She ran in and amongst the series of jagged, blasted tower blocks. Just five more feet and she could reach the contact point. It was extraordinary anyone still lived here, a concrete tomb of partially condemned, inner city slums and vandalised motorcars. The smell of stale urine and fresh excrement was everywhere as she leapt along a walkway of dying animals and fractured masonry. Four more feet now.
A hand grabbed her from behind, forcing its fingers over her nostrils and its palm over her mouth. She tried to free herself, but it was rigid, cold, metal-like and immovable. As its fingers pinched her nostrils closed she felt the bone in her nose break and breathed back desperately for air, filling her nasal cavity with blood. The hand was completely covering her nose and mouth now, and her chest stung as she desperately tried to find air in her body. She panicked, sensing there were just seconds of oxygen left, flailing wildly with her arms. The creature snapped her head back with a rutting motion and broke her neck, killing her instantly.
***
<< AND IN THE LATEST NEWS TODAY, AN ATTACK ON THE DEFENCE STRONGHOLD OF THE CYBERMEN IN MELBOURNE HAS MET WITH WIDESPREAD CONDEMNATION. THE CYBERMEN HAVE ISSUED A STATEMENT THAT ANY ATTACK AGAINST THEIR FORCES WILL BE REGARDED AS AN ACT OF WAR, AND RUMOURS CIRCULATE THAT THEY WILL LAUNCH A RETIALATORY BOMBING CAMPAIGN AGAINST AUSTRALIA AS A RESULT... >>
***
"You made it, what about Karen?" A noncommittal shake of the head told the leader exactly what he needed to know.
He was a balding, intense man with prominent eyes. They sat at the top of a disused, graffiti-sodden lift shaft, overlooking the main walkway of the tower block. Peter had never wanted to be leader but anyone who did had been killed long ago.
"What's the plan?" Steve, a younger, sandy-haired man asked him.
Peter gazed around the room at the five of them. Four men, one woman. One partially crippled, another half blind, all in their late 30s.
"You ever think they have a point?" offered John, the eldest of the group.
"A point?" Peter was secretly glad of the distraction.
"Hell, they could replace us, couldn't they?" said John, pointing down at the Cybermen thirty stories below. "You wouldn't need to carry this around." He motioned to his deformed leg.
"From now on no one talks like that," snapped Gayle. "We're in this together." It was a trite sentiment but she hoped it meant something. Peter led them all up to the rooftop.
"A helicopter?"
"That's right. I stole it. Our very own helicopter."
"And how do we stop the Cybermen with this?"
Peter turned away, ashen-faced. "We... don't."
"We don't? What have we talked about these last few months? What's the point in everything we've been through?"
Peter slammed Steve against the copter's bow. "Don't you get it yet? We attack them - we die. We plot against them - we die. I ain't carrying on till we all die. There's five of us left. Let's just get out while we're still able."
There were debates, of course, and not a little aggression. But within the hour all five had boarded the vehicle and were airborne. Peter wondered to himself as they all loaded their weapons... how many of them would hesitate to shoot him if he turned his back?
***
<< MEANWHILE, BACK HOME, BRITAIN HAS SEEN A FURTHER MILLION CYBERMEN TROOPS ARRIVE IN THE COUNTRY. IT HAS BEEN REPORTED THAT THE NUMBER OF CYBERMEN IN ENGLAND ALONE EQUALS THREE CYBERMEN PER EVERY SQUARE MILE. MORE REPORTS AS WE GET THEM... >>
***
George's sight hadn't been good for a long time. Yet having a sniper bullet take out his left eye had only made matters worse. The Cybermen were bad enough, but having fellow humans trying to kill you for loot made it almost impossible to stay alive.
They had been here for half an hour and already he was uneasy. Something was unsettling him deep inside. It was an hour's flight away from the tower block, an abandoned service station somewhere off the burnt-out remains of the M1. All they'd seen along the way were patrols of Cybermen wandering through the countryside, searching for survivors. They hadn't travelled far enough, and he didn't like it. Surely there was some land, somewhere, where the creatures hadn't set foot? Still, they needed petrol and he could at least understand that. He nudged the rusted barrel of the pump into the copter's fuel tank and began to fill as the others explored nearby.
***
<< LATEST REPORTS SUGGEST THE CYBERMEN ARE EXPERIMENTING WITH HUMAN CLONING. APPARENTLY TESTS TO ALTER HUMAN EMBRYOS HAVE ALREADY BEEN SUCCESSFUL, AND CLONING COULD BE THE NEXT STAGE IN THEIR LONG-TERM PLANS... >>
***
A metallic hand gripped George's arm tightly, causing him to drop the pump in pain.
"Where - are - the - others?" asked the thing in a detached, singsong voice.
"There are no others," George lied.
The Cyberman pushed his other hand into the soft, needy flesh of George's crotch and crushed.
"Pain - is - a - weakness - I - can - exploit," it explained with indifference. "If - you - wish - no - further - pain - to - come - to - you - then - tell - me - where - the - others - are."
Tears and a mewling, childish yelp came from George's mouth. A confession did not.
The Cyberman forced his hand up through George's groin and into his lower abdomen, tearing at his intestines. He began to weep openly, screaming without conscious of self. Still the confession didn't come.
The Cyberman wrenched George's lower organs down through his stomach and into the ground between his legs. George could only manage a look of sheer disbelief before his life ebbed out of his body.
***
<< A BOMBING CAMPAIGN IN FRANCE HAS BEGUN TONIGHT, AS RESIDENTS OF PARIS ARE SAID TO HAVE LITERALLY HAD THE SKIN RIPPED FROM THEIR BODIES BY A NEW CYBERBOMB... >>
***
Fifteen feet away Peter and his three crewmates watched as George fell to the floor.
"Well... I guess he gave us a chance."
"A chance?" yelled Steve. "A chance for what? A chance to carry on until more of those bloody things catch us? We might as well give up now, there's no point to this crap!"
Peter picked up his rifle and aimed it at his face.
"Hey, shut up, man, that thing's right over there and if you don't keep your voice down it'll hear us. I ain't taking that risk."
It was an argument that blazed on for the next two hours. There were tears, a few punches, and consolations. The stress had affected them all badly.
Eventually they'd found somewhere to spend the night, as the helicopter was now surrounded by eight Cybermen. The trashed shopping precinct would at least provide them with alarms and cameras, an early warning defence system.
It was there that Gayle made her plea to Peter not to fight with Steve any more. She was pregnant, she confessed, and Steve was the father.
"It's just with those reports I keep hearing on the radio," she sobbed, "who knows what's growing inside me?"
They awoke that night to find Cybermen breaking into the lower floors of the arcade. Their tissue replaced with wire, their muscle with plastic; no obstacle was too great for them. They broke through glass with only scratches to their casing, no veins to pierce, no arteries to puncture.
David was the first. The quietest one of the group, he and Peter had never been close. He'd always been a bigot, and a smile played across Peter's lips as the Cybermen caught him. Maybe it was the situation that had made him go a little insane, but he still noted to himself the irony of David's death. In many ways the Cybermen were better than David was - they weren't bigoted, they killed everyone with equal disdain. He found himself smiling at this, laughing almost, as two of the creatures pressed David's skull and it cracked like an egg. The screams of Peter's two companions alerted him back to reality and he ran with them.
***
<< THE CYBERMEN ARE SAID TO HAVE TRACKED DOWN PROMINENT RESISTANCE LEADER CHOSA BEVAN AND ARE CONFIDENT HE WILL BE ELIMINATED WITHIN THE NEXT FOUR DAYS... >>
***
The new few hours went slower. Steve and Peter tried to build a bond, as all three of them hid, undetected, in a storage department.
"Steve? Peter?" Steve heard it first.
"It's David!"
"Don't be stupid, we saw them kill him, remember?"
"But it's him, I can hear him."
"We can't go out, those things'll find us."
"But we can't just leave him," urged Gayle.
"She's right," agreed Steve, and stood up, slinging his rifle over his shoulder as he prepared to open the door. Peter's rifle was suddenly fixed between his eyes.
"Hey man, I'm in charge here, and we're not taking any foolish risks."
"Screw you, Peter, that's the second time you've pointed a gun in my face. David's out there, and I'm going out after him."
Steve ignored the threat of the rifle and hauled open the door. Nothing. He looked up and down the corridor. Still nothing.
Suddenly an iron-like thumb punctured his Adam's apple, another thumb rupturing his eyeball. On the end of the steel-fused flesh was David's face.
"You -" David's larynx carefully processed the words, "will - become - like - us."
Peter killed them both instantly with a round from his rifle. The noise brought a hoard of Cybermen rallying down the corridor after them.
"Up to the roof," he ordered.
Gayle reached the helicopter doors and looked over her shoulder. The vehicle had been abandoned but Peter was now trapped, Cybernetic tendons flexing as they tore at his flesh.
She took aim with her own gun, the impact of the shot misbalancing one, enough for Peter to sprint for safety. He clambered aboard as she took off, Cybermen yanking the helicopter's supports away.
"Where to now?" she asked.
"Wherever there's none of those things," he mumbled.
"I doubt if there is such a place. And they drained us off. We've only got enough fuel for an hour."
"Alright," sighed Peter, "let's just see where we land."
***
<< A STATEMENT WAS ISSUED THIS MORNING THAT A CONTROLLING GOVERNMENT OF CYBER-CONTROLLED HUMAN OPERATIVES WILL BE APPOINTED TO LOOK OVER THE AFRICAN REGION. IN A RELEASE ISSUED THIS MORNING, IT WAS SAID... >>
