ROTQ (3/8)
Title: The Roots of the Quadratic (3/8)
Author: nancybrown
Fandoms: Torchwood, Doctor Who
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Alice, Jenny, John Hart, OCs
Rating: R
Beta/Britpick: queenfanfiction, wynkat1313, temporal_witch, and fide_et_spe had a hand in fixing this. All remaining mistakes are mine alone.
Spoilers: up through CoE, one spoiler for "End of Time," one spoiler for Bay of the Dead
Warnings: character death, angst, child endangerment, mentions of sexual coercion, violence, timey-wimey temporal physics, and of course, Captain Bad Touch rides again
Words: 46,000 (8,000 this part)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
***
Chapter Three
***
"Theft is the oldest crime. Theft of goods, theft of life, theft of autonomy, it all boils down to loss. One day I woke up and found out two years of my memories had been stolen. As you might imagine, I was kind of pissed off. [Go into more detail here. As resignations go, yours was spectacular.]" - from "Me: An Autobiography"
***
Alice suppressed a shudder, seeing John Bloody Hart back aboard her ship and gazing around it as though he'd never been there before. He hadn't, not on his personal timeline, and it went a long way towards explaining how easily he'd wormed his way into their confidence, how well he'd known Hilda's controls back when she'd thought they'd first met.
Bloody time travel.
The object in her hand bit into the palm. Alice focused on the pain sensation.
Jenny made herself John's primary contact, knowing without asking how little Alice wanted to deal with him. "You are not to touch any of the controls. You are not to talk to the ship's AI. You are not to attempt a repair, prepare any foodstuff, or otherwise interact in any way with Hilda's operation. You will not be left alone at any time."
"Oh good," he oozed. "And are you going to be my keeper?" He made the mistake of placing his hand on Jenny's shoulder. A second later, he was flat on his back. "Ow."
In the same tone as before, she said, "You are not to touch any member of the ship's crew without their prior authorisation."
"Oh, I like her," said Ianto.
"No maiming," Jack reminded her.
"Ow," John said again, getting slowly to his feet. "Right. No touching anything."
"Here," said Alice, and she threw the object at John, who caught it easily. "You left this."
He brought it up to his face. "What is it?"
They hadn't the foggiest notion. Silvery and intricate, the object was a carving about the size of a man's thumb. Alice thought it rather looked like a chess piece. Jenny had performed a scan but found no radiation, no signals, nothing to indicate it was anything but a simple bit of art, which meant it was probably a bomb or another trap. She should have airlocked the damned thing, but she'd held onto it as a souvenir to remind herself about caution in dealing with seductive strangers. "You dropped it when you were here."
John inspected the piece again, then shrugged and shoved it into a pocket. Sadly, he did not immediately explode.
Jack said, "I figure we'll want to go into the Agency right around the time I left. We don't want to run into ourselves, but if we wait too long, I'll set off an alarm just by setting foot there."
John said, "And you're going with me because?"
"I don't trust you. You get me inside, I can find the information we need."
"Of course you can." John folded his arms. "Because the Agency didn't keep the locations of their breeder planets locked up tight."
"I found it before."
"You were familiar with their systems before. You're out of practise."
"Well, that's why I have you, isn't it?" Jack's voice was playful. Alice felt another wave of nausea, thinking of John's brief time in her bed.
"The rest of us," said Ianto, loudly, "are going to be your backup."
"No," said John, "you three are going to be good little children and stay with the ship."
"Negative," Jenny said. "We've got a record to fake. Alice and I just saved a planet full of people. We're going to ensure the Time Agency leaves them alone." She pulled out a data stick from the console. "We'll overwrite their files."
Alice glanced at the stick, the lynchpin of her own private plan with Jenny. The first time one of the files they implanted was accessed, it would start a chain reaction in the Agency's systems, corrupting file after file. The lives the Agency disrupted, the worlds whose historical courses they changed for their own benefit, all of it would come to a stuttering halt thanks to a few brilliant lines of code Jenny had written. But Jack and John didn't need to know that.
She turned to Ianto. "You can stay with the ship and keep us coordinated."
Jack shook his head. "Ianto's needed for the backup plan. He'll stick with the two of us."
"What's the backup plan?"
Jack shook his head. "Need to know basis."
"I need to know," said Alice, but she caught the tilt of his head towards John. She sighed. She'd have to make him tell her later.
***
The Time Agency had branches in far-flung regions of space, but the main office was on Lourdis Four, known as "Narda" to the natives, the same world where the United Council currently made their home. Ianto had lived here for almost two years, and never known the name of the planet. He'd only seen the spaceport once, and that from a distance. The rest of his time had been spent working at a low-rent pub in the slums, searching for a way back to 2009, and quite accidentally, getting to know a much younger version of Jack.
If Jack's memoirs spanned thousands of years and many volumes of books, Ianto figured his own life story would make at least a decent hour or two of telly.
The spaceport was crowded. They had to circle the landing site for hours until a spot came open for them. Hart's ID bought them freedom from too many questions. Ianto had questions of his own, but he held them, instead observing Alice watch the aliens around them. She'd spent more time in space than he had, but she gasped when they passed a rolling ball of iridescent green fur which ducked to allow a sloping brown-gold giant the right of way.
Ianto saved his wonder for the architecture. He'd lived in a willowy spire with Jack, thought he could even pick out which one, but the bulbous shapes of the other buildings brought back sharp memories: fear, loneliness, the patter of voices speaking Nardek, long hours at work, longer nights beside a man who couldn't be allowed to remember him. He gaped, piecing together landmarks from his memories.
Jack leaned over. "You look like a tourist."
"Couldn't be. I'm not asking what the funny words on the monument mean."
Something flickered in Jack's eyes. Ianto chose to believe it was recognition, though Jack probably had forgotten the Plass entirely by now. Then Jack said, "Didn't you tell people it was Welsh for 'I adore my beautiful sheep?'"
Jenny's laugh pealed out unexpectedly, as Ianto said, "No. That was Owen." In a lower voice, he said, "I used to say it meant, 'Fuck the bloody English.'" The smile that earned him from Jack was more than worth the glare from Alice.
Their clothing wouldn't draw attention on the streets, not in a port city like this, but walking brazenly into the Time Agency would require better camouflage. Ianto recalled the humiliating dance of acquiring fresh clothing when he'd first arrived here after his unexpected resurrection, but this Jack was far more willing to purchase off the rack, as it were. Two hours after their arrival, Jack and Hart were bedecked in matching navy blue Time Agent uniforms, while Ianto, Alice and Jenny were garbed as office workers. (No suits. Definitely no ties.) Jack had dyed the grey from his hair, and Ianto found that he already missed running his fingers through the silver edging.
"This is never going to work," Hart said, as Jenny emerged last from where she'd gone to change. The clothes were perfect, Jack claimed, but something about Jenny was too vibrant and intense to be disguised by mere fabrics.
Jack said, "You just keep your part and don't worry about it."
As they approached the Agency building, Ianto's palms started to sweat. He'd only been inside once, the day they brought him back from the dead, and while reviving from death was certainly better than dying had been, he still considered the whole mess one of his worst days.
Jack hung back two steps, letting Hart lead the way and allowing the two women to get ahead of them. In a whisper, he asked, "Are you going to be okay?"
"Fine. I never expected to come back here willingly."
"That makes two of us." Jack looked at him, and Ianto saw his worries reflected back, and that was enough to clamp down on his own fears for now. Jack had lived through various forms of hell, and this place had to be bringing back unpleasant memories. Ianto gave Jack's hand a quick squeeze before they reached the entrance. Even as he watched, Jack put on the old persona, the one that said he and Hart were privileged princes and none dare get in their damned way.
A guard, bored, waved them all in as Hart flashed his credentials with a swagger that Jack matched in spades. As the gate shut behind them, Ianto tried not to shudder.
The corridors all looked the same, but Hart led them via a winding path to a quiet spot not far from the entrance. He pointed down the hallway. "Two rights, second door. You'll need this." He handed Jenny an ID chip. "No-one should question you. If they do, you're running a search for Mr. Hardison."
"Who's that?" asked Alice as Jack handed her his sidearm.
"One of the Directors," said Jack. "Meet us back here in an hour." He tapped the bulky wristwatch Hilda had provided, matching the ones they all wore. Ianto's felt heavy on his arm, and Jack caught his eye again. "Anyone not here, we're coming to find you."
"Understood," said Jenny, and she and Alice were off.
Silently, Hart led Ianto and Jack in a different direction. Jack was clearly counting doorways and trying to remember where things were in case their guide betrayed them. Ianto counted his own doorways, in case he needed to escape without either of them. He remembered this, barely, from his mad dash to freedom when he'd first arrived in the fifty-first century, but then all office buildings took on a similar form from their function. While Time Agents and their masters plotted out the past and future of the human race, underlings still had to mind the paperwork, fetch food and drink, and get on with the day to day business of keeping the organisation running smoothly.
He let the clothing settle him into the proper mindset: don't mind me, the harried clerk, looking after these big, arrogant babies. The persona he wore was familiar in any time, and he let a half-smile hide behind his mild impatience. Really, these Time Agents couldn't tie their own shoes without someone there to file a Form 792-B in triplicate. He met the eyes of other clerks and staffers as they passed in the halls, human and humanlike and not, all joined in the brotherhood of understaffers everywhere whose fate it was to sweep up messes both literal and figurative on a meagre salary with a reasonable benefits package.
He ought to ask Jack if the Time Agency offered paid holidays.
They went up three flights of stairs, past another gate, and through a section that Hart and Jack were waved through, but only Hart's annoyed wave and grab got Ianto through as well. The security wasn't tight, but then, who would suspect two Agents of breaking into their own building?
"All right," said Hart, stopping suddenly in front of a door. "Eye Candy can wait out here. Look inconspicuous."
"Here," Jack said, handing Ianto a datapad he'd snatched from an unguarded desk two turns ago. "Hold this."
Ianto took the prop, and watched them duck into the records room. Whenever someone walked by, his eyes darted down to the datapad, and he mumbled at it as if annoyed by what he read.
After a minute, he tried deciphering the language in front of him. Jack had taught him once, and over the years, he'd kept up a little, but it was difficult. He had a plan, though, one half-formed years ago and brought back by the lure of the technology available all around him. He hadn't mentioned his own plan to Jack, for fear of his reaction.
Keeping his face on the datapad, Ianto's eyes darted around as he walked away from the door. They wouldn't be long, and if this was going to work, he'd only get one chance. He found a sign that looked promising, and bit his lip, indeterminate. If he tried the handle and it was locked, he'd go back and not think about this again.
The handle was unlocked.
With one last glance down the hallway, Ianto let himself inside.
***
Alice waited within the room while Jenny worked. She longed for her own gun rather than this unknown piece of tech in her hands, but Jack insisted the Agency did regular sweeps for anachronistic technology. A sonic pistol would pass unnoticed, especially one carried in by an Agent. Still, Alice would feel better with a weapon she knew.
"I was afraid of that," Jenny said.
"Tell."
"Hilda's software is a bit different from theirs. I'm going to have to rewrite some of the program." Her fingers flew across the keypad, striking the unfamiliar letters as easily as Alice would type her own name.
She'd long ago stopped asking Jenny how she knew so many details about language and culture and physics and more. The answers were always the same: the people who'd created her had pre-programmed her with basic information on how to fight and survive, but as for the rest, Jenny had no more idea than Alice did. Surely Time Lord knowledge wasn't passed on genetically? Jenny had an affinity (or in Jack's case, an allergy) for her father's former companions, it was true, but she didn't know details about them. Yet, without understanding how or why, she could spool out data on the decay cycles of stars, and express high-level mathematical theories using ideas Alice was certain didn't exist on Earth even in this time.
"There," Jenny said, with that note of pleasure in her voice. "That should take care of it."
"Just the overwrite?"
"For the moment." She bent back to her work to tweak the virus into something usable.
"I'll watch the door," said Alice, and waited for Jenny's nod before she slipped out into the corridor.
The Time Agency. God. She hadn't heard many stories at home, but she'd learned enough. Mum had insisted Dad keep the worst of his past from her until she was old enough to understand, and by then, she was too disgusted with him to care. Since starting her travels with Jenny, she'd learned any good that came of the Agency's stated purpose of protecting the human race was far overwhelmed by the evils they did in its name. Just something else she'd privately added to her list of grievances against her father, she knew.
She caught sight of a trio of Time Agents at the end of the corridor, bent and whispering to each other instead of striding like she expected. They should be sneering. Alice was sure all of them sneered. Lega had, before she'd changed her mind and died for it.
The weapon was easy enough to hide behind her back, shoved into the waistband of her trousers and hidden under her loose shirt.
One of the Agents broke from the others and came towards her. Suddenly she wished she'd stayed in the room with her friend. "You," said the translator in her ear. "You're not supposed to be in this section." The woman reached her, slid an arm under Alice's elbow. Alice was suddenly up close and personal to pale and blonde and cold all in one.
"Sorry," she stammered. "I'm new. Still getting my bearings. Isn't this Research?"
Now the Agent was completely in Alice's personal space, but backing away would mean hitting the doorway, and the less she drew attention to Jenny's work, the better. "No," the woman said. "That's two floors down. You really are new."
Alice recognised the smile forming on the woman's face. She'd seen her father show that same smile countless times, occasionally to her boyfriends unlucky enough to have been brought home during one of his rare visits.
"Leave it," said one of the woman's friends. "Playtime later. This is serious."
"Jarron's run off in a snit. Probably had a row with Georgn again. He'll be back in a week with a hangover and an excuse. Hardly what I would call 'serious.'" She returned her attention to Alice. "Now, where were we?"
"I was looking for Research." She prayed Jenny stayed put.
"I'll show you the way." The woman wrapped her arm around Alice's, and led her away from the doorway.
"Gerta … " The other female Agent had a long-suffering tone to her voice.
"I'm bored. She's pretty."
Alice wondered what the etiquette in this century was for, "I'm not interested." Knowing the two examples of the time period that she did, she doubted the phrase ever came up. Perhaps she could convince Gerta to stay in a closer hallway, have a quick grope to allay suspicion, and then make her way back.
"I'm Melissa," she said, because it was easy to remember.
An alarm sounded. The pleasant touch on her arm went like steel, as Gerta's eyes focused on her in a completely different way.
"Where's your ID?"
Alice went for her wristwatch, which Hilda had outfitted with a tiny transmat unit for each of them in case of an emergency getaway. Gerta was faster, though, and yanked Alice's arm in a vicious twist, stripping the watch off her neatly.
Alice really hated Time Agents.
She bent her body with Gerta and with her free hand, reached back for the gun. If she wasn't getting out of here alive, she'd have the pleasure of taking one of them with her.
As she swung the pistol around, her arm was met with a strong kick, followed by a headbutt to the face. Her fingers went numb but she managed to hold onto the gun. Just a little further.
Gerta squeezed down on her other arm, and Alice swallowed a scream as she heard something crack. The weapon clattered to the hard floor, and her vision swam.
"So," she said, gasping in pain while the other two came to help take her into custody. "Fancy a snog?"
***
Ianto scanned the room, looking for the right cupboard. Not all of the Agency's proprietary tech was in here, but there was enough. He read label after label, trying to make sense of them.
The door opened. He pressed his back firmly against the closest wall, wishing Jack had left him a weapon.
Hart's head came into view, and Ianto sighed in unexpected relief. "Wondered where you'd run off to," Hart drawled.
"Just looking around," he replied, relief vanishing in the light of discovery. All that for nothing.
To his surprise, Hart began opening cupboards and stuffing his pockets with whatever he found. "What are you doing?" asked Ianto.
"The same thing you were about to do. This is my last chance to get hold of Agency tech. Everything falls apart after this. I want the good stuff."
Ianto considered castigating him for the theft. Then he joined him, rummaging through cupboards and drawers, searching for his prize. There! His fingers closed around a phial, and an electric tingle moved through him, imagined or not.
Hart chuckled. "All this, and that's what you want?"
"Only thing worth stealing," said Ianto, intentionally dismissing the bulges in Hart's uniform pockets.
One phial of nanogenes, carefully labelled, sat in his hand like the ticket to every second chance he'd ever wanted. Jack was proof that immortality was more curse than gift, but if Ianto preserved and extended his own life, he could offer Jack company for a long, long time. Ianto hid the phial deep in an internal pocket, telling his racing heart to calm down. This was insurance, that's all. Life insurance.
"We should get back."
"Gorgeous is still working on locating the planet where they stowed you early twenty-first century types. We can gran the system, but the search function is a bugger."
An alarm went off. Their eyes met.
"Time to go," said Hart, and without waiting for Ianto, he ducked out the door. Ianto hurried to keep up, following him back towards Jack's location. A force field came up between them. Hart turned his head, shrugged, and kept moving as Ianto ran his hands over the sparking, immovable wall separating them.
Jack ducked out of the room and locked onto Ianto. "You okay?"
Ianto nodded. "Did you find it?"
Jack's face froze, and then he shook his head.
"I told you to let me look," said Hart, but that had never been an option.
Footsteps hurried around the corner from them. They'd be discovered in moments. Hart pressed a button on his "wristwatch" and vanished. Ianto had expected him to use his VM, but then, he wouldn't get the rest of his money that way, would he?
Jack said, "We'll transmat out, try again. We'll come earlier."
"Can't," Ianto said. "Too risky, you said."
"I'm better at time travel than you." There was a desperate edge to his voice. "We'll come back. Hit your transmat."
The footsteps rounded the corner, and guards had their guns trained on Jack. "Agent JH Alpha27, you are hereby ordered to stand down. You are charged with desertion of duty, conduct unbefitting an Agent, and gross insubordination."
Jack's face broke into a fond smile. "I remember that! I left the Director that present in his office before I quit." According to Jack's memoirs, he'd written a long screed accusing the Time Agency of memwiping him, denouncing the Agency's methods, and questioning the Director's personal hygiene choices. Then he'd defecated on the Director's desk. He wrote that, in hindsight, choosing to resign while stinking drunk had been a bad plan.
Without turning, but throwing his voice towards Ianto, Jack said, "Run. Now."
Ianto turned from the force field and dashed in the other direction. Behind him, he heard the brief whine of the transmat just as the guards opened fire on Jack.
Jack would be all right. Jack was always all right.
Ianto ran down the corridor to a dead end. No escape from here. His hand went to his wristwatch. One press, and he'd be taken back to their emergency rendezvous point near the spaceport. He dropped his arm, let it fall to his side.
The force field shut off behind him. The guards approached as he turned around and raised his hands over his head. "I surrender."
***
Jack materialised beside John. Jenny appeared a moment later.
"Where's Alice?" Jack demanded.
"She should be here any moment," Jenny said. Alice failed to appear.
"Shouldn't Eye Candy have joined us by now?"
"No." Jack checked the time. Still no Alice. "Do you have communications with her?"
Jenny nodded and touched her ear. "Alice? Are you all right?" She frowned. "No answer."
The worry he'd barely been keeping in check for Ianto came back hard for Alice. "We'll have to go back in for her."
"Don't think so," said John, who was watching his Vortex Manipulator. "The whole building's on alert now. You set off the alarm?"
"Probably." He'd been searching for the information, trying to remember this system, trying to put dates and names into something he could use. He'd granned it before, he knew. Hell, he'd have been the one to find the planet the last time for them to have left the kids there. But he'd forgotten so much, and when he'd made a simple error, the machine had scanned him for ID. Stupid.
Even as he watched, Jenny was already hurrying back towards the spaceport. Jack loped to catch up. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to see if Hilda can get a location on Alice's comm. I should be able to rig up a remote transmat from the ship to grab her."
***
Gerta and her associates dragged Alice to a holding area. She mentally prepared herself to be hurt further, but other than one last pull at her aching wrist, she was left unharmed. As soon as the door was locked, she touched her ear with her good hand.
"Jenny!" she whispered as loud as she could. "Hilda!" Neither answered. Alice swore. She glanced around the room, saw what was probably a camera, and swore again. Without her transmat, the best she could hope was that Hilda locked onto her comm signal.
She paced the room, searching for some means of escape. She didn't expect to find one, and she wasn't disappointed. After a while, the door opened and she was escorted to an office. The part of her brain that constantly amazed at the sights and experiences she'd had outside of her home time was thrown into a loop by the sheer normalcy of the office, from the plain desk and severe chairs to the unsettling beige of it all.
The man behind the desk wore a plain white outfit. He was flanked on either side by two humans (she couldn't determine their sexes with an easy glance) in bright blue.
"Look, there's been some sort of mistake."
The man said something in a language she didn't recognise. Automatically, her hand went to her ear to smack the translator. He smiled. "I thought as much," he said in English.
The door behind her opened and two blue guards brought in Ianto, whose mouth dropped and then closed again rapidly when he saw her. He struggled against his guards, but Alice herself had done many a fake struggle and saw the distraction from a mile away.
She bolted for the door, which was blocked by two more guards in blue. They were armed. The door closed.
"If you're quite done," said the man, and he indicated two chairs at the desk for them to sit.
Alice took a seat, massaging her wrist. Ianto was pushed into the other chair. Fantastic.
One of the guards behind the desk held a small device, which s/he handed to the man in white. He waved the device at both of them, and pressed something on the pad.
"Adult post-pubescent human male. Genome matched to Unit 2009C36." He smiled unpleasantly. "We've been looking for you. To be honest, I didn't think we'd find you inside the building."
Ianto shrugged. That led credence to what Jack had told her, anyway.
The man in white turned his attention to Alice. "Adult post-pubescent human female, recent onset of menopause." Alice glared. "Genome anomaly. Genetic composition appears to be half twentieth century, half fifty-first century. Interesting." He pressed another button. "Agent JH Alpha27 identified as father. Temporal genetic flux appears to be minimal."
She settled for bullshit. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"One of our agents went rogue two days ago by our reckoning. You share half his genes. The other half of your genetic profile suggests you are from the same time as Unit 2009C36."
"Sir," said one of the guards, "there's a rumour going around that the Agent was harbouring a fuge."
The man in white asked Alice, "Did Agent JH Alpha27 keep your mother as a sex slave?"
Horror filled her. "What? No. He … No. He wouldn't." She rounded on Ianto. "Would he?"
He wouldn't meet her eyes, because neither of them knew for sure what Jack would do, what he'd done. Jack was a murderer, after all.
"Oh, never mind!" She turned back to the main in white. "No, my mother wasn't a sex slave. They worked together. He had sex with all the people he worked with at one point or another." She didn't look to see if there was a flinch at her words, but she rather hoped there was. "One broken condom later, here I am."
The man made a note on his device. "No other genetic problems detected. You're from the late twentieth century, early twenty-first, then?" She didn't answer. "Good. Your name?"
"Alice Carter."
"Thank you."
He turned his attention away from them and to the guards. "Remove the last of any anachronistic technology from them and take them for processing." He handed the device to one of the blue guards.
Another guard ran a handheld machine over them, beeping at her ear. "Hey!"
"Your communications device has already been disabled." She twitched as the comm was pulled from her ear and placed into a plastic storage box.
The machine beeped at Ianto's wristwatch. He let them take it, but struggled when the guard reached into his clothes and pulled out a small phial.
"This is a highly controlled substance," said the man in white when the phial was passed to him. He added the phial to the box, then checked a panel on his desk. "A number of classified items were stolen at the same time the alert went off. Did Agent JH Alpha27 take them?"
Ianto went slack. Then he growled, "The bastard told me he'd give me half of whatever we took, and then he fucking left me here."
"I see," said the man in white. Alice tried not to laugh.
The guard scanned Ianto further, and made to move away when something beeped again. The machine homed in on the ring on his left hand.
"No!" Ianto pulled his hand back towards him. "Please. That's not tech. It's just an alloy. In my time, you exchange them when you marry." His face lost all the anger, was left open and sad. "Please."
The man looked down at his panel, reading something. "I've processed many units from your time and am familiar with the custom. You may keep it for now."
"Thank you." The rest of his sweep came up clean.
Arms took hold of her, and Alice winced. They were taken from the room and escorted down several turns and hallways into another room. Equipment lined the shelves. An unsmiling technician in red greeted them coolly, taking the device from the guard.
"This will be the medical portion of your processing. Please sit."
They weren't given much of an option, but were placed in chairs at a slight lounge, which Alice found she could not get out of again.
The technician ran a scanner over both of them, and paused at Alice's wrist. "Injury detected." She went to the shelf and retrieved a phial like the one they'd taken off Ianto.
"What's that?"
"Nanogenes," Ianto said. "They can fix almost anything. Brought me back from the dead. Jack, too, once." No wonder he'd stolen some. She'd always found the thought of Jack's immortality unsettling. Perhaps Ianto had decided to even the odds a bit.
Golden glitter floated out of the bottle as the tech opened it, settling on her arm in a cloud of pinpricks. Warmth touched her wrist, and the pain was gone. The tech shushed the nanogenes back into the bottle, carefully capped it, and placed it on the shelf. Ianto's eyes stayed locked on where she'd set the phial while the tech retrieved something new.
Alice felt a sharp jab in her arm. "Ow! I thought inoculations were supposed to be easier in the future." She only felt a little better when Ianto said his own, "Ouch!"
"You are being immunised against most known diseases. You have also been given a broad-spectrum immune boost to increase your ability to resist infection. When the process is complete, your bodies will be nearly optimised to fifty-first century standards. You will be stronger and healthier than you remember, and unforeseen accidents notwithstanding, you should expect a lifespan of approximately two hundred years."
Another jab. Alice winced. Ianto didn't get a second shot. "What's that for?"
"Your hormonal levels are being restabilised to more favourable conditions for reproduction." The technician didn't bother to meet her eyes, and Ianto very pointedly looked away.
"Excuse me?"
"The program," said the tech in a bored voice, "is designed to rebuild the human population following near-extinction events. You're no good to us if you can't breed."
Alice's hands formed into fists on their own accord, but as she tried to rise from the chair, the electric bands forced her gently but firmly into place. "How dare you."
Still bored, and clearly having had this argument before with prior subjects, the tech said, "We are saving the human race using diverse genetic materials from units which would have died otherwise." She nodded towards Ianto. "I processed that group from 2009. Approximately one hundred units, most of them within breeding age and none with a genetic problem we couldn't easily correct. By your reckoning, they were dead and wasted. Place them on a planet with other colonies fetched from a similar period, and there's a world ready to seed the galaxy when the time comes."
"What if they don't want to breed?" She remembered lying beside Joe on warm sand, hands mingled, talking about children. They'd wanted five of them. God, she'd been so young.
"Then they don't. Once you're in a colony, your decisions are your own. We can provide a list of good genetic matches, but if the colony has been built properly, there are very few bad matches. For example," she said, examining an instrument on a table beside her, "there is a ninety-eight percent chance that the two of you could successfully produce a viable child within a standard year's time."
"The two of … " She looked at Ianto, and her mouth dropped. "Oh my God, no. Not ever."
"As I said," said the tech, "your decision. You will be placed at an interval after the initial colony setup in order to avoid timeline confusion with the support team assigned to the planet. Many units will have already established relationships, which will limit your options. Both of you."
"Not interested."
"And I'm spoken for," Ianto said.
"From your home time? That will be taken care of during your psychological processing."
Alice didn't like the sound of that, but like too many things in this situation, she doubted she was going to get a choice about it. Where was Jenny?
***
"Any luck?"
Jenny calculated an 85% chance that the expression on his face matched with the tone in his voice indicated Jack was anxious. She could not be fully certain due to the intentional changes he made to his facial features, probably to lessen the appearance of worry, and she attempted to mimic him, thereby reflecting the emotion back.
"Our comms are blocked by something in the building."
"The alarm," said Hart. "Standard protocol, jamming transmissions in and out." His expression and tone were of smug disinterest. She calculated a 90% probability that the disinterest was false. This did not prevent her desire to punch him in the mouth.
"What about the other transmission?" Jack asked, arm folded.
Jenny said, "We have a clear signal." The Time Agency had yet to discover this particular form of energy.
Hart said, "You've got her. So beam her up."
"That's not Alice," said Jack.
Hart's eyebrows shot up. "You think they'll take Eye Candy back to the planet we're looking for. You're tracking him," he said accusingly.
"Simple enough plan," Jack said, his eyes on the readout from the transmitter.
"And the reason you didn't tell me about it?"
"You'd have found a way to intervene," said Jenny. "You are untrustworthy."
He rolled his eyes, but she noticed he didn't argue the point.
"All right," Jack said. "Can you do a lifeform search? Unless they've just done a collection, there should only be two people in the building with late twentieth century genetic codes, and we're tracking one of them."
She shook her head. "Hilda's scanners can't reach inside the Agency building, not now."
"Fine. We'll go back inside after her." He turned and headed towards the hatch.
"Bad plan," said Hart. "They're looking for you now. You won't be allowed anywhere near the place."
"We're not leaving her there!" Jack snapped.
"John and I will go. We haven't been discovered yet, and he's the one with the passcodes."
A smile slid across Hart's face, and he went to put his arm around her shoulder. Her muscles working on automatic, Jenny grabbed his arm and threw him to the deck, placing her boot on his throat. Her programming identified him as an enemy, not to be trusted, terminate on sight, and only the thought of her father prevented her from pressing down. She saw his twitch before his hand snaked out to try to trip her, and she dodged it, then stepped off.
"I warned you about touching. We're going now." She allowed him to rise to his feet. "Hilda, please keep track of us until we're inside. In the meantime, see if you can listen in on Agency traffic. They might tell us where they've taken Alice. All right, dear?"
"All right," said Hilda.
"Tell Jack if you find anything."
"Yes, Jenny." Jenny hoped that wasn't a giggle. With a last glance at Jack, she went out.
***
"So," said the pleasantly bland woman in the purple suit, "tell me about your skills."
Ianto stared at her. "My skills?"
"We'll be providing a skills template to help you adjust to life in the colony, but if you can give me an idea of your already-existent abilities, we'll be able to provide you with the most suitable option for you." She smiled encouragingly. "What did you do for a living in the twenty-first century?"
Fought aliens. Filed anachronistic and extraterrestrial artefacts away for safe keeping. Disposed of bodies. Provided food, drink, laundry services, and sexual favours to my employer. "General admin work."
The woman in purple made a note. "Any hobbies or activities that might be relevant? Agricultural background in your family?"
For the past twenty years Jack and I have grown most of our own food, hunted for game and fished the rivers. "A bit. More of a focus on crops than animal husbandry." Ianto was willing to put up with a lot for this plan, but he refused to deal with sheep.
"Any child care? Construction work?"
"No."
"Thank you." She looked at her datapad. "Hold still."
A shivery coolness settled between his ears, like someone had poured ice water inside his brain. Ianto gasped from the cold, saw the edges of a blue light shining down from above him. His thoughts filled with crop rotation and nitrogen balance and good soil mixtures for various forms of vegetation, including several he'd never encountered before despite suddenly knowing their vitamin and nutrient levels. He knew how to sow and harvest, how to care for the plants and how to store their bounty.
The cold faded.
"Tell me that has a 'Kung Fu' setting."
The woman's expression didn't change. "Now we will go over some of the changes you will be experiencing as a result of your temporal dislocation. You should know that you are three thousand years in your future." She said this carefully, offering her hand for support if he needed it.
"I know."
She blinked. "Were you already exposed to this information?"
"Yes."
She returned to her script. "You may feel grief at the loss of your former life, and the friends and family you have left behind. We cannot provide you information about your loved ones, but rest assured, most of those you left behind went on to live full, satisfying lives."
"My sister died when she was fifty-nine. She married twice. Both of her children lived at least into adulthood." He folded his arms.
"How do you know that?"
"I just do. Anything else?"
"Yes, yes." Her eyes flickered back to the datapad. "Unless your spouse was part of our collection of your site, he or she moved on without you and has been dead for many years. You are no longer married. This may come as a shock to you, and you may need time to adjust to the information. If you would like to request grief counselling, I can schedule sessions for you after your placement at the colony. Should you find the memories to be too painful, we can arrange alternatives."
"Thank you, no."
"If you change your mind, the colony will be visited at regular intervals by our staff to help ease your transition, and you may make a request at any time." She offered up another insipid smile. He was reminded strongly of the Human Resources department at Torchwood London, all false joviality and easy psychological profiles as employees filled out non-disclosure agreements and signed away their futures for a paycheque.
Another smile. "One of the best things about our program is the opportunity for you to make a fresh start. Your life will begin again with this second chance. A new career, a new spouse, and the knowledge that you will be helping the human race survive. While you may experience some feelings of loss, your new life will have many advantages you cannot even imagine."
Ianto laughed. He couldn't stop it, not if he'd tried and he didn't try. The laugh boiled out of unexpected places inside of him, and he let it go until his sides hurt and his stomach felt ill. The woman in purple watched him sympathetically.
"That's rich," he said, when he could breathe again. "A new life, full of new opportunities. You tell all your breeding stock this?"
At last, she frowned. "We don't like to use the term 'stock.'"
"The rest of the Agency does. That's what we are to you, isn't it?"
She smiled but did not answer, touched part of the pad instead. "Sir."
"Yes?"
"Unit 2009C36 is the recovered subject?"
"Yes. It should be part of the record."
"Yes, sir. I didn't see the note. Thank you." She closed the circuit and smiled yet again. "I'm sorry, you've been processed incorrectly."
"Does that mean you'll take away the farming implants?"
"No, we'll simply have to re-install them." She touched the pad. "Sit still, please." A joke: he couldn't move from the chair regardless. His legs and bottom were going numb from the lack of movement. "Your record says you have been here approximately two years." She pressed a button.
Another light appeared above his head, this one a cool green. He had time to wonder what in the world this part of the process was, when he felt an eerie trickle inside of his mind.
"Close your eyes," said the woman pleasantly. "You'll feel tired. When the memory wipe is complete, we'll begin again."
Memory … "No!" Ianto tried to struggle against the invisible bonds of the chair, kick out his legs, something, but the pressure held tight, and there was nothing but the woman's smile, nothing but the cool green slipping into his brain like a sweet, sleepy dream.
"So," said a voice from far away. "Tell me about your skills."
***
"Going in," said Jenny to her earpiece just before they reached the front gate.
"Good luck."
The guard stopped them, demanding Hart's codes and inspecting them thoroughly.
"I was just here," said Hart irritably. "Is this really necessary?"
"Sorry, sir. We've had an incursion, and the bosses want the heads of whoever let the spies in."
"Spies?" Jenny gasped with what she hoped was a good impression of shock.
"One of the Agents." The guard glanced at Hart. "They say he stole massive amounts of classified tech, and tried to crash the system. We're supposed to stop even the highest-ranking Agents now."
"That's awful," said Jenny, well aware of her own lack of identification.
Hart laughed. "You left your badge back at the pub, didn't you?"
"What?"
He pointed at her chest, careful not to touch. "You set it down when we got drinks." She was 60% certain he wanted her to follow along with this line of dissembling. There was a mad part of her that wanted to announce she was an inspector from the Assembly on a surprise visit, and bluff her way inside. With psychic paper to help, she estimated she'd have a 99% chance of effectiveness. But she lacked psychic paper.
She turned to the guard. "Can I still go inside? I promise I'll get my badge after work."
"Afraid not. If you'd asked me this morning, I'd have said yes, but … " He shrugged.
"You go get it, love," said Hart. "I'll tell your boss you'll be late."
"Thank you," she said, and turned around. Hart would have to retrieve Alice alone. She calculated a 95% chance that Alice was going to be enraged when she saw him.
***
Alice rubbed her aching head, blinking back tears she refused to shed. The man in the purple suit had said she'd be ideal for child care duties, and plunged data into her head like an ice pick, each shove dislodging memories she'd buried to stay sane. Alice had been an expert at child care, once.
They'd brought her to another holding cell, or maybe the same one again. No sign of Jenny, which was bad. No sign of Ianto, which might be worse and might not. His plan was risky, and she hadn't intended to be part of it.
The door opened, and her head shot up, hand automatically brushing at her face. A blue guard led her out, past a series of rooms she couldn't see into, to a large room behind a security door.
"What's this?" she demanded as they went inside. Ianto was already standing in the room, face drawn into confusion as he saw her. Dad never did pick them for their intelligence. (Except for her mother, she amended with loyalty.)
The man in white had returned and was standing behind an ominous-looking control panel. The last electronic device she'd run into had plugged a career directly into her mind. This one didn't look any more promising. The man said, "You are being introduced to the colony approximately two years after its founding, due to temporal concerns of the staff. Your progress will be monitored, and if you have any questions, please address a staff member at any time."
"Why am I being sent to the colony? I wasn't part of the Thames House disaster."
"You are temporally displaced. By your own words, you were born in the late twentieth century."
"I could go back."
"You don't. Our records of the time indicate death or disappearance in early 2010. You'll be a good fit for the colony."
She calmed herself. Fighting her way out of here wasn't going to work. Talking her way out was just as unlikely at this point. She had to trust to the plan, trust that Hilda would be able to track them through time and space by the transmitter hidden in Ianto's ring. When Jack had explained they'd stolen the idea from Hart, she'd been torn between shouting again and admiring the chutzpah.
The guard placed her on the metal platform beside Ianto. The Agency had mass temporal transportation capabilities, Jack had said. It was how they moved large groups instead of one by one with a Vortex Manipulator, but the power expense was steep. The three guards and the boxes of what appeared to be supplies around them suggested why they were using it this time.
"Are you all right?" she asked Ianto in a whisper as the man in white readied the chamber for transport.
"Fine. Bit of a headache from the skill set implant. And yourself?"
"Same."
He nodded. Then he held out his right hand politely. "Ianto Jones. We appear to be stuck together for the time being."
She stared at his hand. With a sharp intake of breath, her eyes darted to the other, which hung lightly against his side, bare of any rings. "Ianto?"
"It's a family name," he said. "After my grandfather. And you are?" The extended hand stayed out.
Please let him be acting. Please let him have the damned ring hidden in a pocket somewhere. Please. "Alice." There was a flicker of recognition in his eyes.
"Not Alice Carter?"
She nodded. It had to be a ruse. But why would he admit knowing her if it was a ruse? Damn Jack and his mad plans. Mum said half of them didn't work, and the other half only worked because they involved his getting naked.
Ianto's face went sad. "You don't know me, and I suspect you won't like me much when you do, but I wanted to say, I am so sorry for your loss."
His eyes were guileless. The cold feeling she was trying to ignore in the pit of her stomach blossomed.
"Oh God."
"Safe trip," said the man in white to the guards, and Alice felt her navel twitch. The world wrapped around her and changed to light and green and golden.
***
Chapter Four
Author: nancybrown
Fandoms: Torchwood, Doctor Who
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Alice, Jenny, John Hart, OCs
Rating: R
Beta/Britpick: queenfanfiction, wynkat1313, temporal_witch, and fide_et_spe had a hand in fixing this. All remaining mistakes are mine alone.
Spoilers: up through CoE, one spoiler for "End of Time," one spoiler for Bay of the Dead
Warnings: character death, angst, child endangerment, mentions of sexual coercion, violence, timey-wimey temporal physics, and of course, Captain Bad Touch rides again
Words: 46,000 (8,000 this part)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
***
Chapter Three
***
"Theft is the oldest crime. Theft of goods, theft of life, theft of autonomy, it all boils down to loss. One day I woke up and found out two years of my memories had been stolen. As you might imagine, I was kind of pissed off. [Go into more detail here. As resignations go, yours was spectacular.]" - from "Me: An Autobiography"
***
Alice suppressed a shudder, seeing John Bloody Hart back aboard her ship and gazing around it as though he'd never been there before. He hadn't, not on his personal timeline, and it went a long way towards explaining how easily he'd wormed his way into their confidence, how well he'd known Hilda's controls back when she'd thought they'd first met.
Bloody time travel.
The object in her hand bit into the palm. Alice focused on the pain sensation.
Jenny made herself John's primary contact, knowing without asking how little Alice wanted to deal with him. "You are not to touch any of the controls. You are not to talk to the ship's AI. You are not to attempt a repair, prepare any foodstuff, or otherwise interact in any way with Hilda's operation. You will not be left alone at any time."
"Oh good," he oozed. "And are you going to be my keeper?" He made the mistake of placing his hand on Jenny's shoulder. A second later, he was flat on his back. "Ow."
In the same tone as before, she said, "You are not to touch any member of the ship's crew without their prior authorisation."
"Oh, I like her," said Ianto.
"No maiming," Jack reminded her.
"Ow," John said again, getting slowly to his feet. "Right. No touching anything."
"Here," said Alice, and she threw the object at John, who caught it easily. "You left this."
He brought it up to his face. "What is it?"
They hadn't the foggiest notion. Silvery and intricate, the object was a carving about the size of a man's thumb. Alice thought it rather looked like a chess piece. Jenny had performed a scan but found no radiation, no signals, nothing to indicate it was anything but a simple bit of art, which meant it was probably a bomb or another trap. She should have airlocked the damned thing, but she'd held onto it as a souvenir to remind herself about caution in dealing with seductive strangers. "You dropped it when you were here."
John inspected the piece again, then shrugged and shoved it into a pocket. Sadly, he did not immediately explode.
Jack said, "I figure we'll want to go into the Agency right around the time I left. We don't want to run into ourselves, but if we wait too long, I'll set off an alarm just by setting foot there."
John said, "And you're going with me because?"
"I don't trust you. You get me inside, I can find the information we need."
"Of course you can." John folded his arms. "Because the Agency didn't keep the locations of their breeder planets locked up tight."
"I found it before."
"You were familiar with their systems before. You're out of practise."
"Well, that's why I have you, isn't it?" Jack's voice was playful. Alice felt another wave of nausea, thinking of John's brief time in her bed.
"The rest of us," said Ianto, loudly, "are going to be your backup."
"No," said John, "you three are going to be good little children and stay with the ship."
"Negative," Jenny said. "We've got a record to fake. Alice and I just saved a planet full of people. We're going to ensure the Time Agency leaves them alone." She pulled out a data stick from the console. "We'll overwrite their files."
Alice glanced at the stick, the lynchpin of her own private plan with Jenny. The first time one of the files they implanted was accessed, it would start a chain reaction in the Agency's systems, corrupting file after file. The lives the Agency disrupted, the worlds whose historical courses they changed for their own benefit, all of it would come to a stuttering halt thanks to a few brilliant lines of code Jenny had written. But Jack and John didn't need to know that.
She turned to Ianto. "You can stay with the ship and keep us coordinated."
Jack shook his head. "Ianto's needed for the backup plan. He'll stick with the two of us."
"What's the backup plan?"
Jack shook his head. "Need to know basis."
"I need to know," said Alice, but she caught the tilt of his head towards John. She sighed. She'd have to make him tell her later.
***
The Time Agency had branches in far-flung regions of space, but the main office was on Lourdis Four, known as "Narda" to the natives, the same world where the United Council currently made their home. Ianto had lived here for almost two years, and never known the name of the planet. He'd only seen the spaceport once, and that from a distance. The rest of his time had been spent working at a low-rent pub in the slums, searching for a way back to 2009, and quite accidentally, getting to know a much younger version of Jack.
If Jack's memoirs spanned thousands of years and many volumes of books, Ianto figured his own life story would make at least a decent hour or two of telly.
The spaceport was crowded. They had to circle the landing site for hours until a spot came open for them. Hart's ID bought them freedom from too many questions. Ianto had questions of his own, but he held them, instead observing Alice watch the aliens around them. She'd spent more time in space than he had, but she gasped when they passed a rolling ball of iridescent green fur which ducked to allow a sloping brown-gold giant the right of way.
Ianto saved his wonder for the architecture. He'd lived in a willowy spire with Jack, thought he could even pick out which one, but the bulbous shapes of the other buildings brought back sharp memories: fear, loneliness, the patter of voices speaking Nardek, long hours at work, longer nights beside a man who couldn't be allowed to remember him. He gaped, piecing together landmarks from his memories.
Jack leaned over. "You look like a tourist."
"Couldn't be. I'm not asking what the funny words on the monument mean."
Something flickered in Jack's eyes. Ianto chose to believe it was recognition, though Jack probably had forgotten the Plass entirely by now. Then Jack said, "Didn't you tell people it was Welsh for 'I adore my beautiful sheep?'"
Jenny's laugh pealed out unexpectedly, as Ianto said, "No. That was Owen." In a lower voice, he said, "I used to say it meant, 'Fuck the bloody English.'" The smile that earned him from Jack was more than worth the glare from Alice.
Their clothing wouldn't draw attention on the streets, not in a port city like this, but walking brazenly into the Time Agency would require better camouflage. Ianto recalled the humiliating dance of acquiring fresh clothing when he'd first arrived here after his unexpected resurrection, but this Jack was far more willing to purchase off the rack, as it were. Two hours after their arrival, Jack and Hart were bedecked in matching navy blue Time Agent uniforms, while Ianto, Alice and Jenny were garbed as office workers. (No suits. Definitely no ties.) Jack had dyed the grey from his hair, and Ianto found that he already missed running his fingers through the silver edging.
"This is never going to work," Hart said, as Jenny emerged last from where she'd gone to change. The clothes were perfect, Jack claimed, but something about Jenny was too vibrant and intense to be disguised by mere fabrics.
Jack said, "You just keep your part and don't worry about it."
As they approached the Agency building, Ianto's palms started to sweat. He'd only been inside once, the day they brought him back from the dead, and while reviving from death was certainly better than dying had been, he still considered the whole mess one of his worst days.
Jack hung back two steps, letting Hart lead the way and allowing the two women to get ahead of them. In a whisper, he asked, "Are you going to be okay?"
"Fine. I never expected to come back here willingly."
"That makes two of us." Jack looked at him, and Ianto saw his worries reflected back, and that was enough to clamp down on his own fears for now. Jack had lived through various forms of hell, and this place had to be bringing back unpleasant memories. Ianto gave Jack's hand a quick squeeze before they reached the entrance. Even as he watched, Jack put on the old persona, the one that said he and Hart were privileged princes and none dare get in their damned way.
A guard, bored, waved them all in as Hart flashed his credentials with a swagger that Jack matched in spades. As the gate shut behind them, Ianto tried not to shudder.
The corridors all looked the same, but Hart led them via a winding path to a quiet spot not far from the entrance. He pointed down the hallway. "Two rights, second door. You'll need this." He handed Jenny an ID chip. "No-one should question you. If they do, you're running a search for Mr. Hardison."
"Who's that?" asked Alice as Jack handed her his sidearm.
"One of the Directors," said Jack. "Meet us back here in an hour." He tapped the bulky wristwatch Hilda had provided, matching the ones they all wore. Ianto's felt heavy on his arm, and Jack caught his eye again. "Anyone not here, we're coming to find you."
"Understood," said Jenny, and she and Alice were off.
Silently, Hart led Ianto and Jack in a different direction. Jack was clearly counting doorways and trying to remember where things were in case their guide betrayed them. Ianto counted his own doorways, in case he needed to escape without either of them. He remembered this, barely, from his mad dash to freedom when he'd first arrived in the fifty-first century, but then all office buildings took on a similar form from their function. While Time Agents and their masters plotted out the past and future of the human race, underlings still had to mind the paperwork, fetch food and drink, and get on with the day to day business of keeping the organisation running smoothly.
He let the clothing settle him into the proper mindset: don't mind me, the harried clerk, looking after these big, arrogant babies. The persona he wore was familiar in any time, and he let a half-smile hide behind his mild impatience. Really, these Time Agents couldn't tie their own shoes without someone there to file a Form 792-B in triplicate. He met the eyes of other clerks and staffers as they passed in the halls, human and humanlike and not, all joined in the brotherhood of understaffers everywhere whose fate it was to sweep up messes both literal and figurative on a meagre salary with a reasonable benefits package.
He ought to ask Jack if the Time Agency offered paid holidays.
They went up three flights of stairs, past another gate, and through a section that Hart and Jack were waved through, but only Hart's annoyed wave and grab got Ianto through as well. The security wasn't tight, but then, who would suspect two Agents of breaking into their own building?
"All right," said Hart, stopping suddenly in front of a door. "Eye Candy can wait out here. Look inconspicuous."
"Here," Jack said, handing Ianto a datapad he'd snatched from an unguarded desk two turns ago. "Hold this."
Ianto took the prop, and watched them duck into the records room. Whenever someone walked by, his eyes darted down to the datapad, and he mumbled at it as if annoyed by what he read.
After a minute, he tried deciphering the language in front of him. Jack had taught him once, and over the years, he'd kept up a little, but it was difficult. He had a plan, though, one half-formed years ago and brought back by the lure of the technology available all around him. He hadn't mentioned his own plan to Jack, for fear of his reaction.
Keeping his face on the datapad, Ianto's eyes darted around as he walked away from the door. They wouldn't be long, and if this was going to work, he'd only get one chance. He found a sign that looked promising, and bit his lip, indeterminate. If he tried the handle and it was locked, he'd go back and not think about this again.
The handle was unlocked.
With one last glance down the hallway, Ianto let himself inside.
***
Alice waited within the room while Jenny worked. She longed for her own gun rather than this unknown piece of tech in her hands, but Jack insisted the Agency did regular sweeps for anachronistic technology. A sonic pistol would pass unnoticed, especially one carried in by an Agent. Still, Alice would feel better with a weapon she knew.
"I was afraid of that," Jenny said.
"Tell."
"Hilda's software is a bit different from theirs. I'm going to have to rewrite some of the program." Her fingers flew across the keypad, striking the unfamiliar letters as easily as Alice would type her own name.
She'd long ago stopped asking Jenny how she knew so many details about language and culture and physics and more. The answers were always the same: the people who'd created her had pre-programmed her with basic information on how to fight and survive, but as for the rest, Jenny had no more idea than Alice did. Surely Time Lord knowledge wasn't passed on genetically? Jenny had an affinity (or in Jack's case, an allergy) for her father's former companions, it was true, but she didn't know details about them. Yet, without understanding how or why, she could spool out data on the decay cycles of stars, and express high-level mathematical theories using ideas Alice was certain didn't exist on Earth even in this time.
"There," Jenny said, with that note of pleasure in her voice. "That should take care of it."
"Just the overwrite?"
"For the moment." She bent back to her work to tweak the virus into something usable.
"I'll watch the door," said Alice, and waited for Jenny's nod before she slipped out into the corridor.
The Time Agency. God. She hadn't heard many stories at home, but she'd learned enough. Mum had insisted Dad keep the worst of his past from her until she was old enough to understand, and by then, she was too disgusted with him to care. Since starting her travels with Jenny, she'd learned any good that came of the Agency's stated purpose of protecting the human race was far overwhelmed by the evils they did in its name. Just something else she'd privately added to her list of grievances against her father, she knew.
She caught sight of a trio of Time Agents at the end of the corridor, bent and whispering to each other instead of striding like she expected. They should be sneering. Alice was sure all of them sneered. Lega had, before she'd changed her mind and died for it.
The weapon was easy enough to hide behind her back, shoved into the waistband of her trousers and hidden under her loose shirt.
One of the Agents broke from the others and came towards her. Suddenly she wished she'd stayed in the room with her friend. "You," said the translator in her ear. "You're not supposed to be in this section." The woman reached her, slid an arm under Alice's elbow. Alice was suddenly up close and personal to pale and blonde and cold all in one.
"Sorry," she stammered. "I'm new. Still getting my bearings. Isn't this Research?"
Now the Agent was completely in Alice's personal space, but backing away would mean hitting the doorway, and the less she drew attention to Jenny's work, the better. "No," the woman said. "That's two floors down. You really are new."
Alice recognised the smile forming on the woman's face. She'd seen her father show that same smile countless times, occasionally to her boyfriends unlucky enough to have been brought home during one of his rare visits.
"Leave it," said one of the woman's friends. "Playtime later. This is serious."
"Jarron's run off in a snit. Probably had a row with Georgn again. He'll be back in a week with a hangover and an excuse. Hardly what I would call 'serious.'" She returned her attention to Alice. "Now, where were we?"
"I was looking for Research." She prayed Jenny stayed put.
"I'll show you the way." The woman wrapped her arm around Alice's, and led her away from the doorway.
"Gerta … " The other female Agent had a long-suffering tone to her voice.
"I'm bored. She's pretty."
Alice wondered what the etiquette in this century was for, "I'm not interested." Knowing the two examples of the time period that she did, she doubted the phrase ever came up. Perhaps she could convince Gerta to stay in a closer hallway, have a quick grope to allay suspicion, and then make her way back.
"I'm Melissa," she said, because it was easy to remember.
An alarm sounded. The pleasant touch on her arm went like steel, as Gerta's eyes focused on her in a completely different way.
"Where's your ID?"
Alice went for her wristwatch, which Hilda had outfitted with a tiny transmat unit for each of them in case of an emergency getaway. Gerta was faster, though, and yanked Alice's arm in a vicious twist, stripping the watch off her neatly.
Alice really hated Time Agents.
She bent her body with Gerta and with her free hand, reached back for the gun. If she wasn't getting out of here alive, she'd have the pleasure of taking one of them with her.
As she swung the pistol around, her arm was met with a strong kick, followed by a headbutt to the face. Her fingers went numb but she managed to hold onto the gun. Just a little further.
Gerta squeezed down on her other arm, and Alice swallowed a scream as she heard something crack. The weapon clattered to the hard floor, and her vision swam.
"So," she said, gasping in pain while the other two came to help take her into custody. "Fancy a snog?"
***
Ianto scanned the room, looking for the right cupboard. Not all of the Agency's proprietary tech was in here, but there was enough. He read label after label, trying to make sense of them.
The door opened. He pressed his back firmly against the closest wall, wishing Jack had left him a weapon.
Hart's head came into view, and Ianto sighed in unexpected relief. "Wondered where you'd run off to," Hart drawled.
"Just looking around," he replied, relief vanishing in the light of discovery. All that for nothing.
To his surprise, Hart began opening cupboards and stuffing his pockets with whatever he found. "What are you doing?" asked Ianto.
"The same thing you were about to do. This is my last chance to get hold of Agency tech. Everything falls apart after this. I want the good stuff."
Ianto considered castigating him for the theft. Then he joined him, rummaging through cupboards and drawers, searching for his prize. There! His fingers closed around a phial, and an electric tingle moved through him, imagined or not.
Hart chuckled. "All this, and that's what you want?"
"Only thing worth stealing," said Ianto, intentionally dismissing the bulges in Hart's uniform pockets.
One phial of nanogenes, carefully labelled, sat in his hand like the ticket to every second chance he'd ever wanted. Jack was proof that immortality was more curse than gift, but if Ianto preserved and extended his own life, he could offer Jack company for a long, long time. Ianto hid the phial deep in an internal pocket, telling his racing heart to calm down. This was insurance, that's all. Life insurance.
"We should get back."
"Gorgeous is still working on locating the planet where they stowed you early twenty-first century types. We can gran the system, but the search function is a bugger."
An alarm went off. Their eyes met.
"Time to go," said Hart, and without waiting for Ianto, he ducked out the door. Ianto hurried to keep up, following him back towards Jack's location. A force field came up between them. Hart turned his head, shrugged, and kept moving as Ianto ran his hands over the sparking, immovable wall separating them.
Jack ducked out of the room and locked onto Ianto. "You okay?"
Ianto nodded. "Did you find it?"
Jack's face froze, and then he shook his head.
"I told you to let me look," said Hart, but that had never been an option.
Footsteps hurried around the corner from them. They'd be discovered in moments. Hart pressed a button on his "wristwatch" and vanished. Ianto had expected him to use his VM, but then, he wouldn't get the rest of his money that way, would he?
Jack said, "We'll transmat out, try again. We'll come earlier."
"Can't," Ianto said. "Too risky, you said."
"I'm better at time travel than you." There was a desperate edge to his voice. "We'll come back. Hit your transmat."
The footsteps rounded the corner, and guards had their guns trained on Jack. "Agent JH Alpha27, you are hereby ordered to stand down. You are charged with desertion of duty, conduct unbefitting an Agent, and gross insubordination."
Jack's face broke into a fond smile. "I remember that! I left the Director that present in his office before I quit." According to Jack's memoirs, he'd written a long screed accusing the Time Agency of memwiping him, denouncing the Agency's methods, and questioning the Director's personal hygiene choices. Then he'd defecated on the Director's desk. He wrote that, in hindsight, choosing to resign while stinking drunk had been a bad plan.
Without turning, but throwing his voice towards Ianto, Jack said, "Run. Now."
Ianto turned from the force field and dashed in the other direction. Behind him, he heard the brief whine of the transmat just as the guards opened fire on Jack.
Jack would be all right. Jack was always all right.
Ianto ran down the corridor to a dead end. No escape from here. His hand went to his wristwatch. One press, and he'd be taken back to their emergency rendezvous point near the spaceport. He dropped his arm, let it fall to his side.
The force field shut off behind him. The guards approached as he turned around and raised his hands over his head. "I surrender."
***
Jack materialised beside John. Jenny appeared a moment later.
"Where's Alice?" Jack demanded.
"She should be here any moment," Jenny said. Alice failed to appear.
"Shouldn't Eye Candy have joined us by now?"
"No." Jack checked the time. Still no Alice. "Do you have communications with her?"
Jenny nodded and touched her ear. "Alice? Are you all right?" She frowned. "No answer."
The worry he'd barely been keeping in check for Ianto came back hard for Alice. "We'll have to go back in for her."
"Don't think so," said John, who was watching his Vortex Manipulator. "The whole building's on alert now. You set off the alarm?"
"Probably." He'd been searching for the information, trying to remember this system, trying to put dates and names into something he could use. He'd granned it before, he knew. Hell, he'd have been the one to find the planet the last time for them to have left the kids there. But he'd forgotten so much, and when he'd made a simple error, the machine had scanned him for ID. Stupid.
Even as he watched, Jenny was already hurrying back towards the spaceport. Jack loped to catch up. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to see if Hilda can get a location on Alice's comm. I should be able to rig up a remote transmat from the ship to grab her."
***
Gerta and her associates dragged Alice to a holding area. She mentally prepared herself to be hurt further, but other than one last pull at her aching wrist, she was left unharmed. As soon as the door was locked, she touched her ear with her good hand.
"Jenny!" she whispered as loud as she could. "Hilda!" Neither answered. Alice swore. She glanced around the room, saw what was probably a camera, and swore again. Without her transmat, the best she could hope was that Hilda locked onto her comm signal.
She paced the room, searching for some means of escape. She didn't expect to find one, and she wasn't disappointed. After a while, the door opened and she was escorted to an office. The part of her brain that constantly amazed at the sights and experiences she'd had outside of her home time was thrown into a loop by the sheer normalcy of the office, from the plain desk and severe chairs to the unsettling beige of it all.
The man behind the desk wore a plain white outfit. He was flanked on either side by two humans (she couldn't determine their sexes with an easy glance) in bright blue.
"Look, there's been some sort of mistake."
The man said something in a language she didn't recognise. Automatically, her hand went to her ear to smack the translator. He smiled. "I thought as much," he said in English.
The door behind her opened and two blue guards brought in Ianto, whose mouth dropped and then closed again rapidly when he saw her. He struggled against his guards, but Alice herself had done many a fake struggle and saw the distraction from a mile away.
She bolted for the door, which was blocked by two more guards in blue. They were armed. The door closed.
"If you're quite done," said the man, and he indicated two chairs at the desk for them to sit.
Alice took a seat, massaging her wrist. Ianto was pushed into the other chair. Fantastic.
One of the guards behind the desk held a small device, which s/he handed to the man in white. He waved the device at both of them, and pressed something on the pad.
"Adult post-pubescent human male. Genome matched to Unit 2009C36." He smiled unpleasantly. "We've been looking for you. To be honest, I didn't think we'd find you inside the building."
Ianto shrugged. That led credence to what Jack had told her, anyway.
The man in white turned his attention to Alice. "Adult post-pubescent human female, recent onset of menopause." Alice glared. "Genome anomaly. Genetic composition appears to be half twentieth century, half fifty-first century. Interesting." He pressed another button. "Agent JH Alpha27 identified as father. Temporal genetic flux appears to be minimal."
She settled for bullshit. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"One of our agents went rogue two days ago by our reckoning. You share half his genes. The other half of your genetic profile suggests you are from the same time as Unit 2009C36."
"Sir," said one of the guards, "there's a rumour going around that the Agent was harbouring a fuge."
The man in white asked Alice, "Did Agent JH Alpha27 keep your mother as a sex slave?"
Horror filled her. "What? No. He … No. He wouldn't." She rounded on Ianto. "Would he?"
He wouldn't meet her eyes, because neither of them knew for sure what Jack would do, what he'd done. Jack was a murderer, after all.
"Oh, never mind!" She turned back to the main in white. "No, my mother wasn't a sex slave. They worked together. He had sex with all the people he worked with at one point or another." She didn't look to see if there was a flinch at her words, but she rather hoped there was. "One broken condom later, here I am."
The man made a note on his device. "No other genetic problems detected. You're from the late twentieth century, early twenty-first, then?" She didn't answer. "Good. Your name?"
"Alice Carter."
"Thank you."
He turned his attention away from them and to the guards. "Remove the last of any anachronistic technology from them and take them for processing." He handed the device to one of the blue guards.
Another guard ran a handheld machine over them, beeping at her ear. "Hey!"
"Your communications device has already been disabled." She twitched as the comm was pulled from her ear and placed into a plastic storage box.
The machine beeped at Ianto's wristwatch. He let them take it, but struggled when the guard reached into his clothes and pulled out a small phial.
"This is a highly controlled substance," said the man in white when the phial was passed to him. He added the phial to the box, then checked a panel on his desk. "A number of classified items were stolen at the same time the alert went off. Did Agent JH Alpha27 take them?"
Ianto went slack. Then he growled, "The bastard told me he'd give me half of whatever we took, and then he fucking left me here."
"I see," said the man in white. Alice tried not to laugh.
The guard scanned Ianto further, and made to move away when something beeped again. The machine homed in on the ring on his left hand.
"No!" Ianto pulled his hand back towards him. "Please. That's not tech. It's just an alloy. In my time, you exchange them when you marry." His face lost all the anger, was left open and sad. "Please."
The man looked down at his panel, reading something. "I've processed many units from your time and am familiar with the custom. You may keep it for now."
"Thank you." The rest of his sweep came up clean.
Arms took hold of her, and Alice winced. They were taken from the room and escorted down several turns and hallways into another room. Equipment lined the shelves. An unsmiling technician in red greeted them coolly, taking the device from the guard.
"This will be the medical portion of your processing. Please sit."
They weren't given much of an option, but were placed in chairs at a slight lounge, which Alice found she could not get out of again.
The technician ran a scanner over both of them, and paused at Alice's wrist. "Injury detected." She went to the shelf and retrieved a phial like the one they'd taken off Ianto.
"What's that?"
"Nanogenes," Ianto said. "They can fix almost anything. Brought me back from the dead. Jack, too, once." No wonder he'd stolen some. She'd always found the thought of Jack's immortality unsettling. Perhaps Ianto had decided to even the odds a bit.
Golden glitter floated out of the bottle as the tech opened it, settling on her arm in a cloud of pinpricks. Warmth touched her wrist, and the pain was gone. The tech shushed the nanogenes back into the bottle, carefully capped it, and placed it on the shelf. Ianto's eyes stayed locked on where she'd set the phial while the tech retrieved something new.
Alice felt a sharp jab in her arm. "Ow! I thought inoculations were supposed to be easier in the future." She only felt a little better when Ianto said his own, "Ouch!"
"You are being immunised against most known diseases. You have also been given a broad-spectrum immune boost to increase your ability to resist infection. When the process is complete, your bodies will be nearly optimised to fifty-first century standards. You will be stronger and healthier than you remember, and unforeseen accidents notwithstanding, you should expect a lifespan of approximately two hundred years."
Another jab. Alice winced. Ianto didn't get a second shot. "What's that for?"
"Your hormonal levels are being restabilised to more favourable conditions for reproduction." The technician didn't bother to meet her eyes, and Ianto very pointedly looked away.
"Excuse me?"
"The program," said the tech in a bored voice, "is designed to rebuild the human population following near-extinction events. You're no good to us if you can't breed."
Alice's hands formed into fists on their own accord, but as she tried to rise from the chair, the electric bands forced her gently but firmly into place. "How dare you."
Still bored, and clearly having had this argument before with prior subjects, the tech said, "We are saving the human race using diverse genetic materials from units which would have died otherwise." She nodded towards Ianto. "I processed that group from 2009. Approximately one hundred units, most of them within breeding age and none with a genetic problem we couldn't easily correct. By your reckoning, they were dead and wasted. Place them on a planet with other colonies fetched from a similar period, and there's a world ready to seed the galaxy when the time comes."
"What if they don't want to breed?" She remembered lying beside Joe on warm sand, hands mingled, talking about children. They'd wanted five of them. God, she'd been so young.
"Then they don't. Once you're in a colony, your decisions are your own. We can provide a list of good genetic matches, but if the colony has been built properly, there are very few bad matches. For example," she said, examining an instrument on a table beside her, "there is a ninety-eight percent chance that the two of you could successfully produce a viable child within a standard year's time."
"The two of … " She looked at Ianto, and her mouth dropped. "Oh my God, no. Not ever."
"As I said," said the tech, "your decision. You will be placed at an interval after the initial colony setup in order to avoid timeline confusion with the support team assigned to the planet. Many units will have already established relationships, which will limit your options. Both of you."
"Not interested."
"And I'm spoken for," Ianto said.
"From your home time? That will be taken care of during your psychological processing."
Alice didn't like the sound of that, but like too many things in this situation, she doubted she was going to get a choice about it. Where was Jenny?
***
"Any luck?"
Jenny calculated an 85% chance that the expression on his face matched with the tone in his voice indicated Jack was anxious. She could not be fully certain due to the intentional changes he made to his facial features, probably to lessen the appearance of worry, and she attempted to mimic him, thereby reflecting the emotion back.
"Our comms are blocked by something in the building."
"The alarm," said Hart. "Standard protocol, jamming transmissions in and out." His expression and tone were of smug disinterest. She calculated a 90% probability that the disinterest was false. This did not prevent her desire to punch him in the mouth.
"What about the other transmission?" Jack asked, arm folded.
Jenny said, "We have a clear signal." The Time Agency had yet to discover this particular form of energy.
Hart said, "You've got her. So beam her up."
"That's not Alice," said Jack.
Hart's eyebrows shot up. "You think they'll take Eye Candy back to the planet we're looking for. You're tracking him," he said accusingly.
"Simple enough plan," Jack said, his eyes on the readout from the transmitter.
"And the reason you didn't tell me about it?"
"You'd have found a way to intervene," said Jenny. "You are untrustworthy."
He rolled his eyes, but she noticed he didn't argue the point.
"All right," Jack said. "Can you do a lifeform search? Unless they've just done a collection, there should only be two people in the building with late twentieth century genetic codes, and we're tracking one of them."
She shook her head. "Hilda's scanners can't reach inside the Agency building, not now."
"Fine. We'll go back inside after her." He turned and headed towards the hatch.
"Bad plan," said Hart. "They're looking for you now. You won't be allowed anywhere near the place."
"We're not leaving her there!" Jack snapped.
"John and I will go. We haven't been discovered yet, and he's the one with the passcodes."
A smile slid across Hart's face, and he went to put his arm around her shoulder. Her muscles working on automatic, Jenny grabbed his arm and threw him to the deck, placing her boot on his throat. Her programming identified him as an enemy, not to be trusted, terminate on sight, and only the thought of her father prevented her from pressing down. She saw his twitch before his hand snaked out to try to trip her, and she dodged it, then stepped off.
"I warned you about touching. We're going now." She allowed him to rise to his feet. "Hilda, please keep track of us until we're inside. In the meantime, see if you can listen in on Agency traffic. They might tell us where they've taken Alice. All right, dear?"
"All right," said Hilda.
"Tell Jack if you find anything."
"Yes, Jenny." Jenny hoped that wasn't a giggle. With a last glance at Jack, she went out.
***
"So," said the pleasantly bland woman in the purple suit, "tell me about your skills."
Ianto stared at her. "My skills?"
"We'll be providing a skills template to help you adjust to life in the colony, but if you can give me an idea of your already-existent abilities, we'll be able to provide you with the most suitable option for you." She smiled encouragingly. "What did you do for a living in the twenty-first century?"
Fought aliens. Filed anachronistic and extraterrestrial artefacts away for safe keeping. Disposed of bodies. Provided food, drink, laundry services, and sexual favours to my employer. "General admin work."
The woman in purple made a note. "Any hobbies or activities that might be relevant? Agricultural background in your family?"
For the past twenty years Jack and I have grown most of our own food, hunted for game and fished the rivers. "A bit. More of a focus on crops than animal husbandry." Ianto was willing to put up with a lot for this plan, but he refused to deal with sheep.
"Any child care? Construction work?"
"No."
"Thank you." She looked at her datapad. "Hold still."
A shivery coolness settled between his ears, like someone had poured ice water inside his brain. Ianto gasped from the cold, saw the edges of a blue light shining down from above him. His thoughts filled with crop rotation and nitrogen balance and good soil mixtures for various forms of vegetation, including several he'd never encountered before despite suddenly knowing their vitamin and nutrient levels. He knew how to sow and harvest, how to care for the plants and how to store their bounty.
The cold faded.
"Tell me that has a 'Kung Fu' setting."
The woman's expression didn't change. "Now we will go over some of the changes you will be experiencing as a result of your temporal dislocation. You should know that you are three thousand years in your future." She said this carefully, offering her hand for support if he needed it.
"I know."
She blinked. "Were you already exposed to this information?"
"Yes."
She returned to her script. "You may feel grief at the loss of your former life, and the friends and family you have left behind. We cannot provide you information about your loved ones, but rest assured, most of those you left behind went on to live full, satisfying lives."
"My sister died when she was fifty-nine. She married twice. Both of her children lived at least into adulthood." He folded his arms.
"How do you know that?"
"I just do. Anything else?"
"Yes, yes." Her eyes flickered back to the datapad. "Unless your spouse was part of our collection of your site, he or she moved on without you and has been dead for many years. You are no longer married. This may come as a shock to you, and you may need time to adjust to the information. If you would like to request grief counselling, I can schedule sessions for you after your placement at the colony. Should you find the memories to be too painful, we can arrange alternatives."
"Thank you, no."
"If you change your mind, the colony will be visited at regular intervals by our staff to help ease your transition, and you may make a request at any time." She offered up another insipid smile. He was reminded strongly of the Human Resources department at Torchwood London, all false joviality and easy psychological profiles as employees filled out non-disclosure agreements and signed away their futures for a paycheque.
Another smile. "One of the best things about our program is the opportunity for you to make a fresh start. Your life will begin again with this second chance. A new career, a new spouse, and the knowledge that you will be helping the human race survive. While you may experience some feelings of loss, your new life will have many advantages you cannot even imagine."
Ianto laughed. He couldn't stop it, not if he'd tried and he didn't try. The laugh boiled out of unexpected places inside of him, and he let it go until his sides hurt and his stomach felt ill. The woman in purple watched him sympathetically.
"That's rich," he said, when he could breathe again. "A new life, full of new opportunities. You tell all your breeding stock this?"
At last, she frowned. "We don't like to use the term 'stock.'"
"The rest of the Agency does. That's what we are to you, isn't it?"
She smiled but did not answer, touched part of the pad instead. "Sir."
"Yes?"
"Unit 2009C36 is the recovered subject?"
"Yes. It should be part of the record."
"Yes, sir. I didn't see the note. Thank you." She closed the circuit and smiled yet again. "I'm sorry, you've been processed incorrectly."
"Does that mean you'll take away the farming implants?"
"No, we'll simply have to re-install them." She touched the pad. "Sit still, please." A joke: he couldn't move from the chair regardless. His legs and bottom were going numb from the lack of movement. "Your record says you have been here approximately two years." She pressed a button.
Another light appeared above his head, this one a cool green. He had time to wonder what in the world this part of the process was, when he felt an eerie trickle inside of his mind.
"Close your eyes," said the woman pleasantly. "You'll feel tired. When the memory wipe is complete, we'll begin again."
Memory … "No!" Ianto tried to struggle against the invisible bonds of the chair, kick out his legs, something, but the pressure held tight, and there was nothing but the woman's smile, nothing but the cool green slipping into his brain like a sweet, sleepy dream.
"So," said a voice from far away. "Tell me about your skills."
***
"Going in," said Jenny to her earpiece just before they reached the front gate.
"Good luck."
The guard stopped them, demanding Hart's codes and inspecting them thoroughly.
"I was just here," said Hart irritably. "Is this really necessary?"
"Sorry, sir. We've had an incursion, and the bosses want the heads of whoever let the spies in."
"Spies?" Jenny gasped with what she hoped was a good impression of shock.
"One of the Agents." The guard glanced at Hart. "They say he stole massive amounts of classified tech, and tried to crash the system. We're supposed to stop even the highest-ranking Agents now."
"That's awful," said Jenny, well aware of her own lack of identification.
Hart laughed. "You left your badge back at the pub, didn't you?"
"What?"
He pointed at her chest, careful not to touch. "You set it down when we got drinks." She was 60% certain he wanted her to follow along with this line of dissembling. There was a mad part of her that wanted to announce she was an inspector from the Assembly on a surprise visit, and bluff her way inside. With psychic paper to help, she estimated she'd have a 99% chance of effectiveness. But she lacked psychic paper.
She turned to the guard. "Can I still go inside? I promise I'll get my badge after work."
"Afraid not. If you'd asked me this morning, I'd have said yes, but … " He shrugged.
"You go get it, love," said Hart. "I'll tell your boss you'll be late."
"Thank you," she said, and turned around. Hart would have to retrieve Alice alone. She calculated a 95% chance that Alice was going to be enraged when she saw him.
***
Alice rubbed her aching head, blinking back tears she refused to shed. The man in the purple suit had said she'd be ideal for child care duties, and plunged data into her head like an ice pick, each shove dislodging memories she'd buried to stay sane. Alice had been an expert at child care, once.
They'd brought her to another holding cell, or maybe the same one again. No sign of Jenny, which was bad. No sign of Ianto, which might be worse and might not. His plan was risky, and she hadn't intended to be part of it.
The door opened, and her head shot up, hand automatically brushing at her face. A blue guard led her out, past a series of rooms she couldn't see into, to a large room behind a security door.
"What's this?" she demanded as they went inside. Ianto was already standing in the room, face drawn into confusion as he saw her. Dad never did pick them for their intelligence. (Except for her mother, she amended with loyalty.)
The man in white had returned and was standing behind an ominous-looking control panel. The last electronic device she'd run into had plugged a career directly into her mind. This one didn't look any more promising. The man said, "You are being introduced to the colony approximately two years after its founding, due to temporal concerns of the staff. Your progress will be monitored, and if you have any questions, please address a staff member at any time."
"Why am I being sent to the colony? I wasn't part of the Thames House disaster."
"You are temporally displaced. By your own words, you were born in the late twentieth century."
"I could go back."
"You don't. Our records of the time indicate death or disappearance in early 2010. You'll be a good fit for the colony."
She calmed herself. Fighting her way out of here wasn't going to work. Talking her way out was just as unlikely at this point. She had to trust to the plan, trust that Hilda would be able to track them through time and space by the transmitter hidden in Ianto's ring. When Jack had explained they'd stolen the idea from Hart, she'd been torn between shouting again and admiring the chutzpah.
The guard placed her on the metal platform beside Ianto. The Agency had mass temporal transportation capabilities, Jack had said. It was how they moved large groups instead of one by one with a Vortex Manipulator, but the power expense was steep. The three guards and the boxes of what appeared to be supplies around them suggested why they were using it this time.
"Are you all right?" she asked Ianto in a whisper as the man in white readied the chamber for transport.
"Fine. Bit of a headache from the skill set implant. And yourself?"
"Same."
He nodded. Then he held out his right hand politely. "Ianto Jones. We appear to be stuck together for the time being."
She stared at his hand. With a sharp intake of breath, her eyes darted to the other, which hung lightly against his side, bare of any rings. "Ianto?"
"It's a family name," he said. "After my grandfather. And you are?" The extended hand stayed out.
Please let him be acting. Please let him have the damned ring hidden in a pocket somewhere. Please. "Alice." There was a flicker of recognition in his eyes.
"Not Alice Carter?"
She nodded. It had to be a ruse. But why would he admit knowing her if it was a ruse? Damn Jack and his mad plans. Mum said half of them didn't work, and the other half only worked because they involved his getting naked.
Ianto's face went sad. "You don't know me, and I suspect you won't like me much when you do, but I wanted to say, I am so sorry for your loss."
His eyes were guileless. The cold feeling she was trying to ignore in the pit of her stomach blossomed.
"Oh God."
"Safe trip," said the man in white to the guards, and Alice felt her navel twitch. The world wrapped around her and changed to light and green and golden.
***
Chapter Four