Lunch between the trio came and went, they consumed their weight in the food offered for lunch, for once, Lila found school food that wasn't terrible, and grew envious that the students had better food than she did when she was in school some years ago.
David reminded her that it came at a cost, the tuition required sending the students to Grissom Academy's enough to buy London proper.
So, while the food's cooked by expert chefs, there's a price for the smorgasbord of food they consumed as guests at the school.
"Let me enjoy having pizza that doesn't drip grease, okay?" Lila shot him a look as they cleaned up after their lunch, returning to the hallways, intent on returning to the laboratory harboring the Rubik Obelisk, and banging their heads against the wall trying to understand what the hell it is, of course the donor's an enigma, since they're anonymous, and even if the Dean would break rules regarding disclosure, Lila doubted they'd come up with answers.
Retracing their steps, the three see twelfth-year students walking down the hallway, talking to each other.
A young woman with semi-tight brunette curled hair and dark eyes and a young man with straight short blonde hair with blue eyes, walking at an arm's length with each other.
They stopped as they noticed the three, looking at them quizzically.
"Wait, lunch's not over, is it?" asked the young man as he noticed students leaving the cafeteria in droves.
David checked the time before confirming that lunch ended ten minutes ago, asking the young man where he's been.
No one would miss lunch, it's one of the most important meals of the day!
Catherine snidely pointing out to David, all meals were important to him, and he ate more than one lunch.
Seeing confusion on the students' faces, Lila asked them where they've been for the last hour, causing them even more confusion, as the young man mustered that they couldn't been that long.
"It didn't take that long, did it?" the young woman blinked as she struggled to understand how they spent that long without realizing it.
Staring at them with confusion, Catherine asked them bluntly, "Where were you two?"
It's inexcusable that two students were allowed to wander around the school without some sort of supervision!
… Cue David pointing out Catherine's hypocrisy, resulting in Catherine shushing him.
"I… we were helping the Doctor find the black box thingy," the young man told her.
The young woman added, "He gave me the creeps, all serious like, it was like he saw through us!"
The two students helped the Doctor find the laboratory with the Rubik Obelisk, causing David to react as the information reached his brain with a loud, "What?!"
Recoiling, the students looked at David with confusion, before he informed them, he's the Doctor!
"Wait, you're the Doctor?" the young man blinked as he stared at David quizzically, before David asserted that he is the Doctor!
Her dark eyes on David, the young woman pointed at him, before uttering, "If he's the Doctor… then who?"
Following the students back to the laboratory, the three hurried, alerted that someone posed as David, and lord only knows what reason this person had doing this.
Returning to the laboratory, his vanes sliding against the floor, David hurried inside, his chocolate eyes narrowed on the Rubik Obelisk, that remained where it's been since the Dean had it placed here temporary.
Catherine and Lila looked around for the man fitting the description, but despite their attempts, he wasn't in the classroom.
"This man, what did he say?" David held the shoulders of the young man who gestured as he answered David's question.
As he gestures, the young man goes, "He asked what was today's date, where we are, that sort of thing."
Don't know why he asked the young man this, but that's the truth, and the young woman beside him collaborated this, by saying that the strange man asked them seemingly benign questions.
The air about him creeped them out, a sense of refinement, coldness, and when they reached the Rubik Obelisk, the strange man wouldn't go near it, asking for their help instead.
Well, it wasn't much asking, more than ordering the two to help him, so they did, out of a sense of fear towards them, and it seemed benign, the strange man had them push certain parts of the Rubik Obelisk.
It resulted in what appeared to be buttons being pressed, but nothing happening, and this continued until the strange man was satisfied.
He then ordered the two away from the laboratory, so they left.
Going up to the Rubik Obelisk, David touched the spots that the strange man ordered the students to push for him, finding they've resettled, unable to be pressed, again.
Joining him, Catherine and Lila helped, but the buttons remained unusable, whatever function they served, remained unknown.
Out of habit, he dug out his Sonic Screwdriver, holding it near the Rubik Obelisk, and to his surprise, it's working, again.
"How?" Catherine's baffled as she joined David's side, wanting to know what changed.
Looking at his Sonic Screwdriver closely, his chocolate eyes reading off the biometrics, David responded with, "I don't know."
There's movement at the door of the laboratory and the Dean poked his head in, irritated the moment his eyes fell to the students, demanding to know where they've been.
Stepping in, David spoke to the Dean, giving him his spiel, he didn't lose a beat explaining away why the students weren't in their next classes, and had the Dean allow them a late lunch, on him.
Worked like a charm and the Dean grew lenient to the students, telling them that after lunch, he wanted them in class, and to make up any work they missed.
Nodding, profusely, the students acknowledged the Dean's command, hurrying out of the laboratory while leaving the Dean and the trio.
"Doctor, what is going on?" the Dean asked David what happened, seeing a look on his face, before David informed him that someone gotten into the laboratory.
Recoiling, the Dean informed David that no one's allowed in the school without authorization. Had anyone came into the school without his knowledge, he'd know instantly.
"The cameras!" Lila brought up a valid idea.
His chocolate eyes twinkling, David asked the Dean to show them the cameras, and the Dean led them out of the laboratory towards the security room.
He informed them of the standard legalese, how they couldn't have cameras in the dormitories or bathrooms, etc, and David assured him he knows the legalese by hearts, trust him, not the first time he went through security camera footage.
"What would anyone want with it?" Lila questioned the lengths the strange man went through just to get to the Rubik Obelisk.
Shrugging his wide shoulders, David replied that that's what they'll find out, as the Dean showed him the command centre where the security guards watched the live footages daily.
Sitting in the navy-blue chair as it somewhat turned, David worked with the women, going back through the footage, wanting to find the strange man appearing on one of the large screens, while the Dean stood idly.
Catherine had the idea of using one of the screens only for the laboratory footage, wanting to see what the strange man did with the Rubik Obelisk.
On Lila's mind, she wondered why the strange man didn't push the buttons himself, if he knew where they were and how they're supposed to be pushed, didn't make any sense, and David opted to agree with her.
The Dean didn't know anyone matching the description and he'd say something if he did, if it's true what he said, no one should've gotten into the school without a warning alarm going off, but somehow, the strange man did.
"There!" Lila called out after finding the footage of the students coming through the hall way, seemingly leading someone, the young man turned his head, talking to someone behind them, but she couldn't see the strange man they saw.
The footage started becoming erratic and corrupted, to the point by the time it had corrected itself, the part has long since past.
It's the same in all the footage leading up to the laboratory, the students showed up fine, but the moment the strange man was supposed to appear in the frame, the footage became corrupted beyond recognition and impossible to salvage.
When they got to the laboratory, the young man opening the door, nothing on the screen for it changed.
Time's moving forward throughout the multiple screens, but neither the students or the strange man appeared in the frame for the laboratory.
In fact, time continued moving as if normal, and in a split second, the students seemingly walked out of the empty laboratory, unaware, the strange man nowhere to be seen.
"How's this possible?" Catherine quizzically stared at the screens, seeing the time ticking away, but the laboratory remained uninhabited by the students and the strange man.
She even went far as checking the point when they returned to the laboratory with the students and they showed up fine on the camera.
Baffled, David asked the Dean questions, the Dean struggled to answer them as David asked questions rapidly, by the time he got a chance to breathe, David remained unconvinced.
"I'm not seeing the strange man, anywhere," Catherine went through every reel, checking every angle, but the strange man seemingly disappeared.
The Dean reached out to the main office and he's just as bewildered as the three as he informed them that none of their sensors picked up disturbances indicating an unauthorized personal entered the school.
No one at the office knows about the strange man and they claimed never seeing him.
It's impossible getting inside the school that even the students couldn't fake their biometrics if they tried.
"Where is he?" David threw up his hands in agitation as the Dean called to the security guards, having them do a sweep of the school.
As part of the rules, the school went into a temporary lockdown, groups of security guards went through every corner of the school, looking for the strange man, but by the end of a two-hour search, they never found him, and the sensors never picked up on him.
The camera footage remained impossible to salvage, in fact, when David tried going back to them when the students met the strange man, he found they've been deleted by the system due the corruption flagging a fail safe.
At a lost, neither knew what to make of this, and David returned to the Rubik Obelisk, where he scanned it again, showing him that it's nothing but a piece of well-cut Aerographene.
He asked the Dean to have it scanned again and the Dean arranged for it to be scanned the same way it was before, this time, he noticed that the scanners aren't showing anything inside the Rubik Obelisk.
They're able to scan it thoroughly this time, by the time it finished, it's one giant hunk of Aerographene like the Sonic Screwdriver showed it as when David scanned it the second time. Nothing inside it like it originally said the first time the Dean had the object scanned and x-rayed.
"What does that mean?" Lila asked them as she and Catherine stared at the screens in front of them, showing that the Rubik Obelisk wasn't this thought-provoking object like they were led to believe.
Shrugging, David's at a loss as her, and it was then the Dean thanked him for the help, though unconventional as it turned out.
"Wh-what about the strange man, though, how does a fully grown adult disappear in a school?" Catherine brought up as she raised her finger at the Dean, causing him to recoil in terror as the former Scottish princess verbally dug into him about his course of actions.
Throwing his hands up in defense, the Dean urged David to call her back, but David warned him that it's not possible.
"I promise you, we searched every corner of the school, he's not here!" Catherine heard the Dean explain to her as she stared at him.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any trace of the strange man and though testimonies from the students were more than enough to prove his existence, he's nowhere to be found.
No explanation on the security cameras suffering from an unusual malfunction, the Dean swore that the security guards remained at their stations during the day, that he offered David to talk to them, and he did.
They didn't see anything out of the ordinary and they had no reason to lie, David checked their minds out of curiosity, neither had monetary factors or any motives to turn on the school.
"What, now?" Lila asked David what he wanted to do, seeing as they haven't a clue what transpired, no evidence of the strange man except from two students that the Dean warned one half of the pair's prone to deviancy.
The trio went far as going back to the TARDIS to see what it had to say, but it didn't show anything out of the ordinary, shockingly enough, and it even allowed David to bring it to the laboratory that the Rubik Obelisk was housed in before it was taken for x-rays and studied, again.
David had it scan the Rubik Obelisk and it said the same thing: Aerographene.
Exasperated at this situation of theirs, David chewed on his lips, before saying, "We've what we could, I don't know what else to do or think of, it's just not possible!"
Frustrated, David crossed his arms, looking up at the screens above the console, showing the breakdown of the Rubik Obelisk.
It didn't make any sense to him and he's part alien!
Unfortunately, this's par course for him and those who share the same title, many questions, few answers.
"You're giving up?" Catherine raised her brow at David as he turned around to face the women, a deafest look on his face.
Gesturing, David goes, "No records on the donor, everything looks rosy on the screens, I don't know what to tell you!"
Deciding that they didn't have any reason to stay, David told them that until otherwise, the adventure's concluded, he'll come back to it at another point, for now he's frustrated.
Can't do much when he's frustrated and the Dean mentioned that he didn't want the three in the school for long and getting in the students's way.
Exhaling sharply, David took them away from the school, dropping Lila off at her flat, as he'd promised.
… Elsewhere.
The school day concluded, everyone returned to their dormitories where they remained for the rest of the night, the Rubik Obelisk, er, the Aerographene Cube, as it's be renamed, was shunted to the far corners of storage while the Dean worked to house it elsewhere.
"Tick, tock," a man's monotonous voice rang out in the darkness, walking through it, his suit blending into the backdrop as his pale face shown through, his dark eyes fell to the Aerographene Cube, "tick, tock."
THE END