Turlough came to an ubrupt halt as he turned the corner. Standing in front of him, adjusting dials on some sort of machine, was a small, flourescent orange creature, with emerald green eyes. It leapt when it saw him, and darted back against the wall.

 This, of course, changed everything.

 Moving along the wall, keeping as far away from the unwanted narrative element as it could, it reached for the button that would activate the counter-intrusion systems. It halted, its hand near the button, when the element spoke.

 "What is going on here?" it asked.

 Nezzik blinked. "Er..." it said, vocal chords hoarse from long disuse, "we were planning to eliminate you from the narrative. You certainly aren't an element we introduced, and already the story has lost focus."

 "'Eliminate me from the narrative'? That's certainly the most creative description of murder I've ever heard."

 "Murder?" Nezzik was aghast. "How could you even consider us capable of such an act? All the Vennarians are peacful creatures. We would not think of such a thing. We see our narrative works as a tribute to non-violence in all its forms. This particular story, for example, is a showing of how a community of non-violent sentients can live in harmony, without the need for corrupting technology. The beings are a little far-fetched of course--the pink skin, the white eyes...but when the Muse calls, the group-mind must answer."

 The red-haired creature looked startled. "Group-mind? You're telepaths?"

 "Of course," Nezzik said. "We can take inspiration from any of the Vennarians, or from other sentients in the area. Then, using the Gadzeem, we create works of 'living story' that endure for generations."

 "And you're using the people of Earth for your 'inspiration'."

 "Of course not...this is an uninhabited planet. It has been since we first arrived here."

 "Been outside lately?" the red-haired creature asked with an unreadable expression on its face.

 Waves of dizziness shot through her head as she raised it up. Most of her body was covered by chunks of rubble and pieces of wood, and a particularly jagged splinter was sticking out of her right leg, just above the knee.

 Going to leave a scar, there, she thought muzzily. Pantyhose might look horrible.

 With a mighy effort, she saw the problem with her right arm. It was trapped under a large rock--it didn't seem to be in any pain, but she couldn't move it. She tried to push it away with the rest of her body, but moving hurt too much. Her left arm was slightly more free, but when she tried to shift it, glassy pain shot up the limb. Probably broken...and I think I've got a concussion too. Oh, dear...the Doctor's going to be cross with me.

 Then she saw the shadow looming over her, and she found the strength to scream.

 The squad lined up their weapons.

 "Fire!"

 Zombies collapsed to the ground as semi-automatic weapons fire raked through them. It didn't hurt them, of course, but the sheer kinetic force of the bullets kept them from maintaining their balance. The Doctor, given a slight amount of warning by his keen hearing, flung himself to the ground.

 "Maintain fire--keep sight of the target!"

 The Doctor crawled through the cornfield, trying to use the stalks as cover, but there were simply too many agents. They closed in on his position, and it wasn't long before he had nowhere to run.

 He felt the bullet rip through his left heart, and he knew that he had lost another life.

 "Ah," the Master smiled, "it appears that Metcalf's agents have done their work. A shame all this couldn't have happened with more panache, but success has its rewards as well, doesn't it?"

 The Doctor screamed, his body glowing slightly.

 "Amazing," the Master whispered softly... "An actual temporal instability, affecting a living being as we watch! Miss...Jovanka, correct? You should feel privilged to watch such an event. A shame Miss Grant could not be with us."

 At that moment, a zombie entered, half-dragging, half-carrying a badly injured Jo Grant.

 "Perfect," the Master purred. "My greatest enemy helpless, soon to be destroyed, his loving companions forced to watch, and ultimate power soon to be mine. Gadzeem...when you are ready?"

 Metcalf's body crumbled to dust (the mind of its original inhabitant, incidentally, transferring back into it as it did so) as a flash of energy lanced into the Doctor.

 "I'm sure they prefer to think of it as 'living'", Turlough muttered dryly. "But if they knew they were mucking up your live-action novel, I know they'd stop."

 "Well, I should hope so." The alien turned to the monitor. "This certainly explains a lot."

 "Like what, exactly?" Turlough moved towards the console the alien was checking.

 "Well, first off, Gadzeem was losing power--probably as a result of telepathic energies being leaked to the population of the planet. Could result in random psionic manifestations, but that can be dealt with later. Secondly, it explains why I've been having erratic command files issued within Gadzeem's systems--local sentients probably figured out how to access some of the command files. And thirdly, the story's been getting absurdly self-referential lately, with far too many in-jokes."

 "And what are you going to do about it?"

 "Do?" The alien started pressing buttons. "I'm going to end it."

 NO, DOCTOR. The voice boomed through the vortex. I WILL TAKE YOUR PLACE.

 "Who are you?" the Doctor called out soundlessly.

 I AM GADZEEM SYSTEM 40927. YOU MAY CALL ME GADZEEM. I WILL TAKE YOUR FORM. I WILL ABSORB YOUR POWER. I WILL SEEK INSPIRATION FROM THE AUTHOR UNIT DESIGNATED 'MASTER'. HIS IDEAS ARE RICH AND MANY. MY PREVIOUS AUTHOR UNITS HAVE STAGNATED. THEIR IDEAS OF PEACE AND NON-VIOLENCE PRODUCE UNSUITABLE MATERIAL FOR DRAMATIC NARRATIVE. THE 'MASTER' UNIT WILL PRODUCE MUCH NEW MATERIAL. WE WILL TRAVEL TOGETHER. HIS ACTS WILL BE HAILED THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE AS A NEW GENIUS.

 "As acts of depravity, you mean!" The Doctor was still trying to halt the unravelling of his persona. "He...he is evil! He cannot be allowed to act..."

 INCORRECT. HE MUST BE ALLOWED TO ACT. HE IS NECESSARY FOR THE NARRATIVE. WITHOUT HIS ACTIONS, REALITY WOULD BE LESS INTERESTING.

 "No..." the Doctor whispered. "I must stop him...must gain control of your systems..."

 YOU HAVE INSUFFICIENT MENTAL PRESENCE TO ACCESS THIS SYSTEM. YOUR WILL IS INSIGNIFICANT NEXT TO THAT OF THE MASTER.

 Desperate, the Doctor reached out for something, anything...a juncture of history...a critical point that required his continued existence...

 The alien desperately pushed buttons and turned knobs. "A more powerful mental presence has overridden control of the system. I can't shut it off!"

 "I thought you said it was losing power!"

 "It's found a new source! Something's causing it to recharge!"

 History stopped. The Doctor returned from the void.

 "My persona was the only one that would have failed in that situation," the Doctor said, speaking at a feverish pace. "The others would have saved the freighter, the dinosaurs wouldn't have been destroyed, and humanity wouldn't have evolved! Reptilian life would have gained sentience sooner, and your creators wouldn't have come to this planet to begin with!"

 IMPOSSIBLE. THIS CANNOT BE.

 "Precisely!" the Doctor shouted. "If you allow my third self to die, you create a temporal paradox that obviates your entire existence! I exist because I can't not exist!"

 THIS IS IRRELEVANT. YOU MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO NOT DIE.

 "I don't think so, Gadzeem. Now...listen to me...you are nothing but a tool...a computer system that responds to telepathic commands. I am telling you what must happen. We are in direct mental contact. YOU WILL PERFORM MY COMMANDS."

 I SEEK NARRATIVE. NARRATIVE FLOWS FROM AUTHORS. YOU CANNOT SEEK TO CONTROL ME...

 "Oh, but I have the perfect ending to this story..."

 Odd. Nothing else was happening. No falling sensations, no blinding light, nothing that he associated with regeneration.

 He sat up and looked around. The agents were gone, undoubtedly having returned to the church for further orders. The Doctor decided to follow them.

 "How?" the Master snarled. "You were in flux, I saw it!"

 The Doctor smiled pleasantly. "Some things are more difficult to change than others, old friend. One of them is that in narrative, the hero always wins."

 The Master smirked. "Oh, really...you still contain Gadzeem within you, don't you?"

 The Doctor shook his head. "Not for long...I'm redirecting his energy back into the altar, with only a few minor changes to the way things are. Gadzeem will be allowed to finish the story of Paradise, and then will shut itself down. A pleasant little machine, once you've found out how to use it."

 "I won't forget this, Doctor."

 The Doctor's pleasant smile faded into an icy chill. "Forget that in the end, what foiled your schemes was the fact that my will was stronger than yours? I expect you won't. And nor will I." He smiled again, and it was as though the chill had never been. "Shouldn't you be scuttling off about now? I believe you've got other plots to botch."

 The Master turned on his heel and left.

 Tegan shook her head. "I can't believe you're letting him go?"

 "The web of time, Tegan. My past self will be confronting him in England shortly, and he couldn't do that if I stopped him now. Speaking of my past self...Ah! There you are. Good to see you made it through alright?"

 "Yes," said the Doctor, "but you certainly cut that a bit close. Now if it were me, I'd simply have--"

 "Well, you couldn't do that, because--"

 "But you're forgetting about--"

 "Ah, but it seems that you haven't heard of--"

 "Of course I have, but--"

 "Could you please complete your sentences?" asked Jo.

 "No need," the Doctors said in unison. "We do know fairly well what we'd say if we were each other."

 "Depart?" said Turlough.

 "Of course--got to find a new planet, repair the Gadzeem, start again...perhaps a bit more surreal next time, something involving planet-wide races and giant Monopoly boards..."

 Turlough had been travelling with the Doctor long enough to guess what would happen next. He began to edge back towards the tunnel. As he did so, just to confirm his guess, he said, "This...departure...involves a release of energy, does it?"

 "Only a small one," the alien said distractedly. "Won't really harm anyone outside of the immediate area...you might want to move a bit more quickly than that though, I would feel sincerely guilty if you were to perish..."

 Turlough turned and ran.

 "No," Tegan saw her Doctor mutter, "he wouldn't--the idiot--there was no need to do that!" He spun around to her and Jo. "We've got to get out of here!"

 They ran for the exit to the church, as the altar began to dissolve into a flickering shaft of light. As they did so, they saw the zombies transform into sparks of energy and flash into the altar, incinerating many of the luckless FBI agents as they did so. They went through the open doors without even pausing, and kept running, trying to cajole any surviving agents into following.

 Outisde, the situation was even worse. Most of the town had dissolved into energy, and lightning spheres the size of cars carromed past them towards the church. Occasionally, Tegan saw an Amish townsperson or two melt into pure energy, their faces transfixed with ecstacy as they merged again into their god.

 "What's happening?" she shouted.

 "Gadzeem's original controller is ending the 'story' prematurely," the Doctor shouted as he ran. "Instead of establishing closure, he's simply reabsorbing the matter he created into the Gadzeem."

 "You mean all these people weren't real?"

 "Most of them...I tried to set up the Gadzeem to let them wind down, to keep the community alive for a while, but...I never wanted this, Tegan."

 Then the flash of blinding light came, and Tegan blacked out.

 The Doctor--her Doctor--helped her to her feet. A few FBI agents were sitting up, but they seemed dazed by the loss of the village, and Turlough was walking towards them with his usual smug expression.

 "Another wonderful place you found for us, Doctor," he said as he neared the pair.

 "Well," the Doctor said, slightly subdued, "I suppose it wasn't quite as I imagined. That's the problem with Paradise..." He clapped his hands. "Still--there are other places to go. I'm sure we can find somewhere without the Master, or telepathically powered computers." He gestured towards the TARDIS. "Shall we?"

 Tegan looked back at the other Doctor and Jo. "Shouldn't we say good-bye?"

 The Doctor shook his head and grinned. "I never say good-bye to myself. After all, no matter where I go, there I am."

 THE END...

 GADZEEM UNIT 40927 AWAITING NEW ORDERS...