Both the planet and its moon were rising, from the perspective of the asteroid. It painted the interior of the lab in soft white light, which Shimizu admired from her seat by the window. Her eyes had a dreamy, relaxed look about them as her mind wandered over the events of the last hour. As it finally settled on the image of Amy, bound naked in the other room. They had moved her, of course, but that image had looked too good for Shimizu to want to give up in a hurry.
Mara, on the other hand, was absorbed in the contents of a grey metal tray on the central lab bench. She leaned over the low standing bench, her long blonde hair falling like a golden curtain around her face. The device fascinated her, and her blue eyes searched every angle of it, short of actually touching it or picking it up. Her slightly upturned nose crinkled as her soft mouth split into a wide grin.
'So... that's it, huh?' She said, scratching the back of her head.
'The fabrication took less time than we thought,' Shimizu answered without turning her head from the cosmos beyond the glass. 'Of course, it's up to the boss as to when we actually use the thing. I wouldn't blame him if he wanted to hold off for a while.'
'Well, sure,' Mara turned to a large screen that dominated the far wall. 'Seems like the good Doctor is still chasing a dead end. Whatever keeps him busy, I guess.'
On the screen, a stylized map of the universe spread out from one end to the other. A complex breadcrumb trail snaked its way across every inch of the map, and at one end a cartoon police box, a little chibi-TARDIS, was slowly following it. At the far end of the map, separate from the false trail, cartoon representation of Mara, Shimizu and Sander alternately laughed at the police box, or menaced a tiny, panicked cartoon of Amy Pond.
Sure, the map was a little silly, but it did serve a valuable purpose in depicting exactly how far along the Doctor had gotten in tracing the diverted video-link of Amy's captivity. Even in the worst-case scenario, it was still a nice early warning system.
On a second, smaller screen, surveillance footage of Amy's new cell streamed live. Technically, Mara was on guard duty right now, but it wasn't exactly like Amy had anywhere to go.
On screen, Amy was making use of the well-furnished shower, and the cameras were positioned so that no angle was impossible. A lecherous grin stole over Mara's face. It was kind of frustrating having Amy so close for her... use, but to be forbidden to act on her lust, but Sander was the man with the plan and, more importantly, the money to see it through. Mara gave a guffaw, and settled in to watch Amy's unwitting little show.
Vesperia was burning. Throughout the city, his robotic drones were failing, and the citizens were rioting. And through it all, the Doctor watched. Amid the flames, the Doctor watched.
'I tried to warn you...' he said, in a voice filled with an equal mix of pity and disappointment. Sander's hands balled into fists, yet he found himself incapable of leaping down the intruder's throat and tearing him several new ones.
His wife's phone, not even giving him her answering machine. The violent mob pounding down the doors of his house. Elsa's body, lying lifeless in the street as a news crew filmed the riot in progress. It had been a very dramatic shot.
Sander's eyes snapped open as the realization that it was, yet again, a dream, stole over him. He sat up and eyed the clock by his bedside; three in the morning. Of course, since the asteroid that Sander had built his new home on didn't strictly have a day-night cycle, the twenty-four our Terran time keeping system he used was really just a way of figuring out when he needed to sleep.
He was forced to replay his own fall from grace in his dreams every night. He had thought that it would stop once he had begun his revenge, but...
His hand swept his unruly fringe from his eyes as his other hand searched for the special panel on the wall. The screen panel filled up with light, and Sander was treated to the same footage of Amy taking a shower. His worldview immediately lightened. He might have the same recurring nightmare every night, but now he had a new toy to entertain him; one that was practically designed to keep him awake at night.
He slipped out of bed and hastily pulled on a shirt. Some signs were too obvious to ignore...
Amy Pond had awoken to find herself in a new room. She was still naked, but she was overjoyed to find that she was no longer bound to that horrible metal table. Mobility was certainly a step up from where she had been.
She sat up, still a little tender from her first meeting with Sander, and looked around. She seemed to be in a well-furnished one-room apartment. The walls and floor were the same steely grey as the other room had been, but the overall atmosphere was much improved. She was sitting on a large, soft bed (with a giant headboard that Amy eyed suspiciously. She had been around the block enough to know what could be so easily chained to headboards like that one.) The far corner featured a shower cubicle, toilet and sink lined up in a row. There was also a fridge, some kind of futuristic microwave thingy, and a wardrobe.
A needlepoint hung from one wall, depicting the words "Home Sweet... Prison Cell."
New things aside, however, Amy got up and ran for the door. It was exactly surprising that it was locked, but it had still been worth a try.
She found that she was ravenously hungry, and a quick inspection of the fridge revealed that it was full of food, the closest to hand of which was a tray of sandwiches that Amy quickly wolfed down. Hunger sated, the next item of business was trying to wash away a little of the unpleasantness of Sander's attentions.
Modesty was obviously not an option here; camera lenses watched silently from every corner of the ceiling, and besides, those three bastards had seen literally everything there was to see anyway. Amy slipped into the shower and blasted herself with a jet of relaxingly warm water.
Of course, no amount of cleaning would erase what had already happened to her, but that didn't mean that Amy wasn't going to give it a damn good try. She lounged under the water for some time, feeling as though she could maybe forget, just for a little while, the dire nature of what was outside this room.
She left the shower, wrapped in an amazingly fluffy towel, to explore the contents of the wardrobe. Part of her hoped for Narnia beyond the aluminum doors, but what she found was racks upon racks of clothes. The selection was deeply disappointing; from Amy's perspective, but she could see how Sander's mind was working.
These clothes were designed to be torn off in a fit of passion. To be tied around wrists, or wadded up and stuck in mouths. They were designed for sex, basically.
There was lingerie en masse, racks heaped high with rack-revealing shirts, rows of fuck-me heels, everything an (admittedly high-class) escort could want.
Feeling that revealing clothes were better than no clothes at all, Amy delved into the wardrobe and came up with something halfway protective to wear. When she was done, she inspected herself in the floor-length mirror beside the wardrobe.
'Not bad...' She sighed quietly. Finding underwear that wasn't revealing had been an exercise in futility, so she hadn't even tried. She had thrown on the simplest black lingerie she could find, and simply hoped she could escape without being forced to show it off. A black skirt encased her hips and thighs, billowing around her knees in a way that practically asked for it to be hiked up over her hips. Her breasts had been squeezed into a tight, midriff-baring crimson top, and she had found a long coat with a strange feeling, yet luxurious, fur interior that at least protected some of her modesty when she wrapped it around herself. She remained barefoot, refusing to even try to squeeze into those heels, and her long red hair fell, still wet from the shower, around her shoulders.
Looking in the mirror, Amy could freely admit that the outfit made her look hot as hell, but she recognized that "hot" was something of an undesired effect around here. Whoever this Sander fellow was, he had good taste. He had probably picked these clothes especially for her.
Suddenly, there was movement outside the door. Amy's eyes narrowed as she wheeled around. Someone was coming in; this was her chance. A silently as she could, Amy positioned herself at the side of the door, and readied herself. She was outmatched three to one, and she probably couldn't take down Sander alone anyway, but she only needed a second to rush past him and out into the hallway, and out of the cell was better than inside.
