It had been 2 weeks and 4 days since the completion of Canary Warf and one month since the void ship and the ghosts came through into the world.
The new building was huge but Torchwood didn't actually use the whole thing. Basically the top half was theirs while the lower half was various other businesses which had to pay rent to Torchwood for use of the space. All the elevators had security to insane proportions to make sure none of the more curious members of these others companies tired to find out just what was located on the top floors.
With the creation of Canary Warf the focus of Torchwood turned completely on its head and all anyone was in charge of or talked about or worked on was the ghosts and the sphere. Other things came in, little things, unimportant things and they were given to the lowest level of personal possible. Everyone else was involved with the ghosts any way they could be. It was ghost energy, ghost locations, ghost activity, change in ghosts, amount of ghosts, controlled media about the ghosts; everything was about the ghosts that they didn't even know were really ghosts.
And if you weren't working on the ghosts and you were still upper level you were involved with the sphere. However, that was only about four people and no one really wanted to be in the same room as that thing that apparently did not exist.
Over in Ianto's division there was a lot of activity. They were all working on possible ways to use the ghost energy, increase the output, and find out just what the ghosts were. Ianto was entering in an awful lot of information on the ghosts in the system. It was becoming increasingly difficult for him to keep up with the reports and statistics that needed to be organized properly and put into the system for use the next day or even the next hour. However, they all kept up with the pace.
Lisa was very excited about the work. She was working with some others in their division to discover just what the ghosts were, what they were made of, if they were really ghosts. Granted it was difficult for them because they only had short bursts of time to actually work with the ghosts and try to perform any tests or experiments.
Basically, Torchwood was insane right then.
"Ianto!"
Ianto turned around at his name just to have Sue drop about ten files into his arms. Nearly dropping them because she practically threw them at him Ianto bit back the comment he wished he could make. She sped on by him without even a thank you.
'One of these days…' Ianto thought as he walked back to his desk.
"Ghost shift in ten minutes" said the voice of Yvonne over the PA.
Lisa poked her head into his office. "Hey there." She said to him.
Ianto grinned at her from his seat. "Hi."
"We're going to try get a sample from one of them today," Lisa said with a grin like a kid who had about fifty dollars in a candy store on her face, "We're got a much better idea of what to do this time and I really think it's going to work!"
She was so beautiful when she smiled like that.
"I'm sure it will. Good luck."
Leaning in from the door way into his tiny office, Lisa gave him a quick peck on the lips then whirled out of the doorway back down the hall. He watched her receding figure for a moment then turned back to his computer to input his new batch of files and reports. Apparently, as the first report told him, the amount of ghosts had increased by 10 from the last recording.
Soon the PA was buzzing again, "Ghost shift commencing."
Ianto grit his teeth and tried to keep looking at his computer screen. He had never liked the thought of ghosts when he was a boy even though he'd never even seen one then. Now that they appeared out in the streets every day visible and a part of life it just made him tense. They still didn't even know what the ghosts really were and that worried Ianto a bit. Granted they hadn't shown any hostility towards anyone but that still didn't mean Ianto couldn't be nervous about them. Why had they appeared with the sphere anyhow? They didn't even know what the sphere was, let alone the multitude of ghosts.
Then there they were again, Ianto could see the two which usually materialized down the hall out of the corner of his eye. He was quite grateful that none ever appeared in his office. What would he do anyhow, serve it coffee? Continuing to type, Ianto tried to ignore the gray figures in the back of his vision.
Lucky for Ianto the ghost shift only lasted a few minutes and then the ghosts faded away again. Ianto let out a sigh and turned back, as he always did, to make sure they were really gone. Standing up Ianto went down the hall to see how things had gone with the test. Max was sitting at his desk typing rapidly while Lisa was standing beside Mark looking disappointed.
"So?" Ianto asked them.
All three turned to look at him.
"Failure." Mark said simply, putting an oddly shaped box and what looked like an upgraded needle down on the table beside him.
Ianto turned his attention to Lisa. She just gave him a sad look and sat back down at her desk. Ianto knew she had been quite sure it would work this time. Walking over to her desk Ianto stood and waited for her to speak. Obviously she wanted to rant a little before getting back to work. Finally, after staring angrily at her desk for awhile she looked up at Ianto and sighed.
"We'd thought since we're not quite sure what they're made of that we could try treating them like a gas. Since obviously it's a lot of energy we've been charting but we can't really touch them. Granted their composition, from what we've gathered, isn't exactly like any gas we know but a gas is the closest we've got!" She huffed and threw her hands up for a moment. "Then I thought if we…" She trailed off and sighed again.
"It's all right, Lisa." Ianto said.
"We've just tried so many things. I want to crack this!" Lisa said, staring at her computer screen. "There has to be a way to figure out what they are."
Yvonne was interested in the energy and the possibilities for Britain. Lisa was all curiosity. She wanted to know what they were, what they were made of, where they came from; were they ghosts or not? Really how could Ianto not love her?
"It'll happen." Ianto said and Lisa looked up at him. "With you on the job how could it not?"
A smile finally spread across her face to replace the disappointment of before.
"You really are my favorite Welshman." She joked.
"I should hope so." Ianto replied and turned away back down the hall.
--------------------------
Then it happened, the day when what once had been happiness and light became sharp, cold, steel; the day when everything that had once been good became glass stabbing into skin; the day when it all fell apart, all in just one day.
Ianto was running down the hall. The ghost shift had ended early. Something had gone wrong.
"Lisa?"
"Why did it stop?" Lisa only glanced at him as she was interrogating Sue. "Have we heard anything?"
Everyone was bustling about the main room, hands grabbing papers, fingers flying over keyboards. Marcus was yelling into his ear phone.
"No, what do you mean? I didn't do it. Did you call Yvonne? What?"
"Ianto!"
He whirled around to face Mark.
"Get the stats from yesterday, maybe we've hit a wall."
Jogging back down the hall Ianto slid into his office. Luckily he still had a copy of yesterday's stats on his desk and not completely filed away in the vast archives adjoining his office. Grabbing the paper he raced back down the hall and handed it straight to Mark.
"Check the numbers," Mark said over Barbara's shoulder, "Did it go down?"
People dashed about in all directions and Ianto couldn't help but think for a split second before he focused again that something had to be very wrong. Then he was back in the now, pulling up files of the past day on the nearest computer, knowing where everything was faster than the others.
"Everything was reading fine it looks like." Ianto said as Marcus came up along side him.
"What has Yvonne said?" Marcus practically screamed, his hand on his ear.
"Maybe they've left." Sue said. "Maybe the ghosts have gone back where the came from."
Raising an eyebrow Ianto looked at her incredulously and Mark made a mock motion to whack her on the head.
"They were just here!"
"They're not going back until I know what they are anyhow." Lisa said, pounding harder than necessary on her keyboard.
Ianto repressed a grin and handed the latest print out of yesterday's power levels to Mark. Despite all the chaos Ianto found a little joy in seeing all the high and mighty scientists on their wits ends, Lisa excluded of course. Sometimes it was good for everyone to be clueless. Granted being clueless at Torchwood was a rather dangerous thing. Ianto let out a puff of air.
"It looks like they shut it down up top level." Barbara said.
Lisa pursed her lips and looked at Ianto. "But why would they do that?"
"It's the Doctor!"
All motion in the room stopped. Ianto turned his head to where the voice had come from. It was a girl from division four standing in the glass doorway to the main office. Everyone was staring at her now, frozen in place.
"The Doctor is here!" she repeated.
Finally Marcus broke the silence, "What!"
"The Doctor, the Tardis, and his companion; they are here with Yvonne right now!"
"You can't be serious." Marcus said.
"I am completely serious! He is here."
Ianto's eyes turned to look into Lisa's. She had the same expression of surprise and wonder as he did. Then the room exploded with sound and movement all over again. Now instead of rushing about worry about the ghosts, computer screens were suddenly full of images of a blue police box, lists of sightings, and blurry pictures of a man of many faces. Ianto fought his way across the room to Lisa's desk.
"Lisa."
She looked up at him and crossed her arms. "This is nuts, Ianto. It's never been nuts like this here before."
Lisa was not a fan of chaos in the work place. Her flat was a pig sty but her work place was spotless. Insanity and rushing about like this was clearly making her on edge.
"It'll be ok, Lisa," Ianto said, putting a hand on her arm. "He's with Yvonne any way. It really shouldn't be our concern… though it seems to be that everyone is trying to make it theirs."
"If he's with Yvonne, doesn't that mean he's our prisoner now?" Lisa asked.
Ianto opened his mouth then closed it again. That was true. 'If it's alien, it's ours.' They didn't often ever catch actual alien life forms. They had some dead ones but rarely alive and nothing like the Doctor. Ianto suddenly felt very wrong.
Fifteen minutes later the insanity had changed into near silence. The office had returned to its desk work but no one was talking, personal or otherwise. Each employee was typing away or staring off into space. They may have been working but everyone's mind was on one thing. The Doctor. Ianto had finished entering the files into the computer system. Now all that was left was to put the hard copies into filing.
"Ghost shift in 5 minutes," announced the PA.
Looks like the Doctor would get to see the ghost shift from the inside.
"Ianto," Marcus was in his doorway. "Er… do you think you could find some files for me."
"Certainly, sir. I was just about to go and file these." He held up the folders on his desk.
"Could you get me the reports from the last ten years on the Doctor?"
Hardly a surprising request but Ianto nodded. Picking up the files Ianto went through the narrow door adjacent to his office into the large room that was only one branch of the archives of Torchwood one. The room was rather cavernous for such a new building. The back wall was barely visible from where Ianto had entered. However, Ianto had been at Torchwood long enough to know the archives rather well. It certainly made things a lot easier when filing.
Walking through the rows Ianto began to put folders away while simultaneously pulling some out. Suddenly Ianto heard the sounds of the ghost shift but there had been no announcement. Placing the files down on the edge of the abinet Ianto walked down the long isle to the door he had come in. Was there something wrong with the PA? He reached the door and was about the walk through when he saw in place of the gray ghostly figures at the end of the hall there were what appeared to be metal robots.
"Shi-"
Ianto cut himself off and whirled back around, his back to the wall by the edge of the door.
'What the hell?' He thought in panic.
It looked as though they had been invaded.
Peeking his head around the doorway he saw that the closest robot was not facing toward him, so Ianto decided to be daring. He crept out the door and ducked behind his desk. All Torchwood one employees were given basic firearms training and were issued one gun. Ianto's was in his desk. Now he just had to open the drawer without making any noise.
"You will be upgraded," a strange computerized voice said.
Ianto peered out slowly from behind his desk, trying to see down the hall through the glass of his office.
"What!" It was Marcus. "No. We won't have anything to do with whatever you are planning!"
Then there was the sound of some sort of weapon being fired and a scream. They had just killed Marcus.
"Oh my god!" It was little Sue.
Ianto opened the drawer in a quick motion and grabbed the gun out of it, turning off the safety and cocking it. However, he wasn't sure how much good his gun was going to be against something made out of metal.
"You will be upgraded," they said again and Ianto heard feet marching away from him.
Looking around the corner of his office door he saw the robots leading the rest of the employees of his division away, out the main door, including Lisa. He wanted to shout to her, tell her to run, but there had to be at least seven of those robots surrounding all of the others. Once they all exited Ianto left his office and carefully followed, determination setting in to go with an increasing sense of fear. What could he do?
Out in the main hall he could hear the sounds of shooting coming from the lower levels. Cleary, all of the ghosts had turned into these invaders. The sounds of commotion were coming from ahead of him where the others had gone. Ianto poked his head into the stairwell to see if anyone else was coming. Was he all on his own?
"Halt."
Eyes wide Ianto froze at the voice of one of them.
'Fuck.'
A heavy metal hand clamped on his shoulder and turned him around. His gun fell from his hand and Ianto stared into the flat metal face, small holes for eyes and a mouth. He couldn't have moved if he wanted to.
"You will be upgraded."
Ianto didn't even ask what that meant.
"Move!" a female voice shouted suddenly and Ianto instinctively ducked.
A blur shot by him and rammed into the robot causing it to tumble into the stairwell, over the bar, and down. Jumping up, Ianto turned to find Sue standing by him.
"You saved my life!" He said.
She just nodded at him then spoke rapidly, "They're Cybermen." She said, breathing heavily. "We have to get out of her. We have to!"
"What?"
"Cybermen. That's what they're called. I saw Samantha from upstairs. The Doctor called them Cybermen and they're from another dimension. They want to upgrade us!"
"What does that mean?" Leaning down Ianto picked up his gun as he spoke.
"It means make us like them!"
Blinking, Ianto couldn't respond. Like them? She nodded vigorously at him as if she could read his thoughts. She looked like she was about to cry. He realized then that Sue was ever more terrified than he was. Gripping his gun tightly Ianto took her hand.
"Let's go."
"No!" She said in a whisper, "not that way!"
"We can't just leave them." Ianto insisted. "And Lisa is down there."
"No!" She pulled her hand away from his.
Ianto looked at her for a moment then turned away and headed down the hall. He heard people screaming and sounds of machinery. Was this the upgrade? As Ianto rounded the corner he saw three of the Cybermen with Carrie standing between them shaking.
"Hey!" Ianto shouted and fired off a shot at them.
It ricocheted off the metal surface uselessly. Ianto gulped as two turned around and pointed at him with their fists. Then there was a crash and the building shook. Alarms went off. There was a fire somewhere in the building and Ianto soon learned that it was in their division office since he could see the orange down the hall where he had come from. Sue was nowhere in sight. Plaster fell from the ceiling onto the Cybermen and Carrie took off running in the opposite direction. Where was Lisa?
Running down the hall way towards the Cybermen, Ianto suddenly saw something in the sky out the window. The Cybermen were distracted, looking at it too.
"Daleks!" Ianto gasped.
Ianto had seen a file on Daleks. No one at Torchwood had ever actually encountered one but there had been a report filed there none the less by someone in 1901. Ianto only knew about it because he had filed something else near it. A description had been included and there was no mistake at all. The Cybermen turned and began firing out the window into the sky.
"Shit." Ianto said and skirted around them.
A blast of energy nearly caught him in the back of the head.
"Delete!"
Ianto kept running, not bothering to try and shoot them. All that mattered was finding Lisa and getting out alive. Was this the end of the world? There were Daleks in the sky, Cybermen in the building, and he was being shot at.
"Lisa!" Ianto yelled.
Turning the corner sharply so that he nearly fell over, Ianto was just in time to see Max receive a saw to the head, cutting open his skull. Vomit threatened to rise in Ianto's throat and he barely controlled himself. The Cyberman removed Max's brain, letting his body fall bloodied and limp onto the floor. They then placed the brain inside the open face of a Cyberman into a bed of circuits. Suddenly the closed the face and the Cyberman began to walk. Ianto backed into the wall. Max was upgraded. That Cyberman was Max!
"Oh God!" Ianto couldn't help but cry out.
One Cyberman turned and saw him.
"You will be upgraded."
"Like hell I will!" Ianto cried out.
Ianto shot at the Cyberman again, his bullets doing nothing. The Cyberman continued to advance and Ianto decided now was the time to run. Instead the building shook again violently causing Ianto to fall back into the wall, hitting his head. His vision blurred and he suddenly thought about how wonderful it would be to go to sleep.
'No!'
Shaking his head he stood up. The Cyberman which had been coming toward him was now focusing on the scene outside. Hundred and hundreds of Daleks were in the sky, shooting at anything below that moved. The were targeting the Cybermen as well as the people.
"Ianto!"
Turning his head suddenly through a wash of pain Ianto saw Lisa and Mark, Cybermen leading them away.
"Lisa!" Ianto shouted and ran straight for her regardless of the Cybermen around.
"We must complete body upgrades," the Cyberman who had his hand on Mark's shoulder said.
"We must graft onto the body to upgrade." Another said. "Their own metals will be upgraded with them."
Then two Cybermen pushed Mark through a clear tarp which was hanging from the ceiling. Ianto could hear Mark start screaming in pain. Lisa's eyes went wide and she clapped her hands over her mouth.
'Lisa, oh god, Lisa.'
She was so close. He could get to her. Running faster Ianto suddenly found himself face to face with a Cyberman.
"No!" He shouted trying to back away but the Cyberman grabbed his shoulder in a vice grip.
"Ianto!"
At the sound of Lisa's voice Ianto managed to look past the Cyberman and saw, to his horror, that Lisa was being pushed to the same place which Mark had gone. A new Cyberman came out from behind the tarp and Ianto knew that it was Mark.
"You will be upgraded bodily." The Cyberman said and pushed her through.
"LISA!" Ianto screamed, fighting against the Cyberman in his way.
The fire from the down the hall was spreading and Ianto could feel its heat at his back. The Cyberman was in front of him, holding him fast, and Lisa was screaming in agony. Everything was falling, breaking, everything was shattering around him.
Then suddenly the Cybermen around him were all sucked by some unseen force out the window. The one in front of him broke the glass as it flew and knocked Ianto down onto his knees. A grinding noise screamed in Ianto's ears and small bits of metal which looked like knives and restraints and scarp ripped apart followed the Cybermen out the window from where Lisa had disappeared. Tripping on the debris, fire all around now, dirt and sweat in his eyes Ianto ran to where Lisa had disappeared. He looked in and found her lying on some sort of metal frame.
"Oh, Lisa!" Ianto cried, anguish flooding his body.
There was metal all over her body. Her chest was completely covered, her feet turned into boots, a helmet on her head. She was half covered in metal and her face was pinched tight in pain. Reaching in Ianto pulled at broken pieces around her, dragging her out.
"Oh, god, Lisa? Lisa!"
"Ianto…." She said weakly, her voice sounded altered. Then she began crying and screaming in utter agony.
"Help!" Ianto shouted, tears beginning to stream down his face. This could not be happening, not to them, not to Lisa! "Somebody, please!"
The fire was getting closer and there was no one around, no one to help. Ianto didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to help her. He couldn't just pry the metal off her. He didn't know what to do!
Ianto dragged Lisa as best he could down the hall. She was much heavier now with the metal covering her body. Torchwood One was crumbling all around them and they had to get out.
"Lisa, it'll be all right." Ianto spoke through the tears. "We're getting out."
"Ianto, it hurts! It hurts!" She was screaming and Ianto wanted to crush something, to kill someone, to crumble into a ball, to do something, anything to help her!
There was so much pain in her voice.
Somehow Ianto managed to get himself and Lisa away from the fire to a safe point. It was dark and he could hear screams and commotion still coming faintly from outside. Lisa's head was in his lap and she was moaning and crying to him.
"Ianto, please, Ianto. Help me…" no tears were falling from her eyes but she was still crying, "it hurts…. Help me."
"I will, Lisa." The tears in Ianto's eyes would not stop. His head was splitting from what had to be a concussion and he felt his heart splintering at the sound of Lisa in pain, at what had become of her, at what had been done to her. It felt like his world was trying to crack apart and swallow him up. "I'm going to help you. I'm going to fix you. I won't leave you, Lisa."
What were they going to do?
(Fin)
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