Ficlet: A Criminal Waste
Title: A Criminal Waste
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Jack, mentions Tosh, UNIT
Rating: G
Spoilers: Fragments.
Summary: Jack is determined that Tosh’s genius won’t be wasted.
Word Count: 371
Written For: juliet316’s prompt ‘Author's choice, author's choice, a wasted gem,’ at
fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
UNIT have no idea what they’ve got, and worse, they don’t even care. To their eyes, the young woman is simply a traitor, someone to be thrown into a bare, unfurnished cell and mostly forgotten about. They’re not interested in extenuating circumstances; treason is treason, she committed the crime and her freedom is forfeit.
But Jack has other ideas.
Toshiko Sato is a genius, but her amazing intellect was exploited by certain ruthless individuals in order to get what they wanted, a working sonic modulator. Ms Sato’s mother was taken hostage as leverage to ensure that she would cooperate, and she did; she stole the plans and constructed the device, and even though the plans were faulty, the modulator worked. That brilliant mind had taken intuitive leaps, compensating for the errors in the original design, and that is precisely why Jack knows that Torchwood has to have her.
She’s a gem, a jewel beyond price, and for her to spend the rest of her life languishing in a six by eight cell would be nothing short of criminal stupidity. One of the greatest minds the earth has ever produced is going to waste, and to Jack that’s intolerable, but he has a solution.
As luck would have it, UNIT owes Jack and Torchwood a few favours, and he’s perfectly willing to call in every one of them if it gets Ms Sato handed over into Torchwood custody. Not that Jack intends the lovely Toshiko to be some kind of prisoner or indentured slave; his own Torchwood career started that way and he’s not about to put another person through that, least of all someone with so much talent and potential. If she accepts his offer, and he can think of no reason why she wouldn’t, then she will be a full Torchwood employee, with the same security clearance and privileges as anyone he hires. What UNIT doesn’t know won’t hurt them, or anyone else, but what Ms Sato knows could benefit the whole world.
Jack allows himself a brief, satisfied smile before schooling his features into an appropriately serious expression, stepping from the SUV and striding towards UNIT’s prison. Toshiko Sato doesn’t know it yet, but her luck’s about to change.
The End