WEDNESDAY JANUARY 28, 10:23AM AEST +10:00 UTC
MERRICKCORP - QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA

"John, we need to talk."

Greg approached the technician who had his head buried in a tall server rack.

"Bit busy," John said over his shoulder as he looped a very long, blue Cat-6 cable around his neck as a kind of temporary storage.

Greg took a step closer. "We've had some complaints about the outstanding tickets," he continued, keeping his voice measured. The tech was new after all.

John finally pulled his grey head out of the cabinet and gave his supervisor a blank look.

"You know the helpdesk tickets?" Greg prompted.

".. Yes?"

"There are two hundred and seventy-four of them."

John said nothing in reply, but his eyes roamed the ceiling briefly under those expressive eyebrows. It was as if he had no idea whether two hundred and seventy-four was a good or bad number of tickets to have.

"You're supposed to fix the things in the tickets," Greg said patiently. "Starting with the most critical issues."

"Yes. I know," John said curtly. "That's what I'm trying to do." He turned back to his rack and started methodically patching cables into the router, each one making a satisfying click as it snapped into place.

Greg was not used to this sort of thing happening in the I.T. Department. His regular In-House Tech was polite, efficient and ploughed through helpdesk tickets at a rate of knots. The number of tickets had never exceeded fifty, even on a bad day. That was, until the accident, and subsequent appointment of Mr John Smith.

Greg took a step back to survey the scene and nearly tripped on something. The normally immaculate server room was strewn with cables and boxes of computer components. There was an enormous blue something in the corner, half shrouded in a plastic drop sheet and glowing dimly in a pattern that looked somewhat like small window panes. A new rack perhaps? Greg was tempted to ask how he'd managed to fit its bulk through the door, but there were more pressing issues.

"The Wi-Fi's down on the third floor, again," Greg said, competing over the hum of cooling fans which only seemed to get louder as he spoke.

"Yes, I know."

Greg paused for a moment, expecting some kind of apology or perhaps an explanation, but after none was forthcoming, he decided to change the subject. "The boss would also like to know if we're 'storm ready'."

John paused mid-patch. He turned slowly back towards Greg with a serious look on his face. "Which storm, exactly?"

Greg was stunned. He thought that it would be obvious; it was all over the news and an announcement had been made to all the staff via email and on the company intranet.

"The category 3 cyclone due to make landfall tomorrow," Greg said gesturing towards the far window in exasperation. The view to outside was nothing but a sheet of grey and it was raining heavily on an angle.

"Oh, yes that! Big swirly thing. Yes." He waved at Greg dismissively before turning his back.

Greg sighed heavily. "So I can tell the boss we have backup power available to the servers, if the main supply cuts out?" Greg made no attempt to hide his growing annoyance.

"Yes," John said, leaving his patching for a moment to placate his supervisor who was looking more agitated by the second.

John slapped a hand down on Greg's shoulder, hard. He flinched at the unexpected contact.

"We have onsite backups," John said as he turned Greg around and pointed him towards the door. "Offsite backups. Very secure location - practically impenetrable!"

He gave Greg a little shove forward as he continued. "We have surge protectors, UPS, generators, alternate power supply, redundant internet connection, a fridge full of energy drinks and, a very large packet of jelly babies."

Greg seemed a little less tense when he got to the door. How was it that this man, this strange, Scottish I.T. veteran had managed to dismiss him? There was an air of authority about him and Greg felt powerless to question him any further.

"Look, Greg," he said, offering a brief grin that was meant to be friendly but it came off instead as terrifying. "I don't mean to be rude but as you can see, I'm extremely busy. Two hundred and seventy-two -"

"Four. Two hundred and seventy-four tickets, John," Greg reminded him. "Just, get it under control or your arse is on the line," he said, stabbing his finger into John's chest.

John indulged him with a polite smile. No teeth this time. "Yes, of course."

John's smile fell the moment Greg turned and left, and it was swiftly replaced by a thunderous look of contempt. He quickly found a piece of paper on a nearby desk and, taking a thick black marker, he hastily scribbled a message on it before sticking it to the outside of the door and then slamming it shut behind him.

'GO AWAY KNUCKLE DRAGGERS'.

10:37AM AEST +10:00 UTC

Clara ignored the sign and entered the I.T. Department.

"Laptop's broken," Clara said bluntly, dropping the wretched piece of equipment over The Doctor's shoulder and onto the desk where he was sitting. He was twisting a screwdriver in a piece of equipment and biting his tongue in concentration.

"Have you submitted a ticket?" The Doctor said casually.

"I can't. Because my laptop's broken," Clara said in a tone that she usually reserved for her more academically challenged students. "Besides, I hear you don't read them anyway."

Her hands were on her hips now. He didn't even need to look around to know it.

"So, how's it going up there in the Ivory Tower? Photocopied anything interesting today?" he teased. "Perfected your tea making?"

"I do anything and everything Mr Stark requires," she said with a sigh. "Unfortunately."

"I thought his name was Merrick."

"Nevermind," Clara said as she leaned up against the desk wearily. "Remind me why I have to be the P.A. again?"

"Personal Assistants are invariably young, pretty and good at bossing people around. You'll do well."

She caught his compliment even through her annoyance. "And what have you found out?"

"Thought you'd never ask." He dropped his screwdriver and tapped a key on his laptop, bringing it out of hibernation. Clara leaned in.

"Take a look at this," he said.

The Doctor fired up the vSphere Client on his laptop. On the left were a list of servers that were running, indicated by a small green 'play' symbol over each icon.

"I'm seeing.. computery.. things," she said squinting at the screen.

The Doctor pointed to an icon. "They're servers. One, two, three," he said as he pointed to each one with his long boney finger.

He started to go into a long-winded explanation of each of their roles, but Clara's interest quickly began to wane.

"Moving on. What are all these ones?" She pointed at the additional icons underneath. There must have been a dozen, with names like 'jreed', 'athompson' and 'kjones'. They were not following the server naming convention at all and sounded more like..

"People," said The Doctor.

"Well, you don't mean actual people, people. Is that their email or something?"

"Don't be ridiculous. The mail is on the first server of course! No cloud-based stuff here. Strictly old school," he said with a quick grin.

"Then, what?"

The Doctor swiveled in his seat to face her. "You remember what brought us here? The lightning strike. Strange energy readings."

"The promise of an exotic, tropical destination," she said dryly.

The Doctor ignored her and continued. "Well, these new virtual servers started appearing straight after that."

"So what are they for?"

"No idea," he said leaning back in the chair. The Doctor chewed his fingernail thoughtfully for a second. "Can't shut them down but I can pause them."

He leaned forward and right-clicked on the virtual machine marked 'jreed'. The mouse arrow hovered over the 'suspend' command.

On the second floor, accountant Jason Reed finished his morning coffee and set his mug aside next to the other four.

He finished his report to the Board of Directors, attached it to a new email and hit send.

An email notification popped up almost immediately. Jason, you've sent this to me four times this morning!

Jason ignored it. It was time for his morning coffee. Again.

The Doctor pressed 'suspend' and waited. Clara squatted down at the side of the desk and rested her head on her arms as they both stared at the screen.

"Who's jreed then?" she asked.

"Jason Reed. Accounts Department, apparently."

Clara suddenly recognised the name from an email. "Oh, I know him. He keeps asking for my tax file number."

The Doctor looked up from his laptop. "Well then, I think we should pay Mr Reed a visit."

In the staff kitchen, Jason started to pour milk from the two-litre bottle into the milk frother. He watched impassively as the milk reached the maximum line and kept going. Then it reached the top of the frother and spilled over the side, and yet he made no attempt to stop. The milk cascaded over the bench and onto the floor until the entire container was empty.

"Jesus! Jason, what are you doing?" It was Karen, his colleague, coming in to get a biscuit to dunk in her tea.

She took the bottle out of Jason's hand as he stood there in a trance. Karen started pulling great swathes of paper towel off the dispenser to cover the bench, the floor and Jason's shoes, which were now splattered with milk.

"Nevermind, we'll get this cleaned up," she said as Jason just stood there staring blankly at the wall, his arm still outstretched.

As she crouched down to dab at his shoes, Jason, with great effort, moved his arm down to a tray of Scotch Finger biscuits. He began to sweat at the effort of what he was about to do. A sense of panic overtook him but he pressed on, arranging the biscuit planks on the bench to spell out his plea.

'HELP ME!'