She didn't remember falling asleep. The last thing she did clearly recall was sitting down
on the too hard bed and leaning back against the too lumpy pillows to work on seeing if she
couldn't find a workable solution to the phone problem. She vaguely remembered being frustrated
by the lack of one that she could come up with using the materials she had brought here with
her. She had definitely not anticipated a need to have to fix a buggy mobile network. Archangel
was supposed to be global, as Owen had pointed out in his little pique earlier. As usual, she
had over-packed a bit with everything she would need to fix her computer if anything untoward
happened to it: screwdrivers of various styles and sizes, screws of every size she had been able
to find in her apartment and the Hub on such short notice, a miniature hammer for just in case
(in case she needed to flatten a piece or in case of co-workers, it never hurt to be prepared),
and plenty else besides that.
But fallen asleep she had, though a quick glance at her watch said it hadn't been for long.
Maybe fifteen minutes; Gwen had been asleep nearly an hour. What had woken her up, anyway? It
couldn't be the fact there was something else in the room. Yes, she was used to sleeping alone,
but there was a good metre or so between Gwen's bed and hers, and apparently the other woman was
too exhausted to do more than just lie there: she hadn't moved an inch that Tosh could tell, and
she certainly wasn't snoring or sleepwalking to have dragged her from unconsciousness.
From the end of her bed, her computer beeped again. In large red letters over the Archangel logo,
the screen read, 'Saxon Broadcast All Channels'. A few keystrokes changed the screen over to the
news feed she had turned up earlier. Mister Saxon was just settling in to speak, and she spared
a half second to glance over at Gwen, wondering if she should wake her up. But then he started
to speak before she could make up her mind properly. "Britain, Britain, Britain...
What extraordinary times we've had. Just a few years ago, this world was so small."
She felt her eyes go wide. This couldn't be going where it sounded like it was going, could it?
Still, she leaned back and banged on the wall behind her bed, startling Gwen awake as well. The
only reason she didn't look over to find a gun trained on her was because she had slid it out
of Gwen's back pocket after Owen and Ianto left the room. "Wh-What is it?" the other woman
sleepily asked, sitting up slowly, even as a second or so later, Ianto and Owen burst back
into the room.
"What?" Of course Owen was surly that was a given. Anyone who knew him knew to expect something
like that.
"Shush. I believe Mister Saxon is talking about aliens."
Now that got their attention, and before she knew what to do, there were three more people
piled on her too hard bed with its too lumpy pillows, all of them trying to see the laptop
as their Prime Minister continued speaking.
"And then they came, out of the unknown, falling from the skies." On the screen, a
spaceship flew into the clock face of Big Ben, and she sat up a little straighter.
"That was when I met the Doctor!" she exclaimed quietly, conscious of not overwhelming the
audio on the feed.
"You've seen it happen. Big Ben, destroyed. The spaceship over London. All those ghosts
and metal men. The Christmas Star that came to kill. Time and time again, and the government
told you nothing."
This time it was Owen sitting up straighter, looking utterly affronted. "And it's so much
better to start a mass panic and risk hundreds of lives than to keep people in the dark
and only risk a few trained people? Please."
"Well, not me, not Harold Saxon. Because my purpose here today is to tell you this:
citizens of Great Britain..." Oh, something about this gave her a sinking feeling in
her bones; this was not going to go well. To her side, Gwen looked almost physically ill
with worry. "I have been contacted. A message for humanity from beyond the stars."
He looked to his right and nodded slightly. Another video overlaid the one of the Prime
Minister, this one displaying a small metal ball. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she
was categorising it for addition into the records database: not too big, about the size
of a human skull, black with blinking lights on around its centre. When it spoke or the
recorded message began or whatever, the voice reminded her of a nursery school child:
childlike, with a gait and pitch that adults seemed to lose for the most part. "People
of the Earth, we come in peace. We bring great gifts. We bring technology and wisdom
and protection - and all we ask in return is your friendship."
"Don't buy it," immediately came from Owen. She couldn't help agreeing. They had me so
very few non-hostile aliens in their careers at Torchwood that it was easier to believe
the worst than the best. A small nod from Ianto and the determined look on Gwen's face
seemed to indicate they were united in this assessment.
The camera cut back to Mister Saxon, and frankly she had to grin at the face he was making
at the camera, serious situation going on or not. "Oh, sweet. And this species has
identified itself. They are called the Toclafane."
She found Owen's attention turning to the rest of them. "Ringing any bells for anyone
here?" She shook her head, holding on to hope for a few scant seconds that maybe she had
just been out sick that day or something, but then Ianto and Gwen also shrugged in
confusion. So an alien race that Torchwood had never heard of. The whole damn thing c
ould possibly have grown more interesting, she was sure, but she wasn't too sure how.
"And tomorrow morning, they will appear, not in secret, but to all of you.
Diplomatic relations with a new species will begin. Tomorrow, we take our place in
the universe. Every man, woman, and child. Every teacher and chemist. Every lorry
driver and farmer. Oh, I don't know, every..." he paused for a long breath, "medical
student." He smiled broadly, and the feed cut back over the news announcer.
Almost immediately, she cut the volume nearly off and leaned back.
All four of them sat in a sort of stunned silence for several long moments, gazing at
the laptop like it had done a particularly impressive trick, before Ianto finally
gathered his thoughts and spoke. "I do hope Torchwood Two or U.N.I.T. are involved
in this. Otherwise it stands to get very out of hand very quickly."
"And if the Americans get involved, it'll just get worse," Owen complained bitterly.
"So we have to operate and hunt our aliens in utter secrecy-"
"Except you don't know what that word means," the other man fired right back.
"-but Mister Saxon gets to announce his on television? On his first day on the job
at that! Where's the justice in that?"
"Maybe it's because the aliens he's dealing with are supposedly friendly?" she hazarded
a guess. "While we have the ones who want to play Jack the Ripper. It makes a
difference, I suppose.
"At least they aren't playing at being John Christie or Peter Sutcliffe." Unsurprisingly
that came from Gwen. And somehow comparing their aliens to serial killers made the
situation that much more bizarre. "Do you suppose he knew about these... Toclafane
before he sent us out here?"
Owen shuddered. "I don't even want to consider it. Why take us out of the picture when
there are aliens coming, after all?"
"We do have a bit of a reputation of shooting first and asking questions later," Ianto
voiced his opinion softly. "If these aliens are as harmless and, forgive the term,
child-like as they seem," and good, someone else had gotten the same 'child' feel from
the aliens, "then maybe it's so peace can be negotiated. 'Diplomatic relations with
a new species', and all that, as he said."
"There will probably be follow-ups, if you want to stay around to watch," she offered
and promptly winced to herself. No way Owen would let that pass by.
And of course, he didn't. "Sorry to disappoint you, Tosh, but even I don't sleep with
someone on the first date." She winced again to herself; a crack like that was no doubt
assured to set Gwen off in turn, and from the way he looked vaguely uncomfortable, she
could just bet he realised it as well.
"Is this a new rule, then?" Right on cue, as she had predicted and Owen had clearly
anticipated as well. Gwen probably would not appreciate it in the least that she was
at least this predictable to them, but in the face of something like it looked they
were facing, it was good to laugh; even Ianto cracked a faint smile.
There wasn't going to be a lot of time for humour soon, something told her, after
all.
She had deliberately taunted Owen for the chance to lighten the situation some. For
a while it had worked like a dream, far better than some of her plans she made when she
wasn't exhausted. Perhaps she needed to make more plans when she was only half-awake,
she thought in vague amusement.
Shortly after Mister Saxon's second broadcast of the day, Ianto had gone out to try to
get them all coffee. They were all definitely too awake now to try to go back to sleep,
after all. Once he'd returned, with the promised coffee and a few light snacks as well,
though, they had sat down and started going through the files they had with them. There
weren't that many, just what they hadn't cleaned out of their bags from other trips and
what she herself had had in her bag and hadn't bothered removing before they had left
Cardiff. It had also been amusing seeing what files were available: the grave majority
were the files she had had on the Doctor, but there were also some notes on disappearing
motorists in Brecon Beacons left over from their nearly disastrous trip to the Welsh
countryside (They were sure to never get Owen to go camping again, and frankly she had
lost a bit of interest in it herself as well, only species in the universe to camp or
not), one or two concerning Guy Wildman and Sandra Applegate and missing nuclear fuel
rods ("Not our best job there, but at least we didn't let Cardiff flood," Tosh cast
in her opinion), and even a few on the rewired pig and Downing Street bombing.
That last last set of files had naturally led to some fairly good-natured teasing from
Owen, while she and Ianto sat around the room, files open near them, grinning broadly.
"Don't you ever throw anything away, Toshiko?" he was still going on.
Apparently Tosh was taking a page from her book, as she picked up an empty sugar packet
and threw it at Owen, sitting on Gwen's bed. It didn't have the momentum to make the
distance, though, and ended up falling to the floor between the two beds. "It taught
me a very valuable lesson." Tosh's affectedly prim voice utterly did not match her
behaviour nor the grin on her face. "If it looks like a pig in a spacesuit, it might
indeed be a pig in a spacesuit."
Gwen opened her mouth to speak and ask if that was anything like something looking the
Rift grabbing people but really was ritualistic cannibals doing their once a decade
equivalent of a midnight snack, when the computer flashed another news update concerning
the Prime Minister; it had apparently been a simple thing for their resident computer
genius to add a search for the Doctor back on to her already running search after the
Prime Minister's first speech. She leaned back on Tosh's bed so she could see the
computer's screen, out of the corner seeing Owen and Ianto moving to Tosh's other
side to watch - and she promptly felt her blood run cold.
Right there on BBC 24 was a picture of the Doctor, a little blurry and shot with his
head down but definitely the Doctor. Large letters across the screen declared 'NATIONWIDE
HUNT FOR TERRORIST SUSPECTS', while the scrolling text continued 'Prime Minister Saxon
has taken the terror threat to a maximum, closed all ports and ordered an unprecedented
nationwide search for three suspects'. But even that wasn't a third as disturbing as
what the announcer was saying: "The ringleader who goes by the name of "the Doctor",
with a second, Martha Jones, and a Jack Harkness," she had to wonder if this was what
people felt like right before they passed out from shock, "who also identifies himself
as 'the Captain'. They are known to be armed and extremely dangerous."
When the topic changed, Tosh leaned forward and switched the news feed back to a background
program, staring at the screen in undisguised shock. A half glance to her side showed that
the two men look equally as surprised as Tosh and as she felt, but she wasn't too surprised
that Owen recovered his voice first. No, what got her was that the first thing he did was
look over at her and intone, "You might have been right." Confusion must have shown on her
face because he elaborated, "That Jack might be with the Doctor willingly. How did you
know?"
She shook her head, suddenly all too conscious of all the attention being focussed on her.
"I didn't. I just..." She trailed off, trying to think of what to say that wouldn't be a
complete lie but would answer the question. She could tell them about Jack's 'right kind
of doctor', she supposed, but it was really more Jack's story to tell if he decided he w
anted them to know. "It just seemed like that, if Jack was being held against his will,
he would have found a way to contact us. It's what he would expect us to do, at least,
if the situations were reversed."
Owen nodded as if that explanation was perfectly acceptable, pushing himself to his feet;
something in the back of his eyes told her, though, that they would discussing this in
greater detail when they were alone. "All right. We need to get some rest for real now,
people. Once night falls, we're going back out there to see if we can't find a few aliens;
that's not too long now, so we need to grab what sleep we can. Tosh, you'll let us know
if there are any more reports?"
She nodded. "Of course."
"And the broadcast with the Toclafane will be tomorrow, right?"
Again Tosh nodded. "Eight o'clock London time, so around noon here. It promises to be
interesting."
Gwen was keeping secrets. That was all he could say with any degree of certainty, and
that annoyed him. In fact, with everything else that was going on at the moment, with
Captain Jack gone and apparently working in collusion with the Doctor, the Prime Minister
sending them halfway across the globe the day before he revealed a new and apparently
friendly species of aliens had made contact with him, the phones still being down
and no amount of persuasion was getting anyone around here to let them use a phone to
call internationally for some reason, the utter lack of the aliens they were sent here
to locate, and him having to share a room with the tea boy, when he added in Gwen's
new-found closed-mouth policy, it was everything he could do not to give into the urge
to start raving like a madman and possibly shooting things.
And when had she gotten so good at avoiding him when he wanted to have it out with her,
yell a bit, and in general give her hell till she told him the truth, the complete and
total truth? He had tried to get her to come with him last night to look for the
aliens, but she'd vanished with Toshiko almost before he could even think to ask her
to come with him. And of course, now Toshiko and the tea boy were in the room as well,
so he didn't want to start demanding answers. It'd end up going sour fast.
Well, that was fine. She could ignore him all she wanted right now. He'd corner her
eventually and find out just what was going on in the little mind of hers. It wasn't
like there was anywhere she could go: they were in a foreign country, not a one of
them spoke the language, and the translator tool was in his and the tea boy's room.
So they could sit all piled on Tosh's and Gwen's beds again, eating what pretended
to be chips from wherever the tea boy had gone to get them something almost like a
meal, and complain as President Winters droned on and on. Seriously it was getting
to the point where he wanted to chunk a stale almost-chip at the screen and hope for
it to go through and hit the man. Bloody annoying git.
Over on the desk, one of the mobiles - he wasn't sure which of the ones over there
it was - beeped that it was through charging. Bit silly to recharge them when they
weren't carrying a signal, but all four of them had completely drained the batteries
on their mobiles trying to get through to Jack with no luck. He had found himself
wishing one of them had thought to bring their personal one with them: they might
have succeeded in getting through. After all, if their wildest conspiracy theories
were correct, maybe it was just their work phones that were blocked, though that
wasn't a theory he really wanted to invest too much time in trying to prove.
A bit reluctantly, he tuned back into the man speaking on the news feed, since he
was finally moving past the 'blah-blah-my fellow Americans-blah-blah-historical
moment-blah-blah' bits. "...great day for humanity. And I ask you now, I ask
of the human race to join with me in welcoming our friends. I give you, the
Toclafane."
And there they were, four of them anyway, four small black balls with blinking
lights. Gwen reached over him for the complimentary notepad and pen and pen and
started sketching them down. "What, don't think we're going to see them again?"
he demanded, still a bit peeved that she had managed so well to avoid letting him
question her.
"Doesn't hurt to be thorough." And while he probably could find fault with that
statement, right now he didn't want to, not with aliens on the news. At least the
television station here was broadcasting it as well, though he couldn't imagine
anyone not picking up a historical event like this, blah blah blah. Dear God, his
mind was starting to pick up on Winters' babbling.
"...welcome you to the Planet Earth and its associated moon."
This time he did throw the chip he'd been just about to try to choke down at the
television. "Jesus Christ, what a wan-"
"You're not the Master."
They exchanged a worried look among them as the things - the Toclafane - continued
to speak. No, 'whine' might be a better word for it. "We like the Mister
Master."
"We don't like you!"
"This isn't going to be good," Tosh murmured, biting down on one of her knuckles
worriedly. At his side, Gwen had stilled in her very rough sketching attempt. On
the other bed with Tosh, Ianto's hand had gone white around his coffee cup he was
gripping it so tightly; frankly it was a wonder the paper hadn't torn under the
pressure.
"I... can be master if you so wish. I will accept mastery over you if that is
God's will." Winters was floundering, that much was immediately obvious. He
was completely out of his depth, and it didn't look like there was any way he
was getting back into his depth with his dignity intact. Still, he could stand
to see the man taken down a peg or two.
"Man is stupid."
"Master is our friend."
"Where's my Master? Pretty please?"
In the history of televised blunders, this one had all the potential to be the
biggest and the worst ever. Of course the Americans just had to get
involved and now it had all gone to shit. But still... 'the Master'? What did
that mean? Better still, who?
"Oh, all right then, it's me!" What? Why was the Prime Minister jumping
to his feet and grinning like a deranged clown? What did he mean it was him?
"Ta-da!" Or a deranged salesman perhaps instead? "Sorry, sorry, I
have this effect. People just get obsessed. Is it the smile? Is it the aftershave?
Is it the capacity to laugh at myself? I don't know. It's crazy!"
"What the hell?" And with that, Gwen just about summed up everything he was
thinking. Probably Tosh and Ianto too.
"Saxon, what are you talking about?" Winters demanded on the screen,
the cameras snapping back and forth between them, trying to keep up with one
of the world's weirdest conversations. And frankly, for once, he was in agreement
with Winters.
He wouldn't want to be in the man's shoes, though, as Mister Saxon - the Master?
Master of what? - turned to stare at him, the camera zooming in on his face.
"I'm taking control, Uncle Sam, starting with you." The camera held tight
on his face as he glanced to his side at one of the Toclafane hovering there.
"Kill him."
Tosh's hands clapped over her mouth as Winters exploded into red confetti, for
lack of a better way to think of it; his brain seemed to have frozen, and no
description was horrible enough for what he had just seen. For an irreverent
split second, all he could think was that he was glad Jack hadn't done that
when he shot him. Come to think of it, that was about the same expression Tosh
had worn when he pulled the trigger on their boss, though without quite as much
of the personal horror. Oh well, that was probably because she didn't personally
know Winters. Poor bastard.
The cameras captured guns appearing on people he had just been assuming were
dignitaries of some sort, not guards or anything. People were screaming. And
Mister Saxon, the Master of something, maybe, was laughing almost hysterically,
all but bouncing as he clapped his hands and dashed up the stairs to where Winters
had stood a few scant seconds before, yelling for the guards as he did. A moment
later, he noted Lucy Saxon - Where did she figure into all this anyway? - hurry
up to stand by his side to the tune of said guards ordering people not to move.
"Now then!" The cameras zoomed in close on Mister Saxon, and frankly he
found himself leaning back from the screen. Somehow Gwen's hand was in his, and
she was gripping it so tightly that it hurt. This was real and it was one of
the most horrible things he'd seen in all his time in Torchwood and it was real
and they were watching it on telly like it wasn't their job to stop this sort
of thing from happening - and by God, it was real. That was all he could f
ocus on.
It was really happening. Their Prime Minister was working with aliens and had just
blown up the American President on television. It should be utterly surreal, but
the pain from her grip on his hand was just enough to remind him it was real.
"Owen," she whispered, almost too low to hear.
"Peoples of the earth, please attend carefully..."