28

"Got it!" Toshiko called out suddenly, everyone looking up from the things they were pretending to do, Jack striding over to use his best hero pose as he asked for it to be put up on the screen.

"Right, good idea" Owen muttered as files flashed, opened, documents flutter, then fade away for the next one. Folder after folder… file after file in rapid succession. "Anyone else catching any of the names or something?"

"I have everything" Ianto said softly as he stood stock still, his eyes flicking about the screen as he seemed to drink it in. Then it stopped and he let out a shuddering sigh like he had just found his mother dead.

Again.

"Right. It is …jumbled. Not all opened in order I need a minute or two to collate them" Ianto said as he walked stiltedly to a chair and sat, staring at the back wall with a single tear rolling down his cheek.

"Ianto? Tosh is he OK? What's happening?" Owen hissed.

"He is finding answers to questions we do not know we need to ask yet" she replied softly, her heart breaking as she watched Ianto seem to implode for amount before he turned to address them, both eyes red and brimming with tears.

"It is manmade. As we thought."

"Go back to the beginning. Tell me in sequence" Tosh asked as she moved her chair closer and everyone watched Ianto's face jerk then relax, "Please."

"There were some men who wanted to learn … no … harness the gift of another. On who was unique in his …. Abilities. They took him, caught him or enticed him … somehow they encouraged the extraction of DNA from him that they then …. Manipulated. Zapped, nuked, added to … took away from … they tested and kneaded it … created" Ianto cleared his throat as Tosh raised a hand so no one spoke while he adjusted himself in the chair and continued "You see … this man had a gift that was so rare … so amazing that they wanted it. Saw the potential of using it for their own means. Time passes, years ….experiments fail, more are filtered though. The initial sample is lost but they have enough synthetic to continue thinking … thinking it is the same. But it is not. Then they trial it. They take 100 men … soldiers that are willing … infect them and step back to see what will happen."

"They turned into those things?" Owen asked. Tosh glared at him but he was watching Ianto.

"No. They all lay down and died. Gave up just… shut down. Their first trial did that. They tried again and again with different results each time, but all ending in death. Seizures. Heart attacks. Embolisms …. They got desperate then went back to the first one they created … it had the last of the original source in it and they added that to their newest batch. A soup. Then they crossed their fingers and released it once more."

Everyone watched him as he closed his eyes.

"Are you telling me he got all that from those files flashing on this screen?" Owen asked Tosh and Gwen snorted as she went to say that it was a stupid idea but Tosh nodded, then motioned Ianto to continue.

"They decided to 'go big or go home' by releasing it to a large number. The figures … a larger group might yield varied results and a few sucesses"

"The tower" Jack whispered with horror "You are talking about the Z-virus."

"Is that what we are calling it now sir? Yes. They only needed one. Just one test subject that did not die. Go mad or inert. Just one who made it through to become like their donor." Ianto looked at Jack long and hard then whispered "The Immortal."

Jack slumped back as Ianto addressed the room once more "Over five hundred people … closer to six. They thought … at least one might get out of there alive."

"Fuckers" Owen spat."They killed them all for a fucking test!"

"Yes but one did escape after exposure. Their soup worked … but … not how they thought and not because of them … outside interference created an anomaly they could not have predicted" Ianto said dreamily "and I've been thinking on that for the longest time."

"What did you decide boy?" his Grandy asked with dread.

"You know … I think … OK. Crass and basic reasoning here … not elegant but … if you met a man and he had a rare disease or … ailment or .. condition. Right? You had sex with him and although you cannot 'catch' this thing he has, you none the less had his DNA markers on you from the sex. Until you wash it off right? Like the smell of him … his jizz on your skin. instead of washing it off, you go home still drunk and fuck your wife. Get her pregnant, or she is in the early stages already so the subject's DNA enters the mix due to his unique ability to regenerate … the baby that is cell splitting and growing seizes some of those markers. The baby is born with extra markers hidden away. No big deal. Passes thought the blood to the next generation. That grandchild of the original adulterer.

"So … this grandchild has those abilities? It somehow mutates into that?"

"Without outside influence?" Ianto looked at his Grandy "No … it's dormant Nothing really, like an extra chromosome or something. No big deal. But this virus is released and it hit it. This virus that comes from the same source code as the blip in this child's genetic code. They had the right idea with returning to the source code, hoping to create a better strain but .. mutant meets mutant. They didn't' see it coming, still don't understand and it's all gone sky high. You see … they have created what they set out to. But it's not a one in a hundred thing, or a one in a thousand… million even … no … this is a one in a billion chance that the virus slams into this …this … enigma that is not only of a man and a woman … but has that hint of something else. A third party stirring that soup."

"This is your grandfather and me. He and I were amorous while he and your grandmother were cooking your mother." Jack sighed "You are from her … whatever she had in her passed to you and the virus … heightened it. Mutated it or …"

"Woke it. Don't forget … it is not a one size fits all. It was different to different people, different strains produced different reactions… they released them all." Ianto laughed hollowly "Yeah. I didn't survive at all did I. I was as infected as the others only ... I did not lie down and I did not try to eat sometimes' face off. I am that one single anomaly that accepted the new sequence code, adapted and evolved. I am what they are looking for, right here under their noses all the time. No hope of recreating it … can't glean anything from it as I am … unique."

"Shit" Jack choked out "It can't be…"

"Are you telling me they killed hundreds of people in the hope of infecting one that acted differently?" Gwen asked with horror "They conducted a mass genocide to create … what…."

"Another immortal" Jack breathed.