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 8

The Gates of Hell

Sean couldn't help but giggle as they stepped out of the TARDIS in front of the main building.

"What's so funny, you?" asked Martha curiously.

He grinned at her and pointed. "It's Microsoft Office!" he said, chortling.

She rolled her eyes with a smile, but the Doctor grinned back at Sean.

"I do love people who appreciate puns," he said, laughing. "A man after my own hearts!"

Martha shook her head, not able now to contain her chuckles. The two men were quite the pair, Time Lord and human.

"Shall we?" she asked, offering them both her arms. They each looped their arms through hers and skipped towards the main entrance as though they were off to see the wizard. The wizard, in this case, happened to be Mr. Bill Gates.

"Do you think he's actually here?" asked Sean quietly as they entered the doorway and walked through the metal detector. The Doctor sonicked the detector itself, knowing that it would not allow the sonic screwdriver itself through. Still, they took off their belts and shoes, and put phones in the tub to go through the X ray machine. They had to keep up appearances, after all.

"That's highly unlikely, Sean," said the Doctor. "He is, after all, a multibillionaire. Even though this company belongs to him, he has countless people that work for him."

Martha covered a snort. "Then who is that?" she asked, pointing.

The thin man with glasses and a goofy grin that had just stepped out of a hallway toward the elevator could be none other than Bill Gates himself.

The Doctor shrugged. "So I was wrong," he said. "Shoot me. But don't really, because that's River's job, and she won't be really shooting me, she'll be shooting me in a me robot suit. The Tessalecta," he said to Martha and Sean's confused look. "No need to worry about it, it's already happened, and here I am, fit as a fiddle!" He grinned. "Shall we?" he said, gesturing to the elevator.

"We have to sign in first, Doctor," whispered Sean.

"Ah yes!" said the Doctor. "Nearly forgot!"

He strutted to the security desk and pulled out his psychic paper. "John Smith, Health and Safety," he said. "This is Martha and Sean, they're with me."

The old man sitting at the desk leaned forward and peered at the psychic paper over his glasses. He looked up at the Doctor and his companions in turn. Shrugging, he nodded them past.

"Is it always that easy?" asked Sean quietly as they walked toward the elevator.

The Doctor shook his head. "Not always," he said. "Some people are trained to look past the illusion and recognize psychic paper for what it is. The Church of the Silence, for one, trains people to do that, because they know I use it."

"Usually though, it's fine with regular Earth humans," said Martha. "At least in this time, because they have no idea who or what he really is."

Sean looked back at the metal detector they had walked through after he had pressed the up button for the elevator. "You have two hearts, right Doctor?"

"That's right," he said.

Sean hesitated. "If you were to walk through an X ray machine, would it pick up the second heart?"

The Doctor smiled. "Of course it would," he said. "Unless of course I had a setting on a certain tool of mine to make me read as human to any sort of machine like that." He pulled out the screwdriver and flipped it in the air to catch it again.

Sean shook his head. "Every time I'm with you, Doctor," he said. "Every time I think I won't be surprised or amazed, but then you go and surprise me anyway."

Martha rolled her eyes. "Yeah, he does that," she said. "Just don't go telling him all the time. It gives him a big head."

The elevator doors opened and they stepped in. "Um, where do we go from here?" asked Sean.

"There's a key here," said Martha, pointing above the floor buttons. "Looks like software patches would happen on this floor," she said, pressing the button for the fifth floor.

It was a moment after the doors had closed and they started moving up that the Doctor jumped.

"What is it, Doctor?" asked Martha, suddenly tense.

"I know this music!" he said excitedly.

Sean snorted. "What, you mean every bit of elevator music ever?" he said skeptically.

The Doctor tapped his nose with a smile. "That's right!" he said. "I wrote this music!"

Martha looked at him, surprised. "You did?" she asked.

"Yes!" he said. "The Music of the Spheres, I call it. Isn't it lovely?"

Sean listened carefully. It just sounded like a bit of noise to him. "Um, if you say so, Doctor."

They arrived at the fifth floor and stepped out. "Which way?" asked Martha.

"It doesn't matter," said the Doctor. "We just need to find a computer and I'll update the software through it. The next time they have a patch, every computer with either Windows Vista or beyond will be updated without the extra sin code."

Sean grinned. "Do your magic, Doc," he said, pointing at an empty desk.

It was the matter of a few seconds before the Doctor had the computer up with the software running. He inserted the flash drive the TA

RDIS had spat out for him and the file started uploading.

"Now what?" Martha asked as they watched the progress bar grow. It was very slow, but then, Sean thought, it was a lot of data that was being processed.

"Now we wait," said the Doctor. "We could go up to meet Mr. Gates."

Martha raised an eyebrow. "How will we do that?" she asked. "Do health and safety inspectors commonly mingle with the owners of a company like this?"

"They do when they're me!" said the Doctor giddily. He propped his legs up on the desk and laced his fingers behind his head.

Martha and Sean exchanged a look. They didn't know what the Doctor had in mind.

He looked at them. "Well, we can't all go," he said. "Someone has to keep an eye on this. Why don't you two go up to his office and have a chat with him?"

Sean gaped. "You're joking, right?" he asked.

"I never joke," said the Doctor snappishly. "Well, yes I do, but that's not the point."

"What if whoever this desk belongs to comes back?" asked Martha.

"I'll tell them I'm performing status checks on all of the computers, and his is the last one," said the Doctor simply.

"Will he believe that?" asked Sean.

The Doctor pointed at the status bar. "I've got the status bar right here. Nothing can be done on this computer until it's complete." He sat back again and smiled. "Whether he believes me or not, he can't do any work with it until I'm finished. So he'll just have to believe me."

Sean nodded in understanding, but Martha had another concern. "And what exactly will we saying to Bill Gates?" she asked. "What do you say to the richest man on Earth?"

"You're clever, Martha Jones," said the Doctor. "Why do you think I chose you all those years ago? You'll think of something. You know what?" he said, struck by a thought. "Take this." He handed her the psychic paper.

Martha pursed her lips and took it. "Fine," she said. "But keep out of trouble, Mister," she added, wagging a finger at him.

"Never gonna happen," he replied with a child's smile on his face.

Sean took Martha's hand as they walked back to the elevator. She smiled at him stiffly and squeezed his hand.

"Don't worry," he said to her quietly as they boarded the lift. "How long has he lived? He can take care of himself."

"But I do worry," she said. "He's always the one to do something foolish like sacrificing himself to save the Earth. Or even sacrificing himself just to save one daft old man that got himself locked in a compartment about to be flooded with radiation."

"He did that?" asked Sean in awe.

Martha nodded. "He told me," she said softly. "That's how he ended up with the face he's got now. I knew him with his previous one. I fell in love with that face," she said after a moment's pause.

Sean raised his eyebrows. She waved him off. "I got out," she said casually. "He had just lost someone he loved very dearly. She got trapped in another universe. He couldn't see me through his grief. Oh he saw me, of course, he noticed me," she said at his expression. "But he couldn't see that I loved him, and he couldn't bring himself to love me. Eventually I realized I had to leave and let him heal without me pining over him."

"Wow," Sean breathed. He realized they had been standing in the elevator for several minutes at this point without it moving. He pressed the button for the top floor, which he assumed would be the executive offices and board rooms.

They rode up the lift in silence, just taking comfort in the touch of each other's hands. When it opened at the top, Bill Gates was standing right in front of them, clearly about to get on.

"Um," said Sean.

"Er," said Martha.

"Hello," said Bill Gates, smiling. "How can I help you?"

Martha swallowed. "Yes, Mr. Gates, we're with Health and Safety," she said. She showed Bill Gates the psychic paper that the Doctor had given her. He looked at it, then back at the two of them.

"This paper is blank," he said.

Martha and Sean looked at each other, then quickly back at Bill Gates. "I, I'm sorry?" said Martha, stuttering a little in her surprise.

Gates pointed at the psychic paper. "The bit of paper you're showing me is blank," he said. "There's nothing on it."

Martha turned it over to look at it. She, of course, knew it was blank, but Bill Gates should see what she wanted him to see. She turned it back toward him and pointed at where words would be. "No, sir, right there," she said. "Martha Jones, Health and Safety."

"Yes, I know who you are," said Gates. He sounded bored. "And there's no point in trying to hide behind a bit of psychic paper. Oh yes," he said, as their eyes widened. "I have a bit of psychic training. A person in my position needs to be able to protect him or her self against all kinds of attacks and intrusions."

"You know who I am, though?" asked Martha, her voice a bit shaky.

"Oh, yes indeed, Miss Jones," he said, smiling a little as though to calm her. "You're a member of the Unified Intelligence Task Force, or UNIT for short, and you're a known companion of the Time Lord that calls himself the Doctor."

Sean swallowed. This was bad, wasn't it?

Bill Gates had turned to look at him. "I don't believe I know who you are, though," he said, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Just come along for the ride?"

Despite his growing fear, Sean felt a little bit of anger at this. He wasn't just a hitchhiker on the TARDIS. He was a part of events, and the Doctor relied on his help as much as anyone.

"I see I've offended you. I apologize," said Gates, not really sounding sorry at all. "All of the Doctor's companions start out just as you probably did, as just along for a quick ride. But then they become important. They specifically become important to him." Gates smiled now, and it wasn't a pleasant smile. "You really shouldn't have left him alone down on the fifth floor. He's gotten into a bit of trouble. But you two are in far worse trouble. He's going to have to come try to save you, but oops! He needs saving himself."

"Who are you?" asked Martha suddenly. Sean looked at her in amazement.

Gates, on the other hand, was nodding. "The Doctor has chosen well with you, Miss Jones, very well indeed. Very clever," he said, and his face started to melt.

When it was still again, Sean's eyes widened. "You!" he cried.

The Master smiled. "Yes, of course it's me," he said. "You may be wondering a few things now. First, where is Mr. Gates? That answer is simple enough, of course. He is indisposed. How am I able to take his form? I'm a Time Lord. We change faces when we're killed. As I cannot be killed, I have no limit as to when I change faces. I can turn into whoever I want."

"What about the Doctor?" Martha asked fiercely.

The Master frowned. "Unfortunately, his little program worked. I couldn't stop it, and I can't undo it." He sighed. "As for the Doctor himself, I'm afraid that there is no hope for him. He is doomed. As are you."

Martha and Sean looked at each other. What would they do now?