It's a future League story but it's trying to encompass different interpretations of the Future Leagues, I don't own any of the characters
here. They all belong to their various copyright holders: BBC, Eidos
Publishing & Twentieth Century Fox Television. The Diogenes Club is the invention of Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle and therefore is the property of the
Estate of Arthur Conan-Doyle. All feedback is welcome, so please Read and Review, I know it's a future League fic but I have tried to be original and stick to the philosophy of both the film and the comic book.

Tom Quinn raced across the scrub land, running for the beach. He heard the distant sounds of shouting as the policemen with dogs chased his scent. They were way over the plain but the noises were getting closer. Tom picked up his pace. He reached the shoreline and its beach covered with smooth stones. He stopped looking back over his shoulder. The police were far behind him. He leapt across the embankment, stones crunching loudly beneath his feet. He reached the cold water bounding in as far as his depth. Then he kicked off into a breaststroke, his jacket holding him above water. Distant barking caused a roaring babble of voices in the distance. Tom swam on...
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The prisoner sat on the bunk across from the official. The official was another bureaucrat with a grey pinstripe suit and briefcase, bowler and umbrella. The prisoner wore a boiler suit and a number; there was no surname. He would not be talking to the other prisoners. He would not talk to the warders. There was food, without cutlery, that was passed through a hatch in the door. This prisoner was too dangerous to be allowed human contact.

The prisoner was interested by the latest diversion, his black beard smiled with civility while his eyes glittered with contempt for this intruder. He gestured to the chair on the desk while he sat on the bunk. The bureaucrat sat down facing his host. They had sat for twenty minutes looking at each other. The prisoner stared into the bureaucrat's eyes while the bureaucrat simply returned his gaze. The bureaucrat coughed and turned his attention to his briefcase with disparaging snort, "When you have quite finished Mr...Master...or do you prefer Rev. Magister or Dr Keller or many other tired uninspired pseudonyms."

The prisoner seemed to shift in his chair uncomfortably, then he looked at his uninvited guest, "I am the Master and you will obey me."

The bureaucrat snorted with derision, "Yes they told me that you would attempt something like this Koschei."

The Master recoiled at the use of his real name, "Who sent you?"

"I am sent by order of the High Council of Time Lords, to issue you with instructions to co-operate with the British Government of Earth in the undertaking of a new grouping of talented individuals that the humans insist on giving the ludicrous epithet: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. You will be recruited to this group for what reasons Rassilon only knows why. You will accept you will join and then you will be allowed again to roam the galaxy."

"And if I don't." The Master was defiant

"Then you will stay here for the rest of your life-span." The Bureaucrat stated this coldly; the Master knew this as a fact.

"I will do it." The voice seethed with resentment.

"Excellent." The Bureaucrat stood up, placing his hat on his head, picking up his briefcase and placing the umbrella on the crook of his arm. He faded into nothing. There was a knock on the door...
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The limousine arrived outside the building which the Master recognised as once housing the ancient and respected Diogenes Club. It was a vision in neo-classicism and fascistic overtones, the Master warmed to it immediately, it would make a suitable palace when he ruled this suburban nightmare of a planet. Should he decide not to destroy it on a whim...anyway it made an excellent testing ground for some of his more interesting experiments and the Dæmons had been here, and the Autons, and the Sea Devils came from here. Admittedly he'd brought the mind parasite but the Earth was such a pathetically easy target for destruction and yet it always survived. The Doctor had something to do with it, true, but perhaps it had been something he had missed himself something in the inhabitants. This 'League' might give him the answers he sought about the human race and its persistence.

The chauffeur brought the car to a halt and one of the soldiers beside him had opened the door while the one on the other side moved him out of the car with some persistence. He shuffled along the seat with his hands and feet manacled. Then he slipped out of the door where the soldier was waiting. He grabbed the Master and pulled him onto the kerb. The second soldier stepped out of the car and grabbed his other arm closing the door behind him and the limousine drove away.

They walked up to the stairs into the building. A man in military uniform opened the doors and the Master could see the mosaic floor behind him showing the unsleeping eye of the law. These humans could be naïve sometimes. They walked through, stepping across the mosaic, down a corridor, leading to another pair of double doors this time made of oak. The Master stepped through into a conference room where a gentleman was sitting and a young woman with a long braided ponytail was sitting next to him with a folder out. A folder with his photograph. He smiled a disarming smile, which his beard rearmed. Twenty years of not shaving had made his beard look bushy like an old fashioned pirate, while his cropped streaked hair hung in lumps around his face.

The gentleman at the head of the table reacted with surprise at his new guest and his unkempt condition. "Why is he chained?"

The soldier released him and saluted. The Master chuckled as he rubbed his wrists, "You can't get the staff these days."

"Indeed not, Master, would you sit down and meet your new team mate Lady Lara Croft...?"

To Be Continued...