The impending drive to the UNIT base, Theodore chewed on his inner lip as he found he's unable to move an inch where the woman stuck him, if he moved wrong, he felt an electrical zap, nothing dangerous, enough to stop him from trying.
Beside him, Lila didn't have it in her to try, sitting in her spot, a look on her face, and when she turned her head to face Theodore, he heard in his head, "Is it illegal to pants the TARDIS?"
Because of Al, they're in this situation, and Theodore thoughtfully said, "If it were wearing trousers, I'd be thoroughly impressed, but unfortunately, my dear Watson, you'll have to continue seething."
They could try to talk to the woman, but it appears that she took her job seriously, so that option's out of the question, and from the man beside her, he wouldn't believe them anyway, the woman would've saw through their attempts and warn him.
"Your mom worked for UNIT, right, can't you use it to get us out of this?" Lila asked Theodore internally if that's possible, his mother's a legend among barracks, surely Theodore can play the card, and get them out of a trial in military court for possible espionage.
Thinking it over, Theodore replied that it's possible, but likely, they wouldn't believe him.
"Your dad, then?" Lila continued as it felt like she's on a doomed bus ride home from school with a bad report card and there's no way she can talk her way out of getting grounded.
Maybe Theodore couldn't wing it as his father because of Lila, but if he told the people at the base that he's the son of the Doctor, maybe it'll help.
"My father left on shaky terms with UNIT," Theodore nixed the idea, saying that while his mother's name chanced meditating their court appearance, his father's won't entice good responses if they're unfortunate of finding out someone knowing him worked at the base.
What he did to incite this's a matter of different philosophies, his father wanted to travel freely, UNIT wanted the TARDIS to study, and that was the end of the long arduous period where he helped them.
It's more complicated than that, but that's just the bare minimal of what caused the friction between the two.
The more he sat on that, Theodore realized that sharing his father's face might've incurred issues, since they won't know the difference.
That also meant using the psychic paper wasn't possible, because of that reason alone, meaning that they had no leg to stand on.
Wracking his mind, Theodore frowns as he settled in his spot, as they've arrived back at the base, where armed men waited for them.
They retrieved him and Lila as the woman and man talked to one of the commanders.
"I don't recognize them, either," replied the commander looking at Theodore and Lila, "Put them up, I'll let the Brigadier know about them. Off you two."
The armed men lead Theodore and Lila inside the base, just as Theodore remembered a UNIT base looked like from his father's stories.
Once they arrived towards the interrogation rooms, Lila's taken to a different one while Theodore's placed at the first one, they arrived at, and his cuffs became attached to the seat as he's forced sitting down.
"Bugger," Theodore winced.
Staring at his reflection across from him in the dull grey room, with only table, and two chairs, he's forced to sit in the silence.
Well, not in silence, Theodore's talking to Al, warning him of the UNIT soldiers coming to pick him up from the substation and Al assures him that he's moved since then, but insisted that it wasn't his intention for them ending up in the substation.
The benefits of telepathically talking to the TARDIS.
"I needed to confuse them for a minute while I worked out an exit plan," Al informed Theodore that he needed the substation shortage to keep the base from discovering his appearance, thus alerting them of the Doctor's arrival.
The main UNIT branch knows the trickery of the TARDIS because of the appearances of Theodore's father, however as time marched on, subsequent bases built afterwards have tools on hand dealing with the Doctor and the TARDIS, but don't know why, since it's all been lost to red tape.
Still, Al's sensors picked up a disturbance somewhere north of the base, that it was worth the capture, only for Theodore to remind him that he shares his father's face and when UNIT saw him last, it didn't end well.
"Lucky for you, this base is more detached than others, and no one on the list knows your dad, so you have that going for you," Al summed that while this situation isn't easy, Theodore had this going for him, no one knows his father, and won't see the familial resemblance, however it did have tools that could make things hairy if used against Al.
He's hoping that no one will think to use it since the red tape would've made obtaining the necessary information impossible, that nobody thinks of using it.
"Why on earth would they think our like would do something nefarious in the first place, barring their disagreements with my father?" Theodore questioned why it's like this and Al explained it to him.
Al likened it to how Batman always keeps a piece of kryptonite with him despite Superman being the poster boy of heroism, a little something if Superman becomes dangerous, and even if he doesn't in various issues, Batman's prepared for the worse.
"They don't have anything to fear, though," Theodore found it questionable that UNIT would go this far, but Al gave a pragmatic reason for UNIT's decisions.
Though the Doctor always helps UNIT with any situation, be it alien or other, it wasn't foolish enough to put all their eggs into one basket. They're the most wary of all about the thought of the Doctor "changing" every now again, that they refused the chance that the next iteration isn't as humble as the last.
Even if every Doctor gets schooled on UNIT before bumping into them, they're not going to treat every man or woman who walks through those doors as an old friend, especially Al reminding Theodore that things ended on shaky terms with Theodore's father.
The best advice that Al can give for this situation's Theodore being honest with the interrogator and go from here, lying to UNIT's probably the worst thing he can do, since they're sensitive to the Doctor, as it is, that if they found out he lied, they'll start to treat the Doctor suspect, more than they normally do.
When that happens, well, good luck trying to help UNIT when they need it, and as Theodore's aware, he can't turn a blind eye from them because of that, though Al suspected if it happened, they'll do everything they can to undermine Theodore's help.
Until it bites them in the arse and then some.
"And Lila?" Theodore asked about her and Al sucked air through his teeth as he tells Theodore, "Well, that's a complicated issue."
Being American and all that, might not go well with UNIT.
She could play the dumb tourist card, but Al says that the village nearby isn't a tourist destination, their only claim to fame's their deli, good Rueben by the way, and charity shops that make money off the bored soldiers working in UNIT.
No chance of her playing any cards that'll placate the interrogators.
"Al, is there anything you can tell me about the disturbances you detected?" Theodore tried to obtain some sort of useful information he can use with the interrogator to help his cause and Al responded that while he couldn't get into UNIT's computers, he did manage to pull from an unsecured printer port that UNIT did their practice drills a few miles north of base, but something happened, and it put several participating soldiers in the sick bay.
"Says 'prolonged exposure to methane gas,' but as we both know, kid, it's never methane gas," Al tells Theodore that he suspected that there's more to the incident than UNIT's willing to comment on, hence why they're there.
Since Al can't get any more details from the printer port without risking exposure himself, Theodore's on his own there, but Al did top his search with that the affected soldiers have been in the sick bay for a few days.
"Al, over and out!" Al disappeared from Theodore's head.
Sucking air through his teeth, Theodore's forced to sit in silence once again, braving his conversation with the interrogator, having already alerted Lila with what Al said, and forced to stare at his reflection.
Couldn't help but jump when someone finally opened the door and walked in with another soldier.
They forced him up from the chair, making him walk out of the interrogation room, where Lila stood next to another pair of soldiers.
"What's going on?" Theodore tried asking one of the soldiers and he's told by one of the soldiers that he'd been flagged by the system, so now he's going to the holding cell.
Raising his brow, Theodore went, "Flagged?"
Nodding, the soldier says, "I don't know any more than that, sir."
Truthfully, he didn't, Theodore believed him since the system wouldn't tell the low-rung why he was flagged, so now he went with Lila to the holding cell, after waiting in the interrogation room, and there someone waited for them with two more soldiers, holding deep beige containers.
A seasoned man around his fifties, tall with his weight a guess since his uniform puffed out around his arms and thighs, receded grey hair hidden underneath his military cap, peppered trimmed mustache, crow's feet around his ivy green eyes.
"Brigadier Perry," the soldiers gave their standard greeting as they led Theodore and Lila towards the waiting cell.
Looking them over, Brigadier Perry bluntly says, "I don't know who you are or your motives, but whatever that is, you're flagged in our systems. I'm sure you'll be happy to know, it isn't for terrorist activities, other than that, for the duration of our preliminary investigation, you are to remain in the cell."
He motioned his hand and had the two soldiers with the deep trays stand in front of Theodore and Lila as the two pairs of soldiers that led them unlocked their cuffs, allowing them to turn out their pockets, putting everything in the containers.
Having to turn over the Sonic Screwdriver, Theodore's forced into the cell with Lila as the soldiers locked them in.
"Can't we talk about this?" Theodore asks the brigadier if they're able to speak about this, but he's told by the brigadier that he can't do much more than this, before telling him and Lila when they'll receive their meals, and so forth.
Watching him leave while ordering two of the soldiers to watch over them, Lila sighed as she goes, "What gives, even the principal lets me explain my side before putting me in detention!"
Crossing his arms, his stitched long coat crumpling as he did, Theodore goes, "He doesn't know why the computers flagged me, that's why."
Like Al told him, no one at this base knows about the Doctor, and because of that, when the system flagged him, they don't know anything more than what the system said.
"Guess asking him about the "methane gas" wouldn't have ended well, either," Lila sighs as she paced around the large holding cell, complete with cots, the bathrooms adjacent from them, all they had to do's ask, and the soldiers would take them to and fro.
Shaking his head, his head of brown wild hair bobbing, Theodore replied, "No, I don't think he'd tell me anything, anyway."
Stuck in the cell, in a military base, everything in their pockets taken from them, and their options limited, they're forced to stay in the cell.
"So, what're you in for?" Lila opted to make light of their situation, much to Theodore's bemusement.