Smiths & Joneses
by Soledad
Author's note: For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.
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*
Warning: disturbing images in this chapter.
Chapter 07
Martha and Jack exchanged shocked looks at this news.
"Do you believe Ianto would attack Tom, just to get out of the hospital?" Martha asked.
Jack shook his head determinedly. "No way! Ianto would never attack a team-mate. Unless…"
"Unless he was under the influence of some outside force," Martha finished for him when he trailed out. "Do you still believe that Jenny is harmless?"
"Do you think she's behind the whole thing?" Jack asked back, and Martha thought about it for a moment before answering.
"No, I don't," she finally replied. "My guess would be that those aliens Jenny had managed to piss off back… well, wherever she came from, put a tracking device on her ship and somehow managed to follow the signal through the Rift."
"And they're searching Jenny right now as we speak," Jack added grimly. "They probably put up their equivalent of a WANTED poster, and are now killing blonde girls who look like her, in the hope to hit the right one eventually. And collateral damage be damned."
"Or perhaps they use Ianto to do the dirty work for them," Martha pointed out. "If they want to keep their existence hidden, at least for the time being, they'd need a scapegoat, and what better than a human serial killer? They'll make him keep killing those girls till they're sure that Jenny's dead, and then throw him to the wolves and leave. Or don't, depending on what they intend to do with Earth, now that they've found it."
"I don't like the idea of that," Jack admitted, "but I don't believe they can turn Ianto into a serial killer, either. He's much stronger than that, and has great integrity by nature. Besides, he had special psychic training while working for Torchwood London. He'd resist, ever if it would mean to die."
"And yet he's already confessed having murdered Jenny," Martha reminded him, "which means that the mental order has already been firmly placed in his mind."
"That's one possibility," Jack said stubbornly. "There are other possible explanations."
"Like what?" Martha riposted.
"False memories planted in his mind through hypnosis, for starters," Jack counted down the possibilities on the fingers of his right hand. "A mistaken conclusion from his side, having seen the body of the victim; he was pretty exhausted at the time, don't forget it. A mere physical result of the concussion he'd suffered. Perhaps even an unintentional side effect of the telepathic attack."
"And just how are you planning to find out the truth?" Martha was more than a little sceptical.
"Oh, there are ways and methods, thanks to all that alien tech Torchwood Three has horded in the last three centuries," Jack replied, his eyes cold. "But in order to use any of that, we'll have to find Ianto first. Preferably before the police does. Kathy may be willing to cooperate, but if Henderson decides that Ianto is his prize suspect, breaking him out of jail won't be an easy thing."
"Why not?" Martha asked. "Aren't you the one who keeps saying that Torchwood is 'above the government, beyond the police'?" she made quotation marks in the air with her fingers as she was saying that.
"True," Jack replied, "but only when aliens are involved. Not if one of us turns out to be an ordinary serial killer."
"Bus you've just said Ianto didn't do it, haven't you?" Martha reminded him.
"And I'm still sure he didn't, but I've got to prove it," Jack said. "Which would be a lot easier if the police didn't get their hands on him first."
That actually made a lot of sense, Martha had to admit.
"So, how are you planning to find him?"
"First, we need to lift the lockdown, so that we can deal with this unknown signal," Jack replied. "And for that, we'll need Tosh. Once within, we can use the CCTV system to search for Ianto and to coordinate the search troops."
"I'm surprised that you aren't already out on the streets, looking for him," Martha commented.
"I'd like nothing more than that," Jack admitted. "But with him out of the equation, I need to stay here and coordinate all our moves. Tosh is a genius, but not good at giving orders, and we three are the only ones with suitable authority to act on Torchwood's behalf."
He took out his phone and punched in Toshiko's number. "Tosh? I need you here. We've got a Number Three emergency, and the Hub's under lockdown. I need you to come in and help me lift it, preferably yesterday. No, we can't; I'll explain later. Oh, and bring Jenny with you. There's something I want her to see."
He disconnected, then speed-dialled Mickey. "Hey, Mickey Mouse, grab Trevor and go to St. Helen's. Ianto's gone; I want you to set up a search pattern, starting from the hospital. No, I'm not sure what's happened, but you must find him before the police do. No; when you find him, bring him directly to the Hub. I don't care; tell them you're retrieving a fugitive Weevil – whatever. Just find him!"
"Jack," Martha said gently, "they won't be able to find him before the police. Not without help."
Jack gave her a startled look. "What kind of help do you mean? You don't want to get UNIT involved, do you?"
Martha shrugged. "Why not? It's their job, as much as it's yours… ours."
"But the UNIT soldiers of the Cardiff base ain't much use," Jack reminded her. "Half of them haven't even been cleared for armed duty yet."
"That won't lessen their ability to find a missing person," Martha said logically. But Jack still had his doubts.
"And how are you gonna talk Colonel Ironpants into helping me?" he asked.
"Simply," Martha grinned. "I'm gonna tell him that I'm doing this behind your back."
Jack stared at her in naked administration, his own grin growing from ear to ear.
"Martha Jones, you're truly devious, you know that? I like that in a friend and ally."
Martha sketched a curtsey. "All part of the service, Captain. Now, let me make a phone call and see what I can do."
Less than twenty minutes alter a team of red-capped UNIT soldiers, led by Sergeant Zbrigniew and joined by Martha, who thought that her medical skills might he needed, marched through Cardiff in search for the missing Torchwood director. Mickey and Trevor did the same, and so did the police, albeit with a different motivation.
By then, Tosh had also arrived at the tourist office, with Jenny in tow.
"What happened?" she asked, while she was already typing her authorization code into the security computer.
"I'm not sure," Jack admitted, doing the same. "Some sort of alien signal, coming from the newly collected debris."
"And Sally felt it necessary to initiate the lockdown because of that?" Tosh frowned, typing in the code for a second time, to acknowledge the lifting of said lockdown.
"Hey, better safe than sorry," Jack replied with a shrug. "Besides, that was before she'd find the source of the signal."
"So? And where was that?" Tosh asked, hitting the Enter key.
The door of the tourist office snapped closed, while the one leading down the Hub swung open and the LOCKDOWN LIFTED sign flashed repeatedly across the security screen.
"In Trevor's lab," Jack said in a causal tone, but Tosh understood the ramifications of that at once.
She wasn't called a genius for nothing.
"I see," she said slowly. "Well why don't I go and take a look at the lab, while you show Jenny – whatever you wanted to show her?
Jack nodded. "Good idea. When you see Sally and Andy, send them after Mickey and Trevor. Andy's an ex-cop, he'll know best what to do."
Tosh furrowed her brow. "What to do about what:"
"Mostly about how to avoid the police," Jack was already walking down the corridor leading to the Hub. Tosh grabbed his arm.
"Jack, you're not making sense! Why do we need to avoid the police?"
"Ianto's missing," Jack told her grimly. "Tom's been attacked; knocked out cold in St. Helen's, and Ianto's gone."
"Oh my God!" Tosh paled but got an instant grip on her nerves. "All right; go and do what you have to do. I'll see what I can do about that signal. Come to me when I'm done; I might have an idea how to find Ianto."
"How?" Jack asked eagerly, but Tosh waved him off.
"Not now, Jack. Let's deal with first things first – and hurry up!"
"I will," Jack promised; then he turned to Jenny, his entire behaviour getting a decidedly military edge. Follow me, soldier," he said with authority, and Jenny snapped to attention.
"Yes, sir!" And then she followed him indeed.
They went straight to lower levels, where the cells were situated – mostly empty at the moment, save for Janet and a couple of other Weevils, and the stray Hoix that Mickey used for garbage disposal, since the alien ate literally everything they threw into its cell. Including pizza boxes.
Jenny stopped in front of Janet's cell. The Weevil was curled up in the farthest corner and stared at her with dull, barely hostile eyes.
"She seems… sad somehow," she said softly. "It is a she, isn't it?"
Jack nodded. "Yep. She's also our oldest resident. When we found her, she was scratching on the soil. We thought she was trying to dig out something; turned out she was actually digging in something. A baby. She was burying her baby. She's been with us ever since – too unpredictable to let her run free."
"Perhaps it's just you who can't understand her," Jenny said.
"Perhaps," Jack shrugged. "Owen's working on it, but it isn't an easy thing. She's not exactly communicative, you know. Come with me now," he added, again in that clipped military tone, and Jenny obeyed without hesitation.
Jack passed by two empty cells, then stopped in front of a third one. He wanted her to be in a certain distance from the Weevils, even if she was an impostor.
Especially if she was an impostor.
"Here it is," he said. "Go on in, soldier."
Jenny marched into the cell almost on autopilot – just as Jack had expected. She only realized what was happening when the unbreakable door snapped closed behind her. She whirled around, hammering on the transparent security panel with her small fists, the hurt over Jack's unexpected betrayal clearly written in her face.
"Jack! Why are you doing this to me?"
"I'm sorry, Jenny, I really am," he replied tiredly. "But I have no choice. That alien signal comes from a piece of your ship. You haven't been here more than a day, and already people are getting killed and Ianto attacked. I must consider you a potential threat, until we know for sure who you are."
"You don't believe me?" Again, that almost child-like hurt in her eyes.
Jack sighed. "Actually, I do. I can't explain why, but personally, I'm sure you mean no harm. But I can't take the risk that I'm mistaken – it's happened before, and others got to pay the price. Sorry, girl, but for now, I have to keep you here. Hopefully, it won't take long."
He turned around and hurried back to the spiral staircase leading to the higher levels, unable to look her in the eyes.
She found Tosh in Trevor's lab on Sublevel Two, where she was examining a piece of charred metal – part of an atmospheric wing from Jenny's little Raxacoricofallapatorian ship by the look of it – with a frown. A small patch on the underside of the piece of junk was blinking slowly.
"Is that what's sending the signal?" Jack asked. Tosh nodded, and Jack gave the thing a closer look – only to furrow his brow in confusion.
"But I can't see any actual tracking device attached to that wing!" he exclaimed. "Or was it built that way to begin with?"
"I don't think so," Tosh turned around the piece of metal, examining it. "I think it was applied to her ship during a firefight – hence the charred patches – and fused to the metal on a molecular level, becoming undistinguishable."
"By accident or by design?" Jack asked.
Tosh shrugged. "No idea; could be either – or both. This is completely unknown technology we're dealing with here."
"So, how do we switch it off?"
"We don't; we can't," Tosh sighed. "This is far beyond what I've ever seen, at least here on Earth. I truly haven't got a clue what to do with it."
"But we must neutralize the signal," Jack thought about it. "Would melting the wing piece in its entirety shut it down?"
"Perhaps," Tosh allowed cautiously. "We don't know how much heat it can endure. But it's worth a try."
"Our incinerator oven was hot enough to melt a cyber-conversion unit," Jack reminded her. "Let's hope it will be enough."
"And if it isn't?" Tosh asked. "Can we send it through the Rift?"
"We can try, assuming your Rift predictor manages to provide us the exact coordinates for the next spike," Jack said pessimistically; they both knew how slim that choice was, the predictor still being in its experimental stage. "But I'm not comfortable with exposing other people to any unknown threat. "If this signal was meant to keep Jenny's pursuers on her track, at least we have a vague idea what we might be dealing with. We're better prepared than anyone else."
"What if we can't deal with it, though?" Tosh seemed a lot less optimistic about that possibility than Jack was.
'We'll cross that bridge if and when we reach it," Jack said. "Let's try to melt it first; then I'll check on the search parties. We need to find Ianto, and we need to find him quickly."
"I think I know how we can do it," Tosh said.
"Oh?" Jack gave her a surprised look. "Do tell me."
"You know he was a junior Archivist at Headquarters, don't you?" Jack nodded. "Well, Torchwood One Archivists all had a cranial implant – based on very advanced alien technology – that enabled them to commit a clean and painless suicide, should they be in danger of giving away their secrets under torture. Kinda like those cyanide capsules of the CIA, just a lot more effective."
Jack shuddered. "And people wonder why I hated One!"
"You hated One because you and Yvonne could never see eye to eye, that's why," Tosh replied dryly. "Anyway, Ianto does have such an implant, and I can try scanning for the signature of the alien technology in order to locate him."
"You know the signature of his implant?" Jack didn't know whether he should be impressed by her wide variety of knowledge or jealous because Ianto apparently hadn't found it necessary to tell him anything about this.
Tosh smiled tiredly. "Actually, Trevor does. He was part of the team that had created the implant in the first place. He gave me the info just in case we might need to find Ianto when he was unconscious and cut off of communication."
"And since Trevor is out with the research teams…"
"… he's got the best chance to actually find Ianto," Tosh finished for him. "I'll download the code into his lifesign detector – it's too complicated to program it manually – and we'll deal with the tracking device in the meantime."
Private Ross Jenkins was enjoying himself enormously – not that he'd show any outward sign of it, of course. He was too well trained for that – not to mention that his breeding, despite his fall-out with his rich and influential family, practically demanded a suitably blasé look from him.
A look that he had developed to perfection, much to the annoyance of his commanding officers.
But he was definitely enjoying himself. This was only the second time since they'd been exiled to Cardiff – himself, Harris and Stevie Gray, all three of them unexpected, albeit fairly damaged survivors of the Sontaran invasion – that they'd be allowed to participate in any field missions. Both times on Torchwood's behalf, but who cared? The important thing was that they got out and could do something exciting.
More exciting than their dull desk jobs anyway.
Last time, with a Nostrovite crashing the big, fat Torchwood wedding of the decade, had been exciting and hilarious and all around great fun. A man-eating, alien laying its eggs in a human host, capable of shape shifting, so that it could take on anyone's looks at will – what else could a UNIT soldier wish for?
Save for beautiful women in breath-taking evening dresses in the style of the 1950s, of course, which had also been there in amazing numbers.
This new task was perhaps a little less spectacular – searching for missing persons was not that extraordinary. Only that said missing person was the young Torchwood director, and finding him was of utmost importance.
Even if the rest of the UNIT team didn't realize that.
Being the godson of Commodore Harry Sullivan and the progeny of high-ranking UNIT personnel, both military and civilian science staff, Private Jenkins knew more than his fellow soldiers. Much more. He knew exactly who Ianto Jones was and why he'd been selected for his current position by Her Majesty, the Queen, personally.
And he also knew that no matter what Jones might have done, he must not fall into the hands of the local police. He was much too important… much too valuable for that.
Jenkins had been part of the UNIT clean-up team after the Battle of Canary Wharf. He'd seen all the blood and carnage hostile aliens could cause. Compared with that, the Sontaran invasion had been a moderate disaster – though not for him, personally. Or for Harris. Or for Stevie. But he'd been raised to always see the bigger picture, and so he'd recognized the extreme potential of Torchwood One's legacy.
A legacy that was now only accessible through Director Jones.
Jones alone knew all the passwords and security codes to everything left by Torchwood London, keeping them in that remarkable photographic memory of his – and nowhere else. There was no way to extract those dates from his memory by force – UNIT had sought for something that might work for years… and failed. Therefore, they needed Jones, and they needed him unharmed.
Should anything happen to him, and be it just a memory loss, two hundred years of research done by the Torchwood Institute would be lost, inaccessible for a very long time – unless technological development in the far, far future would make it possible for the Archives to be unlocked without the passwords.
Besides, he liked Jones, despite the fact that he'd only met him once, at the Nostrovite-infested wedding. With his sharp suit, unflappable calm and quiet snark, the man was remarkably sane and laid-back for someone who'd survived Canary Wharf.
Also, perhaps for the same reason, he was not easily intimidated by anyone. Especially not by high-ranking UNIT officers assigned to remote outposts as a punishment. Colonel Mace's foul mood every time he'd had to deal with Torchwood clearly spoke of that, and that fact alone endeared Jenkins to the young Torchwood director.
He got along with Colonel Mace well enough, but he still missed serving with Captain Magambo. She was a no-nonsense woman with a titanium rod up her arse, but at least she never mixed her personal life and agendas with her duty. As a result, she always got the job – any job assigned to her – done, and done it well.
It was too bad that Colonel Oduya didn't like her, so she, too, had been reassigned to some insignificant outpost outside London. No doubt, she'd be running any place within weeks, but it was still a crying shame to waste her that way.
Jenkins violently, instinctively disliked Augustus Oduya, and he knew that his godfather, the commodore, shared his feelings. No one knew for certain how such a petty bureaucrat had ended up as the head of UNIT's British division; it had happened somewhen during the reign of the ill-remembered Prime Minister Harold Saxon, and his status had not changed ever since. Jenkins often wondered why.
He must have had very good connections, in very high places when not even the Brig could have him removed from his current position.
And Oduya hated Torchwood with a passion. Everyone knew that, as he didn't exactly make a secret of the fact. Captain Jack Harkness seemed to be the particular bane of his existence, and he never missed the chance to speak ill of him. Or to undermine whatever Torchwood Cardiff in general or Harkness in particular tried to achieve from or in cooperation with UNIT.
The reasons remained unclear; but Jenkins found that if Oduya hated them so much, especially the Cardiff branch – the only operational one at the moment – then Torchwood couldn't be all that bad. So yeah, he was determined to find their director, hopefully unharmed.
Perhaps if he did, he could get an honourable discharge and join up with them himself. He wasn't really sure he wanted to stay in a UNIT commanded by Augustus Oduya. Plus, by joining Torchwood's misfits, the non-fraternization rule would no longer e a hindrance in the way of his agenda to pursue the lovely Doctor Jones.
If they ever found a way to fix him, that is. In his current shape, he'd do no good for any woman who might become interested in his pretty face.
For which, again, he had to stay in Torchwood's good graces. He knew of the nanogenes, of course – his family might have cast him out, but his godfather still held to him, and what Commodore Sullivan didn't know about UNIT or Torchwood wasn't really worth knowing.
But he also knew that outsiders would never get access to such dangerous stuff. Uncle Harry might talk Director Jones into making an exception; making himself useful and helping to save Jones' arse would help considerably.
He had been so deep in thoughts that he nearly ran over Torchwood's Number Two geek – another survivor of Canary Wharf, if he remembered correctly – who'd stopped in the middle of the street without warning. Jenkins heard him speak briefly to somebody named Tosh, presumably the infamous Doctor Sato, through his Bluetooth device. Then he snapped a small, hand-held scanner out of his pocket and began to work on the touch screen furiously.
Private Harris, a devout worshipper each of any tech gizmo, whether they were actually useful or not, peered over the man's shoulder. Not a big feat for him, being at least a head taller than the bald, bespectacled Torchwood scientist.
"What is that?" he asked.
"A lifesign detector," the Torchwood techie replied absent-mindedly. "Mainframe has finally kicked in; good. Now we can latch onto Jonesy's specifics and find him in no time… I hope."
"You hope?" Harris replied, mildly shocked that the Torchwood guy would refer to his almighty director simply by Jonesy.
But again, they'd worked together at One, so that must have counted for something. Especially as only twenty-some of them had survived Canary Wharf, out of more than eight hundred. Jenkins made a mental note to ask his godfather how many of those were actually still alive. He vaguely remembered someone mentioning that quite a few had committed suicide since.
The geek, who appeared stable enough – and he had to be, otherwise the Cardiff branch wouldn't have hired him – shrugged.
"Well, it all depends how far he'd gotten before hospital personnel would realize he was gone."
"In the condition he was, he couldn't have gotten far," Sergeant Zbrigniew commented. "I saw the reports; he was concussed, wasn't he? And was unconscious for some time. He'd be dizzy and disoriented."
"Yeah, but you don't know Jonesy," the Torchwood techie replied. "Trust me; such minor inconveniences won't stop him after Canary Wharf. You should have seen him then. Now, that was something I'd call a condition."
"Was he injured?" Stevie Grey asked.
"We all were," the techie answered. "Cybermen have the tendency to slam you into the next available wall, just to make a point. And that was the lucky part, cos it meant they haven't killed you with their ray guns on the spot. Of course, it also made it easier for them to put you into one of those bloody conversion units," he added thoughtfully. "Dazzled and concussed people put up less resistance."
Stevie Grey shuddered. "Don't remind me of those things, man!"
The techie looked at him in surprise. "You were there?"
"I came with one of the clean-up teams," Stevie explained. "Had the bad luck to get assigned to the one in care of cleaning out their cyber-factory," he shuddered again. "I still have the nightmares."
"You're not the only one," the techie consulted his lifesign detector, then waved in a vague direction on his left. "Thataway."
"Are you sure?" Harris frowned as he was still looking over the guy's shoulder and clearly not recognizing anything in the readouts.
"Quite," the techie replied. "Besides, this is the only clue we have, unless you got a better idea," he glared back at Harris over the rim of his glasses. "No? Thought so. Then shut up and come with me. We've no time to waste."
Not waiting for an answer – not that Harris would have one anyway – he turned into a street on the left and hurried forward impatiently… only to stop in his track about two hundred metres further.
"Oh, man, Jonesy," he muttered with a tired sigh. "What have you gotten yourself into?"
Jenkins elbowed his way past Stevie and Harris to see what had made the techie stop.- Then he, too, stopped, staring at the sight offered to him with open-mouthed shock.
Jones, wearing black denim trousers and a black leather jacket – neither of which seemed to fit him, so they were probably borrowed – over his hospital gown, was lying on his back, unconscious, his eyes wide open. Right next to him, thrown onto the ground like a broken doll, was a woman: young, pretty, blonde.
And quite dead, if the strangulation marks on her neck were any indication.
~TBC~