Heart of Gold

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

"And I think you're so mean; I think we should try.
I think I could need this in my life, and I think I'm scared.
I think too much. I know it's wrong, it's a problem I'm dealing."
- Matchbox Twenty: 'If You're Gone' (Mad Season [2000]).

~*~*~

Battersea Power Station

So far so good, as far as Pete, Katy, and Rose's infiltration into the Power Station was concerned. They were still alive and whole. But the overhead announcements were making it extremely difficult to maintain blank, emotionless expressions on their faces, when all they could think of were the hundreds of innocent Londoners walking silently towards their deaths, and re-emerging as Cybermen.

"Units upgraded now six thousand five hundred. Repeat. Six thousand five hundred and rising."

A Cyberman stops the procession at Rose.

Both Pete and Katy are standing right behind her.

"You will wait," the Cyberman tells Rose, as it moves away.

"You girls, okay?" Pete asks quietly.

"No," Rose responds shakily.

"I've been better," Katy answered, also just as shaky as her sister was.

"Chamber six now open for human upgrading. All reject stock will be incinerated."

Katy's eyes widened slightly. There were people who were actually being rejected for upgrading, and being killed anyway?

'This is sick...' Katy whimpered mentally.

A woman ahead of them walks into a chamber. Overhead, multiple blades whir into action, then a Cyber head is lowered. Seconds later, a complete Cyberman walks out of the chamber, and it clomps away. Pete's eyes dart about the area, obviously desperately looking for a hint or a whisper of his wife.

"Any sign of Jackie?" He mutters.

But before either sister could respond to his question, a Cyberman breaks ranks and clomps up to them. Pete has to stop himself rearing back from it instinctively.

"You are Peter Tyler," It states robotically. "Confirm you are Peter Tyler!" It orders.

Pete swallows before responding to the command.

"Confirmed."

"I recognise you," It stated, earning confused expressions from all three Tylers. "I went first. My name was Jacqueline Tyler."

"What!?" both Pete and Katy exclaimed.

"NO!" Rose shouted in anguish. The Cyberman immediately reacts.

"They are unprogrammed. Restrain." Three Cybermen approach and apprehend Pete, Katy, and Rose.

Pete looked tearful and hysterical.

"You're lying!" He denied. "You're not her. You're not my Jackie!" He thrashed about trying to break free from the iron grip the Cyberman restraining him had on his arms.

"No," the Cyberman formerly known as Jackie Tyler, responded. "I am Cyber-form. Once I was Jacqueline Tyler."

"But you can't be. Not her!" Rose protested.

"Her brain is inside this body," the Cyberman insisted. Pete tried freeing himself fruitlessly, as he attempted to get through to the brain of his wife that had been welded into this body of steel.