Chapter Thirty-Five
Troubled, General Winifred Bambera rang off and stared at her mobile thoughtfully for a moment before shoving it back into the pocket of her dress uniform. And then after a tug to pull her jacket back into place and an absentminded touch of her medals to straighten them, she walked into the ballroom of Number 10 Downing Street.
She hadn't wanted to attend the meeting; in her opinion functions like these were one of the most boring and distasteful duties of her job. As the head of Great Britain's armed forces, however, she had been required to attend the formal dinner hosting the heads of state of the European Alliance. Well, unlike the other women in attendance, at least she wasn't required to wear a formal gown. The reason she didn't want to wear one wasn't vanity; with her short cropped hair only beginning to turn grey, her relatively unlined dark skin, and her still fit body, she knew she looked damned good for a woman in her early 70s and would look a far sight better in any of the strapless, sequined gowns than most of the other women there. But Bambera was far more comfortable in a uniform and always had been. She was a soldier; her uniform symbolized that.
Besides, she thought, her uniform had pockets. Gowns did not.
As she crossed into the room, greeting those she knew and nodding to those she didn't, her mind returned to the conversations she had just had with Captain Price and Captain Magambo. To say they concerned her was an understatement, and after half a century in the armed forces she considered herself pretty unflappable. Price had reported that Harrison Keeling had either arrested or fired most of the staff of Torchwood Four, Torchwood Two had been destroyed by person or persons unknown, and the staff of Torchwood Three was on the run. According to Magambo, there was no evidence of wrongdoing by anyone at Torchwood Three, and Price had reported the same in regards to Torchwood Four. Not only that, there was currently only a skeleton staff on duty in Torchwood Four, if that, and they had had electrical outages and someone was currently roaming the building pretending to be the Secretary of Defense. That last bit was the most outrageous, and incredibly cheeky, Bambera thought. To think whoever it was could just enter a building pretending to be a high ranking member of government… But evidently the person had. And of course there was no question as to whether it was actually the Secretary of Defense. The general knew the Secretary wasn't there; from where she stood, she could see the Secretary on the other side of the ballroom talking to Keeling and President Greene.
So who was wandering the halls of Torchwood pretending to be the Secretary?
Bambera knew that technically she should do something about the Torchwood situation. However Price had also told her that there was no evidence that Director Tyler was a traitor, quite the reverse in fact. He had served his country well in the fight against the Cybermen, and continued to serve it in his role of Torchwood's director. Pete Tyler, his daughter and her 'friend' had even stopped an alien invasion only weeks earlier.
Her gut told her that there was far more going on than she knew. Not to mention that based on what was currently going on at Torchwood, Keeling was either incompetent or had an agenda. Or both. And she wanted to know which it was before she made a move. Because she had spent her life serving her country, and that did not necessarily mean serving Greene and Keeling. She had no husband, no children to be affected by her actions if in the end they were called treasonous. She was going to do what was right.
Just as soon as she figured out what that was.
Pursing her lips, she made a snap decision, the way she always had. Her ability to size up a situation and quickly choose a course of action had served her well on the battlefield, and it would do so here as well. She pulled her mobile back out of her pocket.
"Magambo, this is General Bambera. Break off the investigation in Wales. Yes, completely withdraw. Then get back to London. I have a feeling I'm going to need you here shortly."
Next she rang Captain Price back at Torchwood Four.
"Price, I want you to sit tight. Continue to investigate, but take no action without my express approval. Remember you report only to me; disregard any orders from anyone else you may receive, no matter who it is."
Decisions made and set into motion, Bambera put her mobile back in her pocket and crossed to the bar for a soft drink. She knew she'd need her wits about her this evening.
~oOo~
Marion Price disconnected the call only to find the two security guards studying the CCTV.
"There's something wrong with these cameras," Meyer said. "See here? It looks like it's pointing at the ground, rather than at the door. And this one looks like it's pointing at the ceiling." She moved to another station and studied more of the displays. "Hold on, there are two guards at the front gate."
"Yeah," Brooks responded.
"But you said there were only seven guards on duty."
"Yeah," he repeated. "Two at the front gate, one at the front entrance, one in Archives, one in the Dungeon and the two of us."
Sue shook her head. "George Filbin is up in the infirmary. He's the one who sent me down here. That would make eight guards, not seven, Ollie."
"You're wrong," he told her. "Filbin's manning the gate."
She stared at him. "Are you sure?"
He nodded. "He has been all evening."
"Well if George is at the front gate, who is up in the infirmary?" She turned back to the screen in front of her. "Ollie, put the CCTV feed of the infirmary on this monitor."
A live shot of the infirmary appeared in front of her. It was empty; no one was there and nothing was out of place save the tray of medical equipment Sue had knocked onto the floor while walking across the room in the dark. She shook her head in disbelief.
"Someone came up to the infirmary and told me to come down here," she insisted. "If it wasn't George, it was someone who could do a damned good impersonation of him." She shook her head. "I don't believe it. We've got someone, a woman, wandering around in here impersonating the Secretary of Defense and someone else, a man, impersonating a guard." She took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. "Okay, since I'm the most senior security officer here, I'm taking charge. We need to rerun the CCTV and find out how the intruders got in here, and how many of them there are, and what they want. To do that, we need to institute a lockdown. We need to get all the staff together, everyone from scientists down to janitorial staff and file clerks, and then all of us need to search the building floor by floor, quadrant by quadrant and find them."
"No."
Meyer whirled around to see Captain Price watching her. "Oh, I forgot you were here. What do you mean, no?"
"I mean no. You are not the most senior security officer here. As Torchwood is now a member of UNIT, I outrank you, and I have express orders from General Bambera that we are to take no action without her direct say so. You can run the CCTV, but you are not instituting a lockdown, and you are not doing a floor by floor search."
Furious at being countermanded by someone outside of Torchwood, Sue Meyer opened her mouth to argue, but Price interrupted her.
"Save it," she said. "Instead of running around trying to catch them with inadequate staff, let's put Torchwood's intelligence resources to use and figure out what's going on."
After a moment, Meyer nodded sharply. "Agreed."
~oOo~
As Owen Harper evaluated Jake's injuries, and loudly cursed the fact that he had no medical equipment save a first aid kit that had been in an emergency cupboard and largely consisted of two inch plasters and a small blister pack of paracetamol, Toshiko Sato ran through the corridors of the Dungeon, peeking through the observation windows looking for Pete Tyler and Martha Jones.
Meanwhile, Ianto Jones was trying to ring Rose on her mobile to warn her that Frank Collins was in the building and that he strongly suspected Collins was the traitor. But when he phoned her, he was immediately transferred to voice mail. Likewise with the Doctor's mobile. Ianto wasn't surprised by that; he knew that the Doctor rarely remembered to turn on his mobile, but Rose always kept hers on. The fact that she wasn't answering her phone, and even more that it had been on before and now appeared to be off, was troubling to say the least.
After several unsuccessful tries, Ianto gave up and began to search the Dungeon himself. Not only did Jake need help urgently, but Ianto wasn't completely familiar with the settings of the blaster he had used on the guard. He might be out for hours, or he might come to any time. And despite the guard being unarmed, he was more than a match for them. The only reason Ianto had been able to disarm him was the fact that he had been virtually invisible wearing the perception filter. Not being entirely certain how they worked, even after the Doctor's explanation, he wasn't sure it'd work twice with the guard.
"Ianto!" Toshiko yelled, her voice echoing through the corridors. "I found Director Tyler. Get over here with the guard's blaster."
Ianto ran towards the sound of her voice. She was several corridors away from him, standing in front of a door in the middle of the hall.
"He's in there," she said, gesturing towards the door as he ran up to her. She stood back as he shot at the lock as he had earlier with Jake's door. The square hole that the blaster produced this time was much smaller than the one on Jake's door, but it still managed to do the trick. As the door swung open, Ianto glanced at the display that showed how much power was left in the blaster.
"Battery's almost dead," he told Toshiko. "The special features on these things really drain 'em."
She nodded as Pete emerged from his cell, a huge grin on his face.
"Good to see you, Ianto," he said, vigorously shaking his hand. He turned to Toshiko, trying to place her.
"Toshiko Sato, Torchwood Three," she said, holding out her hand. "We met years ago at a conference."
Pete nodded and shook her hand as well. "Good to see you too. Okay, I need a situation report, but first, are Jackie and Tony okay?"
Toshiko nodded. "Rose got them out of London, and we left them at her house with Gwen Williams."
"Good," Pete said, relieved. "Now how about here?"
Ianto filled him in with everything they knew: that most of the Torchwood staff had been arrested or fired; that they had left the Doctor with Lisa in the infirmary and Rose in Pete's office, but that neither of them were responding to their mobiles; that they had found Jake in one of the other cells but he was badly injured; and that it was likely that Frank Collins was the traitor.
Pete stared at them incredulously. "Are you sure?" At the looks on their faces, Pete's face darkened. "You're sure."
"I couldn't swear by it, but I'm sure. He's here, and he shouldn't be. We saw him get off the Dungeon's lift when we were getting on."
Cursing, Pete began to pace back and forth across the narrow hallway, looking like he wanted to punch something. Or someone. Finally after several long moments, he took a deep breath and let it out in a rush, trying to calm himself.
"Director," Ianto prompted, "Whatever we do, we have to do quickly. I knocked out the guard, but I don't know for how long."
Pete nodded sharply. His fury over his friend's betrayal would have to wait. "Okay," he said, calm for the moment, "here's the plan. First, we let everyone out. We're going to need reinforcements if nothing else. We could open the cells individually with the guard's ID card, but it'll take too long to do them all one by one. I don't have my card with me, but I might be able to override the system and open all the doors from the guard's desk. If they haven't canceled my security clearance yet.'
"I can help with that, but first we need to find Dr. Jones," Toshiko said. "Owen needs her help with Jake."
Pete nodded. "Ianto, you go get the guard's ID while Toshiko and I look for Martha. Then come find us."
"And if the guard wakes up while I'm trying to steal his ID?"
"Tell him he's either with us or against us. And if he's not with us, knock him out again."
"Battery's almost dead," Ianto told him. He held up the blaster to Pete, display out, so the other man could see it for himself.
"Nah, you've got plenty of power," Pete said, a lie none of them believed. "And worse comes to worse you could always hit him over the head with it."
"Got it," Ianto said. "If persuasion doesn't work, take the direct approach." He turned and ran down the hall.
~oOo~
The Doctor's head pounded as he slowly regained consciousness. He tried to raise his hand to rub his temple, only to discover he was tied to a chair. Again. It was really unbelievable how often that had happened to him over the centuries.
"Welcome back."
He looked up and quickly took in his surroundings. He was still in Pete's Torchwood office, and Frank Collins was sitting opposite him, behind Pete's desk. And lying on the desk were both his and Rose's mobiles and perception filters, his opera glasses and the other miscellaneous contents of his pockets. And his sonic screwdriver.
"I was beginning to wonder when you'd come to," Collins continued.
"I was starting to get worried about you," Rose said in a low voice. He turned his head towards the sound of her voice. He saw she was tied to an identical chair on the other side of the room.
"Takes more than a little knock on the head to keep me down." He tried to wink at her and it turned into a wince.
Rose grimaced in sympathy. "Next time I tell you to not come in someplace, listen to me, yeah?"
The Doctor shrugged noncommittally. As he began to pull on the restraints holding him to the chair, testing their strength, he felt them cut sharply into his skin. Curiously, he looked down at his wrists. Whatever was holding him in place was slightly hidden by the sleeves of his black leather jacket. He wriggled his arm, just enough to slightly move his sleeve, and he raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"Heavy duty zip ties. That's new. I've been tied up a lot of times—handcuffs, duct tape, rope, once even with a Zapuldi tree snake, now there's a story—but I don't remember ever being tied up with zip ties before. By the way, what did you hit me with?" he asked. Before the other man could answer, Rose spoke.
"He didn't. He was wearing my perception filter and sprayed you with perichloridol. He used it on me too. It's the stuff that Lisa used when she kidnapped me. You hit your head when you fell."
He moved his mouth around, a thoughtful expression on his face, and then nodded. "Yeah, I can taste it."
"What with you being an alien, or part alien at least, I didn't know how you'd react to it," Collins interjected. "Interesting experiment. You actually were out slightly longer than Rose. But I didn't give either of you much. Had I given you full doses, you'd be out most of the night, and I just don't have that kind of time."
"Oh, what's the rush, Frank," the Doctor said. "It's not like we're going anywhere." He glanced down at his wrists pointedly before looking back up at him.
"If it were just the two of you, perhaps," he answered. "But it's not. It seems we have a number of other unwanted guests in the building as well. I can't risk them finding us here before I finish with the two of you."
"Doctor, he could see me while I was wearing my perception filter," Rose told him.
"Really? I'm not surprised. He must have known you were there. They don't work as well if you know the person wearing it is there."
"But how would he have known?"
"Oh, I imagine Frank here is telepathic, or else strongly empathic. He'd be able to sense someone in the room. Then it would just be a matter of looking for the source of emotions." The Doctor sat back in his chair and looked at the other man thoughtfully. When he continued, his voice took on a light, casual tone.
"Soooo, Frank. How long has it been?"
"How long has what been?" Collins asked.
"How long have you been joined?"
Collins' eyes narrowed, but he didn't respond.
"Joined?" Rose asked. "He was joined?"
"Oh, yes. Frank here has been joined with one of the Kern. Stands to reason. You see, Lisa told me he wasn't part of the GBF. So on the way over here from the infirmary, I wondered: why would he be helping them? Only thing that made sense was that he became joined at some point."
He turned back to Collins. "You were the one who gave Lisa Hallett Ret-Con. I scanned her. My sonic is much more accurate than any 21st century testing techniques and she was definitely Ret-conned. But that doesn't matter because you never bothered testing her for it, did you? Very handy, that, giving her the drug and then being the one who was supposed to test her for it. And everyone believed you when you said she hadn't been drugged. Well, why shouldn't they? Head of Torchwood's medical department, trusted employee, personal friend of the director… Were you the one who dumped her off near the London Eye? Of course, you had to have been. You couldn't trust that little duty to anyone else, couldn't risk anyone finding out about you.
"So obviously, you were already joined by that time. And when Lisa kidnapped Rose, you helped her get Rose out of here without being seen, didn't you? At the time I didn't think you could have been involved, after all you were with us, but you had been called away to take care of some sort of medical emergency before Pete and I discovered Rose was missing. Lisa must have called you for help in getting her out. So you must have been a part of all this before then."
The Doctor cocked his head to the side, brow furrowed, and stared at him appraisingly. Suddenly his eyes opened wide.
"Of course! It was that first night! Remember, Rose, the first time Pete brought me here?" he asked, his eyes never leaving Collins' face. "He showed me around, even had Collins give me a very brief physical. But I don't think I ever told you this part. The power flickered, right before we left. I remember even teasing Pete about it. That must have been when you became joined. And Lisa was here that night as well. So what did you do, make contact with her immediately? Because by joining you would have known Lisa was joined as well."
Collins raised one eyebrow.
"But tell me something, though. Lisa was able to hold her own, a bit anyway. But most human telepaths and empaths wouldn't be able to. And I doubt Frank could. So how much of him is left? Is he even in there at all anymore?"
"Oh, he's still here, but you're right, there's not much of him left. But you, you'd be able to hold your own." Collins stared at him appraisingly. "You know, when Frank first met you, he never guessed you are part alien. He thought you were completely human, and a rather ordinary one at that. But you're not. We saw into your mind when you made telepathic contact with us. You are really quite dangerous, aren't you?"
"Am I?" the Doctor asked, sounding as if the thought had never occurred to him.
"Of course you are. Keeling wants you destroyed. But I think you would be a very powerful ally. I'll give you one more chance to join us, Doctor, and I recommend you take it."
"No."
"Too bad," he said. "Because we can't risk letting you go. But if you won't join us, perhaps Rose will. Having Pete Tyler's own daughter, the Vitex heiress, as a part of our group will go a long way to establishing legitimacy in the eyes of the public."
In that instant, the Doctor's demeanor changed, and the temperature of the room seemed to grow a few degrees colder.
"Leave her alone," he ordered, putting the full force of the Oncoming Storm behind his words. And there was a flicker of fear in Collins' eyes which he quickly suppressed.
"She's not telepathic," the Doctor continued. "Trying to have her join the Kern would kill her."
"I don't think so," Collins said. He turned and looked at her. "In fact, I think she'll make an excellent host. I can sense she's had a great deal of telepathic contact in the past, and that has just paved the way for her joining now." He looked up sharply and narrowed his eyes at the Doctor. "I'm sensing guilt from you. Is it because you've somehow made her ready for this by having telepathic contact with her?" He stared at him again, as if he were trying to read the Doctor's mind, but after a moment he shook his head. "I can tell that's part of it, but there's more, isn't there? I don't know why, but you seem to think that you're responsible for all of this."
Rose turned and stared at the Doctor. "How could you…" she began, but the Doctor ignored her.
"You know, even if you are successful, I can still remove it from her."
"You won't be able to," the other man told him. "You'll be dead."
The Doctor's eyebrows shot up. "You're going to kill me? You don't have the guts," he said mockingly.
"No?" he asked. "I just left Simmonds for dead in the Dungeon, and Frank liked him. You'll be easy."
Reaching into his pocket, Collins pulled out a small, square battery, one the Doctor and Rose both recognized as containing the unbonded Kern. As he carried over to Rose, it began to glow with a faint blue light.
The Doctor's heart began to beat wildly in fright. "Fight it, Rose," he practically yelled. "I know you can do it."
As Collins approached, holding out the battery, Rose tried to back away from him, but with her ankles fastened to the chair it was a futile gesture. As the battery grew near, the blue light of the Kern grew stronger. It began to arch towards her hand and when it touched her fingertips it disappeared. For a split second the Doctor saw Rose's light brown eyes glow blue.
"No!" he cried, struggling against the restraints. "Rose, fight it! I know you can!"
Rose shook with the effort to fight off the Kern, her body tense and her face screwed up with the effort. She took several deep breaths as if to steel herself and then exhaled hard, as if she were trying to blow them out of her body. After several unsuccessful attempts, she collapsed against the back of her chair, exhausted by the effort.
"Rose," the Doctor said desperately, "Don't give up. Do whatever you have to do to fight it."
She looked over at him, her eyes still glowing blue.
"I'm sorry," she mouthed and closed her eyes, but this time when she reopened them, they shone with an unearthly golden light.
Suddenly, there was a roaring sound and a blinding flash of light and the Doctor could feel an almost searing heat on the exposed skin of his face and hands. He immediately closed his eyes and turned his head as far away as he could. After a moment, when he could feel the air around him begin to cool, he opened them again. The brightness of the explosion of energy had caused momentary blindness, and he blinked his eyes to clear his vision. And then what he saw terrified him.
Across the room, both Rose and Collins lay on the floor, unmoving.
"Rose," he screamed.
The Doctor struggled against the ties but it was futile. No matter how hard he tried, they were too strong to break. And then he spotted his sonic screwdriver on the desk. Perfect. Grateful for rubber soled shoes, he dug his toes into the floor and pulled himself inch by inch across the room, finally making it to a position next to the desk. But due to the ties around his wrists he still couldn't reach it. Gritting his teeth, in one move he leaned forward, resting his weight on his toes, and shoving his arm further through the zip tie. It was almost enough, but not quite. It was still a scarce fingertip's width out of reach. Pushing harder against the back of his chair as leverage, he managed to force his arm further through the restraint. This time he touched it, but it rolled slightly out of reach.
"NO!" he shouted and tried it again. This time he was able to just capture it with his fingertips. With a move born of centuries of practice, he pulled it into his hand and began cutting through his restraints before the chair he was tied to had even come to a rest on the floor.
Now freed, he rushed to Rose. She wasn't breathing. Fighting off panic, he rolled her onto her back and tilted her head back, clearing her airway. He pinched her nose and blew three short breaths into her mouth. Then he rested his ear on her chest. Her heart was beating. It was weak, but it was beating. But she still wasn't breathing.
Over and over he gave her artificial respiration, checking periodically to see if she had begun to breathe on her own. Finally, after a couple of minutes she gasped and began to cough. Panting due to the rush of adrenalin in his body, he tried to slow his heart rate, but wasn't sure if the fear that had caused it would ever be completely gone.
Rose's eyes fluttered open. "Hello," she whispered weakly, and then began coughing again.
"Don't talk," he suggested, and she nodded and closed her eyes.
He bent over and for a moment rested his forehead on hers, breathing a sigh of relief. He could have lost her. And this time she truly would have been gone, not safe with her family in a parallel universe.
He knew if he allowed his feelings to overtake him, he wouldn't be able to function to sort the rest of this, so he shoved them down as far as he could. Normally he'd ignore them indefinitely, so that they'd just be an uncomfortable buzz in the background along with everything else he found painful, to be forgotten—as much as a Time Lord could ever forget anything—and allow him to pretend that the feelings didn't exist. But he'd never been able to do that with Rose. And it would be even more difficult now that they had become lovers.
Putting his thoughts aside for the moment, he got up and walked over to where Frank Collins lay on the floor. He was lying on his back, his neck in an unnatural position, his eyes fixed and unseeing. And the skin of his face and hands looked red, almost as if he had received a bad sunburn.
A quick check confirmed what the Doctor already knew. The man was dead. And at the moment he couldn't bring himself to care.
As the Doctor crossed back over to Rose, he forced himself to put on the persona of a dispassionate doctor. He knelt down beside her to check her condition again. Breathing, even. Pulse, strong and steady. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and scanned her. Oxygen saturation in her blood, normal. And other vital signs within acceptable limits.
After he had discovered the artron energy in her system, he had adjusted the programming on his sonic to be able to scan for it in more minute quantities. Now he scanned for that as well. Not surprisingly, her artron energy level was much, much lower than it had been. He still didn't know how she had done that, how she had managed to control the energy to the extent that she'd be able to harness it to fight off a Kern attack. But somehow she had.
Rose had fallen asleep, and he took advantage of that to examine her in ways the sonic screwdriver couldn't. First brushing the hair from her face, he reached down and touched her temple, barely grazing the skin with his fingertips, and probed the surface of her mind. Thankfully, she had only drifted off into a light dream state and didn't appear in any danger, so he gently dug deeper, looking for any remaining trace of the Kern. Thankfully, there was none.
Relieved, he retrieved his mobile from where it lay on Pete's desk, turned it on and rang Owen.
"Did you find them?" he asked.
"Yes," the other man said. "Where are you?"
"Pete's office," the Doctor replied. "You need to get up here immediately. Rose's been hurt."