Fic: The Silence of the Mind 1/7
Title: The Silence of the Mind
Author: alex_caligari
Beta: jellybean728
Characters/Pairings: Owen Harper
Rating: 14A
Summary: Owen is captured during the Year That Never Was. He quickly finds out that the worst tortures are not the ones he expected.
Disclaimer: All puppets still firmly attached to the BBC.
Author's Notes: Torchwood/Doctor Who crossover, set during the end of S3. Nothing graphic, but things will get worse quite quickly.
Chapter 1: International Relations
"What happened to being outside the government?" Gwen asked from the back of the car.
"It was a formal request from Mr. Saxon," Tosh replied. "We may be outside the government, but it's helpful to stay on their good side.”
"But Nepal? It's a little beyond Britain's sphere of influence, isn't it?"
"It's for the improvement of international relations," Ianto joined in from the driver's. "At least that's what the memo said. And it's a chance for a bit of travel."
"I hate travelling," I said, "almost as much as I hate camping. Everything has to be boiled. Water. Food. Socks."
"Socks?" Gwen said incredulously. "You honestly boil your socks?"
"Well, no, but you can see my point. I'm just saying that you get paranoid about everything when you travel, and then you start...overcompensating."
Both women were behind me, but I could still tell they shared a glance. Tosh spoke first. "And you overcompensate by boiling your socks? What is that compensating for, exactly?" She had an amazing poker face, and the question was asked in her typical all-in-the-name-of-science voice. Gwen was smothering giggles.
"What are we looking for again?" I asked in an effort to distract them. It was like working with teenagers sometimes.
"There were reports of something landing here. Something the local authorities couldn't identify," Ianto said.
I snorted. "Local authorities. What'd they say it looked like?"
I heard Tosh clicking away on her laptop. "A black obelisk covered with carvings. People say it makes strange noises at night, sort of like voices. One person swears it was speaking German."
"Great. We've stepped into a Kubrick film. It wouldn't be Rift junk this far out. How'd it get here?"
“‘It fell from the sky and burned across the fields, leaving nothing but fire in its wake,’” Tosh quoted.
"Bit melodramatic," Gwen said.
"It also says that anything that touches it is reduced to dust."
"No touching. Got it."
Silence fell in the vehicle. There was always more silence those days, ever since, well, since we were abandoned. Christ. I wondered what it was that made us keep coming back to this. Tosh had her tech and her toys; Gwen liked to think she was saving the world one screw-up at a time; Ianto probably had some fetish for chaos. I didn't even know why I still came back.
What do you call the countryside of Nepal? Nepalian? Nepalese? It was goddamn monotonous, for one thing. Villages made more of huts than houses. Cattle everywhere. Typical that this thing had to land in the middle of nowhere.
I heard more clicking from Tosh.
“Did you hear about Saxon’s promise to give us aliens? He even showed a few on a live broadcast. He called them Toclafane.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” Ianto said.
“Do we really need to be advertising ourselves to more aliens?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we be there in case something goes wrong, instead of stuck here?”
No one bothered to answer. I had been asking the same question since we left, and everyone took it as an excuse to stay behind. Ianto pulled over beside a field conspicuously empty of anything alien. Tosh already had a tracker out and was pointing it in various directions. Gwen chuffed me on the arm, trying to be friendly. “C’mon, Owen. At least enjoy the view.”
In the distance beyond the barren field rose the Himalayas, with snowy slopes and caps lost in cloudbanks. “It’s not bad,” I admitted. “Bit windy.”
Gwen gave up and followed Tosh, already in the field. She was walking towards a pile of dead brush that couldn’t be more than three feet high.
“I thought it’d be bigger,” Gwen said.
Tosh was frowning at her device. “It should be right here...” she muttered. She began pulling away bits of the brush. I walked over to help when Tosh uncovered what looked like an ordinary strongbox.
“That’s a bit anti-climactic,” Ianto said.
Gwen began reaching for the lid when Tosh stopped her. “At least let me scan it first.” She ran her device over the box and frowned at it again. “This is definitely where the signal is coming from. It has alien markers all over it.”
“And this is the thing that vaporizes the people that touch it, yeah?” I asked, looking pointedly at Gwen.
She made a face at me. “It’s also supposed to be a black obelisk.”
Tosh continued. “There doesn’t seem to be anything harmful about it. No radiation or triggering device. Just broadcasting a signal.”
“So it’s been reaching out to us,” Gwen said. “It wants us to find it.”
We glanced at each other. Gwen, hopeful; Tosh, expectant; Ianto, wary; and me, impatient.
“Let’s open it then,” I said. “If we came all this way not to have something interesting happen, I’ll be very disappointed.”
Ianto rolled his eyes. “You had to say that, didn’t you?”
Tosh bent down and slowly opened the lid while we braced ourselves for whatever might come out. It was a small LED display attached to a solar panel. As the light hit it, the display lit up and red blinking letters spelled out ‘TAG YOU’RE IT.’
“Trap,” I said and turned to the car.
“Agreed,” said Ianto. We ran back.
Chaos was erupting in the villages we drove through. People were running and gathering up children, and the sky had a strange orange tint to it. “Tosh!” I said. “What’s going on?”
She was madly scanning through her laptop. “I don’t know, I...oh my god,” she said.
“What? What is it? Tosh, c’mon!” I said when she didn’t speak.
“The President of the United States was assassinated. They were all on the airship Valiant, and the Toclafane appeared. They killed him. Saxon...Christ, he’s gone mad. He’s controlling them. He told them to kill President Winters.”
“But that’s over the Atlantic,” Ianto said, narrowly avoiding an oncoming Jeep. “What’s happening here?”
“The Toclafane are coming. Reports are coming in from all over. The sky opened up and millions of them came down. They’re spreading all over the world.” Tosh drew a shaky breath. “They’re killing people.”
I hit the dashboard. “I knew we should have been there! Alien encounter promoted all over the world and where do we go? Fucking Nepal on a mission Saxon gave us. It was a distraction to draw us away.”
“Now what do we do?” Gwen asked.
No one answered. We all jumped when Gwen’s mobile rang. She answered it. “Hello?” She pulled it away from her ear, looking pale. “It’s Saxon. He wants me to put it on speakerphone.”
A very familiar voice came out of the tiny speaker. “I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Torchwood, yes? At least what’s left of it.”
“Yes, this is Torchwood,” Gwen replied.
“They said you were a clever lot. Did you like your trip? I’ve heard that the countryside this time of year is absolutely-”
“What do you want?” I interrupted.
“Patience, patience. I like sportsmanship in others and thought I might give it a try as well. I already gave your friends a warning yesterday; I’ll give you the same one.”
Gwen resumed speaking. “What friends?”
“I told them to run,” Saxon said, ignoring her. “And they listened for a while. But then they did something stupid, and they’ll pay for it. One of them already has. But I will tell you the same and I hope you listen better than they did. Run. Run for your lives. Have fun!” The call ended abruptly.
“Fantastic,” I said dully. “The safest place we could be is on the other side of the world.”
We rode in silence again.
“We’re being hunted,” Ianto said after a while, “so we have to hide.” He glanced at me. “We have to split up.” He pulled off the road suddenly and turned off the engine. “Grab what you can carry and we’ll each take a different direction. And leave behind anything they can track, like mobiles.”
Gwen was starting to panic in the backseat. “Ianto, this can’t be happening. What about Rhys? I have to call him, I have to make sure. I can’t lose him again!”
“Gwen,” he said, much calmer than I’m sure he felt. “He knows to keep his head down. He won’t attract attention to himself, and there’s nothing you can do from here. Trust him. Meanwhile, we have to stay alive and avoid capture. And to do that, we have to go underground. Break off contact entirely.” He looked at each one of us. “Agreed?”
“For how long?” Tosh asked.
Instead of answering her, Ianto climbed out of the car and pulled out his mobile and communicator. He dropped both on the driver’s seat.
Half an hour later, all our communication equipment had been hidden in the car, and we each had a pack filled with clothes, water, money, and fake ids. “That’s the last of it,” Ianto said as he locked the car with the keys inside. The moment we had been trying to put off was here. It was bad enough that we were cut off from all the resources we had, but we were going to be cut off from each other, too.
“North, south, east, west?” I said, pointing to each of us in turn. They nodded, but we all hesitated. Would we see each other again? “Right,” I said, “might as well get a move on.” I waved to them and ignored the fear I saw on their faces. I turned west, and started walking.
Chapter 2: Anonymous
Author: alex_caligari
Beta: jellybean728
Characters/Pairings: Owen Harper
Rating: 14A
Summary: Owen is captured during the Year That Never Was. He quickly finds out that the worst tortures are not the ones he expected.
Disclaimer: All puppets still firmly attached to the BBC.
Author's Notes: Torchwood/Doctor Who crossover, set during the end of S3. Nothing graphic, but things will get worse quite quickly.
Chapter 1: International Relations
"What happened to being outside the government?" Gwen asked from the back of the car.
"It was a formal request from Mr. Saxon," Tosh replied. "We may be outside the government, but it's helpful to stay on their good side.”
"But Nepal? It's a little beyond Britain's sphere of influence, isn't it?"
"It's for the improvement of international relations," Ianto joined in from the driver's. "At least that's what the memo said. And it's a chance for a bit of travel."
"I hate travelling," I said, "almost as much as I hate camping. Everything has to be boiled. Water. Food. Socks."
"Socks?" Gwen said incredulously. "You honestly boil your socks?"
"Well, no, but you can see my point. I'm just saying that you get paranoid about everything when you travel, and then you start...overcompensating."
Both women were behind me, but I could still tell they shared a glance. Tosh spoke first. "And you overcompensate by boiling your socks? What is that compensating for, exactly?" She had an amazing poker face, and the question was asked in her typical all-in-the-name-of-science voice. Gwen was smothering giggles.
"What are we looking for again?" I asked in an effort to distract them. It was like working with teenagers sometimes.
"There were reports of something landing here. Something the local authorities couldn't identify," Ianto said.
I snorted. "Local authorities. What'd they say it looked like?"
I heard Tosh clicking away on her laptop. "A black obelisk covered with carvings. People say it makes strange noises at night, sort of like voices. One person swears it was speaking German."
"Great. We've stepped into a Kubrick film. It wouldn't be Rift junk this far out. How'd it get here?"
“‘It fell from the sky and burned across the fields, leaving nothing but fire in its wake,’” Tosh quoted.
"Bit melodramatic," Gwen said.
"It also says that anything that touches it is reduced to dust."
"No touching. Got it."
Silence fell in the vehicle. There was always more silence those days, ever since, well, since we were abandoned. Christ. I wondered what it was that made us keep coming back to this. Tosh had her tech and her toys; Gwen liked to think she was saving the world one screw-up at a time; Ianto probably had some fetish for chaos. I didn't even know why I still came back.
What do you call the countryside of Nepal? Nepalian? Nepalese? It was goddamn monotonous, for one thing. Villages made more of huts than houses. Cattle everywhere. Typical that this thing had to land in the middle of nowhere.
I heard more clicking from Tosh.
“Did you hear about Saxon’s promise to give us aliens? He even showed a few on a live broadcast. He called them Toclafane.”
“I’ve never heard of them,” Ianto said.
“Do we really need to be advertising ourselves to more aliens?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we be there in case something goes wrong, instead of stuck here?”
No one bothered to answer. I had been asking the same question since we left, and everyone took it as an excuse to stay behind. Ianto pulled over beside a field conspicuously empty of anything alien. Tosh already had a tracker out and was pointing it in various directions. Gwen chuffed me on the arm, trying to be friendly. “C’mon, Owen. At least enjoy the view.”
In the distance beyond the barren field rose the Himalayas, with snowy slopes and caps lost in cloudbanks. “It’s not bad,” I admitted. “Bit windy.”
Gwen gave up and followed Tosh, already in the field. She was walking towards a pile of dead brush that couldn’t be more than three feet high.
“I thought it’d be bigger,” Gwen said.
Tosh was frowning at her device. “It should be right here...” she muttered. She began pulling away bits of the brush. I walked over to help when Tosh uncovered what looked like an ordinary strongbox.
“That’s a bit anti-climactic,” Ianto said.
Gwen began reaching for the lid when Tosh stopped her. “At least let me scan it first.” She ran her device over the box and frowned at it again. “This is definitely where the signal is coming from. It has alien markers all over it.”
“And this is the thing that vaporizes the people that touch it, yeah?” I asked, looking pointedly at Gwen.
She made a face at me. “It’s also supposed to be a black obelisk.”
Tosh continued. “There doesn’t seem to be anything harmful about it. No radiation or triggering device. Just broadcasting a signal.”
“So it’s been reaching out to us,” Gwen said. “It wants us to find it.”
We glanced at each other. Gwen, hopeful; Tosh, expectant; Ianto, wary; and me, impatient.
“Let’s open it then,” I said. “If we came all this way not to have something interesting happen, I’ll be very disappointed.”
Ianto rolled his eyes. “You had to say that, didn’t you?”
Tosh bent down and slowly opened the lid while we braced ourselves for whatever might come out. It was a small LED display attached to a solar panel. As the light hit it, the display lit up and red blinking letters spelled out ‘TAG YOU’RE IT.’
“Trap,” I said and turned to the car.
“Agreed,” said Ianto. We ran back.
Chaos was erupting in the villages we drove through. People were running and gathering up children, and the sky had a strange orange tint to it. “Tosh!” I said. “What’s going on?”
She was madly scanning through her laptop. “I don’t know, I...oh my god,” she said.
“What? What is it? Tosh, c’mon!” I said when she didn’t speak.
“The President of the United States was assassinated. They were all on the airship Valiant, and the Toclafane appeared. They killed him. Saxon...Christ, he’s gone mad. He’s controlling them. He told them to kill President Winters.”
“But that’s over the Atlantic,” Ianto said, narrowly avoiding an oncoming Jeep. “What’s happening here?”
“The Toclafane are coming. Reports are coming in from all over. The sky opened up and millions of them came down. They’re spreading all over the world.” Tosh drew a shaky breath. “They’re killing people.”
I hit the dashboard. “I knew we should have been there! Alien encounter promoted all over the world and where do we go? Fucking Nepal on a mission Saxon gave us. It was a distraction to draw us away.”
“Now what do we do?” Gwen asked.
No one answered. We all jumped when Gwen’s mobile rang. She answered it. “Hello?” She pulled it away from her ear, looking pale. “It’s Saxon. He wants me to put it on speakerphone.”
A very familiar voice came out of the tiny speaker. “I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Torchwood, yes? At least what’s left of it.”
“Yes, this is Torchwood,” Gwen replied.
“They said you were a clever lot. Did you like your trip? I’ve heard that the countryside this time of year is absolutely-”
“What do you want?” I interrupted.
“Patience, patience. I like sportsmanship in others and thought I might give it a try as well. I already gave your friends a warning yesterday; I’ll give you the same one.”
Gwen resumed speaking. “What friends?”
“I told them to run,” Saxon said, ignoring her. “And they listened for a while. But then they did something stupid, and they’ll pay for it. One of them already has. But I will tell you the same and I hope you listen better than they did. Run. Run for your lives. Have fun!” The call ended abruptly.
“Fantastic,” I said dully. “The safest place we could be is on the other side of the world.”
We rode in silence again.
“We’re being hunted,” Ianto said after a while, “so we have to hide.” He glanced at me. “We have to split up.” He pulled off the road suddenly and turned off the engine. “Grab what you can carry and we’ll each take a different direction. And leave behind anything they can track, like mobiles.”
Gwen was starting to panic in the backseat. “Ianto, this can’t be happening. What about Rhys? I have to call him, I have to make sure. I can’t lose him again!”
“Gwen,” he said, much calmer than I’m sure he felt. “He knows to keep his head down. He won’t attract attention to himself, and there’s nothing you can do from here. Trust him. Meanwhile, we have to stay alive and avoid capture. And to do that, we have to go underground. Break off contact entirely.” He looked at each one of us. “Agreed?”
“For how long?” Tosh asked.
Instead of answering her, Ianto climbed out of the car and pulled out his mobile and communicator. He dropped both on the driver’s seat.
Half an hour later, all our communication equipment had been hidden in the car, and we each had a pack filled with clothes, water, money, and fake ids. “That’s the last of it,” Ianto said as he locked the car with the keys inside. The moment we had been trying to put off was here. It was bad enough that we were cut off from all the resources we had, but we were going to be cut off from each other, too.
“North, south, east, west?” I said, pointing to each of us in turn. They nodded, but we all hesitated. Would we see each other again? “Right,” I said, “might as well get a move on.” I waved to them and ignored the fear I saw on their faces. I turned west, and started walking.
Chapter 2: Anonymous