Archangel - Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Jack chewed his thumb as he stood at the railing overlooking the autopsy bay, watching Owen put Ianto through every sort of exam the medic could think of.
When he’d seen both his lover and Alexis go blank, their fingers tapping some sort of odd rhythm, he’d nearly panicked. He hadn’t been the only one; Rick Castle had gone white as he’d called out to his daughter, to bring her back from the brink of…well, of wherever she and Ianto had gone. Jack had managed to do the same thing to Ianto, and it disturbed him more than he cared to admit, especially since neither Tomorrow Person seemed to recall what had happened during their fugue state.
He was the Captain though, and he needed to be in command.
However, he’d gotten several pointed looks from Castle, and suspected he wasn’t being overly successful.
“Jack!”
Toshiko’s calling his name had his head snapping around, and before he knew it Jack was heading away from the autopsy bay and toward his technician’s station, passing the sofa where Castle and Alexis still sat, the young woman resting against her father. He spared her a glance; she looked much improved, colour coming back into her face and the lines of pain vanishing from her forehead. Castle gave him a slight nod, confirming what he was seeing.
“Whatcha got, Tosh?” Jack asked, stopping just behind her chair. It was all he could do not to rock on his heels in sheer nervousness.
She turned and smiled up at him. Taking her mobile from her pocket, she found a number in her contacts and dialed.
It didn’t even ring.
“Toshiko!” the unmistakable voice of Tim, sounding harried, answered the call. “I am sorry, but I have been down for the last one hour and forty-eight minutes.”
“We know,” Toshiko answered, looking calm for the first time since they’d realised that the bio-computer was non-functional. “Ianto used your backdoor codes to get access to your repair systems, and I noticed you just come back online. We’re glad you’re back with us.”
“As am I,” Tim answered warmly.
“Tim,” Jack said, and he couldn’t help but feel relieved. “Can you tell us what happened?”
He sensed rather than saw Castle and Alexis approaching as Tim spoke once more. “I received a very powerful yet low-level telepathic burst that disabled my buffers and temporarily knocked me offline.”
“Do you know where the burst came from?” Ianto asked, and it was all Jack could do not to order him back into Owen’s domain for more tests.
“Ianto, I am so very glad to hear from you,” the supercomputer said, sounding relieved. “I have not been able to contact anyone telepathically, however…”
“Alexis and I were affected by the same burst that disrupted you,” Ianto explained. “We’re recovering, however.”
“If you were also affected, then logically the other Tomorrow People were as well. As for where the burst originated, I cannot tell, although it appears to have been from somewhere in space.”
“An attack of some kind?” Jack asked. It had been hovering in the back of his mind ever since Ianto and Alexis had acted strangely.
“Possibly, Captain,” Tim replied. “Although, from what I was able to determine, the signal was claiming to be friendly.”
“It was,” Alexis answered.
Jack wasn’t sure about that. “It might have claimed to be friendly, but someone wanting to be friends doesn’t go around knocking people out and overwhelming you, Tim.”
“It might not have known its own strength,” Ianto said, “but I think Jack is right, Tim. A really big part of me wants to believe it, but maybe I’ve been working for Torchwood too long or something. Or maybe I’m just plain paranoid.”
Jack was glad that Ianto wasn’t being duped by whatever had spoken to them.
“And then there was Alexis’ and Jones’ reactions when they talked about it earlier,” Castle added. “It was like they were hypnotised or something.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Castle’s right…something was definitely off about it.”
“Then we…” Tim’s voice faded off, and then returned, sounding relieved. “I have just heard from John. He is well, although he too was affected by the burst.”
“He was in America,” Ianto said.
“In New Jersey, yes. He was hoping to discover how alien technology managed to find its way into the hands of an American corporation. Luckily he was at the home of a friend when the telepathic burst incapacitated himself and Allison.”
“Allison?” Toshiko asked.
“She left the team just as I was joining,” Ianto said. “She’s an immunologist at some teaching hospital."
“I have also heard from Elena. The burst has caused another of our number, Danielle, to go into premature labour and her husband, Terry, is still unconscious.”
“They need a doctor,” Owen demanded. “I can be ready in a minute.”
“That would be greatly appreciated, Dr. Harper,” Tim said gratefully. “I shall send a matter transporter belt to you.”
Jack didn’t like it, but he couldn’t argue with sending Owen. After all, he hadn’t been lying when he’d claimed that the medic was the foremost expert on the Tomorrow People. He was still concerned about Ianto and Alexis, but this was more important, especially with an unborn child involved.
“I also have another report of the burst affecting a Tomorrow Person in Australia…and I believe we have several break- outs occurring at this moment.”
“This was world-wide, then.” Jack really didn’t like it. If this signal had been felt all over the planet…no, this wasn’t good at all. They’d need to figure this out, and fast.
“How many break-outs, Tim?” Ianto asked.
“I have detected six at this present time.”
Jack turned to look at his lover. Ianto’s face was strained, and he knew that his powers still weren’t quite up to snuff. “I’m…getting one, it’s close. I’d say somewhere near London.”
“Ealing, I have determined.”
“Tim, jaunt me to those coordinates -“
“No way,” Jack snapped. “You’re not recovered yet from your own brush with whatever the hell it was!”
“Jack,” Ianto said calmly, resting his hand on Jack’s arm, “if someone doesn’t get to that break-out - to any of the break-outs - they could die. We need to help.”
What Jack would have said was interrupted by Owen’s return, carrying two large cases and a third looped around his neck by a leather strap. “I’m ready.”
“Thank you again, Dr. Harper,” Tim said. “I am sending you the matter transporter belt now.”
On Toshiko’s desk, the belt faded into view, draped across her keyboard. It was made of a black webbed material, with a checkerboard white and black buckle. A burnished gold disc was hooked to the belt.
After what had happened with the rogue UNIT General, Avery Carson, John had come to the conclusion that the jaunting belts the Tomorrow People used were much too recognisable to outside agencies. He and Toshiko had redesigned them somewhat, making the belts thinner and incorporating a chameleon shift-like device in order to give them the ability to blend into whatever outfit was being worn at the time. The matter transporter belts, however, were kept pretty much the same, although some of them had had the chameleon circuits also added; like the ones that Gwen and Rhys had been wearing in London.
The one that had appeared just then was the older model, but then Owen wouldn’t need to have it blend in.
Owen juggled his various kits until he could loop the belt around his waist. Once it was in place, he said, “Beam me up, Scotty.”
Tim chuckled. “You are not the first person to say that.”
“You need new material, mate,” Rhys called out. He and Gwen were standing just out of the way of all the excitement at Toshiko’s station, obviously to avoid making the area too crowded.
Owen casually flipped him off.
“I have downloaded medical information for you on Danielle and Terry onto a handheld device,” the supercomputer went on. “You should be aware that Terry has a heart condition, and I have included scans detailing Danielle’s pregnancy. I have forwarded it on to Elena and she will have it when you arrive.”
“Yeah, let’s get this show on the road. Tea-Boy, Alexis…no overdoing it.” Owen waggled a finger at them as he disappeared from view.
Ianto looked like he wanted to argue, but Jack stared him down. Instead, he straightened his spine and said, “Then, Tim, I need to get to that break-out in Ealing.”
“And I’ll be going with you,” Jack said, not even second-guessing himself. There was no way he was leaving Ianto’s side right then.
He’d never seen a break-out before, only having heard of them from the others who had. And he wasn’t about to let his lover go off on his own, in case something else happened.
This time, Ianto acquiesced without a word.
**********
The next two days were hectic.
There had been a total of twelve new break-outs, two of them not making it despite everything the Tomorrow People could do. Jack himself had been a witness to one of the deaths, when a twelve-year-old boy in San Francisco had panicked and had accidentally jaunted in front of one of the city’s ubiquitous street cars and had been killed instantly. The other, a fifteen-year-old, had gained a form of pyrokinesis when his powers hit suddenly, and he’d burned down the family home with himself and his mother in it.
John had really taken that second death harder than the first, and Ianto had taken Jack aside and explained that the Tomorrow People’s leader also could cause fires with his mind, although his ability had been mostly self-blocked. He’d also set fire to his home, and his little brother had died in the blaze. It had nearly broken John, and he’d only coped with prodigious amounts of work and by pushing the emotions of that day deep within until they’d come back to haunt him much later in life. Ianto hadn’t been around when it had happened, but he said that Elena had told him it hadn’t been a good time.
Jack could see how that single act had molded the boy into the man he was today: someone who took his responsibilities very seriously, who was overprotective of his team and would do anything to protect them.
The break-out that he and Ianto had gone to in Ealing had led them practically to the doorstep of a former Companion. The girl, named Maria Jackson, lived across the street from Sarah Jane Smith and her adopted son, and it had taken all of Jack’s persuasiveness to convince her that Torchwood didn’t have any notions of taking the Jackson girl away and experimenting on her. Jack had cursed Torchwood One for having such a reputation, and once again he vowed to change what those in the know thought of him and his team.
He and Ianto seemed to make serious inroads with Ms Smith, but Jack could admit to himself that it was mostly Ianto’s helping with Maria that had done more to convince the former journalist that they hadn’t meant any harm. Jack had explained just who and what the Tomorrow People were, and while Ms Smith seemed a bit wary of the partnership between Torchwood and the Tomorrow People even she had to admit that they’d been able to bring Maria through the worst of the break-out.
There had been no further incidents with the mysterious telepathic burst, for which Jack was grateful. It was obvious that the burst had brought on the surge of break-outs, and John had actually called in reinforcements from the Galactic Trig to help. Apparently the three who came at John’s call had been on the first and second of John’s teams, and it had taken all of them a great deal of cajoling to convince the families of those who had made it through their break-out to let their children go offworld in order to protect them. Jack could see the reason why; if that so-called telepathic burst had knocked Ianto unconscious - and he had the strongest mental shields of all the current team - then the newest Tomorrow People wouldn’t have stood a chance.
And so, once the ten new Tomorrow People and their families had been transported off Earth, Torchwood went back to work on trying to find out what had happened.
To be fair, Toshiko had been working on just that problem all along. She and Tim had done everything in their power to track down whatever had sent that signal, even leading Tim to reveal that the Tomorrow People had their own satellite system just outside the orbit of Jupiter. Jack had teasingly accused the supercomputer for holding out on them; Tim had answered primly that it simply hadn’t occurred to him to say anything. As Tim couldn’t lie to save his biological components, Jack believed him.
However, even with the Watchdog network online they could detect nothing in orbit that didn’t belong there. Toshiko had become increasingly frustrated until Owen had physically removed her from her station and from the Hub, in order for the technician to get a breath of fresh air.
Jack knew how she felt.
It was like they could only sit and wait for the next occurrence, and Jack didn’t want to do that. The first time had been bad enough, and he didn’t want to see any of the Tomorrow People - hell, he didn’t want to see Ianto - incapacitated by whatever had broadcast that overwhelming signal.
He hated feeling useless, and it was only Ianto and his being able to help with the break-outs that kept Jack from pulling his hair out, just from the sheer frustration.
However, it wasn’t any of their research or a repeat of the telepathic burst that gave them their first clue.
It was a certain mystery writer with a Homo Superior daughter.
Chapter Five