Mickey didn’t waste any time. As Rose sagged to the ground like the bones had gone out of her legs, he grabbed her and shouted for the others to run. He didn’t have any idea what she had just done but it had given them a way out of the things surrounding them.
The blue van he’d been in pulled up and Mrs. Moore shouted for them to get in. Mickey carried Rose into the back and began helping the others to get in. Pete Tyler started to run back towards the house. Mickey knew that Rose would kill him if he let anything happen to her dad. Running up to the man, he grabbed his shoulders and began trying to drag him back to the van.
“I’ve got to go back to the house,” he protested. “My wife is still in there.”
“Anyone in the house is dead,” Mickey said. “If you want to help them and make certain she didn’t die for nothing, you gotta come with us right now.”
Pete sighed and ran back towards the van. Mickey hurried to follow suit. Once they were out of danger, Rose started coming around. She rubbed at her head like it hurt. Mickey wanted to offer her some comfort but the van was shaking and bumping down the rough road and his choice was to leave her to get herself up or trample her in the crush of people filling the back of the van.
Her hazel eyes fluttered open and she caught the beginnings of an argument. It seemed that Mickey’s twin wanted to kill Pete. Something about laying a trap for the government to leave Lumic in charge. Pete was arguing that he wasn’t part of it – after all, wouldn’t he have just left his wife to them if he was instead of trying to rescue her. Mickey’s twin and the others still wanted to kill Pete. Rose was wondering if she was up to stopping it. If the Doctor were here, he’d put an end to it.
But he wasn’t here. She could only rely on her own wits.
“If you try to execute him, you’ll have to execute me. And, trust me, that would probably be a very, very bad idea.”
Both sides stared at her as if she had just said something ridiculous. Rose rolled her eyes and began concentrating. If she could just stop them…
The argument carried on and Pete agreed that he was working with Lumic – as a spy. He’d been gathering information on Lumic to help the resistance stop him. He even removed his earpods and threw them out of the van to prove he wasn’t being controlled by his boss. Rose let the conversation wash over her as it turned out that the people who had rescued them weren’t terrorists like Mickey had thought. His twin was London’s Most Wanted for parking tickets. Rose chuckled. The conversation continued. She wasn’t the Doctor – she wouldn’t lead this effort but she would go along in its wake and do her part to help this world stop the abomination that Lumic wanted to spread. That’s all she could do and that’s what the Doctor would expect of her.
~*~*~*~
They ran through the streets of London, dodging and evading the Cybermen as they made their way to the factories. Mickey and Ricky had split up and were on their own. Rose, Mrs. Moore, Jack with the spikes, and Pete Tyler huddled behind trash bins as a Cyberman patrol group passed by them. Rose wondered if the creatures would be affected by a sonic screwdriver and resolved to get the TARDIS to teach her how to make one as soon as she was well enough. For now, they just tried to keep their heads down and avoid being captured.
After a while, they made their way to the rendezvous point. They waited for Ricky and Mickey to meet them there so they could figure out what to do next. Footsteps sounded against the pavement and they turned to see only one person running to them.
“Here he is,” Jack said with a grin. His grin faded. “Which one are you?”
“I’m sorry,” Mickey replied, breathless and scared. “The Cybermen…he couldn’t…”
“Are you Ricky?” Jack demanded. “Are you Ricky?”
“Mickey, that’s you, isn’t it?” Rose said, realizing what must have happened. She ran up and gave her friend a hug.
“He tried,” Mickey pleaded. “He was running. There was too many of them.”
“Shut it,” Jack ordered.
“There was nothing I could do.”
“I said just shut it. Don’t even talk about him. You’re nothing, you are. Nothing.”
Rose could feel Mickey flinch. Jack might as well have included her in that assessment. She squeezed Mickey’s hand, reassuring him. “We can mourn him when London is safe. For now, we need to move on.”
~*~*~*~
The group moved towards the Thames. Right across the river, they could see the conversion factory. All of London had been shut down and the people, controlled by Lumic’s earpods, were making their way to the factory like sheep to the slaughterhouse. Rose’s stomach clenched and she felt bile rising in her throat. Swallowing hard, she nodded to the factory. “We’ve got to get in there and shut it down.”
“How do we do that?” Mickey asked.
“I’ll think of something,” Rose muttered.
“You’re just making this up as you go along,” Mickey groaned.
“Yeah,” Rose sighed. “Let’s just hope it works as well for me as it always did for him.”
“Him who?” Pete asked.
“Just this bloke,” Rose sighed. “Just this brilliant, brilliant bloke.”
They moved off a bit so that they weren’t so starkly silhouetted by the river. Mrs. Moore pulled out a laptop and showed them the schematic of the factory as it had been before Lumic acquired it. “That’s the schematic of the old factory,” she said. “Look, cooling tunnels underneath the plant. Big enough to walk through.”
“We could go under and then up into the control center,” Rose suggested.
“There is another way in,” Pete offered. “Through the front door. If they’ve taken Jackie for upgrading, that’s how she’ll get in.”
“We can’t just go strolling up,” Jake argued.
“Well, we could. With these,” Mrs. Moore said as she pulled something out of her bag. “Fake earpods. Dead, no signal. You put them on, the Cybermen would mistake you for one of the crowd.”
“Then that’s my job,” Pete said.
“You’ll have to show no emotion,” Rose muttered. “None at all. How many of those have you got?” she asked the other woman.
“Just two sets.”
“Well, that settles it,” Rose muttered. “That’s the best way of finding Jackie. I’m coming with you,” she told Pete.
“Why does she matter to you?” he asked, confused.
“We haven’t got time,” Rose replied. “Is there any way to disable the earpod’s transmission so that the others don’t just walk in there like sheep? Lumic must have a transmitter somewhere close by. Find it and disable it.” She glanced up at the zeppelin hovering over the factory. “My money is it being on the zeppelin. Lumic likes to show off, I think.”
“I’ll go through the cooling tunnels,” Mrs. Moore offered.
“What about me?” Mickey asked.
“Mickey, you can…” Rose stopped, trying to think of something he could do that wouldn’t get him killed. She had a fairly good idea that she wasn’t coming out of this one alive. Not that she really cared that much anymore.
“What? Stay out of trouble? Be the tin dog? No, those days are over,” he argued. “I’m going with Jake.”
“I don’t need you, idiot,” Jake growled.
“I’m not an idiot!” Mickey shouted. “You got that? I’m offering to help.”
“Whatever,” Jake scowled as he turned and walked off. Mickey followed him.
“Mickey,” Rose called out. Mickey turned around. “Good luck.”
“Yeah, you too,” he replied.
“If we survive this, I’ll see you back at the TARDIS.”
“That’s a promise,” he grinned as he turned to follow Jake once more.
~*~*~*~
Rose and Pete made their way through the shadows to the front of the factory. Pete reached into his pockets and pulled out the dummy earpods. “Just put them on and don’t show any emotion,” he reminded Rose as they fitted them into their ears. “No signs, nothing, okay?”
“Don’t worry. We can do it,” Rose replied.
“We could die in here,” Pete grimaced. “Why are you doing this?”
“Let’s just say I’m doing it for my mum and dad. Right, let’s go.”
As they joined the crowds marching into the factory, Pete grabbed Rose’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Then he made his face go slack and tried to look as if he wasn’t feeling anything at all. Together, they followed the others into the factory. The sound of saws, the smell of blood and gore and smoke was noisome as they marched through the conversion house. Rose was just ahead of Pete. A Cyberman put an arm in front of her, signaling that the conversion houses were full. Another few minutes of being alive felt like a reprieve.
“You okay?” Pete asked in a hushed whisper.
“No,” Rose admitted. She wanted to throw up as she watched others march into the bays, calm and dumb as sheep. Just a bunch of stupid apes, she thought to herself. She wondered why the Doctor bothered with humanity at all. Unless, of course, it was the crown jewel of the human race. Forcing her mind back to the matter at hand, she surreptitiously scanned the floor for any sign of Jackie.
“Any sign of Jackie?” Pete asked. Before Rose could reply, one of the Cybermen turned and walked over to them.
“You are Peter Tyler,” the creature said. “Confirm, you are Peter Tyler.”
“Confirm,” Pete said, acting as if he were following whatever script this thing had in mind.
“I recognize you. I went first. My name was Jacqueline Tyler,” the Cyberman said.
“No!” Rose gasped.
“What?!” Pete demanded in shock.
“They are unprogrammed. Restrain,” the Cyberman ordered.
“You’re lying!” Pete said in disbelief. “You’re not her! You’re not my Jackie!” he shouted as he grabbed at the Cyberman who claimed to be his wife.
“Now I am Cyberform. Once I was Jacqueline Tyler,” it replied.
“But you can’t be,” Rose whispered in horror. “Not her…”
“Her brain is inside this body.”
“Jacks, I came to save you!” Pete said, in tears.
“This man worked with Cybus Industries to create our species. He will be rewarded by force. Take them to Cyber Control,” the Cyberman ordered others nearby and then turned and walked away.
“They killed her,” Rose breathed as one of the Cybermen grabbed her and began pushing her towards the Cyber Control station. “They just…took her and killed her.”
“Maybe there’s a chance,” Pete replied just as breathily, being pushed by another one of the robots, “I dunno. Maybe we can reverse it.”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Rose sighed.
“But if she remembers…Where is she?” he said, glancing back over his shoulder. “Which one was it? Which one was her?”
“They all look the same,” Rose muttered.
~*~*~*~
Mickey and Jake had made their way to the roof quite easily. Hiding in the shadows, they studied the zeppelin. There were only two guards standing watch over the ladder that led into it.
“Two guards. We can take them,” Jake said, almost happy.
“Don’t kill ‘em,” Mickey whispered back.
“Who put you in charge?”
“If you kill ‘em, what’s the difference between you and the Cybermen?” Mickey retorted.
“Right. I suppose we could use these,” Jake muttered as he pulled a pair of vials out of his pocket.
“Smelling salts?”
“A bit stronger than that. One of Mrs. Moore’s little tricks. Should knock ‘em out.” Counting quietly, Jake and Mickey moved and grappled with the guards, holding the vials under their noses. After a few seconds, the two men were out cold and their attackers were making their way into Lumic’s zeppelin. Once on board, they used their vials again whenever they encountered more guards, pressing their way quickly and quietly to the steerage. “Find the transmitter controls,” Jake ordered when he and Mickey managed to reach the steerage room.
“What do they look like?”
“I don’t know. They might have ‘TRANSMITTER CONTROLS’ written in big red letters. Just look!” The two men scanned through the room. Mickey turned around to see a Cyberman standing in an alcove behind the steering wheel. He gasped and jumped backwards away from it in fright. Jake spun and pulled out his pistol. “Cyberman!” he gasped.
When the creature did nothing, the two of them moved closer. Jake turned on the light in the alcove and Mickey rapped the thing on its head. “It’s dead,” he muttered. “I don’t think it was ever alive. It’s empty. No brain. It’s just a robot suit for display.”
“Okay,” Jake agreed. “Transmitter.”
After several minutes’ more searching, Mickey found the transmitter controls. He called Jake over to him. “The controls are sealed behind here,” he pointed at the solid metal box. “We’d need like an oxy-acetylene or something.”
“Oh, and I forgot to bring it with me,” Jake sneered.
“Well then what do we do?”
“We’ll crash the zeppelin.”
“With us inside it?”
“We’ll set it on automatic and then just leg it. Let’s have a look,” Jake said as he moved back to the steerage controls. He tapped away at the computer. “It’s locked,” he sighed. “There’s got to be an override.”
“Let me have a go,” Mickey said, shoving the other man aside. “I’m good with computers. Trust me.”
~*~*~*~
Rose and Pete looked up to see Mrs. Moore being shoved into Cyber Control. Rose sighed deeply. “Did you learn anything?” she asked the other woman.
“Managed to knock one out,” she replied. “They still have their central nervous systems and some chip that acts like an inhibitor. I’m not sure what it’s inhibiting, though.”
Rose chewed her lower lip in thought. Then the answer came to her. “Emotions. These things are human brains and nervous systems in metal suits. If they could see themselves, be aware of what they’ve become, it’d probably drive them mad. Maybe even kill them.”
“Well, that’d be something,” Mrs. Moore agreed. “Did you find her?”
“They got Jackie,” Rose sighed.
“We were too late,” Pete said dully. “They’d killed her.”
“But where is he?” Rose muttered as she looked around the control station. “Where is this Mr. Lumic? Are we ever going to get to meet him?”
“He has been upgraded,” one of the Cybermen guards responded. “He is superior. The Lumic Unit has been designated Cyber Controller.”
The Cybermen went to attention as a pair of doors opened. Sitting on a vast metal throne was a Cyberman who looked different than all of the others.
“This is the Age of Steel and I am its creator.” it said in a metallic voice that was higher in pitch than the regular Cybermen’s.
~*~*~*~
Back on the zeppelin, Mickey was making headway with the controls. “Almost there,” he told Jake.
“Not bad work,” the other man said with a grin. A noise from behind them caught his attention. Turning, he could see the empty robot suit moving towards them. “It’s moving!” he warned Mickey. “You said it was dead!”
“Well, a robot suit’s still a good robot.” Jake raised his gun but Mickey shoved his arm down. They were standing in front of the transmitter control box and he had an idea. “Hey, Cyberman. Over here,” he taunted. “Come on you brainless lump of metal. Come and have a go!” The Cyberman pulled back its fist and then punched forward, right for Mickey’s face. Mickey jumped to the side and the Cyberman’s fist went through the transmitter controls. Electricity sparked and the robot groaned in pain. “The transmitter’s down!” Mickey said in triumph.
Below, they could hear people screaming. The crowds began fleeing the conversion house. Mickey grinned broadly. He had done it. He wasn’t the tin dog anymore!
~*~*~*~
Back in the Cyber Control chamber, Rose, Pete, and Mrs. Moore could hear people screaming. The monitors showed the chaos on the factory floor as the press of humanity, too much for the Cybermen to control, began to flee for safety.
“That’s my friends at work,” Rose said with a grin. “Good boys.”
“Mr. Lumic,” Mrs. Moore said with a grin of her own, “I think that’s a vote for free will.”
“I have factories waiting on seven continents,” Lumic replied. “If the earpods have failed, then the Cybermen will take humanity by force. London has fallen. So shall the world.”
~*~*~*~
Mickey was really enjoying his role now. Still aboard the zeppelin with Jake, he hacked into Cyber Control. On the monitor, he could see the others standing there, clearly not upgraded or killed. “They’re alive,” he laughed. “There they are.”
“Never mid them, what the hell is that thing?” Jake growled, pointing at the seated Cyberman.
“Has this thing got sound?” Mickey wondered as he fiddled with the options a bit more.
“I will bring peace to the world,” came a voice that was like a Cyberman’s but wasn’t. “Everlasting peace, and unity, and uniformity.”
“And imagination? What about that?” Pete Tyler demanded. “The one thing that led you here. Imagination. You’re killing it. Oh, Lumic, you’re a clever man. Everything you did you did to fight your sickness, right? But once you get rid of sickness and mortality, then what’s there to strive for? The Cybermen won’t advance.”
“You’ll just…stop,” Rose added. “You’ll stay like this forever. A metal Earth with metal men and metal thoughts lacking the one thing that makes this planet so alive. People.”
“You are proud of your emotions?” Lumic asked.
“Yes,” Rose said with a sad smile. A tear trickled down her cheek. “I am.”
“Then tell me, child. Have you known grief and rage and pain?”
“Yes. I have.”
“And they hurt?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I can set you free. Would you not want that? A life without pain?”
“You might as well kill me,” Rose answered back.
“Then I take that option.”
“It’s not yours to take, though,” Pete cut in. “You’re a Cyber controller. You don’t control me or anything with blood in its heart.”
“You have no means of stopping me. I have an army. A species of my own.
“You just don’t get it, do you?” Rose laughed. “An army’s nothing. Because those ordinary people…they’re the key. The most ordinary person could change the world. Some ordinary man or woman. Or tin dog,” she added, glancing meaningfully at the camera. She’d seen the light cut on a few minutes ago. She hoped that meant that Mickey and Jake were watching. “All it takes is for him to find…say, the right numbers? Say the right code? For example, the code behind that emotional inhibitor. The code right in front of him. Because even a tin dog knows computers these days. Knows how to get past firewalls and passwords.”
“Knows how to find something encrypted in the Lumic family database,” Mrs. Moore leapt in. “Under…what was it?” she said, looking at Pete. “Binary 9?”
“A tin dog could find that code. A cancellation code,” Rose added. “And he’d keep on typing. Keep on fighting. Anything to save his friends.”
“Your words are irrelevant,” Lumic thundered.
“You think I’m bad, you ought to listen to the gob on this other bloke I know,” Rose laughed. “I hope he’s got a good plan on his phone for all those long chats we’ve been having.”
“The phone,” Mickey chuckled as he pulled it out of his pocket.
“You will be deleted,” Lumic growled.
“Yes,” Rose snorted. “Delete. Hash. Star. All those lovely buttons. Then my personal favorite. Send!”
“And let’s not forget how you persuaded all those ordinary people in the first place,” Mrs. Moore grinned. She felt as if her face would pull in two from the exhilaration of facing the beast down in his own chamber. “By making every bit of technology compatible with everything else.”
Rose’s phone began buzzing in her pocket. She hurried over to the terminal and slammed it into one of the ports. “Like this.”
All around them, the Cybermen began going crazy. They clutched at their metallic heads. They collapsed, moaning and screaming on the ground. One in the room with them saw itself in a bit of reflective metal. Rose’s heart lurched when she realized that the poor thing was weeping. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“What have you done?” Lumic demanded angrily.
“We gave them back their souls,” Rose said sadly. “They can see what you’ve done, Lumic, and it’s killing them.”
“Delete! Delete! Delete!” Lumic screamed just as the factory began to shake and rumble with explosions.
Rose and the others ran out of the Cyber Control room and began searching the factory for a way out. Fires were raging throughout the floor and hundreds of Cybermen lay convulsing, screaming, and weeping in agony. “There’s no way out,” Mrs. Moore shouted.
In the zeppelin, Jake took the steering wheel and began flying the zeppelin away from the factory.
“What are you doing?” Mickey demanded.
“We’ve got to get away. If that factory blows up, this balloon’s gonna ignite.”
“Take it back!” Mickey shouted.
“Mickey, no! They’ve had it!”
“I said take it back! We’re not leaving them behind! There’s no way we’re leaving them behind!” Mickey grabbed the wheel and handed Jake his phone. “Hold it,” he ordered. Jake held it to Mickey’s ear. “Rose? Rose can you hear me? Head for the roof!”
“It’s Mickey,” she told the others. “He says head for the roof.” Spying a stairwell, Rose ran up it, the others following behind her. They made their way to the roof. “Mickey, where’d you learn to fly that thing!” she shouted into the phone, staring at the zeppelin in surprise.
“PlayStation. Just hold on Rose. I’m coming to get you.”
Rose and the others began running towards the balloon, dodging the fires and the explosions that rocked the building below them.
“You can’t go any lower!” Jake shouted.
“I’ve got to, man!”
“You’re gonna crush them!”
“There’s gotta be something. There’s got to be,” he looked around and saw the answer. “Oh yes!” he exulted, pulling the emergency ladder lever. Below the ship, a hatch opened and a rope ladder rolled down. Rose reached it and grabbed hold of it. She hoped this didn’t turn into a repeat of her episode with the barrage balloons during the Blitz.
“Hold on tight,” Mickey said into the phone. “We’re going up.” Rose and the others were clambering up the ladder. “Welcome to Mickey Smith Airlines. Please enjoy your flight.”
“We did it! Mickey did it!” Rose whooped.
Just then, something heavy tugged at the ladder, nearly throwing all three of them off it. Rose looked down, horrified to see Lumic climbing up behind them. Rose shuddered. Pete was almost within its grasp. She dug through her pocket, relieved that she still had the switchblade Mickey had given her – ordering her to cut any bloke who beat her again – after she’d left Jimmy. She tossed it down to Pete who flicked it open and began sawing at the ropes.
“Jackie Tyler!” Pete shouted. “This is for her!”
The rope gave way, nearly pulling all of them off it as Lumic fell into the ruins of his factory, screaming.
~*~*~*~
With Mickey’s expert piloting, they landed near the TARDIS. Rose hurried inside and checked on the old girl. The lights were all back on and the TARDIS’s presence was as strong in her mind as ever. “Everything all right?” she asked.
We can leave as soon as you’re ready.
“Just gotta say goodbye to a few people and then we’ll be off after the Doctor,” Rose promised as she ran back out of the TARDIS. Pete was staring at her.
“So what happens inside that thing?”
“Do you want to see?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” he replied. “But you…all that stuff about different worlds. Who are you?”
“It’s like you said,” Rose sighed, trying to choose her words carefully. “Imagine there are different worlds. Parallel worlds. Worlds with another Pete Tyler and Jackie Tyler’s still alive…and their…daughter.”
Pete began breathing heavily. “I’ve got to go.”
“But if you just look inside…”
“I can’t,” he protested. “There’s all those Lumic factories out there, all those Cybermen still in storage. Someone’s got to tell the authorities what happened. Carry on the fight. Thank you for everything.”
“Dad…”
“Don’t…just…don’t,” Pete said as he hurried away.
“I’m just…nothing, aren’t I? A mistake. A thing that should never have been…” Just then Mickey strolled up. Rose forced herself to smile. She brightened her eyes and hid her pain. She was getting quite good at it. “Off we go then,” she said.
“Thing is,” Mickey sighed. “I’m staying.”
“You’re doing what?” Rose whispered. “You can’t.”
“It sort of balances out because this world lost its Ricky, but there’s me. And there’s work to be done with all those Cybermen still out there.”
“But you can’t stay,” Rose protested.
“Rose, my gran’s here. She’s still alive. My old gran. Remember her?”
“Yeah,” Rose nodded, swallowing the tears that threatened to break her down.
“She needs me. And Rose, you don’t. You’re going back to him. You’ll always be going back to him.” Rose turned to face the TARDIS but nodded. “We had something a long time ago but not anymore.”
“Then this is goodbye.”
“But you can come back, right?”
“I don’t think so, Mickey,” Rose said, staring straight ahead. “I get this sense that…once I leave…I won’t ever be able to come back here. Like the road will be closed forever.”
“You take care of yourself, Rose. And get back to him.”
“I will, Mickey,” she sighed, walking to the TARDIS. “I will.” She could hear his footfalls fading into the distance. Turning, she watched him disappear. “But he’ll leave me…just like you are now. Everyone leaves me in the end…
“Because I’m nothing.”