Chapter 4
In the anteroom to the Sontaran holodeck, a technician applied a blinking, hand-held device to the Doctor's face. The device glowed, causing his face to "de-regenerate" back into his seventh form. Through this, the Doctor said evenly… "The TARDIS… my son… you created it all."
He looked up to see Stike and two Sontaran guards. "With the help of our neural scanners… and what you would call a Holodeck."
The technician passed the device over the Doctor's clothing, returning them to normal. Then… "Now please tell me… how did you discover the truth? The future we constructed for you should have been… convincing."
"It wasn't. There was the computer time lag, for one thing."
"Unavoidable. Our scanners have a limited response time. So whenever you strayed from our… expectations…" He shrugged. "But surely that was not enough to…"
"To smash your house of cards? No, it was the visual record of my 'wife', Melanie. Bad move."
Stike was surprised. "But we chose someone from your past who is still alive… a woman you were extremely fond of…"
"Your mistake, Stike. Melanie left me to go travelling with Sabalom Glitz."
Stike wasn't buying this. "Impossible. In your mind, that woman is very dear to you."
"She was a very good friend. Your charade would have been more convincing if you had me married to Nita, seeing as we are already engaged!"
Stike shook his head and sighed. "So much effort… so little accomplished."
The Doctor cut to the chase. "If Outpost Twenty-three is what you're after… Why didn't you just use your neural scanners to probe my mind?"
"Our scanners are calibrated for Sontaran brain patterns. When it comes to time lord brains, they are less efficient. There were gaps in the information we gathered from your memory."
Now it was the Doctor's turn to express his doubts. "Gaps? After what I've just seen, I find that hard to believe. You recreated the TARDIS, my companions… every nuance, every sound, smell… perfectly accurate. I sure didn't notice any gaps… I don't buy it, Stike."
Stike's tone changed, turning dangerous. "We are wasting time." Stike turned and gestured to the guards. "Bring him."
Stike and the two Sontaran guards escorted the Doctor down a tunnel to a holding cell. "When you and your companions materialized on this planet, you were less than a kilometre from this base. Your capture was a simple matter."
"My companions?"
"We allowed them to return safely to the TARDIS. But you were… detained."
"My friends won't stop looking for me, Stike."
"They already have."
The Doctor reacted… They paused by a holding cell cut into the living rock. One of the guards deactivated the force field lights.
As the Doctor and the Sontarans entered the holding cell… "Please say hello to your son."
And the Doctor reacted to… a ragged, dirty little boy huddled in a corner of the cell. It was Chris.
"Chris?"
"That is not his name, of course. Nor have you ever really met him. We merely… used his image to augment your program."
The Doctor carefully approached the boy… who flinched away and scuttled to another corner of the cell. The Doctor reacted, then glared at Stike. "What have you done to him?"
Stike ignored the question. "While I am gone, please give careful thought to your situation." He left with the guards.
As the cell's force field was reactivated, the Doctor faced the boy. "What's your name?"
Silence. The Doctor tried again. "Look… if we're going to get out of here, you've got to trust me…"
The frightened boy cringed in the corner, unwilling to so much as look at the man. The Doctor took a step toward him, but stopped as… "Easy… I won't hurt you."
The boy covered his face with his hands, peering fearfully through his fingers with panicky eyes.
"Who are you? How did you get here?"
No answer. But the Doctor didn't give up. He knelt near the boy. "My name is the Doctor."
The boy slowly sat up… studied the Doctor… then… "Demetral…"
Demetral and the Doctor heard footsteps and faced the force field, watching, as two guards strode down the tunnel and past the holding cell.
"They brought me here… with my parents…" Demetral turned away from the field to face the Doctor. "We were at a research station on Miridian Six."
"Miridian Six… near Sontaran space? I thought it was uninhabited…"
"The station was set up last year. Then the Sontarans came…"
The boy stopped. The Doctor frowned. "It's odd the TARDIS wasn't advised…" The Doctor changed tack, probed tenderly. "Where are your parents, now?"
After a pause, "They took them away."
Another beat. The Doctor didn't know any kinder way to ask the next question. "Do you know why the Sontarans are keeping you here?"
"No…" his fear was showing… "I just want to get away."
The Doctor knelt, took the boy by the shoulders… "Demetral… I'll get us out of here…"
"How? Even if we do get away, they'll find us. They found me when I escaped before."
That got the Doctor's attention. "You escaped?"
Demetral nodded. "I hid in a secred place… for weeks… but they caught me when I went out to find food."
They heard approaching footsteps and the Doctor stood to face them as… Stike and a guard approached the cell. The guard deactivated the force field and they both entered. Stike faced the Doctor and Demetral. "I want that information, Doctor. I want the location of Outpost Twenty-three."
The Doctor didn't bother to answer. Stike barely maintained his poise. "Very well. I have been given permission to use whatever means are necessary…"
Demetral suddenly bolted for the open door. The Doctor reacted… "Demetral… no!"
Stike also reacted, shouting… "Stop him!"
The guard quickly reached out, grabbed Demetral by the collar. The boy kicked and screamed, struggling against the guard's grip. "Let me go…"
Stike looked away from the Doctor for only a moment… but it was long enough. The Doctor punched Stike, who went down. The guard reacted, tried to keep a firm hold on the struggling Demetral as he drew his carbine. But Demetral knocked the Sontaran's arm up toward the ceiling… "Don't!"
The carbine went off, firing into the ceiling. Then the guard shoved the boy aside… which bought the Doctor the time to punch him out, too. As the guard slumped to the floor, the Doctor picked up his carbine, hurried to Demetral, and helped him out of the cell.
As they hurried down the corridor… "This secret hiding place of yours…?"
"This way…"
A carbine energy projection suddenly blasted the wall close by. They reacted and ran… At the end of the tunnel, another Sontaran guard approached, weapon at the ready… But before he could fire again… The Doctor fired, knocking the guard off his feet.
The Doctor and Demetral rounded a corner into another tunnel and came face to face with a surprised Sontaran guard. The Sontaran went for his weapon. Too late. The Doctor knocked him out. As the guard fell, the Doctor and Demetral ran toward an air conditioning grate. The boy stopped by the floor level air conditioning grate, swung it open, and motioned. "In here…"
The Doctor followed him as Demetral climbed inside, then pulled the grate shut behind him.
In the narrow crawlspace it was almost pitch black. The only light came through the slots in that grate. Demetral hurriedly slid bolts into place, securing the grate as echoing footsteps approached in the tunnel beyond…
…The Doctor and Demetral froze against the walls on either side of the grate as the feet and legs of the Sontaran guards appeared in the tunnel outside.
One of the Sontarans knelt down, peered through the grate… then suddenly seized it with his hand and gave it a hard shake…