The Army of Ghosts Part 2

The Doctor looked worriedly down to Rose, the memory of his first 'Tyler slap' coming back to him as he rubbed his cheek with a wince. He nodded to the older blonde as she came down from the railings, the TARDIS materialised in a small storage room, a dozen armed soldiers aiming fire at the TARDIS. "Oh well, there goes the advantage of surprise," he muttered, mainly to himself. "Still! Cuts to the chase. Stay in here, look after Jackie," he said, walking quickly to the door.

Rose quickly rushed after him as they continued to the door. "I'm not looking after my mum!" she exclaimed.

"Well, you brought her!" he battled.

"I was kidnapped!" Jackie corrected. Rose pushed past the Doctor so she blocked his way out. "They've got guns," she said warningly as she looked up at him. He gave her his signature 'trust me' look, placing both hands around her waist, giving her a squeeze. "And I haven't. Which makes me the better person, don't you think?" he asked as she smoothly scooted her out of his way. "They can shoot me dead, but the moral high-ground is mine," he retorted in a matter-of-fact tone. He opened the door slowly, looking out at the soldiers who had their guns trained on him. He rose his hands in surrender, watching them closely.

"Oh...! Oh, how marvellous!" exclaimed a woman. Clip clapping into the room was a tall woman in work dress, clapping as she came towards him. "Oh, very good. Superb. Happy day!" she continued, as if praising him and worshipping him. The soldiers looked to each other in a confused manor, slowly beginning to follow suit. Slowly, he lowered his arms, looking around at the applauding crowd. "Um. Thanks," he said. "Nice to meet you. I'm... the Doctor."

His sentence had then clapping again in mirth. "Oh, I should say!" the woman said happily.

"You've heard of me, then?" he asked. "And... and you are?" he asked the woman.

"Oh, plenty of time for that," she said dismissively. "But according to the records, you're not one for travelling alone. The Doctor and his companion. That's a pattern isn't it, right?" she asked, the Doctor staring as her. "There's no point hiding anything. Not from us," she added, her tone no longer praising, but more sinister. "So where is she?" the woman asked, smiling.

Rose... Rose! the Doctor thought. How did this woman know anything about her? Heck, how did they know anything about him? He told Mickey to erase every trace of him with that virus. "Yes! Sorry. Good point. She's just a bit shy, that's all," the Doctor told her, his arm reaching inside the TARDIS as he felt around for Jackie. Once he felt the pins in her hair, he pulled her encouragingly by the jacket and dragged her out. "But here she is: Rose Tyler," he announced, feeling an opportunity to poke fun at his companions mother, as she always did to him. But now, he didn't have to worry about any Tyler slaps. "She's not the best I've ever had. Bit too blonde. Not too steady on her pins. A lot of that," he told the woman, imitating non stop chatting with his hand as Jackie glared at him, the woman laughing. "And just last week, she stared into the heart of the Time Vortex and aged fifty-seven years. But she'll do."

"I'm 40!" Jackie countered.

"Deluded," the Doctor said, giving her a 'what you gonna do?' smile. "Bless. I'll have to trade her in. Do you need anyone? She's very good at tea. Well, I say very good, I mean not bad... well, I say not bad..." he trailed off, then looked back up to the woman and the soldiers. "Anyway! Lead on. But not too fast. Her ankle's going," he ended in a hushed whisper. The woman walked foreword, the Doctor and Jackie following as Jackie hissed at him, "I'll show you where my ankle's going."


"It was only a matter of time until you found us," the woman told him over her shoulder. "And at last you've made it. I'd like to welcome you, Doctor," she said, pushing a door open to see a huge factory floor, alien artefacts littering the room as scientists worked on them, studied them. "Welcome to Torchwood," she said, walking through the room. "That's a Jathar Sunglider," the Doctor said, pointing.

The woman nodded. "Came down to Earth off the Shetland Islands ten years ago. We shot it down. It violated our airspace. Then we stripped it bare. The weapon that destroyed the Sycorax on Christmas Day? That was us! Now if you'd like to come with me," she said as the Doctor and Jackie shared a look, the woman continuing, "The Torchwood Institute has a motto: "if it's alien, it's ours"," she told him. "Anything that comes from the sky - we strip it down, and we use it. For the good of the British Empire," she looked at a soldier, taking a gun line object from his hands. "Now, if you wouldn't mind... do you recognise this, Doctor?" she asked. The Docto studied it for a long while, replying to her in confusion, "That's a particle gun. It's the twenty-first century. You can't have particle guns," he insisted.

"We must defend our border against the alien," she said simply, giving the gun back to the man. "Thank you, Sebastian." She turned back to the Doctor and Jackie.
"I think it's very important to know everyone by name. Torchwood is a very modern organisation. People skills. That's what it's all about these days," she smiled at them smugly. "I'm a people person."

"What was your name, then?" he asked her.

"Yvonne," she answered. "Yvonne Hartman." The Doctor frowned, pulling a large device from a box. "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 tonnes of weight with a single hand. That's an imperial ton, by the way. Torchwood refuses to go metric." The Doctor threw the Magnaclamp down, brushing his hands together. "So, what about these ghosts?" he asked.

"All in good time, Doctor," Yvonne said testily. "There is an itinerary, trust me." Looking around, the sound of a truck draws the attention of the three, Yvonne smiled as she saw the TARDIS on the back of it. ""If it's alien, it's ours."" she said.

"You'll never get inside it," the Doctor said easily to Yvonne's irritation.

Yvonne gave him a glare as she turned. "Et cetera," she said, walking away. The Doctor looked up toward the TARDIS, Rose opening the door slightly and peering out. The Doctor nodded to her, knowing she was going to go for a wonder anyway. Yvonne led the two down a corridor, a soldier following them closely. "All those times I've been on Earth, I've never heard of you," the Doctor told her.

"But of course not," Yvonne scoffed. "You're the enemy. You're actually named in the Torchwood Foundation Charter of 1879 as an enemy of the Crown."

"1879..." the Doctor said thoughtfully. "That was called Torchwood, that house in Scotland," he said to Yvonne, everything piecing together in his mind. Only the Queen back then could have branded him an enemy of the Crown, and Queen Victoria did banish him and Rose.

"That's right," Yvonne nodded. "Where you encountered Queen Victoria and the werewolf. Her Majesty created the Torchwood Institute with the express intention of keeping Britain great. And fighting the alien horde."

The Doctor frowned. "But if I'm the enemy, does that mean that I'm a prisoner?"

"Oh yes," Yvonne nodded as they walked. They rounded a corner to find themselves outside a large black door. "But we'll make you perfectly comfortable. And there is so much you can teach us. Starting with this," she added, pressing her ID card against a lock, opening the door easily. They walked into the room, a large round sphere sitting in the air up a small flight of stairs. "Now, what do you make of that?" she pointed to the sphere. Noticing their arrived, a man in a white science gown walked toward them, holding out his hand to the Doctor. "You must be the Doctor. Rajesh Singh," he greeted. "It's an honour, sir."

The Doctor stared at the sphere, saying dismissively to the man, "Yeah..." Rajesh lowered his hand sheepishly as the Doctor walked toward the sphere. "We tried analysing it using every device imaginable." The Doctor scoffed slightly, pulling out his 3D glasses, making the others frown. "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 exclaimed, pointing to the sphere.

"Fascinating, isn't it?" Rajesh asked happily. "It upsets people because it gives off... nothing. It is... absent."

There was a long silence, the Doctor muttering, "This is a Void Ship..." He took off his glasses, a worried expression on his face. "I always thought it was just a theory, but... it's a vessel designed to exist outside time and space. Travelling through the Void."

"And what's 'the Void'?" Rajesh asked.

"The space between dimensions," the Doctor answered, sitting on the bottom step of the stairs. "There's all sorts of realities around us, different dimensions - billions of parallel Universes all stacked up against each other. The Void is the space in-between. Containing absolutely nothing. Imagine that - nothing. No light, no dark, no up, no down. No life. No time. Without end. My people called it the Void, the Eternals call it the Howling. But some people call it Hell."

"But someone built the sphere," Rajesh claimed. "What for? Why go there?"

"To explore," the Doctor shrugged. "To escape. You could sit inside that thing and eternity would pass you by. The Big Bang... end of the universe, start of the next, wouldn't even touch the sides. You'd exist outside the whole of creation."

"So how do we get in there?"

The Doctor stood up, stretching his legs. "We don't! We send that thing back into Hell. How did it get here in the first place?"

"Well, that's how it all started," Yvonne spoke. "The sphere came through into this world, and the ghosts followed in its wake."

"Show me," the Doctor ordered, walking ahead. Yvonne followed, an amused smile on her face as the Doctor turned the wrong way.


"So these ghosts, whatever they are - did they build the sphere?" Yvonne asked. They were in her office in front of a computer, Yvonne typing something as the Doctor looked completely relaxed in a chair in front of her desk.

"Must have," the Doctor said. "Aimed it at this dimension like a canon ball."

A new screen popped up on Yvonne's computer, the man named Rajesh appearing. "Yvonne?" he called. She nodded. "I think you should see this. We've got a visitor. We don't know who she is, but funnily enough, she arrived at the same time as the Doctor." The man in question have a small smile. Rose was okay, that was all he needed to know. Yvonne turned the monitor around so the Doctor could see who Rajesh was referring to. Rose was sat in a chair next to him, looking down at the camera. "She one of yours?" Yvonne asked.

The Doctor shook his head as Jackie glared from behind him. "Never seen her before in my life."

"Good!" Yvonne said enthusiastically, seeing straight through his lie. "Then we can have her shot."

The Doctor sighed, sitting up in the seat. "Oh all right then, it'll be worth a try," he sighed. "That's... Rose Tyler."

"Well, if that's Rose Tyler, who's she?" Yvonne asked, pointing to Jackie.

"I'm her mother," Jackie replied sternly, much to the Doctor grimace. "Oh, you travel with her mother?" Yvonne smiled.

"He kidnapped me," Jackie snapped, mainly at him.

The Doctor sighed as he looked up at her, then looked back at Yvonne. "Please, when Torchwood comes to write my complete history, don't tell people I travelled through time and space with her mother," he asked in a pleading tone. "I've got a reputation to uphold." Yvonne frowned, but not at the two bantering. She got up from her seat, walking toward the people who were typing away on their computers. "Excuse me? Everyone? I thought I said stop the ghost shift." They all ignored her, their eyes fixed on the screens in front of them. "Who started the program? I ordered you to stop! Who's doing that?" she points to the lever which would open up the Breach, which was going up on its own accord. "Step away from the monitors, everyone!" she orders, no one listening to her.

"Gareth, Addy," she said desperately. "Stop what you're doing, right now! Matt. Step away from your desk. That's an order! Stop the levers!" Two scientists that weren't by the computers ran toward the ascending rods, which they struggled to get back down.

"What's she doing?" the Doctor asked, wondering to one of the women scientists, who was typing away at her keyboard. The Doctor stared as he clicked his finger in front of her face, the woman not reacting at all. "Listen to me," Yvonne hissed worriedly. "Step away from the desk."

"She can't hear you," the Doctor told her as he watched the screen. "They're overriding the system." The three of them looked up to the blank space of the wall, anxiously waiting. "We're going into Ghost Shift," the Doctor said, leaning down to the woman's ear piece, something that looked all too familiar to him. "It's the ear-piece controlling them," he told Yvonne as he fingered the ear pod. "I've seen this before." He took out his Sonic Screwdriver, pointing it at the woman's ear. "Sorry," he murmured softly. "I'm so sorry." He held the Sonic to the ear piece, deactivating it as the woman screamed in pain, doubling over on the desk, motionless. The others who were in front of a computer screen did the same. "They're dead," the Doctor said gently as he looked around the room.

"You killed them," Jackie accused.

"Oh someone else did that long before I got here," the Doctor replied angrily as he turned to the computer screen.

"What're those ear-pieces?" Yvonne asked, her finger trailing over one of them testily. "They're standard comms devices - how does it control them?" She took hold of one of the ear pieces connected to the woman's ear, pulling it out, a trail of brain tissue attached to it. "Urgh!" Yvonne heaved, revolted. "Oh, God! It goes inside their brain!" She dropped it on the desk in a hurry. "What about the Ghost Shift?" the Doctor asked.

"Ninety percent there," she reported, still looking very pale. "It's still running. Can't you stop it?"

"They're still controlling it," the Doctor denied. "They've hi-jacked the system. It might be a remote transmitter but it's gotta be close by. I can trace it," he told them as he darted off with the Sonic in his hands, receiving some sort of signal from it. "Jackie, stay here!" he ordered the blonde, who did as she was told for once. The Doctor and Yvonne ran down a corridor, letting the Sonic guide him. He, Yvonne and two other soldiers (which Yvonne had ordered to come along) made their way to a curtained area, the Doctor looked around. "What's down here?" he asked urgently.

"I don't... I dunno," Yvonne stuttered. "I think it's building work. It's just renovations." The Doctor looked hesitantly through the blurry white curtains, then shot through one of them , muttering to her, "You should go back."

"Think again," she huffed angrily at him. As if she was going to let him out of her sight now. She followed him, gesturing for the soldiers to do the same. The Doctor stopped pushing the curtains aside as the Sonic gave a loud bleep, himself staring at it in confusion, then to horror as he looked around him. "Ear-pieces, ear-pods, this world is colliding with another. And I think I know which one," he mumbled gravely, the shadows of one of his greatest enemies covering the curtains, getting into position like they did last time, in the Parallel Universe. "They came through first. The advance guard," the Doctor spat, a hand splitting through the curtain, sliding down to make a hole for the entire body to fit through. The banging of metal feet came shortly after as the metal men stepped through the curtains, marching toward them together.

"Cybermen," the Doctor glared coldly at them.


The Cybermen lead the Doctor and Yvonne back towards her office, the Rift chamber, their hands behind their head as they marched. One of the Cybermen rose its arm, revealing a laser weapon and shoot one of the scientists, the man collapsing to the floor. That's new... the Doctor thought in horror.

"We are the Cybermen. The Ghost Shift will be increased to one hundred per cent," the Cyberman exclaimed emotionlessly, raising its arm to the levers, which began to slide upwards.

The white wall at the other end of the long room began to glow brightly, the ghosts coming through quickly as the Doctor finally figured out who they were. "Here come the ghosts," he warned darkly as he watched the dozens and dozens of ghostly Cybermen walk in sync with each other, each one of them slowly fading into their full, solid bodies.

"Achieving full transfer," the Cyberman announced, its arm still raised toward the lever, which was now upright with the other.

"They're Cybermen," the Doctor told Yvonne and Jackie, who were looking worriedly to the ghosts with their arms raised about their heads. "All of the ghosts are Cybermen. Millions of them. Right across the world."

"They're invading the whole planet," Yvonne's voice cracked.

"It's not an invasion," the Doctor shook his head in denial. "It's too late for that. It's a victory." The laptop began beeping, the three staring at it. "Sphere activated. Sphere activated. Sphere activated," the computer said repeatedly, the Doctor looking at it in confusion. "What I don't understand is Cybermen don't have the technology to build the Void Ship, that's way beyond you. How did you create that sphere?" the Doctor asked the Cybermen.

"The sphere is not ours," the main Cyberman replied simply, looking toward the Doctor. The Doctor frowned. "... What?" Impossible, the sphere had to be theirs, who's else was it? That's what scared the Doctor. The creator of that sphere was unknown, probably hiding away inside the round, protective metal bubble. It was activating, opening. Whatever was inside was coming out to play, and Rose was down there with them, it - whatever, and he had no idea what it was. He made a promise to himself there and then he was going to get her out of there, no matter what happened.