The Doctor suddenly became aware of a commotion in the room. There was a scuffling sound and then a stifled scream. The sound of something heavy dropping to the floor and being dragged out of the way made the Doctor even more apprehensive. Somebody very dangerous had entered the room.
Paragrim crossed to the bed where the old man was resting. So, this was the First Doctor. This was his first incarnation. The cube that his associate had given him had tracked this incarnation to the most vulnerable point of his life. Paragrim leaned in closer and looked at the old man. He was very, very weak and had broken out in a sweat.
Paragrim extended a bony hand and clamped it on the old man's shoulder. “Wake up,” he growled.
The old man remained still.
“Wake up!” he said a little louder.
The Doctor mumbled but still didn't wake up.
“Get up you old fool!” he yelled and shook the Doctor violently.
The Doctor yelled in alarm and awoke in a half-asleep, half-awake daze. “Wha-what's going on, hmm? What is it?”
“Good,” growled Paragrim. “Get off the bunk, yes?”
“And who might you be, sir?” asked the Doctor groggily. “A beast from Fissure VII?”
“The name's Paragrim. Now get off the bed and come with me. You're part of my mission here.”
“But-but you're not one of the creatures from Mondas, are you?”
Paragrim stopped himself and scanned his personal history archives. Mondas? He had heard of that before. The original home planet to the Cybermen. Paragrim frowned and looked down. “I am not a Cyberman. Now come with me!”
“I refuse,” said the old man defiantly.
“Knew this would be awkward,” muttered Paragrim and grabbed the old man, dragging him off the bunk.
“Unhand me, sir!” said the Doctor wearily. But he was already out cold before he could protest any longer. Paragrim slung him over his shoulder and left the room. He walked down the empty corridor with his blaster in one hand and the Doctor slung over his shoulder.
After a few minutes of trekking through the corridors he became aware that another person was heading towards him. He raised his blaster and waited around the corner. A few seconds later a stocky looking man with mousey hair stepped around the corner followed by a pretty blonde girl. Both looked to be in their early twenties.
“Bloody hell!” said the man, holding out a hand to stop girl.
The girl looked up and put a hand to her mouth. “What is it, Ben?”
“I don’t know, Polly.” The man called Ben suddenly realised that Paragrim was carrying the Doctor over his shoulder. “What you doing with the Doc?”
“Move aside germ.” growled Paragrim.
“Put the old geezer down and we’ll get out your way?” reasoned Ben.
Paragrim lifted his blaster and aimed at Ben. “The old geezer is mine.”
“Ben, don’t antagonise him,” pleaded Polly.
“Don’t worry Duchess, I’ll get him to see reason.”
“No reasoning with me. Got a job to do. Gonna finish the job and I don’t need Humans getting in the way.” He pulled the trigger on his blaster and fired at the ceiling. Dust and smoke billowed from the blast area and Polly and Ben began coughing as their vision was obscured.
“Warned you,” said Paragrim as he trudged past them.
Ben looked to Polly. “Where’d he go?”
“I don’t know,” said Polly desperately. “But where ever he went he took the Doctor with him!”
Paragrim eventually found the room he was after. There was nobody else around. Probably all occupied with some other crisis. He climbed a metal ladder and emerged into the snowy blizzard outside.
He pushed on through the blizzard until a dull brown shape emerged from the white snow storm. Half buried in the deep snow was Paragrim’s ship. It was relatively small, squat and rather ugly looking, but it had done it's job so far.
The door swished open and he clambered inside the large cargo hold. He put the Doctor down in one of the transparent tubes the mysterious man had given him and then attached a device to the old man's neck. A pulse shot through the Doctor's skin and then he detached it again.
“Heh. That should keep you sleeping until we get back.”
He turned and made his way towards the cockpit.
Sat in the cockpit was a robot who was about half his size. He was yellow and had red arms and what looked like a missile attached to his back. He looked rather grumpy and had his arms folded across his chest. His blue-glassed visor eyes looked at Paragrim and then back to looking forward.
“Finished the job?” asked the robot.
“Yes,” said Paragrim simply. “A job well done, and bit too easy for me.”
“I don't know,” said the robot. “I had to stay here.”
“You, Bitz, are a walking buffoon. I don’t know why our mysterious friend sent you along in the first place.”
Bitz got to his feet. He came up to the height of Paragrim waist. He pointed up at the bounty hunter.
“I’ve done jobs like this before, you know.”
Paragrim pushed him back into his seat and glared at him. “Sidekicks never work out.”
“I’m not a sidekick,” argued Bitz.
Paragrim kicked Bitz in his side and he fell to the floor. “You’re a silly service robot. I’ve met your kind before. Centrix robots. They use you back on Earth in the major cities. You’re all becoming outdated now, though.”
“I have feelings, you know? I’m not just like every other service robot.”
“Oh no,” said Paragrim as he sat down in the chair, “a robot with emotions! What next?”
“We shall have our day. I promise you that.”
Paragrim glared at Bitz. “Shut your face, Bitz.” The ship rattled. “And take it easy. This ship is loaded with all the chemicals and viruses you could wish for. We don’t want to infect either of us.”
“What viruses?”
“Killing viruses,” smiled Paragrim. “I’ve got the biggest array of weapons known in this quadrant.”
“Never a dull moment with you, is it?” said Bitz.
“Just be careful!” snapped Paragrim as the ship lifted off and headed for it's next destination.
***
It was only recently since it had happened. That burning sensation he had never felt before, only read about at the academy and heard from others on his home world. Now he had experienced it and it had been slightly....disappointing. For a long time he had sensed the onset of a regeneration. His First incarnation had been pushed to the limits and he had been deteriorating rather rapidly. The departure of his granddaughter, Susan, a few years back hadn't helped matters. He'd mellowed a little more, but found situations much more difficult to deal with. His pathetic fainting in the tracking room at Snowcap base a while back had only confirmed that the change was coming.
The actual event had felt as though someone had flooded his whole body with electricity and then stripped away the old skin to leave something younger and more refreshed. He'd felt his cells changing and his body altering size and weight. Then there was the uneasiness. His two companions, Polly and Ben, hadn't really understood. Polly was beginning to possibly believe that he had changed and he was still the Doctor, but Ben was unsure. He himself hadn't helped. Going on talking about himself in the third person. But at the moment it felt as though the Doctor was a different person altogether.
He'd set the TARDIS moving and then disappeared into the depths of the time machine. Now he was skipping gleefully through the corridors, playing his recorder and occasionally stopping to examine a roundel or an item that he came across.
His joy would have continued a little longer if it wasn’t for a violent shudder that made him fall to the floor in an almost comical way. The lights in the TARDIS flickered a little and then the ship stabilised. Getting up, the Doctor looked around him curiously and then began a skip back to console room.
Polly and Ben were unconscious and lying on the floor of the white console room. The room hummed with power and, amazingly, the doors of the TARDIS were open.
The Doctor skipped in, looked down at Polly and Ben and then up at the open doors in horror. “Oh dear, oh dear. How could that have happened?”
The voice seemed to call from beyond the confines of the TARDIS. “Come and find out.”
“Who's there?” asked the Doctor cautiously. He recognised the voice. He was sure he’d heard it only recently, but couldn’t place it for the life of him.
“He said come and find out,” said another, more relaxed and laid back voice.
“You've stopped the TARDIS in mid-flight. A very dangerous thing to do,” he said into the darkness. There came no reply.
This made the Doctor agitated. He wanted to check on his two young companions, but at the same time he wanted to know who had halted his ship. Whoever it was had to have a purpose. Stealing his nerves and gripping his recorder tightly, he walked in the darkness.
He emerged in a large cargo bay. He looked around in curious interest. The TARDIS was standing beside a wall and over in the far corner appeared to be eleven glass tubes. The first one had an occupant inside of it.
“Interesting,” mused the Doctor, completely forgetting the voices that had called him out here. He crossed over to the first tube and looked in. He recoiled in horror when he saw his former self comatose within.
“Oh, he's found the tubes,” came a sarcastic voice.
“So he has,” came the more dangerous-sounding voice.
The Doctor span around and almost fell over. Standing before him was a skull-white faced man with a blue hood and blue armour. Once again something connected with a recent memory. Standing beside him was a yellow and red robot, standing about the half the height of the 7ft man. He was carrying what looked like a very large laser gun.
“Who are you?” asked the Doctor carefully.
“My name's Paragrim,” said the giant, “and this here is my, ah, assistant, Bitz”
“I’m the brains behind this,” said the small robot, “he’s just the brawn.”
Paragrim growled and grabbed Bitz by the neck, hefting him up to his height. “One more slur and you'll no longer have a brain. Understand?”
“Yes,” choked Bitz.
Paragrim set him down and then looked down at the impish Doctor. “I've come a long way for you. You've seen what's in the first tube?”
“Yes, it's me. Me before I changed that is.” The Doctor had begun to regain his composure. “What's he doing in there?”
“He's my prisoner,” grinned Paragrim, “and so are you.” He turned to Bitz who was still holding the laser gun. “Hand me the device.”
Bitz did as he was told and Paragrim closed in on the Doctor.
“No, wait!” protested the small man.
Paragrim stopped and looked down at the Doctor. “Heh, no pleading will save you.”
“I didn’t expect it would, but if I am to become your prisoner then I expect a last request.” The Doctor raised his eyebrows and smiled.
“He’s right, you know,” said Bitz from behind Paragrim.
“I don’t give last requests,” sneered Paragrim.
The Doctor stepped back a little. “I just want you to see Ben and Polly safely home.”
Paragrim looked towards the Doctor’s TARDIS. “I recognise those names.” He remembered the two young humanoids from the Snowcap base. “And they’re in there?” He indicated the TARDIS.
“Well....well yes,” said the Doctor.
Paragrim looked to Bitz and nodded. “Sort it out.”
Bitz hurried across the room and pressed a few buttons on a nearby console. The cargo bay doors creaked open and the Doctor suddenly felt the air being sucked out. He felt himself being sucked towards the door and to the blackness of space. Paragrim clamped an arm around him and dragged him back. Bitz hung on as bits of rubbish and unfixed objects began to fly through the bay doors and out into space. Then, finally, the blue police box was dragged across the floor and blown out into space.
“No!” shouted the Doctor, as he watched his TARDIS, containing Ben and Polly, disappear into the darkness.
The bay doors closed and Paragrim looked at the struggling Doctor fighting in his grip. “Good job we fixed those stasis tubes down, eh? Otherwise we’d have sucked your first body out into space too.”
Bitz laughed from the console as Paragrim dropped the Doctor. “We gonna get the third one or what?”
“Patience, Bitz,” said Paragrim.
The Doctor began to scramble across the floor, but it was too late. Paragrim had attached the device and the Doctor felt himself drift into a drowsy sleep. He had failed himself, his previous incarnation, Ben, Polly....he was doomed for sure. The last thing he was aware of was Bitz and Paragrim chuckling away to themselves.
Next: The hunt continues when Paragrim and Bitz track down the Third and Fourth Doctors. Coming Thursday 12th September.
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