Chapter Four

Martha felt like she was stuck in some horrible time warp where seconds lasted minutes and minutes lasted hours. At least, that was the way it appeared as she watched the Doctor tumble to the floor in painful slow motion.

His head seemed to bounce on the unforgiving tiles and then she was running towards him, even though she couldn't recall her mind giving the command to do so.

It was all automatic now, just as she'd been trained. Had he lived, her mentor, Mr Stoker, would have been proud of her.

As she reached the Doctor, she let her knees collapse beneath her, falling to his side as if she would always belong there.

"Doctor?" He didn't move, but she could quite clearly see the regular rise and fall of his chest. Hopefully, that meant he wasn't about to pull his 'regeneration' trick on her. She'd yet to be privy to that piece of Time Lord magic, and wasn't in any hurry to change that fact.

"Told you he was nuts…" Jack's shadow fell across the Doctor's crumpled form and Martha looked up for a second to see him watching her.

She ignored the comment and put her attention back on her silent friend. That was what she hated the most – the silence. He was never quiet, never so still like this.

Pulling away his overcoat, she noted blood had already soaked through his shirt and favourite blue jacket to form a large tacky patch. But what lay beneath?

Swallowing down a lump in her throat, she undid his jacket and stuck her fingers into the torn edges of his shirt, tearing the knife hole bigger until she could get a good look at the actual wound.

"Messy." Jack pulled a face at the gash. "Are you sure you should be poking around like that?"

Martha's eyes met the Time Agent's and her cold glare told him she knew exactly what she was 'poking', even before she opened her mouth to answer. "I'm a doctor, so, yeah, I know what I'm doing and what I'm poking, thanks."

Jack blinked and then shrugged, leaning against the wall of the corridor as if he had all day to ponder the new information.

"Two doctors…now why couldn't you have been two Green Berets, or maybe even two gorgeous pole dancers but no, I gotta get medics who like to jump in front of guns, or knives or life-threatening wormholes…" He stopped ranting, suddenly feeling guilty considering he wasn't the one lying on the floor bleeding all over the place. "How bad?" He asked, looking down at the small crimson pool under the Doctor's left side.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Martha concluded, judging from the size and position of the entry wound. "A little blood goes a long way…"

At least, she hoped so.

Gallifreyan physiology wasn't exactly part of the curriculum where she'd studied medicine. And she guessed it wouldn't be any time soon either, given the Doctor's pretty extinct lineage.

"There's a medical kit back in the TARDIS. If we can get that I can patch him up." She pressed a hand over the still-bleeding injury, applying enough pressure to slow the flow until she could throw in a few stitches.

"Back in the what?"

"The TARDIS. It's a…um…kind of a ship…" Martha's mind conjured an image of the faithful blue police box but she decided it was best not to try to describe it to Jack. He already thought the Doctor was crazy, better not give him any ideas about her sanity too.

Jack pulled the automatic from his waistband and rubbed a hand over it as if he might need to use it sooner rather than later. "And don't tell me," he groaned. "This ship, it's not on the base grounds, is it?" When Martha shook her head, he slapped a hand against the wall. "Next time, use the valet parking, huh?"

Martha scowled. "Hey! I wasn't exactly the one doing the driving! Now can you get us out or what?" She looked down at her fingers, the lump in her throat returning as fresh blood began to seep through them.

The wound wasn't all that bad – the expert in her subconsciously knew that – but somehow, whenever it was the Doctor that was injured, she couldn't quite convince herself he was okay until…

Well, until he was bounding around again, blathering about time, space and the price of a new toaster at the local Tesco.

"Get you out?" Jack broke her nervous train of thought. "Oh, sweetheart, I can do better than that." He hunkered over and carefully slipped his arms under the gangly Time Lord.

Before Martha could protest about jostling her patient, he had the Doctor safely in his arms. "Jeez…I've known girls who've weighed heavier…"

"Jack? Where?"

He winked again, a thin, but extremely mischievous grin spreading across his features. "Trust me…I'm ugh…not a doctor…"

Jack navigated Montauk base with all the ease of someone who worked there – because essentially he did. Or at least had, until Tesla had become wise to his true profession.

Taking just two short corridors, the Time Agent managed to miss three security patrols and find himself before a gunmetal grey door that stood slightly ajar as they approached. Security was obviously a lot more lax in this section.

Martha noted the engraved brass plaque that designated the area as the 'infirmary' as Jack twisted sideways to nudge it with his boot, teasing it open enough to carry the Doctor inside.

"Amy? It's me, honey, I'm home!" There was an air of sarcasm as Jack looked left and right for the missing 'Amy'.

"Guess she knew you were coming," Martha teased as she sized up the room, quickly looking for items she could work with. "Get him on the bed." She nodded towards an exam table that lay empty in the centre of the medical bay. If 'Amy' wasn't around to help, then Martha would deal with things on her own.

Jack nodded and was in the process of gently laying his burden down when a short brunette appeared from a second door at the back of the room. Her mouth opened and without thinking, she dropped the glass flask in her hand, the delicate container shattering into a myriad of pieces before the nurse could even draw another breath.

"Beau? They said…they said you'd been arrested." The nurse backed up a step although her eyes moved from Jack to the man he'd been laying down. "They said you weren't even from…and that you'd been detained…"

Jack cut her off. "Look, Amy, I swear I'll explain everything, but I kinda got a friend who could do with your help first?" He jerked a thumb towards the Doctor as Martha began to slip on a pair of latex gloves.

Amy hesitated, her wide eyes glancing towards the phone on her desk and the security camera on the wall. She was obviously scared: scared of Jack, scared of what was happening in her infirmary.

She blinked, finally settling her gaze on the injured man.

Martha looked up, her patience wearing thin with the girl who obviously had never been plunged into a crisis situation before, despite her qualifications. "Just get me a suture kit and some dressings and I'll do it myself, yeah?"

The irritated tone of Martha's voice seemed to move the girl and she scurried forwards until she was standing the other side the unconscious Time Lord. "How long ago did this happen?" There was a slight quiver to her words and she squirmed at the amount of blood Martha was mopping away from the gash.

"About fifteen minutes…"

Amy winced. "Stitching alone won't do…he needs blood…"

Martha pushed the comment aside and put her attention on Jack. He was clearly going to be of more use to her than Amy. "Jack, or should I say Beau, something to clean the wound, suture kit, medium sized dressings, fast as you can!" She frowned, glancing at the still-open infirmary door. "And better lock the door," she added as an afterthought.

Jack saluted, his voice tinged with just an edge of sarcasm. "Yes, ma'am."

He clicked the lock into place, and then shot Amy a bewildered look at her lack of action before beginning to rifle through the medical cabinets, tossing gauze, surgical tape, syringes and anything else he didn't need as he searched.

Amy still appeared shaken. "You're not just going to let him bleed to death! I don't know who you are, or why you're here but…" As she protested, she began to take a sample of blood from the Doctor, and Martha let her.

She's the one who's going to be in shock, Martha thought as Jack tossed over the items she'd asked for. "You can't give him blood," she tried again to reason with the nurse.

Amy didn't seem to quite understand the implication. "We have our own blood bank here. Mr Tesla deemed it um…necessary with all the experiments conducted on site. There are sometimes…injuries…" She finished filling a small tube. "I'm sure I'll be able to find a match…"

I wouldn't bet on it, Martha mouthed under her breath.

Amy didn't hear, or if she did she ignored the remark and scurried off through the door she'd appeared from. It was probably some kind of lab but Martha didn't really care – not as long as the peculiar-acting girl kept out of her way.

"She's the one you got caught for?" she asked Jack incredulously as she worked on her patient. "So not what I'd have pegged as your type…"

"Yeah, well, trust me, she's not normally that way. I think we got her spooked. I mean, she just found out her incredibly handsome lover isn't exactly from err…this part of town…" Jack smirked. "She'll get over it. A few words of Time Agent charm and she'll be eating out of my hand again…or maybe even…"

"Jack…"

"Alright, alright…" Jack turned to look down at the Doctor. He still hadn't moved, groaned or shown any sign of being in the land of the living. "So is she right? I mean I know she was all freaked out and acting weird, but does he need blood?"

"No," Martha said with more confidence than she felt. "He'll be fine. Maybe you should go check on your nursemaid, though. Maybe she likes you so much she used the blood excuse to go call in the cavalry on us, yeah?"

Jack started. "Oh cra.." He darted across the room and was through the lab door before Martha could put in her last suture. As she tied off and covered her work with a dressing, she looked at the blood on her gloved hands and for the first time a tiny fragment of sell-doubt crept into her mind.

Sliding her hand to the Doctor's neck, she felt the steady throb of his pulse beneath her fingers. It was a little faster than normal, but he was in no danger of arresting, despite Amy being convinced otherwise.

She knew that from a previous experience with the Time Lord after he'd let a Plasmavore attack him and almost suck him dry.

And even then – after he had actually arrested – he hadn't needed a transfusion once she'd gotten his hearts beating again.

That had been their first meeting and she would never forget it.

No, the Doctor would be fine, so why was a highly trained nurse like Amy freaking out and thinking otherwise?

Okay, so Amy didn't know the Doc's past record with blood loss, but she hadn't even run through normal medical procedure before she'd panicked.

Martha thought about her old friend Julia from the Royal Hope hospital – she'd once reacted in the same way. Of course, on that occasion, they had just been transported to the Moon by a group of space cops who looked like overgrown rhinos with attitude, but maybe the principle was the same. Some people just couldn't hack pressure.

Some people shook, cried, lost all common sense.

"Cup of tea..?"

Martha shook herself from the puzzle and looked down to see the Doctor peeping at her through one open eye as if he was peering down a telescope. A smile grew on his face and he opened the other eye. "You always get tea and biscuits when you've lost blood. Tea's very good for the synapses, you know…all those free radicals…"

Martha smiled back, and internally heaved a huge sigh of relief. "That's when you've given blood, not spilled it all over the floor after getting skewered!"

"It's always the little things with you people," the Doctor grumbled back, pulling himself into a sitting position on the exam table to prod at his tattered clothes. "Blimey! Shirt's totally ruined! Don't suppose you're any good at sewing, Martha Jones? 'Course you are…" He poked the newly-placed dressing, gently feeling his friend's handiwork below. "You're a doctor!" The smile on his face grew into the loopiest grin Martha had seen – definitely rivalling the one he'd once sported on a planet called Utopia.

"So are you," she countered.

"Nah, I'm more of a knitter, me…you should have seen the scarf I had in the seventies…" He sighed, then looked up, wincing as he stretched forwards.

At first, Martha thought his grimace was due the abundance of stitches she'd put in his side, but as she followed those deep brown eyes of his, she realized he was fixated on the infirmary clock.

"How long have we been here…?" His tone was so low she almost didn't hear him ask the question.

"Too long," she realized. "If you're right about us only having an hour or so to shut down the generator…"

The Doctor nodded. "We just wasted twenty minutes of it."

"Oh hey! He awake so soon?" Jack sauntered through the lab door back into the infirmary and placed himself in front of the exam bed. He looked the Doctor over curiously, as if the lanky and very zany Time Lord had amazed him yet again.

The Doctor peered back with an equal look of curiosity, then blinked before pinching himself. "Well…either I'm awake, or I'm talking in my sleep…"

"Sometimes I'd put my money on the latter," Jack teased. "Except right now, I'm betting we need you awake, right, Doc?" He turned and jerked a thumb towards the back room. "Especially as Amy's been freaking out ever since she tried typing your blood."

"Yeah, well, no surprises there then," Martha rolled her eyes and peeled off the bloodied gloves she'd been wearing. "How did she ever get a job in a place like this if she can't handle a little alien DNA?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't think it's the 'alien' part that's exactly freaking her out. It's the fact that she's seen it before somewhere."

The Doctor's blank expression instantly changed. "That's impossible!"

Jack huffed. "Why? You some kinda intergalactic dodo?"

"Actually, yeah, he is," Martha stepped forwards. "Amy must be wrong – she was flustered, panicking…"

Jack shook his head. "She looked pretty convinced to me. And I'll tell you something else. Wherever she'd seen it before? It scared the hell out of her."

The Doctor ignored the squabbling and swung his legs over the side of the exam table. As his All Stars hit the floor, he teetered a little and was thankful when Jack caught him under the arms.

"Whoa there, looks like you're not ready for the party just get." Jack steadied the Time Lord. "Maybe you should get back on the bed, huh?"

The Doctor eyed the exam table distractedly, his eyes wandering back to the lab door. "I'm fine…really, I'm fine," he mumbled, pulling his brown coat back around him to hide most of the damage to his jacket. "…But why would she think…?"

Without consulting either Martha or Jack, he strode past them, wavering a few times when his strength waned and he was forced to regain his balance by grabbing the nearby wall.

Jack looked longingly at the exam bed and shrugged. "Your loss. Amy and me had some real good times on that table…"

"You are so…" Martha threw a mock punch at the Time Agent and then quickly jogged after her patient. "Doctor, you don't think…?"

He stopped then, his angular features so intense Martha instantly knew exactly what he was thinking. He thought Jack was right, and somehow, Amy really had seen blood like his before.

But that was impossible, wasn't it?

"This place is like some huge research facility dedicated to everything extra-terrestrial, everything alien, everything different. That's me…and everything that was once me, or part of me…or…will be me…"

He let out a deep breath and Martha thought she was going to have to catch him and stop him from falling again like Jack had, but not because of the injury to his side.

Instead, he closed his eyes and she felt his pain, his loss – the baring of his soul all over again.

"What if…what if they somehow got Jenny's body, or a sample of her DNA? If they have a hole in time they could have; anything is possible…or…or…" The Doctor's eyes grew wider until Martha thought they might pop from his skull. "What if the Master…" He shook himself, slapping a hand into his forehead. "But I burned his body…"

Martha reached out and took his hand, pulling it away from his temple and squeezing it hard. She'd never seen him like this – not even the time he had been scared. But she was here for him, and they'd figure this out together.

And then, they'd fix it, together.

"Oi," she said softly. "Where's the genius who brought me here? You know, Time Lord who can save the universe with one flick of his sonic screwdriver?"

The Doctor inhaled, and when he looked up, his familiar lopsided grin had reappeared. "Sorry," he apologized. "Must be going soft in my old age. Or is that older old age given my um…age?"

"If you two have finished making eyes at each other?" Jack broke the moment. "Shouldn't we be questioning Amy before she clams up altogether? My looks and magnetic appeal will only last so long, ya know?"

The Doctor moved so silently into the lab that Amy didn't even hear his approach. She was seated on a small stool, shaking her head as she looked down a microscope as if the slide in it held the secrets to the universe.

But then, given the slide's contents, maybe it did.

If the nurse had appeared flustered before, she looked downright over the edge now. Her hair was tousled and her cheeks flushed red with panic.

"Hello there!" The Doctor's voice was friendly and just a little too loud as he stepped up next to the girl, hands in his pockets. "You must be Amy then?"

Amy jumped so hard she rocked backwards on the stool and almost fell off. Her startled expression turned to shock and for almost a minute she simply sat in stunned silence.

"You…you shouldn't even be conscious…" She finally mumbled, her eyes looking the Time Lord up and down as if he were a mirage.

"Funny that." the Doctor raised a brow conspiratorially. "Jack seemed to think the same thing. 'Course, it's really too early for a nap. I'd be missing the best part of the day! And a lovely day it is too! Or was, until the Rift started sucking energy left right and centre…" He shuffled forwards, his dark-rimmed glasses already hanging in place on the edge of his nose. "Mind if I take a gander and see what all the fuss is about then?"

When Amy didn't protest, he took a peek down the microscope and adjusted the focus just a touch. Whatever he'd expected to see, it wasn't quite what was on the slide.

Suddenly feeling the need to be seated, he flopped down onto another stool and blinked, his expression close to that of Amy's only seconds earlier. "Close, so very close…but not Jenny's…not even a partial match for my DNA at all…and not the Master's…and yet…" He leaned his arm on the table and rested his chin in the palm of his hand, staring vacantly at the nearest wall.

"So are you gonna tell us what the peep show here is all about?" Jack hovered next to Amy. "I mean, didn't you say the clock was ticking?"

The Doctor sighed. "Tick tock…" He murmured. "The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on…or something like that." He jumped up, rubbing his hands together. "Anyway…Amy-wamy, just where did you get that second sample?"

The nurse looked even more scared, if that was at all possible. Her terrified eyes fixed on Jack and she looked at him pleadingly.

"It's okay, you can tell us. We're not here to hurt you, I swear," he tried to soothe.

Amy swallowed and then looked back to the Doctor. He was staring at her, but his smile was warm and pleasant. "Mr Tesla hasn't always been in charge here at Montauk," she began, her voice shaking as it had earlier. "At one time, we had a different director, and Tesla was just head of his department."

"But Tesla wasn't happy being the underdog, yeah?" Martha queried.

"I…I don't know," Amy admitted, fumbling with her hands as she fidgeted on her stool. "All I know is Director Brake ordered a full medical and psychological workup on all personnel at the facility, including Mr Tesla. He said there could be no weak links in a complex as top secret as Montauk."

"And?" Jack probed.

"I used to have a co-worker, Catherine. She had Tesla's bloodwork to complete. She saw the slide…" Amy pointed to the microscope. "She showed it to me, said it couldn't be right. I mean…Tesla's not human."

"So how come he's running the place now and not locked up like Jack was?" Martha strode across the lab and leaned over the microscope, taking a look at the alien cells for herself.

"Catherine disappeared, and the next day Director Brake was gone and Tesla was in charge. No one dared to query his authority…people were…changing, becoming paranoid…"

Martha huffed and shot Amy a glance. "You don't say."

"No one knew I had a sample of Tesla's blood still on file or maybe I'd have vanished too by now." Amy stuffed her hands in her lab coat pockets and didn't say any more.

Maybe she thought she had already said too much.

"Okay, so Tesla is an alien," Jack observed, less than impressed. "That makes what? Three of us? I get that he's some bad boy who needs his butt spanking for the whole Schism thing, but what's so scary about his blood?"

The Doctor pushed up from the stool and drew in a breath. All of his usual mirth had vanished. This couldn't be happening, but it was. "Because like me, he's from the planet Gallifrey, in the constellation of Kasterborous…"

"But he can't be," Martha moved to the Doctor's side. "You're the last…your planet was destroyed…"

"I should have realized…the technology powering the Schism, the pure genius behind the matrix controlling the energy vortex…" He ran a hand through his hair, eyes growing wild and wide again as the realization that he was not alone hit home.

Jack tapped his watch impatiently. "Hello, can I get the abridged version here before I die of old age or the planet actually explodes as per your prediction?"

"Don't worry, you're not likely to die of old age," Martha mouthed almost inaudibly, and then coughed, hiding her little slip of the tongue.

The Doctor scowled at her for almost letting out 'spoilers' but realized Jack was right. Whatever Tesla was, his out of control project should be their first priority. They could deal with the renegade later.

He faced everyone in the room and his brow scrunched as he finally said the words he'd tried to deny since looking down the microscope. "Tesla is a Time Lord…"

"And this changes things how?" Jack countered, obviously unimpressed with the revelation.

"It makes him my responsibility." The Doctor shared a look with Martha and she remembered how he had handled the Master. That wasn't something she wanted to ever relive.

The year that never was.

Death, mayhem, madness….

"Listen, first off, we shut down the generators, yeah? Tesla can come later." Martha tugged at the Doctor's sleeve, hoping he would see sense.

For so many years he had thought he was alone, travelling far across the heavens, the last of his kind. But every time that myth was shattered, it brought with it a great sadness.

Jenny, the girl who for the very briefest of moments had been his daughter, and who had ultimately died in his arms.

The Master, the renegade Gallifreyan who had chosen to die rather than share a life with the last of his brethren.

And now, Tesla.

The Doctor turned to look at Martha knowingly and nodded, just a tiny hint of his usual jovial self shining through. "Martha Jones! Right as always! You've been around me too long, you have…I must be rubbing off!" He slid the glasses from his nose and stuffed them into his abyss-like pockets. "Right then! Time to go shut down a wormhole thingee before it eats everything like one of those Pac Man gizmos…"

Jack shot a glance at his watch. "How long do we have?"

"Oh, oodles of time, just oodles." The Doctor whirled towards the door of the lab and sprang towards it as if he'd never been injured. "In fact, fourteen minutes, twenty-five point two seconds…" he said far too cheerily. "How about that, then? We don't have enough time to worry about the time we don't have! Ooh, now that was a bit of a mouthful...mustn't try saying that when you're chewing a few peanuts…messy…"

"But you don't even have a watch! How can you…?" Jack reached to his waistband and tugged the automatic back out, following the Time Lord across the room. He hit halfway before something stopped him.

On the far wall of the lab was a small workstation. There was no keyboard or desktop computer, but a small black and white screen showed a view of the exterior security camera.

Gathered around the infirmary's main door was a group of people, some in uniform, some in white coveralls that suggested project staff.

All of them with the same spinning, radiant orbs as the sergeant who'd attacked the Doctor.

The throng seemed to have no real will of their own and shuffled together like a pack of animals who'd lost their alpha male. Some seemed to sense they had a purpose here and began banging on the outer infirmary door with their fists and elbows.

A female lab technician at the back of the cluster started to screech, words forming on her lips that were soon drowned out by the rest of the mob's fusion of screams.

Martha gaped at the fuzzy, line-filled screen as she realized the mass of people was growing by the second – and they were all yelling for one thing: to kill the people the other side the door.

"Whoa, I've been run outta town before for breaking a few hearts, but this is ridiculous!" Jack hesitated, torn between watching the monitor further and finding another escape route.

"Amy?" The Doctor took a hold of the young nurse's forearm and tried to sound calm. "Amy, is there another way out of the lab that doesn't take us back through the infirmary?"

She nodded, rubbing at her eyes as if she'd had a bad dream and it was all about to go away. "There's a second door. It's in the back of the storage area. No one really uses it much anymore." She slid from her stool and led them through a smaller doorway into a cubbyhole filled with lab supplies. Behind two large metal shelf units was a locked exit.

Amy tugged a keychain from her coat and reflexively chose the right key for the lock. "We can't see outside…there's no camera view in this section of corridor." Her voice seemed to crack. "There could be more of those…things…"

"Not things," The Doctor corrected, placing his hand over hers on the doorknob. "They're just people…sick people."

Jack reaffirmed his grip on the automatic and pulled a face. "Yeah, well I'll remind you of that when they're trying to tear you a new one, Doc."

Martha pushed past both men and stood with her hands on her hips. Separating the two 'meatheads' was getting to be her new vocation. "Can we just move? Tick, tock, remember?"

"Ooh, full frontal assault, Charge of the Light Brigade style!" The Doctor twisted the key and swung open the door as if he hadn't a care in the word.

Before he could dart out into the passageway or at least even scan it with his sonic screwdriver, Jack had ducked past him and was moving left and right with his weapon drawn, scrutinizing the corridor for more 'zombies'.

The Doctor dived after him.

"No shooting the natives! No…no…no…NO!"

"Yes!" Jack kept the handgun at arm's length ready to fire.

"NO!"

Martha barged after them. "God, it's worse than a repeat of The Vicar of Dibley…"

The Doctor turned. "What? Hmmn…always wondered what I'd look like in a dog collar…"

"Well somebody sure needs to keep you on a leash…" Jack grumbled, keeping his gaze, if not his mind, on the task at hand.

"What about me?" Amy had followed them out and was now peering at all three as if they'd gone stark raving mad. "I …I can't stay here…Tesla will know…"

"She's right," Martha agreed. "She'll have to come with us."

"Exactly where are we going again?" Jack had reached an intersection in the hallway and had stopped, but he still hadn't put the automatic down despite the Time Lord's protests.

"The radar dish controls," the Doctor explained, leaping into the middle of the corridor, his coat whooshing behind him like Batman's cape. "We have to stop the um…changed…altered…"

"Zombies?" Martha offered helpfully.

"Um, yes…right…zombies." He scrunched up his nose and couldn't finish the sentence. It just seemed too rude, even for him. "We can't call them that! They're people!"

"Were people," Amy corrected. "And they will kill us if we don't stop them."

Jack cocked his head. "Radar controls it is then, Doc." He winked waywardly. "And don't try touching my weapon. I'm kinda attached to it." He flexed his fingers over the butt of the gun and moved to the left of the adjoining passageway. "Although…"

The Doctor rolled his eyes to the ceiling tiles and shook his head. "Wouldn't dream of it," he mumbled, letting the Time Agent take point as their motley band headed towards the unknown.

Montauk was strangely quiet – too quiet, Martha decided as they hurried towards the base of the dish platform. Only minutes earlier the base had been alive with both security patrols and 'turned' staff members, but now, now everywhere was like a scene from the end of The Omega Man.

Maybe that was how it was going to be. They'd be lured into a false sense of hope, and then bam, the freaks would come out of the woodwork and slaughter them just like they had Chuck Heston in the movie.

Martha shuddered as she walked beside Amy, wishing she hadn't watched so many ancient films. Definitely shouldn't have seen the Will Smith remake either, she chided herself – although she had to admit that Will was pretty hot, even if I Am Legend was now a little too close for comfort.

She glanced at the Doctor.

Why did it seem like she had a thing for 'Mr Smiths'?

"Okay, at the end of this corridor there should be a security detail guarding the dish control room." Jack had stopped and was holding his automatic close to his chest, barrel pointed towards the ceiling. "As I'm the only one in uniform, maybe I should go first. Chances are by the time they recognise me I could be halfway to the checkpoint."

"And then what?" The Doctor scowled. "Gunfight at the Montauk Corral?" He waved his hand about dismissively. "Do you always want to shoot people before breakfast?"

Jack flicked off his weapon's safety and shrugged. "Nah," he kidded. "I usually eat first."

"Actually, I should go…" Amy stepped timidly forwards and looked meekly at both men. "The guards aren't looking for me. I have a pass for every area. They'd be less suspicious…"

"But you can't disarm them, or make the adjustments to the dish's operating system," Martha pointed out. And you're way too skittish to pull off a good scam…

"I…I can distract them. Give you a better chance."

Jack cocked his head. "I hate to say it, but she's right. While they're talkin' to Amy they're less likely to notice us until we're on top of them."

Martha was about to protest, and she suspected so was the Doctor, but Amy wasn't sticking around to wait while they decided. Maybe she thought she could repay them for her earlier doubts and fears, or maybe she had something to prove to herself.

Either way, the jumpy little nurse stepped out into the passageway and began to walk towards the guards' station, her palms sticky with sweat.

From their position, the Doctor, Jack and Martha had no way of seeing if her subterfuge was working, or if she was about to get mowed down in a hail of bullets.

Seconds ticked by, and Jack was unusually silent, his cocky manner dulled by the fact he was letting a woman do his dirty work – a woman he actually cared for.

Martha could see the wrinkles of annoyance forming on his features as he was forced to stand helplessly by. She looked over to the Doctor, and he too wore the same dour expression.

He wanted to bound out and bombard the soldiers on duty with his madcap persona and psychic paper, not send a terrified young woman instead.

The problem was, the men on duty were likely to be edgy, if not downright paranoid. They could even be on the verge of 'turning'.

Maybe a friendly and familiar face stood more chance with them than a have-a-go hero and a manic Time Lord.

Martha squirmed. Maybe I should I have gone with her…

Voices broke the unearthly quiet of the complex and the trio became perfectly still as they listened to every word.

The MPs were quizzing Amy, demanding to know why they hadn't been warned of her impending presence.

Surprisingly, Amy didn't collapse under interrogation – in fact, she seemed to grow angry, almost daring them to question her authority.

Jack's face cracked into a toothy grin. "Now that," he said to Martha, "that is the Amy I fell in love with."

"And I thought you only loved you," the Doctor mouthed under his breath before popping his head around the wall to carefully peer down the passageway. "C'mon!" He whispered just a touch too loudly. "The game is afoot! Or maybe we should still go with the charge…I love a good charge…"

Jack shook his head but barrelled after the Time Lord, with Martha bringing up the rear.

It was a brave approach, considering their footfalls echoed hard off the polished tile floor, but it was their only approach and they had to take the control room quickly.

The Doctor had made it just past the halfway mark when the first guard heard them storming his position. He was a chubby little fellow for an airman, his features plumped with excess fat until he resembled a pug.

The fact that he was bulky and short, however, did little to hamper his reflexes. He swung the M16's strap off his shoulder and had the rifle aimed within seconds.

If he had any compunction about pulling the trigger, he didn't show it.

A stream of bullets strafed past the Doctor with only inches to spare, the spent rounds embedding themselves deeply into the facility's walls like ticks in flesh.

"Whoops!" the Doctor bellowed, diving for cover behind a large cheese plant that obviously provided no protection. "I think somebody got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning…"

Jack just managed to duck a second volley and then rolled to the floor, letting off several rounds of his own – not at the aggravated airman, but at the overhead lights that dangled above the man's head.

The fluorescent tubing hissed and shattered with the spray of bullets, fragments of jagged glass showering the soldier until he couldn't help but stop his own barrage to dodge clear of the falling debris.

As he flinched and skittered sideways, the Doctor leapt from behind the cheese plant, screwdriver firmly pointed at something behind the checkpoint. The sonic's bulbous tip shimmered as it worked its unseen magic, and suddenly the corridor was filling with a thick, caustic-smelling smog.

Something in the radar control room fizzed, and sparks began to spit from a secondary bank of mainframes as they too spewed out more of the burnt electronics-induced miasma.

The fat little airman began to hack so hard he couldn't hold his weapon steady and he eventually tossed the M16 down and held his shaking hands firmly up in the air.

The second soldier looked over at his friend uncertainly, then to Amy who still stood by the checkpoint, her back against the wall in apparent fear.

He seemed to take a second to evaluate his choices, as he too began to cough.

"Give it up and we all get to live." Jack let the barrel of his automatic slide through the air until it was lined up with the MP's skull. If he were to pull the trigger, his slug would make a clean entry right between the young man's eyes and probably exit into whatever lay beyond the fog bank he was now standing in.

The soldier's throat bobbed and he let the service issue pistol in his hand slip through his fingers to the floor. It clattered on the tiles, but was hidden by the swirling mist at their feet.

"Nice job of controlling the weather," Jack snarked at the Doctor as he started to manacle the two soldiers together with their own cuffs. "Think you could whip up a nice breeze and clear this stuff before we all start to choke?"

Martha appeared at the Time Lord's side, obviously in defensive mode. "At least he found a way in without shooting anyone," she pointed out.

"That's right! A little smoke and mirrors never hurt anyone…" The Doctor adjusted a setting on the sonic and walked through the checkpoint. "'Course, old Houdini might argue that point…" He switched the sonic back on, and miraculously the smoke began to clear. "Bellissimo!"

Jack was less than thrilled. He took another short glance at his watch and pointed for Amy and Martha to follow the Doctor into the radar control room.

Inside, it was much the same as the rest of Montauk – strangely empty.

A whole row of seats lay bare, the monitors and keypads in front of them beeping and flashing as if they'd been left 'home alone' and weren't very happy about the fact.

It looked like a dated movie set to Martha, but it was frighteningly real.

"So has everyone turned into those things or what? And where are they?" She glanced around, the frown on her face growing as she realized something was very, very wrong – even by their standards.

"Oh don't worry, sweetheart," Jack warned. "I'm sure they're waiting to have a little fun with us if our resident geek doesn't hurry it up." He shot the Doctor a glance, but the Time Lord was already busy at one of the consoles.

"Well look at that…someone's dead locked the dish's security system programs…very very sneaky…oooh…." The Doctor poked the sonic into an access port anyway and wasn't a bit surprised when a small shower of sparks erupted over his hand and forearm.

"Wha…what does that mean?" Amy stammered, watching the Doctor as he tapped several keys on one of the workstations.

"Dead locked means even the Doctor's sonic screwdriver can't break through the encryption," Martha explained, folding her arms with a look of exasperation. "Which means…"

"Which means you've had a wasted journey…"

Everyone turned, even the Doctor, although he continued to fiddle with the radar controls.

Fiddling while Rome burns, Martha concluded mentally as she whirled to look straight into Tesla's piercing eyes.

"Oh wonderful!" The Doctor's face grew into one of his huge smiles, even though Martha was sure he felt anything but happy. "Finally get to meet the man I've heard so much about…must be a right old buzz for you to be the second smartest man in the room, eh?"

Tesla returned the smile, keeping his hands behind his back in an almost military stance. "Such witty words…but then, it must hurt to know you've failed, Doctor…?" The scientist held out a hand, and at first Martha and the others didn't grasp why.

Then, with a mocking smile of her own, Amy sashayed across the room and took her place at the side of Tesla and his entourage of guards.

Finally, Martha understood what Amy's strange behaviour back in the infirmary had been all about, and the realization made her more than angry. She could feel the rage burning in the pit of her stomach until nothing but retribution would douse its flames.

She'd been duped by the best – no, they all had, even the Doctor.

"She's a bloody traitor," Martha mouthed, the disbelief in her voice making her sound hoarse.

Tesla noted her expression and nodded, playful mirth crossing his features as he enjoyed the victory. His eyes darted to the Doctor's and he savoured the look of defeat there. "You're not the only Time Lord to travel with a companion," he enlightened. "Mine just happens to be considerably smarter than your…current list of associates…"

Jack pulled his automatic into view and aimed straight for Tesla's temple. "You know, I hate being called names…"

As his sights zeroed in on their target, the MPs at Tesla's side returned the compliment – and they had no intention of waiting on orders before they fired.

"Jack no!" Martha and the Doctor screamed the same shrill warning in unison.

Jack Harkness couldn't die here, there were things he had to do in the future. Torchwood needed a leader, Rifts needed monitoring, lives in Cardiff Bay and beyond needed saving every day when the Doctor couldn't be there.

And yet, the sting in the tail was just waiting to happen.

Because this Jack Harkness could die here.

And if he did, then the future timeline they knew would die with him…

To be continued...