Fic: Search Pattern
Title: Search Pattern
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Jack, Tosh, Ianto, Owen, Gwen, OCs.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Finding the things that fall through the Rift isn’t always an exact science.
Word Count: 1133
Written For: Prompt 134 - Wasteland at fandomweekly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
Like every urban environment, Cardiff had its fair share of derelict buildings and areas that could best be described as wasteland, patches of ground that had simply been left to their own devices, unofficial dumps where the rubbish gradually disappeared beneath weeds and brambles.
The large patch down by the Taff had once been the site of three blocks of flats, but they’d been demolished several years earlier for health and safety reasons after part of a wall collapsed due to subsidence. Most of the building rubble had been cleared away, and the land had been put up for sale, but nobody was interested, which was hardly surprising. Building on ground that wasn’t especially stable was just asking for trouble.
Torchwood had more than a passing familiarity with all such abandoned areas of the city under their protection, mostly because the Rift seemed to take a perverse delight in dropping its gifts in the most ridiculous and least accessible spots it could find. If an item was particularly small, nine times out of ten it would arrive somewhere in a vast warehouse, or a demolition site, the long grass in one of the parks, or on a beach. Tosh would always do her best to pinpoint the exact location of a Rift spike, but the readings collected by her monitoring programmes were at times confusing and impossible to narrow down beyond a certain point thanks to a weird sort of echo effect.
On this occasion, while she knew for a fact that something had come through, the best she could manage when Jack asked her the location was, “Somewhere towards the northern end of that patch of wasteland by the Taff. You know, where the flats used to be.” She smiled up at him sheepishly. “Sorry, I think the Rift wants to play hide and seek today.”
Jack shrugged. “Then I guess we’d better get seeking. Grab your gear; maybe you’ll have better luck pinning it down once we get there.”
With such a large area to search, the entire team piled into the SUV, and as always, Jack drove like a maniac, blue lights flashing as a warning to pedestrians and fellow motorists to move aside. In the front passenger seat, Ianto could be heard to mutter, “I think we just broke the speed of light. One of these days we’ll arrive at our destination before we’ve left the Hub.”
Screeching to a halt, Jack ignored his lover. “Okay, boys and girls, we’re here, so start looking!”
“What’re we lookin’ for?” Owen wanted to know.
Ianto rolled his eyes. “Something soaked in Rift energy. You’ve got a scanner; use it.”
Owen snorted in disgust. “Lot of help you are. How about it, Tosh, any clues?”
Torchwood’s tech expert was working busily at the SUV’s onboard computers, trying to narrow down the search area, but the readings were still annoyingly garbled. “Metallic, tech of some description, I think. Bigger than your scanner.”
“Smaller than a breadbox?” Jack was grinning like they were playing some kind of game, maybe a scavenger hunt.
“Depends on the breadbox,” Tosh replied. “Not huge though, air displacement readings are too low for anything much more than a foot each way.”
“Suppose it’s only an inch wide but twelve feet long, wouldn’t that displace the same approximate amount of air?”
Grabbing Jack by the sleeve, Ianto tugged him away. “Come on, you; stop splitting hairs and start looking. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and it’ll be a damn sight easier to do in daylight.” The area was approximately the size of three rugby fields laid side-by-side, and there was no lighting. Once it got dark out, even Torchwood’s high-power flashlights wouldn’t be much help.
“We should spread out,” Gwen said. “It’ll be much quicker that way.”
Jack nodded agreement. “Tosh, you stay here and keep trying to get a lock on our target.”
Tosh waved one hand to show she’d heard but didn’t take her eyes off her screens.
The rest of the team headed off in different directions, scanners at the ready. Looked like it was going to be a long and tedious afternoon.
Time passed slowly as the team searched, scratching themselves on brambles, getting tangled in ivy, and peering under old mattresses and other debris. Owen startled a sleeping fox and almost fell into a rusty old bathtub half full of greenish water. Jack disturbed an ant nest and fled, deciding if anything had come through the Rift anywhere near that, it was on its own. Gwen could be heard muttering over comms about needing to get someone out here to collect used and discarded needles. Ianto kept quiet and found himself a sturdy stick to poke around with rather than using his hands. Safety first in all things.
After an hour or so, Tosh came over the comms to tell the team that Jack seemed to be closest to what they were looking for. Eyes glued to their scanners, the others slowly converged on their leader, and halfway to him, Owen spoke up.
“I’m pickin’ up something. It’s only faint, but it’s definitely Rift energy.”
The other three members of the team started moving towards Owen as he slowly advanced, swinging his scanner back and forth, altering course slightly as he closed in on whatever it was picking up.
“I’m getting something now,” Ianto said a few minutes later.
“Same here,” Jack replied.
“I’m not.” Gwen sounded frustrated. She changed direction again and a minute later. “Hang on a mo… Yes, picking it up now.”
The seconds seemed to stretch like elastic until… “There you are!” Jack was grinning like he’d just caught Ianto in a game of Naked Hide and Seek.
“What is it?” Ianto said, skirting a tangle of brambles and approaching as Jack crouched beside the object. It vaguely resembled a cross between a hubcap and a bowler hat but was a peculiar matt bronze colour.
Jack studied it carefully as Ianto walked slowly around it, running scans. “Not sure, never seen anything quite like it.”
“Seems harmless, although that’s no guarantee.” Ianto crouched opposite Jack. “I’m not picking up any radiation though, and it doesn’t seem to be a bomb or anything of that nature.”
“Safe to handle?”
“Should be, as long as you’re not too rough with it, but don’t blame me if it turns you into something weird. You know what alien tech’s like.”
“Duly noted.” Reaching out with both hands, Jack cautiously picked the object up for a closer look, tilting it one way and then the other as he examined it.
Inside, several tiny beings clung tightly to their seats. Millim turned to her mate, Gurgh.
“Now look at the mess you’ve got us into! I told you earth was a terrible vacation spot!”
The End
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Jack, Tosh, Ianto, Owen, Gwen, OCs.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Finding the things that fall through the Rift isn’t always an exact science.
Word Count: 1133
Written For: Prompt 134 - Wasteland at fandomweekly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
Like every urban environment, Cardiff had its fair share of derelict buildings and areas that could best be described as wasteland, patches of ground that had simply been left to their own devices, unofficial dumps where the rubbish gradually disappeared beneath weeds and brambles.
The large patch down by the Taff had once been the site of three blocks of flats, but they’d been demolished several years earlier for health and safety reasons after part of a wall collapsed due to subsidence. Most of the building rubble had been cleared away, and the land had been put up for sale, but nobody was interested, which was hardly surprising. Building on ground that wasn’t especially stable was just asking for trouble.
Torchwood had more than a passing familiarity with all such abandoned areas of the city under their protection, mostly because the Rift seemed to take a perverse delight in dropping its gifts in the most ridiculous and least accessible spots it could find. If an item was particularly small, nine times out of ten it would arrive somewhere in a vast warehouse, or a demolition site, the long grass in one of the parks, or on a beach. Tosh would always do her best to pinpoint the exact location of a Rift spike, but the readings collected by her monitoring programmes were at times confusing and impossible to narrow down beyond a certain point thanks to a weird sort of echo effect.
On this occasion, while she knew for a fact that something had come through, the best she could manage when Jack asked her the location was, “Somewhere towards the northern end of that patch of wasteland by the Taff. You know, where the flats used to be.” She smiled up at him sheepishly. “Sorry, I think the Rift wants to play hide and seek today.”
Jack shrugged. “Then I guess we’d better get seeking. Grab your gear; maybe you’ll have better luck pinning it down once we get there.”
With such a large area to search, the entire team piled into the SUV, and as always, Jack drove like a maniac, blue lights flashing as a warning to pedestrians and fellow motorists to move aside. In the front passenger seat, Ianto could be heard to mutter, “I think we just broke the speed of light. One of these days we’ll arrive at our destination before we’ve left the Hub.”
Screeching to a halt, Jack ignored his lover. “Okay, boys and girls, we’re here, so start looking!”
“What’re we lookin’ for?” Owen wanted to know.
Ianto rolled his eyes. “Something soaked in Rift energy. You’ve got a scanner; use it.”
Owen snorted in disgust. “Lot of help you are. How about it, Tosh, any clues?”
Torchwood’s tech expert was working busily at the SUV’s onboard computers, trying to narrow down the search area, but the readings were still annoyingly garbled. “Metallic, tech of some description, I think. Bigger than your scanner.”
“Smaller than a breadbox?” Jack was grinning like they were playing some kind of game, maybe a scavenger hunt.
“Depends on the breadbox,” Tosh replied. “Not huge though, air displacement readings are too low for anything much more than a foot each way.”
“Suppose it’s only an inch wide but twelve feet long, wouldn’t that displace the same approximate amount of air?”
Grabbing Jack by the sleeve, Ianto tugged him away. “Come on, you; stop splitting hairs and start looking. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and it’ll be a damn sight easier to do in daylight.” The area was approximately the size of three rugby fields laid side-by-side, and there was no lighting. Once it got dark out, even Torchwood’s high-power flashlights wouldn’t be much help.
“We should spread out,” Gwen said. “It’ll be much quicker that way.”
Jack nodded agreement. “Tosh, you stay here and keep trying to get a lock on our target.”
Tosh waved one hand to show she’d heard but didn’t take her eyes off her screens.
The rest of the team headed off in different directions, scanners at the ready. Looked like it was going to be a long and tedious afternoon.
Time passed slowly as the team searched, scratching themselves on brambles, getting tangled in ivy, and peering under old mattresses and other debris. Owen startled a sleeping fox and almost fell into a rusty old bathtub half full of greenish water. Jack disturbed an ant nest and fled, deciding if anything had come through the Rift anywhere near that, it was on its own. Gwen could be heard muttering over comms about needing to get someone out here to collect used and discarded needles. Ianto kept quiet and found himself a sturdy stick to poke around with rather than using his hands. Safety first in all things.
After an hour or so, Tosh came over the comms to tell the team that Jack seemed to be closest to what they were looking for. Eyes glued to their scanners, the others slowly converged on their leader, and halfway to him, Owen spoke up.
“I’m pickin’ up something. It’s only faint, but it’s definitely Rift energy.”
The other three members of the team started moving towards Owen as he slowly advanced, swinging his scanner back and forth, altering course slightly as he closed in on whatever it was picking up.
“I’m getting something now,” Ianto said a few minutes later.
“Same here,” Jack replied.
“I’m not.” Gwen sounded frustrated. She changed direction again and a minute later. “Hang on a mo… Yes, picking it up now.”
The seconds seemed to stretch like elastic until… “There you are!” Jack was grinning like he’d just caught Ianto in a game of Naked Hide and Seek.
“What is it?” Ianto said, skirting a tangle of brambles and approaching as Jack crouched beside the object. It vaguely resembled a cross between a hubcap and a bowler hat but was a peculiar matt bronze colour.
Jack studied it carefully as Ianto walked slowly around it, running scans. “Not sure, never seen anything quite like it.”
“Seems harmless, although that’s no guarantee.” Ianto crouched opposite Jack. “I’m not picking up any radiation though, and it doesn’t seem to be a bomb or anything of that nature.”
“Safe to handle?”
“Should be, as long as you’re not too rough with it, but don’t blame me if it turns you into something weird. You know what alien tech’s like.”
“Duly noted.” Reaching out with both hands, Jack cautiously picked the object up for a closer look, tilting it one way and then the other as he examined it.
Inside, several tiny beings clung tightly to their seats. Millim turned to her mate, Gurgh.
“Now look at the mess you’ve got us into! I told you earth was a terrible vacation spot!”
The End