|
CHAPTER TEN
Rose awoke in darkness. It didn’t make much difference if she opened her eyes wide or squeezed them tightly shut; she couldn’t see a thing. For all intents and purposes she could still have been asleep, but she could hear a deep throbbing sound coming from far below the ground, and she was aching all over.
Rose felt heavy, like those mornings after nights fuelled by one too many Bacardi Breezers down the local with Mickey. She lifted her chin off her chest and a cracking pain shot through the back of her head. Her neck was stiff, her mouth was dry; it was exactly like a hangover. She felt a little nauseous.
And then she remembered everything.
“Doctor?” she whispered.
There was no reply and her voice didn’t echo like it had on the surface. She was starting to think she was indoors, probably in a small room. It was dry, not too cold, windless. Who had brought her here?
“Doctor?” she tried again.
But already she doubted it was him. The last thing she remembered was the Doctor being called away by Sergeant Cameron. She’d turned to look, then it was like something had fallen on top of her, and everything went black.
A bit like it was now.
“Doctor?” she said, a bit louder.
She now had an awful suspicion that this small, dark room was a cell.
“Doctor?” she went, getting slightly hysterical.
But of course, the Doctor wasn’t there.
She tried to move her hands. She found them trussed above her head. Her fingers tingled and she couldn’t move them, the same with her feet.
There was a muted whooshing sound in the darkness and Rose felt a slight breeze of cooler air brush against her clammy skin.
She froze. She realised a door had opened. It sounded about ten feet away, but in the darkness it could have been further; it could also have been nearer.
“H-hello?” she said tentatively.
Holding her breath, she thought it was just her heart she was hearing, but then she realised the dull thuds, like fists bouncing on fleshy thighs, were getting nearer; they were footsteps. Then they came into the room.
A beam of light shone in her face. She closed her eyes and turned her head reflexively, but forced herself to look back.
The source of the light was moving toward her. It looked like it was nine feet in the air, but Rose was sitting on the ground; it could have been even higher.
Then the footsteps stopped and the light went out.
Rose’s stomach lurched. The moment of darkness seemed interminable, but then a dull grey light enveloped the room. It was still too bright for Rose. She squeezed her eyes shut, getting only a momentarily glimpse of what was standing in the room with her. Instinctively she began to strain against her bindings.
As her sight recovered, she opened her eyes and froze. The metal giant with teardrop eyes was watching her, motionless and silent. Nothing about the robotic creature said ‘friend’. Without looking it reached out to a panel on the wall.
Suddenly Rose was moving. She yelped. She had been sitting on the floor, her ankles trapped within metal clasps, like her wrists. Now the clasps above her heads were pulling her upwards, and the clasps around her ankles followed.
Soon she was flush against the wall, pulled tight. She could move even less now. As the giant approached, there was only one thing she could do.
Scream.
“What is your identifier?” the metal giant demanded.
Rose fell silent instantly.
“What is your identifier?” it repeated.
The thing spoke, but its mouth didn’t move. Its voice sounded digitally processed; compressed, with a metallic flange effect.
“What is your identifier?”
Rose’s heart was beating ever faster. The robot had these bizarre handle-like protuberances that emerged from each temple, swept back along the sides of its head and then disappeared into the back of its skull. They were black, like its eyes, but the rest of the metal giant was an impeccably polished silver.
“What is your identifier?” it said again.
“You mean... my name?”
“What is your identifier?”
“Rose. My name’s Rose. What’s yours?”
“How many organics are there in your company?”
“How many what?”
“How many organics are there in your company?”
“Look, just let me down from here.”
“How many organics are there in your company?”
“Please!”
“How many organics are there in your company?”
“I don’t understand!” she cried.
“How many organic organisms are there in the group you came with?”
“Organic organisms? You mean people?”
“How many organic organisms are there in the group you came with?”
“There was about twenty of us.”
“How many organics are there in your company?”
“I just answered that!”
“How many organics are there in your company?”
Rose sighed. She meant to keep it silent, but she was breathing so rapidly that it staggered out, belying how fast her heart was beating.
“How many organics are there in your company?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Six? How about that?”
“What is your purpose?”
“What is my purpose?!”
“What is your purpose?”
“What do you mean? Mine personally? Or the group’s?”
“What is your purpose?”
“I’m here completely by accident. We weren’t trespassing; we got lost, then we crashed. I’m sorry; if you just let me go, we’ll never do it again, I promise.”
“What is your purpose?”
Rose licked her lips. “I don’t have one.”
“What is your purpose?”
It must have meant the troops’, then. “A rescue mission.”
“Who is intended to be rescued?”
Rose snorted. “I hope to God it’s me now,” she muttered.
“Excellent,” said the metal giant.
Rose was taken aback. The robot had been interrogative, relentless and unresponsive. This was the first time it hadn’t asked her a question.
“How will they find you?” it said.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“How will they find you?”
She sighed. “I really don’t know. Honestly!”
“How will they find you?”
She was beginning to realise the only answer this thing wouldn’t accept was a claim to ignorance; it took more kindly to an outright lie.
“How will they find you?”
“I have a tracking device in the back of my neck,” she lied, and immediately regretted it; if they wanted to remove it, they’d cut her head off to do it.
Why couldn’t you have just said it was in your pocket? she chastised herself.
“Excellent,” the metal giant said.
She frowned. “What? You mean you want them to rescue me?”
“We want them to try.”
“Why? What are you going to do to them?”
“The organics are to become new members of the Cyberman race.”
“The what?” Rose cried.
“The organics are to become new members of the Cyberman race.”
“Who are the Cybermen?”
“We are.”
She almost wished she hadn’t asked. “You mean... you’re people?!”
“The Cyberman race is synthetically enhanced.”
She gulped. “What about me?”
“The primary function of the human female identified as Rose is inducement.”
“You mean I’m bait,” she said disgustedly. “It’s a trap for the others!”
“The primary function of the human female identified as Rose is inducement.”
“I don’t want to become like you.”
“The sole function of the human female identified as Rose is inducement.”
She frowned. “What’s going to happen to me?”
“The primary function of the human female identified as Rose is inducement.”
“Yeah, but then what? What are you going to do with me afterwards?”
“The sole function of the human female identified as Rose is inducement.”
She swallowed. “Are you... going to kill me?”
“Human females do not become members of the Cyberman race.”
“You are going to kill me.” She began to tremble. “Wait a minute, you’re ruling me out of becoming a Cyber-thing just because I’m a girl?”
“Human females do not become members of the Cyberman race.”
“Hang on, if you don’t have any females, how do you breed?”
“The Cyberman race does not breed. It conquers.”
Rose couldn’t stifle a laugh. “Repressed!”
The Cyberman reached out to the panel on the wall. The door on the far side of the room whooshed open again. The Cyberman turned to leave.
“You’ve got a nasty surprise coming to you!” Rose shouted after him.
The Cyberman returned her to darkness.
“The Doctor’s had plenty of experience sending alien scum into the next life, and you’re pussies compared to most of them!”
In the darkness, she heard the Cyberman stop and turn back.
“The Timelord identified as the Doctor is in your company?”
“You bet your shiny metal arse he is!”
The bright light emitting from the top of the Cyberman’s head cut a sharp beam through the shadowy cell and spot-lit Rose’s face.
She squinted to look at its face. It was blank and motionless, but something about the way the Cyberman was silent indicated things had changed.
Then the light went out, the Cyberman turned and the door on the far side of her cell whooshed quietly shut. The dull thuds disappeared into the distance.
Rose took a deep breath. It was like the Cyberman had been observing her face to see if she was telling the truth. The metal monstrosity had clearly heard of the Doctor before. Perhaps in its speechlessness there was fear.
Or perhaps she was being hopeful. She had a horrible, nagging suspicion coming from somewhere that she’d just put her foot in the Doctor’s mouth.
NOTES:
The shortest chapter, just about, and helpful to the pace of what will be a more action-orientated (and Cyberman-heavy) section of the story, as is the Cyberman's repetitive, droning questioning style. The references to black 'handles' are meant to indicate that this is the Cyberleader. Also, I'm aware that 'companion gets captured, needs rescuing' is the stock-in-trade plot device of "Doctor Who" stories, but I intend to put a slightly novel twist on it a few chapters hence. And of course, "shiny metal arse" is another robot reference, this time to Bender in "Futurama".
|
