The Adventure of the Master Key
Part 1: Hero's Plead
Inside the TARDIS, Susan, Ian and Barbara stand around the console talking, as they always do when an adventure looms before them, while they watch the Doctor fiddling with exposed wires beneath the console. He wears a pair of goggles that look incredibly silly on the old man.
"Are you sure these adjustments are really going to make you able to fly this machine properly and accurately for a change, Doctor?" asked Ian, causing Susan and Barbara to share a glance and laugh between themselves.
"Dear boy, have you no faith in me? Try finding a better pilot than me in a billion light-years, I think! Your incessant accusations upon my proficiency have finally proved too much to bear. I am only fine-tuning the old girl in the hopes that you will cease these slanders upon my good name!" The old Doctor shouts from where he sits, his head beneath the console, looking up into an opening he unsealed, tinkering with the impossible machinery. Susan and Barbara laugh again.
"Oh grandfather. We could just pop home and evade arrest for long enough to find ourselves a brand new Type 42" suggested Susan.
"Poppycock! Would you expect this ship to go anywhere if you talk like that? All she needs is some love and affection, like any other temperamental lady, hmmm." the Doctor retaliates. As he says this, he must have touched the wrong gizmo, as an electric shock travels from the unseen circuitry to the Doctor's hand. Unfortunately, not the hand wearing his signet ring, allowing the electricity to flow. He reacts by pulling his hands out but in doing so, bumps his head on the console's underside. Much to his frustration, Susan, Barbara and Ian let out a laugh, but stop at once when they see his feelings are hurt.
"Oh Doctor, you know we don't mean to offend. Is there anything we can do to help?" asks Barbara.
"We'll do anything to help you. Especially if it means that we'll make it home, one day" Ian says, smiling.
"Hmmm, Chatterbox, now that you mention it, this machine may need more than love and affection after all," says the Doctor, adding, "in my expert opinion", causing Susan to giggle once again. "We'll need a time-track triangulation circuit, a dynamic de-scrambler and perhaps a new screwdriver. Preferably sonic. As it happens, I know just the place!"
"Now here would that be?" asks Susan, smirking at her grandfather.
"A junkyard in a stable orbit around a black hole, of course. It collects objects before they fall in, so just like Totter's lane in that you never know what you'll find!" he announces merrily. He stands at the controls and works his charm, leading the TARDIS to this mysterious place. Besides the Doctor, Susan is the only one who knows the probability of them all falling in the event horizon, but doesn't mention it. The TARDIS begins to materialise. A quick scan reveals that they landed in a habitable area, surrounded by mountains of technologically advanced pieces of rubbish, exactly as hoped.
"Now what did I tell you all? Right on target! A bit of love and affection indeed! We should find these pieces in no time at all!" announced the Doctor, smiling brightly and holding his suspenders. Absolutely no one, especially the Doctor, was aware that they were all several hundred thousand light years away from the junkyard he was aiming for and by chance materialised in a completely different yet effectively very similar junkyard planet in stable orbit beyond a black hole.
"Ladies first" said the Doctor, smiling at Susan and Barbara, who returned the smile. He pushed the lever, opening the doors. Outside were glorious mountains of unexplainable objects under a starlit sky (however with an ominous, starless void in a corner above the horizon) and the girls stepped out into the amazing sight, glancing around in awe.
As fast as he could, the Doctor pulled down the lever, locking the doors on Susan and Barbara, wiping the smile clean off Ian's handsome face. Before he could react, the Doctor's nimble hands had commanded the TARDIS to dematerialise. The image of the girls on the scanner faded to instead present the ripples of the time vortex.
"What are you doing!" he shouts, completely dumbfounded by the Doctor's actions. He stands in front of the closed doors, staring at the Doctor, standing as tall as he can over the old man.
"Now, boy, please calm down and listen to me! Have you forgotten this is a space, and time machine, hmmm? We haven't even left them for a second. I am sorry for troubling you, but the girls aren't safe where we need to go. I don't mean to put down Susan and Barbara, but I need a brave and quick-thinking lad such as you" The Doctor says, looking sternly into Ian's blue eyes. It was clear that he would not back down. Ian was unsure of the Doctor and his sudden seriousness, anxious seconds passed as Ian thought about what was happening.
"Well, where are we going, Doctor? What is so urgent?" asks Ian, reluctantly trusting him as had always proven to be wise. He adds, "and what were you really doing to the TARDIS machinery?"
"Ahh! A quick-thinker indeed, dear boy!" exclaims the Doctor. He kneels back down to peer into the open circuitry, and beckons Ian to do the same. He pulls out a miniature computer-like object and a blue switch, attached to many different wires still hooked into the console. "Not only was I attempting to tune the precision of where the TARDIS lands, I was installing a new feature", he gestures to the switch, "like a telephone's redial feature, our TARDIS can now reappear at exactly the same point in time and space at which it last departed. To Susan and your dearest Barbara," the Doctor giving Ian a sly smile upon the mention of her name, "we never left them. I would never have left if there was a possibility of them being lost in eternity."
"That is, if we survive to return to them. You still haven't told me our destination or our purpose on this secretive adventure of yours" commented Ian, already slightly weary with dealing with the enigmatic old man. The Doctor then revealed to Ian the screen of the small electronic device. Ian was dumbfounded by the device.
"It's what your ordinary telephone will one day become. Quite useful, once you figure the wretched things out."
The screen read;
"I'll certainly be needing your assistance, Doctor. Please arrive as soon as possible.
Enemies are hard at work, but I don't understand what, yet.
- SH
Message sent: 7:43AM, SAT 11th February, 2012"
"I'm still not sure I understand" Ian says, attempting to process all this information, "this S.H. fellow sent you a letter with a futuristic telephone, and we have to rush there," Ian double-checked the message, "to the year two thousand and twelve?" Ian exclaimed, leaving his mouth open with amazement.
"Precisely!" the Doctor exclaimed with brightness to his eyes brought upon by the promise of adventure. They get up off the floor, the Doctor with agility despite his age and then proceeds to navigate the console. "We should arrive precisely where we need to be, if we triangulate the transmission of the message" the Doctor ads, and attaches more wires to the contraption, attached to the console. "Now I warn you, boy, things may seem quite a shock to you once we arrive, he he." he says, smirking towards Chesterton, and all he could do was stand beside and watch the Doctor manage the impossible machinery towards another incomprehensible destination.
"Oh Doctor, you make just about as much sense as ever."
Baker street is mostly still asleep at quarter to 8 on a freezing cold Saturday morning. Sherlock is returning home to 221B after an early morning 'walk' as he would call it, or a murder investigation as anyone else would call it. He loved finding another crime scene before the police were alerted and began to tamper with evidence. He had noted all the details, and contacted the Doctor immediately when it was evident an unearthly plot was at work. Similar cases have been appearing in recent weeks, and in Sherlock's mind it became clear the Doctor would, once again, be of utmost importance. The Doctor and Sherlock had the same unquenchable thirst for solving impossible mysteries.
As he scanned the street on the way back to his residence, he noted that a few of his neighbours had been drinking heavily the previous night, judging by the faint smell of alcohol. Vodka probably, signifying that the Russian man at 216A had resorted to using alcohol to dull the sharp realisation that his wife had been having an affair, going by the way their curtains were hanging in their bedroom and the frequent visitations by a luxury car, more than the ex-communist official she was married to could afford. However, there was always a chance that the man didn't even know of the affair yet, due to him failing to analyse the way his curtains hang and deduce, and just enjoyed Vodka. Sherlock decided to be polite and not mention the affair or the curtains to the Russian man in case he didn't know, as John would certainly advise against it. Sherlock noted that John and his methods of "social interaction" and "manners" was beginning to have an effect on him. Sherlock did not know what to think about that particular detail. He arrived at his residence, entered the door and climbed the stairs to find John cooking eggs for breakfast. He appears to be sleepy from the previous night. He turns around to greet his friend and flatmate.
"As good as it is to see you smile Sherlock, it is a little terrifying to wonder why. Another crime scene?"
"Precisely!" Sherlock exclaims, "precisely like the last few. It would appear as another suicide to the police, but it is really something much, much more."
"What would that be?" John asks, intrigue beginning to overcome tiredness.
"A plot!" Sherlock shouts, in the exact same way a little girl would shout "A pony!" when she gets what she'd always wished for on her 10th birthday. He then proceeds to dance around the flat in excitement. John continues to cook his eggs. A familiar groan begins to grow, coming from the street, as the two men look to each other in amazement at the sound of the Doctor's machine. Before long, a police box has appeared on the street corner, as if reunited after almost 50 years.
The Master's machinery and gadgets detects the slight time-space disturbance caused by the TARDIS' materialisation, like a stone rippling in a pond made from time itself. He chuckled, showing the digital read out to Moriarty sitting beside him.
Before them lay pages of notes scattered over the table, cryptic ideas in permanent marker even covered the walls. Two genius and devious minds have spent days formulating a plot more complex than ever before. The trap was set.