Chapter Twenty Five
A/N: No reviewers.
Even as the gathered group of humans smiled through their sighs of relief, none of them could quite bring themselves to approach Louise. True, she had the same face, her body still visible trapped in the metal bindings of the Cyber suit, but there was still far too much of a metallic edge around her for them to feel comfortable. And there was something about her that even her parents did not recognise.
The Cybermen had recovered from their shock- if they were even capable of such a thing- and approached the Cyber suit, as if they intended to close it, to make her appear Cyber once more, instead of human. The quiet voice made them stop in their tracks once more.
"Desist." Rose shuddered at the sound, her beautiful daughter's sweet voice mangled by an electronic overlay. She seemed more like a Cyberman than a child, even when her face was visible.
"I do not understand." the commanding Cyberman protested. Their prime objective was to protect their leader and obey its orders; now their leader was ordering them not to protect.
"You will end the program." Louise instructed, and there was a slight glint in her voice, almost like a childlike glee at being able to give the orders. The little girl had always relished doing such a thing, especially when her parents held such responsibilities every day. It almost sounded like the old her.
"The program cannot be terminated." the Cyberman argued. The volume of its voice seemed to have increased, almost like it was shouting; if their emotions had not been removed, Rose would have thought the Cyber unit was growing angry.
"I am the command centre, the Catalyst." Louise commanded, her face flinching just slightly. At least, Rose thought it had done; it could just have been a trick of the light. "I choose the duration of the program and I choose for it to be terminated."
The Cybermen fell silent and still. There were no more arguments to be given, the layers of code whirring through their brains giving no explanation as to why a Cyber program would order its own termination.
"What's happening?" John whispered, leaning towards his wife. His brow was furrowed, his expression torn between happiness and despair. Half of him- the Time Lord half, he supposed- knew that his daughter was lost to him, but deep inside him there was a glimmer of hope, the desperate hope of a parent, that somewhere his daughter knew what she was doing.
"She's controlling them." The Doctor replied before Rose had a chance, sounding almost as if he was in a dream. "She's using the Cybermen's system against them. They've been programmed to obey her and she's using that to control them."
"But will they listen?" Rose asked, her eyes flitting between the Time Lord and the Cyber units. Slowly, metallic footsteps were making their way across the room, the beeping and whirring of the Catalyst machine growing louder as they began to obey their orders.
The Doctor had to restrain himself from laughing. "It looks like they already have."
"Catalyst program desisting." the Cyber leader announced. Louise barely flinched, her gaze determined as she surveyed the units before her.
"All Cybermen will self-destruct." All inhabitants of the room, human and Cyber alike, turned to face the girl, not comprehending the words she had spoken.
"You have no authority to make this decision." There was something in the Cyberman's voice, it sounded almost like… fear. Emotions may have been removed in the conversion process, but beneath it all, they were still human. It was that knowledge that spurred the Doctor forward.
"Louise?" he questioned. The girl's eyes turned to him, but they held none of the joy they had done the first time he had met her. "Louise, you can't do this. They were human once, you need to respect that. You can't ask them to mass-destruct, it's not right."
"I am not asking them, I am ordering them." she corrected, unblinking, unrepentant. "I am the ultimate authority, the Catalyst, and I order all of this program to be terminated. All Cybermen will self-destruct."
There was a horrible silence then, the absence of sound that only accompanied anticipation for the terrible things to come. All at once, a loud buzzing sound appeared, crackles of blue electricity coming from within the Cyber suits themselves. The Cybermen screamed and cried out in pain; the humans tried not to listen. Then they fell to the ground, dead, and everything was done.
Rose looked up at the Catalyst machine, at the girl still held inside it. Her little girl, who had ordered the death of an entire species without a moment's hesitation, who showed no remorse for the heinous crime she had committed. For the first time, her hope began to flicker away; this was not her daughter.
"Lou?" John asked, tentatively approaching the child. Sarah Jane and her teenage companions had crossed the room now, shakily stepping across the now-empty shells that had guarded them to stand aghast beside the Doctor and Rose.
She did not respond. Her face did not move, she did not even blink. The only sound the man received in response was the beeping of the Catalyst machine.
"John, they deactivated it!" Rose exclaimed, running towards the machine, her hands hovering above the hundreds of buttons and levers. One false move and she could destroy the machine and her daughter along with it. She looked despairingly over her shoulder towards the Time Lord, pleading wordlessly for him to help her.
"Do you think you can get her out?" John asked, studying the machine intently. None of the controls were labelled; Cybermen were easily able to remember their functions. "Doctor, can you do it?"
"I don't know." the man answered honestly. He was focused on one lever, his instincts drawing him towards it. The machine was beeping louder now, insistent, a constant reminder of the urgency of his decision. The Doctor turned to Rose, meeting her eye for the briefest of moments. It was enough, and he reached out, grasping the lever and pulling it down.
They waited in silence, the beeping having ceased as soon as the lever was vertical. The air in the room seemed to have become too thick to breathe properly, or perhaps it was the tension. Suddenly, the metal began to groan, springing apart and releasing the child held within it. Both Rose and John ran forward, kneeling down beside the crumpled figure and holding her hand. She was as cold as ice, still as stone, the movement of her chest not even visible. The Doctor leaned over the two, placing two fingers in the nook beneath her chin, pressing down, waiting, counting. When he pulled away, his hands were shaking.
"Rose, I'm so sorry." he whispered. He could not find the strength to speak any louder. "She's dead."
A/N: I'm sorry that this isn't a very good chapter, but I've tried so many times to reach this point in the plot and I think I'm better off publishing what I had and getting on with the rest of the fic. Not long to go now. Please review!