His lips were pursed in concentration, as the he simultaneously typed, while also staring intently at the readings on the astral pylonmeter.

The Doctor had waved Amy and Rory off, as they set out to Amy's parent's anniversary party, at some hotel in London. He'd flown off into space, for a little peace and quiet. He'd been setting about making some minor adjustments to his sonic screwdriver, when an urgent pinging on the console had alerted him to some bit of trouble, somewhere in the universe. There was a tiny fluctuation in the space-time vortex. Something he'd never seen before. It wasn't the crack in time. There wasn't enough interference for that. This was more like a spacial anomaly,. The astral pylonmeter acted like a sort of time-space radar, and this was merely a minute blip showing up in the fabric of time.

Frowning in concentration as he examined the readings he was getting, the Doctor's frown deepened, as a new sound emitted from the console. The insistent ringing of a telephone. He wanted to ignore it, but it was disturbing his concentration.

"I knew I shouldn't have had that chat little with Alex Bell in Glasgow that day." The Doctor muttered crossly, giving a hard stare at the offending device. "Humans and telephones! What is this obsession they have with mobiles, going around everywhere with the thing glued to the sides of their heads, like some kind of third ear? On bikes, in restaurants, in lifts, on trains---even while they're on the loo! I mean, what's with that? How they do natter on, gabbling away about shopping lists, marital rows, traffic tail backs, where to go for lunch, what the cat vomited up on the carpet. And what is it with people writing in text speak? Shakespeare would weep if he'd lived to see that. Well....maybe not, he'd be over six hundred years old. I don't suppose much would surprise him at that age."

Still, the phone kept on ringing. He stopped muttering to himself and glared pointedly at the phone. Then, he shrugged. Taking a deep breath, the Doctor snatched it up.

"Hello? No, I don't want to buy any double glazing today, thanks."

"Doctor!" Came a female voice on the other end, "Don't you dare hang up."

"River?" The Doctor replied. "You know, I really am quite busy at the moment...."

"You're always busy, Doctor." She answered. "Let me guess, you've found a spacial anomaly in the fabric of time, and you are trying to measure it?"

The Doctor unconsciously took a step back, and looked up, a perplexed expression on his face. He scowled, and looked warily around the console room.

"Oh no," he sighed into the phone. "tell me you haven't installed some kind of spy cam in here, so you can keep tabs on me. That would be just too clingy...or disrespectful of my privacy...or paranoid...or kinky...or quite possibly all of the above or any combination thereof." Even though he knew River couldn't see it, the Doctor gave an exaggerated shudder. "I hope you're not turning into some kind of over-the-top obsessed fan-girl, bent on turning me into your own personal possession."

"Oh, I'm much more than that, Doctor, and you know it. Or rather, you will, someday." River teased him. She was standing in a red phone box on a busy city street corner. "Listen to me, the reason I'm calling is that I know about that anomaly. I know where, or rather when, it's originating from."

"Really?" the Doctor said, forgetting to be cross as his natural curiosity took over. "OK, tell me what's going on. I'm all ears. Well, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration," He mumbled, tilting his head and feeling his left ear with his hand, "but you know what I mean...."

"There's something wrong with time, Doctor. If you'll stop playing with your ear and listen to me...." River scolded him.

"I knew it River, you did install one of those hidden cameras in my TARDIS!" The Doctor interjected.

"No, I didn't...well, except maybe for that one in in the swimming pool's changing room...." she replied cheekily, cradling the phone receiver under her chin. She removed a small notebook from her purse. Opening it, she glanced at the page. On it were scrawled a series of numbers and geometric diagrams. "But if we can move on, Doctor, I need to tell you that the anomaly is getting stronger, and I am not so sure it's a natural phenomena."

"What makes you say that?" The Doctor asked her, suddenly worried, glancing a the blip showing up on the pylonmeter. He wasn't liking the sound of this.

"As I said, it seems to be coming from one particular point in Earth's time line, and besides that, whatever it is , it's deadly. Already two lives have been lost, and one woman was seriously injured, all under very unusual and mysterious circumstances. But Doctor, there's something more, something you should know, I found an ancient intergalactic code hidden inside the anomaly." River reported to him. Her voice almost had a shaky quality to it, as if she was afraid of having to tell the Doctor some awful truth.

"What sort of code?" The Doctor asked, his brows furrowing in apprehension. "Have you been able to translate it?"

"Yes." Came River's short answer.

"Well, what is it then?" The Doctor impatiently demanded of River Song. Without being aware of it, he was gripping the edge of the console with whitened knuckles.

"The code appears to be at least partially written in old...."

The Doctor yanked the phone away from his ear, as a high pitched squawk of feedback cut off River's reply.

"River? Are you still there?" The Doctor could only just make out River Song's voice, but not what she was saying, the signal was breaking up due to some kind of interference. "What is it now?" he complained, moving over to a different part of the console. A quick check of the scanner revealed the problem.

"Ugh! What is it with the Americans and their obsession with outer space? Not to mention all the rubbish they've been leaving behind up here. I mean, they are turning this part of the galaxy into a positive tip! The Shadow Proclamation should fine them for littering." The Doctor decried, before putting the phone receiver back to his ear. "OK, if you can hear me, listen carefully River, it's important. Since I can't hear you properly, I'll have to ring you back. There's a NASA shuttle passing close by, and it's quite possible, however unlikely, that its space to ground transmissions are messing up the mobile signal. That is so un-cool. Anyway, I'll ring you right back, just as soon as I can take the TARDIS out of range of the shuttle's transmissions."

Several minutes later, with the TARDIS well out of range on the other side of the Earth, the Doctor rang up River.

"Hi!" came an American male voice on the other end of the phone, "This is Bob's Bait Shop and Fish Fry. You hook 'em and we cook 'em."

"What? Erm..." Was all the Doctor could say, his face looking slightly perplexed. "Sorry, wrong number."

The Doctor redialed much more carefully.

"Hello, River?" He said, before once again abruptly jerking the phone away from his ear.

This time he'd rung up what seemed to be a very irate elderly woman, whom was yelling at him in Japanese. From what she was saying, apparently it was three in the morning in Tokyo, and she was quite cross at him for waking her. The Doctor quickly apologized and hung up. Taking a deep breath , he tried phoning River again.

"Thank you for calling Hesco Novelties Limited. For sales, press one." Said a cheerful recorded voice. "For delivery, press two, for our hours of operation, press three. If you have a complaint, please hold and our next available representative will be happy to assist you, sometime in the near future."

The Doctor hung up the phone. He sat down on the jump seat and rubbed his forehead. He glanced over at the phone on the console and sighed.

"Well, something's not right. Either my phone isn't working properly, or someone, somewhere out there, doesn't want me to reach River." Suddenly, he grinned and jumped up. "OK, so I can't call her myself, but maybe someone else, can!"

Rushing back over to the phone, the Doctor once again punched in the number of the pay telephone River had been using. He waited while it rang. Someone picked up. The Doctor's eyes widened in surprise.

"Oh er--hullo your Majesty. It's the Doctor." He said respectfully. After a pause, the Doctor continued, "I am so sorry to be bothering you while you're dressing for tea with Princess Beatrice. Oh, by the way, tell her I'm sorry about the hat. I sent her the wrong one. That one was meant to be worn by the Honourary Fribble Princess for the annual Strawberry Milkshake and Skiffle Band Festival on Kateross Four. Got my princesses mixed up, I'm afraid. If it's any consolation, her hat is going to end up as one of the most popular fashion crazes of the mid-27th century. Anyway, your Majesty, I was wondering if you could do me an enormous favour...."

A short while later, the Queen rang him back with coordinates for River Song's location on Earth. The Doctor got busy and landed the TARDIS in an alleyway off of a street of shops in Brixton. After re-adjusting his braces and re-tying his tie and shoelaces, the Doctor opened the TARDIS doors and went out into the alley. He emerged out on to the road, and immediately spied the red phone box River had described to the Queen.

However, when the Doctor arrived at the phone box, it was empty. All he found was River Song's purse, lying on the floor, an open tube of lipstick lying beside it. The phone's receiver was hanging down, swinging back and forth as if it had just been abandoned in a hurry. The Doctor was about to turn away, when he noticed some writing in lipstick on one of the glass panes of the phone booth. The last bit of writing was smudged, as if the writer was pulled away from what she was doing. Of course, that could only be River, the Doctor thought to himself. Peering at the glass, he read what River had written there. "SOS 1915 MA--"

"SOS." The Doctor said to himself. "That means River's in trouble. Either someone's abducted her, or she's being pursued. But what does 1915 and M.A. mean? Is it some kind of code? Coordinates? A street address?"

The Doctor was about to leave, when he remembered River's purse was on the floor. He'd only just stooped down to retrieve it, when he was showered with shards glass and splintered wood, as the front of the phone box was shattered in an explosive puff of smoke, destroyed by the bright red flare of an energy beam.