Amy and Rory shivered, at the mention of the Cybermen. Not since
the Pandorica had the Doctor and his companions ever expected to come up
against them for a second time, and this time, they had history to
answer to, least of all from a Time Lord.
'So you reckon they are behind this then?'
The Doctor didn't know. It was just a guess. A judgement as to what
their next move might be should it be the Cybermen. 'We mustn't forget
about you though, Amy, and my note pad of course. What has the future
got to do with events that are about to come?'
'You mean to say when we encounter the Cybermen, that we have a future we know nothing about to still worry over?'
'Yes, well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Amy. Right now, we have some sinister Cybermen to think about. What will their next move be, I wonder?' He turned to activate the console.
'You mean to say when we encounter the Cybermen, that we have a future we know nothing about to still worry over?'
'Yes, well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Amy. Right now, we have some sinister Cybermen to think about. What will their next move be, I wonder?' He turned to activate the console.
'So, where are we off to now?' asked Rory.
'Space, and another disappearance,' the Doctor said calmly.
'When you say "another disappearance", is this another random journey to an unknown time period?'
'Random?' the Doctor spat. 'I've a list I'm keeping to, and this
disappearance, unlike the rest is of some significance to us. It will
lead us to the Cybermen!'
'What possible significance?'
'My own,' the Doctor replied. 'My future, that of which, you Amy, will have likely to have encountered.
~~~
The Future:
A planet, - shrouded in the moon sphere of the space time zone where Gallifrey, the Doctor's home world once belonged was hidden away so perfectly by a scar that still bled the fears of another war. Beyond that of the moon sphere, a planet long thought obliterated had survived. Reminiscent of the planet Skaro, and as though the past had never truly occurred, the work of evil progressed, in the capture of innocent humans by the Cybermen, on the planet Mondas.
Six Cybermen gathered in a control unit on the surface of Mondas. A dome shaped room, with machinery lining the walls and space within. The Cybermen were at work with a human recently captured, held within a machine buzzing strangely. A moment later, a scream that tore through the silence, and then a spatter of blood in which was squeezed from his life source, as the machine wrapped its metal casing around his thin body, compressing his features into the armour of his new Cyber body.
'Report.' demanded one of the six. Its dry tone, but eerie presence, as it spoke with no lip function, no teeth on show, not even a grin.
'The disappearances are increasing. We can pick up on an "instant disappearance", select the victim, before the human goes missing.'
The Cyberman answered quickly, noting its leaders order, and its tone in demand. The Cyber Leader was not impressed with the delay in the reconstruction of his army.
'The army increases, in time to do battle with the one who meddles. He visit's the time zones the disappearances occur, and is suspicious of our involvement.' said another, flatly.
'As we speak,' said another from the controls of the machinery, who was not in the discussion with the other six Cyber units. 'The Doctor is travelling forward in time to when he too disappeared. Little does he know his body belongs to us.'
The Cyber unit turned to the others, bowed, before marching to another machine where a human was kept in suspended animation, or so they thought. When the Cyberman activated the controls of the module, the Doctor's future self fell out.
'But Leader, the probability of the Doctor meddling further on realisation we've altered his future is maximum 100%.'
The Cyber-leader shook his head, waved a hand ahead of him as if in disgust at such a comment. He answered, 'The Doctor will fail in his attempts to obstruct us!'
The Present:
The TARDIS rocketed through space and time, kicking through the asteroid fields and being bruised with knocks to its exterior. The Doctor was telling Rory and Amy about how he disappeared long ago.
'I was travelling alone, as one does after losing friends to the mightiest enemies I have.'
Amy and Rory turned to one another and frowned. The question did pop into their minds, as to why they were still travelling with him, but neither wished to leave after their previous adventures with him.
'Continue.' said Amy.
The Doctor turned a lever, and the TARDIS engines roared with fury, the Doctor's had sent the ship forward in time, hurtling through the vortex. 'Suddenly, my body froze. I can recall the events because they haven't happened yet, but I remember,' said the Doctor. 'My time line just froze, I went cold, and then I was zapped from my present location, to a place my memory can't ever return to, because so far that memory doesn't exist!'
Suddenly, the wheezing of the engines hushed down, as the TARDIS arrived at its destination.
'So where've we landed then, Doctor?' asked Rory.
'Well think about it Rory! I've just filled you in on a particularly nasty event in my life, told you how I felt, how I couldn't return to the exact place in my timeline the moment I was zapped because it didn't exist in my memory, but it did in the TARDIS, because the TARDIS took me there, and with back up facilities, and her own memory, I was able to lock on to the exact spot. Beyond those doors,' he said, trailing off as he stared past his companions at the blue wooden exit. 'The planet where we will no doubt locate the Cybermen.'
They rushed towards them, pulled the doors back, and stepped out onto the world the Doctor had been zapped from. The terrain was rough and dry, and the planet's sky was the same, with no glimmer of colour except, like that of the terrain, grey and nothing else. Then, Amy saw them first, beyond the horizon, and like the Doctor and Rory could now feel the thumping of the ground as the Cybermen began their approach.
'You were right, Doctor!' bellowed Amy over the thumping of their great boots.
'Yes, Amy!' he declared, in a yelp. 'And I really think…' He paused, as the Cybermen approached nearer, their fists clenched, their sight overwhelming, their numbers, - many, and the Doctor, Amy, and Rory being three figures standing side by side, tiny in comparison. 'I think it's time we were out of here!' he yelled.
The Cybermen had stopped their marching, and by the looks of the Cyberman who stood ahead of the pack, one being their leader, ordered his Cyber units to: 'Eradicate the intruders!'
'Halt!'
The order came through, the second after an array of energy was fired from the weapons of the scout force. The true Cyber Leader saw the disrespect in its scout leaders commandments.
'You will take the Doctor and his companions captive. They will make excellent specimens of the Cyber race.'
As they were led to the dome across the rough terrain, Amy pointed out whispering, 'These aren't the Cybermen we encountered at Stonehenge!'
'No, they're not.' the Doctor told her. 'These are the Cybermen from our universe. Those we encountered on Earth were from a parallel dimension, made on Earth. These are from space!'
The scout force led the Doctor and his friends across rocks and sand pits, the grey landscape a harsh environment. The entrance to the Cyber dome was heavily guarded. Led inside by the scout leader, the Doctor was amazed by the walls of technology, but was a little confused upon which planet he and his friends had arrived on.
He coughed once, then twice, upon entering the main chamber, where Cybermen were hard at work, sucking the life force out of three "new" humans. They had just been zapped, and brought, like the Doctor, to the surface of an unknown world. By coughing, the Doctor had tried to raise the attention of the Cybermen.
'Excuse me!' The Doctor's voice echoed within the room. 'Where am I? I demand to know!'
A Cyber unit approached him, and stood ahead of another, who was much bigger, and heavily armed. His black handle bars made him more easily distinguishable as the Cyber Leader.
'Mondas, Time Lord.'
'No,' he answered back, under his breath, annoyed at the answer to his question.
'I saved your life, Doctor,' the Cyber Leader informed him.
'Oh yes, and we know why.'
'So that you will become like us. No longer Time Lord, but CYBERMAN.'
Amy saw the Doctor shiver. It was quite cold, but the Cyberman had become a threatening body of metal.
'Take the Doctor's companions, and store them in the pods.'
'NO!' yelled the Doctor, grabbing on to Amy's hand while being tugged at by a Cyber unit. She held on as tight as she could and to Rory too, but let go having lost her grip.
'Cybermen are not to resist in the presence of any human,' the Cyber Leader re-afirmed. The Cyber unit snatched Amy away from the Doctor while another Cyberman held on to him.
'Why not just rid us of Mondas?' The Doctor was firm.
'Because I would wish you to know your future is… unavoidable.'
The Doctor didn't understand.
'We have altered your future.'
Then it suddenly fell into his memory, the fact the Cybermen had zapped him to goodness knows where, which meant they had held him captive.
'Why have you gone ahead and zapped my future self here? Why use any of those who ever vanished throughout history at all?'
'What would be the point in allowing the simple loss of a human so near historic nature becoming nothing more than a simple disappearance. Their time lines show they neither return to civilisation, and remain lost. We use the lost to better Cyber strength. The lost are ours to become as we are. Your disappearance coincided with our strategy, and what is more, an enemy of the Cybermen will become like us.'
'NO!' the Doctor snapped. 'You can't have…?'
The Cyber Leader ordered another of the Cyber units to unveil the Doctor's future self, in a pod opposite his present form. The pod hissed while unlocking, and as the Cyber Leader turned back to face the Doctor standing opposite him, his future self was revealed in the now open pod.
From across the way, he could hear Amy yell. 'Doctor, how can you be in there?'
'My future,' said the Doctor. 'Is spent locked in a pod playing host to the Cybermen.'
Then it all came flooding back to him, about the note pad, and Amy interacting with his future.
'Enough Doctor,' rasped the Cyber Leader. 'You will now become as we are, and boost the Cyber race with the knowledge that you pocess. Soon, the Cybermen will be ready to do battle. With you at our side your first battle will be with those that you set out to protect. The human race!'
Like the Doctor, Amy and Rory were strapped into pods and locked away, in an anti-chamber to that of the main chamber where the Cybermen were operational. They were in a sealed compartment of the dome in pods that held great big metal casts, with separate parts, including a helmet just above the trapped bodies, and cyber arms and legs.
'Amy,' the Doctor muttered, so the Cybermen couldn't hear him in the room beyond, but just audible for Amy to have heard him.
'Yeah, Doctor,' she whispered.
'Remember earlier? The note pad? I asked you what was in it, and you said your notes, but there must have been something else, something to get us out of this mess. You see, this had already happened, and my future self is trapped back there, but I did make it out of all this because this is a past event, which means there's another me out there. Somewhere, you saw something in that note. In the corner of your eye, as you turned a page. Recall the skim reading, you so hastily made known to us earlier. Find the memory.'
There was a long pause, and a hiss of doors rising beyond their prison, the Doctor half expecting a Cyber unit to enter and interrupt them, but nothing came.
'I know!' came Amy's hurried response.
A planet, - shrouded in the moon sphere of the space time zone where Gallifrey, the Doctor's home world once belonged was hidden away so perfectly by a scar that still bled the fears of another war. Beyond that of the moon sphere, a planet long thought obliterated had survived. Reminiscent of the planet Skaro, and as though the past had never truly occurred, the work of evil progressed, in the capture of innocent humans by the Cybermen, on the planet Mondas.
Six Cybermen gathered in a control unit on the surface of Mondas. A dome shaped room, with machinery lining the walls and space within. The Cybermen were at work with a human recently captured, held within a machine buzzing strangely. A moment later, a scream that tore through the silence, and then a spatter of blood in which was squeezed from his life source, as the machine wrapped its metal casing around his thin body, compressing his features into the armour of his new Cyber body.
'Report.' demanded one of the six. Its dry tone, but eerie presence, as it spoke with no lip function, no teeth on show, not even a grin.
'The disappearances are increasing. We can pick up on an "instant disappearance", select the victim, before the human goes missing.'
The Cyberman answered quickly, noting its leaders order, and its tone in demand. The Cyber Leader was not impressed with the delay in the reconstruction of his army.
'The army increases, in time to do battle with the one who meddles. He visit's the time zones the disappearances occur, and is suspicious of our involvement.' said another, flatly.
'As we speak,' said another from the controls of the machinery, who was not in the discussion with the other six Cyber units. 'The Doctor is travelling forward in time to when he too disappeared. Little does he know his body belongs to us.'
The Cyber unit turned to the others, bowed, before marching to another machine where a human was kept in suspended animation, or so they thought. When the Cyberman activated the controls of the module, the Doctor's future self fell out.
'But Leader, the probability of the Doctor meddling further on realisation we've altered his future is maximum 100%.'
The Cyber-leader shook his head, waved a hand ahead of him as if in disgust at such a comment. He answered, 'The Doctor will fail in his attempts to obstruct us!'
~~~
The Present:
The TARDIS rocketed through space and time, kicking through the asteroid fields and being bruised with knocks to its exterior. The Doctor was telling Rory and Amy about how he disappeared long ago.
'I was travelling alone, as one does after losing friends to the mightiest enemies I have.'
Amy and Rory turned to one another and frowned. The question did pop into their minds, as to why they were still travelling with him, but neither wished to leave after their previous adventures with him.
'Continue.' said Amy.
The Doctor turned a lever, and the TARDIS engines roared with fury, the Doctor's had sent the ship forward in time, hurtling through the vortex. 'Suddenly, my body froze. I can recall the events because they haven't happened yet, but I remember,' said the Doctor. 'My time line just froze, I went cold, and then I was zapped from my present location, to a place my memory can't ever return to, because so far that memory doesn't exist!'
Suddenly, the wheezing of the engines hushed down, as the TARDIS arrived at its destination.
'So where've we landed then, Doctor?' asked Rory.
'Well think about it Rory! I've just filled you in on a particularly nasty event in my life, told you how I felt, how I couldn't return to the exact place in my timeline the moment I was zapped because it didn't exist in my memory, but it did in the TARDIS, because the TARDIS took me there, and with back up facilities, and her own memory, I was able to lock on to the exact spot. Beyond those doors,' he said, trailing off as he stared past his companions at the blue wooden exit. 'The planet where we will no doubt locate the Cybermen.'
They rushed towards them, pulled the doors back, and stepped out onto the world the Doctor had been zapped from. The terrain was rough and dry, and the planet's sky was the same, with no glimmer of colour except, like that of the terrain, grey and nothing else. Then, Amy saw them first, beyond the horizon, and like the Doctor and Rory could now feel the thumping of the ground as the Cybermen began their approach.
'You were right, Doctor!' bellowed Amy over the thumping of their great boots.
'Yes, Amy!' he declared, in a yelp. 'And I really think…' He paused, as the Cybermen approached nearer, their fists clenched, their sight overwhelming, their numbers, - many, and the Doctor, Amy, and Rory being three figures standing side by side, tiny in comparison. 'I think it's time we were out of here!' he yelled.
The Cybermen had stopped their marching, and by the looks of the Cyberman who stood ahead of the pack, one being their leader, ordered his Cyber units to: 'Eradicate the intruders!'
'Halt!'
The order came through, the second after an array of energy was fired from the weapons of the scout force. The true Cyber Leader saw the disrespect in its scout leaders commandments.
'You will take the Doctor and his companions captive. They will make excellent specimens of the Cyber race.'
As they were led to the dome across the rough terrain, Amy pointed out whispering, 'These aren't the Cybermen we encountered at Stonehenge!'
'No, they're not.' the Doctor told her. 'These are the Cybermen from our universe. Those we encountered on Earth were from a parallel dimension, made on Earth. These are from space!'
The scout force led the Doctor and his friends across rocks and sand pits, the grey landscape a harsh environment. The entrance to the Cyber dome was heavily guarded. Led inside by the scout leader, the Doctor was amazed by the walls of technology, but was a little confused upon which planet he and his friends had arrived on.
He coughed once, then twice, upon entering the main chamber, where Cybermen were hard at work, sucking the life force out of three "new" humans. They had just been zapped, and brought, like the Doctor, to the surface of an unknown world. By coughing, the Doctor had tried to raise the attention of the Cybermen.
'Excuse me!' The Doctor's voice echoed within the room. 'Where am I? I demand to know!'
A Cyber unit approached him, and stood ahead of another, who was much bigger, and heavily armed. His black handle bars made him more easily distinguishable as the Cyber Leader.
'Mondas, Time Lord.'
'No,' he answered back, under his breath, annoyed at the answer to his question.
'I saved your life, Doctor,' the Cyber Leader informed him.
'Oh yes, and we know why.'
'So that you will become like us. No longer Time Lord, but CYBERMAN.'
Amy saw the Doctor shiver. It was quite cold, but the Cyberman had become a threatening body of metal.
'Take the Doctor's companions, and store them in the pods.'
'NO!' yelled the Doctor, grabbing on to Amy's hand while being tugged at by a Cyber unit. She held on as tight as she could and to Rory too, but let go having lost her grip.
'Cybermen are not to resist in the presence of any human,' the Cyber Leader re-afirmed. The Cyber unit snatched Amy away from the Doctor while another Cyberman held on to him.
'Why not just rid us of Mondas?' The Doctor was firm.
'Because I would wish you to know your future is… unavoidable.'
The Doctor didn't understand.
'We have altered your future.'
Then it suddenly fell into his memory, the fact the Cybermen had zapped him to goodness knows where, which meant they had held him captive.
'Why have you gone ahead and zapped my future self here? Why use any of those who ever vanished throughout history at all?'
'What would be the point in allowing the simple loss of a human so near historic nature becoming nothing more than a simple disappearance. Their time lines show they neither return to civilisation, and remain lost. We use the lost to better Cyber strength. The lost are ours to become as we are. Your disappearance coincided with our strategy, and what is more, an enemy of the Cybermen will become like us.'
'NO!' the Doctor snapped. 'You can't have…?'
The Cyber Leader ordered another of the Cyber units to unveil the Doctor's future self, in a pod opposite his present form. The pod hissed while unlocking, and as the Cyber Leader turned back to face the Doctor standing opposite him, his future self was revealed in the now open pod.
From across the way, he could hear Amy yell. 'Doctor, how can you be in there?'
'My future,' said the Doctor. 'Is spent locked in a pod playing host to the Cybermen.'
Then it all came flooding back to him, about the note pad, and Amy interacting with his future.
'Enough Doctor,' rasped the Cyber Leader. 'You will now become as we are, and boost the Cyber race with the knowledge that you pocess. Soon, the Cybermen will be ready to do battle. With you at our side your first battle will be with those that you set out to protect. The human race!'
Like the Doctor, Amy and Rory were strapped into pods and locked away, in an anti-chamber to that of the main chamber where the Cybermen were operational. They were in a sealed compartment of the dome in pods that held great big metal casts, with separate parts, including a helmet just above the trapped bodies, and cyber arms and legs.
'Amy,' the Doctor muttered, so the Cybermen couldn't hear him in the room beyond, but just audible for Amy to have heard him.
'Yeah, Doctor,' she whispered.
'Remember earlier? The note pad? I asked you what was in it, and you said your notes, but there must have been something else, something to get us out of this mess. You see, this had already happened, and my future self is trapped back there, but I did make it out of all this because this is a past event, which means there's another me out there. Somewhere, you saw something in that note. In the corner of your eye, as you turned a page. Recall the skim reading, you so hastily made known to us earlier. Find the memory.'
There was a long pause, and a hiss of doors rising beyond their prison, the Doctor half expecting a Cyber unit to enter and interrupt them, but nothing came.
'I know!' came Amy's hurried response.