Meeting the Master

The robots ushered River into a large black room. Before her stood a giant spherical unit, surrounded by a web of pipes and computer screens. In front of that was a desk, where a figure was hunched over. He turned around to face her like an excited child, he wore a pair of spectacles, and a crumpled, velvet suit. “So, I take it you’re the Master?” “Why yes, and you’re miss River Song of course.” The Master replied in an affable and giddy manner. “Before you say anything else, I have to ask, do you happen to be a Timelord who has a major grudge/crush on the Doctor?” The Master looked puzzled and taken aback by that remark, “errrr, no? No, not really.” River relaxed a little, “ah that’s good. You can carry on now.”

“Well I’m glad to alleviate you of your concerns. I must say it’s splendid to talk with someone non-fictional again, I remember how I first ended up in this place, back in the summer of 1926...” The Master then began waffling on about his backstory and excitedly showing off an issue of Jack Harkaway that he apparently wrote but River wasn’t paying much attention, she was more interested in the screens behind the Master. She saw the Doctor and Zoe getting into a fistfight with the Karkus just outside the castle, and there was some kind of security alert showing that an intruder had broken into the castle from the same room that River had just been in. History was drawing ever closer.

“I’m sorry,” River interrupted, “I don’t want to seem rude but could we get to the point a little quicker? You see I can’t be here when the Doctor and his friends arrive, if we meet it could be disastrous.” “Oh,” The Master looked a little crestfallen. “Well, when you all turned up here in the land of fiction, the Master brain,” The Master beckoned toward the spherical unit behind him, “Believed it would finally have a pair of replacement minds. I’m an old man you see and can hardly keep up with this land anymore. But both you and the Doctor have the suitable mental faculties and imaginations to become my successors.” Oh no, River didn’t like where this was going. “However, the more I’ve seen of you, the more I think that your sensibilities and sense of humour would be too... inappropriate for writing all these stories. So we’re settling for just the Doctor instead.”

River wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or insulted. Still, thank god for British, 20’s prudishness. “So I’m free to go then?” “Not really, you see I believe you upset one of my citizens here, and who am I to stand in the way of justice.” Before River could inquire what he was on about, she felt her legs begin to move by themselves. No wait, it wasn’t her limbs moving, it was her pants and boots! “What? How are you doing this?!” “I’m not doing anything Miss Song, but I do know one thing, that outfit you’re wearing is completely fictional, so it is at the mercy of a good story.”

River tried to reach down and pull her shoes off but found that her breast plate and sleeves had stiffened up and were now restricting her arm and torso movements. She was powerless to prevent herself from walking up to a conveyor belt that had only just appeared in the room, and her shoes remained firmly stuck to the ground beneath her as the conveyor belt wirred to life and began to move.