Big Ben Strikes The Eleventh Hour (Wholock)

'Basic' Coding

When Amy, John and Rory entered the TARDIS, the were very, very surprised to see Sherlock smiling, or at least as close as he could,  and talking pleasantly with the Doctor. However, the newcomers were less surprised to see the Doctor chatting away happily.

Amy coughed, and the two geniuses looked up at them. The Doctor beamed but Sherlock morphed into his usual stoic expression, much to Johns disappointment.

"John!" the Doctor called happily. "The Ponds! Welcome! How are you all today?"

"Good, I guess," John answered. "I assume you two figured it out?"

"Yes!" the Doctor replied. 

"It was easy," Sherlock put in.

"It was?" Rory asked. "Well, then why couldn't the TARDIS figure it out?"

"Er, it wasn't how I thought it was at first," the Doctor cut in, a little defensively. "It was a little complicated."

"Huh," was all Rory said.

"I assume you all want to hear how we did it?" the Doctor asked enthusiastically. 

"Er, no thanks, just tell us what the messa-," John started, but he was interrupted.

"Perfect!" the Doctor exclaimed. "First things things first, is that the woman has sent me five messages, each in a different 'file'. But phone calls... aren't files. But we simple opened four of them in a text editor and then were able to read them."

"The first one is easy," Sherlock cut in. "It was Base64, and that's easy to decode."

"Right," the Doctor agreed. "And so we translated it and it said: 'Hello? Is anyone there? I- I need help.'"

"Huh," John said.

"Yes," Sherlock replied. "A little odd. But the rest were more complicated. The second one opened up to be static."

"We thought it was a QR code at first," the Doctor added. "But it was a little weirder."

"It was binary," Sherlock continued. "With blacks being zeros and white being ones. We converted it to base64 and then decoded it to English."

"Well, no, the TARDIS translated it," the Doctor bragged. "It said 'I your need Doctor help. Are me the keeping creators.'"

"...What?" Rory asked, taking about two seconds to voice everyone's confusion.

"We'll tell you later," the Doctor told them, waving his hand. "Anyway, the third one was better. We opened it to static, got a real QR code this time, scanned it, and got... some audio."

"This time, we put it in a visualizer," Sherlock picked up. "It became a bunch a letters, and we converted from base64."

"And we got another message," the Doctor explained. "'Here trapped. They I can here think don't.'"

"You'll," Amy started.

"Explain later," the Doctor confirmed. "Now, the third one was interesting, but sort of easier. We took the audio, visualized it, got a QR code, scanned it, and found a website."

"The website said," Sherlock explained. "'Me. Out get want but I to. Out get I to need. Doctor help please your I need.'"

"Ooookay," Amy shrugged, confused.

"Yeah," the Doctor grinned. "And the last one was... interesting."

"Fist, we converted it to a PNG file, we got an image, we inverted the colours, wrapped it around a cone, and got an image."

"It was a satellite image," the Sherlock cut in. "Of the Eti Rebyata solar system. And six different spots were marked. And one big one was ci-."

But before we get to that," the Doctor interrupted. "First, the messages."

"Oh, yes," Sherlock realized, biting back a groan of annoyance that everybody was not on the same intelligence scale as he was. "Fine, it said: 'DoctorIneedyourhelp.Thecreatorsarekeepingmetrappedhere.Idon'tthinktheycanhearme.ButIwanttogetoutIneedtogetout.Please,Doctor,Ineedyourhelp.'"

"...Uh," John started, confused, but the Doctor cleared it up.

"It said," the Doctor corrected. "' Doctor I need your help. The creators are keeping me trapped here. I don't think they can hear me. But I want to get out. I need to get out. Please, Doctor, I need your help.'"

"Oh," John responded.

"Wait, so that means...," Rory started.

"That the exes on the map are where we need to go to free O.T.A.V.I.A? Correct!"

The Doctor ran over to the controls and started up the TARDIS.

"GERONIMO!!"