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The Age of Paradox 2.5: Miracle Day
Natalie chose to consider it a good sign that the part of her mind that would always be a soldier was silent in the face of their current plan. She appreciated the tactical merits of including Oswald Danes in working out their next move, but the rest of her was just…
The best term was probably 'disgusted', when she thought about it; the notion that they had to rely on a known child-killer who had made it clear that he enjoyed the memory of what he had done was not one she liked. It helped to know that the rest of her friends and family had made it clear they were only doing this because the scale of the situation meant that anything they could do to sort this mess out earlier had to be at least considered.
The sooner we find him, the sooner we can get rid of him…
"You all right?"
"How do you think?" Natalie said, shaking her head as she looked apologetically at Gwen Cooper. "Sorry; I know this… can't be easy for you either…"
"…Thanks," Gwen nodded back at her, the older woman giving her an appreciative smile as they walked through the streets of the small American town they had identified as Danes' current location, Natalie couldn't even remember the name of the place off the top of her head, but that was only because she didn't want to be here long enough to learn it. They would find Danes, get him to tell them anything he might have found out about the people behind the Miracle, and then…
Well, they would work that out. A dark part of Natalie hoped they would have a reason to keep an eye on Danes after that just so that they could make sure he wouldn't just get off scot-free after this was over, but she appreciated that they had bigger concerns right now.
"This way?" Gwen asked, holding up the tracker device the Doctor had provided them with.
"That… looks right," Natalie glanced over the screen. The two had quickly agreed that it would be better for Gwen to carry the tracker, considering that Natalie was the better hand-to-hand fighter of the two, but she still needed some help interpreting the results on the display. "If we just go down this way…"
As Gwen led them down the next side-street, Natalie hoped that her father and Jack's side of their current campaign was going more smoothly than this. They might have to deal with a wider range of issues in order to coordinate everything, but at least they were actually talking to good people.
Still, it's all in the name of winning the day…
When she rounded the corner and saw a figure in a long coat and a red cap over a grey hoodie, a thick backpack over one shoulder, standing exactly where the tracker indicated Danes would be, Natalie didn't let herself stop. Moving from a walk to a run at a speed that would have impressed most professional athletes, Natalie ran down the street and knocked Danes down with a powerful punch before he could do more than turn to look at her.
"Bail jumper," she called out to the crowd around her with a casual wave of her hands, remembering Gwen's recommended cover story for the current situation. "My partner and I will take it from here."
With that matter resolved, she slung one of the dazed Danes' arms over her shoulder and walked back along the street, Gwen meeting her to take Danes by the other arm.
"Just keep this in mind, Danes," Gwen glared over at the dazed killer as he looked uncertainly between the two women. "If you try to run, I'm a trained shot who can almost certainly hit you somewhere debilitating but non-lethal even if we weren't all immortal, and Natalie has a very interesting set of skills in terms of causing people pain that I'm sure she'd be happy to demonstrate on you."
"I would," Natalie put in, keeping her voice low and Danes' head down as they walked. "We need your information, but nothing says you have to be well when we're questioning you, and I think we all know there are more options when death isn't one of them."
"…Understood," Danes muttered, his voice clearly lacking the self-control he'd displayed in most of his recent public appearances (Natalie wasn't going to count the time he'd cried about his victim; she doubted that had been true). "Where are we going?"
"To talk to the men who are going to end this mess," Gwen said firmly.
Natalie hoped that she was the only one who saw how Gwen had tensed up at those words. Whatever they thought about the Miracle, it couldn't be easy to consider how many people would die because of it, particularly when Gwen's father was one of those only kept alive due to this strange event.
That's why Dad and Jack are the ones who have to make this call; they've lived their lives on the ground and faced the kind of challenges that give them the right to make this call.
The Doctor was glad that he had a few minutes to relax between making his final call and the arrival of Oswald Danes to their current temporary accommodation. He would still need to call back to confirm the plan once they had time to process whatever Danes had to tell them (assuming he had anything useful to tell them, obviously), but right now, he could be satisfied that he'd done what he could and needed to wait for more information to take further action.
This whole crisis was so frustrating it put him in mind of the vague memories he retained of his third incarnation's visit to Dust, back in the timeline that had since been erased through Compassion's sacrifice. It was as though he'd been forced into a position he never should have had to deal with, as though this particular crisis was one he wasn't meant to get involved in. Whether some other version of himself would have been more 'qualified' or if this was a situation he should have stayed out of in the first place, he didn't know, but he wasn't going to abandon Jack to face the Grandfather's twisted scheme alone just because he was scared.
In many ways it, was moments like this which left him forced to recognise the limitations of his own contacts. Doctor Juarez was doing her best to campaign against the modules, but it was clear that she could only do so much. Even with the horrors of the situation made clear, the fact was that nobody had any better solution for dealing with those Category Ones who were unequivocally never going to recover from whatever had happened to them. His old companions like Liz or Harry were trying to use their own contacts to help Doctor Juarez's campaign, but until he could solve this problem, the human race were going to keep making mistakes…
Still, even if he couldn't be sure this was going to solve anything, at least he felt like he was doing something productive right now. Whether or not Danes had anything useful to share, he had established contact for when the time came for them to put a more definite plan into action, so now it was just a matter of waiting to see what the killer had to offer.
In preparation for the new arrival, Esther had set up most of their computer equipment in the main room, and K9 was hiding in a cupboard. They wanted enough resources to assure Danes that they were professionals, but if they weren't going to show him the TARDIS, K9 was definitely going to remain a secret.
As though that particular thought had been a cue, the door opened and Natalie and Gwen walked in, accompanied by a man in a long dark coat over a grey hoodie with a weathered face and yellowish-greyish hair that struck the Doctor as distinctly 'scraggy'.
"Jack Harkness," Danes looked at Jack with a brief smile, even as Natalie took the bag off his back. "I understand it's 'Captain'?"
"Address the man in charge, Danes," Jack indicated the Doctor, only giving the killer a brief nod of acknowledgement.
"You?" Danes looked at the Time Lord in surprise.
"Me," the Doctor replied, hands clasped on the table in front of him as he looked coolly at the man who'd been the face of the Miracle just a few days ago. "I am the Doctor, Oswald Danes."
"The Doctor?"
"If you don't know about me already, that's all you need to know," the Doctor said, looking firmly at the murderer. "Now that you're here, what do you know that makes you worth talking to?"
"How about the name of the man who created the Miracle?" Danes said, looking around the room with a thoughtful smile.
"If it's true… that will help," the Doctor nodded. He knew that his initial expression made it clear he didn't entirely like the idea of getting anything useful out of Danes, but this wasn't the time to worry about appearance when he needed to know what he was up against.
"And maybe-?" Danes began.
"If you really think we've brought you somewhere where you can find out anything incriminating about us, you're not as smart as you think you are," Amy cut in.
"Really?" Danes asked.
"Really," Amy replied, her arms folded as she glared at the former teacher. "We set up here a short while ago, we can get out just as quickly, and if you honestly think that you'll earn any kind of leeway for yourself if you turn on us, then I repeat that you're not as smart as we think you are."
"Understood," Danes nodded at her with a slight smile in the corner of his mouth. The Doctor didn't know if Danes was accepting their argument or just going along with it for the moment, but he was satisfied that none of those present would be giving him a chance to get away any time soon.
"Right," Esther said, looking at Danes with a pointed expression. "If this is going to be a full exchange of information, Mr Danes, you need to tell us what you know."
"I'll say this," Danes said with a smirk on his face that the Doctor hated seeing on the face of a killer. "PhiCorp gave me an assistant, a woman called Jillian Kitzinger, and in my bag over there… I have Miss Kitzinger's laptop."
"For God's sake, is that it?" Gwen said bitterly. "We raided her files way back-"
"Wait a minute," Danes cut Gwen off. "Wait, wait. As soon as I'd stolen the laptop, good little Jilly did exactly the right things; she changed the passwords, opened new accounts, deleted the old ones… but I was watching, and I know my way around online better than most. I know how to keep myself hidden. So I shadowed her, and I'm still following her-"
"Which could be useful, but we still need to know what that has to tell us about the parties responsible for the Miracle," Jack interjected. "You said you had the name of a man."
"Soon as I say this I'll be at your mercy."
"The name," the Doctor said, shooting a brief glance at Gwen and Jack to keep quiet.
"I'll have to trust you," Danes said, an edge to his voice that was probably as close to pleading as a man like Danes could achieve (the Doctor was briefly reminded of the Master, but refused to give Danes that kind of dignity; his old friend would have remained more in control if he was ever in this kind of situation). "Remember that. I'm trusting you. One man's name keeps reoccurring. Kitzinger was employed to send him information. And his name's Harry Bosco."
"Harry Bosco," Gwen repeated.
"His name, over and over again," Danes affirmed.
"Esther?" Gwen looked over at the former analyst. "Harry Bosco."
"Sorry," Esther said, closing the laptop.
"Uh… is there a reason you aren't running that search?" Amy asked.
"You think you're clever, Oswald?" Esther said, looking back at their new 'prisoner'. "Is that really all you had?"
"It's a name."
"Harry Bosco isn't a man," Esther clarified. "Harry Bosco's a process."
The Doctor wasn't sure if he should give Danes credit for looking genuinely confused at that statement. He might not show the extent of his surprise, but at least the man was willing to concede when he didn't know something.
"What kind of process?" Natalie asked.
"It goes back to Vietnam," Esther explained (the Doctor shook his head briefly at Natalie, making a note to explain that historical reference to her later). "It was the first war to be televised and the government didn't want US networks taking feed directly from the Vietnamese, because for the first time information was beyond their control. So they put agents into every newsroom, every major TV network, filtering the output for the public. Cleverest of them all was a man called Harry Bosco."
"What did he do?" Jack asked. The Doctor thought he remembered this tale, but propaganda and doctoring information was never a comfortable topic for him, and given that he preferred to avoid getting involved in that particular war given its greater more ambiguity, the Time Lord already knew that he wouldn't know enough about the history compared to whatever Esther might be about to explain.
"He'd alter information," Esther continued. "It was subtle; he did it by mistranslation. He couldn't censor or change, but he could manipulate the English translation. Change one word, change the entire meaning; if you say victims instead of bodies, you influence public opinion. All the channels Harry Bosco these days."
"OK…" Amy nodded in contemplation as she looked between Esther and Danes for a few moments. "So Harry Bosco's a process rather than a person… why should that be a big deal to someone working in PR?"
"That… is a good point," Esther nodded at the Doctor's young companion (the Doctor was definitely going to ignore Danes' encouraging nod at this point; the man wasn't going to get the chance to basically claim he'd already been thinking that). "Why would the families hire Jilly to do all this in the first place?"
"What's she translating?" Jack asked.
"More to the point, what is she mistranslating?" the Doctor cut in. "At this point, we know that the Three Families changed their name, so Kitzinger changing words does draw some connotations…"
"Then we see if we can find something that looks significant," Esther said as she looked at the laptop with a new sense of resolution, before glancing over at the Doctor. "Do we have that kind of… linguistic ability?"
"We can handle it," the Doctor nodded at the young woman, sensing her real question. It would be complicated to explain how he could be sure of it, but even with the 'benefit' of the TARDIS translation circuits to help him, the Doctor had learnt enough Earth languages on his own to be confident that he could confirm most translations. K9 had already had a great deal of linguistic information in his database even before the original version had joined the TARDIS, so he could serve as a back-up, even if the Doctor would probably need to double-check anything K9 found to be sure the robot hadn't missed any syntax-related details. Kitzinger had probably deleted the original drafts of anything she was working on, but the Doctor didn't doubt that Danes would have managed to keep copies of anything significant, which meant all they had to do was look and see what they could find. They had to set up a couple of other laptops to be sure they could search the database as fast as possible, but soon the Doctor, Esther and Amy were searching Kitzinger's files while Jack and Natalie kept an eye on Danes.
"OK, there's one thing I don't entirely get," Amy put in after a while. "These people have been hiding for decades and doing a good job doing… whatever they did with whatever they took from Jack, so why would they bring in someone new at a time like this?"
"Because Kitzinger has experience selling a story," Jack replied.
"And they needed that?" Gwen asked.
"From what we've found so far, these Families have made it this long because they're good at staying quiet," the Doctor pointed out. "If they want to move from their discreet operations into a more public form of control, they would want to be sure how to turn the situation to their advantage."
"They'd want that?"
"The most successful invasion depends on the idea that the target doesn't know they've been invaded," the Doctor pointed out, keeping his voice low so that Danes couldn't hear enough to rouse his suspicions. "Most of my enemies failed because they made a public spectacle of themselves and encouraged opposition. On the other hand, some of the more successful attempts I've fought worked for so long because they gave the impression that they were essentially just taking over from their predecessors after things got rough."
"They made it look like they were the better option because the old guard screwed up," Amy nodded in understanding.
"And while we've seen evidence that the Families are good at building resources and contacts, that's not the same thing as selling themselves to the public," Jack observed.
"Exactly," the Doctor nodded with a smile at his friends. "I mean, I like to think that people like me well enough, and even I never try to make things public because I know that's not one of my strengths."
"I never thought you were-" Amy began.
"It's like Men in Black, Pond; people can be smart as individuals but idiots on a large scale, so I find it's easier to trust the right individuals and not let everyone know I'm there," the Doctor explained. "The closest I've come to going public was when I was assisting in a sting operation in Hong Kong to help get some crash survivors off-planet, and even then I was basically just a public face while someone else set up my reputation."
"A sting operation?" Jack looked at the Doctor with a sudden smile. "So you were involved in that Tzun mess…"
"It was a couple of bodies before we met, and we have bigger problems right now…" the Doctor began, before he looked at the screen in front of him with a cautious smile. "Now this looks interesting…"
It took a couple of hours for the search to turn up any leads, nobody wanting to engage in more detailed social talk with Danes nearby. After Gwen took a brief detour to get some food, their search revealed that particular attention had been given to a clip taken from a local news station in Shanghai. From what Esther had determined, the original Wu dialect had been dubbed into Mandarin before Kitzinger had sent it out for English subtitles. According to the subtitles, a young man who had suffered severe burns after he went crazy and burned down a hospital had said something about how it was a 'godsend' his life was saved, but from what the Doctor could overhear, that didn't quite match up with the original translation.
"You're sure about this?" Gwen looked at the Doctor.
"I had some interesting opportunities to practice my Chinese in various dialects, Gwen; I'm sure," the Doctor nodded at her, indicating the man on the screen with a firm nod. "He definitely said 'blessing' rather than 'godsend'… and that's just if we go with the Mandarin."
"And what did he say in… Wu, right?" Amy asked.
"'The Blessing saved my life'."
"…OK, nobody can say that isn't a cause for concern," Gwen said firmly.
"It's in Shanghai," Esther said.
"The Blessing's in Shanghai," Jack agreed, so abruptly he was almost interrupting the American woman.
"Uh… not to play Devil's Advocate here, but don't the Chinese know about this?" Amy asked.
"It was transmitted once and then scrubbed," Esther pointed out. "Would you remember something under those circumstances?"
"And our enemies wouldn't have gone to all this trouble to hide that recording if there wasn't something to it," the Doctor affirmed, before he turned back to the screen. "Of course, getting in there isn't going to be easy, given the current international situation…"
"We could let Rex know-" Esther began, only to interrupt herself. "No, that wouldn't work; he couldn't submit something like this without making it a full mission, and by that point any potential leaks would be able to pass on a warning."
"I knew a man once way back," Jack put in. "He worked out of Hunan Province-"
"Wait, wait, wait, just listen," Esther cut in. "OK, think about it; who burns down a hospital?"
"…Good point," Amy nodded. "There's a reason people think of criminals as having ethics; it takes a really twisted mentality to do something like that."
"Exactly," Esther nodded. "The Mandarin said it was a medical facility, but on a hunch I ran another check, and he actually burned down a blood bank."
"Blood again?" Gwen looked at the American in surprise. "What's with this obsession with blood?"
"Which is why I'm running a check on that and linking it to Kitzinger…" Esther turned back to the original laptop for a few moments before she smiled. "Yeah, she has a second clip in Spanish about a second blood bank in Buenos Aires, basically twenty-four hours before Shanghai, five days before the Miracle."
"It's not a perfect clue, but it's something to be working with," the Doctor observed. "The timing for destroying these blood banks can't be a coincidence, and we know that the representatives of the Families took a lot of Jack's blood…"
"They took Captain Harkness's blood?" Danes put in.
"None of your concern," Jack glared over at Danes.
"And we need to focus on the actual problem now, anyway," Amy said.
"…I think I can get us to Shanghai, anyway," Jack put in after a moment's silence. "Back in the old days, Torchwood tracked down a black market trade in alien artefacts coming out of China; skullion metal and coins, things like that. We closed it down but the route stayed open for arms dealing."
"We're trusting arms dealers?" Amy asked.
"And what about Buenos Aires?" Esther asked.
"What about Buenos Aires…?" the Doctor repeated, checking another laptop screen for a few moments before he tapped a few keys and turned to grin at the others. "We have an answer."
"What?" Jack asked.
"I don't know what it means yet, but Shanghai and Buenos Aires are essentially exactly opposite each other," the Doctor explained, turning the screen to show the digital globe he'd put together on the screen, with the two cities highlighted. "You see? These cities are literally on the opposite sides of the world."
"So there's… are you saying something's physically connecting them?" Amy asked, looking uncertainly at the image. "Shanghai and Buenos Aires?"
"They're antipodes," Esther put in as she ran the same search on her computer. "They're the antipodes of each other."
"Two massive population centres balanced on either side of the planet," Jack grinned.
"As the old saying goes, count your blessings, because it turns out there's two of them," Danes said, even if the rest of the group just ignored him.
"But what does that mean?" Natalie asked. "On the wider scale, I mean?"
"Look at the PhiCorp logo," Esther added as she pulled up another image. "The letter 'phi', a circle with a line through it. It's been right there in front of us, staring us in the face all this time."
"A line through the world?" Gwen looked incredulously between Jack and the Doctor.
"The Blessing," Jack affirmed. "The Miracle."
"But what is it?" Esther asked.
"We need to find out," Jack said. "We can get into Argentina no problem, anyway…"
"We need to do both," the Doctor cut in, looking between the group for a few moments before he came to a decision. "Whoever we're dealing with, they're focused on Jack and I, so we'll both go to Shanghai, and… Natalie, you go with Esther to Buenos Aires."
"I'll go with Jack," Gwen said.
"Which leaves… I'll go with Natalie and Esther," Amy said after a moment's thought. A grim expression on her face as she looked at the Doctor made it clear that she didn't like the idea of splitting up from her old friend, but at this point diversifying their resources was the best strategy. "OK if we take… you know?"
"Simpler that way," the Doctor nodded as he indicated Danes. "Particularly when we have to take him with us."
"Him?" Gwen looked incredulously at the Time Lord. "We're going to-?"
"Jack's black market contacts are the more discreet option than anything we might rely on to get to Argentina," the Doctor said, even as he glared at Danes. "Be assured that you still disgust me, but it's safer to take you with us than leave you where you could tip someone else off to our agenda."
"Quite," Danes nodded, a satisfied grin on his face as he looked at the group. "There's no real choice, is there?"
"No," the Doctor said, looking grimly at the killer before he turned to the others. "Amy, Natalie, make sure everything's in order while Gwen keeps an eye on our guest; Esther, Jack, could I have a word?"
The indicated group nodded in understanding and split up as indicated, Amy and Natalie heading for the blue box hidden in another part of the flat while the Doctor, Jack and Esther talked in the flat's main bedroom.
"Your contacts can get into China on their own, right?" Jack looked curiously at the Doctor.
"They know who to talk to and enough of them can make the right arrangements; we just can't risk relying on them to get us in there at the moment," the Doctor affirmed, before he turned to Esther. "Are you comfortable handling Buenos Aires on your own?"
"We can handle it," Esther nodded, before adopting a more cautious expression. "And… if we have a clear plan of attack… maybe we can bring someone else back into the game?"
"Agent Matheson?" Jack asked.
"I mean, I get that he didn't work out earlier, but now that we have a clearer target… well, doesn't he deserve to be in at the end?"
"…Probably," the Doctor conceded.
"Plus it would probably be a bit easier for him to get to South America than it is for us to get to Shanghai," Jack added. "If you can get in touch, it can't hurt to ask if he could join your group…"
As the group continued to make plans for the next stage of their plan, the Doctor privately hoped that he wasn't about to make a series of bad decisions. The strategies all felt good so far, but there was still that sense that he was facing a situation he should never have been involved in, which left him with the concern about how his presence could impact what might have been…