Chapter Five: “Phase One”

            Lauren’s head was the first thing that throbbed, waking out of unconsciousness.

            Someone had clocked her good; the bump was still there at the back of her head, right underneath all her golden locks.

            Last she remembered, she was on Gallifrey with Neas and Jane.

            While she waited for the former to finish his talk with the General, someone swooped in and attacked her.

            After that…total blackness.

            Now, she was lying in some type of cavernous prison.

            She heard water running close by, presumably a stream flowing out of the wall.

            Sitting up, she realized the mistake in her presumption as soon as she saw what appeared to be a young humanoid deer in an oversized beige sweater squatting to one corner of the cavern. She was a rather adorable looking thing to Lauren. Her dark brown hair was short and bouncy with antlers sticking out of it. Her face was freckled and had features crossed between human and deer; at the moment, it contorted in reflection of her moment of relief.

            Lauren saw that the young humanoid deer was relieving herself in a wooden bucket – the only source of a reasonable lavatory offered to them.

            Clearing her throat, she caught the young humanoid deer’s attention.

            The streaming ceased once Lauren’s cellmate cumbersomely looked her way. “It’s not what you think,” she said, clearly embarrassed. “T-There’s a waterfall near here, that’s all.”

            Lauren held back a giggle over the young alien’s poor attempt at covering herself.

            Dripping noises resonated from the bucket.

            “Since when do waterfalls run out of water to fall?” Lauren teased.

            The humanoid deer moaned, knowing the jig was up. “They need samples every few hours or so.”

            Lauren frowned with question. “They? Who’re they?”

            “The people who run the experiments.”

            “What kind of experiments?”

            “The kind that a Barasinghan is needed for.”

            “Barasinghan? From the planet Cervidae?”

            “That’s the one they took me from.”

            “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

            “Fawn.”

            “That’s a very lovely name. I’m Lauren, Fawn. Can you perhaps tell me where it is that we are right now?”

            “I don’t know. But there are a lot of women here.”

            Lauren noticed that when she woke up. There was one statuesque woman in distinct, revealing armor, maintaining guard over their prison cell.

            “Excuse me,” Lauren addressed her. “Would you please tell us where we are?”

            The guard said not a word; however, Lauren did receive an answer.

            “A special island that will serve as our own Doctor Moreau.”

            Beyond the tall guard’s wide, muscular frame spoke another woman who emerged into Lauren’s view. She wore a brown cloak and a gown to match. Pulling back the hood, she revealed an elegant face Lauren had not seen since she and the many regenerations of Neas were kept prisoner on a Dalek ship.

            “LeMarier,” she identified the first regeneration of her other child, Christopher.

            “Hello, Dad,” LeMarier sneered.

            “I don’t understand,” Lauren stated.

            “No, you never did,” LeMarier retorted. “But you will soon.”

            “Christopher, if this is all about me giving you away when you were just a baby, I am truthfully sorry,” Lauren confessed. “There are many things I wish I could take back when I was that old, foolish man. Many things I’ve done when I was scared and helpless.”

            “We are way past apologies,” LeMarier denied. “I’m gonna make you and Neas suffer dearly.”

            “You leave Neas alone,” Lauren demanded.

            “Oh, I will,” LeMarier acknowledged. “I won’t harm one of her lives. Can you guess which one that is?”

            There was one incarnation of Neas Lauren knew LeMarier favored the most.

            Distressed, Lauren pleaded to her, “Please reconsider whatever mad plan you have. It’s not worth destroying the only family you have.”

            “It’s not my plan,” LeMarier said. “It’s my father’s – my true father.”

            “The Master,” Lauren keenly recognized.

            “She goes by ‘Missy’ these days,” LeMarier divulged. “He had his own little ‘gender swap’ recently.”

            “Christopher, listen to me,” Lauren beseeched. “The Master might’ve raised you, but he has never loved you. I’ve known him well and whatever this plan is of his – or hers – it will only lead to death.”

            “I’m counting on it,” LeMarier professed. “And I hope it’ll be your death.”

            Hurt by her words, Lauren was rendered speechless.

            Seeing that she won the argument, LeMarier turned to the guard and ordered her to open the prison cell. As she strode in, Fawn shot up from her squatted position and cowered to another corner.

            LeMarier pleasingly looked down into the bucket.

            “You’ve done it again, Barasinghan,” she told Fawn. “There’s enough here for a dozen more formulas to be made.” She then called out from the cell, “Oh, girl!”

            Immediately, a woman carrying another wooden bucket rushed in.

            Lauren saw how exquisite she was, standing as tall as six feet with an olive complexion, brown eyes, long and naturally flowing dark brown hair, and an athletic physique. She was donned in warrior garb, which – in addition to her impressive build – seemed like an insult to the job she was assigned in retrieving a bucket of Barasinghan urine.

            “Good girl, Diana,” LeMarier treated her like a dog. “Take it to the lab inside my T.A.R.D.I.S.”

            “Yes, my queen,” Diana obliged, speaking with a foreign accent.

            Shortly after she left the cell, another party entered the cell – a slender teenage boy with sleek white-blond hair, cold grey eyes, a pale complexion and rather sharp, pointed features. He wore a tattered school uniform that bore the crest of a snake.

            Lauren knew of this youth. “You’re the boy from the wizard school. ‘Draco Malfoy’ is your name, isn’t it?”

            “You know nothing about me,” Draco barked to her. “And do not speak of Hogwarts! That place is dead!”

            “Don’t listen to a word she says, Draco,” LeMarier instructed. “All you need to do is place that paralyzing spell on her.”

            Draco did as she commanded, taking out his wand and immobilizing Lauren.

            While she was maintained in this state, LeMarier walked right up to her, brandishing a syringe filled with glowing gold liquid. Lauren’s eyes – the one part of herself she could barely move – widened in horror, recognizing the liquid that was injected into her blood stream.

            “That’s right, Dad,” LeMarier smirked at her reaction. “The Regen-8 formula. Rassilon’s own cocktail remedy for controlled regeneration.”

            Malfoy released the spell over Lauren.

            She collapsed to the floor, watching the formula take effect on her body, her veins glowing as if she were regenerating.

            It left her in a state of panic.

            “What’ve you done to me?!” She cried. “Don’t you know the dangers this formula can cause to the body of a Time Lord?!”

            “I do,” LeMarier coldly said. “I wouldn’t want our actual subject to be harmed in any way, as Missy and I work on perfecting it.”

            Lauren’s panic intensified. “You’re using me as a guinea pig!”

            “You’re in the process of ‘Phase One’ as we speak: a simulated regeneration – not the actual thing, but close enough,” LeMarier explained. “Then there’s ‘Phase Two’: molecular instability – from there, anything can happen. And, last but not least, there’s ‘Phase Three’, which I admit that I know nothing about. We haven’t gotten that far yet, but the desired result we’re looking for is total control of regeneration itself.”

            LeMarier and Malfoy departed from the cell.

            Lauren was left writhing on the floor in agony, her body lighting up in golden regenerative energy.

            Fawn was forced to watch on helplessly, not having any clue what was happening.