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The Age of Paradox 2.5: Miracle Day
Amy didn't know how the Doctor felt about the moment when Natalie accompanied Jack on the mission to get Frumkin's biometrics while posing as his wife, but she fought down the thought that there was any reason she should feel weird about that. Natalie was a good friend and fellow traveller; she should be proud that the other woman was spreading her wings, not feel like she was…
God, she wasn't even sure what to think at this point; what was Natalie to her? She knew that she wasn't jealous of the other woman on any level, as Natalie had endured such a difficult life and never even had a true childhood…
Somehow, it was the knowledge of Natalie's age that bothered Amy the most. She trusted the idea that Natalie had received a knowledge download that gave her at least some useful experience, but the idea that this woman, who looked a couple of years older than her but was really barely a couple of years old...
I love my life, but it is really weird sometimes.
Still, she couldn't complain about the results of their mission, and it gave Natalie an interesting chance to try something new. Once they'd found Frumkin's usual schedule involved walking through a park with his wife and baby daughter, it had been simple enough to stage a meeting with him to get the data he needed. Jack pretended to misremember a name, Natalie gave Frumkin a bottle to hold while she examined the baby (Amy had to wonder if that was Natalie's first time even seeing a baby properly, considering that Gwen's husband had taken their daughter away so quickly), and then they made Frumkin look at a photo to get a retina scan.
Just glad we talked him into something better than 'Jack Smith'; 'Malcolm Pond' might be a bit off, but it's not so normal or so unconventional that people might remember it…
With the biometric data collected, Gwen and Jack were taking point in infiltrating PhiCorp while Esther, K9 and the Doctor would stay in the apartment and Rex, Amy and Natalie waited outside the building as a getaway car and potential back-up if needed. Rex and Esther had managed to do some convincing fire damage to the server they planned to switch out, and now there was nothing more to do than wait for Jack and Gwen to get out of the building.
"I should be-" Rex began.
"But you're not," Amy cut him off with a cool stare. "Like we've already pointed out, you're not in any kind of shape to deal with something like this; Jack and Gwen are good at their jobs, and you should just stop complaining about not being the one taking point."
"And why can't I do this?" Natalie pointed out.
"Because Gwen's more experienced at this kind of potentially improvised infiltration," Amy explained to the blonde with a smile. "Short-term is fine, but something like this… send in the best we've got, you know."
"Yeah, your 'best' are a couple of jokesters who treat this like a game-" Rex began.
"Because it's the best way to stay sane when faced with the kind of potentially mind-numbing terror we face every time we deal with this kind of crap," Amy cut him off, glaring firmly at the older man; if she could tell her childhood psychiatrists that they were wrong, she could certainly do the same to this man now that she knew she was right. "If you don't agree with the way we do things, that's fine, but don't act like we're wrong just because we're not doing it your way."
"Besides," Natalie pointed out with a slight smirk, "no offence, but if you'd just done things your way, we'd all be in trouble, wouldn't we?"
Rex could only glare at her in exasperation at that comment, but he settled down in his seat with a frustrated mutter that at least seemed willing to concede the point.
Even after living among humans for almost longer than he'd lived on Gallifrey- even if he hadn't been a consistent part of any one human time period for longer than a few years at a time- there were times when the Doctor wondered if he'd ever understand what made his favourite species tick. He could understand a desire for redemption as much as the next man, but with everything he'd heard about Oswald Danes, the Doctor had no idea why anyone wanted to believe that the man had any interest in changing.
He wasn't going to deny that the man was well-spoken, and the broadcast he was making from this hospital sounded compelling enough, but the fact was that Danes clearly didn't have any real 'plan' beyond saying something dramatic, making promises but offering no solutions. The image of him vowing that a certain baby would live forever was certainly a powerful one, but when the Doctor was fairly sure Danes didn't have a clear plan to achieve that goal, he had to wonder why anyone was listening to the man's words.
"Query, Master."
"Mmm?" The Doctor turned to look at his old friend (he still wondered why he'd left that part of K9's programming intact after all the confusion it had caused during that mess with the Asteroid and the Rocket Men).
"Is Oswald Danes important?"
"On his own, he's just a man who got a lot of publicity at a crucial moment," the Doctor responded, pausing the screen to look at Oswald's face directly. "But sometimes all people really need for a movement is one man; Guy Fawkes wasn't the leader of the conspiracy to blow up Parliament but he's still the one everyone thinks of on November 5…"
He shook his head and looked back at K9. "The end result is that I don't know if he's important in that sense, but he's making enough noise that I'd like to be sure."
"Understood," K9 said.
"Hi," Esther said, the Doctor turning to see the young woman talking on her phone, shooting an apologetic but defiant glance at him as she spoke. "Yes, I'm calling from the FBI; police liaison. I was given this number by Susan Malpass. I just need to check some details on… let me see… the name's Drummond. Sarah Drummond, King Sovereign Road."
The Doctor could only exchange anxious glances with K9 (as much as the dog's permanently-fixed features could look anxious) as Esther listened to the response on the other end of the line. He had faith that Esther wouldn't betray them on purpose, but in a situation like this he couldn't entirely blame her for becoming concerned about someone she might know…
"That's it," the ex-CIA-analyst said tentatively. "We're just chasing an update."
As the Doctor fell silent, he heard a voice on the other end say something about children, and thought he could just hear the names 'Alice' and 'Melanie'; what was Esther calling about…?
"Right," Esther said, as he heard the voice on the other end mention that the children were in the system. "I'm sorry; what does that mean?"
"It'll take a few days," he heard the voice say; now that the Time Lord was actively concentrating in the quiet apartment, it wasn't that hard to hear the other end of the conversation. "They'll stay at Brayden Long Heights until we can find them foster homes. We'll try and keep them together. It shouldn't be too much of a problem."
"I'm sorry; are you saying that they've been removed from their home?" Esther said, her expression becoming tighter.
"That's right," the woman said. "This morning at eight a.m."
"I thought you said you were gonna work with the family."
"We tried; of course we did," the woman replied. "But it wasn't considered safe, and the mother has been admitted for psych."
"She what?" Esther said, eyes widening in shock.
"She's been under observation in the psych ward under the care of a Doctor, where is it…? Doctor Cottesloe, that's it," the voice on the other end said, still apparently ignorant of how much her words were affecting Esther. "No report on file yet. Should be something in tomorrow or the next couple of days."
"What happened?" Esther said, her simple desperation reminding the Doctor why he liked her; she might be out of her depth, but the young woman hadn't lost the human compassion that was important in a situation like this. "How did she end up like that?"
"What did you say your name was?" the woman on the other end asked. Esther was about to respond when the Doctor walked over and took the phone from Esther's hand, ending the call with an apologetic look at the young woman.
"Sorry, but you were reaching the point where you'd be giving away more than we can afford to tell anyone right now," the Doctor explained.
"I was just-"
"I understand," the Doctor cut her off, not wanting her to think that he was actually angry with her. "We all have people we're worried about right now, but all we can do at the moment is focus on the task at hand. You have every right to be worried about the children, but if we don't find out what caused this… well, things could get difficult for them at best."
"… Right," Esther nodded tentatively at him, an awkward smile on her face. "Th… thanks."
"I'm sorry I can't do more," the Doctor smiled back at her. "Anyway, let's get on with this."
"Right," Esther said, turning back to the screen that had just started displaying Gwen's perspective after she activated the Eye 5 lenses. "Here we go."
Walking through the corridors of PhiCorp, Gwen wondered if it would give certain people the wrong impression if she admitted that she was actually enjoying this whole experience. It wasn't as though she didn't recognise that she was doing something potentially dangerous, but there was still something kind of fun in doing this kind of mission where all she had to do was stay ahead of human security teams, rather than having to outsmart hidden alien invaders.
OK, so all she'd had to do was show off her fake ID and leave the Doctor and Esther to provide a cover story for her presence, but she still had to be convincing enough to get through the door in the first place, to say nothing of making her way through the building without attracting attention before she was in position. Once she reached the service lift, she only had to wait a few moments before Jack appeared, pushing a large wooden box on a trolley and wearing a short-sleeved uniform in a colour that could be sickly green or a darkish blue depending on the light.
"Hello, handsome," she grinned. "Love the uniform."
"Ditto," Jack said, looking over her tight black dress. "Come on."
"Oh, hold on," Gwen said, halting her pace to take off her shoes. "Whoever wears heels to work is heroic. Why do women put up with these things? Look at 'them."
"The fire department's average response time is twelve minutes," Jack said, bringing her focus back to where it had to be for this situation even as she put her shoes in her handbag. "When they arrive, Esther's gonna direct them to the fourteenth floor. That should buy us another five minutes before they start checking other floors. Let's go, mistress."
With that said, he walked a few paces down the corridor before setting fire to a piece of paper that he held under a smoke detector, smiling as the alarm went off and the tannoy announced that everyone should evacuate the building. Trying to stick to the side stairs and hope that nobody would wonder why anyone was going up during a fire alarm, Jack and Gwen had soon reached the server room, using the voice record, the latex glove, and the Eye-5's iris scan to get past the security sensors.
As soon as they were in the room, Gwen and Jack made straight for the relevant server system. Jack tore the wooden box open with ease, and Gwen had just started to disconnect the cables when her phone rang. She only had time to shoot an apologetic glance at Jack before she took out her phone and accepted the call.
"Yeah," she said, recognising Rhys's number. "Anwen all right?"
"She's fine; she's at home," Rhys replied with a smile. "Look, I know you're busy, but I was just phoning about your dad."
"Is he OK?" Gwen asked. She'd been trying not to think about her dad's state in the current situation, as they had to prioritize getting the world back to normal over one life, but it didn't stop her thinking that she should be asking the Doctor if he could do anything about that once they had the time…
"…no change," Rhys confirmed on the other end of the line. "I just saw him and he sends his love. But I did what you said and I made a fuss about getting him moved."
"OK," Gwen said, as she kept urgently disconnecting cables. "Look, I haven't got time for this, sweetheart. Just tell me, can you get him out of there?"
"Yes, I can; shall I go ahead?"
"Oh, I love you," Gwen said, deciding to focus on appreciating the sentiment rather than worrying about being interrupted in this situation. "I love you. I love you. I love you. Just do it and leave me alone. Oh, and give Anwen a big kiss. Okay? Bye."
As she turned back to the current task, she smiled gratefully to see how Jack had almost finished switching out the original server for their burnt replacement. As she put her phone away, Jack stepped aside to let her finish connecting the last few cables; if all went according to plan, he could get out of the building with the server and look like he'd just been delayed by the alarm while she finished things at this end…
Jack supposed he should have known that things had been going too smoothly for too long when he got down to the basement and found himself looking at a man who'd basically been strangled lying beside the car. He'd made it back up to the server control room at a pace that surprised even him, but when he'd found Gwen tied up and gagged with computer cable, he'd lost focus just long enough to get taken by surprise from behind (that was his story and he was sticking to it).
Now that he'd regained consciousness, his head aching in a manner that he'd almost forgotten it was possible to ache, tied up with computer cables of all things, Jack wasn't entirely surprised to find that his attacker had tied Gwen up alongside him, the cables previously blocking her mouth now around her neck and her arms behind her back. Jack's own hands were tied to cables above his head, his legs similarly bound in front of him, but he didn't have time to establish more than that Gwen was all right before a man walked around the corner, wearing a dark jacket over a dark T-shirt, with a weathered face and grey hair that spoke of a man who had just become harder with age.
Jack had no idea how this man had gotten into the server room, but considering everything that they'd needed to get this far discreetly, Jack had a bad feeling about what might have happened to Frumkin…
"What the Hell is this?" Gwen looked indignantly between Jack and the other man. "Who are you?"
"Names aren't important right now," the man said in a cool voice.
"Oh great, one of those," Gwen rolled her eyes.
"What do you want?" Jack said, resisting the urge to inform the other man that there was only one person in Jack's experience who could get away with not giving a name and this man wasn't him.
"Well, clearly, you dead," the man said.
"Then why am I still alive?" Jack observed.
"That's the point," the apparent assassin said, pacing nonchalantly in front of Jack and Gwen with a gun in his hand. "It's got to be said Miracle Day has hardly been advantageous for those in my line of work; the day the killing stopped. But I can't tell you, Jack, how wonderful it is, how truly wonderful it is to meet somebody who's… mortal. It's my holy grail."
"If he's the only one who can die, then it's in your interest to keep him alive," Gwen observed.
"That's exactly what I'm doing," the assassin countered as he crouched down in front of Jack. "Haven't you noticed the absence of killing? Because this captain fascinates me. I've been paid to eradicate him, but that only makes me wonder why. What makes you so different?"
"I don't know," Jack said.
"And yet you're the only one left," the man observed. "The only true human."
"If I knew, I would tell you," Jack said coolly. "I'm trying to find out the same thing myself."
"Who employs you?" Gwen asked, after a brief mutter that left Jack thinking someone had sent her a message via the Eye 5s.
"Don't you have any idea, Jack?" the assassin responded with a low whisper. "They told me it was a very long time ago. Don't you remember?"
"Who?" Jack said. "Who told you that?"
"This would be so simple in the old days," the assassin said, his voice now so quiet that Jack could barely hear him as he walked over to hold a knife against Gwen's throat. "Tell me what I want, or I'll slit her throat. I keep wondering during these miraculous days, would it be better or worse knowing that her pain will last forever? I think better."
"Leave her alone!" Jack yelled.
"Then tell me!" the assassin countered, breaking his cool control.
"I. Don't. Know," Jack countered. To his relief, the assassin removed the blade from Gwen's neck and sat back, head bowed as though in thought, before he looked back up.
"You're very special to them, Jack," the assassin said, his voice low once again. "They trust me enough to tell me that. But I hear rumours of miracles yet to come, of a new society being forged here on Earth, and I'd like to guarantee my place. So, tell me, what did you give them so long ago?"
"When?" Jack asked.
"Tell us who's employing you," Gwen repeated.
"You'll never stop them, for this is who they certainly are," the man said, stroking Gwen's lip with his blade; for someone who talked like he was only in this for the money, he was sounding dangerously fanatical to Jack. "They are everywhere. They are always. They are no one. They have been waiting for such a long time. Searching the world for a specific geography."
"What the Hell does that mean?" Jack asked. He privately considered and discarded the idea that this man might be talking about Faction Paradox; for a group that prided itself on chaos, he couldn't see them being committed enough to do something this apparently long-term.
"That means that they've found it," the assassin said, exchanging his knife for a gun and aiming it at Gwen's head.
"And they've made it magnificent."
"Who are they?!" Gwen yelled.
"They once had names," the assassin said. "Long ago… and those names were Frines, Costerdane, and Ablemarch."
"Check," another voice said from behind the assassin. Jack's eyes widened in recognition as Natalie stepped out from behind a server and struck the assassin on the side of the neck with a quick finger-tap that rendered him unconscious.
"Took your time, didn't you?" Gwen looked at Natalie with a half-teasing smile even as her body shook from terror.
"I had to wait until he gave us anything useful," the Doctor's daughter shrugged as she set to work untying Jack and Gwen. "Do the names mean anything to you?"
"…Not off the top of my head," Jack shook his head apologetically at the two women, fighting to calm himself; he had grown used to putting his own life at risk that it was hard to accept that he genuinely couldn't do anything to save his teammates when they were in danger now. "I mean, it's possible I just don't remember them, but you have to keep in mind that I've had a really long life…"
"And that's before you start thinking about how they might not have told you what their names were whenever you encountered them anyway," Gwen observed as Natalie released her bonds. "Should we take him with us?"
"…Don't think it's worth it," Jack said, looking thoughtfully at the fallen assassin. "Whatever this guy knew, I think we probably got lucky he was trusted enough to give us the names when he thought we weren't going to be in a position to share it with anyone later. If we try to get him out, we're going to have to deal with the hassle of working out how to make him talk until we're satisfied he doesn't have anything new to tell us, assuming that he has anything more useful anyway… and to be blunt, I don't think your father would approve of some of my methods."
"The Doctor said don't bother bringing him," Gwen put in as she finished removing the last of her own bonds; Jack noted that she had been carefully not looking at him as he spoke, which at least suggested that the Doctor hadn't heard what he'd not-quite suggested. "Seems like he agrees that this guy won't know much; we should just get out of here and get to work on that server."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Natalie nodded in approval at them. "I take it that's somewhere safe?"
"Already secure in the van downstairs; I just came back for Gwen," Jack indicated his oldest remaining teammate.
"Right," Natalie grinned, before shooting a contemptuous look at the fallen assassin. "Let's just get out of here before he wakes up."
"Amen to that," Jack nodded at the Doctor's daughter. That man might have provided them their first true connection to whoever was behind this, but Jack wasn't in the mood to try and make a fanatic crack, particularly when he had faith that the Doctor would be able to find something better…