Chapter Thirty-Nine

The wind came unexpectedly and sent goosebumps racing across Zoe's bare skin, a shiver forcing her to clench her jaw, an attempt to repress it that failed to work. Edging out of the back of the lorry she had been unceremoniously escorted into by Cybermen who kept a tight, bruising grip on her upper arms, and Battersea Power Station rose up in front of her. Lit up by bright, powerful lights, a Zeppelin tethered to the roof that blocked the moon from casting its light on them, a sense of unease settled in her. It was impossible for her to ignore what had happened the last time she crossed paths with the Cybermen. Her head gave a warning throb, an echo of the pain that Mondas had caused her, and she reached out and took the president's hand.

It wasn't the Doctor's but it would do.

"It's okay," the president said, squeezing her hand even as fear cloaked him. "This is all a misunderstanding. Once I speak with Mr Lumic, you'll be free to go."

"I appreciate your confidence," Zoe said, shifting closer to him in order to soak up some of his body heat. "But I've dealt with these creatures before and a good old catch-up with their boss isn't going to solve this. He ordered you murdered not too long ago. Don't forget that when we go in there."

The president's face flickered with uncertainty, and Zoe shivered again. There was no question in her mind that the Doctor was coming for her. Even if Rose hadn't got out of the mansion – and, of that, Zoe was certain – then he would have been on his way the second the Cybermen made their appearance. All she needed to do was to keep herself, and the president, alive long enough for him to make some grand dramatic entrance that he could lord over her as she, occasionally, did with her rescue of him and Jack from the Game Station. Then again, she considered as the Cybermen marched them forward into the bitter shadow of the building, she might just rescue herself if only to see the look of disappointment mixed with pride on his face when she turned him.

He did so love riding to her rescue and complained that she didn't let him do it often enough.

"You say you've met these creatures before," the president said, quietly, eyes looking over their surroundings. "When? Where?"

"A few years ago now," Zoe answered. "On a planet long since destroyed."

"A planet?" His head turned to hers, his dark skin almost pure black in the shadowed corridors they were passing through. "You're an alien?"

"Oh, good, you know about aliens then," she said, pleased at how much easier that made things. "And no, not alien. I'm human, I'm just from a different universe. Don't think about it too much, it'll do your head in, and we really don't have time to go into it right now. All that matters is they're called the Cybermen. Humans that have had all their emotions stripped away so they can become the most perfect, logical forms of themselves."

"Humans?" Nausea passed over him. "They're not...aliens? They're us?"

"Yes." Zoe squeezed his hand, shivering again. "Like I say, don't think about it too much. What this Lumic guy is doing is awful, but you can't let that be the only thing in your mind when we go in there. I've got friends, they'll be coming for me. All we need to do is survive, okay? We just need to make it through the night and we'll be okay. So don't think about it."

The president opened his mouth to say something, changing his mind at the last minute. As they were escorted into a wide lift, Cybermen flanking them, he shrugged out of his jacket and placed it around his shoulders. The warmth sent a sigh of relief fluttering from her.

"Thank you," she said, grateful.

He nodded. "It's rather strange, isn't it? That a young woman from another universe ends up working as a server at a party?"

It was clear from his tone that he didn't believe her, not that she blamed him. A woman dressed in a French maid's uniform talking about parallel universes was hard to believe at the best of times.

"A little, I suppose," Zoe said, threading her arms through the sleeves and tugging it tightly around her. "But that's my sister's fault more than anything. We were –" she sighed and shook her head. "It doesn't matter what we were doing. I'm Zoe, by the way."

She held out her hand and his lips twitched.

"Thomas Baksh," he said, shaking her hand. "You don't know me in your universe?"

"We have a Prime Minister not a president," Zoe told him with a small smile that let him know she was aware of what he was doing. "Her name's Harriet Jones."

"Harriet Jones." He rolled the name over in his mouth, the conversation helping to settle the fear that clawed at his nerves. "The Opposition has a backbencher by that name. I can't remember where from. Keeps going on about cottage hospitals."

Zoe's laugh warmed the air. "Yep, that's her. She's in charge back home."

"Fascinating," Thomas mused. "Once this is over, I'd be fascinated to pick your brain about the other differences."

And maybe check me into a mental hospital, she thought, amused.

"Tell you what," she grinned. "We make it through this night, we'll do just that."

The doors softly pinged as they slid aside and Zoe steeled herself for what was to come. While the Cybermen hadn't technically been responsible for her looking into the Untempered Schism, she associated everything about that day and the long period of recovery that came after it with them. Fragility long since hardened bloomed at being surrounded by them once more, even if they were newer, shinier versions, and her heart hammered painfully in her chest.

They were led into a large, sterile room with computer equipment lining the wall and the gentle hiss-hiss of a respirator forming the background noise. A solitary Cybermen blocked their exit, and Zoe's trainers made soft sounds against the ground as she walked inside, gathering her courage to her and trusting that the Doctor would come. Letting her fingers trail over the edges of a console, she lifted them up to show Thomas the dark smudges of dust against her fingertips. Scanning the room for anything that might help her, she waited and waited until her impatience got the better of her.

"I know you're there," Zoe said, the words repeating back to her on a soft echo. "It would be a bit pointless to bring us to an empty room, so save the dramatics and come out and talk to us face-to-face. You brought us here for a reason after all."

The hiss-hiss sounded again, a voice emerging from the dark back room with the trembling strength of a man fighting against his inevitable death.

"Who are you?"

"I refuse to have this conversation with you hidden away like a coward," she said. "If you won't respect me enough to speak face-to-face, respect your president enough to show yourself." A beat of silence and she opened her mouth, taunting with a song. "Come out, come out, wherever you are and meet the young lady who fell from a star."

Thomas frowned. "Is that the Wizard of Oz?"

"Great film, isn't it?" She said from the side of her mouth, attention returning to the hidden Lumic. "Come on! I've travelled universes to be here just to meet you. Well, no, that's a lie. I travelled universes entirely by accident but, since I'm here, let me get a look at the man stupid enough to create the Cybermen. When I tell this story back home, I want to have a face to go with the name."

The angry, sharp edges of her voice echoed around the room, bouncing from one wall to the other. Jack had warned her on New Earth that her negative emotions were closer to the surface than usual, and she was trying to control them better yet the presence of the Cybermen sent that control scattering in the wind. Fingers clenching inside the long sleeves of Thomas's jacket, she waited, breath caught in her chest, and her brief flirtation with patience was rewarded when cold steam spread out like dry ice across the ground, chilling her knees and upper thighs as Lumic was detached from the missions that helped keep him alive.

Emerging from the gloom in a wheelchair designed for life-support purposes, breathing apparatus flowing out from it and into him, John Lumic looked less impressive than his reputation suggested. Papery skin hung from him in wrinkled folds, hair an ashy grey that was swept back to cover the patches of mottled skin that peeked through, eyes rheumy and leaking. Despite appearances, Zoe wasn't sure of his actual age as it seemed as though whatever illness was ravaging his body had aged him long before his time, bitterness clinging to him like a perfume. Even when he spoke, it was with the rasping tremble of someone suffering greatly, and pity stirred itself in her chest.

"The wizard behind the curtain, as I live and breathe," Zoe said.

His wet eyes flickered over her, small twitches running through him, a wire filled with yellow urine running from his bladder to bag beneath the wheelchair.

"Who are you?"

"Zoe," she said, simply. "My name's Zoe."

"And where do you come from?" Lumic asked.

"A long, long way away."

"You spoke of universes," he said, shoulders hunched over, dry tongue touching his bottom lip that was cracked and peeling. "Another universe. Tell me of it. Now."

"Why?" Zoe asked. "It's not like you can travel there. I shouldn't have been able to come here. A small crack in the universe was what I slipped through, entirely by accident as it was. My universe is of no consequence to you. But, I wanted you to know where I'm from because I want you to understand that I've seen the Cybermen before. I know what happens next. And I can't let that happen. I can't let you kill all these people."

"This isn't your universe," he told her. "It's of no consequence to you."

She huffed. "All right, yeah, I walked into that one, didn't I?"

"John." Thomas stepped forward, shoulder to shoulder with Zoe. "What are you doing? You're one of our finest businessmen, one of our greatest minds. I don't understand why you're doing this. This isn't you."

Lumic blinked, hand rising with a handkerchief balled up within his palm to wipe the wetness away. "Mr President. How nice of you to come all this way. Of course, if things had gone to plan, you would already be dead. Shame."

Thomas recoiled, face hardening, eyes flicking to the Cyberman at the entrance. "Is it true that these Cybermen were once people like you and I. That you took them and turned them into...robots. Who were they before you desecrated them?"

"People like you and I." Lumic's laugh was wet and rasping, phlegm echoing in his chest, and Zoe wanted to press her hand over her ears to block out the sound. "They were homeless. Useless, wretched creatures. A drain on society. I gave them a new purpose. I've refashioned them into the first of the Cybermen. Isn't that what your government says we should do to save the planet, Mr President? Reuse that which is no longer fit for purpose?"

"You know this isn't what I meant," he said, jaw tight.

"The inhumanity starts right at the top," Zoe noted. "I did wonder."

"It's not inhumane," Lumic replied. "It's the future of humanity. I am rebuilding this useless, wasteful species into something more. You should be thanking me, Mr President. In this new world, Great Britain will be at the top of the chain. The centre for Cyber production all over the world."

"How altruistic of you," Zoe said, dryly. "And your ambition has nothing to do with the fact that you're dying now, does it? How long have you got left? Months? Actually, judging by the look of you, I'll say weeks."

Anger flashed across his loose face. "Days, according to my doctor. At most."

Good, she thought, viciously.

"I'm sorry," she lied, channeling the Doctor, mimicking his ability to empathise with all walks of people, including those who many would turn their back on. "I am. Facing your own mortality...it's something that not many people are able to do."

"What would you know of mortality?" Lumic demanded. "You can't be more than twenty-two. You're a child."

"I'm thirty, but thank you," she said. "And I know a little something of death. Came to close to it myself once on the day I met the Cybermen. But it was actually watching my wife grow sicker and sicker until there was nothing left of the woman I loved – nothing except a dry, empty shell – that brought me understand. She was a remarkable woman: strong and brave. She faced her death with courage but even for the bravest people, death is a frightening thing and she was terrified at the end. So I have some idea of what you're feeling right now, and for that I'm sorry." She paused to ensure her voice didn't waver as it always did when the emotions surrounding Reinette's death were dredged up. "That being said: None of the fear you're feeling gives you the right to slaughter millions."

"I have every right," he rasped. "I've built my business with this end in mind: I'm saving the human race, not slaughtering them."

"Did you ask if they wanted to be saved, or did you just fool yourself into thinking it was the right thing to do?" Zoe demanded. "Was this the only way you could fall asleep at night? Because I bet there's some form of conscience left inside you. Something that's telling you that this is the wrong thing to do. Listen to it. Stop it now before more people get hurt."

The line of his throat moved as he swallowed. "No."

"John, don't be a fool!" Thomas felt a surge of anger rise up through him, fingers tingling with it. "You'll be dead in a few days, you said it yourself. Why take the rest of us with you? Die proudly, my friend, as you have lived!"

Lumic's rasping, wet laugh shot through Zoe. "I'll miss our conversations on Nietzsche, Mr President. They were comforting when the pain was ever presenting. However, you won't need books or philosophers in the future. All of that want will be stripped from you, and you'll be focused like never before. Focused on building a better tomorrow as you've always promised."

"What do you mean?"

"Every citizen will be upgraded," he said. "I was going to kill you. More for security's sake than anything. Nothing personal, you understand, but having you alive and giving orders to the government until your conversion would've been inconvenient, I'm sure you understand. You've reminded me of our friendship though, the good times we've had. You'll receive your upgrade too, Mr President."

Thomas glanced to Zoe who shook her head, eyes flashing a warning.

No, she mouthed.

"And if I refuse?" He asked.

"Thomas, don't," Zoe warned, quietly. "Remember what I said? Through the night is all we need."

"No, I want to know," Thomas said. "Because the people of this country won't accept their subjugation and murder without fighting back, so I want to know what happens if I refuse this upgrade."

"Then you are not compatible," Lumic replied.

"And what does that mean?"

Lumic sighed. "So be it. Goodbye, Mr President. Thank you for our many pleasant conversations. Mr Crane."

Out of the darkness, a presence concealed until that moment, a man appeared dressed in a well-tailored suit and a long coat. Zoe cried out a warning only to flinch, staggering back, when Thomas's head snapped back, the echo of a gunshot making her ears ring, and blood and brain matter sprayed across her face and chest, the heat of it burning her. She watched, terrified, as Thomas's body crumpled to the floor, blood pouring from the wound on the back of his head like milk chugging itself way out of a jug.

She stared down at him in horror, mouth agape.

She had seen death before – Reinette's, of course, and the solitary execution she had attended in France where a guillotine fell with speed and accuracy, severing a man's head from his body – but the simple violence of a gunshot ripped away the careless bravado that she had donned and left her feeling afraid.

"Why did you do that?" Zoe demanded, voice warbling and limbs trembling. "You didn't have to kill him! Why the hell did you do that?"

"He wasn't compatible," Lumic said.

"You're a monster," she hissed at him. "And to think I felt sorry for you. You deserve your illness. You deserve all the fear that death brings. There's nothing in the least bit human about you, Lumic."

Lumic's eyes shone bright, the vividness betraying the enjoyment he felt at Thomas's murder, and Zoe realised that she was in the room with a mad man. Not the first time such a thing had happened and undoubtedly not the last. His hand clamoured for his oxygen mask, unhooking it from the side of the wheelchair and dragging it over his mouth, shoulders relaxing an inch as he breathed in deeply, eyes fixed on her, tracing over the blood splatter that she didn't dare wipe from her skin, afraid of letting him know it bothered her. Behind him, gun stowed back in its holster, Mr Crane faded into the shadows once more, his absence only serving to ensure that Zoe was now acutely aware that he was there, waiting.

"Your anger is a beautiful thing," Lumic said once he had breath in his lungs again. "Think of what you could do with it."

She imagined wrapping her hands around his throat. "I am."

His chest rumbled with a laugh. "But your anger is misdirected. Our dear, late, lamented president didn't understand it but perhaps you will now that you've seen the cost of refusal. What I am offering if for humanity to have a greater chance at life. For everyone, not just the rich and the privileged few, immortality is now within their grasp."

Between them, resting on the arm of his wheelchair, his crooked hand that was riddled with arthritis flexed in a grasping motion.

"Offering," Zoe scorned, the wet heat of Thomas's blood seeping into her trainers. Her stomach swooped at the feel of it. Remaining in place, she poured her focus onto Lumic, ignoring the distressing distractions around her. "You and I have very different definitions of that word. If you're forcing them to convert when the only alternate is death, that's not an offer."

"I disagree."

"Of course you do," she said, disdain dripping from her. "You know, you're not the first person to create the Cybermen. Not just in my universe but probably in this one too. It's called a repeating causality. The same story told again and again in more or less the same form but stemming from different origins. Things like Cinderella or Arabian Tales. You find them all over Earth but in different formats and at different times. The same is true of the Cybermen throughout the universe. Same story, different starting point."

"What does that matter when I'm the author of this story?" Lumic asked. "The Cybermen here are mine."

"Only for a few more days," she reminded him. "Tell me, what's your plan here? You build the Cybermen, I assume, as a way to avoid dying. Fair play to you and all that, like I said, I understand the fear. However, it hasn't escaped my notice that you've not upgraded yourself yet." She threw quotation marks around the word upgraded to allow her sarcasm to fully land. "What's the matter? Getting cold feet?"

"I must oversee the initial stages," he said, mouth moving to suck on a straw that dangled by his head. The sight of it created a longing inside Zoe for a tall glass of iced water. "And then I'll complete my upgrade and be freed from this decaying body."

She clucked her tongue. "What about the inhibitor?"

"What?"

"The emotional inhibitor that strips all those poor men and women of their emotions, their feelings, their personalities," she said. "Is that something you're signing up for, or is it one rule for the huddled masses and another for the monster that's killing them?"

"What need do I have for the inhibitor?" Lumic questioned. "I'm in charge. My mind will be my own."

"I'm not sure that's going to work," Zoe said, amusement curling around her like smoke. "Cybermen are all about the upgrades. You sure they're not going to take one look at you once you've got your shiny metal suit and realise your emotions are still intact and think that you're defective? Be a bit awkward when your own creations drag you off to have that inhibitor put in after all, won't it? Still, it'll be a nice piece of karma."

He opened his mouth, teeth loose and fever yellow. "I –"

"And what happens after that?" She continued, blood seeping between her toes, soaking her socks, and she wanted to vomit. "Once the whole of the human race has been converted into the Cybermen, what happens next?"

"The world," he said.

Zoe rolled her eyes, irritated at the lack of ambition. "Boring. The world. Honestly, no one has creativity any more. World domination's been done to death. Out of everything you could've chosen, you chose that? If I didn't think you were an idiot before, I do now."

"Interesting though you are," Lumic said, anger making his eyes weep. "I'm tired of listening to you talk."

"That's probably your approaching death more than conversation with me," she said. "Dying's an exhausting business unless done quickly."

"Then allow me to spare you that exhaustion," he croaked, body slumped over and sweat catching on the light in the room, glistening. "Mr Crane, kill her."


It was decided, rather abruptly, to abandon their van on the side of the road. The engine chugged and growled, the petrol tank containing dribs and drabs, and fingers were pointed every which way at who had forgotten to get petrol that morning but there was nothing for it: the van was an albatross around their necks.

They jumped out on the side of a main road with Cybermen approaching them from a distance. It was to their advantage that the Cybermen didn't run, their steady marching enough to eventually get what they needed, yet the Doctor wasn't eager to linger and find out how long it would take to be captured. Rose's hand tucked firmly in his and hissing at Jack to stay in that wheelchair, for Rassilon's sake, the uncomfortably large group escaped the sights of the Cybermen and plunged into the outskirts of London, ducking down a narrow alley and hurrying between two residential buildings.

The Doctor hated having too many people involved in an escape attempt as it was always complicated keeping an eye on everyone. His biggest concerns lay with Jack and Rita Smith. If he thought he had any chance of Jack doing what he was told, he would have ordered his friend to use the Vortex Manipulator to get back to the TARDIS and wait for them. Experience had taught him Jack was less likely to do that than he was suddenly to take up a life of celibacy. As for Rita, he was deeply regretting her involvement in affairs. Blind and with a streak of recklessness that ran through the people he met, he worried that something awful was waiting for her in the hours to come.

Not that there was anything he could do about it now.

Up ahead, Ricky held up his fist for them to stop, pushing his grandmother back against the wall and sending complicated hand gestures at Jake who appeared to understand what they meant.

The loud, metallic crashing of Cyber boots against the concrete reverberated through the Doctor, his hearts beating so loudly it was a wonder Rose didn't hear them. He pulled her against his chest, arm around her, a shiver rolling through her that came from the cold more than the Cybermen – the bare skin on her arms icy to the touch – and her fingers curled around his wrist, thumb pressing into his dorsal tubercle as they waited. The crashes grew louder and louder until it felt as though the platoon was bearing down on them, before it passed and faded into the distance.

Only when the platoon was out of sight did Ricky allow them to move again.

The Cybermen were everywhere. Their boots a terrifying soundtrack to the night. Doors of homes were ripped open and families clinging to each other were forced outside, huddling together with their neighbours, eyes wide and fearful, not understanding. Only the lucky ones who had still had their ear pods in were unaware of what was happening, moving silently and obediently along with the Cybermen.

The Doctor watched them, not knowing what was worse even after all his years of life: to be aware of the danger and unable to do anything to save yourself or to walk blissful and ignorant to your death.

"Ricky," he hissed, and the man with Mickey's face looked back at him, frowning. "We need to get off the streets, quickly. Do you have another safe house?"

He shook his head. "Nothing close by."

"I know a place," Jake whispered. "Kind of. We won't be able to stay long but we can catch our breath there." The Doctor nodded, eyes catching on the sight of Jake clasping Ricky's shoulder and the look of quiet gratitude that washed over Ricky's face, fingers reaching up to touch the hand, missing it by an inch when Jake moved. "Come on, quickly. Wheels, don't fall behind."

"Don't call me wheels," Jack shot back, taking care to keep his voice low, fingers shifting restlessly in his lap, the vulnerability of being in a wheelchair during an emergency was weighing on him. "It's really offensive."

The Doctor took Rose's hand again and followed silently as Jake led them down a series of winding streets and through a few gardens, the grass damp from the cold night's air leaving dew to form on the blades. The tips licked at his ankles, chilling him, but he was distracted by the sight of an apple tree, the branches hanging low; hungry, he reached out and plucked one free, shoving it into his pocket for later.

By the time they reached an abandoned house, having been forced to spend five minutes uncomfortably crouched behind a foul-smelling rubbish bin as a platoon of Cybermen passed, everyone was cold, miserable, and afraid. The temperature inside the house seemed to be colder than outside, shards of broken glass littered the floor by the windows, and there was a sour, musty smell that came from not having been lived in for a long time. The Doctor released Rose and immediately shed his coat, draping it over her shoulders that slumped in relief, her wind-red fingers clutching the sides together as she shivered, teeth clattering.

"Why are you wearing a French maid's outfit?"

"The only way into the party was through the back door," she explained, leaning into him, his hands rubbing up and down the side of her arms. "It's Mum's birthday here. She was havin' this huge blowout an' there was security everywhere."

"And the only way in was as a maid?" He asked, confused.

"I don't know," she complained. "It was the uniform the servers were wearin'. The female servers at least."

An image of Zoe dressed in a similar outfit created conflicting emotions in him: arousal since he enjoyed it when they dressed up, and anger that someone had sexualised her without her consent.

"Well," he said with a tight cheeriness. "You look smashing."

Her eyes rolled. "Shut up."

"Jack, Mickey, you two doing okay?" The Doctor looked around and found Mickey bent over Jack. For a second, he thought they were kissing, which was rather strange as the two tended not to veer towards the overly affectionate in public, before he realised that Jack was white with pain, teeth clenched. "Shit."

"Oh my god, Jack," Rose breathed, rushing forwards. "What happened?"

"It's his knees," Mickey said, hands gently cupping Jack's left kneecap that had popped out of place and, the Doctor noted, would need another surgery to repair it. "Goddammit, this is my fault. I shouldn't have gone to see gran. I'm sorry."

"Not your fault," Jack groaned, hands tight on the arms of his wheelchair. "It's fine."

"What's wrong with him?" Pete asked from the side, arms folded across his chest, thumbnail in his mouth as he chewed. "Is he all right?"

"An injury that's playing up," the Doctor said, tapping Mickey's hip. "Let me have a look, Micks." Mickey shifted to one side and he crouched down, wincing. "Yep. This has popped right out of place. Must have jostled something earlier and then it just went –" he stuck his finger in his cheek and popped. "Give him something to bite down on because this is going to hurt."

Mickey pulled his jacket off and folded the sleeve in over on itself, placing it between Jack's teeth, hand smoothing back his hair as he did so. Mrs Moore hovered over the Doctor's shoulder, watching with curiosity tinged with disgust – Jack's knee looked like a fleshy sock with a golf ball jutting out of it –, and everyone recoiled when the Doctor slowly and carefully slid the kneecap back into place. Jack lasted longer than most before screaming around a mouthful of Mickey's sleeve, hand clenching down around Rose's, her knees buckling from the pain even as she encouraged him.

"Done!"

Jack released Rose's hand and panted, sweat dripping down his face, spitting the sleeve from his mouth. "Fuck!"

"Sorry," the Doctor grimaced, rooting through the pockets of his coat as Rose breathed through the pain, tentatively flexing her fingers and relieved to find nothing broken. "Hold on. I need to wrap it. You're going to need another surgery."

"Yeah," he grunted. "Figured that." He reached down to Rose, fingers brushing over her face, searching for her awkwardly. "Rosie, I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

"Just fine," Rose lied. "Don't think about it."

"That was disgusting," Jake said, blinking slowly. "Your knee was on the other side of your leg. And it moved."

"Yeah, I know, I felt it," he replied, leaning into Mickey's side, eyes fluttering as he breathed in and out slowly, lowering his heart rate, the Doctor's hands working delicately to wrap his thigh with the flexible splint he had in his pocket medical kit. "You got any pain stuff in there too? I wouldn't say no to a quick jab. Local rather than general, please."

"Consider it done."

"He's going to slow us down," Ricky said. Mickey whipped around with a fierce scowl on his face, and his doppelgänger took a step back, bumping into Rita. "Whoa, I don't mean anything by it but it's true. He's going to slow us down."

"Then I'll fucking carry him," Mickey snapped. "But he's not going to slow us down, asshole. You got that?"

"Mickey –" Jack reached out and caught his hand, squeezing the anger out with a loose grip around his fingers. "He's only stating the obvious. Right now, I'm a liability. Don't jump down his throat because he's the one saying it."

"No one's goin' to slow anyone down," Rose said, using Jack's wheelchair to help her as she got to her feet, hand already bruising. "We're goin' to be like wolves."

There was a beat of confused silence before –

"Wolves?" Rita asked. "Did she say wolves?"

"Yeah, she definitely said wolves," Pete said. "What the hell d'you mean by that?"

"Wolves," she repeated, staring at them as though expecting them to understand. "Oh, c'mon, I can't be the only person who knows about this. Don't any of you read the National Geographic? When wolves move in packs, they move at the speed of the slowest member. The whole pack comes together to keep the weakest ones safe."

Jack stared at her, torn between amusement at the analogy and despair at being considered the weakest member of the pack.

The Doctor snorted. "She's not wrong. We'll be just like wolves. Keeps everyone safe that way."

"Ow," Jack hissed, pulling away from the sharp jab of pain that came a beat before the sweet release of anaesthetic. "Oh, that's nice. That's feeling better."

"Don't put weight on it unless you absolutely have to," the Doctor warned. "I can rebuild your entire leg if necessary but it'll take a lot of time and the recovery's significantly longer." Jack blinked, dazed from the sudden lack of pain, and the Doctor nodded, standing up. "Right then, we've wasted enough time dilly dallying. We're clearly safe for now but we can't stay here forever. The Cybermen'll find us eventually."

"We should get out of the city," Pete said. "Find somewhere safe where we can call for backup."

"What backup?" Mrs Moore asked. "The police and military are probably already in the factories being changed into those metal men. I hate to say it, but I think we're it."

"Jesus," he muttered, striding away to the window, shoulders lined with distress.

Rose's eyes lingered on him, a pull in her stomach urging her to go to him and comfort him. Ignoring it, she looked to the Doctor.

"I don't understand what was happenin' outside," she said. "Why were those people just walkin' along an' not fightin' like the others?"

The Doctor tapped his ear. "Ear pods. That's how Lumic's taken control, I reckon. Everyone has them, and we saw earlier how easily their brains were hijacked. He must've loved it. People were buying his products and making it easier and easier for him to do this."

"Yank them out," Rita said, miming around her ears, light from the street reflecting off her dark glasses that showed his reflection in it. He smoothed down his hair that was sticking up. "Stop that man taking control."

"I like the spirit but no can do," the Doctor said. "You can't remove a person from technology embedded in their brain too quickly or you'd cause a brainstorm. For all we know, it might kill them." Irritation at the situation tipped over him and he sighed, heavily. "Humans. For such an intelligent bunch, you lot aren't half stupid when it comes to putting things in your brain. Give you a shiny toy and wham in it goes, no thinking about whether or not it might be good for you or not. I mean, look at Brain Door."

"Adam. Blimey, I haven't thought of him in ages." Rose snapped her fingers before frowning at the Doctor. "An' we're not all bad."

"You're not," he admitted. "Everyone in this room isn't, but I swear, sometimes I think you humans like submitting. Anything for an easy life."

Mickey rubbed his eyes. "You're being rude, Doctor."

"Am I? Good." A scowl rippled across his face. "Zoe's missing and in a lot of danger. I get to be rude right now. You were a bloody nightmare when Jack were gone, so it's my turn now."

"That's true," he acknowledged with a good-natured bob of his head. "I was awful, mainly to Zoe. He gets to be a bit rude right now."

"Thank you," the Doctor said.

"You're welcome, mate."

"My god." Pete twisted around from the window, anger and fear etched across his face. "What is wrong with you people? My wife and your girlfriend are missing, Lumic's taken control of the country, and here you are blathering on like a fucking idiot."

"Hey!" Rose turned on him with a suddenness that surprised everyone in the room, though no one more than herself. "Back off. He's the one who's goin' to fix this bloody mess so just back the fuck off, all right?"

"Him? He's going to fix it?" Pete gestured violently at the Doctor. "Look at him! He looks like a bloody madman. Who wears a suit like that?"

"I do," he said, offended.

"He might be mad, but he's also the smartest person you're ever goin' to meet," Rose snapped. "An' if you want any hope of seein' your wife again, you'll shut up an' listen to him. You don't like that, then you're welcome to try your luck out there. See how long you'll last without him, yeah?"

Pete glared at her, and the desperate, childish hope that had spread through her and held on since first seeing his advert along the South Bank died, finally understanding what the Doctor and Zoe had been telling her all along.

He wasn't her dad.

Her dad was dead and forcing a meeting had been an exercise in painful futility that might have cost her Zoe.

"What do we do?" Rose said, swivelling back to face the Doctor with a sharp pivot. "You got a plan?"

"No," the Doctor admitted, touched by her defence of him. "But when do I ever?"

Jake whistled lowly, cutting through the tension that had gathered from the small confrontation, and jerked his head towards the window. Crowding around him, they watched as a platoon of Cybermen marched passed with quiet, subdued humans grouped within them.

"What will they do with the children?" Mrs Moore asked, worrying the strap over her torso. "Do they have Cyber children or something?"

"Children aren't compatible with the conversion process," the Doctor replied. "They'll be killed unless we can stop them."

Mickey twitched a dusty curtain back. "Where are they going?"

"The factories in Battersea," Ricky said. "It's huge, and if Cybus was able to convert the mines in Cornwall into those conversion chamber things then Battersea's definitely undergone the same thing. They're big enough to hold the chambers and anyone waiting for the conversion."

"Ricky's right," the Doctor said. "Battersea's the most logical place."

Pete sniffed, sore from having Rose snap at him but willing to help. "It's where he was building his prototypes. The security there's top notch as well. He's pumped a lot of money into it. Can't imagine that's just for a holding depot."

"Why's he doing it though?" Rose asked, looping her fingers through the Doctor's. "I mean, what's the point of all this?"

"He's dying," Pete said. "This all started out as a way of prolonging life, of keeping the brain alive at any cost."

"Never mind that," Ricky said, eyes tracking the movements of two Cybermen who were moving house to house, checking for anyone left behind. "We need to move. They'll be on us in a second. Getting out of the city is our best bet. You lot know the hills that overlook the power station? We should meet there."

"We're not splitting up," Jake argued. "That's a bad idea."

"Yeah, I'm with Jake on this," Jack said. "Splitting up never ends well."

"Look how many of us there are," Ricky said. "We've got my gran with us thanks to you lot pulling her into this, and you're in a wheelchair. How fast do you think you can move when the Cybermen are moving at full whack towards us? No offence, but you'll get us killed."

"He won't get us killed," Mickey frowned, eyes brushing over Rita. "But you might be onto somethin'. If two of us draw the attention of the Cybermen, it'll give everyone else a chance to get out of the city."

"Don't even think about it," the Doctor warned.

"Too late," he said, looking down at Jack. "I'll catch up with you."

Jack swallowed. "You'd better. I'm going to be really angry if you get yourself killed."

"Jake, look after my gran, would you?" Ricky requested, meeting his friend's eyes and Jake opened his mouth to protest, pained, before he nodded. "Gran, go with Jake, okay? I'll be right behind you."

"Ricky –" her voice wavered. "Don't be a hero now."

"I won't, I promise." He leaned in and kissed her dry cheek. "Second we get out of here, make a break for it. We'll create a big of a distraction as we can but run and don't look back."

"Mickey," the Doctor said, worried. He reached out and grabbed him by the shoulders, dragging him into a rough embrace. "Make sure you meet us on the hill. Don't you dare let anything happen to you."

"I'll be there," Mickey said, emotion clogging his throat, smiling at Rose over the Doctor's shoulder. "Right, see you lot in a bit. Keep Jack out of trouble for me."

"Look who's talking," Jack replied, and the Doctor and Rose looked away as Mickey bent down and kissed him, the two lingering for a moment before separating. "Stay safe."

Bursting out of the house, yelling, Mickey and Ricky attracted the attention of the Cybermen and immediately dodged a burst of energy that was flung towards them. Falling into step with each other, they raced down the street and, a quick glance over his shoulder, Mickey caught sight of their friends sneaking out of the house and making their way into the darkness.

London was London no matter which universe he was in and he knew the streets as well as he did at home, forced to slow his speed a little to let Ricky keep up with him, his life in the TARDIS having made him a faster runner. The more the ran, the more Cybermen that followed them, allowing a few people to slip their net. It wasn't enough – it was nowhere near enough – but it was something, and Mickey held onto that.

His reason for providing a distraction wasn't difficult to decipher.

Jack.

Plain and simple.

Him being limited to a wheelchair until he was healed put him in an unusually vulnerable position, and Mickey was terrified that something was going to happen to him. However, it also gave him the opportunity to examine how his life might have gone had Rose not left her fingerprints all over him. Ricky was hard where Mickey wasn't, sharp edges that cut into the space around him. He was a man who had never met Rose Tyler and fallen in love with her only to have to watch as Jimmy Stone bruised her skin and sent her crying to Shareen's; a man who had never had a Rose of his own to soften the edges from his mother's suicide, his gran's death, and his father's abandonment.

It was like staring into a mirror that distorted his reflection, showing himself by not.

They clattered into an empty stretch of industrial units and paused, Ricky bending double to catch his breath, rubbing the stitch from his side.

"Think we lost them?" He asked.

"Not a chance," Mickey said, pointing at the Cybermen that came around the corner. "You go left, I go right. Meet up at the hill?"

"See you there," Ricky agreed.

Mickey took off running, hoping that Ricky was as competent as he looked, pleased that a group of Cybermen split off to follow him. As soon as they got back to their own universe, he was going to lock Jack in their room until his knees were healed. Living with his heart in his throat was not how he wanted to spend his days. The Doctor and the girls could do anything else, he didn't care; he just wanted Jack to rest and heal for as long as he needed without having to worry about the Doctor's desire to constantly be moving and exploring.

Grabbing a chain-link fence, he scrambled over the top and landed awkwardly on the other side, ankle turning beneath him.

Grunting in pain, he breathed out, alone, having lost his Cyber tail, and he staggered upright just as Ricky pelted around the corner, nearly falling, shouting for him. Directly behind him were two Cybermen that were rapidly approaching. Mickey hissed between his teeth, panicked. He wasn't going to make it. The fence shook as Ricky scrambled up against it.

"Stop," Mickey ordered. "You won't make it. Surrender! Surrender to them now! Volunteer for an upgrade, quickly. Dammit, do it quickly!"

Conflict played out across Ricky's face before he dropped back onto the ground and held his arms up into the air.

"I surrender," he cried. "I volunteer for an upgrade. I surrender! You hear me? I surrender!"

The Cybermen paused, blank faces looking down on Ricky, and there was a long, shivering moment where Mickey was terrified that they would chose to execute him before they lowered their hands – Zoe's scream played over and over in his memory from Mondas, her feet dangling above the hole in the ground, a Cyber hand coming down onto the top of her head.

"You are compatible," one said. "You will be upgraded."

"Run," Ricky urged over his shoulder as one of them yanked him to his feet and the other grabbed hold of the fence, ripping it open so that it could pass through it. "Run and keep gran safe!"

Mickey swore, the Cyberman closing in on him and he staggered back, no other option in front of him. The pained, panicked look on Ricky's face faded, muscles slackening, as the Cyberman placed an ear pod in his ear, hijacking his system. With an angry cry, Mickey turned on his heels and sprinted in the other direction.


Framed against the black sky and lit with bright halogen lights, the Battersea Power Station stood like a fortress that loomed over the surrounding areas. Huge lorries filled with oblivious people rumbled down the streets towards the loading bays where the light glinted off the Cybermen's armour. Standing on top of the hill that overlooked the station, the Doctor gazed down upon the scene and thought of Zoe trapped inside there.

The app on her phone indicated that she was in the centre of what Pete said was the administration wing of the building, a small light that failed to encompass how important she was to him, and he swallowed back the fear that washed over him. Time and time again, Zoe ended up in danger and she generally managed to extract herself from it with only a few bumps and bruises – the exceptions standing out in his mind only because of how awful they were. Tolandra and Mondas, two situations he hadn't been able to predict, had pulled Zoe apart and left him and her friends to help glue the pieces back together, trying to form a close approximation of the person she had been before hurt and pain heaped themselves upon her.

The Doctor wanted Jack's certainty that she was going to be fine. His calm acceptance that Zoe was capable of anything caused envy to rear its head within his chest. Jack had no reason to believe that Zoe wasn't capable of miracles. She had, against overwhelming odds, saved both of them from certain death only months ago. As far as Jack was concerned, Zoe's abilities to squeeze out of trouble and pull off the improbable matched the Doctor's. Even though that made the Doctor smile on a good day, Jack wasn't the one who slept next to her and listened to her toss and turn, whimpering as nightmares seized her, sending her bolt upright with sweat on her skin and fear in her throat as she turned into him, clutching hold of him as she sobbed.

Zoe was less put together than she wanted people to believe. He would never share her secrets, the things she gave him in the privacy of their bedroom, but he wanted to shake the stardust from Jack's eyes and remind him that Zoe was breakable and fragile and so impossibly human that the smallest of things might bring about her death.

And the thought of her dying was agony to him.

Her life was a singularly precious thing, as delicate as butterfly wings, and the recklessness with which she treated it drove him mad.

There were nights when he was unable to sleep even when exhaustion coated him like cobwebs. He would turn to lie on his side and watch Zoe through the darkness that was broken by the canopy of stars their bedroom ceiling contained. Tracing the quiet features of her face and measuring the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed and lived was a quiet, private comfort to him. He doubted she knew how often he watched her. And yet, sometimes, he was gripped with a fear that choked and blinded him at the knowledge that she had walked the surface of Skaro and got the red dust of that hell on her shoes and in her lungs.

The fear of what might have happened to her made his world shiver.

Zoe failed to understand how much danger she had been in that day, unable to comprehend exactly what the Daleks would have done to her. The gun she had planned to use to kill herself if she was captured meant nothing. The Daleks had been capable of repairing injuries, particularly in a system as relatively simplistic as the human brain, and they would have fixed her scattered brain and pulled every single memory out of her while she screamed and begged for it to end. He wanted to tell her, he wanted to scare her with that knowledge, so she would never do anything as stupidly reckless and brave again but he doubted it would make a difference.

She hadn't done it for fun. She had done it for him, for Jack, and, to her, that meant the risk was worth it.

At times, he hated her.

Though, mainly, he hated himself for loving a creature so breakable when the universe was so hard.

"Hey," Rose said, forcing him to tear his eyes away from the power station. He didn't know what was showing on his face but whatever it was made her hesitate, eyes flicking over him uncertainly, Jack too distracted by his own worry to notice. Her mouth opened only for her to change her mind about what she was going to say, shutting it again with a frown. "Mrs Moore's seein' what she can do with the computer system. Somethin' about hackin' in. She thinks that now they're distracted by everythin', she might be able to get inside without too much trouble."

"Good, that's good." A quiet silence stretched between them, verging on uncomfortable for the first time since that horrible moment after the Earth burned and he found her standing at the window watching flames lick her planet. He cleared his throat, hands shoved deep in his pockets. "Since when do you read the National Geographic?"

"Huh?"

"Wolves," he reminded her.

"Oh." A small grin pulled at her cheeks. "Zoe used to leave them lyin' around everywhere. Because they were expensive, she felt guilty about throwin' them out since Mum had to scrimp a bit to buy them, so there was always one somewhere, includin' the bathroom."

The Doctor snorted. "You read it on the toilet?"

"Yep," she said, unashamed. "Got to have readin' material, y'know?"

The laughter she pulled from him helped to ease the tension and fear in his chest. He felt generous as he glanced down at Jack who was staring with a small frown out towards the power station, index finger rubbing over his top lip.

"I hate this bit," the Doctor said, resting his hand on Jack's shoulder even as he spoke to both of them. "The waiting. Somehow it always feels worse than everything else."

"If pain must come, may it come quickly," Jack murmured.

"Paulo Coelho," the Doctor recognised. "Your reading's branched out a bit."

"Sarah Jane recommended some books," he said with a small shrug, shoulders slipping down in his chair as the worry pressed in on him. "No one ever told me loving someone hurt. I'd have thought one of you might've mentioned."

"What do I know about love?" Rose scoffed. "I've made bad decision after bad decision when it comes to men. First Jimmy Stone an' he treated me like crap. Then Mickey an' I treated him like crap."

Jack rubbed at his forehead with his knuckles. "Waiting, worrying, I didn't realise how bad it was. Love is great when you're together – there's nothing like it – but when you're separated like this and you don't know if they're all right or not? I can't stand it."

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed, mind filled with Zoe. "It's not easy."

"They'll be okay," Rose said, tugging the front of the Doctor's coat around her to keep the bitter wind off her body. "Both of them. Mickey'll be back soon, an' Zoe...she'll be good too. Course she will. She's not a kid anymore. She knows how to keep herself safe."

"Sometimes I wonder," the Doctor said, both his friends looking at him in surprise, his mouth dry. He turned to Rose. "Do you remember Thanatos? After the earthquake hit?"

"Course I do," she said, thrown by the sudden change in topic. "Why?"

"She didn't even think, she just jumped into the damned river without a second's thought," he said, lost in the memory of that moment. "Seventeen years old and a bloody idiot ready to risk her life to save a boy's. I was so angry with her that day. She had no idea what she was doing but she did it anyway. And when we spoke about it later, she shouted at me."

She had been so slight then, her body awkward and gangly, chubby with the youth that clung to her. So different but so similar to the woman she was now, and a great swell of nostalgia moved through him for that younger Zoe who spoke with London hanging onto her words and whose greatest worry was ticking places off her ever-growing list.

It was easier then.

Easier to keep her safe, easier to not to get hurt.

"Said I was wrong and that I was a hypocrite," the Doctor continued. "I've never been able to get her to understand that she's breakable. Every time I turn my back, it's like she's juggling chainsaws and it kills me that she's so reckless but what can I do about it? I can't ask her to stop. She wouldn't know how, and I don't want her too, not really. I just...I wish she'd be more careful."

Jack and Rose were taken aback by his speech. Despite being the most talkative out of all of them, able to ramble on about anything that took his fancy until hours turned into days, he was also the most private. He kept his emotions – the deep, painful truths that made up his character – close to his chest, letting people see them bit by bit and never all at once. Hearing him speak about Zoe felt as though they were witnessing an intimate moment, something that wasn't for their eyes or ears' Jack reached out a hand, unsure of what to say, and curled his palm around the Doctor's fingers like a child holding onto a parent.

"You really love her, don't you?" Rose found it impossible not to look at him, this man she who had swept into her life and changed everything, and wonder if he had always seemed so complete. It felt as though she was seeing him for the first time without the filter of her expectations and hope layered over the top of him. It was unsettling to realise he was simply a man. "It's not just – you're not just havin' sex. It's proper love."

The Doctor's eyes reflected the light that rose from the factory, stars dancing across his irises.

"I do," he said, placing the final nail in the coffin of Rose's feelings with a gentle and kind statement of fact. "I didn't expect it. I certainly didn't look for it. But I do. I love her very much."

Rose's throat moved as she swallowed, the tip of her tongue touching her dry lips, and she looked away from him, back out over to Battersea Power Station. There were so many questions she wanted to ask him – Why Zoe? Why didn't you tell me? Is this going to change our family? – yet the question she asked was the one that seemed the safest, unsure she wanted the others answered.

"When did you know you loved her?"

"Oh, I'd like to know this," Jack said, his calm, friendly voice rubbing away some of the tension that had built up between Rose and the Doctor. "Mickey thinks it was that year you two travelled together after Reinette died. I've placed my money earlier, so do me a solid and let me know."

The Doctor huffed. "Do me a solid? Just because you sound American doesn't mean you need to speak like one."

"Don't change the subject," he said. "When was it? I want to win."

"That doesn't give me much of an incentive to tell you know, does it?" The Doctor mused. "Can't be setting a precedent where my friends are betting money on me."

"Oh, it's not money," Jack said, a look of pure innocence on his face that made the Doctor dread what was coming next. "It's sexual favours."

"Jesus Christ," Rose groaned, knuckling her eye. "I don't need to hear that shit."

"Me too," the Doctor said, nose wrinkled. "Could've lived without knowing that."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Tell. Us."

"If you must know," he began, tracing the threads of him and Zoe from their inauspicious beginnings – Listen to me, you KGB wannabe, echoed in his mind, chest aching with the memory of her finger jabbing into him, I don't know what you've done to my sister but when I find out, I'm goin' to find the nearest car I can an' I am going to run – you – down – to now. "It was at that literary festival I took her to before France happened. She wandered away as she's wont to do when there are books around and I lost track of her, which scared me senseless because it was still so soon after Tolandra and I kept thinking about all these worst case scenarios. I eventually found her in this tiny second-hand bookshop that was filled with dust and was really poorly lit it's a miracle I didn't trip over her. She was sitting on the floor with a pile of books next to her, the back of her neck a little sunburnt, and it just hit me."

He blinked slowly, the smell of that bookshop filling his nose, the weight of his old leather jacket weighing on him, luxuriating in the memory of fresh love.

"Took me longer to admit it to myself, of course," he carried on, snapping himself out of his daze. "You know what I'm like but that was it, that was the moment. I don't think I've even told Zoe that yet. I probably should. Do you think I should?"

Rose pushed her hair from her eyes, chest aching with the loss of what was never hers, and ignored his question. "Romantic git."

The Doctor grinned. "Can't help it. She brings out the poet in me."

Breathing out, calm and acceptance seeping into her, Rose closed her eyes and let everything go. The anger, the jealousy, the feelings of betrayal, none of it was hers to keep. She let it leave her body on a cloud of white air that disappeared into the darkness.

"Don't break her heart," she said, the Doctor's eyes snapping to hers. "Reinette broke her heart by dyin'. Don't you break it too."

"I won't," he promised. "All I want is for her to be happy, whether that's with me or someone else."

She nodded, relieved that it was over, the release of letting go leaving her sober and different than she was only a week ago. It felt good. For the first time since meeting Jimmy Stone and falling for his lies and toxic charm, she felt as though she was herself again, not defining herself by the relationships with the men in her life.

"All right then, I guess that's that."

"Really?" He asked, surprised. "You don't want to – I don't know – smack me about a bit?"

She frowned. "Not really, no."

"Oh."

"D'you want me to?"

"I – maybe?" His head tilted to one side, confusion playing out across his face. "I was expecting a bit of a battering, to be honest. Your mum certainly got a good punch in."

Jack pressed his fingers over his mouth, eyes crinkling. "Go on, give him a smack. It might actually help."

"I'm not goin' to smack him," she said.

The Doctor eyed her warily. "You're really not angry? You've been ignoring us since the party."

"No, I'm plenty angry," Rose said. "More at Zoe than you, I s'pose. She had plenty of time to tell me but she didn't. An' I didn't love walkin' in on the two of you shaggin'. That was somethin' I could've lived my life without seein'. But things between me an' Zo...they've been off for a while. We haven't been – since France, things have been different, an' I miss her. I miss how close we were."

"She misses you too," the Doctor said, gently, making her wonder if Zoe had spoken to him about it or if he was just saying what she wanted to hear. "She worries that you find her boring now."

"Boring?" The idea that someone might find Zoe boring after everything was ridiculous. "Where the hell did she get that idea from?"

He shrugged. "Don't ask me. She tends to spiral a bit with anxiety on occasion. Her medication helps but –"

Rose started. "She's takin' medication for anxiety?"

"Ah." The Doctor blinked rapidly, stomach sinking. Shit. "I thought you already knew that. She's been on it for years. Yatta put her on a prescription while she was at MIT, and I should really stop talking now since –"

"Someone's coming," Jake called from the side where he had been keeping a lookout, a dark shadow moving rapidly up the hill. The Doctor muttered his thanks to whatever god had saved him from sticking his foot more firmly in his mouth and turned, grabbing Jack's wheelchair, pulling him back onto the flat as Jake shone a torch down the hill. "There's only one of them though. Ricky? Ricky, is that you? It is, isn't it? Ricky?"

The man stumbled into view, sweat glistening on his forehead, and Jack exhaled shakily.

"Mickey," he said, reaching for him.

Mickey staggered before sinking to his knees next to Jack, breathing heavily, forehead resting against the side of the wheelchair as Jack bent over him, hands holding him as close as possible.

"Where the hell's Ricky?" Jake demanded. "What happened to him?"

"Something's happened to Ricky?" Rita asked, swallowed whole by Jake's jacket that was wrapped around her, making her look smaller than she was. "Where's my grandson? What's happened to him?"

"They took him," Mickey said, breathing heavily, fingers flexing within Jack's as he raised his head. "We got cornered. I told him to surrender an' it worked. They took him for an upgrade but I don't reckon he's got long. He's not himself. Those ear pod things, the Cyberman put one on him an' he was just gone."

Jake turned away and swore violently, kicking at the bench that shook violently beneath the assault, as Rita's hands shook.

"Not my boy," she breathed. "Not my grandson."

"We'll get him back, Mrs Smith," the Doctor assured her. "Right everyone, we've got to get to work. No more time to waste. Mrs Moore, what's the situation right now?"

"The whole of London's been sealed off and the entire population has either been taken inside the factories or they've been killed," Mrs Moore said. "It's not just Battersea they've got up and running. They've turned the Millennium Stadium into a massive conversion chamber too. Those that aren't being brought here are being taken there."

"Fuck me," Pete groaned. "Lumic bought the stadium up three years ago and it's been undergoing construction work since then. I didn't even bloody think of it."

"It doesn't matter now," the Doctor said. "What matters is that we've got four things to do: One, rescue Zoe, Ricky, and Jackie. Two, shut down all of the factories before they convert any more people. Three, deal with the leftover Cybermen. And D, have a little chat with Lumic. Not necessarily in that order. I'm open to flexing that."

"Just like that?" Pete asked, sceptically.

"Yep."

His eyes narrowed. "You're making this up."

"That I am, Pete, that I am."

Mrs Moore, never one to let others solve a problem when she was able to think and work for herself, had made herself comfortable at the picnic bench while waiting for Ricky and Mickey to return and cracked open her stolen Cybus Industries laptop. It wasn't as though she had intended to steal the laptop, she simply hadn't returned it when the hired men from Cybus came to kill her: she considered it part of her severance pay at the end of the day.

By the time the strangers from the parallel universe were deep in what seemed to be a long-overdue conversation, she was elbow deep in the government's website pulling up old floor plans of the power station and overlaying them with the layout that she pulled from Cybus's internal network by walking through the backdoor Nomi had built into the system before her death.

"If you've all finished with the chit-chat?" Her lilting accent caught their attention again. "I've never met a group of people more inclined to gossip than you lot."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows, amused, and swung himself around to sit next to him, long and surprisingly lean. "You got something for us, Mrs Moore?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," she said, "I've found us a way in." She angled her laptop so everyone was able to see it. "This here's a schematic of the old factory from before Cybus took over. Here's the new plan." She overlaid them on her screen. "Look at this here. Cooling tunnels underneath the plant that they haven't closed off. Definitely big enough to walk through."

Jack leaned in and hummed thoughtfully, tracing the line with his finger. "So we can go in there and come up into the control centre, bypassing the security?"

"Bypassing the obvious security, yes," she said.

"How do you know the control centre's there?" He asked. "If I were him, I wouldn't keep the centre of my operations on the ground where anyone could get in, I'd keep it up high in one of those shiny Zeppelins. Keeping my feet off the ground would keep me safer."

"That's because you're not a genius megalomaniac," the Doctor said, and Jack wondered if that was a compliment. "Men like Lumic like to be there in person when their grand plan is unveiled. There'll be a control centre there, and he'll be there as well."

"There's another way in," Pete said. "Through the front door. If they've taken Jackie for upgrading, that's how she'll get in. That's where that Ricky kid'll be too."

Jake scowled. "He's not a kid, asshole."

"Pete..." the Doctor hesitated. "Jackie was taken over an hour ago. The likelihood of her still being alive is small. Going in through the front door might be a one-way ticket to death."

"Your girlfriend's probably dead too," he said, bluntly. The Doctor flinched. "You're still going in." Unable to say anything in response to that, the Doctor remained uncharacteristically silent, and Pete nodded. "I'm going in through the front door. I've got to do it."

"I'm going with him then," Jake said, the apologetic glance he sent to Mrs Moore was accepted with an understanding nod. "Ricky's saved my ass more than once occasion, I owe him."

"I've got some dead ear pods you can use," Mrs Moore said. "That'll give you a bit of cover, not much though."

"We'll figure it out," he said. "Haven't come this far to let the bastards kill me now, have I?"

Mrs Moore smiled as Mickey opened his mouth, ready to volunteer, but the Doctor held up a finger.

"Ah, no. You can't go," he said. "I need you to do something else. Since Pete and Jake are heading into the single most dangerous place in London tonight, we can give them a helping hand that will hopefully tick something off our to-do list. If we take out all the ear pods at the same time and give people their minds back, the chaos that creates will help overthrow the Cybermen. Instead of walking into the conversion chambers like sheep, they'll be able to fight back and decide what they want to do."

"That's a good idea," Pete said. "Give them a chance."

"Exactly," the Doctor said. "Micks, you're better at computers than Jack –"

"I'm not bad at computers," Jack sighed. "I'm just better at other things."

"That you are, captain, but I need computer know-how today," the Doctor told him. "Lumic's transmitting the control signal and I'm pretty sure it's from that lovely Zeppelin that is blinking a circle of red lights on its bow...or stern. I can never tell which end is which."

"The stern," Mrs Moore said.

He nodded at her. "It's a great big transmitter, helpfully hard to miss. I do love it when people like showing off, it makes everything that much easier. Think you and Jack can take it out?"

"I think that sounds doable," Mickey said, glancing at Jack who nodded. "Shouldn't be too hard to get into the system an' turn it off. The wheelchair might be a bit of a pain in the ass though."

"I've got excellent upper body strength as you well know," Jack said, the Doctor and Rose wrinkled their noses at the image he placed in their minds. "Besides, if it's too much trouble, we can just blow the Zeppelin up."

"That's the spirit," the Doctor said, "but be careful of the hydrogen. We do not want another Hindenburg."

"What's a Hindenburg?" Pete asked.

"Good, confirmation there wasn't a Hindenburg, Zoe will be pleased." He turned to Mrs Moore. "No time to explain though. Mrs Moore, would you care to accompany Rose and I into the cooling tunnels?"

Mrs Moore looked pleased. "How could I refuse an offer of cooling tunnels?"

"Excellent," he nodded. "Then we attack on three sides. Above, between, below. We get to the control centre, we stop the conversion machines, we rescue Zoe, Jackie, and Ricky, and have a chat with Lumic along the way."

"She's going to hate that you're calling it a rescue," Jack pointed out.

"Shouldn't have got herself captured then, should she?" The Doctor replied, aware that Jack had a point. He looked forward to arguing about it with her when they were back together. "Everyone clear?"

"What about gran?" Mickey asked, catching sight of his not-grandmother standing by the picnic bench, looking lost and afraid, fingers worrying her Protestant cross between her thumb and forefinger. "We can't just leave her here."

"She can come with us," Jack said, not sure how that was going to work, aware that between him and Rita, Mickey would be slowed down considerably. "It'll be the safest thing for her. Besides, Mrs Smith here can handle herself, isn't that right, ma'am?"

Rita dropped her cross and nodded. "I like this young man."

Jack grinned, pleased.

"All right then, everyone's got their jobs," the Doctor said, levelling a stern glare at Mickey and Jack. "When this is over, meet us back at the TARDIS, no excuses, you hear me? I want all of us back in one piece so I can yell at you all as a group."

Rose turned, frowning. "What did we do?"

"Wandered off into a parallel universe when I specifically told you not to," he said.

"What did I do?" Jack asked.

"Got out of your damned wheelchair and hurt your knees again."

Perfectly conscious of his wrongdoings, Mickey raised his eyebrows. "Then what did Zoe do?"

"Got herself captured," the Doctor said, aware they were trying to make him laugh and almost succeeding. "Any other questions?"

"Nope, think we're good," Jack said with a grin. "Stay safe you two. Mrs Moore, keep an eye on them for us, would you? We're kind of fond of them."

"I'll do my best," she promised.

"Good luck everyone," the Doctor said. "We're going to need it."