Fic: Mysterious Footprints - Part 1-3
Title: Mysterious Footprints - Part 1-3
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Jack.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada
Summary: Something strange is going on in the Hub but Jack is on the trail and determined to catch whatever is leaving mysterious footprints around the Hub!
Word Count: 1267
Written For: Challenge 206: Footprint at beattheblackdog.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
It was the mysterious trail of footprints that first drew Jack’s attention to the fact that there might possibly be an intruder in the Hub. Never let it be said that he wasn’t observant! He knew everything that happened in Torchwood’s secret underground base, even if he relied on Ianto to fill him in on most of it. Ianto, after all, knew everything about everything, and was basically in charge of the day to day running of all things Hub related, from making sure equipment worked properly to cleaning up the messes his teammates made. It freed Jack up to focus on tasks more befitting a man of action: Rift retrievals, lost aliens, rogue Weevils, and civilians misusing alien technology, or actual aliens, for their own nefarious purposes.
Ianto, however, was not currently in the Hub, having gone out a while back to run a few errands, collecting the dry cleaning, picking up necessary supplies such as dark chocolate hobnobs at the supermarket, buying the even more essential coffee beans that kept the team’s energy levels up and their eyes open during Torchwood’s long working days, and often nights… Maybe he’d even bring back something tasty for lunch; he was thoughtful like that.
Gwen and Owen also happened to be out at present, handling a Rift retrieval somewhere down near the railway depot, a living creature according to the Rift monitor, while Tosh was down in the server room doing… something computery, Jack wasn’t sure what. Since she would most likely be down there for several hours, it meant he was more or less by himself in the Hub.
Growing bored with the stack of paperwork he was slowly ploughing his way through, and feeing the need to stretch his legs and maybe raid the biscuit tin in the process, because he always found it easier to concentrate on paperwork if he had something to nibble on, he’d left his office.
That was when he’d spotted the meandering trail of footprints leading from the garage entrance, right across the rough concrete floor of the Hub towards the door leading to the lower levels. They were impossible to miss since they were shining in the dim light with the same silvery sheen as the trails left by slugs and snails.
For a brief moment Jack wondered if the Hub was being invaded by some kind of weird giant alien garden pests, but then he mentally kicked himself for being an idiot. Snails wouldn’t leave humanlike footprints, complete with toes; they’d leave those blobby snail-prints, while slugs would leave a thin, almost continuous trail. He frowned in thought. Unless, perhaps, they were trying to convince him that a human had passed this way so that he wouldn’t investigate, lulled into a false sense of security. Invading aliens were sneaky like that.
He shook his head. No, if that was their reasoning then they weren’t very bright. He was Captain Jack Harkness, ex-Time Agent turned conman, former companion of the Doctor, and the commander of Torchwood Three; he wouldn’t be fooled! Anyone who had any business being in the Hub wore shoes, they didn’t wander around barefoot! He was going to check this out and deal with this intruder, or possibly more than one. There only seemed to be a single trail but for all he knew it could be a whole gang, walking in each other’s footsteps. Aliens up to no good could be counted on to use every trick in the book, and then some.
His need for biscuits forgotten for the moment, superseded by more pressing matters, Jack returned to his office to fetch his gun. It would be foolhardy to face an unknown number of alien intruders without any means of defending himself, and Jack was far from stupid. Just because he was immortal didn’t mean he should go around risking being overpowered or killed by whatever was sneaking about his Hub!
Webley in hand, and extra bullets in his pocket, just in case the six already loaded in his revolver weren’t enough, Jack paused, frowning as something occurred to him. How exactly had this supposed invasion force managed to sneak past his office without him noticing? Had he been that engrossed in his paperwork? The very thought was laughable, paperwork was never that interesting at the best of times; more likely his eyes had been so glazed over by the sheer tedium of requisition requests and expense forms that he’d zoned out, slipping into a catatonic state for a few minutes.
Or maybe the invaders had released a gas, briefly sending him to sleep. The effects wouldn’t have lasted on him for long thanks to his body’s accelerated healing abilities, and he was so used to nodding off over paperwork that it was unlikely he would have realised anything untoward had happened if it weren’t for the suspicious footprints.
Returning to his desk again, Jack quickly pulled up the CCTV footage of the main Hub on his laptop, running it back to just before he’d come out of his office, then taking it back further, and further, until the footprints were no longer in evidence. He set the recorded footage running forwards again at twice normal speed, then slowed it right down, watching in horror as the footprints simply appeared on the concrete out of nowhere, one after another, with no sign of whatever was making them. That was disturbing; the invaders must be invisible! Well, apart from the handy trail they were leaving for him to follow.
Hurrying down to Tosh’s workstation, Jack liberated a scanner from her desk drawer, one that registered life signs, and also detected body heat. Ha! These sneaky invaders weren’t going to hide from him for long! He’d track them down and then he’d deal with them. Ianto probably wouldn’t be too pleased about the messy trail of footprints, but Jack was sure he wouldn’t be blamed over that, especially if he captured those responsible. He felt a surge of righteous indignation; he’d teach the intruders a lesson they wouldn’t soon forget for messing up Ianto’s Hub!
Armed and ready for anything, Jack set off on the aliens’ trail, down the stairs to the lower levels, surprised when instead of making for the archives or the vaults, where everything of any value was kept, the footprints left the stairs on the next level down, taking the corridor that led to the locker room. He smirked to himself; obviously these invaders weren’t as smart and sneaky as they thought they were if they didn’t even know the Hub’s layout! There was nothing of interest down here except a supply cupboard where Ianto stored cleaning equipment, the decontamination facilities, the showers, and the lockers where the team kept spare clothes in case of inclement weather, injury, or accidents with exploding aliens. It said a lot about the peculiarities of Torchwood that exploding aliens ruined more clothes than bloodstains did.
Moving as stealthily as his heavy work boots would allow, which he thought was pretty damned stealthily all things considered, Jack crept down the corridor following the footprints right to the locker room door, easing it carefully open and slipping inside before closing it quietly and locking it behind him, pocketing the key so the invisible aliens couldn’t sneak past him and away without him knowing. He had them trapped now; there was no way out unless they could dematerialise.
‘Right,’ Jack thought, smiling viciously as he checked the safety of his gun was off. ‘Now to find out exactly what I’m dealing with!’
The invaders were in for a big surprise!
TBC in Part 2
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Jack.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada
Summary: Something strange is going on in the Hub but Jack is on the trail and determined to catch whatever is leaving mysterious footprints around the Hub!
Word Count: 1267
Written For: Challenge 206: Footprint at beattheblackdog.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
It was the mysterious trail of footprints that first drew Jack’s attention to the fact that there might possibly be an intruder in the Hub. Never let it be said that he wasn’t observant! He knew everything that happened in Torchwood’s secret underground base, even if he relied on Ianto to fill him in on most of it. Ianto, after all, knew everything about everything, and was basically in charge of the day to day running of all things Hub related, from making sure equipment worked properly to cleaning up the messes his teammates made. It freed Jack up to focus on tasks more befitting a man of action: Rift retrievals, lost aliens, rogue Weevils, and civilians misusing alien technology, or actual aliens, for their own nefarious purposes.
Ianto, however, was not currently in the Hub, having gone out a while back to run a few errands, collecting the dry cleaning, picking up necessary supplies such as dark chocolate hobnobs at the supermarket, buying the even more essential coffee beans that kept the team’s energy levels up and their eyes open during Torchwood’s long working days, and often nights… Maybe he’d even bring back something tasty for lunch; he was thoughtful like that.
Gwen and Owen also happened to be out at present, handling a Rift retrieval somewhere down near the railway depot, a living creature according to the Rift monitor, while Tosh was down in the server room doing… something computery, Jack wasn’t sure what. Since she would most likely be down there for several hours, it meant he was more or less by himself in the Hub.
Growing bored with the stack of paperwork he was slowly ploughing his way through, and feeing the need to stretch his legs and maybe raid the biscuit tin in the process, because he always found it easier to concentrate on paperwork if he had something to nibble on, he’d left his office.
That was when he’d spotted the meandering trail of footprints leading from the garage entrance, right across the rough concrete floor of the Hub towards the door leading to the lower levels. They were impossible to miss since they were shining in the dim light with the same silvery sheen as the trails left by slugs and snails.
For a brief moment Jack wondered if the Hub was being invaded by some kind of weird giant alien garden pests, but then he mentally kicked himself for being an idiot. Snails wouldn’t leave humanlike footprints, complete with toes; they’d leave those blobby snail-prints, while slugs would leave a thin, almost continuous trail. He frowned in thought. Unless, perhaps, they were trying to convince him that a human had passed this way so that he wouldn’t investigate, lulled into a false sense of security. Invading aliens were sneaky like that.
He shook his head. No, if that was their reasoning then they weren’t very bright. He was Captain Jack Harkness, ex-Time Agent turned conman, former companion of the Doctor, and the commander of Torchwood Three; he wouldn’t be fooled! Anyone who had any business being in the Hub wore shoes, they didn’t wander around barefoot! He was going to check this out and deal with this intruder, or possibly more than one. There only seemed to be a single trail but for all he knew it could be a whole gang, walking in each other’s footsteps. Aliens up to no good could be counted on to use every trick in the book, and then some.
His need for biscuits forgotten for the moment, superseded by more pressing matters, Jack returned to his office to fetch his gun. It would be foolhardy to face an unknown number of alien intruders without any means of defending himself, and Jack was far from stupid. Just because he was immortal didn’t mean he should go around risking being overpowered or killed by whatever was sneaking about his Hub!
Webley in hand, and extra bullets in his pocket, just in case the six already loaded in his revolver weren’t enough, Jack paused, frowning as something occurred to him. How exactly had this supposed invasion force managed to sneak past his office without him noticing? Had he been that engrossed in his paperwork? The very thought was laughable, paperwork was never that interesting at the best of times; more likely his eyes had been so glazed over by the sheer tedium of requisition requests and expense forms that he’d zoned out, slipping into a catatonic state for a few minutes.
Or maybe the invaders had released a gas, briefly sending him to sleep. The effects wouldn’t have lasted on him for long thanks to his body’s accelerated healing abilities, and he was so used to nodding off over paperwork that it was unlikely he would have realised anything untoward had happened if it weren’t for the suspicious footprints.
Returning to his desk again, Jack quickly pulled up the CCTV footage of the main Hub on his laptop, running it back to just before he’d come out of his office, then taking it back further, and further, until the footprints were no longer in evidence. He set the recorded footage running forwards again at twice normal speed, then slowed it right down, watching in horror as the footprints simply appeared on the concrete out of nowhere, one after another, with no sign of whatever was making them. That was disturbing; the invaders must be invisible! Well, apart from the handy trail they were leaving for him to follow.
Hurrying down to Tosh’s workstation, Jack liberated a scanner from her desk drawer, one that registered life signs, and also detected body heat. Ha! These sneaky invaders weren’t going to hide from him for long! He’d track them down and then he’d deal with them. Ianto probably wouldn’t be too pleased about the messy trail of footprints, but Jack was sure he wouldn’t be blamed over that, especially if he captured those responsible. He felt a surge of righteous indignation; he’d teach the intruders a lesson they wouldn’t soon forget for messing up Ianto’s Hub!
Armed and ready for anything, Jack set off on the aliens’ trail, down the stairs to the lower levels, surprised when instead of making for the archives or the vaults, where everything of any value was kept, the footprints left the stairs on the next level down, taking the corridor that led to the locker room. He smirked to himself; obviously these invaders weren’t as smart and sneaky as they thought they were if they didn’t even know the Hub’s layout! There was nothing of interest down here except a supply cupboard where Ianto stored cleaning equipment, the decontamination facilities, the showers, and the lockers where the team kept spare clothes in case of inclement weather, injury, or accidents with exploding aliens. It said a lot about the peculiarities of Torchwood that exploding aliens ruined more clothes than bloodstains did.
Moving as stealthily as his heavy work boots would allow, which he thought was pretty damned stealthily all things considered, Jack crept down the corridor following the footprints right to the locker room door, easing it carefully open and slipping inside before closing it quietly and locking it behind him, pocketing the key so the invisible aliens couldn’t sneak past him and away without him knowing. He had them trapped now; there was no way out unless they could dematerialise.
‘Right,’ Jack thought, smiling viciously as he checked the safety of his gun was off. ‘Now to find out exactly what I’m dealing with!’
The invaders were in for a big surprise!
TBC in Part 2