Lady Navelle Manchelli
This time I will get it right.
I came close last time. I had the right area but somehow managed to get the system wrong and almost managed to send us into a fiery ball of molten gas. That's never a pleasent experience if you don't mind my saying. I wait for my master's order and ever the faithful servant punch in the coordinates again, this time with success. I don't feel the momentum but I know we're in motion, the synapses triggering the display alert me we're heading in a northerly direction accelerating at a steady pace.
It wasn't always like this. I had a life. I was the Lady Navelle Manchelli, only daughter of the deceased Lord Byron Bradbury and heir to the Bradbury Estate in Alderley Edge. I had a child, a husband and 3 Pembroke Welsh Corgis. At least, I did. But that was before. Before the wires. Before the prodding. Before the pain.
Before him.
Let me tell you my story.
It all began in the autumn of 2012. It was a fine day, as autumn days go in the North of England. I'd been out shopping and just returned to the family home when the most strangest thing happened; A blue box appeared in the driveway out of nowhere. Not just any blue box either, but a police box. The type my parents once read about in books and on Television. And then he appeared like this was all perfectly normal. Him.
In hindsight I guess it was a normal event in the day and life of "The Doctor". I never did find out his name. I think that might be my only true regret. "Doctor Who?" I once asked him. He didn't answer. Rather he just turned with a wink, laughed and offered me "Exactly" as he turned to twist nobs and flip switches. That was in the early days. Though time really was irrelevant with him. Minutes turned into weeks and months became seconds. We traveled high and low, far and wide and nobody at home was none the wiser. In Alderley Edge time simply continued normally and the weeks I was gone took no more than a blink of an eye. Oh the adventures we had. I remember sitting atop the rocks of Stonehenge as Merlyn chanted below. I watched as stars blinked out and kings long passed into legend took seat upon thrones of gold. And yes, I once watched as we hurtled towards a molten mass of heat from a collapsing sun.
Navelle Manchelli, Timeless Lady of the Stars.
But it all ended a thousand years ago in Atlantis of all places. There's something ironic about dying in a place that those who love you thought was long dead. We had been chasing what we thought were the remnants of the lost Roman Legion who had designs on reincarnating a robot Julius Ceasar. Just as ruthless but near impossible to kill the Doctor had said. "Legions of Cybermen would fall upon this world and destroy it", he had told me. I had laughed at the idea of lines and lines of Wall-E's marching on London. I'd been wrong. Oh so wrong. The TARDIS had told us there were 30 of these Cybermen in Atlantis all synched to a central computer. The mission was simple. I would disengage the dish on the signal tower while the Doctor went into the Main Frame to upload a virus that would terminate every Cyberman connected to the network.
The Doctor got it wrong. We all got it wrong. The Cybermen were smart and the trap had been prepared centuries earlier. That's the thing about time travel, the entire concept of "time" becomes pointless. I arrived at the dish to place the EMF charges as to the plan, and as the TARDIS left to take the Doctor to the main computer doors opened out of space in all around me and hundreds of Cybermen marched out. I was surrounded. I called for the Doctor but it was too late, the TARDIS was gone.
I was carried from the tower by the Cybermen as the commander was telling me how they would improve my hardware, upgrade my software and remove my faults. I cried for help but none came. I knew what they had planned. The Doctor had told me about the Cybermen on Atlantis.
Recruits were "Made" through 4 separate stages. First came the conscience storage where the victims conscience were downloaded into a temporary RAM system. Then came the hardware transfer upgrade where the organic body was "fused" with the metal aloy frame. Next the conscience was uploaded into the new body and edited to remove core human functions such as emotions. Lastly the Cybermen linked the body to a central hub. This last stage was a safeguard to ensure that no Cyberman could rebel against their command, something earlier versions of the Cyberman did not have.
I was strapped down as tears streamed down my face. Thoughts of my family flashed. Would they miss me. Would they ever know what happened? Why was this happening? Where was The Doctor?
A wave of cold washed over me and I felt a tingling sensation on the left side of my head and then everything went black. In the distance I could hear a Cyberman speaking to the commander, "Conscience Download Complete, System Hardware Delete Initiated". Pain exploded all across my body and then nothing.
The Doctor told me some time later how he had shut down the Main Frame before my transformed cyberman body could be linked to the network. All the Cybermen had died in an instant and without the final transferrence of my conscience my new Cyberman body had soon failed also. The Timeless Lady of the Stars was no more, at least I thought so. The Doctor, that clever man, had other ideas.
In a desperate move to save at least part of me he had the TARDIS travel to modern day and uploaded my conscience into a small unit that tapped directly into the only network large enough to power a Cybernetic Conscience - the Global Satelite grid.
The Doctor helped me, so that I may help you. "In 200 Meters, Turn Left."
I am the traveler of Stars, the voice of direction. I am the only survivor of a doomed Atlantis and the last cyberman of its kind.
I am the Lady Navelle Manchelli, Dutchess of Lancer but you may simply call me Navman.
I came close last time. I had the right area but somehow managed to get the system wrong and almost managed to send us into a fiery ball of molten gas. That's never a pleasent experience if you don't mind my saying. I wait for my master's order and ever the faithful servant punch in the coordinates again, this time with success. I don't feel the momentum but I know we're in motion, the synapses triggering the display alert me we're heading in a northerly direction accelerating at a steady pace.
It wasn't always like this. I had a life. I was the Lady Navelle Manchelli, only daughter of the deceased Lord Byron Bradbury and heir to the Bradbury Estate in Alderley Edge. I had a child, a husband and 3 Pembroke Welsh Corgis. At least, I did. But that was before. Before the wires. Before the prodding. Before the pain.
Before him.
Let me tell you my story.
It all began in the autumn of 2012. It was a fine day, as autumn days go in the North of England. I'd been out shopping and just returned to the family home when the most strangest thing happened; A blue box appeared in the driveway out of nowhere. Not just any blue box either, but a police box. The type my parents once read about in books and on Television. And then he appeared like this was all perfectly normal. Him.
In hindsight I guess it was a normal event in the day and life of "The Doctor". I never did find out his name. I think that might be my only true regret. "Doctor Who?" I once asked him. He didn't answer. Rather he just turned with a wink, laughed and offered me "Exactly" as he turned to twist nobs and flip switches. That was in the early days. Though time really was irrelevant with him. Minutes turned into weeks and months became seconds. We traveled high and low, far and wide and nobody at home was none the wiser. In Alderley Edge time simply continued normally and the weeks I was gone took no more than a blink of an eye. Oh the adventures we had. I remember sitting atop the rocks of Stonehenge as Merlyn chanted below. I watched as stars blinked out and kings long passed into legend took seat upon thrones of gold. And yes, I once watched as we hurtled towards a molten mass of heat from a collapsing sun.
Navelle Manchelli, Timeless Lady of the Stars.
But it all ended a thousand years ago in Atlantis of all places. There's something ironic about dying in a place that those who love you thought was long dead. We had been chasing what we thought were the remnants of the lost Roman Legion who had designs on reincarnating a robot Julius Ceasar. Just as ruthless but near impossible to kill the Doctor had said. "Legions of Cybermen would fall upon this world and destroy it", he had told me. I had laughed at the idea of lines and lines of Wall-E's marching on London. I'd been wrong. Oh so wrong. The TARDIS had told us there were 30 of these Cybermen in Atlantis all synched to a central computer. The mission was simple. I would disengage the dish on the signal tower while the Doctor went into the Main Frame to upload a virus that would terminate every Cyberman connected to the network.
The Doctor got it wrong. We all got it wrong. The Cybermen were smart and the trap had been prepared centuries earlier. That's the thing about time travel, the entire concept of "time" becomes pointless. I arrived at the dish to place the EMF charges as to the plan, and as the TARDIS left to take the Doctor to the main computer doors opened out of space in all around me and hundreds of Cybermen marched out. I was surrounded. I called for the Doctor but it was too late, the TARDIS was gone.
I was carried from the tower by the Cybermen as the commander was telling me how they would improve my hardware, upgrade my software and remove my faults. I cried for help but none came. I knew what they had planned. The Doctor had told me about the Cybermen on Atlantis.
Recruits were "Made" through 4 separate stages. First came the conscience storage where the victims conscience were downloaded into a temporary RAM system. Then came the hardware transfer upgrade where the organic body was "fused" with the metal aloy frame. Next the conscience was uploaded into the new body and edited to remove core human functions such as emotions. Lastly the Cybermen linked the body to a central hub. This last stage was a safeguard to ensure that no Cyberman could rebel against their command, something earlier versions of the Cyberman did not have.
I was strapped down as tears streamed down my face. Thoughts of my family flashed. Would they miss me. Would they ever know what happened? Why was this happening? Where was The Doctor?
A wave of cold washed over me and I felt a tingling sensation on the left side of my head and then everything went black. In the distance I could hear a Cyberman speaking to the commander, "Conscience Download Complete, System Hardware Delete Initiated". Pain exploded all across my body and then nothing.
The Doctor told me some time later how he had shut down the Main Frame before my transformed cyberman body could be linked to the network. All the Cybermen had died in an instant and without the final transferrence of my conscience my new Cyberman body had soon failed also. The Timeless Lady of the Stars was no more, at least I thought so. The Doctor, that clever man, had other ideas.
In a desperate move to save at least part of me he had the TARDIS travel to modern day and uploaded my conscience into a small unit that tapped directly into the only network large enough to power a Cybernetic Conscience - the Global Satelite grid.
The Doctor helped me, so that I may help you. "In 200 Meters, Turn Left."
I am the traveler of Stars, the voice of direction. I am the only survivor of a doomed Atlantis and the last cyberman of its kind.
I am the Lady Navelle Manchelli, Dutchess of Lancer but you may simply call me Navman.