Through the Looking Glass

Episode 2 - Part 2: The Steel Hearts, pt.2

Kirito would admit that he almost had a habit of finding trouble, one that Asuna had regularly told him off for back in the real world.

First, he found himself in Aincrad, and all that had entailed; from the days of the Beater, to the Black Swordsman and the crusade against Laughing Coffin, to all of Project Alicization, and now to the discovery that, not only were they not alone in the universe, but they weren't even alone on the planet!

Even he hadn't expected that he would ever discover that latter part though, and much less did he imagine that said alien life would look like a European man in his early thirties, with a strange fashion sense and no name to speak of, just a title...

Still though, Kirito reckoned that the man's youthful demeanour; the slicked back hair, the red and white Converse sneakers, the sheer energy the man exuded whenever he spoke, all hid his true age. An age that Kirito imagined was far greater than the early thirties he looked, especially given there was a look of fire and ice to the Doctor, almost as if he'd seen the worst that the universe could offer too...

Whilst Kirito sized up the Doctor as best as he could, Eugeo attempted to understand the revelation that the Cybermen were in fact, human, despite their appearances... "So, these Cybermen, they're... what, the evolution of humanity?" His partner asked with a sense of confusion.

"Sort of." The Doctor answered. "Somewhere out there, a long time into the future, Earth's twin planet is dying, and humanity is dying with it. So, to save the population, they start replacing their dying bits with cybernetics. Then more parts died, so more cybernetics replaced them, and that repeats until..."

"You get Cybermen." He finished, figuring out where that story was going, having read more than enough sci-fi in his life to understand how humans became cyborgs, and eventually, cyborgs became more machine than man, and that only ever ended one way...

A way that greatly resembled the seven-foot tall, cloth covered cyborgs in front of them.

"Top of the class!" The Doctor exclaimed, as if he were a schoolteacher now. "Thing is, with Cybermen, they evolve. One day, you've got that, the next it's a suit of armour with bits of nervous system wired into it. A living suit of armour linked to a hive mind, any emotions they might have heavily suppressed to keep them from going insane..."

"One thing I don't get Doctor... actually, there's quite a few things I don't get about this, but if they're still human under there, even if it's coated in metal and wires... shouldn't they be in constant agony?" Eugeo asked, though it was clear he wished he'd never thought of it.

"They are. That humming noise you can faintly hear?" The Doctor paused to allow the two to listen out for the humming, and at such a low register that he almost had to strain to hear it, there it was... barely louder than the ambient noise of the town.

"Yes, I hear it, just about?" Eugeo answered.

"That's them screaming. Or trying to, anyway. You see that box on their front? That's where their vocal cords are now, stuffed inside a box with the other non-essential parts. That voice they've got, that's just a synthesiser though, takes what's coming from the cords and translates it from screaming..."

"Wh-why do that though? If they were supposed to save humanity, then surely... why?" Eugeo asked, his partner struggling to focus his thoughts after hearing that description.

"Earlier model Cybermen like Bill and Ben there don't have an emotional inhibitor, so they feel everything." Hearing that, Kirito felt sick to his core just looking at the two Cybermen, knowing that, not only were they in complete agony, but even their screams for help would go unanswered, unheard by the world at large... the volume of their misery turned down with a dial.