Eye Witness

Author: Soledad

For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

Author's notes: This is my own take on what the aftermath of the Battle of Canary Wharf might have looked like. We know Jack sent his team to scavenge whatever they could find among the ruins of Torchwood Tower, so assuming that Tosh was already there is only one step down the same lane.

My good friend aeshna_cyanea and I discussed the possible defensive mechanisms the Torchwood One archivists would need, in case someone would want to force the codes and passwords out of them. This is what I came up in the end; I hope it sounds plausible.

Chapter Five – Aftershocks

Tosh needed less than twenty minutes to get the security system of Torchwood Tower under control. She closed every single snap door in the building – assuming that they still worked. The system was fritzing out in many places.

She also redirected all working security cameras to send their feed to the rift chamber, wiring several laptops together, so that she could follow what was going on in the different parts of the building. There were fires everywhere, caused by the high energy weapons of the Daleks and the Cybermen, but nowhere near her position. She thanked whatever deity might have been watching over her for small favours.

She found one of the weapons Mickey and his black-clad buddies had been wielding, discarded on the floor. She checked it; it seemed still in working order. That made her feel slightly better about her situation. She laid the weapon on the floor, within reach, and looked if she could help Trevor in some way.

She fished a few scented refreshment tissues from her handbag and rubbed down Trevor's face with them. The young man groaned quietly and opened his eyes… only to shut them again. The strong, white light in the rift chamber stabbed into his brain like hot knives.

"What happened?" he asked blearily. "Did we do it?"

"We did it," Tosh assured him. "The breach has been closed."

"So it's over?" he still didn't reopen his eyes.

"Far from it," Tosh replied grimly. "Clean-up hasn't even started… and it isn't gonna be pretty. I've closed all security doors I could get working, but with all this alien technology lying around, if scavengers start coming the risks are beyond imagination."

"Most of the stuff isn't here," Trevor said. "Just the pieces we are – were – working with and the new founds that needed to be catalogued… which is bad enough. We'll need help to… to contain the situation."

"The cavalry is on the way," Tosh promised. "I've spoken to Jack. He's calling in UNIT to deal with the converted people and the cyber conversion equipment. And my team is coming to help, too. They'll be here in a couple of hours."

Trevor laughed… and regretted it immediately, as pain lanced through his head from even that small tremor.

"Yvonne would hate it: the misfits of Harkness and UNIT prodding around her base."

"She would hate Cybermen running amok in London even more," Tosh replied, "Although Jack seems to agree with her where sensitive technology falling into the hand of UNIT is concerned."

"They won't be able to gain access to anything but what is here," Trevor said. "The outer storages are secured. Without the help of an archivist, no-one can get in. Not that easily anyway. Not right away."

"Unless they grab a surviving archivist and get the passwords and codes from him," Tosh said grimly. She was understandably prejudiced, but she wouldn't put anything beyond UNIT in these days.

Trevor shook his head – and winced in pain.

"Or archivists have a high-level psychic training," he explained. "They're resistant to hypnosis, and in the case of a telepathic attack, they can erase the information from their memories at will."

"But what if someone forces them by threats or physical torture?" Tosh asked. Trevor shrugged and winced again. Even such a tiny movement caused him considerable pain in the head.

"They all have a small cranial implant that can be set off by a simple password; it allows a quick and painless death. Like the cyanide capsules of those CIA agents – only undetectable. Only the implanted person knows the code word; they choose it individually, and the implant is encoded to their voice print, so there is no way for an outsider to set it off. It cannot be surgically removed or destroyed by sonic waves, either. Not without killing the person, that is. Alien technology… and not a well-known piece of it."

"How comes you know so much about it, then?" Tosh asked suspiciously.

Trevor gave her a grim smile. "I used to work for Cybernetics, remember? I was part of the team that created the implant in the first place."

Tosh thought of the quiet, reserved young man wearing that conservative suit whom she had met in the lift just a day before – although it seemed now as if years had passed since then. What was his name again? Something Welsh… Yantoe… no, Ianto Jones. Junior Archivist. Keeper of Torchwood One's secrets.

Thinking that the polite and sarcastic young man would have such a killer implant in his brilliant head almost made her sick. Although, at second thought, it made sense. The archivists were the key factor of Headquarters' database, to all its secrets. No matter how well-trained, they would break under torture after a while – and killed afterwards anyway. It was better to make sure they could have a clean and easy way out, if they found that everything was lost. She particularly appreciated the fact that the choice was left to them; that no-one could simply set the implant off to kill them.

The ringing of her phone interrupted her thoughts. She answered the call with a weary sigh.

"Torchwood," she said. It was her official phone, used only for work-related stuff, and secured by alien technology. Practically no-one but her team-mates knew the number, so if Jack had given it to anyone else, that person had to be trustworthy.

"Doctor Sato?" a deep female voice asked crisply. She confirmed her identity, and the voice went on. "This is Captain Erisa Magambo from UNIT. We've been sent to deal with the situation at Torchwood Tower. I understand that you are in control of the security system?"

"Partially," Tosh corrected. "I can remotely open the sealed snap doors for you… the ones that are still working, that is. And I have the security cameras rerouted here, so I can watch your progress. But that's all."

"That's all we need," the female UNIT soldier said, her voice crisp and business-like. "Well, some local knowledge of the layout of the Tower wouldn't hurt, but we can go on without it if we have to."

"One of the local scientists is here with me," Tosh informed her. "But he's concussed and probably has a hair fracture of his skull. I might be able to download a map of the Tower for you, though."

"Excellent," Captain Magambo said. "I'll send you up a field medic as soon as I can. Are the lifts still operational?"

"They ought to be," Tosh consulted one of the screens. "At least no system's malfunctions are marked here."

"Very good," Magambo said. "I have all entrances under armed watch; the rest of the squads will take the lift to the top level and clean the building from top to ground, level by level."

"I hope you've got some heavy firepower handy," Tosh replied, "'cos these cyber guys are annoyingly tough."

"We have to do what we have to do," Magambo answered with an almost audible shrug. "I'll see you in ten minutes."

"I can't wait," Tosh muttered, still not comfortable with the idea of sharing the place with a whole contingent of UNIT soldiers. But Jack had been right. The regular armed forces wouldn't be able to deal with this.

Captain Erisa Magambo turned out to be a trim black woman in her mid-thirties, with her jet-black hair twisted into a tight knot on the nape of her neck and hidden under that typical red beret all UNIT soldiers wore. With her hair down and in more feminine clothes, she might have been a beautiful woman, but at the moment all she radiated was cold efficiency. Not that there would be anything wrong with that. If she wanted to get the disaster under control, she had to be efficient.

She shook Tosh's hand and sent her escort, a tall, very handsome Private, who apparently had some field medic training, to check on Trevor's condition. Then she took a look around the rift chamber, taking in the equipment with an expression that revealed that she understood more of the tech stuff than she would be willing to admit.

"Impressive," she judged. "Professor Taylor will have his field day with this stuff, once it is dismantled."

Tosh knew who Professor Taylor was, of course. Everyone even remotely affiliated with UNIT knew the eccentric Welshman; or at least had heard about him. Despite being one of the lead scientific advisors of UNIT, he was more than willing to get his hands dirty by actual engineering work, and was pretty decent as an engineer. His true genius, however, manifested in his chosen field of theoretical astrophysics. Only two other people had the same reputation in the scientific community, and they both lived in the overseas: in the USA and in Canada, respectively.

So yes, if anyone but Headquarters' own head researchers, Professor Taylor was capable of understanding and even using the equipment in the rift chamber. Tosh made a mental note of warning Jack as soon as the red berets were out of earshot. She was sure Jack wouldn't like to see the particle cannon falling in their hands.

Magambo, in the meantime, had started co-ordinating things with the medical staff she had brought with her.

"Doctor Sullivan, we've found survivors on the top floor," she spoke to someone though her earpiece. "I'm gonna send them to the triage tent out front…" she paused, listening to the answer, her attitude unusually respectful for speaking to a mere doctor. "One is concussed, the other one seems unhurt, but we can't be sure…" she listened again. "Yes, sir, of course."

She disconnected and looked at the field medic checking on Trevor. "Private Jenkins, when you're done patching them up, I want them down at the triage tent."

"Yes, ma'am," the young man replied crisply.

"No, ma'am," Tosh said calmly at the same time.

A lot more calmly than she felt, to be honest. Being in close proximity of UNIT officers – any UNIT officers – still made her extremely uncomfortable, but she couldn't afford to panic, not now. Captain Magambo gave her a look usually reserved for lower life forms… like civilians in general and civilians not working for UNIT in particular.

"What do you mean no?" she demanded.

"I mean I don't answer to you, Captain," Tosh replied, trying to ignore the tremors in her belly. "I only answer to Captain Jack Harkness, and he ordered me to stay here and help secure the Tower. I'm unhurt, I'm Torchwood, and I'm a scientist – a good one. I've got work to do here."

"Yes, Doctor Sato, I know exactly how good a scientist you are," Captain Magambo said slowly, and Tosh blanched because she understood that the Captain ranked high enough in the UNIT hierarchy to know about her imprisonment, despite the fact that her record had been wiped. Still she wasn't going to back off.

"Then you know what I'm capable of," she said coldly. "Now, we can stand here and argue all day while people keep dying all over the building and half-converted Cybermen run amok – or you can go on, doing your job, and let me do mine."

"And that would be?" Magambo asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Confidential," Tosh replied curtly. "You can take it up to my boss – he and the rest of Torchwood Three will be here shortly. I'm just following my orders, Captain, the way you are following yours."

For a moment, Magambo glared at her in the most displeased manner. Tosh didn't back off. She knew that in the end, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart would support Jack's claim, and she knew that the UNIT officer knew that, too. With Yvonne gone, Jack was now the de facto leader of Torchwood, since Archie in Glasgow didn't really count, and while the two organizations were supposed to work together, UNIT didn't have any real jurisdiction over Torchwood.

Magambo might have ignored that fact if Jack weren't already on his way to London. But she was apparently a smart woman – smart enough not to cross the protégée of the Brig. The Great Old Man of UNIT might have retired from active duty, but he still carried a great deal of weight with the brass… to say it very carefully.

So Magambo did what every sensible officer conscious of their own career would have done – she backed off.

Sort of. If turning on her heels and stomping off without a further word could be called backing off.

Tosh decided to call it a victory; even if only a small one. She liked to get the upper hand against UNIT, regardless how small the matter might be.

"You heard the captain, Private," she said to the field medic. "Take Doctor Howard down where he can be treated properly. I'll keep monitoring the security system from here and open the snap doors for you guys if I have to."

Private Jenkins looked a bit unsure about the whole thing – he really looked cute with that confused expression on his pretty face – but Tosh didn't wait for him to think about things. She turned back to Trevor and patted him on the arm.

"Take care of yourself," she said. "I'll check on you when the worst part is over."

Trevor caught her hand. "Wait! You may need my access code, just in case."

He handed her a small, handheld PDA-device before the other red berets came in with a gurney. Tosh thanked him but waited until they were all out of the door before looking at the small screen. Aside from a single code of a long combination of numbers and letters, there was also a message.

Secure the sublevels first. This will help.

Tosh entered the code into one of the computers. After a few seconds, large letters flashed across the screen.

CODE ACCEPTED. ACCESS FREE FOR DR. RAJESH SINGH. PLEASE ENTER CODE AGAIN BEFORE ATTEMPTING ANY SYSTEMWIDE ACTIONS.

For a moment, Tosh was taken aback; then she understood the hidden message. Rajesh had been one of the department heads. Using his code, she would be able to lock down all the Archives: both the physical and the digital ones. And if she played around a little with the Torchwood One mainframe, changing the time coding, everybody would think that Rajesh had done it, to secure Torchwood's secrets from the alien invaders. That way, no-one could accuse her of sabotage. Trevor was really a very smart man.

Of course, locking down the Archives would mean that Torchwood Three won't be able to gain access, either – but that was all right. If Jack's – or Archie's – passwords wouldn't work, she and Suzie could always think of something to reverse the lock. Unless they would find a surviving archivist, that is. The most important thing was that UNIT or MI5 or whatever agency wanted a piece of the cake, wouldn't be able to get their hands on any Torchwood information.

To achieve that, however, she had to go down to the Central Archive, which she remembered to be on Sublevel One. It had an independent server, only from which could the Archives be put under lockdown. She redirected control over the security system to her own laptop, which had been enhanced by alien technology, and left the rift chamber, sealing the door behind her.

Not wanting to use the lifts, which were needed for the transport of potential survivors – supposed that there would be any more – she started descending on the stairs instead… only to have her way blocked by burned-out, headless Cyberman body suits. Two Privates were dragging them away from the stairs to make access to the factory floor possible. One of them, a big guy with a ruggedly handsome face and straight dark hair, looked at her with a frown.

"What are you doing here, Miss? All survivors are supposed to go down to the med teams."

"I'm from Torchwood Cardiff," Tosh replied. "I was sent to help with the clean-up."

She leaned down and examined the only dead Cyberman that still had its head. The track of a black tear could still be seen on the metal face, which made her able to recognize it. She swallowed hard. She had not really expected Yvonne to survive, but still…

"Be respectful with this one, Private," she said. "This one used to be Director Yvonne Hartman."

The soldier looked from the dead cyborg at her in confusion. "How could you possibly know that, Miss? These… things are all identical."

"I saw her on the security footage," Tosh replied. "She… she shot the others to pieces to save the people trapped in the office above. She deserves respect."

"Are you sure it was her?" the Private asked doubtfully.

Tosh shrugged. "The head is still intact; that would make it easy to do a DNA identification test on the brain inside. But yeah, I'm actually quite sure," she put a Torchwood Three marker on the metal body suit, ignoring the sight of the soldier getting a little green around the gills from that though. "My colleague, Doctor Owen Harper will do the test. Just leave the body here."

The Private agreed readily enough, and Tosh continued her way down. To her relief, the stairway was relatively empty and clean. The actual massacre had taken place in the labs and offices – and in that curtained area where, unknown by Torchwood personnel, the Cybermen had installed their conversion units – and the UNIT soldiers used the lifts, so that she could hope to remain undisturbed.

It was also bloody dark there, and that made her uncomfortable. Most of the power – save for that of the rift chamber, which had its own generator – had been cut to the Tower, and she did not expect the lights coming on any time, soon. A quick check back in the rift chamber had told him that the Cybermen had routed the power (including the backup generators) to their conversion units. It was going to take hours to re-route them back.

Using a torch would have been an unnecessary risk. As abandoned as the stairway seemed, the bright torchlight might have drawn unwanted attention. So she took out the Torchwood version of night goggles – they looked like a pair of designer sunglasses, really – and put them on. It wasn't an ideal solution, but it was the best that she could do. Mindful of the blurred vision provided the goggles, she continued her way down.

"Captain Magambo, we've found survivors at the thirty-fifth floor," an unknown male voice crackled through her earpiece, which she had readjusted to the frequency UNIT was using during this particular operation, just to monitor their progress.

"How many?" Magambo's voice asked.

"Three," the unknown soldier replied. "One of them is badly burned. The other two are in deep shock, but seem okay otherwise. Gonna send them to the triage tent right away."

"All right…" Magambo trailed off, clearly wanting to know the caller's identity.

"Private Grey, ma'am," the soldier supported the information.

"All right, Pivate Grey, go on with it."

"May I ask, ma'am, how many does that make?"

"Nine so far," Magambo said grimly. "See that you find some more, soldier."

"Ma'am, yes, ma'am," Private Grey answered crisply and broke the connection.

Nine so far, out of more than eight hundred. Tosh suppressed a sigh. Of course, it could have been a lot worse. The Canary Wharf district employed over sixty thousand people. Had been the conflict between Daleks and Cybermen not mainly confined to Torchwood Tower, the death toll would have been the more horrendous.

Even so, she had seen the dead bodies littering the pavement all over Canada Square. And no-one had yet given any thought to the many civilian deaths that must have occurred when five million Cybermen had fully materialized around the world. Those things had been everywhere – and people had put up resistance in many places, she knew that.

One thing was certain: Earth would never be the same as it had been before. No matter how good a cover story the government would come up with (and Torchwood, she was certain about that, would support the cover-up every way they could), deep down people would feel the terror for the rest of their lives. She knew she would.

The ringing of her work phone was a welcome excuse to interrupt her long climb down for a moment. She disconnected her earpiece to prevent the unpleasant feedback look that sometimes was created by mobile phones and Bluetooth devices working in close proximity, and answered the call.

To her surprise, it was Suzie.

"We've just arrived, "Jack's second-in-command informed her. "Got a chopper ride from the local UNIT base, as they were coming up to help anyway. Where are you?"

"On my way down to Sublevel One, to put the Archives under lockdown," Tosh replied.

Suzie whistled quietly, causing Tosh to hold the phone away from her ear for a moment. "You can do that? I didn't know our access codes worked with Headquarters' mainframe, too."

"They don't," Tosh said dryly. "I'll tell you the details later. Right now, I must hurry up before UNIT finds anything they're not supposed to find. There are too many secrets down here, and Jack has no intention of sharing them with any outside agencies."

"Smart man," Suzie commented. "All right, where do you need us?"

"Owen will be needed with the injured, I guess… and with doing DNA tests on the converted people's brains. We need to identify them somehow. But I could use your help down here. This is where all the tech considered too important or too dangerous to be easily accessible is stored. I think we need to take a look at the stuff before I'd lock down the physical Archives as well."

"Understood," for a moment, there were muted voices, as Suzie was obviously consulting with someone, then she spoke into her phone again. "I'll meet you on Sublevel One. What office should I look for?"

"Rupert Howarth's," Tosh told her. "The Central Archive."

"Got it," Suzie said. "Wait for me there, and… are you armed?"

"Just my hand gun," Tosh was already regretting that she had left the big gun from the parallel reality in the rift chamber. But that could not be helped anymore.

"Keep a low profile, then," Suzie advised. "At last until I get there. Jack let me bring the really big calibre this time."

Knowing what Torchwood's main weapon, nicknamed as the Big Gun, could do, Tosh continued her way down feeling slightly better. Even if that kind of safety was only an illusion.

Her legs were shaking with the effort when she finally reached Sublevel One. She had never been there before. This was where the really big secrets were kept, and Yvonne would never have allowed any outsiders here. Not even from a different Torchwood branch.

Especially from the Cardiff branch, as she and Jack had always held each other in the deepest possible contempt.

Tosh had known that she would not find Rupert Howarth alive in the centre of his private empire. Had the Head Archivist been there during the attack, the Archives had already been locked down.

She wondered whether the Cybermen had got down to the sublevels at all. To her knowledge, they had started the upgrading process with the personnel working on the upper levels, herding everyone upstairs as they would run out of people there. Had they searched this deep as well?

The sight of a middle-aged, bespectacled man wearing a conservative three-piece suit answered that question. The man was slumped back in the armchair behind his desk, with an automatic pistol in his hand… and a large, burnt hole in the middle of his chest; a wound unmistakably caused by a Cyberman ray gun. Tosh had never seen the man before, but it could only be Rupert Howarth.

Apparently, the only ones she would find here were the ones who had fought back. She felt a great deal of respect for the old-fashioned gentleman who looked like some sort of librarian out of an early twentieth-century film, and yet had the courage to resist those monsters. It also explained why he hadn't initiated the lockdown. They'd got to him before he could have done so.

Gritting her teeth, Tosh pulled the dead man, together with his chair, away from the desk that had a computer terminal the likes of which she had never seen before. Its screen seemed to be nothing but a transparent plane of plastic that had random data flickering across it. The keyboard was a pad of touch controls built into the desktop and could be flipped around to be hidden under what seemed a simple writing surface.

It appeared that Rupert Howarth's conservative quirks did not include working equipment. Even if he had forced his young assistants to put hand-written labels of every item that was stored in the physical Archives.

Tosh entered Rajesh's access code (ignoring the dumb pain the mere thought of him caused) and asked for a detailed layout of the sublevel area. The results made her gasp with amazement (and with envy).

There were seven sublevels altogether. Sublevel One was the Central Archive, where Howarth and his assistants had done all the cataloguing and the digital encoding. The two levels below were nothing more than large laboratories, fitted out with all sorts of alien technology that was needed for the analysing of unknown artefacts, securing them and experimenting with them.

Another three levels consisted of the physical Archives: rows and rows of boxes and cabinets filled with files and catalogued items. According to Trevor, only the most recent stuff that had not been shipped off to Torchwood House or another one of the outer storages yet. It was an awful lot of recent stuff – but again, until today, eight hundred-and-some people had worked for Headquarters.

Finally, the lowest level was simply labelled as the cells. Curious, she asked for visuals from that level, and the computer brought up a picture of an empty corridor. Heavy security doors stood open at regular intervals, and as she found the zooming function, she could see that behind each door was a small cell, with a narrow cot and basic conveniences.

Some of the cells were empty. In others she could see dead bodies, bearing the scorched marks of Cyberman ray guns. Not humans; aliens. She recognized a Weevil, wondering how it had got there, as to their knowledge the only way they could get to Earth was through the Cardiff Rift. But perhaps Jack's predecessor had sent one to Headquarters for research purposes. Back then, cooperation between London and Cardiff had been a lot more regular.

The other aliens were unknown for her, save a vaguely humanoid one with long arms, a tail and a blunt, lizard-like face. Its scales had faded to grey from their original, jewelled colours, and the soft frill of skin curving across its sleek head had hung limp, but Tosh recognized the species nonetheless. She had met a group of them during her travels with the Doctor, but she couldn't understand how they would end up on Earth. Their species wasn't supposed to develop interstellar travel for another six thousand years or so.

Of course, accidents happened. Some of them could even lead to temporal displacement, especially if wormholes were involved.

Still, the presence of the dead aliens meant that they would have to find a way of disposing them. She knew UNIT would be all too happy to dissect dead aliens; and while sometimes they did the same at Torchwood Three, she did not want the A'isha end up on an examination table. Not even if it was dead. She could still remember the group of them, dancing in the triple moonlight on the planet Zedrani, glittering like living gemstones, their multi-coloured frill luminescent and throbbing with life energy…

No, something that beautiful, that alive deserved to be treated with respect. Even in death.

She fished out her phone and called the landline in Jack's office again.

"Jack, I'm in the Central Archive of Headquarters," she said when Jack answered the call. "I'm just about to lock them down, so that UNIT won't be able to get their hands on anything. But there are alien bodies on the lowest level that need to be disposed of – and once I've initiated the lockdown, I'm not sure we'll be able to get in again. Not for a while at least."

"What about the digital Archives?" Jack asked.

"The same problem," Tosh told him. "I'd like to create a direct link between them and our Mainframe and transfer as much of the data as I can before I'll have to lock them down. I'm not sure Headquarters has really sent copies of everything to Torchwood House and Archie."

"Neither am I," Jack paused for a moment. "Can you establish a secure transfer link between the Central Archive and our Mainframe?"

"Perhaps," Tosh said uncertainly. "If you help me from your end."

"Tell me what I have to do," Jack ordered.

Ten minutes later the transfer link between the digital Archives of Headquarters and the Torchwood Hub in Cardiff had been established and data transfer was running at the highest possible speed. Even so, Tosh knew that it would take hours to copy all the accumulated data – and an ungodly long time afterwards to decode, catalogue and file them away properly. Years most likely, unless she got some help. Which, considering Jack's reluctance to hire new personnel (mostly because of trust issues) was rather unlikely.

Suzie arrived just as the data transfer started running its cycle. She was unusually pale and shaken to the bone, which, as far as Tosh could tell, was a first. Nothing had ever shaken Suzie since Tosh had come to Cardiff. Of course, the desolation left behind by the Daleks and the Cybermen could not be compared with rogue Weevils or the havoc wrought by the occasional Hoix. The worst threat Cardiff had to face had been Margaret Blaine's nefarious plan to blow up the city, but that had been averted by the previous incarnation of the Doctor and a much younger, mortal Jack.

"I thought I've seen all," Suzie admitted shakily. "The ugliness, the pain, the malice. But this… nothing can prepare you for this. The worst part are those half-converted people. Human bodies, with mechanical parts protruding from the living flesh… while the real people within are dead already..."

"Not all of them were dead," Tosh reminded her. "At least Yvonne Hartman has managed to overcome the cyber-programming by sheer willpower – for a while anyway. I saw it with my own eyes. She saved me… and she sacrificed herself to buy time for the Doctor to make his plan work."

"The Doctor?" Suzie repeated in shock. "The Doctor was here? Does Jack know that?"

Tosh shook her head. "Not yet; and I'm still of two minds whether to tell him or not. This wasn't the Doctor he used to know… or I, for that matter. It was the most recent incarnation."

"You mean the arrogant snot that started spreading the rumours of Prime Minister Harriet Jones' ill health?" Suzie asked grimly.

She was an ardent supporter of the former Prime Minister and had been royally pissed when the vote of no confidence got through the Parliament. She had been even more pissed when she had learned through the Torchwood grapevine (she had had her own contacts at Headquarters) who had been responsible for those rumours. It had led to the only real confrontation between her and Jack that Tosh could remember, Jack seeing the Doctor through rose-tinted glasses, as always, and Suzie speaking up against the Time Lord, pointing out a few less than stellar reactions of his whenever mere humans had dared to think for themselves, instead of running to him and begging for his help.

For her part, Tosh was still torn between her fond memories of a Doctor both she and Jack had used to know and this new version of him that irritated the hell out of her.

"At least he managed to save us this time," was all she said.

"Yeah?" Suzie asked with biting sarcasm. "Why are we standing in the middle of a slaughterhouse then?"

"it wasn't his fault," Tosh said reasonably. "Without him, things would have escalated tenfold… or much worse. At least both the Daleks and the Cybermen are gone, back to the Void, and hopefully won't bother us again. Clean-up will be hell, though," she added with a sigh. Suzie pulled a face.

"He couldn't stay and help a little with that, could he?"

"He never does," Tosh answered with a brittle smile. "It's not in his nature. It doesn't matter; we'll manage well enough on our own." Which reminded her of something. "Suzie, do you think we could arrange that Doctor Singh's body would be released for funeral? He was killed by the Daleks, trying to stop them from releasing their buddies. He deserves better than being thrown into some oven and burned with the rest."

"I think if there's family to claim the bodies, they'll be released," Suzie said. "At least if there's no obvious sign of alien involvement. At least that's what Doctor Harrington, the chief medical officer of UNIT had said upon their arrival. Do you know where the body is?"

Tosh nodded. "Right below us, in the lab on Sublevel Three. I have no idea how they'd managed to drag the sphere down there… or if the gateway originally appeared a lot lower… but it was there, in Rajesh's lab, all the time."

"I wonder why Yvonne wanted Singh to work with it," Suzie frowned. "He is… was... and exobiologist, not an engineer."

"They assumed there would be some life forms within," Tosh replied with a shrug," and they were right, it seems. Although they had probably expected different life forms. Less destructive ones."

"No kidding," Suzie commented dryly. "Well, if we're no longer needed here, we can take a look at what's going on down on the other sublevels. Can you initiate the lockdown remotely from your laptop? Just in case UNIT refuses to be reasonable about ownership."

Tosh shook her head. "No; I need to enter the lockdown order manually, from the Central Archive. But I can seal the security doors while we are down in the labs. Since I have control over the security system, they won't be able to get in, unless they cut through the doors with laser torches."

Suzie nodded. "Good enough. Let's go."

Since Tosh already knew that the Cybermen did manage to get down to the sublevels, they were not surprised to find a dozen or so dead people in the labs, between the burnt-out metal hulls of the Cybermen killed by Daleks in Rajesh's lab. The human victims all had fatal crush injuries or burn marks; the ones hit by the Dalek death ray, like Rajesh himself, were little more than blackened husks.

Suzie radioed to the corpse collectors – the group of UNIT soldiers who had been given the task to collect the bodies – and put a tag on Rajesh's body with his name and the note that it should be released to the family.

"The body has burn marks that can be easily explained by the explosions, if you intend to go with the cover story of a terrorist attack," she explained to Doctor Harrington.

"That's one less unidentified body to worry about," UNIT's chief medical officer replied in audible relief. "I don't know what to do with the other ones – if we don't release them to the families, people wills tart asking uncomfortable questions, and we cannot Retcon the entire capital."

"Actually," Tosh took the radio from Suzie, "I think I can help with that. Torchwood Cardiff has a full list of Headquarters' personnel, complete with photos and DNA identification; and I've developed a facial recognition software a short time ago that's much better than the one the police are using. I have it on my laptop right here."

"That would be a big help," Doctor Harrington agreed. "We need to identify these bodies as fast as we can – we cannot have the corpses in cold storage for an indefinite time. Can you come over with that laptop of yours to our temporary morgue?"

"Not right now; we need to check the deepest sublevel for possible survivors first," Tosh replied. "But in half an hour I can be there… where exactly do you need me?"

"It's a warehouse that Torchwood was still building, right on the ground level, over the parking lot," Harrington told her. "It seems that – unknown to them – the Cybermen have set up their conversion units right there. But I have to warn you; it's not a pretty sight."

"No, I didn't expect it to be," Tosh replied grimly. "In half an hour then, Doctor Harrington."

She disconnected and looked at Suzie. "We don't have much time. Let's clean out the lowest level; hopefully the data transfer to Cardiff will run its cycle until then, so that I can put the Archives on lockdown."

"And if it doesn't?" Suzie asked. Tosh shrugged.

"Then we'll have to interrupt the transfer and hope that we'll be able to deactivate the lockdown afterwards. Jack doesn't want UNIT to get their hands on anything here. That includes the labs and the dead aliens on the lowest level."

"Let's hope they do have some cold storage facilities down there," Suzie commented unhappily. "Otherwise we'll have a problem with the alien bodies."

"I'm sure they do," Tosh replied. "Whatever Jack might think about Headquarters, they are – were – nothing if not efficient."

They hurried down to Sublevel Seven, searching the cells for possible previous inhabitants, whether dead or alive. Aside from two dead Weevils, a few unknown alien corpses, the charred remnants of a Hoix that had apparently been stupid enough to try and chew a little on one of the Cybermen, if its broken teeth were any indication, they only found the lizard-like alien Tosh had seen on the security camera earlier… and, in the hindmost cell, the child.

It was not really a child, of course, not even remotely human, but it looked like one. Like an eerie but beautiful alien child between ten and twelve. Its skin had a luminous gold colour; its eyebrows had a metallic quality as if gemstones and precious metals had been crushed and brushed across the hairs. From above each brow sprang delicate antennae, which curved back over the top of its head. Its short-cropped hair that covered its skull like a helmet was of the same metallic multicoloured strands as the brows. Its facetted eyes, too, glittered like gemstones, half-open under the leathery eyelids.

"It looks like a dragonfly developed bipedal," Suzie commented softly. She seemed completely amazed by the little creature.

"She is a Deneka; a pre-pubescent female, if the undeveloped egg sacks on her sides are any indication," Tosh replied.

"You've seen them before?" Suzie asked in surprise. She knew, of course, that Tosh had travelled with the Doctor for a while, but she was still amazed by the knowledge she had collected about alien species during her journeys.

Tosh shrugged. "They're fairly common in the Shadori Damus system… or will be, some six thousand years from now,"

"Six thousand years, huh?" Suzie asked. "How did it… I mean she get here then?"

"My guess would be that the A'isha took her with him," Tosh gestured towards the lizard-like alien. "As an egg."

"As a what?"

"Deneka need about eight of our years to reach full physical maturity," Tosh explained, "During which time they do not travel through space; it would put too great a strain on their system. So, if they are supposed to grow up on a different planet, they're transported there as eggs; usually in incubators, so that they can be born on their selected homeworld. This one must have crash-landed on Earth, together with her transport."

"But that would mean she was born in one of the labs and grew up in this cell," Suzie said, looking vaguely sick. "How could they do that to a child?"

"If it's alien, it's ours," Tosh quoted cynically, looking down at the fragile, dead body of the Deneka that looked like a broken doll. "Although, to be fair, I must also add that Deneka aren't a completely harmless species. They're carnivorous predators that can turn on anyone if the hunger takes the upper hand. Like dragonflies: beautiful, but deadly in their larval form."

"Well, this one isn't going to harm anyone," Suzie said. "Let's see if we find any cold storage units; then you'll gave to go to that warehouse to help identify dead people – and ain't that gonna be fun?"

"I just wish Jack would arrive as soon as possible," Tosh muttered. "I really don't feel like having a confrontation with UNIT about ownership, either over dead aliens or over alien tech."

"Don't wet yourself," Suzie replied coldly. "Once I'm finished with them, They'd wish they had been dealing with Jack."

As Tosh had predicted, they did find some cold storage units on the lowest sublevel indeed. Some of them held dead Dogon bodies, in various stages of dissection; the others stood empty. They stuffed the alien corpses into the empty units, made a report to Jack who promised to come with the first available UNIT helicopter as soon as the data transfer was complete – then Tosh made her way to the temporary morgue, while Suzie remained behind to examine and seal the labs.

The morgue, established in the half-finished warehouse on the ground level, was the worst nightmare Tosh had ever seen. Row upon row of corpses covered the floor. A trio of UNIT soldiers was methodically walking down each row, taking Polaroid pictures of each body, while other soldiers were still carrying in new corpses. The pictures then were shown to a young man in a badly burned suit, who was sitting on a nearby stool. Sometimes he nodded and scribbled a name on a paper tag, handing it back to one of the soldiers. The soldier put the tag on the body matching the photo and zipped it into a body bag.

Owen came out of one of the side rooms to guide Tosh. He had obviously been helping with the injured, as his hands were bloodied and his white lab coat smudged with soot, blood and other substances Tosh rather did not ask to be identified.

"How many dead?" she asked.

"Hundreds, and that's not counting the converted ones," Owen replied grimly. "Cause of death is fairly easy to determine, at least in the case of the human victims: severe trauma to the body (many of them had been hurled against the walls), fire, radiation or chemical burns, depending on whether they were killed by Dalek or Cybermen ray guns or died when their labs exploded. Death by smoke inhalation is fairly common, too."

"How's the identification going?" Tosh asked.

"Better than expected," Owen admitted. "That bloke over there seems to know a lot of the victims from seeing, so if the body is intact, or at least the face more or less undamaged, he can do a fairly good job. You can help out with that face recognition software of yours where he doesn't recognize someone. As for the rest… we'll have to go with dental records or DNA testing."

"DNA testing should work with the fully converted bodies, too," Tosh said. "At least the brain ought to be intact," at Owen's incredulous look, she added sharply. "It wasn't their fault, you know. In this very morning, they were ordinary human beings like you and me. They didn't ask to be converted into those monsters."

Owen reluctantly agreed, and when Tosh insisted on seeing what was going on further down, he walked with her to the far end of the warehouse that was cordoned off by plastic sheeting. From behind those translucent partitions, the sound of power tools could be heard. The air was heavy with the stench of burnt flesh and drying blood.

"Are you sure you want to go in?" Owen asked warningly. "I'm not easily shocked, but I've already thrown up twice."

Tosh nodded. She didn't really want to see the carnage, but she felt she owed those people a last look. They would most likely be blamed for whatever had gone wrong, simply because people always needed to blame someone, but she was not willing to jump onto that particular bandwagon. These unfortunate ones were Torchwood, just like she was – they deserved a decent farewell, no matter what had happened to them. Especially as it had not even been their fault.

Owen pulled back the plastic sheeting to allow her entrance, and for a moment Tosh was seriously tempted to throw up on the spot. It was a slaughterhouse, plain and simple. People in hazmat suits were dissecting partially converted corpses with electronic saws. The floor around them was littered with metal-covered body parts – mostly arms and legs.

A middle-aged man in a once white lab coat spotted them and hurried over, wiping his hands on a wet rag to be able to greet Tosh.

"Miss Sato?" he asked, shaking her hand. "I'm Chief Medical Officer Oliver Harrington, in charge of the clean-up crews here. Thanks for offering your help with the identification of the bodies."

"I don't envy your for the job," Tosh said honestly. "Is there a reason why your people are… well, butchering these bodies, though?"

Harrington nodded grimly. "Oh, yes. Aside from the, let's say for clarity's sake, the human victims, we've got five hundred or so fully or partially converted Cybermen here; most of them formally Torchwood personnel, but also quite a few people that had been simply collected from the nearby streets. In no way could we explain so many missing bodies being the result of a terrorist attack. So, if the conversion process hasn't gone too far, we remove the converted parts, blaming the bombs for the mutilated state of the corpses, patch up the remains as well as we can, and release the bodies to the families. At least they'll have something to bury; can come to some sort of closure."

Tosh nodded. It sounded horrible, but at least it did make some sense.

"What about the fully converted bodies, though?" she asked. Doctor Harrington shrugged tiredly.

"There's nothing to be done. We'll do the DNA-testing, of course, so that we can be sure who these people used to be, but after that they'll be incinerated and recorded missing."

That, again, made horrible sense. Tosh knew better than most that once a human had been converted, even if it was only a partial conversion, they could become active any time and endanger the entire planet. A single Cyberman, programmed with the knowledge of their race, was enough to raise a new Cyber army, and the horror would begin again. Yes, Yvonne had overcome the cyber programming – temporarily at least – but Yvonne had been a woman of extraordinary willpower, fully aware of what was happening to her, and even so, who could tell how long she would have been able to remain her self within that metal suit? This was a risk no-one could afford to take.

"You had to euthanize them," she said. It was not a question, but Doctor Harrington nodded nevertheless.

"Executing them would be the correct term," he said glumly. "A head shot was the only thing that worked: destroying the brain that steered the body."

"I know," Tosh said. "These people were my colleagues; I even used to know quite a few of them personally. But if I were in their place, I'd prefer a clean and quick death, too."

"Perhaps," Doctor Harrington allowed. "I still have the feeling that I'm willingly trodding on my Hippocratic oath, though."

"I understand that," Tosh sighed. "But believe me, there's nothing you could do to help them. Now, where am I supposed to work on the identifications?"

"Choose a quiet corner for yourself," Harrington said. "The soldiers will show you the photos our local helper doesn't recognize. Between the two of you, it shouldn't be hard to put an ID on those who aren't beyond recognition."

Tosh nodded and left the gruesome place, selecting a somewhat secluded corner with a small table and a wooden chair to set up her laptop. Among other things, it also had a detachable scanner, no bigger than her palm. She plugged it in and started scanning the Polaroids one of the UNIT soldiers dumped onto the table. As soon as the programme came up with a name, she scribbled it across the photo with an alcoholic marker and laid the picture on the left side.

It was going to be a long process.

~TBC~