"We've been captured, but don't worry, Rose and Pete are still out there. They can rescue us." The Doctor said, looking at me with an optimist smile.
"Oh yeah, sure, I'll put all my hope in the hands of the apes." I said sarcastically. "Please, that wouldn't happen even If I had been pub-crawling in the J star cluster!" I turned my head and saw two humans that had also been captured. "Would you look at that, they sure can rescue us."
"Oh well, never mind." The Doctor said, rolling his eyes at my sarcastic remarks before turning towards the humans. "You okay?"
"Yeah. But they got Jackie." Rose replied, with Pete explaining. "We were too late. Lumic killed her."
"Then where is he, the famous Mister Lumic?" The Doctor sneered at the Cybermen. "Don't we get the chance to meet our Lord and Master?"
"Lord and Master?" I said to myself, not bothering to notice if the Doctor heard me or not. "Someone already has copyrights on that title."
"He has been upgraded." Cybertrash replied.
"So he's just like you?" The Doctor asked.
"He is superior. The Lumic Unit has been designated Cyber Controller." The Cyberman said as a door opened and a Cyberman was wheeled out in an upgraded wheelchair.
"This is The Age of Steel and I am its Creator." The Lumic Cybertrash declared, all of us looking at him.
I looked at it and couldn't help the laugh that escaped my throat, making all of the humans and the Cybermen look at me. "I'm sorry, really, it's just that it's hilarious. I mean look at it, a robot in a wheelchair? It's pathetic and they call it superior. Funnier than this only a Dalek in a wheelchair." I let out between laughs.
"5 minutes..." The Doctor said, throwing me an exasperated look. "Can you not insult other species for 5 minutes? Would it kill you?"
"Yes, I can't and yes it would." I replied without looking at him, still grinning at the robot in a wheelchair.
Before anybody could say anything else the earpods were unconnected and the humans started running out of the factory afraid for their lives.
"That's my friends at work." The Doctor bosted. "Good boys! Mister Lumic, I think that's a vote for free will."
"I have factories waiting on seven continents." The Cyberboss replied. "If the ear pods have failed, then the Cybermen will take humanity by force. London has fallen. So shall the world. I will bring peace to the world. Everlasting peace and unity and uniformity."
"And imagination? What about that?" The Doctor questioned. "The one thing that lead you here, imagination, you're killing it dead!"
"Why are you trying to reason with the tin can?" I groaned, this was pointless.
"What is your name?" The tin can asked.
"I'm the Doctor."
"A redundant title." Lumic replied. "Doctors need not exist. Cybermen never sicken."
"Yeah, but that's it. That's exactly the point! Oh, Lumic, you're a clever man. I'd call you a genius, except I'm in the room. But everything you've invented, you did to fight your sickness. And that's brilliant. That is so human." The Doctor ranted on. "But once you get rid of sickness and mortality, then what's there to strive for, eh? The Cybermen won't advance. You'll just stop. You'll stay like this forever. A metal Earth with metal men and metal thoughts, lacking the one thing that makes this planet so alive. People. Ordinary, stupid, brilliant people."
"I agree with the stupid part." I said.
"And you, what is your name?" Lumic asked, looking at me.
"I'm the Rani, but really don't sully my name by saying it you piece of ancient technology," I replied with a sneer.
"He's proud of his emotions." Lumic said, turning to the Doctor before looking at me. "Are you?"
"It's not a matter of pride, It's a matter of inteligence." I replied, as if I was explaining it to a two-year-old human child. "Emotions are useful because without them you cannot possibly make an educated guess about another species that also has them, you would simply not understand what drives them. You would not be able to make intelligent deductions on their actions."
"But have both of you known grief, and rage, and pain?" Lumic asked us both.
"Oh, yes." The Doctor replied glancing at me.
"We're Time Lords, we live in grief and rage and pain." I replied with a cold smirk. "It's basically coded in our DNA."
"And they hurt, do they not?" The Cyberboss inquired. "I could set you free. Would you not want that? A life without pain?"
"And go metal head?" I scoffed. "Sorry, I'm just starting to enjoy the blonde."
"You might as well kill me." The Doctor snarkily replied.
"Then I take that option." It replied and I touched my ring ready to attack, as if I would let some robot off me.
"It's not yours to take. You're a Cyber Controller." The Doctor said. "You don't control me or anything with blood in its heart."
"Hearts." I corrected. "You've been hanging with the humans too much if you forget you have two hearts."
"You have no means of stopping me. I have an army. A species of my own." Lumic declared.
"You just don't get it, do you? An army's nothing. Because those ordinary people, they're the key. The most ordinary person could change the world." The Doctor replied, speaking towards the camera that was flashing red light.
"If they weren't complete monkeys that is." I said, standing next to the Doctor. "If they were, it would justify my thesis about the lack of intelligence of the human race."
The Doctor glanced at me before looking back at the camera. "Some ordinary man or woman, some idiot. All it takes is for him to find, say the right numbers. Say the right codes. Say, for example, the code behind the emotional inhibitor. The code right in front of him. Because even an idiot knows how to use computers these days."
"Really, even chimpanzees can do it." I added.
"Knows how to get past firewalls and passwords. Knows how to find something encrypted in the Lumic Family Database, under er... what was it, Pete? Binary what?" The Doctor asked, turning to Pete.
"Binary nine." Pete Tyler replied.
"An idiot could find that code. Cancellation code. And he'd keep on typing. Keep on fighting. Anything to save his friends." The Doctor said, finishing his rather long speech. But again the apes probably needed explicit orders to follow.
"Your words are irrelevant." Lumic said.
"Yeah, talk too much, that's my problem. Lucky I got you that cheap tariff, Rose, for all our long chats on your phone." He continued to babble and even I was getting a headache. Nari was thinking about multiple ways to shut him up, some rather inventive really.
"You will be deleted." Cybertrash declared, and I rolled my eyes. If it had said exterminated instead of deleted I would have already blown its brain to bits.
"Yes. Delete, control, hash. All those lovely buttons. Then, of course, my particular favorite, send. And let's not forget how you seduced all those ordinary people in the first place. By making every bit of technology compatible with everything else." The Doctor ranted until Rose's phone beeped with a text. It seemed the apes had some functional brain cells.
"It's for you." Rose said, handing the phone to the Doctor.
"Like this." The doctor declared, putting the phone into a docking station, that for some miracle had the perfect size for it. The code was immediately transmitted and the Cybermen cried out in pain. The code appeared on every computer screen. The Cybermen clutched their heads in pain, starting to understand what they had become.
"I'm sorry." The Doctor apologized to one Cybermen near him that had looked at itself in a shiny piece of metal. Others decided to terminate themselves by blowing up their heads.
"What have you done?" Lumic demanded.
"I gave them back their souls. They can see what you've done, Lumic, and it's killing them!" The Doctor replied.
"I guess this is the part where he goes Terminator on us and where we run?" I asked the Doctor, who grabbed my hand and pulled me along as we ran away from Lumic.
"Delete! Delete! Delete!" Lumic screamed madly.
They ran while things started to explode all over the place. The emergency was blocked by writhing cybermen.
"There's no way out." The doctor said as more explosions and fires broke out in the factory.
"It's Mickey." Rose said checking her phone. "He says to head for the roof."
They ran up a mental staircase as fire break out behind them, the Cybermen burning along and exploding. When they reach they find Mickey flying a zeppelin, and I groan.
"Yeah, if we don't die from the explosion it's going to be from the human flying that thing into the ground." I said looking at the Doctor. "I bet even your none existing driving skill is nothing compared to the human's."
"This you is such a pessimist." The Doctor replied, nodding towards the rope ladder that had just fallen out of the zeppelin. "See, he's got it."
"You've got to be kidding." Pete said, looking at the rope.
"Rose, get up." The Doctor said, making Rose get a move on. They each started climbing on and the zeppelin started to rise into the air.
"We did it!" Rose declared. "We did it!"
Then all of a sudden something heavy pulls the ladder, nearly making them lose their grip. They look down to see Cybertrash Lumic. The Doctor takes out his screwdriver and hands it to Pete.
"Pete! Take this! Use it! Hold the button down! Press it against the rope. Just do it!" The Doctor said.
"Jackie Tyler. This is for her!" Pete said holding the screwdriver against the rope. The rope finally gave out and Lumic falls into the exploding Power station.
The Doctor and his humans went to Lambeth Pier where he had parked his Tardis and I sneaked away to check on my tardis that had been parked a few meters away from them. I opened the front door of my Tardis, that was still disguised as a phone box, to find that she had gotten some help from her older sister but now was, unfortunately, in the process of redesigning herself.
Well, there goes my plan to take a ride back to my universe without the Doctor noticing. That only left one option, which Nari refused quite loudly. I grabbed my head, trying to shut her up since I didn't have much time.
I let my Tardis doing her thing and walked back to the Doctor in a bit of a hurry. I didn't have much time.
By the time I arrived the Doctor was shaking Mickey hands, saying his goodbyes.
The moment he saw me he gave me a wide grin. "There you are. I thought you wanted to stay here in this primitive alternate world with the apes."
"Not the time Doctor." I said as I started to bleed from my nose. "I can't believe I'm going to say this."
The Doctor noticed the blood on my face and pulled my face by the cheeks with both of his hands. "What's wrong? Why are you bleeding?" He asked, frowning down at me with concern.
"Listen, I can't believe I'm saying this but I need a favor." I said, getting dizzy. Nari was even louder now and Rina was worried. "My Tardis is fixing itself up, bring her along. She looks like a red telephone box, she's over there."
"Of course." He replied glancing at my tardis before grabbing when my legs lost their strength. "What wrong? Tell me!"
"I told you, this regeneration went wrong." I said, forcing myself to stay awake. "I've been running on sass and coffee for the past month. Please tell me you aren't a complete idiot..."
"Says the one running around with a messed up regeneration." He growled looking down at her with shock.
"Please tell me you have a zero room." She practically begged.
"Of course." I heard him say as I lost consciousness.
Thankfully he wasn't a complete idiot.