fandomhigh | Practical Crisis Problem Solving - Danger Shop, Tuesday, Period 3 (11am-12pm)

Upon walking through the doors of the Danger Shop, it was completely understandable if the fine students of Practical Crisis Problem Solving (which the Doctor preferred to call "Staying Out of Trouble Badly") were very confused. They were in the park. Yes, the park, the one in Fandom just outside and down the road. Fandom all around them looked normal, at least as far as the beach. Then the water and everything beyond it was all hazy. The sky was an odd shade of red too.

"Hello!" the Doctor said, looking very smart in his tweed jacket and bow tie. There were other clothes too (including pants), but those were the two articles worth mentioning. "I'm the Doctor. You are all in Staying Out of Trouble Badly." See, with the calling the class the wrong name. "Which might be on your little schedule spreadsheets as something to do with problem solving. If you're not supposed to be here," he added with a smile, "stay anyway. Have some fun. Today we're going to get the creative juices flowing." He frowned. "No, I don't like the sound of that. It sounds too...moist. Doesn't matter." He switched back on track. "You might be wondering why the sky is red. Or orange. Burnt sienna? Would we call it that? Maybe Sinopia instead. The colour, not the planet. I had a point somewhere.

The sky. Yes. The sky is red because the entire island," he turned around in a circle and pointed in every direction for emphasis, "is surrounded by a shield. You can't penetrate it and you can't transport out of it, sorry if that's your thing. The reason for this a species called the Atraxi have tracked a criminal here to the very pretty Fandom Island. Prisoner Zero is its name. If Prisoner Zero doesn't give itself up in an hour, the Atraxi are going to incinerate everything and everyone inside the shield. They don't do things by halves.

I don't expect you to find Prisoner Zero today, but before the hour is up, each of you is to come up with a plan. Brainstorm. That's what we're here for today. Brainstorm a plan. Talk to me. Talk to each other. Let's get some ideas on how to find Prisoner Zero, stop the Atraxi from burning us all to a crisp and save Fandom. Your name might be useful too, if you don't mind telling me it. Oh, and if you do have higher brain function and can understand what I'm saying, please raise your hand so I can identify anyone who doesn't and can't."

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"Something doesn't have to be human to be restrained," Cara pointed out. "If you have a wizard, there are spells they can use to stop them moving. There are other ways too." She wasn't going to bring up the idea of using an agiel, since he'd probably just get grumpy again.

The Doctor really didn't want to be Mr. Grumpyface today. "Let's move on. Your 'wizard' does their work, Prisoner Zero is restrained. How do you convince the Atraxi that you have their prisoner and not destroy us all?"

"If they can't tell who their prisoners are, what are they doing being prison guards in the first place?"

"Not all beings in the universe stay looking the same all of the time."

"Presumably they have some way of identifying him regardless of what he looks like."

"You'd think, but they don't, not while he looks like something other than what he is." Ahh, there were a few details he'd left out. "So they don't. Work around it."

Cara had a sneaking suspicion that was going to be a running theme in this class. "Is there a way to force him to look like what he is again? One that's actually available to us?"

"Trickery."

There was absolutely no reason for Cara's hand dropping to the empty holster strapped to her thigh, or for it to be flexing around a handle that wasn't there. None at all.

"Any particular kind of trickery?"

"The kind that gets results. Think, Cara! I know you're brighter than you like to pretend you are. Get on with it. How can Prisoner Zero look like other things? How does it work? Have the right conversation and you can coax details out. If there's technology, have someone fiddle with it to stop the image. If it's mental, find out what triggers a change. Or if that doesn't work, have him do something that will undoubtedly identify him as what he is! Something that no other being here would be able to do."

"But I don't know if it's mental, or magical, or whatever," Cara ground out. "And since we haven't got time to find all of that out, I would ask the person who very obviously does know to start telling us the details. Politely." At first.

There was a very significant glare being cast in the Doctor's direction.

"Keeping in mind that I wouldn't be here in this situation and we'd all have been saved and gone for lunch already, psychic. For the sake of simplification, let's go with that Prisoner Zero appears as what he thinks he appears as."

So he was some weird kind of Listener then. "In that case you'd need to make him think he looked like himself somehow, or knock him out so he couldn't think."

"Was that really so hard?"

"Of course it's not hard once you have the right information about him. It's getting it that's the problem."

"Which you would have worked out on your own if you'd followed the right lines of thinking. We'll work on it. There's hope for you yet."

Practical Crisis Problem Solving - Danger Shop, Tuesday, Period 3 (11am-12pm)

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