Tobey was amazed at the technology in the second rabbit. It was so different from the first one. First, it was all made in one time. The elements seemed to be in a great harmony together. After some analysis he could easily tell it was a miniature computer unlike the other ones. He couldn't discover what could be the thing jamming the signal but since it was still being intercepted it he figured that it had to be inside. And the only thing left to check was that tiny computer inside. He had already connected it to his laptop but the algorithms were quite long and complicated and moreover not compatible with his software.
He didn't notice when the cog-wheel entrance opened and Martha and Jack entered dragging a man with them. He looked very average: short haircut, neither tall nor short, his face unrecognisable in the street.
"Any news from Ianto?" Jack asked finally getting through to Tobey.
"Nope, nothing," the man answered. "I tried calling again a few times but he either turned his cell phone off or there's something wrong with his connection."
"Drop anything you're doing right now, we need to find him," Jack ordered.
"I almost got it though," Tobey protested.
"Got what?"
"This one is different," Tobey explained. "It has a computer inside though I can't get through to the files."
"That's James!" the captured man said walking towards the desk. Up until now he had been amazed with this place hidden underneath Cardiff but now something else took over him. "That's my daughter's toy! Why do you have it?"
"An apple doesn't fall far from the tree," Jack said. "Care to explain Mr Anderson?"
"I took one for my daughter," the man explained. "I didn't know it would be bad. When I looked at it I knew that Alice would love it. How come you have it?"
"Why is he here?" Tobey asked, turning around. He couldn't help but feel annoyed with the conversation taking place above his head when he was trying to work.
"He's the one who'll lead us to the person responsible," Jack explained. "You said so already that this isn't exactly twenty-first century technology."
"No, I said it's not technology from our times, I said nothing about the twenty-first century," Tobey raised his brow, suspicious.
"Anyway, whoever that person is we need to find him and find out what he's doing with all this technology," Jack avoided the subject. "That's our top priority. Second is finding Ianto. He couldn't have just disappeared off the face of the Earth."
"Wait a second, what are you people talking about?" Jeremy cut in. "What is this technology-talk anyway."
"You better call your precious family and tell them you're not going home tonight." Jack once again changed the subject.
"What do you mean? You won't let me out!" Jeremy was once again panicking.
"Can't have you going to the enemy," Jack explained casually. "It's just easier to have you here."
"What do you mean? Where will I sleep? I need to sleep. And eat," Jeremy started speaking the first thoughts that came into his mind without thinking. It was enough a problem that he got involved in it all and that his daughter was somehow connected as well.
"Oh, I don't think that'll be the problem," Jack answered. "There's plenty of room in the lower level. I think that you will be satisfied, come with me."
Tobey was amazed with how well Jack played the situation out. The man wasn't even in the slightest bit aware where Jack was leading him.
He glanced at Martha who was approaching him to see what he was working on. Her face changed though when she looked at his computer screen. Tobey followed her gaze.
"What is that?" she asked coming closer.
They were both looking at Tobey's laptop screen and the words that were now forming themselves on a black screen. The interface disappeared and was replaced with letters.
"DON'T TAKE ME AWAY FROM ALICE," the letters said. "I ONLY TRIED TO PROTECT HER."
Tobey stared at his screen unable to utter a single word. Martha had a lot more experience in dealing with these matters.
"Protect her from what?" she asked wondering whether she should write it as well.
"THE MAN WHO SELLS INFORMATION."
Tobey watched amazed as the letters formed and changed until the right words were formed. The initial message was so different from the one at the end, as if the computer was still learning the language.
"Information about what?" Martha continued asking.
"RANDOM PEOPLE. THEY'RE EVERYDAY LIFE, STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES."
"Who is behind all this?"
"That's what I'd like to know as well," Jack said from behind their backs.
"Already done?" Martha asked surprised to see him up so quickly.
"Yeah, a bit of sedative and there was no problem," Jack smiled. "What have we got here?"
"We're speaking with this bunny here," Tobey said still half believing in what was happening.
"MY NAME IS JAMES," the computer wrote for the first time without any initial mistakes.
"OK, James," Jack took the initiative. "Tell us what exactly is happening and why are you trapped in this toy? And who exactly is behind this whole scheme?"
"WE WERE MADE TO RECORD AND TRANSFER VIDEOS OF PEOPLE TO THAT MAN SO HE COULD SELL THEM. I DON'T KNOW WHO HE IS. I TRIED TO STOP THE TRANSFER BUT FAILED."
"So, we reached a dead end once again," Jack said bitterly. "I guess we will have to wait till tomorrow morning to see where it takes us."
An awkward silence followed.
"I'll find Ianto," Tobey said, turning to back to his workplace.
"Right, Martha, I'll need you tomorrow at seven o'clock sharp. If anything happens meet us at nine on Portmanmoor Road," Jack added, seeing how so many things were going wrong. Ianto disappearing from the face of the earth seemed just too suspicious. He'd rather take all possible precautions than regret later.
Martha nodded. She smiled reassuringly at Jack. "We'll find him, don't worry," she said to him on the side, making sure that Tobey wasn't listening.
o*o*o
Ianto finally reached Portmanmoor Road and parked on the nearest empty parking slot. It was already the middle of the night and he wondered, how was it even possible to take so long to get anywhere in Cardiff? He left the car and looked around. There were a few people walking down the road but nobody seemed really suspicious. He tried his phone again only to once more find his services to be suspended.
He walked up and down the road a few times trying desperately to find anything that would give him a clue as to what was going to happen and how to stop it. He knew he was quite daft to be going alone but what if it was too late before he got back here with the rest of the team?
His phone rang. He answered it without looking at the screen.
"You might want to turn around," the voice said.
Ianto did so and found himself face to face with an elderly woman with groceries in her right hand. Confused he stopped blocking her way. He turned around once more. Now he was sure he was being watched.
"What are you trying to do?" Ianto asked nervously looking around.
"You should've helped the lady, Ianto," the man said. "And you call yourself a gentleman?"
Ianto didn't answer.
"Or maybe you just forgot how to be one?" the voice continued.
Ianto froze. His breath once more became shallow. This person knew about him. There was something seriously wrong going on. How would he know about all this? How could he jam his connections?
"Oh, so you know what I'm talking about," the man said. "For a second there I thought I was out of time a bit."
"What do you want?" Ianto asked.
The man's voice changed. It was now full of anger and contempt. And moreover it wasn't disturbed by static as usual in a phone call. "Revenge," the man said from behind him.
Ianto was too slow to turn around but before he even shifted just a little the man pushed a handkerchief to his face. He felt his consciousness drift away. He noticed that the street was suddenly empty.
The man's voice rumbled in his head, his words being the last sounds he heard before blacking out.
"I'll show you what it means to lose everyone and everything you ever cared for," the man said with rage disturbing his voice making it peak and sound like he was about to cry.
o*o*o
"Tobey!" Jack greeted the programmer, waking him up from his deep sleep.
Tobey raised his head and found himself splayed out on his own table pressing a combination of keys on his laptop with his elbow. His computer was reacting with a repeated error sound until he finally lifted his arms.
"What time is it?" he asked, unsure when he had fallen asleep.
"Five past seven, I can't contact Martha," Jack said bitterly.
The memories of last night quickly flooded his mind. "Oh God, Ianto!" he said remembering.
"Did you find him?" Jack said.
"No, I checked all the footage from yesterday and there was no sign of Ianto on any of the cameras. There were however unusual street light problems and a lot of deleted CCTV footage."
"It was all planned?" Jack asked.
"Probably so."
"Can you get any pattern from the deleted footage?"
"No, I already checked. It was all random. What do we do now?"
"There's no change in the plan. We go in half an hour earlier and wait for those people to appear. We use Jeremy as a decoy and get them."
"Do you think he's going to comply with you?" Tobey asked with a bit of sarcasm. He himself doubted it very much.
"He won't have a choice," Jack said. "Get ready we're leaving in twenty minutes."
Tobey noticed Jack's changed voice. He suspected it had something to do with Ianto's disappearance.
The cog-wheel door suddenly opened and Martha went inside.
"Hey, sorry I'm late," she said putting her bag on the sofa. "So what's the plan?" she asked.
"We're leaving in half an hour. We're going to use the builder as a decoy and we'll catch the man he makes an exchange with. Hopefully it will lead us to whoever is behind this."
o*o*o
Waking up felt really bad. Ianto remembered nothing that had happened last evening since he had lost the connection in his mobile. Now for some reason he was standing on the pavement of... he looked at the street sign, Portmanmoor Road. Why would he even be here. He looked around but couldn't find his car anywhere.
He went up the road still looking around. For some odd reason he had a hat on his head. He was unusually dressed for him. Yes, he had his suit underneath but over it he had a very rustling raincoat which he found very annoying.
He saw a man approach him. He stared at him wondering whether the man was really going to address him or was just curious.
"You're the one I should deliver the discs to, right?" the man asked.
Ianto had a very bad feeling about what was happening. He had a strong feeling he once again forgot something and that it was once more very important. He didn't answer at first. He wondered what the man was talking about but was unable to conclude anything.
He wanted to say something but was too late.
"Freeze!" he heard Jack's voice from behind him. He had a very weird deja vu he couldn't explain at first.
He complied quickly not even thinking about it. He fell down to his knees and put his hands on his head. "It's me," he said.
"Ianto? What are you doing here?"
"That's what I'd like to know as well," Ianto said annoyed. He took off the raincoat and hat.
"Martha!" Jack called their medical officer. "Seems like he forgot again..."
"It's nothing sir," Ianto said annoyed. "I'm all right. It was only a couple of hours."
"It's not nothing, I knew that letting you back in was a bad idea..." Jack's voice was now filled with anger.
"I told you it's nothing! Stop worrying about me so much!" Ianto ricocheted. He was surprised that Jack was able to get into a normal argument. He never saw Jack as one driven by his emotions.
"Stop it both of you!" Martha stepped in. "Ianto what is the last thing you remember?"
"There was a phone call..." Ianto said. His memories returned at once. "It was this person, he didn't say his name. But he did say "this is just the beginning". This is only a decoy. For some reason he wants revenge on Torchwood. I have no idea for what but he seemed very serious."
"It's a decoy all right," Tobey said bitterly. "There's a fire in the police headquarters. And before you say anything I would just like to point out that it was both mine and Gwen's workplace."
"So we got nowhere?" Jack said disgruntled.
"We know more," Martha disagreed.
"This might be connected to the strange behaviour of the rift," Tobey added. "By this I mean him. He's causing the rift to stop."
"Nobody can control the rift to halt it's activity this much," Jack noticed.
"Maybe not now... Maybe he's from the future?" Tobey suggested.
"Martha, Tobey. We'll go to the station and see if anyone had seen anything," Jack ordered quickly. "I highly doubt it but we need to take our chances. Ianto," Jack discretely pointed at Jeremy.
"No problem," Ianto answered wondering why was it that he felt so comfortable with the dirty work he did at Torchwood.
o*o*o
Alice stared at James for a very long time. She was smiling. She was so angry when she found out that she forgot to take him back home with her from school the other day. Thankfully somebody who had found him gave the toy to the lady at the reception and when she asked for it she didn't have to look too much.
"I'm so glad I found you," she said. "I didn't have anybody to talk to this past day. Do you know what happened in class today?" she took the rabbit and turning on her back she lifted it above her face. "James Morgan, the boy I told you about earlier, smiled at me. I always thought he liked Mary Ann but it seems that he doesn't really enjoy being with her," she started telling the story.
She glanced at James. For a second she thought his tiny plastic eyes were smiling at her and she giggled at the thought. She thought about how amazing would it be if he could answer.
Her dad entered the room and she stopped speaking immediately. "It's time to go to bed," he said.
The few thousand pounds on his bank account were a total mystery to him but he decided to just use this gift from lady fortune wisely and not worry about it too much. He had already tried contacting the bank about it and they said there was no mistake in the transaction. What more was there he could do?
o*o*o
Tobey closed his eyes upon seeing his newest email. An invitation. To a funeral. Two of his co-workers had died in the fire and he could only blame himself for noticing what was really going on so late. He shut his laptop and noticed Jack's gaze upon him.
He cursed under his breath. It was all for nothing. He checked each and every disc they had recovered only to find them full of random photographs not connected to themselves in any way. Their efforts had been futile, chasing the wrong people and going to the wrong places. All that only to find out they had been toyed with.
So this was the dark side of Torchwood...
o*o*o
Ianto put back the last rabbit into the box put a label on it sealing the box until it was needed again. He was writing a full-detailed report on the content of the container along with the circumstances in which it appeared.
"I just hope it's the last one," he said looking at Jack.
"I think that there are worse things for us to worry about. That policeman Andy did a good job collecting all of them from around Cardiff."
"Do you think it was OK leaving that one with the girl?" Ianto asked.
"We'll just have to find out," Jack answered leaving him alone to deal with the rest of the archiving.
Ianto took out his phone and looked at the screen. Any second now...
The mobile started vibrating in his hand. He answered it. "Thought it might be you," Ianto said hearing the familiar hoarse voice.
"Aren't you going to call somebody, track the conversation?" the man asked with a tiny bit of surprise in his voice.
"There's no point," Ianto answered glancing at the door to see if nobody was coming. "I've got you figured out, actually..."
There was a chuckle of amusement on the other side. "You really think so?"
"You know what we will do, or at least partly know what we will do... You're from the future aren't you?"
There was silence on the other side. Ianto smiled to himself. "I may have forgotten things but my mind works properly. So, have you seen how it all ends?" he asked. A prolonged silence answered him. "I thought so."
"You don't seem too eager to tell your boss about it?" the man said.
"I'll tell him when the time is right. There are still some things I need to find out first..."
Ianto hung up and lowered his arm. He was holding a little black notebook in his hand. The front page was signed with his handwriting: "Property of Ianto Jones".
Hope you enjoyed A Different Kind Of Heart. Not an entirely happy ending but its not meant to be. 4th episode is going to be out next week - I'm not sure entirely when but I'm afraid you may have to wait a bit - sorry : But I think it's getting interesting. And some old characters reappear :)