IX
She got to her feet slowly, and looked down at herself. Her skin looked a bit pale… and her arms were covered in silver veins.
"Oh my God," she said, almost crying. "I… I got put in a…"
The Doctor grabbed her and looked her in the eyes. He didn't want her going into shock.
"Look at me," he said. "You're safe. You're fine. Trust me, just… trust me."
Carrie nodded, slowly, and her face slowly colored. Then her veins slowly started returning to their regular color.
"Right," the Doctor smiled. "Now then… I fear we may have some unfinished business. Come with me."
--
Strand tapped the dead Cybermen with his foot.
"I think it might just be dead," Davison deadpanned.
"Yeah," McKenzie added. "If they were ever alive."
Strand looked at the dead face, and stared deep at it's eyes. The teardrops. He knew what the Cybermen were. He had read all of the files. He knew. So, when McKenzie said that, he snapped his head up.
"They were people once," he told his Corporal. "Human. We have to remember that, McKenzie."
McKenzie looked sheepish, but Strand had already turned his gaze back to the nameless face.
"Torchwood is gonna have a field day," he mumbled, before heading to his office to write reports.
--
The Doctor walked into Cyber Control, and looked grim, for obvious reasons - as the place was filled to the brim with Cybermen, all dead, smoldering and burning. The stench of rotting flesh was everywhere. Only the Cyber Controller was standing, but it was leaning, really, against a wall, dying, surrounded by a puddle of what Carrie could only guess was Cyber puke.
"You," it snarled, noticing them, emotion laced through its voice like a poison. "You ruined everything. They would have made us all better. So much better…"
"Who are you?" the Doctor asked, his voice semi sympathetic.
"Matthews," the Controller – spat? Could you say that for a machine face?
"Oh my God…" Carrie gasped, looking at it in a new light. "You! You bastard -!"
"Predictable human response," Matthews/Controller. "From a predictable human. You're scum, all of you, clinging to your tiny little lives…"
"You were like them, once," the Doctor pointed out. "Just as… scummy, as it were."
"Yeah," the Controller said. "I guess I was. I had a little life like all the rest of the animal organisms, a little, insignificant creation with no purpose other than to live its pitiful life, and then die a miserable death."
"And what are you?" the Doctor asked the Controller creature.
"I am Cyberman," the Cyber Controller said, its metallic voice sounding almost like a purr. "We are the saviors of humanity, the reasoning beings that will save your species from its own insanity and fury. We are superior to your organisms."
"And totally emotionless," the Doctor added, deadpan.
"Yes," the Cyber Controller said, a metallic laughter in it's voice.
"Right," the Doctor said. "You may want to study your own behavior, at the moment, because, I'm sorry to tell you, you are very, very emotional at the moment."
"No," the Controller said at once.
"Yes," the Doctor said, continuing on his roll. "You are a creature of flesh and blood whose life has been stolen away – and now your mind is remembering, trying to keep to the Cyber element in charge because that is how you've been conditioned, but at the same time trying to become human again because that is it's natural state."
"You are incorrect," the Controller said. "I am a Cyber Controller…"
"You are Matthews!" the Doctor yelled. "A human being! Try to remember that! Focus on that! Human!"
The Controller swung it's arm at him, but he ducked it, and laughed.
"Face it, Matthews," he told it, smiling. "You're not a Cyberman – you're a hybrid, a freak!"
He hated trying to upset it, but it needed to see the truth. The Doctor pitied the Cybermen, as much as it was possible to pity a race of automatons, and he wanted to help this person, now, to see the truth. If that meant hurting him first…
"I'm a Cyberman!" the creature yelled.
"You're a person!" the Doctor yelled. "Cut apart and put back in a big, silver tin. Why don't you just accept that!"
"BECAUSE IT HURTS!!" the Cyberman yelled, the metallic vocaliser screeching. "I lost everything I had when I was human, and the Cybermen came and offered me a life without hurt."
"What did you lose?" Carrie asked, trying to sympathize with the man she had known for years and only just now begun to understand.
"My wife left me and told me I'd never see my child again," the Cyberman said, letting the words flow. "And I never did. Five years ago that was, and neither of them has ever contacted me since. And I just wanted to stop hurting… and the Cybermen came and offered me that."
"And you accepted," the Doctor finished, nodding in comprehension.
"Yes," the Cyberman said, its metallic voice breaking. Carrie put her hands over her mouth.
"I am so sorry," she murmured. "So sorry…"
"Too late now," the Cyber Controller said. "I am imperfect – malfunctioning. I must self-terminate."
"No!" Carrie yelled, suddenly realizing what he meant. "You can't just kill yourself!"
"I can," the Controller said.
"You shouldn't then!" Carrie said. "It's not right!"
"I am Cyberform," the Controller said. "I am not right. I am emotional, imperfect. I am a defective unit. I must self terminate."
The Doctor put his hand on Carrie's shoulder, and shook his head.
"There's nothing we can say to make him change his mind," he muttered. "I'm sorry."
Carrie could only watch, horrified, as the Controller terminated himself – he pressed five buttons in sequence on his chest unit, and then stood still.
"Execute," it said. And then, somehow, a red light covered its body… and then it disintegrated.
"So ends the latest Cyber threat," the Doctor murmured. "Death. So much of it." He sighed. "I can't do this forever," he murmured.
"Can anyone?" Carrie mumbled. "I barely feel like I can carry on now."
"Well," the Doctor said. "I guess its time we were going."
Carrie nodded absently, still staring at the space where the Controller – where Matthews – had been.
"Yeah," she said. "I don't want to come back here ever again."
--
