TWENTY-EIGHT

Martha sneezed on the dust before she stopped and looked back at Bronnin.

"Just a bit more," she said encouragingly. Martha recovered some breath and they carried on down the tiny air-vent tunnel, toward the square of light.

"It's getting warmer," she observed. They shuffled up but Bronnin grabbed her arm quickly. Martha froze and they listened.

There was the indistinct but definite sounds of people talking, chattering. They sounded bored, pre-occupied.

Bronnin inched up and looked down through the grating in the floor between her elbows. She counted three scientists, bearing a remarkable resemblance to Inda, working half-heartedly at a very large control console. It looked like a cross between a circuit board and a fusebox.

She leaned back slowly, nodding to Martha. She inched back and disappeared a good twenty feet whence they'd come, taking her phone from her pocket and flipping it open. Bronnin looked down again slowly as she dialled.

"Fergus, where are you?" she whispered into the phone.

"We're going roond in circles, hen," he said sadly. "Yi got anything?"

"Looks like we've found it," she whispered. "Go back to the middle room, go up the ladder in the middle. We're there."

"Are yi needing a distraction?" he asked suddenly.

"Yes," she whispered. "We can see right down into the room, but there are three male things in there. Can you draw them out?"

"We can certainly try," he said, and the line was cut.

Martha dialled again. The phone rang and rang, but no-one answered. She bit her lip, worried. She waited, then looked up the tunnel at Bronnin. She was still watching through the grate faithfully.

She hung up the line and dialled again. She waited it out, and eventually was cut off.

Doctor, where are you? she wondered. She sniffed, closing the phone and sliding it back in her pocket. She inched her way back up alongside Bronnin, looking down carefully.

Bronnin looked up at her, then gestured to the grating with her head. Martha smiled but waved a finger slowly.

They waited.

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Fergus and Kickick hurried back out to the main room, then turned and ran through the other, middle door. They ran through the room, finding the ladder in the middle and looking around.

"Right," Fergus said quickly, "you take that door thir," he said, pointing to the one at the far end. "Ah'm gonnae–"

They froze as they heard a metallic clanging sound from somewhere above. Fergus looked up slowly, Kickick moving backwards to stand against the wall.

"Don't move," he whispered hoarsely, locating the source of the noise. He stepped back, picked up a wooden stool in his hands, and looked up again.

A single piece of metal grating suddenly erupted from the ceiling and crashed to the floor. There was a lot of muttering and cursing before a big pair of boots emerged, and then a bundle of blue dropped to the floor with a crash.

"Fucking vents!" came an anguished growl, and Fergus stood, open-mouthed, as Jack Harkness picked himself up off the floor and began dusting himself off.

"Jack!" Kickick shouted, surprised.

He turned and looked at her.

"Hey! Where is everyone?" he asked quickly, putting his hands to the pockets in his long blue coat and pulling out his revolver and a PDA.

"Er – Fergus is–" she began.

"Yi bastard!" the Scot blurted accusingly. "We all thought yi wir deid!"

"You thought I was what?" he asked, confused.

"Deid!"

"What?"

"Deid!"

"What?"

"Dead!" Kickick shouted, frustrated. Jack gave a small chuckle.

"Yeah, I get that a lot," he shrugged. "Now where is everyone and what kind of fun have I missed?"

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Martha and Bronnin watched the three workers suddenly look up and begin walking to one side of the room. They heard voices, then a scuffle.

"Go," Martha barked, and they began hammering at the grating. It dropped to the floor with a crash and Bronnin swung her feet over the edge. Martha grabbed at her wrists as she turned and tried to lower herself through the floor.

She was still ten feet from the floor but just let go. She landed awkwardly and rolled to her side to try and cushion some of the force. She got to her feet quickly, looking around. Her mouth dropped open.

"Jack!" she shouted, confused. He was standing just twenty feet away, next to Kickick and Fergus, looking down at three insensate workers.

"Hey," he said, amused. "Watch out!"

She looked up as Martha's feet began to come through the hole. Jack rushed over and Bronnin stepped back. He put his arms out and grinned. Martha let herself go from the ceiling and landed heavily in his arms.

"Well, well, well," Jack grinned, "angels really do fall from the sky sometimes."

"That was cheap," she tutted with a knowing grin, patting at his neck to let her down. He stood her up and she looked him up and down. "Are you alright?"

"As right as I'll ever be," he allowed. "You lot seem ok though?"

"We've cracked it – this is the main control room. We're to find the big off switch that will disrupt the carrier wave, powering all the soldiers and the two evil Hadoorians in charge," she said quickly.

"So where's the old man? Not like him to be beaten to the chase," he said suddenly, looking around.

"We don't know where he is," she admitted. There was a banging sound suddenly and everyone jumped. "Soldiers!" she blurted. "Find that bloody off switch, now!"

The five of them spread out and began poring over the huge control board, reading the switches or just simply looking for a giant red one with a plastic cover over it.

Martha pulled the phone from her pocket and dialled quickly, putting the phone to her ear as she searched.

"Come on, come on," she hissed.

But the phone just rang and rang.

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It's regret, mostly. Regret that I didn't chase up a few loose ends. That I never managed to get a replacement chameleon circuit, or at least find someone who could fix it.

But who would even recognise it for what it is, let alone been able to repair it? It's just a circuit, just a tiny piece of a very large, complicated pattern, one that's really too old and definitely obsolete.

Except for the fact that no-one survived to produce newer ones. So, therefore, it's not obsolete, per se, but rather a classic. There, that's much better. A classic. That's what we both are – classic. We're not thousand-year-old antiques, we're not the end of a long line of Time Keepers, we're–

Oh that's a good one – Time Keepers. Makes us sound like giant watches. Or is that watchers? Do we watch watches? Or do watches watch the watchers? Am I still here, or have I already died? I mean, properly died, not just regenerated. Cos, strictly speaking, if I'd regenerated, I wouldn't still be here, trying to remember what it is I should be doing. Wait, what was that? What's that? 'Regenerate?' Regenerate what?

This feels like… I should not be doing this. Is this how it feels to have your brain sucked out? Something like… Ooh, what's that… Can't make a coherent… End, then. Definite end. What? She'll be upset… Who will, again? Can't…

The Doctor felt his eyes close suddenly.

He toppled backwards and landed heavily on the floor. The smack of the cold tiles to the back of his head told him he wasn't unconscious.

"Any more," he croaked, staring up at the ceiling and daring to believe he wasn't in some dreadful afterlife for lost regenerations.

He sat up slowly, cradling his head, realising he was still wearing some kind of air mask, and tried to sort out what had just happened.

I came in here. I found the black hole generator. And I looked into it. I couldn't help it – I looked into it. Blimey, it was like being eight years old again.

That thought slapped him in the face and he sat up straight quickly, taking his hands from his head and looking around.

"Bronnin," he said urgently, getting up. "Martha!" he gasped, going through his pockets. "Mister Campbell!" he realised, pulling out the phone and flipping it open. He pressed the green button twice and hoped for the best.

"You!" Martha's voice said suddenly.

"Martha?" he asked, his head still foggy. "Martha Jones, where are you?"

"Where am I?" she snorted. "Where are you?"

"I'm… er… Kinda –"

"You alright, mate?" she asked quickly. "What's happened?"

"I… found a black hole," he said simply. "It seems to be gone now, though."

"I should hope so!" said a new voice down the phone. "We shut off the power, just a minute ago."

"Jack! Back again?" he cried cheerfully.

"Again and again," he sighed. "The gang's all here, and we're fine. Can we leave now?"

"Oh yes!" he cried with conviction. "We have to get everyone back inside the TARDIS before the machine goes offline. Oh!"

"Don't worry, we have that too," Jack said cheekily down the phone. "Head for the lifts, we'll find you."

"Aye-aye Captain," he grinned, snapping the phone closed and looking around for an exit door.

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He hurried to the lifts, slapping the button and waiting. The lift came and he picked up the litter bin next to the doors, putting it in the doorway and watching the doors clamp it tightly.

"Stay," he said sternly, pointing at the bin. Then he turned and ran back through the room, sprinting through two more before he skidded to a stop.

He looked around the control room, his eyes drawn to the huge motherboard of switches and panels. He smiled, rubbed his hands together eagerly, and approached it with caution.

He leaned over it, looking over the toggle switches and push-buttons, his eyes devouring the symbols and strange words easily. He found the small, innocuous-looking button and pulled out his screwdriver, looking round for more tools. Then he got to work.