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The Age of Paradox 2.5: Miracle Day
Even after hundreds of years trying to protect people from their own mistakes, the Doctor wished that he could work out a consistent way to avoid being arrested and accused of having some role in whatever he was trying to stop. The only advantage of the current situation was that Rex had at least confirmed that he didn't think the Torchwood team had anything to do with the Miracle itself, but they still had to face being treated like terrorists because it seemed like most of the agents couldn't agree with what they were actually being charged with or how they should be regarded. It had taken a brief debate to even get them permission for a drink, and the Doctor was still trying to work out anything useful about this unconventional crisis, which wasn't exactly helped when so many people here were looking suspiciously at him.
How am I meant to give any of these people useful information if they don't share anything with us?
"I'm…" Jack began, voice trailing off as he stood up, only to fall over on his face.
"Jack?" the Doctor looked anxiously at his friend.
"Back in your seat," the female agent (the Doctor thought he'd heard someone refer to her as Lyn) said, as Rex moved to grab Jack.
"I'm gonna throw up…" Jack said, the Doctor noting that Jack was looking unusually clammy-skinned.
"We've got him!" Natalie said, running over to help Rex.
"You know," Rex looked at Jack as he led the man towards the toilet, "it'd be really ironic if you were airsick, dressed up like a flying ace and all."
"I look like Hell," Jack observed as he staggered into the airplane toilet, Natalie standing by Rex despite her own handcuffs.
"Yeah, your looks are exactly what we're concerned about here-" Rex began.
"Are you even paying attention to the situation you want to question us about?" Amy glared at the American agent from her own suit. "Someone was already trying to take out Torchwood, and now the only man who might actually still be able to die is ill?"
"Look, I know the food's not too hot, but I doubt this guy's been poisoned, OK?" Rex glared at the redhead before he turned his attention back to Jack. "People get sick. It happens."
"Maybe you're right," Jack shook his head tentatively. "Every bug in the world is probably out to get me. I haven't developed any resistance. I never needed it-"
"What are you saying?" Rex asked, as the sound of someone vomiting in the bathroom prompted an uncomfortable wince from Natalie. "Immortality leads to hypochondria?"
"More like over a century with access to a super-immune system means that even his natural immunities have worn down now that he isn't immortal any more," the Doctor pointed out from his seat. "There are reasons why creating fixed points in time are a bad idea beyond the temporal implications-"
"OK, enough with the science crap; if you can't give me a goddamn straight answer, don't bother," Rex said, before Jack let out a gasp and fell over.
"Jack?" Gwen anxiously examined her fallen boss, joined by the Doctor as Natalie and Amy looked anxiously at the apparent ex-immortal. "Is he-?"
"Not dead, but he's definitely not well," the Doctor observed grimly. "And this goes far beyond him just dealing with the illnesses he never caught when he was immortal…"
He looked over at Rex and the other gathered agents. "What medication have you got here?"
"Don't talk to the prisoners-" Lyn began.
"You gave him a drink," Gwen glared over at Lyn as the agent sat nonchalantly behind them. "What did you do to him? What was in it?"
"Take it easy-" Rex began.
"Are you saying we poisoned him?" the steward asked.
"Jack drinks the water and he gets sick; what are we supposed to think?" Natalie asked.
"If you did anything, you'd better bloody tell me," Gwen protested.
"I didn't!" the steward said indignantly. "She was with me! Tell them; I didn't touch the drinks, did I?"
"This is ridiculous; nobody's poisoned anyone-" Lyn began.
"Then what were you doing over there?" Natalie looked firmly at the woman, still standing in the aisle.
"What?"
"You said you went to supervise him," Natalie clarified. "Who needs supervising pouring a drink?"
"So now you're accusing everyone-?"
"It's either you or the big gay steward, so my money's on you."
"I'm not gay," the man protested.
"Just search her, Rex," Gwen looked over at the agent. "Please."
"Look, you know no one can die right now-" Rex began.
"And what if you're wrong about that, Rex Matheson?" the Doctor cut the agent off with a cold glare. "More precisely, what if we're right and someone's just poisoned the only man on Earth who can still die? I'm not saying that Jack's key to helping you figure out what's going on, but if someone wants to kill him that means someone at least thinks he could be dangerous to their current plans; at least check out our story before you dismiss it."
"…All right, if it'll shut you up," Rex sighed. "Let me see your bag."
"Put that down!" Lyn yelled as Rex grabbed her bag.
"You stay right there," Rex said, glaring at the woman as he nonchalantly tossed out the contents of her bag, until he pulled out a small baggie full of blue capsules
"What did we say?" Gwen said indignantly. "Poison."
"Is that the first assumption you make when you find medicine in someone's handbag?" the woman countered.
"So," Natalie said coolly, "if it's medicine, I suppose that you'd be willing to take one yourself?"
"That's a damn good idea," Rex affirmed. "Take it."
"Why would I take that?" Lyn rolled her eyes. "It's poison."
"Which you keep available just to ensure that any other agents who might need it have the option?" the Doctor said, looking coolly at the woman. "This is why I've never gotten along with America; you're always so willing to rely on the solution that involves killing people to accomplish anything."
"And if you didn't give him anything, there's no harm telling us what kind of poison is in this bag," Rex said. The silence he received in response was enough for Rex to force the woman back into her chair despite her protests, even as she continued denying that she'd given Jack anything.
"Right then," the Doctor said, taking one of the pills out of the bag, placing it on the tip of his tongue for a moment before he removed the pill and looked over at Jack. "These are definitely human manufacture, and you haven't changed colour beyond going pale, so I'm inclined to think arsenic; you?"
"Sounds good," Jack said, smiling despite his discomfort and his weak voice as he tested one of the pills in his hands. "I had a boyfriend… who took arsenic… same consistency."
"You had a boyfriend that took arsenic?" Amy asked.
"Yeah," Jack smiled. "Slovenian. Took arsenic for better skin."
"Hold up; I've read about that," Rex looked at Jack in confusion. "That was back in the eighteen hundreds-"
"Jack gets around a lot," the Doctor cut Rex off. "What's important is that we fix this."
"I take it this isn't one of your areas of expertise?" Gwen looked anxiously at the Doctor.
"Not when I'm not the one being poisoned, and for obvious reasons we can't adapt that to this," the Doctor confirmed, before he looked over at Rex. "Do you know a doctor we can call?"
"…Maybe," Rex said, glancing at his watch in thought for a few moments before he turned his gaze back on the Doctor. "Should be available now; I'll give her a call."
As Rex took out his phone and put it to his ear, the Doctor was already racking his brain to try and think of anything they could try at this end; he might call himself a doctor of 'practically everything', but medicine was a field he just didn't put into practice that often beyond diagnosing his companions' injuries, and he didn't have many resources right now anyway…
"How do you cure arsenic poisoning?" Rex said, waiting a moment for the person on the other end to respond. "Listen, I have someone here with a headache, nausea and convulsions; we think he was given arsenic… No, don't hang up, just listen; we are stuck on a plane over the Atlantic; what else can we do?"
"And make it clear that Jack may still be able to die!" Amy called over.
"That was… one of this guy's friends," Rex said in response to something on the other end of the line before he continued in a grim tone. "Look, I'm starting to seriously think this man can die; what else can we do for him?"
There was a tense moment of silence before he spoke again. "OK, chelation; what is it?"
"The process of removing toxic metals from the body by introducing competing chemicals that bind together to make them inactive," the Doctor finished.
"Are you saying… we cure Jack by giving him another poison to counteract the one he just took?" Amy put in.
"Spot on, Pond," the Doctor grinned at his current companion before he grimly looked at his older one.
"So what do we give him?" Rex asked, holding the phone out as he turned it to loudspeaker.
"I suppose… EDTA," a woman's voice said from the phone. "But if you're on a plane, you won't have that."
"What's EDTA?" Gwen asked.
"Who are you?" the woman asked.
"Just tell me, what's EDTA?" Gwen yelled urgently.
"Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid."
"Which we can create with formaldehyde and ethylenediamine; got you," the Doctor nodded.
"Wh- who's that?"
"I'm the Doctor," the Time Lord replied, as Rex shook his head in frustration and tossed the handcuff keys to the other man. "And before you ask, I'm not a primarily medical doctor, so your input is still appreciated."
"You're… how does the CIA not have someone to deal with this?" the woman protested.
"Because someone in the CIA just poisoned him and we're trying to adapt to really freaky circumstances; can we focus on the need to keep our friend alive here?" Amy protested as the Doctor released her from her handcuffs.
"Oh my God…" the woman said at the other end.
"Look, just stay on the line; I'm going to see what we can find at this end," the Doctor said, looking urgently between Amy and Natalie even as he addressed the phone. "We need a way to oxidise methanol at thirty thousand feet; we might be able to get some from laptop batteries if they're using methanol fuel cells…"
"I'll get right on that," Amy nodded, grabbing the male steward by the arm and dragging him off to check the luggage.
"Silver," the Doctor snapped his fingers. "And ammonia; we need silver for the catalyst and ammonia to help us filter it…"
"Silver right here!" Rex called out, grabbing a necklace from the female agent, who glared bitterly up at him even as she stayed handcuffed in her seat.
"We can get ammonia from the cleaning supplies," Gwen added as she waved the female stewardess into action.
"And how's this for a mixing bowl?" Natalie cut in, hurrying over with a recently-emptied metal coffee jug.
"It'll do," the Doctor said, studying the jug and muttering to himself for a moment before he looked at the others. "We're going to need dichloroethane; it might be in a degreaser…"
"We don't have that stuff," the stewardess said.
"You don't?" the Doctor looked anxiously at the woman.
"We don't exactly go around degreasing with our bare hands; the automated system takes care of everything-"
"Automated system?" Gwen said sharply. "What automated system?"
"The ACRS," the stewardess explained. "It works like the de-icer. There's a central pump and then there's the tubing that distributes it throughout the plane."
"Tubing?" Natalie repeated.
"Orange tubing."
"Where is it?"
"In the floor."
"Right," Natalie nodded, crouching down to rip up a strip of carpet.
"You're damaging the floor-"
"And we'll rip this plane apart with our bare hands if we have to," Gwen glared as she grabbed the woman down. "Now get over there and help."
As the Doctor kept mixing the chemicals they had gathered already, he ignored the female agent's dismissive observations of their efforts as Gwen and Natalie ripped up the floor and wall panels to try and find the tubing. Amy watched from the side as Gwen and Rex exchanged bitter comments, anxiously searching for the orange tubing with the degreaser, before Gwen slammed her palm against the floor.
"There's no damn orange tube here!" the ex-cop yelled.
"Maybe you're not looking in the right place?" Amy put in.
"What?" Gwen looked urgently at her.
"Degreasers are used on grease, right?" Amy explained. "So grease would be on the moving parts, which on a plane would be-"
"The access conduit to the landing gear!" Rex finished for her before turning to the male steward. "Where's that?"
With a new sense of certainty behind their actions, the group moved on, literally tearing a set of seats out of their position to reveal a new panel.
"Anything?" the Doctor asked, carefully studying the coffee jar as it heated and mixed the ingredients in the coffee machine, and wishing that he had the sonic screwdriver to make a more thorough analysis of what he was preparing right now.
"We've got the tube!" Natalie grinned as she indicated the relevant tube amid the collection before them.
"OK, give me your knife," Gwen waved an urgent hand. "Give me your knife."
"Wait a minute; we've got to be careful because it's not labelled," Rex cut in even as he passed Gwen the requested knife, clearly acknowledging that this wasn't the time to argue. "If it's part of the oil system, we're screwed."
"Yeah, whatever," Gwen said, as she sliced the orange tube and clear liquid spurted out under the pressure.
"Here you go," Amy said, stepping forward with a small plastic cup.
"We're ready over here!" the Doctor called out from his small kitchen. "We just need to add that degreaser and the cyanide and we're ready!"
"Cyanide?" the stewardess repeated in surprise.
"Chelation means replacing one toxic substance with another," the Doctor clarified, as he took the cup from Amy and began to crumble a blue cyanide pill with the other. "If we've done it right, it's not enough to kill Jack…"
"And here," the male steward added, passing the group a syringe. "I knew diabetes would be useful one day."
"Lovely," Gwen mused as she filled the syringe. "We're going to need your tie; come on, let's get this over with…"
"I've got the coat!" Amy smiled, holding Jack's coat in her arms.
"OK, take the sleeve up…" Gwen said as she began to adjust Jack's shirt.
"I heard cyanide," Jack said, blinking his eyes weakly open.
"Trust me; we've got this," the Doctor nodded reassuringly.
"No, they don't," Lyn cut in. "Don't let them do this; he'll kill you."
"I trust… the Doctor," Jack shot the woman a brief glare that managed to be surprisingly firm despite his state.
"OK, the vein's here-" the Doctor began, about to inject Jack when the female agent suddenly got up from her chair and moved towards them. Lyn almost grabbed the Doctor's wrist before Natalie intercepted the move and punched the other woman in the face, sending her flying back into the chairs.
"Don't touch him," Natalie said firmly, placing a foot on Lyn's chest as the Doctor injected Jack's arm.
"You really think this is going to solve anything-?" Lyn began as Jack winced from the pain of the injection.
"Maybe not, but Jack won't die and you'll be here to answer a few questions for us," Natalie said, briefly grinding her foot into the agent's stomach just below her breasts. "I can wait to get a few more answers when we land."
"How's Jack?" Gwen looked anxiously at her friend, whose initial pained writhing had come to an end even if he was still clearly in pain.
"The injection's going through his body and it's going to hurt, but he'll get over it," the Doctor affirmed, before he glanced at Rex. "Can I assume that she's going to have a few questions when we get down?"
"Yeah," the CIA agent confirmed, before he slapped a new set of handcuffs on the Time Lord.
"Oh, come on!" the Doctor protested, even as he looked over at his companions in a warning glance. "You can't seriously-"
"Mission is still to work out what we're dealing with, which means you come with me," Rex said firmly, while his colleagues applied handcuffs to the three women and led them back to their seats. "World War Two can get a rest before we touch down."
"Some people, huh?" Any glanced over at the Doctor as she was sat down beside him. "And the reason we're not more hacked off about this is…?"
"As observed by another Captain Jack, Pond, all we can do is wait for the opportune moment," the Doctor observed with an apologetic smile as he glanced over at Natalie and Gwen. "Just go with this for now; we'll have time to say our peace soon enough…"