AN: Hi! Okay, so I had to make up a scientificky thing for this chapter, but dont go around talking about it, because it's completely fake.
Dr. Rosen was baffled. How could anyone have gotten to the shipping container? The employee himself had said that no one had come to claim the container... But then Dr. Rosen remembered Alphas existed, and he wasn't so confused anymore.
Rachel entered the shipping container warily, and stopped everyone. To everyone else, it looked like she was staring at the empty box, but in reality, Rachel was scrutinizing the patterns in the dust. She was figuring out how many boxes had been shipped, and what they were.
Rachel shook her head. "All I can tell is that there were hundreds of good-sized boxes in here. I can't tell what they were,"
Dr. Rosen sighed. "Well, good job Rachel,"
"Hang on guys, I think I can figure out what was in these boxes," said the Doctor, fiddling with his sonic screwdriver.
"But Doctor, the sonic doesn't work like that, does it? Tell you what used to be here?" Clara asked.
"Well, no..." Said the Doctor, continuing to play with his screwdriver.
Clara put her hands on her hips. "Doctor, what are you planning on doing with it, then?"
"Patience is a virtue, Clara! Granted, so is purity, but Queen Elizabeth the First isn't..." The Doctor scratched his head awkwardly.
Clara harrumphed. "I don't even want to know what that means, but I can probably guess,"
The Doctor dug around in his bigger-on-the-inside pockets. He appeared to grab something fairly large, and he tugged. Out popped a gray metal apparatus that was not much bigger than Clara's hand. It wasn't very wide, maybe four inches, and it only had one opening in the side, a circular hole big enough for...
"Is that going to go on your sonic screwdriver?" Kat asked. Her question was quickly answered with the Doctor clicking the device onto his sonic screwdriver.
"Ok! So, this device is the sonic sniffer, and it attaches to my sonic screwdriver like so!" The Doctor gestured to his sonic screwdriver in a game show type of way. "The sonic sniffer," the Doctor grinned at his name. "Can smell out a certain thing and track it!"
"Why haven't you whipped this out before?" Clara asked. This sonic sniffer thing was weird, and seemed kind of pointless.
"I've been tinkering with this for a while now," said the Doctor absentmindedly. He pushed the button on the sonic screwdriver, which started up the sonic sniffer moments later. It glowed blue in the corners, and there appeared to be blue squares popping up all over the sides.
The Doctor whooped. "It's working!" He cried gleefully, acting like a child at Christmas. He waved the sniffer around, and at certain intervals it buzzed loudly, and the light brightened considerably.
"God, it's really bright!" Nina complained, turning away.
"Yeah, can you turn that down, Doctor?" Bill asked, cringing from the light.
Gary glanced up, seeming to have just noticed the sonic sniffer and the shipping container. "Ah! Doctor! That's so bright, Doctor!" He cried.
The Doctor frowned slightly at everyone's lack of excitement, and turned a knob that appeared on the side. The blue light dimmed a lot. Everyone straightened up, content with the amount of light coming from the little blue box.
"So what are you planning on doing with that?" Asked Hicks.
"We-well," spluttered the Doctor, thinking it was obvious. "It follows the path of dispersed atoms in the air. When we move through the air," the Doctor waved his hands above his head. "We move through the oxygen atoms, and leave a space where the oxygen atoms aren't. The atoms move back very slowly, so we can follow the negative space with this baby," the Doctor waved around the sonic sniffer. (AN: I completely made that up, I doubt that really happens, but it works for the story, so...)
"So it basically sniffs out the space without oxygen? That's why it's called a sonic sniffer?" Nina asked.
"Yup! I can tune it to sniff out specific trails. Plus it's sonic, which makes it all the more cool. You know what else are cool? Bow ties! Bow ties are very, very cool." The Doctor tugged on his own bow tie to prove his point.
Kat made a face, obviously not agreeing with the Doctor's opinion. Clara looked at Kat and grinned, amused at her reaction. She found bow ties very attractive, actually, especially on the Doctor. Of course, Clara would never admit this. She helped all of the Doctors through their troubles, but hadn't felt all that attracted to them, but this regeneration was different. She just didn't know why. Of course, the Doctor didn't feel that way about her. He couldn't possibly! He had lost too many people in his life. Clara glanced at the Doctor, who was playing with the knobs on the sonic sniffer, grinning gleefully. Yes, Clara thought, he's much too involved with his gadgets to notice anyone.
"Ok," said the Doctor. "I've tuned it so it can follow the negative space of these boxes." He swung the sniffer around, smiling like a lunatic. "It's the test run," he whispered to Clara.
Clara smiled encouragingly, glad something caused him happiness in his lonely life.
"Hey, it's flashing red, Doctor," Bill told him, slightly alarmed.
"It's found the trail, hasn't it?" Clara said, excited for some action.
"He. He's found the trail," the Doctor corrected, bopping Clara on the nose with a finger.
"Oh, so this thing's alive too?" Clara asked, a bit annoyed. She still refused to call the TARDIS a she.
"No, I just like personal pronouns. Personal pronouns are cool!" The Doctor announced. He frowned a bit. "Well, that's a rubbish phrase. I'm never saying that again!"
Clara giggled, remembering when he said that about all of the other lines he'd tried over the years. The Doctor glanced at Clara quizzically.
"What?" He asked, grinning. Clara just shook her head.
Dr. Rosen cleared his throat obnoxiously loudly. "If you two are done...?" He said, ready to get on with this.
The Doctor looked up, startled. "Oh, yes, of course, yeah!" He held the sonic sniffer in front of him, so they could see the red light. The Doctor marched forward, away from the group.
"Doctor!" Called Hicks. "Can we at least use the car? Who knows how far away they went?"
The Doctor hesitated. "Well...yes... You make a good point. To the van! Geronimo!"
AN: How about that new scientificky thingy that I made up? Pretty cool, huh? Who's looking forward to the Christmas special? I don't want Eleven to go, he's amazing! But Twelve seems like he's going to be pretty interesting...