Chapter Fifty-Nine: Digital Retaliation
Storybrooke – Present Day
Emma, Clara, and the Doctor had been gone the entire night, making David and Neal increasingly worried each hour. They were understandably so after the near-fatal accident that occurred with the plane that had descended deathly close to Storybrooke. If it were not for the interventions of the Doctor, Storybrooke would have certainly been obliterated. But that did not settle the fact that Emma, Clara, and the Doctor should have rematerialized back in front of Mary Margaret's apartment as soon as the day had been saved. It was not until the next morning when Emma finally called David and Neal, telling them that the Doctor had time-traveled the two ladies to that time in the TARDIS and were at Granny's Diner having breakfast. Relieved that they were alright, David and Neal immediately went there to meet up with them.
They found the three sitting outside having milkshakes; the Doctor had been typing fiercely away at a laptop that he somehow acquired. "Oh, thank god you're all alright," said Neal.
"We've been thinking the same about you guys." Emma said. "Everyone in town seems to be holding up well after that close call."
"Well, it happened so late in the evening that hardly anyone noticed, save for the five of us." David pointed out before directing his focus upon the Doctor. "Thanks for keeping my daughter safe, Doc."
Clara glanced left and right at David and Emma curiously, having already been educated by the Doctor on their relationship. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that."
"Get used to what?" Emma asked her.
"The fact that he is your dad, and he's just like a couple of years older than you," said Clara, gesturing to David for emphasis. "It's like Back to the Future, only told like a fairytale. And rather than a car, we have…that."
Hearing her as he typed, the Doctor looked up for a moment to see that she was referring to the TARDIS (which was parked there outside near the diner's archway) in a manner that did not sit well with him. "Oi! Be more respectful than that! She saved all of our lives last night!"
"What's that you're doing?" Neal asked him, noting the laptop that he had been typing on.
"Trying to establish a physical location to the people who were behind the little incident from last night," he told Neal, seeming to be frustrated from the level of difficulty with his task. "They appear to be in London, but it's almost impossible pinpointing the precise location."
Taking one last sip of her milkshake, Clara reached forward and moved the laptop away from the Doctor. "I can do it."
The Doctor moved the laptop back away from her, chuckling amusingly. "I'm sorry – what?"
"You need their physical location – where they are exactly?" Clara said. "I can do it in five minutes while you hop off and get us some coffee."
She moved the laptop back towards her, but the Doctor snatched it again. "If I couldn't do it, you definitely can't."
"I have a computer stuck in my head."
"So do I."
"I have the same hacking skills."
"I'm from space and the future with two hearts and twenty-seven brains."
"I can find them in five minutes, plus photographs. Twenty-seven?"
"O.K. Slight exaggeration."
During the back-and-forth between them, there was a tug-of-war game over the laptop as they fought over it. Emma, David, and Neal observed the whole thing with awkward stares, seeing how Clara and the Doctor were like two children fighting over a toy. The Doctor appeared to have lost the game when he relinquished the laptop over to Clara. "Coffee. Go get. Five minutes. I promise," she told him before going right to work on typing.
"The security is absolute," he warned her, not appearing to want to give up his defenses.
"It's never about the security." Clara contradicted. "It's about the people."
It was something that the Doctor could not argue with her over; with the system booted into her brain, she certainly knew it. Looking to Emma, Neal, and David, who had been patiently watching, the Doctor got up from the table and went into the diner with them. While entering, he noticed how Emma was grinning at him. "What're you smiling on about?" He questioned to her.
"Just the clear connection you two have." Emma said. "Goes beyond just wanting to know how she could be the same woman from Victorian England, I think."
"No!" The Doctor quickly exclaimed, realizing what she was alluding to. "Clara and I are not…we are…shut up!"
Emma giggled. "It's O.K., Doc. We get it."
"I don't." Neal honestly remarked.
"Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out the 'twenty-seven brains' thing." David added.
The Doctor tapped at his forehead for David. "Time Lord. Bigger on the inside." Seeing the man formerly known as "Prince Charming" still perplexed, the Doctor simply ignored the topic and focused on Ruby as she stood at the counter. "Five cappuccinos, please." However, Ruby did not carry out the order; she instead kept looking directly at the Doctor. "Oh, not now, Ruby. We've got a lot of business to take…"
"You do realize you haven't the slightest chance of saving these people or your friend." Ruby said in a very characterless tone.
The Doctor, Emma, Neal, and David all looked at her quizzically. "What?"
Ruby then rapidly blinked and looked at the Doctor as if she was just noticing him standing there. "John! You're back for another round of shakes?"
Unsure of what just happened, the Doctor told her, "Uh…no. Just five cappuccinos, please."
Ruby seemed ready to carry out the order the instant he made it, but she was suddenly standing rigid again, acting like a robot. "I said there's not the slightest chance you can save this little town or your little friend."
Now it was obvious that something was wrong.
"Ruby, what's up with you?" Emma asked in concern.
"Don't annoy Ruby. She isn't in fact speaking."
"I'm speaking. Just using whatever's at hand." The new voice had come from Leroy, who was sitting near them the whole time and having his breakfast – only he was not eating anymore but acting as rigid and lifeless as Ruby.
Witnessing the weirdness, Neal had to question it: "What the hell's going on?"
"She's rather pretty, isn't she?" The inexpressive Leroy said. The Doctor knew he was referring to Clara. "I rather like her. I can make her like you, if you want."
There was another oblivious transition as Leroy rapidly blinked and noticed how they were looking at him. "What're you guys lookin' at? Do I have egg on my beard?" He rubbed his fingers through his beard to check for just that, not seeming to have any awareness on what had happened to him.
The Doctor rushed outside, while the others checked on Leroy.
"Leroy, are you feeling alright?" David asked.
"Feelin' fine. Just enjoyin' my eggs, toast, and bacon." He went right back to eating his breakfast, leaving David, Neal, and Emma completely baffled.
"You think this might be the same people who hijacked that plane last night?" Neal inquired to David and Emma.
"It could only be." Emma assumed.
The Doctor walked right back inside the diner. "Clara seems fine," he informed them. "They haven't gotten to her…yet."
At the moment the Doctor reentered, Leroy was suddenly "hacked" again, talking to them in the same manner – only with bits of food still in his mouth. "Now I want you to take a look around, Doctor, and see how impossible your situation is. Go on. Look. I do love showing off." He was then brought back to his normal self, confused as to why he was facing away from his unfinished breakfast again.
The Doctor gazed all about the diner, seeing the large group of customers there that morning – all of them exposed to the digital threat operating out of Storybrooke. Suddenly, he found himself being addressed by a hacked David. "Just let me show you what control of the Wi-Fi can do to you," he robotically said before yelling, "STOP!" On his command, everyone in the diner immediately froze, including Emma and Neal. The only two people who remained in motion were the Doctor and the hacked David.
"I saw what you can do last night," the Doctor told whoever the people-hacker was.
"And clear!" David shouted and the people in the diner resumed motion again, only exiting the diner and leaving it totally empty, with the notable exception of David, Neal, and Emma. The Doctor was impressed but not amused.
It was then David, Neal, and Emma all began speaking to the Doctor in unison: "We can hack anyone into the Wi-Fi, once they've been exposed long enough. Only two of these three people hacked now have been exposed long enough for us to fully-integrate into our system; it will take the third much longer, since he's only been using modern tech for a short time. I admit that it was difficult for us to find this town for a while. I wonder why. Are they that low-tech?"
"The people of this town are just as much under my protection as she is." The Doctor was purposely vague on who "she" was, figuring the hackers already knew.
"We'll get to her and eventually everyone else you care about."
"You have one of your walking base stations here right now. Someone close."
"There's always someone close. We've released thousands into the world. They hone in on the Wi-Fi like rats sniffing cheese. And there's just enough in this little speck-on-the-map Maine town to get them moving."
"I don't know who you are or why you are doing this, but the people of this town or this world will not be harmed. They will not be controlled. They will not be…"
"The people of this world are in no danger whatsoever. My client requires a steady quantity of living human minds – healthy, free-range human minds. He loves and cares for humanity. In fact, he can't get enough of it."
"It's obscene. It's murder."
"It's life. The farmer tends his flock like a loving parent."
"This ends. I'm going to end it now…today."
"How? You don't even know where we are."
"Just who is your client? Hm? Answer me."
No answer came. David, Neal, and Emma were instantly released of the control over them, finding themselves looking at a very angry Doctor. "They got to us, didn't they?" Emma noted his expression as the answer to her own question. "How the hell are they doing this to us?"
"It's the Wi-Fi." The Doctor answered. "You've all been exposed to it – Emma and Neal much longer than David. They couldn't even find Storybrooke the first moment we came here with Clara. They…" On mentioning Clara's name, he was quickly reminded of the fact that the hackers had been targeting her. Immediately, he rushed outside with Emma, Neal, and David following.
Once outside, they saw what the Doctor had hoped they wouldn't see – one of the walking base stations in his form with the spoon-shaped side of its head facing an unconscious Clara. They could still hear her voice crying out for help and questioning her whereabouts. It was coming from the base station – her face projected on the spoon.
"Oh, my god!" Neal cried, put off from seeing the robot for the first time. "What's happened to her? She been abducted or something?"
"Yeah. Something like that." Emma confirmed. "Once they've locked onto you with the Wi-Fi, they send one of those things after you to suck you into the system."
Neal shook his head in disbelief. "Jeez! And here I thought the crap I grew up with was crazy!"
David rushed over to Clara, checking to see if she still had a pulse, which she didn't. Shocked, David looked to the Doctor. "She's dead!"
"No, she's not." The Doctor reassured, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and aiming it at the base station. The robot's spoon-like head realigned itself to become a near-perfect lookalike of the Doctor himself – at least from the front. The Doctor then went to the laptop, using the sonic screwdriver to sync it with the robot.
"What're you doing?" Emma enquiringly asked.
"Ending this." The Doctor penetratingly answered while typing feverishly on the laptop's keyboard.
Emma, Neal, and David watched as the Doctor's robot copy moved on the Doctor's commands through the laptop. It walked directly into the TARDIS, which dematerialized shortly afterwards. With both the TARDIS and the robot out of Storybrooke, the Doctor brought up a live feed on the laptop, showing them everything his robot copy was seeing. It started inside the TARDIS as it gathered a motorcycle, a helmet, and goggles and then moved outside to the streets of London as it rode to the location Clara successfully found, much to the Doctor's pleasure. Neal, Emma, and David saw the robot performing all the actions that the Doctor gave it with much amusement; but what impressed them the most was how it had driven the motorcycle up the side of a skyscraper.
"D-Did you just make that thing go up the building?" Neal queried.
The Doctor grinned over Neal's reaction to what they were seeing on the live feed. "I rode that motorbike in the 2074 Anti-Grav Olympics…even though I came last."
Emma shook her head and smiled. "Doc, you never cease to amaze me." She continued watching the live feed as both robot and motorcycle crashed into an office on the topmost floor of the skyscraper. There, it waited for a woman who was identified as "Kizlet" from the readouts presented on the robot's HUD. The Doctor's ruse had worked the moment she saw the robot there and believed it to have actually been him.
"Do come in," she coyly said.
The Doctor looked to his friends, grinning from ear-to-ear. "Watch this." He switched on the microphone function on the laptop and spoke – his words there at the diner in Storybrooke transitioning over to his robotic double in Kizlet's London-based office: "Download her back into her body right now."
"I can't." Kizlet claimed.
"Yes, you can."
"She's a fully-integrated part of the data cloud now. She can't be separated."
"Then download the entire cloud – everyone you trapped in there."
"You realize what would happen?"
"Yes, they would all be free."
"A tiny number. Most would certainly die."
"They would be released from a living hell. It's the best you could do for them, so give the order."
"And why would I do that?"
"Because I'm going to motivate you."
Emma, David, and Neal were awestruck with how much the Doctor reprogrammed the spoon-headed robot to be exactly like him – the characteristics in his delivery were perfectly synced with the robot, making it practically impossible for Kizlet to see the difference. Emma loved every second of it. This bitch is getting a taste of her own Wi-Fi medicine, she happily thought.
"You ridiculous, man." Kizlet criticized. "Why did you even come here? Whatever for?"
"I didn't," said the Doctor, his words mimicked through the robot.
Kizlet's face, centered seamlessly on the feed's window, registered immediate confusion. "What?"
"I'm still here in Storybrooke – in sweet ol' America." The Doctor delivered the kicker to the cheers of Neal, Emma, and David.
"We got you now, you psycho witch!" Emma said into the microphone, her voice sounding mismatched with that of the Doctor's as the copy delivered the words over to Kizlet, who had no idea it was her.
"What're you talking about?" The nervousness was evident in Kizlet's voice.
"You hack people." The Doctor said into the microphone, once again matching his voice with his double's. "Me – I'm old-fashioned…I hack technology." He gave swift commands on the laptop that told the robot to remove the cyclist helmet that covered its spoon-shaped head. "Here's your motivation." The last thing that the Doctor, Neal, Emma, and David saw on the feed before it abruptly cut off was Kizlet's horrified face.
Her photograph and a download bar that filled to 100% in less than a minute appeared on the screen. Being a man who knew very little of technology (whether it be from his old world or the one he lived in now), David was baffled over what they were seeing on the laptop screen. "W-What's going on? Why did you download her? Isn't she our key to saving Clara?"
"Kizlet's only one of many pawns in this grand scheme of her client's." The Doctor alerted. "But I know exactly how to get the wheels turning." He brought the live feed back on the laptop, operating the robot to pick up the tablet computer on Kizlet's desk. Digitally shifting through all of Kizlet's identified employees, the Doctor had the robot stop on one who was a superior and raised his programmed level of obedience.
As soon as the transaction was done, Emma waited to see what happened next but saw that nothing did. "It didn't work."
The Doctor playfully sighed. "Oh, Emma. Impatient Emma Swan. Didn't it?"
She saw him gesture to the lifeless Clara, whose body began to shift of its own and breathed. "She's alive!" Neal and David felt just as relieved as her as soon as they saw Clara waking up.
The Doctor, relieved as well to see his plan had worked, made a few more transactions over the laptop – contacting UNIT and giving them the hackers' location, then bringing his robotic double and the TARDIS back into Storybrooke.
Clara awakened to all of the smiling faces, though confused as to why they were smiling. "What's going on? Did I find them?" No one said a word. She looked to the Doctor, whose smile was larger than that of Emma's, Neal's, and David's. She smiled back at him and confidently said, "Told you I could find them."