No Control

Chapter Four: The Calm Before The Storm

Silence fell over the chamber as the information bubble finally stopped flashing. For a few moment, the dancing lights made the frosted tiers of tomb units glitter as if on fire, then faded to grey. The ice seemed to creep closer and the only sound to be heard was the breathing of the six individuals present.

Ice was starting to form on the mighty dome of the CyberLeader's helmet. It still hadn't moved.

Moments past and flakes of frost began to appear on the watchers' clothing. There was still no sign of life from the CyberLeader, no movement, nothing. The tombs were dark and inert, as lifeless as before. Seconds built up into minutes, and after five of them, still nothing had happened.

The Doctor had felt a rather uncharitable satisfaction as Antola's adrenaline ebbed, her excitement faded, and she was left staring helplessly at the inanimate CyberLeader with the crude wires and information bubble looking like a makeshift washing line between Cyberman and its tomb.

"Oh well, can't win them all," the Doctor said cheerfully, his voice loud and harsh against the silence of the last long minutes.

"Shut. Up. Doctor." hissed Antola, each syllable fighting to be heard.

The Doctor dutifully fell silent. Antola was a wealthy only child, and manifestly hated when things didn't go her way – especially on this scale. She looked tempted to burst into tears, or maybe attack something to get her own back. Frantically, she jabbed at her control unit, then checked the wires to the information bubble. Phen yawned loudly. Hols and Tharby looked bored, but Julreth was just exhausted from all the emotional stress she'd been under all day.

In the silence of the cavern, they could all quite clearly hear Antola muttering to herself in barely constrained fury. "That fraud... I paid my money and I expect my merchandise..."

Enough was enough. "Caveat Emptor, let the buyer beware," the Doctor told her bluntly, then tugged at the wires, ripping the ends from the brain of the CyberLeader and the socket in the tomb unit. Antola stared at him wordlessly as the Time Lord collected the fallen information bubble and wrapped the wires around it before dropping all into one of his capacious pockets. "You might have been able to procure the software antidote but you didn't really make sure it was compatible with Cyber technology. Assuming of course that they didn't just see you coming and sell you a dud. Is that what happened, Antola?"

Julreth sniggered, but covered her mouth.

There was an uncomfortable silence. The humiliated Antola's expression was controlled, dispassionate. "Bravo," she said quietly, an edge to her voice. "Not bad. But it's not as if this trip is a complete loss," she continued, suddenly relaxed and casual again. She strolled behind the statue-like CyberLeader, and standing on her tippy-toes managed to drape her arms around the Cyberman's shoulders. She gave a smug grin at the nonplussed group. "Shall we have a party?" she suggested with a sharklike grin.

Amused smiles and titters were heard from the other teenagers, but the Doctor paid them no heed. "What are you talking about?" he demanded, his voice level.

Antola didn't seem to hear him at all as she rubbed the shoulders of the statue as if giving a comforting massage to an old friend, sending frost flakes in all directions. "The night is young and my friend Cy and I will be having cocktails and light refreshments at my retreat at the edge of the known galaxy. Strictly informal," she added with mock assurance. "Be fashionably late!"

"You are not taking any Cyber technology off this planet," the Doctor snapped.

"Oh, aren't I?" Antola gloated, her voice hard.

"You're not really going to keep that thing, are you?" Tharby grimaced at the rotting skull visible inside the CyberLeader's transparent helmet.

"But after all the trouble I've been to," Antola pouted, "I deserve some reward! And it'd be rude to go to all the trouble of breaking him out of his tomb just to put him right back in it?"

"Don't you have any respect?" the Doctor shouted, losing his temper. "These creatures were once real, living people like you or I!"

"But they're losers," Antola complained, staring at the Doctor like he was mad. "If anyone has failed to earn respect, it's these sorry weakling scum who let the Cyberons have their wicked way with them without putting up a fight. This planet is a memorial to the weak, puny and pathetic that let this happen to them..."

"You think they had a choice?" the Doctor said, aghast. "That they wanted this to happen? That they all meekly were turned into so much tinned leftovers for want of something better to do?"

"You seem to think I care," Antola noted with a frown. "Well, children, shall we return to the ship with the newest member of our entourage!" She rested her chin on the cold steel shoulder and let out a wistful sigh. "I dare say that Cy here will impress us all! I mean, 253 years in a fridge, oh imagine what tales he will have to tell us!" She beamed. "Shall we go."

Hols sighed. "Oh no. I'm not carrying that all the way up to the surface," she said, turned and slumping against a metallic wall. "I'm sick of manual labour. I feel quite faint."

If she expected sympathy from Antola, she was disappointed. "Fine. Stay here, tidy up after us and then follow at your own pace. We'll be staying till just before dawn, children, and once we're gone, there'll be no trace that we ever here."

"Except him," Phen noted, giving a dark look at the Doctor.

The Time Lord began to realize that this group of sociopathic teenagers might well turn on him. He opened his mouth, but Antola was already talking. "And what's he going to do about it? Trespassing on this hive world, aiding and abetting. Let him do what he wants. We can afford lawyers to deal with him later, after all, can we not?"

The Doctor folded his arms. "I am not letting you take that poor creature out of here – and there's only one way up to the surface, isn't there?"

"I don't know," Antola shrugged, her manner suggesting she had the upper hand. "Why don't you ask the Guardian. Where is she, anyway?"

Tharby shrugged. "Still tied up in the hygiene chamber where we left her."

The Doctor tried to keep calm. "You came here, kidnapped someone, tied them up and left them in the water closet just so your prank wouldn't be interrupted? This is insane!"

"You bore me," Tharby sniffed. "Is he always like this?"

"Pretty much," Phen agreed.

"Are you ready to go, children?" asked Antola of Phen, Tharby and Julreth, who were now standing beside her in a group surrounding the silent form of the CyberLeader. "Then let us be off."

"You're not leaving here," the Doctor said firmly.

Smiling pleasantly, Antola raised her remote control and stabbed at it with her thumb. "Want to bet?" she challenged, as all five figures were bathed in a rapidly flickering blue light. The Doctor lunged forward, but already their outlines were blurring, fragmenting into nothingness. The blue haze shimmered mockingly then was gone, leaving the Doctor and Hols alone in the chamber.

"Teleport," the Doctor breathed hard, fury rising within him for not suspecting that someone as lazy as Antola would prefer the quickest route. All that marching back and forth had been nothing but to add atmosphere to her little game. But now the prank with the faux Cybermen was gone and revival a dud, she now had her own toy CyberLeader to play with.

"Have you got a teleport?" he asked Hols hopefully, but she glared and looked away from him.

"Go away. I'm not talking to a raddled old man like you," she sneered.

The Doctor didn't waste his breath, but sprinted across the chamber and up the passageway. This band of odious 'children' had tested his patience too many times tonight. If it had been just them, he was strongly tempted to leave in the TARDIS and let them play their sick games. But there were innocents caught up in that – the caretaker Guardian for one, and the trillions of people who would be converted if the Cybermen actually did awake...

Hols watched the Doctor vanish into the gloom. With all the light sources removed, the chamber was slowly starting to grow dim. After spending all day in these tombs and several hours actually inside a unit itself, she had no real desire to waste more of her precious time here. Wearily, she got to her feet, dusting the frost from her outfit. She nearly slipped twice on the ice-covered floor and idly cursed Antola for leaving her behind. Only a nagging fear of getting into trouble made her stay to replace the damaged membrane over the CyberLeader's tomb.

As she tore down the last remnants of plastic, she mused that stupid old man in the cape and top hat might have had a point. This was a rather a lot of trouble to go to for a few seconds of humiliating Phen and his sister, but then, as Antola had said to them, what else did they have planned. Wealth and privilege had the price of boredom. And anything was better than being bored...

Hols frowned as she noticed something on the floor – a hand-shaped patch of frost had melted away, showing the metal flooring beneath. Obviously the heat from her palm had done that when she'd been sitting on the floor, but strange the patch hadn't already frozen over. Come to think of it, it wasn't actually that cold down here any more.

Dismissing the thought, Hols went on with her work. She couldn't have seen through the frost and membrane of the intact tomb beside her, or she'd have spotted the huddled shape within twitch and flex slightly as the temperature slowly but surely began to rise.

Aboard the warm and bright confines of her ship, Antola laughed loudly as the CyberLeader – unsteadied by the teleportation transfer – toppled forward and crashed face-down onto the deck. Phen and Tharby also laughed; the sight of the Cyberman lying lifelessly, unable to get back up again made even Julreth chuckle. It was almost like the CyberLeader had expected them to catch it and instead been surprised at its humiliation as it struck the floor.

"Ah well," Antola said when she'd stopped giggling, "if I can't get a living Cyberon, I'll make do with a dead one! Stand him up," she ordered Phen, before pausing. "Him? Her? It? Yes. Stand it up."

"Why?" asked Tharby, but did as he was told anyway.

"I feel like injecting some life into the party," Antola giggled and crossed to the flight deck control panel. With a flip of the control some electronic remixed tunes began to pulse through the ship, an infectious rock tune by a band called the Electrodes. Julreth laughed despite herself; she loved this particular song and her heart felt light. Just her and her friends having a party.

It would easy to forget the darkness and the cold outside, the empty moorlands and the endless tombs underneath, that the light shining from the windows of Antola's ship was the only source of illumination on that side of the planet. It would be easy to just relax.

But somehow no one managed it.

Unlike Julreth and the others, the Doctor was taking the long way up to the surface – a fact he was painfully aware of, his lungs hurting from the cold as he ran. But his trip was uphill now, uphill on a slippery ice-covered metal floor and little light. The inert tombs with their Cyberman logos stared at him as he ran past them.

The long lonely journey through the gloom had done nothing for the Doctor's spirits. He had no companions here, no friends, no one to look out for him, back him up or visa versa. If Lucie was still around he could have had her to talk to at least, if only her complaints about running up and down frost-lined corridors. Anything to distract the rising feeling of dread.

He'd been confident that Antola's computer antivirus had failed, but now he was beginning to wonder if it hadn't, and Cyber Control had somehow delayed its revival for strategic purposes – strike when your enemy is certain you're dead. There was no evidence that it had happened, but somehow the teenagers' lack of respect for the Cybermen made the Doctor more convinced the silver giants (or at least their technology) were up to something.

Finally the corridor narrowed and ended with the crudely-inserted living quarters, with bright light, warmth and better mix of fresh air. He was metres from the surface and, encouraged, the Doctor ran inside, dived into the en suite bathroom and found the Guardian sitting on the floor, bound and gagged, just as Tharby had described.

The Doctor's spirits sank immediately. The woman seemed in a trance, but her clear eyes showed no drugs had been administered, nor any psychic link. She'd retreated inside herself for some reason, the Doctor realized. Perhaps Antola's tales of this responsibility driving the Guardians insane had some truth in it after all. Grimly, he untied her, lead her out into the main room and found some water from the food dispenser.

"Are you feeling better?" he asked hopefully as she sipped her drink, but the woman did not reply. "I'm sorry what's happened to you. Some rich children playing tricks in fake Cybermen outfits. Cyberon outfits?" he corrected, hoping the term might get some reaction from his companion.

She looked down into her glass of water, as if trying to outstare her reflection.

The Doctor sighed. He'd been hoping for an ally against Antola, but even if this trauma passed the woman was of no help now. He didn't even know her name. What to do? He couldn't let Antola run off with any Cyberman, let alone a CyberLeader. He could just imagine it somehow reviving, going on a killing spree as it made its way back to defrost the rest of its species. A whole new Cyber War could spark off right here and now.

The Time Lord rubbed the bridge of his nose. Think. When dealing with problems, the thing to do was list your assets and liabilities, then work out a strategy to increase the former and decrease he latter. What did he have? Himself, a 1500-year-old time traveler, his even older TARDIS, sonic screwdriver, jelly babies, a catatonic night watchman...

The Doctor looked thoughtfully at the woman, who stared back at him. What would she do, he wondered, if she was in her right mind? The answer was obvious: raise the alarm and call in help. He looked around the living quarters and saw but one transmitter with a single function, sending out a code that would alert the theocracy that the Cybermen had finally awoken.

Of course, that had yet to happen, but if the Doctor set the dogs on Antola, betrayed her presence on this world before she was ready to leave, then both she and the Cybermen could be dealt with simultaneously while he slipped quietly away in the TARDIS.

Grinning, the Doctor crossed to the controls...

Aboard the ship, Antola was once again tinkering with the positronic circuitry at the back of the CyberLeader's huge helmet, connecting a fresh set of wires from the brain of the Cyberman to her own flight computer. "Darling Cy," she cooed sarcastically, "you're such a good friend to me. I can't think of anyone else who'd let me poke around in their brains with my bare hands, and what a pity that is!"

Phen laughed, his mood improved considerably after the third class of adrenaline and soma. As always, Antola made sure there was a fully-stocked drink cabinet wherever she happened to be. It didn't matter, after all, how drunk they got as the ship's auto-pilot would be used even if they were sober. Tharby too was enjoying himself, only the faint annoyance that Hols had yet to return dimmed his enthusiasm.

"Strong silent type, huh?" he challenged the CyberLeader, and Antola broke up in laughter.

"Just the way I like them," she wheezed.

Julreth watched them, almost in pain from their laughter, and wished she could share it. The CyberLeader was an ugly addition to the ship, an intruder that stared blankly at her as if it could see into her very soul. It had been so long since anyone had ever told her something she didn't want to hear, and she couldn't forget the Doctor's fury at them for doing this. He really believed this was dangerous, had been prepared to try and stop them until Antola had outsmarted him. Part of Julreth wanted to write him off as some stupid old man out to spoil their fun, but that strange man in his weird clothes had been completely serious.

She still found herself laughing as Phen threw his drink in the CyberLeader's face. The thing was dead, lifeless, a toy for them to play with. Nothing could hurt them. The moment Hols was back they'd take off and in a few hours be back home, safe and sound. The thought of the hours of space travel, stuck inside this tiny ship with that creature staring at her.

Julreth considered stepping outside for some fresh air, but didn't want to be mocked by Antola again, so she stayed where she was, sipped her drink, and smiled as her friends continued to laugh and jeer at the helpless and stoic Cyberman.

The signal seemed to have been sent. There was no way to be sure, the Doctor reflected, as the Guardian was presumably busy fleeing in the escape capsule to have time checking any displays. What's more, the moment he'd activated the consoles, the controls had locked – presumably to prevent any Cybermen tampering with the equipment.

All the Doctor could do now was hope the signal equipment was still working, that the signal would be detected by the right people and more importantly believed by the right people. But given all the apathy and decadence he'd seen so far, he worried that the beacon would be dismissed as a computer error and no action would be taken. Ultimately, he decided he couldn't take the chance. He'd have to act on the assumption the signal had failed. The first thing to do was ensure any Cybermen on this planet stayed on this planet. That meant confronting Antola again, but first...

The Guardian continued staring at nothing as the Doctor opened the never-used escape capsule and began to remove several small but vital components, grounding the capsule. He could always return the parts if necessary, but he had the option of using the TARDIS. He doubted his catatonic friend would even have the presence of mind to use the capsule even if it was working.

"Come on, we should get going," he told her.

She turned her eyes to look at him, but didn't move.

Dragging her out of here would take up valuable time and that was always assuming she didn't try to fight him or run off... The Doctor grimly came to the conclusion the best thing to do was leave her behind and hope she followed him. At least he'd be able to return for her later.

"Listen," he said, staring into her blank eyes. "If anything happens here, run for you life – all the way to the surface. And when you get there, go to the big blue police box. Nowhere else is safe. Nowhere. The blue box. Go there and you'll be safe. Do you understand?"

The woman nodded her head very slightly, but gave no other indication she had even heard him.

Blowing out his cheeks, the Doctor drew his coat around him and hurried out the outer hatch and into the tunnel that lead to the surface, promising himself he'd back before he knew it and all this hassle would have been ultimately redundant. Maybe if Lucie had been there, he might have been able to convince her if not himself.

Had the Doctor stayed there a moment longer he might have heard the sound of dripping water. The hoarfrost all throughout the tombs was melting as the air grew warmer and warmer, and the soon the noise became that of a mild rainstorm.

Hols was halfway through bolting the replacement membrane in place when suddenly it seemed to rain indoors for a few moments and then the storm rapidly died off. She blinked and wiped the moisture from her face. She puffed, suddenly realizing how uncomfortably warm she was in the heavy suit, with damp and humid air blowing around her.

But this place was supposed to be below freezing, she thought. Indeed, it was the suit she was wearing that had saved her from hypothermia while lying in the tomb. Well, obviously the heating unit had malfunctioned, which was why she was suddenly so hot. That didn't explain that rain though, but to be honest she didn't care. It was nothing to do with her.

Pausing to turn down her thermal unit, Hols returned to fastening the membrane, barely noticing that the frost was all gone from the tomb units and the ice on the floor had melted. The water streamed into the gullies and grilles built in the corners of the chamber, and the defrosting process continued. Light was beginning to glow behind the tomb cells that honeycombed the chamber, shining through the clear plastic covers that were now totally clear of ice.

The Cyberman Planet was waking up after over two and a half centuries of sleep.