2. Apprehension.
A heavy hand lands on Crystelle's shoulder. "Got you!"
Crystelle can't turn around to see who it is.
Devyon turns to face Crystelle's assailant. "Hands off my girlfriend!" He is going to defend her! He pushes the assailant hard, causing him to trip on a display stand. Devyon grabs Crystelle's arm and they run.
Another man stands in their way. "Not so fast, there," he says.
"What is it with this place?" Crystelle asks.
"We've never been here before," Devion says.
"Look on that poster over there on the pillar," the man says.
The poster clearly shows their two mugshots. Wanted!
"What?" Crystelle can't believe her eyes. She snatches the poster off the pillar to look closer.
Devyon isn't going to hang around. "Ready to run like the wind?" he whispers to Crystelle. "Go!"
They run for the Tardis door. But there is a broom cupboard adjacent. It is critical to choose the right door! And they must both choose the right door!
They choose. The door opens and they clatter into a broom cupboard.
"No good hiding in there," the assailant says. "Got you again! Apprehended!"
They are both dragged out of the broom cupboard unceremoniously. Then they are compelled to go to the shop manager's office. The assailants are store security guards. These people aren't as friendly here as they are on Tinsel!
The store guards knock on the manager's door. No answer. "You wait here for the manager. I'll just be around that corner. No way out!" The guards retreat to their guard room.
"What shall we do?" Devyon asks. "There's nowhere to go here. I'm apprehensive."
"Yes, there is," Crystelle takes charge. She presses her Tardis summoner key fob in her pocket. A brief zizzing sound is heard that you might only notice if you were listening for it. Crystelle steps towards the newly visible door in the corridor.
"I didn't notice that door before," Devyon admits.
The door opens to Crystelle's touch. They go in, thankful to be away from the store guards.
Crystelle looks at the poster she grabbed earlier. "That's us alright, but what are we said to have done?"
"Devyon surveys the poster. "That's strange, it says crime but next it is blank. Why is that?"
"Must be a time thing," Crystal guesses. "We haven't committed any crime, have we?"
This is a grey area. They haven't committed any crime here. Yet!
"Let's go," Devyon says.
"But where are we?" Crystelle asks. She looks at the Tardis Console monitor. "Klonberg. Is that the planet name?"
Devyon comes across to Crystelle and puts his arms around her. "What would you really like?"
Crystelle thinks for a moment. She would really like to go home right now to recover.
Devyon thinks. "I'd love to have a Cloning Machine. Then I'd be able to do my spaceport job and work at your DNA laboratory full time."
The Tardis is already zizzing, and a large machine appears in the Tardis.
"Wow, what's that?" Devyon asks.
"You just asked for a Cloning Machine and the Tardis has Voice Control enabled!" Crystelle says. "We had better go home!"
The Tardis zizzes again.
"Oh look," Devyon says. "The poster says crime – stealing a Cloning Machine! Too late to give it back now!"
What will they do with the Cloning Machine? Did they steal it? They didn't pay for it!
Cloning.
Crystelle is sitting opposite a clone of herself. She has made sure that everyone can tell who the clone is, not just herself. Make-up can do some useful things. She will find a more permanent way, soon.
Crystelle had got out of the master replicating pod. Her clone had got out of the slave pod. Why were the pods labelled like this? What planet had the Cloning Machine come from? She had already forgotten!
Crystelle felt really odd seeing herself in anything but a mirror.
She had thought it would be interesting to try to use the Cloning Machine. Devyon had recommended waiting and thinking about it. More mouths to feed. Avoiding both clones being seen in public at the same time…
Each Crystelle knows what the other clone is feeling like: the same, except that one is much more disappointed than the other. Being tagged slave wasn't wonderful, but it did indicate some sort of subordination to the master clone at some point in the future! Logical, perhaps, because there was no guarantee that the slave clone would be as totally functional as the original in some minor way. The manual pointed this out on the first page.
How many clones should she make?
This depended on just what she wanted to achieve.
One clone could be left at home to keep doing her job while she was away on adventures, except that any learning wouldn't transfer to her master self. She couldn't leave on a massive long adventure after all! She wanted to stay in control of… everything. Oh dear. It had all seemed a good idea a while ago. She wished she had listened to Devyon and thought about it for a while.
But then, she could just despatch her clones to do a job and leave them to it while she studied.
What was her adventurous job going to be?
She knew what the highest priority was, but was she ready for it? Was she up for it?
What will Crystelle do with her clone?
Devyon knows what he wants to do with a clone. He feels that it is his Cloning Machine as he asked for it! His clone will go out to work while he stays at home with his feet up! "I can help you around the house, too," he says as if this justifies him sending his clone out to work. No wonder the Cloning Machine called the copy clone a slave!
Crystelle shares her plan. "My plan is to help the Doctor by taking some of the strain off him. He often only discovers a plot by accident, or rather late on. Devyon, do you think I might outsmart the Master?"
"If he's anything like my school teachers, you won't need to do much," Devyon says.
"I have seen him, twice," Crystelle says. "Once he was ok, the other time he caused quite a disturbance just by being there. But he has destroyed places."
"A bit tumbledown now?"
"Maybe the word is devastated," Crystelle says. "There were a few stones left on top of each other, but not many."
"Small builder's yard?" Devyon says. He isn't quite getting the idea.
"Want to help?" Crystelle asks. "You can leave your clone doing your job while you journey."
"Yes, why, are you actually going?"
"Yes, I think so," Crystelle says. She feels anything but sure. "But I'll take more than just one clone! I'll take an army!"
"One on each arm?" He is so annoying, sometimes!
How many clones does Crystelle want?