The Little Street Girl

by MyLadyOfStories

Jace is a street girl, and has been for 2 years. She ran from her foster parents when she was 12, and never looked back. Jace was doing well, living anonymously as a boy until the spaceship crashed into Big Ben. And then everything changed when the Doctor found her. He gave her a home.

5. Bloody Adam

The Doctor:

Jace and I had another heart to heart about the whole synaesthesia thing, and she'd admitted that was how she learn so fast. The words were in colour so she didn't have to classify things. Her brain and senses did it for her. I was really getting to know this girl and I really felt like a dad to her. I just didn't think she saw me as a dad yet, more a guardian that would never live up to the man. I hoped one day I did, because I already felt like she was my daughter.

We materialised and stepped out with Rose, leaving Adam in there alone for a moment. "So, it's two hundred thousand, and it's a spaceship." I paused, shaking my head a little. "No, wait a minute, space station, and er, go and try that gate over there. Off you go."

Rose stared at me, having again gotten Jace into make up, which looked fine, she just looked better without. As long as she didn't wear too much. "Two hundred thousand?"

I nodded. "Two hundred thousand."

"Right." She opened the door, sticking her head in. "Adam? Out you come."

"Oh, my God." He breathed, staring at the massive space we were now stood in. Jacey's eyes were darting back and forth around, quickly seeing all the pipes in the walls and around us.

She smirked a little at him. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it."

"Where are we?"

"Good question. Let's see." A companion copying me to impress another companion, brilliant. "So, er, judging by the architecture, I'd say we're around the year two hundred thousand. If you listen-" She paused for effect. "Engines. We're on some sort of space station. Yeah, definitely a space station. It's a bit warm in here. They could turn the heating down. Tell you what - let's try that gate. Come on!" She lead us through the metal gate to the window I'd seen, and even I was a little taken with the view. "Here we go! And this is. I'll let the Doctor describe it."

Oh, will you now, that's nice, thanks. "The Fourth great and bountiful Human Empire. And there it is, planet Earth at it's height. Covered with mega-cities, five moons, population ninety six billion. The hub of a galactic domain stretching across a million planets, a million species, with mankind right in the middle."

And then Adam fainted. Again.

"He's your boyfriend." Jace smiled at her cheekily, her hair loosely braided over her shoulder. I did like that, it meant she wasn't so scared she felt she needed to hide behind it.

Rose just kept staring at the view, not rising to it. "Not anymore"

When he woke up, which happened when Jace kicked him in the nuts, we headed out to the central hub space on the floor. "Come on, Adam. Open your mind. You're going to like this. Fantastic period of history. The human race at its most intelligent. Culture, art, politics. This era has got fine food, good manners."

But then we were shoved out of the way rudely, and there were people opening up food vending stations, serving customers and. This was really, really not right. "Fine cuisine?" Jace questioned. "Eating out of a Chinese takeaways bin at the end of the night smelt better than this." Well, you'd be the one to know, unfortunately.

"My watch must be wrong." I had a look but the infinity fusion battery was still going strong. It wasn't a fault. "No, it's fine. It's weird."

The blonde girl grinned a little. "That's what comes of showing off. Your history's not as good as you thought it was."

That was a massive insult to me. "My history's perfect."

"Well, obviously not."

And then Adam, of all the stupid stupid apes that could have done it, made a very good point. "They're all human. What about the millions of planets, the millions of species? Where are they?"

"Good question." I sighed, absently stroking Jace's hair, making her lean back into my hand, smiling a little. She trusted me absolutely, and I loved it. "Actually, that is a good question. Adam, me old mate, you must be starving."

He shook his head a little. "No, I'm just a bit time sick."

"No, you just need a bit of grub." I stuck my head around to talk to one of the venders. "Oi, mate - how much is a kronkburger?"

"Two credits twenty, sweetheart." Oh, now that was cheeky. "Now join the queue."

Jace, pulled me back, blinking at the sudden appearance of all the noise. "Money. We need money. Let's use a cashpoint. If there is one, I don't know."

I took her hand, leading her over to a cash point sort of thing as we were told about the Glasgow water riots over the intercom. Sonicking it, Jace smiling, motioning to spirals coming from it and pointing to her blue t-shirt, meaning she saw blue spirals, eventually I got a plastic card that I handed to Adam. "Here you go, pocket money. Don't spend it all on sweets. "

"How does it work?"

Some genius he was. "Go and find out. Stop nagging me. The thing is, Adam, time travel's like visiting Paris. You can't just read the guide book, you've got to throw yourself in. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers. Or is that just me?" Jace laughed, shaking her head, pretending to be embarrassed. At least I hoped she was pretending. "Stop asking questions, go and do it. Off you go, then. "

"Your first date." Jace grinned, and Rose scoffed, messing up her hair a little as she left, warning her off saying things like that. Sisters, definitely. Once she was gone, she looked up at me, rubbing her eyes a little. "So, what are we investigating?"

Oh, she was getting far too good at this. "Who says I'm investigating anything? Who says I'm not just taking you on a tour?"

"Because you don't know where we are, the times have confused you, and you have your investigating face on."

I stared at her, looking smugly back at me. "I don't have an investigating face. I'm not Sherlock."

"You're very similar people. I got £50 for helping him out once, and he's always tried to make sure I'm OK. But yeah, you both have investigating faces." Oh, all right then.

"I want to know what's going on, so, it's bring your daughter to work day. Come along, Jacey." I lead her over to a pair of smartly dressed women, who were on break by the looks of it. "This is going to sound daft, but can you tell me where we are?"

One of the women scoffed a little at us, not looking impressed. "Floor One Three Nine. Could they write it any bigger?"

Jace gritted her teeth at her voice, and I agreed, it was a little grating. "Floor one three nine of what?"

"Must've been a hell of a party."

The other women spoke up then, and we both looked at her instead. She looked a lot nicer. "You're on Satellite Five."

That really wasn't helping, I'm afraid. "What's Satellite Five."

"Come on, how could you get on board without knowing where you are?" The first woman asked, and I really didn't like her.

"Look at me. I'm stupid. It's also bring your daughter to work day and I'm showing her around."

Then she narrowed her eyes a little. "Hold on, wait a minute. Are you a test? Some sort of management test kind of thing?"

"You've got me. Well done. You're too clever for me." I held up the psychic paper and then, pretended to put it into my pocket, but really just gave it to Jace, who then showed it again. "Advanced placement, she's very intelligent." Not really lying.

" We were warned about this in basic training. All workers have to be versed in company promotion." The nicer woman told us. "And I didn't know we had an advanced placement programme."

Oh, well, they did as long as we were here. "It's a new programme."

The first woman was getting a little excited now. "Right, fire away, ask your questions. If it gets me to Floor five hundred I'll do anything."

"Why, what happens on Floor five hundred?" Jace asked, hugging her arms around herself. "I haven't been told much yet. First day."

"The walls are made of gold." Well, that sounded like a very expensive decor, good thing they didn't get the taxes to pay it. "So, this is what we do." The woman walked over to a wall monitor. "Latest news, sandstorms on the new Venus archipelago. Two hundred dead. Glasgow water riots into their third day. Space lane seventy seven closed by sunspot activity. And over on the Bad Wolf channel, the Face of Bo has just announced he's pregnant." Considering he was just a head, I'd love to know he managed that, or if it was just a thing where he got a girl pregnant. Which would also be interesting.

Jace nodded a little, looking at the screen. "I get it. You broadcast the news."

"We are the news." She corrected. "We're the journalists. We write it, package it and sell it. Six hundred channels. All coming out of Satellite Five, broadcasting everywhere. Nothing happens in the whole human empire without it going though us."

That. That was not right. Not at all. The human race got rid of that a long time ago, why did they still have that? That was a horrid bit of tech that shouldn't have ever been in place in the first place. The offered to show us a session of news broadcasting, so we had to go and fetch the children in from play time.

"Oi! Mutt and Jeff! Over here!" Theyfollowed us into the news room, where 7 people were seated at an octagonal desk, a central chair and we stood to the side, just watching. "Okay. So, ladies, gentlemen, multi-sex, undecided or robot,- my name is Cathica Santini Khadeni. That's Cathica with a C, in case you want to write to Floor five hundred praising me, and please do. Now, please feel free to ask any questions. The process of news gathering must be open, honest, and beyond bias. That's company policy."

Suki spoke up then, and Jace fixed her eyes on her for a moment, before looking back at Cathica. "Actually, it's the law."

"Yes, thank you, Suki. Okay, keep it calm. Don't show off for the guests. Here we go." She settled down into the chair. "And engage safety." The seven held their hands over palm print on the table in front of them making lights start to come on around the room. Cathica clicked her fingers and a portal opened in her forehead. And then the people put their hands down. "And three, two, and spike."

A beam of light shone into her portal, and Jace covered her ears, the noise probably hurting her, so I helped, putting mine over as well, kissing her hair as I explained to the other two. "Compressed information, streaming into her. Reports from every city, every country, every planet, and they all get packaged inside her head. She becomes part of the software. Her brain is the computer. My Jacey can hear it all, and see the swirls like the words, so her brain can translate it."

"If it all goes through her, she must be a genius. Like Jace." Rose commented, smiling at the girl who was watching it intently.

I shook my head. "Nah, she wouldn't remember any of it. There's too much. Her head'd blow up. The brain's the processor. As soon as it closes, she forgets."

"So, what about all these people round the edge?"

"They've all got tiny little chips in their head, connecting them to her and they transmit six hundred channels." I explained to them. "Every single fact in the Empire beams out of this place. Now that's what I call power." Rose made sure Adam was alright before I told them the tech was wrong. Which meant trouble.

But then Suki pulled her hand away from the console like she'd been shocked, which caused a chain reaction, the beam shutting down and I pulled away from Jace, knowing that she'd want to be able to hear again. "Come off it, Suki." Cathica complained, looking at her. "I wasn't even halfway. What was that for?"

"Sorry. It must've been a glitch." No, something did that to her on purpose. Had to be.

"Oh." And the the walls lit up with the word promotion, the tannoy saying it as well. "Come on. This is it. Come on. Oh God, make it me. Come on, say my name, say my name, say my name."

"Promotion for Suki Macrae Cantrell. Please proceed to Floor five hundred."

Well, that was a turn of events. "I don't believe it. Floor five hundred."

"How the hell did you manage that? I'm above you." Cathica demanded, walking angrily towards the other woman. Oh, this wasn't going to be pretty.

She shrugged a little, doing a very good impression of an excited woman. "I don't know. I just applied on the off chance and they've said yes."

Cathica sighed, looking very sulky. Well, she was human. "That's so not fair. I've been applying to Floor five hundred for three years."

Rose frowned a little. "What's Floor five hundred?"

Jace gave her a long look, her eyes bright and curious. "The walls are made of gold."

We then went to the lift with her, and she hugged Cathica before looking at Jace and I. "Cathica, I'm going to miss you. Floor five hundred, thank you."

"We didn't do anything." Jace laughed, fiddling with the necklace she had, a small key with a little star on it, along with her name. Jaclyn, my darling daughter. From her dad, probably, her mum sounded pretty quiet and submissive.

Suki wouldn't drop it. "Well, you're my lucky charms."

"All right. I'll hug anyone." I hugged her, then put my hand back on Jace's shoulder, knowing she wouldn't hug her.

She flapped her hands a bit as the doors opened. "Oh, my God, I've got to go. I can't keep them waiting. I'm sorry. Say goodbye to Steve for me. Bye!" And then the doors closed.

"Good riddance." Cathica sniffed.

I frowned at the overly ambitious woman, wondering what her problem was. "You're talking like you'll never see her again. She's only going upstairs."

"We won't. Once you go to Floor five hundred you never come back.2" We were walking back through the cafeteria, and Jace took my hand again, and I gave it a squeeze.

"Have you ever been up there?"

Cathica shook her head. "I can't. You need a key for the lift, and you only get a key with promotion. No one gets to five hundred except for the chosen few. Look, they only give us twenty minutes maintenance. Can't you give it a rest?"

No, this was important. "But you've never been to another floor? Not even one floor down?" She sat down in the broadcast chair, and I kept playing with her hair, which she didn't mind, resting her head back in mine.

"I went to floor sixteen when I first arrived. That's medical. That's when I got my head done, and then I came straight here." She sighed, giving up on arguing with us. "Satellite Five, you work, eat and sleep on the same floor. That's it, that's all." And then she realised. "You're not management, are you."

I gave her a sly smile. "At last. She's clever."

"Yeah, well, whatever it is, don't involve me. I don't know anything."

Jace frowned then, rubbing her wrist a little. "Don't you even ask?"

"Well, why would I?"

"You're a journalist." We reminded her, a fact she seemed to have forgotten. Journalists wanted to know everything, hence why Sarah was such a great friend. "Why's all the crew human?"

She frowned this time. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"There's no aliens on board. Why?"

Cathica sighed, rubbing her forehead. "I don't know. No real reason. They're not banned or anything."

I gestured to the large area outside, where everyone was human. "Then where are they?"

"I suppose immigration's tightened up." She thought, not really sounding all too bothered. "It's had to, what with all the threats."

"What threats?" Jace asked, looking a little surprised. As was I, there were no real wars in this time, threats were never made.

She shrugged, like it wasn't really her business. "I don't know all of them. Usual stuff. And the price of space warp doubled so that kept the visitors away. Oh, and the government on Chavic Five's collapsed, so that lot stopped coming, you see. Just lots of little reasons, that's all."

This was really not very good. Not good at all. "Adding up to one great big fact, and you didn't even notice."

"Doctor, Jace, I think if there was any kind of conspiracy, Satellite Five would have seen it. We see everything."

I shook my head at her, starting to pace a little. "I can see better. This society's the wrong shape, even the technology."

"It's cutting edge."

And that was the biggest problem. They were believing it all. "It's backwards. There's a great big door in your head. You should've chucked this out years ago."

"So, what do you think's going on?" Rose asked, and she'd been so quiet I'd forgotten she was there.

"It's not just this space station, it's the whole attitude. It's the way people think. The great and bountiful Human Empire's stunted. Something's holding it back." I told her, pulling Jacey to her feet and toward the door.

Cathica looked skeptical. "And how would you know?"

"Trust me, humanity's been set back about ninety years. When did Satellite Five start broadcasting?"

She visibly gulped a little. "Ninety one years ago." Bingo.

Then we headed somewhere else, a main frame panel that Jace had seen because all the energy on this floor came from this area. Synaesthesia, nice way of finding electrical panels and people who were lying. Not so nice when you can taste emotion. "We are so going to get in trouble. You're not allowed to touch the mainframe. You're going to get told off."

"Rose, tell her to button it." Jace and I said at the same time, while I was trying to unlock the door.

"You can't just vandalise the place. Someone's going to notice!" The doors opened then, and Jace and I started digging through, looking for things that would give us answers. "This is nothing to do with me. I'm going back to work."

Jace waved her off, not even looking at her. "Go on, then. See you!"

She tried to, and then sighed, turning back at us. "I can't just leave you, can I!"

"If you want to be useful, get them to turn the heating down." Rose told her, just stood back watching Jace and i work. "It's boiling. What's wrong with this place? Can't they do something about it?"

Cathica shrugged. "I don't know. We keep asking. Something to do with the turbine. I don't know."

"Exactly." I told her, turning back to look at them as the other girl kept working. "I give up on you, Cathica. Now, Rose. Look at Rose. Rose is asking the right kind of question. Why is it so hot?"

She stared at me incredulously. "One minutes you're worried about the Empire and the next it's the central heating"

"Well, never underestimate plumbing. Plumbing's very important." And then Jace pulled me back in as the monitor she was holding came up with a schematic on it. "Here we go. Satellite Five, pipes and plumbing. Look at the layout."

"This is ridiculous." Cathica sighed, shaking her head. "You've got access to the computer's core. You can look at the archive, the news, the stock exchange and you're looking at pipes?"

I would have thought that was obvious, but this woman was really a bit dim. "But there's something wrong."

"I suppose." She'd seen it too, that was good. I wasn't imagining things again.

Rose leaned to have a look but didn't see it. "Why, what is it?"

"The ventilation system." She explained. "Cooling ducts, ice filters, all working flat out channelling massive amounts of heat down."

Jacey nodded. "All the way from the top."

"Floor five hundred."

I really wanted to head up there now, find out about what was happening. "Something up there is generating tons and tons of heat."

"Well, I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm missing out on a party." Rose smiled as Jace got to her feet, twirling her around a little. "It's all going on upstairs. Fancy a trip?"

Cathica shook her head. "You can't. You need a key."

"Keys are just codes, and we've got the codes right here." She smiled, taking the monitor back. "Never doubt the ability to memorise numbers by smells. Here we go. Override two one five point nine." The monitor then showed me 215.9976/31.

The working woman stared at it. "How come it's given you the code?"

"Someone up there likes is."

The lift opened and we turned back to Cathica who was looking around, trying not to get see with us. "Come on. Come with us."

"No way."

"Bye!" Jace and I waved cheerily.

"Well, don't mention my name. When you get in trouble, just don't involve me." And then she finally left.

We all got into the lift and Jace took her hair out, the loose curls having turned into tighter ones from the plait, which made her look a lot older, and I wasn't sure I liked it so I messed it up a little, making her pout, scrunching up her nose and looking about 5. That was better. "That's her gone. Adam's given up. Looks like it's just you two and me."

"Yeah." They both smiled. "Good." They agreed again and the doors silently slid open, showing a very dark, cold area with ice on the walls. "The walls are not made of gold. You should go back downstairs. Rose, you should protect Jace there."

"Tough."

Then we found someone in the middle of a bank of computers, all of them silently working. "I started without you. This is fascinating. Satellite Five contains every piece of information within the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. Birth certificates, shopping habits, bank statements, but you three, you don't exist. Not a trace. No birth, no job, not the slightest kiss. How can you walk through the world and not leave a single footprint?" Because a very clever man made me disappear.

"Suki." Rose ran over to the girl and shook her shoulder. "Suki! Hello? Can you hear me? Suki?" There was no reply and she looked over at the man with a beard made of frost. I wondered if his name was Jack... "What have you done to her?"

I didn't even look over at her, just keeping Jacey looking forward. "I think she's dead."

"She's working."

"They've all got chips in their head, and the chips keep going, like puppets. The chips are active, they give off a frequency that looks like snow flakes. Guess we know who stole the air con." Jace muttered, and she was shivering now, her small frame really not built to be in cold places. Neither was I, I was cold blooded.

The man, who for now I was calling Jack for obvious reasons, grinned at her. "Oh! You're full of information. But it's only fair we get some information back, because apparently, you're no one. It's so rare not to know something. Who are you?"

"It doesn't matter, because we're off. Nice to meet you. Come on." Suki grabbed Rose and Jace and I were taken by other Zombies, holding us in place.

Well, we weren't leaving just yet. "Tell me who you are. "

"Since that information's keeping us alive, I'm hardly going to say, am I."

He smiled more. "Well, perhaps my Editor in Chief can convince you otherwise."

Jace frowned, looking for another man or woman who wasn't a zombie. "And who's that?"

"It may interest you to know that this is not the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. In fact, it's not actually human at all. It's merely a place where humans happen to live." There was a growling snarl from above and the Editor Jack sighed, translating. I'd already done so, thank you telepathic circuit. "Yeah. Yeah, sorry. It's a place where humans are allowed to live by kind permission of my client."

A giant lump was hanging from the ceiling, with a very nasty set of teeth in a mouth on the end of a pseudopod. That, that was just a little but like an evil clitoris, and I should probably not say that. "What is that?" Rose asked, staring in horror.

Jace was just staring at it in disgust. "You mean that thing's in charge of Satellite Five?"

"That thing, as you put it, is in charge of the human race. For almost a hundred years, mankind has been shaped and guided, his knowledge and ambition strictly controlled by it's broadcast news, edited by my superior, your master, and humanity's guiding light, the mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe. I call him Max." Well, that was a hell of a name, almost as bad as some of the Gallifreyan titles.

We were then put into hefty manacles and he kept talking, loving the sound of his own voice. How was he not frozen? "Create a climate of fear and it's easy to keep the borders closed. It's just a matter of emphasis. The right word in the right broadcast repeated often enough can destabilise an economy, invent an enemy, change a vote."

"So all the people on Earth are like, slaves." Rose summarised. Very well spotted, because they really were.

Jack looked a little sly now, and smug. "Well, now, there's an interesting point. Is a slave a slave if he doesn't know he's enslaved?"

There wasn't a debate at all about that. "Yes."

"Oh. I was hoping for a philosophical debate. Is that all I'm going to get? Yes?"

Jace nodded. "Yes. I've been a slave near enough, I've got the scars to prove it. You're doing it worse, enslaving their minds."

The Editor pouted a little. "You're no fun."

"Let her out of those manacles. You'll find out how much fun she is. mate." Rose told him, and I definitely agreed with that. There was a reason she survived on the streets.

"Oh, she's tough, isn't she." He smiled patting Jace's cheek, pulling back as she tried to bite him. "But, come on. Isn't it a great system? You've got to admire it, just a little bit."

Rose got his attention away from her then, and I saw Jace close her eyes, probably hating the snow like visions from the zombies. "You can't hide something on this scale. Somebody must have noticed."

He nodded a little. "From time to time, someone, yes, but the computer chip system allows me to see inside their brains. I can see the smallest doubt and crush it. Then they just carry on, living the life, strutting about downstairs and all over the surface of the Earth like they're so individual, when of course, they're not. They're just cattle. In that respect, the Jagrafess hasn't changed a thing."

This man was just that cocky that he didn't realise Cathica had followed us up, meaning she was hearing every word of this. And we needed her to get back out with what she knew, so we needed to distract Jack Frost here. "What about you?" Rose asked him. "You're not a Jagrabelly "

"Jagrafess."

"Jagrafess." She corrected. "You're not a Jagrafess. You're human."

The man shrugged a little. "Yeah, well, simply being human doesn't pay very well."

Jace sighed a little. "But you couldn't have done this all on your own."

"No." He agreed. "I represent a consortium of banks. Money prefers a long-term investment. Also, the Jagrafess needed a little hand to install himself."

"No wonder, a creature that size. What's his life span?" I asked, knowing that this thing was probably the cause of all the heat which was why it needed to be channelled downwards.

"Three thousand years."

Jace whistled. "That's one hell of a metabolism generating all that heat. That's why Satellite Five's so hot, to my knowledge. You pump it out of the creature, channel it downstairs. Jagrafess stays cool, it stays alive. Satellite Five is one great big life support system. That's worse than a 90 year old taking constant heart replacements when he's lived his life."

"But that's why you're so dangerous, you and your friend." Mr Frosty said solemnly. "Knowledge is power, but you remain unknown. Who are you?" He snapped his fingers and energy surged through the manacles, making Jace cry out, sobbing a little.

I ignored mine, trying to break the circuit to her. "Leave her alone. I'm the Doctor, this is my daughter, Jace, and she's Rose Tyler. We're nothing, we're just wandering."

"Tell me who you are!"

"I just said!"

"Yes, but who do you work for? Who sent you? Who knows about us? Who exactly-" He cut out as the Jagrafess growled, and I stiffened. "Time Lord."

God, how the hell did they reach the correct conclusion? "What?"

"Oh, yes. The last of the Time Lords in his travelling machine, his adopted daughter with colourful sounds and emotions. Oh, with his little human girl from long ago."

I gritted my teeth, staring dead eyed at him. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Time travel"

This was getting ridiculous. How the hell did they know so much? "Someone's been telling you lies."

"Young master Adam Mitchell?" He called up an image of Adam in a broadcast chair, with a bloody hole in his forehead. This was ridiculous.

"Oh, my God. His head!" Rose breathed, looking at him in horror.

Jace was staring too, seeing something i couldn't. "What the hell's he done? What the hell's he gone and done? They're reading his mind. He's telling them everything. They're taking all his knowledge."

The Editor nodded his agreement. "And through him, I know everything about you. Every piece of information in his head is now mine. And you have infinite knowledge, Doctor. The Human Empire is tiny compared to what you've seen in you S. TARDIS."

"Well, you'll never get your hands on it. I'll die first."

His smile got very smug as the TARDIS key rose from Adam's pocket. "Die all you like. I don't need you. I've got the key."

I glared at Rose for a moment. "You and your boyfriends!"

"Today, we are the headlines." The man was laughing, and Jace winced at the sound. "We can rewrite history. We could prevent mankind from ever developing."

"And no one's going to stop you because you've bred a human race that doesn't bother to ask questions. Stupid little slaves, believing every lie. They'll just trot right into the slaughter house if they're told it's made of gold."

There was a pause as we watched Cathica leave, before the things around us started going haywire. "What's happening? Someone's disengaged the safety. Who's that?"

He called the image up on the holo-monitor, replacing my newest enemy with Cathica, my new best friend. "It's Cathica."

"And she's thinking. She's using what she knows." Jace grinned, her eyes suddenly brighter again.

"Everything I told her about Satellite Five." I agreed, watching the icicles starting to melt. "The pipes, the filters, she's reversing it. Look at that. It's getting hot." And then the console exploded and the dead operators collapsed. Only Rose got free though. "She's venting the heat up here. The Jagrafess needs to stay cool and now it's sitting on top of a volcano."

The Editor took Suki's seat and tried to start fixing thing. "What do I do?" Rose asked me, taking the sonic from my pocket. How long had she been with me?

"Flick the switch and get Jace out first!" I looked over at the Editor as she got to work, freeing her quickly and moving onto mine. "Oi, mate, want to bank on a certainty? Massive heat in a massive body, massive bang. See you in the headlines"

And then we ran out, going to the broadcast as chunks of ice were falling from the ceiling. Just as we heard the Jagrafess explode, I closed Cathica's portal. Another job well done. Until I got my hands on Adam, anyway.

DW

"We're just going to go. I hate tidying up. Too many questions. You'll manage." I told Cathica as everyone was helping the wounded. Jace was still by my side, shivering in my leather jacket. She was a little ice pop.

The journalist looked horrified at the idea. "You'll have to stay and explain it. No one's going to believe me."

"Oh they might start believing a lot of things now." I smiled, wrapping my arm around my little Jace. "The human race should accelerate. All back to normal."

She glanced at Adam. "What about your friend?"

Oh, don't even go there. He's lucky I'm not leaving him here. "He's not my friend.

"Now, don't-" Rose tried, but I shot her a small look. She was the one who gave him the phone and the TARDIS key. I didn't blame her, but she should have waited to trust him with those.

Adam then tried to defend himself. Badly. "I'm all right now. Much better. And I've got the key. Look, it's. It all worked out for the best, didn't it? You know, it's not actually my fault, because you were in charge." That was it, he was now lucky he wasn't being thrown into a sun.

Jace kicked him through the doors and then I landed us at his house, and he looked out in relief. "It's my house. I'm home! Oh, my God, I'm home! Blimey. I thought you were going to kick me out of an airlock."

"Is there something else you want to tell us?" Jace asked him, staring at his forehead. She could see the little chips, I knew that much. Not sure what they would manifest as though.

He blinked at the tiny girl. "No. What do you mean?"

I picked up the answering machine. "The archive of Satellite Five. One second of that message could've changed the world." So I sonicked the phone, knowing that it would explode. Served him right, he was lucky I was only destroying the phone. "That's it, then. See you. "

"How do you mean, see you?" Adam asked as I went to go back into the TARDIS and I turned to look back at him.

To be honest I thought it was fairly obvious. "As in goodbye."

"But what about me? You can't just go. I've got my head. I've got a chip type two. My head opens." Oh, that reminded me.

"What, like this?" I clicked my fingers, making him get frustrated. Jace and I kept doing it until Rose told us off. Spoil sport. Until she did it herself. Brilliant. "The whole of history could have changed because of you."

He looked at me reproachfully. "I just wanted to help."

Jace shook her head at him. "You were helping yourself. I've met people like you my whole life, you think you're better because you're smart. But really, you're a dick."

"Language, Jaclyn."

She sighed, folding her arms. "You're a penis." Well, it was a little better. And also true.

"And I'm sorry. I've said I'm sorry, and I am, I really am, but you can't just leave me like this."

Oh, here was the big kicker. "Yes we can. 'Cause if you show that head to anyone, they'll dissect you in seconds. You'll have to live a very quiet life. Keep out of trouble. Be average, unseen. Good luck." I grinned, knowing that he would end up struggling and then just working at burger king or mcdonalds his whole life.

"But I want to come with you."

"I only take the best. I have my lovely Jacey, and I've got Rose." I pulled her into the TARDIS as his mum came in, and then waited for Rose. Finally, some peace and quiet. For however long that lasted.