Chapter Text

Out of the Void

There was no light, no sound and no feeling.

Just a period of endless waiting.

Strangely he was aware of time passing, or maybe the same second playing over and over again. The last few living moments before the door had closed and sealed them in here for an eternity. There was a sense of smell, of stale oxygen and hot metal. Of oil and ozone and that unique scent only an oppressive atmosphere could achieve. He was curled into a tight ball – at least he had been in the last few real seconds of his life. A fear reaction at the thought of what could go wrong. Experimental technology at its worst. Now he was trapped and unable to move while seemingly suspended in a dark infinity. A horrifying paradox of which he had no control. He could not feel his limbs, his breath or his twin heartbeats. He was just a mind trapped within a tomb of blackness.

Not dead, not alive, just waiting…

To maintain his sanity he started to run through the list of things he knew were true. He tried to speak them as he thought them. He could not feel his lips or the resonance of his vocal chords. But still it was good to remember he had them.

My name is the Consultant.
I am a Time Lord from Gallifrey.
I am a TARDIS technician and a specialist salesman.
Before the Time War I was considered a renegade.
During the Time War I was considered an asset.
Now I am considered a prisoner.
One day I will escape…

…

…

My name is the Consultant…

Sound filtered across the void, breaking his concentration. At first he thought he had finally snapped and he was hallucinating. But as the noises formed into words and the words into separate people he knew his wait was over.

“Yvonne can you hear me? Yvonne, for God’s sake the sphere is active!” The voice was male and spoke in an Earth dialect. Earth, he hadn’t thought about that planet in about a century. English, the voice was speaking English. It was one of the dominant languages on the planet so it did not pinpoint the location. Nor, in fact, could it be Earth. The humans had spread so quickly once they had stepped into space. He could be anywhere in the universe – the time frame was vast.
The Consultant frowned, or at least felt the emotion that would come with a frown. The voice was young, mid-twenties to early thirties, panicked and afraid. Yvonne, whoever she was, did not answer. He decided to name the voices as if they too were Time Lords. He decided to pretend that he was among friends. He called this first voice the Questioner.
An explosion, deep and sonorous, vibrated through his being. The sphere juddered and shifted in a way that made his stomach lurch. For the first time in as long as he could remember the Consultant wanted to vomit. It was the most wonderful sensation in the world.

“We had them beat, but then the Cybermen just vanished.” A different voice, still male, but far more confident than the first. A London accent perhaps? Southern England for certain. The Questioner had the same traces of the accent too, though he spoke much more clearly than this other person. The Consultant named the second voice the Bravo.
He wondered if he was on Earth, maybe he was in the United Kingdom.
He hoped so – he was familiar with the island.
Another explosion shivered through the entire craft and his left heart lurched into his throat.

“They found a way into this world, but then so did we.” The Bravo said. He was smug and self-assured.
“But the Doctor said that was impossible.” A female voice, English, another Southern accent with the same intonations as the Bravo. Three in one place… He hoped in was in London. But she seemed the least sure of the three voices so he named her the Novice.
“Yeah well, it’s not the first time he’s been wrong.” The Bravo replied.

Wait. Did she just say the Doctor?

A wave of hope and fear mingled in his breast. The Consultant had never met the Doctor though he had searched for him on numerous occasions. It was why he had spent so much time in London in the first place. The Doctor’s TARDIS was old and the Consultant had feared for its upkeep. He had hoped to find him, to persuade him into proper maintenance. But that was a long time ago, before the Time War, before he heard of what the Doctor was capable of. Once the Consultant had thought his fellow Time Lord was nothing more than an amicable eccentric. Now the Doctor may be a dangerous madman.

The Doctor, the Cybermen, the Sphere…
Slowly like a great piece of clockwork his mind processed the information and things started to click into place.
No.
Oh no.

“No one knows, Cyber King, Cyber Leader… Whatever he is, he’s dead meat.” The Bravo said. He sounded so cocky and knowledgeable.

You’re wrong, my boy. So very wrong.

“Can anyone hear me?! I need help down here? I need…” The Questioner started shouting.
The words were drowned out by a scraping sound which crawled inside the Consultant’s brain. His skull, he could feel his skull again and the weight of his body. The way his legs were curled up and his hands clasped into defensive fists…

There was light, too much light – he couldn’t see. The shuddering scraping sounds were louder than anything else, the light made his senses scream. It had been too long since he had heard anything, seen anything.
It was all too much.
Gravity took hold and the Consultant realised that he was upside down. His back hit the sheer side of the sphere and he cracked his head sharply off the metal. He flopped onto his side, undignified and gasping for air as his limbs were filled with pins and needles.

Beside him, his long-term captors boosted their anti-gravity engines and smoothly lifted into the air while the top of the sphere slid open. They were armoured metal, not made of flesh and bone. They were not affected by the sudden environmental changes.
The overpowering scent of uncontained heat filled his nostrils and the Consultant rolled away as the flames from his captor’s boosters scored the inner shell. The crackle of power and ozone filled the interior as their shields, belatedly, came online.
“That’s not Cybermen!”
“Oh my god!”

LOCATION EARTH - LIFE FORMS DETECTED
EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!!!

So very wrong, my boy.