CULT OF THE CYBER MESSIAH
Chapter Fifteen The Doctor and Nelak pulled the Cyber Messiah into a room. Nelak ran and got some sedatives from the medicine cabinet in the lab while he watched him. While he did it the Doctor had a thought. "As much as I hate to infringe on the rights of others, you are a threat to others so I'm going to permanently block your telepathic abilities," he said to him. He knelt down beside him, entered his mind and began creating barriers in his mind. He wove a complex web of blocks that would prevent him from feeling other minds, communicating with them and possibly controlling them. Nelak came back while he was doing it and remained quiet until he finished. "What'd you do?" "Permanently blocked his telepathic abilities so he can't use them," the Doctor said. "I hated to do it but he misused them and in my mind, he lost the right to have them. And I don't know how powerful he is but I'm not risking him hooking into our minds. Got the sedative?" "Yes." "Give him a substantial dose. Not enough to kill him but enough to keep him under for awhile. Give him about twenty CC's." He nodded and prepared the syringe. The Doctor pulled up his sleeve and injected him. Once it was done, he disposed of the syringe and Nelak pocketed the rest of the sedative. The Doctor called out to his family and explained what had happened. We wondered who that was, Donna though when he told them about Nelak. We figured it was him but we weren't sure. Yes, he is…was Thomas. I thought he was called Mark, Alan thought. I am but the Cyber Messiah made me change it to hide my identity. He made all the cult members do it and beat us if we didn't accept it. Nelak thought to them. Well, no wonder we never suspected him, Alan thought. Are you with Awinita, Brother? The Doctor thought. Yes, she's fine. I healed her back and she's resting, he thought. Good, the Doctor thought. Yes, Bro, I'm resting like a good little girl, Awinita thought. The Doctor smiled. Well, you stay in bed. We don't want to tickle you and make you behave, he thought. Ha, ha. And…Nelak, I guess it is now, are you alright? I'm fine, Nita. Geez, this is odd being able to talk with you like this. Well, it's odd waking up after 18 years and finding out I'm a Time Lord again. Are you coming with us? Yes. There's nothing for me here. The Doctor chuckled when he sensed his family's happiness at that. Well, Nelak and I just got finished drugging the Cyber Messiah. Tell Edison to let us get the Cyber Messiah on board the TARDIS before he rings the police since he's an alien. He's here with us, Alan thought. I'll tell him. Thank you, Brother. We're going now before one of the cult members does cotton on to what happened here. He cut off communication and nodded to Nelak. Both of them walked out the door, shut it and headed towards the exit. On the way, Nelak suddenly remembered the pouch in his pocket. He pulled it out and handed it to him. "Here ya go, you might wanna check for anything that might be valuable," he said to the Doctor. He reached inside and grinned when he pulled out Awinita's sonic screwdriver. "I believe this is valuable to Awinita and she'll want it back," he said. "What is it?" He explained the concept of the sonic screwdriver to him. "So will that open any lock?" Nelak said. "Yup, except a deadlock sealed one." "Could you follow me then?" The Doctor nodded. He led him to the kitchen and noticed all the cabinets and the fridge had padlocks on them. "Can you open those?" he said, pointing to the lock on the fridge. "Yup, why?" "Unlock it? I wanna break the rules and raid the fridge when I'm not supposed to. One last rebellious act before I go." The Doctor chuckled. Nelak watched while he used the screwdriver on the padlock. It fell open and the Doctor took it off and opened the fridge. Nelak looked in, grabbed a large hunk of cheddar cheese and closed the door. "There, screw the rules here now," he said as the Doctor laughed. He tore a piece off and handed it to the Doctor. "Ah, thank you, I am feeling a bit peckish," he said. He popped the piece in his mouth and made a face as they headed toward the door. "Bit dry," he said to Nelak. "How long have they had this in there?" "Not long, but who knows where they got it from. But you're right, it is a bit dry and…" They came out the door and ran into the older cult member who had yelled at him earlier. He saw the piece of cheese in his hand while they stared calmly at him. "How did you get that out of the refrigerator?" he said to them. Nelak grinned. "My friend here has a very special way to open locks," he said. "Put it back!" "No, we're hungry," the Doctor said. The man glared at him. "Who are you? I've never seen you before!" "Ah, well, I'm a part time brainwashed cult member. I only come in on the weekends." He glared at Nelak who was giggling. "The Lord will be furious when he hears you've been breaking the rules." "Oh dear, how distressing," Nelak said, calmly. "I'm done for, now." "You dare to break the rules of our Lord?" Nelak glanced at the Doctor and put a hand on the man's shoulder. "Word of advice, little human. Quit listening to people who claim to be God or something similar and think for yourself, alright? I have no idea why you're in here but I have a feeling it's not for the dry cheese. Get out and go live a life without having to obey others." "That's it! The Lord will hear of this! I will summon the others and…" He was cut off when the Doctor pinched the nerve in his neck and he slumped to the ground unconscious. "So that's why Nita knows how to do that," Nelak said. "Why? Did she do that to you?" "Yes. She used it on me the day she tried to escape. Pinched my neck and put me in her room." "Hmmm, I was teaching Rain that maneuver but she was in the room with us. She was reading but I guess she was listening as well. Nice to know she picked up something new while she was reading that sappy romance novel of hers. Well, let's get this idiot in here and close the door and get ourselves outside so we can join the others." XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "Oh God, this tastes so good," Nelak said as he and the others sat in Edison's apartment eating Chinese food. "Much better than the slop we were given." He was sitting with the women and Theora who had stopped by. The men had gone back to the shelter to retrieve the Cyber Messiah so he could be imprisoned on the TARDIS. Awinita was still in the TARDIS resting but they had taken some food to her and she was occasionally speaking to them telepathically. "Nice to know you got away from that place," Rose said. "Yes, good riddance to bad rubbish," he replied. "Good riddance to being human too. I'd much rather be a Time Lord." He grinned. "Especially since I'm gonna be around a bunch of good looking Time Ladies now," he said, winking. "Well, just so ya know, Rain and I are spoken for," Rose said. "Nah, actually I'm only interested in one of you at the moment and she's back there in the TARDIS." "Ooo, Awinita's got a boyfriend," Mingxia said. "Well, I'm a Time Lord and she's a Time Lady, why not?" he said. "Well, Dex does have a human wife and family," Rain said. "And that's perfectly okay. I'm glad he has someone after everything that's happened. I love the guy but I wasn't surprised he ended up in an institution because he had severe issues. It's just kinda funny that after all the talk about hating humans he ends up married to one and having human kids. I just hope he's prepared for the day they die. I don't think I could stomach that. Not that we won't die one day but at least we theoretically have centuries to live whereas they only have decades." He looked at Theora. "No offense, Theora. Like I said, I got nothing against humans especially since I was one for 18 years, but it would be rough married to one." "I understand. But how long do you lot live?" They looked at each other. "Um," Nelak said. "It depends on what you do with your life, I guess. Some Time Lords did nothing strenuous and lived for thousands of years. The Doctor on the other hand is on his tenth life and he's just past 1200, right?" They nodded. "But the Doctor's kinda a unique person. He fights monsters and evildoers so there's more risk of him getting killed. I'm 947 and I'm only on my third life now." Theora's eyes boggled. "You're…947?" she said as they laughed. "Yup, I look good, dontcha think?" he said, winking. "I'm older than Dex but I was with him at the academy and these other five were with us too. We went everywhere in a group and we escaped as a group." He looked around at the others. "None of you had that experience, right? You were all human once?" They nodded. "Aw, too bad. The academy was interesting. You would have liked it. Gallifrey was beautiful. It's a shame you've never seen your own adopted home world. It's sad that it was destroyed but if the Daleks were overrunning it I suppose it would be better to have it gone than be another Skaro. Damn those Daleks. Good riddance to them too." Theora listened quietly. She had no clue what Daleks were but she preferred to just listen to them rather than ask questions. "So, they really are gone now?" Nelak asked. "We think so," Rose said. "Donna and I were there the day Alan destroyed them and as far as we know, they're all dead. Davros too." "Good. The universe is safer without them around," Nelak said. "If I'm gonna be going with you looking for my friends, I'd rather not risk running into them at some point. Incidentally, you guys know where the rest are? I know the location of one since I was the second one dropped off but where did Dex take the others?" "Not sure, the Doctor's got the list, I think. They've got all the locations and the names they're living under," Donna said. "And…I was at the top of the list?" Nelak said. "I think so, yeah," Rain said. "Hmm, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy knowing Dex named me first," he said while they giggled. "It'll be nice to find the others. It was nice seeing Dex again although he looks older now. But still, he was my best mate and I'm glad he's still alive. And I look forward to getting to know all of you since you're brand new to our race." "Well, we look forward to getting to know you better," Mingxia said. "I wish I could say the same," Theora said. "But unfortunately I have a life here. But it was wonderful meeting all of you. Edison and I will never forget any of you." "Same here," Rain said. "It'll be sad to go and leave you guys behind but we wish you luck." "Yeah and we wish Max luck too," Jenny said. "You better wish Edison luck. He'll need it in order to deal with him and keep his sanity," Theora said. "Trust me, we have the same problem with my husband," Rose said. "He's very wacky but fun to be with." "And poor Nelak still has to find that out," Donna said while they laughed. "Is he really that bad?" The women all grinned. "Nah, he's not a bad guy. He's just got a wild streak runnin' through him and an odd sense of humor but ya get used to em, we all did. And eventually you'll be able to tell the difference between him and the Doctor," Rose said. "But he's a sweetie. He's loving and kind and fun to be with. I wouldn't have married him otherwise." They looked over when the door opened and the men came in carrying the Cyber Messiah. "Ah, Chinese food," Alan said, sniffing. "Let's hurry up and dump this lump in the cells so we can get some." "Excuse us, ladies," Jack said. They all moved aside while the five men carried him into the TARDIS. "I don't see the dogs around," the Doctor said while they went inside. "They must be with Awinita. This way, gentlemen." Nelak watched them and got up. "I'm gonna check on Nita, I'll be right back," he said to them. They nodded and he stepped inside the TARDIS. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX "Hey," Nelak said, poking his head around Awinita's door. She was sitting up in her bed with her plate in her lap and a bowl of egg drop soup and glass of milk on her bedside table. "Come to take me to the restroom?" she teased. "Not unless you want me to. I could feed you too." "No thanks, I can see fine now." "Good," he said, coming inside. He sat at the edge of her bed. "Enjoying your food?" "Immensely. Much better than the crap in the shelter." "I wholeheartedly agree." She chuckled. "So now that you're a noble and dignified Time Lord again, ya gonna lose the hair?" Awinita asked. "I don't know. I kinda like the look now. I'm used to it. Why? You don't like it?" "Well, I'm used to it now and it would be strange to see you change back. What is your natural color anyway?" "Brown." "Nah, we got too many brown haired men on the TARDIS already, keep the purple." "If you say so, Nita," he said, smiling. He sighed. "Listen, I have something to tell you but I don't want you to get creeped out, alright?" "Um…alright." "Well, it's just that…in this past month, I've…grown to love you. I mean you're a wonderful, warm, friendly, funny person. Not to mention I had a few personal moments with you and took care of you for a month. But…I do love you, Awinita and I would love it if we became a couple. But if you don't want to do that, I'd love to be best mates and all because you're just a sweet girl. And I'm so glad you're free and safe and back with your family. And you know, I am traveling with you lot for the moment so I can find my friends but…I would like to also take the time to get to know you better. After all, we're both Gallifreyan now and there aren't too many other prospects around." "Gee, thanks," she said as he laughed. "But I just wanted to know because if you don't want to be a couple, I'll just be your friend." Awinita smiled. "I would love to be with you, Nelak." He beamed. "You would?" "Yeah, I mean you're a sweet guy and you're handsome…even with the Day-Glo doo. I actually did get a bit of a crush on you but of course I was in the middle of being tortured and it does remind me of the whole Stockholm Syndrome falling in love with your captor thing. But I would love to be your girlfriend, Nelak." Nelak grinned. He got up, leaned forward and gave her a long and passionate kiss on the lips. As they were kissing the door opened and the Doctor and Alan walked in. They stopped short and stared at them with shock. The shock quickly became amusement and they glanced at each other and fought to keep from laughing. They waited till Nelak was done before the Doctor cleared his throat. They laughed when he spun around and turned as red as a beet. "Um, Te'lesu," Alan said, "we were coming in here to make sure you were okay but from the looks of it, you are a-okay!" "I guess the whole wanting to be a couple thing worked out for you, then?" the Doctor said to Nelak. "Um…yeah, it did," Nelak said, blushing even more. "Well, actually we were walking over here and suddenly we felt this extreme happiness from the both of ya and we thought, gee what could be causing that and lo and behold, we open the door and a TARDIS snogfest is going on," Alan said. Awinita giggled when Nelak put his head in his hands and groaned. "Don't be embarrassed. I'm happy for you both," the Doctor said. "'Bout time someone else found a significant other besides the two of us. You wanna kiss her; by all means don't let us stop ya!" "Yeah, just go ahead and hoover my sister's mouth all ya want, we won't stop ya, honestly," the Doctor said. The Doctor laughed when Awinita threw her pillow at Alan. "Do you mind if I have a moment alone with your girlfriend though?" the Doctor asked. Nelak nodded. The Doctor picked up the pillow and waited till he walked out the door before he closed it and brought it to her. She leaned up and he fluffed it and put it behind her. "So," he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, "new man in your life, eh?" "Yeah, we're gonna give it a try." "Do you love him?" She nodded. "Good, because I mean what I said about it being time the others found someone to love. Except I'm sure Jack will throw a fit when he learns because if you marry him, there's another family member I've found." "Well, I think marriage will be a long time off," Awinita said. "Don't be too sure, Rain and I got married really quickly, you know." "Yes, well, I'm not as fast as you are when it comes to things like that. Besides, I wanna make sure he's the right guy for me. As I was telling him, this whole thing is kinda like the Stockholm Syndrome thing." He laughed. "Yeah, but then again, he wasn't really your captor. The Cyber Messiah was. He was just an unwilling participant but I understand your reference." He rubbed her leg. "Are you doing alright, Te'lesu?" he asked with concern. "I'm fine. You healed my back and everything." "I wasn't talking about physical damage." She nodded. "I'm fine, Bro, really." "Well, this is the first time you've really suffered like that and I wanna make sure you are truly okay, both physically and mentally. Because if you do need some help, I can take you to a resort that has therapy sessions for a short holiday. I just know that Rose kept a lot in and she had horrific nightmares and wouldn't let me help her like that and I don't want to see you end up the same way." "I'm fine, Doctor. If I'd done this a couple of months ago I probably would have been a basket case but I've grown so much since then and I can handle it." He smiled and nodded. "But I want you to be honest with me. If you do need help at some point come and tell me and I will take you to get it," he said. "I don't want you living the rest of your lives with all this trauma." "I will tell you if that happens, Bro." "Good." "What about you, though? Are you alright? Truthfully." "I'm better than I was a month ago. Rain helped me out a lot as well as the others. There is something to be said for a good support system. But what I felt and heard disturbed me greatly, far more than if you had just been some stranger. You know, Te'lesu, that's partly the reason why I used to push people away. I was scared that if I got too close to people then things like this would happen and it would devastate me like it did. Rose was the first one that I really did let in and there were many times when I had to go through what I went through with you, being powerless while she got tortured. I s'pose that's part of the reason why I took her back over the void when she came back because at the time I thought I couldn't deal with it anymore. But at the time I did that, I didn't have all these people around me like I do now. They helped me deal with it so it wasn't as devastating as it would have been if it'd been just me and you. So, I will be alright, Te'lesu, I promise that. And…I'm very, very glad Nelak wants to be with you because now you have someone to love you and give you support like Rain does for me and that'll help you tremendously as well." He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. "But I'm here if you need me so don't hesitate to come running." "Same here, Bro." He smiled and nodded. "Now I s'pose I better let you eat. Your food's getting cold and I'm sure Casanova out there wants to explore your mouth a bit more." He giggled when Awinita blushed. Standing up, he leaned over and sent love into her mind while he kissed her forehead. He gave her hand a squeeze and waved while he walked out of the room. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Once the cult members were taken out of the shelter and taken to an institution for examination, both Edison and the Doctor took a look at the chameleon arch machine. To their relief, the Doctor found a way to reverse the process and restore the memories to the victims. Edison talked to a couple of the police officers after the Doctor finished fixing the machine and had them take the victims back to the shelter to have their memories restored. Edison relayed the instructions the Doctor had given him about how to reverse the process to the cops and his friends in the police force called him back to tell him they were successful and the cult members were restored and sent to the institution for rest and evaluation. After they were finished, the men snuck back into the shelter and personally dismantled the machine and took the major components so it wouldn't be used on anyone else. It had taken a couple of days to finish all this and in that time Awinita felt well enough to get up and rejoin the others. By that time they knew that she and Nelak was a couple and they smiled when they saw the two of them holding hands while they walked around the TARDIS or sitting together in the living room. The Doctor also had used the rejuvenator on him and Awinita was thrilled to see he now had a smooth back again. They hated to do it but the time came for them to leave their friends and start the next search. They stood with Edison and Theora in his living room hugging them and telling them goodbye. Max, who was on the computer screen, feigned distress and loudly bawled while they laughed and said goodbye to him too. "You know, you guys need to come back sometime," Edison said while Theora nodded. "I mean, at least let us know how the search goes." "Or just pop by for a visit." "We'll do that," the Doctor said. "We'll definitely tell you what happens with the search but in the meantime you take care of yourselves." "You too, buddy," Edison said. "Thanks for all your help on the cyber cult. We probably wouldn't have gotten rid of them without your help." "And we'll tell Bryce you said bye as well," Theora said. "And Reg and Dominique." They gave them one more round of hugs and the two of them stepped back and watched with their arms around each other while all of them walked into the TARDIS. They smiled when the TARDIS wheezed and dematerialized in front of them. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Once they were in the vortex, all of them sat in the living room and discussed what they wanted to do next in order to find the other missing Time Lords and Ladies. "You know, Doc," Jack said. "Just a thought, but there's a whole bunch of us and two other TARDISes besides this one. Why don't we split up into three groups and each group can take a name and go look for them, that way we can get the search over quicker." "Sounds like a good idea to me," the Doctor said. "We can keep in contact with each other periodically and relay the information to one another about what we find. We'll have to sort out the teams and choose the names we want to find. But hopefully, next time, the search will go a lot more smoothly." "Somehow, I seriously doubt it," Donna said while everyone nodded in agreement. "Are you saying everything that can go wrong does when I'm around?" They all nodded and giggled when he gave them an incensed look. "I'm not a jinx," he said. "We never said you were, dear," Rain said. "We're saying trouble follows you around and makes our life hell." "Well, gee, you feel that way I'll drop you off…with your dad!" Rain shrugged while they laughed. "Yeah right, Dad, you wouldn't last two minutes without Mum in the TARDIS," Jenny said. "Could too," the Doctor said. Rain winked at the others. "Okay, take me back then. I wanna go home this instant!" "So anyway, moving right along…" the Doctor said. "Hey!" Rain said, snapping her fingers while the others laughed. "I wanna go home, you hear me?" "I think we should come up with a definite strategy in order to tackle…" "Yooooooooooo-hoooooooo, hubby dear, wanna go home! Let me out!" The Doctor leaned over and patted her on the head. "Anyway, definite strategy in order to complete our task and find the others." "I don't wanna do it. I wanna go home!" Rain said while the others laughed. They laughed harder when they saw the Doctor was fighting to keep a straight face. "So we'll have to decide who splits up with whom and…" "WANNA GO HOOOOOOOME!" Rain screamed at him. "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" the Doctor screamed back while everyone roared with laughter. "I admit it; I can't live without ya and you're not leaving my side so sit back down and be pleasant!" "That's what I thought," Rain muttered while she sat back down. The Doctor grinned, gave her a pinch on the cheek and they went back to strategizing their next move. THE END.
Back Home Doctor Who Main Page