Pushing one hand towards Will, she made a thumbs up. Will's arm jerked forward and they were running through the factory, the cyber people things turning towards them, hands outstretched. Will started to feel faint. Running was not his forte, especially when it came down to fleeing from advancing metal men.
They flew past the corridors, passing tank by tank, where humans still stood lined up, not turning, not talking, with any apparent emotion at all. Rose gripped his arm, skimming past the cybermen that tried to grab hold of them, twisting this way and that, evading the deadly metal arms that stretched out as they passed.
Finally, they reached the gate without being caught by the cybermen. Luckily for Rose and Will, cybermen weren't that quick on the uptake. Will started to slow down, pausing for breath.
"No! We've got to carry on!" Rose insisted, pulling his arm away from the scene. Will sighed. How did he get into scrapes like this? Not that he wasn't enjoying every second of it. It was simply the constant running away from danger he disliked.
Nia jumped up.
"What do you mean, upgrade?"
"We are upgraded." The machine said, jerking her head, her fingers beginning to twitch. Run away, run away! Yelled the voice in Nia's head. For once, do what Will would do, and go! But that wasn't Nia.
"You're human… but now you're like this." Disgust swelled in Nia's voice. "What on Earth thinks it has the right to do this to you?" Before the, previously human, machine could answer, they were rudely interrupted. The buzzing in Nia's head began again… A man, maybe in his twenties was running towards them. He was yelling, but Nia couldn't hear him properly. The metal woman arm started to jerk softly. Nia was looking puzzedly at the man approaching. Without as much as a sound, the arm started to creep towards Nia's ankle. Nia stretched her ears. She couldn't hear him. The buzzing grew louder. As soon as the man was within touching distance, the buzzing was quietening down. He roughly pushed Nia aside, and whipped a blue torch out of his pocket. Nia immediately recognised the device as something certainly not human, but she couldn't trace its origins. The only suggestion her mind came up with was impossible. The cyberman lay still, all twitching stopped.
"Who are…?" Nia began, but the man simply grabbed her arm, and ran.
After a while, they came to a small cave, out of sight of everything (and everyone). The man went inside, and lit a small fire with his blue torch. Indicating a seat, the man simply stared into the fire. Nia edged into the mossy cave, sitting down cross-legged and glanced at the man.
"So where are you from?" He asked quietly, still looking into the fire. "And why have you given Lucas the cybermen." Nia could sense a tone of distaste in his voice.
"Cybermen? Is that what they're called?"
"Don't play innocent with me." The anger in his voice was rising.
"How can I play innocent with you if I don't have the faintest clue what you're talking about!" Nia stood up, indignant. His head snapped up to look at her.
"Good, just checking." He said cheerfully, a manic smile appearing on his face. "Now would you mind telling me who you are, where you're from, and why on earth you are here." Nia eyed him suspiciously. Here was a man, who she didn't know, without any apparent fashion sense (c'mon, trainers with pinstripes?) the above statement is not mine, in fact I think he looks rather cool. and was asking her to reveal something she was very protective of. But the buzzing in her head seemed to urge her on. This man was some kind of trickster, with his mind tricks. But that only made her feel easier to relate to him.
"Okay. I'll start from the beginning. Firstly, my name is Nia."
"The Doctor." The man interrupted. Nia glared at him, and he glanced back down, like a child who was getting told off.
"And… my friend, Will, who I travel with, have arrived at Earth in my lovely time machine" The Doctor snapped his head up.
"Time machine? You mean… a machine that travels through time?" he asked, edging closer to her.
"Well…what other type of Time Machine is there?" The Doctor stood up, and stood half a metre away from Nia. Freaked out, she edged back.
"And what's it called?" he asked, peering into her ice blue eyes.
"The…the…TARDIS." she stuttered, now getting scared. The Doctor leapt back.
"YES!" he yelled, flinging both his arms into the air. "Ingenious!" He laughed, and bounded over to Nia, inches away from her face. He flicked his eyes excitedly up and down her, ending in sweeping her up into an enormous hug. Slightly stiffening, Nia began to warily push the man away from her. But before she could put this into action, the Doctor had relaxed back into his normal pose: hands in pockets with a cheeky grin on his face. Grinning, he asked.
"You still don't understand?" Nia shook her head, feeling that this "Doctor" person was, in fact, a loony. The Doctor grinned absurdly and, still hands in pockets, laughed out loud. "Don't you hear it?" he asked, removing a hand to cup next his ear.
"The ringing?" Nia asked, edging closer to the man.
"Interstellar commotion." He replied, looking at the ceiling. "It's that noise that gives us, the taste for danger, if you will."
"Us?" Nia thought she might as well have not said anything, as the Doctor simply kept on talking.
"Yup. It's that noise that tells us something isn't right." He was speaking quietly now, almost to himself. Nia glanced at him cautiously. Could it be…? But before she could continue her thought, the Doctor, once more, butted in. "And this isn't right. I'm not supposed to be here." He started pacing around, still with that insane grin. "When I landed here, with my friend Rose," Nia snapped her head to face the Doctor. There was another one? Sensing her mood, the Doctor carried on. "No, she's not one of us. Us. Feels so weird after all this time…" He trailed off, leaving Nia to prompt him. Nudging him, he continued. "We fell through a hole, a hole in time, a hole in the universe." He turned towards Nia, their faces an inch apart. "And we landed here." He said quietly, gazing into Nia's eyes. After holding his stare for a few seconds, Nia glanced down, and stood back.
"So… I'm… you?"
"Oh no." the Doctor said, spinning around to face the wall. "No, no, no no no." it sounded like he almost found it amusing.
"But…if you're from the other side of the universe, the parallel to mine, then, surely…"
"Not necessarily. We are, in fact two entirely different beings. Just… I'm on this side… you're on the other." He glanced up to find Nia sitting down.
"So… I'm not alone." She said, the emotion beginning to swell in her voice.
"No." the Doctor said, moving to sit next to Nia. She leant her head to rest on his shoulder. I'm not alone, I'm not alone anymore, she thought, and she could feel her eyes watering. After all these years, after all these years alone, she had found him.