The Doctor had returned to the TARDIS, babbling on about needing to make a phone call. Windsor pulled Truman into their kitchen, his eyes wide with fear and confusion.
"What in God's name have you gotten us into, Truman? This Doctor person seems dangerous, and you can't deny strange things are happening with him here."
"I don't know Windsor. I have a good feeling about him is all. He saved me from my coworkers, so he can't be all that bad," Truman replied sheepishly. Although he felt the need to argue with Windsor, he couldn't help but see his point. It DID seem like everything that had happened revolved around his appearance. However, Truman knew that he just had to trust the man who saved his life and comply with whatever he said.
The Doctor returned and beckoned the duo into the TARDIS.
"Well, just had an interesting phone call from a friend. Apparently his company hadn't moved all of their belongings from the tower after the Battle of Canary Wharf, so we have a motive for the Ideos to steal the building." Truman had no idea what any of that meant.
"What friend, Doctor?" asked Truman.
"No one of consequence," replied the Doctor. "However, what was left in the building is vitally important. The company had changed locations after the Battle of Canary Wharf, which I'm sure you both remember." They shook their heads. "Why doesn't anyone ever remember that? Anyway, when they moved they didn't quite have the time or manpower to move all of their equipment, instead timelocking it to a certain period and a certain location to make sure it didn't fall into unwieldy hands. However, it seems as if the Ideos have discovered this cache's location in the tower and are working to try and unlock it." He looked the men over as he spoke, and noticed the looks of absolute confusion on their faces.
The Doctor sighed and tried again. "Bad aliens have discovered technology that can unravel the universe and we need to stop them."
"But how can we do that, Doctor? The building's disappeared!" exclaimed Windsor, who absolutely wanted nothing more to do with this mad man and his box.
"Wait, I remember you tampered with my computer and connected it to something. Can you possibly trace the signal on my desktop through the TARDIS?" asked Truman, giving the Doctor hope that he was able to get at least one competent companion.
"Absolutely, Truman! Outstanding!" He dashed to the console and keyed in a long sequence of numbers. The screen displayed the results, to Truman's surprise, in English.
"Well, you would timelock it there, Captain," the Doctor muttered to himself. Truman read the display: 21 January 1941, London, England.
"What's so special about that date, besides it being during the Blitz?" Windsor inquired, his interest piqued due to his love of World War II.
"That's the day we first met," said the Doctor, not caring to elaborate any more than that. "Now I won't ask either of you to go any farther if you don't want to, but I have to go to London in the middle of the Blitz to stop an alien race from doing bad things." The flatmates looked at each other, nodded, and shut the TARDIS door. The Doctor smiled.
"Excellent! Here we go!"
Within moments the trio found themselves right in the middle of a war-torn London street, with fires smoldering all around them and the air raid horn blaring in their ears. Windsor stood in awe, experiencing for the first time something he'd only seen in history books and museums. Whoever this Doctor was, he was brilliant, fantastic even. However, the Doctor soon pulled Windsor from his awe.
"Come along, Duke. We've got to find the building quickly and avoid dangers. You know, bombs going off, kids asking if you're their mummy, evils like that," the Doctor implored, dragging Windsor by his sleeve as Truman brought up the rear.
"Are you just going to leave your TARDIS in the middle of a battlefield?" asked Truman.
"Oh yeah, should be fine. Has a chameleon circuit that diverts attention from it, and just to be safe I'll shift it out a nanosecond," explained the Doctor, pointing his sonic behind him as the TARDIS faded away. "Truman, you're in charge of remembering where we parked!" They had broken into full sprint, the Doctor leading the charge with his sonic screwdriver placed firmly in front of him to act as a compass, Windsor next looking wide eyed and amazed, and Truman struggling a few feet behind.
As they drew nearer to what Truman could barely make out to be Trafalgar Square, the trio caught a glimpse of the first signs of life they had seen since landing: a man in a leather jacket running giddily towards an unseen destination, another man in a greatcoat right behind him, and a blonde girl holding the first man's hand and looking somewhat terrified in an anacronistic Union Jack t-shirt. The Doctor stopped suddenly at the sight of the three, a look of longing plastered on his normally gleeful face. It lasted only for a second, but Truman had noticed it. The Doctor was looking at the girl.
Windsor, however, was oblivious to this fact.
"Doctor, we need to find the building, right? Then we can explore this awesome place!"
"Right. Right you are, Windsor. No time to dally. Andiamo!" yelled the Doctor triumphantly, his mood evidently restored. With a renewed fervor the three ran through the smoking streets of London until they came across an invisible barrier.
"Ok, so this seems to be it then, eh?" Truman asked. The Doctor nodded as he ran the sonic up and down the invisible wall until giving up in frustration.
"Bah, its deadlock sealed. Can't get in this way. I really need to fix that problem, everyone and their aunt seems to have a deadlock seal nowadays." The Doctor began rummaging around in his pockets for something, but then soon gave up on that too. Truman looked dejectedly at the empty space that supposedly held his workplace, and then remembered something.
"Doctor, I think I know a way in." The Doctor perked up and approached Truman. "I couldn't get to work on time because of a tunnel collapse in the tube. I'm thinking that if that tunnel conveniently collapsed on the day the building disappears…"
"Then the tunnel must be connected in the timelock too! Oh, outstanding, Truman! Now all we have to do is find an entrance to the underground and we should be able to get in." The Doctor gleefully slapped Truman on the back, the force of which knocked the wind out of the already winded Truman. Pushing past the keeled over companion, the Doctor made his way to what seemed to be an underground bunker, pulling it open and climbing down.
"Should we go after him?" asked Truman, who had finally caught his breath.
"Of course we should, stupid. It's not brain surgery," chided Windsor with the same joke he always used to belittle Truman. He chuckled to himself as he climbed down after their leader. Truman, frowning, followed soon after.
The tunnel was pitch black, the only light resonating from the tip of the whirring sonic a few feet in front of where Truman touched down. He picked up his pace, accidentally bumping into Windsor who cursed at him.
"You don't happen to have a torch handy, do you Doctor?" Truman inquired.
"Sorry, we'll have to rely on my sonic." The Doctor kept his eyes firmly ahead, looking for signs of hidden dangers.
"Doctor, I noticed that look on your face when you saw those people running. Do you know them?" The Doctor looked gravely at Truman.
"Very observant again, Truman. Yes, I know them. All too well, actually. The one in the greatcoat was the person who told me about the timelock, although he doesn't know it at this point. Time's weird like that. The other person was, well, me." Truman gave him an incredulous look. "It'll take too long to explain the details all to you right now, Truman, but for some reason this timelock is allowing me to cross into my own time stream even though it would normally be impossible. If I was to meet my past self, well, it's best if I don't. Regardless, it seems this hijacking of your workplace may be more than meets the eye. Fancy a jelly baby?" He reached to give the candy to Truman, who ate it gladly. He had forgotten to eat lunch after being manhandled by the possessed secretary.
"What about the girl, Doctor? Who was she?"
"Doctor, I felt something brush against my leg!" Windsor yelled from behind them, causing them to turn around. Windsor stood frozen, obviously frightened by his perceived threat. However, a quick scan with the pulsing light showed no tentacle or appendage that could have scared Windsor, so they pressed on.
"Ah the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel!" the Doctor exclaimed with a grin. Truman said a silent thanks to be rid of the darkness that had enveloped them for what seemed like hours. They entered a hallway that was not typical of a WWII war bunker. It was polished metal on all sides, with various circuitry and blinking lights surrounding them.
"Looks like Torchwood made these lower levels for their operations," noted the Doctor as he placed his sonic screwdriver back in his pocket. Truman was astounded; how could all of this be underneath a place he's known for all these years? He chalked it up to just another experience with the Doctor.
They reached a doorway that seemed to be welded shut, something Truman reasoned the Idiosyncrasies did when they captured the building to avoid infiltration.
"You don't happen to have a lightsaber on you, do you Truman?" the Doctor asked as he probed the door for an alternative way in.
"Should've asked him before we left the flat, Doctor. He could have lent you the one he won at a convention that was used in the actual movies," Windsor quipped, pissing Truman off even more.
"When the opportunity comes around to own a lightsaber that Luke Skywalker wielded, you take it, Windsor," Truman defended.
"I have to agree with Truman on this one, Duke. Star Wars is cool. AHA!" The Doctor ripped the wiring out of the panel next to the door, causing the welding binding the two pieces together to melt off. "Torchwood is always prepared for everything!"
"Doctor, that is literally impossible," Windsor pointed out.
"Never question an easy way out," replied the Doctor. "Seems the door didn't quite like that." He held up his hand to his companions, showing the cut that he got from the wires.
On the top floor of the building the Ideos watched these events unfold, satisfied that everything was going to plan. The cut had given them the exact amount of blood needed to confirm their suspicions. The Ideo controlling Ralph Ganger read the results aloud to their leader.
"Master, the reading has confirmed that this individual is indeed a Time Lord," he said with a bow, his head averting the gaze of their overseer. "The Doctor has arrived. What are your orders?"
The eyestalk of their leader regarded Ganger with metal coldness as the warbled, toxic voice responded.
"Exterminate!"