The Age of Steel Part 2
They began walking through the edge of a dark, cold, metal corridor, keeping a sharp eye open for any Cybermen. As they were about to round a corner, a Cyberman jumped around it, Mrs Moore instantly going for her back pack, being as it was only one. "You have not been upgraded."
"Yeah?" Mrs Moore spat. "well, upgrade this," she threw from her backpack a small device, wrapped to the top and bottom in wire. The device latched onto the Cyberman, sending hundreds of blue lights running up and down its body. The Cyberman soon fell to the ground with a thud, the Doctor smiling widely. "What the hell was that?" he asked as he approached the Cyberman.
"Electromagnetic bomb. Takes out computers, I figured it might stop the cyber-suit," Mrs Moore replied proudly.
"Well, you figured right," the Doctor congratulated. He kneeled down to get a better look at the metal body, taking out his Sonic. "Now, let's take a look. Know you're enemy, there's a logo on the front, Lumic's turning them into a brand," he explained as he pressed the Sonic to the logo. Taking the logo off, he showed Mrs Moore the insides. "Heart of Steel... but look..." he dove his fingers inside the suit, taking out some of the white, fleshy looking substance. "Hmmm... central nervous system. Artificially grown then threaded throughout the suit so it responds like a living thing. Well, it is a living thing. Oh, but look..." he fingered one of the chips inside the body with interest. "Emotional Inhibitor... stops them feeling anything. They've still got human brains, imagine it's reaction if it could see itself inside this thing. It'd go insane."
"So they cut out the one thing that makes them human," Mrs Moore finished.
"Because they have to," the Doctor nodded in agreement. There was a brief moment of silence. Silence which was broken by the Cyberman itself. "Why... am I... cold?" the Cyberman asked, no longer having that 'Delete' edge to its voice.
"Oh, my God," Mrs Moore whispered. "It's alive... it can feel..."
"You broke the inhibitor," the Doctor realised quietly. He leaned over the fallen Cyberman. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"Why so... cold?" the Cyberman asked again.
Trying desperately to make sure the person didn't ask where they were, what they were doing and continue to repeat the same question, he asked, "Do you remember your name?"
"Sally," the Cyber-woman replied. "Sally Phelan."
"You're a woman..." Mrs Moore muttered in shook.
"Where's Gareth?" she asked in a more desperate tone. "He can't see me, it's unlucky the night before."
Dread washed over the faces of the Doctor and Mrs Moore. This woman, this poor, young woman. It just proved that just because their brains were dumped into metal heads, it didn't mean they weren't human. Every Cyberman that was walking the streets of London had lives once. And feelings. But they were dug, hidden in their new mechanical bodies, untouchable.
"You're getting married?" Mrs Moore crooked.
"I'm cold," Sally repeated. "So cold..."
"It's alright," the Doctor told her soothingly. He fiddled with his Sonic Screwdriver and gently pressed it inside the suit, pressing the button. "You go to sleep now, Sally. Just go to sleep." The blue light on the inside of the suit ceased, making the Cyber body look dead once again. "Sally Phelan didn't die for nothing," the Doctor told Mrs Moore. "Because that's the key; the Emotional Inhibitor. If we could just find the Code, the Cancelation Code, we could feed it through the system into every Cyberman's head. They'd realise what they are... I think it would kill them... could we do that?" he asked.
"We've got to," Mrs Moore nodded. "Before they kill everyone else. There's no choice, Doctor. It's got to be done." Slowly, she began the ascend from the ground. She was too busy looking down at the Cyberman on the floor, as was the Doctor, to notice another metal man was standing right behind her. With no warning, the Cyberman lifted its arm, latching it onto Mrs Moore's neck, killing her quickly. "No!" the Doctor yelled. "You didn't have to kill her!"
The Cyberman ignored the Doctor's comment as another Cyberman approached from behind, cornering him with no where to run. "Sensors detect a binary vascular system. You are an unknown upgrade. You will be taken for analysis." The Cyberman in front began to walk away, the Doctor having orders to follow them as he looked at each one with disgust. His previous promise ran through him mind as he walked, a promise he was still determined to carry out- This end tonight.
The Doctor was led into the main building of the factory, not too surprised to see Rose and Pete sitting by the computers, surrounded by Cybermen. "I've been captured, but don't worry, Rose and Pete are still out there, they can rescue me! Oh well, never mind," the Doctor said as he waltzed into the room towards his two friends, untying his bow tie. He walked over to Rose and placed a hand on her arm when he saw her distraught expression. "You okay?"
"Yeah," she said quietly. "But they got Jackie."
"We were too late," Pete explained. "Lumic killed her."
The Doctor nodded. It wasn't like he didn't like Jackie. He was quite fond of the one back in their Universe... when she wasn't cooking or having a go at him, threatening him that if anything happened to her daughter he'd have her to answer to, but he knew that the Jackie in this Universe was not the Jackie her. He gave a small smile to her, then turned back to the Cybermen. "So where is he?" he asked. "The famous Mr Lumic? Don't we get the chance to meet our Lord and Master?"
"He has been upgraded," one of the Cybermen informed.
"So he's just like you?"
"He is superior," the Cyberman said. "The Lumic Unit has been designated Cyber Controller." From the front of the room, two doors slid open, a white like gas emerging as a new member of the Cyber family entered the room. A Cyberman came into the room, sitting in a chair, reminding Pete very much of the first time he met Mr Lumic, only with more wires sticking in and out of its body and a bigger seat. The Cyberman stopped at the top of the stairs, two others standing by his side. "This is the Age of Steel," Cyber Lumic informed them. "I am its Creator."
There was a long moment of silence. The Doctor had nothing to say to this monster. Couldn't find the words to tell him how heartless, selfish and cowardly he was being. It wasn't down to him anymore, anyway. He couldn't do anything stuck in the factory. It was up to Mickey and Jake now.
On cue, there was a loud beeping, following by hundreds of screams, all coming from the main operation of the factory. The Doctor gave a smile, knowing the boys were on the right track. "That's my friends at work, good boys!" he exclaimed happily. If they had disabled the transmitter, they could help them get out of the factory alive, hopefully. "Mr Lumic, I think that's a vote for free will," he winked at the Cyber Controller.
"I have factories waiting on seven continents," Lumic told them, the smile on the Doctor's face beginning to drop. "If the ear pods have failed, then the Cybermen will take Humanity by force. London has fallen; so shall the word. I will bring peace to the word. Everlasting peace, and unity, and uniformity."
"And imagination? What about that?" the Doctor asked. "The one thing that led you here, imagination. You're killing it; dead!"
"What is your name?" Lumic asked.
"I'm the Doctor."
"A redundant title," Lumic spat. "Doctors need not exist; Cybermen never sicken."
"But that's it!" the Doctor exclaimed, taking a few steps foreword. "That's exactly the point!" he looked at the once-man in pity, then shook his head. "Oh, Lumic, you're a clever man. I'd call you a genius, except I'm in the room..." he trailed off. "But everything you invented, you did to fight your sickness, and that's brilliant! That is so human. But once you get rid of sickness and mortality, then what's there to strive for?" The Cyber Lumic said nothing to this as the Doctor added, "The Cybermen wont 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!"
There was another brief silence as Lumic was contemplating what to say next. "You are proud of you emotions?" he asked eventually.
"Oh, yes," the Doctor nodded.
"Then tell me, Doctor, have you known grief, and rage? And pain?"
He didn't even have to think about the answer to know what he was going to say. Of course he'd known grief. He'd burnt his own planet, he'd felt plenty of pain. With a slow nod, the Doctor replied, "Yes, yes I have."
"And they hurt?"
"Oh, yes," the Doctor answered. He noticed from the corner of the room, at the very top near the ceiling was a small flashing light. A camera. Smiling inwardly, he hoped the boys were watching as they spoke.
"I can set you free. Would you not want that?" the Cyber Controller asked. "A life without pain?" The Doctor thought about that question for a moment. Everything had to be balanced. You cant be happy without a hint of sadness there as well. You cant be at peace without having pain, either. He looked out of the corner of his eye at Rose, who was waiting for his answer. A life without pain, for him, meant a life without her. He decided there and then that it would be worth going through the pain of losing her than not having her at all. He shook his head at Lumic and hissed, "You might as well kill me."
"Then I take that option," the Cyberman spat back.
The Doctor frowned and replied, "It's not yours to take! You're a Cyber Controller, you don't control me, or anything with blood in its heart!"
"You have no means of stopping me," Lumic claimed. "I have an army, a species of my own." The Doctor rubbed his hands with his face, scrubbing it in frustration as he began to walk around the room. "You just don't get it, do you? An army's nothing! Because those ordinary people out there, they're the key. The most ordinary person could change the world! Some ordinary man or woman," he glanced up at the camera in the corner of the room, adding testily, "Some idiot. All it would take was for him to find... say the right numbers... say the right codes... say, for example, the code to find the Emotional Inhibitor, the code right in front of him. Even an idiot knows how to use computers these days! Knows how to get past Firewalls and Passwords, knows how to find something encrypted in the Lumic Family Database, under... oh, what was it, Pete? Binary what?"
"Binary Nine," Pete replied, also looking at the camera.
The Doctor gave a large nod, looking up at the camera briefly again, hoping Mickey was getting the message. "An idiot could find that code, the Cancelation Code," he leaned against one of the table, a computer sitting in front of him. "And he'd keep on typing, keep on fighting," he turned toward a camera and winked. "Anything to save his friends."
"Your words are irrelevant," Lumic said dismissively.
The Doctor gave a short chuckle. "Yeah, talk too much, that's my problem. Lucky I go you that cheap Tariff, Rose, for all our long chats, on your phone," he looked up to the camera again, doing a phone signal with his hands.
"You will be Deleted!" Lumic yelled.
"Yeeees!" the Doctor nodded. "Delete, Control, Hash, all those lovely button, and of course, there's my particular favourite; send!" he said happily, making his way over to a small port on one of the computers. All he had to do now was wait, if Mickey hadn't screwed up somehow. "And let's not forget how you seduced all those people in the first place," the Doctor continued, smiling with a small amount of pride when he heard Rose's phone go off. "By making every bit of technology compatible with everything else," he looked over at Rose expectantly, now smiled. "It's for you," she told him as she threw her phone to him, him catching it cockily. "Like this," he ended, slotting the phone into the computer port.
All at once, the Cybermen began screaming, clutching their heads as some of the doubled over and fell onto the ground. The Cancelation Code began flashing on every computer monitor in the room, the Doctor looking at the Cybermen, apologising to one of them as they looked at themselves, at what they were turned into.
"What have you done?!" Lumic demanded.
"I gave them back their souls," the Doctor replied, looking at the fallen Cybermen, taking Rose's phone out of the port. "They can see what you've done, Lumic, and it's killing them!" he exclaimed, chucking the phone back to her and running though the door, she and Pete right behind him. They ran through the endless corridors, flames bursting out of the now cracked and broken pipes. He opened a door which looked like a way out, shutting it immediately when he saw Cybermen juddering on the floor and clutching their heads. "There's no way out," the Doctor called through the explosions. A few moments later, Rose phone began to play her ringtone, the callers ID saying 'Mickey'. She pressed it to her ear, shortly after saying, "It's Mickey, he says head for the roof."
Remembering a flight of stairs someway back, the three of them backtracked, finding the metal stairs and running up them, desperately trying to avoid all flames and missing steps. Climbing up the ladder that led to the roof, Rose pressed the phone to her ear again. "Mickey, where'd you learn to fly that thing?" she asked as the Doctor helped Pete up the ladder. He turned, whistling at the large zeppelin which was about to take off, Mickey in the window. Running towards the belly of the balloon, they saw Mickey had released a rope ladder, the Doctor ushering Rose up onto it quickly, him next, then Pete.
"Welcome to Mickey's Airlines," came Mickey's happy voice over the tannoy. "Please enjoy your flight."
As they climbed up the rope, the zeppelin was slowly moving away from the factory, Rose cheering, "We did it!" They looked at each other happily as they continued to climb. Their happiness seemed short lived as the entire zeppelin gave a heavy jolt. The three looked down to the bottom of the rope ladder to see an unwanted passenger. Cyber Lumic was tightly hanging on to the bottom of the rope, slowly but surely climbing up toward them. The factory was now several feet away from them. If they fell, it wouldn't be a happy ending.
"Pete! the Doctor called, taking his Sonic from his Tux jacket. He flashed the device to the man below him and Rose, dropping it into Pete awaiting hands. "Take it, press it against the rope, push the button down! Quickly!" the Doctor ordered.
Pete followed the Doctor's instruction and pressed the Sonic to the rope. "Jackie Tyler!" he called. "This is for her!" He pressed the button on the Sonic, hearing the cracking and breaking of the rope. As the Cyber Lumic was in arms reach of Pete's ankle, the rope snapped completely, sending Lumic flying down toward the factory. He was soon lost in the midst of the factory's final explosion, Pete laughing in triumph as he continued climbing up the ladder again.
Rose gave a sigh once they were on solid ground again. She swore to herself she was never going on a plane, ferry, bus or car ever again. However, she was going home in the TARDIS soon, so that promise was out the window.
The Doctor, after retrieving his Sonic Screwdriver and making sure everyone was safe and sound, he ran to the TARDIS, the fully charged Power Cell clasped in his hand. He ran around the Console, searching for a small slot. Upon finding it, he inserted the Power Cell, smiling as the lights in his beloved ship slowly started to switch back on, the gaping hole in the back of his mind filling up again. He ran over to the door once he saw they didn't have a lot of time. "Rose!" he called once he saw he talking with Pete. "We've only got five minutes of power. We have to go."
"The Doctor could show you," Rose told Pete in a pleading tone.
Pete ignored her comment. "Thank you. For everything," he said to the both of them.
Rose looked at him beggingly, then chocked out a, "Dad." Pete looked at the both of them, then shook his head. "Don't," he said quietly. "Just don't." He walked past Rose and up the street, leaving his Parallel daughter staring in the place he was standing. The Doctor didn't really what to say. Rose had just been rejected by her father, her father who she never knew. Sure, he was her Parallel father, but all the same. He looked down at Rose in sympathy, rubbing the back of his neck, a habit of his when he didn't know what else to do.
"Here it is!" Mickey called as he walked toward them, something in his arms. "Found it! Not a crease!" The Doctor looked down at what he was holding and exclaimed in delight, "My suit! Good man!" he praised the young Human and as he took his clothes out of his hands. "Now then, Jake - we've gotta run. But one more thing; Mrs Moore. Her real name is Angela Price. She's got a husband out there. And children. Find them. Tell them how she died saving the world," he told the young man, who nodded. "'course I will," he replied.
The Doctor smiled I appreciation, then looked back at his two companions. "Off we go then."
Mickey looked between his two friends, stuttering, "Erm... thing is... I'm staying."
Hoping he'd heard wrong, the Doctor asked, "You're doing what?"
Rose shook her head. "You can't."
Mickey gave as much as a shrug that he could. "It sort of balances things out, 'coz this world lost its Ricky, but then there's me, and there's still work to be done with all those Cybermen still out there."
"But you can't stay," Rose pleaded again.
"But Rose," Mickey started again, his voice cracking. "My grans here. My ol' gran. Remember her? She needs me."
Rose only nodded, then replied, "We'll come back. We can travel anywhere, we'll come and see you, yeah?"
"We can't," the Doctor spoke up. "I told you, travelling between Parallel worlds is impossible. We only got here by accident, we fell through a crack in Time. When we leave, I've gotta close it," he turned more to Mickey now, a look of gentle warning on his face. "We cant ever return." Mickey looked between the both of them, then nodded his head. He looked at the Doctor, then extended his arm, outstretching his hand. "Doctor," he said in farewell. The Doctor gave him a smile, grasping his hand and shaking it. "Take Rose's phone, it's got the code. Get it out there. Stop those factories," the Doctor told him, letting go of his hand. "Good luck, Mickey the Idiot," he ended, giving his friend a playful slap. He gave Rose a look, then wandered back to the TARDIS, placing his suit on the Jump seat as he set the coordinates for their Universe.
Rose slumped into the Console Room a few moments later, sitting down on the Jump Seat as the Doctor sent them flying back to their Universe. Once he'd finished sewing the cracks back together, he glanced over at Rose, who was staring at her hands, a single tear running down her cheek. He let the TARDIS fly idly through the Time Vortex as he wandered over to Rose, brushing away the tear and taking her into his arms. They stood like this for a long while, Rose's head placed gently in the Doctor shoulder as he rubbed her back. "Can you take me home?" Rose requested. This question made the Doctor's hearts speed up. Was she asking to go home to stay? Did she not want to travel with him anymore because Mickey wasn't there? Seeing his reaction, she added, "I need to see my mum."
Mouth the word 'oh', he pressed a kiss to her forehead, then to her cheek. "Just let me get out of this thing," he said, gesturing his Tux.
The Doctor returned to the Console Room, Tuxedo off and trusty suit back on. He noticed Rose had also changed out of her waitress gear. He walked to the Console and sent them materialising in the Tyler living room. Rose was the first to step out of the TARDIS, muttering to her mother, "You're alive..." then embracing her tightly.
"Well, I was the last time I looked," Jackie laughed. "What is it? What's happened, sweetheart?" she asked as she rubbed her daughters back. She noticed the Doctor watching them, then asked him the same question. "What's wrong, where did you go?"
"Far away," he answered. Nodding, he repeated, "That was far away."
Looking around the room, she asked, "Where's Mickey?" causing Rose to hold her tighter.
"He's gone home," he replied. From the kitchen, the Doctor noticed someone sitting on the unit. He gave a weak smile to the young woman as she took a swig of her tea, waving her gloved hand at him as she too watched the mother and daughter.
