Post by Fitz Kreiner on Nov 17, 2009 20:28:45 GMT
11
Master of Puppets.
Master of Puppets.
The bustle and noise of the Moonbase control centre was disrupted as the Doctor burst in from the sickbay, coat tails and hair flailing as he dashed through to one of the central desks. With a quick step, he jumped up onto a central desk, the swivel chair skittering across the floor on its casters as his foot left it. With a sound like a gunshot that echoed around the dome, the Doctor clapped his hands together making all the scientists stop and look up at him. Still trying to catch the Time Lord up, Miles and Ulrich almost fell over themselves as they tried to avoid the still spinning chair as it skidded across the floor.
“Excuse me, sorry to disrupt all your work, but I need you all to stop what you’re doing and split into search teams,” the Doctor was shouting, his arms wide as he turned round on the desk to observe the whole room. “This is very important; we need to search everywhere and everything immediately. Stop what you’re doing right now and split up. Search everywhere in this base, even places which are always manned. Look for anything out of the ordinary, loose bulkheads or panels, holes or tunnels or people acting strangely.”
“Erm, Doctor,” Miles said cautiously, looking around the room at the stunned faces, “talking of people acting strangely,”
The Doctor turned to look down at Miles before seemingly dismissing the thought that was running through his head as he realised that everyone else was still stood around looking at him. Straightening up, the Doctor clapped his hands together rapidly. “Come on, chop chop, we’re short of time here.” Sighing, the Doctor looked down at Miles with an eyebrow raised.
Taking the hint, Miles turned to his crew. “As the man says, I want three search teams and I want a thorough search of this base. Don’t stop until every inch is covered, that includes the stores and the Carpet Baggers area. I don’t care what that Professor Wolfe says, refer her to myself if she gives you any trouble.” Miles looked round at the confused faces of the men and women sat around the room before adopting the Doctor’s method and started clapping his hands together to motivate them. “Come on, now, that’s an order.”
As if spurred by this last word, the control room personnel jumped to their feet and for several long moments stood around looking to make three groups. Spotting the confusion among the crew, Ulrich stepped round Miles and started organising the teams. Jumping down from the desk with only the smallest stumble, the Doctor smoothed down his coat to cover his stumble before looking up and smiling at Miles.
“He’s a good chap, that Lars,” the Doctor said, nodding over to where Ulrich was directing the search teams. “He has a very organised head on his shoulders.” Leaning into Miles, the Doctor whispered conspiratorially to the taller man, “keep him on your team; don’t let him transfer to the wheel project. You’ll need him in the coming years”
“What do you mean?” Miles asked, looking after the Doctor who merely smiled and winked in reply, before turning and returning to the sick bay. “I swear I’ll never understand that man,” he muttered.
“Chief?” the radio operator looked up from where he was sat, listening intently to something coming in over the headset he was wearing. “I’ve got the surface party here; they’re requesting to speak to you urgently.”
Sighing inwardly to himself, Miles turned on his heel and navigated the now bustling control room towards the radio station. As he approached, the operator spun on his stool and opened up the radio link to fully audible. “Miles here, what is it?” he snapped.
“Chief, we’ve discovered something out here, some foot prints in the surface dust. They don’t match any style of space suit boot, neither base or civilian.” The tinny voice reported.
“What about the stranger’s boots?” Miles suggested. “Their space suits are different to ours, surely?”
“They are sir, but these prints don’t match them either. They’re completely unidentified. We’ve found them circling the base, as if whoever it was has been looking through windows and watching us.” The voice paused, almost dramatically before continuingly almost nervously. “Chief, I don’t think the people with Space Madness have been paranoid, I think that someone has been watching us. It bloody well looks and feels like it.”
“How did you surmise that?” Miles asked, pulling a chair across from a nearby desk and perched on the edge of it, listening intently.
“These prints, chief,” the voice replied. “They cross over others, including those of the three strangers who were brought back to the base. I’m looking at one now; it crossed over the print of one of the stranger’s boots and one of our own.”
“You’re positive?” Miles felt a shudder go through him at the thought of someone watching the base, maybe stood outside right now watching him. The Doctor had suggested this from a very early stage, and Miles had scoffed at it. The more he heard, the more it now seemed very likely.
“Yes,” the voice replied. “There’s no doubt about it.” The voice paused before coming back through in a heavy burst of static. “Holy nuts, there’s something out here now.”
“What do you mean?” Miles asked, a note of concern rising in his voice upon hearing the report. He was greeted with silence and crackles of static. “Report. Come in; report,” he snapped at the receiver.
“Ch-chief,” the voice stammered. “These footprints are new.” There was audible fear in the voice.
“What do you mean, new?” Miles pressed.
“Someone or something has walked across our own footprints.”
The shiver came back to Miles with a vengeance.
“There’s something out here with us, following us.”
“Have you seen anything?” Miles asked a slight glimmer of panic in his voice for a brief second as he thought about these Cybermen on the surface of the moon.
“No, but these prints weren’t here before. I’m positive of it.”
“I have to ask this,” Miles said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “Are you sure you’re not letting your imagination run away with you?”
“Definitely not, chief,” the voice replied, almost indignantly.
Miles nodded, seemingly forgetting that the surface party wouldn’t be able to see. “Get yourselves back into the base then,” he said, rubbing his top lip thoughtfully. “We’ve got a bit of a flap on here we need you to help out with.”
“Right-oh chief, over and out,” the radio link crackled off leaving Miles sat at the radio still thoughtfully rubbing his lip.
“Chief,” Ulrich called out as the search groups settled. “We need the comm. Units.”
Nodding, Miles got to his feet and crossed to the communications locker.
*
The dark and quiet of the lunar surface was spoilt only by the illumination coming from the bases external lights and the lights attached to the helmets of the two crewmen out on the surface in the surface search party. The two men were hurrying back to the airlock as quickly as they could in the low gravity. The discovery that a set of foot prints had already crossed theirs had unsettled the duo. They had rounded a corner of the base heading towards the airlock when a shadow moved behind them, crossing theirs at their feet. It was the shadow of a tall man, a tall man with a squared head and piping down his arms. A second shadow followed it across the surface.
The two men turned to see what had caused the shadows, their movements slowed by fear, not wanting to know what lurked behind them. The blackness of the lunar night and the dark grey shadows of the surface blurred past the helmet visors until the two figures came into sight. The helmet mounted lamps illuminating and reflecting from the silvery metal of the figures. The two Cybermen loomed out of the darkness of the lunar night at the two base crewmen, their arms raised. The crackle of the electric spark which arced from the Cybermen’s wrists briefly illuminated the immediate area. The two crewmen collapsed slowly onto the lunar dust as the Cybermen leant over and picked them up, before carrying them off into the darkness.
*
Doctor Christina Miles was stood in the sickbay monitoring the physical observation readings on the monitor screen beside the Doctor’s friend’s bed. The only reading that showed anything in relation to normality was his blood oxygen level, which was maintaining a constant ninety nine percent, despite his recent hyperventilation. His pulse rate, blood pressure and EEG readings were all out of the norm though, the blood pressure and pulse rate read that any normal person would be seriously ill, even his brain readings were highly out of the normal rate. In fact, if Christina didn’t know better, the EEG was registering what could be construe as telepathic activity.
The young man was a total mystery, just like the Doctor. She’d taken a blood sample shortly after the Doctor rushed out after noting the readings. His blood didn’t match any blood group on record. In fact, it didn’t even register as human blood at all. Christina had to admit that the young man was a medical mystery and anomaly. She had to start writing case notes for him too, and for the first time in her career, since she was a first year medical student, she found herself unsure of where to start her notes. The admission details were complicated as well, given that she had no idea of the young man’s details. All she could fill in would be his symptoms and the incident which caused him to be lying sedated in the sick bay bed.
Christina wasn’t aware that the Doctor had re-entered the sick bay until she looked up to see him sat at her computer terminal tapping away at the key pad. She instantly recognised the display on the screen to be that of a secure file system. She was about to ask him what he was doing when he clapped his hands together and cried out in triumph.
“I know I shouldn’t really be doing this,” he said without looking up or turning around, “but I think Patrick is going to be rather tied up with his Cyber-hunt for a while and I need to check back into the base files and records.”
“Aren’t you going on this search yourself?” Christina asked, walking over.
“They know the base better than I. Besides, you may need some help in here.” The Doctor replied, stopping what he was doing and turning to face Christina. “How was Tom’s blood?”
“How did you-?” she started, before realising that the phlebotomy apparatus was still sat on the desk with the blood sample sat on the slide. “I couldn’t get my head round it, it’s not human blood.”
“Exactly,” the Doctor smiled back with a wink. “Perhaps I can help you in a bit when I’ve finished here?”
“It would make my job easier,” Christina admitted. “I would ask Carlo, but he’s on refs and even if he wasn’t, well, he doesn’t know anything about your friend.”
“Don’t worry, Christina,” the Doctor said turning back to the computer, “I’ll sort everything out for you here. Although the Cybermen, they may be a different matter.”
*
Jess looked up as the door slid open again revealing the silhouette of a Cyberman stood in the light. Silently, the creature strode into the room and reached down towards Jess, gripping her arm in a steel vice-like grip and almost dragging her to her feet.
“Ow, Goddamn it.” She moaned as the Cyberman almost pulled her arm out of its socket. “All you had to do was ask you stupid metal moron.”
Not responding, the Cyberman half lead, half dragged Jess back out through the door and into the depths of the ship. There was one large difference between these Cybermen and the Cybermen she had met before she noted as she was dragged along. These were a lot less vocal in their intent. She remembered getting some vestiges of conversation from those in the forty first century.
Still being half dragged, Jess found herself arriving in a large domed room she assumed to be the command centre of the ship. There were certainly other Cybermen in there, three others, as well as the partly converted base crewman she had seen before. To one side of the command chamber was what she took to be the ships controls, including a large screen upon which was the image of a large technical array. The other side of the chamber held what she took to be the conversion bench where she had first awoken in the ship.
There was a figure lying on the bench, she recognised as Kyle, the young man she had seen in the cell. He also seemed to have been stripped, his lower half covered by a silver sheet and a sensor array positioned about his head. The same large spike that had descended from the ceiling when she was on the bench was positioned above his sternum, the needle-like instrument had either yet to be unleashed or had been already.
“No, leave him alone,” she cried. She tried to run to his side but was held firm by the Cyberman at her side. Turning up at the Cyberman, she looked at its impassive faceplate. “If you hurt him, I won’t help you at all in whatever it is you’re planning.”
“Illogical. Your assistance is already guaranteed.”
It was the image of the technical array on the screen that responded, not the Cyberman, the central bulbous image pulsing with light as it spoke. Jess noted that there was an eerie two toned electrical hum coming from the screen as well; a two note bass sound.
“What do you mean?” Jess asked, turning to face the screen.
The Cyber array didn’t reply. Jess assumed that it was some form of controller, considering it was speaking on behalf of the Cybermen. As Jess was wondering what was going to happen next, a door at the other side of the chamber slid open and two more Cybermen entered. They were carrying the placid forms of two space suited base crewmen. One of the Cybermen stood in the command area of the chamber activated a control and a platform lifted up from the centre of the floor and the two crewmen were unceremoniously dumped on there. As Jess watched, the Cybermen removed the crewmen’s helmets. She recognised one who she had seen in the control room of the base, but she didn’t know his name.
The Cyberman beside her turned her and she saw the metal flap behind the metal creature’s mouth slide up. A wave of foul smelling air came out and there was a faint mechanical whirring from somewhere deep within the Cyberman before it spoke.
“You will remain or be destroyed. Self destruction is illogical.”
“Get stuffed,” Jess muttered, glancing about the chamber as the Cyberman moved. She now had a clear path to the command area. There was now only one Cyberman stood there at the controls, the others were carrying intricate devices. As she watched, the Cybermen started to place the devices onto the heads of the crewmen, fitting the electrodes in place on the temple, forehead and behind the ears. A diode pulsed with a strong green light on the front of the skull cap.
Seizing her chance, Jess dashed across to the control section and grabbed at the controls. Almost instantly the Cybermen turned to her, pulling short tube-like weapons from under their chest units and aiming at her.
“Move away from those consoles.” The Cyberman who had dragged her from the cell said.
“No, not unless you release Kyle,” Jess said, gripping the controls tighter. “I don’t know what these controls do, but I’ll do a hell of a lot of damage if I have to. And you’ll destroy them if you shoot me. I think that’s a stalemate.”
“She is irrational and illogical, her actions come from emotion.” A second electronic Cyberman voice came from the darkness. “There is a misguided logic to her actions. If she is killed her companions are less likely to cooperate.”
Jess watched as another Cyberman emerged from the darkness. This one she definitely recognised as the Cyber Leader. It was the same height and build as the other Cybermen, only marked with black colouring to the central section of the chest unit and to the helmet. The ridge that separated the faceplate and skull cap was a jet black, along with the section of skull cap that contained the lamp. As with the Cyber Leader she had seen before, the ‘handles’ were also black, as opposed to the silver with transparent section of the other Cybermen, through which she could see a viscous clear material moving. What that did, she had no idea, possibly held some last remnant of their biological roots.
“I mean it,” she said looking at the Cyber Leader. “Tell your goons to put their guns down and get Kyle off that bench thing or I start pulling levers.”
The Cyber Leader turned to look at the screen. Parts of the Cyber Planners array were oscillating as it contemplated the situation.
“Agree,” it said finally. “She is irrational and emotional. This can be resolved.” The Cyber Planner fell silent and emitted a series of electronic noises before falling quite, the only sound continued to be the two toned bass note.
As Jess watched, the Cybermen replaced their weapons before turning to the conversion table. The pitch of the machinery wound down as the conversion equipment withdrew.
“And get him up, make sure he’s okay,” Jess added, not relinquishing her grip on the controls. She watched as the Cybermen removed the machinery and assisted Kyle to his feet. His eyes were still wide in fear. It was then Jess realised that watching the Cybermen get Kyle out of the conversion unit was a mistake.
The Cyberman in the control area stepped forwards with surprising speed and grabbed Jess roughly on both arms and pulled her away from the controls. At the same time, the Cybermen near the conversion table pulled Kyle to his feet. The two remaining Cybermen, under the instruction of the Cyber Leader picked up two more skull caps and placed them onto both Jess’s and Kyle’s head.
“Activate,” the Cyber Leader said, instructing the partly converted Cyberman.
Crossing to a control panel, the convert activated a switch and the green diode became red, causing Jess and Kyle to stiffen as the control devices took effect. As the convert activated another control, the two unconscious base crewmen sat up, their eyes still firmly closed, before getting to their feet. The Cybermen let go of Jess and Kyle as they moved to stand with the two controlled crewmen.
“Report on phase two.” The Cyber Planner said.
“The Sleeper Agents are in position and prepared; awaiting activation,” the Cyber Leader replied looking at the screen.
“Activate,” the Planner replied. “Phase three will commence.”
*
The Moonbase search teams had covered the majority of the base in their search. So far the control rooms, Gravitron probe control room, sickbay and stores had been thoroughly searched with nothing suspicious found at all. The crew quarters were now being searched, rousing some of the crew members who were asleep at the time. Begrudgingly they awoke to join the search after initially complaining to Miles, who was sat in the dome coordinating the search via the base systems. Miles was now sat at his desk drumming his fingers against the plastic surface. He had a search team working their way up to the science department now, and he was just waiting for Professor Wolfe to soon storm into the control dome demanding answers.
A bleeping from the communication unit brought him out of his reverie. “Miles here; go ahead,” he replied before stifling a yawn.
“Jackson here, chief,” the voice replied in Miles’ ear. “I probably shouldn’t have done this but I’ve just seen an email notice on Professor Wolfe’s personal terminal. It seems she’s been after information about this Doctor bloke.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Professor Wolfe’s voice came through the headset as clear as though she had spoken directly to Miles himself, causing the Welshman to start.
“Get away from my desk and console immediately,” she continued, shouting at Jackson. “What authority gives you the right to-” Wolfe’s voice cut off abruptly leaving an unnatural silence.
“Jackson?” Miles asked tentatively, not sure what to expect as an answer.
“Chief,” Jackson’s voice was full of confusion. “We may have a situation here.”
*
Having stormed into her Laboratory and found the Moonbase crew searching through everything, Wolfe had marched into her office to see another crewman sat at her desk, going through her computer and talking to Miles via his comm. unit. Jackson had looked up, seemingly unnerved by her presence. Wolfe was preparing to vocally dress down the crewman when the chip implanted in her cerebral cortex activated. Jackson sat stammering silently as Wolfe stood over him shouting before falling deathly silent and standing frozen to the spot.
“Chief,” Jackson said, getting to his feet and looking closer at Wolfe, stepping back in shock as the tall blonde woman suddenly straightened, her eyes staring straight ahead. “We may have a situation here,” Jackson finished, waving his hand in front of Wolfe’s eyes and getting no response.
Throughout the base, the entire staff of the science department froze where they were, those asleep in bed, sitting bolt upright, eyes open, staring unseeing. As one, they got to their feet and started to make towards the science department.