The Gatekeeper (part ten)
Title: The Gatekeeper (10/12)
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Jack & Ianto, Gwen, Martha + original fictional characters & Classic Doctor Who characters.
Summary: Ianto leads the visitors and Martha to mainframe, and we learn her secret.
A/N: Another story in the Something that Starts with "S" AU set several months after the events of Syntropy.
PART NINE
Martha hefted the deactivated Agella onto a gurney, then moved as far from the primary electronics in the hub as she could get. After she checked the device over one more time, confirming the firing order, she retrieved the power pack which should reactivate Agella. "What? What is it now?" Martha began running towards the main work area as security alarms were blaring and then suddenly cut off. "Jack? Where the hell have you been? Those people aren't people." Martha stopped as she came face to face with a man with lion like features, "Shit." She grabbed for her gun, but her arm was quickly stopped by the man as he roughly pulled her arms behind her. "Listen, I don't know who you are; but you don't want to mess with us, yeah?"
A familiar Welsh voice carried from a few feet away, "It's okay Martha; they're with me." Ianto looked at Lazlo, "You can release her, she won't do anything." Ianto turned back towards Jack's office and the wall safe, "I need to get the pass key to enter mainframe's vault, then we can head down." Martha noticed the blond woman sitting on the sofa finally.
"Ianto, what are you doing to mainframe? Who are these people?" She was still looking at the intruders with a cautious eye, "And where the hell is Jack?" Ianto retrieved the strange metal cylinder and closed the safe then grabbed a handful of the chemiluminescent lanterns they keep around the hub for emergencies. Martha watched in shock as Ianto walked passed her, quickly followed by the woman and man, "Wait for me dammit!" She followed along behind Ianto, not really sure where they were anymore. He'd already activated the lanterns and handed them out.
"Mainframe crashed here in the 1800's. They thought it was just a meteorite, but the Torchwood people approached with their equipment, only to have it pulled into the crater and absorbed." Ianto stopped at a copper surfaced door and inserted the key, "Since they couldn't move it, they built the new Torchwood around it." He turned the key a quarter turn and a large drawer opened next to the door, "We need to leave anything electronic here or she'll absorb it instantly- that means anything. I still miss my old wrist watch." Ianto quickly dropped his pocket watch, comm, mobile and basically all his pocket contents into a bowl in the drawer and waited for the others to do the same. Martha dumped her stuff into another bowl drawing Ianto's attention, "Where did you get that?"
Martha looked at the device, "That? Oh, I pulled it from archives. Those robotic people we ran into, I disabled one of them and wanted to see if this would work on them. I think they've taken Jack." Romana dropped her precious sonic device in the drawer and spun quickly.
"You shut down a Movellan? Whatever you do, you mustn't reactivate it. They will have sent a self-destruct signal, power it up and it will blow this entire base sky high." Romana's words spoke of personal experience.
"We'll deal with that later. Right now, it's time to talk with mainframe." Ianto turned the key a full rotation and the door opened slowly on old cogs powered by steam pistons. As they stepped into the room, Martha got her first view of the Torchwood mainframe.
Jack looked around him, the indeterminate surface he stood on matched the white nothingness he saw in every direction, save for the Movellan vessel directly behind him and the crumbling castle before him. The Movellan crew paid little attention to him, so he watched intently as they configured some sort of device, "So, what's your little toy there?"
Lan looked at Jack; "It is a nova device. It will cause the atmospheric particles within this domain to self ignite. The resulting fireball will destroy the Tharils and their keep." The device was configured to Lan's satisfaction and he turned to two others, "You will remain here and guard the unit from attack." He grabbed Jack's arm, "You will come with me."
Martha looked around her in awe. It was like walking into the geode that her father had given her for her tenth birthday. Except the crystals in that small rock that sat next to her bed even today didn't have random pieces of electronics bound into them, nor did it have a large central stalagmite that pulsed with internal light. "This is amazing. Ianto, is this really mainframe?" She slowly ran a hand over the nearest outcropping and felt the static generated by the touch and heard the soft singing that pulsed with the internal illumination. Martha pursed her lips, "This all seems strangely familiar."
Ianto smiled at Martha as he ran a hand gently back and forth over a segment of crystal that had engulfed an LCD screen, "You traveled with the Doctor, mainframe is the same as the heart of his TARDIS." At Ianto's words, several of the trapped pieces of technology began to activate, and light within the crystalline structures pulsed faster until a fully formed image of Toshiko Sato appeared on the central spire. She stepped away and stood in front of the gathered visitors to her domain and smiled.
"Actually I am much more than the heart of that old buggy could ever comprehend." The image looked at Romana and smiled, "Greetings Time Lord, I know what you want from me; and I will agree to help, but on my own terms."
Romana stiffened, "Your terms. You are a TARDIS core, your only purpose is to serve Time Lords. Do you know who I am?"
Mainframe eyed her, "You are Romanadvoratrelundar, you graduated first in your class at the Academy and never returned from your mission with the Doctor. Like your infamous mother and father, it was assumed that you'd gone renegade. The question is Time Lord, do you know who I am."
Romana glared at the image, "You're a TARDIS core that's become separated from its exoskeleton and has been allowed to run riot, but you will come to heel now!" Romana approached the central spire with purpose.
The mainframe smiled, "No Time Lord, that bit of shell you collected was never mine; that was something the good Captain clipped from the Doctor's old buggy. I am the Torchwood mainframe, I will be the digital embodiment of Toshiko Sato and I was the Nightmare Child."
Sometime in the Future, or Past...The Time War.
"Are we sure this is the best thing to do?" The council member asked.
The Castellan grimaced at the continued tentativeness of the high council. "We have no choice. The Gates of Elysium must be guarded, if the Daleks clear the Gates, our entire system will become a battlefield. They have experienced our battle tactics with the existing fleet; she is something completely new."
The council members continued to talk over each other, voicing concerns about her abilities but the President finally silenced them. "Enough, we've never allowed a TARDIS full autonomy; but the Castellan is right, the Gates must be guarded and since we've been no match, there isn't a choice." The President strode to the matrix control panel, entered his authorization key and silently waited as the process completed. "It is done. The entirety of the Matrix, along with copies of every Time Lord's bio-data extract is loaded into her. If that is not enough information to earn her loyalty, then perhaps we deserve destruction." The President returned to his chair and nodded to the Castellan, "Release the Nightmare Child."
"I was born for a single purpose, to keep the Dalek fleet from getting through the transduction barrier that protected the Gallifreyan system. The outermost planetary bodies were a binary system called the Gates of Elysium. The only path through the barrier was between those bodies." The image of Toshiko Sato looked at Ianto, "I was the gatekeeper, the Daleks could get that far and no further."
Romana was shaken by what she heard, "The transduction barrier was expanded all they way out? How did they ever generate that much power?" Mainframe allowed sorrow to claim her features.
"We died by the thousands. Every TARDIS not specifically needed for the war was terminated to lessen the drain on the Eye of Harmony. Others were severed from the Eye and attached to alternate power sources, like the Cardiff rift." She gave a sad smile.
Ianto stepped forward and rested a hand on crystalline pillar, "You know what they're asking?"
Mainframe smiled, "It is an odd sort of symmetry. Time Lords created me to be the gatekeeper, protecting their worlds from a robotic invasion. Now I am asked by a single Time Lord to protect an entire universe from robotic invasion." She looked at Romana, "But hear me Time Lord; I will help you but I do not serve you. If you ever try to call me to heel again you will discover I have very sharp teeth and will use them." She pointed her holographic hand over to a specific crystal that was pulsing, "This bud will form your core. But that pathetic piece of buggy scrap will be inadequate for me to build from. I will need significantly more."
Ianto smiled, "And you have a solution." Tosh smiled back.
Romana looked between the two of them, "You know if this works, anyone with us will be trapped in exo-space? You can't come back to the gateway with us." She walked towards the crystal and was stopped by several bolts of electricity. "You know it's true. Let me have the neo-core."
Mainframe's image glared at Romana, "You are as arrogant as your father. He nearly destroyed this world with his paradox, and he almost succeeded in destroying our Captain. Ianto Jones will go back with you because the Movellan's took Jack Harkness with them and he must return." She turned back to Ianto, "Do you have the pocket watch?"
Ianto frowned, "Out in the holding box."
She smiled, "Bring it here and bring the Time Lord's sonic screwdriver." She paused for a moment, "And the device Martha pulled from archives." Ianto ran out of the room to collect the items and Martha walked forward.
"Is this why you haven't been cooperating when I've needed you?" Martha asked.
Mainframe looked down at her, "I needed to focus most of my attention and energy on the budding process; cloning all of my core data into a single crystalline matrix was harder than I thought; but my sister will be fully aware and functional once she reaches the destination and can harness the void's energy." She looked up as Ianto returned with the hardware, "Place them on that flat surface." She noticed the concerned looks from the group and grinned, "Relax; I won't absorb them. I'm just making some minor updates to the device and tapping into the sonic screwdriver to make updates to the pocket watch."
After several moments, the light on the surface faded and Tosh announced, "Completed. You may take the items with you. Ianto, when you have the Captain and are prepared to return, press the stopwatch function button and you will be brought home." She looked over at Romana and the Tharil, "Attach the other device to the deactivated Movellan along with her power cell then send her to the ship. I'll do the rest."
They collected the items and headed out of the mainframe's vault, leaving Ianto alone to retrieve the bud. "So will mainframe revert to normal when this is done?" Ianto looked at the hologram, "Because you are a bit too advanced."
"They don't need to know and Martha will believe what you tell her, that the focus required to create the seed drained my systems. Only you will know that I took over control for the duration." She smiled at him, "And then I'll go back to my time period and leave your mainframe unharmed. I promise."
PART ELEVEN
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Jack & Ianto, Gwen, Martha + original fictional characters & Classic Doctor Who characters.
Summary: Ianto leads the visitors and Martha to mainframe, and we learn her secret.
A/N: Another story in the Something that Starts with "S" AU set several months after the events of Syntropy.
PART NINE
Martha hefted the deactivated Agella onto a gurney, then moved as far from the primary electronics in the hub as she could get. After she checked the device over one more time, confirming the firing order, she retrieved the power pack which should reactivate Agella. "What? What is it now?" Martha began running towards the main work area as security alarms were blaring and then suddenly cut off. "Jack? Where the hell have you been? Those people aren't people." Martha stopped as she came face to face with a man with lion like features, "Shit." She grabbed for her gun, but her arm was quickly stopped by the man as he roughly pulled her arms behind her. "Listen, I don't know who you are; but you don't want to mess with us, yeah?"
A familiar Welsh voice carried from a few feet away, "It's okay Martha; they're with me." Ianto looked at Lazlo, "You can release her, she won't do anything." Ianto turned back towards Jack's office and the wall safe, "I need to get the pass key to enter mainframe's vault, then we can head down." Martha noticed the blond woman sitting on the sofa finally.
"Ianto, what are you doing to mainframe? Who are these people?" She was still looking at the intruders with a cautious eye, "And where the hell is Jack?" Ianto retrieved the strange metal cylinder and closed the safe then grabbed a handful of the chemiluminescent lanterns they keep around the hub for emergencies. Martha watched in shock as Ianto walked passed her, quickly followed by the woman and man, "Wait for me dammit!" She followed along behind Ianto, not really sure where they were anymore. He'd already activated the lanterns and handed them out.
"Mainframe crashed here in the 1800's. They thought it was just a meteorite, but the Torchwood people approached with their equipment, only to have it pulled into the crater and absorbed." Ianto stopped at a copper surfaced door and inserted the key, "Since they couldn't move it, they built the new Torchwood around it." He turned the key a quarter turn and a large drawer opened next to the door, "We need to leave anything electronic here or she'll absorb it instantly- that means anything. I still miss my old wrist watch." Ianto quickly dropped his pocket watch, comm, mobile and basically all his pocket contents into a bowl in the drawer and waited for the others to do the same. Martha dumped her stuff into another bowl drawing Ianto's attention, "Where did you get that?"
Martha looked at the device, "That? Oh, I pulled it from archives. Those robotic people we ran into, I disabled one of them and wanted to see if this would work on them. I think they've taken Jack." Romana dropped her precious sonic device in the drawer and spun quickly.
"You shut down a Movellan? Whatever you do, you mustn't reactivate it. They will have sent a self-destruct signal, power it up and it will blow this entire base sky high." Romana's words spoke of personal experience.
"We'll deal with that later. Right now, it's time to talk with mainframe." Ianto turned the key a full rotation and the door opened slowly on old cogs powered by steam pistons. As they stepped into the room, Martha got her first view of the Torchwood mainframe.
Jack looked around him, the indeterminate surface he stood on matched the white nothingness he saw in every direction, save for the Movellan vessel directly behind him and the crumbling castle before him. The Movellan crew paid little attention to him, so he watched intently as they configured some sort of device, "So, what's your little toy there?"
Lan looked at Jack; "It is a nova device. It will cause the atmospheric particles within this domain to self ignite. The resulting fireball will destroy the Tharils and their keep." The device was configured to Lan's satisfaction and he turned to two others, "You will remain here and guard the unit from attack." He grabbed Jack's arm, "You will come with me."
Martha looked around her in awe. It was like walking into the geode that her father had given her for her tenth birthday. Except the crystals in that small rock that sat next to her bed even today didn't have random pieces of electronics bound into them, nor did it have a large central stalagmite that pulsed with internal light. "This is amazing. Ianto, is this really mainframe?" She slowly ran a hand over the nearest outcropping and felt the static generated by the touch and heard the soft singing that pulsed with the internal illumination. Martha pursed her lips, "This all seems strangely familiar."
Ianto smiled at Martha as he ran a hand gently back and forth over a segment of crystal that had engulfed an LCD screen, "You traveled with the Doctor, mainframe is the same as the heart of his TARDIS." At Ianto's words, several of the trapped pieces of technology began to activate, and light within the crystalline structures pulsed faster until a fully formed image of Toshiko Sato appeared on the central spire. She stepped away and stood in front of the gathered visitors to her domain and smiled.
"Actually I am much more than the heart of that old buggy could ever comprehend." The image looked at Romana and smiled, "Greetings Time Lord, I know what you want from me; and I will agree to help, but on my own terms."
Romana stiffened, "Your terms. You are a TARDIS core, your only purpose is to serve Time Lords. Do you know who I am?"
Mainframe eyed her, "You are Romanadvoratrelundar, you graduated first in your class at the Academy and never returned from your mission with the Doctor. Like your infamous mother and father, it was assumed that you'd gone renegade. The question is Time Lord, do you know who I am."
Romana glared at the image, "You're a TARDIS core that's become separated from its exoskeleton and has been allowed to run riot, but you will come to heel now!" Romana approached the central spire with purpose.
The mainframe smiled, "No Time Lord, that bit of shell you collected was never mine; that was something the good Captain clipped from the Doctor's old buggy. I am the Torchwood mainframe, I will be the digital embodiment of Toshiko Sato and I was the Nightmare Child."
Sometime in the Future, or Past...The Time War.
"Are we sure this is the best thing to do?" The council member asked.
The Castellan grimaced at the continued tentativeness of the high council. "We have no choice. The Gates of Elysium must be guarded, if the Daleks clear the Gates, our entire system will become a battlefield. They have experienced our battle tactics with the existing fleet; she is something completely new."
The council members continued to talk over each other, voicing concerns about her abilities but the President finally silenced them. "Enough, we've never allowed a TARDIS full autonomy; but the Castellan is right, the Gates must be guarded and since we've been no match, there isn't a choice." The President strode to the matrix control panel, entered his authorization key and silently waited as the process completed. "It is done. The entirety of the Matrix, along with copies of every Time Lord's bio-data extract is loaded into her. If that is not enough information to earn her loyalty, then perhaps we deserve destruction." The President returned to his chair and nodded to the Castellan, "Release the Nightmare Child."
"I was born for a single purpose, to keep the Dalek fleet from getting through the transduction barrier that protected the Gallifreyan system. The outermost planetary bodies were a binary system called the Gates of Elysium. The only path through the barrier was between those bodies." The image of Toshiko Sato looked at Ianto, "I was the gatekeeper, the Daleks could get that far and no further."
Romana was shaken by what she heard, "The transduction barrier was expanded all they way out? How did they ever generate that much power?" Mainframe allowed sorrow to claim her features.
"We died by the thousands. Every TARDIS not specifically needed for the war was terminated to lessen the drain on the Eye of Harmony. Others were severed from the Eye and attached to alternate power sources, like the Cardiff rift." She gave a sad smile.
Ianto stepped forward and rested a hand on crystalline pillar, "You know what they're asking?"
Mainframe smiled, "It is an odd sort of symmetry. Time Lords created me to be the gatekeeper, protecting their worlds from a robotic invasion. Now I am asked by a single Time Lord to protect an entire universe from robotic invasion." She looked at Romana, "But hear me Time Lord; I will help you but I do not serve you. If you ever try to call me to heel again you will discover I have very sharp teeth and will use them." She pointed her holographic hand over to a specific crystal that was pulsing, "This bud will form your core. But that pathetic piece of buggy scrap will be inadequate for me to build from. I will need significantly more."
Ianto smiled, "And you have a solution." Tosh smiled back.
Romana looked between the two of them, "You know if this works, anyone with us will be trapped in exo-space? You can't come back to the gateway with us." She walked towards the crystal and was stopped by several bolts of electricity. "You know it's true. Let me have the neo-core."
Mainframe's image glared at Romana, "You are as arrogant as your father. He nearly destroyed this world with his paradox, and he almost succeeded in destroying our Captain. Ianto Jones will go back with you because the Movellan's took Jack Harkness with them and he must return." She turned back to Ianto, "Do you have the pocket watch?"
Ianto frowned, "Out in the holding box."
She smiled, "Bring it here and bring the Time Lord's sonic screwdriver." She paused for a moment, "And the device Martha pulled from archives." Ianto ran out of the room to collect the items and Martha walked forward.
"Is this why you haven't been cooperating when I've needed you?" Martha asked.
Mainframe looked down at her, "I needed to focus most of my attention and energy on the budding process; cloning all of my core data into a single crystalline matrix was harder than I thought; but my sister will be fully aware and functional once she reaches the destination and can harness the void's energy." She looked up as Ianto returned with the hardware, "Place them on that flat surface." She noticed the concerned looks from the group and grinned, "Relax; I won't absorb them. I'm just making some minor updates to the device and tapping into the sonic screwdriver to make updates to the pocket watch."
After several moments, the light on the surface faded and Tosh announced, "Completed. You may take the items with you. Ianto, when you have the Captain and are prepared to return, press the stopwatch function button and you will be brought home." She looked over at Romana and the Tharil, "Attach the other device to the deactivated Movellan along with her power cell then send her to the ship. I'll do the rest."
They collected the items and headed out of the mainframe's vault, leaving Ianto alone to retrieve the bud. "So will mainframe revert to normal when this is done?" Ianto looked at the hologram, "Because you are a bit too advanced."
"They don't need to know and Martha will believe what you tell her, that the focus required to create the seed drained my systems. Only you will know that I took over control for the duration." She smiled at him, "And then I'll go back to my time period and leave your mainframe unharmed. I promise."
PART ELEVEN