"Give me a hand, will you?" said the Doctor, collapsing back into the Spectrel, with Smith's head landing on his stomach. The soles of the man's boots had melted at the edges, and gave off an acrid smell of burnt rubber.

"I saw the explosion on the projection," said Kevin, taking Smith's weight off the Doctor. The two of them dragged the unconscious man to a clear piece of floor. "It was awesome! Wait 'til you see the replay."

"Great – I nearly lost my neck and you want to put it on You've Been Framed. I do hope that little incident made up for your earlier disappointment about the lack of monsters in your life. How are the other two?"

A couple of med-bots were tending to Where and Jackson. Kevin hadn't been that impressed when the two white boxes had each hovered in from under their respective passenger seats and taken up position over a patient. Then he'd watched in wonder as tiny hatches opened up all over the one assigned to Jackson, and intricate sensors and slender robot arms had reached out to tend to his leg. Two ancillary med-bots had arrived seconds later. One cut away the head and neck of the Noddy suit and planted an oxygen mask over the man's face. The other carried a plastic pouch of fluid, and used three arms to cut open the Noddy suit on Jackson's left arm. After peeling away the suit and the clothing from underneath, a fourth arm inserted the intravenous drip. Kevin had gone in closer for a look as microscopic stitches were made in veins and arteries, and tiny squirts of various fluids applied to the flesh. He'd had to look away when a drill began cutting into a bone.

"Like, these med-bots are the coolest thing ever. I so want to take one back to show my Mum. The guy with the amputated leg seems alright. I don't know about Dave, though."

The med-bot above Where was hovering in position above his chest.

"I don't think I know about David either," said the Doctor. "He has the family traits of compulsion and bravado – that's mostly what did for him."

"Can you explain, in really simple terms, what happened?"

"What happened was fifty years of neglect – both of himself and his duty."

"Like, I think I've heard that bit."

The Doctor sighed and sat at the Spectrel's controls. "There's a kind of symbiosis between a Time Keeper and his Spectrel. A bit like a married couple in many respects. As the relationship grows, you grow into each other. For whatever reason, David chose to opt out. It was the Sixties, I suppose. We were all tired and jaded after the War. But in my view we were entering a new and much more dangerous age. Humans had finally learnt to unleash the power of the nucleus and the atom – though you've still a long way to go in controlling them. So far as David was concerned, the genie was out of the bottle and it was up to others to perform different duties. You know, sometimes a routine life can seem like an adventure. He was obviously abusing the relationship with his Spectrel. Using her to ferry passengers around London is just the pits, frankly. You saw his lifestyle – drinking, smoking... not to mention a terrible diet."

"Yeah, but what about what happened back there?"

"Hmm? Oh, heart attack. You see, just as his Spectrel was weakened by his lack of care for it, so he was weakened. That little incident we had with the beast at his place reawakened something in him. As I'd hoped, the old David was still in there. You saw how much better he was. He got a decent night's sleep and then overdid it. Simple as, as your generation would say. Luckily, he does have a second heart. But it's not like the second one is in any fit state either."

"And his Spectrel?"

"She clearly decided she was better off elsewhere."

"But, like, where?"

The Doctor swept his open hand in a broad arc.

"So... when will she be coming back?"

The Doctor shrugged.

"Well, at least David's alive and the monster's dead, innit? And that Thicko guy didn't get anything. So, like, round one to us. Right?"

The Doctor snorted. "Let us compare ourselves to where we were just a short while ago. We had two Time Keepers and two Spectrels. We now have one of each. We now also have a couple of unwanted passengers and have further piqued the interest of Sixteen. Oh, and so far as they're concerned, it looks like we were party to an attack which resulted in a massive explosion at one of their most secret locations. With the destruction of the monster, we've lost another piece of evidence that might have told me who the hell is doing this to us. Another day like this and they will have won." The Doctor glanced at his watch. "In fact, given that it's not even noon, we could be utterly defeated by tea-time."

"Do we still have that map of the underground thing in Essex?"

"Yes."

"Can't we, like, do something with that?"

"There it is. The unrelenting optimist – the reason I hired you. Thank you, Kevin, for your can-do attitude. Yes, we could take a visit. But a number of different treaties to which I am a signatory – and in a couple of instances an enforcer of last resort – as well as common decency and sense, dictate that we have to look after Tweedledum and Tweedledee over there first. Furthermore, what you would call in your lexicon the baddies are just a tad cheesed off at the moment."

"Alright, alright – don't go wholesale with it. Like, we do have the advantage of surprise, innit?"

"Ah, you're looking at a Battle of Midway option, eh?"

"Um..."

"He with the best reconnaissance, and who refuels and reloads first, wins."

"Right you are. That was it: the Battle of Midway option. You got me."

The Doctor got up and wandered over to Smith's unconscious body. The med-bot tending to him had cut away the Noddy suit's head to let him breathe more easily. It had the end of a clear plastic tube clipped to his nostrils. It turned a sensor to the Doctor, who nodded in response. "Well, he's fine. Just needs to stay sedated. Won't remember much."

He turned to Jackson's med-bot, which popped out a similar sensor to communicate with the Doctor. "Remarkable, even by our standards. Helped that it was such a clean cut. And, of course, that we acted so quickly. Surgery will be finished in the next few seconds –– all veins and major nerves reattached. Ah, here we go."

The med-bot withdrew its instruments and another two bots appeared. They unrolled a thin metallic tray and manoeuvred Jackson's limp body onto it. With a bot at each end, the tray was lifted a foot into the air and Jackson and the med-bot seemed to Kevin to disappear through a wall.

"Where have they taken him?" asked Kevin.

"Let's call it accelerated healing therapy, shall we? The prognosis is that we should be able to dump him into a reasonably competent hospital within the hour. We'd have to leave a note, of course. Something a bit more detailed than 'Please look after this bear'."

"You could show a bit more sympathy, Doctor."

"You're right; I could. However, things weren't going too badly for him until he threw a hammer."

"True. What about David?"

The med-bot looking after the Doctor's cousin pointed its communicator at him. "Days? A week? More? It's not just his heart." He seemed to nod to the med-bot.

Two bots came into the cabin and unrolled a silver foil tray next to Where. He wasn't sure whether they were the same two bots that had moved Jackson, because they all looked alike to him. He watched the two bots, the med-bot and Where disappear through the same section of wall as Jackson.

"Man, I really miss him. No offence to you, Doc, but I think I shared quite a bit of wavelength with David. You get me?"

"I get you, Kevin."

The youth's face brightened again. "Like, is this his regeneration? Is he going to come out of this totally changed? And as good as new?"

"That, my friend, is part of the problem. You can only regenerate in conjunction with your Spectrel. It's that whole relationship and growth thing I was telling you about. Come on, let's look at the map of this place under Essex."

"Um..."

"What?"

"I need to know where the facilities are. And, like, do you have any food?"

"I'm sorry. Not much of a host. Not used to it. Not recently, at least. Sorry. Through there." The Doctor pointed to part of the wall between two rows of passenger seats, where the bots and the bodies had disappeared.

Kevin saw that there was the slight hint of a black line in the shape of a door.

"Do I...?"

"Just walk through, yes."

The Doctor flipped on a projection of the underground facility in Essex.

Kevin returned a few minutes later. "This is a well-cool place, man. I hope you don't mind, but I took a bit of a tour. It's huge."

"The two great things about real estate which doesn't actually exist are that it's terribly cheap and you don't need planning permission. And, since it doesn't even exist, remodelling is a breeze."

"You mean this is all just complex force projections? There's no matter there at all?"

"Yes. Well put."

"Like, that makes me feel really uncomfortable. Knowing that there's nothing out there beyond these walls that don't exist is kinda spooky."

"Kevin, nothing in your world exists either. It's all just forces."

"Yeah, but I'm totally comfortable with the way the world doesn't exist. It doesn't exist in a totally natural and not in-your-face kinda way. The way this place doesn't exist really freaks me out? You get me?"

"Not really. You should be more scared in an aeroplane flying at 35,000 feet. Same sort of thing in terms of forces keeping you alive there, but you've just got some human at the controls and you could slam into a mountain."

"Maybe, but it's matter."

"No, it isn't. It's unimaginably small bits of matter that aren't really matter at all, with forces around them. Pay attention. All we've done is remove the unnecessary bits."

"Yeah, like the matter."

"Well, I'm sure you've eaten a fish fillet."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"You enjoyed eating the fish, but you just ate the flesh – you didn't have to waste your time on all the bits that made the fish a fish, did you? Like the bones, head, tail and fins. And when you've eaten it, you've got a clean plate – no waste. See?"

"No, that's a totally mental comparison. And it kinda makes my point about my fear about there being nothing left and it all going horribly wrong."

"As you wish. Now, speaking of food, did you get anything to eat?"

"Yeah, I ordered something from some machine that asked me what I wanted. It'll be delivered shortly, I expect."

"Good. We couldn't have you going more than three hours without food."

Kevin rolled his eyes. He nodded towards the projection of the Essex installation. "So you got it figured out, Doc? And why's it not so detailed?"

"This is just the upload of what was intercepted during the hack. We're being jammed from getting a decent read, which at least proves it's not human. At one level it's blindingly obvious, really. These beetles are GM and –"

"Sorry, GM?"

"Genetically modified. You know, like the crops that people protest about. Not naturally bred.

"You mean not organic bread?" Kevin grinned.

"Very droll. Where they come from there's not much oxygen. And you can see why that would be an advantage, given their diet and their physiology. They've evolved to live off crude oil, so distillates like diesel are like refined sugar or starch are to your physiology. With me so far?"

"Yup. My Mum's always nattering about this stuff."

"Good. So here they can take advantage of the comparatively high oxygen content in the air and grow much larger and more powerful. But there's the obvious risk of combustion, as you saw." Kevin nodded. "The clever bit is that southern England has a massive deposit of oil-bearing shale underneath it. In between video games you may have seen this on the news." Kevin nodded again. "So they can burrow through that, feeding on the way. Any vibration they produce is explained away by shale gas drilling, or fracking, as it's more commonly called."

"Totally makes sense. Weird and kinda unbelievable, but it hangs together."

"I think it hangs together better than most episodes of... Well, the least said, the better about your favourite sci-fi programme."

A shiny metal tray with a polished metal dome slid through the air from the door and drifted to a stop at waist height next to Kevin. "Oh, wow. Great service, and I'm guessing I don't have to tip." He removed the polished metal dome from the tray to reveal two golden Jamaican patties. The spicy smell filled the cabin. "Oh, I'm lovin' that smell, man. Jus' like at home!" Kevin picked one up and bit into it. "Man, that's outrageously good. It's the real thing! Go on, be my guest, Doc."

"I can't tell you how grateful I am that I have such excellent deodorising air filters. Well, I suppose I can at least be sure of the provenance of these." He took a small bite and nodded his approval.

After they had finished their patties, the Doctor said, "Nothing left of the constituents, you see?"

"You what?"

"The patties. Nothing left of them, or the ingredients they were made from – the chickens, the plants that grew the vegetables that were part of the recipe. And yet they were real, weren't they? Do you follow?"

"I don't know whether you had any plans to become one of those guys on TV who explains things like physics and astronomy but, well... I guess you're a pretty good Time Keeper. Although maybe the competition isn't exactly hot on that front, eh?"

"I think I'll have to take whatever compliments come my way. Oh. Your ear."

Kevin touched his ear, which was still throbbing. His hand came away with coagulated blood. "It's alright. Bleeding's stopped."

"It needs to be seen to." The Doctor nodded to the med-bot holding the bag of fluid for Jackson. It handed the bag to another med-bot. "Take a seat," he told Kevin.

Kevin took a seat and the med-bot hovered near his head. He heard the faint whine of tiny electric motors and felt the touch of tiny robotic appendages on his ear. It went numb, and he heard more noises.

"So now we've refuelled, what's the plan, Doc?"

"Drop off our guests at hospital in fifty minutes from now and then the Doctor will make a house call that somebody won't forget in a hurry."