Post by Fitz Kreiner on Apr 30, 2009 21:44:33 GMT
The Auton took a step towards the Doctor, its weapon raised, as the Time Lord backed away, the one step he took causing him to get pressed up against a bank of instruments. Staring at the short stubby gun tube, he fumbled in his pockets for his sonic screwdriver. He wasn’t quite sure whether or not it would work, but it was worth a shot.
“Stop!” he yelled as he fumbled about his person. “Cease, deactivate, avalanche.”
Suddenly the Auton jerked and stepped back as there was the sound of an explosion beside him. Glancing round, he saw Sergeant Lovatt aiming her pistol and shooting the plastic creature in the head. The three shots she fired caused large holes to be punched in its plastic shell as it staggered back to the door before reeling and turning towards Lovatt. With a cry, she charged the Auton, head down and barged into it heavily with her shoulder. Off balance, the Auton staggered back out of the door and hit the railing overlooking the factory floor.
With another charge, Lovatt dived forwards and flung her arms around the Autons legs. One of the creature’s plastic arms swiped down, swinging for Lovatt as she heaved with all her might. After several tentatively long seconds, she managed to lift the creature and it disappeared over the edge of the rail. Several long silent seconds followed until the sound of the Auton crashing into the floor below echoed up.
Grinning, the Doctor turned to Lovatt. “Thank you so much, Sergeant,” he smiled.
Stepping back into the operations office and closing the door heavily behind her, Lovatt reached down for the lock and fumbled with the catch. “Well, best get on with what you have to do Doctor,” she panted looking through the glass at the factory below. “Bullets don’t really stop ‘em for long, and I’ve not got enough for all them down there.”
Rushing to the window, the Doctor peered into the factory floor. Below, the Auton Lovatt had thrown off the balcony was getting to its feet, and the other Autons had stopped their work and were forming ranks, looking up at the control room.
“Oh dear,” the Doctor confirmed jumping over and sitting down in the chair in front of the large control panel. “Well, see what you can do, I’d best hurry. I had hoped to hook my ‘whatsit’ into the controls here and cast a blanket signal that would cause a mass deactivation.”
“What are you planning instead?” Lovatt asked, pulling a filing cabinet across in front of the door.
“Like I said, the Nestenes are shunting energy over to here, so if I can block that, it will stop any more Autons from being activated, and if I can reverse the polarity, I should be able to pull the Nestene energy out of the active Autons, and they should become as harmless as Fred over there.” The Doctor nodded to the collapsed, deactivated Auton that he and Lovatt had dealt with when they first entered the control room. While he was speaking, his eyes never left the screen in front of him and his hands moved over the keyboard at an almost ridiculous speed.
“Well, if there’s anything I can do, let me know.” Lovatt said, shooting a look to the Doctor, the concern on her face clear as the Autons started to climb the stairs. “We could be running out of time.”
“Well, if you could,” the Doctor started pointing at the bank of instrumentation behind him. “That red ended cable there, if you could unplug it and pass it over to me?” As he spoke, the Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and activated it, pulling a covering off one panel with one hand, his other still darting over the keyboard.
Darting over to the instrument panel the Doctor had indicated, Lovatt quickly located the cable and unplugged it from its port and dragged it over to the Doctor who took one quick look at it before turning back to the screens before him.
“No, no, the green cable. Green.” He sighed.
Lovatt opened her mouth to argue, but as the glass window of the door shattered, she thought better of it and returned to the instrument bank. Plugging the red cable back in, she pulled out the green ended one and passed it over to the Doctor. Without looking the Time Lord took the cable and plugged it into a port in the panel he had opened up. Flicking a switch on the console, a plethora of green, blue and red diodes lit up on the instrument back beside Lovatt.
A small explosion beside her head made her duck and look back towards the door. One of the Autons was now leaning through the shattered window, reaching in with its arm, its weapon open. Pulling her pistol from its holster, Lovatt quickly took aim. Her shot hit the Auton in the wrist, the force of the bullet blowing the hand off.
“Oh, good shot, Sergeant,” the Doctor exclaimed, looking round at Lovatt and grinning.
Now unarmed, the Auton went to pull itself out of the window frame, the neck of its boiler suit snagging on a shard of glass still sticking out of the frame. Lovatt almost laughed at the sight as the Auton pulled against the glass. With a tearing sound, the creature finally pulled free, only for one of its comrades to take its place.
“Almost there,” the Doctor cried. “If you could keep them out for two more minutes?”
“I can try,” Lovatt muttered ducking as the Auton in the window fired at her.
Morris made to break cover once again as he clicked another magazine into place in his gun. Getting to his feet, he was knocked back down again, choking and his gun clattered across the car park, as an arm hit him across the throat. He looked up to see the badly charred Auton stood above him. Its boiler suit had for the most part burnt away and the flesh coloured plastic was charred and blackened. It now looked nothing like a mannequin dummy, with one arm stretched where the plastic had melted and half the head and face missing in a molten and charred plastic mass.
The Autons head looked down, and Morris got the unnerving feeling that the one remaining blank eye was staring directly into his. There was something about it that sent shivers down his spine. The shivers increased as the Auton brought its hand up. Its fingers were dropped and the short tube of its weapon pointed at his head.
This is it, he thought. His gun was out of reach and he’d never draw his pistol in time. Taking what he expected to be his last breath, Morris stared up at the Auton stood atop of him, when suddenly the creature staggered back under a hail of bullets. He could see them ripping holes in the plastic body.
There was a flash of light and Morris threw a hand over his eyes as he felt himself get sprayed with shards of glass and drops of liquid. He heard the whoosh of the petrol bomb and the wave of heat as the petroleum that had exploded over the plastic creature ignited. Quickly, he scrambled backwards before the drops that he’d felt land on him ignited as well. He looked up to see three of his men brandishing petrol bombs. He had no idea where they’d got the bottles, and the petrol, he assumed they’d siphoned from the vehicles. He was glad to see their initiative at work as they seemed to be halting the Auton advance.
He looked back at his would be killer to see the Auton collapsing into a molten mass. Scrambling to his feet, he gave a thumbs up to the soldier who’d thrown the petrol bomb at the Auton before stooping to pick up his gun. Looking back at the molten Auton, he fired a short burst of bullets into it before turning back to join his men. Glancing over, he saw Jason Stretham taking cover behind a pile of pallets and fumbling with the magazine on his gun. Running over, he took cover beside the private.
“Any news of Sergeant Lovatt or the Doctor?” he asked.
“None, Sir,” Stretham replied, slamming the magazine into place. “But they’ve had their ten minutes. And an extra lot on top of that.”
Morris swore softly under his breath as he craned his neck to look at the reception to the building.
“What shall we do, Sir?” Stretham asked after firing a volley round the edge of the pallets.
Thinking, Morris took another look at the entrance to the reception and then at the battleground in the car park. The Autons were being beaten back, slowly, but they were being beaten. “Well, we’re going in to get them out. They may be in trouble in there.” Morris said eventually.
Spotting one of his men, reloading not too far from him, Morris signalled to him to lay down covering fire. The young soldier nodded in understanding and drew the bolt back on his gun, keeping an eye on Morris, who turned back and told the same to Stretham. Giving the signal, the young soldier burst from cover and loosed his machine gun on the still standing Autons as Morris and Stretham ran for the cover of the reception.
The plastic plants which earlier were thrashing madly, now hung limp, clearly the result of the Doctors machine. The vending machine in which the Doctor had shown so much interest now sat alone and untended, still on the small trolley. Silently indicating to Stretham, Morris led the way down the corridor towards the factory floor. The sounds of the gun fight in the car park died away the deeper the two headed into the factory, but were never drowned out.
There was a new sound up ahead. A crashing sound, as though something heavy was launching itself against a metal door or hatch. There was also the sporadic sound of an Auton gun firing. Morris turned to Stretham, who nodded and the two set off at a run. They soon reached the factory floor to see a large group of Autons on a staircase leading to a small control office overlooking the factory. There were two figures besieged inside; the Doctor and Sergeant Lovatt.
“All guns blazing?” Stretham asked, hefting his gun in his hands and indicating the doors to the factory.
“We may have to, but take any cover possible, we’re hugely outnumbered.” Morris nodded.
“On your word then, Sir,” Stretham nodded.
Morris nodded and kicked open the double doors, sidestepping towards the cover of the machines on the factory floor, whilst firing from the hip at the Autons on the stairs. Following his lead, Stretham did the same, taking cover farther up the factory floor from Morris. The lower Autons on the stairs staggered forwards under the sprays of bullets, crashing to the ground and falling down the stairs due to their proximity to the Autons in front of them. The fallen Autons swiftly got back to their feet and turned towards Morris and Stretham, their fingers dropping.
A gunshot from the control office above could be heard above the sound of the Auton weapons followed by a loud crashing. Morris chanced a look around the corner of the machine he was taking cover behind to see the Autons on the stairs topple down like dominoes, Lovatt stood on the landing above, her pistol in hand. The door behind her was shattered and hanging off its hinges. At the foot of the stairs, the Autons were getting to their feet and Morris hefted his gun, ready to fire off another volley of bullets when his attention was drawn by a cry from the Doctor.
The Doctor looked up as there was the sound of bursts of gunfire in the factory below them. “What the devil-?” he began.
“It’s Captain Morris,” Lovatt replied looking down from her sheltered position by the door into the factory floor below.
“Oh, if only they’d waited,” the Doctor sighed. “I’m nearly done here; I could have saved them all this trouble.”
“Not a moment too soon, Doctor.” Lovatt almost cried out as the door buckled in its frame and the filing cabinet she’d barricaded it with shifted several inches across the floor.
Raising her pistol, Lovatt fired the last shot in the chamber at point blank range into the Autons face. With the creature staggering back, Lovatt heaved the filing cabinet out of the way and charged the lined up Autons. Forcing them back, the plastic creatures toppled like dominoes down the stairs, culminating in a tangled mess of plastic limbs. Lovatt smiled to herself at the sight, but her smile soon faded as the creatures untangled themselves. A sudden cry from behind her made her spin.
“Hah! Yes, gotcha!” the Doctor clapped his hands together and leant back in his chair, the backrest tilting back to an almost dangerous level, causing him to shoot his hands out and grip the edge of the control panel. Turning he shot a shocked look at Lovatt before seemingly regaining his composure. “Sergeant, I need to you throw all those switches on that panel over there.” He pointed his hands now hovering over the keyboard again.
Lovatt glanced back out of the battered door at the Autons regrouping at the foot of the stairs and starting to climb them again. Looking back, Lovatt ran to the bank of instruments the Doctor had indicated. The switches he had mentioned had blinking red diodes above them, as she flicked them, the red diodes flickered off and were replaced with steady green diodes below. She could hear the furious tapping as the Doctors fingers danced over the keyboard keys. The tapping stopped as he pushed his chair back and jumped to his feet and grabbed a switch beside where he was now stood.
“Ready?” he grinned.
“Just do it!” Lovatt yelled looking at the door as the first of the Autons reached it.
Looking in, the creature raised its hand and its fingers dropped. As the Doctor pulled on the switch, the Auton started to sway, gently at first but then more and more. Its arm drooped and then its head before it crashed to the ground. Lovatt looked out of the door to see the other Autons collapse as one. Those on the stairs tumbled down into a heap at the bottom.
Down in the factory floor, Morris and Stretham broke their cover and looked at the Autons, now deactivated mannequins lying on the floor. Their weapons were held low, but they were still wary, nudging the Autons with the toes of their boots. Several of the plastic creatures turned over to their backs under the force of the nudging, their dead, blank eyes staring up at the ceiling.
“You did it, Doctor,” Morris shouted up to the control office. “I don’t know what you did, but you did it.”
“That’s only part of it, Will.” The Doctor shouted from the office, causing Morris to jump over the fallen Autons and rush up the stairs.
“What do you mean?” He asked, entering through the shattered door frame.
“This isn’t the Master’s main base of operations; he’s been transferring energy from elsewhere and seems to have set this all up as a diversion, to draw us in.” The Doctor paused and turned in the chair to face Morris. “I’ve remembered why the name Rutilus Allec seems so familiar; it’s Latin for “Red Herring”. I’m a fool not to have seen it sooner.”
“So what does that mean?” Morris asked.
“I think this was one giant trap from the Master. Designed to lure us in and decimate your forces whilst he got on with what he was planning elsewhere.” Morris opened his mouth to interject but was silenced when the Doctor held his hand up. “I know the Master was seen here, but I imagine he’s long gone now, most probably while your chaps were tied up with the Autons. It seems he has been transferring energy over here to run the operations and activate the Autons. Unfortunately, I can’t trace the energy back to its source. He’s covered his tracks rather well.”
“Can’t you trace the energy source or anything?” Morris asked, slinging his gun over his shoulder.
“Well, I can certainly try, Will.” The Doctor replied. “It might take a bit of time though.”
“No worries, Doctor, we’ve a bit of mopping up to do here.” Morris said, nodding to Lovatt and leaving the office, unaware that a small camera was observing him and the rest of the office, hidden as it was, in the top corner of the room.
Andrea Rogers drove the silver Bentley Turbo R through the quiet early morning streets of London. Sat in the back, the Master looked at the images that were being relayed from the camera in the Rutilus Allec office to his watch, whilst puffing on a cigar. Snapping the cover closed, he threw his head back and laughed.
“Stop!” he yelled as he fumbled about his person. “Cease, deactivate, avalanche.”
Suddenly the Auton jerked and stepped back as there was the sound of an explosion beside him. Glancing round, he saw Sergeant Lovatt aiming her pistol and shooting the plastic creature in the head. The three shots she fired caused large holes to be punched in its plastic shell as it staggered back to the door before reeling and turning towards Lovatt. With a cry, she charged the Auton, head down and barged into it heavily with her shoulder. Off balance, the Auton staggered back out of the door and hit the railing overlooking the factory floor.
With another charge, Lovatt dived forwards and flung her arms around the Autons legs. One of the creature’s plastic arms swiped down, swinging for Lovatt as she heaved with all her might. After several tentatively long seconds, she managed to lift the creature and it disappeared over the edge of the rail. Several long silent seconds followed until the sound of the Auton crashing into the floor below echoed up.
Grinning, the Doctor turned to Lovatt. “Thank you so much, Sergeant,” he smiled.
Stepping back into the operations office and closing the door heavily behind her, Lovatt reached down for the lock and fumbled with the catch. “Well, best get on with what you have to do Doctor,” she panted looking through the glass at the factory below. “Bullets don’t really stop ‘em for long, and I’ve not got enough for all them down there.”
Rushing to the window, the Doctor peered into the factory floor. Below, the Auton Lovatt had thrown off the balcony was getting to its feet, and the other Autons had stopped their work and were forming ranks, looking up at the control room.
“Oh dear,” the Doctor confirmed jumping over and sitting down in the chair in front of the large control panel. “Well, see what you can do, I’d best hurry. I had hoped to hook my ‘whatsit’ into the controls here and cast a blanket signal that would cause a mass deactivation.”
“What are you planning instead?” Lovatt asked, pulling a filing cabinet across in front of the door.
“Like I said, the Nestenes are shunting energy over to here, so if I can block that, it will stop any more Autons from being activated, and if I can reverse the polarity, I should be able to pull the Nestene energy out of the active Autons, and they should become as harmless as Fred over there.” The Doctor nodded to the collapsed, deactivated Auton that he and Lovatt had dealt with when they first entered the control room. While he was speaking, his eyes never left the screen in front of him and his hands moved over the keyboard at an almost ridiculous speed.
“Well, if there’s anything I can do, let me know.” Lovatt said, shooting a look to the Doctor, the concern on her face clear as the Autons started to climb the stairs. “We could be running out of time.”
“Well, if you could,” the Doctor started pointing at the bank of instrumentation behind him. “That red ended cable there, if you could unplug it and pass it over to me?” As he spoke, the Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and activated it, pulling a covering off one panel with one hand, his other still darting over the keyboard.
Darting over to the instrument panel the Doctor had indicated, Lovatt quickly located the cable and unplugged it from its port and dragged it over to the Doctor who took one quick look at it before turning back to the screens before him.
“No, no, the green cable. Green.” He sighed.
Lovatt opened her mouth to argue, but as the glass window of the door shattered, she thought better of it and returned to the instrument bank. Plugging the red cable back in, she pulled out the green ended one and passed it over to the Doctor. Without looking the Time Lord took the cable and plugged it into a port in the panel he had opened up. Flicking a switch on the console, a plethora of green, blue and red diodes lit up on the instrument back beside Lovatt.
A small explosion beside her head made her duck and look back towards the door. One of the Autons was now leaning through the shattered window, reaching in with its arm, its weapon open. Pulling her pistol from its holster, Lovatt quickly took aim. Her shot hit the Auton in the wrist, the force of the bullet blowing the hand off.
“Oh, good shot, Sergeant,” the Doctor exclaimed, looking round at Lovatt and grinning.
Now unarmed, the Auton went to pull itself out of the window frame, the neck of its boiler suit snagging on a shard of glass still sticking out of the frame. Lovatt almost laughed at the sight as the Auton pulled against the glass. With a tearing sound, the creature finally pulled free, only for one of its comrades to take its place.
“Almost there,” the Doctor cried. “If you could keep them out for two more minutes?”
“I can try,” Lovatt muttered ducking as the Auton in the window fired at her.
*
Morris made to break cover once again as he clicked another magazine into place in his gun. Getting to his feet, he was knocked back down again, choking and his gun clattered across the car park, as an arm hit him across the throat. He looked up to see the badly charred Auton stood above him. Its boiler suit had for the most part burnt away and the flesh coloured plastic was charred and blackened. It now looked nothing like a mannequin dummy, with one arm stretched where the plastic had melted and half the head and face missing in a molten and charred plastic mass.
The Autons head looked down, and Morris got the unnerving feeling that the one remaining blank eye was staring directly into his. There was something about it that sent shivers down his spine. The shivers increased as the Auton brought its hand up. Its fingers were dropped and the short tube of its weapon pointed at his head.
This is it, he thought. His gun was out of reach and he’d never draw his pistol in time. Taking what he expected to be his last breath, Morris stared up at the Auton stood atop of him, when suddenly the creature staggered back under a hail of bullets. He could see them ripping holes in the plastic body.
There was a flash of light and Morris threw a hand over his eyes as he felt himself get sprayed with shards of glass and drops of liquid. He heard the whoosh of the petrol bomb and the wave of heat as the petroleum that had exploded over the plastic creature ignited. Quickly, he scrambled backwards before the drops that he’d felt land on him ignited as well. He looked up to see three of his men brandishing petrol bombs. He had no idea where they’d got the bottles, and the petrol, he assumed they’d siphoned from the vehicles. He was glad to see their initiative at work as they seemed to be halting the Auton advance.
He looked back at his would be killer to see the Auton collapsing into a molten mass. Scrambling to his feet, he gave a thumbs up to the soldier who’d thrown the petrol bomb at the Auton before stooping to pick up his gun. Looking back at the molten Auton, he fired a short burst of bullets into it before turning back to join his men. Glancing over, he saw Jason Stretham taking cover behind a pile of pallets and fumbling with the magazine on his gun. Running over, he took cover beside the private.
“Any news of Sergeant Lovatt or the Doctor?” he asked.
“None, Sir,” Stretham replied, slamming the magazine into place. “But they’ve had their ten minutes. And an extra lot on top of that.”
Morris swore softly under his breath as he craned his neck to look at the reception to the building.
“What shall we do, Sir?” Stretham asked after firing a volley round the edge of the pallets.
Thinking, Morris took another look at the entrance to the reception and then at the battleground in the car park. The Autons were being beaten back, slowly, but they were being beaten. “Well, we’re going in to get them out. They may be in trouble in there.” Morris said eventually.
Spotting one of his men, reloading not too far from him, Morris signalled to him to lay down covering fire. The young soldier nodded in understanding and drew the bolt back on his gun, keeping an eye on Morris, who turned back and told the same to Stretham. Giving the signal, the young soldier burst from cover and loosed his machine gun on the still standing Autons as Morris and Stretham ran for the cover of the reception.
The plastic plants which earlier were thrashing madly, now hung limp, clearly the result of the Doctors machine. The vending machine in which the Doctor had shown so much interest now sat alone and untended, still on the small trolley. Silently indicating to Stretham, Morris led the way down the corridor towards the factory floor. The sounds of the gun fight in the car park died away the deeper the two headed into the factory, but were never drowned out.
There was a new sound up ahead. A crashing sound, as though something heavy was launching itself against a metal door or hatch. There was also the sporadic sound of an Auton gun firing. Morris turned to Stretham, who nodded and the two set off at a run. They soon reached the factory floor to see a large group of Autons on a staircase leading to a small control office overlooking the factory. There were two figures besieged inside; the Doctor and Sergeant Lovatt.
“All guns blazing?” Stretham asked, hefting his gun in his hands and indicating the doors to the factory.
“We may have to, but take any cover possible, we’re hugely outnumbered.” Morris nodded.
“On your word then, Sir,” Stretham nodded.
Morris nodded and kicked open the double doors, sidestepping towards the cover of the machines on the factory floor, whilst firing from the hip at the Autons on the stairs. Following his lead, Stretham did the same, taking cover farther up the factory floor from Morris. The lower Autons on the stairs staggered forwards under the sprays of bullets, crashing to the ground and falling down the stairs due to their proximity to the Autons in front of them. The fallen Autons swiftly got back to their feet and turned towards Morris and Stretham, their fingers dropping.
A gunshot from the control office above could be heard above the sound of the Auton weapons followed by a loud crashing. Morris chanced a look around the corner of the machine he was taking cover behind to see the Autons on the stairs topple down like dominoes, Lovatt stood on the landing above, her pistol in hand. The door behind her was shattered and hanging off its hinges. At the foot of the stairs, the Autons were getting to their feet and Morris hefted his gun, ready to fire off another volley of bullets when his attention was drawn by a cry from the Doctor.
*
The Doctor looked up as there was the sound of bursts of gunfire in the factory below them. “What the devil-?” he began.
“It’s Captain Morris,” Lovatt replied looking down from her sheltered position by the door into the factory floor below.
“Oh, if only they’d waited,” the Doctor sighed. “I’m nearly done here; I could have saved them all this trouble.”
“Not a moment too soon, Doctor.” Lovatt almost cried out as the door buckled in its frame and the filing cabinet she’d barricaded it with shifted several inches across the floor.
Raising her pistol, Lovatt fired the last shot in the chamber at point blank range into the Autons face. With the creature staggering back, Lovatt heaved the filing cabinet out of the way and charged the lined up Autons. Forcing them back, the plastic creatures toppled like dominoes down the stairs, culminating in a tangled mess of plastic limbs. Lovatt smiled to herself at the sight, but her smile soon faded as the creatures untangled themselves. A sudden cry from behind her made her spin.
“Hah! Yes, gotcha!” the Doctor clapped his hands together and leant back in his chair, the backrest tilting back to an almost dangerous level, causing him to shoot his hands out and grip the edge of the control panel. Turning he shot a shocked look at Lovatt before seemingly regaining his composure. “Sergeant, I need to you throw all those switches on that panel over there.” He pointed his hands now hovering over the keyboard again.
Lovatt glanced back out of the battered door at the Autons regrouping at the foot of the stairs and starting to climb them again. Looking back, Lovatt ran to the bank of instruments the Doctor had indicated. The switches he had mentioned had blinking red diodes above them, as she flicked them, the red diodes flickered off and were replaced with steady green diodes below. She could hear the furious tapping as the Doctors fingers danced over the keyboard keys. The tapping stopped as he pushed his chair back and jumped to his feet and grabbed a switch beside where he was now stood.
“Ready?” he grinned.
“Just do it!” Lovatt yelled looking at the door as the first of the Autons reached it.
Looking in, the creature raised its hand and its fingers dropped. As the Doctor pulled on the switch, the Auton started to sway, gently at first but then more and more. Its arm drooped and then its head before it crashed to the ground. Lovatt looked out of the door to see the other Autons collapse as one. Those on the stairs tumbled down into a heap at the bottom.
Down in the factory floor, Morris and Stretham broke their cover and looked at the Autons, now deactivated mannequins lying on the floor. Their weapons were held low, but they were still wary, nudging the Autons with the toes of their boots. Several of the plastic creatures turned over to their backs under the force of the nudging, their dead, blank eyes staring up at the ceiling.
“You did it, Doctor,” Morris shouted up to the control office. “I don’t know what you did, but you did it.”
“That’s only part of it, Will.” The Doctor shouted from the office, causing Morris to jump over the fallen Autons and rush up the stairs.
“What do you mean?” He asked, entering through the shattered door frame.
“This isn’t the Master’s main base of operations; he’s been transferring energy from elsewhere and seems to have set this all up as a diversion, to draw us in.” The Doctor paused and turned in the chair to face Morris. “I’ve remembered why the name Rutilus Allec seems so familiar; it’s Latin for “Red Herring”. I’m a fool not to have seen it sooner.”
“So what does that mean?” Morris asked.
“I think this was one giant trap from the Master. Designed to lure us in and decimate your forces whilst he got on with what he was planning elsewhere.” Morris opened his mouth to interject but was silenced when the Doctor held his hand up. “I know the Master was seen here, but I imagine he’s long gone now, most probably while your chaps were tied up with the Autons. It seems he has been transferring energy over here to run the operations and activate the Autons. Unfortunately, I can’t trace the energy back to its source. He’s covered his tracks rather well.”
“Can’t you trace the energy source or anything?” Morris asked, slinging his gun over his shoulder.
“Well, I can certainly try, Will.” The Doctor replied. “It might take a bit of time though.”
“No worries, Doctor, we’ve a bit of mopping up to do here.” Morris said, nodding to Lovatt and leaving the office, unaware that a small camera was observing him and the rest of the office, hidden as it was, in the top corner of the room.
*
Andrea Rogers drove the silver Bentley Turbo R through the quiet early morning streets of London. Sat in the back, the Master looked at the images that were being relayed from the camera in the Rutilus Allec office to his watch, whilst puffing on a cigar. Snapping the cover closed, he threw his head back and laughed.