Here is Chapter 2 of my Seb POV of Missy's life before meeting 12th Doctor in Dark Water. I hope you enjoy and please review it if you like. :)
My Mistress of Time
Chapter 2: I Love Surprises
During the first few months of my 'awakening', I spent a lot of time re-acquainting myself with the TARDIS and its many rooms. Frankly, since we were floating around in the middle of space, there wasn't much else to do. I mean…I really should be grateful an all…but I was still in the inquisitive stage; easily bored despite finally 'escaping' the dreary life stuck in a computer screen. To my unrefined eyes, in the first hours of my life, it had seemed that the plethora of rooms were never ending.
Another automated door around another corner.
Twisting, winding, turning upside-down even.
However, unlike the Doctor's time machine which I had seen on the screens, most of my Mistress's rooms were in a state of disrepair. There were tangled tubes and broken panels that barely hung on to the low hanging ceiling by the sparking electrical cables. Hmmm…looked like someone needs a makeover. And so, I weathered the occasional sparks that flashed from severed connections and grazed my nerves. I jumped at every hiss and zap, and tried to avoid the darkest, unwelcoming rooms of all. My Mistress told me many things, but whatever had happened to her TARDIS between her last regeneration and my creation was never to be spoken about. Although she had never expressly said anything, I felt that this topic was… a little bit of… a taboo.
The darkest, unwelcoming room of all, however, lurked in the very end of one of the long, disorienting hallways. Dense layers of spider webs had obstructed my entering, attaching its sticky, stretchy tendrils upon my face. I hadn't wanted to enter there in the first place.
"What if…there are spiders?" I inquired, my skin started crawling from even mentioning the idea. If the first living creature I'd meet after Missy would be the one I most hated, that would really...be a terrible let-down into life. It would be as if – as if the first thing Missy saw after she regenerated was the Doctor.
The reason for my fear was this: Once a spider had made its nest upon my interface and Missy had pretended not to notice its presence for days on end until, to my great dread, my scope of view was clouded. That was incredibly terrifying, I'd say.
"Well, it would be funny wouldn't it?" she replied in her mocking, coy tone, smiling demurely. Yes. Hilarious.
My feigned delight faltered after I had finally cleared the nightmare of webs, and I found myself standing on a protruding metal platform, my shoes clanging with every step. This room was entirely black. Empty black. Although I couldn't quite fathom what emptiness really looked like, my built-in engine confirmed that this was pretty much what emptiness would look like.
"I wouldn't take another step if I were you."
I spun around, only just noticing that I had travelled quite a distance through a web-ridden hallway; I could still make out a little light from where my Mistress stood, but I heard her voice quite clearly. Her sing-song lilt would have been cautionary, but for a certain…indifference.
Then, as soon as she had drifted through the hallway and took a step inside, the room came life. Every light source, every panel began to flicker on. One by one, all the dark corners were lit, no darkness left behind. The TARDIS still had its doubts about my existence.
Perhaps, I had tried to converse with it so much when I was just an interface and it wanted revenge. Like me, nevertheless, it would humbly serve its boss at any instant. Right now, the TARDIS was doing a brilliant job at it; I mean, literally, the whole room was blindingly white. Such brightness offered a stark contrast to the sight before my yet unadjusted eyes.
A disappointment.
My mind immediately offered the term. Because in all honesty, it was.
My Mistress's arrival revealed a small rectangular room, encased in alien metal. The only thing of interest about it was an embedded circle upon the floor. Was it Gallifreyan? Yeah, something or rather was carved upon it. My feet were almost touching the edge and I swallowed, but curiosity urged me to cross the line. But that would be against the protocols, now, wouldn't it?
Naturally, all attempts to consider disobeying my Mistress's orders were halted when she pressed a concealed button on the wall behind me.
Beep.
I jumped as the metal on the ground started to ripple. Slowly, the circular ring began to rise, forming shapes. A long tube rose from the centre.
It was another…console? How odd. When the metal had finally ceased in motion, I saw what was almost like an exact carbon copy of the main console, save that it was white all over. And there were only four little blue buttons upon the hexagonal platform.
The protruding pillar was also pure white and reached toward the ceiling. Surrounding both of us now were four rippling walls.
Well, this was new.
"Oh, I suppose you're rather curious…hmm? Oh, yes." She glided toward me whilst nodding in shallow pity. Outstretching her limbs above her head, she indicated the entirety of the small room. "I bet you want to know what's aaaalll this about."
Somehow, managing to find my voice again, "Well, yes. This is very…exciting!…and…and a bit confusing."
"Well, confusion is good! Not knowing is good!" She narrowed her eyes and again with her thin-lipped smile, "And why's that, Seb?"
"I…I…don't know?"
"Ha! Good! Because…sometimes not knowing things might save your life." My boss sang, still twirling around the room. "Of course…if you become a big, fat, know-it-all… "
She paused suddenly as we both watched with anticipation as the walls rippling away, revealing a glass storage case and the contents within. Three lights – two green, one red, glowed above their respective containment cells. Oh, yes. They were containment cells, alright.
The Mistress was giggling now and I instinctively felt her shard-eyes upon the back of my head, "Sometimes knowing everything…might just…kill you."
Despite the strangeness of her tone, I paid little attention to what she had said, because my eyes were fixed upon the silver, robotic figure inside the case with the red light.
A Cyberman.
It was kept in pristine condition, perpetually frozen in time. One arm of the emotionless alien was lifted, mid-air, in preparation to delete. I wouldn't have wanted to be around whenever Missy released the time lock, that's for sure.
All in all, the Cyberman was more impressive in real life than as I had seen it before. The dull glow was made even brighter by the TARDIS's lights. Brilliant! It was surreal, just to see an actual Cyberman specimen up close like this. But how did she…
"Oh come on! Don't look so surprised. You really think I've been doing nothing these years apart from watching my Doctor running about from A to B like a giddy aunt? That would be very, very, very nice but not at all practical, is it?"
Her body now leant against the cool, transparent glass, now.
"You see, whilst I released the spiders on you and whilst you were switched off. I was working so, so much, on… I wasn't very sure yet. But now, I am. Oh, oh, my dear, Doctor. Just you wait."
I felt a chill run down my spine - ooh, that's an interesting feeling, never had that one before – as my mind banks immediately began to register the other equally enigmatic beings contained within the two green-lit, boxes:
1. A Skovox Blitzer, and
2. A human – Clara Oswin Oswald
These were the gifts my Mistress will eventually present to the Doctor. One on Christmas, the other...later.
Hesitantly, I turned to face my boss again, who seemed to be having the time of her life. Before I could ask her the reason, however, she had already placed a finger on her lips...
"Shhhhhh... now. Don't be that guy."
End of Chapter 2
Thanks so much for reading. Now, now, I understand. The action and adventure sequences will come in Chapter 4 and 5. Chapter 3 will be a bit shorter. And I also intend for them to break into the Karabraxos Bank whilst the 12th Doctor does his thing.
So stay tuned for more, Seb and Missy adventures.
Love, Love, Love
CouncilofAkarem and my fabulously wonderful beta readers and editors: Arkoúda Férei and Alzaški