Martha is now custody as well. And, General Kir had given the Doctor a harrowing ultimatum in the previous chapter, and so the Doctor had relented, and agreed to demonstrate how to re-squish a block of time into a capsule. Agent Pym, who has been scrupulous and respectful all along, had done nothing... because he couldn't, and honestly still hope to escape with his life. Martha and the Doctor have worked out that he is not like the other agents working for the Heimat Squad, but fortunately, the other agents haven't yet. *swipe forehead* Whew.

So, hopefully you enjoy this chapter. Agent Pym is a complex guy. :-)

TWENTY-THREE

Agent Pym entered the officers' work station, and logged into the computer system, to request a meal for Martha Jones.

He'd chosen his favourite foods for the Doctor during the short time the Time Lord had been here, and now, he stared at the options, and reckoned he'd do the same for her. He sighed heavily as he did so, knowing that if General Kir or any of the other agents found out he'd been doing this, they would mock him.

Treating prisoners as though they are living things with rights and feelings… pfff. Especially the ones who had done nothing to hurt anyone? Double pfff.

Pym had worked for three different police and/or military organisations, and in each one of them, prisoners were looked upon as vermin (as indicated in the example of the prisoner-guard relationship he'd recounted to Martha). The thinking was, if they were in custody, they must have committed some crime, and did not deserve respect, unless and until a trial proved them innocent (which it rarely did).

Actually, Pym suspected that for the average agent, the thinking (however unconscious) was more along the lines of, "Well, earning power and control is hard. But someone's given me power over another living being without my having to earn it! I'd never get it otherwise so..."

Keep them alive until trial, that was usually the only directive. And certain species throughout the universe were worse vermin than others. Humans usually called for a middle-level of whatever deference there was; most of the universe was torn, on whether they were intelligent or not.

Agent Pym felt they were. Moreover, he felt they were mostly compassionate, and basically harmless, unlike, say, Time Lords, and the Heimat Squad, which he now realised he was working for.

But the Time Lords were gone, and the singular specimen they had here in custody, he was a different animal. He could see the universe in shades of grey, rather than in black and white. According to Pym's research, the Doctor was a bit inconsistent in his methods, but consistent in that he was on the side of good. He was clever, resourceful, benevolent, and like Pym himself, had a dominant soft side, that wanted to honour and learn more about everyone, everywhere. He had belonged to a species that had, apparently, wrought some havoc, but the Doctor was clearly a maverick.

After leaving his third steady job as "hired muscle," as he'd begun to think of it, and had learned about a general communiqué from an anonymous organisation looking for individuals with his skill-set to work on a "special project," Pym was hesitant. More than hesitant, actually. He'd wanted to get into a completely different métier, something that didn't require weapons and/or keeping hostages. But, after realising that he was only trained for one thing, and needed, alas, to eat, he had relented, and simply hoped that this "special project" wouldn't require any violence. When he'd learned that the Doctor was to become part of the effort, he had jumped at the chance to work directly with him.

"We need to make him believe he's been arrested by the Galactic Council," General Kir had said to him. "If he thinks he's been kidnapped, he'll clam up."

"Well, who wouldn't?" Pym had thought, but didn't say.

"The Doctor is wily. Smart. Watchful. Aware. You'll have to do some homework, if we're going to convince him, all right, Agent Pym? It's all on you. Are you up to it?"

He was up to it, though disappointed in the assignment, and the capacity in which he was going to have to work with the Doctor. Pym loathed the idea of deceiving him, arresting him, keeping him against his will, but tried to convince himself that any contact with the Doctor was a dream come true.

Not that he'd managed to fool the Doctor at all, but researching the Rights of the Living and the Galactic Constitution had been fascinating. It was the first time it had occurred to him to do so, and he'd made a decision: once he became free of this little endeavour, he'd try to achieve employment with the Council. Surely they needed skilled agents who could look after legitimate prisoners. Perhaps his wanting and needing to treat prisoners well would be an asset, not looked upon as a weakness. Perhaps his proclivity for actual justice, over power, would finally serve him well.

As it was, he was clearly in it up to his neck, and he'd allied himself with an organisation bent on bringing about hell on Earth. Every bone in his body told him that this was wrong, and he wanted out of this job. But first, he wanted to help stop the coming disaster.

Much to his dismay, General Kir entered the station just as he was finishing his meal-selection task. Pym stood at attention.

"Ordering a meal for her?" asked the General.

"Yes, sir," said Pym.

"Fine. Listen," the General began. "At daybreak, Earth-time, we're going to conduct the Doctor to that bizarre machinery room the Time Lords set up."

"At daybreak?" Pym asked. "Why not deliver him there now, save time?"

"We need time to get Buford Greene back here," said Kir. "He had to return to the annex on Earth, for his own survival. On the plus side, it gives us time to plan for how to effectively wrangle the Doctor. Until today, I wasn't sure that such a thing was possible, but with Dr. Jones in custody, I'm sure we can control him. And Pym, I'd like you to be on the transfer team."

"The transfer team?"

"Yes, you asked to be on the Doctor's case, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir," Pym answered.

"Good man. You've done a fine job so far, extracting the Doctor and deceiving him, then extracting Dr. Jones. I like consistency. It only makes sense to have you on the job when the Doctor is escorted."

"How many are on the… team?"

"You, and three other agents. And I will be there in the room, of course, along with Buford. He's really the lynchpin in all of this," Kir mused, with a sigh. "If the Eternity Agent doesn't learn about what the Doctor's doing in that room, the whole thing falls apart."

"You need four agents just to bring the Doctor down the hall? Sir?"

"He's shifty," said Kir. "I wouldn't be surprised if he tried something slick while he's out of his cell. So, yes, we'll need four agents. One to walk in front of him, one to walk behind, and you and Agent Oly will be on either side of him, containing his neck in Ankhaciers."

Pym swallowed hard. His mind filled with images of the Ankhaciers he'd seen… they were basically implements of torture. A steel loop fits tightly round the prisoner's neck, and is attached to a stiff rod, wielded by the guard. If the prisoner moves wrong, his throat could be cut. Using two of them, his neck could be quite easily broken.

"I'm not very comfortable with that, sir," Pym said, his voice shaking.

"You're not, eh?"

"No, sir."

"Well, I don't give a damn, Agent Pym," General Kir said with a frighteningly calm voice. "You can carry on with your namby-pamby Galactic Council, Rights of the Living bullshit, and your due process and your cruelty scales, as long as it doesn't interfere with my plans. As soon as it does, you're going to man up and treat the prisoner like a goddamn prisoner."

"Yes, sir," Pym said, gulping again.

"Are we clear?"

"Crystal clear, sir."

"Good. There's a meeting in one hour with the other three members of the team, in the Fermeture Chamber. Be there."

"Yes, sir."

With that, Kir departed from the room, and Pym was left standing there, with his heart thundering at a million beats per minute, and his stomach having sunk to the floor.

He had been hinging all of his hopes upon the prospect that the Doctor would be able to slip away once he was out of his cell, elude them all, free Martha, and save the Earth. If he could get out from behind the bars, he could outsmart his captors. Apparently, though, the General had assumed this as well, and was taking extreme precautions.

What if he, Pym, could contribute to the transfer plan, and suggest that the Doctor be freed from the Ankhacier when they reach the manipulation room? Perhaps then, the Doctor would have enough room to do something heroic.

Or perhaps the Doctor, once inside the manipulation room, would simply "manipulate" the machinery therein to do something completely different from what he'd promised. General Kir and Buford Greene would never know the difference, would they? If they knew how to read or adjust the controls, they wouldn't need the Doctor, so perhaps…

But even then, there was still basically a time bomb under a street in a major city on Earth. All manipulation-room considerations aside, someone had to stop 1938 from exploding upon the present.

Right, thought Pym. I guess it's up to me.

Martha's meal arrived, as promised, within an hour. She enjoyed it, though did not recognise anything she was eating. She still felt depressed, though, and lay down on her cot, after finishing.

She didn't know how long she'd spent idling there, staring at the wall, but it couldn't have been more than an hour before Agent Pym appeared at the bars.

"Hello Dr. Jones," he said, rather seriously. "Time for a conjugal visit."

"Excuse me?" she said, sitting up.

"You and the Doctor are in my care. I'm still adhering to the parameters of due process, and I will continue to do so until my so-called superiors order me otherwise. So, if you wish to see your partner, you are being given that opportunity."

She stood. "All right… thank you. Does the General know?"

"That I'm continuing to treat you and the Doctor according to the Galactic Constitution, as long as I have any autonomy in the matter? Yes."

"Okay," Martha said, having caught Pym's tone, suggesting that all of this was happening on a technicality, and that he was just trying not to get himself hideously punished for being a nice bloke.

He opened her cell, and led the way down a few corridors. On the way, he conversed with her.

"Are you doing all right?" he asked, softly.

"I'm alive, and haven't been raped. So, yeah, I guess I'm as well as could be expected."

"I'm leading you to the same room in which the two of you met before," he told her.

"Okay."

He chuckled. "Wow, it seems like months have gone by since then, doesn't it?"

"It kind of does," she realised.

"It was just three nights ago, I think," he marvelled. "When I called you and had you set up all those protocols with the TARDIS, so you could come visit…"

"Three nights? Wow," she breathed. "So much has happened since then."

"What did you think? Did you know I was legitimate?"

"I had no idea," Martha said. "I just knew that standing still on Earth wasn't doing any good, and I had possibly one chance to see the Doctor, so I took it. Then, I was pretty certain I was being held captive when that other agent left me in that room alone. How little I knew then."

"You thought it was a trap? Even after the Doctor set up the connection with the sonic screwdriver? If it separated from you, it would set off alarms across the universe?"

"Yeah, I thought so even then," she admitted. "What do I know about the sonic screwdriver? What did I know about you, at that time? You could have been lying to me, making the whole thing up… but again, I only had one chance…"

"So you brought the sonic screwdriver with you, and kept it on your person," he said, attempting to sound like he was reminiscing with her. For the first time, now, his discourse had begun to sound fake, and she wondered what he was getting at.

"Yes, I did," she said, cautiously.

"And, fortunately, no bells were sent ringing in other galaxies."

"Thankfully."

"So, after you saw the Doctor and made contact again with the TARDIS, you must've taken it with you."

"No," she said. "He disarmed the protocol and kept it with him when I left. He said he trusted that you'd see to it that I got home, and the separation fail-safe thing wasn't needed. Plus, I'd brought him some clothes, so now he actually had someplace to stow it. We both thought he'd get more use out of it, ultimately, than I would."

"Indeed. So the Doctor has it now?"

"Yeah," she said. "What's going on, Pym? What's with the screwdriver obsession?"

"Oh," he laughed. "It's not an obsession. It was just making conversation. It occurred to me to wonder what had happened to it, is all."

"Erm, okay," she said, slowly, looking at him with concern, and still, caution.

"Anyway, here we are," he said, stopping in front of a familiar-looking door. He pressed a button that opened it, and ushered her in. "Just wait a few minutes or so, and the Doctor with be with you shortly."

"Okay. Thanks."

The Doctor, too, had been lying on his side, depressed, staring blankly at the wall when Pym turned up at the bars. He had removed his dress shirt and tie, his blue suit jacket, shoes and socks, and had them all laid out nearby. At the moment, he was just donning his trousers and a navy-blue tee shirt.

"Hello, Doctor," the agent said, rather stoically.

"Hi," the Time Lord said flatly.

"Everything okay?"

"Fantastic."

"You should know, Martha's fine."

"She's traumatised," the Doctor said. "I only know that because I'm bloody traumatised."

"That General..."

"The things he said he would do," the Doctor sighed. "And the things he did do. The cuffs, the tape, having her thrown about and handled…"

"I'm sorry."

"I know," the Doctor said. Then he sat up. "You know, until a few hours ago, considering I was a prisoner, I wasn't that unhappy. Now, I want to burn this place to the ground."

"Well, never mind that," said Pym. "Due process dictates that you have the choice of seeing your partner now, if you'd like."

"Really? Already?"

"Well, things were done to her – to you both – that rate highly only Orlinger's cruelty scale. The procedure is, a compassionate visit for both of your comfort."

The Doctor stood. "Is it really?"

"Do you care?"

"No," he said, moving forward toward the bars, and the gate.

Pym unlocked the gate, but as he did so, he said, "Erm, Doctor, you might want to get dressed. You know, bring your belongings with you. Just in case. You never know."

The Doctor looked at him with suspicious, narrow eyes, and then did as the agent had suggested. He quickly put on his shirt, buttoned it up and tucked it in, followed by his suit jacket. He folded up his tie and stuck it in his trouser pocket. Then he picked up his socks and shoes and exited the cell.

While they walked, Pym walked into an electrical box that jutted out from the wall, and the side panel fell off. He cursed, and attempted half-heartedly to replace the panel. The Doctor saw clearly that he'd run into the box intentionally.

"This place is falling apart," Pym said, shaking his head, abandoning the panel. "So many things need repairing…"

"Mm," the Doctor said. "You must be underfunded."

"And understaffed," Pym sighed, exaggeratedly.

They arrived at the room where Martha was waiting, and Pym made a show of having to hit the button twice in order to get the door to open.

"Wow… you really should get a man in," the Doctor said. "Can't have that thing going on the fritz."

"Indeed not," Pym said, as the Doctor stepped inside the room. "I mean, already the deadlocking mechanism is down. If the external locking goes down too, I don't know what we'll do."

The Doctor and Martha looked at each other with surprise, and great meaning.

"What did you just say?" the Doctor asked him.

"Enjoy your visit," Pym said, pointedly ignoring the question as he stepped out into the hallway.

"Pym, are you sure about this?" the Doctor asked.

"Sure that I'm adhering to parameters for the Rights of the Living as supported by the Galactic Council, by allowing two traumatised prisoners to see each other in comfort? Well… reasonably." He smiled. "You have twenty-eight galactic minutes, Doctor, Martha."

"Thank you, Agent Pym."

"Don't thank me," said the agent. "Just… you know… do what I brought you here to do."

With a wink, he closed the door, and the Doctor and Martha were left alone.

All righty. Not the world's most exciting chapter, but a review would not go amiss right now! If you're reading and following, it's only fair to drop me a line once in a while, with your thoughts and feedback. That sort of thing is what keeps us writers writing!

Thank you so much, by the way! :-)