Ties Between Freedom and Love

✦18✦

Chapter Eighteen
Caged For Experiments

*---*---*---*---*---**---*---*---

That's how the Doctor found himself chained up like he was on a sacrificial cross in his very own cage.

"Now smile!" Van Statten grinned.

The Doctor grimaced, his teeth biting down into his bottom lip as a red laser-scanned his body starting from the top downward.

"Two hearts. A binary vascular system," Van Statten said in complete fascination. "Oh! I am so going to patent this," he clapped his hands.

"So that's your secret," the Doctor guessed. "You don't just collect this stuff, you scavenge it."

"This technology has been falling to Earth for centuries. All it took was the right mind to use it properly," Van Statten told him. "Oh, the advances I've made from alien junk! You have no idea, Doctor. Broadband? Roswell. Just last year, my scientists cultivated bacteria from the Russian crater. And do you know what we found? The cure for the common cold," he answered his own question. "Kept it strictly within the laboratory, of course. No need to get people excited. Why sell one cure when I can sell a thousand palliatives?"

The Doctor stared at him in anger, "Do you know what a Dalek is, Van Statten? A Dalek is honest. It does what it was born to do for the survival of its species. That creature in your dungeon is better than you," he bit out.

"In that case," Van Statten said. "I will be true to myself and continue."

"Listen to me!" the Doctor yelled as Van Statten started to walk away. "That thing downstairs is going to kill every last one of us!"

"Nothing can escape the cage," he assured before flipping the switch on the laser. The red light filled the room and the Doctor growled in pain.

"It's woken up. It knows I'm here. It's going to get out," he panted out. "Van Statten, I swear, no one on this base is safe. No one on this planet!"

Another laser was shot at him and he screamed.

*---*---*---*---*---*

Emma followed Adam, Rose right beside her. She rolled up the sleeves of her jacket and tied her hair in a quick ponytail as they approached the cage, one of the guards jumping up to stop them.

"Hold it!"

"Level three access," Adam held his ID up. "Special clearance from Mr. Van Statten," the guards nodded in approval and he kept walking, the girls right behind him. "Don't get too close," Adam warned.

Emma cautiously walked up to it, tilting her head slightly. "Hello," she told it softly. "Are you in pain? My name's Emma Winchester. I've got a friend who can help. He's called the Doctor. What's your name?"

"Yes," it replied.

"What?" she asked, confused. Rose came up behind her, slow and soft steps.

Its eye followed Emma as she looked it up and down. "I am in pain. They torture me, but still, they fear me," its robotic voice came out sounding broken and sad. "Do you fear me?"

Emma's gaze softened, "No."

"I am dying."

"No, we can help," Emma reassured it.

"I welcome death," it said as Rose stepped closer. "But I am glad that before I die I have met a human, who was not afraid."

"Isn't there anything I can do?" Emma asked, feeling completely helpless.