Haunted Series One
Episode seven
The Dentistry of Death
Written by the Genie
Foreword – by the Genie
The Dentistry of Death was my second Cyberman story, an immediate successor to Reawakening of the Cybermen, and played with ideas of the dentist's - a place of horror for many children - many of which came from my own imagination while I was there (though admittedly, I've always weirdly enjoyed the experience). It's here that the series starts to come together for the finale and beyond, but it's also a unique episode in its own right, exploring the many superpowers of the Cybermen. At the time of writing this, Nightmare in Silver had recently aired, and the prospect of the new Cybermen determined where I went with them. Some of what we've seen from the Cybermen over their last couple of stories - upgrading the dead, flying - are powers which they gained in Death in Heaven, so it's easy enough to stand by my approach.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, Dentistry rather fails to come together as a whole. Whilst the ending is still one of the best cliff-hangers I've ever thought up, I misjudged the kind of story I was writing. The Dentistry of Death would have made an aesthetically-stunning TV episode, but as a prose it's another beast, and being so reliant on the visual spectacle meant that the description had to be top-notch. It wasn't. When I look back on 2013 at this stage, I see the best ideas I ever came up with, trapped within some of my weakest writing. Wonderful, unexpected revelations and emotional beats are buried away in the haphazard mix of ideas (you've got to keep a close eye for them because you can even miss them altogether), and the most tantalising planet ever ends up seeming a bit phoned-in. Perhaps told in 2015, I could have done something a little more special with Dentistry, but here it's a collection of my best ideas making up the weakest episode of the series.
The Dentistry of Death
Sanjay sat by Luke in silence. He’d come to support him. Of course, he didn’t know how. But it felt cruel to leave one’s greatest friend alone when they were at their weakest. So Sanjay simply sat by him. All day, all night. Sometimes he’d pull out a book – at the moment, it was John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men – to read to him. He’d probably read it – hadn’t everyone? But Sanjay always loved it. He used to ponder over all the notions of reaching the dream that the protagonists never made. Sanjay was a determined character – never ruthless with his ambition but never cynical either. He maintained, when he’d first read it, that he would have reached the American Dream, because he had the guts to do so.
A young woman approached the bed. It took her a while because she was on crutches. She had a kind, sympathetic smile – but it seemed like she wasn’t used to it. She found a chair and sat down.
“You must be Sanjay,” she said politely.
“Yes. Has he told you-“
“He told me.” She held out her hand. “I’m Alex.”
Sanjay shook it.
“I was also injured that day,” she explained. “I was out for a day and I’d broken my leg-“ she gestured to her crutches –“hence these things. I guess now I had it easy. How is he?”
“He’s recovering,” said the nurse. She was Caribbean-born: she was gravely concerned, but still somewhat cheery. Her voice brought a quality of rare happiness to the room. She was perfect for her job. “He is in a critical position, but he is stable. I’m sure he will be well.” She smiled uncertainly at Sanjay.
“Sanjay – sorry, could you give us two a moment?” asked Alex. Sanjay reluctantly left the room. The nurse took Sanjay’s seat.
“You didn’t sound sure,” said Alex. “Now you can tell me the truth. I don’t get involved like the others do, so I can know.” This was, of course, a lie. Alex, though secretively, got emotionally involved in most of her cases and colleges. But she needed to know the truth about Luke’s situation.
The nurse sighed wearily. “It might well improve,” she clarified, “so I didn’t want to say anything to upset him.”
“And what’s the bad news?”
“He has a 70% chance of survival. But there is a possibility…” she paused. “There is a possibility that his coma will continue and that he will never wake up. That was a serious injury – it’s rare that people have been shot like that and survived. You have to prepare that there is a vague chance that you may lose your friend.”
“You should tell Sanjay.”
“I don’t want to w-“
“It doesn’t matter what you want,” interjected Alex, “it matters what your job is. Don’t fuel him on false hope. That’s the one well-intentioned mistake every doctor or nurse makes in their life. I know a certain Doctor who does it all the time.”
Alex got up and left. Sanjay re-entered the room and sat by Luke’s bedside. He picked up the book, but before he could continue reading, he was interrupted by the nurse.
“Mr Sanjay,” she said funereally, “there is something you need to know…”
***
Jack’s mouth felt sore and dry. It had been continuously poked and prodded for the last ten minutes by a ridiculously heavy-handed orthodontist who, with her insipid visage, looked something like Frankenstein’s creation.
“We need to x-ray your teeth.” She smiled. Her teeth were that surreal sort of white that you only see on dentist brochures. “If I could lead you through…”
She helped him off the dentist’s chair and took him into a small, clinically white room. She gestured softly to a bulky piece of machinery in the centre. It consisted of a large pole, stretching up to the ceiling. Attached to the pole was an arm which pushed out and supported a sort of clamp which spread three quarters of the way around leaving a short space for his head to go. As instructed, he stepped inside. The orthodontist then told him to rest his teeth over a bite, and to bite down gently, which he did.
“I’m going to step just outside,” she said calmly. “The door will be open the whole time. You’ll be able to see me through the reflection.
Jack wasn’t nervous. He vaguely recalled having a tooth x-ray before when he was younger, so the experience was loosely familiar.
As the orthodontist left the room, he stood waiting patiently. The side of the machine started gradually revolving around his head, and he watched the woman smiling at him in the reflection.
Suddenly, her smile vanished. It was replaced by a callous, emotionless, knowing glare. Before he had a chance to react, the door slammed shut, and the machine started humming deafeningly. Panicking, he tried to break free, but the clips which secured his head in place tightened and squeezed his skull agonisingly. The humming was accompanied by a mechanical grinding which made the whole room vibrate. He was terrified.
Then, as he continued to wrestle with the apparatus, the side stretched further along and closed in on him, until the whole machine surrounded his body. The last thing he felt was a tingling sensation in his mind, and a deep message, reaching out to his consciousness:
Please relax. Your upgrade is in progress.
***
“Liam!” protested Lynda. “For God’s sake Liam, just get out the car!”
“I don’t like the dentist’s though…” the child whined.
“I tell you what…” Lynda reached into her pocket and pulled out a ten-pound-note. She held it up teasingly. “If you go into the dentist’s like a good boy, I’ll let you have this… and you can spend it on whatever you like!”
The offer was too good to refuse. Liam beamed and Lynda tucked the money back in her pocket. “Good lad.”
The dentist’s surgery wasn’t scary. Even Liam realised that. It was just painstakingly dull. A long queue full of tired, half-caring people stretched to the entrance. The room smelled foul. Normally, a dentist’s smelt of toothpaste and clean things. This one smelt of burning metal.
“Liam Harris,” said Lynda when she reached the front of the queue, not even looking at the woman who was serving her.
Where had Liam gone? She looked down and realised in fear that she’d let him wander. Had he gone outside? Tried to get home? She looked up, and, as she did, realised the impossible truth – even if she didn’t understand it. For the woman, serving her…
…was her mother.
Her dead mother.
Again.
***
Olivia helped Alex into the canteen and as Alex was deciding on what to have for her lunch (admittedly, the panettone was tempting, but she was trying to be healthy), Lynda entered dramatically, pushing open the double doors and stopping to catch her breath. It seemed convention, now, that all the important things went on in the cafeteria.
“It’s the Cybermen…” she spluttered. “They’re back.”
***
“So here’s the plan,” clarified Kate to her troops. “We’re going to go up behind the dentist’s. No one suspects us there. Then we can launch our attack. I'll explain more when we arrive. Await my signal. Now, come on, go! Go, go, go!”
UNIT, with their customary panache, entered their vehicles, and made a dramatic exit. Alex limped after them.
“Alex!” demanded Kate. “Where do you think you’re off to? And…” she looked to her right. “Lynda! You too! You two shouldn’t be on this investigation.”
“With respect,” responded Lynda, with more assertiveness than usual. “This has gone beyond a joke now. First, they take my mother’s dead body. Now, they’ve got my son. I could have stayed and saved him but I ran. I’m not letting them keep him. Is that understood?”
Kate was won over. Why bother? “Loud and clear.”
“And as for me…” began Alex, “I’ve got to look after Lynda!”
“Alex!” grumbled Kate. “You’ve got a broken leg.”
“I’ve got crutches, and my mind is still intact.” They started walking. “Now, Lynda, which vehicle shall we take? I’d say…”
As they drifted away, Kate sighed to herself. “What’s the point?” she muttered. “Danger? Definitely. In which case, why miss it?” She headed towards her officers. She fancied being at the scene of the crime for once.
***
“Open wide…”
Suzie flexed her jaw as much as she could manage, and the dentist stuck his fingers inside her mouth.
Suzie – being unconfident as she was – looked up for her mother. But where was she? She had vanished, in seconds – without a sound.
“Mum” she managed through the dentist pressing her jaw open. “Mmm!”
She tried to move her chin, to even bite down, but his grip was so secure that she was trapped.
“Hush now…” whispered the dentist. “Open wide again for me…”
This time he was holding a long, shiny pipe. It was like those which were used to polish her teeth, but it was different. It was hissing angrily and sparks of electricity bounced down it both sides as if racing to the bottom.
“Wh’s h’pp’nng” she muttered - for his hold was tighter than ever and she could barely make any noise at all.
“Don’t worry,” he said, reassuringly. “You’ve been entitled to an upgrade.”
***
“Alert!” shouted the check-in woman. “We have detected armed intruders!” Hearing an ordinary middle-aged woman speak like an insensitive robot is an experience which sticks in one’s mind. And, indeed, as the lights dimmed and strange electronic noises reverberated through the waiting room, all of those who were waiting for their appointment suddenly became bizarrely aware of their situation. They all tried to leave, but the doors had been locked.
“Please!” cried one woman. “Let me out!”
“What do think you’re playing at?” challenged a very violent-looking man.
“Mummy?“ enquired a deserted little girl.
The whole room was now a circus full of rattled, bewildered and incensed people. The perfect opportunity to sneak in unnoticed, as the check-in woman calculated.
“Silence!” she screamed. “You will be silent!” The uproar quietened in order to see what she had to say. “Seal off the back room. Make it look like we were not anticipating them. Form a trap.”
“And what happens to us, then?” asked a young man.
“You will be taken for upgrading,” said the woman soullessly. “Unit four, please prepare the humans for upgrading.”
“Understood,” replied Unit Four – an old man, with a kind but colourless face that gave the impression to have been drained of life. “You will follow.” He signalled to the door of another surgery.
***
“We’re in!”
The back door had been smashed open, and the UNIT troops guarded all entrances and exits. They were yet to open the inner door. Presently, they were stood inside a smaller surgery: two dentist beds, some space for people to sit and wait, and an office attached at the side. The room was preposterously humid.
Alex, entered, hobbling in tiredly, followed by Lynda, Phillip and Olivia.
“Everyone’s left home,” commented Olivia.
“They could’ve been upgraded,” suggested Phillip. Alex shot him an unimpressed look, and he realised that Lynda was still in the room. “But-“ he corrected himself, “-maybe not.”
“Hang on…” murmured Lynda. What’s this?” She pointed to a square metal panel on the chair. Somehow, she’d noticed something was up, and pulled the cushion off. And, underneath where the cushion was, there it sat: fixed into the mechanics of the chair, like a sort of remote control. It emitted a blue light which in some way acknowledged their presence.
All of a sudden, it started firing at them. Blue energy bolts ricocheted around them; bouncing off the walls and smashing through windows. Phillip instinctively pulled out his gun and shot at the device. As he did this, the firing stopped, but the world started to…
…fade.
The walls became transparent, and the four people began dizzying. Up became down, down became up, left became right, right became left, left became down…
They woke up; fragments of glass shattered on the floor around them. But the floor wasn’t the impeccable ground of a dentist’s anymore: it was grass and roots and dirt and… dew.
Alex fumbled around for her crutches and found one by her foot. She used this to help her up.
“Is everyone okay?”
“Where are we?” asked Olivia.
Alex looked at the horizon. There was a city. A magnificent, glistening city, made up of soaring, shining blue-glass buildings. They were sleek and tall like the Shard, and they went on for miles. Where they were was possibly the outskirts: a last area of nature before the city of silver.
The sky was pitch black and millions of stars illuminated the heavens magically. One couldn’t deny that it was a beautiful sight. But was there a way out?
“Unauthorized life-forms!” came a familiar mechanical voice from behind them. They turned around swiftly to see a Cyberman before them: a tall, slender creature, with limbs poking out through a tight silvery suit. Its eyes were sunken into its head like someone had pressed them in.
“You are compatible stock. You will be upgraded!”
The ground gave way.
It was only a short fall, and most of them recovered – other than Alex. With her broken leg, she could hardly move. She was in agony.
“Alex!” whispered Olivia. “Alex, are you alright there?”
It was pitch black so no one could see another person. The floor was hard and grimy and the walls were timeworn, mossy stone. Alex would have replied, but the pain was so bad that opening her mouth would have resulted in her crying out like a howling dog.
Someone lit a match. Olivia could now just about make out Alex’s body on the floor. Carefully, she helped her up, and supported her to stand like the rest of them.
The rest of them were made up of seven other individuals. The first three were Olivia, Lynda and Phillip: all apparently unharmed, if a little sooty. The other four figures were each distinguishably unique in both stature and presence, but they all had one thing in common: they all diverged, in one way or other, from the norm.
The first was an elegantly beguiling young woman. She must have been in her late twenties or early thirties: she was beyond that age where echoes of one’s youth make one ‘sweet’, but on the contrary, not affected by any signs of age – arguably, a perfect time in one’s life. She wore a long, smooth and rather glittery black dress. This was accompanied by a bulky metal belt, in which she evidently stored things: a torch, a tattered old book and a metal box were all that could be made out in the flickering candlelight. Her hair was a ruby colour and her features were enticing. She smiled – and when she did, despite her cordiality, you wanted to check your pockets. Because for all she looked like a friend, she looked deceitful too. She would rob you, perchance, without even a thought. And she’d never ever confess to doing it.
The next was a slim man with black hair in a black suit – he would have been normal, had he not had the arm of a bear. The suit jacket broke off at one shoulder, making way for a colossal, brown, furry arm. Although it looked strange, Alex figured that it was probably a strategic advantage when battling the Cybermen. His face was cold and emotionless – not evil as such; simply unfeeling.
Along from him slightly was a slightly shorter, chubbier man with a blue, merry face. He was bald and wore basic military combat armour (camouflaged clothing, backpack, etc.). The woman next to him – the final member of the group – was much the same; blue, this time with long, red hair – but still in the same military attire, and still quite happy.
“The Cybermen will be aware of our position now,” said the bear-armed man dispassionately, “we ought to move along.”
“Will your friend be alright to walk?” the blue woman asked Olivia.
“I’ll be fine,” replied Alex. “Olivia can support me.”
“In which case,” said bear-armed man, “let’s go now.”
They started down the passageway, the bear-armed man taking the lead, and the others following behind. The ruby-haired woman guarded the back way and everyone made sure that Alex was well-supported. When they came to a dead end, they paused. The bear-armed man started scratching at the wall with his bear arm, until the rocks started to come off. Once he’d made a small opening, they all squeezed through. As soon as everyone had arrived on the other side, he piled the rocks – and some others – back up, lest the Cybermen broke through or suspected them.
The ruby-haired woman pulled a small white capsule out of her belt, and threw it at the wall. It smashed and then released an unexpected burst of light. The whole room lit up, until they might have been in daylight.
The ‘room’ was a cavern. It must have been about twenty feet high, and all of that was rock. It was a vast, circular cave, and despite its appearance, smelt of metal. Lose rocks on the ground meant potential areas to sit down or place objects. This could be a permanent destination.
“So…” began the ruby-haired woman. She had a soothing, albeit seductive tone of voice. “Introductions.”
“I’m Olivia – Olivia Quinn. This is-“
“Alex,” interrupted Alex. “Alex Paige.”
“Phil Pitman.”
“Lynda…” Lynda looked around timidly. This was all still new to her. “Lynda Harris.”
“My name is Ruby Rose,” purred the ruby-haired woman, perching on a rock. Her name seemed strangely appropriate.
“I’m Torria Hack,” said the blue man merrily, before signalling to the blue woman. “This is my wife, Torria Dee.” Torria Dee smiled. “Oh, and that over there…” he pointed to the bear-armed man who was standing in the corner of the room. “That’s North. So, tell me. How did you lot end up here?”
“We came from Earth,” said Olivia.
“Earth?” The man chuckled. “You’ve come quite a way then.”
“How far?”
“Ooh… I’d say at least seven million light-years.” He waited for Olivia to say something but, like her colleges, she remained speechless. “You do have a way of getting home… don’t you?”
“No…” murmured Olivia uncertainly.
“You’re not going to get back to Earth now!” he laughed. It was a well-meaning laugh. The man wasn’t aware of the situation.
“We’ll deal with that later,” said Alex, “because right now we don’t even have a plan. What are all you doing here, anyway?”
“I’m a missionary,” explained Ruby. “I’m a time-traveller. I’m from the year 6171.”
“A missionary?” Alex enquired.
“I’m from the Order of Saint Ava.”
“Who was Saint Ava?”
“She was a martyr. She died bringing down a whole planet with her. She managed to finish off six Cybermen.”
“Hang on… since when was bringing down a planet a good thing?”
“In our faith,” she explained, “we believe that the Cybermen came from the devil himself, that their quest for enlightenment was misguided and an affront to natural order. And we believe that the End of Days is approaching. That the Gates of Elysium will open again. And when they do, when the Creator judges the living and the dead, those who have contributed to the destruction of even one Cybermen will be guaranteed a path to Elysium.”
“So what’s your plan here, then?” asked Olivia. The state of affairs suddenly seemed incredibly momentous. “If this Ava woman got her own band of followers for killing six Cybermen, what are you planning?”
“I’ve been sent by the missionaries because I’m their best nun,” she said proudly. “I am armed with a weapon which will detonate the entire planet. I’m going to destroy the centre of the Cyber-empire – even if I have to take myself with it.”
“What about you?” Alex asked Torria Dee, in an awkward effort to change the subject. “Why are you here?”
“My wife and I come from the Üskov Belt” explained Torria Hack, “and at moment there is next to no technology. We’re here to salvage Cyber-technology to use for our own good.”
“We’re planning to use it for medical care mostly,” added Torria Dee. They were such a happy couple. A pleasure to be around. They really did brighten up a room.
“And as for North,” said Torria Hack, “he got thrown into the heart of the planet when a freak rift in time opened. He doesn’t really speak so we don’t know much about him.” He lowered his voice. “We think he might have had family. He’s an android, you know – adapted Cyber-technology as life-support. He’s our strength.”
Throughout the duration of the conversation, it had occurred to Lynda that Ruby had conducted herself, perhaps… resentfully? She realised now that, if these other misfits had been assimilating the Cyber-technology, they may, according to Ruby’s philosophy, be doomed to eternal torment in the afterlife.
And as for Alex – she was still in agony from her leg, but also suffering mental pain: for she realised, alarmingly, that it was guaranteed that there would be at least one person who didn’t make it off this planet alive.
***
“Are you alright?” Alex asked Lynda once everyone had settled down.
“Yeah…” she replied. Alex looked meaningfully at her. She shook her head. “No. No I’m not…”
“There is a chance…” said Alex, wary of giving her false hope – something which Alex had always detested. “That your son might still be alive.”
“Why? Why say that?” She was crying now. That was understandable. “I know what they’ve done. They’ve turned him into one of them.”
“Not necessarily – he’s been staying with you in UNIT, remember? They saw you, so they made the connection. They might keep him alive to extract information from him, or, perhaps the more desirable option would be that they’d keep him alive to get information from us.”
“You mean… use him as a bargaining chip?”
“Exactly.” Alex backtracked. “But we can’t ever be completely sure.” She changed the topic. “Did you grow up in Farnham, then?”
“Yeah. It’s a nice place. Sort of twee.”
“I grew up there too,” Alex recalled. “Me, Mum, Dad… and my brother.”
“You have a brother?” Lynda sounded surprised.
Alex looked down to the floor desolately. “That’s how Olivia and I met… our brothers were involved in things.”
“If you don’t mind me asking…” began Lynda, sensing the delicateness of the matter. “What sort of ‘things’ do you mean?”
“Crime… shoplifting… drugs.” Alex shook her head sombrely. “It was the drugs that finished them off.”
“You mean-“
“Both of them. Silly idiots they were… never even gave a toss about what they were leaving behind.”
“I’m sorry.” Although Lynda’s current situation was infinitely worse, she had a lot of sympathy for Alex.
“We’d play in the fields…” continued Alex, trailing off into a time when everything was better. “Every night. Until sunset. And the moment the sun set – it was…”
“Beautiful.” Lynda finished the sentence for her. “Beautiful like the world was starting over again.”
Alex watched her thoughtfully. “I’ve never known anyone who managed to see the world like that.”
“Same sort of memories, I suppose,” suggested Lynda.
“Yeah. Something like that…”
***
“So… where do you fit into all of this?” Phil asked North. North had stayed quiet and stood in the corner of the room as the group conversed. Phil thought it polite to give him so attention.
“I’m just the defence,” he answered in his monotone voice. “I am of no importance to the mission other than to ensure the safety of the other participants.”
“Have you got anyone waiting for you…” Phil looked at him, for the first time, directly, “at home?”
“I have a wife.”
Phil smiled admiringly. “A wife?”
“Clariana.” He sighed. “I doubt I’ll ever see her again.”
Phil tried to be optimistic. “You never know… you might.”
“And she sees me like this?” North raised his voice, just by a slight, unnoticeable tone. “With a bear’s arm and wires coming out my back? I’ve always been an android, but I was a highly advanced one. And she didn’t know. Now look at me. A freak show.”
***
“They’ve gone. They’ve just gone.”
Kate was lost. She had no higher authority to contact within their branch of UNIT, and no other branch would have a clue how to tackle this. She felt, for the first time in her life, truly alone. Guilty. Useless. There was only one thing she could attempt now. If the Doctor was lost deep in the TARDIS, musing on his own like a madman…
Dad, she thought to herself. Should I really try it?
She knew the answer. Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart would always have tried it. Always.
***
A constant beeping pierced Sanjay’s ears. A high-pitched, looming beeping. The nurse rushed over to his bed and looked at his readings, horror-struck.
“Mr Sanjay,” she urged, “you need to leave now!”
Sanjay covered his mouth. It all suddenly seemed so real. He got up, took a step back from the bed, and backed into the wall. He stood there lamenting for ten whole minutes as the nurse – and several others – relentlessly tried to fix Luke’s broken body.
Sanjay knew there would be no way out of this. Nothing on Earth could possibly bring him back now.
***
“I’ve just heard news…” Ruby twitched anxiously, unable to look Torria Hack and Torria Dee in the eye. “The whole of the Saràja System has been obliterated. By the Cybermen. I’m so sorry…”
The Saràja System, in the Üskov Belt, was home to sixteen planets, which followed an intricate orbit pattern around three suns. This meant that a year consisted of nine different seasons, each varying in climate. One of these planets was Sunjura Sabbath – home to the Torria family. Torria Dee and Torra Hack were devastated. Not only had their work on this planet been for nothing, but their whole family – their seventy year-old son, their brothers and sisters, their great-grandchildren – had been slaughtered. They cried over each other’s shoulders, seeking comfort from the only other person they knew of from their destroyed planet.
“That’s not the end of their plan, either…” continued Ruby. “They’re going to do the same to a thousand other systems. All planets that potentially pose a risk will be destroyed, along with their neighbours. The Cybermen are planning full conversion for the entire universe, and imminently. First they’re moving to Earth. Specifically, this place called Farnham.”
“Farnham?” gasped Alex and Lynda in unison.
“Yes,” confirmed Ruby. “And that’s the place where they’ve got their intelligence from. One specific source – a child, based on the report I was given – seems to have informed them of planet Earth’s basic facts.”
“That’ll be Liam!” Lynda exhaled. “Is he alright? Have they touched him?”
“I’ve heard nothing about a murder,” said Ruby. “We can guess that he’s here somewhere. But, moving along… we need to start the final plan.” Ruby pulled out a folded up parchment from her belt and opened it to make an A3 sheet.
The sheet was a diagram of the whole of the city: each building, each floor, labelled carefully with important details.
“What planet are we on, anyway?” asked Olivia. “You never said.”
“We call it the Cyberiad. It’s not literally the Cyberiad…” she expanded on her explanation, realising that the others were lost. “The Cyberiad is like the shared consciousness of the Cybermen. And this is the hub, if you like. Destroy this place and you destroy the Cyberiad.” She pulled out and unfolded another parchment. This one showed a cube, with other shapes poking out of it – primarily cylinders; but some cylinders were stems for other cubes or spheres.
“This is the planet,” Ruby clarified. “You understand the concept of robotic growth?” Alex, Olivia, Lynda and Phil nodded; remembering the Doctor’s explanation of the tombs in Farnham. “Well,” she continued, “this planet was built with the capacity to grow. It started off as a cube – created physically by the Cybermen – and grew. That’s how the tunnels are formed. The planet itself is a robot. And we can destroy it.” Ruby pointed to the tallest building on the diagram. It looked like a giant version of the Shard and was situated in the middle of the city. “That’s Cyber-centre if you like,” explained Ruby. “That’s where it all takes place. It’s heavily guarded, but we can get in from underneath. From there we can deactivate the planet’s robotic functions. Within minutes it will collapse in on itself; if we’ve disabled the basic settings, it will begin to grown inward, until everything just implodes.”
“And do you have a way out?” queried Phil. Even the subservient soldier didn’t terribly fancy the idea of a suicide mission.
“No,” replied Ruby simply. “There’s a chance that another missionary will locate me, but that’s not definite.”
“You mean we’re all going to die here?” yelled Lynda indignantly. “What about my son? He’s just a kid, for crying out loud!”
“I’m afraid it’s one child or the whole universe,” was Ruby’s emotionless reply.
“Don’t you have a heart?!” cried Lynda.
“Yes,” said Ruby. “I do have a heart. But I don’t generally experience sentiment.” She changed the subject. “If I calculate correctly, we’re underneath the central building right now. This tunnel shifted overnight and this is exactly where we need to be. We’ve got to burrow upwards in exactly the right place to reach the elevator shaft. If we get into there, the alarms won’t be sounded. We can take a lift by hanging from the bottom of the elevator. This means that at some point, we’ll reach the penultimate floor. That’s one floor worth of Cybermen to get through before reaching the top. Do you think we can manage that?”
“I can hold them up,” volunteered North.
“Well then… let’s get started.”
Torria Dee took her head off of her husband’s shoulder and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Let’s finish this.”
***
“We’re up.” North took a step back allowing the team to see the hole he’d made. They could now climb directly up into the elevator shaft – he’d even made grips for their feet. “If one of us stops off on the middle floor, it will raise the alarms. All Cyber-units will be directed for there. This could leave the second-to-last and finally the top floor to ourselves – or almost. However, I calculate that whoever remains on the middle floor will have little chance of survival.”
Glances were thrown in all directions. Minds worked away, deducing who should stay and who should go. Ultimately, one person was going to be put in a position which they didn’t want to be in.
“I’m not letting any of my team go,” demanded Alex. “Olivia is too young. Lynda needs to find her son. Phil… let’s just say he’s on compensation.”
“I’ll do it,” protested Phil, “if it-“
“No,” interjected Alex, “and that’s final. We need you. You’ll be going back with us… if we can find a way back. We need our whole team alive.”
“We need North,” suggested Ruby. “He can help us defend ourselves as we hack into the systems.”
“I’m not letting her go, though,” butted in Torria Hack, holding his wife protectively.
“And I’m not letting him,” said Torria Dee. “He’s all I have left.”
“Fine,” sighed Ruby. “Who does that leave?”
Alex looked over coldly. “You.”
Ruby stepped back. “You can’t be-“ she stammered.
“I can. Listen up here, glamour girl.” Alex confronted her. “If you want to get to Elysium, you die a martyr. You die saving the people who are carrying out your wishes. Understood?”
Alex stepped back, and Olivia took her aside to speak to her.
“Why were you so harsh?” asked Olivia, sotto voce.
“Because she’s determined. She’s clever. She’s not going to let herself go until she knows this planet is going up. We don’t have the knowledge or skill to do it, and to be honest…” Alex glanced around. “I don’t think the others have anything worth living for.”
Olivia nodded.
***
Everyone watched silently as Ruby secured herself to the bottom of the elevator. It was metal, but luckily Ruby had special clamps which allowed her to grip on. She looked down nervously. She knew what she was doing was right, but was completely terrified. Olivia wondered whether she was really capable of blowing up a planet if it meant killing herself in the process.
The elevator moved up without even the slightest noise; a testament to Cyber-engineering. Ruby stepped off on the fifth floor, onto the ledge next to the elevator doors. She pulled out a cylindrical device that looked uncannily like a sonic screwdriver, apart from that it was much shorter. She flashed a light over the door and it slid open. No more was seen of her after that.
“Alert! Security breech in sector forty! Locate! Locate!”
The Cyber-leader glided up the stairwell at maximum speed; a sight that would look like a grey blur to the vision of any other creature. Everything was normal on the next floor up. Computers showed their standard readings, the windows were intact (and presenting a beautiful sight which could sadly not be appreciated by any of the cyborgs living on this planet), and no disturbances could be detected. The floor needed a polish, but dust was the least of the Cybermen’s worries.
“Hello there, dear.”
The Cyberman turned around, almost surprised – if he were capable of such an emotion. But if a Cyberman ever displayed bewilderment, it was this Cyberman, at this exact moment.
“Identify yourself!”
Ruby emerged from behind a cabinet.
“Sorry,” she purred. “I couldn’t resist a game of hide-and-seek.”
“Unaltered life-form detected. Upgrade.” The cyborg threw her against the wall viciously and wrapped its hand around her neck. “Do not panic. Your upgrade is in progress. Please remain calm.”
Ruby remembered what she’d read in the book. She took a deep breath, and then stopped breathing altogether. She held her jaw tightly shut, put her tongue over her throat, closed her eyes and thought of the happiest thought she could. She imagined Elysium: shining in its glory, palace upon palace, bathed in a heavenly light. She imagined herself gliding along as a celestial entity, with her friends, her family, her sisters, and everything else she could ask for.
She felt around in her belt for her pulser, and as the Cyberman tried to fathom why it couldn’t upgrade her, she pulled it out and smashed the cyborg’s face with it. It fell back and then returned to its upright position. “Intruder armed,” it bellowed. “Assistance needed.” Two other Cybermen materialised next to it.
“Hello…” she coughed nervously. “Hello boys.”
***
“Witness room!” cried Lynda, pointing to a sign on the door on the (currently empty) penultimate floor. “What could that mean? Is Liam in there?”
“He…” Alex looked around for some help. “I suppose he could be.”
Lynda burst into the room without asking and, when she was out of eyeshot, Torria Dee and Torria Hack looked warily at the others. “We’ll look after her,” said Torria Dee. “Now go on, you too! Get going!” As Olivia started up the stairs, Torria Hack called back. “Wait a moment.” He pulled off his backpack and handed it over to her. It felt heavy, but it was manageable. “With our home-world gone… we have no use of these anymore. But it could help your people. Take them.” Olivia nodded politely to him.
“Thank you,” she mouthed. She felt evil leaving them.
***
The room was like the inside of a sphere. At the top of the staircase, the gravity was apparent on all sides, like a sort of centrifugal force. It would have been like sitting inside a football, except that it you walked around the sides, you’d simply go up them. This was a disorientating feeling, because it meant that when you looked up, you were effectively hanging down. The whole concept reminded Phil of an Arthur C. Clarke novel he’d read as a child.
The floor/wall/ceiling of the sphere was a metallic silver (that could perhaps be described as ‘tin-foil-y’), covered only by monitors, dozens among dozens. Screens were fixed into the walls, so nothing stuck out of this perfect sphere. The screens were touch-screen, and for a moment the team thought they were flummoxed as a Cyberman’s hand-texture was different to that of a human.
The room was huge. The distorted gravity didn’t give it a cramped effect (the people standing ‘upside-down’ weren’t bashing heads with those standing on the opposite wall), because of the sheer size. The room could have easily been a kilometre in all dimensions, although they found it hard to judge; the contorted gravity left all the senses bewildered. They also wondered how they hadn’t seen this enormous ball from outside.
“Sssh!” hissed Alex. Everyone had been muttering in astonishment.
“What is it?” murmured Olivia.
“Can you hear something?”
Alex was right. From above them, an electric humming and scraping could be made out above the metal of the ceiling.
“What is that?”
A latch clicked open at the top, exposing the sphere to the night. Then something started descending into the opening.
“Oh, God…” Alex put her hand over her mouth.
“What is it?” asked North.
“It’s the Hitchhiker.”
It was an intricate, wide metal box. It had pipes and wires sprouting off in different directions; some connected, others dangling loosely but obviously not without purpose. Other metal cubes bounced up and down or rotated on its surface. There was a head-shape in the centre, blackened out by shadow, but with visible ‘handlebars’ like those on the Cybermen’s heads.
“That’s not the Hitchhiker!” Olivia looked at it, and then back at Alex. “That’s a thing!”
“That’s the Hitchhiker,” confirmed Alex. “Remember last time he got upgraded to…” she winced and rubbed her head. “Cyber… planner…”
“So that’s what it looks like? What does it do?”
“It decides… everything.” Alex collapsed to the floor and lay rubbing her head in pain.
“What have you done to her?!” cried Olivia.
“The template of Cyber-planner has reawakened old memories,” said the Cyber-planner. It spoke emotionlessly, but with a much lower, more intimidating pitch.
“What memories? What are you talking about?”
“The child gave us information. The child of Farnham.” Olivia realised their tactical error. “She told us what we needed to know.”
“So Alex was your child? Not Liam? All those years ago? It was her?”
“There was… a cave.” Alex tried to stand up but fell back down. “I found it. They were there. All empty suits… I whispered to them. Told them stories.”
“Alex was the neglected child,” snarled the Cyber-planner. “Pushed aside because her kin needed more guidance. She became our source of information. When her role was over, we wiped her memory.”
“So you’ve been in Farnham a long time, then?” asked Phil. “And you obviously weren’t sleeping.”
“The suits were unresponsive but recorded the data and transmitted it back to the Cyber-planner! Information about Earth culture led us to understand how emotion can affect the brain. This became a tactical advantage.”
“Well, bad news,” shouted Phillip, “guess who has the tactical advantage now, eh? Us. We are not doing what you say. We are going to finish this!”
He raced along the wall of the sphere, and the others followed. North stayed at the back, ready for combat. The Cyber-planner fired a bolt of blue electricity from one of the pipes, which North dodged. North ripped open his shirt to reveal a metal plate, covered in buttons and wires that challenged to complexity of even the Cyber-planner’s. He flicked a switch and an identical bolt fired out of a chest-plate in the centre.
“Big mistake!” he yelled, as sparks flew off the Cyber-planner, “Letting me gain access to your technology! A fully-functioning android aided by Cyber-resources!”
As North continued to strike, the others worked on the wall panel at the end, searching for the right control.
“I’ve found it!” exclaimed Alex. They all raced over to her. “It’s got the option to deactivate the planetary settings. Shall we do it?”
“I’ve found a teleport!” exclaimed Phil. “Shall we use it?”
“Does it come loose – the screen, I mean?” Olivia asked Alex.
Alex pulled a lever at the side and the monitor fell into her hands like an iPad. “I think the answer’s yes. We can teleport with it.”
“What about Lynda?” asked Olivia. “Torria Dee? Torria Hack? How will they know?”
“North will guide them over,” whispered Alex. “I don’t think he has any plans on leaving this place.”
“OK,” agreed Olivia. “We’ll take the device, teleport to wherever this takes us, and then we’ll make our decision. Deal?”
“Deal,” decided Alex.
“Deal,” agreed Phil.
They all put their hands together and activated the teleport, preparing to land anywhere in time and space.
***
They emerged on their fronts, buried in soil. It wasn’t unlike their original arrival on the planet. And, as they looked up, they could see the city, still glistening magically. It would seem a crime to destroy it, even if the inhabitants weren’t quite so welcoming.
“If we do this,” said Olivia, “we’ll die.” She clutched the tablet close to her.
“Would you do it… if it came down to it?” asked Alex.
“Yes. Would you?”
“The Doctor’s taught you well,” remarked Alex. “The Olivia Quinn I used to know wouldn’t have thought about doing it.”
“The Doctor hasn’t taught me,” corrected Olivia. “I watched the Doctor show me how wonderful he was and I decided I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life standing on the side-lines. You see Ruby back there? She was willing to do it if it meant getting to Elysium.
“Ruby was self-centred. Yes, she was God-fearing. Aren’t we all? But she only did it so that she could end up somewhere nicer. If we do this, we have to agree… we’re doing it for the universe.”
“Agreed.” Olivia gazed up into the distance. “But if we do this, we have to do it soon.”
She was right. High up in the sky, there was a cloud-shaped swarm of Cybermen, flying towards them at unimaginable speed.
They knew what was about to happen.
Olivia held her finger over the button. “If I do this… I wouldn’t just be committing genocide on the Cybermen, but on all life in the Saràja System too – Torria Dee and Torria Hack, two innocent people. One day they had their whole world, the next their planet and even their own lives were taken. What would that make me?”
“Efficient. It doesn’t look pretty, but it has to be done.”
The Cybermen were already getting closer and were firing more electric bolts from their chests. They were hitting down a few meters away from Alex, Olivia and Phil. Any closer, they’d start to do some damage.
“There’s one more thing,” said Olivia. “I saw him. I saw my Dad.” Alex looked up disbelievingly. “At St Fagan’s. I looked up, and he was there. Like an angel. What if he knew? Knew it was my time?”
Phil, hitherto silent, leant over, knowing what he had to do, and pressed the button himself.
The whole world shook, and the floor crumbled and cracked before them. Some Cybermen stayed heading towards them, others fell to the ground, whilst others tried to head up and leave the planet altogether.
“The universe is safe now,” said Phil. “No more Cybermen.” The other two looked up at the horizon, horror-stricken.
As the world fell apart around them, a horrible, yet somehow beautiful scraping sound came from the distance. Olivia turned around instantly and saw the TARDIS behind her.
“Quick!” she beamed. “Look!”
Without looking for an explanation, all three of them sprinted towards it, occasionally falling and swinging with the planet’s cataclysmic movements. Kate Stewart stood holding the door open, and they shot inside.
“Wait!” yelled Alex, once inside. She pointed into the distance and saw a figure running towards them – with another smaller figure alongside. “It’s Lynda!” Sure enough, it was. She lifted up her son, and carried him inside. He seemed unharmed.
The TARDIS worked on its own: Kate didn’t have to do anything; the ship just flew itself, and peacefully too. Within minutes, it had grinded to a halt, and they were back in the UNIT base.
“What happened?” asked Phillip, utterly bewildered.
“I just went inside, just to see if there was anything I could do,” explained Kate. “And I spoke to it. Just to see if it was listening. And it moved. Just like that.”
The Doctor emerged out of an archway, and looked up at her menacingly. His hair was a mess, and he still had his trench coat on.
“What did you do, Kate?” he spoke softly.
“I thought it must have been you…”
“I did nothing.”
“We’ll just leave you,” interjected Olivia. She herded the others out of the ship. The Doctor shot Phil a disdainful glare. It was as if he had been there, watching, as he tore the world apart.
***
Alex and Olivia stood in the lab room, looking out through the glass at the as-per-usual busy UNIT facility.
“I missed a call from the hospital,” murmured Olivia. “My mum’s been taken in. On her way out. All those years I could have had. I feel like some sort of criminal.”
“Don’t say that.” Alex paused, tidying her hair. “Look at me, Olivia. I’m a killer. I gave them information. Valuable information. What if what I said was what brought down the Saràja System? I couldn’t live with that.”
Olivia looked down at Alex’s leg. “Your leg. Did it heal?”
“I hopped a lot of it. And you helped.” Alex laughed. Olivia bent down and pulled up her trouser-leg. The wound was virtually irreparable. It was swollen and the bone was sticking right out. She noticed a trail of blood on the floor.
“We need to get you to a medic, now.”
***
“Kate,” said the Doctor, now standing on the bottom floor of the UNIT base among all the tables’ full of experiments. They’d cleared the room to use for urgent investigations into the Cybernetics Olivia had been given. “If I didn’t fly the TARDIS, and you didn’t, someone else must be in control. And the TARDIS isn’t even usable. That takes colossal amounts of power.”
Olivia walked up supporting Alex. “We need to get her to a medic,” she demanded.
Alex took a moment to adjust. She stared up at the piercing yellow light of the top floor, and back down again. She looked around and suddenly realised what she’d missed. What they’d all missed.
“Oh, God…”
“What is it?” asked the Doctor.
“We’ve been so thick.” She got out of Olivia’s grip, and limped over to the table in the centre. “There’s no such thing as coincidence in the real world.” She balanced herself so that her leg was in the minimum discomfort, and then addressed the Doctor – maybe for the first time – directly. “You happened to go to Shanghai,” she said. “Out of the entire universe, it happened to be there. So did Olivia. You happened to drop your key from the balcony and your nemesis happened to find it. You happened to meet Olivia and she happened to prove herself to you.” The Doctor was still confused. “Then UNIT happened to build a base here. I happened to join it. You happened to fall through a mysterious crack in the vortex at that exact time to lead you to here. Then there have been clues all over the place.” She picked up a newspaper article and held it up. “Kate happened to find this in her drawer, and that changed the whole of the St Fagan’s investigation.”
“And there was Moscow,” added Olivia. “Time just changed for no reason. We never found out what caused it.”
“Exactly. So much has just happened and it’s like it’s all connected: me being your friend, you being the Doctor’s friend, me unknowingly helping the Cybermen, the TARDIS, unable to fly, flying itself! Do you see what I’m getting at here?” They all exchanged a perturbed glance. “Because while all this was happening, while Olivia happened to see her Dad… we all ignored that fact that the Doctor was being haunted by his mother’s ghost.”
“Security alert! Security alert!” The automatic voice response activated and red lights flashed everywhere. The corridor suddenly exploded; a huge ball of fire throwing shrapnel in all directions. Everyone ducked. Spluttering, wiping their eyes of the smoke, they looked up and saw the figure of an elegant young woman.
“Ruby?!” cried Alex.
Ruby Rose advanced. “Alex? Olivia? Phil? What the hell are you doing here?”
“Isn’t anyone going to ask about me?” They all turned around and behind them, by the fire exit, stood Doctor Zau; his sadistic smile and unbalanced posture confirming that.
“Take him!” shouted Kate. Several UNIT guards advanced on him and he put his hands willingly into the handcuffs.
The biggest surprise came next. The TARDIS doors swung open, but this time someone new stepped out. She wore long red robes and had beautiful grey hair that framed her experienced, yet loving façade.
“Do you believe me now?” asked the Doctor. “This… is my mother.”
Alex was more intrigued by Ruby. How could she be here? Why would it interest her? Alex walked up to her threateningly, almost pinning her to the wall.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“The same reason as you!” she laughed. “The same reason as all of you!” She looked at Alex’s confused expression and realised that she honestly didn’t have a clue. “This is it.” Alex released her grip. “You’re all here for the End of Days. It’s taken me years to find this location, but I’ve managed it. I want to be the first.”
“The first of what?”
“The first to be judged?”
“Judged?”
“This is it. This is Judgement Day. This is the Gate to Elysium.”
The Dentistry of Death was my second Cyberman story, an immediate successor to Reawakening of the Cybermen, and played with ideas of the dentist's - a place of horror for many children - many of which came from my own imagination while I was there (though admittedly, I've always weirdly enjoyed the experience). It's here that the series starts to come together for the finale and beyond, but it's also a unique episode in its own right, exploring the many superpowers of the Cybermen. At the time of writing this, Nightmare in Silver had recently aired, and the prospect of the new Cybermen determined where I went with them. Some of what we've seen from the Cybermen over their last couple of stories - upgrading the dead, flying - are powers which they gained in Death in Heaven, so it's easy enough to stand by my approach.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, Dentistry rather fails to come together as a whole. Whilst the ending is still one of the best cliff-hangers I've ever thought up, I misjudged the kind of story I was writing. The Dentistry of Death would have made an aesthetically-stunning TV episode, but as a prose it's another beast, and being so reliant on the visual spectacle meant that the description had to be top-notch. It wasn't. When I look back on 2013 at this stage, I see the best ideas I ever came up with, trapped within some of my weakest writing. Wonderful, unexpected revelations and emotional beats are buried away in the haphazard mix of ideas (you've got to keep a close eye for them because you can even miss them altogether), and the most tantalising planet ever ends up seeming a bit phoned-in. Perhaps told in 2015, I could have done something a little more special with Dentistry, but here it's a collection of my best ideas making up the weakest episode of the series.
The Dentistry of Death
Sanjay sat by Luke in silence. He’d come to support him. Of course, he didn’t know how. But it felt cruel to leave one’s greatest friend alone when they were at their weakest. So Sanjay simply sat by him. All day, all night. Sometimes he’d pull out a book – at the moment, it was John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men – to read to him. He’d probably read it – hadn’t everyone? But Sanjay always loved it. He used to ponder over all the notions of reaching the dream that the protagonists never made. Sanjay was a determined character – never ruthless with his ambition but never cynical either. He maintained, when he’d first read it, that he would have reached the American Dream, because he had the guts to do so.
A young woman approached the bed. It took her a while because she was on crutches. She had a kind, sympathetic smile – but it seemed like she wasn’t used to it. She found a chair and sat down.
“You must be Sanjay,” she said politely.
“Yes. Has he told you-“
“He told me.” She held out her hand. “I’m Alex.”
Sanjay shook it.
“I was also injured that day,” she explained. “I was out for a day and I’d broken my leg-“ she gestured to her crutches –“hence these things. I guess now I had it easy. How is he?”
“He’s recovering,” said the nurse. She was Caribbean-born: she was gravely concerned, but still somewhat cheery. Her voice brought a quality of rare happiness to the room. She was perfect for her job. “He is in a critical position, but he is stable. I’m sure he will be well.” She smiled uncertainly at Sanjay.
“Sanjay – sorry, could you give us two a moment?” asked Alex. Sanjay reluctantly left the room. The nurse took Sanjay’s seat.
“You didn’t sound sure,” said Alex. “Now you can tell me the truth. I don’t get involved like the others do, so I can know.” This was, of course, a lie. Alex, though secretively, got emotionally involved in most of her cases and colleges. But she needed to know the truth about Luke’s situation.
The nurse sighed wearily. “It might well improve,” she clarified, “so I didn’t want to say anything to upset him.”
“And what’s the bad news?”
“He has a 70% chance of survival. But there is a possibility…” she paused. “There is a possibility that his coma will continue and that he will never wake up. That was a serious injury – it’s rare that people have been shot like that and survived. You have to prepare that there is a vague chance that you may lose your friend.”
“You should tell Sanjay.”
“I don’t want to w-“
“It doesn’t matter what you want,” interjected Alex, “it matters what your job is. Don’t fuel him on false hope. That’s the one well-intentioned mistake every doctor or nurse makes in their life. I know a certain Doctor who does it all the time.”
Alex got up and left. Sanjay re-entered the room and sat by Luke’s bedside. He picked up the book, but before he could continue reading, he was interrupted by the nurse.
“Mr Sanjay,” she said funereally, “there is something you need to know…”
***
Jack’s mouth felt sore and dry. It had been continuously poked and prodded for the last ten minutes by a ridiculously heavy-handed orthodontist who, with her insipid visage, looked something like Frankenstein’s creation.
“We need to x-ray your teeth.” She smiled. Her teeth were that surreal sort of white that you only see on dentist brochures. “If I could lead you through…”
She helped him off the dentist’s chair and took him into a small, clinically white room. She gestured softly to a bulky piece of machinery in the centre. It consisted of a large pole, stretching up to the ceiling. Attached to the pole was an arm which pushed out and supported a sort of clamp which spread three quarters of the way around leaving a short space for his head to go. As instructed, he stepped inside. The orthodontist then told him to rest his teeth over a bite, and to bite down gently, which he did.
“I’m going to step just outside,” she said calmly. “The door will be open the whole time. You’ll be able to see me through the reflection.
Jack wasn’t nervous. He vaguely recalled having a tooth x-ray before when he was younger, so the experience was loosely familiar.
As the orthodontist left the room, he stood waiting patiently. The side of the machine started gradually revolving around his head, and he watched the woman smiling at him in the reflection.
Suddenly, her smile vanished. It was replaced by a callous, emotionless, knowing glare. Before he had a chance to react, the door slammed shut, and the machine started humming deafeningly. Panicking, he tried to break free, but the clips which secured his head in place tightened and squeezed his skull agonisingly. The humming was accompanied by a mechanical grinding which made the whole room vibrate. He was terrified.
Then, as he continued to wrestle with the apparatus, the side stretched further along and closed in on him, until the whole machine surrounded his body. The last thing he felt was a tingling sensation in his mind, and a deep message, reaching out to his consciousness:
Please relax. Your upgrade is in progress.
***
“Liam!” protested Lynda. “For God’s sake Liam, just get out the car!”
“I don’t like the dentist’s though…” the child whined.
“I tell you what…” Lynda reached into her pocket and pulled out a ten-pound-note. She held it up teasingly. “If you go into the dentist’s like a good boy, I’ll let you have this… and you can spend it on whatever you like!”
The offer was too good to refuse. Liam beamed and Lynda tucked the money back in her pocket. “Good lad.”
The dentist’s surgery wasn’t scary. Even Liam realised that. It was just painstakingly dull. A long queue full of tired, half-caring people stretched to the entrance. The room smelled foul. Normally, a dentist’s smelt of toothpaste and clean things. This one smelt of burning metal.
“Liam Harris,” said Lynda when she reached the front of the queue, not even looking at the woman who was serving her.
Where had Liam gone? She looked down and realised in fear that she’d let him wander. Had he gone outside? Tried to get home? She looked up, and, as she did, realised the impossible truth – even if she didn’t understand it. For the woman, serving her…
…was her mother.
Her dead mother.
Again.
***
Olivia helped Alex into the canteen and as Alex was deciding on what to have for her lunch (admittedly, the panettone was tempting, but she was trying to be healthy), Lynda entered dramatically, pushing open the double doors and stopping to catch her breath. It seemed convention, now, that all the important things went on in the cafeteria.
“It’s the Cybermen…” she spluttered. “They’re back.”
***
“So here’s the plan,” clarified Kate to her troops. “We’re going to go up behind the dentist’s. No one suspects us there. Then we can launch our attack. I'll explain more when we arrive. Await my signal. Now, come on, go! Go, go, go!”
UNIT, with their customary panache, entered their vehicles, and made a dramatic exit. Alex limped after them.
“Alex!” demanded Kate. “Where do you think you’re off to? And…” she looked to her right. “Lynda! You too! You two shouldn’t be on this investigation.”
“With respect,” responded Lynda, with more assertiveness than usual. “This has gone beyond a joke now. First, they take my mother’s dead body. Now, they’ve got my son. I could have stayed and saved him but I ran. I’m not letting them keep him. Is that understood?”
Kate was won over. Why bother? “Loud and clear.”
“And as for me…” began Alex, “I’ve got to look after Lynda!”
“Alex!” grumbled Kate. “You’ve got a broken leg.”
“I’ve got crutches, and my mind is still intact.” They started walking. “Now, Lynda, which vehicle shall we take? I’d say…”
As they drifted away, Kate sighed to herself. “What’s the point?” she muttered. “Danger? Definitely. In which case, why miss it?” She headed towards her officers. She fancied being at the scene of the crime for once.
***
“Open wide…”
Suzie flexed her jaw as much as she could manage, and the dentist stuck his fingers inside her mouth.
Suzie – being unconfident as she was – looked up for her mother. But where was she? She had vanished, in seconds – without a sound.
“Mum” she managed through the dentist pressing her jaw open. “Mmm!”
She tried to move her chin, to even bite down, but his grip was so secure that she was trapped.
“Hush now…” whispered the dentist. “Open wide again for me…”
This time he was holding a long, shiny pipe. It was like those which were used to polish her teeth, but it was different. It was hissing angrily and sparks of electricity bounced down it both sides as if racing to the bottom.
“Wh’s h’pp’nng” she muttered - for his hold was tighter than ever and she could barely make any noise at all.
“Don’t worry,” he said, reassuringly. “You’ve been entitled to an upgrade.”
***
“Alert!” shouted the check-in woman. “We have detected armed intruders!” Hearing an ordinary middle-aged woman speak like an insensitive robot is an experience which sticks in one’s mind. And, indeed, as the lights dimmed and strange electronic noises reverberated through the waiting room, all of those who were waiting for their appointment suddenly became bizarrely aware of their situation. They all tried to leave, but the doors had been locked.
“Please!” cried one woman. “Let me out!”
“What do think you’re playing at?” challenged a very violent-looking man.
“Mummy?“ enquired a deserted little girl.
The whole room was now a circus full of rattled, bewildered and incensed people. The perfect opportunity to sneak in unnoticed, as the check-in woman calculated.
“Silence!” she screamed. “You will be silent!” The uproar quietened in order to see what she had to say. “Seal off the back room. Make it look like we were not anticipating them. Form a trap.”
“And what happens to us, then?” asked a young man.
“You will be taken for upgrading,” said the woman soullessly. “Unit four, please prepare the humans for upgrading.”
“Understood,” replied Unit Four – an old man, with a kind but colourless face that gave the impression to have been drained of life. “You will follow.” He signalled to the door of another surgery.
***
“We’re in!”
The back door had been smashed open, and the UNIT troops guarded all entrances and exits. They were yet to open the inner door. Presently, they were stood inside a smaller surgery: two dentist beds, some space for people to sit and wait, and an office attached at the side. The room was preposterously humid.
Alex, entered, hobbling in tiredly, followed by Lynda, Phillip and Olivia.
“Everyone’s left home,” commented Olivia.
“They could’ve been upgraded,” suggested Phillip. Alex shot him an unimpressed look, and he realised that Lynda was still in the room. “But-“ he corrected himself, “-maybe not.”
“Hang on…” murmured Lynda. What’s this?” She pointed to a square metal panel on the chair. Somehow, she’d noticed something was up, and pulled the cushion off. And, underneath where the cushion was, there it sat: fixed into the mechanics of the chair, like a sort of remote control. It emitted a blue light which in some way acknowledged their presence.
All of a sudden, it started firing at them. Blue energy bolts ricocheted around them; bouncing off the walls and smashing through windows. Phillip instinctively pulled out his gun and shot at the device. As he did this, the firing stopped, but the world started to…
…fade.
The walls became transparent, and the four people began dizzying. Up became down, down became up, left became right, right became left, left became down…
They woke up; fragments of glass shattered on the floor around them. But the floor wasn’t the impeccable ground of a dentist’s anymore: it was grass and roots and dirt and… dew.
Alex fumbled around for her crutches and found one by her foot. She used this to help her up.
“Is everyone okay?”
“Where are we?” asked Olivia.
Alex looked at the horizon. There was a city. A magnificent, glistening city, made up of soaring, shining blue-glass buildings. They were sleek and tall like the Shard, and they went on for miles. Where they were was possibly the outskirts: a last area of nature before the city of silver.
The sky was pitch black and millions of stars illuminated the heavens magically. One couldn’t deny that it was a beautiful sight. But was there a way out?
“Unauthorized life-forms!” came a familiar mechanical voice from behind them. They turned around swiftly to see a Cyberman before them: a tall, slender creature, with limbs poking out through a tight silvery suit. Its eyes were sunken into its head like someone had pressed them in.
“You are compatible stock. You will be upgraded!”
The ground gave way.
It was only a short fall, and most of them recovered – other than Alex. With her broken leg, she could hardly move. She was in agony.
“Alex!” whispered Olivia. “Alex, are you alright there?”
It was pitch black so no one could see another person. The floor was hard and grimy and the walls were timeworn, mossy stone. Alex would have replied, but the pain was so bad that opening her mouth would have resulted in her crying out like a howling dog.
Someone lit a match. Olivia could now just about make out Alex’s body on the floor. Carefully, she helped her up, and supported her to stand like the rest of them.
The rest of them were made up of seven other individuals. The first three were Olivia, Lynda and Phillip: all apparently unharmed, if a little sooty. The other four figures were each distinguishably unique in both stature and presence, but they all had one thing in common: they all diverged, in one way or other, from the norm.
The first was an elegantly beguiling young woman. She must have been in her late twenties or early thirties: she was beyond that age where echoes of one’s youth make one ‘sweet’, but on the contrary, not affected by any signs of age – arguably, a perfect time in one’s life. She wore a long, smooth and rather glittery black dress. This was accompanied by a bulky metal belt, in which she evidently stored things: a torch, a tattered old book and a metal box were all that could be made out in the flickering candlelight. Her hair was a ruby colour and her features were enticing. She smiled – and when she did, despite her cordiality, you wanted to check your pockets. Because for all she looked like a friend, she looked deceitful too. She would rob you, perchance, without even a thought. And she’d never ever confess to doing it.
The next was a slim man with black hair in a black suit – he would have been normal, had he not had the arm of a bear. The suit jacket broke off at one shoulder, making way for a colossal, brown, furry arm. Although it looked strange, Alex figured that it was probably a strategic advantage when battling the Cybermen. His face was cold and emotionless – not evil as such; simply unfeeling.
Along from him slightly was a slightly shorter, chubbier man with a blue, merry face. He was bald and wore basic military combat armour (camouflaged clothing, backpack, etc.). The woman next to him – the final member of the group – was much the same; blue, this time with long, red hair – but still in the same military attire, and still quite happy.
“The Cybermen will be aware of our position now,” said the bear-armed man dispassionately, “we ought to move along.”
“Will your friend be alright to walk?” the blue woman asked Olivia.
“I’ll be fine,” replied Alex. “Olivia can support me.”
“In which case,” said bear-armed man, “let’s go now.”
They started down the passageway, the bear-armed man taking the lead, and the others following behind. The ruby-haired woman guarded the back way and everyone made sure that Alex was well-supported. When they came to a dead end, they paused. The bear-armed man started scratching at the wall with his bear arm, until the rocks started to come off. Once he’d made a small opening, they all squeezed through. As soon as everyone had arrived on the other side, he piled the rocks – and some others – back up, lest the Cybermen broke through or suspected them.
The ruby-haired woman pulled a small white capsule out of her belt, and threw it at the wall. It smashed and then released an unexpected burst of light. The whole room lit up, until they might have been in daylight.
The ‘room’ was a cavern. It must have been about twenty feet high, and all of that was rock. It was a vast, circular cave, and despite its appearance, smelt of metal. Lose rocks on the ground meant potential areas to sit down or place objects. This could be a permanent destination.
“So…” began the ruby-haired woman. She had a soothing, albeit seductive tone of voice. “Introductions.”
“I’m Olivia – Olivia Quinn. This is-“
“Alex,” interrupted Alex. “Alex Paige.”
“Phil Pitman.”
“Lynda…” Lynda looked around timidly. This was all still new to her. “Lynda Harris.”
“My name is Ruby Rose,” purred the ruby-haired woman, perching on a rock. Her name seemed strangely appropriate.
“I’m Torria Hack,” said the blue man merrily, before signalling to the blue woman. “This is my wife, Torria Dee.” Torria Dee smiled. “Oh, and that over there…” he pointed to the bear-armed man who was standing in the corner of the room. “That’s North. So, tell me. How did you lot end up here?”
“We came from Earth,” said Olivia.
“Earth?” The man chuckled. “You’ve come quite a way then.”
“How far?”
“Ooh… I’d say at least seven million light-years.” He waited for Olivia to say something but, like her colleges, she remained speechless. “You do have a way of getting home… don’t you?”
“No…” murmured Olivia uncertainly.
“You’re not going to get back to Earth now!” he laughed. It was a well-meaning laugh. The man wasn’t aware of the situation.
“We’ll deal with that later,” said Alex, “because right now we don’t even have a plan. What are all you doing here, anyway?”
“I’m a missionary,” explained Ruby. “I’m a time-traveller. I’m from the year 6171.”
“A missionary?” Alex enquired.
“I’m from the Order of Saint Ava.”
“Who was Saint Ava?”
“She was a martyr. She died bringing down a whole planet with her. She managed to finish off six Cybermen.”
“Hang on… since when was bringing down a planet a good thing?”
“In our faith,” she explained, “we believe that the Cybermen came from the devil himself, that their quest for enlightenment was misguided and an affront to natural order. And we believe that the End of Days is approaching. That the Gates of Elysium will open again. And when they do, when the Creator judges the living and the dead, those who have contributed to the destruction of even one Cybermen will be guaranteed a path to Elysium.”
“So what’s your plan here, then?” asked Olivia. The state of affairs suddenly seemed incredibly momentous. “If this Ava woman got her own band of followers for killing six Cybermen, what are you planning?”
“I’ve been sent by the missionaries because I’m their best nun,” she said proudly. “I am armed with a weapon which will detonate the entire planet. I’m going to destroy the centre of the Cyber-empire – even if I have to take myself with it.”
“What about you?” Alex asked Torria Dee, in an awkward effort to change the subject. “Why are you here?”
“My wife and I come from the Üskov Belt” explained Torria Hack, “and at moment there is next to no technology. We’re here to salvage Cyber-technology to use for our own good.”
“We’re planning to use it for medical care mostly,” added Torria Dee. They were such a happy couple. A pleasure to be around. They really did brighten up a room.
“And as for North,” said Torria Hack, “he got thrown into the heart of the planet when a freak rift in time opened. He doesn’t really speak so we don’t know much about him.” He lowered his voice. “We think he might have had family. He’s an android, you know – adapted Cyber-technology as life-support. He’s our strength.”
Throughout the duration of the conversation, it had occurred to Lynda that Ruby had conducted herself, perhaps… resentfully? She realised now that, if these other misfits had been assimilating the Cyber-technology, they may, according to Ruby’s philosophy, be doomed to eternal torment in the afterlife.
And as for Alex – she was still in agony from her leg, but also suffering mental pain: for she realised, alarmingly, that it was guaranteed that there would be at least one person who didn’t make it off this planet alive.
***
“Are you alright?” Alex asked Lynda once everyone had settled down.
“Yeah…” she replied. Alex looked meaningfully at her. She shook her head. “No. No I’m not…”
“There is a chance…” said Alex, wary of giving her false hope – something which Alex had always detested. “That your son might still be alive.”
“Why? Why say that?” She was crying now. That was understandable. “I know what they’ve done. They’ve turned him into one of them.”
“Not necessarily – he’s been staying with you in UNIT, remember? They saw you, so they made the connection. They might keep him alive to extract information from him, or, perhaps the more desirable option would be that they’d keep him alive to get information from us.”
“You mean… use him as a bargaining chip?”
“Exactly.” Alex backtracked. “But we can’t ever be completely sure.” She changed the topic. “Did you grow up in Farnham, then?”
“Yeah. It’s a nice place. Sort of twee.”
“I grew up there too,” Alex recalled. “Me, Mum, Dad… and my brother.”
“You have a brother?” Lynda sounded surprised.
Alex looked down to the floor desolately. “That’s how Olivia and I met… our brothers were involved in things.”
“If you don’t mind me asking…” began Lynda, sensing the delicateness of the matter. “What sort of ‘things’ do you mean?”
“Crime… shoplifting… drugs.” Alex shook her head sombrely. “It was the drugs that finished them off.”
“You mean-“
“Both of them. Silly idiots they were… never even gave a toss about what they were leaving behind.”
“I’m sorry.” Although Lynda’s current situation was infinitely worse, she had a lot of sympathy for Alex.
“We’d play in the fields…” continued Alex, trailing off into a time when everything was better. “Every night. Until sunset. And the moment the sun set – it was…”
“Beautiful.” Lynda finished the sentence for her. “Beautiful like the world was starting over again.”
Alex watched her thoughtfully. “I’ve never known anyone who managed to see the world like that.”
“Same sort of memories, I suppose,” suggested Lynda.
“Yeah. Something like that…”
***
“So… where do you fit into all of this?” Phil asked North. North had stayed quiet and stood in the corner of the room as the group conversed. Phil thought it polite to give him so attention.
“I’m just the defence,” he answered in his monotone voice. “I am of no importance to the mission other than to ensure the safety of the other participants.”
“Have you got anyone waiting for you…” Phil looked at him, for the first time, directly, “at home?”
“I have a wife.”
Phil smiled admiringly. “A wife?”
“Clariana.” He sighed. “I doubt I’ll ever see her again.”
Phil tried to be optimistic. “You never know… you might.”
“And she sees me like this?” North raised his voice, just by a slight, unnoticeable tone. “With a bear’s arm and wires coming out my back? I’ve always been an android, but I was a highly advanced one. And she didn’t know. Now look at me. A freak show.”
***
“They’ve gone. They’ve just gone.”
Kate was lost. She had no higher authority to contact within their branch of UNIT, and no other branch would have a clue how to tackle this. She felt, for the first time in her life, truly alone. Guilty. Useless. There was only one thing she could attempt now. If the Doctor was lost deep in the TARDIS, musing on his own like a madman…
Dad, she thought to herself. Should I really try it?
She knew the answer. Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart would always have tried it. Always.
***
A constant beeping pierced Sanjay’s ears. A high-pitched, looming beeping. The nurse rushed over to his bed and looked at his readings, horror-struck.
“Mr Sanjay,” she urged, “you need to leave now!”
Sanjay covered his mouth. It all suddenly seemed so real. He got up, took a step back from the bed, and backed into the wall. He stood there lamenting for ten whole minutes as the nurse – and several others – relentlessly tried to fix Luke’s broken body.
Sanjay knew there would be no way out of this. Nothing on Earth could possibly bring him back now.
***
“I’ve just heard news…” Ruby twitched anxiously, unable to look Torria Hack and Torria Dee in the eye. “The whole of the Saràja System has been obliterated. By the Cybermen. I’m so sorry…”
The Saràja System, in the Üskov Belt, was home to sixteen planets, which followed an intricate orbit pattern around three suns. This meant that a year consisted of nine different seasons, each varying in climate. One of these planets was Sunjura Sabbath – home to the Torria family. Torria Dee and Torra Hack were devastated. Not only had their work on this planet been for nothing, but their whole family – their seventy year-old son, their brothers and sisters, their great-grandchildren – had been slaughtered. They cried over each other’s shoulders, seeking comfort from the only other person they knew of from their destroyed planet.
“That’s not the end of their plan, either…” continued Ruby. “They’re going to do the same to a thousand other systems. All planets that potentially pose a risk will be destroyed, along with their neighbours. The Cybermen are planning full conversion for the entire universe, and imminently. First they’re moving to Earth. Specifically, this place called Farnham.”
“Farnham?” gasped Alex and Lynda in unison.
“Yes,” confirmed Ruby. “And that’s the place where they’ve got their intelligence from. One specific source – a child, based on the report I was given – seems to have informed them of planet Earth’s basic facts.”
“That’ll be Liam!” Lynda exhaled. “Is he alright? Have they touched him?”
“I’ve heard nothing about a murder,” said Ruby. “We can guess that he’s here somewhere. But, moving along… we need to start the final plan.” Ruby pulled out a folded up parchment from her belt and opened it to make an A3 sheet.
The sheet was a diagram of the whole of the city: each building, each floor, labelled carefully with important details.
“What planet are we on, anyway?” asked Olivia. “You never said.”
“We call it the Cyberiad. It’s not literally the Cyberiad…” she expanded on her explanation, realising that the others were lost. “The Cyberiad is like the shared consciousness of the Cybermen. And this is the hub, if you like. Destroy this place and you destroy the Cyberiad.” She pulled out and unfolded another parchment. This one showed a cube, with other shapes poking out of it – primarily cylinders; but some cylinders were stems for other cubes or spheres.
“This is the planet,” Ruby clarified. “You understand the concept of robotic growth?” Alex, Olivia, Lynda and Phil nodded; remembering the Doctor’s explanation of the tombs in Farnham. “Well,” she continued, “this planet was built with the capacity to grow. It started off as a cube – created physically by the Cybermen – and grew. That’s how the tunnels are formed. The planet itself is a robot. And we can destroy it.” Ruby pointed to the tallest building on the diagram. It looked like a giant version of the Shard and was situated in the middle of the city. “That’s Cyber-centre if you like,” explained Ruby. “That’s where it all takes place. It’s heavily guarded, but we can get in from underneath. From there we can deactivate the planet’s robotic functions. Within minutes it will collapse in on itself; if we’ve disabled the basic settings, it will begin to grown inward, until everything just implodes.”
“And do you have a way out?” queried Phil. Even the subservient soldier didn’t terribly fancy the idea of a suicide mission.
“No,” replied Ruby simply. “There’s a chance that another missionary will locate me, but that’s not definite.”
“You mean we’re all going to die here?” yelled Lynda indignantly. “What about my son? He’s just a kid, for crying out loud!”
“I’m afraid it’s one child or the whole universe,” was Ruby’s emotionless reply.
“Don’t you have a heart?!” cried Lynda.
“Yes,” said Ruby. “I do have a heart. But I don’t generally experience sentiment.” She changed the subject. “If I calculate correctly, we’re underneath the central building right now. This tunnel shifted overnight and this is exactly where we need to be. We’ve got to burrow upwards in exactly the right place to reach the elevator shaft. If we get into there, the alarms won’t be sounded. We can take a lift by hanging from the bottom of the elevator. This means that at some point, we’ll reach the penultimate floor. That’s one floor worth of Cybermen to get through before reaching the top. Do you think we can manage that?”
“I can hold them up,” volunteered North.
“Well then… let’s get started.”
Torria Dee took her head off of her husband’s shoulder and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Let’s finish this.”
***
“We’re up.” North took a step back allowing the team to see the hole he’d made. They could now climb directly up into the elevator shaft – he’d even made grips for their feet. “If one of us stops off on the middle floor, it will raise the alarms. All Cyber-units will be directed for there. This could leave the second-to-last and finally the top floor to ourselves – or almost. However, I calculate that whoever remains on the middle floor will have little chance of survival.”
Glances were thrown in all directions. Minds worked away, deducing who should stay and who should go. Ultimately, one person was going to be put in a position which they didn’t want to be in.
“I’m not letting any of my team go,” demanded Alex. “Olivia is too young. Lynda needs to find her son. Phil… let’s just say he’s on compensation.”
“I’ll do it,” protested Phil, “if it-“
“No,” interjected Alex, “and that’s final. We need you. You’ll be going back with us… if we can find a way back. We need our whole team alive.”
“We need North,” suggested Ruby. “He can help us defend ourselves as we hack into the systems.”
“I’m not letting her go, though,” butted in Torria Hack, holding his wife protectively.
“And I’m not letting him,” said Torria Dee. “He’s all I have left.”
“Fine,” sighed Ruby. “Who does that leave?”
Alex looked over coldly. “You.”
Ruby stepped back. “You can’t be-“ she stammered.
“I can. Listen up here, glamour girl.” Alex confronted her. “If you want to get to Elysium, you die a martyr. You die saving the people who are carrying out your wishes. Understood?”
Alex stepped back, and Olivia took her aside to speak to her.
“Why were you so harsh?” asked Olivia, sotto voce.
“Because she’s determined. She’s clever. She’s not going to let herself go until she knows this planet is going up. We don’t have the knowledge or skill to do it, and to be honest…” Alex glanced around. “I don’t think the others have anything worth living for.”
Olivia nodded.
***
Everyone watched silently as Ruby secured herself to the bottom of the elevator. It was metal, but luckily Ruby had special clamps which allowed her to grip on. She looked down nervously. She knew what she was doing was right, but was completely terrified. Olivia wondered whether she was really capable of blowing up a planet if it meant killing herself in the process.
The elevator moved up without even the slightest noise; a testament to Cyber-engineering. Ruby stepped off on the fifth floor, onto the ledge next to the elevator doors. She pulled out a cylindrical device that looked uncannily like a sonic screwdriver, apart from that it was much shorter. She flashed a light over the door and it slid open. No more was seen of her after that.
“Alert! Security breech in sector forty! Locate! Locate!”
The Cyber-leader glided up the stairwell at maximum speed; a sight that would look like a grey blur to the vision of any other creature. Everything was normal on the next floor up. Computers showed their standard readings, the windows were intact (and presenting a beautiful sight which could sadly not be appreciated by any of the cyborgs living on this planet), and no disturbances could be detected. The floor needed a polish, but dust was the least of the Cybermen’s worries.
“Hello there, dear.”
The Cyberman turned around, almost surprised – if he were capable of such an emotion. But if a Cyberman ever displayed bewilderment, it was this Cyberman, at this exact moment.
“Identify yourself!”
Ruby emerged from behind a cabinet.
“Sorry,” she purred. “I couldn’t resist a game of hide-and-seek.”
“Unaltered life-form detected. Upgrade.” The cyborg threw her against the wall viciously and wrapped its hand around her neck. “Do not panic. Your upgrade is in progress. Please remain calm.”
Ruby remembered what she’d read in the book. She took a deep breath, and then stopped breathing altogether. She held her jaw tightly shut, put her tongue over her throat, closed her eyes and thought of the happiest thought she could. She imagined Elysium: shining in its glory, palace upon palace, bathed in a heavenly light. She imagined herself gliding along as a celestial entity, with her friends, her family, her sisters, and everything else she could ask for.
She felt around in her belt for her pulser, and as the Cyberman tried to fathom why it couldn’t upgrade her, she pulled it out and smashed the cyborg’s face with it. It fell back and then returned to its upright position. “Intruder armed,” it bellowed. “Assistance needed.” Two other Cybermen materialised next to it.
“Hello…” she coughed nervously. “Hello boys.”
***
“Witness room!” cried Lynda, pointing to a sign on the door on the (currently empty) penultimate floor. “What could that mean? Is Liam in there?”
“He…” Alex looked around for some help. “I suppose he could be.”
Lynda burst into the room without asking and, when she was out of eyeshot, Torria Dee and Torria Hack looked warily at the others. “We’ll look after her,” said Torria Dee. “Now go on, you too! Get going!” As Olivia started up the stairs, Torria Hack called back. “Wait a moment.” He pulled off his backpack and handed it over to her. It felt heavy, but it was manageable. “With our home-world gone… we have no use of these anymore. But it could help your people. Take them.” Olivia nodded politely to him.
“Thank you,” she mouthed. She felt evil leaving them.
***
The room was like the inside of a sphere. At the top of the staircase, the gravity was apparent on all sides, like a sort of centrifugal force. It would have been like sitting inside a football, except that it you walked around the sides, you’d simply go up them. This was a disorientating feeling, because it meant that when you looked up, you were effectively hanging down. The whole concept reminded Phil of an Arthur C. Clarke novel he’d read as a child.
The floor/wall/ceiling of the sphere was a metallic silver (that could perhaps be described as ‘tin-foil-y’), covered only by monitors, dozens among dozens. Screens were fixed into the walls, so nothing stuck out of this perfect sphere. The screens were touch-screen, and for a moment the team thought they were flummoxed as a Cyberman’s hand-texture was different to that of a human.
The room was huge. The distorted gravity didn’t give it a cramped effect (the people standing ‘upside-down’ weren’t bashing heads with those standing on the opposite wall), because of the sheer size. The room could have easily been a kilometre in all dimensions, although they found it hard to judge; the contorted gravity left all the senses bewildered. They also wondered how they hadn’t seen this enormous ball from outside.
“Sssh!” hissed Alex. Everyone had been muttering in astonishment.
“What is it?” murmured Olivia.
“Can you hear something?”
Alex was right. From above them, an electric humming and scraping could be made out above the metal of the ceiling.
“What is that?”
A latch clicked open at the top, exposing the sphere to the night. Then something started descending into the opening.
“Oh, God…” Alex put her hand over her mouth.
“What is it?” asked North.
“It’s the Hitchhiker.”
It was an intricate, wide metal box. It had pipes and wires sprouting off in different directions; some connected, others dangling loosely but obviously not without purpose. Other metal cubes bounced up and down or rotated on its surface. There was a head-shape in the centre, blackened out by shadow, but with visible ‘handlebars’ like those on the Cybermen’s heads.
“That’s not the Hitchhiker!” Olivia looked at it, and then back at Alex. “That’s a thing!”
“That’s the Hitchhiker,” confirmed Alex. “Remember last time he got upgraded to…” she winced and rubbed her head. “Cyber… planner…”
“So that’s what it looks like? What does it do?”
“It decides… everything.” Alex collapsed to the floor and lay rubbing her head in pain.
“What have you done to her?!” cried Olivia.
“The template of Cyber-planner has reawakened old memories,” said the Cyber-planner. It spoke emotionlessly, but with a much lower, more intimidating pitch.
“What memories? What are you talking about?”
“The child gave us information. The child of Farnham.” Olivia realised their tactical error. “She told us what we needed to know.”
“So Alex was your child? Not Liam? All those years ago? It was her?”
“There was… a cave.” Alex tried to stand up but fell back down. “I found it. They were there. All empty suits… I whispered to them. Told them stories.”
“Alex was the neglected child,” snarled the Cyber-planner. “Pushed aside because her kin needed more guidance. She became our source of information. When her role was over, we wiped her memory.”
“So you’ve been in Farnham a long time, then?” asked Phil. “And you obviously weren’t sleeping.”
“The suits were unresponsive but recorded the data and transmitted it back to the Cyber-planner! Information about Earth culture led us to understand how emotion can affect the brain. This became a tactical advantage.”
“Well, bad news,” shouted Phillip, “guess who has the tactical advantage now, eh? Us. We are not doing what you say. We are going to finish this!”
He raced along the wall of the sphere, and the others followed. North stayed at the back, ready for combat. The Cyber-planner fired a bolt of blue electricity from one of the pipes, which North dodged. North ripped open his shirt to reveal a metal plate, covered in buttons and wires that challenged to complexity of even the Cyber-planner’s. He flicked a switch and an identical bolt fired out of a chest-plate in the centre.
“Big mistake!” he yelled, as sparks flew off the Cyber-planner, “Letting me gain access to your technology! A fully-functioning android aided by Cyber-resources!”
As North continued to strike, the others worked on the wall panel at the end, searching for the right control.
“I’ve found it!” exclaimed Alex. They all raced over to her. “It’s got the option to deactivate the planetary settings. Shall we do it?”
“I’ve found a teleport!” exclaimed Phil. “Shall we use it?”
“Does it come loose – the screen, I mean?” Olivia asked Alex.
Alex pulled a lever at the side and the monitor fell into her hands like an iPad. “I think the answer’s yes. We can teleport with it.”
“What about Lynda?” asked Olivia. “Torria Dee? Torria Hack? How will they know?”
“North will guide them over,” whispered Alex. “I don’t think he has any plans on leaving this place.”
“OK,” agreed Olivia. “We’ll take the device, teleport to wherever this takes us, and then we’ll make our decision. Deal?”
“Deal,” decided Alex.
“Deal,” agreed Phil.
They all put their hands together and activated the teleport, preparing to land anywhere in time and space.
***
They emerged on their fronts, buried in soil. It wasn’t unlike their original arrival on the planet. And, as they looked up, they could see the city, still glistening magically. It would seem a crime to destroy it, even if the inhabitants weren’t quite so welcoming.
“If we do this,” said Olivia, “we’ll die.” She clutched the tablet close to her.
“Would you do it… if it came down to it?” asked Alex.
“Yes. Would you?”
“The Doctor’s taught you well,” remarked Alex. “The Olivia Quinn I used to know wouldn’t have thought about doing it.”
“The Doctor hasn’t taught me,” corrected Olivia. “I watched the Doctor show me how wonderful he was and I decided I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life standing on the side-lines. You see Ruby back there? She was willing to do it if it meant getting to Elysium.
“Ruby was self-centred. Yes, she was God-fearing. Aren’t we all? But she only did it so that she could end up somewhere nicer. If we do this, we have to agree… we’re doing it for the universe.”
“Agreed.” Olivia gazed up into the distance. “But if we do this, we have to do it soon.”
She was right. High up in the sky, there was a cloud-shaped swarm of Cybermen, flying towards them at unimaginable speed.
They knew what was about to happen.
Olivia held her finger over the button. “If I do this… I wouldn’t just be committing genocide on the Cybermen, but on all life in the Saràja System too – Torria Dee and Torria Hack, two innocent people. One day they had their whole world, the next their planet and even their own lives were taken. What would that make me?”
“Efficient. It doesn’t look pretty, but it has to be done.”
The Cybermen were already getting closer and were firing more electric bolts from their chests. They were hitting down a few meters away from Alex, Olivia and Phil. Any closer, they’d start to do some damage.
“There’s one more thing,” said Olivia. “I saw him. I saw my Dad.” Alex looked up disbelievingly. “At St Fagan’s. I looked up, and he was there. Like an angel. What if he knew? Knew it was my time?”
Phil, hitherto silent, leant over, knowing what he had to do, and pressed the button himself.
The whole world shook, and the floor crumbled and cracked before them. Some Cybermen stayed heading towards them, others fell to the ground, whilst others tried to head up and leave the planet altogether.
“The universe is safe now,” said Phil. “No more Cybermen.” The other two looked up at the horizon, horror-stricken.
As the world fell apart around them, a horrible, yet somehow beautiful scraping sound came from the distance. Olivia turned around instantly and saw the TARDIS behind her.
“Quick!” she beamed. “Look!”
Without looking for an explanation, all three of them sprinted towards it, occasionally falling and swinging with the planet’s cataclysmic movements. Kate Stewart stood holding the door open, and they shot inside.
“Wait!” yelled Alex, once inside. She pointed into the distance and saw a figure running towards them – with another smaller figure alongside. “It’s Lynda!” Sure enough, it was. She lifted up her son, and carried him inside. He seemed unharmed.
The TARDIS worked on its own: Kate didn’t have to do anything; the ship just flew itself, and peacefully too. Within minutes, it had grinded to a halt, and they were back in the UNIT base.
“What happened?” asked Phillip, utterly bewildered.
“I just went inside, just to see if there was anything I could do,” explained Kate. “And I spoke to it. Just to see if it was listening. And it moved. Just like that.”
The Doctor emerged out of an archway, and looked up at her menacingly. His hair was a mess, and he still had his trench coat on.
“What did you do, Kate?” he spoke softly.
“I thought it must have been you…”
“I did nothing.”
“We’ll just leave you,” interjected Olivia. She herded the others out of the ship. The Doctor shot Phil a disdainful glare. It was as if he had been there, watching, as he tore the world apart.
***
Alex and Olivia stood in the lab room, looking out through the glass at the as-per-usual busy UNIT facility.
“I missed a call from the hospital,” murmured Olivia. “My mum’s been taken in. On her way out. All those years I could have had. I feel like some sort of criminal.”
“Don’t say that.” Alex paused, tidying her hair. “Look at me, Olivia. I’m a killer. I gave them information. Valuable information. What if what I said was what brought down the Saràja System? I couldn’t live with that.”
Olivia looked down at Alex’s leg. “Your leg. Did it heal?”
“I hopped a lot of it. And you helped.” Alex laughed. Olivia bent down and pulled up her trouser-leg. The wound was virtually irreparable. It was swollen and the bone was sticking right out. She noticed a trail of blood on the floor.
“We need to get you to a medic, now.”
***
“Kate,” said the Doctor, now standing on the bottom floor of the UNIT base among all the tables’ full of experiments. They’d cleared the room to use for urgent investigations into the Cybernetics Olivia had been given. “If I didn’t fly the TARDIS, and you didn’t, someone else must be in control. And the TARDIS isn’t even usable. That takes colossal amounts of power.”
Olivia walked up supporting Alex. “We need to get her to a medic,” she demanded.
Alex took a moment to adjust. She stared up at the piercing yellow light of the top floor, and back down again. She looked around and suddenly realised what she’d missed. What they’d all missed.
“Oh, God…”
“What is it?” asked the Doctor.
“We’ve been so thick.” She got out of Olivia’s grip, and limped over to the table in the centre. “There’s no such thing as coincidence in the real world.” She balanced herself so that her leg was in the minimum discomfort, and then addressed the Doctor – maybe for the first time – directly. “You happened to go to Shanghai,” she said. “Out of the entire universe, it happened to be there. So did Olivia. You happened to drop your key from the balcony and your nemesis happened to find it. You happened to meet Olivia and she happened to prove herself to you.” The Doctor was still confused. “Then UNIT happened to build a base here. I happened to join it. You happened to fall through a mysterious crack in the vortex at that exact time to lead you to here. Then there have been clues all over the place.” She picked up a newspaper article and held it up. “Kate happened to find this in her drawer, and that changed the whole of the St Fagan’s investigation.”
“And there was Moscow,” added Olivia. “Time just changed for no reason. We never found out what caused it.”
“Exactly. So much has just happened and it’s like it’s all connected: me being your friend, you being the Doctor’s friend, me unknowingly helping the Cybermen, the TARDIS, unable to fly, flying itself! Do you see what I’m getting at here?” They all exchanged a perturbed glance. “Because while all this was happening, while Olivia happened to see her Dad… we all ignored that fact that the Doctor was being haunted by his mother’s ghost.”
“Security alert! Security alert!” The automatic voice response activated and red lights flashed everywhere. The corridor suddenly exploded; a huge ball of fire throwing shrapnel in all directions. Everyone ducked. Spluttering, wiping their eyes of the smoke, they looked up and saw the figure of an elegant young woman.
“Ruby?!” cried Alex.
Ruby Rose advanced. “Alex? Olivia? Phil? What the hell are you doing here?”
“Isn’t anyone going to ask about me?” They all turned around and behind them, by the fire exit, stood Doctor Zau; his sadistic smile and unbalanced posture confirming that.
“Take him!” shouted Kate. Several UNIT guards advanced on him and he put his hands willingly into the handcuffs.
The biggest surprise came next. The TARDIS doors swung open, but this time someone new stepped out. She wore long red robes and had beautiful grey hair that framed her experienced, yet loving façade.
“Do you believe me now?” asked the Doctor. “This… is my mother.”
Alex was more intrigued by Ruby. How could she be here? Why would it interest her? Alex walked up to her threateningly, almost pinning her to the wall.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“The same reason as you!” she laughed. “The same reason as all of you!” She looked at Alex’s confused expression and realised that she honestly didn’t have a clue. “This is it.” Alex released her grip. “You’re all here for the End of Days. It’s taken me years to find this location, but I’ve managed it. I want to be the first.”
“The first of what?”
“The first to be judged?”
“Judged?”
“This is it. This is Judgement Day. This is the Gate to Elysium.”