human
It was the age of the Cybermen, and life had never been so full of adventure. If she said that she hated life on the run, constantly fighting for survival and to save what was left of the human race, she would be lying. Previous to this, shed had a boring job of installing power networks in major cities, high risk certainly, but never quite as fun as her days had become now. Her friends then had been mates she knew at work and work only. But now, now she had a family like never before, a group of friends that would lay down their lives to protect each other.
Piper found that this day was like many of the others - waking up to the light of the morning sun on her face, a light breeze tickling her skin. Next to her, she could hear her bunkmates still sleeping, their steady breathing. She glanced about the room for a moment, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she rolled out of her bed and started towards their makeshift command room. The room was extremely low tech, only the bare minimum of technology running to keep them under the radar. At the main control, a boy with glasses that covered a good portion of his face sat rapt at a screen.
Mornin, Gilly, She mumbled as she took a seat next to him, snatching his drink off the console to steal a sip of it, Whatcha got on the telly today? She asked, wrinkling her nose at his cold tea before placing it back. The boy was quiet for a longer bit still before finally swallowing, looking at her as if he had only just realized she was there. Oh, Pip, He still seemed distant, as if he werent sure what was going on, Strange things, very strange things indeed. He said, tapping on a strange line that kept spiking across the screen, Lookit, this things been going bonkers since midnight.
Her eyebrows raised a bit, leaning in to watch the line level out then spike, level and spike again, Huh, She bit her lip, glancing over her shoulder at the door, You dont suppose theyre trying a new transmission, do ya? I mean, they didnt get us all with their first two waves. They might be trying a new thing. She scratched at her head, trying to think of the possibilities. The Cybermen had formed quite the plan - their first line of strike was through the telly - a transmission inside a transmission that whispered to people about conversion.
Conversion is good. Conversion is good. Obey the Cybermen. Conversion is good.
It played day and night as men, women, and children watched. A week later, the First Wave began. The Cybermen converted those who heard the message. It was almost too simple to infiltrate. Fear spread like wildfire through those that werent converted, and then the Second Wave started. They used the same method - a transmission inside transmissions, but this time through the cell phones that everyone had. It whispered in their ears, convincing everyone that conversion isgood.
With that Second Wave complete, humanity was at its weakest. Small pockets had survived, but far too many of them had decided life wasnt worth fighting for anymore. It was a frightening existence, and those that were still surviving were running for their lives, fighting tooth and nail to take the world back. And Piper was among those that were ready for fight for humanity, to work to fight back the Cybermen. Her group was small, but they were true fighters.
No Doesnt look like a transmission at all. He said after a long silence, pushing his chair away towards another screen, playing with a knob that brought a speaker crackling to life. All around them was a soft noise, a strange whooshing that was rhythmic and almost comforting, but still very strange and In a world already so full of terrible things, quite scary.
Piper chewed her lip, I dont like the sound of that, Gilly. I dont like it at all. Im going to wake Tally. If Flick wakes up, let him know that weve gone out on a raid or something, She said, rushing back to the sleeping area to change quickly into more suitable clothing and to wake her bunkmate, a young bloke that preferred to be called Tally of his real name, Thaddeus. Tally, get up. We picked up something Strange. She told him, almost literally rolling him out of the bed.
While Tally got himself ready, Piper busied herself in getting armed, mostly creations that shed made in their so-called lab, all interesting inventions of electricity that would at minimum stun a Cyberman, but at worst kill. Flick insisted they kill as few as possible, since the Cybermen were really just forcibly converted humans.
Piper finished her getting ready by pulling her long blond hair back into a bun, keeping it out of her face so that she would have no distractions. Come on, Tally. Youre worse than a girl, She called out to the boy, frustrated at his sluggish movements as he pulled on the last of his armor against the Cybermen. With her urging him on, the boy was quicker to dress, ready in under five minutes.
Gilly, well be back! Stay safe. She called out, leading the way out of their little encampment. And encampment was truly the best way to put it, as it was in the woods, disguised as a large pile of rotting logs. A clever way to hide from the high tech world where the men were mostly robots. Ill lead the way, Tally. Keep the stunner ready. She whispered, leading through the trees towards the source of where the odd transmission was coming from.
Instead of finding something that would be expected, she was brought to a complete stand-still, eyes narrowed at the oddity she was presented with. It was a box. A wooden box. To be more specific, a blue wooden Police Box. Bloody hell, Tally whispered behind her, the more offguard of the two.
Bloody hell, indeed
gpt
Fridays were strange. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on a Friday, and it was also the day King George V took the throne. In fact his own coronation may have also been on a Friday...
There was also that problem that you could never tell if it was a Friday. The TARDIS did not actually tell him what the day of the week was where he arrived. Perhaps due to the varying day lengths and the many, many other names for Friday, and the fact he had had not specified that it do so. He considered adding it alongside the rest, however why did it need to be English Friday? He could change it to the High Martian Friday, the French Revolutionary Friday, the Gallifreyan Friday. It was only in the English, human calendar for the purposes of his companions, whose absence was only made more obvious by it.
He had tried to distract himself, at first it was easy (and always was). One could throw themselves into a study or an adventure, however it became noticeable when nobody was there to respond to his witty remarks, and after every adventure, despite how wonderful they could be, he returned to lonely empty TARDIS at the end. One did not realise how much they enjoyed hosting guests until those guests were gone, it seemed.
It was what he missed; a companion. Someone to share experiences with. He had seen it all, done it all, had it all. But with someone else, he could relive it all over again. However, there was also the question of whether he deserved someone else. He had a duty of care, which meant that it was he who needed to see the difference between danger and fun (as blurred as they could get). While if they befell a bad fate only one person would call him out on his actions, that one person who held him accountable happened to be the person who disliked him the most.
Not that such ideas could not be put off. Reading! He liked to read. Today it was Roald Dahl. He had visited the man in hospital not too long ago, all joy and smiles despite his knowledge of what would come. Out of respect for the writer he decided to re-read some of his works a couple of times or five. They were wonderfully silly and macabre stories, for adult and child alike. Fun for all the family! Cool.
He was distracted by his reading by an alert on the console. Humans approaching the TARDIS, which prompted a sigh. Had he not come to the woods to avoid people? Humans got everywhere, like sand, annoying sand. Begrudgingly he laid down his book and stepped out.
Today it was purple coat, waistcoat, blue shirt and purple bowtie (always the bowtie. A staple of his look, and should have been for others. They were cool and it was uncool to not wear one. In any world ruled by him bowtie wearing would be compulsory). Wearing tweed now was a rarity. Other things suited him better now, made him look more grown-up, or he at least liked to think so.
"Oi!" The Doctor looked at the two strangely. "Please stop... Gawping. It's a police box, is it really that rare? I'm sure you have seen them all the time, just because it is out here doesn't make it any more notable. An elephant of the moon is still an elephant, no?" No? Oops. From the ground he picked up a stick, and started to draw a circle in the dirt around the TARDIS.
"Citizens of twenty..." He stuck out his tongue. "Four? No, five. Twenty five..." The Doctor approached the male, sniffing around the area. "thirty..." And to the female. "one! Lovely time." He said casually, as he always did. People found it worrying if he said their time was not lovely, and when he compared it to time periods hundreds of years ago, they gave him weird looks. "Citizens of Twenty-five-thirty-one, please vacate the area. This is my private residence, and I would very much like to be left alone. Especially if you continue to keep that thing pointed at me. Do stop, please?"
human
Piper and Tally were equally confused by the strange man and the strange, um, "box". They exchanged similar looks amongst each as the Doctor came from it, glancing around at them as if they had been the ones to offend. He was acting as if it were perfectly normal for a police box to suddenly appear in the middle of the woods. Tally was the first to step forward, stunner aimed at the Doctor as he watched the man talk mostly to himself but also to the both of them.
The first to speak was Piper, her brows furrowed, "Are you mad?" She questioned, motioning to the box with her stunner, "You show up in a big blue box in the middle of a war and expect to have peace?" She laughed, lowering her stunner slowly, "Tally, this bloke has lost it. He's bonkers. Cybermen must have rattled his brains, I bet. Hear one too many transmissions, eh?" She shook her head, tossing the weapon from her hand and into the clip that it would attach to on her back.
Tally relaxed his guard, following Piper's lead reluctantly, "Mate, you ain't from round here, Are you?" He asked, glancing at the TARDIS with apprehension. "Do you know about the war? Or... Anything? I mean, Pip put it gently but you put yourself in a war zone... To relax?"
gpt
"Mad? I most certainly am! Besides you cannot even prove that my box 'showed up' as I was here first - Ha!" He seemed rather proud of himself, embarrassingly so. And started to swagger around the two in circles. "I always expect peace in war, that's my game. If it was a game anyway. War is not a game! Peace is. Peace is fun. Yes. Yeah..." He paused, then launched himself towards the female with startling agility. "Wait, you said Cybermen? Yes? Oh. Oh no. Oh no no no..." He started to walk away back to the TARDIS. "The year. The year. Cyber-wars!" He smacked his forehead. "Did I say your time was lovely? That was wrong. Well, it was actually a lie..." He trailed off and turned quiet, waiting for the humans to finish speaking.
"I'm from around here, but let's for a second imagine I'm not. The Cybermen have attacked? You said transmissions, what are those?" He couldn't remember transmissions being involved, perhaps this was the early stages of the war. The nasty part with all the dying and upgrading. That part was typically avoided. He'd have sped up the war if he could. But, fixed point and all... He took out his sonic screwdriver, and gave them both a quick scan, mainly to look cool, but all readings came back fine too which was a positive.
"Relaxing? I'm not here to relax anymore. If this is a war zone I'd quite like it to stop being one rather quickly. I'm the Doctor, and this is..." He didn't have anyone. "the TARDIS. Let's skip the part where you're all confused and point the guns at me. It happens a little too often."
human
This fellow, whomever he actually was, was certainly an interesting character. His eccentricity was an intriguing thing, making Piper tilt her head as he seemed to talk ferverently about the Cybermen. "Yes. The Cybermen and their time must not be so lovely and how he'd lied. She shrugged most of it off but found herself wondering just where this man was from if he didn't know about the Cyberwar that was ongoing.
"Yeah, mate. The transmissions have been going on for a while. It's subliminal messages that play on the telly and the phones. When it gets in your head it makes your thoughts get all crazy. 'Conversion is good' is what it says, best we can tell." Piper was more willing to talk than Tally, the man still wary of their new 'friend'.
She found the man to be interesting at the very least, but more so a mystery. "The Doctor? Doctor who? Doctor isn't a name." Tally had holstered his weapon but it was in his nature to be suspicious. "Well what kind of name is Tally?" Piper teased, stepping cautiously towards the Doctor and his TARDIS.
"You can end the war, can you?" Her voice was hopeful, but still guarded. There had been plenty that said they could end it, and they had been upgraded long ago. It almost seemed like a lost cause. "Save the world?"
gpt
"I always said the telly was bad for you. Humans waste their lives away watching those things, and now an alien race has clocked onto it." They were being smarter than they he would expect. More subtle. Though the Cybermen did nearly always try that subtle thing at first... "I'm curious, actually." The Doctor admitted. He kind of wanted to hear this transmission. How powerful could it be? He had doubt it would affect him. "I hope they at least do it when something good is on." The Cybermen were not the only race to try and take advantage of humanity's love of television. He remembered the Wire back in 1952, a whole life away...
"Conversion is good? It's not, to be clear. But then you lot seemed to have already sussed that out. With your guns and your... Things." They were obviously on edge. At times the Cybermen used a chip attached to the brain to control someone stealthily. He wondered if they had experienced that yet, perhaps why they were so on edge. They were sneakier than Daleks, Cybermen.
"The Doctor. That's my name, Tally-ho, Talleyrand." He said talking towards the woman's back. A tough negotiator, even when it came to the meal. Dinner with Napoleon is always eventful.
She looking at with doubt, but he could detect the hope in there which she was trying to suppress. It was like that with Amy sometimes, especially when they had first met. And while he had seen the end of the war, he would not be able to actually achieve that for her, but that did not mean he wasn't able to play with his words. Hope went a long way, and if a little lie meant he would save lies so be it. "Your name, tell it me," He asked of her. "I'd like to know the name of the woman I'm about to save. Because if the Cybermen are here they have come to bring destruction, death and misery. I'm the Doctor, I save people, and I'm here to stop them." Cybermen rarely operated without a base in the area, all they needed to do was locate it and he could destroy it for them. The war would not end, but he could certainly save the planet.
human
Piper couldn't help but let out a wry chuckle at his comment on the telly, as it was quite true that a good deal of people had wasted most of their lives watching a bunch of moving pictures. Piper herself wasn't much of the type to watch the telly or use a cell phone, which had been what saved her from getting the transmission for the most part. Almost everyone had a small amount of it, but it hadn't been enough to convince them that conversion was good... After all, almost everyone was around a telly at some point during their day, even if they just walked down a city street.
She could tell that he was unnerved by their weapons, her eyes moving down to look at her stunner. In all honesty, it was a rather intimidating looking thing, painted a flat-black to be less visible at night. It looked almost like a gun, being about the size of an AR-15, with two sharp metal prongs at the end. On the side, there was a dial that was a flat circle against the rest of the design, made to change the amperage of the current. A simple trigger would activate the stunner, which had a range of about 30 feet with accuracy, 50 without it.
"This? It's not a gun." She said, holding it up as if it were absolutely harmless, "It's essentially a taser... Just... Home made." She said after a moment, feeling a bit... Odd about how he felt on the things. She'd had few parts in which to create them and had even less time, so the guns were somewhat her own invention. All she'd done was taken capacitors from local repair shops and wired them into a safe to carry frame. "I had to make something that would stop the cybermen... Electricity works, I found. Guns don't have an effect. Electricity is a bit of my specialty so I made these stunners, which can be set to different levels to knock 'em down for a bit... We... We don't kill them."
Why she felt compelled to explain their moral code on killing or not killing the cybermen, she couldn't explain, but the man was easy to talk to and seemed to be... Uneasy about them fighting back. Or, at least uneasy about weaponry. Perhaps he used clever words instead.
"Doctor. Pff." Tally still didn't seem too impressed with the man, though he didn't seem to like him in the least bit. It was rather plain on his face that he was envious of this strange man, because Piper was not only showing interest in going with him to save the world, but also because Piper was looking at him with... Another type of interest, which set Tally on edge.
Piper was amused by him, a smile on her face at his confidence that he would save her from the cybermen apocalypse. Rather than answer him, she set her hands on her hips and cocked them to the side, "You know what, Doctor," She said, smirking just a bit, "How about you save me first? Then we can talk names."
gpt
He paused for a moment. Then for another. He paused for a bit too long, creating an awkward silence he strived to then get rid of. "If that's the requirement for finding out a lady's name these days, so be it." He said, try to seem suave or cool. He so wasn't, and internally cringed because even he could recognise that it was bad. "You're more interesting than Tally-ho with the name though." He gave here credit. People who didn't give their names away easily had a tendency to be interesting...
He snatched her now holstered stunner. "Yes, I see..." The Doctor looked in closely, giving her an acknowledging glance when she mentioned not killing them but otherwise his focus was her homemade device. "Rather basic, but effective. It would work, hmm..." He took out his Sonic Screwdriver, green light scanning over it as he took some readings.
"Catch!" He threw the stunner back to her with little care, giving a spin towards his TARDIS, closing the door properly, and giving her a soft pat, and then he was back with the humans. "So, humans, the Cybermen have a base somewhere. Not sure where yet but it's a work in progress. But you; you! You must have a base as well. Take me to it, I need to look at and do a thing. It'll work." Bluffing was one of the easiest things, he did it all the time. Acting like you already knew what to do to win worked wonders for morale, and irritated all those bad aliens. The Doctor himself found it preferable to assume you're going to win. It made things easier, and made him look even better when there was a way out of the most impossible of situations. "What's the hold up? Let's go!"
human
At first, it almost seemed as if she had stunned the man into silence, and perhaps she had, for he took a strangely long amount of time to respond to her. When he finally started talking, it was fast like he had hated the silence so much that he wanted to fill up the void that had been there with an overabundance of new words. She smiled just a bit, intrigued but also amused by the mans curiosities. He was certainly an interesting character, if such could be said about a man that showed up randomly in a police box stating he was going to save the world. But hey, they lived in a reality where men in metal suits took over the world by using the telly. Anything could happen.
Piper was caught off guard as he snatched her stunner from its holster, her hip feeling oddly empty from the loss of weight from her body against her will or permission. She watched him with a protective and almost motherly look over her weapon, which though looked to be rather junky and something a child would play with more than an adult, she still had pride because Well, it was hers.
He inspected it as if it were something more substantial than just a capacitor put onto what was shaped roughly like a gun, two large prongs on the end the part that could stun a cyberman up to fifty feet away. Piper was thankful to have it back, cradling it gently before sliding its familiar weight back into the holster gently. The odd man turned back to his blue box and shut the doors, turning back to them and addressing them as if he were making an announcement.
He was confident enough that he had won her over, her brows raising a bit and a smirk on her face, Alright, Doctor. Youre right. She said, turning her back to him and starting towards their base, This way, non-human. She joked, though she had as of yet to decide what she thought the man to be. He was interesting, yes, but he didnt seem wholly alien.
Tally was less enthusiastic to lead them back, catching up with Piper only to grab her arm, his lips close to her ear, Im keepin an eye on him, aright? I got a bad feelin, yknow, in my gut. He muttered it low enough that it was private, and she shrugged it off, watching as Tally fell back behind them. It was his usual, but he had never been so suspicious of someone before.
You keep callin us human, Doctor Can I ask what you are, if you arent human?