Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

(---) 

Three hundred years ago, it came from the sky. 

No one was around when it arrived, those who thought it was a comet. Something that only happened once in a lifetime. And for three hundred years, that’s what they thought… before a major event occurred. 

An earthquake, enough to shake an individual to their core, erupted in the year 1770. It trembled the earth, it shattered it into pieces. It caused a gigantic crack that travelled for many miles and went deep down into total darkness. 

But this earthquake didn’t cause the continent to split in half or even travel all the way to the seaside. It simply stopped. No one knows why, or could think of ways to explain it. The human race saw it as a beacon of luck and chose to settle and establish a town at the very tip of the fault line. 

A town named Tremorton. 

That’s how the story goes in the words of history. But what they don’t know is the cause of the earthquake in the first place. They just assumed it was something to do with the Earth, a typical natural disaster that was meant to happen. 

But they were wrong… they always have been. 

The comet collided with the Earth, digging itself into a crater which caused the earth-shattering earthquake. Everyone was so concerned about the earthquake that a singular comet crashing from the sky was rendered insignificant. As far as the human race is concerned, it never happened. 

As the heat of re-entry cooled down and the Earth reformed itself around it, it was apparent that it was no ordinary comet but rather the exterior of a spaceship. 

Cold, metal, lifeless. Just like the lifeforms inside. 

For three hundred years, the ship was dormant. All that lived inside remained inactive, forever waiting for the moment they would wake up again. 

But maybe something happened on the surface, maybe another earthquake had occurred or maybe the actions of a robotic superhero had shifted the Earth slightly. Something had caused the ship to suddenly re-activate, after all these long years. 

Lights slowly emitted and the engine quietly hummed into life, its first function was to wake up the life forms currently asleep on the ship. Many upgrades were needed with so few lifeforms aboard. 

On the bridge, sat atop on its throne of steel and other mechanical wiring, was a metal humanoid. The humanoid wore what appeared to be a cybernetic suit of armour of sorts, a body wrapped in bulletproof steel and a face that only wore a blank, emotionless expression. It sat frozen, as it had been for the past three hundred years. 

Then, for the first time in centuries, it moved. 

Fists clenched, the metal man rose from its throne and marched towards the nearest control panel. A few other metal men were seated by the controls, but they were motionless and remained in that state despite the re-activation of the ship. 

The metal man pressed a button and an image of the surface of the Earth appeared on the screen. It could see the town of Tremorton and all the people who lived there. All had the potential to be… upgraded. 

Upgraded into a better image of humanity, to become something that could achieve immortality and a perfect sense of unity. 

To become like itself. 

To become a Cyberman. 

(---) 

Morning hit the town of Tremorton, everyone was just starting to get themselves up and ready for the usual work day while the students of Tremorton High School were only mere minutes away from beginning their usual classes. 

Around this time, some evil-doer or giant monster or some other threat would attempt to attack the town. But not today, the morning was peaceful and rather normal. Just as it should be. Well, as peaceful as Tremorton gets. While the morning was free of villains, it’s only a matter of time before something rears its ugly head. 

In one of Tremorton’s alleyways, a gentle breeze pushed through the narrow space. The breeze got slightly stronger, sending littered garbage flying and rolling over the ground. 

In-between two large bins, a shape started to form. The shape was translucent but was illuminated in a bright light as it started to fade in and out of existence. As the shape became more solid, it carried a sound with it; a groaning and wheezing noise that sounded like someone left the parking brake on intentionally. 

The shape fully materialized into that of a tall wooden police box, like the ones policemen used in England back in the 1960’s, which was very out of place in an alleyway somewhere in a place that wasn’t in the same continent. But while it stood out, it very much blended in the environment. No one paid it much attention as they walked past it. 

The police box’s lantern flashed a bright light repeatedly, the wheezing noise getting louder and more distorted before eventually coming to a complete halt. Everything went quiet and the light in the lantern dimmed until it was completely extinguished. 

After the blue box had fully appeared, the door swung open and a man popped his head from inside. The man was tall and skinny with a sticky-uppy hairstyle and wore a brown pinstripe suit underneath a dusty-brown overcoat. He was also sporting a pair of sunglasses which was covered in a false golden shine and glinted in the morning sunlight. 

As the Doctor peered out of the police box, he was sporting an ecstatic grin. Not exactly the mood someone would have when landing in an alleyway full of garbage. 

“Viva Las Vegas!” he exclaimed. 

The Doctor’s excitement immediately diminished when he saw where the TARDIS had landed. His ecstatic grin quickly formed into a confused frown as he stepped out of the TARDIS. 

“Or… maybe not,” he said. 

He turned towards the TARDIS, hands shoved into his pockets. “Oy, what’s gotten into you old girl?” he then wondered. “First a warzone with the Daleks in the distant future, now this? Clearly somebody doesn’t want to meet up with Elvis…” 

The TARDIS made no response. 

“Don’t give me that look,” the Doctor said. “It’s not my fault things happen around me. Things happen and I just happen to be there. Well, most of the time. Well, sometimes. Well… no, all the time actually now that you mention it.” 

The Doctor removed his sunglasses and gazed at them disappointingly. Elvis will have to wait for another time… and to think he was getting these back after the Doctor accidentally snatched them from behind the King’s back. 

He put the sunglasses in his pocket and became more aware of his surroundings, as the silence had cleared its throat and wanted the Doctor’s attention. He turned on his heel, taking note of the garbage around him. Not much to look at, but he’s landed in worse places. 

The Doctor sniffed the air; a pungent aroma that didn’t feel like 1970s Las Vegas. It was thicker and smelt like oil, but that may or may not have been the garbage that was near his feet. 

“Okay… so where are we?” the Doctor wondered to himself. “Something interesting I hope…” He then gave the TARDIS an affectionate pat. “Oh, who am I kidding? There’s always something interesting!” 

The Doctor closed and locked the TARDIS door and headed out of the alleyway. He found himself on a main street in a town or city. He saw shops, towering buildings that were decorated in a variety of bright colourful neon lights. Which was odd considering that it was early in the morning and no one could even see what colours were being illuminated. 

The Doctor took in the view, rubbing the back of his head as he tried to figure where he was in his head. So far, his big brain had no clue where the TARDIS had landed him this time. Not New York, and definitely not New, New York. It definitely looked futuristic, most of the cars that drove past him weren’t of any design in the 21st century. 

“Well… we’re definitely not in 1970s Las Vegas,” the Doctor mumbled to himself. He had to find out where he was now. 

Luckily, near the alleyway, there was a newspaper stand placed on the sidewalk. The Doctor raised an eyebrow as he approached the newsstand, surprised that newspapers have a presence in a futuristic world. 

He grabbed a newspaper and scanned the front page to search for a date. “Alright, let’s see where or when we are…” the Doctor murmured. Again, to himself. He’s been doing that a lot lately. 

Before he could skim through the pages, or even take a glance at the front page, he stopped for a minute, as he could hear something in the distance. At first he thought it was a jet flying above him or even a helicopter. Whatever it was, it was getting closer… and closer. 

Too distracted with the mystery of the noise, the Doctor suddenly felt something slam into him. The force of the object caused the Doctor to topple over and fall to the ground, pages of newspaper flew and scattered itself around him. 

The Doctor’s vision was blurry and his head spun intensely. But as a Time Lord, he recovered easily from such an ordeal. He simply shook his head and all the dizziness faded away instantly. 

But what hit him? That was the question… And why could he see only black? 

He then felt a newspaper page flap across his face and removed it, throwing it on the ground with the rest of the pages. That’s why. 

 “Stupid hair!” The Doctor then heard an irritated voice shout out nearby, followed by the sound of metal clanging together.  “Why. Won’t. You. Stay. Down!” 

What the Doctor saw was a robot, sitting in front of him. The robot resembled that of a teenage girl, complete with metal panels on top of her head that resembled pigtails. But unlike actual pigtails, they kept moving up and down as if they had a mind of their own. 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. A robot… teenager? He’s seen robots in many shapes and sizes, he has even travelled with a couple of them in the past. But a teenager? That’s a new one. 

“Stay down!” The robot slammed her fist on top of her head. The pigtails obeyed and they returned to normal. The robot girl, satisfied, stood herself up from the small crater she made on the sidewalk. “That’s better… now to—” 

The robot girl saw that the Doctor had been knocked over and her optics widened. “Oh my gosh! I am so sorry, mister!” she exclaimed, racing over towards him. 

“What?” was all the Doctor could say. 

“Here, let me help you up,” The robot girl said, lifting the Doctor up and getting him to his feet. 

“What?” 

Then, to surprise the Doctor even more, the robot girl’s hand opened up and was replaced with a huge brush to which she used it to dust the Doctor down. She even extended her other arm and used it to collect up the newspaper pages, arrange them in the right order and placed it comfortably in the Doctor’s hands. 

“There, all better now,” she said with a smile, retracting the brush back into her hand. 

Her body then started to shake, making a ringing noise similar to that of an alarm clock. That was when the robot girl started to panic. “Crikey!” she said. “I’m going to be late! I have to go! Sorry again, mister… um, have a good day!” 

Having made the situation already as awkward as it was, the robot girl then flew off into the sky before the Doctor could get a single word out. 

“ What?” 

The Doctor shook off the initial shock and looked down at the newspaper again and, plastered on the front page, was the robot girl again. In the picture, she is seen fighting a metallic alien creature that the Doctor didn’t recognise. Probably from the small bit of the universe he hasn’t travelled to yet. 

Below the picture was the headline, written in big and bold black lettering. It read: 

XJ-9 SAVES THE DAY… AGAIN! 

So now that the Doctor knew who the robot girl was, it still doesn’t answer the many questions in his head. Including the main question of why the TARDIS landed him here in the first place. In fact, he didn’t even know when he was. 

That was quickly answered when the Doctor peered at the date above the picture of XJ-9. 

September 9th 2070. The Doctor nodded. Good year… except for the Anti-Grav Olympics, which was a pretty dismal time for the UK… he had hoped they would improve in 2074. Especially in the motorbike races. 

The Doctor flicked through the newspaper some more. He wondered if his arrival was connected to this XJ-9 somehow. Maybe that’s why he was here? It didn’t look like she was causing much trouble, the Doctor thought she was doing the opposite. Probably does some warrant some investigation unfortunately. 

After going through a couple of pages, a particular article stopped the Doctor in his tracks. He read the article back-to-front, a serious frown slowly forming on his face as he examined the details. 

“Oh… now that’s interesting.”  

(---)

 The day had barely started, and things were already going wrong for Jenny Wakeman. 

She had overslept, which was reasonable as she had to deal with a prison break which took her all night just to round up all the escaped prisoners… and to construct a new prison to make sure they wouldn’t break out again. 

Then, after that, she was met with a mountain of homework which she had forgotten to do. Next thing she knew, she had switched to sleep mode and was awoken by a variety of alarms blaring in her auditory systems. 

And now, as she frantically raced to get to school on time, she had a small little kink to deal with. 

Her rocket boosters, the ones stored in her pigtails, were malfunctioning. She wasn’t sure if something had happened to them while she was catching escaped prisoners last night or if she accidentally bent them the wrong way when she went into sleep mode, but she didn’t realise how big of a problem it was when she woke up. 

Normally, she would get her mother to repair it and, as her mother would usually do, face a lecture about how reckless and irresponsible she was being and that she needed to be careful next time. 

But she was fortunate enough to miss out on that. There would’ve been an argument anyway. She got the job done, didn’t she? The malfunctioning rockets were only a small price to pay to ensure that criminals weren’t freely running rampant around the streets. She will just get her friend Sheldon to fix it for her when she gets to school. 

That’s if she gets to school… 

After the accidental collision with the stranger in the pinstripe suit, Jenny was quickly running out of time. School was due to start any second now and Jenny wasn’t particularly in the mood to be sent to detention because of what could be considered a ‘bad hair day’. 

“Come on… come on…” Jenny murmured to herself, hoping her rockets would stay stable for the next few seconds. 

Soon enough, Jenny sighed with relief when Tremorton High came into view. It was one of those rare times where she was eager to get to school. 

But, as if they were reading her thoughts, her rockets started to act up again, steering the teenage robot in various directions. Up, down, left, right, even directions that Jenny didn’t know existed yet, she had no control of her movements whatsoever. Not even the rockets in her boots could help her in this situation, it would just make her flight pattern more unstable than she already was. 

“Woah, what the—?” 

Jenny could barely speak before she was propelled towards the school. She wasn’t sure if it was sheer dumb luck or some kind of miracle, but she found herself being dragged towards her first classroom of the day. But, unlike all the other students who just walked in via the door, Jenny bursted through the roof and landed firmly on her face, leaving behind a hole that was just above her desk. 

“Jenny?” Jenny heard the teacher say, unfazed by her sudden and destructive entrance. “Jenny Wakeman?” 

Jenny quickly raised her hand. “I’m here! I’m here!” she said, scrambling for her seat. 

A few snickers from most, if not all, of her classmates. Jenny rolled her eyes; she only just got to school and she’s already a laughing stock. It didn’t help that a piece of the school landed right on top of her head, covering herself and her desk in debris. 

More laughter. A frown was welded onto Jenny’s face. Alright, laugh it up all you can, she muttered in her head. At least this’ll be the only thing that— 

“Hey!” a student shouted out. “Nice rabbit ears, robo-freak!” 

And… I spoke too soon. 

Jenny looked up to see that her pigtails had decided to be positioned pointed up, much like, as that student said, the ears of a rabbit. More laughter erupted from around the classroom, which had become so disruptive that the teacher had to quieten them down to continue their morning lesson. 

But the damage had already been done. Jenny’s face heated up and her cheeks flushed a deep shade of blue from sheer embarrassment. She sunk further into her seat, burying her hair in her arms. Right now, she just wanted someone to declare ‘Wabbit Season’ and end the day quickly. 

However, the humiliation didn’t end there. Her pigtails kept moving around, switching between sticking up like rabbit ears or drooping down like a sad dog. Sometimes they even moved in front of Jenny’s eyeline which, unlike normal human hair, was much more difficult to brush away than it sounded. 

It was lucky that Jenny didn’t activate her rocket boosters during this time, otherwise her head would probably be stuck in the ceiling right about now. But as the laughing and mockery continued to lurch out of her classmates, Jenny began to wonder if that was the better option. 

It took about lunchtime for the misery to eventually stop, but Jenny’s self-esteem had already been thrown out of the window. She sat alone, not saying a word as she was constantly getting annoyed with her fidgeting pigtails. 

The frustrated silence was broken when Jenny’s close friends, Brad and Sheldon, came to sit by her. 

“Hey Jenny, what’s—” Brad’s greeting was interrupted when he saw Jenny’s pigtails, which had gone back to the bunny ear position. “Er… what’s going on with your hair?” 

“I wish I knew…” Jenny murmured, feeling both defeated and deflated. 

“Well I think you look great, Jenny,” Sheldon tried to compliment. His eyes then widened when he realised the choice of his words. “N-Not that you don’t look great everyday, you always look great no matter what hairstyle you choose!” 

Jenny let that failed flirty remark slide, it was to be expected whenever she was around Sheldon. “Gee… thanks, Sheldon,” she said, trying to sound polite. 

“Aw, I wouldn’t worry about it, Jen,” Brad assured her. “Everyone here has had bad hair days at some point.” 

Jenny scoffed. “Right… and I don’t suppose you know anyone else with hair that has a mind of its own?” 

“Hmm…” Brad took a minute to think about it. “Well, I know that one girl that looks like she has snakes in her hair. They definitely have a mind of their own!” 

Sheldon raised an eyebrow. “You mean Medusa? From Greek mythology?” 

Brad stroked his chin. “Oh yeah, that must’ve been who I was thinking about,” he said. 

“Guys, this doesn’t help,” Jenny said, getting the two back to the main disaster. “Sheldon, could you have a look at this? I’m not even sure why this is happening!” 

“Okay, let me see,” Sheldon stood up and examined the top of Jenny’s head. “Hmm, looks like the hinges are a bit loose. I can fix it, but it won’t be until after school…” 

“What?” Jenny almost shouted out. “After school? How am I going to deal with this till then?” 

Brad shrugged. “Try wearing a hat?” he suggested. 

“I can try,” Jenny said. She concentrated and morphed her head so that she was now wearing a fez. “How’s this?” 

“Nope,” Brad said. 

Sheldon shook his head. “Definitely not.” 

Jenny groaned internally and immediately got rid of the fez. She instead tried a different style, her head formed into a wide-brimmed fedora. When she decided that the hat wasn’t enough, she added a long scarf to go along with it. She wasn’t sure why she chose to wear a scarf, but at least it was better than rabbit ears. 

“What about this?” Jenny then wondered. 

Sheldon’s eyes glazed up at Jenny’s hat and scarf and nodded. “Um, yeah… it works,” he said. 

“A lot better than the fez, that’s for sure,” Brad chimed in. 

The trio then heard a chuckle from next to them. “I honestly prefer the fez, it’s less obvious that you’re hiding something.” 

The group turned to see that Tuck, Brad’s younger brother, had joined them. He sat himself next to Jenny and had a tray of food with him. Jenny, Sheldon and Brad exchanged bewildered glances as Tuck started to eat from the tray, his appearance at their high school a genuine surprise to the three of them. 

“Tuck… what are you doing here?” Brad asked. 

“Having my lunch, what do you think I’m doing?” Tuck replied, unaware of the confusion around him. 

“Yes… but you can do that at your own school, you know,” Brad said. 

“With the gruel they serve? Ha, no thanks,” Tuck laughed. “That’s why I’ve been coming here every day of this week. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed…” 

Tuck’s attention then turned to Jenny. “Now, Jenny, if you want my advice…” he said. “While fezzes are cool and all, Stetsons are the way to go!” 

Jenny frowned, hiding herself in the depths of her metal scarf as she spaced out of listening to Tuck’s so-called fashion advice. She could feel the strange looks that the people around her were giving. She couldn’t wait for the day to end, she needed her old hairstyle back as soon as possible. 

(---)

The day went as slow as Jenny anticipated. Her classes dragged out as she went from one pop quiz to another, and gym class was just as dreadful as usual. It certainly didn’t help that she had to explain why she had to keep wearing the fedora and scarf while they were doing their usual running practice outside. 

When she reverted to her usual pigtails at the teacher’s harsh request, they had unfortunately gone off during a relay and caused Jenny to literally bury herself into the field. That started another chain reaction of contagious laughter from the rest of her class, which increased when Jenny was forced to form the hat and scarf again. 

Jenny felt relieved when she heard the bell for the end of the day chime around the school. As soon as she and the rest of the class was excused, she bolted out the door and towards the front of the school. 

After meeting up with Brad and picking up Tuck from his school on the way, Jenny and the others headed over to a place known as Mezmer’s. Mezmer’s was a diner located not far from the nearby neighbourhood, its main standout was the giant cat that acted as its entrance. It was the epicentre of Tremorton’s nightlife and was quite a popular spot for teenagers to hang out. 

For Jenny, who is trying to live life as a normal teenager, it was a great place to unwind after a long day… unless something like a supervillain or giant monster attack gets in the way. 

When Jenny, Brad and Tuck arrived at the diner, they found Sheldon, now holding a red toolbox in his hand, waiting outside for them. 

“Sheldon, please tell me you can fix this now…” Jenny grumbled. 

“Not to worry, Jenny,” Sheldon said with a smile. “I’ve got all the tools I need.” 

Jenny sighed with relief. “Thank Jobs…” she murmured. She couldn’t take the humiliation anymore. 

Tuck shrugged as he and the others started to enter the diner. “I did tell you to switch to the Stetson.” 

“Since when were you an expert on fashion, Tuck?” Brad said. 

“Last week,” Tuck said. 

Brad raised an eyebrow. “Last week, huh?” 

“That’s right.” 

The two brothers continued to bicker as they entered the diner. Jenny was luckily able to drown out their discussion thanks mainly to the other teens that were busy hanging out with each other, sitting by the jukebox and figuring out what song they should play next or just blowing off some steam before they return home and do their homework. Those who actually do their homework at least… 

But, for a moment, the world seemed to stop as her eyes drifted to the front of the diner. But while seeing a cute boy would usually have that type of effect on Jenny, this time was different. 

She saw someone familiar, but the one she wasn’t expecting. Sitting at the counter was the man she had bumped into earlier this morning; a tall, thin man in a brown pinstripe suit. His light brown overcoat that he’d been wearing had been folded up and placed neatly in the seat next to him. He had his newspaper with him and was trying to get the attention of anyone behind the counter. 

“Hello?” he called out. “Anyone around?” Jenny noticed that he had an English accent, although it wasn’t as posh as Brit of the Crust Cousins. He also stuck out like a sore thumb, not because of his suit, but because he looked much older than the rest of the patrons in the diner. 

But out of all the people, why was this mysterious stranger here? And at this particular time? 

“Jenny, you alright there?” she felt Sheldon tap her on the shoulder. 

Jenny blinked and snapped back into reality. “Huh? Oh yeah, just that man there…” she muttered. “I accidentally crashed into him this morning. Not exactly my finest moment.” 

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Jenny,” Sheldon said. “He doesn’t seem like the type of guy that holds a grudge.” 

“Hmm, maybe you’re right,” Jenny said. “Come on, let’s have a seat. I’m tired of wearing this get-up.” 

While she wasn’t concerned that the stranger would be mad at her for crashing into him. She wouldn’t blame him if she did. She was more concerned about the stranger’s appearance at Mezmer’s. She found it curious that she’s seen this man, who definitely wasn’t a regular to Tremorton, twice in one day. To her, who was used to abnormal stuff occurring everyday, it didn’t seem like a coincidence. 

As soon as she and Sheldon joined Brad and Tuck at a nearby table and Sheldon started to fiddle with the hinges of her pigtails, Jenny extended one of her fingers and let it snake down to the ground. The tip of her elongated finger opened up to reveal a microphone, which had started to pick up sound as soon as Mr Mezmer went up to the stranger. 

“Sorry about the wait, sir,” he said. “What can I get you?” 

Mr Mezmer then stopped to see what the man was doing. Jenny had seen that the man had laid out some mechanical parts in front of him.

“Oi, what are you doing with my radio?” Mr Mezmer then asked, folding his arms in irritation. 

“Your radio?” the stranger said. He looked down at the mess he made. “Oh, sorry… It was, wasn’t it? My bad, I thought it was broken. It kept cutting out, Elton John sounded like he was out of breath. Trust me, it was better dismantled.” 

Mr Mezmer let out a frustrated grunt. “Fine, you’re lucky I was looking to throw out that blasted thing anyway.” If only Jenny could get away with something that easily. “What are you even doing with the parts anyway?” 

“I don’t know yet,” the man shrugged, a cheeky grin quickly flashing on his face. “Hopefully I’ll put the pieces together and hope something comes out of it.” 

Mr Mezmer snorted. “That’s great… Are you going to order something or not?” 

“Yes actually, well sort of,” the man said. “I actually wanted to ask if you’ve noticed anything around here? Most people come and go from here, right?” 

“Sure, most of the kids like to hang out here,” Mr Mezmer answered. “It’s good for business.” 

“Yes, but anything strange or out of the ordinary?” 

“Nothing more than usual,” Mr Mezmer said. 

The stranger raised an eyebrow. “Several people have gone missing and yet no one has batted an eye?” 

“One has to be careful around these parts,” Mr Mezmer said. “Especially with the likes of XJ-9 flying around.” 

Jenny couldn’t help but roll her eyes. After all she’s done, after saving everyone that threatened this place and even after she volunteered to help with clearing up the mess she had made, Mr Mezmer was still not keen on robots. No matter what, she couldn’t win. 

“Yes, I’ve been hearing of this XJ-9,” the man said. “I think I bumped into her, quite literally as a matter of fact. She seemed to have no control of her flying, must’ve been a loose connection from what I saw.” 

This piqued Jenny’s curiosity. How could he, someone who had only seen for a few seconds, know what was happening to her when she couldn’t figure it out for herself? 

Who was he? And what was he doing here? 

“Alright, should be fixed now,” Jenny then heard Sheldon say, causing her to quickly retract her finger to its usual length. 

Jenny tested the hinges of her pigtails by wiggling them from side-to-side. So far, it felt solid but she wouldn’t know for sure unless she took flight somewhere. Of course, she wasn’t going to do that right here right now. The last time she did that, she made a hole in the roof and Mr Mezmer had threatened to banish robots from the diner permanently. 

“They feel great!” Jenny said, no longer having to endure any more embarrassment. “Thanks, Sheldon.” 

“Anytime,” Sheldon said. 

Tuck wasn’t particularly interested in the state of Jenny’s pigtails, however. He squirmed in his seat and let out a sigh. “Now that Jenny is all fixed up, can we go now? There must be some guy that wants to invade the town today…” 

Sheldon went wide-eyed. “You want someone to destroy the town, Tuck?” 

“Sure, beats sitting around here doing nothing,” Tuck said. “At least, we’ll be out there kicking butt!” He stood up onto the table and made some karate noises, jumping and kicking the air. 

Brad picked Tuck up and placed him back on the seat. “I think you mean when Jenny will be out there kicking butt,” he said. “Right, Jenny?” 

Jenny nodded. “That’s right,” she said. “But today’s been nice. No bad guys, no nothing…”

Her gaze briefly flicked in the direction of the man in the pinstripe suit, who was too distracted fiddling around with what’s left of the radio. Not yet anyway. 

Then, as if someone was able to read her own mental thoughts, the bolt on her stomach started to flash intensely. Jenny frowned; she knew exactly why it was doing that. 

“Well, there goes my moment of peace…” Jenny mumbled. 

Jenny’s chest opened up and a small monitor emerged from it, connected to Jenny via a long and thin rotary joint. The screen lit up and flashed an black and white image of an older woman with spiky white hair and a lab coat, who appeared to be distressed. But this kind of expression was normal for Dr Nora Wakeman to have, especially when it came to contacting her daughter. 

“XJ-9! I’m detecting abnormal readings nearby!” Wakeman said. “I suggest you investigate at once!” 

Jenny moved her monitor around so she could avoid any weird looks any of the diner patrons might give her. “What kind of readings?” 

“The abnormal kind!” 

Jenny mentally face-palmed. “Gonna need something more specific, Mom…” 

Dr Wakeman adjusted her goggles and took a proper look at one of the screens that was out of view from Jenny’s monitor. “Hmm… looks like mini-tremors that seem to be occurring in different locations,” she said. 

“Well, can it wait?” Jenny asked. “Because I’m—” 

“Hanging out with friends, I presume?” Wakeman finished the sentence off. “XJ-9, need I remind you of what you were designed for?” 

Jenny rolled her eyes. She knew she wouldn’t be able to get a sentence in if she kept this conversation going. “Alright, mother… I’m on it,” she said, turning off the monitor. As much as she wanted to hang out with her friends, she knew she had a job to do. 

“What was that about?” Brad wondered. 

“Some emergency, not even Mom knew what it was,” Jenny said as her monitor retracted into her chest. “I should check it out, it could be dangerous.” 

Sheldon shot up as soon as Jenny stopped talking. “Do you need us to come with you?” he offered rather too quickly. 

“Maybe not this time,” Jenny shook her head. “If Mom doesn’t know what’s going on then it’s probably best that I go alone for now.” 

After saying goodbye to Brad, Tuck and Sheldon, Jenny slid across her seat and got up to leave. 

But, as Jenny started to head out of the diner, she didn’t see that the man was also getting up to leave. While the man was putting on his overcoat and heading towards the door, the two accidentally bumped into each other. 

As the man realised that he had bumped into Jenny, he didn’t get annoyed or angry at her. He simply smiled, as if he saw an old friend. 

“Oh… it’s you,” he said, a sense of recognition in his eyes. “Hello again.” 

Before Jenny could utter a response, the ground suddenly shook violently. It only lasted for a couple of seconds before everything stabilized. There was a moment of silence in the diner, nobody spoke or reacted. Then there was another tremor, more violent than the last one. The lights in Mezmer’s fluttered on or off before shutting off completely, leaving everyone in slight darkness. 

“Um, what was that?” Tuck pondered, scratching his head. 

“An earthquake?” Sheldon deduced. 

The stranger didn’t seem convinced. He didn’t even appear to look startled by the sudden tremors that had occurred. “Oh I don’t think that was an earthquake…” he muttered. 

“And what makes you so certain?” Brad asked him. 

“Because I know earthquakes,” the man in the suit answered. “And I’m pretty sure earthquakes don’t feel like a footstep…” 

“A footstep?” Tuck said. “What do you mean by—?” 

Out of nowhere, a foot connecting to a creature covered in dark fur and sharp claws stepped in front of the window of Mezmer’s. The impact of the footstep made the road crack in many places, leaving behind the shape of a footprint behind. As soon as the foot made contact with the road, the shockwave alone made everyone jump. 

“Oh, never mind,” Tuck muttered. “That’s what he meant.” 

A lot of patrons in the diner, including Brad and Sheldon as well, started to panic. They were two massive footsteps from screaming as loud as they could and immediately running out of every gap they could find. For a town that was known for constant supervillain attacks and other giant creatures, the town of Tremorton was never prepared for everything. 

Everyone was scared, as they should be, expect one. 

Jenny Wakeman was many things, but scared and cowardly was not one of them.

“I’m on it!” she exclaimed. 

Her newly repaired pigtails converted into jet boosters and she shot up into the sky like a bullet, leaving behind a teenage robot-shaped hole in the ceiling. Mr Mezmer might criticise her for damaging his diner, but she’ll make up for it by saving him and everyone else in the diner. 

Just as Jenny left to confront what was outside, the man put on his long overcoat and took notice of the creature outside. Whatever it was, it was something new, something different. Part of him hated it, as it was something that he didn’t know, but part of him enjoyed it, as he was eager to see what the creature was. 

While XJ-9 was out doing what she usually did, it was now time for the Doctor to also get to work. 

“Right, I think everyone should head out the back,” the Doctor said, making sure he was the centre of attention. “Preferably in an orderly fashion.” 

The Doctor heard a scoff from one of the diner patrons. “And we should listen to you because…?” 

“Well, you can stay here if you want,” the Doctor said. “Unless you were planning on getting squished by a giant foot.” 

The creature emitted a guttural roar outside, which made the patron whimper slightly. “F-Fair enough.” 

Then the roof started to creak and large claws tore through the structure of the roof like it was made of paper, reducing it into nothing but wood, metal and other materials as the claws completely removed the entire roof from the building. 

“Everyone out now!” the Doctor exclaimed, his loud voice almost being drowned out by the sound of the creature’s roar. “Move! Move! Move!” 

Everyone that was in the diner, including Brad, Sheldon and Tuck, started to run towards the back of the diner, through an area that was for staff members only and out the back door. The Doctor stayed behind and made sure that no one was left behind… as well as to get a look at the creature that was terrorising the place. 

The creature was as tall as a skyscraper, but fortunately not as large as the CyberKing that the Doctor fought when he stopped off in Elizabethan London. It was covered in thick, dark fur and both hands and toes were equipped with sharp claws. 

But what interested the Doctor most, besides from its size, was the fact that the monster resembled that of a mole. Its body was more cylindrical in shape like your typical mole in someone’s garden and its eyes and ear were incredibly small, so small that the Doctor struggled to see where they were on the creature’s head. 

“Oh you are wonderful…” the Doctor muttered, his face beaming. 

The Doctor’s eyes squinted to see that the robot girl he met this morning was flying around it, both efficiently and with great speed. Her arm had been morphed into some form of futuristic giant hammer and she was hitting certain parts of the monster, which was only irritating it rather than doing any effective damage. 

But, too distracted by the mole monster’s presence, the Doctor failed to notice that the monster’s foot had started to move into the diner, moving away to avoid any more attacks from XJ-9. The foot lifted over the front of the diner and right where the Doctor was standing. 

“Look out!” the Doctor heard the voice of XJ-9 call out to him. 

Before the Doctor could react, he felt himself being pushed away from the monster’s foot by a sudden force. One minute he was in the diner, the next minute he was outside and standing behind the monster’s path of destruction. 

Or… minimal destruction. Besides Mezmer's, the rest of the buildings were relatively still intact. Sure there were some broken windows and cracks in the exterior, but the buildings weren’t crumbling into pieces with each step. The mole monster seemed only interested in the front doors of the diner, which was more lit up compared to the other buildings. 

“Are you alright?” XJ-9 then asked the Doctor. His gaze instantly turned to the robot girl, who was now standing in front of him. 

“Yeah, think so,” the Doctor said. 

“I appreciate the help back there, mister, but you should let me handle this,” XJ-9 said. 

“How?” the Doctor said, his head tilted slightly. “By pummelling it into oblivion?”

“Yes… that’s how it usually goes,” XJ-9 nodded. “You have a better idea?” 

“Hmm, maybe,” the Doctor said, stroking his chin in thought.. “Just gotta look at things differently. Just look… what do you see?” 

XJ-9 looked at him as if he was completely stupid. “A rampaging monster!” she said.

“Ah… is it rampaging though?” the Doctor pondered. 

XJ-9 blinked, uncertain if she heard him correctly. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but it’s clearly destroying a lot of buildings here!” she exclaimed. 

“You would too if you didn’t know where you were going,” the Doctor said. 

“What?” 

“Look at its eyes,” the Doctor said, pointing at the mole monster’s head. “Look and tell me what you see.” 

The robot girl turned herself around, her eyes turning into mini telescopes to get a closer look at the mole monster. She saw the mole’s beady eyes and its rapid blinking as it tried to survey its surroundings. But what was most curious was that the monster was only interested in buildings that were lit up, such ones with bright neon signs or the sunlight had just gotten the right angle to bounce off the windows. 

Then the realisation hit her. “It’s blind…” XJ-9 realised. 

“...and attracted to the light,” the Doctor finished the sentence off. “It’s only attacking the signs because that’s the only thing it can see. The poor thing probably has no idea where it is, the lights are its only source of direction...” 

“Source of direction?” XJ-9 murmured, as if the words started to form something in her head. She snapped her metal fingers. An idea instantaneously appeared. “Of course! That’s it!”

Jenny activated her rocket boosters once more and took off into the sky. She flew through the monster’s ongoing warpath and made her way to where it had stopped. The mole was interested in a bright green sign that was supposed to resemble some kind of food product and was unaware that Jenny had flown close by to it.

Once she had gotten into position, Jenny clasped her hands together and both of her arms melded together and formed a four-armed ordnance, decorated in blue and white metal. Each arm was connected to the main barrel, featuring either two or three bores inside. Each hole glowed a dazzling blue, a massive amount of energy slowly filling up the interior. 

“Woah, Jenny!” Brad called out, running to where the Doctor was standing. “What are you doing?” 

“It’s cool!” Jenny assured him. “I saw Iron Man do this once!” 

She aimed the cannon near the monster, aiming away from it so it wouldn’t hit it directly. The glow inside started to increase, a ball of powerful energy forming inside the cannon. 

“MAXIMUM PULSE!” she shouted out as she released the energy. 

The energy pulse zoomed through the sky and raced past the monster’s eyeline. As soon as it went past, the monster’s rampage immediately ceased and it stared hypnotically at the ball of energy and remained frozen in place as it grew distant. 

Without any further hesitation, the mole monster started to follow the ball of light and backtracked through where it was causing destruction before. Just like the energy before, the monster also grew smaller and smaller in the distance until eventually it was out of sight and out of mind. 

Jenny felt a weight lift off her shoulders, she wiped her forehead in relief. Another threat to Tremorton was thwarted. All in a day’s work. 

On solid ground, people started to cheer for their resident robotic superheroine. Jenny heard the commotion from below her and simply smiled shyly, blushing slightly at the attention. She gave the crowd a simple little wave. 

It was not too long ago that the people would react negatively towards her heroic actions, mainly because of the massive amounts of property damage that Jenny would cause or that Jenny was simply a robot and was an outcast. 

Nowadays, it was just nice that Jenny felt needed for once. It was nice that everyone now appreciated her for what she was. 

Well… almost everyone. 

In the sky, above where Jenny was hovering, was a ship that was descending. It was small and bulky and coated in a black metallic surface. Jenny couldn’t tell who was flying it due to the cockpit being covered in thick glass that didn’t allow anyone to see through it. 

Fortunately for Jenny, she knew exactly who was piloting the ship. An answer she simply rolled her eyes to. 

“Great, Skyway Patrol…” Jenny murmured, not sounding too pleased to see them. “I should skedaddle before I get blamed for this. I’ll make sure the mole creature finds its way back home.” 

Jenny took off in the direction of the mole monster just as the Skyway Patrol ship had landed near Mezmer’s Diner, narrowly missing each other by a whisker. It was probably a good thing that Jenny avoided them, she and the intercontinental organization never saw eye-to-eye when it came to protecting the Earth. She had her ways and they had their ways, and that often led to more conflicts than solutions. 

The Skyway Patrol ship touched down near the entrance of the diner, or the crumbling remnants of it, and three officers emerged from it, two of which were carrying some kind of futuristic blaster rifle. One officer, who appeared to be a captain or lieutenant and the one that was clearly in charge, was followed closely by two lower-class officers, who were shorter than him and appeared to be a bit bumbling. 

The main officer ordered the other two to cordon off the giant footstep the mole monster had created. The other two officers were struggling to unravel the police tape so much that the main officer had to do it for him, frustratingly scolding them and telling them to go and take some witness statements instead. 

Since the town of Tremorton has had some frequent monster attacks on a daily basis, the main officer thought he had seen every face that the town had to offer, but he was only on the lookout for one in particular. 

XJ-9. 

Ever since Dr Wakeman had built her five years ago and programmed her to protect the world, XJ-9 had become trouble. Constant crimes of vigilante justice and numerous accounts of destruction to public property, both happening multiple times and costing the Skyway Patrol billions and billions of dollars on repairing the damages XJ-9 has caused. 

Yet… XJ-9 was hailed as a hero, especially after the invasion of Cluster Prime. Nowadays, the Skyway Patrol were told to assist XJ-9 rather than get in her way. Just another complication in the system. 

But the main officer knew that XJ-9 will slip up eventually, and he’ll be the one to clamp the cuffs over her wrists. 

But while he didn’t see XJ-9 anywhere, he did see someone else. Someone else he didn’t see before. His eyes narrowed at the Doctor, the man in the pinstripe suit and long coat that seemed to be hiding himself in the background… as if he didn’t want to get himself involved. 

The Doctor, seeing that the local law enforcement were too preoccupied at this current time, decided to quietly sneak away from the area, unaware that he had already been sighted. The giant mole creature was already enough for today, they surely didn’t want a Time Lord in the mix as well. 

While everyone had their back to him, the Doctor casually crept down the street and back in the direction where the TARDIS had parked. Maybe he could get there and do some proper research into how— 

“You there!” One of the members of the law enforcement, named the Skyway Patrol in the newspaper that the Doctor read earlier, called out to him.

The Doctor froze in place, turning himself around to face the three officers who were approaching him. Oh, how he wanted to avoid such an encounter. These never end well for him most of the time. 

“What do you know about this monster attack?” The main officer asked him.

“ Well , I wouldn’t call it an attack per say,” the Doctor muttered. “It didn’t harm anyone, it was just… lost.” 

“Lost?” 

“It didn’t act like a creature on a rampage,” the Doctor said. “I have a funny feeling that it didn’t emerge from its home on its own accord…” 

The officer scoffed. “For a creature that’s apparently ‘lost’, it caused a lot of destruction.” 

“Thankfully, it didn’t do that much. Buildings can be repaired, but people’s lives are one in a million,” the Doctor said. “Luckily someone was there to lead it away safely.” 

That seemed to pique the officer’s interest. “That someone being XJ-9, right?” he queried. 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, noting his sudden interest in the robot girl. “Sorry, who?” 

“XJ-9!” The officer exasperated. “She was literally here just now! Where did she go?” 

“Right, yes, XJ-9! Thought you had said something else for a second,” the Doctor said. “She wasn’t a blue and white robot with pigtails by any chance?”

The officer’s eyes widened with glee. “Yes! That’s her!” he said. 

The Doctor shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Never heard of her.” 

“Oh really?” The officer folded his arms in a strict manner. “Maybe we should take you in for questioning then… Some of these people saw you and her conspiring together.” 

“Tell you what,” the Doctor said. “There’s a blue box not far from here. Big, tall, wooden, says police on it… I’ll just head over there and arrest myself, shall I?” 

All three officers nodded in agreement. “Yes, that’s a good idea!” the main officer said. 

The Doctor beamed. “Brillant, take care then!” 

He turned on his heel and continued walking away. It took only until the Doctor completely disappeared from view that the officers started to realise what had happened, and the stupidity soon hit them like a truck. 

“Yeah… he’s not arresting himself, is he?” 

If the main officer could curse, he would. That was the third time that had happened… in the span of a week. 

(---)

Night fell, and Mr Mezmer wanted to head home. 

After the mole monster had ripped the roof of his diner and tossed it aside like it was nothing, it had suddenly become a long afternoon for the old owner. First he had to close the diner, forcing all his paying customers to return home. Then he had to face the quick repairs that the Skyway Patrol had provided him but, in what should’ve been a fast process in this day and age, it ended up taking hours when the officers had to wait for paperwork to come through… and then he had to wait for the paperwork to approve the previous paperwork to also come through. 

It was a long day and Mr Mezmer wasn’t sure who to blame: Skyway Patrol or the monster… or XJ-9. 

First the ordeal with the Space Bikers, in which they threw him in the freezer, and now this mole monster had caused severe structural damage. Every part of him wanted to ban XJ-9, or Jenny or whatever they call her, from the diner forever. She causes more harm than good in his opinion. But there was a part of him that resisted those urges, she did save the day and she has saved him from harm a couple of times now. 

But eventually, the repairs were completed and the Skyway Patrol had finally left to do who knows what. Mr Mezmer had finished walking around his newly repaired diner, chained up the front door as usual and then turned off all the lights on his way out. He opened the back door and proceeded to lock it behind him, innocently whistling an unknown tune as he did so. 

Then he paused, his whistling slowly fading out as he turned into the darkness nearby. 

There was nothing of importance in the back of the diner, mainly only a dumpster that housed many wasted food products and maybe a large rat or two. Old boxes of scrapped material, like appliances that had stopped working or graphic signs from failed marketing schemes, were also placed next to the dumpster, the cardboard exterior degrading and rotting away from being outside too long. 

The dumpster then creaked slightly, the sheer weight of it slowly scraping the surface of the concrete as it moved a couple of inches. There was a type of shuffling noise, muffled by the dumpster, but it sounded clunky and unnatural. The boxes toppled over from the neat pile they were in and the contents spilled onto the ground, causing more damage to whatever was inside. 

“Hello?” Mr Mezmer called out. “Someone there?” 

Silence. The shuffling around had stopped, as if it was trying to not cause a scene. But Mr Mezmer wasn’t playing around, he just wanted to go home. He didn’t have time for this. 

“Goshdarn kids…” Mr Mezmer grumbled, leaving the only source of light and into the surrounding darkness. 

Mr Mezmer approached the dumpster, his arms folded and his gaze stern and authoritative. “Alright, I know you’re there! Come out now!” he exclaimed. 

The shuffling returned but it grew louder and they started to sound more footsteps. A figure, shrouded in the night, emerged from behind the dumpster. It resembled a tall man, but the way it moved made Mr Mezmer think twice about what he was really looking at. It didn’t walk like any human would, the movement was stiff and almost robotic. 

As much as he could recall, the only metallic humanoid Mr Mezmer had seen around these parts was XJ-9, and he knew that this wasn’t her. 

Then it stepped into view and Mr Mezmer’s instincts were correct. 

The tall, imposing man was coated in a shiny metal exoskeleton, both being sleek and somewhat bulky at the same time. The metal man didn’t match the design aesthetics that neither XJ-9 or any of the invaders from Cluster Prime had, the man looked more industrial and old fashioned. 

But then there was the man’s face. It was expressionless and gave a sense of ghostly inhumanness due to its handles on each side of its head. Tear-drop eyes stared down at Mr Mezmer, black, soulless and sent a chill deep into his heart. It was clear that there was nobody but a husk through those eyes. 

“What the—” Mr Mezmer started to wonder, stepping cautiously away from the metal man. “What are you?” 

For a moment, there was silence. The metal man stood still, contemplating… processing. 

Then it spoke, a dim blue light emitting the small mouthpiece on its face. 

“The future of humanity,” it said. It was emotionless and monotone, cold like its metal exterior. 

The metal man advanced towards Mr Mezmer, rhythmic metallic stomping like pistons in a factory ringing in his ears as it got closer. Mr Mezmer tried to run but he found himself unable to move, his legs stopped working at such an unfortunate time. 

Revealing itself in the light, the metal man reached out an arm, hands stretched out wide, to Mr Mezmer. While the diner owner’s legs had finally woken up and was urging him to run away as quickly as he could, Mr Mezmer obeyed and made a run for it. But he found himself tripping on his own feet and collapsed into the ground

By the time he was able to get back up, it was unfortunately too late. 

The metal man had grasped Mr Mezmer’s leg, its iron grip fracturing a bone, and started to drag the old diner owner away, pulling him into the darkness once more. 

“Oh no…” Mr Mezmer pleaded. “No, no, no! Someone help! HELP ME!” 

He had hoped that XJ-9 would come and save him, like she always did. But Mr Mezmer’s hopes diminished as quickly as he got them; she was asleep, everyone was asleep. Nobody was coming for him. 

The metal man had completely dragged Mr Mezmer away out of sight and was met with very little resistance. The bloodcurdling scream of Mr Mezmer echoed throughout the night, but it was cut short before it could be heard by anyone. 

Silence then fell. There was no sign of the metal man or Mr Mezmer anywhere, they had simply vanished without a trace. 

No evidence, not even an indication that anyone was ever there. 

All that was left was Mr Mezmer’s keys to the diner, still placed in the keyhole. 

Chapter Text

Jenny Wakeman’s sleep mode was disrupted by the sound of her alarm clock. 

It was one of those rare times in which Jenny had a quiet night. There was no teenage turmoil or any late-night studying or a night in which her dream chip activates without her knowledge. She had a long day yesterday, dealing with her malfunctioning pigtail jets and an appearance from a giant mole monster that came out of nowhere, but she was glad that nothing else went wrong. 

What she wasn’t glad about was that her sleep cycle had been disturbed. 

As Jenny slowly opened her eyes, she was immediately blinded by the morning sunlight. Why her mother had her bedroom placed on the top floor with a huge window overlooking the neighbourhood and no curtains, she’ll never know. 

Jenny’s optics were blurred, her active systems warming up after being switched from sleep mode, so when she saw that the source of the noise came from her alarm clock, she audibly groaned and slumped back into her pillow. 

She stretched out her hand, reaching towards her alarm clock. She grasped the top of the clock, attempting to stop the constant ringing in her sensors. However, the clock didn’t want to turn off so easily. 

Irritated, Jenny’s hand formed into a fist and she slammed the top of the alarm clock. It went silent, to Jenny’s relief, but unfortunately not for the right reasons. 

Jenny peeked through the side of her pillow and saw that the alarm clock had been reduced to complete scrap. It was completely unrecognisable, but it blended in with the rest of the various litter that was scattered around Jenny’s bedroom. 

Jenny rolled her eyes; she wished she could be surprised by this, but, for her, this was just a normal thing to happen. 

She lifted herself up, opened her bottom drawer and slid the remnants of her alarm clock into it, along with the scrapped remains of previous alarm clocks she had broken in the past. She then opened the drawer above it and pulled out a new alarm clock, placing it near her lamp. 

Jenny made a note to herself; she needed to ask her Mom to build her an alarm that was completely indestructible. Add that to the list of other demands. 

After a few minutes of just lying there and waiting for her systems to fully activate, Jenny managed to get herself up. She had a brief glance at the calendar that was hung up on her wall and she lit up at the date. 

It was a Saturday. The weekend. Which meant no school and no unnecessary drama. There might be a supervillain attack but that was an occurrence that happened pretty much everyday so that didn’t deter Jenny from being excited. 

Since there was no school, she found that she had something that she was always eager to have: some free time. She had planned to meet up with Brad at Mezmer’s today, which will hopefully not involve any freaky monster attacks. 

Leaving her room, Jenny headed downstairs towards the kitchen. On the way, a pair of headphones emerged from the top of her head and clamped to each side of where Jenny’s ears would be if she had any. As soon as her headphones were attached, music started to fill Jenny’s advanced sensors. 

The song that automatically played was one that wasn’t originally on Jenny’s playlist, but rather one she found on an old record from the year 1986 deep in the basement. Once she first listened to it, she couldn’t get the song, and the entire band’s discography, out of her system. 

Jenny made her way to the kitchen, unaware that Dr Wakeman was sitting and reading a newspaper by the table. Jenny opened the fridge, finding and grabbing the only oil can that was in there. 

“It's a kind of magic… It's a kind of magic,” Jenny quietly sang to herself, fingers clicking to the beat as she waited for the best part of the song. 

She then quickly strided out of the kitchen and headed towards the front door. “Morning, Mom! I’m just going to Mezmer’s for a bit!” 

“Now just wait a minute, XJ-9,” Dr Wakeman said, putting her newspaper down. “There’s something I wanted to discuss with you first.” 

Jenny’s shoulders slumped, her patience wearing a bit thin. “Can it wait until I get back?” she said. “I promised Brad that I’d hang out with him today and—” 

“And I’m sure young Bradley can wait an extra minute or two,” Wakeman said. “I wanted to have a brief discussion about how you disposed of that mole monster yesterday.” 

Jenny retracted her headphones and approached the kitchen table. “I didn’t need to dispose of it, Mom,” she said. “I said to you yesterday that I lured it away from the town. It had left its home and gotten lost somehow.” 

Wakeman raised an eyebrow. “And you managed to bring it home?” 

“I did,” Jenny nodded, discreetly extending her leg out of the kitchen. “ And I made sure it won’t resurface again. So can I go now?”

Mrs Wakeman narrowed her eyes for a moment then ultimately sighed. “I suppose so…” she murmured. 

Jenny beamed. “Great!” she exclaimed. “Thanks, Mom!” 

The teenage robot then quickly dashed out of the door before her mother could say anything else that’ll stop her from leaving. 

“Yes, yes, have fun dear,” Wakeman said as she returned to her newspaper. She’ll probably continue this discussion later when Jenny gets back. 

The scientist then skimmed through most of what the newspaper had to offer, as she was only interested in what was printed on the front page. There was XJ-9, her daughter, doing what Wakeman had designed her to do, and that was to protect the world. Or, in this case, protect the town of Tremorton. 

But curiosity got the better of her and Wakeman found herself turning to the next page. Her eyes glazed over to a small article on the corner, overlooked and might’ve been last minute. She read the article carefully. It was about one of the townspeople of Tremorton, one that Nora didn’t seem to recognise. Then again, she wasn’t really around town that much to recognise particular faces. 

But while the face didn’t ring any bells, a specific word caught her eye. 

Missing. 

Wakeman continued to read the article. 

She was last seen walking home last night and seemingly disappeared without a trace. 

Wakeman read the article over and over again. Apparently this wasn’t the first instance of a sudden disappearance, there had been multiple cases over the past week or so. But, if that was the case, then how did she, or even XJ-9, not hear of this until now? 

Something was fishy here, and Nora Wakeman didn’t like it one bit. 

“Wait, XJ-9!” Wakeman exclaimed, rushing to the hallway. 

But Wakeman was only met with silence and an empty house. XJ-9 was long gone. 

(---) 

Jenny rushed out the front door and quickly took flight across the sky, the neighbourhood below her becoming a blur as she zoomed past. 

Despite being capable of flying practically anywhere in the world, Jenny is not as a frequent filer as one might think. While she uses her flying abilities for any crisis, she sometimes likes to walk or even have her mother drop her off somewhere. But, in certain times, flying is often the best option.

Like right now. When she was running late. 

At mach speed, Jenny arrived at Mezmer’s diner within a suitable time. She saw that the streets and the diner itself were fully repaired from the damages that the mole monster made yesterday, it looked like a monster hadn’t even attacked in the first place. 

Jenny often wonders who makes all these speedy repairs, as she is usually the cause of most of the damages. She just assumed it was the Skyway Patrol, well right after they were done with the mountains of paperwork they had to do. 

She hovered nearby, overlooking the top of Mezmer’s as she searched for Brad. But instead she saw a huge crowd of people, most of them being people from Jenny’s high school, congested around the entrance to the diner. From above, Jenny could hear the confused and irritated chatter going on amongst the crowd. 

There, in the back of the crowd, was Brad, who was trying to see what was going on but, due to his visibility being blocked by the crowd, he was just as bewildered as the rest of them. 

“Brad!” Jenny exclaimed as she landed right next to him. “What’s going on here? Why’s everyone outside?” 

“Mr Mezmer hasn’t opened the diner yet,” Brad answered. 

“But it should’ve been opened an hour ago.” Jenny said, her hand transforming into a clock. “I wonder why he hasn’t shown up yet…” 

Brad merely shrugged. “Beats me.” 

“Come on, let’s get to the front,” Jenny said. “Maybe we can resolve this.” 

“Good luck getting through this crowd,” Brad said. 

Jenny smirked. “Sounds easy enough.” 

She stretched out her arms, pushing them directly into the middle of the crowd. Then her arms grew and flattened until they formed two wall-like structures. Once the walls were formed, Jenny then slowly moved them away from each other, pushing the crowd away until there was a gap in-between. 

“Right… the direct approach,” Brad chuckled, as he and Jenny walked through the gap. “Nice.” 

Jenny kept the crowd separated until she and Brad were at the front entrance to the diner. Once they were clear of the crowd, Jenny’s arms retracted and returned to their original shape. As the walls disappeared, the crowd once again merged into a larger mass. Luckily for Jenny, they were surprisingly unaware or disinterested in being pushed aside. 

Both Jenny and Brad took a look at the entrance. Normally, when they would arrive at Mezmer’s, the diner would already be open and the doors wide open. It was illuminated with welcoming light and the music inside would be inviting and a good lure for the teenage customers. 

But today? It was the exact opposite. The front doors were shut, wrapped in seemingly unbreakable chains, and the interior was dark and empty inside. If there was someone inside, they were doing a good job in making it seem otherwise. 

“It’s still chained up from last night,” Brad murmured, shaking the door slightly.  

Jenny peered through the window. “And there’s no one inside…” 

“Do you think you could break this chain, Jenny?” Brad then asked. 

“I could,” Jenny said. “But I don’t think Mr Mezmer would like it if anyone broke in without him being there. I’m already on the verge of being banned as it is.” 

“Maybe there’s a side entrance or something?” Brad said. 

“Should be, yeah,” Jenny nodded. “I’ll go around and see if I can get in. You stay here and make sure the crowd stays outside.” 

“Got it,” Brad said with confidence. He then blinked and realised what Jenny was asking him to do. “And how I’m going to do that exactly?”

Jenny shrugged. “Just make sure they don’t cause any trouble.” 

“Sounds easy enough,” Brad said with an uncertain nod. 

With Brad making sure that the crowd doesn’t take matters into their own hands, Jenny discreetly walked to the alleyway nearby. At the end of the alleyway, there were large bins and various aged and moldy cardboard boxes shoved in the corner. Jenny was grossed out by the amount of disregarded trash that was littered all over the alleyway, but she simply ignored it and made her way to the nearby door. 

Jenny stopped and examined the door. From where she was standing, it was closed and seemingly locked. Nothing seemed to have happened to it, it was still standing and didn’t look like it was forced open. 

Then Jenny’s optics drifted towards the light above the door. It was still illuminated, which didn’t look odd at first glance but surely Mr Mezmer would’ve turned off the light when he left for the night. 

Jenny approached the door. Her hand went to the doorknob but she suddenly paused when she saw something sticking out of it. 

The key. It was still in the lock. 

Jenny raised an eyebrow. “Odd…” she muttered to herself. 

Instinctively, Jenny then pushed the door. It opened with a slow creak. “Huh… still open,” she said. She knew that this wasn’t a good sign. 

Jenny stepped inside the diner and was met with a dim hallway. It was plain, painted with a dull white and empty; there weren't any pictures or any particular achievements hung up. But, as with any other hallway, there were a variety of doors that led to a different part of the diner. One door to the left, Jenny deduced, probably led to the kitchen and presumably to the main area in front. 

If Jenny could feel actual chills, they would be going down her spine right now. The hallway was quiet, a bit too quiet for Jenny’s liking. Usually, there would be someone in the diner around this time. But there was no chef, no other workers waiting to start their shift and definitely no sign of Mr Mezmer. 

“Hello?” Jenny murmured. “Mr Mezmer? Are you here?” 

No answer, Jenny would’ve been surprised if anyone did. Jenny carefully continued to walk through the hallway. The thought of pulling out a weapon came into Jenny’s mind, in an event where someone would jump out and surprise her. But Jenny held back, she needed to know what she’d be up against before accessing any kind of weaponry. 

Then Jenny stopped just at the last door on the right side of the hallway, hearing a faint noise inside. One of her pigtails transformed itself into a small satellite dish, which pointed itself at the door to listen in. 

What did Jenny hear exactly? She wasn’t sure. All she could detect was a sharp buzzing noise, which whirred at such a high frequency that Jenny’s sensors were starting to get irritated from it. Jenny shook it off, returning her pigtail to its normal shape. What was that noise? Jenny hadn’t heard a frequency quite like that before. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound like anything from Earth. 

Jenny then decided to reach out and open the door. Whoever was behind it, either being a common burglar or a typical supervillain of the week, Jenny was well equipped to take care of it. But she still had to be slightly cautious however. For all she knew, Mr Mezmer could potentially be behind the door… and had somehow not heard Jenny coming in and calling his name. 

“Alright, whoever you are, you have one chance to—” Jenny said as she burst through the door, but was stopped by the sight in front of her. 

She had found herself in a small office, which was rather plain with two wide corkboards on opposite ends of the room. Notes of various things that Jenny didn’t have time to analyse were plastered all over the boards, most of them stuck on by a single sharp pin.

There was a large corner desk at the end of the room, filled with folders, files and anything to do with finances and other manifests. An old-fashioned computer also sat on the desk, currently not being used for the time being. 

But Jenny’s focus quickly switched to whoever was in the room. It wasn’t Mr Mezmer through that door, nor was it some common criminal. It was that man again. The man in the pinstripe suit. 

The man was sitting on the swivel office chair, his feet propped up against the desk as he was busy fiddling with something. Jenny recognised some parts as the bits of metal scrap the man was messing with yesterday, but it looked more cobbled together. 

The device had the shape of an old radio, rectangular and bulky, but there was other stuff attached to it; a metal pipe with copper wire wrapped around it, a spinning wheel that could’ve been taken from an old film camera and other parts of scrap that Jenny couldn’t properly identify. 

Jenny’s first reaction was that the device just looked plain strange. Then again, she often thinks the same about some of her mother’s inventions as well. 

After seeing the man, Jenny immediately frowned. “...Oh, it’s you again.” 

The man in the suit turned towards Jenny, a smile forming on his face. That same smile from yesterday, a smile that was meant to be for a friend whereas Jenny didn’t even know his name. In her head, she kept calling him ‘the man’ or ‘the man in the pinstripe suit’. She wasn’t sure if he was a Patrick or a Tom or a Peter or a Paul. He could even be called David for all she knew. 

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, jumping to his feet. “Hello again… XJ-9, right?” 

Jenny’s arm transformed itself into a laser blaster, which she pointed directly at the man. “Stay right there,” she muttered. 

The man’s smile was wiped from his face. Despite having a weapon pointed straight at his chest, he kept his composure. “Okay… staying put,” he said, raising his hands. 

Jenny kept her aim steady. “What are you doing here?” she asked him. 

“I could ask you the same thing,” the man muttered, unintimidated by Jenny’s laser limb. 

“I’m looking for someone…” Jenny answered. “Mr Mezmer, do you know what happened to him?” 

The man raised an eyebrow. “Who?” 

“He runs this diner,” Jenny said. “You were talking to him yesterday.” 

The man blinked. “Oh… so that’s why this place is called Mezmer’s!” he said. “I was wondering why. Glad to get that out of my conscience.” 

“But do you know what happened to him?” 

The man shook his head. “Nope. Well , not yet anyway. I’m looking into it. But that’s not why I’m here actually.” 

“So there was another reason why you’ve broken into this building then?” Jenny murmured. 

“I was stopping by to pick up the pieces of the radio Mezmer gave me, as I left it behind when that creature came through,” the man explained himself. “But when I saw that the place was locked up, I sort of let myself in. I might’ve gotten myself distracted when I soon realized that nobody was here.” 

“You found the key then?” Jenny said. 

“Didn’t have to,” the man answered. “It was already in the door when I arrived.” 

Jenny looked at the man in disbelief. “What?” she said. “That can’t be true.” 

“Oh it’s true,” the man said. “Nobody just leaves a key in the door for any good reason. The question is… why?” 

The man grabbed his device from the desk and began to walk out of the room, only to be stopped by Jenny. 

“Uh-huh, you’re not going anywhere until I get some real answers,” she said, pushing the man back so her laser was aiming back towards him. 

The man, once again, didn’t seem to flinch at having a weapon pointed towards him. “Okay… questions later, right now there’s a gun. Pointed at my head. So do you mind? You could really hurt someone with that…” he murmured. 

“That’s kinda the point,” Jenny said, the tone of her voice chilled with pure ice. 

“But I know you won’t,” the man said calmly. “You could’ve killed that mole creature yesterday but you didn’t. You chose to help it instead… I know you’re not a killer, XJ-9, so just put the gun down.” 

Jenny didn’t like it, but she knew that this man had a point. Sometimes there were moments where she was close to taking a human life, whether it was accidental, collateral, or a case of mind control, but she never went through with it. The only times she did kill was the multiple times she destroyed the Cluster, but they were a collective and built to conquer. In Jenny’s mind, they didn’t count. 

But a human? Never, that wasn’t part of Jenny’s programming. She was made to protect, not destroy. This stranger was right, she was certainly no killer. 

Jenny then stood down, her laser weapon retracting into her arm. “Who are you?” she then asked the man. She wondered how someone could use only words to disarm someone like her. 

“I’m the Doctor,” the man, apparently named the Doctor, introduced himself. 

“The Doctor?” Jenny said, intrigued by the Doctor’s name. “What kind of name is that?” 

The Doctor smirked. “What kind of name is XJ-9?” 

Jenny snorted in half-amusement. “Touché,” she said. “And it’s Jenny by the way. I changed it ages ago.” 

There was something Jenny saw in the Doctor’s eyes when she said her name, like a flash of remembrance. It was a name he knew, somewhere in a time before he and Jenny had ever met. Jenny wasn’t sure what it was; regret, grief, maybe both. It was only for a brief moment, and the Doctor immediately changed his expression before Jenny could figure it out. 

“Jenny, huh?” the Doctor said. “Nice to meet you, Jenny. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a thing to do. Won’t take long… well, hopefully. An hour at best.” He then adjusted some wires on his makeshift device. “Actually, it’s probably gonna be two hours.” 

The Doctor went to leave, casually walking past Jenny like their initial meeting never happened. Jenny then rushed past him and blocked his way but putting herself in front of the door. 

“Now hang on just a minute, I can’t let you out of my sight,” Jenny said. “Not until you tell me why you keep following me around!” 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Tell me something, Jenny,” he said. “If I was following you, then how come I got here first? Not exactly how it works if the person that was following the other person reached their destination before they could get there. It contradicts the very purpose of following someone…” 

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Jenny waved him off. “But yesterday I bumped into you, then I saw you at the diner right when that creature attacked and now you’re here again! Seems too much of a coincidence if you ask me.” 

“Is it?” the Doctor simply queried. 

“And you knew exactly what to do with that mole creature yesterday,” Jenny said. “So that brings up a whole lot of other questions.” 

“Would my credentials help?” the Doctor muttered. Using his free hand, he fished out a small black wallet from his suit pocket. He flipped it out, revealing a blank white piece of paper. “Credentials, see? Private investigator, courtesy of the Skyway Patrol. Well, actually those who come above them…” 

Jenny examined the piece of paper that was supposed to be his credentials. “I don’t see any identification,” she said. “That paper is blank.” 

Instead of being surprised or thrown off, the Doctor instead gave the teenage robot an impressed grin. “Okay… so whoever designed you made you bypass the psychic paper,” he said. “That’s genius, not many people can do that.” 

“I’m one of a kind,” Jenny murmured. “So tell me, Doctor… why are you really here?” 

The Doctor returned the psychic paper to his pocket. “Honestly, I don’t know,” he replied. 

“You don’t know?” 

“Yeah, not a clue. It’s brilliant, really. Love not knowing, keeps me thinking,” the Doctor said. “I was going to land myself in 1970’s Las Vegas, and somehow ended up here. In a futuristic world with mole monsters and teenage robots… or, what I like to call it, Tuesday.” 

Jenny wasn’t sure what to think of the Doctor’s rambling, but she did focus on a particular thing he said. “Sorry, what was that about the 1970’s?” 

The Doctor didn’t hear her question and continued speaking. “So I ended up here, looked at a newspaper article and saw people have gone missing in this area. That’s when I bumped into you…and here we are.” 

“Missing people?” Jenny queried. 

“For about a week now, people from your city have disappeared overnight. No evidence, no trace of them ever being there in the first place. They’re simply… gone.” the Doctor said. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard.” 

A tinge of guilt surged through Jenny’s systems. She had heard the Doctor and Mr Mezmer talking about it yesterday, and she didn’t even bat an eye. She was too focused on who the Doctor was to realise what the real problem was. 

If she had realised that sooner… maybe those people wouldn’t be missing. She was meant to be a protector, now the fate of those people will forever haunt her. 

“I wish I did…” Jenny then murmured. “Wait, do you think this is connected to Mr Mezmer by any chance?” 

The Doctor nodded. “Door open, key still in the lock, no trace of him anywhere… I reckon whoever has taken those other people has taken Mr Mezmer too.” 

“You assume they’ve been taken,” Jenny said. “Taken by what?” 

“That’s what I want to find out,” the Doctor said. He then held up his device and showed it to Jenny. “Hence why I have this.” 

“And that’s supposed to do what exactly?” 

“It’s a scanner, it’s a thing that scans,” the Doctor said. “Can also microwave frozen food at about twenty feet and download audiobooks from the future… At this point, I wasn’t sure where to stop! Just keep it away from chickens, or eggs, or pretty much anything with feathers.” 

Jenny blinked. “And how is that supposed to find the missing people?” 

“Oh, those are just extra features,” the Doctor said. He then, once again using his free hand, pulled out a small, thin metallic tool with a blue emitter. He wiggled it in his hand. “ This is how we’re going to find those people.” 

As the Doctor pressed the top of the tool against a small hole in the device, a sharp buzzing noise, the same one Jenny heard earlier, emitted from the tool, a bright blue light illuminating from the top of it. 

Jenny raised an eyebrow, her curiosity leaning towards the tool. “What’s that?” 

“Sonic screwdriver,” the Doctor muttered. 

“Really? Doesn’t look much like a screwdriver…” Jenny commented. 

“It is, it’s just more… sonicky,” the Doctor said. 

Jenny folded her arms. “How does a screwdriver find the missing people?” 

“When I first arrived, right after you bashed into me actually, my screwdriver caught a signal,” the Doctor started to explain. “Very weak and too spread out to lock on to, but there are certain areas around town that have a stronger signal than most. Just gotta use this to find the source of it.” 

“The source?” 

“My guess is that whoever or whatever is taking these people is using some kind of teleporter,” the Doctor theorised. He placed the tip of his sonic screwdriver into a small hole in the side of the device. “But the question is… where are they being teleported to?” 

The Doctor activated the sonic screwdriver and the device sparked into life, a series of high pitched tones slowly beeping every few seconds. After the device activated itself, the Doctor returned his sonic screwdriver back into his pocket. 

“Right then, thanks for the chat Jenny,” the Doctor said. “But I can handle things from here.” 

Jenny shook her head. “Not a chance, Doctor. People are in danger and it’s my duty to help them,” she told him. “I’m coming with you.” 

Unexpectedly, Jenny snatched the makeshift device out of the Doctor’s hands and walked out of the room. However, she made a right turn towards the other side of the hallway instead of left. 

The Doctor gave her a second before calling out. “The exit’s the other way…” he said. 

There was silence. The Doctor then saw Jenny’s head pop up from the hallway, a sheepish smile smeared on her face. 

“Heh. I knew that…” 

(---) 

After getting his device back from Jenny, she and the Doctor made their way outside the diner. As they walked out, Jenny could still hear the other teenagers protesting outside. That meant that Brad was able to keep the crowd outside, either that or they couldn’t be bothered to listen to him and stayed outside regardless. 

The Doctor, meanwhile, wasn’t focused on the crowd. He continued to walk with Jenny by his side, but concentrated more on the device in his hand. He shook it slightly, trying to make out some of the small beeps and boops that were emitting. He even took out his sonic screwdriver and used it on the scanner, hopefully trying to make it more efficient. 

“Quite a crowd out there,” the Doctor then commented, his gaze still on his makeshift device. 

Jenny and the Doctor headed out of the alleyway and watched the crowd from a distance. Jenny saw that Brad was getting himself involved in calming the crowd down, somehow he had found himself a megaphone, a fluorescent vest and a wooden box to stand on. 

“Alright, as I said a thousand times, there’s no way I’m letting you through these doors,” Brad said, his voice echoing through the megaphone. “Mezmer’s is closed for the day!” 

“Who made you in charge?” One of the crowd members shouted out. 

“That, my friend, is my business,” Brad said. “But what I do know is that you should all stay outside!” 

Unfortunately his words proved useless as the crowd grew more ruthless, overwhelming Brad with their shouts and protests. They tried to push through, one of them even grabbed Brad’s megaphone and smashed it towards the ground. 

At this point, seeing that Brad was in trouble, the Doctor handed Jenny the device and walked towards the crowd. He stood in between Brad and the crowd and spread his arms, protecting Brad from the grasp of the crowd. 

“Everyone, quiet!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Fingers on lips!” 

He put a finger on his lips, his eyes widened with urgency. He said nothing and gazed at the crowd, waiting for them to repeat the action. Slowly, the crowd obeyed and, one by one, started to mimic the Doctor’s actions. The Doctor then turned himself towards Brad, and he also slowly put his finger on his lips. 

Once everyone was quiet, the Doctor lowered his finger. “Okay… everyone’s settled now. You lot here often?” 

The crowd, as if they were an united entity, nodded simultaneously. 

“Right… well, sorry everyone but I’m afraid this establishment is closed today,” the Doctor muttered, showing his psychic paper to the crowd. “By orders of the health department. No one gets fifty feet from this place, is that understood?” 

Again, another series of nods from the crowd. The Doctor then smiled. 

“Brilliant,” he said. “Now, everyone should head home immediately. There’s a lot of work to be done here. Paint a picture, mow the lawns, do whatever it is you people do here! Just.. be yourselves, okay?” 

Despite some disgruntled mumbles and whispers, the crowd eventually dispersed and they all went their separate ways. Jenny’s mouth fell open; never had she seen such a person, whether that’ll be a human or non-human, be able to convince a crowd to leave so quickly. Especially if they were teenagers with conflicting opinions. Or maybe it was because it was directed at her. 

“How did you do that?” Jenny asked, bewildered.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, grabbing the device back from Jenny. “Do what?” 

“What you just did with the crowd!” Jenny exasperated. “They just listened to you, just like that. They barely listen to me half the time!” 

“Everyone listens to the health inspector,” the Doctor replied. “ Well… most of the time anyway.” 

“But you’re not the health inspector,” Jenny murmured. 

“To them, I am,” the Doctor said. He then examined the psychic paper and frowned. “One that’s trained in Belgium apparently.” 

Brad was ecstatic. He approached the Doctor and Jenny with a huge grin on his face. He tapped the Doctor’s shoulder to get his attention. 

“Dude, you gotta teach me how to do that!” Brad said. 

However, after hearing the device whirr back into life, the Doctor started to back away slowly. “Sorry, kind of in the middle of some—” 

Then Brad took a minute to look at the strange man in front of him. The pinstripe suit, the hair that was all over the place and the long coat, it was familiar to him. 

Then it hit him. “Wait a minute, you’re that man from yesterday!” Brad exclaimed, prodding the Doctor’s chest and getting uncomfortably close to him. “You’re the one that was following Jenny around!” 

Jenny intervened and separated Brad from the Doctor, her hand extending out to give them some room. “Take it easy Brad,” Jenny said. “It was all just a misunderstanding.” 

Brad blinked, knowing that Jenny was pretty suspicious of this guy a day earlier. “Wait, Jenny… you know this guy?” he wondered. 

“Not for long. Brad, this is the Doctor,” Jenny said. “Doctor, this is Brad.” 

“Hello,” the Doctor greeted. 

“Nice to meet you,” Brad said. “So what brings you to Tremorton, Doc?” 

The Doctor cringed at the nickname, crinkling his nose at the sound of it. Before he could respond, Jenny stepped in and answered for him. 

“We may know where Mr Mezmer is,” she said. “He and several other people around town have gone missing over the past week.” 

“Really?” Brad wondered. “By who?” 

“Not sure yet,” Jenny shrugged. “But the Doctor’s got a lead, so we’re going to track it down.” 

Immediately, Brad was excited. “Oh cool, we can be detectives!” he said. “We can locate clues, fight crime and interrogate suspects good cop bad cop style! I wonder who’ll be who… I think you’d be a better bad cop. No wait, I want to be a bad cop—” 

“Actually Brad, I don’t—” Jenny tried to say, only to be silenced by Brad.

“Wait a sec Jenny, I’m contemplating the evidence!” Brad said. He knelt down on the sidewalk, taking out a magnifying glass that he had with him for some particular reason. He stared through the glass, analyzing the zoomed in sidewalk very closely.  “Elementary, my dear Wakeman…” 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “You know, Sherlock Holmes never really—” 

“Nuh-uh, not a word…” Brad interjected. “The game is afoot.” 

As Brad was too busy ‘crime-solving’, the Doctor heard a new sound on his scanner. It was one that mimicked the sound of a correct answer on a quiz show, and nothing could go wrong with a simple ‘ding’ noise. 

The Doctor lifted the scanner to his head, adjusting certain dials on the side of the device. The scanner frequently switched from emitting a low tone to a high-pitched quiet screech. It had picked up something , but the Doctor wasn’t sure yet. He was surprised he was able to get a signal with a variety of radio parts, a kettle and some string. 

While Brad was distracted, the Doctor ushered Jenny aside. He didn’t have time for this. “I’ve got a lock on something,” he murmured. “I’m happy to leave him here if you are.” 

Without a second thought, Jenny nodded in agreement. “Yeah… we should go,” she said. 

The two quietly snuck away from Brad and headed down the street, following the trail that the Doctor’s scanner was leading them. Brad, meanwhile, was totally oblivious to the fact that both Jenny and the Doctor had left him behind. The lad was crouched down on the sidewalk, looking closely at a certain piece of gravel on the sidewalk. 

His eyes then widened. “Aha!” he shouted out. He picked a small singular piece of gravel and observed it with his magnifying glass. “As I suspected, this sidewalk has been stepped on recently! What do you think of my keen detective skills, Jenny?” 

Brad waited for Jenny to answer but was met with only silence. He looked around, and both Jenny and the man in the pinstripe suit were nowhere to be seen. 

“Jenny? Doc?” Brad muttered. 

Again, silence. There were crickets echoed in the air and Brad could’ve sworn he saw a small tumbleweed roll past him on the road. He was completely on his own. 

“...Anyone?” 

(---)

The Doctor and Jenny continued down the street, following the frantic beeping that his scanner was emitting. They had even walked past the TARDIS, which Jenny didn’t notice, most likely due to the perception filter, and the Doctor didn’t think it was necessary to bring up the old girl at that moment. He wouldn’t even know where to take the TARDIS anyway. 

But the scanner wasn’t the only thing on his mind. His thoughts lingered to the young robot next to him. She didn’t talk much, surprisingly, instead walking beside him in a quiet manner. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of familiarity, but he wasn’t sure what exactly. It was as if Jenny reminded him of someone he knew once. 

The Doctor’s mind then flashed to a moment in time, a moment that happened not too long ago. He was with Donna and Martha, and the TARDIS had taken them to an underground bunker of sorts. The planet was barren and had been occupied with two opposing armies, humans and a species known as the Hath. 

When they first arrived, humans had surrounded them and the Doctor was forced into a machine. A machine that spliced his DNA and created a breathing, living thing. 

His daughter. Well, one artificially created via a sample from a progenation machine. But, his daughter nonetheless. A daughter that was gone too soon. 

Why the Doctor had suddenly thought of his daughter after all this time was a real mystery to him. He only had a name that awakened a memory. 

“The machine must embed military history and tactics, but no name. She's a generated anomaly,” he said as he and Donna were escorted to the human camp. Donna had asked his daughter if she had a name, only to find out that she never had one. 

“Generated anomaly… Generated…” Donna then muttered. A name then hit her. “Well, what about that? Jenny.” 

His daughter simply smiled, the same enthusiastic grin that was inherited from her father. “Jenny. Yeah, I like that. Jenny.”

Jenny. That was her name. That was the name she chose. Well, the one that Donna suggested anyway. The Doctor wondered how Donna would react to this, encountering a mole monster and meeting a robot with a teenage mind… one that shared the same name as his daughter. 

Normally the Doctor wouldn’t get mushy with this sort of thing, but hearing that name again. It was a reminder of who he had lost. His family, his planet, everything. 

The Doctor thought about what Donna would say to him right now, as she would’ve caught his silence instantly. Something reassuring, the Doctor assumed. She always said the right thing to him. He missed that. 

“So where’s that signal leading to?” the Doctor heard Jenny ask him all of a sudden. 

“Whoever was taking those people, they were using a short-range teleporter. Which means they can’t be far away,” the Doctor explained. “I’ve triangulated all the locations that the people were last seen so, if I’m right, this scanner will lead us right to the source of the teleportation.” 

“You know, you seem natural to this…” Jenny then pointed out. 

The Doctor was too preoccupied with the scanner to hear that properly. “I’m sorry, what?” 

“This whole thing you’re doing here,” Jenny said. “People don’t usually go missing in Tremorton and yet here you are, making it seem this type of thing happens daily.” 

“Well… it often does,” the Doctor said. “Especially on Christmas, I can never seem to have a normal Christmas. Or snow, I would like to see normal snow for once.” 

Jenny rubbed the back of her head. “Yeah… my Christmases haven’t been normal either.” 

“Oh, I can promise you that mine are a lot more extreme,” the Doctor chuckled. 

Jenny took that as a challenge.“Really?” she said. “I was reprogrammed to destroy Christmas once… Beat that.” 

“I was onboard the Titanic once,” the Doctor said. “The second one, which was in space and was about to crash into Buckingham Palace.” 

“Okay… you win,” Jenny muttered. “Wait, how did you find yourself in a situation like that?” 

“I didn’t,” the Doctor replied. “The situation found me.” 

“Right…” Jenny said, not entirely convinced of his answer. “So what is it that you do exactly?” 

“I travel,” the Doctor said. “Through time and space.” 

Jenny raised an eyebrow. “Travelling through time? I didn’t think that was possible.” 

“Well, not for the human race. Not yet anyway. Wait, hold on… It’s 2070 isn’t it?” the Doctor suddenly paused for a moment, then shook his head and continued walking.  “No… no, not yet. It’s much later.” 

Jenny thought that she would be weirded out by what the Doctor said, as he wasn’t talking much sense, but she was wrong. She instead laughed. “Does anyone tell you that you’re a bit… strange?” she then said to him. 

The Doctor only smiled. “Oh, all the time. But I do it brilliantly.” 

The two soon headed out of town, still following the scanner’s trail. They reached what was supposedly a main road. One side was a part of the town that the Doctor hadn’t explored yet; there were many residential-like buildings that surrounded a larger white circular building. An archway with the name ‘Tremorton’ spanned out by the edge of the road, indicating that this is supposed to be an entranceway. 

The opposite side of the road was grassy and was laid out with an assortment of trees, glazed with oranges and reds in the autumn sunlight, that were all spaced out to accommodate the large area. But what made it stand out compared to the courtyard was the gigantic crack that ran across the central point of the area. 

It was thick, jagged and seemed to go deep underground. It stretched out far beyond the grassy area, strangely becoming thinner and straighter as it headed towards the other side of the road. The fact that this fracture in the Earth itself still existed and hadn’t been filled in yet filled the Doctor’s head with many questions. 

“Blimey, what happened here?” the Doctor wondered as the two of them stood under the archway. “This crack goes all the way out of town.” 

“It was how Tremorton was founded,” Jenny explained. “An earthquake occurred around here about three-hundred years ago.” She then pointed across the road. “Actually it ended over here. Beyond the archway was mainly my fault.” 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Your fault?” 

“Mainly,” Jenny said. “I mean, if the Cluster hadn’t gotten in the way and tried to launch a missile then this wouldn’t have happened!” 

The Doctor stood awkwardly as he watched the teenage robot ramble angrily. “Right…” he said once Jenny took a moment to breathe. “And who’s the Cluster exactly?” 

Jenny blinked surprisingly. She didn’t think anyone from Earth would be so oblivious to the Cluster’s presence, especially when the Doctor claimed he traveled in time and space. “You don’t know anything about the Cluster?” she said. 

“No, should I?” 

“How could you not?” Jenny exasperated. “They try to take over the world all the time. They almost did at one point!” 

“Jenny, there’s about a billion known species in the universe. Maybe even more. About a quarter of them want to take over the world, trust me I’ve met a few,” the Doctor said. “I just haven’t crossed paths with the Cluster yet…but judging from what you said, I probably shouldn’t.” 

He then put his scanner down and knelt down by the crack, his eyes peering down and slowly moving across the road. “This fault line, tell me. Where does this lead?” 

“Further down,” Jenny directed. “But what’s this got to do with the disappearances?” 

The Doctor picked up his scanner and pointed towards the other side of the road. The beeping and whirring seemed to increase, sounding like someone passing a metal detector. “Everything,” was all he said. “Come on… allons-y!” 

Jenny and the Doctor crossed the road and travelled on the surface of the fault line, trudging deep into a forestry area that seemed out of place in a futuristic town like Tremorton. The trees grew thicker and larger, concealing the sunlight with leaves and the sounds of cars and machinery were replaced with the soft whistle of the wind. 

The two soon reached where the fault line originated from; it was located in a clearing not far from the edge of the town, a large crater in the centre of it. Signs were all over the edges of the crater, warning anyone to stay as far back as possible while also advising not to use any pogosticks, jackhammers or to play hopscotch near it. Jenny had seen a similar sign beforehand near where the fault line originally stopped. 

Ignoring the signs, the two reached the edge of the crater. The hole led deep underground somewhere, obscuring the bottom with absolute darkness. The Doctor pointed the scanner towards the crater. The device whirred rapidly until eventually bright sparks emerged from the radio exterior, causing the machine to go completely kaput in the Doctor’s hand. 

“Woah!” the Doctor reacted, pulling his face from the blinding light. He then shook it, trying to see if it was still operating. Once he saw it was no longer working, he tossed it on the ground. “Guess we’re at the end of the line…” 

“It’s just a crater,” Jenny observed, trying to see what lies beyond the crater. “Where’s the missing people?” 

“Not sure yet,” the Doctor replied. “But wherever they are, they’re underground somewhere. We need to get down there somehow. I would use my ship but I’m not sure if there’s any space for her to land.” 

Jenny rubbed her chin in thought. “Hmm…” she murmured. An idea then hit her suddenly. “Here, let me try something.” 

Jenny’s chest opened, revealing the screen that her mother often uses to communicate with her both willingly and unwillingly. But instead of her mother, the screen displayed a colourful circle that circulated in a regular fashion. She then extended out her arm and slithered it into the crater’s dark abyss and continued to reach towards the bottom until her arm was no longer able to extend. 

The Doctor was impressed, putting on a pair of glasses to examine the monitor closely. “You made yourself into a sonar,” he said. “That’s brilliant. Here I was thinking that you were only used for combative purposes…” 

“I’m full of surprises, Doctor,” Jenny said with a slight smile. “Do you see anything on the monitor?” 

The Doctor squinted his eyes, gazing at the sonar display. The circular motion was frequent but soon enough a small white dot appeared on the screen. “Yup, picking up something under the surface,” he then frowned as he looked at some of the readings. “Oh but that’s strange though…” 

“What is it?” 

“It’s unusual,” the Doctor said. “There’s certainly something under there but it doesn’t look like a cave or anything. It’s something not strictly Earth in origin.” 

“So we’re dealing with aliens then?” Jenny wondered, the display monitor returning into the depths of her chest as she retracted her arm to her normal length. 

“Quite possibly,” the Doctor muttered, tucking his glasses back into his suit pocket. “But we won’t know until we get down there. Jenny, are you able to shift into something that can get us there safely?” 

Jenny confidently nodded. “Sure thing, Doctor,” she said. “Hold on tight…” 

The Doctor looked at the teenage robot, confused. “Hold on? What do you mean hold—?” 

Before he could finish that question, Jenny grabbed the Doctor and she immediately propelled herself in the air. She then proceeded to swoop down and dive bomb into the crater. As darkness engulfed them, the Doctor immediately closed his eyes. He had fallen into a pit once before and lived to tell the tale, but at this speed? He was going to be killed instantly if Jenny didn’t control herself. 

Jenny did slow her descent soon enough, changing her trajectory to collide with the dirt and rocks that surrounded them. But, in the brief moment that the Doctor opened his eyes, he saw that, just as they were about to make contact with the dirt, Jenny’s pigtails collapsed into her head and were replaced with a gigantic drill. 

The drill instantly spun and cleared the dirt away from both Jenny and the Doctor, leaving them relatively unscathed from any debris. The Doctor presumed that Jenny knew where she was going, as she probably had the information from her sonar equipment somewhere hidden in her robotic interior. But if only Jenny found a more suitable way to get to where they needed to go. 

Jenny eventually drilled her way into an empty abyss, almost like a makeshift cave. The drill in Jenny’s head switched back into her regular pigtails as she landed and put the Doctor back on solid ground. 

The Doctor brushed a few crumbs of dirt off his long coat, an unhappy frown on his face. “What do you do that for?” he said, almost in a scolding tone. 

Jenny didn’t like how the Doctor had spoken to her. “You said you wanted to get down here,” she retorted. “Well, here we are. I don’t see the problem here.” 

“There were other ways to get down here,” the Doctor muttered. 

“This way worked, didn’t it?” Jenny simply shrugged. “Besides, I got us where we needed to go. See?” 

Beyond where they were standing, lodged into the foundations of the cave, was a structure that resembled a large spaceship. From the place where Jenny had drilled, they appeared to be standing near the top of the ship. However, neither of them could tell what the spaceship looked like exactly as the ship was embedded into the rock itself. There were many triangular and rectangular shapes that made up the exterior, all covered in worn out and almost rusty metal. 

The ship’s exterior lights illuminated the cave, which indicated that power had been restored to the ship’s systems and whoever or whatever was piloting it was still alive. And that’s what interested the Doctor the most. 

“It’s a ship,” the Doctor said. “I wondered where those teleportation signals were coming from… but this? This shouldn’t even be operating.” 

“Why’s that?” Jenny asked. 

“Because this ship is old , really old,” the Doctor replied. “Like… oh—” 

“What is it, Doctor?” 

“That earthquake, when did it happen again?” the Doctor then queried. 

Jenny raised an eyebrow. “Three hundred years ago, why?” 

“Three hundred years, this ship has been buried here. So much that the Earth itself formed around it,” the Doctor said. “It wasn’t an earthquake that caused that giant crack… it was this ship, it crashed and landed right here.” 

“So it’s been running underground all this time?” 

“No, I don’t think so. Not in this state anyway,” the Doctor said. He pointed to some spots on the spaceship that were eroded and were blackened with scorch marks. “Look at those marks, this ship was shot down.” 

“Shot down?” Jenny said. “But Earth didn’t have the technology back then…” 

“Who said Earth was responsible?” the Doctor muttered. He then jumped down to the ship below. “Come on, there’s an access hatch ahead.” 

Jenny nodded and jumped down to join him. Her metal feet collided with the metallic surface of the ship, leaving behind a loud echo that travelled through the entirety of the cave. She stopped and looked around, wondering if any lasers or other security measures would soon activate. But she was surprised to see that nothing happened, not even an alarm. 

Jenny shrugged it off and continued to walk to the access hatch. It was a nice change of pace from all the other times she had to sneak into somewhere. 

When Jenny reached the Doctor, he was kneeling over the access hatch he saw. The hatch was a circular panel and was integrated into the ship’s exterior well but what gave it away was the large handle that slapped in the middle of it. 

The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and traced it around the edge of the panel. As soon as the blue light rotated around the whole panel, Jenny could hear the whole thing hiss underneath the surface. The Doctor put his screwdriver back into his pocket and lifted the panel off, placing it next to the hole that the now opened panel had revealed. 

Even though Jenny couldn’t exactly feel the way normal humans do, she could feel the slight chilling sensation that emerged from the open hatch. She looked down and saw only a dark corridor below, which, despite being barely lit, had a nice blue hue to it,  as if it was underwater. There was no ladder or small lift or any possible way to get down safely, it was simply a hole in the ship. 

But that didn’t deter the Doctor as he gave Jenny a cheeky smirk before he jumped through the open hatch. 

“Here, jump down…” he said, holding up his arms so that he could catch Jenny. “I’ve got you.” 

“No need,” Jenny said as her pigtail rockets propelled her briefly into the air. She jumped through the hatch and hovered for a second before landing softly on the ground below. “But thanks anyway, Doctor.” 

From first impressions, the interior of the ship was cold. In the room they had entered, there were six strange-looking capsules on each side. They were completely covered in a tint of white frost, which had started to spread onto the walls behind them. Thick pipes were interconnected with each capsule, leading up to the ceiling and out into the corridor ahead. 

There was no noise, not even machinery. It was eerie but Jenny found it to be plain creepy. It reminded her of the start of one of those horror movies Brad showed her once, except she wasn’t going to be plagued with nightmares of being dismantled… at least, not yet anyway.  

Jenny shivered, folding her arms close to her body. “It’s cold in here…” she murmured. “What is this place anyway?”

The Doctor wandered over to one of the capsules, hands casually buried in his pockets. “Don’t know… the crew perhaps? Just locked in stasis… but how do they get out? I don’t see any timers or any control panels or anything. Just twelve capsules in one room…” 

Jenny examined the capsule opposite to where the Doctor was standing. She wiped the frost off one of the small circular windows and uttered a surprising gasp. 

There was someone inside the capsule, someone that didn’t look strictly human. It resembled a robot of some kind, but it didn’t resemble any robot that Jenny had ever seen. It didn’t match any of her mother’s inventions nor did it resemble anything that the Cluster had created to destroy her. 

From what Jenny could see, it had a face with no visible human-like features like a nose, ears, or a visible mouth. Instead it had two black hollow eyes which were shaped like teardrops and a small grill which Jenny figured it was for communication purposes. On top of the figure’s head were two handlebars which connected down to each side of its head, a feature Jenny couldn’t figure out the purpose for. 

The teenage robot stared into the figure’s eyes and she felt suddenly uncomfortable. She felt like she was staring into pure evil, there was no emotion emitting from those eyes. In fact, it was soulless. From those eyes alone, this robotic figure was everything that Jenny was sometimes accused of being; an empty shell, a mere machine. 

And for a brief moment, Jenny thought she saw its head twitch. 

Jenny had to stand back, freaked out by the metallic figure inside. “Um… Doctor?” she muttered timidly. 

The Doctor turned around and saw Jenny’s anxious expression. He approached the other capsule carefully. He peered into the window, a frown plastered on his face, and then proceeded to knock on the glass politely. 

The figure inside didn’t respond or make any attempts to move. Jenny quietly sighed with relief. 

“It’s alright… still asleep,” the Doctor reassured her. 

Jenny cautiously stood next to the Doctor, getting a second glance of the metallic humanoid inside. “What is that?” 

“Nothing good,” was all the Doctor, his expression as cold as the room they were in. But Jenny could see history in the Doctor’s eyes, and it wasn’t filled with pleasant memories.

“Wait… you know this thing?” Jenny then asked. 

The Doctor nodded. “I’ve met them before… many times.” 

“Who are they?” 

“Cybermen,” the Doctor said grimly. 

Jenny tilted her head in confusion. “Cyber-what?” 

“Cybernetically augmented humanoids, human brains strapped into metal shells,” the Doctor explained. “They want every living thing to be like them.” 

Jenny’s face fell. Converting humans? Turning them into these… Cybermen? Not even the Cluster stooped to that level. They simply only wanted to seize the Earth for themselves. “Crikey, that’s barbaric,” she murmured. “Why would they do that?” 

“To survive originally,” the Doctor said. “But I think that changed overtime, corrupted into something else…” 

“It’s a cruel way to survive,” Jenny said, her pigtails slightly drooping down.

“The funny thing is, these models resemble a faction of Cybermen from a parallel universe…” the Doctor then observed. “The Cybermen from our world don’t usually look like this. Well, at least the last time I met them anyway. And that was a long time ago.”

“What’s so funny about that?” Jenny wondered. 

“Those Cybermen never possessed a ship, they fell into our universe through a weakened point in reality,” the Doctor replied. “So, the question is, how could they have gotten one so quickly?” 

“Perhaps they stole it?” 

“No… I don’t think so,” the Doctor said. “It’s possible that the two factions, the one from our world and the one from the other world, met at some point, found that their technology was compatible and collaborated, mixing until a new form of Cybermen was created… one that might be more dangerous.” 

“So, if these Cybermen are dormant…” Jenny said. “Then who’s been taking those people?” 

“Good point,” the Doctor said. “Now there should be a main control room somewhere in the ship, maybe we can track them down from there…” 

Jenny’s arm elongated slightly, an unnecessarily large laser cannon emerging from her forearm. “Well, what are we standing around here for?” she then muttered, heading towards the door nearby. “Time that these Cybermen went to the scrap heap!” 

Despite not being keen on what Jenny was about to do, the Doctor didn’t make any attempt to stop her. “Careful, there might be traps!” he exclaimed. 

The Doctor was about to pursue her when he suddenly stopped in his tracks, realising what he had just said. He remembered saying that to… before she… 

Memories tried to surface in the Doctor’s head, memories he shook off easily. He didn't have time to reminisce, he had more important things to do right now. 

Jenny opened the door and it slid open. But what she didn’t expect to see was a Cyberman standing behind it. The rest of the Cyberman was bulky and resembled a suit of armour rather than the sleek robotics that Jenny was used to seeing. This wasn’t a robot that was capable of fitting in with humanity, this Cyberman was almost proud of being more of a machine than a man. 

After seeing the Cyberman, the Doctor immediately put himself between Jenny and the metal man. 

“Right, yes, hello!” the Doctor started to bluff, sporting a cautious smile. “Sorry, we must've gotten a little lost. We’ll just take our leave now.” 

The Doctor motioned Jenny to move towards the access hatch but the Cyberman soon started to follow them, its loud footsteps echoing in the chamber. 

“Intruders located,” the Cyberman said, sounding as cold and emotionless as its robotic exterior. “Scans indicate non-human hostile elements. Hostiles will be deleted.” 

As the Cyberman advanced towards them, two more Cybermen stepped through the door. These Cybermen were identical to the one in front of them, but these two had silver handles on their head as opposed to the black ones the first one sported. 

Jenny pushed past the Doctor. “Oh yeah?” she said. “Delete this!” 

As Jenny raised her weapon, the Cyberman, like lightning, quickly grabbed her wrist and started to crush it. The force of the Cyberman’s grip started to dismantle Jenny’s laser cannon until the entire weapon was dismantled and crumbled onto the ground in little pieces. 

“Your weaponry is futile,” the Cyberman said. “You are no match for Cyber technology.” 

Jenny then transformed her free hand into a giant hammer, which Jenny dubs as one of her ‘Mighty Mallets’. She prepared to swing it towards the Cyberman’s head. 

“Jenny, don’t!” the Doctor exclaimed. 

Unfortunately, Jenny didn’t listen and swung the mighty mallet towards the Cyberman. To her surprise, the Cyberman also caught the handle of the mallet before it could make any contact. Then it began to pull and Jenny felt every single piece of machinery connecting it rip out of her arm. The mallet gave way and the Cyberman threw it down onto the ground alongside the pieces of Jenny’s laser cannon. 

“That’s not—” Jenny was in disbelief. She felt weak, possibly for the first time in a while. “You’re not supposed to—” 

“We are the Cybermen. We are superior,” the Cyberman said. “You are inferior. We can make you better. You can be upgraded.” 

Jenny grimaced. “Sorry, but big bulky armour isn’t exactly my style.” 

“Style is irrelevant. We can make you better,” the Cyberman said. “Take this unit to the conversion chamber.” 

The Cyberman on the right marched towards Jenny. Due to her weapons and abilities being proved useless against the Cybermen, Jenny was left defenseless. The Cyberman put his hand on Jenny’s shoulder and, on contact, her systems suddenly surged with powerful electricity. Jenny found herself unable to move, as if she was hit with a paralysing beam. 

“No, don’t hurt her!” she heard the Doctor call out. “She’s not—” 

But the Doctor was cut off when the main Cyberman backhanded him, sending him crashing into one of the capsules and knocking him onto the ground. Jenny couldn’t say anything or attempt to save him. She watched as the Doctor laid unconscious, leaning against the wall in between the capsules. 

Then everything went black. 

Jenny collapsed onto the ground, eyes black and showing no indication of activation. The Cyberman that shut her down managed to pick her up and sling her over its shoulder. Then the foot soldier proceeded to leave the chamber and head to the conversion chamber, as ordered by their leader.    

The other foot soldier stared down at the Doctor’s motionless form. “What about the humanoid?” it asked. 

“No, he is not like us,” the Leader said. “Brain and binary vascular system incompatible. He is no use to us.” 

“Maximum deletion?” 

“Negative,” the Leader said. “Leave him. Our plans are already in motion.” 

The Cyber-Leader and the foot soldier moved towards the exit, leaving the Doctor all alone in the chamber. To think that the Cyber-Leader immediately detected them as soon as they entered the ship, there was no one in the universe able to outwit the Cybermen. 

But it wasn’t the Doctor that gave them away, it was the robotic humanoid that interested the Cyber-Leader more. A machine that sounded human yet contained no human components inside. It could feel and experience emotions, the one thing that the Cybermen refuse to have. It was a weakness. The Cybermen don’t feel, which makes them more superior. 

However if the unit was upgraded, all that technology mixed with their own? The Cybermen would be unstoppable and not even their enemies could stop them. They could convert millions, forging a world full of unity and lack of fear. A world built by the Cybermen. 

The Cyber-Leader stopped itself, viewing the entirety of the ship. It was full of chambers, just like the one where the Doctor and Jenny found themselves in. They were all closed and the corridors were empty, devoid of any life. 

“We will awaken,” the Cyber-Leader said. 

As if by telepathic command, all the doors swung open simultaneously. The silence was then filled with loud, thundering footsteps, all marching in unison. Soon enough, dozens, most likely hundreds, of Cybermen emerged from the chambers. The stomping then ceased, as each individual Cyberman looked up towards their leader. Besides exiting their capsules, the Cybermen made no other attempt to move. 

They were waiting for one simple command. 

“We will conquer this world,” the Cyber-Leader exclaimed. “We will advance.” 

The ship was then illuminated by a dazzling white light, spread out across all the individual Cybermen. Then, one row at a time, the Cybermen started to disappear, teleporting out of the ship and to the surface for the first time in three hundred years. 

And above the ship, and seemingly unaware of what was about to happen to them, was their first destination. 

A town named Tremorton. 

Chapter Text

Everything was black. It had been a while since the last of the Time Lords had closed his eyes and rested, so long that he couldn’t remember the last time he did. Perhaps it was a Monday or a Wednesday, he had no idea. Time, space, the day or the date was no issue to the Doctor, as he could walk among eternity and feel only seconds pass. 

He had been travelling alone for so long, seeing incredible sights, meeting different people and facing terrifying threats. Although the last part wasn’t always intentional. In fact, his latest trip was a complete accident. He was meant to land in Las Vegas in the 1970s to meet up with Elvis, but instead landed somewhere else. Somewhere… new. 

What was that place called again? Tremont? No, that was in Pennsylvania… the Doctor would know if he was in Pennsylvania. 

What was the name? What was the name?

Tremorton? Yes, that was the name. He landed in a place called in Tremorton in 2070, a hundred years from when he was meant to be. But why was he here again? 

Then the Doctor’s memory started to remind him. He remembered the Cybermen and the ship that’s hidden beneath the town. He also remembered XJ-9, a kind robot with the mindset of a teenager… pretty sure she was down here with him as well. 

No, her name wasn’t XJ-9, she said she changed it. 

Jenny. That was her name. 

But wasn’t the name of…? 

No, she was gone. Long gone. This was a different Jenny… and she was… 

Taken. 

Immediately the Doctor’s eyes shot open. “Sontarans! Perverting the course of human history!” he exclaimed mindlessly. Pain then surged through his head and he rubbed it as he recollected his thoughts together. “Uh… what?” 

The Doctor looked around, trying to determine where he was. He was in the chamber on the Cybermen’s ship, in fact he was on the ground and leaning against the wall. He wondered why the Cybermen had left him here; while he didn’t have the compatible parts to be converted, surely they should’ve imprisoned him right? 

He then glanced at the capsules, which once housed dormant Cybermen, and saw that they were wide open… and empty. 

And he was alone. 

“Jenny…” the Doctor muttered, scrambling back onto his feet. 

While the Doctor was heading towards the exit, his head was still seemingly unaware that it needed to wake up. His vision was blurry and his eyes felt like they were swimming, making him see double of everything and causing him to lose his balance. 

The Doctor leant against the wall and tried to open the door with the control panel next to it. He pressed many buttons but had no luck, it was locked. That made sense, must’ve locked after the Cybermen in this chamber had left. 

Still dizzy, the Doctor fished out his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and used it on the control panel. Once the blue light illuminated the panel, it immediately sparked with a magnitude of electricity. Once the electricity died down, the door slid open instantly. 

Quickly putting his sonic screwdriver away, the Doctor cautiously popped his head through the door. His head dashed from side-to-side like an alert meerkat, seeing if there were any patrolling Cybermen in the hallway. 

But there was nothing there. The Doctor wasn’t sure if he was extremely lucky or something was waiting for him somewhere in the depths of the ship. But he couldn’t find that out just staying in one corridor, so he stepped into the hallway and carefully cruised through the ship. 

Heading down the hallway, the Doctor found himself near some sort of balcony or viewing space. The Doctor leant against the railings and saw what seems to be the entirety of the ship. Dozens and dozens of identical corridors were laid out in front of him, all with multiple doors that led to other chambers

And they were all open… with no Cybermen in sight. 

“All gone…” the Doctor muttered, anxiously rubbing the back of his head. “Oh, that’s not good. Not good at all.” 

But dealing with the Cybermen would have to wait for now, right now he needed to find Jenny. 

“Okay, okay… where did they take you, Jenny?” the Doctor then rambled to himself. “Come on, think! Where did she—? Oh, that’s right, the conversion chamber! Not that I know where that is exactly! But I know where I can find out!” 

His thoughts immediately turned to the bridge, where the central control room was, which, by the Doctor’s estimate, shouldn’t be too far from where he was. He hoped so, anyway. 

The Doctor left the viewing area and traversed further down the hallway, seeing nothing but open doors and empty chambers as far as he could see. Being alone on the Cybermen’s ship made the Doctor’s concerns grow considerably. Because if there were no Cybermen then they were all active and possibly kickstarting an invasion of Earth. 

Eventually, the Doctor saw an elevator when he reached the end of the corridor. He stepped onto the wide platform and examined the control panel in front of him. The Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver and pressed it against the panel, which whirred to life at an almost instantaneous rate. 

The Doctor remained silent as the elevator rose to one level after another, many things plaguing his mind. How did he not know of the Cybermen ship under the Earth? He could’ve stopped them before, perhaps moved them away before they crashed here… and meanwhile, he was going to travel to Las Vegas. At least, he now knew why the TARDIS brought him to Tremorton in the first place. 

But most importantly, he wondered if Jenny was alright. If the Cybermen got a hold of the technology that resided inside of her then it would be bad news for the entire world. They could evolve, to the point where they were almost unstoppable. 

The Doctor wasn’t going to let that happen. He was going to save Jenny, then he’ll stop the Cybermen. He’s won against them before, and he wasn’t planning on breaking that streak. 

The elevator then shuddered as it reached its destination; the floor where the bridge resided. The Doctor exited the elevator and opened the door to the bridge with the sonic screwdriver. 

As he walked in, he saw that the bridge had a large throne in the centre of the room. Like the ship itself, the throne was metallic and was connected with various amounts of wires and coils that led up towards the ceiling. In front of the metal throne was an array of control panels that was set up in a semi-circular fashion, all the monitors black and clearly inactive. 

And, like with the rest of the ship, there was no trace of the Cybermen. Not even the Cyber-Leader, who would fit with the throne of steel that currently laid empty. 

The Doctor headed over to the control panels and sat himself on one of the chairs, putting on his glasses as he turned the monitor on. 

But before he could search for Jenny’s whereabouts, the Doctor’s curiosity got the better of him as he found himself searching through the Cybermen’s records. 

“Alright… So where did you lot come from?” the Doctor pondered to himself. 

The Doctor didn’t find much while searching through the records, it was a lot of technical gibberish that he didn't have the time to go through. But, while quickly skimming through a few records, he did manage to find out some information. 

“...Part of the Twelfth Cyber-Legion?” the Doctor mumbled. “Oh, you’re very far from home. 52nd century as a matter of fact. So what brought you all the way here?” 

The Doctor then found a data entry that may have given him the answer. He read that the Twelfth Cyber-Legion was attacked by an individual, but the entry gave no description to what this intruder looked like, and the entire fleet, aside from this ship and another, was decimated. 

This event got more interesting when the Doctor found why the fleet was destroyed. Apparently the intruder wanted information on a place called Demon’s Run. To the Doctor, there was no familiarity to that name yet it was a name that the Cybermen apparently knew. The records didn’t indicate what ‘Demon’s Run’ was, only that the fleet was blown up as an indication of threat. 

Unfortunately the answer to how the remaining Cybermen got away was left unresolved, the rest of the records only coming up with blank pages full of straight horizontal lines. As much as his curiosity wanted to explore further, the Doctor had enough knowledge to partly piece the story together… for now. 

The Doctor flicked away the records and began to search through the surveillance archives. He managed to isolate the last ten minutes or so to see where the Cyber-Leader took Jenny. He saw the leader knock him unconscious as they electrocuted Jenny until she fell onto the ground, still and completely deactivated. 

As the past version of himself also collapsed, the Doctor saw the Cyber-Leader pick the teenage robot up and threw her over their shoulder with relative ease. The Doctor was unable to pick up the audio so he couldn’t hear what the Cybermen were saying as they stared down at his unconscious form. 

Then the Cybermen left. The Doctor had to fast forward when the Cyber-Leader stopped to oversee his army awaken and teleport away, eventually resuming the footage as the last remaining Cybermen was teleported out of sight. 

The Doctor then skimmed through the footage of the Cyber-Leader and their foot soldier marching through the ship. He could see that they used the elevator that he used but they went down instead of going up. The Doctor flicked through many cameras to see where they went next. 

He eventually caught the two Cybermen in an obscure room. They were standing over Jenny, who was strapped to a table. Her eyes were still black and she hadn’t moved in the few seconds that the Doctor saw. There was no audio present but, even if there was, he wouldn’t be able to tell what the Cybermen were saying. They just stood there, not a hint of body language between them. 

The Doctor didn’t even try to fast forward the footage. He knew this was recent, which made him more than eager to put a stop whatever it was the Cybermen were doing to Jenny. 

“Ah, there we go!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Now to get myself down there. Best to give them a reason to head back up.” 

The Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it towards the metal throne. As soon as he activated the sonic, a small amount of sparks started to fly out of the wires attached and short but powerful puffs of steam spurted out from underneath the throne. Red lights started to flash all over the console, various warnings and alarms blaring out across the ship. 

Pocketing his sonic back into his pocket, the Doctor took a look from the monitor once again. The Cybermen started to move, looking around to see what the alarms were all about. They eventually stomped their way out of frame and out of the room. 

“That’ll keep you busy for a while,” the Doctor said as he stood away from the controls. “Don’t worry, Jenny. I’m coming…” 

The Doctor then dashed back towards the elevator and pressed the button to take it down to the lower levels. If his judgement was correct, and it always was most of the time, then the Cybermen wouldn’t have made it to the elevator when he gets to their level. He would have plenty of time to conceal himself somewhere, allowing himself to breeze past them undetected. 

Once the elevator shuddered and halted on the designated level, the Doctor peeked down the corridor for any trace of the Cybermen. Knowing the coast is clear, the Doctor carefully walked down the corridor. He was able to memorise what direction the Cybermen went as if he walked there himself, he even knew when to stop when— 

The Doctor stopped. In the distance, he could hear the faint sound of heavy metallic stomps marching towards him. Perfectly synchronized, like pistons in an internal combustion engine. It drew closer, so much that the Doctor’s ears started to ring from the noise. 

With the Cybermen edging closer, the Doctor ducked into one of the empty chambers and hugged the wall tightly. From the limited view he had, the Doctor could see the Cybermen walk past the chamber. As far as he could tell, they had no idea he was hiding nearby. 

“We must contain the damage,” the Cyber-Leader said. “The Doctor must not be allowed to destroy the ship.” 

The Cyber-Soldier stopped just by the door. “What about the XJ-9 unit?” it asked. 

“The XJ-9 unit is rendered inactive,” the Cyber-Leader replied. “She will do us no harm. She will lead us into the future.” 

“Will she become like us?” 

“She will be better than us,” the Cyber-Leader said. “Once our technologies merge, no one will be able to stop us.” 

The Cybermen continued to march towards the elevator, unaware that the Doctor was hiding nearby. When their marching became a faint noise in the distance, the Doctor emerged from the chamber and made his way to the room where they were holding Jenny. 

The Doctor soon approached a large sliding door, a door that automatically opened for him. No sonic required. Probably for the best, the Doctor figured, if the Cybermen were heading back to the control room then they could probably detect a door being opened with sonic technology. 

Stepping through the doors, the Doctor could see a motionless Jenny still lying on the table. Everywhere around her was darkened by a bright spotlight that hung over the teenage robot. The Doctor noticed parts of machinery and spare Cyberman pieces that looked bent, rusted or from previous models. 

However, the Doctor stopped dead in his tracks when he saw a lone Cyberman resting upright on an angled metal slab. The Cyberman didn’t look damaged or in the middle of an upgrade, it looked shiny and clean like it was fresh from the conversion chamber. However, it didn’t look complete. It was missing a few metal panels on its right arm and the central cavity was completely exposed, the core illuminated in a deep blue. Much like Jenny, it didn’t seem to move at the Doctor’s presence. 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. While all the other Cybermen had left the ship, this one was the only one, besides from the leader and his foot soldier, that remained. The Doctor only had one question; why? 

Putting that question away in the depths of his mind for now, the Doctor approached Jenny’s table. The Doctor was relieved that Jenny didn’t receive any damage, nor had the Cybermen tried to examine all the bells and whistles she had to offer. 

The way she laid there, still with no indication of life, threw the Doctor back into his memories, the deep dark place he hardly ever wanted to visit. He was back on Messaline, just after he stopped the seven day war between the humans and the Hath. He saw his daughter, just as still as Jenny was, lying on the stage in front of him, officially making him the last of the Time Lords once more. 

Let us give her a proper ceremony. I think it would help us. Please. One of the human soldiers said to him. It was the least they could do after their general delivered the fatal shot. 

The Doctor could only answer with a quiet nod. He didn’t even get to see the ceremony, part of him didn’t want to. It hurt too much. So he did what he normally did and left with Donna and Martha without saying another word. 

But his Jenny was gone… that was not going to happen to this Jenny. 

The Doctor then carefully lifted Jenny’s head up. On the back of Jenny’s neck was a small hole, which could potentially fit a key inside. Since Jenny clearly didn’t have the key on her, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and pressed it against the keyhole. The sonic whirred loudly for a moment before the light in Jenny’s optics started to flicker on and off frequently. 

Once Jenny’s eyes fully turned on, she sat up instantly. Despite being a robot, the teenager took a moment to catch her breath. 

“Huh? What? What’s going—?” she huffed. She looked around, wondering where she was. She then saw the Doctor behind her. “Doctor?” 

“Nice nap?” the Doctor said. 

Jenny felt some pain in her systems, she rubbed the back of her head. “What happened?” she murmured. “I remember we went onto the ship and then…” her eyes then widened. “Oh my gosh, the Cybermen! What happened to them?” 

“They’re all gone,” the Doctor said. “This ship housed hundreds of Cybermen, all locked in stasis. Now they’re gearing for an invasion…” 

Jenny started to sit up. “Then we need to stop them,” she said. 

“Agreed,” the Doctor nodded. “But first things first, we need to get off the ship… preferably before the distraction I set up wears off.” 

As Jenny stepped off the table and regained her bearings, she absent-mindly turned towards the lone Cyberman that was resting behind her. At first, she didn’t think anything of it. She just saw the rest of the scattered pieces of Cyber technology and assumed otherwise. But she did a double take and noticed that the Cybermen was more complete than the rest of the pieces around the room. 

When her optics spotted the Cyberman for the second time, she gasped. “Doctor, get back!” she said, forming a laser limb from her arm and pointing it towards the Cyberman’s head. “There’s still one onboard!” 

“Wait, wait, wait!” the Doctor quickly interjected, gently lowering Jenny’s arm. “Easy there, this one is inactive…” 

“You said that about the other dozen ones on the ship,” Jenny said, her aim still focused on the Cyberman. “And you were wrong about that!” 

“No, look at it,” the Doctor said, quietly approaching the supposedly inactive metal man “The metal is all new but there’s still some parts missing… I’d say this Cyberman is in a state of disrepair or perhaps maybe—” 

As soon as the Doctor was close enough to the Cyberman, the metal man immediately surged into life. It tried to lunge and grab the Doctor’s throat but he managed to quickly step back before the Cyberman could grab him. In fact, the Cyberman couldn’t get very far. Both of its legs were strapped down and the right arm was stiff, as if it was glued onto the surface of the table. 

But that didn’t stop the Cyberman from trying to pry loose. 

“Delete!” it called out, its soulless eyes staring straight at the Doctor as it tried to wiggle out of its restraints. 

The Doctor was about to grab Jenny and run, but the teenage robot had other ideas. Jenny immediately powered up her laser limb and fired it at the Cyberman’s chest. Electricity sparkled from the centre of the Cyberman, causing it to convulse wildly. The Doctor could hear the Cyberman cry out in pain, which sounded forced through the voice filter, and it reminded the Doctor that the Cybermen weren’t simple robots, this used to be someone else. Someone human. 

The lone Cyberman froze for a moment as the electricity dispersed, its hand still reached out towards the Doctor. It twitched before it slumped back onto the table, its arm limped off the table and swinging wildly. The Cyberman laid motionless, allowing both the Doctor and Jenny to approach it cautiously. 

“In a state of disrepair, huh?” Jenny muttered as she retracted her laser limb back into her arm. 

“Well… it is now,” the Doctor said. 

“So, this is a Cyberman?” Jenny then wondered, examining the steel armour. “Didn’t get a good look at them before one of them knocked me out.” 

As Jenny looked at the chest cavity, she saw a lot of wires attached to the central core. But there was a strange gooey substance stuck to the surface of the wires that made Jenny grimace slightly. 

“I didn’t expect there to be a lot of… organic parts,” she murmured. She then instantly regretted her next question. “That’s not… flesh by any chance?” 

“Unfortunately so,” the Doctor said. “It’s their central nervous system, artificially grown and threaded through the suit so it responds like a living thing.” 

Jenny shivered in disgust. “That’s gross,” she said. “I know you said that they did this to themselves in order to survive… but surely there had to be a better way than this, right?” 

The teenage robot saw the Doctor’s eyes flicker with sympathy as he looked at the lone Cyberman. “I wish there was,” he said. 

Then, a chilling monotone voice came from the Cyberman. “Why… am I… cold?” it muttered, struggling to utter every single word. Despite how emotionless the metal man sounded, Jenny could still hear a hint of confusion in its tone. It was as if the real person inside the suit had woken up for the first time. 

“It’s still alive,” Jenny said. While she still had some hostility towards the Cybermen, it pained her to see someone go through this process. To be taken and stuffed into a metal suit, it wasn’t a way to live. It felt more like a prison in her mind. It was something that she sadly felt like most times. 

“Oh… I’m sorry,” the Doctor said, with sadness in his voice. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Cold… pain… so much darkness…” The Cyberman managed to piece together. 

“Can you remember what your name was?” the Doctor then asked. 

The dim light on the Cyberman’s speaker grill lit up briefly, but no sound emitted from it. Instead, it was a series of undistinguished noises that sounded like failed pronunciation. Jenny couldn’t imagine how much pain the Cyberman was going through to just a muster a sentence or two. 

But eventually, the Cyberman managed to utter a name. One that Jenny took by surprise. 

“Mez…mer.” 

Her artificial heart then stopped. Jenny’s eyes widened at the mention of that name, a name she fully recognised. Her mind was boggled, almost in disbelief. It couldn’t be, her thoughts keep telling her. This must be some sort of trick, she tries to tell herself. 

It couldn’t be. This… isn’t right, her thoughts repeated over and over again. 

“Oh my gosh,” Jenny gasped, covering up her mouth in shock. 

For a moment, the Doctor was silent. He couldn’t believe it either. He stood there, also wide-eyed, simply staring at the robotic form of who used to be Mr Mezmer. Then his eyes gazed at Jenny, and the sympathy returned. “I’m sorry, Jenny,” he murmured. “He’s been fully converted.”  

Jenny felt the realisation set in. “Then those missing people?” 

“Also converted into Cybermen, I’m afraid,” the Doctor unfortunately confirmed. “But Mezmer seems to be quite recent by the looks of it.” 

The Cyberman, or what was left of Mr Mezmer, slowly turned his head towards Jenny. “I… know… you…” he mumbled, a sense of recognition in the tone of his voice. “You… are… XJ-9.” 

Jenny stayed silent, her mouth quivering in sadness. Even though she and Mr Mezmer never really knew each other, the last remnants of him, trapped in the metallic shell of a Cyberman, managed to recognise her. And she knew this would be the last time the two would ever interact. 

Where would she even begin? How do you ease someone into death? 

“It’s alright,” the Doctor assured her. “Talk to him.” 

Jenny only nodded but the words were trapped in her head. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t let the words escape. 

“XJ-9… Are… you… there?” the Cyberman murmured, hearing only silence. 

Jenny gripped Mezmer’s limp hand as a form of comfort. “I’m here,” she said, shakily. 

“Tell… me… something,” the Cyberman said. “Is… this… what… it… feels… like… to be… you?” 

That question stung Jenny, like a vampire being stabbed with a wooden stake. She had always found herself more human than most of the other robots on Earth. Most robots on Earth were only built to be mankind’s tool, but Jenny was made for so much more. She was built to protect the world, just so everyone can breathe easier when the sun rises. But she was also a teenage girl; she had thoughts and feelings just like a regular human would. 

But for someone to think, even after all she’s done, that she was just as heartless and lacked emotions like the rest of the Cybermen. It hurt her a lot. 

She could’ve stopped this. She could’ve saved this man from being converted into nothing but a metal shell. Maybe his opinion of her would’ve changed. 

Jenny shook her head. “No…” she said, her voice barely a whisper. 

“I feel… cold… so… cold…” The Cyberman’s voice dragged out “I… feel… so… much… pain…” 

Jenny fought back every hint of emotion she had, the constant mention of coldness and pain making it intensely difficult to cope with. “Why does he keep saying that?” she asked the Doctor.

The Doctor didn’t want to answer that. “His emotional inhibitor is broken,” he then replied reluctantly. 

“His what?” 

“It’s what keeps the Cybermen from feeling anything,” the Doctor said. 

“And why do they take away their emotions?” Jenny wondered. It was another question she would regret asking. 

Again, sadness entered the Doctor’s eyes. “Because the process hurts,” he muttered. 

Jenny turned her head away, if she looked at the metallic man any longer then she'd get even more upset. She couldn’t bear to witness the barbaric experimental nature of the Cybermen anymore. 

She had fought against many people with superhuman abilities, far beyond any logic that reality could come up with. They gained those powers willingly, as far as she knew, they had a choice to gain great power, but what they did with them was entirely up to them. It was their choice. 

But the Cybermen? They don’t give people a choice… this was an act of torture, a henious action that Jenny has never witnessed before. 

In the corner of her eye, she took another look at the shiny silver suit that the remnants of Mr Mezmer was trapped in. While there were no traces of his human self left, his mind was still there. He recognised her. Maybe there was still a chance to save him? Maybe her mom could fix him? 

Surely it was possible…? 

“Is there anything we can do?” Jenny insisted, her lip quivering as she spoke. “There must be some way to reverse this, right?” 

The Doctor shook his head. “No… I’m sorry, Jenny,” he said quietly. “Who he was before is long gone.” 

“So… cold…” Mezmer spoke up again, much slower and more drained out. He didn’t have much of his humanity left. 

“So sorry,” the Doctor murmured. He then put his sonic screwdriver inside the chest cavity. “You sleep now, Mr Mezmer… just go to sleep.” 

He activated the sonic screwdriver, permanently switching off what was left of Mr Mezmer. The blue light in his chest flickered for a brief moment, before dimming slowly until the light was snuffed out completely. 

Mezmer’s grip loosened in Jenny’s hand before going limp, she watched as the Cyberman’s emotionless eyes stared straight up at the ceiling and remained frozen. Dead. 

The Doctor’s eyes drifted over to the exposed circuitry on the Cyberman’s arm, glazing over all the small pistons and excessive wiring that were stuffed inside. In the place where his wrist would be, the Doctor saw a small translucent ring hiding amongst the wires. The Doctor dug a finger inside and grabbed the ring, holding it close to his face to examine it.  

“Ah… teleporter module,” he muttered, lifting the ring into the dim spotlight above him. Through the light, he could see some small machinery encased in the transparent exterior. “If I can just modify it then maybe it can get us off the ship…” 

With two short blasts from the sonic screwdriver, the module started to glow a bright white in the Doctor’s hand. Before the Doctor could explain to Jenny how this small piece of tech worked, he looked to see that Jenny’s gaze was still fixed on the Cyberman. She looked almost defeated, and drained of any hope. 

“Jenny… you okay?” the Doctor said. 

Jenny blinked, as if she was returning to reality. She gave an almost quiet nod. “I’m alright,” she muttered. 

The Doctor caught a glint of the teenage robot’s eyes. Watery. She was crying. 

No wonder the Cybermen wanted to study her, the idea of a fully mechanical robot being able to convey emotions would’ve completely bewildered them. They would’ve felt threatened, as the Cybermen always thought that the only way to be the superior beings was to remove emotions completely. 

“You sure?” he then asked, knowing that she was lying. 

Tears streamed down Jenny’s face. “It’s just— I’ve never—” she struggled to gather a sentence together. “This shouldn’t have—” 

Then she broke. To the Doctor’s surprise, she raced into his arms in a tight embrace and started to sob into his shoulder. Initially winded by the sudden amount of metal that had collided with him, he eventually returned the gesture. 

The Doctor knew the pain, all the sorrow she went through. As his eyes drifted towards the dead Cyberman, his thoughts were the same as Jenny’s. 

He could’ve stopped all this. No… he should’ve stopped this. 

“Hey, there was nothing we could’ve done,” the Doctor assured her. “But we can stop this from happening to anyone else. We can’t let the death of this man or any of the other missing people be for nothing.” 

The Doctor then separated himself from Jenny, allowing her tear-stained optics to look at him.  He then put on a smile, one that was comforting and kind. “Brave heart, Jenny…” he said. 

“I’m sorry,” Jenny mumbled, wiping the tears off her face. “I haven’t really seen anyone… you know, die before…” 

“Let’s hope you never have to again,” the Doctor said. 

“Have you, Doctor?” Jenny then asked. “Have you seen people die before?” 

The smile then slowly faded from the Doctor’s face. He distanced himself slightly from her, a slight dark look flickered in his eyes. It was unspoken, but Jenny thought it was an obvious ‘yes’. 

“We should head back,” the Doctor murmured. “The Cybermen are probably in Tremorton already,” 

“Might take us a while to head back, even with my jet boosters,” Jenny said. 

“Which is a good thing I have this,” the Doctor said. He held out the small transparent machine that he pulled from Mezmer’s robotic interior and showed it to Jenny. 

Jenny’s eyes squinted at the machine in the Doctor’s hand. “And that is… what exactly?” 

Before the Doctor could answer, the door to the lift then opened. The first thing the two of them heard was the stomping, the same heavy thumping noise that the Doctor has heard many times. It echoed in his ears, almost like a bad dream. 

The two Cybermen soon entered and the cold, blackness of their eyes locked on to where the Doctor and Jenny were standing. The leader stood menacingly as the foot soldier raised their arm towards the Doctor, a small blaster popping up from their forearm. 

“Halt!” The Leader exclaimed. “Hostile elements, the Doctor and XJ-9, have been sighted! Delete! Delete! Delete!” 

The two Cybermen slowly walked towards them. As much as Jenny wanted to aim one of her own weapons at them, she quickly remembered that their last encounter didn’t quite work well for her. The Doctor and Jenny stepped back towards the wall to avoid them, the Doctor was quickly fiddling with the teleporter module with a sense of urgency. 

“Well, that’s our cue,” the Doctor said. He pressed the centre of the teleporter module and it started to glow faintly. “Hold on, Jenny…” 

Jenny blinked in confusion. “Wait… hold on to what? Where are we—?” 

“Trust me,” was the Doctor’s only reply. He held his hand out. 

Jenny didn’t need to think twice. She nodded and took hold of the Doctor’s hand. The Doctor took one final look at the Cybermen and simply grinned smugly. 

“And… shazam!” 

The Doctor pressed the module in his hand and all Jenny saw was a bright whiteness. 

(---)

Jenny had instantly shut her eyes when she was engulfed by the white light. The very second she averted her optics, she no longer felt cold or crept out by the Cybermen’s presence. In fact, she felt quite warm. As if she was cradled and kept safe by something. 

She then felt the Doctor let go of her hand and a sudden barrage of excited footsteps on a metal surface. 

“Ha, worked like a charm!” the Doctor exclaimed with glee. “Knew you would let us in, old girl! Fantastic!” 

Jenny refused to open her eyes, she had no idea where they ended up. So why was the Doctor so excited all of a sudden? He did know that there was potentially an army of Cybermen nearby, right?

“You can open your eyes now, Jenny,” she heard the Doctor then say.

And open them, Jenny did. Instead of the cold, dark, possibly damp environment of the Cybermen’s ship, she was met with a technological wonder. It was a large control room of some kind, but larger than any ship that Jenny had been in. Six coral pillars surrounded a central console unit in a hexagonal pattern and, in-between the pillars, were an assortment of hexagonal-shaped lights that covered every inch of the walls. 

The central console itself was circular and was covered with many flashing lights, buttons, levers and other gizmos that Jenny couldn’t identify from the distance she was at. In the centre of the console was a tall transparent column that extended out towards the ceiling and faintly glowed with a hint of cyan. 

Jenny heard a hum through her sensors. It was quite pleasant, almost welcoming. There was something about this place that felt almost alive. 

The Doctor leant against one of the coral pillars, arms casually folded and a small smug smile was spread across his face. He watched Jenny gaze around in awe; seeing this type of reaction has never gotten stale in his many years of travelling through time and space. 

“Where are we?” Jenny wondered, looking around the console room. “What is this place?” 

“It’s called the TARDIS,” the Doctor said. “Time And Relative Dimension In Space.” 

“This is your spaceship?” Jenny queried. 

“Yes it is,” the Doctor confirmed.

“It’s a lot bigger than my mom’s spaceship,” Jenny muttered. “But what happened to the Cybermen’s ship?” 

“Still underground,” the Doctor replied. “Can’t say the same thing for the Cybermen themselves unfortunately.”

“So you brought your ship to us?” 

“No, I brought us to the TARDIS,” the Doctor showed Jenny the transparent device he had in his hand again. “Teleporter module, nicked it off Mezmer’s cybernetic circuitry before the Cybermen found us. Now normally the TARDIS won’t allow any form of Cyber-teleportation to enter inside, but I managed to find a loophole. Lucky, huh?” 

He then chucked the module aside. “Sadly, there was only enough for one trip, it fried every circuit just trying to break through.” 

“So, where’s your ship parked?” Jenny said. 

“Somewhere in the city,” the Doctor said. “Much quicker than drilling through the Earth itself.” 

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Funny… Well, your teleporter was no picnic either. At least mine was more—” 

The teenage robot was then silenced when her sensors picked up noise from outside the TARDIS. One of her pigtails instinctively transformed itself into an enlarged satellite dish, which was able to amplify what was going outside. 

Screaming. Panic. Metallic stomping. Many emotionless voices exclaiming only one single word. 

Delete. 

“What’s going on out there?” Jenny muttered, heading towards the TARDIS doors. 

She opened the doors and stepped outside of the TARDIS. Instead of the spaceship they were on earlier, they had ended up in an alleyway in downtown Tremorton. In the streets beyond, Jenny’s question had answered itself. 

People were quickly scurrying in all directions, screaming in terror as beams of laser fire were firing at them. Some laser blasts had missed their targets and impacted some of the buildings nearby, shattering the windows and engulfing the interior in a powerful explosion. 

Then the Cybermen emerged. A legion of ten or twelve of them prowled the street ahead, their footsteps marching together in perfect unison. Each of them had their arm raised, all equipped with a laser blaster that was locked onto what was in front of them. Buildings, people… none of that mattered to the Cybermen. 

“All humans will be upgraded…” one of the Cybermen exclaimed. “Hostile forces will be deleted!” 

The legion of Cybermen marched past the alleyway. Jenny ducked behind one of the larger bins and shifted one of her arms into her signature laser limbs. She heard the Cybermen’s movements suddenly cease, as if they were waiting or perhaps scanning their surroundings. Jenny readied her laser, ready to attack. 

Then she remembered what happened on the ship and she hesitated. The Cyber-Leader was able to counteract her weaponry like it was scrap metal. If one Cyberman was able to do that, then an entire army of Cybermen would simply rip her to shreds. 

Reluctantly, Jenny stayed hidden and retracted her laser limb. She felt useless. She wasn’t supposed to feel that way, she was meant to protect and help people. Clearly her programming didn’t anticipate the invasion of the Cybermen. 

After hearing the Cybermen’s footsteps grow quiet in the distance, Jenny emerged from her hiding spot. The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS and observed the damage, a grim look on his face. 

“It’s started,” he murmured. 

“I don’t know what to do, Doctor…” Jenny said. “If I can’t fight them then I can’t stop them!” 

“Don’t worry… we’ll think of something,” the Doctor assured her.  

“Maybe my mom knows how to stop the Cybermen… she can upgrade my weapons–” Jenny said. Then a sudden thought occurred to her and her eyes widened. “Oh my gosh, my mom! My friends! I need to find them!” 

“Alright, we’ll go find them,” the Doctor said with a nod. “Any idea where they will be?” 

“Probably at my house,” Jenny shrugged. 

“That’s a start,” the Doctor said. “Best to avoid the Cybermen while we can…” 

The Doctor peered out of the alleyway and scouted the area. There was no one around at the  moment, probably captured or killed at this point. Nothing that he could do for them for now, he needed to stop the Cybermen… quickly. 

Seeing that the coast was clear, the Doctor left the alleyway and quickly snuck across the street. Before Jenny could follow suit, she had stopped when she caught sight of the TARDIS. She had expected a large spaceship, like the ones most of the other aliens she’s met normally use, but she was staring at a tall, wooden blue box instead. 

Jenny quickly walked around the exterior of the TARDIS, she saw windows that she didn’t see earlier and signs above the doors marked ‘police public call box’. Jenny thought that was an odd choice for a spaceship, but she was more concerned about where the rest of the ship was. Surely this couldn’t be the whole ship? 

Jenny then checked the back of the TARDIS, wondering if the wall behind it was somehow connected. She was surprised to see that there was a slight gap between the TARDIS and the wall, she even stuck her hand in between, waving it about to see if there was any connection. 

No way, Jenny thought. 

“Wait… this is your ship?” Jenny then called out. “It’s smaller on the outside but bigger on the inside…” 

“Is it? Hadn’t noticed,” the Doctor said.  “No time for that right now, we’ve got to move!” 

Jenny nodded and trailed behind the Doctor, shaking her head of all thoughts related to the impossible nature of the TARDIS. Right now there were more important things that she needed to focus on right now. She wondered where her mother was during all this chaos, or if any of her friends were okay. She couldn’t bear the thought of any of them being turned into a Cyberman. 

She instantly deleted that thought from her mainframe. No, Jenny muttered in her head, I won’t let that happen. 

The Doctor and Jenny travelled through the streets of Tremorton, taking cautious steps so that the Cybermen wouldn’t discover them. They eventually arrive back at Mezmer's Diner, which looked like it had been ransacked of any food and supplies from the time that the two of them were there earlier. Since the front door had been chained shut, there were many broken windows which were obviously broken through from the outside. 

As the Doctor and Jenny walked past, a lone man stepped through one of the broken windows with his hands full with leftover supplies from the diner. From how he was casual he was walking away, one would think he was actually robbing the place instead of hunting for provisions. 

But as the man walked past one of the other alleyways nearby, a shape emerged from the shadows. Silver clad armour blocked the man’s vision and dark eyes simply stared down at him. A lone Cyberman. 

“Behind that car, quickly!” the Doctor urged, leading Jenny towards a nearby wrecked car. They both kneel down and watch the Cyberman approach the oblivious man. 

The Cyberman reached out, creeping towards the man to grab him. 

“Delete!” the Cyberman exclaimed. 

At the sound of the Cyberman’s voice, the man jumped and dropped all of his supplies “Ohmygod, help!” he shouted out. He stumbled backwards and tripped over, falling on his back. “Somebody help me!” he then cried out as he tried to crawl away from the Cyberman’s grasp. 

From behind the car, Jenny heard the man’s pleas for help. She knew that she was underpowered against the Cybermen’s technology and weaponry. But she didn’t care… She needed to help him. She had to help him. 

She stood up, prepared to face off against the Cyberman. She felt the Doctor’s hand on her arm. 

“Jenny, don’t–” the Doctor tried to stop her. 

“I have to,” Jenny said. 

The teenage robot stood up and left the car, striding confidently towards the Cyberman. “Hey!” she then called out. From her waist, a panel lifted up from the side and formed into a katana. “Leave him alone!” 

The Cyberman stopped terrorising the man and darted around to the sound of Jenny’s voice. “You are not human,” it said. “You will identify yourself.” 

Jenny frowned. “I’m the one who’s going to send you and your pals back to the smelting chamber!” 

The Cyberman’s head tilted slightly. “You will be taken to our leader,” it muttered. “You will be examined.” 

“I’ve seen the way your leader treats your guests… and I’m not eager to go through that again,” Jenny said, clutching the handle of her katana and getting ready to strike. 

“You will comply or you will be considered hostile,” the Cyberman said, hands forming into fists. “You will be deleted.” 

But Jenny made no sudden moves, and neither did the Cyberman. They were in a standoff, waiting to see who would make the first move. Jenny stared into the blackness of the Cyberman’s eye sockets, waiting to see if there was any flicker of life left inside that armour. However, the teenage robot could only feel a chill infect her internal rotary systems. 

“Del-” 

That’s when Jenny struck, she unsheathed her katana at lightning speed and aimed it directly at the Cybermen’s head. The Cyberman’s head flew above Jenny, landing on the ground nearby as the metal surface was scraped across the tarmac. Sparks of electricity erupted from the Cyberman’s neck and the body collapsed, convulsing and fidgeting on the ground until the body went completely stiff. 

Jenny could only look down at her enemy as she retracted her katana back into her body, not a hint of sympathy on her face. She managed to get one of them… but she knew that this victory would be a one-off. She couldn’t use that move on every single Cyberman. She wished she could but that would be impractical.  

Jenny then headed over to the man. “Are you alright?” she wondered, offering her hand to help the man. 

Surprisingly, the man slapped Jenny’s hand away. “G-Get back, robo-freak!” he stammered. He staggered back to his feet and ran down the street in a panicked haste. 

Jenny rolled her eyes. “You’re welcome!” she shouted back. She folded her arms and shook her head in disapprovement. “Some people… a whole invasion of evil robot men and somehow I’m still the bad guy.” 

Seeing now that the street was empty, the Doctor emerged from his hiding spot and headed towards where Jenny was standing. He wore a grim frown on his face as he looked upon the decapitated body of the Cyberman.  

“I had to, it left me choice,” Jenny then said. “Otherwise it would’ve killed that man, or worse converted him… like Mr Mezmer.” 

The Doctor’s face softened. “I know.” 

His softened gaze quickly turned serious as he looked at the street ahead. From eyeview, the street was empty, even the man Jenny saved had disappeared elsewhere. But while all was quiet, the Doctor had his suspicions. For an invasion, it was perhaps a bit too quiet for his liking. 

He then glazed over to the Cyberman’s head. The eye sockets, which were usually black, flashed a bright red in rapid fashion, a high-pitched beep emitting every couple of seconds. 

The Doctor’s eyebrow raised, having not seen that happen to a Cyberman head. Self-destruct? A signal perhaps? 

Then he heard the footsteps, the same old recognisable heavy footsteps, and his suspicions were confirmed. 

“Looks like we think we’ve got bigger problems now…” the Doctor muttered. He gestured over to the street where a multitude of Cybermen, five or six at most, turned a nearby corner and started to advance towards the Doctor and Jenny. 

“So what now?” Jenny said. 

The Doctor grabbed her hand. “We run!” he exclaimed. 

However, before the Doctor and Jenny could make a run for it, the group of Cybermen then stopped. All their heads looked up and slowly moved from side-to-side; something had caught their attention, but the Doctor wasn’t sure what.

“...or perhaps not?” the Doctor then murmured, letting go of Jenny’s hand. His eyes then followed where the Cybermen were looking. They were looking at the rooftops but, despite all the buildings having flat roofs, the Doctor couldn’t see what the Cybermen had detected. 

In an instant, the Cybermen were suddenly engulfed in a type of golden dust. The blast impacted the metallic men like some kind of smoke bomb, the gold dust growing and spreading into the air and effectively obscuring the Cybermen from view. At first, the Cybermen didn’t seem affected, in fact they didn’t seem really fazed by it. They remained still for a moment before deciding to keep moving towards the Doctor and Jenny. 

“What is that stuff?” Jenny asked as she and the Doctor shuffled backwards, taking a look at the dust while also avoiding the Cybermen. 

“Gold…” the Doctor murmured. “Powdered and manufactured into some type of weapon.”

“Gold?” Jenny said. “How would that affect the Cybermen?” 

The Doctor pondered that question for a moment. Then his eyes lit up. “Oh… Oh, I almost forgot about that…” he whispered to himself. 

As the rest of the Cybermen broke out of the gold dust, they immediately froze in place. Short spurts of electricity emerged from their joints, they fidgeted and convulsed like they were having some sort of seizure. 

One-by-one, the Cybermen fell to their knees. They clutched their necks, their voice filter letting out some mechanical equivalent of gasping for breath. Their breaths grew ragged and desperate before ceasing entirely, the metallic armour collapsing onto the ground entirely and becoming motionless. 

“Gold is an early weakness of the Cybermen, coats their respiratory systems and causes suffocation…” the Doctor said, kneeling down and examining the dead Cyberman in front of him. “I would’ve thought they upgraded from that ages ago.” 

“So gold is their weakness?” Jenny said, folding her arms in disbelief. “Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting that. Next you’ll be telling me that they could also be affected by cleaning fluid or something.” 

“Well…” 

Jenny’s eyes widened. “No…” she said. “You’re joking, right?” 

The Doctor didn’t answer that. He was busy thinking about something else. “Not many people know about the Cybermen around this time, or even around this place,” he contemplated. “So… the question is, who was smart enough to figure that out?”

Before the Doctor could find out, both he and Jenny darted around to hear something crashing into a nearby dumpster. Quiet, urgent mutters could be heard inside, as if whoever was inside was having a hasty discussion.

Three figures then climbed out of the dumpster, two looked probably around Jenny’s age and one looked smaller, which the Doctor assumed was a child… or maybe a very small man. They had an assortment of kitchenware strapped to them; pots for helmets, baking trays strapped to their chests and each wore oven glove mitts on their hands. Not that it would do much good when the Cybermen come looking for them. 

The Doctor then caught sight of one of the figures and recognised them immediately. It was Jenny’s friend, Brad. 

“Hiya, Doc!” he grinned, waving at the Doctor. 

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Right… him again.” 

“Brad?” Jenny squinted her eyes. “Is that you?” 

“Jenny!” Brad rushed over and gave the teenage robot a big hug. “Thank goodness you’re okay, I was so worried when you disappeared and then those metal guys showed up out of nowhere! But I’m glad to see you and the Doc are still, you know, living!” 

“So, you killed these Cybermen?” the Doctor wondered. “All on your own?” 

“Not just me!” Brad said. “Everyone else is here too!” He stood aside and showed that Sheldon and Tuck were with him. 

“Hi Jenny!” Tuck called out. “Check out this gun your mom gave me!” He held up what seems to be a modified t-shirt cannon, but instead of t-shirts in the barrel, it was gold pellets. 

“And I’ll be taking that, thank you!” Brad said, quickly snatching the weapon from Tuck’s hand. 

“But it’s mine!” Tuck protested.

“No it isn’t,” Brad said. “You’re literally holding the one I’m using.” 

Tuck put his hands on his hips. “What happened to sharing is caring?” 

“That doesn’t quite apply to guns…” Sheldon chimed in. 

“Can I at least shoot one silver man?” Tuck then tried to ask, his little arms reaching towards the cannon.

“Wh-no!” Brad exclaimed, pulling the cannon away from Tuck’s reach. 

“Fine…” Tuck muttered. “Can I take Sheldon’s gun instead?” 

Sheldon pulled his gun away from Tuck’s reach. “Yeah… I don’t think so.” 

“Wait, did you guys say that my mom gave you those guns?” Jenny wondered. 

“Yeah, they’re pretty cool right?” Sheldon said, admiration in the tone of his voice. “Who knew that Dr Wakeman could make cannons that can shoot gold with a t-shirt cannon, a kettle and some string?” 

“I’ll admit, they’re neat,” Jenny said. “But never mind that, where’s my mom? Is she alright?” 

Jenny would soon get her answer. “XJ-9!” a voice cried out from above. 

The group looked up to see someone on a jetpack flying right above them, their appearance obscured by the blinding sunlight. As the jetpack descended towards the ground and the clouds had drifted past the sun, the pilot who was using it was revealed to be a short grey-haired woman with a buttoned up orange lab coat. 

Jenny immediately rushed to the woman as she landed, a sense of relief overwhelming her systems. “Mom! What’s happening—?” 

However Jenny’s mother didn’t share the same relief. “And where have you been, young lady?” Dr Nora Wakeman scolded. “I didn’t program you to go off the grid, especially when the Earth is being invaded!” 

“I know, Mom!” Jenny tried to explain. “I was down on the spaceship that held these Cyber guys, but the Doctor and I got captured—” 

“A doctor? What are you talking about?” Wakeman looked behind Jenny and saw the Doctor standing there. She immediately frowned, almost as if she had recognised him. “Oh… it’s you,” she then muttered. 

“Mom, this is the Doctor—” 

“I’m well aware of who he is, XJ-9,” Wakeman said. Her gaze was then directed towards the Doctor. “I was wondering if you were going to show up at some point.” 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “I’m sorry… Do I know you?” 

“No, you may not know me,” Wakeman shook her head. “But I know you…” 

Brad raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, Mrs Wakeman?” he wondered. “Have you met this guy before?” 

Wakeman shook her head. “Not exactly. Look, I’ll explain later,” she said. “For now, we should retreat and get off the streets. There’s too many Cybermen for us to take on alone.” 

Jenny’s thoughts turned to the other civilians in danger. There were bound to other people like that man before that needed her help. “But Mom, I can’t just—” 

“No buts, young lady!” Wakeman interjected. “I’m not letting you face the Cybermen blind, not without the proper means to defeat them.” 

Jenny didn’t like it but she knew that her mother was right, that’s why she wanted to find her in the first place. She was right to assume that her mom had the equipment necessary to defeat the Cybermen… which begs another question. 

How did she know about them in the first place… and yet never said anything?

(---)

The Doctor, Jenny and the others reached the Wakeman residence within moments, just being lucky enough as the Cybermen didn’t make any further attempts to track them down. While the others assumed they had given up their search, the Doctor thought otherwise. The Cybermen were probably trying to use other methods to find them; they don’t tend to give up so easily. 

The Wakeman residence was larger than most of the other houses in the neighbourhood, and its external grey paint and large windows on the front made it stand out like a sore thumb. Not much of an ideal hiding place, the Doctor observed as he followed Dr Wakeman and the others towards the front door, but he had to admit that it was the only house that hadn’t been cleared out or been broken into. 

As soon as everyone entered inside, Brad and Tuck quickly made preparations to barricade the front door. As if they were in a piece of slapstick comedy, both of the brothers started to nail long planks of wood to the doors. The planks of wood were also reinforced by Sheldon slowly pushing a bookcase in front of them, which left him completely exhausted by the time he had finished moving it in place. 

When the barricades were finished, the three boys then met up with the Doctor, Jenny and Wakeman in Nora’s office. Wakeman had cleared a space in her already cluttered office and grabbed an assortment of old files from her filing cabinet. 

The Doctor looked over Wakeman’s shoulder and caught a glimpse of what the files had contained. There, he saw photos of the Cybermen. There were some of the early models of them that he recognised, but there were other forms of Cybermen that he hasn’t met yet. There was a particular photo of sleek-looking Cybermen in a cemetery that caught his interest, which was obviously from a time yet to come. 

“So Mrs Wakeman… how do you know so much about these Cybermen guys anyway?” Brad wondered as he examined an image of a Cyberman army in Paris. 

“From these records here,” Wakeman explained. “Years ago, back when I first joined the Skyway Patrol, there were other peacekeeping organisations across the world. Alliances were formed but dissolved as soon as everyone deemed the Skyway Patrol as incompetent and too reliant on paperwork, a claim that turned out to be true in recent times. One of those alliances was an operation in the United Kingdom…” 

She then turned to the Doctor behind her. “I’m sure you know what one I’m talking about, Doctor?” 

“UNIT,” the Doctor murmured. He had seen their logo on the files when Wakeman had pulled them out earlier. 

Tuck raised an eyebrow. “And what’s UNIT, exactly?” 

“Unified Intelligence Taskforce,” the Doctor said. “Protecting the Earth from extraterrestrial threats.” 

“So like aliens and stuff?” Sheldon said. 

The Doctor nodded. “Yes, like aliens and… stuff.” 

“And you know them?” Jenny asked. 

“I used to work for them… a long time, back in the 70s,” the Doctor said. “I was a completely different man back then.” 

“Hmm, quite literally as I’ve heard,” Wakeman muttered cryptically. 

Knowing what she was referring to, the Doctor decided to change the subject. “So, Mrs Wakeman was it? Where did you say you found these files again?” 

“At one of UNIT’s facilities that they had shut down years ago,” Wakeman said “I was hoping to find some information on some of the other alien visitors that XJ-9 has faced against. But nothing, instead I found files on the Cybermen. Originally I thought they were part of the Cluster, but I now realise that’s no longer the case.” 

“Hence why you knew about their weakness for gold,” the Doctor said. 

“Indeed,” Wakeman said. “Luckily I had some gold lying around the house… unfortunately, I was all out of cleaning liquid.” 

“But our gold is in short supply, there’s no way we can take on the whole entire army,” Sheldon chimed. 

“Can’t Jenny just make some gold for us?” Tuck then suggested. 

“Tuck, I’m not a miracle worker,” Jenny said. 

Brad shrugged. “Well, maybe your mom can upgrade you.” 

“Even if I could, gold isn’t a permanent solution,” Wakeman said. “It won’t be long until they upgrade themselves to rectify that problem.” 

“You know, you’re missing the most obvious thing here…” the Doctor then eventually spoke up. 

Wakeman raised an eyebrow. “And what’s that?” 

“Sorry, I’m just going to take over here,” the Doctor moved himself so that he was standing where Nora was before, essentially making him the centre of attention. “But if you want to stop the Cybermen then there’s only one way to stop them.” 

He instantly flicked open UNIT’s file on the Cybermen. It landed a schematic of the metallic armour that the Cybermen were currently using, which featured the inner and outer workings of the Cyber suit. Next to the schematic were photos of what presumably was dead Cybermen laid out on a table, with the date 2006 now etched in aged ink on the bottom of each of them. 

Wakeman frowned, not sure where the Doctor was going with this. “And your point being, Doctor…?” 

“We target their emotional inhibitors,” the Doctor said, pointing to the centre of the Cyberman’s chest. “If we can create a frequency that causes an overload, that’ll cause the Cybermen to feel… everything.” 

“What do you mean by everything?” Sheldon then asked, noticing the Doctor’s slight pause. “They’re just… robots, right? They can’t feel anything.” 

Sheldon looked at the corner of his eyes and saw Jenny with her arms folded and her face sporting the most disapproving glance he had seen in this live.

“I’m standing right here, you know,” she said.

Sheldon went red in the face as he realised what he said. “Um… right, what I meant was other robots besides you,” he said, trying to dig himself out of the hole created. “You’re one of a kind, Jenny.” 

Jenny wasn’t convinced. “Thanks, Sheldon,” she murmured as she continued to shoot daggers towards him. 

“Anyway…” the Doctor carried on. “Mrs Wakeman, you made those gold cannons yourself right? Which means you have a lab or workshop somewhere… I’m guessing through the hallway, second door on the right and downstairs, give or take a door or two?” 

Wakeman blinked, still processing the Doctor’s fast paced talking. “Why, yes, How did—” she murmured. She then frowned. “No, wait, hang on! How can I trust you?” 

“Jenny does,” the Doctor said. “Besides, you’ve heard about me… and you know that you can.” 

Wakeman stayed silent. She had read about the Doctor in the files she proclaimed from UNIT, she had seen many of his previous faces and some faces he’s yet to have. From the notes she’s read from people named Alistair and Kate, they sounded like they would lay out their life for him. Not many people can say that about someone, at least in Nora’s time anyway. 

“Hmm, yes… quite right,” Wakeman muttered. She then turned to Brad, Tuck and Sheldon. “You three, stay upstairs and watch out for any Cybermen,” she ordered. 

“Aye, aye captain!” Brad exclaimed, saluting and hitting his hand against the metal pot on his head. 

“What about me, Mom?” Jenny said. 

“You’ll be down in the lab with us,” Wakeman said.

“Shouldn’t I keep an eye out?” Jenny said. “No offense, but neither Brad, Tuck or Sheldon don’t have much of a chance if the Cybermen come.” 

Wakeman frowned. “Would you rather have them in the lab?” 

Jenny thought her mother was wrong to think that her friends would cause more harm than good in the lab, she knew that the boys weren’t incompetent. 

However she looked to see that Tuck had managed to steal Brad’s gold cannon from under his nose and had accidentally shot him, covering him entirely in gold dust, Jenny saw that her mother was right to worry. 

“Fair enough…” she mumbled. 

(---)

The Doctor, Jenny and Wakeman headed down the stairs and into the basement laboratory. The place didn’t look as used as the office upstairs, with dust covering every surface and large amounts of spider-webs stuck on all corners of the room. 

Littered all over the benchtops were pieces of technology, likely from broken inventions or possibly from ideas or projects that were deemed unsuccessful in Nora’s eyes. But to the Doctor, he sees something he can use against the Cybermen. 

“What’s with this stuff, Mom?” Jenny wondered as she examined what looked like some type of grenade. 

“This ‘stuff’ is an invention I have been working on…” Wakeman replied. “Or, at least I’m trying to anyway.” 

The Doctor came across a cylindrical device that had a satellite dish attached on the top. He snapped on his glasses and plucked all the spider-webs from the device. He lifted it so the device was now standing upright on the workbench. 

Nora noticed that the Doctor was looking at this particular invention and approached him. “Ah, you found my signal booster machine,” she said. “Such a shame I had never finished it…” 

“I’m guessing it amplifies any chosen signal?” 

“Correct,” Wakeman nodded. “I had originally built it to get a better signal on my television… but the invention was made redundant as soon as XJ-9 got up to the roof and made some adjustments to the dish.” 

“Hmm,” the Doctor said. “Maybe if we adjust a few things, we might be able to use this against the Cybermen.” 

“Unfortunately it’s not that simple,” Wakeman muttered. “To fully boost the signal, the machine needs to be in close proximity to whatever it is aimed towards. Which means…” 

“...We’ll need all the Cybermen in one place for it to fully work,” the Doctor finished off. 

“I could always fly it around town?” Jenny then suggested. 

“And if you miss one of them?” Wakeman said. “The Cybermen are too dangerous, only one is enough to convert hundreds.” 

“Well then, I won’t miss one then!” Jenny exasperated optimistically. 

“She’s right, Jenny,” the Doctor chimed in. “We can’t leave a single Cyberman. Not one.” 

Jenny’s face fell. “But—” 

“I know you can,” the Doctor reassured her. “But it’s just too risky.” 

Jenny folded her arms, feeling slightly defeated. “So, how do we get all the Cybermen in one place then?” she murmured. 

“Well, I don’t think the Cybermen would like it if a device like this was about to be set off in the middle of their ship…” the Doctor said. “I certainly won’t.” 

Jenny’s eyes widened. “Their ship?” she said. “We’re going back?” 

“It’s the only option,” the Doctor said. “Keeps the Cybermen away from the rest of the town, and it’ll disable the ship at the same time. It’s essentially two birds with one stone.” 

“No doubt it’ll be well-guarded from the last time we were there,” Jenny said. “How do you propose we get in this time?” 

The Doctor smiled. He went to his suit pocket and fished out a key, which to Jenny seemed like an ordinary house key. “Tell me, Jenny, what do you do when you’re trying to find your car in a big parking space?” 

“I don’t have a car,” Jenny said. “I asked Mom if I could get one, but she said I didn’t need—” 

“Just hypothetically.” 

Jenny shrugged, unsure where the Doctor is going with this. “Well, I would try to find where it is with the key…” 

The Doctor’s smile remained plastered to his face. “Right, well… it’s kinda like that, but slightly different.” 

The Doctor then pointed the key in front of him, similar to how he would point his sonic screwdriver. What Jenny had thought was a normal key started to shimmer in a golden light in the Doctor’s hand. 

At first, there was nothing. But not a second later, there was a slight breeze which, from inside of a basement, felt strange and out of place. As the breeze started to grow stronger, a peculiar box-like shape started to fade in and out of existence. A light on top of the box flashed brightly, which was soon followed by a noise that Wakeman had trouble describing. 

Before very long, and with a heavy thud, there was now a tall wooden blue police box in front of the Doctor. Wakeman had only heard stories, from her time working at the Skyway Patrol, about a blue box that would appear in severe times of need. She didn’t exactly believe the stories, having thought an idea of a blue box being a sign of hope to be completely ridiculous. 

And yet, here she was, seeing the TARDIS for the first time… and believe it or not, she actually felt a sense of hope as the blue box fully materialized. 

The Doctor immediately raced to the TARDIS doors and unlocked it with his key. “Right, grab that signal booster, Jenny, we’ve got a Cybermen invasion to stop. We can do some adjustments inside,” he then turned to Nora with one of his signature grins as he stepped into the TARDIS. “It was nice meeting you Mrs Wakeman! Keep you and the others barricaded for now… this should all be over soon.” 

Wakeman then instinctively grabbed his arm, causing the Doctor’s grin to fade. “Wait, Doctor, may I have a moment?” 

The Doctor looked at the small woman’s eyes, glaring at him with a deadly seriousness. He then stepped out, the corner of his eye directing itself towards Jenny. 

“Jenny, would you mind putting the signal booster in the TARDIS?” he said. “I’ll be there in a second…” 

Jenny didn’t know what her mother wanted to say to the Doctor, but she knew that it concerned her in some way. She wanted to protest, she wanted to tell her mother that they needed to get to the Cyber ship quickly. Yet, when she saw Wakeman’s stern eyes, she knew that she couldn’t change her mind. 

“Okay…” Jenny murmured, grabbing the signal booster from behind her and stepping into the TARDIS. 

“You’re leading her into a trap, you do realise that right?” Nora muttered to the Doctor as soon as Jenny closed the TARDIS door. 

“It’s a trap, yes,” the Doctor said. “Just not for us…”

“You faced the Cybermen before, no doubt they’ll figure out what you are up to,” Nora said. 

“I’m counting on it,” the Doctor said. 

“And you’re putting XJ-9 in danger in the process?” Wakeman said. “She can take down one or two… three if she’s lucky. But she’s not capable of taking on a whole army of them. They are much more dangerous than the Cluster…” 

The Doctor’s eyes softened. “I can assure you, Mrs Wakeman… Jenny is under my protection,” he assured her. “I’ll keep her safe. You have my word.” 

“I’ve read about you, I’ve seen the many people that accompany you,” Wakeman murmured. “Do you tell them that too?” 

“Yes,” the Doctor mumbled.  

“And are they all back on Earth, safe and sound?” 

The Doctor paused. “Yes,” he lied. 

Wakeman then sighed. “Forgive me, I don’t mean to be so… you know,” she said. “XJ-9 means a lot to me, more than you’ll ever know.” 

“It’s alright, I get it,” the Doctor said. “She’ll be safe, you can trust me on that.” 

The Doctor’s hand only rested on the surface of the TARDIS door when Nora caught his attention again. “One last thing, Doctor…” 

The Doctor’s eyebrow raised. Hopefully it wasn’t going to be a slap across the face, knowing his past history with his friends’ mothers. 

It wasn’t a slap, however, but the Doctor wished it was. “Do you have a daughter? Or a son perhaps?” Wakeman then asked him. 

The Doctor didn’t answer that. He didn’t want to. He did… once. 

But Nora Wakeman didn’t need an answer, she saw the Doctor’s eyes. It told her everything. 

(---) 

When Jenny saw the Doctor enter the TARDIS, she felt something different about him. She saw how conflicted he looked and was about to ask him what happened between him and his mother, but a part of her resisted… almost like something inside her didn’t want to know. 

But, like a flick of a switch, the Doctor went back to his energetic state, quickly taking off his long coat and tossing it on one of the coral columns as he proceeded up the ramp. 

“Right, back to the Cyber-ship!” the Doctor exclaimed, frantically pacing around the TARDIS console and flipping all the switches he could. “Allons-y!” he then cried out as he tugged at one of the levers nearest to where he was standing. 

The TARDIS then took off, but the flight wasn’t as long as she would’ve thought. The Doctor was dashing about like a crazed cheetah and keeping the console room as stable as possible. Jenny felt the metallic floor rattle loudly under her feet, so she knew it wasn’t stable enough. 

Before Jenny could think of a place to hold on, she could hear the TARDIS’ sudden landing ring deeply in her optics. They were back on the ship, a place Jenny dreaded revisiting. 

“Come on,” the Doctor said as he raced past her, picking up the signal booster and running out of the doors. 

Jenny followed suit and stepped out of the TARDIS. Instead of the chamber that the two of them entered through last time, they were now down a dark corridor covered in metallic panels. There were no doors that Jenny could see, so she had no clue what part of the ship they had landed in. The only thing that told her that she was back on the ship was the cold feeling that spread across her exoskeleton. 

She hated this place, especially with what the Cybermen tried to do with her. She was also reminded of poor Mr Mezmer and how, somewhere, his steel corpse still laid there in that room. 

The sooner the Cybermen are wiped out, the sooner she could leave. 

Jenny rubbed her arm in a nervous manner; she felt the darkness close in around her. “So what’s the plan?” she muttered. “Tinker with Mom’s machine and use it against the Cybermen? That’s basically it… right, Doctor?” 

But the Doctor wasn’t listening, he had other things on his mind. 

He had propped up the signal booster so that he could mess around with some of the circuitry. But as he knelt down to make his adjustments, his mind went elsewhere. 

The Doctor once again found himself being sent back to that day on Messaline, he had just ended the conflict between humans and the Hath. He watched as the bubbles of gases float into the air and start a new journey to terraform the planet into a brand new world. 

What he didn’t notice was the gun being aimed at his head. 

It was Jenny, his Jenny, that took the bullet for him. Her life had ended as soon as it started. 

But as he stared out into the corridor of the ship, the memory started to warp slightly. He wasn’t in the past, he was in the present. He stood near the signal booster machine, surrounded by motionless Cybermen. He had done it, he had saved Tremorton…

Instead of General Cobb, he was replaced by a Cyberman. He heard the Cyberman’s footsteps, but his reactions were too slow. The Cybermen cried out ‘Delete’ and fired its wrist blaster straight at him. 

But it wasn’t his Jenny that took the impact, it was the Jenny he had only met today. The blast shot straight through Jenny’s chest, tearing through her metallic exterior. The Doctor was able to ease her down onto the ground… but Jenny Wakeman was already dead before she hit the ground. 

“Hey, Doctor…” Jenny, thankfully still alive, said. She sounded so timid, which was so unlike her. The Doctor could tell she was afraid… and he couldn’t blame her for feeling that way. “Are we going to keep going?” 

The Doctor came back into reality and shook away his thoughts. No, the Doctor told himself. Not again. 

“Right, yes, sorry… I just have to do some tweaks, won’t take a tic—” the Doctor stopped abruptly. He patted his suit, almost in a panic, as if he suddenly misplaced something important. 

Jenny raised an eyebrow. “Everything okay?” 

The Doctor regained his composure when he realised what he was missing. “Jenny, I just realised… I left my sonic in the TARDIS, would you get it for me?” 

“Um, sure,” Jenny said, stepping her foot back into the TARDIS. “Where did you put it?” 

“Just in my coat pocket,” the Doctor said. “Silver with blue on top, best be quick…” 

As soon as Jenny closed the TARDIS door behind her, the Doctor dug into his suit pocket and took out his sonic screwdriver. 

“I’m sorry, Jenny,” he whispered. 

He pointed it towards the police box and activated it, the familiar buzzing sound going two pitches higher when he started to extend the emitter. 

Jenny, unfortunately, didn’t hear that through the doors of the TARDIS. She found the Doctor’s long coat that was draped over the nearby coral structure and had grabbed it, opening it up to find the pocket in the inner lining. 

“Okay, screwdriver…” she muttered as she pushed her hand through the Doctor’s coat pocket. “Silver, blue on the top of it.” 

She pulled out a toy mouse, a yo-yo, a collection of coins from a currency Jenny recognised, a cricket ball and a small black car that resembled the Batmobile. Although Jenny couldn’t recognise which version it belonged to. 

Jenny continued to rummage around and found other trinkets and yet, there was no sonic screwdriver in sight. 

“Doctor, it’s not here!” Jenny shouted. “Are you sure it’s in your—?” 

The teenage robot stopped immediately as a series of bright and intense sparks erupted from the TARDIS console. A nearby lever was pulled by some ethereal force, and the TARDIS was suddenly brought to life. 

The central cyan column started to slowly rise up and down as sounds of wheezing and groaning filled into Jenny’s hearing sensors. 

As the noises intensified, the metal platform beneath her started to slightly rumble under her feet. She hadn’t been on the TARDIS for very long, and yet she knew what it was doing. 

It was taking off. 

Jenny’s artificial heart stopped. “Oh no, don’t you dare!” 

She dashed to the doors and tried to open it, but it didn’t move. Despite her superior super-strength and most doors normally crumble when Jenny tries to barge through them, the doors to the TARDIS proved to be the strongest type of wood she’s ever encountered. 

“DOCTOR!” Jenny cried out, pounding endlessly at the doors. “DOCTOR! YOU CAN’T!” 

She had no idea where she was going, she didn’t have a clue where the Doctor had planned to take her. She couldn’t open the doors nor could she understand anything that was on the monitor attached to the console. 

Jenny Wakeman wasn’t sure what to do. She was all alone… and the Doctor was about to face off against the Cybermen without her. 

The only thing that Jenny could do was continue to pound on the doors, hoping that the Doctor would hear her. 

“DOCTOR!” she shouted, her cries being heard by no one.

Chapter Text

I’m sorry, Jenny… 

Still kneeling by the signal booster in the depths of the Cybermen’s ship, the Doctor watched as the TARDIS started to dematerialise in front of him. The lantern on top of the blue box illuminated so brightly that it completely engulfed the dark corridor with beams of white and blue light. 

As the TARDIS started to fade into nothing more than a thin outline, he could hear the wheezing and groaning he loved so much. That noise meant so many things to the Doctor as he piloted her throughout the years; it meant adventure was on the other side, or that there was a brand new world to be discovered, and sometimes occasionally there would be danger that would try to eliminate him on the spot. But most of the time, the Doctor liked to think that the sounds brought hope to whoever would be lucky to hear it… sometimes, it would even bring hope to himself. 

But this time? The TARDIS almost sounded reluctant. She knew what the Doctor was doing, and she disagreed with him. But the Doctor wasn’t sure what the TARDIS was disagreeing with; he wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t want to leave him alone in a hostile environment, or she didn’t think leaving Jenny behind was a good idea. 

Or, considering the last time that she and the Doctor were separated, the TARDIS was probably concerned that she might be turned into another form of a paradox machine. The Doctor didn’t think that was the case. Jenny wasn’t the Master, she would look after the TARDIS and vice versa. 

Even if he did bring Jenny along with him, he wasn’t sure if the device would affect her. She wasn’t a Cyberman but 

It was the only way, the Doctor told himself. I can’t lose another… not again. 

This sudden mindset was why the Doctor travelled alone these days. His mind travelled back to the day he lost his friend Donna Noble, how he was forced to erase all traces of himself from her memory because of the Time Lord Metacrisis that was surging through her cortex. Any trace of the Donna he once knew was gone; the memories, their friendship, everything. 

He then thought back to his daughter, the other Jenny that’s been plaguing his mind lately. She died for him. She was basically brand new, emerged only an hour or so ago from the progenitor machine, and yet… she still took a bullet for him. He could’ve survived a bullet, pop right back up with a brand new face and simply carried on. 

But his story wasn’t to end on Messaline, the same couldn’t be said for his daughter. For just a second, there was a part of the Doctor that didn’t feel like he was the last of his kind. 

The Doctor then turned his attention back to the signal booster; he had an invasion of Cybermen to stop. 

If he failed… Well, the world always had Jenny. 

He pressed a few buttons and used the sonic screwdriver to adjust some of the wavelengths that the device would soon emit. The original frequency was, according to Nora Wakeman, set to boost the signal of local television signals. An easy fix, the Doctor told himself as he gave the device one final blitz with the sonic screwdriver. 

As soon as the Doctor deactivated the sonic screwdriver, the signal booster began to whirr into life. The Doctor could hear a faint hum pulsating from the centre of the device, so he knew it was emitting something. It wasn’t as much of a signal booster anymore, as it was now tailored to disrupt the Cybermen’s emotional inhibitor. An emotional accelerator was probably more of an accurate name to it. 

But it was currently at low power. He couldn’t fully activate it until he got deeper into the ship, and in a place where the Cybermen could easily find him. 

The Doctor tucked his sonic screwdriver back into his suit pocket, as well as stashing his glasses away, and picked up the emotional accelerator, stowing away comfortably under his arm.  

With the emotional accelerator prepared and ready to go, the Doctor took one final glance to the space where the TARDIS once was. But when he saw no indication that the TARDIS was coming back any time soon, the Doctor headed down the corridor and deep into the depths of the Cybermen’s ship. 

As he traversed through the corridors, the Doctor could only sense one thing; nothing. It was all silent, it was almost haunting. Not a single Cyberman was left to stay behind, the only living thing on the ship was the Doctor. 

The Doctor didn’t like the silence. To some, silence was a calm before the storm. It was a bitter dreadness that was soon followed by something leaping out of the dark. It was always waiting and it was always, and most certainly, watching. 

But the Doctor, from past experiences, also knew that silence almost meant another thing… ahead of him was a trap waiting to be sprung. 

If there was a trap waiting for him, the Doctor had no choice than to walk into it. He had to face the Cybermen no way or another, might as be in a place that they’ll be expecting him. 

The Doctor reached the end of the corridor and found himself in front of an elevator. The Doctor stepped in and tinkered with the controls, allowing the elevator to go upwards. He didn’t know what part of the ship the TARDIS landed in, but the Doctor figured that going up was probably the best direction to go in. 

Arriving at the highest floor, the elevator shuddered to a halt and almost took the Doctor off-balance. Regaining his footing, the Doctor opened the doors to the floor he was on. He popped his head to assess and was surprised to see that he hadn’t found himself in another corridor again. 

He appeared to be on the bottom of the ship, at least the bottom of this particular section of the Cyber ship. Above him, he could see the many chambers that he saw earlier while he was trying to find Jenny. All the doors were still wide open, and once again the Cybermen were nowhere to be seen. 

The Doctor then looked down to his level and crept around, finding a good spot to place the emotional accelerator. On both sides of the walls beside him, many rusted pipes, which were almost as big as the Doctor, snaked around and connected to an assortment of generators. Smaller pipes sprouted out from the top of the generator and went upwards towards the chambers above. 

“Ah, so that’s how you’ve kept yourselves frozen for so long…” the Doctor then muttered to himself. “A bit basic, isn’t it? Well… it gets the job done I suppose.” 

The Doctor turned his attention away from the generators and placed the emotional accelerator nearby. He had put it directly in the centre, so all the Cybermen in front or above him could see what he was about to do to them. 

He knelt down and turned the device on, making the small satellite dish on top spring to life and rotate around in a slow but urgent manner. The Doctor looked at the small screen below, seeing the wavelengths start to form. 

It was on standby. The emotional accelerator had been armed. Now for the next part… 

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it upwards. “Alright, Cybermen…” he said. “I summon thee.” 

(---) 

“All occupants must be deleted! Delete! Delete! Delete!” 

The Cybermen had made their way through the streets of Tremorton and had advanced towards the Wakeman residence, circling around the perimeter and had opened fire on the exterior of the house. 

Nora Wakeman wasn’t sure what brought the Cybermen to her doorstep, whether they found them by chance or if they tracked the Doctor or even XJ-9 down to their location. Maybe the Cybermen had somehow found out what the Doctor planned to do and they were trying to stop him, unaware that the Doctor and XJ-9 had already departed to the Cyber-ship that rested underneath the city. 

Thankfully, due to XJ-9’s unpredictability and the massive amount of threats that came to Tremorton, Nora had built this house to last. However, while she could counteract the attacks of the Cluster or any other supervillain her daughter had come across, she wondered how long she and the others were safe against the Cybermen. 

“Ah, Ms Wakeman… they seem to have found us!” Brad exclaimed in panic, dashing away from the door as the Cybermen attempted to blast through it. 

“Defensive maneuvers! Now!” Wakeman then ordered. 

Sheldon went wide-eyed. “Wait, what? You don’t expect us to fight those guys off, right?” 

“Heck yeah, we are!” Tuck chuckled chaotically, enjoying the situation a little too much. “Give me your gold gun, I’ll finish them off myself!” 

“Yeah… no, that’s happening,” Brad muttered as he tried to stop Tuck from grabbing Sheldon’s gold cannon. He then turned to Wakeman. “But Sheldon has a point, Doc… we’re kinda outnumbered here.” 

“We’re not fighting off the Cybermen, their weaponry is far superior to our own,” Wakeman said. “We simply have to keep them occupied until XJ-9 and the Doctor can lure them back to their ship.” 

“Gee… no pressure or anything,” Sheldon murmured. “I just hope that Jenny can get there in time.” 

“With the Doctor’s TARDIS, no doubt they’ve already arrived,” Wakeman said. “Now, there should be enough gold in those cannons to keep them away, so off you two go!” 

Brad gulped. “Okay, come on Sheldon, let’s–” he then paused and stared at Sheldon curiously. “Uh, Sheldon… where did your gold gun go?” 

“What do you mean?” Sheldon said. He held up his hand to show him the gold cannon. “I have it right—” 

But Sheldon stopped talking immediately. He had no gold cannon in his grasp, it was just his empty hand. 

But before either of them could question how a large gold cannon could suddenly disappear from someone’s grasp, they then heard sounds of the gold cannon firing outside and the accompanying noises of manic child-like laughter. 

Both of their eyes widened. They knew exactly where it was. 

Brad and Sheldon immediately raced out of the front door and, as they thought, they saw that Tuck had somehow managed to snatch the gold cannon out of Sheldon’s hand, and he was firing it directly at the Cybermen. 

“Take this!” Tuck shouted out, rapidly firing gold pellet after gold pellet to the Cybermen’s front line. “Take this, and that, and this!” 

Due to Tuck’s reckless nature and his lack of control over the gold cannon, some of the gold smoke pellets failed to reach any of the Cybermen. But while it didn’t hit or affect any of them, the Cybermen hesitated and merely stepped back from the blasts. 

“Alert, element Au detected in atmosphere,” one of the Cybermen warned his fellow metal soldiers. “Caution, element Au will damage Cyber units.” 

“There’s more where that came from, metalheads!” Tuck threatened, now aiming the gold cannon directly towards the Cybermen. 

As Tuck was single-handedly holding off the Cybermen, both Brad and Sheldon watched from the front door, visibly stunned. 

“You gotta admit, the kid’s got guts,” Sheldon murmured. 

Brad thought the opposite. “Tuck, what are you doing?” he called out to his brother. “Get back inside!” 

“Believe it or not, young Tucker here has the right idea,” Nora then chimed in. “If we can create a barrier of gold residue, the Cybermen won’t advance. That should buy us some time…” 

“How long do you think we keep this up for?” Brad then asked. 

“Long enough,” Wakeman replied. “I hope…” 

One lone Cyberman managed to pass through the various waves of gold smoke that Tuck was launching at them. It stood firmly, its dead black eyes fixated on Tuck. 

Brad’s eyes widened. “Tuck, look out!” 

Tuck stopped firing and turned towards Brad with confusion on his face. “What? I’m getting all of them!” he said, wondering why Brad was calling him. “I don’t see you doing anything!” 

“No, Tuck! There’s one in front of you!” Brad shouted, pointing behind Tuck. 

Tuck then darted to where Brad was pointing, and he saw that the Cyberman was slowly marching towards him. 

“Delete!” it emitted. 

Tuck screamed and quickly dropped the gold cannon onto the ground, sprinting back towards the front door as fast as his little legs could carry him. He hid himself behind Brad, tightly gripping his trouser leg. 

“Shoot him, Brad!” Tuck then cried out. “Shoot him now!” 

Brad aimed his gold cannon towards the Cybermen and fired, being more direct than Tuck was beforehand. He shot at the lone Cyberman, then at some Cybermen on the left, then at some Cybermen on the right. He kept repeating his motion over and over again until the Cybermen were invisible to their eyes and covered in nothing but thick golden fog. 

“That’s it, keep holding them back!” Wakeman said. “Just as long as they don’t—” 

Nora then noticed that the lone Cyberman stood his ground, the gold smoke surrounding the metal man simply brushing past him as if it was lost to the wind. Unlike most Cybermen that made contact with gold, this particular Cyberman wasn’t suffocating or on the verge of collapse. It stood strong, seemingly unaffected. 

Then the mouthplate illuminated a light blue, and it spoke.

“Upgrade in process.” 

Wakeman’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “...upgrade themselves,” she then sighed. “Eh, should’ve seen that one coming…”

Sheldon immediately raced back into the house. “Inside, now!” he said, urging everyone else to follow him. 

Brad slammed the door shut as he and the others backed away from it, which was when the firepower had started to come through. The Cybermen, having now broken through the defense line, began to blast the front of the house, leaving holes in the front door and the front walls. The sounds of the Cybermen’s mechanical footsteps ominously drew closer, so much that the heavy stomping noises rattled in their ears. 

Then without any resistance, the front door was ripped from its hinges and fell to the ground with a heavy thud. A Cyberman, the one that was responsible for breaking the door, stepped forward, snapping the door in half with just a single footstep. The Cyberman then moved aside to let two other members of his Cyber-brethen into the house, the three of them now standing menacingly and simply staring blankly at Wakeman and the others. 

“You are associates of the Doctor and the robotic unit known as XJ-9,” the Cyberman said. “You will come with us.” 

“Why?” Nora asked. “I thought you wanted to delete us!” 

“New direction was given,” the Cyberman replied. “You will now come with us.” 

“Hey now, you don’t want to take me… I’m too small and flimsy,” Tuck muttered defensively. “May I recommend Brad instead?” 

Brad glared at his brother. “Tuck!” 

“What? I’m just trying to save my life here!” 

The Cyberman, unsurprisingly, wasn’t amused and ignored both Brad and Tuck. “Size and fragile matter are irrelevant. We can make you better. We can remove all emotions and physical attributes. You will become like us.” 

“We’ve heard what you guys do, and that won’t happen to us!” Wakeman spat back.

“Yeah… I already know what it's like to be inside a silver shell…” Sheldon muttered quietly. He then cleared his throat. “Metaphorically, of course.” 

“This directive is mandatory,” the Cyberman said, clenching his fists. The other two Cybermen next to them repeated the same motion. “You will come with us. Failure to meet this directive will result in maximum deletion.” 

Blasters extended from each of the Cybermen’s wrists and were aimed directly at Nora, Brad, Tuck and Sheldon’s heads. The tip of a blaster started to emit red as it started to warm up and ready to fire. 

When caught in the middle of Jenny’s superhero duties, the idea of death never came to mind. Sure, they had been injured most of the time but they always survived. Plus, they knew that Jenny would save the day somehow. 

However, Jenny wasn’t here to save them this time. 

Just before the Cybermen opened fire, they had suddenly disabled their weaponry and lowered their arms. A blaring alarm then emitted from one of the Cybermen, causing the other two to turn towards the source of the noise. If they were completely human, it was as if they were suddenly in a panic. 

“Alert! Alert! Proximity indicator detected!” The Cyberman exclaimed. “Intruder detected on the ship.” 

“It is the Doctor!” the Cyberman to the left said. 

“The Doctor will be deleted!” the Cyberman to the right also chimed in. 

“Higher command requests all units withdraw,” the Cyberman then ordered. “All Cybermen will return to the ship.” 

All three Cybermen then simultaneously tapped onto a panel located on their other arm. A white light flashed in front of them before they vanished entirely, leaving Brad, Tuck, Sheldon and Wakeman alone at the house. 

The boys took a sigh of relief, thankful that the Cybermen hadn’t killed them before they left. But Nora, while relieved herself, only gave a suspicious look to the spot that the Cybermen previously occupied. 

“That was too close,” Sheldon murmured. 

“I’ll say,” Brad said with a nod. 

“Wait just a minute, do you hear what that Cyberman said?” Wakeman then queried. 

“Yeah, the Doc is on the ship,” Tuck answered. He then bumped Brad on the elbow. “Better that he gets surrounded by those metal guys than us, huh?” 

Another glare was given in Tuck’s direction. “Tuck, the Doctor is trying to save us all,” Brad said. 

Tuck shrugged. “Still, better him than us.” 

“Even so, I don’t see what the problem is,” Brad said. “It’s all going to plan… right, Mrs Wakeman?” 

Nora Wakeman wasn’t sure how to answer that. From what she knew, the Doctor was going to lure the Cybermen away and lead back to the ship. That plan had succeeded, obviously. But there was something missing from that plan. 

If XJ-9 was on that ship, and Nora knew that she should be, then surely the Cybermen would’ve detected her as well? It could be that the ship’s sensor didn’t register Jenny as an intruder, seeing as she was made of metal just like the Cybermen. It could be that the Cybermen was only focused on the Doctor, which made sense given their long history together. 

Something was wrong, Nora could feel it.

There was only one question that was on her mind… What happened to her daughter? 

(---)

DOCTOR! 

DOCTOR, YOU CAN’T! 

DOCTOR! 

Jenny sat alone in the TARDIS, leaning against the doors with her hands clutching her knees. She had long since given up on trying to force her way out; there was no way she was going to break through those doors anytime soon, despite her superior physical strength. 

She was alone. She felt helpless. 

All that she could do was stare straight at the central console, absent-mindedly watching the central cyan column rise up and down. Her only company was the noise of the TARDIS in flight. While the noises felt calming and inviting, it didn’t ease Jenny’s worries whatsoever. 

She wanted to cry, the weight of the Cybermen’s invasion now feeling really heavy on her shoulders, but her guilt overwhelmed her sadness. Without her, the Cybermen would surely take over the Earth and convert millions until the human race was no more. 

She may have had some difficulty when facing the Cybermen, but minor difficulty hasn’t stopped her before. She was turned into a bike, she outsmarted a weapon-stealing robot created by her own mother, she stopped an energy creature while being too consumed by the fear of being obsolete… Jenny would find a way, she always did. She had to, that was her purpose after all; saving the world. 

How could the Doctor do this to her? They were a team… at least Jenny thought they were. She wasn’t sure if the Doctor was incredibly brave or incredibly stupid for taking on the Cybermen alone. In fact, Jenny thought he was both. 

Jenny’s pigtails suddenly pricked up when she heard the TARDIS start to make more noise, the volume of the wheezing and groaning escalating higher and higher. Almost like it was about to sneeze. 

Then… a shuddering thud. The TARDIS has landed.

All was quiet. Jenny wondered where the TARDIS had taken her. Back home? Somewhere far away from Tremorton. Jenny couldn’t tell, she couldn’t hear anything outside. Last time, she was able to hear the Cybermen attacking beyond the doors to the TARDIS. 

But now? Nothing… it was as if the world had suddenly stopped around her. If Jenny had a human heart, she bet that would be the only thing she heard right now. 

Jenny got up from the floor and peered through the front windows, not that it did her any good. The windows were tinted and blurry, which made knowing what was on the other side almost impossible. Even her improved optics could see where the TARDIS landed. She just knew it was dark. 

Was it nighttime now in Tremorton? Jenny didn’t think she spent that long inside the TARDIS, she only felt a few minutes pass. But maybe things worked differently in this spaceship. It was bigger on the inside, so maybe time was all… wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey as well. Just thinking about it made Jenny’s data banks malfunction. Jenny was no scientist, she struggled with high-school science as it is. 

At least, with the Doctor distracting the Cybermen, maybe she can pick up the pieces, help some survivors if they let her. She needed to do something. 

No… she needed to save the Doctor. She’ll fly back to the ship… no detour in a police box was going to stop her. 

Jenny grabbed the handle to the TARDIS and pulled the door open, assuming that the doors had now been unlocked after landing. She was about to step out, soon realising that her leg was floating in the air. 

It only took a second to realise that she wasn’t where she was supposed to be, or where she thought the TARDIS was taking her. 

She wasn’t in Tremorton. She was in space. 

Jenny looked down to see that she was overlooking the Earth itself. Jenny could see that the TARDIS landed above the American continents, still lit up by sunlight. But on one side of the planet, the darkness was starting to slowly creep towards the continent. Night was coming in a few hours or so, Jenny estimated. 

No matter how many times Jenny has travelled around the world or flew into space to stop some potential planet-destroying disaster, she always thought the view was one-in-a-million… something only she can cherish. 

But gazing at the Earth would have to wait for another day, she had a Doctor to help out. 

Jenny scoffed. “Think you can leave me in space, huh?” she said, turning back to the TARDIS console. “No worries, I’ll just fly back!” 

Jenny ignited her jet boots and prepared to fly out of the TARDIS. But the TARDIS had other ideas; it slammed the doors shut just as Jenny took off, her face bluntly impacting the wooden surface. 

The teenage robot staggered back slightly, dazed from the sudden impact. She took a minute for her vision to clear up before opening the doors again. She took off once more, heading towards the Earth. 

Only for the TARDIS doors to instantly close just as she was about to leave. 

Jenny would try again. And again. And again. And again. So many times that it was almost as if she stepped into a slapstick cartoon. 

“Alright, this is getting ridiculous now!” Jenny exasperated after what seemed to be her twentieth attempt to break through. 

She stepped away from the doors and her arm transformed into her signature laser limb. She aimed towards the TARDIS doors and fired recklessly. 

When the smoke cleared, Jenny was shocked to see that the TARDIS doors were completely intact. It looked completely clean and undamaged, no visible sign of Jenny’s laser fire in sight. Not even a burn mark. 

Her eyes widened. “Crikey!” Jenny exclaimed, slightly impressed. “Not a scratch!” 

Jenny’s widened eyes soon turned into a frown as she turned towards the TARDIS console, clearly having had enough of being trapped on this ship. 

“Why won’t you let me leave?” Jenny wondered, a mix of urgency and annoyance in the tone of her voice. “The Doctor needs me! He’s going to get killed if I’m not there! Take me back… NOW!” 

She stamped her foot in anger, leaving only an echo to rattle around the interior of the TARDIS. 

The TARDIS, unsurprisingly, made no response, continuing to emit a low but pleasant hum that echoed all over the console. 

Jenny felt pretty stupid, but she was too mad to care. “Great, just great… here I go again, talking to an empty spaceship!” she said. 

She turned away from the console, folding her arms. She wasn’t sure what good giving a spaceship the cold shoulder would do but, while in her current predicament, it was the only thing she could do at that moment. 

As she was sulking, she then felt her pigtails prick up from a noise coming from behind her. She wasn’t sure what to make of the noise; she wasn’t even sure if it was a noise. It wasn’t an alarm or anything that could indicate an emergency. It felt more like a sensation, as if the TARDIS was trying to connect to Jenny’s mind. 

Jenny listened more closely; she could’ve sworn that the ambient hum started to sound like someone breathing or someone reaching out towards her. 

Jenny turned around and stepped closer to the TARDIS console. “Wait a minute, boop…beep…” she murmured, trying to translate the TARDIS’ form of communication. It didn’t sound like any of the other machines she talked to in the past. The TARDIS sounded more advanced, and more alien. “Are you talking to me right now?” the teenage robot then asked. 

Jenny picked up a signal, which may or may not have been a ‘yes’. 

When she received the signal, Jenny’s optics widened. “You’re alive…” she said. 

She had never met a machine that was technically ‘alive’ before. To a human, machines and robots like her were ‘operational’ or ‘functioning’, alive was never a word that was used in her direction. But the TARDIS wasn’t any typical machine, there was something more beyond the console she was in… but Jenny wasn’t quite sure what. 

Jenny then received another signal from the TARDIS, one that made her eyebrow raise when she eventually translated it. 

“Protect me?” Jenny said. “Why would the Doctor do that? We barely know each other, why should he care?” 

There was a longer set of wavelengths that Jenny picked up, which she ignored. She didn’t have the time to translate all of that. 

“Look, I need to get back to him,” Jenny then interjected. “I can’t fly this ship on my own, I need your help.” 

The TARDIS’ hum suddenly became lower and less friendly; an obvious disagreement. 

Jenny folded her arms. The TARDIS insisted that she remained where she was, which was something that Jenny didn’t want to hear. “Well, I am NOT staying here,” she grumbled. “You’re not my mother, you can’t tell me what to do!” 

The TARDIS groaned in response. Jenny rolled her eyes. 

“And the Doctor isn’t my dad either!” she exclaimed. “I don’t even have one of those, so ha!” 

Jenny soon realised that this interaction was going nowhere. She understood why the TARDIS was being so stubborn, she understood why the Doctor wanted to protect her. But just standing here and not doing anything was just not in Jenny’s programming. She let someone else try to save Tremorton once and that only made things worse… she is going to make sure that doesn’t happen again. 

“Fine, if you won’t take me,” Jenny said as she approached the console. “Then I’m just going to have to fly this ship myself!” 

Jenny then paused, looking at the large variety of buttons and switches around the console. She retracted her finger before she pressed anything. 

“Okay, maybe not…” she murmured. She tapped her fingers in thought, staring confusingly at the monitor in front of her. “Surely there must be some way to fly this thing. Autopilot, perhaps?” 

Her eyes drifted again towards the rest of the TARDIS console. Even if there was an autopilot, Jenny wasn’t sure where to start looking. She couldn’t tell if there was a button to turn the lights off or if there was one that squirted frozen yoghurt. If only her mother would programme her to be a genius as well as a superheroic robot, then she would be able to fly this ship with no issues. 

“You could help out, you know…” Jenny said to the TARDIS, which gave no verbal response as usual. “If only I could plug myself in, there might be some instructions I can download…” 

Then it hit her. 

Jenny’s optics widened at the realization. “Plug in…? That’s it!” she said. “I’ll just plug myself in and force this ship to take me back.” 

Jenny then opened up a small panel on the back of the head, reaching in and pulling out one end of a cable that was somehow stored within her internal circuitry. As she was pulling out the cable, to the point where it started to lie on the floor, the TARDIS made a variety of noises, which Jenny assumed was an indication of disagreement. 

“I’m sorry…” Jenny murmured. “But I have to get back somehow.” 

Jenny, after extending enough cable, soon wandered around the border of the central console, looking for any type of access port. On the opposite end to where she was standing before, she eventually found one in between two of the control panels. 

Once again, the TARDIS was having an hissy fit. Many alarms and piercing hums were going off, trying to ward Jenny away. It was telling to stay away or there’d be dire consequences, but Jenny wasn’t listening. She had a world to save. 

“Here goes nothing…” she said, before plugging herself into the TARDIS. 

Immediately, Jenny felt a strong surge of energy direct itself into her systems. The interior of the TARDIS disappeared around her, a golden bright light engulfing the console and morphing itself into the dense environment of space. 

The world began to spin around her, the stars that surrounded the teenage robot zipped past her like cars speeding past her. It was as if time passed straight through her. Once she saw nothing more than empty space, she then saw a huge explosion in the distance which lit up so brightly that it almost blinded her. 

Then she saw nothing but stars, gases and rocks. The rocks started to collide together, forming around what seemed to be a star-shaped spaceship into what Jenny assumed would be the Earth. 

Jenny closed her eyes. She could feel her systems starting to burn out. She wasn’t sure how long she could stay connected to the TARDIS, she had to hurry and find the Doctor. 

Then… Jenny was met with a flash of white light. 

When her vision cleared, Jenny saw an elderly gentleman in Edwardian fashion amongst a junkyard in London. He stood by the TARDIS, which looked vastly different from how she remembered it, looking around cautiously before entering the blue box. 

Then, another flash occurred. She then saw another man, smaller and scruffy-looking, and wore an oversized fur coat. He seemed to be running from something that resembled a yeti of some kind. 

Another flash. Jenny was on the side of a road, just as an old-fashioned yellow car drove past her. The man driving it was older than the last one, a shock of white hair replacing the mop of black hair from before. Jenny saw that the man looked distinctive, or perhaps it was the velvet clothing that made him stand out. 

Another flash. The next man was all teeth and curls, had a wide grin and had a long multi-coloured scarf trailing on the floor. He seemed to be playing a game of chess with a robotic dog, which looked more advanced than some of the robot companions that Jenny saw at the tradeshow that one time. 

Yet another flash. Jenny now saw a youthful looking man in a beige coat and what seemed to be a stick of celery attached to the lapel. He looked battered, struggling to carry a young woman in his arms as he staggered towards the TARDIS. 

Another flash. The man after that was standing in some sort of courtroom, amongst other people in robes and funny collars. This man wore the most atrocious rainbow overcoat Jenny had ever seen. She had no idea what made him decide that outfit was in any way fashionable.

Another flash. The next man has strange clothing as well, but it was somewhat improved from the previous man, with the technicolour coat replaced with a sweater vest that was decorated in red question marks. This man was with a teenager around the same age Jenny was programmed to be and the two walked off together, with the man proclaiming that they had ‘work to do’. 

Another flash. Jenny was now near a pier or a park in a modern looking city somewhere. In the distance she could see a man and a woman walking and talking to each other. The man wore a velvet frock coat and a waistcoat, and he seemed very excited about the pair of shoes he was wearing. 

Another flash. Jenny now found herself in a desert watching a man walk across the dunes towards a rickety old barn in the far distance. This man was different from the other wacky adventurers Jenny had seen before. This one looked older, tired, and had experienced many battles in his lifetime. 

Another flash. The next man in a leather jacket stood in the middle of what Jenny assumed was an abandoned railway. He was facing a group of people of various ages wearing gas masks, both of his hands illuminated by some kind of golden energy. He scattered the energy amongst the gas mask people, a massive grin on his face. 

“Everybody lives, Rose!” he said, referring to the blonde girl that Jenny stood next to. “Just this once, everybody lives!” 

Another flash. 

Jenny was inside a vehicle of some kind. At first glance, judging from the seats on each side, she thought she was in some airplane. But Jenny then realised that the interior was too wide and she couldn’t see any wings outside of the windows. In fact, she couldn’t see what was outside at all. 

On the far side of the vehicle, Jenny noticed a group of passengers and somebody that she assumed was an air hostess all grouped together and having a hushed discussion amongst themselves. 

And, just next to her, there was the Doctor. The same strange man in the pinstripe suit that managed to put a smile on the teenage robot’s face. 

“Doctor!” Jenny then exclaimed. 

But the Doctor didn’t answer her. He didn’t even budge. He was kneeling on the ground with his back facing towards Jenny, his body shaking slightly. Jenny’s smile faded; something was wrong with him.

Her mind soon began to wonder; if this was the Doctor, then who were those men that she saw? What was the TARDIS showing her? Better question, why was she being shown this? 

Jenny walked around and knelt down in front of the Doctor and her eyes saddened at the sight of him. 

“It killed the driver… And the mechanic… And now it wants us... He's waited so long… In the dark… And the cold… And the diamonds… Until you came… Bodies so hot… With blood…” the Doctor muttered. Well, the Doctor was speaking but he was just repeating what one of the passengers, an older woman, was saying. 

But the woman seemed to have fooled everyone, they couldn’t see what the Doctor was going through. But Jenny could… she had never seen so much fear and panic on his face before. 

Another flash. 

The claustrophobic space that had surrounded her was now replaced with Stonehenge, a place she had yet to visit, which was currently being lit up with a dozen spaceships of various shapes and sizes that were scattered across the night sky. 

Through the many ships she managed to catch a glimpse of a Cyber-ship, resembling the one that was currently buried deep underneath Tremorton, and she instantly frowned at the sight of it. Once she got out of whatever she’s going through at the moment, she was going to stop the Cybermen once and for all. 

But with all these other spaceships in the sky, where was the Doctor? 

“Hello Stonehenge!” a voice over a loudspeaker then called out. Jenny turned to see that it wasn’t the Doctor, but rather a younger man in a tweed jacket and bow tie. 

Who was this man? Jenny wondered to herself. Where was the Doctor? Shouldn’t he be in the centre of all this? No man could ever be stupid enough to willingly reveal himself and challenge all of those spaceships. 

No one except the Doctor. 

The gears in her head then started to click as she started to realise… 

This man. All those other men she saw… They were the Doctor. 

Every single one. Somehow, all those different faces belonged to the same man that Jenny had met. How he gained those faces was a mystery to Jenny, but one she might figure out later. 

She had seen the Doctor’s past, but now she was glancing at his future. 

Another flash. She now found herself in a dark tunnel but it wasn’t the metallic void she was in before, but rather a subway tunnel. She could see train tracks that spread across both ends of the tunnel. What she didn’t expect was the strange creatures in front of her. 

They resembled people, but something wasn’t quite right about them. They looked crinkled and warped, shuffling slowly like zombies from black-and-white zombie films. Jenny was about to aim her laser limb towards them, until she realised that she wasn’t actually there… This was nothing but a memory yet to come. 

Jenny’s pigtails perked up when she heard the familiar noises of the TARDIS at the far end of the tunnel behind. 

“I tried to talk. I want you to remember that. I tried to reach out. To understand you,” But I think you understand us perfectly. I think you just don’t care. I don’t know whether you are here to invade, infiltrate or just replace us. I don’t suppose it really matters now…” 

A green barrier appeared suddenly as the creatures were trying to shuffle their way towards the TARDIS, blocking their path. They stepped back, unsure what to make of what had appeared in front of them. 

“You are monsters. That is the role you seem determined to play. So it seems I must play mine…” 

The TARDIS door then opened and an older silver-haired man emerged from it, with unruly, expressive eyebrows that looked like it could lunge at Jenny at any second. Not quite like the younger looking Doctors she was used to seeing, but Jenny felt her mother would take a liking to this particular version. 

Jenny had seen other Doctors looking hopeful, terrified, or just showing off. Sometimes all at once. This Doctor, however, was angry. 

“The man who stops the monsters,” he said, automatically taking control of the situation.

Another flash. She was hovering above a city. She turned to see that the TARDIS was floating in the air, hundreds of robotic beings that reminded Jenny of a pepperpot circling the TARDIS. They didn’t fire, nor did they attack, they simply waited. 

And then the Doctor emerged from the TARDIS. But this Doctor wasn’t a man, but rather a woman in a lilac trenchcoat. 

“IT IS THE DOC-TOR!” One of the mechanical pepperpots screeched out. “THE DOC-TOR IS AN EN-EMY OF THE DAL-EKS!” 

Jenny simply rolled her eyes at the ones called ‘the Daleks’. “Great, if the Cybermen weren’t bad enough…” she murmured to herself.

Before she could find out what happened between the Doctor and the Daleks, Jenny averted her eyes from yet another flash. 

Now she was in a modern-looking street in a city somewhere. It was cluttered, trashed and littered with people that were showing quite aggressive behaviour. There were fires, broken windows, cars crashed into lampposts and more chaos than Jenny could ever handle. 

And in the middle of it was the Doctor. This Doctor resembled the Doctor she knew, sticky-uppy hairstyle and everything. But this Doctor looked older, about fifteen years older from where Jenny was standing, and wore a different outfit, his pinstripes replaced with tartan and his long brown overcoat was swapped with a navy-blue one. 

So if, from what Jenny has observed so far, the Doctor can change his appearance… Then why did he have the same face twice? Why not just keep it if he was so fond of it? 

Jenny then noticed that the Doctor was watching somebody amongst the chaos, a man that stood out from all the other people that were wearing normal clothing from whatever time period they were in. 

This man wore a top hat and tails, but his eyes wore something sinister underneath. Jenny suddenly felt cold as the man stared straight at her and waved slowly in her, or the Doctor’s, direction. 

Ha-ha-ha-HA-hahaha.

Jenny closed her eyes, shaking that strange noise out of her head. When she had opened them once again, she was no longer on that chaotic street. 

She was now clinging onto a rope ladder that was suspended in the air. It flew across a street of houses below, with no one on the streets taking any form of notice. Jenny looked to see what the ladder was attached to, only to see nothing but an overcast of clouds. 

“What the hell are you doing?” A voice then called out. 

Jenny turned to see the Doctor running on top of the houses, jumping across the roofs like a skilled hurdles athlete. This Doctor was more flamboyant, judging by his orange trenchcoat, orange cardigan and blue trousers, and more energetic. It felt like he had a burden lifted from his shoulders. 

“What? I don’t know,” Jenny answered. “I was just—” She then realised she was talking to a memory. 

“Well, what do you do that for? Who sees a ladder and just pops on?” the Doctor said. “A ladder in the sky and you thought ‘yeah, I’ll give that a go babes’” 

Jenny raised an eyebrow. Babes? She couldn’t imagine the Doctor she knew ever calling anyone that. 

The Doctor reached the end of the long line of houses and, without any hesitation, took a gigantic leap towards the ladder. While he was in mid-air, he started to leap in slow motion. Jenny then started to see a white light engulf the memory of this particular Doctor. 

“Not this again,” Jenny murmured. 

How long was she going to do this? Witness the memories of one Doctor after another? Eventually reaching the end of his eternal life? 

What was the TARDIS trying to tell her? There was so much information and yet she was no closer to getting back to the Doctor and the Cybermen. This was all useless to her. 

Which may be what the TARDIS had intended… 

“STOP!” Jenny then shouted. 

Everything did indeed stop, followed by another white flash. Instead of being trapped in another glimpse into the Doctor’s history, she was now back in the TARDIS. The cable that had attached Jenny to the TARDIS console had separated, ejecting her and throwing her away from the console. 

Jenny jumped back to her feet quite quickly, marching towards the console. “I know what you are trying to do!” she said angrily. “You’re trying to stop me, overload my memory banks so that I won’t be able to handle it!” 

The teenage robot grabbed the cable from the back of her head and proceeded to plug herself back into the TARDIS console. 

“I’m heading back,” Jenny said, the tone of her voice suddenly turning cold. “Whether you like it or not!” 

She then connected herself back into the TARDIS. She felt the same huge burst of energy surged through her own systems once again. But instead of sending Jenny away to many memories of Doctors both past, present and future, the energy grew more intense and started to short out much of Jenny’s primary functions. 

Electricity erupted from the TARDIS, making one last attempt to keep Jenny away. But Jenny stayed connected and her grip on the cable was strongly maintained, despite the tremendous amount of pain and information that was currently running through her database. 

“Just a couple more—” Jenny grunted. 

She was then cut off by another burst of electricity, one that was directly aimed towards her. Jenny was knocked back onto the metallic floor, the cable flying out of the TARDIS and dropping right next to her. 

Jenny was still, her eyes firmly shut. The interior of the TARDIS flickered on or off for a brief moment, as if someone was flicking a lightswitch at a continuous speed, before ultimately choosing to stay on. 

All was quiet. 

Then the TARDIS came to life. The time rotor started to go up and down at a slow pace and the wheezing and groaning started to fill up the console room. 

At the sound of the TARDIS in flight, Jenny opened her optics…and her eyes were nothing but a gradient of golden light. 

(---) 

“Cybermen… I summon thee.” 

The Doctor activated the sonic screwdriver, his trusty tool buzzing towards the top of the Cyber-ship. After a minute or so of sending out a signal towards the Cybermen, the Doctor deactivated the sonic screwdriver and stashed it away back into his suit pocket. All he had to do now… was wait. 

For a moment, nothing happened. The Doctor expected that, of course, he was certain that the Cybermen weren’t going to just appear as soon as he lured them over here. He had hoped that was the case anyway. 

In fact he didn’t expect them right now, right this minute. He had expected one of the many Cybermen lurking around Tremorton to detect the signal in… 

5… 

4… 

3… 

2… 

1… 

The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets and gave a sly smile. “And… now,” he muttered. 

As if on cue, hundreds of Cybermen began to arrive in a flash of white light. The Doctor immediately assumed it was some form of teleportation, definitely from that piece of technology he borrowed from the remnants of Mr Mezmer’s robotic body. Row by row, the ship started to be filled with dozens of Cybermen, each unit appearing in front of the doors that lead into their designated cytostasis chamber. 

The Doctor noticed that the Cybermen were all staring at each other from opposite ends, almost like statues in a hallway. Perhaps they hadn’t noticed him yet? The Doctor immediately denied that; it was nothing more than wishful thinking. 

Then, another teleport appeared in front of the Doctor. It was the Cyber-Leader, joined on each side by two other Cybermen that acted as his bodyguards. As the Cyber-Leader marched a few steps closer to the Doctor, the bodyguards remained still and didn’t budge. They didn’t have their weapons ready, but their fists were clenched and waited for the moment to strike. 

“The Doctor is surrounded, all weapons armed and ready,” the Cyber-Leader said. 

The rest of the Cybermen obeyed and trained their weapons to where the Doctor was standing. The Doctor didn’t flinch, he stood his ground. 

“The Doctor will be deleted.” 

The Doctor shook his head. “The Doctor will not.” 

The Cyber-Leader went silent, not issuing a response. This gave the Doctor the moment to continue talking. 

“Well, there’s no need to get like that,” the Doctor said. “I didn’t bring you lot here for you to kill me right here, right now. That would be a bit too easy, don’t ya think?” 

“This tactic will not exceed, Doctor,” the Cyber-Leader said. “You have no means of escape.” 

The Doctor shrugged. “That’s assuming I want to escape. Surely, you know me well enough to know that’s not the case.” 

“If you know us well enough, then you know that your words are meaningless,” the Cyber-Leader clapped back. “We will advance with our purpose. We will invade, we will convert. Every man, woman and child will become like us.” 

“But you’re from the Twelfth Cyber Legion, your purpose is to monitor things that are twenty thousand light years away,” the Doctor said. “I had a look at your data, you’re not meant to be here. You crashed here three hundred years ago, there’s no way this ship can get from there to here so quickly. How did you get here?” 

“External forces beyond our control.” 

“You must know, surely,” the Doctor muttered. “How did you get here?” 

“We were ambushed,” the Cyber-Leader replied. “Hostile forces required information. Information they thought we possessed.” 

“About Demons Run, I assume?” 

“Correct.” 

“And Demons Run… what is that exactly?” 

“Confidental,” the Cyber-Leader said. “We have given out what information we possess.” 

“But your entire fleet was destroyed, aside from your ship obviously, who’d have the power to wipe out a legion of Cyber-ships?” the Doctor wondered. 

The Cyber-Leader went silent, as if it wanted to keep the answer in suspense. The Doctor was worried that it developed some form of excitement or anticipation, almost like they were begging to tell him.

“You, Doctor…” it eventually said. 

The Doctor’s eyes widened. He didn’t expect that. “What?” 

“It was the Doctor that caused the destruction of our fleet,” the Cyber-Leader said. “You are the Doctor.” 

The Doctor scratched his ear, trying to process all of this. “Yes, I am the Doctor… but I didn’t do that. Not yet anyway…” he said. He was still confused. “Why did I do that?” he then asked. 

If the Cyber-Leader had eyes then they would’ve narrowed. “You had a message,” he said with a cold tone. “We received it.” 

The Doctor didn’t ask for any further details. He knew that was for his future self to deal with at some point. “So whatever happened between me and you, something caused you to crash… yet, you ended up on Earth three-hundred years in the past where you stayed dormant until now,” he continued to pamper. “What woke you up after all this time?” 

“We were woken by earthquakes from the surface,” the Cyber-Leader replied. 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean earthquakes from the surface? Earthquakes come from under the surface, don’t they?” 

The Cyber-Leader lifted up his hand and a small beam of light emerged from it. “The earthquakes didn’t come from the Earth itself…” it said as the beam of light turned into a projection screen. 

The Doctor watched as the projection showed a battle near the cracked fault line that he and Jenny walked past earlier. The footage showed a bomb of some kind falling in between the fault line. 

And in the centre of it was Jenny. She tried to disarm the bomb by cutting the wires, only for the bomb to blow up anyway. 

“Jenny…” the Doctor started to piece things together. “She woke you up. Detonating that bomb caused you to awaken you from stasis.” 

“Correct,” the Cyber-Leader said. “The unit known as XJ-9 is technologically advanced. Our future is in her hands, she has to be studied.” 

“So you wanted to lure her?” the Doctor murmured. “Those people you kidnapped and converted, you were hoping that she would take notice?” 

“Catching XJ-9’s attention was mandatory, but we required converted units to repair and rebuild,” the Cyber-Leader said. “We will continue. The location of XJ-9 is required, you will tell us, Doctor.” 

The Doctor’s face went grim. “You will not get to her.” 

The Cyber-Leader then raised his gun-arm. “Then your presence here is not required. The Doctor will be deleted.” 

As soon as the leader took arms, all of the Cybermen followed after them. Their weapons were trained on the Doctor once more. 

“Delete!” they all said in unison, as if they were schoolkids at an assembly. 

The Doctor immediately raised his hands. “Just wait, wait! You don’t need Jenny! I can help you! You need me!” the Doctor pleaded. As he talked, he slowly inched closer to the emotional accelerator. “I can get your ship up and running again! Then you can leave, head back to where you were posted and live out your mechanical lives in peace!” 

The Doctor then pulled out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it towards the emotional accelerator. The Cyber-Leader’s head flicked slowly between the accelerator and the Doctor’s sonic, analysing and possibly plotting its next move.

“Sensors indicate that you are lying, Doctor,” the Cyber-Leader said. 

“No, not lying,” the Doctor said. “I’m offering you a choice.” 

“You plan to operate that device?” 

“Only if I have to.” 

“Then you have failed, Doctor.” 

The Cyber-Leader averted his aim away from the Doctor and moved it towards the emotional accelerator. The weapon on his arm fired instantly, hitting the accelerator dead through the centre. The Doctor watched wide-eyed as the emotional accelerator spat out sparks of electricity as it fell onto the ground, the satellite dish spinning frantically out of control before going completely limp. 

The device was dead. Kaput. 

The Doctor stared wide-eyed at the now broken device. There was no way he could fix that in such a hurry, not when the Cybermen had him outnumbered. 

Now, he had no plan. No back-up. 

“The Doctor will be deleted!” the Cyber-Leader then exclaimed, urging the rest of the Cybermen to power up their weapons. “Delete! Delete! Delete!” 

The Doctor’s eyes frantically darted around where he was standing, looking for anything ranging from another way to stop the Cybermen or, more importantly, an escape plan. But there was nothing. Nothing but an entire army of Cybermen about to delete him. 

Maybe he shouldn’t have sent Jenny away. While her technology is vastly inferior to that of the Cybermen, maybe she could’ve given him enough time to formulate a new plan. The Doctor would’ve face-palmed if he could; Stupid, stupid Doctor. 

Then his ears pricked up, there was something behind him. It was very faint and very quiet, but it was something the Doctor managed to recognise. Something he’ll always recognise across all time and space. A familiar vworp vworp. 

It was the sound of the TARDIS. 

But how? He made sure that the TARDIS was as far from the Cyber-ship as possible… 

That hopeful landing noise became louder and the TARDIS started to appear from thin air itself. The Doctor hardly gets to see the sight of the TARDIS materialising, considering he’s inside flying the old girl, but whenever he got the chance to do so, he thought it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. Even the Cybermen had stopped to admire the spectacle, their blank faces simply staring at the lights and sound ahead of them. 

The outline of the TARDIS soon became more solid, thin mist morphing into the shape of the blue police box that the Doctor loved so much. With a final wheeze, the TARDIS fully appeared and emitted a low thud. 

Before the Doctor could think of racing inside, the TARDIS’ doors swung open. The Doctor had to shield his eyes from the bright golden light that engulfed the interior. All of this seemed familiar to him for some reason, like a memory had awakened from another lifetime. 

Emerging from the light was a silhouette. It looked humanoid and was taller than him by a few inches or so, and the Doctor’s eyes widened at the recognition of who the silhouette belonged to. 

Jenny. 

The teenage robot stepped out of the TARDIS, her eyes completely illuminated in the same golden light as the TARDIS. However the Doctor was surprised to see that the new glowing eyes didn’t deter Jenny in the slightest, instead she looked at the Doctor and gave him a smirk that was almost identical to his own. 

“Did you miss me?” she said to him. 

The Doctor was baffled. “Jenny? What?” he stammered. “Bu–” 

Jenny rolled her eyes, half-amused at the Doctor’s utter confusion. “Come on, Doctor! Don’t just stand there, we’ve got work to do!” she then interjected. 

“It is XJ-9!” The Cyber-Leader shouted out. “XJ-9 must be proclaimed!” 

At his command, the army of Cybermen aimed away from the Doctor and now had their weapons trained on Jenny. 

Jenny didn’t seem afraid or even taken back by the amount of weaponry aimed at her head. There was a new confidence about her, one that the Doctor didn’t seem to like. “Now, now, you… just wait!” she said. “I’m busy!” 

The Cybermen remained still, simply watching. It was almost as if a prickle for fear had infiltrated their operating systems. 

The Doctor’s eyes gazed to the back of Jenny’s head and saw that there was a cable, presumably one she made herself, attached to the back of her head. He followed the cable down towards the interior of the TARDIS, peering through the light to see that the cable ended at the TARDIS central console. 

His two hearts beated with uncertainty. “Jenny… what have you done?” the Doctor muttered. 

“Well, pretty sure I’m saving your life,” Jenny said smugly. She sounded different than her usual self, it was almost a mimicry of someone else’s mannerisms. 

His own mannerisms, the Doctor quickly deducted. All because of the TARDIS.  

“No, no, no, you’ve connected yourself up to the TARDIS haven’t you?” the Doctor said in a serious tone. “Why did you do that?” 

“To save you. To save everyone,” Jenny said. “I looked into the TARDIS and the TARDIS looked into me. She showed me everything, Doctor… It was so wonderful and so sad at the same time. Is that how you see things?” 

“All the time…” the Doctor murmured. 

“Alert! Unknown energy detected!” the Cyber-Leader then barked out, causing both the Doctor and Jenny to turn back towards the rest of the Cybermen. “Hostile threat must be eradicated!” 

The Cyber-Leader fired his blaster towards Jenny. The Doctor was about to evade the proximity of the blast until he realised that Jenny had already frozen the blast in mid-air. 

“Oh no… you did not just do that!” Jenny said, almost offended. “How about you have a taste of your own medicine!” 

Jenny flicked her hand back and the frozen laser blast reversed and went straight through the Cyber-Leader’s chest. There was no exclamation of pain or no sparks of electricity, the Cyber-Leader simply fell onto the ground motionless. 

As Jenny stared at her newfound powers in utter amazement, the Doctor could only stare in silence. Memories of Rose and her absorbing the heart of the TARDIS entered his mind; the power of eternity in the palm of her hand, but such a power comes with a price. 

With the death of their leader, one of the Cyber-Leader’s bodyguards stepped forward to take command. “The Doctor and XJ-9 will be eliminated!” it exclaimed. “All units upgrade to maximum deletion!” 

Jenny only shook her head in response. “Yeah, I don’t think so,” she said. Her eyes glowed more intensely and she balled her fists, more golden energy seeping from her hands. “Now what’s that thing you guys always say?” 

The Cybermen looked at her blankly, refusing to provide an answer. 

Jenny then raised her hand. 

“Delete,” Jenny’s voice echoed. 

She snapped her fingers and a wave of energy exploded across the interior of the ship, impacting all of the Cybermen in the vicinity. As soon as they were hit with the energy, the Cybermen began to convulse and shake wildly. They grabbed the sides of their head, struggling to go through whatever pain was surging through their systems. 

“Emergency, emergency!” the Cyberman that stepped up in the Leader’s place called out. “Emotional influx detected!” 

“Overload! Overload!” The Cyberman next to it shouted out. The pain was too much to bear for this particular unit that it collapsed down to their knees. “Overlo—!” 

Then its head exploded, leaving traces of the synthetic flesh and fluids all over the walls nearby. The process then repeated with all of the other Cybermen on the ship, they fell down to their knees before their heads blew up one-by-one like a barrage of falling dominos. But instead of dominos, they were the exploding heads of dying Cybermen. 

The Doctor watched in silence, hands stuffed in his pockets and sporting a neutral frown. This was not the way this was supposed to go down, but the Cybermen were offered a choice. The Doctor told them so himself. Sometimes he just wished that, one day, one of the various enemies he’s faced in the past would actually let him save them.

They could’ve left in peace, and the Doctor had no choice to let them all die. 

Now that the Cybermen and their impending invasion of the planet had been stopped, there was still a slight issue to deal with. 

“Crikey!” Jenny shouted out in a cheerful glee, not quite the appropriate emotion when wiping out an entire army of Cybermen with a snap of her fingers. “This feels amazing! This feels… fantastic!” she then laughed. “And you guys were worried that I wouldn’t be able to hold my own against the Cybermen!” 

The Doctor, however, didn’t share her enthusiasm. He actually looked a little concerned. “Okay, Jenny… you’ve done it. You now need to stop. Just let it all go…” 

Jenny scoffed. “Let it go? How can I let go of all this?”

The Doctor cautiously approached her. “Jenny, listen to me. No one in the entire universe should have this power. It’s not just the heart of the TARDIS, it’s raw power itself. Time and space, whatever happened or ever will… no human mind, much less a robotic mind, can ever contain such a thing.” 

“But… I need it. All those threats out there; the Cluster, the Cybermen, what lies beyond this universe. I can protect the Earth.” 

“And it’ll kill you in the process. Your mind will burn and you will decay and die. It’s not worth it, Jenny… trust me.” 

Fluid leaked out of Jenny’s eyes. He was right, and yet the power was ever so tempting. “I can’t,” she murmured. 

“Just let it go…” 

Jenny started to shake. “I…” her words were suddenly lost. “I…” 

She grasped both sides of her head, her eyes suddenly clenched shut with an internal pain. Much like the Cybermen, she fell down to her knees and all of her circuitry and motor controls failed almost immediately. The Doctor quickly rushed and caught her just before she could fall to the ground. 

“Jenny!” the Doctor said, trying to get Jenny back onto her knees. “No, Jenny! Stay with me!” 

“Your song… your song is ending…” Jenny quietly muttered through the pain. 

The Doctor had to ignore that. No time to think about that right now. “It’s alright, Jenny,” he said. “Just don’t try to talk.” 

“Your song is ending… silence will fall… the hybrid… timeless child,” Jenny continued to mumble. 

“Don’t worry about that Jenny,” the Doctor said. “Look at me, focus on me, focus on my voice.” 

Jenny tried to, but she found that the Cyber-ship around her was fading away and switching to something else entirely. 

There was one last memory that the TARDIS showed her. Jenny found herself surrounded by trees, flowers and other elegant-looking flora, as if her aunt Wisteria had visited and decided to give the place an intense natural makeover. 

Soldiers, both human and some strange alien creatures Jenny didn’t recognise, surrounded her, all heavily armed but they weren’t aiming at each other. In fact, they just threw their weapons onto the ground. All of them simply gazed at the floral scenery around him, amazed at the spectacle of swirling colourful gases above. 

Then a gunshot went off, echoing loudly in the room. Jenny turned to see the Doctor and a blonde young woman in combat gear. The woman grasped her chest then suddenly went limp, the Doctor quickly catching her in his arms. 

“Jenny, talk to me… what’s going on?” the Doctor asked with urgency as she remained unresponsive. 

“I see a… girl,” she mumbled. “She… got shot, she’s dying in your arms. She was your daughter, wasn’t she?” 

The Doctor’s eyes went dark. He then nodded quietly. “She was…” 

“I can see her, in my head,” Jenny gasped, clutching the sides of her head. “Oh Jobs, my head… it’s killing me…” 

“Just hang on, okay?” the Doctor said softly. “I’ve lost one Jenny once, I’m not about to lose another…” 

Jenny. Her name was Jenny as well. 

Then she remembered how the Doctor looked at her, the first time she told him her name. That look of loss and grief. It was only for a brief second before the Doctor hid himself away with that smile of his, but Jenny noticed. All that pain, from the time that was not too recent. She just didn’t think it was about her. 

Did she remind the Doctor of his dead daughter?

“It hurts, Doctor…” she managed to choke out through the searing pain. Her head was heating up exponentially, all the components inside her trying to function and causing friction. The amount of data in her head, it was too much for her. 

The Doctor saw the cord attached at the back of Jenny’s head. “I’m sorry, Jenny… but this is going to hurt a lot more.” 

Grabbing his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor pointed it towards Jenny’s head. As soon as the sonic was activated, Jenny soon started to scream like a drill was being pierced through her head. But the Doctor didn’t hesitate or stop, he extended the emitter of his sonic screwdriver. The noise of the sonic increased but failed to drown out the sound of Jenny’s screams. 

“Just a little more, come on!” the Doctor grunted. 

The Doctor then heard the cable snap from inside of the TARDIS console and the cord itself slowly started to retract itself back into Jenny’s body. Jenny’s screams also died down as well and gradually degraded into what the Doctor assumed was the robotic version of ragged breathing. 

But it wasn’t over yet, the Doctor darted his head back-and-forth between Jenny and inside of the TARDIS. The interior lighting looked a bit faded, mostly since most of its energy had been transferred into Jenny. Sensing that the heart of the TARDIS hadn’t returned home yet, the Doctor rotated Jenny’s head around so she was facing the TARDIS. 

“Come on, come on,” the Doctor muttered to Jenny. “Just let it go… you can do it.” 

Jenny gave one last breath and a beam of golden energy expelled from Jenny’s mouth and directed itself into the TARDIS. Once the beam of energy hit the TARDIS’ central console, the interior lights grew brighter and the ambient hum suddenly reawakened; as if the TARDIS had woken up from a very short nap. 

The Doctor couldn’t help but smile, happy to see that the old girl had been fully restored. “There we go, all better now,” the Doctor softly assured Jenny, gently stroking the back of her head in comfort. 

But there was no response from Jenny or any sense of movement. The Doctor looked down to see that the teenage robot had gone limp, her eyes that were previously filled with gold were now gray and motionless. 

There was no indication of life. Jenny had been shut down. The raw power of eternity itself had been too much for her, letting it all go took all that she had left. 

That sudden stop of life. The moment where everything turns quiet. This was all familiar to the Doctor, having experienced this way too many times. 

All those he failed to save. Adric. The Master refusing to regenerate. The last moments of River Song… even his own daughter. 

This has happened so many times, and it hurts the Doctor each time. 

The Doctor gritted his teeth. “No… not this time.” 

He picked Jenny up and cradled her in his arms, initially taken back by how heavy Jenny was. But once he got over that, the Doctor staggered towards the TARDIS and shut the doors with the back of his foot once he stepped inside. 

The TARDIS soon dematerialised, leaving behind the entirety of dead Cybermen and the now empty Cyber-ship behind them. 

(---)

Wakeman and the boys were clearing up some of the leftover Cybermen parts from the front lawn when they saw the TARDIS land in front of them. 

A blue police box appearing out of thin air? Nora Wakeman would never have imagined she’d be one of a lucky few to see the TARDIS appear on her doorstep. When she read about the Doctor from the UNIT files she proclaimed, she didn’t exactly believe in such a thing. A ship that disguises itself as a police box and flies through space and time wasn’t something that Wakeman was eager to try herself. Time travel was a whole different science than what she is usually used to, so she didn’t bother trying any hypotheses. 

But despite all that, she found the idea of the TARDIS to be the most fascinating invention that the world has ever seen… well, besides her daughter of course. 

Nora didn’t have much time to get a better look at the TARDIS when the doors quickly swung open and she saw the Doctor carrying Jenny in his arms. At first, Wakeman was impressed that a skinny man such as the Doctor was able to carry XJ-9 without much struggle. But her parental instincts suddenly kicked in when she noticed that the teenage robot was now offline. 

“Oh no, Jenny!” Brad called out as he, Tuck and Sheldon ran towards her and the Doctor. 

“Jenny’s hurt! This can’t be!” Sheldon cried out, sounding almost heartbroken. “I never got the chance to say—” 

“Not now, Sheldon!” the Doctor barked. “I have to get her inside!” 

“Quickly, into my lab!” Wakeman ushered the Doctor and the others inside. 

Everyone followed Wakeman into her house, through the hallway and past a few doors and into another laboratory. The Doctor noticed that this wasn’t the same place that he found the emotional accelerator, as all the equipment and machinery in this room was relevantly new and lacked any dust or spider-webs. 

The Doctor followed Wakeman to a metal bench and laid Jenny on top of it. As Wakeman had started to put some jumper cables on the bolts on Jenny’s head, the Doctor had immediately rushed over to a connected control panel nearby and frantically tapped at a few buttons while carelessly rushing around like he had drunk too many cups of coffee. Despite the fact that he never visited this room, the Doctor worked the controls like he had done so a thousand times. 

“Doctor, what happened to XJ-9?” Wakeman asked, growing concern for her motionless daughter.

“It’s all my fault!” the Doctor exclaimed, continuing to push some buttons. “I left her in the TARDIS, I tried to keep her safe… but she wanted to help! She took the power of the TARDIS in her head… I shouldn’t have—” 

“Doesn’t matter now,” Nora assured him. “All that matters is to get XJ-9 back online… and I don’t think a simple recharge will do.” 

“No… her systems are too damaged for that,” the Doctor muttered. His face turned sad. “She needs a complete reset.” 

“Reset?” Wakeman didn’t like the sound of that. “Reboot her memory? That’s absurd!” 

“She absorbed the heart of the TARDIS and once she was connected to the console, the TARDIS showed her memories of me. She was merely protecting herself, trying to stop Jenny from plugging herself in. All my adventures, what I’ve done and what I will do someday, everything that was once Jenny had been corrupted, taken over by moments of my life.” 

“So she thinks she’s you?” 

“No, not quite,” the Doctor shook his head. “She was talking like me but she was still acting like herself. Her memories are still there somewhere, hopefully.” 

“Hopefully? That’s not very optimistic, is it?” Brad chimed in. 

“Doctor, can you save her?” Tuck then wondered. He hated seeing Jenny out of action for so long. She was one of his closest friends, and the only part of his life that was exciting. He didn’t want to lose that.

“Absolutely,” the Doctor said with a smile, trying to remain hopeful on the outside. 

“A complete memory wipe for XJ-9 is impossible, she’ll have to learn everything from the ground up!” Wakeman exclaimed. 

“Luckily you’ve got me then,” the Doctor said. “Start her recharging cycle… If I can just bypass this system then I can create a copy of her memories. Remove any traces of myself that’s not in the present day and replace the memory chip inside her.” 

“Will that work?” Sheldon queried. 

“Has to,” the Doctor said. “Otherwise we lose Jenny forever.” 

And so, with an urge to go ahead from the Doctor, Wakeman pulled a lever that was on the wall near to where Jenny was laid. The screen above the metal bench turned itself on and gave the lab a slight red glow, the words CONDITION CRITICAL then appeared in bold white lettering. Jenny remained still, as if she was fast asleep, but Wakeman could see on a monitor nearby that she was currently in her recharge cycle. 

Whether she wakes up or not, is in the Doctor’s hands. 

Once the recharging cycle had commenced, the Doctor had immediately begun to fire on all cylinders. As the computer systems he was working on were directly connected to Jenny, the Doctor could remotely copy and upload Jenny’s memories from where he was. He found all of the ones that were meant for her and only her. 

There were glimpses of his life in the memory files. Past versions of himself, even faces he didn’t recognise. He quickly flicked through those and got rid of them, he wasn’t eager for any spoilers. The Doctor kept the two of them meeting and their encounters with the Cybermen, but everything else involving the heart of the TARDIS were removed. 

The screen above Jenny flashed, a blaring alarm irritating the Doctor’s ears. This didn’t make the Doctor go any faster. 

“Come on, come on…” the Doctor muttered. “Just a bit longer.” 

Wakeman and the boys watched as the Doctor extracted what resembled an SD card out from the machine he was standing near. Once he yanked it out, the Doctor raced towards Jenny with his sonic screwdriver in hand. 

“Memory drive! Where is it?” the Doctor then exclaimed, his widened eyes staring at everyone else. 

There was no answer straight away, not even from Wakeman. 

“Anyone?!” the Doctor then shouted out, clearly impatient. 

Wakeman then woke up and went to her daughter’s side, rotating her head around. “It’s in the back of her head. The whole panel should open up.” 

The Doctor blitzed the sonic towards the back of Jenny’s head and the entire metal panel loosened. The Doctor pulled it aside and wasn’t particularly pleased to see the various amounts of wires and circuitry that made up Jenny’s brain, especially not in a crisis like this. 

Wakeman peered over and pointed to a slot underneath the makeshift brain. “The memory file should be in there!” 

“Thank you Dr Wakeman!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Molto bene!” 

The Doctor used the sonic to loosen Jenny’s old memory file from her head. As he pulled it out, he saw that it had burnt out to the point where smoke was starting to emerge from it. The Doctor pulled a face and tossed the old memory file aside like a used battery. 

He then inserted the new memory file he made into the now empty slot and clicked it back into place. The Doctor then proceeded to reseal the back of Jenny’s head with his sonic screwdriver, moving her head so she was back to staring straight at the ceiling. 

“Is that it?” Sheldon said. “She hasn’t woken up yet!” 

“It won’t be instantaneous,” Wakeman said. “All we can do now is hope XJ-9 pulls through.” 

“Come on, come on…” the Doctor quietly muttered to himself. All the time that he knew the teenage robot, he knew that Jenny wasn’t going to fizzle out like this. She was strong, she will pull through. 

For a moment, there was nothing. The screen above still lit up red and Jenny hadn’t budged, not even a flicker of life from her fingers or pigtails. For a moment, the Doctor believed that all that work was for nothing. That he was too late to save her… just like his Jenny. 

Then… the red screen suddenly turned green. At least Jenny’s recharging cycle was complete, not that it would do any good if she was no longer functioning. 

Her fingers then twitched. Tuck was the first one to notice and let out a gasp of pure joy. 

“Guys! Look!” he said. 

Jenny’s eyes fully lit up, her pigtails slowly moving up and down like wagging dog tails. A smile spread across the teenage robot’s face as she sat herself up. 

“Happy birthday!” she exclaimed. 

“Jenny!” Brad cheered as he, Tuck and Sheldon went to embrace her all at once. 

“Oh thank goodness you’re alright,” Wakeman said with relief. “You had us worried there for a minute, XJ-9.” 

Jenny blinked. “I did?” she then rubbed the back of her head, her eyes glancing around the room. She wasn’t sure how she got here, pretty sure that she was with the Doctor in his TARDIS last time she could recall. “Wait… what happened?” she queried, wondering why everyone looked relieved to see her. 

“You were broken and so we fixed you,” Wakeman replied. “Well, technically the Doctor fixed you up.” She gave a small smile towards the Doctor, who chose to remain silent through this reunion. 

Jenny’s eyebrow raised. “I was? By what…?” She searched through her memories, wanting to know what had broken her. Her eyes then widened when she realised why she was in the TARDIS in the first place. “Oh my gosh! The Cybermen! What happened to them!” 

“They’re gone,” the Doctor said. “All of them.” 

“Really?” Jenny said, quite surprised. A bit too anti-climatic for her tastes but she was glad that the Cybermen were stopped. “Must’ve missed all of that. So did you use that device on them, Doctor?” 

“Not quite,” the Doctor murmured. Jenny noticed there was pain in his eyes, but not the kind of pain that would come with eliminating an entire army of Cybermen. It was something else entirely. 

“Then how…?” 

“Don’t you remember? You stopped them by abs—” Tuck was about to say when Brad covered his mouth as quickly as he could.

“We stopped them, that’s all that matters,” the Doctor then interjected. 

“Knowing what I’ve researched about the Cybermen,” Wakeman said. “They have a nasty habit of coming back.” 

The Doctor unfortunately had to agree. “Oh yes,” he muttered. “But not here, I can ensure that.” 

“And if they do,” Jenny then jumped out of the bench she was sitting on. “Then I’ll be ready for them!” 

As soon as she said that, one of her pigtails promptly loosened from her head and fell onto the ground. She looked down and gave a blank, unimpressed stare at her fallen pigtail. Two bad hairs in a row? That had to be a first… 

“Well, give me a minute or two,” Jenny then deadpanned. 

(---) 

After Nora had reattached Jenny’s broken pigtail, they decided to wait until tomorrow to assist with the clean-up. While Jenny was up and walking about, she wasn’t quite ready to help out just yet. Jenny was only partly disappointed, but deep down she was glad to have a rest. She had a long day after all. 

Later, as the moon fully illuminated the night sky, Jenny and Nora let Brad, Tuck and Sheldon stay over for dinner. They didn’t feel like making anything so they just decided to order pizza, which they were surprised to see that they still provided a delivery service straight after an invasion of Cybermen. 

The five of them sat on the dining table, happily chatting the night away. Jenny sipped her oil can as she and Brad were discussing the fate of Mezmer’s now that Mr Mezmer wasn’t alive to keep the doors open. However, Sheldon then revealed that Mr Mezmer had an identical twin brother that’ll probably take over once Tremorton recovers from the Cybermen invasion. 

She was too preoccupied to see that the Doctor, who was examining the pieces of broken Cybermen on the front lawn, was standing near the doorway and watching them quietly. 

The Doctor didn’t make a sound or announce his presence. He just simply observed them from a distance. He could join. That is always a choice he could make. He had done it before on two Christmas nights. It would be so easy just to sit down and join them.

But the Doctor doesn’t do that kind of stuff anymore. 

He was on his own. 

And it was time for him to move on. 

So, when he was certain that no one was looking, the Doctor slipped away and headed down the hallway towards the front door. The TARDIS was parked out front on the walkway and he gave the old girl a smile as he exited the house and walked towards it. 

The Doctor had grabbed the key out of his pocket and was just about to put it in the keyhole when he heard someone call after him. He turned and saw that Jenny was standing by the front door. 

“Leaving without saying goodbye?” she said. 

“Sorry, thought I just head off,” the Doctor muttered. “Didn’t want to overstay my welcome, I’ve already caused much trouble already.” 

“You know, you don’t have to leave straight away right?” Jenny said. “You’re always welcome to stay, just for a bit.” 

The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets and simply gave Jenny a look, one that Jenny recognised as a polite denial. 

Jenny couldn’t help but feel disappointed. “I take it you won’t stay then?” 

“Onwards and upwards.” 

Jenny frowned. “Before you go, there’s something I gotta know. I don’t remember what happened to me after you left me behind, which I’m still not happy about by the way…” 

“Noted.” 

“But there were some flashes, events I don’t remember happening. And they involved you,” Jenny carried on. “Well, I think they’re you anyway. It's a bit of a blur really. There was one clear memory I definitely don’t remember having though.” 

“Which memory is that?” 

“I was in a forest. A girl got shot… and you were comforting her.” Jenny tried to recollect. “Your own daughter, who shared my name. Why do you think I kept that memory as opposed to some of the others?” 

The Doctor shrugged. “Your memory files were all burnt out when I brought you here,” he said. “Maybe it got transferred along with your ones when I was copying it over.” 

“You don’t think it means something does it?” 

“Nah, probably not,” the Doctor shook his head. “Most likely nothing more than a coincidence, I’m afraid.” 

“I’d be proud, you know…” 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Of what?” 

“If you were my dad,” Jenny said. “We made one helluva team, didn’t we?” 

The Doctor smiled. “Oh yes, we did.” 

Jenny then folded her arms in an awkward manner. “So… where will you go now?” she then asked. 

“Everywhere,” the Doctor said. “But… I believe I’m still owed a trip to Las Vegas. Elvis has been expecting me for about an hour now. Give or take ten minutes or so.” 

“And you just travel on your own?” Jenny queried. “Don’t you have anyone? Friends? Other family?” 

“Not anymore, no.” 

“Maybe you should have someone one day,” Jenny said. “Take it from someone who spent the last five years staring out the window and wishing that they were out there amongst other people… everyone needs someone.” 

The Doctor’s face saddened for a moment before he took a breath and reverted it to a neutral, unreadable gaze. “Maybe…” he murmured. 

The Doctor then turned the key and opened the TARDIS door behind him. “Right then, take care Jenny. Good luck with everything,” he said. 

“Yeah,” Jenny muttered. “You too…” 

The Doctor then leant forward and pulled the teenage robot in for a hug, one that Jenny eagerly accepted by wrapping her arms around him. Jenny didn’t want him to go, she barely knew this strange man in the pinstripe suit and yet she trusted him with her life. There was a connection there, almost a parental one. Jenny never had a father, she only had her mother. But this strange Doctor? For a moment, she felt that parental role filled a space she didn’t think needed filling. 

“Will I ever see you again?” she said. 

The Doctor smiled behind her head. “If I’m lucky.”

“Goodbye, Doctor…” 

“Goodbye, Jenny.” 

The Doctor and Jenny separated from their hug and Jenny watched as the Doctor stepped into the TARDIS and shut the door behind him. 

The Doctor raced towards the central console and began his usual routine of pressing buttons, flicking levers and making sure that the TARDIS flight was as smooth as he could get it. After tapping some coordinates into the console, the Doctor found himself near the materialization lever. 

He smiled and fished out his Elvis-styled sunglasses from his pocket and put them on, his smile growing into an ecstatic grin. 

“Alright then…” he said. “Where to now?” 

He pulled the lever. The console room shook to life and the Doctor looked to see the time rotor rising up and down as the TARDIS started to take flight. 

Outside, the lantern on top of the blue box immediately lit up and started to flash slowly. The wheezing and groaning, which Jenny thought started to sound more like a vworp vworp, grew intensely in volume as the exterior of the blue box started to fade in-and-out of existence. 

And then it faded away for good. The TARDIS, and the Doctor, had departed to who knows where. Jenny was left alone, staring at the empty street ahead. 

But Jenny wasn’t left alone for now. “XJ-9, can you believe these pieces left behind by the Cybermen?” she could hear her mother calling out to her. Jenny turned to see that Dr Wakeman was holding the head of a Cyberman, examining with pure amazement. “Absolutely extraordinary, in a creepy metal Frankenstein kind of way. Maybe I can tinker with this… maybe I can use it in your next—” 

Without hesitation, Jenny aimed her laser limb at the Cyber head and blasted it out of her mother’s hands. The head rolled onto the ground, the gray steel painted in a thick black ash as smoke seeped from inside. 

“Excuse me, XJ-9! I was looking at that!” Nora instantly scolded. 

“Believe me, Mom, it’s for the best…” Jenny said. 

Wakeman sighed. After all that the Cybermen had done, all that death and destruction, it was probably not a good idea to mess with technology originating from a deadly army. She avoided the robotics of the Cluster, so it was best to avoid the Cyber technology as well. No matter how tempting it was. 

“I suppose you’re right, XJ-9,” she then relented. “I suppose you’re right…” 

Both mother and daughter stood on the front lawn examining the stars. They may have stopped the invasion of the Cybermen, but their quest for peace and to save the world from evil continues.