The Doctor and El stood in the TARDIS console room, the ship drifting aimlessly through the time vortex, as the Doctor performed air guitar about as theatrically as he could, as a song played from the gramophone in the console.
"…He could never quite get his fingers around g sharp, though." The Doctor finished miming as Elvis's Promised Land reached its end. "Ah…" The Doctor smiled. "Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Croce, David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, me on drums, you should've seen it! The lot of us and the Rock Battle to Save the Universe! Woo, watch out!" The Doctor danced around the console, stopping in his tracks as he caught the flashing red light on the console. "How long's that been going?"
El shrugged. "No clue." She looked to the Doctor. "What does it mean?"
"Someone's sending a distress signal." The Doctor answered, setting the controls.
"What, to the TARDIS?"
"More like anybody passing, probably." The Doctor replied. "Generally, people aren't choosy about who rescues them. Here we go…"
The TARDIS materialized deep in an icy cavern, the air cold and wet. The door opened and the Doctor stepped out first onto the ice, followed by El.
"Brrr…" The girl shivered. "Cold."
"Don't worry, the TARDIS's heat shielding will kick in in a moment." The Doctor said.
El nodded and looked around. "Where are we?"
"Somewhere in the arctic circle." The Doctor answered, examining the area. Just a few feet ahead, a skidoo balanced precariously on the ledge, sections of ice looking like they had fallen out from underneath it. "Now, that signal wasn't too strong, whatever was sending it has to be nearby…"
The icy floor began to rumble, the two struggling to maintain their balance.
"Ah, earthquake!" El looked around in alarm, before the shaking stopped.
"Just a little glacial movement…" The Doctor told her.
El huffed, crossing her arms. "Still slippery."
The Doctor felt around the walls of ice, examining the natural structures closely. "From the look of these, I'd say we're on some sort of floating ice plateau." He theorized, moving back from the wall. "How's about a quick look around? See if we can't work out what happened?"
El nodded, watching the Doctor closely. "Be careful." She ordered, as the Doctor walked over to the skidoo hanging halfway off the ledge.
The Time Lord looked the vehicle over. "Ah, a satnav." He removed the device. "Could be useful if we need to track this back to where it came from." He said, placing it into his pocket, before looking over the edge. Down at the bottom was a man dressed in winter gear, lying on the ground. "Ah, El, I think I've found our rider."
The girl walked over to the Doctor's side, warily looking over the side as well.
The Doctor turned to El. "Think you can get me down there? I should probably look him over before we try to move him."
El nodded and held out her hand. The Doctor slowly floated off the ice, over the edge, before slowly falling to the icy floor below.
"Ah, not as bad as I feared." The Doctor brushed a little speck off his jacket, before giving the girl a thumbs-up. With that, the Time Lord turned to examine the driver. The name Chisolm was embroidered on his jacket, the man himself lying unconscious on the floor.
His breathing was shallow, and he was cold, too cold. The Doctor needed to get some warmth into this guy's system, fast.
Looking around, the Doctor spotted a bag lying nearby. Rooting around inside, the Doctor found exactly the thing he was looking for. "Ah, a Mess Caddie. Every arctic explorer's essential." Popping off the top, the Doctor looked inside, and frowned. "Empty… that skidoo was a short-range vehicle, so he could've run out of supplies, or… maybe he was in such a hurry, he didn't have time to prepare proper provisions." He considered.
Luckily, there was a little stream of flowing water nearby. Tasting it with his finger to make sure it wasn't saltwater, the Doctor proceeded to fill the Caddie up, before reaching into his pockets for something else.
Popping a teabag into the water, the Doctor soniced the container, heating it up.
"Right," The Doctor knelt by the man's side, holding the container up to his mouth. "Drink up…"
As the Doctor tilted the container back, the man began to reflexively take in the hot tea, before his eyes popped open fully, and he looked around, before sitting up.
"Where…?" The man clutched his head. "Where am I?"
"You fell." The Doctor answered, running a quick medical scan with the screwdriver. "It looks like your ankle is sprained, but I'll soon get you out of here, don't worry." He said, helping Chisolm stand upright. "How are you feeling?"
"…My ankle's not good…" Chisolm grimaced in pain. "But I can manage."
"Right," The Doctor nodded, looking up. "Alright, El, bring us up, carefully!"
The girl nodded and held out both of her hands. The Doctor and Chisolm began to float up slowly, the man gasping in shock, as they were pulled up, and gently deposited on the ground near the TARDIS.
"Ahh, ah!" Chisolm staggered.
"Right, sorry about that." The Time Lord apologized. "But it really is one of the safest ways to travel. I'm the Doctor, this is El. And you would be… Chisolm?"
The man nodded. "Yes… that's right."
"Lovely, Chisolm." The Doctor smiled. "Now, if you would just like to tell us where your base is-"
"No!" The man quickly shouted. "No! I can't go back there!"
The Doctor recoiled in surprise. "Why not?"
"Waiting… they were waiting!" He hyperventilated, trying to move away.
"Dad… he's scared." El whispered to the Doctor.
"Not just scared… Terrified." The Doctor's eyebrows knit together as Chisolm dove to the ground, quivering in fear. Something that could make a grown man that scared… Must've been horrible. "Well, he's not going to tell us where he came from now."
"So, we have to look for it." El groaned.
"Not necessarily." The Doctor smiled, holding up the satnav he'd taken from the skidoo.
Gently laying the catatonic man on the floor, the Doctor walked up the steps to the control console. Plugging a USB cable from the console into the port on the satnav, the Time Lord waited as the TARDIS pulled the coordinates automatically, before flashing them across the screen.
"Bingo!" The Doctor satisfactorily clapped his hands. "We have the coordinates." He turned to El. "Now, to see what's got poor Chisolm in such a state."
"You sure that's a good idea?" El turned to the Doctor.
"Of course it is." The Time Lord replied. "Why wouldn't it be?"
"Oh," The Doctor poked his head out, looking at the yard of a snowcapped base. "I like it here. Very 'The Thing.'"
"What thing?" El inquired.
"Horror movie." The Doctor answered. "I'll let you watch it when you get older."
"You…" Chisolm breathed, horrified, as he stepped out after them. "You brought me back… They'll get us all!"
"No they won't." The Doctor turned to Chisolm. "You have my word. I can help, I promise."
"How!?" Chisolm demanded. "They got everybody! They-They… They changed them!"
El frowned. "Changed who into what?"
"My friends, the people running this base…" Chisolm recalled. "Into… robots. Slaves." He gulped. "Cyber-Slaves."
The Doctor inhaled. "Cyber-Slaves?"
Chisolm opened his mouth to speak again, but something small and silver, only about the size of a mouse and shaped like a computer mouse, jumped onto his shoulder, biting him in the neck.
"Augh!" Chisholm threw the silver thing off him, into the snow.
"El, back!" The Doctor pushed her away, as the little silver mouse tried to scurry off.
"What is this?" El questioned, grasping onto it with her mind, bringing it back over, before crushing it.
"A Cyber-Mat…" The Doctor frowned, poking the destroyed bit of tech. "Servants of the Cybermen."
El frowned. "What men?"
"Cybermen… they used to be people, a long time ago." The Doctor explained. "Earth used to have this twin planet, called Mondas, with humans living on it too. But when the planet was flung out of the solar system, the people on it were forced to find new ways to survive. They started replacing their body parts with technology. Hearts with pumps, lungs with air converters, nerves with circuitry… until, eventually, they became nothing more than brains in suits of armor."
El gasped. "That sounds… horrible."
The Doctor nodded in agreement. "Anyway, the Cybermen use Cyber-Mats as covert drones, little spies that can get into places nobody else can. They normally kill by feeding on brainwaves, but biting people? That isn't their standard MO." He put the broken Cyber-Mat into his pocket, and turned to Chisolm. "Here, let me take a look."
"No!" Chisolm staggered back. "Back away! Get away from me! And get away from here!"
"Chisolm, you have to let me help you." The Doctor tried to approach.
Chisolm shoved him to the ground. "It's too late for me now!" He ran awfully fast for someone with a sprained ankle, into the security tower, the door sealing shut behind him.
"What'd he do that for?" El wondered, as the Doctor got up. "Why's he acting like that?"
"I think the answer to that…" The Doctor looked to the large dome, the main building of the outpost with the letters GSO emblazoned on the surface. "Is in there." He turned to El. "Come along, El."
He led the way over to the central dome, walking over to the outer door for the airlock.
"No key." El remarked, looking at the keycard reader by the door's side.
The Doctor smiled smugly. "That's easy." Taking the sonic screwdriver from his pocket, he pointed it at the door, and pressed the button.
The door slid open, and the Doctor and El jumped back, away from the figure already standing in the airlock.
It was wearing only a loose jumpsuit, hands coated in grey rubber and silver plating, head imprisoned in a metal mask with two bars coming from the ears meeting at the top of the head. Two empty circular eyes stared blankly ahead, at the Doctor and El.
"Oh." The Doctor took some steps back, as the Cyber-Slave began to walk. "Who're you, then?"
"D… Die…!" The Cyber-Slave cried, reaching its hands out, as it marched limping towards the Doctor.
"Conversation not your strong-suit, then!" The Doctor took some steps back.
"You… must… be… deleted!" The Cyber-Slave proclaimed.
"Ah, well, that's not ideal." The Doctor glanced at El. "Perhaps you'd like to help?"
The girl rolled her eyes, but reached out her hand, clenching her fist.
The Cyber-Slave suddenly seized up, sparking and spasming, letting out a computerized scream, as it fell to the ground.
"Thank you." The Doctor offered, before crouching over the inert Cyber-Slave. "Let's see if we can learn a bit more about our friend here…" He felt around the jumpsuit's pockets, before pulling out a keycard with a name on it. "This keycard used to belong to an Alan Watts… This Cyber-Slave probably used to be him."
"Used to be?" El asked.
"The Cyber-Probes have done their work." The Doctor replied. "Nothing really left of Alan here, I'm afraid…" He glanced at the girl. "Come on, let's see what we can find inside now that we have this."
El nodded, and allowed the Doctor to take the lead again, into the main dome of the artic survey base.
Passing through the airlock effortlessly, the two came to the main hall, labs, dorms, and storage rooms all off the sides.
"Careful," The Doctor said to El, whispering. "There's a Cyber-Slave right there."
The girl looked to the hallway on the right, where there was indeed a Cyber-Slave, standing there, staring away from them. "Why is it just standing there?"
"The Cyber-Probes are clever enough to make them obedient, but not much else." The Doctor answered. "Most higher reasoning functions of the brain are shut off to make the slaves totally obedient to the Cybermen."
El looked to the Doctor. "Is that going to happen to Chisolm?"
"If we can't work out something to stop the Cyber-Probes, probably." The Doctor answered, leading her into one of the rooms. "Not sure how they would react to the sonic… Not sure if they have the capacity to react." He looked to the floor, at the tiny silver creature. "But I know something that does react to the sonic!"
The Doctor pressed down the button, and the Cyber-Mat screeched, retreating into the nearby vents.
"This whole place is probably infested by now." The Doctor commented, putting the screwdriver away.
"Like… spiders." El shuddered. Animals and insects hadn't gotten inside the lab often during her stay there, but when they did… Spiders were the things that freaked her out the most.
"Spiders…" The Doctor shuddered as well, having a flashback to the death of his third body, and the giant insects responsible. "I'd rather we change the subject." He moved over to a laptop on a nearby desk. "Let's see what we can pull from this…" The laptop was, thankfully, already running, no password needed.
Whoever had been using it had been gotten during the middle of work, it seemed.
"Okay, the woman in charge here is an Elizabeth Meadows." The Doctor read through the files. "One daughter, Daisy. Hm… It's her birthday tomorrow, fifth of May."
El frowned, furrowing her eyebrows. "Birthday?"
"Yep, the day you were born." The Doctor replied, looking back through the files. "Most people throw parties with cake, presents, and friends."
"Oh… can I have a birthday?"
"Sure." The Doctor answered. "Just have to figure out when you were born… We'll do it after we finish things up here. Dr. Meadows's office is just down the way, come on."
El nodded, taking the Doctor's hand, as he guided her out of the room, towards a door with a keypad on the side.
"Good bet with passwords and PINs, people tend to use them as important dates or people." The Doctor told El. "I wonder if the good doctor used her daughter's as the code…"
The Time Lord punched 0505 into the keypad and waited patiently. It flashed green, before the door slid open. The Doctor smiled, satisfied, as he walked in.
El gasped, "Dad, look out!" She shouted.
The Time Lord jumped back, as a pickaxe went flying at his head, being brought down into the table next to him.
A woman, blonde, with her arm in a sling, had been the one to swing.
The Doctor blinked, as he led El in. "You don't get many visitors up here, do you?"
Meadows whipped around, breathing heavily. "I thought you were a Cyber-Slave!" Her breathing steadied as she looked between the two. "Who are you?"
"I'm the Doctor, this is El." He gestured respectively. "We picked up your distress signal."
"Thank God!" Meadows let out a sigh of relief. "I'm Doctor Meadows… I've been barricaded in here for days."
"Don't worry, we'll get you out of here." The Doctor resolved, examining the room.
El frowned, looking to the sling. "What happened to your arm?"
"I fell, and broke it trying to escape from those… things." Meadows replied. "They're everywhere."
"The Cyber-Slaves?"
"No, the little mouse-like drones." Meadows elaborated. "They bite, inject nanomachines that begin to convert organic matter into living metal and machinery."
"And that's how you get the Cyber-Slaves." El nodded. "But… Who's controlling them?"
"The Cybermen, of course." The Doctor came back over, holding a metal arm with a blaster at the end. "Where'd you pick this up?"
"We were here doing a geological survey when one of our teams unearthed that." Meadows answered. "It must have been under the ice for… ten-thousand years?"
"Amazing…" The Doctor looked over the arm. "I haven't seen Cybertech like this in ages."
El raised her eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
"This is from a Mondasian Cyberman, tactical-grade equipment." The Doctor answered. "Visually and mechanically similar to the Cybus industries Cybermen that invaded Earth back in… 2006? Or was it 2007?"
Meadows frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"There was this breach in Canary Wharf, a hole between worlds." The Doctor answered. "The people inside were running experiments on it, causing Cybermen to appear all across the world. Cybermen from a parallel Earth, created by Cybus industries. These models are almost identical. Well, save for the chest emblems. And the mechanical capabilities."
"Capabilities?" Meadows repeated.
"See, these Cybermen, the ones from Mondas, the ones from our universe… they were combatants in the Time War." The Doctor looked at the arm warily. "One of the very few time-active species to fight in the conflict and come out the other side intact."
"And… how did they do that?" El questioned.
"Battlefield upgrading." The Doctor answered. "A repair suite linked to a vast array of sensors. If one Cyberman goes down in battle, the telemetry gets sent to the rest, and the onboard systems harden them against whatever it was." The Time Lord looked at the abandoned arm. "Even the Daleks had trouble killing them."
"They've been trapped her for ten-thousand years." El paled.
The Doctor nodded, setting the arm down. "Whatever crashed down there, the ship I'm assuming, did so with enough force that it knocked all the Cybermen on board offline at once, and then the ice froze around them. They would've remained inert… But the survey teams here must've accidentally woken up the Cyber-Mats… who started converting the personnel of the base into Cyber-Slaves to wake up their masters." He turned to look at Meadows. "Is that right, doctor?"
"Yes." The woman nodded. "I've been trying to synthesize an antidote. Something that might reverse the conversion process."
"Well, that won't work." The Doctor replied, looking into the microscope. "The nanites are smart enough to convert tissue into Cyber-Flesh, but anything else is outside they're capabilities. Literally, they don't have the hardware capacity for it, and the human body is fickle enough. Imagine if they put things back 'round in the wrong order. But," He snapped his fingers, "We can create an antidote that'll stop the upgrade in its tracks."
"For Chisolm." El guessed.
"That's possible?" Meadows asked.
"More than possible." The Doctor answered. "You seem to be a very clever woman, so I'd say likely. The first thing you need is a sample of the nanotechnology on its own, fortunately for you-" The Doctor reached into his pocket, placing the broken Cyber-Mat from before on the table. "You won't have to go get bitten to do that, and a lab like this…" The Doctor looked around. "We have all the equipment we need. Shall we?"
