FIC: Tin Men - Chapter 2
Jun. 21st, 2009 12:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nentariTitle: Tin Men - Chapter 2
Author: Me
Beta-Reader:alouzon
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3625
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all its characters belong to the BBC. I own nothing - not even the Fourteenth Doctor.
Summary: Someone is kidnapping the Doctor's former companions. Who is behind all this... and why?
Author's note: I'm sorry for this long delay, but this was an almost impossible chapter to write; you'll see why in a minute...
Chapter 2
Hye looked at her two friends. Jamie was as pale as a ghost, leaning against the kitchen wall, while the Doctor seemed unable to take her eyes off the creepy severed head.
"I don't understand," the Time Lord muttered under her breath. "Something's not right here."
"Och, of course something's not right," Jamie stormed. "There were Cybermen here. In Victoria's home!"
"Jamie..." the Doctor started placatingly, but he was having none of it.
"You'd told me she'd be safe in this time!"
"Jamie, please-"
"I don't understand," Hye cut them off, hoping to forestall the inevitable argument. "What are Cybermen?"
The two of them came to a jarring halt and looked over at her, having forgotten about her presence for the moment. Jamie still looked enflamed but seemed to be trying to calm down.
"Well," he tried to explain. "They are like robots."
Hye looked at him in confusion. "Robots?"
"No, not exactly like robots," the Doctor corrected. "They were people once."
"How?"
"How can I explain it...?" The Doctor gnawed on her knuckle for a moment, and then snapped her fingers. "Well, you know that book you were reading just before we arrived?"
"The Wizard of Oz?"
"Yes. Dear Lyman... Anyway, Cybermen, in a way, are like the Tin Woodman. Their bodies were gradually replaced by cybernetic prosthetics, mechanical parts, until their humanity was eradicated." She gazed at the head again. "However, while the Tin Woodman eagerly wished to be able to feel again, not realizing that he had never lost that ability, Cybermen did indeed 'lose their hearts' and became unfeeling monsters."
"And they've got Victoria!" Jamie bellowed, frustrated with the lack of action.
"Jamie," the Doctor admonished him gently, laying a hand on his arm. With a concerned tone, she added, "But there's something not quite right." She lifted the head up and turned it so that her two friends could look at it better. "This head should not be here."
"Why not?" Hye looked at the damaged statue on the floor. It all looked simple and straightforward to her - their friend Victoria hit the Cyberman and its head came off. She mentally complimented the girl on her vicious swing.
"Well," the Doctor said, "for a start I can't see how a normal human being would have managed to cause such damage to a Cyberman, especially by hitting it with something made of mere wood." She pointed at the damaged statue. "And then there's the matter of the body."
"Eh? What body?" Jamie asked, looking around for something he missed.
"Exactly, Jamie. Exactly." She tapped her lips with her index finger, looking thoughtful. "I've encountered different varieties of Cybermen in the past, but regardless of their origins and how they were built, all Cybermen have one thing in common: since their human brain is still intact, having their head chopped off would invariably mean death."
Both Hye and Jamie looked at her with wide eyes, realizing what she meant. "So," Hye verbalized for both of them, "if it was dead, the body should also be here."
"Indeed it should. Cybermen are not like chicken - rather than run around in a frenzy, their headless bodies would fall on the spot."
"Aye, thanks for that image," Jamie said with a shudder. Then, his eyes widened, as the Doctor's words finally sunk in. "Hey, d'you mean to say that these are not the real...?"
"I don't know, Jamie," she replied with a sigh. "I suspect that may be the case, but I can't say for sure without a proper examination of the head." She looked at her two friends. "Who knows, this might even give us a clue where to look."
"Och, what are we waiting for, then?" Jamie said, straightening up. "Let's get back to the TARDIS."
"Yes, I don't think there's much else we can do here..." The Doctor turned to Hye. "But what about you, Hye dear?"
The question took the young girl by surprise. "Me?"
"I'm afraid it will be a while before we'll be able to introduce you to Liz," she said, nodding towards the Highlander, who had already stalked through the kitchen door and down the corridor, "and you did not sneak inside the TARDIS because you wanted to help us chase after Sontarans or Cybermen. If you want, you can stay in the TARDIS and finish your book while Jamie and I try to find Victoria. Or perhaps you would like to explore 1975 London - take a tour or something, so that you can get better acquainted to the country and the era." The Doctor started rummaging in her copious pockets, probably looking for money.
Hye considered this for a moment. Yes, under these circumstances helping her get into medical school was hardly a priority for the Doctor or Jamie - she herself had completely forgotten about it. But she also didn't want to stay behind waiting and wondering while they tried to save their friend. Not only would she feel useless staying behind, but not knowing if they were alright would quickly put her off the tour or the book. Both options would be more suitable for a crisis-free occasion.
"I want to help," she said, as she and the Doctor followed Jamie down the corridor.
The Doctor smiled. "Somehow, I had the feeling you were going to say that. Well, let's get to the TARDIS then, and-"
"Hold it right there, please."
Their exit was cut off by the sudden appearance of a tall man at the entrance door. Hye quickly realized he was a soldier, but his uniform was somehow different from those she was used to seeing in her own time, and she was unsure whether he was a friend or an enemy; the gun in his hand pointed carefully between them seemed to indicate the latter option. Instinctively, Hye raised her hands, and saw that Jamie and the Doctor had done the same. However, their hands quickly came down again, as they looked at the uniformed figure, huge smiles of recognition on their faces.
"Hey, it's Benton!" Jamie exclaimed with a pleased grin.
"McCrimmon?" The man he called Benton asked with some hesitation as he lowered his gun, before his guarded expression opened in a big smile. "Jamie McCrimmon!"
The two men exchanged a warm handshake. Sheepishly realizing that she was still holding her hands up, Hye finally lowered them and looked at the Doctor, who was beaming.
"Blimey, it's been years!" Benton said, still speaking to Jamie. "The old Doc said you were back in your own time, and..." He trailed off, looking around. His eyes flickered briefly over the two women for a second before casting further down the corridor, and Hye couldn't help but admire just how blue they were. "Where is he, by the way?"
He? thought Hye, looking confused, but before she could ask, the Doctor took a step toward the two men.
"The 'old Doc', as you have so kindly put it," she said with a wry tone that seemed to combine warmth and annoyance, "happens to be right here, Mr. Benton."
For a fragment of a second, Benton's eyes widened with surprise. However, this expression quickly vanished, replaced with a large smile that seemed to light up all of his features.
"Well, Doc, you've done it again," he said, shaking her hand.
***
"Ben!"
Ben's eyes widened as he heard the familiar voice who shouted his name. He raised his eyes from the files Sullivan had been showing him and looked up - and sure enough, Jamie was standing by the front door.
"Cor blimey. Jamie!" He laughed as he rose from his chair and rushed to his friend, giving him a bear hug. "It really is you!"
He looked at Jamie appraisingly. His hair was longer, but apart from that he didn't seem to have aged much. Maybe it was only the fact he hadn't seen him for nine years; but then again, travelling with the Doctor, it was possible he hadn't aged a day (although the long hair would belie that theory).
His eyes travelled to the other people who had entered the office with Jamie. Besides Benton, there were also two birds Ben had never seen before in his life. Well, the smaller one, with the short dark hair and the garish clothes, looked somewhat familiar, but he couldn't pinpoint exactly why that was. She turned and looked at him with a look of immediate recognition.
"Hello, Ben," she said, with a smile that seemed to mirror Jamie's. "It's been a long time."
"Have we met?" Ben asked her.
"Ben," Jamie said in something akin to a stage whisper, "it's the Doctor."
Ben looked at the tiny figure, who now gazed at him expectantly. After a few seconds, he gave a dry laugh. "Get away!"
"You're joking, surely?" a polished accent broke in on the conversation, in a tone of horrified interest.
Ben turned. With the excitement of seeing Jamie again, he had completely forgotten that he and Sullivan had been studying the files together.
Before he could say anything, the woman rushed to meet his fellow Lieutenant, giving him a bone-crushing hug. "Harry, Harry, Harry!" she exclaimed. "Jamie, Hye," she then said, releasing him and turning to the other two, "meet Lieutenant Harry Sullivan. I have told you about him, haven't I, Jamie dear?"
"Oh, aye," Jamie said bemusedly, as the woman turned her attention back to Sullivan, who was trying to catch his breath. For such a tiny bird, she seemed to have a really strong grip.
"Well, Harry, if you have any doubts I suggest you find your stethoscope and count my hearts. And you," she then turned back to Ben, who instinctively took a step back, in fear of receiving a similar debilitating hug, and nearly stepped on the Chinese bird's foot. "I'm not surprised you don't believe I'm the Doctor. The first time I regenerated it took ages before you accepted it was still me, even though I had changed right before your eyes." She was now almost in his face, her voice soft and warm. "It was only when the Dalek recognized me that you finally agreed I was still the Doctor, wasn't it, Ben?"
A startled curse nearly escaped his lips, but the habit of feeling Polly's heel stamping on his foot, followed by a whisper of "Ben, the children," made him stop himself in time. Instead, he just stammered a hesitant, "D... Doctor?"
"Hello, Benjamin," she said with a smile.
"Lieutenant Jackson, I hope you..." A crisp, no nonsense voice heralded the arrival of the Brigadier in the office; he was followed by two more birds. One was a redhead Ben did not recognize, but the other...
"Dodo!"
"Ben?" The small brunette looked at him with both surprise and delight. "It is Ben!"
"It's the Brigadier!" Jamie hissed excitedly to the Doctor.
"Good grief. McCrimmon?" The Brigadier was clearly taken aback with the sight of the young Highlander. "But the Doctor said-"
"Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart!" the Doctor interrupted. "Just the person I need to speak to."
"I'm sorry," he said, an eyebrow raised. "And you are...?"
"Erm," Benton unsuccessfully tried to hide a smile as he pretended to cough, "it's the Doctor, sir."
Both the Brigadier and the two new birds looked at the "Doctor" as if she had suddenly turned green and sprouted antennae. Ben couldn't really blame them, he was still feeling somewhat flummoxed himself.
"The Doctor?" Dodo repeated, shocked. "It can't be!"
"It is me, Dodo dear," she replied, looking at his old friend with the warmth the Doctor - the old geezer Ben had first met, that is - would have given her. Ben's reluctance to accept that this was really the Doctor was now completely dissipated. "And Liz!" the Doctor then added, turning to the redhead. "My dear Liz, how wonderful to see you!" She then turned to the Chinese girl. "Hye, this is Dr. Liz Shaw."
"Oh! Really?" The girl nodded at the woman in the spotless white lab-coat, smiling excitedly and unconsciously bowing slightly in her direction. Liz nodded in return before refocusing on the Doctor with an amused, unbelieving smile.
"Are you really the Doctor?"
"Yes, yes. But never mind that. We've got something much more important than discussing how regenerations work. Don't you agree, Brigadier?"
But the man was still looking at her suspiciously. "Now, hold on, just a second. How can I be sure you really are the Doctor? The Doctor just left with Miss Smith, and he looks nothing like you."
She sighed. "Oh dear. We're not going to leave this subject anytime soon, are we?"
"It really is the Doctor!" Jamie frowned in exasperation, clearly as frustrated as her. Ben shared his irritation - right now the important thing was to find Polly; everything else could wait. However, he could also understand the Brigadier's suspicions - even though he had seen the Doctor change from an old geezer to a younger man in the past, it was even more fantastic to imagine he had suddenly became a bird.
"I'm afraid I'll need more convincing proof than your say-so, McCrimmon," the Brigadier insisted. "You're not supposed to be here, either."
"Oh, for goodness' sake, we don't have time for this!" the Doctor grumbled. She crossed her arms and said with an annoyed tone, "Not long ago - for you, that is, it has been ages for me - we invited Professor Herbert Clegg to help me on my research on ESP. To test him, you gave him your wristwatch, and as he held it, he said..." Ben couldn't hear the rest of the sentence, as the Doctor had moved across the room and now stood on her toes to whisper in the Brigadier's ear. The UNIT CO's jaw dropped, and he became white as a sheet.
"Oh, no..." he mumbled.
"All right, that settles it for me," Liz Shaw said, smiling broadly. "Only the Doctor could make the Brigadier pull that face."
"Oh, I've missed you, Liz," the Doctor said, with a wink. "Anyway, back to serious matters. Victoria is gone."
The Brigadier quickly regained his composure. "Ahem. Well, yes, I was afraid of that."
Jamie was shocked. "You knew?"
"We suspected it," Sullivan said, showing the files he had been looking through with Ben. "There have been other, similar attacks on people; all the targets have one thing in common."
"What?" the Doctor asked warily, as everybody tried to squeeze themselves around the desk.
"You," the Brigadier replied.
The Doctor raised her eyes to face him. "Excuse me?"
"The first attack was on the house of a..." Sullivan checked the file, "a Miss Samantha Briggs, from Liverpool."
"Samantha Briggs?"
"Oh, aye!" Jamie said. "Sam! D'you not remember her, Doctor?"
"Yes, Jamie. Of course I do. She helped us with that business with Chameleon Tours," the Doctor said. The memory made Ben shudder.
"Luckily, Miss Briggs was away on holiday," Sullivan continued. "Neighbours said they saw a man dressed in silver break into the house."
"Then, it was Miss Shaw's turn," the Brigadier added.
"Yes," Dr. Shaw said. "Someone broke into my laboratory at the university and hit me on the head."
"Liz..." the Doctor was about to begin, but Dr. Shaw interrupted her.
"I'm fine, Doctor. As you can see for yourself. Anyway, I didn't see the assailant, but one of my students saw 'a man dressed in silver' again. I felt it sounded odd, so I contacted UNIT."
"Later on," the Brigadier continued, "my old friend Chunky Gilmore, who says has worked with you on some business with the Daleks back in '63, had his house broken into. Once again, witnesses claim to have seen men in silver at the scene. And at the same time, we got a message from Sir Charles Summer saying that his assistant had been attacked. So, we got in contact with Mrs. Hawthorne here."
"That's Miss Chaplet Brigadier," Dodo said stiffly.
"Yes, sorry, Miss Chaplet." He gave a small cough. "Anyway, Miss Chaplet did manage to see her attacker, and from her description we immediately deduced Cybermen were involved."
"Since there have been no serious consequences from the attacks, apart from Dr. Shaw's injury," Sullivan continued, "and they seem to have taken effort to be seen by witnesses every time, we assumed the Cybermen were trying to send a message."
"And since you seem to be the only thing that both the Cybermen and all the people that were attacked have in common, I can only assume the message was directed at you," the Brigadier concluded, somewhat smugly, obviously pleased that they had figured this out without the Doctor's assistance.
"Oh, I am glad to see you have been using your brain, Alistair," the Doctor said, quickly adding before the Brigadier could protest, "But things have escalated now, haven't they? The Cybermen have taken Victoria."
"And Polly," Ben said quickly.
"What?!" Jamie said. "Doctor...!"
"This is worse than I thought," the Doctor said, before turning once again to the girl she called Hye. "The head, please, dear."
"Here you are, Doctor." Ben wondered how they had all failed to notice the item the girl had in tow with her, up until the Doctor asked for it. Now it was impossible to drag one's eyes away from the hideous thing.
The Doctor placed the head on the desk. Dodo's eyes widened. "That's the thing that attacked me," she said with certainty.
"Yes," Benton agreed. "That's a Cybermen, all right."
"Except it probably isn't," the Doctor said. All eyes turned to her attentively, and she continued. "I was telling Jamie and Hye before we bumped into Benton that there were some things that were not quite right about this head."
"The Doctor thinks it might be someone pretending to be Cybermen," Hye added.
"Exactly. And the fact that nobody has died in the earlier attacks seems to suggest this. But I need to conduct an examination of this head before I can be sure."
"Your laboratories are still here, as always," the Brigadier said, once again full of military efficiency.
"Thank you, Brigadier," the Doctor smiled affectionately at him. "But I shall need some equipment from the TARDIS for this, however."
"I've got some men bringing it here as we speak, Doctor," Benton said.
"Good man." The Doctor pondered for a moment. "I think we should also compile a list of people who might be at risk of receiving a visit from our silvery friends, don't you agree?"
"Yes, we've already started working on that," Sullivan said, opening another file. "Some people are already being watched from a distance, with the aid of the regular army; no attacks have been reported from abroad so far, so we are assuming for now that those outside of Great Britain are safe."
"So Jo is alright?" the Doctor asked, obviously relieved.
"Yes, Doctor. She's still in the Amazon forest with Professor Jones and the rest of the expedition. We've also checked Professor Travers and his daughter, who are still in America..." He turned a sheet of paper. "Captain Yates has gone to India with that monk friend of yours, and a Miss Isobel Watkins is doing a photography project in Finland; Captain Turner is with her."
"What about Professor Watkins?" Jamie asked, leaning against a filing cabinet in what supposed to be, and obviously wasn't, a relaxed pose.
"I'm afraid he passed away a couple of years ago, Jamie," the Doctor said sadly.
"Oh, I didnae know," he said softly. "Hey, and what about the Harrises?"
"Yes, whoever has taken Victoria will also know about them. And..." She trailed off, and her eyes widened in alarm. "Brigadier," she then said rather hesitantly, "what about Strachan?"
"Eh?" Jamie asked, confused.
"He was in a staff meeting," Benton said. "I reckon he's been notified by now and is on his way."
"Oh dear," the Doctor said, suddenly rising to her feet and grabbing Jamie by the arm. "Jamie dear, I need to have a private word with you. If you'll excuse me, please," she added to the others, who all looked in confusion as she pulled the Highlander to an opposite corner of the office.
***
"Doctor, what...?"
"Jamie, there's something urgent I need to tell you," she said in a nervous whisper.
Jamie looked at her in confusion. He couldn't understand why the Doctor looked so anxious - and what could be more important than trying to find Victoria and avoiding more of these attacks?
"Jamie, do you remember when I told you that I knew Victoria would want to stay here in 1975?"
"Aye," he whispered the same way she did, "but I cannae see why-"
"And remember me saying I had been keeping quiet about it because I felt it was something she would have preferred to tell you herself?"
"Aye, but-"
"I'm afraid it cannot wait now. You see-"
Before the Doctor could finish, a yell echoed through the corridor. "Where is she?"
"Oh no," the Doctor mumbled. "Jamie, I'm sorry."
"Doctor, what-"
A young man in a dark blue uniform stormed into the office. At the sight of him, Jamie froze. He had seen the man's face before - reflected back at him in the Doctor's mirror, in the Land of Fiction. The face he had worn for a while when he'd lost his own.
"Sir!" he cried, in desperation, as he saw the Brigadier. "What's happened? Where's Victoria?" His accent was clearly Scottish, but rougher than a Highlander's.
"Victoria?" Jamie turned to the Doctor. "Why is he asking about Victoria?"
"Calm down, Strachan, old chap," Harry said kindly, but the newcomer just gave him an anguished look.
"Calm down?" he cried. "Someone's kidnapped my wife!"
Author: Me
Beta-Reader:
alouzonFandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3625
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all its characters belong to the BBC. I own nothing - not even the Fourteenth Doctor.
Summary: Someone is kidnapping the Doctor's former companions. Who is behind all this... and why?
Author's note: I'm sorry for this long delay, but this was an almost impossible chapter to write; you'll see why in a minute...
Hye looked at her two friends. Jamie was as pale as a ghost, leaning against the kitchen wall, while the Doctor seemed unable to take her eyes off the creepy severed head.
"I don't understand," the Time Lord muttered under her breath. "Something's not right here."
"Och, of course something's not right," Jamie stormed. "There were Cybermen here. In Victoria's home!"
"Jamie..." the Doctor started placatingly, but he was having none of it.
"You'd told me she'd be safe in this time!"
"Jamie, please-"
"I don't understand," Hye cut them off, hoping to forestall the inevitable argument. "What are Cybermen?"
The two of them came to a jarring halt and looked over at her, having forgotten about her presence for the moment. Jamie still looked enflamed but seemed to be trying to calm down.
"Well," he tried to explain. "They are like robots."
Hye looked at him in confusion. "Robots?"
"No, not exactly like robots," the Doctor corrected. "They were people once."
"How?"
"How can I explain it...?" The Doctor gnawed on her knuckle for a moment, and then snapped her fingers. "Well, you know that book you were reading just before we arrived?"
"The Wizard of Oz?"
"Yes. Dear Lyman... Anyway, Cybermen, in a way, are like the Tin Woodman. Their bodies were gradually replaced by cybernetic prosthetics, mechanical parts, until their humanity was eradicated." She gazed at the head again. "However, while the Tin Woodman eagerly wished to be able to feel again, not realizing that he had never lost that ability, Cybermen did indeed 'lose their hearts' and became unfeeling monsters."
"And they've got Victoria!" Jamie bellowed, frustrated with the lack of action.
"Jamie," the Doctor admonished him gently, laying a hand on his arm. With a concerned tone, she added, "But there's something not quite right." She lifted the head up and turned it so that her two friends could look at it better. "This head should not be here."
"Why not?" Hye looked at the damaged statue on the floor. It all looked simple and straightforward to her - their friend Victoria hit the Cyberman and its head came off. She mentally complimented the girl on her vicious swing.
"Well," the Doctor said, "for a start I can't see how a normal human being would have managed to cause such damage to a Cyberman, especially by hitting it with something made of mere wood." She pointed at the damaged statue. "And then there's the matter of the body."
"Eh? What body?" Jamie asked, looking around for something he missed.
"Exactly, Jamie. Exactly." She tapped her lips with her index finger, looking thoughtful. "I've encountered different varieties of Cybermen in the past, but regardless of their origins and how they were built, all Cybermen have one thing in common: since their human brain is still intact, having their head chopped off would invariably mean death."
Both Hye and Jamie looked at her with wide eyes, realizing what she meant. "So," Hye verbalized for both of them, "if it was dead, the body should also be here."
"Indeed it should. Cybermen are not like chicken - rather than run around in a frenzy, their headless bodies would fall on the spot."
"Aye, thanks for that image," Jamie said with a shudder. Then, his eyes widened, as the Doctor's words finally sunk in. "Hey, d'you mean to say that these are not the real...?"
"I don't know, Jamie," she replied with a sigh. "I suspect that may be the case, but I can't say for sure without a proper examination of the head." She looked at her two friends. "Who knows, this might even give us a clue where to look."
"Och, what are we waiting for, then?" Jamie said, straightening up. "Let's get back to the TARDIS."
"Yes, I don't think there's much else we can do here..." The Doctor turned to Hye. "But what about you, Hye dear?"
The question took the young girl by surprise. "Me?"
"I'm afraid it will be a while before we'll be able to introduce you to Liz," she said, nodding towards the Highlander, who had already stalked through the kitchen door and down the corridor, "and you did not sneak inside the TARDIS because you wanted to help us chase after Sontarans or Cybermen. If you want, you can stay in the TARDIS and finish your book while Jamie and I try to find Victoria. Or perhaps you would like to explore 1975 London - take a tour or something, so that you can get better acquainted to the country and the era." The Doctor started rummaging in her copious pockets, probably looking for money.
Hye considered this for a moment. Yes, under these circumstances helping her get into medical school was hardly a priority for the Doctor or Jamie - she herself had completely forgotten about it. But she also didn't want to stay behind waiting and wondering while they tried to save their friend. Not only would she feel useless staying behind, but not knowing if they were alright would quickly put her off the tour or the book. Both options would be more suitable for a crisis-free occasion.
"I want to help," she said, as she and the Doctor followed Jamie down the corridor.
The Doctor smiled. "Somehow, I had the feeling you were going to say that. Well, let's get to the TARDIS then, and-"
"Hold it right there, please."
Their exit was cut off by the sudden appearance of a tall man at the entrance door. Hye quickly realized he was a soldier, but his uniform was somehow different from those she was used to seeing in her own time, and she was unsure whether he was a friend or an enemy; the gun in his hand pointed carefully between them seemed to indicate the latter option. Instinctively, Hye raised her hands, and saw that Jamie and the Doctor had done the same. However, their hands quickly came down again, as they looked at the uniformed figure, huge smiles of recognition on their faces.
"Hey, it's Benton!" Jamie exclaimed with a pleased grin.
"McCrimmon?" The man he called Benton asked with some hesitation as he lowered his gun, before his guarded expression opened in a big smile. "Jamie McCrimmon!"
The two men exchanged a warm handshake. Sheepishly realizing that she was still holding her hands up, Hye finally lowered them and looked at the Doctor, who was beaming.
"Blimey, it's been years!" Benton said, still speaking to Jamie. "The old Doc said you were back in your own time, and..." He trailed off, looking around. His eyes flickered briefly over the two women for a second before casting further down the corridor, and Hye couldn't help but admire just how blue they were. "Where is he, by the way?"
He? thought Hye, looking confused, but before she could ask, the Doctor took a step toward the two men.
"The 'old Doc', as you have so kindly put it," she said with a wry tone that seemed to combine warmth and annoyance, "happens to be right here, Mr. Benton."
For a fragment of a second, Benton's eyes widened with surprise. However, this expression quickly vanished, replaced with a large smile that seemed to light up all of his features.
"Well, Doc, you've done it again," he said, shaking her hand.
"Ben!"
Ben's eyes widened as he heard the familiar voice who shouted his name. He raised his eyes from the files Sullivan had been showing him and looked up - and sure enough, Jamie was standing by the front door.
"Cor blimey. Jamie!" He laughed as he rose from his chair and rushed to his friend, giving him a bear hug. "It really is you!"
He looked at Jamie appraisingly. His hair was longer, but apart from that he didn't seem to have aged much. Maybe it was only the fact he hadn't seen him for nine years; but then again, travelling with the Doctor, it was possible he hadn't aged a day (although the long hair would belie that theory).
His eyes travelled to the other people who had entered the office with Jamie. Besides Benton, there were also two birds Ben had never seen before in his life. Well, the smaller one, with the short dark hair and the garish clothes, looked somewhat familiar, but he couldn't pinpoint exactly why that was. She turned and looked at him with a look of immediate recognition.
"Hello, Ben," she said, with a smile that seemed to mirror Jamie's. "It's been a long time."
"Have we met?" Ben asked her.
"Ben," Jamie said in something akin to a stage whisper, "it's the Doctor."
Ben looked at the tiny figure, who now gazed at him expectantly. After a few seconds, he gave a dry laugh. "Get away!"
"You're joking, surely?" a polished accent broke in on the conversation, in a tone of horrified interest.
Ben turned. With the excitement of seeing Jamie again, he had completely forgotten that he and Sullivan had been studying the files together.
Before he could say anything, the woman rushed to meet his fellow Lieutenant, giving him a bone-crushing hug. "Harry, Harry, Harry!" she exclaimed. "Jamie, Hye," she then said, releasing him and turning to the other two, "meet Lieutenant Harry Sullivan. I have told you about him, haven't I, Jamie dear?"
"Oh, aye," Jamie said bemusedly, as the woman turned her attention back to Sullivan, who was trying to catch his breath. For such a tiny bird, she seemed to have a really strong grip.
"Well, Harry, if you have any doubts I suggest you find your stethoscope and count my hearts. And you," she then turned back to Ben, who instinctively took a step back, in fear of receiving a similar debilitating hug, and nearly stepped on the Chinese bird's foot. "I'm not surprised you don't believe I'm the Doctor. The first time I regenerated it took ages before you accepted it was still me, even though I had changed right before your eyes." She was now almost in his face, her voice soft and warm. "It was only when the Dalek recognized me that you finally agreed I was still the Doctor, wasn't it, Ben?"
A startled curse nearly escaped his lips, but the habit of feeling Polly's heel stamping on his foot, followed by a whisper of "Ben, the children," made him stop himself in time. Instead, he just stammered a hesitant, "D... Doctor?"
"Hello, Benjamin," she said with a smile.
"Lieutenant Jackson, I hope you..." A crisp, no nonsense voice heralded the arrival of the Brigadier in the office; he was followed by two more birds. One was a redhead Ben did not recognize, but the other...
"Dodo!"
"Ben?" The small brunette looked at him with both surprise and delight. "It is Ben!"
"It's the Brigadier!" Jamie hissed excitedly to the Doctor.
"Good grief. McCrimmon?" The Brigadier was clearly taken aback with the sight of the young Highlander. "But the Doctor said-"
"Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart!" the Doctor interrupted. "Just the person I need to speak to."
"I'm sorry," he said, an eyebrow raised. "And you are...?"
"Erm," Benton unsuccessfully tried to hide a smile as he pretended to cough, "it's the Doctor, sir."
Both the Brigadier and the two new birds looked at the "Doctor" as if she had suddenly turned green and sprouted antennae. Ben couldn't really blame them, he was still feeling somewhat flummoxed himself.
"The Doctor?" Dodo repeated, shocked. "It can't be!"
"It is me, Dodo dear," she replied, looking at his old friend with the warmth the Doctor - the old geezer Ben had first met, that is - would have given her. Ben's reluctance to accept that this was really the Doctor was now completely dissipated. "And Liz!" the Doctor then added, turning to the redhead. "My dear Liz, how wonderful to see you!" She then turned to the Chinese girl. "Hye, this is Dr. Liz Shaw."
"Oh! Really?" The girl nodded at the woman in the spotless white lab-coat, smiling excitedly and unconsciously bowing slightly in her direction. Liz nodded in return before refocusing on the Doctor with an amused, unbelieving smile.
"Are you really the Doctor?"
"Yes, yes. But never mind that. We've got something much more important than discussing how regenerations work. Don't you agree, Brigadier?"
But the man was still looking at her suspiciously. "Now, hold on, just a second. How can I be sure you really are the Doctor? The Doctor just left with Miss Smith, and he looks nothing like you."
She sighed. "Oh dear. We're not going to leave this subject anytime soon, are we?"
"It really is the Doctor!" Jamie frowned in exasperation, clearly as frustrated as her. Ben shared his irritation - right now the important thing was to find Polly; everything else could wait. However, he could also understand the Brigadier's suspicions - even though he had seen the Doctor change from an old geezer to a younger man in the past, it was even more fantastic to imagine he had suddenly became a bird.
"I'm afraid I'll need more convincing proof than your say-so, McCrimmon," the Brigadier insisted. "You're not supposed to be here, either."
"Oh, for goodness' sake, we don't have time for this!" the Doctor grumbled. She crossed her arms and said with an annoyed tone, "Not long ago - for you, that is, it has been ages for me - we invited Professor Herbert Clegg to help me on my research on ESP. To test him, you gave him your wristwatch, and as he held it, he said..." Ben couldn't hear the rest of the sentence, as the Doctor had moved across the room and now stood on her toes to whisper in the Brigadier's ear. The UNIT CO's jaw dropped, and he became white as a sheet.
"Oh, no..." he mumbled.
"All right, that settles it for me," Liz Shaw said, smiling broadly. "Only the Doctor could make the Brigadier pull that face."
"Oh, I've missed you, Liz," the Doctor said, with a wink. "Anyway, back to serious matters. Victoria is gone."
The Brigadier quickly regained his composure. "Ahem. Well, yes, I was afraid of that."
Jamie was shocked. "You knew?"
"We suspected it," Sullivan said, showing the files he had been looking through with Ben. "There have been other, similar attacks on people; all the targets have one thing in common."
"What?" the Doctor asked warily, as everybody tried to squeeze themselves around the desk.
"You," the Brigadier replied.
The Doctor raised her eyes to face him. "Excuse me?"
"The first attack was on the house of a..." Sullivan checked the file, "a Miss Samantha Briggs, from Liverpool."
"Samantha Briggs?"
"Oh, aye!" Jamie said. "Sam! D'you not remember her, Doctor?"
"Yes, Jamie. Of course I do. She helped us with that business with Chameleon Tours," the Doctor said. The memory made Ben shudder.
"Luckily, Miss Briggs was away on holiday," Sullivan continued. "Neighbours said they saw a man dressed in silver break into the house."
"Then, it was Miss Shaw's turn," the Brigadier added.
"Yes," Dr. Shaw said. "Someone broke into my laboratory at the university and hit me on the head."
"Liz..." the Doctor was about to begin, but Dr. Shaw interrupted her.
"I'm fine, Doctor. As you can see for yourself. Anyway, I didn't see the assailant, but one of my students saw 'a man dressed in silver' again. I felt it sounded odd, so I contacted UNIT."
"Later on," the Brigadier continued, "my old friend Chunky Gilmore, who says has worked with you on some business with the Daleks back in '63, had his house broken into. Once again, witnesses claim to have seen men in silver at the scene. And at the same time, we got a message from Sir Charles Summer saying that his assistant had been attacked. So, we got in contact with Mrs. Hawthorne here."
"That's Miss Chaplet Brigadier," Dodo said stiffly.
"Yes, sorry, Miss Chaplet." He gave a small cough. "Anyway, Miss Chaplet did manage to see her attacker, and from her description we immediately deduced Cybermen were involved."
"Since there have been no serious consequences from the attacks, apart from Dr. Shaw's injury," Sullivan continued, "and they seem to have taken effort to be seen by witnesses every time, we assumed the Cybermen were trying to send a message."
"And since you seem to be the only thing that both the Cybermen and all the people that were attacked have in common, I can only assume the message was directed at you," the Brigadier concluded, somewhat smugly, obviously pleased that they had figured this out without the Doctor's assistance.
"Oh, I am glad to see you have been using your brain, Alistair," the Doctor said, quickly adding before the Brigadier could protest, "But things have escalated now, haven't they? The Cybermen have taken Victoria."
"And Polly," Ben said quickly.
"What?!" Jamie said. "Doctor...!"
"This is worse than I thought," the Doctor said, before turning once again to the girl she called Hye. "The head, please, dear."
"Here you are, Doctor." Ben wondered how they had all failed to notice the item the girl had in tow with her, up until the Doctor asked for it. Now it was impossible to drag one's eyes away from the hideous thing.
The Doctor placed the head on the desk. Dodo's eyes widened. "That's the thing that attacked me," she said with certainty.
"Yes," Benton agreed. "That's a Cybermen, all right."
"Except it probably isn't," the Doctor said. All eyes turned to her attentively, and she continued. "I was telling Jamie and Hye before we bumped into Benton that there were some things that were not quite right about this head."
"The Doctor thinks it might be someone pretending to be Cybermen," Hye added.
"Exactly. And the fact that nobody has died in the earlier attacks seems to suggest this. But I need to conduct an examination of this head before I can be sure."
"Your laboratories are still here, as always," the Brigadier said, once again full of military efficiency.
"Thank you, Brigadier," the Doctor smiled affectionately at him. "But I shall need some equipment from the TARDIS for this, however."
"I've got some men bringing it here as we speak, Doctor," Benton said.
"Good man." The Doctor pondered for a moment. "I think we should also compile a list of people who might be at risk of receiving a visit from our silvery friends, don't you agree?"
"Yes, we've already started working on that," Sullivan said, opening another file. "Some people are already being watched from a distance, with the aid of the regular army; no attacks have been reported from abroad so far, so we are assuming for now that those outside of Great Britain are safe."
"So Jo is alright?" the Doctor asked, obviously relieved.
"Yes, Doctor. She's still in the Amazon forest with Professor Jones and the rest of the expedition. We've also checked Professor Travers and his daughter, who are still in America..." He turned a sheet of paper. "Captain Yates has gone to India with that monk friend of yours, and a Miss Isobel Watkins is doing a photography project in Finland; Captain Turner is with her."
"What about Professor Watkins?" Jamie asked, leaning against a filing cabinet in what supposed to be, and obviously wasn't, a relaxed pose.
"I'm afraid he passed away a couple of years ago, Jamie," the Doctor said sadly.
"Oh, I didnae know," he said softly. "Hey, and what about the Harrises?"
"Yes, whoever has taken Victoria will also know about them. And..." She trailed off, and her eyes widened in alarm. "Brigadier," she then said rather hesitantly, "what about Strachan?"
"Eh?" Jamie asked, confused.
"He was in a staff meeting," Benton said. "I reckon he's been notified by now and is on his way."
"Oh dear," the Doctor said, suddenly rising to her feet and grabbing Jamie by the arm. "Jamie dear, I need to have a private word with you. If you'll excuse me, please," she added to the others, who all looked in confusion as she pulled the Highlander to an opposite corner of the office.
"Doctor, what...?"
"Jamie, there's something urgent I need to tell you," she said in a nervous whisper.
Jamie looked at her in confusion. He couldn't understand why the Doctor looked so anxious - and what could be more important than trying to find Victoria and avoiding more of these attacks?
"Jamie, do you remember when I told you that I knew Victoria would want to stay here in 1975?"
"Aye," he whispered the same way she did, "but I cannae see why-"
"And remember me saying I had been keeping quiet about it because I felt it was something she would have preferred to tell you herself?"
"Aye, but-"
"I'm afraid it cannot wait now. You see-"
Before the Doctor could finish, a yell echoed through the corridor. "Where is she?"
"Oh no," the Doctor mumbled. "Jamie, I'm sorry."
"Doctor, what-"
A young man in a dark blue uniform stormed into the office. At the sight of him, Jamie froze. He had seen the man's face before - reflected back at him in the Doctor's mirror, in the Land of Fiction. The face he had worn for a while when he'd lost his own.
"Sir!" he cried, in desperation, as he saw the Brigadier. "What's happened? Where's Victoria?" His accent was clearly Scottish, but rougher than a Highlander's.
"Victoria?" Jamie turned to the Doctor. "Why is he asking about Victoria?"
"Calm down, Strachan, old chap," Harry said kindly, but the newcomer just gave him an anguished look.
"Calm down?" he cried. "Someone's kidnapped my wife!"
