"They got us on junk patrol," Max said when he caught sight of the Doctor. The Doctor look off his jacket and hung it up near his desk. Max tipped back in his chair, and put his feet up on his desk, watching as the Doctor put his things away.
"You heard me, John?" he asked.
"Yes Max, I heard," he said. "Just out of curiosity, what's junk patrol?"
Max smirked.
"Forgot you haven't been working here very long. We all take turns trying to sort out the huge and mounting pile of bits and ends that nobody knows what to do with. We keep points. Three if you find something that works. Five if you can make it work. Ten if you can make it do something useful. Twenty if you correctly guess its function before making it work."
"You keep score?" the Doctor asked, amused.
Max shrugged.
"Sure. Office rivalry, and all that."
"How many points to do get of you clear the pile?" the Doctor asked.
Max just laughed.
"Don't be daft, mate. No one can clear the pile."
He got up, and led the Doctor to the far end of the basement, throwing open the door dramatically. Inside was a fairly large room, filled with tables on which was piled high all sorts of broken machinery and parts. On the far wall was a large chalkboard with names and numbers. The title at the top read Welcome to Limbo.
"Limbo?" the Doctor asked.
Max smirked, walking towards the chalkboard.
"Yeah. All this stuff, it's in limbo till we figure out what it is." Max grabbed a piece of chalk from the ledge beside the chalkboard, and stretching up, began to write John beside the other names.
"There. Now you're on the board." Max said, throwing himself down in what appeared to be an armchair.
"Max, this may be a stupid question, but why are there armchairs in here?" the Doctor asked.
"If you spend many hours in the same chair, it helps that they're comfy. Besides, they were donated down here by higher powers when they redid the offices on the 12th floor. nice, eh?"
The Doctor sat down in the chair beside Max's, and leaned back. Finding it very comfy indeed, he stretched out his long legs under the table, and folded his arms under his head.
"I could get used to this," he said, closing his eyes.
"Don't get too comfy," Max said, smirking. "We've got actual work to do." he pointed to the table, where piles of alien gizmos lay.
The Doctor grinned hugely.
"That's not work. That's just fun," he said.
--
"What you got there?" Max asked leaning over the Doctor's shoulder.
The Doctor offered Max the object that he had been turning over in his hands.
"It's missing a piece," the Doctor said, pointing to where the black finish was broken by a gaping hole.
"What you think it is?" Max asked. "A weapon of some kind? Could be a gun." He held the long thin object out, and pointed it at the Doctor like a gun.
"You humans!" the Doctor exclaimed. "You always think everything is a weapon if you can't explain it. Not every race in the galaxy is as prone to warring amongst itself!"
"Alright," Max said, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I just thought… John, did you say 'you' humans?"
The Doctor avoided the question. He stood up and began to look around at the various piles, routing through them.
"Ahah!" he cried, holding up a piece triumphantly. "It's not perfect, but if I solder it in there, it should resonate the same way."
He make it to the table in two huge strides, and quickly fit the new piece in, securing it with a small hot iron.
"You know what this thing is for?" Max asked. "Declare now, or lose ten points."
The Doctor smirked.
"Of course I know what it's for! I was once at a concert on Zelnok Seven with these. Different sizes make different pitches, and there were hundreds of them. It felt as if the stars themselves were singing along."
"So, it's a musical instrument then?"
Instead of answering with words, the Doctor cradled the thing in one hand, and with the other gently stroked it. High, clear notes sounded. A small smile played on the Doctor's lips.
"Now, how does the beginning of that symphony go?" he murmured to himself. His fingers danced over the surface of the instrument, and the notes began to pour out. They had an ethereal, other-worldly quality to them as they soared and dipped and floated. The Doctor closed his eyes, lost in the music and the memories of Zelnok that it brought along with it. The piece he had chosen was part of an opera. In the story, the girl was trapped in a tower all her life, and caught sight of a star streaking across the sky. She fell in love with the star, and this particular piece was her lamenting that she and the star could never be together.
The last melancholy note seemed to hang in the air, before fading away to leave silence. The Doctor let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. He was startled by a wild burst of applause. His eyes shot open.
In the room and spilling out into the hallway were people. They were all clapping, and several were wiping tears from their eyes.
"That was beautiful," a woman near the Doctor breathed. "How did you know it was going to do that?"
"I've heard a whole symphony of these things," the Doctor said, smiling wistfully at the instrument in his hand. "This one doesn't sound as good as it should, because I had to patch it up, and that threw the resonance off a little."
"Whole symphonies must be breathtaking," another person piped up.
"Yeah. Out under the sky, with the trees swaying in the breeze, and the stars overhead, and everyone listening as the music echoes off the canyon walls." The Doctor smiled at the memory.
"It's an alien artifact," a listener pointed out.
"So?" the Doctor asked, putting it on the table.
"So, how could you have heard it played?"
The Doctor smirked.
"That is a long story. So, how many points do I get for that?"
--
Rose sighed.
"We're not getting anywhere with this stuff, are we?" she asked.
Andy attempted a comforting pat on the shoulder, but with his strength, it was more like a wallop.
"Don't give up," he said.
"Never say die," chimed in Lily.
"It's always darkest before the dawn," Andy continued.
"Nothing ventured nothing gained," Lily supplied.
"Never say never ever," Rose said, laughing.
"Will you cut that out?" Marks snapped.
Rose made a face behind his back. They were only playing their favorite game to pass the time: thinking up as many ways as they could to say the same thing. And Marks was just being grouchy. Again.
"Please. This missing copper is not going to find itself," Marks said peevishly.
"We don't even know it was aliens," Lily pointed out. Lily was the tech expert of the team, and the one who had got them into the empty warehouses where they were now searching. No one was really sure what Lily had done before she came to Torchwood, but the fact remained that she could get in anywhere. There was no lock, no building, no firewall that she could not crack, pick, break, or hack.
"Your alien detector picked up some weird readings, didn't it?" Andy asked. He came up beside Lily and peered over her shoulder at the small screen. The effect of the huge man leaning over the smaller woman's shoulder would have been starting, except that Lily was used to it by now.
"I found some anomalies, yes. What do you think, Rose?"
Rose peered around the empty warehouse. Yesterday it had been filled with copper piping, and now it was totally empty. The light filtered through dusty windows, giving the entire space an eerie feeling.
"Who would want twenty four tones of copper pipe?" she mused. "It's not like copper is worth much or anything. You still getting those weird readings, Lil?"
"Only traces now," Lily said. She brushed a strand of flaming red hair off of her shoulder.
Marks scowled.
"Well then what are we doing here?" he demanded.
"Someone's in a bad mood today…" Andy said under his breath.
Lily nodded in agreement.
Marks disappeared into an adjoining room.
"What's with dear old Richard anyways?" Andy asked. "Ever since Rose got back he's been worse that usual."
"He doesn't like me," Rose said with a sigh.
"That's the weird thing," Lily said, tucking her alien detector into her bag. "When you were gone he was morose and silent. It was like he missed you or something."
"Hey! Is anyone going to help me, or do I have to do everything myself?!" Marks yelled from the other room.
Rose rolled her eyes.
"Richard Marks. Anomaly number one. I'll go." She trotted over to the room, pausing in the doorway and leaning on the frame. The room had obviously been missed by the thieves. It was still full of copper piping in stacked boxes.
"Marks? You in here?" she called.
"I'm over here, Tyler," he replied, standing up. He was holding a length of copper pipe. "It seems perfectly ordinary. Just copper, like all the rest. Why would anyone want this?" he asked.
Rose shrugged.
"And how did they empty an entire warehouse without anyone finding out?" she picked up a length of pipe from the box, and got a static shock.
"Ouch!" she cried, dropping it back into the box, where it landed with a clatter.
Marks frowned.
"That happened to me too. Static shock. There must be a lot of charge in the air."
"Yeah." Rose turned her head suddenly. "Do you hear that?"
"No," Marks replied. "Hear what?"
"That strange buzzing." Rose cocked her head to one side.
Marks paused for a moment.
"Yeah I hear it. What is that? Torrent! DiMatto! Where are you guys?"
"We're here," Andy said, arriving at the door just in time to see Rose and Marks disappear in a flash of blue light, along with every box of copper piping in the room.
--
The Doctor strolled into the main lobby of the Torchwood tower, hands deep in his pockets. Ahead of him, Max was walking at a quick pace, his sneakers making a dull thud on the polished tile. They walked up to the main desk, where Max leaned nonchalantly.
The secretary looked up, and smiled.
"Maxie! Don't see you in the light much. What you doing up here?"
"I came to see you, dollface," Max said, winking at her. "Listen, if you're free for dinner tonight, I thought you and I might find a nice romantic table for two, and…"
"What are you really here for?" she cut him off, smiling indulgently.
"Can't I just come up here to see you?" Max asked, pouting.
"No. You always want something."
"Well, sometime I should come up here just to prove you wrong. Unfortunately, this is not that time. Package here for Mr. Banks. Can you see that he gets it?"
"Sure, Maxie. No problem." She smiled, and held out her hand for the Doctor's instrument.
"Tell him he will be interested in this one," Max instructed.
The girl frowned.
"Max… you're always sending him things you think he might be interested in. But they always end up being junk and he sends them back and yells at me over the phone."
"This one's not junk. Tell him to stroke it."
"Tell him to what?" the secretary asked.
"Stroke it. It will make sense when he gets it. Please? For me?" Max smiled and fluttered his eyelashes.
The girl laughed.
"Only for you, Sweetie," she replied.
Max grinned, and left the table.
The Doctor watched the proceedings, amused.
"You always sweet-talk the receptionist?" he asked.
Max shrugged.
"What can I say? Michelle's hot for me."
"And yet, she wouldn't go out to dinner with you."
"Don't ruin the moment, man. Just because you've got a gorgeous fiancée doesn't mean you have to rub it in that I am pathetically single," Max lamented.
"So that's standard procedure, to send Banks interesting stuff we find?" the Doctor asked.
They were waiting for the elevator to take them back to the basement, but it was taking a long time.
"Well, not really," Max admitted. "But I am assuming his office supervisor job is very boring, so I send him things that I think he will think is interesting. Like your instrument for instance."
"Very kind of you," the Doctor said.
Max grinned.
"Yeah. I'm a regular fount of kindness, aren't I?"
A crowd of people at the other end of the lobby caught their attention.
"I wonder what's going on there?" Max asked.
"My Spidy-senses are tingling," the Doctor commented.
Max looked at him very strangely.
"Eh?" he asked.
"You know. Spider-man? The comic book hero? His Spidy-senses tingling whenever there's trouble?" the Doctor asked.
Max looked blank
"Never heard of him. And I read comic books."
"No Spider-man here? Blimey. I could make a fortune," the Doctor said. They were now quite close to the crowd of people. They were all standing around two others, who were leaning against each other for support. A huge Latino man, who looked as though he used to be muscle for the Mafia, and a petite redheaded woman. The Doctor recognized them as Andy DiMatto and Lily Torrent from Rose's team.
Lily caught sight of the Doctor above the crowd.
"John!" she called. The crowd parted to let him through. "John! Thank goodness!" she said. She looked frightened, and anxious.
"What is it?" the Doctor asked, suddenly concerned. "Where's Rose?"
"That's just it!" Andy said. "She and Marks are gone."
"What do you mean, gone?" the Doctor demanded, an old fear gripping his heart.
"Just vanished! We were looking for the copper that went missing last night. It's been going missing all over the city. And she and Marks went into another room, and when we came, they just vanished in a flash of blue!" Lily buried her face in Andy's chest, and burst into tears. He rubbed her back soothingly, but he looked shaken up himself.
The Doctor turned on his heals, and practically ran to the elevator.
"Where are you going?" Max panted, running after him.
The Doctor's eyes blazed.
"I lost her once. I'm not going to let it happen again. I'm going to go rescue Rose!"
Author's Note: Hmmm… this took me in a different direction than I wanted to go. I didn't plan on ending this chapter with a cliffhanger, but then the conclusion to this subplot seemed too long for a single chapter. The reason this chapter took me three days to write instead of just one was that I was totally blocked trying to figure out what happened next. I know what I want to happen in the long run, it's just writing myself to that point that's the problem. But now I know where this is going in the short term, so that's good. And you won't have to wait that long for the next chapter: I already have it all planned out!
I'm thinking the Torchwood teams are like SG Teams on Stargate. They are made up of 4-6 people with specific skills, that run around chasing aliens and investigating alien activity. Like Jack's team, only there are lots of them. Rose's team consists of: her, the alien expert, Richard Marks, the weapons expert, Lily Torrent, the tech expert, and Andy DiMatto, the muscle.
Thank you to everyone who left reviews for the last chapter. I am totally getting spoiled with the amount and length of these reviews! You are going to ruin me for normal writing! Not that I mind… :-)