Chapter Fifty-Seven: One Impossible Situation

Storybrooke – Present Day

"She seems really nice."

"Seems? Isn't this the same girl you and Mary Margaret met while you were with the Doctor?"

David and Emma had their discussion of Clara in the kitchen with David at the window, seeing Clara herself sitting with the Doctor outside across from Mary Margaret's apartment in front of the TARDIS. Emma stood nearby making some tea for herself, her father, and their two friends outside. Neal was also there, having spent most of his time upstairs with Henry until he fell asleep. After nearly blowing up the well and confronting Regina, she was not too surprised to see how early Henry went to bed. It was an exhausting day, not just for poor Henry but for everyone else; so the tea was desperately needed.

Mary Margaret continued lying in bed, pretending to be asleep even though everyone already caught on. To Emma, she seemed more "catatonic" than before, which had begun to get on her nerves. It was certainly something she planned on addressing David about but decided to do it in the morning. With everything they had been through that day, she needed a break from all the drama.

"It's complicated," she told David on the subject of Clara. "We met this woman in Victorian London who looked like Clara, only she was…Victorian."

"And what about this Clara?" David questioned. "Is she the same woman or someone else completely?"

Emma shrugged. "I don't know. I don't even think the Doc knows. He's been obsessed like hell with finding out." As soon as the tea was ready, Emma poured some into four cups, handing one over to David.

As he took his cup of tea, David looked to Emma in concern. "Do you think it was a good idea for him to bring her here to Storybrooke?"

"Personally…no." Emma honestly answered. "But I trust the Doc enough to know whatever he thinks is best can only be the right idea." David gave an understanding nod to this. "I'll be right back." She left David's side and headed out of the apartment with a tray of cups filled with tea for her, Clara, and the Doctor.

Once outside, Emma crossed an empty street to reach the corner where the TARDIS was parked with Clara and the Doctor conversing in front of it, sitting down upon a couple of chairs that David courteously brought out for them with one extra for Emma. The two had been sitting there and talking for hours. At first, Clara was hostile towards the Doctor for bringing her to an American town filled with storybook characters living everyday lives; but, once he showed her the Spoonhead robot that tried to "upload" her, she began to accept her presence in Storybrooke.

When Emma showed up with their tea, Clara's conversation with the Doctor had reached to the events of that day. "So…the little boy with the dynamite…the one who wanted to destroy magic…his mother is the mayor?"

"Actually, I'm his mother." Emma clarified. "Regina's just his stepmother – the woman who took him up for adoption after I gave him up."

Clara nodded. "I see. And your mother is Snow White."

"Yep." Emma confirmed while lounging backwards in her chair. "And Prince Charming's my dad."

Clara smiled. "That is…incredible! This is all incredible! Aliens, robots, magical creatures…is there anything else I should know about?"

"Only that you'll be safe here." The Doctor assured.

"Safe from what?" Clara queried. "You still haven't explained what happened to me – why I can't remember anything before I blacked out."

Emma frowned at the Doctor. "You still haven't told her about the Wi-Fi?"

Clara eyed her in confusion. "The Wi-Fi? What about the Wi-Fi?"

The Doctor took a large gulp of his tea before breaking into explanation. "There's something in the Wi-Fi. This world is swimming in Wi-Fi. We're living in a Wi-Fi soup. Suppose something got inside it. Suppose there is something living in the Wi-Fi, harvesting human minds…extracting them. Imagine that – human souls trapped like flies in the World Wide Web…stuck forever…crying out for help."

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

Her joke seemed to have brought about a suspicious look from the Doctor – one that Emma took notice of immediately. "Uh-oh. I know that face. It means you've just realized something, haven't you?"

"A computer that can hack another computer – a living, sentient computer. Maybe that can hack into people – edit them, rewrite them!"

"What brought you to that conclusion?" Emma curiously asked.

"Because before Clara was uploaded to the Spoonhead, she knew nothing about the Internet," the Doctor said, "and she just made a joke about Twitter."

"Oh." Clara casually uttered, until the "phenomenon" finally sunk in. "Oh! Oh, that's weird. I know about computers now in my head. Where did all that come from?"

"You were uploaded for a very long time. Wherever you were, you brought something extra back." The Doctor deduced as he began to eye the street corner suspiciously. "Which I very much doubt you'll be allowed to…keep." He finally spotted something that made him jump up from his chair immediately and look off in the distance.

Seeing how jumpy he was and feeling worried, Emma got up from her chair. "Doc? Everything okay?"

Clara remained seated, clearly puzzled. "Is he always like this?"

"Only when there's something really bad." Emma answered.

"The three of us…inside that box…right now!" The Doctor suddenly exclaimed.

His sudden, hasty instruction brought out an amusing sense of surprise in Clara. "I'm sorry?"

The Doctor rushed to the doors of the TARDIS, making Emma and Clara even more perplexed. "Just get inside!"

"All three of us?" Clara questioned.

"Just trust him." Emma told Clara. "Whatever's going down, it'll make more sense once we're inside that box."

"I bet it will." Clara distrustfully remarked. "What is that box anyway? Why has he got a box?"

"Clara!" The Doctor urgently exclaimed.

"Is it like a snogging booth?"

Her question brought out baffling looks from Emma and the Doctor.

"What the hell is a 'snogging booth'?" Emma asked.

"You know…snogging." Clara replied with a wink.

The wink gave Emma an idea of the meaning behind the British term. "Oh." But once she realized what it meant in reference to the TARDIS, she became repulsed. "Oh, God! No!"

Clara grinned and giggled at her. "It is, isn't it? He brings the booth, and you two go snogging the night away, eh?"

"NO!" Emma and the Doctor defensively shouted.

"There is such a thing as too keen."

Emma turned away from Clara and groaned in disgust. As she looked elsewhere, she soon discovered how all of the lights in the neighborhood block had switched on one-by-one questionably. "Uh, Doc? There's no way the Wi-Fi can reach Storybrooke, is there? I mean…this place isn't exactly on the map."

The Doctor and Clara both took notice in the mysterious occurrence as well. "The Wi-Fi can reach anywhere there's technology, Emma." The Doctor contradicted. "Including Storybrooke."

Emma felt a shiver down her spine. "Then…this is the Wi-Fi controlling all the lights?"

"No…it's the Wi-Fi controlling all the people," he elucidated.

Emma looked to him and saw how he stared in the same spot as earlier – the spot where the thing that brought about his anxiety was located. There, directly across the street, stood a familiar resident of Storybrooke. "Archie?" Emma said his name aloud in alarm and bewilderment. "What's he doing out this late? And without Pongo?"

She attempted to cross the street, but the Doctor swiftly stopped her. "Emma…it's not Archie."

At first, his claim sounded ridiculous to Emma; but she was reminded of the mechanical creature they encountered back in London, especially once the man standing across the street that was supposedly Archie Hopper had turned his head in a complete 180 degree and revealed the spoon-like back of its head. "Oh, my god," Emma whispered in shock. "It's one of those things. They're here…in Storybrooke!"

Clara's eyes widened in alarm. "What is that thing?"

"A walking base station. You saw one back in London." The Doctor told her.

"I saw a little girl then." Clara recalled.

"It must've taken an image from the subconscious, throwing it back at you." The Doctor inferred and then smacked his head in punishment of his own blind stupidity. "Active camouflage!"

"I'm sorry, but I can't move past the fact that these things are in Storybrooke right now!" Emma exclaimed in panic. "They could be everywhere!"

Clara looked in the direction opposite of where the three of them had faced, noting something in the sky that looked to be heading towards the town. "Look!" She got Emma and the Doctor to see what she saw.

"Is that…a plane?" Emma asked, hoping for the Doctor or Clara to tell her otherwise – they unfortunately didn't.

It also did not help much for her nerves to hear the Doctor say, "Some planes have Wi-Fi."

"Then we've got to be one helluva target right now." Emma observed.

"All of us…box…NOW!" The Doctor yelled.

From the kitchen window of Mary Margaret's apartment, David had been watching the Doctor, Clara, and Emma converse beside the TARDIS until the moment all three of them rushed into it. Seeing this made David bolt out of the apartment complex himself; unfortunately, just as he reached the TARDIS, the large blue box had vanished from its spot, leaving behind the set of chairs and two cups of tea on the ground. David wondered what was so urgent that the Doctor, Clara, and Emma had to leave in the TARDIS – and, to a greater extent, where did they go in the TARDIS.

He seemed to have gotten the reason for their departure upon the discovery of a commercial plane that appeared to be nose-diving directly for the very section of town he was standing in. There was not enough time to warn everyone on the block about the impending crash and evacuate them in time. All he could do was crouch down, cover his head, and wait for the painful impact. He heard the fierce engines of the plane coming deathly close, yet they passed right over the town. David looked up and realized that the plane pulled up just in time to avoid crashing into him and everything else on that block.

David soon came upon the recognition that the miracle happened because of the collective efforts of the Doctor, Emma, and Clara. They saved Storybrooke from the worst catastrophe ever. "Son of a bitch!" He happily exclaimed while watching the plane soar up to the skies again. It was so close to the town that David could briefly see the name of the airline that owned it – Ajira Airways – printed on the side.

"What the hell was that?" David heard Neal run out of the apartment, rushing up to David in distress. "Was that a plane?"

"Yeah," David confirmed. "It was."

"Was flying pretty damn close!" Neal then discovered the absence of the TARDIS, as well as Emma and the Doctor. "Where did everybody go?"