Chapter 3

Ruth looked around the cage. It was less than two metres wide and maybe three deep. There was a mattress on the floor with a single blanket and a bucket in one corner. Otherwise it was completely empty and far too small for three. Ruth didn't like to think about what the bucket might be for, or how they'd all manage, either. The walls dividing the cages were solid chrome up to Ruth's chest, then barred the rest of the way to the ceiling, so the inmates did not have much privacy from each other.

Donna was already shaking the door of the cage, testing its strength, but the Doctor just stood and stared at Ruth speculatively. She felt uncomfortable under his gaze and somehow couldn't meet it, so she looked instead at the bars dividing their cage from the next and found the man who was supposed to be Mark Anderson looking back at her. She had so many questions, but she just didn't know where to begin. The Fiona she knew was twelve, as was Mark, but this Mark was grown-up, while their captor was- well, a bit old in Ruth's eyes. She had heard the mention of time-travel, but how could that be? And why would the grown-up Fiona be looking for her anyway? Why not just go and knock on the grown-up Ruth's door in her own time?

The Doctor had walked across to face Mark Anderson through the bars.

"How did you get here?" he demanded. Mark Anderson shrugged.

"I was doing my round as usual," he said. "I'm a postman. I shoved a letter through a door, turned round, and there was Lizardman behind me. Before I could do anything, he raised his stick, and I woke up in here. And here I've been ever since. I've lost count of the weeks."

"And you know this Fiona?"

"Haven't seen her since school. Didn't take much notice of her there, either. Nobody liked her."

"So why has she got us here?"

Mark shrugged again.

"Some nutty idea about us bullying her, and how we're all gonna pay, when she completes her collection, I suppose. And I reckon as Ruth's is the last cage, we'll find out what that is, soon enough."

Mark's gaze fell upon Ruth, who had been listening in silence.

"I haven't bullied anyone," she said sullenly, and turned away to sit on the mattress, with her back to the others. The Doctor made to move towards her, but Donna stopped him.

"Leave her alone," she said. "We've got to figure out a way to get out of here. Bullied or not, that woman's unhinged."

"I'm all over it," the Doctor replied, "but I'm a bit stuck without my screwdriver. We need something we can pick a lock with."

Without turning or speaking, Ruth reached into a pocket and slid something across the floor behind her. The Doctor quickly retrieved it and held it up triumphantly.

"A pen-knife!" he enthused. He turned it in his hands, admiring the red casing. "And not just any old knife, either- a proper Swiss Army job! How did you…?" Then he remembered that Ruth had emptied her own pockets, thus avoiding being searched. "Oh, you clever girl!" he marvelled.

Picking the lock was easier said than done, however. The Doctor had to put his arm out through the bars then sort of twist and bend his wrist backwards so that the knife blade could be inserted into the keyhole. In this awkward position it was almost impossible for him to feel where the tumblers inside the lock were. Donna stood behind and offered alternately words of encouragement and criticism, which the inhabitants of the other cells soon picked up on and joined in with their own words.

Suddenly, they began to fall silent one by one, but the Doctor was too busy to notice, until with a cry of frustration, he lost his grip on the pen-knife. In horror, he watched it skid along the floor and come to rest between the feet of Fiona.

"Oops," he said, sheepishly. Fiona simply picked it up and placed it on the laboratory bench.

"You're wasting your time," she said to the Doctor, conversationally. "These locks are manufactured on Klom, and are DNA sensitive. They may look traditional, but I can assure you they are state of the art. Your little knife is going to be quite ineffectual, I'm afraid."

The Doctor tried his best to look unperturbed.

"Why don't you just let us all go," he said to her. "I can't see what possible use any of these people could be to you, and you're breaking several inter-galactic laws, including abduction and crossing your own time-line. You're risking life-imprisonment on a labour farm in some remote part of the galaxy, and for what, exactly?"

Fiona strode over to the Doctor, and stood almost nose to nose with him, but because of her diminutive stature, she was more nose to chest. Obligingly, the Time-Lord stooped slightly until their eyes were level.

"Have you any idea," she demanded of him, "what these people have put me through? I have endured a life of ridicule and friendlessness at the hands of these people and others like them. From the first day of school I have been the victim of taunts and jeers and outright bullying, for nothing more than being less pretty, smaller, bespectacled and- and-"

"Ginger?" offered Mark Anderson.

"Oi!" Donna warned him, beginning to bristle, but her look was nothing compared to their captor's. Mark stepped back smartly as Fiona turned her baleful stare on him.

"You were the worst of the lot!" she spat, approaching his cage. "It was you, right from First School, and you stayed with me all the way through, teasing me, making snide comments, turning the other children against me until I had no friends at all."

Ruth had stood and now joined the Doctor and Donna.

"I'm your friend," she said. "We play when your Mum comes round for coffee."

"Only because your mother made you," countered Fiona, turning back to her. "You never liked me, really."

"But I didn't hate you. And I never bully you. I don't bully people. I don't understand what you want from me."

"Oh, look at you, all sweet and blonde and butter-wouldn't-melt. You were as bad as any of these. You didn't turn kids against me like Mark Anderson, or hide my things like Shannon Parker, or flush my plimsolls down the loo like Amy Portfield, but you were just as bad, and you'll be punished just the same!"

"I never flushed any plimsolls down any loo!" called a young woman from one of the other cages. The Doctor grinned at her through all the bars separating them.

"Amy Portfield, I presume!" he cried. "I'm the Doctor! Pleased to meet you!" Then he turned his attention back to Fiona, his smile gone, his expression much more serious.

"I'm so sorry you had such a terrible time at school," he said to her quietly, "but unless I'm very much mistaken- and I rarely am in these matters, being a Time-Lord and all- you have been taking these people out of different times and crossing your own time-line no end in the process. I can't begin to tell you how disastrous that can be and how much danger we are all in as a result. And your Raptarnok friends are fully aware of these dangers, and of the laws, and are assisting you anyway. What's in it for them, I wonder?"

"I pay well," snapped Fiona. "I came into a lot of money a few years back, as a result of my terraforming research, and brought the Raptarnok into my employ, when I learned of their particular talents."

"All the money on Earth couldn't get me to do what they've done," responded the Doctor. "It just wouldn't be worth it. I rather suspect they're using you, Fiona, and I do really think we need to find out what for. Let me help you. I think right now you need a true friend, and I can be that friend."

Fiona laughed bitterly.

"You? Be my friend? And help me with what? Your false sincerity doesn't work on me, Doctor, the only person you want to help is that snivelling specimen in the cage with you!"

She turned, then, at the sound of the lift doors opening. Anesh approached.

"We're almosst ready," he hissed. "We'll need one to tesst it on- can I ssuggesst the ssmallesst?" he pointed towards Ruth.

"Wait," Donna interrupted. "Whatever it is you're planning to do, I think it's only fair for you to let Ruth know what she did. So far, you've only given her a list of the things she didn't do wrong, so we're all rather wondering what it is you hold against her."

"Well. That's simple," said Fiona. "She did nothing."

"You what?"

"She did nothing. She saw what was happening to me- she was there when Mark called me names and encouraged the others to join in. She saw Shannon take my new coat, she was there when Mum hit me for losing it- and she did nothing to help me. She says she was my friend, but she turned a blind eye. And at High School she avoided me altogether. She was as bad as the others."

Ruth stared at her, aghast.

"What was I supposed to do?" she demanded, indignation suddenly overcoming her shyness. "You're all in the year above me, and we're all scared of Mark and Shannon. They bully everyone. People with any sense keep out of their way, but you seem to get noticed. And you're not exactly nice to me. You called me weird for liking nature, and what about the time you threw my ball into the brambles? That's why I don't like playing with you. And how can you blame me for High School? I'm not even at High School!"

"She's got a point there, you know," Donna pointed out. "You can't hold someone for something they haven't done yet. That's just too weird. You could just tell her not to do it. And while we're at it, why not pick all the others up before they started to bully you, and just put the fear of God up 'em what you'll do to 'em if they dare come near you at school?"

The Doctor smiled at Donna.

"It's not that easy," he explained. "In order to find anyone, you have to know where they are. In order to find someone in another time, you have to know exactly where they were at a given moment. And in order to capture them, you need to know a given point in time and space at which they were alone and vulnerable- am I right?" He turned to Fiona but did not wait for an answer. "So you must remember having seen Ruth on the quay on that particular day, so that you could send your friend after her, and you must remember seeing Mark on his postal round to have captured him. And you must have a memory for dates almost as good as mine!"

Fiona glared at the Doctor for a moment, then turned away and stood beside Anesh to fiddle with the equipment on the bench. The Doctor strained to see what they were doing, but they were careful to block his view.

"You are right," she replied eventually, still working. "But this is all idle chat to buy you time, and I'm tired of it. I think it's time we got on with things, don't you?"

"The ssmall one, then?" Anesh asked her, already approaching the cage. Fiona appeared to consider for a moment before replying.

"No, I think we can keep her a bit longer. But I don't think the 'Ginger' remark should go unpunished, do you?"

"Very well," sighed Anesh and he turned his attention instead to Mark's cage. Mark's face drained of all colour, and he pressed himself as far back as he could. He whimpered quietly, tears forming in his eyes, and Donna jabbed the Doctor hard in his ribs.

"Do something!" she hissed, but the Doctor did not respond. He was watching with interest the apparently ordinary bunch of keys from which Anesh was selecting to open Mark's cage.

As soon as the cage door was open, Mark's cries of fear turned into a scream of rage, and he lunged forward, sending the surprised Raptarnok off-balance. Somehow he managed to squeeze past and was sprinting towards the open lift doors at full pelt. Fiona reached out to stop him, clutching at his jacket, but he pulled himself free without breaking stride. The Raptarnok, having regained his bearings, took aim with his stick, but Mark was too quick, and already the lift doors were closing. Hissing angrily, Anesh hit the wall next to the lift. A previously invisible door opened and he disappeared through it. Donna caught a glimpse of what looked like a stairwell before the door swung closed, fitting so neatly it became invisible once more.

Fiona glared at the remaining prisoners.

"You'll all pay for this," she promised, then followed her colleague, angrily sweeping the equipment from the workbench as she went.

For a few moments, everyone remaining stood in shocked silence, which the Doctor broke by clapping his hands and rubbing them together.

"Well, don't just stand there!" he said to Donna. "This is our chance!" and so saying, he pointed to the floor in front of their cage. There lay, amongst the broken glass from a beaker, a pointed tool that reminded Donna of something a dentist might use. Ruth quickly got down to her knees and reached her slender arm through the bars to retrieve it. When she brought her hand back, she had some small shards of glass sticking into her skin. The Doctor very gently brushed those away before snatching the tool and getting to work on the lock once more.

"What are you doing?" demanded Donna, taking Ruth's hand to check for herself there was no blood. Satisfied the child was unharmed; she turned her attention back to the Doctor. "Fiona said those locks have DNA technology, they're un-pickable."

"Well, either she was bluffing, or that lizard lied to her," replied the Doctor, as their door swung open, "'cause I know good old-fashioned Chubb keys when I see them!"

The trio moved quickly, Donna taking the keys from the lock to Mark's cage and unlocking the remaining doors, the Doctor scanning the bench and floor for any useful items. Ruth stood uncertainly next to the Doctor, alternately watching him, the lift door and the wall beside it for any sign of Fiona or the Raptarnoks.

With a cry of triumph, the Doctor picked up both his sonic screwdriver and Ruth's penknife. He also found an unbroken phial containing a clear, gloopy liquid which he held up to the light to inspect. He fumbled in his pockets until he found a pair of black rimmed glasses which he balanced on his nose, then held his sonic screwdriver up to the phial. It glowed blue and peeped quietly, and the Doctor hummed to himself.

"What is it?" Ruth asked, but the Doctor simply placed the phial in another pocket and turned to face the others. Behind Donna stood Fiona's remaining five captives, and they all regarded the Doctor expectantly, waiting for him to suggest their next move.