"Ex-excuse me," Shinji said - or tried to. It didn't really come out. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Excuse me. I'm sorry, but could you please stop that?"

"Eh?" The man glanced towards Shinji. As he did, the penlight slipped out of his hand.

The tape player abruptly sparked and shorted out in Shinji's hands. He yelped and jumped to his feet - then immediately sat down again. His legs had been asleep for hours. The tape player dropped to the floor.

"Ooh, sorry," the tall man said. He spoke surprisingly good Japanese, if with an odd accent. "Sorry, my fault. You all right, then?" He reached down and scooped up the tape player.

"Uh," Shinji said.

"Here, let me fix that." The man picked up the penlight and held it to the tape player. "Must've been on the same resonance frequency as the tape. You just don't see too many cassette players around anymore. Mind you, they're brilliant - lost art and all that. Used to have one of these myself. Gorgeous sound quality - well, up until I had to use it as the trigger in an antimatter bomb. Still wasn't bad after that, though."

"Er," Shinji said.

"There you are, good as new." The man handed Shinji the tape player. "Or nearly. Might've voided the warranty a bit, sorry. I'm the Doctor, by the way. What's your name?"