Notes: I am so sorry about the wait for this. School has kept me insanely busy. But, I'm counting down the days until I'm finished in the beginning of August now. I hope you like this, although the ending is very different from the show.

"What is it, granddad?" Clara questioned as she handed over her laptop.

"Walking base station. Walking wifi base station. Hoovering up data. Hoovering up people," he explained as he used the computer to hack into the thing in front of them. He could see that their system was slowly absorbing Rose's consciousness. "Oh no, you don't. Oh no, you don't," chanted as he typed furiously to reverse the process. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Not this time, my love, I promise."

"Do you need me to try it? I'm really good with computers," Clara suggested.

"No time. Almost… Got it!" he cried triumphantly as a burst of energy flowed back from the little robot into Rose and the thing collapsed.

Rose remained unconscious, on the floor. Clara dove to her side and checked her vitals as the Doctor sent a message back to the people running whatever system was stealing these people. The message was simple, "UNDER MY PROTECTION - The Doctor"

"Why isn't she waking up?" Clara asked him worriedly.

"Her brain's a bit scrambled from what they did to her. Best get her inside the TARDIS. The Old Girl will be able to help her best," he explained, picking up his wife and heading toward the front door.

Clara followed closely, pulling the door shut behind her. She took the TARDIS key from her pocket. He had given it to her just before she 'died' back with the snowmen, and she'd hidden it in her pocket at the time. She never wanted to let it go again. The Doctor winked at her as she happily unlocked the time ship for him and opened the doors widely.

He carried Rose to their bedroom and laid her down on top of the covers. It wouldn't take long for her to recover, but she would be the most comfortable waking there. Clara had followed and he led her to sit in the two chairs by the fireplace, so they could talk while waiting for Rose.

"I won't ask anything about your past. It would be better for all of us if we just lived it at this point. So, what I would like to know is, what would you like for your future?" the Doctor questioned her.

"I've always wanted to travel with you and gran. To have real adventures and save people, just like in all the stories I've heard. I feel like I've waited forever for this," Clara told him excitedly.

"It seems like you've been left out of a lot. You definitely need some excitement. We could start a list! A list of all the places you should visit," he decided.

"Oh, come off it! I know you never end up where you plan to go," she teased.

"I resent that statement, young lady!" he protested.

"1869," Rose called to him from the bed, sleepily.

"You're awake! I was so worried," he cried and ran to his wife's side.

"Hello," Rose said with a smile.

The Doctor grinned at her goofily. "Hello. Feeling better?"

"I'm in bed," Rose realized.

"Yes you are."

"Why exactly am I in bed?" she wondered.

"What's the last thing you remember happening?" he asked.

"I was making tea, but this girl walked into the kitchen. It gets kind of strange after that. Sort of like with the Wire. I was in a kind of fuzzy place and I couldn't find you," she explained.

"It was very much like that. Only this time, you weren't in a television, more like a space on the web," he told her, kissing the back of her hand lovingly.

"Glad you're alright, gran," Clara interrupted.

"Oh, Clara, come here, sweetheart!" Rose called. Her granddaughter ran to join them and sat on the edge of the bed, where Rose could give her a hug.

"Are you going to explain what happened, granddad?" Clara asked curiously.

"There's something in the wifi," he began.

"Okay. Like a virus or something?" she wondered.

"Not exactly. This whole world is swimming in wifi. We're living in a wifi soup. Suppose something got inside it. Suppose there was something living in the wifi, harvesting human minds. Extracting them. Imagine that. Human souls trapped like flies in the world-wide web. Stuck forever, crying out for help," he continued rambling.

"Isn't that basically Twitter?" Clara joked.

"Ugh, how long have you been hanging around with humans?" he scoffed at the mention of social media.

"Oi!" Rose protested.

"You've been travelling the universe for centuries, my love. I don't think you count as entirely human anymore. At least not a typical twenty first century human," he insisted, easing the statement with a peck on the cheek.

"Do you think there are more of those walking base station things? Running around, masquerading as regular people?" Clara wondered.

"Possibly. We may need to do some reconnaissance to find out and track them down," he answered. "Do you feel up to the task, Rose?"

"Yup! No after effects now. Time to solve a mystery," she told him brightly, hopping up from the bed.

Back inside the house, the thing that had attacked Rose, was gone. Clara left a note for the family, stating that she would be out for the evening at least, and would call them soon. She again assured them that Jackie, Donna, or Jack would be happy to help if needed.

The Doctor kept Clara's laptop with them as they made their way to a nearby park. It seemed that the mysterious wifi network was available everywhere, even in the middle of the park, where they were likely very far from most wireless sources.

"Is it the people, then?" Rose asked him. "One of these people isn't really a person at all?"

He scanned the area with his sonic quickly and peered at the results for a moment before going back to typing on the laptop. "They all scan as human, but there's definitely something like that going on."

"Can you track it back to the source?" Clara questioned, looking over his shoulder.

"I'm trying, but it keeps getting rerouted in circles. Maybe we should phone Mickey, he was always good at this stuff," the Doctor admitted.

Clara scoffed at that. "Dad is better than Uncle Mickey, you just don't want to admit it. Besides, I'm even better than dad."

"Doctor, where has everyone gone?" Rose interrupted their little debate.

He looked up from the laptop and glanced around the park. All of the people that had been happily enjoying the beautiful evening outdoors, had vanished. "That is most likely not good."

"Wait a minute! There's someone," Clara told them, pointing to a man in a bright construction jacket.

He stood at the edge of the park, staring at them for a moment, before pulling a flare from his pocket. After lighting it, he simply stood and waited, holding it above his head.

"Why's he doing that? That is rather odd behaviour," the Doctor commented considering. He knew this was part of whatever was going on, but what good would a flare like that do?

"Is he being controlled then? Do they have control over all of those people to send them out of the park?" Rose guessed.

"A computer can hack another computer. A living, sentient computer, maybe that could hack people. Change their minds in some way," he theorized.

"So, he's one of those base station things like back at the house?" Clara asked.

"I saw a little girl. They can look like anyone then?" Rose told them.

"Active camouflage. They could be everywhere," he realized.

"And he is holding a flare right here, where we are. Are they looking for us or something?" Rose wondered and they were suddenly aware of a growing rumbling sound nearby.

"Some planes have wifi," the Doctor realized and pointed to the sky. A huge airplane was heading straight for them and the man with the flare. "TARDIS. Now!" he suddenly shouted, dragging the two of them along with him.

"Are they trying to crash a plane on top of us?!" Rose questioned incredulously.

"It would seem that way," the Doctor replied. Looking back over his shoulder, the man with the flare was chasing them, and keeping up admirably.

"What's the plan once we reach the TARDIS?" Clara wondered.

"Working on it. First priority is to get us out of danger, then get the people on that plane out of danger, then generally save the planet," he answered, snapping his fingers to open the doors quickly.

The Doctor and Rose immediately ran to the console to pilot the ship onto the airplane so they could redirect it. Clara watched them nervously, still questioning what they planned to do.

"Shut up, please. Short hops are difficult," the Doctor snapped.

"Oi! You can still be nice," Rose chastised.

"Sorry," Clara mumbled meekly.

"Right, come on," he told them and took his granddaughter's hand in apology.

"We're going to go back out there?" she asked worriedly.

"Next part of the plan, remember?" Rose told her with a smirk.

"We've moved away from the plane?" Clara guessed.

"Not exactly," he answered, opening the door and running down the aisle between the seats.

"This is the plane? The actual plane? Are they all dead?" Clara questioned as she looked at all of the people on board, slumped in their seats.

"Asleep. Switched off by the wifi. Never mind them," the Doctor informed her. He used his sonic to open the cockpit door and looked over the controls. "Rose, have you learned to fly a plane in our travels?"

"We took those biplane lessons about a hundred years ago, but I doubt these controls match up," she admitted looking over his shoulder. "They're not far off from that thing on the Christmas Tree planet though."

He got out of her way and allowed Rose to flick a few switches before pulling back on the stick to get the plane out of danger. While she was doing that, he sonicked the on board wifi to release the control over the pilots and passengers.

"Whoo! Would a victory roll be too showy offy?" he asked Rose, kissing her on the cheek.

"I'm not rolling this thing," Rose protested as the pilots started to wake up.

"What the hell's going on?" one of them asked.

"Well, I'm blocking your wifi so you're waking up, for a start. Tell you what, do you want to drive?" the Doctor told him, taking Rose's hand to run back into the TARDIS.

"Next destination?" Rose asked her husband when they got back to the controls of their own ship.

"Breakfast!" he announced and began to input the coordinates that would land them not too far from their favourite London café.

"Isn't it a little early for breakfast?" Clara questioned, since it was only early evening in her timestream.

"It's always a good time for breakfast," Rose responded with a smile.

"And, they can waste all their energy looking for us while we take the short way 'round," the Doctor added.

Landing in such a public area might be expected to attract some attention, but as usual, no one noticed the large, blue box appearing out of nowhere. The perception filter kept anyone from noticing anything unusual. Clara and Rose stood just outside in the bright sunshine, as they waited for the Doctor. A moment later, they heard the rumbling of an engine, followed by a large motorcycle with a sidecar rolling through the double doors.

"Ooh, that looks familiar," Rose purred, taking her helmet from her husband as he handed it to her and nodded for Clara to hop into the sidecar. She climbed on behind the Doctor and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"Why aren't we taking the TARDIS?" Clara questioned as she fastened her own helmet.

"I don't take Her into battle," he replied as he started off toward the café.

"Right. Don't want the most powerful ship in the universe falling into the wrong hands," she agreed.

It was only a few minutes to reach their destination, and the trio chose a little table on a rooftop terrace, with a nice view of London. The table was filled with coffee and pastries for them to snack on, as the Doctor continued working on the computer.

"Definitely London going by the signal distribution. I can hack the lowest level of their operating system but I can't establish a physical location. The security's too good," the Doctor admitted.

"So, what happens when you do find them?" Clara questioned.

"I don't know. I can't tell the future, I just work there," he answered dismissively.

"You don't have a plan?" Clara gasped, wide eyed. She always thought that her grandparents were the most amazing people in the universe, the way they saved entire civilizations all the time.

"Oh, you know what I always say about plans."

"What?" Clara asked.

"He never has one," Rose interjected with a laugh.

"People always have plans," Clara protested.

"Yes. Yes, I suppose they do," he agreed.

"But not us," Rose added.

"So tell me, how long have you been looking after those kids?" the Doctor wondered.

"Just a couple of months, since their mum died," she told him, stirring her coffee absentmindedly.

"Okay. Why you? They couldn't have Jackie or someone do it instead? Why did it have to be you?" the Doctor wondered. The poor girl had been stuck with such a boring childhood. They needed to make it up to her somehow.

"Gimme," she said, reaching for her laptop. She clearly didn't have the answers for the questions he was asking. That would be best asked of her parents and the others at Torchwood.

"Sorry. What?" he asked confusedly.

"She told you that she's even better with computers than Jamie. Give her a shot at it if you're stuck," Rose insisted.

"You need to know where they physically are. Their exact location," Clara reasoned.

"Yes."

"I can do it. You've hacked the lower operating system, yeah? I'll have their physical location in under five minutes. I have insane hacking skills," she told them and began typing at lightning speed.

"The security is absolute," the Doctor insisted, but watched her with growing curiosity.

"It's never about the security, it's about the people," she replied, prompting a smirk from Rose. Yup, this was their granddaughter. Completely brilliant.

Rose got up from the table to get another croissant from the counter. "That one, please," she told the man.

"One moment," he replied then blinked before saying, "He's very easily distracted, isn't he?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Rose wondered. That seemed like an odd thing to say.

"One moment, ma'am," he repeated and continued making someone's coffee before twitching again. "I said, he's very easily distracted over there. And don't annoy the old man. He isn't, in fact, speaking."

"I'm speaking. Just using whatever's to hand," a passing waitress interjected.

Rose followed the young woman, trying to see if there was anything about her to give away what was happening. As she stared at her however, the young lady blinked and asked, "Is everything alright, ma'am?"

"Yes, sorry," Rose stuttered and glanced back to the terrace where the Doctor and Clara were animatedly talking over the laptop.

"Now I want you to take a look around. Go on, have a little stroll. Go on, take a look. I do love showing off," the waitress instructed, clearly being controlled once again. "Just let me show you what control of the wifi can do for you. Stop!"

At her command, everyone in the room froze in place. Rose tried to get the Doctor's attention telepathically, but he was far too distracted by whatever plan Clara had come up with, and she decided that it would be best for them to keep working on it while she distracted this thing and tried to get some answers.

"We saw perfectly well what you could do with that airplane. Why are you doing this?" Rose responded.

"And clear," the woman announced and everyone immediately rose to leave the room. "We can hack anyone in the wifi once they've been exposed long enough," the controller told her, speaking through the person on the nearby television screen.

"I don't know who you are or why you're doing this, but the people of this world will not be harmed. They will not be controlled. They will not be..." Rose insisted.

"The people of this world are in no danger whatsoever. My client requires a steady diet of living human minds. Healthy, free-range, human minds. He loves and cares for humanity. In fact, he can't get enough of it," the woman on the television informed her.

"Who is your client? Who is in charge of all this?" she demanded.

"I'm not at liberty to say," she replied casually.

"It's obscene. It's murder. You're taking their souls and wadding them up in some sort of limbo," Rose shouted angrily.

"It's life. The farmer tends his flock like a loving parent. The abattoir is not a contradiction. No one loves cattle more than Burger King," she taunted.

"The human race are not cattle!" Rose screamed, her eyes flashing gold with fury. "This ends. We are going to end this today."

"You think so? From inside?" the waitress from earlier said, standing right next to Rose as her head suddenly turned to reveal the same sort of dish shape as the last time.

Rose fell to the ground as her mind was pulled into the network once again. This time, however, the wolf had awoken.

#########

"I did it. I really did. I did it. I did it. I found them," Clara cheered.

"That was incredible. Taking control of their webcams to get pictures of the employees, then cross referencing the photos with all of the social media networks to find out where they all go to work everyday. Absolute genius!" the Doctor praised.

"The Shard. They're in the Shard. Floor sixty five," Clara said proudly.

"Rose! We've got them!" he called, then realized that something was terribly wrong. "Rose?"

Running inside, the Doctor and Clara found her unconscious once more. He immediately pressed his fingers to her temples and Rose's eyes opened to reveal the terrifying glow of the Bad Wolf.

"I think they may have gotten a bit more than they bargained for. To the Shard!" he announced and pulled his granddaughter with him back toward the motorcycle.

They sped their way toward their goal in concentrated silence. Clara knew all too well the stories about how furious the Doctor would become if anyone threatened his wife. She knew that, with her gran not present, it would be up to her to keep him from passing his usual limits. He was capable of a lot, but would hate himself afterward if he had gone too far.

"Really, Doctor. A motorbike? Hardly seems like you," a man called to them when they were stopped at a red light.

"Rose and I rode this in the antigrav Olympics, 2074. We came last, but it was a hell of a ride," he responded and continued driving down the street.

A few blocks later, a construction worker turned to inform them, "The building is in lock-down. I'm afraid you're not coming in."

"Did you even hear the word, antigrav?" he countered.

Clara smirked when she realized what was about to happen and gripped the handles inside the sidecar tightly before he pressed the large red button on the bike. In a moment, they were speeding up the side of the large glass building, counting the floors as they went. He sonicked the glass to shatter just as they reached the appropriate level in the motorcycle followed the path inside.

Leaving the bike by the window, he moved to sit at the large desk and crossed his feet on the surface. Clara looked over the screens around the room and saw that the end of this was already underway.

"Do come in," a woman greeted them from the doorway.

"Download her."

"Sorry about the draught," she said with a gesture toward the large hole that was now in her office.

"Download her back into her body right now," the Doctor demanded.

"Granddad," Clara whispered, trying to draw his attention.

"I can't," the woman insisted.

"Yes, you can."

"She's a fully integrated part of the data cloud, now. She can't be separated," she told him.

"Then download the entire cloud. Everyone you've trapped in there," he ordered angrily.

"You realise what would happen?" she asked.

"Yes, those with bodies to go home to would be free," he answered plainly.

"A tiny number. Most would simply die," the woman argued.

"They'd be released from a living hell. It's the best you can do for them, so give the order," he insisted.

"And why would I do that?" she questioned stubbornly.

"Because that was your last chance to give up voluntarily," he told her.

"You ridiculous man. Why did you even come here? Whatever for?" she demanded.

Clara realized then that he knew exactly what was happening to the network. She didn't have to point it out. And she wouldn't have to hold him back either, he was already offering her a chance to back away.

"I told you. Last chance. UNIT is on the way to arrest everyone here and I could put in a good word for you," he informed her, but she simply glared at him. With a shrug, he typed into the computer in front of him, 'Now.'

"You see, my wife, remarkable woman that she is, was a very poor choice on your part. You really ought to be more careful with what you save in your hard drive," he told her.

In a flash of gold, all of the scrolling codes on the surrounding screens began to disappear as if eaten away. The woman stared in shock and suddenly collapsed on the floor herself. The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief as he felt Rose waking up back in the café. He told her that they would be by in a moment to pick her up and nodded toward the motorcycle. "Time to go, before UNIT expects me to answer questions," he told Clara with a shiver.

She laughed and shook her head as she climbed back into the sidecar.

#########

Back inside the TARDIS, Rose relayed to their friends and family at Torchwood what had happened. UNIT had been insisting about wanting answers and knew that the Doctor had been involved. Apparently, all of the people that had been working there couldn't remember anything of their lives for the past several months. In fact, the older woman that had seemed to be in charge, thought she was a six year old child. Whatever this power was, it seemed very familiar and dangerous. But how does one capture a disembodied consciousness?

"Is it the Intelligence again? The thing with the snowmen?" Rose questioned.

"Perhaps. But what more can we do than keep watch for now?" the Doctor replied.

"How about a vacation? I believe I was promised a trip," Clara interrupted.

"Quite right! Now, our timeline with your parents has you as a little girl. Perhaps, if they're to come along, you ought to call the Jamie and River in your timeline," he told her cheerily.