Say the bells of St Clements
You owe me five farthings
Say the bells of St Martins
When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey
When I grow rich
Say the bells of Shoreditch
When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney
I'm sure I don't know
Says the great bell at Bow
Here comes a candle to light you to bed
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head
Chop chop chop chop the last man's head!"
- Traditional children's rhyme
The Doctor was now very much of the opinion that Sergeant Conrad did not possess, nor had ever been in possession of, a sense of humour. Two hours running like rats through London, and the man was doing nothing but growing increasingly pale and nervous. And he'd gone from outright hostility at the Doctor's humour to barely acknowledging he was there at all.
Stress, thought the Doctor, was a particularly insidious creature.
It looked like a film-set for a post-apocalyptic horror, the street that would set the scene, and the Doctor hoped fervently that Rose was not amongst that rubble. A newspaper fluttered in the wind and he snatched it up, taking a look at the date, the headlines.
"Supply crew came here," said the Sergeant. "Guess they got shot up pretty bad. They don't usually go for the high explosives. Supply's too limited."
"You lot saw Rose here though?"
The Sergeant scowled. "Spotter reported a young, blonde girl walking the streets alone in broad daylight. No-one asked her her name."
"At ease, Sergeant," the Doctor muttered. He stuck his hands in his pockets, spun around, looking. "What happened to the bodies?"
"Cybermen took them. Dead or alive, they'd have picked them up. Not sure what they do with the corpses."
The Doctor's gaze passed over the first floor of the building opposite the newsagent, his attention caught by the sun glinting off the window panes. The intact window panes. The very clean, very intact window panes.
A shadow on the pane. Some trick of the light, perhaps. But there was something darker at the back of the Doctor's mind. Something waiting.
"Stay here," he said to Conrad.
The Sergeant grunted. "If you're not back in fifteen minutes, you're on your own."
The Doctor found the door of the building unlocked, shoved it open and raced up the stairwell to the first floor. Flats. One or two - he had looked in both windows from the street below.
He picked the one with the green door, and didn't bother to knock before barging in.
Wrapped in rags, sitting twisted in a corner by an old gas stove was an old man. He coughed as the Doctor entered, struggled to his feet, offered his visitor a grubby hand.
"Don't often get visitors," he said, his voice cracked. "Come in, come in. I'm making some cocoa. Good cocoa. Waste of gas." He coughed again. "But I won't be needing the heat for much longer, suppose." He sat, pouring milk into a small pot. "Not good," he said, shaking his head. "Powdered, y'see."
The Doctor tried to relax, said the first thing he could think of: "I'm the Doctor."
"Course you are, course you are. Called for one of those right before they came, y'know. Didn't do any good. Do even less good now. Have some cocoa." He poured the heated milk into a mug, added two heaped teaspoons of cocoa powder from another tin. "Always preferred heating it over a Bunsen burner, but needs must."
"I don't…" Then he thought better of it, sat down on the other side of the stove from the tramp, took the proffered beverage and teaspoon. Stirred. "I thought London had been evacuated."
"Has been, son. Not going to bother an old man like me though, are they? Logical, they are. Good, cold logic. No point coming for one old man they can't even convert when there're packs of humans out there in the countryside, roaming free, stirring up all the trouble they can."
"So you were here when the supply team passed through yesterday?" He took a sip of the cocoa. It tasted just fine.
"I was. Saw them give a good fight. Got themselves out too." He paused. "And the girl in the newsagent's. Almost got blown up, she did."
The relief was palatable, but the Doctor didn't change his expression. "They got her out too?"
"They did."
He took a gulp of cocoa, and, yes, it did taste much sweeter now. "You have any idea where they went?"
A sly smile appeared on the old man's face. "That important to you, is it?"
"Yes."
"Ahhh."
The Doctor frowned. Put down his mug. "What do you want?"
"I want you to finish your cocoa. Have a chat with an old dying man. That's all." He sniffed. "Not much to ask for, is it?"
"No," said the Doctor, chastened. "I'm just-"
"-worried about your friend. And you're not the first." He fished a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, handed it to the Doctor. He smoothed it out, cast his eyes over the rough drawn scrawls, the barely legible labels. "They told me where to get to them. Just incase I ever wanted to leave. Still help any I find that get cut off in the city. Wrote it down. Memory's not too good these days."
"Thank you."
"S'not your real problem. There's a sensor grid round the city perimeter. Tells them when anything moves in or out."
The Doctor nodded. "If the supply team came in, they must have some sort of stealth technology."
"Stolen back when they used to get a few wins against the Cybermen. Just so happens…" The old man gave a toothy smile. "Just so happens I've a working unit with me. Been trying to repair an old one for weeks and no luck, but this one, this one I got a hold of quite recently, in fact. Perfect working order."
The Doctor finished his cocoa. "There's a soldier outside. You should go with him. He can help you."
"No, Doctor, I'm quite content here. Probably a lot safer too than with any soldiers still about." He stood, shoved aside a few boxes in the corner, dragged out a large silver component. "Heavy, still you seem a strong young man. Enough to get a vehicle through the barrier anyway."
The Doctor moved to lift up the stealth shield. The old man was right - he wouldn't be able to run with it, but so long as he could find a car to borrow, he'd be just fine.
"How long have you been living here?" he asked.
"Weeks, months. Better than the streets. Not home though, but I make do. We all do, really." He shuffled to the door. "You've got what you came for. Don't think I don't know you're just dying to run off, go be a hero for that young girl of yours. Off you go then, Doctor. And you take care of yourself."
The Doctor heaved the stealth unit up and under his arms. "Thanks," he said. "For your help, and the cocoa, thank you."
He paused in the doorway, giving a farewell nod and looking into the old man's eyes.
There was something. Something more than the convenience of the situation. Something he felt like he was forgetting.
And outside, Sergeant Conrad was nowhere to be seen.
"Wake up!"
Someone was shaking her. God, she was so tired, why couldn't they see that?
"Come on, come on!"
Wasn't her Mum. Wasn't the Doctor. Not even Mickey - not like he'd actually be the one to wake her up. Probably wouldn't even bother getting out of bed if he could help it.
The slap across her face did it though.
She was on her feet, her hands balled into fists, but caught off-guard by the pale white face and frightened eyes staring back at her.
But not frightened of her, frightened for her.
"Come on," she said again, grabbing Rose's hand and pulling her through the dimly lit room.
Room? It seemed to go on forever, the darkness, the silence pressing down on them. An echo, like a warehouse. Metal. A faint silver gleam from the walls.
A bright light from the open double-doors at the end.
But once they were out - white bright corridors, burning her eyes - her strange guide didn't slow down.
"Where we going?" asked Rose, disorientated, out-of -breath, trying to work out where she was.
"Mess hall."
The next open doors gave way to another room that Rose suspected was as large as the one they had just left. But this one was filled with people.
The doors slammed shut behind them with a metal clang, and they joined the queue leading to the opposite end of the hall. Hatches people were moving past.
"What the hell was that about?" insisted Rose.
The woman rolled her eyes. "Fat lot of thanks that is for saving your life."
"I don't…" Rose stopped, trying to decide which questions were most important. "I'm Rose," she said finally. "Thank you."
"No problem. I'm Tegan." They shuffled a little further along the queue. "So what happened to you? You were a heck of a lot more out of it than most."
"Can't really remember much," said Rose, thinking back. "I was…was with some people. We were trying to get away from…from them. Think something hit me on the back of the head."
"Yeah, well, you'll be alright here. For a while at least. Plenty of food and people to talk to anyway." She grimaced, and Rose thought she could detect a faint Australian twang in her accent. "Though they're pretty strict about where you are and when." She tapped her neck, and Rose noticed the silver gleam there: a metal collar.
She touched her own neck. She was wearing one too. "So what would have happened if you hadn't woken me up?" she asked, very carefully.
Tegan gave her a tight smile. "Probably best to tell you before you have something to eat."
"You don't have to give the grisly details."
"Right. Well, in that case: boom."
"Boom?"
"Yep." She looked away. "Though to a couple to people that seemed like a better option."
"Better option than this?" asked Rose quietly. Tegan nodded. "Where are we? What is this place?"
"Camp 107, designated non-conversions. Catchy, isn't it?"
They were at the hatches now, but Rose couldn't see through them, though there were plastic bowls full of some sort of thick gruel being passed out.
Tegan took her bowl, waited for Rose before they moved to one of the long benches lining the hall. They sat. Tegan picked the stumpy plastic spoon from her bowl, began to eat.
"Dig in," she said. "It doesn't look much, but it's inoffensively bland and pretty filling."
Rose took a reluctant mouthful, staring round the room from beneath her eyelids. There was a low hum of conversation, a steady, dull drone. No particular dress code - a lot of clothes looking the worse for wear but any one of them could have been plucked of the streets she remembered, and perhaps they had been.
No, that wasn't what was bothering her, it was the fact that, "Why are there only women here?"
Tegan shrugged. "Don't know. We don't get a lot of information."
"Right." Rose took another spoonful. "So what do you know?"
"That we're the lucky ones. There's about a dozen or so camps around Salisbury, most lead off to the conversion factories. But they're keeping a lot of people back. Keeping us alive for some reason." She looked down. "Not much, I know, but it's something. And there's not a lot you can do when you're wearing one of these things. Not if you don't want your head blown off. It tracks where you are, and everyone follows the schedule. So stick with me, and I'll make sure you're in the right place at the right time."
"Then what?"
"Then nothing," muttered Tegan.
"Oh, come on," started Rose, careful to keep her voice down. "There's always something you can do. Can you hear yourself? You're talking about…about people turning into monsters like I'm asking you about the weather. This is our planet. Don't you want to fight for it?"
Rose watched her, and, for an instant, she saw some spark in the older woman's eyes, but then Tegan shook her head. "Where've you been?" she hissed back. "We have been fighting. And this is what it's come too. Millions of people locked up, tens of thousands converted into those things every day. There isn't anything we can do."
"Well, I'm gonna try."
Tegan sighed. "If it's going to help, I'll listen. They don't really care what we say. But that sort of thing's been tried before."
"And what happened to them?"
"Boom."
It had been a quick goodbye to the Doctor before he had been taken off to where UNIT had last seen Rose, and then Jack had been escorted through the underground set-up to a far more populated area.
Amongst the numerous soldiers and a dozen or so civilians, Jack spotted what looked like the man-in-charge an instant before he was introduced by the private escorting him.
"Sir, this is Captain Jack Harkness," he said, surprising no-one, save perhaps the officer he was addressing.
The impeccably dressed soldier turned and looked at him. "So you're the last best hope Lethbridge's sent down to us. Bloody great. Don't you salute wherever the hell you come from?" He spoke with a strong Scottish accent, seeming to take a delight in rolling his r's.
"I'm not a captain in the army, uh, Colonel."
"Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood, Captain. An American, huh? Fat lot of good you lot were in the invasion. Good job with the nukes, by the way. You bloody trigger happy morons." He glanced at Jack's escort. "Alright, private, dismissed."
"Didn't have much to do with that either, Colonel," said Jack, planting a smile firmly on his face and determined to be as charming as possible. Or polite, anyway.
"Well, hallelujah, at least we won't have to put up with that crap again. Last American we had in here I'd have shot as soon as he opened his mouth, but Lethbridge has this thing about spontaneous executions, and who am I to argue with my CO? This way, Captain."
Whatever he thought of Wood, Jack felt a lot better haven seen this part of Harriet's bunker. Here, there was life. People talking, laughing, making stupid jokes about dying. The sombreness of his mood lessened, and he let himself feel a little bit more hopeful. After all, the Doctor was here now, and humanity was certainly around by his time. It couldn't possibly end that badly.
"Here you are sunshine," said the Colonel. "And wipe that bloody smile of your face before you blind someone with those Captain America teeth." He punched the door open, causing the casually dressed gentleman inside to jump slightly and then look rather apologetic.
"Sullivan!" snapped the Colonel. "Here's your new charge. Captain, your babysitter. Have fun."
"Ah, Harry Sullivan," the man said, offering a hand as the Colonel left. "Captain Harkness, yes?"
"Jack's just fine. You leading the scientific team?"
That apologetic smile again. "I am the scientific team, I'm afraid. Doctor of medicine, but there's plenty of people trained in first aid and we don't really have the resources for major operations. So most of the time I'm stuck here instead."
"And not a member of His Colonelships's brigade?"
"Navy actually, retired."
"Right." Jack took a look around. "Nice set-up. Very neat."
"There hasn't exactly been a lot of work going on. I fought the Cybermen once before and the only thing that stopped them was gold."
"For the really good ones, that's about right, yeah," agreed Jack, staring at a cupboard full of chemical compounds and feeling his eyes glaze over at the names on the labels. "I'm really more a hands on sort of a guy. Where you storing the weapons?"
Harry had them bring everything down to the lab, and soon Jack was examining the mangled remains of dozens of Cyberguns as well as several Earth weapons concurrent with the time period. There was a good supply of the precious gold sitting on the far workbench, ready for when Jack had constructed his first prototype.
"Most of the reserves are gone," Harry told him. "UNIT didn't have nearly enough for a full scale invasion and by the time they got the okay for the country's gold reserves the Cybermen had made sure there was no way they could get to it. We lost a lot of people."
"But you're still using it as ammo?"
"It's right up there with the rest of our essential salvage." He gave a slight smile. "We've raided a lot of jewellery stores."
"Right." He chewed his lip, trying to remember how he had been taught to do this. High tech, low tech. All in the emergency training. They needed weapons as good as the Cyberguns, if not better, and it was all up to him. Somehow he got the feeling the Doctor could have rewired the components without so much as a-
The door opened, another box of components. "Ah," said Harry, seeming inordinately pleased. "The good stuff."
"The good stuff?"
"This used to be the Doctor's. He left a lot of his things behind when he left UNIT."
Jack blinked. "The Doctor worked for UNIT?"
"Back in the seventies, or eighties. Anyway, he was still there when I arrived. And then, well…" He waved a hand. "I'm sure you have some idea of what happens when you step aboard that ship of his."
"Some," agreed Jack, as he picked through the new arrivals. He lifted out a piece of tech that looked distinctly Dalek in origin. "I think we may be on to something."
After the meal, Tegan and Rose had left the hall with everyone else and arrived in what Tegan generously called the rec room. In fact, it was another great hall, but this time half of it was open air.
A way out, thought Rose, until she realised there really was no way she could scale a sheer twenty foot high metal wall.
People walked, talked, played strange games with spoons that had been pilfered from the mess hall. "Wonder how long it would take to dig out with one of those," said Rose idly.
Tegan grinned. "Good luck - the ground's concrete."
"Okay, scrap plan A then," she said. "Now plan B-" She stopped. Tegan had grabbed her arm, pulled her gently back into the crowd.
In fact, everyone was moving backwards. Slowly, inevitably, and all eyes on the far end of the hall, where the doors were.
"What?" mouthed Rose.
"Message for us," said Tegan. "Now you get to see the real vermin: collaborators. Gave themselves up for partial conversion, saved themselves from the real factories. Their intermediaries."
Unlike everyone else, Rose was desperate to see what was coming through the door. She heard footsteps, heavy metal footsteps. Then the buzz of electronic equipment.
"Rose Tyler," said a voice that wasn't quite human. Tegan looked at her, eyes wide, but she didn't move away. "Rose Tyler," said the voice again.
Her collar beeped. Low and inoffensive, but enough for everyone around her, save Tegan, to treat her as though she were a bomb about to explode.
And then the crowd parted and she saw them. Not quite human, but not the metallic creatures Brigadier Bambera had shown her either. Their arms and legs were made of metal, their faces pale but made of flesh. Eyes. She couldn't look into their eyes.
"You are Rose Tyler," said the first one, the metallic arm reaching out, seizing her forearm in an unbreakable grip.
"Who are you? What do you want?" she demanded.
It pulled her away. No-one moved.
"Where are you taking her?" demanded Tegan. Rose looked back over her shoulder, grateful for what would be nothing more than a token gesture, and saw how pale Tegan was from even going that far.
"Processing," one of them answered. "She will become like us."