Doctor Who Diaries — The Harvest Part 4
This is the final part of “The Harvest” (nearly). We return to Security Officer David Garnier as the project falls apart. He becomes increasingly desperate to control the situation and remove the Doctor and his colleagues from the picture. He fails in all ways, especially when the subjects turn on him.
Next week we’ll take one final look at “The Harvest” via the Seventh Doctors point-of-view.
The final thoughts of David Garnier, Executive Security Officer “Recarnative Program”, St Gart’s Brookside Hospital
We didn’t manage to apprehend the nurse or the one who goes by the moniker “Doctor” but we were able to capture and interrogate Dorothy McShane and Doctor Matthias. The latter didn’t seem to have a clue what was going on, but the former knew even more than I originally suspected. She had heard the name “Cyberman” for starters. That freaked me out.
A short time later, Dr Farrer told me that all the “guest” Subjects were rejecting the grafts, time and time again. The operations seemed to work with no problem when flesh was grafted with metal, but the other way around, that’s when things seemed to be tricky. Farrer again talked about ‘new ground’, but I could tell that he was worried and tired, perhaps even showing a little bit of fear. I shared much of that last emotion with him. This whole operation worried me. I tried to comfort him, and I hinted that I had a new supply of ‘organs’ available for him. I had invoked the Euro Emergency powers designed specifically for this project. That meant that McShane and Matthias were mine to do with as I pleased.
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There are times when I wonder if I’ve become a monster, but then there are other times when I realise that this is simply my duty, nothing more. I ordered Polk to escort McShane and Matthias to the operation room to take out parts from them. When there Farrer objected. It seems that he hadn’t quite connected in his head the fact that we were taking donations from live people. Of course, most of those people had been near-death at the time, so taking their lives wasn’t quite the same as taking the lives of these two ‘healthy’ individuals. But, nonetheless, they were a threat to us, and more importantly, the need was urgent. I reminded Dr Farrer that he, himself, had said that the previous grafts were failing. If we were to succeed, we needed more organs.
Polk forced Dr Farrer to comply and so he began his work. However, unknown to me at the time Farrer gave into his emotional side and put a stop to the operation before it went too far. It seems that the nurse, Hex, had helped as well.
Meanwhile, Polk and I finally managed to apprehend the Doctor, who had caused so much damage to System. Polk seemed to recognise him from his time as a full Cyberman. I objected to his desire to keep him alive. From my point of view this man should be killed. To prove his point, Polk demonstrated something unexpected. This man wasn’t human. He used System to prove it. I must admit, I was astounded by this revelation. He called him a “Time Lord”, whatever that means. Polk seemed to think that this ‘Doctor’ could help to solve the problems with the grafts. I tried to order him to help us under Euro Council directives, but he refused.
In the end, I helped to explain the history of how we had come across Polk and his colleagues, and the Doctor figured out much of the rest. Polk explained that he and six other units had crashed in the Pyrenees mountains. The Euro Council had retrieved them and promised them aid in return for technical enhancements that would accelerate their space program. The Council had this idea that the Cyber tech could help them to create a super-astronaut of some kind. I was brought in as security and to make sure that the Council’s ambitions became a reality.
As Subject One explained himself to the Doctor I received a report that two of the other subjects were rejecting their latest organ grafts. I instructed the Doctor to help us, and he reluctantly agreed. However, before anything could be done, I discovered that Polk had interpreted my command too literally. I had ordered the program to be protected, what I didn’t realise is that this meant that the human subjects that Farrer had cyber-formatted were now systematically eliminating all humans that they came in contact with. Half the hospital was already under attack.
I ordered Polk to stop, but he then turned on me and fired! That was the last thing I saw or thought. He had killed me!
Notes
- This account records events from the final segment of the Big Finish audio story “The Harvest” from the Seventh Doctor era. An epilogue will tell the final part of that story.
- It’s revealed in this episode that the original Cybermen in this story were from Mondas (thus the first Cybermen race).
