London, England, Earth, The Solar System, 2004, Local Dateline, Humanian Era.

Carrie Wright logged onto her computer.

--

She was short, with light blonde hair, and she was quite pretty actually. She had once hoped to become something nice and pleasant – like a Doctor or a Vet – but her Dad had convinced her (and God only knew how) to become a Banker. So here she was.

For the past three years, Carrie had worked for this branch of the Lloyds bank, doing the same job, day in day out – reading various files about various things then at the end of the week, writing a report about said files. This day was, in all actuality, a Tuesday, and she was one third of the way through the files, when something very strange happened.

Her computer crashed. The screen froze up, the little cursor stopped moving, and then an error message came up.

"Damn," she swore. "I don't need this today..."

"Well, no one ever wants their computer to crash, do they?" came a light male voice. She looked up, and saw the most extraordinary man looking at her, smiling. He was about thirty, maybe a little older, with bright blue eyes and long, messy brown hair. His clothes were an assortment of various Victoriana style clothes, but most of them were stuff that could be bought at a high street – silver waistcoat and black trousers from H&M, white shirt from M&S, and a short velvet jacket that looked like it came from Paul Smith. He wore no tie, giving him the look of a dashing romantic of the modern era, trying (and failing) to look like something from the Edwardian era.

"Hello," he said, his smile never wavering, "I'm from the CCI."

He held up a pass that confirmed this identity, then went to her computer.

"Er... CCI?" she asked, recovering her voice.

"Crashed Computers Investigators," he replied lightly. "Not very convincing is it?" he added after a moment.

She didn't answer, and watched him as he pressed random buttons, typing every code and every sequence under the sun (as far as she could tell).

"What are you trying to do?" she asked.

"Find out what caused this particular computer to crash," he said. "From the looks of it, a Virus."

"A virus?" Carrie asked.

"A virus," the man replied. "And it looks pretty darn serious to me. Here, hold this," he added, passing her a small, tube like device with what appeared to be a miniature satellite attached. He looked at it briefly, then sighed.

"On it's last legs, poor thing," he said. "I need to replace it."

"What is it?" she asked.

"Mine," the man replied. "Oh," he added, after another moment bashing at keys. "Oh now this is... oh dear..."

"What?" she asked.

"Bad," he replied, before turning and smiling at her. "But nothing for you to worry about."

"How exactly is it bad?" Carrie asked.

"I thought I said it was nothing for you to worry about," the Doctor said, his face and voice both deadly serious. "Anyway – goodbye, my dear."

He grabbed his... thing, and walked out of her cubicle, leaving her slightly shell shocked.

"Oh by the way!" he said, popping his head back in. "I am the Doctor, to give me my proper name. And you are?"

"Carrie," she said. "Carrie Wright."

"Lovely to meet you!" he smiled, and she could tell he meant it. "Absolutely lovely."

And then he walked out of her cubicle again, and she felt as though she had just glimpsed what life could be, and let it slip out of her fingers. She never let anything slip out of her fingers, she promised herself, but this... it almost felt too big for her, so, just this once, she left it alone, and prayed that she had made the right decision.

Then she went back to work, working on her suddenly active computer. The files wouldn't read themselves.

--

The Doctor looked the Sonic Screwdriver up and down, and sighed. He was completely unaware of the people who were giving him funny looks – it didn't interest him. He tutted as he approached the TARDIS – the sonic definitely needed replacing. He opened the door and went inside. Maybe... maybe something different this time...?

--

"He's nobody, just some nosy weirdo," the operative said to his Masters.

No - He is more than that - We have encountered him prior to this instance - He is called The Doctor.

"The Doctor," the operative repeated. "Who is he?"

Irrelevant - He is a threat - He must be terminated.

"And the girl?"

She must be terminated also - Nothing must endanger our operation - Contact Terminated.