Lord was sitting in the centre of the bridge, slouched in a makeshift chair which looked like a lower section of Dalek casing. He had a mess of circuits and wires in his lap, a butterfly knife in one hand and a packet of biscuits in the other.
He looked up as the Doctor, the Master and Martha strode into the room, eyeing their orange spacesuits and somber expressions.
"Took you long enough," he said, flipping open the butterfly knife and letting it spin as he stared at them.
"We had other problems," replied the Doctor, skirting around a pile of rusted engine parts.
Lord chuckled. It was still creepy how he was almost a perfect copy of the Master. "I'm offended."
Martha glanced around at the dimly lit bridge. It was, if possible, more wrecked than the last time she had been there. UNIT's assault on the ship had ripped holes in the floor and walls, and a spiderweb of cracks spanned the windows facing out onto the moon's barren surface.
The Doctor slowly approached Lord. "We're not carrying any weapons. We haven't come to fight you."
Lord smiled. He looked tired, Martha noticed. "How… noble of you. Well, I'm stuck here until I can fix the damn engines. So what do you want?"
The Doctor reached the section of floor just below Lord's chair and looked up at him. "I just want to talk."
Lord narrowed his eyes. "Okay. How about you drop that pretty Command Cube, then we'll talk?"
Martha looked at the Doctor in surprise. He hesitated a moment and then sighed, pulled the silver lump from his spacesuit pocket and placed it on the nearest control panel. "Worth a try. I still need you to trust me."
"I do trust you, Doctor. It's him you've got to worry about." Lord jerked his head at the Master, who looked up from examining a circular control panel on the wall.
"This is a Dalek bomb ship," interjected the Master, disregarding their conversation.
"It's my bomb ship," corrected Lord. He sat back in the chair with a kind of royal indifference and ate a biscuit.
The Doctor glanced around at the fusion technology scattered everywhere, the control panels with exposed wires, repurposed weaponry and roughly welded sections of Dalek armour.
"You've been busy."
Lord shrugged. "I've had time. After I escaped the War, I got stranded on the edge of the universe until I could figure out how to make this piece of junk travel in time. Takes a lot of work if you can't grow a TARDIS."
"So you hybridised Dalek and Time Lord technology?" the Master looked repulsed yet curious as he picked up something that looked like a spiky TARDIS wall roundel.
"It works surprisingly well." Lord looked at the Master with disdain. "You'd never have tried it. You're the one with all those sensibilities."
Martha snorted in amusement at the idea of the Master being sensitive. He shot her a withering look. "I have self-respect, if that's what you mean."
Lord shrugged and ate another biscuit nonchalantly, as if one either had self-respect or biscuits in life, and he had quite happily chosen the latter.
The Master eyed the packet hungrily. "Where did you get those?"
Lord laughed. "First thing I did after fixing the ship was take a trip to Earth to stock up on junk food. Had to dump a fighter pod to make space, but it was broken anyway."
"What happened on this ship?" asked the Doctor, bringing the conversation back on track. "How did you come by it in the first place?"
Lord's smile faded. "If the Time Lords have a fatal flaw, it's arrogance. They thought if they Fission Cloned me, cut out all the bad parts, I'd be their perfectlittle soldier. And I was… for a little while.
"I was sent to infiltrate this ship. I had to fight my way up through the decks." Lord's eyes gleamed in the half-light as he recounted the story. "There were others with me, of course - Gallifreyans. They were all shot down. Exterminated. I kept going until I got here, to the command deck, and ten Dalek soldiers turned their guns on me."
The Doctor watched him. "How did you survive?"
Lord grinned, leaning back in the chair. "Oh, I'd already hacked their life support and replaced their oxygen feed with liquid nitrogen. They froze to death before they could touch me."
There was an uneasy silence. Lord kept talking, addressing the floor now.
"The ship was on route to the Citadel. I could see the dome getting closer… it was broken, do you remember that? They smashed it wide open, our little snow-globe of protection."
The Doctor nodded, his eyes heavy with the memory.
"I looked down at all the buildings falling, all the people dying… and… I had to get out."
"So you blew up the Crypt," finished the Master. Everyone looked at him.
"That's what happened, isn't it?" He stalked over to Lord, venom in every syllable. "You bombed your own city. You knew it would create a rip in time. You escaped the same way I did, except you did it on purpose. And you dragged me out with you, along with a damaged Dalek and a deadly telepathic parasite. Well done, idiot."
"What?" Lord's eyes flickered in confusion, and so did the Master's - it was like watching a bizarrely delayed mirror.
"What do you mean, 'what'? You didn't know about it?"
"About what?"
"The Agni," said the Doctor, the word echoing around the bridge. "There's an Agni inside your brain, Lord."
Lord's eyes moved to him. "Don't be ridiculous. Agni don't affect Time Lords."
"You're not Time Lord enough," spat the Master. "You mean to say this wasn't your plan? You just accidentally picked it up somewhere?"
"Its telepathic network is spreading across Earth right now," continued the Doctor, observing Lord's reactions closely. "The Dalek which followed the Master out of the Time Lock came from this ship. From you."
Lord seemed completely thrown by what they were saying. He sat forward in the chair and span the butterfly knife agitatedly, his hand twitching. "You're not making any sense, Doctor. I left the Time War months ago. If I had an Angi I'd be dead by now."
"He has got a point," said Martha, speaking for the first time from her position leaning against one of the consoles. "How come he's still alive?"
"Maybe because he's insufferably difficult to get rid of," said the Master coldly, glaring at his Fission Clone.
Lord stood up from the chair and crossed the room until he was face to face with the Master.
"We have that in common." The knife danced idly around his fingers as he spoke. "I should have just killed you in that cell."
"Don't you find this disgusting?" The Master suddenly shoved Lord in the chest, making him stagger backwards. "We've got one heart each. We're like humans!"
"I could handle that if I didn't have to put up with you!" Lord retorted, taking a step back as the Master advanced on him. "You're insane!"
"You tried to kill us," Martha pointed out.
The Doctor, who had been watching the proceedings with concern, decided to intervene. He moved forward and tried to pull Lord away from the Master, who looked like he might punch him. Lord whipped round and span the knife until it was pointing into the Doctor's face.
"Back off."
There was a wild, unstable gleam in Lord's eyes now. The Master's attack seemed to have sparked something off, and he was shaking with either suppressed rage or fear, Martha couldn't tell.
"Just calm down," said the Doctor, positioning himself between the two clones with his hands up in a peaceful gesture. "Both of you. We have more pressing things to deal with. Lord, we need to take that Agni out of your brain."
"You're not touching my brain!" snapped Lord. He moved around the nearest control desk, putting it between him and them like a shield. "How can I even have an Agni? I was Fission Cloned on the last day of the Time War. They never evolved on Gallifrey!"
Suddenly the Master let out a laugh.
"I just figured it out. Oh! This is good."
"What?" the Doctor snapped.
"Let me double-check. Sonic." The Master clicked his fingers. Slightly taken aback, the Doctor cautiously withdrew the sonic screwdriver from his pocket and held it out. The Master snatched it and scanned Lord. A grin spread across his face as he checked the readings.
"What?" demanded Lord, just as confused as everybody else.
The Master leaned forward over the control panel and stared Lord straight in the eyes.
"Just as I thought. Altered synapses. Your brain's been tampered with - reformatted to make space for the Agni. And I'd take a guess that it happened during the Fission process."
"No," whispered the Doctor. Martha looked between the three Time Lords, utterly confused.
The Master was enjoying watching Lord, who seemed to have lost all his breath. His hand began shaking again, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the butterfly knife.
"Are you saying that the Time Lords… put the parasite in my brain?"
"Why else would they send you to infiltrate a Dalek ship on the final day of the Time War? Think about it - it was a last-ditch strategy. Get an Agni into the Pathweb and destroy allDaleks." The Master's grin stretched even wider. "You're no ultimate warrior, Lord. You're the canary in the coal mine. And their plan failed because you ran away. Who's the coward now?"
"Enough," said the Doctor firmly, pulling the Master back and walking slowly around the control desk to approach Lord. "The Time War is over. We need to work together now, or a lot of people are going to die."
"A lot of people have already died," muttered Lord. He had taken a step away and was staring at his trembling fingers.
"We can prevent this," said the Doctor. He moved forward and faced Lord, speaking quietly. "Even you won't survive if the Agni network collapses. Let us try. Please."
"And what then?" Lord looked up at him. "You're still planning to put us back together, aren't you?"
The Doctor nodded. "Yes. I have a plan."
"What plan?"
"Simultaneous regeneration. Your DNA will heal and you'll become one Time Lord again."
"Seriously?" Lord's eyes flickered over to the Master, who was hovering just behind the Doctor's shoulder. "He's going to kill us?"
"It'll work," said the Master, his voice unusually calm. "It's our only chance."
"No." Lord glared. "I won't do it. I refuse to let you and those infernal drums back inside my head."
The Master stared back at him, his face now a strange mixture of hatred and pity. Then he moved past the Doctor, took a step forward and grabbed Lord by the hand.
"You stupid clone. They never left you."
As their bare skin touched, the air seemed to electrify around them. Lord gasped, and for a second even Martha felt the rhythm resonate out from the Master's mind, ticking like a four-beat clock in her chest.
The Master smiled grimly.
"Hear them? That's the sound of madness, and it's with us forever. But I'm not strong enough to fight it on my own. I need you - I need all your focus and determination to beat it back every day."
Lord's eyes were wide with anger, but he did not let go of the Master's hand, and the Master squeezed tighter.
"And you need me. You need this heart. All my hesitations, all my sacrifices… or you're going to go too far and get us both killed. Don't you see? It's not me against you. It's us against the universe. Just like it's always been."
Lord stared back at him for the longest time, and then pulled back his hand and took a deep breath.
"Alright. Fine."
"You'll do it?"
Lord turned away and span the butterfly knife with a light clatter. "Yes. Now take this bloody thing out of my brain."
The Doctor shot the Master a look of gratitude, and Martha let out a breath she didn't realise she'd been holding. For what felt like the first time that day, something had actually gone right.
"Okay!" said the Doctor, slapping the control panel with vigour. "Plan of action - remove the parasite, merge Lord and the Master back together, tow this ship to a safe junk planet, and then back to Martha's for tea?"
Martha coughed, trying to think of an excuse not to. "Uhh… I only have three mugs."
"There will only be three of us," pointed out Lord. Martha looked at him, unsure how to reply. It was indescribably odd to think that he would soon become part of the Master again. Gone, but still there.
The Doctor turned towards the command deck doors. "We'll need to set up the TARDIS medical bay. I probably have some surgery tools lying around somewhere."
"Doctor," Martha asked cautiously, following him. "I've got to ask. Have you actually done brain surgery before?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Maybe. It can't be that difficult. I've done heart surgery."
"Right."
"Well, I've had it done to me."
"That's… not the same thing."
"I'm sure I was paying attention. The surgeon was excellent. I kissed her afterwards."
He grinned at them and disappeared through the door.
Martha exchanged worried looks with the Master, and Lord cast his eyes to the ceiling.
"Five minutes into this plan and I already feel so reassured."
Illustration for chapter 29 on DeviantArt - atlantihero-kyoxei/art/The-Canary-in-the-Coal-Mine-876544334