Alex, Kato, and Maria all stood around the control panel, drinking soda and cruising in the TARDIS.
"So, Doc, any results on the Master?" Kato asked.
"I wish. Seems he's gone off the TARDIS' grid somehow. Until he chooses to reveal himself again, there's nothing I can do." Alex said with a tone of defeat.
"How can someone just disappear from all of time and space?" Maria asked.
"He's a Time Lord, like me. He knows Time Lord technology better than anyone else, aside from me of course. There's loopholes here and there, paradoxes and anomalies; places that can hide him from me...for now."
"What do you plan to do when he reveals himself?" Kato asked.
"You already know the answer to that." Alex said, looking Kato in the eyes.
There was some silence between the three of them.
"Either way, we have these extremist Zygons to deal with now: the Clandestine. That's what they call themselves. Why can't terrorists just be terrorists? Why do they need some symbolic name like this is some sort of poetry project?"
"You were saying?" Maria asked, getting him back on track.
"Right. The Clandestine. Their ultimate goal is to ruin the peace treaty between Zygons and humans, and take over to enslave humans, spread among the stars in their place, blah blah blah, et cetera et cetera, initial here."
"Okay? How do we stop them?" Kato asked.
"Well, I'm glad you asked! Luckily, their operation is small right now, considering that they're idiots who take for granted the privilege of peace. UNIT is on board, along with Agent J and his team. We have the coordinates for their next planned attack, and we're gonna intercept them there." Alex laid out the plan.
"Agent J? The boss?" Kato asked in surprise.
"Yep." Alex nodded.
"Seems pretty straightforward." Maria said, slightly surprised.
"Well, that's only 'cause I made it sound that way. They're still Zygons. They can change form to look like anyone they want, so it would be difficult to differentiate whose what." Alex said.
"Unless...?" Kato asked.
"An old colleague of mine, Osgood, came up with a little somethin' somethin' to help with just that issue. It's basically a metal detector, like the one's at the NSA lines. But instead of detecting metal, it detects alien DNA. If the concentration in the blood cells are high enough, it'll go off, and it's off to Area 51." Alex said.
"Area 51?! No way! That's real?!" Kato exclaimed.
"Of course it's real. What kind of stories did the government tell you as a kid? I betcha they say that global warming is a serious issue too, and that America's carbon footprint is awful." Alex rambled on.
Kato and Maria paused and looked at each other, unsure what to make of that.
The TARDIS' mainframe computer beeped. Maria slid it over to Alex. He read it: 'Call from UNIT HQ'. Alex answered it, and a young tanned woman in her 20's appeared on the screen.
"Oh! Hello." She greeted with a giggle.
"Hi there?" Alex chuckled, "Where's Kate?"
"Kate's off on some other important recovery mission in the desert. She's training me though, and she's given me full control over this mission."
"Hmm. Do you have proof?"
"Yep! One second..."
The serial code of the video chat appeared onscreen. Alex ran it through the computer, and it came up as confirmed. He nodded.
