7

The noise was bugging him, had bugged him all day and no one else seemed to bloody hear it. Even Ianto shrugged at him like he was mad but Jack was sure he could hear a hissing noise.

"So you hear that?" John asked, making Jack feel a leap of relief.

"A hissing?"

"Sort of… more like… a hum. Or… weird. It's getting louder" John was now walking slowly around the main room with his head cocked to one side. He looked a little like a weevil and that gave Owen a twiggle to his mind.

"Ianto, did you release those inmates you were going to?" Owen asked.

"Yes, they are nearly all gone now, just those too deadly left" Ianto answered with a nod "Been thinking… how about we release those near the Bots."

John laughed, then frowned "there it goes again … over here."

Ianto sighed as he rose and walked over to listen, his eyebrow coming together "It's not a hiss or hum. It's… digging."

"Digging?" Jack repeated with surprise, then listed more "Yeah… like a pneumatic jack or….. something."

Ianto was gone, running for the elevators and Jack followed with John to watch Ianto hit the basement button, and then insert a key to hit a button with no symbol on it. Neither Captain knew what was going through Ianto's mind but they could tell he was not happy as they hit the bottom of the shaft and the elevator doors opened to a foot of water.

"Oh shit" John said automatically.

"No…no shit" Ianto said as he started to wade through it "Come on….it seems louder down her. This way."

They checked room and listened, then moved on heading deeper into the bowels of the lowest level, then Ianto froze.

"What is that?" John hissed as they head the strange noise on the other side of a wall.

Ianto aced his hand on the wall and frowned "Warm. I feel vibration too."

"Water? Is it another broken pipe?" Jack asked, his hand next to Ianto's as he looked over at John.

"Don't know. Such a minute crack to let the water in like this … Do we break the wall to check?" John asked, watching Ianto as he started to slowly step away. "Ianto? What's wrong?"

"Something is trying to get in through the concrete here under the water table. It's water on the other side, the lake… something is trying to dig through at least five metres of fucking concrete and if it's warm… it's close enough to create more stress fractures, fill this level." Ianto was calm, so calm that Jack felt the hair on the back of his neck standing up.

"Ianto?"

"They found us"

.

.

The underwater drone moved lazily along the tunnel that ran under Thames House to allow the water to move from the Loch to the waiting river. This had also helped feed the water that self-filled into the tanks. They all stood watching as the picture on the screen showed the small area the lights lit up ahead of the camera on the drone, Ianto not moving as something shiny flashed past, even as Owen cursed softy and physically stepped back from the screen.

Then he moved the drone on a slow arc to look at the Bots drilling into the concrete side of the tunnel, one of them only barely visible as it had gone at least half a metre into the concrete by this time.

"Fuck" Rhys supplied for everyone's unspoken word and Ianto huffed softly, then turned to Jack.

"Estimated time to infiltrate?" Jack asked, his calm face in place even as Ianto new internally he was screaming now.

Given the depth so far and how long since we first detected sound… sorry… you detected sound… we have maybe 48 hours tops, I would go more for 40 to be safe" Toshiko calculated on the fly. "They break in, fill the lower level which we lock and is water tight, drill up a level… repeat. To get to the levels we occupy… yeah. 40 hours before one is in our lap."

"Agreed" Ianto replied softly "But more like 35, 30?"

"Are we ready for this?" John asked the room, his gaze falling on Martha who was sitting stock still with her hand clamped in Mickey's.

"We will have to be" Jack answered calmly "Ianto, release the last of those down there. Sink or swim… as we leave we will open each level so they have a chance to come up and get out. We have spent the last six months fitting out the Valiant for an Emergency Evac, ready or not the time is now. We will need volunteers to help Archie catch the cats, we will need those inmates we want to keep and take … we will need…"

"Jack" Ianto said softly "We need to stick to the script we all agreed to. We all have our assigned tasks. This is it. We … we will not tell them. We will call this a drill. A surprise drill and the reward is that at the conclusion of the exercise we will really fire her engines and raise her form the building so they experience flight. We do not tell them until we are really in the air that this is the real thing. The kids do not need to be afraid. Plenty of time, we estimate only two hours to evac at the best of times, immediate at the worst. We have time."

"Let's get to it then" Jack said firmly "We do not say anything for a couple of hours, get things squared away we still had to do so when we give the call for an Evac Drill, we are all a go."

"Agreed." John pushed off from the wall to stride to the Armory, his job to collect the weapons for the Valliant's Armory.

Ianto was already moving to their quarters and that Replicator they could not afford to leave behind.

They were a go.

Ready or not, here we go.