"What if it finds William?" Mary gasps.
"We need to find the child." Polidori agrees.
"And a way out." Byron adds.
"We are not safe here. He could pass through a wall at any moment." Claire frets.
"The Doctor told us to wait." Ryan cuts in, you can see the concern on his face.
"Technically, she only said not to follow her." Missy points out.
"No." Yaz objects. "What she said about the cyber man, I don't think that's a good idea."
"Spoilsport." Missy mutters.
"No." You protest, everyone suddenly looks at you. You have never spoken up like this, but there's that horrible feeling in the pit of your heart. The cyber man cannot get what it wants. "We have to stop it." You plead.
"You sure about this?" Missy asks, a dead serious look on her face.
"Yes." You say, not hesitating.
She knows. She knows you saw something.
"Alright poppet. Let's split up." Missy suggests.
Yaz sighs, and Ryan just looks outright nervous.
"Two groups." Missy announces, taking charge of the situation. "One to stop the cyber man, the other to find Shelley. And then we can all stop for tea and a biscuit, hm?" She looks at your very confused faces. "Oh come on! Now who wants to go where?" Her tone changes from serious to playful.
"I'll go with the first. I must make certain William is well." Mary steps forward.
"I'll go with you." Yaz stands next to her, offering a supportive smile.
"Great! You, with us." She points to Byron. "The rest of you to Shelley." Missy gestures, flicking her hand to gesture them out the door, ignoring the protests. "Go on, go."
You shrug, following the group a few feet behind when someone grabs your wrist.
"Where do you think you're going?" Missy asks.
"You said-"
"No, no. You're sticking right by me dear." She whispers, causing you to immediately go cold. You simply nod.
"Well, now or never." Yaz whispers, stepping through the wall, the rest of you following.
You all enter a room scattered with papers. On every wall and all over the floor.
"The house still shifts." Mary gasps.
"Yes, obviously." Missy rolls her eyes. You notice her hand has shifted from your wrist, to now interlocking your fingers. "Now which one of you did this?"
"Whose room is this?" Yaz rephrases.
"No one's. I thought it was empty." Byron answers, picking up a piece of paper.
"The writing, the papers." You object, suddenly feeling very straightforward.
"The writing. It's Shelley's." Mary responds, looking over Byrons shoulder to the paper he picked up.
"He cherisheth The snakes that gnaw his heart; he raises up the tyrant whose delight Is in his woe." Mary reads, and you can make out the cyber man saying the same from another room, but not far.
"How does it know them?" Byron marvels.
"Doesn't matter, now we know it's close, come on!" Missy calls, pulling you with her out the hall, where you see the Doctor, holding William.
"Doctor!" Yaz calls, running up to her and planting a kiss on her cheek.
"Come on, then." She says, quite annoyed but not surprised.
"Oh, William." Mary smiles, taking him.
"Dear Fletcher, no. It cannot be." Byron gasps.
You look where he's gazing, seeing Fletcher dead in a hallway, along with Elise. You take a sharp intake of breath, pulling away from Missy and taking a few steps down the hall. You've seen a dead body before, C at MI6, but something about it just makes you really on edge. Like a life or death situation, it's real. You aren't dreaming.
"Mister O'Brian needs you in the cellar at once." Polidori says, snapping you out of your spiraling thoughts.
"All of you, find somewhere to hide." The Doctor's says, dead-serious.
"But I must-" Mary starts.
"Do you want to listen, or do you want to end up like them? None of this is supposed to happen. They weren't supposed to die. Neither are you, so please, let's not unravel anything else. Hide, and stay there. History is vulnerable tonight. I mean it. Now go on." She says, sort of pleading, but stone cold. Leaving no room for objection.
You turn around, seeing Missy look like she was about to say something, but deciding against it.
"Lord Byron." Mary calls as he turns away. "You're going to take William for me. Guard him." She turns to Claire. "Stay safe. I need to see Percy." Claire hesitantly nods. "I know the risk." She says to the Doctor, but she's already walking away, following Polidori.
"Come on dearie." Missy waves a hand towards you.
Taking a deep breath, you follow the group, to a cellar. In a very tense silence. Once down there, you see a man crouched against a wall, with Graham and Ryan. The Doctor scans him with the sonic, and based on the way her face changes, it isn't good.
"Shelley in a cellar, hidden away, cloaked, too big to register. That's why my reading have been off. It's something called a Cyberium."
Do NOT let it have what it wants. At all costs.
You temporarily dislocate, that word triggering something in your head.
"I'm trying to protect it." Shelley responds, a bit shaky.
"We can't let it have that." You gasp, looking to the Doctor, pleading.
The cyber man shifts into the room, everyone except the Doctor and Missy stumbling back.
"Be gone, invader." Shelley demands.
The cyber man shifts out, but not before Missy whams it in the back of the head with her umbrella.
"Missy!" The Doctor snaps.
"What? Be glad I didn't kill it!" She protests back.
"Who moved him?" She turns her attention back to Shelley. "Is it you changing the house?"
"Some, but not all. It has it's own room." He responds.
"Mary!" The Doctor spins around, somehow having heard Mary come down the stairs.
"I cannot hide. Not while he suffers." She solemnly responds.
"Show me." The Doctor turns back to Shelley.
He nods, and she touches two fingers to either side of his head.
"I returned." Shelley says as the Doctor pulls away. "I was changed. No one could see me. It hid itself within me, and hid within the villa."
"And when it thought it might be discovered, it manipulated all of our perceptions." The Doctor finishes, a look of realization crosses her face.
"Since the quicksilver has taken hold of me, I see symbols. Symbols and numbers. They will not leave my head, no matter how much I transcribe them." He explains.
"Like what was all over your room?" Izzy asks.
"Yes. The house was like shifting sands. I sought solitude here, in the dark."
"What happened to him?" Ryan turns to Graham.
"I'm going with... alien parasite." Graham shrugs.
"Cyber technology." The Doctor turns to them. "The knowledge of the whole cyber race and AI from the future, containing the knowledge and future history of all the cyber man." She explains, much calmer than you are right now.
"They scorched and split the sky. Built the army of armies. Left behind only pain, rage, fear and death." Shelley shakes, holding his head in his hands.
"How is he seeing all this?" Mary concernedly asks.
"The cyberium is burning through his mind. It'll destroy him if it stays in him much longer." The Doctor paces back and forth, obviously quite anxious. "An epic battle. The cyberium at the heart of it, controlling data, strategy, decision-making. Clever!" She exclaims. "Very clever. Someone took it from the cyber man, sent it back through time in an attempt to change the future."
She's interrupted by a banging emanating from the cellar walls.
"To protect you from that." Missy spats, swinging her umbrella to gaze past the wall.
"I can't keep him away much longer." Shelley exclaims.
"Then don't." The Doctor kneels down, right in front of him.
"No." You gasp, panic coursing through your body. Scratch. Scratch. Whatever the bracelet puts in you immediately inflicts a calm panic through you, slowing your heart rate down to a regular level. But you are still panicking.
"Stop fighting. It's okay." She says softly.
"Doctor, no. The cyber man can't get it." You whimper, something inside of you is telling you, it's a really, really bad idea.
"Who's telling you that?" She snaps her head to meet your eyes.
"I don't know." You shrug, hating the attention you're getting.
"Then how do we know we can trust this person?" You stay silent, not knowing what to say. "I've just been inside his brain. There's a super-computer fused to a cerebral cortex. He's the only one who knows how to get that out."
"Please, don't let the cyber man have that." You plead.
"I know, because armies will rise and billions will die." The Doctor sighs.
"Shelley's going to die if that stuff stays inside him." Graham reminds.
"Shelley's only one life against all those others." Ryan points out, bitterly.
"What are you saying?" Mary gasps. "How can you condemn him to death like that?"
"But is he, Ryan? His thoughts, his words inspire and influence thousands for centuries. If he dies now, who knows what damage-"
"Okay, yes, we get it. Shelley lives." Missy interrupts, shooting a concerned glance your way.
You look down, realizing you are clenching your fists to the point where blood is slipping into your fingernails.
"Save the poet, save the universe. Watch people burn now or tomorrow. Sometimes, even I can't win." The Doctor contemplates, but you can see the frustration written clearly on her face.
"Doctor, it's okay. Whatever happens, we'll back you up." Yaz reassures, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Please, help me." Shelley begs.
Everyone stands in a difficult silence, no one knowing what to do. Either decision results in the death of millions. No one appears to want to make the final call, but knows someone does.
"Release what you hold." The cyber man orders, bursting through.
"How?" Shelley cries.
"Release it!"
"If you want him to do something, tell him how!" Missy snaps, holding her umbrella out in front of her.
"I am addressing the cyberium. It must execute the host to be extracted." His incredibly calm voice almost drives you over the edge.
"It's not obeying you." The Doctor marvels.
"Then I shall execute the host."
"What is your name, sir?" Mary interrupts, moving forward to stand protectively in front of Shelley.
"Mary, this is not a good time the talk." The Doctor warns.
"Or names." She cuts in, ignoring her. "Are you several men? A composite of parts." Her voice is soft, as if addressing a child. A metal, murderous child.
"I am better than men." He protests.
"Yet I still see a soul in there." Her words cause him to laugh, manically.
"What do you think you see, child?" He mocks.
"I see the man who spared my son. Were you a father, before?" She asks, still gentle, yet curious.
"I was."
"You didn't want to be this way. They hurt you, this modern Prometheus. You loved once. And you were loved in return. You do not wish to kill." She holds her hand out, and he takes it.
You stand aside, watching in amazement. And you aren't the only surprised one.
"My name was Ashad. I did spare your son." But then he grabs her arm, roughly. "Because he's a useless runt, sickly and weak. And I did have children. I slit their throats when they joined the resistance." He moves his hand to the back of her neck. "In death we are transformed, improved, updated, as you will learn."
"Transformed in death. I'm sorry, Percy Shelley. So very sorry." The Doctor says, kneeling back in front of him and placing her hand on his forehead.
"Mrs Doctor, what are you doing to him?" Mary gasps.
A long, silklike gray string flies out of his mouth into the air. Suddenly, your surroundings change from the cellar to the room where they danced.
"The cyberium, it's leaving his body." Yaz gasps.
"What just happened?" Graham gasps.
"How are we here?" Izzy asks, grabbing Yaz's hand.
"Looks like the house reset." Missy answers, walking around the cyber man and twirling her umbrella.
"Shelley needs help. I think I've freed him from the cyberium." The Doctor says, kneeling next to Shelley while performing chest compressions.
You glance at the cyberium in mid air, and act on impulse.