for brigadiertardis Ghost in the machine

[quitehomoerotic]

Torchwood didn't keep hours. Torchwood couldn't keep hours. Not with the sort of work they did. Alien invaders didn't really respect when people might like to have a nice night in in front of the telly, or sleep in late in the morning. They didn't care if you wanted to start at nine and finish at five

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[brigadiertardis]

As she was wont to do, the TARDIS was having a go at Torchwood's systems, running some system files, going through data backlogs and generally just being a snoop. Even if the Doctor didn't keep a keen eye on the place, she wans't one to give up an information source, and considering how often her pilot enjoyed hopping over to that annoying planet, it was best she keep prepared. Her and Mr Smith were on quite chummy terms, as well, so it wasn't strange for her to poke about the Hub's computer.

It was strange, however, to find herself lost in the system. Quite frankly, it had never happened before. Generally she could hop in and out without being detected, but something was wrong today. The rift, perhaps, reacting negatively to her presence. Considering what she was reading in the files, it wouldn't surprise her.

On the other hand, it was unnerving, especially when she felt a tug on her own Matrix. Wonderful. Apparently the computer had holographic technology.

This wasn't what she had planned.

[quitehomoerotic]

Jack huffed out a sigh.

"For one night can't things just go smoothly? Just one night?"

He talked as though someone was there, but there wasn't anyone but himself and the faint echo of his voice against the walls.

But as he clicked into the Torchwood computer files he frowned. He opened up folders and pathways but they seemed wrong. They had been moved. Files in different places, in different orders. Nothing malicious, and Jack could almost think Ianto had changed them. But he hadn't. He knew he hadn't.

"What the..."

More than the change though there was something else. Something new.

He accessed the rift information. No spikes. Oh but look, something else, and whatever it was it was still there. A transmission. Something being sent. Something infiltrated. Were they under attack? Oh he didn't like that

[brigadiertardis]

She was surprised to find a sudden way out, even if it was simply through a simple communication relay. If nothing else, it meant she could eventually escape this strange prison.

She wasn't fond of being trapped.

Before whoever had opened the communication could use it, however, she shot her own command through the interface.

How do I leave?

[quitehomoerotic]

Jack was halfway through typing a message to send to Ianto when the screen changed. It flickered, and the blue lines to the side of the dialogue box, the ones that signified the file pathways, changed a little. They seemed to twist as though something inside changed them and then words appeared on the screen.

"Huh..."

He looked at the screen and considered. Something sentient, maybe? But what? No rift spike and nothing in the last 12 hours or so. So something that had got here some other way, or been here longer.

Something that didn't know it was nothing but files and electric sparks inside a computer? Something that once was embodied? He'd try and find out.

He typed his own message back.

You're inside my computer.

He never was very good at breaking things gently.