The little boy was shopping with his mother in a large shopping centre. He stopped to look at some teddy bears in the window of a store when suddenly a man grabbed him and dragged him away. He did not even have time to yell as the man pushed him into a cleaner's cupboard and slammed the door behind them.
The boy looked up at the man's face, frightened. The man was wearing a long coat with a sort of military look to it. He had dark hair and a handsome, but cold and very intense, face.
The man pulled a gun out of his pocket. "I'm sorry, kid," he said, "but I have to do this."
The boy backed away in terror and the man came closer. The man's gun made a clicking sound – apparently he had taken the safety catch off.
The man said, "I know the future. I know that in the future you are going to do terrible things. You will be responsible for terrible crimes against humanity. So… I have to make sure you never grow up to do those things. Sorry, but this isn't personal…."
The man raised his gun. The boy closed his eyes in terror, not wanting to watch.
Suddenly the door to the cleaner's room flew open and another man stood there. This man wore a long brown jacket and had spiky hair. When he spoke he had an English accent, in contrast to the other man's soft American accent.
"No, Jack!" said the newcomer. "Don't do this! This isn't who you are!"
The man called Jack glared at the other man, while keeping his gun pointed in the boy's direction. "Do you know who this is?" he said. "Do you know what this kid will become? Do you know what he'll do?"
"I know," the new man said sadly.
"I am still a Time Agent, Doctor. I ….I can prevent all that from happening. I can stop it now."
"By killing an innocent child?" asked the man called the Doctor.
"He's innocent now… but…"
"Come with me, Jack," said the Doctor. "This isn't the way to change things. This is the way to becoming a monster yourself, and you're better than that. Let's go." He held the door open. There was a long pause, and then the man called Jack clicked the safety catch on his gun. With a final angry look at the boy, he turned and followed the Doctor out of the room.
The boy stayed in the tiny room for a long time, still shaking with fear, only leaving when he was sure the two men had gone away.
About three weeks later, when he had almost succeeded in forgetting his frightening experience in the shopping mall, ten-year-old Billy Lancaster was kidnapped in the woods near his home. A small spacecraft swooped down out of the sky and silver men came out of it and grabbed him. He was strapped to a table and poked and prodded. One of the silver giants nodded in apparent satisfaction. "This child is healthy and intelligent," it said in a rumbling voice. "He is suitable for conversion. He can become one of us…"
Some 400 years later, Cyberleader 2640 was in command of the Cybermen's occupation of the human colony on Mars. The last remaining Ice Warriors were wiped out when they tried to resist; hundreds of humans were killed; thousands more were converted into Cybermen themselves, or were forced to mine for the metals the Cybermen needed.
But one day Cyberleader 2640 was shot and critically wounded during a daring raid on his headquarters by human resistance fighters. A mixture of blood and hydraulic fluid leaked out of him as he collapsed to the floor. And as he lay dying, listening to his Cyberguards fighting the humans, he suddenly remembered being a frightened human child in a small cupboard – and how a man called the Doctor had saved his life…Surely not that Doctor? The Cybermen's greatest enemy?
Cyberleader 2640, once known as Billy Lancaster, died with a final sound that might almost have been a laugh.