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Chapter Two
The elevator had continued down the shaft, passed the basement and now came to a stop in a room located far below Kaiba Corp. Some dust fell as the doors pulled apart so that the three passengers could alight into the unknown.
Down in the massive space before them they could see what looked like a huge production line of some sort. The machinery had several large circular chambers, each of them with a conveyor belt leading into each one, which then connected to an even bigger final chamber.
"Whoa!" Mokuba voiced what they were all thinking.
"And you had no idea that this was here?" the Doctor asked looking over his shoulder towards Kaiba.
Kaiba shook his head still shocked with amazement that this room had been under his company's building the whole time without him knowing. "None whatsoever."
"I'm going to go and check this thing out." The Doctor declared holding his sonic screwdriver at the ready. As he was about to step forward he felt himself pushed aside as the two brothers passed by him. "You two can come too, but no touching." He shouted mockingly behind them.
"Joking or not, nobody tells me what to do!" Kaiba snapped as he spun around to face the Doctor who remained just outside of the elevator. "Especially not on my own property." He glared loathingly as the brown coated man mimed pulling a zip across his lips.
"Seems like you've already been put through one of these." The Doctor muttered to himself commenting on the CEO's lack of humour as he watched Kaiba continue down some steps which lead further into the room full of machinery. He followed on behind with all signs of his pervious cheery self absent.
The brothers had stopped next to one of the conveyor belts to see that spaced out along it, about six feet apart, many large mechanical arms that were fixed to the belt. The purpose of what the lines did was completely unknown to them. Mokuba leaned closer to get a better look and jumped as he felt his brother's arm pull him back. He watched Kaiba shake his head disapprovingly before he strode off to look at the rest of the set up. Mokuba turned his attention back to the conveyor belt as the Doctor passed by him.
Unlike the two boys, the Doctor knew what the machine's purpose was as he had seen many during his life. Although it was a slightly different design the output would always be the same, and because of that he had to make sure that it would never be activated. His head turned as he searched for the main control unit but couldn't find any obvious sign of it, and then he heard the younger brother cry out from where he had passed by him.
Mokuba was now standing on the conveyor belt after having been suddenly pulled onto it by one of the attached arms. "I didn't touch anything!" he shouted in a panicky voice as both his brother and the Doctor turned their attention to him. The belt began to move towards one of the circular chambers and Mokuba had to regain his footing as he swaggered from the start up motion. "Seto, help!"
Within just a couple of seconds Kaiba had leapt up onto the belt and was now by his brother's side. He took hold of the restraining arm with both of his hands and pulled with all his might. "I'll soon have this thing off you." He assured his little brother as he started to kick at the arm's base.
"I'm going to deactivate it." The Doctor shouted across to the two brothers, neither of them seemed to have heard him. Franticly he searched the biggest of the chambers but still hadn't found what he was searching for. He then spotted some footholds leading up to the top of the main chamber and quickly climbed them to find the controls.
Kneeling beside the controls, the Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at them. The end of the device began to glow and several sparks flew out from it before it died out. "Now's not the time to start acting up." He hissed hitting the device against the palm of his hand and turned to look for the brothers only to see them disappear into one of the chambers as the doors closed behind them, sealing them inside.
There was no time to waste, the Doctor had to disable the thing before……. His eyes widened as he saw lights flashing and whirling above the chamber that the two brothers had entered. "No." he gasped as he tried his sonic screwdriver again, but still it refused to work.
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Just seconds before they had entered the chamber, Kaiba had managed to break the casing away from the bottom of the mechanical arm which then left a web of wires exposed. He smashed his foot down one last time which ripped through several of the wires causing the arm to release its grip on Mokuba, but it had come too late as the two brothers now found themselves locked inside the circular chamber.
Inside the chamber was dark with a dim glow coming from beneath them. Kaiba looked around finding it hard to take in their new surroundings through the darkness but could just make out the silhouettes of more restraining arms that lined the edges of the chamber, and figured that it must be some kind of holding area, but for what? He walked back along the conveyor belt to the closed doorway they had entered and tried to prise the doors open with his bare hands.
"What do you think it is that this machine does?" Mokuba asked rubbing his wrists, a hint of fear in his voice which had been brought on by the darkness around him.
"I don't know." Kaiba replied as he struggled to get the doors to move apart. Reluctantly admitting defeat, he slammed his fist against the cold steal before stepping back to beside his brother.
The sound echoed throughout the chamber before it died leaving only the sound of Mokuba's racing heart to pulse in the eerie stillness. Though he was scared by the dark, Mokuba was relieved that his brother wouldn't be able to see the look of fear upon his face. He wondered how his brother managed to stay so calm at a time like this but his thoughts were soon interrupted as a whirling sound surrounded them and he was pushed to the floor where he landed on all fours.
Mokuba quickly scrambled round to a sitting position and in the tiny bit of light from below he could see his brother dimly lit as he struggled to break free from several of the mechanical arms. Kaiba had pushed his little brother out of the arms reach just in time and instead found himself now being restrained. "Seto!" Mokuba cried as he was about to get to his feet.
"Don't move!" Kaiba barked, and saw the shadowy figure of his brother stop at his command. He pulled at the arms again but it was no use, they were too overpowering for him and stopped his struggling as the belt began to carry him away from Mokuba. His brother was safe from harm and he wanted it to remain that way. "Stay as far away from these things as you can." He told him through the gloomy darkness.
His heart racing and not moving from where he sat Mokuba nodded in reply to what his brother had told him. "What about you?" he cried in concern.
Kaiba had no time to answer and give false reassurance to his brother as he was taken through another set of doors which closed swiftly behind him. More restraints sprang towards him as they guided the CEO across the new chamber and led him to a huge steal plate that they tightly secured his body too. Again he struggled to try and break free, but still it was no use and felt his head drawn back as it too was clamped into place forcing him to glance upwards at a small orb which dropped down from the ceiling above him.
Light danced from the orb as it slowly lowered itself and stopped hovering just centimetres above Kaiba's face. Until now he had remained calm, but as the orb stopped he saw several spikes and blades protrude from the metallic sphere and felt fear grip at his heart.
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Mokuba remained down on the floor as Kaiba had instructed him to do so and felt like his heart was about to explode from his chest any moment now. He was extremely scared at not being able to see or hear anything and wished that he had been able to do something to stop his brother from being taken from him. Why did he always have to be so helpless all of the time? Surely there was something he could have done to help his brother? He scrunched his eyes closed as he hated himself for being so weak and then heard the most terrifying sound he had ever heard in his life as Kaiba screamed out only to be silenced a split second later.
"Seto!" Mokuba cried out as he forced himself up and blindly ran over to the direction which he had seen his brother taken just moments before. He ran straight into the steal door and pummelled at it with tears running down his face as he cried his brother's name over and over again. Behind him the other door hissed as it slowly opened and he saw the Doctor standing there in the light which flooded into the chamber. "Help me!" he pleaded, desperate to get through the door.
The Doctor approached Mokuba at a speedy pace and gently eased him away from the door. "Stand back." He told the boy as he ran his device over the edge of the doorway trying to unlock the mechanism to no avail. He tried again but still nothing so he turned to exit the chamber clearly upsetting the frightened boy even more. "I'm going to try and find another way in." he explained so that Mokuba knew he hadn't given up trying to rescue Kaiba though he feared he may be too late.
Quickly the Doctor raced around to the back of the main chamber and waved his sonic screwdriver over the doorway which opened instantly. He hesitated for a moment as he thought about the danger he may be walking into but still continued to step inside for his search for the older brother.
An eerie mist filled the chamber making it hard for the Doctor to see too far in front of him. He slowly wadded his way through the mist as he headed for the area Kaiba had been taken to and then froze as soon as he started to make out a figure stood before him. The sonic screwdriver was immediately raised as the Doctor continued to take further steps towards the figure which hadn't moved an inch.
The blood in his veins turned to ice as the Doctor could now properly see the face of the humanoid robot before him. At about seven foot tall the cold, steal weapon of destruction looked down at the approaching man, The whole purpose of the machine had been to churn out robots like this which the Doctor knew as Cybermen. With its chest panel exposed; a sign that the conversion had not been completed, the Cyberman didn't show any indication of life or movement.
As he lowered his device, the Doctor nervously laughed at his own stupidity of being startled so easily, but then again his past experiences gave him every right to be wary. He stared deep into the black empty eye sockets; each of them had a groove which could be mistaken as a teardrop, as he squeezed by to carry on his search.
Around the next corner the mist began to disappear and the Doctor could now see droplets of splattered blood on the floor. He edged closer and a pair of legs came into view, half cover by a blood stained white coat. The amount of blood that could now be seen as the Doctor's gaze moved further up Kaiba's torso told him he had been too late to save the boy. He turned away as he saw fragments of Kaiba's head scattered over his chest and knew that the image of the headless body would haunt him forever as it added to the hundreds of thousands of people that he'd seen die during his lifetime.
Much quicker than what he had entered, the Doctor backed out of the chamber, his wrist held up across his nose and mouth as he felt slightly ill; whether it was the stench of blood from the body's remains or the fact that he now had to break the news to the younger one, he wasn't sure. He saw Mokuba gingerly approaching the doorway, his face all red and damp with tears, wanting to know what had become of his brother. "I'm sorry. He's dead." The Doctor spoke quietly.
"Nooooo!" Mokuba wailed at hearing the news and tried to push past the Doctor to get to his brother.
"You don't want to go back there." The Doctor insisted as he caught Mokuba and forced him as far back from the chamber's entrance as he could. The boy was surprisingly strong using all his emotions to do whatever it took to be reunited with his brother, but still the Doctor couldn't allow him to see the horrible sight. "Just remember him the way he was."
"Seto." Mokuba sobbed as he collapsed in a heap at the Doctor's feet. Just how was he supposed to remember his brother, as the cold hearted person he had become or as the warm, loving boy before their stepfather had changed him? Mokuba clutched at his locket knowing which he preferred and now would never be able to see again. "How did he die?" He glanced up at the Doctor with teary eyes.
"This machine is a conversion unit for Cybermen." The Doctor began to explain but he would spare going into all the finer gory details. "It takes humans, removes their central nervous systems and transfers them into robotic bodies to create the ultimate killing machines." The remorse from not being able to prevent the unnecessary death ran deep within his heart, the only comfort from the whole thing was that the machine would not be able to be used again. "Fortunately, this time the process was not completed."
"Fortunately?!" Mokuba's voice was beyond angry. "Seto is dead and all you can say is 'fortunately'?"
"If the process had been completed then it is possible that neither of us would be here right now and many more people would suffer the same fate as your brother." The Doctor's voice was firm with his explanation yet understanding of the boy's outrage towards him. "I am truly sorry about your brother."
"Now I really am alone." Mokuba lost himself in his own thoughts. Kaiba had been his only family and although he knew that his brother had loved him it was hardly ever shown, which often left him feeling isolated in his own life. He looked up at the Doctor. "Do you have any idea how that feels?"
The Doctor knew the feeling all too well and knew that the boy would never be able to understand the loneliness that he had experienced. "Yes." He replied sadly closing his eyes and hanging his head.
"Liar!" Mokuba roared in anger, the man couldn't possibly understand what he had just lost.
Not saying a word, the Doctor let Mokuba continue to yell at him. Soon all of the boy's anger would be out of his system which would then allow him to grieve the loss of his brother once he himself had moved on to his next destination in time. First he'd have to re-search to make sure that no details of this alien technology remained to be used again and then……
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The Doctor's eyes sprang open as he heard the chilling sound come from the chamber behind them. "Get up and follow me." He told Mokuba who too had fallen silent at hearing the noise.
"Delete."
"Now!" the Doctor shouted his order and grabbed the boy as he dragged him at a fast pace towards the elevator. Only once they had reached the top of the small flight of stairs did he let go to turn around and view the Cyberman that was still coming after them. He cursed himself again for being too slow at destroying the machine as it had managed to create a successful output after all.
"Seto?" Mokuba looked at the large metallic figure that came thumping closer to them, wires where visible in its chest area and it looked as though it was sad from the dark teardrop like eyes.
"Delete" The robotic voice repeated as it focused on its targets across the room.
"The conversion was complete." The Doctor mumbled is thoughts as he reached into his coat pocket for his sonic screwdriver. It may not be able to end the life of a living being, but the Cyberman was mainly machine so once the exposed wires were disconnected it would be disabled and then the still living organ inside the metal casing would be allowed to rest. "I'll end this quickly."
"No." Mokuba took hold of the Doctor's device and fought to keep it turned away from the approaching robot as he was unable to snatch it from its owner's hand. "He's my brother."
"It's a killing machine." The Doctor argued.
"I can reprogram him." Mokuba explained. If there was a chance that he could still have his brother, even as a robot, he wasn't going to let that be taken away from him. "He's the only person I have in the whole world; please don't take him from me."
"Delete." The Cyberman had now reached the stairs and was about to ascend them.
How could he make the boy understand that his brother was gone? Soon the Cyberman would be right on top of them and then it would be too late to save themselves. The Doctor stared into Mokuba's pleading grey-blue eyes. "Everything that made your brother 'human' died the moment they smashed open his face to get at his brain. You won't be able to get him back this way."
Mokuba's mind now reeled with the horrible image of his brother's smashed up face, he hadn't seen the body but now knowing what had been done to Kaiba he had began to accept that his brother would never be returned to him. He let go of the doctor's hand allowing him to carry on and deactivate the Cyberman who was almost a few feet away from them.
A blue spark flew out from the end of the sonic screwdriver, ripped through the exposed wires and brought the Cyberman to a stand still, its arms reaching forward for them. The Doctor let out a deep sigh of relief and brushed the sweat from his forehead. He looked down to where Mokuba was crying beside him. "Come with me."