Nine: Revelation of a Situation

The Torchwood van pulled up, allowing Andy to look over and smile upon seeing Gwen and her group again. "This one's obviously yours."

"I don't like the sound of that," she told him reluctantly, "last time we heard that, it was pretty bad."

Andy nodded. "I heard. Sorry about it, and...well...it's bad, Gwen. Really bad."

The group nodded, everyone heading back towards the roped off area. The call had come in about a body found in an alleyway, and the police had responded, signaling for Torchwood as well. They walked professionally into the alley, then stopped upon finding the actual sight of the killing.

The body was lying on the ground, partly but not fully concealed by anything. Blood soaked most of the clothing, and deep cuts traced along the man's arms and legs. The only part of him not covered in blood was his face, his hair short but also covered in blood and looking like it had been beaten.

"Oh my God," Ianto whispered, "I know him."

--

Marius felt his hands being untied and started to move when his arms were pulled upward, causing him to hiss in pain as the untying continued, though now at that painful angle. "You'll be fine, little one, I'm not about to be cruel just yet."

The rope undone, the man behind him now twisted his hands, making Marius fall onto his stomach, letting out a low whimper at the cold against his skin and the pain he was feeling.

"You're quite pretty, aren't you? A very nice-looking boy with," a hand now touched his back, showing that only one hand was holding onto his wrists as the finger traced the faded scar on his back, "such an odd body. Where did you get this, young one?"

Marius stayed silent, causing the man to flip him over suddenly and backhand him just as violently. "Not one for conversation, are you? Not one for much of anything but taking what we give you."

The ring of the voice was familiar in an odd way, but Marius stayed silent and unresponsive, causing another violent backhand to hit him before the hand was gripping him at the throat. "I was told to stop treating you kindly, but I didn't think I wanted to do that anyway. It's not my style. I don't care who your Hub is, or if you talk or not. I want what you have, little one, and I will take it."

The man leaned in, putting more pressure on Marius throat before violently kissing him, biting his lip hard in order to force his tongue in.

Marius reacted.

Another sharp backhand followed as Marius spit some of the blood that had gotten into his mouth from biting down on the man's tongue, his own lip bleeding as well from the bite and being slapped.

Instead of being annoyed, the man seemed to be even more excited. "That's right. Fight me. You won't win, but I'd rather have someone who fights then someone who doesn't."

The strange echo of a past memory, or perhaps not his own memory, suddenly caused Marius to panic and realize who this was and what his crime had been before the man-Vince leaned down again, trying to grab his arms.

Marius struck, fighting from his position with a strange will of self-preservation and fright. The blows and hits were familiar too as Vince either fought them off or reeled when one landed before Marius once more found himself pinned, this time with his arms pinned under him by the combined body weight and Vince pulling violently at his slacks.

"You're just like that Welsh bastard too. Oh, I'm going to enjoy this." He leaned in to whisper, "You don't mind if I yell out his name when I take you, do you? His ass is probably as tight as yours is."

Marius sent his head back, clipping Vince on the side of the head but enough to cause him to become disoriented as Marius shakily stood, heading for the door again when he was tackled down, now being hit again and again upside his head and chest, one lucky hit sending him into darkness.

--

Jack had waited until they found the bloody card reading "for torchwood, a gift of the past" before taking over the scene from the police and taking the body back to the Hub. There, Jack had pulled Ianto to the side after Toshiko found the information.

Vince Renton, formerly of Torchwood One, had been charged with five counts of rape and sexual assault, though none had gone through because the victims tended to forget after falling asleep. The only one who hadn't had been a new employee of Torchwood One and who had escaped to report him: Ianto Jones.

So Jack had called Ianto into his office after having Owen check on the body, with Toshiko helping out, and Gwen checking the police reports and CCTV for any known sightings of Vince in the past week.

Jack sat beside him and waited. "Did he hurt you?"

Ianto sighed before nodding.

"Did he do anything--."

"No...no, but he..." Ianto shifted in his chair before taking a long drink of beer and then saying, "He tried. He nearly did, but I got lucky and was able to run. I reported it and didn't drink anything for a day, until I could testify against him."

Jack stayed silent as Ianto, almost like he was giving a report, told him that he had met Vince for drinks and Vince had tried to rape him, though first he had tried to beat him. Ianto, while not the best fighter in the world, used his fear of what would happen as well as luck to get away and reported it officially. A few days later, there was the attack on Canary Wharf.

Jack leaned back in his chair. "So he knew you were seeing Lisa at the time?" The name drudged up too many bad memories for the two of them, and hadn't been spoken since the 'last snogged' game nearly a year ago, but this time...

"He did. He asked me out for a talk about one of her coworkers and possibly 'hitching up' with them. A type of double-date, a surprise for the girls. Plus, her birthday was coming up...Lisa's was...and..."

Jack put a hand on Ianto's shoulder. "You've been out of it for the past two days, Ianto. What's wrong?"

Ianto took another drink and shook his head. "I dunno, sir. I...bad dreams. It's odd...like something is trying to reach me but not, like...like I can see through a closed door but only barely, and I know that I have to help but they're holding it shut too tightly."

Jack frowned and blinked. "Me too. I had some odd feeling earlier, like someone wanted help but not ours...and yet--." Jack stopped before standing, "Ianto, was there anything else odd that happened during the past few days?"

"Other then—the usual?"

Jack let a small smile slip through before nodding and Ianto looked away before saying, "When I left...when John had hurt the others, I heard a voice. It made me look at...at something, a watch or some sort of bracelet I found in a drawer at the office. Right before he made me leave..."

Jack leaned down, comfortably in Ianto's personal space before he asked, "Did they say who they were?"

Ianto frowned, then nodded. "A Caretaker. He said he was our Caretaker, and had helped me before...during--."

Jack nodded, "I know. I've heard him too. Come on."

"Sir?"

Jack turned back then said, "I have a feeling that man and our Caretaker might be connected, so let's find out how."

--

Ulamo glared at Vince, who had been pulled out of the room when he had started to remove the unconscious boy's pants. "I never said you could, Vince. In fact, I've given you enough to keep yourself occupied without touching what is rightfully mine."

Vince snorted. "Yours? You came here telling us you would give us back Torchwood, that you would allow us to have control. You pointed me to the man that was my downfall, and now you say that that brat in there is yours. You have done nothing for us. If your plan was so well, we would have given Torchwood Three a sign, gotten them here and used them against him, not relied on him to break. If they are his hub or whatever strange term it is, alien," the word was spat out with annoyance, "then bringing them here, seeing which one of them he reacts to the most, is what we must do."

Ulamo looked at him, his eyes having gone emotionless and black like that of a shark before he slowly circled Vince, the others watching from nearby. "Is it? How shall we do that, then? Send them an invitation? Remind that young boy that the dear undead Captain enjoys so much of you? Are you so sad, because you missed the chance to pop that particular cherry? How, my dear Torchwood One man, should we bring out the group that coddles aliens like myself?"

Vince cast a glare at him before saying, "We let them see me, know that I'm here. Ianto will come after me, and so will the others, wanting to protect each other. It won't take much. Just a glimpse of my face, and he'll want his revenge against me."

The others nodded, seeing the merit in this suggestion. Ulamo looked around at them, then back at Vince before smiling. "That is a good idea. I'm glad you thought of it, Vince. A glimpse of your face is all that anyone would need to be reminded of what you almost did to him...and a note, I think. A note, and knowing you're around, would send anyone looking for us and allow us to spring our traps, wouldn't it?" Ulamo's face broke into the split, inhuman grin he wore, his eyes now filled with mirth that caused Vince to relax. "So that is what we will give them."

Vince nodded, starting to head out when he found himself grabbed, a small band going around his neck before Ulamo said, "I never said they would see you when you were alive. This bad will give you cuts for three hours. Long enough for someone to find you. It also won't harm your face."

Vince gasped as the first cut bleed through, dropping blood onto the floor as it quickly soaked his sleeve and arm.

Ulamo pushed him forward, tossing him into the van before saying simply, "You should never touch what isn't yours, Vince. Let this be a very ending lesson."

--

"Lucite?" Ianto asked, confused.

"That's all it is, with some odd compounds that are generally alien, but not enough that anyone wouldn't be able to confuse it with that," Toshiko said.

Owen motioned to the body, "And these weren't made by anything. They just...appeared. From what we can tell, the lucite collar might have had something to do with that. It's structure is changed and when we divide them, we get one as general lucite and acrylic glass, the other as a code for creating these types of wounds."

Jack frowned. "So we have something that's simple to make, but changed in a way that's deadly, and killed a former Torchwood employee who's been MIA since Canary Wharf."

"On top of that," Gwen said, "there's some CCTV footage that's been cut out as well, from three days ago at that building where Ianto said he saw something like that lucite item. The one in the building showed someone entering the area, but after he gets the item it blanks out to the next day."

"And I tried to find it, but none of the files are around, or too corrupted to be put back together," Toshiko said, "this is the type of things Torchwood One used to do."

Ianto nodded, "So there's more of them."

"Who is the question," Jack said, "and what we have to find out, as well as find the missing guy from the film." The grainy picture, showing a man of medium height with dirty-blond hair, a plain blue shirt and jeans, was up on the screen as Jack looked over at it, "He's been missing three days. That's not good."

There was a sudden buzzing as the group looked around. It sounded almost like an intruder alert but at the same time--

A whirling noise suddenly filled the room as a tall, blue wooden box slowly appeared into view.

--

Andrew looked at the alien as it slowly blinked awake, now hung from the hook on the ceiling, the small vial of blood for testing withdrawn before he said to Ulamo, "I'll check on it, sir."

Ulamo nodded, looking over at the other alien who seemed to slowly work himself into the world around him after being asleep for so long. Ulamo had wanted him to recover a little more so the work could be more of a 'challenge'. Andrew knew that with Vince's body and the lucite item, it wouldn't take long for the other Torchwood to find them and run into the trap, which he had called "the Nightmare Room".

But for now, Ulamo had carried in the box of lucite bands he had created for the purpose of torturing others. Andrew, the oldest of the bunch to have joined Ulamo after the fall of Torchwood One, knew that they could be used on humans and Sidra alike with ease, and had been used to help him build the Nightmare Room for that reason.

But his area of torture and information gathering had never been what the other's had been. His had been chemicals and those products. He had helped Ulamo create and recreate the various lucite items he now was going to use on that Sidra.

And while he was at it, he would find what it would take to make that Sidra's life miserable.

Early on, Ulamo had shown that his blood and body reacted easily to any type of drug or narcotic, creating something interesting for Andrew to look into, which he had. Ulamo hadn't minded, wanting to use it for any other Sidra that appeared. With that one now, he could do more look.

Andrew smiled as he placed a small drop of blood on his microscope and began his study to find the right chemical to make the younger alien give over the information.

--

The bands were all colored differently, and Marius recognized them by the colors often associated with galactic emergencies or just the colors more often associated with certain things. He happily noted no black colored bands...black usually indicated death or deadly natures.

Like he said...I'm not going to die yet.

Ulamo picked up a mauve colored one. Dangerous. Marius looked over as Ulamo walked up. "I sent your friends a package. They should have gotten it by now, and as well they'll be investigating into it. They'll work their way here, and to you. I'd like the names of the ones that I'm to protect, so I can make sure you're fine for a while longer."

Marius stayed silent as the band was fastened to his arm. "Very well then. Let's make you care a little more about that, my dear boy."

The band fastened, Marius suddenly felt his body jerk as pain radiated down that side, like he was being repeatedly hit by a bat or train or something as another band was fastened to the other arm.

Red...what's Red? Not dangerous...it's...oh what is it?

"If you yell my name, if you yell 'I will', then I'll take them off," Ulamo said as the other one fastened to him and he remembered with the pain.

Fire...oh Elders...

His left side was on fire, being burned and regenerating to be burned again as his other side was a mass of hits by solid objects that stole his breath. The pain was so much and yet something refused to let him slip into unconsciousness, something held him there to experience it over and over again as he fought and lost against the scream that left his body as he tried to ride out the pain but failed.

The one to the side was joined by another one...Marius couldn't classify the colors as more pain, this one cold and biting, hit him with the same force as the blunt object hitting him that wasn't and the fire that burned him but wasn't.

"Are you ready to tell me, boy? I have so many colors, and so much time. We have all the time in the world until Andrew is done with his research. Are you ready to tell me and not see what it is that Andrew is good at?"

I promised to protect them. I can't give them up. I won't.

"Boy? Tell me?"

Marius gasped at the pain before his voice caught and he shouted "No" while the pain continued.

Then the pain was gone completely and his body slumped, gasping for breath as the bands were put the side and two more were brought up to him. "A pity. Shall we continue then?"

Marius' body shook as he struggled to recover from the hit before Ulamo put the items down. "Open up the connections. Let me see who you're connected with. Let me know, so that I can bring them to you."

Marius shook his head.

"I can do so much to you, boy. I can pull so much from you it would hurt more then any of your line has felt. Tell me, and I'll stop this pain."

Marius shook his head.

"Are you enjoying this then? Do you want me to continue, and wait for them to come in broken?"

Something moved in the back of Marius' mind but he ignored it in favor of the here and now. "Y-you won't. T-th-they w-wi-will stop y-you."

Ulamo smiled. "So confident. I suppose they might. But in the meantime, I shall have my fun."

The two bands went now around his neck as Ulamo used his hair to hold his head up. "This will cause you a good amount of harm. Please, scream all you like from this. It will be on for a few minutes, but that will feel like days I'm told."

The two clamps closed, and as the pain went through him, Marius began to scream.

--

"OUT! Both of you, out!" the male voice sounded off as two figures, both familiar to Jack, stumbled out of the TARDIS doors and were followed but another male that had dark brown hair and a doctor's suit before the door was closed and he looked up before saying, "Ah, we are here. I knew she could do it. Well...ah, could you not point guns at us?"

Jack motioned for Gwen and Owen, who had pulled their guns, to put them away before saying, "To what do I owe the honor? I didn't think I'd run into you so soon, Doctor."

The Doctor looked up at him then pointed at the male. "Ask him! I was being perfectly fine and alone when he jumped into my ship and then--."

"OH, will you stop bitching because the TARDIS likes me and choose to listen to me and not you? Half of this mess is your fault anyway and you will fix it or so help me I will--."

"Avery," Lilith said, "I think he'd like an explanation as to why we're here anyway."

Avery, as the male was called, paused at this and nodded. "Right. I forgot about that, and we're late anyway. Come down here and let me see you all! I've heard enough about you guys from Marius, I think I can meet you and explain it without having to yell anyway."

At Jack's movement, the group slowly moved down to where the three and the TARDIS was before Avery said, "Well, I'm Avery. Jack knows the Doctor and Lilith..."

"Too well," Jack said, remembering his time on the Valiant and what had happened, though to look at Lilith it was obvious she had done something that had taken it's toll on her.

"You can get that tone out of your voice right now about my niece, Mr. Harkness," Avery told him, "I'm here to recruit your group in a rescue mission."

"Rescue?" Owen asked.

"Yes," the Doctor said, "Apparently one of their race went missing and they want us to find him and kill someone."

Both Lilith and Avery gave him a look that told Jack that the Doctor had obviously missed the point.

"Ulamo is hardly anyone." Lilith's voice was obviously strange and as if she was holding back barely-concealed contempt for the one named.

Avery turned to Toshiko and handed over a small CD. "Ulamo is a Sidra, like myself and Lilith. We watch over younger races like Humans and Time Lords, and Marius is your Caretaker."

Ianto and Jack blinked as many missing pieces clicked into place before Jack said, "Come upstairs. We'll discuss the whole thing."

--

The door closed on the hoarse screams of the younger Sidra as Ulamo walked out to look at the work Andrew was doing. "Is it ready?"

"It is. But you can play a little longer" Andrew shrugged, "I'm not sure what this will do for his connections to the group, but if one of them is well-connected, he could feel the effects it has on Marius, and force them here sooner."

Ulamo nodded. "Good. I think I noticed one that's closer. It will help me as well. I'm open the opening a little more after you give him the drug. What is it?"

"Lysergic acid diethylamide," he told Ulamo simply, "a low dose for Humans, but high for your species. Enough that he will be in discomfort for a good while."

Ulamo nodded. "Good work. If that's all, I'll go back to my work then."