A/N: I want to thank everyone who has followed, favorited, or reviewed this story. It's absolutely wonderful to get such positive feedback. I find that all the reviews are encouraging me to post faster than I had originally planned! And I try to respond right away to anyone who leaves a signed review, so if you have any questions or comments, please leave a review or drop me a note. And to the guest who left a review about the TARDIS coral, yes, he does have it. Rose put it in Pete's workshop and they checked on it before they went shopping in Chapter 3. I couldn't let the Doctor not have his coral!
Sorry that this is kind of a short chapter, but it really didn't fit with the last one, and doesn't work well with the next one...
Chapter 6
Kate Lee walked through the empty Griffith St. electrical distribution substation. As usual she had pulled the worst work shift. She typically was stationed at the Evergreen power station, but she hadn't been posted there in months. Evergreen staffed both the main power station and the substation. Most substations were completely automated, but someone in the government somewhere had decided that its location in one of the busiest sections of London warranted an actual staff. Normally, technicians were rotated in and out of Griffith St. because working at the substation was so monotonous no one wanted to do it permanently.
Ever since Kate had turned down her supervisor's dinner invitation, however, he had begun scheduling her the worst work hours imaginable. Kevin Olsen, her boss, was a great bear of a man and had always made her uncomfortable. His clothes were dirty, his longish blonde hair was almost always in need of a wash, and he sometimes smelled of cigarettes and stale beer. And he hadn't taken kindly to her date refusals. In the past several months he had scheduled her for night shifts, weekend shifts, and split shifts. The last three weeks he had taken to scheduling her for Friday and Saturday nights. If he couldn't take her out, he was going to make bloody well sure she couldn't date anyone else, either. And as the substation was automated, there was nothing to do for eight hours but stare at the computer displays. A complete waste of time. But, as much as she wanted to, she couldn't afford to quit. Even working here was better than moving back into her parent's flat.
"Arrrrgg!" she screamed. "I hate you, Kevin!"
Kate walked through the corridors of the building, checking to make sure everything was running properly. The boredom was driving her mad, and she almost wished for a problem to happen just to give her something to do. Although she was an electrical technician, she felt more like a security guard. Or perhaps a school prefect.
A loud bang like a door being slammed behind her made her jump. Heart racing, she turned to see what caused the sound. The long hallway was empty.
"Kevin, is that you?" she called. She hoped it wasn't. If he had heard her yell, she'd be fired for sure, and then she'd have to move back in with her parents, and bad work schedules were nothing compared to her Mum's constant nagging and her Dad's temper.
She called out the names of her coworkers at the substation. "Kevin? Bruce? Monica? Is anyone there?" No answer. The only sound she heard was the normal background hum of the lights.
Without warning, the hall lights above her flickered, accompanied by a soft crackling noise. That wasn't good. Senses on high alert, she tiptoed silently back to the control room.
It was empty. Kate slowly let out the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. She turned to check the monitors. Their screens were all blank.
"What?" she gasped in shock. There were redundancies on top of redundancies to prevent this sort of thing happening. She ran to the nearest terminal and began to rapidly type.
The lights above her began to flicker, and she heard the crackling noise again, louder this time. Suddenly a blue light surrounded her. When it faded, she had vanished.
"Well, it's about time you two were back," Jackie said, rising from the sofa as the Doctor and Pete returned to the room. "Dinner's getting cold. Other people need to eat as well, you know. I've already fed Tony and put him to bed."
Pete's mobile buzzed and he turned to take the call. "Sorry," he said to Jackie when he disconnected. "That was a friend of mine. He wants to meet the Doctor, but he can't schedule it for any time other than tonight. You understand." Pete winked at his wife. Rose, looking at the Doctor searchingly, didn't notice.
Jackie was sure she didn't understand but she was used to the strange hours Pete put in as Torchwood's Director. "Oh, right," she said. "Well, don't be too late, then. I'll see you when you get back." Pete leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.
"Do you want me to come with?" Rose questioned the Doctor.
But Pete answered. "No, no. You keep your mum company. The Doctor is fine with me."
Rose was still staring at the Doctor, who returned her gaze. "You don't need to wait up. I'll be fine," he told her. He turned and followed Pete out the door. Rose watched as they left.
"Come on, Rose," Jackie said, putting her arm around Rose and leading her to the kitchen. "I'll make a fresh pot of tea. It might be a long night."
"You heard him. He told me not to wait up."
"Yeah, I heard him," Jackie responded. "But I know you. You'd wait up even if he was gone three days."
Rose laughed ruefully. "Yeah," she nodded.
The Torchwood Institute on Pete's world was a quasi-governmental agency formed to counter alien threats and attacks. Unlike on Rose Tyler's home world, Torchwood in this universe had become a well-known organization and, after the initial defeat of the Cybermen, it had been reorganized in full view of the public under the leadership of Pete Tyler. According to public record, Torchwood had its headquarters in a large office building in downtown London, with branches in Cardiff, Wales, and Glasgow, Scotland.
The main offices of Torchwood, however, were hidden in plain sight.
On the outskirts of London lay the busy factory for Burpee's Baby Formula. A new company, it had quickly risen to the number one brand of baby formula in England in just a few short years and had taken over an old factory that had formerly produced kitchen taps. Adverts for Burpee's formula were everywhere. They ran constantly on television and the radio. They had ads in magazines, in newspapers, and on interactive billboards. When you touched one, an attractive young mother holding a baby in her arms would say the company slogan, "Feed your baby the Burpee way."
The Burpee's Baby Formula factory didn't really make baby formula, though. The formula was produced by a company in Turkey, under the Burpee's Baby Formula label. The Turkish company was paid extremely well from a numbered account in the Cayman Islands to keep that a secret. And if anyone ever noticed the factory's grounds had higher security than usual, that the fences were taller than was customary and topped with razor wire, that security cameras blanketed the entire facility as well as the surrounding area, that factory workers were never seen entering or leaving, and that the entrance guards were armed, no one ever mentioned it.
In fact, the company didn't really exist, and the supposed factory was actually the true headquarters of the Torchwood Institute.
Inside the aging factory was a state-of-the-art, ultra-modern research facility. In addition to its official mission, Torchwood's charter included the development of new technologies and arms to protect Britain from any and all threats. Sometimes that involved the reverse engineering of alien technology. This led to the development of such items as the dimensional transporter and the particle gun. At other times Torchwood scientists conducted original research into such diverse areas as DNA analysis, astrophysics, and alternative energies.
Pete Tyler led the way through the empty hallways of the Torchwood complex. Torchwood wasn't really empty. Places like that never were. But the weekend staff was down to a skeleton crew in an attempt to recover some sense of normality, Pete had informed the Doctor when they had passed security and had driven into the car park.
The Doctor eyed him suspiciously "Why are we here?" the Doctor asked. "I thought you said you'd talk to Rose about me working here."
"That's not what this is about," Pete said quickly. "Well, not entirely. You'll see."
Each time they passed through security doors, Pete scanned the back of the ID he wore around his neck. The Doctor wore a similar one, his simply stating "Visitor" on the front.
"All our IDs have computer chips embedded in the backs of them," Pete told him. "They will unlock any doors according to an employee's security clearance, but they will also track people inside the building. We can tell where everyone is at all times, provided they wear their IDs."
"And what if you don't wear your ID?" the Doctor asked.
"You won't get very far. All doors are electronically locked and you can't get through them without your ID."
Although the Doctor understood the reason for high security in a place like Torchwood, the idea of constantly being tracked wasn't something he was comfortable with, and he mentioned that to Pete.
"I wasn't either at first, but you get used to it," Pete shrugged.
The Doctor followed Pete into a small office. A tall, gray-haired man in his mid-fifties wearing a white lab coat rose from behind the desk as they entered. He had a stethoscope looped around his neck in addition to an ID hanging on a cord. He smiled and held out his hand to Pete.
"Frank, thanks so much for coming in on such short notice." Pete grabbed Frank's hand and shook it vigorously. "I'd like you to meet someone. Frank, this is Doctor John Smith. Doctor, I'd like you to meet Dr. Frank Collins."
"Pleasure to meet you, John," Collins said with a smile. "Your reputation precedes you."
"Delighted, Frank," said the Doctor, shaking Frank's proffered hand. "I wish I could say the same." He looked at Pete questioningly.
"Pete tells me you are having some problems with your vision."
"Oh. Yes," the Doctor said, thinking about the favor he had asked Pete for. Boy, when Pete Tyler wanted to get something done, it got done immediately. "But it's nothing serious. Primarily having trouble with small type."
"Still, important to get checked out. Why don't you follow me into the examining room."
Collins led the way through a small door in the wall to an adjoining office. The Doctor sat down in a chair next to a small counter, ignoring the table in the center of the room. Collins removed a small trolley from a closet. A portable vision screener sat on it. He pushed the trolley in front of the Doctor.
"Look through here. Read the script until it becomes blurry." The Doctor obeyed. "Now tell me when it improves." Collins made some small adjustments to the machine and the Doctor indicated when it was clear. "Excellent. You know," Collins said, removing the trolley and wheeling it back to the closet, "your vision is not bad, but you do need some assistance with close work. Most of us need a little help as we age, usually by early 40s, but sometimes earlier. You're what, mid-30s?"
The Doctor and Pete exchanged glances. "Perhaps a bit older," the Doctor admitted. Quite a bit older, he thought. Or a whole lot younger, thinking ruefully of his body's creation less than a week earlier.
"Would you mind if I examined your right hand?" Frank asked.
"Why?" he said suspiciously.
"Well, it felt a little warm when we shook, and you've been rubbing it off and on since you've been here." Collins took the Doctor's hand in his, prodding the hand with his thumb. He then compared the Doctor's right hand with his left. "Interesting," he said. "Your right hand is much warmer to the touch than your left. And the muscles in your right hand are a little larger than your left. That in and of itself is not unusual in one's dominant hand, but they almost seem to be attached differently than is normal. Has it been injured?"
"Yes," replied the Doctor, remembering it being cut off in a duel on a Sycorax spacecraft. Around a different Earth. In another Universe. "But not recently."
Frank Collins looked at him appraisingly, and then exchanged glances with Pete. The Doctor noticed Pete giving Collins a slight nod.
"Would you mind if I take your blood pressure and listen to your heart?" Collins asked. "I would like to check something."
The Doctor exhaled loudly. "I'm perfectly all right. I don't need an examination."
"Still…"
The Doctor ran his hands through his hair, making it stand on end. He looked from Frank to Pete and then back to Frank. Everyone seemed to be worried about his health. First Rose, then Jackie, and now Pete. Just because he had been unconscious for three days…
"Oh, alright," he said finally, shooting a dirty look at Pete. "If we must, let's just get it over with." He started to pull off his jacket.
"Do you want me to leave?" Pete asked.
"If you leave, how will you report back to Rose?" the Doctor shot back, glaring at Pete while pulling off his shirt.
After taking his blood pressure, Collins listened first to the Doctor's heart and then his lungs with the stethoscope. "Now breathe deeply, and let the air out slowly," he said.
Afterwards, his eyes narrowed as he watched the Doctor dress. "Blood pressure's a bit low, heart rate's a bit higher than I'd expect. And based on what I heard, you must have a phenomenal lung capacity. I don't see anything that worries me. If you have any health problems, please come back and see me. And if your hand is still bothering you, I can give you something for it."
The Doctor looked down with a start. He had been rubbing his right hand again without realizing it.
"I'll have the lab make a new pair of glasses for you and send them around to Pete's as soon as they are done." Collins said, making a note on his computer. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"Actually, yes there is," the Doctor answered, pulling his spare glasses from his jacket pocket. "Is there any way the new lenses could be put into these frames?"
"Probably," Collins answered, taking the glasses from him and examining the frames. "I don't see why not."
"Thanks, Frank," Pete said. "Thanks for everything." Collins shook the Doctor's and Pete's hands in turn as they left the office.
Once they were down the hall, out of earshot, Pete turned to the Doctor. "I thought you didn't have a pair of glasses."
"Oh, no. Always carry a spare pair in my pocket," he grinned. Now that the exam was over, he was over his momentary irritation with Rose's step-father. "Pete, can I tell you a little secret? Plain glass. Only used them to look clever." The Doctor pulled a face and shuddered. "Now I actually need them to see."
