A.N. Thank you Cute Gallifreyan, maybe my only consistent reader left!
Chapter 13.
The atmosphere in the hub was now incredibly strained.
Owen lay in the med-bay, deep in a coma. His cells had gone into a degenerative cycle and nobody knew how to help him. Tosh and the Doctor had managed to stabilise his cells to the best of their ability but they were still wasting away at a phenomenal rate. There wasn't much anybody could do until they retrieved the Bio-Modulator and could reverse the process. If this was what the weapon could really do, the Doctor was glad she'd only experienced a gender swap. Although inconvenient, it was hardly life threatening.
The hub was now a quiet eerie place. Devoid of the usual laughter and bickering that characterised Torchwood 3, the people within spent their time working silently or sat by Owens bedside, holding his hand and whispering promises to make him better. Nearly everybody in the building had had a problem or disagreement with Owen at some time or another, but it was all forgotten now. The Doctor realised again how much of a family this little crew was. And Jack was feeling guilty.
Not only had he hurt Ianto, but he hadn't been able to stop Owen from getting hurt, or found away to help him once he had. It was a couple of days after Owens attack and they still hadn't managed to get to the Xanodere. They knew it's general location, but they were also receiving numerous reports of civilians being attacked much in the same way that Owen had.
Civilians with varying degrees of biological alterations now filled most of the cells of the hub. Some like he Doctor, had relatively tame alterations. A few had had their skin colours changed, for example the pleasant gentleman who was now purple. Some had been given the DNA of animals. One chavy girl had been merged with her parrot and was currently plucking and preening herself, trying to make her feathery covering as fashionable as possibly. Most people, like these, had experienced quite harmless changes. They were annoying and inconvenient, but not strictly dangerous.
Others, like Owen, had been altered on a more serious scale. They had already had several deaths among the victims. One woman had been altered so that she could not stand temperatures above the freezing point. Her blood had boiled within her body before they had been able to reach her. Another woman had had her lungs removed. Thankfully, she had died from shock before she had the chance to suffocate to death.
New cases were being discovered every few hours. They had only stabilised one victim in a cell when another call came in and they needed to rush out again. They literally had no time to go and catch the Xanodere. It wouldn't be too problematic if Owen had been able bodied. If he were not currently unconscious, he would have stayed in the hub, taking care of the medical needs of all of the incoming victims, Ianto and Tosh would be ferrying the victims to Torchwood, and the Doctor, Rose Jack and Gwen would have gone in search of the Xanodere. As such, The Doctor and Tosh were having to be the makeshift medical team (both able but not nearly as much as Owen), Ianto and Gwen were taking reports and fetching new victims, and no way were Jack and Rose going to take down the Xanodere on their own.
They didn't know what to do. They couldn't go out and get the Xanodere without abandoning the victims who obviously needed their help. They were understaffed even with the extra help of the Doctor and Rose. With Owen being out of commission, things were just impossible.
They were all tired, all angry and embittered. They had been so busy the past few days yet still no closer to catching the damn beast. So they were all feeling quite useless.
In the end it was decided.
Tosh would stay on her own in the hub dealing with the medical problems of the victims and Ianto would fetch them and bring them in.
It may mean that they would miss people and wouldn't be able to save as many of them, but their main focus was the prevention of anybody else being attacked.
The rest of them were going after Xanodere.
A.N. Many apologies for this chapter. I realise its crap but it needed to be done. Please review people. I need help to make it better. Free edible ball bearings to all who review. And I seriously have some too. I bought some the other day!