Better Natures: Memory
Chapter Three: In Which Things Go All To Hell
As Jack sat at the desk, reading something on the hand device Ianto had mentioned, Donna was taking the opportunity to lean back and try reading through one of the hard-copy books. Her head was beginning to throb, though, a slow, steady beat that seemed to sound almost of drums, as if someone was banging on a tympani inside her head. "Oh," she said, softly, as the beats grew louder, the pain grew stronger. "Oh, that's-"
In a moment, Jack was at her side. "What's wrong?" he asked. "Is it the same thing that happened upstairs?" Donna shook her head.
"No, nothing so bad," she said. "Just a headache. It's already fading." And it was, she realised, the pain and the sound both fading into the background, and then gone. Something felt different, though, but she couldn't say what.
"If it happens again," he said, "we'll get some kind of painkillers for it, all right?"
Donna shrugged. "No real need," she said. "I'm not some weakling who needs to take something for a little bit of pain."
Jack considered Donna for a moment, wondering how much, if anything, she was covering up, but shrugged. "If you say so," he said, with a shrug. "I'm just..." He trailed off, and started to stare into space.
"Oi, Spaceman," Donna said, looking up. "You're just what?" She waved her hand in front of his face, trying to get his attention, but the look in his eyes when he snapped back made her wish he'd stayed 'gone'. "What is it?" she asked, concern lacing her voice. "What's wrong?"
"I-" Jack turned to look at her, panic in his eyes. "I remember dying. It's as if someone just... gave something back to me, but I really wish they hadn't. I remember dying, Donna. How can I be here if I've already died?"
Donna reached out, first to put a hand on his arm, then to pull him into a tight embrace. "There are answers out there," she said, "for both of us. And we're going to find them."
In the small room, barely big enough for two, Donna Noble held Jack Harkness as Jack did something he'd not done in almost as long as he could remember:
He cried.
Which made things even more disconcerting when the lights went out.
The first sub-level had been half-interesting to the boys, but it wasn't until they found the access to the next level down that Luke and Clyde found the stuff they really wanted to see. "What do you suppose this is for?" Clyde asked, holding up a square of stiff, grey metal that was sitting out on a pedestal in the archives. "Some piece of an alien space ship?"
Luke shook his head. "It's a piece of 10 Downing Street," he said. "From the shelter around the conference room. The one that blew up."
"What makes you say that?" Clyde followed as Luke pointed to the pedestal, indicating a small plaque. "Oh. Well, if you want to be all technical about it," he retorted. "I still think it looks like a bit of an alien space ship."
Luke chuckled at his friend and moved along, further into the archives. He didn't expect that anything particularly dangerous would be out for he and Clyde to get into, for even though the Hub wasn't likely child-proofed, as it were, it wasn't likely that the dangerous stuff would just be lying about anyway, so he figured he and Clyde were pretty safe, no matter what they touched, as long as they were careful. "Well, there are some alien artifacts over here," he said, looking at a work table. There was an array of items spread out on top of it. Luke guessed they were waiting to be assessed and archived, given the forms sitting in front of them. "Be careful, though, I don't think they're sorted yet. We shouldn't mess with what order they're in."
Clyde nodded, reaching out to pick up something that looked like a small wooden box. "I wonder what this is for," he said. "Looks like a music box or something."
"Does it open?" Luke asked, leaning over to take a look. "Maybe we should take a look inside. We might be able to figure out what it is. That'll help them, right?"
Clyde smirked at Luke. "Now you're getting it, Luke." He fiddled with it a bit, but the top -- assuming the part he was fiddling with actually was the top -- was firmly stuck on. "Here, you try," he said, handing it over. "It probably needs some kind of special trick to opening it."
It was certainly pretty, Luke realised, although he was careful not to actually call it that in front of his friend. The wood was carved all over into an intricate design, and it took Luke a few moments to find an actual seam instead of something that just looked like one. He slid a fingernail into it, thankful for once that Sarah Jane hadn't caught him and made him clip them already, and levered it open, revealing the inside of the box. The disappointingly empty box.
"Well, ain't that just the way?" Clyde said, rolling his eyes. "Let's try something else. There's got to be something interesting in here."
Luke laughed. "If you say so," he said, but as he put the box down on the table, it began to glow, light emanating from inside. Within moments, it was the only illumination in the room as the Hub shut down, the sound of deadbolts locking down coming from every door around them.
Clyde, fear in his eyes, looked over to see a matching fear in Luke's. "Uh," he said, doing his best to put a brave front on for his younger friend. "Oops?"
Luke picked up the box again and tried to get the lid back on, but it was dissolving, fading away into a sparkling dust that sifted through his fingers. "Yeah, oops," he agreed. The box itself was crumbling now, too, but the light, now revealed to be a softly glowing orb that rose to float in the air above the table. It bobbed for a moment. Luke reached out to touch it, waiting first to see if there were any heat coming off of it, but when his finger passed through it he didn't feel anything at all. After a moment, the light bobbed up to hover over his shoulder, spreading illumination around him, enough to see a few feet in any direction, without interfering with his night vision. "Well, this will help a bit, at least," he said, hoping that it wasn't actually the light itself that had caused the apparent lockdown. "Now all we need to do is find a way out."
It wasn't Martha's first lockdown in Torchwood, but it was the first she'd not been warned about. Everything prior had been a drill. "Well," she said, thankful that the medical ward had emergency lights, "this could possibly have had worse timing, but I'm not sure what that would actually be."
Across from her, at the top of the stairs that led up from the medical bay, Sarah Jane was running one hand against the blast doors that had descended, designed to keep things from getting in and killing unsuspecting patients -- or to keep patients in and stop them from killing unsuspecting Torchwood employees. "Any idea how long this might last?" she asked. "I don't see any way out of here."
Martha shrugged. "It depends what caused it," she said. "Comms are down, so we can't get ahold of anyone else. At this point, we may just have to wait until someone comes along and stops the lockdown. Gwen's still outside, she'll have been notified when the lockdown started."
"But will she be able to get in?" Sarah Jane asked. "If it's a lockdown, surely that blocks outside access as well."
Martha nodded. "It does, but she's the best chance, probably, of any of us. No one else was on this level when we went into lockdown." She reached over and picked her take-away container up off of her desk, stabbing at her salad with her fork. "Garlic toast?" she offered.
Mickey looked at Ianto in the very, very dim illumination offered by his watch. "Well, doesn't that just figure."
The tears had passed, more memories returning, and Jack stood once again on his own. "There's got to be a way through the door," he said, fiddling at the panel that sat in the wall just beside it. "You didn't see the code Mickey used to get out, did you?" The memories weren't coming in order, Jack had said when Donna asked, but things were slowly becoming clearer. "I can't quite remember the override yet."
Donna shook her head, thankful for the little sphere of light that Jack had somehow kindled, pulling it out of his rather useful wrist-strap. "Sorry," she said. "My head was still a little foggy at that point." Another big of fog ran through her head, then faded; a sharp pain, then that, too, was gone. "But what if you... What are you doing?"
Jack was keying something else into the panel, running through a sequence of numbers that never seemed to end. "One of these days," he said, "I'm going to rewrite protocol on the override codes. There is no need for them to be seventy-two characters long." With a final flourish, Jack keyed in the last few characters of the code, and the deadbolt disengaged with an audible thunk. "There we go," he said, pushing the door open. "After you, Ms. Noble."
"All that come back," she said, "and you still don't remember who I'm supposed to be?"
Jack shrugged. "Even if I did," he said, "I wouldn't be able to tell you, remember? I remember Gwen now, and Ianto and Martha, although Mickey's still a bit of a fog. I trust them when they say there are reasons not to tell you." Trusted them, and remembered -- was starting to remember -- just a bit. A story of a woman changed, a woman in danger of burning herself out beyond any repair if she remembered, even if only for a brief moment, what she had been for a scant few hours.
"Oi, you're all the same," she said, stepping out into the hallway. She glanced down towards where the less opulent cells could be found. "I don't suppose the lockdown prevents any of the other... inmates from escaping?"
"Trust me, they're secure. There's not a single thing down here that could get through the lockdown blast doors."
"Says the man who's still only got half a memory." Donna walked to the edge of the illumination offered by the bobbing bubble of light. "Well?" she asked. "Aren't you coming?"
"I've got a better idea," Jack said, grinning. "Come this way."
"What's over there?"
"The armory."
The last thing Gwen had expected upon arriving just inside the tourist kiosk was a notification coming in over her headset that the Hub had gone into a high-security lockdown. "Martha?" she called, tapping her comm. "Mickey? Ianto? Can anyone hear me?" she asked. No reply. "Well, that complicates things. Rhys, could you check in the desk? Right hand side, second drawer down, just on the inside there should be a switch under a plastic cover. Can you flip it for me?" Gwen was already pulling some of the false cover away to reveal the other switch, hidden in a little alcove in the wall.
"Is this typical of your planet?" asked Tek'var. "I find it... most disconcerting to find such stringent security measures."
"Well, we are a secret base," Gwen said, smiling at the hiss of escaping air. It was good that she'd thought to try this first, otherwise the gas in the next chamber might have knocked them all out -- and who knew how it would affect Tek'var and his companions? "But no, it's not typical. For some reason, the Hub has gone into a total lockdown." She opened the door and waved the others through. "We'll have to try to get in," she said, "or at least see if we can contact anyone. I might have better luck if we're inside the Hub's lockdown shields."
Rhys watched the wall as they walked by. "Gwen?" he asked, pointing to a few irregularities in the wall. "That's different, isn't it? Have you painted in here, or is it something else?"
Looking to where he was pointing, Gwen stepped closer, running her hand along it. "No, you're right," she said, "it's definitely different. I'm not sure why. It might be something to do with the lockdown. There's so much about the hub, even now, that even Jack doesn't properly understand. Good eyes, Rhys."
Rhys preened, just a little. "D'you think it's trying to tell us something?" he asked.
"What, you think it's sentient?" Gwen asked. "Not that I'm aware of."
"I don't mean that," Rhys clarified. "But it could be trying to give us some kind of diagnostic, couldn't it? Like a readout on a computer."
Gwen nodded. "I suppose that makes sense. I just wouldn't have the first idea how to read it."
In front of them, Tek'var came to a halt. "Perhaps I may be of assistance?" he said, his creepy butler voice still coming from the orb he held. "It does seem similar to one of the more obscure writing systems on our home planet. If I may?" Gwen stepped away, allowing Tek'var to draw closer to the wall. "It appears your mate is correct," he said. "It does appear to be a diagnostic of some kind. There are some words unfamiliar to me, but it seems to be indicating that the sensors of the... Hub, as you call it, detected an unfamiliar energy and reacted with... security lockdown protocol Alpha-Tau-Ceti?" He shook his ears, an action so incredibly inhuman that Gwen was actually glad to see it; to this point, Tek'var had seemed entirely too human to be an alien.
"That sounds about right," she replied. "And that's the proper protocol for an unfamiliar energy. Does it say anything else about the energy?"
"Only that it's a small amount. Much less than I'd expect would set off any security protocol, much less one of this magnitude."
"We're fond of our security, here," Gwen said. "And you never know what's going to interact with something else. Well, let's keep moving," she continued. "Now that I know a bit more about what's going on, I may know something we can do about it."
Luke and Clyde hadn't yet managed to find a way out of the archives, but what they had found gave them a little more confidence. "This is so cool," Clyde said, hefting the rifle-shaped blaster he'd found in the mini-armory stashed in a hidden cabinet in the archive wall. "Too bad the comms aren't working. Why'd you say we should bring them along, anyway?"
"They're not working now," Luke said, "but if someone gets access, it's better to be wearing them and find out. It might help them find us later, too." He was kneeling on the archive floor, reaching into the depths hidden behind an access panel, trying to see if he could override the lockdown on the doors. "I think we probably caused the lockdown," he added. "I just hope no one's in any trouble because of it."
A moment, and then another, and there was a small hum as the door to the let of the access panel swung open. "Brilliant!" Clyde said, grinning at Luke. "C'mon," he added, taking Luke by the hand and half-pulling him out into the hallway. "Let's get out of here and find someone else. And see if they have any food, I'm starving."
Luke just laughed and followed along behind, thankful for the little ball of light that continued to bob along just above his shoulder.
The hallway they came out into wasn't the one they'd come in by, and, in fact, seemed to be one they'd not yet passed through. There was a door down to the next level, but Luke and Clyde went past it: they wanted to go up, not down. "I wonder why the comms are off," Luke added. "I don't know why they'd do that. Unless it's to prevent someone else from taking control of them?"
Clyde shrugged. "Who knows?" he said. "Anyway, I still think it's not worth-"
A crackle of static across the comms in their ears, and Clyde reached up in a hurry to turn his down. Luke just smirked and fiddled with his for a moment. "Can anyone hear me?" came the American-accented voice across the comms. "This is Jack, I think I've got these working again. If you can hear me, please respond."
Luke was reaching up to turn his earpiece onto 'speak' when he heard Ianto chiming in. "Ianto here, with Mickey," he said. "We're somewhere on the second level, not too far from the cells. We're trying to head back up to the Hub itself to see if we can break out of the lockdown, but we haven't got much light to make our way. How's everyone else?"
"Martha here. Sarah Jane and I are safe, but we're trapped inside the medical bay blast doors. I don't think we're going anywhere until someone turns off the lockdown."
A moment later, Sarah Jane came on the comms. "Has anyone seen Luke or Clyde? They were exploring when the lockdown started."
"I'm here, Mum," Luke said, and he could almost hear her smiling with relief. "Clyde and I are safe. We're on the second sub-level, just outside the archive. We found comms in with the weapon stash, and there's a little ball of light, too, that's decided to start following me around."
"Ball of light?" Jack asked. "From a little wooden box?"
"That's right; how did you know?"
Before Jack could respond, Ianto piped in. "That was one of the artifacts waiting to be entered into the system! How did you figure out what it does?" He paused. "Why were you fiddling with unknown artifacts?" Another pause. "Jack! Is your memory coming back?"
"Parts of it," Jack replied, and Luke was thankful for the distraction; he didn't want to have to explain to Ianto that he thought he might have caused the lockdown. There was enough time for that -- and punishment from his Mum -- to come from that later. "Not everything, but I remember everyone who works here except for Mickey, now. It's how we got out of the guest quarters -- I was able to remember the override."
"Yeah, the only who ever can," Martha snarked at him. "Whose brilliant idea was it to have a seventy-two digit override code?"
"Not mine, Miss Martha Jones, so don't get mad at me. Luke, Clyde? I want you two to stay where you are. Mickey and Ianto, if you can find one of the access panels, there should be a way to get you two some light. Ianto, you're most likely to know this -- do you remember the old Torchwood-1 emergency codes?"
"As if I read them yesterday, sir."
"Good man. Code 22-A should get you something to see by. When you get it, drop down a level to find the boys, and then head up to the main level. Donna and I will be up there as soon as we can. Has anyone heard from Gwen yet?"
"Not yet," Martha said, "but she may not have been able to access the internal communications yet. She'll have to get down past the first couple of security doors before she'll be able to get ahold of us."
"All right. Everyone, you have your assignments. Let's move." The comms clicked off.
A few moments later, Luke smiled as the channel clicked on once again. "Luke?" Sarah Jane said. "I've got a private channel now. Are you really all right?"
"I'm fine, Mum," he said, having expected this. He waved to Clyde to sit down, and he slid down the wall himself, settling down to wait for Mickey and Ianto. "Clyde and I are both fine. But I, uh, think I might have caused the lockdown."
"If you did," Sarah Jane said, "it's Torchwood's fault for leaving dangerous artifacts out where you could find them. But what makes you think you caused it?"
"It happened right when I opened the box," he explained. "The one that gave us the light."
There was a moment before Sarah Jane said anything more, and Luke wondered if the comms had dropped again before she spoke. "Jack recognised it," she said. "Which means that it's something he's probably familiar with. I don't see any way that that could have caused a lockdown."
"So you think it's something else?" Luke wasn't sure if that worried him, or if it was a relief. If he hadn't caused the lockdown, then what had?
"I can't say for certain," Sarah Jane replied, "but I think it's likely. Not something dangerous -- we'd have seen more sign of it by now if it were -- but something else, yes." Again, Luke could swear he felt her smiling. "When you get back up here," she said, "there's food for you. Fish and chips."
"That'll be good," Luke replied, and they both knew that what they were saying was something else entirely. "Thanks, Mum."
"You're welcome, Luke. I'll see you soon."
"You, too, Mum." The comm clicked off. "So," Luke continued. "I guess now we wait."
Clyde nodded, and he leaned against his friend. "Yeah," he said. "I guess we wait. Any ideas on how we could pass the time?"
Grinning, Luke leaned back against Clyde. "Maybe," he said. "But imagine if Mum found out."
"What, you think she hasn't figured it out already? She is an investigative journalist, after all. I bet she knew the first time we kissed."
Luke laughed. "She'd have said something, I think. It's not that she'd mind, at least I don't think she would, but she'd have let me know that she knew so that I knew she didn't mind." He took a moment to go back over that sentence in his head; it had got away from him a bit. "Anyway, I don't think she knows yet. If she did, she'd want to make sure I knew there were rules about what we could and couldn't do."
Clyde shifted a bit, bring his arm around Luke's shoulders. "Well," he said, "I'm not ready for anything more, and you're not ready for anything more. So let's just go with what we've got, yeah?"
"All right," Luke agreed, turning his head just enough so that he could lean up and brush his lips against Clyde's. "And maybe when we get out of this, we'll tell her?"
"Just as long as we don't have to tell my mum yet," Clyde said. "I don't think the world's ready for how she'll respond."
"You think she'll take it badly?"
Clyde snorted. "No," he said. "I think she'll start a local chapter of PFLAG. I don't think Bannerman Road's ready for that, do you?"
Snuggling in under Clyde's arm, Luke had to agree. This, anyway, was good enough for now.
Jack and Donna made their way through a hallway that looked, to Donna's eyes, exactly the same as the one they'd left. "Are you sure you know where we're going?" she asked. "I feel like we're going in circles."
"There should be an access shaft at the end of this corridor," Jack replied. "I think. It's not something that gets used at the best of times, and it's not like my memory's in the best of shape right now."
"Oh, that just fills me with confidence."
"Y'know, I think I see what he saw in you," Jack said, without even thinking what he was saying. When Donna stopped and turned to stare at him, he thought back over what he'd said.
"What who saw in me?" Donna asked. "Or does that have to do with whatever you all can't tell me?"
Jack swore under his breath, then shook his head. "I'm not even sure what that meant," he prevaricated. "It just slipped out."
Donna snorted. "Pull the other one, Harkness," she said. "If you're not going to tell me, at least do me the favour of telling me you're not going to tell me, like everyone else?"
"Okay. I'm not going to tell you. I don't even remember it properly yet, anyway. I definitely don't remember why we can't tell you. You're different, though. There's something..." Jack shook his head. "Anyway. This isn't helping. Like I was saying, there should be an access shaft at the end of the corridor. It should take us right back up to the main level."
Donna rolled her eyes. "One of these days, Spaceman, I'm going to get a straight answer out of you."
"That, Donna Noble, presumes that there's anything straight about me at all."
There was no way through. "We can't even get a comm signal through," Gwen said, swearing. "Not with how Mickey's upgraded the Hub shielding. We're going to have to wait for them to break the lockdown on their own. Which they should be able to -- there has to be some way for them to break it."
"What about Jack?" Rhys said. "He'd have the codes, wouldn't he? And you said that Martha said his memory would come back."
"We don't know how long, though." Gwen turned to Tek'var, and blinked. Something was different. "Speaker Tek'var? Is something wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong, Speaker Gwen. In fact, I believe that things are starting to be very right. If I may ask, will you and your mate accompany us to our ship?"
"I... Your sphere. It's changed colour." It was now glowing a very pale purple.
"As I say, Speaker Gwen. Things are starting to be very right. Will you accompany us?"
Gwen looked to Rhys, who nodded. "Yes," she said. "We'll accompany you." Within moments -- Gwen hadn't even seen or heard Tek'var do anything to signal it -- the teleport had enveloped them and carried them away.
When the world rematerialised around them, Gwen and Rhys found themselves on a well-lit deck, a large observation window open to their left showing the Earth below. "Brilliant," Rhys whispered, his eyes wide. "Have you seen this before, Gwen?" he asked.
She shook her head, her own eyes near as wide as Rhys's. "It's a first for me, too," she said. "Tek'var? What is it that brought you up here?"
"The song. We have found the song," Tek'var said. "It is time to search for the secret in the ending song."
"You said that before, that the secret was in a song that was ending. What do you mean? What kind of song?"
Tek'var turned to Gwen, bowing slightly towards her. "The song we all sing, Speaker Gwen. You have a song within you, as does your mate. And you carry a new one with you even now, just starting its first notes."
Gwen turned to Rhys, their eyes meeting, just as wide as before but for an entirely different reason. "You mean..." Rhys said. They turned back to Tek'var.
"I'm pregnant?" Gwen asked. She closed her eyes briefly, wanting nothing more than to hug Rhys and cheer, but this was not the time. Instead, she clutched his hand, sending what emotion she could through that tenuous connection.
Tek'var tilted his head, an action at once both entirely human and entirely alien. "I had not realised you were not aware," he said. "It is of little import at the moment. The secret is in a song that is ending. We must find the secret."
The secret was in a song that was ending. Gwen pushed aside thoughts of her pregnancy and turned that over in her head, looking back over the world. "But if the song is ending... That means the person is dying? What happens if you take the secret? Does the song end?"
"The song is ending," Tek'var repeated. "We must find the secret. The secret is in the song that is ending."
Gwen glanced around, let her arc blaster fall forward a little in her sleeve to rest just barely hidden, ready at a moment's notice. She saw Rhys slip his hand once more to the small of his back. "We can't let you kill anyone," Gwen said. "But if there's any other way to help you, we will."
Tek'var's people began to surround them. The strange clicks of their language rose up from them, growing louder and louder -- a chant, Gwen realised, that Tek'var was echoing through his strange translator sphere. "The song is ending," he said, and his people chanted in their own tongue. "We must find the secret." Over and over again. Gwen's eyes went around the room again, and she saw what she needed.
"Rhys," she said. "Hold on to me." Grabbing his hand, she lunged with the other for the large red button on the teleport control panel, trusting it to either take her where she wanted to go, or to where it had last grabbed them. Praying that it would work.
In a flash of light, Gwen and Rhys were gone. A moment later, her arc blaster detonated, destroying the teleport panel behind them.
Tek'var wouldn't be following them any time soon.