Atlanta wandered back into the shop with the vague notion of buying a cup of tea. After this, she decided to think about what the Doctor had said – purely because she had nothing else to think about, and it was playing on her mind.

She decided that if anyone in the world knew about future events, it was probably the Doctor. In fact, that was a relatively simplistic decision, given that she'd already experienced several materialisations and dematerialisations in his TARDIS, unconscious at the time or not. She also thought that ordering the Doctor to meddle in her time stream was a perfectly 'her' thing to do – everyone had always said she was bossy, or at least when she was determined enough to be.

Then, considering that both the Sontarans and these Rutans were supposed to be 900,000 times worse than the Americans, at given that only one in three hundred people survived, and then taking into consideration as well that both sides would give anything to defeat the other, Atlanta would have thought it hardly surprising that all of a sudden she gulped down her tea and ran outside to find the Doctor. After all... these Rutans could shapeshift.


The Doctor wasn't going to let Atlanta's storming off disturb him. He wanted to send the Rutans away from Earth, and he couldn't do that if he were chasing after angry assistants all the time. It almost made him wonder why he felt he had to go and collect Sarah in the first place. She'd been fine on Earth. As she told him, she'd gotten her career back together. Now, thanks to his stupid selfishness, he had to break a very important Gallifreyan law to change the future.

He wondered what Sarah's reaction would be on his returning to the future. As a human, no doubt her memories would change. He wondered what she would remember instead. He hoped, for his sake, that it wasn't something annoying like his abandoning her there. He'd never hear the end of that, even if it never happened.

The Doctor retrieved his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and buzzed it at the door. The door stubbornly refused to open for him, but just as the Doctor decided to put the screwdriver away, the door swung upwards and open. The Doctor, who had started to grin, was far less grinning when he realised there were Rutans inside.

The Rutans are well-known, to those who have heard of them, for their ability to drain electrical energy and use it to kill. Thankfully for the Doctor, they didn't have much stored, and the most they could do was knock him unconscious.

But it was enough.


When the Doctor awoke, he found himself inside a smallish space capsule – roughly the size of the rock outside. Through this brilliant realisation, it dawned on him that he must be inside the capsule.

It was very dark inside. The walls were made out of a bland silver metal, and the Doctor was trapped inside a compartment apparently near the back of the capsule. He could see through the compartment fine, as the barrier was merely a load of strong metal bars, and on the other side he saw a mass of buttons and levers. He was sure there must be a communicator there for communicating with the mother ship, as a scout ship probably wasn't a lot of use without a communications device.

The Doctor grinned and reached for his sonic screwdriver. The bars shifted aside and the Doctor skipped forward to try and send a message to the Rutan mother ship about Earth's unsuitability.


Atlanta found her way to the large rock just as the Doctor sped outside it. He appeared to be running very fast, and Atlanta soon caught on to the idea as the Doctor nearly pushed her over in an attempt to make her run, too.

"Why are we running?" she yelled, but the Doctor didn't reply. Atlanta decided that she could ask later and concentrated her energy on keeping up with him.

Suddenly, the Doctor dove behind a large rock, dragging Atlanta behind with him. Atlanta was about to ask why, when she heard a loud BOOM behind her. A few seconds after that, Atlanta decided to peep over the rock. She saw a large smoky spot, and pieces of chunky metal lying around.

"What did you do?" she asked the Doctor breathlessly.

The Doctor grinned. "It's simple. First, I sent a message to the Rutan mother ship to say that Earth was completely unsuitable for invasion. Then, I switched a few wires around and the power overload made the capsule blow up."

"Why?"

The Doctor blinked. He didn't expect her to ask why he just saved the world. Usually, people didn't.

"Do you want to hear about the 2090 I saw?" he asked her.

Atlanta hesitated. "Is it terrible?"

"Yes. But the Rutans caused it. They masqueraded as Americans far more vicious than yours – the real ones."

"Tell me."

Yet another statement that caught him completely off-guard. "The world is grey. Grey roads, grey footpaths, grey buildings, grey skies. There are only a mere ten thousand people in the city. They must wear grey, and obey several oppressive laws, or else they are re-educated."

"That doesn't sound worse than what we had two months ago," Atlanta told him.

"But it is, Atlanta. Re-education is a very inappropriate word for it. Legalised torture is much better."

"But didn't you just change everything?" Atlanta asked. "You did your bit of meddling."

"Well, required meddling," the Doctor answered.

"You mean you have to do more?" Atlanta asked, horrified.

"Well, of course!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Those Rutans are probably powering up right now, and I can't imagine them being too happy to discover their capsule's blown up. Or, to put it more precisely, been blown up. By me."

"What will they do?" Atlanta asked. She then sped up and continued talking. "Will they... torture? Like you say they do in 2090?"

"I doubt it," the Doctor answered. "They'll be far more likely to go on a killing spree."