Unlike his wife- sorry, ex-wife- Jason couldn't be subtle.
Even Braxiatel's smallest shuttle was hardly a compact ship. He lacked the luxury of the Collection's singular open hyperspace pod that she'd taken with her. Those things were custom-built and the components expensive even by Irving's standards. While it was no surprise to him that he wouldn't get one, that didn't make this any easier.
So, of course, he had to get here legally, above board in a mission like this. Not ideal for stealth, or exactly his style, but he'd survive that. Probably. No weapons didn't exactly help the situation either.
Customs was just as much of a pain as he remembered, and with his own unpleasant memories of the Draconian Empire still seeming so fresh in his mind- when he arrived at the nearest docking bay, Jason just had to grin and bear it as he sat there in the queue with his documents for what felt like hours. It'd taken him an entire day to get here, too.
He groaned.
How long was this going to take? This world was hardly a premier tourist destination. What was it even called again? The mishmash of letters and numbers blurred in his head. His brain felt scrambled by the flight. And everything was just so grey. The colours blended together so much that it was hard to tell one thing from another. This whole place was the definition of mental slop.
Being called up was as dull as ever.
The woman at the desk asked him a list of questions, and to show his documents. Her eyes were glazed over and empty. Just another dead-end job, he supposed. Jason understood the struggle as well as anyone of his age. It happened to everyone forced to work with people eventually. Even if that work was more interesting at first, it always slowed down to a snail's pace. Even the success and fame he was rewarded for directing the biggest xeno-erotic blockbuster of the century still left Jason feeling like a husk of a man.
He nodded along to the questions, giving the stock answers, struggling to keep patient.
"Yeah, Jason Peter Kane, that's me. Papers stamped by the Braxiatel Collection, yes. No, I'm not representing them in a political context. Actions I make are my own, no need for fanfare, and all that stuff. Could I just get in? Please?"
"You still are required to state a valid reason for travelling to the colony, sir."
"Uhh... Searching for alternative employment opportunities. Mr Braxiatel doesn't like me very much and I'm planning to leave his planet for good sometime soon," he chuckled awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck.
The woman nodded. "Oh. Yes. Anyone can be put to use. You will not be disappointed in our ability to find a position suited to you in the colony."
"Alright, good... Just one thing. Why do you just call it 'the colony?'"
She didn't even seem to notice his question- or if she did, she politely ignored it.
"Your documents are valid and your identity has been confirmed. Please pass through the barrier and put on your mandated sterile work suit. One in your size has been dispensed in the induction chamber." Still staring off, she returned his papers and a green light- one of the few splashes of colour around here- signalled he was good to go through.
"O...kay. Yeah, alright. Sure."
He stepped through the door and was greeted with a plastic-wrapped grey boiler suit. Fashion vomit, absolutely. And when he got it on, incredibly uncomfortable too.
Made of plastic, it was practically wearing a shower curtain. Sweat clung to his skin and he wasn't even allowed to keep his own clothes as he went through- probably another security measure to get any possible remaining weapons off him, but still unpleasant. He seemed allowed to keep his watch, at least. They probably thought the signal jammers deemed any 'dangerous' features useless.
Jason stepped out onto the streets and groaned.
"More grey. Great."
Just like Benny had the day prior, before letting himself fall in line with the drones moving from place to place on the slidewalks, he slipped into an alleyway. He still didn't trust Brax enough to call yet, but Joseph- if he trusted anyone, it was him.
"Hey, Joseph. Where are you? Got a tracking signal? There aren't exactly any maps 'round here and my sense of direction is gonna be absolutely buggered without any landmarks."
The robot beeped. "Indeed, Mr Kane. I'm still near the area from which Bernice disappeared and can broadcast it to you. You may wish to find a different entrance to this warehouse than the back door she entered through."
"Got it. Seeya, Joseph," he waved.
"Goodbye, Mr Kane."
The communication closed, and Jason got on his way.
"I'll find you, Benny."
He set off towards the signal, getting on the slidewalk and going the right way to blend in with the crowd. Jason could try to make a beeline for it, but with how this planet seemed to be, any behaviour even remotely suspicious could probably get him arrested, so he held off.
Given the chance to closely inspect his surroundings, Jason looked at all the people. Everyone was in the same grey work suits, and every human whose face he could examine seemed to have the exact same blank, empty stare as the woman at the desk in customs, filed in perfectly neat lines with a level of order that no ordinary society could ever manage. They almost seemed... hypnotized.
He glared back into their blank gazes. The signs were all there- this was of the more obvious variety too.
"Oh god, no... Cruk-"
He bit his tongue and just kept going. Jason's hand balled itself into a tight fist, and he worked through the stress. Whatever this was, he desperately hoped he and Benny were immune- or else this was already worse than he could've expected.
Jason tried to keep a neutral expression as the slidewalk crawled forward and his legs slowly started going numb, passing through the muck. According to Joseph's signal, the warehouse was still miles away. That was a lot more standing and waiting around, trying not to show signs of even muscle cramps.
'Don't draw attention to yourself, Jason. Or that might just be it.'
After what seemed like hours, the building came into view- but the supposed warehouse didn't seem like any ordinary storage facility. At least- not now. The conveyor belt was diverted towards its wide-open doors, and all the humans were being filed inside, in neat pairs coming from both directions.
He shuffled uncomfortably as it moved him ever closer.
This wasn't a warehouse at all. Not on this side.
It was some sort of factory. More metal- but polished and clean here, as opposed to the dark, polluted outdoors. There were far more people than would be needed to be working here, each being pushed in like the next part in an assembly line.
Then he heard the screaming.
His gut was filled with dread, and Jason kicked two of the mindless people back, hopping over the rails of the slidewalk and getting an even closer look about the place as he tried to either escape or advance some other way.
Teardrop insignias engraved on the machinery.
Needles, bonesaws, scalpels on metal arms in the disused spare parts.
The growing stench of both disinfectant and rotting flesh the farther he went.
These monsters were still fresh in his mind- he just couldn't shake it.
Jason ran.
Cybermen.
Running past the assembly line, he finally got a glimpse of them.
Fresh, gleaming new Cybermen, all marching in perfect lockstep, guided forward by their Draconian allies. The empty, unblinking stares of the creatures that came out weren't much more blank than the people who went in- everyone was already too far gone. The only difference between then and now was that they wore their metal on the outside, they weren't just cold and unfeeling in their hearts.
From the factory floor, moving outside to conquer and kill and make more of themselves.
Save for a few.
They'd noticed him already, he wasn't exactly subtle anymore.
He was still faster than them- for now. But he didn't have their strength or stamina, and the Draconians now in pursuit could easily make up for that. And they were armed while he had to check his bags at the gate.
"Benny! Benny! Please- cruk! Benny!" he called out for her, desperately.
'Please be alive, please be alive, please just be crukking alive-'
In the distance, echoing and tinny, Jason heard a response. A voice he couldn't have been happier to hear. But a voice that was shuddering, pained. Crying.
"Jason?! Jason! Are you there or in my head? Please- I can't do this again! I can't- I-"
"I'm real! Where are you, Benny? Keep talking, I'm coming!"
"I'm sorry- but it- it might be too late for me- find the Doctor, he's here too! He can stop this before it gets worse- he knows how. Please- p-please! Stop this!"
"It's never too late for you, Benny!" he insisted. He wasn't just throwing her away. There were so many people he'd left behind. Benny wouldn't be one of them. Not again.
"Just go!"
Bernice's voice grew closer, clearer, and a little spark of his hope was restored.
But hers was clearly already broken.
She screamed.
That sent a chill down his spine.
Jason ran faster. And faster. And faster, faster than he ever imagined he'd sprinted in his life. His heart was pumping and felt like it would burst out from his chest, but he just kept going.
Into what really was a warehouse. Parts storage, mainly, it seemed. But that didn't mean that it wasn't making anything. It was making pain.
Another yowl of agony, even closer now, undercut by the screeches of machines whirring.
There was a light in the dim, a doorway.
He finally set his foot inside, and the sight was horrific.
Two Draconians stood at the controls to the conversion chamber, and Bernice Summerfield lay there, bound on an operating table, bleeding gouges sliced into the flesh of her arms, wires protruding from her chest, a dome already attached above her head.
The image of Cantus flashed in Jason's mind.
This was just like him.
She was going to be a Cyber Controller.
But not if he had anything to say about it.
She kept struggling and fighting, but the desperation had long ago set in. Benny was hanging on by a thread, holding onto her humanity kicking and screaming.
She screamed even louder, and then he realized exactly why.
To distract them.
The Draconians in here hadn't noticed him yet- after his silence, they probably thought he'd already been captured, or at least they had to keep overseeing the conversion.
He had an opening.
In a split second, Jason leapt forward and kicked one of them hard, square in the chest. Before they had time to react, he gritted his teeth as he swiped the guard's gun, setting it to kill and shooting him in the same breath.
The second was still armed, but Jason retained the upper hand.
With another flash of blaster fire, the second crumpled to the floor, dead.
"Jason!"
Bernice caught Jason's face, blurred by tears out of the corner of her eye. She cherished his voice right now, because that was all she had at this moment. She didn't care that she was still mad at him, because by now she was barely holding herself together, wincing, trying to cling to the pain, because at least the more it hurt, the more she knew she was alive, the longer she could fight the nanites recirculating in her system and the pulsing of the domed helmet's control field in her mind through sheer force of will. There was a mercy in painkillers that they didn't even offer here, but at least that was something to focus on.
"Benny- I'll get you out of here. Just- hang on while I figure this out."
His shape danced around her, and she got a good look once in a while, but she couldn't even talk back anymore, it was too much.
It hurt him too, the more he looked at that dark mirror of his fate, projected onto the woman he loved. He knew that feeling too well. Jason's expression turned to one of pure determination and fury.
Arriving at the console and touching the controls, every detail suddenly made complete sense. How to operate it was second nature, he had no idea why, but didn't have the time to question it. He found and slammed down the emergency stop switch and release button quickly, dashing to her side, and holding her cheek.
"Benny, Benny, Benny- I'm so sorry- what happened?"
She only choked up and cried, still unable to speak with the effort it was taking, voice too broken to even scream. She blinked the tears away. Was it really over? There was still a battle raging on inside her, but the pain wasn't growing. At this rate, at least she wouldn't pass out from the pain, and just might not lose herself. Her head was still pounding, but her heart finally had the chance to slow.
Jason looked her over. A work suit was on her too, and its fasteners were conveniently placed to come away where the parts needed to go in. He only saw more when he peeled some of the plastic away. Metal woven into the skin, injection sites, control chips, stitches, staples- it really nearly was too late.
"God-"
He swore under his breath. Jason needed to stop the bleeding from the abandoned half-done bits of work, and fast. He couldn't get rid of what was already finished, not alone. But he might be able to get her on her feet, if he had enough time before they caught him.
Bandages were luckily something not in short supply. They must've had to use so many to do this, so he wrapped up every open wound he found tightly. The dome and upper helmet parts weren't fully fastened onto her head yet, and came off with little resistance beyond a small shock when Jason lifted them.
That was a massive relief to Bernice. The nanites were the internal conversion- but the conditioning from the helmet was much stronger. She took a huge, heaving breath, and choked out a few words.
"Find... the Doctor."
Benny reached out for him, her hands shaky and unstable. She was cold, so, so cold. And when she took his hand, he was warm, and alive, and human.
And she still loved him.
Then Bernice snapped back to reality. This was a very bad time for revelations about things that would end up hitting a brick wall- but she still could love. Through the wires and metal, and the battle inside, and the programming, she was still her, and her hold of the edge grew tighter and stronger with that.
'I AM Bernice Summerfield.'
Her voice turned from a cough to a low growl, swearing an oath to the both of them.
"Let's get the Doctor and destroy this place once and for all. I'm never going to see a live cyberman again after this, if it's the last bloody thing I do."
She stood.
"Benny-"
"We're going, Jason. We're going, and if we don't get out, we're taking them all with us."
He followed her as she stomped forward, hands balled into fists, a glare crossing her wrinkled features. He didn't know how he was supposed to feel about this, as he saw her bending over to take the other guard's gun and inspecting in the way of an officer, but a real shot of fear at her behaviour shouldn't have been it.
She didn't do revenge, or whatever this was. At least not the Benny he'd known before he died.
"What's gotten into you?"
Benny looked at the ground, sighing.
"A lot of things, Jason. A lot of things. And you weren't there for any of them."
She turned dark like the flick of a light switch.
He reached out, but she angrily slapped his hand away from her shoulder.
"Just call Brax, Jason," she ordered. "Call Brax and warn him. I'll do the rest."
Teeth bared, she marched forward, outside and onto the warehouse floor. Draconian soldiers and Cybermen approached to kill or capture them, but Bernice felled them with the ruthless accuracy of a sharpshooter. Jason could only follow as she began her rampage.
Was she a Cyberman now, or a wild animal just let free of her cage? It was hard to tell.
Both were monsters, after all.