6. The Explanations.
Chloe and Simeon step into the Tardis, hardly believing their eyes.
They had almost given up hope.
A while earlier in the cave.
Alyssa steps out of the shadows, into the meagre light of the lantern. Chloe stops herself calling out to Alyssa not to touch the Master and they watch as Alyssa and the Master disappear before them.
"What do we do now?" Simeon asks.
"Wait for the Doctor's Tardis," Chloe says, but she has hardly any hope for rescue.
They lie down on the rocky shale of the cave floor and wait, for dehydration, starvation, the oxygen to run out or for rescue.
Eventually, the familiar grinding of the Doctor's Tardis awakens them. Chloe springs up and grabs Simeon. She's seen occasions when the Doctor's Tardis couldn't stay long, so she's keen to grab the opportunity immediately.
The light from the clear and opaque panes in the Tardis doors is ample to guide them straight to the Tardis parked in the cave wall.
After Chloe and Simeon enter the Tardis they look around.
"Thank you, Doctor!" Chloe says, gratefully.
"What's happened to your clothes?" the Doctor asks, appalled at Chloe's clothes being covered in something grey.
"Cement, we think," Simeon replies.
"You must go and get changed immediately!" the Doctor urges.
"Where's Alyssa?" Chloe asks. It's her second concern after seeing the Doctor. It's good to see the Doctor, but she expected that from the moment she heard the Doctor's Tardis grinding.
"We were hoping you knew," the Doctor says. .
"What?" Chloe can hardly believe it. Her sister is missing. .
"The last thing we saw, she stepped and touched the Master's cloak, before he used his armband transport."
"The Master?" The Doctor exclaims. "What was he doing?" It all seems to be becoming more complicated by the moment.
"Alright," Simeon says, self-consciously. He feels he might be able to shed light on the problem. "I was with Alyssa at home, waiting for Chloe to return..."
"Maybe my part of the story comes first," Chloe says. "I was at home when the door alert sounded."
"The Master doesn't do that!" the Doctor explodes. "He doesn't make house calls!" .
"He did for me," Meran reminds him. The Master had arrived on his doorstep and required that he join him (ref. 25). .
Chloe decides it's okay to continue, "He lured me with a Ring of Confidence. He led me along a path with a doorway at the end of it. I tripped and fell into a pit that was rapidly filled with cement! I used my wristwatch transport to get out of there to be behind him. It was the Master's laugh!"
Simeon decides it's his turn. "At the house, we waited for Chloe to return, and we used her Tardis to go back and see what happened. That stranger took her along a path we hadn't seen before. We followed her along that path, and we stepped through a doorway when he wasn't looking and went into the shadows. Chloe tripped and fell into a hole in the ground which the stranger filled with cement!"
The Doctor groans at the awfulness of what they've endured.
"I'm sorry," he says. "Please give me a moment." He turns away and breathes in.
Then he turns to face them again.
"I'm sorry, the Master is appalling! Now, we must rescue Alyssa! She needs us!"
Desperately!