Darkness. The scanners showed only darkness and more darkness. The TARDIS drifted in an empty sky over a world of eternal night. The Doctor knew from the TARDIS sensors that they fell in orbit around a planet with a size and density similar to Earth. No sun, no moon, no other planets, no stars in detection range. The temporal readings came up indeterminate.
"Only to be expected," the Doctor said aloud. He adjusted the settings on the array of chronometric instruments on the console and checked the results. "Now this is odd. Reality seems to be smeared across a wider spectrum than usual. This seems to be the 'outer edge'. Navigation will be different. How different, I'm not sure yet." He turned a knob. "But that's not the question. The question is, will the anti-time be nullified in this reality?"
The Doctor consulted a screen. "And that would be a 'yes'."
He hooked up his confession dial to the console, along with a teleportation unit he had scavenged from one of the hundreds of junk closets in the TARDIS. The unit hadn't been used for centuries, by the thickness of dust smothering it, but the Doctor wiped it off and cleared the vents. A new power cell, a few calibrating test-ports, and it was good to go.
The Doctor set up the program, then monitored its progress on the TARDIS scanners. Anti-time lit the darkness in scattered bursts of multi-colored light as it was beamed out on random trajectories meant to minimize the danger of the individual particles coalescing to form a coherent consciousness. The teleportation unit, boosted by the TARDIS, was easily powerful enough to have a range of nearly a light year in every direction. The traces visible on the scanner were only a miniscule fraction of the whole.
"Good-bye, Zagreus!" The Doctor wiped his face with his hands, metaphorically if not literally washing himself clean of the "infection."
Zagreus sits inside your head...
"Nope. Not listening," declared the Doctor. "Going... going... gone!" No more voices hissing destruction or chaos inside his mind.
Cheered by the thought, the Doctor went to the TARDIS wardrobe to finally get a change of clean clothes. He would need them for the next stage of his plan. The more dangerous and uncertain stage, which involved some minor bending of the Laws of Time. All right, maybe the clean clothes weren't strictly necessary, but they were good for his morale.
The TARDIS had detected only a single locus of higher technology on the planet below, and the Doctor now landed his ship nearby.
He stepped out to find a dim and dismal maze of ceiling-less walls. A diffuse light emanated from the air itself, shadowing more than it illuminated. The passage in front of him opened out into a courtyard with a dry crumbling fountain in its center. The air smelled of rust and old blood. Time itself felt thicker than he was used to. As if he could access a slew of different timelines simply by shifting his point of view. Something to explore later, perhaps. But for now...
The Doctor tapped his sonic sunglasses and scanned the area. He found psychic repellants embedded in the walls. He tightened his mental shields and muttered, "Cheap tricks. Someone doesn't like getting visitors."
He forged ahead, ignoring the feelings of doubt and fear pounding against his thoughts. The center of higher technology lay this way...
...inside a grand hotel. The Doctor went through a nondescript door and found himself inside a vast, luxurious lobby. A vast lobby with no staff or visitors and all its lights turned off. The Doctor wiped a finger on the railing of the central spiral staircase. No staff, but no dust, either.
"All right, that's strange," the Doctor said. His voice sank into the shadows without an echo. He made his way to the elevator bay. The call buttons lit up when he tried pressing them. A moment later, one of the elevators arrived. The doors slid open. The Doctor peered inside without going in. An improbably huge array of buttons filled the interior walls. One in particular, labeled "PH" was lit up in green, practically inviting him to press it.
"No, thank you," said the Doctor, deciding that the lift was too obvious a trap. He moved away as the doors slid closed again.. Aided by his sonic sunglasses, he soon found and broke into the security office. "Aha."
Like every other room he had seen so far, the office was empty of people. Unlike the other rooms, the power was fully operational here. Computers idled on the desks, along with other, more alien equipment which the Doctor found disturbingly familiar. An array of screens filled one wall, paging through different views of the maze, the hotel lobby, the hotel corridors, guest rooms (all empty), and other locations. The only sign of life he saw was a flicker of movement in one of the corridors. A bird? It was gone before the Doctor could see it clearly.
The Doctor took a step forward, wondering.
A hand reached around him, snagging the Doctor's sunglasses in a swift, unerring motion. "Stealing my fashion choices, now? What would Freud have to say about that?"
"Freud would have a field day," replied the Doctor, remembering their conversation from a long-ago encounter in an ambulance. He turned to face the thief: a respectable-looking man of about the same apparent age, height, skin color, and graying hair as the Doctor himself. His voice and manner, however, were much more relaxed and cordial.
"You've made them sonic. Do I detect a hint of overcompensation there?" The thief slid the sunglasses off his face and handed them back to the Doctor. "Doctor."
The Doctor folded the glasses and replaced them in his pocket. "Master. So this is where you've been lurking, eh?"
"I've grown to appreciate it over the years."
Centuries, guessed the Doctor, judging by the apparent aging of the Master's physical form since they had met in San Francisco. Assuming this body aged the same way a Gallifreyan body would. Not a safe assumption. But it didn't matter, now. "I can't say I care for the decor. What's wrong with a bit of color?"
"This is Tartarus. I do have an image to maintain," said the Master.
"Speaking of which, you're looking remarkably healthy for someone living in a stolen corpse. You won't be after my body this time, I trust."
"Why? Are you offering?" The Master smirked at the Doctor's scowl.
"Shut up." The Doctor turned to examine the computers, tapping the controls to send a cascade of images flickering across one of the monitors. He frowned, recognizing Gallifreyan text. "Keeping up with your correspondence? This is from the High Council!"
"Formal requests from the High Council." The Master reached around the Doctor to click another command. The image changed. "Urgent demands from the CIA, (click) passive-aggressive war reports from the military, (click) and groveling unofficial pleas from my so-called supporters back on Gallifrey."
The Doctor moved himself away. "How nice to be wanted."
The Master smiled in amusement. He sat down on one of the (black!) office chairs and spun himself around idly. "They must be getting really desperate, if they're sending you now."
"They didn't send me." The Doctor, watching him, saw a spark of something - hope? welcome? - behind the mask of scorn. Whatever it was, it was quickly suppressed.
"No? But I hear you're a good little soldier boy these days. A proper Time Lord warrior."
The Doctor's scowl deepened. "While you do what? Hide from the war in your pocket universe while everything outside goes to hell? And you always call me a coward."
"I am a god," said the Master. "Here, in this universe, we can bend reality to our wishes. I'm sure even you can muster up the willpower to -"
"No thanks," interrupted the Doctor. "Been there, done that, burned the souvenir T-shirt." But the memories never faded away completely. At least in this universe, the residue of anti-time infecting him was quiescent. He began pacing up and down the room, trying to shake off his unease.
"You're no fun, you know that?" The Master leaned back in his chair and gazed at the Doctor in mock disappointment.
"How much fun do you think there will be in a universe dominated by the Daleks?" The Doctor continued his restless circuit inside the confines of the security office.
"If you're so all-powerful, why don't you change that, instead of pestering me?" said the Master.
"I tried. A long time ago. There was another Time War. Not with the Daleks. It was even worse. I could only save the Matrix. A handful of lives, out of billions."
"So you're saying this is an improvement?" The Master chuckled. "So much for omnipotence."
"Shut up. No one's omnipotent." He stopped pacing long enough to peer out the open doorway. "So where is everyone? This place seems deserted."
"Unlike you, I prefer not to constantly be surrounded by babbling apes. But there is a whole world out there." The Master flicked a switch, and one of the screens shifted to a view of a city street.
"That looks like... Earth. Early twenty-first century? I don't recognize the city. Did you make it yourself?" asked the Doctor, remembering Castrovalva. But this looked to be constructed on a far grander scale.
"Toronto. Or at least one version of it." He went on to explain how he had recreated Earth from a timeline in which it had been swallowed up in the Eye of Harmony. "And to spice things up, I added in a mix of creatures from human folklore and mythology. They call themselves 'fae'. It was easy enough to insinuate myself into their history. I went back and..."
The Doctor's attention drifted as the Master rambled on at length about some overcomplicated scheme that involved fae politics, breeding projects, cults, underworlds, armies of the dead, magic dancing shoes, and atrocities that would fill the Doctor with rage if he listened properly. But because he hoped that the Master would drop a hint about the object the Doctor needed, he kept himself calm, nodding and making encouraging noises at appropriate intervals.
"Zombies didn't work out? I'm not surprised. Maybe you can upgrade the bodies next time," the Doctor suggested absently, thinking of Missy's Cybermen. And then, "Fire-breathing horse? Why a fire-breathing horse? And what did it have to do with this 'Wanderer' person?"
The Master was happy to explain. Unfortunately, the explanation left the Doctor little the wiser. If it was all lies, the Doctor felt he could have put more effort into it. If it was true, it sounded even less convincing.
"It was all metaphorical, but there was still an actual fire-breathing horse? Did it fly?" The Doctor asked at random. Then he pulled his thoughts back together. "So, are you planning to stay holed up forever? Things seem a little...limited here." He didn't say, It's making you insane. More insane.
"Why, do you miss me, Doctor? I'm touched." The Master laughed as the Doctor made a sour face. "Oh, I'll be back. But on my own terms, not theirs."
The Doctor stared hard at the Master. "You can't leave on your own, can you? You don't have a TARDIS here. And you can't build one from this side." The Master was trapped here, unless he received help from outside. That basic truth lay behind the desperation that the Doctor sensed under all the Master's boasts and threats.
The Master's smile turned stiff. "It's none of your concern, Doctor. Unless you came here to gloat?"
"Isn't that more your thing?" retorted the Doctor, a little unfairly. He waved a hand in pacification as the Master started to look angry. "Sorry." He changed the subject. "So, what about this magic music box thing? I'd love to have a look at that. Where is it now?"
"I gave it to my daughter for her birthday," said the Master.
"Which daughter?" The Doctor searched his memories and came up with a hazy recollection that yes, the Master had mentioned a hybrid daughter or three. "Is she here? I'm curious to meet her."
"Bo Dennis," clarified the Master. "She's living in Toronto with that doctor girlfriend of hers."
"A doctor? She has good taste," said the Doctor. He deflected the Master's foul look with an innocent smile.
"And they say I'm egotistical." The Master clicked something on his computer. A moment later, the image of a serious-faced blonde appeared on a screen, captioned with the name "Lauren Lewis". "Judge for yourself." Then he admitted grudgingly, "She's intelligent. For a human."
Before he could meet either Bo Dennis or her girlfriend, the Doctor had to get back to his TARDIS.
He was grateful when the Master made only a token attempt to kill him. Three-headed semi-mythical hellhounds were involved. As it turned out, they only had one head per body, but somehow managed to exist at three different locations simultaneously. Luckily for the Doctor, they had sensitive ears, and the battery on his sonic screwdriver lasted long enough for him to reach his ship.
With a tweak to the relative drift compensators, the Doctor was able to steer the TARDIS to the alternate universe's Toronto. Once the ship had landed, the Doctor tapped into the local computer databases and easily found an address for a Lauren Lewis. A short hop later, he was knocking at the door.
The woman from the picture answered. "Yes?"
"Dr. Lauren Lewis? I'm looking for Bo Dennis. She lives here?"
The woman hesitated, then nodded. "Who are you?"
"I'm called the Doctor. I'm a friend of her father's." At the sudden wariness in Dr. Lewis's face, the Doctor suspected that he shouldn't have said that. Too late now. He forged ahead, "Is she in? May I see her?"
"Hold on. I'll, um, I'll let her know you're here." Lauren ducked back inside the house. "Bo!"
The Doctor stepped into the foyer. Everything looked to be of Earth origin. No alien artifacts or anomalies. He didn't have time for a deeper inspection: Lauren was already returning, but it was the woman in front of her that the Doctor now focused on. She was human-looking, with long dark hair and a face and body that he supposed would be considered attractive. Her eyes were fixed on him with an intense, almost angry stare.
Then she broke into a warm smile and reached out to take the Doctor's hand in greeting. "Hello, I'm Bo."
The Doctor started back instinctively. "I'm not really a touching person..." but she had already caught his hand in a firm clasp. Then she stroked his skin above the wrist with her other hand. "No, wait, what are you doing..."
A flare of heat washed through him. The Doctor hastily threw up his mental shields. He should have expected the Master's daughter to be as talented in mesmerizing people as her father. Even more surprising to him was the nature of her psychic touch: while the Master's influence slithered into the mind like a constricting snake crushing all opposition, Bo's felt more like a warm orgasmic glow.
Before the Doctor could shake off the effect, something stung him in the side of the neck. Not again! he thought, twisting around to see Dr. Lewis stepping away, the empty syringe in her hand.
He woke up in a cell. No, some kind of isolation chamber in a medical laboratory, he amended once he had a chance to get a good look. The bed he had woken up on was a hospital bed. But the room was still basically a cell. The locked door gave that fact away. The Doctor was fairly sure he could break free if he needed to, but he was here to talk, and if having him locked up made them feel safer, he was willing to humor them.
Them.
The Master's daughter and her human friend were watching him from the other side of the clear polycarbonate wall that separated them. The Doctor walked over to the wall and looked back at them. They seemed nervous, but determined. The Doctor did his best to project an air of harmlessness.
"You said you were a friend of Jack's," began Bo.
"Jack? Jack who?"
"The one also known as Hades. My father."
"Hades? He's Hades now? What, seriously?" Then the Doctor remembered the Master referring to his lair as "Tartarus" and wondered how long he had been living this role. "Well, if we're doing Greek mythology today, I've been known as Zagreus on occasion. Not happy ones, I grant you, but..."
"So he's still alive." The two women exchanged troubled glances. Troubled, but not surprised.
"More or less. He's always been like that. I've held his ashes in my hands. Twice. Yet there he is again as large as life. You think he's dead, and next thing you know he turns up wearing a flowery hat, pretending to be a welcome droid. Forget I said that. We have enough temporal complications already."
Bo surged forward, stopping just short of the transparent wall. "Where is he? What is he planning?"
"Yes." The Doctor smiled dryly. "That's what I generally say, whenever he shows up."
"Answer the question, dammit!" Bo looked ready to break in and beat the answers out of him.
Lauren laid a calming hand on her shoulder. "Whatever it is, we can deal with it."
"Not the warmest of father-daughter relationships," remarked the Doctor. "So what exactly did he do to you?"
Bo glared. "Murdered my mother and my grandfather. Tried to use me to take over the world."
"He's always been like that, too," said the Doctor, thinking, No matter how hard I wish otherwise. And just like him to leave the Doctor to stumble blindly into the emotional aftermath. He was probably watching them from "Tartarus" and laughing. The Doctor rubbed a hand over his face, not wanting to meet Bo's furious gaze. How was he going to persuade her to help him now? He took a bundle of cue cards from his pocket and shuffled through them. Maybe one of these would help. He glanced at the words, then shoved the cards away again, burying the inexplicable sense of loss that lingered over the cards.
"Your friend?" spat Bo. "Give me one reason not to kill you right now, for the protection of my friends."
"Don't," said Lauren. "What if we can't? What if he isn't our enemy? You're not a murderer, Bo."
"I'm sorry for your loss," said the Doctor. The words came from one of the cue cards, but he understood the need for empathy. Recognized Bo's pain. He had seen it too many times before. He remembered the betrayed anguish of Chantho as she lay dying on a laboratory floor. He remembered the haunted look in Lucy Saxon's eyes when she shot her husband. Time Lords so easily destroyed those who came too close in their orbits, like a sun devouring a comet. Don't think about River in the Library. Or any of the others, including the ones he hardly knew. Missy's mocking voice echoed in his head, "All those silly people who died to keep you alive." The Doctor did his best to mitigate the damage; the Master didn't care enough to try. "But she's right. I'm not your enemy."
"Then why are you here?" demanded Bo.
The Doctor explained.