In Heaven

Missy turned her head to the side, shouting "Doctor Chang!" and walked off again.

For a moment, Adelaide didn't move her hand, but the Doctor tapped the top to remind her it was still out.

"Who's there?" a new voice, likely Dr. Chang, called as he stepped around a corner. "Hello?"

"Hello." Clara waved.

"Hello," the Doctor nodded.

"So..." Chang came to a stop in front of them. "Hey. Condolences."

"Condolences?"

"It's a mausoleum." Chang gestured around them. "It's our hello. Is there a particular dead person you want to talk to?"

Clara nodded. "Yes. Yes, there is."

"This way, then." He gestured to the side, leading them off. Clara followed immediately, the Time Lords taking one last moment to glance where Missy had gone before going after her.

They'd both touched the 'droid', they'd both noticed something that shouldn't have been there. Something that really made them wish they had the ability to communicate without speaking; they could now, to a degree, but not to the point that they would need to at this moment.

|C-S|

Chang brought them to his office, which was essentially an empty room with a tank in the center – skeleton inside – and a desk to the side. "Come in, come in," Chang said. "Going to need to take a reading off you."

"A reading?" Clara asked, the Time Lords – still holding hands – moving to look around the tank.

"Won't hurt." Chang flicked a switch.

"What won't?"

"How does the body keep its integrity?" Adelaide called to him. "A support exoskeleton?"

Chang nodded. "Exactly."

"An invisible exoskeleton?" Clara frowned.

"It's only invisible in the water. There's a specifically engineered refraction index in the fluid so we can see the tank resident impeded by the support mechanisms."

"So each skeleton is inside something?"

Clara glanced at the liquid. "Are you serious? X-ray water?"

Chang nodded. "It's so cool. Look at this. We call it dark water." He pulled a smaller tank towards him, something for examples, and stuck his arm inside. His jacket and wrist appeared to vanish, the flesh of his arm all that was visible. "Only organic matter can be seen through it." He withdrew his arm. "I keep saying they should use this stuff in swimming pools."

"Why?" the Doctor glanced at him.

"Think about it."

"I am thinking about it. Why?" he looked to Adelaide. They were both well aware of what Chang meant, what 'benefit' could be gleaned from doing such a thing, but...it was not something any sort of good person would suggest.

Clara, either wanting to avoid an impending lecture from Adelaide about manners and consent or thinking the Time Lords really didn't understand, spoke. "Doesn't matter. 3W, what kind of name is that? What does it mean?"

Chang looked between them. "Well, you know, don't you? You're here on business or they wouldn't have let you in. Sorry." He shook his head. "Should have checked. Who are you?"

"I thought that you would never ask. Sort out your security protocols, they're a disgrace." He gave the man his psychic paper.

"Another government inspection? So soon?" he frowned. "Why is there all this swearing?"

The Doctor took it back quickly. "Oh, I've got a lot of internalized anger. What does 3W stand for?"

"Well, the three words."

"What three words?"

Chang almost looked like he was about to laugh. "Seriously? You don't know?"

"Never mind what we know and what we don't know," the Doctor said, slightly snapping, "just answer our question."

"Because people who don't know, when they hear about this, they can freak out."

Clara shook her head. "We're not going to freak out."

"If you've had a recent loss, this might be...this will be disturbing."

The Doctor waved a hand. "She'll be fine."

Clara turned, pointing at the Time Lord. "Speak for me again, I'll detach something from you." She turned back to Chang. "I'll be fine."

"You know how people are scared of dying? Like, everybody."

Adelaide nodded. "It's the most fundamental fear in the universe. Right up there with a fear of the dark."

Chang turned to his computer, turning it on. "They'd be a lot more scared if they knew what it was really like." The screen turned to static, playing the accompanying sound. "White noise off the telly. We've all heard it. A few years ago, Dr. Skarosa, our founder, did something unexpected. He played that noise through a translation matrix of his own devising. This is a recording of what he heard." He pressed a button and the static faded into voices, though their specific words weren't discernable.

"Okay, people, voices."

"So what?"

"Over time, Dr. Skarosa became convinced these were the voices of the recently departed. He believed it was a telepathic communication from the dead."

The Doctor scoffed. "Why? Was he an idiot?"

"He was able to isolate some of the voices, hear what they were saying."

"So, an idiot then."

Chang paused the sounds. "What I'm about to play you will change your life and not for the better. These are the three words which caused Dr. Skarosa to set up institutes, like this one, all over the world, to protect the dead. If you'd rather not hear these words, there's still time..."

"Can you just hurry up, please, or I'll hit you with my shoe," the Doctor interrupted.

Chang just hit the button again. "Don't cremate me!" a voice shouted, making Clara jump. "Don't cremate me!"

"There is one simple, horrible possibility that has never occurred to anyone throughout human history."

"Don't cremate me! Don't cremate me!"

Clara shook her head, her eyes wide. "Don't say it."

"The dead remain conscious. The dead are fully aware of everything that is happening to them."

"Fakery," the Doctor said. "All of it. It's a con, it's a racket!"

Chang shook his head, cutting off the recording. "I promise you this is not a con."

Clara looked around the room. "What's that beeping?"

"Never mind about the beeping. Who cares about beeping? The dead are dead. They're not talking to you out of your television sets. They're just gone and all those poor souls down there in these tanks, I'm sorry, but they're just dead and they're not coming back."

Chang just turned, adjusting something on his computer as if the Doctor hadn't spoken. After a second, someone spoke. "Clara?" it sounded like Danny. "Clara? Clara, are you there?"

"Danny!" Clara gasped. "I can hear you. Is that you? Oh, please, say it's you..."

"Just lost the signal," Chang said, working again. "But I can track it back, I'm pretty sure."

Clara shook her head. "I don't...I don't understand. What is happening?"

"We've been scanning you telepathically since you came in," Chang said as he worked. "You said you wanted to speak to someone who'd passed and we've found you a match in the Nethersphere."

The Time Lords exchanged a look. "This isn't possible. The dead don't come back."

"It was him. It was his voice!"

"If they scanned you telepathically, they could've lifted a voice print," Adelaide told her. "There's still a chance it's a fake."

"Getting him back," Chang said, "very nearly."

There was static, but it formed into Danny's voice. "Clara, can you hear me?"

"Yes, Danny, I can hear you. Can you hear me?"

"Yeah, yeah, I can hear you. Clara! Oh, God, Clara."

Clara turned to the Time Lords. "What do I do?"

"Who are you talking to?"

"Hang on just a moment," she told Danny, still looking at the Time Lords.

"Question him," the Doctor finally said. "Ask him questions only he'd know the answer to. Be sure." He pointed at Chang. "You, with us." He pointed at the doors.

"Where are you going?" Clara asked them, the Time Lords already moving to leave.

"We need to look at the tanks," Adelaide said. "There's something that we're missing."

"Clara?" Danny called again.

"Skeptical and critical," Adelaide reminded her. "Notice everything."

The Doctor nodded. "Be strong, even if it breaks your heart."

Chang stepped back from the computer. "Connection's stabilized. It should be okay." He hurried after the Time Lords, not willing to let them wander alone.

"Who would harvest dead bodies?" the Doctor asked as they walked. "I feel like I'm missing something obvious."

"I hate that feeling," Adelaide mumbled.

"Well then," he squeezed her hand, "we'd better solve the mystery, shan't we, Sherlock Holmes?"

Adelaide sighed at him. "You're still the one who actually dressed up like him."

"And the one who maintains the thought that Sherlock could be a girl's name."

"And that he was fictional."

The Doctor just kissed her hand, the trio moving down the gallery. But then the Time Lords froze.

The skeletons were standing. The dark water was draining.

"Oh my God!" Chang gasped. "The tanks...the tanks are activating! They're not supposed to do that."

The Doctor frowned at him. "And all your dead people are standing. Don't you think you skipped the headline?"

"Now, now, children," Missy stepped out of the shadows again, coming to stand before them. "Naughty, naughty."

"Dr. Chang, your welcome droid has developed a fault."

But Chang frowned at them, shaking his head. "That's not a droid. That's my boss."

"You know," Missy shrugged, "I might have been guilty of just a teensy little fibette. Dr. Chang, I really liked working with you. I've enjoyed every day of it."

Chang blinked. "I'm sorry?" The Time Lords took a small step back at that.

Missy just smiled. "You know, I've even got a little photograph of you looking so sweet. I'm always going to keep it. Always!"

Chang swallowed. "Are you going to kill me?"

Missy put her hands on her hips, making a face. "Now, come on. Let's not dwell on horrid things. This is going to be our last conversation, and I'm the one who's going to have to live with that."

"Please don't kill me."

She smirked. "Say something nice."

"Please, please. I don't...I don't want to die." He stumbled backward. "You're going to kill me, aren't you?"

"Say something nice."

"Please!"

"Dr. Chang, I've got all day. And I'm not going to kill you until you say something nice."

Chang took a breath, trying to stand up straight. "It has been an absolute pleasure working with you, and I truly believe that you'll never be able to find it in your heart to murder me."

Missy soundly proved him wrong by pulling a device from her pocket, incinerating Chang instantly. The Time Lords backed away even further. "Now, I'll be with you in a moment." She looked down, looking very much like someone attempting to mimic regret. "Just feeling a bit emotional at the moment."

The Time Lords turned, realizing they'd hit their backs on a tank, and saw that the dark water had drained to the level that they could see the invisible exoskeletons holding the skeletons in place.

Cybermen.

"Cybermen," the Doctor breathed. "They're Cybermen, all of them. We've got to stop them getting out!"

"Now who's missing the headline?" Missy said, drawing their attention. "The Nethersphere." She gestured up to the roof of the building, some sort of large globe hanging there that they hadn't noticed in the dark before. "You know, it's ever so funny, the people that live inside that think they've gone to heaven."

The Doctor stepped away from Adelaide to get a better look at the Nethersphere, frowning at it. He recognized it. "That's a matrix data-slice."

"A Gallifreyan hard drive," Adelaide realized. She may never have been a particular fan of general technology, but she was aware of this.

"Time Lord technology."

Missy nodded at them. "Imagine you could upload dying minds to that. Edit them. Rearrange them. Get rid of all those boring emotions. Make them all Mr. and Ms. Clever." She glanced at Adelaide as she said it, a smirk growing. "Ready to be re-downloaded. Meanwhile, you upgrade the bodies. Upload the mind, upgrade the body. Cybermen from cyberspace. Now," the smirk became a grin, "why has no-one ever thought of that before?"

The two Time Lords stepped together again, facing Missy. "How did you get hold of Time Lord technology? Who are you?"

"You know who I am. I told you. You felt it. Surely you did."

"Two hearts," the Doctor and Adelaide said in unison. "You're a Time Lord."

"Time Lady, please," Missy corrected, "I'm old-fashioned."

"Which Time Lady?"

"The one you abandoned, Doctor," Missy spat. "The one you left for dead." She looked to Adelaide. "The one you were meant to help. The one you were meant to find." Back to both of them, but mainly the Doctor. "Didn't you ever think I'd find my way back?"

"Clara!" The Doctor turned, running to the lift. "Clara. Clara. We've got to get Clara!"

"Oh, Clara, Clara, Clara!" Missy repeated, rolling her eyes. "You know you should shoot him in a jealous rage." She gestured at Adelaide. "Now, wouldn't that be sexy? I've turned the lift off, though."

The Doctor looked back at her. "I presume you have stairs."

Missy scoffed. "Well, I'm not a Dalek."

The Doctor ran to a nearby door, sonicing it open and running all the way outside...only to find that they were on Earth, in the middle of the day, at St. Paul's Cathedral. Adelaide was only a step behind him, but Missy lagged, walking casually to match them. "Oh, my dears," she mused. "The Doctor really has made you slow, Adelaide. Didn't you realize where you were?"

Cybermen started to march out the doors around Missy. The Doctor ran down the stairs to the humans – who looked decidedly unsurprised – around them. "Get away from here! All of you, run!"

Missy came up beside Adelaide, taking her shoulder to keep the Time Lady from joining him. "Do you think he honestly thinks that'll do anything, or does he just like giving orders?" Adelaide wrenched her arm away.

"Go!" the Doctor continued. "Go! Get away from here! Run away! Run, run! Get away from here, all of you, now!"

But Missy just walked down to him. "I'm sorry, everyone. Another ranting Scotsman in the street. I had no idea there was a match on."

"Get away, go!"

"Stop shouting, love," Missy said. "Stop making a fuss." She stood between the two other Time Lords, looking between them with a grin. "It's too late. All the graves of planet Earth are about to give birth. You know the key strategic weakness of the human race? The dead outnumber the living?"

"Who are you?" the Doctor breathed, both of them needing to know, needing to hear it.

Because there was only one person who fitted what Missy had said, and if it was them...

Adelaide was really going to regret trusting the frightened little boy she'd found on Gallifrey so many years ago.

"Oh, you know who I am. I'm Missy."

"Who's Missy?"

Missy sighed. "Please, try to keep up. It's no wonder that you've slowed Adelaide down at this rate. Short for Mistress." The Doctor's eyes widened. "Well, I couldn't very well keep calling myself the Master, now could I?"

Adelaide had thought her mistakes from the Time War had been solved.

It appeared she'd been wrong.

Adelaide hated being wrong.

A/N: Why look who it is ;)