World Enough & Time

World Enough & Time is a roleplay story within the Mythos Unbound collection written by Grand_Tarkin. Set after his defeat in Of Gods & Aliens, World Enough & Time follows the Time Lord renegade known as "the Master" as he seeks revenge on those who exiled him from time. Set in the late 2990s after the collapse of the Second Federation, World Enough & Time sees the Master face Terra's new superpower - Chisel Enterprises.

The story's title is taken from the first line of a poem by Andrew Marvell, called 'To His Coy Mistress'. The poem advocates for living life to the fullest, because death is always approaching.

World Enough & Time is a re-telling of a legacy roleplay completed alongside chisel_tip before the formalisation of the TCH RP. During the development of the story, chisel_tip served as a consultant and supported with the lore developments.

Part One, subtitled "Diablo", was published on 2 February 2024. It is comprised of ten instalments, concluding with "Terra Firma" on 21 February 2024.

Characters

• Koschei, a Time Lord renegade sometimes referred to as "the Master" who is marooned in the 2990s after being defeated at the Battle of St. Bernard's Town.
• Gaius Selan, a young Chisel Enterprises officer working in the Diablo Mesa facility.
• Dr. Jeremiah Stone, a Chisel Enterprises scientist and researcher working in the Diablo Mesa facility.
• Hanni Habble, a Ferengi trader in the Diablo Mesa.

Instalments

No.	Title	Written by	Published	Synopsis
1	"Diablo"	Grand_Tarkin	2 February 2024	It's the year 2998 and it's the end of the world. The Federation has fallen and Chisel Enterprises rules. Just as the corporatists start to enjoy their newfound status, something different falls out of time and into the lap of the new world superpower.
2	"A Terran Hello"		4 February 2024	Chisel Enterprises has captured the Master. Now, his dissection begins. As Gaius Selan tries to break down the Master's bravado and confidence, his patience runs thin. What secrets is the Master holding and how can Gaius get to them?
3	"The Cage"		6 February 2024	The Master meets Dr. Jeremiah Stone, the inventor of a device called "the Cage". Crucial to winning the war against the Federation, the Cage is capable of inflicting great electromagnetic stresses on whatever, or whomever, is put inside. Now that the war with the Federation is over, the device is being used to further the dissection of the Master. But what will be the consequence?
4	"What's Past is Prologue"		8 February 2024	Under the pressure of the electromagnetic storm, the Master's mind is thrown back to the past as they recount the steps that brought them where they are today. As they dip in and out of unconsciousness, the Master's mental defences are slowly whittled away until they reach breaking point.
5	"Echoes"		11 February 2024	The interrogation continues. But this time, as the tables have turned, the Master reveals more of himself than he had ever intended before. Facing death, caused by the electromagnetic storm, the Master makes his final testimony heard. Meanwhile, forces inside the facility begin to conspire to use the Master for their own ends.
6	"Over the Shoulder"		13 February 2024	Gaius Selan contemplates the morality of further experimentation on the Master. Meanwhile, questions are asked of his loyalty to Chisel Enterprises. When power fails in the facility, both Gaius Selan and Jeremiah Stone are left pondering the consequences of their actions.
7	"Unto the Breach"		15 February 2024	The Master reaches his breaking point. As the plight of the electromagnetic storms catch up with him, he faces the last moments of his life... well, this life. Time for another.
8	"Hanni Habble's Thirteen Trinkets"		17 February 2024	Koschei abandons his title of 'the Master'. Having escaped from the cruel grasp of Chisel Enterprises, Koschei braves the dangers of the radioactive Diablo Mesa... alone. While running from a dust storm, Koschei encounters a Ferengi trader called Hanni Habble. Koschei and Hanni discuss their respective situations, hiding from the corporation that is hunting them.
9	"Lord of the Vials"		19 February 2024	Koschei and Hanni Habble prepare for the long journey to the Doggerlands. But the dust storm has left their vehicle in need of repairs. Splitting up, Koschei must venture to find water for the long journey, meanwhile Hanni remains behind to fix the caravan. As Chisel Enterprises continue their pursuit of Koschei, consequences come crashing down on Koschei and Hanni Habble. Koschei becomes the Lord of the Vials.
10	"Terra Firma"		21 February 2024	Gaius Selan faces questions about his loyalty to Chisel Enterprises... and to humanity. As he fights for his survival, Koschei makes a voyage through a violent tempest. Free from the grasp of Chisel Enterprises, Koschei's fate now lies beyond, in the Doggerlands, with a vendetta against all Terrans.

Part One: "Diablo"

In the dust of the Diablo Mesa, swamped around radioactive sludge and an air of desolation, a facility of true might stood strong. As a beacon of the new world order, it's power could be felt just by being near it. Sharp fences and the churning noise of an odd and alien industry. Yet, it wasn’t alien at all. Every lamppost and hazmat suit was labelled with the same Terran label: ‘Chisel Enterprises’. It was a changing world: it was the time of the Burn and everybody looked out across the crumbled utopian project and wondered… “‘is this the end?’ It was world enough and time.

WORLD ENOUGH & TIME, PART ONE: "DIABLO"

A small screen screeched as it activated. There was a coarse metal around the outside of the static-filled, glass picture, which was buzzing like an unrestrained sea of uncertainty and outdated technology.

The old style television rested among a pile of wires, broken circuits, and other pieces of scrap everything. Anything and everything that could have been useful; all piled up into strange mountains of copper, steel, and worn-out rubber.

In front of the screen, a man scratched his beard, caressing his finger through a patch of white hair beneath his lip.

“Is it on?” The distant voice shocked the man. He jumped in his seat, turning to see a colleague approach. They both wore the same uniform, stamped with a modular ‘CE’ logo.

The man resumed his religious glare on the screen, almost becoming hypnotised by the flashing greys, blacks, and whites. He shook his head.

“I don’t think Jaresh Inyo has ever been on time in his life.”

The man shot his colleague a cheap smile.

“Oh come on, Gaius.” She wrapped her hands around his shoulder-padded uniform. “Nothing that monster will say is gonna make you, or I, feel any better.”

“I know,” Gaius shrugged. He leant back in his chair, which was equally as battered as everything else in the workshop. “I guess I was hoping for some… hope.”

“The Federation hasn’t given anybody hope in what? 700 years? Come on, Gaius, don’t even watch it.”

The suggestion appealed to Gaius Selan, the young officer who crouched before a broken television, neglecting his duties. Yet, it was too late, the screen ditched its static cloak and turned to a poorly-formed image of the Federation President. Gaius was hooked once more.

The coarse voice of Jaresh Inyo, the last President of the Federation, strained its way through the speakers of the television.

“I have a message for all Federation citizens on Sol 3: Terra. The events that have shaken the galaxy in the past week continue to go unexplained. Whether it be of natural or humanoid-made origin, the impacts of this disaster, which many are now calling ‘the Burn’, cannot go understated. Already, 80% of the Federation’s warp lanes are now inoperable. That number is growing and growing fast…”

Gaius’s colleague chuckled to herself, shaking her head. The voice continued, slow and deliberate, like he was emphasising every word.

“... and now the mission for peace has been stunted, perhaps terminally so. Regardless, the fact remains that there exists five million non-Terrans on Earth. As this disaster continues to mount, their only route off-world is becoming less and less viable.”

“Better not leave ‘em here!” The colleague had entered full sulking mode, with crossed arms and a cursed expression.

The President continued, “So now, the Federation Council are left with no alternative but to use the last available warp lanes to ferry Federation citizens home. Starting this evening, starports across Terra will begin launching ships to Vulcan, Andoria, Tellar, and other worlds that have yet to be impacted by ‘the Burn’. There is limited space and so I have ordered a first-come, first-serve policy to be enforced. Not even members of the Federation Council will have priority…”

“Traitors the lot of ‘em!”

“... to help give as many seats on those starships to as many people wanting to go home, I will be remaining here on Terra myself. As Federation President, I must do all I can to help facilitate this planetary evacuation and-”

Suddenly, the screen cut off. Like a rickety zip that ran to its end, the voice cut off. Gaius burned, smacking the top of the television in the hope that the machine might confuse such brute force with effective engineering. No luck was felt. He sighed, rubbing his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” the colleague said. “Chisel will send us a message themselves.”

’What?! More propaganda? Great!’ Gaius’s thoughts were almost heresy and so remained locked in the confines of his brain.

The silence in the workshop served one purpose, however. In and amongst the deepest of the piles of debris, another, slanted and circular screen, continued to operate. It was a radar and, on it, a red dot filled the centre of the screen.

Gaius approached the radar, removing his small and circular glasses. “Weird…”

“A vehicle?”

“I don’t think so, the reading’s too scattered. I think- No… it can’t be…”

“What? What is it?”

“I think it’s a man…” Gaius fiddled with the dials on the radar. Adjusting the modulation, re-scanning the area, checking for false-positives. All of them reached the same conclusion: this reading was real. Gaius nodded a confidently uncertain nod.

“But no human could survive out in the radiation…”

The look of realisation stunned both of the officers. As Gaius resisted, contemplating the implications of an alien approaching a Chisel Enterprises facility during the war, his colleague did not. She jumped, reaching for her walky-talky.

“Code Amber. Code Amber. Alien lifeform approaching at coordinates two-zero-one, mark nine. Prepare an intercept team.”

Gaius stood still as he watched his colleague begin a light jog towards the exit of the workshop. She stopped at the door, turning around. “Come on,” she said. “We’ve not had a new toy here in ages!”

Meanwhile, outside the guarded gates and dotted fences of the Chisel Enterprises facility at Diablo, the serenely radioactive mesa spread across the landscape for miles. Aside from the deadly nuclear radiation, the mesa was as beautiful as any natural sight. Nearby, however, the doors to the facility swung open and a team of soldiers swarmed out.

Wearing oddly-formed hazmat gear, the soldiers approached the point on the radar. As they approached, closer and closer, the dust-filled air became less and less of an obstruction. Through their visors and hazmat helmets they saw a figure, wearing a tuxedo, lying face down in the dust and the rock.

Slowly, one of the soldiers approached the body. Reaching out, he flipped it over, revealing the front of the tuxedo, stained in red and orange soot, and the face of the Master. Tensing his eyes, the soldier inspected his face. Suddenly, as the Master’s eyes snapped open, the soldier jumped, pointing his rifle at the warping face in front of him.

The Master smiled, though the structures of his face couldn’t stay stable for long enough to maintain such an expression. His cheeks melted and his eyes moved - almost as if his face were a soup of features and expressions.

He coughed, “more humans? You've got to be kidding me...”

TO BE CONTINUED...

Part Two: "A Terran Hello"

During the long trek from the dusty mesa, through the armour of the facility, and into the bowels of science and experimentation, the Master’s feet scraped as they were dragged across the ground. The terrains varied: dusty stone, concrete road, metal grated floor. All of them coarse and indiscriminate.

The hazmat-suited soldiers had stripped the Master from his tuxedo by the time they reached the decontamination suites at the entry-points of the facility. There, they left him to hang and dry, like a wet towel, before folding him into an mundane, ill-fitted jumpsuit.

“This?” The Master asked, his eyes physically drooping from their sockets. He continued... “is definitely not my colour.”

WORLD ENOUGH & TIME, PART TWO: "A TERRAN HELLO"

“For the record,” Gaius's eyes flickered. He looked across from him, seeing the light tormenting smirk of a pale, beaten face. “Officer Gaius Selan will be conducting the interview. Supervising Officer is Elaine R. Hanson.”

The Master’s smile crackled, like a piece of thin meat on a hot pan, spitting as it grew larger across his face. His eyes were morphing too, floating around the general vicinity of the proper place for an eye. Like plasma, everything was in flux; nothing was certain.

“Subject, John Doe. Let’s see about changing that, shall we? What is your name?”

“The Master.”

Gaius returned a straight face. He chewed slightly, softly catching his inside cheek. “What's that? Some kind of rank?”

“Yes.”

“A rank of what?”

“Superiority. Absolute and incomprehensible.”

He shoots his supervising officer a small look before returning his gaze to the Master, who had since leaned back into the metal support of his chair. “And in what sense are you superior?”

The Master blinked three times in quick succession. His head didn’t move, aside from the general morphological lava of his face.

“What was that?”

“What was what?” The Master replied quietly and without any alteration in tone or timbre.

“You blinked…”

The Master blinked a fourth time, though none of his eye movements broke the incessant smile that lit up the interrogation room.

“For starters,” the Master said. “I’m less skittish.”

Gaius’s face was unmoved. After all, it was trained to be still - still and steadfast. He was to let no emotion out, to express no sign to the subject that any of his games were working. But, of course, they were. He sniffled slightly, opening a strikingly dull dossier which rested on the table.

“My colleague here, Miss. Hanson, is a behavioural analyst here at Chisel Enterprises. Her job is-”

“Was…”

“Was…?” Gaius’s eyebrows tensed slightly for a small fraction of a second, returning to neutral as soon as his muscles clocked their insubordination.

“She’s resigning. Find’s the whole place a bit dull. Not that I blame her.”

Elaine looked around, confused. Her head slicing quietly - clearly her face had conceded neutrality by this point. “I haven’t even started writing my resignation letter,” she said.

“But you will.”

Gaius placed his hand neatly onto the table. His stern fingers became like a traffic red-light in that moment, churning Elaine to a halt.

“So, you're a mind reader?” Gaius resumed.

The Master’s smile dimmed a little, his hands uncomfortably pressing together in the handcuffs. “Not in any particularly odd sense.”

“Care to expand?”

The Master raised his hands into the air, tugging on the short chain which leashed them to the table. The movement a request, accompanied by the Master’s cheeky smile.

Gaius shrugged. “Luxuries are for those who cooperate.”

Kissing his teeth, the Master returned his hands to his lap. “Mind reading is easy - anybody can do it. Even ordinary humans.”

“And how exactly can we achieve that?”

“Simple. You just have to ask what a person is thinking. True communication. I get the impression that it’s something within your sweaty grasp but you refuse to do it. It’s a shame really: asking somebody what they’re thinking can be quite powerful under the right circumstances.”

“But you haven’t asked her what she’s thinking…?”

“Not yet, I haven’t. But I will.”

Again, Gaius and Elaine share a look. It was brief but that look - the ‘what?’. Not yet arriving at the ‘how?’ or the ‘why?’. A simple, sharp look of dubiety.

“You seem to have an unusual relationship with time.”

The Master shrugged, “you could say that.”

“Can you see the future?”

“I can’t see it,” he raised his eyebrows slightly. The grey slugs shrivelled, both sides mirroring each other’s pulsing rhythm. “I remember it.”

“Remember it?”

“Like it was yesterday. Or, to be more precise, twenty-three years ago.”

“Twenty-three years?”

“That’s right.”

Gaius scratched the end of his short, dark beard, matching his fingertips to the snub of his chin. “And in this delusion, are you a time traveller or a fortune teller?”

“Neither, and both.”

As Gaius’ eyes tightened slightly, scanning his opponent’s relentless twinkle, the Master shrugged.

“Like I said, incomprehensible.”

Gaius shook his head. Soon, he began tapping his finger lightly against the brown paper file. Tap. Tap. Tap. A silent shiver rippled down his spine. Tap. Tap. Tap.

“Knowing the future,” Gaius shook his head again, this time faster and with more confidence. “Not possible.”

“A narrow mind… why am I not surprised?”

“Okay - fine," Gaius conceded. "What am I going to say next?”

Shrugging, the Master placed his elbows on the stainless steel, reaching his cuffed hands half-way across the table. “‘Mr. Master, you are free to go.’” He smiled.

As Gaius went to open his lips to muster a reply, the Master mirrored. Simultaneously, as instantaneously as they drew breath, they both spoke… “Funny,” they both said.

The Master’s grin was now brighter than even the blue LED which washed the room. “You really should have seen that coming.”

Gaius’s tapping stopped, collapsed by the sudden slam of his hand onto the table. Now, his sporadically spread out fingers partially covered the ‘Chisel Enterprises’ logo stamped in red across the top of the dossier.

“You’re an extra-terrestrial. That much we do know. So, where are you from? What planet?”

The Master shrugged again, his smile taunting Gaius’s face which grew in its redness.

“Are you an affiliate of the United Federation of Planets?”

“Who are they?”

Gaius moved his hand, scooping up the file. His head jolted slightly, prompting Elaine to her feet. As he pushed his metal chair back into the table, Gaius bent over slightly and reached for the recorder on the table.

With his hand on the ‘stop recording’ button, Gaius spoke. “Time of interview end. 18:51.”

He switched the device off.

Gaius continued, marching a stare straight into the Master’s red eyes. “Your game’s up.” He turned to Elaine, “Let’s see how many games he plays after a night in ‘the Cage’.”

TO BE CONTINUED...

Part Three: "The Cage"

The years of the war between the United Federation of Planets and Chisel Enterprises were brutal for everybody. Those who fought against the relentless march towards uniformed utopia were faced with one unflinching moral quandary: how far should one go to win the war? When fighting skies full of starships and phasers and transporters and futurism, opposition can feel futile. But, to those who were willing to go further than the Federation ever would, there was a glimmer of hope. Those where the people who built the Cage.

WORLD ENOUGH & TIME, PART THREE: "THE CAGE"

It was a long walk from the interrogation room to the Master’s ‘quarters’ for the night. The corridors were stretched, for what felt like miles, decorated with mechanical wires and pieces of technology unseen elsewhere on Terra… yet the Master was not in awe of them. He simply laughed, his face continuing to melt as if it were plastic placed into a furnace. Of course, his eyes couldn’t help but gloss over the sleek black displays of Terran technological might - they just returned an underwhelming roll.

The two soldiers gripping the Master were androids, their inhuman features solid, stern, and metal. Eventually, upon reaching a strange, out of place cast-iron door, they released their captive and dropped him to the grated floor.

The Master’s face resisted melting through the grated floor and only one side dripped slightly before reforming into a half-shaved cheek. He groaned as he pulled himself up, looking at the door.

“What’s this, boys?”

The droids didn’t reply, they simply pushed him to one side as they entered a passcode into an electronic pad fixed to the wall. The door screamed, painfully scraping against everything as it turned open. As the door moved itself to one side, the sight of a glass cylinder, fixed with stainless metal tubes and invisible black wires, came into the Master’s focus.

“I hope you won’t be offended to know that I won’t be giving this place a five-star review…”

The androids reached down and picked up the Master’s body, and threw him into the room.

It was pitch black in the room and the Master couldn’t see all four walls. The grated metal floor didn’t extend into the room - no this room was far more pristine than the rest of the facility. It had smooth, cold, and clinical tiles. No pattern, no colour. The only light was that which reflected off the glass cylinder which stood in the middle of the room - probably coming from the small slit in the cast-iron door.

“One admirable fact about humanity, sir, is that survival is encoded into our base DNA.” The voice came from the darkness.

The Master lifted himself up off the floor, leaning against the door. “And what makes you think it isn’t encoded into mine?”

The man laughed, which was immediately followed by the click of a small desk-lamp on the far side of the room. It was a dim light and didn’t reveal much, aside from the dark skin of the speaking man. “I was sent a bio-sample when you first arrived here. Do you know what I was able to conclude from it?”

The Master’s eyes narrowed. For whatever reason, deep inside his two-hearted body, he felt that it wasn’t an appropriate moment to play more games.

The man continued. “Nothing,” he said. “Every time I tested it, the cell burst into a strange sort of energy and completely destroyed itself. I could barely even get a glimpse at it before the process began.”

“Strange,” the Master said sarcastically.

The man stood up, approaching the Master. As he walked, the heel of his leather boots clicked against the tiles, continuing until he was right in front of the Master’s dripping bones.

He pulled a small switch and the whole room lit up. Reaching down his hand, he pulled the Master to his feet.

“My name is Dr. Jeremiah Stone. I take it that you are ‘the Master’?”

The Master nodded, trying to use his ageing eyes to learn something - anything - about the man before him. He could see the weathered eyes of a former soldier, guarded behind a pair of pristine round glasses; he could see the scars of war; the shaved head of practicality; and the smile of confidence. The Master knew that smile all too well.

“What species are you, Master? No database… anywhere in the world has any information about your cells - or even anything close to them.”

Jeremiah helped the Master towards his desk across the room, letting him rest in the office-like chair in front of it. Dr. Stone rested against the wood, looking down at the alien before him.

The Master looked up. “You look like the kind of man who, for lack of a better phrase, isn’t allowed out much.”

Dr. Stone chuckled slightly, turning his hands inwards as he folded his arms. “What makes you say that?”

“Over the course of the past three days alone, I’ve interrogated children, fought time-travelling rats, commanded black-smoke Gods, and been questioned by a young man who hides his inexperience behind the wisdom of some oddly-grey hairs.” The Master shrugged, as was becoming customary for him. “I think I’m becoming a good judge of character. I've seen brave children and anxious adults. But you, sir, seem like the one that people try to hide in the basement.”

“Mhm.” Jeremiah reached for a small, brown note-book. He wrote while narrating. “Very observant. So, tell me about this energy. Could you trigger it yourself?”

The Master began to spin on the office chair, smiling as he did. He looked about the room and its plain, unsuspecting walls. “This really isn’t as scary as Mister Gaius made it out to be. Seriously, a scary man in a dark room?”

“Oh, this? This isn’t the Cage. That is the Cage.” Dr. Stone nodded his pointy head in the direction of the glass tube which strangely dominated the middle of the room. “We call it ‘the Cage,’ but its technical name is ‘the electromagnetic storm chamber’. Do you like it? I invented it myself.”

Stone slowly guided the Master towards the device. The glass was spotless, with a metal bar on the casing to act as a door handle.

“We use the geo-thermal generators beneath this facility to induce an electromagnetic storm - neatly contained within that chamber.”

“And what exactly is an ‘electromagnetic storm’?”

“The Federation used electromagnetic storms to create 'sky-trenches'. Impenetrable defences and so, of course, we had to find a way to break through them. I built this chamber. Learned how to build ships that could withstand the rage of the storm. After that, it became a useful little toy.”

The Master inspected the device with unease, but the casing was giving nothing away.

“You see, your cells kept destroying themselves whenever they were inspected or tested on in any way. That pesky energy! But... something strange happened when I placed them inside the Cage. Oh, I know as a scientist I shouldn’t be assuming conclusions before experiments but, I must admit, this time I did. I thought they would simply destroy themselves again, or be destroyed by the storm.”

“Let me guess,” the Master said with coy. “That didn’t happen..?”

Jeremiah laughed, patting the Master on the back. “That energy - the stuff that your cells used to destroy themselves - did the exact opposite. They healed themselves. As far as I could tell, they replicated themselves into a perfectly healthy clone. They even started multiplying, before I incinerated them.”

The Master’s eyes froze.

“And that, my dear Master, was only a few red blood cells. Imagine what might happen if an entire organism was subjected to the electromagnetic storm. Imagine!”

“I don’t have to imagine - I’m not going in there...”

Dr. Stone clicked a small button on his chest, which promoted three androids to immediately enter the room. Two of them grabbed the resisting Master, while the third opened the door to the Cage. Meanwhile, Dr. Stone stood, watching as the Master’s weak body struggled against the metal of the machines.

The door was shut and the Master began to shout.

“Let me out of this! Now! Stone, you have no idea what you’re DEALING WITH!” The Master’s shouts echoed through the chamber, reaching Stone with a muted sort of tone.

“Tell me, Master, what species are you? Where do you come from? Why can your body do such miraculous things?”

The Master continued to bash against the glass but he was making no difference: his body was too weak. Even when he could muster a hit strong enough to do any damage, his form couldn’t hold up against the pressure. His hand would flatten against the glass, before poorly reforming to commit another assault.

“No answer? Eh, I didn’t think so. Well, let’s see whether the Cage will change your mind.” Dr. Stone reached for a small control panel on the glass cylinder, activating a shrieking red light inside. “Enjoy the storm, my dear Master, I will see whatever is left of you in the morning.”

As Jeremiah left the room, he switched off the lights, leaving nothing but the red glare of the Cage and the savage screams of the Master as it began to work.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Part Four: "What's Past is Prologue"

The universe is vast. So vast that somewhere, in the deepest pits and farthest reaches of the cosmos, there are magics beyond the mindless comprehension of the Terran brain. And sometimes, when the winds of space draw cold, those magics can mutate strangely enough to make the sanest men go mad.

The Master - the Time Lord renegade - was not a sane man. And this is why…

WORLD ENOUGH & TIME, PART FOUR: "WHAT'S PAST IS PROLOGUE"

“It’s a myth!” The Master’s charades danced themselves around the wide, speckless classroom. Gallifrey was the heart of time-faring civilisation - so likewise, their Academy touted the most divine facilities in the known universe. “Regeneration is a physical process. Nothing more, nothing less!”

The Master sat. Her short blonde hair was tucked neatly behind her ears, corrected every few minutes by an unnoticeable wave of the hand. She shared a strangely comforting look with another Academy cadet who sat across from her.

“Ka’ahl?” The instructor was tall, inhumanly so. Thin and white, like a leafless birch, nodding his way across the faces of the cadets. His voice, too, felt like something that came from the forest itself. It was natural, it was dominant. “What do you make of Koschei’s hypothesis?”

“Well…” the young boy said, grinning with embarrassment. Had he even been listening? “I think she- well, you know. she is a very rational individual so her hypothesis…”

“Perhaps you should take the due consideration to actually listen to your fellow cadets, Ka’ahl. You are a guest here at this Academy, do not fall into bad habits so early in your tuition.”

The instructor’s disappointed gaze didn’t stay on Ka’ahl for long. Time Lord society didn’t appreciate dwelling, for what it was worth. Quickly, he scanned back to the Master and her smugly satisfied posture.

The instructor continued. “So, Koschei, how do you account for the reports of post-regeneration episodes of consciousness?”

Jumping to her feet, the Master faintly winked at Ka'ahl. He picked up on the sentiment, even if the gesture itself was too vague to catch with the naked eye. It was as if they were the only two cadets in the room. On the contrary, there were almost four dozen Timelings competing for the instructor’s attention.

“You see,” the Master began. “A dying Time Lord is a danger. A danger to everybody, even themselves. The reports of some kind of “beyond” past the point of regeneration must just be a manifestation of that very danger on the Time Lord mind. Each and every cell has burned up so of course the mind is delirious… delirious and dangerous. No wonder it reports nonsense!”

She spun around on the spot, resisting the urge to bow like she had just completed some complicated dancing manoeuvre at the bi-annual Academy Frost Fair. Her whole performance was on full display, even if she was dancing for just a single witness. None of it was for the instructor, or the dozens surrounding her; just for a shy young Time Lord cadet sitting two rows down from her. She smiled again.

“Good.” The instructor hoped to spend as few words as possible. Criticism? That was important. But praise? The appropriate sign-posting of model students was sufficiently conveyed through an emotionless ‘good’. The instructor moved on.

A slow and mundane beep echoed through the auditorium.

“That’s the end of class for today. We will be revisiting the subject of ‘regeneration’ next week. Good day.”

As the class began to stand, the Master tried to navigate through the hoard of shuffling Timelings. Just as the target of her affections came clearer into her view, the class began to warp around itself.

The walls fell off into a dark and endless void. An unearthly tone rang. The desks, the bags, the smiles, the Timelings… even Ka’ahl - they all crashed into the muted tone. Oddly, all of the Master’s senses merged into one - that tune.

And the Master woke up.

His eyes crept open. It has been five hours since Dr. Stone had activated the Cage and he was feeling every second of it. Oh, there were moments of hallucination to be sure. That was to be expected. His entire body was being thrown through an electromagnetic storm, like a tin can being pushed through a meat grinder, and nothing was off the cards.

“Subject conscious. It’s remarkable, Stone. How is he still alive?” A junior scientist muttered, inspecting the Master’s melting corpse.

Stone, who was sitting at his desk writing short-hand, barely looked up. “He’s something different. Now leave him alone. We’re still monitoring his brainwa-”

Despite the persistent tone which laced every sense that the Master consumed, he could still hear the conversation… at least until he fell into his subconscious once again.

As the Master’s eyes opened again, the sound was gone. All that greeted her was the stars of an orange sky, and the majesty of two suns setting over the horizon of a white-tipped mountain.

“I hate this place,” Ka’ahl said. He had taken off his boots and was lying next to the Master. Both his hands rested behind his head and he was humming an orchestral tune to himself.

The Master turned away from the burning sky and towards the oblivious boy resting next to her. “Why’d you say that?”

“Oh, come on, Koschei! You’re alright, your father’s on the High Council. But what do I have, eh? This uniform and a high bar to meet.”

“They just want to help us reach our potential.”

Ka’ahl scoffed. “You’ll sit the High Council one day, Koschei. But me? I just want to leave.”

“Leave Gallifrey? For where?”

“Anywhere. Everywhere! Why just read about the wonders of the rest of the universe? Why not see them?” Ka’ahl reached across, grabbing the Master’s hand. As his hand guided hers, they pointed at the constellations above.

The Master chuckled inwardly, which simply translated into a larger-than-life grin.

Ka’ahl continued, “every star in the universe. I’m going to visit all of them.”

“All of them? Can- can I come too?”

Ka’ahl smile triggered the Master’s smile, and the loop continued. But, just as it had done before, the tune returned. Ka’ahl’s smile vanished, as did those besotted stars.

Again, the Master’s eyes opened. But this time, the room was dark. His vision was growing weaker and he could hardly make out Dr. Stone tinkering with the Cage beneath him.

“... Why-?” The Master struggled to even put words to what he could see. Only the thought of Ka’ahl still lingered in his head.

Stone looked up as the Master, who was barely still maintaining any sort of form at all. He pushed his glasses closer to his face, continuing his work. “You are an exceptional being, Master.”

“Koschei…” the Master spat as he drowned once more in his own thoughts. “My name is Koschei-”

The flood of the mind of a Time Lord was unparalleled in its ability to wash away anything. Strength? Determination? Persistence? Everything crumbled in the hours before regeneration. And, as the tune muted itself once more, the Master’s eyes opened onto the controls of a space fighter.

“Damn,” Ka’ahl’s voice blasted through the comms. “My ship’s engine’s are fried. Koschei, do you read me?”

“I’m here, Ka’ahl.” Her voice was different, violently so. How many years separated the Master’s memories? How many lifetimes?

Across the visor of the Master’s craft, a large explosion bombed her view with a flash of white.

“Ka’ahl?!”

She messed with the controls, far too quickly.

“Ka’ahl, come on! Speak! Ka’ahl!”

On a small monitor in front of her, a red dot started beeping. As she wiped away a stream of tears, she reached for her ship’s star cannons. The scanner was picking up an incoming ship and, as it zapped into view, the Master opened fire.

Her ship’s star cannons roared, pressing bolts of energy out into space and towards the approaching ship. Just as the fire reached the ship, her eyes scanned across the words…

MEDICAL TRANSPORT: GALLIFREY

The Master’s jaw dropped at the sight of the language of her own people... and the symbol of medicine. Rivers of tears now billowing down her cheeks. Out of her helmet, her hair was becoming soaked in her distress.

“Koschei… what have you done?” Ka’ahl’s voice resumed on the comms as his ship swerved into view.

What have you done?

What have you done?

What have you done?

“I’m sorry,” the Master muttered as he regained his sense of self. He lied on the floor, outside of the Cage. His mind burned and his body scorched. He blinked, looking up at the smiling face of Gaius Selan.

“Good Morning, Koschei. Let’s resume our chat, shall we?”

TO BE CONTINUED...

Part Five: "Echoes"

WORLD ENOUGH & TIME, PART FIVE: "ECHOES"

The Master’s body was thrust downwards, into a chair - the very same chair that he had confidently enthroned the previous day. This time, though, his body slouched, his eyes dragged, and his skin was thinner and even more pale. He could barely maintain eye-contact with the smirking officer sitting opposite him.

“No quips? No funny remarks? I’m all ears!”

Gaius flicked through the same brown dossier that he had the day before but it was thicker than the Master remembered it being.

The Master simply sighed slowly.

Gaius looked across to the empty chair next to him. “Officer Hanson resigned this morning,” he said, leaning back slightly.

The Master didn’t respond. He wasn’t surprised, of course. He remembered.

Gaius continued. “So, you really are a time traveller.”

Scoffing slightly, a small drop of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. “Terrans really are stupid, aren’t they?” The Master fell into an eye roll.

The mind of the Master was still on form. Sure, his body was collapsing around itself - his very shell was dissolving. Yet his mind still stood tall, almost as if it were designed to.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Gaius said, shrugging. “After one night in the Cage, we got more out of you than hours of conversation. Didn’t we, Koschei?” Gaius smiled.

“If you think that makes you clever-”

The Master’s whispers were immediately interrupted. “It does make me wonder, Koschei. What kind of ego must you have to call yourself ‘the Master’? Seriously, who does that?”

The Master simply sat. The strength of will that kept his body composed before had long since abdicated. Now, the collection of flesh that comprised the Time Lord named Koschei was melting… and melting fast.

“You can answer me, Koschei, or I can send you back to Dr. Stone. It's your choice.”

The words worked, to the surprise of Gaius Selan. The thought, the very prospect of going back inside the Cage… Was it fear? The strange expression that dawned on the Master’s dying face… could it truly have been dread? Whatever it was, it worked.

The Master leant forward. “I haven’t been called Koschei in a very long time.”

Gaius listened. Yes, his self-inflated streak of self-congratulations still demanded a full frontal expression. But, for this moment, he contained himself. He listened.

The Master continued, “back when I was in the Academy, I had a friend. And we did everything together-”

“The Academy?” Gaius couldn’t help himself.

“The Academy for Time and Space Lords in training, on Gallifrey.”

Gaius started scribbling. He couldn’t believe his luck - ‘Time Lords’? ‘Space Lords’? ‘Gallifrey’? What new world had he found himself breaking into?

“His name…” The Master sighed once more, shaking his head with more than just the urge of pain. “There was a war. A temporal war. A war across all of space and time… for control of the Time Vortex. My friend and I... we were on the front lines.” As another sliver of blood dripped from the Master’s mouth, a tear crashed from his eye, down his deformed cheek, and into his hand.

“I did something terrible. I-” The Master closed his eyes. “Let’s just say… I lost him. Everything I was, everything Koschei was… it was all thanks to him. He taught me how to be me. So, when he left me, I lost everything. I wasn’t Koschei anymore.”

“So you became ‘the Master’?”

The Master shrugged. “The punishment of exile wasn’t nearly as painful as watching the man I loved walk away from me.”

“You were exiled? To Terra?”

“No. Exiled from time: sent to the netherworld. Down there, in the under-universe, I had no choice. I had to change because I had to survive.” The Master's tone gained a breadth of conviction.

“And… what- what did you do? To deserve exile? To have him leave you?”

The Master mustered whatever sort of smile he could; his eyes now totally soaked in a flood of tears. “I destroyed a ship full of wounded soldiers…”

“Why?”

Leaning back in his chair, he wiped his face, spreading the tears across his broken cheek. “If you think I had any choice in being on this backwards planet, in this primitive time, then you are sorely mistaken.”

“But you’re dying...”

“No thanks to you.”

Gaius blinked, looking inwardly. Guilt? No, it couldn’t have been guilt. Surely not?

"You want to experiment on me? To turn me into a weapon in your petty little war? I suggest you start sooner rather than later because you're right: I am dying.”

“Koschei…” Gaius said, his words originating from somewhere other than the mouth of a Chisel Enterprises officer. Maybe, just maybe, it came from a human being.

The Master shook his head, “Koschei died a long time ago. My name is the Master.”

Before Gaius could utter another word, a loud beep on the electronic door sounded. As the door opened, the sulked shadow of Dr. Stone merged into the light of the room. Jeremiah Stone appeared, holding a small clipboard.

“Dr. Stone?”

“Mr. Selan,” Jeremiah said. “How much longer will you be with my subject?”

Gaius rose to his feet, approaching the end of the lightly-decorated, overly grey room. The Master simply dissolved further into the chair - hardly even listening to the conversation going on behind him.

“You can’t put him back in there, Stone.” Gaius spoke in a whisper, albeit in a pitiful attempt to keep the Master from hearing him. “He’s too weak.”

“His cells have a regenerative ability like nothing any human has ever witnessed-”

“He’s dying!”

“I know that, Selan. But if he dies before we can run further tests, he is useless to us. The cure to cancer, the cure to the Sandman Virus. Greyscale. Even the common-fucking-cold. They’ll all be lost.”

Gaius shakes his head, turning around to see the Master’s body morph further and further into the general appearance of a pool of goo.

“I want orders.”

“Selan, if you-”

“You want me to sanction the murder of a sentient being? You better come with more than just eugenics rhetoric. Get orders from the brass. Until then, back off!”

Stone turned his head to one side, his plain face staring simply and frustratedly at Gaius. Slowly, he turned around, leaving the doorway.

As Stone merged back into the deathly confines of the shadowy halls of the Diablo Mesa facility, Gaius turned towards the two android units standing by the door.

“Take the Master to a holding cell.”

While the androids clanged their way into the room and picked up the Master’s increasingly lifeless body, Gaius gazed with a look of guilt: something he was certainly not sanctioned to feel.

“I’ll have some food and water brought to you, Koschei.”

Before Gaius’s words could be absorbed by the Master, whose consciousness was slowly fading away, he too disappeared into the deep and deadly dark.

TO BE CONTINUED...