The first place Atlanta led the Doctor to, excluding inside, was the local train station. Faced with the challenge of buying two metcards, the Doctor became apparently fascinated by the system and asked Atlanta to explain it to him.
"There are three zones, Doctor," she explained patiently. "If you plan to stay within your zone, you buy a ticket for just that zone. If you need to go through another zone, or to another zone, you buy a ticket for those two zones. And if you need to go through or to all three zones, you buy the ticket for all three zones."
"How do you know which zone you're in?"
"Well, there are usually large signs everywhere," Atlanta explained. "We're in zone one, and the city's also in zone one, so we buy a zone one ticket. Then you choose the length of time before the ticket expires." She paused. "How long do we want?"
The Doctor analysed his options. "No twenty-yearly?"
"No. You can get a half-yearly if you fill out a form, though."
The Doctor shrugged and pressed the 'Daily' button. "What's this final step?"
"Concession or Full Fare. Obviously, we're Full Fare."
"I'm older than 65!" the Doctor protested.
Atlanta stared at him. "You can't be," she told him. "You don't look older than 47 or so."
"Thank you. I'm actually 757." Triumphantly, he pressed the 'Concession' button on the machine. "Uhm... it says it needs three dollars and ten cents."
Atlanta handed over the money and the Doctor got his ticket. Then Atlanta got hers, and the two stepped out to wait for the train. It came soon enough, and the Doctor and Atlanta climbed aboard.
"You're very lucky it's six in the morning," Atlanta told the Doctor. "If it were any later than eight, there'd be soldiers swarming the train."
"Very lucky indeed, then," the Doctor decided.
Unfortunately, it might not have been swarming with soldiers, but there were a few lurking about, and they happened to notice the Doctor and Atlanta, because they were the only two people in that particular carriage.
"I don't think this is my good day," the Doctor told Atlanta quietly as a group of American soldiers surrounded the two.
"What are you two doing here?" one demanded.
"Aren't we allowed to take public transport?" the Doctor asked the soldier. "I thought that was why it was there, so normal residents could go wherever they wanted in the city while reducing pollution."
"Whatever," the soldier summarised.
"Typical American," Atlanta remarked snidely, and her reward was to have a large gun pointed at her head. Atlanta displayed no outward signs of panic that most assistants would have done, and instead glared reproachfully at the soldier. "All Americans say 'whatever'," she argued in vain. "It's not meant to be snide, it's just an observation."
"Who are you?" the American behind the gun demanded.
Atlanta sighed. "Atlanta Johnston," she admitted reluctantly. "Yes, I was part of a resistance movement. And yes, you buffoons tried to shoot me last night. And furthermore, yes, I am alive."
Another American soldier grabbed her hair and pulled her upwards, towards the door.
"Oi!" the Doctor yelled. "Where are you going with her?"
The American soldier holding Atlanta rolled his eyes. "Take him, too," he instructed. "He could be a nuisance."
"I knew this was a suicidal mission, Doctor, but suicidal in the first twenty minutes?"
Atlanta and the Doctor had been knocked unconscious once off the train, and driven by car to the large American base right in the heart of Melbourne. Upon awakening, Atlanta discovered that her wrists and ankles were bound securely to what appeared to be a table on an angle, tilting down towards where her feet were. The Doctor was on a similar table next to her, and rather annoyed about the fact that he couldn't escape the steel restraints until he had his sonic screwdriver, but he also couldn't reach his sonic screwdriver until he had escaped the steel restraints! The Doctor had never particularly liked paradoxes. They put him in a bad mood.
"Well, it's not my fault we were arrested," the Doctor retorted. "It was you and your well-placed snide remark that made them all unfriendly."
"They would have killed us anyway!" Atlanta yelled back angrily. "Couldn't you get K-9 here or something to free us?"
The Doctor grinned. Brilliant! Only... he couldn't reach his dog whistle without freeing his hand, and that put him right back in the realm of paradoxes.
"Well, what else could we do?" Atlanta tried to think. "We could always run away when they come to execute us," she suggested. The Doctor was appalled.
"Without a trial or anything?" he asked in surprise.
"What did you think this was, democracy? Of course not."
"But don't they hold elections?" he asked, bewildered.
"Only Americans can vote," Atlanta told him, "and I doubt most of them know what's happening further out than Canada or Mexico."
That was encouraging. Not. "Has anyone ever escaped from the Americans?"
"Not escaped as such. But lived, at least."
"How?"
"There was this one girl, Dani. She wasn't really active in our movement, but her brother Toby was. When the Americans took Toby, they took Dani too. Toby never came back. Dani did, but she'd changed."
"Really?" the Doctor pretended to be fascinated.
"Yeah. She started taking a whole lot more interest in the movement. And then she -" Atlanta frowned. "She wasn't at the meeting yesterday! The little... hypnotised..."
The Doctor was interested now. "So we're either to die or be hypnotised."
"You, anyway. I'm to die."
"You're very cheerful."
Before Atlanta could reply, some American soldiers entered the room loudly. Before Atlanta could reply to the Doctor, some of the soldiers began manhandling the Doctor, unfastening the steel restraints before carting him away. Atlanta called after them desperately, but the only response she got was a rude "shut up" from one of the soldiers.
