Find the Monsters

Adelaide glanced up from her book as she heard Clara approach from the rest of the TARDIS, as the human had gone hunting for any little thing she'd left inside. Apparently, Danny had requested that, while Clara was allowed to continue traveling, she couldn't leave anything there. It was helpful that Clara had never really lived in the TARDIS, not like Amy had for a while, but she did have a variety of odd things scattered about. Since it was such a simple task, Adelaide hadn't bothered to stay at the console helping the Doctor pilot and had instead gone to continue what she'd been reading earlier.

"You could leave all that stuff here, you know," the Doctor mumbled as Clara arrived, shoving a scarf into her bag. "We do have literally acres of room."

"Oh, no, it's alright. Danny's got a little bit territorial. The idea of me leaving so much of a toothbrush here..." she shrugged. "But, still, he's alright with us doing this...which I admit's a little bit weird, cause you'd think if he had a problem with me leaving stuff in the TARDIS, he'd object to me traveling in the TARDIS...but he's not, so..."

"Sorry," the Doctor cut her off. "Stopped listening a while ago. Okay." He frowned. "Er, same time you left, same place...ish."

Clara paused. "Ish? Don't give me an ish."

The Doctor glanced up at Adelaide, meeting her gaze. The Time Lady stood and hurried to join him at the console. "These readings are very...ishy."

"Doctor," Adelaide said, stopping in sight of the door. "I found the ish."

Both him and Clara turned to look at the TARDIS door, which had shrunk to only a few feet high.

|C-S|

The Doctor turned to help Adelaide out of the miniature door of the TARDIS the moment he'd emerged, both of them stepping back to observe it as Clara climbed out as well. There was the sound of a train in the distance. The TARDIS had shrunk to about the height of a few feet.

"Well," the Doctor frowned. "Well, I wonder what caused this? I don't think we're bigger, are we?" Adelaide just gave him a look.

"Bristol?" Clara pointed at a nearby sign. "We're in Bristol!"

The Doctor scanned the surrounding area. "And a hundred and twenty miles from where we should be. Impressive."

"No. Not impressive. Annoying."

"No. This is impressive." He gestured at the TARDIS and pointed at Clara. "This is annoying."

"The TARDIS never does this. It really shouldn't," Adelaide said, pulling the Doctor's hand down.

He nodded. "This is huge! Well, not literally huge. Slightly smaller than usual. Which is huge."

Clara sighed. "Yes. I get it. You're excited. When can I go home?"

"Your house isn't going anywhere. And neither is ours until we get this figured out." He glanced at Clara. "Could you not just let us enjoy this moment of not knowing something? I mean, it happens so rarely."

"Do your regenerations just trade-off that opinion?" Adelaide mumbled, making him look at her. "You love it, the last one hated it, the one before that loved it. It's like you're taking turns."

She, instead, had maintained a similar opinion throughout regenerations. She supposed she'd always been intrigued by the unknown, but it had developed into a fear, with Adelaide preferring to learn everything and anything as quickly as she possibly could. It was what made mysteries both so annoying and intriguing; she just really wanted to solve them.

The Doctor grinned at her before turning back to Clara. "Look, I don't think this is dangerous, but I'm sure Adelaide wouldn't like you to get squished accidentally. Anyway, we need you to help us find out what's caused this."

"Fine," Clara huffed. "I'll go take a look around." She moved past them to walk along the tracks and the Time Lords climbed back into the TARDIS, Adelaide for once finding her height a distinct asset.

They hurried back to the console, checking various alarms and scanners. Other than the general 'ishyness' that the Doctor had previously mentioned, nothing seemed to be seriously wrong. He pulled up one of the panels to examine the circuitry beneath, Adelaide moving beside him to set a new scan of the surrounding area, though it quickly failed.

"I've never even heard of something like this before," Adelaide mumbled, frowning at it.

The entire TARDIS jolted, an alarm sounding. The Doctor looked around, rubbing where he'd hit his elbow on the console. "Now, that wasn't me, was it?" He turned to look at the door, pausing. "Oh, that can't be good." The door had shrunk to the point that there was no hope for the Time Lords to fit back through.

"We'd better hope Clara comes back." Just as Adelaide finished speaking, her phone rang. "Hello?"

"Hey," it was Clara, "I think I've found something. People are missing all over the estate. Do you think there's a connection?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Could be."

"And where are you?"

"Exactly where we were."

"No, you're not. I'm here and I can't see...oh."

"Yes." The Doctor nodded. "Oh."

Clara laughed. "Oh my God, that is so adorable. Are you two in there?"

"Yes, we are," Adelaide said.

"And, no, it's not adorable," the Doctor said, stepping closer to the doors. "It's very, very serious."

"So is this more shrink ray stuff? Are you tiny in there?"

"No, we're exactly the same size," Adelaide said. "The exterior dimensions have changed."

The Doctor opened the small door, attempting to look out through it. "Stop laughing! This is serious."

"Yeah, well, I can't help it, can I, with you and your big old face," Clara laughed again. "How are you going to get out?"

"Well, plainly we can't. Something nearby is leeching all the external dimensions."

"Aliens?"

He shrugged. "Possibly. Oh, who am I kidding? Probably. Sensors are down and I can't risk taking off with it in this state. Clara, I need you to pick up the TARDIS. Carefully."

"It should be possible," Adelaide said, switching a few things on the console. "I've just adjusted the relative gravity."

Clara picked it up, though they couldn't feel it inside the TARDIS, and held it up to her eye level. "You mean you've made it lighter."

"Clara, it's always lighter," the Doctor sighed. "If the TARDIS were to land with its true weight, it would fracture the surface of the Earth."

"Yeah, maybe a story for another time. What now?"

"I managed to get an estimate of the source of the dimensional leeching," Adelaide said. "Roughly north-west."

The Doctor stuck his fingers through the door, gesturing in the direction. "That way."

Clara made a face. "Please don't do that. That's just wrong."

The Doctor ran back to the console, gathering a variety of objects. "Now, listen! You're going to need these." He stuck the psychic paper through the door.

"Oh, wow. This is an honor. Does this mean I'm you now?"

"No, it does not," the Doctor pointed at her through the door, "so don't get any ideas." He passed her the sonic next before Clara put the TARDIS in her shoulder bag. "And listen," he shoved a small box through the gap, hurrying back to the console, "stick it in your ear." He messed with a few things. "Can you hear us?"

"Yes." Clara winced. "Ow! What just happened?"

"Nanotech." The Doctor pulled over the monitor. "I just hacked your optic nerve."

"What does that mean?"

"We see what you see."

Clara turned sharply around, pointing the sonic at a block of flats, then a mural of foot and handprints. "Anything?"

"Yes, I'm dizzy," the Doctor said. "But nothing useful."

"You never did tell me your name," a voice called, a boy in a worker's vest jogging up to her.

"No time to fraternize. Come on, get rid of him."

"I'm...er...I'm the Doctor."

The Doctor glared at the monitor. "Don't you dare."

"Doctor Oswald. But you can call me Clara."

"I'm Rigsy." The boy shook her hand. "So...er...what are you a doctor of?"

"Of lies."

Clara, meanwhile, shrugged. "Well, I'm usually quite vague about that. I think I just picked the title because it makes me sound important."

"Why, Doctor Oswald, you are hilarious," the Doctor mumbled.

"Back to work, Clara, please," Adelaide said.

"What are you exactly?" Rigsy asked her. "You don't smell like police but that's some pretty cool gear you got there." He gestured at her ear. "You like a spy, or something?"

"Oh, he's a bright one," the Doctor scoffed, "hang on to him."

|C-S|

Rigsy turned out to be quite helpful, despite the Doctor's almost constant mumblings of annoyance. It had quickly reached a point where Adelaide just didn't bother attempting to get him to stop.

"He was the last one to go missing," Rigsy explained, breaking through the police tape across the front door of the flat he'd brought Clara to. "And when he disappeared all the doors and windows were locked from the inside."

Adelaide leaned against the console beneath the monitor, studying the room beyond. "Always a fan of a locked room mystery."

Clara nodded. "Yeah, isn't everyone?"

Rigsy looked at her, frowning. "What?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry. I'm talking to somebody else. They're listening in. Doctor and Adelaide, Rigsy. Rigsy, the Doctor and Adelaide."

The Doctor flicked a switch on the console. "Hello, barely sentient local." Adelaide sighed at that.

"Another Doctor?"

"How do you sleep at night?" he scoffed.

Adelaide put a hand on his shoulder. "Missing people, tiny TARDIS. Need a link."

Clara scanned the room with the sonic. "I think this is great that someone's finally looking into this," Rigsy said as she moved around. "They never do on this estate. People were thinking that no one was listening. That no one cared. So, yeah. I think it's great what you're doing."

"Clara, look, I think that we can manage on our own from now on," the Doctor interrupted.

"Yeah, well, I think he could still be useful."

"He's a pudding brain. Worse than that, he's a fluorescent pudding brain."

Clara sighed. "Okay, fine. And all those other missing people, I suppose you know where they lived."

"He could still be in the room," Rigsy commented.

Clara turned to him. "Sorry, what?"

"Sorry, nothing. I was just thinking out loud. It's like one of those locked room things you get in books. It's always something weird, like, he's still in the room or something."

Adelaide smiled. "I like him."

"Do you want to go and check out another flat?"

"Do you know," the Doctor said, "I think that you were wrong about this lad. I think that he could be very useful. Vital local knowledge."

Clara glanced at herself in the mirror, holding back her own smile. "Oh, really?"

"Yes. So try not to scare him off."

"How would I scare him off?"

"Maybe he's lost in the desert," Rigsy commented, looking at a mural on the wall, "or something."

"Maybe not so valuable," the Doctor mumbled, and Adelaide didn't contradict him.

Clara moved a bit more around the room. "Okay, right. Are we missing something here? Missing man, locked room." She looked at the mural, scanning it for them. "Shrink ray?"

"Sorry," Rigsy glanced at her, "did you say...just say shrink ray?"

"What if he is still in this room like you said, only tiny? You know, like underneath the sofa or something."

"Clara," Adelaide said, "this is scaring off."

Rigsy stepped back. "Okay. So...er...my lunch break's nearly up. This...this has been...er...interesting."

"Clara, local knowledge is leaving. Do something!"

"Rigsy!" Clara called as the man moved towards the door. "One sec. One of you, open the doors."

"We didn't mean that!"

"Look," Clara sighed, "you want him to stay or not?"

The Doctor pouted. "You really do throw your companions in at the deep end, don't you?"

Clara put the TARDIS on a shelf, Adelaide opening the doors with the Doctor beside her. "Rigsy, come here. Meet the Doctor and Adelaide." Rigsy stared at the two of them in shock. "So, what do you think? Tiny man idea."

"Yes, it's a lovely thought. Which is why I set the sonic to scan for that as soon as we entered." He waved at Rigsy. "Pleased to meet you."

Clara frowned. "And you didn't think to tell me?"

"Of course, it is highly possible that, if that were true, he's been squashed by a policeman's shoe," Adelaide shrugged.

"It's bigger," Rigsy breathed. "On the inside."

"Do you know," the Doctor nodded, "I don't think that statement's ever been truer."

"What are you?" Rigsy looked at Clara. "Like, aliens, or something?"

"No. Well, they are." An alarm sounded at the console, sending the Doctor running back up to see it. "Did you guys hear that?"

Adelaide nodded. "Yes."

"Whatever it was, it just drained a massive amount of energy from inside the TARDIS," the Doctor called.

"What was it?"

"We don't know, but that's the least of our problems." The Doctor looked to Clara and Adelaide. "Just get us out of there."

The Time Lady shut the door, returning to the console with him.

"Okay," Clara huffed, turning to Rigsy. "Rigsy, this is where we run. Stick with me." They started to run the moment they stepped out the door.

"I mean this is just embarrassing," the Doctor mumbled, frowning at the results. "We're from the race that built the TARDIS. Dimensions are kind of our thing. So why can't we understand this?"

"Yet. Why can't we understand this yet." She moved closer to where Clara's device was picking up their voice. "Clara, we need more information. Where else have people disappeared?"

|C-S|

A policewoman returned the psychic paper to Clara. "MI5?"

Clara nodded. "Yes, this case has got our attention."

"Well, you've come to the right place, ma'am. First reported disappearance, a Mr. Heath. It's not on the estate, but it's exactly the same MO as the rest."

"Clara," the Doctor called, interrupting, "I think that your shrink ray theory was wrong."

Clara pulled out her mobile, making it look as though she'd just received an urgent call. "My shrink ray theory? I thought you were already scanning for that."

"It's like they vanished..." the officer continued.

"Doctor, Adelaide, what are you doing?"

Adelaide took the Doctor's place. "Locked room mysteries. Classic solution number one, they're still in the room. Classic solution number two, they're in the walls." The Doctor hurried to the TARDIS doors, hammer in hand.

"What do you mean, they're in the..." Clara took the hammer from him.

"Have we done as much as we could?" the officer had kept speaking. "No. Do we have any suspects? No. Off the record, I think the top brass are hoping if they ignore this it'll all just go away."

Clara stepped back up to them. "Apparently, they're in the walls." She handed the hammer to Rigsy who, to his credit, only stared at it for a moment before moving to a wall and starting to hit it.

The officer's phone rang. "PC Forrest. Yes, sir. MI5, sir," she left the room to finish the call.

"So," Rigsy looked to her, "you and those two in that box. You do this sort of stuff a lot?"

Clara shrugged. "Oh, well, they're usually out of the box. But, yep."

"So how'd you get this gig? You study science, or aliens, or something?"

She laughed. "No. Well, it's kind of more of a right place, right time or wrong place, wrong time depending on how he's behaving."

"I can hear you, you know," the Doctor grumbled.

Someone screamed, and the two humans ran to the next room, where the officer had gone...but there was no officer. "PC Forrest?" Clara asked. "Hello? Hello?" she walked up to the torch in the middle of the room. "She's gone."

The Doctor rubbed his forehead. "What are we missing? The TARDIS should be able to detect anything in the known universe."

Adelaide's eyes widened as Clara looked around the room. "The known universe, Doctor. Clara, go back. To the mural." Clara looked at it. "That's a nervous system."

He nodded. "Scaled up and flattened. I think we've found PC Forrest. What's left of her, at least."

"Her nervous system."

The Doctor pulled up previous images of what Clara had seen. "The mural in the flat. That wasn't a desert at all. It's a microscopic blow up of human skin."

"What? Why?"

"Whatever they are," Adelaide said, "they're experimenting. They're testing. They're...dissecting. Attempting to understand us. Attempting to understand three dimensions."

There was a sizzling noise and a door slammed shut. Rigsy moved to it, attempting to open it again, but pulled his hand back. "Ow." But then his eyes widened, reaching out to touch it again. "The handle."

"The handle," Clara breathed, "they've flattened the handle."

"Fascinating," Adelaide mumbled, unable to help herself because it was. "Clare, they're in the walls. Stay away from them. If they touch you, they can...flatten you."

The sofa and cushions lost their third dimension as well. "What happens if they touch us?" Rigsy asked, another chair doing the same.

"I really don't want to find out."

The two climbed onto a hanging seat. "They can't jump, can they?"

Clara's phone went off, starting to talk to Danny. "Hey, you."

"Ever seen something like this before?" the Doctor asked Adelaide.

"Not that I remember. Have you?"

"Never." The two grinned at each other.

Okay, Adelaide could admit that not knowing could be fun. Especially if you had someone to not know things with.

"Clara," the Doctor called, having attempting to figure out a way to get Clara and Rigsy out of the room as they talked, "the window!"

"Look! Look!" Rigsy shouted. "They're climbing the walls."

"Er..." Clara said, responding to something Danny had said, "that's just a guy on community support and I'm helping him find his auntie." She started to swing the hanging chair, attempting to get it to launch them out the window.

"Nice," the Doctor nodded. "Not technically lying."

"Er...yeah, there was a thing...er...no, no, no, I'm fine!" she soniced the window as the chair broke away from the ceiling, sending the two humans flying outside.

A/N: Much more of a fun adventure here, especially when compared to the ending of the last one!