The following day there had been eighteen 'accidents' by midday. A tram came round a corner, completely off schedule hitting four people, killing them. Their bodies were taken away in an unmarked van. Somebody committed suicide; except he had shown no signs of depression just the night before.
The Doctor knew what was happening; C Division needed more organic components. He was nervous, as was Jamie, the entire day, always looking for an unexpected car or tram to come out of nowhere. Now they were in the district's town square, and a blue police van pulled in to the open space, a nice difference from the pokey streets of the city.
The remaining population was gathered around, excited to see the proposed solution to the infection that had destroyed the town.
Darrus Kasper, the current head of police, had even come down to show off C Division's hard work. He wore a long, black trench coat making him look like someone who came round to your house when you complained in public about the government's tax hike.
Today, however, he seemed quite jolly. It was a bright, sunny day and the blood had been cleared from the pavements from the early morning's unfortunate events. His grey beard flapped in the pleasant breeze.
"Today, I announce our saviours! The new device for the police that will rid our great city and indeed our planet of the infection!" He said in his booming voice, "The... Elite Police!"
The door of the truck opened and the 'Elite Police' stomped out, skull like faces staring at the crowds, the sunlight dancing off their hefty chest units and transparent piping.
The crowd cheered wildly.
"These are volunteers from our own police forces... Yes! That is correct! These are not robots or even exo-suits..." He addressed the crowd, dramatically, "These are men of steel!"
The crowd's wild cheering reduced. They were confused at what he meant.
"This is Officer Trazyat, I hope you remember him. He guarded the Northern perimeter against the infected and preformed dangerous repairs, he did a great service to our amazing city." Darrus said, nodding to the lead Elite Policeman, "Officer Trazyat donated his brain and his blood. He donated some of his flesh and muscle. Officer Trazyat has been promoted, ladies and gentlemen!"
The crowd was silent, astonished as it processed the information.
"The Elite Police never grow old, they cannot be infected. They are invincible!"
The Doctor was going to seize his chance to try and address the crowd and was just drawing in a deep breath to announce to the citizens how immoral and sickening the whole thing was when he was utterly drowned out by wild cheering.
He was bewildered. Then again, the people must have been desperate, but even so...
"Jamie, I think we should go now..."
"Right you are, Doctor."
They left the square, and the Doctor decided to plan what to do next over a spot of lunch.
Meanwhile, back in the square the Elite Police fanned out on their public trial patrols. The public cheered and hugged each other and screamed as the old captains and officers had become something so much better – men of steel and plastic, who would live for eternity.
Darrus Kasper turned around the Ms Port, Kertin and Doctor Cowling, who had been standing at the back of the scene, beaming at their achievement.
"Well done! I didn't know how they'd take it, but they did, and at that very well!" Darrus said, grinning wildly. "We might just pull through this! Well done."
"Shall we promote some more officers? I had Captain Ignar in mind, he's been getting shifty about the Elite Police programme lately." Said Kertin without a second thought for the poor man.
"Good idea. We need as many of these things as possible."
Back at the café, an Elite Policeman walked past. The Doctor got out his sonic screwdriver and quickly turned it on and off again, whipping it back into his pocket. The Elite Policeman didn't seem to notice, which was lucky.
The Doctor took a reading from the device and his eyes widened.
"They must have a ship or a space station in orbit! That one over there was sending transmissions..." He nodded over in the direction of the passing Elite Policeman.
"Well, can you decode them? I mean, find out what they're saying?" Jamie asked.
"Sorry. I'm afraid this just isn't designed for that." He shook the screwdriver, as if that'd decode the messages being sent.
"I wonder... Well, I think it's all falling into place now, actually." The Doctor said gravely, after a short pause. "This just feels like a big damn social experiment, like we're mice in a laboratory's cage."
"Well, the infection isn't real. Or at least it's gone away." Jamie said.
"Good point, I had considered it had never been here, but perhaps the cybermen engineered it to die out quickly, to reinforce the belief it was there without damaging too much of their... future stock."
The Doctor pondered on this and then returned to his other point.
"Anyway, we've got to stop the cybermen. Soon the 'Elite Police' will turn on their masters and start converting the population..."
"But didn't Doctor Cowling say something about making them go into the main police force?" Jamie asked.
"Oh, you're right. They might be planning to take the entire Earth Alliance from within. This is more serious than I though, oh dear..." The Doctor twittered.
Another Elite Policeman trudged by.
"I remember on their home planet, Mondas, they started doing what the police are doing here right now. Putting spare parts on themselves so they could live for as long as possible in their last city, a dingy cavern... their planet went flying off into space, it used to be in the Solar System. They started sending work parties up to the surface to build engines so they could get back – I'm a little fuzzy on the details, I only went there once and it was when it was still a lovely, lush planet. They had giant lizards, a bit like on Earth at the time. They were quite passive though..."
"Should we go to the Police HQ and try to destroy the... well, the machines that make the cybermen?"
"No, no, no, I doubt they'd be there. Probably outside of the district, to capture those squads of soldiers the police send out to try and recover a district."
"Well we've tried to escape for days now and there's no way, especially with the cybermen around!"
"We'll see about that... I think I have something up my sleeve..."
"Captain Ignar... Oh there you are." Said Kertin, Ms Port trailing behind him. She didn't like what they were about to do. She wanted to pull out... but when the quarantine was lifted she could. Right now they'd lynch her if she spoke against it too much.
Captain Ignar was guarding a ramshackle wall defence, about four meters tall and made of old crates and planks nailed together, with a ladder on one side so the police could keep a watch. The Captain had been getting quite nervous the past few days. He didn't like what was going on – his men went missing, yet he saw no infected, he heard nothing over the radios when they were sent outside of the safety zone.
He was starting to doubt his superiors. Little did he know, doubt meant death in that town.
"Oh, Kertin... Please don't tell me your bringing your horrible Elite things over here..."
His men got into position, a ramshackle band of military police and volunteer militia.
"Don't worry, you're being promoted." Kertin announced, cheerily.
After all these months of hard work, and finally his work had been noticed. He was elated.
"Just come to Police HQ with myself and Ms Port, and all will be fine."
Ignar nodded to his men and said he'd be back soon, once his papers and new uniform were sorted out. But his new uniform would merge with his skin, rip out most of his internal organs and turn him into an emotionless, near indestructible, immortal cyberman!
