Notes: It looks like there might be a conspiracy going on, and Torchwood is in the middle of it. The Doctor has to take action to preserve evidence.
We also see the aftermath of the warehouse incident.
Oh, and 30 - 15 to the Doctor.
Chapter 4
The Animal Management crew went down to the vault and appraised the situation.
"What d'ya think, standard sack on a pole?" one agent asked.
"Yeah, that should do it," the other replied.
While the one agent kept the zombie interested in a piece of raw meat, the other one eased a large hoop of material on a pole through the vertical bars. When the hoop was close enough, it was flipped horizontally over the head of the zombie and quickly lowered to the floor, leaving a sack of material covering it from head to foot.
The agent quickly pulled the cord running through the pole and secured the sack around the zombie's ankles. They could hear it snarling as it struggled and fell over. The other agent picked up a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher and discharged it over the sack.
The cold gas started to shrink and harden the special fabric of the sack until the zombie was cocooned in a hard shell. The two agents gave a high five and lifted the now solid sack onto trolley, securing it with straps.
They casually chatted as they waited for the lift, which announced its arrival with a 'ding'. They wheeled the trolley in and pressed for the ground floor. The lift hummed as it ascended and 'dinged' again as it reached the ground floor foyer.
As the lift doors opened there were multiple 'clicks' as a number of automatic weapons were cocked. Standing in front of them, were a team of UNIT soldiers in combat fatigues. The Animal Management agents looked at each other, looked back at the soldiers, and raised their hands.
As Jake drove past One Canada Square on their way to the entrance of the underground car park, they noticed a number of UNIT troop vehicles parked in the street.
John was starting to get that uneasy feeling he used to get in the other universe, when things were about to go pear shaped. 'Maybe that's why I hate pears?' he suddenly thought to himself.
{"Rose, I think the samples we collected from the bank would be safer in the TARDIS where I can run some 'proper' test on them. Would you put them in 'Delores' and wait for me?"} he said in Gallifreyan. He wanted to give Jake and Julia plausible deniability if they were asked what they were up to.
Rose looked at him and saw that look on his face. {"What's up?"}
{"I'm not sure, but I think some brown stuff has hit a fan somewhere."}
"Er, excuse me you two, what are you jabbering on about?" Jake asked them.
John grinned. "Just wanted to save your blushes. Talking about handcuffs and stuff," he said, waggling his eyebrows. Rose blushed while Jake and Julia smiled and gave them knowing looks.
In Forensics, UNIT personnel were all over the lab, checking paperwork and putting sample pots in metal briefcases. John walked up to a sergeant who was standing guard at the entrance to the lab.
"What's going on?" John asked him.
"We are retrieving samples taken from The Republican Hope Hospital this morning and taking them to UNIT."
"On whose authority Sergeant...?" John asked angrily, waiting for him to give his name.
"Sergeant Milligan sir. By authority of the Defence Minister."
"What? The Ministry Of Defence? What do they know about biohazard material? Do you know what you are dealing with here Sergeant Milligan?"
"Yes sir, we've been fully briefed on our mission here."
"Have you now! Well maybe you'd like to tell me what we're dealing with, because I'm the smartest man on the planet and even I don't know."
"Ah, you'd be Dr. Smith then?" This shut John up, temporarily.
"Yes," he said tentatively.
"I have a message for you Doctor. 'Stop pestering this soldier and let him get on with his job'... Sir."
"What? Who gave you that message?"
"Director Tyler sir."
"What?" John said. What was going on.
"Sergeant," one of the soldiers called from the corridor. "There's a locked laboratory here sir."
Milligan went to look. John followed him to the quarantined lab.
"What's in here sir?" Milligan asked as he opened the serving hatch.
"Read the sign Sergeant," John said nodding at the large yellow sign on the door.
'BIOHAZARD! DO NOT ENTER! BY ORDER OF DIRECTOR P. TYLER', it read. As he read the sign, Milligan heard the inner hatch open and close.
"Who's in there?" he asked urgently, suspecting some deception.
John walked up to the Sergeant and looked him in the eye. There was the look of the Oncoming Storm on his face.
"You do not want to know who is in there. Trust me. That door has not been opened for nearly three months. The safety of the universe depends on that door remaining locked. Any attempt to open that door will be met with lethal force. Is that understood?" John's voice was cold and menacing, using terms a soldier would understand.
There was a long silence as the two men stared at each other, neither one blinking. Eventually, Sergeant Milligan looked away.
"Corporal! Do the records show that we have all the samples from the hospital?"
"Yes sir, all samples are accounted for sir." Milligan turned and headed back to the Forensic Laboratory.
John still needed some answers as to what was going on, and he needed to keep an eye on these samples. He looked at the metal briefcases.
"Sergeant, do you know the European and International regulations on transportation of biohazardous materials?" John asked him.
"No sir. That would be the scientists area of expertise."
'Ah-ha'. Got him. "Those cases will need biohazard warning symbols on them or they're not going anywhere."
"I'm sorry sir but I'm under orders to take them," Milligan stated.
"And you'll be on report and facing a court martial if you do. A bit of a dilemma for you. Tell you what, you seem like a decent sort, I'll go get you a 'stick on' symbol so that you can transfer them safely and legally."
"Thank you sir... that's very kind of you." The sergeant look a bit puzzled and distrustful.
"Is anything wrong Sergeant?" John asked him with a smile.
"Er, no sir. It's just that Director Tyler said you might shout and rant and protest sir."
"Oh don't worry sergeant, I'm saving that for him when I see him."
John stepped into the corridor and took out his phone. He hit the speed dial and spoke in Gallifreyan.
{"Rose, no time for questions. Get the samples to the TARDIS now and lock the door."} He hung up the phone before she could even reply.
After a few minutes, John returned with a white card that had a biohazard symbol on a clear plastic sheet. He peeled the plastic sheet off the card and rubbed it onto the metal case. When he peeled off the sheet, a black biohazard symbol was bonded to the case by millions of nano circuits that formed a transponder tattoo.
"Right, now let's see what Director Tyler has to say about all this."
John stormed through the door of the glass fronted office. Pete stood and held up his hands as if ready to fend off an impending attack.
"Before you start John, I had nothing to do with this. It's come direct from the government and there's bugger all I can do about it."
John stood silently, scrutinizing Pete's face. He looked as annoyed as John felt.
"Yeah, okay. But why? We've had biohazard samples here before and stopped alien infections. What's so special about these? Apart from it killing people and then turning them into zombies? I suppose that is a bit unusual."
"The Ministry claim that they have the manpower and protocols in place to deal with this kind of potential epidemic."
"Two victims isn't an epidemic, that's bollocks. There's something else going on here. It's a good job I put a tracer on those samples."
Pete inwardly groaned. "Don't tell me you've gone and done something I'm going to regret."
John smiled his manic smile. "Just doing what Torchwood does best, gathering intelligence is all. Nothing to worry about."
Pete groaned. "Oh God! Now I'm worried."
15 years previously.
The wheels of the 4X4 spun on the dirt ridden floor as it reversed out of the warehouse, spun 180 degrees and sped off into the night. The building was deathly quiet, except for the sound of distant sirens that stopped abruptly.
Five shadows entered through doors that had been their exit only moments before, and approached the motionless bodies on the floor.
"Den? Andy? Are you okay? They've gone," one of the gang whispered.
The body that had been Andy Morrison sat bolt upright, spat out some spent blood capsules and laughed.
"Hah! We did it," he laughed, beaming a smile at his friends.
The body that was Big Den Watts pushed itself into a sitting position, spat out capsules and looked down at the sword hilt sticking out of his chest.
"Bloody hell! It worked," he laughed. "It only bloody worked! You're a bleedin' genius," he said slapping Andy on the back and grinning. He pulled the hilt out and pushed it back in a little, looking over his shoulder and watching the tip of the blade move in and out as he did it.
He chuckled again. "Bleedin' brilliant!"
The gang helped them stand up and one of them handed Andy his cassette player with the tape of police sirens on it. Den took off his jacket.
"Best hundred quid I ever spent," he said. "Glad I didn't wear my best jacket though." He unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a semicircular harness that fitted around his torso. As Andy withdrew the special flexible sword, the tip of the 'fake' sword withdrew into the harness around his body. Instead of the sword going right through him, it took a circuitous route around the harness.
"That was the easy bit," Andy told them, going all serious. "Now we have to disappear. Dye your hair. Start dressin' in different clothes and look smarter. Stop hangin' around on the estate and start spendin' your time elsewhere."
This was stuff Andy had picked up when reading magic books. It was how magicians disappeared off stage and reappeared elsewhere. "Don't sneak about, people will notice that. But don't draw attention to yourself either. Use the back entrances to the flats and always take a different route in and out."
"How long for?" one of them asked.
"Dunno," Andy said. "A few months probably. Keep your ear to the ground and listen for any word of The Firm losing interest in us." He looked at his friends one by one and finished facing Big Den.
"Don't worry if you hear that I've disappeared. The Firm haven't got me... I'm goin' away for a bit 'til everything has calmed down."
"Where ya goin'?" Den asked.
"Sorry Den. Not sayin'. If ya don't know, ya can't tell."
"Well, we'll miss ya." Den held out his hand and they did a thumb clasp shake. Andy then repeated the shake with each of the gang and then back to Den.
"I owe you one Andy," Den said quietly
"Yeah, sure," Andy replied dismissively. "C'mon, let's get outta here."
Andy thought about his hero, Harry Houdini. 'Time to escape and disappear', he thought to himself and was never seen in Peckham again.
In the med-lab of the TARDIS, John and Rose were looking at the readouts on the scanner displays.
"What are we looking at?" she asked him as she looked at the micrograph on the screen.
"This is a sample from the hand. That is common or garden E-Coli, the sort you find in every human's intestine."
"What?! So it's not alien then?"
"No, but someone has been tinkering with the gene sequences, seems to be the geneticist's favourite. These bacteria are organising themselves like ants in a colony, taking over the control of nerve and muscle functions."
Rose was open mouthed in disbelief. "Are you tellin' me someone has deliberately created a bug to turn people into zombies?"
"Well, that may not have been their original intention, but that's what they've ended up with. And here..." He pointed to another micrograph. "This is from the saliva off the lump of thumb he bit off. Spores. Millions of them. Everyone he bites or dribbles on gets infected."
"Are we alright John?" she asked suddenly filled with dread, and thoughts of her son being left without parents.
"I ran the sonic over all of us at the bank, just as a precaution. Even zapped cold viruses that were hanging about, we're fine." He reached for her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "We need to get to Torchwood pronto. Fancy a go at flying us there," he said with a smile.
"What, onto the landing pad in the Standby Room?" she asked him, her voice full of trepidation.
"Yeah, should be easy for you. The coordinates are already preset in 'favourite destinations', and the timeline is linear and concurrent."
"Okay, let's go," she said with an excited smile.
Rose activated the door lock mechanism and selected the 3-dimensional spatial coordinates from the favourites menu. The temporal coordinates were left in neutral so that they didn't travel through time.
She powered up the atom accelerator, released the time rotor handbrake, activated the inertial dampers, engaged the harmonic generator, released the locking down mechanism, pulled the engine release lever, activated the materialise/dematerialise function, and gradually increased the space-time throttle as the time rotor started to pump up and down and took them into the vortex.
She then gradually decreased the space-time throttle and activated the harmonic generator to stop the TARDIS from drifting as it materialized. She activated the materialise/dematerialise function and felt the TARDIS gently caress the floor of Special Operations Standby Room.
John took her hand and kissed her on the cheek. "Nicely done Wife," he said as they headed for the door.
When they opened the door, they were confronted by the perfect white smile of Handsome Harkness, who had returned from Wimbledon common half an hour ago.
"I never get tired of that!" he said as they stepped out of the TARDIS.
"Me neither," Rose confided.
Behind Jack, the rest of Blue Watch were looking at them with smiles on their faces. The corner of the Standby Room had been cleared and designated a landing area for the TARDIS, should it be needed for a mission at some point.
"How were the Jathar?" John asked him as he closed the TARDIS door.
"Very appreciative of the quantum tunnel diode that we fitted to their star drive. I got the quartermaster to run one out to us from the warehouse. They gave me this as a trade." He held up a small handset that looked like a car key fob.
"Watch this," he said as he pressed the button. Jack morphed into Jackie Tyler, complete with pink tracksuit, large hooped earrings and cockney accent.
"Watcha think lover boy?" morphed Jackie said, giving him a wink.
John shuddered. "You don't know how disturbing that is Jack."
Morphed Jackie laughed and turned back into Jack. "Couldn't resist it Doc. A psychic shimmer. Think about the person you want to be and press the button."
He pressed it again and Rose gasped. "Oh my God Jack," she said.
There in front of them was a man with short hair, blue eyes, big ears and a daft grin, wearing a leather jacket.
"Hello Rose," he said in a northern accent.
"I've missed that daft old face," she said with a sad smile.
"I think you need to check that into the warehouse Jack," John told him.
Jack reappeared and nodded. "Yeah, sorry about that. I miss that face too."
While Jack headed down to the basement, John moved over to a computer to activate the tracking tattoo that he'd applied to the specimen case. Rose went through to Despatch next door to say hello to her friend Chrissie Anderson.
Chrissie had been her mentor when she had started at Torchwood, being one of the most senior agents on the payroll. Her nickname of 'Brains' was well deserved, being the senior Technical Operations officer. All the high tech equipment they used was her responsibility; she made sure all staff were properly trained and competent to use it.
She had a doctorate in semiconductor physics, and degrees in electronics and engineering. She had written a number of papers on her research, and turned out an article for scientific publications on average once a year.
"Rose! How are you? It's so good to see you again." She got out of her seat and hugged her.
"I'm fine thanks. How was India?" Chrissie had been on secondment to Torchwood in India for two months, helping them upgrade their Technical Operations Department.
"It was great! Dave and the kids loved it."
"You must come over for dinner one evenin'. We'll check the rota later and see when we're free," Rose suggested.
"Rose, can you give your Dad a call and ask him to come down here?" John called to her.
"Is somethin' wrong?" she asked.
"An interesting development shall we say. Andy, I think you'll find this interesting too."
John waited until Pete arrived in Special Operations and he had everyone's attention.
"Pete, what did the Defence Minister actually tell you?" John asked.
"What, Geoffrey Miller? He said that it had come to his attention that certain hazardous specimens had been collected by Torchwood and he was sending UNIT to confiscate them on behalf of the government for safe keeping."
"And that involved them being taken to UNIT HQ at the Tower of London?"
"That is what I was led to believe, yes. I phoned the President and she said it had been a request from the military to contain any possible outbreak."
"Hmmm. So why are they currently heading west on the M3?" John asked.
"What?" Pete exclaimed.
"Uh-oh," Andy said. "I bet you a pound to a penny they're heading towards Salisbury. Porton Down to be exact."
"Wha? The secret research place?" Rose asked.
"The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, known as DSTL, an Executive Agency of the Ministry of Defence. Its one of the most sensitive and secretive government facilities for military research, including CBRN defence," Andy told them.
"Oh this is getting interesting," John said. "Chrissie, do you think you can access DSTL without being detected?"
Chrissie smiled at him. "Can Pavarotti sing opera? What do you need?"
"A list of employees working there."
"That's not too sensitive so it should be fairly straightforward." She moved over to her computer and started to set up a false trail around global servers incase someone detected her intrusion.
"Are you thinkin' Philip Coyne might be an employee?" Rose asked him quietly.
"It wouldn't surprise me."
While Chrissie was busy on her computer, Andre 'The Giant' Coultarde had taken over on despatch. He wasn't a giant, but the name of a wrestler from TV just seemed to fit. He was just taking a call from the hospital.
"Shohn, zair iz a call on line three from Dr. Patterson at ze 'ospital," he said in in his Swiss accent that made all the female staff weak at the knees.
"Thanks Andre." He went over to the desk and picked up the phone.
"Emily, it's John Smith. What can I do for you?" he said in a conversational tone. Rose was watching his face to see if she could gauge whether the call was good news or bad.
By the way his smile suddenly disappeared, she knew. She patted Pete's arm to get his attention and nodded towards John.
"When?... How many?... Did either of them leave the hospital?... Okay you need to lock down, nobody in, nobody out. Call back anyone who has been at the hospital today. Start everyone on a course of high dose antibiotics, I'll send you my data."
He put the phone down and turned to look at everyone. They were staring at him with faces full of dread.
"The mortuary technician and one of the security guards have had cardiac arrests after going into multiple organ failure. Roughly an hour later they are trying to bite anyone who will let them."
He ran his hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Pete, I think you need to call the President again and tell her the military have been playing 'silly buggers' with some bugs. Oh and call UNIT and tell them if they are so keen to deal with this, get there arse's down to the hospital and sort it out."
Pete nodded. "I'll be in my office." He didn't mind being ordered about by John in situations like this. He knew about delegation of authority; let the best person for the situation take control of that situation.
"Dad, can we get Alice's team to tell the families about the first two victims? They might have some information that'll make sense of all this."
Alice DiMaggio had been Rose's bereavement counsellor when she was first stranded in this world and helped her to come to terms with being separated from the Doctor. She had since become her best friend.
"Good idea sweetheart. Give Psychology a call. I want a field agent with each counsellor."
