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FIC: The Last Library 2/3 (Torchwood)
Title: The Last Library
Author: Jewels (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bjewelled)
Web Link: http://www.bjewelled.co.uk/fanfic/twfic.shtml
Fandom: Torchwood
Disclaimer: Torchwood belongs to the BBC and is the brainchild of Mr. Davies.
Summary: Pre-series, in the days of Torchwood One. Torchwood London uncovers a mysterious alien artefact and a building full of dead bodies. Imagine their surprise upon finding that Jack Harkness, self-declared head of Torchwood Three, is the only survivor. What happened, and what's a young researcher at London supposed to do to help?
Read from the beginning.
**
Jack Harkness had been having a rotten week so far.
He'd been killed at least once – and how that had happened was something he was still uncertain on – and then captured by Torchwood London, proving that Yvonne Hartman still hadn't gotten over the time he'd called her a bitch and sent her assault team back to London with a few less memories than when they'd left it. To cap it all of, they'd left him in an unflattering hospital gown for far too long, and it did absolutely nothing for his complexion, and shut him in a cell with nothing to do but count the dots in the ceiling tiles and get dragged away for repeated and fruitless questioning.
He'd reached eight thousand four hundred and eighty two dots on the ceiling when the door swung open to reveal a pair of black-clad security guards. He sighed and sat up on the uncomfortably thin mattress that called itself a bed and gave them a lopsided smile. “That time again, huh? You know, I never thought I'd get tired of twenty questions-”
One of the guards had apparently run out of patience. He tossed something straight at Jack. He reflexively reached up to grab it, and discovered that it was in fact the clothes they'd taken off him when he'd come in. He looked up at the guards, suspiciously.
“You've been released,” the man said, “Yvonne's glad to be rid of you, I think.”
“It's my winning personality,” Jack said, and wasted no time in quickly pulling on his clothes. It as a bit of a relief after the chill of the cell. It was as he was pulling on his greatcoat, however, that he felt an unfamiliar weight in the pocket, a weight that hadn't been in there before. Glancing at the guards to make sure they weren't looking, he slipped a hand into the pocket, feeling the shape. It was something with keys on it, and a screen, larger than a normal phone, but similar. A smartphone? He didn't dare look, only pulled his hand out of his pocket and smiling winningly at the guards and gesturing to the door.
“Shall we, gentlemen?”
Yvonne must have been fairly desperate to get rid of him. The guards escorted him up to the main reception area, handed him back his gun and his mobile phone, and unceremoniously kicked him out on the street. Jack looked up at the edifice of Torchwood Tower and grimaced. London's hospitality hadn't changed much in a hundred years. In fact, he would say that their attitude towards their sister organisations had worsened. Back in the day, Torchwood One operators would have just shot him. These days, they smiled, captured him, and then made noises about having him stabbed in the back.
The world was nothing like it used to be.
He waved up at the security cameras, knowing Yvonne would be watching, and walked off, heading for the nearest coffee shop. He desperately needed a caffeine fix. Fortunately, this was London, and it was impossible to walk for more than five minutes in any direction before tripping over a Starbucks. As he walked, he pulled his phone out, and dialled the Hub from memory.
“Jack?” It was Toshiko Sato who answered, “You're ok! Owen, Suzie, it's Jack!”
There was the sound of scuffling in the background as the other two presumably scrambled over to Tosh's workstation.
“Jack,” Suzie said, “Thank god. I was starting to think that witch was never going to let you out.”
“That was your doing, I take it,” he said, smiling. That was his Suzie. Pretty unafraid to take anything on, consequences be damned.
“I might have made a few phone calls,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “I didn't think they'd get onto you so fast.”
“They were as surprised to see me as I was to see them,” Jack said. “Kept demanding to know why I was there. They weren't happy with my lack of an answer.”
“Typical,” he heard Owen mutter. “Swan in, take over everything, make our lives nothing but trouble.”
“Torchwood London's nothing but trouble,” Suzie supplied, sounding exasperated.
Jack stuck his hand into his pocket, touching that heavy weight he'd felt before. He lifted it out, and, sure enough, it was a smartphone. There was a number written on a label on the back. It was definitely corporate origin, and no doubt from the Torchwood stockroom. But what was it doing in his pocket? If they were trying to track him, it was a very clumsy way of doing so. Pressing his lips together in thought, he pressed the on button. There was a pause, and the screen lit up.
There was one message sitting on the system, with no number attached to the sender. He thumbed the keypad to open it.
People are dead and TW1 doesn't care, it read. How about you?
He thought about that for a moment, and started tapping a response even as he spoke down the line to the others. “Tosh, I know it's a tall order, but see if you can get into Asen's systems. I'm pretty sure that they knew much more about whatever this thing is than anyone else.”
“Hmm,” Tosh said, “It's going to be hard. They've got a very restrictive system. It's going to be impossible to get in unless you manage to get back inside and plant a relay.” She paused. “It would be easier if I came down there and-”
“No,” he said, sharply, raising his head as if to glare at her. Unfortunately, she was on the other side of the country, and he only wound up glaring at a postbox. “I don't want any of you guys near where Torchwood London can get its hands on you.”
“Jack, we're big boys and girls,” Owen said, sounding peevish. “We can handle ourselves.”
“Not against London,” Jack said firmly, unwilling to debate the point. “Trust me, you don't know these people. I do.”
Who are you? He messaged back in reply. And what do you know?
“I don't like that you're out there without any backup,” Suzie said.
The smartphone in his hand beeped, and he looked down to see the new message. I work in Torchwood London, it said, And I know that something is very wrong here.
“Oh, don't worry,” Jack said, eyeing the device thoughtfully. “I think I might just have that covered.”
**
Twenty minutes later, Jack was on his second cup of coffee, and finally starting to unwind, giving himself space to think about what his next move was going to be. There was no chance that he was actually going to obey Yvonne Hartman and keep out of the Asen situation. The brief glimpse he'd gotten of the alien artefact had convinced him that it was definitely something to be kept out of her hands, although Jack tended to make it a point to thwart London at any opportunity.
He didn't believe her for a moment when she'd claimed that protonic fusion burst had caught their attention. His wriststrap had recorded no such energy surge, and by its technology, such things were easily detectable. That meant that Yvonne Hartman was lying to him, unsurprisingly.
Jack rolled the coffee cup between his hands. The logical solution would for him to start at the beginning, and to figure out where exactly things had gone wrong.
**
Steve Jacks's head rebounded off the window. Made of toughened glass, it deprived Jack of the satisfaction of seeing it shatter under the impact. Instead, dear Steve was left conscious enough to yell,
“Jesus, man! You're gonna fucking injure me!”
Jack grabbed Steve by the scruff of his shirt collar and slammed him face-first into the wall, twisting his right arm painfully behind his back. “That was kinda the idea,” he snapped, “And unless you want to spend the rest of the month in an ICU, I suggest you start talking.”
“Fuckin' crazy, man!”
“Crazy and short on patience.” Jack yanked him away from the wall, before slamming him back against the cheap plasterboard surface again. “Now talk!”
Steve Jacks was, in Toshiko's words, “a complete sleazebag”. He was a lawyer, but the sort of lawyer that thought ambulance chasing was a bit high-class. His connections with two-bit criminals were listed on a police record as long as his arm, and several of those names had come up in connection with Asen Industries. Steve Jacks had, in fact, informed Torchwood Cardiff of the suspicious goings on in the London company. They'd been holding certain illegal dealings over him for years, quietly blackmailing him to keep him on as an informant, and Steve had clearly hoped that such a juicy bit of information as Asen getting its grubby paws on alien technology might get them off his back.
Jack would have been inclined to agree and let matters slide, if said information hadn't led rather directly to his own death.
“I don't know what to tell you!” Steve whined, “Ow!”
Jack grit his teeth. “How did Torchwood London find out something was going on at Asen? Because they sure as hell didn't hear it from me!”
“Maybe they're just better at intelligence gathering than you,” Steve said, a nasty note in his voice. “Everyone knows you Americans don't know shit. Fuck!” Jack had taken the opportunity to painfully yank his arm up another inch or so.
“Care to rephrase that?”
“You don't know jack shit.” Steve yelled loudly as Jack dug his fingers into a nerve cluster to make his point. “Ok, ok, fine. Let go of me!”
Jack frowned, considering.
“Fuck, where am I going to run off to that you creeps can't find me?”
Jack harrumphed, and let go, allowing Steve enough room to straighten up and turn around, but not moving away, keeping him pinned in the corner of his shambolic excuse for an office. “Talk,” he ordered.
“I didn't tell them anything,” Steve repeated, in a tone definitely describable as 'grumbling'. “I didn't have to.”
Jack frowned.
Steve shouldered his way past Jack, moving over to the kettle to make himself a coffee with ostensible nonchalance. “Oh sure, I thought, bright idea. What one branch of Torchwood will pay for, you get get two to pay for at twice the price. Not like either of them ever talk to each other now is it?”
“And here was me thinking you were going to be trying to talk your wait out of my shooting you,” Jack snapped.
Steve looked like he was briefly considering a snarky response, but after a long look at Jack's face, he paled slightly, perhaps realising exactly how serious Jack was about the threat. He fiddled with the old and chipped mugs that sat upside down next to the kettle. “I told them that Asen was messing around with technology that was probably alien. They seemed kinda interested, but the weird thing was that when I told them what it was, a glowy cube, they didn't seem all that surprised.”
Steve hesitated and Jack looked at him with narrow eyes. “What are you not telling me?” he prompted.
Steve fidgeted for a moment. “They asked me questions about the thing, and the only thing that got them really surprised was when I said how big it was. They seemed to think it was small, really small like 'hold in your hand' small. I told 'em they were wrong, and the next thing I know, they're threatening to send me off to some hole in nowhere if I tell anyone.” Steve glowered at the kettle as he flicked it on.
Jack looked at him speculatively. “Why haven't they thrown you in a hole already?”
Steve rolled his eyes. “Because I have no real sense of moral responsibility and will sell information to them happily?” He snorted. “I suppose I should be grateful they can't do any weird men-in-black shit and wipe my memory, or I think they'd have done that already.”
Jack shook his head. “Don't worry, there's only one person with amnesia pills. And that's me.”
Steve laughed. “Good one.”
Jack shrugged. “Fine, don't believe me.” He folded his arms. “So Torchwood One already knew about the cube,” he said.
“I guess.”
“But they were surprised at it's size.” Jack stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. “I suppose if it wasn't what they thought it was, they'd be keen to make a move on the place. They certainly didn't come because the staff of Asen all got killed.”
“That thing killed them?” Steve ran a hand over his head. “Shit. I need to think about getting out of this business.”
Jack frowned. “That's the problem. I'm not sure that it did kill them.”
**
How did the Asen staff die? he asked his Torchwood One friend.
It took a few minutes for the response to come. Jack was sitting on one of the many benches that overlooked the Thames. From here, he could look downriver and see Canary Wharf lit up brightly against the dark night's sky. London was a genuine international capital. Even in the middle of the night, it was alive, and busy, and voices drifted from nearby that weren't all speaking in English. Jack wasn't entirely sure he liked it more than Cardiff. There had been a time when a city like London would have been tame by his standards, when the presence of only a single species of a mere few million in number, with no flitters buzzing around the sky, seemed terribly parochial. It just went to show how a person's perception could change, especially if they'd had to go a substantial portion of their life without proper indoor plumbing.
The smartphone beeped. Don't you know? You were there too.
His mouth twitched. The staff were all dead when I got there. I made it up to the cube before I was-
He looked up at Canary Wharf in the distance and tried to think how to phrase it.
-overcome.
Another protracted pause. The autopsy results haven't been released, said the message. I'm guessing they're not done yet. And then, Yvonne Hartman's having you followed.
Jack smiled slightly. She was. I lost them after the first ten minutes. He drummed his fingers on the back of the plastic casing. Who are you?
I'd rather not say. I'm not 100% convinced this is secure.
Then why should I trust you? he promptly responded.
If you don't want my help, that's fine. It's not like it's very safe for me to be standing in the Tower sending messages to Yvonne's least favourite person in the whole wide world.
Least favourite, really? Jack added a smilie face at the end for effect.
I'm starting to see why.
Jack briefly wondered who exactly might be sending him cryptic messages. It was someone high enough up to know Yvonne and who she liked (somehow he doubted she was going around telling every two bit research assistant that he wasn't on her Christmas card list), and someone who'd been present at the Asen Industry building when he was found, or was able to access the reports. Who was head of research these days? Michaels? Swan? It almost certainly wouldn't be them. He didn't think that either of them had forgiven him for stealing the subspace modulator probe that had landed in Gloucester in the name of Torchwood Three.
He pulled out his mobile phone. "Tosh," he said, when the phone was picked up. "Do me a favour?" He read out the serial number on the casing of the smartphone. "See if you can trace who's sending messages to this thing?"
He could hear the sounds of rapid typing in the background. "It's heavily encrypted," Tosh said, dubiously, after a few moments had passed, "I'm not sure I'm going to be able to crack this quickly. It looks like a Torchwood London encryption."
Suzie was apparently eavesdropping. "What's going on?" she asked.
"Not sure yet," he said, "I'm starting to think that this cube is something that Torchwood's encountered before, or at least London has. Do me a favour and see if you can't find something in the Cardiff archives?"
Suzie sounded dubious. "Jack, have you seen the archives lately? It looks like no one's been down there to organise them since..."
"1999, I know." It was one of those things that Jack kept meaning to do, but kept putting off. He'd have assigned one of the others to sort things out before now, but his team seemed to hate filing in a way that Jack himself thought was slightly too personal than was normal. He didn't let them near some of the items in the archives anyway, knowing that they just didn't have the experience with alien technology that would let them identify dangerous things immediately. They were getting there, but weren't quite that knowledgable just yet.
"They stopped sharing their files with us in 2000," he said, "But see if there's anything in there before that."
"Bit of a long shot," Suzie said.
"I know, but it's worth an attempt."
He put the phone down, slipping it into his coat pocket. He breathed in the cool night air and, in spite of himself, smiled slightly. There was something refreshing about being out and about on his own, investigating without having to worry about anyone else getting in harms way. He would have been lying if he'd told anyone that he wasn't started to feel a little stifled in Cardiff. Between the necessity of taking care of a team, and the ever constant watchfulness and waiting for a certain individual to come back into his life, he'd barely left the Cardiff area in the last four or five years. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed this sort of thing.
Does Torchwood have prior knowledge of the cube?
I think so. Or that's the impression I get from Doctor Swan. She doesn't seem too interested in anything she's seeing. She acts like it's old news. I don't know for sure.
Can you find out?
The pause this time was longer than any of the others. I'll try, was the eventual response.
Jack nodded to himself. He couldn't ask for anything more at that very moment. Whoever his mysterious little helper was, there was no doubt that simply by communicating with Jack they were putting themselves in danger from Yvonne. He wasn't going to scare them off so soon.
**
Ianto Jones was not, if one were honest, a willfully disobediant man. Most of the infractions of his childhood had involved extenuating circumstances that had gone a long way to ensuring that his public records were a lot less colourful than they might otherwise have been. It gave him a brief frisson of excitement when he took a moment to think about what he was doing (and if he didn't think too hard about the possible consequences). That, and the utter conviction that it was wrong to just ignore what had happened to the Asen staff.
There was only one thing that could stop him, and she was currently standing in front of him, having stepped into his path the moment he'd ducked out of the labs to conduct his clandestine errands.
"Ianto," Lisa said, a trepidatious look on her face. "We need to talk."
"Words to strike fear into the heart of any man," he said, blinking at her. He turned, and started walking towards the lifts, as if she wasn't interrupting anything important.
"You're probably going to be mad at me for not saying anything earlier," Lisa continued, as Ianto pressed the call button.
The doors opened, they stepped inside, and Ianto said, "You know, I thought I was joking with that 'affair' remark the other day, but now..."
"Ianto," Lisa sounded impatient, and she sighed. She fixed her eyes on the inside of the lift doors. "It's my mother."
"What about her?" he asked, selecting the fourteenth floor on the lift panel. Overtly, it was an innocuous choice: it was the home of the accounting and HR departments.
"She's coming to visit," Lisa said, quickly. "Tonight."
"That's why you were cleaning." Ianto stared into space. "Right. We can handle this. We can deal with it maturely."
"Good," Lisa said, smiling.
"In an adult fashion."
"Glad you agree."
Ianto took a deep breath. "It's the only sensible solution, after all." He turned to her, putting hands on her shoulders. "Well, my darling, it's been fun, but maybe we should start seeing other people."
He kissed her chastely on the cheek, and exited the lift quickly as the doors opened.
Lisa's smile collapsed into a scowl, and she held the doors open with her hand. "Ianto-"
"I'm serious," he said, hands on his hips. "Your mother hates me."
"She does not hate you."
"She threatened to castrate me with her pruning shears."
"She was being hormonal," Lisa said. "She's going through the Change."
"The Change causes her to imply I'm the illegitimate offspring of a genetic throwback and a sheep, does it?"
Lisa bit her lip. "Maybe you should..."
"Have a few late night experiments to occupy me for the next few days?"
Lisa's shoulders sagged minutely in relief. "Might be a good idea."
"That way she probably won't walk in on some handsome Welshman having sex with her daughter again."
Lisa's nose wrinkled as she grinned. "Nah, I sent him off yesterday."
He leaned forward and kissed her again, properly this time, on the lips. "Don't let her throw out all my stuff."
Lisa stepped back, letting the door slid shut between them. "No promises," she said, impishly.
He was left staring at a brushed metal door with the Institute's logo etched onto the surface at eye height, and let out the breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. He stuck his hand in his labcoat pocket, and felt the smooth contours of the second of the two phones he'd lifted from the repair stores, a reminder of exactly what he'd decided he was doing.
For a moment, he'd been tempted to tell her everything, to explain exactly what was going on. But even if she agreed with his reasoning, and his actions, she might have wanted to help, and he couldn't let himself risk her life if he got caught. He couldn't even risk her knowing. Better that she could honestly admit to ignorance.
He sighed, and started wandering through the hallways, smiling politely at the people who passed him in the corridors, until he came to an office he knew to be temporarily abandoned while its owner was on holiday. If he was going to start doing some serious messing around in the Torchwood databases, he didn't want to be caught at his own workstation.
The office belonged to one of the senior archivists, a man Ianto was well acquainted with. He'd been speaking in longing terms for several weeks now of his approaching leave, and his plans to spend the month lounging around his house in the south of France. Ianto had rolled his eyes and given him a hard time about living the rich man's lifestyle, but now he was grateful that he knew a place with a direct-access terminal that was empty.
The door was locked, as per protocol when the occupant was absent, but then Ianto had stood here many times, watching the keycode being input. He felt a minor stab of guilt for using the information in such an underhand fashion, but told himself that if he hadn't stopped before now, it was the wrong time to suddenly be getting cold feet.
A quick glance around for anyone watching, four quick taps, and he was in the room, the lights flickering on automatically as they sensed movement.
It was a slightly crowded office, in spite of a relatively luxurious size. Files and folders were stacked on every spare bit of desk space, on the extra chairs, on the floor, while the shelves were crowded to overflowing with books, spiral bound reports, and random pieces of paper. There were some folders with 'urgent attention required' written on them in large red letters that had a layer of dust on them, and had clearly remained undisturbed since they'd arrived. On top of a stack of files near the window, there was a half-dead spider plant that was slowly shrivelling, unwatered, in the sterile and air-conditioned air of the Tower.
He pinched a leaf between thumb and forefinger, feeling the slightly brittle plant crackle under the pressure, and contemplated watering it.
Then he told himself how silly he was being, and sat down at the desk, pushing aside enough pieces of paper to give himself enough room to type.
He had been asked to perform a more complicated, and delicate, task than simply giving himself access to a room that he shouldn't have had. He'd done that more than once since he'd starting working at Torchwood without getting caught by security. But Harkness had asked him to look up information that was almost certainly secured against intrusion.
He only had a limited amount of time. If he was gone too long from the labs, someone would notice, and wonder about his absence. So he bent over the desk, one eye on the clock, and started to work.
**
Ianto had alloted himself an hour to try and crack the database open, and nearing the end of that time, while he had made some progress, the contents of the files remained frustratingly closed to him. The computer that managed the main archives and data storage wasn't the dumb locking system used for the doors, it was also the one that did the data processing for the science departments. It was adaptive and, Ianto had to admit, clever.
At the end of the day, the best he could do was to get the computer to release the abstracts database. It gave brief descriptions of the technology acquired Torchwood and would then supply the link to the appropriate file on the subject if the user had the correct authorisation, which Ianto most certainly didn't.
What it did have, however, was the name of the scientist who submitted the report in each instance. He skimmed through the descriptions, looking for something familiar, and his eyes settled on a likely candidate and, more to the point, there was a name he recognised attached to it.
He pulled the phone out of his pocket, and quickly typed out a message. Then he shut down the terminal, made a mental resolution to have words with the office's usual occupant about the care and feeding of plants, and let himself out.
**
There's a device in the archives from eight years ago that matches the cube's description. No indication where it is or what it's for. The name of the senior researcher is Doctor Mark Hullum.
Jack had called the Hub to find out where he could find this particular researcher, and the answer had been rather surprising.
Greentree Secondary Modern was a school in the suburbs of Essex, and required a long car journey and a frustrated negotiation of the south eastern motorway system to reach. The particular town that the school was located in could be described as 'run down' if one were inclined to be kind. The inside was clean, if slightly shabby, and a reception area could be see behind a desk separated from the waiting area with a glass partition.
He strode up in his very best 'confident Torchwood agent' stride, and leaned on the desk. "Hi, I'm Captain Jack Harkness. I'm here to see Doctor Hullum."
The woman at the desk, a middle aged lady with a flower-print silk blouse, turned away from the conversation she'd been having with her colleagues sitting at other desks. She blinked at him owlishly from behind glasses that seemed one size too large for her.
"Yes?" she asked, pushing the glasses further up the bridge of her nose. "Can I help you?"
He stared at her for a moment, but when he realised she wasn't joking, he cleared his throat and repeated, "I'm Captain Jack Harkness, I'm here to see Doctor Hullum."
Her gaze dropped to the computer screen in front of her, and out of his sight, and he wondered exactly what she was expecting to see there. "Is he expecting you?" she asked, dubiously.
"I'm with Torchwood," he said.
The receptionist blinked again, the expression magnified by the thick lenses of her glasses. "Is that part of Ofsted?" she asked.
"Oh my god!" One of the other women in the reception area, which seemed to be doubling as an administrative office, suddenly squealed. She'd clearly been eavesdropping on the whole exchange. "Are you American? I love your accent! It's so cute!"
Jack thought about correcting her, but realised that it would take much more effort than he wanted to expend, not to mention slightly counter-productive. "Why yes," he said, giving her the broadest and most charming grin he could manage, "Yes I am."
"Oh wow," said another woman, who had been ostensibly lurking since Jack had started talking. "Say something in American."
Slightly nonplussed, Jack looked back at the receptionist. "Ah, is Mark Hullum here? I'm a representative of Her Majesty's government and I need to speak to him on a matter of some importance."
The woman who had apparently found his accent to be 'cute', stood up and walked over to the reception desk. "Is he in trouble? Is he a terrorist? Did he not pay his taxes?"
This reaction was apparently what convinced the receptionist to act. She stood, took off her glasses and let them dangle from a chain around her neck. "I'll take you to see him," she said, "Millicent, get back to work."
The woman offered up a sulky look and shuffled back to her desk.
The receptionist made him sign for a visitors badge, and then led him through corridors bereft of children. Through the glass windows in some of the doors, Jack could see classes ongoing, their pupils enduring them in various states of boredom. Eventually Jack was led up two flights of stairs, down a hallway, and let into a small staffroom adjacent to the science labs.
"Wait here, please," she said, "I'll tell Mark you're in here."
He passed the time poking about the cupboards, though he found nothing more interesting than some coffee cups and catering size tins of instant coffee. A loud bell rang, and the sound of boistrous children came through the doors from the corridor. A minute or two later, the door opened, and a man stood there, glaring at him with wariness in his eyes, and Jack knew this was the man he'd come to see.
"Doctor Hullum," he said, politely.
"Just Mark Hullum," the man said, sounding tired. "The Doctorate was just one of the things Torchwood decided to take away from me." He wasn't old, barely middle-aged, really, but the lines on his face made him seem older than he was. His voice was gravelly and deep. "I don't know why you're here. I've not been telling anyone. I've not done anything you can take me in for."
Jack held up his hands to forestall the protests. "I'm not from Torchwood One, I'm from Torchwood Three. I've no interest in why you were fired."
Hullum grunted and stepped inside the staffroom proper, letting the door swing shut behind him. "Being fired sounds positively civilised. They needed someone to blame for the accident, and I was a convenient target." He spread his hands. "And in the blink of an eye, I go from the head of a research division at a secret organisation dedicated to fighting aliens to teaching secondary school physics to eleven year olds whose grasp of technology only extends as far as which is the coolest iPod."
Jack suddenly remembered where he'd heard Mark Hullum's name before. He'd heard about it in a roundabout fashion, from the head of Torchwood Two, who, while not exactly being his best friend, hadn't had the all-encompassing loathing for him that Yvonne did. There had been an explosion in the hangars of Torchwood Tower. A containment field on an alien engine core had destabalised, the ship too damaged to truly be salvageable. In truth, it hadn't been anyone's fault, the core could have ruptured at any time, and they were frankly lucky that it hadn't levelled half of central London, but the resulting explosion had killed twenty three people, and seriously damaged the Tower's structure. The management had needed someone to blame, and the Head of Research was as good a target as any.
"Sometimes I wish they had put me in prison, or sent me off to an asylum, or even had me killed." Hullum threw himself on one of the low uncomfortable chairs that were pushed together and pretended to be a sofa. "But someone thought it would be humiliating enough to send me here."
Jack sat down opposite him. "You didn't actually betray Torchwood. They'd have a hard time justifying killing you, when all they wanted was a scapegoat."
The door opened again, and they both looked up to see another man, only slightly younger than Hullum, standing in the open doorway. The newcomer regarded Jack with open suspicion. "Mark," he said, not looking away from Jack, "Are you ok? They said there was someone from the government here to see you."
"I'm fine," Hullum said, looking unaccountably nervous all of a sudden. "It's fine. Don't you have a class to teach?"
The man frowned. "Are you sure you don't want me to get security?"
"I'm fine," Hullum repeated. "Go on."
With a final suspicious glower, the man left. Hullum glanced at Jack. "I didn't tell anyone anything. Anyone."
"I told you, I don't care about that." Jack glanced at the doorway. "You didn't lose everything then."
Hullum managed, with some restraint, not to look in the same direction. "No," he said, quietly, "Some things I've gained." He cleared his throat. "If you didn't want to talk to me about my being fired, what do you want?"
Jack leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. "Torchwood London has found a piece of alien technology in a commercial building in the city. Certain... things... have led me to believe this isn't a new piece of technology at all, but something they're familiar with. It's a cube..." He described the artefact as best he could, sketching out all the details he knew.
Hullum nodded thoughtfully as Jack spoke, and when he was finished, made a thoughtful 'hmm' noise. "It... sounds familiar," he said, "At least to one thing I remember studying, but it can't be the same device, not at all."
Jack frowned, "Why not?"
"Because the device we examined was small. It fit in the palm of the hand." Hullum sketched out a rough square on his palm, in illustration. "Torchwood shot down a Jvari smuggler's ship over Snowdon about eighteen years ago. There were crates in the hold full of various bits and pieces they'd salvaged from a dozen worlds. They weren't labelled of course. No way to know where it came from." He held up a finger. "I did establish one thing. It was far more massive than it seemed."
"Meaning?"
"That its mass had been offset into another dimension," Hullum said. "One of my colleagues had a theory that it was one way of getting a supercomputer into the palm of your hand, without worrying about space or heat output. In fact, we theorised that some of the internal structure looked a bit like data storage wafers and..." Hullum broke off. "Actually, that would explain it."
Jack watched as Hullum's brow furrowed in concentration, and fought the urge to smile. "What would?"
"If it really was more massive than it appeared maybe... maybe that's why it's bigger now. Its mass is exiting the adjoining dimensions and manifesting in ours."
Jack sat back abruptly. "Naderon radiation."
Hullum looked confused, and Jack didn't blame him. In this era, most people, even people like Torchwood, weren't familiar with the energy output of dimensional transitions. Unless you were in Cardiff, of course, and saw it every day.
"Naderon radiation can be confused with Alberta particles if you don't have a high resolution scanner," Jack said, "And Alberta particles are produced-"
"When something moves between dimensional layers," Hullum finished. "Why is that significant?"
"Never mind," said Jack.
Hullum nodded, and looked thoughtful. "Who's head of research these days?"
"Elmyra Swan, I think."
Hullum snorted disdainfully. "I remember her when she was a snotty PhD candidate. That woman always knew her office politics better than her science. You'll be lucky if Torchwood London figure anything out about that thing before the next ice age."
Jack had a feeling that Swan didn't need to work anything out for herself. If Asen had managed to figure out the cube better than Torchwood, then all Torchwood would need to do was go through their research. The only problem was that the Asen researchers had all died, along with everyone else in the building.
"You know, I seem to recall that small cube vanishing," Hullum said, "There were rumours that it was stolen, but we were all officially told 'lost' and it would be recovered. I guess someone must have thought it would be worth more in the private sector."
Jack decided not to mention all the dead bodies. "Thank you for your time, Doctor."
Hullum stood, smiled thinly, and didn't correct him. He moved quickly, and left before Jack had even managed to stand. He thought for a moment, and then sent a message to his contact.
What word on the bodies? What about the Asen database?
He shoved the phone back in his pocket, and left the room. He was halfway down the corridor, before a low, gravelly tone caught his attention, pitched suspiciously low.
"I told you, I'm fine, and you really are supposed to be teaching." Hullum, and he was talking to the teacher that had interrupted them earlier.
"I can't help but worry," his companion said. "You said they might-"
"Don't worry about it. Just some old business. Nothing to concern yourself over."
Jack carried on walking, taking himself down the stairs and out of the building. He knew without a doubt that, unlike he claimed to, Mark Hullum had definitely been telling people about Torchwood. And as much as he could appreciate the reasons behind it, all it did was put both Hullum and his friend in danger, leaving them open to getting killed, to say nothing of the open pain on Hullum's face whenever he thought about the wide Universe and all its wonders that were forever closed to him. Wasn't that cruel?
Jack didn't often think about sharing the RetCon formula with London, given that he was fairly certain they'd abuse it, but he couldn't deny it was certainly better than their method of imprisonment, humiliation, or death.
**
Several files and a short note saying 'still working on Asen db' came through several hours later. Jack forwarded the files to Owen when they turned out to be filched copies of the Asen employees' autopsy reports. Owen called him back while Jack was sitting in a bar just outside the Festival Hall on the South bank, nursing a glass of water and watching smartly dressed people wander out of an evening's musical performance.
"I think the London hacks are at a bit of a loss," Owen said, "Officially, the causes of death are down as 'multi-organ failure', but my explanation is the more interesting one."
"Are you going to keep me in suspense?" Jack asked, gesturing for a refill of his glass. To keep the staff from kicking him out prematurely for only ordering water, he'd also ordered some food to go with it. He was absently eating nachos as he listened to Owen, and knew that the sound must be annoying.
"Rapid total neural depolarisation." Owen sounded pleased with himself.
Jack turned a nacho over in his fingers, ignoring the way he got grease on his hands as he did so. "You're assuming I have any idea what that is for some unknown reason."
"Their brains were scrambled, or, more accurately, I suppose, wiped. The autonomic controls over the body failed. Heart, breathing, bloody pressure, blood sugar. It's all haywire, as if whoever was at the controls suddenly stepped out for a fag break and everything crashed while they were gone." Owen paused. "I doubt it was quick or painless, but if it's any consolation, I don't think they knew what was going on."
Jack put the nacho down and pushed the plate away, suddenly not hungry. He was acutely aware that whatever had happened to the staff in the Asen building had probably happened to him as well. He didn't remember the moment of dying, didn't remember slipping into death, and so he supposed that the Asen staff had had the same comfort. That thought didn't mean it had been a pleasant death, though. It just meant he didn't remember.
That was harder, in some ways. He could deal with unpleasant deaths (in the ranked list he'd been keeping in his head for the last sixty or so years, among the top five were having his brain bored out by an alien insect, disembowelling, and poisoning from a member of the Torchwood HR department - who had later turned out to have gone mad from a contemplation of an alien meditation puzzle not designed for her neurology), but it would have been more useful to know exactly what had caused said death.
His wriststrap beeped. He flipped it open and examined the readouts as Owen continued to speak. "I've been looking for anything that might have caused this, but no luck. Suzie says she's not having any joy with the archives either."
Considering the cube had been found before Jack had severed all links with London, the records should have been down there in the Hub's vaults. Someone really needed to sort those places out, one day. "I've already found some details on that," he said, "She can stop looking."
The wriststrap was displaying a local grid map, and a string of sensor data in a flickering stream. "Owen," he said, "I have to go." He put the phone down without waiting to listen to Owen's confused reply.
A surge in Alberta particles, localised in the area of the Asen Industries building. He leapt to his feet, abandoning the food without paying, running for his car, praying that his fears about what he was going to find were wrong.
**
When Jack saw the dead bodies lying in the courtyard outside of the Asen building, he knew they hadn't been.
**
Book III: The Book of Unintended Consequences
Author: Jewels (
bjewelled) Web Link: http://www.bjewelled.co.uk/fanfic/twfic.shtml
Fandom: Torchwood
Disclaimer: Torchwood belongs to the BBC and is the brainchild of Mr. Davies.
Summary: Pre-series, in the days of Torchwood One. Torchwood London uncovers a mysterious alien artefact and a building full of dead bodies. Imagine their surprise upon finding that Jack Harkness, self-declared head of Torchwood Three, is the only survivor. What happened, and what's a young researcher at London supposed to do to help?
Read from the beginning.
**
II: The Book of Voices
Jack Harkness had been having a rotten week so far.
He'd been killed at least once – and how that had happened was something he was still uncertain on – and then captured by Torchwood London, proving that Yvonne Hartman still hadn't gotten over the time he'd called her a bitch and sent her assault team back to London with a few less memories than when they'd left it. To cap it all of, they'd left him in an unflattering hospital gown for far too long, and it did absolutely nothing for his complexion, and shut him in a cell with nothing to do but count the dots in the ceiling tiles and get dragged away for repeated and fruitless questioning.
He'd reached eight thousand four hundred and eighty two dots on the ceiling when the door swung open to reveal a pair of black-clad security guards. He sighed and sat up on the uncomfortably thin mattress that called itself a bed and gave them a lopsided smile. “That time again, huh? You know, I never thought I'd get tired of twenty questions-”
One of the guards had apparently run out of patience. He tossed something straight at Jack. He reflexively reached up to grab it, and discovered that it was in fact the clothes they'd taken off him when he'd come in. He looked up at the guards, suspiciously.
“You've been released,” the man said, “Yvonne's glad to be rid of you, I think.”
“It's my winning personality,” Jack said, and wasted no time in quickly pulling on his clothes. It as a bit of a relief after the chill of the cell. It was as he was pulling on his greatcoat, however, that he felt an unfamiliar weight in the pocket, a weight that hadn't been in there before. Glancing at the guards to make sure they weren't looking, he slipped a hand into the pocket, feeling the shape. It was something with keys on it, and a screen, larger than a normal phone, but similar. A smartphone? He didn't dare look, only pulled his hand out of his pocket and smiling winningly at the guards and gesturing to the door.
“Shall we, gentlemen?”
Yvonne must have been fairly desperate to get rid of him. The guards escorted him up to the main reception area, handed him back his gun and his mobile phone, and unceremoniously kicked him out on the street. Jack looked up at the edifice of Torchwood Tower and grimaced. London's hospitality hadn't changed much in a hundred years. In fact, he would say that their attitude towards their sister organisations had worsened. Back in the day, Torchwood One operators would have just shot him. These days, they smiled, captured him, and then made noises about having him stabbed in the back.
The world was nothing like it used to be.
He waved up at the security cameras, knowing Yvonne would be watching, and walked off, heading for the nearest coffee shop. He desperately needed a caffeine fix. Fortunately, this was London, and it was impossible to walk for more than five minutes in any direction before tripping over a Starbucks. As he walked, he pulled his phone out, and dialled the Hub from memory.
“Jack?” It was Toshiko Sato who answered, “You're ok! Owen, Suzie, it's Jack!”
There was the sound of scuffling in the background as the other two presumably scrambled over to Tosh's workstation.
“Jack,” Suzie said, “Thank god. I was starting to think that witch was never going to let you out.”
“That was your doing, I take it,” he said, smiling. That was his Suzie. Pretty unafraid to take anything on, consequences be damned.
“I might have made a few phone calls,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “I didn't think they'd get onto you so fast.”
“They were as surprised to see me as I was to see them,” Jack said. “Kept demanding to know why I was there. They weren't happy with my lack of an answer.”
“Typical,” he heard Owen mutter. “Swan in, take over everything, make our lives nothing but trouble.”
“Torchwood London's nothing but trouble,” Suzie supplied, sounding exasperated.
Jack stuck his hand into his pocket, touching that heavy weight he'd felt before. He lifted it out, and, sure enough, it was a smartphone. There was a number written on a label on the back. It was definitely corporate origin, and no doubt from the Torchwood stockroom. But what was it doing in his pocket? If they were trying to track him, it was a very clumsy way of doing so. Pressing his lips together in thought, he pressed the on button. There was a pause, and the screen lit up.
There was one message sitting on the system, with no number attached to the sender. He thumbed the keypad to open it.
People are dead and TW1 doesn't care, it read. How about you?
He thought about that for a moment, and started tapping a response even as he spoke down the line to the others. “Tosh, I know it's a tall order, but see if you can get into Asen's systems. I'm pretty sure that they knew much more about whatever this thing is than anyone else.”
“Hmm,” Tosh said, “It's going to be hard. They've got a very restrictive system. It's going to be impossible to get in unless you manage to get back inside and plant a relay.” She paused. “It would be easier if I came down there and-”
“No,” he said, sharply, raising his head as if to glare at her. Unfortunately, she was on the other side of the country, and he only wound up glaring at a postbox. “I don't want any of you guys near where Torchwood London can get its hands on you.”
“Jack, we're big boys and girls,” Owen said, sounding peevish. “We can handle ourselves.”
“Not against London,” Jack said firmly, unwilling to debate the point. “Trust me, you don't know these people. I do.”
Who are you? He messaged back in reply. And what do you know?
“I don't like that you're out there without any backup,” Suzie said.
The smartphone in his hand beeped, and he looked down to see the new message. I work in Torchwood London, it said, And I know that something is very wrong here.
“Oh, don't worry,” Jack said, eyeing the device thoughtfully. “I think I might just have that covered.”
**
Twenty minutes later, Jack was on his second cup of coffee, and finally starting to unwind, giving himself space to think about what his next move was going to be. There was no chance that he was actually going to obey Yvonne Hartman and keep out of the Asen situation. The brief glimpse he'd gotten of the alien artefact had convinced him that it was definitely something to be kept out of her hands, although Jack tended to make it a point to thwart London at any opportunity.
He didn't believe her for a moment when she'd claimed that protonic fusion burst had caught their attention. His wriststrap had recorded no such energy surge, and by its technology, such things were easily detectable. That meant that Yvonne Hartman was lying to him, unsurprisingly.
Jack rolled the coffee cup between his hands. The logical solution would for him to start at the beginning, and to figure out where exactly things had gone wrong.
**
Steve Jacks's head rebounded off the window. Made of toughened glass, it deprived Jack of the satisfaction of seeing it shatter under the impact. Instead, dear Steve was left conscious enough to yell,
“Jesus, man! You're gonna fucking injure me!”
Jack grabbed Steve by the scruff of his shirt collar and slammed him face-first into the wall, twisting his right arm painfully behind his back. “That was kinda the idea,” he snapped, “And unless you want to spend the rest of the month in an ICU, I suggest you start talking.”
“Fuckin' crazy, man!”
“Crazy and short on patience.” Jack yanked him away from the wall, before slamming him back against the cheap plasterboard surface again. “Now talk!”
Steve Jacks was, in Toshiko's words, “a complete sleazebag”. He was a lawyer, but the sort of lawyer that thought ambulance chasing was a bit high-class. His connections with two-bit criminals were listed on a police record as long as his arm, and several of those names had come up in connection with Asen Industries. Steve Jacks had, in fact, informed Torchwood Cardiff of the suspicious goings on in the London company. They'd been holding certain illegal dealings over him for years, quietly blackmailing him to keep him on as an informant, and Steve had clearly hoped that such a juicy bit of information as Asen getting its grubby paws on alien technology might get them off his back.
Jack would have been inclined to agree and let matters slide, if said information hadn't led rather directly to his own death.
“I don't know what to tell you!” Steve whined, “Ow!”
Jack grit his teeth. “How did Torchwood London find out something was going on at Asen? Because they sure as hell didn't hear it from me!”
“Maybe they're just better at intelligence gathering than you,” Steve said, a nasty note in his voice. “Everyone knows you Americans don't know shit. Fuck!” Jack had taken the opportunity to painfully yank his arm up another inch or so.
“Care to rephrase that?”
“You don't know jack shit.” Steve yelled loudly as Jack dug his fingers into a nerve cluster to make his point. “Ok, ok, fine. Let go of me!”
Jack frowned, considering.
“Fuck, where am I going to run off to that you creeps can't find me?”
Jack harrumphed, and let go, allowing Steve enough room to straighten up and turn around, but not moving away, keeping him pinned in the corner of his shambolic excuse for an office. “Talk,” he ordered.
“I didn't tell them anything,” Steve repeated, in a tone definitely describable as 'grumbling'. “I didn't have to.”
Jack frowned.
Steve shouldered his way past Jack, moving over to the kettle to make himself a coffee with ostensible nonchalance. “Oh sure, I thought, bright idea. What one branch of Torchwood will pay for, you get get two to pay for at twice the price. Not like either of them ever talk to each other now is it?”
“And here was me thinking you were going to be trying to talk your wait out of my shooting you,” Jack snapped.
Steve looked like he was briefly considering a snarky response, but after a long look at Jack's face, he paled slightly, perhaps realising exactly how serious Jack was about the threat. He fiddled with the old and chipped mugs that sat upside down next to the kettle. “I told them that Asen was messing around with technology that was probably alien. They seemed kinda interested, but the weird thing was that when I told them what it was, a glowy cube, they didn't seem all that surprised.”
Steve hesitated and Jack looked at him with narrow eyes. “What are you not telling me?” he prompted.
Steve fidgeted for a moment. “They asked me questions about the thing, and the only thing that got them really surprised was when I said how big it was. They seemed to think it was small, really small like 'hold in your hand' small. I told 'em they were wrong, and the next thing I know, they're threatening to send me off to some hole in nowhere if I tell anyone.” Steve glowered at the kettle as he flicked it on.
Jack looked at him speculatively. “Why haven't they thrown you in a hole already?”
Steve rolled his eyes. “Because I have no real sense of moral responsibility and will sell information to them happily?” He snorted. “I suppose I should be grateful they can't do any weird men-in-black shit and wipe my memory, or I think they'd have done that already.”
Jack shook his head. “Don't worry, there's only one person with amnesia pills. And that's me.”
Steve laughed. “Good one.”
Jack shrugged. “Fine, don't believe me.” He folded his arms. “So Torchwood One already knew about the cube,” he said.
“I guess.”
“But they were surprised at it's size.” Jack stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. “I suppose if it wasn't what they thought it was, they'd be keen to make a move on the place. They certainly didn't come because the staff of Asen all got killed.”
“That thing killed them?” Steve ran a hand over his head. “Shit. I need to think about getting out of this business.”
Jack frowned. “That's the problem. I'm not sure that it did kill them.”
**
How did the Asen staff die? he asked his Torchwood One friend.
It took a few minutes for the response to come. Jack was sitting on one of the many benches that overlooked the Thames. From here, he could look downriver and see Canary Wharf lit up brightly against the dark night's sky. London was a genuine international capital. Even in the middle of the night, it was alive, and busy, and voices drifted from nearby that weren't all speaking in English. Jack wasn't entirely sure he liked it more than Cardiff. There had been a time when a city like London would have been tame by his standards, when the presence of only a single species of a mere few million in number, with no flitters buzzing around the sky, seemed terribly parochial. It just went to show how a person's perception could change, especially if they'd had to go a substantial portion of their life without proper indoor plumbing.
The smartphone beeped. Don't you know? You were there too.
His mouth twitched. The staff were all dead when I got there. I made it up to the cube before I was-
He looked up at Canary Wharf in the distance and tried to think how to phrase it.
-overcome.
Another protracted pause. The autopsy results haven't been released, said the message. I'm guessing they're not done yet. And then, Yvonne Hartman's having you followed.
Jack smiled slightly. She was. I lost them after the first ten minutes. He drummed his fingers on the back of the plastic casing. Who are you?
I'd rather not say. I'm not 100% convinced this is secure.
Then why should I trust you? he promptly responded.
If you don't want my help, that's fine. It's not like it's very safe for me to be standing in the Tower sending messages to Yvonne's least favourite person in the whole wide world.
Least favourite, really? Jack added a smilie face at the end for effect.
I'm starting to see why.
Jack briefly wondered who exactly might be sending him cryptic messages. It was someone high enough up to know Yvonne and who she liked (somehow he doubted she was going around telling every two bit research assistant that he wasn't on her Christmas card list), and someone who'd been present at the Asen Industry building when he was found, or was able to access the reports. Who was head of research these days? Michaels? Swan? It almost certainly wouldn't be them. He didn't think that either of them had forgiven him for stealing the subspace modulator probe that had landed in Gloucester in the name of Torchwood Three.
He pulled out his mobile phone. "Tosh," he said, when the phone was picked up. "Do me a favour?" He read out the serial number on the casing of the smartphone. "See if you can trace who's sending messages to this thing?"
He could hear the sounds of rapid typing in the background. "It's heavily encrypted," Tosh said, dubiously, after a few moments had passed, "I'm not sure I'm going to be able to crack this quickly. It looks like a Torchwood London encryption."
Suzie was apparently eavesdropping. "What's going on?" she asked.
"Not sure yet," he said, "I'm starting to think that this cube is something that Torchwood's encountered before, or at least London has. Do me a favour and see if you can't find something in the Cardiff archives?"
Suzie sounded dubious. "Jack, have you seen the archives lately? It looks like no one's been down there to organise them since..."
"1999, I know." It was one of those things that Jack kept meaning to do, but kept putting off. He'd have assigned one of the others to sort things out before now, but his team seemed to hate filing in a way that Jack himself thought was slightly too personal than was normal. He didn't let them near some of the items in the archives anyway, knowing that they just didn't have the experience with alien technology that would let them identify dangerous things immediately. They were getting there, but weren't quite that knowledgable just yet.
"They stopped sharing their files with us in 2000," he said, "But see if there's anything in there before that."
"Bit of a long shot," Suzie said.
"I know, but it's worth an attempt."
He put the phone down, slipping it into his coat pocket. He breathed in the cool night air and, in spite of himself, smiled slightly. There was something refreshing about being out and about on his own, investigating without having to worry about anyone else getting in harms way. He would have been lying if he'd told anyone that he wasn't started to feel a little stifled in Cardiff. Between the necessity of taking care of a team, and the ever constant watchfulness and waiting for a certain individual to come back into his life, he'd barely left the Cardiff area in the last four or five years. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed this sort of thing.
Does Torchwood have prior knowledge of the cube?
I think so. Or that's the impression I get from Doctor Swan. She doesn't seem too interested in anything she's seeing. She acts like it's old news. I don't know for sure.
Can you find out?
The pause this time was longer than any of the others. I'll try, was the eventual response.
Jack nodded to himself. He couldn't ask for anything more at that very moment. Whoever his mysterious little helper was, there was no doubt that simply by communicating with Jack they were putting themselves in danger from Yvonne. He wasn't going to scare them off so soon.
**
Ianto Jones was not, if one were honest, a willfully disobediant man. Most of the infractions of his childhood had involved extenuating circumstances that had gone a long way to ensuring that his public records were a lot less colourful than they might otherwise have been. It gave him a brief frisson of excitement when he took a moment to think about what he was doing (and if he didn't think too hard about the possible consequences). That, and the utter conviction that it was wrong to just ignore what had happened to the Asen staff.
There was only one thing that could stop him, and she was currently standing in front of him, having stepped into his path the moment he'd ducked out of the labs to conduct his clandestine errands.
"Ianto," Lisa said, a trepidatious look on her face. "We need to talk."
"Words to strike fear into the heart of any man," he said, blinking at her. He turned, and started walking towards the lifts, as if she wasn't interrupting anything important.
"You're probably going to be mad at me for not saying anything earlier," Lisa continued, as Ianto pressed the call button.
The doors opened, they stepped inside, and Ianto said, "You know, I thought I was joking with that 'affair' remark the other day, but now..."
"Ianto," Lisa sounded impatient, and she sighed. She fixed her eyes on the inside of the lift doors. "It's my mother."
"What about her?" he asked, selecting the fourteenth floor on the lift panel. Overtly, it was an innocuous choice: it was the home of the accounting and HR departments.
"She's coming to visit," Lisa said, quickly. "Tonight."
"That's why you were cleaning." Ianto stared into space. "Right. We can handle this. We can deal with it maturely."
"Good," Lisa said, smiling.
"In an adult fashion."
"Glad you agree."
Ianto took a deep breath. "It's the only sensible solution, after all." He turned to her, putting hands on her shoulders. "Well, my darling, it's been fun, but maybe we should start seeing other people."
He kissed her chastely on the cheek, and exited the lift quickly as the doors opened.
Lisa's smile collapsed into a scowl, and she held the doors open with her hand. "Ianto-"
"I'm serious," he said, hands on his hips. "Your mother hates me."
"She does not hate you."
"She threatened to castrate me with her pruning shears."
"She was being hormonal," Lisa said. "She's going through the Change."
"The Change causes her to imply I'm the illegitimate offspring of a genetic throwback and a sheep, does it?"
Lisa bit her lip. "Maybe you should..."
"Have a few late night experiments to occupy me for the next few days?"
Lisa's shoulders sagged minutely in relief. "Might be a good idea."
"That way she probably won't walk in on some handsome Welshman having sex with her daughter again."
Lisa's nose wrinkled as she grinned. "Nah, I sent him off yesterday."
He leaned forward and kissed her again, properly this time, on the lips. "Don't let her throw out all my stuff."
Lisa stepped back, letting the door slid shut between them. "No promises," she said, impishly.
He was left staring at a brushed metal door with the Institute's logo etched onto the surface at eye height, and let out the breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. He stuck his hand in his labcoat pocket, and felt the smooth contours of the second of the two phones he'd lifted from the repair stores, a reminder of exactly what he'd decided he was doing.
For a moment, he'd been tempted to tell her everything, to explain exactly what was going on. But even if she agreed with his reasoning, and his actions, she might have wanted to help, and he couldn't let himself risk her life if he got caught. He couldn't even risk her knowing. Better that she could honestly admit to ignorance.
He sighed, and started wandering through the hallways, smiling politely at the people who passed him in the corridors, until he came to an office he knew to be temporarily abandoned while its owner was on holiday. If he was going to start doing some serious messing around in the Torchwood databases, he didn't want to be caught at his own workstation.
The office belonged to one of the senior archivists, a man Ianto was well acquainted with. He'd been speaking in longing terms for several weeks now of his approaching leave, and his plans to spend the month lounging around his house in the south of France. Ianto had rolled his eyes and given him a hard time about living the rich man's lifestyle, but now he was grateful that he knew a place with a direct-access terminal that was empty.
The door was locked, as per protocol when the occupant was absent, but then Ianto had stood here many times, watching the keycode being input. He felt a minor stab of guilt for using the information in such an underhand fashion, but told himself that if he hadn't stopped before now, it was the wrong time to suddenly be getting cold feet.
A quick glance around for anyone watching, four quick taps, and he was in the room, the lights flickering on automatically as they sensed movement.
It was a slightly crowded office, in spite of a relatively luxurious size. Files and folders were stacked on every spare bit of desk space, on the extra chairs, on the floor, while the shelves were crowded to overflowing with books, spiral bound reports, and random pieces of paper. There were some folders with 'urgent attention required' written on them in large red letters that had a layer of dust on them, and had clearly remained undisturbed since they'd arrived. On top of a stack of files near the window, there was a half-dead spider plant that was slowly shrivelling, unwatered, in the sterile and air-conditioned air of the Tower.
He pinched a leaf between thumb and forefinger, feeling the slightly brittle plant crackle under the pressure, and contemplated watering it.
Then he told himself how silly he was being, and sat down at the desk, pushing aside enough pieces of paper to give himself enough room to type.
He had been asked to perform a more complicated, and delicate, task than simply giving himself access to a room that he shouldn't have had. He'd done that more than once since he'd starting working at Torchwood without getting caught by security. But Harkness had asked him to look up information that was almost certainly secured against intrusion.
He only had a limited amount of time. If he was gone too long from the labs, someone would notice, and wonder about his absence. So he bent over the desk, one eye on the clock, and started to work.
**
Ianto had alloted himself an hour to try and crack the database open, and nearing the end of that time, while he had made some progress, the contents of the files remained frustratingly closed to him. The computer that managed the main archives and data storage wasn't the dumb locking system used for the doors, it was also the one that did the data processing for the science departments. It was adaptive and, Ianto had to admit, clever.
At the end of the day, the best he could do was to get the computer to release the abstracts database. It gave brief descriptions of the technology acquired Torchwood and would then supply the link to the appropriate file on the subject if the user had the correct authorisation, which Ianto most certainly didn't.
What it did have, however, was the name of the scientist who submitted the report in each instance. He skimmed through the descriptions, looking for something familiar, and his eyes settled on a likely candidate and, more to the point, there was a name he recognised attached to it.
He pulled the phone out of his pocket, and quickly typed out a message. Then he shut down the terminal, made a mental resolution to have words with the office's usual occupant about the care and feeding of plants, and let himself out.
**
There's a device in the archives from eight years ago that matches the cube's description. No indication where it is or what it's for. The name of the senior researcher is Doctor Mark Hullum.
Jack had called the Hub to find out where he could find this particular researcher, and the answer had been rather surprising.
Greentree Secondary Modern was a school in the suburbs of Essex, and required a long car journey and a frustrated negotiation of the south eastern motorway system to reach. The particular town that the school was located in could be described as 'run down' if one were inclined to be kind. The inside was clean, if slightly shabby, and a reception area could be see behind a desk separated from the waiting area with a glass partition.
He strode up in his very best 'confident Torchwood agent' stride, and leaned on the desk. "Hi, I'm Captain Jack Harkness. I'm here to see Doctor Hullum."
The woman at the desk, a middle aged lady with a flower-print silk blouse, turned away from the conversation she'd been having with her colleagues sitting at other desks. She blinked at him owlishly from behind glasses that seemed one size too large for her.
"Yes?" she asked, pushing the glasses further up the bridge of her nose. "Can I help you?"
He stared at her for a moment, but when he realised she wasn't joking, he cleared his throat and repeated, "I'm Captain Jack Harkness, I'm here to see Doctor Hullum."
Her gaze dropped to the computer screen in front of her, and out of his sight, and he wondered exactly what she was expecting to see there. "Is he expecting you?" she asked, dubiously.
"I'm with Torchwood," he said.
The receptionist blinked again, the expression magnified by the thick lenses of her glasses. "Is that part of Ofsted?" she asked.
"Oh my god!" One of the other women in the reception area, which seemed to be doubling as an administrative office, suddenly squealed. She'd clearly been eavesdropping on the whole exchange. "Are you American? I love your accent! It's so cute!"
Jack thought about correcting her, but realised that it would take much more effort than he wanted to expend, not to mention slightly counter-productive. "Why yes," he said, giving her the broadest and most charming grin he could manage, "Yes I am."
"Oh wow," said another woman, who had been ostensibly lurking since Jack had started talking. "Say something in American."
Slightly nonplussed, Jack looked back at the receptionist. "Ah, is Mark Hullum here? I'm a representative of Her Majesty's government and I need to speak to him on a matter of some importance."
The woman who had apparently found his accent to be 'cute', stood up and walked over to the reception desk. "Is he in trouble? Is he a terrorist? Did he not pay his taxes?"
This reaction was apparently what convinced the receptionist to act. She stood, took off her glasses and let them dangle from a chain around her neck. "I'll take you to see him," she said, "Millicent, get back to work."
The woman offered up a sulky look and shuffled back to her desk.
The receptionist made him sign for a visitors badge, and then led him through corridors bereft of children. Through the glass windows in some of the doors, Jack could see classes ongoing, their pupils enduring them in various states of boredom. Eventually Jack was led up two flights of stairs, down a hallway, and let into a small staffroom adjacent to the science labs.
"Wait here, please," she said, "I'll tell Mark you're in here."
He passed the time poking about the cupboards, though he found nothing more interesting than some coffee cups and catering size tins of instant coffee. A loud bell rang, and the sound of boistrous children came through the doors from the corridor. A minute or two later, the door opened, and a man stood there, glaring at him with wariness in his eyes, and Jack knew this was the man he'd come to see.
"Doctor Hullum," he said, politely.
"Just Mark Hullum," the man said, sounding tired. "The Doctorate was just one of the things Torchwood decided to take away from me." He wasn't old, barely middle-aged, really, but the lines on his face made him seem older than he was. His voice was gravelly and deep. "I don't know why you're here. I've not been telling anyone. I've not done anything you can take me in for."
Jack held up his hands to forestall the protests. "I'm not from Torchwood One, I'm from Torchwood Three. I've no interest in why you were fired."
Hullum grunted and stepped inside the staffroom proper, letting the door swing shut behind him. "Being fired sounds positively civilised. They needed someone to blame for the accident, and I was a convenient target." He spread his hands. "And in the blink of an eye, I go from the head of a research division at a secret organisation dedicated to fighting aliens to teaching secondary school physics to eleven year olds whose grasp of technology only extends as far as which is the coolest iPod."
Jack suddenly remembered where he'd heard Mark Hullum's name before. He'd heard about it in a roundabout fashion, from the head of Torchwood Two, who, while not exactly being his best friend, hadn't had the all-encompassing loathing for him that Yvonne did. There had been an explosion in the hangars of Torchwood Tower. A containment field on an alien engine core had destabalised, the ship too damaged to truly be salvageable. In truth, it hadn't been anyone's fault, the core could have ruptured at any time, and they were frankly lucky that it hadn't levelled half of central London, but the resulting explosion had killed twenty three people, and seriously damaged the Tower's structure. The management had needed someone to blame, and the Head of Research was as good a target as any.
"Sometimes I wish they had put me in prison, or sent me off to an asylum, or even had me killed." Hullum threw himself on one of the low uncomfortable chairs that were pushed together and pretended to be a sofa. "But someone thought it would be humiliating enough to send me here."
Jack sat down opposite him. "You didn't actually betray Torchwood. They'd have a hard time justifying killing you, when all they wanted was a scapegoat."
The door opened again, and they both looked up to see another man, only slightly younger than Hullum, standing in the open doorway. The newcomer regarded Jack with open suspicion. "Mark," he said, not looking away from Jack, "Are you ok? They said there was someone from the government here to see you."
"I'm fine," Hullum said, looking unaccountably nervous all of a sudden. "It's fine. Don't you have a class to teach?"
The man frowned. "Are you sure you don't want me to get security?"
"I'm fine," Hullum repeated. "Go on."
With a final suspicious glower, the man left. Hullum glanced at Jack. "I didn't tell anyone anything. Anyone."
"I told you, I don't care about that." Jack glanced at the doorway. "You didn't lose everything then."
Hullum managed, with some restraint, not to look in the same direction. "No," he said, quietly, "Some things I've gained." He cleared his throat. "If you didn't want to talk to me about my being fired, what do you want?"
Jack leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. "Torchwood London has found a piece of alien technology in a commercial building in the city. Certain... things... have led me to believe this isn't a new piece of technology at all, but something they're familiar with. It's a cube..." He described the artefact as best he could, sketching out all the details he knew.
Hullum nodded thoughtfully as Jack spoke, and when he was finished, made a thoughtful 'hmm' noise. "It... sounds familiar," he said, "At least to one thing I remember studying, but it can't be the same device, not at all."
Jack frowned, "Why not?"
"Because the device we examined was small. It fit in the palm of the hand." Hullum sketched out a rough square on his palm, in illustration. "Torchwood shot down a Jvari smuggler's ship over Snowdon about eighteen years ago. There were crates in the hold full of various bits and pieces they'd salvaged from a dozen worlds. They weren't labelled of course. No way to know where it came from." He held up a finger. "I did establish one thing. It was far more massive than it seemed."
"Meaning?"
"That its mass had been offset into another dimension," Hullum said. "One of my colleagues had a theory that it was one way of getting a supercomputer into the palm of your hand, without worrying about space or heat output. In fact, we theorised that some of the internal structure looked a bit like data storage wafers and..." Hullum broke off. "Actually, that would explain it."
Jack watched as Hullum's brow furrowed in concentration, and fought the urge to smile. "What would?"
"If it really was more massive than it appeared maybe... maybe that's why it's bigger now. Its mass is exiting the adjoining dimensions and manifesting in ours."
Jack sat back abruptly. "Naderon radiation."
Hullum looked confused, and Jack didn't blame him. In this era, most people, even people like Torchwood, weren't familiar with the energy output of dimensional transitions. Unless you were in Cardiff, of course, and saw it every day.
"Naderon radiation can be confused with Alberta particles if you don't have a high resolution scanner," Jack said, "And Alberta particles are produced-"
"When something moves between dimensional layers," Hullum finished. "Why is that significant?"
"Never mind," said Jack.
Hullum nodded, and looked thoughtful. "Who's head of research these days?"
"Elmyra Swan, I think."
Hullum snorted disdainfully. "I remember her when she was a snotty PhD candidate. That woman always knew her office politics better than her science. You'll be lucky if Torchwood London figure anything out about that thing before the next ice age."
Jack had a feeling that Swan didn't need to work anything out for herself. If Asen had managed to figure out the cube better than Torchwood, then all Torchwood would need to do was go through their research. The only problem was that the Asen researchers had all died, along with everyone else in the building.
"You know, I seem to recall that small cube vanishing," Hullum said, "There were rumours that it was stolen, but we were all officially told 'lost' and it would be recovered. I guess someone must have thought it would be worth more in the private sector."
Jack decided not to mention all the dead bodies. "Thank you for your time, Doctor."
Hullum stood, smiled thinly, and didn't correct him. He moved quickly, and left before Jack had even managed to stand. He thought for a moment, and then sent a message to his contact.
What word on the bodies? What about the Asen database?
He shoved the phone back in his pocket, and left the room. He was halfway down the corridor, before a low, gravelly tone caught his attention, pitched suspiciously low.
"I told you, I'm fine, and you really are supposed to be teaching." Hullum, and he was talking to the teacher that had interrupted them earlier.
"I can't help but worry," his companion said. "You said they might-"
"Don't worry about it. Just some old business. Nothing to concern yourself over."
Jack carried on walking, taking himself down the stairs and out of the building. He knew without a doubt that, unlike he claimed to, Mark Hullum had definitely been telling people about Torchwood. And as much as he could appreciate the reasons behind it, all it did was put both Hullum and his friend in danger, leaving them open to getting killed, to say nothing of the open pain on Hullum's face whenever he thought about the wide Universe and all its wonders that were forever closed to him. Wasn't that cruel?
Jack didn't often think about sharing the RetCon formula with London, given that he was fairly certain they'd abuse it, but he couldn't deny it was certainly better than their method of imprisonment, humiliation, or death.
**
Several files and a short note saying 'still working on Asen db' came through several hours later. Jack forwarded the files to Owen when they turned out to be filched copies of the Asen employees' autopsy reports. Owen called him back while Jack was sitting in a bar just outside the Festival Hall on the South bank, nursing a glass of water and watching smartly dressed people wander out of an evening's musical performance.
"I think the London hacks are at a bit of a loss," Owen said, "Officially, the causes of death are down as 'multi-organ failure', but my explanation is the more interesting one."
"Are you going to keep me in suspense?" Jack asked, gesturing for a refill of his glass. To keep the staff from kicking him out prematurely for only ordering water, he'd also ordered some food to go with it. He was absently eating nachos as he listened to Owen, and knew that the sound must be annoying.
"Rapid total neural depolarisation." Owen sounded pleased with himself.
Jack turned a nacho over in his fingers, ignoring the way he got grease on his hands as he did so. "You're assuming I have any idea what that is for some unknown reason."
"Their brains were scrambled, or, more accurately, I suppose, wiped. The autonomic controls over the body failed. Heart, breathing, bloody pressure, blood sugar. It's all haywire, as if whoever was at the controls suddenly stepped out for a fag break and everything crashed while they were gone." Owen paused. "I doubt it was quick or painless, but if it's any consolation, I don't think they knew what was going on."
Jack put the nacho down and pushed the plate away, suddenly not hungry. He was acutely aware that whatever had happened to the staff in the Asen building had probably happened to him as well. He didn't remember the moment of dying, didn't remember slipping into death, and so he supposed that the Asen staff had had the same comfort. That thought didn't mean it had been a pleasant death, though. It just meant he didn't remember.
That was harder, in some ways. He could deal with unpleasant deaths (in the ranked list he'd been keeping in his head for the last sixty or so years, among the top five were having his brain bored out by an alien insect, disembowelling, and poisoning from a member of the Torchwood HR department - who had later turned out to have gone mad from a contemplation of an alien meditation puzzle not designed for her neurology), but it would have been more useful to know exactly what had caused said death.
His wriststrap beeped. He flipped it open and examined the readouts as Owen continued to speak. "I've been looking for anything that might have caused this, but no luck. Suzie says she's not having any joy with the archives either."
Considering the cube had been found before Jack had severed all links with London, the records should have been down there in the Hub's vaults. Someone really needed to sort those places out, one day. "I've already found some details on that," he said, "She can stop looking."
The wriststrap was displaying a local grid map, and a string of sensor data in a flickering stream. "Owen," he said, "I have to go." He put the phone down without waiting to listen to Owen's confused reply.
A surge in Alberta particles, localised in the area of the Asen Industries building. He leapt to his feet, abandoning the food without paying, running for his car, praying that his fears about what he was going to find were wrong.
**
When Jack saw the dead bodies lying in the courtyard outside of the Asen building, he knew they hadn't been.
**
Book III: The Book of Unintended Consequences
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Bwahahaha!
You're going to write an alternate ending for me where Jack and Ianto run off together, right? :D
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Love Ianto here. Less intense, but still so very him.
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