Chapter Ten
The Master paused when he entered his office and saw the alternate Doctor sitting on his couch.
"Where the hell have you been?" he asked. "I've been looking for you all morning!"
"I had a little matter to attend to last night." The alternate Doctor said calmly.
The Master looked around the room.
"Where's Rose?" he asked.
The alternate Doctor smirked.
"That was the little matter." He said.
"Why? What do you mean?"
"Well, Rose decided to be a bad girl and try to nick my little silver box last night." He said holding it up to him. "So, I had to punish her for her disobedience. I'm sure she'll think twice now before she tries to steal from me again."
"Where is she?"
"She's in my TARDIS resting up after I used the mind raper machine on her."
The Master stared at him.
"You went through her memories?"
"Yeah, most of it was incredibly boring and mushy, except…"
He leaned forward.
"Rose took the vortex into her body and lived to tell about it."
"I know."
The alternate Doctor stared at him.
"You…know…" he said.
"Yeah," the Master said shrugging.
"How did you know that?"
"I heard the other Doctor and Jack talking about it back on Malcassairo."
"Where?"
The Master sighed.
"The year 100 trillion."
"Oh, well you just mentioned the year, you never mentioned what planet you were on." He said.
"Yes, well, Jack had to help get the engine started on the rocket and since the room was irradiated, he was the only one who could do it without vaporizing and while he was in there, he and the Doctor discussed---"
"Wait, sorry, but…why was this Jack the only one who could enter the room?" the alternate Doctor asked.
"Oh, well, he's immortal so the radiation didn't affect him."
The alternate Doctor's eyes boggled.
"He is?" he said.
"Yeah, fascinating really, seems that Rose was the one who brought him back to life with the power of the vortex, but according to the Doctor she couldn't control it and brought him back forever. And now, he's stuck being immortal because the Doctor took the power away from her."
"Yeah, and that's what I can't figure out. Taking the vortex into his body killed the Doctor, but it didn't affect her. Why?"
The Master walked over and leaned down into his face.
"I told you, the Doctor doesn't pick his companions at random. In order to travel with them, they have to be a cut above the average. How do you think they are able to survive everything that gets thrown at them? Rose isn't a typical human child. I could sense that right off the bat. You keep thinking she's a stupid ape, but she is far from that. You punished her, but for what? Using her intelligence? Of course, she's gonna try to escape. That's why you should have kept her locked up in the TARDIS in the first place or at the very least had a guard outside the supply room. You can torment her and break her will all you want, but it's never gonna kill her spirit completely because she isn't that kind of human. The Doctor isn't a fool; he knows what he's doing when he asks these people to accompany him. Rose is as much a threat to us as the Doctor is, if not more so. So, if I were you, I'd either keep her mind enslaved or keep her on a very short leash because you're gonna regret it if you don't."
He leaned back up and walked back to his desk. The alternate Doctor made a face.
"Ugh, where have you been? You smell like gas." He said wrinkling his nose.
"Probably because I've just come from a room filled with gas." The Master said sitting down.
"Huh?"
He smiled at the alternate Doctor.
"I just took care of my cabinet. You punished Rose for disobedience and I punished them for being a bunch of stinking traitors that left their parties to join me. I just gassed them all dead."
The alternate Doctor frowned.
"Well, wait, didn't you hypnotize everyone so they would vote for you and purposely join your party?"
"Well, yeah, but they're still a bunch of stinking weak-minded traitors who should have resisted in the first place." He said smiling at him.
The alternate Doctor grinned.
"I like your style." He said.
"Besides, we don't need them mucking things up and slowing things down with all their bureaucratic red tape. We can handle everything without them." The Master said.
"I agree."
He pulled out his laptop and beckoned to the alternate Doctor to come to his side.
"I have done a little digging on our Doctor's friends. Now, Rose's family is no longer around so we don't have to worry about them. Martha's family is being watched closely and I actually had my people convince her mother that the Doctor is dangerous, so she's been helping us try to trace the Doctor whenever her daughter calls her. Her sister Tish is working for me now. I just talked to her before I went into the conference room and she's just thrilled that I gave her a nice, cushy little job with the newly elected Prime Minister."
He and the alternate Doctor chuckled.
"Now, as for Jack, well, I found out he works for a branch of Torchwood that's based in Cardiff. I just hacked into Jack's email account and sent his team a dummy email telling them that he was stuck somewhere in the Himalayas and he needed their help. As we speak, I'm sure the idiots are rushing off to help him."
He and the alternate Doctor snickered.
"Genius." The alternate Doctor said.
"Thanks." The Master replied. "Also, I've set up a couple of hidden cameras in Martha's flat, just in case they should ever return there. Here I'll show you. I'll access the one in her room and…"
He brought up the feed from the webcam and they looked in on Martha's bedroom.
"Nice." The alternate Doctor said.
Suddenly, Martha's door opened. The alternate Doctor and the Master's mouths dropped open.
"Home." Martha said as she and the Doctor and Jack walked into the room.
"WHAT?" the alternate Doctor screamed.
Both of them watched in disbelief.
"How is it possible? How did they get back?" the alternate Doctor said.
He looked over at the Master who was staring at the monitor in shock.
"HOW?" the alternate Doctor said grabbing his shirt collar and forcing him to look at him.
"I…I…don't know." The Master stammered.
"His TARDIS. Is it still on the Valiant? Did he find a way to bring it back to him?" the alternate Doctor said.
The Master quickly typed in some commands and another webcam came up showing the TARDIS still sitting in the same place with the three Toclafane guarding it.
"It's not possible." The alternate Doctor said.
"I told you not to underestimate the Doctor." The Master said switching back to Martha's room.
"What do we do? We can't let him find out that Rose is here. He'll stop at nothing to get her back. He'll ruin everything! All our carefully laid plans will be for nothing if he finds out. We have to kill him and kill him now!"
"Just…calm down, okay. I was gonna tell you before this happened that I have a special surprise set up in the room just in case something like this happens. I have everything under control; just keep your knickers on. I've fought the Doctor long enough to know that I need to take precautions for every possible scenario. Now just sit here, relax, and watch the fun."
The alternate Doctor looked at the Master as he rose from his seat.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Well, first I'm going to get my wife away from that nosy journalist and then I'm gonna make a very special announcement to my adoring public in general and three special people in particular."