The next day was rainy and cold. The sky was wet and grey, and the usually fairly busy little streets looked deserted. The café was closed. It was the perfect opportunity to go out scouting, beyond the district's defences.

The Doctor and Jamie managed to get past entirely by luck; all but one of the soldiers guarding a small defence went over to HQ for a free promotion that had been announced for any one who asked for it, to Elite Police status. They thought it was an exo-suit. They hadn't been at the public announcement.

The man left behind was underneath a tarpaulin sheet, draped over him as he huddled a cup of boiling water (the tea and coffee and chocolate supplies ran out years ago). Knocking him out was easy. The Doctor and Jamie swiftly opened the ramshackle wooden door of the little defensive barrier out onto the streets of the old city.

After all the talk of the infected, they were both slightly worried. The rain's low visibility made them jump at every little noise. Jamie had stolen the handgun from the man they knocked out, just in case. The Doctor's sonic screwdriver wouldn't save them from a horde of zombies.

But as they went deeper and deeper into the city, they saw nothing. There was, admittedly, a dead body here or there, rotting away. Usually they just looked like civilians; looters to be more precise, a few with sacks full of tinned food, a crowbar. Most looked like they'd been shot, probably by the police for looting. Others looked like they had died of starvation or thirst.

As they went down the streets, slick from the downpour, more and more abandoned vehicles and broken defences greeter them. Some ramshackle, like the one they exited the last district from. Others were more sophisticated, with triple layered chainlink fencing and little batteries wired up to the metal frames to electrify them.

But eventually, they saw it. Perhaps they'd passed more of them on the way, more discreetly hidden. But there it was.

It was in the basement of a building. The Doctor and Jamie only noticed it because it was one of those exposed basements, with useless windows facing a solid concrete wall a couple of feet away. Jamie gulped, the Doctor straightened his bow-tie, and they walked over to it.

It had a little transmitter in the depression where the door was. Clearly it was cyber technology, and it's transmissions could reach orbit. The Doctor ran his sonic screwdriver over it. Not much of a response. The transmitter was heavily fortified; hacking it would be impossible, at least with the screwdriver.

So the Doctor and Jamie crept down the steps to the basement, opening the black door that led into it. Inside it was dark, but Jamie found a light switch.

He wished he hadn't.

Piled high on one side, row after row of jars sat atop each other. Each was filled with a strange, light green liquid, and floating in this mixture was a human brain. A little machine whirred at the far end of this ghastly display, making the tanks bubble, presumably keeping the brain tissue alive.

At the other side of the room were cold lockers. Inside them were frozen slabs of human muscle, tissue and mechanical devices with flesh crudely slapped onto them.

Jamie felt like throwing up. To the back of the room, there were cyberman suits, helmets, piping and their metal bone frames, hung up like strange coats.

"Well, I think we've seen enough. This is where the cybermen must drag their victims. They take the squads sent out here to 'recover' a district by surprise," He turned to Jamie, "they can be very quiet when they want to be. Anyway, there must be dozens of these store houses, dotted around in the abandoned districts..."

"Doctor! There's some field notes... written by... Mr Kertin." Jamie picked up the messy pile of notes, stapled together, "Clone brains incompatible. Military police will need to be slaughtered. General police promotion is needed before we start on the civilians to battle the infection. The military police is more loyal to the citizens. If there is to be one, a civil war will need to be as quick and as bloodless as possible."

Jamie shivered, turning to the Doctor.

"We need to help these people!" He said, obviously disturbed by the grim exhibition of body parts and the creepy field notes.

"Of course! We should return now... but has Kertin been here? Is that a copy of his notes? Did they steal them? Because from what you read out, he seems to be still zealous about fighting an obviously non-existent infection."

"We must advance our plans. The Doctor knows what we are doing. He knows our ways. He must be destroyed. However, if we destroy him when they are looking they will decommission us. We must advance our plans. Contact Doctor Henrth Cowling, tell him it is Earth Command, and that the quarantine will soon be lifted if he meets a quota of Elite Police by the end of the Earth month. The condition is to promote 70% of their police force. I calculate this will be sufficient."

The ground commander, disguised as an ordinary Elite Police unit, received the message from the Cyber Planner in their starship turned space station. It began rallying the units, and marched on the Police HQ building.

The Doctor and Jamie were just coming round a corner when they were met by a group of police – no Elite Police with them, luckily. They stood in their blue livery, their long tarpaulin trench coats swaying in the brisk breeze. They had sub-machine guns and shock pistols.

"Stay where you are! You will not be allowed back into the district! You may have been infected!" The lead policeman shouted over the increasing gale and rain.

"We're not infected! Look around you! There is no infection! There never has been, you're being manipulated by a third party!" The Doctor shouted.

"The boy in the kilt, put down the gun! Now!"

Jamie cast away his pistol he had been gripping, away across the street being carried by the rain that settled on the street. It rattled as it settled in a gutter at the side of the road.

"Now stay back! You aren't allowed back in the district! Go!"

"Use the scanner for God's sake! Last time we tried to get in the police used it and it was fine!" Jamie shouted back.

"We don't have one right now! Stand down!"

"This is obviously, effectively, an execution. You're scared of outsiders. You were sent to retrieve us, and you'll come back come talking about how we were infected and how you escaped by the skin of your teeth, eh?" The Doctor said in a loud but calm voice. Then the colour drained from his face. Elite Police, or at least cybermen. Two were marching towards them. Now he knew there was no way out. There is no reasoning with cybermen.

Amazingly, the cybermen snatched the police, electrifying them until they passed out. After they had done this, one of the cybermen trudged off, dragging the bodies away for conversion or storage in one of the secret facilities.

"You will be destroyed, Doctor." The remaining cyberman said.

The Doctor slowly edged towards the gutter. Getting the idea, Jamie took over for him as not to draw too much attention. The Doctor slowly got his flake of gold from his TARDIS technology pockets. He had to rummage about a bit, losing it once or twice in the cavernous, zero-gravity room.

"Do not try to escape. You will be destroyed. Your companion will become like us."

The cyberman started walking towards them, arm outstretched to give a lethal dose of electricity.

"Now Jamie! Now!"

Jamie grabbed the gun and let off a couple of rounds. The pinged harmlessly off the cyberman's advanced armour.

"Jamie! No! Give me the gun..."

The Doctor hurriedly took out the clip, grinding the gold around the interior of it. He hoped enough gold dust would get on the bullets to make them deadly for the cybermen.

He started to walk backwards, but Jamie shouted at him and he noticed there were two cybermen advancing from behind.

Finally he inserted the clip back into the gun, clumsily took off the safety clip and fired. The shot missed, pinging off the head. He needed it to hit the chest unit. He fired another round. It hit home. The chest unit sparked and fizzed, and the cyberman jigged and twitched and spasmed until finally it gave a dying sigh, smoke escaping from it's eyes and mouth.

The Doctor gave the other cybermen a similar treatment. It seemed to be less effective, but eventually, with one bullet left, he had killed them.

"We should get back before the other one that dragged off those poor policemen returns... I've got one bullet left and I don't don't want to waste it..."

The Doctor and Jamie rushed back, through the gate they came. The team that was guarding it was still missing. The man they had knocked out was gone, too. The Doctor was hoping he hadn't raised the alarm. But the skies were starting clear and people were coming out of their homes again. The cybermen couldn't kill him while he was out in the open with people around. Hopefully.

Darrus Kasper was in his office, in on of the towers of the Police HQ's castle. He was putting some files away, getting ready to meet Commander Uios, effectively the second in command of the police, for a meeting about the mobilization of the police force into Elite Police units.

Suddenly his door opened. A cyberman appeared on the other side, taking a single step into the office.

"Elite Police units? Go back to your patrols. There's nothing wrong here." He said, concerned. Why had they burst into his room... three of them, two behind the first one that entered his office.

"You are to be promoted."

He was confused. What did it mean by 'promotion'? He couldn't think. He was the top dog – there was no promotion, not until the quarantine was lifted at least.

"Go back to your work schedule or I will call security, d'ya understand?"

"We have promoted security."

"What? Who gave you permission for that?"

"They must be promoted because we are superior units." It replied blankly.

"Commander Uios will be angry when he hears about this! He's second only to-"

"Commander Uios has been promoted. I was once Commander Uios. You will be promoted. I was scared, but now I have no fear. We are superior."

"Stay back! No! Help!"

The cybermen advanced, dragging him kicking and screaming to C Division's conversion chambers.