Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters contained herein, I merely make them dance in what I hope is true to their rhythm.

Chapter 6

Together Again

"Doctor!" exclaimed Sean as the screen went live. "I thought you were with the Pilgrims!"

The Doctor grinned. "Martha actually helped me out of that situation, with a little help from me."

"Huh?" asked Sean, his brow furrowing.

Martha shook her head. "Don't ask," she said. "It's complicated. Very complicated. Suffice it to say that people assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non linear, non subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff."

"Wibbly wobbly timey wimey," repeated Sean matter of factly. He turned to the Doctor. "Isn't that what you said?"

"I've said it before, yes," said the Doctor. "Though not to you, and not with this face."

"You change faces?" asked Sean. "Why does that not surprise me?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Never mind that, I have the computer." He held it up for them to see. "Should you come to me, or should I come to you?"

In response, he heard a familiar vworping sound coming from outside his house. He grinned. "I'll see you in a moment then." He shut down the communication and ran out to his back yard with the computer.

He grinned when he saw the big blue box. Martha opened up the door and let him in. He wrapped her up in a big hug and handed the computer off the Doctor. She kissed him on the cheek. "Good to see you, love," she said.

He grinned at her. "Glad you're all right," he replied. "I wasn't sure what happened to you when we got cut off before."

Martha's eyes flickered to the Doctor, and he followed her gaze. "We just got interrupted," she said. "The Windows Vista code messed with the TARDIS."

"We should try doing the same thing with the computer then," said Sean. "Only this time, separate the main TARDIS system from the part doing the analysis." He raised an eyebrow quizzically to the Doctor. "I thought you would have been able to figure that out before you tried to analyze the code in the first place."

"I know I should have done it before," said the Doctor, a bit defensively. "I just didn't expect what happened."

"We are dealing with the Master, Doctor," said Martha reasonably. "We need to be careful, and prepare for every eventuality. Better safe than sorry and all that."

The Doctor nodded. "Right you are," he said, then shivered. "I'm not sure that phrase suits me. It feels wrong to tell someone else that they're right, because it implies that I'm wrong. While it has been known to happen before, it..." he cut off at the looks on their faces. "Sorry," he said. "A bit of pride got in my way. Now let's see what we can't find out from this," he said, holding up the computer. He set it on the panel next to him. "Go ahead, girl," he said quietly. "Be careful with it this time, though."

Thirty minutes later, as Martha and Sean were in a corner talking quietly, the Doctor came up to join them, holding the Master's computer.

"Well?" asked Sean.

The Doctor shook his head. "For such a terrible system, the Master did an impressive job writing it. My guess is that he intended it to be terrible, as it only needed to be in circulation for a short amount of time. Just long enough to infiltrate the computers of a large portion of the technologically advanced world."

"Why?" asked Martha.

"Well, Martha Jones, we've dealt with people before that wanted to take over the world using computers. With this system though, something got through to the next systems. The Master used some algorithms to ensure that the system learned something about each users' habits on the computer."

Sean nodded. "Sure," he said. "A lot of systems have that in place, so that it becomes more user friendly the more you use it."

"Aha," said the Doctor. "But with this, it's exploiting those habits. It's learning if you have a tendency towards certain deadly sins. If you play violent video games, and especially if you use hostile language during those internet games, you're more susceptible to Wrath. If you look at pornography, you're more susceptible to Lust. If you put up a lot of selfies or spend a lot of time updating your blogs or Twitter, you're susceptible to Pride."

Sean's eyes widened. "And these algorithms were grandfathered into the new systems, so people are still being analyzed by them?" he asked.

"That's right," said the Doctor. "This is something that I hadn't anticipated. It's one thing to stop a virus before it gets out there, but now to eradicate it, I would have to get each individual computer to rewrite the code on it, and remove those algorithms."

Martha was silent through all of this, but now she spoke up. "Couldn't you do a massive software patch that would update all of the systems remotely?" she asked. "Write your own system that is exactly the same as the Master's, but without the logarithms?"

The Doctor grinned. "You are magnificent, Martha Jones!" He ran to her and kissed her on the forehead. "You are truly a star!" He ran towards the console, then turned around in a very giraffe like way. "Of course, I won't write the software, the TARDIS can do that much more quickly than I can, plus I have to talk my way into the Microsoft Headquarters." He grinned. "Health and Safety," he said, holding up his psychic paper. "Works every time."

He rushed to console and furiously typed away. At once, the TARDIS had taken the analyzed code from Windows Vista, found the algorithms, and deleted them.

Sean was impressed. "You sure do have a fine ship," he said.

The Doctor grinned. "Why do you think she chose to steal me?" he said, straightening his bow tie.

Sean shrugged dramatically. "Is she a poor judge of character?" he asked. "Did you make a really good first impression?"

The Doctor tried to glare at him, but just came across looking like a child having a staring contest with a cat.

"So it's off to Microsoft then," said Martha matter of factly.

"Geronimo!" said the Doctor, pulling a lever, and they were off.