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Chapter 3: "We're Your Arch-Nemesises...ses."

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It had been about a week since Ianto had been raised from the dead, and Max had told him that the 'boss' had arranged for him to take this 'Standardised Human Maturity' test tomorrow. He was fairly sure he had already learned everything he could from the books he had been given.

Max had actually told him that the boss expected all Agents to be capable of adapting to new situations quickly, and if he failed to rise to the challenge of a new time and a strange location- by passing this official test- then the Agency didn't even want him. Whether it was intended as such, or not, this felt very much like a threat, when he really thought about it. Without the Agency's support he would be entirely alone in this strange new time and world, with no financial means or viable qualifications.

He was re-reading the section of the Dummies' Guide on contemporary culture, to be sure he hadn't missed anything, when he heard a crashing sound from the lab.

"Rak, you fucking moron!" an unfamiliar, male voice yelled, "Watch it! Or do you want to blow yourself up?"

"Why'd you have to say 'up', huh Warr?" another man grumbled. "Ow!"

"Shut up. It's got to be around here somewhere." the first man- Warr?- said darkly, "Don't. Touch. Anything."

Ianto set the book down and slowly- silently, after so many long nights of practice stalking Weevils- approached the door. He peered out to see the two men snooping around the lab.

The leader of these two was tall and fit, with black hair in a ponytail, and the other was shorter and kind of weaselish, skulking suspiciously as he followed his... judging by the conversation, 'friend' would really be pushing it. They both wore black, looking rather like it was a uniform.

A uniform which would not have looked at all out of place on an Imperial officer in Star Wars.

There was no way of calling Max, who had said he wouldn't be back for another few hours yet. Work. Mission briefing. Ianto was actually surprised he had been told that much about it. His eyes now drifted to the broken machine on the floor, and he was eternally grateful to see that it was only a recording device for a long-abandoned experiment, and not something that could kill them all.

There were apparently such things in this lab. It made Q from the James Bond movies look like a kid with a play-dough set. Really.

"Ah ha!" Warr crowed victoriously, and Ianto looked back to see that this was- as he had suspected- the taller of the two. Unfortunately, he was coming right this way. The door was shoved open into Ianto's face, and before he could recover from that, Warr had grabbed his arms, turned him around, and twisted them painfully up behind his back.

He kicked and struggled, but quickly came to the conclusion that he was no match for this man, even without the element of surprise being against him.

"It's a he." Rak announced, with the failed tone of one attempting to impart great wisdom.

Ianto tried to struggle again, but this was once more proved to be entirely pointless. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, trying to sound angry rather than afraid.

"We heard that Max was making something humanoid down here." Warr all-but purred in his ear. Ianto recognised that tone, and it sent shivers down his spine. It was exactly the same tone that Jack always used when he wanted to intimidate and still sound seductive at the same time.

This man most definitely was not Jack... but he must be a Time Agent, and it made Ianto feel sick to think that it was just an act that they all learned, instead of Jack's own natural charm.

"Let me go." Ianto said weakly, "Max will be back any minute, and when he finds out you broke one of his projects-"

"He won't be back for ages." Rak interrupted, laughing. It was a bit too high-pitched to sound right. "And the boss likes us better, anyway." he added, as if this would justify any wrong they could possibly commit against a fellow employee.

"If Max will insist on making his very own near-human fucktoy, and then won't share... he shouldn't be surprised if we take what we want, instead." Warr said in a far-too-casual and conversational tone. "And the boss likes me better, Rak. You're just ballast on the time-jumps."

It took a few seconds for what Warr had just said to sink into Ianto's mind... and by that time the older man had pulled him closer, and kissed his neck roughly.

"No!" Ianto shouted, struggling in spite of the rational knowledge that this was entirely futile, "No! I'm not a-" He flinched when Warr bit him, and then cringed at the word he was about to say, "I'm not a... a fucktoy." he said in disgust.

"Why else would that lunatic make a pretty-boy like you?" Rak snorted, but Warr had stopped kissing him now. Just held him in place as if he was waiting for an answer to that as well.

"I- I think he wanted a son." Ianto answered weakly.

"Bullshit!" Rak declared.

But all of a sudden, Warr let go of his right arm, and turned him around sharply. It was very disconcerting to suddenly be so noticeably weaker and shorter than he had been back in the twenty-first century, that this man could practically throw him around like a rag doll without any trouble. Seventeen again really sucked.

And then he saw that Warr was looking at his left wrist. "Kid's half-branded, Rak."

"Wha-?" Rak gaped.

It was clear to Ianto that this must be a slang term for the black mark on his arm. He assumed, therefore, that the matching term for having the green mark as well would probably be simply 'branded'. Somehow, the blue one didn't seem that significant, when you really thought about it.

After a moment's pause, Rak demanded, "So who cares?"

"Well if you want to get fired, mind-wiped, and castrated, go ahead and jump the kid." Warr said, almost gently releasing Ianto's left wrist, now. "But good luck trying. You couldn't pin down a pekinese without my help, and you know it."

Ianto immediately backed away from both of them, not sure if they were still going to try something in spite of the fact that Warr had let him go.

He then promptly wondered what the fixation on dogs was in this century. He distinctly remembered John Hart eyeing up a poodle.

It seemed that the prospect of this century's punishment for rape (castration might be an exaggeration, but the 'treatment' would still make it impossible for the criminal to ever get an erection again, and thus impossible for them to repeat the offence) was enough to put them off... although Ianto had no idea how they had drawn the distinction.

He wasn't a robot, and those were the only 'near-human' beings with no legal rights, according to what he had read. Too many robot/AI apocalypse movies for people to dare risk giving machines enough free will to ever even ask for rights.

Warr's entire demeanour seemed to have softened, the instant he laid eyes upon that tiny mark on Ianto's arm. Now he was acting almost friendly. "So are the rumours that Max wrote your brain on a computer true?"

"Who said that?" Ianto asked, frowning.

Warr shrugged, "Everyone's been wondering, for over a year now."

"Rumours tend to escalate when nobody tells the truth." Ianto pointed out coldly, folding his arms defensively as he said it.

Warr shrugged and nodded, "I'm Warren Stone, by the way." He held out a hand to Ianto, who merely stared at it as if he must be a madman for even thinking he would accept it. Warr shrugged, as if this reaction wasn't at all offensive. "And this waste of oxygen here is Gerak."

Ianto frowned, "I think you should both leave now." he said pointedly.

"Look." Warren began, "I think we got off on the wrong foot, here."

"Oh, you think?" Ianto asked, affronted at how very casually this man was dismissing the whole incident, "You were going to rape me!"

Warren shrugged, "An AI isn't really sentient... even if some crackpot does put it in a flesh-and-blood body."

Ianto bristled even more, at this. He didn't feel like explaining the truth to these two- honestly, he got the feeling that the truth in this situation was a terrible and dangerous thing to be avoided at all costs- and he wanted them gone as quickly as possible, "Well your boss seems to think I count as human enough to want to hire me without an interview, as soon as I earn my green mark."

Shocked stares. Apparently Ianto had guessed right, and this really was a rare honour. Possibly unprecedented. They were both completely dumbstruck.

After a moment, Warren was the one to regain his composure, and he oh-so-casually suggested, "Well once you are branded, you should reconsider my offer."

"I don't recall any offer." Ianto growled, "Only a threat."

Warren shrugged dismissively, and it took all of Ianto's self-control not to lash out and hit him. He knew it wouldn't do any good in the long run.

He really wished he had a gun. He wouldn't deliberately miss the kill-shot on this man, like he did for Owen.

"If you change your mind..." Warren said, with a casual attempt at a seductive tone.

"Not if you were the last human in the universe." Ianto hissed. 'And believe me.' he thought darkly, 'Even accounting for time-travel and unforeseen apocalypses... you won't be.'

The complete and utter rejection didn't seem to faze Warren in the slightest. Rak, on the other hand, looked pretty angry about it, "You're not gonna take that sort of shit from some science experiment that's been playing with a tattoo-gun, are you, Warr?"

"Oh, Rak." Warren said in a despairing tone, "Please shut up before I rip your vocal chords out through your nose." He grabbed his 'friend' by the collar, and dragged him to the door. "Nice meeting you, newbie."

"Go to hell." Ianto sniped back. It was meant as a genuine and spiteful insult, but the Time Agent just grinned and seemed to take it as a playful joke... much the same way that Ianto got the feeling the threat to Rak's ability to speak was probably a joke.

"See you there, darlin'."

And with that, they were gone.

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Only a few minutes had passed, when Ianto decided to leave the lab.

Max wasn't due back for a few hours, but Ianto felt that he deserved to know what had happened. He honestly wasn't sure if Max would be concerned for his welfare, or just upset at the broken machinery... but either way, Ianto was going to go stir-crazy if he had to wait now, after what had just happened.

He very slowly and cautiously peered out the door, and was grateful to find an empty, soulless grey corridor.

The lab was at the very end of this corridor, directly opposite another set of closed doors. To the right, the corridor went on for what looked like just the length of the lab and no more, before turning right again. A quick look around revealed no evidence of any surveillance technology that Ianto could recognise.

That didn't mean no one was watching him. He highly doubted that in over three thousand years absolutely no advances had been made in the field of hidden cameras.

He quickly followed the corridor, and peered around the corner, half-expecting to find heavily armed security guards. Max had made dire warnings about security guards, the first day he had woken up in the lab. As he had expected, around the corner was what looked like a security desk, right next to doors distinctly reminiscent of an elevator.

The man at this desk, however, did not look at all threatening.

He was an older man, with grey hair, a handlebar moustache, and an expression of terminal boredom as he stared blankly at a computer screen in front of him, his chin rested on the heel of his left hand. While he wore the same style of uniform as the two Agents Ianto had just met, his was grey and well-worn.

He didn't look up as Ianto cautiously emerged from around the corner, and began to walk towards the desk.

However, when Ianto was about halfway from the corner to the desk, the man spoke. Not looking away from his computer screen. "You know you're not authorised to leave the lab unsupervised, there, son."

Ianto froze, and the man looked up at him. His eyes were keen and intelligent. Dark coloured, but still sparkling like they belonged to a teenager.

"You might want to turn around and go back, now." His accent sounded like he was fresh out of a Western, too.

Ianto frowned, "I'm sorry, but I need to speak to Max." he said warily.

The man smiled crookedly, but not unkindly, "Suppose I could manage that. Have a seat." He gestured to a rather uncomfortable-looking chair near the desk.

Ianto obeyed promptly, moving around the desk to sit down. As he did so, he saw that the man was holding a gun under the desk, steadily aimed at him. It was an old-fashioned gun, even in Ianto's mind. Classic Smith and Weston. Casually, as if he had used that weapon all his life, the man put it away in a hip-holster... and when he saw Ianto watching him, he grinned more broadly.

"Name's Squire." he said with a nod, "Used to be a favourite around here, for American frontier missions in the nineteenth century... before that era stopped setting off the temporal displacement alarms. Like to keep in practice, in case anything new comes up."

Ianto couldn't help but grin at this. The man was a perfect Western cliche, and he was talking about temporal displacement. It was bizarre, and brilliant at the same time.

"So every Agent has a specialized time they work in?" he asked, unable to help himself.

"Not always." Squire said, shaking his head, "We all have our special talents, mine just seems to be blending in right among them thar varmints o' the Old West. Meanwhile, someone has to get stuck with guard duty." He was grinning. It was meant to be a joke.

And thank goodness for that, because Ianto couldn't not laugh. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laughing. You're just so good at that accent."

Squire shrugged, "I don't mind. Wild West has been popular for centuries. I've worked with most of the Agents here, on one job or another. They request it." He paused, giving Ianto a curious and critical look, "Your accent's not one I can place, though."

That felt a bit like a punch to the stomach. He had always been proud of his heritage, and Welsh was a very distinctive accent. For it not to be recognised in this century must mean that it had faded away over time. He wondered if Wales still even existed, or if it had been assimilated into another country.

The uncomfortable silence only lasted a moment, before Squire pressed a button on the security desk, and spoke in an amicably bored voice that, if it weren't for the old western accent, wouldn't have sounded at all out of place over a supermarket tannoy. "Maxwell Powers, contact Sub-3 security. Yesterday, please."

"That's weird." Ianto muttered, "Shouldn't we have heard that, or something?"

"Directional speakers, target him through his I.D. chip." Squire answered, as if it should have been obvious.

Ianto blinked, taking a few seconds to realise what he should have already accepted. Experimental new technology in the twenty-first century should probably consider itself lucky to still be a casual everyday thing in use in the fifty-first century, instead of completely outdated.

"What is it now?" Max's voice asked over the comms system. It completely failed to surprise Ianto that he spoke with the resigned tone of one who had to deal with security regularly, for one reason or another. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

Ianto wasn't sure how Max expected anyone to see that he was busy... then again, he couldn't see the computer screen from here, so it was entirely possible that the security cameras did cover wherever he was in the building, right now.

"Your friend down here wants to talk to you." Squire answered, casually. "And I've said it before, nobody needs you to narrate the mission summaries you hand out, up there. We're all completely literate."

"Hmph. Nobody bothers to read them, if I don't." Max's voice muttered sulkily. A brief pause, then, "I'll be down in a minute."

Squire clicked off the comms system, and silence reigned for all of five seconds, before Ianto asked him, "Is there any other way down here? Besides past you?"

"Now why would I tell you that, if there was?" Squire asked him, amused.

"Because if there isn't, then you must have let those other two Agents down into the lab." Ianto said pointedly.

That got him. He had frozen for a moment, before immediately checking the computer for something, not bothering to speak now. Finally, he muttered under his breath, "Sneaky little..." He looked up at Ianto, asking, "This is why you wanted to talk to Max? Y'know we don't have cameras in his lab, so there's no evidence of whatever they did."

"They broke one of his machines. I don't think it was anything dangerous." Ianto said bluntly, deciding that while he had taken an instant liking to this man, he certainly wasn't going to tell him everything. He wasn't even sure, yet, if he would tell Max that the two Agents had been after him.

Squire shuddered in evident horror, "Max's machines. Broken. I'll warn the fire department." he said, seeming perfectly serious, as he pressed some more buttons at his desk.

"Did I hear that right?" Max asked, stepping out of what Ianto suddenly decided to mentally label as the Stealth-Elevator. Neither the lift itself, nor its doors had made a sound... yet looking past Max, it definitely had to be an elevator of some kind.

Future technology, he assumed, and pretended he thought it was normal.

"Two men broke into the lab." Ianto said, immediately turning to face Max, "They said their names were-"

"Warren and Gerak." Squire said, sounding resigned, "This is the fifth time I'll have to increase security on the classified levels, because of them."

Time to change the locks. Ianto couldn't help but be reminded of the time Beth had broken out of the Torchwood cryofreeze, and if it weren't for the reason those two were down in the lab in the first place, he might have smiled at this thought.

"Terminally nosey, the pair of them." Squire added.

Max snorted derisively, shaking his head, "Let's hope one day they prove that description to be perfectly accurate."

"So we all hate Warren and Gerak?" Ianto asked hopefully.

"They're just an inconvenience to me." Squire answered, idly, "No reason to hate them."

"I despise every atom of their existence to the ninth phasic plane of reality." Ianto stared blankly at this obscure reference, and it seemed Max noticed, because he shrugged dismissively, "That's science-talk for hell."

"Someone scientifically proved the existence of hell?" Ianto asked, highly amused at the thought.

"Something close enough, at any rate." Max said, turning to lead the way down to the lab, "Come on, then. Let's see whether or not we're all going to die from their interfering."

Ianto followed, glancing back to wave at Squire, who nodded politely before he rounded the corner.

"Phasic planes are like alternate realities... except they come in layers." Max explained as they entered the lab. He took one cursory glance at the broken machinery, then stepped past it, utterly unconcerned.

Clearly they weren't all going to die, after all. Good to know.

"We're somewhere in the middle. The ninth one is often referred to as the Void. Above that you've got the Vortex, Rift, Wormhole Events, Material Plane, Astral, Transcendental, Ethereal, and Eternal. None of them are really heaven or hell, as far as any official religion is concerned. We know they're all there, but we've only succeeded in mapping the Rift and Astral planes. I'm actually working on technology to use the Vortex to time-travel. In theory, it would be a lot more stable than the Rift."

'Are we talking about the same Rift, here?' Ianto wondered.

He guessed they might be, as Tosh's calculations on the Rift had been used in relation to John Hart's time travel device. Come to think of it, while Hart had used the Rift to travel in time, Jack called his device a Vortex manipulator. Max might just be on to a major scientific breakthrough here.

"So how does it work?" Ianto asked, "The time travel?"

"Oh... well it's all very technical." Max said vaguely, "But in layman's terms..." He picked three pieces of fine paper from a bench, and held one up. "Imagine this two-dimensional object represents all four dimensions of space and time in the material plane." He folded the paper loosely over, so that two points were touching, "This is your average wormhole. Two points in space-time fold over to touch each other, allowing you to travel between them. Very rare, very unstable, and in theory it would take more power than a trillion suns to artificially generate one."

"Okay..." Ianto said warily. That was almost precisely the (purely theoretical, back then) wormhole concept that scientists in the twenty-first century said was the only way anyone could ever be able to time-travel.

Max picked up the second bit of paper and crumpled it up loosely, "This is what the same four dimensions look like in the Rift. Completely chaotic, but some parts are touching, and through mapping the Rift itself, carefully planned jumps can take you through it from one of these connecting points to another."

Ianto nodded, paying very careful attention.

Max now took the third piece of paper, dunked it into some water and squished it really hard into a tiny little lump. "This is the same thing, in the Vortex. Every point touches every other point, and through it instantaneous travel to and from anywhere and anywhen you could ever want is theoretically possible."

"And the Void?" Ianto asked, seeing a pattern of the different planes getting smaller. Max smirked darkly, clearly imagining Warren and Gerak being banished to this plane.

"Throw the piece of paper in a black hole... then pray you never go there."

x x x

Max had spent the last hour, first clearing up after the damage, then searching for further evidence of the intruders.

Ianto had spent the whole time sitting on one of the less precarious lab stools, watching him very carefully. He was waiting to see how long it took for Max to ask if he was okay. Perhaps it was obvious that he was unharmed, but since when did it hurt to ask? Especially if you think you care about the person.

Finally, "They didn't take anything." Max turned to him and asked, "Was this all they broke?" indicating the place where the broken machinery had once belonged.

Ianto frowned, wondering exactly how much to tell him. He settled on answering precisely what had been asked, and no more. If Max asked the right questions, he'd get the whole story. "Yes."

Max gave him a suspicious look. So he wasn't completely oblivious, then. Good. "Do you have any idea why they were down here?"

Ianto nodded.

"And...?"

"They were looking for me."

"What?" Max demanded, clearly surprised, "How did they even know about you?"

"Apparently there've been rumours going around for over a year." Ianto said, scowling, "They thought you wrote my mind on a computer."

Max rolled his eyes, seemingly exasperated, "Sheesh, you write one near-sentient piece of programming and everyone assumes you want to make an army of them."

Ianto blinked at that, "You actually did write a brain on a computer?"

"Well... yes. Why do you think I don't want anyone to touch my personal computer? The AI is very temperamental, and she completely freezes up when anyone but me so much as touches the keyboard."

"This AI's your girlfriend, isn't she?" Ianto asked bluntly.

"Oh, I get this one all the time as well." Max said, grinning, "Don't worry. I've seen all the movies. I know how to be paranoid. She's completely separated and shielded from the Internet, and the Agency mainframe. Incapable of any communication outside the basic user-interface. Not to mention, like all good AIs, she's programmed to love her creator and not even understand the concept of free-will. No attempted world domination for her."

"That's your job." Ianto said in a perfect deadpan.

Max did a double-take, then laughed, "I really like you, y'know."

Ianto smiled weakly, before looking away. He had been fine joking with Max about world domination... but the second real emotion was dragged into the conversation he didn't want to think about it.

"This is Warren we're talking about... so I can guess what he probably thought." Max said, also turning away and pretending to fine-tune one of his machines. "You okay?"

"He didn't hurt me." Ianto said bluntly. He still felt quite defensive about the whole thing. "Even tried to pretend to be friendly, after he saw the mark on my arm."

"Everyone has a line they won't cross." Max said with a slight frown, and a hint of a calculating tone in his voice, "But I honestly thought Warren was the exception to that rule, until now."

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