After 16-hour Gallifreyan International Policies Committee meeting, Braxiatel felt that he definitely needed a break. At least a couple of hours. Maybe some nice wine, interesting book, his favourite comfy chair. That is all he was asking for. Just for a couple of hours. Although, once Braxiatel entered his relaxation room inside his TARDIS he felt that something was not right. Well, at first glance, everything looked as usual: peaceful and calm. And relaxing. But, after a closer inspection Braxiatel found the reason of his disturbance: blinking red light from the console. Here we go. No rest for the wicked.

He reluctantly came to the console and checked the cause of the alarm. Apparently, he received three incredibly urgent messages a couple of hours ago. Once he had noticed that these messages were from the CIA, his first instinct was to immediately cut off all the communications and take off as far as possible. He knew that lot! Once they need something they will find you even if you are hiding inside a crystal. And he promised Romana that he would behave. So, it would probably be better not to use tactics that his brother was so fond of, save everybody’s time and find out what they wanted.

While Braxiatel was reading the messages, his expression changed from amazed to angry to very angry and finally to extreme concentration. People who knew him closely, knew that it was the most dangerous Braxiatel. Sort of Braxiatel who is either ready to blow up half of the Universe or sacrifice himself for the greater good depending on the situation. So, if to omit all the unnecessary details from these messages, CIA told him that they had sent a bunch of Very Important Papers regarding You-Know-What addressed to You-Know-Who and as it usually happens with CIA and especially important missions, something went wrong. Now Braxiatel’s task was to make everyone happy and along the way make sure that nobody gets hold of the ambassador, the messages, the TARDIS and all that jazz. You know the drill.

Braxiatel figured out that he was in trouble, as soon as he found out what sort of papers were on that time ship. The sort of papers that he would rather no one ever see. How on Gallifrey, did they even get those documents? And then he figured out that he was even in a deeper trouble, as soon as he has checked the coordinates. Damned Earth! This planet is like a massive magnet for all imaginable issues, problems, catastrophes, disasters and bad luck. At least now he had an idea what he was dealing with. He was dealing with the worst possible outcome. Although, the moment Irving arrived and checked outside view he had to admit that the surroundings were pretty impressive, especially that old monastery. Come to think of it, one of his buildings in the Collection was constructed in the same style. Braxiatel verified that his communicator displayed the location of the Ambassador's time ship, closed the door to his TARDIS and sent it one minute in the future. That was just the way he used to park his TARDIS under hostile environment. 

He located other TARDIS quite fast. Along the way he noticed some bloodstains as well. Nonetheless Braxiatel decided to deal with it later, since he had caught sight of movement near the entrance to the TARDIS. No wonder somebody attempted to get there, door was wide open. Before going in Braxiatel made sure that nobody else was around. Thankfully no bystanders so far and there was a chance to resolve this conflict quickly and quietly. He entered the TARDIS and immediately understood that this was going be very long and tiresome day. He quickly examined the man, who bent over something near the console. Master looked a bit disheveled, half-dressed and agitated. Just the way he is supposed to look while planning his ridiculous deeds. And he definitely had already noticed Braxiatel’s presence.

- Master. If you are lost I would gladly accompany you to the nearest lunatic asylum. Or wherever you usually waste your time these days.

Отредактировано Irving Braxiatel (2018-06-18 14:21:35)

Braxiatel did not feel much intimidated by this ridiculous threat, mainly amused. What kind of an idiot carries a weapon in his trousers' pocket? - How predictable, Master. I did not expect less. I only hope it is not some sort of gun, is it? I really wouldn’t recommend you try firing a weapon here. And it is not only because I appreciate your fancy trousers, I really do, I quite understand that sometimes it is pretty difficult to find good ones. But you may accidentally destroy the rest of what left of this TARDIS. - "And those precious documents you are standing next to."

Thanks to the Doctor, who was spending too much time on Gallifrey now and then, new defending mechanism was implemented for all TARDISes. Basically, it was a kind of dumpening field, which was supposed to kick-start once TARDIS emergency system was activated. This field rendered useless most of the weapons. Other weapons began to behave unexpectedly. It was actually weird that the Master didn't know about it, since this system existed for some time already. When was the last time Master visited Gallifrey? 

- Oh, yes – I almost forgot. Before we continue our fascinating conversation, I should make a call. I hope you don't mind if I contact our friends from the CIA and kindly ask them not to join our merry company? Please excuse me. - Braxiatel assumed that there was nothing he can't deal with here by himself, so it would be easier to just call off CIA agents and take those papers right now without involving other Gallifreyans. Information that was contained there was no use to anyone around here, however, it was precious to him. - Joseph, could you please send a message to the CIA and tell them that their services are not required here at the moment and the situation is under control. Thank you. - But there was one more problem that he needed to address.

- I presume it would be less hurtful for you to just surrender the strongbox to me. Probably you don't know, but these days most of them are password protected. And entering wrong sequence, might lead to unpredictable results. - The part about "unpredictable results" was a lie of course, but passwords were very much true. Well yes, it was his great innovation. He spent hundreds of years trying to convince strongbox developers to implement passwords. Yes, Time Lords were careless enough not to bother even with simple passwords, let alone such mindblowing dark magic as encryption! Although now this great innovation of his might backfire, since he didn't know the password either. So, the question was:

- Master, what have you done with the ambassador?

Отредактировано Irving Braxiatel (2018-06-22 13:19:23)

Upon hearing the part of Master’s speech about devouring – all Braxiatel could think of was - “What is wrong with this guy? Has he read too much Stephen King’s books lately or did he attend drama lessons by Vincent Price?” For complete dramatic effect this scene only needed some somber soundtrack and a bit of manic laughter. Although once he saw that the strongbox was empty, all of his snide remarks flew off his mind. From the plus side, now he didn’t have to decipher the password for the strongbox. From all the other sides – the idiot Ambassador decided for whatever insane reason that the papers were going to be safer with him, almost provoking everybody to take their chances with these papers!

This was the moment when he realized that something was out of place here, apart from the Master’s deranged remarks. He started to examine his surroundings more closely in order to unravel what had got his attention. Probably, that was this gray gas-like substance inside the central column. This ‘smoke’ wasn’t unusual in itself, but the way it behaved… He had the feeling that it wasn’t the first time in the last couple of minutes this smoke was spreading all over the column in the same pattern. Next thing he had noticed was that one of the screens abruptly repaired itself and then started to flicker slowly and small cracks that were spreading from its center started to appear on it again. Some really disturbing idea began to form in his mind. 

It was early to tell yet, but it looked like somebody had put one nasty virus in this TARDIS. There was time when he saw similar effects, hundreds of years ago, when he was teaching at the Academy. Some students afflicted with excessive hubris and mediocre intellect decided to test their far from completed project in the Academy Lab without supervision. They ended up with fast-spreading handmade time loop, which was quickly absorbing the classroom with every subsequent iteration. Students were so busy with blamestorming and useless attempts of dead chicken waving that didn’t notice that they themselves became a part of the time loop. It took some time and effort to overcome the disastrous effects and return everything to the initial state. 

Luckily, he still had time to abandon the ship and confine the time loop inside the TARDIS. Braxiatel played with the idea of leaving the Master inside, so that he could endlessly enjoy his own jokes like a hamster on a wheel. And against his better judgment he said:

- Master, before something else devoured you, I would recommend to leave this TARDIS. - And following his own advice he went for the exit.