The Age of Steel, Part Three

Scream erupted from the conversion rooms. Feet stomped around as people panicked.

"What's going on?" Clara asked, wiping her tears from her cheeks. She would have time to mourn Ellie and Other Clara later. She had to focus on what was going on. The Doctor grinned.

"That's my friends at work. Good boys! Mister Lumic, I think that's a vote for free will." The Doctor told Lumic, who didn't look pleased. Clara waited for Lumic to panic as well, but he didn't.

"I have factories waiting on seven continents," he informed them coolly. "If the ear pods have failed, then the Cybermen will take humanity by force. London has fallen. So shall the world."

Clara shivered; he seemed so heartless! She clutched the Doctor's arm tighter.

"I will bring peace to the world. Everlasting peace, unity, and uniformity." Lumic continued. The Doctor's stare bore into Lumic's head.

"And imagination?" He demanded. "What about that? The one thing that lead you here, imagination, you're killing it dead!"

"What is your name?" Lumic asked the both of them.

"Clara Oswald." Clara spoke with as much bravery as she could muster. Still, her voice shook.

"I'm the Doctor." The Doctor patted her hand comfortingly, eyes never leaving Lumic. Lumic almost scoffed.

"A redundant title. Doctors need not exist; Cybermen never sicken."

"Yeah, but that's it. That's exactly the point! Oh, Lumic, you're a clever man. I'd call you a genius, except I'm in the room." Clara snorted quietly at his ego. Luckily, no one noticed. "But everything you've invented, you did to fight your sickness. And that's brilliant." He actually sounded impressed. "That is so human. But once you get rid of sickness and mortality, then what's there to strive for, eh?" Clara saw where he was going.

"The Cybermen won't advance," she spoke up, looking up at the Doctor's face. "They'll just stop. Stay like this forever." The Doctor nodded, looking proudly down at her. She gave him a small smile.

"A metal Earth with metal men and metal thoughts, lacking the one thing that makes this planet so alive. People. Ordinary, stupid, brilliant people." The Doctor went on.

"You are proud of your emotions." Lumic stated. The Doctor smiled to himself.

"Oh, yes."

"Then tell me, Doctor. Have you known grief, and rage, and pain?"

"Yes. Yes I have." The Doctor's smile falter as his mind drifted to the times he had felt pain. Clara squeezed his arm gently, trying to comfort him.

"And they hurt?" Lumic pressed, looking happy that he upset the Doctor. In all honesty, Clara wanted to smack him. It was his fault that Ellie and Other Clara were dead, and now he was upsetting her Doctor.

"Oh, yes." The Doctor muttered.

"I could set you free," Lumic offered. "Would you not want that? A life without pain?" With the pain Clara was feeling at that moment, she was slightly tempted. A life without pain sounded ideal right then.

"You might as well kill me," the Doctor stated coldly.

"Then I take that option." Lumic said. The Doctor shook his head.

"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. I have an army. A species of my own." The Doctor walked away from Clara, pacing throughout the room.

"You just don't get it, do you?" He ranted. "An army's nothing. Because those ordinary people, they're the key. The most ordinary person could change the world." The Doctor was eyeing a camera with a little flashing red light. "Some ordinary man or woman, some idiot. All it takes is for him to find, say-" The Doctor stopped looking at the camera and continued his pacing.

"The right numbers. Say the right codes. Say, for example, the code behind the emotional inhibitor. The code right in front of him." The Doctor emphasized the words "right in front of him" ever so slightly. Just enough that Clara- who knew the Doctor pretty well- could tell, but Lumic couldn't. "Because 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 er. What was it? Binary what?

"Binary nine." Clara recalled Ellie mentioning something about binary nine. She hoped that was right.

"An idiot could find that code." The Doctor repeated. "Cancellation code. And he'd keep on typing. Keep on fighting. Anything to save his friends." The Doctor spoke with so much intensity that Clara was a little surprised.

"Your words are irrelevant." Lumic hissed.

"Yeah, talk too much, that's my problem." The Doctor turned to Clara." Lucky I got you that cheap tariff, Clara, for all our long chats." The Doctor paused a moment.

"On your phone." The Doctor said. Clara was lost. She had no idea what the Doctor was talking about. She pulled her phone out of her purse, fingers brushing the broken pocket watch she still carried in there.

"You will be deleted!" Lumic yelled.

"Yes!" The Doctor exclaimed. "Delete, control, hash. All those lovely buttons. Then, of course, my particular favourite, send. And let's not forget how you seduced all those ordinary people in the first place."At that moment, Clara's phone beeped. She glanced down at it discretely, seeing a code on her screen.

"By making every bit of technology compatible with everything else," the Doctor began. Clara tossed her phone to him.

"It's for you!" She announced. The Doctor caught it nimbly. He jammed it into a docking station.

"Like this." The Cybermen began crying out in pain. Every computer screen that Clara could see was downloading the code. The Cybermen's screams increased. All of them were clutching their heads. The Doctor bent down to face one of them. "I'm sorry," he said, using his sonic screwdriver to turn the Cyberman off. Clara watched in horror as another Cyberman's head exploded.

"What have you done?!" Lumic cried.

"I gave them back their souls," the Doctor growled. "They can see what you've done, Lumic, and it's killing them!" The Doctor grabbed Clara's hand dragged her out of the room.

"Delete! Delete! Delete!" Lumic shouted after them. No one paid him any heed.

Everything around them was exploding. They ran as fast as they could. The Doctor used his arms to try to protect Clara from the flying debris.

"There's no way out!" The Doctor yelled, unable to find an exit. Clara somehow heard her phone go off amongst the noise and answered it.

"Mickey?" She called, yelling to be heard over the chaos. Clara tugged on the Doctor's arm, who was still frantically looking for a way out. "It's Mickey. He says head for the roof." The Doctor nodded and they made their way to the roof. The clambered over metal staircases, hand never parting. (

They made it to the roof to see a Zeppelin above them. Clara could see Jake and Mickey in the captain's chairs. "Mickey, where'd you learn to fly that thing?" She asked, talking into her phone.

"Playstation," Mickey answered simply. "Just hold on, Clara. We're coming to get you." He hung up the phone.

A rope ladder was lowered haphazardly. Mickey poked his head out from the trapdoor.

"Hold on tight, we're going up! Welcome to Mickey Smith's Airline. Please enjoy your flight." He joked. The Doctor grabbed onto the rope and began to climb.

Clara's hair whipped around her head. "You've got to be kidding." She muttered, grabbing a bit of the ladder and began pulling herself up.

"We did it! We did it!" Clara exclaimed once she made it to the top. The Doctor and she hugged. "Wait-" Clara noticed something pulling the ladder down.

"Lumic!" The Doctor pulled his screwdriver out of his pocket and tossed it to Jake.

"Jake! Take this! Use it! Hold the button down! Press it against the rope." Jake hesitated. "Just do it!" Jake pressed the button and held it to the rope. Slowly, the rope began to give way. Finally, it broke and Lumic fell. (The rope finally gives way and Lumic falls.) LUMIC: Argh! (He is engulfed in the exploding Power Station.)

Lalala

"Clara, Mickey? I've only got five minutes of power. We've got to go." The Doctor had his head poked out of the TARDIS doors. "Now then, Jake, we've got to run. But one more thing. Mrs Moore. Her real name was Angela Price. She's got a husband out there, and children. Find them. Tell them how she died saving the world." Jake nodded, swallowing.

"Yeah, course I will." The Doctor smiled.

"Off we go, then." Clara made her way to the TARDIS. Mickey didn't.

"Er, thing is, I'm staying." He told them awkwardly. The Doctor stepped fully out of the TARDIS.

"You're doing what?" The Doctor asked, eyebrows knitting together.

"You can't!" Clara said. "If you don't want to travel anymore, the Doctor could take you home. You can't just stay in a parallel world!" Mickey shrugged.

"It sort of balances out, because this world lost its Ricky, but there's me. And there's work to be done with all those Cybermen still out there. And my gran's here. She's still alive. She needs me."

"I'll miss you." Clara said, voice thick with the tears she was holding back.

"We can't come back for you if you change your mind," the Doctor told him seriously. "I told you, travel between parallel worlds is impossible. We only got here by accident. We fell through a crack in time. When we leave, I've got to close it. We can't ever return." Mickey nodded and stuck out his hand for the Doctor to shake. Afterwords, he gave Clara a hug.

"Take Clara's phone." The Doctor tossed her phone to Mickey. "It's got the code. Get it out there. Stop those factories. And good luck, Mickey the idiot." He smiled. Mickey pointed at him, faking offense.

"Watch it." Biting her lip, Clara let the Doctor lead her into the TARDIS. They approached the console and the Doctor flicked a switch. He pointed to a button and Clara pressed it. The familiar "vwoorp, vwoorp" of the TARDIS echoed in the console room, which seemed too empty to Clara.

She couldn't help but feel that it was her fault that both Rose and Mickey had left.

A/N: Another chapter done! I hope you liked it. Please leave a review and let me know what you thought!

Also, you should go check out my other Doctor Who story! ;)