The scarecrows were mumbling again. They did that from time to time. It was one of the weird things about coming to the homestead. The eerie muttering did not bother the two people Alit was following. She had seen them arguing with Hazran and the other new arrival – the funny bald man, Nardole. She often hid in the shadows and secretly listened to what the grown-ups were talking about. Mostly it was just boring stuff, but this time it was quite good.
Alit loved exploring and finding stuff out. She always had. To do that, though, meant she didn’t always do as she was told or stay this side of the fence. As far as she was concerned, you could only find out how far you could go by going too far. At least that’s what her mum had always told her. So she was good at hiding in shadows and around corners, eavesdropping and watching. Adults didn’t really notice children, and even if they did, they assumed that being small meant they couldn’t understand what was going on.
Alit had a pretty good idea.
The bearded man who called himself the Master told Hazran that he planned to go down to Floor 508 to see if there was a way to stop the scarecrows and whoever was making them … to escape from something he called the Exodus. His friend, or girlfriend, or whoever she was – the woman called Missy – said she would go with him.
Alit was interested in the woman. She had the craziest hair the little girl had ever seen. She acted kind of nice but also a bit scary, too. Like she almost had a heart but not quite. The Master, on the other hand, was an odd and frightening man – all nasty comments and exaggerated gestures. Hazran had already told the children to stay out of his way because, she said, he was a cowardly bully.
Nardole said he didn’t think going back down to the lower levels was a good idea and that they should wait for the Doctor to wake up.
‘You might need to ask permission before you do something,’ the Master said. ‘I do not.’
‘Nor do I,’ Alit breathed softly. ‘And I’m going to keep an eye on you.’
Everyone knew you shouldn’t go out at night. That was when the scarecrows came. Hazran made the children hide under their beds while the grown-ups went out with guns and shot at the scarecrows. But not tonight.
As Missy and the Master made their way across the nocturnal landscape of greys and blues, there was nothing to disturb their progress and Alit followed them easily – the holographic moon above giving just enough light by which to see.
Whatever the Master was hoping to find, something told Alit he wasn’t going to share it with anyone but Missy. And if it could help, if it could stop the scarecrows, somehow, or in their escape …
‘Escape,’ she breathed. Alit loved the sound of the word like she loved the feeling of breaking the rules. It was why she’d been sent to Hazran in the first place: to be kept under someone’s eye for her own safety. But Alit was just as good at sneaking out of the house undetected as she was at following people.
The Master and Missy were deep in conversation and didn’t notice Alit as she trailed them through the woods. Every now and again, one of them would turn round and gaze into the semi-darkness. Alit would hide behind a tree or lie flat on the ground, trying to control her breathing – half excited and half scared.
Alit could hear them as they neared the hole the spaceship had made when it crashed through the floor. The place where she’d first met them. She now scooted round behind them so that she was hiding behind the wreck of the shuttlecraft the strangers had arrived in. Alit peered around the corner of the ship at the two grown-ups. They were staring into the metallic hole the ship had made when it erupted through the floor.
The Master was shining what Alit took to be a torch into the crater. ‘There!’ He pointed with his other hand. ‘Superstructure walkways between the ceiling of the level below and the ground of the level above.’
‘Oh, yes!’ Missy sounded impressed. ‘Clever. Probably used for holo-emitter access and maintenance.’
‘I agree,’ the bearded man replied. ‘But then, I would, wouldn’t I?’
Soon Missy had fetched the metal rope ladder from the downed shuttle and was spooling it over the edge of the crater. When it was fully extended, Missy started the precarious climb down into the maw of darkness the shuttle had created, and the Master followed.
Once they had both disappeared from view, Alit slipped from the side of the ship and eased forward to crane her neck over the crater. She couldn’t see them, but she could still hear them – bickering with one another. It was clear they were both crazy, and even an adventurous soul like Alit knew when she should quit and head for home. But then she turned around and saw it standing there.
A scarecrow.
Like the others that the grown-ups placed on crosspieces during the day, it was dressed from top to toe in silver with an eyeless stocking over its head and two tubes feeding some form of liquid into holes where the nostrils should be. It was also all crooked and hunched; its head to one side like it was listening to something very faint. And even though it had no eyes, Alit could feel it looking at her. Alit’s own eyes widened in fear, and she almost let out a little scream. She managed to stifle it, aware that the Master and Missy were somewhere below her on the ladder.
The ladder! Alit turned and saw it dangling in the darkness. Could scarecrows climb? If they could, she guessed, they would be really slow. It was her only chance.
Just as the ghostlike figure of the scarecrow was almost upon her, Alit launched herself away from it, grabbing for the safety of the ladder. She managed to catch one of the rungs with both hands and caused the ladder to swing and twist.
‘Oi!’ came a manly voice from below.
‘Wheeeee,’ the unmistakeable voice of Missy joined in, sounding like a child on a swing.
Alit quickly climbed down and found the two grown-ups staring at her as if she were a bug in their jam. They were standing on a metal floor belonging to a corridor that had been severed by the shuttle when it had blasted through the floor. It continued on the other side of the crater, receding into darkness. The Master was pointing his torch device at her, but it was not lit.
‘Who are you?’ he asked, frowning.
‘You don’t need your laser screwdriver!’ Missy said. ‘She’s from the homestead. Alit, wasn’t it?’ She moved forward and plucked Alit from the ladder before plonking her unceremoniously on the floor. Then she squatted and examined Alit’s face. ‘My question would be: why did you follow us down here?’ Missy smiled a very unconvincing smile.
‘The scarecrow!’ Alit said and pointed back up the ladder. She certainly wasn’t going to tell them the truth: that she didn’t trust them and wanted to know what they were doing.
‘Scarecrow?’ the Master asked. ‘You mean the partially converted Cyberman?’
Alit was confused and couldn’t hide it on her face, wrinkling her nose and knotting her brows.
Missy sighed. ‘Of course she does. But she doesn’t know what a Cyberman is, do you?’
Alit shook her head.
‘Not yet, anyway,’ the Master said with some relish. ‘Let it catch her. She’ll find out. The scarecrow will get himself a brain …’
‘And boost the Cybermen’s numbers?’ Missy rose and gave an exaggerated nod. ‘Just what we want. Besides, Alit looks useful. Small. Agile.’ She stood up again, levelling her umbrella down the dimly lit walkway. ‘Shall we go this way?’
The Master turned on his heel and began to walk in the opposite direction. ‘No,’ he said. ‘This way.’
Alit looked up at Missy, wondering how the woman would take this defiance from her friend.
‘You’re probably a wee bit scared now, aren’t you?’ Missy asked in a whisper. ‘The scarecrow? The dark? Even Mr Grumpy-Beard there!’ She waved her brolly at the receding back of the Master. ‘S’OK, though. I promise!’ Missy took the little girl’s hand in hers and squeezed just a little too tightly. ‘There’s only one thing you should be scared of around here and it isn’t any of them!’
The space between floors was only just tall enough for the grown-ups to walk without banging their heads. This access space was made up of straight corridors with endless junctions. The walls were completely smooth other than where there were control panels or monitoring stations and these were pretty few and far between. Each time they found one, the group would stop so the Master and Missy could make an examination.
Alit was fascinated by all this. Both of them had such a sense of purpose, such confidence in what they were doing. As if nothing could really harm them. Alit wished she was like them, but every now and again doubt would sweep through her, nagging at her that she should be back in bed, let other people worry about this. But she’d seen that scarecrow up close, seen the relentless way of it. Alit knew that nowhere was safe now.
The Master speculated that there must be some kind of service lift: an elevator that only served the access space and the level below. They started to search for it. However, every time they thought they’d found it, it would turn out to be an auxiliary generator or a holo-emitter relay or some other piece of equipment. Anything but a lift.
Strip-lights provided some dull illumination. This world of tight, narrow corridors, burnished metal and constant twilight was very much an alien one to Alit. Her home was one of green fields and cosy farm buildings, barns and windmills, however artificial. But now she knew what lay beneath it: a dark and shadowy world with weird, distant noises and the threat of the unknown around every corner.
Alit kept thinking she’d seen the scarecrow, the one Missy had taken to calling ‘Topknot’. It was just a shape in the semi-darkness – a long way off – but Alit was sure she’d seen it move. To make things worse, all of them had heard a clattering sound, not long ago now, that could only have been someone knocking something over – someone clumsy or lumbering …
They had picked up the pace after that. They had just walked past another four-way junction in the corridors when Missy paused mid-step. She was examining the handle of her umbrella.
The Master noticed this and turned back to her with some annoyance. ‘Well?’ he said.
‘I think there’s a service cradle here,’ she said, moving down the right-hand corridor until she stood beside a large metal hatch that was firmly shut. ‘Like a platform used for cleaning the windows on tall buildings.’
The Master came alongside Missy and looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,’ the Master said, waving an appalled hand at Missy’s umbrella. ‘That and the hat you were wearing before. It’s all a bit …’
‘What?’
‘Well. A bit … Mary Poppins.’
‘Oh, you know we’ve always had a bit of a penchant for children’s viewing.’
‘When we came here, I expected that big, baby sun to rise over the meadows.’ The Master laughed. ‘And remember those pink things? The knitted ones that went “hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo” when they talked.’
‘The Clangers,’ Missy said.
Alit looked between them, not understanding the conversation but sensing undercurrents beneath it.
‘I’ve been watching a lot of children’s films recently.’ Missy fiddled with her umbrella and it made a whirring sound. ‘We watched Frozen together.’
‘We?’
Missy shot the Master a guilty, apologetic look from under her eyelashes.
The Master turned away in disgust. ‘Was he torturing you?’
Missy frowned. ‘This door is deadlock sealed,’ she said.
The Master folded his arms and shook his head. ‘No, no, no. You don’t get off that easily. I can’t believe you watched Frozen – Frozen! – with the Doctor!’
Missy looked at him, a twinkle in her eye. ‘Let it go,’ she said.
The Master turned his attention to the metal hatch. ‘Deadlock sealed? Lucky I have a laser screwdriver, then.’ He glanced at Missy’s umbrella with another brief shake of his head. ‘Who’d have sonic?’ He quickly set to work, cutting through the hatch seals with the torch-like device. When he’d finished, he stood back theatrically and the door fell to the floor with a resounding clang. ‘Ta-da!’
Without warning, the scarecrow lunged from the shadows and snatched at Missy. She saw it at the last second and ducked away, blocking its grabbing hand with the handle of her umbrella. Alit dived through the open hatchway.
‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ The Master was already moving, snatching at the cloth that covered the Cyberman’s chest. He ripped it open to reveal a computerised display unit beneath. The Cyberman tried to grab at his assailant, but Missy was parrying his movements with her umbrella, accompanying each move with a squeal of ‘Hai!’
The Master stared at the chest unit for a brief second, then used his laser screwdriver to make a fine incision. Immediately the Cyberman stopped flailing and stood still. ‘There!’ The Master stood back, a little out of breath.
Missy sank to the floor and looked up at the inert Cyberman. ‘What have you done to poor Topknot?’
‘Downgraded it,’ the Master replied. ‘Now, let’s see what it has to say for itself.’ He stepped up to the Cyberman and looked it in the face before lowering his head to the top of the chest unit. ‘Voice box, voice box …’ He fiddled with some unseen controls then stood back.
‘Pain,’ the Cyberman said. ‘Pain.’
‘I agree,’ the Master said. ‘In the backside.’
Alit poked her head from the hatch, shivering, to check it was safe once more.
The Master spoke to the Cyberman again. ‘Recognise vocal command authorisation: Master. Alpha. Seven,’ he said.
‘You perfected voice control?’ Missy breathed. ‘Impressive!’
‘What did you expect?’ The Master unbuttoned the back of the Cyberman’s silver overall and explained that he was going to change the root command in its operating system so that it no longer identified beings with two hearts as a target. ‘Then we can use Topknot here for whatever we like. He has scanning capability and he’s strong.’
While the Master worked, Missy went to look at the service cradle. It was approximately two metres wide by four metres long and looked like a cage, with thick strips of metal wrapped around the superstructure roughly a quarter of a metre apart. Although the Master had burnt away the door to the space in which the cradle was housed, the platform itself was still locked.
Missy looked at Alit and smiled. ‘Oh, look. You’re just small enough to squeeze in there.’
Alit was still staring at the scarecrow, unnerved by its presence but glad to see it under control – even if the person controlling it was the Master. She turned to Missy and bobbed her head. ‘Easy,’ she said.
Alit pushed herself between the bars and quickly unlocked the door. She stepped through the opening, striking a dramatic pose as she did so. ‘Ta-da!’ she mimicked the Master’s earlier cry. Missy laughed and clapped her hands together.
The Master appeared in the doorway again. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘I think we have a protégé,’ Missy replied.
‘You might have a protégé, but I have a slave.’
He stepped aside to reveal the scarecrow standing obediently behind him. ‘Take us down.’
Topknot walked over to the controls and, after a brief moment analysing their functions, operated one of them with its rubber-gloved hand.
With a hydraulic growl, the doors beneath the service cradle opened and immediately the passengers within could feel a strong wind ruffling their clothes and blowing against their faces. More clanking noises indicated the winches coming online, and the platform jerked away from its housing and down into the sky of Floor 508. It was still night-time down there, and the firmament was an inky blue with nothing to see below save indistinct blackness.
‘Welcome to “Underland”!’ Missy called above the roar of the wind.
The Master slid down the bench so he was pressed up against his female alter ego. ‘Why are you so chipper?’ he hissed.
‘Aren’t we always?’
‘No!’ He seemed to have a bad taste in his mouth and looked her up and down. ‘I think it’s to do with our latest regeneration.’
‘You’re not very keen on becoming a woman, are you?’
‘Girls have a way of … disappointing you. One minute they’re all lovey-dovey and the next they stab you in the back! They’re so … fickle.’
‘Hasn’t stopped us using women in the past, has it?’
‘I use everyone.’
‘Galleia, Kassia, Chantho, Miss Trefusis.’
‘You remember the names. How sweet.’ He pursed his lips, pouting at Missy.
‘I’ve been making myself recall them recently, yes.’ Missy allowed herself a brief smile of resignation. ‘Lucy, of course.’
‘And you’re using a child!’ the Master added. ‘Alit! Oh, Alit!’ He called the little girl over to them.
Reluctantly, Alit tore her attention away from staring over the side of the cradle and moved over to stand in front of the two grown-ups.
‘Do you have a mummy? A daddy?’ the Master asked.
Alit nodded. ‘They said I had to come to the farmstead.’
‘An evacuee,’ Missy said.
‘And do you like any of the boys there?’
‘Or girls,’ Missy added. ‘Isn’t that the right thing to say?’
Alit looked at her feet. ‘Omebo’s OK,’ she mumbled.
‘And if you married Omebo—’
‘I’m not going to marry him!’
‘Never interrupt me.’ The Master’s eyes had narrowed and his voice was dangerous and quiet. ‘If you married Omebo, little Alit, you wouldn’t betray him, would you?’
Alit shook her head.
‘Of course you wouldn’t,’ the Master said sarcastically. ‘Just like Chantho and lovely Lucy Saxon.’
‘Lucy wanted a way out,’ Missy said with a note of irony in her voice. ‘And that almost cost you everything, didn’t it?’
‘Like I say: fickle.’
Missy looked away for a moment as if she found something painful. ‘So what’s the plan? That rubbish you spouted for Nardole might have fooled him, but it didn’t wash with me. “Stop the Cybermen, find an escape.” Really?’ Her eyes darted to Alit, who simply stared back at her, as if she didn’t understand. She was good at that look. She’d practised it in front of the mirror sometimes.
The Master grinned. ‘The Doctor has taken away our chance to lead an army, to subjugate and dominate the galaxy. Well, not any more. I’m going to change that one digit the Doctor altered when we were on Floor 1056 – the number of hearts the Cybermen identify as human – from a “two” back to a “one”.’ He leaned forward and cupped his hand over Missy’s ear, eyeing Alit suspiciously. ‘I regain control of the Cybermen. Of everyone!’
‘Exciting!’ Missy breathed.
‘Why are you whispering?’ Alit was looking directly at them. ‘What are you even talking about – control everyone?’
‘Just silly grown-up stuff,’ Missy said.
Yeah, right. Alit decided it was best to act dumb. ‘Where are we going anyway? Can’t you use Topknot to help us now? Why do we need to use this cradle thing?’
The Master leant forward, very earnestly, his hands clasped together. His voice was very calm and measured. ‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘All right,’ Alit said uneasily.
The Master blew out a weary breath and whined: ‘Are we there yet?’
The ground was only thirty metres away now. Even in the weak dawn light, Alit could tell it was an amazing yellowy-gold colour and stretched for a long way in every direction. It bordered several other huge fields each a slightly different colour indicating a different crop.
The cradle bumped onto the ground just as the artificial sun came up, sending rays of peachy light across the huge expanse of corn and illuminating a grid of bronzed pathways that criss-crossed the patchwork of fields.
They had landed on a small square of concrete adjacent to a much larger circular area where two of the bronze paths crossed one another. Now they were close to them, they could see these paths were slightly raised off the ground, about two metres wide with a channel running down the middle.
The Master was already off the platform and examining one of them. ‘It’s a rail of some kind,’ he reported. ‘The central groove is for guidance. Maybe a power feed within?’ He tapped the wide, flat metal. ‘Whatever rides them is big.’
As he finished speaking, the ground began to vibrate with a low rumble and they all turned towards the source of the noise. Coming down along the flattened rail was a huge machine. It was as big as the farmstead Alit had recently moved to and was bearing down on them at speed.
The Master stood and retreated back to the square area and leant against the side of the maintenance cradle. Topknot was still standing beside the platform next to Missy and Alit.
‘Some form of automated harvester for the crops,’ the Master said. ‘We’ll let it pass and then follow it.’
‘Why?’ asked Alit.
The Master mimicked her mouth with his hand and a sarcastic expression flashed across his face. ‘Because, little girl, that’s the only technology here, and wherever it’s taking the corn is where we’ll find more – technology we can actually use.’
They had to wait as the machine came to a halt alongside them, reaching the crossroads in its guidance rail. It turned slowly in a ninety-degree arc. As it did so, Alit could see it was a featureless block of metal with various hatches and control access panels along its front and sides. There was no room for a driver let alone passengers.
A hatch that ran the length of the front of the machine opened and a huge churning drum of blades appeared. The robo-tractor then set off across the field, the drum rotating and chopping the corn down.
As the wheat was harvested at the front, further attachments scooped the straw down a separate tube, clearly using a vacuum to suck it up and make sure nothing was lost. Two further flaps had opened at the rear of the vehicle and multi-headed ploughs were extending from them, churning the stubble left behind back into the rich, dark earth. The bronze path now positively glowed a rich, deep yellow in the light from the fully risen sun.
‘Shall we?’ the Master said, indicating they should start following it.
He waited for Missy to join him, and she slipped her arm through his. Then she grabbed Alit’s hand and together with the scarecrow the four of them began walking briskly up the yellowy road.
It became evident that while Missy and the Master could walk at a steady pace for what seemed like an eternity, Alit could not. She had been slowing for the last twenty minutes, and the Master was not helping matters by sighing and making sarcastic remarks. Missy had suggested that Topknot carry the little girl, but Alit had refused stubbornly. Fortunately, they were all saved by the arrival of a second type of vehicle on the bronzed railroad.
This one was lower and less square; it had a small front section with a much larger rear section – like a bloated spider. This mechanical arachnid did not have eight legs, however, just the one. It was massively long and wide, and stretched over a hundred metres into the field beside the track. Its job seemed to be to plant new seeds and to administer some form of growth accelerant. The moment its arm passed over the ground, a green shoot appeared, poking up from the nutrient-infused earth.
The fact that this cultivator machine was squatter also meant that the four unlikely travellers could board it by climbing onto its back. They had to run to do so. Alit climbed on easily. Missy had a bit more difficulty and the little girl had to help her, pulling her up with the aid of the woman’s umbrella. Soon they were all riding the machine, happy to sit in the artificial sunshine and gaze up at the faint numbers that denoted the floor number projected onto the ceiling high above.
Once aboard the cultivator, it did not take them long to leave the corn fields behind and enter a very different expanse. It was approaching dusk as they made their approach via an area of stubby plants with broad leaves. Alit took pleasure in naming the different crops as they passed, eager to show off her knowledge.
‘Potatoes!’ she cried.
‘Solanum tuberosum,’ the Master said through a yawn.
Alit snorted. ‘No, they’re definitely potatoes.’
‘They don’t have Latin on Mondas,’ Missy drawled.
‘This isn’t Mondas,’ the Master replied, folding his arms. He was soon on his feet, though, and happy to see what now lay ahead of them: a vast swathe of the landscape on the horizon was given over to dark green towers of differing heights that soared into the sky. As they neared them, it became clear the towers were actually silos for the storage of the very crops that surrounded them.
‘Do you think these crops were for a native human population?’ Missy asked, staring out at the fields. ‘Or do you think there is some automated delivery system for the floors above?’
‘A bit of both, I should think.’ The Master stroked his beard, thinking. ‘Alit, where do you get your potatoes from? Most of the land around the farmstead is pasture and woodland for livestock.’
‘The carters bring them,’ Alit said. ‘And hay and straw. When I was really little, they used to come all the time, but not so much now.’
‘A delivery system, then,’ Missy said. ‘Interesting …’
Finally, fields no longer flanked the bronzed railroad. Instead, warehouses of various sizes took their place. The cultivator accelerated, and the Master said they should get ready to disembark. Sure enough the track split into many different branch lines that led to assorted warehouses and garages.
Just as the cultivator slowed to make its turning, the Master slid to the ground and held his hand out for Missy to follow. Instead she jumped into the air floating slowly back to the ground using her umbrella in an impossible way to slow her descent. Alit couldn’t help but smile at this while the Master just shook his head. Alit slid off the side of the vehicle, but landed awkwardly, ripping the sole of her slipper in the process. It only occurred to her then that she wasn’t dressed for adventuring. As if copying her, Topknot stumbled from the cultivator and fell to the floor, his leg twisted at a nasty angle under him. Alit went cautiously over to help but the Master brushed her away and yanked the scarecrow to its feet. No soothing murmurs, no hugs. Alit supposed the scarecrow was in too much pain to notice much more.
‘Right,’ the Master said. ‘We need to find the heart of the operation.’
Missy nodded to Topknot. ‘Better ask the Tin Man.’
The Master smiled humourlessly and then asked the Cyberman to scan for technology they could use to access the ship’s systems. ‘Once we do that,’ he said to Missy, ‘we can hack into the ones I set up on Floor 1056.’
Topknot turned in a circle and then lifted an arm towards a tower at the centre of the surrounding buildings. ‘There.’
Although the outskirts of the agricultural metro-polis had been made up of individual structures, those ahead of them in the centre were all part of one giant edifice, almost like a bucolic cathedral with soaring grain silos for bell towers, domed tractor garages for galleries and elongated warehouses for naves.
Just as the sun was setting for the day, Missy used her umbrella to gain access to the nearest building. The Master used Topknot like a homing device to guide them through the various chambers. It was while they were making their way through a darkened warehouse that they first heard the others.
The Master was examining a pile of shovels on a vast shelf. ‘Looks like they have all sorts of equipment here – even ones for people to use.’
‘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?’
‘That’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 lose 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?’
‘Get rid …?’ Missy looked at the Master, and her face became a stony façade. ‘That has a certain ring to it.’
The Master smirked as he cracked the whip for the horse to move faster.
Missy turned away from him.
Alit eyed her, suspicious once more – especially as the woman now seemed to have a slightly distant, almost unhinged, look in her eye.
‘Note to self: Get rid of … betray … kill.’ Missy nodded. ‘Yes. I suppose that’s the only way.’