Chapter 35
The Doctor's mind worked a mile a minute as he followed the abrasive blonde through the warehouse. Where exactly were they? That he'd been expected seemed clear, but how?
But she was talking. "It was only a matter of time until you found us, and at last you've made it. I'd like to welcome you, Doctor. Welcome to Torchwood."
They walked through double doors into another cavernous warehouse filled with packing crates all marked with the same capital T logo. Overhead, men were working on a small spacecraft. "That's a Jathar Sunglider," the Doctor said, the mystery growing more complex.
"Came down to Earth off the Shetland Islands ten years ago."
"What, did it crash?"
"No, we shot it down. It violated our airspace. Then we stripped it bare. The weapon that destroyed the Sycorax on Christmas Day? That was us."
For all that Torchwood seemed to know him, they clearly didn't know much about him, or she wouldn't have blithely told him she'd been responsible for multiple deaths. Or, he thought, horror creeping over him, they know but they don't think I can do anything about it.
She smiled, as if she'd followed his train of thought and agreed. "Now, if you'd like to come with me."
As they walked past more crates in various stages of unpacking, the Doctor reached for his bond with Rose. Be careful. This lot is more dangerous than they look.
Oh, more dangerous than a dozen rifles pointed at you?
Rose.
I'll be careful.
"The Torchwood Institute has a motto," the woman said, and he turned his attention back to her. "If it's alien, it's ours. Anything that comes from the sky, we strip it down and we use it for the good of the British Empire."
"For the good of the what?" Jackie spluttered.
The woman turned around, a calm, teaching expression on her face. "The British Empire."
"There isn't a British Empire."
The Torchwood director looked Jackie up and down, that condescending look on her face again. "Not yet," she said smugly. "Ah, excuse me. Now, if you wouldn't mind." A soldier in fatigues handed her a large weapon and she hoisted it up in front of her. "Do you recognise this, Doctor?"
"That's a particle gun," he said, growing less impressed with the Torchwood Institute by the minute.
"Good, isn't it?" she said with some pride. "Took us eight years to get it to work."
A headache built behind the Doctor's eyes. Instead of flowing around them in mild eddies, Time was knotting itself up. "It's the twenty-first century. You can't have particle guns."
She blinked innocently. "We must defend our border against the alien. Thank you, Sebastian, isn't it?" she said and returned the particle gun to him.
The soldier smiled. "Yes, Ma'am."
"Thank you, Sebastian. I think it's very important to know everyone by name," she confided, and the Doctor nodded—because knowing your staff by name made up for theft and world domination. "Torchwood is a very modern organisation. People skills. That's what it's all about these days. I'm a people person."
Names. How can I get you to give me yours? The Doctor tugged at his ear. "Have you got anyone called Alonso?"
She tilted her head back and considered. "No, I don't think so. Is that important?"
"No, I suppose not. What was your name?" he asked, finally slipping the question in where she might not notice.
"Yvonne. Yvonne Hartman."
The hair on the Doctor's arm stood on end, and he moved around Yvonne to an open crate. Inside, there were two, large footstool shape objects that he could tell were exceptionally strong magnets. He reached down and picked one up, hefting it out of the crate.
"Ah, yes," Yvonne said. "Now, we're rather fond of these. The magnaclamp. Found in a spaceship buried at the base of Mount Snowdon. Attach this to an object and it cancels the mass. I could use it to lift two tonnes of weight with a single hand. That's an imperial ton, by the way." She nodded firmly. "Torchwood refuses to go metric."
Rose pressed into the bond, and the Doctor brushed the dust off his hands and walked away to hide his sudden distraction.
They're moving the TARDIS, she told him.
Stay hidden for as long as you can.
He broke the connection with her and clenched his jaw. The sheer arrogance of this organisation made him sick, all the more so because he recognised it. His own people had felt a similar superiority toward other cultures. Yes, and look where it got them.
"So, what about these ghosts?" he asked as he peered through a magnifying glass.
"Ah yes, the ghosts. They're, ah… what you might call a side effect."
The little bit of patience he had remaining was dwindling away. The ghosts that were wreaking havoc over the entire world were just a side effect of something this institute was doing? "Of what?"
"All in good time, Doctor." Yvonne smiled, but the Doctor didn't feel reassured. "There is an itinerary, trust me."
"Oi! Where are you taking that?"Jackie shouted. They watched the TARDIS go by on the back of a jeep.
I see you, Rose.
"If it's alien, it's ours," Yvonne explained smoothly.
"You'll never get inside it," he told her, hoping the promise of certain failure would discourage her.
"Hmm! Et cetera."
Yvonne turned away, but the Doctor kept his eyes on his ship. His whole world was inside those doors, and she'd just claimed it by right of conquest.
The door opened a crack, and Rose peeked out at him. They both relaxed fractionally at seeing each other. I haven't asked, he told her, but I'm pretty sure I'm a captive. It's up to you to get us all out of here.
She nodded, then Yvonne walked away, and he had to break eye contact in order to avoid detection.
Yvonne led them through a rather claustrophobic corridor which he suspected was actually a tunnel from the warehouse to another building. "All those times I've been on Earth, I've never heard of you," the Doctor commented.
"But of course not," she said, and the condescension in her voice swelled to new levels. "You're the enemy. You're actually named in the Torchwood Foundation Charter of eighteen seventy-nine as an enemy of the Crown."
"Eighteen seventy-nine." The date immediately rang a bell. "That was called Torchwood, that house in Scotland."
"That's right. Where you encountered Queen Victoria and the werewolf."
"I think he makes half of it up," Jackie argued, and he tugged on his ear, hoping Yvonne hadn't caught the mistake. If Jackie was his companion, she'd know he didn't need to make up any of his adventures.
"Her Majesty created the Torchwood Institute with the express intention of keeping Britain great, and fighting the alien horde."
He finally had a chance to ask. "But if I'm the enemy, does that mean that I'm a prisoner?"
"Oh, yes. But we'll make you perfectly comfortable," she promised as the corridor opened up onto a small antechamber. "And there is so much you can teach us. Starting with this."
Yvonne touched her ID badge to a security scanner on the wall, and a pair of hydraulic doors slid open with a hiss. This room was a laboratory, not a warehouse. A few scientists in white lab coats stood at their stations, and at the end of the room, a large gold sphere hovered in mid air.
"Now, what do you make of that?" Yvonne said, pointing to the sphere.
The Doctor knew what he was looking at, but he couldn't quite believe the evidence in front of his eyes. Time Lord scientists had theorised that Void travel could be possible, but they'd never managed to achieve it.
One of the scientists was trying to catch his attention, but the Doctor barely spared him enough attention to catch his name and offer some kind of answer.
A Void ship, here on Earth. As if the day wasn't bad enough already. The skin on the back of the Doctor's neck crawled when he looked at the sphere. It didn't belong here, either in this space or in this time. It was wrong.
"What is that thing?" Jackie asked.
"We've got no idea," Yvonne said, and her matter-of-fact answer stirred the Doctor's anger. If they didn't know what it was, why were they messing with it?
"But what's wrong with it?" Jackie pressed on.
"What makes you think there's something wrong with it?" Dr. Singh asked.
"I don't know. It just feels weird."
The Doctor climbed the steps to get as close to the sphere as possible while the conversation continued on, Yvonne explaining that prickly feeling to Jackie. "Well, the sphere has that effect on everyone," she said. "Makes you want to run and hide, like it's forbidden."
Dr. Singh took over the explanation. "We tried analysing it using every device imaginable."
Even though he knew he was right, the Doctor still pulled his 3D glasses out of his pocket to make sure. There, dancing around the sphere, were thousands of little particles. Void stuff.
"But according to our instruments," Dr. Singh continued, "the sphere doesn't exist. It weighs nothing, it doesn't age. No heat, no radiation, and has no atomic mass."
"But I can see it," Jackie protested.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" Dr. Singh said. "It upsets people because it gives off nothing. It is absent."
Pieces started to come together to form a horrifying picture. Ghosts flecked with Void stuff. A Void ship being experimented on by a group that was about as cautious as bulls in a china shop.
"Well, Doctor?" Yvonne asked.
"This is a Void ship."
The atmosphere in the room turned electric with his pronouncement. "And what is that?" she pressed.
He took off the 3D glasses and turned back around. "Well, it's impossible for starters. I always thought it was just a theory, but it's a vessel designed to exist outside time and space, travelling through the Void."
The Doctor sat down at the top of the stairs, looking between Yvonne and Dr. Singh.
"And what's the Void?" Dr. Singh asked.
"The space between dimensions." He looked between the two humans, taking a deep breath before launching into the explanation of parallel worlds. "There's all sorts of realities around us, different dimensions, billions of parallel universes all stacked up against each other," he said, using his hands to illustrate the idea of the worlds layering on top of each other.
"The Void is the space in between, containing absolutely nothing. Imagine that. Nothing. No light, no dark, no up, no down, no life, no time. Without end. My people called it the Void; the Eternals call it the Howling. But some people call it Hell."
"But someone built the sphere," Dr. Singh pointed out. "What for? Why go there?"
"To explore? To escape?" he suggested, instinct telling him the second answer was closer to correct. "You could sit inside that thing and eternity would pass you by. The Big Bang, end of the universe, start of the next, wouldn't even touch the sides. You'd exist outside the whole of creation."
Yvonne smirked. "You see, we were right. There is something inside it."
Even after everything he'd learned about her, Yvonne's excitement still surprised him. Didn't she understand the weight of what he was telling her? Or was she arrogant enough to think Torchwood could handle every alien they came across?
"Oh, yes," the Doctor said soberly, trying to dampen her enthusiasm.
"So how do we get in there?" Dr. Singh asked eagerly.
The Doctor's patience was gone. "We don't." He pushed himself off the platform and pointed up at the ship. "We send that thing back into Hell. How did it get here in the first place?"
"Well, that's how it all started," Yvonne said. "The sphere came through into this world, and the ghosts followed in its wake."
He looked up at the sphere and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Show me," he ordered and walked quickly toward the door and away from the thing that every sense he had screamed against.
The door opened in front of him, and he turned left down the corridor. "No, Doctor," Yvonne called after him, and he pivoted back in the opposite direction.
Rose sensed his anger and sent a quick question along the bond.
I'm just amazed by human arrogance.
Oi!
Sorry, love. But this… this is bad. And we shouldn't be here, Rose. Do you feel that? He felt her agreement. Something has pulled at timelines to bring us here, and I don't like what that implies.
DWDWDWDW
Rose watched on the monitor as the soldiers escorted the Doctor and her mother away, taking care to note which direction they went. A plan was already forming in her mind. This place, wherever they were, was probably big enough for her to get out and explore and not cross paths with that lady and her crazy soldiers.
Her plan was only half-formed when she felt the Doctor reach out of their bond. Be careful. This lot is more dangerous than they look.
Rose snorted. Oh, more dangerous than a dozen rifles pointed at you?
Rose.
The way he said her name told her all she needed to know, and she swallowed hard. I'll be careful.
She paced in front of the console, adjusting her plan to this new information. The Doctor was normally one for jumping into danger feet first, so if he was urging her to be cautious…
Rose drew in a breath and focused on the timelines. She gasped when they appeared; instead of a line moving forward, all she could see was a knotted mess.
A loud sound overhead caught Rose's attention, and then she grabbed the railing as the TARDIS swayed back and forth as if it were being picked up by a crane. A hard thud a moment later ended the swaying, and a glance at the monitor confirmed Rose's suspicions. They'd been picked up and placed in the back of a jeep.
They're moving the TARDIS, she told the Doctor.
She felt the ship's indignation at the rough handling and patted the console. "It's not that much worse than how the Doctor sometimes treats you, yeah?" she said, trying to calm the sentient ship. But both she and the TARDIS knew the difference. The Doctor loved the TARDIS and would never do anything to truly harm her. Who knew what these people would try in an attempt to break down the doors?
I see you, Rose.
Rose watched their progress through the buildings on the monitor and caught sight of the Doctor and her mum. As they drove by, she couldn't resist peeking out to catch his eye, though she was careful not to be spotted by anyone but him.
She shivered at the grim expression on his face. The TARDIS's annoyance and concern had occupied most of her attention for the last few minutes, and she hadn't noticed his mood darkening.
I haven't asked, he told her, but I'm pretty sure I'm a captive. It's up to you to get us all out of here.
To her surprise, Rose took that announcement calmly. She offered the Doctor a half smile, which he acknowledged with a small nod. Then he turned away, and she closed the doors and steeled her resolve.
The plan she'd been working on earlier came back to her. She'd be careful, but she couldn't save everyone by sitting in the TARDIS while the Doctor was being dissected by Creepy Blonde Lady.
She grabbed the Doctor's coat and rummaged through his pockets. "Psychic paper, psychic paper," she muttered to herself as her fingers brushed against wire springs, another banana, and the bag of jelly babies. She pulled a small wooden box out and looked at it for a moment before putting it back in the pocket and finally grabbing the psychic paper.
She glanced at the monitor one more time to make sure the coast was clear, then she slipped outside. The huge golden sarcophagus in front of the TARDIS provided cover for a careful exploration. That was a lucky thing, because when she peered around it cautiously, she saw two soldiers standing guard.
I won't be going that way, then.
Rose turned around and scanned the room for something to use as a disguise. She slowly circled the TARDIS, hiding again as more soldiers entered the room. But she saw what she needed, and as soon as their footsteps faded, she darted out of hiding and grabbed the lab coat.
Years of traveling with the Doctor had taught Rose how to act like she belonged. As long as you didn't look like you didn't think you were in the right place, most people would never notice.
Rose put her shoulders back and walked down aisles lined with large wooden crates. All around her, the sounds of people working filled the air, with an occasional bang echoing loudly. She didn't flinch once, instead looking for someone who might be able to help her find the Doctor.
Across the warehouse, she spotted someone wearing a lab coat that matched hers. Striding confidently across the room, she left through the same door he'd gone through. Out in the corridor, she glanced subtly to her left, but two men were walking toward her, carrying something large.
The other way then.
She moved quickly to get in front of the two and spotted her quarry farther down the corridor. Stretching her legs as much as she could without running, she sped to keep up with him. When he ducked behind a door, she gave up all pretence of being casual, breaking into a fast jog.
How big is this place? she wondered as they walked through yet another large warehouse. Rose kept carefully to the side of the room, walking casually and yet not losing sight of the bloke in the lab coat.
He went through another door on the opposite side of the room, and after what she thought was a safe length of time, Rose followed. Then they were walking again, in the never ending corridors.
A spike in the Doctor's anger distracted her from her game of cat and mouse. Keeping an eye on the scientist, she slowed down a little so she could talk to the Doctor.
At her questioning probe, he said, I'm just amazed by human arrogance.
Oi! she protested reflexively.
Sorry, love, but this… this is bad. And we shouldn't be here, Rose. Do you feel that?
There was a corner ahead, and Rose jogged to reach it before she lost the person she was following, at the same time answering his question with an affirmative. She'd felt the same thing earlier when she'd looked at the timelines, that sense that they did not belong here.
Something has pulled at timelines to bring us here, and I don't like what that implies.
When she turned the corner, he was already gone. She looked around and spotted hydraulic doors and registered the sound she'd heard just after the man disappeared from sight. Beside the door there was a security badge scanner.
Rose kissed the psychic paper and tapped it against her fingers. She'd never seen it work on something electronic before, only on people. Still, a computer was basically trained to see one particular thing, right? So maybe if she told the psychic paper to replicate a security badge, it would work? She held it to the scanner, waiting with bated breath until the door opened.
Rose's eyes were immediately arrested by the large sphere hovering at the opposite end of the long room. Her feet started walking toward it, almost without any orders from her brain. There was something… just…
"Can I help you?"
Rose couldn't look away from the sphere, but saw the lab coat in her peripheral vision and realised he was probably the scientist in charge of studying this… thing. "I was just—" She pointed helplessly, wishing the Doctor were here to explain what it was.
"Try not to look. It does that to everyone." His calm attitude broke the hold the sphere had on Rose, and she met his eyes for the first time, then she dropped her eyes to his badge—Dr. Rajesh Singh.
"What do you want?" he asked.
Rose cursed to herself. She'd broken the first rule of subterfuge; walking into a room and gawping at the contents didn't exactly convey confidence or an air of belonging. "Sorry." She shook her head. "They sent me from personnel. They said some man had been taken prisoner. Some sort of doctor?" She rubbed at her face nervously. "I'm just checking the lines of communication. Did they tell you anything?"
The suspicion in Rajesh's eyes was evident, and Rose couldn't blame him. Why would personnel send a grunt to a lab to find out about a prisoner?
"Can I see your authorisation?" he asked.
"Sure."
Rose handed him the psychic paper, and he only glanced at it before smiling. "That's lucky. You see, everyone at Torchwood has at least a basic level of psychic training." He took off his glasses and handed the wallet back to her. "This paper is blank, and you're a fake."
Rajesh pressed a finger to his earpod and called orders out. "Seal the room. Call security. Samuel, can you check the door locks?" he told the scientist standing behind him. "She just walked right in."
"Doing it now, sir." Rose nearly fell over when Mickey turned around, but he gestured for her to be quiet, and she had just enough wits about her to maintain her composure while Mickey indicated everything would be fine.
"Well, if you'd like to take a seat," the head scientist said, handing her back the psychic paper.
DWDWDWDW
Yvonne used her badge to open a lift; then she inserted a key into the control. "Straight to the top," she said.
The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall, his mind working a mile a minute as he tried to process the last hour. A top secret agency working in the heart of London, designed to protect humanity against aliens. The arrogance of a group convinced it was superior enough to take anyone on, even something that was so determined to avoid detection that it escaped into the Void. And every single one of his time senses telling him to take Rose and get as far from here as possible.
The ding of the elevator reaching the top floor brought him out of his reverie, and he followed Yvonne down a short corridor into an eerie white room with ceilings that were easily thirty feet high.
She led the way toward the far wall. "The sphere came through here. A hole in the world."
The Doctor put his hand on the wall and a shiver ran down his spine. The barriers between the worlds were exceptionally thin right here, thinner than anything he'd ever felt before.
"Not active at the moment," Yvonne continued, "but when we fire particle engines at that exact spot, the breach opens up."
"How did you even find it?"
"We were getting warning signs for years. A radar black spot. So we built this place, Torchwood Tower. The breach was six hundred feet above sea level. It was the only way to reach it."
The Doctor put his 3D glasses on again; as expected, the room was filled with Void stuff—especially the wall itself. "You built a skyscraper just to reach a spatial disturbance? How much money have you got?"
"Enough," she said, her heels clicking on the floor as she walked away, leaving the Doctor staring at the wall.
Without a pan dimensional race keeping the parallel dimensions stable, travel between the worlds was hugely dangerous. And yet Torchwood had not only discovered a way to access the Void, they were using doing so on a regular basis.
The Doctor spun on his heel and stalked after Yvonne, who was standing in an office with Jackie, looking out at the Thames.
He leaned against the doorframe and finally let all the anger he'd been harbouring loose, enjoying the way Yvonne started when she heard his voice. "So, you find the breach, probe it, the sphere comes through six hundred feet above London, bam. It leaves a hole in the fabric of reality," he said, slowing down to emphasise the point. "And that hole, you think, 'Oh, shall we leave it alone? Shall we back off? Shall we play it safe?' Nah, you think, 'Let's make it bigger!'"
He'd nearly shouted the last sentence, but Yvonne just smiled at him like he was a child who didn't understand what his parents were doing. "It's a massive source of energy. If we can harness that power, we need never depend on the Middle East again. Britain will become truly independent," she said, as if that warranted tearing reality apart. "Look, you can see for yourself. Next ghost shift's in two minutes."
The Doctor stood aside while Yvonne went back into the white room. "Cancel it," he said as she walked past him.
"I don't think so."
His anger and frustration seeped into his voice. "I'm warning you, cancel it."
"Oh, exactly as the legends would have it," Yvonne said mockingly, turning to face him down. "The Doctor, lording it over us. Assuming alien authority over the rights of man."
She didn't understand, she just didn't know what she was doing. But maybe there's a way to make her understand. "Let me show you." Back in the office, he pointed the sonic at the window. The toughened glass fractured, but it didn't break. "Sphere comes through."
Yvonne's eyes widened and she leaned forward a little.
"But when it made the hole, it cracked the world around it," he explained, gesturing wildly to emphasise his point. "The entire surface of this dimension splintered. And that's how the ghosts get through. That's how they get everywhere. They're bleeding through the fault lines."
The underlying point that no one knew what the ghosts actually were was clear. "Walking from their world, across the Void, and into yours, with the human race hoping and wishing and helping them along. But too many ghosts, and—" He tapped a single finger against a crack, and the entire window shattered onto the floor.
For the first time since he'd met her, Yvonne didn't look smug, and he hoped for a moment that he'd gotten through to her. Then she lifted her chin and said, "Well, in that case we'll have to be more careful."
She turned away from him to give orders to her staff. "Positions! Ghost shift in one minute."
The Doctor stepped through the empty window frame into the lever room. "Miss Hartman, I am asking you, please don't do it."
She looked up at the ceiling as she turned back around. "We have done this a thousand times."
Her impatience was evident, but he was just as tired of her stubbornness as she was of his. "Then stop at a thousand!" he yelled.
"We're in control of the ghosts," she claimed, again talking to him as he were a child. "The levers can open the breach, but equally they can close it."
He stared into her eyes for a moment, trying to find some way to convince her that her enormous arrogance could actually destroy reality. But in her face, all he saw was a determination to continue on her path and unwavering confidence that Torchwood was completely in control.
Maybe there's another way. "Okay," he said, backing off completely.
"Sorry?" she asked.
"Never mind," he told her as he reentered the office. "As you were."
"What, is that it?"
He pulled a chair out of her office, relishing the way the scraping noise made her flinch. When he had it where he wanted it, facing the wall with Yvonne only a few feet from him, he sat down and said, "No, fair enough. Said my bit. Don't mind me. Any chance of a cup of tea?"
A young black woman sitting at one of the computers looked back at Yvonne. "Ghost shift in twenty seconds."
"Mmm, can't wait to see it," he said, not minding if his sarcasm shone through.
"You can't stop us, Doctor," Yvonne warned him with her arms crossed over her chest.
"No, absolutely not. Pull up a chair, Rose," he invited, and Jackie put her hand on his shoulder, for once offering support instead of argument. "Come and watch the fireworks."
The computer system beeped, counting off the seconds.
"Ghost shift in ten seconds," the same woman said.
The Doctor fixed his eyes on Yvonne as the final countdown commenced. He saw her confidence falter, let her see exactly how worried he was that this could be disastrous, and finally saw her accept was he was telling her.
"Stop the shift," she said at the last second. "I said stop."
Some of the tension eased out of his shoulders. "Thank you."
"I suppose it makes sense to get as much intelligence as possible," she said grudgingly. "But the programme will recommence, as soon as you've explained everything."
"I'm glad to be of help," he said honestly. Everything in him said the walls of reality needed to stay closed; for his sake, for Rose's, and for that of the entire Earth.
"And someone clear up this glass. They did warn me, Doctor. They said you like to make a mess."
The Doctor spun slightly in his chair to look at Jackie, but she was looking at the blank white wall.
Yvonne beckoned for the Doctor to follow her back into her office. "We can talk in here," she said.
The Doctor dragged the chair back to where he'd found it and sat down again, waiting for her to begin explaining.
At her desk, Yvonne brought up the information they had on the ghosts. "So these ghosts, whatever they are, did they build the sphere?"
The Doctor reclined back in his chair and put his feet on the table, but if she could have seen the way his fingers were tapping rapidly against his stomach, she would have recognised his nonchalance for the lie it was. Something was going on with Rose, but he there was nothing he could do to help. He had to trust her to get herself out of the situation while he tended to the matter of the ghosts.
"Must have. Aimed it at this dimension like a cannon ball."
"Yvonne?" She glanced down at the computer when Rajesh spoke. "I think you should see this. We've got a visitor. We don't know who she is, but funnily enough, she arrived at the same time as the Doctor."
The Doctor tried to hide his wince. That's why Rose felt off.
"She one of yours?" Yvonne asked, turning the computer toward him.
Rose and Dr. Singh stared back at him over the video connection, and he shook his head in what he hoped was believable fib. "Never seen her before in my life."
"Good." The smirk on Yvonne's face told the Doctor she was going to call his bluff. "Then we can have her shot."
"Oh, all right then," he said, putting his feet back on the ground. "It was worth a try." He nodded toward the laptop. "That's, that's Rose Tyler."
Rose waved to him in apology. "Sorry. Hello." He waved back and reassured her as best he could.
"Well, if that's Rose Tyler, who's she?" Yvonne asked, looking at Jackie.
Jackie raised her chin slightly. "I'm her mother."
"Oh, you travel with her mother?" Yvonne's lips were pressed into a tight line, and he suspected she was trying to hold back a laugh.
"He kidnapped me," Jackie countered belligerently.
He looked pleadingly at Yvonne. "Please, when Torchwood comes to write my complete history, don't tell people I travelled through time and space with her mother."
Yvonne did laugh then, but Jackie wasn't amused. "Charming."
"I've got a reputation to uphold," he protested. Some part of him was aware that antagonising his future mother-in-law was not a smart move, but his restraint had been stretched well past its breaking point today.
Yvonne stood abruptly and walked back to her office door. "Excuse me? Everyone? I thought I said stop the ghost shift. Who started the programme? But I ordered you to stop! Who's doing that?" she asked, pointing to the levers which were slowly moving into the on position.
And it begins, the Doctor thought, a hole opening up in his stomach. Just like it always did, the thing humanity thought they could control was taking over. The levers in the white room kept moving closer to the on position, and Yvonne's panic escalated.
The Doctor stood beside her and looked around the room. Three people, including the woman who'd announced the start of the ghost shift earlier, were typing at an unnaturally fast speed.
Yvonne walked to the middle of the room, still shouting orders that were being ignored. "Right, step away from the monitors, everyone. Gareth, Addy, stop what you're doing, right now. Matt, step away from your desk. That's an order! Stop the levers! Andrew!" Two men grabbed the levers and attempted to stop them manually, but the computer program was too strong. "Stop the levers!"
None of the workers typing seemed to notice Yvonne at all, no matter how high pitched her voice got. "What's she doing?" the Doctor asked, walking over to the woman. He snapped his fingers in her face, but she didn't even blink.
"Addy, step away from the desk," Yvonne ordered. "Listen to me. Step away from the desk."
He noticed then that Addy and the two men were both wearing two earpieces, whereas Yvonne and everyone else he'd seen only had one. A weight settled in his chest; now he knew what the ghosts had reminded him of.
"She can't hear you," he told Yvonne. "They're overriding the system. We're going into ghost shift." The light in the room brightened to a frequency that would be painful to human eyes, and they all stared at the blank white wall.
"It's the earpiece," he explained, moving to stand behind Addy. "It's controlling them. I've seen this before." He pulled the sonic out of his jacket with regret. "Sorry. I'm so sorry."
When he activated the sonic, all three partially cyberised humans screamed in pain and collapsed against their desks. "What happened?" Yvonne demanded. "What did you just do?"
"They're dead," he told her bluntly, the words leaving a sour taste in his mouth.
"You killed them," Jackie accused.
He shook his head and started working on the computer to shut down the ghost shift. "Oh, someone else did that long before I got here."
"But you killed them!"
"Jackie, I haven't got time for this," he spat out.
"What are those ear pieces?" Yvonne asked.
"Don't," he told her, moving to one of the other computers when he was unsuccessful in shutting things down from Addy's.
"But they're standard comms devices," Yvonne protested. "How does it control them?"
"Trust me, leave them alone."
"But what are they?" she asked, grabbing Addy's and pulling on it. A long strand of sticky grey matter came out along with the earpiece. "Oh, God! It goes inside their brain."
The light in the room was still getting brighter, no matter how frantically the Doctor worked to close the breach in the Void down. "What about the ghost shift?"
"Ninety percent there and still running," Yvonne told him. "Can't you stop it?"
He shook his head. "They're still controlling it. They've hijacked the system."
"Who's they?"
"It might be a remote transmitter, but it's got to be close by." He pulled out the sonic and used it as a tracer. "I can trace it. Jackie, stay here!"
"Keep those levers down," Yvonne ordered her staff. "Keep them offline."
Out in the corridor, they passed two armed soldiers. Yvonne beckoned to them. "You two. You come with us."
"Yes, ma'am."
Their party of four followed the signal from the sonic into a part of Torchwood Tower that seemed to be abandoned. "What's down here?" the Doctor asked, eyeing the plastic curtains warily.
"I don't, I don't know. I think it's building work. It's just renovations."
"You should go back."
She huffed in exasperation. "Think again."
They stepped slowly through the plastic until the sonic beeped rapidly, indicating they'd reached the source of the transmission.
"What is it? What's down here?" Yvonne asked.
"Earpieces, ear pods. This world's colliding with another, and I think I know which one."
The familiar crash of metal feet against the ground confirmed his suspicions. Silhouettes appeared behind the plastic; one, two, three, six Cybermen surrounded them.
"What are they?" Yvonne asked, and he was slightly gratified by the note of fear he finally heard in her voice—even if it was too late.
"They came through first," he explained as the Cybermen sliced through the plastic. "The advance guard… Cybermen!"
Over their bond, the Doctor could tell Rose had picked up on his fear. He focused on her and stretched his mind… she was just at the edge of his range, but if he concentrated, he could send her a short message.
It's Cybermen, he told her when he knew he'd made contact.
The Cybermen stepped into formation, heedless of the bullets the soldiers were firing at them. The Doctor and Yvonne backed out the way they came in, but there was yet another Cyberman behind them, blocking the way out.
They were escorted back into the lever room, and the Doctor called out warnings to the humans sitting at the desks, and to Jackie. "Get away from the machines. Do what they say. Don't fight them!"
He watched in horror as the Cybermen shot them down anyway. Jackie looked up at Yvonne. "What are they?"
But the Cyber Leader answered first. "We are the Cybermen. The ghost shift will be increased to one hundred percent." He pushed a button on his chest, and the levers moved until the computer announced the system was online.
"Here come the ghosts," the Doctor said grimly, squinting against the brilliant light.
Silvery figures blinked into existence, clearly standing in military formation. "But these Cybermen," Jackie asked him quietly, "what've they got to do with the ghosts?"
"Do you never listen?" he retorted angrily. "A footprint doesn't look like a boot."
"Achieving full transfer," the Cyber Leader announced, and the Cybermen pushed all the way through the Void and into planet Earth.
"They're Cybermen. All of the ghosts are Cybermen. Millions of them, right across the world."
Yvonne caught on to what he was saying first. "They're invading the whole planet."
The Doctor glared around the room at one of his most hated enemies. "It's not an invasion; it's too late for that. It's a victory."
AN: Just a quick Doomsday reminder: I'm being purposely cagey on how I've handled this story. Any questions on the topic will get a fairly stock answer of, "No matter what happens in the lever room, I promise you Rose will not be trapped permanently in Pete's World." There's a sequel coming, so that promise either means 1) Rose doesn't fall at all, 2) She does, but comes back before the end of this story, or 3) She does, and the sequel is a reunion fic.
I am running an informal poll, so if you want to tell me which ending you expect, let me know in a review. To be clear, the end is written, so this isn't a vote for which one I'll write.