Hex had been busy pretending to be a janitor when Ace grabbed him and pulled him against the wall. She waved him quiet before he could open his mouth and then carefully stuck her head around the corner. She quickly pulled it back, leaning against the wall. She looked at him, then grinned, "Sorry, change of plans."
"What?" He hated when this happened; nothing good ever came from a change in plans. Change in plans was usually code for 'Things are going to blow up and then we run for our lives.' With a grimace he pushed the cleaning cart behind him and waited for Ace to make her next move.
She looked around the corner again and then grabbed his arm, "Don't forget the cart. We still need to look like we belong here."
He sighed and followed her around the corner. He didn't know what he was expecting to find, but an almost empty corridor wasn't it. There was only one other person in the corridor and she was looking down at a data pad in her hand. Ace busied herself with emptying out the garbage can Hex had been going for to begin with, "What's she doing?"
"Looking at her data pad." He didn't know what was going on, but he knew Ace would tell him eventually. "Wait, now she's headed the other way."
Ace didn't say anything more, trusting him to know that he should keep her updated. They worked their way down the corridor and then around the corner following the woman. He wondered who she was though, obviously someone Ace knew. She'd never mentioned knowing a skinny redhead before, but then Ace rarely mentioned her own brother. "She's stopping at a door now. Looks like it's locked."
"Fuck." It was the first thing she'd said since they'd started following the strange woman and it just made Hex more nervous. She turned her head and looked behind her just as the door started to close. Without warning she sprinted down the hall and stuck her foot in the door to keep it from shutting and waving at him to hurry up.
He slipped into the room after her. She gestured at him to move towards the garbage cans while she grabbed a rag and one of the cleaning bottles. The woman they'd been following was standing next to a computer looking intently at the screen. She looked up when the door closed with a click and then looked back down. He kept an eye on her as he picked up the first garbage can to empty and put it back down as he saw her stiffen in surprise. It didn't take a genius to figure out that she'd recognized Ace.
The woman stood up and stepped around the desk looking intently at Ace. Ace stared back at her until she said in a hesitant tone, "Ace?"
"Hey." Ace shrugged her shoulders and Hex swore she looked embarrassed. Before he could say anything Ace and the woman were hugging and laughing. "Wasn't expecting to see you here."
"I work here." The woman smiled and let her go, "Is the Doctor around? Who's your boyfriend?"
Ace suddenly straightened up, "Hex isn't my boyfriend. The Doctor's around, not in the building around, but in the city around."
Hex tried not to let the boyfriend comment sting. She was always so quick to deny it. Before he could properly introduce himself, as it looked like Ace wasn't going to get around to it, the woman grabbed a card out of her pocket and scribbled down some information on the back of it, "Never mind, we shouldn't talk here. I'm pretty sure I can guess why you're around now. Meet me at this address in an hour and we can talk safely. I don't want to risk anyone walking in on us."
Before either of them could say anything the woman shoved the card at Ace, gave her another hug, and then walked out the door. She was gone from the corridor by the time they got to the door to look. Ace looked at the card then nodded her head, "Come on Hexy. We got somewhere nice to be in an hour and we both need to change."
The following hour brought to him a change of clothes, a note left for the Doctor, and exactly two facts about the woman:
1. Her name was Melanie Bush
2. She used to travel with the Doctor
Ace elaborated slightly on those points by stating that she'd never thought to see Melanie again and if she did she thought Melanie would be some sort of space pirate, "I never would have thought she'd go and work in a lab. She seemed happy to go off with Glitz. Wonder what happened?"
"You'll be able to ask her in a few minutes." Hex pointed out as the reached the restaurant Melanie had told them to meet her at.
"Maybe." Her expression was dark as she looked around the street outside the restaurant.
They didn't wait long, perhaps ten minutes, before Ace was practically run over by a man reading a paper and not watching where he was going. Ace managed to catch herself before she fell and Hex saw the man lean over and say something to her before walking off. Ace stood looking at him in confusion for a second before reaching into her pocket and pulling out a data pad. "Where'd you get that then?"
"That guy slipped it to me." Ace answered as she punched some buttons on the pad and began scanning through the information. "He said something about Mel being captured and shoved this in my pocket."
"Anything good on it?" He tried to look over her shoulder, but she twisted away and started walking back towards the TARDIS.
"We need to talk to the Doctor." He didn't like the expression on her face, Ace should never look scared. Ace made other people scared.
The Doctor was just locking up the TARDIS when they arrived. Ace finally slowed down her pace and yelled out, "Open it back up. We got a problem."
"Ace? Problem? Where's Mel?" The Doctor re-opened the door while he asked the questions. Once inside Ace handed the data pad over to him and sat down on one of the chairs. She stood up again almost immediately and started pacing. The Doctor started pushing buttons faster then Ace had while muttering under his breath, "Oh my dear Melanie. What have you gotten yourself into?"
"Would one of you explain to me what is going on?" He'd had enough. Clearly whatever it was was bad and he was sick of being kept in the dark.
"Ace didn't tell you?" The Doctor sounded surprised and he shook his head at Ace. "It seems matters here are much worse then I thought they were. It looks as though Earth finally found what they were looking for, a Cyberman hibernation unit. A small one by the looks of it."
"Wait, I thought you said they didn't know where any of those were? I thought that was what we were doing here, making sure they didn't find one." Now he was worried too. Cybermen on the loose was a terrifying thought.
"They've managed to keep the Cybermen from waking up at least." The Doctor put the data pad in his pocket and looked at Ace, "I think we can guess that they found out Mel was going to give out classified information."
"Right. It also looks like she's working with some people since someone slipped that to me. He also said she'd been captured." Ace sat down again and looked at the Doctor. "How are we going to get her out?"
"I don't know." The Doctor sat down as well and Hex joined them. "I wish we knew what she was doing there. I can't see her willingly working on anything to do with Cybermen."
"Maybe she's working for the androids?" He threw it out there as a possibility.
Ace seemed to think about it for a second before shaking her head, "No, they don't much like organics, that's what they call us. I can't see them working with too many humans. Stupid Orion Wars."
"Well at any rate we need to find Mel." The Doctor stood up again and headed for the door.
He looked at Ace and they both stood up quickly to follow him, "How are we going to do that? Walk up to the front desk and ask?"
"Exactly." The Doctor smiled at him over his shoulder, "I do believe you're catching on Mr. Hex."
Asking for Mel at the front desk went about as well as Hex had thought it would. Now they were sitting in holding cells. At least he assumed they all were because he was currently by himself. He was also cold and hungry, so while he would appreciate the Doctor and Ace being free and working on a rescue, he kind of wanted them to be sitting in a cell somewhere as well. At least there were a couple of beds to sit on, even if they were just mattresses on frames with no blankets. Better then the floor. He stood up quickly when he heard the locks on the door start to open. The door didn't stay open long enough for him to do anything, even if he'd had an idea of what to do, before someone was pushed through the opening and the door slammed shut. It took him a second to recognize that it was Mel. It seemed to take a second for her to place him as well.
She smiled at him and sat down on one of the beds, pulling her arm up to her chest. "At least I have company."
He walked over to the bed and sat down while gesturing at her arm, "Let me see that. Looks like you hurt it."
"Had it hurt is more like it." She held out her arm to him and let him poke at it. "They didn't like my answers very much."
"Looks like your elbow's been dislocated." He gave her his best professional smile, "I'm a nurse. Or was a nurse before I met Ace. Now I can relocate the joint for you if you'd like, it'll hurt though. Otherwise we can wait until we get out of here and you have some pain medication."
"Oh just do it now." She gave him a tight smile and scooted back on the bed so her back was against the wall.
"Okay then." He positioned himself and took a hold of her arm, "Don't be ashamed to yell out. It's going to hurt. Probably as much as when it got dislocated in the first place."
She nodded at him and closed her eyes. She did scream when when he reset the joint and he almost wished he'd told her not to. She smiled at him to apologize for the volume and then closed her eyes again and rested her head against the wall. There wasn't any stray material lying around to make a sling out of so he was reduced to ripping his jacket apart. It was going to make his stay that much colder, but Mel needed to keep her arm from moving, "So what were the answers they didn't seem to like?"
"They don't believe that I'm not working for anyone." She gritted her teeth as he moved her away from the wall to wrap the sling around her back, "It's just once I realized what I was working on I couldn't let it continue. They said it was reverse engineering some stuff stolen from a competitor. Which I suppose is true in a weird way. I didn't even realize they were working for the Earth government. I never would have taken a job here if I'd known. Once I figured out it was Cybermen they were having us take apart I told everyone else in the lab. I then made everyone read up on the Cyber Wars. Clearly I shouldn't've trusted them all to do the right thing. Or to be scared enough."
Hex sat back and examined his work on the sling, "Okay see how much movement you have." He watched her try to move the arm and the readjusted the way it hung slightly, "How'd you not know it was Cybermen? I mean they're not exactly easy to disguise."
"They only gave us bits and pieces. Never enough to be recognizable. It was only by accident that I even put everything together." She stopped talking as they both heard explosions in the distance.
"Sounds like the rescue party." Hex grinned at her and helped her to stand up.
They only had to wait a couple of minutes for the door to open. Ace greeted them with a grin, "Hurry up you two!"
They followed her out the door and through a maze of corridors. Hex wasn't entirely sure she actually knew where she was going. Just when he was about to call her on being lost she opened a door and they were outside. The Doctor was waiting there in a truck, "Come on, come on. Hello Melanie. Get in the back and stay down."
Amazingly enough once they were in the truck the ride back to the TARDIS went completely smoothly. The Doctor dropped them off and then went to get rid of the truck. Once they got inside Hex left Mel with Ace so they could catch up while he went to go make some tea. He came back with a loaded tray just after the Doctor returned. With more then a little relief he set the tray down on the table and dropped into one of the chairs. Now that the adrenaline wasn't pumping he found that he was exhausted. He zoned out for a few seconds before Ace bumped his arm and handed him a cup of tea, "Mel told me you fixed her elbow. Good job and full points."
"Well I'm not a nurse for nothing." It wasn't the best response, but compliments from Ace always left him flustered.
"And you said he wasn't your boyfriend." He jumped at the sound of Mel's voice, somehow he'd forgotten she was there.
"He's not. Hex is just a friend." Once again Ace's quick denial stung, but he was getting used to it. Mel didn't look convinced though. Before she could say anything the Doctor touched her arm and gave her a look. Hex couldn't see it, but it made Mel smile and Ace blush so perhaps that was for the best. Ace coughed then and quickly changed the subject, "So Cybermen? I know we were looking for signs of Cybermen, but this seems a bit beyond that."
"Signs yes." The Doctor sighed and took a sip of his tea before continuing, "I was hoping that we'd be able to stop them from finding the Cybermen to begin with. Unfortunately it's far too late for that. History is quite clear on the path the Orion Wars will take from here."
"You mean we're just going to let them go on using the Cybermen? Why are they using Cybermen anyway and what for?" That last bit had been confusing Hex all day.
"I can answer that question." Mel spoke up, "They're going to use the Cyber technology to create new weapons to use against the androids. They're going to use my research to turn people into Cybermen to go fight their stupid war."
"They would have done that regardless of whether you had been there or not." The Doctor patted her shoulder, "They won't be complete Cybermen. The Cyber Wars are still a strong memory for some people. They're going to use the Cybermen to create cyborgs and other such things to fight the androids. It's their attempt at leveling the playing field as it were."
"That really doesn't make me feel any better about it." Mel sighed and reached up with her good hand to grasp the Doctor's where it lay on her shoulder.
"No, I didn't think it would." The Doctor leaned over and pressed a kiss onto Mel's forehead before setteling back into his own chair. "What were you doing working there anyways?"
"Yeah," Ace leaned forward in her chair a bit and refilled her tea cup, "I thought you went off with Glitz."
"Glitz?" Mel laughed then and Hex realized it was the first time he'd heard her laugh. "I haven't thought about him in years. It was about two months after we left you two that he was picked up by bounty hunters. Completely legitimate charges so there wasn't anything I could do. They sent him off to one of those prisons inside of a moon, I forget which one. I doubt things would have worked out between us in the long run anyways. I didn't have a whole lot of options at that point so I sold the Nosferatu II and used the money to go back to school. Then got a job and here we are."
"Hex. Hex. Wakey wakey." He opened his eyes to find Ace leaning over him and prodding his shoulder, "Bout time you woke up. I was almost ready to leave you out here for the night."
"I feel asleep?" He rubbed at his eyes while he stood up and looked around.
"Started snoring too," she grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the console room. "The Doctor and Mel went to go find some more of those painkillers and go to bed. Figured I'd go about making sure you didn't wake up with a crick in your neck."
"Thanks." He rubbed his neck as they walked down the corridor. "It's been a long day."
"That is has, Hexy, that it has."