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The Age of Paradox 2.5: Miracle Day
"We had a goddamn lead, and you just-?" Rex began as he looked indignantly at the team members involved in the recent break-in attempt.
"He was the kind of fanatic who wouldn't have told us anything useful even if we worked out a way to make him talk, and I'm pretty sure whoever hired him wouldn't have told a man like that anything more than they needed him to know." The Doctor looked coolly at Rex. "You start to realise that we're not going to get anywhere by making threats; we have to-"
"Just because you're too chickenshit to do what-!"
"You may want to rethink that," Jack cut in, fixing Rex with a cold glare. "If you're going to call the Doctor a coward because he doesn't like to kill, you should consider how many people have died because he was pushed far enough that even he felt that was the only option."
"What does that have to do with-?"
"Don't ask questions you're not going to accept the answer to," Amy cut him off, before she looked over at where Esther had already started examining the server while also looking at something on another monitor. "So, what have we got?"
"Firstly, no reports of that guy who attacked you, but we can't know if that's because he escaped or because they're hiding the facts."
"Could be either; I only wanted to put him down for a few minutes, but that move varies in how long it works depending on how I did it," Natalie put in.
"We'll just keep an eye out then," Esther nodded at the other woman before turning back to her screens. "Secondly, I'm still working out the full details of what's on this server, but I've been running a program to find some key patterns with the Doctor and K9's help, and I think we've found something."
"Specifically?"
"Specifically," Esther grinned at the others, "a series of land prices dating back years, linked to these construction plans."
"Construction plans?" Natalie asked, looking curiously at Esther. "For what?"
"They're calling them overflow camps for all the patients in ICU," Esther explained, as the display projections showed some of the plans on the wall behind Esther's laptop. "Looks like PhiCorp is taking charge of them, like they own them. Sold some kind of strategy to the UN."
"Overflow camps?" Amy repeated apprehensively. "That… doesn't sound good, right?"
"It's foreboding, certainly," the Doctor nodded.
"But for the moment we've got nothing more to go on than the idea that World War Two here knows whoever's behind this," Rex observed, looking over at Jack. "You're sure you don't know who that guy was talking about?"
"I've lived through thousands of years and we have no way of knowing if I even knew those names in the first place; you can't just cut me a little slack?"
"Falling back on that old-?"
"You know, if you're not going to believe anything we have to tell you, just back off and leave us alone," Gwen glared over at Rex. "Like the Doctor said, we don't want you dead, but if you keep being this aggravating you're just going to wear out your welcome and you'll be left to take your chances."
Rex and Gwen exchanged glares for a moment, but the silent confrontation ended when Gwen's phone rang, prompting her to swear in frustration as she answered the call.
"I am so, so sorry," she said, shooting a final glare at Rex as she held up a warning finger even as her voice remained warm and reassuring. "I've been so busy I couldn't ring you back, but look, I'll call you back in half an hour and that is a promise."
She paused for a moment to listen to the other end of the call before she spoke again. "What is it? What's happened?"
She paused to listen to the response and then looked apprehensively at the others.
"What scheme?" she said, taking the phone from her ear to turn on the speaker.
"Government's stepped in prop up the NHS," Rhys's voice said on the other end. "They're spending millions, they said. They're building these sort of camps to help people."
The shocked expressions the group exchanged after that comment confirmed that they were all on the same page.
"Overflow camps?" Gwen asked in horror.
"Aye, that's it," Rhys grinned. "And I got your dad inside the South Wales site."
"Oh no…" Amy whispered, looking anxiously over at the others. Natalie in particular was looking apprehensively at the Doctor, as though trying to imagine how she'd feel if she was in Gwen's position.
"OK, Rhys, listen to me," Gwen said urgently. "Do not let them go. Do not let them take my father. I haven't got time to explain, just… just bloody move."
"They just moved him out-"
"Then stop them, OK?" Gwen said firmly. "This is bloody PhiCorp, Rhys, and they are up to something. Move! Don't let them go! Just get him back. Get him back now!"
The sound of sirens on the other end of the call confirmed what had just happened even before Rhys apologised for being too late.
"They've got my dad, Jack," Gwen looked at her former leader in horror as she ended the call. "They've got my dad."
"Oh no…" Esther whispered.
"Right," Amy nodded in resolution before she turned to the Doctor, Jack and Rex. "Can you get us passports and tickets back to the UK?"
"Us?" Jack and the Doctor repeated while Rex just looked at the young redhead in surprise.
"Well, we're making progress on the PhiCorp front, so you should probably keep following that up, but Gwen's not going to be any use to anyone if she's worrying about her dad, and…" Amy shrugged. "I mean, I'm not really doing anything here right now but being an extra pair of hands if you need some work done, but Gwen might need help back in Cardiff."
The Doctor looked at her with a twisted expression on his face, clearly uncertain how to respond to her observations, before he nodded.
"All right," he said, smiling in understanding at his companion before looking over at Gwen. "If you don't mind-?"
"Every little helps, right?" Gwen smiled back at him, fighting down her fear for her father.
"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me…"
"What now?" Jack looked over at Rex.
"You guys just can't focus on anything, can you?"
"Excuse me?" Amy raised her eyebrows. "We did just manage to infiltrate a major company and retrieve what could be a vital clue-"
"And ended up getting caught by some psycho assassin who said he only regretted that he couldn't kill any of you for good," Rex interrupted. "We don't have time to worry about one old guy-!"
His dismissive expression to be cut short when he felt a hand slap his face.
"If you're going to just go on about you think we've screwed up, get over yourself and get out," Amy said with a cool glare, while Gwen's expression suggested that Jack's hand on her shoulder was the only thing holding her back. "This is a serious situation and so far the only thing you seem to want to contribute is complain about the fact that we aren't doing this way you think we should. If you can't do anything but criticise our way of doing things, maybe you'd be happier just handing yourself into the CIA and convince them you were betrayed so you can try and sort this out 'the proper way'?"
"I'm just asking for some Goddamn professionalism-"
"Agent Matheson," the Doctor folded his arms and glared at the CIA agent, "have you considered that doing things your way nearly led to us all being handed over to whoever is behind this?"
"We don't know that they've got that much influence; they could have just framed us and got you all locked up-"
"Speaking from experience, it only takes a few people with the right contacts to take over everything; we have to assume the worst when dealing with something of this scale."
"Y'know, you can't just keep going on about how you've done all this stuff in the past and expect me to-"
"I'm not asking for blind faith from you, but I am asking that you stop acting as though you're the only professional because you're the one with field experience in an organisation that officially exists," the Doctor clarified. "Just because you don't know what Jack and Gwen have dealt with doesn't mean that you can just dismiss them as incompetent. If you think they're a failure because their teammates are dead, then tell me, can you honestly say that you have never lost anyone during an active operation?"
Rex's silence was all the answer the Doctor needed.
"Exactly," the Time Lord nodded at the agent. "Whatever you think about the way we do things, we're facing a situation that you have no experience in dealing with yourself, so you can keep complaining about how we're not doing things your way or accept that we do things a different way, recognise that 'different' doesn't necessarily equal 'wrong', and let Gwen and Amy deal with things on the home front while we tackle the problem at this end."
"…Fine," Rex nodded at the Doctor before he looked back at Gwen and Amy, a resigned edge to his manner. "Got any preference for fake names?"
All parties knew that it would take longer for Rex to get past his current issues, but at the same time anything that made him stay quiet and work with the team was a step in the right direction.