printOpen in a long train car. Luggage is stacked to the ceiling on either side of an aisle, and the whole thing rattles occasionally. The door at the end of the car flies open, and, from the waist down, we see a woman running. She runs past the camera, then we hear the other door slam. A young man comes running after her.
YOUNG MAN: "WAIT!"
Something comes tromping after him. He runs past the camera, like the woman did, but he trips, and the something catches up to him. We see his face, terror stricken, as it lifts him up, and then we see it's face. It's a Cyberman.
Graceful, Wicked Masks (Part 1)
The TARDIS
In the TARDIS, the Doctor is frantically trying to compensate for an unindexed globular anomaly. As he darts about the console, Molly runs in.
MOLLY: "What's happening?"
DOCTOR: "We're making an emergency landing. Or perhaps a crash."
He manages to stabilize the TARDIS. They look at each other a moment.
DOCTOR: "I don't suppose you know where we are."
MOLLY: "No."
DOCTOR: "Then let's have a look around, shall we?"
The Baggage Car
They step out of the TARDIS, right into the scene we witnessed in the teaser. A cyberman in a smart navy-blue uniform is holding a boy of fourteen or fifteen off the ground by his shoulders. Both the boy and the cyberman look at the travellers.
MOLLY: "Is that..."
DOCTOR: (cautiously) "...yes... one of the cybermen."
She moves behind him. The cyberman takes one of his hands off the boy. Holding him one-handed, he extends the other, fitted with a blaster, towards the Doctor and Molly.
CYBERMAN: "Ticket, please."
DOCTOR: "Ah... ticket... yes..."
He pats his pockets.
MOLLY: "Don't you have it with your... passport...?"
The Doctor pulls out his wallet, and shows the psychic paper to the cyberman.
CYBERMAN: "This seems to be... in order."
DOCTOR: "Well, now we've got that sorted out, don't you think you ought to put the boy down?"
The cyberman deposits the boy on the ground.
CYBERMAN: "Do not bother her again."
He exits. Molly and the Doctor introduce themselves to the boy, Sam.
DOCTOR: "...and I'm the Doctor."
SAM: "Doctor who?"
DOCTOR: "Yes, exactly. Now, ah, could you tell me where we are?"
A confused Sam explains that they're on the Galactic Express. He's travelling to the next stop, Telos, to be cyber-upgraded.
DOCTOR: "Willingly?"
SAM: "Why, of course. I've been saving half my life for this."
Sam explains that ever since the Cyber Empire became a colony of the Empire of Man, some humans have chosen to trade in their flesh bodies for immortal, mechanical ones.
DOCTOR: "The cybermen must welcome them in droves."
SAM: "Oh, no, sir. Obviously, they try to keep the numbers down; there's a lottery every year. Guess you could say I got a golden ticket."
A disturbed Doctor takes Molly off to have a look around.
In the dining car, they discover crowds of human and human-ish guests. Although there are a few cybermen among the travellers, most of them seem to be serving staff. They sit down and a cyberman named Sally takes their order.
Sally, unlike the cyberman who was restraining Sam, but like most of the others in the dining car, has a substantially more refined body. Slim and faintly feminine, it's well-articulated, the joints hidden beneath the metallic skin. Even the "handlebar" crest has been softened, forming an elegant loop around the back of her head. The clearest mark that she's a cyberman is her blank, simple face.
As Sally waits on the Doctor and Molly, they gather more information about the cybermen of this era. Sally tells them that, though her senses are muted, she can feel, but not smell or taste.
The Emperor's Car
Sometime later, Molly's slipped away from the Doctor. She sneaks into the Emperor's car as he's slipping on his smoking jacket.
EMPEROR: "Well, hello, who are you?"
MOLLY: (squeaking) "Ah, nobody."
EMPEROR: "Well, you must be somebody. Only peasants are nobodies, and you wouldn't be allowed back here if you were a peasant."
MOLLY: "I'm... Molly."
The Dining Car
The Doctor sees Sam, some young officers, and a group of girls their age drinking and talking. He leans his head over the seat behind them to eavesdrop.
OFFICER: "So, I hear you were chasing after a lady."
SAM: "It weren't like that. She reminded me of someone is all."
OFFICER: "Bet she did, bet she did."
Laughter follows from the officers and girls. One of the girls sees the Doctor, and an officer gets him in a headlock.
OFFICER: "And what are you up to, you old pervert?"
DOCTOR: (half-strangled) "I'm... with Sam. Sam, tell them."
SAM: "Yes, that's right. He helped me out earlier."
The officer lets the Doctor go.
OFFICER: "Guess it really wasn't like that."
The Doctor learns the officers are headed for the colonial garrisons -- some on Telos, some further on. He also asks Sam about the woman. Sam says she reminded him of his mother, who died when he was only seven.
SAM: "I guess I just went a little mad."
DOCTOR: (soberly) "It's alright. I lost my entire family, too. Drove me a little mad."
SAM: "Molly's not your family?"
DOCTOR: "In a manner of speaking. I look after her, and she does need loo--" (realizing she's not there) "--excuse me, Sam, I'd better find out where she's gotten off too."
The Emperor's Car
The Emperor is looking into Molly's eyes as the Doctor blusters his way in.
MOLLY: "Ah, Doctor, the Emperor was... just showing me his butterfly collection."
Examination of the butterfly collection continues as the Doctor affably interrogates the Emperor.
DOCTOR: "So, you're touring the Empire. Doesn't leave much time for actual governing, I'd imagine."
EMPEROR: "Oh, no. I leave that to Parliament."
MOLLY: "Very civilized."
EMPEROR: "Unless, of course, there's a really big war."
DOCTOR: "What happens then?"
EMPEROR: "Well, then I get on a really big battlecruiser and watch the nobodies fight and die and explode. It's quite exciting."
DOCTOR: "These nobodies... cybermen?"
EMPEROR: "A lot of them, yes. That's what the colonies are for."
DOCTOR: "And do they get a choice?"
EMPEROR: "Oh, no. There's a draft on. Always a little war somewhere out in the bush."
The Doctor is starting to put the pieces together. It's not a pretty puzzle. All of a sudden, they hear blaster fire from further up the train. He tells the Emperor to stay safe and then takes off up the train.
Passenger Car
The passengers are being instructed to bag their valuables by a man in some kind of black rubber mask and gloves. Molly elbows her way to the front of the line.
MOLLY: "If this train is travelling through space, how are you going to get away with your loot?"
BANDIT: (disdainfully) "I'm a transmat bandit. I make the heist, and then I teleport away with this bracelet here."
He waves the bracelet in her face and then holds it back where she can't reach it. The Doctor is coming up behind him.
MOLLY: "Just that there?"
BANDIT: "Yes. Now put your valuables in the--"
The Doctor zaps the clasp on the bracelet with the sonic screwdriver. When he feels it drop off, the bandit whirls around and starts shooting. The Doctor dodges, but one of the bolts ricochets and blasts Sally. Molly overturns a table on the bandit, and several of the passengers help her restrain him.
The Doctor examines Sally. The gaping wound in her chest seems to have taken out a number of vital components -- she's dead. And then he realizes something horrifying. He grabs Molly's arm and drags her through the crowd, who are getting over the shock and are now rather excited at having been in a real robbery.
DOCTOR: "Something very wrong is going on here. We have to get back to the TARDIS."
They crash through TARDIS doors.
MOLLY: "Doctor, what is it?"
DOCTOR: "Sally. She wasn't a cyberman at all. Just a robot. Incredibly sophisticated, but a robot all the same."
MOLLY: "Then..."
DOCTOR: "That's right. All those people... going to Telos for cyber-conversion. And they're not coming back."
To be continued...
Graceful, Wicked Masks (Part 2)
Conveniently, the Doctor had pocketed Sally's memory core. They wire it up to the console and Molly hacks in. Reviewing the robot's memories, they find images of agriculture and what appears to be a privileged human population living on Telos -- not at all what the Doctor would expect.
Realizing that they'll have to get inside the cyber-conversion facility, they decide to relieve Sam of his ticket. Molly flirts and convinces him he ought to lock it away in his suitcase, in case another bandit strikes. While she distracts him by stumbling into his arms, the Doctor opens the suitcase and retrieves the ticket.
Molly's Fortuitously Clumsy, by the way, which Daniel gets great mileage out of.
Telos
The train enters normal space and speeds down a transorbital rail to the surface of the cyber homeworld. The Doctor and Molly disembark amid the crowd of humans, cybermen and aliens. Conspicuously, they're the only ones without any luggage.
Sam appears in the doorway of the train.
SAM: (shouting) "Hey! They stole my ticket!"
The guards, cyber-centurions with dangerous looking ray rifles, may not know exactly what ticket Sam's talking about, but they hear the magic word "stolen" and trundle towards the travellers. The Doctor and Molly duck under the velvet ropes and begin pushing their way through the crowd.
Daniel bolstered his bid to "find a major clue" using the Frenzied Chase card.
The Doctor zaps a door marked "Employees Only" with the sonic screwdriver and Molly pulls him through. They find themselves in a maze of narrow hallways running between offices and supply closets.
THE DOCTOR: (grinning) "Corridors!"
They outrun the guards. The Doctor pulls the ticket out of his coat.
THE DOCTOR: "If I could only find an information terminal..."
As he muses, ticket in hand, he almost walks into a woman as he turns the corner. She's in her late forties, starting to grey.
WOMAN: "Can I help you?"
THE DOCTOR: "Why, yes, I was looking for--" (he recognizes her uncanny resemblance to Sam) "--do you have any family?"
The question sets the woman hemming and hawing. The Doctor gets directions from her, while asking various questions about her. It's clear she's lying about her background, as well as whether she's "visiting" or "returning" to Telos. As she escorts Molly and the Doctor to the street, he notices a small metal stud sticking out of the back of her neck. A blue LED blinks softly from its surface.
The woman, whom the Doctor is certain is Sam's mother, gave them the directions from the Organic Quarter to the upgrade facility, but the Doctor's more interested in the nearby secure area she told them to avoid.
Molly pretends to have hurt her ankle, to distract the guards. Unfortunately, they see her glance at the Doctor as he ducks into an alley, and give chase.
Daniel played Captured! to add to his bid to distract the guards.
The Doctor evades the guards and conceals himself in a warehouse. Fascinated, he busies himself searching through the shelves of cybernetic parts.
Upgrade Facility
Meanwhile, the cyber soldiers ask Molly for identification.
MOLLY: "I left it on the train."
CYBERMAN: "Then the human female will provide a genetic sample."
MOLLY: "We hardly know each other..."
The cyberman uses a device with a tiny claw on the end to take a blood sample and a small sliver of flesh from Molly's forearm.
MOLLY: "Ow!"
He reads the results.
CYBERMAN: "The human female does not appear in Imperial genetic records."
MOLLY: "Well, I..."
CYBERMAN: "She has been classified 'spare parts.'"
Warehouse
Meanwhile, the Doctor holds up a slender, silver object. He shines the light from his sonic screwdriver on it. It's obviously a cybernetic replacement for a human brain stem, the part of the brain that controls autonomic reflexes. Breathing, sweating, heartbeats... all things humans do, and cybermen don't. As he turns it over, he sees the recharging port -- it's the same stud-and-LED configuration he saw protruding from the neck of Sam's mother.
A horrified look crosses his face.
DOCTOR: "I've got to find Molly."
Operating Room
The cybermen whirring around a restrained Molly are obviously surgeons, with light, dextrous bodies and left arms converted with loads of little knives and scanners.
SURGEON: "Beginning brain print. Please relax."
Molly shouts at them, but they ignore her, instead studying a computer-generated diagram of her body on a large screen. Most of the image is in soft blues and greens, with a large red cluster near the head.
SURGEON: "The human female is ninety-percent compatible."
MOLLY: "What does that mean?"
This time, they turn to her.
SURGEON: "Minimal organic tissue will need replacement. Liberation will commence shortly."
MOLLY: "You don't really need to replace anything. What's that ten percent, anyway?"
SURGEON: "Your brain."
Downstairs
The Doctor enters the upgrade facility, where he sees Sam arguing with the guards.
SAM: "I'm telling you, it was stolen. Look here, we signed a contract--"
CYBERMAN: "Terms of contract require presentation of ticket to ensure..." (and so on)
The Doctor walks nonchalantly around them and approaches the other guard.
THE DOCTOR: "Good afternoon, I'm here for my upgrade..."
Sam sees him, and starts shouting. The Doctor winces, but the boy is escorted out by the guard. The Doctor shows Sam's ticket to his guard.
CYBERMAN: "The human male will provide a tissue sample."
THE DOCTOR: "That's really not necessary, I have my identification right he--"
CYBERMAN: "Tissue sample is necessary to ensure compatibility. "
THE DOCTOR: "Oh, well--"
Before he can protest, the cyberman jams the sampler against his arm. A moment later, however, the device emits a horrible noise.
CYBERMAN: "Error. Sampler is unable to read genetic sequence. Please proceed to the surgery for further consultation."
Sarah used Catastrophic Malfunction to bid against the scanner.
Operating Room
The surgeons are descending on Molly.
MOLLY: "Wait!"
SURGEON: "Yes?"
MOLLY: "If you're going to replace my brain, can I at least go to the loo first?"
The surgeons look at each other.
SURGEON: "A guard will escort you to the waste disposal facility. Liberation will be delayed."
They remove Molly's restraints, and a cyber soldier escorts her down the hall to the ladies'.
MOLLY: "So what am I being liberated from, anyway? Having a brain?"
GUARD: "You will not be liberated."
MOLLY: "But they said..."
GUARD: "You will serve the liberation of the cybermen."
He gestures with his rifle and she goes in. She wastes no time finding a ventilation shaft and climbing into it, squeezing through to the upper level.
Upper Level Operating Room
The doctor is being menaced by two surgeons identical to Molly's, but they haven't yet restrained him.
SURGEON: "The human male... is not."
The Doctor's hand closes around the sonic screwdriver.
Molly bursts through the door, having only a moment to exclaim "Doctor!" before the door swings into one of the surgeons, knocking its surgical arm into the large monitor. The resulting sparks and inappropriate collisions of electrical parts short out the lights for the entire section.
MOLLY: "I can't see."
THE DOCTOR: (quietly) "They can."
They run. As they go, they compare notes.
MOLLY: "They're putting cyberman brains back into human bodies."
THE DOCTOR: "It's a revolution."
MOLLY: "We'd better tell the Emperor."
If the Doctor finds that course of action a bit worrisome, he doesn't show it. Returning to the Organic Quarter, they find the Imperial Barracks where they Emperor is staying.
SOLDIER: "Do you have an invitation?"
MOLLY: "He gave me a hat."
She models it while the Doctor digs out his wallet.
They're escorted to the Emperor's suite, where he's in his evening wig. He grins broadly as he sees them.
EMPEROR: "Doctor! Molly! How nice of you to drop by!"
THE DOCTOR: "Your majesty, I bring grave news. The cybermen are planning a rebellion."
EMPEROR: "Why, that's revolting!" He pauses. "See what I did, there?"
Molly laughs.
EMPEROR: "Fortunately, I was just having tea with the man to sort this out. Regent?"
He gestures to a mustachioed man sitting in a large chair by the fire.
REGENT: "Why, yes. Grave news, indeed."
The regent stands slowly. The blue light on the back of his neck flickers slowly.
To be continued...
Sensing the end of the session, Daniel played A Serpent in the Garden, and I ran with it.