Danni had to wonder just when they turned from being real into being in a simulation. She tried to think back to a moment where something could have happened and she could have slipped into a computerised world without noticing. Sometimes it was incredibly obvious and sometimes she could never work it out until she woke back up again. Usually, though, once she knew that she was in a virtual world she could work out when it happened.

She should have known though. Honestly, did she really think that the Master was emailing her selfies from across the universe, asking for her help? He always appeared in her dreams, especially when she was feeling particularly worried about Missy. Perhaps he'd turn up now and whisk her away. She wouldn't have minded that, if she was honest. Another little dance on the Valiant and she'd wake up with the Doctor once again.

Hopefully, anyway.

The glowing hole in the wall that she had been very quick to step through had taken them into a hub-like area, with portals all around them on white walls. Danni had taken the executive decision to walk straight through the one in front of her. That portal took them into what appeared to be a cleaning closet. It was bright white, with harsh lighting that somehow against all odds felt tiny. "Offices," Danni muttered as Nardole appeared behind her, and Bill shortly afterwards. "Shall we go see where?"

She opened the door and peeked out into the room. As she had said, they were in a large office, with a lot of desks with people working and ceiling to floor wooden walls. "Eugh," she stated as they seemed to startle a woman who was getting a drink from a water cooler. "Government."

"Hello?" the woman asked in an American accent.

"Hello," Nardole greeted back and they all stared at each other for a moment.

"Who are you? Do you have clearance for Floor Three?" she asked.

"Floor Three? Of what?"

This seemed to confuse the woman even more. "The Pentagon!"

Danni shot Nardole a smug look. "Told you," she boasted, as if he had contradicted her when he'd actually not said a word. "Government." She turned back to the woman. "President of the World," she said, as if the woman should have known who she was. "Carry on."

She turned and walked back into the broom closet, then back through the portal into the hub. "How did you know?" Bill asked.

"Know what?" Danni replied as Nardole started sticking his head through more portals.

"That it was government? Was it all the flags? Or did you overhear sommat?"

"It was the walls," Danni offered. "Fake wooden panelling. My plane suffered the same unfortunate decoration. It's a sure sign of someone trying to pompous. I hate the stuff."

"Did you get it redecorated?"

"No, it got blown up," she replied. "With a bazooka." She turned to Nardole before Bill could ask any more questions. "Find anything interesting?"

He nodded. "Come have a look at this."

They followed him through yet another portal, this time into a white hallway. There were no signs to indicate where they were, and everything looked very uniform. There were lockers lining one wall as they headed down towards the exit in hopes of finding out where they'd appeared, only to be startled into stopping when a man opened the door in front of him. He was swigging from a bottle of wine, and wearing a white lab coat. A scientist, maybe.

"Oh, hello," he greeted them. His voice slurred slightly, a sign that he'd been drinking for a while. "Are you coming?"

"Coming where?" Bill asked him.

"Uh, we're all in the cafeteria." He pointed off to the side, as if that cleared up what he was saying. "You mustn't miss it."

"Miss what?" Danni asked.

He chuckled, but he wasn't amused. It instantly made her feel even more on edge. "We'll all go together when we go," he offered as an explanation. He raised his eyebrows a couple of times then gave Bill's arm a pat. "Come on," he encouraged, motioning for them to follow.

After a shared look, they did follow him. He led them into a modern-looking cafeteria, where a large group of people, dressed smartly and in lab clothes, were sat drinking more. There was a countdown on the wall with a 'CERN' logo above it.

"Where what's his name sent the Veritas," Nardole pointed out.

Danni barely noticed the sign, or paid attention to the little speech the man was giving the devastated crowd. Instead she noticed the countdown, and a group of sad people, and flashing blocks of explosives under every table. It wasn't very hard to work out what had happened. Much like the Vatican, she assumed these were the people who had read the Veritas. They were all going to die by their own hand. She wondered how long the fake Doctor had before he also took his own life. She also hated the fact that she could cut off her feelings that easily, but at least she could use it to her advantage.

"We're going to have to leave very shortly," Danni whispered to the other two.

"Why?" Bill asked.

"Look under the tables," Nardole instructed, having noticed the same thing that she had. Bill's eyes widened in horror.

"Oh my god," she whispered.

Danni took a deep breath. Unfortunately, this wasn't exactly new to her, and so she stepped forward and down the space between the tables to their new friend. "Hello horribly depressed people!" she said loudly to bring the attention of the room onto her. It worked, much to Nardole's protests. "My name is Danni. I can see you're quite busy, so it might be nice for you to know that I'm an alien." She shot finger guns at one of the tables. "Yeah, that's right, an alien. We're real too. Anyway…" She turned to the man who seemed to be in charge. "I assume you've read the Veritas, which is why you're all gathered here for this macabre event. Would you mind telling me what you read so we can, you know, skedaddle?"

"Danielle," Nardole hissed as he and Bill ran up to her. "How about we don't antagonise the people with explosives?" He shot the man a smile, just in case it helped.

Danni waved him away. "He's not a threat," she dismissed. "They're gathered here to blow themselves up. And, considering what is in this place, a lot of other people as well. Aren't you even a little curious as to why?"

Bill raised her hand. "I am, actually."

"And, considering where we've just come from, I'm going to guess that this is to do with the Veritas. Which my husband is currently reading. I'd like to know why he's going to kill himself," she continued. "What's in the Veritas?"

"We don't really have time," Nardole pointed out. "We really must dash. Now, Danielle."

"Take Bill, I don't care," she replied bluntly. "I'm staying here. What did you read in the Veritas?"

"Choose a number," the man commanded. Her brows furrowed.

"That's it?"

"Any number. All of you, now. And say it when I tap this table."

There was only a minimal pause, but he tapped the table. "36," they all said at the same time. None of them has expected that.

"Try again. Keep going."

He started to bang his hand on the table in rhythm. "17. 9. 48. 103," all three of them said in unison, with no way of sharing the information between them.

He brought his hand down again, and whilst Bill and Nardole continued, Danni didn't. "It's a shadow test," she stated. The man pointed at her, laughing.

"That's it, that's it," he crowed.

"What's a shadow test?" Bill asked her.

"It's a test to check true randomness," she explained. She glanced at the screen, where the countdown was getting dangerously low. At least she had been right all along, that was something "Computers can't do true random. We need to leave. Now."

She turned and started running, with Nardole and Bill hot on her trail. "How did you know that?" Bill asked just as they chucked themselves through the portal. "How did you know what he was doing?"

"I've been trapped in more simulations than you could possibly imagine. You learn tricks to check what they are." The portal they came through flashed a bright white, almost blinding them, before closing off altogether. CERN had officially blown itself up. "Like the Helman-Zeigler test."

"Or doors where there shouldn't be doors?"

Danni nodded. "Or shadow tests. Computers can't do true random. Even computers built by insanely clever Time Lords." She turned around, looking at the portal room again. She had thought they were just run of the mill portals, but now she could see the difference. She walked to the middle of the room and looked back into the room at the remaining holes in the room.

Nardole looked horrified as he seemed to come to the same conclusion that she had done. "Ooo. Oh. Ooo," he squealed in a panic, dancing slightly on the spot as if the thoughts in his head were crawling all over him.

"You okay?" Bill asked him.

"No!" he said before sighing. "Yes." His eyes widened in panic again. "No!"

"Shut up," Danni muttered, her eyes moving from the trail of blood that she had noticed on the floor to the portal it led to. She wondered what had to be through there. Somewhere important, obviously, as the rest of them had taken them somewhere with significance to the human race. How did he know which one pointed where?

Bill also spotted the drops of blood on the ground. "Someone's been through here," she stated. "Could be the Doctor."

"I said shut up," Danni snapped. "It doesn't matter."

"He could be hurt!" she protested and Danni sighed angrily.

"Considering he'd bleeding, probably," she retorted. "Could even be dying, but I'm trying to focus so please, and I mean this, shut up."

Bill turned to her, outraged. "What is your problem?" she asked.

"My problem is that you're still talking and we're in the middle of something rather important," she cut in, but Bill wasn't finished. She was upset, and confused, and in denial about the revelation they all seemed to be coming to.

"That could be your husband, he could be hurt! Don't you care at all?" she exclaimed. "Or are you just upset that he interrupted your date?"

Danni's eyes narrowed slightly and even Nardole stopped his panic at the anger on her face. "Oh, that's not good," he muttered. "Mrs Fielding, perhaps you should take some deep breaths…"

Danni ignored him, stepping closer to Bill, who didn't move back as she felt like doing. "You know, I'm going to say something I've wanted to say for a long time," Danni snarled. "I don't want you here. I've never wanted you here. You've come into our lives, taken a look over it and decided your own judgements and have decided you know better than anyone else. You think I don't care about my husband? He is the only thing I care about. I don't care about you, I don't care about Nardole—"

"Hey!"

"-I don't care about the planet!" She pointed at Bill. "I never wanted you to come with us. You came into my safe space and decided that I wasn't good enough to be there. Well, guess what? You're not good enough to be there! We didn't need another friend; we didn't need another companion. You should never have stepped foot in the TARDIS. I don't want you there!"

Bill blinked, hurt and with tears in her eyes. Danni deflated slightly. "And I can say that fully in the knowledge that you won't remember a damn thing about it and that, unfortunately, I never will remember that I said it."

"What do you mean?" Bill asked, her voice shaking.

"What we said wasn't random because we're in a computer. Which means that we're not real, we're just projections, like those portals."

"Yeah, they're projecting the portals," Bill agreed.

"No, they're not projecting the portals, they're projecting the actual places. They're not real."

"How can they not be real?"

"They're holograms," Nardole explained, seeing that Danni was becoming more irritated with Bill's questions. "They're holographic simulations. And the people in them, too."

"When do you think it happened?" Danni asked Nardole. "I'm thinking in the last week or so. That's when the Master emailed me, so I'm thinking before that."

"Sorry, what?" Nardole asked. "Ma'am, you didn't mention…"

"I don't have to tell you everything, you know? You're not even real!" she protested.

"Your mother sent me to keep an eye on you, how am I supposed to do that without all of the information?"

"I'm sorry if I don't like you up in my business every moment of every day," she retorted. "Are you always this annoying?"

"Are you always this bratty?" he countered.

Bill could only stare at the pair in bewilderment as Nardole seemed to realise just what he'd said. He backed away from Danni who looked ready to attack him. "How can you two be arguing?" she exclaimed. "We're in a computer!"

"What else are we supposed to do? I mean, we could try blowing each other up, that seems to have worked well for CERN," Danni snapped back. "Nardole, take Bill to the Doctor."

"Why, where are you going?" Bill asked. "I thought I wasn't good enough to be friends with the Doctor?"

"I didn't say that," she retorted. "Do listen. I said you weren't good enough to be in my safe space. There's a difference." She stepped closer to the middle of the room and Nardole quickly shook his head as he realised what she was doing.

"No, no, Danielle I really must insist," he started in his kick-arse voice. It was one that usually worked, but then again it was normally a real Danielle that was hearing it and not a bunch of pixels. She suddenly found it much less intimidating.

"Nardole, take Bill to the Doctor," she commanded again.

"I'm not leaving you here to play around with reality," he said firmly. "You know I have permission to kick your arse."

"Do it, then," Danni challenged. "I'm sure a fake River would really care what happened to her fake daughter." She paused slightly as she thought about what she'd said. "Actually, scratch that. She probably would."

"What-What are you doing?" Bill demanded.

"The light of the projectors is creating everything," Danni explained. "I'm going to see what happens when you leave it."

"Won't the Doctor want to know that?"

"Yes," Danni said, exasperated. "That's why you and Nardole are going to see him." She took a deep breath. This was, really, her worst nightmare. Being trapped in another computer, with another simulation. She'd done it time and time again and she should have known that having Missy in their life would mean reality and fiction would blend together once again.

She reached out between two of the projectors, where her hand turned translucent, showing the grid underneath on which her image would have been painted over. She felt an old and familiar spike of fear as she hoped that, when she appeared on the other side, she was still with the Doctor. "It's not real," she told them both as she felt the shutdown in her head. "If this is Missy, I'm going to kill the Doctor."

~0~0~0~

The Doctor had to wonder if this was how Danni felt when Missy had played with her. Finding out that everything she had thought was true actually wasn't, and having it ripped out from underneath her. He felt real, everything that had happened felt so real, and yet it wasn't. Nothing was real at all.

He wasn't surprised when just Bill and Nardole appeared in the Oval Office with him, nor was he surprised to learn that Danni had decided to leave without him. He couldn't blame her. He wished she'd waited around to do it together, but then again it wasn't like he was real so why would she? She was the one with the most experience around them regarding being in fake universes, after all. He was glad that she could escape. He hoped that, on the other side, she had absolutely no idea that this was an experience that a version of her had experienced. He hoped that, for once, she could be spared the devastation of her world falling apart around her. He hoped that he forgot too, even though it made her experience make a little more sense to him.

"You are not real," the Monk said in its breathy voice. The alien in power. The aliens who had created the entire simulation, who had decided to make them believe that they were real, only to watch them destroy themselves. Even though the Doctor couldn't see them, he knew that they were terrifying. And he knew that they were still a threat that was coming to the real him.

"No, I'm not. I'm a shadow. A puppet Doctor for you to practise killing," he agreed with a bite in his tone.

"We have killed you many times."

"Then what are you waiting for?" he challenged. "Why don't you kill me now?"

"You suffer. Pain is information. Information will be gathered," the creature hissed. The Doctor's mind immediately flew to his Confession Dial, where he'd had to punch his way out of nightmare, all for information. It had been torture then, and apparently he was being tortured now as well for the same reason. He slowly backed away until he bumped into something painful, which was just another horrid reminder that his pain wasn't even real. It was just a bunch of zeros and ones somewhere on a machine. Oh, he could feel it very well, but ultimately it wasn't anything it all.

"Turn me off. Turn me off!" he begged. "I have nothing. Not even hope."

And then the strangest thing happened. He had always believed that his last thoughts would have been of the people he loved. Of his wife, and his friends that he'd left scattered across the universe. Instead, he thought of that stumpy little robot Nardole who followed them around. He remembered that, out there, was a Missy who was trapped in a Vault trying to be good, and Danielle, who was doing any number of things. And he remembered the words that Nardole had offered – or rather, that River had offered – when Danni had wanted nothing more than to kill Missy where she had stood.

Virtue is only virtue in extremis.

"I take it that your intention is to invade the Earth?" he asked.

"The simulations have been run. The Earth will be ours," it replied, just as the Doctor has expected. Sometimes he wished he was just a little less clever, then aliens constantly invading Earth might have been a little surprising for him.

"Well, consider this a warning on the eve of war," he told the creature as he straightened back up. "I am the Doctor. I am what stands between you and them."

"You are not the Doctor. You are not real."

"Oh, you don't have to be real to be the Doctor," the Doctor replied. He started feeling his way around the large wooden desk, doing his best to not bump into it. He didn't want clumbsiness to ruin his speech, after all. "Long as you never give up. Long as you always trick the bad guys into their own traps. And here's the trap you fell into. Your simulation, it's far too good." He reached down and picked up his sonic sunglasses, which he had conveniently placed on the desk in front of him. He held them up in front of him in what he hoped was the creature's direction. "Do you see these? They're set to record. I'm blind, you see, so I'm psychically wired into these, so my memory print of the last few hours will still be intact on here. Information about you!"

"You are not real. There is nothing you can do," the creature replied

"There's always one thing you can do from inside a computer. Even if you're a jumped-up little subroutine, you can do it. You can always," with a grin on his face he put the sunglasses on, "e-mail!"

~0~0~0~

The Doctor lent back against the Vault, the feeling of dread rising in his chest. It wasn't an email he had expected, then again who expects to be emailed by a computerised version of themselves telling them that the entire planet was about to be invaded?

Above him sat a TARDIS, where his wife was sat in their bedroom, talking to her new friends without the knowledge that someone had played out invading the universe time and again just to see how to do it properly. Nardole was somewhere else, doing whatever the strange man did in his free time. And the Doctor was suddenly, and keenly aware that he had to prepare to save the world. Whilst still blind.

He turned to the door of the Vault. "What do I do?" he asked the woman inside. "I'm blind, how do I keep them safe? How can I keep her safe?" He let out a little chuckle to himself. "I guess we're not too different in that regard. Perhaps I should just tell her. She'll know best." He turned back and leant against the cold metal door again. "In the morning. Let her have one more night."

~0~0~0~

"What is wrong with you?" Kyle asked, startling Danni out of her thoughts. "You're acting really weird."

She looked at the screen of her laptop. Kyle was in one corner, with Boyle below him and Richard and Sarah taking up the rest of the group chat. They'd asked for her help with one of the many essays the Doctor liked to set the group, and apparently they hadn't just asked her so she could write it for them. Not that she was going to, but she did appreciate that they genuinely just wanted to help.

"No, I'm not," she retorted.

"Yeah, actually, you are," said Sarah from the little square she was sharing with Richard. "You're normally a lot more braggy than you're being right now."

"It's not bragging if it's true," she countered. They weren't wrong, though. Every time she even looked at her computer all she could think about was how the Master actually had emailed her for help. There were so many questions. For example; how did he even have her email? And then there was the fact that he was very much in danger if he was asking for her help at all. What had he gotten himself into?

She looked at the three people, who's concern felt rather genuine. How could she explain her life to them? She didn't want to bring them into the danger, but it wasn't exactly like she could bring it up with Nardole or the Doctor. Even Jack and River were out of the question, because she knew all four of them would be logical about it and she didn't want logic. She wasn't sure what she wanted.

Maybe that was what she needed, though. Someone who didn't know all the details. Perhaps the insight of three Earth university students was just what she needed for some clarity. Or maybe they'd just tell her what she wanted to hear, which again wasn't something she knew.

"I-I got an email of an old friend a few days ago," she started slowly. "Asking for my help. I told them no, but I'm not even sure what they wanted my help for."

"An old friend?" Kyle asked. "Like, an ex-boyfriend?"

"Or girlfriend?" Sarah quickly added.

She couldn't quite hide the absolute horror she felt at the idea of being Missy's ex-anything. Sure, she and Koschei had a… well, it was complicated, and rather abusive, but it was… no it was pretty terrible as well. But the idea that they'd think that had her suddenly regretting saying anything.

"No, nothing like that," she dismissed. "It's just unlike him to ask anyone for help. He'd rather the universe burn before that. I'm not even concerned; it's just bugging the hell out of me. I don't like not knowing something. It's strange."

"What did your husband say?" Kyle asked. She didn't answer immediately and he narrowed his eyes. "You did tell him, right?"

She scoffed slightly. "Of course I did," she lied. "He just told me to block him, so I did. Doesn't mean I'm not curious, though. I mean, what does the man who could run the country if he wanted want my help for, anyway?"

"Hopefully not his homework," Richard joked. "You should have said something, we wouldn't have bothered you if we knew you were busy."

"You're not bothering me. I guess my head is just not in it tonight," Danni admitted. "You three get on with it. I'll give you a call tomorrow and hopefully I'll be my normal, fabulous self."

"Alright. If you need to talk, though," Kyle said pointedly and she nodded.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Give you a call. Talk later."

Danni hung up, leaving her three friends on the call together. "Her life keeps getting weirder and weirder," Richard stated.

"I know, right?" Sarah replied.

"What do you mean?" Kyle asked, oblivious as ever.

"Well, she's married, right? But we've never met her husband, and she doesn't want him around," Sarah started.

"Now she has this strange ex who she obviously can't stop thinking about," Richard interjected. "It's like watching a soap, but only one episode a week. We're only seeing part of the story."

"Stop it," Kyle told the pair. "She hasn't had many friends in the past, she's probably just not used to it. No wonder, if everyone is half as nosy as you two are."

Sarah sighed. "I guess you're right," she agreed. "Where were we?"

"I'm not sure," Kyle replied. "Something about Darwin, I think. Or Elvis, I'm not sure which."

~0~0~0~

Danni stared at the screen, chewing her lip. Talking to them didn't actually help, but then again neither did the fact that she'd had zero response from Koschei. She'd expected anger, or him trying to convince her. Him being completely silent was worrying her more than anything. If he truly was in danger, and he was reaching out because he had no hope left, was she really in a position to let him die?

It was so hard, sometimes, for her to remember that the man who had sent her the selfie and the woman being kept in the Vault were the same person. For some reason she never could quite place she just felt like they were different people. She knew that if Missy had reached out to her she would have just laughed and walked away. But Koschei? She just wanted to find out what was wrong.

And so she did. She pulled the laptop closer and opened her emails.

Tell me what you did. Then I'll think about it.

~0~0~0~

On a spaceship in deep space, a man sat in his TARDIS with a smug grin on his face. He might not have been able to fly away, but he knew that soon enough he would have everything he needed. A working method of transport, an army, and his very own pet. And the best part was that he knew that Danielle Fielding would fall right into his lap willingly. All he'd had to do was wait, and the email notification told him exactly that.

He threaded his fingers together, stretching them out before he began to type.

It was all a misunderstanding. I thought I would try being good for once. I just wanted to help, now everyone wants me dead. Is this how it normally goes for you? Why do you keep doing it?