NCBBDAS: Oh Flux - Village of The Cybermen
NCBBDAS: Oh Flux - Village of The Cybermen
Starring Brenda Blethyn, Linda Hamilton and Rinko Kikuchi
Part Four of Six
My Four Hundred and Seventy Fifth Blog Post!
Previously on Doctor Who
The Doctor, Sarah Connor and new friend Danieru have been combatting a cosmic force, a second Flux thing, engineered by cosmic beings' Evil Dan and his less famous partner Evil Yaz. There are way too many side characters, like the non binary fish person Jaime, Time Travelling Richard Nixon, Joseph Williamson's wife Elizabeth Tate and also, the Rani? A Secret Doctor? Davros is involved too? It's a clusterfuck let me tell you. But we're not worrying about that, because The Cybermen have stolen the TARDIS! Which technically shouldn't be working, but Flux ignored that story thread so we will too. Onwards, Aoshima!
* * *
Earth 1969
"Extraordinary." The Scientist said, examining the youth with a magnifying glass.
"What? What is it?" Jaime asked, and they were really feeling rather nervous. It was strange enough being investigated by a scientist in general, but the head of this place's scientific community... now that was something all the more impressive. And they really didn't want to disappoint him. Especially since they were a Non-Binary Amphibian Life Form in an English Village in 1969. That fact really didn't seem to go over well.
"Your skin - well, pardon the word, but it's salmon colored."
"I get that from my mother." Jaime replied.
The witticism didn't earn him any points from the stern looking scientist, who Jaime surmised from his nametag to be a "Professor Abraham Kennings."
Nice name, Jaime supposed. Nice face too, if a bit wrinkly.
"State your full name for the record," Grumbled The Professor.
"Jaime." Jaime said.
Professor Kennings raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Jaime felt like they were on the recieving end of the Spanish Inquisition and would be tortured at any moment, but they didn't say anything. Stiff upper lip.
It looked like Professor Kennings prescribed himself to that particular maxim too, because he moved on to his next interrogation point. "Birthdate?"
"2463," Jaime said without blinking, then covered their mouth in surprise.
"Apologies?" Professor Kennings asked.
Jaime thought frantically as to a lie they could come up with. Some sort of way to protect themselves. "...um, I can't really come up with an excuse, so I shan't lie." Damn. They thought. You could have come up with something... "Anyway, Yes, born in 2463." GOD! No, stop talking! But they couldn't stop talking and it all sort of spilled out. "Yes, different species to your own. I suppose I qualify as an alien life form, though quite frankly speaking, to me, you rather appear somewhat alien-y. Just saying. You don't have gills. And last but not least, yeah, I am probably offensive to your culture in several ways. Sorry about that, but also no, not sorry. Please don't kill me." Jaime paused for breath, and examined Professor Kennings' placid, uncaring expression.
Professor Kennings sighed, removing his name tag from his dull overcoat. "Alright. Shall we start from the top?"
Jaime pursed their lips.
Professor Kennings placed his magnifying glass onto the table. "My real name is Romanadvoratrelundar." He stated plainly. "I'm a Time Lord, President of the High Council of Gallifrey, currently under cover in this earth village of 1969."
"What? I'm sorry, what? Time Lord?? Romananawhata?" Jaime asked. "Why this village?"
"Because of the Cybermen."
"The Cybermen!" Yelled The Doctor. "The Cybermen have the TARDIS!"
"It's the cut off cliffhanger from Journey's End! I knew it would come back to haunt us!!" Danieru hissed.
The Cyberman stomped around the TARDIS console malevolently. It was incredibly old, it's creaking rusted body coursing with electricity which spiraled around the room like the center of one of those plasma globe things you saw at the science museum.
Sarah Connor swore. "The Cybermen!" She growled. She had an unsavory history with computerized consciousnesses. A lot of things happened with them in her line of work.
The Doctor rushed, trying to stop the Cybermen from inputting coordinates in the console - how could it do that? How did it know how?? But she was pushed back by some force, and soon the three of them found themselves rocketing out of the TARDIS door, gravity sucking them out into oblivion.
* * *
The Doctor, Sarah Connor and Danieru collapsed onto the mossen ground of the English village. The Doctor noted a street sign.
You Are Now Entering Oblivion
Population 62
"Odd name for a village," The Doctor muttered.
She stood up, and then screamed bloody murder as she saw the TARDIS dematerializing. "No! No! No!" The Doctor hissed.
"The Cybermen - they have the TARDIS?!?" Danieru exclaimed.
"The Cybermen have the TARDIS. History is ...completely doomed." The Doctor said. "Brace yourselves."
"What??"
"Time is about to get bumpy."
* * *
Elizabeth's Story
Recording another log because that is my only purpose. If I'm here to show the like, effect the Flux has on ordinary people, that's rather ham-fisted and not utilized well, and if I'm meant to be almost-companion #19 that also is not working. Anyway, I've arrived on the Planet of Phucemol, and am beginning to search for my dear husband, Williamson. I want to find him, I really do.
The ruins of this place are inhabited by crowds. They say here that someone is prophesized to come rescue them. That this is the spot. Whatever's going on - well. I, personally, I doubt it...
* * *
Oblivion, 1969
Time can be rewritten.
The words echoed in her mind like some kind of pinball, bouncing off the edges of her brain, going round and round and round. Time can be time can be time can be rewritten rewritten rewritten
That was the problem, wasn't it? The Doctor considered. That was indeed, the actual problem. The Cybermen had her TARDIS - her best friend in the whole wide world, and were cutting her open, probably Cyber-converting it into something they could metabolize. Dominion over all time and space was theirs. They could hop across timelines, Cyber-converting people one at a time, or cut open huge swathes of history and make it their own. If one's parent was Cyberconverted, then history would alter, and before you knew it, that family's entire history was that of obedience to the Cyberiad. It had always been a good thing the Cybermen never developed Time Travel - they didn't have the imagination to make it there, for one. At various points in history, Cybermen were at variable points of advancement. That was it. But now...
Now it could all change in a
Cyber-District Seven Thirteen, Alpha Delta Four, 1969
second.
A sudden and horrifying change across the landscape. The town was no longer a misty village, but a computerized city, an empire. Towers and towers and towers strung up to the sky, gleaming silver and blue, the outlined circuitry of a motherboard, computer chip upon computer chip upon computer chip textured onto each and every building.
The world under the control of the Cybermen.
"What? What just happened?" Yelled Danieru.
"We're falling in and out of incompatible histories!" The Doctor said. "One Earth completely Cyber-converted, one not touched at all!"
"That doesn't make any damn sense!" Growled Sarah Connor.
Oblivion, 1969
A second later, it was gone.
"And we're back to this timeline." The Doctor sighed a sigh of relief. "Whew!"
"Who's to say we won't fall back into the Cyberman one again??"
"I don't know! Time - I don't get time, really. It's rather rubbish!" The Doctor complained. "All we can do is attempt to isolate the villagers, rescue them. Try and figure out how to erase the bad timeline."
"Wow! This episode is really cool, actually." Danieru commented. "I can't wait to see how the following two episodes will follow it up with good quality stuff!"
From across the void, Chris Chibnall let out a diabolical laugh.
* * *
In the basement of Roman's house, where the laboratory lay, Jaime had plenty of questions but no answers. Roman grumbled around the basement in a spaced out fashion. He clearly was going a little stir crazy in these evidently, undeveloped, times.
"What's going on?"
"I'm investigating you." Roman sighed. "This will only take a moment."
"Investigating? What?"
"Just answer my questions, please. What species are you, exactly?" Roman asked, racing about the lab for no particular reason. He spoke with great gravitas, like each word meant mountains. It was humorous to Jaime - who had been noted to be a bit of a motormouth, to see someone so... deliberate.
"Voord-Human Hybrid." Jaime muttered. "I know. I'm great at parties."
"Extraordinary. I didn't know the Voord were biologically capable." Roman murmured.
"Well, you see, when a Mummy Voord and a Daddy Voord love each other vewy vewy much," Jaime mocked. "Anyway, why do you care, you're an alien yourself!"
"Yes, yes," Roman muttered. "But I am a member of the community, a scientific impresario. I at least appear to fit in. I don't have gills, salmon skin and am myself, a very distinguished Time Lady, thank you very much."
"Your body appears to be male, have I been misgendering you?"
"Oh, shit." Roman whispered dottily. "That's why Mr. Jenkins was so mad at the last cotillion." He made a bit of a hurumph before returning to his scientific instruments.
"I'm sorry, I still don't understand. What are you doing in this century again? What's a Cybermen?"
"A misguided ideal." Roman growled. "And I'm investigating you because of that. I was curious before, but especially considering your species..."
Jaime sighed. "What? I still don't get it."
"Voord-Human hybrid. Ever so individual. Bold, brash, talkative, and non-conforming in pretty much every aspect to boot. It's good the villagers sent you to me. I'm sorry, Jaime, but you're the Vanguard. The landing party."
"What?"
"Well, when a Cybermen make a spy, they tend to make the alternative personality to cover it up perhaps a little too individual. I'm sorry, but you've got a Cybermen in disguise buried deep in your head, Jaime. And we've got to stop it from waking up."
* * *
Marianne Elspeth did not know she had eight more minutes to live, and so she was picking up the shopping. It had fallen out of her cart right by the sweet little village stall, and the fruits were now a little bruised, but she was too poor to care about that, really, so she was picking it all up as the quaint little village she loved to live in descended into nightfall. The shopping hadn't rolled far, but there was an awful lot of it.
"Oh! Hello, Luv!" Squeaked a strange old woman, coming into view with a billowy overcoat and floppy hat. She was followed by a dirty blonde in military gear and some girl with a Japanese influenced leather goth aesthetic.
"Hello?" Marianne asked. She didn't tend to question strange old women, because to be fair, she was this strange old village's busybody, really, but three strangers out of nowhere, well, that was out of the usual. She struggled not to interrogate them - who were they? They didn't get visitors in this town. It was tiny, and it's only distinguishing feature WAS the ominous name, but that was only SO they'd get tourists. It was like Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch or Hell, Michigan, it was just one of those gags, and not a very popular one at that, since they still didn't get any visitors.
"Hello, yes, pet, I'm the Doctor. These are my friends, Sarah, and Danieru. Yeh, well, We hear you've been having a bit of trouble."
"Really?? From Who?" Marianne asked.
The Doctor bent down and passed her some of her groceries back with a quirky and adoring grin. "Well, we're the problem people. We hear these things."
"We're the what now?" Danieru blurted. Sarah elbowed her.
"Yeah, anyway, we're just having a butchers." The Doctor grinned. "If you've seen anything, mind..."
Marianne went a little faint and turned to the Doctor. "Well, I'm not sure if you'll believe this..." She wasn't sure why, but she felt she could trust this lovely kindred spirit, and so she whispered: "But yesterday - a fish person fell out of the sky."
"Fell out of the sky??" Sarah blurted.
"Shush!" Marianne whispered. "Yeah. He was all sort of girly like. Scandalous. Couldn't get a fix on 'em. Proper weird lookin, and not just because of the fins, it was like you didn't know what to call the thing."
"Doctor," Sarah asked. "Could that be Jaime?"
The Doctor made a face. "Who's Jaime?"
"Doctor, come on! The non binary fish person from episode one!"
"It's BEEN AGES SINCE EPISODE ONE,," The Doctor stuttered. "We're STILL doing week to week plot threads?"
"Yeah," Danieru nodded. "Kinda this series' thing."
"Well, it's proper inconvenient, continuity that don't add much. They weren't even that important in episode one. Would be better to just have standalone episodes, wouldn't it?" The Doctor complained.
"Yes." said Sarah Connor without blinking. But the gods were not so kind.
"Well, anyway, thank you for your time, me poppet," The Doctor winked at Marianne, placing the last of her fruit into her bag. "You know where he went?"
"Up to old Professor Kennings' place." She pointed up to the largest house in the neighborhood, up on the hill.
"Cheers." The Doctor grinned. "Come along, Sarah, Dani, no time to waste.."
Elizabeth's Story
You will not believe this, but there is a woman up on this hill, right, and she calls herself "Evil Yaz," and she sort of walked up to me and laughed maniacally. She said a bunch of stuff about her 'evil plan.' After a long, and quite frankly, pleasant conversation, I asked why she kept pre-facing words with 'evil,' and she replied quite simply that it was because of her quest for vengeance and bloodshed, before passing me a nice little jar of tea and talking about how horny she is for Jodie Whittaker. I told her about my dear husband Williamson, and how he loves his tunnels, and she nodded, and promised she would only kill him if ...she had the opportunity to do so. Because she's evil. When I asked her about why she was here, she said the word 'foreshadowing,' fifty times in a row. I don't know why. Nothing to do with foreshadowing came up, she just said it, fifty times, I counted, and then did another evil laugh and left. It's a shame. Best conversation I've had in weeks.
* * *
The sad truth is that Marianne, upon walking on towards her house, noticed a crack in the pavement. It was just that, a simple crack in the pavement, but something made her examine it. And even though it shouldn't be able to happen, a metal arm reached out of it, and it tore out her heart.
* * *
"What even are the Cybermen?" Jaime asked, as Roman began fiddling with some strange device. It was a psionic needle, but Jaime didn't know that, and to be fair, Roman didn't either. It was just rather fun to fiddle with, you could get some pretty strange results.
"I've told you - they're an ideal taken to a logical and inhuman standard. Humans, other races, they all wanted to attain better things by removing parts of themselves for more powerful mechanical alternatives, and in doing so they lost it all. No race becomes the Cybermen by accident - oh, they know what they're doing, trying to make themselves stronger with a metal arm, or see farther with a infrared eye, but after a while, one can't really stop. And they want everything to be their ideal of perfection."
"And you're saying I'm a spy for them without knowing?"
"The Cybermen aren't very imaginative on their own, but they have converted quite a few geniuses in their days, and so they are capable of many different aspects of conversion." Roman said, disgruntled at the ineffectiveness of his new device for what he was doing. He discarded it into a wastebin almost entirely comprised of technological gizmos and also, strangely, plenty of candy wrappers.
"Well, we have to stop them, then. If they're so rubbish." Jaime eventually concluded. To this, Roman nodded.
Upstairs, the doorbell rang. Roman sighed. "I need to go get that." He grumbled, trudging up the stairs to the front door.
* * *
The Doctor rapped on the door knocker with some intent. "Coming!" Swore a Voice from inside the door, only to open it and...
"Doctor?" Roman asked, awestruck.
"Roman?" The Doctor sputtered. "But... what are you doing here?"
"Roman!" Sarah Connor said in surprise. "I haven't seen you since - I thought you had settled down with Lottie, and were doing weird time adventures!"
"Ah. Sarah, it has been a while, hasn't it?" Roman smiled. He didn't say more than that - Sarah did think that was a little odd.
Danieru's mouth became quite thin. "Would anyone care to explain to me anything?"
"No," The Doctor said, rushing in to give Roman a big hug. "It's been ages, hasn't it! Far too long, I'll wager!"
"I should think!" Roman snorted. "Come inside, come inside," He extended the door rather jovially, and they proceeded within. (None of them noticed the crack in the wall a few feet to the left of the door...)
* * *
The Doctor, rather pleased with the amount of friends she had in one room, smiled. "Alright, so, I assume we're all aware of the problem with the Cybermen?" Roman nodded. "Good." The Doctor decided. The more focused, the less explaining she had to do. She did have to do a lot of explaining these days. And the less explaining, the more she could delegate. "Sarah, Danieru, go make tea. English Breakfast." She insisted.
Sarah rolled her eyes, and kicked down one of Roman's doors on her way to the house's Kitchen. Danieru quizzically followed after her.
"Why'd you dismiss them?" Roman asked.
"Alright. Let's get down to brass tacks." She whispered to him. "What are you doing in the English Countryside? I have seen you recently, Roman, but it's not been you - Davros has been using your face as a disguise!"
"I can assure you," Roman bristled, "That I have nothing to do with the man. I am most certainly and entirely myself, I should very well say!"
That was that, the Doctor thought. She could trust him. Probably.
* * *
Danieru and Sarah walked into the Kitchen. Sarah kicked a table.
"Sarah, you alright?" Danieru asked.
"It's like she doesn't trust me at all!" Sarah swore. "The woman doesn't trust anyone!? It's not like I kill people or anything!"
"You do do that."
"Fine, but they're bad people." Sarah bit her lip, and then suddenly jumped up. She was so mad she couldn't stand still for a second. "Doesn't excuse the fact that she should have learned the 'trusting people' concept back when she travelled with fuckin Ian and Barbara!"
"Does seem like a bit of an issue now you mention it, yeah. Where's the tea?" Danieru asked, reaching into the Cabinet.
"She only said that so we would leave the room." Sarah said.
"Mm, yeah, but some tea would be nice, and I mean, she might have said something different like 'lock the back door' if she was actively opposed to tea. Me, myself, I'd like some tea." Danieru ruffled through the cabinets.
"Fine, make the damn tea." Sarah said, pacing the floor.
She stepped on a crack on the floor and disappeared.
"Sarah?" Danieru yelped. A silver hand reached out of the crack.
* * *
Cyber-District Seven Thirteen, Alpha Delta Four, 1969
Sarah appeared out of nothing into a technologically overwhelming location that only resembled a Kitchen in size. The walls of the room were made out of pulsating wires and lights, everything a dark metal - logically it should look like a Cyberman converted area should, but Sarah noted that since the lights were dim, it appeared much darker and more forboding than a sleek Cybership's corridors would. No need for light, Sarah supposed, if you could see in the dark. Granted, since she was an android - sometimes she forgot that - she could see in the dark too. She turned on her night vision.
She then decided to turn it off, because it ruined the atmosphere of the whole thing.
Danieru appeared out of nowhere.
"Danieru!" Sarah exclaimed.
"I think I may have stepped on a crack," Danieru said, holding a cup and saucer of freshly made tea. She took an appreciative sip. "Temporal window, do you think? Like that vague stuff the Doctor said about the bad timeline?"
"Temporal window, yeah. Must have taken us in." Sarah agreed. "Well, I think we should blow up some Cybermen - try and get back to our side of history."
"Yeah, right, smart. You have any weapons?"
Sarah Connor grinned. "I always have weapons."
* * *
Oblivion 1969
Mr. and Mrs. Benning of Sardine Road were walking their dog when they first saw the Cybermen.
"Oh, George, what is that?" Mrs. Benning laughed, as the first of the sleek metal men walked down the street.
"Some sort of movie chap, I should think." Grunted George Benning, looking at the Cybermen walking towards them. "I say, it's remarkably funny looking."
Indeed, at first glance, it did appear almost funny. Somewhat slipshod. A cloth and metal mask placed over the skull with speed being valued over finesse. You could see the seams in the cloth and where the metal plates stopped, you could almost make out something beneath...
[Humor is irrelevant.] Stated the Cyberman, and it looked directly at them. [Identify.]
The first taste of fear crept over George as he looked at the Cyberman more closely. It had a ... dress, a bloodied piece of a dress hanging out of it's left leg, now covered over by a sheet of metal.
"I - I'm George, and this is my wife, Dorothea... say, are you alright?" He asked, partially because looking at the rag of cloth hanging out of the haphazard metal he could almost begin to recognize it.
[Irrelevant.] The Cyberman stated once more, now reaching out for them.
The last thing George realized, before he couldn't think anymore, wasn't that he was in danger, or of his wife, or his children back at home, but that the rag hanging out of the metal looked an awful lot like Marianne's dress.
Then he was gone, as The Cyberman grabbed him and began slicing at his face with some sort of shard of metal, and Dorothea screamed and ran. The Cyberman did not care that she was gone now, it had a new unit to upgrade after all. It began to apply the metal to the skin, and if it were not for the fact that it could not feel such things, you could almost be convinced that it was enjoying it's work.
* * *
The Doctor was now with Roman in the basement - he had a sort of laboratory down here, and the Doctor was impressed with it. Well, she would be, if she still didn't feel rather skeptical. "I still don't understand what you're doing here, Roman." The Doctor said. "Like Sarah brought up earlier - your very being here is a rather lot of continuity."
"I'm seriously not Davros."
"Yeah, but like, what happened to you to make you give up on living on the planet Xerox with Lottie?" The Doctor said, bringing up yet MORE continuity to try and understand continuity.
"Look. Just. Accept it. I'm here, okay. I'm trying to stop the Cybermen." Roman sighed. "Say hi to Jaime."
"Ooh, Hi, Jaime." The Doctor murmured. Jaime was strapped to a chair. "Why are they strapped to a chair?"
"Because I might turn into a Cyberman, it's dreadfully inconvenient." Jaime replied.
"I'm trying to do experiments to stop them from turning into a Cyberman." Roman said.
"Try covering him with gold paint. I saw it in a Bond Movie." The Doctor suggested.
"We're looking currently at a more technical cure." Roman noted. He was fiddling with a bit of machinery which he raised in triumph, before sighing a bit and throwing it into a pile of other inventions that didn't work at removing psychic Cybermen from people's brains.
"Also, by the way, in the first episode you said I hadn't met you yet but I will, Jaime. ...Is that just a thing we're going to completely disregard?"
"Yep! That was inexplicably the first time either of us had ever met eachother."
"I am so confused." Blubbered The Doctor.
"It doesn't matter," hissed Roman. "There are loads of Cybermen outside."
* * *
There's a difference between doing a Base Under Siege story in an English Village with fifty Weeping Angels and Fifty Cybermen. The Fifty Weeping Angels will just sort of stay there. The Fifty Cybermen will fucking kill you. There are lots of them, and they duplicate exponentially, as soon as they find literally anyone. You can't stop them. They spread like wildfire.
They broke into the house in minutes. There's a lot of tension and a lot of runtime from the episode gone now, but on the bright side, we've at least maintained realism.
* * *
Cyber-District Seven Thirteen, Alpha Delta Four, 1969
Danieru and Sarah crept down the Cyber-corridor, moving left, right, trying to figure out what to do - if there was anything they could do about this strange cursed version of history. Was there?
Ultimately, Sarah Connor wasn't sure, she sort of dealt with things on a very 'mm, can I blow it up?' basis. An alternative version of history where everything is Cyberman is a very ambitious idea, and she was increasingly worried whether the story could even do it justice, or even if it would be remotely interesting. Once the Cybermen conquered some place, it was then a place of order and logic, and as a result, the dramatic avenues for such locations rapidly decreased. Therefore, was their exploration of this location going to be narratively satisfying? She did not air these questions to Danieru - who, knowing her, would probably respond with some manner of snark, and so they sort of treaded on.
"Why aren't we dead?" Danieru asked.
"Why, philosophically? By the very logic inherent in that statement, the reason why we aren't dead should technically be that we are alive. That brings us to the question of what denotes life? Philosophically speaking, as a machine designed to imitate a character from a piece of media, am I even alive to begin with? Does my lack of understanding how to correctly mimic a three-dimensional figure like Sarah Connor make me more or less alive? What is life, and can the concept even be measured?"
"No, I mean, why haven't the Cybermen killed us? That... that was really deep and stuff for you Sarah, you alright?"
Sarah huffed. "Yeah, I thought it was a pretty dumb question."
A door at the end of the corridor swung open, and out ran a octogenarian woman with an eye-patch and a black trenchcoat.
"Wow, it's a character we don't know!" Danieru exclaimed.
"I'm Dorothea Benning," Hissed Dorothea Benning. "
"How have you survived in the Cyber-landscape?" Sarah Connor asked.
"How have you?"
"Well, we both just got here, and we also had a philosophical debate on the concept." Danieru summed up.
"What conclusion did you come to?" Dorothea asked.
"That Philosophy is dumb," Sarah Connor answered. "The question stands!"
Dorothea growled. "I have survived the apocalyptic landscape of Cyber-land for three years with a morally grey edgy mad max persona."
"Excellent," Sarah Connor smiled. "Danieru, lose all your character traits," She said with relish.
* * *
The Cybermen swarmed into the house.
"Roman," The Doctor hissed, "I'm going to try and make psychic contact with Jaime, get the Cyberman out of their head. Hold off the Cybermen, don't let them get down here."
Roman nodded. He wasn't sure how, but he'd manage. The Doctor pressed her fingertips against Jaime's forehead, and...
* * *
Thud. Was it a thud? Not sure, really. Maybe a Bam. Or a Pow. But a loud, deafening noise regardless, rounded out in the Doctor's ears, as she entered the psychic plain of the Cybermen. She'd been here before when the Cybermen had tried to convert her previously. Back when she wore a bowtie. But now, on the opposite side of the room, was Jaime. Jaime just sort of hung there, sort of tied to a bunch of wires hanging down from nowhere, out of sight.
"Timeless.... Timeless...." Jaime murmurred.
"Jaime, fight the programming. I know you can do it." The Doctor bit her lip, trying to sonic them out of the wires. Out of the darkness came a glowing icon by Jaime's face - that of a Cyberman's distinctive teardrop eye and mouth.
[DOC - TOR.]
"Cybermen, Cybermen, Cybermen, what did I do to get saddled with you lot?" The Doctor laughed. "Proper rubbish you are! Go on, git! Jaime is not yours, they are their own person!"
[OWN PERSON? DEFINE THESE TERMS.]
"Don't tell me you don't understand that."
[WE HAVE LONG SINCE FORGOTTEN HOW INFERIORS THINK. WE HAVE GROWN BEYOND. CLOSER TOWARDS OUR JOURNEY TO CYBER-PERFECTION.]
"You'll never reach it. A dictatorship of logical thought is as far away from perfection as I could think, luv! Now, like I said, drop them!"
[WE KNOW YOUR PAST.]
The words hit the Doctor like a truck, though she tried not to show it. The Cyberman voice continued, droning on. The words now came out of Jaime's mouth, as if to make it personal and more appealing to her - a misguided attempt which provided the opposite affect.
[YOU CAN JOIN US, DOCTOR. AND IF YOU DO, WE WILL TELL YOU.]
"Oh, piss, like that's a bloody choice, mate! Wow, yeah, sure, let me shove me feckin individuality over for some memories! Jee, you really don't get people, do ya?"
[THEN IF YOU WILL NOT BE CONVERTED, WILL YOU... PROTECT US?]
"Protect you!?" The Doctor laughed with indignation. "What's going on? Why do you need protecting?"
[FROM ROMANADVORATRELUNDAR. FROM DIVISION.]
* * *
Cyber-District Seven Thirteen, Alpha Delta Four, 1969
Sarah Connor, Danieru, and Dorothea stood there, trying to figure out what to do, when suddenly:
[ALERT, ALERT, CYBER-REALITY IS DAMAGED. ALERT. TIMELINE IS RUPTURED. THE FLUX IS COMING. EVACUATE.]
"The timeline's coming apart? What? It only just got established!" Danieru said.
"The Cybermen stole the TARDIS for one specific reason. To get away from the Flux into this alternative timeline. But the Flux is Time Lord, Division tech, all they did was lure it towards them." Sarah Connor explained. "I think."
"Cyber-Refugees? Now I've seen it all." Danieru snarked.
"How do we get out of this timeline then?" Dorothea asked. "What's even going on?"
The thought filled Danieru with quite a bit of fear. They only had a basic idea of how they got in, much less could get out. Sarah took charge. She was good at that, oddly - probably had to do with the whole action hero thing.
"Alright. The Cybermen are evacuating - let's evacuate with them." Sarah growled.
"How's that gonna work?! We're going to die here!!" Dorothea screamed.
"Yeah, you probably are, you're a guest character," Sarah responded with the sympathy of a stampeding rhino.
Danieru sighed. Okay, so perhaps the whole leadership thing needed work.
* * *
Jaime's Mind
"From Division? Oh, no, you can't mean-"
[WE DO. ROMANADVORATRELUNDAR IS DIVISION.]
“No, I… I would have known…” The Doctor trailed off. Then - anger. She hadn’t been angry in a long time. Not like this. “…you’re lying to me.”
[CYBERMEN DO NOT LIE.]
“Unless there’s a tactical advantage!!” The Doctor yelled. “Unless it’s logical to lie, because all you’ve ever cared about, luv, has been your own bleedin’ benefit! NOW, FOR THE LAST TIME, LET JAIME GO!”
[WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN WITHIN THEM. WE ARE JAIME. THEY ARE NOTHING.]
“Then - then let’s make a deal.” The Doctor hissed. “Innocents are not dying on my watch.”
[WE DO NOT KILL.] The Cyber-projection extended a hand. [YOUR FRIENDS SHALL NOT BE CONVERTED IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR PROTECTION FROM DIVISION.]
The Doctor seethed, but she shook. A heinous agreement - any agreement with the Cybermen was heinous. But there were no other options. All the same - it made her feel sick.
The Doctor’s rage grew and grew, until she couldn’t keep the psychic projection stable, and she fell out, back onto the floor of Roman’s basement, opening her eyes to the sight of a concerned Jaime.
"We need to get out." The Doctor whispered.
Jaime nodded.
* * *
Upstairs
Roman had been fending off Cybermen with a broomstick. This is exceptionally difficult, especially since Roman's body has the durability of Sir Patrick Stewart's body, and Sir Patrick Stewart is (an admittedly badass) 81. Therefore, you should be doubly impressed by the fighting off Cybermen for an hour by sort of haphazardly waving a broomstick at their actually titanium alloy bodies. "Git off my lawn, you younguns!" Roman growled, in peak old-man mode.
The Doctor poked her head out from within the basement. "Hey! Hi, Roman, one, What the feckin hell why do you work for division god damn and two. I have found an inexplicably convenient exit in the basement that sure would have been helpful twenty minutes ago"
"Oh, cool," Roman said, now punching a Cyberman with his fists and somehow winning. "About the basement part."
The Doctor made a disgruntled sigh at the nature of the Division plotline, and they scrambled into the basement as the Cybermen stomped forward very slowly, as not to be too much of a threat to our heroes.
* * *
Cyber-District Seven Fourteen Sigma Beta Gamma Nine 1969
Sarah Connor bopped a Cyberman on a head. "The plan is to steal the Cybermen armor." She stated.
"Isn't that...not armor, and actually just fused to the skin of the person? It's not like a hollow suit with a brain inside like the Russell T Davies Cybermen, no, there's a body-horror dude in there with metal instead of skin. Opening that up will cover us in blood and gore." Danieru factchecked.
"Oh! Great, you come up with a better plan!" Sarah Connor sighed.
"Well my original author included a part of my abilities that allows me to transform into a Kaiju."
"...And you haven't thought to mention it until now?"
"No!" Danieru said cheerily.
* * *
A Kaiju burst through the borders of reality, smashing thousands of Cybermen to pieces as it broke it's way back into the rural village of Oblivion, 1969. Sarah Connor from the Terminator films rode on it's back, brandishing a sword made of fire (do not ask where she got it, Sarah Connor has had a sword made of fire the entire story I just forgot to mention it haha) while a middle aged british nanny in a mad-max costume fired a laser gun.
There is no punchline.
* * *
The Doctor, Jaime and Roman ran out of the inexplicably convenient door out of the basement onto an overgrown terrace. "Lover's Point." Roman murmured.
"Wonderful. Now that this whole debacle is settled -" The Doctor sighed.
Jaime made a face. "I'm confused as to the story's plotline, Doctor. If this is a weird sort of critique adaptation of Village of the Angels with all of the elements weirdly transposed and stuff, then why was the rogue angel stuff taken out, and the Cybermen made to be entirely one faction? It, as a result, makes the plotline confusing."
The Doctor's eyelashes shuddered. "Confusing?" Clearly Jaime as not aware as to the genre of this series.
Suddenly, Jaime shook, and fell onto the ground.
"What? Cybermen, are you behind this?!" The Doctor yelled.
Suddenly, about a hundred Cybermen walked out of the fog into the center of the clearing. [THE DEAL HAS BEEN REDACTED.]
"What?!" The Doctor yelled. "Oh, come on!?"
[DIVISION HAS CONTACTED US. THEY WILL LEAVE THE CYBERMEN ALONE - IF WE BRING YOU TO THEM.]
"What?" Roman yelled. "That was not part of the deal! The Doctor remains unharmed!!"
[WE WILL NOT HURT HER]
Wires and cables came flailing out of the Doctor's overcoat. A sheet of metal extended out of nothing as the metal grew across her body like a horrific infection, growing, and growing, the jacket thrown to the ground and torn to shreds as the metal plates slid into their slot with a chunk each time. The Teardrop eye was soon extended over her face, and with that, the individuality was purged. The Uniformity of the Cybermen had prevailed - and before them stood nothing but another drone in the mindness Cyber Regime.
[RESISTANCE IS USELESS, DOCTOR...]
Mandip Gill As Evil Yaz
The whole time i was very confused and then jamie became meta and it all made perfect sense.
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