A/N: Alia doesn't have to like her assignment to try to complete it, so implied death of children in this chapter.

"I have to say," the Doctor began when Zoey entered the room, "that I'd favour a Waiting Room over this, even if I'm not exactly fond of waiting."

"This is a waiting room," Zoey replied sharply as she stopped a few feet away from the table where he sat.

"No," the Doctor countered as he straightened up, "it's an observation room. Slight difference."

"Either way, you're still left to wait." Zoey looked him up and down, her eyes lingering especially long at his wrists. No doubt, they were still a bit red and showed signs of his hurried escape. The straps on the table had been a tad on the loose side, admittedly, though that would no doubt be better for the guards than if they'd left him here without restraining him at all. Still. It would be seen as incompetence be frowned upon regardless. "You might as well tell us. How did you escape the Holding Chamber?"

"Oh, you don't want to know about that. I can tell you any number of other things that are much more interesting."

"I can wait here all day," Zoey informed him in a matter-of-fact voice, "but I don't expect you'd like that."

"Well, neither would you. You can't miss Alia's first leap, can you? What if she gets cold feet?"

"Then she'll be stuck there."

"Oh, well, you know that's not true. You can pull her back any time you like. And you don't gain anything from keeping her there, not if she's lost her opportunity. You're better off moving on."

"Is that your opinion?"

"Opinion and fact. Good combination, don't you think? Much better than opinion and falsehood. Of course, there's a time and a place."

"You don't really think that I'm simply here for some verbal parley, do you?"

"That's another thing," the Doctor mused. "Y'see, I know you've got cameras in these rooms, and two-way mirrors, and everything else you thought would be handy, but you still came directly here instead of observing me, as I would have thought would've been your purpose. Why is that? Because you don't think you'd gain anything from just looking? Have you had enough of that? Or is it because you don't know who to trust anymore, and you know you can't trust me, but perhaps that knowledge is grounds enough to trust me with other distrust and—"

"What I think," Zoey cut in crisply, "is none of your concern. And I'm certainly not here to listen to you prattle on about trust and deceit. I sim—"

"Ah, there, see? I didn't even mention deceit. You did. Ergo, that's why you're here, right?"

"If I'm to pretend I'm interested in deceit," Zoey shot back, "we had better be discussing yours."

"Moi?" The Doctor presented her with his very best shocked face—well, the very best one he could fake, at least. He had no doubt he could look far more shocked when he really was shocked, an occurrence that wasn't as rare as he would have thought, given his past experiences. "What makes you think I'm being deceitful?" Seeing that Zoey wasn't about to bite, however, he relented. "Oh, all right then. But I expect you know how I escaped anyhow. Joan helped me."

"She may have helped you out of the rack," Zoey retorted, "but she certainly wouldn't have had the resources to escape the Holding Chamber."

"And you think that I can without Lothos knowing?" The Doctor shifted his features to one of surprise. It was very similar to his shocked face; he doubted Zoey would appreciate the minute differences.

"I believe that you have had sufficient time to learn the mechanics of our facility, and I believe that you would use that knowledge in a futile attempt to get the better of us."

"Really? Lothos included?"

"You've spent time working on him," responded Zoey with a glare. "There are any number of things you could have done to cover your tracks."

"True," the Doctor agreed amiably. "And did I, do you think?"

"What I think," Zoey snapped, "is that if you truly are against us, you'll change your tune when Alia's successful."

"If she's successful, I might, yeah."

"Oh, she'll be successful." Zoey smiled. "I wouldn't worry about that."

"No? Well, at least someone's confident. Thames doesn't seem to be, does he? But then, he doesn't have the same confidence in Lothos that you do."

Zoey smirked. "If you're trying to get me to doubt the competency of my own people, I suggest you go about it a different way."

"Oh, but I'm not, am I? Because they're not your people. This isn't your experiment. It's someone else's pet project, isn't it, and you've just taken the lead, haven't you? You're just someone's puppet."

"I am not—"

"Oh, but I think you are, Zoey." The Doctor levelled her with a steady gaze. "You aren't calling the shots, not really. Someone else is holding all the strings. And if they say jump, you have to jump. Just like Alia has to for you. And you don't like being controlled, do you? But you put up with it. Because you have to. That's the only way you'll get anything out of this at all. Isn't that right?"

"Don't think we're finished here." Her voice was sharp but low, laden with unspoken threats. He'd heard the same tone from her entirely too often these last few days for it to particularly bother him.

"Wouldn't dream of it," the Doctor called cheerily as she left. Really, it wasn't so hard to drive people away, not if you knew which buttons to push. It should give him time to think. He ought to have sown the seeds of doubt carefully enough to keep Zoey from sending Thames in directly—or anyone else, for that matter.

Still, she'd have a bone to pick with him by the time they were through, that was certain enough. Perhaps, if he was very lucky, she'd let slip what happened with Alia's first leap, and he'd know what he'd have to do, once he got out of here.

Shouldn't be too hard, if he put his mind to it.

Alia had been sifting through her memories all morning. She recalled a bit of the assignment—the experiment—once she put her mind to it. Time travel. She wasn't in her own time. And Zoey, her partner, was a hologram. Whenever her own time was, they had sufficient technology to allow for that.

The purpose of her time travel was, according to Zoey, to complete certain assignments, like the one she was on now. These assignments, as far as Alia could tell, consisted of destruction. She was sent to destroy something. All her training, or what she recalled of it, was to prepare her for that.

She recalled enough to know that she would not, as Zoey had assured her, like the consequences of failing to complete her assignment.

Consequently, she hadn't forbidden Patsy from playing outside, and the girl had set off to happily explore the yard yet again. Alia couldn't remember much of her own childhood, but she was certain she'd lost her carefree innocence long before she should have. She, however, had survived her childhood. Patricia and Thomas Edwards would not.

Alia had finally set out to break the makeshift fence by the old well, deciding that if she let the cattle out, the destruction may go unnoticed—or at least that the cattle would serve as a significant enough distraction to allow for poor Patsy to be left alone for the sufficient amount of time. And an opened gate, or the carelessness of it, could be blamed on one of the farm hands. Better them than her. They wouldn't be tortured for the act, whereas she, if she did not commit it, very well could be—providing, of course, that her memory, faulty as it seemed to be at the moment, served her well in that particular aspect.

It was while she was deliberating this that she noticed the man.

He seemed out of place in the farmyard, though admittedly not as much as Zoey had, in her bright colours. This man wore a rumpled brown suit, but from what she could see of his unruly hair, he was not likely to be a businessman of any sort. Perhaps he was a family friend. She'd have greet him kindly enough and follow his lead, seeing whether he called her Joan or Mrs. Edwards or if he simply began speaking to her as an old friend might.

"Hello," she called, walking up to him.

He turned, and for a moment all he did was look at her. She shifted uneasily. Finally, he said, "Hello, Alia."

He was from the Project, then.

Thames, perhaps, to check up on her? Zoey had mentioned a Thames. She couldn't recall what he looked like at the moment, but she knew he worked with Lothos, and she thought perhaps she could place this man bending over Lothos's many controls.

"Where's Patsy at the moment?" he asked.

"In the yard."

"And is—"

"She hasn't been gone long enough, as I'm sure you would know," Alia cut in.

The man shook his head. "I mean to ask after Tommy."

"He's still safe at the moment. If Zoey's asking, I've my plans to change that."

The man didn't say anything for a moment. "She's not," he eventually replied, "but she might, next time she sees you. Still. I've a poor memory, me. Remind me, these children, their deaths are to prevent them from going on and doing great and wonderful things, correct?"

"Perhaps, but for all I know, the intention is to break the parents." She needed to distance herself from the situation. Zoey was right. She was not the children's mother; she was their murderer. A murderess of innocence.

"Oh, right, should've thought of that." The man frowned. "Still. Disappearances would count as the same, right?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," Alia replied, wondering why he had been sent to question her. "May I ask why you are here?"

"Oh, just looking. Seeing how things worked out for you."

"I imagine that the information would be sufficient on your end," Alia answered sharply.

"Well, you would," the man commented, looking around. She waited for him to elaborate, but he did not. Instead, he added, "I would, ah, appreciate it if you didn't mention seeing me here. To me or anyone else."

Don't ask questions, she'd been told. She'd tried, and she hadn't gotten any straight answers out of him. She gave up. It was a test, most likely. She would need to pass it, or she'd be punished. "All right," she agreed softly.

He grinned. "Brilliant. Thank you."

He turned and wandered off, vaguely heading in the direction of the hill, and after a moment, she turned her attention to the task at hand. It was curious, yes, but curiosity killed the cat, and she needed to survive, no matter what it took. And she would.

The time passed all too quickly for Alia. She'd sabotaged the fence about the well, she'd opened the gate for the cattle, she'd left Patsy all on her own, and now she was leading Tommy out of the house while her husband—that is, Joan's husband—tried to round up the cows before too much damage occurred. She didn't mention that Patricia was out, and she'd played the role of concerned mother for Tommy well enough that this wasn't questioned.

"I must say, you seem to be doing well so far."

Alia nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard Zoey. "Don't do that," she hissed, glancing back at the hologram of her partner.

"Well, what would have me do, darling? Wear a bell around my neck?"

"Wouldn't put it past you," Alia muttered. Checking herself, she asked, "What is Lothos predicting?"

"If things keep going as they are," Zoey replied with a smile, "we shouldn't have any trouble at all in the future."

"What do you mean?" Alia asked, picking Tommy up and balancing him on her hip as she walked.

"Well, your assignments aren't always going to be like this. We do need a bit of variety to keep it exciting."

"Do you have a list?" Alia wondered, not quite able to hide the disgust from her voice.

"I shouldn't think that it concerns you." Zoey moved ahead to the well, ending that thread of the conversation. When Alia caught up to her, she said, "This one's gone dry, probably too shallow, but it's still a good twenty feet down. Lothos says there's only a 12.8 percent chance that the kid would survive the fall, and anyway, no one would hear him crying in this ruckus, would they?"

"You mean you can hear things, too, and not just see them?" Alia asked, surprised.

Zoey laughed. "You don't expect us to skimp on the details, do you? What if you missed something? I'd rather not have you failing to complete your mission simply because you missed something I could have picked up on. That's why I'm your partner. To help you and to teach you."

Alia tested the rotting cover of the well with her foot. "This certainly doesn't look like it'll take much weight," she commented, even though Zoey had said much the same thing last time they were out here together. The reality of what she was about to do was starting to weigh on her.

"That's the point, Alia, dear." Zoey shook her head. "Really. There are worse things than this, I can assure you. Now, get on with it."

Tommy started to squirm in Alia's arms, as if he knew what was coming. She had to set him down. "It took me the full two days to get him to come to me, you know," Alia said, looking up at Zoey from where she held Joan's youngest in place. "He kept crying otherwise. He knew I was a stranger."

"And what did the others say, pray tell?"

"I told them he might be coming down with something," Alia answered simply. She broke through the wood with one hand but couldn't hear the pieces hit the bottom. Zoey was right; it was too noisy. The cattle weren't the least of it all, what with Tommy's wailing.

"And what's your story going to be when they ask you where your precious baby boy is?"

"I realized Patricia hadn't turned up for lunch," Alia answered, "and went to search for her when she didn't come when I called. People are careless when they're concerned. Harry will just think Joan forgot to close the door because she was in such a panicked rush."

"And when they find him, it'll be too late," Zoey finished, smirking. "Brilliant, darling. Quite good enough for your first assignment. But do let's hurry this up, shall we? We haven't got all day."

In for a penny, in for a pound. Alia pushed the toddler to send him reeling over the lip of the well and down into its depths. She didn't stay to strain her ears to hear whether or not the impact had killed him instantly or whether he would instead die slowly. "Why don't you go check on Patricia?" she asked Zoey, wiping her hands on her apron. "I'll catch up with you in a moment. I need to make sure things are set at the house. It has to be believable."

"Lothos estimates Patricia only has four minutes and twenty-three seconds left," Zoey reported, looking pleased.

"I'd sooner you go and check to be sure. If they find her quickly enough, they could still revive her."

Zoey rolled her eyes. "All right, darling, but you don't need to worry so. Lothos tells me you have everything under control."

Alia watched as Zoey hit a few buttons on the handlink and then moved on. She hated this, but she didn't see much of a choice. She doubted there would be a time when she'd be able to pick the better of the two options, the nobler one, the one where she didn't necessarily come out on top. Still. She wasn't given a choice now, and there was no chance to redeem herself, not after this leap.

She wondered how long it would be before they sent her out again.

"You'll be pleased to know," Zoey said upon entering Observation Chamber Three, "that Alia's mission was successful."

"Oh, I'm tickled, believe you me," the Doctor replied, keeping his voice serious. "But what did you really want?"

"Your programming is faulty."

"Is it?" the Doctor asked, losing the serious tone. "Shouldn't be. Double-checked. Triple-checked. Quadruple-checked. Did Alia not leap out, then?"

"Oh, we have her back here safe and sound," Zoey answered. "But according to her, it had taken us an additional forty-eight hours on her side to acquire a lock."

The Doctor shrugged. "Temporal interference."

"Is that your excuse for incompetence?"

"Incompetence?" the Doctor repeated indignantly. "She's alive, isn't she? Alive and well and breathing and distinctly not torn apart?"

"She wasn't completely intact. Some of her memories were missing."

"So she was a little Swiss-cheesed, that's all. They're memories. You throw a primitive, unshielded mind defenceless into the side winds of the Vortex and reduce it and the body down to atoms and reassemble everything again flawlessly, and I'll tip my hat to you—or I would, if I had one." The Doctor sighed. "Look, it's not permanent. Everything'll come back."

"And how would you know that?" Zoey challenged.

"I'm clever."

"Your response to everything, it seems."

"Perhaps you'll just have to accept that no matter how advanced your technology is, it's not advanced enough to allow you to travel through time without repercussions," the Doctor shot back. "I've done what I can with I have to minimize those, but I can't get rid of it altogether. It's an experimental project. Some things are bound to go wrong. You have to accept it, and if you can't fix it, you work with it. And the memory loss, before you ask, is something you have to work with. It's not fixable. It's inherent. And it won't matter how many second opinions you get, because I'm right."

"My, my. Aren't we testy."

The Doctor bit back a retort. No, he wasn't used to being cooped up underground, but admitting that wouldn't help matters in the least. She'd only use it against him. He kept quiet for a moment, and when he spoke, he asked a question instead. "Now do you believe that I mean to help you?"

"I'm still waiting to find out why you've shown any interest in helping us at all."

"I told you. I thought I could get something out of it if I helped." He didn't care to elaborate, and if he put it that way, she was more likely to believe him.

"And have you?"

"I don't know, but I've done what I can here."

"And you want to leave, do you?" Zoey smirked. "I'm afraid that's not going to happen, Dr. Smith."

"Y'see, that's another thing," the Doctor said, jumping on her words. "You know I'm not John Smith, but you persist in calling me that—why?"

"You call me Zoey," she replied, laughing slightly. "We don't place as high a stock in names here as the rest of the world does, as I'm sure you've realized. We don't require your name. We require your knowledge. And I have a feeling we've only gleaned a little bit of it."

The Doctor kept silent, waiting for Zoey to continue. She didn't. "Let me see Alia before you leap her out again," he said finally.

"And why would I do that?"

"Because I'm a doctor," he answered, his tone sharper than before. "You can't expect to access everything with that little chip of yours."

"We have other people tending to her."

"They don't know what to look for."

"Then tell them," Zoey suggested, shrugging. "I'm not stopping you from doing that."

"You let me see her before, in hopes that I might let something slip. Why not now?"

"Because you're too careful. You don't let your guard down. We've watched you."

"You can't leap her again before I've examined her, not safely," the Doctor persisted. "You have to let me out of here."

"Oh, I'll let you out of here, all right," Zoey agreed, smiling. "But you aren't going anywhere near Alia. You're going to be spending the next forty-eight hours in isolation."

"Let me guess, forty-eight hours because that's how long Alia was left out of the loop?"

"You won't be sounding so chipper when you get out of there."

"Why, because it'll be dark the entire time, the temperature sufficiently low to induce a mild state of hypothermia, no food, no water, and, oh, right, how could I forget, the fact that you're planning to chain me to the wall?"

"The records," Zoey informed him coolly, "don't mention all the highlights. I believe you'll find it a touch worse than that."

"Lovely." The Doctor crossed his arms. "And you're going to get me to come with you calmly, you think?"

"Quite." Zoey smiled at him. Raising her voice, she called, "Thames, activate that new chemical compound release in the good Dr. Smith's chip."

"What? What? What compound? What chemical? How'd you—? What?" The Doctor stared at her, shocked. He'd thought it was just a tracking chip. He hadn't bothered to analyze it; why would he? He could control it without analyzing it. But if what she was saying was true….

"As Thames said," Zoey repeated with a wider smile, "you apparently didn't do as much research on us as you'd thought."

"Oh, that's just not fair," the Doctor whispered.

Zoey smirked. "Whoever said we were playing fair?"