Nothing Else but Change
Chapter Three
"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."
Andy Warhol
The cells in Torchwood all had a distinctive smell. Not just the general musty dampness that pervaded every level, but a specific smell for each one. The floors nearest the main Hub smelt of the oil and ozone that always filled the air up there. As they went deeper, they smelt of the various chemicals stored there, or the Weevil food or some of the more unpleasant things that they were obliged to keep and hadn't worked out how to destroy.
Judging by the air in his cell right at that moment, Jack was on level seven. Nice to know he ranked alongside formaldehyde when it came to secure storage. He groaned as he sat up, his forehead still aching from the residual healing. His vision was a little blurred, and as he blinked, he thought he saw something in the corner of the cell. It was the kind of thing he usually associated with getting hit over the head, the way his vision would explode in sparks, lights dancing in front of his eyes. And seriously, what kind of life did he lead that he could categorise the different ways he'd passed out over the years. His deaths, at least, were just darkness, nothing but blankness until he gasped his way back to life again. It was what happened right before them that usually hurt.
"Welcome back."
Jack turned on the narrow bunk, wincing as his head hurt again. What the hell had she shot him with, anyway? He was still dizzy and nauseous, something the healing should have taken care of.
On the other side of the glass wall, the woman who'd shot him was sitting cross-legged on a simple wooden chair. She had what looked like a tablet computer on her lap and a carefully blank expression on her face.
"Hi," Jack croaked, coughing a little. "Nice to meet you too."
"That nausea you're feeling is the result of the SP118 running through your veins. It's a pretty big dose, since we don't have to worry about killing you, but then you know more about the dosages of these things than I do." She almost smiled. "Hopefully it's not fatal. It should just make you a little happier to talk to me. Do you want to talk to me, Jack?"
"I don't think we've been properly introduced." It was hard, trying to keep his thoughts along the lines he wanted them. The woman had a nice voice, low and comforting, and he really did want to talk to her. But just that thought was enough to trigger his instincts, forcing him into an endless loop of reflex and impulse that was keeping his mouth shut and his mind racing.
She laughed. "Come on, Jack. Don't play that game with me. We've done this too many times."
"Seriously, lady," Jack said, resisting the urge to look at her again, "you've got the wrong Harkness."
"Seriously, Jack. I don't think so." Glancing down at her computer, she said, "We lost track of you on the fifteenth of December. Where did you go?"
This whole thing was so ridiculous that Jack didn't bother to fight back the giggles that rose up inside him, bursting into full-blown laughter until he was shaking and breathless. On the other side of the glass, his interrogator seemed less amused.
"I've got as long as it takes, Jack," she said, and as he tried to get himself under control - or as under control as the drug would let him - he noticed that she was using his name, every time. That was an old trick, and one that was particularly effective on a subject under the influence of a truth drug. Make them think you're their friend. Draw them along with you, then hit them with whatever you've got on them, however small. The recognition almost sent him into another bout of helpless laughter, because he knew this technique, he'd probably taught her this technique. Seriously, just when he thought things couldn't get more screwed up.
"Listen, sister," he said, still wheezing a little, "you're only going to get this once, so make sure you've got all your recording equipment turned on. I am not your Jack Harkness. I don't know where the hell he is, but I hope he's having fun while I'm stuck here with you asking me stupid questions. Actually, he almost certainly is having fun out there because he'll remember going through this and he'll have made sure he's having the biggest damn party he can manage."
It wasn't too wild a guess, not with the cut of the woman's clothes and the computer she was holding. This had to be his linear future, and whenever it was, he seemed to have seriously ticked off his employers. Former employers. Whatever.
His interrogator raised an eyebrow. "Maybe I did overdose you after all. Because that made no sense whatsoever."
"Seriously, what's the year?" When she carried on just looking at him, he sighed. "Fine, I'll trade you. Something you want to know in return for you telling me what year it is."
The woman sat back in her chair, studying him for a long moment. "Twenty-eighty-nine," she said at last.
Jack sucked in a breath. One of the things he'd brushed up on before picking Earth as his base of operations was basic planetary history. This was a bad time to be a Terran. And it was only going to get worse. Apparently even Torchwood was a victim of that, or he was sure he would have still been with them.
Fairly sure. Eighty-nine years was a long time, even for him.
"Right." Nodding to himself, Jack tried to think. The drug was still scrambling his thoughts a little, but the surge of adrenaline seemed to be cutting through some of the haze. "Something about me." He flashed her the wickedest grin he could manage under the circumstances. "Do you want the adult version?"
"Keep to the point, Harkness." She didn't sound amused, and not just in a professional way. The edge to her voice told him more than she thought, as did the way she said his name. This was personal, and she was trying to get a little distance. That didn't seem to be going so well for her.
"Right. Okay." With exaggerated care, Jack got to his feet and tried to stretch the worst of the kinks out of his back. He really hated the cell bunks. "Well, you might not believe me, but I'm really not the Jack Harkness you're looking for. Test this." Fingers fumbling a little, he started undoing the buttons on his shirt. "You'll find that it was made in about 1998. I'd be more specific, but it's been a while since I had time for shopping." He held up the bundle of material, waiting for her to make the next move.
It took her a long time to make it, giving him the chance to look at her properly for the first time. The dim light of the cell block made it hard to be sure, but when she stepped into the light he did his best to memorise her face for the future. Olive skin, dark hair pulled back tightly in what he instinctively thought of as a military style, and dark eyes that were wide and knowing. Her looks wouldn't have won her a beauty contest, and her clothes were plain and black, severely cut in what he thought was the standard law enforcement uniform of the day. Despite what people thought, Jack wasn't all that interested in beauty, it was what he was seeing in her eyes, in the way she held herself when she got up out of the chair, that told him they had been more than just professional colleagues. Torchwood had never bothered with anti-fraternisation rules, understanding that in their jobs, sometimes people just had to blow off steam with someone who understood. Looking into this woman's eyes, Jack didn't think that was the answer here. There was a genuine attraction, to the mind that was behind that cold, calculating expression. The only reason for someone to shut down that tight was if they were afraid they were going to give something away if they didn't.
He wondered if they'd been in love.
After another moment of close examination that made Jack feel more bare than just taking his clothes off could manage, the woman put her hand on something to one side of the cell, and a small slot opened in the front.
"Unstable molecules," Jack said, genuinely impressed. "We're doing well."
"Hand it over." She waited for him to push it through, then pressed the switch again. "Don't go anywhere."
As she walked away, Jack leaned his forehead against the cool of the glass and closed his eyes. "Any chance of a cup of coffee?" he called after her, not at all surprised when he didn't get a reply. Carefully, he lowered himself onto the bunk again, trying not to think too hard in case it made his head spin faster. If he was doing this to himself, he had an even bigger masochistic streak than he'd realised. If he wasn't, then he really couldn't see the connection between 2005, 1921 and this more distant future. Slowly, he lay back and tried to force himself to rest. The drug was still making him shaky and potentially vulnerable, and that was a bad thing to be here and now. His attempts to clear his mind just kept bringing up memories of Ben with his haunted eyes and helpless expression, lost without the memories that Torchwood had taken from him.
Jack closed his eyes, then opened them again. Even in a cell this small, there had to be something he could do to distract himself. If he kept on like this he was going to go mad. Assuming he hadn't already, and this whole day wasn't just one long hallucination.
Great. That should work as a distraction.
By the time his mystery woman returned, Jack had counted the bricks in the walls of the cell (six hundred and nineteen), the tiles on the ceiling (two hundred and twenty) and worked out that if it was still the fourteenth of January, it was now a Friday. The first thing he noticed was the smell of something that was either coffee or something doing a really good impression of it. He lifted his head off the bunk to see the slot in the front of the cell was open again.
"I believe this was your order," the woman said, holding a mug out to him. Sensibly, she made him put his hands through to take it, and Jack didn't even think about making a grab for her. For one thing, she had coffee, and if he tried anything, he might spill it. For another, if the glass was made of unstable molecules, it would almost certainly be able to conduct an electric current. If he'd been designing it, that's what he would have done, anyway. Dying once in a day was quite enough, even for him.
"Thanks," he said, taking the mug and carefully bringing it inside the cell. "I take it you liked my shirt, then."
"We know it's from the twentieth century, if that's what you mean. We also checked the surveillance tapes and what do you know? You just appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the war room."
"Is that what it is now?" Jack took a long swig of surprisingly good coffee. "I didn't get much of a chance to look before you shot me in the head. Which was kind of rude, by the way."
She smiled without humour. "Over the years, we've found it's the best way to get you to stay where we want you. You're a difficult man to hang onto, Jack."
"Careful," he said, holding up a hand, "you'll spoil my reputation for being easy. Speaking of which," he flashed her his best smile, "do I get a name yet? Or should I call you ma'am?"
The look she gave him was halfway between suspicious and humouring, then she shrugged, taking her seat. "I'm Stacy."
"Which might or might not be your name, but it's what I can call you, right?" The coffee was warming Jack through, and he knew he was relaxing, feeling the last few hours - the last few weeks - catching up with him. He felt sleepy and a little bewildered, and he looked up at Stacy, disappointed. "Was that really necessary?" he asked, gripping the mug to stop if from falling. Drugged or not, the coffee tasted pretty good right now.
"Well, the SP118 wears off more quickly than we'd ideally like. That one's milder, but since our scans show you haven't eaten and your metabolism will still be just a little below par, we figured it would be enough."
Dammit. Jack sat down on the bunk with a thump, blinking against the heaviness in his eyes. "Why?"
"Where did you get the shirt, Jack? We know it's old, we know it's not a fake. So how did you get hold of it?"
"Brought it with me." This was pointless. All Jack was going to tell her under the influence of this drug was the truth, and the truth was that he really wasn't her Jack. Part of him just wanted to say to hell with it and stop fighting. The part of him that was still thinking rationally knew that that would be a very bad idea. Just because he didn't know things immediately relevant, who knew what else he'd tell her if she asked. If she knew as much about him as she seemed to, she might know the right questions to ask, and Jack always knew a lot more than he was willing to say.
"Jack." Stacy banged on the glass, bringing Jack's attention back to her. "Stay with me."
"I'd love to, but I think there's something wrong with my coffee." Jack's words were already starting to slur. Maybe he was going to get lucky and turn out to be allergic to the damn thing. At least if it killed him, it'd get it out of his system. Hopefully.
"Come on, Jack." Stacy's voice was gentle now, almost coaxing. "Talk to me. Start with where you got the shirt."
"Don't remember." Shut up, shut up, shut up. Jack tried to force his mouth to stay still, but whatever she'd given him was strong stuff. "Told you. Haven't been shopping in a while."
Leaning closer to the glass, Stacy put one hand flat against it. "You can do better than that. I know you, Jack. Keep talking to me. Let's not worry about where the shirt came from for now." And Jack knew he wasn't going to be able to fight this drug when he was actually relieved at her concession. This was definitely not good. "Let's not even worry about the last few weeks," Stacy was saying, her voice so low and soft that it was almost a purr. "Just tell me where you've been for the last twenty-four hours. That'll be a good start."
"2005," Jack said helplessly, unable not to answer.. "Then 1921. And now I'm here."
"This is ridiculous." Dropping the pretence, Stacy got to her feet and waved her hand over a control that Jack couldn't quite see. The central panel of glass disappeared completely, letting her into the cell. Instinctively, Jack sat up, getting ready for something, although quite what, he wasn't sure. His head was pounding, his lips were tingling and his whole body felt limp and weak. Right now, he'd have a hard time fighting off a kitten, let alone a Torchwood agent with murder in her eyes.
He wasn't wrong about the murder. Stacy grabbed Jack's arm, pulling him to his feet and slamming him against the remaining panel of glass. Maybe he'd downgrade her expression to 'severe bodily harm' after all. It still hurt like hell when she grabbed his shoulders and shook him hard enough that his head bounced off the glass.
"Where have you been?" Her voice was too loud for Jack's spinning senses, and he tried to turn his face away, not caring how pathetic he looked, cowering in as she pressed in close, using her body to pin him in place. "Tell me who helped you, Jack? Who got you out of the country? Why did you come back?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Jack wanted to answer her questions with every fibre of his being, he just didn't know the answer. The panic was welling up in him now, the pure frustration and terror of what would happen if he couldn't answer. He let it wash over him, feeling himself start to shake as Stacy shoved him out of the cell and into the corridor, presumably so she'd have more room to swing a punch. Jack stumbled, falling over the chair and landing hard on the ground, the half-formed plan coalescing in his mind. It was crazy, but since when had that ever stopped him? The trick was going to be not thinking too much, just going with it until he was ready. Somehow he didn't think Stacy was going to be an easy sell, and he had to make this work.
"You're going to talk to me, Jack," Stacy said as she stepped out of the cell. "You're going to tell me everyone on your contact list, and where the underground railroad goes, and who in the government's been helping you. You're going to do all that or so help me, I will take you apart piece by piece and make sure you can never put yourself back together again."
While Jack was reasonably sure he'd survive a beheading, even if he wasn't quite sure how, he really didn't want to put it to the test, here and now. Staying flat on the ground, he was careful to keep his face turned away from Stacy, to keep the weakness and helplessness on the surface, just letting it flow through him and take control for now.
"Get up, Jack." Stacy was still using his name, still thinking she had control here. It was a simple mistake, and the kind you only made when you were angry with the person you were questioning. She was too close, and as she took another step towards him, she was literally too close. Compared to most of the interrogations Jack had been through, this was an amateur affair, although he supposed there was a war on and she didn't have the luxury of time. Stacy had tried tricks rather than questions, which had been her first mistake. Coming to stand beside him was her second, because Jack was betting his current life that he knew more dirty tricks than she did.
As soon as her foot appeared in the corner of Jack's eye, he let the part of him that never lost control, the iron-hard will at the core of himself, take charge again, ignoring the way the world swam around him or the way his body didn't want to obey. He grabbed Stacy's ankle, pulling it towards him and up as quickly as he could, using his other hand to push himself to his feet. She was good, he'd give her that, twisting as she fell and trying to take him down again with her. Surely he hadn't become so sloppy by now that she thought that would actually work on him? He dodged easily, getting his feet under him and moving back to give himself some space, hoping that his head would clear sometime in the near future. It was going to be hard enough, fighting his way out of here just in his trousers and boots, without adding constant dizziness and new bruises to his problems.
Speaking of problems, he needed to do something about Stacy before she added herself to his list. Still battling with his sense of balance, Jack lunged, grabbing her arm and twisting hard. Stacy grunted, kicking out at him as he tried to flip her onto her back and hang onto his advantage. She was stronger than he'd expected, and he was dizzier than he'd thought, because instead of fighting him, she relaxed suddenly, the release sending him toppling backwards and breaking his grip. Yeah, he'd definitely taught her that one. In fact, as she turned towards him, standing up and moving to defend herself, he had the weird feeling he always got when facing someone he'd taught to spar. Except this was even weirder, because he didn't actually know her. Not yet.
"You know, we could have just talked about this over a drink," Jack said, hoping he sounded better than he felt. "What is it with me and dating people who want to hurt me?"
"Maybe you just bring out the best in people." She didn't relax her fighting stance, but she did smile wickedly. For a moment, Jack thought he might be seeing the real Stacy, and he definitely liked her. "Would you have told me anything if I'd just asked you nicely?"
"I haven't told you anything anyway, and it at least would have had the element of surprise. Champagne goes down well too. Some strawberries maybe. A few candles, you never know. And then-" He kept his voice as steady as he could, even as he made his move, catching her by surprise and slamming her back into the wall. Before she could recover, he flipped her, successfully this time, and twisted one arm up behind her back. "Uh-uh," he chided, as she tried to stamp on his foot. "You'll only hurt yourself." If he pulled much harder, he'd probably dislocate her shoulder, and he really didn't want to do that. Well, he probably didn't want to. Instead, he settled for kicking her feet further apart, keeping her off-balance and using his body weight to pin her in place. "Now," he said into her ear, holding steady as she struggled against him, "maybe we can talk nicely."
"Go screw yourself." Stacy's voice was strained, but it wasn't hard to hear the hatred in it, fiercer than Jack had expected. He'd been right; this was personal. "And whatever you're being paid for this, it's not enough."
Jack took a moment, not fool enough to rest his head against hers and invite a broken nose, just catching his breath and waiting for the damn stupid drug to wear off. That wasn't going so well, judging by the way he was now seeing three Stacys. One had been hard enough to deal with. "Look, sweetheart," he said, not bothering to hide the weariness, "I honestly have no idea what your Jack did to you. All I know is that he must have had his reasons."
"You betrayed Torchwood, Jack." There was still fury in Stacy's voice, and Jack was starting to wonder if there even was a way to talk himself out of this situation. "You betrayed your country and you betrayed us. If you think you can just walk away from that-"
"Oh enough, already." Sick to his stomach, Jack released Stacy's arm and stepped back. He dodged the first blow, half-turning to his right, then coming back with a punch hard enough to half turn her around before she fell to the ground. "Sorry, darling," he said to her unconscious body as he staggered past. "You should have listened to me." One thing he'd learned over the years was that you couldn't explain to a person who wouldn't listen.
He got a little lost on his way up to the main Hub, although that at least had the advantage of taking him past the lockers, where he grabbed a new shirt and, after a moment's consideration, some new trousers as well. The cells really did stink of unlikely chemicals, and he didn't need more contributions to his nausea right now.
The Hub itself still felt the same as it had done in 2000, and in 2005. The same banks of monitors glowing in the semi-darkness, and the great height of the water tower rising to ground level. Other things were different though, the amount of weaponry around the place for one thing. Not that Jack had objections to guns in principle. Hardly. It was just that he preferred the ordnance to stay safely locked away. They had enough problems with alien incursions as it was, without arming the invaders as well.
What was striking was that there were no pictures up here, nothing personal. Toshiko had had toys on her desk, pictures and mementos that you picked up when you worked with people long enough. Gerald had his photographs, and Alex had been continually telling people to take their junk home with them. Which would have worked, if anyone had ever actually gone home. Around this Hub, all Jack could see were files, computers and yet more guns. His first thought was that it looked like they were under siege, then he shook the thought away. He'd spent enough time in bunkers to know that even there, people found ways to make the space their own.
For there to be nothing at all in here meant that something had happened to Torchwood in the intervening decades. He hoped he hadn't done it.
There was no way of knowing how long Stacy would be out for, so Jack swiped a hand-held computer from one of the desks and headed for the ladder on the far side of the water tower. He could always take his chances out in the world beyond, but somehow he didn't think it was a good plan for him to leave the Hub right now. If he did shift through time again, he wanted to be somewhere that stayed the same, no matter how much it changed.
As he turned to climb down, he caught a glimpse of something on the far side of the Hub, just about where he'd appeared this time, in what Stacy had called the War Room. At first, he couldn't quite focus, as though he was looking into an optical illusion that shifted every time he looked at it. Blinking, he managed to make out the faint circular outline, the glow within, dotted with bright spots, like fireflies caught in honey. As he squinted, it snapped into focus, startling him and casting its light across the Hub. Instinctively, Jack pulled back, not wanting to take his eyes from it, but not wanting to get any closer either. There were a worrying number of things in this universe that looked and felt completely harmless right up to the moment they incinerated you.
The patch of light just hung there, though, not growing or changing, even as Jack carefully stepped off the top rung and back onto the Hub floor. It was so familiar and so alien all at once that he couldn't take his eyes from it. Maybe this was the point where he finally went mad because that looked exactly like-
There was the briefest flare, too sudden for Jack to close his eyes against the flash of light, then the whatever-it-had-been was gone, and Jack was left with the dark afterimages on his vision and the vague feeling that he'd missed something important. Still trying to clear his eyes, he looked down at the computer in his hand. 14th January 2089 ran across the top of the display, and it wasn't until he saw it written down that it really registered with him. Not today's date, but tomorrow's. Tomorrow was the fifteenth of January. Tomorrow, the third world war ended, and not with a whimper.
Jack climbed down the ladder more carefully this time, trying not to remember the images he'd seen of the War Scar, the ugly gash across the planet that Earth would never really recover from. They stayed with him as he crept along dark passageways in search of somewhere to hole up for a while, eventually settling on what he thought was the boiler room. He'd be hot, but that should at least disguise him from the more basic sensors.
Curling up in a corner behind a huge piece of machinery that went 'blip' at irregular intervals, Jack started to hack his way into the contemporary Torchwood mainframe. Some of the codes were different, some were the same, and some were variations on the themes that Torchwood had been using as long as Jack could remember. It was nice to know that some things didn't change.
Inside, the system was fundamentally the same as the one they'd acquired in 1989, with some upgrades that he recognised as extra-terrestrial. There were the usual personnel files, archives, Rift activity logs, and the vast collection of communications that Torchwood sent out every day, connecting them to the rest of the world. All the folders had code-string names, so he opened them more or less at random, reading through correspondence about projects and missions and the endless messages that poured in from government departments. Obviously bureaucracy didn't change either.
One of the final emails in the folder caught his eye, though, and he scanned the other folder names, looking for the next in the sequence. Inside it, there were another thousand messages or so, and he skimmed the subjects, opening the ones that seemed relevant. It took him nearly half an hour, but that was more than he wanted to know. The messages gradually built up a comprehensive picture of Torchwood over the past ten years, slowly building and gathering and holding back whatever alien technology they could get their hands on. There were more than a few messages in there from him, but it was fairly clear that he'd lost this battle a long time ago. He'd have to watch out for that one.
Reading between the lines of the messages, pulling up the lists of technology requisitioned from the archives, the projects in research and development, it wasn't hard to see Torchwood as the power behind the throne, the real force pushing this war along and ensuring that their side came out on top. First and foremost, Jack was on his team's side, as long as they were on his, and this? This wasn't a Torchwood he'd be able to play any part in.
He tipped his head back against the wall, trying to remember his history. The fifteenth of January would become a memorial day, although the death toll had been surprisingly low, considering. Mere millions, rather than billions; still unacceptable, but somewhere closer to bearable. He was starting to think that he might know how that had happened.
Damn, this made his head hurt. Was this what all the time shifts were about? Getting him here so that he'd know what was coming? He didn't know any races capable of time travel who'd do something like that. Well. Not who'd interfere at this level anyway. Probably.
The sound of feet in the corridor outside jerked him out of his reverie, and he was on his feet as the door slammed open.
"You've got good sensors," Jack said, looking Stacy up and down as she stood in the doorway, gun steadily levelled at his head.
"Rendar. We did them some favours." There was an impressive bruise forming on the side of Stacy's face and there was a slight lopsidedness to the way she was standing, as though her right shoulder and hip were hurting, but the gun didn't waver. "If you're not going to talk to me, Jack, we have other choices."
"There's nothing I can tell you." Holding up his hands, Jack took two slow steps towards her. "Actually, that's not true. I can tell you not to do this." He tipped his head towards the computer he was still holding. "I can tell you that this is a really, really bad idea. What Torchwood is going to do tomorrow? People are going to die. Lots of people."
"Better some than all." Stacy didn't move, and Jack wondered if it was a show of strength or if she just hurt too much. He was certainly aching, although the warmth of the room had helped.
"Why do I find it hard to believe that the good of the many is the only thing you're interested in?"
"Believe what you want. But you're not going to be able to do anything about it."
And it might just have been the remnants of the drug in his system, or it might have been the exhaustion of the past few hours, or that heady feeling he always got when he understood something like this for the first time, but Jack began to laugh, shaking his head and lowering his hands as the laughter shook his shoulders and took his breath away. This was how they did it. This was how they got the death toll down into the millions. Because they thought they'd got him here, while he was out there, doing whatever it was he was doing. He hoped it was suitably cunning.
"Sorry," he said, holding up a hand in something that wasn't quite an apology. "It's just..." He took another moment to get his breath back. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Getting control of himself Jack shook his head, ignoring the way Stacy was still pointing the gun at him and looked about ten seconds closer to pulling the trigger. "If you're going to shoot me," he said, leaning against the machine that was still beeping away to itself, "then shoot me. Otherwise, just go do whatever it is you've got to do."
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the room around him faded into darkness. It was such a quiet, smooth change that if Jack hadn't been expecting it, he might not have noticed, the way he hadn't noticed the first two times.
He shivered. Whenever he'd ended up this time, it was cold down in the Torchwood cellars. Home sweet home. Again.