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wintercompanion2014-07-23 09:57 pm
wojelah.livejournal.com) wrote in wintercompanion2014-07-23 09:57 pm
luorescence: Tic Tac Boom (Jack/Eleven) [PG] - Summer Holidays Prompt #13
Title: Tic Tac Boom
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
luorescence
Challenge: Summer Holidays 6
Prompt Group: 13 - Ringmaster - in the Center Ring - with a mirror - in a mechanical elephant
Pairing: Eleventh Doctor/Jack Harkness (established), subtexts everywhere
Rating: PG
Spoilers/warnings: Spoilers for Nightmare in Silver, plenty of references to it and also its sequel for Mr Clever. Latest installment in the Cuckoo Clock verse, happens an undetermined amount of time after Allegretto for the Doctor, Jack and Clara. No need to read any of the installment though.
Summary: They meet again, at least. Mr Clever has waited a very long time for that moment and he intends to savour every bit of it.
A/N: Many tolilia_purpurea for the beta and brainstorming with me, and to everyone who supported me. You guys rock!
The fragmented lights I had personally programmed flickered on my way through the corridors, giving them a much better aspect than the wall’s dull dark steel blue. A bit more colours could only be better, we wouldn’t want this place to be boring, would we? Even more for the grandiose occasion that was to come! Oh no, I would certainly not let dull and boring decorate my ship.
As such, I had taken care of putting a few things here and there, to brighten the place up and bring some cowboys in here. Floating gadgets made of scrap parts from the boys and girls, quite sadly unsalvageable and plentiful. Well, positive point, they weren’t useless!
The engineers had done wonders following my directives, even though less efficient than me, obviously. It didn’t help that their… fingers were so slow and so clumsy compared to my own cyberium appendices. I had to admit I missed having those (funny little things they were, all soft, squishy and so sensitive), that had been quite a fascinating experience that would repeat itself in the closest future, if all went according to plan. Also, I was quite excited at the prospect to share my mind again, since all the boys and girls were not so wakey and more of a jumbly-rumbly hum in the back of my consciousness. It was a little bit too calm to my liking.
Pleasant hisses resonated as Webley jumped after me, then, as the boy always did, fell into his pre-determined patterned of following the highest authority figure in his surroundings. That would be me, of course, not that there were anyone higher than me. Not that there were anyone but me and good old Webley anyway.
The boy uselessly congratulated me for all the preparations, already eager to see the results of my careful planning. The aliens were rubbing off a little on him, weren’t they? After all, he, more than anyone else, knew there wasn’t much I couldn’t and didn’t do. The wonderful perks of having a superior top-notch adaptive multicore processor. I was pretty much everywhere, everywhen and capable of doing everything I wanted in the limits of my ship. As it had always been my task, right and pleasure to do so. That had always been embedded in my base codes, as well as in the collective consciousness of the Cyberiad.
Born to lead, humans would said, programmed to do so. Oh, I loved the sound of that!
Speaking of organics, they were already beginning to crowd the corridors, pads and books in hands since they were sadly incapable of accessing directly the network’s database, downloading information into their flimsy brains and memorising them. So much potential laid dormant in there, wasted. And that was nothing compared to the wonders of a Time Lord’s brain. I clicked in pleasure. Oh, such a excursion that had been.
Neither of them even detected me as I flew over their heads. Such inefficient optic captors and actually as good as a Time Lord was, it was something that should be upgraded. The sweet whispers in my mind, much more powerful and ancient than the boys and girls’ went louder. I was on the right tracks and she was obviously agreeing with me since I felt her locking onto me, as impatient and demanding as ever.
As the gentleman she expected me to act like, at least with her, I obliged her, also sending my best regards as well as a quite friendly little app that should help with her cooling system—she had been complaining about it for quite a while now—until an engineer would make a check her up.
She informed me she had received the V7.12’s location coordinates. Lovely chamber that one was, blue lighting and some dust in suspension in the air to give it a bit of an atmosphere. And that best part and most important, unused. There would be nobody around to annoy her. Not that organics really noticed her, it was as unlikely as them seeing me when I didn’t want to be seen.
Then, she sent a piece of software of her own in answer to my little gift. A Tiberian firewall, the most efficient of them all, which she knew was quite useless since nobody would ever be able to hack m… Oh. She was humouring me. Interesting. What a wonderful Old Girl!
But really, all of that was mostly playful vanity on my part: a will to please her and make her feel welcome and loved, as one of the most gorgeous machine that had ever been created. At least, equal to myself, deserving all my respect and attention.
As such, I absolutely wanted to greet her in person, and not through a drone or the comms. She was, after all, the most important guest to ever set foot on the ship, much more than all these galaxywide-renowned professors and scientists—even though a few were quite fascinating—ah! These feeble beings! Always full of surprises and resources to study—who swarmed my beautiful ship’s every parts (or so I let them think).
I put all my auxiliary running programs in pause—incoming messages, calls and notifications would have to wait—in order to rush at maximum speed, my engines using most of my OS and RAM. That was a tremendous amount of power (seeing my impressive specs and the massive shape I had right now), indeed, so my ship was gigantic and. She! Was! Coming!
My ears vibrated as I rushed from the CH District to the HWW District, passing through all the circles until I arrived the HWW District’s centre ring and used the transmat to the maintenance shaft where the V7.12 where. Oh! This was so exciting! Finally!
It had been such a long time since I had tracked her and initiated contact. At least, she would be here. Oh, this was so brilliant. She had finally asked for my ship’s location (I had to give her a little push in the right decision, yes, but it was working perfectly since she was arriving). That was everything I had been wanting and working on for quite a long time now (nothing near the thousand years in an incorporeal form, confined into the Cyberiad though). Such a bloody perfect news!
She would be here at anytime.
And that would be now. She almost seemed to roar her arrival through the hallway. Well then. I shook my head a little, wriggled a few of my facial plates then push the V7.12’s doors open. Allons-y!
Here she was, standing on a round platform in the middle of room. The crystal lamp drone, floating close to the arched ceiling, was diffusing a smoky electric blue light (my kind of blue) that enveloped her perfectly and, succeeded in making her own shade of blue even deeper and more vivid. Truly quite magnificent. She looked like the fierce mother ship of the proudest fleet, a queen seating on her throne to be revered. Oh! I so wanted to get my hands on her. Such a beauty. And the mysteries she was hiding within these four tiny walls, still vibrating as her engines gradually went back to standby, could only be exquisite!
While landing, I shad off my chameleon cloak. My external coating flickered once, a blue light coming from the blue reactor on my belly, then passing through my whole body. Gradually it turned back to its original silver colour. There was a small bounce as my four limbs touched the ground, making my joints hiss in disagreement. I winced at the annoying feeling of the cyberium plates’ friction. I definitely needed a good visit to the tech department and to get a hold of an engineer. Pretty soon. I couldn’t be all rusty and baldy maintained while I had special guests to take care of, could I?
The doors opened the moment I was about to knock and I was left standing with my trunk in the air, just in front of—I craned my neck to be able to aim my optic captors at the humanoid, so tiny from my ten point two height at shoulders’ point of view—the Doctor’s joyful face, letting out a gleeful note the whole network must had felt. Great!
I stepped back, careful not to crush Webley in the process: it had been a pain to restore his data after the Hedgewick’s World of Wonders, all of which scattered in tiny pieces through the Cyberiad and its billions of consciousnesses, menacing to absorb all of it. The other planners hadn’t seen the interest (Webley was all but important after all), but how could they? If a box with a “don’t open” sign on it was put in front of them, they wouldn’t even understand the concept of curiosity and how tempting that sort of things was. And how that curiosity would help us to upgrade ourselves to the next evolution.
Time Lord Cybermen… Cyber Time Lord… No, that didn’t sound good enough. Oh! I knew! Cyber Lord! Cyber Lord, that was the next step. Like me, once I would be back into the Doctor’s body. Much more efficient, much more resilient and a possibility to mod the Time Lord’s body into such a wonderful piece of art. I really needed that body of his, while I would keep his mind tucked into an isolated part of my own for further studies.
“Doctor!”
Oh! That voice! She was still travelling with him then, sweet, brave and terribly useless Clara. I wondered if the Doctor had discovered what her cute little mystery was. She narrowed her eyes at me, following my trunk as I rolled it.
“Is that an elephant?” she eventually said, disbelief all over her voice. Amused puffs of air went out of my trunk. Oh, if she only knew.
The Doctor frowned at her. “Don’t sound so annoyed, Clara.”
Then, he turned to me and took a few steps forward, eyes examining my shiny silver plates (still not clean enough though) and the net of supple black tubes that could be seen at the joints, as well as some parts of the flexible bright blue bone structure.
“You beauty!” He muttered as he put a hand on my front left paw, leaving a blue imprint between his fingers, making him let a pleased “oh!” out. “Such a gorgeous piece of work you are.”
I didn’t bulge when he slipped under me, his sonic device– screwdriver, was it?– already in his hand. I couldn’t wait to see his reaction went he would notice the reactor on my belly. I was sure it wouldn’t be anything but entertaining, Clara and his reaction.
“Oh!” Someone exclaimed, coming out of the TARDIS. “You’re sentient, aren’t you, big beastie?”
Human, male and oh! I knew that face, for it came up quite a bit in the network’s old data files: 21th century, Torchwood archives, also mentioned in UNIT reports as captain Jack Harkness, no real name, leader of Torchwood 3 and most of all, companion of the Doctor. Unable to stay dead. And an impressive regenerative rate that prevented him from ageing, according to my scans. This was getting more and more fascinating by the minute.
“Don’t be stupid, Jack, of course it’s sentient!” the Doctor said over the buzz of his sonic screwdriver. “Hope you don’t mind me checking you out,” he muttered while stroking my left anterior front plate. “You’re so gorgeous, reminds me a bit of something.”
Well, yes, of course I’d remind you of something, Doctor. Although I currently looked like an elephant, I was fairly aware it still had Cybermen written all over it. Even if most people in these times would be incapable to describe what my generation of Cybermen looked like. Not that I’d complain about that. Discretion was good when I was pretty much the last of my kind.
The Time Lord, the Impossible Girl and the Freak. Such a wonderful bunch of potential subjects to study (I really needed to get my hands on them, or myself in them, and that was without counting the TARDIS, the most wonderful wonder of them all). Excited, I tapped lightly the floor with a foot. I just couldn’t wait to see how things would play out.
“So, big beastie, hello!” I looked at Jack curiously as he approached, inhaling the strong chemical smell of pheromones. He didn’t smell as raw as Clara, but so much more refined and… cultivated. He wasn’t from Clara’s time, that one. “I’m captain Jack Harkness.” He patted the spot where the Doctor had put his hand before. The later let out a loud and quite irritated sniff while Clara rolled her eyes, but she had a tiny smile on her face. Some kind of game between them, then. “And you are?”
That was quite a good question. I could always try to hide my identity, though I suspected both the Doctor and his Clara would find out soon. She had been able to differentiate me from him after all, she wasn’t as stupid as she looked… but then, humans always looked quite stupid. To be fair, as interesting as a brain was, it wasn’t as reliable as the Cyberiad and our processors.
I could also let the mask fall right now and savour the exquisite expressions that would mark their faces. Actually, that sounded like a wonderful plan since the Doctor wasn’t one for initiating hostilities: he wouldn’t attack if I didn’t do it first. Not that they could even scratch me with the puny gun in the Captain’s holster.
Well then, allons-y, me. “Clever.”
I let out an amused rumble while I hoped to the side, rearranging my whole body into a much smaller and humanoid form (dear, I loved the shapeshifting bit of this mechanical body). Then, I rose my hands in the air, in a gesture that would make the Doctor remember (in case he might have forgotten, which I doubted; I was one of those who left strong impression after all).
“I’m Clever,” I announced proudly while Webley positioned himself just a step away, ready to defend me if needed, which wouldn’t be. I put a hand on his shoulder, patting it. “And this is Webley, my personal assistant. Welcome on the NIS, the largest and most prestigious repair ship in the whole, dare I say it? Oh yes! Universe.” I rubbed my hands together, facial plates shifting to make a smile. “Exciting isn’t it?”
***
The Doctor’s face was only one inch from my face as he was peering into my optic captors as if there were any indication I’d lied. Stupid, what did he expect? Optical captors weren’t eyes, no windows into my soul here. He really hadn’t taken it well, had he? Poor Doctor. I sent Webley an order not to move; we wouldn’t want things to get more complicated, wouldn’t we? Not when my headmate of a time (to be renewed someday) was pretty cross with me.
“A bit touchy-feely, aren’t you, Doctor?” I answered to his question, touching playfully the tip of his nose. I smirked when hearing Jack’s chuckle, which he hadn’t even tried to muffle, much to the Time Lord’s irritation, whose grip on my shoulder tightened. Not that he’d be capable of restraining me if I didn’t want it so.
“Actually, he is,” the captain replied and the Time Lord was an intriguing mix of flustered and angered at both Jack and me, sending his companion no less murderous glances than he did to me.
The human didn’t seem bothered though, he simply walk over to us (not without nodding to Clara, who had briefly turned her attention away from the engineer she had been speaking with to watch us) and passed an arm over the Doctor’s shoulder. Much to my surprise, the Doctor’s grip relaxed just a little. Had the captain passed some kind of leash around the Time Lord’s neck? That would need further investigation.
“Relax, Doctor. I’m not lying. I didn’t do anything to your TARDIS. I wouldn’t do anything to such a gorgeous thing. I didn’t force her or anything.” Not that I could without the access codes, which she obviously had never given me. “She came here on her own accord. Isn’t what she always does? Shipping you wherever she wants.”
“Wherever I need to be,” he retorted, his voice low and menacing. “And right now, you’re enough of a reason for me to be here, Mr Clever.” He almost spat each syllabus, as if pronouncing my name was disgusting. Still bitter about what had happened. Ah, emotions! How did organics deal with it when they couldn’t deactivate it on will?
“Right now,” I began, putting a finger on his chest and pushing him back against the captain.
His body moulded itself against the Doctor’s, which I doubted was a conscious thing. Definitely something between the two of them then. Weird, I didn’t remember seeing Jack in the Doctor’s memories… But I had to admit I hadn’t seen as much as I wanted when in his head.
“Your TARDIS needs a good maintenance, Doctor. And my team and I are here to provide it, whether you like it or not. I’m not your enemy today, Doctor.”
“Well, Doc, you’ve got admit he didn’t try anything against us yet,” Jack muttered to the Time Lord. I was certainly not meant to hear it, but it wasn’t my fault if my senses were superior. Except for the touching part; organics had so many stimuli coming from their skins it was a wonder they could even function properly.
“If he tries something…” he continued while I stepped on the side, feigning to pay attention to Clara and the engineer. “Well, we’ll deal with it like we always do. On the top of that, you know he’s not wrong, it’s been quite a long time since the Old Girl’s last maintenance.”
The Doctor scowled at Jack, but didn’t say a word. Oh, he was really listening to the human then. Jack had succeeded in taming the Time Lord, at least a little bit. Impressive.
***
“Copy that, Ringmaster. It’d be an honour,” Legion replied to my order, stiff as one of my boys and saluting, while the Doctor was examining him from head to toes, an unhappy expression on his face.
Of course, he didn’t want to let me in his precious TARDIS and had begrudgingly accepted to let one engineer in; the captain himself wasn’t for nothing in that and I was beginning to suspect he had much more influence on the Doctor than the latter would ever admit.
Both exchanged a glance, one of those that made me think they were having telepathic discussions, because the Doctor eventually shook his head, not much happier than before. Then, he sighed.
“He’ll do.”
Of course, he’d do. I had picked him myself after all. Dearest Legion, the brilliant head of the engineers I had personally trained. It helped that he was much more synthetic than organic; an unfortunate accident when his shuttle had landed in the ship cargo bay when he had moved here. I, sadly, had to get rid of quite a lot of useless organic junk to replace it with much reliable mechanical parts. I had also upgraded the salvageable parts to make them much more efficient.
And the result was brilliant, one of my finest pieces of work. His original species was still recognisable with the bowed arms and legs, four digits arms and hoofed feet. In fact, it looked more like he was wearing armour than like he was a cyborg, if not for the optical implants, with irises of an electric blue I had yet to see in any organic. And even with that, that sort of operation was fairly common.
“You won’t find a finer engineer here…” I said, putting a hand on Legion’s shoulder. Well, he wouldn’t find a finer engineer on the ship, except for me. But the Doctor already was aware of that. I grinned. “Plus, Legion is witty and brilliant, just like you love them, Doctor.”
I laughed at the Doctor’s pouty silence and obvious annoyance at me until both were in the TARDIS, leaving me with Clara and Jack, who were probably busy watching for any suspicious move from me. Good luck finding anything. If I had done something, it would certainly not be easily noticeable, much less by humans, no matter how special they were.
“How did you escape?” Clara said after a while. “We blew the whole world. You shouldn’t have survived.”
I turned away from the holo-screens to watch her, perched on anti-grav platform to change the TARDIS’ light bulb. “Luck! What else?” I answered. Her frown made me grin. “What? Did you expect me to be dead just because your Doctor cheated and destroyed the transmitter? Please. What do you think I am?” I sniffed. Like my existence was tied to some expendable and fragile body.
“You’ve got to admit most people die when their body…”
“Stops working,” I finished for Jack. “I know. Organic’s natural defect, such a pity. But!” My eyes fell on the TARDIS. “Time Lords don’t!” Then I glanced at the captain, who was now staring at me. “And neither do you. That and highly regenerative capacities. Such a mystery and a wonder.”
“Should I be flattered by the way you’re looking at me?” Jack made a cocky smile, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Humans stopped being a mystery for us thousands years ago. What do you think? I’d give much to have a chance to study you, Captain.”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Oh, significant raise in the pheromones he was exuding. He was flirting then. Sweet, I liked that. “Studying me in depth,” he added with a half-smile that was an invitation, according to the archive videos I had launched in a part of my mind.
I was so going to play along. “Oh, you have no idea,” I replied with the low tone humans seemed to find charming; it had sounded better with the Doctor’s voice though. What a shame.
However, it didn’t seem to disturb Jack, whose smile only grew larger, dimpling his cheeks. “Really? I’m a very imaginative person.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“Okay, stop right now!” Clara exclaimed cutting Jack before he could add more. I craned my neck to look at her. She was grimacing. “You’re gross. Both of you. I heard enough,” she sighed, then mumbled, obviously more to herself than us, “As if the Doctor and Jack weren’t enough.”
I dismissed my screens with a wave before walking to Jack, modifying my height to be able to loom over him as I bent to mutter into his ear, “I want to know everything about you.” I shushed, putting a finger on his lips when he was about to reply. “I want to know every fold of your brain, every bacterium in your bowels and layer of your skin. I want to know how it would be to have your heart in my hand as it starts beating again and the look on your face each time you come back to life from all the wonderful tests I can devise just for you.”
Jack didn’t flinch. He didn’t make a sound, or any expression. Quite sadly, his face was completely blank as he stared at me. Then, he put his hands on my shoulders. “As long as it doesn’t include vivisecting or dissecting me, I’m open to pretty much everything,” he eventually whispering after a long silence, as if he wasn’t disturbed by anything I had said.
“I’m sure I can find something,” I replied with a grin, planning a method to make him do as I wanted. That, I could do well. I wasn’t the most efficient cyberplanner for nothing.
“Oh, by the way, I know you had quite a fun time in the Doctor’s head. I’m not into mind rape either.”
I let out a dreamy sigh. The Doctor’s head was such an exquisite place, and I had only brushed the surface. I hadn’t even been able to force the Doctor’s psychic barriers and to access anything from his other regenerations. “I loved every bit of it. My sole regret is to have been purged from it.”
“And you will never get back in.” That was the Doctor, standing on the TARDIS’ threshold, half of him still in, looking even more irritated than before as he was making a sign to Webley and gave him list a list of equipment to gather. That done, he turned to us. Or rather, did his best to avoid looking at me and concentrate on Jack. “And you, Jack, stop flirting with Mr Clever. You clearly don’t know what you’re in for.”
“Afraid I’ll steal your boyfriend away, Doctor?” It was during moments like this that I missed having eyebrows to raise. Instead, I just smirked at him. “Or are you jealous I’m not all over you this time?”
Of course, the mix of flustered (even if it was subtle) annoyance and exasperation on his face was delightful. He recovered fast though, a sneer on his face as he answered, “What would a Cyberman know of emotions?”
“I was in your head, Doctor,” I eventually let out after a little while, replaying my memory bank of my time in his head. “And there are plenty of emotions there.” I smiled, thinking of the stupid moves he had made to save mere expendable children. “Foolish ones.”
“See, Jack, you’ve got nothing but troubles waiting for you here. That’s a Cyberman you want to…” he interrupting himself, wrinkling his nose.
“Your Impossible Girl was a Dalek once,” I pointed out with amusement. It was Clara’s turn to scowl, while Jack moved to the Time Lord’s side, taking one of his hands. They didn’t look at each other, nor speak but I was sure they were doing it again, their silent communication.
I definitely needed to get into this headspace they seemed to share; the things that happened in that place couldn’t be anything but wonderful if they relationship was strong enough for the Doctor to willingly share part of his mind with anyone else apart from the TARDIS.And here it was! She was my way in.
“Moreover, your TARDIS doesn’t seem to mind me. If you don’t believe me, ask her youself,” I added when it became obvious he wouldn’t comment on my previous statement.
After a long while (probably of communicating with his gorgeous ship), the Doctor narrowed his eyes at me, clearly not happy with whatever had happened in his head. “What did you do to my TARDIS?”
“Do you really want to know?” I grinned. “Well, we each have things the others want, that’s a bit of a, dare I say it? Stalemate!” I chuckled. “Familiar situation, isn’t it?” I said, pacing back and fourth. “Of course!” I stopped, clapped my hands and rubbed them together, my smile only getting larger. “Jack was bragging about being, I quote, ‘imaginative’. You, Doctor, are very resourceful. And of course, I’m clever. With all of that, I’m sure we can agree on some way to satisfy the three of us.”
Author:
luorescenceChallenge: Summer Holidays 6
Prompt Group: 13 - Ringmaster - in the Center Ring - with a mirror - in a mechanical elephant
Pairing: Eleventh Doctor/Jack Harkness (established), subtexts everywhere
Rating: PG
Spoilers/warnings: Spoilers for Nightmare in Silver, plenty of references to it and also its sequel for Mr Clever. Latest installment in the Cuckoo Clock verse, happens an undetermined amount of time after Allegretto for the Doctor, Jack and Clara. No need to read any of the installment though.
Summary: They meet again, at least. Mr Clever has waited a very long time for that moment and he intends to savour every bit of it.
A/N: Many to
lilia_purpurea for the beta and brainstorming with me, and to everyone who supported me. You guys rock!The fragmented lights I had personally programmed flickered on my way through the corridors, giving them a much better aspect than the wall’s dull dark steel blue. A bit more colours could only be better, we wouldn’t want this place to be boring, would we? Even more for the grandiose occasion that was to come! Oh no, I would certainly not let dull and boring decorate my ship.
As such, I had taken care of putting a few things here and there, to brighten the place up and bring some cowboys in here. Floating gadgets made of scrap parts from the boys and girls, quite sadly unsalvageable and plentiful. Well, positive point, they weren’t useless!
The engineers had done wonders following my directives, even though less efficient than me, obviously. It didn’t help that their… fingers were so slow and so clumsy compared to my own cyberium appendices. I had to admit I missed having those (funny little things they were, all soft, squishy and so sensitive), that had been quite a fascinating experience that would repeat itself in the closest future, if all went according to plan. Also, I was quite excited at the prospect to share my mind again, since all the boys and girls were not so wakey and more of a jumbly-rumbly hum in the back of my consciousness. It was a little bit too calm to my liking.
Pleasant hisses resonated as Webley jumped after me, then, as the boy always did, fell into his pre-determined patterned of following the highest authority figure in his surroundings. That would be me, of course, not that there were anyone higher than me. Not that there were anyone but me and good old Webley anyway.
The boy uselessly congratulated me for all the preparations, already eager to see the results of my careful planning. The aliens were rubbing off a little on him, weren’t they? After all, he, more than anyone else, knew there wasn’t much I couldn’t and didn’t do. The wonderful perks of having a superior top-notch adaptive multicore processor. I was pretty much everywhere, everywhen and capable of doing everything I wanted in the limits of my ship. As it had always been my task, right and pleasure to do so. That had always been embedded in my base codes, as well as in the collective consciousness of the Cyberiad.
Born to lead, humans would said, programmed to do so. Oh, I loved the sound of that!
Speaking of organics, they were already beginning to crowd the corridors, pads and books in hands since they were sadly incapable of accessing directly the network’s database, downloading information into their flimsy brains and memorising them. So much potential laid dormant in there, wasted. And that was nothing compared to the wonders of a Time Lord’s brain. I clicked in pleasure. Oh, such a excursion that had been.
Neither of them even detected me as I flew over their heads. Such inefficient optic captors and actually as good as a Time Lord was, it was something that should be upgraded. The sweet whispers in my mind, much more powerful and ancient than the boys and girls’ went louder. I was on the right tracks and she was obviously agreeing with me since I felt her locking onto me, as impatient and demanding as ever.
As the gentleman she expected me to act like, at least with her, I obliged her, also sending my best regards as well as a quite friendly little app that should help with her cooling system—she had been complaining about it for quite a while now—until an engineer would make a check her up.
She informed me she had received the V7.12’s location coordinates. Lovely chamber that one was, blue lighting and some dust in suspension in the air to give it a bit of an atmosphere. And that best part and most important, unused. There would be nobody around to annoy her. Not that organics really noticed her, it was as unlikely as them seeing me when I didn’t want to be seen.
Then, she sent a piece of software of her own in answer to my little gift. A Tiberian firewall, the most efficient of them all, which she knew was quite useless since nobody would ever be able to hack m… Oh. She was humouring me. Interesting. What a wonderful Old Girl!
But really, all of that was mostly playful vanity on my part: a will to please her and make her feel welcome and loved, as one of the most gorgeous machine that had ever been created. At least, equal to myself, deserving all my respect and attention.
As such, I absolutely wanted to greet her in person, and not through a drone or the comms. She was, after all, the most important guest to ever set foot on the ship, much more than all these galaxywide-renowned professors and scientists—even though a few were quite fascinating—ah! These feeble beings! Always full of surprises and resources to study—who swarmed my beautiful ship’s every parts (or so I let them think).
I put all my auxiliary running programs in pause—incoming messages, calls and notifications would have to wait—in order to rush at maximum speed, my engines using most of my OS and RAM. That was a tremendous amount of power (seeing my impressive specs and the massive shape I had right now), indeed, so my ship was gigantic and. She! Was! Coming!
My ears vibrated as I rushed from the CH District to the HWW District, passing through all the circles until I arrived the HWW District’s centre ring and used the transmat to the maintenance shaft where the V7.12 where. Oh! This was so exciting! Finally!
It had been such a long time since I had tracked her and initiated contact. At least, she would be here. Oh, this was so brilliant. She had finally asked for my ship’s location (I had to give her a little push in the right decision, yes, but it was working perfectly since she was arriving). That was everything I had been wanting and working on for quite a long time now (nothing near the thousand years in an incorporeal form, confined into the Cyberiad though). Such a bloody perfect news!
She would be here at anytime.
And that would be now. She almost seemed to roar her arrival through the hallway. Well then. I shook my head a little, wriggled a few of my facial plates then push the V7.12’s doors open. Allons-y!
Here she was, standing on a round platform in the middle of room. The crystal lamp drone, floating close to the arched ceiling, was diffusing a smoky electric blue light (my kind of blue) that enveloped her perfectly and, succeeded in making her own shade of blue even deeper and more vivid. Truly quite magnificent. She looked like the fierce mother ship of the proudest fleet, a queen seating on her throne to be revered. Oh! I so wanted to get my hands on her. Such a beauty. And the mysteries she was hiding within these four tiny walls, still vibrating as her engines gradually went back to standby, could only be exquisite!
While landing, I shad off my chameleon cloak. My external coating flickered once, a blue light coming from the blue reactor on my belly, then passing through my whole body. Gradually it turned back to its original silver colour. There was a small bounce as my four limbs touched the ground, making my joints hiss in disagreement. I winced at the annoying feeling of the cyberium plates’ friction. I definitely needed a good visit to the tech department and to get a hold of an engineer. Pretty soon. I couldn’t be all rusty and baldy maintained while I had special guests to take care of, could I?
The doors opened the moment I was about to knock and I was left standing with my trunk in the air, just in front of—I craned my neck to be able to aim my optic captors at the humanoid, so tiny from my ten point two height at shoulders’ point of view—the Doctor’s joyful face, letting out a gleeful note the whole network must had felt. Great!
I stepped back, careful not to crush Webley in the process: it had been a pain to restore his data after the Hedgewick’s World of Wonders, all of which scattered in tiny pieces through the Cyberiad and its billions of consciousnesses, menacing to absorb all of it. The other planners hadn’t seen the interest (Webley was all but important after all), but how could they? If a box with a “don’t open” sign on it was put in front of them, they wouldn’t even understand the concept of curiosity and how tempting that sort of things was. And how that curiosity would help us to upgrade ourselves to the next evolution.
Time Lord Cybermen… Cyber Time Lord… No, that didn’t sound good enough. Oh! I knew! Cyber Lord! Cyber Lord, that was the next step. Like me, once I would be back into the Doctor’s body. Much more efficient, much more resilient and a possibility to mod the Time Lord’s body into such a wonderful piece of art. I really needed that body of his, while I would keep his mind tucked into an isolated part of my own for further studies.
“Doctor!”
Oh! That voice! She was still travelling with him then, sweet, brave and terribly useless Clara. I wondered if the Doctor had discovered what her cute little mystery was. She narrowed her eyes at me, following my trunk as I rolled it.
“Is that an elephant?” she eventually said, disbelief all over her voice. Amused puffs of air went out of my trunk. Oh, if she only knew.
The Doctor frowned at her. “Don’t sound so annoyed, Clara.”
Then, he turned to me and took a few steps forward, eyes examining my shiny silver plates (still not clean enough though) and the net of supple black tubes that could be seen at the joints, as well as some parts of the flexible bright blue bone structure.
“You beauty!” He muttered as he put a hand on my front left paw, leaving a blue imprint between his fingers, making him let a pleased “oh!” out. “Such a gorgeous piece of work you are.”
I didn’t bulge when he slipped under me, his sonic device– screwdriver, was it?– already in his hand. I couldn’t wait to see his reaction went he would notice the reactor on my belly. I was sure it wouldn’t be anything but entertaining, Clara and his reaction.
“Oh!” Someone exclaimed, coming out of the TARDIS. “You’re sentient, aren’t you, big beastie?”
Human, male and oh! I knew that face, for it came up quite a bit in the network’s old data files: 21th century, Torchwood archives, also mentioned in UNIT reports as captain Jack Harkness, no real name, leader of Torchwood 3 and most of all, companion of the Doctor. Unable to stay dead. And an impressive regenerative rate that prevented him from ageing, according to my scans. This was getting more and more fascinating by the minute.
“Don’t be stupid, Jack, of course it’s sentient!” the Doctor said over the buzz of his sonic screwdriver. “Hope you don’t mind me checking you out,” he muttered while stroking my left anterior front plate. “You’re so gorgeous, reminds me a bit of something.”
Well, yes, of course I’d remind you of something, Doctor. Although I currently looked like an elephant, I was fairly aware it still had Cybermen written all over it. Even if most people in these times would be incapable to describe what my generation of Cybermen looked like. Not that I’d complain about that. Discretion was good when I was pretty much the last of my kind.
The Time Lord, the Impossible Girl and the Freak. Such a wonderful bunch of potential subjects to study (I really needed to get my hands on them, or myself in them, and that was without counting the TARDIS, the most wonderful wonder of them all). Excited, I tapped lightly the floor with a foot. I just couldn’t wait to see how things would play out.
“So, big beastie, hello!” I looked at Jack curiously as he approached, inhaling the strong chemical smell of pheromones. He didn’t smell as raw as Clara, but so much more refined and… cultivated. He wasn’t from Clara’s time, that one. “I’m captain Jack Harkness.” He patted the spot where the Doctor had put his hand before. The later let out a loud and quite irritated sniff while Clara rolled her eyes, but she had a tiny smile on her face. Some kind of game between them, then. “And you are?”
That was quite a good question. I could always try to hide my identity, though I suspected both the Doctor and his Clara would find out soon. She had been able to differentiate me from him after all, she wasn’t as stupid as she looked… but then, humans always looked quite stupid. To be fair, as interesting as a brain was, it wasn’t as reliable as the Cyberiad and our processors.
I could also let the mask fall right now and savour the exquisite expressions that would mark their faces. Actually, that sounded like a wonderful plan since the Doctor wasn’t one for initiating hostilities: he wouldn’t attack if I didn’t do it first. Not that they could even scratch me with the puny gun in the Captain’s holster.
Well then, allons-y, me. “Clever.”
I let out an amused rumble while I hoped to the side, rearranging my whole body into a much smaller and humanoid form (dear, I loved the shapeshifting bit of this mechanical body). Then, I rose my hands in the air, in a gesture that would make the Doctor remember (in case he might have forgotten, which I doubted; I was one of those who left strong impression after all).
“I’m Clever,” I announced proudly while Webley positioned himself just a step away, ready to defend me if needed, which wouldn’t be. I put a hand on his shoulder, patting it. “And this is Webley, my personal assistant. Welcome on the NIS, the largest and most prestigious repair ship in the whole, dare I say it? Oh yes! Universe.” I rubbed my hands together, facial plates shifting to make a smile. “Exciting isn’t it?”
***
The Doctor’s face was only one inch from my face as he was peering into my optic captors as if there were any indication I’d lied. Stupid, what did he expect? Optical captors weren’t eyes, no windows into my soul here. He really hadn’t taken it well, had he? Poor Doctor. I sent Webley an order not to move; we wouldn’t want things to get more complicated, wouldn’t we? Not when my headmate of a time (to be renewed someday) was pretty cross with me.
“A bit touchy-feely, aren’t you, Doctor?” I answered to his question, touching playfully the tip of his nose. I smirked when hearing Jack’s chuckle, which he hadn’t even tried to muffle, much to the Time Lord’s irritation, whose grip on my shoulder tightened. Not that he’d be capable of restraining me if I didn’t want it so.
“Actually, he is,” the captain replied and the Time Lord was an intriguing mix of flustered and angered at both Jack and me, sending his companion no less murderous glances than he did to me.
The human didn’t seem bothered though, he simply walk over to us (not without nodding to Clara, who had briefly turned her attention away from the engineer she had been speaking with to watch us) and passed an arm over the Doctor’s shoulder. Much to my surprise, the Doctor’s grip relaxed just a little. Had the captain passed some kind of leash around the Time Lord’s neck? That would need further investigation.
“Relax, Doctor. I’m not lying. I didn’t do anything to your TARDIS. I wouldn’t do anything to such a gorgeous thing. I didn’t force her or anything.” Not that I could without the access codes, which she obviously had never given me. “She came here on her own accord. Isn’t what she always does? Shipping you wherever she wants.”
“Wherever I need to be,” he retorted, his voice low and menacing. “And right now, you’re enough of a reason for me to be here, Mr Clever.” He almost spat each syllabus, as if pronouncing my name was disgusting. Still bitter about what had happened. Ah, emotions! How did organics deal with it when they couldn’t deactivate it on will?
“Right now,” I began, putting a finger on his chest and pushing him back against the captain.
His body moulded itself against the Doctor’s, which I doubted was a conscious thing. Definitely something between the two of them then. Weird, I didn’t remember seeing Jack in the Doctor’s memories… But I had to admit I hadn’t seen as much as I wanted when in his head.
“Your TARDIS needs a good maintenance, Doctor. And my team and I are here to provide it, whether you like it or not. I’m not your enemy today, Doctor.”
“Well, Doc, you’ve got admit he didn’t try anything against us yet,” Jack muttered to the Time Lord. I was certainly not meant to hear it, but it wasn’t my fault if my senses were superior. Except for the touching part; organics had so many stimuli coming from their skins it was a wonder they could even function properly.
“If he tries something…” he continued while I stepped on the side, feigning to pay attention to Clara and the engineer. “Well, we’ll deal with it like we always do. On the top of that, you know he’s not wrong, it’s been quite a long time since the Old Girl’s last maintenance.”
The Doctor scowled at Jack, but didn’t say a word. Oh, he was really listening to the human then. Jack had succeeded in taming the Time Lord, at least a little bit. Impressive.
***
“Copy that, Ringmaster. It’d be an honour,” Legion replied to my order, stiff as one of my boys and saluting, while the Doctor was examining him from head to toes, an unhappy expression on his face.
Of course, he didn’t want to let me in his precious TARDIS and had begrudgingly accepted to let one engineer in; the captain himself wasn’t for nothing in that and I was beginning to suspect he had much more influence on the Doctor than the latter would ever admit.
Both exchanged a glance, one of those that made me think they were having telepathic discussions, because the Doctor eventually shook his head, not much happier than before. Then, he sighed.
“He’ll do.”
Of course, he’d do. I had picked him myself after all. Dearest Legion, the brilliant head of the engineers I had personally trained. It helped that he was much more synthetic than organic; an unfortunate accident when his shuttle had landed in the ship cargo bay when he had moved here. I, sadly, had to get rid of quite a lot of useless organic junk to replace it with much reliable mechanical parts. I had also upgraded the salvageable parts to make them much more efficient.
And the result was brilliant, one of my finest pieces of work. His original species was still recognisable with the bowed arms and legs, four digits arms and hoofed feet. In fact, it looked more like he was wearing armour than like he was a cyborg, if not for the optical implants, with irises of an electric blue I had yet to see in any organic. And even with that, that sort of operation was fairly common.
“You won’t find a finer engineer here…” I said, putting a hand on Legion’s shoulder. Well, he wouldn’t find a finer engineer on the ship, except for me. But the Doctor already was aware of that. I grinned. “Plus, Legion is witty and brilliant, just like you love them, Doctor.”
I laughed at the Doctor’s pouty silence and obvious annoyance at me until both were in the TARDIS, leaving me with Clara and Jack, who were probably busy watching for any suspicious move from me. Good luck finding anything. If I had done something, it would certainly not be easily noticeable, much less by humans, no matter how special they were.
“How did you escape?” Clara said after a while. “We blew the whole world. You shouldn’t have survived.”
I turned away from the holo-screens to watch her, perched on anti-grav platform to change the TARDIS’ light bulb. “Luck! What else?” I answered. Her frown made me grin. “What? Did you expect me to be dead just because your Doctor cheated and destroyed the transmitter? Please. What do you think I am?” I sniffed. Like my existence was tied to some expendable and fragile body.
“You’ve got to admit most people die when their body…”
“Stops working,” I finished for Jack. “I know. Organic’s natural defect, such a pity. But!” My eyes fell on the TARDIS. “Time Lords don’t!” Then I glanced at the captain, who was now staring at me. “And neither do you. That and highly regenerative capacities. Such a mystery and a wonder.”
“Should I be flattered by the way you’re looking at me?” Jack made a cocky smile, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Humans stopped being a mystery for us thousands years ago. What do you think? I’d give much to have a chance to study you, Captain.”
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Oh, significant raise in the pheromones he was exuding. He was flirting then. Sweet, I liked that. “Studying me in depth,” he added with a half-smile that was an invitation, according to the archive videos I had launched in a part of my mind.
I was so going to play along. “Oh, you have no idea,” I replied with the low tone humans seemed to find charming; it had sounded better with the Doctor’s voice though. What a shame.
However, it didn’t seem to disturb Jack, whose smile only grew larger, dimpling his cheeks. “Really? I’m a very imaginative person.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“Okay, stop right now!” Clara exclaimed cutting Jack before he could add more. I craned my neck to look at her. She was grimacing. “You’re gross. Both of you. I heard enough,” she sighed, then mumbled, obviously more to herself than us, “As if the Doctor and Jack weren’t enough.”
I dismissed my screens with a wave before walking to Jack, modifying my height to be able to loom over him as I bent to mutter into his ear, “I want to know everything about you.” I shushed, putting a finger on his lips when he was about to reply. “I want to know every fold of your brain, every bacterium in your bowels and layer of your skin. I want to know how it would be to have your heart in my hand as it starts beating again and the look on your face each time you come back to life from all the wonderful tests I can devise just for you.”
Jack didn’t flinch. He didn’t make a sound, or any expression. Quite sadly, his face was completely blank as he stared at me. Then, he put his hands on my shoulders. “As long as it doesn’t include vivisecting or dissecting me, I’m open to pretty much everything,” he eventually whispering after a long silence, as if he wasn’t disturbed by anything I had said.
“I’m sure I can find something,” I replied with a grin, planning a method to make him do as I wanted. That, I could do well. I wasn’t the most efficient cyberplanner for nothing.
“Oh, by the way, I know you had quite a fun time in the Doctor’s head. I’m not into mind rape either.”
I let out a dreamy sigh. The Doctor’s head was such an exquisite place, and I had only brushed the surface. I hadn’t even been able to force the Doctor’s psychic barriers and to access anything from his other regenerations. “I loved every bit of it. My sole regret is to have been purged from it.”
“And you will never get back in.” That was the Doctor, standing on the TARDIS’ threshold, half of him still in, looking even more irritated than before as he was making a sign to Webley and gave him list a list of equipment to gather. That done, he turned to us. Or rather, did his best to avoid looking at me and concentrate on Jack. “And you, Jack, stop flirting with Mr Clever. You clearly don’t know what you’re in for.”
“Afraid I’ll steal your boyfriend away, Doctor?” It was during moments like this that I missed having eyebrows to raise. Instead, I just smirked at him. “Or are you jealous I’m not all over you this time?”
Of course, the mix of flustered (even if it was subtle) annoyance and exasperation on his face was delightful. He recovered fast though, a sneer on his face as he answered, “What would a Cyberman know of emotions?”
“I was in your head, Doctor,” I eventually let out after a little while, replaying my memory bank of my time in his head. “And there are plenty of emotions there.” I smiled, thinking of the stupid moves he had made to save mere expendable children. “Foolish ones.”
“See, Jack, you’ve got nothing but troubles waiting for you here. That’s a Cyberman you want to…” he interrupting himself, wrinkling his nose.
“Your Impossible Girl was a Dalek once,” I pointed out with amusement. It was Clara’s turn to scowl, while Jack moved to the Time Lord’s side, taking one of his hands. They didn’t look at each other, nor speak but I was sure they were doing it again, their silent communication.
I definitely needed to get into this headspace they seemed to share; the things that happened in that place couldn’t be anything but wonderful if they relationship was strong enough for the Doctor to willingly share part of his mind with anyone else apart from the TARDIS.And here it was! She was my way in.
“Moreover, your TARDIS doesn’t seem to mind me. If you don’t believe me, ask her youself,” I added when it became obvious he wouldn’t comment on my previous statement.
After a long while (probably of communicating with his gorgeous ship), the Doctor narrowed his eyes at me, clearly not happy with whatever had happened in his head. “What did you do to my TARDIS?”
“Do you really want to know?” I grinned. “Well, we each have things the others want, that’s a bit of a, dare I say it? Stalemate!” I chuckled. “Familiar situation, isn’t it?” I said, pacing back and fourth. “Of course!” I stopped, clapped my hands and rubbed them together, my smile only getting larger. “Jack was bragging about being, I quote, ‘imaginative’. You, Doctor, are very resourceful. And of course, I’m clever. With all of that, I’m sure we can agree on some way to satisfy the three of us.”
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*Wibbles*
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*HUGS*
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I wish Jack would have travelled with Eleven and Clara. *sigh*
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And thanks! Told myself it'd be funny to test another point of view and Mr. Clever is so fun to write.
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Also loved the Doctor’s initial reaction to Clever’s apparence—how very Doctor. Then it completely turned around when he realized who he was dealing with, the memory was visibly raw and his darkness and bitterness were nicely depicted. Love the dynamics with Jack and Clara, and most of all that calming effect and influence Jack visibly had on him, Clever picking up on their closeness and being quite curious about it all. The flirting between Jack and Clever later on was an incredible moment, hilarious at first, rather chilling once Clever really got into things, but Jack wasn’t fazed. He’s been through worse, after all, and can’t be thrown so easily with mere words… Epic Jack ♥
Quite the turn of events that they ended up having Clever’s team doing maintenance on the TARDIS… that made me pretty curious about what you have in store :D
You had a couple of typos scattered here and there and I tend to get OCD about those things ;) I’ll message you about that, yeah?
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I can really fault the Doctor here, the revelation was a huge blow on him. And quite sadly, Jack and Clever ganging on him. Well, as for Clever, obviously he'd be very curious of anything/anyone having a pass to the Doctor's mind. That's Jack's power and curse, being unable to die made him go through so many things there isn't much that would really throw him off.
I'm gonna check your message right now :)
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Indeed—it's pretty normal he'd be struck. My poor Doctor ;)
Jack kicks all the ass. And indeed, with what he's gone through, he has to.
^_^