by Cavan Scott
Alit kept thinking she’d seen the scarecrow, the one Missy had taken to calling ‘Topknot’. It was just a shape in the semi-darkness – a long way off – but Alit was sure she’d seen it move. To make things worse, all of them had heard a clattering sound, not long ago now, that could only have been someone knocking something over – someone clumsy or lumbering …
They had picked up the pace after that. They had just walked past another four-way junction in the corridors when Missy paused mid-step. She was examining the handle of her umbrella.
The Master noticed this and turned back to her with some annoyance. ‘Well?’ he said.
‘I think there’s a service cradle here,’ she said, moving down the right-hand corridor until she stood beside a large metal hatch that was firmly shut. ‘Like a platform used for cleaning the windows on tall buildings.’
The Master came alongside Missy and looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,’ the Master said, waving an appalled hand at Missy’s umbrella. ‘That and the hat you were wearing before. It’s all a bit …’
‘What?’
‘Well. A bit … Mary Poppins.’
‘Oh, you know we’ve always had a bit of a penchant for children’s viewing.’
‘When we came here, I expected that big, baby sun to rise over the meadows.’ The Master laughed. ‘And remember those pink things? The knitted ones that went “hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo” when they talked.’
‘The Clangers,’ Missy said.
Alit looked between them, not understanding the conversation but sensing undercurrents beneath it.
‘I’ve been watching a lot of children’s films recently.’ Missy fiddled with her umbrella and it made a whirring sound. ‘We watched Frozen together.’
‘We?’
Missy shot the Master a guilty, apologetic look from under her eyelashes.
The Master turned away in disgust. ‘Was he torturing you?’
Missy frowned. ‘This door is deadlock sealed,’ she said.
The Master folded his arms and shook his head. ‘No, no, no. You don’t get off that easily. I can’t believe you watched Frozen – Frozen! – with the Doctor!’
Missy looked at him, a twinkle in her eye. ‘Let it go,’ she said.
The Master turned his attention to the metal hatch. ‘Deadlock sealed? Lucky I have a laser screwdriver, then.’ He glanced at Missy’s umbrella with another brief shake of his head. ‘Who’d have sonic?’ He quickly set to work, cutting through the hatch seals with the torch-like device. When he’d finished, he stood back theatrically and the door fell to the floor with a resounding clang. ‘Ta-da!’
Without warning, the scarecrow lunged from the shadows and snatched at Missy. She saw it at the last second and ducked away, blocking its grabbing hand with the handle of her umbrella. Alit dived through the open hatchway.
‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ The Master was already moving, snatching at the cloth that covered the Cyberman’s chest. He ripped it open to reveal a computerised display unit beneath. The Cyberman tried to grab at his assailant, but Missy was parrying his movements with her umbrella, accompanying each move with a squeal of ‘Hai!’
The Master stared at the chest unit for a brief second, then used his laser screwdriver to make a fine incision. Immediately the Cyberman stopped flailing and stood still. ‘There!’ The Master stood back, a little out of breath.
Missy sank to the floor and looked up at the inert Cyberman. ‘What have you done to poor Topknot?’
‘Downgraded it,’ the Master replied. ‘Now, let’s see what it has to say for itself.’ He stepped up to the Cyberman and looked it in the face before lowering his head to the top of the chest unit. ‘Voice box, voice box …’ He fiddled with some unseen controls then stood back.
‘Pain,’ the Cyberman said. ‘Pain.’
‘I agree,’ the Master said. ‘In the backside.’
Alit poked her head from the hatch, shivering, to check it was safe once more.
The Master spoke to the Cyberman again. ‘Recognise vocal command authorisation: Master. Alpha. Seven,’ he said.
‘You perfected voice control?’ Missy breathed. ‘Impressive!’
‘What did you expect?’ The Master unbuttoned the back of the Cyberman’s silver overall and explained that he was going to change the root command in its operating system so that it no longer identified beings with two hearts as a target. ‘Then we can use Topknot here for whatever we like. He has scanning capability and he’s strong.’
While the Master worked, Missy went to look at the service cradle. It was approximately two metres wide by four metres long and looked like a cage, with thick strips of metal wrapped around the superstructure roughly a quarter of a metre apart. Although the Master had burnt away the door to the space in which the cradle was housed, the platform itself was still locked.
Missy looked at Alit and smiled. ‘Oh, look. You’re just small enough to squeeze in there.’
Alit was still staring at the scarecrow, unnerved by its presence but glad to see it under control – even if the person controlling it was the Master. She turned to Missy and bobbed her head. ‘Easy,’ she said.
Alit pushed herself between the bars and quickly unlocked the door. She stepped through the opening, striking a dramatic pose as she did so. ‘Ta-da!’ she mimicked the Master’s earlier cry. Missy laughed and clapped her hands together.
The Master appeared in the doorway again. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘I think we have a protégé,’ Missy replied.
‘You might have a protégé, but I have a slave.’
He stepped aside to reveal the scarecrow standing obediently behind him. ‘Take us down.’
Topknot walked over to the controls and, after a brief moment analysing their functions, operated one of them with its rubber-gloved hand.
With a hydraulic growl, the doors beneath the service cradle opened and immediately the passengers within could feel a strong wind ruffling their clothes and blowing against their faces. More clanking noises indicated the winches coming online, and the platform jerked away from its housing and down into the sky of Floor 508. It was still night-time down there, and the firmament was an inky blue with nothing to see below save indistinct blackness.
‘Welcome to “Underland”!’ Missy called above the roar of the wind.
The Master slid down the bench so he was pressed up against his female alter ego. ‘Why are you so chipper?’ he hissed.
‘Aren’t we always?’
‘No!’ He seemed to have a bad taste in his mouth and looked her up and down. ‘I think it’s to do with our latest regeneration.’
‘You’re not very keen on becoming a woman, are you?’
‘Girls have a way of … disappointing you. One minute they’re all lovey-dovey and the next they stab you in the back! They’re so … fickle.’
‘Hasn’t stopped us using women in the past, has it?’
‘I use everyone.’
‘Galleia, Kassia, Chantho, Miss Trefusis.’
‘You remember the names. How sweet.’ He pursed his lips, pouting at Missy.
‘I’ve been making myself recall them recently, yes.’ Missy allowed herself a brief smile of resignation. ‘Lucy, of course.’
‘And you’re using a child!’ the Master added. ‘Alit! Oh, Alit!’ He called the little girl over to them.
Reluctantly, Alit tore her attention away from staring over the side of the cradle and moved over to stand in front of the two grown-ups.
‘Do you have a mummy? A daddy?’ the Master asked.
Alit nodded. ‘They said I had to come to the farmstead.’
‘An evacuee,’ Missy said.
‘And do you like any of the boys there?’
‘Or girls,’ Missy added. ‘Isn’t that the right thing to say?’
Alit looked at her feet. ‘Omebo’s OK,’ she mumbled.
‘And if you married Omebo—’
‘I’m not go
ing to marry him!’
‘Never interrupt me.’ The Master’s eyes had narrowed and his voice was dangerous and quiet. ‘If you married Omebo, little Alit, you wouldn’t betray him, would you?’
Alit shook her head.
‘Of course you wouldn’t,’ the Master said sarcastically. ‘Just like Chantho and lovely Lucy Saxon.’
‘Lucy wanted a way out,’ Missy said with a note of irony in her voice. ‘And that almost cost you everything, didn’t it?’
‘Like I say: fickle.’
Missy looked away for a moment as if she found something painful. ‘So what’s the plan? That rubbish you spouted for Nardole might have fooled him, but it didn’t wash with me. “Stop the Cybermen, find an escape.” Really?’ Her eyes darted to Alit, who simply stared back at her, as if she didn’t understand. She was good at that look. She’d practised it in front of the mirror sometimes.
The Master grinned. ‘The Doctor has taken away our chance to lead an army, to subjugate and dominate the galaxy. Well, not any more. I’m going to change that one digit the Doctor altered when we were on Floor 1056 – the number of hearts the Cybermen identify as human – from a “two” back to a “one”.’ He leaned forward and cupped his hand over Missy’s ear, eyeing Alit suspiciously. ‘I regain control of the Cybermen. Of everyone!’
‘Exciting!’ Missy breathed.
‘Why are you whispering?’ Alit was looking directly at them. ‘What are you even talking about – control everyone?’
‘Just silly grown-up stuff,’ Missy said.
Yeah, right. Alit decided it was best to act dumb. ‘Where are we going anyway? Can’t you use Topknot to help us now? Why do we need to use this cradle thing?’
The Master leant forward, very earnestly, his hands clasped together. His voice was very calm and measured. ‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘All right,’ Alit said uneasily.
The Master blew out a weary breath and whined: ‘Are we there yet?’
The ground was only thirty metres away now. Even in the weak dawn light, Alit could tell it was an amazing yellowy-gold colour and stretched for a long way in every direction. It bordered several other huge fields each a slightly different colour indicating a different crop.
The cradle bumped onto the ground just as the artificial sun came up, sending rays of peachy light across the huge expanse of corn and illuminating a grid of bronzed pathways that criss-crossed the patchwork of fields.
They had landed on a small square of concrete adjacent to a much larger circular area where two of the bronze paths crossed one another. Now they were close to them, they could see these paths were slightly raised off the ground, about two metres wide with a channel running down the middle.
The Master was already off the platform and examining one of them. ‘It’s a rail of some kind,’ he reported. ‘The central groove is for guidance. Maybe a power feed within?’ He tapped the wide, flat metal. ‘Whatever rides them is big.’
As he finished speaking, the ground began to vibrate with a low rumble and they all turned towards the source of the noise. Coming down along the flattened rail was a huge machine. It was as big as the farmstead Alit had recently moved to and was bearing down on them at speed.
The Master stood and retreated back to the square area and leant against the side of the maintenance cradle. Topknot was still standing beside the platform next to Missy and Alit.
‘Some form of automated harvester for the crops,’ the Master said. ‘We’ll let it pass and then follow it.’
‘Why?’ asked Alit.
The Master mimicked her mouth with his hand and a sarcastic expression flashed across his face. ‘Because, little girl, that’s the only technology here, and wherever it’s taking the corn is where we’ll find more – technology we can actually use.’
They had to wait as the machine came to a halt alongside them, reaching the crossroads in its guidance rail. It turned slowly in a ninety-degree arc. As it did so, Alit could see it was a featureless block of metal with various hatches and control access panels along its front and sides. There was no room for a driver let alone passengers.
A hatch that ran the length of the front of the machine opened and a huge churning drum of blades appeared. The robo-tractor then set off across the field, the drum rotating and chopping the corn down.
As the wheat was harvested at the front, further attachments scooped the straw down a separate tube, clearly using a vacuum to suck it up and make sure nothing was lost. Two further flaps had opened at the rear of the vehicle and multi-headed ploughs were extending from them, churning the stubble left behind back into the rich, dark earth. The bronze path now positively glowed a rich, deep yellow in the light from the fully risen sun.
‘Shall we?’ the Master said, indicating they should start following it.
He waited for Missy to join him, and she slipped her arm through his. Then she grabbed Alit’s hand and together with the scarecrow the four of them began walking briskly up the yellowy road.
It became evident that while Missy and the Master could walk at a steady pace for what seemed like an eternity, Alit could not. She had been slowing for the last twenty minutes, and the Master was not helping matters by sighing and making sarcastic remarks. Missy had suggested that Topknot carry the little girl, but Alit had refused stubbornly. Fortunately, they were all saved by the arrival of a second type of vehicle on the bronzed railroad.
This one was lower and less square; it had a small front section with a much larger rear section – like a bloated spider. This mechanical arachnid did not have eight legs, however, just the one. It was massively long and wide, and stretched over a hundred metres into the field beside the track. Its job seemed to be to plant new seeds and to administer some form of growth accelerant. The moment its arm passed over the ground, a green shoot appeared, poking up from the nutrient-infused earth.
The fact that this cultivator machine was squatter also meant that the four unlikely travellers could board it by climbing onto its back. They had to run to do so. Alit climbed on easily. Missy had a bit more difficulty and the little girl had to help her, pulling her up with the aid of the woman’s umbrella. Soon they were all riding the machine, happy to sit in the artificial sunshine and gaze up at the faint numbers that denoted the floor number projected onto the ceiling high above.
Once aboard the cultivator, it did not take them long to leave the corn fields behind and enter a very different expanse. It was approaching dusk as they made their approach via an area of stubby plants with broad leaves. Alit took pleasure in naming the different crops as they passed, eager to show off her knowledge.
‘Potatoes!’ she cried.
‘Solanum tuberosum,’ the Master said through a yawn.
Alit snorted. ‘No, they’re definitely potatoes.’
‘They don’t have Latin on Mondas,’ Missy drawled.
‘This isn’t Mondas,’ the Master replied, folding his arms. He was soon on his feet, though, and happy to see what now lay ahead of them: a vast swathe of the landscape on the horizon was given over to dark green towers of differing heights that soared into the sky. As they neared them, it became clear the towers were actually silos for the storage of the very crops that surrounded them.
‘Do you think these crops were for a native human population?’ Missy asked, staring out at the fields. ‘Or do you think there is some automated delivery system for the floors above?’
‘A bit of both, I should think.’ The Master stroked his beard, thinking. ‘Alit, where do you get your potatoes from? Most of the land around the farmstead is pasture and woodland for livestock.’
‘The carters bring them,’ Alit said. ‘And hay and straw. When I was really little, they used to come all the time, but not so much now.’
‘A delivery system, then,’ Missy said. ‘Interesting …’
Finally, fields no longer flanked the bronzed railroad. Instead, warehouses of various sizes took their place. The cultivator accelerated, and th
e Master said they should get ready to disembark. Sure enough the track split into many different branch lines that led to assorted warehouses and garages.
Just as the cultivator slowed to make its turning, the Master slid to the ground and held his hand out for Missy to follow. Instead she jumped into the air floating slowly back to the ground using her umbrella in an impossible way to slow her descent. Alit couldn’t help but smile at this while the Master just shook his head. Alit slid off the side of the vehicle, but landed awkwardly, ripping the sole of her slipper in the process. It only occurred to her then that she wasn’t dressed for adventuring. As if copying her, Topknot stumbled from the cultivator and fell to the floor, his leg twisted at a nasty angle under him. Alit went cautiously over to help but the Master brushed her away and yanked the scarecrow to its feet. No soothing murmurs, no hugs. Alit supposed the scarecrow was in too much pain to notice much more.
‘Right,’ the Master said. ‘We need to find the heart of the operation.’
Missy nodded to Topknot. ‘Better ask the Tin Man.’
The Master smiled humourlessly and then asked the Cyberman to scan for technology they could use to access the ship’s systems. ‘Once we do that,’ he said to Missy, ‘we can hack into the ones I set up on Floor 1056.’
Topknot turned in a circle and then lifted an arm towards a tower at the centre of the surrounding buildings. ‘There.’
Although the outskirts of the agricultural metro-polis had been made up of individual structures, those ahead of them in the centre were all part of one giant edifice, almost like a bucolic cathedral with soaring grain silos for bell towers, domed tractor garages for galleries and elongated warehouses for naves.
Just as the sun was setting for the day, Missy used her umbrella to gain access to the nearest building. The Master used Topknot like a homing device to guide them through the various chambers. It was while they were making their way through a darkened warehouse that they first heard the others.
The Master was examining a pile of shovels on a vast shelf. ‘Looks like they have all sorts of equipment here – even ones for people to use.’
