Chapter Ten: The Rogue Agent
The first thing Jack was aware of was a chill across his chest. Where was he?
Oh yeah. He groaned, fingers clenching at the dirt beneath them. He must still be in the cave, the impersonator and his accomplices long gone. He slowly sat up with a grimace, and opened his eyes.
The eerie green light pounded into his retinas like an anvil and it was only several curses later that he could see his circumstances properly. Left with only his boxers and his vortex manipulator in a cave. Great.
Well, he supposed as he stood and fiddled with his manipulator, he'd woken in up in worst states before. There was this time on Gregulaun Three….
He smiled fondly as he set his vortex manipulator. Moments later he materialized on the teleport platform in the atrium of the Time Agency only to see mauve screens and empty hallways. Lockdown. His imposter must have already been discovered. He reached for his blaster, only to grasp at his boxers.
Right. Find weapons, find clothes, find Yenson and clear his name from whatever treacherous things the shapeshifter had done with his face. Easy enough. Maybe Irina could help him.
He smirked to himself as he started down the deserted hallway. Maybe he'd save time and skip finding clothes.
The beam had vanished and the ceiling had ceased glowing, but the Doctor made no sound.
"Doctor!" Rose cried. Pinned under Jack's chair, she twisted frantically to catch a glimpse of the Time Lord. "Doctor!" No answer.
The device in the ceiling roared to life again, blue sparks cascading as it prepared to launch another beam.
"That's the teleport!" Jack yelled, rocking in an attempt to get his chair off Rose. "Doc, get out of the way!"
They heard a pained grunt and the sizzling of the beam, and then silence.
"Doctor?" Rose cried again.
"Here," came another soft groan. "Still here…"
Both Rose and Jack breathed a sigh of relief.
"Not that I'm not enjoying the close proximity," Jack commented, forcing the anxiety out of his voice, "But there's a pocketknife in my pocket."
After a brief struggle to get an arm free, Rose reached around him and felt around his pocket for a moment. "This?" She pulled it out.
Jack nodded. "Start sawing at the hinge."
Taking the small blade tightly in her fist, Rose sawed back and forth at the hinge of the cuff on Jack's right hand.
"Doctor, you okay?" Jack called.
There was an indistinguishable moan and a shuffling sound as the Doctor propped himself up on an elbow. "I'm fine." His voice faltered. "My head is…I'm fine." His elbow wobbled, and he tumbled back to the floor with a grunt.
"Don't sound like it," Rose worried, sawing faster.
"Maybe not so fine," the Doctor admitted. He hissed slightly as he dragged himself over to where Jack's chair lay on top of Rose, and shoved the chair off.
Rose reached for him, but the Doctor shook his head, breathing hard. "Get him out."
As Rose resumed her work on Jack's cuffs, the captain demanded, "You said that was the same stuff infecting the plant? I thought we were immune to it."
The Doctor shook his head grimly. "We're immune to the plant's psychic spores, not the virus itself. And with the amount of viruses just pumped into my system? You wouldn't last very long."
"How long are you supposed to last then?" Rose demanded.
"Well I kept them out of my mind, so…" The Doctor's shoulders lifted in a pale imitation of a shrug. "No idea. Depends on how fast the nasty little buggers figure out my biology."
"I've got it!" Rose announced as she broke through the handcuff. Jack snatched the knife from her and began sawing on the other cuff while she rushed towards the Doctor.
He lifted a hand in protest. "No, don't – "
Too late. Rose ignored his pleadings and helped him to sit up and lean against her. "Come on, then," she said with a small smile she didn't feel, "You're always telling me about superior Time Lord biology. You'll just get better, yeah?"
The Doctor smiled weakly back. "Of course I will." He suddenly inhaled sharply and grimaced, as if a sudden wave of pain had overcome him. "That's not all the good news, either!" He gasped as cheerfully as he could muster.
"Why's that?" called Jack.
"I'm a Time Lord," supplied the Doctor, "Not human. Means I'm the only victim. I can't infect anybody. Yet."
"But he said the virus was intended for humans," Rose recalled, frowning.
"That's what they've been training for," the Doctor replied, breathing hard as he regained his strength. "In the plant, that's what they were doing. Training how to kill humans. That's why the Vine always requested humans…The Strain tried to use Jack as another practice dummy, probably to let him loose so the rest of the agency would get infected." He grinned. "But instead, they got me! Haven't got a clue how to kill Time Lords. My immune system should be able to fight it off for awhile and keep it contained so it doesn't spread."
"I'm out!" Jack yanked his wrist out of the remains of the handcuff and stuck the knife back in his pocket. He strode towards the Doctor and Rose and crouched next to them. "How long before it mutates?"
The Doctor shook his head as he sat up. "Don't know. Depends on how long it takes before they figure out how to kill me."
"But it's not like they've never seen a Time Lord before," Rose pointed out. "The Vine was feeding off you."
"Pretty effectively, too," Jack added.
"Barely a taste," the Doctor said confidently, pushing himself off the ground with a slight groan. "And I had let it in my head at the time. I should be fine."
Jack quirked an eyebrow. "'Should be?'"
"Did I say that?" the Doctor asked airily, patting some of the dirt off his soiled suit.
Rose bit her lip. "You're not contagious?"
"Nah, not to humans."
Both his friends eyed him suspiciously.
"Rose, I'm fine," the Doctor reassured, cupping her cheek so her eyes pointed right at his. "See? Fine."
She glanced away, trying to hide a smile.
"Hey, I need some proof too," Jack interrupted.
Rose smothered a laugh, but the Doctor glared.
"So what do we do now?" she wondered.
"Now?" The Doctor beamed, "Now we rig up something to cure the Strain before it infects anyone else." He clapped a hand on each of their shoulders and gave them a slight push towards the door. "Allons-y!"
Unarmed and nearly naked, Jack punched his thumbprint into the scanner guarding the entrance to the security room where Irina worked. At his touch, the thumbprint scanner turned a disagreeable red.
He banged on the door, yelling for all he was worth. "Irina! It's me!" He knocked a few more times, then pressed his ear to the door, listening for a tell-tale click.
The door clicked and opened, and he nearly fell straight into Irina. "Jack? What're you doing here?"
Jack started inside. "I ran into – "
She stuck a hand out, preventing him from entering. "Let me see your arm," the blonde said harshly.
Jack waved his arms at her. "Listen, there's a shapeshifter wandering around with my face – "
Satisfied with what she saw, Irina yanked him inside the dark room filled with computers. She shut the door behind him. "It's not a shapeshifter. It's you."
"It's – what?" Jack gaped.
"From the future." She raised an eyebrow at his boxers. "Nice look."
"Thanks," he said in a daze. "It's really me from the future?"
Irina nodded.
He rubbed his hand over his forehead. "But why would I do something so stupid? They'll kick me out of the Agency for this – no forget that, that they'll execute me for this! What was I thinking?"
"I don't know," she snapped. "All I know is, you showed up and started giving the two supposed hostages a tour of the facility."
"I risked my career and life to show off?"
"You got to admit, it sounds a bit like you."
Jack paused, rubbing his jaw. "Yeah, it does. But this…this is insane. I've got to find Yenson and convince him this is a horrible mistake. Got any clothes?"
Irina let out a heavy sigh and rummaged in her desk before tossing him a uniform.
Jack held them up to his body. "And just my size too. Can I ask why you happen to be storing a uniform in my size in your desk?"
She tossed her hair behind her shoulder and smirked. "Because tonight, your uniform was supposed to get very, very dirty."
"Thanks for the thought." He pulled the spare uniform on.
As he pulled the spare uniform on, Irina slid a bottle out from behind one of the computer hard drives.
"Drink?" She swished the bottle's contents expectantly.
Jack waved it off. "Sorry, got to see my boss about my death, remember?"
He started for the door, but Irina zipped around to block him. She held the bottle out again. "Please, Jack?"
He stared at her incredulously. "Are you trying to distract me for a reason?"
The sultry smile dropped off Irina's face. Now her eyes were wide and pleading. "Just one swig, Jack."
"Why?" A nasty taste gathered at the back of his throat. "I'm already gone, aren't I?"
She bit her lip. "I got the message that the teleport went off a few minutes ago."
Jack felt his knees shake. He collapsed into a desk chair behind him, unable to say a word.
"Oh, this is awkward," Irina sighed, kneeling next to Jack and putting a hand on his shoulder. "I know. How're you supposed to go on, right?"
"Remember Arthur?" Jack said hollowly, staring at his feet. "Crossed his own timeline to get a promotion?"
"I remember," she said quietly.
"They sent him to the Halloween Massacre of 2790. I had to eat lunch with his present self every day for a week, knowing he was already dead."
She winced. "I know." She pushed the bottle at him again. "That's why I spiked this with retcon. Take a swig. Nobody deserves to know they're already dead."
The earnest shine in her eyes matched the gleam of the bottle as Jack took it. He swished it around a few times, frowning. "You're not going to want to talk to me after this."
"I'm taking one too. I don't want to know…" She trailed off and looked at the ground.
"Know what?"
"That you're dead," she finished. Her eyes darted towards the computer, the door, and a host of other places, but never on him.
Jack stared at her hard. She still couldn't meet his eyes. "That's not it."
Her voice heightened. "Of course it is – "
"You're a horrible liar," Jack snapped, sticking the bottle onto the desk. "What aren't you telling me?"
She brushed a strand of hair out of her face. "Nothing."
"You asked to see my arm…" Jack down at the scratch on his arm. "The other me's healed from this, hasn't he? You're the only one who possibly would have noticed." He snatched her wrist. "You turned me in to Yenson."
"It's protocol!" she shot back, yanking her wrist from his grip. "It's what we're supposed to do – you would have done the same thing!"
Jack stood. "No, I wouldn't have." He shoved her out of his way and strode over to the desk. "So I'll be taking your blaster." He yanked it from the drawer just as Irina reached out for him. She froze as he aimed it at her.
"And look at this," he said coldly, extracting a pair of handcuffs from the drawer and dangling it in front of his face. "Another plan for tonight?"
"Jack, listen, we can forget all about this – "
He threw the handcuffs to her, blaster never budging from its target. "Chain yourself to a desk or I shoot."
"Jack – "
He shot at the floor, making her jump. Grudgingly, she cuffed a hand to a desk leg.
He circled the desk, keeping out of her reach, and scrolled through one of the computers. "I am not going to spend the next week, or year, or however long it is with everyone tip-toeing around me because they can't tell me I'm dead like they did with Arthur."
She twisted in a vain attempt to see what he was doing. "You can't look at that. You haven't got clearance."
Jack laughed dryly at that. "I've been ambushed, stripped, disarmed, betrayed, and executed. Do you think I look like a clearance sort of guy anymore?" He accessed the tracking programs on the computer and clicked a few buttons. "I think I'll consider myself terminated. Have fun tracking me without a lock on my wristcomp." He circled back around to aim his blaster back at Irina's chest.
"Oh come on, Jack," she said in exasperation, "What exactly are you planning to do now? Kill me for following protocol? Strike out on your own? Go back home?"
Jack considered. "One of those doesn't sound too bad."
She flinched as he suddenly switched his aim from her to the computers on the desks behind her, and fired. Blast after blast slammed into the machinery behind her, until nothing was left but smoking metal and plastic.
He stuck the blaster into his pocket. "So long, sweetheart."
He shut the door behind him and didn't look back.