==== ==== EPISODE 6 ==== ====

{ The conclusion! }

Mirror shards went flying everywhere as the TARDIS burst out of the largest of all mirrors in the warehouse – the one Harry had examined before he had plunged into the pocket universe. The crash was so loud that the fighting between the two parties was temporarily suspended and everyone looked up at the bizarre, flying police box spinning above their heads.

Inside, the crew was looking at their military friend, the Brigadier, through the scanner picture. The UNIT superior was staring at them with his mouth gaping wide open and, after everything the man had already witnessed during his highly unusual career, it was a rare sight to see him so baffled. The TARDIS must have been the last thing he had expected to surface out of a looking glass at this specific point in time. But it just went to prove that wherever the time machine appeared, it brought hope with it.

"I should take a snapshot of that expression!", laughed Harry at the Brigadier's reaction.

Meanwhile, Sarah clapped her hands together. "We made it! We're out!", she cheered, and almost forgot for a second to hold on as the Doctor tilted the space craft sideways. The young woman's laugh was unexpectedly cut short as the TARDIS' mid-flight noises were starting to sound distorted again, but as her and Harry's looks went over to the Doctor, his joyful expression had not changed.

"All right, all right...!", the pilot said to his machine as though it was listening to him. "I can't keep her in orbiting mode this close to a planet. Let's land immediately before I have more damages to repair…!"

He brought the TARDIS down in a circling motion to land right next to the pillar onto which the only real tetrahedron was lying. The space craft touched down with a thump, and the echo that was coming from the time rotor deeper inside of the TARDIS subsided slowly. When he walked away from the console and took a few steps towards the exit of his craft, the Doctor began to search the pockets of his professor's jacket. "Now, I'm going to need my sonic screwdriver…", he explained briefly, but Sarah noticed him knitting his brows as he failed to find the object in question.
In order to make his search a little easier, he turned back around and began to unload the contents of his pockets onto the furniture piece the console was housed in. There was a bit of small change, two sets of keys, a bus ticket, two spark plugs, a tin box filled with caramels and a pen – not the usual odd assortment of items, and his pockets were not quite as dimensionally transcendental as they used to be, but the bad habit had obviously stuck with him even through his temporarily earthbound life.
"Has any one of you seen it?", the Doctor asked his companions and ran a hand through his hair as he took another look at the items he had collected during the last weeks, seemingly unable to understand why his human self had kept them.

"And you've told me it's a mistake to clutter one's pockets…!", scoffed Harry, who had watched the Doctor empty his pockets once before, but remained impressed by the collection of trinkets still. It probably went without saying that he was promptly shot a glare in return.

"That's not true! Not at all!", denied the Doctor instantly, although both of his friends knew better.

Suddenly, Sarah snapped her fingers, and ran over to where the Doctor's red coat laid on the TARDIS' floor. "Over here, scatter-brain!", she called to the Time Lord and within a few seconds, she had pulled the silver and red metal rod from one of its unnecessary many pockets and held it up for him to see.

"Of course! Just where would I be without my sonic screwdriver!?", he responded, grinning broadly, and with a few long strides, he had crossed the room to take the tool from her hands.

"I know where you'd be without me." Sarah pulled the screwdriver back out of his reach, so he could not get it at first, but let him have it on the second try, just to make him think about his words for a moment.

His grin softened slightly as he admitted: "In a very unhappy place, Sarah." For a second or two, he allowed Sarah to smile back at him, before he turned to Harry. "Come now, we're far from finished yet!", he called over to him. And, as the Doctor headed straight for the TARDIS' exit, both of his companions were quick to follow him out of the door.

Just a few steps away from the old police box stood the stone pillar, and even though all the mirrors were facing their way, the Doctor did not hesitate a moment to advance towards the tetrahedron. Now that they were right in the centre of the maze's star burst pattern, the image of the three friends was replicated instantly across all the other mirrors, along with the TARDIS behind them. Sarah noticed how Harry was looking nervously about themselves, expecting each of the mirrors to burst to artificial life. Unlike them, the Doctor paid no mind to the danger surrounding them and lifted the sonic screwdriver above the tetrahedron. As its whirring noise interacted with the strange little device, the tetrahedron suddenly cracked open and revealed slits along each of its ends. Only now Sarah could see that it was actually made up of several smaller geometric bodies, which had fitted perfectly into each other. Its inside lit up briefly, before the whole of the tetrahedron eventually powered down, losing some of its bright ochre colour in the process. Triumphantly, the Doctor picked the strange object from its pedestal.

"Was that it, then?", asked Harry. The nervousness was evident in his voice as the Doctor did not respond immediately, but lifted the strange device up in front of his eyes instead.

"That's rather fascinating, isn't it?", wondered the Time Lord to himself once he was finished with the brief examination, but turned to the medical officer standing behind him with surprising calm. "Oh no, Harry. I've merely closed down the pocket universes."

Sarah was about to ask him what would become of the people trapped inside of them, when she noticed the mirror images around them starting to shimmer in a strange light. At first, it was only the most inner circle surrounding the trio which was affected, but soon the glow spread further outwards, until it had reached the corridors in which UNIT soldiers were still trying to hold their ground against their own violent reflections.

Sarah heard how Harry next to her was gasping fearfully. "They're activating again…!", he uttered, and had placed a hand on her upper arm before she could remind him to keep his calm. It was probably not as serious as it seemed – after all, the Doctor's unwavering confidence told her that there was nothing to fear any more.

After all the mirrors had turned active once again, they suddenly started to spill out everything that had been inside of them. There were survivors tumbling out of the pocket universes – civilians, mostly, and a few of the UNIT soldiers which had been captured just a few minutes ago, but apart from all the real people that were thrown back into reality from one second to the next, there were also more of the facsimile humans. Sarah recognized them instantly by how they lacked the moment of disorientation after finding themselves back in another universe. A rough estimation revealed there to be at least equally as many copies as there were originals, and the total number of people appearing out of nowhere was quite shocking.

Meanwhile, the Doctor was stuffing the deactivated tetrahedron into the pocket of his corduroy jacket. "Hm.", he began now, a slight hint of worry in his voice this time, "I will admit, this is not quite what I had expected..."

"Oh, you don't say, Doctor…!", complained Harry, who had become aware of the threat quickly after Sarah had tapped his arm and pointed out the copies to him. They were only just taking their first steps through the real universe towards the humans, but with a surprising amount of deadly determination.

The Doctor was signalling his companions to move back in the direction of the police box. "Better stay near the TARDIS", he suggested as they watched how the facsimile copies were slowly forming a circle around them.

"Doctor! What is going on here?", the voice of the Brigadier suddenly echoed through the warehouse, eventually reaching the trio of friends.

Although the Time Lord stretched to look past the mirror frames and chaotic mass of people, he failed to discover the UNIT leader at the other end of the hall. "Take the survivors and get them out of here!", he shouted back. "And hurry!"

"All right – Soldiers; Advance! This is a rescue mission now! Everyone else; Out! Get out as quick as you can!", bellowed the Brigadier, even though his men were already doing the best they could – and barely holding their ground!

At about the same time, Harry was walking around the TARDIS to make sure that no mirror image was sneaking up on them from behind the time machine. When Sarah noticed his movement, she turned around to watch him take a peek around the corner of the police box. Just at that moment, Harry suddenly stopped and opened his mouth to name whatever he was looking at. "Miste-!" He had not even uttered a single word in full when, out of the blue, a fist came flying at his face. The punch, well directed at the medical officer's cheekbone, sent him staggering backwards.

"Harry!", Sarah called out for him fearfully, and rushed to his aid at once. Yet as she rounded the TARDIS' corner herself, the situation revealed itself to be a lot less dangerous than it had seemed.

"Benton! It's me, you imbecile!", Harry rectified the situation, rubbing the sore spot on his cheek.

Standing to his opposite was an apologetic looking Warrant Officer, who, up to this point, had been assumed to have gone missing. "So sorry, Lieutenant! I thought you were the copy. Nothing's broken, I hope?", he said, but did not appear to be regretting his mistake as much as the medical officer wanted him to. As Sarah smiled at him, he smiled back. It was good to see him alive, and, without any doubt, he was also glad to be back in the real world.

After testing the movement of his jaw, Harry eventually decided to forgive him for it. "It doesn't seem like it...", he replied, before finally a smirk had found its way on his face as well. "But greet me in a less painful way next time, will you?"

"Benton!", cheered the Doctor as his sight fell on the soldier's familiar face. He paid no mind to Harry's suffering, or the misunderstanding which had occurred.

"Doctor!", replied Benton. It seemed that he tried very hard to match the Doctor's broad grin, but failed utterly, of course. "You recognize me!"

The Doctor nodded reassuringly. "But of course I do!" Sarah knew that even if he had not, he might have said the same, but this time the answer was definitely genuine.

A sudden crashing noise caused all of them to look into the direction of the warehouse's entrance. On their retreat from the reflection people, and while taking some of the survivors with them, one of the UNIT soldiers had knocked over a mirror. Following a split second later, one of the artificial humans shattered into a thousand shards.

"Ah!", exclaimed the Doctor in sudden enlightenment and pointed at what appeared to have been but a mistake. "Somebody's got the right idea! Now that all the victims are out, we can finally try to rid ourselves of the copies!" Sarah watched closely as he changed the settings on his sonic screwdriver. Though there were still some of the living reflections between them and his target, he pointed his tool at one of the next closest mirrors. Its whirring was a lot louder now, and several pitches lower than before. The noise was so unpleasant that the Doctor's assistant decided it was better to cover her ears before it would blow out her ear drums.

But it was not only unpleasant to her! Behind one of the walking mirror images, the reflective surface of a looking glass began to wobble and bend inside its frame, until, after almost half a minute, it burst to pieces. Again, one of the copies went with it, but the copy that had been affected by it stood at the other end of the hall, so that victory was not of much use to them. Thankfully, its colleagues had not gone over to take their revenge… yet.

"That wasn't very effective, Doctor… You can't go round and try to burst each of them this way. The reflections will have us torn to bits before we're done with them.", stated Harry.

"You're right, Harry.", admitted the Time Lord, frowning at the damage he had caused. "It was effective, but not very efficient. I need to boost the screwdriver's power somehow…!"

Sarah nodded towards the TARDIS. "We've already got everything that we need right here, don't we?"

A brief smile crossed his face as the Doctor shot her a glance. "We do, but it would take even longer to put something together. Not to mention I'll be spoilt for choice in there. Maybe we should take the dangerous approach and just try to knock all the mirrors over?"

"Say, Doc, can't we just-?" To everyone's surprise it was Benton who spoke up. "I mean, can't you just enhance your tool with a microphone and a set of loudspeakers? To my knowledge, a lot of old factory halls or warehouses have at least some basic one-way communication system..." Everyone followed his gaze as the UNIT officer looked up at the warehouse ceiling to spot a dusty loudspeaker hanging in each of the four corners.

"Splendid idea, Benton! Yes, that'll do very well!", the Doctor praised him. He looked about, until, with a few hasty glimpses, he had found the control room built on stilts underneath the warehouse ceiling, as well as the staircase leading up to it. It was furthest away from the hall entrance, and they had to make it past a number of their enemies, but with Benton, Harry, and the Doctor in best of health again, the chances were looking rather good for once.
"This way! I'll go first." The Time Lord waved for them to follow him, and shot another brief glance to his assistant before he set off. "Stay between us, Sarah."

"Right-o.", replied Harry and exchanged a look with Benton to figure out how to organize the rearguard.

Unafraid of what laid before him, the Doctor ventured forth, towards the corridor which would lead them straight to the bottom of the staircase. As he did so, he held the sonic screwdriver raised before him to let its horrible noise ring out through the warehouse. Because he was not standing still, there was not enough time to burst the mirrors left and right of him, but the reflections nearest to him started to shake and bend, disoriented by the vibrations in the air. Sarah stayed close to him as promised, despite the unpleasant feeling the sound caused within her, while the two UNIT members followed them. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Benton diverting an attack on their rearguard as one of the reflections broke out of its confused state a little too early. At the same time, Harry watched the soldier's movements carefully, trying to learn from him. After all, Benton must have found a good way to defend himself after having been trapped in the mirror world for so long.

"Have I already you told that I saw Miss Shaw in the pocket universe?", Benton asked the medical officer while walking, almost a little bit too casually for the situation they were in. "I must say, I didn't expect her to get captured."

"Well, that might have been our fault, I suppose.", replied Harry. "We got her into this when we couldn't have the Doctor to help us out."

With comparatively little resistance this time, the four of them made it successfully to the staircase. Only as they started climbing the stairs, a number of their enemies recovered from the temporary disorientation and decided to come their way. The Doctor stopped as he saw the reflections following after them, and urged his party members to go ahead towards the office door. When Harry passed him by, he caught him by the arm to keep him from rushing past too quickly. "Wait, Harry. Here, take this for the moment, and keep them off our backs, all right?" Before the medical officer could look twice, he had pressed into his hand the sonic screwdriver and was already back on his way to join Sarah at the head of their team.

Meanwhile, Sarah had been tearing on the handle of the office door. "It's locked, Doctor!", she shouted back. He had to change the settings on the screwdriver and open it…!

But her friend had rather different plans now that he had handed his tool to Harry already. "No time to lose! Step aside, Sarah!", he called out, and his sudden command had gained a sharp edge, which caused her to react immediately. Utilizing the full force of his short sprint, the Doctor threw himself shoulder first at the thin metal door of the office. The crash as the lock burst was loud enough to make Sarah wonder for a moment whether she had actually heard the lock or the Doctor's collar bone. The young woman was ready to follow him in, but then he stopped abruptly again, only a yard or two into the office. She managed to squeeze past him into the room to see what had caused him to freeze in motion.

They had already been expected.