IDChapter4

As Rose and Jon entered the lab they were greeted by Dr. Toshiko Sato, who had recently been promoted to be Torchwood's Research and Development Team Lead. Jon had been grooming her to take his place, and he felt he was leaving R&D in very capable hands.

"Tosh," Jon greeted her, "Rose would like to have a look at those messages from the Gliese 581 system. You don't mind, do you?"

"Of course not, Doctor," Tosh smiled in reply, then looked at Rose, "Any help you can offer, Ms. Tyler, is appreciated."

"Well I don't know if I can help," Rose began when Jon cut her off.

"Of course you can, Rose, just take a look."

Rose shot him a look, then shrugged and allowed Tosh to lead her to a terminal. "Have a seat, Ms. Tyler."

"Call me Rose, please," she gently insisted. Since assimilating his brother's personality Jon had stopped insisting that people refer to him by name, and had reverted to 'the Doctor' for the most part, but she had never gotten used to being called anything but 'Rose'. She frowned at the screen in front of her for a moment. Nothing registered, it looked like gibberish to her, but she kept searching for a pattern anyway. Slowly a niggling started in the back of her mind, she couldn't say why, but something was trying to surface. Was it a memory? She closed her eyes, breathed deeply through her nose, relaxing and ignoring everything around her, and started searching her mind for the niggle. Jon had taught her this method of meditation when they first came to this world, and it had come in handy more than once. Slowly an image formed in her mind. A being with wings, in the other universe they had dealt with thses beings, they were...

"Krillitanes!" She gasped, opening her eyes and staring at Jon. Swiftly Jon sat at the terminal beside her and started typing.

"What are you doing?" Tosh asked him.

"Assuming Rose is right - and she generally is - and assuming Krillitanes exist in this universe and are pretty much identical to the ones in the other universe, these algorithms should help decrypt that message." His hands flew over the keyboard. for several minutes, before he dramatically pushed 'Enter' and exclaimed "HAH!", triumphantly pushing away from the desk and gesturing for Tosh to read.

"It's requesting a status report," she concluded, "on two subjects of an experiment, asking what progress is still being made."

"Exactly!" Jon exulted. "Rose, you are brilliant!"

Rose grinned sheepishly, "I didn't decrypt it, I just figured out who sent it."

"Oh, don't sell yourself short Rose darling, without that insight of yours who knows how long we would have been puzzling over this. Brilliant, simply brilliant!" He planted an enthusiastic kiss on her lips as Tosh averted her eyes.

"I'll get Jacob to decrypt the rest of the messages and have them sent up to your office," Tosh said, referring to her code specialist.

"Fantastic!" Jon exclaimed, "Now we'll have something for our meeting with the Space Marshall. Please have copies sent to Director Tyler as well."

Tosh nodded as Jon grabbed Rose's hand and practically dragged her out of the lab.

"What's the rush?" she asked. Jon placed his finger over his lips and pulled her along, walking swiftly out of the building and across the street, then down over the hill to a park bench where they could sit with their backs to the building.

"You know what this means, don't you?" he asked her.

She nodded. "They're here, probably doing the same thing they did in our universe, experimenting on humans with their oil."

"Yep - p," he pronounced, "and they could be anywhere, or almost anyone."

"Lovely," Rose sighed, "so what are we going to do about it? We can't leave until this is cleared up. Do you think they're using a school again?"

"Nope. I think they're using us." As her eyes widened in shock he continued, "Think about it, Rose. What was the headmaster's name? Finch, wasn't it? And the changes you've gone through, plus Arianna's incredible mind, even for a Gallifreyan child..." he paused and let it sink in.

"Oh my God! Arianna!"

Jon held tightly onto both her hands, keeping her seated. "Hold on, Rose, we can't over-react, we can't let them know how much we're on to them. They aren't going to hurt her, they need her for something, probably the same thing they tried in the other universe, solving the Skasis Paradigm. We need to remain calm and discover what they're doing and how they're doing it, then we can act. Now, what have you told anyone about that adventure?"

"Nothing, really, never had any reason to."

"Good, neither have I. So, even with knowing we translated the messages - and we have to assume they have others besides Ms. Finch in Torchwood - they don't know how much we know about them. So, we have to be careful who we discuss this all with and how much we tell them."

"Do you think the Space Marshal could be one of them?"

"Hmmm... good question... nah." Jon shook his head. "His regard for you is too genuine. Krillitanes are too arogant to have admiration for humans. You're essentially lab rats to them."

"Who do you think they are, then?"

"Hard to say. Not family or close friends, that's for sure, we'd know. So we need to look at people we don't know well, but with whom we work closely."

"Like Janice." Rose said resignedly. "No wonder I could never get friendly with her."

"Right. Or even Tosh." He shrugged. "She's seemed rather aloof lately. Could be stress over being promoted, or it could be something else. We'll have to watch what we say around her. Anyway, let's go back to work, before anyone misses us."

They strode back to the building, hand in hand, thoughtful.