Chapter Twelve: Code Red Sontarans
Donna watched out the Jeep window as the streets grew more familiar. This winter had been the mild kind, where the autumn leaves lingered on the streets and clung determinedly to the trees into February. The unseasonal appearance made it feel like she'd been gone for months, rather than a few weeks, and her anxiety to get home grew.
"You can stop here," she finally called out when they reached the closest junction to her home.
Private Jenkins looked at her in the rear view mirror. "Are you certain, ma'am?"
Donna nodded. "Yeah. If you let me out at this corner, you can just turned around there and go out to this Rattigan Academy."
He turned his indicator on and pulled over, and Donna had the door open before the Jeep had even come to a complete stop. "I'll walk the rest of the way. I'll see you back at the factory, yeah?"
The Doctor pulled the door shut. "All right."
Donna bent down slightly so she could see him and Rose. "And you be careful! Both of you."
Rose grinned and waved merrily, and then the Jeep drove off. "Trouble magnets," Donna muttered before she started down the road.
The first person she saw was Elaine, who lived two doors down and had tormented her mother last summer with her perfect hydrangeas. "Haven't seen you for days," the older woman said.
Donna laughed slightly. Had it only been days? "Yeah. Been away."
She kept walking, seeing memories of the last few weeks instead of the familiar cars that lined the street. She'd done so much in a short amount of time—nearly died, falling out of that window cleaner's bucket, saved one family from the fires of Pompeii, rescued an entire species that had been subjugated by humans… She'd stood beneath alien skies and danced at alien balls.
And while she'd been doing that, life had gone on as usual here in Chiswick. Elaine still took her walk every afternoon, the kids still played footie after school…
Donna was almost to her own home, and she pressed her hand to her mouth when she spotted her grandfather carrying the rubbish to the kerb. He saw her at the same time and held up his hands and waved, as if she couldn't see him. Donna took one small step, then another, and then she ran the rest of the way to him.
They met at the end of the driveway, and he immediately wrapped his arms around her for a fierce hug. The familiar scent of his aftershave hit Donna hard and she had to clench her eyes shut to hold back tears. In all her travels, hugs from her granddad were the one thing she really missed from home.
After a long hug, he pulled back and tugged her towards the house. "Come on. We'll have a cuppa and you can tell me all about your adventures."
"Yeah." Donna wrapped her arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder as they walked slowly into the house.
Inside, she tried to help make tea, but he waved her off. "Oh no," he said, pointing at the table. "You sit down! It's not every day I have a visitor from outer space."
Donna rolled her eyes. "I'm still from Chiswick, Gramps."
He looked at her over his shoulder as he dropped teabags into the mugs he had out. "But you've been travelling in outer space."
She sat down. "Yeah. We went to this planet called the Ood Sphere and met proper aliens."
The kettle went off and her grandfather poured the water, then brought both mugs over to the table.
"Like, proper aliens," she emphasised, "with tentacles growing around their mouths like a beard."
He sat down across from her and fidgeted with his sideburn. "I said so, didn't I. Aliens. I said they was real. I just didn't expect them in a little blue box."
"It's bigger on the inside," Donna explained automatically.
"Yeah, but is it safe?" His expression took on a stern demeanour. "This couple you're traveling with, the Doctor and Rose, are you safe with them?"
Donna nodded earnestly. "They're amazing, Gramps. Really. They're just… dazzling." She paused and looked at the ceiling for a moment. "You can tell Rose I said that, but not him."
He hid a grin behind his hand. "No."
"But I'd trust them with my life," Donna admitted.
Her granddad straightened, an affronted frown on his face. "Hold up, I thought that was my job."
Donna wrapped her hands around her mug and leaned forward. "You still come first."
"Well, for God's sake, don't tell your mother."
Donna pressed her lips into a thin line. She still wasn't keen on the idea, but after listening to Rose and Martha's stories, she didn't know how she could keep it a secret.
"I don't know." She wavered between the two options. "I mean, this is massive. Sort of not fair if she doesn't know."
"Doesn't know what?"
Donna straightened and watched her mother walk through the room, carrying a laundry basket. Sylvia set the basket down on the counter, and Donna rested her chin in her hand and listened as her mum started in on her while folding a blanket.
"And who's she, the cat's mother? And where've you been these past few days, lady, after that silly little trick with the car keys? I phoned Veena and she said she hadn't seen hide nor hair."
The condescension in her mum's voice stung even worse now that she was actually doing something with her life. Her wounded pride was aching to tell her mother exactly what she'd been doing, but her gramps shook his head quickly and she sighed.
"I've just been travelling," she hedged.
Her mum scoffed at that. "Oh, hark at her, Michael Palin."
Donna and her Gramps shared a look, and he started laughing.
Sylvia kept right on, barely stopping for breath between one passive aggressive comment and the next. "Are you staying for tea, because I haven't got anything in. I've been trying to keep your granddad on that macrobiotic diet, but he sneaks off and gets pork pies at the petrol station." Gramps turned around with his hand raised, but her mum shook her head. "Don't deny it, I've seen the wrappers in the car. Oh, I don't miss a trick. Now then, what were you going to tell me? What don't I know?"
Donna and her granddad shared a conspiratorial chuckle and wink. But that little tirade had been enough to decide Donna. She could only imagine the kind of ridicule she'd get from her mother if she tried to tell her she travelled through time and space with an alien and his part-alien wife. She probably wouldn't even believe me if she saw the inside of the TARDIS.
She started to smile, imaging the way her mum would react if she walked into the unique spaceship, but her amusement faded when she realised how closely the picture in her head matched the way she had reacted when she'd first landed in the TARDIS.
Donna shook her head to get rid of the notion, then smiled and shook her head at her mum. "Nothing. Just nothing."
"Good. Right, then you can sit there and cut out those coupons. Every penny helps. This new mortgage doesn't pay for itself. Dad, kettle on."
"Yeah, kettle on."
Donna took the flyers she was handed, and as she cut out the coupons, she wondered if there would ever come a day when her mother actually saw her value, or if visits home would always go like this.
oOoOoOoOo
"We're almost there. The school is very secluded," Ross told the Doctor and Rose as he turned the Jeep off the main road. "UNIT's been watching Rattigan Academy for ages. It's all a bit Hitler Youth. Exercise at dawn and classes and special diets."
"Turn left."
The constant interruptions from ATMOS had been driving the Doctor batty, and he finally had to ask. "Ross, one question. If UNIT think that ATMOS is dodgy—"
"Go straight on."
"How come we've got it in the Jeeps?"
"Yeah," Rose said.
Ross chuckled mirthlessly. "Tell me about it. They're fitted as standard on all government vehicles. We can't get rid of them till we can prove there's something wrong."
The Doctor watched the display warily as ATMOS instructed Ross to turn right. He had yet to find an instance where ubiquitous technology had not proven disastrous for humanity.
"Drives me around the bend," Ross said slyly.
Rose and the Doctor chuckled. "Oh, nice one," she praised.
Ross shot them a cheeky smile as he followed the curve of the road. "Timed that perfectly."
The Doctor nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, you did."
They turned another bend, and a large manor house came into view. The Doctor's eyebrows rose as he took in the numerous towers and turrets rising above the Gothic revival castle. The pale golden colour of Bath Stone was mostly obscured by a layer of grime, but here and there it shone through.
"This is your final destination," ATMOS announced as Ross parked and they all climbed out.
"Blimey, I see what you meant, Ross," Rose muttered. Teens in matching orange tracksuits were running laps around the building.
The Doctor nodded. "Yeah… definitely something off here. And I think I see the man in charge over there," he said, nodding to a slight figure standing off to the side, dressed in jeans and a maroon t-shirt.
"Is it PE?" he called out. "I wouldn't mind a kick around—I've got me daps on."
Luke Rattigan turned around, no smile on his face. "I suppose you're the Doctor and Rose Tyler?"
"Hello," they said, waving in sync.
The young man's eyes narrowed. "Your commanding officer phoned ahead."
"Ah, but we haven't got a commanding officer," the Doctor corrected. "Have you?" Luke rocked back on his heels, deep offence etched on his face, and the Doctor was pretty certain he was behind whatever was going on.
But he couldn't let on that he'd sussed him out so quickly, so he gestured to Ross. "Oh, this is Ross. Say hello, Ross."
"Good afternoon, sir," Ross said politely.
The Doctor took Rose's hand and they jogged towards the mansion. "Let's have a look, then. I can smell genius!" He grinned at Luke over his shoulder. "In a good way."
What are you thinking, Doctor? Rose asked as they allowed Luke Rattigan to lead them to a large, open room on the first floor.
The amount of arrogance pouring off that boy is almost never a good thing, the Doctor said gravely.
"This is what I call the visioning lab," Luke said as he approached a door with yellow plastic flaps hanging in front of it. "Because in this room, if our students can envision something, we make it happen."
The Doctor pushed through the flaps and his eyes widened. "Oh, now, that's clever. Look." He put on his specs as he bent over one experiment. "Single molecule fabric, how thin is that?!" He turned to Ross and Rose. "You could pack a tent in a thimble."
Despite his awareness that there was something going on here, he couldn't help but bounce around the room like a kid in a candy shop, going from one advanced product to another. "Ooo! Gravity simulators. Terraforming, biospheres, nano-tech steel construction." He laughed when a flame spurted. "This is brilliant."
But as exciting as it all was, it was also obvious to him exactly what this set of products could do together. He sauntered back towards Luke Rattigan, who didn't look nearly as arrogant now as he had before. "Do you know, with equipment like this you could, ooo, I don't know, move to another planet or something?"
Luke pressed his lips together in the most faked wistful gaze the Doctor had ever seen. "If only that was possible."
"If only that were possible," the Doctor corrected as he took his glasses off and put them back in his pocket. Luke glared at him balefully, and the Doctor offered a helpful explanation. "Conditional clause."
He watched carefully as the lad utterly failed at controlling his anger. Oh, he's a bit more dangerous than I thought, Rose.
"I think you'd better come with me," Luke said curtly, then strode out of the room.
He's definitely in a bit of a strop, isn't he? Rose asked as they trailed behind Luke.
More than a bit. Luke Rattigan has delusions of grandeur, and I think someone else has been playing into that. Because all that stuff in his visioning lab? None of that is technology Earth should have yet.
Luke led them into a large, open room with a swimming pool in the middle of it. He stopped in front of a stone fireplace and glared at the Doctor. "You're smarter than the usual UNIT grunts, I'll give you that."
"He called you a grunt." The Doctor looked casually around the room and forced himself not to react to the transmat unit in the corner. "Don't call Ross a grunt. He's nice. We like Ross. Look at this place, Rose."
"Very nice, very posh," Rose agreed as they both started circling the room, acting like home buyers considering the light in the room. What did you see, Doctor?
When Luke closed his eyes and pressed his hands to his temples, the Doctor nodded at the large box near the wall. That's a teleport. Definitely not human technology.
Luke dropped his hands and glared at them. "What exactly do you want?"
The Doctor walked straight for the teleport device, though he did so casually, turning around and walking backwards a few steps. "I was just thinking. What a responsible eighteen-year-old." He walked straight past the teleport to poke his head out into the hallway, looking for anyone who didn't belong on Earth at this time. "Inventing zero carbon cars? Saving the world."
"Takes a man with vision," Luke claimed boastfully.
"I don't know about that, mate," Rose disagreed. "Because here's what I've been thinking. If people think they can drive their car without sending carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, then they're just gonna buy more cars, aren't they? And the thing is, the cars still run on petrol, whether they release emissions or not. So in the end, we're still going to run out of oil… maybe even faster than before."
The Doctor nodded. "Rose is right. The ATMOS system could make things worse."
Luke darted over to them, his hand held out. "Yeah. Well, you see, that's a tautology. You can't say ATMOS system because it stands for Atmospheric Emissions System. So you're just saying Atmospheric Emissions System system. Do you see, Mr. Conditional Clause?" he scoffed, holding up his hands in fake quotation marks.
Rose snorted and put her hands on her hips. "You sound like a bratty eight-year-old right now, Luke, do you know that? You're not the cleverest person in the room for once, and you can't stand it."
That took the wind right out of his sails, but Luke still rallied enough to insist, "I'm still right, though."
"Not easy, is it, being clever." The Doctor held Luke's gaze until the lad looked away, and then he took a step towards him, forcing his attention back to him. "You look at the world and you connect things, random things, and think, 'Why can't anyone else see it?' The rest of the world is so slow."
A cold smile glinted in Luke's eyes, and he nodded. "Yeah."
"And you're all on your own," the Doctor continued.
Luke looked down quickly, then met the Doctor's gaze again, naked pain and anger in his eyes. "I know."
"But not with this." The Doctor pulled the ATMOS device out of his pocket and waved it around as he backed up a few steps. "Because there's no way you invented this thing single-handed. I mean, it might be Earth technology, but that's like finding a mobile phone in the Middle Ages." He tossed it to Rose and walked over to the teleport. "No, no, I'll tell you what it's like. It's like finding this in the middle of someone's front room. Albeit it's a very big front room."
"Why, what is it?" Ross asked.
"Yeah, just looks like a thing, doesn't it?" the Doctor remarked. "People don't question things. They just say, 'Oh, it's a thing.'"
"Leave it alone," Luke demanded, genuine fear in his eyes.
The Doctor stepped back into the purple-lit chamber. "Me, I make these connections," he said, drawing circles in the air on the side of his head. "And this, to me, looks like a teleport pod." He pushed the button and felt the familiar static electricity that accompanied a teleport.
When he rematerialised, he looked around and his eyes widened immediately. "Oh." They were a little shorter than they had been the last time he'd seen them, but this was clearly a Sontaran ship.
Rose, you need to find cover. I'll be bringing company with me when I come back.
The Sontarans noticed him almost immediately and turned to face him. "We have an intruder," one announced.
"How did he get in?" the Doctor asked. "In tru da window? Bye, bye!" He punched the return button and started running as his body left the ship, knowing he would rematerialise at a run, too.
"Ross, get out!" he shouted as he ran back into the room. He could feel Rose behind him, near the door, so he grabbed Luke and tried to pull him that direction. "Luke, you've got to come with me," he said.
When the teen resisted, the Doctor rolled his eyes, then spun around with his sonic screwdriver out. A single soldier appeared in the room before he deactivated the teleport unit, but one soldier he could handle.
"Sontaran!" he shouted as the alien stepped forward. "That's your name, isn't it? You're a Sontaran." The soldier cocked his head and lowered his weapon. "How did I know that, hey? Fascinating isn't it? Isn't that worth keeping me alive?"
Ross stepped forward, his gun drawn. "I order you to surrender in the name of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce."
The Doctor looked down at the sidearm. "Well that's not going to work," he muttered. "Cordolaine signal, am I right?" he called out to the Sontaran. Ross looked up at him, and he pointed to the barrel of the gun. "Copper excitation stopping the bullets."
"How do you know so much?" the Sontaran demanded.
"Well." The Doctor shrugged and looked at the ceiling.
What can I do? Rose asked as the Doctor spun and walked over to a desk.
"Who is he?" asked the Sontaran.
"He didn't give his name," Luke told the Sontaran.
Rose was perfectly positioned to incapacitate the Sontaran, assuming Luke didn't give away her position. Stay right there. I'm working on a plan.
The Doctor turned around and leaned against the desk. "But this isn't typical Sontaran behaviour, is it? Hiding?" He sneered, then nodded at Luke. "Using teenagers, stopping bullets? A Sontaran should face bullets with dignity. Shame on you."
"You dishonour me, sir!"
The Doctor smirked; they really made it too easy. "Yeah? Then show yourself."
"I will look into my enemy's eyes!" He removed his helmet, revealing both his face and the vulnerable probic vent at the back of his neck.
"Oh, my God," muttered Ross.
The Doctor nodded at the weathered-looking Sontaran. This was no inexperienced soldier. "And your name?"
"General Staal, of the Tenth Sontaran Fleet. Staal the Undefeated."
The Doctor sighed. "Oh, that's not a very good nickname. What if you do get defeated? Staal the Not-Quite-So-Undefeated-Anymore-But Never-Mind?"
Behind Staal, Rose rolled her eyes and stifled a giggle.
"He's like a potato," Ross said. "A baked potato. A talking baked potato."
"Now, Ross, don't be rude," the Doctor chided as he straightened up. "You look like a pink weasel to him."
He picked up the squash racket and ball nonchalantly. Rose, while I distract everyone, find something you can club Staal with.
"The Sontarans are the finest soldiers in the galaxy," he explained as he bounced the ball on the racket, "dedicated to a life of warfare. A clone race, grown in batches of millions with only one weakness."
To anyone watching, it would have seemed like he was explaining to the entire room, but Rose's attention sharpened and he knew she was ready for his instructions.
I've got a cricket bat, Doctor.
General Staal recoiled. "Sontarans have no weakness," he growled.
"No, it's a good weakness," the Doctor assured him.
Luke glared back at him. "Aren't you meant to be clever? Only an idiot would provoke him," he said, looking at Staal again.
The Doctor sighed. He was as sure as he could be now that Luke had been willingly working for the Sontarans. Well, having a Sontaran teleport pod in his front room was a rather big clue, honestly.
"No, but the Sontarans are fed by a probic vent in the back of their neck." He pointed at the back of his neck with the racket. "That's their weak spot. Which means, they always have to face their enemies in battle. Isn't that brilliant?" He grinned. "They can never turn their backs."
"We stare into the face of death," Staal declared bombastically.
Rose stepped out from behind the teleport, her cricket bat in hand. She swung it up and hit Staal square on the probic vent, growling, "Bet you didn't see that coming, mate," as he crumpled to the floor in a pile of armour.
"Run!" the Doctor yelled at Ross. He grabbed Rose's hand on the way out of the room, and the three of them dashed to the Jeep.
"Get us out of here," the Doctor ordered Ross. "And call Colonel Mace when you get a chance, tell him Code Red, Sontarans."
Ross nodded as they took off. "So these Sontarans, they're behind ATMOS?" he asked as the Jeep skidded around a curve.
The Doctor grabbed onto the dash. "Yeah, seems like it." He raked his hand through his hair; the more they learned, the less things made sense. This wasn't typical Sontaran behaviour at all.
Ross yanked the wheel hard when they reached the main road, then he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a walkie-talkie. "I'll let you contact the colonel yourself, sir."
The Doctor grabbed the device and brought it to his mouth. "Greyhound Forty to Trap One. Repeat, can you hear me? Over." He waited a few minutes, then tried again, and again when he still didn't get an answer.
Rose pulled his arm down. "The Sontarans must be blocking the signal," she said, saying aloud the conclusion he'd already reached. "No point trying it over and over."
The Doctor tossed the walkie-talkie down in disgust and rubbed at the headache building behind his eyes. "And if they can trace that, they can isolate the ATMOS."
"Turn left."
The cheery voice of ATMOS sent a mutual shiver of dread through the Doctor and Rose.
Rose licked her lips. "Try going right," she suggested to Ross.
He glanced over at her. "It said left."
"That's my point," Rose said. "Try to go right instead."
Ross sighed, but a moment later he took his hands off the wheel, his eyes wide. "I've got no control." The Jeep stayed on the road, even though no one had the wheel. "It's driving itself. It won't stop." He grabbed at the door. "The doors are locked."
The Doctor had pulled his sonic out and started working on the ATMOS unit as soon as Ross took his hands off the wheel, but he wasn't getting anywhere. "Ah, it's deadlocked. I can't stop it."
"Let me." Ross pulled out the wire that connected the SatNav to the steering wheel, but ATMOS kept giving directions.
"The SatNav's just a box wired through the whole car," the Doctor explained as they veered off the road.
The Doctor felt a spark of intuition from Rose, and he looked at her as she leaned forward, speaking directly to the ATMOS device. "ATMOS, are you programmed to do the opposite of whatever I say?"
"We're headed for the river," Ross announced unnecessarily.
"Confirmed," ATMOS declared.
Rose nodded and licked her lips. "Anything I say, you'll ignore it?"
"Confirmed."
"Right. Then drive this Jeep straight into the river."
They all held their breath during the brief pause before the Jeep screeched to a halt, ten feet from the riverbank. The locks popped open, and all three of them piled out of the vehicle as the confused ATMOS gave rapidly conflicting orders.
"Get down!" the Doctor ordered, throwing himself to the ground and wrapping a protective arm around Rose.
"Left, right, left, right, left, left, right, left, right."
The Doctor held his breath and waited for the explosion as the ATMOS device overloaded. Instead, a moment later he heard a soft pop and sizzle, like a circuit blowing.
He lifted his head cautiously. ATMOS wasn't talking anymore, which seemed to indicate it had died. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
"Oh, was that it?" the Doctor mumbled.
Rose pushed herself up. "You know what this means?"
"Angry potatoes intent on taking over the world using its obsession with automobiles are likely to launch their strike early, since they know we're onto them? And our one advantage is that they probably think we're dead."
She blinked. "Well… that too, I guess. But I was gonna point out that we don't have a vehicle."
The Doctor groaned. "City buses it is. We'll go to Donna's—it's closer than the ATMOS factory. With a little luck, we'll find a car we can borrow to take us the rest of the way."
oOoOoOoOo
Donna had just finished cutting out the coupons when the doorbell rang. "I'll get it," she told her mum, who'd spent the last twenty minutes making soup and nagging her.
Somehow, she wasn't surprised when she found the Doctor and Rose on the other side of the door, both looking a little worse for the wear. "You would not believe the day we're having," he said.
She looked them up and down, taking in the smudges of dirt on the Doctor's blue suit and the way Rose's black leather jacket was unzipped halfway. "Would that be why you both look like you've been playing in the dirt?"
They looked at each other, and she watched them take in the details of their appearance. "ATMOS tried to drive us into the river," Rose said finally.
Donna's jaw dropped slightly. "But our car has ATMOS," she said.
The Doctor nodded. "I need to look at it."
"Yeah, of course." She reached for the keys hanging behind the door, then stepped outside.
"So is there anything I can do?" she asked after unlocking the car for the Doctor. Rose was pacing along the edge of the driveway, her mobile to her ear.
The Doctor was on his knees, looking underneath the car, but he poked his head back out to look at her. "Not really. Thanks though, Donna."
The soldier who'd driven them earlier shifted his weight from one foot to the other while the Doctor lifted the bonnet of the car. "I'll requisition us a vehicle."
"Anything without ATMOS," the Doctor ordered sharply.
Donna shared a knowing look with the young soldier; that really didn't need saying.
The Doctor stared at the inner workings of the car. ATMOS was attached to the muffler, but it had to do something else. Right, Martha said those fifty-two people were poisoned, he considered as he nosed around the engine. And the ATMOS unit contains a gas converter, so maybe… maybe it's also loaded with a poison gas?
He was peripherally aware that a door had opened and shut somewhere, and then he heard a voice asking, "Is it them? Is it them? Is it the Doctor and Rose?" He had no intention of answering, but then he heard, "Ah, it's you!"
"Who?" he asked, straightening up.
Rose spun around, her phone down as she'd been in the middle of redialing Martha. "Oh, it's you," she said, then put the phone to her ear.
Donna looked from her granddad to the Doctor and Rose. "What, have you met before?"
"Yeah, Christmas Eve," her granddad said. "They disappeared, right in front of me."
She stared at him. "And you never said?" she demanded indignantly.
"Well, you never said," he countered reasonably. "Wilf, sir. Wilfred Mott." The older man's eyes were wide with excitement. "You must be one of them aliens."
The Doctor blinked a few times. That wasn't how he was used to being greeted, even by people who knew. "Yeah, but don't shout it out." He grinned and shook the man's hand. "Nice to meet you properly, Wilf."
"Oh, an alien hand." Wilf flexed his fingers and looked a little overwhelmed.
"Martha's not answering, Doctor," Rose told him, hitting redial again. "What do you want me to tell her if I finally get through? Just that it's Sontarans—Code Red Sontarans?"
"Yeah." He glanced up and down the street; if the numbers he'd seen earlier were any indication, at least half of them were under Sontaran control. "But there's got to be more to it. They can't be just remote controlling cars. That's not enough." He looked back at Rose while tapping a rhythm against his leg. "Nothing?"
Rose started to shake her head, but then Martha's phone finally rang, instead of sending her straight to voicemail yet again. "Hold on." She bit her lip and finally exhaled when the other end picked up.
"What do you need, Rose?"
"Martha." Rose started pacing again. "We've got information for you to pass on to Colonel Mace. Can you do that for us?"
"Of course."
"Tell him it's the Sontarans. Code Red, Sontarans."
The Doctor waved for the phone, and she handed it over. "Martha, hi. UNIT should have a file on the Sontarans. Tell Colonel Mace that they're are inside the factory, so UNIT shouldn't even start shooting. They'll get massacred. I'll get back as soon as I can. You got that?"
He nodded a few times, then ended the call and tossed the phone back to Rose before spinning back around to the car. "Hopefully that will keep everyone safe until we get there," he muttered as he poked around at the car's innards with the sonic screwdriver.
"But you tried sonicking it before," Donna pointed out. "You didn't find anything."
"Yeah, but now I know it's Sontaran. I know what I'm looking for."
"The thing is, Doctor," Wilf said, "that Donna is my only grandchild. You got to promise me you're going to take care of her."
Rose put her hand on Wilf's shoulder. "Donna's actually pretty brilliant at taking care of herself," she rebuked gently. She understood the desire of a family member to know their loved one was safe when travelling with the Doctor, but she remembered how it had felt when her mum had demanded the Doctor keep her safe, calling her a kid. She'd felt like a kid. That feeling was part of what had driven her to give the Doctor permission to do what needed to be done, regardless of what might happen to her.
And Donna, brash as she seemed at first glance, had almost no self-confidence. If Rose could help her family see how capable she was already…
Wilf blinked a few times, but then he smiled and nodded readily. "Oh, yeah. That's my Donna—always diving into new things without reading the rule book first and learning on the go. She's gotten into a few scrapes that way, but she's always managed to get herself out of them."
Donna made a soft sound of surprise, and Rose grinned and nodded from her to the Doctor. "They're an excellent pair, then," she said. "The Doctor threw the TARDIS manual into a supernova."
"Yeah, and then I managed to do what it told me I couldn't do," he retorted, his voice slightly muffled by the bonnet.
"Whoa!" He jumped back, and Rose peered down at the top side of the ATMOS device. Spikes were protruding out of it now.
"It's a temporal pocket," the Doctor explained. "I knew there was something else in there. It's hidden just a second out of sync with real time."
"But what's it hiding?" Donna asked.
Rose caught sight of a fifth person walking their direction, and she groaned when she recognised Donna's mum. Between their interactions with her and the things Donna had mentioned in the last month, she'd rather hoped they could get away without ever running into her—but that didn't seem to be.
"I don't know, men and their cars," Sylvia said, a smirk on her face as she walks towards them. "Sometimes I think if I was a car."
Her gaze landed on Rose, and her eyes widened. "Oh, it's you," she spat out.
Rose wiggled her fingers in a weak wave, and Sylvia turned to look at the car.
"And you! Doctor, what was it?"
"Yeah, that's me," the Doctor said, waving without looking up.
Wilf's eyes widened, and he looked from the Doctor to his daughter and back again. "What, have you met them as well?" he stammered.
Sylvia rolled her eyes. "Dad, it's the couple from the wedding. When you were laid up with Spanish flu," she added, answering a question Rose hadn't gotten around to asking yet. She put her hands on her hips and glared at the Doctor. "I'm warning you, last time these two turned up, it was a disaster."
Whatever the Doctor had been doing to the ATMOS device obviously triggered something, because gas billowed out of it.
"Get back!" the Doctor ordered. He fiddled with the sonic, adjusting the settings, and then pointed it at the ATMOS device. "That'll stop it."
"I told you." Sylvia gestured wildly at the Doctor, who was waving his hand over the ATMOS device, trying to get the gas to dissipate. "He's blown up the car! Who is he, anyway? What sort of doctor blows up cars?"
"Oh, not now, Mum," Donna said impatiently.
Her face set in a disagreeable expression. "Oh, should I make an appointment?" she sniped, before turning around and stomping off.
The Doctor ignored the woman, focusing on the more imminent disaster. He sniffed at the air and shook his head. "That wasn't just exhaust fumes. It's some sort of gas—artificial gas."
"And it's aliens, is it?" Wilf asked. "Aliens?"
"But if it's poisonous…" Donna began.
"Then they've got poisonous gas in millions of cars around the world," Rose concluded. The three of them looked up and down the street, spotting the ATMOS decal in almost every window.
While they were busy looking around, Wilf climbed into the car. "It's not safe. I'm going to get it off the street."
As soon as he closed the door, they all heard the ominous snick of the locks activating. Having just been in an ATMOS vehicle that had locked them inside, the Doctor and Rose knew exactly what had happened.
"He's trapped," Rose whispered as gas poured out of the exhaust pipe.
Donna darted to the door and yanked on the handle. "Hold on! Turn it off. Granddad, get out of there!"
"I can't! It's not locked! It's them aliens again!" Wilf held up the keys—he hadn't even started the car before the ATMOS system had started.
"What's he doing?" Sylvia yelled from the door. "What's he done?"
Rose watched helplessly while Wilf pounded on the window and the Doctor tried to use the sonic screwdriver to get the car to stop. Then she spun around and started looking for something to break the glass.
"They've activated it!" the Doctor yelled back at Sylvia.
The gas filling the street made it difficult to see, but Rose was sure she'd seen a dry rock wall at the front of one of these gardens when they'd walked down the street earlier. She pulled the collar of her shirt up to cover her mouth and nose as she ran, though her eyes were still burning by the time she found what she was looking for.
Rose grabbed three medium sized rocks and ran back to the driveway. The Doctor had moved to the door, trying to unsuccessfully to unlock it while Donna panicked.
"Get back!" Rose shouted, her voice hoarse.
They looked up at her, and she closed the bonnet and held up a rock. "Cover your head, Wilf!" she ordered.
Inside the car, the older man looked at her blankly for a minute, then ducked as close to the door as he could, covering his head with his hands.
Rose tossed one rock up in the air and caught it, before leaning back and putting all her weight into throwing it at the windscreen. The glass gave, but didn't shatter completely, so she threw a second rock immediately after.
This time, the window shattered. The Doctor clambered on top of the car and dragged Wilf out by his armpits.
"Well don't just stand there like idiots!" Sylvia shouted. "Get inside!"
Rose turned in a slow circle and watched as the sky filled with poisonous gas. Whatever the Sontarans' plan was, it had begun.
