TDS (act 1, chapter 4)
CHAPTER FOUR: i’ll shout and i’ll scream, but i’d rather not have seen
“We’re going to need you to trust us,” Martha began. “I know you’ve already put a lot of faith in us, but this next bit’s gonna take a lot more, and it’ll make everybody’s job easier if you just have… an open mind about things. Or at least try not to freak out.”
“I’ll try?” said Adam dubiously.
“Okay.” Martha took a deep breath. “I’m not usually the one to do this, that’s Gwen, but since she’s holding the fort back home...”
The crux of it was: aliens were real.
He’d known. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he’d accepted this as a legitimate possibility. So Adam didn’t freak out.
Or, at least, he didn’t freak out nearly as much as he could have. Which, in his opinion, was nearly as good.
“Aliens,” he repeated for the fourth time. Just to make sure.
“I’ll show you one later, all right?” Martha was clearly pleased that Adam wasn’t running screaming from the room. “Cardiff sits on a rift in space and time. It’s like a weak spot. Or a tidal beach? Anyway, weird stuff washes up there, usually debris but sometimes you get live organisms. And when aliens come near Earth, they can usually sense the Rift, and they’re drawn to it. There are different organizations all over the world dedicated to keeping the public from knowing about these visitors. The one in the United Kingdom is called Torchwood, established by Queen Victoria herself. Jack is the head of Torchwood Three, which is based in Cardiff. Any questions yet?”
“Um.” Adam cleared his throat. “So is UNIT, like, the US equivalent?”
Martha smiled - she probably hadn’t expected him to actually have questions. “You’re definitely more than a pretty face. I’m sure Jack told you that UNIT stands for ‘Unified Intelligence Taskforce’. Technically it’s a global force, not restricted to a country. Most of our manpower comes from the UK and US though.”
“That… sounds really familiar,” said Adam. “So you are UNIT, Captain Harkness is Torchwood.”
“Right.” Martha beamed at him. “Now, about Tommy. According to Jack, they picked up a sudden spike of Rift energy around the approximate time that you said Tommy disappeared. He tracked it down to a piece of technology that allows for teleportation over long distances. Remember what I said about random stuff turning up from the Rift? Our best guess is that Tommy accidentally touched the alien artifact or picked it up. In short, he was sent to a different planet.”
Adam stared at her.
“Do you need a minute?” asked Martha, not unkindly.
“Just...” Adam waved a hand, though he had no idea what he was trying to say by it. “Keep going.”
“Jack said he was able to track down the destination using the artifact, and went after him. Brought him back. But...” Martha hesitated.
“What?”
“You’re going to need to talk to Jack about this, seriously. Jack said that the artifact sent him to a lab. A medical laboratory. He’s... he’s pretty sure the aliens who worked there did something to Tommy.”
“Like what?”
“That’s what we’ve been trying to find out. The technology they used is really advanced, and our scanners can only pick up traces of some kind of surgical work. Mostly on his back. The dissociation makes me think that they’ve tampered with his neural pathways. I’m pretty sure he’s been given a data implant. But that doesn’t explain the tremors when he sleeps, and lately he’s reported feeling pain and fatigue at random times. Maybe the implant he was given is incompatible with humans, thus causing side effects, but my gut tells me they did more than download information into his brain.”
Adam was quiet for a while. “Can we fix this?”
She gave him a determined smile. “If there is a way, trust me, Jack will damn well find it.”
They were probably miles out from any city. The air was clean, if dry, and the sky was blue with fluffy white clouds. The sun-baked ground was a little warm on his back, but it was comfortable. If he angled his body away from the buildings, he could almost forget the electric fence and the patrolling soldiers and take Tommy’s hand in his.
“What are your nightmares about?” he asked quietly.
Tommy fidgeted beside him. “I’m somewhere else. Can’t really see where, but it doesn’t matter. There’s something wrong with me, with my body, but I can’t figure out what it is. It’s like I’m too small for my skin, and it hurts, like I’m about to burst open. It’s hurts so much to keep it in, but you know, exploding, and I’m scared it’s gonna happen anyway. I keep looking for a way out, I think I try to yell for help but there’s never any sound. There’s never anyone to help, either.”
Adam muttered “fuck it” and shuffled over to pull Tommy against him.
“Why are you here, Adam?”
Adam slumped, looked away from Martha’s too-inquisitive gaze. “He’s my friend.” He pushed the remnants of his dinner - a hearty beef stew, salad, warm bread, and pudding - around his tray.
“I can believe you came here because you’re a friend. Heck, I’ve held the hands of complete strangers when they needed me to. But... this seems to be hitting you as hard as it is hitting him. You’ve probably guessed that the watch Jack gave you also monitors your vitals. Considering your medical records don’t show a history of hypertension, I’m guessing that your current blood pressure levels started with this whole thing. I just wonder if you know why.”
“I…” Adam bit his lip. “It’s ridiculous, really.”
“Our reasons usually are, when it comes to people we care about.”
Adam sighed. “I lost him, okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“We were walking around Cardiff, just the two of us. I looked at something in a store, and when I turned back around, he’s gone. I don’t know how long I could have been distracted, but it was like he just vanished into thin air. I walked around for ages, calling his name. Until Jack appeared with him.”
Martha was quiet for a few minutes. “You probably don’t need me reminding you that he’s a grown man.”
“Yes, damn it, I know that,” muttered Adam, pushing a hand through his hair. “Doesn’t change how I feel like I could have done something.”
Adam found Captain Harkness in Tommy’s observation chamber. "Captain."
The Captain didn’t look away from the window, but Adam could feel the shift of his attention.
"Martha said you got him back.” Captain Harkness nodded. Adam continued, "Is that normal? For someone with your rank to be personally tracking down these," Adam hesitated, "accidents?"
"In Torchwood Three, yes," replied the Captain, meeting Adam's eyes. He seemed to be waiting for something, reading Adam's thoughts like they're printed on his head. Adam wondered how long it'd been since someone had been able to read the Captain's.
"You took personal responsibility for this case," said Adam slowly, alert now that there was something he needed to work out. He flipped open the folder that Martha had given him. "All the information pieces and case reports here are by a Jones, I. and Cooper, G. No mention of you at all, except for the brief bio on you." Adam hesitated. "You lost someone, didn't you?"
"More than one," answered Captain Harkness softly. "So believe me when I say I know what it’s like to have someone close to me taken or tampered with by phantasmagoria.”
"But you protect aliens.” He’d gotten that much out of Martha. “You and this Torchwood Institute of yours."
A small smile. "In my experience, people discover the best of themselves when they’re an alien in a world of strangers, and the worst when they’re on their home world facing aliens. It can work the other way, too. But I like to think that I'm protecting humans from the worst of themselves."
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