Pride

888

The old man was sitting in an old bar. It was on a world far away. A few quick warp jumps in a dilapidated shuttle would take you to Zeta Major and the supposed horizon of the universe. A nexus where an antimatter universe and the material universe briefly touched like two circles touching at one precise point along their circumference. The old man looked down at the overly loopy and convoluted glass that was put down on the table in front of him by some humanoid female in a dark top and reddish dress. He looked up at her; she was probably quite attractive, he suspected, though he was so old now and so lost in the thoughts of a thousand psychic wars that such a compulsion or interest had left him. The woman tilted her head and pointed with lavender eyes towards the bar.

She put her hand through her auburn hair and said. "The gentleman at the bar bought you the drink."

The old man turned his head slightly and saw a man sitting at the bar. He looked middle-aged, balding with thin, white hair. He was wearing a tweedy jacket and long gray slacks. The man wasn't looking at him but simply staring at his glass as it sat on the bar.

The old man closed his eyes and pushed the drink away from him. The green, frothy liquid inside pitching and yawing through the looping convolutions. His bushy eyebrows furrowed. "Tell him to leave me be. I have nothing to tell him." The man looked to the girl. "And you can take the drink back, I want nothing of it. If you would instead bring me some green tea, and a few biscuits, I would be much obliged."

The girl fidgeted for a second in discomfort and then nodded and picked up the glass and walked away. The old man lowered his head slightly tilting it and he could just barely make out the waitress talking to the man at the bar. A few minutes later a tea cup, the paint faded and the side cracked and repaired, appeared in front of the old man. A small plate equally faded and cracked was slid gruffly next to it covered in biscuits.

"Old, damaged, fine china…" The old man said, as he heard the bodily weight drop into the chair on the far side of the table. He looked up to find the man from the bar sitting across the table from him. "You used to take better care of the curios you stole from across history. These are in poor shape, you've lost quite a bit in the appraisal."

"The universe is in poor shape." The man said sitting back in the wooden chair placing clasping his hands and placing them on his slightly pudgy belly. "I can say the same for you."

"I have nothing more to say to you." The old man replied, taking a spoon out of his leather jacket's pocket and slowly dipping it into the tea and stirring it.

"It's not poisoned, you old goat." the man in tweed replied. "Put the spectrographic spoon back. I'm not so stupid to think you'd be fooled so easily."

The old man quirked and eyebrow and kept stirring.

"Do you know how long it took me to find you?" the man in tweed growled, leaning forward.

"Not long enough…" the old man grunted, frowning as he lifted the spoon up and then tapped it against the biscuits.

"Ever since you pulled that stunt at the Eye…" the man in tweed said. "Rassilon is not happy. The Celestial Interventionist Agency is up in arms, that probability engine was our greatest asset in the war, and you…you just…"

"Saved Gallifrey, saved Rassilon, saved everyone." the old man replied. He looked up at the man in tweed. "It was either lose Borusa or lose everything."

"At least tell me you found him." the man in tweed said.

The old man simply reached forward and daintily took the cup of tea and lifted it, sipping it slightly. It was tepid, at best, bland and somehow sludgy. The old man made a hmm sound as if accepting that ordering tea in a bar was probably foolish on his part and put the cup back down. His eyes lifted again to the man in tweed.

"Disappeared, completely, there's no trail to follow, he just disappeared." The old man said quietly. "I found the TARDIS you commissioned for him before the Daleks finished consolidating that whole area of the time-scape. It was empty though, completely empty, and the trail went cold."

"He couldn't have gotten far." the man in tweed said quietly.

"He's very resourceful." the old man replied quietly. "He always was that…"

"Them upstairs won't like this." the middle-aged man said pointing to the roof. "They brought him back, refitted his bio-data, constructed a whole new class of TARDIS simply for the purpose of putting his homicidal mind to work on the dustbins."

"Yes, well, your employers never really understood him, or me, for that matter." the old man said quietly, as he took a biscuit and slowly ate it. The confection was mostly artificial, probably wasn't made of real flour, and the little dollop of what the box it undoubtedly came from called fruit tasted more like plastic. "Is that the only reason you came all the way out here? A status report?"

"You're still under the command of Rassilon…he's given you special dispensation if you follow orders…" the man in tweed replied, looking at the old man intensely. "He's given us all pardons…for a price."

"Do you have orders?" the old man asked quietly.

The man in tweed looked back and forth furtively and reached into his tweed jacket, slowly pulling out a dossier in a manila envelope.

"There is a Dalek prisoner camp…" the man in tweed said quietly. "A place where they've been holding captured Time Lords and Time Lord agents, a place where they are experimenting on them, torturing them."

"There are many." the old man said quietly.

"This one is special." the man in tweed said quietly. "It's hidden on the outer dark matter reefs of Mutter's Spiral, near the wastes of Casnea."

The old man reached forward and snatched the envelope from the man in tweed. He ripped open the envelope and took out the papers, feverishly. His eyes scrolled through the labyrinthine Gallifreyan text and searched out the graphics and maps and figures. His eyebrows furrowed deeply and put the envelope down.

"No…" the old man said.

"No? You don't understand; we must…."

"No, you don't understand." the old man snarled. "I know what this is. I know who it is you're trying to pluck from there. She will not be part of this…"

"She's already part of this, she's a prisoner." the man in tweed said. "This is your chance. You can save her. I found her, Doctor, she's alive. I can procure for you the ship you'll need. Get you in and out, but I need…"

"Don't you dare." The old man jumped out of his chair and before the man in tweed could respond the old man had him by his tweed jacket, almost dragging him across the table. "She wouldn't have been in that prison if it weren't for you and your infernal virus!" the old man's blue eyes flickered with shocks of angry lightning. "Her son would still be alive…don't you dare think you can just ignore the friends of mine you killed…"

"I hadn't a choice, I was under orders, I couldn'…" The man in tweed didn't finish his sentence as the old man had leveled a straight punch across the side of the man in tweed's jaw, sending the man toppling backwards onto the wooden floor. The others in the bar looked up.

"I will not allow her to be a bargaining chip." the old man growled.

"You could keep her, save her, she's your…"

"She would never have me." The old man said.

"You can't know that." The man in tweed said as he struggled to sit up. "I've gotten everything I can on the camps' defenses. I can get you inside, and I can get you out, all you need to do is..."

"No, you can't." The old man said. "This mission, it isn't authorized by Rassilon is it?"

"I'm allowed some discretion…" the man in tweed said quietly.

"Discretion?" the old man retorted. "Rassilon would never waste the resources on this mission for one person….I know what this is. You want something, you always want something. What is it this time? Money, jewels, art, information? Knowing you it would be something stupid like the location of Braxiatel's special collection?"

"I want out." the man in tweed said as he slowly stood up. He dusted off his jacket and looked up at the old man. "You know how to get out. I want you to get me out of this."

"I don't know anything of the sort." the old man said sharply.

"You got the Rani out." the man in tweed replied. He looked at the old man. "And I'm guessing you got the Master out as well…"

The old man snorted and shook his head. "You greatly overestimate my abilities. Any escape performed by those two were their own."

"The last we ever heard of the Rani was when we sent her after you…" the man in tweed said. "She simply disappeared. The last we heard from the Master was not long after you were sent to the Cruciform."

"Coincidence…" the old man said shaking his head. He looked up at the man in tweed. "And if you think I'm going to do anything for you…"

"Even if that anything is saving your granddaughter…?"

"She's not….I'm not her grandfather…not anymore." the old man said, closing his eyes. He looked up.

"Doctor…"

"I'm not the Doctor, he died, on Karn, centuries ago." the old man said gruffly. He looked up. "I'm just an old warrior." The old man turned and started to walk away.

"You could save her, it would cost you literally nothing, just my freedom." the man in tweed said.

"Save her for what?" the old man said, stopping. "We both know where this is going. We both know the end game. She would rather perish in a camp, would rather continue to resist Dalek manipulations…than have me save her just to watch the rest of the universe burn. She'd never forgive me for that."

"At least if you save her she wouldn't suffer anymore…" the man in the tweed said.

"No…that's not true, she'd constantly think about those we left behind." the old man said. "She cares too much to leave them behind. You don't understand her."

"You're willing to let her suffer in a prison camp, die in a Dalek cesspool? Why? To spite me?" the man in the tweed said in true astonishment.

"If she saw what I've become…it would break her hearts." the old man said. "It's better to let her think that her grandfather died out in the darkness, in the wild and the fire, than let her know that he became….this."

"You're a fool then." the man in tweed said. "You really are nothing more than an old warrior. You can't even show the least bit of compassion for your granddaughter. You'd leave her in a Dalek prisoner camp, just to save your own face! I thought I was selfish, thought I was horrible….I at least had a reason better than pride! They had me strapped to a biogenic bomb! I didn't have a choice!"

"You want out that bad?" the old man asked, quietly. "Are you that done working for Rassilon?"

"Of course!" the man in tweed shouted.

"Fine…" said the old man, as he spun around and pulled a staser pistol from his jacket.

The man in tweed gasped as the pistol whined and two bolts flashed out of the muzzle, striking the man in tweed in the chest twice. The man staggered backward as everyone in the bar jumped to their feet and the waitresses and bartenders shouted and dove behind the bar. The man in tweed fell into a booth against a wall. He was gasping for air and looking around crazily as the old man walked forward, staser pistol in hand. The man in tweed gawped looking at his hands as they started to glow with a golden radiance. The old man walked up to the man in tweed.

"What…what…" gasped the man in tweed.

"I'm giving you what you want." The old man said, leveling the staser pistol. "I'm getting you out the only way possible. And don't worry about paying up, consider this one on the house. The fact that it gives justice to Alex and Lucy is just a side benefit."

The old man fired a third staser bolt as the man in tweed's golden radiance rose to its peak. The bolt sliced straight through the man in tweed's brain stem. The radiance dispersed silently and the victim's body collapsed on the ground. The old man turned, looking to the other bar patrons, many of which hand their grasping appendages on some side arm.

"Settle down, and go back to your drinks." the old man grumbled, sheathing his staser pistol back inside of his jacket. He turned and looked at the man laying on the floor. He grimaced slightly. He bent down and slowly shifted the dead man's body around and threw it over his shoulder, wincing with arthritic pain. He walked towards the exit and left the bar. He stopped right before the door, and turned. He fished out a bag from his jacket pocket and threw it to the bar. "Take that for compensation for the all the trouble, apologies."

And with that the man disappeared through the door and out onto the street.