Notes: I am really sorry about the delay in posting this. My other story was flooding my brain and this one got kind of put on the back burner. It was also a little intimidating to figure out how I wanted to handle this story. I hope you like it, please review!
Chapter Twenty-Six – Children of Earth
James was trying to settle back into some kind of routine at Torchwood, but what had been years for him, had been no time at all for them. He sat at one of the computer terminals, studying the latest readings from the rift, when his grandmother loudly entered the Hub.
"Honestly, he was born three years ago and suddenly he's a bleedin' adult! I never got to spoil my grandbaby!" Jackie wailed.
James noticed that even Donna was wincing at her tone, and the two of them usually got along very well. She glanced at him with a pitying look as they both tried to get back to work.
"And that mother of yours, she never calls either. Honestly, they live inside a bloody phone box. You'd think she could use it now and then to call her own mother," Jackie continued despite the fact that no one was listening.
They were all saved by the arrival of Pete, Jack and Ianto reentering the Hub. They had gone to the hospital to retrieve an alien hitchhiker that had been living inside a man who had died. Pete immediately went to work trying to remove his wife from the premises so that they could get back to work uninterrupted.
"Sweetheart, you can't be here. We have important work to do," he argued and ushered her back towards the lift. She whined the whole way, but he eventually managed to send her off.
James slumped in his chair and rested his head on the desk. "Why didn't I just go back to travelling with mum and dad?" he mumbled to himself.
"Because you are an independent and extremely capable young man, who doesn't need to spend all his time with his parents," Donna said reassuringly as she pat him on the back.
"And it's so much better to be stuck here with my grandparents?" he asked with raised eyebrows. "Honestly, Donna, you know how much better it is on the TARDIS. What am I doing here? They never let me out on a call because nobody thinks I can take care of myself. I've been doing this kind of thing my whole life!"
"So, why aren't you on the TARDIS then?" she asked him pointedly.
James sighed. Because it somehow felt like he was giving up on being his own person. He had spent all this time away so that he could become the man he was today. Educated, independent, confident, and not living in the shadow of his father. But somehow, going back felt like turning in his grownup card.
"I don't know," he answered.
They both went back to typing when suddenly, James winced in pain. A horrible buzzing sound assaulted his telepathic senses, nearly crippling his ability to think. The mental static overwhelmed all of his other senses, making him blind to the outside world for a full minute before it stopped. When he opened his eyes again, he found Donna, Jack and Ianto all around him with concerned looks on their faces.
"What happened?" Jack asked him, ready to face the next danger.
"I'm not sure. Some kind of telepathic broadcast, but it was like static. No actual message came through," James replied as he shook his head clear of the event.
"Donna, check if anyone else noticed it. Ianto, check the readings on the rift. Jamie, let's run a medical scanner over you, just to make sure there's no lasting effects," Jack ordered and everyone got to work on their assigned tasks.
James rolled his eyes at once again being babied by the staff at Torchwood. Despite all of his time spent proving himself to his Uncle Jack, the man was still incredibly overprotective of him. He followed Jack down into the medical area slowly, knowing that there was nothing wrong.
"I've already checked myself, Jack. I'm extremely aware of my own physical condition, you know," James protested, but sank down to sit on the examination table in the middle of the space.
They heard Gwen enter the hub and shout something to Donna, but didn't quite make out what it was.
"Everything looks normal," Jack said as he ran the alien device over James.
"Told you. Can I get back to doing something useful now?" he complained.
Jack sighed, but let him go. James went back to his computer station and looked over to see what Gwen and Donna were doing.
"Check the news reports, anything to do with children," Gwen insisted.
"What am I looking for exactly?" Donna questioned.
"I dunno. I just saw these kids outside just stop, like they were frozen or something," Gwen told them.
"When was this?" James asked.
"About eight forty. I was just getting some cash from the machine and saw it myself," Gwen replied.
"Here we go then, seventeen traffic accidents happening right across the country. All between eight forty and eight forty-one, and every single accident was involving children standing in the middle of the road," Donna reported.
"That's when the telepathic broadcast happened. Why would human children be picking up a telepathic broadcast?" James wondered and started checking all of the readings coming in from the various sensors they had in the area.
"Same reports from France. Fifteen road traffic accidents. All timed around nine forty. They're an hour ahead, so it was simultaneous," Ianto called over to them.
"All involving children?" Gwen asked.
James knew this was no coincidence and immediately started running the same type of search, but was able to correlate the data far faster than the rest of them. "It's everywhere. The whole world. Somehow, children all over the world, at the exact same moment, received the same telepathic signal that I did. I've got to see if there's a ship in orbit," James told them.
"Should we call the Doctor?" Pete suggested as he joined the group around the computers.
"No. We can handle this," James replied curtly.
The rest of the Torchwood team exchanged a look, but didn't argue.
"Alright, I'm going to call UNIT and see what they've got. Let me know if you guys find out anything more," Jack told them and walked away, already dialling his mobile.
The whole team spent the next half hour scouring the media, their own scanners and any hacked satellite data they could find. They couldn't seem to find any more information than they had already deduced. In fact, no one but Jamie had any knowledge of the telepathic nature of the attack.
"Who's that?" James questioned when he saw someone snooping around outside on their surveillance cameras.
"You're right, Jack. He's back," Ianto called when he saw what James was looking at.
"Ha, ha! I said so!" Jack crowed triumphantly.
"Alright, Jumpin' Jack Flash, who is he?" Donna demanded.
"A doctor. What's he doing?" Jack asked as he joined Ianto and Jamie at the monitor.
"Waiting, just like you said. Looking back at the footage, he's been there twenty minutes," Ianto replied.
"Persistent," Jack said.
"Good sign," Ianto replied.
"Dogmatic," Jack added.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's enough, you two. What's he doing here?" Donna interrupted their banter.
"Never work with a couple! You two talk like twins," Gwen complained.
With a sigh, Jack explained, "He's Rupesh Patanjali. He saw the hitchhiker and we need a doctor."
"What and you just let him follow you?" Gwen asked incredulously.
"Don't look at credentials or anything?" Donna rolled her eyes.
"Well we can't exactly put out an ad in the paper, Donna," Jack responded.
"Oh. You bastards. That's exactly what you did to me the first time we met. Well, sod that. I'm promoting myself to recruitment officer. Wanna join me, Donna?" Gwen announced to the team.
"Why not? Between the two of us, maybe we can manage an effective interview," Donna replied and followed Gwen to the lift.
Once they were gone, Ianto turned to Jack with a smile. "Gwen's calling us a couple now," he said to Jack flirtatiously.
"What's your problem?" Jack grumbled.
"Just saying," Ianto responded, confused by Jack's attitude all of a sudden.
"I hate the word couple," Jack told him curtly as he stalked off to his office.
"Me too," Ianto said quietly to himself.
"Are you alright, Ianto?" James asked and it was clear that Ianto had forgotten that he was there.
"Yes. Yes, of course," he answered a little too quickly. "Could I get you some coffee or something?"
"Don't take it personally, Ianto. My dad did that to my mum for a long time too. He's had to watch a lot of people age in front of him. It hurts to think about it. But sometimes, even for those of us that will live for centuries or more, we manage to take the time to enjoy what is here for now," James told him.
"Thank you, Jamie. I'm sure he'd say you're too young to understand. But I appreciate it. What made your dad give in?" Ianto wondered.
"I don't know for sure. They say that it was impossible to ignore it anymore or something like that. The bit I've been told about relationships is that communication is important, so I'd say talk to him, if he'll let you," James suggested.
Suddenly, James slammed his eyes shut as the pain of the telepathic assault returned. This time however, it wasn't silent static. The message came first as a screaming tone in his head, then a phrase coming through, one word added at a time, almost like it was testing the connection. First it was, "We," repeated over and over. Then, "We are." Finally and ominously, "We are coming."
When James finally managed to open his eyes again, he saw not only Ianto, but Pete and Jack standing over him where he sat at his desk.
"It happened again," James told them, shaking his head to clear it.
"We know. Gwen and Donna saw it outside. All the kids repeating the same words," Jack informed him.
"We are coming," Jamie said, informing them that he had heard the message as well. "The question is, who?" he added as he began typing furiously on his keyboard. "I was running the scanners, prepared for another telepathic broadcast. I should be able to track the signal or at least find out what frequency they're using," James told them.
"Alright, I'm gonna try calling the Home Office. UNIT wasn't much help earlier, but you might want to try and get through to someone higher up, Jamie, what with your connections over there," Jack said and headed back towards his office for a bit of privacy while on the phone.
Gwen and Donna reentered the Hub from the lift then, the large, circular door spinning out of their way. Gwen ran up to her computer station as Donna wheeled her way up the ramps that they had installed around the place when she started working there.
"That was bloody freaky!" Donna announced loudly.
"I know, people are going to start panicking, now," Gwen added.
"I'm trying to track the signal, but this is going to take a while to run. Better try to get through to UNIT as Jack suggested, I suppose," James told them with a sigh and picked up his phone. He hated this sort of thing, but maybe he could skip a few levels of bureaucracy by throwing around his dad's name a bit.
"Bloody idiots!" Donna shouted suddenly.
"We're being dumbos. We're missing the bleedin' obvious here!" Gwen agreed.
Jack, Ianto, and Pete joined them at the computers to look over their shoulders. James looked over as well, but kept his ear to his phone. He was currently on hold, waiting for someone that might be able to put him through to Lethbridge-Stewart.
"This, oh fearless leader, was recorded in Taiwan," Donna said to Jack as she started playing a video for him. The little girl was repeating the same phrase they had been hearing all morning.
Gwen looked at them pointedly before Jack and Ianto answered together, "It's English."
"Oh my god, you're right," Pete gasped.
"Of course it's in English. I told you that the broadcast is going around the world. The original signal is in English, so what else would they say?" James said, rolling his eyes.
"So why is it in English?" Donna questioned. "And, if it's all the children, other than the Martian over there, what about him?" she added as she cued up another video showing an elderly gentleman, frozen and intoning the same phrase the children had been.
"What the hell? Who's he?" Jack demanded.
"Name's Timothy White. He's a patient in a psychiatric ward at the Duke of York Hospital, East Grinstead," Gwen read off the report Donna had brought up.
"Ok, so that's what, two hours away?" Jack asked.
"I'm on it," Gwen told them and dashed for the lift with a printout of the information from Donna.
"Right, keep following up on your leads, I have to go check on something myself," Jack told them before grabbing his overcoat and heading out. Ianto followed, but no one knew where either of them were heading.
James was still trying to get through to someone at UNIT and was about to give up and call Buckingham Palace. He'd had tea with the Queen when he was younger and was sure that she would help get him through to someone important if he asked. In the meantime, he tried to work his way through to talk to someone that could give him some kind of information.
It was three hours later when Gwen called to give some information to Donna. Ianto returned around the same time and admitted to having his car stolen while he was out.
"How in the world? It's got a triple deadlock, Ianto!" Pete shouted.
"I have no bloody idea. A bunch of ruddy kids near my sister's," he grumbled.
"Ok, boys. Based on what Gwen found out from Timothy White, I've got the Holly Tree. In 1965, it was a state-run orphanage where our friend, also known as Clement MacDonald was taken into care after his mother died. In November 1965, he and several other children were transferred," Donna told them.
"Does it say where they were sent?" Pete wondered.
"Nothing in official records," Donna replied crossly.
"Let me see what I can dig up," James told them and with a crack of his knuckles began to dig into restricted files.
Almost two hours later, Gwen returned to the Hub and went straight for the medical scanner. Donna, Pete, and Ianto exchanged a look and a shrug at her lack of conversation. When Jack returned, shortly after that, he had much more to say.
"We need damage control at Saint Helen's. One body, Doctor Rupesh Patanjali, shot in the back," Jack ordered.
"What happened?" Ianto asked worriedly.
"I don't know. He was just left there right beside me, like someone's gloating," Jack replied, the frustration clear in his tone.
"Did they kill you?" Ianto guessed.
"Yeah," he admitted.
"What?! No way, seriously though? In the hospital?" Donna asked incredulously.
"Maybe we're being targeted. Whether it was him or me, we should be careful," Jack speculated.
"I'm willing to bet it wasn't the nobody doctor that was the target, Jack," James told him seriously. "I've got some results on the information we got from Gwen. Compiling it all now."
"Is she back, yet?" Jack questioned.
"Yup. She's down in the lab," Donna replied as she printed out all of the information that James was collecting.
Jack went to see what Gwen was doing and within a few minutes, he was shouting back to them, "Hey guys, we're having a baby!"
Everyone in the Hub gathered at the railing that led down into the medical area and saw Gwen with her hand on the scanner. She was almost in tears as she said, "That is so bloody spectacular. But what about this place, and my job?"
"We'll manage. Lots of help here now," Jack told her reassuringly and placed his hand over hers on the scanner.
As soon as the scanner registered the new person, it activated and an alarm sounded, the lights flashing red throughout the Hub. On the display, a red dot appeared in the scan of Jack's abdomen.
"What the hell is that?" Gwen asked.
"Oh my god. It's a bomb," Jack told them, his whole body stiffening in shock.
"Are you bloody kidding me?!" Donna shrieked.
"Get out! All of you! Right now!" Jack shouted and started pushing Gwen up the stairs.
James ran a quick scan with his sonic in Jack's direction. "Blast radius of one mile and there isn't time to get it out of you. I'm so sorry, Uncle Jack," he reported.
"I'll survive. I always do. Now all of you get out of here!" Jack ordered.
Pete and Gwen were already helping Donna into the lift, despite the desperate looks of fear that Gwen was sending in Jack's direction. They trusted James' assessment that there wasn't time to get the bomb out of him.
The computer announced that a lockdown was in progress, but Ianto refused to leave, no matter how much James tried to pull him away.
"Ianto, you're going to get locked inside," Jack urged him to go with James. "For god's sake, get out. I can survive anything," he added and kissed his partner on the lips firmly before pushing him into James' arms.
James immediately pressed the button on his vortex manipulator that would bring them to Pete and Jackie's flat. They weren't far away though and could feel the vibrations of the explosion even there.