Fic: Lapis Philosophorum
TITLE: ‘Lapis Philosophorum’
AUTHOR: QKellie
FANDOM: Doctor Who (and Torchwood to a lesser extent)
CHARACTERS: Rose Tyler, the Doctor, the Doctor ‘10.5’, Donna Noble, Jackie Tyler, Pete Tyler, Jake Simmonds, John Hart, Lucy Saxon, Harold Saxon, others
PAIRINGS: Rose/Doctor 10.5, Lucy Saxon/Harold Saxon (implied), Jake/Mickey (implied), others
RATING: PG-13
GENRE: Gen/drama/romance
WARNINGS: Spoilers for DW through series 4 and TW series 2x01. OCs present but not used to ship with anyone besides other OCs. Moderate to extreme Doctor/Rose shippiness abounds. Discussions of angst, action, violence, and bisexuality, but at heart this is a genfic, honestly.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This story takes a cut scene from DW’s series 4 finale as canon, but it does not depict it with a complete adherence to accuracy as it actually took place. TW spoilers spring up only after Chapter 23. The final arc of the Tenth Doctor's final episodes negates elements herein, so in this story's "universe," the specials are non-canon.
Prologues and Chapter One | Chapters Two and Three | Chapters Four through Six | Chapters Seven through Nine | Chapters Ten through Twelve | Interlude through Chapter Fourteen | Chapters Fifteen through Seventeen | Chapters Eighteen through Twenty | Chapters Twenty-One through Twenty-Three | Chapters Twenty-Four through Twenty-Six | Interlude through Chapter Thirty
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Fourteen hours later, Pete Tyler was sitting at a sidewalk café three blocks from his office. In his hand was a slip of paper now so crumpled and sweated upon that it was almost cloth. He had a cup of tea sitting in front of him, and a half-smoked cigarette was smouldering in the ashtray. That part, Jackie wouldn’t be happy about but it didn’t much matter now. What was one errant fag when they were set to lose their whole house before too long?
If the paper had still been legible, it would’ve been clear that Tyler’s severance package wasn’t even as generous as the one he’d planned to give to Jeremy. In fact, it wouldn’t pay the mortgage for more than a month, and that was if he and Jackie ate every meal at Rose’s flat. During Pete’s conference with Mr. Haros, he’d gotten up the nerve to mention the fact that he had an infant son to support. This seemed to leave Haros completely unmoved.
‘I’m sure you’ll have time to secure a different post in time to pay for his university, Mr. Tyler.’
Pete had stared at the other man, dumbfounded. ‘You got a lad o’ your own, don’t you? Has it been so long that you can’t possibly remember what it’s like to have a mouth to feed?’
Haros had merely smirked. ‘Oh, if only you knew,’ he said. ‘Tyler, look, you have no idea how unbelievably generous I’m being here. And, quite frankly, I’m starting to think at this point that my son would do quite well in your position.’
By this point, Haros had managed--without Pete fully realising how--to steer him to the entrance to the office, punctuating the last word with the door being swiftly shut in his face. Pete flinched as the wood nearly met his nose.
The café waiter drifted by Pete’s table and asked if he could freshen up his coffee. It took Pete a moment to actually see the lad’s face in front of him instead of the dull brown plasticine finish of Haros’s office door. ‘Eh… what now?’ he mumbled, finally looking up at the waiter.
The young man looked at Pete with a mixture of pity and confusion. He raised the coffeepot and shook it a little. ‘Fill you back up, guv?’
Pete nodded absentmindedly and pushed his cup forward a few inches on the table. He fished his cigarette out of the ashtray and took a long drag before using it to gesture to the waiter.
‘You ever have to give your old lady bad news, lad?’
The waiter cringed slightly. ‘I s’pose so, sir,’ he said.
‘What’s the best thing for it?’
The waiter pointed across the street to a newsstand, at the side of which stood a bucket of sad-looking bouquets of daisies. ‘Flowers never hurt,’ he replied. ‘She’ll know something’s wrong straight off, but still.’ He shrugged. ‘’S all I got, guv.’
‘Thanks.’ Pete tapped off another bit of ash from his cigarette and chuckled to himself.
‘This’ll be a day we both remember, any rate.’ He glanced up, but the waiter was now gone. Pete took his mobile out of his jacket pocket and began to punch up Jackie’s contact information on his text screen, but then he stopped and stared at the device itself. The “eHaro” logo was subtle on the newer models, but it was still there… mocking him. ‘I’d wager you were using this bleeding thing to spy on me,’ Pete said directly to the device, ‘but I half suspect you honestly don’t give enough of a toss about me to do so.’ He continued to mutter angrily to himself as he shoved the phone back in his pocket, threw a few bills on the table for a tip, and started across the street toward the flower vendor.
After picking out the least-wilted looking bouquet for his wife, Pete withdrew the cell again, but this time he texted his daughter. ‘Rose,’ he wrote, ‘need advice. Think Mum’ll be angry if I’ve been sacked?’ He caught a taxi as it passed and directed the driver to take him home. As they reached the drive, the Haro let out a short, quiet fanfare. Pete punched the “answer” button when he saw it was Rose. ‘I bet I scared you, didn’t I?’ he asked by way of greeting.
‘Dad, it’s probably best that you got sacked,’ Rose said. ‘D’you have a bloke in your employ called Park-Martin?’
Pete chuckled ruefully. ‘Not anymore, but did, yeah.’
He could almost hear Rose smiling on the other end. ‘Getting out of that office was the best thing you could’ve done right now,’ she said. ‘Your entire company is in danger.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Gilbert stammered as Heidi’s eyes continued to flash angrily at him. Beautifully angry, he thought to himself, then stopped and gathered his thoughts into something vaguely resembling cohesiveness. ‘I’m not entirely certainly what he’s got up to today, but the situation at the Rhinebarry… Mr. Smith seems to think there’s something at work to do with… Oh, balls, what was the term he used again?’ Gilbert pulled out his mobile and tapped the screen a few times. ‘Chewlar nano jeans?’ He head up his notes to show Heidi.
She frowned at the screen. ‘You’ve obviously got some part of that wrong,’ she said, ‘unless this dodgy magician of yours has a market going for some sort of denim trousers.’ She sighed and turned back to Jake. ‘And you? What’ve you got to say for yourself?’ She pulled out her own Haro and showed Jake the newsfeed of his earlier activities. ‘You’re wanted. Mr. Simmonds, it’s not even two o’clock in the afternoon! How do you go from having a relatively quiet morning to being on the lam in less than five hours? That’s got to be a record, even for you.’
Jake was now crimson. ‘Ants in my flat,’ he mumbled.
Gilbert tried to keep a poker face, but Heidi swung back around to him. ‘What did he use?’
‘Oi! Leave him out of it!’ Jake protested. He pulled what was left of the Arkanian water grenades from his coat pockets. ‘Thought I had ‘em under control, I did, but then…’
Heidi threw up her hands. ‘I give up! I honestly give up here. Guys, look, I try to be a good boss! I think I’m fair! But this is the last straw. I can’t have anyone continuing to nick the artifacts, especially not for your own personal use.’
‘We’re not exactly archeologists here,’ Jake pointed out. ‘Not like keeping the things locked up is gonna be good for anybody. Seems a bit of a waste is all.’
Heidi’s eyes now bulged from her skull. She pressed an index finger to Jake’s shirt front. ‘You clearly want to get sacked, don’t you?’
Jake raised his head. His eyes narrowed, and his lips disappeared as he pressed his jaw forward. ‘Some people used to appreciate me,’ he said. His tone was low, and Gilbert thought there was a hint of something shiny in the other man’s eyes.
Gilbert swallowed hard. He gave Simmonds a hard time sometimes, and Simmonds gave it back in kind, but if Jake had felt even half as much for Mickey as Gilbert felt for Heidi… poor lad was a goner, that was for sure, and all the time in the world wouldn’t fully heal the pain of losing him.
‘Uh… let’s… oh, come on, he didn’t mean anything…’ Gilbert said weakly, trying to get between Heidi and Jake. ‘Besides, we do have other matters, honestly.’
The fire in Heidi’s eyes seemed to fizzle out slowly, and she turned her attention back to Gilbert. ‘Of course,’ she said evenly. ‘And I trust both of you will remember that for the rest of the day.’
Both men nodded and muttered vague committals. Heidi sighed hard through her nostrils. ‘All right, then, let’s suss out this… what was it again? Chewlar?’ She peered over at Gilbert’s Haro again, which he was now helpfully proffering. ‘I still say that can’t be right.’ She pulled out her own mobile once more and tapped the screen quickly with both thumbs. ‘When did you talk to Mr. Smith about this?’ she asked.
‘This morning,’ Gilbert answered. ‘After our meeting that didn’t so much meet.’
Heidi nodded but kept her eyes on her own screen for a moment longer before finally emitting a triumphant ‘HA!’ and turning around her Haro for the other two to see. On the screen were tiny, blurry, black and white versions of Gilbert, Mr. Smith, and a white fuzzy mass with dark spots vaguely in the eye region, which Gilbert took to be Rose. Heidi pressed a button on the back of the Haro, and the images on the tiny screen sprang to life, complete with fairly clear audio.
‘Rose, we’ve got to go,’ Mr. Smith was saying as he brandished something small in his hand. ‘We can’t swing by your parents’ house. We’ve got Chula warriors at work here.’
‘I really don’t remember that incident,’ Gilbert was saying behind him. ‘I’m not sure who input that into our database. That must’ve been the week I was out last year on holiday. Went to Prague. Nobody told me aliens invaded while I was gone!’
Heidi pressed another button, still beaming proudly, and grinned at Gilbert. ‘Chula nanogenes, boy, not…’ She gestured vaguely at Gilbert’s mobile. ‘Not whatever mess you mistyped in there.’
‘Okaaaay,’ Gilbert said. ‘Right. But what are they?’
Heidi’s grin fell away almost immediately. ‘Well… I s’pose that’s the bad part,’ she admitted. ‘We know what Mr. Smith was on about now, but… if that’s what we’re up against, this isn’t good. Not at all.’
Gilbert realised that Jake had been quiet for far too long than was characteristic of his co-worker. ‘You heard of these things?’ he asked. ‘Were these ‘round once before since you’ve been here?’
Jake frowned. ‘Trying to remember,’ he replied. He turned to Heidi. ‘Reconstruction of cellular matter,’ he said. ‘Did some serious damage to a small colony of song birds off the Isle of Mann, turned ‘em all into tiny dragons, that right?’
‘That was before my time,’ Heidi said.
‘Rickey told me ‘bout it,’ Jake replied. ‘Got no bleedin’ clue what they’d want with some magician or whatnot.’
‘Why would they steal audience members?’ Gilbert asked. ‘How could they, even? If they’re basically cells…’
Heidi began to pace. ‘Maybe they’re not now,’ she mused. ‘Maybe they’ve latched onto a specific form that’s been more conducive to their survival as almost a new species in and of itself.’ She stopped walking and looked horrified. ‘Cancer.’
‘Cancer?’ Gilbert asked.
‘What happens to cells that go awry? That get invaded by some other idea about their identity and start to run amok in the body?’ Heidi asked.
‘They become cancerous,’ Jake replied. Now he looked equally horrified. ‘Oh, hell.’
‘Sentient, free-floating alien cancer?!’ Gilbert shrieked. He blinked hard and scratched his head. ‘I don’t even begin to know what to do about that.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Above the heads of the trio of Torchwood investigators, a small camera was nestled into the side of a motorway trestle, barely visible against the dark concrete. It was just a simple traffic camera, of course, but like most such devices, it had been hacked into by Haroco. Purely for basic monitoring, certainly. It was nothing that would either arouse the suspicions of the authorities or even interfere with the workings of the device for the monitoring of automobile accidents and speeding. But one way Haroco was earning some minor funds on the side was to offer its monitoring services to the black market. Keywords were flagged by complex software algorithms.
Which was how at that very moment, an alert popped up on a laptop in the back office of the Rhinebarry Theatre. ‘NOTICE,’ it read, ‘Discussion of Chula nanogenes in progress.’ There was an accompanying map and several still images of very fuzzy human-shaped blobs.
The owner of the laptop sighed. ‘Oh, bother.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Least I know where that is.’ From a desk drawer, she withdrew a small pistol. Before rising from her chair, she turned to a side table upon which sat a heavy GPO telephone. The artifact had a dull black finish and faded number labels beneath a 1930s-era rotary dial, but when she lifted the handset, the dialtone signaled its operational status. The woman inserted one long, perfect nail into the ‘0’ hole and spun it around. ‘Problem,’ she barked into the mouthpiece when her call was answered. ‘I’m off to take care of what I believe to be some Torchwood interference. In my absence, please secure the fuel processor.’ She started to withdraw the handset from her ear, but the party on the other end was still speaking. ‘Yes, I know it’s sentient!’ she all but shouted. ‘But it’s not our bloody pet! It’s still the source of our fuel, animal or not. Guard it with your life, but don’t get all sentimental on me.’ She didn’t wait for another response before depositing the handset loudly back on the cradle.
When she stood and crossed the room, tucking the pistol inside an interior pocket of her jacket, she didn’t immediately exit the room. First, she paused in front of the full-length mirror hanging on the back of the door, seeming to take great pleasure in drinking in her reflection. Her hair was still softly curled in a style reminiscent of Veronica Lake--all drooping, luscious blond curls sweeping against angular cheeks and collarbones. The teeth were perhaps too prominent, she mused, and the eyebrows could do with a pair of tweezers, but overall… ‘I never thought I’d enjoy being female so damn much,’ she murmured. The crimson lips smirked, and she smoothed her sequin-festooned skirt. Briefly, she pondered changing before venturing out, but dismissed the idea. She looked gorgeous, and soon enough the world would know this perfect face as its leader. Why not let them gape, no matter what she was spotted doing?
Seconds later, she was out on the sidewalk, feigning obliviousness to every appreciative stare she received. This would be so much faster if I had other means of transportation, she thought as she hailed a taxi.
And then there she was, facing the investigators still clustered under that silly road embankment with their proverbial thumbs up their arses. ‘Might as well be twiddling your thumbs,’ she said, striding unabashedly up to them. ‘Who’s in charge here?’ She glanced at the blond woman and smirked. ‘If I had my way, it’d be you, love.’
‘Can I help you?’
She knew the leader was suspicious. The other woman’s eyes were beady slits, and she saw her pat her coat pocket in a way that suggested a weapon wasn’t far from hand.
‘You can help me by not becoming an intrusion,’ she replied. Her own gun was in her hand and firing before anyone else had a chance to move.
In the aftermath, once smoke and dust had cleared, she saw that wasn’t quite true. The ginger man had pushed himself in front of the dark-haired man. The woman was bleeding. No matter what, they were certainly out of commission for a bit.
‘So sorry,’ she said. ‘But I’m afraid I’ve got things to do, y’see.’
Her next taxi driver didn’t notice the smell of gunpowder on her as he drove her back to the theatre.
AUTHOR: QKellie
FANDOM: Doctor Who (and Torchwood to a lesser extent)
CHARACTERS: Rose Tyler, the Doctor, the Doctor ‘10.5’, Donna Noble, Jackie Tyler, Pete Tyler, Jake Simmonds, John Hart, Lucy Saxon, Harold Saxon, others
PAIRINGS: Rose/Doctor 10.5, Lucy Saxon/Harold Saxon (implied), Jake/Mickey (implied), others
RATING: PG-13
GENRE: Gen/drama/romance
WARNINGS: Spoilers for DW through series 4 and TW series 2x01. OCs present but not used to ship with anyone besides other OCs. Moderate to extreme Doctor/Rose shippiness abounds. Discussions of angst, action, violence, and bisexuality, but at heart this is a genfic, honestly.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This story takes a cut scene from DW’s series 4 finale as canon, but it does not depict it with a complete adherence to accuracy as it actually took place. TW spoilers spring up only after Chapter 23. The final arc of the Tenth Doctor's final episodes negates elements herein, so in this story's "universe," the specials are non-canon.
Prologues and Chapter One | Chapters Two and Three | Chapters Four through Six | Chapters Seven through Nine | Chapters Ten through Twelve | Interlude through Chapter Fourteen | Chapters Fifteen through Seventeen | Chapters Eighteen through Twenty | Chapters Twenty-One through Twenty-Three | Chapters Twenty-Four through Twenty-Six | Interlude through Chapter Thirty
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Fourteen hours later, Pete Tyler was sitting at a sidewalk café three blocks from his office. In his hand was a slip of paper now so crumpled and sweated upon that it was almost cloth. He had a cup of tea sitting in front of him, and a half-smoked cigarette was smouldering in the ashtray. That part, Jackie wouldn’t be happy about but it didn’t much matter now. What was one errant fag when they were set to lose their whole house before too long?
If the paper had still been legible, it would’ve been clear that Tyler’s severance package wasn’t even as generous as the one he’d planned to give to Jeremy. In fact, it wouldn’t pay the mortgage for more than a month, and that was if he and Jackie ate every meal at Rose’s flat. During Pete’s conference with Mr. Haros, he’d gotten up the nerve to mention the fact that he had an infant son to support. This seemed to leave Haros completely unmoved.
‘I’m sure you’ll have time to secure a different post in time to pay for his university, Mr. Tyler.’
Pete had stared at the other man, dumbfounded. ‘You got a lad o’ your own, don’t you? Has it been so long that you can’t possibly remember what it’s like to have a mouth to feed?’
Haros had merely smirked. ‘Oh, if only you knew,’ he said. ‘Tyler, look, you have no idea how unbelievably generous I’m being here. And, quite frankly, I’m starting to think at this point that my son would do quite well in your position.’
By this point, Haros had managed--without Pete fully realising how--to steer him to the entrance to the office, punctuating the last word with the door being swiftly shut in his face. Pete flinched as the wood nearly met his nose.
The café waiter drifted by Pete’s table and asked if he could freshen up his coffee. It took Pete a moment to actually see the lad’s face in front of him instead of the dull brown plasticine finish of Haros’s office door. ‘Eh… what now?’ he mumbled, finally looking up at the waiter.
The young man looked at Pete with a mixture of pity and confusion. He raised the coffeepot and shook it a little. ‘Fill you back up, guv?’
Pete nodded absentmindedly and pushed his cup forward a few inches on the table. He fished his cigarette out of the ashtray and took a long drag before using it to gesture to the waiter.
‘You ever have to give your old lady bad news, lad?’
The waiter cringed slightly. ‘I s’pose so, sir,’ he said.
‘What’s the best thing for it?’
The waiter pointed across the street to a newsstand, at the side of which stood a bucket of sad-looking bouquets of daisies. ‘Flowers never hurt,’ he replied. ‘She’ll know something’s wrong straight off, but still.’ He shrugged. ‘’S all I got, guv.’
‘Thanks.’ Pete tapped off another bit of ash from his cigarette and chuckled to himself.
‘This’ll be a day we both remember, any rate.’ He glanced up, but the waiter was now gone. Pete took his mobile out of his jacket pocket and began to punch up Jackie’s contact information on his text screen, but then he stopped and stared at the device itself. The “eHaro” logo was subtle on the newer models, but it was still there… mocking him. ‘I’d wager you were using this bleeding thing to spy on me,’ Pete said directly to the device, ‘but I half suspect you honestly don’t give enough of a toss about me to do so.’ He continued to mutter angrily to himself as he shoved the phone back in his pocket, threw a few bills on the table for a tip, and started across the street toward the flower vendor.
After picking out the least-wilted looking bouquet for his wife, Pete withdrew the cell again, but this time he texted his daughter. ‘Rose,’ he wrote, ‘need advice. Think Mum’ll be angry if I’ve been sacked?’ He caught a taxi as it passed and directed the driver to take him home. As they reached the drive, the Haro let out a short, quiet fanfare. Pete punched the “answer” button when he saw it was Rose. ‘I bet I scared you, didn’t I?’ he asked by way of greeting.
‘Dad, it’s probably best that you got sacked,’ Rose said. ‘D’you have a bloke in your employ called Park-Martin?’
Pete chuckled ruefully. ‘Not anymore, but did, yeah.’
He could almost hear Rose smiling on the other end. ‘Getting out of that office was the best thing you could’ve done right now,’ she said. ‘Your entire company is in danger.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Gilbert stammered as Heidi’s eyes continued to flash angrily at him. Beautifully angry, he thought to himself, then stopped and gathered his thoughts into something vaguely resembling cohesiveness. ‘I’m not entirely certainly what he’s got up to today, but the situation at the Rhinebarry… Mr. Smith seems to think there’s something at work to do with… Oh, balls, what was the term he used again?’ Gilbert pulled out his mobile and tapped the screen a few times. ‘Chewlar nano jeans?’ He head up his notes to show Heidi.
She frowned at the screen. ‘You’ve obviously got some part of that wrong,’ she said, ‘unless this dodgy magician of yours has a market going for some sort of denim trousers.’ She sighed and turned back to Jake. ‘And you? What’ve you got to say for yourself?’ She pulled out her own Haro and showed Jake the newsfeed of his earlier activities. ‘You’re wanted. Mr. Simmonds, it’s not even two o’clock in the afternoon! How do you go from having a relatively quiet morning to being on the lam in less than five hours? That’s got to be a record, even for you.’
Jake was now crimson. ‘Ants in my flat,’ he mumbled.
Gilbert tried to keep a poker face, but Heidi swung back around to him. ‘What did he use?’
‘Oi! Leave him out of it!’ Jake protested. He pulled what was left of the Arkanian water grenades from his coat pockets. ‘Thought I had ‘em under control, I did, but then…’
Heidi threw up her hands. ‘I give up! I honestly give up here. Guys, look, I try to be a good boss! I think I’m fair! But this is the last straw. I can’t have anyone continuing to nick the artifacts, especially not for your own personal use.’
‘We’re not exactly archeologists here,’ Jake pointed out. ‘Not like keeping the things locked up is gonna be good for anybody. Seems a bit of a waste is all.’
Heidi’s eyes now bulged from her skull. She pressed an index finger to Jake’s shirt front. ‘You clearly want to get sacked, don’t you?’
Jake raised his head. His eyes narrowed, and his lips disappeared as he pressed his jaw forward. ‘Some people used to appreciate me,’ he said. His tone was low, and Gilbert thought there was a hint of something shiny in the other man’s eyes.
Gilbert swallowed hard. He gave Simmonds a hard time sometimes, and Simmonds gave it back in kind, but if Jake had felt even half as much for Mickey as Gilbert felt for Heidi… poor lad was a goner, that was for sure, and all the time in the world wouldn’t fully heal the pain of losing him.
‘Uh… let’s… oh, come on, he didn’t mean anything…’ Gilbert said weakly, trying to get between Heidi and Jake. ‘Besides, we do have other matters, honestly.’
The fire in Heidi’s eyes seemed to fizzle out slowly, and she turned her attention back to Gilbert. ‘Of course,’ she said evenly. ‘And I trust both of you will remember that for the rest of the day.’
Both men nodded and muttered vague committals. Heidi sighed hard through her nostrils. ‘All right, then, let’s suss out this… what was it again? Chewlar?’ She peered over at Gilbert’s Haro again, which he was now helpfully proffering. ‘I still say that can’t be right.’ She pulled out her own mobile once more and tapped the screen quickly with both thumbs. ‘When did you talk to Mr. Smith about this?’ she asked.
‘This morning,’ Gilbert answered. ‘After our meeting that didn’t so much meet.’
Heidi nodded but kept her eyes on her own screen for a moment longer before finally emitting a triumphant ‘HA!’ and turning around her Haro for the other two to see. On the screen were tiny, blurry, black and white versions of Gilbert, Mr. Smith, and a white fuzzy mass with dark spots vaguely in the eye region, which Gilbert took to be Rose. Heidi pressed a button on the back of the Haro, and the images on the tiny screen sprang to life, complete with fairly clear audio.
‘Rose, we’ve got to go,’ Mr. Smith was saying as he brandished something small in his hand. ‘We can’t swing by your parents’ house. We’ve got Chula warriors at work here.’
‘I really don’t remember that incident,’ Gilbert was saying behind him. ‘I’m not sure who input that into our database. That must’ve been the week I was out last year on holiday. Went to Prague. Nobody told me aliens invaded while I was gone!’
Heidi pressed another button, still beaming proudly, and grinned at Gilbert. ‘Chula nanogenes, boy, not…’ She gestured vaguely at Gilbert’s mobile. ‘Not whatever mess you mistyped in there.’
‘Okaaaay,’ Gilbert said. ‘Right. But what are they?’
Heidi’s grin fell away almost immediately. ‘Well… I s’pose that’s the bad part,’ she admitted. ‘We know what Mr. Smith was on about now, but… if that’s what we’re up against, this isn’t good. Not at all.’
Gilbert realised that Jake had been quiet for far too long than was characteristic of his co-worker. ‘You heard of these things?’ he asked. ‘Were these ‘round once before since you’ve been here?’
Jake frowned. ‘Trying to remember,’ he replied. He turned to Heidi. ‘Reconstruction of cellular matter,’ he said. ‘Did some serious damage to a small colony of song birds off the Isle of Mann, turned ‘em all into tiny dragons, that right?’
‘That was before my time,’ Heidi said.
‘Rickey told me ‘bout it,’ Jake replied. ‘Got no bleedin’ clue what they’d want with some magician or whatnot.’
‘Why would they steal audience members?’ Gilbert asked. ‘How could they, even? If they’re basically cells…’
Heidi began to pace. ‘Maybe they’re not now,’ she mused. ‘Maybe they’ve latched onto a specific form that’s been more conducive to their survival as almost a new species in and of itself.’ She stopped walking and looked horrified. ‘Cancer.’
‘Cancer?’ Gilbert asked.
‘What happens to cells that go awry? That get invaded by some other idea about their identity and start to run amok in the body?’ Heidi asked.
‘They become cancerous,’ Jake replied. Now he looked equally horrified. ‘Oh, hell.’
‘Sentient, free-floating alien cancer?!’ Gilbert shrieked. He blinked hard and scratched his head. ‘I don’t even begin to know what to do about that.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Above the heads of the trio of Torchwood investigators, a small camera was nestled into the side of a motorway trestle, barely visible against the dark concrete. It was just a simple traffic camera, of course, but like most such devices, it had been hacked into by Haroco. Purely for basic monitoring, certainly. It was nothing that would either arouse the suspicions of the authorities or even interfere with the workings of the device for the monitoring of automobile accidents and speeding. But one way Haroco was earning some minor funds on the side was to offer its monitoring services to the black market. Keywords were flagged by complex software algorithms.
Which was how at that very moment, an alert popped up on a laptop in the back office of the Rhinebarry Theatre. ‘NOTICE,’ it read, ‘Discussion of Chula nanogenes in progress.’ There was an accompanying map and several still images of very fuzzy human-shaped blobs.
The owner of the laptop sighed. ‘Oh, bother.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Least I know where that is.’ From a desk drawer, she withdrew a small pistol. Before rising from her chair, she turned to a side table upon which sat a heavy GPO telephone. The artifact had a dull black finish and faded number labels beneath a 1930s-era rotary dial, but when she lifted the handset, the dialtone signaled its operational status. The woman inserted one long, perfect nail into the ‘0’ hole and spun it around. ‘Problem,’ she barked into the mouthpiece when her call was answered. ‘I’m off to take care of what I believe to be some Torchwood interference. In my absence, please secure the fuel processor.’ She started to withdraw the handset from her ear, but the party on the other end was still speaking. ‘Yes, I know it’s sentient!’ she all but shouted. ‘But it’s not our bloody pet! It’s still the source of our fuel, animal or not. Guard it with your life, but don’t get all sentimental on me.’ She didn’t wait for another response before depositing the handset loudly back on the cradle.
When she stood and crossed the room, tucking the pistol inside an interior pocket of her jacket, she didn’t immediately exit the room. First, she paused in front of the full-length mirror hanging on the back of the door, seeming to take great pleasure in drinking in her reflection. Her hair was still softly curled in a style reminiscent of Veronica Lake--all drooping, luscious blond curls sweeping against angular cheeks and collarbones. The teeth were perhaps too prominent, she mused, and the eyebrows could do with a pair of tweezers, but overall… ‘I never thought I’d enjoy being female so damn much,’ she murmured. The crimson lips smirked, and she smoothed her sequin-festooned skirt. Briefly, she pondered changing before venturing out, but dismissed the idea. She looked gorgeous, and soon enough the world would know this perfect face as its leader. Why not let them gape, no matter what she was spotted doing?
Seconds later, she was out on the sidewalk, feigning obliviousness to every appreciative stare she received. This would be so much faster if I had other means of transportation, she thought as she hailed a taxi.
And then there she was, facing the investigators still clustered under that silly road embankment with their proverbial thumbs up their arses. ‘Might as well be twiddling your thumbs,’ she said, striding unabashedly up to them. ‘Who’s in charge here?’ She glanced at the blond woman and smirked. ‘If I had my way, it’d be you, love.’
‘Can I help you?’
She knew the leader was suspicious. The other woman’s eyes were beady slits, and she saw her pat her coat pocket in a way that suggested a weapon wasn’t far from hand.
‘You can help me by not becoming an intrusion,’ she replied. Her own gun was in her hand and firing before anyone else had a chance to move.
In the aftermath, once smoke and dust had cleared, she saw that wasn’t quite true. The ginger man had pushed himself in front of the dark-haired man. The woman was bleeding. No matter what, they were certainly out of commission for a bit.
‘So sorry,’ she said. ‘But I’m afraid I’ve got things to do, y’see.’
Her next taxi driver didn’t notice the smell of gunpowder on her as he drove her back to the theatre.