At a TARDIS console, a man dressed all in black was working feverishly. His dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He had a goatee and the mouth that it framed was grimacing. "What are you up to now?" he asked the empty air. There was a noise from the console and he pushed a button, activating a view screen. A blond woman dressed in white appeared, her face somber."Master. I see you are still with us."
He glanced up at her, "Romana. Right on time, as always." He continued working.
"What are you working on? Have you found a way to reach him?" She asked.
"There is no way to reach him, but yes, I do have a plan." He replied.
"So you believe, as do we, that he is lost to us." She simply stated the question as a declaration. He looked up at her and smiled slyly, "All is not lost. He always found a way and so shall we."
Romana continued, "We've been in a few TARDIS that he left us and recovered the data. You were important in more than a few of the databases."
The Master stood up and straightened his jacket, "I've done the same. In other universes I'm," he let his voice trail off before continuing, "not a nice person. A lot of it had to do with some time war we never had to go through."
She didn't react to his enthusiasm. She continued, "He's time locked Skaro."
He glanced up at her again, "It's no longer important."
Her expression changed to slight disbelief, "No longer important? He's time locked five hundred and seventeen separate sectors of space. Is that not important too?"
The wry smile reappeared and he replied, chuckling, " He's narrowing the playing field. Brilliant, just brilliant."
"We're running out of places to hide." She said, her expression unchanging. "We lost two."
The Master nodded, as if anticipating this, "So we are down to seven."
"He's killed six hundred and four different versions of himself." She said in a flat, dead voice. "Every time he rips a hole in another universe, the Doctor is drawn there shortly after."
"I know. I thought the Doctor with the pet Dalek for a companion almost had him." He replied, still working at the controls.
" With Skaro out of reach we have no way of knowing what happened to him." She said.
He bent down to continue working. He paused and looked up at her, "I know what happened."
Her face became shocked, losing even more color, "What did you say?" How.."
He interrupted her, "He was here… sort of. He broadcast his image in my TARDIS and we had a nice long chat. He told me everything thinking it wouldn't help us or hoping that it would." He looked at her waiting face before continuing, "In his fourth generation the Dalek Davros had The Doctor trapped. The Doctor attempted to feign death by slowing his heart rates down so they wouldn't be detected. This Davros was not fooled and put him into stasis, starting genetic research on him. He discovered what we have always known, that the process which allows us to regenerate reacts to the stimulus that causes our death, creating for us a new body capable of overcoming the obstacle and allowing our escape."
Romana was horrified, "But knowing that doesn't change us into Daleks."
"True." He continued. "Davros discovered that after the regeneration process was started, he could add Dalek material and bond it to the new Time Lord cells, corrupting them. It took years for him to perfect."
A tear tracked it's way down her face, "He was left alone, down there for years?"
The Master pulled on each of his cuffs and smirked, "No one was keeping an eye on him and Skaro had been deemed 'hazardous'."
Romana blinked, "So we cannot keep him from being created. Tok will defeat us, it's only a matter of time."
The Master glanced up at her and gave a slight shake of his head, "Don't ever call him that."
"Tok is a monster. There is no other name.." she replied.
"He was my friend!" the Master roared, slamming his fist down on his console. "He never gave up on me!" He calmed down a little, "He's made a critical mistake, which I plan to exploit to the best of my abilities."
"What mistake is that?" she asked.
The Master stopped what he was doing, placing both hands on either side of the control panel. He looked up at her, his eyes blazing, teeth snarled. Romana saw and wondered at the horrors this being had inflicted in parallel worlds before hearing, "He's made me very angry." The master finished. He straightened, tugging on his jacket. He rolled his shoulders then looked her square, "He's given me till tomorrow and then he says he's coming for me. He intends to time lock me and make me a statue along side Rassilon while we watch him destroy the rest of you." He watched for her reaction, then seeing none continued, "I have a plan which we must put into action, now, without delay."
"Tell me what you intend Time Lord." She replied.
He put a finger to his chin in thought. He smiled wryly again, "You aren't going to like it. In fact, none of us are. Although I am clearly the smartest being in this entire universe, sometimes I wonder if I'm as crazy as he is." The last sounded like more of a question to himself.
"Will it work?" Romana asked.
He gazed at her for a long time before answering, "I am the Master, of course it will. I just need to enlist some help from an old friend." He hunched over his console again, "Now, this is what I need.."
To be continued