Versus Time (2/3)
Title: Versus Time (2/3)
Beta: nightrider101
Rating: PG-13 (R overall)
Warnings: somewhat dark
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Doctor (10), OMCs
Summary: The Doctor being a brave hero with no sense of self-preservation leads to Jack having to save the universe all on his own. Or so it seems.
Note: Will have three chapters instead of the predicted two. Sorry about that.
The Doctor hears the man beside him - Benj - speak, and hears Jack’s voice reply. His body is a single source of pain, but once he managed to push it to the back of his mind and concentrate on his surroundings, he quickly forms an idea of the situation he and Jack are in.
Jack needs to disable those batteries. He has to, and he has to keep these people from collecting the last energy they need for their plans. By now the Doctor can guess what those plans look like, and he knows where they are leading in the end.
If only he could tell Jack, make him understand that this is more important than his life. But the Doctor finds he cannot speak; only a weak sound escapes his throat, and his eyes refuse to open again. He loathes the touch of the man’s hand, so very hot and dry as paper against his skin.
Jack’s voice is still there, but he’s no longer talking to Benj. The connection has been cut and they are, once again, only spying on Jack and his companion. The Doctor needs to move, warn Jack, get away from the hand that is still touching him, but his body won’t obey him.
Icy fear stabs him like a knife and makes him feel sick when he realises that he’s completely helpless. The Doctor doesn’t fear death, is willing to throw himself into life-threatening danger anytime, but he wants to face death fighting. To lie here, unable to move, completely at the mercy of his enemy is as terrifying to him as it would be to anyone else. They can do whatever they want to him, and the Time Lord already not to expect mercy from these people. They’d kill him for fun.
The ruthless coldness they project is chilling, and Benj is the worst; it’s like no one else counts as a living person to him. They’re just potential tools, toys or things that happen to be in the way. The Doctor knows this, but he cannot understand it. Benj scares him, because to the Doctor he’s completely alien.
Most time agents he’s met in his lifetimes have been like this. The Doctor thinks of Jack, grateful that he’s come across one of the few exceptions.
-
Jack kicks the console with a scream of frustration when he gives up, but he gives up all the same. He can’t sacrifice the Doctor, though it surprises him that his old acquaintances know that. It makes him fear they might know who the Doctor is, which only raises his concern for his friend even more.
“Lead me to them,” he barks at Ole. “Right now.”
As they briskly walk out of the complex, Jack almost pushing the other man to go faster, he can’t help looking at his watch, estimating the time left until the next time storm hits the tunnel. It doesn’t matter now. He won’t be here to stop it.
“How did you get him?” he asks, careful not to use the Doctor’s name. “How is he?”
“Very bad.” Ole doesn’t sound sympathetic at all, but he isn’t gloating either, which is better than what Jack got from Benj. “We found him in the skeleton of a building beside the tunnel. He must have been thrown there after the force of the storm threw him through one of the cracks.”
Jack balls his hands into fists, imagining the Doctor flying through the air at rocket speed, crashing into the construction like a bird flying into a windowpane, with enough force to shake the ruins and crush all the bones in his body.
“He’s pretty shattered inside. We’re amazed he even got that far in one piece. A human would have been torn to shreds long before, if the time storm hadn’t turned him to dust.” A glance over his shoulder betrayed Ole’s curiosity. “We tried to find out where and when he came from.”
“Did you now?” Jack keeps his voice blank. They don’t know who the Doctor is. There might be hope yet.
Except the Doctor is suffering from horrible injuries and might die before Jack even gets there. Except Jonah, or Benj or whatever he will call himself next week might be hurting him right now.
Maybe he just wanted to scare him, Jack tries to console himself. Kick up his fears to make him come there quicker thinking his friend was being hurt and abused this very moment. There is little consolation to be found in that, though, because Jack knows this man, and knows what he is capable of. He is a man who tortures, rapes, and kills without remorse. Empty threats are not something he bothers with, for he has no conscience keeping him from carrying them out.
Ironically, it is the Doctor’s fragile state that turns out to be Jack’s only hope; according to both Ole and Benj, the Time Lord is so close to death that any rough treatment could kill him. If Benj wants to keep him as a hostage to ensure Jack’s cooperation, he needs to make sure he stays alive.
Hard as it is, Jack has to accept there is nothing he can do for his friend right now. Instead, he needs to figure out what he can do once he is with him again and has found out what exactly this is all about, why his former acquaintances need him and what he can use against them. But for that, he needs to get there first. To see if he can somehow work this ship of theirs into his plans he’ll have to be inside.
So there is nothing he can do but work through possibilities and what ifs.
If only he had his weapon, Jack could get there, pull it out and shoot all of them on the spot. It wouldn’t satisfy his curiosity, but it would satisfy his blood thirst.
But even against that his opponents would have some kind of precaution. In fact, they’d probably be surprised to learn that he is mostly unarmed these days.
They walk all the way and it takes ages. Jack asks why they don’t use the teleport they are doubtlessly equipped with and is told that the time storm forbids the use of transdimensional technology. It’s not a surprise, but worry and impatience make the explanation difficult to accept when after every corner they pass only more corridors are waiting for them.
The path they take is winding mazelike through the complex. There is no logic to it, but Jack is trained in memorizing ways and counts his steps from every turn to the next. In his mind he is drawing a map, not knowing if he will ever need it.
-
When finally they enter the ship, Jack doesn’t even notice. Narrow corridors of one kind are replaced by narrow corridors of another, and only when they enter the main corridor of the obviously big vessel does Jack realise that they have been walking through the ship for a while now.
Apparently they used the backdoor. Jack wonders why that is, and if he could identify the type of ship if he saw it from the outside; he doesn’t care enough the pose any questions.
The antigravity shafts inside the ships are working, despite the occasional sign of lacking maintenance Jack spotted. They take them to go up, at least fifty metres, to the centre of the vessel. It waits for them behind a thick, automatic door.
On the way it has already become clear that all of the giant ship is inhabited only by Ole and his partners in crime. The control room is their base of operation, the place where they can see everything, do everything, and so they keep to it as much as possible. There is little reason to ever leave it.
It’s a large room, almost a hall, divided by consoles, monitors, projectors and screens. Jonah is sitting in the very centre of it on a floating chair, steepling his fingers as he watches Jack approach, like a king in a medieval movie.
Another man is sitting a few metres away in front of a screen, failing to pretend it has his attention. Apart from that the room is empty.
Time has changed all three of them, but the one before the screen is the only one Jack doesn’t immediately recognize. Eventually he realises that this is Jens who has had his beard shaved off. It makes him look strange to one used to it being there.
He’s probably not called Jens anymore.
“I’m glad you came.” This is Jonah speaking, or Benj, or maybe both of them, full of earnest appreciation and professional seriousness. As if he hadn’t gloated about hurting Jack’s friend mere hours ago that suddenly feel like seconds, and the rage is newborn and screaming.
“Where is he?” Jack hisses, keeping his fury in check like a dog on a leash, ready to go for its target’s throat. His body doesn’t shake, not even when Benj allows himself a faint smile.
“Over there. Alive and sleeping. Don’t disturb him.” Looking to where Benj was gesturing, Jack saw the still figure lying on a table, little more than an outline before a glowing screen. He starts moving when the door closing after Ole sends a gush of wind into the room.
On his way he passes Jens, and suddenly there is a hand on his arm, holding him back. Jens is stronger than Jack remembers, the impression supported by the silent threat of his gesture.
“Don’t disturb him,” Benj says again, his voice friendly.
The Doctor is curled up on his side, dressed in bandages, and there’s blood on them, blood on his face and maybe something else, but Jack is too far away to tell for sure. Benj said he was sleeping, but his eyes are half opened, staring unblinkingly ahead. He doesn’t react to Jack’s presence - maybe he’s not sleeping, but neither is he here with him, or with the people who would (have?) hurt him. Jack wants to call for him, to go there, yet he doesn’t for the hand lying like a warning on his arm.
Benj steps beside him, and when Jack looks at him there is a soft smile on his face, all kind and gentle. Ask me, his eyes demand. Ask me, so I can tell you a story.
Jack doesn’t ask, not that. What Benj would tell him might not be the truth, or it might. He won’t know before he has a proper look at the Doctor, and that Benj will not allow him.
There is no point to this game. These people gain nothing from it but amusement. Jack wishes he could turn back time and make it so he has never been one of them.
-
“I met a certain Captain John Hart the other day,” Benj says minutes later, when they have all settled in the centre of the room for a long overdue conversation. “I believe you’ve met. Unless we didn’t get the timeline right.”
“You have.” Jack nods. “I’m surprised you didn’t recruit him.”
“He wouldn’t have been necessary. Also, he was a bit too unstable for our plans.”
“Really?” Jack raises his eyebrows. “I always thought he was reliably insane.”
“Insane, exactly. We have no need, as you can imagine, for someone insane having any part in our operation.”
“Someone else, you mean. I think he would have fit in with you pretty well.”
Jens, who apparently goes by the name of Antony now, scowls at the undisguised insult, but Benj merely smiles - and Benj, so much is obvious, is definitely the leader here.
“We involve only those we really need in this project,” he explains. “And we need only the best. That’s why we chose you.”
“Oh, you know me.” Jack leans back, faking relaxing. “Flattery will get you everywhere. Except, I have to admit, it’s only worth half as much if it’s coming from you. Now, if you don’t mind, do tell me of this great, mysterious project that would have me cooperate with murderers and rapists, not to mention…”
“You can talk!” That is Jens, unable to control himself. “As if you’d be any better! You may act all nice and holy now, but I’ve seen you work often enough to know that you didn’t get answers out of people by kindly asking. Nor did you ever mind…”
“Now, children, don’t fight,” Benj interrupts his angry friend while Jack does his best not to wince. That was a time of his life he isn’t proud of, and he’s even less proud of the fact that once he was. Being a time agent had meant everything to him, and the agency taught him - them - that a single life is worthless in regard of protecting the timelines and thus the universe. The lesson has been easy for Jack to learn, and travelling through time has strengthened it: it showed them how short and meaningless a lifetime is. Travel a hundred years in the future and the people you just tortured and killed would have been dead anyway, even without you. So what did it matter in the end?
People stopped being people. It was the same as stepping on an ant. And while it never was quite as easy for Jack as for some others, his actions still have been easy to justify.
These days he likes to blame it on the agency. But somewhere deep down inside he knows they would never have taken him in the first place, had the basis for their ideas not been a part of his personality all along.
Jonah looks at him with that unwavering smile, reading his mind.
There are things the Doctor doesn’t know about Jack. Suddenly he fears, more than anything else, that they might have told the Time Lord his secrets.
“Your plans,” he reminds them, before the conversation can linger on these treacherous grounds. “And why do you need me?”
To Jack’s surprise it’s Ole who answers; the first words he’s said since entering the room. “Our plan,” he says, “is to save the world.”
“Which world?”
“This world. Every world.” He spreads his arms in a gesture that’s meant to take in the entire cosmos but only reaches from the end of one arm to the end of the other. “As we should have all along.”
“You’re not making a lot of sense here. There isn’t much of this world left to save.” Even while he says the words, Jack can’t fight the terrible feeling that he knows where this is going.
“Not anymore,” Benj agrees.
Jack closes his eyes.
“I admit you proved me wrong.” He manages to keep his voice calm. “I thought I was dealing with power mad sociopaths, but now you convinced me that I’m dealing with power mad, sociopathic idiots. You can’t change the past. You know what happens.”
This time not even Antony takes offense. Instead he nods. “We thought you would say that. Actually, it was inevitable. But believe me, we know more about time travel than you do.”
Jack refrains from laughing at him. “Go ahead,” he asks, fighting the lump in his stomach. “Convince me.”
“We thought the agency was right with everything it taught us.” That was Ole speaking, possibly fearing he might be forgotten otherwise. “It made so much sense the way they put it, didn’t it? If you change history, reality will collapse. That’s pretty simple, and justifies any means necessary to keep it from happening. But did you ever consider the possibility that they could have been wrong?”
“Everyone has considered that possibility at least once.”
“But no one ever tests it since causing the end of everything is a bit too high a price to pay for curiosity,” Ole says triumphantly. “Also, the agency made sure no one messed with the timelines.”
“If I recall correctly, that was our job description,” Jack remarks drily.
“But now the agency is gone, and we found out they weren’t just wrong - they lied to us.”
“Scandalous.”
“Spare us your sarcasm, Harkness. This wasn’t about something small and personal, but about the rules that shaped our lives, and it concerns all of us.”
Jack doesn’t point out that those rules allowed them to throw all morals out of the window and live a life that would have been impossible in any other circumstances. No consequences.
“So you figured out the past can be changed? Did you try?”
“Here and there. Small things. Unimportant people who should have lived or died and didn’t. Nothing ever happened.”
Out of luck, Jack knows - luck for this entire cosmos, and maybe some other universes as well. The past can be changed in some places, while on others even a man who’s never done anything important in his life missing a bus he should have caught has terrible consequences. The Doctor knows when he can interfere and when he can’t. These former time agents are stabbing at a balloon, convinced it won’t bust.
The idea of how barely they escaped total disaster, just for luck, is unsettling.
“And now you’re aiming for the big thing? See if you can save a planet? Is that why you came here? No.” Jack shakes his head. “Too complicated. You could go anywhere; there are enough lost civilisations out there. Instead you chose this place, at the edge of the galaxy, gathering temporal energy, which I believe is a lot of effort. And on top of it, you made sure to leave your traces all over space and time, to make sure I found you. Tell me why.”
“Re-drawing the big picture isn’t as easy as changing matters without consequence,” Benj admits, taking over explaining. “Not everything we were told was wrong. The cosmos could collapse if we do it wrong. But if we don’t - and this is the part the agency made sure we never knew - if we do it right, we will become gods.”
“You’ve forgotten the insane laughter here.”
“I’m keeping it for later. Wait till you hear the rest of it.” Benj leans forward, closer to Jack. “The agency kept information from us so they could control us. We were just their soldiers, following orders without ever getting a chance to realise our true potential.”
“I’ve found most employers are like that.” Jack still isn’t impressed, just very, very disconcerted. “You noticed any major changes in the time stream during your active time? We agree on the agency’s leaders having been a bunch of power mad control freaks. Why do you think they never used their options to ‘become gods’ themselves, if it was so easy?”
“The Time Lords.”
Jack nearly chokes.
Benj continues before he can say anything stupid. “You know all the speculation of whether they really existed or were just a myth? Yes, they were real. Some kind of time police that will kick your ass if you mess with the time streams, just as the legends would have them. The agency was simply too scared to do anything.”
“Ah.” Jack needs to order his thoughts, so he lets his mouth speak to win time. “And you’re not?”
“Nothing to be scared of.” Benj grants Jack a smile that reeks of triumph. “Turns out they have been gone for a while. No idea why the others never noticed. Maybe they just didn’t trust the information where time travel is involved, but we tried, and no Time Lord ever showed up to wipe us out of existence.”
The explanation seems thin. If these men found out, then the leaders of the agency would have as well.
“And our dear employers were so scared of the Time Lords none the less that they decided to do their job for them.”
Jack nods, his face blank. “That makes a lot of sense.”
If the others detect his barely hidden sarcasm, they don’t show it. “The point remains,” Antony says, “That they are gone, as is the agency, and we are free to do as we should.”
Oh, but they’re not, Jack thinks. There’s one left, one single Time Lord, and he still figured out what you are up to and followed you to the end of nowhere to stop you.
And I’m going to finish his job, and you’ll be wishing it was him instead, because no one hurts the Doctor and gets away with it.
“Which brings us to that friend of yours,” Benj says, taking over the conversation again. For a second Jack feels like jumping out of his skin, because they’ve read his mind and he’s given it all away.
Then Benj continues, oblivious to Jack’s thoughts and the identity of the man laying motionlessly a few metres away, just out of Jack’s reach. “He’s dying, you know? There’s no way anyone could survive injuries like that.” He shrugs. “I just thought you might be interested, since you actually seem to care.”
Jack’s insides clench, but he stays calm. “And would he also die if you hadn’t found him?”
“Yes.” Such a plain answer, and yet it doesn’t absolve them of any guilt. Without their stupid plot, the Doctor wouldn’t even have been here.
“In that case, he’s worthless as a hostage. So you can just as well hand him to me, and we’re going to leave here, because whatever you want me to do, I’m certainly not going to do it.” He leans forward, towards Benj, to stare into his eyes. The others become shadows in his peripheral vision, meaningless. “You should hear yourself talk. Did you ever stop to wonder why the Time Lords never used that power over time to their own gain but did all they could to stop others from doing so?”
“Oh, they did.” Benj is still speaking casually - only who has been trained for it can detect the excitement in his voice. “They did it all the time. Even keeping people from changing history was changing history. They weren’t part of any untouched timeline, after all, so they used the universe as their playground. But they didn’t want anyone else to have that power, least they might get competition.”
There’s nothing Jack can say to protest, knowing there is at least some truth in it. He wishes, suddenly, the Doctor was here, who would have more convincing arguments because he understood the nature of time and the motivation of his people so much better.
“You know a lot about a race you doubted even existed the last time we met.” It sounds lame to Jack, an argument for the sake of arguing.
“They didn’t exist. Wiped out of space and time - since they were existing outside these concepts, their annihilation has erased them from history altogether. Which makes it hard to research them, I admit, but there were traces left if you knew where to look. You friend is like that, too.”
“What?” This is making Jack even more on edge than he was anyway. He wishes the conversation would stray away from Time Lords and the Doctor, and any connection there might be between them.
“He has no original time, or at least none we could determine. I asked, but he wasn’t very forthcoming.”
“Because he was unconscious, I hope.”
Benj merely smiles.
“Not that it matters, now. He’s going to die, and it’s not even our fault. But if you’re not going to help us, it’ll be yours.”
“What do you mean by that? That you could save him but won’t, if I don’t help you?” Somehow, Jack doesn’t think it’s going to be that simple.
“No. He will die. But with your help, we can make sure it never happened. You can go back in time and save him. And there will be no consequences.”
No consequences. Jack closes his eyes and knows that nothing in life ever is for free.
-
He isn’t worried about the Doctor’s life, not like he should be. The idea of him dying is just unthinkable, especially now he’s just returned from assumed death once again.
It’s the ‘no consequences’ part that worries him. Sitting at the edge of the room, Jack watches the others thoughtfully. Antony is constantly near him, watching even with his back turned. Making sure Jack doesn’t do anything out of line, he’s already shot him once, when Jack decided to ignore his warnings and go over to the Doctor anyway. Needless to say, he didn’t make it.
The Time Lord has moved, turning from his side to his back, but as far as Jack can tell, isn’t any closer to consciousness than he was an hour ago. The former time agent can well imagine what his friend would have to say about Benj’s plan.
The time storm has caused chaos with the fabric of time on this planet, making this the only place in the universe suitable for their plan, that involves gathering the energy of that storm and taking it back to the past, before the cataclysm, where they will use the very same energy that destroyed this world to prevent this world’s destruction. A perfect paradox.
And once the fabric of time is broken around them, full of cracks that slowly spread outward, they will only have to apply a little pressure to bend it to their will everywhere and anywhere else.
It is madness, repelling all Jack’s instincts as a time traveller and former agent. And yet the negative answer he should have given within a second still hasn’t passed his lips.
They have the Doctor as a hostage; that’s a good enough excuse for Jack’s hesitation, but he also knows there’s more to it. Because it’s tempting. Because he’s lost so many friends and lovers and he’s come to accept death, and change, but should the Doctor really die, without regenerating… Jack is ashamed to admit to himself that he can’t bring himself to give up the option of saving him.
Even if the Doctor would never forgive him.
And this world… Jack knows better than to expect his former acquaintances have any real interest in saving this lost civilisation, but that doesn’t change anything about his guilt should he decide to let them die. To let them have died.
After all, all the rules for the prevention of paradoxes won’t count anymore, once the risk of accidentally destroying everything that ever was or will be has been eliminated.
There are at least one hundred reasons why this still isn’t right that Jack can think of on the spot, but they all pale in the face of the overwhelming guilt of the mighty.
Behind him, the door opens, admitting Ole - Jack hadn’t even noticed him leaving the room. When he enters, a breath of air caresses the skin on Jack’s neck, making him shiver. Caused by the doors sliding open, he thinks absentmindedly, and that the air really has no excuse to move so much here, deep inside this ship, where there is no change in air pressure or temperature.
Over at the other end of the room Benj looks up and beckons his friend over. Their leader has been sitting close to the Doctor all the time, unnerving Jack with that proximity alone and doubtlessly knowing it. Every now and then he would run his hand through the Doctor’s hair, or down his neck, and look at Jack with a smile that invites murder.
Jack doesn’t murder him. Jack stays remarkably calm. Even when Benj slips his hand beneath the blanket covering the Doctor, and the Doctor makes an uncoordinated movement as if to push him away.
Ole and Benj exchange words, too quiet for Jack to hear. After a minute, Benj beckons Jack to come over, but meets him halfway, so the Doctor is still out of his reach. He wonders what they are getting out of this game.
Jack can, however, hear the Doctor’s voice: a low, tuneless humming, quiet and strangely ethereal. It makes him stare beyond Benj and Ole to where the Doctor is lying, moving ever so slightly, and his eyes, Jack can just about tell, are half open and staring at the ceiling.
He wants to call out, get his attention, but remembers just in time that he’s not supposed to give anyone the Doctor’s name.
He’s too freaking famous among time travellers. They really don’t need to know that he’s more than just a legend.
“He’s delirious,” Ole says before Jack can come up with something else to call his friend. “Don’t bother.”
“You know, I think you’re not letting me close to him so I won’t discover that he isn’t so badly hurt after all.”
“You can hope that,” Benj says with a smile. “But even if he wasn’t, we could always kill him ourselves. And there’s this to consider.” He types an order into his console, and before Jack a holographic image appears. He sees high towers gleaming in the sunshine, trees and meadows and countless people in the streets and knows what he is seeing.
“We took this in the year before they killed themselves,” Benj explains. “You see these children? They will die because of you. They’ll either be blasted to pieces or age and wither in fast-forward mode, and while it will happen quickly, it won’t happen so quickly that they won’t be aware of it. They’ll be scared, Jack, and in pain.”
“Only you could sound so bloody pleased about that.” Jack grinds his teeth. He tries not to show how much these images of playing alien children are getting to him, but fears that the others might know. It is a simple psychological trick he has used himself often enough. Five billion dead people are just statistics, but this record gives them a face, and the fact that it only shows the past in a very narrow point of view doesn’t help at all.
“Don’t do it for the nameless masses,” Benj tries again. “Do it for the little boy with the black spots on his fur standing under that tree there. We met him when we visited that time. His name is Rol -”
“I don’t need to know his name.” Jack hisses, and it is a mistake. He curses, with all his heart, the Doctor, and how he has made him go soft like this.
Before, Jack would not have had so much trouble justifying the demise of billions. On the other hand, maybe then he would have joined forces with the other three long ago.
But would that really be such a bad thing?
Glancing over to where the Doctor is still humming his tuneless, detached song, just so he doesn’t have to look at Benj and his self-assured smile, Jack makes his decision.
- tbc
May 26, 2009
Beta: nightrider101
Rating: PG-13 (R overall)
Warnings: somewhat dark
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Doctor (10), OMCs
Summary: The Doctor being a brave hero with no sense of self-preservation leads to Jack having to save the universe all on his own. Or so it seems.
Note: Will have three chapters instead of the predicted two. Sorry about that.
The Doctor hears the man beside him - Benj - speak, and hears Jack’s voice reply. His body is a single source of pain, but once he managed to push it to the back of his mind and concentrate on his surroundings, he quickly forms an idea of the situation he and Jack are in.
Jack needs to disable those batteries. He has to, and he has to keep these people from collecting the last energy they need for their plans. By now the Doctor can guess what those plans look like, and he knows where they are leading in the end.
If only he could tell Jack, make him understand that this is more important than his life. But the Doctor finds he cannot speak; only a weak sound escapes his throat, and his eyes refuse to open again. He loathes the touch of the man’s hand, so very hot and dry as paper against his skin.
Jack’s voice is still there, but he’s no longer talking to Benj. The connection has been cut and they are, once again, only spying on Jack and his companion. The Doctor needs to move, warn Jack, get away from the hand that is still touching him, but his body won’t obey him.
Icy fear stabs him like a knife and makes him feel sick when he realises that he’s completely helpless. The Doctor doesn’t fear death, is willing to throw himself into life-threatening danger anytime, but he wants to face death fighting. To lie here, unable to move, completely at the mercy of his enemy is as terrifying to him as it would be to anyone else. They can do whatever they want to him, and the Time Lord already not to expect mercy from these people. They’d kill him for fun.
The ruthless coldness they project is chilling, and Benj is the worst; it’s like no one else counts as a living person to him. They’re just potential tools, toys or things that happen to be in the way. The Doctor knows this, but he cannot understand it. Benj scares him, because to the Doctor he’s completely alien.
Most time agents he’s met in his lifetimes have been like this. The Doctor thinks of Jack, grateful that he’s come across one of the few exceptions.
-
Jack kicks the console with a scream of frustration when he gives up, but he gives up all the same. He can’t sacrifice the Doctor, though it surprises him that his old acquaintances know that. It makes him fear they might know who the Doctor is, which only raises his concern for his friend even more.
“Lead me to them,” he barks at Ole. “Right now.”
As they briskly walk out of the complex, Jack almost pushing the other man to go faster, he can’t help looking at his watch, estimating the time left until the next time storm hits the tunnel. It doesn’t matter now. He won’t be here to stop it.
“How did you get him?” he asks, careful not to use the Doctor’s name. “How is he?”
“Very bad.” Ole doesn’t sound sympathetic at all, but he isn’t gloating either, which is better than what Jack got from Benj. “We found him in the skeleton of a building beside the tunnel. He must have been thrown there after the force of the storm threw him through one of the cracks.”
Jack balls his hands into fists, imagining the Doctor flying through the air at rocket speed, crashing into the construction like a bird flying into a windowpane, with enough force to shake the ruins and crush all the bones in his body.
“He’s pretty shattered inside. We’re amazed he even got that far in one piece. A human would have been torn to shreds long before, if the time storm hadn’t turned him to dust.” A glance over his shoulder betrayed Ole’s curiosity. “We tried to find out where and when he came from.”
“Did you now?” Jack keeps his voice blank. They don’t know who the Doctor is. There might be hope yet.
Except the Doctor is suffering from horrible injuries and might die before Jack even gets there. Except Jonah, or Benj or whatever he will call himself next week might be hurting him right now.
Maybe he just wanted to scare him, Jack tries to console himself. Kick up his fears to make him come there quicker thinking his friend was being hurt and abused this very moment. There is little consolation to be found in that, though, because Jack knows this man, and knows what he is capable of. He is a man who tortures, rapes, and kills without remorse. Empty threats are not something he bothers with, for he has no conscience keeping him from carrying them out.
Ironically, it is the Doctor’s fragile state that turns out to be Jack’s only hope; according to both Ole and Benj, the Time Lord is so close to death that any rough treatment could kill him. If Benj wants to keep him as a hostage to ensure Jack’s cooperation, he needs to make sure he stays alive.
Hard as it is, Jack has to accept there is nothing he can do for his friend right now. Instead, he needs to figure out what he can do once he is with him again and has found out what exactly this is all about, why his former acquaintances need him and what he can use against them. But for that, he needs to get there first. To see if he can somehow work this ship of theirs into his plans he’ll have to be inside.
So there is nothing he can do but work through possibilities and what ifs.
If only he had his weapon, Jack could get there, pull it out and shoot all of them on the spot. It wouldn’t satisfy his curiosity, but it would satisfy his blood thirst.
But even against that his opponents would have some kind of precaution. In fact, they’d probably be surprised to learn that he is mostly unarmed these days.
They walk all the way and it takes ages. Jack asks why they don’t use the teleport they are doubtlessly equipped with and is told that the time storm forbids the use of transdimensional technology. It’s not a surprise, but worry and impatience make the explanation difficult to accept when after every corner they pass only more corridors are waiting for them.
The path they take is winding mazelike through the complex. There is no logic to it, but Jack is trained in memorizing ways and counts his steps from every turn to the next. In his mind he is drawing a map, not knowing if he will ever need it.
-
When finally they enter the ship, Jack doesn’t even notice. Narrow corridors of one kind are replaced by narrow corridors of another, and only when they enter the main corridor of the obviously big vessel does Jack realise that they have been walking through the ship for a while now.
Apparently they used the backdoor. Jack wonders why that is, and if he could identify the type of ship if he saw it from the outside; he doesn’t care enough the pose any questions.
The antigravity shafts inside the ships are working, despite the occasional sign of lacking maintenance Jack spotted. They take them to go up, at least fifty metres, to the centre of the vessel. It waits for them behind a thick, automatic door.
On the way it has already become clear that all of the giant ship is inhabited only by Ole and his partners in crime. The control room is their base of operation, the place where they can see everything, do everything, and so they keep to it as much as possible. There is little reason to ever leave it.
It’s a large room, almost a hall, divided by consoles, monitors, projectors and screens. Jonah is sitting in the very centre of it on a floating chair, steepling his fingers as he watches Jack approach, like a king in a medieval movie.
Another man is sitting a few metres away in front of a screen, failing to pretend it has his attention. Apart from that the room is empty.
Time has changed all three of them, but the one before the screen is the only one Jack doesn’t immediately recognize. Eventually he realises that this is Jens who has had his beard shaved off. It makes him look strange to one used to it being there.
He’s probably not called Jens anymore.
“I’m glad you came.” This is Jonah speaking, or Benj, or maybe both of them, full of earnest appreciation and professional seriousness. As if he hadn’t gloated about hurting Jack’s friend mere hours ago that suddenly feel like seconds, and the rage is newborn and screaming.
“Where is he?” Jack hisses, keeping his fury in check like a dog on a leash, ready to go for its target’s throat. His body doesn’t shake, not even when Benj allows himself a faint smile.
“Over there. Alive and sleeping. Don’t disturb him.” Looking to where Benj was gesturing, Jack saw the still figure lying on a table, little more than an outline before a glowing screen. He starts moving when the door closing after Ole sends a gush of wind into the room.
On his way he passes Jens, and suddenly there is a hand on his arm, holding him back. Jens is stronger than Jack remembers, the impression supported by the silent threat of his gesture.
“Don’t disturb him,” Benj says again, his voice friendly.
The Doctor is curled up on his side, dressed in bandages, and there’s blood on them, blood on his face and maybe something else, but Jack is too far away to tell for sure. Benj said he was sleeping, but his eyes are half opened, staring unblinkingly ahead. He doesn’t react to Jack’s presence - maybe he’s not sleeping, but neither is he here with him, or with the people who would (have?) hurt him. Jack wants to call for him, to go there, yet he doesn’t for the hand lying like a warning on his arm.
Benj steps beside him, and when Jack looks at him there is a soft smile on his face, all kind and gentle. Ask me, his eyes demand. Ask me, so I can tell you a story.
Jack doesn’t ask, not that. What Benj would tell him might not be the truth, or it might. He won’t know before he has a proper look at the Doctor, and that Benj will not allow him.
There is no point to this game. These people gain nothing from it but amusement. Jack wishes he could turn back time and make it so he has never been one of them.
-
“I met a certain Captain John Hart the other day,” Benj says minutes later, when they have all settled in the centre of the room for a long overdue conversation. “I believe you’ve met. Unless we didn’t get the timeline right.”
“You have.” Jack nods. “I’m surprised you didn’t recruit him.”
“He wouldn’t have been necessary. Also, he was a bit too unstable for our plans.”
“Really?” Jack raises his eyebrows. “I always thought he was reliably insane.”
“Insane, exactly. We have no need, as you can imagine, for someone insane having any part in our operation.”
“Someone else, you mean. I think he would have fit in with you pretty well.”
Jens, who apparently goes by the name of Antony now, scowls at the undisguised insult, but Benj merely smiles - and Benj, so much is obvious, is definitely the leader here.
“We involve only those we really need in this project,” he explains. “And we need only the best. That’s why we chose you.”
“Oh, you know me.” Jack leans back, faking relaxing. “Flattery will get you everywhere. Except, I have to admit, it’s only worth half as much if it’s coming from you. Now, if you don’t mind, do tell me of this great, mysterious project that would have me cooperate with murderers and rapists, not to mention…”
“You can talk!” That is Jens, unable to control himself. “As if you’d be any better! You may act all nice and holy now, but I’ve seen you work often enough to know that you didn’t get answers out of people by kindly asking. Nor did you ever mind…”
“Now, children, don’t fight,” Benj interrupts his angry friend while Jack does his best not to wince. That was a time of his life he isn’t proud of, and he’s even less proud of the fact that once he was. Being a time agent had meant everything to him, and the agency taught him - them - that a single life is worthless in regard of protecting the timelines and thus the universe. The lesson has been easy for Jack to learn, and travelling through time has strengthened it: it showed them how short and meaningless a lifetime is. Travel a hundred years in the future and the people you just tortured and killed would have been dead anyway, even without you. So what did it matter in the end?
People stopped being people. It was the same as stepping on an ant. And while it never was quite as easy for Jack as for some others, his actions still have been easy to justify.
These days he likes to blame it on the agency. But somewhere deep down inside he knows they would never have taken him in the first place, had the basis for their ideas not been a part of his personality all along.
Jonah looks at him with that unwavering smile, reading his mind.
There are things the Doctor doesn’t know about Jack. Suddenly he fears, more than anything else, that they might have told the Time Lord his secrets.
“Your plans,” he reminds them, before the conversation can linger on these treacherous grounds. “And why do you need me?”
To Jack’s surprise it’s Ole who answers; the first words he’s said since entering the room. “Our plan,” he says, “is to save the world.”
“Which world?”
“This world. Every world.” He spreads his arms in a gesture that’s meant to take in the entire cosmos but only reaches from the end of one arm to the end of the other. “As we should have all along.”
“You’re not making a lot of sense here. There isn’t much of this world left to save.” Even while he says the words, Jack can’t fight the terrible feeling that he knows where this is going.
“Not anymore,” Benj agrees.
Jack closes his eyes.
“I admit you proved me wrong.” He manages to keep his voice calm. “I thought I was dealing with power mad sociopaths, but now you convinced me that I’m dealing with power mad, sociopathic idiots. You can’t change the past. You know what happens.”
This time not even Antony takes offense. Instead he nods. “We thought you would say that. Actually, it was inevitable. But believe me, we know more about time travel than you do.”
Jack refrains from laughing at him. “Go ahead,” he asks, fighting the lump in his stomach. “Convince me.”
“We thought the agency was right with everything it taught us.” That was Ole speaking, possibly fearing he might be forgotten otherwise. “It made so much sense the way they put it, didn’t it? If you change history, reality will collapse. That’s pretty simple, and justifies any means necessary to keep it from happening. But did you ever consider the possibility that they could have been wrong?”
“Everyone has considered that possibility at least once.”
“But no one ever tests it since causing the end of everything is a bit too high a price to pay for curiosity,” Ole says triumphantly. “Also, the agency made sure no one messed with the timelines.”
“If I recall correctly, that was our job description,” Jack remarks drily.
“But now the agency is gone, and we found out they weren’t just wrong - they lied to us.”
“Scandalous.”
“Spare us your sarcasm, Harkness. This wasn’t about something small and personal, but about the rules that shaped our lives, and it concerns all of us.”
Jack doesn’t point out that those rules allowed them to throw all morals out of the window and live a life that would have been impossible in any other circumstances. No consequences.
“So you figured out the past can be changed? Did you try?”
“Here and there. Small things. Unimportant people who should have lived or died and didn’t. Nothing ever happened.”
Out of luck, Jack knows - luck for this entire cosmos, and maybe some other universes as well. The past can be changed in some places, while on others even a man who’s never done anything important in his life missing a bus he should have caught has terrible consequences. The Doctor knows when he can interfere and when he can’t. These former time agents are stabbing at a balloon, convinced it won’t bust.
The idea of how barely they escaped total disaster, just for luck, is unsettling.
“And now you’re aiming for the big thing? See if you can save a planet? Is that why you came here? No.” Jack shakes his head. “Too complicated. You could go anywhere; there are enough lost civilisations out there. Instead you chose this place, at the edge of the galaxy, gathering temporal energy, which I believe is a lot of effort. And on top of it, you made sure to leave your traces all over space and time, to make sure I found you. Tell me why.”
“Re-drawing the big picture isn’t as easy as changing matters without consequence,” Benj admits, taking over explaining. “Not everything we were told was wrong. The cosmos could collapse if we do it wrong. But if we don’t - and this is the part the agency made sure we never knew - if we do it right, we will become gods.”
“You’ve forgotten the insane laughter here.”
“I’m keeping it for later. Wait till you hear the rest of it.” Benj leans forward, closer to Jack. “The agency kept information from us so they could control us. We were just their soldiers, following orders without ever getting a chance to realise our true potential.”
“I’ve found most employers are like that.” Jack still isn’t impressed, just very, very disconcerted. “You noticed any major changes in the time stream during your active time? We agree on the agency’s leaders having been a bunch of power mad control freaks. Why do you think they never used their options to ‘become gods’ themselves, if it was so easy?”
“The Time Lords.”
Jack nearly chokes.
Benj continues before he can say anything stupid. “You know all the speculation of whether they really existed or were just a myth? Yes, they were real. Some kind of time police that will kick your ass if you mess with the time streams, just as the legends would have them. The agency was simply too scared to do anything.”
“Ah.” Jack needs to order his thoughts, so he lets his mouth speak to win time. “And you’re not?”
“Nothing to be scared of.” Benj grants Jack a smile that reeks of triumph. “Turns out they have been gone for a while. No idea why the others never noticed. Maybe they just didn’t trust the information where time travel is involved, but we tried, and no Time Lord ever showed up to wipe us out of existence.”
The explanation seems thin. If these men found out, then the leaders of the agency would have as well.
“And our dear employers were so scared of the Time Lords none the less that they decided to do their job for them.”
Jack nods, his face blank. “That makes a lot of sense.”
If the others detect his barely hidden sarcasm, they don’t show it. “The point remains,” Antony says, “That they are gone, as is the agency, and we are free to do as we should.”
Oh, but they’re not, Jack thinks. There’s one left, one single Time Lord, and he still figured out what you are up to and followed you to the end of nowhere to stop you.
And I’m going to finish his job, and you’ll be wishing it was him instead, because no one hurts the Doctor and gets away with it.
“Which brings us to that friend of yours,” Benj says, taking over the conversation again. For a second Jack feels like jumping out of his skin, because they’ve read his mind and he’s given it all away.
Then Benj continues, oblivious to Jack’s thoughts and the identity of the man laying motionlessly a few metres away, just out of Jack’s reach. “He’s dying, you know? There’s no way anyone could survive injuries like that.” He shrugs. “I just thought you might be interested, since you actually seem to care.”
Jack’s insides clench, but he stays calm. “And would he also die if you hadn’t found him?”
“Yes.” Such a plain answer, and yet it doesn’t absolve them of any guilt. Without their stupid plot, the Doctor wouldn’t even have been here.
“In that case, he’s worthless as a hostage. So you can just as well hand him to me, and we’re going to leave here, because whatever you want me to do, I’m certainly not going to do it.” He leans forward, towards Benj, to stare into his eyes. The others become shadows in his peripheral vision, meaningless. “You should hear yourself talk. Did you ever stop to wonder why the Time Lords never used that power over time to their own gain but did all they could to stop others from doing so?”
“Oh, they did.” Benj is still speaking casually - only who has been trained for it can detect the excitement in his voice. “They did it all the time. Even keeping people from changing history was changing history. They weren’t part of any untouched timeline, after all, so they used the universe as their playground. But they didn’t want anyone else to have that power, least they might get competition.”
There’s nothing Jack can say to protest, knowing there is at least some truth in it. He wishes, suddenly, the Doctor was here, who would have more convincing arguments because he understood the nature of time and the motivation of his people so much better.
“You know a lot about a race you doubted even existed the last time we met.” It sounds lame to Jack, an argument for the sake of arguing.
“They didn’t exist. Wiped out of space and time - since they were existing outside these concepts, their annihilation has erased them from history altogether. Which makes it hard to research them, I admit, but there were traces left if you knew where to look. You friend is like that, too.”
“What?” This is making Jack even more on edge than he was anyway. He wishes the conversation would stray away from Time Lords and the Doctor, and any connection there might be between them.
“He has no original time, or at least none we could determine. I asked, but he wasn’t very forthcoming.”
“Because he was unconscious, I hope.”
Benj merely smiles.
“Not that it matters, now. He’s going to die, and it’s not even our fault. But if you’re not going to help us, it’ll be yours.”
“What do you mean by that? That you could save him but won’t, if I don’t help you?” Somehow, Jack doesn’t think it’s going to be that simple.
“No. He will die. But with your help, we can make sure it never happened. You can go back in time and save him. And there will be no consequences.”
No consequences. Jack closes his eyes and knows that nothing in life ever is for free.
-
He isn’t worried about the Doctor’s life, not like he should be. The idea of him dying is just unthinkable, especially now he’s just returned from assumed death once again.
It’s the ‘no consequences’ part that worries him. Sitting at the edge of the room, Jack watches the others thoughtfully. Antony is constantly near him, watching even with his back turned. Making sure Jack doesn’t do anything out of line, he’s already shot him once, when Jack decided to ignore his warnings and go over to the Doctor anyway. Needless to say, he didn’t make it.
The Time Lord has moved, turning from his side to his back, but as far as Jack can tell, isn’t any closer to consciousness than he was an hour ago. The former time agent can well imagine what his friend would have to say about Benj’s plan.
The time storm has caused chaos with the fabric of time on this planet, making this the only place in the universe suitable for their plan, that involves gathering the energy of that storm and taking it back to the past, before the cataclysm, where they will use the very same energy that destroyed this world to prevent this world’s destruction. A perfect paradox.
And once the fabric of time is broken around them, full of cracks that slowly spread outward, they will only have to apply a little pressure to bend it to their will everywhere and anywhere else.
It is madness, repelling all Jack’s instincts as a time traveller and former agent. And yet the negative answer he should have given within a second still hasn’t passed his lips.
They have the Doctor as a hostage; that’s a good enough excuse for Jack’s hesitation, but he also knows there’s more to it. Because it’s tempting. Because he’s lost so many friends and lovers and he’s come to accept death, and change, but should the Doctor really die, without regenerating… Jack is ashamed to admit to himself that he can’t bring himself to give up the option of saving him.
Even if the Doctor would never forgive him.
And this world… Jack knows better than to expect his former acquaintances have any real interest in saving this lost civilisation, but that doesn’t change anything about his guilt should he decide to let them die. To let them have died.
After all, all the rules for the prevention of paradoxes won’t count anymore, once the risk of accidentally destroying everything that ever was or will be has been eliminated.
There are at least one hundred reasons why this still isn’t right that Jack can think of on the spot, but they all pale in the face of the overwhelming guilt of the mighty.
Behind him, the door opens, admitting Ole - Jack hadn’t even noticed him leaving the room. When he enters, a breath of air caresses the skin on Jack’s neck, making him shiver. Caused by the doors sliding open, he thinks absentmindedly, and that the air really has no excuse to move so much here, deep inside this ship, where there is no change in air pressure or temperature.
Over at the other end of the room Benj looks up and beckons his friend over. Their leader has been sitting close to the Doctor all the time, unnerving Jack with that proximity alone and doubtlessly knowing it. Every now and then he would run his hand through the Doctor’s hair, or down his neck, and look at Jack with a smile that invites murder.
Jack doesn’t murder him. Jack stays remarkably calm. Even when Benj slips his hand beneath the blanket covering the Doctor, and the Doctor makes an uncoordinated movement as if to push him away.
Ole and Benj exchange words, too quiet for Jack to hear. After a minute, Benj beckons Jack to come over, but meets him halfway, so the Doctor is still out of his reach. He wonders what they are getting out of this game.
Jack can, however, hear the Doctor’s voice: a low, tuneless humming, quiet and strangely ethereal. It makes him stare beyond Benj and Ole to where the Doctor is lying, moving ever so slightly, and his eyes, Jack can just about tell, are half open and staring at the ceiling.
He wants to call out, get his attention, but remembers just in time that he’s not supposed to give anyone the Doctor’s name.
He’s too freaking famous among time travellers. They really don’t need to know that he’s more than just a legend.
“He’s delirious,” Ole says before Jack can come up with something else to call his friend. “Don’t bother.”
“You know, I think you’re not letting me close to him so I won’t discover that he isn’t so badly hurt after all.”
“You can hope that,” Benj says with a smile. “But even if he wasn’t, we could always kill him ourselves. And there’s this to consider.” He types an order into his console, and before Jack a holographic image appears. He sees high towers gleaming in the sunshine, trees and meadows and countless people in the streets and knows what he is seeing.
“We took this in the year before they killed themselves,” Benj explains. “You see these children? They will die because of you. They’ll either be blasted to pieces or age and wither in fast-forward mode, and while it will happen quickly, it won’t happen so quickly that they won’t be aware of it. They’ll be scared, Jack, and in pain.”
“Only you could sound so bloody pleased about that.” Jack grinds his teeth. He tries not to show how much these images of playing alien children are getting to him, but fears that the others might know. It is a simple psychological trick he has used himself often enough. Five billion dead people are just statistics, but this record gives them a face, and the fact that it only shows the past in a very narrow point of view doesn’t help at all.
“Don’t do it for the nameless masses,” Benj tries again. “Do it for the little boy with the black spots on his fur standing under that tree there. We met him when we visited that time. His name is Rol -”
“I don’t need to know his name.” Jack hisses, and it is a mistake. He curses, with all his heart, the Doctor, and how he has made him go soft like this.
Before, Jack would not have had so much trouble justifying the demise of billions. On the other hand, maybe then he would have joined forces with the other three long ago.
But would that really be such a bad thing?
Glancing over to where the Doctor is still humming his tuneless, detached song, just so he doesn’t have to look at Benj and his self-assured smile, Jack makes his decision.
- tbc
May 26, 2009