Chapter 7
Terrified did not seem good enough a word to describe what Wren was feeling. She was beyond terrified. She was literally paralyzed with fear. The three of them had been led to a room with an operating table of sorts and many sharp and painful looking instruments, and the Doctor had been thrown to the table and strapped down tight. Both Wren and Davon were seated rather violently into chairs and their hands were cuffed behind them.
“You’re lucky,” the Headmistress said. “You two are going to have front row seats to the procedure.”
“And what exactly is that, eh?” said the Doctor, straining to lift his head. “What is it that you’re going to use me for? You’ll get nowhere.”
The Headmistress turned to the Time Lord, still wearing the same chilling smile upon her lips.
“You are going to become the greatest advancement in Antares Beta’s technology in years,” she explained as if this were some sort of great humanitarian achievement and not a horrifying crime against innocent lifeforms. “Have you ever wondered what the generator supplies? All of the technology of Antares Beta is powered by the minds of these children. Nobody cares about the children at an academy for the disturbed, they’re damaged goods. When they are brought to us, we give them purpose. We thought we had our crown jewel when Wren arrived, but then you showed up. We know all about you, Doctor. We recognized you from the drawings on Wren’s wall. You’re a Time Lord. Your mind alone has more power than every child in that room put together. You could supply us with electricity for the entire planet for centuries.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s not going to happen,” the Doctor said adamantly.
“And who is going to stop us? These children?” the Headmistress scoffed. She went to a wall and pressed a button. “No Time Lord, it won’t be that easy. Doctor, I would like you to meet… your doctors.”
The door opened and several surgeons filed in. The Headmistress started on her way out and then paused before one of the surgeons.
“Make sure she sees what becomes of her Doctor,” she said before leaving.
With the surgeons closing in, the Doctor began to struggle violently against his bonds. Seeing it was to no avail, he tried to appeal to the surgeons.
“Listen, you don’t want to do this, and if you want reasons I can think of about a thousand of them. You can’t possibly understand what you’re about to do.” The surgeons ignored him and began to take down certain tools from the wall. The head surgeon approached the Doctor with a particularly nasty looking instrument, and the Doctor swallowed, looking at it leeringly. “I’m telling you, this is a bad idea. You don—”
The device was touched to the Doctor’s temple and the pain that shot through him was excruciating. Every muscle in his body tensed, his back bowed and his arms and legs pushed against the table. His mouth opened as if he was screaming, but no sound came out. Wren felt the pain rebound into her and she shrieked, struggling against the cuffs to curl herself into a ball. When the device was pulled away it revealed a blinking electrode of sorts installed on his head. The procedure was repeated on the other side, and at this point Wren had been reduced to a whimpering wreck. Davon seemed to be fiddling with something behind his back, but the surgeons dismissed it as futile struggling and ignored him.
The Doctor’s eyes rolled up into his head and his body went limp, beginning to convulse randomly. The surgeons were about to connect the electrodes to a bunch of nasty looking wires when Davon jumped up unexpectedly, brandishing the Screwdriver.
“Nobody moves,” he yelled. “Not one muscle!”
The surgeons stared at him, not sure if they should be afraid or not.
“How did you free yourself?” one asked.
“How?” Davon repeated, improvising wildly. “This is my magic wand! If you don’t leave now, I will damn you all with my powers!”
The surgeons seemed frightened by this, but they were still somewhat skeptical. Sensing this, Davon saw that he would have to demonstrate, so thinking quickly he cut the electricity to the room, making everything go pitch black.
“LEAVE,” he said in a voice he did not realize he could make. There was much scrambling and screaming as the surgeons stumbled over each other trying to get out as fast as they could. After they had left, Davon wasted no time turning the lights back on going to the Doctor in order to remove the strange electrodes from his temples. The moment the things were gone, the Doctor stopped convulsing and rolled over onto his side, breathing heavily. His teeth were clenched and his eyes jammed shut.
“Doctor, are you okay?” Davon asked.
The Doctor nodded as best he could without trying to move his body much. His chest heaved up and down with each deep breath he took. After a few minutes, Davon looked to the Sonic Screwdriver in his hands and then offered it forth.
“This is yours,” he said. Opening one eye and still speaking, the Doctor reached for the Screwdriver and nodded as a way of thanks.
“We should probably get going,” Davon said. “I’m sure they’ll be back once they’ve realized what’s happened.” Hearing this, the Doctor nodded once again and forced himself to stand.
“Where’s Wren?” he asked in a pained voice. Davon shuffled his feet and gave the Doctor and uneasy look.
“She’s right here,” he said. “She’s a little…”
The Doctor looked over to Wren. The girl was shaking and her eyes were jammed shut.
“Oh no,” the Doctor breathed, realizing what had happened. She had experienced the same exact pain that he had, because she felt everything he did as if she were feeling it herself. And on top of that, she had already not been speaking to him and was most likely still extremely angry. The Time Lord knelt before her, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Wren. Wren. Look at me. I need you to look at me.”
Wren opened her eyes wide and they were filled with terror and pain, but she did not look at the Doctor.
“Wren,” he repeated, and she just whimpered. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tightly. Her small body stiffened under his embrace. “I’m sorry,” he said very quietly and Wren went limp in his arms. The Doctor reached around the chair and undid the handcuffs, freeing her from the chair and then helped the small Alazarin to her feet. Wren looked up at him, making sure to look the Doctor right in the eye.
I’m sorry too, she said guiltily. I didn’t mean—
The Doctor held a finger to her lips, quieting her.
“Not now, there’ll be time later.” He turned to Davon, who nodded, and then he took Wren by the wrist. “We have to go. Davon, lead the way.”
The three took off at once, heading once again for the horrifying place in which the children were being held against their will. This time the Doctor wasted no time in running straight to the terminal next to the generator and beginning to type so fast that his fingers seemed to blur.
“What are you doing?” Davon asked.
“Overriding the security system so we can set these children free,” he said not taking his eyes from the screen. Suddenly the Doctor’s fingers froze over the keyboard and he swore loudly, his face twisting into an expression of fury. “And would you look at that, an alarm just tripped,” he said angrily. “Brilliant! Just wonderful! Fine… Wren! Davon! Make sure the exit is clear!”
But what about—
“I’ll be fine, just do it!” he ordered. The Alazarin both hesitated and the Doctor lost his patience. “Go!” he barked. Davon caught the Doctor’s eye and nodded grimly, taking Wren by the wrist and tugging her violently. The Doctor turned from them to the generator, approaching it with a look of a determination. There was a large red button to the side of it, an eject button of sorts that would cause a cataclysmic systems failure and cause all of the pods to open, freeing the captives. Or at least that was the theory. For all the Doctor knew, it could end up being a self destruct button as well. That was a possibility the Doctor very much did not want to consider.
Swallowing anxiously, his hand hovered over the button. Just as he was about to bring his hand down upon it when he heard the one voice he was dreading the most.
“Don’t move Doctor, or I will instruct my guards to attack you,” the Headmistress said. The Doctor turned to see that he was surrounded by at least 15 or so of the large men. He glared at the Headmistress defiantly and slammed down on the button.
“DOCTOR!” he heard a voice shriek. He only had a split second to look up and realize that the voice belonged to Wren before he was tackled to the ground violently.
