Set in the far future with a real feel of English SF rebellion and angst.
-scribewraith

Jack was lounging against the console, playing the seasoned traveller to Rose's impression of an excited kid on a school trip.

"Where are we going?" she asked, prancing around the console.

"You'll find out when we get there, won't you?" said the Doctor, and grinned at Jack. "All right, here we go."

The TARDIS came to a halt and Rose opened the door. "Not bad," she conceded. "Where is it?"

Jack stepped out after her. "Oh."

"Earth, the year 2638," the Doctor said. "What's the matter with you, Jack?"

"He kissed someone here and ran, I bet," Rose said.

"Well, something like that," Jack admitted.

He looked around. Considering the circumstances when he'd seen it last, the place was looking pretty good. There were tall new buildings, it was more or less clean and the people walking in the street looked reasonably well-fed and happy.

"You know," the Doctor said, "I'm glad to see this place looking so shiny and free of invading forces."

"Why, what happened?" Rose asked. "You save the world again?"

"Something like that, yeah."

Jack squirmed uncomfortably, and when the Doctor added, "Maybe I'll look up some old friends while I'm here," he muttered, "Save us."

"Was it a he or a she that you dumped, Jack?" Rose asked mischievously.

"It was a none-of-your-business, nosy Rosy."

Earth, 2626

Things were not going according to plan for Jack Harkness. Normal procedure was: get in, find the mark, pull off the con, and get out before he was found out, and in the meantime have any fun there was for the taking, of course. Having a vital sensor array stolen from the hull of his ship wasn't on Jack's list. He stared at the gap, ugly as a broken tooth, where it should have been, and swore at length. Without feedback from that array, his ship's propulsion system wouldn't even get her off the ground, let alone move her in space-time. And this culture was too primitive for him to replace the missing parts with local tech.

His prime suspects were the gangs of grimy street kids he'd seen hanging about this area of the city. Little brats probably didn't even know what they'd got or how valuable it was. They'd sell it for a quick fix of whatever chemicals they were killing themselves with. Jack sniffed in indignation. He had stolen the ship, himself, but that was totally different, of course.

Well, he couldn't stay stuck in this gloomy corner of history forever. He would have to do something. He hated this time, the twenty-seventh century. If—when—he got out of here he definitely wasn't coming back. He rather liked the late twenty-sixth; it was a shame to think that, in less than a lifetime, a megalomaniac or two had brought the world to this. He wasn't sure if the state was actually at war at this point, but a more-or-less permanent national emergency seemed to be a good excuse for a hundred and one petty regulations, injustices both large and small, and a grinding poverty and shabbiness.

The gangs generally hung out in a wasteland area a few streets over from where Jack had parked his ship. It seemed as good a place to start as anywhere. As he strode down the half-dark street, he saw a figure in the shadows, motionless and watchful. To Jack it had the air of a sentinel. When he turned towards it, it took flight, scudding off into the darkness. One of those brats! Guilty conscience, huh? Jack said to himself, and took off after the kid. He had the longer legs and was in better shape, but the child was on its own ground, knew where the treacherous patches of road were and what alleys to duck into.

It was in one of these alleys that Jack lost his chase. He jogged on in dispirited fashion, not really expecting to find the child again. The first thing to do was to get hold of one of those brats. There was no way of tracking down the sensor array otherwise. If they all had such a turn of speed, though...He was thinking of plans with such concentration that he almost missed the sounds of a struggle ahead of him. Almost; not entirely. He was still a trained professional, and he too knew how to hug the shadows, how to move as soundlessly as possible, how to not draw attention.

The noise came from a three-person team of the current law enforcement, known as Redshirts. Jack had disliked them on sight, and had had a minor run-in with them earlier. He had managed to flirt his way out of that situation, but he considered them arbitrary, unjust and illiberal. He'd almost been thrown into gaol just for breaking a curfew he couldn't possibly have known about, although explaining that he hadn't heard about it because he'd just arrived from the four-hundred-and-seventy-ninth century probably wouldn't have helped the situation.

He craned his neck to see what helpless citizen had caught it this time. It was the child he'd been chasing. That's mine! Jack had already been dithering with the idea of knocking out the Redshirts out of sheer frustration and boredom, and now he only hesitated long enough to pull a gun from his pocket.

Seven seconds later, the Redshirts had all gone quietly to sleep in the gutter. Jack had seized the child by the upper arm, but as soon as the last Redshirt had gone down, the kid writhed in Jack's grip, trying to twist away, and then sunk its teeth into Jack's hand.

"Ow! None of that, now!" Jack's slender store of patience was entirely exhausted. He fired another stun blast, and in a second or two the kid sagged, limp. Jack picked up his—rescuee or prisoner—over his shoulder and headed back to his ship.

The scrawny frame, cropped dark hair and multiple layers of clothing combined to baffle a guess at the kid's sex, although in the bright lights of the ship Jack was inclining to girl. Whichever, she or he looked skinny enough to be prepubescent anyway, an age of human Jack had no idea how to interact with. He dumped the kid on the table to come around, and went to eat his long-delayed dinner.

Most people came out of a stunner dazed and disorientated, but the first indication that this kid was awake was a scrape of metal. He turned around to see the child conscious and crouched back against the galley bulkhead, a table knife in one hand. Jack pulled out his gun again.

"My weapon's better than yours," he said pleasantly. The kid's dark eyes flickered sideways.
"You won't get out the door, neither," Jack continued in conversational tones. "I locked it when I came in." He was still annoyed over the stolen sensor array, but it had occured to him that you could catch more flies with sugar than vinegar, as his mother used to say. Besides, it was always a good idea to be nice to people holding edged weapons.

The knife-point was weaving in uncertain figure-eights. Jack moved his gun aside a little. Blue eyes and dark ones met briefly.

"Who are you? Where are the Reds?"

"Should be coming around in the road round about now," Jack said cheerfully. "I rescued you and you bit me. Remember that?"

The kid shook—her?—head, the knife's tip drooping. "You shot the Reds?"

"Only stunned. Less messy, in several ways. It's silent, for one thing. Though I have no objection to dead Redshirts. Hopefully someone ran them over while they were out."

The knife dropped. "I smell food," the kid said.

"Want some?" Jack asked. He pocketed his gun, as friendly relations seemed to have been established. He had never seen anyone so small eat so much. The kid finished Jack's dinner, and tomorrow's dinner, and started on the odds and ends. Jack sat and watched, rather impressed.

There was very little food left on the ship when, without preamble, his visitor propositioned Jack in as blunt a way as he'd ever heard. Jack raised his eyebrows. If the colloquialism meant what it usually had in his experience, this was the sort of offer he didn't often refuse. "Do you do this sort of thing often, or am I just irresistible?"

"You are conceited! You saved me from the Reds. I have to give you something in return, and I don't have anything but me." She said this in a flat tone without emotion. Not exactly gratifying, to Jack's mind.

"They that terrible, huh?"

"Where did you come from?" the kid asked scornfully.

"A long way away," Jack replied.

"Must be. Do you want me, or don't they have sex where you come from?"

Jack started to laugh. "Oh, believe me, they do. You mightn't think it, kiddo, but I do have some standards. How old are you, thirteen?"

There was an indignant-sounding squeak. "I'm almost seventeen!"

"Ah, well, sorry," Jack said, only half believing it, although when conscious the kid did look much older than before. He cast around for a polite way of saying, "Not until you've had a bath and a medical check-up, either," and decided that there wasn't one. His guest was rather pretty in an undernourished way, he thought, and the offer would be tempting, if one didn't mind shagging dirty and possibly disease-ridden skeletons. Anyway, he had for once a more urgent priority.

"You could do something else for me, though," he said, leaning forward. "Do you have a name, by the way?"

"Nathalie," said the girl, after a hesitation.

"Jack. Nice to be introduced at last. Anyway, Nathalie, do you know anything about a part of my ship that was stolen this afternoon?"

Nathalie flushed and dropped her eyes.

"Look, I really would like it back," Jack said. "And I did rescue you from the Reds."

She sighed. "Vico will know about it. He finds out about everything the squads do." There was a note of pride in her voice.

"Vico?"

"My boyfriend," Nathalie said. Her face had a blazing, intent look of affection and protectiveness on it now.

"Right," Jack said. That could have been a slight complication had he taken Nathalie up on her earlier offer. Nothing he couldn't have handled, though. Probably. "All right. Should we go and speak to him, then?"

Nathalie's face looked troubled for a moment, and then cleared. "Is that really what you want, in exchange for saving me from the Reds?"

"I want you to do everything you can to help me get that equipment back," Jack said, covering loopholes.

"Fine," the girl said, holding out her hand. Jack shook it.

The route to wherever the boyfriend hung out was tortuous, leading through wasteland, part marsh and part landfill, through a maze of dark alleyways, and at one point underground through the sewers. Jack could see now why Nathalie looked dirty. Their ultimate destination was an apparently derelict house, its windows blocked with boards and overgrown trees pressed up against it. Nathalie opened a door at the back and pulled Jack inside. He walked straight into a heavy black curtain that was hanging across the doorway.

"Don't let the light show," Nathalie hissed. "It's long past curfew."

There were a couple of young men playing cards by candlelight in a kitchen a little way up the passage, and by the time Jack had disentangled himself from the curtain they were on their feet and looking at him in a way that made him close his hand around his gun.

"It's okay, he's with me," Nathalie said, serenely, opening a door beneath the stairs to show the start of another staircase. "Come on, Jack."

They groped their way down the narrow staircase in almost total darkness. The passage at the bottom was lit by another single candle. Nathalie opened a door and said, "Vico?"

The room was unpainted and overcrowded with furniture that must once have been valuable. A young man in close-fitting black was sitting at an antique twenty-first century desk, papers spread out in front of him. He turned and got up as Nathalie and Jack came in. He was fairish, with rather attractive narrow features and the sort of light eyes that look different colours in different lights. At the moment they were grey.

"What did you bring him here for?" he demanded.

Nathalie cringed. "He's all right, Vico. He saved me from a Red patrol."

Vico's face changed, but only from angry to angrier. "You were picked up? I don't believe it! How could you be so stupid?"

"I ran around a corner and there they were. It could have happened to anyone," Nathalie protested.

Vico grabbed her coat lapel. "I don't know why I bother, sometimes. Now go and get cleaned up; you stink."

"Hey, let her go," Jack said. He wasn't liking Vico at all. If he was the main example of Nathalie's taste in men, then Jack should be flattered if she didn't actually fancy him.

Nathalie said, "No, wait—" and drew Vico aside, talking hastily in a voice too low for Jack to hear. Vico nodded, his face intent, asked a few concise questions, and ruffled her back hair in an off-hand gesture. As she slipped out of the room again, Vico turned to Jack.

"I'm Jack Harkness. I think I've worked out who you are."

Vico smiled thinly. He was older than he'd seemed at first sight, nearer Jack's age than Nathalie's, even if she were almost seventeen, as Jack was coming to believe.

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience Nathalie put you through," Vico said formally, watching Jack closely.

"It was a pleasure to assist such a charming young lady in distressing circumstances," Jack replied, matching the formality and turning on the charm.

"Nathalie tells me that you possess a weapon which can render a person unconscious, without noise," Vico said. Jack was to find that these sudden switches in topic were characteristic of Vico, but for now it was disconcerting.

"So?" he countered warily.

"She also told me that you want to retrieve some of your property, which was stolen today."

"Yeah, I do. Do you know where it is?"

"Yes. Some of the younger squads have a regrettable tendency to steal anything that's not fastened down. I know who did it, and if I say the word it will be returned. I thought we might arrange a bargain. We each have something the other wants: that weapon for the stolen equipment."

"Wait a second," Jack exploded. "Why should I buy back something that was mine in the first place? Of all the frackin' nerve—"

"You wouldn't have to give up your gun if you came along with it." Vico interrupted smoothly. "We could use all the help we can get, in fact."

"I already helped you once tonight. I saved your girl from the Reds, don't forget that!"

"But she never would have been out tonight in the first place if you had not been here. She was part of a squad assigned to watch you."

"Spy on me, you mean? Who the hell do you think you are?"

"Oh, it's nothing personal. We keep an eye on everything that goes on in this part of the city." Vico gave his thin smile again. "Tell me, what do you think of the Reds?"

"Not a lot. Oh, don't tell me, you're the bloody freedom fighters."

Vico's face flushed, became animated. "The Military Council has destroyed this place. If you so much as breath wrong, they'll have you. And in return, we don't even have safety, we have a thousand shortages and—"

"Now, look here," Jack interrupted. "Let's get this straight. I'm not going to be some sort of martyr; I don't get involved in this sort of thing. I won't bother the Military Council alone as long as they leave me alone."

Vico took a few restless steps. If he had been a cat he would have been lashing his tail by now. "That makes you only a step above them. Don't you see that they only survive because of their collaborators?"

Jack sighed. "Look, I don't like what goes on, but I don't belong, I don't come from here. It isn't my affair."

Vico sat down on the edge of his desk. "You don't have to do anything, of course. You are free to leave if you wish to do so. But in that case I'm afraid I shall be unable to return your equipment."

Jack paused. "You are one frag, you know that," he said, and added a few more choice epithets in several languages. Vico had him by the short hairs; of course he couldn't leave without his sensor array. He could do any number of unpleasant things to Vico right now, but that would get him no farther. Even the chance of retrieving the array on his own, by force if necessary, would require staying here, which would mean Vico had won. His anger surged.

"I should turn you all over to the Reds," he snarled, knowing it was an empty threat even as he said it.

"Oh but you wouldn't do that, would you?" Vico said softly, still smiling. Jack had to acknowledge the hit; whatever else Vico was, he was an accurate judge of character.

He threw himself down on one of the decrepit armchairs. "What do you want me to help with?" he asked, not bothering to keep the ironic tone from his voice.

"We're planning to blow up Government House."

Jack sighed. "Ever heard of Guy Fawkes?"

"That was a thousand years ago. We are different; we are going to succeed."

"Oh, yeah? Hey, how do I know you won't go back on me, after I help you? What's to stop you holding out on me for ever, giving me more and more little jobs to do?"

"I give you my word," Vico said haughtily, as though he were a patrician. "This is our great work. We have been working towards it for months. Years. Anything we do after this will not need your expertise."

Jack couldn't help seeing an echo of his own sarcasm in this. "Tell me," he inquired gently, "How many people are going to be murdered in this? Ordinary people, not Reds or politicos?"

Vico sighed, suddenly looking tired and almost, Jack thought, human. "As few as possible. That's why we need that stunning gun of yours. We don't plan to kill civilians. We are freedom fighters, not terrorists. It is a shame that we can't simply wipe out the political scum in their nest, but doing it by day is utterly impractical."

The door opened and Nathalie came in, very scrubbed and wearing a black suit similar to Vico's, but with subtle feminising differences. She had made up, too, in the slightly bizarre fashion current here: two beauty marks on each side of her forehead, eyes rimmed with black, their orbits a dusky gold, her top lip painted scarlet and the lower deep pink. Her short dark hair was sticking out, damp, at odd angles. She went to sit beside Vico's chair, leaned her head confidingly against his knees. Jack watched her, beginning to regret that he'd refused her earlier.

"Well?" she demanded.

"I've been suckered into your revolution," Jack replied wryly.

"Oh, good."