Torchwood fic: Holding the Curve
Title: Holding the Curve
Author: rustydog
Characters: Jack, Suzie
Rating: PG
Warning: For the phobic - there are "insects" here.
Words: 2552
Beta: jadesfire2808
Summary: When the scurrying noises started, Suzie began to regret her trip down to the archives.
When the scurrying noises started, Suzie began to regret her trip to the archives. Nineteen-fifties staff sketches of an artificial intelligence detector couldn't be that interesting... maybe she could do without them.
But then she'd have to explain to her new boss why she'd returned empty handed, and as he had hired her after seeing her face down a Weevil without flinching, she hated to disappoint him. She exhaled slowly and shone her torch along the edges of the walls. The dim lighting in this lower level corridor was adequate, but the torch made her feel better.
The main records room was supposed to be the ninth door on the left. She had just passed the second when something passed in front of her on the floor - a squirming shadow, accompanied by a rushing sound. She started and dropped the torch.
Was there ever rift activity down here? Could they have alien invaders inside Torchwood? Or had a century of storing impossible things finally brought the tunnels themselves to life? She wanted to call Jack, but that was such a newbie thing to do.
She stooped to retrieve her torch, but it wasn't where she had dropped it. Had it rolled? But come to think of it, she hadn't even heard it hit the ground. It had an aluminium casing which should have clattered against the concrete floor. Suzie turned slowly in a circle, feeling for a slant to the floor, looking everywhere the torch could have gone. But the archive doors on either side were shut, and anyway, the floor seemed perfectly flat; there was nowhere the torch could have disappeared to.
She resisted the urge to back against a wall, where she would feel safer. That was just silly. She was allowing herself to get spooked by a corridor. (A corridor that apparently ate torches.)
The walls between the third and fourth doors... weren't squirming, she told herself. Tricks could be played by the human mind, and she wasn't keeping hers very well under control. She needed to do better. She was certain she'd get plenty of practice in this job.
Just as she passed the sixth door, there was a great sigh and a puff of air that reminded her of hydraulics. She looked around wildly and saw nothing but the bubbling of the walls. The walls were definitely bubbling, she was sure of it now. Their grey skin was lifting and flattening all over like paint in a fire. God, she wished she'd brought her weapon, which was completely irrational. What could a few bullets do against walls?
"Do not commmmme."
It was a hiss emanating from... all around her, even the floor.
"Unauthorisssssssed organismsss will be archived."
Nearly every shred of her pride was gone now. She switched on her earpiece and resisted the urge to shout. "Jack? Jack, are you there?"
It took him an interminable second to reply. "Suzie? What's up?"
"Jack, I'm in the archives. Is there a reason the... walls should be talking to me?"
Again, the pause was too long for her taste. "Can you see anything? Is anything moving, Suzie?"
"Well, the walls, possibly the floor... at first I thought I was imagining it, but I'm not, am I, Jack?"
"What's today's date?" Suzie thought she could hear papers rustling before Jack continued, "Damn. Suzie, stay there. Don't move, do you hear me? Don't do anything."
"Jack? Jack, what's going on?" But Jack was gone. Suzie took her hand away from her ear and stood very still. Everything around her, the doors, the ceiling, the walls, seemed to be moving. As she looked around, her skin crawled. Her feet were prickling as if the circulation had been cut off and the blood was just returning.
She had a trick for not hyperventilating. It was called "getting angry." She envisioned herself blasting the walls with a disintegrating weapon until they were just dust she could sweep away. That helped until she heard footsteps - Jack's boots on the stairs, running, and finally he was standing beside her, panting slightly.
"Hi!" He smiled at her, then said conversationally, "Whew, are those walls crawling or what?"
"I was hoping you'd have weapons," she replied tersely, irritated that he could be so casual when the floor was literally bubbling around his feet.
"Oh ho ho, you're lucky you didn't bring a gun down in the first place," he said, raising his eyebrows to punctuate the thought. "They really don't like weapons fire around the books. They'll 'archive' you in a flash for that." He curled two fingers in inverted commas, and Suzie remembered the creatures using the word in the same threatening way.
"Don't even tell me what that means. 'They'? Jack, either do something about this or tell me what's going on. I'd really like to move my feet sometime in the next hour."
Jack waved his hand in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring gesture. "It should be okay for a few minutes, now that I'm here. They know me."
"Again I ask, 'They'?"
"Right, um... we don't know what they're called, but think of it like a hive that lives in the archives - in some ways, is the archives. They're nearly always dormant, invisible, almost part of the matter of the walls, but every two thousand days, they re-activate automatically. We can't shut them down completely, all we can do is put them back into - sleep mode." Jack shrugged and smiled apologetically.
"Are they organic or mechanical then? They're programmed?"
"Yes, yes, and yes. But they're stubborn little bastards, nothing we do affects their programming."
"Why don't you just hire an exterminator? Surely there's somebody at Torchwood One who deals with... robot termites."
Jack shook his head. "Tried it. It was... not good. Anyway, normally they really won't hurt anything - in fact they're good cleaners and they can protect the archives better than a Eyiaan guard-bird. We just didn't like having to talk to them every time we wanted to access the older areas of the archives. They're smart, a superorganism. Actually, it'd be fantastic if we could ask them for information, because I suspect they know everything - they're just not very good conversationalists."
"Tell me about it," Suzie chuckled mirthlessly. She was getting a cramp in her right foot. "Why do they like you, then?"
"Oh, it's only because I'm authorized. They don't know you because you weren't here the last time they were active. I must have missed the alarm, sorry about that."
Suzie shook her head. "It's okay. Can I move now?"
"Ah, wait, let me deactivate them." Jack moved away from Suzie, further down the corridor, squatted on the floor and started speaking softly. The floor and the walls rippled, and an involuntary surge of panic rose in Suzie's stomach again.
"So," Suzie called, carefully controlling her voice, "next time they come on, they'll know me, and I can deactivate them, right? I mean, what if you happen to be out of the Hub two thousand days from now?" Was it foolish for her to assume she would be here for over five years?
"Good point," Jack said, standing again and looking at her. "Actually... for that to work, I have to authorize you."
"And... what would that involve?"
Jack sucked air through his teeth and shook his head. "I have to tell you, some people really don't like the authorization process."
Suzie was pretty sure the lights had been getting dimmer since they had been talking. Was something crawling over them, blocking them? She was struggling to maintain her outer calm, and if the lights went out completely, she had no chance. She wanted to take care of the situation now and get out. "I don't care," she told Jack, "just do it and get it over with."
"Okay." Jack squatted again and placed his right palm flat on the floor. "Come on, guys." As Suzie watched, the floor seemed to rise up, curling over Jack's hand until his skin up to the shirt cuff was covered with a mass of dark grey specks. Jack stood slowly with the charcoal "mitten" writhing, and walked toward her. Suzie was beginning to feel nauseated.
"Are you phobic? Some people are phobic, you know."
For a moment, Suzie considered lying. But something told her Jack was the kind of boss who wouldn't judge you for sharing your weaknesses, only for withholding information. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"I really don't like bugs, Jack. Give me a giant alien with claws and toxic skin anytime, but those tiny legs and pincers and they carry disease and... did you know they'll crawl in your ears?" She opened her eyes to see his reaction - keeping her eyes on his face, away from his infested hand.
Jack smiled gently. "These won't, I promise. It's just that their recognition is based on touch. They have to feel you before they'll acknowledge your voice. I'm sorry."
Suzie cringed at the thought. "They've already.. tasted my shoes. Is that good enough?"
Jack shook his head. "It doesn't work that way the first time. Here, take my hand first, my free one."
He held out his left hand, palm up. Suzie hesitated, made a fist, then forced herself to unclench and place her hand on his. He squeezed. It was surprisingly reassuring.
"Take a deep breath," he suggested, and did so himself. They breathed together once, twice, his eyes fixed on her, like he was transmitting his calmness through the gaze. She concentrated on his eyes until she was barely aware of anything else. Another breath, and another.
"Okay," he said softly, "I've put my other hand on your hand" - he had, she could feel it now - "and I'm transferring the creatures. Just stay calm-"
She gasped and stiffened; she could feel them, hundreds of thousands of tiny - were those feet? - on the back of her hand, her wrist, and were they going up her sleeve?
"-Suzie" Jack said firmly. "Look at me, don't close your eyes, don't look at your hand. Look at me."
She did as he said and saw that his eyes were full of concern and affection. If she didn't need it so much at the moment, she would be taken aback, maybe even a little suspicious. This man didn't know her well enough to look at her like that.
"And breathe," he reminded her. She obeyed, and felt warmth returning to her face and toes. Even her teeth had been tingling.
"Okay, keep your eyes right here, and I want you to say what I say. Got that?"
She nodded. Jack began to recite, "The heart can think of no devotion-" He paused for her.
"The heart can think--" her throat caught and she swallowed hard, "of no devotion."
He nodded encouragingly and continued, "Greater than being shore to the ocean-"
"Greater than being shore to the ocean." Her voice was stronger.
"Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition."
With Jack, Suzie finished the little poem, line by line. After the last word, she thought she noticed a decrease in the frantic level of activity on her hand. Then there was another hydraulic sigh from all around them, and the voice made of millions of tiny voices said, "Cosssstello Ssssssussie. Authorisssed."
"Okay," Jack nodded. "That's it. You can let them go now." He indicated the floor, and she stooped as he had done, letting her fingers brush the concrete, if that was what it was. The creatures streamed off of her and disappeared. She shuddered and drew a breath that was shaky with relief.
Jack was squatting with her, palm back on the floor, reciting something else in a low voice, longer than what he had previously whispered.
When he had finished, there was a final sigh, and the walls, floor and ceiling seemed to shrink a milimetre or two. They stopped bubbling. It almost made Suzie feel dizzy that they weren't moving, now, like she had sea legs and had stepped onto land.
Jack stood and steadied her with his hands on both her shoulders. "Good job," he smiled. "And that's it!"
She grinned back at him weakly. "Poetry? They're controlled with poetry?" She'd had the opportunity to handle a lot of strange and impressive technology since starting this job. Some of it was so advanced and foreign, it might as well work by magic, but somehow she still hadn't expected... literature.
Jack shrugged and turned to go, turning her with him. "As a key, it seems to lock and unlock them better than numbers. Don't ask me why. We had a staffer once who wanted to name them 'Shakespeareata.'"
"Oh, that's an awful name."
He snorted. "Thankfully, everyone else agreed with you."
"Couldn't you call them... 'Bookworms' or something?"
Jack considered. "We could try it for awhile, see if it takes."
Suzie halted, remembering. "Wait, I didn't get what I came down for."
"Nah, come on. It's almost lunch time, you can get it later. I'll take you for coffee. I can't stand drinking the stuff I make any more."
Suzie cocked her head at him. "It is pretty bad, Jack."
He laughed. "Don't I know it."
They were almost to the stairs when she heard a tiny rustle behind them, then the still silence once more.
That night, when the Hub was quiet and Jack was doing whatever he did after hours, Suzie went through the database records for the archives, sorting by date, and finally found the flagged note she was looking for. It gave instructions for dealing with the hive-creatures, including the authorization code Jack had recited with her. And there it was, the deactivation code. Of course it couldn't be another nice, short quatrain. Regardless, she determined to memorize it. Just in case.
It went many years,
But at last came a knock,
And I thought of the door
With no lock to lock.
I blew out the light,
I tip-toed the floor,
And raised both hands
In prayer to the door.
But the knock came again
My window was wide;
I climbed on the sill
And descended outside.
Back over the sill
I bade a “Come in”
To whoever the knock
At the door may have been.
So at a knock
I emptied my cage
To hide in the world
And alter with age.
How many times had Jack deactivated the creatures? she wondered idly. If she could ask, would they remember?
She almost wanted to bring them back to life. Oh, the things they could tell - about their own capabilities, about Torchwood... about Jack.
But that would mean standing down there, talking to the creeping, crawling walls... she shuddered. Maybe not. The creatures could hibernate in peace, and she would stay awake tonight, holding back the nightmares. She wondered if there were any dregs of Jack's coffee left over from the day, then sighed. At Torchwood, even the days when nothing happened could keep you up at night.
She really didn't want the coffee. Instead, she sat down at her desk, leaned back in the chair, and thought of Jack's breathing. Holding the curve of one position, counting an endless repetition...
And she was calmer.
[Note: The poems are Robert Frost's "Devotion" and "The Lockless Door."]
Author: rustydog
Characters: Jack, Suzie
Rating: PG
Warning: For the phobic - there are "insects" here.
Words: 2552
Beta: jadesfire2808
Summary: When the scurrying noises started, Suzie began to regret her trip down to the archives.
When the scurrying noises started, Suzie began to regret her trip to the archives. Nineteen-fifties staff sketches of an artificial intelligence detector couldn't be that interesting... maybe she could do without them.
But then she'd have to explain to her new boss why she'd returned empty handed, and as he had hired her after seeing her face down a Weevil without flinching, she hated to disappoint him. She exhaled slowly and shone her torch along the edges of the walls. The dim lighting in this lower level corridor was adequate, but the torch made her feel better.
The main records room was supposed to be the ninth door on the left. She had just passed the second when something passed in front of her on the floor - a squirming shadow, accompanied by a rushing sound. She started and dropped the torch.
Was there ever rift activity down here? Could they have alien invaders inside Torchwood? Or had a century of storing impossible things finally brought the tunnels themselves to life? She wanted to call Jack, but that was such a newbie thing to do.
She stooped to retrieve her torch, but it wasn't where she had dropped it. Had it rolled? But come to think of it, she hadn't even heard it hit the ground. It had an aluminium casing which should have clattered against the concrete floor. Suzie turned slowly in a circle, feeling for a slant to the floor, looking everywhere the torch could have gone. But the archive doors on either side were shut, and anyway, the floor seemed perfectly flat; there was nowhere the torch could have disappeared to.
She resisted the urge to back against a wall, where she would feel safer. That was just silly. She was allowing herself to get spooked by a corridor. (A corridor that apparently ate torches.)
The walls between the third and fourth doors... weren't squirming, she told herself. Tricks could be played by the human mind, and she wasn't keeping hers very well under control. She needed to do better. She was certain she'd get plenty of practice in this job.
Just as she passed the sixth door, there was a great sigh and a puff of air that reminded her of hydraulics. She looked around wildly and saw nothing but the bubbling of the walls. The walls were definitely bubbling, she was sure of it now. Their grey skin was lifting and flattening all over like paint in a fire. God, she wished she'd brought her weapon, which was completely irrational. What could a few bullets do against walls?
"Do not commmmme."
It was a hiss emanating from... all around her, even the floor.
"Unauthorisssssssed organismsss will be archived."
Nearly every shred of her pride was gone now. She switched on her earpiece and resisted the urge to shout. "Jack? Jack, are you there?"
It took him an interminable second to reply. "Suzie? What's up?"
"Jack, I'm in the archives. Is there a reason the... walls should be talking to me?"
Again, the pause was too long for her taste. "Can you see anything? Is anything moving, Suzie?"
"Well, the walls, possibly the floor... at first I thought I was imagining it, but I'm not, am I, Jack?"
"What's today's date?" Suzie thought she could hear papers rustling before Jack continued, "Damn. Suzie, stay there. Don't move, do you hear me? Don't do anything."
"Jack? Jack, what's going on?" But Jack was gone. Suzie took her hand away from her ear and stood very still. Everything around her, the doors, the ceiling, the walls, seemed to be moving. As she looked around, her skin crawled. Her feet were prickling as if the circulation had been cut off and the blood was just returning.
She had a trick for not hyperventilating. It was called "getting angry." She envisioned herself blasting the walls with a disintegrating weapon until they were just dust she could sweep away. That helped until she heard footsteps - Jack's boots on the stairs, running, and finally he was standing beside her, panting slightly.
"Hi!" He smiled at her, then said conversationally, "Whew, are those walls crawling or what?"
"I was hoping you'd have weapons," she replied tersely, irritated that he could be so casual when the floor was literally bubbling around his feet.
"Oh ho ho, you're lucky you didn't bring a gun down in the first place," he said, raising his eyebrows to punctuate the thought. "They really don't like weapons fire around the books. They'll 'archive' you in a flash for that." He curled two fingers in inverted commas, and Suzie remembered the creatures using the word in the same threatening way.
"Don't even tell me what that means. 'They'? Jack, either do something about this or tell me what's going on. I'd really like to move my feet sometime in the next hour."
Jack waved his hand in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring gesture. "It should be okay for a few minutes, now that I'm here. They know me."
"Again I ask, 'They'?"
"Right, um... we don't know what they're called, but think of it like a hive that lives in the archives - in some ways, is the archives. They're nearly always dormant, invisible, almost part of the matter of the walls, but every two thousand days, they re-activate automatically. We can't shut them down completely, all we can do is put them back into - sleep mode." Jack shrugged and smiled apologetically.
"Are they organic or mechanical then? They're programmed?"
"Yes, yes, and yes. But they're stubborn little bastards, nothing we do affects their programming."
"Why don't you just hire an exterminator? Surely there's somebody at Torchwood One who deals with... robot termites."
Jack shook his head. "Tried it. It was... not good. Anyway, normally they really won't hurt anything - in fact they're good cleaners and they can protect the archives better than a Eyiaan guard-bird. We just didn't like having to talk to them every time we wanted to access the older areas of the archives. They're smart, a superorganism. Actually, it'd be fantastic if we could ask them for information, because I suspect they know everything - they're just not very good conversationalists."
"Tell me about it," Suzie chuckled mirthlessly. She was getting a cramp in her right foot. "Why do they like you, then?"
"Oh, it's only because I'm authorized. They don't know you because you weren't here the last time they were active. I must have missed the alarm, sorry about that."
Suzie shook her head. "It's okay. Can I move now?"
"Ah, wait, let me deactivate them." Jack moved away from Suzie, further down the corridor, squatted on the floor and started speaking softly. The floor and the walls rippled, and an involuntary surge of panic rose in Suzie's stomach again.
"So," Suzie called, carefully controlling her voice, "next time they come on, they'll know me, and I can deactivate them, right? I mean, what if you happen to be out of the Hub two thousand days from now?" Was it foolish for her to assume she would be here for over five years?
"Good point," Jack said, standing again and looking at her. "Actually... for that to work, I have to authorize you."
"And... what would that involve?"
Jack sucked air through his teeth and shook his head. "I have to tell you, some people really don't like the authorization process."
Suzie was pretty sure the lights had been getting dimmer since they had been talking. Was something crawling over them, blocking them? She was struggling to maintain her outer calm, and if the lights went out completely, she had no chance. She wanted to take care of the situation now and get out. "I don't care," she told Jack, "just do it and get it over with."
"Okay." Jack squatted again and placed his right palm flat on the floor. "Come on, guys." As Suzie watched, the floor seemed to rise up, curling over Jack's hand until his skin up to the shirt cuff was covered with a mass of dark grey specks. Jack stood slowly with the charcoal "mitten" writhing, and walked toward her. Suzie was beginning to feel nauseated.
"Are you phobic? Some people are phobic, you know."
For a moment, Suzie considered lying. But something told her Jack was the kind of boss who wouldn't judge you for sharing your weaknesses, only for withholding information. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"I really don't like bugs, Jack. Give me a giant alien with claws and toxic skin anytime, but those tiny legs and pincers and they carry disease and... did you know they'll crawl in your ears?" She opened her eyes to see his reaction - keeping her eyes on his face, away from his infested hand.
Jack smiled gently. "These won't, I promise. It's just that their recognition is based on touch. They have to feel you before they'll acknowledge your voice. I'm sorry."
Suzie cringed at the thought. "They've already.. tasted my shoes. Is that good enough?"
Jack shook his head. "It doesn't work that way the first time. Here, take my hand first, my free one."
He held out his left hand, palm up. Suzie hesitated, made a fist, then forced herself to unclench and place her hand on his. He squeezed. It was surprisingly reassuring.
"Take a deep breath," he suggested, and did so himself. They breathed together once, twice, his eyes fixed on her, like he was transmitting his calmness through the gaze. She concentrated on his eyes until she was barely aware of anything else. Another breath, and another.
"Okay," he said softly, "I've put my other hand on your hand" - he had, she could feel it now - "and I'm transferring the creatures. Just stay calm-"
She gasped and stiffened; she could feel them, hundreds of thousands of tiny - were those feet? - on the back of her hand, her wrist, and were they going up her sleeve?
"-Suzie" Jack said firmly. "Look at me, don't close your eyes, don't look at your hand. Look at me."
She did as he said and saw that his eyes were full of concern and affection. If she didn't need it so much at the moment, she would be taken aback, maybe even a little suspicious. This man didn't know her well enough to look at her like that.
"And breathe," he reminded her. She obeyed, and felt warmth returning to her face and toes. Even her teeth had been tingling.
"Okay, keep your eyes right here, and I want you to say what I say. Got that?"
She nodded. Jack began to recite, "The heart can think of no devotion-" He paused for her.
"The heart can think--" her throat caught and she swallowed hard, "of no devotion."
He nodded encouragingly and continued, "Greater than being shore to the ocean-"
"Greater than being shore to the ocean." Her voice was stronger.
"Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition."
With Jack, Suzie finished the little poem, line by line. After the last word, she thought she noticed a decrease in the frantic level of activity on her hand. Then there was another hydraulic sigh from all around them, and the voice made of millions of tiny voices said, "Cosssstello Ssssssussie. Authorisssed."
"Okay," Jack nodded. "That's it. You can let them go now." He indicated the floor, and she stooped as he had done, letting her fingers brush the concrete, if that was what it was. The creatures streamed off of her and disappeared. She shuddered and drew a breath that was shaky with relief.
Jack was squatting with her, palm back on the floor, reciting something else in a low voice, longer than what he had previously whispered.
When he had finished, there was a final sigh, and the walls, floor and ceiling seemed to shrink a milimetre or two. They stopped bubbling. It almost made Suzie feel dizzy that they weren't moving, now, like she had sea legs and had stepped onto land.
Jack stood and steadied her with his hands on both her shoulders. "Good job," he smiled. "And that's it!"
She grinned back at him weakly. "Poetry? They're controlled with poetry?" She'd had the opportunity to handle a lot of strange and impressive technology since starting this job. Some of it was so advanced and foreign, it might as well work by magic, but somehow she still hadn't expected... literature.
Jack shrugged and turned to go, turning her with him. "As a key, it seems to lock and unlock them better than numbers. Don't ask me why. We had a staffer once who wanted to name them 'Shakespeareata.'"
"Oh, that's an awful name."
He snorted. "Thankfully, everyone else agreed with you."
"Couldn't you call them... 'Bookworms' or something?"
Jack considered. "We could try it for awhile, see if it takes."
Suzie halted, remembering. "Wait, I didn't get what I came down for."
"Nah, come on. It's almost lunch time, you can get it later. I'll take you for coffee. I can't stand drinking the stuff I make any more."
Suzie cocked her head at him. "It is pretty bad, Jack."
He laughed. "Don't I know it."
They were almost to the stairs when she heard a tiny rustle behind them, then the still silence once more.
That night, when the Hub was quiet and Jack was doing whatever he did after hours, Suzie went through the database records for the archives, sorting by date, and finally found the flagged note she was looking for. It gave instructions for dealing with the hive-creatures, including the authorization code Jack had recited with her. And there it was, the deactivation code. Of course it couldn't be another nice, short quatrain. Regardless, she determined to memorize it. Just in case.
It went many years,
But at last came a knock,
And I thought of the door
With no lock to lock.
I blew out the light,
I tip-toed the floor,
And raised both hands
In prayer to the door.
But the knock came again
My window was wide;
I climbed on the sill
And descended outside.
Back over the sill
I bade a “Come in”
To whoever the knock
At the door may have been.
So at a knock
I emptied my cage
To hide in the world
And alter with age.
How many times had Jack deactivated the creatures? she wondered idly. If she could ask, would they remember?
She almost wanted to bring them back to life. Oh, the things they could tell - about their own capabilities, about Torchwood... about Jack.
But that would mean standing down there, talking to the creeping, crawling walls... she shuddered. Maybe not. The creatures could hibernate in peace, and she would stay awake tonight, holding back the nightmares. She wondered if there were any dregs of Jack's coffee left over from the day, then sighed. At Torchwood, even the days when nothing happened could keep you up at night.
She really didn't want the coffee. Instead, she sat down at her desk, leaned back in the chair, and thought of Jack's breathing. Holding the curve of one position, counting an endless repetition...
And she was calmer.
[Note: The poems are Robert Frost's "Devotion" and "The Lockless Door."]