Electricity
Element n. 8. Electricity: The resistance wire in an electrical appliance such as a heater or an oven, which provides the heat or ignition source.
^..^
Donna stood by the window in the darkened living room, peeking out of the closed miniblinds into the street below, trying to contain her anxiety. She glanced through the door to the hallway at Rose, who was trying not to pace and only partially succeeding, between the kids playing quietly in the den and Wilf and Sylvia watching the news at low volume beside Donna. The American President was due to begin a speech announcing his solution the worldwide economic crisis at any moment.
Movement in the street caught her eye, and she turned back to watch her neighbors, the Christoffs, stroll down the sidewalk under the streetlamps in the dark December evening. The couple paused in front of their house, both of them seemingly reacting to a sudden, piercing, headache-inducing noise – although she couldn't hear anything through the window. Just then, she noticed each of the other five people in sight doing the same thing.
"Rose!" she whispered. "Come here and look at this!"
Just as the other woman reached her, Sylvia exclaimed, "What in the world is wrong with the telly?" Both women turned to look at the TV, where the President's face had turned fuzzy, as if he were shaking it back and forth at lightning speed. Oddly, though, his clothes were still in focus. Wilf quickly changed the channel with the remote – and again, and again, finding the same strange phenomenon on every one. Each live shot of someone, be it the President or a newscaster, was doing the same impossibly rapid St Vitus' dance.
Donna shrugged and turned back to the window, only to gasp and reach a shaky hand to Rose. The people outside were doing the same thing! Although their clothes were fine, and everything else was standing still, their heads and hands were blurred out. As the women watched, they stilled – and each and every one of them suddenly had the same grinning face. The seven duplicates began turning and waving to each other, giggling insanely like kids on Christmas morning.
Twin gasps behind them made them turn back again, to see the same face again on the TV, wearing the President's clothes. The man cackled at the camera, saying, as if in response to someone they couldn't see or hear, "I'm everyone on Earth, and everyone is me!"
"Harold Saxon!" exclaimed Sylvia, then the four adults turned to stare at each other, remembering the conversation earlier. Rose was the one who said it aloud. "The Master...!" She began shaking her head, turning back to Donna. "I'm not staying here now. Not after this. John and Mike need help. I don't know what we can do, but they can't take on an entire planet of the Master by themselves!"
Donna nodded, not speaking. She was going, too, even though she was more frightened than she'd ever been in her life – and that was saying something, after her travels with the Doctor.
A short time later, the four adults met again in the hall, speaking in low voices so as not to alert the kids. Rose and Donna had changed clothes, putting on the darkest things they had, and Rose had borrowed a knit cap from Wilf to cover her blonde hair.
Wilf turned to his daughter. "Go and check out the window, sweetheart. See if the street is cleared out." She nodded and went into the living room, and Wilf turned to Rose. He started to speak, then gave her a weak grin. "Want to trade guns?"
Rose gave him a puzzled look, then grinned back, remembering his suggesting that after she'd taken out the Dalek those years ago during the crisis with the Crucible. "I don't think a paintball gun would help, Grandad." She'd begun calling him that after their return from the other universe, with his loving permission; they'd all informally adopted each other.
"No. But a service pistol might." He pulled his hand from behind his back, and held his old World War Two handgun out to her. "It's loaded."
She took a deep breath, looking from the gun to his earnest, worried face. Nodding, she took the gun, checked the safety, and stuffed it into her belt, and then she flung her arms around him, hugging him fiercely. He put one arm around her, then reached for Donna with the other, drawing her in.
"Good luck," he told them, kissing each one on the cheek. They returned it, together, and then turned toward the stairs. Sylvia softly called the all clear from the window, and they blew her a kiss, and were gone.
^..^
Rose and Donna drove cautiously through the dark, mostly deserted streets, Donna behind the wheel of her little car. Managing to spot and skirt a few distant mass gatherings in the streets, they passed a few solo clones of the Master, who ignored them, going about their mysterious business, and sped out into the countryside towards Naismith's mansion. Once out of the city proper, they saw no one, and both breathed sighs of relief.
They were almost there when they spotted the meteorite blazing down into the woods nearby. Donna pulled the car to a stop at the side of the road. "I've never seen something like that so clearly, or land so near. Have you?"
"Nope." Rose took a deep breath. "I don't know what it is, but anything out of the ordinary, in circumstances like these, is cause for investigation. I've learned that much."
Donna nodded agreement, and the two women stepped out of the car. Donna pulled a flashlight from the boot, and they began searching through the woods towards the point they thought it had come down. A deer path appeared, going their direction, and they took to it. Partway along it, though, Donna froze and looked back. "Listen!"
Apparently they weren't the only ones interested in the meteorite. Several vehicles had pulled up and stopped on the road by their car, and numerous flashlights were flashing through the woods behind them, while identical voices called out to each other.
"Hurry!" They turned and went as fast as they could through the brush, almost running, until they stumbled upon a small, smoking crater. Right in the middle of the bottom, something sparkled enticingly. Rose hesitated, then jumped down into the hole, and swiftly picked it up. She climbed back out and showed her prize to Donna: a huge cut diamond, sitting in her palm, miraculously cool to the touch – though that was no more outrageous than the idea of the diamond itself surviving the fall through the atmosphere. They couldn't take time to admire it, though, as shouts told them the other searchers were closing in. "Scatter!" cried Rose, and she turned one way, while Donna dashed into the woods in the other direction, turning off her flashlight.
They each tried to make their way through the underbrush as quietly as they could, turning after a few yards to try to parallel the path back to the car, thinking they'd meet up there. The searchers found the crater and wasted several minutes searching it and the nearby ground for anything that might have caused it. Then one of them found the path of crushed vegetation Donna had left behind – and another shouted from Rose's trail, and the treasure hunt changed instantly to a manhunt.
The clones, with the advantage of being able to use their lights, closed in quickly. Donna dove into a tiny ravine and rolled under a fallen tree, pulling her feet in just in time as her trackers rushed by, jumping over her hiding place with only a quick glance down. Rose wasn't so lucky. Racing between a pair of evergreens, she tripped over an exposed root, and before she could pull herself up, a flashlight beam found her. The cry went up as she was grabbed and hauled to her feet, the clones exclaiming in shock at finding someone who hadn't been changed. Then they spied her clenched hand and pried it open, finding the diamond, and the shout pulled the three who had doubled back towards Donna's trench off the hunt.
Donna held her breath and listened as hard as she could, crying softly in fear and frustration as she heard them push their captive back to the trucks, pile in, turn around, and take off towards the distant lights of the Naismith mansion. What do I do now? Oh sweet mother of god, what do I do?
^..^
The Master, pacing furiously, stopped cold and turned towards the Gate room door as it opened – and gasped. The Doctor turned, too, of course – and the world fell apart. Shamefaced, her hands bound behind her with an electrical tie, unable to look at her husband, Rose was marched in and deposited before the Master by four grinning clones.
The Master didn't have to ask. One sniff and he knew who she was, if not her name – her husband's scent was unmistakable. "Oh, now this is the perfect Christmas present! My new consort!"
Rose stiffened – but that was nothing compared to the Doctor's reaction. He began to launch himself blindly at her captor, only to be stopped dead by a pair of rifle barrels, one pushed into his chest, the other directly touching his forehead. Ignoring their holders as best he could, he growled "Noooooo!"
"Ooooh, yes!" chortled the Master, not taking his eyes from hers. He began to circle her, inspecting her like a racehorse, while the Doctor seethed, on the verge of pushing past the rifles and getting himself shot. The Master returned to his starting point in front of her, and stepped very close. "You're my prize, you delicious thing. You're mine!"
"Lay one finger on me, and you'll pull back a bloody stump," Rose told him, fierce but level, a solemn promise. "I am not Lucy. I will never be yours, by any definition." She held her head up, proud and uncowed, refusing to let her fear show.
Her captor sniffed, perhaps catching a whiff of that fear, anyhow. He grinned ferociously at her. "We'll see about that, my dear. We'll just see."
He glanced at the lead guard, who was holding an old pistol out to him. "She had this on her, sir." He took it, looked at her, and contemptuously tossed it aside, where it slid and skittered to the wall near the isolation booths. Flashing another triumphant look at the Doctor, he dismissed him again, then turned back to the lead guard. "What fell from the sky?"
The lead guard held out his other hand, and the Master gasped again, snatching the diamond up and dancing away. "Oh, oh, magnificent! Impossible! Brilliant!" He held the stone up to the light, and it caught it, flinging it out again across the room in every direction, impossibly magnified until it was glowing brighter than the lights above it. The Master gasped again as the truth hit him, and he whirled, still holding the diamond up, and crowed at the Doctor. "Do you see? Do you understand? Do you get it now? It's a White Point Star!" He began laughing again, dancing around the room, still holding it up to the light. "Oh, it all makes sense now! My entire life, the signal, the drums, all leading to this moment. To my destiny!"
He stopped in front of the imprisoned Doctor, dropping the diamond into his fist and holding it before the other's face. "Now I can use it to boost the signal. And use it – as a lifeline. Sent to me for that purpose. Oh, Doctor! Do you see? Do you understand?"
The Doctor stared at him, mouth agape, horrified beyond words. "No," was all he could whisper. Rose and Mike, helpless, not grasping the situation, simply stood still.
"Yes!" whispered the Master in return, as he'd done before. He turned, catching sight again of his new consort. "But we must keep you safe, my dear – safe and separate, so no one gets any ideas!" He pointed towards the open isolation booth beside Mike's. "Put her in there, and guard her!" One of the clones took Rose's arm and firmly pulled her over to the booth, pushing her inside and closing the door. It latched, but didn't lock, of course. The guard turned his back to the door and stood there, keeping an eye on her would-be rescuer across the room.
Rose turned and sat down, eyes on the floor, still unable to look at the Doctor – or Mike, in the next booth, though she had glanced up to see him there. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, my love. I tried to help, and I've just made it all worse. Just like you said. I'm sorry. Her cheeks flamed again as her thoughts whirled around and around, endlessly circling the same brute fact.
Things looked very, very bad for Team Doctor.
