CHAPTER 16
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THE ENEMY WITHIN
Victoria Waterfield woke up completely confused for a moment as she shouted, "Where am I? How did I get here?"
The lights in the sentient House of Lungbarrow on Gallifrey instantly switched on as it sensed that someone was awake, and Victoria could now see that she was in a bedroom all by herself. A room that seemed to look a lot like her old room on the TARDIS as a matter of fact.
"Now I remember. I'm at the Doctor and Rose's house. What's wrong with me?" Victoria said to herself.
"That's what I was wondering," Rose said as she suddenly appeared in the room with her.
"I'm sorry. Did you hear me screaming? I guess I must have woken everyone up," Victoria said as she apologized.
"No, the walls are soundproof. The house told me that you were awake and confused. Are you okay?" Rose asked in concern.
"I . . . I haven't wanted to say anything before, but I've been having memory problems lately. I keep forgetting things. It was just little things at first like forgetting what I had just been thinking about, but this is something new. For a minute just now, I completely forgot where I was or how I got here. Have the Great Intelligence's powers done something to me? Am I becoming him? Is that what's happening? Is he taking me over?" Victoria asked in alarm.
"I don't know but we'll find out, okay? Thank you for being honest with me, Victoria. I know that you don't know me that well, but I'd like to be your friend," Rose said.
"I'd like that too. Are you going to tell the others?" Victoria asked in a worried tone.
Rose smiled at her as she said, "Not unless I have to. I would like to tell the Doctor if that's alright. I don't like keeping secrets from him. I don't want to do that anymore now that Trenzalore's come and gone. We're trying to be honest with each other now."
"Thank you, Rose. I just don't want anyone to know. Not right now anyway. They may think that I'm going mad. Then again maybe I am. Yes, that's fine. Go ahead and tell the Doctor. Good luck with that whole honesty thing by the way. This is the Doctor we're talking about after all," Victoria said making Rose laugh.
"You've got that right. The Doctor can even lie about what he wants for breakfast. I don't lie though, Victoria. I won't tell anyone. For the record, I don't think you're going mad. Don't worry about it. I think it's just some kind of side effect of having the Intelligence's power. It's probably harmless," Rose said.
"I hope so," Victoria said.
"Go back to sleep, Victoria. Good night," Rose said as she smiled at her.
"Did you get memory problems too?" Victoria asked as she got back into bed.
"What?" Rose asked.
"From being two people at once I mean. You were just an ordinary girl once and then suddenly you had the memories and personality of someone else placed in your mind once you opened your watch. That's kind of what happened to me. I just wondered if it affected your mind like it's doing to me. Is that why you're being so nice to me?" Victoria asked.
Rose smiled at her as she said, "No, I never had any memory problems. That was probably because my situation was different from yours. I was getting my own memories back, and the old personality was the one from my first body so it didn't really matter to me in this one. It was still pretty confusing at first though to go from thinking I was human to realize that I was really a Time Lord. It still can be at times. I still find myself thinking of myself as human. Not that that's a bad thing. I think I'll always be human in my heart no matter how much time passes. As for why I'm being nice to you, I'm nice to everyone who's looked after the Doctor for me while I was away. I owe all of you so much for keeping him alive until I could get back to him. You kept my Doctor safe for me. I can never thank you enough for that."
"He talked to me once about you. Well, not you specifically but he talked about missing his family once when I was missing my father just after the Daleks killed him. He had such a smile on his face when he thought about you. I could tell that he loved you dearly. From that point on, I made it my own personal mission to take care of him. I thought that I owed it to you to do that for him even though I'd never met you. I also thought that I owed it to him because he had taken my father's place in taking care of me. I still think of him as a father. I know that's probably strange to you to hear me say all of that," Victoria said.
"No, it's not. Not at all. Thank you, Victoria," Rose said as she hugged her.
"Rose?" Victoria said with a frightened expression on her face.
"Yeah?" Rose asked as she looked at her in concern.
"Please don't let me hurt the Doctor, Jamie, or Zoe. If it turns out that I'm being taken over by the Intelligence, you have to stop me. No matter what the cost," Victoria said with a serious look on her face.
"I won't let you hurt anyone," Rose promised her. She also promised herself that she would do her best not to let anything happen to Victoria either no matter what her situation turned out to be.
"Thank you," Victoria said as she drifted off to sleep.
Rose returned to her own bedroom to find the Doctor looking at her with worry. He had been worried about Victoria non-stop ever since he had heard her talking like the Great Intelligence earlier while fighting with the Symmetry.
"How is she?" the Doctor asked.
"She seems normal and is just as worried about herself as you are. She keeps talking about forgetting things, Doctor. She even forgot coming here for a moment," Rose said.
"Do you sense the Great Intelligence inside of her at all?" the Doctor asked.
"It's just a trace of him. It's an imprint that was leftover along with his power but that's it," Rose said as her eyes briefly glowed.
"That doesn't mean that the imprint can't still influence her and change her personality though. We'll have to make sure that doesn't happen, Rose," the Doctor said looking distraught.
"That's why we brought her here to Gallifrey so that we could keep a watch on her. If she's going to do something, then this is the place for her to do it. The Time Lords should be able to stop her before she can do too much damage. If they can't, then I will," Rose said in a sad voice.
As the Doctor became visibly upset, Rose immediately said, "I won't hurt her. I know what she means to you, and I would never do that to you. If the worst happens, I'll put her in a time loop or let her drift forever in the Vortex where she can't ever bother anyone again."
"Just like Salamander," the Doctor muttered.
"It won't turn out that way though. We'll find a way to help her if there's really anything wrong with her. I'm not even convinced of that anyway. She could be just trying to process all of that power, and it's too much for her brain to handle. Our tiny little ape brains can be easily overwhelmed you know," Rose said as she tried to make him smile.
"Yes, I've noticed that. You stupid little people just don't have what it takes, do you? Still you can't help being so limited I suppose. It's not your fault, is it?" the Doctor said in a Northern accent as he did his best impression of his ninth self.
Rose smiled at him as she said, "I'll show you limited, mate. Come here."
Then they began to kiss as she tried to take his worries about Victoria away for a while.
Early the next morning though, they quickly came back in full force as the House of Lungbarrow alerted them that Victoria was missing.
"What do you mean missing? How could you let her go?" the Doctor asked furiously.
I can't explain it. My systems just went down inexplicably for fifteen minutes. I just now managed to reboot myself only to find that Miss Victoria was gone. Everyone else is still in the house though, and there are no signs of forced entry. I'm sorry, Theta. The House said in his and Rose's minds.
"It's okay. It's not your fault," the Doctor said.
"Maybe it's nothing. She could be sleepwalking and might have accidentally used her powers in her sleep," Rose said optimistically.
The Doctor said nothing but continued to look very, very worried. He and Rose immediately got dressed and headed out to look for Victoria. They were met at the door by Romana instead. She looked like she'd rather be anywhere but there though at the moment.
"Romana, what's wrong?" the Doctor asked even though he feared that he already knew.
"Doctor, one of the High Council has just been killed and . . . Victoria was found nearby wandering around in a daze. She's being held for suspicion of murder. I'm sorry, Doctor. If it helps, Karen Pond is keeping an eye out for her. She won't let them do anything to her unless . . . it turns out that she really is guilty. Even then, it's obvious that something's wrong with her mind so I think she should be spared a death sentence. We could put her in the special wing of Shada reserved for the mentally ill. Maybe we could cure her," Romana said sadly.
"Victoria has been having a few problems with her memory lately, but that doesn't make her a killer," the Doctor protested.
"The power of the Great Intelligence just might have made her into one though. The High Council are going to study her to find out for sure," Romana said.
Rose began to glow with the power of the Vortex as she said, "I don't think so. She's coming back here with us. No one's going to do any 'studies' on her."
"I remember the 'studies' that were done on Marissa's sister Kali where the Celestial Intervention Agency basically tortured her trying to find out the secrets of her mental powers. That's not happening to Victoria," the Doctor said backing her up.
"Aye, you'd better believe it's not. No one's laying a hand on Victoria no matter how powerful they are," Jamie said as he emerged from his room where he had obviously been listening.
"Don't worry, Jamie. I can have nine other mes here in no time to talk the High Council into letting her go if I have to plus Oswin could always bring a few Daleks along to help 'persuade' them for us," Clara threatened as she came out of her room next.
"Does everyone here eavesdrop on our private conversations? Oh, and Oswin is not bringing any Daleks to Gallifrey to do anything," the Doctor said firmly.
"Want to bet?" Clara said stubbornly.
"I could always see if I could hack into the Matrix and cause a few problems there if they don't let her go," Zoe said mischievously as she joined in on the conversation now.
"I might just do worse than any of that. I could tell Ace," Polly said grinning as she too joined in.
Everyone shuddered at the thought of that. Rose though almost laughed at the thought of the High Council running for their lives from a fighting mad Dorothy. That was nothing compared to what she would do to them though.
"All of you need to listen. They're already angry at the Doctor and Rose for bringing Victoria here in the first place, but Karen has gotten them to leave you two alone so far. Don't push your luck by barging down there and making things worse. Karen sent me so that you would know not to do that," Romana warned.
"Like they could stop me if I really wanted to see her," Rose said in an ominous voice.
"Rose, they may have some way to stop even you. Don't test them," Romana said.
"They shouldn't test me," Mikaela said as she emerged from her room last along with Charley.
The Doctor knew that look on Mikaela's face well by now, and he definitely recognized it on Charley's. The two of them had just been up to something.
"What have you two been planning, Ella?" the Doctor asked.
"That's for us to know and the High Council to find out, Chinny," Mikaela said with an angry look on her face.
The Doctor's eyes widened as he said, "Please do not tell me that you asked the Symmetry to break Victoria out of custody!"
Mikaela smiled evilly as the Doctor said to Charley, "How could you let her do that?"
"I told her not to, Doctor. I tried to talk her out of it. I really did," Charley said.
"Good for you, Charley. I knew that you at least had some sense," the Doctor said.
"I wanted to contact Ace instead. I remember all of those stories that the other you used to tell me about her, and she sounds amazing. I really wanted to see her in action," Charley said laughing.
The Doctor groaned as Rose laughed and said, "Good for you, Charley. I knew I liked you."
"Stop encouraging them to start a war between the Time Lords and the Symmetry," the Doctor said.
"It's hardly a war, Chin Boy. It's just a few little Symmetry slipping in and out with Victoria along with them. It's not going to be a problem at all," Clara said grinning conspiratorially.
"You were in on this too, Clara?" the Doctor asked in disbelief.
"We all were. Just as soon as we heard what Romana said, Doctor," Jamie said.
"You're going to get us all into deep trouble. Call them off, Ella. I'll get her out my way," the Doctor protested.
"Too late, Chinny. They're already in there," Mikaela said as she showed him a device strapped to her wrist that had several blips on it.
"That's just great," the Doctor said throwing his hands up into the air.
"The High Council may just use this as an excuse to come after all of us," Romana said.
"Let them try," Rose said smiling as her hands began to glow.
Then they all began to listen intently as the Symmetry began to communicate to Mikaela through the device on her arm.
"We have the girl and have teleported her to our ship with no casualties as instructed, Promised One," the Symmetry Leader's voice said.
"Is she okay?" Mikaela asked.
"She is asleep. The Time Lords have sedated her so she is unaware of what is occurring. The Time Lords have still not discovered her absence as if yet," the Symmetry leader said.
"Good. Teleport her to this house," Mikaela ordered.
"We will obey. Now will you consider leading us? As you can see, we can be used to help your friends. We are not as malevolent as you have believed in the past, are we?" the Symmetry leader asked.
"I'll think it over," Mikaela said shutting off communications.
"Not!" She said immediately afterwards.
"You're playing with fire doing things like that, Mikaela," the Doctor said.
"I'm willing to risk it. I like Victoria even though I haven't known her that long. I'm not about to leave anyone to get experimented on anyway," Mikaela said even as she smiled at the Doctor's calling her by the right name because of his concern for her.
"We don't know that they would have done such a thing," Romana said.
"Really?" Mikaela asked in disbelief.
The Doctor and Rose both gave her an incredulous look and she quickly added, "It's more than likely though."
"I thought so. Most Time Lords are rubbish in my experience," Mikaela said.
The Doctor and Romana both glared at her while Rose looked amused as she quickly said, "I said most. I like you guys of course. You're all cool."
"Of course we are. We're the coolest," the Doctor said as he actually smiled briefly for the first time since this had started.
"It's always best to tell him how great he is if you want to keep him from being angry with you," Rose said grinning.
"I know. You taught me that," Mikaela said.
The Doctor shook his head at them as he said, "You should be ashamed of yourself, Rose, for teaching Ella how to manipulate me."
Rose grinned at him evilly even as she kissed him, and his anger immediately disappeared. He could never stay angry at her for long and that had nothing whatsoever to do with any manipulation of any kind on her part.
That was when the Symmetry finally transmatted Victoria down into the house. She was still asleep, and Jamie quickly caught her before she hit the floor.
"She never even noticed anything," Jamie said surprised.
"They must have given her something strong to put her out that good," Clara said.
"They wouldn't have given her drugs. They were too terrified of the Great Intelligence emerging to use them. They would have done something much more powerful and long lasting to her in order to make sure that she didn't wake up and attack them," the Doctor said as he began to examine her with his sonic screwdriver.
"What? What did they do to her?" Jamie said with alarm.
"They've shut her mind down," the Doctor said sadly.
"What? Does that mean that she'll never wake up?" Jamie asked in tears.
"Not until they decide to wake her up," the Doctor said.
"Or I do," Rose said as she touched Victoria's forehead with a glowing hand.
"Rose, wait. They'll have safeguards in place to prevent anyone else from doing that. You could wind up setting them off and destroying both of your minds," the Doctor warned.
"What happened?" Victoria said a second later as she woke up.
"Or not," the Doctor said chagrined.
"What part of Bad Wolf don't you get, Doctor?" Rose said grinning.
"Jamie? How did I get here? The last thing that I remember is being in my bed," Victoria said as she looked up in his face.
"Victoria!" Jamie said with a look of absolute relief on his face.
That was when Jamie surprised everyone especially Victoria by suddenly kissing her right then and there. Victoria was too surprised at first to return the kiss but that didn't last for long.
As the two of them began to kiss passionately without stopping, Rose smiled and said, "She doesn't know anything about what happened to the council member. She must have been sleepwalking just like I suspected. She opened the door and wandered around in her sleep. She didn't kill anyone, and I'll testify to that. I explored her mind thoroughly, and she's completely innocent."
"Why does she keep having memory problems then?" the Doctor asked.
"It's just like I said before, Doctor. The power of the Great Intelligence must be too much for a human mind to take. It's overwhelming her. We'll have to do something about that later once we find out what's wrong with the High Council," Rose said.
"Agreed," the Doctor said.
"I'm sorry. What?" Clara asked surprised.
"Well, obviously something's wrong with the High Council or they would have already been here to get Victoria back by now," Romana reasoned.
"Yes, and just as obviously whatever's wrong with the High Council has something to do with the death of that council member which poor Victoria was blamed for because she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," the Doctor said.
"Would this mysterious killer be cybernetic in nature?" Mikaela asked.
"They could be I suppose. Why?" the Doctor asked.
"The Symmetry just now sent me a message warning me that they're detecting strange alien signals from nearby. They're the signals of . . ." Mikaela said.
"Let me guess. Cybermen. I hate Cybermen," Clara said with a sigh.
"Cybermen on Gallifrey? How did they possibly get in here through the Capitol's defenses?" Romana asked.
"Well, the Symmetry broke in just now because all of the force fields around the Capitol are down. I don't know if the Cybermen did that or that's how they got in too. Are those two ever going to stop?" Mikaela said.
"So the Cybermen may or may not have broken into Gallifrey with inside help. This just keeps getting better and better. No, I don't think that they are. Shouldn't we tell them what's going on?" Clara said.
"Let them be. It's about time that they admitted how they felt towards one another," Zoe said.
"We need to go see what's going on. I'll take us there the quick way. Zoe, you stay here and tell Jamie and Victoria what's going on whenever they stop kissing. After what she's just been through, Victoria's in no shape to leave the house anyway," Rose said.
"That may take a while but I'll do it," Zoe said grinning.
Rose then teleported herself, the Doctor, Romana, Mikaela, Charley, Clara, and Polly straight into the High Council's meeting chamber. As soon as they arrived they found several Time Lords lying unconscious all around them including the guards that were supposed to be protecting the High Council. There were overturned tables everywhere and massive holes in the walls and ceiling where stasers had obviously been fired.
"What happened here?" the Doctor asked in disbelief.
"Doctor?" a weak voice said from the far corner of the room.
The Doctor rushed to where the voice had come from only to find Karen Pond lying there all bloody and bruised. She had obviously been in a horrible fight with whatever force of Cybermen had just torn through the meeting chamber.
"Karen, are you alright?" the Doctor asked.
"What kind of stupid question is that?" Karen asked.
"She seems to be fine. She's just as grouchy as ever," the Doctor said grinning as he helped her up.
Rose quickly healed Karen with a wave of her hand as she asked, "How many Cybermen were there?"
Karen grinned at her as she said, "I knew that you two would have already figured it out. I was right. That poor girl didn't kill anyone. It was that Cyberman that did it. He's the one that did all this too."
"Wait a minute. One Cyberman did all of this?" the Doctor asked in disbelief.
"Yes, that's right. I was amazed by it too. It was just one of them, but it was like they had super powers or something. He threw us across the room with powerful telekinesis and was able to deflect all of our attacks away from him with a single hand. He just tore us apart. Then once he knocked everyone but me unconscious, he grabbed ahold of several council members at once and dragged them off with him. I was too weak to do anything to try to stop him," Karen said.
"It must be some new upgraded form of Cyberman that we've never seen before," Rose said mystified.
"I thought they were bad enough before. Now we have telekinetic Cybermen who can defeat a whole room full of Time Lords by themselves? I'm officially scared now, Doctor," Clara said.
Rose's eyes widened as she said, "I was wrong."
"What?! Let me hear you say that again. I've never heard that before in all my lives," the Doctor said in shock.
"Oh, shut up! We have to go back. I was wrong, Doctor. Victoria wasn't sleepwalking. The loss of memory was from his mind being overwhelmed but what happened this morning wasn't," Rose realized.
"I know. Her mind was taken over and she was made to lower the barriers around the Capitol to let the Cyberman inside. Then he took her powers away from her somehow before he tore through this place. I realized that before you did just after Karen told us her story," the Doctor admitted.
"Then Jamie and Zoe are in danger from her!" Polly said in alarm.
"Not from her. From the Cyberman. He's bound to go back there to retrieve Victoria. The power actually comes from her after all, and he's just borrowing it. He can't allow anyone else to figure that out," the Doctor said.
"And we just left her there kissing Jamie! I knew we should have broken those two up," Clara said in irritation.
Rose quickly teleported everyone and Karen back to the House of Lungbarrow to find themselves face to face with the Cyberman that they had been hunting. The Cyberman had his hand wrapped around Jamie's throat while he had him held off the ground as he struggled to free himself from his vice-like grip of steel. Victoria and Zoe meanwhile stood by helplessly as the Cyberman had them telekinetically pinned to the wall with his free hand.
"Doctor, he has my powers, and I can't get them back. I don't know how he's doing it," Victoria said in disbelief.
Polly then gasped in shock as she finally realized just what model of Cyberman that it was that they were facing. It was one of the original Cybermen from Mondas that she, Ben, and the First Doctor had faced together back in 1986 right before he had regenerated. She hadn't seen one of those Cybermen in fifty years.
The Cyberman spoke in an eerie sing-song voice that sounded almost human except that he stressed all of the wrong syllables in the words that he spoke. He also wasn't completely metallic like the present day Cybermen were. His hands were still organic, and his face was covered by a cloth-like mask instead of metal.
The Cyberman turned to look directly at Polly as he said, "I recognize you. You are the girl who helped the Doctor defeat us so long ago. It is only appropriate that you be here to see my final victory over him and his people. I am going to take his people from him just as the two of you took mine away from me. You destroyed them and our world so it's only fair that I do the same to the world of the Time Lords and then to the Earth."
"Krail," Polly said recognizing him from long ago.
"Is this revenge then, Krail? That doesn't sound like you. You once told me that emotions had no value," the Doctor said.
"This is not revenge. It is only logical. I must remove you and the threat of the Time Lords first, and then I will remove your allies on Earth in order to ensure that none of them stand in the way of the Cybermen's plans for universal dominance. Now that I have the power of the Great Intelligence through the mind of your other companion, I can finally accomplish all of this at last," Krail said.
"You won't succeed. The Time Lords will stop you. Just because you defeated a whole room of them means nothing. There are many more of us, and there is only one of you despite your new power," the Doctor said.
"That will soon change. I have already converted others of your race to my cause in secret now that I have used Victoria's power to allow the old way of conversion to work on Time Lords," Krail said.
Several half-converted Time Lords who already had some parts of their bodies replaced while other parts remained humanoid broke into the Doctor and Rose's house and began to attack them and their friends. Krail meanwhile tossed a now unconscious Jamie aside as he grabbed a screaming Polly in his place.
"Do not worry. I will convert you and the Doctor last. Both of you will see my final victory with your own eyes. I will start with your friend here. The Cyberiad records him as being very close to you. Convert the boy," Krail ordered his enslaved Time Lords.
"No, leave him alone!" Polly shouted while the two Cyber Time Lords carried Jamie off to Krail's conversion center.
"Doctor, I can't change these Cybermen back to normal. They've been converted by having parts of their body replaced instead of all at once like I'm used to. If I try to change them, I might kill them," Rose said as she tried to fight the Cybermen at the Doctor's side.
"I was afraid of that. These Cybermen were created the old fashioned way, Rose. I'm not even sure that this model has a weakness for gold yet. They're still very early," the Doctor said as he tried to use his sonic screwdriver against these still mostly organic Cybermen with little success.
"I guess we're going to have to defeat them the old fashioned way too with brute force which is going to be hard because the metal parts of them are Vortex shielded so I can't use my powers against them. Someone's obviously been doing their homework about me," Rose said as more and more partially converted Time Lords surrounded her and the others.
Things became even worse as the Cyber Time Lords started firing at them all with stasers, and they weren't shooting to stun them either. As more and more partially converted Time Lords showed up to help the others, Victoria struggled in vain to get her powers away from Krail.
She couldn't understand how it had happened. How had Krail taken over her mind or stole her powers from her, and why couldn't she get them back? What was going on here and was there any way that she could stop him?
Or was she doomed to watch helplessly as all of her friends and the man that she now openly admitted that she loved were converted into soulless machines right in front of her?
Next: The Doctor, Rose, and their friends must fight Krail for the fate of the Time Lords as they attempt to keep the now super powerful Cyberman from converting all of Gallifrey into the new Mondas. Also the questions of how Krail stole Victoria's power and took over her mind will be answered as Krail's secret ally in the conquest of Gallifrey stands revealed at last. Who will it be and why are they helping him?
