"So what's your thoughts Doctor?" The blonde headed girl asked as she walked around the old mans desk.
There sitting was the strangest of looking men, and he stood out like a sore thumb. He wore clothing that looked like it came right out of the 19th century. With all the frill and bright colors. He looked like he was in his 40's, but if you ever asked him, he would say he's only 400.
She leaned on the desk and stared at him, waiting for him to reply.
"Hm?" He asked, not looking up from his experiments.
She rolled her eyes.
"The missing people, what might have happened to them?" She asked.
"Oh, well, I haven't the slightest idea." He replied.
She sighed loudly and paced around the room. It had been a week since the first missing person, now ten people had completely disappeared. Where they had gone to was a complete mystery.
The Brigadier had put the Doctor at the head of the investigation. Though the Doctor kept insisting that the Brigadier had acted quite strange. But he shrugged it off and started working out how this all had happened.
But all he had worked out so far was that the people that had disappeared were of "little intelligence" as he put it.
"So Doctor, what have you come up with?" The Brigadier asked as he barged through the doors to the Doctors office.
He walked over and shook the girls hand, like he always did.
"My dear Lethbridge-Stewart, I haven't gotten any further in this case then what I was ten minutes ago." The Doctor replied, his voice sounded annoyed. He still didn't look up from his experiments, seeming to be glued to it.
"What are you doing anyway?" Asked the girl, walking up to the Doctor and getting a better look at what was going on.
"You wouldn't understand it if I said." He replied.
That comment obviously annoyed her, cause she crossed her arms and walked away.
The Brigadier just sighed and rolled his eyes. The two always seemed to act like this. Though the girl was always mentioning that she had a good relationship with the Doctor, he never saw it.
"Well, if you find anything new, contact me immediately." The Brigadier finished before walking out of the room.
"Zell, could you hand me that beaker?" The Doctor asked, reaching a hand out towards her, but not looking away from his work.
The girl, Zell, nodded and quickly handed him the beaker. She stood there watching him, still wondering what this experiment had to do with the missing people? She scratched the back of her neck as she thought it over.
"Is there something wrong?" The Doctor asked.
"Hm?" Zell replied.
"Well, it's just that, that is the tenth time I have seen you scratch that part of your head since you brought in breakfast." He commented.
"Oh, I think it's UNIT's conditioner, not good for the scalp." She replied.
"Really? I haven't had that problem." He joked, smiling up to her.
She smiled back, leaning in again to examine his work.
"Can't you try to explain what your doing Doctor?" She asked, this time making her voice seem sweeter.
"You know actually, I don't have the faintest idea what I'm doing." He replied.
Zell scoffed and punched him lightly on the shoulder.
"You never tell me anything." She replied.
Just then, the Doctor jumped up, dropping the beaker onto the table. Thrusting an arm at Zell, he made his mark right in the middle of her chest, forcing her on her back.
"What are you doing?" She shouted, looking up at him surprised.
But he didn't reply, jumping back to the table, he began to smash test tube after test tube into the bubbling liquid. Then the whole thing erupted and the room filled with a white haze.
Zell gasped for breath as the air began to thin, and the temperature began to plummet. She scratched at the TARDIS's doors, trying to get them open. It was the only thing she could think of to save both her and the Doctors lives.
Bursting through the Police Box doors, Zell scrambled to the control panel in the center of the room. Stumbling as she reached it, she looked over the many buttons and dials. Barely able to think straight due to the lack of oxygen, she wasn't quite sure what she was suppose to do.
Leaning over the console, she jammed a coded message, and with a yank of a lever, sent it through time and space.
"Oh Doctor, please find it..." She gasped as she collapsed to the ground.
-Cue Doctor Who theme-
!i!i!i!i!
"Str-r-range," the Doctor mumbled as he stared at the TARDIS's console. There was a new button. Or at least a button he had never taken notice of before. Suddenly he was torn from his contemplation, every single light on the console flashed all at once.
"Well, that was pretty, what'd you do now Professor?" came Ace's sarcastic voice from somewhere slightly behind him. She stepped closer to better see the spectacle.
"Not now, Ace!" the Doctor said as he ran around the console, pressing buttons at random. Then, as abruptly as it started, the light-show ceased. One light remained lit for a split second, before, it to, went dark. The screen in the wall opened on it's own accord and Gallifrain script galloped across its surface.
Reading the message, the Doctor's face grew darker than the light. He once again turned his attention to the buttons on the console, and this time, he only pressed one. Ignition.
The TARDIS would bring them were they were needed. Indeed, it was already there.
Ignoring the sound of Ace's surprise at a take off without a million tiny adjustments, a witty comment, or a bumpy landing, the Doctor wrenched open the TARDIS's door. He was met with a face full of white smoke and the mental slap of a once hidden memory.
He could keenly hear the sounds of screaming through the thick haze that had settled in his mind. It was painfully dark, so dark that it was almost heavy. He could feel ropes binding his arms to an object in front of him. The doctor tried to turn his head, to find the source of the ear splitting screams. Finding that his head was also bound to the object in a similar fashion, he attempted to bring his hands up to the knot that held his head still. Regrettably, the knots where very well tied, and his hands were not going to move. He sighed, then noticed that he could no longer hear the screams.
How did I get here? The thought was greeted by a blow to the head from behind. It wasn't enough to knock him out, but it did cause him to see spots in his vision. Someone placed a cold hand on the back of his neck, lightly stroking the shock of white blonde hair upward and away, leaving his neck exposed.
"You will soon be joining our ranks, Doctor," a gruff voice announced to the back of his head, "We already have...obtained your little friend, the Yiloran," the voice began to laugh in an almost mechanical way. It gave the Doctor the distinct impression that his captor had new lungs or a very ill used sense of humor, this thought was quickly replaced with the urge to put his hand into the man's esophagus and make sure Zell was safe.
"Zell is of no use to you, let her go, it is me you obviously want I-" he was cut off, rather rudely by his captor's wheezing laugh.
"That is where you are wrong, Doctor, you are so very, very wrong," the Doctor felt his hair being pushed aside once again leaving his neck exposed. A dry, hard object was pressed against it, and for the first time in an extremely long time, the Doctor felt fear well up in him like the swelling of the tides as the object pierced his skin and began to burrow. He bit back the urge to scream, not wanting to give his torturer the satisfaction of his pain. The hand pressed the object deeper, as if persuading it ever deeper. Finally, the Doctor had no choice but to scream, his torturer had reached his spine, and the feeling of that painful device latching onto his bone was too much to bare. The last thing he heard before he lapsed back into unconsciousness was Zell's desperate voice cry out one word...
"Doctor," a pause "Doctor?" Ace's face came into focus. The Doctor lay on the floor of the control room in the TARDIS, apparently he had passed out. He brought his hand up to the back of his neck and touched it gingerly, half expecting to feel the warm trickle of fresh blood.
"I think," he said slowly to Ace's concerned face, "that we may have a bigger pr-r-roblem than I thought." He accepted Ace's helping hand and stood up. The door of the TARDIS was ajar, but the smoke seemed to have dissipated. Grabbing his hat, the Doctor once again pushed open the door.