Doctor Who

by Cavan Scott

  ‘There are gumboots over there!’ Alit called, racing off and pulling boot after boot from the shelves until she found a pair that fitted her.

  ‘You shall go to the ball!’ Missy said.

  ‘What are you two doing?’ the Master shouted over to them.

  ‘Shoe shopping!’ Missy called back. ‘It’s a girly girl thing, probably. You wouldn’t understand!’

  Their raised voices were echoing down the aisles when they heard something echo back to them.

  ‘Leader. Target detected! Two-hearts …’

  ‘Excellent.’

  Missy immediately ducked down to hide. She pulled Alit down with her and beckoned to the Master, placing one finger on her lips. Topknot remained immobile, safely hidden from view as if the Master had told it to ‘stay’.

  ‘Did you hear what it said?’ the Master hissed. ‘They’re specifically looking for two-hearts.’ He smiled. ‘They’re looking for us.’

  Before Missy could react, the Master was on his feet and walking briskly towards the source of the Cyber-voices. Missy followed him. So did Alit, albeit reluctantly.

  They rounded a corner and came face to face with a group of six Cybermen. Alit stopped in her tracks, very scared now. These were significantly more advanced than Topknot and the other scarecrows. Instead of the cumbersome chest units and limb supports, these ones wore something like padded silver overalls with a raised plate on their chests housing a small grille. Their helmets were more complex yet more streamlined with simpler ‘handles’ and an angled bridge across where their noses should be.

  One of the Cybermen had black handles. It moved forward and stood towering over the Master.

  ‘We meet again,’ it intoned.

  ‘Really? I’m not sure.’ The Master scratched his beard as if trying to recollect a prior encounter.

  ‘Your form is known to us,’ one of the other Cybermen replied. It was closest to the leader, acting as his deputy or lieutenant.

  ‘You are the Master,’ added the black-handled one. ‘The former ruler of our world.’

  ‘Very good,’ the Master said, smiling. ‘So why are you here?’

  ‘Leader! Questions from humans have no validity!’

  ‘This one is not human,’ the Cyber-Leader said. ‘We are a pathfinder group. We have been sent to find you.’ It gave an inclusive wave of its right hand. ‘Both of you.’

  ‘Both?’

  ‘The two-hearts. The small female is of no consequence. She will be converted when we return to Floor 1056.’

  Alit hid behind Missy.

  ‘What are your orders, then? What’s our … fate?’ the Master asked.

  ‘The Cyber-Planner orders interrogation and further study.’

  ‘Cyber-Planner? Interesting.’ The Master stepped up to the Leader and held out his hands in supplication. ‘In that case, I am the Master and your humble servant.’

  Missy frowned. ‘Really? Again? You know where this ends – on a draughty kitchen floor …’

  The Leader moved forward, threateningly. ‘Enough.’

  ‘Why does the Cyber-Planner want to interrogate us?’ Missy said quickly. ‘Why not simply upgrade us?’

  ‘The Cyber-Planner has noted that our programmed definition of humanity has been altered. Such tampering constitutes a threat to our autonomy. We require to know why and how the change was made – and who made it – in order to prevent its recurrence.’ The Cyber-Leader unshouldered a blunt-looking weapon and levelled it at the trio before him. The other Cybermen followed suit. ‘Now. You will accompany us.’

  ‘Return to Floor 1056?’ the Master asked as he turned around and walked ahead of the Cybermen.

  ‘Yes. The lifts will take us back to the Cyber factories.’

  ‘The lifts. Aha!’ The Master smiled at Missy. ‘Could save a lot of time.’

  They walked in silence for a few minutes until they reached a set of three lift doors. Beside it was the entrance to a storage cupboard. A Cyberman stood guard beside it.

  ‘What’s that?’ Missy asked.

  ‘You are to be held here until we can descend.’

  ‘Why?’ Missy frowned.

  The Master, however, was smiling and pointing his finger at the Cyber-Leader.

  ‘Ooh. He’s got other orders, haven’t you?’ the Master asked, one eyebrow arched. ‘What is it, then. A secondary mission?’

  ‘Our orders do not concern you,’ the Cyber-Leader said. ‘Place them in the cell.’

  Two Cybermen moved forward but the Master turned to Missy and nodded. ‘Now!’

  Missy raised her umbrella and, before the Cybermen could open fire, it emitted a horrible, high-pitched warbling. The Cybermen began to shake. The Master snatched his laser screwdriver from his pocket and fired it at the Cyber-Lieutenant’s chest plate. Sparks exploded from the grille there.

  Alit screamed, and Missy yanked the girl by the arm and started running, disappearing down a side corridor – and from view. They took refuge in a small closet set into the wall. Alit peered under the door, her heart pounding in her chest.

  The Cyber-Leader had grabbed the Master from behind, crushing his chest with punishing force, and hurled him, unconscious, into the cell.

  The other Cybermen had formed a defensive pattern around the lifts, weapons raised.

  The Leader then turned to the nearest two Cybermen. ‘You will find the woman and the child.’

  ‘Yes, Leader.’ They began marching towards Alit and Missy’s hiding place.

  ‘The Cybermats must be primed and released before we return to Floor 1056,’ the Cyber-Leader ordered.

  Two further Cybermen threw their arms across their chests in salute and moved off, turning left down one of the side walkways.

  Alit tugged at Missy’s skirt as the Cybermen came nearer. Missy nodded and pointed to the back of the closet. Alit frowned but watched as Missy silently moved to the far wall and opened it, showing another corridor beyond. The wall was double sided.

  Missy snatched Alit’s hand and started tiptoeing briskly away. ‘Cybermats?’ she whispered to herself. ‘That is interesting.’

  ‘What’s a Cybermat?’ Alit asked. She was sitting on a chair high up in the control tower they had seen earlier, swinging her legs to and fro as they didn’t quite touch the ground.

  Missy was sitting on the floor, surrounded by wires and ducting that she had pulled from service hatches in the control room’s walls. She was biting her lip, concentrating as she used her umbrella to influence the controls and alter the holographic display projected in front of her.

  ‘Cybermats are like metal rats – or mice,’ Missy explained, pointing at the small cage Alit now wore around her neck.

  When they’d left the Cybermen back at the lifts, Missy had led them on a very erratic route to the control tower, diverting via a grain store.

  ‘Do you know what rodents are? Do you have them on your level?’

  ‘They get into the barns sometimes. I heard Hazran say she thought they came from the laboratory levels.’

  In the grain store, Missy had quickly found and stunned a handful of mice that were feeding there, constructing small cages for the animals from fence wire. They were both now wearing the mouse cages around their necks like oversized pendants. Alit had two of them while Missy had only one.

  Alit had been confused by this bizarre detour until Missy explained that it wouldn’t take the Cybermen long to repair their scanners, and they were searching for targets with either one heart or two. With the mice in such close proximity to their bodies, the cyber-sensors would be fooled into grouping three heartbeats together, which meant that, logically, Alit and Missy could not be their targets and would, with any luck, be ignored.

  ‘I doubt it’ll fool them for long,’ she added dourly, ‘and it certainly won’t fool more developed Cybermen. They’ll be along soon enough.’

  ‘And these Cybermats they have will get into the homestead and make Hazran and the others sick?’

  ‘Tha
t’s right. The Cybermen use them to spread disease to weaken human colonies so they can invade more easily.’ Missy was now gazing at the projection in the control room, tinkering with some of the controls that lay strewn around her on the floor.

  ‘Can we stop them?’

  ‘We can’t.’

  Alit sighed and gave her mice some grains of corn she’d been carrying in her pocket. Missy had named them Hunca Munca and Tom Thumb. When Alit had asked why, the Time Lord had started telling her The Tale of Two Bad Mice by someone called Beatrix Potter.

  By the time Missy had finished the story, they had found Topknot. Missy had ordered him to follow and she had used him both to scan for nearby Cybermen and to locate the control tower.

  They’d left the scarecrow guarding the entrance on the ground floor while they had taken a lift up to the top of the tower. The view was quite spectacular, and an electronic map of the whole area was displayed on the wall. Missy had soon discovered that the main reason for the map was that the floor had an artificial weather system and this was the hub.

  ‘That gives me a wonderful idea,’ she’d said, shooting a grin and a sideways glance at Alit as she began playing the keys on the console. ‘I hope you like surprises. Just hacking into the ship’s computer system, getting myself access all areas. Obviously, that’s not the surprise, I could do that in my …’ Her fingers stopped moving. ‘Aha! It seems that everything old me made in that hospital had a failsafe system. I suppose to stop the patients from wandering off mid-conversion.’

  Alit frowned. She didn’t understand a word of what Missy had just said. ‘Fail save?’

  ‘Like a dog on a chain,’ Missy elaborated. ‘If they got too far from the hospital or, I suppose, the factories, their systems would yank them back. If they didn’t return, the system would malfunction or shut down. In order for the Cybermen to leave Floor 1056 – for Operation Exodus to take place – that system had to be switched off. And predictably – logically – the Cybermats have the same cybernetic systems built into them.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve just found that “switch” in their programming and deadlocked it back to the original setting. Ta-da! No more nasty, bitey Cybermats on the loose!’

  ‘Then, Hazran and the others are safe!’

  ‘From Cybermats at least.’ Missy then froze for a moment before her eyes started darting this way and that. ‘Of course! If I can do that for the Cybermats, with a little help I might just be able to do it for … ooh. That’s good!’ She turned to the wall, whispering to herself. ‘He will be pleased with me. Just wait till I tell him! If I tell him. It will be a surprise!’ She laughed long and hard at this. ‘Yes. A lovely surprise!’

  Alit stared up at her apprehensively. ‘You all right?’

  ‘We’re all all right!’ Missy sailed across the room and beamed at Alit. ‘Say something nice … if you like.’

  Alit smiled. ‘Well done?’

  ‘I’ll take rare over well done every time. Still.’ She snatched up her umbrella. ‘Come on! It’s time to rescue Mr Grumpy-Beard from the hole he’s in.’

  ‘How are we going to do that?’

  ‘Shh. Surprise, remember? But it might have something to do with the fact that I’m making it rain outside. Look!’

  Alit stood on the chair and did so. Together, she and Missy stared out of the window as the first drops of water spattered the glass. Soon the rain was lashing the buildings and the ground below.

  Missy took Alit’s jacket and buttoned it over the top of Hunca Munca and Tom Thumb, then hid her own mouse under her purple coat. As she finished, she smiled at Alit. ‘Now, while I go and brief Topknot on the plan, I have a very special mission for you. I need you to fetch something for me that we passed earlier. Are you up to the job?’

  ‘Think so,’ Alit said. ‘Yeah!’

  Missy went to kiss the little girl on the forehead and then cringed and shook her head. ‘No. No. Yuck, how does he do this?’

  The Master stood in the makeshift cell, his hands clasped behind his back. He was examining the ceiling for signs of an escape route when, behind him, the bolt on the door drew back. He spun round to find his future self, grinning at him lasciviously from the doorway.

  ‘Need a hand?’ she said.

  The Master smiled and moved forward and Missy stepped aside to allow him out.

  ‘Where are the Cybermen?’

  ‘Distracted.’ Missy started walking off. ‘You coming?’

  In the distance the sound of Cyber gunfire could be heard alongside crackling of electricity and strangled robotic cries.

  ‘I used Topknot to cause a commotion, but he won’t keep them busy for long.’

  ‘You’re quite good at this, aren’t you?’ the Master said approvingly.

  Missy batted her eyelids at him. ‘I’m a past Master!’

  Just then Alit skidded round the corner ahead of them. She was not only wearing the black rubber boots she’d taken earlier – she was also carrying a pair of them in each hand.

  ‘Oh.’ The Master looked disappointed. ‘I thought you’d used her as a distraction, too.’

  ‘No. I had to send her on a very important mission. To get these.’ Missy took the boots from Alit and proffered one pair to the Master.

  He took them from her as if they were a brace of dead cats. ‘Rubber boots?’

  ‘Wellies!’ Missy corrected him with a Celtic lilt.

  ‘I do not wear “wellies”!’

  ‘Come on! You know we always dress for the occasion.’

  ‘I suppose you have something in mind.’ The Master shook his head and sat down to pull on the pair of wellingtons. ‘At least they’re black.’

  Once they were suitably booted, the three of them ran for the nearest exit that would lead them back to the bronzed railroad and a potential ride out of there. Outside the citadel of silos and warehouses, a torrential storm was pounding the metal plates of the deck. Missy opened her umbrella and the Master and Alit joined her beneath its protection, one either side. Then they strode out into the tempest.

  ‘If this plan works, we’ll have to say goodbye to Topknot,’ Missy said.

  ‘Easy come, easy go,’ the Master replied. ‘I just want to get out of here before more Cybermen arrive.’

  ‘At least we found where the lift shafts are.’ Missy gave Alit a smile. ‘And if we know where they are on this deck, we can extrapolate where they are on Floor 507 and get back to the Doctor’s TARDIS.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ The Master’s face was inscrutable. ‘So what is this amazing plan, then? Why the boots?’

  Missy cocked an eyebrow and pointed upwards. ‘Rain,’ she said.

  The Master gazed at the sky for a moment and then his face lit up, a broad smile spreading across his face. Then he laughed loudly. ‘You’ll be needing my laser screwdriver.’

  ‘That would be nice,’ Missy agreed.

  Alit jumped as a group of Cybermen stepped out of cover behind them, their weapons firing. Explosions bloomed around her, and she screamed.

  The Master produced his torch-like device and pointed it at the metal deck.

  ‘That’s it!’ Missy called above the roar of rain and gunfire. ‘Give the plan some welly!’

  The Master blew her a kiss and fired the screwdriver. The electrical discharge hit the deck and arced away from the centre of impact, blowing out the lights and shorting the systems all around them.

  The effect on the Cybermen was deadly. They stood, rooted to the spot as the flow of electricity reverberated through their bodies. The sections above their eyes where the lamps were exploded, and the Cybermen all fell to the ground save for the Leader. It managed to take a couple more steps towards Alit before tumbling face first to the floor.

  The Master stopped firing and held the screwdriver aloft with a flourish.

  Alit stared in shock at the fallen silver bodies around her. Even she knew that electricity and water did not mix. There had been a loose cable in the barn one day and the dripping water had caused the whole house to lo
se power. ‘You electrocuted them!’ she whispered, in some awe and not a little fear. Then she looked at her feet. ‘And the boots saved us because they’re rubber!’

  ‘That about sums it up,’ Missy agreed.

  ‘That’s really clever!’

  Missy curtsied to Alit. ‘Aren’t I, just?’

  They did not have to hitch a lift with a robo-tractor or cultivator. Instead, knowing that the produce from the arable farmland was delivered upstairs, they quickly located a conveyer belt system that was feeding bales of straw to the floors above – a simpler and much faster method of getting from one floor to another.

  As they rode the enclosed escalator up through the heavens, the Master sat cross-legged with his eyes closed. Missy watched the golden fields and green citadel recede into the clouds below. Alit lay in the straw, marvelling at all they had done.

  ‘You stopped the scarecrows sending their Cybermats,’ she said. ‘But what about stopping them?’

  Missy glanced quickly at the Master and shook her head. ‘It was just a wild idea. A long shot.’ She mimed shaking someone’s hand. ‘One last hope.’

  ‘But—’

  Missy pushed an upright finger roughly against Alit’s lips. ‘Let’s keep it to ourselves,’ she whispered, ‘shall we?’

  Afraid now, Alit nodded.

  When they reached Floor 507, the conveyer spilt its cargo out into a huge storage barn in the middle of nowhere. Robotic arms lifted the bales from the belt and stacked them. Beside the barn stood an extensive stable of horses and several carts. This would be how they returned to the farmstead, even if it might take a few days. They quickly harnessed one of the carts to a suitable horse and set off across the lush, green countryside, the Master taking the reins while Missy and Alit sat in the back.

  ‘I wonder how the Doctor’s injuries are,’ Missy said conversationally.

  ‘Who cares?’ the Master answered, and it took him some time to break the silence that followed. ‘Tell me. Travelling with the Doctor. What is that all about?’

  ‘I was imprisoned. It was the only way out.’

  ‘So you did have a plan before you ran into me. Get rid of him; betray him?’ He licked his lips. ‘Kill him?’