Army of Ghosts
Tyler Residence
11:00am, 7th November 2007
"Mum!" Rose called into the flat, causing Jackie to stop her cleaning of her kitchen with a wide grin. "It's us! We're back!" The front door closed shut and Jackie rushed to the door, seeing Rose, wearing a blue Punky fish hoodie, an American Apparel black vest, Topshop trousers, wearing a large red and black backpack, while Clara and the Doctor stood patiently behind her.
"Oh, I don't know why you bother with that phone. You never use it!" Jackie admonished.
Rose shook her head. "Shut up. Come here."
The two embraced in a warm hug, parting as Jackie patted Rose on the cheek. "Love you." She said as Rose walked past her, and Jackie turned to Clara. "Nice to see you, gorgeous." Jackie said.
Clara blushed. "Shut up-"
"No, you are gorgeous." Jackie bluntly stated in an interruption.
Clara smiled. "Thank you. Why…are you wearing all blue?" She asked.
Jackie looked down at her blue vest and jeans and she shrugged. "What's wrong with blue?"
Clara smirked mischievously. "Nothing."
Jackie shook her head and wrapped her in a hug. "It's not because of the box. Blue is just a nice colour." Jackie defended.
"It is." Clara agreed as they parted, seeing the Doctor trying to wordlessly shuffle his way past them.
"Oh no, you don't. Come here!" Jackie said, grabbing him by the suit and wrenching him forward into a hug, kissing him on the lips and cheeks all the while.
"No, just-just-just put me down!" The Doctor whined while Clara laughed at him. "Clara, help me!"
"Hell no." Clara giggled, moving past them to join Rose in the living room.
"Oh, you lovely big fella. You brought her back, safe and sound." Jackie mewled, giving him one final kiss on the lips before parting to follow the two girls, while the Doctor with a scrunching face of disgust, wiped his mouth with his hand as he timidly followed her into the room.
"I've got loads of washing for you." Rose said, taking off her backpack and placing it down beside the small sofa. "And, I've got you this." Rose added, reaching into her pocket. "If I can get it." She muttered.
"Clara." The Doctor whimpered, moving straight over to his girlfriend. "Can I-"
"No." Clara said, popping an Altoid into her mouth and placing the tin box back inside her pocket.
"But-"
"No." Clara said simply before moving to lean back against the wall.
"Here we go." Rose said, pulling out a small golden device, which Jackie blinked at in puzzlement. "It's from the market on this asteroid bazaar. It's made of, um…um…what's it called?" Rose asked the couple behind her.
""Bezoolium"." The Doctor said with a mouthful of Altoids.
"It's a form of-wait." Clara stopped, looking at the Doctor and the tin box in his hands. "How did you-"
"Revenge is best served with sweets." The Doctor quipped, making Clara's jaw drop incredulously.
She pointed her finger at his face and, after a few moments of him staring smugly at her, just sighed in frustration. "I'm going to get you for that." She said, snatching the box out of his hands and thrusting it back into her pocket.
Rose looked at Jackie and rolled her eyes. "Complete and utter bonkers."
"Obviously." Jackie said simply.
"Anyway, when this…" She said, holding up the device again, "gets cold, it means it's going to rain. When it's hot, it's going to be sunny. You can use it to tell the weather!" Rose beamed.
Jackie gave her a somewhat lazy smile. "Well, I'm sure it'll be better than the forecasters on TV." She grumbled.
"Oi! They don't-" Jackie interrupted Rose with a simple stare. "Okay, they're pretty…hit and miss."
"And that's putting it lightly." Jackie said, swatting her arm. "I've got a surprise for you too. Guess who's coming to visit? You're just in time, he'll be here at 10 pasts. Who do you think it is?"
Rose shrugged. "I don't know."
"Go on, guess." Jackie said but Rose shook her head.
"No, I hate guessing. Just tell me."
Jackie smiled. "It's your grandad. Grandad Prentice. He's on his way, any minute." Jackie blinked as if she just realized something. "Cup of tea." She quickly said as she disappeared into the kitchen.
"She's gone mad." Rose muttered as the couple stepped up from the wall to stand behind her.
"Tell us something new." The Doctor quipped but Rose interrupted him.
"No, grandad Prentice. That's her dad." Rose informed. "But he died like 10 years ago." That made them slowly melt their smiles into a bewildered frown. "Oh my god, she's lost it. Mum." She called, moving to step inside the kitchen door, while the Doctor and Clara peeked over her shoulders. "What you just said about grandad-"
"Any second now." Jackie nodded.
"But…he passed away." Rose said obviously. "His heart gave out. Do you remember that?"
"Course I do."
"Then, how can he come back?" Rose asked.
"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Jackie checked her watch for the time. "10 past. Here he comes." A small rushing sound like wind in a tunnel flowed through the room and, walking right through the window and into the kitchen to stand beside Jackie was a pale grey, blurry figure, yet still noticeably Human in appearance. "Here we are, then. Dad say hello to Rose. Hasn't she grown?" Jackie asked while Rose just stared at the ghostly figure in utter amazement. Jackie however, blinked in surprised puzzlement. "Where did they go?" She asked.
Rose turned around to see neither of the couple in the flat, but the front door was wide open, and she gave a low sigh of exasperation. "They'll be outside." She said, and she rushed out of the door, followed slowly by Jackie as they headed down the apartment staircase and down to the ground floor to see the Doctor and Clara gazing around at the grey ghostly figures in the street in wonder, which Rose quickly joined in with.
"They're everywhere." The Doctor muttered with a frown.
"Clara, look out!" Rose called, and the Doctor turned to see a ghost walking straight through Clara, who stiffened and gasped in shock that quickly faded as the ghost walked away.
The Doctor bounded straight over to her and placed his hands on her arms as she stared at him in wide eyed shock. "Are you okay?" He asked, and she slowly nodded her head. "What happened?"
"It felt…cold and…sad." She said, and he quickly drew her into a hug. "Ugh, I don't want to live in Hogwarts anymore." She quipped lightly, to which he gave her a grateful and warm smile.
"They haven't got long." Jackie informed as she joined them. "Their shifts only last a couple of minutes. They're about to fade."
"What do you mean, "Shift"?" The Doctor asked, his frown returning as he and Clara, still giving a loose hug, stared back around at all the ghosts. "Since when did ghosts have shifts? Since when did shifts have ghosts? What's going on?"
"Oh, he's not happy when I know more than him, is he?" Jackie quipped lightly to Clara who just gave a small shrug.
"But no one's running or screaming or freaking out." The Doctor continued.
"Why should we?" Jackie asked as she checked her watch. "Here we go, 12 minutes past." And right on cue, the ghosts quickly stopped walking, shimmered slightly and, as if they were never there to begin with, they were just gone, not a single trace of them left behind. "If you want more of the scale of it, check the news." Jackie said, and the couple immediately raced ahead of Rose and Jackie towards the staircase. "What are they full of?" Jackie quipped to Rose, who giggled slightly as they followed them back into the flat to find them sitting down on the sofa and the TV already on. The Doctor already had his "Brainy Specs" on his eyes, as a brown-haired man wearing a black jacket and blue jeans sitting on a white desk with a few pieces of paper in his hands appeared on the screen.
"On today's "Ghostwatch", claims that some of the ghosts are starting to talk along with reports of a regular formation gathering around Westminster Bridge, in something rather akin to a military display."
"What the hell's going on?" The Doctor muttered beside Clara as he flicked the channel, while Rose and Jackie moved to sit with them.
"And tonight, we're expecting very strong ghosts." A middle-aged weatherman said in front of a map of Britain that was covered in stereotypical ghost pictures. "From London, through the north and up into Scotland."
"They'll be having fun with that." Clara commented as the Doctor flicked the channel.
""Trisha Goddard"?" The Doctor asked with a frown at the talk show as said TV hostess appeared on screen in the middle of her audience.
"So basically, Eileen, what you're telling me is that you are in love with a ghost?" She asked, the camera cutting to a crying black-haired woman with glasses sitting in a red chair while a singular ghost stood in front of a red chair beside her.
"He's my ghost," She sobbed, "and I love him, 24/7." The audience shared a "Aww" before they broke out into applause.
"Doesn't look like that will last." The Doctor quipped as he flicked the channel to a grey-haired man being drowned in blue light. "Who the hell is this?" He asked.
"Spiritual medium." Jackie answered.
"Well, no one needs me anymore." The man said in obvious distress while Clara just laughed at him.
"Tough luck." She said, the Doctor switching the channel while giving her a bewildered look.
"That's rude." He said before looking back at the TV. "I like happy mediums." He muttered, making Clara snigger as he glanced back at the TV. "What?" He muttered, the screen now showing a blonde woman wearing a flower apron with her hands behind her back and a really badly animated ghost beside her.
"My ghost was pale and grey until I discovered…" She pulled her hands out into view, carrying a small cannister saying, ""Ectoshine"." She said, her and the ghost giving beaming smiles.
"Ew." The four said in unison as he changed the channel.
"French reporters?" The Doctor muttered, changing the channel again. "Ghosts at the Taj Mahal?" He flicked the channel again, showing three Japanese women wearing black shirts with smiling ghosts on them, the three girls squealing and screaming that made their ears wince. "Ghosts being franchised." The Doctor muttered, shaking his head as he flicked the channel. "It's all over the world. Wait…what's this?" He asked, him and Clara getting bewildered looks as the TV showed a blonde woman wearing a blue vest, standing behind the bar at a pub, looking off screen with a scowl.
"Listen to me, Denn Watts! I don't care if you have come back from the grave, get out of my pub! The only spirits I'm serving in this place are Gin, Whiskey and Vodka. So, you heard me! Get out!" The lady snarled, and Clara quickly snatched the remote to turn it off.
"Soap Operas hurt my head." She said simply, and the Doctor nodded in agreement as they placed the remote down and turned to look at Rose and Jackie. "When did it all start?" Clara asked.
"Well," Jackie started, "first of all, Peggy heard this noise in the cellar, so she goes down-"
"Jackie," Clara muttered, "I meant worldwide."
"Oh." Jackie said simply, earning a giggle from Rose and she gave her a small admonishing whisper in response. "That was about two months ago. Just happened. Woke up one morning and there they all were. Ghosts, everywhere. We all ran around screaming and that, whole planet was panicking. No sign of either of you, thank you very much." Jackie admonished, earning an awkward glance between the couple. "But then, it just sort of sank in. Took us time to realize that…we're lucky."
"What makes you think it's grandad?" Rose asked.
"It just feels like him." Jackie said sombrely. "There's that smell, those old cigarettes. Can't you smell it?"
Rose just gave a sad sigh. "I wish I could, Mum, but I can't."
"You've got to make an effort." Jackie said softly. "You've got to want it, sweetheart."
"The more you want it, the stronger it gets?" Clara inputted dully.
"Sort of, yeah." Jackie muttered, and Clara's gaze turned sad.
"Jackie, I'm sorry, but there's no smell, no cigarettes, no presence. It's just a memory." Jackie didn't nod or shake her head in answer, but she did remain silent which made Clara just rub her forehead with her hand in tiredness.
"But, if they're not ghosts, what are they then?" Rose asked.
"But they're Human." Jackie protested, earning a slowly furrowing look from both the Doctor and Clara. "You can see them, they look Human."
"Mum has a point." Rose agreed. "I mean, they're all sort of blurred, but they're definitely people."
"Maybe. Maybe not." The Doctor muttered. "They're pressing themselves into the surface of the world. But a footprint doesn't look like a boot. Come on." He ushered and the Tyler's followed him and Clara out of the flat.
The Deep Centre of Torchwood Tower
Staying completely alone within the massive white and black chamber, he sat at his desk with his reading glasses on, gazing at a Sudoku book in his left hand with a blue pen laying lazily in his right. Every single silent, boringly aggravating second passed, making him sigh before he checked his watch, realizing he had spent nearly two hours on this book and not having even finished it due to the throbbing boredom in his mind. With a sudden jump, his earpiece sounded off a ringtone that made him take a few small breaths before answering, hearing the voice of his boss and the head of Torchwood: Yvonne Hartman.
"Rajesh? You got anything?" She asked, and he answered with a tired sigh.
"It's so busy down here." He quipped tiredly. "I'm on Sudoku book 509."
"Well, we just had a great ghost shift." She said.
Rajesh restrained his want to roll his eyes, blaming that instinct on that damned black sphere, looming ominously and silently in the room, almost as if it was taunting him. "I know. But we had nothing." Placing the pen inside the book and laying it on the desk, then pocketing his reading glasses and standing up from his chair, he moved over to a large white console that bore the logo and symbol of Torchwood, where he flicked a few switches to change some of the settings of the devices present in the room, all in fruitless hope to stop the boredom the sphere had brought down upon him. "Did they tell you?" He asked Yvonne as he worked on the panel, glancing nervously at the large black sphere, still sitting there, still glaring down at him. "R&D came up with a new Spectrometer yesterday. Barged in here, all full of themselves. Said they could detect the heat off a single protozoon through half a mile of steel."
"And what did it find?" Yvonne asked, and Rajesh didn't have to answer because Yvonne did it herself. "It found nothing, just like every other device they have made, or anyone has made for that matter." Yvonne said with a sarcastic teasing manner that helped to make Rajesh grow a smile on his face.
"I'm afraid so." Rajesh agreed with a slight snort. "It's the same as ever. The machines keep saying the sphere can't exist." Rajesh stopped his work and moved up to stand before the, quite admittedly, imposing sight that was the sphere, hovering many inches above a large staircase ladder at the end of the room, right in front of a golden wall and surrounded on either side by grey. "But there it is. Still there. Still the same as ever."
"Anything we can do?" Yvonne asked, any sweetness or quippy sarcasm dropped for actual worry and concern which made him give a soft smile.
"No, I'm all right." Rajesh answered. "It's just…" He trailed off, trying to figure out his feeling on the sphere.
"It's just what?"
Rajesh sighed. "It gets into your head, this thing, like it's…staring at you."
"I'm sorry about that, Rajesh." Yvonne said honestly. "All right, we'll catch up later. Thanks for everything, Raj."
"No problem." Rajesh let Yvonne hang up before he closed his eyes, ran his hand through his brushed back black hair and took a deep breath to calm himself before reopening them to stare back up at the sphere. Maybe…hmm…there's one experiment no one has tried. Rajesh moved to the base of the ladder, grasped the side railings and looked up at the sphere. He stared at it, and with each passing second sounding off with a loud "Tick-Tock" in his head, his composure and any bravado he had in just thinking about touching it was wiped from his mind. He withdrew his hand, used the back of it to wipe the sweat from his brow and he walked back to his desk, trying to avert the feeling that something, be it the sphere or inside the sphere, was staring at his back, and not in a friendly manner.
Yvonne, a 5-foot 5 blonde woman wearing a black suit dress, with three silver necklaces with a small black diamond across her collarbone and complete with high heels, stood within the central and top office of the Torchwood Tower, one side being a simple white wall with two massive levers raised up and pointing to the ceiling on either side. On the back end by the only entrance into the room, that is if you excluded the sheer drop from the windows, was her personal office, sealed away from her co-workers and employees by a thin glass wall with two glass doors, both of which bore the Torchwood logo on them. Past that was a series of desks, two on the left wall and three on the right, every person here wearing a beaming smile after their remarkable ghost shift. Yvonne walked up to the second desk on the left, where a black haired, dark skinned woman in a nice brown suit dress, who just like herself and everyone at Torchwood, wore a silver earpiece. I blame the age of Bluetooth on that. Yvonne remarked to herself as she peered over at the desk belonging to Adeola Oshodi. "Adi." She said, immediately earning a sweet smile from Adi, who paused her typing work. "Any sign of that power loss?" She asked with a twinkle in her eyes, referring to the power drain needed for the ghost shift.
Adi, who had at once caught the mischievous twinkle in her eyes, just smirked. "No problems. Must've been a glitch." Adi winked, and Yvonne chuckled.
"Thanks, Adi." Yvonne said before moving over to the third desk at the opposite wall of the room, to a black-haired technician by the name of Matt Crane, who wore a black suit with a blue shirt and matching tie. "Matt." Yvonne said, drawing said man out of his work as he glanced up at Yvonne. "Get on to hospitality and send Rajesh something, will you? He's going mad down there. Not alcohol." She quickly added with a mischievous smile, walking away towards her office as Matt chuckled behind her before she entered and took a seat at her desk. Yvonne went back to her work, typing away at her laptop for a couple of minutes before transitioning over to pen and paper before she took a moment break to stretch her back, noticing one of her employees, spikey brown-haired Gareth Evans, walking up to her office and knocking on her door. "Yes?" She called, allowing the man to open the door and pop his head inside.
"I'm going to double check the stacks. Just in case." Gareth said, and Yvonne shrugged, but inwardly, she was smirking like mad.
"Sure." She said, and Gareth closed the glass door before walking away. Yvonne leant back in her chair, still fighting off her devilish smirk. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Right on cue, Adeola got up from her desk, walked over to her office door and knocked politely. "Yes?"
Adeola opened the door and popped her head inside. "Yvonne, I'm just going to cross-reference the levels with the sphere."
"Okay, fine." She nodded and Adeola grinned before closing the door and walking away, almost but not completely succeeding at hiding her excited pace in her walk. And those two think I haven't noticed. Either way, they better come back in time for the next shift.
11:40am
"Hello?" Rose called as she entered the TARDIS, carrying a newspaper in her hands. To her own personal irritation, she could see the Doctor and Clara huddling down underneath the console, their giggling, despite their best efforts to be quiet, still reached Rose's ears. Those two betters be snogging and not making me the source of an inside joke, I swear to god. She groaned mentally as she walked up to the console. "According to the paper, they've elected a ghost as M.P for Leeds. Now, don't tell me you both are going to sit back and do nothing." She said, placing the paper on the console and looking down at the backs of the couple.
Then, the Doctor sprung up without warning, earning a gasp from Rose as he carried a large brown backpack and a small trumpet in his hands, all the while Clara played an instantly familiar song off her phone. "If there's something strange, in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call?"
"Ghostbusters!" Clara and Rose said in unison with the phone as the Doctor raced to the door with Clara quick on his toe.
"If there's something weird, and it don't look good, who you gonna call?"
"Ghostbusters!"
Rose followed them outside, their chosen parking place being a currently unused public playground, which they blamed on it being the middle of the week and still during school terms, to see Jackie looking at the giggling couple with a bewildered expression on her face. "I know." Rose quickly said, interrupting Jackie from asking what a rather obvious question would be, so said woman just decided to give a shrug as the couple set up a small triangle, its three points consisting of small golden pods, all linked by cables that the Doctor was gathering together.
"When's the next shift?" Clara asked Jackie as the Doctor placed a small black console on the ground and hooked the three cables into it before hooking a large separate cable from a large cable drum into the console.
"Quarter to." Jackie said after checking her watch. "But don't go causing trouble." She quickly added.
"Nah!" They said in unison, making Jackie roll her eyes.
"What's this lot do?" Rose asked, motioning to the improvised triangle.
"Triangulates their point of origin. Yeah?" The Doctor asked with a beaming grin. "TRIANG-"
"No." Clara admonished, earning a small whine from the Doctor.
"I don't suppose this is the Gelth?" Rose asked to get them back on course.
"No. They were just passing through a rift, remember?" Clara said. "All these boys and girls, if they have genders that is, are appearing all over the whole planet."
"You two are always doing this." Jackie huffed. "Reducing it to science. Why can't it be real?" She asked. "Just think of it. All the people we've lost, our families coming back home. Don't you think it's beautiful?"
"I think it's bloody horrific." Clara bluntly said, earning a shocked look from Jackie, but her eyes showed a small level of sadness at Clara. "Rose, give us a hand." Clara motioned for said girl to follow her back into the TARDIS and up to the console monitor as the Doctor took the wire drum and began to unravel it. "Soon as the cone-pyramid-pod things, whatever they're called, activate, then the monitor will tell you with this line." She said, pointing to a sort of blue tube on the monitor. "If it goes into the red, press this button here." She said, pointing to a blue button beneath the monitor. "If it doesn't stop when you do so…one moment…" She muttered, searching her pockets for her sonic. "Was it setting 15A or 15B?!" She called.
"15B!" The Doctor yelled back as he entered the TARDIS, still rolling out the cable as fast as he could, Jackie following in slowly after him to lean against one of the coral arches.
"Well, there you go." Clara shrugged, placing her sonic in Rose's grasp. "Use it against the port for 8 seconds then stop."
Rose nodded. "15B, 8 seconds."
"If it goes into the blue, activate the deep scan on the left." Clara pointed to the panel on the left of the monitor.
"Is it that one there?" Rose asked, pointing to a small brown button.
"Close."
*Beeps* (Ish)
"Hey!" Rose retorted with a smirk, the TARDIS giving a giggling sound around her. "That one?" She asked, placing her hand on a large silver pod with a red button on top.
*Beeps* (Now you've endangered everyone)
"Leave her alone!" Clara retorted with a smirk.
"That one?" Rose asked, pointing to a smaller silver pod with a golden button on top.
"Yes." Clara nodded. "You got it." She patted a grinning Rose on the back.
*Beeps* (Finally)
"Stop it." The Doctor warned playfully as he tossed the empty cable drum aside before hooking the cable into the console. "Now, what've we got? Two minutes to go?" He asked Jackie who went to check her watch.
"Come on, then!" Yvonne said with a clap of her hands as her employees rushed to get everything ready. "Two minutes to the next shift. Let's make it a good one, people." Yvonne looked over at the door to see Adeola and Gareth walking back into the large room, with rather void expressions on their faces but Yvonne couldn't really care. They were late enough as it was. "Come on, you two." She grumbled.
"I'm sorry we're late." Adeola apologized before moving to her desk.
"Save it till later." Yvonne growled.
"Sorry we're late." Gareth apologized before taking a seat at his desk.
"All right." Yvonne quickly cleared her throat and looked at everyone in the room. "Everyone ready?" They all gave either an enthusiastic "Yes ma'am!" or a thumbs up with a grin and Yvonne beamed as two scientists with white jackets and white gloves grabbed the two levers and began to raise them up, a blinding white light shining from the far wall causing everyone except for Adeola and Gareth to put on sunglasses to protect their eyes. "And...we're into ghost shift." Yvonne proclaimed as she placed on her glasses.
"What's the line doing?!" The Doctor exclaimed as he and Clara finished powering up the cone created triangle.
"It's all right! It's holding!" Rose yelled from within the TARDIS. "The scanner says: Delta 1-6!"
The Doctor placed his hands in his pockets with a massive grin. "Come on then, you beauty-ah!"
Clara just snorted at his behaviour, making him bump her with his shoulder. "Oi!" Clara bumped him back and he laughed.
"I can't help it!" He beamed. Right at that moment, the triangle cone sparked to life, creating a small electrical field as a singular ghost appeared inside of it, standing completely still yet quite obviously staring straight at them. The Doctor took out a pair of 3D glasses, staring at the ghost through them with furrowing eyebrows, which he noticed got a puzzled Clara's attention, even when she still returned it to the ghost in front of them.
"Doctor, why-" The Doctor cut her off by taking them off and placing them over her own eyes and she looked at the ghost with a frown. "What?" She muttered, for the glasses showed the ghost looking even more blurred than it already was, with a large mass of tiny particles floating in conjunction with its body. "What?" She muttered again, still unable to understand it.
"Void stuff." The Doctor explained. "Well…it doesn't have a name, but it's the mass you soak up when you've been through the Void."
"Really?" Clara asked, glancing over at him before her eyes widened to see himself also caked in Void matter and she looked down at her own hand to see the same result. "We've both been through the void." She deducted. "That parallel world with the…" Clara trailed off and the Doctor nodded. "So, where have these guys come from?"
"I don't know." The Doctor muttered, kneeling down to play around with the settings on the small black console, causing the ghost to flare up and shudder, rather like it was getting an electric shock, a rather appropriate remark for the couple considering the ghost's current position. "Don't like that much, do you?" The Doctor asked with a chuckle. "What are you? Where have you all come from?" The ghost tried to lash out at them but considering the sizable distance between the couple and the field, they just looked at each other with a laugh. "It's not so friendly after all!" The Doctor quipped.
"Doctor." Clara pointed, and they both saw the ghost shimmering out of existence, the field turning off with it to a complete stop. "What happened?" She asked as she gave back the "Void Specs" to the Doctor, who quickly pocketed them away.
"We just triggered something for whoever's behind all of this." The Doctor explained. "But we just needed to do that to figure out where they are." The Doctor and Clara quickly began rushing about to gather up the equipment and stash it away back inside the TARDIS. "I said so, didn't I?!" The Doctor remarked as they closed the doors and he tossed his overcoat on one of the coral arches, before racing back over to the console with Clara. "Those ghosts have been forced into existence from one specific point and now we can track down the source. Allons-y!" He exclaimed, sharply lowering the dematerialization lever to send them tumbling into the Vortex.
An alarm began to flare all of a sudden, causing Yvonne and her employees to glance at each other in bewilderment before Matt motioned Yvonne to come over to his desk, which she did so without hesitation. "Turn that alarm off! We'll go deaf with that blaring in our ears!" Yvonne said and one of the employees moved to do so as she leaned over Matt to look at his computer. "What have we got?" She asked.
"Quite obviously, something's interfering with the ghost field. However, it's rather close. It's within in the city." Matt reiterated as he went to work.
"Close it down! Close it down!" Yvonne ordered, and the two scientists grasped and lowered the levers, allowing everyone to take off their sunglasses with a sigh of relief, their eyes briefly flaring up with a small haze which they simply fought off with a few blinks. "All right, Matt, talk to me." Yvonne said as she returned her attention to her employee.
"It was a very specific excitation of the ghost field, but that makes it easy to pinpoint." His computer showed a map of the Earth quickly zooming in on Britain. "We're almost there. South London." He muttered. "Southeast 15…a…it's a council estate, "The Powell Estate"." He said, the two of them briefly shooting each other puzzled looks at the odd location choice for a piece of science but they just shrugged it off. "SU15 7G0, a public area." He went to work, clacking away at his keyboard. "Let's see if they still have an active CCTV network." What he brought up was a single camera's vision of an unused playground in the area. "Here we go. We've got a camera within 50 yards." Matt reported, using his keyboard to turn the camera around, seeing nothing worthwhile right until they saw IT. The blue box of the TARDIS. Everyone at Torchwood would know immediately who it was behind the TARDIS and the two of them were no exception.
"Oh my god." Yvonne muttered in shock.
"Is it them?" Matt asked in the same tone as he zoomed the camera in closer to the TARDIS.
"It's them." Yvonne nodded. And right there, in front of their very eyes, the TARDIS dematerialized, and they immediately deduced what they had been up to and where they're going to now. "He's coming. She's coming." Yvonne muttered before she broke out into a massive grin. "They're both coming here!" She almost squealed in joy before racing from the room, her hand immediately opening a line to Rajesh. "Rajesh! It's them! They're coming here!"
"I love that! "Allons-y!"" The Doctor beamed as he and Clara piloted the TARDIS while Rose sat patiently on the Captain's chair. "I should say "Allons-y" more often. "Allons-y." Look out, Clara, my Clara, Allons-y!" Clara just burst out into laughter while he grinned, coming around to her as he wrapped her in a hug from behind. ""In the name of all that is good, Allons-y!"" Clara just laughed harder while he chuckled. "And then, it would be really brilliant if I met someone called "Alonso" because then I could say "Allons-y, Alonso!" every time!"
"Allons-y." Clara tried to say but all that came out was a weird stutter of giggles and words, which made the Doctor, unabashedly so, feel really nice in his hearts.
"You get it, my girl!" He proudly said, turning her head to kiss her lips, which quickly turned into a full-blown snog of passion for the couple that was interrupted by Rose blaring a soccer horn right in their ears, making them revolt back with a cry as they held their ears in protection. "What the hell?!" The Doctor cried as he massaged Clara's ears, said person burying her face in his chest with a small groan.
"My mum's still on board." Those five words made them fall into silence before they slowly turned around to see a furiously glowering Jackie glaring at them as she leaned against one of the coral arches with her arms crossed.
"If we end up on Mars, I'm going to kill the both of you." She snarled, the couple gulping in obvious nervousness while Rose bit her lip to hide a snigger before they scurried away to quickly land the TARDIS without another word.
"Well, look at that." Jackie quipped as she walked over to the console and glanced at the monitor, showing the outside view of the TARDIS where a team of 11 soldiers were pointing their rifles at the TARDIS doors, the first five kneeling in the front. "There goes your advantage of surprise." Jackie bluntly said.
"Still…" The Doctor started as he scratched the back of his head, "it cuts to the chase. Come on Clara." He ushered, taking her hand. "Stay in here, look after the terror of London." He said to Rose while Jackie's jaw dropped.
"How am I the terror of London?!" Jackie exclaimed but neither of the couple answered, they just sent each other winning smiles.
"We are so not finished in getting even with her." The Doctor quipped in Clara's mind, earning Clara's low giggle in her throat.
"I am not looking after my Mum." Rose protested, earning a scoff from Clara.
"Well, you did bring her along." Clara retorted.
"I was kidnapped!" Jackie protested.
Rose ran straight in front of them to bar the doorway with her own body. "They have got guns." Rose pointed out.
"And neither of us haven't, which makes us the better people than them." The Doctor retorted as Clara pulled Rose away from the door effortlessly. "They can shoot us dead, but the moral high ground is ours. I go first, Clara." He quickly added.
"Well, the high ground did help Obi-Wan after all." Clara shrugged.
"That's because lazy Anakin didn't want to just step onto land and walk up to the bastard. Look what happened to him in the long run." The Doctor quipped as he opened the door and stepped outside. The soldiers cocked their rifles and the Doctor calmly raised his hands above his head.
"Oh!" The Doctor blinked as the sound of high heels came clacking into the room, the source being a grinning Yvonne, who walked straight through the soldiers to stand in front of the Doctor. "Oh, how marvellous! Oh, very good!" She began clapping her hands and the Doctor blinked again, a silent sentiment that the soldiers shared, even as Yvonne glanced at them, a silent motion for them to join in with her, albeit rather timidly. "Superb! Happy day!" Yvonne laughed.
Once the applause died down, the Doctor lowered his hands and glanced at everyone in utter bewilderment. "Um…thanks. Nice to meet you. I'm…the Doctor."
Once he said his name, the soldiers gave a radiating unison expression of realization and begun to clap again with much more heartful vigour. "Oh, I should say! Hooray!" Yvonne said as she joined in with the clapping.
The Doctor, still confused, gave a small chuckle in his throat as the applause died down again. "You-you've heard of me then?" He asked dumbly.
"Well, of course we have." Yvonne smiled. "And I have to say, if it wasn't for you, none of us would be here. The Doctor AND the TARDIS."
The Doctor found it almost amusing that they started to clap once again, making him give a small smile, but he just shook it off to return to his puzzled look. "And you are?" He asked but Yvonne just gave a shrug.
"Oh, plenty of time for that. But according to the records, you haven't been traveling alone for quite a while. "The Doctor and his Carer", isn't that right? So, where is Clara?" Yvonne asked.
A clearing of a throat sounded from behind the Doctor, making him turn around to see Clara coming up beside him with a smile that did blend into a rather confused gaze in her eyes. "Hi." She waved.
"There she is!" Yvonne beamed, creating yet another round of applause which Clara just blushed at.
"What's going on?" Clara asked the Doctor.
"No idea." He replied as the applause calmed down.
"Well, true to the records, you are quite the fitting couple." Yvonne remarked which made them briefly glance at each other with a soft look. "But on a final note, you two are not ones for traveling alone. The Doctor, Clara and their friend or friends. Isn't that the pattern, right?" Yvonne asked, earning silence from the couple which made her sigh. "There's no point in hiding anything, not from us. So, where is she?"
The couple exchanged a small look before they smiled once again. "Yes, sorry, good point." The Doctor said as he walked back and reached a hand into the TARDIS. "She's just a bit shy, that's all. Here she is. Rose Tyler." He introduced as he pulled Jackie out of the TARDIS and closed the doors. Jackie gave a confused expression mixed with a light glare at the Doctor which quickly turned into a smile at the sight of their new company. "She's not the best I've ever had." Jackie gave him an incredulous look while Clara bit her lip to restrain her giggling. "Bit too blonde. Not too steady on her pins and a lot of blah blah blah." He said with a matching hand motion which earned a deeper glare from Jackie. "And just last week she stared into the heart of the Time Vortex and aged 57 years, but she'll do."
"I'm 40!" Jackie protested.
"Deluded." Clara inputted, earning an incredulous look from Jackie. "We may have to trade her in. Do you need anyone?" She asked a very amused Yvonne. "She can do tea…ish." Jackie just glared at her while Clara raised her eyebrows in silent challenge.
"Anyway, lead on." The Doctor interrupted. "Allons-y." Yvonne nodded and motioned for the soldiers to accompany them. "But not too fast. Her ankle's going." The Doctor commented as he and Clara moved hand in hand to follow them down into a hallway.
"I'll show the both of you where my ankle's going!" Jackie snarled, earning smug grins from the couple as they walked behind Yvonne.
"It was only a matter time until you found us and at last, you both made it." Yvonne said. "I'd like to welcome you, Doctor and Clara. Welcome to Torchwood." She flung open a double set of light brown doors and entered into a massive warehouse hall, where many a worker or scientist was moving large sealed boxes containing "Classified" artefacts or were experimenting on said artefacts. One sight in particular drew their attention, a massive black ship in the shape of a traditional UFO, parked on four large legs and spurting steam from small outlets on the bottom of the ship.
"That's a Jathar Sunglider." The Doctor muttered as he stared at the ship.
"Came down to Earth off the Shetland Islands 10 years ago." Yvonne said before either Clara or Jackie could ask about it.
"Did it crash?" The Doctor asked.
"No, we shot it down." Yvonne said, earning a frown from both the Doctor and Clara, which just made her shrug. "It violated our airspace. Then we stripped it bare. The weapon that destroyed the Sycorax on Christmas Day? That was us." Yvonne said proudly and the frowns from the couple turned into glares which Jackie started to echo on her own, but Yvonne once again just shrugged it off, walking through the warehouse with the group. "The Torchwood Institute has a motto. "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 asked, earning a blink from Yvonne.
"The British Empire." Yvonne repeated.
"There isn't a British Empire." Jackie reminded but Yvonne just smiled.
"Not yet." Yvonne saw a fellow soldier walking by them with a large mechanical weapon and she called to him. "Excuse me." He nodded and allowed her to take the weapon in her arms and she looked at the Doctor and Clara. "Do you recognize this, Doctor?"
"That's a Particle Gun." The Doctor answered.
"Good, isn't it?" Yvonne smiled. "Took us 8 years to get it to work."
"It's the 21st Century. You can't have Particle Guns." The Doctor said sternly, earning a huff from Yvonne.
"We must defend our border against the alien." Yvonne looked back at the soldier and handed the weapon back. "Thank you…Sebastian, isn't it?" Yvonne asked.
"Yes ma'am."
"Thank you, Sebastian." Yvonne said politely as Sebastian walked away and she turned back to the trio. "I think it's very important to know everyone by name." Yvonne said honestly. "Torchwood is a very modern organization. People skills, that's what it's all about these days. I'm a people person." She said with a smile.
"Have you got anyone called "Alonso"?" The Doctor asked.
Yvonne blinked. "I don't think so. Is that important?"
"No." Clara answered for the Doctor before looking at said man. "There's a time and a place." She said and he simply pouted in reply. "Never asked, what's your name?" Clara asked.
"Yvonne. Yvonne Hartman." The trio nodded and walked over to a stack of wooden boxes, one of which was opened and showed two large black clamps with massive handles and a small red button on one side. "Ah yes, 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 tons of weight with a single hand." Yvonne commented as Clara picked up one with a slight "Oof". "That's an imperial ton, by the way. Torchwood refuses to go metric." Clara and the Doctor inspected it for a few brief moments before she tossed the clamp she held back in, rubbing her hand slightly with a wince, which the Doctor quickly moved in to take over by rubbing her hand softly for her.
"I could do with that to carry the shopping." Jackie commented.
Yvonne shook her head. "All these devices are for Torchwood's benefit, not the general publics." Jackie just gave her a dull look which Yvonne once again shrugged off.
"So, what about these ghosts?" Clara asked.
"Ah yes, the ghosts." Yvonne nodded. "They're…what you might call a side effect."
"Of what?" She asked.
Yvonne gave her a light look. "All in good time, Clara. There is an itinerary, trust me."
Right from behind Yvonne, a large truck carrying the TARDIS zoomed past, earning an incredulous look from Jackie and dull frowns from the Doctor and Clara. "Oi, where are you taking that?!" Jackie demanded.
""If it's alien, it's ours"."
"You'll never get inside it." The Doctor simply said, and Yvonne huffed.
"Et cetera." Yvonne remarked before walking off, motioning for them to follow her and just missing Clara's subtle glance and a nod towards the TARDIS before they turned a corner into a long hallway, their destination being a left way turn at the end.
"All those times on Earth, I've never heard of you." The Doctor said.
"Well, of course not. You're the enemy." Yvonne responded. "You're actually named in the Torchwood Foundation Charter of 1879 as an enemy of the crown."
"1879." The Doctor muttered and Clara tugged his arm. "What?" He asked.
"The house." Clara said.
"Oh!" The Doctor beamed. "That house in Scotland! That was called Torchwood!"
"That's correct." Yvonne commented proudly. "Where you both encountered Queen Victoria and the werewolf."
"And then we were knighted and banished from England in the same day." Clara added but Yvonne shrugged.
"Only for one hundred years." Yvonne simply said. "Technically, you're still Sir Doctor and Dame Clara of TARDIS, even after one hundred years."
"I honestly think they both just make half of it up." Jackie commented, earning a chuckle from Yvonne.
"In this world, half of everything sounds like something completely made up." Yvonne agreed.
"Did old Vicky create all of this?" Clara asked.
Yvonne raised her eyebrows. "Vicky?" Clara shrugged and Yvonne laughed. "I can see why he adores you." She smiled and Clara just blushed lightly. "Her majesty created the Torchwood Institute with the express intention of keeping Britain great and fighting the alien horde."
"But if we're the enemy, doesn't that mean we're prisoners?" The Doctor asked.
"Oh yes." Yvonne nodded as they rounded the corner and walked to stand in front of a large brown door with a small circular scanning panel on its right. "But we'll make you perfectly comfortable and there is so much you can teach us, starting with this." Yvonne took a small I.D pad out of her pocket and briefly pressed it against the panel, the door sliding straight open and allowing the group to enter, the Doctor, Clara and Jackie's gazes immediately going to the immensely large black sphere hanging above their heads. "Now, what do you make of that?" Yvonne asked rhetorically, immediately deducing by their captivated gazes that they would need a moment to take it in, and they even missed Rajesh looking shocked at their appearance before straitening himself up and walking towards the couple.
"You must be the Doctor and Clara." Rajesh said as he stood in front of the couple and held his hand out. "Rajesh Singh. It's an honour, sir, ma'am."
"Yeah." They muttered, shaking his hand but only briefly glancing down at him. "Sorry, it's just…" Rajesh nodded, turning his gaze back up to the sphere and the Doctor and Clara walked past them all to the bottom of the staircase.
"What is that thing?" Jackie asked.
"We've got no idea." Yvonne answered simply.
"What's wrong with it?"
Yvonne and Rajesh blinked at her. "What makes you think there's something wrong with it?" Rajesh asked.
"I don't know." Jackie muttered. "It just…feels weird."
"The sphere has that effect on everyone." Yvonne agreed. "It makes you want to run and hide, like it's forbidden."
"Clara." The Doctor pulled out his "Void Specs" and placed them over her eyes. "Here. Have a look." He took a gentle grasp of her shoulders as they stared back up at the sphere and her jaw dropped.
"That's…a lot of that…stuff." Clara stuttered out and he nodded, yet their conversation didn't reach the people behind them as they only whispered.
"We've tried analysing it using every device imaginable." Rajesh explained. "But according to our instruments, 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 and Rajesh took off his reading glasses.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" He remarked. "It upsets people because it gives off…nothing. It is absent."
Yvonne walked up to the staircase where the Doctor and Clara stood, still gazing up at the sphere. "Well then? What do you two think?" She asked.
"This is a void ship."
Yvonne glanced over at Rajesh, who with thorough intrigue in his eyes, walked over to stand beside her. "And what is that?" She asked the Doctor.
"Well, it's impossible for starters." The Doctor shrugged as Clara took off the "Void Specs" and handed them over to him, which he placed over his own eyes. "I always thought it was just a theory but…it's a vessel designed to exist outside Time and Space, traveling through the void." He took off and pocketed his "Void Specs", him and Clara turning their attention away from the sphere and towards Yvonne and Rajesh.
"And what's "The Void"?" Rajesh asked.
The Doctor nodded to Clara, who moved to stand in front of the pair and assumed her old "Teacher Mode", which they both found rather amusing and somewhat intriguing to watch. "The space between dimensions. You know the theory of alternate dimensions, trillions upon trillions of realities all stacked up against each other like London housing, right?" They nodded. "Well, "The Void" is the space in between and it contains absolutely nothing." Their eyes widened and she smiled. "Try to imagine that. Nothing at all. No light, no dark, no directions, no north, no south, no up, no down, no math, no life, no time, no death, all without end." Clara gave a sigh as her voice went completely grim. "Everyone's given different names to it. "The Void", "The Dark Abyss", "The Howling". It's more appropriate to call it Hell."
Yvonne's gaze turned to light sadness and she gave a sigh. "So, why would someone build the sphere? Why would they go there?"
"To escape. To hide." Clara said. "Remember, wars aren't just related to us here on Earth. Billions of other races have many wars, against themselves or against others. Some wars are so much bigger that they swallow entire civilizations into dust. But if you escaped into the Void, it would completely ignore you altogether. You could sit inside it and an eternity would pass you by. The Big Bang, Supernovas, Black Holes, the End of the Universe, the start of the next and it all wouldn't even touch the sides. You'd exist outside all of creation."
"You see?" Yvonne smiled at Rajesh. "We were right. There IS something inside it."
"That there is." The Doctor agreed grimly, making Yvonne's smile fade.
"So, how do we get in there?" Rajesh asked.
"We don't!" The Doctor growled, moving straight passed them and pulling Clara with him. "We send that thing back into Hell! How did it get here in the first place?!" He demanded.
"Well, that's how it all started." Yvonne said. "The sphere came through into this world and the ghosts followed in its wake."
"Show us." The Doctor said, power walking straight ahead to the door, making Clara, Jackie and Yvonne move to follow behind him as he turned to the left.
"No, Doctor." Yvonne called and he turned around to walk the other way. "We're going to the main office, which is at the top of the tower. You're better off taking the lift." Yvonne remarked, the small group walking into a lift while Yvonne motioned the soldiers that were accompanying them to move to a new station. The lift doors shut, and they waited and waited, then before long, which did feel like an eternity for them since they were taking a lift in a skyscraper after all, they arrived at the topmost floor of the building. Yvonne led them into the main office and up towards the massive white wall, which got the Doctor and Clara to stare at it in complete puzzlement as Jackie looked on from the entrance to Yvonne's office. "The sphere came through here. A hole in the world." Clara moved up and placed a hand on the wall, feeling almost a hazy breeze against her hand, which made her glance at Yvonne. "Odd, isn't it? You feel like there's a tunnel beyond and on the other side, from time to time, there's a brief presence. You can almost feel it against you, but it's barely there."
"What about when you activate it?" Clara asked.
Yvonne laughed. "No. Touching or interacting with the wall is out of bounds when a shift goes online. Right now, of course, it isn't active. But when we fire particle engines at that exact spot, the breach opens up."
"And how did you find it?" The Doctor asked, earning a shrug from Yvonne.
"We'd been 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 took out his "Void Specs" to stare at the wall for a few seconds before handing them to Clara. "You built a skyscraper just to reach a spatial disturbance. How much money have you got?"
Yvonne just smiled. "Enough." She said simply before walking back to her office, leaving the couple to stand there, looking at it for a few moments before Clara took off the "Void Specs" and handed them back to the Doctor, who quickly pocketed them.
"Makes me feel bad for "The Night's Watch"." Clara quipped.
The Doctor hushed her, looking around to see if anybody heard but they didn't, so he took her hand to make it more…private. "The Wall is still taller than six hundred feet." The Doctor reminded.
"Yes. And they're out in the open, freezing their asses off." Clara added. "So long as they keep away from Craster. That man gave me the creeps." She gave a small shudder, which made him look at her in puzzlement.
"Who's "Craster"?" The Doctor asked, and Clara just bit her lip for a moment before smiling.
"Spoilers." She said simply before she led him away from the wall and towards Yvonne's office, where Jackie was standing by a window and looking outside.
"Hold on a minute. We're in Canary Wharf." Jackie said and Yvonne nodded. "Must be, this building. It's Canary Wharf."
"That is the public name for it. But to those in the know, it's Torchwood." Yvonne said.
The Doctor knocked on the glass door, earning their attention as he and Clara leaned against it and one another. "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. 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 remarked sarcastically.
"It's a massive source of energy." Yvonne responded calmly. "If we can harness that power, we need never depend on the Middle East again. Britain will become truly independent." Yvonne glanced down at her watch for a moment before giving them a dull look. "Look, you can see for yourselves. Next ghost shift's in two minutes." Yvonne moved past them and out of her office, but they didn't move at all.
"Cancel it." The Doctor said simply.
"I don't think so." Yvonne declined.
"I'm warning you, cancel it!" The Doctor growled.
"Oh, exactly as the legends would have it." Yvonne retorted, turning around to look at him defiantly. "The Doctor, lording it over us, assuming alien authority over the rights of Man."
"Which doesn't matter when Man could kill themselves by being idiots." Clara snapped, taking out her sonic. "Let me show you." She moved to stand behind the glass wall and pointed her sonic to the exact centre of the first "O" in the Torchwood logo. "Sphere comes through." She activated the sonic, causing a hole to appear in that place and causing thousands of cracks to spread from the hole like a massive spider web. After a couple of moments, Clara stopped and pocketed her sonic away. "When it made that hole, it cracked the world around it. The entire surface of this dimension splintered. And that's how the ghosts get through, that's how they get everywhere by bleeding through the fault lines, walking from their world, across the Void and into ours. With the Human Race hoping and wishing and helping them along the way. But too many ghosts and…" She trailed off, finishing her point by pressing her finger lightly against the glass, the slightest pressure of it causing the glass to shatter, falling with a loud crash to the floor and spreading everywhere, which did earn a few odd looks from some of the employees present.
"Well, in that case, we'll have to be more careful." Yvonne muttered, not that she was denying being impressed by the display Clara put on. She just shrugged it off, since she had mastered that a long time ago. "Positions! Ghost shift in one minute!" She called and the employees started rushing about to prepare themselves.
"Mrs. Hartman, we are asking you, please don't do this." Clara pleaded.
"We have done this a thousand times." Yvonne said with a roll of her eyes.
"Then stop at a thousand!" Clara growled.
"We are in control of the ghosts. The levers can open the breach and equally, they can close it." Yvonne retorted and she opened her mouth to continue-
"Okay." The couple said in unison, giving her a shrug as the Doctor walked off, grabbing a chair and rolling it into the middle of the room and sat down on it while Clara sat on his lap.
"Sorry?" Yvonne asked in surprise.
"Never mind. As you were." They shrugged.
"What, is that it?" She asked.
They shrugged and Yvonne started to feel rather uneasy at their retorting to her statements. "Well, we said our bit. Ah well. No chance for a cup of tea?" They asked a worker, who was ever so slightly creeped out by their talking in unison, but he still shook his head.
"Ghost shift in 20 seconds." Adeola said dully but no one took notice of her unemotional voice.
"Can't wait to see this." The Doctor said as Clara leaned her head back onto his right shoulder.
"You can't stop us. Either of you." Yvonne remarked defiantly as she crossed her arms.
"Absolutely not." The Doctor retorted back. "Pull up a chair, Rose. Come and watch the fireworks." He beamed and Jackie just moved to stand beside them, placing a hand on the back of the chair as the three of them stared down at Yvonne, who was quickly becoming nervous under the heat of their hardened glares.
"Ghost shift in 10 seconds." Adeola reported. "9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1-"
"Stop the shift!" Yvonne demanded suddenly, which Adeola immediately agreed while the trio before her relaxed their posture and gave her incredibly thankful looks.
"Thank you." The Doctor said gratefully.
Yvonne sighed. "I suppose it makes sense, to get as much intelligence as possible. But the program will recommence as soon as you both have explained everything."
"We're glad to be of help." Clara said calmly.
"And someone clear up this glass!" She called to one of her employees before glancing slyly at Clara. "They did warn me, you know. They said you two love to make a mess." She quipped before walking back into her office.
The Doctor shot Jackie a small look before he glanced at Clara, who was gazing distantly at Adeola, Gareth and Matt. "Clara?" He whispered in her mind.
"Why is everyone else wearing one ear pod but these three have a pair of them?"
The Doctor frowned at that, looking at the three workers, who were gazing blankly at the white wall. "I'm sure we'll find out in a moment." The Doctor said, but it wasn't as a quip or in reassurance. Merely, it was just fact.
"Well, since I'm doing nothing, might as well be useful." Rose muttered to herself as she took a gentle hold of the Doctor's overcoat and took out his psychic paper, before moving over to the monitor to observe the outside of the TARDIS. To its left were a trio of soldiers chattering away amongst themselves while to her right was a small unused work bench with a scientist's white lab coat draped over it. Rose silently crept outside, stole the coat and checked around her for a door. She saw another scientist, a dark-skinned man with a white lab coat walking through a door at the other end of the room. Rose hurried to follow, gazing down the hallway to see the silhouette of a man, whose form looked strangely familiar to Rose, staring at her before turning and rushing down the corridor. Rose raced to follow as he turned the corner, making her slow down to a slow walk as she turned the corner to see the entrance to the sphere chamber. Rose placed a kiss for luck onto the psychic paper before pressing it against the panel and, it slid wide open, making Rose give an inward sigh of relief and thanks as she walked inside, her breath taken away by the imposing sight of the sphere hanging in the room. My god. That is just…wrong. She mused to herself.
"Can I help you?" Rajesh asked as he walked up in front of her. She would have jumped in shock, but she was too busy gawping at the sight of the sphere.
"I was just…" She trailed off, pointing up at it. Rajesh turned to glance up at it and he gave a low sigh.
"Try not to stare at it. It does that to everyone. What do you want?" He asked again.
She shook her head as if to clear a daze, which briefly made him smile in amusement. "Sorry. Um, they sent me from Personnel. They said some random couple had been taken prisoner. Some sort of doctor and a short woman? I'm just…checking the lines of communication. Did they tell you anything?" Rajesh just stared blankly at her and Rose almost felt herself inwardly shrink. God, I must look bloody stupid right now.
"Can I see your authorization?" He asked.
"Sure." Rose handed him the psychic paper, which he only checked after putting on his reading glasses, but his expression quickly frowned.
"Well, that's lucky." He commented and Rose smiled. "You see, everyone at Torchwood has at least a basic level of psychic training. This paper is blank and you're a fake." His words made Rose's smile fade but inwardly she rolled her eyes.
You knew it was coming, blonde dumbo.
Rajesh pressed a finger against his ear pod. "Seal the room and call security." A loud clanking and grinding came from the door before Rajesh glanced behind him at the only other scientist working in the room. "Samuel. Can you check the door locks? She just walked right in." He said, turning his gaze back to Rose.
The man turned his head and grinned as he stared straight at Rose. "Doing it now, sir." Mickey said, Rose having to fight off her urge to give an utterly bewildered face as Mickey walked up from the other side of the room, quietly shushing her before grinning with two thumbs up and then comically crossing his face into a stereotypical stern expression. Rose had to fight the urge to either squeal or laugh since Rajesh was still looking at her.
"Well, if you'd like to take a seat." Rajesh motioned to his desk in the corner where two chairs sat, and Rose sighed. First ghosts, then Ghostbusters references, now Mum is me, now this…sphere…thing and Mickey is back. This is a fucking weird day.
"So, these ghosts, whatever they are, did they build the spheres?" Yvonne asked as she sat at her desk, while the Doctor and Clara sat in front of her in two separate chairs with the Doctor placing his feet on the desk, to Yvonne's amusement and irritation while Jackie stood silently behind them.
"Must have." The Doctor shrugged. "Aimed it at this dimension like a cannonball."
"Or a wrecking-"
"No!" The Doctor groaned, immediately making Clara pout. "We're not going over that again."
Yvonne's ear pod gave a small notification, which made her answer to hear Rajesh's voice. "Yvonne, I think you should see this. We've got a visitor. Don't know who she is, but funnily enough, she arrived at the same time as the Doctor and Clara."
"Patching a link through." Yvonne clacked away at her white laptop, appropriately bearing a Torchwood logo before she took her laptop and turned it around to show the Doctor and Clara a live feed of Rajesh and Rose sitting at a desk. "She one of yours?" Yvonne asked bluntly.
The couple just shook their heads. "Never seen her before. Ever." The Doctor said.
Yvonne smiled. "Good. Then we can have her shot."
They groaned and Yvonne grinned as the Doctor sat straight up in his chair. "Oh, all right then, it was worth a try. That's…that's Rose Tyler." The Doctor admitted, Yvonne frowning as she glanced back and forth between Jackie and Rose.
"Sorry." Rose quickly said. "Hello." She waved and the trio waved back with smiles.
"Well, if that's Rose Tyler, who's she?" Yvonne asked, nodding to Jackie.
"I'm her mother."
The couple groaned and Yvonne gave a chuckle in her throat. "Oh, you both travel with her mother."
"Not likely." Jackie scoffed at her hidden meaning. "Either way, they kidnapped me."
"Please, when Torchwood comes to write my complete history, don't tell people I've travelled through Time and Space with her mother." The Doctor said, earning a laugh from Yvonne and a frown from Jackie.
"Charming." Jackie replied.
"Watch the ego." Clara said to the Doctor, who just pouted at her.
"Clara, I've got a reputation to uphold." He whined.
"No, it's an ego." Clara retorted.
"Excuse me!" Yvonne called suddenly as she got up and walked to stand in the entrance of her office, and the trio immediately noted that the far wall was starting to get just a little bit bright all of a sudden. "I thought I said: Stop the shift!" She demanded but the only employees that were actually working was Adeola, Gareth and Matt. "Who started the program?!" Yvonne demanded again, her nervousness from earlier returning full force as none of them answered or even glanced at her. "Right, step away from the monitors, everyone!" They still didn't respond, which made the Doctor and Clara immediately stand up and move into the room to get a closer look at the three blank workers. "Gareth, Ade, Matt, stop what you're doing right now. Step away from the desks! That's an order!"
"Hold the levers!" Clara ordered, and the bewildered employees present quickly moved and attempted to hold the levers down while she moved up to Adeola. "What are you doing?" She asked Adeola in a mutter.
"Ade, listen to me, step away from the desk!" Yvonne demanded but Adeola didn't respond, not even to Clara clicking her fingers mere centimetres from Adeola's face.
"She can't hear you and they're overriding the system." Clara said grimly, her face setting into a clenched jaw as she studied Adeola, but specifically, the pair of beeping ear pods. "It's here and it's happening again." Clara said, standing up and taking out her sonic. "I'm truly sorry for this." She pressed her sonic against Adeola's ear pods and activated it, making her, Gareth and Matt scream in agony before they collapsed onto their desks, unmoving and motionless.
"What happened? What did you just do?" Yvonne asked Clara as she pocketed her sonic.
"They're dead." Clara simply said, making Jackie scowl at her.
"You killed them."
"No, someone else did that before we got here." Clara retorted as she and the Doctor tried to reverse the system to no avail.
"But you killed them!" Jackie protested.
"Ugh, we don't have time for this!" Clara snapped, making Jackie have a brief look of shock before Yvonne interrupted.
"What are those earpieces?" Yvonne asked.
"Don't." Clara simply said.
"But they're standard coms devices. How does it control them?" Yvonne asked again.
"Leave them alone!" Clara snarled.
Yvonne decided to ignore her and grasped onto Adeola's earpiece and yanked it out, bringing out a disgusting white tube of flesh that made her and Jackie scrunch their faces in disgust. "Ugh, god! It goes inside their brain!" She dropped it onto the desk, still looking at it in disgust.
"The ghost shift, Yvonne!" Clara reminded.
Yvonne raced over to the other side of the room to stand beside Clara and glanced down at what was Matt's monitor. "90% there and still running. Can't you stop it?"
Clara shook her head. "They're still controlling it. They've hijacked the system."
"Who's "They"?" Yvonne asked but Clara ignored her.
"It may be a remote transmitter, but it's got to be close by, so that would mean that we can trace it. Doctor." The Doctor immediately took out his sonic and started the scan as he moved to leave the room, Clara immediately following after him with Yvonne. "Jackie, stay here!" Clara called.
"Keep those levers down! Keep them offline!" Yvonne ordered.
"Yvonne, I thought you said the next ghost shift was cancelled." Rajesh asked into his ear pod, earning a puzzled Rose's attention and even the half attention of Mickey. "What's going on?" No answer, which made Rajesh frown. "Yvonne?" At that moment, the sphere gave a loud groan before it rattled, the force of it causing the room to shake, which made Rajesh's eyes widen as he ran up to look at it, Rose and Mickey following swiftly behind him. "It can't be." He muttered and the sphere gave another loud groan, causing the room to shake once again. "It's active." The sphere gave another groan, which caused the room to shake once more and Rajesh raced back to his desk. "Yvonne? Can you hear me? We've got a problem down here. Yvonne?" Even on the computer, he still received no answer. "Yvonne, for god's sake, the sphere is active!" He glanced at another monitor on his desk, the readings from the scanning devices were going completely berserk. "The readings are going wild! It's got weight, it's got mass, an electromagnetic field, it exists!" The door suddenly clanged shut and then grinded, signalling the quarantine even though they had just lifted it mere moments before. "The door's sealed. Automatic quarantine, we can't get out!" He raced from his desk to the door as he tried to hack his way through the quarantine, all the while Rose and Mickey stood side by side, still staring up at the sphere.
"It's all right, eh?" Mickey quipped and Rose smiled. "We've beaten them before; we can beat them again. That's why I'm here. The fight goes on."
"The fight against what?" Rose asked.
Mickey shrugged. "What do you think?" He asked rhetorically as the room continued shaking.
"What's down here?" The Doctor asked as he, Clara, Yvonne and two soldiers stood beside a construction plastic covered wall, and where the door would be was instead an open entrance.
Yvonne shrugged, but even she was a bit confused. "I don't know. I think it's building work. Just renovations."
Clara just raised her eyebrows at her as the Doctor turned off his sonic and pocketed it before taking her hand. "You should go back." Clara said.
"Think again." Yvonne simply said as she and the two soldiers behind them slowly followed Clara and the Doctor right on through into the figurative spider's web of plastic, coming into a small walkway intersection and Clara stood in front of them, glancing around. "What is it? What's down here?"
"Earpieces, ear pods, our world is colliding with another and…I think we know which one." Clara answered. To add to her answer, three loud stomps came from behind the wall of plastic and three large distinctively familiar silhouettes stood there, staring at them.
"What are they?" Yvonne asked.
"They came through first. The advance guard." The figures thrust their large steel grey metal hands through the plastic and quickly created a door to step through. "Cybermen. Get out!" Clara ordered, but as they turned to run, six more Cybermen stepped out suddenly to block all escape paths, leaving them trapped.
"We had them beaten but then they escaped." Mickey explained to Rose. "The Cybermen just vanished." The room gave another loud shake, once again making Rose and Mickey wince ever so slightly at the force of the sphere's groaning. "They found a way through to this world but so did we."
Rose gave him a puzzled look, which he only saw from the corner of his eye. "The Doctor and Clara said that was impossible."
"And everyone isn't always right, are they?" Mickey retorted.
"What's inside that sphere?" Rose asked.
Mickey shrugged. "No one knows. Cyber Leader, Cyber King, Emperor of the Cybermen." He rambled. "Whatever it is, it's dead meat." He said boldly.
Rose gave him a smile before wrapping him in a quick hug. "It's good to see you."
He smiled back as they parted. "Yeah. It's good to see you too."
"Get away from the machines!" Clara ordered to the workers as the Cybermen escorted her, the Doctor, Yvonne and the two soldiers back into the main office. "Do what they say! Don't fight them!" Two Cybermen moved to stand in front, raising their right arms out and causing a small blaster to emerge before they shot the workers dead, leaving their smoking bodies on the floor with cauterized holes from the laser blasts impact.
"What are they?" Jackie asked as one of the Cybermen pushed her into the group beside a horrified Yvonne.
The Leader of the group turned around to stare its blank black eyes straight into Jackie's. "We are the Cybermen." It then turned around to stare back at the white wall. "The ghost shift will be increased to 100%." The Leader then pressed its left fist against its chest, causing the levers all by themselves to raise up at a fast rate, the far white wall glaring a bright white light, making all the Humans and the one Time Lord present wince and squint their eyes. Then, a large mass of the ghosts appeared as if they were walking out of the wall and were marching straight up towards them, their every step causing the distinctive Cybermen stomp, which made Clara and the Doctor clench their jaws at the obvious answer.
"But these Cybermen, what have they got to do with the ghosts?" Jackie asked as she held a hand in front of her eyes to protect them from the white glare.
"Don't you ever listen?" The Doctor retorted. "A footprint doesn't look like a boot."
"Achieving full transfer." The Leader reported.
"They're Cybermen." Clara said grimly. "All of the ghosts are Cybermen. Millions of them, right across the whole world." The ghosts came to a stop right before their eyes and as the white light of the wall dimmed out, the haze of the ghosts faded away, showing them to truly be the Cybermen, standing there and staring blankly at all the flesh life forms present.
"They're invading the whole planet." Yvonne said in shock.
"It's not an invasion, it's too late for that." The Doctor inputted grimly. "It's a victory."
Suddenly, a loud blaring alarm sounded from one of the computers, causing the group to look over, seeing a single message in big bold words: Sphere Activated. "No." Clara muttered with a frown. "They can't have built that." She quickly moved over to stand defiantly in front of the Leader, causing the Cybermen to turn to stare straight at her but she ignored them all, just not the one in front of her. "That doesn't make any sense. You are Cybermen, you don't have the technology to build a Void Ship, you never do, ever. So how could you have created that sphere?"
"The sphere is not ours."
Clara's face fell from a scowl into a bewildered frown. "What?" She asked in a mutter.
"The sphere broke down the barriers between worlds. We only followed. Its origin is unknown."
"Then…what's inside it?" Clara asked.
"Rose is down there!" Jackie protested but no one had the heart currently to reassure her. They had to know, what was inside it?
"Can anyone hear me?!" Rajesh called as the room continued to shake and rattle from the sphere. "Come on, I need help down here. I need-" What interrupted him was the sphere, but its groaning had changed into a screeching grind of metal on metal, causing him to run back up to stand behind Rose and Mickey. Mickey quickly tore off his white lab coat and threw his ear pod to the ground as the sphere gave a loud screech before it stilled for just a few moments. Then, it shone a bright white light through its top as pieces of it tore away, slowly opening downwards and causing Mickey to grin.
"I know what's in there, and I'm ready for them. I've got just the thing." Mickey said, racing over to a nearby hiding spot beneath the sphere, withdrawing a large pulse fire cannon and walking back over to re-join Rose and Rajesh, aiming the cannon straight up at the sphere. "This is going to blast them to hell."
"Samuel, what are you doing?" Rajesh asked.
"The names Mickey. Mickey Smith, defending the Earth." Mickey retorted, cocking and loading the cannon as the trio stared up at the sphere as it peeled its layers away until they had reached the halfway point, still shining its white light up into the room. Then, a series of hovering sounds started as four eye stalks poked past the top of the sphere's lowering shell. "That's…that's not Cybermen." Mickey said with a frown.
Then, the eyestalks got higher and higher as four Daleks came up out of the sphere and into view, three the traditional dull golden and the one in front a pure jet black, yet all were facing forwards as they hovered in the air and started to descend to the ground, their eyestalks staring straight at the bewildered Rajesh, the confused yet defiant Mickey and the horrified Rose. "Oh my god." Rose muttered as the Daleks came to a stop on the ground.
"Location: Earth! Life forms detected! Exterminate!" The black Dalek screeched and then the three behind it joined in, screaming in unison as they bore closer upon the trio. "Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!"
AN: Argh, to be continued! God dammit! XD Still, that was a lot of fun to write, (I'm looking at you, shrugging Yvonne) but now, there's only one chapter left for Rose as a regular character. Either way, it'll be fun and sad, but I'm still so not ready for it. Anyway, as always, thanks for reading and leave a review if you wish. :)