FIC: Someone to Say Goodbye To (Part II)
Sep. 1st, 2008 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ficwizeTitle: Someone to Say Goodbye To
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Pairing: Ianto/Lisa, Jack/Ianto
Warnings: Violence, sex, death, the end of the world.
Rating: Adult.
*********************
Return to Prologue and Notes
Return to Part I
********PART II********
The next two days passed in a blur of fear and terror. Ianto had no choice but to scavenge for what he and Lisa needed to survive. At first it was relatively easy. Torchwood had been taken by surprise. Some employees had left partially eaten lunches lying on their desks, and Ianto was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who kept snacks in their desks, including one employee in shipping and receiving who had a flask of brandy.
The Cybermen were creatures of routine and after the third day, when Ianto and Lisa had hidden inside a shipping crate, the Cybermen didn't venture down into the storage areas much. Ianto learned to time their patrols so that he could sneak up to higher floors, increasingly desperate for pain medications for Lisa.
Lisa didn't complain much, but she spent more and more time each day in a stupor. She refused most food until Ianto begged her to eat, and she drank less water every day. The fourth day, Ianto became desperate enough that he risked a trip to the infirmary on the sixth floor.
He waited until just after the last Cyberman patrol of the day and then he'd kissed Lisa with the promise to return. She smiled weakly, but it didn't reach her eyes, and Ianto brushed his hand over her forehead, alarmed at the heat emanating from it.
He took the back stairs. For whatever reason, the Cybermen hadn't disarmed the security systems, and Ianto's badge still functioned to get him through locked doors. The infirmary had been ransacked thoroughly, by whom, Ianto didn't know. He stuffed bandages and alcohol swabs into a satchel that he took from the desk. Opening cabinets, he became increasingly distressed at the lack of medications. There were no antibiotics. He found a large bottle of paracetamol in the second drawer, and took it bitterly. Those would do little, if anything, to alleviate any of Lisa's agony. Stealthily, he moved around the room, taking anything that looked of value. Finally, in the closet, he located a locked filing cabinet.
Remembering a set of keys on the desk, Ianto hurried to fetch them, sending up a prayer of thanks when the small brass key unlocked the cabinet. Inside he found more potent painkillers, along with several syringes. He took them gratefully and added them to his stash. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he picked up the gun and crept back to the door.
He opened it silently, pausing only a moment before hurrying up to the fourteenth floor. He wasn't sure he'd be able to get inside. The fourteenth floor was classified and no one was allowed on it without clearance. Once he reached it, he swiped his card, but as suspected, the door rejected him. Swallowing hard, Ianto knelt and pulled out a small laptop that he'd taken on the second day. The battery blinked weakly, but Ianto worked quickly. Hooking several wires to the security pad, Ianto pulled up a program and told it to run.
Sweating, he looked down the stairs, half expecting to be captured at any second. After an interminably long moment, the computer beeped and the door latch clicked. Breathing out a sigh of relief, Ianto gathered the computer and pushed the door open.
Instead of the office spaces every other floor contained, this floor seemed to be divided into large rooms. At least, Ianto only saw several doors down the hallway. He walked cautiously to the first one and went inside, looking around cautiously.
The wall was entirely covered with vaults, much like safety deposit boxes in banks. Ianto stared at them without any comprehension. What did Torchwood need with vaults like this? Shaking his head, he ignored them and went instead to the only desk inside the room. Sitting down, he rifled through the drawers quickly, finding little that was of any use. The computer on the desk hummed quietly, and on a whim, Ianto hit the mouse. Slowly, the screen glowed into life.
Whoever sat here before hadn't logged out, and the cursor blinked invitingly. Biting his lip, Ianto finally decided it was worth the risk and he quickly typed out the code that would tap him into the security system. Instantly, the screen shifted, showing him a rotation of all the rooms that had cameras in them. Watching closely, Ianto's heart sank when he noticed the number of Cybermen guarding the front and rear doors. He would never make it past them, especially not with Lisa who was growing weaker every day.
He watched long enough to see that there were Cybermen on every floor, marching in their endless patrols. Just as he was about to abandon the computer and continue his search, he saw the front door open. He hit the mouse to stop the screen from changing and watched as a line of Cybermen marched inside from greater London. A glance at the time clock on the screen told him that this was happening now and he leaned forward, curiously. Then he clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle a cry as he saw long lines of people trailing in after the Cybermen. The humans were filthy and bedraggled. Their hands were chained together with some sort of restraint that strung between them and moved like a rope. They stared at the floor and stopped, apparently at an order that Ianto couldn't hear. The rope unraveled, again seemingly from an order that Ianto couldn’t hear, and the people clustered even closer together. Ianto could see fear on many of their faces, and even as he watched, one of the women towards the rear of the group made a break for her freedom. She ran a dozen steps before she was mown down with blasts from the Cyberman’s raised arms.
One of the other members of the group, a man this time, ran to her side and knelt down. He cradled her body, her blood covering them both, and even though Ianto couldn't hear it, he could tell that the man was screaming. One of the rear guards approached him and struck him down without any hesitation. When the man was lying prostrate beside the dead woman, the Cyberman shot him.
Ianto gagged, turning hurriedly to vomit into the trashcan. He remained bent over for a long moment, shaking and sweaty, before he glanced back up. The other prisoners were gone and Ianto turned away before he could see what was done with the two who were slain. Clicking the mouse again, Ianto followed the progress of the prisoners as they were split into groups. Men and women were guided into one area. Children and the elderly were sent into a different room. Watching with growing horror, Ianto saw the men and women forced into lines in front of machines like the one he'd rescued Lisa from. Every part of him wanted to turn aside, but Ianto watched, desperately hoping that he'd see something that would help him help Lisa. Instead, the first man in line was forced to his knees and a machine was attached to his skull. Almost immediately, the man began to scream, his face contorting in agony as blood began to run down his face and hair. Bright sparks showered into the air and Ianto realized that the man's skull was being cut open. After a second, the top of it was removed and a metal plate, identical to the one Lisa wore, was attached in its place. Wires were fed through holes in the top of the plate, piercing the brain underneath as the man was forced to lie to the table. Metal rods jabbed into him from all angles, more wires following along. After a few minutes, he stopped fighting. His face calmed and he remained prostrate while his clothes were stripped off his body. Metal plating was welded directly onto the skin in some places, until none of him was visible.
When the process was finished, the apparatus released him. The man, now identical to every other Cybermen, stood up and calmly walked to the next woman in line. He grabbed her, ignoring her struggles, and strapped her down. Ianto's vision blurred and he realized that he was sobbing. Pressing his face into his hands, Ianto cried.
Great burning sobs burst from his lungs, and nothing he could do suppressed them. Sitting, alone inside a restricted area in Torchwood One, Ianto cried for the deaths he'd just seen; he cried for the prisoners facing certain death in the form of Upgrades; he cried for Lisa; he cried for himself. Ianto Jones cried for the entire human race.
He had no idea how long he sat there and wept, but eventually his sobs quieted and he looked up. Against his better judgment, he clicked the mouse and searched for the other prisoners, who hadn't been taken to be Upgraded. He found them easily enough, and stared numbly, watching the Cybermen stuff the bodies into bags to be disposed of. Cybermen didn't age, and they weren't born. Ianto supposed they had no use for anyone who fell outside a certain age range. The sight of a tiny hand lolling outside one of the body bags nearly brought Ianto to tears again.
Instead, Ianto climbed to his feet and began to search again. Lisa was waiting for him.
***************
The end of the first week blurred into the beginning of the second, and onward into the beginning of a third. Food was increasingly scarce, and Ianto began eating less, to ensure that Lisa had enough to keep up her strength. He drugged her every day, trying to keep her unconscious and out of pain. Both of them lost alarming amounts of weight and Ianto finally admitted that he needed to go back to the fourteenth floor again. For whatever reason, the Cybermen seemed to avoid that floor and Ianto had picked through the rest of the building as much as he could. There was no more food. Worse, Lisa's pain medication was running out.
Hacking his way back onto the forbidden floor, Ianto went into a different room this time. Randomly, he went down the hall to the second door on the left and pushed it open. His eyes widened and he nearly stumbled through the door as he realized he was looking at an operation bay.
Ianto tried to keep from thinking about what a room such as this was doing hidden in Torchwood. Instead, he focused on the fact that he might be able to find more medicine. He ransacked the drawers on the side of the room, heedless of the mess he left in his wake.
Everything was Torchwood's fault! They'd brought the ghosts. They'd played a game with such high stakes that humanity would fall as a result of the loss. And the more Ianto found out about the organization, the more it seemed like they'd probably done it while thumbing their nose. Those vaults in the other room had to be crypts. Bitterly, Ianto wondered which of them held the body of a Cyberman.
Reaching a door that didn't open automatically, Ianto spun and overturned a metal instrument table. It fell with a clang and Ianto knelt and unscrewed one of the legs with a scalpel. Once it was free, he used the leg as a crowbar, jamming it inside the handle and using the top of the cabinet for leverage. He pried the drawer open and gazed at the neat row of ampoules, with a flood of relief. Morphine.
He took it all, wondering if this would be enough to end Lisa's suffering permanently if it came to that. She hadn't spoken in two days, except to cry in pain and beg Ianto to help her.
He couldn't take much more.
Desperation, more than curiosity drove him back to the computer and he brought it out of hibernation with a mixture of dread and longing. He spent only a few minutes looking at the security camera rotation this time. He knew what was going on inside Torchwood. He wanted to know what was going on outside.
He didn't dare click on any outside links. In all likelihood, this computer wouldn't connect without serious hacking anyway. It was obviously under security protection and Ianto suspected he was lucky that he could even access the security panels. Instead, Ianto tapped into the main room and watched there. The Cybermen had obviously chosen this place to be their headquarters and Ianto watched them come and go.
The Cyberman that Ianto suspected had once been Yvonne, notable by the deferential leeway the others gave her as the obvious leader, was standing in front of a large screen that had a projection of Great Britain on it. Most of the country was depicted in an ominous glowing red. The entirety of the London area was red and Ianto suspected that it showed the territory under Cybermen control. As he watched, the map reduced in size, and Europe appeared. Ianto stared in horror, watching as entire countries in Europe blinked lazily, alternating red and yellow. If his suspicions were right, the entire continent was fighting to repel the Cybermen threat.
The map was replaced with a screen showing several numbers. One was a timer, ticking down from 143 hours, 21 minutes, 32 seconds and a constant blur of milliseconds. The other was simply a number that increased steadily as Ianto watched. In only a few seconds it had climbed from 3.5 million to 3.8 million, and it showed no signs of stopping. Ianto felt ill watching one number fall while the other soared – the Cybermen expected to claim victory in less than a week; the number of humans being upgraded only supported that expectation.
Ianto let his hands go still. Keeping Lisa and himself alive wasn't going to matter in six days. There would be no reason to be alive then, with the entire world under Cybermen control.
With shaking fingers, Ianto typed in a different code. He could hack from this computer into the main Torchwood framework. From there, he could... He didn't know what he could do, but he had to do something. He'd been one of the best, according to Clive. There was no agency in the world that Ianto hadn't been able to hack, changing information and keeping Torchwood, with all its political subversion, hidden from the public. It took him less than a minute to find his way to the Torchwood mainframe.
Images flashed across the screen as he typed. Cybermen in the Parliament building; the Prime Minister surrendering; the French surrendering as Cybermen marched down Parisian streets; Cybermen inside the Kremlin, the White House, government buildings around the world. Ianto's hopes fell lower as he continued to search. The ghosts had been a worldwide phenomenon.
It had taken Ianto and Lisa some time, puzzling out bit by bit why some Cybermen had vanished and others had not – it was Lisa who realized that those left behind were the transformed humans. Their biggest clue had been Yvonne Hartman herself. It had taken her only a few days to impose a crushing regime, her determination to protect “Queen and Country” subverted to the point that it was barely recognizable. The Cybermen who answered to her orders had originally been Torchwood employees. That was why they didn't search the basements thoroughly. They didn't expect to find anyone or anything of use there.
Now, Ianto realized that he had been naive not to realize that there were upgrades taking place the world over. Cybermen had been left on every continent, in every country, in all governments.
There was no one left to ask for help.
Finally, with no options left, Ianto typed in the code to override security systems worldwide. It was a code that only a few of them had known, and with a few precise keystrokes, Ianto held the reigns of the every media outlet in the world. He stayed hunched over, frozen in indecision. Finally, he typed out a message.
CYBERMEN HEADQUARTERS LOCATION: TORCHWOOD TOWER, ONE CANADA SQUARE, CANARY WHARF, LONDON.
Even as he watched, the message began to scroll across the bottoms of the newsfeeds. Now, anyone watching would know where to concentrate their firepower.
Then he typed another code, this one patching him directly into the computer feeds of the Torchwood Branch Offices.
SURVIVORS TRAPPED INSIDE TORCHWOOD ONE. CYBERMEN HAVE TAKEN OVER. CENTER OF OPERATIONS IS LOCATED AT CANARY WHARF. HELP US. - I. JONES
If there was anyone left who could help them, they would be at Torchwood Two and Three. If not, then maybe someone was left who could blast Canary Wharf off the map.
There was nothing left that he could do. Grabbing his bag and gun, Ianto hurried down the back stairs, back to the basement, back to Lisa. He pushed the door open, careful to be as silent as possible. He wondered how long they had before they'd be discovered.
"Ianto?" Lisa's voice was brittle with pain. "What happened? You were gone for so long." She lifted her head from the sofa, the metal around her skull and shoulders restricting her movement.
"I found more pain medication." Ianto hurried inside, taking the time to bar the door to their hiding place. "Here."
"Wait," Lisa struggled to sit up and Ianto helped her. Any relief that he might have felt that she was talking and sitting up vanished as he noticed the feverish cast to her eyes. They were dull in a way that he'd never seen before.
"Why?"
"I can't think when I'm drugged," Lisa complained. She released a shaky breath. "I need to tell you... warn you..."
"About what?"
"The Cyberman conditioning is getting stronger." Lisa finally admitted, looking away. "The drugs make it harder to resist."
The fear that shot through Ianto was stronger than any he had felt since the nightmare had first begun. "That's not possible."
"Ianto." Lisa met his eyes steadily. "It is possible. I have dreams... I can hear Yvonne give orders and I want to obey."
"They're just dreams."
"No, they aren't." Lisa brushed her fingers against Ianto's temple as though she was soothing a tension headache after a hard day at work. It was absurdly mundane, thought Ianto, as though she weren't telling him that she knew she was going to die. "I'm not going to be able to keep fighting this. The wires... they're still in my head." She looked down. "They're everywhere."
"Keep fighting, Lisa. Don't give up. We'll find a way to reverse it." Ianto begged, dropping to his knees and taking her hands in his. "Please."
"Ianto." Lisa leaned forward awkwardly and kissed him gently. "We were great together, weren't we? We were amazing. Don't forget that, all right? No matter what happens, remember that I love you. I love you so much." She stroked her fingers through his hair, and Ianto could almost forget where they were. Ianto leaned into her hands with guilty indulgence – he should be the one comforting her. He pushed the thought of the drugs further back in his mind, forbidding the calculations that told him there was enough to end everything for the two of them. Instead, he climbed onto the sofa, cradling her body against his, ignoring the jabs of the medal pieces sticking into his torso and legs. She rested her head on his shoulder and he kissed the metal plate. They lay there in silence.
Ianto didn't know how much time had passed when he was jostled awake by the sound of marching. Hastily, he tried to climb from under Lisa, there was no time to avoid jostling her. He forced himself to ignore her cries as he scrambled for the gun.
"Humans. We know you are here. Surrender." The voice echoed through the door.
"How did they find us?" Lisa whispered, the terror clear in her voice. Ianto didn't answer, but he knew. The warning signals he'd sent out - they'd been traced back to the heart of Torchwood One itself.
"You are ordered to surrender." The Cyberman's voice was frighteningly familiar. "All humans are ordered to do their duty for Queen and Country. You will be upgraded."
There was a bang on the door and Ianto backed away, putting himself between the enemy and Lisa. All the fear and tension of the past weeks drained away. It was finally over. They wouldn't take Lisa while he lived. He steadied himself, lifted the gun to his shoulder and waited.
There was another bang on the door, and Ianto waited as the metal bowed like paper. Then came a third impact, and the whole door frame shook. Lisa sobbed behind him, but he didn't look back at her. All of his attention was focused on the door. The fourth collision broke through, just as Ianto had fired two shots. He took down one of the Cybermen before the metal doors had even hit the ground. He aimed again, methodically, squeezing the trigger and sending another Cybermen to the scrap heap before Yvonne raised her arm. She wasn't aiming at him. Ianto screamed.
"No!" He moved without thinking, till he stood between Yvonne and Lisa. There was a flash of bright blue light and something hit his chest that radiated outwards, setting his nerves on fire. Then there was nothing.
***************
Consciousness came slowly, protested vigorously by his entire body. He nearly succumbed to the temptation to retreat into the darkness again. Only the thought of Lisa forced him to open his eyes.
He was facing a concrete wall. It took him several minutes to regain the use of his limbs enough to roll onto his back. Now he was staring at a concrete ceiling and he acerbically thought that was no better, before he managed to push himself up with a hiss.
He was in a cell. Blinking he looked around, trying to keep his vision focused. Concrete walls on three sides. Concrete floor. Concrete ceiling. The fourth wall was plastic of some sort, and pierced with small holes to let in air, and probably voices.
Ianto looked down and saw both that he was sitting on a cot of some sort. Staggering to his feet, he stumbled to the plastic wall and began to bang on it weakly.
"Lisa! Lisa, where are you! Lisa!" He screamed until he was hoarse, bruising his hand and bloodying his knuckles on the barrier.
No one answered and finally, dizzy, Ianto fell to the ground. He pulled himself into the corner behind the cot, drawing his knees to his chest, and began to rock slowly back and forth. His breath came in short panting gasps, making his chest hurt and his head swim. Time passed, but Ianto didn't know how much. His arms and legs were shaking, whether from fear, injury or shock he didn't know.
Just when he thought he was going to lose his grip on reality completely, metallic footsteps echoed down the hallway. Ianto's head snapped up so fast that he hit it on the wall and saw stars. When his vision cleared, a single Cyberman stood in front of the glass.
"Ianto Jones. Torchwood employee. You were part of the disinformation project. You have betrayed us with your message to the outside world." It paused. “You failed. It will not cause lasting problems.”
"Yvonne Hartman." Ianto croaked. "That's who you used to be. You were the head of Torchwood and we trusted you."
His response seemed to confuse the Cyberman for a moment. It fell silent, studying him. "You are atypical."
The comment startled a giggle out of Ianto's throat. He struggled for a moment before giving in to completely hysterical laughter. "I'm atypical? I'm not some bloody fucking machine!" He snorted, his chest heaving in laughter.
"You will be Upgraded. Eventually." Yvonne's comment killed the hysteria instantly and Ianto struggled to his feet. “You will do your duty, for Queen and Country.”
"What have you done with Lisa?"
"Lisa?"
"Yes, Lisa!" Ianto roared, the force of his voice shaking him on his feet. "Where is she?"
Again, Yvonne seemed at a loss for words and she stared at him. "Malfunctions were noted. Upgrading will be completed."
"No!" Ianto threw himself at the plastic partition in fury. "Let her go!"
"Your request is denied."
"Leave her alone."
"Your request is denied."
"Go fuck yourself!"
"Your request is impractical." Yvonne's voice didn't change its inflection and the futility of his attack drove Ianto to his knees.
"I'm begging you, please. You used to be human. You used to be one of us!"
For a moment, Yvonne and Ianto stared at each other, human eyes and mechanical cameras each trying to determine the other's motivations. Finally, Yvonne stepped back. "Soon, you will be one of us. You will be upgraded."
"Please, please, don't do this." Ianto begged, his voice rising to a scream as Yvonne walked away from him. "DON'T DO THIS! PLEASE DON'T DO THIS!"
Just before she was gone, Ianto heard her words float back to him. "Your request is denied."
Ianto fell forward on his hands and knees. His body shook, and when he heard the metallic footsteps return, he thought he was hallucinating. But the marching steps came right up to his cell, and the partition parted long enough to let one of the creatures inside. It grabbed him and hauled him upright, thrusting him into the hallway, where the second one grabbed his other arm.
"What's going on? What are you doing?"
"Ianto Jones. You are to be tested for biological imperfections that caused malfunctions to Upgrade process."
"I've not been Upgraded!" Ianto protested hysterically, his feet scrabbling along the ground as they dragged him down the hall. They reached the end and pushed him through a door into a recently-converted medical laboratory. The Cybermen pushed him onto a table, ripping his clothes from him as he fought. A moment later, they caught his limbs and held him in place, strapping his ands and feet to the table. More straps were fastened across his abdomen.
"Cybermen do not resist Upgrades once the procedure has begun. Emotional inhibitor malfunctioned. We must determine the cause." The Cybermen spoke calmly over Ianto's screams.
"I've not been Upgraded! I couldn't have malfunctioned!"
"The malfunction was not in your Upgrade procedure."
The puzzle resolved even as needles slipped smoothly but painfully into Ianto's exposed flesh. "Lisa!" He screamed. "Lisa!"
The only answer he received was the echo of his own voice.
Continue to Part III
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Pairing: Ianto/Lisa, Jack/Ianto
Warnings: Violence, sex, death, the end of the world.
Rating: Adult.
*********************
Return to Prologue and Notes
Return to Part I
The next two days passed in a blur of fear and terror. Ianto had no choice but to scavenge for what he and Lisa needed to survive. At first it was relatively easy. Torchwood had been taken by surprise. Some employees had left partially eaten lunches lying on their desks, and Ianto was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who kept snacks in their desks, including one employee in shipping and receiving who had a flask of brandy.
The Cybermen were creatures of routine and after the third day, when Ianto and Lisa had hidden inside a shipping crate, the Cybermen didn't venture down into the storage areas much. Ianto learned to time their patrols so that he could sneak up to higher floors, increasingly desperate for pain medications for Lisa.
Lisa didn't complain much, but she spent more and more time each day in a stupor. She refused most food until Ianto begged her to eat, and she drank less water every day. The fourth day, Ianto became desperate enough that he risked a trip to the infirmary on the sixth floor.
He waited until just after the last Cyberman patrol of the day and then he'd kissed Lisa with the promise to return. She smiled weakly, but it didn't reach her eyes, and Ianto brushed his hand over her forehead, alarmed at the heat emanating from it.
He took the back stairs. For whatever reason, the Cybermen hadn't disarmed the security systems, and Ianto's badge still functioned to get him through locked doors. The infirmary had been ransacked thoroughly, by whom, Ianto didn't know. He stuffed bandages and alcohol swabs into a satchel that he took from the desk. Opening cabinets, he became increasingly distressed at the lack of medications. There were no antibiotics. He found a large bottle of paracetamol in the second drawer, and took it bitterly. Those would do little, if anything, to alleviate any of Lisa's agony. Stealthily, he moved around the room, taking anything that looked of value. Finally, in the closet, he located a locked filing cabinet.
Remembering a set of keys on the desk, Ianto hurried to fetch them, sending up a prayer of thanks when the small brass key unlocked the cabinet. Inside he found more potent painkillers, along with several syringes. He took them gratefully and added them to his stash. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he picked up the gun and crept back to the door.
He opened it silently, pausing only a moment before hurrying up to the fourteenth floor. He wasn't sure he'd be able to get inside. The fourteenth floor was classified and no one was allowed on it without clearance. Once he reached it, he swiped his card, but as suspected, the door rejected him. Swallowing hard, Ianto knelt and pulled out a small laptop that he'd taken on the second day. The battery blinked weakly, but Ianto worked quickly. Hooking several wires to the security pad, Ianto pulled up a program and told it to run.
Sweating, he looked down the stairs, half expecting to be captured at any second. After an interminably long moment, the computer beeped and the door latch clicked. Breathing out a sigh of relief, Ianto gathered the computer and pushed the door open.
Instead of the office spaces every other floor contained, this floor seemed to be divided into large rooms. At least, Ianto only saw several doors down the hallway. He walked cautiously to the first one and went inside, looking around cautiously.
The wall was entirely covered with vaults, much like safety deposit boxes in banks. Ianto stared at them without any comprehension. What did Torchwood need with vaults like this? Shaking his head, he ignored them and went instead to the only desk inside the room. Sitting down, he rifled through the drawers quickly, finding little that was of any use. The computer on the desk hummed quietly, and on a whim, Ianto hit the mouse. Slowly, the screen glowed into life.
Whoever sat here before hadn't logged out, and the cursor blinked invitingly. Biting his lip, Ianto finally decided it was worth the risk and he quickly typed out the code that would tap him into the security system. Instantly, the screen shifted, showing him a rotation of all the rooms that had cameras in them. Watching closely, Ianto's heart sank when he noticed the number of Cybermen guarding the front and rear doors. He would never make it past them, especially not with Lisa who was growing weaker every day.
He watched long enough to see that there were Cybermen on every floor, marching in their endless patrols. Just as he was about to abandon the computer and continue his search, he saw the front door open. He hit the mouse to stop the screen from changing and watched as a line of Cybermen marched inside from greater London. A glance at the time clock on the screen told him that this was happening now and he leaned forward, curiously. Then he clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle a cry as he saw long lines of people trailing in after the Cybermen. The humans were filthy and bedraggled. Their hands were chained together with some sort of restraint that strung between them and moved like a rope. They stared at the floor and stopped, apparently at an order that Ianto couldn't hear. The rope unraveled, again seemingly from an order that Ianto couldn’t hear, and the people clustered even closer together. Ianto could see fear on many of their faces, and even as he watched, one of the women towards the rear of the group made a break for her freedom. She ran a dozen steps before she was mown down with blasts from the Cyberman’s raised arms.
One of the other members of the group, a man this time, ran to her side and knelt down. He cradled her body, her blood covering them both, and even though Ianto couldn't hear it, he could tell that the man was screaming. One of the rear guards approached him and struck him down without any hesitation. When the man was lying prostrate beside the dead woman, the Cyberman shot him.
Ianto gagged, turning hurriedly to vomit into the trashcan. He remained bent over for a long moment, shaking and sweaty, before he glanced back up. The other prisoners were gone and Ianto turned away before he could see what was done with the two who were slain. Clicking the mouse again, Ianto followed the progress of the prisoners as they were split into groups. Men and women were guided into one area. Children and the elderly were sent into a different room. Watching with growing horror, Ianto saw the men and women forced into lines in front of machines like the one he'd rescued Lisa from. Every part of him wanted to turn aside, but Ianto watched, desperately hoping that he'd see something that would help him help Lisa. Instead, the first man in line was forced to his knees and a machine was attached to his skull. Almost immediately, the man began to scream, his face contorting in agony as blood began to run down his face and hair. Bright sparks showered into the air and Ianto realized that the man's skull was being cut open. After a second, the top of it was removed and a metal plate, identical to the one Lisa wore, was attached in its place. Wires were fed through holes in the top of the plate, piercing the brain underneath as the man was forced to lie to the table. Metal rods jabbed into him from all angles, more wires following along. After a few minutes, he stopped fighting. His face calmed and he remained prostrate while his clothes were stripped off his body. Metal plating was welded directly onto the skin in some places, until none of him was visible.
When the process was finished, the apparatus released him. The man, now identical to every other Cybermen, stood up and calmly walked to the next woman in line. He grabbed her, ignoring her struggles, and strapped her down. Ianto's vision blurred and he realized that he was sobbing. Pressing his face into his hands, Ianto cried.
Great burning sobs burst from his lungs, and nothing he could do suppressed them. Sitting, alone inside a restricted area in Torchwood One, Ianto cried for the deaths he'd just seen; he cried for the prisoners facing certain death in the form of Upgrades; he cried for Lisa; he cried for himself. Ianto Jones cried for the entire human race.
He had no idea how long he sat there and wept, but eventually his sobs quieted and he looked up. Against his better judgment, he clicked the mouse and searched for the other prisoners, who hadn't been taken to be Upgraded. He found them easily enough, and stared numbly, watching the Cybermen stuff the bodies into bags to be disposed of. Cybermen didn't age, and they weren't born. Ianto supposed they had no use for anyone who fell outside a certain age range. The sight of a tiny hand lolling outside one of the body bags nearly brought Ianto to tears again.
Instead, Ianto climbed to his feet and began to search again. Lisa was waiting for him.
The end of the first week blurred into the beginning of the second, and onward into the beginning of a third. Food was increasingly scarce, and Ianto began eating less, to ensure that Lisa had enough to keep up her strength. He drugged her every day, trying to keep her unconscious and out of pain. Both of them lost alarming amounts of weight and Ianto finally admitted that he needed to go back to the fourteenth floor again. For whatever reason, the Cybermen seemed to avoid that floor and Ianto had picked through the rest of the building as much as he could. There was no more food. Worse, Lisa's pain medication was running out.
Hacking his way back onto the forbidden floor, Ianto went into a different room this time. Randomly, he went down the hall to the second door on the left and pushed it open. His eyes widened and he nearly stumbled through the door as he realized he was looking at an operation bay.
Ianto tried to keep from thinking about what a room such as this was doing hidden in Torchwood. Instead, he focused on the fact that he might be able to find more medicine. He ransacked the drawers on the side of the room, heedless of the mess he left in his wake.
Everything was Torchwood's fault! They'd brought the ghosts. They'd played a game with such high stakes that humanity would fall as a result of the loss. And the more Ianto found out about the organization, the more it seemed like they'd probably done it while thumbing their nose. Those vaults in the other room had to be crypts. Bitterly, Ianto wondered which of them held the body of a Cyberman.
Reaching a door that didn't open automatically, Ianto spun and overturned a metal instrument table. It fell with a clang and Ianto knelt and unscrewed one of the legs with a scalpel. Once it was free, he used the leg as a crowbar, jamming it inside the handle and using the top of the cabinet for leverage. He pried the drawer open and gazed at the neat row of ampoules, with a flood of relief. Morphine.
He took it all, wondering if this would be enough to end Lisa's suffering permanently if it came to that. She hadn't spoken in two days, except to cry in pain and beg Ianto to help her.
He couldn't take much more.
Desperation, more than curiosity drove him back to the computer and he brought it out of hibernation with a mixture of dread and longing. He spent only a few minutes looking at the security camera rotation this time. He knew what was going on inside Torchwood. He wanted to know what was going on outside.
He didn't dare click on any outside links. In all likelihood, this computer wouldn't connect without serious hacking anyway. It was obviously under security protection and Ianto suspected he was lucky that he could even access the security panels. Instead, Ianto tapped into the main room and watched there. The Cybermen had obviously chosen this place to be their headquarters and Ianto watched them come and go.
The Cyberman that Ianto suspected had once been Yvonne, notable by the deferential leeway the others gave her as the obvious leader, was standing in front of a large screen that had a projection of Great Britain on it. Most of the country was depicted in an ominous glowing red. The entirety of the London area was red and Ianto suspected that it showed the territory under Cybermen control. As he watched, the map reduced in size, and Europe appeared. Ianto stared in horror, watching as entire countries in Europe blinked lazily, alternating red and yellow. If his suspicions were right, the entire continent was fighting to repel the Cybermen threat.
The map was replaced with a screen showing several numbers. One was a timer, ticking down from 143 hours, 21 minutes, 32 seconds and a constant blur of milliseconds. The other was simply a number that increased steadily as Ianto watched. In only a few seconds it had climbed from 3.5 million to 3.8 million, and it showed no signs of stopping. Ianto felt ill watching one number fall while the other soared – the Cybermen expected to claim victory in less than a week; the number of humans being upgraded only supported that expectation.
Ianto let his hands go still. Keeping Lisa and himself alive wasn't going to matter in six days. There would be no reason to be alive then, with the entire world under Cybermen control.
With shaking fingers, Ianto typed in a different code. He could hack from this computer into the main Torchwood framework. From there, he could... He didn't know what he could do, but he had to do something. He'd been one of the best, according to Clive. There was no agency in the world that Ianto hadn't been able to hack, changing information and keeping Torchwood, with all its political subversion, hidden from the public. It took him less than a minute to find his way to the Torchwood mainframe.
Images flashed across the screen as he typed. Cybermen in the Parliament building; the Prime Minister surrendering; the French surrendering as Cybermen marched down Parisian streets; Cybermen inside the Kremlin, the White House, government buildings around the world. Ianto's hopes fell lower as he continued to search. The ghosts had been a worldwide phenomenon.
It had taken Ianto and Lisa some time, puzzling out bit by bit why some Cybermen had vanished and others had not – it was Lisa who realized that those left behind were the transformed humans. Their biggest clue had been Yvonne Hartman herself. It had taken her only a few days to impose a crushing regime, her determination to protect “Queen and Country” subverted to the point that it was barely recognizable. The Cybermen who answered to her orders had originally been Torchwood employees. That was why they didn't search the basements thoroughly. They didn't expect to find anyone or anything of use there.
Now, Ianto realized that he had been naive not to realize that there were upgrades taking place the world over. Cybermen had been left on every continent, in every country, in all governments.
There was no one left to ask for help.
Finally, with no options left, Ianto typed in the code to override security systems worldwide. It was a code that only a few of them had known, and with a few precise keystrokes, Ianto held the reigns of the every media outlet in the world. He stayed hunched over, frozen in indecision. Finally, he typed out a message.
Even as he watched, the message began to scroll across the bottoms of the newsfeeds. Now, anyone watching would know where to concentrate their firepower.
Then he typed another code, this one patching him directly into the computer feeds of the Torchwood Branch Offices.
If there was anyone left who could help them, they would be at Torchwood Two and Three. If not, then maybe someone was left who could blast Canary Wharf off the map.
There was nothing left that he could do. Grabbing his bag and gun, Ianto hurried down the back stairs, back to the basement, back to Lisa. He pushed the door open, careful to be as silent as possible. He wondered how long they had before they'd be discovered.
"Ianto?" Lisa's voice was brittle with pain. "What happened? You were gone for so long." She lifted her head from the sofa, the metal around her skull and shoulders restricting her movement.
"I found more pain medication." Ianto hurried inside, taking the time to bar the door to their hiding place. "Here."
"Wait," Lisa struggled to sit up and Ianto helped her. Any relief that he might have felt that she was talking and sitting up vanished as he noticed the feverish cast to her eyes. They were dull in a way that he'd never seen before.
"Why?"
"I can't think when I'm drugged," Lisa complained. She released a shaky breath. "I need to tell you... warn you..."
"About what?"
"The Cyberman conditioning is getting stronger." Lisa finally admitted, looking away. "The drugs make it harder to resist."
The fear that shot through Ianto was stronger than any he had felt since the nightmare had first begun. "That's not possible."
"Ianto." Lisa met his eyes steadily. "It is possible. I have dreams... I can hear Yvonne give orders and I want to obey."
"They're just dreams."
"No, they aren't." Lisa brushed her fingers against Ianto's temple as though she was soothing a tension headache after a hard day at work. It was absurdly mundane, thought Ianto, as though she weren't telling him that she knew she was going to die. "I'm not going to be able to keep fighting this. The wires... they're still in my head." She looked down. "They're everywhere."
"Keep fighting, Lisa. Don't give up. We'll find a way to reverse it." Ianto begged, dropping to his knees and taking her hands in his. "Please."
"Ianto." Lisa leaned forward awkwardly and kissed him gently. "We were great together, weren't we? We were amazing. Don't forget that, all right? No matter what happens, remember that I love you. I love you so much." She stroked her fingers through his hair, and Ianto could almost forget where they were. Ianto leaned into her hands with guilty indulgence – he should be the one comforting her. He pushed the thought of the drugs further back in his mind, forbidding the calculations that told him there was enough to end everything for the two of them. Instead, he climbed onto the sofa, cradling her body against his, ignoring the jabs of the medal pieces sticking into his torso and legs. She rested her head on his shoulder and he kissed the metal plate. They lay there in silence.
Ianto didn't know how much time had passed when he was jostled awake by the sound of marching. Hastily, he tried to climb from under Lisa, there was no time to avoid jostling her. He forced himself to ignore her cries as he scrambled for the gun.
"Humans. We know you are here. Surrender." The voice echoed through the door.
"How did they find us?" Lisa whispered, the terror clear in her voice. Ianto didn't answer, but he knew. The warning signals he'd sent out - they'd been traced back to the heart of Torchwood One itself.
"You are ordered to surrender." The Cyberman's voice was frighteningly familiar. "All humans are ordered to do their duty for Queen and Country. You will be upgraded."
There was a bang on the door and Ianto backed away, putting himself between the enemy and Lisa. All the fear and tension of the past weeks drained away. It was finally over. They wouldn't take Lisa while he lived. He steadied himself, lifted the gun to his shoulder and waited.
There was another bang on the door, and Ianto waited as the metal bowed like paper. Then came a third impact, and the whole door frame shook. Lisa sobbed behind him, but he didn't look back at her. All of his attention was focused on the door. The fourth collision broke through, just as Ianto had fired two shots. He took down one of the Cybermen before the metal doors had even hit the ground. He aimed again, methodically, squeezing the trigger and sending another Cybermen to the scrap heap before Yvonne raised her arm. She wasn't aiming at him. Ianto screamed.
"No!" He moved without thinking, till he stood between Yvonne and Lisa. There was a flash of bright blue light and something hit his chest that radiated outwards, setting his nerves on fire. Then there was nothing.
Consciousness came slowly, protested vigorously by his entire body. He nearly succumbed to the temptation to retreat into the darkness again. Only the thought of Lisa forced him to open his eyes.
He was facing a concrete wall. It took him several minutes to regain the use of his limbs enough to roll onto his back. Now he was staring at a concrete ceiling and he acerbically thought that was no better, before he managed to push himself up with a hiss.
He was in a cell. Blinking he looked around, trying to keep his vision focused. Concrete walls on three sides. Concrete floor. Concrete ceiling. The fourth wall was plastic of some sort, and pierced with small holes to let in air, and probably voices.
Ianto looked down and saw both that he was sitting on a cot of some sort. Staggering to his feet, he stumbled to the plastic wall and began to bang on it weakly.
"Lisa! Lisa, where are you! Lisa!" He screamed until he was hoarse, bruising his hand and bloodying his knuckles on the barrier.
No one answered and finally, dizzy, Ianto fell to the ground. He pulled himself into the corner behind the cot, drawing his knees to his chest, and began to rock slowly back and forth. His breath came in short panting gasps, making his chest hurt and his head swim. Time passed, but Ianto didn't know how much. His arms and legs were shaking, whether from fear, injury or shock he didn't know.
Just when he thought he was going to lose his grip on reality completely, metallic footsteps echoed down the hallway. Ianto's head snapped up so fast that he hit it on the wall and saw stars. When his vision cleared, a single Cyberman stood in front of the glass.
"Ianto Jones. Torchwood employee. You were part of the disinformation project. You have betrayed us with your message to the outside world." It paused. “You failed. It will not cause lasting problems.”
"Yvonne Hartman." Ianto croaked. "That's who you used to be. You were the head of Torchwood and we trusted you."
His response seemed to confuse the Cyberman for a moment. It fell silent, studying him. "You are atypical."
The comment startled a giggle out of Ianto's throat. He struggled for a moment before giving in to completely hysterical laughter. "I'm atypical? I'm not some bloody fucking machine!" He snorted, his chest heaving in laughter.
"You will be Upgraded. Eventually." Yvonne's comment killed the hysteria instantly and Ianto struggled to his feet. “You will do your duty, for Queen and Country.”
"What have you done with Lisa?"
"Lisa?"
"Yes, Lisa!" Ianto roared, the force of his voice shaking him on his feet. "Where is she?"
Again, Yvonne seemed at a loss for words and she stared at him. "Malfunctions were noted. Upgrading will be completed."
"No!" Ianto threw himself at the plastic partition in fury. "Let her go!"
"Your request is denied."
"Leave her alone."
"Your request is denied."
"Go fuck yourself!"
"Your request is impractical." Yvonne's voice didn't change its inflection and the futility of his attack drove Ianto to his knees.
"I'm begging you, please. You used to be human. You used to be one of us!"
For a moment, Yvonne and Ianto stared at each other, human eyes and mechanical cameras each trying to determine the other's motivations. Finally, Yvonne stepped back. "Soon, you will be one of us. You will be upgraded."
"Please, please, don't do this." Ianto begged, his voice rising to a scream as Yvonne walked away from him. "DON'T DO THIS! PLEASE DON'T DO THIS!"
Just before she was gone, Ianto heard her words float back to him. "Your request is denied."
Ianto fell forward on his hands and knees. His body shook, and when he heard the metallic footsteps return, he thought he was hallucinating. But the marching steps came right up to his cell, and the partition parted long enough to let one of the creatures inside. It grabbed him and hauled him upright, thrusting him into the hallway, where the second one grabbed his other arm.
"What's going on? What are you doing?"
"Ianto Jones. You are to be tested for biological imperfections that caused malfunctions to Upgrade process."
"I've not been Upgraded!" Ianto protested hysterically, his feet scrabbling along the ground as they dragged him down the hall. They reached the end and pushed him through a door into a recently-converted medical laboratory. The Cybermen pushed him onto a table, ripping his clothes from him as he fought. A moment later, they caught his limbs and held him in place, strapping his ands and feet to the table. More straps were fastened across his abdomen.
"Cybermen do not resist Upgrades once the procedure has begun. Emotional inhibitor malfunctioned. We must determine the cause." The Cybermen spoke calmly over Ianto's screams.
"I've not been Upgraded! I couldn't have malfunctioned!"
"The malfunction was not in your Upgrade procedure."
The puzzle resolved even as needles slipped smoothly but painfully into Ianto's exposed flesh. "Lisa!" He screamed. "Lisa!"
The only answer he received was the echo of his own voice.
Continue to Part III
