Notes: sorry for the delay... my muse insisted on writing this story arc as well as the next two all at once, which had me going back and forth and not seeming to get anywhere for a bit. But, it means the next parts should go fairly quickly once I get there.
Porridge revealed himself to River and the soldiers shortly after the Doctor and Rose had left to rescue the others. The Captain looked slightly surprised when he appeared and River guessed that they hadn't known he was on the planet and recognized who he really was.
"Cyberiad class weaponry. I've taken it out of storage," the Captain reported, opening a case.
"Good. We need to find somewhere defensible. Where?" River acknowledged.
Looking at the tourist map of the park, the Captain made a few suggestions, "The beach, the Giant's Cauldron, Natty Longshoe's Comical Castle."
"Real castle? Drawbridge? Moat?" River questioned.
"Yes, but comical."
"I don't care about the scenery. We'll go there."
"Ma'am, my platoon can deal with one Cyberman, and there are protocols if we cannot immediately find and destroy it," she argued.
"I saw how your platoon dealt with one Cyberman when it walked off with my husband and daughter, thank you very much. You are not blowing up this planet. Is that clear?" River countered angrily.
"Respectfully, ma'am," she tried to continue.
"Somewhere defensible. No blowing up the planet."
"She's your commanding officer now, isn't she, Captain?" Porridge interjected.
"Yes. Sir," the Captain replied.
"You really saw a Cyberman?" he asked.
"We really did," the Captain answered.
"And we're going to defeat it," River insisted, taking a large gun from the crate and moving to inform the other soldiers of their new base of operations.
"Have you reported it to the Imperium?" Porridge asked the Captain.
"No communicators."
"So you're going to do what she says," he sighed. "Right, let's all spend the night at Natty Longshoe's Comical Castle."
"Jamie? Jamie! Clara?" the Doctor called to his son and granddaughter as they stared unseeingly forward.
"Oh my god, Doctor! Please, tell me you can fix this," Rose cried, tears filling her eyes as she remembered there being no hope for the converted humans during the events of Canary Wharf and in the other universe. She desperately grasped her son's arms and shook him as she shouted, "Jamie!"
"Metal bugs. Told you, Rose, you see?" he pointed out as he picked up one of the scurrying bits of metal. He held it in front of his face as he addressed the enemy, "If anybody's watching this, those two are under my protection. I'm going to stop this. And secondly, I want to know how exactly you learned to cyberize Gallifreyan physiology."
He used his sonic to deactivate the insect before tossing it aside. "Not even a Cybermat any more, eh? Cybermites."
"You mean they couldn't upgrade you before? They've adapted then," Rose reasoned.
"Yes, which is very, very not good. Now they don't seem to be completely converted yet, so there might still be hope, my love. Hold on," the Doctor told her as he used his sonic to scan just how far the conversion had gone.
Just as he managed to get a twitch out of Jamie, an obviously converted Webley entered the room. Rather than the hollow shell to encase him, it looked as though the machine parts were growing out of him from the inside.
"Webley," the Doctor acknowledged him.
"We needed children, but the children had stopped coming. You brought us a child and we discovered so much more. Hail to you, the Doctor, saviour of the Cybermen!" Webley announced. "As the battle raged between humanity and the Cyberiad, the Cyberplanners built a Valkyrie, to save critically damaged units and bring them here, and one by one, repair them."
"The people who vanished from the amusement park, they were spare parts for repairs," the Doctor realized.
"We've upgraded ourselves. The next model will be undefeatable," Webley boasted.
"Nothing's undefeatable," Rose argued.
"We needed children to build a new Cyberplanner. A child's brain, with its infinite potential, is perfect for our needs. But we no longer need the children. While the minds of those two will be magnificent, their thoughts are quite clear. Your mind is far superior," Webley threatened.
"How have you even managed to convert them at all, eh? Cybermen use human parts. We're not human. You can't convert non-humans," the Doctor insisted.
"Well, that was true a long time ago. But we've upgraded ourselves. Current Cyberunits use almost any living components," he informed them and tossed a handful of the Cybermites at Rose and the Doctor.
Rose felt unbearable pain. Her own, her husband's, even a glimpse of Jamie's which had been cut off from her by the Cybermen. But the unleashed power within her walled off her mind from the invasion, preventing the complete takeover of her consciousness.
The Doctor's mental defenses were stronger than the Cybermen had anticipated. While they had gained temporary control, there was a war being actively fought to take over completely. Small, silver components broke through the skin of the Doctor and Rose as the Cybermites tried to assimilate them.
"Incorporated. Yes. Ah. Like the other two, unfamiliar pulmonary set-up. Nervous system hyperconductive. Remarkable brain processing speed. Ho, ho. Amazing," the Cyber-Doctor announced as he analyzed himself.
"Get out of my head!" the real Doctor demanded angrily. "Stop rummaging in my mind."
"Just you try and stop me," the Cyber-Doctor responded haughtily. "Now, why is the human female not completely integrated yet? Rose? Yes, oh, you're hiding something about her in here. What is it? You have some idea as to how she's fighting us off."
"Enough!" he shouted.
"Fascinating. A complete mental block. Highly effective," the Cyber-Doctor acknowledged. "Relax, relax. If you just relax, you will find this a perfectly pleasant experience. You are being upgraded and incorporated into the Cyberiad as a Cyberplanner."
"Get out of my head!" the Doctor growled. Examining the interface that was being formed between his mind and the rest of the Cybermen, he tried to find some kind of weakness in their defenses. "What is this place, a network? A hive? You're getting signals from every Cyberman everywhere. How many of you are there?"
"Oh, this is brilliant. I'm so clever already, and now I'm a million times more clever. And what a brain. Not a human brain, not even slightly human. I mean, I'm going to have to completely rework the neural interface, but this is going to be the most efficient Cyberplanner. Not a great name, that, is it? I could call myself Mister Clever. So much raw data. Time Lords. There's information on the Time Lords in here. Oh, this is just dreamy."
"Right, I'm allowing you access to memories on Time Lord regeneration," the Doctor decided.
"Fantastic!" the Cyber-Doctor exclaimed as he accessed information about the Doctor's past incarnations.
"I could regenerate right now. A big blast of regeneration energy, burn out any little Cyberwidgets in my brain, along with everything you're connected to. Don't want to. You use this me up, who knows what we'll get next? But I can," he threatened.
"And what about your sweet little Rose? What would that kind of energy do to her and the others? Why can't we access her and why are you so sure that we never will?"
"Leave her alone. You don't want to play with that," the Doctor insisted.
"Hmm, interesting. Stalemate, then. One of us needs to control this head. We're too well-balanced. What did you say? No, no, no, no, no. I heard you. Rhetorical device to keep me thinking about it a bit more. We each control forty nine point eight eight one percent of this brain. Point two three eight of the brain is still in the balance. Whoever gets this gets the whole thing," the Cyber-Doctor analyzed.
"Do you play chess?" the Doctor suggested.
"The rules of chess are in my memory banks. You're proposing we play chess to end the stalemate?"
"Winner takes all. Nobody can access that portion of the brain without winning the game. If I win, you release Rose, Jamie, Clara, me, and self-destruct all Cyberunits on this planet," the Doctor proposed.
"You can't win," the Cyber-Doctor told him, agreeing to the terms.
"Try me."
"You understand, when I do win, the Cyberiad gets your brains and memories. All of it, including whatever it is you're hiding about Rose."
"When I win, you get out of my head, you let everyone go, and nobody dies. You got that? Nobody dies!" the Doctor demanded as he set up the game board and looked longingly at his wife. She stood beside Jamie and Clara as they all stared blankly, but he could see the slight furrow in her brow that showed she was fighting. He also noted the faint golden glow in her eyes that indicated just how she was managing to do that. He only hoped that a surge from the Bad Wolf wouldn't burn out the rest of them that were connected along with all of the Cybermen. She couldn't control it and he knew that her greatest fear was that the power would somehow end up destroying her family.
River was beyond frustrated. It was a constant argument with the Captain to keep her from imploding the planet. She knew that the Empire would make no effort to rescue any of them if they found out there were Cybermen here. They would destroy the planet and everything on it do avoid the risk of spreading the contamination. But she trusted her family. They had saved her, civilizations, the entire universe, hundreds of times and she wouldn't doubt them now.
They had already lost one of the soldiers during their relocation to the castle, so she knew they were on their way. They only had one actual Anti-Cyber Gun, but they had some hand-pulsers that would work at close range. And of course, River had her blaster, just in case. She confiscated the trigger for the planet imploding bomb, but the Captain could still activate it by voice command and there wasn't any way to disable that particular function.
River ensured that they were all barricaded within the Castle and waited for some word from her family. It was almost painful that she couldn't mentally contact James or Clara, but that only bolstered her resolve that they would find a solution and get them all out of there safely. After all, Clara had a future, they just had to make it through.
"The rules of chess allow only a finite number of moves, and I can use other Cyberunits as remote processors. You cannot possibly win," the Cyber-Doctor stated.
"I can. I know things you don't. For example, did you know very early versions of the Cyber operating system could be seriously scrambled by exposure to things, like gold, or cleaning fluid? And what's interesting is, you're still running some of that code," the Doctor commented as he made another move on the board.
"Really. That's your secret weapon? Cleaning fluid?" the Cyber-Doctor scoffed.
"Nope, gold," he replied and slapped the Golden Ticket for the park against the metal implants on his face.
The Cyberized portion of his mind shorted out instantly, but he could feel that it wouldn't take long to restore itself.
"Doc-tor," Rose stuttered with some difficulty.
"Rose!" he shouted and ran to her immediately. "Can you hear me? Are you there, love?"
"It hurts," she gasped, tears falling from her eyes.
"I know. You keep on fighting. I'm going to fix this," he insisted.
"I'm scared. What if I-?" she admitted.
"Don't. Don't even think it. They don't know what it is that's keeping you from them and I'm going to fix this before anything goes too far. You just keep that beautiful mind of yours away from them," he told her. "Now, let's get all of you back to River. I'll bring the chessboard."
After memorizing the piece placement, he tossed the board into a bag and tugged his family with him toward the Castle. He knew from his glimpse at the Cybermen's network that the others had gathered there to defend themselves and was fairly sure that even if he could get them out of the minds of himself, Rose, Jamie, and Clara, the rest of their forces would probably still attack despite the agreement with the Cyber-Planner in his head.
"You knew it was me. You both know who I really am," Porridge sighed.
"I was in the Imperial Guard on Caspertine. Mostly just parades, but I had the honour to guard the old Emperor during the ice picnic," the Captain admitted.
"When the snow bears came and danced for us. That was a day," Porridge recalled with a sad smile. "You?"
"I'm an archeologist," River replied with a shrug.
They both looked at her oddly, probably wondering how such recent history could be of interest to an archeologist, but let it go.
"We're a punishment platoon. We can't beat a Cyberman. The Imperium has to know what's happening," the Captain argued, hoping that the Emperor would see things her way.
"Like you said, the communicators are out. The only way you can report this now is to activate the bomb."
"Yes," the Captain agreed.
"And I forbid you to do that," he told her.
"Look, I understand the logic. I really do, especially with a group as persistent as the Cybermen. But you have to believe me when I tell you that the Doctor and Rose can and will fix this. It sounds ridiculous to you, I know, but they have faced Cybermen before and worse, still coming out alive on the other side," River pleaded, hoping to persuade her not to activate the bomb.
"I was sent here because I didn't follow orders. I can make up for that," the Captain muttered, not listening to anything River was saying.
"Put it down. Please, Captain," River begged her, knowing that any orders she received today didn't seem to make a difference to the orders she felt overrode everything else.
"I order you to put that down," Porridge insisted.
"You ran away," she snapped at him. "I will do what I was brought up to do. Live for the Empire, fight for the Empire, die for the Empire. This is Captain Alice Ferrin, Imperial ID one nine delta one three B. Activate."
Just as the lights blinked to life on the device, the Captain was shot by one of the approaching Cybermen. They had been so focussed on stopping her from activating the bomb that they hadn't seen it approach.
"Cyberman! Get down!" Porridge shouted, pulling River below the parapet.
The rest of the soldiers came running at the sound of weapons fire, stopping to stare in shock at the body of the woman who had been their commanding officer for so long.
"Right. This position was supposed to be defendable. We're obviously not doing a very good job of that, so everyone will be taking a turn with the anti-cyber gun on watch. In the meantime, Porridge and I will be discussing how we are going to deactivate this thing," River ordered and dragged the former emperor away from the group.
"Look, I know you can turn this thing off again."
"But then I'd have to reclaim the throne," he protested, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the others didn't hear. It was clear that none of them knew who he was yet and he wanted to keep it that way.
"You were a good emperor. What are you hiding for?" River asked.
"I ordered the destruction of an entire galaxy! How can you even ask that?" Porridge snapped angrily.
"You had good reason for that," she assured him.
"And if those reasons were good enough, then I should destroy this one for the sake of every other galaxy out there," he countered.
"Alright, I understand your point, but trust me when I say that with the Doctor here, there is an alternative," River insisted.
"Ma'am?" one of the soldiers called out. "The others are outside the drawbridge. Should we let them inside?"
River and Porridge moved to the main gate and allowed the Doctor to enter, with Rose, James, and Clara in tow. There was clearly something wrong with all of them, but River would wait for an explanation. She closed the entrance tightly again behind them.
"What's going on, Doctor? What's wrong with them?" River demanded.
"Hey, River, you haven't let them blow up the planet. Good job," he deflected.
"Don't count on that yet, what is wrong with my husband and daughter?" she growled threateningly.
"Er, a bit of a good news, bad news, good news again thing going on. So, good news, I've kidnapped the Cyberplanner and right now I'm sort of in control," he told her.
"Bad news?"
"Bad news, the Cyberplanner's in my head. And, different bad news, our family are, well, it's complicated."
"Complicated how?"
"Complicated as in walking coma," he admitted, hiding ineffectively behind the chessboard he was carrying.
"And you have a solution for this problem?"
"Hope so."
"Other good news?" she asked, not feeling particularly confident in his clearly half-planned-out-plan.
"Well, in other good news, there are a few more repaired and reactivated Cybermen on the way, and the Cyberplanner's installing a patch for the gold thing. No, wait, that isn't good news, is it. Er, so, good news, I have a very good chance of winning my chess match," he told her, starting to lose complete control over himself again.
"What?" River asked, following him as he ran off. The rest of their family followed eerily, staring into the distance.
"I'll explain later. In a bit of a hurry. Get me to a table, and River, tie me up! Need hands free for chess. And immobilise me, quickly," he insisted.
River followed his instructions with the promise of an explanation. She knew from experience that if he asked her to do something like this urgently, there was a damn good reason for it. Tying him tightly to a large chair in the throne room of the castle, River glanced worriedly at the others.
"Right, that's good. I won't be able to move, but hands free. Good," the Doctor stated.
"You're playing chess with yourself?" River questioned.
"And winning," he told her as he pulled the golden ticket off of his face and began to speak in an accent reminiscent of his leather clad incarnation.
"Actually, he has no better than a twenty five percent chance of winning at this stage in the game. Some very dodgy moves at the beginning. Hello, flesh girl. Fantastic. I'm the Cyberplanner," he rambled, glaring at River.
"Whatever you are, you need to release them all immediately," River demanded.
"Afraid not. And I'm working the mouth now. Allons-y. Oh, you should see the state of these neurons. He's had some cowboys in here. Ten complete re-jigs," the Cyberplanner announced.
"If the Doctor doesn't stop you, then the Bad Wolf will," River told him confidently. She had seen the power Rose possessed save their family several times.
"Bad Wolf? Ooh, he's worried we'll find out about that. Is that what's hidden behind the block about Rose? What is Bad Wolf?" he wondered as the Doctor's hand scribbled on a nearby notepad the words, 'hit me.'
River was more than happy to comply and slapped her father in law across the face sharply.
"Argh! Ow! Oh, that hurt. No, stop. Enough, Bit of pain, neural surge. Just what I needed. Thank you," the Doctor responded.
"Chess game. What are the stakes?" she demanded.
"If he wins, I give up my mind and he gets access to all my memories, along with knowledge of time travel. But, if I win, he'll break his promises to get out of my head and then kill us all anyway," he replied honestly.
