AN: I'm so sorry I kept you all waiting for this chapter for so long. There was so much going on in my RL and even when I had a bid of free time I just didn't feel like writing. But now I've finally finished this chapter.

The next chapter will be up sooner.

Thank you for all your reviews. They always make my day.

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who

Chapter 7

The security guard had his back towards the door but as soon as he heard it open he turned around to look into Martha's and Firala's surprised faces.

"What are you doing here?" the guard asked.

Martha recovered from the surprise sooner than Firala. She began frantically trying to think of an explanation that would make the guard let them go, but couldn't come up with a good excuse. She settled instead for smiling at him and starting to give a bad excuse, something that seemed to work for the Doctor more often than it should.

"We got lost," Martha said. "We were looking for the toilet."

The alien looked sceptically at her. "There is a "staff only" sign on the door," he said, not convinced.

"Is there?" Martha asked. "I can't read your language." The TARDIS translated everything for her of course, so she could read the sign as if it were written in English, but the guard didn't know that.

Unfortunately the guard still seemed not convinced with her explanation. "And your Durelian friend here can't read it either, I presume?" the guard asked. Martha exchanged a look with Firala, realising that the sign was written in her native language.

"If you would come with me ladies," the guard said, indicating with a movement of his hand that he wanted them to go back through the door on the threshold of which they still stood.

Martha and Firala had no other choice but to turn around and go back into the corridor they had just left.

The guard led them to one of the doors that had been locked and opened it with a key. Then he held the door open for them to enter. The room was small but comfortably furnished with a big desk surrounded by chairs in the middle. The desk occupied most of the room. It seemed to be a conference room.

"Please sit down," the guard said as he followed them inside, pulling the door closed behind him. Martha and Firala both sat down on the comfortable chairs. The guard took a seat at the other side of the table.

"Now please tell me why I shouldn't call Anres and ban you both from entering this museum ever again. Who are you and what are you doing here?"

Martha measured her options. Getting banned from entering the museum would be really bad. They would have to return to this corridor somehow. It was the only lead they had to finding the Doctor. And a conversation with Anres wouldn't help them at that moment either.

The only chance they had lay in convincing the guard to let them go. And the only way she could think of was telling him the truth and hoping that he didn't know about what Anres was doing to extend his collection.

"My name is Martha Jones and this is Firala. We are here to find a friend of mine who we believe has been kidnapped by Anres," Martha said. The guard gave her another sceptical look, but before he could say anything Martha began to calmly tell him everything that had happened since she and the Doctor had landed on Durelia.

...

Kilas, the security guard, sat on his chair in the conference room and listened to the story this Martha Jones told him. Only a few years ago he would have dismissed her story as complete and utter rubbish. But in the years he had now been working in this museum he had heard some disconcerting stories about Anres. The owner of the museum had even been accused of kidnapping before but no one had been able to prove it back then. Kilas hadn't believed the stories back then but now, years later, he couldn't dismiss it as easily anymore. But he still felt reluctant to believe these two strangers in front of him.

"Do you have any proof that what you're saying is true?" he asked the two women.

"We've seen CCTV footage in one of the rooms that shows Anres leading the Doctor into that corridor outside, but we couldn't see what happened in the corridor," Martha replied.

Kilas was starring at her for a moment, trying to decide if she was telling the truth. He wanted to know for sure before he decided what to do with the two women. Before he could convince himself that it was a bad idea he stood up and walked towards the door. "Follow me," he said.

Kilas opened the door to the room where Martha and Firala had said they'd seen the CCTV footage and went to the computer terminal. Martha quickly told him which footage showed the Doctor and Anres going through the door with the "staff only" sign and Anres returning alone some time later.

After seeing that, Kilas called up the footage of the corridor outside and entered the password. Firala and Martha leaned closer to the screen as they watched the Doctor and Anres walking down the corridor. They watched how Anres pressed his hands against the wall at the end of the corridor and the wall slid to one side, revealing a small room and a metal door behind it. The camera in the corridor outside also recorded audio as opposed to the cameras in other parts of the museum so this time they could hear what was said.

"That's a DNA scanner isn't it?" they heard the Doctor ask.

"Yes," came Anres reply. "One can never be too careful. It is programmed to let only me and my most trusted personnel in."

Anres and the Doctor disappeared through the door and a bit later Giranlo followed them. Both Giranlo and Anres came back some time later but not the Doctor.

Kilas let out a sigh. It seemed to be true, his boss had kidnapped somebody. And he wouldn't become part of this. But he wasn't sure if he was content to risk his job for helping some strangers.

"Do you believe us now?" Firala asked.

"Yes," Kilas said. After a few moments of silence he made a decision. "I will let you go. Leave immediately and don't tell anyone about meeting me."

"We won't," Martha assured him.

"And don't count on me helping you should our paths ever cross again."

Martha nodded. "Thank you," she said, and she and Firala left the room. Kilas turned back around towards the computer screens, hoping no one would ever find out about this. He reached out towards the terminal and deleted the footage that showed Martha and Firala in the corridor.

...

Martha and Firala sat down at a table in a small café near the museum to talk about what had happened.

"That was close," Martha said.

Firala nodded. If the security guard hadn't let them go they would have been in trouble. "What are we going to do now?" Firala asked.

"We now know that the Doctor is somewhere behind that door, and Anres and Giranlo are the only people we know of who can open that door," Martha said more to herself than to Firala. "We need a plan."

AN: I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please leave a review.