Title:The Silence of the Mind
Author:
alex_caligariBeta:
jellybean728Characters/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 S1 and S3, respectively. Nothing graphic, but things will get worse quite quickly.
Warning: Destruction of Japan in this chapter. It happened in canon, so it happens here.
Chapter 1: International Relations Chapter 2: Anonymous Chapter 3: Boredom
Daybreak over the Valiant. It was a beautiful ship, regally hovering among the clouds. Dread had sunk into my stomach and I tried to appreciate the sight while I could. I had a feeling I wouldn’t be seeing the scenery for very long. The plane touched down on the airstrip and was instantly surrounded by soldiers. I was led out with Sir walking beside me.
As we neared a doorway I asked, “Am I seeing Saxon?”
Sir shook his head. “No. The Master will call for you when he wants to speak with you.”
“The Master?” I had heard some people calling him that but never thought he took it as an official title. “It’s a bit pretentious.”
Sir glanced sidelong at me. “Saxon never existed; he was an invention. The Master has revealed his true self and is better for it.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is like the Toclafane. He isn’t human. How do you not know this?”
“I’ve been living in ditches for the past three months,” I answered shortly. “Saxon’s an alien, eh? No shit.”
We walked through corridors and empty rooms. The surroundings changed from clean decorated walls to bare pipes and grating. “Feels like home,” I muttered. We walked passed a black woman in a maid’s uniform who shrank back into the shadows. She looked fierce; angry and hurt.
It might have been dehydration, exhaustion, low blood sugar, or any of a number of things that played tricks with my mind, because I thought I heard a familiar voice echoing obscenities down a side corridor, mixed with sexual innuendo. A spark of electricity drowned the next part out, and I didn’t hear anymore.
“Here is your cell,” Sir said. He indicated a doorway that led into a windowless but well-lit room. Small, but not cramped. Clean. Boring.
A door behind us closed and I realized we were in an anteroom between the corridor and the cell proper. My restraints were removed and I was suddenly alone with Sir. “What about my trial?” I asked.
Sir smiled ruefully. “You are a terrorist and a political prisoner. There will be no trial.”
I nodded. I figured as much. “Any last words of advice?” I asked.
“Keep your head down,” he said. “Rebellion will only make it worse.” He then turned and walked out, closing the door behind him. He was right; I didn’t see him again.
And so my imprisonment began.
I learned very quickly that you didn’t need torture to break a person’s mind. Boredom will do just fine, and is a lot easier to accomplish. I had no windows in my cell, and the only way to tell night from day was by the automatic fluorescent light. I woke when the light came on, meals would arrive periodically through the day, and I slept when the light went off. I saw no other person. The food was placed in the anteroom and I returned it there after I was finished. I couldn’t even complain about conditions; technically, everything I needed to survive was available. The food was regular but bland, with no sugar or salt, and only as much fat and protein that was nutritionally essential. I noticed I was losing weight but not fast enough to look emaciated. The toilet and sink were automatically sterilized twice a day.
I felt disgusting. I wasn’t given any other clothes, and there was no soap. I could rinse my face and hair in the sink but the rest of my body suffered. No razor meant that my stubble was permanent. Not to mention my mouth. No toothpaste or toothbrush was given. I chewed my nails when they got too long. My clothes reeked, and I finally gave up on modesty and threw them all in a corner. I half-considered the idea of dunking them in the toilet and having them sanitized, but decided I didn’t want whatever chemicals they used touching my skin.
I tried to keep count of the days and how long I’d been there, but after fourteen days I stopped caring. I had no way to measure time besides the light, and even that was probably skewed to warp my perceptions. I was never tortured or interrogated. I had no tools and no means of escape. I had nothing to fight against, no one to influence. My punishment was isolation and boredom.
My hair was long enough to stick up when I ran my hands through it when I finally saw another human being.
I was half-dozing on the little cot when a voice blared out on the intercom. I had never noticed an intercom before; it had never been used. “The prisoner will prepare for interrogation,” the metallic voice said. I put my boxers back on and sat on the cot to wait. Soon after I heard the outer door slide open and shut. The inner door opened and a nameless uniform stood before me, looking incredibly clean and well-fed. He wrinkled his nose slightly at the smell of disinfectant and unwashed human.
“You will follow me,” he said in a clipped Swiss accent. “You have been requested to be made decent before your audience.”
I didn’t answer, almost forgetting how to use my voice in the weeks of silence. I stood and followed the grunt. Another one appeared soundlessly to walk behind me. I was taken to an elegantly designed bathroom, and locked in. Everything was bamboo wood and frosted glass. There was a shower and sink with the necessary toiletries, and a small closet with scrubs hanging in it. I looked in the mirror and groaned. I looked like all my hangover mornings put together. I was pale and thin and scruffy. I stood under too-hot water scrubbing my skin raw. There was no razor but at least there was toothpaste and a toothbrush. It was the first time I felt truly clean since we ran in Nepal. When I was dried and dressed I knocked on the door and was again escorted through the bowels of the ship.
I only looked up when the floor changed from metal to hardwood. We were in a boardroom dominated by a long table. Windows lined the bridge, and I could finally verify that it was daytime. The fierce black woman I saw when I first arrived stood by the wall, along with a man and a younger woman. On the other side was an old man in a wheelchair.
“Dr. Harper!”
I looked up to the top of the stairs, and saw the villain grinning back at me. For a second I was transported back, to when his face meant reassurance and improvement, when every celebrity and their dog were supporting him. And now his was the face who had killed 600 million people.
“Saxon,” I croaked.
He clapped his hands and leapt down the stairs. I couldn’t believe a mass murderer would be so joyful. I expected calm, cool, collected, maybe witty one-liners to amuse himself. Instead he grabbed a women-Lucy Saxon, I realized with shock-and spun her around the room. I watched him make a victory lap, taunting each person he passed. I finally found my voice.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
He stopped suddenly, like he had forgotten I was there. He dropped Lucy’s arms like he had forgotten about her just as suddenly, and walked to stand in front of me. “Ah, yes, you’re the foul one, aren’t you?” he said. “The defiant one, the one who says he-how do you say it here? ‘Doesn’t give a fuck?’ But secretly you want to solve the world’s problems as much as that wide-eyed doe Gwen Cooper, right? You’re that role in his little team.”
He had spoken to me for all of five seconds and he shook me to the core. Mentioning Gwen and Jack, how much did he know about all of us? What if he had found the others while I was captured? I doubted they would have let me know if they had.
“Lucy,” he called out. “Meet Dr. Owen Harper of Torchwood Three. He’s a protégé of Harkness.” Lucy smiled at me, but I wasn’t watching her. The younger black woman had looked up at Jack’s name, then quickly looked away.
Saxon was talking to me again. “Speaking of Harkness, any idea where he is?” I stared at him. “We’ve located all the others, of course. You didn’t think we needed you for that, did you?” He pouted a little. “Poor boy. No, I like hunting them. They’re more cunning than you were. But we haven’t found the pack leader, the one who organized this jaunt through the wilderness. And I hate leaving a collection incomplete.”
I swallowed. “What?” Living on gruel for god knows how long wasn’t enough to let me sustain cool disinterest. I was confused and dizzy. “We haven’t seen Jack in months, from before the invasion,” I stammered. “What do you mean, he organized it?”
“Master,” a voice growled warningly. It was the old man in the wheelchair. Saxon didn’t turn around, but his face changed drastically, like a dog that had been yanked back on its leash.
“Fine,” he said. “Dr. Harper is welcome to watch the proceedings. So nice to have a real doctor on board.” He stalked away from me, and I watched the old man. He brought Saxon to heel with a single word. Saxon obviously didn’t like him, but it was as if he was trying to impress him. Who could have power like that?
Saxon barked orders at the soldiers, telling them to bring the ship down. We were all herded up the stairs and stood against the windows. I was put in a corner near the young woman. She glanced at me, and when she made sure I was watching her, she whispered, “He’s lying.”
“About what?” I whispered back.
“Everything,” she said, and turned away.
Saxon was speaking again. “You are all very lucky, you know. To be witnesses to this monumental occasion. Look out there; we are above the Sea of Japan, just 6 kilometres from the main island of Honshu. Go on, look.” He leapt up the stairs to join us.
The airship had lowered itself below the cloudbank, and the island was visible through the haze. The mountains rose up from the shore, which stretched north to south as far as we could see.
Saxon’s voice was close and soft. “Because this is the last time you will see it.” He was standing right behind us looking at the view. He turned to me. “One of your associates is Japanese, right? I wonder where she would hide.”
I felt cold. Tosh had gone east. I didn’t think she had any family left in Japan, but I couldn’t be sure. She was always trying to chat me up and I never listened to any of it. I fervently hoped that she had gone elsewhere.
Saxon called to the soldiers. “Launch!”
We felt a rumble, then silence. That was the worst part. Everything was silent as we watched a dozen missiles fly away from the airship. No one moved as the first one hit. The young woman began to sob as the second and third hit. Strike after strike sent up plumes of smoke and fire, destroying everything in range along the coast. All in complete silence. Saxon could have sent those missiles from miles away, but he wanted us to see.
It lasted for hours. We moved along the coastline, firing at anything resembling a town. The airship seemed to have a never-ending supply of ammunition. We were made to stand at the windows to watch, along with Saxon. He had a hungry look, pleased and desperate. The old man in the wheelchair hadn’t been moved from the lower level and was spared the sight. I had a feeling his punishment was watching our pain.
It was nightfall when Saxon finally stirred. “Enough,” he said. “We’ll burn the rest tomorrow.” He grabbed Lucy, who had been present the entire time, and walked out of the room. “And get them back to their quarters,” he called behind him.
I was marched away back to my cell, newly disinfected yet with my stinking clothes still in a corner. I was allowed to keep the scrubs I was wearing. The door was shut behind me, and I was not granted the privilege of watching the rest of Japan burn the next day. I was left for what felt like weeks, and had nightmares every night.
During the day I pondered the young woman’s words. He’s lying. The meaning was obvious, but how much could be believed? About everything. Saxon said he already knew where the others were: lie one. So they were still hidden, Gwen and Ianto and Tosh. Hidden, or killed without Saxon’s knowledge. It made me sick to think about it and I knew, pragmatically, that I couldn’t afford to lose fluids from vomiting. I pushed them from my mind and concentrated on the question at hand.
Lie two: Saxon didn’t know where Jack was. That confused me the most. How could Saxon find him but we couldn’t? Jack couldn’t be dead; we had all seen how well that worked. So either Saxon had located him and was toying with him or had already captured him. The woman had recognized his name. She’d heard it before, or had seen him. I remembered the voice I had heard when I arrived and I knew.
Jack was on this ship. My mind was clear for the first time since arriving.
Chapter 4: Taking the Bullet