Coffee Boy meets the Cybermen
Summary: This is my account of what happens to Ianto Jones at Torchwood I during the battle of Canary Wharf and how Lisa Hallett get's converted into a Cyberwoman. We might know the ending but the ride has to be fun.
Chapter 1
There are days when every thing changes. Something irreversible will happen and the world will be forever different. Some of those days are global, the death of Princess Diana, September 11. Some days are personal, the death of a loved one or news of a life changing illness. There may be many of these days in our lives. Days we wish we could visit ourselves on the other side of. We wish we could regain that bit of lost innocence if just for a moment.
For Ianto Jones there was one particular day, although there had been and would be many such days in his life, but the day that would define and eclipse all the other days was the 8th of July, 2006. The day the Cybermen and the Daleks invaded the earth.
Up until that point Ianto's life had been going pretty well. He was living in London in a small flat in Kings Cross. It only had one room and he was regularly woken at night by his fridge starting its defrost cycle, or neighbours playing music or having rows, but he was only a short tube ride to SOHO and all London night life had to offer. It certainly beat living on an estate in Cardiff and spending Saturday nights at the Builders Arms or braving the clubs and watching short skirted girls tottering on high heels as they vomited in alleyways.
Ianto also had a great job. He had responded to an advertisement in the Times and after an interview and a series of psychological tests had found himself working for an organisation called Torchwood as a research assistant in the Robotics department. Even though he spent most of his time filing and making coffees for the senior researchers, Torchwood wasn't an ordinary place to work. The Torchwood Institute existed to counter alien threats and use alien technology to advance the British Empire, well what remained of it. Ianto had been a little dubious at first, but was willing to play along for the pay cheque and the privilege of working in the Canary Wharf Tower. The existence of aliens was proven quickly making the job even more glamorous. Aliens aside, the best bit about he job was the reaction of Ianto's father.
When Ianto had told his dad about the job, aliens excluded, the old man and grinned broadly and slapped him on the back. "My boy, a professional! Who'd though this little Welsh estate boy would end up working up in London on big secret projects."
"Dad, it's only an entry level position." Ianto said.
"Do you have to wear a suit?" asked his father.
"Yes Dad."
"Well then you're a professional." And the case was closed. Hs father had worked forty years in the menswear department at Debenhams in Cardiff. As far as he was concerned, Ianto might have well have been the governments scientific advisor. His father had pushed him so hard and now Ianto had made it. Finally Ianto had lived up to his dear old Dad's expectations.
With the job had come a girlfriend. Lisa Hallett was possibly the smartest, most beautiful and most sophisticated woman Ianto had ever met. Lisa was working as a research scientist in the bioengineering department at Torchwood and he had been certain that she would never notice a lowly coffee boy like him. The Robotics department had research links to Bioengineering and Ianto often found himself at her workstation, delivering messages or equipment. He worked hard to find excuses to visit her more frequently. Ianto was completely surprised one day, as he delivered documents that could easily have been sent by internal mail, when she turned to him and said, "It is lovely that you make such an effort to visit me Ianto, but I'm getting slightly impatient. Are you going to ask me out or will we have to retrench the mail staff?"
And so followed the most blissful year that Ianto had experienced in his short life. That is, up until that day when everything changed.
