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tellitslantNot Going Anywhere
by Kathryne, tellitslant@ livejournal.com
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sarah Jane Smith
Disclaimer: They should do this on the BBC, but sadly they didn't.
Notes: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
amilyn for the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sarahjane_fic genficathon. Contains spoilers for New Who 2x12 and 2x13. Thanks to soupytwist for beta!
Summary: Sarah's mixed up in the Doctor's problems again. Only this time, she's on her own.
When it happened, Sarah wasn't surprised. She'd always thought there was something off about the ghosts, but she didn't have the luxury of feeling vindicated. Instead, as she huddled in a corner of Torchwood's loading dock and watched dozens of Cybermen march by, all she felt was frightened.
**
Six weeks earlier, Sarah had stood in her editor's office, pleading her case. "Listen, Trace," she said vehemently, "you wouldn't let me investigate that weapon at company time – despite the fact that whatever took out that spaceship on Christmas had to be both alien itself and under our control – fine. I didn't complain. I spent my own time and money on it, and I've finally got something more concrete, so now you're going to listen to me." She dropped a pile of folders onto Tracy's desk with a thump.
Tracy reached for the top one, grimacing as she noticed the 'CLASSIFIED' stamp across the front. "Do I want to know how you got these, Smith?" she asked.
"Probably not, no," Sarah replied blithely. "What's important is that all of these files are records of possible alien interaction with this earth, and they've all been shut down or taken over by the same organization. Torchwood." She flipped open a few of the files, pointing to the name that consistently appeared.
Tracy shrugged. "So what's Torchwood?"
"It's nothing," Sarah said. "It's a whisper. It's a centuries-old rumour that doesn't exist."
"This gets better and better," Tracy said dryly.
"Trace, think," Sarah demanded. "A non-existent organization taking control of everything alien that lands in London. You don't think that's worth following up? Look." She opened a new folder and pointed to a grainy surveillance photo of a young woman in a lab coat. "Doctor Toshiko Sato. She was mixed up in that disaster at Number Ten, then she disappeared from the hospital where she was employed. I've tracked her – she's working at Canary Wharf now – "
"Oh, definitely suspicious," Tracy interjected.
" – which is supposed to be office space, but the tax records lead right back to a dead end," Sarah said triumphantly. "Oh, and," she added lightly, "did I mention that I tapped in to her mobile frequency and she was discussing an alien autopsy she'd performed? She works for Torchwood, Trace." Silently, Sarah blessed K9's listening capabilities for the flabbergasted expression on Tracy's face.
Tracy sighed. "All right, say I believe you. How do you expect to get in there?"
Sarah beamed, sure she'd won. "Oh, I can get references, no problem," she said, thinking guiltily about how long it had been since she'd called the Brigadier or Harry just to chat. "I'm sure I can set up an identity. Please, Tracy?" She pouted.
Tracy chucked a pen at Sarah and threw up her hands. "God knows why I bother arguing with you at all," she said resignedly. "Two weeks! And you be careful."
**
Torchwood, when she finally got inside, far surpassed Sarah's expectations. The size and scope of the operation astonished her, but she'd decided the place was more than worth the investigative hassle the moment she'd heard the orientation speech.
"…formed by Queen Victoria after she'd encountered an alien known as the Doctor," Yvonne had said, heels clacking as she led Sarah on a tour of the building.
"The Doctor?" Sarah had said, taken by surprise.
Yvonne had stopped and eyed Sarah suspiciously. "Do you know him?"
"Oh. no," Sarah had lied calmly. "Just – it's a funny name for an alien, isn't it?" Inwardly, she'd been giggling. No surprise that he'd finally gotten himself mixed up in something like this. Leave it to the Doctor. She only wondered whether it had been one of the men she'd known who had annoyed a queen. She wouldn't have put it past any of them.
Oddly enough, she fit in perfectly well at Torchwood. The tricks she'd learned through the necessity of messing about inside K9 endeared her to the technology department, and she couldn't deny that she found the work fascinating. It put her in mind of travelling with the Doctor, of course, only it was finally a chance to use some of the knowledge she'd gained so many years ago.
She had to be discreet, still. Investigating the Doctor was Torchwood's number two objective, right behind 're-establish the glorious British empire,' and Sarah had no desire to wind up on the receiving end of Yvonne's piercing stare.
So she stayed quiet, fed Tracy enough information about the story she was following to extend her stay in the technology department, and cautiously enjoyed herself.
Then one day she found a blue box in her research bay.
**
Sarah peered around the corner of the forklift she was hiding behind. The Cybermen were moving purposefully through the bay, corralling the employees and herding them out of Sarah's field of vision. She didn't need to see where they went in order to know that they wouldn't be coming back. So far she'd escaped notice, but the chances of that lasting were slim, she knew.
"Damn you, Doctor," she muttered under her breath. "I should have known the moment you showed up that something like this was going to happen!"
The last time she'd encountered the Cybermen, she had almost died. She and Harry and the Doctor had barely been able to defeat them. Now she watched two Cybermen lift one of her coworkers bodily off the ground and knew that the Doctor had no idea she was even there.
Sarah took a deep breath and blew it out. "OK. First things first. Get a hold of yourself," she muttered. "Next, find a safer place to hide." She clutched at the chain around her neck, drawing the object hanging on it up to the light. She'd started wearing her TARDIS key when she began working at Torchwood, out of a vague feeling of 'just in case.' Looked like her intuition had proven true.
She glanced under the body of the forklift, gauging the distance between her and the TARDIS, which was across the room on a flatbed truck. It wasn't far. The question was, could she make it without being spotted by a Cyberman? She swallowed. No other choice.
The arrhythmic clank of the Cybermen's boots echoed in Sarah's ears as she darted out. Boxes and workstations scattered across the floor by metallic hands gave her places to hide, but her scuttling, zig-zag flight made her feel almost paralyzingly exposed. She was nearly hyperventilating by the time she made it to the TARDIS door and scrabbled her key into the lock, but she hadn't, as far as she could tell, been seen.
Inside the TARDIS, she sank weak-kneed to the floor, gulping in air. Her mind caught on the fact of the TARDIS's dark colour scheme. Obviously it wasn't either of her Doctors who was here, she thought wildly. That didn't mean it was the one she'd met most recently, either. Though it could be. Had he said when he'd redecorated?
She gave her head a sharp shake. "Stop that, Sarah Jane," she said to herself, clambering upright and tugging off her clumsy labcoat. She breathed in the familiar atmosphere of the TARDIS, feeling her heart rate decrease. She was safe here, she knew. Maybe she could just stay. The TARDIS was all but impenetrable; she could just… wait for the Doctor to sort things out.
It was tempting. God, it was tempting. All she wanted was to run further into the TARDIS, find her old room, and pull the bedclothes over her head. The Doctor would find her once everything was over, and they'd have a laugh together, just like old times.
The reverberation of dozens upon dozens of Cybermen marching in unison shocked Sarah out of her thoughts. She peered out the TARDIS door and watched them disappear through the main bay doors, called off somewhere. Well, Sarah thought. That certainly made things easier. "Time to save the world, then," she said aloud, poking her head out the door and double-checking for Cybermen before jumping lightly down to the ground. "Doctor, I hope you're taking care of things on your end… whatever they are," she whispered before turning her back on the TARDIS and walking away.
The research bay had been hastily reorganized before the Cybermen had ever got at it – Sarah recalled momentarily the frantic cleaning that had preceded an inspection tour earlier in the week, then resolutely shut her brain off – and so it took her a good ten minutes of pawing through boxes before she found what she was looking for. She hefted the particle gun in her hands and looked at it thoughtfully. She was no expert in the science of the thing, but she'd watched the tests being run, seen the targets shimmer and seem to dissolve into thin air. She knew vaguely that it transferred an electric charge and then did something with a magnetic field, and that, she thought, could be very useful against the metallic Cybermen.
The research bay was silent. Everyone else had either fled or been taken away by the Cybermen. Sarah propped the gun on her shoulder and headed for the door.
The corridor floor was covered in dents, and Sarah could hear screaming coming from somewhere above her. Moving silently, an ability she'd picked up from travelling with the Doctor and honed during years of undercover work, she eased open the stairwell door. She climbed rapidly, pausing to listen on each landing. The complete absence of Cybermen was profoundly disturbing. Where were they? What were they doing? Sarah didn't even want to wonder what could have drawn them all out of the research bay so quickly.
Eventually she came to a landing where the sound of screaming was loud and immediate. She cracked open the doors and peered through. She'd found one of the Cybermen, at least, guarding a group of her terrified coworkers. As she watched, two more Cybermen marched around the corner, grabbed a young man by the arms, and dragged him back the way they'd come. His screams mingled with the rise of a mechanic cacophony before they stopped abruptly.
"Enough," Sarah shouted, pushing the door open. She aimed and fired in one smooth movement. A beam of crackling energy caught the Cyberman in the left shoulder. At first there was no effect, and for one moment of absolute clarity Sarah was sure she was dead. As the Cyberman reached for her, she raised the gun and prepared to go down fighting. "Better than growing old," she thought grimly.
Before she could squeeze the trigger again, the Cyberman stopped, frozen in place. It began to shake, its entire body vibrating as if it had a chill, until finally it came apart and dissolved into nothingness. Sarah lowered the gun, suddenly unable to hold it up.
The other Torchwood employees in the corner gazed at Sarah in shock. "Nice shot," one of them joked feebly.
Sarah smiled back shakily. "Good thing we had one of these just sitting around. Look," she told them all, "I don't know if there's anywhere in the building that's actually safe, but down and out is the best plan we've got –"
Another of the employees cut Sarah off. "I don't know if out is a good idea," he said, lifting a trembling hand to point out the window.
Sarah turned slowly. The sky outside was darkening as dozens – hundreds – thousands of Daleks zoomed past. Sarah swallowed hard. "Never mind outside, then," she said briskly, forcing her fear away. "Down is probably still the best idea. Find an office or lock yourselves in somewhere. This will all pass." She wished she were as sure of that as she sounded.
"Right. Right." There were nods all around and a general stampede towards the stairwell. Only one man hung back. "Aren't you coming?"
Sarah hoisted the gun and shrugged. "I know this works now, so...." She trailed off. The man shook his head and let the door swing shut behind him.
Sarah stood motionless for a long moment, staring at the corner of the hallway. She could still hear noise, a horrible grinding and shifting of machinery, but there were no further screams. She really didn't want to know what was going on around that corner. If there were any others left alive, though, she had to do what she could. Sighting along the barrel of the gun, she stepped forward.
"Oh God!" Sarah exclaimed involuntarily, clapping a hand over her mouth to keep from retching. The hallway was lined with bodies, sprawled haphazardly wherever they'd fallen or been thrown. Sarah leaned down to check one woman's pulse, then jerked away in horror: the top of the woman's skull had been cut off and her brain removed! Sarah looked down the hallway. All the bodies were in the same state, their bloody skull gaping, stringy masses of something Sarah didn't want to think about trailing from the smooth edges.
"My God," Sarah said again, as prayer rather than exclamation this time. She turned to look over her shoulder. The Cyberman she'd destroyed – that could have been someone she'd known, worked beside.... "What a recruitment program." Her black humour snapped her out of her shock, and she glanced quickly at the body at her feet. It was better off dead, she decided.
Picking her way down the corridor of corpses was one of the most disturbing experiences of Sarah's life. Every step reminded her of Nerva Station. There the Cybermen had poisoned the crew, though; the carnage at Torchwood was much rawer. Sarah kept her field of vision narrowed, afraid of what she might see. There would be time for identifying the dead later.
There was a metallic clunk from a room ahead of her, and Sarah stopped, holding the gun steady. She fired on the Cyberman as soon as it stepped into the hallway, catching it square in the chest. It continued to move, but Sarah was ready and darted out of its reach. Like the other, it froze before dissolving into its component particles. This time, however, there was a second Cyberman right behind it. Sarah aimed and squeezed the trigger again.
Nothing happened.
Sarah stared down at the weapon in horror. New lights were blinking on it, and while she couldn't read the inscriptions next to them, she was sure that they meant 'power charging' in some alien language. "Shit," Sarah said, and bolted.
She'd barely turned to run when she bounced off the chest of another Cyberman. It batted the gun away with one powerful hand, then grabbed Sarah by the throat and listed her off the ground. "You will be improved," it told her as she scrabbled to keep from choking. "You will be upgraded." She couldn't muster the breath to reply.
The Cyberman carried her into another room and dropped her in a heap on the floor. Coughing, her eyes watering, Sarah tried to make a break for the door, only to be sent sprawling again by a backhanded slap across the face. She couldn't help crying out as she fell. "We will remove all pain," the Cyberman said. "We will remove all emotions. You will be like us."
"What if I don't want to be like you?" Sarah asked angrily. She blinked tears out of her eyes, clearing her vision. A cold chill ran down her spine as she looked around the room. The Cyberman was setting dials on what looked like a metallic operating table, and behind that there was a line of Cyberman exoskeletons. The tops of their helmets were open. Waiting.
"We are the pinnacle of human evolution," the Cyberman said flatly. "You will be like us." It turned towards her.
Sarah cast about frantically for a weapon, anything she could use to hold it off. The room was bare, though, stripped by the Cybermen to make it into their conversion room. Nothing. No way out.
Tears ran down Sarah's face as she got to her feet, determined not to die lying down. She squared her shoulders and stared defiantly at the Cyberman. "No regrets," she thought, and was almost surprised that she meant it.
Suddenly the entire building shuddered violently. Sarah pitched forward and only kept her feet by clinging to the corner of the metal table. The Cyberman was knocked to the floor, falling with a thundering crash. Sarah gripped the edges of the table and watched warily as the cumbersome figure climbed laboriously upright, only to be pulled down again. Sarah's eyes flew open as the Cyberman tumbled end over end, disappearing out the door as if drawn by an invisible hand. The metal table shook under Sarah's grasp and she jumped back, plastering herself against the wall as first the table, then one by one the exoskeletons, also sailed out the door.
Shadows flickering rapidly past the door drew Sarah out to the corridor. She poked her head through the door, then stepped out cautiously. Through the window, she could see that the sky was full of Daleks, all being pulled towards the top of the Torchwood tower like the Cybermen had been. "Oh, Doctor," she said aloud, "whatever you've done, it's marvellous." She stayed pressed to the window until the stream of Daleks had dwindled out and the sun was visible again. Then she turned and walked away from the hallway of corpses.
The lift took her down to the research bay, where the TARDIS stood untouched by the damage that surrounded it. Sarah leaned against a desk and watched it, just for a minute. She could still wait for the Doctor. He would tell her what had happened, contextualize everything, praise her for what she was done. He might ask her to come with him again. She could certainly use a vacation after this....
Wearily, Sarah turned and walked out of the bay, out of the building, towards her flat. There would be work to do – friends to mourn, a city to clean, articles to write. All that could wait for tomorrow.
Sarah walked home through the damaged streets of London, breathed in the smoky air, and remembered that she was alive.
by Kathryne, tellitslant@ livejournal.com
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sarah Jane Smith
Disclaimer: They should do this on the BBC, but sadly they didn't.
Notes: Written for
amilyn for the sarahjane_fic genficathon. Contains spoilers for New Who 2x12 and 2x13. Thanks to soupytwist for beta!Summary: Sarah's mixed up in the Doctor's problems again. Only this time, she's on her own.
When it happened, Sarah wasn't surprised. She'd always thought there was something off about the ghosts, but she didn't have the luxury of feeling vindicated. Instead, as she huddled in a corner of Torchwood's loading dock and watched dozens of Cybermen march by, all she felt was frightened.
**
Six weeks earlier, Sarah had stood in her editor's office, pleading her case. "Listen, Trace," she said vehemently, "you wouldn't let me investigate that weapon at company time – despite the fact that whatever took out that spaceship on Christmas had to be both alien itself and under our control – fine. I didn't complain. I spent my own time and money on it, and I've finally got something more concrete, so now you're going to listen to me." She dropped a pile of folders onto Tracy's desk with a thump.
Tracy reached for the top one, grimacing as she noticed the 'CLASSIFIED' stamp across the front. "Do I want to know how you got these, Smith?" she asked.
"Probably not, no," Sarah replied blithely. "What's important is that all of these files are records of possible alien interaction with this earth, and they've all been shut down or taken over by the same organization. Torchwood." She flipped open a few of the files, pointing to the name that consistently appeared.
Tracy shrugged. "So what's Torchwood?"
"It's nothing," Sarah said. "It's a whisper. It's a centuries-old rumour that doesn't exist."
"This gets better and better," Tracy said dryly.
"Trace, think," Sarah demanded. "A non-existent organization taking control of everything alien that lands in London. You don't think that's worth following up? Look." She opened a new folder and pointed to a grainy surveillance photo of a young woman in a lab coat. "Doctor Toshiko Sato. She was mixed up in that disaster at Number Ten, then she disappeared from the hospital where she was employed. I've tracked her – she's working at Canary Wharf now – "
"Oh, definitely suspicious," Tracy interjected.
" – which is supposed to be office space, but the tax records lead right back to a dead end," Sarah said triumphantly. "Oh, and," she added lightly, "did I mention that I tapped in to her mobile frequency and she was discussing an alien autopsy she'd performed? She works for Torchwood, Trace." Silently, Sarah blessed K9's listening capabilities for the flabbergasted expression on Tracy's face.
Tracy sighed. "All right, say I believe you. How do you expect to get in there?"
Sarah beamed, sure she'd won. "Oh, I can get references, no problem," she said, thinking guiltily about how long it had been since she'd called the Brigadier or Harry just to chat. "I'm sure I can set up an identity. Please, Tracy?" She pouted.
Tracy chucked a pen at Sarah and threw up her hands. "God knows why I bother arguing with you at all," she said resignedly. "Two weeks! And you be careful."
**
Torchwood, when she finally got inside, far surpassed Sarah's expectations. The size and scope of the operation astonished her, but she'd decided the place was more than worth the investigative hassle the moment she'd heard the orientation speech.
"…formed by Queen Victoria after she'd encountered an alien known as the Doctor," Yvonne had said, heels clacking as she led Sarah on a tour of the building.
"The Doctor?" Sarah had said, taken by surprise.
Yvonne had stopped and eyed Sarah suspiciously. "Do you know him?"
"Oh. no," Sarah had lied calmly. "Just – it's a funny name for an alien, isn't it?" Inwardly, she'd been giggling. No surprise that he'd finally gotten himself mixed up in something like this. Leave it to the Doctor. She only wondered whether it had been one of the men she'd known who had annoyed a queen. She wouldn't have put it past any of them.
Oddly enough, she fit in perfectly well at Torchwood. The tricks she'd learned through the necessity of messing about inside K9 endeared her to the technology department, and she couldn't deny that she found the work fascinating. It put her in mind of travelling with the Doctor, of course, only it was finally a chance to use some of the knowledge she'd gained so many years ago.
She had to be discreet, still. Investigating the Doctor was Torchwood's number two objective, right behind 're-establish the glorious British empire,' and Sarah had no desire to wind up on the receiving end of Yvonne's piercing stare.
So she stayed quiet, fed Tracy enough information about the story she was following to extend her stay in the technology department, and cautiously enjoyed herself.
Then one day she found a blue box in her research bay.
**
Sarah peered around the corner of the forklift she was hiding behind. The Cybermen were moving purposefully through the bay, corralling the employees and herding them out of Sarah's field of vision. She didn't need to see where they went in order to know that they wouldn't be coming back. So far she'd escaped notice, but the chances of that lasting were slim, she knew.
"Damn you, Doctor," she muttered under her breath. "I should have known the moment you showed up that something like this was going to happen!"
The last time she'd encountered the Cybermen, she had almost died. She and Harry and the Doctor had barely been able to defeat them. Now she watched two Cybermen lift one of her coworkers bodily off the ground and knew that the Doctor had no idea she was even there.
Sarah took a deep breath and blew it out. "OK. First things first. Get a hold of yourself," she muttered. "Next, find a safer place to hide." She clutched at the chain around her neck, drawing the object hanging on it up to the light. She'd started wearing her TARDIS key when she began working at Torchwood, out of a vague feeling of 'just in case.' Looked like her intuition had proven true.
She glanced under the body of the forklift, gauging the distance between her and the TARDIS, which was across the room on a flatbed truck. It wasn't far. The question was, could she make it without being spotted by a Cyberman? She swallowed. No other choice.
The arrhythmic clank of the Cybermen's boots echoed in Sarah's ears as she darted out. Boxes and workstations scattered across the floor by metallic hands gave her places to hide, but her scuttling, zig-zag flight made her feel almost paralyzingly exposed. She was nearly hyperventilating by the time she made it to the TARDIS door and scrabbled her key into the lock, but she hadn't, as far as she could tell, been seen.
Inside the TARDIS, she sank weak-kneed to the floor, gulping in air. Her mind caught on the fact of the TARDIS's dark colour scheme. Obviously it wasn't either of her Doctors who was here, she thought wildly. That didn't mean it was the one she'd met most recently, either. Though it could be. Had he said when he'd redecorated?
She gave her head a sharp shake. "Stop that, Sarah Jane," she said to herself, clambering upright and tugging off her clumsy labcoat. She breathed in the familiar atmosphere of the TARDIS, feeling her heart rate decrease. She was safe here, she knew. Maybe she could just stay. The TARDIS was all but impenetrable; she could just… wait for the Doctor to sort things out.
It was tempting. God, it was tempting. All she wanted was to run further into the TARDIS, find her old room, and pull the bedclothes over her head. The Doctor would find her once everything was over, and they'd have a laugh together, just like old times.
The reverberation of dozens upon dozens of Cybermen marching in unison shocked Sarah out of her thoughts. She peered out the TARDIS door and watched them disappear through the main bay doors, called off somewhere. Well, Sarah thought. That certainly made things easier. "Time to save the world, then," she said aloud, poking her head out the door and double-checking for Cybermen before jumping lightly down to the ground. "Doctor, I hope you're taking care of things on your end… whatever they are," she whispered before turning her back on the TARDIS and walking away.
The research bay had been hastily reorganized before the Cybermen had ever got at it – Sarah recalled momentarily the frantic cleaning that had preceded an inspection tour earlier in the week, then resolutely shut her brain off – and so it took her a good ten minutes of pawing through boxes before she found what she was looking for. She hefted the particle gun in her hands and looked at it thoughtfully. She was no expert in the science of the thing, but she'd watched the tests being run, seen the targets shimmer and seem to dissolve into thin air. She knew vaguely that it transferred an electric charge and then did something with a magnetic field, and that, she thought, could be very useful against the metallic Cybermen.
The research bay was silent. Everyone else had either fled or been taken away by the Cybermen. Sarah propped the gun on her shoulder and headed for the door.
The corridor floor was covered in dents, and Sarah could hear screaming coming from somewhere above her. Moving silently, an ability she'd picked up from travelling with the Doctor and honed during years of undercover work, she eased open the stairwell door. She climbed rapidly, pausing to listen on each landing. The complete absence of Cybermen was profoundly disturbing. Where were they? What were they doing? Sarah didn't even want to wonder what could have drawn them all out of the research bay so quickly.
Eventually she came to a landing where the sound of screaming was loud and immediate. She cracked open the doors and peered through. She'd found one of the Cybermen, at least, guarding a group of her terrified coworkers. As she watched, two more Cybermen marched around the corner, grabbed a young man by the arms, and dragged him back the way they'd come. His screams mingled with the rise of a mechanic cacophony before they stopped abruptly.
"Enough," Sarah shouted, pushing the door open. She aimed and fired in one smooth movement. A beam of crackling energy caught the Cyberman in the left shoulder. At first there was no effect, and for one moment of absolute clarity Sarah was sure she was dead. As the Cyberman reached for her, she raised the gun and prepared to go down fighting. "Better than growing old," she thought grimly.
Before she could squeeze the trigger again, the Cyberman stopped, frozen in place. It began to shake, its entire body vibrating as if it had a chill, until finally it came apart and dissolved into nothingness. Sarah lowered the gun, suddenly unable to hold it up.
The other Torchwood employees in the corner gazed at Sarah in shock. "Nice shot," one of them joked feebly.
Sarah smiled back shakily. "Good thing we had one of these just sitting around. Look," she told them all, "I don't know if there's anywhere in the building that's actually safe, but down and out is the best plan we've got –"
Another of the employees cut Sarah off. "I don't know if out is a good idea," he said, lifting a trembling hand to point out the window.
Sarah turned slowly. The sky outside was darkening as dozens – hundreds – thousands of Daleks zoomed past. Sarah swallowed hard. "Never mind outside, then," she said briskly, forcing her fear away. "Down is probably still the best idea. Find an office or lock yourselves in somewhere. This will all pass." She wished she were as sure of that as she sounded.
"Right. Right." There were nods all around and a general stampede towards the stairwell. Only one man hung back. "Aren't you coming?"
Sarah hoisted the gun and shrugged. "I know this works now, so...." She trailed off. The man shook his head and let the door swing shut behind him.
Sarah stood motionless for a long moment, staring at the corner of the hallway. She could still hear noise, a horrible grinding and shifting of machinery, but there were no further screams. She really didn't want to know what was going on around that corner. If there were any others left alive, though, she had to do what she could. Sighting along the barrel of the gun, she stepped forward.
"Oh God!" Sarah exclaimed involuntarily, clapping a hand over her mouth to keep from retching. The hallway was lined with bodies, sprawled haphazardly wherever they'd fallen or been thrown. Sarah leaned down to check one woman's pulse, then jerked away in horror: the top of the woman's skull had been cut off and her brain removed! Sarah looked down the hallway. All the bodies were in the same state, their bloody skull gaping, stringy masses of something Sarah didn't want to think about trailing from the smooth edges.
"My God," Sarah said again, as prayer rather than exclamation this time. She turned to look over her shoulder. The Cyberman she'd destroyed – that could have been someone she'd known, worked beside.... "What a recruitment program." Her black humour snapped her out of her shock, and she glanced quickly at the body at her feet. It was better off dead, she decided.
Picking her way down the corridor of corpses was one of the most disturbing experiences of Sarah's life. Every step reminded her of Nerva Station. There the Cybermen had poisoned the crew, though; the carnage at Torchwood was much rawer. Sarah kept her field of vision narrowed, afraid of what she might see. There would be time for identifying the dead later.
There was a metallic clunk from a room ahead of her, and Sarah stopped, holding the gun steady. She fired on the Cyberman as soon as it stepped into the hallway, catching it square in the chest. It continued to move, but Sarah was ready and darted out of its reach. Like the other, it froze before dissolving into its component particles. This time, however, there was a second Cyberman right behind it. Sarah aimed and squeezed the trigger again.
Nothing happened.
Sarah stared down at the weapon in horror. New lights were blinking on it, and while she couldn't read the inscriptions next to them, she was sure that they meant 'power charging' in some alien language. "Shit," Sarah said, and bolted.
She'd barely turned to run when she bounced off the chest of another Cyberman. It batted the gun away with one powerful hand, then grabbed Sarah by the throat and listed her off the ground. "You will be improved," it told her as she scrabbled to keep from choking. "You will be upgraded." She couldn't muster the breath to reply.
The Cyberman carried her into another room and dropped her in a heap on the floor. Coughing, her eyes watering, Sarah tried to make a break for the door, only to be sent sprawling again by a backhanded slap across the face. She couldn't help crying out as she fell. "We will remove all pain," the Cyberman said. "We will remove all emotions. You will be like us."
"What if I don't want to be like you?" Sarah asked angrily. She blinked tears out of her eyes, clearing her vision. A cold chill ran down her spine as she looked around the room. The Cyberman was setting dials on what looked like a metallic operating table, and behind that there was a line of Cyberman exoskeletons. The tops of their helmets were open. Waiting.
"We are the pinnacle of human evolution," the Cyberman said flatly. "You will be like us." It turned towards her.
Sarah cast about frantically for a weapon, anything she could use to hold it off. The room was bare, though, stripped by the Cybermen to make it into their conversion room. Nothing. No way out.
Tears ran down Sarah's face as she got to her feet, determined not to die lying down. She squared her shoulders and stared defiantly at the Cyberman. "No regrets," she thought, and was almost surprised that she meant it.
Suddenly the entire building shuddered violently. Sarah pitched forward and only kept her feet by clinging to the corner of the metal table. The Cyberman was knocked to the floor, falling with a thundering crash. Sarah gripped the edges of the table and watched warily as the cumbersome figure climbed laboriously upright, only to be pulled down again. Sarah's eyes flew open as the Cyberman tumbled end over end, disappearing out the door as if drawn by an invisible hand. The metal table shook under Sarah's grasp and she jumped back, plastering herself against the wall as first the table, then one by one the exoskeletons, also sailed out the door.
Shadows flickering rapidly past the door drew Sarah out to the corridor. She poked her head through the door, then stepped out cautiously. Through the window, she could see that the sky was full of Daleks, all being pulled towards the top of the Torchwood tower like the Cybermen had been. "Oh, Doctor," she said aloud, "whatever you've done, it's marvellous." She stayed pressed to the window until the stream of Daleks had dwindled out and the sun was visible again. Then she turned and walked away from the hallway of corpses.
The lift took her down to the research bay, where the TARDIS stood untouched by the damage that surrounded it. Sarah leaned against a desk and watched it, just for a minute. She could still wait for the Doctor. He would tell her what had happened, contextualize everything, praise her for what she was done. He might ask her to come with him again. She could certainly use a vacation after this....
Wearily, Sarah turned and walked out of the bay, out of the building, towards her flat. There would be work to do – friends to mourn, a city to clean, articles to write. All that could wait for tomorrow.
Sarah walked home through the damaged streets of London, breathed in the smoky air, and remembered that she was alive.
