Ficlet: A Cure For Death
Title: A Cure For Death
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Suzie Costello
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Everything Changes.
Summary: Suzie believes that with the glove she can make the world a better place for everyone, free from death.
Word Count: 474
Written For: My own prompt ‘Torchwood, Suzie Costello, She believes with the glove she can overcome death for everyone,’ at
fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.
It’s the most miraculous discovery Torchwood has ever made, a metal glove capable of restoring life to the dead, and Suzie can’t help but think of what that could mean for the human race. Immortality, an end to death for everyone; it would change the world!
Right now, its effects are limited to two desperately short minutes and it works best on the very recently deceased, but she’s sure that’s just because she hasn’t figured out how to use it properly yet. It’s just going to take time and practice, that’s all. Oh, and a lot of patience, which is actually proving to be the hardest part.
Because fresh corpses are depressingly hard to come by and she’s already exhausted the possibilities with regards to testing her theories on dead animals. She needs to use human bodies now, so that she can talk to her subjects. The people at the morgue would ask too many questions if she requested access to their cadavers, and though she’s managed to sneak in past their security a couple of times, she’s got nowhere. She’s always too distracted listening out for hospital personnel who might catch her in the act to focus as much as she needs to. Using the glove takes a lot of concentration.
Showing up at the scenes of murders and co-opting the body has worked on a few occasions, but there aren’t that many fresh murder victims in Cardiff, and if Torchwood shows up at the scene of too many homicides the Cardiff police are going to start getting suspicious. Well, more suspicious than they already are. They neither like nor trust Torchwood, which usually works well for the secret organisation she’s an integral part of. Just not in this case.
Suzie’s thought over the problem for a couple of weeks now, how to get access to enough fresh corpses for her research and testing, and there seems to be only one viable solution; she’ll have to make her own. It’s simple, practical, cuts out any need for a middle man, and ensures that whenever she needs a dead body she can get her hands on one.
She knows it means killing people, but that’s not a problem, and if a few random people have to lose their lives, well, it’s for a good cause. Once she has full control of the glove it will benefit all of humanity so she considers the sacrifice of a few to be acceptable in the long run.
A few weeks ago, she knows that even considering such a course of action would have shocked her, but now it sounds perfectly logical, a simple matter of supply and demand. The world will thank her some day.
Suzie Costello’s morality and reason are slowly being eroded, and she’s so intent on achieving her goals that she doesn’t even notice.
The End