The Doctor and The Nightingale {1}

the age of steel 6.2

A group of Cybermen marched down the alley. In that same alley, The Doctor, Nova, Tate, Rose, Pete, Ken, other-Nova, and Mrs.Moore were all hiding behind rubbish bins. Rose had both of her hands covering Pete's. The Cybermen came to a stop right in front of the bins they were hiding behind. The Doctor and Nova both used their sonic screwdrivers to transmit a signal. The Cybermen marched on. Everyone stood up and watched as they disappeared. "Go!" The Doctor urged everyone with a quiet whisper. They all ran off in the direction opposite of the Cybermen.

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Ricky and Mickey both continued to run through the industrial unit. Unfortunately, Ricky kept on getting cornered by Cybermen. They eventually met up on opposite ends of a chain-link fence. The Cybermen were on the same side of the fence as Ricky.

"Come on! Come on! Come on!" Mickey urged Ricky to start climbing the fence. Ricky did, but unfortunately, a Cyberman grabbed his ankle and electrocuted him. Ricky fell dead to the ground. Mickey glanced at Ricky's body, and then he looked up at the Cybermen. They stared at each other in silence before Mickey finally ran off.

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Jake met up with the others in an empty street. "I ran past the river. You should have seen it" Jake began to explain. "The whole city's on the march. Hundreds of Cybermen all down the Thames" Mickey ran up to them. Jake looked at him. "Here he is! Which one are you?"

"I'm sorry" Mickey muttered out an apology. "The Cybermen. He couldn't"

"Are you Ricky? Are you Ricky?"

"Mickey, that's you, isn't it?" Rose asked.

"Yeah" Rose pulled Mickey into a hug. After Rose let him go, Tate hugged him as well. Mickey then looked to Jake, wanting to explain what happened. "He tried. He was running. There was too many of them"

"Shut it!" Jake said.

"There was nothing I could do"

"I said just shut it. Don't even talk about him. You're nothing, you are. Nothing"

"We can mourn him when London is safe" The Doctor promised. "But now, we move on"

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The group had moved to a waste ground that was opposite the Battersea Power Station. "The whole of London's been sealed off, and the entire population's been taken inside that place. To be converted" The Doctor said.

"We've got to get in there and shut it down" Rose said.

"How do we do that?" Mickey wondered.

"Oh, we'll think of something" The Doctor said, taking Nova's hand in his and gave it a squeeze.

"You're just making this up as you go along"

"Yep. But I do it brilliantly" This caused to Nova to smile and look up at him.

"That you do, my dear Doctor" she added.

Mrs. Moore had joined them all with her laptop in hand. She took a seat on the picnic table that was there and everyone crowded around her. She brought up a schematic. "That's a schematic of the old factory. Look. Cooling tunnels underneath the plant. Big enough to walk through"

"We go under there and up into the control centre?" the Doctor asked. Mrs. Moore responded with a nod.

"There's another way in" Pete spoke up. Everyone looked at him. "Through the front door. If they've taken Jackie for upgrading, that's how she'll get in"

"We can't just go strolling up" Jake said.

"Or we could, with these" Moore countered. She reached into her bag and pulled out some earpods. She had four sets with her. The Doctor took two sets, and Nova took the other two. "Fake earpods. Dead. No signal. But put them on, the Cybermen would mistake you for one of the crowd"