A/N: Hello lovely readers! I am rather glad to say that this is the last chapter without the beloved Captain Jack! As much as Ianto is by far my favourite character from the series, Torchwood just isn't the same without our outrageous, flirtatious Jack. The chapter ends relatively unresolved but I am planning to have Jack 'explain' everything about Harold Saxon and his sending the team on a 'wild goose chase' later on. Hope you enjoy reading! Hannah xxx
Tosh spent well over two hours pulling apart our 'Cyberman', attempting to discover anything that might help us to understand who or what had hidden something like this in the depths of the Himalayan forests, and, more importantly why.
After a great deal of analysis she concluded that it was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, constructed using human technology and basic human technology at that. This must mean that people outside of Torchwood and UNIT know about the existence of Cybermen, and is using the idea of their existence as what – a decoy? A defence mechanism? A practical joke?
But it's weird though, nobody lives in this region of the Himalayas, so why had they placed the 'Cyberman' so far away from where anyone would come in to contact with it? The only explanation would be that whoever is behind all of this knew that we were coming, and knew that we would recognise these fiends immediately. Someone is using these fake robotic creatures to scare us off, to keep us away from them or put us off the scent of whatever was really going on here.
Whoever is out there, whatever they're doing, must be so terrible and so dangerous for them to want us to believe the only threat is Cybermen. It makes me feel sick thinking of the prospect of something worse than those emotionless, brutal metal killers who took away all of the meaning from my life.
I don't think that a single one of us managed even two hours sleep last night; I think I would be being rather extravagant to suggest that I had even that. All of this has just awakened the old horrific and painful memories of Torchwood one, of Lisa… I could feel it all again, everything that I have worked so hard to shut out in these last few months.
Her: writhing in my arms, screaming in agony, bleeding and suffering as she lay there in her half converted state. The way she would slip in and out of consciousness when the pain became too much to bear. The way she brutally murdered Dr Tanazaki and that poor pizza delivery girl. The way that Jack and the other shot her stone dead. And how, although I already knew that the real Lisa was lost, I couldn't help feeling like I was burning from inside out, like my stomach was full of rats, that I would never feel happy again… when she died there in front of me.
I hated whoever was behind all of this for awakening these buried nightmares.
We were all up with the sun this morning, there was no point continuing to lie there in our sleeping bags, pretending like we may actually get anymore sleep. I didn't feel much like eating, but I tried to get everyone to eat some of the porridge I made over the Trangia stove even if I didn't eat any myself. I had coffee though, plenty of very strong coffee.
The plan for the day is to go further exploring into the woods to a) see if we came across anymore of these replication Cybermen and b) to see if we can track down whom on earth is behind this!
Well, we didn't manage to accomplish either steps a or b… but we did have an even stranger outing than on the previous day. I really am bemused, and slightly scared, by what is going on.
We set off early after breakfast; there was no point in beating about the bush, and it was of no benefit to us to sit around chatting for half an hour before getting down to business – we all had far too much on our minds to just sit there. Tosh lead the way once again, guiding us perfectly with her beloved compass and map. I'm beginning to think she is as attached to that compass as I am to my stopwatch which, is a little surprising considering it is such a simplistic and classic device, a long way off from the top of the range technology that we have back at the hub.
We were walking for almost 3 hours before we came across anything.
"For God's sake Gwen, we've been walking for a year and we haven't found any bloody fake aliens. Can we have a rest before my feet drop off?" Owen yelled.
Just as he was saying this, as if by magic, we heard the cracking of branches and a noise which sounded like a small motor of some kind, gradually getting louder – getting closer.
"Shssh" Gwen whispered, "Weapons out and ready. Whatever it is it might be real, it might not be, but I don't want to run any risks" She continued.
We did as she said and loaded our guns, took the safety off and waited. Even with the threat of impending doom my stomach was still tying in knots at the thought of using a gun, but I knew that there was no way that I was going to let myself act as cowardly as I had done the day before when I had seen the 'Cyberman'. Whatever we were about to greet, I was prepared to face it.
We stood there for what seemed like an age before a stocky, irregular shaped, robot-like being with what looked like a whisk where one arm should be and a plunger in the place of the other, rolled forward into a halt a metre or so away from us. It was a Dalek, or perhaps a 'Dalek'. The second evil creature to have entered our world through the void, to have caused the destruction of Torchwood one and the deaths of so many of my colleagues.
I supposed when you compare them to Cybermen, they are the lesser of two evils. Yes, they want to murder all humans in sight, but at least they could only kill you. They wouldn't try and turn you in to one of them, not like the Cybermen.
We approached this monster with less caution than we did the 'Cyberman'; after all we were expecting it only to be a replication, and even if it wasn't as long as we were in its line of fire it would kill us whether we were close up or far away.
It didn't move, or speak, as we removed the distance between it and us and the blue light from its eye stalk faded away. It was almost certainly an imitation.
This time Tosh had brought all of the necessary equipment with her in her rucksack so that she could make an informed evaluation on the status of whatever we encountered on site. Despite the 'Dalek' being harder to disassemble, within half an hour she could confirm that it was indeed only a fake, constructed very similarly to the 'Cyberman' we had found yesterday.
Things were growing 'curiouser and curiouser'. We must be the target of these occurrences, to encounter the two 'aliens' in the space of 24 hours was just far too much of a coincidence for this not to be the case. We were still nowhere near to discovering the reasoning behind any of his though, other than the technology behind the creatures there had been no sign of human involvement. We all agreed, some rather more reluctantly than others (Gwen), that a call to UNIT was needed.
Of course upon agreeing this, what happens? UNIT calls us.
It was the strangest phone call I have dealt with in a while; they were ringing to 'congratulate us'. When I questioned why Brigadier Masterson just began to laugh. When I repeated my question, he started to get a little angry.
"Now, I know that Torchwood and UNIT don't see eye to eye, but you could at least have the decency to be courteous when we congratulate you on a mission" He said gruffly.
Nat wanting to appear rude, as ever, I replied: "I'm sorry Brigadier Masterson, I didn't mean to come across as discourteous, but I really don't understand what you are talking about. We are no closer to solving the problems out here, in fact we were just about to call you and ask for your advice"
I bit my lip whilst waiting for his response.
"Hmm" He began. "Well now I am confused… We've been using your software to keep a track on the levels of alien activity and radiation patterns across the Forested area of the Himalayas to monitor your progress, and to make sure things weren't getting too out of hand. This morning reports of activity dropped to 0 and radiation levels have fallen to just 1.7 %. We assumed that you'd managed to tackle whatever was out there…" He said leaving his thought's hanging in the air.
"Well Brigadier, that is most peculiar. What's even stranger is that we haven't actually found any alien technology whilst we have been here. In fact the only suspicious behaviour we have observed appears to be from human origin" I replied nervously.
"That is most strange… What is it you have come across?" He questioned
"Someone has been creating replications of monsters" I responded.
"I see, and are these dangerous?"
"Completely harmless, but…"
"Then there's nothing to worry about then is there" He stated, cutting me off. "By my reasoning there is no longer any need for your team to remain in the Himalayas. The alien threat has taken care of itself, whatever it may have been, and the things that you have discovered are of no threat then our work is complete"
"But Brigadier, I really thin…"
"Our job is to protect the human race from alien threats, if there are no such threats to take care of then I see no reason why you should not return home. We'll book your flights for tomorrow evening, for now just enjoy the next day as holiday. Goodbye Mr Jones" He said
"Goodbye Brigadier." I replied despondently. There really is no point bothering to argue with UNIT.
I told the rest of the team what he had said, anticipating their 'less than pleased' reaction…
"So what, they expect us to leave, just as we're on to something, purely because their technology no longer recognises a threat here? For God's sake I give up with UNIT; we are not working with them again!" Gwen cried out angrily.
We went to check all of the monitoring equipment we had brought from the hub with us on our trip to see if we could find anything to give UNIT a cause to let us stay, we didn't want to leave until we were absolutely sure the people in the proximity of these Forests would be safe. But there was nothing, literally nothing. The equipment had somehow reprogrammed itself back to monitoring Cardiff, Just as randomly as it had tuned itself to the Himalayas. There wasn't even a trace of any original problem. UNIT might be right after all.
Owen's response was simply: "Well fuck us trying to be responsible and look out for everyone as we always do, let's make the most of this holiday now! Lest face it, when was the last time any of us had a holiday whilst working for Torchwood?"
It's not much a of a holiday really, despite the fact that we only have a day left here and were a 3 hour trek away from Shimla, the nearest town, I was starting to feel more and more like we had been lead into some sort of trap. Or rather not a trap, that this whole 'mission' had been some sort of decoy, to try and distract us whilst something bigger and scarier and much more serious was going on. Some sort of red herring, or wild goose chase… To remove us from the hub where we had all the resources and equipment needed to bring down an alien force.
No, I don' think I'll be able to relax at all on this 'holiday'. I don't think I'll be able to relax until we're back in Cardiff and maybe not even then. I hate the feeling of an unsolved mystery; there are too many questions still hanging in the air…