Despite the racket Jack and Gwen's guns were making in the atrium, the team met with few obstacles as they escorted Dr. Peters down the stairs at gunpoint. When they reached the ground floor, they found a couple of unconscious security guards and several dropped stun guns scattered about the elevator bay. Apparently most of the security force had fled under Torchwood's fire.
"Looks like you just can't find good help these days," Owen observed. "I'm guessing they weren't really part of your organization?"
Dr. Peters shrugged and nudged a body with his toe. "They were merely paid employees, like the majority of our local staff. Though I would have thought they'd show more loyalty, after all the benefits we provided them. Our terms of employment were quite generous."
"Apparently not worth dying for." Owen shoved Dr. Peters' shoulder with the pistol. "Keep moving."
As they emerged into the lobby area, two more security men stumbled into them, heading for the emergency exit in the stairwell. One was sobbing, and the other's face was contorted in terror. "Run," he panted as he tumbled to a halt beside Ianto. "They have real guns, they're—" The man caught sight of Owen's pistol and looked as though he might be ill.
Ianto jerked his head toward the stairs. "Go on. We'll handle it."
The man didn't spare an instant to question the order, but turned and bolted after his companion. Toshiko watched them go. "We should have Retconned them before they left. It'll be hard to track everyone down later."
"I'm not sure I could have convinced them to swallow anything just now. Besides, we don't have the time. We need to find Jack and Gwen."
A pair of gunshots echoed through the space. "That shouldn't be hard," Toshiko said, and then frowned. "Wait—if the security guards weren't armed, who's doing all the shooting?"
That question was answered a moment later, as they reached the atrium and the building's entrance came into view. Evelyn Braithwaite was standing boldly in the open by one of the check-in desks, swapping the magazine in a semiautomatic pistol. As they watched, she thumbed the slide release and sent a shot toward the base of the water tower.
"Ah, Dr. Peters," Ms. Braithwaite called across the open space. "You've been captured, I see. Careless of you."
"A temporary situation, I assure you," the doctor called back.
Owen ground the barrel of his pistol into the man's shoulder. "Where are our friends?" he shouted.
"Owen? Is that you?" Gwen's voice wavered with relief, and they followed the sound to the far side of the water tower. Gwen was low to the ground, just peering over the concrete edging of the pool.
"Look out!" Toshiko shoved Owen and Ianto to one side, and they stumbled behind a support pillar just as Evelyn Braithwaite fired a few rounds at them. The first bullet chipped a corner off an information plinth near where they had been standing; the rest cracked into the far wall. Toshiko dove the other direction, and there was a splash as she landed in the pool surrounding the base of the water tower.
Dr. Peters took advantage of the confusion to slam into Owen's body, knocking him even further off balance. Before he could recover, Peters had broken free and was running toward Ms. Braithwaite, who had wisely moved behind one of the Plexiglas screens at the security stations. Owen swore and sent a shot after him, but it went wide and cracked a panel in the revolving door. "You see?" Ianto heard Dr. Peters say. "Temporary, as I said."
"Is everybody all right?" Ianto called, squeezing behind the column to make himself a smaller target. There were affirmatives from Owen and Toshiko, who flailed upright in the water only to flatten herself low behind the concrete retention wall once she had her bearings. The equipment bag floated behind her. "Gwen, where's Jack?"
"Jack is dead," she called back.
The words struck Ianto like a physical blow. Jack… Jack couldn't be dead. Not his captain, his best friend, the man he… I never told him, Ianto thought incongruously. All this time, and he never knew how I felt about him…
Gradually he registered that Gwen was still speaking, and that she didn't sound terribly concerned. The shock eased as his intellect caught up to his emotions. Right. Jack is immortal. He'll come back. He'll be fine. He repeated that thought to himself like a mantra.
The panic, however brief, had distracted him from the rest of what Gwen was saying. When he could focus again, he just caught the end of a sentence: "…signal is tied into the computer system. He said we need to shut it down by whatever means necessary."
There was a laugh from the other end of the lobby. "My, that's ambitious of you," Ms. Braithwaite chuckled. "You know we've taken precautions against you."
"You don't know what we're capable of," Owen called back. He eased his head around the pillar, angling for a shot. Ianto crouched low and inched around the other side to get a better view.
"Oh, I do. You see, I know all about Torchwood, and as soon as your friends came through the door, we knew you would try to interfere. That's why I started the… well, let's call it a software update."
Toshiko was still floundering near the base of the water tower, halfway in its shadow. "What software?" she called.
"Our control system, of course."
Owen wasn't impressed. "I assume you're going to tell us what this software update does."
"If you wish. But first, you have to understand how the entire system works." Ms. Braithwaite turned to the computer terminal at the guard station and tapped something on the keyboard.
Owen nudged Ianto's shoulder and indicated the next pillar, nearer the guard station, then waved to Toshiko and pointed to where they were currently crouched. Ianto and Toshiko nodded, and on Owen's signal, they darted around opposite sides of the column and piled into the base of the next one. With a splash, Toshiko vaulted the edge of the pool and dove into the more substantial cover of the support pillar.
"Oh, yes, don't be shy," Ms. Braithwaite sneered. "Come see for yourselves what we've accomplished."
"Let's save time," Toshiko called. "Thirty years ago, you staged an artificial meteor shower in order to seed the planet with organic nanotechnology that caused children to be born with simulated birthmarks that allowed you to pair them up with a partner of your choice."
"Ah, you did do your homework." Dr. Peters didn't look particularly pleased. He glanced at his screen, then back at Toshiko. "But do you know why?"
"I assume you'll tell us that, too," Owen muttered.
"Profit," Dr. Peters smiled, a shark's grin. "Simply that."
"So you went to all that trouble just to make money running the registry?" Toshiko's voice was incredulous. "That can't be the only reason."
"Oh, not this," Dr. Peters laughed, waving his hand to encompass the whole of SoulMatch headquarters. "This was just a necessary cover to get it all started. I'm talking about real profit, in the coming millennia. A steady stream of revenue until the end of time."
"How do you figure that?" Owen called, easing around the corner for another look. Across the fountain, Ianto saw Gwen helping Jack into a sitting position. She caught his eye, pointed to Jack and gave a thumbs-up, but then held up her pistol and shook her head.
Ianto instinctively patted his pockets, though he couldn't possibly reach her to deliver more ammunition even if he'd had it. He was carrying two extra magazines for his Walther, but he'd seen Gwen pick up a SIG-Sauer in the armory that morning. Apparently the earlier firefight had depleted her reserves. He had no way of knowing if Jack still had ammunition for his revolver, but he couldn't plan on it.
Dr. Peters was carrying on with his lecture. "Do you know what one of the biggest drains on the average human economy is?"
Toshiko hummed thoughtfully. "Illegal internet downloads?"
"Health care. Pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, doctor education, specialized equipment, liability protection… For as long as humans exist, they will pay a premium to be healthy. And that's where we come in."
"A glorified dating agency?" Owen snorted. "I'm all for sex, but I don't think there's that strong a link between shagging and life expectancy."
Dr. Peters hissed in irritation. "Nanobiotechnology. Once our organic nanites are seeded throughout the human race, we can use them to attack viruses, control pandemics, even clear clogged arteries. We'll have the ultimate monopoly. Only we can guarantee the survival of the human race, and the humans will pay handsomely."
"Your nanites can do all that?"
"Of course. Right now they just cluster beneath the skin to look like birthmarks, but that's because they're dormant. Their control enzymes haven't properly bonded to the DNA yet."
Toshiko peered around her column to exchange a look with Owen. "How does a nanite bond to DNA?"
"Just the control enzymes," Dr. Peters explained patiently. "In order to be permanently bonded to a subject, the nanites have to be present in both parents. Each set of nanites releases the enzymes that alter the host's chromosomes, so when a new child is created, their DNA is primed to take orders from our nanites."
Realization dawned on Owen's face. "So that's why you had to play matchmaker. You couldn't have just anyone having babies, or you might have risked some unaltered bloodlines surviving. You had to ensure that the birthmark generation only interbred with birthmark partners. No one over thirty."
"Exactly! And what better way to guarantee our breeding program than by creating a perfect matchmaking profile? Oh, you humans!" Ms Braithwaite threw back her head and laughed. "You're so easily controlled. Offer you a fairy-tale ending, offer you a magical solution that saves you the trouble of doing something yourself, and you're no better than the sheep you farm in this rustic little country. No wonder so many species use your planet as a breeding ground."
"Humans may be sheep, but you've just pissed off the sheepdog." Jack had made it to his feet while she'd been talking, and now he staggered into her line of sight from behind the water tower. Relief flooded Ianto at seeing him alive and active again.
"Oh, were you still alive? I thought I'd shot you." She tilted her head thoughtfully. "We really ought to get that resilience into our special breeding program. I could make it worth your while."
Jack didn't even acknowledge her offer with a retort. "Seeding a Level Five planet is prohibited by universal ratification of the Shadow Proclamation—"
Ms. Braithwaite waved her hand, the silver cuff bracelet glinting. "I know, I know. Don't bore me with the legal text. By the time anyone reports us to the Shadow Proclamation, our technology will be inextricably embedded in the entire human bloodline, and we'll be long gone. And even if they catch us, what—we'll have to pay a fine? Easily afforded, considering the profits we can make over the next hundred million years or so." She grinned fiercely. "You humans do tramp simply everywhere in the galaxy, you know. There's no limit to what we can charge to keep you alive."
"So it's a protection racket for the entire species?" Jack's voice was rough with anger. "You won't get away with this."
"Oh, I think we already have. But I have a proposition for you—" She glanced around, then heaved an exasperated sigh. "Look, would all of you come out where we can see each other? All this hiding behind furniture isn't making for good conversation. I always prefer a face-to-face sales pitch. Here, I'll even put down my weapon." The pistol clattered to the counter.
The stalemate behind the pillars certainly hadn't gotten them any closer to destroying the computer system, and Ms. Braithwaite couldn't get off a quick shot as long as she stayed behind the bulletproof security barrier. Warily, Owen and Ianto crept out and came forward, guns in hand. They heard the slap of wet fabric as Toshiko moved behind them. Across the room, Jack and Gwen moved nearer, though they stayed at a wide angle to make any potential tactical move difficult for their enemies.
"That's better." Ms. Braithwaite flashed her best five-star-seller smile. "Now, as I was saying… Already, we have assimilated nearly two-thirds of the population of your planet—enough to ensure that our technology will be inherited by the majority of the human race." She adjusted the computer monitor beside her. At the new angle, Ianto could see a horizontal bar on the screen that was filling with color.
Ianto wasn't the only one who saw the screen. "Wait," Toshiko said suddenly. "You mentioned a software update. What's that about?"
Dr. Peters' eyes flicked to the computer screen, and he gave a shrug. "Oh, just standard maintenance. Nothing to bother about."
"No… No, you're stalling! You've been keeping us talking while—"
"And now it's officially too late to stop it," Ms. Braithwaite said brightly. She spun the monitor around toward them just as a progress bar flicked from 99% to 100%.
Dr. Peters threw back his head and laughed. "See? Humans are so predictable. Dangle some juicy bit of gossip they don't know, and they'll always take it. Even the famous Torchwood is no better than the rest."
"What was in that update?" Toshiko demanded. "What did it do to them?"
"It did nothing to them." Dr. Peters smiled. "It did, however, activate the kill switch in our nanites. Now, if we choose to do so, we can wipe out every assimilated human on the planet with a single click of a button. Which means you had better put your weapons down right now, or around four billion of your closest friends will die."
