PERILS
Chapter One
In March of the year 1914 CE, the Master, atypically not in full control of his TARDIS, landed in a New York City movie theatre, disrupting the show and causing a panic. His wayward TARDIS boasted, at the moment, the shape of a large fireplace, and it blocked a good portion of the screen. Patrons screamed, not because an alien had landed (they were clueless about that) but because they couldn't see poor Pauline, who was in peril. The Master hastily dematerialized his TARDIS and rematerialized at the curb, as a school bus, then meekly entered the shabby theatre, bought a ticket and sat down in the back to enjoy the remainder of the show. By the end of the episode – for this was a serial, complete with cliffhangers – he was hooked. He had plans, big plans, unsavory plans for many portions of the universe, but he put them on hold. He needed to see all 20 episodes. They were inspirational. He absolutely had to try to engage the Doctor in as many of these perils as possible. What a thrill it would be to see the Doctor sweat, and oh, how satisfying it would be if one (it would only take one) spelled the end of that… that pussycat of a Doctor! The Master spat the epithet aloud and the rest of the audience shushed him. If only they knew!
*0*0*0*
"Oh, no!" Nyssa was not happy about the distress call – from Earth, yet! "You promised, Doctor!"
"Busman's holidays don't count," frowned Tegan. Nyssa almost asked what that meant, then decided that as long as Tegan was agreeing with her, it was best not to interrupt, lest the Doctor veer off on one of his tangential explanations – the kind he never saved for a nonexistent "later." "Couldn't someone else take this call?"
"Who?" asked the Doctor, simply. "It's probably a puncture, or someone's out of fuel. A second out of our lives and we move on." Since he was met with two stubborn stares, he added, "I could take you to Xymrovna and probably catch you up before you've got your toes wet."
"Blue sand?"
"Yes, Tegan."
"Milk-white water?"
"Last time I looked, Nyssa. What kind of trouble could the two of you get up to there? Relax! Enjoy the Xymrovnan omelettes. If someone gives you a pizza – and someone will – play Frisbee with it until I arrive. I'll give you some Rova to spend on food and a bed… no, nothing in my pockets; okay, wait here. I know I have some around here…." The Doctor opened the door to the TARDIS interior.
"Doctor," Nyssa called out. He stopped and turned. "I think the bigger question is what kind of trouble you could get into without us, in…" She glanced at the console. "… on nineteen-fourteen Earth!"
"Nineteen-fourteen!" Tegan was alarmed. "Doctor, are you going to war?"
"No, no, don't worry! This is way before the war."
The distress call to which the Doctor felt compelled to respond emanated from a jerry-rigged transceiver half-buried in the mud between the rails of an old bit of track. The Doctor stooped to fetch it and immediately heard a familiar chuckle from behind a boulder. He looked up to see the grinning Master emerge, his tissue compression eliminator aimed at him. "You look tired, Doctor. Why don't you have a nice lie-down?"
"You're kidding!"
"No, don't get up, Doctor. You're exactly where I want you. You are so charmingly predictable!" The Master's mouth was smiling but his eyes were not, and the eliminator was still pointing at the Doctor, so the latter sat still. The Master gestured with the eliminator but the Doctor didn't lie down.
"You've done this before," said the Doctor. "You're getting repetitious. Can it be old age?"
"Lie down, Doctor."
"You failed the last time, too."
"That was in the Matrix. This is the real world. Lie down, Doctor."
"Make me." The Master's eyes darted from the Doctor's eyes to the eliminator and back again. "No, you can make me dead, you can make me very tiny and very dead, but you can't make me lie down on these railroad tracks. Now what's your plan B?"
"On its way. Can't you hear it? You'd be much more comfortable lying down."
"I know my comfort has always been your primary concern but really, I'm fine." He could indeed hear the train fast approaching; he'd been able to feel its vibrations on the track for some time. "A steam train?" The Doctor was somewhat irrationally delighted. He liked trains in general, provided they were not meant to mow him down. He glanced up the track and was rewarded with the sight of a plume of mixed steam and smoke. "Beautiful."
Annoyed that the Doctor wasn't quaking in his trainers, the Master pocketed his tissue compression eliminator, scooped up a length of rope he'd set down in the grass at his feet, and slid slightly down the gentle slope toward the track. This startled the Doctor, who easily jumped out of the way but then turned back in horror to see that the Master was unable to get up and off of the track. "Twisted my ankle," muttered the Master. The Doctor lunged at him, pushing him off the track and leaping off, himself, just in time. The train roared by, its piston wind nearly dragging both Time Lords under its driving wheels. The Doctor grabbed the length of rope and made a lariat, spinning it, intending to lasso a stump or anything that could be secured that way, but the Master sat up, pulled the rope out of the Doctor's hands and secured the Doctor instead. "Oldest trick in the book," said the Master, dragging the Doctor up the slope. "I have more perils in store for you!"