The elevator stopped after five minutes and Katie slid out, ducking into a nearby corner. Perception filter or not, someone would notice the elevator and try to discover who was in it. Sure enough, a man came out of a nearby booth.

"Hello? Someone there?" He gave a sigh when no one answered. "Another faulty wire probably. Better give maintenance a ring."

Katie quickly moved behind the man when his back was turned. She wrapped one hand around his mouth, ignoring the teeth biting into her finger. The other arm went around his throat, applying a slight pressure to his windpipe. She counted to five before laying the man down, knowing that he would be in a coma for a few hours, if he ever came out of it. She thought about a mercy killing, then felt revulsion at herself for even considering it. Close on the heels of that self-disgust came self-fear at how easy it had been for her to—yes, admittedly—kill someone else, someone she didn't even know. She spotted a ring on his left hand. She wondered if he had children.

Katie used a computer in the booth to look up the specific directions to Level Three, Cell 24.

Down in Cell 24, the Doctor was sitting next to Jennifer Nance, his mind still turning. He was positive that he had missed something. Time was moving at a slow rate which made him think that they were in a temporal pocket, but time kept hiccupping, speeding up at irregular intervals, which made him think of a time loop. A very strange one, but still a time loop. No, a time loop couldn't account for everything. And it would take an immense amount of power to spread it over the planet, even one that only lasted a second. It would make a lot more sense to have a temporal pocket to slow time down. But why the bumps?

"Jennifer, if you had a multi-level stone maze that spread under the surface of an entire planet, what would you do with it?"

"Travel," she said instantly. "I'd go all over the planet, and I'd never have to worry about expenses."

"But what if the time in your maze was slower than the rest of the planet?"

Jennifer wasn't sure where the Doctor was leading this train of thought, but she played along. "Could I control the time in my maze?"

"Let's say no."

"Then I'd just have to run, or leave very early."

"And if you could control the time?"

"I'd set it to normal every time I went through it. Simple as that."

The Doctor set his head against the stone. "Simple as that. Oh, I'm getting slow in my old age."

"Old age?" Jennifer said with a teasing smile. "Come on, you can't be that far over thirty."

The Doctor gave her a slightly humorous look and was about to answer when a voice drifted in from outside the cell, sounding as though it was originating from the hallway. The Doctor smiled as it drew closer.

"You know, I just don't get it. You've all these great names. The Final Vigilante of the Vortex, the Lonely Angel, the Supreme Controller, the Traveler from Beyond Time, the Rescuer of Civilizations, Time's Champion, the Man with the Blue Box, the Sainted Physician, the Bringer of Darkness, the Oncoming Storm, the Evergreen Man, the Sole Survivor of the Last Great Time War, and so many other marvelous titles at your disposal."

The Doctor sprang up from his spot on the floor and pulled the door open. A red haired girl stood in the doorway, shaking her head. "And you still use John Smith."

Katie grinned at him and gave him a hug, which he returned. She pulled back a second later.

"Okay, there should be reinforcements on the way, but we need to clear the road for them. If they don't show, then at least we can get all these people out. There's—" She stopped abruptly and tapped his collar. "Where'd you get the necklace?"

"Oh, they use it to keep track of us."

"Not very becoming. Does it come off?"

"Not easily." Katie looked around the Doctor to see who had spoken. The tall brown haired woman seemed vaguely insulted by something, but for the life of her Katie couldn't figure out what. "It's attached to our brain stem."

"Purpose?"

"To keep us in confined. The door may be left unlocked, but we start seeing things as soon as we step out of the door. It looks as though the hallway is changing. Makes escape just a bit difficult."

Katie tilted her head. "I like you. What's your name?"

"Doctor Jennifer Nance."

"Lovely. Another one. Good to meet you anyway. I'm Kathryn. Who are all the coma patients?"

"Kathryn, they've been trapped down here for a very long time," the Doctor said in gentle reproof. She had the decency to look ashamed.

"Get locked up for too long and the spark goes." She looked back over to Jennifer. "Good thing you don't seem to have been down here that long, though with your collar keeping you in here you both might still go down that road. And I was going to use his Time Lord brain too."

"With…"

"They've got a generator in-between this level and the next. I think—"

"It creates a temporal pocket," the Doctor interrupted, seeming a little put out that he was being mostly ignored. "Slows down time to the point where it almost doesn't move. They can turn it on and off at will, allowing themselves to travel through."

Katie gave the Doctor a mock glare. "Show off. Must have been doing a real number on your system though. Still, I need to find a way to get that collar off of you. Won't do a lot of good if you're running into walls on the way to the stairs."

"It's attached to the brain stem," Jennifer said. "You'd need a complicated surgery to get it out."

"Did it take a surgery to put it on?"

"No."

"Then it won't need one to take it off."

Jennifer nodded. "Possibly. We can't know for sure."

Katie clicked her teeth, then suddenly noticed the keypad next to the door. "Why have a keypad if the door is left unlocked?"

"It activates the collars," Jennifer said. Katie gave the Doctor a disgusted look and flicked his forehead. He frowned at her and rubbed the spot.

"And you didn't think to mention it," Katie said. "Aren't you the brilliant man." She held out her hand. "Sonic?"

"I…don't have it anymore."

"Where is it?"

"Lathezia took it."

"Maybe you should stich an extra one in the lining of your coat with the CeaXhell I left you."

"It wasn't in the lining," the Doctor said, mildly surprised. "You left it in the pocket."

"No I didn't. I stuck it into the lining. I knew that if I put it in your pocket you'd toss it out."

"I found it in the pocket."

"Well that's disconcerting."

"So are a lot of other things around here."

"You too?"

Katie and the Doctor stared at each other for a few moments. Jennifer could almost see the words flying between their eyes.

"Right," Katie said, breaking the silence. "I'll do this the hard way." Katie turned her attention to the keypad. After pushing few buttons, she seemed to go into a staring contest with the screen. She blinked, shrugged, and punched the keypad. Electricity lanced up her arm for a moment at the same time that sparks showered down from the sensors on the doorframe. Katie danced backwards in the hallway, shaking her hand.

"Ahh, hand asleep, hand asleep!"

"What did you do that for?" the Doctor said, stepping out into the hallway, barely noticing the fact the walls stayed put. "You could have just broken in."

"I did, smart one. I just felt more like breaking it. Worked, didn't it?"

Jennifer stepped cautiously from the room. "I would have to agree. Nothing's moving." She bent her head sharply forward and hissed in pain. The Doctor did the same. Katie was at the Doctor's side in an instant. Before she could ask what was wrong, she noticed the two identical spots of blood at the back of his neck.

"You are bleeding. Yeah, back of the neck is bleeding. Right, take a deep breath, this might constrict the windpipe. I'll be as quick as I can." The Doctor did as instructed and Katie pinched the collar on either side of the rectangle, which was no longer lit. She closed her eyes to focus and waited for few seconds before the metal cracked. She pulled the rectangle off of his neck. Two sharp metal needles connected to the rectangle slid out of his skin. She let it drop to the floor and moved over to Jennifer, repeating the operation.

"Who needs a sonic when you've got me?" Katie said smugly. The Doctor was standing again and gently touching the back of his neck.

"Jennifer, as a doctor, what do you think that was?"

"The non-complicated way of removing the collars. They must have shut down with the sensors."

"In which case we should probably get moving," Katie said. "If they do a regular life support check, then they're going to notice when their head count starts dropping, and a cell with no people is going to show up real fast."

"Right," the Doctor said. "Lead the way then, Kathryn Moore. We can compare anomalies on the way."

"General, that man you wanted us to watch. His signal just went dead."

Lathezia gave a small smile, though the man in front of his desk didn't know why. "Well done Doctor," he said quietly. "You brought it right to us."

"Sir?"

"I want a transmat beam locked onto the temporal generator room, and I need an instant recall button. I'll be going alone."

"Is that wise sir?"

"Are you questioning me?"

"No sir, it's just…against protocol."

"I am protocol."

"Yes sir."

The truck window rolled down as it pulled up next to Julius. "Brigadier?" said the driver incredulously. "Where have you been? You missed check in by an hour! We thought you'd been caught."

"Not quite," Julius said with a small smile. He pulled the black square from his pocket and gave it to the driver. "Take this to General Xaira. Tell her that everything on it is the absolute truth and that she needs to get someone down there as fast as she can, preferably to the generator. Tell her to bring whatever explosives we've got." Julius reached into his pocket again and pulled out a small half-sphere half an inch in diameter. "Take this as well. Trouble told me to attach it to the blue box, said it would give her access to the files in it or something. She stressed that it had to be done as soon as possible."

The solider took it quizzically.

"Where are you going sir?"

"Back. I have to divert a disaster."

"For who sir?"

"Exactly."

*Constructive critisisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*