FIC: The Costs of Scientific Progress
Title: The Costs of Scientific Progress
Author: evelyncarver
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Suzie
Warnings: Spoilers for S01E01
Table: N/A
Summary: If she can figure out how to defeat death then no one will care what lives had to be lost in the work
Note: Torchwood prompt community “hamartia”
The rush that came with it was exhilarating. She had always been an adrenaline junkie, it was practically a requirement of working at Torchwood, but there was something about committing an act that was so illegal and unpleasant, it touched her and excited her in a way that nothing else ever had.
It hadn’t started off like this. At first it was just a harmless hack into the 999 databases and the police radios, maybe she had occasionally broke into the morgue at University Hospital of Wales, but there was not harm in that, all the people she had used were already dead. Using other people’s murders and suicides wasn’t wrong, it a type of recycling and she was all about recycling, saving the Earth for the future.
When she first picked up the knife that was when everything changed. The energy that pulsed through the blade whenever she held it and the way intensified any time she was near the glove drove her do things.
She first time that she took a life, beyond the line of duty, and felt the hot blood spill over her hands, she realised just how unprepared for this she was. This would not be a simple matter of taking the block off of police radio or flashing her Torchwood identification to get herself out of the crime scene. This was making sure that her fingerprints were cleared from the databases and DNA analysis would come back clean, she need to wipe all the CCTV that placed her in the area and she needed move the body and put it somewhere that made sense, old women that got stabbed waiting for buses would turn up for questions than if the body was found in the front room of the woman’s home.
It took Suzie two hours that she didn’t have to spare to fix the crime scene and safely move the body and set it up. It really felt like she was forgetting something or making something too obvious or too obscure for the police to figure out, there was a reason that Tosh and Ianto handled the clean ups and the operations gone wrong, she always overthought it.
She was on edge for the rest of the week, watching the news and pouring through the police records to the thanks of her Torchwood protocols, but the police seemed clueless as usual. It was just another stabbing with no CCTV and no witnesses. She was in the clear, for now.
Three weeks later and after a particularly unsatisfying resurrection of an old woman that had died of pneumonia and Suzie knew that the courage and the need to kill again was rising up inside her. No one had noticed anything, Jack was as clueless as ever and she could safely pull it off again.
The knife was wrapped in her purse, something odd and spark inducing happened when it touched the glove, and Suzie was dressed up and ready to find someone to die for her. IT was like being on the pull, she when had cared enough about the living to go out looking for some fun, now she spent her time cruising the lower dives and looking over everyone for someone who would not be missed and would get scared enough and fight back enough to give her violent and traumatic death that she needed.
She didn’t pick up women very often. But this girl was older, much older than her, so she felt safe around her, all relaxed and clearly dealing with a long term relationship breakup, maybe a divorce. No kids and she lived alone, Suzie smiled and bought them another round of drinks, and maybe this could work out. The woman was not her type at all, but this wasn’t a real interest and it would keep the trail from pointing her even if she had to put up with the woman’s nasal voice, alive and dead for the next few hours.
“I’ll take you to mine.” She told Rani and she got into Suzie’s car willingly. Suzie stopped behind an apartment building with a car park that had the three lower levels sealed off for repairs. The CCTV had been shut off two days ago as part of an effort for the owner to save money and thanks to her planning ahead she had a magnetized card that opened the gate and would have gotten her into any apartment if she had wanted to take this any further.
Rani got out of the car as she did. Suzie flashed a quick smile that was just over the line from the interested and excited predatory to the bad and hungry predatory.
“I live just upstairs.” Suzie told her and she put the car keys in her pocket and pretended to fumble for something in her purse while she unwrapped the knife from its protective canvas coverings.
When the knife touched her hand she remembered the rush of endorphins and the beauty that there was in the sharp blade cutting through skin and muscle and fat like it was butter. And this woman was an idiot to get into the car with her, she almost deserved to die.
Then the cloth she had wrapped the knife got in between her hand and the handle of the knife and those feelings vanished, but Suzie had no delusions about what she was doing. It was murder but just as much murder as a drug trial when half the patients are on a placebo, it was just was as much murder as a lifesaving surgery gone wrong or the nasty side effects of a lifesaving drug. She was a murderer, but it was in return for so much more. She was a pioneer, pushing the limits of human life and their understanding of death. If she was successful then she would be hailed as a hero and Suzie Costello never failed at anything.