What happened to Pete Tyler after the Age of Steel?

What was his part in the build-up to Doomsday?

Why did Jackie leave her husband and son to travel with Mickey to Journey's End?

Chapter One

Pete Tyler wandered aimlessly along the Albert Embankment, the day's events playing in his mind on an endless loop.

He was CEO of Vitex, a company that produced very popular health drinks and had made him rich. When the company was bought by Cybus Industries, it made him very rich.

And now all it meant nothing. His wife Jackie, had become more interested in his wealth than in him. So much so, that they had secretly divorced so that she could still enjoy the status of being the wife of one of the richest men in the country.

He had been on the board of a company that had murdered thousands of people in the name of progress, one of which was his ex-wife. He knew the owner of Cybus Industries, John Lumic, was up to something but never dreamed it would involve putting peoples brains into robots.

And then there were those mysterious strangers who had gatecrashed Jackie's birthday party, disguised as the catering staff. They claimed to have come from another universe, how crazy was that?

The man who called himself the Doctor, he knew what to do, he had some futuristic tech to help him, and some extraordinary friends. The young guy, Mickey they called him, he had a twin brother called Ricky but they acted as though they didn't know one another.

Mickey, along with one of the Preachers had managed to destroy the transmitter that controlled the ear pods, saving people from walking into a living hell.

He came to a bench that looked out over the river and flopped down with exhaustion, both physical and mental.

Then there was that girl! Rose. She acted as though she knew him, she seemed so familiar, as though he had met her before but he couldn't remember where or when.

They had worked as a team with the Doctor in control. They had to be from some special operations outfit such as Torchwood or UNIT. The Doctor spoke in code to Mickey and got him to send the emotional inhibitor code to Rose's phone so that he could disable the Cybermen.

And they coordinated their escape with Mickey flying a Zepplin to pick them up off the roof. He must have had special training for that surely.

And what was with that quirky blue box? What was all that about? Where did that fit into all of this.

He felt a pang of guilt and regret when he thought about their goodbye. Rose had called him 'Dad', it was just too much emotional turmoil to deal with, he had to walk away. He must have reminded her of her Dad, that was it. Wasn't it? It had to be that.

And so, here he was, on a bench on the embankment, not knowing what was going to happen next or what he should do next. He leaned forwards and put his head in his hands. His shoulders started to shake as he thought of Jackie being cut up and then her body incinerated without any thought or ceremony. He saw the hurt look on Rose's face when he had said 'don't, just, just don't'.

He started to weep the tears that he had been holding back while he helped to save London, the tears that now wouldn't stop.

"So, Mr. Tyler, you told the desk sergeant at the station that you have information pertinent to this meeting?" It was Harriet Jones, Vice President of Great Britain who had spoken, and he knew who she was. She was now President by succession, the former President having been electrocuted in front of him at Jackie's party when he refused to be 'upgraded'.

He was seated at a long table in an expensively decorated, wood panelled room in the Palace of Westminster. There were members of the cabinet sat at the table, along with leaders of the armed forces and intelligence agencies.

He recognised the Major-General from the Unified Intelligence Taskforce and the director of the Torchwood Institute who were also present.

"Er, yes," he answered simply. He was still exhausted from the horrors of the previous night.

He had been found on the bench by two soldiers who were on patrol. Their initial orders had been to stop looting and enforce the emergency curfew. It soon turned out though that they were rescuing the shocked and dazed inhabitants of London and directing them to aid shelters in churches, mosques and synagogues that had been opened by volunteers.

They had asked him for identification and then radioed their HQ for advice. Within minutes, a police patrol car had arrived and he was taken away for questioning. He wasn't really surprised, he imagined all employees of Cybus industries would be arrested and brought in for questioning.

He sat in the interview room and gave his account of the evenings events. He told them of the mysterious strangers, who he assumed had been either Torchwood or UNIT operatives. He told them of the Preachers, a group of civilians who had been working with Torchwood to try and prevent the carnage that had occurred.

He was brought back to the present by the Presidents voice.

"Peter, I've known you for a while now and I think I am a good judge of character. However, if this is an attempt to avoid prosecution and justice then I will have no option but to return you to the police cells," Harriet said with as much compassion as she was allowed. She had heard that his wife had been killed by Lumic's madness, she could see the haunted look in his eyes.

"Oh, yes, of course. Sorry Harrie... er, Madam President. John Lumic was a genius who was dying. At first I thought he was developing medical technology to aid people who were suffering from terminal illness. When I saw his proposal to the Ethical Committee, I started to suspect things weren't quite what they seemed. For a while now I have been feeding information about Lumic's global operation under the codename of 'Gemini'," he was quickly interrupted.

"And why should we believe you Mr. Tyler? Anyone in your current situation would claim to be 'Gemini', wouldn't they?" It was the commander of UNIT who had spoken.

"Encrypted wavelength six five seven using binary nine, codeword 'Rose', that's Jack... was my wife's dog. I presume you have transcripts of the transmissions?"

The Major-General sorted through a few papers in front of him and took one out. "Yes, here we are."

Pete proceeded to tell him as much information about Lumic's operations as he could remember sending. The Major-General nodded as each point was verified by the transcript in front of him.

"That's a pretty good match for what we've got here Madam President," he announced. Harriet stood and walked around the table to stand next to Pete, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry about that Peter, but we had to be sure you weren't a part of Lumic's madness... And I'm sorry for your loss," she told him.

Pete looked up at her, his eyes moist with tears. "Thank you."

The President turned to face the rest of the group, focussing on the Torchwood director. "So, who were these operatives of yours? They deserve to be decorated for their actions," she said.

Yvonne Hartman, the Torchwood director shrugged her shoulders and looked puzzled. "They weren't ours."

"Well, UNIT then, don't tell me you know nothing about them," Harriet said, starting to get frustrated.

"I'm sorry Madam President, but these people are nothing to do with UNIT, although I wouldn't mind employing them if they're available."

"And Peter, you're certain they weren't with the Preachers?" Harriet asked turning back to him.

Pete shook his head. "No. I got the impression that they had never met before yesterday evening."

The President went back to her chair and sat down. "Very well, Yvonne, I want you to find out everything you can about our mysterious saviours. Peter, I'd like you to consider working with Yvonne on this as you had the most contact with them."

Pete looked between Harriet and Yvonne with a look of disbelief. In the space of a few minutes he'd gone from being a prime suspect in a global conspiracy to an advisor for Torchwood.

"Er, yes, yes of course. Thank you Madam President."

Mickey had gone back to his Gran's house at Waterton Street to make sure she was alright after all of the evenings chaos. He also needed to go through Ricky's stuff to find a passport, money and supplies for a journey to the continent. He and Jake were going to use the emotional inhibitor code on Rose's phone to shut down the Cybermen factories in France, and then maybe other countries as well.

He rattled the letterbox and called out. "Gran? You in there? Gran? It's Mic... Rickey. It's me Rickey." There was no answer and the lights were off, which wasn't unusual as Rita Anne was blind and didn't have much use for electric lights.

Mickey rattled the letterbox again, getting anxious now, when an army bus came around the corner and pulled up across the road. The side door opened and a soldier jumped down and started helping civilians down the steps. When a little old lady with a white stick stepped off the bus, Mickey and Jake ran across the road.

"GRAN! Where have you been? What's goin' on?" He looked at the soldier accusingly.

"Ricky? Is that you?" She moved towards the sound of his voice using her white stick. Mickey enveloped her in a gentle hug.

"They were found wandering around the streets after the ear pods went offline," the soldier explained. "We're collecting people from the aid shelters and returning them home."

Mickey thanked the soldiers and took his Gran across the road to her front door. Jake took the key and opened the door for them. Rita Anne was guided to her favourite chair and made comfortable. Mickey went through to the kitchen and put the kettle on to make a pot of tea.

"Gran? What were you doin' wanderin' about like that?" Mickey asked her, as he held her hand.

"I don't remember. I was listenin' to the ear pod broadcast news, and then I was outside with people screamin' and shoutin'. I must be goin' senile or somethin'." Of course! She had been wearing ear pods when he saw her earlier.

"No Gran, it's alright. It was the ear pods, they were controllin' people," he told her. "But we've stopped 'em now, haven't we Jake?"

"Er, yeah, for now but we've still got work to do out there," Jake replied.

"Jake? Who's Jake? Is he one of those new friends you've been galavantin' around with? I told you I didn't trust them," she started getting agitated.

"Gran, it's alright. Without these people, the whole of London would have wandered off into the factories and disappeared. Mrs Moore was killed breakin' into the factory to save people."

Jake cleared his throat. Tears were stinging his eyes. He had just lost two friends today, and grief was just catching up with him.

"Angela Price," he whispered. "Her name was Angela Price. An extraordinary woman who had an ordinary life, until she stumbled across Lumic's evil plan."

Mickey suddenly became guilt ridden. He hadn't considered the fact that Jake had lost two close friends. "Oh Jake, I'm sorry man. I wasn't thinkin'. I'm really sorry." He pulled him into a hug and patted his back.

"It's OK," Jake said. "Let's make sure their deaths weren't in vain eh? Let's make sure people know and remember what they did."

"That is a fine tribute son," Rita Anne told him. "When I go to church, I will tell everyone and we will pray for them. Now let's have a cup of tea. Everyone will feel better after a nice cup of tea."

After a nice cup of tea, Jake helped Mickey fix the carpet on the stairs. His real Gran had been killed by tripping on the carpet and falling down the stairs. He wasn't going to let it happen to his adopted Gran.

When that job was done, they went into Ricky's room and started going through his stuff. They felt a bit guilty going through a dead man's belongings, and Mickey was freaked out by how similar Ricky's stuff was to his.

"It's like those stories you hear about twins separated at birth, y'know livin' the same life an' all that," he told Jake.

Jake rubbed his hand over his face. "This doesn't feel right, it's like we're disrespecting his memory."

"Hey mate, listen, He was committed to the cause, right?" Jake nodded.

"And if he could've given you anythin' to help the cause he would've done, wouldn't he?"

"Yeah, I suppose he would. How'd you know?" Jake asked him.

"We were both brought up right by that wonderful old lady downstairs."

Pete Tyler was sitting in an operations room in Torchwood Tower with Yvonne Hartman and a group of specialists. They were going over security camera footage from his mansion and isolating the faces of the strangers.

"So this man here is the one called the Doctor?" She pointed to the Doctor's image on the first monitor.

"Yes, that's him. He was in charge of the group," he told her.

"Doctor who?"

"I don't know. It seemed to be his name rather than his title. Rose referred to him as 'the Doctor'," Pete informed her.

"Rose? That was this woman here?" Rose's face was freeze framed on the second monitor.

"She seemed to be second in command, readily volunteering for the dangerous task of entering the Cyber factory." He had a sad, wistful look in his eyes.

"And this man is Mickey?" she asked, pointing to the third monitor.

"Yeah, he was the technical support. He disabled the ear pod transmitter and sent the emotion inhibitor code to the Doctor."

"And you say this man, Jake and this woman, Mrs. Moore weren't part of the Doctor's team?" Yvonne asked.

"No, they called themselves the Preachers and joined forces with the Doctor's team," he replied.

"OK team let's run these images through the facial recognition software and see if we can track them down. Meanwhile Pete, have a look at this surveillance footage from Lambeth Pier and tell me what you think."

On a flat screen TV mounted on the wall, Pete could see night vision, still images flicking at 10 second intervals. There was the group of them standing outside of the wooden box. Then Pete was walking away while Mickey and Jake talked to the Doctor and Rose. Mickey and Jake stood back and looked at the box, and then... No! That wasn't possible.

"What the hell!" Pete exclaimed. "Where did it go? Has somebody tampered with the recording?"

"No, we've checked it, and sent out a team to scan the area. It was 'hot', residual traces of some kind of temporal distortion." Yvonne flicked between the two images. "Now you see it, now you don't."

"Director Hartman, we've got the results on the facial recognition scan." A white coated man pulled up the results on his computer.

"Right, what have we got then," she asked as they huddled around the screen.

"That's odd!" the operator said. "No, this can't be right."

"Why? What have you come up with," Pete asked. He could see the computer running a graphical analysis of the images, digitizing them and producing wire-frame 3D virtual heads.

"The first subject, the Doctor, is a Scottish actor who has had supporting roles in film and TV, also has performed some Shakespeare on stage." The two images were side by side on the first screen, the Doctor on one side and his alternate universe counterpart on the other.

"Subject number two, the female, is a singer who had some success early in her career and then married a radio DJ."

"Send out someone to interview them, I want some answers," Yvonne ordered.

"Ah, number three is local. Lives with his Grandmother at number 1, Warterton Street, SE 15. Not Mickey though, names Ricky Smith. Minor juvenile crime. Outstanding parking fines."

Pete began to shake his head. "No, that's not right, there were two of them. I saw them, they were twins."

Another specialist started accessing data files on her terminal. "Director, whoever these people are they are deep undercover. There is nothing on any database to identify them. The actor and the singer have been accounted for at other locations when our subjects were at the Tyler mansion."

The Director was starting to get frustrated now. "Come on people, I'm getting more questions than answers here. Let's see some brainstorming and put the pieces of this puzzle together. What have you got on the other two subjects?"

"Jake Simmonds. Geordie lad. Army cadet when he left school. Member of Greenpeace, Anti Vivisection League, bit of an idealist. No criminal record though, not an extremist." The white coated man continued to tap the keyboard.

"Oh, now this is interesting. Director, I think we may be onto something. Mrs Moore, aka Angela Price. Secretary and office assistant at Cybus industries. Disappeared six months ago, husband reported her missing. Local police have an open file on her. It looks like she went undercover to work with the Preachers."

"Good work Stephen. So we've got three people we have background on and three we don't. Ideas?" Yvonne was in overdrive now.

"Foreign operatives using prosthetics to change their appearance and coordinate the Preachers," someone suggested.

"Not bad, follow that, see if you can trace any movements of friendly agents over the last six months."

"What about the blue box? Advanced tech cloaking device? But how did they move it once it was cloaked?" another person asked.

"The Doctor said they had five minutes of power and they had to go," Pete told them. "It sounded as though the box was some kind of vehicle."

Yvonne took Pete's arm and gently pulled him to the corner of the office. "You said in your report that they told you they were from a parallel world. The girl said there was another Pete and Jackie Tyler. How do you feel about that?"

Pete felt another wave of grief wash over him at the mention of his dead wife. "I don't know. It's all a bit far fetched. There was something about the girl though, I started talking to her as if I'd known her all her life. I just put it down to good training as a secret agent or something."

"And you don't think metal robots stealing brains is far fetched," Yvonne said with a lopsided smile.

Pete allowed himself a single laugh. "When you put it like that, no. But I've never been one for science fiction really."

"Well I think it's about time we put that right then." Yvonne headed for the door. "Come with me Pete, I've got something to show you. The President has asked for top level clearance for you, so are you OK with the official secrets act and the defence of the state act?"

Pete frowned. "Er, yes. But I thought I already signed all that stuff."

"You have, yes. But this is on a whole new level of secret," she said with a wink as they walked out the door.

Pete Tyler's jaw nearly hit the floor. He silently gaped at the large warehouse in front of him. His brain couldn't take in all this new information, he was in culture shock. He knew from this moment on, his view of the world would never be the same again.

"Is that... is that a...?" he tried to ask.

"A flying saucer? Yes," Yvonne answered.

The large warehouse actually had a virtually intact alien vehicle that happened to be saucer shaped. As he looked around, he could see crates, bins and benches full of weird and wonderful equipment.

"You have gotta be kiddin' me. What the hell is this place? Do you produce props for the film industry or something?" It was the only rational explanation Pete could come up with.

"Oh that's good. Do you mind if we use that one?" She had the fixed, polished smile on her face. "No this is all recovered alien technology that has fallen to earth. The saucer over there, that came down in Wales in 1974. You might remember it, it was in the Berwyn Mountains in Llandrillo, Merionethshire." Pete shook his head.

"What do you know about the Torchwood Institute?" Yvonne asked him.

"I've never really thought about it before. Aren't you scientific consultants to the government, y'know, investigating unexplained phenomena, sightings of ghosts, big cats, stuff like that?" Pete said, scratching his head.

Yvonne smiled. "That's our public face yes, but in reality we defend Britain from the threat of alien incursions. We salvage alien tech and try to figure out how it works and then retro-engineer it."

Pete was stunned. "Are you tellin' me this stuff is for real?"

"Oh yes, it's real alright. Since the institute's inception in 1879 by Queen Victoria, we have been at the forefront of technological innovation. The commercial applications of the retro-engineered products helps to fund our operations."

"Wow," is all Pete could say.

"So, now you know all this, what do you think of their claims about a parallel world?" Yvonne asked him.

"I believe them," Pete replied.