Disclaimer: I don't own what you recognise; the drill should be familiar to you by now
Feedback: I'd appreciate it; I'm trying to do something a bit different here
AN: To confirm, Oswald Danes' actions are still unaffected by the Doctor's involvement in events, so he'll still be going on the run around this time once he learns about 'Category Zero', but be assured that I have no intention of leaving him out of focus for long…
The Age of Paradox 2.5: Miracle Day
This was the part of travelling with the Doctor that Amy would never like; the moment when circumstances forced the Doctor to make some kind of unappealing arrangement with some kind of enemy in order to get the job done.
OK, it didn't happen that often, and at least this time the Doctor was being asked to do something he'd probably want to do in principle, but the way Shapiro was ignoring his input just got on Amy's nerve. Either the man wanted the Doctor's input on this situation and was willing to accept that the Time Lord knew what he was doing, or he just wanted to give the impression that he was listening to the Doctor and was determined to solve this mess by himself. How often did the Doctor have to insist that he couldn't expand the range of the field generated by this device before Shapiro accepted it and moved on from this particular idea? He had at least been decent enough to mention that the truck transporting 'that blue box' was on its way, but Amy was sure she wasn't the only one to at least suspect that Shapiro would give them some kind of ultimatum for how long they had to get him answers once the TARDIS was here.
As it was, Gwen had already grown sick of the man's condescending observations about how little 'Wales' was bringing to the situation and walked off back to the car, officially to check up on K9. Amy could at least be sure that Gwen would have found a way to alert them if she'd been taken away against her will, but she could already tell that this might be the last time their current 'team' was all in one place. The more Vera looked at the television screens broadcasting the latest information about this mess, the more certain Amy became that they were about to lose their new medical associate.
OK, so what she'd heard about Vera's reputation made it clear that Doctor Juarez would be more helpful to the current situation if she was out there campaigning for better medical care than just being the medical expert during their investigations, but Amy was allowed to miss a friend, right?
While she was still frustrated at Shapiro's fixation on questioning the Doctor, Amy had also noted a certain apprehension in the Time Lord's manner since he had initially examined the panel. It wasn't like he had become completely consumed by whatever was bothering him, but there was a definite edge about her friend and mentor that she wasn't used to seeing. If only Amy knew how she could help him… if she just had some idea what he was planning to do…
"I have something," the Doctor suddenly spoke up, from where he had been studying the panels with his screwdriver. "Jack, can you take a look at this from the other end?"
"Sure," the last mortal man nodded, shooting the Doctor a brief wink as he moved to crouch down on the opposite side of the exposed panel.
"Amy, Natalie, can you join Jack?" the Doctor added. "Esther, Rex, I'd appreciate your help holding these pattern blocks in place over here."
"Which ones?" Rex asked, even as he checked something on his phone.
"There and there," Jack indicated, waiting until Rex had put his phone away and moved to stand beside the Doctor. "Put your hands on the panels."
Already guessing that the Doctor and Jack were up to something, Amy and Natalie exchanged a brief smile before they had crouched down beside the captain.
"Jack, Doctor," Esther said, anxiety clear on her face. "I'm really sorry about this, but I didn't know-"
"Everyone listen quickly," the Doctor looked around the panel before looking up at Jack. "You can hear me too, right?"
"Got it," Jack tapped the panel with his fingers.
"Got what?" Natalie asked, even as Amy suddenly noticed what she could only think of as a 'deadening' of sound beyond the six of them around the panel.
"Jack and I have broadened and adjusted the transmission of this panel so that it's nullifying sound waves directly around itself," the Doctor explained. "Until we turn it off or leave this area, nobody outside this field can hear us."
"…What?" Rex looked at the Doctor in confusion.
"Basically just look busy, stay where you are, and no one else will even be aware that we're doing anything unusual," Amy affirmed with a grin. "Weren't you paying attention?"
"What are you talking about?" Rex looked around the room in confusion before he called over to an agent sitting on a couch opposite. "They're right there. Hey, you can hear me, right? Hey!"
"Would you turn around and not look at him?" Jack said firmly, gripping Rex's wrist to pull him down as discreetly as possible.
"…They can't hear us?" Rex asked in clear disbelief, once it was clear that nobody outside the panel had responded to his call.
"That would be the point of the… null field, right?" Amy cut in, glad to have something more low-key to be impressed about right now.
"No, no way-" Rex began.
"Once again, you demonstrate just how small-minded you really are, Agent Matheson," Natalie shook her head as she glared at the dark-skinned man. "If you need convincing… Esther, please count to a hundred out loud while Rex… could you stand up for a moment while looking at her?"
Rex looked at Natalie in bemusement, but obeyed the order as Esther began to count, the two looking at each other all the time until Rex backed into a desk by accident. He said something to the other agent sitting at the desk that Amy couldn't hear before he crouched back down, looking around them in awe.
"Holy shit," the CIA agent said as he returned to his previous position. "This is insane…"
"More insane than the fact that nobody can die?" Amy asked.
"…OK, I'll give you that-"
"They can still see us," Jack cut the CIA agent off. "Keep your heads down, facing away like you're concentrating, OK?"
"Got it," Natalie said, following his example as she lowered her head to look intently over the panels before her. "So long as we keep our mouths moving we'll look busy… but will that be enough?"
"I adjusted the settings so it's a bit of an SEP rather than just simple sound nullification," the Doctor assured her. "If we can avoid doing anything to attract attention to ourselves, we'll be fine here."
"SEP?" Esther asked.
"Somebody Else's Problem field," the Doctor explained with a smile. "Adams had a good idea for that concept, really; people don't always notice other peoples' problems."
"And you had nothing to do with him having that idea, right?" Natalie asked, recalling the book series in question after the Doctor had mentioned a couple of meetings with the original author.
"Well, I may have suggested the idea of a time-travelling academic living in Cambridge when I visited him a few bodies back…"
"Doctor," Amy and Jack said simultaneously, even as Amy noticed that Jack was grinning about the conversation just as much as she was.
"Sorry," the Doctor nodded at them, even as he shot his daughter a brief grin.
"How does this actually work?" Esther's attention remained fixed on the panel
"We can't tell you," Jack said. "That's the point. Just listen to me; I knew this stuff the second I saw it, and if I know it then the Doctor knows it too."
"Who-?" Amy began automatically.
"The most important detail you need to know right now is that this technology shouldn't have been on Earth in a position where Angelo could have salvaged it," the Doctor said firmly.
"Which means it came from Torchwood," Jack observed, his tone grim as he looked at it. "This stuff must have been buried in the ruins after the Hub was destroyed, but Angelo must have salvaged certain key items to prepare for the Miracle."
"So what did he do?" Esther asked. "Trigger it with your DNA or something?"
"Huh?" Amy looked at Esther in confusion.
"Angelo dies the moment Captain Harkness touches him, and that's not just a coincidence?"
"Maybe his form of revenge, or his way of giving me a clue," Jack said dismissively. "Either way, there's only one course of action left now; we have to get out of here."
"We?" Amy asked.
"Me, you, Natalie, K9, Jack, and probably Gwen just to be safe," the Doctor clarified.
"Are you crazy?" Rex looked sharply at Jack.
"Turn your head," Jack hissed at the other man.
"Jack, Doc, listen to me," Rex tapped his fingers impatiently on the panel, even as he followed Jack's orders and turned back to the panel. "The CIA is not the enemy; that's why I brought them in-"
"Stop lying to yourself that you brought these people in for any other reason than that you wanted to be back 'in charge'," Amy spat bitterly at the American.
"Agent Matheson's reasons aren't important right now," the Doctor cut in, shooting a warning stare at Amy before he continued talking. "Like I told Agent Shapiro earlier, right now we've put together enough information that I can confidently say the CIA need us more than we need them, but this panel… it's just too dangerous to leave in their hands."
"Goddamnit, can you stop this?" Rex glared. "This is not some stupid conspiracy; the CIA are not the enemy-!"
"Even if that's true for the CIA as a whole, can you guarantee that you've dealt with all the inside men deployed by our real enemy?" Natalie cut in. "Like Gwen said, just having Friedkin in custody doesn't guarantee you've dealt with that problem."
"And even if we go with the best case scenario and everyone in the agency can be trusted… there's a reason the Doctor and I have never gone public about what we do," Jack continued, his tone anxious. "We and our associates kept things hidden from the human race. This technology is a science the world should never know."
"How can you know that?" Esther asked.
"We've seen the future," Amy said, hoping that she was right to share that detail.
"Some of us more than others, but we've all been there at some point," Natalie affirmed with a sly grin of her own.
"I lived there," Jack said, allowing himself a wistful grin at the thought. "I've walked the future world and breathed its air… and this technology would send it to damnation."
"Think about it," the Doctor looked urgently at Rex and Esther. "If null field technology like this became public, stealth technology would hide bombs or planes, shield one side of a war from radiation while the other burns…"
"This timeline would be ruined," Natalie said, looking upwards as though staring at something she couldn't entirely see.
"He's right," Esther said.
"Whose side are you-?" Rex began only to be cut off when Natalie reached over and slammed her own hand on top of his with a warning glare.
"You know he's right, Rex," Esther affirmed, looking back at Rex as the agent held his phone over the equipment. "Even if the government just has this one panel, and they put people inside it and they died again, it's the same thing as the ovens. It's control over life and death, and we've seen that doesn't work."
"That's the whole point of this," the Doctor affirmed grimly. "We have to get this panel out of here and find a way to put things back to normal. Right now… as much as I normally try to save lives, the goal right now is just to restore the natural order so that we don't have to deal with people trying to establish their own power over life and death."
"This is the Alpha plate," the Doctor added, indicating a particular section of the panel near his left hand between him and Rex. "Without it, this is all just an elaborate bit of metal. We've got to get it out of the house."
"This is a genuine CIA operation-" Rex tried to protest.
"And if you can guarantee that nobody will ever abuse this technology, either now or in the future, we'd accept their involvement, but you can't, so we can't," Amy said grimly. "It's like the Doctor said; leaving things like this will ruin the balance between life and death, and leaving this technology with the CIA just shifts the focus from the ovens to this."
Rex looked at the group with a frustrated glare for a few moments, before he shook his head in resignation.
"This field thing," he looked over at the Doctor. "You've got it set so people don't notice us down here, right?"
"Unless we do something to draw their attention directly."
"Right," the dark-skinned man began to step back. "Give me a few minutes, and then… well, you'll see it."
With those words, Rex stood up and walked over to the other agents in the room, leaving the Time Lord to remove the Alpha plate and slip it into his shirt pocket. Outside the field, Amy could see Rex talking with the other agents for a few moments before he said something that prompted the man sitting at the computer to turn away. Movement in the corner of her eye prompted Amy to turn around just in time to see Natalie knocking out the agent sitting on the sofa behind them, leaving the room temporarily empty of 'unaffiliated' CIA agents.
"Nice job," Amy nodded at the blonde.
"Easy enough when you know what you're doing," Natalie grinned as she stood up and nodded over at Rex, who had knocked out the man at the computer after drawing his attention away from Rex. "Good job."
"Yeah, just shut up, OK?" Rex glared over at her before he turned back to the group as a whole. "Now, this is the story; the Doc and Nat knocked those guys out, she helped Jack hold Esther and I at gunpoint, and you all stole a car and got away, OK?"
"Correction," the Doctor grinned as he indicated the nearest window. "We'll be taking that truck."
"Truck?" Amy looked out the window to see a large truck, before she looked back at the Doctor with a grin. "Is that-?"
"It's her," the Doctor replied, grinning back at her in turn.
"Her?" Rex and Esther asked.
"The TARDIS?" Jack half-answered and half-asked, his own smile more cautious.
"What else would a truck be bringing here at this time of night?" the Doctor said, before he turned his attention to Rex. "If you're staying here, make sure Olivia and her family are given every reasonable bit of leeway."
"They're not going to-"
"Make sure of it," Jack affirmed. "The Colosantos are trying to deal with this mess just like the CIA; if the agency really want to solve this and get things back to normal, don't just toss the Colosantos in some cells until they start cooperating."
Rex fumed at the Time Lord and the ex-immortal for a few moments before he nodded in acceptance and began to walk down the corridor towards the main door. The group walked in silence until they reached the courtyard leading up to the truck, which was fortunately relatively quiet.
"Is that it?" Amy looked over at the Doctor as the Time Lord studied the truck once more.
"She's in there," the Doctor nodded, reaching up to tap his forehead even as he grinned over at the vehicle. "It's good to feel her properly again…"
"Right, whatever," Rex shook his head, looking at the Doctor as though he was about to ask for more details before he shook his head in frustration and walked out the door. "Listen up; there's going to be a guard on the gate, so I'll need to tell him that Shapiro authorised letting you go."
"What about Gwen?" Jack asked after taking a glance around the area. "She's on the other side-"
"I can send K9 a message once I'm back in the TARDIS," the Doctor said. "He'll be able to tell her what to do from there."
"Right," Rex nodded. "Anyway, just keep your head down-"
Much to Amy's surprise, Natalie suddenly let out a laugh and ran around the front of the truck, followed by the sounds of a brief scuffle before a man in a suit fell down at the front of the vehicle. A quick glance at Jack was enough for Amy to agree that this wasn't the time to question how that had happened before the two of them ran for the front of the truck as further sounds of fighting were heard from the other side.
The Doctor turned to run for the back of the vehicle, screwdriver already in hand, but Amy froze when a gunshot was followed by the Time Lord yelling in pain and Esther letting out her own anxious shout. Turning around, Amy saw another guard approaching the Doctor as he clutched his shoulder, Esther looking at the new guard in shock, but she was saved from having to do anything about it when Rex walked up behind the other man and hit him in the back of the head with the handle of his gun.
"Doctor!" Amy yelled, hurrying towards the Time Lord. "Are you-?"
"Shock more than anything," the Doctor smiled reassuringly at her, removing his hand to reveal that the bullet had just grazed his shoulder rather than penetrating it. "It'll be sore, and I'll need to get a new jacket, but I've had worse."
"Yeah, great, now maybe you just get out of here?" Rex looked urgently at them as he looked around the courtyard. "Someone's going to have heard that-"
"And now he saw me," Esther observed, her voice shaky as she looked at the unconscious agent.
"Then you're coming with us," Jack said, tone resolute as he walked over to take Esther's arm before looking back at the Doctor and Amy. "Can you still-?"
"Just a moment to get inside here and I'll take it from there," the Doctor nodded before he looked at Amy. "Some help, Pond?"
"I can't- my sister-!" Esther protested even as Amy began to lead the Doctor towards the rear of the truck.
"We'll check on her later, but you're no good to anybody if you get arrested for helping us escape!" Natalie suddenly called out as she ran back around the truck, assessed the situation and turned to Rex. "Sorry about this."
Rex didn't have time to ask what she meant before Natalie punched him in the face, sending him to the ground in an unconscious heap.
"Best way to make sure he can stay put," the Doctor's daughter shrugged as she looked back at the others. "Hopefully Doctor Juarez can help make sure he won't just be a CIA yes-man…"
"Done!" the Doctor called out as he opened the back of the truck, still holding his injured arm in one hand while the other held the sonic screwdriver. Amy smiled in relief as she saw the TARDIS inside the truck just as the Doctor had suggested, pulling out her key and opening the door as she felt the truck begin to move. The Doctor briefly staggered around a few of the other boxes in the truck, and Amy caught a glimpse of an open box holding cables and computer parts of some kind, but the priority right now was to get away with the TARDIS and not worry about what else they might be 'stealing'. Once the door was opened, she took the Doctor's wounded arm and led him into the ship, the Doctor making his way to the console while Amy shut the door.
"K9?" Amy looked at the Time Lord as he tapped a few buttons around the console phone.
"He's trained to respond to the dog whistle, but I set up a remote transmitter once he started travelling with us again in case I needed to send more urgent messages," the Doctor explained as he pulled the console viewscreen around to look at its display. "Wait a minute… yep, K9's received the signal and passing the message on to Gwen."
"You're sure?"
"That tin dog's never let me down before even when he had his head knocked off and his batteries were nearly useless; he and Gwen will follow us soon." That said, the Doctor stepped back and flexed his arm awkwardly. "Now then, if we could get to the medical bay and the wardrobe to get this sorted out?"
Seeing the Doctor standing casually in the TARDIS console room, ready to complain about a damaged jacket despite having just been nearly shot, Amy once again let herself feel a sense of hope that things were going to get back to normal.
They might have lost their contacts in the CIA, but as far as she was concerned, with the Doctor and the TARDIS available to them once again they almost didn't need anything else to solve this mess.