Miranda stepped out of the biologics tent. She'd already shed her protective gear. A UNIT private had kindly given her a cigarette. She hadn't had one of these in months. She turned her back to keep the flame out of the wind as she lit it. The sound of a helicopter brought her head up. When it landed, she was surprised to see Henry and Fish both get out of it. She was only expecting the return of their technician. Henry was leaning heavily on a cane and Fish was also helping him along. His jaw was tight and there was a painful furrow to his brow. Once they were clear of the blades, they headed straight for one of the forensic tents. Miranda jogged over to stop them.
"My Lord Richmond, are you all right?" she asked. Her method of address may have been respectful, but her tone wasn't. She wanted to know what her former student was doing here. It would take Miranda hours to heal from such extensive injuries. It would likely take the much younger immortal nearly all day.
Fish stood back, awkwardly watching on.
"I wish to lend my assistance, Mao-Lin," Henry replied, stiffly.
Miranda took in her student's face. He was clearly in significant pain. There was sweat on his brow and a small trickle rolled down his face in front of his ear. "That is admirable, your grace, but-"
Henry raised his hand to silence her. "You weren't there, Mao-Lin. You didn't see them… all those people…"
"I understand this is distressing, your grace, but you are not-"
"Silence," Henry barked. It was the commanding tone that Fish hated so much. At least it wasn't directed at him now. He'd tried to get Henry to stay in bed and rest but there'd been no dissuading him. The moment his lover's legs had healed enough to support his weight, he'd refused to stay behind. Now, Fish finally understood when Tom had said, 'Have you seen my old man angry yet? I mean really fucking angry? He's got a nasty fucking temper on him, Joe, I shit you not.' Even though Fish and Henry had been living together for years, this was his first look at the full extent of that temper.
Henry took a limping step towards his teacher. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. "Ashley has lost one of her legs and she is breathing out of a fucking tube." He added with a chill, "I will have satisfaction."
Miranda could count the number of times she'd heard Henry resort to that level of profanity. "Fish has manufactured the proper Torchwood credentials for you?"
Henry nodded.
"Where is everyone, Evie?" Fish asked.
"Gwen and Ianto are both back at the Hub, searching for the terrorists still at large. I believe Jack is in the forensics tent with Captain Hart. You're in charge of the team, Fish. You'll be working directly with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart who's been coordinating while they awaited your return. There's also a young woman named Osgood who comes with the highest of recommendations. Remember that Torchwood is still in charge of this case. Search and rescue is complete. We're in clean up and salvage phases. Our primary goal is investigative. Anything that can lead us to the whereabouts of the terrorists currently at large is priority one."
"Right. C'mon, Henry," Fish said. He took Henry's arm and helped his lover into the tend. Miranda shook her head. She had absolutely no idea what help Henry could be. While the man had made an effort over his lifetime to learn and grow with the times, the area of Fish's expertise was wholly out of Henry's sphere of knowledge. While well educated, Henry was an artist, not a scientist and alien technology was completely foreign to him.
The comm unit in Miranda's ear sprang to life. "Miranda? Done with that fag yet?"
"Yeah, I'm coming back in now, Martha," Miranda said. Her cigarette had burned away mostly on its own. She hadn't smoked it at all. There was only enough for one long drag so she took it and then crushed it under her shoe. With a sigh, she went back into the biologics tent. She allowed the alien devices to flash on and off, decontaminating her. She put on a protective suit and re-entered the clean area. UNIT was taking human casualties to a makeshift morgue just outside of Cardiff but the alien terrorists were here. As more alien remains were identified, they were being brought here as well.
Pieces of the four bodies were laid out and several UNIT doctors were looking at them. Miranda and Martha were overseeing the process and they were all nearly finished. There were a few pieces of the devices imbedded on the corpses as well as various kinds of residue. It was their hope that the devices could glean some information. Martha and Miranda were both leaning over the Akkoran that had been in Henry's carriage. There wasn't much left of the him, most of his limbs had been burned away or blasted off. Martha was doing most of the work, Miranda was merely assisting.
"Look at this, Miranda," Martha said, pointing with a gloved finger.
"Another piece of the device," Miranda said. She tapped the control panel on her suit, activating the comm unit in her ear. "Fish? Captain Hart? Could one of you please report to the biologics tent?"
Neither answered. Miranda was about to ask again when Hart stepped into the biologics tent. He was wearing a protective suit. It was strange to see him dressed so. Usually Hart spurned any form of protective gear citing fifty first century immunity.
"What can I do for you, Dollface?" She heard his voice through the comm unit.
"Don't call me that, Captain," she said. It was her usual retort, but lately, it had lost a lot of its bite. Also, lately, she'd felt a slight blush on her face at the endearment.
"There's a piece of the device here. I don't want to damage it," Miranda said, waving down at the corpse.
"Show me," he said.
"Here," Martha pointed at the smattering of circuitry embedded into the flesh.
"Right," Hart said. He dug out a pair of tweezers and held his hand out for Martha's scalpel. Once she'd handed it to him, he leaned over the corpse.
"It's seared onto the flesh. Almost got it," Hart said as he tried to dig the piece out.
It came free with a sickening tear and snapping sound. There was a significant amount of flesh adhered to it. Hart held the piece aloft. He squinted his eyes at it, twisting and turning it under the lights. He bent down, picking the flesh away as best he could, rinsing it often. His efficiency and expedience surprised Miranda. Hart had the piece clean in moments. He held the clean piece aloft again. She could see Hart's quick mind at work.
Without warning, he tried to peck Miranda on the cheek, banging his face shield into hers, and said, "Beautiful, thanks Dollface."
Hart didn't even look at either woman as he left the tent through the connecting flap to the forensics area. Miranda felt her face grow warmer.
Martha teased, "Jack and Ianto must be catching."
"Pardon?" Miranda asked.
"First Fish now you? What's going on with you and McSteamy over there?" Martha asked, her eyes dancing.
"Nothing," Miranda said, firmly.
"That didn't look like nothing," Martha said and laughed. "Got him wrapped around your little finger, you have."
"Nonsense, Martha," Miranda said, dismissive.
Martha giggled but didn't pursue the subject. The two women returned to their work. By the time she and Martha left the corpses in the hands of the rest of the biologics department, the sun was coming up over the horizon. They'd learned little of importance; nothing that would tell them where these aliens had been or where the rest of the group could be hiding out. It seems the devices were items the terrorists had brought with them. Nothing was time current. UNIT would now be left to learn more details about the species and their technology with Torchwood kept in the loop. When the two women emerged from the biologics tent, Jack and Hart were both speaking in low voices next to the forensics tent. They both looked grave.
They all took UNIT helicopters back to Cardiff. There was still a lot to be done at the derailment site but that was left to UNIT. Torchwood had more pressing matters and Jack wanted them all back to regroup and debrief. The helicopters dropped them off in the Plass and then took off to return to the derailment site. The short trip down the invisible lift was somber.
"Boardroom in ten minutes everyone," Jack bellowed across the Hub.
Miranda was too tired to quip back at him about using his inside voice. They were all exhausted. They'd been up all night and gotten little rest the past couple of days. Miranda saw the Duke was still leaning on his cane. He leaned on it as he walked towards the kitchen with Ianto to help the Welshman prepare food and drink for the team. Miranda deeply hoped that the drink portion included some of Jack's industrial strength coffee. Her eyes burned and her limbs felt heavy. Her mind felt as if in a fog.
Martha and Miranda walked towards the boardroom together. Miranda noted the extra chairs for Henry and Martha. Colonel Ashline, their UNIT liaison, had wanted to be a part of this briefing but Jack had insisted the only UNIT presence be Martha Jones. The boardroom table had never looked so crowded. Henry sat down heavily next to Fish, leaning his cane against his chair. After Ianto had distributed some of Jack's industrial strength coffee to all in attendance, Jack stood up. He leaned forward, planting his hands on the table.
"Okay, everyone, we have a lot of ground to cover. Henry, thanks for joining us."
"Of course, Captain Harkness," Henry said with a tight smile. He turned to Martha. "Before we begin, I would like to inquire about the fate of another passenger, Doctor Jones?"
Martha lifted her tablet and tapped at it. "Name?"
"Amelia Taylor," Henry said, sadly.
A sad look came over her face. "I'm sorry, Henry. She's among the deceased."
Anger crossed Henry's features. His voice was hollow as he said, "Thank you."
Fish reached under the table for his lover's hand, lifting it to his lips. He pulled Henry's chair as close to his own as he could.
Jack cleared his throat. "Fish you want to start us off again?"
Fish didn't let go of Henry's hand as he tapped his own tablet with his free one. The screen above them filled with images. "UNIT forensics gave the train a cursory once over after search and rescue was done. There's still a lot of work to do but here's what we know so far. There were a total of four suicide bombers. I analysed the samples from the wreckage. The residue is consistent with that of the explosive residue from what we took off our friend down in the cells."
"So, it's the same group," Gwen said.
"It all adds up that way," Fish said. He nodded at Hart. "John? You want to go into the tech."
The former Time Agent tapped the tablet in front of him and the screen changed. A model of the train came up. "The suicide bombers had flame grenades on them. The real payloads were the devices on the train wheels - hooked up to remote detonators on the suicide bombers. None of the tech is time current. They brought these with them. The devices all went off nearly simultaneously after the initial explosion in Henry's car so that as many cars derailed as possible."
"The main purpose of terrorism; maximizing damage and human loss," Gwen said.
Henry frowned. "The alien being in my carriage appeared to be making an escape."
"Akkoran religious faith prohibits suicide," Hart said, shrugging. "Your car exploded first probably to give him time to escape before the rest of the train derailed. Whether or not he actually wanted to escape or just make an attempt is anyone's guess."
Fish said, "This took a lot of forethought. They brought these devices with them. They knew exactly how to derail the train. There was a lot of planning and research done here."
Jack nodded in Fish's direction. "The Linearist downstairs is a patsy. He was meant to confuse us and throw us off track and it worked." Jack and Hart exchanged a worried look. "John and I think we know what's going on but what we're about to tell you is something that can never leave this room."
"What we're about to tell you violates… well, everything," Hart said. He looked a bit stunned, like he couldn't believe what he was about to do.
"Doing this goes against everything John and I ever learned at the Time Agency about protecting the integrity of the time stream. Every moral. Every code. Every ethic," Jack stressed. "I know we told you some things before, but never anything this specific or from our personal timelines."
"I don't understand," Martha said, shaking her head. "Why are you telling us then?"
"Jack thinks it's worth it so that we all understand what's at stake here," Hart said. He looked at Jack and gave him a small glare.
Miranda steepled her fingers in front of her face in her typical Spock-like way. "You don't agree, Captain?"
Hart turned in his chair, surprised someone had asked for his opinion at all. It took him a second to recover. "No, I don't. We've told you some general things, nothing you can't assume on your own, but this is different. Time's funny, Dollface. People think it's simple; something happens and then other things happen in a linear progression. Cause. Effect. But that's not the way it works at all. Time's this gigantic web that has strands running in directions you'd never thought of or even imagined. What we tell you now, can just as easily compromise the time stream as easily as it can protect it."
Miranda saw everyone around the table shift at the awkwardness. She would have preferred not having this discussion in front of the team nor with a member of UNIT present. She was second in command. They should have informed her and allowed her to be part of the decision on whether or not to tell the team, especially since the two former Time Agents were divided on the issue.
"It's important information, Will," Jack insisted. He was giving her his 'trust me' look. She gave him an almost imperceptible nod. Jack turned to Hart and gestured in front of him with his hand.
Hart sighed. He'd hoped Miranda would see his side. Then again he was just happy to have had his opinion considered. Most of the time, the team acted like he didn't exist. "As Jack and I have said already, when time travel was invented, it caused a massive upheaval, not unlike the invention of nuclear weapons. Every belief, religious or scientific, creates extremists. The Linearist movement, and other groups like it, were instrumental in the formation of the Time Agency. A lot of these movements stepped up their game. They made larger attacks. They went back in time and tried to change history, create paradoxes and such so the Time Agency was born. Temporal crimes are serious offences in the future."
"A lot of people tried to use time travel for different ends. Some had good intentions but a lot of them didn't. The Time Agency filled a hole in law enforcement. It started out as a branch of a larger agency," Jack said. He took a deep breath and reluctantly said, "The Torchwood Institute."
Gasps were heard all around the boardroom table and a few jaws dropped.
Ianto shook his head. "I don't even want to think about the time line implications of you joining the Time Agency, a branch of Torchwood, and then went back in time and started working for Torchwood."
Hart and Jack both smiled.
"Time travel, you can't keep it straight in your head, Eye Candy," Hart said. "The Torchwood Institute is the law enforcement body of the Great and Bountiful Human Empire. The Time Agency's formation wasn't popular on a lot of fronts. Some people thought time travel would destroy the universe like our friend downstairs."
Jack waved his hand out to the side and continued, "And at the other end, people thought time travel should be freely available to everyone and that people should be allowed to use it any way they wanted. Complete temporal autonomy and that's what they called themselves, The Temporal Autarchy."
Miranda narrowed her eyes, confused. "This isn't any different than facts you've told us before. How is this a crime?"
"We're getting there, Dollface. There was a class at the academy on agency history, all of us were required to take it," Hart said, waving back and forth between him and Jack.
Jack interjected, "They mentioned a faction that broke off from the TTA and the Linearists, a movement that joined forces and wanted to stop the Time Agency. There were never any details about how they were stopped just that they'd tried to change history. It was only mentioned in passing."
Hart rolled his eyes and continued, "At the time, Jack and I thought it was strange. The TTA and the Linearists had completely different ideologies when it came to time travel. The idea of them collaborating was big. Something like that would normally be worth at least a whole lecture if not several because if there was one thing the Agency loved, it was tooting its own horn about how it had risen up to overcome and blah blah blah. Anyway, the professor mentioned it once and then never brought up again."
To the immortals around the table, the implication was clear. Jack worked for Torchwood. Jack was immortal. Had he influenced the class's content to give a subtle clue to himself? The whole thing made Miranda's head hurt. No wonder this was a crime. Jack could be greatly influencing his own time line.
"So that's what this group is doing?" Gwen asked, confused. "They're trying to stop the Time Agency from being formed by destabilizing Torchwood?"
"I don't understand how committing terrorist acts against Britain would stop the Time Agency from being formed," Martha said, confused. "How would that have anything to do with Torchwood?"
Ianto interjected, "UNIT is already aware that aliens are responsible for the public disturbance in Cathys Park, the train explosion and the derailing. They're also aware that these aliens arrived through the rift. I've already been on the phone with Her Majesty. Two major public instances of alien involvement one with civilian deaths? It looks like we cocked up. A few more large terrorist attacks with aliens at the middle and Torchwood could easily be dissolved or fall under the purview of UNIT or some other agency."
"Which would be nothing short of a disaster," Jack said. "The Torchwood Institute is tremendously important over the next three thousand years. This is their objective. Stop Torchwood. Stop the Time Agency."
"Why go so far back?" Gwen asked. It made no sense to her. "If Torchwood is as important as you say, why disrupt it so far into the past?"
Hart shrugged. "A lot of these people have ideology not dissimilar from antiestablishment and antigovernment nuts today. It's the same type of person just in a different time. It's not just the Time Agency these people have a problem with, it's any organised form of government or authority."
"So we need to figure out their next move and stop them," Gwen said. She took a large gulp of coffee. "The patsy downstairs. Four dead at the park. Four on the train. That leaves four more."
"They could each have individual missions," Miranda said, frowning.
"I don't think so," Fish said, turning in his chair. "They're escalating. Anything larger than the train and they'll need more than one person."
Jack looked around at everyone. "You all know what's at stake here. I've always said we're arming humanity for the future. Now you understand more about what that means."
"UNIT will offer anything you need, Jack. Manpower. Equipment. Anything," Martha said.
"Thanks, Martha. I think we're good," Jack said, nodding. "I know we haven't gotten anything off the train, but there might be something on the footage before it left the railway station. Henry? Gwen? Two hour kip for the both of you. We'll sleep in short shifts."
Everyone stood, thinking Jack was finished but he wasn't. "Henry? Martha? John? You three go on. Everyone else hang back for a minute."
When they were out of ear shot, Jack said, "I want your opinions on how John is doing as part of the team. We need to decide what to do with him."
"Is now really the time for this, Jack?" Miranda said. "You're making him sound like a stray dog."
"A dangerous one that could bite you," Gwen said, under her breath.
"See, that's what I'm talking about," Jack said pointing at Gwen. "This is a major operation, Will. The future is at stake and now you know how much. We need to clear the air here and now."
"He's been on his best behaviour, sir, but I keep wondering what his angle is," Ianto said with a nod.
"Will?" Jack asked.
Miranda shifted uncomfortably. The truth is this Torchwood thing… it makes me want to be a better man… to atone… and… and so do you… She shook off the feelings those words brought up. This wasn't the time or the place for them. "I agree with Gwen, we can't trust him. And someone we can't trust has no place here."
Fish twisted in his chair and said, "I don't have a problem with him, Jack. I'm good with the computer technology of this century but all that alien shite?" He waved at the room behind him. "I'm no Toshiko Sato. The backlog is growing, not shrinking like it did in Tosh's day. I'm a chemist first, not an engineer. The tech is piling up. I get by but I'm struggling. I've learned a lot from him and he's a lot of help," Fish started strumming his fingers on the table in a nervous gesture. He could feel Gwen and Ianto's disapproving stares. He knew his friendship with Hart had been a source of strain but he still spoke his mind, "From what I've seen here? I don't see a reason to send him packing. You lot might all think I'm mental but my experience so far? John Hart is a good man who I trust. He's my friend. He saved my life."
Still, Fish could feel the elephant in the room. It was Gwen who pointed at it.
"Tosh and Owen are dead because of him, Jack. He tried to kill all of us. I don't trust him as far as I can throw him."
But it was Miranda who pointed at the bigger elephant behind it.
"The man responsible for the deaths of Sato and Harper is laying in one of our cryodrawers." She cast Jack a nervous glance, knowing she was toeing a line. "I understand the bitterness you all feel but Captain Hart took the path of least resistance. He did what he had to do to survive."
"You agree with what that bastard did?" Gwen demanded.
"I understand it, Gwen. There's a difference," Miranda said, her voice scornful.
"He had a choice," Ianto said, bitterly.
Miranda honed in on her student immediately. "I've taught you better than that, Ifan. The high road doesn't lead to the Prize. It leads to your head rolling across the pavement."
"Will, time and a place," Jack warned and Fish could see a stern lecture heading the Welshman's way at a more appropriate time.
Hart interrupted the awkward silence, coming into the boardroom at a run. "Joe? That cute little AI of yours has something. I uploaded that clever geographic profile of Gwen's into it. She did some fancy footwork with common travel routes and foot traffic… some bollocks I don't understand but it's got a hit. An abandoned shop on City Road and Pearson Street with people inside."
"Could be some chavs," Ianto said, with a shrug.
"She says ninety percent probability." Hart jerked his head towards the garage. "Henry's got the SUV warming up and Eye Candy's car."
Ianto rolled his eyes, standing. "Why is it always my car?"
"Because you're the only one who can keep up with Jack's driving," Miranda replied.