Sleeping Dragons 03.08
SLEEPING DRAGONS
Episode 03 - Smiths & Joneses
by Soledad
Author’s notes: For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the secondary index page.
All the pseudo-science is made up by me, and I’m not a technically savvy person, so please ignore any impossibilities I might have created. *g*
CHAPTER 08
Doctor Jones rushed by the UNIT soldiers and checked first the vitals of the Torchwood director, and then those of the unknown young woman.
“He’s unconscious,” she stated, moving her bioscanner, enhanced with alien technology, over Director Jones’ body. “Unusually high brain activity, though, for someone clearly passed out. Something is very fishy here. Mickey, bring around the SUV and load him in. Take him to the Hub; St. Helen’s is obviously not secure enough.”
Then she kneeled down next to the other victim, opening her med-kit one-handedly.
“She’s beyond help,” she judged. “Private Jenkins, you’ve got field medic training, haven’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jenkins replied, surprised and even a little startled at the same time.
“Assist me. We need to collect samples and take photos before the police would arrive. Trevor, check her for residual Rift energy; for any possible energy signature that may appear unusual.”
“Shouldn’t we take her to the Hub, too?” the Torchwood techie, whose name was apparently Trevor, asked.
Dr. Jones shook her head. “We can’t. This is a murder case, and as such, the police have the authority to deal with it. But we’ll need every single detail if we want to prove Ianto’s innocence.”
“They’d suspect Jonesy?” the bloke named Trevor asked incredulously. He very obviously didn’t think that his boss would be capable of murdering anyone.
“Can you blame them?” Dr. Jones was collecting tissue samples from the neck of the victim, where the darkening bruises showed that she’d been, indeed, strangulated, while Jenkins took the victim’s fingerprints. “This is the second time he was found next to a murdered woman; and the same type of woman, too.”
“But he’d been attacked both times, too,” the tough-looking black guy Dr. Jones called Mickey protested, having pulled up the Torchwood-mobile and unceremoniously hauled their boss onto the passenger seat.
“We don’t know that,” Dr. Jones pointed out. “We know that he was unconscious both time we found him, but that could have different reasons. In theory, he could be a psychotic serial killer who simply can’t cope with his own crimes.”
“Jonesy?” Trevor shook his bald head. “No way!”
“I’m not saying he is one,” Dr. Jones said. “But the police might think that, and they could find a number of psychiatrists to support the idea. So, it will be the best if we took him to the Hub, where they’d have a really hard time to extract him, until we can prove his innocence.”
“Couldn’t the police file an official demand for him to be put in their custody?” Sergeant Zbrigniew asked.
“Over Jack Harkness’ dead body; and we know that wouldn’t last long, don’t we?” Dr. Jones replied with a cold smile. “Hurry up, Mickey, they’ll be here, soon.”
“Already on my way,” Mickey fastened the seatbelt around the unresponsive body of his boss, then jumped into the SUV and drove away with screeching tires.
Dr. Jones sighed. “That’s one problem dealt with - temporarily, at least. Private Jenkins, take fibre samples from the victim’s clothing while I draw some blood. There, in that kit are some self-adhesive plastic foils, the same kind the police use. And see if you can find anything conclusive under her fingernails.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jenkins found that he enjoyed playing SOCO. Well, would have, hadn’t been the situation too bloody serious. It was like getting a guest role in CSI.
“Wouldn’t the blood be clogged already?” Zbrigniew asked.
“The body’s still warm; the rigor mortis hasn’t even set on,” Dr. Jones answered, inserting the needle into the vein in the victim’s left arm. Dark blood began to quill sluggishly into the small plastic syringe. “She couldn’t have been dead for longer than an hour.”
“Ma’am,” Jenkins looked up to her in surprise,” there’s something under her fingernails.”
“Tissue samples?” Dr. Jones asked sharply. “Has she scratched somebody?”
Jenkins shook his head. “Well, she obviously did scratch somebody - or something - but this doesn’t look like human tissue. Some kind of greyish white substance; fairly hard, too. I’ve no idea what it is.”
“Take a sample but leave something for the police, too,” Dr. Jones ordered, storing her own blood and tissue samples in the respective containers of the medkit. She even pulled a few hairs from the victim’s head.
“What is that for?” Zbrigniew frowned.
“Examining the hair will tell us if she was on drugs, and if yes, when and for how long,” she explained. “Is there a handbag or a purse on her to tell us who she was?”
Harris went to look around but came back empty-handed.
“I didn’t find anything, ma’am,” he said. “But I don’t think she was a hooker. She seems so… ordinary, like the girl next door. Perhaps it was just bad luck. Perhaps she was at the wrong time in the wrong place.”
Dr. Jones nodded thoughtfully. “You may be right, Private… Harris, isn’t it? Her clothes are fairly inconclusive: jeans, a tank top, a jacket hundreds of other girls wear, sneakers… Barely any make-up, hair in a simple ponytail… a student perhaps, or somebody working in a pizza shop or in a supermarket that’s open during the night. The poor thing.”
“A bloody shame it is,” Harris agreed. “Any theory why she might have been chosen, ma’am?”
“Perhaps,” Dr. Jones replied evasively. “It could have been a case of mistaken identity; but we can be entirely wrong,” she turned to Zbrigniew. “Sergeant, give Colonel Mace my regards and express my thanks on behalf of Torchwood for his willingness to let you help us. I’ll give him a fully detailed report at the first possible time. As soon as I can be sure what’s going on.”
“Are we done here, then?” Zbrigniew asked.
Dr. Jones nodded. “Yes. We’ve done what we could. The rest is a job for the police.”
“We’d better retreat then,” the sergeant decided. “They don’t need to know we were involved. They’ll be pissed off by the presence of Torchwood enough.”
“Very true,” confessed Dr. Jones. “Thank you for your help, Sergeant.”
Zbrigniew didn’t waste any time with platitudes, just nodded once, briefly, and ordered his men to return to the base. The UNIT team marched away at once.
When, only moments later, the paramedics and the police finally arrived, they only found Trevor Howard and Martha Jones on the crime scene.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Going down to the incinerator was never easy for Jack. All too vivid were his memories of the people - usually aliens, but inevitably also the odd human - who had vanished in there, because they’d been declared a threat for the Empire, during his hundred-and-some years associated with Torchwood Cardiff.
In recent years, a more personal memory had been added to those old ones; a different one, yet one no less unpleasant. He stole a quick glance at Tosh and could see that she, too, was reminded the last time the incinerator had been used.
The Cyberwoman incident had nearly torn the team apart, but it had also opened their eyes to who - or what - Ianto really was. It had given them a glimpse of the young man’s full potential, although Jack was sure there were still layers upon layers hidden from their eyes.
Well, from his eyes anyway. In the meantime he’d come to the realization that Tosh might have known all along what Ianto had done while working for Headquarters. And Gwen and Owen couldn’t be arsed to care. For them, Ianto had been just the teaboy, whose job was to make their lives comfortable - and then the Traitor, with a capital ‘T’.
Somehow it was ironic that Owen, who’d been foaming off the mouth about Ianto’s treachery for quite some time, had come to shooting Jack in the head, driven by the mad desire to open the Rift and got his Diane back. A woman for whom he’d only ever come second, after her first, true love: flying.
No wonder the man had knacked after Jack’s departure. Unlike Gwen, at least Owen had a conscience.
Jack still didn’t know for sure what Gwen had done that would make Ianto decide to Retcon her back to where she’d stood before joining Torchwood. He’d been given the basic facts, of course, and what little he’d witnessed of her actions since his return persuaded him that it had been necessary - she was clearly obsessed and a danger for them all - but not the details, and everyone knew that the devil was always in the details.
He decided that enough was enough. Once the current crisis was over, he’d sit down with Tosh - who was more likely to tell him things, due to their long friendship - and get to the bottom of this. No pun intended.
They fired up the incinerator and watched in relief as the metallic alloy of Raxacoricofallapatorian origins gave in to the fire. When the pre-programmed cycle ended, there was nothing but a lump of slag left in the oven.
“The signal has stopped,” Tosh said, consulting her hand-held scanner. “That’s one problem solved. What about Ianto, though?”
Jack checked his watch. “He’s on his way to the Hub and will be here in, oh, twenty minutes or so. Martha says he’s unconscious again… very much like he was earlier.”
“Do you think we can get him here before the police would catch up with him?” Tosh asked in concern. Jack shrugged.
“With Mickey driving? They won’t stand a chance.”
“And what when we’ve got him here safely?” Tosh insisted. “What then? He’s a murder suspect, Jack! If we can’t clear him beyond doubt, we can kiss co-operation with the local police good-bye… for a very long time.”
“We will clear him,” Jack replied with easy confidence. “I know he’s not a murderer; and we have the means to prove it.”
“You mean that alien lie detector?” Tosh raised a sceptical eyebrow. “I doubt the police would accept that as a proof.”
“Perhaps they won’t, but UNIT will, and that’s what counts,” Jack said. “They know how it works; and they know it never fails. They’ll back us against the police if necessary.”
“Let’s hope so,” Tosh said slowly. “But… Jack, I know you’re not willing to consider the possibility, but what if Ianto’s truly murdered those girls? Not because he wanted to but because he was forced?”
“Are you speaking of alien mind control?” Jack shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think so. You know how much I despised One, but they trained their people well. Including psychic training. You told me yourself that Rajesh Singh couldn’t be fooled by the psychic paper, and I assume Archivists had higher level training than his.”
“To counteract such a simple trick is one thing; to resist a powerful alien telepath is another one,” Tosh reminded him. “No matter how strong one’s defences are, there always can come somebody who’s stronger.”
“We’ll know, sooner or later,” Jack listened to his earpiece for a moment. “Tom’s just got back from St. Helen’s. Let’s hear what he’s got to tell us about Ianto’s escape.”
“You go,” Tosh said. “I’ll check on Jenny first; then I’ll come, too.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think she’s got anything to do with this?”
“She most certainly has something to do with it, but I doubt that she’d intend to harm us,” Tosh corrected. “I do think, however, that the murderer has followed her - or rather the signal of that tracking device - through the Rift.”
“Do you believe that she really is the Doctor’s daughter?” Jack asked hesitantly.
Tosh shrugged. “There’s a strong possibility, yes. She’s Gallifreyan, there’s no doubt about that, and she recognized him - the current him - on the archive photos. That still isn’t hard proof, though - she still can be an impostor; a well-informed one. We’ll only know for sure when the DNA-analysis has run its cycle.”
“But you’ll check on her nonetheless,” Jack said.
“Well, somebody has to, and I doubt that she’d want to see you right now,” Tosh sighed. “Besides, I owe it to her father - to his former self, that is - in case she is the genuine item.”
Jack smiled and kissed the top of her head. “You’re a good girl, Toshiko Sato.”
“And you’re running late,” Tosh stood on tiptoes to give him a peck on the cheek. “Go. I’ll be with you, soon.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jenny had been sitting in her bare little cell for hours. She couldn’t tell for how many of them as her inner sense of time hadn’t adapted yet to the planet’s cycles completely. But it had been long enough for her to get bored. Not to mention hungry and thirsty. Whatever was going on above her head, it was apparently bad enough for the Torchwood people to forget about her.
Or about the other residents in the cells.
She didn’t blame them for locking her up, not really. They didn’t know her; they had no proof that she truly was who she stated to be. Besides, it was her impression that - save for Jack and Toshiko - nobody at Torchwood really liked her Dad. And even Jack’s feelings towards him were mixed at best. While the captain clearly loved her Dad, there was also a great deal of bitterness in him.
Her Dad must have hurt him badly.
Perhaps she could ask the pretty lady doctor about it. Martha had obviously been a companion; she and Jack had even travelled with her Dad together for a short while, it seemed. And yet both of them had chosen to leave her Dad and remain on this insignificant little planet, barely out of its primordial stage.
Why would they do that? For her part, Jenny would have given anything to travel with her Dad in his amazing timeship. Why would anyone give up that chance willingly?
She decided to find out the reasons… eventually. It was something related to her Dad, and therefore it was her business, too. But first she needed to orchestrate a little jailbreak. She wouldn’t stay in his stupid cell, bored out of her head, while there was a murderer running free. A murderer that had probably followed her to this planet.
If they didn’t want her help, fine. She could do things on her own; had done for years.
She loosened the laces of her ankle boots and pulled out the two components hidden there. She touched the rough ends together, and the intelligent metal became fluid for a moment at the contact point, fusing the components into one piece.
What she was holding in her hand now was a silvery metallic stift, about a handspan’s long and barely thicker than her forefinger… and it warmed slightly, recognizing her DNA. It wouldn’t work for anyone else.
Her universal key. A clever little sonic device, built with the help of memories, the Time Lord knowledge encoded in her genes, thank the Progenation Machine. Her Dad had something similar, she knew it; he’d called it a sonic screwdriver. She preferred her own name for the thing; it sounded considerably more elegant, better fitting for a girl. Besides, it was more elegant. It looked a little like a futuristic ball-point pen, but it had all functions her Dad’s device could display.
Opening any doors, for example.
She aimed the key at the slide door and activated the scanner modus. To open a lock, she needed to find it first; but it took the clever little tool mere moments. The door slid aside without resistance, and Jenny stepped out into the corridor. She’d memorized the way down here easily. Tracking it back would be no problem at all.
As she passed the cell of the creature Jack had called a Weevil, though, the wave of sadness and longing stopped her in her track. The creature was obviously suffering from loneliness and loss - and those were things she could understand all too well.
She stepped closer to the transparent door and reached out to the female Weevil telepathically. She wasn’t very good at it, and she lacked any training in the area - another thing she needed to catch up with eventually - but she could establish a mental link with another telepathic being if she tried hard enough… and if the other one was willing to share.
“C’mon,” she murmured. “Show me what’s bothering you.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jack found Tom Milligan in the main Hub area. The doctor had already put on the set of clothes he kept in the Hub for emergencies (like everyone else) and endured patiently Lloyd’s fussing. She was preparing a cup of tea for him, with lots of sugar, forcing him to eat some chocolate chip muffins with it.
“You need to boost your blood sugar level, or you’ll just keel over,” she declared.
Tom smiled tolerantly into his teacup. The fuss was really unnecessary, but if it made her feel better, he could live with it… besides, it was nice to be pampered from time to time.
“How bad is it?” Jack asked, eyeing the small wound on Tom’s head warily. It had been professionally cleaned and dressed at St. Helen’s, but still…
Nonetheless, Tom seemed fine enough for a guy who’d recently been knocked out by his own patient. A patient that had supposedly been out like a light.
“Headache… probably a mild concussion,” Tom replied with a careful shrug; his head didn’t like any abrupt movements right now. “Nothing serious. I’ll be right as rain in a couple of days.”
“That’s good to know,” Jack dropped onto a chair. “So, can you tell me what the hell happened?”
“That’s a good question,” Tom said. “I was sitting peacefully in Ianto’s sick room, checking the monitors from time to time… until he suddenly woke up. Well, not exactly,” he corrected himself. “He didn’t really wake up. He bolted upright in his bed, stared at me with those spooky, vacant eyes; and then he ripped the needles from his arm, tore away the sensor pads of the heart monitor and the other stuff and jumped out of the bed like… like an oversized cat, actually. When I tried to stop him, he threw me at the wall, where I hit my head and lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was in my underwear, had a raging headache, and Ianto was gone.”
“And you say he wasn’t really awake?” Jack frowned. “Could he have been sleepwalking? I know he used to do that a lot when he was a child.”
“Perhaps,” Tom allowed. “But I never heard before that a sleepwalker would develop preternatural strength while on a walking trip. They usually just do what they do when awake.”
Jack’s frown deepened. “What do you mean with preternatural strength? Ianto isn’t a weakling.”
“No, he isn’t but he shouldn’t be able to throw me against a wall like a rag doll,” Tom replied. “Jack, I’m as tall as he is, I weigh another half as much, and I’m a lot stronger. I used to be an athlete when I was in his age and built up quite the muscle mass; under normal circumstances I’d be able to beat him up and tie him in a knot. But today - I didn’t have a chance against him. It was like being hit by a steamroller.”
“How do you explain it?” Jack asked. “Alien influence?”
“I haven’t got a clue,” Tom confessed. “The human body can call up amazing strength in an emergency situation, even without any aliens involved. Old men are known to have jumped over six-foot-high fences to escape attacking bulls - something they’d never have managed otherwise. But something must trigger such reactions; you can’t just switch them on at will.”
“By which we’d be back to alien mind control,” Lloyd said. “It would explain the long stretch of unconscious state afterward. The body would need to recharge after such extortions.”
“It is a possibility,” Tom allowed. “We’ll know more when I can examine him. But I’ll need Owen’s help. I’m way too knew to this alien shit, be it creatures or technology.”
“Has he come back with you?” Jack asked.
Tom nodded. “He’s preparing the sick room for Ianto.”
Jack’s eyebrows climbed to the roots of his hair. “We’ve got a sick room in the Hub?”
Lloyd rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Oh, c’me on, Captain, you’ve been back for months. Are you telling me that you haven’t spotted our sick room yet? It’s not like it would be somewhere on Sublevel 20 or so; it’s right below the med bay.”
“Well, I don’t need it, do I?” replied Jack with a shrug.
“True,” Lloyd said. “But if you’re always so blind for what’s going on in your own base, it’s no wonder your old team could do whatever they wanted behind your back.”
The casual comment hurt, but Jack had to admit that she was right. Besides, he couldn’t wallow in regret about past mistakes right now. He had to find a way to protect Ianto, by all means necessary.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
She was standing upon a low hill on a large, twilit planet that was orbiting a dying sun. The ruddy light could barely penetrate the thick layer of fog, created by the grey dampness that kept emerging from the swamps that covered the planet surface as far as she could see. She could feel the slight pull of a gravity greater than that on Earth, albeit not by much - she calculated it to be about one hundred and four per cent of the Earth norm.
Breathing was hard in the thick, foggy atmosphere high on carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapours, rising from the muddy waters and from the far-away volcanoes smoking at the edge of her vision. A vision that was blurred due to the omnipresent fog barely stirred by the slightest breeze. It was like seeing things through thick, cloudy glass.
She couldn’t see any trees or other higher advanced plants anywhere. The flora consisted of various kinds of ferns; some of them towering as high as ten feet, but still ferns, with semi-elastic stems thicker than a man’s girth, swaying gently in the slight breeze. Small reptiles were scurrying in the undergrowth, their muted greens and yellows and greys made them blend with their surroundings completely.
Everything seemed to be covered with a layer of grey; the towering Lepidodendrons and Sigillaria had no blossoms and only long, thin leaves like the head of a lance. And yet in places where they grew densely it was dark between their thick stems. A darkness that the planet’s pitiful attempt of daylight could never penetrate.
But there was life in that darkness nonetheless. Tall, bulky bipedal creatures moved on the outskirts of the fern forest: creatures with wrinkled, leathery grey skin thick enough to withstand the general dampness of this world; with deep-set eyes protected by a protruding forehead and with sharp talons and fangs to catch the small lizards and eat them row.
Weevils, she decided, in their natural environment.
Here, on their planet of origins, they wore no clothing, and yet there was no sure sign to tell the males from the females, although she knew that the ones with the more defined spine column were supposed to be male. They looked very much alike, all of them.
She watched with interest as a small group of them left the safety of the dark forest to go down to the swam shining dully through a less densely grown group of Sigillaria and wondered whether they had natural enemies here. They seemed careful and suspicious. While some of them lay down on their bellies, reaching with their long arms into the muddy water and coming up with creatures that looked vaguely like fish and crabs, others were standing guard.
She realized that they were gathering food; and they didn’t gobble it up right away. One of them had brought some sort of net, knotted from natural fibres, and was now collecting what the others had got from the swamp. That spoke of some rudimentary intelligence; even of the beginnings of social order.
Suddenly, their food-gathering activity was interrupted by a blinding, oscillating disc of light that appeared close to the swamp’s edge - like a mythical gate into another dimension. Most of the Weevils covered their eyes and ran blindly away, back to the dark safety of the fern forest. Others curled up on the damp floor, hiding their faces and howling in terror. She realized that this was the first sound they’d made.
Others, among them the one gathering the fish, approached the light carefully, ready to bolt any moment. They seemed to be drawn to it, like moths to the flame - most likely with the same disastrous results. One of them boldly poked the… the thing with a clawed finger, and when nothing happened, it went even closer, until the anomaly swallowed it completely.
The others howled in distress, but a few of them followed suit, until only a gatherer - presumably a female - was left. She hesitated; then she threw away her half-filled net and jumped into the light.
A moment later the anomaly collapsed as if it had never been there.
At the same moment the connection broke and Jenny found herself back in the corridor of Torchwood’s underground base, staring into the yellow eyes of Janet the Weevil.
“So, there’s where you’ve come from?” she murmured. “And you’re homesick, aren’t you? Well, I can certainly understand that.”
Chapter 09
Episode 03 - Smiths & Joneses
by Soledad
Author’s notes: For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the secondary index page.
All the pseudo-science is made up by me, and I’m not a technically savvy person, so please ignore any impossibilities I might have created. *g*
CHAPTER 08
Doctor Jones rushed by the UNIT soldiers and checked first the vitals of the Torchwood director, and then those of the unknown young woman.
“He’s unconscious,” she stated, moving her bioscanner, enhanced with alien technology, over Director Jones’ body. “Unusually high brain activity, though, for someone clearly passed out. Something is very fishy here. Mickey, bring around the SUV and load him in. Take him to the Hub; St. Helen’s is obviously not secure enough.”
Then she kneeled down next to the other victim, opening her med-kit one-handedly.
“She’s beyond help,” she judged. “Private Jenkins, you’ve got field medic training, haven’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jenkins replied, surprised and even a little startled at the same time.
“Assist me. We need to collect samples and take photos before the police would arrive. Trevor, check her for residual Rift energy; for any possible energy signature that may appear unusual.”
“Shouldn’t we take her to the Hub, too?” the Torchwood techie, whose name was apparently Trevor, asked.
Dr. Jones shook her head. “We can’t. This is a murder case, and as such, the police have the authority to deal with it. But we’ll need every single detail if we want to prove Ianto’s innocence.”
“They’d suspect Jonesy?” the bloke named Trevor asked incredulously. He very obviously didn’t think that his boss would be capable of murdering anyone.
“Can you blame them?” Dr. Jones was collecting tissue samples from the neck of the victim, where the darkening bruises showed that she’d been, indeed, strangulated, while Jenkins took the victim’s fingerprints. “This is the second time he was found next to a murdered woman; and the same type of woman, too.”
“But he’d been attacked both times, too,” the tough-looking black guy Dr. Jones called Mickey protested, having pulled up the Torchwood-mobile and unceremoniously hauled their boss onto the passenger seat.
“We don’t know that,” Dr. Jones pointed out. “We know that he was unconscious both time we found him, but that could have different reasons. In theory, he could be a psychotic serial killer who simply can’t cope with his own crimes.”
“Jonesy?” Trevor shook his bald head. “No way!”
“I’m not saying he is one,” Dr. Jones said. “But the police might think that, and they could find a number of psychiatrists to support the idea. So, it will be the best if we took him to the Hub, where they’d have a really hard time to extract him, until we can prove his innocence.”
“Couldn’t the police file an official demand for him to be put in their custody?” Sergeant Zbrigniew asked.
“Over Jack Harkness’ dead body; and we know that wouldn’t last long, don’t we?” Dr. Jones replied with a cold smile. “Hurry up, Mickey, they’ll be here, soon.”
“Already on my way,” Mickey fastened the seatbelt around the unresponsive body of his boss, then jumped into the SUV and drove away with screeching tires.
Dr. Jones sighed. “That’s one problem dealt with - temporarily, at least. Private Jenkins, take fibre samples from the victim’s clothing while I draw some blood. There, in that kit are some self-adhesive plastic foils, the same kind the police use. And see if you can find anything conclusive under her fingernails.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jenkins found that he enjoyed playing SOCO. Well, would have, hadn’t been the situation too bloody serious. It was like getting a guest role in CSI.
“Wouldn’t the blood be clogged already?” Zbrigniew asked.
“The body’s still warm; the rigor mortis hasn’t even set on,” Dr. Jones answered, inserting the needle into the vein in the victim’s left arm. Dark blood began to quill sluggishly into the small plastic syringe. “She couldn’t have been dead for longer than an hour.”
“Ma’am,” Jenkins looked up to her in surprise,” there’s something under her fingernails.”
“Tissue samples?” Dr. Jones asked sharply. “Has she scratched somebody?”
Jenkins shook his head. “Well, she obviously did scratch somebody - or something - but this doesn’t look like human tissue. Some kind of greyish white substance; fairly hard, too. I’ve no idea what it is.”
“Take a sample but leave something for the police, too,” Dr. Jones ordered, storing her own blood and tissue samples in the respective containers of the medkit. She even pulled a few hairs from the victim’s head.
“What is that for?” Zbrigniew frowned.
“Examining the hair will tell us if she was on drugs, and if yes, when and for how long,” she explained. “Is there a handbag or a purse on her to tell us who she was?”
Harris went to look around but came back empty-handed.
“I didn’t find anything, ma’am,” he said. “But I don’t think she was a hooker. She seems so… ordinary, like the girl next door. Perhaps it was just bad luck. Perhaps she was at the wrong time in the wrong place.”
Dr. Jones nodded thoughtfully. “You may be right, Private… Harris, isn’t it? Her clothes are fairly inconclusive: jeans, a tank top, a jacket hundreds of other girls wear, sneakers… Barely any make-up, hair in a simple ponytail… a student perhaps, or somebody working in a pizza shop or in a supermarket that’s open during the night. The poor thing.”
“A bloody shame it is,” Harris agreed. “Any theory why she might have been chosen, ma’am?”
“Perhaps,” Dr. Jones replied evasively. “It could have been a case of mistaken identity; but we can be entirely wrong,” she turned to Zbrigniew. “Sergeant, give Colonel Mace my regards and express my thanks on behalf of Torchwood for his willingness to let you help us. I’ll give him a fully detailed report at the first possible time. As soon as I can be sure what’s going on.”
“Are we done here, then?” Zbrigniew asked.
Dr. Jones nodded. “Yes. We’ve done what we could. The rest is a job for the police.”
“We’d better retreat then,” the sergeant decided. “They don’t need to know we were involved. They’ll be pissed off by the presence of Torchwood enough.”
“Very true,” confessed Dr. Jones. “Thank you for your help, Sergeant.”
Zbrigniew didn’t waste any time with platitudes, just nodded once, briefly, and ordered his men to return to the base. The UNIT team marched away at once.
When, only moments later, the paramedics and the police finally arrived, they only found Trevor Howard and Martha Jones on the crime scene.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Going down to the incinerator was never easy for Jack. All too vivid were his memories of the people - usually aliens, but inevitably also the odd human - who had vanished in there, because they’d been declared a threat for the Empire, during his hundred-and-some years associated with Torchwood Cardiff.
In recent years, a more personal memory had been added to those old ones; a different one, yet one no less unpleasant. He stole a quick glance at Tosh and could see that she, too, was reminded the last time the incinerator had been used.
The Cyberwoman incident had nearly torn the team apart, but it had also opened their eyes to who - or what - Ianto really was. It had given them a glimpse of the young man’s full potential, although Jack was sure there were still layers upon layers hidden from their eyes.
Well, from his eyes anyway. In the meantime he’d come to the realization that Tosh might have known all along what Ianto had done while working for Headquarters. And Gwen and Owen couldn’t be arsed to care. For them, Ianto had been just the teaboy, whose job was to make their lives comfortable - and then the Traitor, with a capital ‘T’.
Somehow it was ironic that Owen, who’d been foaming off the mouth about Ianto’s treachery for quite some time, had come to shooting Jack in the head, driven by the mad desire to open the Rift and got his Diane back. A woman for whom he’d only ever come second, after her first, true love: flying.
No wonder the man had knacked after Jack’s departure. Unlike Gwen, at least Owen had a conscience.
Jack still didn’t know for sure what Gwen had done that would make Ianto decide to Retcon her back to where she’d stood before joining Torchwood. He’d been given the basic facts, of course, and what little he’d witnessed of her actions since his return persuaded him that it had been necessary - she was clearly obsessed and a danger for them all - but not the details, and everyone knew that the devil was always in the details.
He decided that enough was enough. Once the current crisis was over, he’d sit down with Tosh - who was more likely to tell him things, due to their long friendship - and get to the bottom of this. No pun intended.
They fired up the incinerator and watched in relief as the metallic alloy of Raxacoricofallapatorian origins gave in to the fire. When the pre-programmed cycle ended, there was nothing but a lump of slag left in the oven.
“The signal has stopped,” Tosh said, consulting her hand-held scanner. “That’s one problem solved. What about Ianto, though?”
Jack checked his watch. “He’s on his way to the Hub and will be here in, oh, twenty minutes or so. Martha says he’s unconscious again… very much like he was earlier.”
“Do you think we can get him here before the police would catch up with him?” Tosh asked in concern. Jack shrugged.
“With Mickey driving? They won’t stand a chance.”
“And what when we’ve got him here safely?” Tosh insisted. “What then? He’s a murder suspect, Jack! If we can’t clear him beyond doubt, we can kiss co-operation with the local police good-bye… for a very long time.”
“We will clear him,” Jack replied with easy confidence. “I know he’s not a murderer; and we have the means to prove it.”
“You mean that alien lie detector?” Tosh raised a sceptical eyebrow. “I doubt the police would accept that as a proof.”
“Perhaps they won’t, but UNIT will, and that’s what counts,” Jack said. “They know how it works; and they know it never fails. They’ll back us against the police if necessary.”
“Let’s hope so,” Tosh said slowly. “But… Jack, I know you’re not willing to consider the possibility, but what if Ianto’s truly murdered those girls? Not because he wanted to but because he was forced?”
“Are you speaking of alien mind control?” Jack shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think so. You know how much I despised One, but they trained their people well. Including psychic training. You told me yourself that Rajesh Singh couldn’t be fooled by the psychic paper, and I assume Archivists had higher level training than his.”
“To counteract such a simple trick is one thing; to resist a powerful alien telepath is another one,” Tosh reminded him. “No matter how strong one’s defences are, there always can come somebody who’s stronger.”
“We’ll know, sooner or later,” Jack listened to his earpiece for a moment. “Tom’s just got back from St. Helen’s. Let’s hear what he’s got to tell us about Ianto’s escape.”
“You go,” Tosh said. “I’ll check on Jenny first; then I’ll come, too.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think she’s got anything to do with this?”
“She most certainly has something to do with it, but I doubt that she’d intend to harm us,” Tosh corrected. “I do think, however, that the murderer has followed her - or rather the signal of that tracking device - through the Rift.”
“Do you believe that she really is the Doctor’s daughter?” Jack asked hesitantly.
Tosh shrugged. “There’s a strong possibility, yes. She’s Gallifreyan, there’s no doubt about that, and she recognized him - the current him - on the archive photos. That still isn’t hard proof, though - she still can be an impostor; a well-informed one. We’ll only know for sure when the DNA-analysis has run its cycle.”
“But you’ll check on her nonetheless,” Jack said.
“Well, somebody has to, and I doubt that she’d want to see you right now,” Tosh sighed. “Besides, I owe it to her father - to his former self, that is - in case she is the genuine item.”
Jack smiled and kissed the top of her head. “You’re a good girl, Toshiko Sato.”
“And you’re running late,” Tosh stood on tiptoes to give him a peck on the cheek. “Go. I’ll be with you, soon.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jenny had been sitting in her bare little cell for hours. She couldn’t tell for how many of them as her inner sense of time hadn’t adapted yet to the planet’s cycles completely. But it had been long enough for her to get bored. Not to mention hungry and thirsty. Whatever was going on above her head, it was apparently bad enough for the Torchwood people to forget about her.
Or about the other residents in the cells.
She didn’t blame them for locking her up, not really. They didn’t know her; they had no proof that she truly was who she stated to be. Besides, it was her impression that - save for Jack and Toshiko - nobody at Torchwood really liked her Dad. And even Jack’s feelings towards him were mixed at best. While the captain clearly loved her Dad, there was also a great deal of bitterness in him.
Her Dad must have hurt him badly.
Perhaps she could ask the pretty lady doctor about it. Martha had obviously been a companion; she and Jack had even travelled with her Dad together for a short while, it seemed. And yet both of them had chosen to leave her Dad and remain on this insignificant little planet, barely out of its primordial stage.
Why would they do that? For her part, Jenny would have given anything to travel with her Dad in his amazing timeship. Why would anyone give up that chance willingly?
She decided to find out the reasons… eventually. It was something related to her Dad, and therefore it was her business, too. But first she needed to orchestrate a little jailbreak. She wouldn’t stay in his stupid cell, bored out of her head, while there was a murderer running free. A murderer that had probably followed her to this planet.
If they didn’t want her help, fine. She could do things on her own; had done for years.
She loosened the laces of her ankle boots and pulled out the two components hidden there. She touched the rough ends together, and the intelligent metal became fluid for a moment at the contact point, fusing the components into one piece.
What she was holding in her hand now was a silvery metallic stift, about a handspan’s long and barely thicker than her forefinger… and it warmed slightly, recognizing her DNA. It wouldn’t work for anyone else.
Her universal key. A clever little sonic device, built with the help of memories, the Time Lord knowledge encoded in her genes, thank the Progenation Machine. Her Dad had something similar, she knew it; he’d called it a sonic screwdriver. She preferred her own name for the thing; it sounded considerably more elegant, better fitting for a girl. Besides, it was more elegant. It looked a little like a futuristic ball-point pen, but it had all functions her Dad’s device could display.
Opening any doors, for example.
She aimed the key at the slide door and activated the scanner modus. To open a lock, she needed to find it first; but it took the clever little tool mere moments. The door slid aside without resistance, and Jenny stepped out into the corridor. She’d memorized the way down here easily. Tracking it back would be no problem at all.
As she passed the cell of the creature Jack had called a Weevil, though, the wave of sadness and longing stopped her in her track. The creature was obviously suffering from loneliness and loss - and those were things she could understand all too well.
She stepped closer to the transparent door and reached out to the female Weevil telepathically. She wasn’t very good at it, and she lacked any training in the area - another thing she needed to catch up with eventually - but she could establish a mental link with another telepathic being if she tried hard enough… and if the other one was willing to share.
“C’mon,” she murmured. “Show me what’s bothering you.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jack found Tom Milligan in the main Hub area. The doctor had already put on the set of clothes he kept in the Hub for emergencies (like everyone else) and endured patiently Lloyd’s fussing. She was preparing a cup of tea for him, with lots of sugar, forcing him to eat some chocolate chip muffins with it.
“You need to boost your blood sugar level, or you’ll just keel over,” she declared.
Tom smiled tolerantly into his teacup. The fuss was really unnecessary, but if it made her feel better, he could live with it… besides, it was nice to be pampered from time to time.
“How bad is it?” Jack asked, eyeing the small wound on Tom’s head warily. It had been professionally cleaned and dressed at St. Helen’s, but still…
Nonetheless, Tom seemed fine enough for a guy who’d recently been knocked out by his own patient. A patient that had supposedly been out like a light.
“Headache… probably a mild concussion,” Tom replied with a careful shrug; his head didn’t like any abrupt movements right now. “Nothing serious. I’ll be right as rain in a couple of days.”
“That’s good to know,” Jack dropped onto a chair. “So, can you tell me what the hell happened?”
“That’s a good question,” Tom said. “I was sitting peacefully in Ianto’s sick room, checking the monitors from time to time… until he suddenly woke up. Well, not exactly,” he corrected himself. “He didn’t really wake up. He bolted upright in his bed, stared at me with those spooky, vacant eyes; and then he ripped the needles from his arm, tore away the sensor pads of the heart monitor and the other stuff and jumped out of the bed like… like an oversized cat, actually. When I tried to stop him, he threw me at the wall, where I hit my head and lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was in my underwear, had a raging headache, and Ianto was gone.”
“And you say he wasn’t really awake?” Jack frowned. “Could he have been sleepwalking? I know he used to do that a lot when he was a child.”
“Perhaps,” Tom allowed. “But I never heard before that a sleepwalker would develop preternatural strength while on a walking trip. They usually just do what they do when awake.”
Jack’s frown deepened. “What do you mean with preternatural strength? Ianto isn’t a weakling.”
“No, he isn’t but he shouldn’t be able to throw me against a wall like a rag doll,” Tom replied. “Jack, I’m as tall as he is, I weigh another half as much, and I’m a lot stronger. I used to be an athlete when I was in his age and built up quite the muscle mass; under normal circumstances I’d be able to beat him up and tie him in a knot. But today - I didn’t have a chance against him. It was like being hit by a steamroller.”
“How do you explain it?” Jack asked. “Alien influence?”
“I haven’t got a clue,” Tom confessed. “The human body can call up amazing strength in an emergency situation, even without any aliens involved. Old men are known to have jumped over six-foot-high fences to escape attacking bulls - something they’d never have managed otherwise. But something must trigger such reactions; you can’t just switch them on at will.”
“By which we’d be back to alien mind control,” Lloyd said. “It would explain the long stretch of unconscious state afterward. The body would need to recharge after such extortions.”
“It is a possibility,” Tom allowed. “We’ll know more when I can examine him. But I’ll need Owen’s help. I’m way too knew to this alien shit, be it creatures or technology.”
“Has he come back with you?” Jack asked.
Tom nodded. “He’s preparing the sick room for Ianto.”
Jack’s eyebrows climbed to the roots of his hair. “We’ve got a sick room in the Hub?”
Lloyd rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Oh, c’me on, Captain, you’ve been back for months. Are you telling me that you haven’t spotted our sick room yet? It’s not like it would be somewhere on Sublevel 20 or so; it’s right below the med bay.”
“Well, I don’t need it, do I?” replied Jack with a shrug.
“True,” Lloyd said. “But if you’re always so blind for what’s going on in your own base, it’s no wonder your old team could do whatever they wanted behind your back.”
The casual comment hurt, but Jack had to admit that she was right. Besides, he couldn’t wallow in regret about past mistakes right now. He had to find a way to protect Ianto, by all means necessary.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
She was standing upon a low hill on a large, twilit planet that was orbiting a dying sun. The ruddy light could barely penetrate the thick layer of fog, created by the grey dampness that kept emerging from the swamps that covered the planet surface as far as she could see. She could feel the slight pull of a gravity greater than that on Earth, albeit not by much - she calculated it to be about one hundred and four per cent of the Earth norm.
Breathing was hard in the thick, foggy atmosphere high on carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapours, rising from the muddy waters and from the far-away volcanoes smoking at the edge of her vision. A vision that was blurred due to the omnipresent fog barely stirred by the slightest breeze. It was like seeing things through thick, cloudy glass.
She couldn’t see any trees or other higher advanced plants anywhere. The flora consisted of various kinds of ferns; some of them towering as high as ten feet, but still ferns, with semi-elastic stems thicker than a man’s girth, swaying gently in the slight breeze. Small reptiles were scurrying in the undergrowth, their muted greens and yellows and greys made them blend with their surroundings completely.
Everything seemed to be covered with a layer of grey; the towering Lepidodendrons and Sigillaria had no blossoms and only long, thin leaves like the head of a lance. And yet in places where they grew densely it was dark between their thick stems. A darkness that the planet’s pitiful attempt of daylight could never penetrate.
But there was life in that darkness nonetheless. Tall, bulky bipedal creatures moved on the outskirts of the fern forest: creatures with wrinkled, leathery grey skin thick enough to withstand the general dampness of this world; with deep-set eyes protected by a protruding forehead and with sharp talons and fangs to catch the small lizards and eat them row.
Weevils, she decided, in their natural environment.
Here, on their planet of origins, they wore no clothing, and yet there was no sure sign to tell the males from the females, although she knew that the ones with the more defined spine column were supposed to be male. They looked very much alike, all of them.
She watched with interest as a small group of them left the safety of the dark forest to go down to the swam shining dully through a less densely grown group of Sigillaria and wondered whether they had natural enemies here. They seemed careful and suspicious. While some of them lay down on their bellies, reaching with their long arms into the muddy water and coming up with creatures that looked vaguely like fish and crabs, others were standing guard.
She realized that they were gathering food; and they didn’t gobble it up right away. One of them had brought some sort of net, knotted from natural fibres, and was now collecting what the others had got from the swamp. That spoke of some rudimentary intelligence; even of the beginnings of social order.
Suddenly, their food-gathering activity was interrupted by a blinding, oscillating disc of light that appeared close to the swamp’s edge - like a mythical gate into another dimension. Most of the Weevils covered their eyes and ran blindly away, back to the dark safety of the fern forest. Others curled up on the damp floor, hiding their faces and howling in terror. She realized that this was the first sound they’d made.
Others, among them the one gathering the fish, approached the light carefully, ready to bolt any moment. They seemed to be drawn to it, like moths to the flame - most likely with the same disastrous results. One of them boldly poked the… the thing with a clawed finger, and when nothing happened, it went even closer, until the anomaly swallowed it completely.
The others howled in distress, but a few of them followed suit, until only a gatherer - presumably a female - was left. She hesitated; then she threw away her half-filled net and jumped into the light.
A moment later the anomaly collapsed as if it had never been there.
At the same moment the connection broke and Jenny found herself back in the corridor of Torchwood’s underground base, staring into the yellow eyes of Janet the Weevil.
“So, there’s where you’ve come from?” she murmured. “And you’re homesick, aren’t you? Well, I can certainly understand that.”
Chapter 09