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The Witch in the Woods
Part Two
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It was dark underground. The Doctor moved along a corridor his footsteps practically silent. The same could not be said of his companion.
"Jamie!" hissed the Doctor, shining his torch at the young Scot. "Perhaps you'd like to go and help Zoe?"
"All that computer stuff doesnae mean a thing to me, Doctor," replied Jamie in an exaggerated whisper.
"In that case, could you please try and be a little quieter?" He could see that Jamie was about to answer, and swiftly put a finger to his lips. "Shh!" he said, in a very quiet, very forceful voice. He held up his torch and turned around to be almost immediately confronted by a door.
"Ah, here we are," he murmured.
"What was that, Doctor?" asked Jamie.
"Nothing, Jamie. Why don't you make yourself useful and hold onto this?" replied the Doctor and passed him his torch. "Now if you'd just shine it at the lock...thank you." The Doctor fished around in his pockets, and pulled out his sonic screwdriver with a flourish. He crouched down by the door and listened carefully. "Hold that light still, Jamie!" He made an adjustment to the sonic screwdriver, and activated it. The faint sound of an electronic beep could be heard.
The Doctor stood up, hands clutching the lapels of his coat. "After you, Jamie" he offered politely.
"No thanks, Doctor. If she's in there, you're going first."
"Jamie," explained the Doctor patiently. "She's hardly likely to lock herself in, is she?"
"If she knew we were comin, then. . ."
". . .we would probably be quite dead." He sighed. "All right, come along then." The Doctor pushed open the door cautiously. The room was dimly lit, but empty of people. Judging it to be safe, Jamie strode forward, but was stopped by the Doctor.
"Let's be cautious, shall we?" he said, taking very gentle step forwards. "She's probably left something quite nasty for any intruders."
"I dinnae see anythin, Doctor."
"Overconfidence, perhaps. Well, let's have a little light." The Doctor hit a switch by the door and the room instantly brightened to reveal a meticulously tidy laboratory. The Doctor moved to the workbench, running an expert eye over the apparatus. "Very impressive," he murmured.
"Doctor!"
"Not now, Jamie." He was trying to access the computer. He knew that the most important information wouldn't be stored here: there was a remote link, if only he could find it.
"Doctor!" Jamie's voice was insistent, and distracting. The Doctor looked up to see what he was so concerned about.
"Oh goodness! I thought we had found them all!"
On the far wall a series of cylinders were attached to the wall. Each one with its own machinery attached and an overhead monitor. Three of the cylinders were occupied with unconscious children.
"We have to get them out," said Jamie, moving towards the first cylinders.
"Jamie! Wait!" exclaimed the Doctor and Jamie stopped.
"We cannae just leave the weans in there, Doctor," he said.
"And we're not going to," he said and held up the sonic screwdriver. "But if there's going to be a trap amongst any of this it's going to be over there. So let me go first." He took a cautious step in front of Jamie towards the cylinders. There was no reaction from the sonic device, so he took another step, and another. Finally he laid a hand on the cylinder and let out a sigh. "Quite safe," he said, and put the sonic screwdriver back in his pocket. "Now we have to get them out!" he exclaimed, suddenly angry.
The Doctor turned to the nearest control panel and began hitting buttons, seemingly at random, but Jamie had faith that he knew what he was doing. Seeing that the Doctor was busy and didn't need his help, Jamie began to walk around the laboratory, trying to guess what some of the equipment was for.
"Don't touch anything," muttered the Doctor, his voice loud enough for Jamie to hear and his eyes still on the controls. Jamie shrugged, wondering how long Zoe was going to be. He ducked out of the lab and took a quick look down the long corridor, and then, much more quickly, ducked back into the lab.
"Ah, Doctor, you almost done?" he asked.
"I'll be a lot quicker if you don't interrupt me," came the reply.
"Because she's back."
"Zoe?"
"No."
"Oh dear. Quickly, Jamie, shut the door."
He did as he was told and looked around for something to jam up against it. "The lock, Jamie. Little blue button, hit it."
"She's gonnae have a key, Doctor," he said as he pressed it.
"Every second counts, Jamie." The Doctor turned back to the controls, a worried frown now on his face, but his concentration had sharpened. "There!" he exclaimed, as he straightened up. There was a hissing noise, and then the cylinders sank into the floor. The revived children, two boys and a girl, stumbled forward, coughing.
One of the boys recovered awareness first, and he looked around the room with wide eyes. The eyes fell on the Doctor, who crouched down by the child.
"Hello," he said. "I'm the Doctor, and this is my friend Jamie. Everything's going to be fine. You'll be back home soon." He still seemed disorientated, as though he couldn't quite see his surroundings.
"I'm Johnny," said the boy. "Feel sick," he said.
"Why don't you have seat, Johnny?" said the Doctor. "You'll feel better soon." He glanced over at Jamie and saw that the other two children were in much the same state: conscious, but too shocked and disorientated to understand what was going on.
"Now what, Doctor?" asked Jamie.
"Be ready," said the Doctor, his eyes fixed on the door.
"Ready for what?"
The Doctor didn't get an opportunity to answer as the door exploded. Into the laboratory stepped a tall woman; cold eyes took in the scene before her.
"Doctor, I'm getting a little tired of this," she said, calmly pointing a slim blaster at him. "Move away from those controls. You too," she said, throwing a glance at Jamie. She turned back to the Doctor "Do you have any idea how far back you've set my work?"
"I'd feel a lot better if I'd destroyed it all, Rani," said the Doctor. "What you're doing here is monstrous!"
The Rani raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You really think so?" she asked evenly. "You think what I do to these humans is worse than how they treat the other inhabitants of this planet? Worse than how they treat each other?"
"They are sentient beings!" exclaimed the Doctor.
"Oh, do stop the histrionics, Doctor. They are vicious, violent carnivores."
"They're humans!"
She shot him a withering look. "That's not a defence. I am acting out of genuine need: they go out and kill for fun. They start wars amongst themselves and squabble for the petty resources of this third rate world. They kill animals and the other sentients of this world with equal enthusiasm."
"You're experimenting on children, they're not responsible for all that."
"But they will be. Products of their society, Doctor. You know as well as I that history is a repeating cycle," she stepped towards the Doctor, able to look down on him easily. "I'm sure I can think of something useful to do with the chemical make-up of a Time Lord."
Jamie chose that moment to act. He had been edging closer to the Rani as she argued with the Doctor, and was now close enough to strike. He tensed and jumped, but the Rani caught the movement in her peripheral vision. She spun round and fired.
Jamie collapsed with a cry of pain. It was enough of a disturbance for the children to look up, tired as they were.
"Jamie!" cried the Doctor and ran to his side.
"Don't worry. Your friend is unhurt, for now, though his leg will be rather painful," said the Rani. "He's young enough to be useful."
"No!" exclaimed the Doctor, as he helped Jamie to his feet. "These experiments end now!"
The Rani sighed. "Really, Doctor, I'm not going to be swayed by melodrama, though feel free to offer a rational argument."
Suddenly, the Doctor smiled. "I don't think I'll need one." Jamie wondered about his friend's curious change in mood until he spotted someone peering cautiously around the laboratory door: it was Zoe.
On cue, the main console in the room started to whine, loudly. The Rani ran to the controls. "What have you done?" she demanded, furiously trying to find out what was wrong with the system.
The shriek from the systems was getting higher, and the Doctor slammed his hands over his ears.
With the Rani distracted by the computer, Jamie made a grab for her blaster. She tried to kick him away, but he had a good grasp of the weapon. Her concentration split, the Rani shoved him away, letting go of the blaster, and turned back to the console.
The Doctor had picked up Johnny, who was whimpering now, frightened by the noise. He was making for the door as cautiously as he could.
Jamie had fallen to the ground, hitting it with a sharp crack dropping the pistol. It skittered across the room, and hit the wall.
"You fool!" exclaimed the Rani. "The system is going to overload!"
But the Doctor wasn't listening. He passed Johnny to Jamie, and headed back for the two other children and took them both by the hand.
The shriek reached its zenith.
"Run!" shouted the Doctor, and, Jamie, Zoe and the children pelted up the corridors and out into the forest. Jamie and Zoe had stopped to catch their breath, and the two children that the Doctor had by the hand were tugging on him to stop too. "Keep running!" yelled the Doctor. Exchanging glances Jamie and Zoe sprinted into the forest after the Doctor, Jamie still carrying Johnny.
When Jamie saw the Doctor fall forward into the fallen leaves, pulling the two children with him, he followed suit and could see Zoe doing the same. There was a low rumble behind them and he glanced back to see a ball of fire bursting through the earth behind him, out through the open tunnel entrance that led under the ruined cottage.
It seemed that the Rani's laboratory had been destroyed.
The Doctor stood up, beaming and looking around in satisfaction. "Well done, Zoe," he said.
She shrugged. "Easy enough; confuse any computer sufficiently and it'll eventually explode. They really are very simple, no matter how advanced they get."
"Well, quite," said the Doctor. "But let's not get over confident, shall we?" He paused and looked down at the three young faces now looking up at him. "We have to get these three back to their parents."
"And then we'll just slip away quietly?" asked Jamie.
The Doctor frowned and grasped the lapels of his coat. "I think, Jamie, that this time we really should explain. These children have been through a terrible ordeal."
"But in this century Doctor, they're hardly going to believe us, are they?" said Zoe.
"Well, perhaps we shouldn't quite tell them everything, Zoe, just enough." The Doctor looked down to see Johnny pulling at the bottom of his coat, a questioning look on his face, and he gave the boy a smile. "What is it?" he asked.
"Are you a wizard?" asked Johnny.
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"Professor!" Ace shouted down the stairs. She pulled Shaun behind her and moved back towards the door, not taking her eyes of the creature. In her experience with monsters, this one was behaving very oddly. It barely seemed to have noticed her presence, and it wasn't doing anything, except standing there, looking out the window.
Ace took a moment to study it: It was short, much shorter than her, and humanoid. Its skin was grey, and twisted with lumps. There was no neck; its shoulders widened into its head. Two black eyes stared out above slits for a nose. It didn't look especially threatening, but Ace knew from experience that that didn't really mean anything.
"Professor!" she shouted again.
"Yes, Ace. What is it?" The Doctor's voice replied from the bottom of the stairs.
"There's something up here!"
She heard footsteps on the stairs and turned around to see the Doctor behind her, followed by John Turner. The Doctor ducked his head into the room for a second, then turned to John. "Take Shaun downstairs," he said quietly.
"Doctor, what's in there?" demanded John.
"Let me deal with this." He went into the bedroom and close the door firmly behind him, but that didn't stop Ace following him anyway.
As she entered the room, she saw the Doctor approaching the creature. He threw a glance at her. "Stay quiet," he whispered. When the Doctor was just a few steps away, it turned towards him and fixed its black eyes on him.
"Hello," said the Doctor, doffing his hat. "I'm the Doctor."
It let out a low whine, and for the first time Ace realised that she couldn't see a mouth. The Doctor stepped closer and tentatively reached out a hand and patted the creature on the arm. "There, there," he said. "You're going to be fine."
The creature seemed to give a sniff, and Ace saw one of its black eyes glistening. She couldn't believe it when a tear fell from it. It reached out one of its long grey arms and held the Doctor's arm. The Doctor tried to disentangle himself, but the creature was insistent. "All right," he said. "Ace, maybe you'd better warn them about us coming down the stairs. There's no need to be alarmed though, he's quite friendly."
"Right," said Ace, giving a nod.
The Doctor looked down at the creature to see its black eyes looking up at him mournfully. "Don't worry," he said, as he led it downstairs.
Shaun was peering out from behind his grandfather, who stood next to Ace. John Turner couldn't quite disguise his feelings regarding the creature, and took the smallest step back. For its part, the creature seemed as afraid of everyone, save the Doctor, as Shaun seemed of it. It looked around, and then its eyes fell on the newspaper by the telephone. Its black eyes widened and it began to let out another wail, as it ran forward and clasped the pages protectively.
"What's it doing?" asked John, moving further away from it. The Doctor gave a sigh, his eyes sad as he watched the creature.
"I think we've found the missing boy."
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The Witch in the Woods
Part Two
+++
It was dark underground. The Doctor moved along a corridor his footsteps practically silent. The same could not be said of his companion.
"Jamie!" hissed the Doctor, shining his torch at the young Scot. "Perhaps you'd like to go and help Zoe?"
"All that computer stuff doesnae mean a thing to me, Doctor," replied Jamie in an exaggerated whisper.
"In that case, could you please try and be a little quieter?" He could see that Jamie was about to answer, and swiftly put a finger to his lips. "Shh!" he said, in a very quiet, very forceful voice. He held up his torch and turned around to be almost immediately confronted by a door.
"Ah, here we are," he murmured.
"What was that, Doctor?" asked Jamie.
"Nothing, Jamie. Why don't you make yourself useful and hold onto this?" replied the Doctor and passed him his torch. "Now if you'd just shine it at the lock...thank you." The Doctor fished around in his pockets, and pulled out his sonic screwdriver with a flourish. He crouched down by the door and listened carefully. "Hold that light still, Jamie!" He made an adjustment to the sonic screwdriver, and activated it. The faint sound of an electronic beep could be heard.
The Doctor stood up, hands clutching the lapels of his coat. "After you, Jamie" he offered politely.
"No thanks, Doctor. If she's in there, you're going first."
"Jamie," explained the Doctor patiently. "She's hardly likely to lock herself in, is she?"
"If she knew we were comin, then. . ."
". . .we would probably be quite dead." He sighed. "All right, come along then." The Doctor pushed open the door cautiously. The room was dimly lit, but empty of people. Judging it to be safe, Jamie strode forward, but was stopped by the Doctor.
"Let's be cautious, shall we?" he said, taking very gentle step forwards. "She's probably left something quite nasty for any intruders."
"I dinnae see anythin, Doctor."
"Overconfidence, perhaps. Well, let's have a little light." The Doctor hit a switch by the door and the room instantly brightened to reveal a meticulously tidy laboratory. The Doctor moved to the workbench, running an expert eye over the apparatus. "Very impressive," he murmured.
"Doctor!"
"Not now, Jamie." He was trying to access the computer. He knew that the most important information wouldn't be stored here: there was a remote link, if only he could find it.
"Doctor!" Jamie's voice was insistent, and distracting. The Doctor looked up to see what he was so concerned about.
"Oh goodness! I thought we had found them all!"
On the far wall a series of cylinders were attached to the wall. Each one with its own machinery attached and an overhead monitor. Three of the cylinders were occupied with unconscious children.
"We have to get them out," said Jamie, moving towards the first cylinders.
"Jamie! Wait!" exclaimed the Doctor and Jamie stopped.
"We cannae just leave the weans in there, Doctor," he said.
"And we're not going to," he said and held up the sonic screwdriver. "But if there's going to be a trap amongst any of this it's going to be over there. So let me go first." He took a cautious step in front of Jamie towards the cylinders. There was no reaction from the sonic device, so he took another step, and another. Finally he laid a hand on the cylinder and let out a sigh. "Quite safe," he said, and put the sonic screwdriver back in his pocket. "Now we have to get them out!" he exclaimed, suddenly angry.
The Doctor turned to the nearest control panel and began hitting buttons, seemingly at random, but Jamie had faith that he knew what he was doing. Seeing that the Doctor was busy and didn't need his help, Jamie began to walk around the laboratory, trying to guess what some of the equipment was for.
"Don't touch anything," muttered the Doctor, his voice loud enough for Jamie to hear and his eyes still on the controls. Jamie shrugged, wondering how long Zoe was going to be. He ducked out of the lab and took a quick look down the long corridor, and then, much more quickly, ducked back into the lab.
"Ah, Doctor, you almost done?" he asked.
"I'll be a lot quicker if you don't interrupt me," came the reply.
"Because she's back."
"Zoe?"
"No."
"Oh dear. Quickly, Jamie, shut the door."
He did as he was told and looked around for something to jam up against it. "The lock, Jamie. Little blue button, hit it."
"She's gonnae have a key, Doctor," he said as he pressed it.
"Every second counts, Jamie." The Doctor turned back to the controls, a worried frown now on his face, but his concentration had sharpened. "There!" he exclaimed, as he straightened up. There was a hissing noise, and then the cylinders sank into the floor. The revived children, two boys and a girl, stumbled forward, coughing.
One of the boys recovered awareness first, and he looked around the room with wide eyes. The eyes fell on the Doctor, who crouched down by the child.
"Hello," he said. "I'm the Doctor, and this is my friend Jamie. Everything's going to be fine. You'll be back home soon." He still seemed disorientated, as though he couldn't quite see his surroundings.
"I'm Johnny," said the boy. "Feel sick," he said.
"Why don't you have seat, Johnny?" said the Doctor. "You'll feel better soon." He glanced over at Jamie and saw that the other two children were in much the same state: conscious, but too shocked and disorientated to understand what was going on.
"Now what, Doctor?" asked Jamie.
"Be ready," said the Doctor, his eyes fixed on the door.
"Ready for what?"
The Doctor didn't get an opportunity to answer as the door exploded. Into the laboratory stepped a tall woman; cold eyes took in the scene before her.
"Doctor, I'm getting a little tired of this," she said, calmly pointing a slim blaster at him. "Move away from those controls. You too," she said, throwing a glance at Jamie. She turned back to the Doctor "Do you have any idea how far back you've set my work?"
"I'd feel a lot better if I'd destroyed it all, Rani," said the Doctor. "What you're doing here is monstrous!"
The Rani raised an eyebrow in surprise. "You really think so?" she asked evenly. "You think what I do to these humans is worse than how they treat the other inhabitants of this planet? Worse than how they treat each other?"
"They are sentient beings!" exclaimed the Doctor.
"Oh, do stop the histrionics, Doctor. They are vicious, violent carnivores."
"They're humans!"
She shot him a withering look. "That's not a defence. I am acting out of genuine need: they go out and kill for fun. They start wars amongst themselves and squabble for the petty resources of this third rate world. They kill animals and the other sentients of this world with equal enthusiasm."
"You're experimenting on children, they're not responsible for all that."
"But they will be. Products of their society, Doctor. You know as well as I that history is a repeating cycle," she stepped towards the Doctor, able to look down on him easily. "I'm sure I can think of something useful to do with the chemical make-up of a Time Lord."
Jamie chose that moment to act. He had been edging closer to the Rani as she argued with the Doctor, and was now close enough to strike. He tensed and jumped, but the Rani caught the movement in her peripheral vision. She spun round and fired.
Jamie collapsed with a cry of pain. It was enough of a disturbance for the children to look up, tired as they were.
"Jamie!" cried the Doctor and ran to his side.
"Don't worry. Your friend is unhurt, for now, though his leg will be rather painful," said the Rani. "He's young enough to be useful."
"No!" exclaimed the Doctor, as he helped Jamie to his feet. "These experiments end now!"
The Rani sighed. "Really, Doctor, I'm not going to be swayed by melodrama, though feel free to offer a rational argument."
Suddenly, the Doctor smiled. "I don't think I'll need one." Jamie wondered about his friend's curious change in mood until he spotted someone peering cautiously around the laboratory door: it was Zoe.
On cue, the main console in the room started to whine, loudly. The Rani ran to the controls. "What have you done?" she demanded, furiously trying to find out what was wrong with the system.
The shriek from the systems was getting higher, and the Doctor slammed his hands over his ears.
With the Rani distracted by the computer, Jamie made a grab for her blaster. She tried to kick him away, but he had a good grasp of the weapon. Her concentration split, the Rani shoved him away, letting go of the blaster, and turned back to the console.
The Doctor had picked up Johnny, who was whimpering now, frightened by the noise. He was making for the door as cautiously as he could.
Jamie had fallen to the ground, hitting it with a sharp crack dropping the pistol. It skittered across the room, and hit the wall.
"You fool!" exclaimed the Rani. "The system is going to overload!"
But the Doctor wasn't listening. He passed Johnny to Jamie, and headed back for the two other children and took them both by the hand.
The shriek reached its zenith.
"Run!" shouted the Doctor, and, Jamie, Zoe and the children pelted up the corridors and out into the forest. Jamie and Zoe had stopped to catch their breath, and the two children that the Doctor had by the hand were tugging on him to stop too. "Keep running!" yelled the Doctor. Exchanging glances Jamie and Zoe sprinted into the forest after the Doctor, Jamie still carrying Johnny.
When Jamie saw the Doctor fall forward into the fallen leaves, pulling the two children with him, he followed suit and could see Zoe doing the same. There was a low rumble behind them and he glanced back to see a ball of fire bursting through the earth behind him, out through the open tunnel entrance that led under the ruined cottage.
It seemed that the Rani's laboratory had been destroyed.
The Doctor stood up, beaming and looking around in satisfaction. "Well done, Zoe," he said.
She shrugged. "Easy enough; confuse any computer sufficiently and it'll eventually explode. They really are very simple, no matter how advanced they get."
"Well, quite," said the Doctor. "But let's not get over confident, shall we?" He paused and looked down at the three young faces now looking up at him. "We have to get these three back to their parents."
"And then we'll just slip away quietly?" asked Jamie.
The Doctor frowned and grasped the lapels of his coat. "I think, Jamie, that this time we really should explain. These children have been through a terrible ordeal."
"But in this century Doctor, they're hardly going to believe us, are they?" said Zoe.
"Well, perhaps we shouldn't quite tell them everything, Zoe, just enough." The Doctor looked down to see Johnny pulling at the bottom of his coat, a questioning look on his face, and he gave the boy a smile. "What is it?" he asked.
"Are you a wizard?" asked Johnny.
+++
"Professor!" Ace shouted down the stairs. She pulled Shaun behind her and moved back towards the door, not taking her eyes of the creature. In her experience with monsters, this one was behaving very oddly. It barely seemed to have noticed her presence, and it wasn't doing anything, except standing there, looking out the window.
Ace took a moment to study it: It was short, much shorter than her, and humanoid. Its skin was grey, and twisted with lumps. There was no neck; its shoulders widened into its head. Two black eyes stared out above slits for a nose. It didn't look especially threatening, but Ace knew from experience that that didn't really mean anything.
"Professor!" she shouted again.
"Yes, Ace. What is it?" The Doctor's voice replied from the bottom of the stairs.
"There's something up here!"
She heard footsteps on the stairs and turned around to see the Doctor behind her, followed by John Turner. The Doctor ducked his head into the room for a second, then turned to John. "Take Shaun downstairs," he said quietly.
"Doctor, what's in there?" demanded John.
"Let me deal with this." He went into the bedroom and close the door firmly behind him, but that didn't stop Ace following him anyway.
As she entered the room, she saw the Doctor approaching the creature. He threw a glance at her. "Stay quiet," he whispered. When the Doctor was just a few steps away, it turned towards him and fixed its black eyes on him.
"Hello," said the Doctor, doffing his hat. "I'm the Doctor."
It let out a low whine, and for the first time Ace realised that she couldn't see a mouth. The Doctor stepped closer and tentatively reached out a hand and patted the creature on the arm. "There, there," he said. "You're going to be fine."
The creature seemed to give a sniff, and Ace saw one of its black eyes glistening. She couldn't believe it when a tear fell from it. It reached out one of its long grey arms and held the Doctor's arm. The Doctor tried to disentangle himself, but the creature was insistent. "All right," he said. "Ace, maybe you'd better warn them about us coming down the stairs. There's no need to be alarmed though, he's quite friendly."
"Right," said Ace, giving a nod.
The Doctor looked down at the creature to see its black eyes looking up at him mournfully. "Don't worry," he said, as he led it downstairs.
Shaun was peering out from behind his grandfather, who stood next to Ace. John Turner couldn't quite disguise his feelings regarding the creature, and took the smallest step back. For its part, the creature seemed as afraid of everyone, save the Doctor, as Shaun seemed of it. It looked around, and then its eyes fell on the newspaper by the telephone. Its black eyes widened and it began to let out another wail, as it ran forward and clasped the pages protectively.
"What's it doing?" asked John, moving further away from it. The Doctor gave a sigh, his eyes sad as he watched the creature.
"I think we've found the missing boy."
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