Screeching To A Halt (Book Eight of The Bad Wolf Chronicles)

The Power of Three

Hope you all are ready for Kasterbel overload, because this book is going to be finished before I update another book!

It's a long year, Jessie promises something that might be the last straw, and what does the episode title refer to . . . or who?

Enjoy "The Power of Three!"

***

Ding dong!

Rory and Amy both groaned as they woke up, and they trudged to the bedroom window to look down at the door. "Dad!" Rory complained. "It's half past six in the morning!"

"What are you doing lying around?" Brian asked, holding up a black box. "Haven't you seen them?"

Both of them blinked, looking around to see similar boxes scattered all across the street, barely any pavement to be seen. "What are they?" Rory asked.

"Nobody knows," Brian shrugged. "They're everywhere."

"Well, where have they come from?" Amy wondered, then paused. "Wait . . . " Rory followed her gaze to see she was looking at a children's jungle gym. Two very familiar people - one in a tweed jacket and one in a mauve frock coat - were examining boxes of their own. "Doctor!" Amy called. "Bad Wolf!"

"Invasion of the very small cubes," the Doctor looked up at them.

"That's new," Jessie grinned.

***

"All absolutely identical," the Doctor said as they gathered in the TARDIS. "Not a single molecule's difference between them. No blemishes, imperfections, individualities."

"What if they're bombs?" Brian asked. "Billions of tiny bombs? Or transport capsules, maybe, with a mini robot inside. Or deadly hard drives. Or alien eggs. Or messages needing decoding. Or they're all parts of a bigger whole, jigsaw puzzles that need fitting together."

"Very thorough, Brian," the Doctor nodded. "Very, very thorough. Well done. Stay here. Watch these. Yell if anything happens."

"Doctor, is this an alien invasion?" Amy asked as they left the TARDIS. "Because that' sweat it feels like."

"There can't be life-forms in every cube, could there?" Rory asked.

"I don't know," the Doctor scowled.

"He doesn't like not knowing," Jessie smirked.

"Right, we need to use your kitchen as a lab," the Doctor said. "Cook up some cubes. See what happens."

"Right," Rory nodded, checking the clock. "I'm due at work."

"What?" the Doctor blinked. "You've got a job?"

"Of course I've got a job," Rory rolled his eyes. "What do you think we do when we're not with you?"

"I imagined mostly kissing."

"Amy writes travel articles for magazines and Rory works with sick people," Jessie patted the Doctor's shoulder. "You see, this is why I travel with you. I keep an eye on their lives outside the TARDIS, and you worry about what happens while they're with us in the TARDIS."

"And my shift starts in an hour," Rory nodded. "You don't know where my scrubs are?"

"In the lounge, where you left them," Amy pointed.

Rory nodded and left. "All the Ponds with their houses and their jobs and their everyday lives," the Doctor shook his head as he worked on sonicking things together. "The journalist and the nurse. Long way from Leadworth."