Chapter Eight
The man looked up when he heard a knock on his office door.
"Yes?" he called out.
"I have the Doctor and his friends, Mister Wormwood." The guard said through the door.
"Ah, good, bring them in."
The door opened and the guard ushered the three captives inside.
"What about their friends?" Wormwood asked the guard.
"They've captured them too. They're in a holding cell at the moment."
The Doctor groaned softly. He had hoped that the others had gotten away.
"Excellent. You can go now. I wish to talk to these people in private."
"Yes, sir." The guard said.
The Doctor watched as the guard left the room and shut the door behind him.
"If you are thinking about running out the door, I can assure you that guards are standing just outside and will shoot you on sight." Wormwood told the Doctor. "So, you might as well quit looking at the door hoping you'll get out of here. You and your friends will leave when I say it's time for you to leave."
He pointed to three chairs in front of his desk.
"Now, if you will sit down, we'll get all of this sorted out."
The Doctor looked at Rose and Ianto and nodded. The three of them came around the chairs and sat down.
"That's better." Wormwood said smiling. "Now, first things first, I am Tobias Wormwood. I am the head of operations for this branch of Torchwood. I know who all of you are, of course. Especially you, Doctor, your exploits are legendary. I consider it an honor to finally meet you face to face."
The Doctor said nothing.
" Now, the obvious question is how you and your friends happened to find us, Doctor?" Wormwood said. "I realize the man on your right works for one of our branches, but the location of this base was kept hidden even from them. So, where did you find the information?"
"I didn't find it." The Doctor said.
Wormwood frowned.
"Then, how did you find us?" he asked.
"Well, it's a fascinating story, see we were all sitting around the fire and I said "I'm bored, let's go find something to do." And someone else said, "I know, let's go to Antarctica." And I screamed out, "Brilliant!" and we packed up and came out here. We were taking pictures of the penguins and we found this little hatch in the ground and we climbed down to warm up and find the loo and maybe a nice cup of tea and the next thing we know a guard pointed a gun in our faces and brought us in here like we were a bunch of criminals. Imagine that, we were just out for a bit of sightseeing and now we find ourselves having to defend ourselves when we did nothing wrong."
Wormwood sighed.
"I'm not in the mood for this, Doctor." He said to him.
"What? I'm giving you an explanation for us being here." The Doctor replied.
"I'm not a fool, Doctor, so don't treat me as such!" Wormwood snarled. "You didn't come out here on a whim, you were trying to find us and I think I know how you found out about us!"
"Oh really, how?"
"For several weeks now, we have tried to contact the Torchwood lab located under the Thames flood barrier and we've received no response. What do you have to say about that?"
"Really? You built a Torchwood under the flood barrier? Huh, imagine that. Bit soggy, don't you think? I imagine it would be hard to work with water dripping on your head, messing up your paperwork."
"I'm warning you, Doctor, don't mock me."
"I'm not mocking you. I know absolutely nothing about this other Torchwood."
"I believe you do. I think you and your friends destroyed it the same way you destroyed the one at Canary Wharf."
"Nope, absolutely, positively had nothing to do with that, whatsoever." The Doctor said shrugging.
He paused.
"When I say that, I'm refering to the one under the Thames, of course. I take full credit and complete pride in stopping the one at Canary Wharf." he added smiling proudly.
"Then what happened to the one under the flood barrier?"
"How should I know? I only just heard about the place from you! Maybe the workers got bored working underground and decided to go find better jobs. Maybe they got tired of slipping and sliding on the damp floors and looking at moldy walls. Maybe they just don't like you and decided to ignore you and your emails. Whatever happened, I had nothing to do with it, so could you get off my back?"
Wormwood gave him a long, hard stare as the Doctor feigned innocence.
"Why do I not believe you?" Wormwood finally said.
"Search me. Maybe it's because you work for an organization that has been falsely accusing me and my friends of committing all sorts of crimes and slandering my good name every chance they get? I hope you know that the founder of your fine organization was most likely turned into a werewolf and therefore couldn't be trusted. Werewolves are famous for their horrendous mood swings; Rose and I witnessed that personally. The old crone knighted us and two minutes later she was ranting and raving to our faces about us being sorcerers and using black magic and upsetting her prim, prude monarchy with our wild bohemian ways. The way she was going on, I half expected her to start accusing us of inciting the women of Britain to start wearing dresses just below the knee and ripping the little skirts off the table legs. Needless to say, Rose and I got out of there in a hurry and once we were back in the TARDIS, we breathed a sigh of relief because we thought we were free of that loon, but nope, one hundred and eighteen years later, she's still around making our lives miserable. Anyway, sorry to get off on a rant about the old buzzard, I do tend to go off on a tangent sometimes, so you'll have to forgive me; now you were saying something about not believing me?"
Wormwood leaned back in his chair and glared at the Doctor.
"I could have your friends tortured, maybe then you would finally tell me the truth." He finally said.
"Uh, no, torturing my friends would make me do two things. One, it would make me clam up more and two it would piss me off and cause me to fly off in a rage and tear this place to bits. I don't know if you have this tidbit in the rather extensive file I know you lot keep on me, but one of the many names I'm known by is the Oncoming Storm. Now, looking at me and my gorgeous baby face, you might think that was just a cute nickname the Daleks thought up, but I can assure you it is far from that. As Rose will tell you, it's not a pretty sight when I get enraged and many a foe has had their ass handed to them on a platter because they underestimated me and my jovial, easygoing manner. Isn't that right, Rose?"
"Yup." She said.
"So, I would advise against torture." He finished up.
Wormwood glared at him. He got up from his desk and walked towards the door.
"Oh, are we free to go then?" the Doctor said looking around at him.
Wormwood didn't reply. He opened the door, leaned out and began conversing quietly with someone. A few minutes later, he walked back to his desk as three guards came into the room and shut the door.
"Since you are uncooperative, my guards will escort your friends to a holding cell until we decide what will be done with them." He said.
"What about the Doctor?" Rose asked.
Wormwood smirked.
"He's going to be taken to one of the labs for further questioning." He said.
Rose leapt to her feet and stepped in front of the Doctor.
"No, sit down. I'll be alright." The Doctor said grabbing her wrist.
Rose looked down at him. She nodded and sat back down.
"I will go with the guard, but you're wasting your time. I keep telling you I don't know anything." The Doctor said shrugging. "I have no idea what happened to this other Torchwood."
"We shall see. But, if it turns out you are telling the truth…well, then, we resort to plan 2."
"Oh, really, sounds intriging. What is plan 2 then?"
He gave him an evil grin.
"Dissection, Doctor."
Both Rose and Ianto leapt to their feet. They started towards Wormwood, but the guards seized them.
"Doctor!" Rose said struggling.
The Doctor leapt up trying to free her from the guard. Suddenly, the guard behind him brought the butt of his gun up and hit him hard in the back of the head. Rose screamed as the Doctor fell forward smacking his forehead on the edge of the desk.
"DOCTOR!" she screamed as the guards dragged her and Ianto out the door.
Wormwood followed them and shut the door behind them. He walked back to the unconscious Doctor lying in a heap in front of the desk.
"Sorry, Doctor, hate to do this to you, but you know, the motto of Torchwood is if it's alien, it's ours and I believe in that one hundred percent."
He looked at the guard still standing behind the chair.
"Take him to the lab and prepare him. I will supervise his interrogation personally."
