Two Years Later
"And here we have Vitex founder and our host for this evening, the most trusted man in Great Britain, Peter Tyler!"
The crowd on the floor cheered and applauded as he came up to the mic, the bright light from above nearly blinding him, and turning the many faces in the crowd into shadowy blurs. Pete smiled and waved all the same, turning on the charm and the megawatt smile. "Hello, out there, thank you all for coming!"
Flashbulbs flickered in the darkness beyond him, and he could hear the hush of voices as they slowly quieted, polite expectation filling the room.
"Thank you for coming to this event, the first ever Jackie Tyler Foundation Ball. I hope that you've been enjoying yourselves!"
An appreciative shout came from the floor, and Pete laughed.
"Or at least enjoyed the food and booze, all for a good cause, of course." More cheers filled the air. Pete smiled benevolently for long moments, waiting for it all to subside.
"This is the first such event we've had on what would have been my wife Jackie's, 42nd birthday. Of course, by her reckoning, this is only her 41st, can't be any older than Cuba, after all." He nodded somewhere in the crowd where the very actor stood when last he saw. "But no, she'd have loved this event. The band, the music, the party, it was Jackie's sort of event. She loved these things, and I'm only sad that she isn't here to enjoy it. But that's what this is for, to remember Jackie, and the thousands like her, who died two-years-ago today. To remember their legacy, and never forget the horrible events that lead to that night. And to raise aid for those families left behind, and leave behind something good out of all of the chaos. So thank you for your part, tonight. So, as Jackie would have insisted, drink up, enjoy yourselves, and dance like idiots, because it's a party!"
More cheers ensued, as the music, led by some band that Pete had never heard of, but was told was popular these days, cued up and crashed into a song that caused a frenzy on the floor. Squeals and laughter sounded, and Pete smiled, only slightly embarrassing himself as he shook his hips in camaraderie with the dancers, before as gracefully as he possibly could making his exit backstage.
His assistant, Amanda, once the very same secretary to Yvonne Hartman, stood waiting for him, a tablet phone held out. "It's Torchwood, sir."
"Right." All joviality fled as he held the phone up to his ear. "Miles, this is my night off. I'm at the ball."
"I know, sir. And how are all your drunken revelers?"
"Sodding pissed, but they are spending money, and I will be in the tabs as the benevolent Vitex CEO, raising money for a good cause."
"How do you like your double life, Clark Kent?"
"I like it better when my assistant director isn't a cocky arse. What is it, Miles?"
"Mickey and Jake have found something in Orleans."
Pete paused in his detour through the workings of the stage he was behind, his assistant nearly slamming into him as he did. "What?"
"You might want to get to Torchwood Tower."
"On my way," he replied, shoving the phone into his coat pocket. "Amanda, I need to head to Canary Wharf, keep an eye on things here."
Without any further word, he spun towards the exit, beckoning his driver, who started up the Lexus towncar as Pete climbed inside. "Torchwood."
The drive through the city gave Pete the chance to pull out his tablet phone and brood over whatever was important enough for Miles to call him in. Two years ago Pete had taken over at Torchwood, after the reconstituted Board of Trustees voted him in unanimously. Not that there was much opposition to it, for most of the top brass at Torchwood, include Yvonne Hartman, all of her assistant directors, and most of the original board had all perished. Pete had been the only one, thanks to Miles assistance, who had kept a cool enough head at the time to pull the operation together, and the only one who had known the truth about Lumic. It had been his efforts that had helped the government bring chaos to the disorder in those first, frantic days. And it was part of what saved his ass from further scrutiny when the dust settled.
There had been those who had noted rather quickly that Pete Tyler had stood at the right hand of John Lumic, running his companies, charming and ebullient for his reclusive employer, who behind everyone's back was creating monstrosities. Harriett Jones had been most helpful here, whipping out a government investigation, which had quickly cleared Pete of any wrongdoing in the case, the quiet wink and a nod, of course with the tacit agreement that whatever Torchwood's private mandate, should hell be even scorching the handbasket, she would be told.
Pete had counted his blessings and agreed, taking back Vitex from the shattered remains of Cybus Industries. To the world at large he was still the trustworthy, smiling Pete Tyler, handing them a strawberry-kiwi vitamin water, who ran a company worth millions, diversified into all sorts of healthy snack foods. When he wasn't there, he was seen on the tabloid scene, running the charity in his dearly departed wife's name, chatting up the talk shows, and coyly evading rumors of being shacked up with one or the other of the society matrons who seemed to think the widowed Pete was the prime catch to add to their fortunes. Gossip pages buzzed, and Pete laughed and joked, and never owned up to anything.
Behind all that, of course, was the truth, the side the public never knew, and that was that Pete Tyler was no more in charge of Vitex than he was liable to marry one of those hoydens the tabs kept hooking him up with. Oh, he was still it's President and CEO and oversaw the major changes, yes, but the company had been running itself well for years while in the Cybus conglomerate, and Pete had very little to do with it. It merely provided him with the capital to fund what he really was up to, Torchwood. That had become his new passion. Lumic's plan had nearly wiped out the institute, but it hadn't destroyed it. And Pete, ever the visionary, took it upon himself to refashion it, still within the mandate of course, but with a new purpose. No longer would Torchwood simply attempt to use and contain alien life without thought to the consequence, but it would now work with those who came to Earth and take the technology to make it a better place, to avoid the wrongs that were done before. To stop anyone like John Lumic from rising again. To let no one else , like Jackie, die because they had been careless and sloppy.
Which of course led to the problem of the Cybermen.
In the days after the initial attacks, the Cybermen threat had been contained. Factories were discovered the world over, in Mumbai, Mexico City, New Jersey, anywhere where there was a large population center and plenty of homeless, destitute people that traveled the streets, unnoticed and unwanted. Their brains were placed in these metal bodies, stored away for the day that Lumic would rise to power. But that plan had failed, and now they all remained, still and silent in their factories, waiting for orders that would never come.
The first impulse by many was to destroy these sites before the Cybermen could figure out what to do with themselves, before they could pose a new threat. But this impulse was soon checked by the outcry of the families whose loved ones were trapped in those bodies. The human factor came into play all too quickly. Soon, world governments debated on the human rights of Cybermen, who still had their brains, even if they weren't in their original bodies. What had been a fight for survival turned quickly into a moral and political argument, one Pete had shied away from. Torchwood was not part of a political entity, it stood outside of politics by its mandate. It had one concern and one concern alone, protecting the Earth from alien threat. That didn't sway many governments, who still saw the Cybermen as their citizens, and didn't particularly care what Torchwood's mission was. And so Pete and Torchwood found themselves at a stalemate where the Cybermen were concerned. They couldn't simply destroy them and yet, they couldn't bloody well just leave them there unattended.
This is where Mickey and Jake had come in. He'd brought the pair into Torchwood, Jake as the only survivor of the former Preachers, and Mickey because of his computer expertise, which wasn't bad, considering that he was from a different universe. He'd placed them under the care of Miles, his new Assistant Director for Field Operations, and sent them off, covertly, to observe each of the sights. They discreetly set up their advanced surveillance technology, and slip back out again, without earning the ire of the independent governments who still felt they had some say over their former citizens. Their latest trip had been to Orleans, one of the largest of the sights, where hints of recent activity had cropped up. The fact that they had found something there did not bode well for Pete's evening.
The car pulled into the parking garage of Torchwood Tower, empty save for Miles standing waiting at the building entrance. It was again unseasonably warm for February. It had been for the last two years. Miles stood in his comfortable shirtsleeves, just as put together as always, but looking less than his smirking, sardonic self.
"Someone step on your grave," Pete queried.
"I'll wish they had when you get the news Fric and Frack bring," he replied, falling into step by Pete as they made their way inside, to the bevvy of lifts in the glass enclosed building.
"You said this was supposed to be a routine check, just to see what the activity was."
"And it was. Neither of them compromised their mission, but you aren't going to like what they found."
"I'm not liking what they found already, and I don't know what it is." One of the lifts opened automatically, waiting for his voice command. "Director's floor."
Without so much as a jerk, the lift rose, smoothly gliding up the many levels of Torchwood, with a speed Pete didn't even want to think about. "It was just radio signals. How harmless could they be?"
"That's why I called Rajesh Singh in from research to look into it."
"Now scientist involved, too?" Pete glowered as the doors slid open to his floor. "What does he do?"
"Astrophysics," Miles replied.
"Space?" Pete paused, glaring at his compatriot, who simply grabbed his arm and drug him along.
"You'll understand better when we get in there." There was a hint of urgency in Miles' ever polite tone. If Pete hadn't been worried up to this point, it nearly turned into full on panic now.
"Why on tonight of all nights," he muttered, as Miles held open his office door.
"Jackie's way of bedeviling the universe from beyond the grave, I imagine," Miles replied with clipped sarcasm.
"See, there, you had to go and poke fun at her. Woman has been gone for years."
"Couldn't help myself, sir, I suppose it's my way of missing her," Miles replied, following behind. Already Mickey and Jake were waiting, lounging in the dark, leather chairs on the other side of Pete's functional, wooden desk, in the jeans and leather jackets that seemed to be their perpetual uniform even now, years after the Preachers went defunct. With them was a nervous looking man in a gray suit, sitting in the corner of the space as if he wasn't so certain he should even be there.
"Well, I send the pair of you to France to check up on some data, see the sights, pick me up some nice Bordeaux, and you come back to tell me the world is ending?"
"I wouldn't say ending," Jake replied, shrugging lazily in his leather coat.
"I just said things were bad," Mickey replied defensively, glaring at Jake as if he'd somehow messed the message up.
"I said it was going to end! The way Miles is acting you'd think it was, and I want to know what the hell is going on? I go to a party, a charity event for my deceased wife, and next thing I know you two show up with bad news and an astrophysicist." Pete turned to look at the man, who seemed surprised that Pete had noticed him. "Dr. Singh?"
"Yes!" He rose politely, taking Pete's outstretched hand. "I am sorry we interrupted your party."
"Thanks for being here. No, that's fine." He turned to the other two and Miles, who stood behind them. "What's been going on?"
Jake looked to Mickey, having some sort of silent warfare between the pair of them, clearly over who would speak first.
"How about we start at the beginning," Pete sighed, throwing himself into his chair. "Mickey, you were the one who told us that there were some sort of signal readings from the Orleans plant?"
"Yeah," Mickey nodded, clearing his throat and straightening in his chair. "Yeah, right, we've been monitoring the activity in all the plants. Most of them are dead quiet, lifeless. All the readings we get are low level mechanical ones you get, nothing special. But a week ago, we started to see a spike of energy in the Orleans plant. Course, that tipped us off something was up, so we checked out the other readings. More activity, more chatter, and some signal was being emitted."
"Trying to contact the other Cybermen?"
"No," Mickey glanced at Miles.
"The signal was being sent out, away from Earth."
"So trying to contact one of our allied races?"
"Not exactly," Miles in his turn looked to Dr. Singh. The scientist cut in then, looking relieved that at least he finally had something to do.
"Assistant Director Conner brought me in at this point. I had my team trace the signal, it's subatomic, travels across space. But the problem was while it was traveling away from Earth, it was...disappearing."
"Disappearing?" Pete turned fully to Singh, trying to wrap his head around this. He was no slouch at physics himself, but that made no sense. "The waves can't just disappear, not unless they are absorbed by something."
"We think they are," Singh replied, clearly troubled.
"How?"
"The signal isn't just being scattered into space. It's being directed and concentrated on one spot."
"And that spot isn't even in Orleans," Miles cut in. "The signal is being projected to a specific area above Earth."
"Which one?"
"This one."
Pete stared at the other man, not comprehending for a moment. He turned then to Sing, and then to Mickey and Jake, as if hoping they made more sense. "Torchwood?"
"I tracked the signal myself," Mickey replied. "It's how I found it, I thought they might be trying to hack our system."
"Turns out they aren't," Jake chimed in. "They are simply using Torchwood as a giant beacon."
"For what?"
"This is where it gets weird," Jake muttered, glancing sideways darkly at Mickey, who only nodded in agreement. "Our last readings on the plant indicate that some of the Cybermen are missing."
The bottom fell out of Pete's stomach, allowing anxiety to spin up, out of control inside of him, his chest tightening in response. This couldn't be happening again, not again. "Where are they?"
"Never left the facility. We checked. Place is locked up, the French nationals didn't see anyone, and not a single camera picked up anyone leaving."
"It's like they just...vanished," Mickey echoed. Jake nodded in worried agreement.
"Vanished," Pete blustered, his voice picking up in sound and fury. "Vanished? Things don't just vanish. Cybermen are metal objects, matter doesn't just disappear, and neither do radio waves."
And then it occurred to him what they were saying. He stopped, pieces clicking, as he spun on Singh. "You said the signal vanished?'
"Yes," Singh confirmed.
"The signal vanished, the Cybermen vanished." Pete turned to Miles. "Are they using the signal to call anyone?"
"No, sir. They are using the signal to vanish with."
Perhaps, two years ago, before all of this, Pete would have laughed at the idea, called it science fiction mumbo jumbo. Even in the wake of the type of technological advances Torchwood had, with its purloined alien advancements, no one could do things like teleport. Unless Lumic had one last secret he had taken with him to the grave.
"So the Cybermen are vanishing. Where?" This last question was directed at Singh.
"We thought that they were going somewhere else in the galaxy. We looked for a receiving signal, some place where they may have come out on. But unfortunately, we didn't find one. We found something else instead."
The scientist reached into the bag beside his chair, pulling out a tablet, which he turned on and started with a few flicks of his fingers on the glass. He handed it to Pete, data and charts scattering the screen. But Pete had been quite clever in science when he was a lad, and while much of it was still Greek to him, the gist of it came through quite clear.
"You found a rip in reality?"
"More like a hole," Singh corrected. "It's there, just above us, perhaps even were we are. It's hard to tell with space and time."
"And that's where their signal is concentrated on?"
"The Cybermen are trying to communicate with something on the other side of that hole," Singh elaborated. "What's more, they are able to teleport themselves through it. We have the technology here at Torchwood for such things, have had for decades, but have never found a practical use for it."
"For teleportation? I can't believe we couldn't make money off that," Pete snorted. Then it occurred to him. "We gave it to Lumic. That's why we didn't capitalize off it."
"And he put it in his Cybermen," Miles called out, rounding the chairs to stand by Pete's desk. "They are teleporting themselves out of this dimension."
They were...leaving?
"Okay," Pete set the tablet down on his desk. "So they are leaving Earth, leaving our universe all together. What's the problem with that?"
"Several," Singh interjected, not sounding anything as pleased as Pete did. "What they are doing is causing interference on several levels. A hole in space and time sucks a great deal of energy. It's proximity that close to Earth's surface is causing havoc with our ozone layer. The unseasonable temperatures of late? That's no accident."
"Not to mention that it's causing all sorts of other geological hell," Miles added. "We've had an uptick in earthquakes this last year, volcanic eruptions."
Pete had noticed of course, but living in England with neither faults nor volcanoes, had not paid that particularly close attention to it. "So it's messing with the tectonic activity?"
"The electro-magnetic pull of the hole is tugging at the Earth, much like the moon does," Singh offered by way of explanation. "Every time they open it, it tugs on our planet a little more. So far they've been able to get away with it because it's only been recently that they started, and only in small bursts."
Jake brought himself back into the discussion. "Mickey started noticing the signal two months ago, and when we began our surveillance just three weeks ago, we noticed it only five times. Each time, another hundred Cybermen went missing."
"The factory holds easily ten-thousand," Mickey added. "So it's not many, in the grand scheme, but that's five hundred gone, and we don't know how many others have gone missing before that. And we don't know if they ever plan on sending up more at a time either."
"And more at a time would need more energy," Singh picked up the thread. "More time to transport them, more energy to do it. And right now, it's only the Orleans factory doing it, as it's the closest surviving one to Torchwood."
"Yeah, but the other facilities can all network to each other," Mickey warned. "And if they can do that, who's to say they can't all teleport through that hole?"
"And if that happens, our world will rip itself apart," Singh stated emphatically, eyes on Pete. "Even if we want to let it be someone else's problem, sir, if they ever decide to leave en masse, we wouldn't be able to stop them, and we'd all be killed."
Bloody hell...
Pete exhaled, glaring at the tablet on the desk. This had sounded like the perfect solution for half a moment there, the answer to all their troubles. Of course, Lumic couldn't just make it easy. "Do we know how the technology that Lumic is using works?"
"In theory," Singh shrugged. "But we don't know what Lumic did to change it. However it originally worked may not be how it works now."
"And do we know where they are going to?"
"No," Singh shook his head, leaning back into his seat with a weary sigh. "That's the problem, it could be anywhere. Space and time, it's not a straight line. I'm no quantum physicist, but I do know that in terms of theoretical understanding. It has to do with string theory, the idea that the most basic idea of the universe isn't just an atom, but a string vibrating. The vibration of this string, of course, fits into basic dimensions, more than just what we see with the naked eye. Because we can't perceive these other planes, the theory is that along these dimensions are other planes, perhaps an infinite set, where universes, just like ours, exist, but with differences. Perhaps in that plane, I wore a blue suit today instead of gray. You didn't go to the ball, and in fact, your wife may not have died."
Pete resisted the urge to look at Mickey, even though he could feel the young man's gaze on him. "Yeah, I get it, alternate universes."
"More than that, they could be wildly different, depending on the point in which they changed. And that's the problem. If you think of reality as an infinite plane with infinite universes, we have no idea which one the Cybermen are attempting to get to, or if we can even follow them there on our own. If we try to find it, we may end up somewhere else, thus not only not solving the problem, but potentially creating a new one by creating a hole into a separate and different universe."
"But what about if we didn't attempt to punch a new hole." Mickey spoke up, surprising them all as they turned to look at him. "What if we just do what they are doing, right? They are using a sub-atomic radio signal and using that to teleport, right? Why can't we do that?"
"Would it destabilize the existing situation further," Pete asked Singh, who looked thoughtful at Mickey's suggestion.
"Maybe not. Perhaps, if we were sending a hundred people, but not if we are justing sending a small team in."
"And do we have anything here at Torchwood that would teleport us from here through there?"
"We have the same technology Lumic had access to. I don't know what he did with it, but I am sure if we get the engineering team in Research and Development on board, they can perhaps reverse engineer something that would work."
"And how long will it take?"
Here, the scientist looked as if he was at a loss. "I don't know. Could be immediate, if we find something that works now. Otherwise, it could be weeks, maybe even a year."
"I don't think we have that long," Miles warned, eyes narrowing behind his dark-frames. "This is just Orleans now, but Mickey is right. If they've figured out a way to escape, and they even sense what we are up to, or hell, even if they don't, they could throw this all into overdrive."
"Not to mention whatever is on the other side has to deal with the Cybermen," Mickey pointed out quietly. Pete didn't need to ask him to know he was thinking of his home.
"Dr. Singh, get on this and see what you can do to help boost research on a way of teleporting into that universe. Miles, I want your teams keeping an eye on all those Cybermen sites, tell me when they start going online. And ask around our alien allies, see if any of them have technology that might help us in this situation. Mickey and Jake, you two are my eyes and ears in the field. Keep us informed on anything that's different. But keep this all under your hats, I don't need this getting out and scaring the hell out of everyone."
There were murmured agreements as Pete curtly dismissed them all with a nod. Singh politely gathered his tablet, filing it away as Jake and Miles both began to wander out. Only Mickey remained, silently sitting in front of Pete, waiting for him to acknowledge him there.
"You think that they are going home, don't you?" Pete knew he did, but felt he had to state the obvious anyway.
"The Doctor said there was a weird crack that we fell through that day. Wasn't supposed to be there. What if it was there because Lumic was messing about with these things?"
"We don't know if that's the case."
"But it might be," Mickey insisted. "And if it is, these things are going home...to my home, my real one, my Britain."
"We aren't going to let them go there and tear it to hell, Mickey."
"Yeah, but we don't know if they are over there or not now." Mickey scrubbed roughly at his face. In the two years he had been in this world with Pete, he'd changed a great deal. No longer the gormless "tin dog" as he called himself, he'd turned himself into a valuable part of the Torchwood team. It turned out he, like Pete, had a knack for tinkering and creating, and was a wiz with a computer, not to mention a car engine. Even he and Jake had gotten over their differences and the painful circumstance of Mickey looking just like Rickey Smith and had come to be good mates. He no longer seemed to pine away for a childhood sweetheart that had left him behind to see the universe with a mad alien in a police box. He was a man in his own right, smart, capable, and right now, determined to save his home.
In light of this, Pete tried to tread carefully. "Your Doctor is over there. And he knows about the Cybermen, he can handle himself. If it is your universe they are going to, he can at least hold off the lot that are there long enough till we get over there, right?"
"Yeah, but he's not there all the time. What if he's off poncing on Mars or Tatooine or something, and he's got Rose with him. Whose back on Earth, looking after it? And Jackie, she's there by herself. What will happen to her?"
Pete knew he was invoking his dead wife's doppelganger on purpose, trying to illicit Pete's sympathy. "Don't play that game with me, Mickey. I know she's Jackie Tyler, but she's not my Jackie Tyler, and you can't guilt me into doing something stupid just because she is a different version of her."
"Doesn't change the fact that her life is any less in danger."
"And what do you want me to do about it now?" He threw his hands up in frustration, glaring at the young man who sat, petulant and moody across from him. "We won't know anything until we get a device that lets us do what the Cybermen are doing. Until then, we are just spinning over nothing."
"Right," Mickey spat, mutinous as he slouched in the seat. "If you are sending people over, I want to go. I've had experience on alien worlds, other dimensions. More experience than anyone in Torchwood has had. So, if you figure out how to get there, I want to be the first man in."
His reasoning wasn't totally ridiculous. And Pete had a feeling that if he didn't agree, the boy would just sit in his office and whinge about it till Pete gave in. "Fine, you get first dibs. Take Jake with you. But you still have to wait till we get a device that can send you through that hole and not blow your head off."
"And if the Cybermen are over there? What do we do then? We can't just send platoons of Torchwood field ops over, destroying them."
"Don't borrow trouble, Mickey, till we know what we are dealing with," Pete warned quietly. Mickey got the message. He nodded shortly, rose, and went the same way as the others. Pete watched him leave for a long moment, before turning to stare out of the glass of his window to the darkened night and the glittering spread of London below. It shimmered with the passing of streetcars, while on the river, ships trudged along, all oblivious to the fact that somewhere overhead, there worst enemy was even now attempting to flee from this plane of reality at the expense of their home. Honestly, most wouldn't likely care even if they did know.
Two years since that fateful day, and the world moved on, as if Cybermen hadn't disrupted their entire way of living. Even those at the ball, paying for the honor to go to a charity event, laughed and danced and drank as if thousands hadn't died in London alone. And yes, while there were tangible, visible reminders of that night, the shift from earpods to tablet phones for example, the truth was everyone was simply just heartily glad that the nightmare was behind them. Let it be someone else's problem to pick up the pieces.
That had become, if anything, Torchwood's new mandate. Picking up the pieces of the mess Lumic left behind. It would be so convenient to simply let the Cybermen go, to forget the nightmare that had entered their lives, move on to other things. But he thought of Jackie that night, laughing, chatting with the President, in her element. And then he thought of her counterpart, in Mickey's world, having never left the estate. What would that Jackie be doing now, he wondered? Making tea? Watching her rubbish telly? Wandering about with the phone to her ear, chatting for hours, like she used to do when he was mucking about with his models and mock-ups? Would she be alone when the Cybermen arrived, clueless as to what was going on?
"Bloody hell," Pete swore, scrubbing his face and spinning to his desk. He pulled at the bottom most drawer, the sturdy oak creaking as he yanked it open with far more force than he intended. He snagged the bottle of fine, twenty-year-old Lagavulin and a crystal tumbler, plunking the glass firmly on the top of his desk as he poured several fingers full of amber liquid into it.
It was clearly that sort of night.
He lifted the glass to his lips, sipping at the peaty, smoky Scotch, swirling it around as the musky aroma filtered through to his brain and he swallowed. Sighing, he leaned back into his chair and glanced back out to the city below again, lifting his glass silently as he did.
"Happy birthday, Jacks," he murmured, staring at his reflection in the window. "Whoever and wherever you are."