The Three Masters

The Three Masters

by Danny Nicol

Rat tat tat tat!

Rat tat tat tat!

Rat tat tat tat!

Rat tat tat tat!

The heartbeat of a Time Lord… the Untempered Schism… the trauma of Gallifrey…the abuse of childhood, the torment of the Academy….the unceasing, constant rage, burning within…

Rat tat tat tat!

“Oi, Master, get out the bath!” intoned the Yorkshire accent of the personage knocking fiercely on the bathroom door.   “When I said you could come and stay in my TARDIS till you were less damaged, I didn’t mean you could hog the bathroom to the exclusion of Yaz and me.”

“Oh crack a smile, Doctor,” chided the Master, “Not often gender stereotypes get reversed in this TARDIS.  Anyway I’ve got to make the most of my good looks.”

“You’ve five minutes.  Any longer and I dump you on the next available planet!”

He chuckled at the idle threat and relaxed back in the bath.   Steam rose.  Suds foamed on his golden-brown limbs.  He lay back and he thought. 

He daydreamed.  How could he outdo himself?  How could he exceed in evil?  How could he push wickedness to its outer limits - limits never before traversed?

He thought back to his previous selves.  Missy – that connoisseur of callousness!  Recruiting corpses as Cybermen.  Had Missy wavered at the end?  No matter: she would have returned to the fold.

Harold Saxon – that epicure of evil!  Turning humans into Toclafane, Earth into a battleship. What an artiste of the abominable.

Perhaps if they could join forces, perhaps if they could unite to undertake something utterly immoral…

At length the Master got out of the bath, dried himself and wandered, towel round his waist, to his bedroom.  Romana’s old room.  The room had been jettisoned at some stage but the Doctor had the TARDIS reproduce it from archives.  This Romana character, some Time Lord apparently, had left the room in a shocking state, a sleazy schoolgirl uniform strewn on the bed.  Honestly, the Doctor had no idea of her duty of care to shield the Master from moral turpitude!

Thankfully the Master had brought with him a wardrobe of his own.  Sleek, dark and attractive.  Bit like him really. It emitted a low metallic hum…  He opened the wardrobe door and went in. 

Vwoorp, vwoooorp!

* * *

Miss Millicent Harbinger (tight bun, tweeds, sensible shoes) rang the doorbell with entitlement.  She was after all one of the toughest cookies in Britain’s Care Quality Commission.  How the care homes would quake at her steely gaze!  How the hospital wards would shake in their boots as she scribbled!  Everyone would shudder at the prospect of her brutal reports and with good cause.

Missy opened the door.

“Yaaaars?” she drawled tartly.

“Millicent Harbinger, CQC,” pronounced the Inspector pressing her ID card forward.

“Not psychic paper again?” quizzed Missy, “I do get awfully bad tempered when the Inspectorate turns out not to be human.”

Millicent sighed.  Hitherto she had disbelieved colleagues’ gossip about 3W being eccentric.  She had reserved her ire instead for CQC’s decision to add Homes for the Dead to their overstretched bailiwick.

Missy ushered Miss Harbinger into the building, singing the name of her colleague with loud operative aplomb: “Doctor Chang!”

A young man swiftly arrived, bespectacled, tall and handsome.

“Ah our government inspection,” he said, “Please do come this way.”

He led Miss Harbinger into his office, Missy following.  As he entered, something puzzled him: his array of filing cabinets looked wrong.  The simple symmetry was awry.  Surely there was one extra...   That particularly tall one painted blue.  It hadn’t been there a minute ago…

“May I see the care plans?” asked Miss Harbinger.

“Wha…?” murmured Dr Chang.

“The CQC insists that every corpse has a care plan as a mandate to staff.”

“Oh of course,” said Missy’s sidekick nervously, “I’ll just get them from the filing cabinet.”

Why was he heading towards that new cabinet, he asked himself. They could hardly be in there. 

Like an automaton Dr Chang reached out to the blue drawer of the blue box…

As he pulled the drawer, the whole side of the filing cabinet slid open.  A stunning British-Indian man dressed in bizarre purple get-up bounced out.  His entrance was accompanied by a cloud of purple smoke.

“Ta-dahhh!” cried the Master.

“I had no idea it was pantomime season already,” said Missy.

“Most irregular,” protested Miss Harbinger, “Are you staff?”

“Hmmm,” considered the Master, “Suppose you could always say I’m customer recruitment.”

Grinning, the Master pointed his device at her.  Miss Harbinger screamed as she shrank into a tiny, lifeless figurine. 

“She’ll have to write a condensed report now,” said Missy.

* * *

Queen Elizabeth II sighed as she contemplated the resplendent tea tray.  Prime Ministers came and Prime Ministers went, and now the country had a new one: Harold Saxon.

Outside in the lobby Sir Angus Trumpington, flunky-in-chief or in formal terms Keeper of the Silver Stick, was briefing Harold Saxon on etiquette.

“I need to give you a little guidance on how to conduct yourself in the Presence,” said Sir Angus.

“The Presence!  Who does she think she is?  Rassilon? The Emperor Dalek?” said the Saxon Master, intolerant of pomp when it did not attach to him.

“You call the sovereign ‘Your Majesty’ on the first occasion, Mr Saxon.  Thereafter ‘ma’am’ as in jam not ‘ma’am’ as in harm.”

“That’s a pity, I prefer harm.  And what’s with ‘Mr Saxon’? Don’t I get called ‘Prime Minister’ these days?” said the Saxon Master indignantly.

“She hasn’t appointed you Prime Minister, sir.  Not yet.” observed Sir Angus.

The flummery fitted ill with the Saxon Master’s easy populism, but under the British constitution these things must be endured.   Sir Angus opened the door to the inner sanctum and the Saxon Master entered with such solemnity as he could muster, leaving Sir Angus on his own.

As he closed the door a strange noise filled the lobby. Sir Angus looked anxiously around.

Vwoorp!  Vwoorp!

He felt sure that that Louis XIV cabinet had not been there before.  Inserting his monocle he approached to have an admire.  It really was rather spiffing.   Just look at that detail! 

To his consternation the door of the cabinet flew open and a characterful woman emerged dressed as Mary Poppins in mourning.  She was followed by a handsome Asian man who bounced out sporting a bizarre get-up of loud checks.   How on Earth did they manage to fit inside?

The Asian fellow pointed a strange device at Sir Angus, but the woman immediately advanced her wrapped umbrella, catching his wrist with the handle.

“Excuse me,” she exclaimed with indignation, “My turn!”

The Master frowned.

Missy opened her handbag and took a device of her own out of it.

“Now I have a teensy little traditionnette,” she trilled in her Scottish accent, “I only kill someone if they say something nice.  I wonder,” she continued in a faux simper, “Could you indulge me?”

Sir Angus however had his wits about him.

“I absolutely refuse to say anything at all!”

The Master approached him menacingly.  His dark, heavily-lashed eyes widened into a stare.

“Do you know me?  I am usually known as the Master.  I am the Master and you will obey.  You will obey me.  You will say something nice to the lady.”

Mesmerised, Sir Angus looked nervously from the one to the other. 

“Well, I admire the beauty of your cabinet and I think your outfit’s decidedly smart.”

Missy beamed with pleasure and fired the ray gun at him. Sir Angus promptly vanished leaving a pile of dust.  Missy turned to the Master.

“Oh I do so like a man who can do classic,” she purred.  The Master grinned.

At that moment the door to the inner sanctum opened and the new Prime Minister emerged.  The Queen knew the drill: the ceremony to appoint Harold Saxon had only taken seconds. 

“Who the hell are you?” asked the Saxon Master, having expected Sir Angus’ dour visage.

“We’re your successors,” said Missy.

“Successors?  The old biddy’s only just appointed me!” said the Saxon Master waving a thumb back at the Queen’s lair.

“We mean your future selves,” said the Master.

You two?  A dandy and a vamp?” said the Saxon Master.

“That’s a bit hard.  Observe Missy here, you next self.  You should have seen her kill that man just now.  Such poise, such aplomb!”

“No need to ingratiate quite so much, dear,” quipped Missy, “I’m not the Rani.”

“My next self?” said the Saxon Master with his disgusted face, “Is the future girl?”  The Saxon Master was excessively fond of women, even human women at a pinch, so long as they stayed in 10 Downing Street looking gorgeous like Lucy or Tish.  To elevate a woman to the role of himself however was quite beyond the pale.

“Don’t worry, I become the Master after that.”

“Ah so the future’s boy after all!” said the Saxon Master with relief and gave the Master a tight hug.   The Saxon Master was not known for his tenderness towards same-sex entanglements, but narcissism was a different matter entirely.

“Hey boys, get a room,” said Missy, her back to them as she adjusted her lipstick in a hand-mirror.  The pair looked abashed at her exclusion.

“Group hug!  Group hug!” proposed the Master.

Now, the notion of the Three Masters engaging in a group hug may seem a bit puke-making, but one may wager whether the Doctors would get along with each other so famously if there were ever a serial called “The Three Doctors”! 

“But why have you brought us together?” asked Missy when the hugging stopped.

“I propose a conference of evil,” said the Master with verve, “an atrocity to cap all atrocities.  Let’s brainstorm it.”

“Well, that’s a splendid idea but we can hardly do it here”, said Missy.

“She’s right, might be bugged,” said the Saxon Master, channelling the paranoia of a different Harold.

“Then my TARDIS,” suggested the Master.  “But should I do something about the old lady first?”

“Don’t you dare!” said the Saxon Master.  He had already dreamt up a scheme for killing off the Cabinet with poison gas and could ill afford the added opprobrium of polishing off the Head of State as well.

Tissue Compression Eliminator in hand, the Master peeped through the crack in the door.  He felt the Saxon Master’s arm snake around his waist, ready to yank him away.  The Master beheld the Queen’s tiny stature as she sat, imbibing her cup of tea.  Petite monarch!  Pint-sized regal one!

“Oh dear, looks like someone’s got there already,” said the Master, putting his hand to his mouth in a rather camp fashion.

Giving up on the Queen, the Master led his former selves into the TARDIS.

“Look boys, it’s obvious,” drawled Missy, “All we need to do is rip a hole in the fabric of time.”

“Done that!” said the Master, before putting his hand over his mouth again.  After all, that hadn’t happened yet, not to the other two, so talking about it was a bit show-offy.

* * * 

Vwoorp!  Vwoooorp!  The Master’s TARDIS entered the time vortex as the three evil-doers engaged in some serious scheming.  How carefully the three Masters considered every option to advance their malign cause.  How they hummed, how they hawed!   The victims of wickedness rarely appreciate the pains to which their tormentors go to arrive at their nefarious projects.

The Master occupied a throne-like armchair whilst his two former selves relaxed on chaise longs of purple velvet.  To celebrate the retrieval of his TARDIS the Master had redecorated, replacing the Australian outback look with a louche boudoir feel.  The Master was explaining a plan of his own:

“Not a love potion but a reality potion, sprayed across the cosmos,” he explained eagerly, “A potion which compels all beings in the universe to see us as we really are, and therefore fall in love with us, their three amazing rulers!  And it would be bound to get the attention of you-know-who.”

“And that’s the name of the game, hun,” said Missy.

The Master responded with a maniacal cackle.  He proposed that the three Masters add detail to the plan, but the Saxon Master and Missy demanded refreshment first.  Hospitality was not the Master’s strong suit and the larder was bare but he had a brainwave.

“If I’ve one fault it’s that I’m a bit of a hoarder,” he said, “And I seem to remember I have some home-brewed elderflower gin back from when I was a vicar.”

“Aaahh!” said the Saxon Master and Missy with nostalgia for that ecclesiastical interlude.  Relishing balmy summer evenings in the village, greeting old maiden aunts cycling to Evensong, summoning up Beelzebub…

The Masters quaffed.  The elderflower gin wasn’t too bad but the Saxon Master did wonder whether the Master wasn’t a bit mean not to lay down a more lavish cellar.

Just then the Masters were astonished to hear a familiar sound.

Vwoorp!  Vwoooorp!

To their affront the familiar blue police box materialised before them.   The door swung open and the Doctor and Yaz walked out. 

“I’m turning this into a very short story,” said the Doctor. 

“How did you know where I was?” demanded the Master with indignation.

“Oh don’t be trivial Master.  If you must know, I stuck a homing device on your TARDIS.  Don’t think I swallowed that yarn about needing a wardrobe of your own.”

“Hang on,” said the Saxon Master with his sad face, “I haven’t killed anyone today!”  The two other Masters had each notched up a homicide.  They sensed the burning injustice and felt tender concern.

“There, there!” consoled Missy.

“We feel your pain,” said the Master, “Do be my guest and kill Yaz.”

“Kill me?” said Yaz, “But Master, you’re my housemate.  And who was it said ‘Stick with me Yaz ‘cos I control everything’”?

“Well, add some context,” protested the Master, “I was trying to murder you at the time.”

Unhurriedly the Saxon Master drew a small pistol from his jacket and pointed it towards Yaz.

“No you don’t,” said the Doctor producing a device of her own and swiftly firing it at the Saxon Master, “So long, Harold Saxon.”  A yellow ray illuminated the British Prime Minister and the Saxon Master blew her a kiss as he dematerialised.

“And farewell, Missy.”

Missy too was suddenly bathed in yellow light.  She stuck out her tongue as she too vanished.

“They’ve been returned to their own time and space,” explained the Doctor, “Behold my beautiful Vortex Manipulator Gun.  I stripped it off the wrist of a handsome Time Agent many moons ago and converted it into a weapon.  Think of it as a Fast Return Switch in the form of a firearm.”

The Master looked bitter.  

“An innocent get-together!  Every bit of fun, you destroy!”

“Oh I don’t think they’ll be too sad.  They’re very busy with projects of their own, if memory serves,” 

“You’re coming back to the TARDIS with us,” chipped in Yaz, “And we have an item of personal adornment for you.”   She brandished an ankle bracelet, approached him, crouched down and clamped it to his ankle.

“Very fetching,” said the Doctor, “And it tells Yaz and me exactly where you are all the time.”

“Fetching?  You’re seriously compromising the beauty of my purple-sock-and-loafer combo,” protested the Master.

“Now I’m going to materialise my TARDIS around yours.  And your TARDIS is heading straight for my zero room, minus its dematerialisation circuit and fluid link,” pronounced the Doctor, “No more short trips for you.”

“Oh well, home is where the hearts are,” smiled the Master ebulliently, “Come on Yaz, I’m a real fun guy.  This evening I’ll show you the Shabogan shuffle” he said wiggling his hips and rattling his ankle chain.

“You just tried to have me killed!” said Yaz.

“Meh, don’t dwell on it, Yaz.  Let bygones be bygones!  Move on!” said the Master as the trio entered the TARDIS.

Aren’t I magnificently resilient, thought the Master.  No, on second thoughts, aren’t I just magnificent.

Vwoorp!  Vwooooorp! 

The End.

If you liked The Three Masters why not take a peek at the Susan and Romana Murder Mysteries

Read them on http://susanandromana.blogspot.com/