PLAGUE
NINETEEN
What was left of the Captain's team was sitting around the conference table.
"Owen, tell us what you have."
"We're dealing with some sort of nanotechnology – molecular machinery. When the nanomaterials interact with biomaterials we get catalytic activity that causes the hemorrhaging. These are self-sufficient engineered robots a billionth of a meter in size. As far as I know, they are not of this planet and they are programmed, apparently, to kill."
The physician leaned back in his chair, "The astronaut's brain and other tissues are riddled with them."
Jack groaned loudly and put his head in his hands.
"You had no way of knowing. Jack, they're smaller than a DNA double-helix, and 200 times smaller than the smallest cellular lifeform on earth. There's no mechanism we could've used to contain them, even if we'd known they were there. I've tested myself and they're in my bloodstream but inert. I don't know if they're turned off or just waiting for another command..."
He looked sympathetically at his Captain. "You had them in your tissue samples when you were comatose, but I don't find any present in the more recent samples I've taken. Your body must've come up with some novel way to eradicate them. Lucky you! If I were to bet, I'd put my money on Ianto and Rose playing host to these buggers as well; we seem to be asymptomatic carriers, more than likely capable of infecting others."
Owen shook his head sullenly, "I don't know of any way to destroy them without totally annihilating the host."
"Well that's happy news. Good work, by the way, Doctor Harper. Ianto?"
"Gwen and Tosh report the abandoned coal mines were E.T. graveyards. Nothing was left alive. They also checked on the handful of aliens we knew were living in the city itself; all are dead. They're now on their way to London to assist there, but neither is optimistic at this point."
Ianto frowned deeply. "Jack, the Shrake that resided in the old mines were not even remotely humanoid. They were more insectoid than anything else, and Tosh thinks the cause of death might be related to a contamination or corruption of the spiracles that lead to their respiratory system. She believes they asphyxiated. She said it was not a good way to go. There were hundreds of them and they're all evidently deceased."
"Interesting mutation," Owen thought out loud.
"Who would design and build tiny plague machines like this?" asked Rose, incredulously shaking her head. "It just doesn't make sense."
"Someone who wants to kill quickly and efficiently," said Jack, rubbing his temples. "But I agree with you, it is senseless."
The Captain turned back to the young physician. "Owen, keep working on those damn things – I don't want them inert, I want them eradicated."
Jack's gaze shifted. "Rose, get on the phone in my office, call the White House and tell them everything we've learned, there's a number on my desk."
He caught her reaction. "Just inform them you're with Torchwood, they'll listen."
She nodded in response. He returned the gesture curtly and then moved on.
"Ianto, get me NASA. We have to figure out a way to safely and effectively take out the space station; it has to be pulverized to a sub-atomic scale and I'm not sure Torchwood has the right kind of missiles on hand."