11
A sprawling - and completely empty - communications complex. Giant satellite dishes everywhere.
Inside, we find an unkempt young man. Also sleep-deprived, over-caffeinated and kinda sweet. This is Eugene. He is alone but for his mannikin-like Love-bot, Gwen.
He's surrounded by screens, computers, feeds – machinery that looks both ultra-modern and long neglected. All the screens play different images - it's a mediaverse.
As he watches the security feed of Ianto's fight his image becomes a vidscreen. He's addressing Mickey, Jax and Martha.
"Oh, this is good. This is..." he giggles with glee "he's beating up all the burly men and I'm having a catharsis, it's happening right now, you guys always bring me the very best violence. You think you're in a hot place?"
"That's what we're looking to learn. Is there any follow up, a newswave..." Mickey demands.
"There is no "news", there's the truth of the signal, what I see, and there's the puppet theatre the Parliament's jesters foist on the somnambulant public. Monkey taught to say the word "monkey" – lead story on 32 planets. But the slum riots on Hera, not a…"
"What about this?" Jax demands with open surprise, "Did this make the... puppet theatre?"
"No sir. And no lawforce flags, either - I hadda go into the security feed direct..." Eugene says with wonder.
"You can do that?" Jax asks.
"Can't stop the signal, Jax." Eugene rolls his eyes, "Everything goes somewhere and I go everywhere. Security feeds are a traipse to access - and I wasn't the first one in, this has prints on it - oh! Look at him go!
Everyone is getting bruises and contusions. Contoooosions."
"So somebody else has been fed this." Martha turns to Jax "That doesn't like me too well."
"Martha, you sultry minx, stop falling in love with me. You're just gonna embarrass yourself. I have a commitment to my Lovebot, it was a very beautiful ceremony, Gwen wrote her own vows, I cried like a baby, a hungry, angry baby." Eugene gushes theatrically then glances back to Ianto on the screen, "Aaaaaand he falls asleep. Which, he would be sleepy."
"Can you go back? See if anybody spoke with him 'fore he acted up,
made any kind of contact with him?" Jax asks and Eugene works the screen. The image rewinds and stops on Ianto coming up to it, looking at it.
He whispers the word, "Hallett", and starts to move away.
"Hallett...?" Jax mutters, "Go back further."
"No" Eugene said blankly as he pulls another screen close, starts working that one.
Matching timecodes, he pulls up the commercial.
"Um... please?" Jax says with wide eyes, then shrugs.
Eugene has a third screen showing the commercial as well - and it starts breaking down, bursts of code showing through. As he does so "Friends and potential lovers, I have good news and I have the other kind. Good is you're very smart. Someone is talking to him."
"The oaty bar?" Mickey leans forward with interest.
"Subliminal." Jax gets it "It's a subliminal message broadwaved to trigger him."
"I been seeing this code pop up all over, last few weeks. And I cannot crack it. It's Agency and it's high military, so here then is the bad. Someone has gone to enormous trouble to find your little friend. And found him they have."
Jax, Martha and Mickey look at each other.
"Do you all know what it is you're carrying?" Eugene questions.
.
.
.
.
In the locker room Ianto stares at Owen, impassive, as he is cleaning blood off Ianto's face.
"They're afraid of me." Ianto says dreamily.
"I'm sorry..." Owen sighs.
"They should be. What I will show them... Oh God..." he starts tearing up, breathing faster... Owen runs his hands through Ianto's hair.
"It's okay, it's okay..." Owen croons sadly as his brother panics.
"Show me off like a dog, old men covered in blood, it never touched them but they're drowning in it...so much loss... I don't know what I'm saying. I never know what I'm saying..." Ianto is whispering as if dazed.
"You said something. When you were triggered, do you remember? The Captain saw you say something on the feed..." Owen prompts.
"Hallett."
"Hallett?" Owen repeats.
"Ask her. She'll show you all." Ianto's laugh is quiet, sad and bitter.
"Show us what? Who is Hallett?" Owen whispers, "Am I... talking to Hallett now?"
Ianto shoots him a look. "I'm not a multiple, dumbo."
"No. Right. But I think somehow when they triggered you it brought this up, this memory"
"It isn't mine. The memory. I didn't bring it and I shouldn't have to carry it, it isn't mine." Ianto whimpers, pulling at the restraints, "Don't make me sleep again."
"I won't."
"Put a bullet to me. Bullet in the brain pan, squish."
"Don't say that. Not ever. We'll get through this." Owen snarls and Ianto reaches out and touches his face, affectionately.
"Things are going to get much much worse." He tells Owen conversationally.
"Well, the Captain hasn't tossed us in the airlock, so I'd say we're…"
"He has to see. More than anyone... he has to see what he doesn't want to." Ianto sighs.
"Ianto. What will Hallett show us." Owen demands.
Ianto thinks.
"Death."
"Whose death?" Owen demands and Ianto starts laughing. Quietly at first, then louder, then almost uncontrollably, screaming in his face:
"EVERYBODY'S!"