DISCLAIMER: I don't own Doctor Who or Torchwood if I did I would have the adventures of torchwood 4 as a spinoff ^_^.

I'll also try and use correct terminology for the certain characters and I'm sorry if I don't use things right just tell me and i'll fix it.

Flashes of light. Incessant ringing. The world blurs and bleeds. Earth spinning out of control, at 67,000 miles per hour around the sun, is home to 7,038,963,341 humans. 156,000 will die today. Another 384,000 will be born to take their place. A constant struggle between life and death that will never end. One we all must loose someday. After all time isn't infinite. Tick tock goes the clock as they say. Tick, tick, tick, TICK!

Speaking of which, Arty glared at the one across the room that was having trouble getting past the three. Interesting.

A buzzing in her ear turned her attentions else where. With the slightest amount of movement she turned on the micro head set in her ear. Taking a quick glance around she made sure no one outside was looking in the managers office. "What do you have for me Al."

"Besides a grilled cheese and pickle sandwich, it would appear our friends at Dover Incorporated have been a little naughty."

Arty crossed her legs and folded her hands together, "A GCP sandwich you say. That sounds good right about now. Maybe with some good old Mexican coke. Not the drug, the drink. They're in these slim glass bottles and they're made with real sugar. Not that artificial crap, which in the future is-"

"Boss?"

"Sorry got distracted. You were saying?"

"It would appear they're embezzling funds from their investors."

"Is that it? That's nothing new. Big corporations do that type of stuff all the time, granted it's awful and we should probably send a suggestion of inquiry to the SFO after all this is over, but is there anything else. Anything at all?"

"No, sorry. I don't exactly understand what you're looking for. I mean it's just some boring insurance company, nothing alien about it. That is if you don't count the office trust building retreats."

"Is my Newspaper still on the couch?"

"Yes. But I still don't see-"

"Turn it to page six and read it out loud."

"Alright. Lets see here. Ok, umm they're opening a McDonalds on Main St."

"Not that one, keep reading."

"Some one's been destroying peoples garden gnomes?"

"Nope try again."

"Death is ruled to be of natural causes?"

"Yep that's the one!"

"A natural death? What's that have to do with Dover?"

Arty uncrossed her legs shifting in her chair as a couple of employees passed the large glass windows. She waited till they disappeared from view behind the wall, "It wouldn't if the person hadn't been found in a cubicle in this building the next morning."

"Again I don't see why that warrants us to investigate it-"

"Yes. Well, if the person who died was in there seventies it might not be such a big deal. But the woman who died was twenty six. And she's not the only one. Two others died the same way within the last two months. As well as seven people who have since gone missing from that building within the last six months. Everyone of them was relatively young and healthy."

Alonzo paused, "Wait, then why does the paper only mention one. I would think all of that would be front page news. That many people dying and going missing in one place. Extremely suspicious."

"Well, it would be if the others had any family of friends to miss them. But Jane Tremont was the only one, she had a half sister who went on expedition in South America that she'd never mentioned, who came back recently. And the coroner, surprise surprise, happens to be employed by a subsidiary of Dover incorporated."

"So it's a big cover up?"

"Pretty much, but the question is what exactly are they covering up."

"Wait! So if you knew all of that then why did you have me run a search?"

"To see if you could come up with anything else. Which you did. But I won't know if it has anything to do with what we're investigating till I have more information. So on that note I need you to send Jo and Spencer to the morgue to retrieve the bodies. I need Jo to do an autopsy once you get them back to base. Also have Quinn on standby for any technical support."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Run some background checks on all employees that have to do with this company. I want you to really dig into their histories. Anything weird no matter how insignificant could be helpful."

"That may take me awhile. Should I grab Oz or Locke, it might help speed up the process if I had an extra set of hands."

"They're not available right now. Oz is off looking for some arnisuim couplings and won't be back for a while."

"And Locke?"

Arty leaned back in her chair and smiled evilly. "Oh don't worry about him. I've already got something for him to do. Just worry about your job."

Alonzo sighed, "For some reason I feel like your grinning like a maniac right now," a small beep went off, "It looks like Mr. Nemo just printed out your background check and your resume. He should be headed back to his office so if you're snooping I suggest you get back to your seat."

"Don't worry. I was gonna look through his office later when most people have gone home for the day. I'm too exposed right now, one of the walls is just a big glass window. Which reminds me, once Spencer is back from the morgue have him wire into the cctv for the building. I want him watching for suspicious activity. Though I'm pretty sure if anything is gonna happen it'll happen once night falls. Call if anyone finds anything. If I don't respond don't worry. It just means I'm not in the position to reply so don't stop talking if I don't say anything. Now if you'll excuse me I can see Mr. Nemo heading this way."

"Talk to you later boss."

Arty readjusted herself and sat up straight as Mr. Nemo opened the door. For a guy stuck in middle management who's going bald with a short chunky stature in his late fifties he sure was happy. Like weird happy. Arty eyed him. He smiled a little to enthusiastically. She put him on the top of her mental suspect list.

"Alright! Ms. Carter it looks like everything checks out. HQ over in America speaks very highly of you. I hope you've been enjoying your stay in the UK so far after all it must be a little difficult with the differences in vocabulary."

"Oh yes, everyones been polite thus far. I've actually spent some time here before so I'm used to the differences."

"Wonderful! Then if you'd like I can have someone give you a tour of the building before we get you set up in an office or you can jump straight into work if you like."

Arty smiles and with a jolt of energy bounces out of her chair. She claps her hands together, "A tour would be lovely."

Mr. Nemo smiles back, again a little to enthusiastically, and pushes a button on his office phone. "Charity, can you get Mr. Mulligan to give Ms. Carter a tour of the building. She's our new consultant from HQ and will be with us for a few weeks. Then can you have someone set her up in Bills old office. Thank you."

"Right away Mr. Nemo."

He looks over to Arty, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't say anything to the other employees as to why you're here. They don't know about the cut backs and I fear if they hear about it productivity will drop. They'll be too worried about being on the chopping block to do there jobs properly. So if you could just be discrete."

She nodded her head and gave him the ok sign, "Of course I understand. If you wouldn't mind sending the budget reports, the quarterly reviews, income statements, all other company materials you can think of, and the companies handbook of rules and regulations to my temporary office. After I've read through them I'd like to schedule a meeting with all the department heads before the end of the work day. I'd also like to sit in on a couple of calls between a customer and employee, as well as shadow a few of them. If everything goes according to plan you and your underlings won't even notice I'm here."

Mr. Nemo grinned and extended his hand which Arty shook. "That sounds reasonable. Glad to have you on board Ms. Carter. I shall be seeing you later then."

"Till later," she retracted her hand from his lingering grip. Yeah there's something a little off about him. Giving the man one last smile she exited the room. The door closed behind her with a quite click. She made a quick scan of the room downloading all possible information that might have some relevance for later. The noises of the hustle and bustle faded around her as time seem to come to a slowed pace. The floor as large as it was was packed with tiny little cubicles. In effect causing the room to appear claustrophobic.

Each one was packed with as much stuff as possible. They were all like little cube shaped time capsules. Each one telling the story and life of its occupant. Each one a little bit different. Some had photo's of family and kids, others had pictures of pets, while a few had small posters with encouraging sayings, a couple had spunky little troll dolls decorating any available space, but there was one in the colorful sea of workspaces that stood out.

This one invoked a feeling of sadness when Arty's gaze rested upon it. There were no personal decorations or photos. It barely gave the indication of being lived in. The only things in it were the sparse furnishing each cubicle was mandatorily provided. It almost appeared like no one used it at all, but the indents on the carpet said that someone used to be there. Her eye's flicked to the little metal plaque on its wall. Ah, just as she thought. Jane Tremont.

The world returned to normal as the ringing of phones and robotic conversations blared. Only a second had truly passed but that was all Arty needed to gather all the information from this room. The next victim would most likely come from in here. After all one of the three things they all had in common was they worked on the seventh floor.

She turned to the small hour glass shaped lady at the glass desk. The woman twirled a piece of her dyed blonde hair between two fingers. She turned her view upward at Arty's presence plastering a fake smile, "Mr. Mulligan should be er' in a mo. I just paged 'im."

"Thank you Charity."

She didn't bother to give a reply. Instead Charity turned back to her computer pretending to be busy to avoid conversation. Not that Arty really noticed, social cues were never her thing. Pursing her lips she began to formulate a plan of action when she noticed a tall lanky man out of the corner of her eye walking over. His washed out jeans had the faded stains of toner. His superman t-shirt was unkempt and faded with years of use. Probably one of his favorites. A mustard stain on the corner of his collar told Arty he had just come from a late lunch which he tried to hide with his ruffled brown suit jacket. His dark brown hair was just as frazzled as his clothing, like it wasn't sure if it wanted to be curly or straight. But what really called to her was his face.

He was young, probably about twenty-seven, and yet not a single laugh line. Instead he had dark circles from stress and lack of sleep. His green eye's pained with a deep seated loneliness that only came with a life deviod of friends or family. He would most likely become the next victim. She was gonna have to stick to him like a werstler on a funar. So pretty much like glue. He wasn't about too become another statistic.

Arty gave him her best dazzling smile when he came to a halt in front of her. The man squirmed under her attention but outstretched his hand towards her anyways, "Hi, I'm Ethan Mulligan. Nice to meet you."

She grabbed his hand with both of hers and vigorously shook his up and down, "Hello Ethan! Pleasure to meet you! I'm Jane Carter from HQ. But you can just call me Jane. Though some people call me J, I don't know why they felt the need to shorten it. My names only four letters long but I digress. I look forward to working closely with you. I've heard great things about this place. Well, actually I haven't. Well more like I haven't heard anything about this place. But that's why I'm here! So shall we get this tour started then!"

Arty quickly linked arms with him dragging the befuddled man along. Arty had to admit she rather enjoyed confusing men. Which was a good thing too because she confused almost everyone who wasn't her brother. The curse of having a higher intellect.

Walking along he pointed out little things about the floor, like where the bathrooms were, the break room, the vending machines, who's office was who's and what take out places delivered and which ones were close by, until they reached the elevators.

"And these are the lifts. Though you probably know that already," he looked unsure of himself as he push the up button. The door opened with a ping. He walked in and she trailed behind him slightly amused. He pointed to each button, "Ummm, the 26th floor is the CEO's office, 25th are the department heads, 15th is personnel, and the 4th floor is tech support. The rest are just like this floor. Oh, and B1 is the mail room."

Arty nodded her head. She pushed the close door button shutting them in, "Ethan you seem like you've got it all together and stuff. Probably know all the in's and outs of the place. You've worked here awhile then?"

He hesitantly nodded his head, "Yeah. Three years this summer. Why?"

"So then have you noticed anything strange or weird happening in the office in say...the past six months?"

His head shot up at that, "Oh god."

"So you have noticed something then?"

"Oh my you-"

"Yes?"

"You're-"

"Go on."

"You're a hatchet man!"

Arty quirked an eyebrow, "I'm a what?"

"Oh god, I should have known. All the 'transfers', the managers giving us looks, Mr. Malum visiting the floor and asking us questions! I knew it! You're here to trim the fat! Oh god, please don't sack me. I mean, I hate this job but its all I have! No friends, no family, not even a bloody cat! I don't know how to do anything else! Pleas-"

A loud smack rang out. Ethan grabbed his cheek in surprise. He tried to formulate a sentence but his mouth just went with the motion, nothing coming out. Arty smiled sheepishly, "Sorry. Had to get you to shut your trap. You were starting to get hysterical. Don't worry I'm not gonna fire you," she pulled out a psychic badge, a close cousin to psychic paper, "My real name is Alexa Bond from INTERPOL and I'm currently working with the SFO to investigate the head honcho's. I'm gonna need you to keep quite and answer my questions. Do you think you can do that?"

He just nodded his head even more surprised. "Good. I don't think I need to tell you what will happen if you tell anyone why I'm really here, do I?"

He shook his head. She clapped her hands together and smiled, "Great! Then how about we reconvene this conversation somewhere a little more private. Say one of those little restaurants you mentioned earlier."

Ethan nodded his head in acknowledgement, his energy level skyrocketing. He was filled with a mixed sense of fear, nerves, and something he hadn't felt since he was five years old. Excitement. She press ground floor on the panel and gave him a quirky grin. In that instance he knew he could trust her. As strange as it, was he just knew that he could. And then in that moment he did something he hadn't done in what felt like years. He smiled a genuine smile. Things were looking better for Ethan Mulligan.

-X-

Things weren't looking great for Lincoln Locke. Things were looking more like shit. Literally.

He grumbled to himself. Thinking of all sorts of ways he was gonna get his team leader back once all of this was over. Oh yes, she would pay dearly. If there was one thing Locke wasn't it was a Janitor.

Begrudgingly he pushed the cart full of cleaning supplies out of the rest room and towards the elevators. Arty did this on purpose just to see if she could get a rise out of him. Well he refused to give her the satisfaction. No matter how much he abhorred the ugly blue jumpsuit he was forced into wearing.

A ping down the hallway told him that the lift had stopped on his floor. He quickly sped up to reach it. He called out, "Hold the lift please!"

He turned the corner and almost choked when he saw who was in it. Arty looked up at him and then the panel. She continued this back and forth movement before she started pressing the buttons. Dammit!

He raced towards the closing doors. "I'm sorry sir, but the maintenance elevators are around the corner," She grinned as the door shut in his face. "You open up this door right now you barmy nutter or I swear to god!"

"I'm sorry, I can't hear you sir. You'll have to catch the next one," her voice faded as the elevator descended. Oh, he was definitely gonna get her back. It might take him a while but he would get her back for this.

With an aggravated sigh he pushed the call button. He knew when he saw her reading the newspaper this morning that it wasn't going to end well for him. Call it his gut instinct or years of experience, but he knew. Of course had it been anyone else to ask him to do this he would have politely told them to piss off. It didn't matter if they ranked above him or not. Which led him to believe he either had a hard time telling that woman no or it was some weird Time lord pheromone that made him say yes. He was going with the pheromone theory.

He almost jumped out of his skin when a hand landed on his shoulder. "Mr. Greenwood."

"Ye-yes," his voice cracked then recovered, "Yes."

The man behind him was in his late eighties. His face shown with the horrors of surviving two wars, his lack of hair caused by raising six kids, fourteen grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, his hands were calloused from years of over working at three jobs. He was a soft spoken man and yet he scared the crap out of him. It was the way he was raised after all. To respect the elderly while fearing them just a tiny bit.

The older gent cleared his throat and lifted something up, "You dropped your bottle of window cleaner."

Locke gently grabbed it from him, "Thank you sir."

The door pinged open as he quietly got in. The older man just stared as if piercing his very soul. It was quite unnerving. "Remember floor eight is off limits."

The door slid shut. Now that sounded like it might be a good place to check out. Unfortunately protocol stated that he had to alert his team leader, await instructions and back up. If he were anyone else on the team he'd say screw it and pay the floor a visit himself but protocols are there for a reason. Even if he was practically the only one who heeded them.

He reached for his micro earpiece, "Ma'am?"

He waited for a response but received none. "I suppose you're in unwanted company then. I'll just tell you what I've learned and await for further instructions on how to proceed. Alright so I chatted with a few others in day shift, turns out every couple of weeks a new rotation of night shift janitors are brought in from an outside company. You never see the same guy twice. Which is a little weird. Also apparently floor eight is off limits."

He huffed in frustration as the elevator appeared to be taking it's time. "And don't think I haven't forgotten about earlier. I will get you for that."

The hand held radio went off on his cleaning cart stopping him from making any promises for retaliation. "Hey, Greenwood we need you on four. The men's toilets clogged again."

"I'm on it."

He set the device down and glowered at the door. Yeah, Locke's life was definitely looking like shit.

-X-

Alonzo brushed away a few left over crumbs from his keyboard sipping down some more cola. Why the only beverage stocked in the kitchens were coke he had no idea. It was something he was going to have to have a chat with Arty. It'd be nice to have some tea every now and again.

He scowled at the twenty computer screens before him when most of his programs came up with squat. He hated it when bad guys got smart. It meant he had to actually do some work instead of playing around with all the cool toys Torchwood had to offer. Like a pair of atomic denomilizing buffer chips they'd nicked from a Cybermen base Arty and Oz blew sky high last week. Oh, the benefits of time traveling geniuses. They always came home with cool stuff!

Speaking of which he should probably call Arty to let her know Spencer and Jo just got the bodies into the medical examination room. But then again it'd probably just be better to call her when someone had something. There was no point otherwise.

He drummed his fingers along the table scanning the tech cluttered room. Well since he didn't have much going on here he might as well go and check Jo's progress. Besides he'd receive an update on his tablet when his programs found something. Which they would because he just widened their parameters. He even threw in a couple worms incase they ran into any counter hacks, though it was quite unlikely. Knock on wood.

Grabbing his stuff he skipped over cords and cables into the corridor. The walls were a polished bronzed circling till they reached the floor. Long flowing red drapes hung haphazardly from the ceiling yet somehow appeared beautifully arranged. The glass floor had an intricate oriental rug showing underneath, the reasoning as to why it was under the glass was still a mystery. When Alonzo had first joined the team he had asked why a time traveling spaceship look like the Arabian Nights had been fused with early 90's steampunk. After all he'd been expecting something more star trekie. To which Oz had replied, 'It was the only desktop theme we could both agree on.' Funny thing was he still had no idea what that meant but never questioned it.

His leather boots echoed down the corridor when he took another left turn. His enigmatic leaders. Now there was a mystery no one would fully understand. The select few of the team who were aware of their species still had no real clue about there culture or history. Which was strange because for two people who talked all the time they never really said anything about themselves. Ever.

When he turned right he could hear a slightly aggravated Irish lilt followed by a rude Australian laugh. Alonzo scowled and rolled his eyes. He could barley hear them but he knew they were arguing. Oz was right when he said they should just 'do it' and get it over with. Those two were getting to the point were their sexual tension was streamlining into just plain tension.

He approached the metal bars to lean over and watch them banter. Jo pushed a long metal rod into the chest of the corpse on the examining table, "Listen, could you just watch the damned screen and tell me what readings appear while I try to do my job. I don't need any more lip from you!"

Spencer leaned his shoulder on the hanging computer screen and rolled his eyes. He tried to blow some dirty blonde hair out of his eyes, "No! Not until we talk about what happened. You've been purposely starting a blue with me just to avoid it! And I'm sick and tired of it Josephine! I need an answer!"

"Oh, don't you dare go calling me Josephine like I'm the bad guy here. I gave you an answer It's not my fault that-," she jiggled the metal rod staring at the reader on the end, "now that's...odd."

Spencer pushed himself off the screen advancing to the table, "Now don't you go changing the subject. You never gave an answer, you gave an excuse. So we were both as full as a goog! That doesn't matter. What happened between us was beautiful and you're just avoiding it b-," Jo cut him of with a heated glare, "Drop it ok. Right now lets focus on our jobs. Arty asked me to do an autopsy and she wanted you to watch her back with the cctv feeds of the Dover building. Maybe in stead of arguing with me you should go and make sure she doesn't end up dead. After all she definitely has suicidal tendencies if her crazy arse stunts are anything to go by. So if you don't mind I have a few tests to run."

He looked like he might argue further but shook his head sadly. "Fine. But Jo I won't be waiting around for ever. If you don't come to terms with your feelings you might wake up one day and wonder what if. And you'll only have yourself to blame."

He turned around as she tried to stop him when they both noticed Alonzo leaning on the railings above them. Jo paled, "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough to know you both shagged each other at the last office blow out and that Jo's afraid of commitment and Spencer's a girl. So not long," Alonzo smiled into his hand. Spencer stalked up the stairs towards him menacingly. Alonzo grinned sheepishly backing out of the room slowly, "Oh dear, do you hear that? Sounds like my programming caught a lead. I should go and check on that. How about you guys send me all the info you got later so I can give it to Arty-AH!"

Spencer started chasing after him leaving a sighing Jo behind. Swaying her head she turned back to the body, "Now lets see what's wrong with you?"

TO BE CONTINUED...

Meaning to some wording

Blue=fight

as full as a goog=drunk

Ps. I'm not sure if I should keep writing this story so if you want me to continue then please review T_T