Tom Mordley
- For other Toms, see Thomas .
Doctor Tom Mordley was an American PKD scientist who lived in Philadelphia, forming a close bond with his brother's family after his passing. He was a leading figure in the Cyberon development project, becoming addicted to the substance himself and becoming the lynchpin of the Cyberons' deployment at St John's Hospital in 2000. He later died after destroying the Cyberon who manufactured the Cyberon, with help from Louise Bayliss. After death, he was widely known as a con man due to the cover up of Cyberon.
Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]
Early life[[edit] | [edit source]]
His brother died of an aneurysm when he was a grad student and he worked extra shifts to cover the rent for his sister-in-law Sarah Mordley and his niece, Brittany Mordley. (PROSE: Silver-Tongued Liars)
Taking Cyberon[[edit] | [edit source]]
After Albert Foster introduced the Cyberon fluid to PKD in 2000, (PROSE: Flight of the Cyberons) Mordley became fascinated with the substance, sincerely viewing it as a miraculous discovery and a boon to mankind. He began taking injections of Cyberon himself before clinical trials had even been completed, becoming addicted to the sensation of improving senses and cognition that it brought. With St John's Hospital in London selected as the site for a first trial of Cyberon on human patients, Tom rented a house and came to St John's. There, despite his disregard for her boundaries in beginning tests on "her" patients, he quickly befriended Doctor Lauren Anderson, with the two even engaging in a romantic relationship.
However, he began to be taken over more and more by the Cyberon intelligence. When Lauren, having discovered that Cyberon had a mind of its own, tried to convince Tom to change his mind, he instead forcibly injected her with a dose of Cyberon to try and change her mind. However, after a day's daze during which she resumed her romantic relationship with Tom, Lauren came to her senses. She returned to St John's and cleaned out all supplies of Cyberon within the hospital. Tom, now fully under the Cyberon's control, with his right hand even having turned to metal, followed her there, knocked her out and abducted her back to his house, where he intended her to have her fully converted into a Cyberon humanoid. Instead, Lauren stabbed him, seemingly killing him, and banishing the ghostly Cyberon humanoids who had begun to materialise in his presence. (PROSE: Cyberon)
Survival[[edit] | [edit source]]
Lauren Anderson left Tom for dead at his house, and turned herself in to the police. However, Tom was saved by the Cyberon in his system, and, to Lauren's surprise, went to the police to clear her, demonstrating that he had not, in fact, been stabbed to death. He confirmed Lauren's suspicion that it was the Cyberon which had saved him, and did not speak further to her. (PROSE: Cyberon)
Tom continued to distribute Cyberon, such as in places such as Brainstorm. However, as he was running low on stock, he had to break into the PKD facility where further batches were stores; however, due to groups from Geneva and Canary Wharf having seised the location, he had to sneeak over a barbed wire fence, aided by his Cyberon abilities. However, he was spotted by Louise Bayliss, who had been sent to the site by Patricia Haggard of P.R.O.B.E. to ensure the safe containment of the batches of Cyberon. Unbeknownst to him, Tom was followed by Louise into an unsecured part of the facility, where he killed Albert after he revealed he had stopped taking Cyberon. Tom spoke to the Cyberon responsible for the production of the Cyberon drug, and the Cyberon, noticing the presence of Louise, ordered Tom to kill her. He very nearly did so, but was repelled by Louise's golden necklace, the gold interfering the Cyberon's connection to his nervous system. Louise quickly figured out that she could use her necklace to help Tom regain control of his body, and he turned on the Cyberon and destroyed it by jamming an exposed wire into it. Tom then succumbed to the trauma and died.
Louise soon spoke to Patricia again at Ashley House about Tom and his remaining family. She then went to Lauren's flat, informing Lauren of Tom's death, and reassuring her to go back into work. (PROSE: The Last Dose)
Tom's funeral was held in the UK, not next to his brother in Pennsylvania, as decided by the Home Office. (PROSE: The Last Dose) Brittany and Sarah Mordley, P.R.O.B.E., Lauren and her friend, and twelve armed soldiers attended the funeral. He was buried in a golden coffin, which was sealed in the ground with concrete; Brittany considered this treatment to be like that of hazardous waste. (PROSE: Silver-Tongued Liars)
Legacy[[edit] | [edit source]]
At Ashley House, Patricia had told Louise that Cyberon was being covered up by discrediting Tom as a con man. Rumours and lies spread, people claiming he was working for a drug cartel, or working as part of an advance force for "whatever had gone on at that Canary place in the UK", or that he had been taken over by an alien drug and had tried to test it at a care home. His niece, Brittany, was continually bullied at her school over her uncle being a con man. She once denied being related to Tom, but she felt shameful afterwards.
In 2008, the storage company where Tom's possessions were being kept raised their rates too high for his sister-in-law, Sarah, to afford. When Brittany went through Tom's possession, she found: Burning Chrome by William Gibson; various CDs; clothes; greeting cards; a smaller box filled with things to do with Lauren; and a vial of Cyberon, which transfixed Brittany. That night, she dreamt of Tom and Lauren kissing, which grossed her, and then they told her that Cyberon was the future. After she injected the Cyberon the next day and it started to convert her, she began to feel that the lies told about her uncle could be true. She went to commit suicide, a result of her breaking down about her uncle, the bullying, and not wanting her mother to see her in that state, but was convinced by Patricia not to go through with it, as she told Brittany that while she had been right to believe her uncle, the Cyberon was not what had been promised. (PROSE: Silver-Tongued Liars)
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
George originated in the 2000 BBV Productions video drama Cyberon, which also featured the debut of Lauren Anderson. There, he was played by American actor P. J. Ochlan. Though having evolved out of a project initially planned to star the Cybermen, the finished movie had no legal ties to the Doctor Who universe, having replaced the Cybermen with a new species, the Cyberons. For this reason, it is not covered by this Wiki.
Instead, we consider Arcbeatle Press's prose retelling of Cyberon in their anthology of the same name, which consciously retrofitted the movie's narrative into "in the Doctor Who world" by involving other pre-existing DWU concepts under licence from their creators, to be Doctor Mordley's debut as a DWU character.
