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'Erm... ' The Doctor looked round, frantically. 'On the floor, for now.'

Fitz duly laid the man out. 'How long does that stuff work for?'

'Should keep them out for a good few hours. I hope.'

Fitz balked. 'And then?'

The Doctor laid a cradle of wires over Sam's head. 'One thing at a time, Fitz.'

'And what about Nurse Bulwell? She can't walk.'

The Doctor rounded on him, and Fitz took a step backward. 'One thing at a time .'

Fitz ran his hand through his straggly hair. 'Right. I suppose she can keep an eye on them downstairs.' He realised the Doctor wasn't even listening, still fussing around with wires and connections. 'Look, don't you want the light on?' he asked.

'Good thought. Yes, please,' said the Doctor.

Fitz flicked the switch but the only result was a low whirring from one of the gadgets next to Sam. A pale-yellow glow illuminated her face, coming from a row of small lamps in the metal housing. Fitz glanced up at the light socket and saw that the bulb had been replaced by a thick cable, bound there with string.

'What are you doing?' Fitz asked, in wonder.

'I've never attempted soul catching with beings not fully in phase with this dimension,' said the Doctor. 'But in theory it's possible, I'm sure.'

'What beings? In what theory?'

'The Beast. Not so much body-snatchers as body-suckers,' said the Doctor.

'Using the neuronic re-rendering data constructed in this simulation unit by the leech, I can partially remodel some of my own synapses, at least enough to help me talk to them.'

'Course you can,' said Fitz.

'Psychic surgery, some call it. Of course, Sam will help too,she's already interacting with them. Hence these connections...'

'You need help, all right, mate,' said Fitz. 'What are you talking about,

"body-suckers"?'

'Fitz,' said the Doctor, 'why don't you check that Maria's comfortable? I'm sure her condition is only short-term.'

'And what about his condition?' asked Fitz, indicating Roley. 'What about my mum?'

The Doctor looked at him.

'I know,' said Fitz. 'One thing at a time.'

***

Maria was fuming by the time Fitz got downstairs. He peered down at his mother and gingerly patted her wrist, oddly relieved by her lack of response.

'Well?' asked Maria. 'What have they done to him?'

'Roley?' Fitz said, squatting down beside her. 'Dunno. The Doctor hasn't looked at him yet.'

'Well, what's he doing?'

Fitz thought of the Doctor, a fury of flapping coat-tails and trailing wires.'He thinks Sam's in trouble.'

'Girl's just fainted, I expect. But Charles.

'One thing at a time,' Fitz said, nodding sagely at this profundity.

'One thing at a time, indeed,' muttered Maria. 'Oh yes. And he decides which order they're dealt with, doesn't he? It's always his agenda he's bothered with and never mind the rest of us.'

'Well, he seems to know what he's doing.' Fitz smiled faintly. 'Except when it comes to buying flowers...'

'Dead. That's what they all deserve to be.' She nodded over in the direction of Watson and the others.

'Oi,' said Fitz. "That's my mother you're talking about.'

'Well...' said Maria. 'It's you I feel sorry for.' She looked at him as if sizing him up. 'There's bad blood in you, Fitz Kreiner, though you can't choose your parents, God knows.'

'She's sick, that's all,' Fitz said, defensively.

Mafia looked away. 'Yes, well... I wasn't talking about that.'

Fitz stood up, shaking his head. 'My dad was a German. He wasn't a Nazi.'

'They're all Nazis,' she snapped. 'Everyone knows that.'

'I think you'll find everyone knows the war ended eighteen years ago, Nurse Bulwell.'

'No thanks to your sort.'

'Oh, for God's sake,' said Fitz walking away.

'She'd have been all right if she'd stayed with her own!' Maria yelled at him.

'She wouldn't have turned out a twisted old woman!'

'That much better to be a lonely old woman, is it, Maria?'

Fitz heard her wailing as he stalked off back up the