Chapter 14

The Doctor leaned over his bedside table and slapped his beeping alarm off. He gave a mighty stretch and forced himself to vacate his warm cocoon of blankets. Following his discovery late last night, he'd taken to spamming the Internet with seemingly credible, substantial claims that consuming Cam Bryen's tea was quite harmful to the human body. "Then again, so is eating fast food, and who doesn't do that?" he thought despairingly. Some of his research, however, gave him reason to keep a shred of optimism alive: Bryen's tea operation had, amazingly, not yet taken firm hold outside London. "Guess he wants a total takeover before spreading out. Doesn't want any trouble." Well, if there was one thing the Doctor brought in droves wherever he went, it was trouble.

Having dragged Bryen's name through a boatload of mud online, the Doctor figured his next move would be to hack into television stations. His red eyes crawled over to his clock. It was only 6:30 A.M. Even in his sleep deprived state, it wasn't too much of a challenge to fly over to a couple of TV and radio stations, flash psychic paper at the zombies on staff, and let his sonic screwdriver work its bit of magic on teleprompters. He retreated back to the TARDIS and flipped a screen on to one of the stations he'd infiltrated. "Yes, folks, what you're hearing is true, Cam Bryen's tea should not be consumed under ANY circumstances. People who have been drinking the tea regularly have reportedly suffered from nausea, dizziness, headaches, and vomiting in the past 24 to 48 hours." The anchor looked as if he couldn't even believe what he was saying. The Doctor gave a weary grin, admiring the chaos he'd whipped up. Now, to just see where the company already had footholds…He'd have to flush them out…in a little bit…

The Doctor snapped awake and nearly toppled backwards out of his desk chair. "Ugh…wha's the time?" 8:30. Great. He'd only lost…slightly under two hours. The Time Lord stumbled to his bathroom, filled the sink up with cold water, and dunked his face under. "Right now, there's the tiny matter of a Cyberman invasion to worry about," he reminded himself. "You can sleep later." He had the TARDIS run a scan for companies that had warehoused the tea for their employees. The results popped up on a map of London, and the places that held tea were indicated by a red dot. Soon, the vast majority of London was drenched in blood. And one of the places that held the most tea was…

"H.C. Clements." The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. "Nothing can ever be easy." He tried Donna's mobile. No answer. He tried not to worry. That lasted for about half a second. The Doctor knew that, unless Cybermen suddenly weren't at all logical, they'd use the last person who'd been in the TARDIS to gather information on him, and he didn't want to think about what consequences could arise from that endeavor. "Well…looks like it's time for a rescue mission." Armed with a few gadgets and gizmos he hoped would be unnecessary, he set a course for the outer edge of the H.C. Clements parking lot.

Donna was blissfully ignorant of the morning news as she drove to work, mind only focused on slogging through whatever tasks she was assigned for the day. Well, that's what her mind was supposed to be focused on. Instead, she caught herself thinking of last night's not-a-date with John. Lost in her thoughts, the redhead nearly bowled over one of her coworkers as she walked toward her cubicle.

"Oh, sorry, Vanessa." Donna stepped out of her daydream and into a strange reality: Literally all of her co-workers were standing in a circle round her work space.

"Er…hi, everyone?" she smiled nervously and her insides squirmed. "Okay, this is beyond creepy."

They spoke as one unit. "Donna Noble. You must become like us."

She tried to back away, only to find herself locked in a death grip. "What d'you mean, exactly?"

"You must be taken for upgrading." A pause. "And you must tell us where the Doctor is, so we can make him…LIKE US."

"Doctor who? And get your stinkin paws off me, what the hell is the matter with all of you?" she cried. "You all gone bonkers today or what?"

"Nothing. We are not mad. We are upgraded. You were not willing to upgrade. You will be forcibly converted. You will be fitter. More productive. Without paranoia. At ease. Without illness."

"What the fuck…" She blanched whiter than printer paper as she saw one of them gulp a cup of tea.

"We do not tolerate insubordination. Inform us where the Doctor is, or you will be DELETED."

"I don't know any bloody doctor!" she screamed. Her headache was kicking back in. "Oh, what lovely timing this is. Just the type of morning I wanted to have. Got my coworkers losing their minds and a blistering headache as the cherry on top." She wrenched her attention back to these…things. "What ARE you? What happened to you people?"

"We do not take orders from inferiors. Identify yourself."

"I'm Donna Noble, you all know who I am, cut the crap!"

"Incomplete answer. You are the companion to-

They were cut short by the "ping" of the elevator. The doors slid open. The Doctor gave Donna a quick nod. "Could this day get ANY weirder?" she nearly screamed. It did.

"Donna, hit the floor, NOW!" he shouted before tossing two sticks of dynamite into the center of the ring of the hybrid Cybermen. They all tried to dodge the explosives and forgot to keep a hold on the temp. She wrenched herself free of her former co-workers' grip and dashed into the elevator.

"Okay…" she gasped. "First off, thanks. Second, WHAT THE HELL? All this weird crap, my coworkers are robots, or cyborgs, or something, my head feels like it's gonna explode-" she rambled.

"Long story, really long story-" He tried to cut her off, but this was Donna Noble he was dealing with; that task was nearly always hopeless.

"And I just want to go back to having a normal life, thank you very much," she finished in a huff, dusting some debris from the explosives off her shirt.

The Doctor groaned inwardly. "And she pulled the trigger. Flashback incoming in 3,2,1..."

He could really, really live with being wrong more often.

CRACK

"What are you playing at, saying you want to go back to having a normal life?" A woman's voice shouted, or rather, tried to shout at the unconscious redhead. "Trade all this, everything you've learned, everything you've seen, for boring old Chiswick? You know where you should be, and it isn't stuck in that stuffy old house, working another meaningless temp job." The voice flickered out and faded a bit. "You should be…on…ventures…space…"

CRACK

Donna dimly registered that she was slumped against the wall of an elevator. The pain was less acute when she tried to bridge gaps between her thoughts, she found. "John…where'm I…s'pose to go?" she murmured unclearly.

"What are you talking about?" A nervous sweat broke out across his brow.

"Never mind, I'll sort out," she replied thickly.

CRACK

The voice, very similar to her own, was losing power, but a few words came through perfectly. "Can't…explain all of it. Help…he needs it…he needs you."

Her self doubt butted in with a cruel smirk. "Donna Noble? We are talking about the same person, right? Cause no one in their right mind needs her for much of anything."

The first voice got riled up at that. "NO! She's more…means more…to everything…she's important. Brilliant. Doesn't see it, can't believe it…" Using the last of her strength, the woman crowed triumphantly, "But she IS!"

CRACK

"Me?" She asked weakly.

"You what?" John scratched his head.

She took a deep breath. "Nothing, nothing." She wrinkled her nose. "Is it bad that I'm getting used to these headaches, John?"

"I…uh…I'm not a doctor or anything," he stammered. "Have you…you know, gone to one?"

"Yeah, went to a couple. They said they couldn't find anything that would be causing them." They heard a door slam above them. "We must find them. We must make them like us."

The pair scrambled (or struggled, in Donna's case) to their feet. "What d'you say we get out of here?" the Doctor asked, offering Donna his arm.

"Just too smart for words, you are." She took it all the same, and they bolted for the door. Donna had picked a good day to park in the closest available spot. They quickly locked the doors and gave a huge sigh of relief.

"So…what exactly do we do about all this?" Donna asked. "I have this weird feeling you're a lot more mixed up in this situation than you're letting on." An aftershock hit her head.

"Well, yeah, a bit." He patched together a story. "Bryen doesn't want any more bad publicity coming out, does he?"

"No, I mean, you're trying to stop him entirely. Shut down the tea company, stop them from creating whatever those things I used to work with are now." More stinging, more burning from a potential fever.

"Well…" He fiddled with his tie.

"There's no way you're just a freelance writer," she frowned.

"You could say I've dallied in a lot of careers, yeah. Bounced around from job to job, so to speak." He put a finger to her lips as she opened her mouth again. "Look. You need to be getting home. You need rest."

"No." She held her ground. "I'm coming with you, I'm helping. If it weren't for you, those…robot things said I'd have been deleted. That doesn't sound too good, even if I don't know exactly what it means." She stared him down. "I owe you, big time, so don't try to get rid of me."

He sighed. Surely, one more attempt to sway her mind wouldn't be taken too badly. "Are you sure? Cause you don't have to come, you can go-"

WHAP!

"Oi! You suddenly go deaf?" she demanded. "Cause that's the only reason I'd be sorry for slapping you just now!"

"No," he conceded, rubbing his cheek.

"Didn't think so." Her attention turned back to the road.

He looked at her incredulously. "Have I mentioned you're mad?"

"Yeah, you and every other bloke on the planet."

"Well…it's a nice kind of mad," he confessed lamely. "Could do with less of the slapping," he added. The Doctor's gaze hit the floor, as he took a keen interest in making sure his left shoe was properly knotted.

Donna would've preferred a better compliment, but it was better than nothing. She cleared her throat, hoping to clear some of the awkward out the air. "So, we got a plan?"

He grinned. "Course. We go to Bryen's headquarters."

"And…?"

"What, you're worried? Cause I've got us a fail safe plan," he beamed.

Despite all the events of the day, despite the fact that she had half a mind to chuck John out her car just so she could see that smug grin evaporate, Donna beamed back. "Let's go."