Salt of the Earth

by Generation Extant

The Doctor and Javis head to Black 47, the worst year of the Great Famine in Ireland, to examine suspicious potatoes and meet a curious young farm girl named Colleen. (This story was originally published from July 23-August 16, 2007 at Generation Extant dot com.)

"Green, Doctor?"
The Doctor was met with Javis' usual wit as he entered the console room. It was similar to his blue suit, but this time in verdant hues. A dark green tweed jacket and tie met with matching trousers, but this time the Doctor avoided Javis' teasing and wore the pant legs full to the ankle, pressed and neatly cuffed. The shirt remained crisp and white, and the waistcoat was a dark taupe. He wore the same tan overcoat and newsboy cap, along with brown loafers.
"Yes, Green, Javis. I thought a trip to the Emerald Isle might seem appropriate, they were big fans of classic Roman ideals."
"I hope not as big of fans as those wackos we met a while back."
"No no, more of an appreciation than emulation," the Doctor said, adjusting his lapels.
"Like you then?"
"I beg your pardon?!"
"All dressed up like you belong, but you really never will."
The Doctor was sobered by Javis' keen judgment.
"Quite right, Miss Nine."
"Oh, you used the 'Miss.' Did I say something wrong?"
The Doctor was uncharacteristically silent, staring at the TARDIS console, his eyes suddenly far away and misty.
"I'm sorry if I upset you, Doctor, I didn't mean to. I just start talking sometimes and–"
"It's all right, Javis, it's all right," the Doctor looked up, cracking a sad smile, "I do enjoy our exchanges, and in order to keep them lively and sparkling I can't very well impose restrictions."
"Well I don't want to hurt you, that'd hardly be fair," Javis sat back in a chair near the console, "you take me across the blinkin' universe, and here I go pokin' at ya."
"Quite all right, Javis, really!" The Doctor hated when people made a fuss over him, "I wouldn't be able to do what I do if I couldn't handle a critic or two in my time, now could I?"
"…guess you're right."
"Of course I'm right!" the Doctor expounded, then added a wink and a smile, "now, go get your green jacket on, I've got in cleaned and pressed for you!"
It was useless to argue in these situations, Javis had found out. She got up and moved toward the door leading inside the infinite expanse of the TARDIS, exasperated. "I have to wear green too?"
The Doctor looked back over his shoulder.
"My dear, we're landing on March 17th, 1847! St. Patrick's Day! Now, go and get some green on you, or you're likely to get pinched!"
Javis stopped at the door. "1847, eh? That a good year, Doctor?"
The Doctor turned back to the console, letting his eyes cloud over again.
"Oh yes," he intoned, "a very good year."
The rolling green hills of Ireland proved an odd contrast for the blue TARDIS upon landing. Javis was the first out, stopping short to take in the beauty. Unfortunately, the Doctor was already bounding out of the TARDIS door and collided with her, sending them crashing into a clump of heather. Javis got up quickly, brushing herself off.
"Geez, Doctor! Always in such a damn hurry…" she helped him up, "you can see the whole of time, but you don't think to look in front of you?!"
The Doctor hopped to his feet, brushing himself briskly.
"Why look in front of you when one can look forth into eternity?" he said with a grin, producing a makeshift bouquet of the ornamental plant, "a heap of the heath, Miss Nine, welcome to Ireland!"
Javis shook her head as the Doctor pinned a sprig to her jacket.
"You're just happy because you actually managed to pilot the TARDIS correctly, aren't you?"
The Doctor took on a face of mock indignation. "What if I am? It's either that, or Heather's ability to work as a hallucinogenic intoxicant." he added with a grin. He continued to dust himself off thoroughly and Javis looked out upon the landscape. Within minutes, Javis heard a faint tootling and turned around to see the Doctor sitting upon a nearby rock and fiddling with a well-worn tin whistle. Sighing and rolling her eyes, Javis turned back to the horizon. The high sounds of the whistle soared over the heath, but a strange undertone came up from the bottom of the hill they stood on.
"What is that?" Javis muttered, a cool breeze blowing a few errant strands out of her ponytail, "sounds like…moaning…oh…oh…Doctor…Doctor!"
Javis began a stumbling run back to the Doctor, tripping in her trepidation over clumps of earth. The Doctor had stood up by the time she arrived, but was strangely not as fearful.
"I'm glad you're happy, Doctor," Javis gasped, "because they sure don't look it!"
Four peasants, or at least they looked like peasants, stumbled over the hill, moaning a frightful din. Their clothes were haggard, their faces gaunt, their walks shuffling and broken. They looked for all the world like the walking dead. Javis made to ready her famous fists in confrontation, but she found herself hauled bodily behind the Doctor.
He spoke very rapidly. "You can't hurt them, Javis, they're not human anymore! They're not…alive…"
"And how would you know?! You've only just gotten here! Why do you seem to be followed by–wait! You knew this was coming didn't you! You came here on purpose!"
"Temporal fluctuation, I came to investigate. Something's not right."
The peasants came closer. "You said this was a good year!"
The Doctor grabbed one of the peasants necks, wrenching it to its knees. Javis set about punching and kicking the other three to the ground, only to find them distressingly getting back up and sallying forth.
"No one gets up from my punches!" Javis snarled, cracking her knuckles.
"They don't feel pain, Javis!" The Doctor said, prying open a peasant's eye and gazing inside, "they're not human anymore…but what are they…?"
The peasant on his knees began a terrible rasping, gasping sentence. It dragged out horrifically, grating into the ear.
"You…will be…like us!"
The Doctor's eyes opened wide.
"No."
The peasant kept on its rasping until the Doctor finally threw it aside. Reaching into the ground the Doctor pulled out a clump of heather and jammed it into the peasant's chest. The Doctor's hand easily penetrated the thin layer of flesh and found its way into the body. Releasing the heather inside, the Doctor pulled out his hand, noting that it was now covered in putrefying flesh. The peasant twitched and writhed upon the ground for a few moments before finally coming to a halt, blue sparks emitting from the open chest cavity.
"Deactivated." the Doctor proclaimed, then proceeded to relieve Javis by doing the same to the other four. Javis was flummoxed at the turn of events, and rightfully so.
"What the hell–?"
"I'm glad the heather worked," the Doctor said, pulling a green handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiping his hand, "I didn't have any gold on me."
"What are you talking about?" Javis screamed, her voice echoing across the field.
"These peasants have recently died, but have been temporarily re-activated through technology not of the 19th century. The fiborous nature of the heather, combined with the short life span of putrefying flesh, were able to deactivate them by clogging intake devices. If you were to rip each and every one of these bodies open you would find robotic replacements of vital organs, but crude ones. This is not the ideal time period for these conversions to be taking place…"
"What conversions?"
"Cyber-conversions."

The bodies, now devoid of their artificial spark to life, began decomposing quickly upon the Irish countryside.
"Ech!" Javis sputtered, "they're…goo!"
"Cyber-goo." The Doctor reponded, fingering his tin whistle.
"Cyber?"
"Cybernetic. A fusion of organic parts with robotic matter, originated from the planet Mondas. It was once a twin of earth, The Tenth Planet-"
"Tenth?"
"Yes, Javis, tenth. Mercury through Pluto."
Javis cocked an eyebrow, "What the hell is Pluto?"
"Eh…nevermind," The Doctor made as if to retort, but shook his head and continued on, "The Solar System couldn't handle the gravitational existence of two twin planets on the same orbit, and Mondas got, well, bumped. Flung out of the Solar System, cast out of Eden, the Mondasians were forced to adapt to a new and harsh environment. Once they were just like humans, but their bodies began to disintegrate in the violence of a lonely space, so they had to devise new ways to perpetuate."
"Cybernetics?" Javis offered.
"Exactly. And when it became too much of a horror to look at themselves as the monstrous hybrids they had become…they removed their emotions."
"What?" Javis was stunned.
"Of course, vestigal remnants still remain, but on the whole they are cold, calculating, cruel. An entire race of sociopaths."
"Like the Daleks?" Javis said, remembering her last days back on New Earth.
"Not quite. A Dalek had refined a few of its emotions, mostly hate and a sense of superiority. A Cyberman, in contrast, does not think itself better…it knows. It is simply a creature of pure logic that sees a perpetual life of steel a more prudent alternative to a finite one of flesh. They don't kill for malice, they don't cybernize their enemies for spite. They really and simply believe they are doing an obvious right."
"That's…that's terrible." Javis' head couldn't stop shaking.
"That is what the cold emptiness of space will do to some," the Doctor shook his head in response, "ah! But we're not here for an intergalactic history lesson, we're here on Earth, the spared twin, the Romulus!" he began to scan the horizon, eyes narrowed," And something tells me a bit of a sibling rivalry is going on…a-ha!"
"What is it?" Javis asked, trying to follow the Doctor's eyes.
"That's where we need to go," he pointed with the tin whistle.
"That? That dilapidated old shack?"
"That is not a shack!" the Doctor seemed offended, "it's a barn."
"A barn?"
"Originally a place to hold livestock and farm implements. But also, during this time period, many barns would double as country schoolhouses, and there's no better place to go for knowledge than back to school."
"I tried school once," Javis smiled, "Wasn't for me."
"Yes, they usually don't let you punch people."
"Ass."
"Visigoth."
Chuckling, the two headed off to the distant barn. It was a rather ramshackle affair, and despite being broad daylight there appeared to be no one inside.
"Anyone home?" the Doctor called out.
No response.
"Hello?" He waved a hand aloft.
He was answered with a musket round through his palm, leaving a neat, round hole. The Doctor retreated quickly, leaning against a wooden support beam, grasping his hand and gritting his teeth.
"Doctor!" Javis shouted, "are you all right?"
"Yes, Javis, yes! Just give me a moment!"
"You're shot!"
"My cells will heal, just give me a moment," the Doctor screwed his eyes shut tight for a few moments, then snapped them open. Releasing one hand from the other, Javis was amazed to see the hole had disappeared. However, by that time a uniformed man had thundered down the stairs, musket reloaded and at the ready.
"Ah, much better," the Doctor exhaled, "ah! A Redcoat! Never thought I'd be happy to see one of those, especially after Bunker Hill…how are you?"
He extended his newly healed hand to the still cautious soldier.
"Don't!" the soldier shouted, causing both the Doctor and Javis to jump back, "let me see your eyes."
The two travelevers looked at each other, confused.
"You can't see them now?" The Doctor asked, eyebrow cocked.
"Closer, come closer…not too close!" He brandished his bayonet threateningly, peeking over the guns barrel with hooded, bloodshot eyes. Apparently something met with his approval, as he lowered the gun.
"It's all right, I see a spark in your eyes, you're both… good. Can't be too careful with those…creatures outside. First they could only crawl, then they started walking…I've heard reports they talk now."
"Indeed," the Doctor stroked his goatee, "and where did you hear this from? The community? Didn't this used to be a schoolhouse?"
"Yes, we tried to teach those ungrateful apes, with their guttural language…an entire land of fools, Ireland."
"Ah, but the best teacher teaches fools, all the while hoping they will be geniuses." The Doctor's philosophy was met with silent scorn, causing him to ruminate. "Military mind, right…erm, I don't suppose you were the teacher?"
"Hardly. This was converted into a temporary barracks once the trouble started happening in this area. They stopped paying their taxes, you see…"
"Agricultural export to England," the Doctor murmured to Javis out of the side of his mouth.
"…and then all the problems started happening. Cromwell said 'to Hell or Connaught,' I think it's one and the same…"
"Problems?" The Doctor inquired.
"Well, it's one thing to shoot a peasant breaking Her Majesty's law…"
"Queen Victoria," the Doctor murmured sideways again.
"…but it's quite another to have that same peasant apparently rise from the dead, attack your barracks, and carry off four of your soldiers, which you have to fight a week later!"
He threw down his musket onto a pile of hay and sat upon a barrel, head in his hands.
"I'm the only one left. They keep coming, they never seem to die…"
The Doctor placed a consoling hand on his shoulder, "Believe me, I know how you feel."
He turned to Javis, "go into the hayloft, put on some tea for our friend, Mr…?"
"Captain," the soldier replied, "Captain James Wilbanks."
"Right, put on some tea for Captain Wilbanks. You do have a ration of tea, don't you?"
Captain Wilbanks sniffed. "I have six men's rations of tea. They don't…they don't take it when they leave…"
"Quite right. You sit here, Captain, we'll get some tea. Javis?"
"I don't know how to make bloody with this antiquated junk!" Javis shot back, arms akimbo.
The Doctor sighed, "all you have to do is warm up a pot–"
All further talk of drink was cut short by a deafening thud on the barn door. Captain Wilbanks leapt to the ready, musket back in his hands with lightning speed.
"It's them…it's them! They're coming!"

Bravely, the Doctor plugged the musket barrel with his thumb, glaring at the Captain.
"The military mind: if we can't shoot it, it's not worth it," he grumbled, forcing the musket to the floor, "help us all if you ever make Brigadier, Mr. Wilbanks."
"You are wont to simply let the monsters waltz in here and carry us off to Hellgates?" The Captain blustered. The Doctor lifted two fingers to the vicinity of the tall captain's lips, silencing him ignominiously.
"Shh! Listen. Do you hear any continued pounding? Hm? Do you?"
A stony silence echoed all around. Suddenly, a scared whimper eked through the loose slats of the barn door. Rolling his eyes, the Doctor swung the door open.
"Monsters and ghouls will rarely knock on a door and wait for the answer, Captain. It's only a frightened little girl." He extended a finger into the early night, coaxing in a frightened young woman. Around twenty, she had fiery red hair, green eyes, and a full serving of freckles splattered about the fair skin of her nose and cheeks. Her slender body was heaving with frantic breath and her eyes were like saucers from the fright. The Doctor continued in his gentle, coaxing tone.
"Come come my dear, nothing to be afraid of. Yes, that's it, don't worry."
The girl pointed a trembling index finger at Wilbanks and spoke in a light, lilting, and similarly trembling voice.
"Ing..Englishman…"
"Don't worry, he won't hurt you, I'm here."
She looked at him warmly, with an immediate trust, smiling slightly. The Doctor returned the tiny smile with a bright grin of his own, twitching his eyebrows comically. She began to giggle, and the Doctor offered a slight chuckle.
Captain Wilbanks, however, was in no mood for laughing. He had managed to re- fasten the ramshackle door and was now baring his teeth in obviously discomfort, fists tightly balled at his side.
"Now is not the time for laughing!" he hissed, "tell that thing in her own barbaric tongue to cease!"
"Isn't the speaking English, Doctor?" Javis asked, hanging her green jacket on a nearby hook.
"The TARDIS telepathically translates, Javis," the Doctor explained, "she's actually speaking a sort of Gaelic."
"A beastly, guttural language," Wilbanks spat. Seeing the look of fierce disapproval in the Doctor's eyes, he avoided the gaze and snorted, "Bah, at least get her name so we can question her."
The Doctor turned back to the young woman, raising his eyebrows again, eliciting another giggle from the redhead.
"Doctor!" Wilbanks growled.
The Doctor sighed and lightly tapped the girl's nose. "Oh all right, Captain. I'm the Doctor, miss, and this is Javis and this is Captain Wilbanks."
"I know the Captain," the fiery spirit fired back. Wilbanks offered a scoff.
"Cretin."
"Now now, Captain!" The Doctor's tone was condescendingly scolding, but still light-hearted, "that's no way to talk to our new friend, Miss…erm…what is your name, Miss, or Misses…?"
The young woman clapped her hands to her mouth and flushed bright red, nearly as bright as the lanterns Wilbanks had taken to lighting with the approaching night.
"Oh! I'm so sorry, all of you, really! What horrible manners on my part, but I was just so scared and all and I had right forgotten–"
The Doctor made a circular motion with his hand, prompting her to dispense with formality. She made note of it, blushed a little more, and made a short, awkward curtsy.
"My name is Máire Phóil Shéamuis Criadha, but only my Ma 'n' Pa call me Máire. 'Tis a daft name, if you ask me."
"I know a few vicars who might disagree, but go on," the Doctor was enthralled.
"I prefer to be called Colleen," the girl smiled.
"Colleen? Girl? You prefer being called…girl?"
"I've been called worse," Javis chimed in.
"I like the way it sounds, Doctor. Makes people want to get to know me."
"To find out what kind of girl you are, eh?" The Doctor returned the smile, offering Colleen a seat on an upturned milk can and taking one himself. Beckoning Javis to sit by him, all three settled under the warm glow of a nearby lantern. Captain Wilbanks surveyed the countryside through a loose slat, mumbling dryly.
"Have you managed to decipher those grunts and expectorations and get a name, Doctor?"
"Her name's Colleen, Captain. Colleen Criadha."
"Fantastic. One of those…" he responded as if the family name was a disease.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" Javis was becoming frustrated with this man and his prejudices. Colleen seemed like a perfectly nice person to her.
"It means, my Mediterranean friend, that the Irish people are an unintelligent race of near-apes who have chosen thievery from the crown as their means of survival, and the Criadhas are the worst of the lot."
Colleen realized the Doctor and Javis were none too pleased.
"What is he saying, Doctor?" she asked.
The Doctor swallowed the angry threatening to choke him. Javis did not. Rising from her place on the hay, she made her way across to the Captain. Acting swiftly, the Doctor avoided conflict.
"Er, he was insulting my favourite kind of tea, Colleen. Do you like tea?"
"Oh, yes!"
"Would you like to take Javis into the hayloft and prepare some of the Captain's special reserve?"
"Sounds lovely. But are you sure the Captain won't mind?" she cast a wary eye to the redcoat.
The Doctor bade her lean in close as he whispered.
"What he doesn't know can't hurt him!"
He added a wink and shooed Colleen over to the ladder. On the way, he managed to extricate Javis, clenched fists and all, from Captain Wilbanks area of the barn. Frustrated, Javis followed Coleen up the ladder, upset she had lost her sport.
"Gettin' tea like some Beverage droid, humph!"
"Oh, but tea's lovely! Especially if you make it just right. How do you make yours?"
Javis was about to respond with "I get a robot to do it," but she caught herself and answered awkwardly, "I never have."
"Can't make tea?" Colleen said, in the hayloft and rummaging through Wilbanks' pack, "How will you ever get yourself a husband?"
Javis had no response to this but a confused and slightly taken aback coughing sound. Coleen blushed and set about to selecting a tea.
"I'm sorry miss, that wasn't my place. May I ask, pardon, if you and the Doctor are…y'know…"
Javis dropped the beakers she was carrying with a clatter, utter confusion stamped on her face.
"Um, no?"
"But why not? I didn't see that he was married."
Javis was still having trouble adapting to 19th century moral logic. "It's not like that, it's…different…where we come from."
"Oh, I see! Where is that then?" She asked, setting up the kettle.
"New New York," Javis said without hesitation, knowing only after it was said that it was possibly dangerous to space-time and paradoxes and a thousand other things the Doctor had jabbered into her brain in roughly two seconds' time.
"New York! Oh, I've heard such wonderful things! They say it's a lovely place, and that there's so many Irish there that you can't go far on any street without finding one in green! Is that true?"
Javis thought of a few inhabitants of New Earth. "Yeah, there's a few green ones…"
Meanwhile, the Doctor had sidled up behind the Captain, who was still keeping a diligent watch over the heath.
"Nice night," he offered, causing the Captain to nearly jump out of his skin. Aiming an involuntary right hook at the assailant, as he was taught, Wilbanks was surprised to see it parried as if he was attacking with a feather.
"Hell's teeth, Doctor!" he gasped, "you nearly burst my heart sneaking about like that!"
"Your heart seems woefully out of use anyway," the Doctor grumbled with a sinister undertone, "What have you got against the Irish?"
"They're heathens, Doctor. Still believing in fairies and spirits, burning their kind and forcing potions down their throats to purge the evil, what nonsense!"
"You say nonsense, yet can you explain the creatures out there tonight? Can you explain what has taken your men and turned them against you, mindless monsters seeking the bodies of others? Hm? Can you?"
Wilbanks' face was very dour. "No, I cannot, and I will not subscribe to foolish notions and beliefs!"
"Ah, but the foolish are often carriers of truth, Captain Wilbanks! Foolishness has lead to some of the greatest discoveries of your age, happy accidents have created most of the modern world! If you don't allow yourself a little foolishness, how can you ever move forward?"
The Doctor glanced at the Captain's uniform, medals twinkling in the newly unfurled moonlight.
"I see there's a crucifix on you, Captain. What if I were to say that was foolish?"
The Captain rounded on him, eyes blazing. Before any more words could be said, Colleen and Javis returned from the hayloft, bearing beakers of tea. The Doctor was gracious, Wilbanks frosty.
"Thank you, ladies, delicious."
"Hmph…is this my private reserve?!" He grunted suddenly, sniffing the beaker.
"The more important question is why you put your kettle in the hayloft," the Doctor said pointedly, sipping his tea, "you're not much of a country boy, are you?"
Wilbanks humphed again and went back to his watch. The Doctor, glad to have said his piece, turned back to Colleen.
"So, my pretty Colleen, do you happen to know what the cause is for these strange happenings?"
"You mean the changelings?"
"The what?" Javis looked over the rim of her tea.
Colleen began reciting the latest legend. "They've taken the forms of our loved ones, and they seek to rule in our stead! They know we're weak, what with the blight, and I'd almost welcome a change of regime from these pompous English–"
The Doctor had suddenly lost interest in the drink, something which is not easy to do. "Wait! What did you say?"
"The regime?"
Before that!"
"The Changelings?"
"After that!"
"We're weak?"
"Why?"
"The Blight?"
"YES!"
The Doctor leapt up from his regained milk can chair, tossing the beaker aside.
"It's the blight! The potato blight! Phytophthora Infestans! Killed two-third of Ireland! The predominant cash crop failed, leaving the population to starvation!"
"What about it, Doctor?" Javis was confused.
"It's the potatoes, It's the potatoes! It's the potatoes!"
"…What?" Javis was still confused. The Doctor whirled to face Colleen.
"Colleen, is your family's farm near here?"
"Aye, this is our land. This was our barn before the Captain an' his friends took it…"
"Beautiful! Do you have any potatoes!"
"Yes, but they're all…"
"Get them. Get all of them you can carry. Javis, go with her and get them. Be careful, be silent, and be quick. I want those potatoes!"
With confused faces, the two girls stole off into the night in search of tubers.
"Potatoes, Doctor? Now I know you're off." Wilbanks snorted.
"The foolish, Captain…the foolish."
Javis and Colleen walked off into the night, but a third pair of eyes was with them, looking through Colleen's eyes, seeing the ground, the trees, the blighted potatoes. At the top of the hill, in a splendid manor house overlooking the heath and cottages, a deep voice echoed from its very bowels. A deep, mechanical voice, a voice from the past of the future.
"Excellent."

Inconvenient.
So very inconvenient.
The Nemesis, a comet made of strange and powerful matter, commanded by the one known as the Doctor, had eradicated the fleet, and ripped a hole in spacetime. One hundred and fifty years into the past was re-emergence, alone. The last survivor and perpetuator of the race.
The race of the Cybermen.
Reduced to naught but an electromagnetic cinder, the cyber-remnant, the CyberController, had been forced to live a half live of sustained existence, powered by what little cybertechnology had fallen along through spacetime. By now, parts had begun to wear down, and had to be supplemented with the arcane and completely inefficient mechanical parts of the current area, in the place they call Ireland. So green, so full of organic matter, almost completely untouched by the wonders of mechanics, this place was a prison for a being sustained by the machine, a prison of solitary confinement for the last of the race. Still alive, still thinking, but crippled and weak.
Very inconvenient.
However, the primitive society had not yet become sentient in their overmind, and telepathic manipulation through a simple series of bio-electric pulses was effortless. One family, the family of Bryce, served as lords over the surrounding area. By inhabiting a subterranean atrium of the manor house, and controlling all those that dealt within, the CyberController was able to acquire all the tools needed to sustain itself, and all of the surrounding staff to serve as possible candidates for cyber-conversion.
Early experiments had proved inefficient. The technology was unfit to facilitate a cyber-reanimation of deceased flesh, a procedure previously successful in another time, across the ocean called Atlantic. With little to no advanced technology to spare from the life support system, the Cybercontroller had had to cobble what little there was in order to inhabit and convert living specimens.
The potatoes.
Through brain-scan, the CyberController had learned of a blight befalling a food source of the Irish people, known as the potato.
Pathetic humans, having to eat.
How inconvenient.
Some of them even ate the diseased potatoes, eventually killing them.
But death is of little consequence to a Cyberman.
By augmenting a comparatively small amount of cyber-technology into potatoes and distributing the software through ingestion, the Cybercontroller was making strides toward full cyber-conversion from the inside out, as tiny pieces of malleable cyber-life would bond to the systems of the body, taking control little by little.
But the specimen had to be correct. This was to be a costly experiment, with only initial resources for one. As such, the right specimen would have to be found.
"Ow!" Javis shouted as the two girls crossed the heath in the gathering darkness.
"Why'd you pinch me?!"
"You left your green jacket in the barn. It's St. Patrick's Day," Colleen smiled, her pale skin radiating in the burgeoning moonlight.
"Oh yeah? Then when we get back you can go and pinch Captain Wilbanks, see how he likes that!"
The two girls shared a laugh as they neared the top of a hill, which itself was topped with a splendid manor house.
"This is the Bryce's," Colleen said, "they own the land 'round here. Ma an' Pa used to work for them, until the blight…"
Javis did not notice Colleen's momentary malaise. "So they got potatoes, right?"
Colleen juddered out of sadness. "Er, yes…this way."
The door opened with an ominous squeak into suspicious darkness.
"No light?" Javis asked with a bit of a sarcastic grin.
"Oh, just take the nearest candle. They must be all asleep."
"Asleep? Near as I can figure it's only just after sundown!"
"The Bryces are a queer lot, but that's just…oh here! Let me help!"
Javis was struggling to light the candle. Burning herself on a match, she cursed.
"Oh my! You should watch your language, miss, if you don't mind me saying. It's not becoming of a young woman. Here, it's like this…"
Colleen fiddled with the second candle momentarily and it came into light. Handing it to Javis and continuing down a hallway, she continued to fuss.
"You're so unlike a woman round here, Javis, I have a hard time believing the ladies in New York are all so…brash."
"Well, yeah…I'm sorta…on the outskirts, I suppose…"
"No you're not," Colleen smiled over her shoulder, her freckled face lighting up, "You're not from this world, I can tell."
"Er.."
"It's all right, I've always been a quick one. Ma n Pa always used to say I was their little miracle… they were saving up for me to go to proper school, all the way away in Dublin, then the potatoes went bad…oh! We're here."
It was a large wooden door, fashioned of old iron nails and hard oak. A large iron ring served as the handle, and it swung inwards with an echoing groan. Javis didn't like the look of the stone staircase she saw inching into complete darkness.
"Er…are you sure about this?"
"It's just a cellar, Javis," Colleen giggled, "it's where we keep our food. It's not like we have nitro-fusion cold storage as you do."
"How could you know about…hey! Hey, don't leave me!"
And the two ventured down into deep darkness.

"I should pinch you, you know, Captain…"
"Please." Wilbanks sniffed, "I care not for rustic celebrations."
The Doctor laid back on a pile of straw, sipping his tea, "I'm hard pressed to find anything you do care for."
"You're not saying the right things, Doctor."
"Ah, then I suppose I should speak of Mother England, the mighty Empire, Queen, Country, beans on toast? Are you really that one-dimensional, Captain? Are you just a hollow shell of a man, a character built up to be a perfect soldier, a perfect Briton? What's inside, what's beneath? What comes after the red coat and the musket, Captain? What music do you like? What food? What makes you laugh, or cry, or scream, or moan? What makes you…hungry? What makes you alive? Are you really just a 'soldier' just a man with a job…or are you human?"
Captain Wilbanks blustered and fumbled for an answer. The Doctor did not stop.
"Because I'll tell you something, Captain. If you don't strive to make more of your life, to make yourself something beyond the paper representation of a soldier…you'll be no better than those things outside that terrify you to the core. Cybermen are just that, Wilbanks, they're mindless. They are only what they think a perfect life should be, no, they're not even that! They don't even know that they're alive, Wilbanks, they don't even know they are alive! But oh well, they're perfect, they are living the perfect life, aren't they? It doesn't matter that they have no soul, no organic uniqueness, nothing that makes them a truly beneficial being…they are what they should be."
Silence reigned for a few moments.
"Are you what you should be…Captain? Are you what you've been told to be, or are you…you?"
Wilbanks sniffed.
"I hate beans."
The Doctor was speechless. Not an easy feat.
"I beg pardon?"
"I hate beans, I really do. But I'm in the Army, and I love the Army. I feel like I'm doing right in the Army, I'm doing good. I love doing good, or at least thinking I'm doing good…but the Army loves beans…and I hate them."
"You can't even say that, can you?"
"Of course not. What does it matter what a pathetic Captain says about his food? I don't have a choice, I'm not allowed an opinion. So…it's beans."
The Doctor smiled and threw a comradely arm around the Captain.
"I promise you, after all this is over I'll buy you a roast bigger than you've ever seen before! Do you like roast? I suppose I could make it a symbolic roast, maybe cover it in gold or something…" The Doctor suddenly sailed off his reverie, his eyes transfixed into the distance.
"I'd rather prefer a roast I could eat, Doctor…Doctor? Are you all right?"
"Gold! Why didn't I bring any gold? The minute I realized it was cyber-technology I should have brought gold! Gah, I'm becoming foolish in my old age!"
"Old age? Are you even thirty?"
"Don't let the apple cheeks fool you, Captain, I'm older than you think. But I can still run, and that's what we need to do! We need to run back to my ship. We need gold! Is that thing loaded?" he indicated Wilbank's musket.
Wilbanks smiled, eager to do good, "And ready. Lead the way, Doctor!"

The basement of Bryce Manor was indeed a cellar, but also a place of resting for various neglected old furniture, none more curious than the large, pulsating blue machine canister situated in one corner, six feet high humming with electrical energy. As Javis entered she noticed the eerie blue lighting, and felt that something was out of place.
"Wait a tick, that's electrical…that definitely sounds like an electric generator…but there's no electrical here, you lot are still burning candles, what's going on he—"
He words were cut short by a sharp blow to the head, delivered by an old table leg held in the hands of one Colleen Criadha. Her eyes had changed from a luminous green to a cold, blank blue, and the canister in the corner glowed a similar color as they exchanged thoughts and orders.
"Very good. Your conversion is not yet complete, your parts are too few. You should have known not to let an outsider in, but no matter. Soon, there will be enough parts and software to rebuild me, finish you, and bring back the entire Cyber fleet. We need the power you have seen, we need the Doctor's power. We need the TARDIS."
Colleen nodded dumbly, in a trance.
"Go to the blue box on the hill. Take the key from the one on the ground, enter and retrieve the following…"
After a number of minutes Colleen re-emerged with orders, but the strength of the Cyber control was only so that she became half controlled and confused once she left the cellar.
"What's going on?" She rubbed her newly green eyes, "Why am I in the Manor House? Where am I…wait…there was something about a blue box on a hill…yes…that's where I'm going…"
The TARDIS reacted unfavorably to the intruder, sounding bells and alarms that no one would hear. However, once Colleen had stepped completely inside, the alarms stopped.
But Colleen didn't.
She became manic, terrified, racing about the silent console room looking for a way out. The doors had been locked, and opening another door only sent her into a maze of rooms within rooms. Where was she? What was going on? Suddenly she was herself again, and she remembered it all. Her parents had died in the blight, and she had headed to the Manor. She didn't know why, perhaps to steal something, perhaps to hurt someone, she just needed an outlet for her grief. When she got there she was misunderstood as one of the staff, and sent to the basement to get a bottle of wine. She remembered being so angry, knowing that her parents had starved to death, and these people drank wine and ate roast beef! But then something awakened in the corner of the cellar, something bright and blue…and then she was here, inside this strange room.
Her intuition struck, and she realized that the large structure in the center of the room was dotted with various objects. She began to press buttons and flick switches at random, hoping something might open the door. Unfortunately, there erupted a loud bang from inside the maze of rooms, and Colleen was too frightened to touch anything else. When the Doctor and the Captain arrived, she was huddled in the corner of the console room, beneath an antique coat rack, sobbing.
"Colleen?" the Doctor gasped in awe, "what's going on? Where's Javis?"
"Who? Who are you? Where am I?" Colleen babbled. Immediately the Doctor noticed something was wrong, placing his two thumbs at the young woman's temples. Almost immediately she subsided to a place of resting calm, and the Doctor began scanning her thoughts.
"Captain, keep a watch outside."
Green hills, Mother, Father, playing with brothers and sisters, music, singing, dancing. Everything was brightly hued and gloriously lit. Then suddenly everything became muddy and tinged with brown. The blight, the strange blue potatoes, her mother dying, her father dying, the entire family dying. A young, lonely girl storming into a manor house, walking into the basement, being blinded by a bright blue light…
The Doctor recoiled at the last part, a look of utter shock etched on his features. Colleen, however, seemed much relieved and sat up, smiling.
"Hello, Doctor. How was the tea?"
The Doctor couldn't speak. There was too much spinning in his head, and too much bubbling just beneath his viscera.
"Colleen, tell me how you got here."
"I don't know. That's odd. But my, my head feels so very nice, whatever did you do to me?"
The Doctor had risen to his feet and was beginning to fiddle at the console. "Simple psychic pulse, just clearing away some quick and dirty mind control."
"Ah yes, just re-routing the telepathic pulses away from the memory cortex and re-opening mental channels that had been blocked by psionic spikes!" Colleen expounded in a move that surprised even herself.
"Yes, yes, of course, it was an elementary psych—-"
The Doctor stopped once again in mid sentence, turning slowly to face the young Irish farm girl.
"How could you know that?"

"What?" Colleen's head was still in a daze.
"How could you know that? How CAN you know that? You're just a peasant girl from 1847, albeit under mind control from the Cybermen, but that shouldn't give you license to spout out that kind of knowledge! Unless…"
"Unless what, Doctor?" Colleen was beginning to get scared.
"Unless…it's something more than mind control," the Doctor turned back to the console, suddenly taking in the enormity of the situation. After issuing a long sigh, he turned back to the young woman.
"Colleen, stand there, please," he indicated a spot a few paces to her left, "and stay perfectly still." He began fiddling with a few knobs as a small, cannon looking device dropped down from the ceiling of the console room.
"Doctor…" Colleen's voice began to tremble.
"No need to worry, my dear, it's just an endo-bioimager using particles of radiation. If my theory is correct, you should understand what it means. Also, if my theory is correct, I should commence with this immediately before you realize just how much it is going to hurt…"
Colleen had time for her eyes to widen in fright before the bioimager fired a beam of purple light into her midsection, which then expanded to cover her entire body. Suddenly, the light shrunk to a pinpoint near her right temple, emitting a horrific buzzing sound. The process took a few seconds, but lasted long enough for Colleen to yelp out in pain before collapsing to the floor as the light died down.
The Doctor idly punched a few keys on the console, which began whirring in response. Without a word, he walked over to where Colleen had fallen. Picking up his tan overcoat on the way, he draped it over her gently. There was something of an incredible pain in the Doctor's eyes as he lifted the young woman and carried her into the TARDIS interior. Stopping at one of the first rooms on his left, he gently pushed it open, revealing a comfortably fitted Victorian bedroom, complete with walnut-paneled walls and a brass-railed bed. Laying Colleen down on the bed with utmost care, he brushed a few errant strands of curly red hair out of her fair-skinned face.
"I am sorry. I am so, so sorry." The Doctor shook his head, his very body threatening to buckle under some invisible weight. Closing the door quietly, the Doctor headed out of the corridors and into the console room. Glancing momentarily at the console screen, he nodded gravely, closed his eyes for a moment, let out a breath, then headed out of the TARDIS. He said nothing to Wilbanks as he passed out of the blue box and off toward the Manor House. The Captain stayed on guard, musket at the ready. One look in the Doctor's distant and frightening eyes told the Captain it'd be best if he stayed behind.
"It's been a while since I've said that," the Doctor thought. "Then again, today's been all about digging up ghosts of the past."
He looked up at the clear Irish night sky. "Everything keeps coming back," he mused, "I must be getting too old."
The doors to Bryce Manor flew open with a bang as the rotund man in green entered. It was almost completely dark, but the Doctor didn't need light to know where he was going. Producing the sonic screwdriver from the inside pocket of his jacket, he held it aloft, using the blinking blue light to act as a tracking device. The closer to the ground he pointed the instrument, the faster the blinking became, accompanied by a high pitched humming.
"Cellar." he growled, heading down a hallway and fairly tearing the large wooden door off its hinges. Descending the staircase with a righteous sort of caution, he found what he was looking for: the tall, blue, glowing cylinder set back amongst sacks of flour, corn, and even a few potatoes. The cylinder appeared to hum and glow with a cold electricity, flickering and zapping this way and that with a multitude of tiny blue bolts. The bolts began to convene on the entrance of the Doctor, bending and twisting to form the familiar shape of a Cyberman's head: a helmet protecting the still organic brain, with slits for eyes and a mouth, no nose, and two distinctive handles protruding from where the ears should be to above where the forehead should be. With a flicker of electricity, the representation in the cylinder began to speak.
"Greetings…Doctor."
"I take you to be the Controller."
"Indeed, as I am the sole survivor of the Nemesis incident, all knowledge benefiting the CyberController is now in me. I am the Cyber-race."
"Funny how those things happen," the Doctor said coldly, reminded of his own solitude.
"Had I the capacity for humour I still do not think it would fall within those parameters, Doctor…unless you take pleasure in your executions."
"Execution? Ha!" the Doctor scoffed.
"You sent the Nemesis to destroy the fleet, did you not?"
"Yes I did, and it worked perfectly, if I do say so myself," the Doctor stroked his goatee in self-satisfaction.
"Apparently not, Doctor, for I still live. Your goal was to eradicate our race, and you failed."
"Ha! Ha ha ha!" the Doctor began laughing loudly, his voice clanging off the stone walls of the cellar. Stopping his laughter abruptly, the Doctor glared at the cylinder with ice-cold strength.
"You think you know my plans? You think you know what I meant to do? How do you possibly think you can know anything about me? I'm not one of your own, my actions are not easily explained by your pitiful sense of logic; I know more than you could ever possibly imagine!"
He stepped forward until he was face to representative face with the Cyber-race.
"I see the turn of the universe. I live in the very essence of time. I know all the todays and yesterdays and tomorrows that have ever been known by my people. I am the sole survivor of my own. I am a Time Lord, I walk in eternity! And I am so, so much more…you cannot even comprehend!"
Satisfied his point had been made, the Doctor placed both hands behind his back and began to perambulate around the dirt-floored room.
"You see, my old enemy, there is one thing I have learned in almost one thousand years of existence: old enemies are like bad currency, they just keep turning up. I knew I'd never be able to wipe out your race; what's more, I never wanted to. I don't do genocide. However, your race had become too strong, and it was my duty as who I am to strike you down. The Nemesis explosion was programmed to open a time storm for any and all survivors, leading you exactly here: an arbitrary point in time, stranded, wounded, weak. It was never my intention to destroy, merely to defeat, in the hopes that you may someday come to penance for your crimes."
The Doctor turned once again to directly face the cylinder.
"But you never learn, do you? I give you the key to make a new life, I show you everything, and you reject it! You steal the minds of the local peasants, using your limited power to begin cyber-converting the dead! Your pathetic brains have been engineered to moronic conformity, caring only to live the Cyber-life, a life so perfect you don't even know you're living it! Yes, you're all the right people, doing the right things. There is no conflict, no fear…but there is also no life! You're living in a scripted world, a false utopia, because you don't have the emotion to enjoy it!"
"Very well, Doctor," the CyberController droned in its metallic voice, "you have these emotions, you feel when the world is right and wrong…and are you happy?"
"You know why I am not happy now. I found your little experiment."
"Ah yes…the girl…a most impressive specimen, her mental capabilities are nearly twice that of the normal population–"
"She is not a specimen!" The Doctor shouted, "She is not a project and this world is not a petri dish! I give you a way to start your life over, I leave you in a state of pure energy. You could have zapped yourself into any one of these people's nerve impulses and lived a new life, a real life! Yet you deny it, and you still seek to convert, to make the rest 'like you.' Pathetic, absolutely pathetic! There is a girl in my TARDIS right now that can never have a normal life because of you!"
"Such rage, such fury, Doctor!" The Controller's face was cold as usual, "you don't seem at all…happy."
"Life is not meant to be happy! Life is not meant to be lived without emotions in dull, monotonous servitude! Your people, the Mondasians, were once twins of Earth, they once knew a life of living, loving, laughing, crying! Life is not what you have made it to be. Life is to be bad…so you can recognize good!"
"The only good is to be like us, Doctor," The Controller said with dogmatic zeal, "we are the way."
"You are nothing," the Doctor shook his head, "and you will become nothing."
"Doctor, is that you?"
The Doctor turned to see Javis Nine stumbling out from behind a few barrels of ale. She was rubbing her head, but looked no worse for wear.
"Ow, that little farmgirl can sure swing a…you! The electric thing! Doctor, it's–"
"It's all right, Javis. It's all right," the Doctor reassured her, then continued with a steely disposition, "We've already met."
"After calculation, I have concluded that your words make no sense to me, Doctor," the Controller pronounced. "Your world of sorrow and pain does not compute into happiness…it is not logical."
"Living less than a life, and they don't even realize. What is your decision then? To make us both like you? To make us Cybermen?"
"Scans confirm your brain is too powerful to convert, Doctor," the Controller stated, "but hers will make a wonderful specimen and, with the help of my agent inside your TARDIS, I will have all the pieces I need to re-create the Cyber-race on Earth! Activate psionic spike!"
Javis rushed to warn the Doctor. "Doctor, no! I heard that thing talking…with Colleen…I think she's with them!"
"Not exactly," the Doctor grinned.
"But she's in the TARDIS! She'll steal it and help them!"
"Shhhhh." the Doctor put a finger to her lips, still smiling. Javis, feeling a bit patronized, crossed her arms in a slight huff and watched…as nothing happened.
Silence reigned. The cylinder flickered and the Controller tried again.
"Active psionic spike!"
"Want to try it again, Controller?" the Doctor's smile was malevolent by now, "I've always heard third time's the charm!"
"ACTIVATE!"
The Doctor tapped the glass on the cylinder mockingly. "Telepathic field, Controller! My TARDIS is completely surrounded by it! Translates alien languages, allows for two-way communication…and blocks any outer interference from coming through. When Ms. Ciradha came inside my TARDIS (using a key stolen from Javis' jacket, brilliant bit of subterfuge there, really) the telepathic field blocked yours out, leaving her back to herself for the first time in a long, long time. I managed to restore the intermittent memories by re-opening certain mental pathways, so she can remember everything as if it was a sort of waking dream, with someone else pulling her strings. Following that, I managed to permanently sever the link between you and her via a healthy dose of radiation, which has left her very tired and in one of the TARDIS bedrooms. Your agent is now in my custody. Your agent in now my friend. As far as the rest of your stooges around here…"
The Doctor placed his sonic screwdriver at the top of the cylinder, flicking the switch. Among cries for protest, the electric face of the CyberController distorted and flickered, before returning to normal as the Doctor returned the device to his pocket.
"Your telepathic field generator is offline. It will take you roughly seven Earth years to repair it, and by that time it will do you no good."
"Why is that, Doctor?" the Controller almost sounded angry.
"Because no one will find you, and you will find no one. You will become nothing, just as I have said."
"But you said you were not a man of genocide."
"Oh I'm not killing you," the Doctor's voice was hard, "I'm putting you in solitary. There, you can think about your actions and maybe, just maybe, you can find yourself a better life. This is for your own good, Controller."
And with that, despite cyber-protestations to the contrary, that the Doctor and Javis left that cellar, closing the now ramshackle door behind them. Reaching into one of his jacket pockets, the Doctor placed a small, square device onto the door handle. A red plasma immediately sprouted from the device, covered the door, then vanished.
"What was that, Doctor?"
"A hyper-lock. That cellar is now deadlocked sealed, a technology Earth won't come into for another half-millennium. Even I can't open it, without draining the TARDIS' energy banks. He'll have to sit there for five hundred years, contemplating what I have told him."
"Doctor…you want him to succeed, don't you?"
"Yes, Javis. In a perfect world, everyone would, but I think we've both learned today that true perfection is unobtainable by anyone who wishes to enjoy it."
As they headed out of the still dark house, the sonic screwdriver leading the way, the Doctor caught sight of a large wooden sign over the front door reading BRYCE MANOR.
"Bryce…" he chuckled to himself, then shook his head. "How cute. I must be getting old…"
On the way back to the TARDIS, Javis finally worked up the courage to ask.
"Doctor," she began, "I heard some of the things you said back there. You said Colleen wouldn't be able to live a normal life…what do you mean? You got all the cyber-junk out of her, right?"
"Not exactly, Javis," the Doctor sighed, "The CyberController used the last of his own parts to augment a 'specimen' of his own choosing. Colleen is a bright girl, and a new orphan, someone no one would notice gone. Using mind control, the CyberController was able to convince a poor starving girl to eat a potato laced with cyber-tech software. The software as able to work from the inside out, converting her piece by piece. I noticed her intelligence was something impressive, centuries beyond her possibilities. The software had already gotten into her brain, into her subconscious, making her a genius beyond the 19th Century's wildest dreams. Thankfully, the human brain is complex enough that the software hadn't spread much further when I hit her with the radiation. However, needless to say she can't live a normal life in 1847 anymore. She'll barely be able to live with herself once I tell her, she's practically a cyborg. She will probably be very introverted once the radiation wears off…and I tell her. She…she may not even be able to have children…"
"We're taking her long then?"
"We have to, Javis," the Doctor sniffed back a tear, "she'd be studied back in this period, dissected, killed…I can't let that happen."
Javis sniffed, holding back tears, and forced a smile, "All this responsibility… you just keep picking up these strays, don't you Doctor?"
The Doctor allowed himself a sad chuckle. "I suppose so, Javis, I suppose so."
"Leave your troubles behind, Doctor. Gotta live before you die. Chin up."
"Oh, Javis," the Doctor rolled his eyes slightly, resulting in a small punch from the New Earth boxer.
"Besides," Javis grinned, "I kinda liked hanging out with her, it'll be nice to have her around."
"Yes, and maybe she can teach you how to make a decent pot of tea," the Doctor winked.
"Ass!"
"Ogre."
And so on and so forth, off for the TARDIS, and Destinations Unknown.

Captain Wilbanks was awoken by a sound unlike he ever heard, and unlike anything he would ever hear again. The blue box that he had been leaning against was gone, leaving him flat on his back on the heath, looking up at a starry Irish country night.
Blast! He thought, how embarrassing. A member of her Majesty's army, falling asleep on watch, pathetic! He'll get written up for this, well, he would, if there was anyone left from his brigade.
They were all gone. He was the only one left. And he disgraced their names by falling asleep!
To be fair, though, he hadn't fully slept in days, and being near this box made him feel oddly secure. Perhaps it was that Doctor, that Doctor that told him so many things, and then left as quickly as he had arrived, leaving him on the heath with an uncomfortable lump in the small of his back.
Hmph, must have fallen on a rock…but wait…this rock was soft, yielding to the touch, how queer…
The Captain rolled over to see a package wrapped in white paper laying underneath him. A small card was attached, on which was jotted in neat handwriting:

Captain Wilbanks,

Thank you for all of your help, and for all of your attention. The foreign threat has been dealt with, though I'm afraid the famine is far from over…you'll have to deal with that as you see fit. We've taken the young Colleen with us, so don't worry about her, you've got enough problems being the lone redcoat in Connaught. Just remember what you've been told, go forth in all your beliefs…and make sure that I am not mistaken in mine!

My my, I'm getting old!

Felicitations,
The Doctor.

Oh, and the package is a corn-fed top round roast from the fields of Iowa, over in America. The seasoned rub on it is, well, something you won't find on this planet, best keep it to yourself!

Underneath this was scribbled a quick note.

Cheer up, Limey!
-Javis.

"Doctor…who are you?" Captain Wilbanks muttered into the night sky as a chill breeze picked up over the heath, stirring away the last bits of the Doctor's presence, save for unforgettable memories in the mind of one Captain James Wilbanks.
Inside the TARDIS, however, the tune was less than jovial.
Javis had retired to her room, per the Doctor's instructions, as Colleen began to stir, the effects of the radiation blast wearing off.
"Colleen? Colleen, can you hear me?"
The voice sounded like it was coming from underwater, but she knew the high sounding English of the Doctor.
"Aye, Doctor, I can hear you. Where am I?"
"You're on board my ship, Colleen. You're, well, traveling."
"Traveling through time and space, across the universe and through the very fabric of existence–oh! What did I just say just then?"
"You'll get used to it…I hope," the Doctor sat at the foot of Colleen's bed, bracing himself as best possible to deliver the news.
"Colleen, do you remember the bright blue light?"
"Aye."
"Do you remember eating a potato?"
"Doctor, sure as I've eaten a thousand lumpers in my life!"
"Of course, of course," the Doctor apologized, his voice still gentle, "do you remember a…strange potato?"
"There was this one, looked a bit dodgy, but I just kept eating it…it was like a dream, I couldn't stop myself…"
"Indeed, it was…like…a dream," The Doctor edged forward, "a dream that really happened."
"Must be a side-effect of the mental channels being diverted, like a waking memory, not quite tangible but still wholly–oh! I did it again! Doctor…what's wrong with me?"
The Doctor heaved a heavy sigh. "Nothing…technically. In fact, you're in a place no human will ever be. You have been partially augmented by cyber-technology, Colleen. I was able to stop the spread of the software patches early on, but parts of your body are already a mix of organic and non-organic parts. Your circulatory, respiratory, and nervous systems have already been augmented to resist decay and wear, and your brain has been expanded mechanically to the greatest level of genius the human race will probably ever see. You are no longer entirely human, but I was able to stop the process before you were completely converted. However, I do not know how it will effect other parts of you, like emotion or…or the ability to have children."
"But…but I'm to be a bride, my Ma n Da were hoping to see my wedding someday…but they're both dead now, aren't they? Yes, they are…what is there for me? I'm not even human, I can't be…alive like everyone else."
"Oh, but that's where you're wrong, Colleen!" the Doctor continued in an excited whisper, "It's been ever so long since I had an intellectual rival in this ship, I feel quite up to the challenge! With Javis supplying the muscle, we can travel far and wide, across the universe in this blue box of mine…"
"Your TARDIS."
"Yes, my TARDIS. And we can use my TARDIS to see the flow of time and set things right! You must see, I couldn't leave you in Ireland–"
"At the first one of my little outbursts they would have vivisected me in London, I know…" Colleen nodded sadly.
"Exactly. And I am very, very sorry…but I am also very, very glad to have you with me, and I know Javis is too. Say you'll come with us, say you'll give a bit of country logic to our fast and loose planet-hopping ways!" the Doctor finished with a wink.
"I don't have much choice, do I Doctor?" tears were beginning to form in the young girls eyes, "you'll have to excuse me, though, I'm afraid I won't be much for socializing for a while…it's a new life for me, you understand."
The Doctor patted her hand gently.
"Completely."
He turned to leave the wood-paneled bedroom, but Colleen's voice stopped him.
"I'm what you wanted, aren't I?"
"Beg pardon?"
"For the Cyber-race. You wanted them to implant into humans and live regular lives of emotion, both good and bad. You got what you wanted…here I am. A new form of life… are you proud of your creation?"
The Doctor's heart sunk. He knew what it was like to be an outcast, something different…but he managed a smile and the smallest of winks to the young Irish girl.
"More than you can ever know."