"So it was just sitting there at the base of the Tower," Jack finished explaining as they approached the entrance to the Hub. "I recognized the writing on it, but I have no idea what it was for. I gather you do though?"
"Actually, I've never seen anything like it," replied the Doctor, not sure why he was lying. "I was hoping you could provide a bit more information to go on."
"Doesn't the writing on it tell you anything?"
"No, it's just where it was made and who made it. It wasn't anyone I recognized," said the Doctor as he unlocked the Torchwood entrance with his sonic screwdriver and held the door open for Jack, a mischievous smile on his face.
"I wish you wouldn't do that," complained Jack.
"Consider it pay back for breaking into my room this morning."
"That wasn't a break in. I had a key," Jack protested.
"And so do I," replied the Doctor, flipping the sonic in the air and catching it with a clatter before putting it back into his jacket pocket. The entrance door closed behind them as they proceeded into the Hub itself. Suddenly the Doctor sprinted across the open area near the base of the water tower, his footsteps ringing on the metal catwalk. He turned and laughed as he watched Myfanwy's mistimed attack. The predator suddenly changed direction and looked about, confused by its prey not being where she expected. Jack shooed her away and with a scream of protest Myfanwy returned to the upper reaches of the Hub.
"I'm glad you have a sense of humor about this now," said Jack.
"Ah, it's no problem," responded the Doctor cheerily. "Just a bit of fun. No idea why it bothered me so much before. I'll get back to work now. I'm sure you have things to do."
"You sure you are okay?" asked Jack. "You seem a bit…"
"Trust me, I'm perfectly alright. In fact never felt better. Good as new. Don't worry, if I need anything I'll let you know." The Doctor turned his back on, Jack dismissing him, and proceeded down the hallway.
Once he entered the storeroom he saw the energy extractor sitting on the table. The mess of the spilled sandwiches had been cleared up, most likely by Ianto. He doubted that chore had endeared him anymore to the Welshman, but no worries he could always charm his way into Ianto's good graces in the morning.
He sat down on the chair next to the table. Smiling, he ran his hand over the exterior housing of the device, feeling the etched Gallifreyan symbols under his finger tips. A memory of home. He owed it to that memory to try and fix it. At least make it ready for the replacement of the broken frangilizer he had taken out earlier. Once the TARDIS let him back in he would just get one out of storage and it would be ready to go.
Something in the back of his mind screamed at him, "No, don't. It's far too dangerous. It's better left broken. In the wrong hands it could be devastating." The Doctor pushed the warnings away. His hands were the right hands he was sure, it wouldn't be any problem getting the device from Jack. There was nothing at all to worry about. He'd been worrying far too much recently. Time he stopped. Everything was going to be great.
He put on his glasses and started to working on the device, finding it much easier this time. Carefully he traced the circuits and soon found a short. Adjusting his sonic screwdriver to the proper setting he fixed the problem and continued his examination, trying to find the cause of the damage. He traced it back to the containment section. It had apparently at one point tried to swallow more that it could handle. Whatever it had held had broken out and destroyed several circuits and components in the process.
The Doctor tisked at the containment and disposal section's lack of proper engineering. From what he could tell no redundancy had been built in. So if a single part failed the whole system failed. Aside from that arrogant ommision, it was a clever design. It would hold the life force energy long enough to determine the best way of extinguishing it. It was that feature that was the most elegant part of the design, something only Time Lords could have made. It would fracture the life force at the quantum level, in all possible dimensions, not just the paltry three, well maybe four, that humans operated in.
Seeing how the system could be strengthened he decided to do as much of the work as he could toward that goal. He suspected the containment field had failed when the operator had tried to contain a very powerful life force in it, instead of letting the device destroy it. He decided to make sure that didn't happen again. Anything in the containment field would be destroyed as soon as its life force energy had been pattern analyzed and the means for destruction determined. It did mean, however one would have to be very careful in how they used it. If the wrong life force was extracted there would be no going back. That didn't worry him however, he would be the only one to ever use it, if indeed it was ever used again. He had no intention of leaving it behind for humans to play with.
Soon he had accomplished as much of the repair job as was possible until he found the parts he needed. Time to examine the rest of the Torchwood junk pile. The first item he found was a compact and very powerful energy source, suitable for using in a sonic blaster or other portable energy weapon. Well, he had no need of anything like that and he certainly wouldn't want Jack and his friends using it to power a weapon. So this needed to be rendered totally inoperable. It was quick work for the sonic and soon it was in such a state even he wouldn't be able to repair it.
The next device he found was a medical scanner. Unfortunately the civilization that developed it was made up of large single cell beings. They were talented in developing pseudopods that were even more functional than a human hand, but they their physical structure was so different from humanoids, the device was useless here on Earth. It had a large display screen however, and plenty of data storage. The Doctor made a few tweaks and voila! He had an excellent electronic book reader, capable of handling all formats and storing every piece of writing ever created on Earth with space left over for the libraries of Gallifrey. How all that was going to get loaded into the former scanner he decided was someone else's problem.
Then he found a small device that looked like a weapon but wasn't, though it had caused a planetary civilization to fall. It was badly battered but it was possible to repair it. He smiled as he did so, hoping Jack would get the joke. He was just finishing the final touches when the captain walked through the door.
"Ah, good to see you actually repairing something," commented Jack as he approached the Doctor. "So what does that thing do anyway?"
"This?" asked the Doctor as he stood up and aimed the device at Jack while pressing a button.
Jack jumped to one side and yelled as a beam of light came out, "Hey watch it with that thing!"
"It's harmless," assured the Doctor as he held up the blaster shaped device. He tapped a display screen set into the top of it. "Seems to be something wrong here." He gave the screen a final thump. "There we go. There were no Jack Harknesses for sale on Vetterina."
"What do you mean I'm not for sale?"
"Well, I don't know about here, but you definably weren't for sale there," joked the Doctor. "This is a price scanner, for want of a better term. On Vetterina you could point it at just about anything and see where to buy it and how much it cost. Unfortunately it caused an economic collapse."
"It what?"
"Caused an economic collapse. With this device you could determine the cheapest source for everything."
"That's good. Isn't it?" asked Jack clearly confused.
"For the consumers yes, but for the businesses it ended up being a disaster. They kept slashing prices to be the lowest source, squeezing out the smaller businesses. But the competition between the larger companies was so fierce the only way to keep customers was to sell for less then it cost to produce and hope your competition shut up shop before you did. People lost jobs as companies lost money. So there was less money to spend, causing prices to fall until in order inventory to be moved, more jobs lost, etc, till it all just spiraled out of control. Planetary economic collapse, all from devices like this." He gave the scanner a toss in the air and caught it.
"So why fix it? It's no good here."
The Doctor pursed his lips and tilted his head from one side to the other. "Well, for practice mainly and you never know, you might get something from Vetterina falling through the rift here. This did come through after all."
"Still, it's not much help for me. I can hardly pop to Vetterina and buy anything," replied Jack, looking pointedly at his vortex manipulator.
The Doctor ignored the unspoken hint and answered Jack's question. "Oh, but this holds more than just prices and store locations. Tap this here," the Doctor touched the lower right corner of the display screen for emphasis, "and up comes the owner's manual. No more guessing. Well, no more guessing if what you are scanning comes from Vetterina."
"Okay, okay," said Jack with a laugh taking the scanner from the Doctor. "Look I'm about to call it a night. So it's time for me to drive you back to the hotel."
"No thanks, I'll walk. I don't want to spend five minutes watching you try to get out of a parking space again."
"That won't happen. I only park it like that when I think Ianto is driving it next."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow and stared at Jack, a half smile on his face as he waited for an explanation.
"It's just a practical joke we play on each other. Seeing who can make it the hardest for the next person who drives the SUV. Just a game really. I told you it's been quiet here. It's something to keep us from being too bored."
The Doctor shook his head in false dismay. "Things must be slow if that counts as entertainment. Still, I'd rather walk. Fresh air before bed is always good," stated the Doctor as he headed out the door.
"Okay, suit yourself," replied Jack as he followed behind.
The Doctor strode across the hotel parking lot, heedless of the puddles left by the storm as he splashed through them. He'd gone around the very edge of the Plass to get there. The TARDIS had increased her field of repulsion almost to the Millennium Center. He'd briefly felt sorry for all the tourists who had come to enjoy the Plass and now would be returning home with no memories or photos of it or the famous water tower. He imagined them trying to explain to their friends and family why they hadn't seen one of Cardiff's greatest attractions. Hopefully that wouldn't be the case much longer.
As he entered the hotel he saw the Atterian with the ambassador by the lifts. He smiled and gave her a wave, waggling his fingers when she looked at him. She cringed and leaned into the ambassador, who put a protective arm around her giving the Doctor a warning stare as they entered the lift.
Standing in reception, the Doctor was confused and a bit hurt by the response his friendly greeting had received. He knew of no reason why the Atterian should fear him so. He actually had liked her, he just wasn't willing to have his 'data' collected by her, or anyone for that matter. Well, nothing he could do about it tonight. Maybe he would run into her at breakfast tomorrow. He could straighten it out then.
He summoned a lift and went up to his suite. His coat landed with a flap and a thud as he flung it over the couch in the main living area of the suite. He plopped down next to it and put his feet up on the coffee table. Hands folded behind his head, he considered what to do next.
The pill was wearing off. Physically he still felt good and most likely would continue to long after it wore off. That was the legitimate use of Synival, to straighten out the functions of the major organs. It couldn't cure cancer or set a broken bone, but for things like improving the function of the Time Lord equivalent of a liver or kidneys it was quite useful. Fixing a dicey digestive system was trivial. It was the mental side effects that were of concern. There would be an incredible crash from the euphoria the medication brought on. And that crash was starting.
He stood up suddenly, knowing what he had to do. It was time to get to sleep, before the worst of the effects started. There the delusions would manifest as nightmares until the comatose part of the crash began. The time between the start of the delusions and the coma varied. It could be as long as two hours or they could occur simultaneously. With his luck it would be the former, not the latter.
There was a surprise waiting for him when he entered the bedroom. On top of the immaculately made bed was a package. He approached it cautiously. It was gift wrapped in expensive gold paper that had a smooth waxy feel to it, with a sheer silver ribbon tied around the package in a bow. He untied the bow and took off the wrapping paper. Inside were his pajamas, cleaned, pressed and the buttons sewn back on. He wondered just how much that extra service Jack was paying for cost.
On the night stand next to the bed he found something called a sleep hygiene kit. He wasn't sure if this was a part of the extra service or something the staff had added after seeing the state of his room that morning. There was a card describing what steps to take to ensure a good night's sleep, a lavender sachet to put under a pillow, a CD of ocean sounds, and finally some chamomile tea. He dismissed the card and the tea but gave the sachet a sniff. It was a pleasant scent and did calm his brain down a somewhat. He couldn't detect any ill effects from it and maybe it might tone down the nightmares that were sure to come.
A dull pain was starting in his head, a sign he needed to get to sleep soon. He put the sachet under his pillow and the CD in the player that was on the night stand. As he dressed in the pajamas he noticed the sound of the waves on the CD would match the pattern of his breathing when he was asleep. That would be a help, if he synced his breathing with it, he should fall asleep quickly.
He stood over the bed and tried to think of anything he might have forgotten. He became aware of another presence in the room, dark, malevolent. He turned quickly, his sonic screwdriver held at the ready. There was nothing, nothing there at all. The delusions were starting. He gasped and squeezed his eyes shut as the pain in his head became sharp and penetrating. He needed to get to sleep quickly, before sleep became impossible.
Settling into the bed he pulled the covers over himself. He worked on relaxing, breathing in time with the CD's ocean waves, concentrating on that sound, ignoring the pain in his head. Slowly, too slowly, he felt peaceful, his limbs heavy and logy as sleep started to take him away. Relief took him that last step to slumber, where all the dark thought and memories, that his mind came up with as the crash continued would just take the form of a dream. A dream that hopefully this night, like the previous night, he wouldn't remember. As sleep took him between one breath and the next, the back of his mind screamed at him that something was wrong, very, very, wrong.