"Genesis of War" - Part Three

Part Three

            Words failed to formulate in the heads of Neas and Al-Lee. Standing right there in front of them were the two most influential figures of their lives: the Doctor and Leela. The former, Neas’s mentor/friend/fellow Time Lord, was in his fourth incarnation – the one with the teeth, curls, ridiculously long scarf, and a pocketful of Jelly Babies. Leela’s companionship clued Neas on how soon it was in his travels before he took a little girl from a Georgia farm on a journey that led her to becoming the Time Lord he was that day.

            “Fascinating model TARDIS,” he barely heard the Doctor tell him. “I’ve never seen one quite like it.”

            Neas responded with a raspy “Thank you.”

            “I assume you’re here to take me back,” the Doctor said.

            “Thank you back?” Neas queried.

            “To Gallifrey,” the Doctor clarified. “I suppose I’m in trouble again with the great and all-powerful majesties that are the Time Lords.”

            This was an encounter Neas knew he had to get himself and Al-Lee out of, more for Al-Lee’s sake than his own. He thought hard on a crafty escape plan; something that had as much finesse as it did dexterity.

            “Excuse us!”

            His tone was high in pitch and quick in pace as he muttered that exclamation.

            Nowhere near as dexterous as he had intended.

            He retreated inside his TARDIS, tugging Al-Lee along with him by the back of her leggings, being careful not to give her a wedgie. The poor woman was spellbound as her light blue eyes were fixated on Leela, her great ancestor. “That’s her,” she said as soon as she and Neas were within the privacy of his TARDIS. “That’s the woman who’s given meaning to my whole existence!”

            “But you cannot – under any circumstances – let her know that,” Neas forewarned.

            “I know, I know,” Al-Lee calmly consented. “The rules of fixed points in time are very strict. You’ve made that clear in the days we traveled with Zoe.”

            “Exactly, and it was difficult enough having that girl around when she did eventually find out she would become a Time Lord, ergo becoming me! The only changes I hope to make while we’re here are those relative to stopping the Cyber War.”

            “So how’re we going to explain ourselves to them?”

            “Well, we are here to help Murphy, and I can’t think of anyone better to help than the Doctor. He needs one after all, doesn’t he?”

Two Weeks Later…

            Bob Morton’s day could not have turned out any happier with the latest updates he received regarding progress on the RoboCop program. He was in such a merry mood that he whistled the theme tune to his favorite show, It’s Not My Problem!, on his way into the men’s bathroom.

            And, just like that, his positive vibes were shattered.

            Standing right at the stalls was Dick Jones. There were only a few stalls in the room and Jones stood at the one in the middle. It was like he knew Morton was coming, so he picked the one stall where he would bump elbows with the man to his left or right.

            Unfortunately, that man had to be Morton, and he chose the left.

            “Morning, Bobby,” Jones greeted in an unusually spirited tone. “How’s it going?”

            “Going great,” Morton answered, maintaining his own jovial demeanor. “The RoboCop program’s nearing completion. Apparently, our guy – the Doctor – has gotten some extra help from another expert, which has us months ahead of schedule.”

            Jones didn’t seem fazed at this. “Congratulations,” he told Morton, much to Bob’s surprise. Once the two men finished their business at the stalls, they washed hands and Jones even extended his to follow up on his congrats. A cautious Morton hesitated for a moment to accept the gesture, expecting an attack.

            Nothing happened. Jones didn’t make any sort of cheap shot.

            Instead, he invited Morton, “Come on downstairs with me, Bob. There’s a private project I’ve been working on myself that I wanna show ya.”

            Morton’s radar flared up again. “I’ve really gotta get back to—”

            “C’mon, Bobby. Won’t take but a sec. You can spare a couple of minutes.”

            Morton didn’t know what Jones’s game was, but he kept his guard up all the way down the elevator. He was amazed to see they were taking it much further than the lobby. They were headed to the sublevels; a section of the OCP headquarters Morton had never been to before or even know the existence of until that moment.

            The two men arrived in what looked like a boiler room to Bob – even felt like one.

            “So, uh, what’ve you been workin’ on down here, Dick?”

            Jones remained fairly silent, merely motioning for Morton to walk ahead of him.

            Bob began to sweat and not from the sweltering atmosphere around them. It seemed like the perfect spot for a murder – deep underground where there were no witnesses and no one would hear the gunshots or screaming. Jones had more than enough incentive to kill him. He was the one who ruined his career and life’s work, after getting the Old Man to sanction off on the RoboCop program that proved to be a rousing success.

            Desperate, he pleaded, “Look, Dick, I was only doing my—”

            He stopped just as he saw a swarm of blinking lights from a series of tall supercomputers. In the midst of them was what looked to be some sort of high-tech suit of armor, sitting on a mechanized throne.

            “What the…?” Morton uttered in a mix of uncertainty and wonderment. “Is this the thing you’ve been working on, Dick?”

            There was no answer from Jones.

            Morton turned to see that he had disappeared, leaving him completely alone with the suit of armor. He began to suspect this not to have been a murder plot but some kind of sick practical joke.

            He was about to leave until he saw the suit of armor spring to life, lifting its chrome-plated head and looking directly at him. It made him recoil in fear, his back slamming against the wall. He only realized not a second after that the wall would not have been that close to him.

            Turning around, he froze when he saw another armored robot, designed similarly to the one on the throne, and a dozen others just like it. Each of them sparked with life, closing in on the horrified Morton.

            “What are you things?!” he cried.

            “They’re called Cybermen, Bob,” said Jones, materializing from the shadows. Morton could hardly see him past the imposing robotic soldiers, who didn’t react to Jones’s presence whatsoever. It was a trap. “You made a mistake, Bob. Now it’s time I’ve erased that mistake.”

            Two of the Cybermen snatched Morton by the arms and dragged him away, with the young executive flailing and screaming.

            Jones watched on with the utmost delight, longing for the day to see Bob Morton beg for his life since he and the Doctor interfered in his business with the Old Man. He turned his attention to the Cyber-Controller thereafter and informed, “They’re close to completing that abomination upstairs.”

            “Excellent,” the Cyber-Controller remarked.

            Jones hadn’t anticipated this response. “I thought that thing and the Doctor were a cause for concern to our plans.”

            “The RoboCop will lead our Cyber-Force to the future,” the Cyber-Controller refuted. “You, however, have betrayed our cause!  You have allied with the enemies of the Cyber-Force!”

            Dick wasn’t sure what the machine meant until it played recorded footage off an analog television set looming overhead. The footage was of him and Boddicker, two weeks ago in his office, discussing the Terminator prior to its unexpected arrival. The last words he said to Boddicker were looped for emphasis…

            Depends on which boss you mean: the old man upstairs or the machine downstairs?

            “Is that what I am to you…a machine?!”

            There was a hint of anger in the Cyber-Controller’s automated, monotone voice.

            Jones’s heart raced as he now found himself at the mercy of a dozen more Cybermen that surrounded him. Impulsively, he reached behind him to take out the handgun he had tucked in the back of his pants. He fired a shot at the Cyber-Controller. The bullet ricocheted off its chrome-plated head, clattering uselessly to the floor.

            It was a futile effort on Jones’s part, which only got worse when a Cybermen grabbed his arm with enough force to break it. He howled in agony as his gun dropped out of his hand, no longer any use for him.

            “Take this feeble organic with the other for cyber-conversion,” the Cyber-Controller ordered.

            Just like Morton, Jones flailed and screamed as he was dragged away.

-----------------

            For the longest time since she had been present in the OCP building with the Doctor, Leela hesitated to step out of the laboratory they and their new friends, Neas and Al-Lee, worked in. Everything in the building was based on technology, and Leela couldn’t understand any of it. She did know that she hungered for food, and the only source of it was the vending machines in the coffee room adjacent to the lobby.

            Up until then, she only counted on the others to supply the food for her. But, when everyone else was either busy or unavailable, she summoned her courage to go herself. It was a trial to her, not like those she partook with the Sevateem tribe. Or, perhaps it was, considering their god, Xoanon, was a machine itself.

            She used the method that the Doctor taught her: inserting the money into the machine, entering the letter/number code for the snack she wanted, and waiting for the food to drop out. It all appeared to work just as he described until the snack got lodged in between the slot and the glass.

            “NO!” Leela roared, unsheathing her knife. “Provide me with my sustenance, you evil machine, or I will tear you apart!”

            Her violent rants scared away the few OCP employees gathered in the room.

            One individual, on the other hand, stayed to give Leela the assistance she so desperately needed. She intervened just in time before Leela nearly broke the vending machine and fined herself with thousands of dollars she didn’t have.

            “Neas taught me how to deal with these things. Let me show you.”

            Leela was relieved to see Al-Lee. She watched as the dark-haired woman, whose tall, muscular stature was the telltale sign of a fierce warrior, firmly banged her elbow against the vending machine and got Leela’s snack free. It fell to the open compartment at the bottom, allowing Leela to reach inside and retrieve it.

            “Thank you,” she told Al-Lee. “I would have done much worse.”

            “I know you would have,” Al-Lee snickered.

            “I will also thank Neas when I see him. His wisdom is as great as the Doctor’s.”

            “Well, they are Time Lords.”

            “And you are not?”

            “No. I’m as human as you are.”

            Munching on her bag of potato chips, Leela eyed Al-Lee intently. “You or Neas have neither said much about where you come from. What are you both hiding?”

            Al-Lee greatly hesitated to tell her the truth, foregoing Neas’s warnings.

            She nearly did just that before she looked past Leela and saw someone familiar pass by the coffee room. It was the man from the steel mill, the one Officer Lewis identified as Clarence Boddicker. Al-Lee tailed him, with a curious Leela joining her. They followed him out to the back alley where he ordered a group of deliverymen to carefully load a man-sized crate onto the back of a delivery truck.

            Soon after Boddicker drove away to an undetermined destination and the deliverymen were out of sight, Al-Lee and Leela climbed aboard the back of the truck to open the crate and see what was inside.

            They jolted in alarm when they saw it to be the Terminator.