Mindwipe

Chapter 16

-/-

It was worse than Osgood remembered. At least last time it had been a relatively shallow pool and she been armed with Missy's lethal umbrella. This time Osgood had been dropped from a reasonable height into a deeper pool of churning psychic mud that was already pretty full with panicking and drowning slaves and guards. Fortunately for Osgood her fall had been broken by some poor soul that she had crashed into and despite the danger to herself Osgood did her best to reach down and drag the poor old man back to the surface.

"Sor..." Osgood began only to be cut off by a look of pure venom.

"YOU!" The old slave sneered. "It's always bloody YOU, I knew we should have left you on the Nethersphere!" He added flailing futilely before sinking back under the surface for a moment.

Blinking in surprise Osgood did her best to keep herself afloat as he bobbed back to the surface. "Seb?" She stuttered in horror. It was unthinkable and yet Missy had been adamant that the Dr Chang lookalike that had interrogated them earlier hadn't been Seb.

"Yes who else's life do you conspire to ruin?" Seb choked out. "I was getting out of here, I was finally going to see the galaxy until The Mistress brought you along...You and your damn silly human sensibilities you're going to get us all killed!"

"Yeah because being a slave bound in chains that was really going to happen." Osgood snapped back her hands flailing wildly as the mud around them seemed to swirl inward now, like some terrible sort of whirlpool.

"I had a plan and a weapon until your stupid lump of a body landed on me!" Seb retorted even as he struggled against the tide.

"Wait..." Osgood reached out grabbing hold of his tunic to try and keep them together. "You have a weapon?"

"Had." Seb retorted. "I lost it because of you...It down there somewhere." He added jerking his head down into the muddy foaming mess, then seeing the reckless look that came over Osgood's face Seb could only shake his head in futile protest. "No even YOU wouldn..."

Yet it seemed stupid Osgood was determined to ignore his sensible advice as she took a deep breath and actually willingly plunged into the tar like mud.

Down...She had to go down...which it appeared was far harder than Osgood had supposed it would be. The mud around her kept battering her about and soon she had little remaining sense of direction not to mention her lungs were burning. Not now...not now...She had to focus she couldn't afford an asthma attack now. It had been over twenty four hours since she had taken Missy's medicine for her pathetic excuse for a pair of lungs even for an ape, Missy choice of words not Osgood's and she was long overdue another dose.

Her hands flailing about for a hand hold, for something Osgood's fingers finally scraped over what could only be the smooth tiled bottom of the pool. Running her hands over the bottom Osgood practically squeaked in surprise and horror as her fingers brushed over what had to be someone's arm...some dead person's arm...they weren't moving and for a moment Osgood relived that moment that Missy was dumped into the pool like a wet sack of concrete.

Was that her?

Was it terrible that when she ran her hand over the obviously dead body she was relieved not to feel the long sleeves of The Mistress's jacket?

Focus Osgood! She chastised herself, forcing her mind to think, think there had be something she could do other than searching blindly like this? She wasn't an action hero after all, not one of those brave bright companions The Doctor chose to travel with but she had her brains and it was time she started using them and stopped waiting for Missy or someone else to step in and save her. Already she could feel the drain from having been in the pool for only a few minutes, it was like all energy was slowly being drained out of her making her movements and her brain sluggish.