The One True Free Life (18/ 26)
Title: The One True Free Life (18/26)
Characters: Alt!Ten/Rose, and everyone else I can cram in to the Alt!Verse, plus several OCs
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Everything
Disclaimer: It would be a very different, and possibly quite upsetting, world if I owned these characters. For the sake of the world's children, I don't.
Summary: When Rose and Alt!Ten return to Pete's World, after a much longer absence than planned, they find that things have begun to go a bit pear-shaped there. Can Our Heroes save the British Republic while at the same time working out their own Byzantinely complicated personal issues?
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26/ Epilogue | Whole story on Teaspoon
Somewhere between Leicester and Stoke, Rose felt her head whip backwards as the Doctor suddenly accelerated down the country road they'd been taking. She felt more than a little annoyed, as she'd specifically told him to obey all of the posted speed limits, and began to prepare a speech regarding boys and their toys. She also considered the efficacy of finger-wagging and was in the midst of mulling over the Silent Treatment when he took a sharp right, narrowly missing an oncoming lorry, and sent gravel flying in their wake as he tore down a dirt road bordered on either side by tall hedgerows. She could see him checking his mirrors now, and as he slowed he began to turn his head and look behind them. He finally came to a complete stop at a gap in the hedges, where he pulled the bike carefully in and removed his helmet.
His hair was stuck to his head with sweat and though he seemed to be affecting a bit of a casual swagger as he dismounted, his wide eyes betrayed him.
"That was some fancy driving, Doctor!" Rose remarked between catching her breath as she removed her own helmet. "You reckon we were being followed?"
He poked his head around the corner of the hedge and brought his hand up to shield his eyes from the setting sun. "Hard to say. Could've just been a coincidence, someone taking all our same turns, but I didn't want to take the chance. Do they know that we're still riding this thing?"
Rose shrugged. "Probably. I was all over London on it before coming to find you. I tried to be discreet, but there's cameras everywhere."
The Doctor began to stroke his chin, and the growth there that was beginning to be able to be called a beard. "Well, it's not like we can sprout wings and fly, so if we're going to make it to Wales, it's going to have to be this way or no way. Turn your coat inside-out."
"What?"
"They're looking for two people riding a motorbike wearing a blue and a black jacket. Turn it inside-out and we'll be two people riding a motorbike wearing a brown and a white jacket. It's something at least." He did exactly this as he spoke and then began to look carefully at the ground around him. "And hand me a water bottle," he said, crouching down next to one of the hedges.
When she did, he poured a little on to the ground and mixed it up with a finger. Rose felt sure for a moment that he was going to then stick it in his mouth, but he instead walked over to their motorbike and smeared some on the license plate, adding a stroke to the number one so it looked like a seven, and an extra line to the letter T so it looked like an I.
Standing back to appraise his work, he slouched and sighed, "It's something. We'd better go, I want to be well in to Wales by dark. I don't really fancy taking those mountain passes in the middle of the night. As marvellous of a driver as I may be."
~o0o~
Because they decided to double-back and take a more southerly route, entering the Welsh marches near Shrewsbury, it was indeed not until well after dark that they began to find themselves on the high mountain passes of Snowdonia. Outside of Betws-y-Coed, they stopped and consulted the sat-nav, finding their destination about ten miles out of town, down a long dirt road and nestled in to the cleft between two wooded hillsides. Even in the dark, Rose could see that it was an unspeakably beautiful location, and in different circumstances would have made a perfect lovers' get-away.
As it was, she was getting very cold indeed, was tired of hanging on to the Doctor's ridiculously bony little waist, and felt that all the blood had pooled in her feet due to the vibrations of the bike and being seated for so long. She hoped sincerely that this Alis Jones made the trip worth it.
They slowed to a stop in front of a small grey farmhouse, and two terriers flew out of a flap in the side door and began to race towards them. The Doctor jumped back about five feet and waved his helmet out in front of him as two little dogs yapped and jumped around at his heels, nipping at the ankles of his jeans.
"Slitheen are no problem, but a terrier scares you?" Rose crouched down and held a hand out, laughing quietly to herself. The dogs ran to her now and the Doctor remained stationary, eyeing the scene warily.
"I don't trust anything I can't reason with."
Rose reached in to her bag an produced a piece of bread, which she ripped in half. "You can reason with a dog. Here, look. I've just given these two a very good reason to be friends with us. Didn't I, you silly little beasts? Yes I did!"
The Doctor just narrowed his eyes and listened to her stream of baby-talk, when a shaft of light fell between them from the open front door of the house. "Who's there?" came a woman's voice, strong and sounding like perhaps that question might be asked again but with a rifle.
Rose stepped in to the light and waved, saying "Hello," and "Pardon me," and other reassuringly polite things as she approached the woman in the doorway. The Doctor waved as well, but did not move from his spot.
"Rose Tyler," the woman said frankly. It was hard to tell if that was a remark of surprise, or welcome, or disdain, but Rose was undaunted.
"Yeah, that's right. And this is my friend, the Doctor." She looked over her shoulder and made a gesture of beckoning to him, surprised that he was remaining so aloof.
"Hello," the Doctor waved and smiled what he hoped was a, quite literally, disarming smile.
"Your father send you?" the woman asked, still not moving from the doorway.
"He did. Though he didn't say why. We've had a bit of trouble, you see--"
"Come in." She moved aside and opened the door wider, revealing a darkened kitchen with a warmly lit sitting room beyond. The two terriers entered first and made a bee-line for the sofa, while the Doctor collected their gear and followed behind Rose.
Alis Jones was what people of a certain generation might call a handsome woman. Her greying hair was bluntly cut at the shoulder and the skin of her broad, open face was not so much wrinkled as well-used. The deep vowels of her Welsh accent seemed mirrored in the deep brown pools of her eyes.
She moved to put the kettle on and turned on the kitchen light, revealing a simple wooden table and chairs which she invited them to sit at.
"It must all be heading down the bog for Pete Tyler to send his only daughter here," she said as she brought a pottery tea service down out of a cupboard.
"Well, you certainly sound in the know," Rose replied pointedly.
The Doctor folded his hands in his lap and waited, as this seemed like it might be a bit of a family affair.
"I should be. Twenty-five years at Torchwood and put out to pasture same as your dad, and for the same reason I suspect."
"Yeah?" Rose shot a look to the Doctor, making sure he was getting all of this. "And what's that then? Pete...Dad, I mean, he said it was just a political shake-up."
Alis sat down at the table as well, with a steaming tea pot and three cups. "Oh, it was that all right. The political shake-up to end all political shake-ups I think."
Rose looked over and could see the Doctor's jaw muscles moving, and his lips flattening in to the thin line that signalled an imminent loss of patience.
"Alis Jones, is it?" he looked her dead in the eye and let her see his true age. "Alis Jones, we've really had a bit of a time here, and what I most want--even more than this lovely cuppa, and thanks for that--is to really just get some answers. In the past seventy-two hours I've been abducted from my bed at gunpoint, had experiments done on me against my will, had another man's memories and emotions poured in to my head, and spent so long on a motorbike, I may never walk normally ever again. All we know is that Pete Tyler wanted us to see you, and I have to assume that is because you have useful information."
A smile crept across Alis's face and she took a little sidelong glance at Rose that seemed to say, "So, where'd you find him?"
"So, if you don't mind," he continued, "we'd really just like to know what it is you know. If you don't mind."
"Sorry," said Rose. "He can be a touch forward."
Alis took a sip of her tea and peered over the edge of the cup at the two of them. "I can respect that. It seems you two have become personally wrapped up in a bit of a power-grab--though if you don't want to tell me why or how, that's your own business. Last I heard, you'd gone off on a mission and never returned. And I can't say I've ever heard anything about you, Doctor...I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."
"Just the Doctor." Rose shot him a look to warn him to keep any further information to himself for now. Once he started talking, it was nearly impossible to get him to stop, even when prudence demanded it.
"So, you said you were sacked same as my dad. Why was that, do you reckon?"
"I don't reckon," Alis said. "I know. Both me and your dad knew too much about Vincent Heths and his time at Torchwood."
"He's the Secretary of Education now, yeah?" asked Rose. "But he worked at Torchwood, before?"
"He did indeed. Not for long, but long enough. In Research and Development, but not as a scientist, you understand. An administrator. Still, even an administrator in R and D gets a lot of information across his desk. A lot of tech."
"Alien tech?" inquired the Doctor, warming up to the new pacing of the conversation.
Alis just looked at Rose and shared a secret smile. "Not from Torchwood, then?"
"As it happens, no," replied Rose, "but I think you'll find he knows plenty about alien tech."
"That's good, Miss Tyler, because what I began to suspect was that Vincent Heths absconded with a little bit of something."
"He stole from Torchwood?" Rose was incredulous; that was a dangerous game indeed.
"I think he did. Nothing big, of course. Nothing that would be noticed. Maybe a little something that no one else really saw the significance of. Just a little private matter between him and his chief scientist, James Alder."
"Mm," said the Doctor in to his teacup. "Director James Alder."
Alis nodded. "Quite. His reward for keeping quiet."
"And you think my dad knew about this too?" Rose fumbled with the milk bottle as she passed it around.
"Ta. Now I don't know how much Director Tyler knew, but I think he suspected, and we shared a bit of a confidence. But then there was Project Orion and I rather think that was the key distraction that permitted Heths and Alder to begin to carry out their plans in earnest."
Rose turned to the Doctor. "Project Orion was the dimension cannon. It started out as way for me to...well, you know. But then when the stars began to go out, it suddenly became a lot more important that I...you know."
Alis looked back and forth between them, a twinkle in her eye. "The secret-keepers are always the most anxious to know everyone else's."
"It's not relevant," said Rose tersely. "So, Heths found some bit of alien tech and took a shine to it, worked on it in secret with Alder when everyone else got involved in Orion, then took it with him when he left. Do I have that right?"
Alis reached out a hand and touched Rose's arm in a grandmotherly gesture. "Precisely. Heths left Torchwood about a year before Orion was tested, but Alder stayed on. I took a little too close of an interest in Alder's comings and goings with the Department of Education, and right after Orion was launched, I got the sack right along with your father. I dare say that it was Director Tyler that got the brunt of the scrutiny, though of the two of us he's the least aware of the scope of the entanglements between Torchwood and the government. But I'm just a sad old lady, widowed and mourning the loss of her son. A little dotty, a bit touched in the head, what do I know, eh?"
"All this was going on while you were at Torchwood," the Doctor stated, directed towards Rose.
"I was busy," she said, a bit defensively.
He directed his gaze back on to Alis. "Any idea what this tech could be? What it's for or what he's planning on doing with it?"
"That's the big question, isn't it? What would this career bureaucrat need with some bit or bob of alien technology? What's in it for him? I should think you're rather the expert in that area, Doctor. Had experiments run on you against your will, was it? I think there's your answer."
There was a long silence as they all turned the questions over in their minds, Rose with her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth, dipping a finger in to her lukewarm tea; the Doctor tugging on his ear and engaging in a new habit of rubbing his thumb over the whiskers at his chin.
"Do you know anything about this company, Liberty Systems?" Rose finally ventured.
"Never heard of it," said Alis thoughtfully. "You think there's a connection?"
"Considering I rescued this bloke," she gestured to the Doctor, "out of the tenth floor of their corporate headquarters where he was sedated and strapped to a hospital bed, I'd say there's a connection."
"Interesting. Is it a front then?" Alis inched a bit forward on her chair, leaning her elbows on the table.
"Got to be. It's supposedly some sort of test revising company, but I don't think they were helping the Doctor prepare for his A-levels."
Alis looked the Doctor up and down, scanning him for some sign of his ordeal. "Not unless they've changed the tests a great deal since Ianto was in school."
The Doctor rubbed his temples again at the memory. "The weird thing is, Rose tells me there wasn't much in the way of computers or security in the building."
Alis cut him off before he continued to explain. "That's not unusual at all. If they're working with alien tech, sometimes it interferes with the operation of our own computers."
The Doctor's eyes lit up and he slid himself back from the table, the chair scraping against the slate of the floor. "Of course! Why didn't I see that? If they're using tech that's generating a lot of psionic energy, that's going to interfere with certain frequencies of electromagnetic circuits, make computers unreliable and prone to losing data. Alis Jones, that is a brilliant observation. Brilliant!" His hands flew up in to his hair, which was already a complete tangle and he began to rub his scalp with wild abandon. "So that narrows the tech down considerably, and explains why they were so interested in me."
Rose shot him a look that might have made him regenerate on the spot if he'd been capable of doing so.
"Oh, really, Doctor?" The corners of Alis's lips quirked up playfully. "Do tell."
"Ah...I...well. It's a thing," he stammered.
"It's better if you don't know," said Rose.
Alis sighed with resignation. "Suit yourselves. Keep your secrets."
(To Chapter 19)
Characters: Alt!Ten/Rose, and everyone else I can cram in to the Alt!Verse, plus several OCs
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Everything
Disclaimer: It would be a very different, and possibly quite upsetting, world if I owned these characters. For the sake of the world's children, I don't.
Summary: When Rose and Alt!Ten return to Pete's World, after a much longer absence than planned, they find that things have begun to go a bit pear-shaped there. Can Our Heroes save the British Republic while at the same time working out their own Byzantinely complicated personal issues?
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26/ Epilogue | Whole story on Teaspoon
Somewhere between Leicester and Stoke, Rose felt her head whip backwards as the Doctor suddenly accelerated down the country road they'd been taking. She felt more than a little annoyed, as she'd specifically told him to obey all of the posted speed limits, and began to prepare a speech regarding boys and their toys. She also considered the efficacy of finger-wagging and was in the midst of mulling over the Silent Treatment when he took a sharp right, narrowly missing an oncoming lorry, and sent gravel flying in their wake as he tore down a dirt road bordered on either side by tall hedgerows. She could see him checking his mirrors now, and as he slowed he began to turn his head and look behind them. He finally came to a complete stop at a gap in the hedges, where he pulled the bike carefully in and removed his helmet.
His hair was stuck to his head with sweat and though he seemed to be affecting a bit of a casual swagger as he dismounted, his wide eyes betrayed him.
"That was some fancy driving, Doctor!" Rose remarked between catching her breath as she removed her own helmet. "You reckon we were being followed?"
He poked his head around the corner of the hedge and brought his hand up to shield his eyes from the setting sun. "Hard to say. Could've just been a coincidence, someone taking all our same turns, but I didn't want to take the chance. Do they know that we're still riding this thing?"
Rose shrugged. "Probably. I was all over London on it before coming to find you. I tried to be discreet, but there's cameras everywhere."
The Doctor began to stroke his chin, and the growth there that was beginning to be able to be called a beard. "Well, it's not like we can sprout wings and fly, so if we're going to make it to Wales, it's going to have to be this way or no way. Turn your coat inside-out."
"What?"
"They're looking for two people riding a motorbike wearing a blue and a black jacket. Turn it inside-out and we'll be two people riding a motorbike wearing a brown and a white jacket. It's something at least." He did exactly this as he spoke and then began to look carefully at the ground around him. "And hand me a water bottle," he said, crouching down next to one of the hedges.
When she did, he poured a little on to the ground and mixed it up with a finger. Rose felt sure for a moment that he was going to then stick it in his mouth, but he instead walked over to their motorbike and smeared some on the license plate, adding a stroke to the number one so it looked like a seven, and an extra line to the letter T so it looked like an I.
Standing back to appraise his work, he slouched and sighed, "It's something. We'd better go, I want to be well in to Wales by dark. I don't really fancy taking those mountain passes in the middle of the night. As marvellous of a driver as I may be."
~o0o~
Because they decided to double-back and take a more southerly route, entering the Welsh marches near Shrewsbury, it was indeed not until well after dark that they began to find themselves on the high mountain passes of Snowdonia. Outside of Betws-y-Coed, they stopped and consulted the sat-nav, finding their destination about ten miles out of town, down a long dirt road and nestled in to the cleft between two wooded hillsides. Even in the dark, Rose could see that it was an unspeakably beautiful location, and in different circumstances would have made a perfect lovers' get-away.
As it was, she was getting very cold indeed, was tired of hanging on to the Doctor's ridiculously bony little waist, and felt that all the blood had pooled in her feet due to the vibrations of the bike and being seated for so long. She hoped sincerely that this Alis Jones made the trip worth it.
They slowed to a stop in front of a small grey farmhouse, and two terriers flew out of a flap in the side door and began to race towards them. The Doctor jumped back about five feet and waved his helmet out in front of him as two little dogs yapped and jumped around at his heels, nipping at the ankles of his jeans.
"Slitheen are no problem, but a terrier scares you?" Rose crouched down and held a hand out, laughing quietly to herself. The dogs ran to her now and the Doctor remained stationary, eyeing the scene warily.
"I don't trust anything I can't reason with."
Rose reached in to her bag an produced a piece of bread, which she ripped in half. "You can reason with a dog. Here, look. I've just given these two a very good reason to be friends with us. Didn't I, you silly little beasts? Yes I did!"
The Doctor just narrowed his eyes and listened to her stream of baby-talk, when a shaft of light fell between them from the open front door of the house. "Who's there?" came a woman's voice, strong and sounding like perhaps that question might be asked again but with a rifle.
Rose stepped in to the light and waved, saying "Hello," and "Pardon me," and other reassuringly polite things as she approached the woman in the doorway. The Doctor waved as well, but did not move from his spot.
"Rose Tyler," the woman said frankly. It was hard to tell if that was a remark of surprise, or welcome, or disdain, but Rose was undaunted.
"Yeah, that's right. And this is my friend, the Doctor." She looked over her shoulder and made a gesture of beckoning to him, surprised that he was remaining so aloof.
"Hello," the Doctor waved and smiled what he hoped was a, quite literally, disarming smile.
"Your father send you?" the woman asked, still not moving from the doorway.
"He did. Though he didn't say why. We've had a bit of trouble, you see--"
"Come in." She moved aside and opened the door wider, revealing a darkened kitchen with a warmly lit sitting room beyond. The two terriers entered first and made a bee-line for the sofa, while the Doctor collected their gear and followed behind Rose.
Alis Jones was what people of a certain generation might call a handsome woman. Her greying hair was bluntly cut at the shoulder and the skin of her broad, open face was not so much wrinkled as well-used. The deep vowels of her Welsh accent seemed mirrored in the deep brown pools of her eyes.
She moved to put the kettle on and turned on the kitchen light, revealing a simple wooden table and chairs which she invited them to sit at.
"It must all be heading down the bog for Pete Tyler to send his only daughter here," she said as she brought a pottery tea service down out of a cupboard.
"Well, you certainly sound in the know," Rose replied pointedly.
The Doctor folded his hands in his lap and waited, as this seemed like it might be a bit of a family affair.
"I should be. Twenty-five years at Torchwood and put out to pasture same as your dad, and for the same reason I suspect."
"Yeah?" Rose shot a look to the Doctor, making sure he was getting all of this. "And what's that then? Pete...Dad, I mean, he said it was just a political shake-up."
Alis sat down at the table as well, with a steaming tea pot and three cups. "Oh, it was that all right. The political shake-up to end all political shake-ups I think."
Rose looked over and could see the Doctor's jaw muscles moving, and his lips flattening in to the thin line that signalled an imminent loss of patience.
"Alis Jones, is it?" he looked her dead in the eye and let her see his true age. "Alis Jones, we've really had a bit of a time here, and what I most want--even more than this lovely cuppa, and thanks for that--is to really just get some answers. In the past seventy-two hours I've been abducted from my bed at gunpoint, had experiments done on me against my will, had another man's memories and emotions poured in to my head, and spent so long on a motorbike, I may never walk normally ever again. All we know is that Pete Tyler wanted us to see you, and I have to assume that is because you have useful information."
A smile crept across Alis's face and she took a little sidelong glance at Rose that seemed to say, "So, where'd you find him?"
"So, if you don't mind," he continued, "we'd really just like to know what it is you know. If you don't mind."
"Sorry," said Rose. "He can be a touch forward."
Alis took a sip of her tea and peered over the edge of the cup at the two of them. "I can respect that. It seems you two have become personally wrapped up in a bit of a power-grab--though if you don't want to tell me why or how, that's your own business. Last I heard, you'd gone off on a mission and never returned. And I can't say I've ever heard anything about you, Doctor...I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."
"Just the Doctor." Rose shot him a look to warn him to keep any further information to himself for now. Once he started talking, it was nearly impossible to get him to stop, even when prudence demanded it.
"So, you said you were sacked same as my dad. Why was that, do you reckon?"
"I don't reckon," Alis said. "I know. Both me and your dad knew too much about Vincent Heths and his time at Torchwood."
"He's the Secretary of Education now, yeah?" asked Rose. "But he worked at Torchwood, before?"
"He did indeed. Not for long, but long enough. In Research and Development, but not as a scientist, you understand. An administrator. Still, even an administrator in R and D gets a lot of information across his desk. A lot of tech."
"Alien tech?" inquired the Doctor, warming up to the new pacing of the conversation.
Alis just looked at Rose and shared a secret smile. "Not from Torchwood, then?"
"As it happens, no," replied Rose, "but I think you'll find he knows plenty about alien tech."
"That's good, Miss Tyler, because what I began to suspect was that Vincent Heths absconded with a little bit of something."
"He stole from Torchwood?" Rose was incredulous; that was a dangerous game indeed.
"I think he did. Nothing big, of course. Nothing that would be noticed. Maybe a little something that no one else really saw the significance of. Just a little private matter between him and his chief scientist, James Alder."
"Mm," said the Doctor in to his teacup. "Director James Alder."
Alis nodded. "Quite. His reward for keeping quiet."
"And you think my dad knew about this too?" Rose fumbled with the milk bottle as she passed it around.
"Ta. Now I don't know how much Director Tyler knew, but I think he suspected, and we shared a bit of a confidence. But then there was Project Orion and I rather think that was the key distraction that permitted Heths and Alder to begin to carry out their plans in earnest."
Rose turned to the Doctor. "Project Orion was the dimension cannon. It started out as way for me to...well, you know. But then when the stars began to go out, it suddenly became a lot more important that I...you know."
Alis looked back and forth between them, a twinkle in her eye. "The secret-keepers are always the most anxious to know everyone else's."
"It's not relevant," said Rose tersely. "So, Heths found some bit of alien tech and took a shine to it, worked on it in secret with Alder when everyone else got involved in Orion, then took it with him when he left. Do I have that right?"
Alis reached out a hand and touched Rose's arm in a grandmotherly gesture. "Precisely. Heths left Torchwood about a year before Orion was tested, but Alder stayed on. I took a little too close of an interest in Alder's comings and goings with the Department of Education, and right after Orion was launched, I got the sack right along with your father. I dare say that it was Director Tyler that got the brunt of the scrutiny, though of the two of us he's the least aware of the scope of the entanglements between Torchwood and the government. But I'm just a sad old lady, widowed and mourning the loss of her son. A little dotty, a bit touched in the head, what do I know, eh?"
"All this was going on while you were at Torchwood," the Doctor stated, directed towards Rose.
"I was busy," she said, a bit defensively.
He directed his gaze back on to Alis. "Any idea what this tech could be? What it's for or what he's planning on doing with it?"
"That's the big question, isn't it? What would this career bureaucrat need with some bit or bob of alien technology? What's in it for him? I should think you're rather the expert in that area, Doctor. Had experiments run on you against your will, was it? I think there's your answer."
There was a long silence as they all turned the questions over in their minds, Rose with her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth, dipping a finger in to her lukewarm tea; the Doctor tugging on his ear and engaging in a new habit of rubbing his thumb over the whiskers at his chin.
"Do you know anything about this company, Liberty Systems?" Rose finally ventured.
"Never heard of it," said Alis thoughtfully. "You think there's a connection?"
"Considering I rescued this bloke," she gestured to the Doctor, "out of the tenth floor of their corporate headquarters where he was sedated and strapped to a hospital bed, I'd say there's a connection."
"Interesting. Is it a front then?" Alis inched a bit forward on her chair, leaning her elbows on the table.
"Got to be. It's supposedly some sort of test revising company, but I don't think they were helping the Doctor prepare for his A-levels."
Alis looked the Doctor up and down, scanning him for some sign of his ordeal. "Not unless they've changed the tests a great deal since Ianto was in school."
The Doctor rubbed his temples again at the memory. "The weird thing is, Rose tells me there wasn't much in the way of computers or security in the building."
Alis cut him off before he continued to explain. "That's not unusual at all. If they're working with alien tech, sometimes it interferes with the operation of our own computers."
The Doctor's eyes lit up and he slid himself back from the table, the chair scraping against the slate of the floor. "Of course! Why didn't I see that? If they're using tech that's generating a lot of psionic energy, that's going to interfere with certain frequencies of electromagnetic circuits, make computers unreliable and prone to losing data. Alis Jones, that is a brilliant observation. Brilliant!" His hands flew up in to his hair, which was already a complete tangle and he began to rub his scalp with wild abandon. "So that narrows the tech down considerably, and explains why they were so interested in me."
Rose shot him a look that might have made him regenerate on the spot if he'd been capable of doing so.
"Oh, really, Doctor?" The corners of Alis's lips quirked up playfully. "Do tell."
"Ah...I...well. It's a thing," he stammered.
"It's better if you don't know," said Rose.
Alis sighed with resignation. "Suit yourselves. Keep your secrets."
(To Chapter 19)