An app's been launched that allows you to tag the homeless. People thinks they're doing a good thing and helping out. It does seem a remarkable success. After all, since it’s launched, there are a lot less homeless people on the streets – so it must be doing some good, mustn’t it?
Tyler is now homeless, seemingly permanently. He's out on the street with a kind homeless woman named Kirsty - but someone takes a picture of them and uploads it to an app. Within moments, a repurposed Sorvix firedrone, working for "oblation" threatens Tyler with death unless he uses experimental medical drugs. Kirsty finds Tyler on a beach, vomiting. She rescues him from the waves, and as they walk the streets, they're tagged again. A drone arrives, and offers the drugs or death. They choose drugs. Later, Kirsty tells him what she knows about Oblation. Tyler goes to see an Ex but is tagged by them, believing that they're helping him by tagging him "so he will get government support." Fleeing from a drone, he meets up with Ng, who is on a mission, and can't talk for long. Tyler is unable to admit what has happened to him and that he isn't "totally fine." Tyler wakes up a few days after being drugged by a drone, having been taken to a camp by Kirsty. He finds his money is stolen. Kirsty weakly blames some Romanian homeless men. Tyler is then prepositioned by a man for prositution, but he declines. He tries to go to a shopping centre later, but isn't allowed in, and is tagged. No one watches him get drugged by the drone. No one cares. When Tyler wakes up, God is making him some Tomato soup. She says he has "saved a life," and mysteriously disappears, having done her bit of foreshadowing. Days later, Tyler and Kirsty are reunited and get on a train, hoping to get to the valleys to escape the Drones. They are tagged by a woman and given a "punishment dose" for trying to escape. It is every bit as awful as it sounds. Back in Cardiff, Tyler tries to enlist Andy for help - trying to get arrested so he gets better treatment, but EVEN ANDY tags him, believing he is helping. At Cardiff Bay, Kirsty tells Tyler that she has a lump on her breast and he tells her that she should return there if she ever needed to find him. He spots Mr Colchester, whom he is surprised to see alive, and tries to tell him about the drones, but he does not properly listen and instead gives him some change. Tyler gives oral sex to the man that offered it before, but is given only £20 and is hit when he said he agreed to more. He wakes up to find Kirsty looking through his coat for his money, ostensibly to buy him medicine. He goes to A&E, but is told by Oblation that the hospital is out of bounds for the homeless and that drones have been summoned. He is given another punishment dose for aggressive begging and Kirsty tells him that he should choose death next time as he seems to have given up. He wakes up to find Kirsty looking through his coat for his money, ostensibly to buy him medicine. He goes to A&E, but is told by Oblation that the hospital is out of bounds for the homeless and that drones have been summoned. The Crowd, as usual, doesn't care about Tyler's pleas. He is given another punishment dose for aggressive begging, waking up in agony, and Kirsty tells him that he should choose death next time as he seems to have given up. He buys a mobile phone with his saved money, and calls Colchester and Ng with a false call about a Weevil, before tagging them. Now they'll have to help him, and thank god, they do. Mr. Colchester shoots a drone down, and Tyler takes Colchester's car with the two of them to oblation headquarters, which he locates, hacking into the drone's remains. When he arrives, a young man named Ben is behind it all. He was just doing it for the money. After a long conversation, Tyler is sickened and tags him, the drone burning Ben to death. Tyler wakes up, at long last, safe in the hub. Jack says that he should have told them - that he would have helped, and Norton and Yvonne offer to let him join Torchwood. Yvonne asks him if Tyler knows the girl outside - Kirsty - that is calling for him. Tyler considers and tells her that he does but he does not want to see her.
Tropes:
- Darker and Edgier: Quite possibly the most dark story in the entirety of Doctor Who canon, and if it's not THE darkest, it's up there. The story deals with drugs, prostitution, the abuse of homeless people in our modern day society, suicide, torture, and is literally all about a pervasive atmosphere of dread. Once you've been documented, you can't escape the drones, and Tyler nearly doesn't.
- Kick the Dog: Tyler leaves Kirsty out on the streets to suffer once he's no longer homeless.
- Kill It with Fire: Anyone Tagged who doesn't consent to the drugs is burned to death. Slowly.
- All-Loving Hero: Kirsty.
- Driven to Suicide: Tyler nearly kills himself. Dozens of people tagged by Oblation do.
- Downer Ending: Incredibly so. After Tyler goes through hell to get out of the oblation system and shut it down, and get off the streets - once he's not homeless anymore, he doesn't care about the others, just like the many who ignored himself - including Kirstie, who he leaves on the dangerous streets. based on the events of the following stories, it is unlikely Kirstie survived the mass flooding in Eye of The Storm.
- Grimdark: Yep.
- Knight of Cerebus: The Oblation Drones. Minus Another Man's Shoes, every episode from here on out is incredibly dark, even if the Oblation drones aren't in them.
- Kill the Poor: The homeless are mysteriously disappearing off the streets, and well, people are happy about that. It must be good for them, right? They definitely aren't being subjected to illegal drug trials and killed, right?
- Un-person: Homeless people, throughout.
- Wham Episode: Tyler FINALLY joins Torchwood - after being put through the most amount of hell you could possibly imagine.
- Break the Haughty: Many people didn't like Tyler - but it's such a brutal story that you can't help but sympathize.
- Disappointed by the Motive: When he finds the man behind the drones in Hostile Environment he's unimpressed but not surprised to see he's 'just a bloke' who is trying to make money off abuse of the homeless. He then kills him.
- Mistaken for Prostitute: Tyler eventually becomes so desperate for money that he finds the man who propositioned him and prostitutes himself for real. He is hit and not given the money he was promised, furthering Tyler's breakdown.
- Ship Tease: Tyler offers to be "there" for Jack. Jack declines, saying that he's still not over "the last person" that was there for him.
- Rage Breaking Point: After the brutality of the plot, when Tyler finds the man behind it did it all for money, he burns him to death.
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Designated Hero: Tyler, who has been utterly destroyed over the course of the story, brutally kills the man responsible for his suffering. But the real Moral Event Horizon is when he refuses to rescue Kirstie - the one person who has shown him kindness throughout the story, and without whom he would be dead - who he disregards without a second thought.
