Fic: Girl In The Mirror 'Verse: Chapter 17: Ghost in the Machine
Title: Girl In The Mirror ‘Verse, Chapter 17: Ghost in the Machine
Author: psyfi_geekgirl
BetaBabe: akkajemo
Characters/Pairings: Twelfth Doctor, Jack, Martha/Mickey + OC
Rating: PG-13
Excerpt: Over by the computer terminals, Stefanie blubbered into a hanky, “So, it’s humans against aliens, and time is running out…”
“Ohhhh, really?” moaned the Doctor. “Did you have to say that?”
Word count: 6,634
Disclaimer: until she’s Jossed, Twelve is mine-but of course based entirely on stuff that ain’t mine… All hail Auntie Beeb!
A/N*: Written before Torchwood: Miracle Day and the end of DW season 6, so some details will go AU. If you ask me, it’s better that way…
Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7
Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14
Chapter 15 Chapter 16
Sirens blared. The citizens below shrieked in horror as the monster climbed higher. Flames engulfed the side of the building, turning the inky blackness into daylight. The monster bellowed with pain and rage as his skin blistered with the burns. Inside the building, panicked people ran past lighted windows to get away from the flaming, molten debris.
Atop the building, they sat in a huddle.
“…I have an idea! We’ll cross the streams!”
“You said crossing the streams would be bad!”
“Cross the streams…”
From the couch, Jack tipped his head back and howled with laughter. It rang off the walls, covering the movie dialogue before he tossed a handful of popcorn in the general vicinity of his mouth, peppering the couch with buttery, cooked corn.
Martha tutted and shushed him in disapproval. “Like a toddler on too much sugar you are,” she scolded, pulling the bowl of chocolate Digestives away from the Doctor, whose petulant whining earned her a don’t-start-with-me look from Martha.
“But I’m not even doing anything!” bleated the Doctor. “Jack’s the one making a fuss,” she continued to complain, scrabbling to get the biscuits back.
Martha slapped her hand away, the Doctor’s sparkly-varnished nails glittering in the low light. “Oh, like I don’t know how you get with too much chocolate? Mister Couldn’t Live In 1969 Without His Wispa Bars??”
“You tell ‘em, babe,” encouraged Mickey.
The Doctor shook her head at him, knowing he was only brown-nosing his wife. “That was before!” she said defensively. “Back… when I was all…” she stammered-looking for the right adjective-and wiggled a hand perpendicular to her forehead: “Hair!” she finished, frustrated. “Although, I still pop off to Australia from time to time just to stock up on Wispa Golds...”
“Knew it!” Martha sang with righteousness.
On screen, flaming chunks of melted marshmallow rained down onto the populace below-burying cars and a newsstand-as the enraged monster flailed his hands in agony.
The Doctor continued to reach across for the biscuit bowl. “I can assure you, I’m totally capable of handling a little bit of-“
“AAAH-HAHAHAHAHA!” Jack boomed. “Lookit! How hysterical is that?! The Stay-Puft Marshmallow man and his melting face!”
Still petulant after being denied her biscuits, the Doctor remained stone-faced with her arms crossed, one eyebrow hoisted to the rafters.
“You don’t pout nearly as well as you used to,” Martha told her. With a deep sigh, she succumbed anyway, and gave the bowl of chocolate biscuits back to the Doctor. “S’not a film that’s aged well, has it, though?” suggested Martha.
The Doctor grabbed the bowl back and immediately stuffed two cookies into her mouth.
“Oou’rf mwright, adly,” the Doctor said, between bites, lifting a handful of cookies out of the bowl and stuffing them into her pockets for later, just in case Martha should change her mind and withdraw the bowl again. “Although, you do have to marvel at the ingenuity of the Trap Box system,” she muttered with her mouth now a little less full. “While the physics of the whole Ghostbusters franchise is pure rubbish, the idea is truly poetic…”
“Yeah,” said Mickey, “Sure does beat the whole tranq gun and net thing we’ve been rocking.”
“However, I do adore the handcuffs…” remarked Jack from his end of the couch.
The Doctor shook her head. “What is it with the Harkness Clan and handcuffs…?” she sighed.
Jack guffawed. “Spoilers, Doctor!”
“Oh, no-not you, too!”
Suddenly, a deafening wail of sirens and flashing red lights in their building caused the small group of them to startle in alarm. For a second, everyone looked at each other in confusion.
“What the hell is that?” yelled Martha.
Mickey and Jack jumped up. “Security protocols. We’re going into lockdown!”
“There’s been some sort of security breech!”
The four of them ran out of the break room loft and got to the stairs that led into the main room just in time to see the huge metal security doors slam down into place with a earsplitting clang, shutting off the cargo bay and effectively sealing them in from the outside.
“Where has everybody gone?” asked Martha, dumbfounded by the total lack of personnel in the main room. All of the ten computer terminals were empty and the room was patchily and harshly lit in large swaths of dim yellow from the sodium emergency lights, highlighted with shafts of bluish white from the smaller, wall-mounted LEDs. Punctuating everything was the manic flashing of red from the alarm system.
“Ohhhh, this is never good,” breathed Jack, unholstering his sidearm and peering nervously into the murky yellow and red streaked room. “How many times has this happened before?” Jack sighed as he counted the list off on his fingers: “There’ve been Daleks… crazed, half-mechanical ex-girlfriends… vengeance-crazy, reanimated, ex-employees… hunky, blackmailed-and also crazy-ex-Time Agents from the future-and all wanting to kill us… Getting locked in at Torchwood is never a life prolonging event-“
“Says the Immortal,” quipped Mickey.
“I dunno,” said the Doctor, lightheartedly. “Red lights: Always good for a party!” she exclaimed, shaking her bum to imaginary music as the red lights flashed against her skin. “What is it about humans? You lot never caught on to the whole mauve thing…”
“It’s fine. It’s probably just a computer glitch,” Jack soothed. “It’s just some flashy lights and loud noises, nothing to get our knickers in a twist about-“
Jack was interrupted by the staccato blast of small arms fire that echoed from several floors below.
Mickey turned back to Jack, yelling over the noise. “You were saying??”
Jack shrugged. “Trigger happy trainees, maybe?”
Mickey shook his head, alternatively lit up by red lights. “I so doubt it, mate…”
The Doctor ran towards the nearest computer screen. “Could we at least do something about the obnoxiously loud alarm thingies?” She hit a few buttons and the alarms suddenly stopped. “That’s a relief…” she sighed. “That was doing nothing for my headache! Well, power’s still on, at least. But it’s spotty,” she said, punching more buttons. “Jack? Mickey? What are the standard Torchwood Lockdown Protocols?”
“Hold on,” said Martha, cocking her head to the shadowy room around them. “Is somebody else in here?” she called out. Her concerned voice echoed back to them.
In a dark corner of the room, a shadow shifted.
“Over there!” whispered Jack as he held up his revolver.
“Jaaaaack!” the Doctor hissed at him in disapproval, pushing down his gun.
A dull thud sounded from the dark corner followed by the clank of what could have been a metal cup with pens and pencils hitting the floor.
“If you’re human you had better answer now!” barked Mickey, raising his standard issue Torchwood weapon.
“Don’t shoot me!” came a faint voice from the corner.
Martha waved the boys and their guns off. “Oh, for pity’s sake-it’s no alien! Just a terrified programmer or something.” She moved a few meters down the path between the open computer terminals. “Can you hear me? Are you ok? Just come on outta there.”
The shadow stood up and came closer to them.
“What’s your name?”
“Rajid,” answered the figure in the darkness as it moved closer. “I’m sorry. I just freaked out. After the alarm sounded, all of the Operatives grabbed their guns and ran for the hallway and I just-“
“It’s ok, Rajid,” said the Doctor. “You’ll be safe in here with us.”
An overweight man in his mid-twenties appeared in a pool of yellow light in front of them. He tugged nervously on his rolled-up shirtsleeves. The Doctor held out her hand. “Hello, Rajid, I’m the Doctor.”
“Yeah. I know,” said Rajid.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Have we met before?”
“No. It’s just that… Well… You’re the Doctor. Everybody in Torchwood knows you. We cover you in training. The file’s huge.”
The Doctor sniffed and nodded, remembering. “Oh. Yeah. Guess so, huh?”
“There’s even a video!”
“Really?” She was impressed. “Who’d they get to play me? And please don’t say Andrew-Lee Pots-he’s much too short-and that hair…ick!“
Mickey interrupted the Doctor’s Ego Fest: “Rajid, this lockdown… It’s gotta be some sort of computer glitch, yeah?”
“I was just looking at that before you lot came in. And on top of everything it looks like there’s something wrong with the generator, too.”
“Well, let’s get back to it, then…”
Suddenly, the large white door that separated the interior hallway and the elevators from the main room opened with a loud THWACK and issued five, breathless Torchwood employees into the room.
Martha yelled out to a tall blonde man in a white lab coat, “Jonathan! Is that you? What’s going on out there?”
“You’ve got to lock this door!” yelled Jonathan.
“Oh my God, they were practically right behind us!” screamed one short, dark-eyed woman in a black suit, the flashing emergency lights illuminating the terror in her face.
“What were?” asked the Doctor. “What’s out there?”
“You’ve got to lock this door now!” Jonathan shouted again.
Martha went to him and put a hand on his shoulder as Mickey and Jack went to the door and locked it. “S’all right, s’all right, Jonathan. We’ve got you. You’re safe here now…”
“Oh no we’re not!” shrieked a pretty blonde woman.
“What’s going on out there? What are they firing at?” asked Jack.
“I… I… I don’t-“ stammered the blonde woman.
Jack held out his hand. “Hi. Captain Jack Harkness… And you are…?”
The Doctor rolled her eyes.
“Stefanie,” said the blonde woman.
“Hi, Stefanie. Nice to meet you. Never seen you up this way before. You in R&D?”
“No. Public Relations. Clive, Jonathan, and Joyce here are R&D-“
“I’m in accounting,” blurted the short, dark-eyed woman.
Everybody turned to look at her.
She shrugged, clearly at a loss. “Sorry… But I’ve seen this sort of thing on telly all the time-Twenty-eight Days? Independence Day and other stuff, yeah? I know you lot that work the upper floors are used to The End Of The World and all that, but I just never thought I’d see it. I mean, I may work for Torchwood, but I’m just an accountant! I’m not heroic…”
“Sure you are,” said the Doctor, kindly. “What’s your name?” she asked the panicked woman.
“Khalidah.”
The Doctor held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Khalidah, I’m the Doctor.”
“NO WAY!” she breathed in astonishment.
The Doctor nervously rubbed the back of her neck. “See the training video did you, Khalidah?”
More shots and shouting came from downstairs.
“It’s getting closer, Jack,” said Mickey, cocking his gun.
“What floor did you all come from?” asked Jack.
“Sub-level five,” answered Joyce, the redhead from R&D. “We met the rest of them in the stairwell at sub-level three, we came the rest of the way up together.”
Jack shook his head grimly. “Well, if the power generator has gone spotty, then it’s possible that the security locks on the cells downstairs have gone down. That’ll mean only one thing-“
“Weevils,” said Mickey.
“Ohhh, and they’re soooo ugly!” Stefanie shuddered. “One almost got me by the elevators on the sub-one floor! Took a big swipe at me!”
“What?!” exclaimed the Doctor, angrily and whirled around towards Jack, the emergency lights enhancing her anger. “I was only kidding a few months ago about the Weevils, Jack. You still have them locked up in here?!”
“They’re dangerous to the public, Doctor,” explained Jack. “We don’t know where they come from, they can’t communicate with us, they’re sensitive to rift energy and time displacement-they all but disappeared after you closed all the rifts the last time-we hadn’t seen any in years and yet recently they’ve been popping up. To keep everybody safe we store them here.”
“We take good care of them, Doctor,” insisted Martha. “We just don’t know what else to do.”
The Doctor was beside herself. “And now they’re being shot like animals in the hallways of Torchwood!” she yelled, pointing towards the sound of the gunfire. “How is this supposed to be Torchwood, reformed in my image?!”
Impugned, Jack pursed his lips and stepped back. The five recent arrivals’ eyes grew wide, witnessing the Doctor’s legendary anger, first-hand.
“How dare you!” shouted Martha, turning on the Doctor. “Y’know Jack does the best he can. For years and years he’s had only himself to rely on. God knows you were nowhere to be found! AND he’s suffered loss after loss watching his team die around him! Where were you, Doctor? Huh? WHERE WERE YOU?!”
“I heard he was in the Prismatic Nebula fighting Energyvores,” said Stefanie.
“No, stupid,” snapped Khalidah, pointing at the Doctor. “He’s right here.”
Clive snorted. “You’re the one that’s stupid. That’s a woman.”
“Yeah. Ok. Standing right here, thanks. Me: The Doctor. That’s right,” she twiddled her sparkly-polished fingers at them. “Right here. Hiya! Yeah, I know. You’ve all seen the video…” She babbled off their looks. She turned to Martha, in answer to her question. “I was getting to know River.”
“And who is River?” she snapped.
The Doctor glanced over to meet Jack’s gaze, understanding by the look in his eyes that he hadn’t told them anything. Loyal Jack, he hadn’t said anything about it-not because he didn’t want to, but because it was so personal to the Doctor. A ghost of a smile flickered across her face as she looked at him. He registered her gratitude and her recognition. He gave a short nod back.
The moment was shattered by shrieks coming from the hallway, just outside the door. Everyone jumped, reacting in alarm.
Reaching the door first, Martha looked out through the tiny, oblong reinforced glass window in the door and screamed. “CARLY!?? Oh my God! They’re out there!” She shuddered. “They’ve nearly reached her! Run, Carly! RUN!”
Carly, Martha’s young Med Lab technician had attempted to bolt for the main door from her hiding place in the ladies lavatory down the hallway. Pursued by growling Weevils, she had faltered as she slipped and fell. Now Martha could only watch helplessly through the tiny window as the half-humanoid aliens surrounded her colleague, the pulsing red lights eerily strobing on their legs as they closed into a tight circle around her.
“Carly! Carly!!” Martha pounded on the door, attempting to distract the Weevils, as Jack, Mickey and the Doctor jumped toward the door. Martha yanked impotently on the locked door. “Open this door! OPEN THIS DOOR!” she yelled at Mickey, who grabbed her around the waist and pulled her off the door. Jack fumbled for the lock as the Doctor pulled out her sonic. In a shaking huddle, several meters away, Stefanie and Joyce cried as Clive comforted them. Khalidah stared at the door with haunted eyes. Jonathan and Rajid stood side-by-side, helplessly.
The horrific cacophony in the hallway reached a fever pitch as the Doctor got her first glimpse outside into the hall. Then the noise stilled.
She grimaced.
The Doctor put her hand up, stilling Jack’s hand at the lock and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Martha. It’s too late...”
Martha wailed out her grief at the loss of her friend as Mickey pulled her into his arms. Deep lines etched into Jack’s face as he slumped his back against the door. The Doctor turned back to the tiny window to get another look at the Weevils.
But they were gone.
“Where did they go?” said the Doctor in amazement. “The Weevils, they were here and now they’ve gone!”
Jack joined her at the tiny window and peeked outside, his lips curling upwards in disgust and anger as he caught a glimpse of Carly’s bloodied, mangled body on the white linoleum floor. Mickey led the still sobbing Martha over to one of the chairs at the computer terminals
Next to Martha, Stefanie blubbered into a hanky, “So, it’s humans against aliens, and time is running out…”
“Ohhhh, really?” moaned the Doctor. “Did you have to say that?”
“I’m sorry, Doctor. But it’s true!”
“No. It isn’t. I’ll tell you what is true, though. We have ten brilliant people in this room-all Torchwood’s finest, and all who have their own expertise. Nothing we can’t figure out if we all keep our heads… What do we know about this lockdown?” She pointed at Rajid.
“Must be a computer glitch,” he answered.
“Right! And what do we need to reverse it?”
Jack spoke up. “In the event of lockdown, all outside connections are cut off. It’s designed to keep whatever threat is inside, trapped inside.”
“But now we’re the ones trapped inside.”
“We’re supposed to be trained to handle the threat ourselves,” said Mickey.
“And yet only a handful of Weevils have overrun the place?! Well done, us!” Clive snapped.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” The Doctor shouted, to stop the escalation of tempers. “Picking at each other is not helpful. A plan of attack is helpful. What can we do to circumvent the computer program?”
“If we can gain access to the telecommunications control panels I can upload a program to reset the system,” said Rajid.
“Excellent! Now we’re thinkin’!”
“Except that’s suicide!” exclaimed Clive. “You’d need the LAN ports and now only the tertiary ones underneath the roof of the building are available, which you’d have to hack into via a cell phone!”
“That’s five floors up!” cried Joyce. “How could anybody get up there with all those Weevils running about?”
“I could get up there,” said Jack.
“Sure,” said Mickey. “And once you did, then what would you do?”
Jack pulled a face. “You could talk me through it.”
“No,” said Mickey. “Someone who knows what they’re doing would need to do it. Time is of the essence.”
“I’ll go,” offered Rajid. “I know how to do it. You could man the computer. You would see once I made it.” He swallowed, understanding the mission he’d just offered himself for.
“I’ll go with him,” said Jonathan. “I helped design the interface matrix, I understand how it works.”
“Thanks, mate,” said Rajid.
“Cheers,” Jonathan replied.
The Doctor slapped both gentlemen on the shoulders. “Well done! That’s the spirit!”
Jack considered the two men. “Well if you guys are gonna head up the back staircase towards the roof, then I should really head out and clear the way of our leathery faced friends. Just give me a head start…”
The Doctor moved to follow him. Jack got in front of her, his blue eyes wide and serious. “And where do you think you’re going?”
“With you. Maybe I can talk to them, find out-“
“Doctor, they don’t communicate! And you aren’t coming.”
“Well, I can’t bloody well stay here!”
“For Chrissakes, Doctor-You’re an endangered species! Weevils don’t want to chat they want a snack. And revenge. This isn’t a party you want to come to-and it certainly isn’t one I’m bringing you to! You need to stay here and look after the rest. Mickey can’t do it, he needs to man the computer!”
Martha’s eyes widened as she watched the Doctor back off. Once she’d relented, Jack spun on his heel and headed towards the back staircase door.
“But you’ll be eaten alive by Weevils, Jack!!” exclaimed Martha as they all followed him.
Jack sniffed confidently, “S’all right, really. I’ve been munched on by Weevils before. Not bad. Tickles a bit. Wouldn’t recommend it, though…” They all stared at him in alarm. “Relax. I’ll be fine. Gimme a minute’s head-start.”
He quickly slid out of the door, but nobody made a move to stop him, everyone feeling both grateful and guilty. It was handy in their line of work to have a man on hand who couldn’t die. But Jack was still their friend, and no one liked to see a friend get hurt.
Resigned, Mickey sighed and locked the door behind him. “Good luck to you, mate,” he mumbled into the tiny glass reinforced window in the door, watching Jack’s coat flutter down the hallway and into imminent unknown horrors as the hallway flashed red around him.
“He doesn’t need the luck, Mickey. We do,” Martha reminded him.
“Maybe so, but he’s the one goin’ out and handin’ himself over to the Weevils as a chew toy, isn’t he?”
“Ok. He’s clear. I think we should get going,” said Jonathan.
Mickey unholstered his gun, holding it out to Jonathan. “Do you know how to work one of these?”
“Same as Medal of Honour, right?”
“Uh…” He shrugged, deciding not to debate the finer differences, “Basically, yeah.” He handed it over, patting him on the shoulder. “You’ll do fine.”
Rajid turned to Mickey, “Just watch the network. You’ll see a spike once I’ve gained access. Then you’ll be able to reboot the system.”
The Doctor looked over at Khalidah, who was chewing on her lip and shuffling her feet. Like a child anxious for the restroom, she appeared to be deciding on how to ask to go with them.
“Wait!” called Khalidah. “Take me with you!”
They looked at her in surprise.
“My father’s taken me to the shooting range since I was six years of age,” she explained. “Jonathan, if you try to fire that thing you’ll get everybody killed.” Khalidah held out her hand for the gun. “Let me go with you.”
“Let her go,” said the Doctor. “She’ll be good luck. Her name means ‘Immortal,’” she said, winking at Khalidah. “You’ll be fine… Really heroic, I promise.”
Grinning at the Doctor, Khalidah took the gun from Jonathan and headed off with the other two men out the back access door and into the stairwell. Mickey went back to the main computer terminal. The Doctor shoved her hands in her pockets, her brow furrowed as she considered how quickly she’d allowed Jack’s “endangered species” line to back her off.
And just what was going on with her anyway?
She felt so angry with herself! Here she was at Torchwood-again. Since when had she needed a base? Since when had she become tied to any one particular place by choice? She’d lost track of the last time she’d actually gone anywhere forwards or backwards in time that hadn’t had something to do with any real kind of adventure. Instead, since her regeneration she’d been hiding behind old companions like she was too scared to go off on her own! Fuming, she began to pace, the ubiquitous flashing red emergency lights mirroring her brutally self-critical thoughts.
For even if she had accepted what she was, she still had trouble accepting who she was. Her most recent experience with her previous self and Rose had only reinforced this. For no matter how she might try, she routinely seemed to become the unwitting catalyst for pain and destruction…
You try to save them, but in doing so, you make it happen. Anything I do just makes it happen…
For a long time, she hadn’t known who she was becoming but she wasn’t sure if she liked it. Perhaps the Alliance hadn’t been too far off imprisoning her inside the Pandorica-maybe they were right: The Doctor was becoming a volatile weapon; and perhaps one that needed to be stopped.
As a result, she did nothing.
As soon as the door shut behind them, Stefanie slipped out of her chair and fainted onto the floor with a thud. Clive and Martha jumped up to tend to her.
“She’s bleeding!” exclaimed Martha, seeing a cut on her side.
“Must have been that Weevil in the stairwell on our way up. It took a swipe at her. We didn’t know it’d gotten her!”
“It doesn’t look bad,” said Martha, trying to see the wound in the semi-darkness and the off and on glow of the red emergency lights. “Must have been all that adrenaline pumping though her system-it probably just wore off. Help me with her,” Martha directed Clive. “We’ll take her into the MedLab. It’s dark, but we’ve got bandages and beds. She can lie quietly for a bit.”
Together, they brought Stefanie into the MedLab. Soon, the glow of an LED emergency lantern illuminated the frosted glass as they tended to her injury.
There was an eerie silence as the only thing they could immediately hear were the ripping of bandages in the MedLab and Mickey typing at the computer nearby.
“It’s too quiet out there,” said Joyce. She sat on the floor under one of the computer terminals with her knees drawn up into her chest, rocking back and forth.
“I’ll take the sound of silence over the sound of my mates screaming in pain any day,” muttered Mickey as he continued working. “Damn alien computer!” He stabbed at the keys in frustration. “For an intuitive, half-sentient piece of kit, it sure acts thick when you need something out of it!”
The Doctor moved around to another terminal, attempting to help.
“It’s no good, boss,” said Mickey from his seat. “When the building is in lockdown the only fully working computer is this one right here-the big brain of the bunch.”
The Doctor sighed, feeling like a fifth wheel.
Martha re-entered the room from the MedLab, having left Clive and Stefanie in there. “She’s stable. Clive said he’d stay and look after her.”
Restless, the Doctor pulled at handfuls of her hair and paced. She felt useless and angry with herself. Her hands fiddled with her sonic in frustration as new noises grew below.
From her place on the floor, Joyce spoke up. “I don’t understand,” complained Joyce, turning to the Doctor. “You’re the Doctor! You’re supposed to be brilliant, powerful and terrifying-why aren’t you doing anything?”
The Doctor studied the floor. She was keenly aware she hadn’t done much to help.
“Don’t you dare!” Martha hissed. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with! The Doctor is all those things you mentioned. The things I’ve seen her do would blow your-“
“No, you’re right, Joyce,” interrupted the Doctor, her brown eyes shining in the intermittent red lights. “I am the Doctor. I am ancient and forever-the stuff of legends-a wise wizard to allies, and a dark, malevolent prince to every foe. I’ve raised armies and ended wars with my very name. My face changes and my personality with it-and sometimes I can’t stand the man I’ve been or the person I’ve become. Sometimes I fight. Sometimes I hide and sometimes, I run…”
The noises in the corridor grew louder. She swirled to face the door. Brandishing her sonic, she strode through the computer terminals, headed for the door as she spoke: “You’re right, Joyce. I am the Doctor-and I am tired of hiding!”
Martha smiled in relief as the Doctor deftly soniced the main door unlocked. She put her hand on the doorknob.
But before she could turn the handle, the fire door on the far side of the room swung open.
Weevils were in the room.
Ten of them.
“We’ve been flanked!” yelled the Doctor, holding out her sonic as she stepped in front of Mickey, Martha and Joyce, as the Weevils-dressed in identical navy blue Torchwood boiler suits-sidled up in a strange gliding, halting gait.
Mickey stilled himself at his computer, eying their new threat, his hand itching for the gun that he’d given to the others earlier.
Ignoring everyone else in the room, the Weevils headed directly toward the Doctor. Martha gasped as they surrounded her. The Doctor attempted to bargain with them. “Listen to me! I can help you! I’m the Doctor!”
Suddenly, the Weevils began to bow and turn their heads away from her, crouching to the ground. They issued a low, moaning whine and withered from her, but did not leave.
They smelled of blood, gunfire and death.
“And what the bloody hell is this?” exclaimed Mickey, dumbfounded. “Do they wanna play Duck Duck Goose??”
“Mickey, keep working that computer!” the Doctor hissed.
“Doctor! Jack said something about them being telepathic!” Martha called out over the Weevils’ muted, rhythmic noises.
The Doctor slowly turned around in a circle, watching them. “Which one of you is your leader, hmm? I know you can’t communicate with the humans, but you can communicate with me. What do you want?”
She looked up as she heard the other door open.
A leather-clad Weevil had entered the room.
Janet the Weevil, still dressed in its black leather suit-now tattered and beaten-sidled up to the small circle of deferential Weevils through the angrily pulsing beams of red lights. Somehow, Janet had survived the terrible destruction of the Cardiff Hub-but only just. Ghastly scars and a shriveled arm were its horrific souvenirs-an accidental veteran of a battle it had never fought in...
Distracted by Mickey at the keyboard, Janet’s head snapped over to look at them. “Hey… Hey… Hey… It’s ok there, big fella,” soothed the Doctor. She snapped her fingers and waved her hands to regain its attention, speaking calmly, “No, no, no… That’s it… Over here. It’s me you want… Are you the leader, here? Very nice to meet you, my name’s the Doctor. Tell me what you need. I can hear you.”
Janet cocked its head.
The Doctor suddenly clutched her head.
“DOCTOR!” Martha yelled in fear.
“S’ok… I’m ok,” the Doctor struggled to get out. “Just a headache. Like you said, nothing medically wrong with me! Ahhhhaaaaaaakkk!”
The bowing Weevils moaning increased as Janet moved closer to the Doctor.
We will not hurt you.
It was a voice inside the Doctor’s head!
The Doctor held out an outstretched palm to Martha and the rest to stay them. She struggled to communicate back through the pain in her head: Why would you not hurt me but hurt others?? she demanded, for the Doctor still abhorred the senseless death of any living thing. Receiving no immediate answer, the Doctor’s anger spiked. Why did you kill so many to get to me?
We defend ourselves. Humans do not understand us.
Then why have you come here when they imprison you? she asked, telepathically.
We came to find you. We have waited for you all these years. A correct version of you. We are here to warn you… It is coming.
The Doctor closed her eyes against both her headache, and the frustratingly familiar words. What is coming?
An unnatural child brings a song of chaos and redemption, and will make the ultimate sacrifice for the good of all…
The prophecy from Gallifrey?
She opened her eyes, re-thinking her question: What is coming?
The squeal of rubber soles on linoleum rang out as Jack sped into the room. Blood from his neck and shoulder ran down, staining his shirt and jacket. Jack’s chest constricted with the sight of Weevils surrounding the Doctor. “YOU WEEVILS GET AWAY FROM HER!”
“No, no, no! Me! Look at me!” the Doctor barked, retaining the Weevils’ attention. She continued waving her arms. “It’s all right, Jack,” she said, regaining her low, calming voice. “We’re just having a conversation… Nothing to get riled about.” Janet the Weevil continued to remain focused on the Doctor, who struggled to regain a link with the battle-scarred alien, despite the pounding in her head.
Once Jack quieted, the group of Weevils continued their odd, moan-like chanting.
“Oh, my God,” whispered Jack, watching the scene with a keen sense of dread and déjà vu. “King of the Weevils…”
Mickey began making noise over in the corner by the computer. “Oh! Oh, I’ve got it!!”
“You’ve got what?” asked Jack, not wanting to take his eyes off the Weevils surrounding the Doctor.
“Rajid did it! The system’s rebooted, and there’s this code running in the background… Slippery little bugger, but I found it! Looks like it was uploaded off the remote server along with all of the other stuff we got when the systems were integrated after the fall of your old Torchwood Three in Cardiff.”
“Tosh!” exclaimed Jack. “She was always adding bits and bobs to the system!”
“Yeah, well looks like this one is on a time delay-set to come up every seven years. It’s no big deal when managed and maintained by the original programmer, but-“
“If said programmer is wiped out of existence, then there’s no one to watch it!” added Jack.
“-And no one to deprogram it,” finished Mickey. “With no one to key in the code, it kicks in, and-“
“Bingo, lockdown!” said Jack, just a little impressed with Tosh’s ingenuity.
“It was uploaded by mistake and fed into the whole Torchwood computer system. I bet every Torchwood office around the world is having a lovely day today!”
“What about the cell doors downstairs? Why would one of Tosh’s codes unlock the Weevils?”
“Has nothing to do with that,” Mickey reported. “There’s a problem with the generator fueling the emergency backup. Just happened to go down at the same time.”
“Oh, I love synchronicity…” Jack sneered, still keeping his eyes on the Weevils and the Doctor as they communicated soundlessly.
“How can we stop the lockdown?” asked Martha.
“Looks like we need to input a code-“
“Owen,” Jack blurted.
Martha gasped and clasped her hands to her mouth in realisation.
Mickey frowned. “We don’t have an Owen, Jack!”
“I know. But we did. Tosh loved him. It’s the code. Must be. Type it in: Owen Harper.”
“You’d better be right about that, boss-cos-“
“I’m sure of it. Type it in.”
Ten clicks of the keyboard were heard over the low, trancelike moaning of the Weevils-and then one more for the enter key.
Suddenly the main lights came back on and the emergency lights stopped flashing.
And then, as quickly as it began, the bowing-almost cowering-Weevils soundlessly exited the room, leaving Janet facing the Doctor, still telepathically linked.
What is coming? asked the Doctor again, telepathically.
Janet the Weevil cocked her head, baring her teeth. We are here to warn you. All you know will change. The chaos is coming…
In a single, deft move, Janet reached up and touched the Doctor on the forehead. The Doctor gasped. Her head cleared. The perpetual headache that had dogged her since regeneration… vanished!
Concerned the Weevil had hurt her, Jack yelled out, rushing forward, “DOCTOR!”
Janet broke eye contact with the Doctor, spun on its heel and left the room.
Jack sped to follow. The Doctor held up her arm to block him, “No! I’m fine. It’s ok! They’re leaving. Headed back underground. Whole thing was a mistake. They weren’t out to attack anyone. They just wanted me. Apparently their telepathy only works in close proximity.”
“Wanted you for what?” asked Martha.
“They had a message for me. ‘Something is coming,’ apparently.”
Jack rolled his eyes in an oh-Lord-not-this-again kind of way.
“Is that it? ‘Something’s coming?’ Way to go with the cryptic messages! Did they have to go through all that mayhem, blood and bother? Why couldn’t they just say it with flowers?”
“Dunno, Mickey. Awfully hard to order Interflora when you can’t speak,” Jack quipped.
“Well then use the internet like everybody else! And why is it that vague omens never mean something good? Like fluffy bunnies good?” asked Mickey, sardonically.
“Or the Lotto,” Martha added.
“Oh, I dunno,” said the Doctor, rubbing at her glittery, silvery-purple nail polish, “I suppose even fluffy bunnies winning the Lotto could end in tears, too…”
******
Two hours later, an exhausted Mickey, Martha, Jack and the Doctor sat slouched on the couches in the Torchwood break room loft, eating take away Chinese, in the aftermath of their harrowing afternoon.
“Is there something wrong with us that we can eat after a day like today?” asked Mickey dryly as he shoved his chopsticks into his container of mu shu pork, giving up on dinner.
“Only if you’re one of the ones that doesn’t survive for dinner time,” returned Jack. “Y’gotta eat, my friend.”
“It’s not like this is a party,” offered Martha. She pushed her meal away, too, reminded that she would have to begin the search the next day for a new technician to help her in the lab.
“Right. After all, there aren’t any more red lights,” muttered the Doctor as she switched containers with Jack, who quietly guffawed.
“Although if it were, Doctor, you’d certainly have a date-“ started Jack, but the Doctor interrupted him.
“Jaaaaack, I thought we’d been through this-“
Jack laughed. “I’m not talking about me-although the offer’s still out-but it sure looks like you made fast friends with Janet the Weevil.”
The Doctor gaped, horrified. “Janet? You named the Weevil ‘Janet??’”
“Yup,” said Jack with a mouthful of kung pao chicken, “seemed to suit it. Why? What’s wrong with ‘Janet?’”
The Doctor looked off into the middle distance, thinking. “Nothing. It’s just… I was just someplace where I went by that name-can’t go by John anymore-or I could, but they’d stare at me funnier than you are now! Just a creepy coincidence,” she said as she rummaged through the containers looking for the egg rolls. “Now I’ll have to come up with a better alias! I’m not up for thinking about that Weevil all the time now!”
Martha shook her head, having only been half-listening, “I still don’t believe that this started because of some uploaded security code that Tosh put secretly into the system to run in the background that lasted long after she was dead!”
“Yeah, talk about a ghost in the machine!” exclaimed Mickey.
The Doctor smacked herself on the forehead in mid-pinch of the last egg roll. “Ghost in the Machine? Ghost in the machine!! Mickey, you’re brilliant!! Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant!!”
Mickey regarded the Doctor warily. That was the second time in one regeneration that he’d been described as brilliant. He didn’t know what was next.
The Doctor rubbed her head vigorously, ruffling her lopsided hair wildly, “Oooooh! Why did this take me so long to figure out? What is wrong with me??”
“Is this multiple choice or a fill in kind of question?” Mickey quipped.
The Doctor ignored him as she continued to abuse her follicles.
“Doctor,” Martha encouraged, “What have you figured out?”
“A ghost in the machine!” She pointed to Martha. “What did I tell you my headaches were after you examined me? It wasn’t epilepsy-It was…” she prompted.
“Like some sort of telepathic feedback?” Martha answered.
“TELEPATHIC FEEDBACK!!!” the Doctor yelled, elated at her discovery and Martha’s choice of words. She jumped up excitedly, ignoring the headache that was making its inevitable return. “And not just any old telepathic feedback, but a very specific kind-my own kind! But it isn’t the Timelords, cos I can’t hear them. I can only hear myself. Specifically, the most recent versions of myself-my last four regenerations… And why is that??”
The group looked at her in anticipation.
“Because Gallifrey lost its link to the Matrix!! We’re no longer online-they lost the connection during the Time War-the Keeper told me that on Gallifrey. Millennia of stored Timelord bio-data and no way to access it-no way to connect to it. But you yourself, Martha, you saw how much larger the Timelord brain is compared to a human’s! It’s just like that organic computer out there-vast and connected to thousands of programs running at once, and so much data on file-and so much space left over… Like a giant, elegant, brilliant hard drive!”
Jack gasped. “You’re storing the old bio-data on your previous, post-war selves in your own head!”
Martha’s eyes lit up in understanding. “You are your own Matrix!”
The Doctor spun towards her, “OH YES!” she sang, grabbing her by the shoulders and squeezing, “Martha Jones Smith you are brilliant!! Yes!” She tapped her temple. “I’ve got a ghost in my machine!! FOUR, TO BE EXACT! And now I know exactly what to do!”
Tossing the last egg roll down she grabbed her coat and ran for the door.
She knew exactly what she needed to do…
It was time to download!
To be continued in Chaper 18: Holon Relics…
*In addition to NuWho references, a whole bunch of Torchwood Episodes were re-watched for this. Of specific note re: Weevils/Janet were: End Of Days (TW s1), Dead Man Walking and Exit Wounds (TW s2). See the comments below for additional notes and details re: the whys and hows of this fic.
Author: psyfi_geekgirl
BetaBabe: akkajemo
Characters/Pairings: Twelfth Doctor, Jack, Martha/Mickey + OC
Rating: PG-13
Excerpt: Over by the computer terminals, Stefanie blubbered into a hanky, “So, it’s humans against aliens, and time is running out…”
“Ohhhh, really?” moaned the Doctor. “Did you have to say that?”
Word count: 6,634
Disclaimer: until she’s Jossed, Twelve is mine-but of course based entirely on stuff that ain’t mine… All hail Auntie Beeb!
A/N*: Written before Torchwood: Miracle Day and the end of DW season 6, so some details will go AU. If you ask me, it’s better that way…
Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7
Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14
Chapter 15 Chapter 16
Sirens blared. The citizens below shrieked in horror as the monster climbed higher. Flames engulfed the side of the building, turning the inky blackness into daylight. The monster bellowed with pain and rage as his skin blistered with the burns. Inside the building, panicked people ran past lighted windows to get away from the flaming, molten debris.
Atop the building, they sat in a huddle.
“…I have an idea! We’ll cross the streams!”
“You said crossing the streams would be bad!”
“Cross the streams…”
From the couch, Jack tipped his head back and howled with laughter. It rang off the walls, covering the movie dialogue before he tossed a handful of popcorn in the general vicinity of his mouth, peppering the couch with buttery, cooked corn.
Martha tutted and shushed him in disapproval. “Like a toddler on too much sugar you are,” she scolded, pulling the bowl of chocolate Digestives away from the Doctor, whose petulant whining earned her a don’t-start-with-me look from Martha.
“But I’m not even doing anything!” bleated the Doctor. “Jack’s the one making a fuss,” she continued to complain, scrabbling to get the biscuits back.
Martha slapped her hand away, the Doctor’s sparkly-varnished nails glittering in the low light. “Oh, like I don’t know how you get with too much chocolate? Mister Couldn’t Live In 1969 Without His Wispa Bars??”
“You tell ‘em, babe,” encouraged Mickey.
The Doctor shook her head at him, knowing he was only brown-nosing his wife. “That was before!” she said defensively. “Back… when I was all…” she stammered-looking for the right adjective-and wiggled a hand perpendicular to her forehead: “Hair!” she finished, frustrated. “Although, I still pop off to Australia from time to time just to stock up on Wispa Golds...”
“Knew it!” Martha sang with righteousness.
On screen, flaming chunks of melted marshmallow rained down onto the populace below-burying cars and a newsstand-as the enraged monster flailed his hands in agony.
The Doctor continued to reach across for the biscuit bowl. “I can assure you, I’m totally capable of handling a little bit of-“
“AAAH-HAHAHAHAHA!” Jack boomed. “Lookit! How hysterical is that?! The Stay-Puft Marshmallow man and his melting face!”
Still petulant after being denied her biscuits, the Doctor remained stone-faced with her arms crossed, one eyebrow hoisted to the rafters.
“You don’t pout nearly as well as you used to,” Martha told her. With a deep sigh, she succumbed anyway, and gave the bowl of chocolate biscuits back to the Doctor. “S’not a film that’s aged well, has it, though?” suggested Martha.
The Doctor grabbed the bowl back and immediately stuffed two cookies into her mouth.
“Oou’rf mwright, adly,” the Doctor said, between bites, lifting a handful of cookies out of the bowl and stuffing them into her pockets for later, just in case Martha should change her mind and withdraw the bowl again. “Although, you do have to marvel at the ingenuity of the Trap Box system,” she muttered with her mouth now a little less full. “While the physics of the whole Ghostbusters franchise is pure rubbish, the idea is truly poetic…”
“Yeah,” said Mickey, “Sure does beat the whole tranq gun and net thing we’ve been rocking.”
“However, I do adore the handcuffs…” remarked Jack from his end of the couch.
The Doctor shook her head. “What is it with the Harkness Clan and handcuffs…?” she sighed.
Jack guffawed. “Spoilers, Doctor!”
“Oh, no-not you, too!”
Suddenly, a deafening wail of sirens and flashing red lights in their building caused the small group of them to startle in alarm. For a second, everyone looked at each other in confusion.
“What the hell is that?” yelled Martha.
Mickey and Jack jumped up. “Security protocols. We’re going into lockdown!”
“There’s been some sort of security breech!”
The four of them ran out of the break room loft and got to the stairs that led into the main room just in time to see the huge metal security doors slam down into place with a earsplitting clang, shutting off the cargo bay and effectively sealing them in from the outside.
“Where has everybody gone?” asked Martha, dumbfounded by the total lack of personnel in the main room. All of the ten computer terminals were empty and the room was patchily and harshly lit in large swaths of dim yellow from the sodium emergency lights, highlighted with shafts of bluish white from the smaller, wall-mounted LEDs. Punctuating everything was the manic flashing of red from the alarm system.
“Ohhhh, this is never good,” breathed Jack, unholstering his sidearm and peering nervously into the murky yellow and red streaked room. “How many times has this happened before?” Jack sighed as he counted the list off on his fingers: “There’ve been Daleks… crazed, half-mechanical ex-girlfriends… vengeance-crazy, reanimated, ex-employees… hunky, blackmailed-and also crazy-ex-Time Agents from the future-and all wanting to kill us… Getting locked in at Torchwood is never a life prolonging event-“
“Says the Immortal,” quipped Mickey.
“I dunno,” said the Doctor, lightheartedly. “Red lights: Always good for a party!” she exclaimed, shaking her bum to imaginary music as the red lights flashed against her skin. “What is it about humans? You lot never caught on to the whole mauve thing…”
“It’s fine. It’s probably just a computer glitch,” Jack soothed. “It’s just some flashy lights and loud noises, nothing to get our knickers in a twist about-“
Jack was interrupted by the staccato blast of small arms fire that echoed from several floors below.
Mickey turned back to Jack, yelling over the noise. “You were saying??”
Jack shrugged. “Trigger happy trainees, maybe?”
Mickey shook his head, alternatively lit up by red lights. “I so doubt it, mate…”
The Doctor ran towards the nearest computer screen. “Could we at least do something about the obnoxiously loud alarm thingies?” She hit a few buttons and the alarms suddenly stopped. “That’s a relief…” she sighed. “That was doing nothing for my headache! Well, power’s still on, at least. But it’s spotty,” she said, punching more buttons. “Jack? Mickey? What are the standard Torchwood Lockdown Protocols?”
“Hold on,” said Martha, cocking her head to the shadowy room around them. “Is somebody else in here?” she called out. Her concerned voice echoed back to them.
In a dark corner of the room, a shadow shifted.
“Over there!” whispered Jack as he held up his revolver.
“Jaaaaack!” the Doctor hissed at him in disapproval, pushing down his gun.
A dull thud sounded from the dark corner followed by the clank of what could have been a metal cup with pens and pencils hitting the floor.
“If you’re human you had better answer now!” barked Mickey, raising his standard issue Torchwood weapon.
“Don’t shoot me!” came a faint voice from the corner.
Martha waved the boys and their guns off. “Oh, for pity’s sake-it’s no alien! Just a terrified programmer or something.” She moved a few meters down the path between the open computer terminals. “Can you hear me? Are you ok? Just come on outta there.”
The shadow stood up and came closer to them.
“What’s your name?”
“Rajid,” answered the figure in the darkness as it moved closer. “I’m sorry. I just freaked out. After the alarm sounded, all of the Operatives grabbed their guns and ran for the hallway and I just-“
“It’s ok, Rajid,” said the Doctor. “You’ll be safe in here with us.”
An overweight man in his mid-twenties appeared in a pool of yellow light in front of them. He tugged nervously on his rolled-up shirtsleeves. The Doctor held out her hand. “Hello, Rajid, I’m the Doctor.”
“Yeah. I know,” said Rajid.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Have we met before?”
“No. It’s just that… Well… You’re the Doctor. Everybody in Torchwood knows you. We cover you in training. The file’s huge.”
The Doctor sniffed and nodded, remembering. “Oh. Yeah. Guess so, huh?”
“There’s even a video!”
“Really?” She was impressed. “Who’d they get to play me? And please don’t say Andrew-Lee Pots-he’s much too short-and that hair…ick!“
Mickey interrupted the Doctor’s Ego Fest: “Rajid, this lockdown… It’s gotta be some sort of computer glitch, yeah?”
“I was just looking at that before you lot came in. And on top of everything it looks like there’s something wrong with the generator, too.”
“Well, let’s get back to it, then…”
Suddenly, the large white door that separated the interior hallway and the elevators from the main room opened with a loud THWACK and issued five, breathless Torchwood employees into the room.
Martha yelled out to a tall blonde man in a white lab coat, “Jonathan! Is that you? What’s going on out there?”
“You’ve got to lock this door!” yelled Jonathan.
“Oh my God, they were practically right behind us!” screamed one short, dark-eyed woman in a black suit, the flashing emergency lights illuminating the terror in her face.
“What were?” asked the Doctor. “What’s out there?”
“You’ve got to lock this door now!” Jonathan shouted again.
Martha went to him and put a hand on his shoulder as Mickey and Jack went to the door and locked it. “S’all right, s’all right, Jonathan. We’ve got you. You’re safe here now…”
“Oh no we’re not!” shrieked a pretty blonde woman.
“What’s going on out there? What are they firing at?” asked Jack.
“I… I… I don’t-“ stammered the blonde woman.
Jack held out his hand. “Hi. Captain Jack Harkness… And you are…?”
The Doctor rolled her eyes.
“Stefanie,” said the blonde woman.
“Hi, Stefanie. Nice to meet you. Never seen you up this way before. You in R&D?”
“No. Public Relations. Clive, Jonathan, and Joyce here are R&D-“
“I’m in accounting,” blurted the short, dark-eyed woman.
Everybody turned to look at her.
She shrugged, clearly at a loss. “Sorry… But I’ve seen this sort of thing on telly all the time-Twenty-eight Days? Independence Day and other stuff, yeah? I know you lot that work the upper floors are used to The End Of The World and all that, but I just never thought I’d see it. I mean, I may work for Torchwood, but I’m just an accountant! I’m not heroic…”
“Sure you are,” said the Doctor, kindly. “What’s your name?” she asked the panicked woman.
“Khalidah.”
The Doctor held out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Khalidah, I’m the Doctor.”
“NO WAY!” she breathed in astonishment.
The Doctor nervously rubbed the back of her neck. “See the training video did you, Khalidah?”
More shots and shouting came from downstairs.
“It’s getting closer, Jack,” said Mickey, cocking his gun.
“What floor did you all come from?” asked Jack.
“Sub-level five,” answered Joyce, the redhead from R&D. “We met the rest of them in the stairwell at sub-level three, we came the rest of the way up together.”
Jack shook his head grimly. “Well, if the power generator has gone spotty, then it’s possible that the security locks on the cells downstairs have gone down. That’ll mean only one thing-“
“Weevils,” said Mickey.
“Ohhh, and they’re soooo ugly!” Stefanie shuddered. “One almost got me by the elevators on the sub-one floor! Took a big swipe at me!”
“What?!” exclaimed the Doctor, angrily and whirled around towards Jack, the emergency lights enhancing her anger. “I was only kidding a few months ago about the Weevils, Jack. You still have them locked up in here?!”
“They’re dangerous to the public, Doctor,” explained Jack. “We don’t know where they come from, they can’t communicate with us, they’re sensitive to rift energy and time displacement-they all but disappeared after you closed all the rifts the last time-we hadn’t seen any in years and yet recently they’ve been popping up. To keep everybody safe we store them here.”
“We take good care of them, Doctor,” insisted Martha. “We just don’t know what else to do.”
The Doctor was beside herself. “And now they’re being shot like animals in the hallways of Torchwood!” she yelled, pointing towards the sound of the gunfire. “How is this supposed to be Torchwood, reformed in my image?!”
Impugned, Jack pursed his lips and stepped back. The five recent arrivals’ eyes grew wide, witnessing the Doctor’s legendary anger, first-hand.
“How dare you!” shouted Martha, turning on the Doctor. “Y’know Jack does the best he can. For years and years he’s had only himself to rely on. God knows you were nowhere to be found! AND he’s suffered loss after loss watching his team die around him! Where were you, Doctor? Huh? WHERE WERE YOU?!”
“I heard he was in the Prismatic Nebula fighting Energyvores,” said Stefanie.
“No, stupid,” snapped Khalidah, pointing at the Doctor. “He’s right here.”
Clive snorted. “You’re the one that’s stupid. That’s a woman.”
“Yeah. Ok. Standing right here, thanks. Me: The Doctor. That’s right,” she twiddled her sparkly-polished fingers at them. “Right here. Hiya! Yeah, I know. You’ve all seen the video…” She babbled off their looks. She turned to Martha, in answer to her question. “I was getting to know River.”
“And who is River?” she snapped.
The Doctor glanced over to meet Jack’s gaze, understanding by the look in his eyes that he hadn’t told them anything. Loyal Jack, he hadn’t said anything about it-not because he didn’t want to, but because it was so personal to the Doctor. A ghost of a smile flickered across her face as she looked at him. He registered her gratitude and her recognition. He gave a short nod back.
The moment was shattered by shrieks coming from the hallway, just outside the door. Everyone jumped, reacting in alarm.
Reaching the door first, Martha looked out through the tiny, oblong reinforced glass window in the door and screamed. “CARLY!?? Oh my God! They’re out there!” She shuddered. “They’ve nearly reached her! Run, Carly! RUN!”
Carly, Martha’s young Med Lab technician had attempted to bolt for the main door from her hiding place in the ladies lavatory down the hallway. Pursued by growling Weevils, she had faltered as she slipped and fell. Now Martha could only watch helplessly through the tiny window as the half-humanoid aliens surrounded her colleague, the pulsing red lights eerily strobing on their legs as they closed into a tight circle around her.
“Carly! Carly!!” Martha pounded on the door, attempting to distract the Weevils, as Jack, Mickey and the Doctor jumped toward the door. Martha yanked impotently on the locked door. “Open this door! OPEN THIS DOOR!” she yelled at Mickey, who grabbed her around the waist and pulled her off the door. Jack fumbled for the lock as the Doctor pulled out her sonic. In a shaking huddle, several meters away, Stefanie and Joyce cried as Clive comforted them. Khalidah stared at the door with haunted eyes. Jonathan and Rajid stood side-by-side, helplessly.
The horrific cacophony in the hallway reached a fever pitch as the Doctor got her first glimpse outside into the hall. Then the noise stilled.
She grimaced.
The Doctor put her hand up, stilling Jack’s hand at the lock and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Martha. It’s too late...”
Martha wailed out her grief at the loss of her friend as Mickey pulled her into his arms. Deep lines etched into Jack’s face as he slumped his back against the door. The Doctor turned back to the tiny window to get another look at the Weevils.
But they were gone.
“Where did they go?” said the Doctor in amazement. “The Weevils, they were here and now they’ve gone!”
Jack joined her at the tiny window and peeked outside, his lips curling upwards in disgust and anger as he caught a glimpse of Carly’s bloodied, mangled body on the white linoleum floor. Mickey led the still sobbing Martha over to one of the chairs at the computer terminals
Next to Martha, Stefanie blubbered into a hanky, “So, it’s humans against aliens, and time is running out…”
“Ohhhh, really?” moaned the Doctor. “Did you have to say that?”
“I’m sorry, Doctor. But it’s true!”
“No. It isn’t. I’ll tell you what is true, though. We have ten brilliant people in this room-all Torchwood’s finest, and all who have their own expertise. Nothing we can’t figure out if we all keep our heads… What do we know about this lockdown?” She pointed at Rajid.
“Must be a computer glitch,” he answered.
“Right! And what do we need to reverse it?”
Jack spoke up. “In the event of lockdown, all outside connections are cut off. It’s designed to keep whatever threat is inside, trapped inside.”
“But now we’re the ones trapped inside.”
“We’re supposed to be trained to handle the threat ourselves,” said Mickey.
“And yet only a handful of Weevils have overrun the place?! Well done, us!” Clive snapped.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” The Doctor shouted, to stop the escalation of tempers. “Picking at each other is not helpful. A plan of attack is helpful. What can we do to circumvent the computer program?”
“If we can gain access to the telecommunications control panels I can upload a program to reset the system,” said Rajid.
“Excellent! Now we’re thinkin’!”
“Except that’s suicide!” exclaimed Clive. “You’d need the LAN ports and now only the tertiary ones underneath the roof of the building are available, which you’d have to hack into via a cell phone!”
“That’s five floors up!” cried Joyce. “How could anybody get up there with all those Weevils running about?”
“I could get up there,” said Jack.
“Sure,” said Mickey. “And once you did, then what would you do?”
Jack pulled a face. “You could talk me through it.”
“No,” said Mickey. “Someone who knows what they’re doing would need to do it. Time is of the essence.”
“I’ll go,” offered Rajid. “I know how to do it. You could man the computer. You would see once I made it.” He swallowed, understanding the mission he’d just offered himself for.
“I’ll go with him,” said Jonathan. “I helped design the interface matrix, I understand how it works.”
“Thanks, mate,” said Rajid.
“Cheers,” Jonathan replied.
The Doctor slapped both gentlemen on the shoulders. “Well done! That’s the spirit!”
Jack considered the two men. “Well if you guys are gonna head up the back staircase towards the roof, then I should really head out and clear the way of our leathery faced friends. Just give me a head start…”
The Doctor moved to follow him. Jack got in front of her, his blue eyes wide and serious. “And where do you think you’re going?”
“With you. Maybe I can talk to them, find out-“
“Doctor, they don’t communicate! And you aren’t coming.”
“Well, I can’t bloody well stay here!”
“For Chrissakes, Doctor-You’re an endangered species! Weevils don’t want to chat they want a snack. And revenge. This isn’t a party you want to come to-and it certainly isn’t one I’m bringing you to! You need to stay here and look after the rest. Mickey can’t do it, he needs to man the computer!”
Martha’s eyes widened as she watched the Doctor back off. Once she’d relented, Jack spun on his heel and headed towards the back staircase door.
“But you’ll be eaten alive by Weevils, Jack!!” exclaimed Martha as they all followed him.
Jack sniffed confidently, “S’all right, really. I’ve been munched on by Weevils before. Not bad. Tickles a bit. Wouldn’t recommend it, though…” They all stared at him in alarm. “Relax. I’ll be fine. Gimme a minute’s head-start.”
He quickly slid out of the door, but nobody made a move to stop him, everyone feeling both grateful and guilty. It was handy in their line of work to have a man on hand who couldn’t die. But Jack was still their friend, and no one liked to see a friend get hurt.
Resigned, Mickey sighed and locked the door behind him. “Good luck to you, mate,” he mumbled into the tiny glass reinforced window in the door, watching Jack’s coat flutter down the hallway and into imminent unknown horrors as the hallway flashed red around him.
“He doesn’t need the luck, Mickey. We do,” Martha reminded him.
“Maybe so, but he’s the one goin’ out and handin’ himself over to the Weevils as a chew toy, isn’t he?”
“Ok. He’s clear. I think we should get going,” said Jonathan.
Mickey unholstered his gun, holding it out to Jonathan. “Do you know how to work one of these?”
“Same as Medal of Honour, right?”
“Uh…” He shrugged, deciding not to debate the finer differences, “Basically, yeah.” He handed it over, patting him on the shoulder. “You’ll do fine.”
Rajid turned to Mickey, “Just watch the network. You’ll see a spike once I’ve gained access. Then you’ll be able to reboot the system.”
The Doctor looked over at Khalidah, who was chewing on her lip and shuffling her feet. Like a child anxious for the restroom, she appeared to be deciding on how to ask to go with them.
“Wait!” called Khalidah. “Take me with you!”
They looked at her in surprise.
“My father’s taken me to the shooting range since I was six years of age,” she explained. “Jonathan, if you try to fire that thing you’ll get everybody killed.” Khalidah held out her hand for the gun. “Let me go with you.”
“Let her go,” said the Doctor. “She’ll be good luck. Her name means ‘Immortal,’” she said, winking at Khalidah. “You’ll be fine… Really heroic, I promise.”
Grinning at the Doctor, Khalidah took the gun from Jonathan and headed off with the other two men out the back access door and into the stairwell. Mickey went back to the main computer terminal. The Doctor shoved her hands in her pockets, her brow furrowed as she considered how quickly she’d allowed Jack’s “endangered species” line to back her off.
And just what was going on with her anyway?
She felt so angry with herself! Here she was at Torchwood-again. Since when had she needed a base? Since when had she become tied to any one particular place by choice? She’d lost track of the last time she’d actually gone anywhere forwards or backwards in time that hadn’t had something to do with any real kind of adventure. Instead, since her regeneration she’d been hiding behind old companions like she was too scared to go off on her own! Fuming, she began to pace, the ubiquitous flashing red emergency lights mirroring her brutally self-critical thoughts.
For even if she had accepted what she was, she still had trouble accepting who she was. Her most recent experience with her previous self and Rose had only reinforced this. For no matter how she might try, she routinely seemed to become the unwitting catalyst for pain and destruction…
You try to save them, but in doing so, you make it happen. Anything I do just makes it happen…
For a long time, she hadn’t known who she was becoming but she wasn’t sure if she liked it. Perhaps the Alliance hadn’t been too far off imprisoning her inside the Pandorica-maybe they were right: The Doctor was becoming a volatile weapon; and perhaps one that needed to be stopped.
As a result, she did nothing.
As soon as the door shut behind them, Stefanie slipped out of her chair and fainted onto the floor with a thud. Clive and Martha jumped up to tend to her.
“She’s bleeding!” exclaimed Martha, seeing a cut on her side.
“Must have been that Weevil in the stairwell on our way up. It took a swipe at her. We didn’t know it’d gotten her!”
“It doesn’t look bad,” said Martha, trying to see the wound in the semi-darkness and the off and on glow of the red emergency lights. “Must have been all that adrenaline pumping though her system-it probably just wore off. Help me with her,” Martha directed Clive. “We’ll take her into the MedLab. It’s dark, but we’ve got bandages and beds. She can lie quietly for a bit.”
Together, they brought Stefanie into the MedLab. Soon, the glow of an LED emergency lantern illuminated the frosted glass as they tended to her injury.
There was an eerie silence as the only thing they could immediately hear were the ripping of bandages in the MedLab and Mickey typing at the computer nearby.
“It’s too quiet out there,” said Joyce. She sat on the floor under one of the computer terminals with her knees drawn up into her chest, rocking back and forth.
“I’ll take the sound of silence over the sound of my mates screaming in pain any day,” muttered Mickey as he continued working. “Damn alien computer!” He stabbed at the keys in frustration. “For an intuitive, half-sentient piece of kit, it sure acts thick when you need something out of it!”
The Doctor moved around to another terminal, attempting to help.
“It’s no good, boss,” said Mickey from his seat. “When the building is in lockdown the only fully working computer is this one right here-the big brain of the bunch.”
The Doctor sighed, feeling like a fifth wheel.
Martha re-entered the room from the MedLab, having left Clive and Stefanie in there. “She’s stable. Clive said he’d stay and look after her.”
Restless, the Doctor pulled at handfuls of her hair and paced. She felt useless and angry with herself. Her hands fiddled with her sonic in frustration as new noises grew below.
From her place on the floor, Joyce spoke up. “I don’t understand,” complained Joyce, turning to the Doctor. “You’re the Doctor! You’re supposed to be brilliant, powerful and terrifying-why aren’t you doing anything?”
The Doctor studied the floor. She was keenly aware she hadn’t done much to help.
“Don’t you dare!” Martha hissed. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with! The Doctor is all those things you mentioned. The things I’ve seen her do would blow your-“
“No, you’re right, Joyce,” interrupted the Doctor, her brown eyes shining in the intermittent red lights. “I am the Doctor. I am ancient and forever-the stuff of legends-a wise wizard to allies, and a dark, malevolent prince to every foe. I’ve raised armies and ended wars with my very name. My face changes and my personality with it-and sometimes I can’t stand the man I’ve been or the person I’ve become. Sometimes I fight. Sometimes I hide and sometimes, I run…”
The noises in the corridor grew louder. She swirled to face the door. Brandishing her sonic, she strode through the computer terminals, headed for the door as she spoke: “You’re right, Joyce. I am the Doctor-and I am tired of hiding!”
Martha smiled in relief as the Doctor deftly soniced the main door unlocked. She put her hand on the doorknob.
But before she could turn the handle, the fire door on the far side of the room swung open.
Weevils were in the room.
Ten of them.
“We’ve been flanked!” yelled the Doctor, holding out her sonic as she stepped in front of Mickey, Martha and Joyce, as the Weevils-dressed in identical navy blue Torchwood boiler suits-sidled up in a strange gliding, halting gait.
Mickey stilled himself at his computer, eying their new threat, his hand itching for the gun that he’d given to the others earlier.
Ignoring everyone else in the room, the Weevils headed directly toward the Doctor. Martha gasped as they surrounded her. The Doctor attempted to bargain with them. “Listen to me! I can help you! I’m the Doctor!”
Suddenly, the Weevils began to bow and turn their heads away from her, crouching to the ground. They issued a low, moaning whine and withered from her, but did not leave.
They smelled of blood, gunfire and death.
“And what the bloody hell is this?” exclaimed Mickey, dumbfounded. “Do they wanna play Duck Duck Goose??”
“Mickey, keep working that computer!” the Doctor hissed.
“Doctor! Jack said something about them being telepathic!” Martha called out over the Weevils’ muted, rhythmic noises.
The Doctor slowly turned around in a circle, watching them. “Which one of you is your leader, hmm? I know you can’t communicate with the humans, but you can communicate with me. What do you want?”
She looked up as she heard the other door open.
A leather-clad Weevil had entered the room.
Janet the Weevil, still dressed in its black leather suit-now tattered and beaten-sidled up to the small circle of deferential Weevils through the angrily pulsing beams of red lights. Somehow, Janet had survived the terrible destruction of the Cardiff Hub-but only just. Ghastly scars and a shriveled arm were its horrific souvenirs-an accidental veteran of a battle it had never fought in...
Distracted by Mickey at the keyboard, Janet’s head snapped over to look at them. “Hey… Hey… Hey… It’s ok there, big fella,” soothed the Doctor. She snapped her fingers and waved her hands to regain its attention, speaking calmly, “No, no, no… That’s it… Over here. It’s me you want… Are you the leader, here? Very nice to meet you, my name’s the Doctor. Tell me what you need. I can hear you.”
Janet cocked its head.
The Doctor suddenly clutched her head.
“DOCTOR!” Martha yelled in fear.
“S’ok… I’m ok,” the Doctor struggled to get out. “Just a headache. Like you said, nothing medically wrong with me! Ahhhhaaaaaaakkk!”
The bowing Weevils moaning increased as Janet moved closer to the Doctor.
We will not hurt you.
It was a voice inside the Doctor’s head!
The Doctor held out an outstretched palm to Martha and the rest to stay them. She struggled to communicate back through the pain in her head: Why would you not hurt me but hurt others?? she demanded, for the Doctor still abhorred the senseless death of any living thing. Receiving no immediate answer, the Doctor’s anger spiked. Why did you kill so many to get to me?
We defend ourselves. Humans do not understand us.
Then why have you come here when they imprison you? she asked, telepathically.
We came to find you. We have waited for you all these years. A correct version of you. We are here to warn you… It is coming.
The Doctor closed her eyes against both her headache, and the frustratingly familiar words. What is coming?
An unnatural child brings a song of chaos and redemption, and will make the ultimate sacrifice for the good of all…
The prophecy from Gallifrey?
She opened her eyes, re-thinking her question: What is coming?
The squeal of rubber soles on linoleum rang out as Jack sped into the room. Blood from his neck and shoulder ran down, staining his shirt and jacket. Jack’s chest constricted with the sight of Weevils surrounding the Doctor. “YOU WEEVILS GET AWAY FROM HER!”
“No, no, no! Me! Look at me!” the Doctor barked, retaining the Weevils’ attention. She continued waving her arms. “It’s all right, Jack,” she said, regaining her low, calming voice. “We’re just having a conversation… Nothing to get riled about.” Janet the Weevil continued to remain focused on the Doctor, who struggled to regain a link with the battle-scarred alien, despite the pounding in her head.
Once Jack quieted, the group of Weevils continued their odd, moan-like chanting.
“Oh, my God,” whispered Jack, watching the scene with a keen sense of dread and déjà vu. “King of the Weevils…”
Mickey began making noise over in the corner by the computer. “Oh! Oh, I’ve got it!!”
“You’ve got what?” asked Jack, not wanting to take his eyes off the Weevils surrounding the Doctor.
“Rajid did it! The system’s rebooted, and there’s this code running in the background… Slippery little bugger, but I found it! Looks like it was uploaded off the remote server along with all of the other stuff we got when the systems were integrated after the fall of your old Torchwood Three in Cardiff.”
“Tosh!” exclaimed Jack. “She was always adding bits and bobs to the system!”
“Yeah, well looks like this one is on a time delay-set to come up every seven years. It’s no big deal when managed and maintained by the original programmer, but-“
“If said programmer is wiped out of existence, then there’s no one to watch it!” added Jack.
“-And no one to deprogram it,” finished Mickey. “With no one to key in the code, it kicks in, and-“
“Bingo, lockdown!” said Jack, just a little impressed with Tosh’s ingenuity.
“It was uploaded by mistake and fed into the whole Torchwood computer system. I bet every Torchwood office around the world is having a lovely day today!”
“What about the cell doors downstairs? Why would one of Tosh’s codes unlock the Weevils?”
“Has nothing to do with that,” Mickey reported. “There’s a problem with the generator fueling the emergency backup. Just happened to go down at the same time.”
“Oh, I love synchronicity…” Jack sneered, still keeping his eyes on the Weevils and the Doctor as they communicated soundlessly.
“How can we stop the lockdown?” asked Martha.
“Looks like we need to input a code-“
“Owen,” Jack blurted.
Martha gasped and clasped her hands to her mouth in realisation.
Mickey frowned. “We don’t have an Owen, Jack!”
“I know. But we did. Tosh loved him. It’s the code. Must be. Type it in: Owen Harper.”
“You’d better be right about that, boss-cos-“
“I’m sure of it. Type it in.”
Ten clicks of the keyboard were heard over the low, trancelike moaning of the Weevils-and then one more for the enter key.
Suddenly the main lights came back on and the emergency lights stopped flashing.
And then, as quickly as it began, the bowing-almost cowering-Weevils soundlessly exited the room, leaving Janet facing the Doctor, still telepathically linked.
What is coming? asked the Doctor again, telepathically.
Janet the Weevil cocked her head, baring her teeth. We are here to warn you. All you know will change. The chaos is coming…
In a single, deft move, Janet reached up and touched the Doctor on the forehead. The Doctor gasped. Her head cleared. The perpetual headache that had dogged her since regeneration… vanished!
Concerned the Weevil had hurt her, Jack yelled out, rushing forward, “DOCTOR!”
Janet broke eye contact with the Doctor, spun on its heel and left the room.
Jack sped to follow. The Doctor held up her arm to block him, “No! I’m fine. It’s ok! They’re leaving. Headed back underground. Whole thing was a mistake. They weren’t out to attack anyone. They just wanted me. Apparently their telepathy only works in close proximity.”
“Wanted you for what?” asked Martha.
“They had a message for me. ‘Something is coming,’ apparently.”
Jack rolled his eyes in an oh-Lord-not-this-again kind of way.
“Is that it? ‘Something’s coming?’ Way to go with the cryptic messages! Did they have to go through all that mayhem, blood and bother? Why couldn’t they just say it with flowers?”
“Dunno, Mickey. Awfully hard to order Interflora when you can’t speak,” Jack quipped.
“Well then use the internet like everybody else! And why is it that vague omens never mean something good? Like fluffy bunnies good?” asked Mickey, sardonically.
“Or the Lotto,” Martha added.
“Oh, I dunno,” said the Doctor, rubbing at her glittery, silvery-purple nail polish, “I suppose even fluffy bunnies winning the Lotto could end in tears, too…”
******
Two hours later, an exhausted Mickey, Martha, Jack and the Doctor sat slouched on the couches in the Torchwood break room loft, eating take away Chinese, in the aftermath of their harrowing afternoon.
“Is there something wrong with us that we can eat after a day like today?” asked Mickey dryly as he shoved his chopsticks into his container of mu shu pork, giving up on dinner.
“Only if you’re one of the ones that doesn’t survive for dinner time,” returned Jack. “Y’gotta eat, my friend.”
“It’s not like this is a party,” offered Martha. She pushed her meal away, too, reminded that she would have to begin the search the next day for a new technician to help her in the lab.
“Right. After all, there aren’t any more red lights,” muttered the Doctor as she switched containers with Jack, who quietly guffawed.
“Although if it were, Doctor, you’d certainly have a date-“ started Jack, but the Doctor interrupted him.
“Jaaaaack, I thought we’d been through this-“
Jack laughed. “I’m not talking about me-although the offer’s still out-but it sure looks like you made fast friends with Janet the Weevil.”
The Doctor gaped, horrified. “Janet? You named the Weevil ‘Janet??’”
“Yup,” said Jack with a mouthful of kung pao chicken, “seemed to suit it. Why? What’s wrong with ‘Janet?’”
The Doctor looked off into the middle distance, thinking. “Nothing. It’s just… I was just someplace where I went by that name-can’t go by John anymore-or I could, but they’d stare at me funnier than you are now! Just a creepy coincidence,” she said as she rummaged through the containers looking for the egg rolls. “Now I’ll have to come up with a better alias! I’m not up for thinking about that Weevil all the time now!”
Martha shook her head, having only been half-listening, “I still don’t believe that this started because of some uploaded security code that Tosh put secretly into the system to run in the background that lasted long after she was dead!”
“Yeah, talk about a ghost in the machine!” exclaimed Mickey.
The Doctor smacked herself on the forehead in mid-pinch of the last egg roll. “Ghost in the Machine? Ghost in the machine!! Mickey, you’re brilliant!! Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant!!”
Mickey regarded the Doctor warily. That was the second time in one regeneration that he’d been described as brilliant. He didn’t know what was next.
The Doctor rubbed her head vigorously, ruffling her lopsided hair wildly, “Oooooh! Why did this take me so long to figure out? What is wrong with me??”
“Is this multiple choice or a fill in kind of question?” Mickey quipped.
The Doctor ignored him as she continued to abuse her follicles.
“Doctor,” Martha encouraged, “What have you figured out?”
“A ghost in the machine!” She pointed to Martha. “What did I tell you my headaches were after you examined me? It wasn’t epilepsy-It was…” she prompted.
“Like some sort of telepathic feedback?” Martha answered.
“TELEPATHIC FEEDBACK!!!” the Doctor yelled, elated at her discovery and Martha’s choice of words. She jumped up excitedly, ignoring the headache that was making its inevitable return. “And not just any old telepathic feedback, but a very specific kind-my own kind! But it isn’t the Timelords, cos I can’t hear them. I can only hear myself. Specifically, the most recent versions of myself-my last four regenerations… And why is that??”
The group looked at her in anticipation.
“Because Gallifrey lost its link to the Matrix!! We’re no longer online-they lost the connection during the Time War-the Keeper told me that on Gallifrey. Millennia of stored Timelord bio-data and no way to access it-no way to connect to it. But you yourself, Martha, you saw how much larger the Timelord brain is compared to a human’s! It’s just like that organic computer out there-vast and connected to thousands of programs running at once, and so much data on file-and so much space left over… Like a giant, elegant, brilliant hard drive!”
Jack gasped. “You’re storing the old bio-data on your previous, post-war selves in your own head!”
Martha’s eyes lit up in understanding. “You are your own Matrix!”
The Doctor spun towards her, “OH YES!” she sang, grabbing her by the shoulders and squeezing, “Martha Jones Smith you are brilliant!! Yes!” She tapped her temple. “I’ve got a ghost in my machine!! FOUR, TO BE EXACT! And now I know exactly what to do!”
Tossing the last egg roll down she grabbed her coat and ran for the door.
She knew exactly what she needed to do…
It was time to download!
To be continued in Chaper 18: Holon Relics…
*In addition to NuWho references, a whole bunch of Torchwood Episodes were re-watched for this. Of specific note re: Weevils/Janet were: End Of Days (TW s1), Dead Man Walking and Exit Wounds (TW s2). See the comments below for additional notes and details re: the whys and hows of this fic.