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The Age of Paradox 2.5: Miracle Day
The Doctor freely acknowledged that human relationships would never be a strong point of his even after spending a few years basically living in Leadworth, but it didn't take an expert to realise that Rex and Vera had enjoyed themselves for the hour or so they'd spent in private before the rest of the team finished setting everything up in the main room. It was a small sign of humanity from Rex after he'd spent so much of the preceding time criticising the Doctor's allies, but at least it showed the Time Lord that Rex Matheson was more than the CIA agent who was at least having trouble adapting to the current situation.
Frankly, the Doctor actually liked that part of this operation the most; it may be frustrating to have to acknowledge everything he didn't know so far, but it was refreshing to be able to focus on something as simple as putting equipment together after his bigger challenges.
"And Torchwood is go," Jack smiled as he flicked the final switch on a projector, which displayed a holographic image of various opened files and other windows over the wall. "OK, this is everything we've gathered on the Miracle so far, and we've got chases updating every twenty seconds, tapping into major newsfeeds, WikiLeaks, backdoor routes into the CIA and FBI. What about South Wales?"
"Yeah, I'm here," Gwen's voice said, a laptop screen alongside Jack's seat displaying Gwen sitting in what looked like a kitchen with her daughter in her lap.
"Count me in too," Amy grinned, leaning in from the side of Gwen's screen.
"Good to see you, Pond," the Doctor nodded from his own position just behind Jack. "All in order?"
"As much as it could be in order in a situation like this," Amy shook her head solemnly.
"Have you seen the latest?" Gwen asked with a slight edge to her voice. "France and Germany have all started Overflow Camps. The whole of Europe is joining in."
"China's saying no to the camps and the Pan-African Summit said yes," Esther added.
"You're researching morphic fields?" Vera observed as a particular search engine displayed the term on the wall.
"Yeah, that's Jack's favourite subject," Rex mused from his own position by another laptop.
"It kept getting mentioned on the medical panels," Vera added. "But it's only theory… That's Jilly Kitzinger. Are you following her?"
"No, we're following Oswald Danes, but she never leaves his side," Rex clarified, indicating the man in the displayed photo beside Kitzinger. "He's connected to the top, even if he doesn't know it yet."
"So this name, Torchwood," Vera asked. "You're like investigators?"
"Dealing with the strange and unexplained," the Doctor smiled briefly. "The original institution had a questionable history, but Captain Harkness here did a good job rebuilding after he took over-"
"Until it all went wrong?"
"Can you please stop being that picky about how you think we're being unprofessional?" Natalie glared at Rex. "If you think you could have done Jack's job better, find out what Torchwood were dealing with back in those days and then judge them for how it all ended."
"Let's just accept that 'Torchwood' is a good name for what we're doing right now and work it out from there," the Doctor held up his hands placatingly.
"Works for me," Jack nodded, before he smiled over at Vera. "And on that topic, welcome aboard."
"I'm not sure if that's good or bad," Vera observed.
"Just go with 'good'," Natalie smiled encouragingly at her. "Trust me, if anyone's going to sort this out, we are."
"Getting back to the current situation," the Doctor said, clapping his hands together before Vera could ask any awkward questions, "let's talk about these 'Categories' I've been hearing about; what do we know so far?"
"Well, they've activated the categories over here," Gwen said, as Esther clicked something on her laptop and brought up a display on one of the projections. "It's officialdom gone mad. So listen, Category One is bad, yes?"
"Yeah," Vera nodded. "That's people with no brain function or anyone who would normally have died. They're now officially Category One."
"Ordinary people are Category Three," Jack put in, indicating the display graphic Esther had brought up, displaying Category One as a red circle and Three as a white one, with Category Two basically two circles joined by a thick line between the other two.
"Right," Vera said. "That's people with no injuries, nothing; they're fine. Then Category Two is everyone in-between. People who are alive and functioning with an illness or injury that's gonna persist but not kill."
"Like me," Rex put in.
"Yes, like you," Vera nodded.
"Wait a minute," Rex said thoughtfully. "When I got hurt, I should have died. I was Category One. But now I'm healing so I'm Category Two. So which one am I?"
"And what about cases where people are just injured?" Amy added. "I mean, do we still qualify as Category Twos if we just have a broken arm or something that would never have been a problem? The last I checked, the Miracle hasn't affected the way we heal from normal stuff, right?"
"Right," Vera nodded at Amy. "Officially the whole point of this is that the camps can take Category Ones and Twos so that the hospitals can focus on standard cases, but that analogy just outlines the problem with this whole system."
"Exactly," Jack said grimly. "The only thing this process has done is create a situation where the government can define life and death, and thus basically decide whether or not a person is dead or alive."
"And nobody should have that kind of control over people," the Doctor observed grimly.
"Still doesn't make sense," Rex put in as he glanced over one of the files they'd found from PhiCorp. "I mean, what does PhiCorp get out of this? How do they profit?"
"You think they caused the Miracle?" Vera asked.
"Well, they had advance knowledge, but they just deal in pharmaceuticals; it's got to be bigger than that."
"Quite," Natalie nodded. "You don't jump straight to something as big as erasing death if you're just trying to make money selling drugs."
"So you're looking for someone behind PhiCorp?" Vera asked.
"That's our best idea right now," the Doctor nodded.
"And whoever that is, maybe they need these Overflow Camps for a reason, because I have been looking into the NORAD satellites and the building specs… er, sorry, I've been overlaying documents…" Esther began, indicating her laptops as her fingers flew over the screens for a moment before she brought up a couple of maps. "Look, this is our nearest Overflow Camp in San Pedro. These are the specs that we got from the PhiCorp server. Spot the difference? Look at the building on the plans called the Module. But where is it on the photograph?"
"No Module," Jack leaned forward uncertainly.
"There's a Module on the plans but not on the photos," Esther smiled. "It doesn't exist."
"No, hang on," Gwen cut in. "I heard somebody refer to the Module today."
"Suspicious," the Doctor observed grimly.
"The module's been masked," Rex observed. "That's what they do with military installations."
"Right, so I went into NORAD and I got the undoctored photographs," Esther continued with a smile, displaying a photograph of what the Doctor assumed was the camp. "The building exist. Half of these are old army camps just being converted, and now anything labeled the Module is hidden from view so the public can't see what's going on. It's the same for all the sites I've checked. The same thing in Wales too."
"At least we know there's something else to be keeping an eye out for, right?" Amy pointed out.
"So they've taken buildings and sealed them off out of sight," Vera asked. "What for?"
"Well, they're gathering all the Category Ones," Rex observed. "The only question is, what are they using the bodies for? Is it to investigate or to experiment?"
"Do you mean like dissections?" Gwen asked anxiously. "They're dissecting people?"
"Vivisections," Vera responded. "When they're alive-"
"Let's not get into that right now," the Doctor cut in, noticing the uncomfortable expression on Amy's face at that idea. "What we need to work out is what they're doing with those modules."
"…They could be cultivating," Vera suggested. "Making diseases to make more customers using Category One patients like petri dishes."
"It could explain the rush to strip away their human rights…" Esther mused.
"We can't jump to conclusions just yet," the Doctor cut in. "As Arthur observed, if we start theorising without data, we start altering facts to fit our views."
"Which means we miss the real solution because we're just trying to find evidence of what we think we already know, right?" Amy asked.
"Quite," Jack nodded at the Doctor and Amy. "If we're going to get answers, we need to find out what those Modules are, which means getting inside the camps to take a look for ourselves."
"Yeah, already on it on this end," Gwen added. "Rhys has signed up as a driver, and Amy and I used that ID software to get on the staff register; Nurse Yvonne Pallister is going on the night shift, with Sarah Grant down as a cleaner in another part of the camp."
"Not glamorous, but everything we can do to get a good look at how this place works, right?" Amy shrugged.
"Bravo, Pond," the Doctor nodded at her.
"And we can cover a few more areas at this end," Esther added. "San Pedro needs clerical staff; if I can get inside the office, there's bound to be paperwork on the module."
"I could get inside," Vera added.
"What?" Rex looked sharply at her.
"If I use my position on the medical panels, I could go to San Pedro as an inspector."
"Vera, this isn't a game, OK?" Rex protested. "Infiltration is specialised work and this time, I'm pulling rank."
"Rank?" Natalie cut in. "You do remember you're not actually in charge of us, right?"
"I'm an agent in the Central Intelligence Agency-"
"And Esther's the only other person here who ever worked in that agency, and neither of you work there now," the Doctor's daughter countered.
"That said," the Doctor observed with a grim expression as he looked at Rex, "your injury does make you uniquely qualified to get inside these camps…"
"My thoughts exactly," Rex nodded at the Doctor, as though glad the two men were on the same page for once.
"And on the topic of getting into places, should we be worried about Ellis Monroe?" Natalie asked. "I mean, that campaign of hers-"
"She's off the board."
"Off the board?" Rex looked at the Doctor with new curiosity. "What makes you think that?"
"She hasn't been heard from in over twenty-four hours after she was making herself the face of a major political movement and now these camps are in operation to officially help those affected by the Miracle," the Doctor replied. "I may not have much interest in politics, but I think we can agree that any aspiring politician going missing that long is almost certainly dead."
"Should we be concerned about that?" Esther asked. "I mean, if these people are confident enough to go after someone that public-"
"It's easy enough to find the likes of Ms Monroe, but we've been staying undercover so far; we'll be all right," the Doctor smiled reassuringly at Esther, before he looked over at Rex. "Getting back to the original topic, if you're willing to risk it, we can send you into the camps."
"Hey, we're basically checking out the hospitals; how bad can they be?" Rex smirked at the Doctor. "Don't overthink it, Doc."
"Kindly refrain from addressing me as 'Doc'," the Doctor said, looking coolly at Rex before he shook his head and glanced over at Vera. "So who do we talk to about getting him sent to a camp?"