The Universe: Owen's Story - part three and four
here it is if anyones interrested...
The Universe: Owen's Story - part three and four.
Part three
It was like dieing; at least it wasn’t like the first time Owen Harper died. This was different, it was colder for a start…not that he could feel, but something told him it was cold. Also it wasn’t dark, not really there was light out there bond the casing that he and Toshiko were trapped in. The light moved in strange coloured blurs and every now and than he could hear something. That was another clue; he couldn’t be in the darkness because he could hear things.
“Just as promised, the two greatest figures of the 21st century earth frozen and delivered to your door” Owen thought it was John Hart’s voice but it was hard to be sure it sounded so far away. There was something looking at Owen now, a big ugly green-ish face staring at him from the other side of the casing. It grunted, the face on the other side of the casing grunted. It was a low long grunt like one he had heard the weevils make and if they were anything to go by this ‘face’ was very happy. The face being happy gave Owen a horrible feeling.
It grunted again and they were moved to a bright place with lots of colourful patches. The casing made it hard to see anything clearly. They were parked in between two of the bright patches; “careful now don’t break them,” said a voice that sounded like Hart again. The ‘face’ moved away and was grunting something at them. Hart’s team seemed to be following the face and listening to what it was grunting. Hart was checking his wrist strap, Owen didn’t like where this was going. He didn’t think Hart was planning on reversing what he had done and the ‘face’ certainly wasn’t about to.
Owen tried to close his eyes; the dark was better then watching this unfold with no way of stopping it. But he couldn’t the casing was skin-tight he couldn’t move an inch. Hart, the ‘face’ and his team left and the place was plunged into darkness. Where and there tiny pricks of light could be seen but other then that it was dark.
This wasn’t dieing, this was worse… was it hell? Had he really been that bad? He could have been nicer to Ianto, telling him he was part time shag when he knew nothing about his relationship with Jack was a cruel thing to do. And he could have treated Toshiko better, what would that have cost him? She only ever tried to help him right from his second week…what was it? Space pig? He could have done so many things better, been nicer… less of a twat.
Owen didn’t know how much time had pasted…it could have been seconds or years. When suddenly there was a bang, a massive explosion the place lit up and suddenly there was heat. Owen couldn’t really feel it the casing was melting and Owen had figured out what the casing was…ice. He heard Toshiko gasp for air as the ice melted away, she had been cryogenically frozen, but that kind of freezing didn’t work for the dead.
The room was filled with people; it seemed to be some kind of weird museum. Running around it in a bizarre panic, somewhere aliens and others where historical figures that Owen recognised. It a rush for the exit Elvis kicked Hitler in the groin, Owen held Toshiko’s hand thigh and tried to get them out of there. “Come on” he growled at her.
“My legs…” he looked down, some of the ice was still frozen around her legs. He grabbed her waist and kicked at the ice until she was free. Taking her hand again they ducked and waved through the crowd, there was shouting and screaming all around them. Men dressed from head to toe in some kind of black armour where advancing on the crowd. They all had large black guns, which they shot into the crowd.
Instead of bullets they shot out round long cylinders, which blasted the crowd with green smoke. Owen noticed that the men in black all wore gas masks covering their faces. He pulled Toshiko closer to him and covered her mouth and nose with his hand. Still waving through the now falling crowd Owen moved as fast as he could towards the door at the end of the room.
The door was slowly sliding closed he started to run dragging Toshiko along with him. The gas was starting to do its work on her and she was slowing down and getting heavy. He changed tactics and throw her over his shoulder still running for the door. He pushed her through the door and then tumbled through it him self. They landed at the end of a long corridor, and turned Toshiko around so that she was facing him. Her eyes where unfocused and closing and she looked like she was falling to sleep or worse. Owen slapped her hard across the face, suddenly her eyes where full of life again. “Owen?” she looked around the unfamiliar corridor, “what’s going on? Where are we?”
“I don’t know it’s okay, I’ll get us out of this…I promise.” He pulled her once again to her feet and hand in hand they ran down the corridor. They reached the end of it and he turned left, he had no idea where he was going but there was noise close by. Engines like cars, he ran towards them if they could get into a car they could get away. As fast as they could they ran up the next corridor towards the engine sound. At the end of that corridor they took a right and found them selves in a large garage of some kind, but there wasn’t any cars. There it was filled with space ships all of them small, but sleek, black and pointed like triangles.
Owen turned to Toshiko, “do you think you can fly one of those?” She peered out from around him and looked at the opening at the far end of the garage. It was a great big rectangle, which opened out into space; nothing but black and stars lay beyond it. She took a deep breath looked him straight in the eye and said, “of course I can, I’m brilliant.” Owen could have kissed her. They ran towards one of the space ships, “hey” screamed someone behind them. “Hey, where are you going” the voice screamed Owen thought he recognised it but wasn’t about to stop.
Something hit him in the back of the leg; the force of it knocked him to the ground. Toshiko tripped over him and fell to the ground as well. Owen looked back to see what it was that hit him. It was a gas canister the thick green smoke started to pour out of it, Toshiko held her breath but six of the men in black had already surrounded them. Owen kept his eyes locked with Toshiko’s as unseen hands pulled him to his feet and Toshiko fell to the smoke.
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Part four
Owen felt like he had never been in a stranger position in his entire life. Elvis Presley’s head was resting on his shoulder and the king was dribbling down his t-shirt. On his other side an orange alien dressed in blue robes and draped with silver snored heavier. Directly in front of him Hitler leant against Neapolitan in his sleep. Toshiko had been slumped in a corner next to Henry the eighth and a blue alien, which was leaking some kind of purple liquid from its nose all over her jeans.
Unable to move due to the cramped conditions in the hull of the space ships storage deck, Owen leant back on the wall. Hardly able to believe his current situation he and Toshiko had been kidnapped and taken to a people museum in the middle of space. And now he was being transported to god only knows where, with a bunch of famous icons, historical figures and aliens. Just as he though things couldn’t get any stranger Jack Harkness opened the door.
“Jack?” Owen asked blinking in the light. Jack gave him an odd look.
“I think you’re a little confused the gas can do that to you,” he grinned. It was Jack, but not the Jack he knew. This guy was younger he smiled more and he didn’t have the same pain behind his eyes, that decades of life had brought to his Captain’s eyes. Somehow Owen found that unsettling.
“Sorry, what’s your name?” if he could use this opportunity to unravel some of Jack’s mystery then he would.
“I don’t have a name, I’m a time agent” he tapped the badge on his jacket. “We have codes, not names.”
Owen nodded, “what’s your code than?” he asked.
“B-E-7-691- Red” he replied. He was checking things of a list on a clipboard.
“That’s a mouth full”
He smiled, “now that’s how I like to be described.” Owen snorted, that was his Captain.
“I’m Doctor…”
“Owen Harper I know who you are the inventor of nanobots, discoverer of time travel, and the medical genius who made human cybernetics safe… you cured the cyberman” he grinned and shook his head, “you and your wife are the two greatest figures in human history, some people say the human race wouldn’t have survived without you.” He was still smiling as he step through the door and held out his hand. “I would like to shake your hand.”
Owen didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what this guy was talking about, nanobots? Cybernetics? Time travel? Wife? Slowly Owen reached out and shook his hand.
“Wow,” he pulled his hand back from Owen. “Your as cold as ice”
“Yeah, well I’m dead” he grinned but his smile faded quickly. He looked confused for a minute but seemed to decide it was some kind of 21st century humour and demisted it.
“Everyone calls me Red” he informed Owen, “its less of a mouthful.”
“You’d better not be flirting” said an all to familiar voice from the doorway.
“I was just saying hello” Red moved so that Owen could see past him to the door. There stood his kidnapper Captain John Hart. Owen sat frozen to the spot; he didn’t know what to do.
“For you that’s flirting, and you know how jealous I get” he stepped through the door snaked his arm around Red’s waist and pulled him into a passionate kiss. Red wrapped his arms around Hart’s neck and let him be kissed. Owen rolled his eyes and looked away, he’d court Jack kissing Ianto like that once it the boardroom. Ianto went bright red when he noticed Owen had double back after the meeting to get his sideshow. Hart pulled back from Red and looked at Owen.
“Ah, Doctor Harper my gorgeous husband here is your biggest fan” he grinned. If Owen had been alive he would have had a heart attack…HUSBAND!!!! Jack married that arsehole, that bastard, that murder!
“Really?” Owen found it hard to believe that Jack or Red or whoever he was would be with this piece of shit. Owen wondered if Red knew what Hart had been up too. “That’s er…nice” slowly Owen folded his arms. “So did you tell your husband here that you kidnap people for…what fun? No, you do things for money don’t you?” Hart’s face went white and Red took a step back from him. “So how much did you get for me and Toshiko? You didn’t even get your fucking dates right did you?” Owen stood up and looked him in the eye, “all that stuff he was just telling me about, I didn’t have a fucking clue what he was talking about…I’m not even fucking married!” Owen held up his hand to show there was no wedding band. Red slapped Hart.
“JR you fucking moron! What where you thinking?”
“Look it’s the perfect self cleaning con”
“Oh really how’d you figure that?”
“Look we freeze and borrow famous figures from history, find someone how wants to buy them like Huckenba. Take the money and then tip off the agency how do a raid, we set of a couple of gas canisters that knock out the famous figures and wipe their memory and then the agency return them and we get away with all the money. Well this time I had to split it eight ways, but next time if it was just you and I…” he slid his arm around Red’s waist again.
“Expect its not fucking perfect is it? Because he remembers,” he pointed at Owen.
“Yeah, well we can fix that,” he pulled Red into another kiss.
Somebody else appeared at the doorway. “J-R-5-6689-1-Blue” JR let go of Red and saluted, “B-E-7-691-Red” Red saluted as well. “Let’s try not to make out while on duty”
“Yes sir,” they chanted in union.
“Does anyone remember anything?” asked the man.
“No sir,” said JR. He glanced at Owen; Red gave him a look that Owen had seen on Jack’s face many times before. Owen kept his mouth shut; he knew better then to argue with the Captain.
The Universe: Owen's Story - part three and four.
Part three
It was like dieing; at least it wasn’t like the first time Owen Harper died. This was different, it was colder for a start…not that he could feel, but something told him it was cold. Also it wasn’t dark, not really there was light out there bond the casing that he and Toshiko were trapped in. The light moved in strange coloured blurs and every now and than he could hear something. That was another clue; he couldn’t be in the darkness because he could hear things.
“Just as promised, the two greatest figures of the 21st century earth frozen and delivered to your door” Owen thought it was John Hart’s voice but it was hard to be sure it sounded so far away. There was something looking at Owen now, a big ugly green-ish face staring at him from the other side of the casing. It grunted, the face on the other side of the casing grunted. It was a low long grunt like one he had heard the weevils make and if they were anything to go by this ‘face’ was very happy. The face being happy gave Owen a horrible feeling.
It grunted again and they were moved to a bright place with lots of colourful patches. The casing made it hard to see anything clearly. They were parked in between two of the bright patches; “careful now don’t break them,” said a voice that sounded like Hart again. The ‘face’ moved away and was grunting something at them. Hart’s team seemed to be following the face and listening to what it was grunting. Hart was checking his wrist strap, Owen didn’t like where this was going. He didn’t think Hart was planning on reversing what he had done and the ‘face’ certainly wasn’t about to.
Owen tried to close his eyes; the dark was better then watching this unfold with no way of stopping it. But he couldn’t the casing was skin-tight he couldn’t move an inch. Hart, the ‘face’ and his team left and the place was plunged into darkness. Where and there tiny pricks of light could be seen but other then that it was dark.
This wasn’t dieing, this was worse… was it hell? Had he really been that bad? He could have been nicer to Ianto, telling him he was part time shag when he knew nothing about his relationship with Jack was a cruel thing to do. And he could have treated Toshiko better, what would that have cost him? She only ever tried to help him right from his second week…what was it? Space pig? He could have done so many things better, been nicer… less of a twat.
Owen didn’t know how much time had pasted…it could have been seconds or years. When suddenly there was a bang, a massive explosion the place lit up and suddenly there was heat. Owen couldn’t really feel it the casing was melting and Owen had figured out what the casing was…ice. He heard Toshiko gasp for air as the ice melted away, she had been cryogenically frozen, but that kind of freezing didn’t work for the dead.
The room was filled with people; it seemed to be some kind of weird museum. Running around it in a bizarre panic, somewhere aliens and others where historical figures that Owen recognised. It a rush for the exit Elvis kicked Hitler in the groin, Owen held Toshiko’s hand thigh and tried to get them out of there. “Come on” he growled at her.
“My legs…” he looked down, some of the ice was still frozen around her legs. He grabbed her waist and kicked at the ice until she was free. Taking her hand again they ducked and waved through the crowd, there was shouting and screaming all around them. Men dressed from head to toe in some kind of black armour where advancing on the crowd. They all had large black guns, which they shot into the crowd.
Instead of bullets they shot out round long cylinders, which blasted the crowd with green smoke. Owen noticed that the men in black all wore gas masks covering their faces. He pulled Toshiko closer to him and covered her mouth and nose with his hand. Still waving through the now falling crowd Owen moved as fast as he could towards the door at the end of the room.
The door was slowly sliding closed he started to run dragging Toshiko along with him. The gas was starting to do its work on her and she was slowing down and getting heavy. He changed tactics and throw her over his shoulder still running for the door. He pushed her through the door and then tumbled through it him self. They landed at the end of a long corridor, and turned Toshiko around so that she was facing him. Her eyes where unfocused and closing and she looked like she was falling to sleep or worse. Owen slapped her hard across the face, suddenly her eyes where full of life again. “Owen?” she looked around the unfamiliar corridor, “what’s going on? Where are we?”
“I don’t know it’s okay, I’ll get us out of this…I promise.” He pulled her once again to her feet and hand in hand they ran down the corridor. They reached the end of it and he turned left, he had no idea where he was going but there was noise close by. Engines like cars, he ran towards them if they could get into a car they could get away. As fast as they could they ran up the next corridor towards the engine sound. At the end of that corridor they took a right and found them selves in a large garage of some kind, but there wasn’t any cars. There it was filled with space ships all of them small, but sleek, black and pointed like triangles.
Owen turned to Toshiko, “do you think you can fly one of those?” She peered out from around him and looked at the opening at the far end of the garage. It was a great big rectangle, which opened out into space; nothing but black and stars lay beyond it. She took a deep breath looked him straight in the eye and said, “of course I can, I’m brilliant.” Owen could have kissed her. They ran towards one of the space ships, “hey” screamed someone behind them. “Hey, where are you going” the voice screamed Owen thought he recognised it but wasn’t about to stop.
Something hit him in the back of the leg; the force of it knocked him to the ground. Toshiko tripped over him and fell to the ground as well. Owen looked back to see what it was that hit him. It was a gas canister the thick green smoke started to pour out of it, Toshiko held her breath but six of the men in black had already surrounded them. Owen kept his eyes locked with Toshiko’s as unseen hands pulled him to his feet and Toshiko fell to the smoke.
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Part four
Owen felt like he had never been in a stranger position in his entire life. Elvis Presley’s head was resting on his shoulder and the king was dribbling down his t-shirt. On his other side an orange alien dressed in blue robes and draped with silver snored heavier. Directly in front of him Hitler leant against Neapolitan in his sleep. Toshiko had been slumped in a corner next to Henry the eighth and a blue alien, which was leaking some kind of purple liquid from its nose all over her jeans.
Unable to move due to the cramped conditions in the hull of the space ships storage deck, Owen leant back on the wall. Hardly able to believe his current situation he and Toshiko had been kidnapped and taken to a people museum in the middle of space. And now he was being transported to god only knows where, with a bunch of famous icons, historical figures and aliens. Just as he though things couldn’t get any stranger Jack Harkness opened the door.
“Jack?” Owen asked blinking in the light. Jack gave him an odd look.
“I think you’re a little confused the gas can do that to you,” he grinned. It was Jack, but not the Jack he knew. This guy was younger he smiled more and he didn’t have the same pain behind his eyes, that decades of life had brought to his Captain’s eyes. Somehow Owen found that unsettling.
“Sorry, what’s your name?” if he could use this opportunity to unravel some of Jack’s mystery then he would.
“I don’t have a name, I’m a time agent” he tapped the badge on his jacket. “We have codes, not names.”
Owen nodded, “what’s your code than?” he asked.
“B-E-7-691- Red” he replied. He was checking things of a list on a clipboard.
“That’s a mouth full”
He smiled, “now that’s how I like to be described.” Owen snorted, that was his Captain.
“I’m Doctor…”
“Owen Harper I know who you are the inventor of nanobots, discoverer of time travel, and the medical genius who made human cybernetics safe… you cured the cyberman” he grinned and shook his head, “you and your wife are the two greatest figures in human history, some people say the human race wouldn’t have survived without you.” He was still smiling as he step through the door and held out his hand. “I would like to shake your hand.”
Owen didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what this guy was talking about, nanobots? Cybernetics? Time travel? Wife? Slowly Owen reached out and shook his hand.
“Wow,” he pulled his hand back from Owen. “Your as cold as ice”
“Yeah, well I’m dead” he grinned but his smile faded quickly. He looked confused for a minute but seemed to decide it was some kind of 21st century humour and demisted it.
“Everyone calls me Red” he informed Owen, “its less of a mouthful.”
“You’d better not be flirting” said an all to familiar voice from the doorway.
“I was just saying hello” Red moved so that Owen could see past him to the door. There stood his kidnapper Captain John Hart. Owen sat frozen to the spot; he didn’t know what to do.
“For you that’s flirting, and you know how jealous I get” he stepped through the door snaked his arm around Red’s waist and pulled him into a passionate kiss. Red wrapped his arms around Hart’s neck and let him be kissed. Owen rolled his eyes and looked away, he’d court Jack kissing Ianto like that once it the boardroom. Ianto went bright red when he noticed Owen had double back after the meeting to get his sideshow. Hart pulled back from Red and looked at Owen.
“Ah, Doctor Harper my gorgeous husband here is your biggest fan” he grinned. If Owen had been alive he would have had a heart attack…HUSBAND!!!! Jack married that arsehole, that bastard, that murder!
“Really?” Owen found it hard to believe that Jack or Red or whoever he was would be with this piece of shit. Owen wondered if Red knew what Hart had been up too. “That’s er…nice” slowly Owen folded his arms. “So did you tell your husband here that you kidnap people for…what fun? No, you do things for money don’t you?” Hart’s face went white and Red took a step back from him. “So how much did you get for me and Toshiko? You didn’t even get your fucking dates right did you?” Owen stood up and looked him in the eye, “all that stuff he was just telling me about, I didn’t have a fucking clue what he was talking about…I’m not even fucking married!” Owen held up his hand to show there was no wedding band. Red slapped Hart.
“JR you fucking moron! What where you thinking?”
“Look it’s the perfect self cleaning con”
“Oh really how’d you figure that?”
“Look we freeze and borrow famous figures from history, find someone how wants to buy them like Huckenba. Take the money and then tip off the agency how do a raid, we set of a couple of gas canisters that knock out the famous figures and wipe their memory and then the agency return them and we get away with all the money. Well this time I had to split it eight ways, but next time if it was just you and I…” he slid his arm around Red’s waist again.
“Expect its not fucking perfect is it? Because he remembers,” he pointed at Owen.
“Yeah, well we can fix that,” he pulled Red into another kiss.
Somebody else appeared at the doorway. “J-R-5-6689-1-Blue” JR let go of Red and saluted, “B-E-7-691-Red” Red saluted as well. “Let’s try not to make out while on duty”
“Yes sir,” they chanted in union.
“Does anyone remember anything?” asked the man.
“No sir,” said JR. He glanced at Owen; Red gave him a look that Owen had seen on Jack’s face many times before. Owen kept his mouth shut; he knew better then to argue with the Captain.