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daylight_darknightLucky 7. Still so much more to go. Extremely doubtful I'll actually finish editing this NaNo before I start the next one.
Title: What Lies in Wait
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Martha, Mickey, 8th Doctor
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for swearing, violence, and scary stuff. Vague mentions of off screen torture.
Genre: Mystery, Angst, Horror
Word Count: This chapter 2500 (Total 59,000 at the moment)
Spoilers: Takes place after the Doctor Who episode Journey's End and after the 8th Doctor audio To the Death.
Summary: When Martha agreed to help Jack do a little inventory she wasn't expecting to find a Time Lord frozen in his basement and she certainly wasn't expecting what happened when they woke him up.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
They were slugs, large slugs about four inches long, but they weren't normal slugs. These slugs were dark blue and had hundreds of tiny legs. They were also somehow slimier. They left large trails of slime that shimmered in the torchlight. They left the trails everywhere they went which was currently all over the generator that was supposed to be powering the Hub.
“What are they?” asked Jack.
The Doctor approached the generator peering closely at the alien slugs. “They look like Kalaktopods. Usually, they're only found in the Garizone system. I wonder how they made it all the way to Earth.”
“The Rift,” said Jack with a snort. “Everything comes through eventually. I'm more concerned with how they came to be in the Hub and what the hell they’re doing to my generator.”
“Eating it most likely,” said the Doctor.
He picked up an old bit of pipe from the floor and used it to scrape away some of the slugs, and with them a copious amount of slime, so he could get a look at the damage underneath. There were several large holes in the metal casing of the generator and through them could be seen chewed wires and melted circuitry.
“What kind of generator is this anyway?” he asked. “More retro-engineered alien technology no doubt.”
“It's a berkelium reverse fission generator.” Jack scowled as he took in the destruction the Kalaktopods had caused. “This thing could have lasted for centuries. Now look at it.”
“Ah, that explains it,” said the Doctor. “These guys love berkelium. It's like ants and sugar. They must be trying to get through to the tasty core inside.”
“Wait a minute,” said Jack taking a closer look at one of the slugs. “I saw something similar to this in one of the cryo-chambers except it was purple and six feet long.”
“Well, these are only babies of course. They won't be that size for a few days a least. Actually, they're kind of cute at this age, aren't they?” The Doctor reached out with a finger and tickled one of the slugs. It scurried away leaving the Doctor with a slimy finger.
Jack raised an eyebrow. “And Martha accused me of having odd tastes.” He shone his torch over every inch of the generator trying to find out how many slugs they were dealing with. There were about twenty that he could see, but there could have easily been more hiding inside the generator. “Are you telling me that in a few days I'm going to have a couple dozen giant slugs crawling around my base?”
“Yup,” declared the Doctor, his carefree tone a large contrast to Jack's concerned one. “And once they're done with the berkelium. They'll move on to their second favourite dish, metal alloys of all types. In a week, there won't be a scrap of metal left in this place.”
Jack ran a hand through his hair wondering whether or not it would be best to just bomb the generator room and rebuild the whole thing from scratch.
Seeing his expression, the Doctor gave a small chuckle. “No need to fret, Captain. All you need right now is orange juice.”
“Orange juice?” Jack repeated incredulously.
“Citirc acid,” the Doctor elaborated. “Spray it on them and your pest problems will be over within minutes.”
“You couldn't have mentioned that earlier?” Jack said in exasperation.
“You didn't ask.”
Just then Jack's earpiece beeped. He touched the button behind his ear to activate it. “What is it?”
“Jack,” came Ianto's voice. “It seems we have an escapee. We found a trail of slime leading out from one of the cryo-chambers.”
“Yeah, I know,” replied Jack. “I've already met them.”
“Them?”
“It seems we've got a small infestation problem down here.” Jack gazed at all the slugs swarming over the generator. Maybe small wasn't the right word. “When we checked that cryo-chamber this morning, we must have short circuited it somehow and caused the stasis field to fail.”
“Whatever got out must have been very small,” said Ianto.
“They must have been but they've grown since then and they're going to get a whole lot bigger. According to the Doctor, they're Kalaktopods, some type of alien slug, and they're busy eating our generator.”
“Well, it could've been worse.”
“Yeah.” A lot worse, thought Jack. There were a lot more dangerous things hidden in those cryo-chambers. “Do we have any orange juice in the kitchen?” he asked remembering what they needed. It was best they dealt with these slugs as soon as possible before they did anymore damage, or got any bigger.
“Orange juice?” questioned Ianto unknowingly repeating what Jack had said only minutes ago.
“Yeah, or lemonade?”
“I believe there's some old lemon squash in the fridge,” Ianto said uncertainly.
“Great. Fetch that and a spray bottle, and then you and Martha join us down here.” Jack tapped the earpiece again shutting it off. “So, Doc,” he said.
“Hmm?” he said distractedly, still examining the generator.
“Do you think it's fixable?”
The Doctor frowned. “It's hard to tell with all the slugs in the way. If only I had my...”
Jack pulled out the sonic screwdriver he'd been keeping safely tucked in his waistband next to his gun.
The Doctor looked at him in surprise. “Thank you.”
“No problem. I know how lost you'd be without it.”
“Yes, I suppose you do,” said the Doctor thoughtfully.
“We've got a few other things of yours, actually quite a lot of things,” Jack admitted thinking back to the overly large contents of the Doctor's bag which Ianto had packed up safely in a crate somewhere. “Is that bag of yours transcendental?”
“Maybe,” said the Doctor with a small mysterious smile. “Or maybe I'm just a very good packer.” Deftly changing some of the settings on the sonic screwdriver, he said, “Hang on.”
Holding the sonic up to the generator, he turned it on. As it began to hum, the Kalaktopods began to shiver, and then suddenly they all scurried off into the darkness making low pitched squeaking noises like hoarse mice.
“They'll be back in few minutes or so,” said the Time Lord. “But that should give me time to determine how bad the damage is and see if I can fix any of it.”
“Hopefully by the time those few minutes are up, Ianto will be here with the lemon squash,” said Jack as he gazed at the generator.
Without the slugs covering it, the generator was left a slime covered mess, full of holes and with trailing cables everywhere.
“Doesn't look good,” Jack said.
“Mmm,” said the Doctor in agreement. “No, it doesn't. Looks like your generator is going to need a complete overhaul, and that could take days.”
“Days?” Jack exclaimed. It was true Jack spent a lot of time in the Hub. He actually lived inside it, but the idea of being stuck in there with five other people with no power and nothing to eat but leftovers and rations for several days was unappealing. Not to mention, the fact the city above them would be left vulnerable to whatever the Rift decided to bring through while they sat on their asses waiting for their generator to be restored.
“Or I could do a quick temporary fix and restore power in about an hour.”
“The quick temporary fix,” said Jack wondering if the Doctor was trying to be exasperating on purpose. “Please.”
The Doctor immediately knelt down beside the generator and began pulling out wires. Soon, the sonic screwdriver was going again.
Jack stood back watching him work for a moment. There was nothing like seeing the Doctor in his element. This meant either watching him stare down one of the most evilest villains imaginable or, like here, watching him up to his elbows in a machine. “Need any help?” Jack asked.
“Sure, sure,” said the Doctor. He handed him his torch. “Hold this and aim it where I say.”
Jack sighed. “No problem,” he said without much enthusiasm. He had been hoping for something a little more hands on. He preferred to be a man of action rather than a human lamppost.
The Doctor worked quickly taking out parts that were too badly damaged, reattaching parts that weren't, welding and rewiring. His hands, and even his arms, soon became covered in the slime the slugs had left behind, but he didn't seem to mind. The slugs themselves thankfully stayed away at least for the moment.
“You mind if I ask a question?” said Jack after a bit, growing tired of silently standing around as he aimed the torch where the Doctor directed.
“Mmph,” the Doctor said, or at least tried to say, the sonic screwdriver currently being in his mouth while both his hands were shifting parts around. He removed the screwdriver. “I don't see why not,” he said much more clearly this time.
“Why are you travelling alone?” It was something that had been bothering Jack for awhile. “All the other times I've run into you, you've always been travelling with someone.”
The Doctor wiped some of the slime on his hands off on the wall. “You mean like you or Martha or Mickey?” he said.
Jack frowned going back over earlier conversations. “I don't recall any of us having mentioned travelling with you.”
The Doctor worked in silence for a couple more moments before he replied. “Some people,” he finally said, “think just because we Gallifreyans call ourselves lords of time means we are seers, prophets, fortune tellers, that we can see the future, our own personal future.”
He paused grunting as he yanked out a particularly stubborn bit of damaged circuitry. He handed it to Jack.
“We can't, of course,” the Doctor continued. “But sometimes, just sometimes mind you, we get an inkling. Call it a consequence of too much time travel.”
Jack gazed at the damaged circuitry turning it over in his hands and then tossing it aside. “So you can tell that you'll travel with us in the future just by looking at us?” he asked.
“It's more like a vague feeling that you're somehow important to me. The rest is pretty easy to put together. I should have realized it the moment I woke up but my brain was still a bit addled from the cryo-stasis. The Tardis, of course, exists outside of time. She would recognize you instantly.”
“Even though I haven't travelled in her yet from your perspective.”
“Exactly,” said the Doctor turning on his sonic screwdriver again and aiming it at something deep inside the generator. “Past, future, it's all the same to her.”
“Huh,” said Jack thoughtfully. “I never knew that before. Just one thing though, Doctor.”
The Doctor now had his entire right arm buried in the generator. “What's that?”
“You never answered my question.”
The Doctor paused in his work just for a second but Jack still noticed; then he went back to rewiring cables. “Well, why shouldn't I travel alone,” he said. “Think of all the freedom it gives. No one complaining because I've landed them in the wrong place or time. No one wandering off when they shouldn't. No one in need of constant rescuing.”
“No one to rescue you,” Jack put in.
“Are you suggesting I need to be rescued?”
“What I'm saying is...”
Jack was interrupted by the sound of the door to the generator room opening. He sighed, not happy that the subject was about to be dropped. He had a lot more to say and a few more questions to ask, but he knew with others around the Doctor would become even more reticent than usual.
Hiding his annoyance, he said, “About time you got here, Ianto,” and turned around aiming his torch at the person in the doorway.
He blinked. It took a couple seconds to register what he was seeing.
“You're not Ianto.”
oooooo
“Lemon squash?” said Martha incredulously, staring at Ianto. “Did Jack seriously just ask you to bring him a spray bottle and some lemon squash?”
“He did,” Ianto confirmed with a curt nod.
They stood there in the dark a while in contemplative silence.
“It's not actually the weirdest thing he's requested,” Ianto said after a bit, and then he shrugged. “At least, it sounds like Jack and the Doctor have things well enough in hand.”
Martha nodded. “They usually do,” she said. “Though an invasion of alien slugs doesn't sound all that difficult to deal with.”
“No,” Ianto agreed. “Much better than last time.”
“Last time?” asked Martha curiously.
“Last time we got locked in the base with an alien threat on the loose,” he elaborated.
“What happened?”
Ianto turned away and began shinning his torch along the wall once more as he gazed at the cryo-chambers. “Long story. Kind of my fault,” he admitted.
Martha knew it was probably time to rein in her curiosity, but she let it get the best of her. “How was it your fault?”
Ianto took a deep breath. “Short version: I hid my cyber-converted girlfriend in the basement. She got loose, drained the power locking us in, and then tried to turn us all into Cybermen. After which she switched her brain with that of the pizza girl and Jack shot her.”
“Oh,” said Martha. She couldn't think of anything else to say.
Suddenly, the meandering of the torch beam along the wall stopped, and Ianto leaned forward peering at one of the doors of the cryo-chambers, unit number fifty-seven.
“Martha,” he said.
Martha walked over to him. “What is it?”
“The door to this unit is ajar.” To demonstrate, he reached out a finger and easily swung the door open.
“Maybe we didn't shut it properly this morning when we were examining it,” Martha suggested.
Ianto shook his head. “No, I made sure all the doors were secured.” He reached forward and with some trepidation grabbed the handle of the drawer and pulled out the cryo-chamber.
It was empty.
Martha's eyes grew wide. “That wasn't empty this morning.”
“Check some of the others,” said Ianto.
They began rushing about, pulling out drawers at random. At first, it seemed as if number fifty-seven was the only one which was empty. All the other units they checked were still occupied, but then they found another empty one, and another.
They stopped, breathing heavy from the exertion.
“That's at least three empties,” Martha said as she caught her breath. “Do you remember what was in them?”
“I know at least one of them had an alien in it, and it was alive too,” said Ianto. “I'm pretty sure the rest were the same.”
Martha frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“Because this was obviously done deliberately.”
“But who...?” Martha questioned trailing off as she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer. As far as she knew the only ones who could access Torchwood were the ones currently occupying it, and she couldn't imagine any of them doing such a thing.
“I don't know,” replied Ianto shaking his head. “An intruder must have got in somehow.”
“My god,” exclaimed Martha. “And who knows how many more empties there are.”
“We don't have time to check. We have to warn the others.” Ianto tapped his earpiece. “Jack?”
There was no reply.
“Jack!” he repeated louder and with a touch of panic.
Still nothing.
Trying not to think about why Jack wouldn't be answering, Ianto tapped the earpiece again and called Gwen.
“What?” exclaimed Gwen. She sounded anxious and out of breath.
“We think some of the aliens have somehow woken up from cold stor...” he began.
“Yeah, I can bloody well see that,” she yelled cutting him off.
“What...?”
“One of them is in the main hall,” she explained, “and it's trying to eat us!”
Title: What Lies in Wait
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Martha, Mickey, 8th Doctor
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for swearing, violence, and scary stuff. Vague mentions of off screen torture.
Genre: Mystery, Angst, Horror
Word Count: This chapter 2500 (Total 59,000 at the moment)
Spoilers: Takes place after the Doctor Who episode Journey's End and after the 8th Doctor audio To the Death.
Summary: When Martha agreed to help Jack do a little inventory she wasn't expecting to find a Time Lord frozen in his basement and she certainly wasn't expecting what happened when they woke him up.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
They were slugs, large slugs about four inches long, but they weren't normal slugs. These slugs were dark blue and had hundreds of tiny legs. They were also somehow slimier. They left large trails of slime that shimmered in the torchlight. They left the trails everywhere they went which was currently all over the generator that was supposed to be powering the Hub.
“What are they?” asked Jack.
The Doctor approached the generator peering closely at the alien slugs. “They look like Kalaktopods. Usually, they're only found in the Garizone system. I wonder how they made it all the way to Earth.”
“The Rift,” said Jack with a snort. “Everything comes through eventually. I'm more concerned with how they came to be in the Hub and what the hell they’re doing to my generator.”
“Eating it most likely,” said the Doctor.
He picked up an old bit of pipe from the floor and used it to scrape away some of the slugs, and with them a copious amount of slime, so he could get a look at the damage underneath. There were several large holes in the metal casing of the generator and through them could be seen chewed wires and melted circuitry.
“What kind of generator is this anyway?” he asked. “More retro-engineered alien technology no doubt.”
“It's a berkelium reverse fission generator.” Jack scowled as he took in the destruction the Kalaktopods had caused. “This thing could have lasted for centuries. Now look at it.”
“Ah, that explains it,” said the Doctor. “These guys love berkelium. It's like ants and sugar. They must be trying to get through to the tasty core inside.”
“Wait a minute,” said Jack taking a closer look at one of the slugs. “I saw something similar to this in one of the cryo-chambers except it was purple and six feet long.”
“Well, these are only babies of course. They won't be that size for a few days a least. Actually, they're kind of cute at this age, aren't they?” The Doctor reached out with a finger and tickled one of the slugs. It scurried away leaving the Doctor with a slimy finger.
Jack raised an eyebrow. “And Martha accused me of having odd tastes.” He shone his torch over every inch of the generator trying to find out how many slugs they were dealing with. There were about twenty that he could see, but there could have easily been more hiding inside the generator. “Are you telling me that in a few days I'm going to have a couple dozen giant slugs crawling around my base?”
“Yup,” declared the Doctor, his carefree tone a large contrast to Jack's concerned one. “And once they're done with the berkelium. They'll move on to their second favourite dish, metal alloys of all types. In a week, there won't be a scrap of metal left in this place.”
Jack ran a hand through his hair wondering whether or not it would be best to just bomb the generator room and rebuild the whole thing from scratch.
Seeing his expression, the Doctor gave a small chuckle. “No need to fret, Captain. All you need right now is orange juice.”
“Orange juice?” Jack repeated incredulously.
“Citirc acid,” the Doctor elaborated. “Spray it on them and your pest problems will be over within minutes.”
“You couldn't have mentioned that earlier?” Jack said in exasperation.
“You didn't ask.”
Just then Jack's earpiece beeped. He touched the button behind his ear to activate it. “What is it?”
“Jack,” came Ianto's voice. “It seems we have an escapee. We found a trail of slime leading out from one of the cryo-chambers.”
“Yeah, I know,” replied Jack. “I've already met them.”
“Them?”
“It seems we've got a small infestation problem down here.” Jack gazed at all the slugs swarming over the generator. Maybe small wasn't the right word. “When we checked that cryo-chamber this morning, we must have short circuited it somehow and caused the stasis field to fail.”
“Whatever got out must have been very small,” said Ianto.
“They must have been but they've grown since then and they're going to get a whole lot bigger. According to the Doctor, they're Kalaktopods, some type of alien slug, and they're busy eating our generator.”
“Well, it could've been worse.”
“Yeah.” A lot worse, thought Jack. There were a lot more dangerous things hidden in those cryo-chambers. “Do we have any orange juice in the kitchen?” he asked remembering what they needed. It was best they dealt with these slugs as soon as possible before they did anymore damage, or got any bigger.
“Orange juice?” questioned Ianto unknowingly repeating what Jack had said only minutes ago.
“Yeah, or lemonade?”
“I believe there's some old lemon squash in the fridge,” Ianto said uncertainly.
“Great. Fetch that and a spray bottle, and then you and Martha join us down here.” Jack tapped the earpiece again shutting it off. “So, Doc,” he said.
“Hmm?” he said distractedly, still examining the generator.
“Do you think it's fixable?”
The Doctor frowned. “It's hard to tell with all the slugs in the way. If only I had my...”
Jack pulled out the sonic screwdriver he'd been keeping safely tucked in his waistband next to his gun.
The Doctor looked at him in surprise. “Thank you.”
“No problem. I know how lost you'd be without it.”
“Yes, I suppose you do,” said the Doctor thoughtfully.
“We've got a few other things of yours, actually quite a lot of things,” Jack admitted thinking back to the overly large contents of the Doctor's bag which Ianto had packed up safely in a crate somewhere. “Is that bag of yours transcendental?”
“Maybe,” said the Doctor with a small mysterious smile. “Or maybe I'm just a very good packer.” Deftly changing some of the settings on the sonic screwdriver, he said, “Hang on.”
Holding the sonic up to the generator, he turned it on. As it began to hum, the Kalaktopods began to shiver, and then suddenly they all scurried off into the darkness making low pitched squeaking noises like hoarse mice.
“They'll be back in few minutes or so,” said the Time Lord. “But that should give me time to determine how bad the damage is and see if I can fix any of it.”
“Hopefully by the time those few minutes are up, Ianto will be here with the lemon squash,” said Jack as he gazed at the generator.
Without the slugs covering it, the generator was left a slime covered mess, full of holes and with trailing cables everywhere.
“Doesn't look good,” Jack said.
“Mmm,” said the Doctor in agreement. “No, it doesn't. Looks like your generator is going to need a complete overhaul, and that could take days.”
“Days?” Jack exclaimed. It was true Jack spent a lot of time in the Hub. He actually lived inside it, but the idea of being stuck in there with five other people with no power and nothing to eat but leftovers and rations for several days was unappealing. Not to mention, the fact the city above them would be left vulnerable to whatever the Rift decided to bring through while they sat on their asses waiting for their generator to be restored.
“Or I could do a quick temporary fix and restore power in about an hour.”
“The quick temporary fix,” said Jack wondering if the Doctor was trying to be exasperating on purpose. “Please.”
The Doctor immediately knelt down beside the generator and began pulling out wires. Soon, the sonic screwdriver was going again.
Jack stood back watching him work for a moment. There was nothing like seeing the Doctor in his element. This meant either watching him stare down one of the most evilest villains imaginable or, like here, watching him up to his elbows in a machine. “Need any help?” Jack asked.
“Sure, sure,” said the Doctor. He handed him his torch. “Hold this and aim it where I say.”
Jack sighed. “No problem,” he said without much enthusiasm. He had been hoping for something a little more hands on. He preferred to be a man of action rather than a human lamppost.
The Doctor worked quickly taking out parts that were too badly damaged, reattaching parts that weren't, welding and rewiring. His hands, and even his arms, soon became covered in the slime the slugs had left behind, but he didn't seem to mind. The slugs themselves thankfully stayed away at least for the moment.
“You mind if I ask a question?” said Jack after a bit, growing tired of silently standing around as he aimed the torch where the Doctor directed.
“Mmph,” the Doctor said, or at least tried to say, the sonic screwdriver currently being in his mouth while both his hands were shifting parts around. He removed the screwdriver. “I don't see why not,” he said much more clearly this time.
“Why are you travelling alone?” It was something that had been bothering Jack for awhile. “All the other times I've run into you, you've always been travelling with someone.”
The Doctor wiped some of the slime on his hands off on the wall. “You mean like you or Martha or Mickey?” he said.
Jack frowned going back over earlier conversations. “I don't recall any of us having mentioned travelling with you.”
The Doctor worked in silence for a couple more moments before he replied. “Some people,” he finally said, “think just because we Gallifreyans call ourselves lords of time means we are seers, prophets, fortune tellers, that we can see the future, our own personal future.”
He paused grunting as he yanked out a particularly stubborn bit of damaged circuitry. He handed it to Jack.
“We can't, of course,” the Doctor continued. “But sometimes, just sometimes mind you, we get an inkling. Call it a consequence of too much time travel.”
Jack gazed at the damaged circuitry turning it over in his hands and then tossing it aside. “So you can tell that you'll travel with us in the future just by looking at us?” he asked.
“It's more like a vague feeling that you're somehow important to me. The rest is pretty easy to put together. I should have realized it the moment I woke up but my brain was still a bit addled from the cryo-stasis. The Tardis, of course, exists outside of time. She would recognize you instantly.”
“Even though I haven't travelled in her yet from your perspective.”
“Exactly,” said the Doctor turning on his sonic screwdriver again and aiming it at something deep inside the generator. “Past, future, it's all the same to her.”
“Huh,” said Jack thoughtfully. “I never knew that before. Just one thing though, Doctor.”
The Doctor now had his entire right arm buried in the generator. “What's that?”
“You never answered my question.”
The Doctor paused in his work just for a second but Jack still noticed; then he went back to rewiring cables. “Well, why shouldn't I travel alone,” he said. “Think of all the freedom it gives. No one complaining because I've landed them in the wrong place or time. No one wandering off when they shouldn't. No one in need of constant rescuing.”
“No one to rescue you,” Jack put in.
“Are you suggesting I need to be rescued?”
“What I'm saying is...”
Jack was interrupted by the sound of the door to the generator room opening. He sighed, not happy that the subject was about to be dropped. He had a lot more to say and a few more questions to ask, but he knew with others around the Doctor would become even more reticent than usual.
Hiding his annoyance, he said, “About time you got here, Ianto,” and turned around aiming his torch at the person in the doorway.
He blinked. It took a couple seconds to register what he was seeing.
“You're not Ianto.”
“Lemon squash?” said Martha incredulously, staring at Ianto. “Did Jack seriously just ask you to bring him a spray bottle and some lemon squash?”
“He did,” Ianto confirmed with a curt nod.
They stood there in the dark a while in contemplative silence.
“It's not actually the weirdest thing he's requested,” Ianto said after a bit, and then he shrugged. “At least, it sounds like Jack and the Doctor have things well enough in hand.”
Martha nodded. “They usually do,” she said. “Though an invasion of alien slugs doesn't sound all that difficult to deal with.”
“No,” Ianto agreed. “Much better than last time.”
“Last time?” asked Martha curiously.
“Last time we got locked in the base with an alien threat on the loose,” he elaborated.
“What happened?”
Ianto turned away and began shinning his torch along the wall once more as he gazed at the cryo-chambers. “Long story. Kind of my fault,” he admitted.
Martha knew it was probably time to rein in her curiosity, but she let it get the best of her. “How was it your fault?”
Ianto took a deep breath. “Short version: I hid my cyber-converted girlfriend in the basement. She got loose, drained the power locking us in, and then tried to turn us all into Cybermen. After which she switched her brain with that of the pizza girl and Jack shot her.”
“Oh,” said Martha. She couldn't think of anything else to say.
Suddenly, the meandering of the torch beam along the wall stopped, and Ianto leaned forward peering at one of the doors of the cryo-chambers, unit number fifty-seven.
“Martha,” he said.
Martha walked over to him. “What is it?”
“The door to this unit is ajar.” To demonstrate, he reached out a finger and easily swung the door open.
“Maybe we didn't shut it properly this morning when we were examining it,” Martha suggested.
Ianto shook his head. “No, I made sure all the doors were secured.” He reached forward and with some trepidation grabbed the handle of the drawer and pulled out the cryo-chamber.
It was empty.
Martha's eyes grew wide. “That wasn't empty this morning.”
“Check some of the others,” said Ianto.
They began rushing about, pulling out drawers at random. At first, it seemed as if number fifty-seven was the only one which was empty. All the other units they checked were still occupied, but then they found another empty one, and another.
They stopped, breathing heavy from the exertion.
“That's at least three empties,” Martha said as she caught her breath. “Do you remember what was in them?”
“I know at least one of them had an alien in it, and it was alive too,” said Ianto. “I'm pretty sure the rest were the same.”
Martha frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“Because this was obviously done deliberately.”
“But who...?” Martha questioned trailing off as she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer. As far as she knew the only ones who could access Torchwood were the ones currently occupying it, and she couldn't imagine any of them doing such a thing.
“I don't know,” replied Ianto shaking his head. “An intruder must have got in somehow.”
“My god,” exclaimed Martha. “And who knows how many more empties there are.”
“We don't have time to check. We have to warn the others.” Ianto tapped his earpiece. “Jack?”
There was no reply.
“Jack!” he repeated louder and with a touch of panic.
Still nothing.
Trying not to think about why Jack wouldn't be answering, Ianto tapped the earpiece again and called Gwen.
“What?” exclaimed Gwen. She sounded anxious and out of breath.
“We think some of the aliens have somehow woken up from cold stor...” he began.
“Yeah, I can bloody well see that,” she yelled cutting him off.
“What...?”
“One of them is in the main hall,” she explained, “and it's trying to eat us!”
