ROSE TYLER SAXON
Chapter Twenty One (12:40…) The Master was fuming as he walked down the corridor. The guards finally managed to subdue Jack after he knocked almost all of them out. They shot him and when the Master walked up, he was lying dead at four of the guard's feet. "Can't you idiots maintain control while I'm gone?" the Master bellowed at the guards. "I thought you were the best of the best but I see I employed the Marx Brothers and their family and their cousins and all of them are in charge of guarding my prisoners. He sighed angrily and walked up to Jack. "So…what do you do with a man who can't die?" the Master said. He raised his eyebrow when Jack suddenly gasped and woke up. "Like I said, what do you do with a man who can't die?" he said as he leaned down next to Jack. "You won't get anything out of me or the Jones family," he said as the guards lowered their guns and kept them aimed at his body. "We won't betray our friends." "I know that but it'll still be fun torturing the Joneses. And you, my immortal friend, I have an idea. I think you'll be of more use to me being my employee than standing around being chained up." "What does that mean?" Jack said. "It means, sweetie, that you're going to be brainwashed and hypnotized until you become my obedient hunting dog and then you're going to go fetch my wife and the Doctor and bring them back to me." XOXOXOXOXOXOXO (12:13….) Tom lifted up the door of the lorry. "We're here!" Tom called to the Doctor and Rose. "This is the Maidstone Labor Camp." The Doctor and Rose picked up their backpacks and walked to the front of the lorry. They put their backpacks on their back and the Doctor jumped down. He helped Rose jump down and Tom pointed to a large fenced in area in front of them. The fence was chain link with razor wire on top. Beyond that, they could see a bunch of shoddy looking wooden buildings. The ground inside the fence had cut grass and some litter was strewn around the place. The dirt road the lorry was on led up to the fence beside a small wooden guard shack. Tom beckoned to the Doctor and Rose and they followed him up to the shack. Inside was a bored looking guard. He looked like he was in his late teens and he was reading a hip hop magazine. He put the magazine down and nodded at Tom. Tom showed him his ID. "I'm here with Brian and a colleague called the Doctor. Also, Mrs. Saxon has come to make an inspection of the place." The guard jumped to attention upon hearing that and put his magazine down. "Sorry, Mrs. Saxon, a thousand apologies. Didn't know it was you," the man said sheepishly as he saluted. "Quite alright," Rose said, waving her hand dismissively. "Just don't let it happen again. You never know who might try to infiltrate the Prime Minister's work camp." "Yes, Ma'am," the man said while the Doctor held back his laughter. "I will do better in future!" "See that you do," Rose said, pretending to be distracted. "Anyway, can we move on, please? I want to see the camp." "Of course, Ma'am," the guard said. He pushed a button and the fence blocking the dirt road slid back. The Doctor, Rose and Tom turned and went back to the lorry. "Oh, you are good, Mrs. Saxon," the Doctor said softly. "Thank you. I try." She went up to the front and got in the passenger side seat while the Doctor and Tom hopped up and sat on the edge of the lorry. Brian started the engine and slowly backed the lorry inside the camp. They backed up to the first wooden building and Brian shut off the engine. He and Rose got out of the lorry while the Doctor slid off the back. Tom got up and walked over to the pallet on the left. He took a box cutter out of his pocket and cut through the plastic wrapping around the first set of boxes. He grabbed one of the white boxes, walked over to the edge and jumped down. He closed and locked the door and walked over to the others. "Come this way," he said to the Doctor and Rose as he and Brian walked with them to the wooden building. "This is barracks number one. We usually go around to all of them and see if anyone's sick. This is filled with medicine and medical supplies," he added, nodding at the box. "If they're not too ill, we treat them on the spot but if they're ill, we transport them back to the hospital. The mattress in the back is normally used for them so it arouses no suspicion when inspectors see it back there." They climbed three wooden steps to a small wooden porch. Tom walked up to a battered wooden door and knocked on it. It was opened by a middle aged man with a shaved head and a sallow complexion. He was wearing white scrubs that were slightly dirty. He smiled at Tom and Tom put his hand on the man's shoulder. "Nigel, good to see ya, how you feeling today?" he said to him. "Cough still not better," Nigel said, stepping aside to let them inside. "Got anymore cough syrup?" "I'll have to check," Tom said politely. Nigel nodded and shuffled off while they watched. When he was out of earshot, Tom turned to the others. "He doesn't have a cough; he's a cough syrup junkie basically. He wants it so he can forget the horrors here. He's not the only one so I don't keep cough syrup on the lorry. I keep it back at the hospital for the people who really need it. Can't fault them for trying to make themselves drunk. Have the same problem with the psychotropic drugs as well." The barracks were filled with bunk beds from one end of the building to the other. The prisoners were given a small sack for their meager possessions that hung on the end of their bed. Their blankets were thin cotton blankets that Rose doubted could keep anything warm at night. The pillows were old and the pillowcases looked dirty with holes in them. Rose seethed silently as she looked around at the squalid conditions and the condition of the slaves. All of them were malnourished with pale complexions and thin faces. All of them had lifeless looks and dull eyes. "Damn you, Harry," Rose growled softly as she looked at everyone. The Doctor put his hand on her shoulder when he heard that. The slaves were mostly adults although they saw a few preteen children who looked like they were on the verge of death. Tom sat the box on a bottom bunk and everyone gathered around while he opened it. On top were small brown sacks filled with sweets and Tom passed that out to the children, shooing away a couple of greedy adults who tried to take the sacks from them. Then he asked if anyone needed a check-up and he and Brian cared for the ones who stepped forward. While they were doing that, the Doctor and Rose walked around the large room. "This is horrible," Rose said. "Oh God, these poor people." "I thought you saw this before," the Doctor said. "You said you did inspections in the Master's place?" "That was a lie," Rose said. "Harry never trusted me enough to let me come here. Probably because I would've objected. It's one thing to tell me political enemies are after us and need to be eliminated but to try to explain away all this. Even he isn't that stupid." They waited until Tom and Brian had finished with their patients and they walked with them to the next barracks. Each building they went to was much like the rest. Squalid conditions, sickly patients and little hope or laughter. The Doctor tried to amuse the children they saw with a yoyo he pulled from his pocket. Rose loved that he was trying to make the children laugh and tried to keep their spirits up with his toys and his antics. It endeared him to her that much more and she was glad she met him, both in this timeline and the other. There were a few people who recognized her and some of them backed away in fear but most of them seemed not to care, not only about her but about nothing in general. Her heart ached seeing her fellow humans like this and she hoped the Doctor could fix everything and make the world normal again. When they got to the last building Brian led everyone out of the building, telling them the supplies were on the lorry. The Doctor and Rose watched while the slaves shuffled out of the building, leaving them alone with Tom. "Didn't want them to see this," Tom said, reaching down. He found a groove in the floor and pulled out a section of the floor. There were steps leading down and Tom pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket and went down the stairs. A light went on a moment later and Tom called them down. They went down and saw a room had been dug out of the ground. There was a bunk bed off to their right with a small battered table that had a brass lamp on top of it. One side of the room had a large piece of plywood lying against it that went from floor to ceiling. "This is where we hide the people we're going to transfer out," Tom said. "I'm going to contact my friends and they'll come get you. The gate is shut at night. There is a curfew. But…" He pulled the plywood away and there was a tunnel behind it. "Our friends will come through here and you'll leave through here," Tom said. "It leads to a forest about a quarter mile from the labor camp. From there, our friends will take you on to Dover." "Thank you for everything," the Doctor said. "Yes, thanks," Rose said. "We're grateful for what you've done." "No worries, always happy to help anyone in the resistance," Tom said. "I just hope you know what you're doing. China is a long way off." "We'll be alright. Just keep yourself safe," the Doctor said. Tom nodded and smiled. He bid them goodnight and the Doctor and Rose watched while he placed the plywood back over the tunnel before he went upstairs. The Doctor slapped his hands together when Tom closed the trap door. "So, top or bottom bunk then?" he said to Rose.
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