The Doctor was awoken by a terrible smell. He opened his eyes to find himself in the enclosure once more. He looked around and breathed in deeply.
It smelled. It smelled disgusting...
He tried to get to his feet; for the first time he was in the enclosure without suffering the side-effects of highly dosed narcotics. But after shifting a bit he was gutted; he could barely move. His legs had been strapped together by a thin wire and he was unable to remove it due to the fact that it had started forcing its way into the Doctor's skin.
The Doctor sighed discontent. He had hoped that he could have explored the area at least this time.
There was a knock. The Doctor turned around and discovered two doors near the Plexiglas pane. He waited with two racing hearts and held his breath.
There it was again. There was a knock without.
"Who's there?" asked the Doctor uneasy and crawled towards one of the walls slowly.
The knocking stopped abruptly. There was nothing but silence from without.
The Doctor approximated the door slowly. He sensed the presence of something.
There was... something.
There had to be someone or something behind this door. He could feel it.
The Doctor repeated his question but was met with a rebuff. Well, actually he wasn't met with anything; there was simply no reply from behind the door.
The Doctor leaned against the door and listened.
He could hear someone.
Someone... or something. He wouldn't figure it out just by listening, he assumed.
The Doctor could hear someone breathing. At least he thought he could hear someone breathing, it was hard to say due to the constant but not quiet air ventilation system.
He placed his hand on the door and stroked it carefully. He knocked at the door and held his breath.
His knock was answered by four quiet ones from the other side.
"Can you hear me? Who are you?" asked the Doctor irritated and knocked against the door several times. He managed to maintain a kneeling position and rattled at the door.
"Are you alone?" asked the Doctor absent-mindedly. He had been adjusted to talking all the time over those years and he thought himself to be good in psychology and gut reactions. "Are you trapped? Can you hear me? Are you scared?"
There was nothing but dead silence without. The Doctor sighed and sat down on the floor again, trying to pick on the wire. After cutting his fingers once or twice he gave in and folder his arms.
There was no response. As if there was nothing behind this door. Nothing that had heard him talking. Nothing that understood what he'd said...
A sniffing noise emerged from behind the door. And there was the smell.
The Doctor turned his head aside. No, it was no smell. He could feel it. He could sense it. He wouldn't have managed to scent it. The smell got directly transmitted into his brain. He sighed again.
But he didn't understand it. He didn't know what it resembled.
There was a muffled moan from the other side and a knock shortly afterwards.
The Doctor bumped his head against the door. It made him mad. He could feel it. He could sense it. It was all over the room and now it had entered his body. There was something in the air... something inside of him...
The Doctor felt his muscles twitching uncontrollably.
Something wasn't right. Something was terribly wrong.
He smelled it. He could smell it. Through the closed door he could sense it.
There was someone else. Someone was waiting, impatiently and eager to move.
Probably even eager to fight, though the Doctor to himself after hearing another grunt from the other side of the door.
There was this strange smell slipping through under the door... something resembling... him?
How could anything smell like him?
The Doctor shook his head. Not only that it sounded stupid it was impossible.
There was a grunt and a knock as if someone had thrown them self against the door.
Or probably even kicked at it. It was a reoccurring sound, alternating with the nervy grunting.
The Doctor crawled towards the door, his hands moved slowly across the cold floor and he worked his way through several small medical devices, which had been scattered around the floor. He didn't even dare to touch them.
There was a stench around them signalizing danger. And they smelled of blood and phlegm. The Doctor flinched after accidently cutting himself with a small scalpel.
It had left a small cut on his injured skin and the Doctor squeezed and sucked the blood out of it without giving it much thought.
After taking a closer look at the blade of the scalpel he ran his finger over it with caution.
It looked as if someone had thrown it away carelessly – but the blade was still razor-sharp.
He held the scalpel in front of his eyes and inspected it properly.
It smelled of purulence and rotten proud meat.
He let it drop to the floor instantly and kicked it away with one foot.
It smelled revolting.
But still it wasn't worse than the stench in this room.
The Doctor turned his head around and faced the door. He sniffed irritated.
This stench.
This horrible stench. It emerged from the other room, the Doctor was sure of that. And it reminded him of something. Somehow it reminded him of himself.
But it didn't smell of him - it smelled like him.
To be more specific: it stank.
There were footsteps approximating. The Doctor turned his head around and faced the Plexiglas pane, resting the back of his head against the locked door. The grunting on the other side intensified.
Several figures in white coats moved towards the see-through wall and stared at the Doctor.
It seemed as if they had been following a strangely looking creature, which reminded the Doctor of some alien life form he'd seen before. But he couldn't remember its name neither its origin. And either way it looked worse.
It had something about its appearance that made it look cruel and vicious, just the way it stood there, taking off his glasses and smiling at the Silurian surgeon who nodded in agreement.
His voice was nothing more than an unpleasant screech to the Doctor.
"We were really looking forward to making the creature become part of our breeding program" he informed his assistants and the Silurian surgeon beside him "and though our respectable colleague Dr. Malohkeh had managed to breed several creatures by artificial insemination and had succeeded in harvesting constituents and parts of priceless value from both the creature and its foetuses..." the Doctor snarled at the Silurian surgeon who had let his gaze drift into space; he remained unmoved, as always. "...we have to admit that we weren't quite satisfied with his work. Neither with his results nor with his techniques, if you'll excuse my Gallifreyan."
The Silurian surgeon stared at an invisible spot in front of him and nodded with slouched shoulders.
"Therefore I'd like to present our new project myself; I'll replace Dr. Malohkeh as head of the research apartment, though I'd like to point out that he's done a magnificent job."
There was a quiet clapping of hands and a muffled cheer.
The unknown alien breathed in deeply and thereby silenced the crowd. He continued more earnest.
"Assisted mating, as well as medically-assisted reproduction, had been compared to rape lately. You might as well have read outrageous articles about it; the media has been dealing with scientists as if they had been laboratory animals themselves, ripping their work, their live into pieces and scattering it all over the world."
He interrupted the arising murmur by clearing his throat. From one moment to the next there was nothing but dead silence in the room.
"Of course I'll spare you the details concerning the poorly researched and so called 'breaking news' of the past few weeks." He nodded his assent towards the Silurian surgeon again who breathed out deeply.
"Important is that we're a responsible company and we're putting emphasis on high ethical standards" the unknown alien went on
"and due to the inconvenience the words 'assisted mating' had cause recently we're designating it "Human-..." he looked around the crowd and continued, interrupted only by pauses while searching for the right names "Zygon-Vogan-Draconian-Silurian-Judoon-directed process of selective breeding" and hope that we'll be able to establish it as the term used."
The others nodded in agreement before the unknown alien added hurriedly "Oh, and of course we'd like to thank our long-time sponsor, the Cyberleader for his continued support."
The crowd moved towards the Plexiglas pane and the unknown alien straightened up a bit before continuing: "I'm not intending to curtail the expectations by saying this but we have to remind ourselves that this project is a pilot project only and therefore we shouldn't aspire to major breakthroughs. We're far away from calling this particular procedure a routine or producing specifically desired characteristics in domesticated creatures, like this one."
He let the crowd catch a quick glimpse of the Doctor.