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The Age of Paradox 2.5: Miracle Day
"'Dead is Dead'?" Amy glanced at the pamphlet Rex had handed around the apartment. "I really don't like the implications of that."
"Tell me about it," Rex nodded. "Whole philosophy seems to be that we should act like anyone who would have been killed without the Miracle is basically dead already; I mean, what about people who've healed from it?"
"Have you actually healed from your injury?" Natalie looked curiously at the CIA agent.
"Well… OK, I'm still bleeding, but it's not like there's a lot of precedent for healing from shit like this," Rex indicated his wound.
"And we can't be sure how long it would take, anyway," the Doctor observed, looking apologetically at Rex for a change. "Believe me, if we could afford to give you the time to rest-"
"Not an option," Rex shook his head. "We're all on the lamb right now; can't afford to take time out long enough for that kind of personal crap."
"If you're sure," the Doctor shrugged, before he looked over at Gwen. "Do we have anything more on this 'Dead is Dead' group?"
"Mostly it just started as some small-town mayor trying to make a name for herself in the current mess," Gwen said bitterly. "She gave this big speech about how everyone who should have died should just be treated as dead and taken away somewhere so that they're not 'draining resources' from other people, going on about how segregation's 'necessary' and they'll die eventually…"
"What?" Natalie looked at Gwen indignantly. "That's just- they're still alive now!"
"That's the way of politics, Natalie; for every person who wants to help the common man, some people just want to make a name for themselves and don't care how," the Doctor said bitterly.
"Should we be worried about this whole thing?"
"Not as much as we should be worried about Danes," Jack put in.
"Getting a bit focused on that guy, aren't you?" Rex looked at Jack in a particular manner.
"Uh… should we be looking at Kitzinger as well?" Esther asked. "I mean, if we're thinking Oswald Danes is important-?"
"Kitsinger's freelance," Rex shook his head. "Checked over her file, and she just joined PhiCorp a few months ago; nothing indicates she's anything more than lucky enough to be working for the right people at the right time."
"Whereas Danes is the most public figure in this post-Miracle world," Jack affirmed, looking grimly at a screen displaying Danes at his latest conference. "George Eliot once wrote that if you take a piece of metal with random scratches all over it and hold a flame up to the metal, the scratches look like they're forming patterns circling around the light."
"And that's Oswald?" Natalie asked.
"That's Oswald," Jack nodded. "He's blazing away and patterns are starting to revolve around him; all we have to do is keep watching until it all comes together."
"What about Monroe?"
"She's a controversial figure who's going against the idea that there's any kind of benefit to be gained from this system," the Doctor observed. "As much as I don't like it, Miss Monroe's just creating a target on her back for the people who want to benefit from this chain of events, and I don't think she's smart enough to give them trouble. We have to focus on solving the problems in front of us, even if that means leaving her to her fate."
"And she deserves-?"
"What she deserves isn't the question; what we can do about it is," the Doctor countered as he looked solemnly at Amy. "There are times when we can't afford to try and save everyone, Pond; the stakes are just too high to worry about helping someone who has decided to use a difficult situation to build herself up by encouraging the idea that others should be treated like nothing."
"…Particularly when we have to focus on undoing whatever gave her that opportunity in the first place, right?"
"Exactly," the Doctor nodded, even as he gave Amy a sympathetic smile. "Monroe's a symptom, Amelia Pond; our focus right now has to be the disease, and our best lead now is PhiCorp. They're currently organising a payback scheme to local communities in Los Angeles, which to me suggests that they might have a weak link or two trying to appease their conscience for whatever role they played in causing this in the first place."
"That's a bit cynical for you, isn't it?" Jack observed.
"If that's about Monroe, I like to give people a chance but in a situation like this there isn't time to make a point to her, and if that's about PhiCorp, I'd like to believe it's just them being generous, but we've got too many red flags directed at this company so far for me to believe that."
"And that's before you start looking into their history," Esther added. "I was doing some background reading while you were setting up the bigger equipment, and when I tried to track PhiCorp's owners, everything just… scattered."
"Scattered?" Gwen repeated curiously.
"There were all sorts of names and tangents and diversions, but nothing tangible," Esther affirmed. "It's like someone's trying to hide PhiCorp even online, dating back to before the Miracle…"
"All the more reason for us to get inside and take a direct look, right?" Natalie asked.
When Rex went out for a few hours and returned later that night, Amy wasn't sure if she should bring it up to anyone else. She might not entirely like the man, but she wasn't going to be petty enough to try and talk to the ex-CIA agent about something that had clearly caused him some pain, based on her own experience of dealing with difficult emotional experiences back in Leadworth.
That's the one thing being with the Doctor doesn't teach you; you can help people cope with the terror of alien invasions or temporal anomalies, but you can't talk to people about their difficult personal relationships…
"So, to recap," Esther said, standing in front of a projection on the wall as Rex unpacked the new server they'd ordered, "there's over a hundred dedicated servers identical to that one inside the PhiCorp building, all containing corporate data. But, according to Jilly Kitzinger's information, number one thirteen is a secure server accessible by only the highest corporate brass."
"That's our target," Jack said with a firm nod.
"And when PhiCorp says secure, they mean secure," Esther said as the display shifted to focus on a particular part of the building. "I have never seen firewalls like this before, and even K9 doesn't think he'll be able to crack anything without making it obvious what we're doing."
"Too secure for you, K9?" the Doctor looked at the robot dog in surprise.
"With contemporary networks and salvaged technology my only available resources at this time, affirmative," K9 confirmed.
"In other words, no immediate sign of explicitly advanced technology for this time period; good to know."
"Right…" Esther said, looking uncertainly between K9 and the Doctor for a moment before she shrugged and decided not to question that topic any further. "Anyway, with that in mind, our only option is to physically steal number one thirteen and cover our tracks by leaving a duplicate in its place."
"And that's less obvious than hacking it?" Natalie asked, mimicking her father's surprise as she looked at Esther.
"When we're going to fake a fire that make it look like the server was destroyed rather than stolen, anyway," the Doctor explained, as Gwen briefly turned away to check a message on her phone. "We do this properly, they'll think it was just a technical error or aborted sabotage at worst, and they won't react in time to do anything about it."
"Makes sense," Rex said, nodding as he looked at the Doctor and Jack. "So how are you gonna get me inside to scout it out?"
"We're not."
"Excuse me?" Rex glared at the Doctor.
"He's right," Jack said coolly. "You're still on CIA lists, Agent Matheson; it's way too risky to pass you through security."
"And what makes you any better?"
"Natalie and I literally don't exist on any record here you'd be familiar with, Pond isn't on any database that would be monitored in America, and Jack and Gwen were wiped after their time in Torchwood; we might need your tactical insight, but you're a liability in the field even without that wound."
Rex glared at the Doctor for a moment, but finally nodded his head in resignation.
"So what do we have to get through to get that server?" Amy asked.
"This is the IT centre where the servers are housed," Esther explained, pulling up a particular part of the display. "Floor 33, maximum security, completely enclosed. We need to gain access, but it's restricted with some heavy duty biometrics. Only one man can gain total access, the man who designed it. Nicholas Frumkin."
"What kind of biometrics?" Rex asked as Esther brought up a personnel file for the man in question. "I mean, what level?"
"Every entry needs voice print, palm print, iris recognition by him and him alone."
"OK," Rex nodded with a tentative smile. "Then I know exactly what you need to do."