguising himself, not a... shape- shifter...

"Prove it," she said, staring at him.

"Pardon?" the man asked, looking over at her.

"If you're really the Doctor, then answer this; what piece of technology did I possess that you rewired and used to stop the Kralls?" Nina asked. She hadn't given exact details in her report, just saying the Doctor had managed to hack the Krall's CPUs without specifying how he'd done it.

"Your mobile phone," the man replied. "When I took it from you, I then asked if you happened to have your sonic screwdriver on you, and when you said you'd never even touched one, I just groaned and commented to myself, 'Not Romana, Doctor...' Mel asked me who I was referring to, and I just dismissed it with a wave of my hand and set to work on the phone with a normal screwdriver I'd found in my pocket. After the entire thing was over, you offered to take Mel and I down to a tavern you know for a celebration drink, but I declined, commenting that I felt like celebrating by heading off to relax in 1969, since I'd rarely visited that year." He reached over, and placed his hand on hers. "It is me, Nina. I just had to regenerate my body after I hit my head on an exercise bike, and I'm radically different in personality as well, but it is still me. So, what do you think of this model?"

Nina slumped back into her chair, as she raised her eyes to the ceiling. Looking back down, she smiled at the Doctor. "Different, I'll admit. For one thing, you actually blend in if you're in a crowd in this form."

"Yes, I was hardly subtle then, was I?" the Doctor smiled back at her. "It's good to see you, Nina."

"Um, excuse me," the Brigadier said, giving a little cough. "While this reunion is all well and good, you two do remember that we have a crisis to attend to?"

"Oh, of course," the Doctor said, raising his hand and beckoning the waiter over.

"Yes, sir?" the waiter said, as he arrived at the table.

"A ginger beer and a pint of Guinness, please," the Doctor said.

"Certainly, sir," the waiter replied, heading away.

"Alcohol? Doesn't at least one of you two need a clear head to get your car home?" Nina asked, as the drinks appeared on the table.

"Oh, no worries there," the Doctor smiled. "My Gallifreyian biology will digest the alcohol in time for me to drive Bessie back. Now, the information on the crisis, if you please?"

*****

Over the course of a few drinks, Nina sticking with cranberry and apple to enable her to drive back home after the discussion, Nina gave the Doctor and the Brigadier the situation. She showed them the file on the alleged Nedenah attack, explained how the Cortez Project saw the situation, based on what she'd gathered from what Disch had told her, and showed them the new attack notes. Once she'd finished talking, she was on her fourth cranberry and apple, the Doctor was on his sixth ginger beer, and the Brigadier was on his fourth Guinness.

"Dire," the Brigadier commented, while he sipped his pint of Guinness. "That blasted Project appears to have gotten a very firm grasp on central command. Any theories as to how they managed to get that far that fast, Doctor?"

"A few," the Doctor replied, as he downed another ginger beer. "However, based on what I've seen in the future, I'd bet a Time Lord's involved in some way or another, although whether he's in charge or not remains to be-"

"Seen in the future?" Nina asked, staring at him.

"Have you a problem with me time travelling?" the Doctor asked, looking over at her. Nina noted that the Doctor's speech, even through that Scottish burr of his, was slightly slurred. Evidently, he may be able to handle it better than humans, but he still wasn't completely immune to getting drunk.

"Well, no- I mean, I've read all your files, and I know you can time travel in that TARDIS of yours, but... what was it like?" Nina asked.

"Yes, Doctor, you never really went into great detail on that front," the Brigadier commented, looking over at the two of them. "What was it like then?"

"Dark," the Doctor said simply. "Think of Earth at the end of World War Two, but with the damage doubled."

"Yikes," Nina commented.

"Well, that's only the basic idea of it," the Doctor commented. "If you're interested, this is the full story."

"Tell it, Doctor," Nina said, as she took a quick sip of her drink. "We should get a better idea of the scale of the stakes here."

And, as he went through at least two more ginger beers, the Doctor gave Nina and the Brigadier all the information he could on the alternate future he'd barely escaped from. The Brigadier was shocked to hear about the Dictator, and constantly asked the Doctor to go into as much detail about him as he could, while Nina, ever a scientist, asked about the Time Scales.

"...And then I set the coordinates for this area of time, and that's about it," the Doctor said, finishing his story.

The Brigadier and Nina simply sat in their chairs, staring ahead with a slightly blank expression on their faces. The Doctor took a quick sip of his ginger beer, and then thumped his glass back down onto the table, causing the two of them to look over at him.

"What now, Doctor?" the Brigadier asked.

"I don't know," the Doctor commented, as he stared down at his empty glass. "We need to get an inside look at the Cortez Project's operation somehow, but how? I mean, Nina may be posing as an operative, but I find it unlikely she'll be able to bring her friends in to talk to the commanders. The Official Secrets Act and all that, correct, Brigadier?"

"True," the Brigadier commented, as he took a last sip from his glass. "There's no way Miss Spencer could get us into Cortez HQ, even if we were in disguise."

"Unless..." Nina commented, reaching her hand into her coat pocket and pulling out her party invitation, "we use this."

"What's that?" the Doctor asked, as he and the Brigadier craned their necks to get a look at it.

"An invitation to a party the Cortez Project is throwing in a day or two," Nina smiled at her friends. "I'm allowed to bring friends, so long as I leave them in the main room of the party while I attend the more... private functions."

"Cortez meetings," the Doctor commented, as he almost lifted his glass to his lips before remembering it was empty. "Would the meeting be held in generally the same building as the main party?"

"As far as I can gather," Nina replied.

"Yes, it is," the Brigadier put in, taking the invitation and examining it closely. "This address is a large hall. Got a few rooms of to the side here and there, but nothing nearby that anyone could to without arousing suspicion."

"Perfect," the Doctor said, as he called the waiter over. "Bill, please," he asked.

"Certainly, sir," the waiter replied, as he left.

"Why's that perfect, Doctor?" Nina asked.

"The party's in only two days, so I wouldn't have the time to set up a concealed long-range transmitter. But, since there won't be any other buildings in the way, I can build a short-range one and have it transmit to a receiver in my coat."

"Nice idea," Nina commented, as the waiter arrived with the bill. She and the Brigadier instantly reached for their wallets, but the Doctor handed the waiter his credit card before either of them could get theirs out.

"Thanks," the Brigadier commented.

"No problem. I have an unpleasantly large amount of cash in my bank account as it is," the Doctor grinned. Getting up out of his seat, he asked, "Shall we go?"

"Where to?" Nina asked, as the three of them left their seats and headed for the door. "I think the TARDIS," the Doctor replied, as they arrived on the streets and headed for their cars- the Doctor and the Brigadier a yellow Edwardian roadster, and Nina a silver IDDT with a convertible roof. "I need to get to work on that transmitter, and the materials I need are all in the TARDIS."

"Where's that?" Nina asked, as she got into her car.

"The Brigadier's house," the Doctor replied, as he and the Brigadier strapped on their seat belts. "Hope you know the way. See you there."

"See you? In that old-" Nina began, before the car's engine suddenly revved into action, and it tore away down the road at an incredible speed.

Staring after it, Nina's mouth dropped down in amazement. Then, gathering herself, she stuck her key in the ignition and turned the engine on. Pulling out of the side, she began to drive after the Doctor and the Brigadier, while thinking over the situation in her head.

How did the Dictator know all about the Doctor from only one meeting?

How could he have taken over the Earth?

Were the Cortez Project involved or was that just a coincidence?

*****

An hour or so later, the IDDT pulled up into the Brigadier's drive, parking itself behind the yellow roadster. Getting out of her car and locking it, Nina walked up to the roadster and stared at it.

"What's the deal with you, huh?" she asked the roadster. Leaning over, she looked at the dashboard. It had several switches and extra dials, but for the life of her Nina couldn't work out what each of them did, never mind how the Doctor had even got this thing capable of moving that fast.

Tyres aren't even burnt which they should be, Nina though to herself, as she examined them. She knew something about friction, and she knew that no rubber material could actually last very long against the strain the Doctor had been putting it through.

"It's not rubber, Nina," a voice said from behind her. "It's actually a substance that shall be developed in about sixty years. I'd give you the name of it, but then I'd have to kill you, or at least wipe your memory."

Looking around, Nina saw the Doctor standing at the house door, leaning on his umbrella and watching her.

"How long have you been here?" she asked him.

The Doctor smiled a little. "If you mean how long have the Brigadier and I been waiting for you, then the answer is fifteen minutes. If, however, you mean how long have I been on Earth itself-"

"It was the first one," Nina interrupted. Getting up from the path, she dusted herself down and entered the house, heading for the nearest door.

Entering the room, she noticed the Brigadier, sitting in an armchair while he checked an old pistol of his. Looking around, Nina noticed that the room was remarkably well decorated. There were a few rather impressive paintings hanging on the walls, whose artists Nina couldn't immediately place, and there was a remarkably well-built desk in the corner, near an equally impressive bookcase. There were a couple of filing cabinets near the case, both of them with about two or three files on top.

The only rather odd feature was an old-fashioned police call box near the fireplace, but Nina had barely glanced at that one before she noticed another armchair that looked remarkably comfortable. After seeing this one, Nina slumped down into it, exhausted by the problems of the day.

"You deal with this kind of thing all the time the Doctor shows up?" Nina asked the Brigadier, as he put his gun down.

"Not always. Sometimes it's downright impossible to understand," the Brigadier replied, as he slipped his gun away into its holster.

"Ah. So, Doctor, any ideas how you and the Brigadier are going to be getting into the party?" Nina asked, as he walked into the sitting room. "Or about the transmitter, come to that. I mean, I can't see any way I can get some kind of a camera into a meeting of armed Cortez personnel and tape the said meeting without anybody noticing, never mind you two managing to get in without anyone recognising at

least one of you."

"Easy," the Doctor smiled, as he opened the door of the police box. "Step this way, if you please."

"Any particular reason why?" Nina asked, as the Brigadier got up and walked right into the box.

"My equipment's just inside," the Doctor explained. "I just need to take a quick scan of your iris to make sure the pattern's right, and we're ready to go."

"Right," Nina said sceptically. Still, she decided, the files on the Doctor did often make reference to a police box where he 'lived', so it couldn't hurt to check it out. Getting out of the chair, she walked right through the door of the box...

And stared in amazement at the interior.

It was massive. That was the first thing she noticed. It was actually rather hard not to notice that, because it was massive to the extent of being a cathedral. In fact, it did look a little bit like a cathedral, Nina noted, with all the wooden panels in it. However, the panels were the only churchlike things in the building. There were also several bookcases in the walls, and one large wall full of drawers. An armchair was standing in one part of the building, and near that was an old-fashioned record player. However, the things that really drew Nina's attention was directly in the centre of the room. The console was the size of a large table, made of wood but it had several controls on it, in the form of levers, switches and a few. Metal girders surrounded the console, stretching up to the roof and then curving down to connect with a long, thin glass tube, stretching up from the centre of the console.

"Wow..." she said, looking around her. Coming to her senses, Nina looked at the Doctor and the Brigadier, standing beside the console. "So, is it safe to assume this whole set-up isn't actually in our dimension?"

"Exactly," the Doctor smiled, as he checked one of the dials on the console and pushed a button to shut the main door before heading off to a large door in the corner of the ship. "Only the exterior of a TARDIS exists in normal space/time. Of course, if the exterior's destroyed the interior instantly shifts into our reality, as I've discovered myself from unpleasantly first-hand experience, but that rarely ever happens."

"So, has this thing got any limits to its size, or is it like the Universe in that it never ends?" Nina asked, as she and the Brigadier followed the Doctor.

"Really, there isn't any fixed limit," the Doctor replied, as they began to walk down a long wooden corridor. "I can add rooms to the TARDIS just as easily as I can take them away, although I do need a little time to reconfigure the architecture. Really, it can be infinitely big."

"Not bad," Nina commented, as the Doctor opened another door. As she entered it, followed closely by the Brigadier, Nina realised that the room was a wardrobe, albeit a very large one. There were racks and racks of clothes, some looking like they were from Earth's past, some looking remarkably futuristic, and some didn't look like anything that could have been worn by a normal human being.

"You have all these clothes and you hardly vary your own outfit?" the Brigadier asked the Doctor. "I mean, I knew you had other clothes, Doctor, but this might as well be a shop, not a wardrobe!"

"I don't really follow fashions, Brigadier," the Doctor commented, as he headed for a large trunk in one corner of the room. "Too much bother to keep track of. I'm far happier with whatever's the current me. Now then, let's see what we have here..." he commented, as he opened the trunk and began to rummage through it. As Nina and the Brigadier watched the Doctor discard several various odds and ends, including a rubber duck, a cat badge, a yo-yo, a recorder, a cricket ball, some sort of syringe, a couple of small black boxes, a signed copy of 'The Two Towers,' (Nina noted that one with a certain degree of surprise; she didn't think Tolkein had done much book signings) a small metal swastika, an Aztec bracelet, an old scroll, two parts of some kind of white rod with twelve or so buttons on one end...

"Um, looking for anything in particular?" Nina asked, as the Doctor tugged out an old cricket stump and threw it over his shoulder.

"Yes, actually," the Doctor replied. "And here they are!" he smiled, as he pulled out two complete head masks. "These should come in handy for infiltrating the party. Now, which one do you want, Brigadier?" he asked, holding them both up to the light. Nina noted that neither of the masks was going to be absolutely perfect- one of them appeared to be Humphrey Boggart's face, while the second one was George Takei.

"Um, Doctor..." she said, just at the same time as the Brigadier.

"Yes?" the Doctor asked, looking up at them with a small grin on his face.

"No offence, but those masks aren't exactly...how do I put it...inconspicuous?" the Brigadier explained, as the Doctor turned the masks around to see the faces.

"Ah," he commented, as a glimmer of recognition appeared in his eyes. "Still," he grinned, looking back at the two of them as he got back to his feet, "I can sort this little problem out in the laboratory."

"Really? How, exactly?" Nina asked.

"I'll explain once we're there," the Doctor said, as he slipped the two masks into his pockets and headed for the door.

"Any ideas what he's going to do?" Nina asked the Brigadier.

"None," the Brigadier replied. "Still, I'm rather used to it by now. He was always making gadgets and taking ages to reveal the point of them when we worked together in the seventies." He frowned a little. "Or was it the eighties...?"

"Temporal slippage," the Doctor commented from the door of the room. "My fault, I'm afraid. A time-dwelling virus was trying to infect the TARDIS, and Sarah and I were forced to shift in between several various decades to prevent it becoming contaminated. I shook it off when I dragged it through the seventies and eighties by constantly stopping and starting the TARDIS, but it unfortunately caused Time in the immediate area of my travelling to slip about between one decade and another. I keep meaning to fix it, but something always seems to come up."

"Ah," the Brigadier replied, evidently slightly confused at that statement.

"Here we are," the Doctor said, as he opened another door in the corridor. Walking into it, Nina noticed that it was a laboratory, but a very odd one. While there was a table in one corner with a basin, pastel and mortar on it, with something in the basin that reminded Nina of dried leaves. Another table had a Victorian enlargement of a scientist's laboratory equipment, consisting of several test tubes and bottles held up by all kinds of stands. Several other tables were covered with all kinds of strange- looking machines, the only one of which Nina could identify was something that looked remarkably like a television set. The Doctor, however, was aiming for the largest table in the room, that was covered with several white boxes with electronic computer read-outs on the top and clear plastic handles on the doors. As Nina and the Brigadier arrived at the table, the Doctor opened one of the box's doors and threw the masks inside, before he shut it again.

"Um, just out of curiosity, what are you doing to the masks?" Nina asked.

"Oh, nothing to really be worried about, Nina. I'm just arranging things so that the Brigadier and I will be more inconspicuous at the party," the Doctor smiled.

"Oh," Nina commented simply.

"Exactly how are you doing that, Doctor?" the Brigadier asked. "I mean, I am going to have to wear one of those masks, so I'd prefer to know what it's been through."

"It's easy, Brigadier," the Doctor smiled. "Those masks are made of a polymer memory fabric, that can mould itself to form the face that's on it perfectly, whatever shape the wearer's head is. All I'm doing is, in a sense, removing the fabric of its memories so that it moulds itself around certain parts of the face while remaining the same in others."

"Ah," the Brigadier said. The Doctor's technobabble was still quite a bit beyond him at the best of times, but at least he'd actually followed that bit up to a certain point. "It's finished!" the Doctor smiled, pulling the box back open and taking the masks out. He tossed the Humphrey Boggart mask at the Brigadier, but put the George Takei one into his pocket. "Now, Miss Spencer, if you'd just be so kind as to put your eye here," he said, patting another one of the boxes which had a little glass hole in it. "That scan you mentioned, huh?" Nina asked, as she faced the hole. Looking inside it, she could just make out what appeared to be a small torch on some sort of hinge, but she couldn't see if it was attached to anything.

"Exactly," the Doctor smiled, as he pushed a few little buttons on the side of the box. "Really, I'll just be installing a contact lens over your right eye, which transfers the pictures it sees to..." he reached into his pocket and pulled out something that looked like a portable television, "...this."

Just as he said that, a green light suddenly flashed over Nina's right eye. Instinctively, she shut both her eyes, but the afterimage remained inside her eyelid.

"Thank you," the Doctor smiled, as he studied the screen. "This'll take a little time to be constructed, and I've got to this thing-" here he pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and put it on the table, "fixed if I'm going to actually manage in this situation. However, once both of those are finished..."

He left the sentence hanging. Nina decided to finish it off for him.

"We're in."