Arin's back was turned when Jack regained consciousness. Knowing that moving would hurt like hell, he delayed for a moment, taking in his surroundings. The Doctor was lying on the metal floor a few meters further away. To Jack's great relief, the infection didn't seem to have progressed any further. Jack rolled over to glance at his watch, having lost all sense of time since having been shot that first time in the TARDIS. Around six hours had passed since they had left Rose behind in their cell. Jack felt guilty for leaving her there, knowing they had signed her death warrant when they did so. They probably wouldn't have been able to do anything more for her if they had stayed behind. But at least, Rose wouldn't be dying alone that way.
Jack scrambled to his feet. Arin must have heard his movements, because by the time Jack was upright, Arin stood facing him, gun trained on him.
"Captain Harkness," Arin said, his voice was loaded with malice. "I thought you were a smart man, but apparently I was wrong."
"And what led you to believe that?" Jack asked.
"You posses the most precious thing in the universe and yet – you waste your time with friends that you'll have to watch die."
"You are one of the original settlers!" Jack suddenly realized. "Somehow you managed to survive, but now you are dying and you are afraid!" Jack said triumphantly.
"Yes, I am dying indeed. But I will hold on as long as I need to see my enemies die," Arin told him.
"Don't count on me to help you," Jack told him again. But for all the determination he put in his voice, Jack was wondering if he hadn't just signed their death warrants. By refusing to work, he gave Arin and his merry bunch no reason not to turn them over to the Daleks. There was a limit on how many more rounds with the Daleks he, and especially the Doctor, would be able to stand.
"Then I will turn over your friend to the Daleks. He isn't of any use to us anymore, but the Daleks probably won't mind that he isn't in the best shape."
Jack's heart sank. He, who never planned for failure and usually didn't even admit that the possibility existed, had to concede that they were backed against the wall. Failure was starting to look pretty likely.
"I guess they won't. Go ahead, I bet that the Daleks will be very happy when they find out that you tried to go behind their backs. It's me and the Doctor they want. They are finished with you," Jack ranted, not really having any hopes of talking Arin out of turning them over, but trying to give himself time to weigh his options.
He could try to fight his way out. He was outnumbered and outgunned, but he might just be able to jump Arin and wrestle his gun away from him. He had hinted that their guns might work against the Daleks, but that might just have been another lie to get them to co-operate.
Arin didn't seem distracted by Jack's ramblings, but then, a deafening alarm suddenly went off. It was the distraction Jack had been waiting for. He lunged at Arin, bringing them both down hard. The gun clattered to the floor, but Arin was still holding it in a vice-like grip. Jack grabbed his wrist and slammed it repeatedly into the metal floor. Arin relinquished his grip on the gun and it skittered away from them, out of reach for both of them. He used Jack's momentary distraction to deliver a punch to his jaw. The impact of the punch made Jack's ears ring. Before he fully realized what was happening, Arin had gained the upper hand, by landing two more well-placed blows with a strength that belied his skinny frame. Jack was fighting to hold on to consciousness. He knew he was going to lose this one when suddenly Arin collapsed, landing motionlessly on top of him.
Someone pushed the guard off of him, and Jack really wanted to see who had saved his skin, but silver spots were already clouding his vision. Oblivion was calling out to him. The last thing he heard was a familiar female voice calling his name.
"Jack?"
oOo
Rage, pent-up for centuries and nourished by the inability to act on it, had been unleashed when the Hundred had realized the worker's plot for what it was. Gwen was swept away by the surge of emotion. She was forced to watch as she saw herself pick up the gun that had fallen to the floor in the struggle. She saw herself take aim at her unknowing target and pull the trigger that sent a deadly bolt straight into the man's back.
Gwen felt sick, but seeing the man go down only fuelled her need for vengeance. They would pay for their betrayal, with their lives. She walked over to the computer terminal and switched off the alarm. Ignoring the warnings that were flashing across the screen, warning that power failure was imminent, she brought up the surveillance system. The Daleks were on the move. There were only three of them but each one was deadly on its own. The workers were trying to hold them off, but they were being slaughtered. They didn't stand a chance. It had been inevitable from the start. The Hundred had observed the Daleks' every move, had watched them use Rose and Anne to lure the Doctor into a trap. She had watched them torture the Doctor. The workers had betrayed the Daleks and were now feeling the force of their hatred. A horror show was playing out on the surveillance monitor. Gwen wanted to look away from all the carnage, but she was powerless to even move her head an inch. The Hundred were going to die. Once the Daleks were finished with the workers, they would come for the Hundred as well. Still, they took pleasure in seeing the Daleks carry out their revenge.
It felt like an eternity to Gwen, but it could really only have been minutes until the workers were gone. Just as soon as it was over, Gwen was once again in control of her body. Their connection wasn't severed, but without the intense emotion, the ability of the Hundred to control her was weakening.
The locks had been no problem for the Daleks. They were temporarily held off by the strong energy barriers that surrounded the entire core of the underground complex, Already, the outer barrier was weakening. It was only a matter of time until it collapsed. There were interior force shields around important areas such as the transmission tower, the hibernation vault and the control room, but it was only a matter of time until the Daleks broke through them as well. All the power reserves in the complex would probably not be enough to hold off the Daleks indefinitely, but it would buy them time. Hopefully, there would be enough time to reprogram the transmission tower to send the blast that would kill the virus. If she could pull power from the transmission tower to the force shields, leaving just enough power so that the blast area would cover the entire core of the underground complex, she might be able to make the modifications before they all died at the hands of the Daleks. They were still going to die, but she had promised Anne that she would try her best to deliver the cure to her people.
Gwen switched from the surveillance feed to the control console. With intuitive ease, she accessed the power grid controls, her fingers dancing over the foreign symbols on the keypad as if she were at her laptop at home. When she suddenly found her way blocked, Gwen realized that she wasn't alone in the control system. Every move she made was being blocked – blocked by the Hundred. Over centuries of existence separated from their physical bodies, they had obviously learned to use their link with the system controlling the underground complex. They hadn't regretted to see the workers die. The workers had become superfluous and just as they had turned against the Hundred, the Hundred had now turned against them. The workers died by the instrument of their betrayal. They had allied themselves with the Daleks in an attempt to rewrite history and the Daleks had wiped out their future.
Gwen ignored the error messages popping up on screen. If the front door was blocked, she could still come in through the back. She was using the knowledge of the Hundred against them. She was at the disadvantage, however. The Hundred could control the system by mere power of thought while she had to rely on manual input. She had not realized just how far the power of the Hundred went until a green spark of energy shot across the keyboard, delivering a painful shock to her fingers.
"Ow, that really hurt." Gwen inspected her burnt fingers.
"You shouldn't have done that." Gwen whirled around. The man from the police station was coming towards her, an expression of rage on his face. He was in the early stages of being taken over by the virus, but something was wrong. He seemed unsteady on his feet, his movements jerky as if he was fighting an invisible struggle for control.
Gwen took a step back, backing into the computer terminal, trying to figure out what to do. The virus gave its victims superhuman strength. She no longer had that advantage. She still had the connection to the Hundred, but no conscious control over it. Then she remembered something Anne had done back in the morgue at Torchwood. She lunged forwards and grabbed the wrists of the man. The man jerked, stumbling backwards. For a moment, he stood still before he leapt into action. Pulling out a penlight-like object, he got to work on the terminal. The penlight glowed blue, and the terminal came back to life.
He turned around. "I'm the Doctor, by the way."
"I'm Gwen."
"Thank you, Gwen. You might just have saved our lives. Of course there are still the Daleks and the Hundred out to get us," the Doctor told her cheerfully. Gwen stared at him, wondering if the virus had gotten to the Doctor's mind.
"That's…reassuring," Gwen finally managed, but the Doctor had already turned back to the computer. However, he fared no better than Gwen. Another, more massive surge of energy leapt across the keypad and screen. The Doctor jumped back, blowing on his burnt fingers. Smoke was now rising from the terminal.
"That's one option down then," the Doctor announced, still sounding awfully cheerful. "But, we still have this." He waved his penlight in front of Gwen. "You try to hold off the Daleks as long as you can. I'm going down to the transmission tower to try to send the blast directly from there." The Doctor headed for the door.
"Wait." Jack, whom Gwen had temporarily forgotten about with all that had been going on, came up behind the Doctor. Jack looked like hell. His face was smeared with blood with impressive bruising forming underneath.
"Remember, they can't kill me." He held out his hand for the Doctor's penlight. The Doctor fiddled with it for a few seconds. He pulled out a second object that looked much like a silver hourglass and gave it a few twists before nodding in satisfaction.
"That should do it." He handed both of the objects to Jack. "Who know what to do?"
Jack nodded.
"Be careful. We'll hold off the Daleks as long as we can," the Doctor told Jack.
"See you later." With that, Jack was out the door.
"He really can't die, can he?" Gwen asked.
The Doctor shook his head. "I don't know. Let's hope not."
Gwen nodded. "How are we going to hold off the Daleks? They are going to break through the force shield any moment."
"We can't stop them from doing that, but we can delay them. We need a distraction."
"What is going to distract the Daleks?"
"Water."
"The pipes." Gwen recalled the leaking pipes that ran through the tunnels. "But how are we going to get there?"
"Ventilation shafts. They are too small for the Daleks to get through…or for me, for that matter. But you should fit through. Do you know what to do?"
"I think so," Gwen replied hesitantly. "I don't know how, but I know. But it's fading though, like it was just a dream."
"The residual effects of the virus are wearing off. But now, hurry."
The Doctor climbed on top of the bunk and removed the covering from the ventilation shaft. With some assistance from the Doctor, Gwen managed to get inside.
TBC