We Will Rise |2| The Ascension

Chapter Nineteen: The Sound Of Drums

The Doctor ran back to the others and grabbed Jack's wrist, sonicing his vortex manipulator. "Hold still! Don't move!"

"It's broken!" Jack told him. "It hasn't worked for years!"

"That's because you didn't have me. Kez, Martha, Clint, grab hold now!" As soon as everyone had a hold on the vortex manipulator, the Doctor pushed a button, and they all vanished—

—only to reappear and fall into an alleyway in London, hitting the ground hard. McKenzie groaned as she bashed her injured wing.

"Oh my head," Martha moaned.

The Doctor stretched, cracking his knuckles. "Time travel without a capsule. That's a killer."

"Still, at least we made it," Jack pointed out as they turned out of the alley into a busy street. "Earth, twenty first century by the looks of it. Talk about lucky."

"Must be," Clint agreed, pointing across the street. "That Boots only opened October 2012." When the others looked at him weirdly, he shrugged. "What? I notice things, it's my job. Or, at least, it was, until Steve got his hands on it," he joked.

The Doctor rolled his eyes, before noticing McKenzie making a face. "You alright?"

"Mmhmm," she lied.

He raised an eyebrow. "So you're totally not in pain because your right wing took a bullet?"

McKenzie winced. "That's about it, yeah."

"Come here." She let him put his arm around her, being careful not to touch the injured area.

"The moral is," Jack was saying, "if you're going to get stuck at the end of the universe, get stuck with an ex-Time Agent and his vortex manipulator."

Martha was rolling her eyes. "But this Master bloke, he's got the TARDIS. He could be anywhere in time and space."

"No, he's here. Trust me," the Doctor assured her, his arm still around McKenzie protectively.

"Who is he, anyway?" Clint asked. "And that voice right at the end, that wasn't Yana."

"If the Master's a Time Lord, then he must have regenerated," Jack reasoned.

Martha frowned. "What does that mean?"

"It means he's changed his face, voice, body, everything," McKenzie explained. "Totally new man."

"Then how are we going to find him?" Martha wondered.

"I'll know him," the Doctor nodded. "The moment I see him. Time Lords always do."

Clint stopped in his tracks, blanching. "Oh, God."

"What's up?" McKenzie asked as the others stopped too.

"My assignment. The man I was trailing, the one Fury was suspicious of." Clint shook his head. "I knew I recognised the voice. The Master is Harold Saxon."

Martha and Jack both stared as realisation dawned upon them. "The Prime Minister." Martha nodded. "I've seen him, we all have."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes at a TV in a shop front showing the Master walking down some steps with a blonde woman. "That's him. The Master is Prime Minister of Great Britain." He frowned. "The Master and his wife?"

McKenzie swatted at him. "Says you!"

"No, no, no, I just thought he was gay," the Doctor shrugged.

Onscreen, the Master was making a speech. "This country is sick. This country needs healing. This country needs medicine. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that what this country really needs right now..." He looked directly at the camera, as if he knew they were watching. "... is a Doctor."