Leap of Faith: Chapter Thirty

[amberfocus]

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Title:  Leap of Faith (30/?)
Author:  amberfocus
Characters/Pairings:  John Smith (alt!Nine)/Rose Tyler, Toshiko Sato, Jake Simmonds, Mickey Smith, Ianto Jones, Jackie Tyler/Pete Tyler, Tony Tyler, various original characters
Genre:  Romance, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe
Rating:  Adult
Betas:  amyo67, jeprdyfrndly
Summary:  Hiding from the Family of Blood, the alt!Ninth Doctor turns himself into John Smith via the chameleon arch and with his companion Toshiko Sato, takes a job at Torchwood.  He clashes with everyone he meets and Rose Tyler, the beautiful young director of Torchwood Field Operative Training and the daughter of his boss, is no exception.  AU after season 2.
A/N:  Umm...I wouldn't eat during this chapter if I were you.

Previous Chapters:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/327895.html

Chapter Thirty: Great Expectations

“I had a thought,” said Owen as John walked into the lab. He refrained from making a sarcastic comment. Although Owen was in no way as brilliant as he was, the man did seem to have a decent brain, and anyway, Rose wouldn’t thank him for alienating members of the Cardiff team. He frowned at himself. Since when had he started thinking of changing his behavior based on what Rose liked? Oh, right, about the time he fell in love with her. He kept his smile to himself.

“And what might that be?” he asked.

“A couple of years ago we ran across this device. It was some kind of stone, green tourmaline, if I remember right, enclosed in a cage of gold. Or at least it looked like gold. It was some kind of alien metal, completely lightweight, but nothing we had could cut through it. It would just heal itself if we tried. It’s worn like a rather large pendant on a gold chain. Jane found it and it allowed her to be able to read the thoughts of other people. I was thinking that perhaps we could adapt it to somehow scan Mayumi’s mind,” he said.

“Reading thoughts and reading memories are not the same thing,” John said slowly, “but if we could figure out a way to make it read engrams, it just might work. Where’s the device?”

“It’s in the vault,” Owen said.

“What’s in the vault?” The strong feminine voice behind them startled them both, Owen enough that he jumped. Delilah.

“Various and sundry items,” Owen said quickly.

Delilah looked back and forth between Owen and John for a long moment. John kept his face perfectly bland, but he was curious as to why Owen was hiding something from his boss. “You know that the things in that vault are locked up for a reason,” Delilah said firmly.

“Yes, of course they are,” Owen said.

“Because they are dangerous. Even in the right hands they can do a lot of damage.”

“Yes, Li, I’ve lived through most of it,” he said.

“And if you were to take something out of that vault without going through proper channels, I would be less than happy with you.”

Owen nodded. “I know.”

“Good.” She turned to John. “Rose wanted me to let you know that she wouldn’t be able to meet with you for lunch. Tosh and Mickey tailed the rejuvenation man, Adam, to a building and Rose and Gabe went to lend back up.”

“Okay,” John said keeping his disappointment to himself. It felt like ages since he’d seen Rose. He glanced at his watch. It had only been four hours.

“Delilah?” Jane’s voice came from up the stairs.

“Yes?” the older woman called.

“Can you come help me a moment?”

“Be right there.” She gave Owen one more quelling look before going to find out what Jane needed.

“Thanks for not saying anything,” Owen said.

“I figured you had a good reason for not wanting her to know what you were up to,” he said.

“She gets a little paranoid about some of those devices. They’ve caused some pretty awful things to happen, but most of the time it was because the objects were being abused and not used in the way for which they were meant.”

“I can imagine a mind reading device would cause a lot of problems.”

“It did, but under controlled circumstances, I think it would be just fine. We’ll only use it on Mayumi and then if it doesn’t work it goes right back into the vault. Or even if it does work,” he said. “I don’t want anyone knowing about this. Not Li, not Tosh, and especially not Rose.”

John balked. “I won’t keep secrets from Rose,” he said. And he wouldn’t. Not after the two of them had made their promises to have nothing hidden between them.

“Your lover has no part in this,” Owen said.

John ignored the fact that Rose wasn’t, as yet, his lover. “Rose is discreet. She wouldn’t tell anyone if I asked her not to.”

“I don’t care. It’s not up for discussion. You can’t tell her.”

“I won’t lie to Rose,” he said flatly. “I’m not messing up my relationship because you’re scared,” John said. “That woman is my future and I mean to begin as I plan to go on. I promised her I wouldn’t keep secrets from her.”

“But you have to. For work, I mean. For Torchwood.”

“That’s different,” he said. “Classified information has to be protected. She knows that.”

“Consider this classified,” Owen snapped, his temper finally starting to show through.

“Rose has clearance for everything. Why are you trying to keep this from her?”

“She’s a Tyler. My job could be on the line if it’s found out I disobeyed a direct order.”

“Rose is not her father. She’d be the first person to sneak down to the vault and retrieve that device if she thought it could help,” John said. “You’re being unjustifiably paranoid. And you’re making this harder than it has to be.”

“Fine,” Owen snapped giving in with bad grace, “but I have a child to support. If I lose my job because of this—.”

“You won’t.”

Owen turned to the computer and brought up several inventory lists. “I just need to find out which section of the vault it’s in.”

It took several minutes to track the item down, mostly because Owen didn’t know what it had been named and wasn’t about to go ask Jane about her filing system. He ended up scanning through all of the photographs until he found it. “All right, I’m sending you down to get it. I’ll run interference if anyone gets in your way.”

“I take it you’re sending me so you can cover your arse?” John said.

Owen nodded. “If anyone asks, I mentioned it to you in passing, and you got it into your head to break into the vault on your own. Do you have a problem with that? From everything I’ve heard it’s completely within your character.”

John chose to ignore Owen’s last remark. “Just give me the information I need and I’ll go fetch it,” he said. Owen brought up the schematics and John committed it and the passcode information to memory.

It didn’t take long for John to skulk through the cellar to the vault. He made short work of entering the passcode. He knew he should make even shorter work of finding the pendant, pocketing it, and locking up after himself, but his fingers literally were itching to touch each piece of forbidden alien tech. He was practically a kid in a candy store as he contemplated what each little machine or jewel did. He might have a vast storehouse of items to play with in London, but here so much of it was in perfect working condition or presented greater mysteries to solve.

His phone ringing interrupted his blissful lusting and about gave him a heart attack. He grabbed the offending device in annoyance. Owen. “What?!” he snapped.

“Get back up here. The field team needs our help. Now.”

“Rose?” he said.

“She’s fine, but we need to go.”

John hung up on Owen, hurried to find the pendant and thrust it deep into his pocket before closing and locking the vault and racing up the stairs. Delilah had returned to Owen’s work station. She eyed him curiously, but didn’t ask where he’d been, simply giving a brief rundown of what Rose had said and then sending them on their way.



“Bloody hell, Rose, you scared the living daylights out of me,” Mickey said as soon as he got his window rolled down.

“Sorry,” she said with a shrug that didn’t look particularly sorry. “Just telling you your back up is here. How do you want to handle this?” she asked as he and Tosh got out of the car.

Tosh was holding a small laptop that she set on the hood of Mickey’s vehicle. She brought up the schematics of the building. “There’s two ways in and out,” she said. “A service door around the back and the main entrance.”

“What type of place is it?” Gabe asked. The building was pretty non-descript and Rose couldn’t see any kind of sign saying what it was. “Industrial? Professional? Residential?”

Tosh did some rapid typing. “It’s a professional building. Two stories and a cellar.” She frowned. “Oh, that’s bad,” she said.

“What’s bad?”

“It’s called Great Expectations.” Everyone looked at her in confusion. “It’s a fertility clinic that specializes in reproductive services,” she explained and they all groaned.

“What,” asked Rose in surprise, “does fertility have to do with rejuvenation?”

“I don’t know,” said Mickey, “but I think it’s time we found out. Tosh, you and I’ll go in the front door. If need be we can pose as an infertile couple. Gabe, Rose, you go in the back. But be careful. This could all be a front for something else entirely.”

“Mickey,” Rose said, “I’m the one who can’t have kids. Wouldn’t it make more sense for me to do it?”

“It would just be making an appointment and touring the facilities. I don’t think they’d do any testing so soon. Besides, you have a way of sneaking around places that are off limits without getting caught. We can provide the distraction while you and Gabe snoop around,” Mickey said. “Besides, you two reek of Torchwood,” he said gesturing to their combat gear.

“All right,” said Rose. “Just be careful.”

“You, too,” said Mickey. “Come on, Tosh. Let’s go pretend we’re married.” He held out his hand to her and she took it. Together they made for the front door while Gabe and Rose went around to the back.

The back door was locked and a keypad with a card slider told them it wouldn’t be an easy lock to pick, but Gabe had a gadget on his vest that looked like a credit card attached to two long wires that fed into a box with a digital readout. He slipped the card into the slider and the little box began to work on decoding the entry numbers. It didn’t take very long, almost like they weren’t really trying to keep anyone out. It had landed on the numbers 13579. It wasn’t quite as bad as 12345, but definitely a super easy hack job nonetheless. It was almost as if they were giving the illusion of extreme security without the hassle of actually providing it.

The back corridors were deserted and every door they checked was locked, this time with regular deadbolts. On occasion a door would have a window and Gabe or Rose would look through trying to see what was going on inside them. For the most part they simply saw what looked like medical equipment or exam rooms. They had advanced nearly all the way down the hallway when they came to a junction. Rose pulled a little mirror out of her vest and angled it around the corner.

“Anyone?” asked Gabe.

“No, it’s clear,” Rose informed him.

They moved into the next corridor and found another door with a keypad lock. Again Gabe worked his magic, rolling his eyes as the numbers 97531 came up on his reader. “It’s like they’re not even trying,” he muttered to Rose.

Rose had to agree, considering just how encrypted her own laptop was at home. “I don’t think they are. Either these people are completely unworried about getting caught or they don’t understand the importance of unique pass codes.”

Gabe opened the newly unlocked door and they made their way inside the room. The odd, tangy smell of ozone greeted their nostrils. “Fah, the stink,” said Gabe waving his hand a little desperately in front of his nose.

Rose frowned. She almost recognized the smell. It took her a moment to place it. She’d travelled with Jack once using his Vortex manipulator. It had given off the same scent only to a lesser degree. She stepped further into the room staring up at fat, metallic columns with a ridiculous amount of piping. She touched one of the pipes and snatched her hand back.

“Ice cold,” she said. “A coolant system, but for what?”

Gabe had made his way around to the other side of the columns. “Rose, these are engines. They’re massive.”

She followed him and gazed down an almost endless corridor. “What the hell would they need this much power for? I don’t think it can be conceiving babies.”

Gabe snorted. “Yeah, I think we can count that out.” He touched one. “It vibrates very slightly. I don’t think they’re on. Engines this big would be deafening.”

“Do you see any kind of interface?” Rose asked.

“No,” he said. “Let’s go down the aisle for a bit and see.” But nothing new greeted their eyes, just more and more engines.

“It’s like a power generation plant,” said Rose.

“Come on, we’re not learning anything new in here. Let’s go look in the other rooms.”

They made their way back out of the engine room and walked down the corridor until they found an open door. Quietly they entered the room. It was dark and the light switch didn’t improve that by much, only bringing up a very dim overhead light. A phosphorescent green glow seemed to come from the next room. Heavy plastic draping separated what looked like a lab that they were in from what appeared to be some more heavy duty machinery.

Rose swallowed hard. “You don’t think that’s Cyber technology do you?” It had been a while since Torchwood had found any.

Gabe blanched. “We better go and find out.” They pulled out their weapons in unspoken agreement.

They pushed quietly through the hanging strips of plastic into the new area. Soft beeps and clicks and the slosh of liquid filled their ears. Several tall cylinders stood before them, but it was clearly the back sides of whatever machinery was there. Thick black power cables ran to the wall and into reinforced electric outlets. “Rose signaled to Gabe and then began to edge around the first cylinder. There was no one in the room so she hissed for Gabe to come join her.

Together they stared at the enclosed chambers. “This must be what they’re powering.”

“There’re people inside. It’s some kind of life support system,” said Gabe, “but it’s definitely not Cyber. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“You think they’re in stasis? Or some kind of suspended animation?” Rose asked.

“Looks like it. Can you even read this language?” he asked Rose. “It’s not English.”

Rose glanced at it. She was good at languages, had been since leaving the TARDIS. It was like some of that ability had stayed with her even without the living time ship in her head. Rose did indeed recognize it. Sort of. “No, but I know what it is. It’s standard basic,” she told him.

“What’s that?”

“A language. Something that does not belong in this millennium,” Rose said.

The green liquid in the tank swirled, sending a flush of new nutrients surging in and the body in the tank moved, revealing its face. “What a minute,” said Gabe. “That’s Adam.”

“But he just came in here less than half an hour ago! There’d be no time for him to run through what looks like a very complicated procedure to do something like this.” She moved on to the next container and frowned. “Umm…Gabe?” she said.

“What?”

“This is Adam, too.”

“What?”

She took a few steps down the line. “And so is this.” She kept walking. “Ten perfect copies.”

“What the hell is going on?” Gabe asked.

“Adherents of the Repeated Meme?” said Rose trying to make a joke that no one but her would understand anyway. Gabe didn’t laugh as they stared at the same version of the perfect Nordic male.

They’d come to the end of the line and there was one empty cylinder labeled at the top with the name Adam, which she somehow recognized. “We should get John over here to see if he can read this,” Rose said. “He’s good with alien languages and even better with alien tech.”

“Give Delilah a call,” said Gabe. “See if she’ll send him over.”

Rose activated her mobile phone and put it to her ear. Rose explained the situation to Delilah who then agreed to send John and Dr. Harper to come and examine the machines. She closed the phone and slipped it back into her pocket. She still refused to use an ear piece unless she absolutely had to. She couldn’t help being paranoid. Not after what John Lumic had originally designed such things to do.

“Hey, what’s that?” asked Gabe. Another doorway lined with heavy plastic was visible beyond the last machine.

Quietly they made their way into the next room. “More tanks,” said Rose.

“This one’s a woman,” said Gabe. Rose stepped beside him to stare inside.

“She’s beautiful. Another perfect specimen.” She was. Her warm, light brown skin and facial features set her as East Indian. Her black hair floated about her in the tank in softly curling waves. Her body was covered in a thin red tunic that ended at the top of her thighs, showing perfect long legs.

Gabe had moved further into the chamber. “They’re all her,” he said. He walked to the end, to the eleventh chamber. “This one’s missing.” Rose glanced up to the top. She stared hard, desperately trying to make out the word. She wished she had the TARDIS as back up. She bit her lip trying to suss out the meaning.

“They’re all the same except for this part,” she said putting her finger on the last symbol. “Maybe it’s a numbering system?”

“Could be.”

Rose’s phone vibrated against her hip and she answered it. “Tyler.”

“It’s John,” the voice on the other end said with no preamble. “We’re about ten minutes out. Can you send me a photo of the writing you see?”

“Yeah, hold on.” Rose turned on the camera setting and photographed three of the tanks then sent them to John.

There was silence as he received them and then opened them to study them. “Do you know what it means?” she asked impatiently.

“The last symbol is a number. The word…something like dusk or twilight.” He went silent. “No,” he contradicted himself a moment later, “it’s evening. Eve.”

“Eve?” she repeated. “Adam and Eve?” She wrinkled her brow. “Just what the hell is going on?”

“That is what I’d like to know,” said a soft, female voice. “You are trespassing on private property.” The woman revealed herself to be a duplicate of the females in the tank, except her hair was dry, her gorgeous brown eyes were open, and she was holding what Rose was pretty sure was a sonic blaster. A quilted red and gold robe swathed her body from high neck to ankle. Golden slippers covered her feet. “Hang up your phone.” Rose immediately severed the connection. “Give it to me.” She handed the phone over. “Now, put your weapons down and your hands up.”

Very carefully Rose and Gabe set down their guns.

“Come with me,” she said, indicating that they were to walk forward. They did, passing through another room with smaller chambers. They were all empty but Rose couldn’t help but think they would be the perfect size for young children. Yet another room held still more tanks, but these ones were filled and judging from the variety of hair color and body types, these containers held no duplicates. They were all young adults appearing to be between twenty and twenty-five years of age.

Eve ushered them into what looked like some kind of holding area and locked the door. She spoke to them through an intercom. “I’ll have to get Adam,” she said. She left them alone.

“What’s your theory?” Rose asked.

“About what?”

“Them. All the ones that look alike.”

“Clones,” said Gabe. “Or some kind of genetically engineered duplicate.”

“That’s definitely not 21st century technology,” said Rose. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.” Rose paced the enclosure. Two walls were solid, one was darkened glass and the fourth held the door that looked like the only way in and out.

“I still have my ear piece,” Gabe said. The woman hadn’t bothered to search him, though the tiny little device might have been overlooked even if she had. Gabe’s phone was special, fitting directly into his ear like a hearing aid and turned on and off by special contortions of his jaw. “I’ve turned it on. It’s on a direct feed to Mickey.”

"I still have my back up phone," she said indicating an inside pocket.  "She should have searched us."

"Really lax security."

Rose nodded and leaned against the glass wall. Suddenly the light came on in the next room. Rose turned away in disgust, bile working in her throat as she tried not to lose the contents of her stomach. Gabe approached the glass wall and stared at the contents opposite him. Rose could see his jaw working and was relieved she wasn’t the only one freaking out a little.

“What the hell are they doing?” she whispered.

Lumps of what looked like raw meat sat in large stainless steel bowls. Tubes of blood and meat stretched from the bowls to gurneys that hung from the ceiling. On each gurney was a suit of deflated or partially deflated skin. Hundreds of wires with needles hung from overhead metallic, oval devices that were each five feet long and one foot wide. The wires went directly into the skin, lifting and dropping over and over again, piercing the half formed bodies. On the more fully formed bodies brilliant blue electricity arced in tiny little bits across their designated areas.

A door opened at the far end of the facility and a robot that reminded Rose uncomfortably of a specific golden humanoid from the most famous movie of all time entered pushing a wheelbarrow. It pushed it across the room to the least fully formed bit of skin and dumped the contents into the bowl at its feet. Rose was really glad that she couldn’t smell whatever was going on in the next room.

“I think they’re…making people,” Gabe said, his voice rasping with horror, “with raw ingredients. More copies of themselves. But for what purpose?”

“We do not sustain.”

Rose and Gabe both whirled around to find the door had opened silently behind them. Adam stood in the doorway. He was dressed in a plain, flowing white tunic and gold trousers. A red sash held the tunic to his body at the waist. His feet were clad in red slippers. Rose wondered if this was the man Tosh and Mickey had followed or one of who knew how many duplicates.

“What?”

The man gestured to himself. “These bodies. We do not…cannot sustain them. Not here. Not in this…atmosphere. So we…recycle.”

Rose made a disgusted looking face. “Why?”

“We have no other choice.” He gestured with the gun. “Come with me,” he said.

They followed him out into the hall and down to a new room. He motioned them to go inside. The room was filled with empty tanks. Eve, or one version of her, was already there and green liquid was sloshing into the tanks. “Undress,” he ordered them. “Down to your underthings.”

“Like hell, I will,” said Rose. She eyed the tanks. “I’m not going in there.”

“You are both young and healthy. We need people like you.”

“What for? Spare parts?” snapped Gabe.

“No,” he said. “We are infertile. We need people in their reproductive prime.”

“I can’t have children,” Rose said quickly. “My DNA is damaged.”

Adam frowned at her and then pressed a tube to her arm. A sharp needle poked through her sleeve and into her skin. “Ouch!” she cried out, but he was already looking at the tube. A small glass window lit up red. Next he jabbed Gabe. He frowned as the readout wavered from red to green and back again.

“You…what are you? You’ve got something wrong with your blood.”

“I’m human.”

“You’re something more than that. There are machines in your system. Neither of you are any good to me.”

He lifted his gun and fired it at Gabe. As the laser light shot out of the device, Rose dived behind one of the chambers and then towards the back of the room. She used the pipes on one of the tanks to climb to the top and laid flat while Adam wandered around looking for her.

There were only a few inches between her and the ceiling. As quietly as she could she removed one of the panels from the ceiling and eased herself up into the crawl space. She put the panel back into place and crawled forward. An air duct opened in front of her and she made her way into it. She had no idea if Gabe were dead or alive and no immediate way of finding out.

Her heart was racing a mile a minute from her narrow escape and she paused for a long moment before crawling ahead. She needed to find Tosh and Mickey. She needed the backup. Together they could hopefully overpower Adam and Eve and find out if Gabe had survived. She glanced at her watch then closed her eyes, hoping that John and Owen would be there soon. Ten minutes had passed since John’s phone call.

Phone call! Rose pulled out her back up phone, switched it to silent mode, then wrote John a text message. Trapped in air duct. Gabe may be dead. Whereabouts of Tosh and Mickey unknown. The enemy is armed. John, I—. She accidentally hit send as a beam of light flashed through the duct and hit her square in the shoulder. As the acrid odor of her own blood filled the small space, she found herself on the edge of consciousness. The phone clattered from her hand.

“Don’t pass out,” she muttered, dragging herself forward with one arm and her knees. “Get to safety.” She couldn’t feel her left arm at all now. Her body shook and she suddenly felt so cold. “Keep it together. Keep it together,” she told herself. She felt her mind whimpering John’s name over and over again.

Up ahead she saw some grating and she managed to crawl just past it then used her legs to kick it out. It fell in a noisy crash to the floor. The room she was in was an exam room. She fell from the duct and landed painfully on the exam bed. The white paper covering it immediately turned bright red.

With extreme force of will she rolled off the table and stood up. She took the pillowcase off the pillow and tried to put pressure on the wound. Dizziness overwhelmed her and she slumped to the floor. She had to think. She was missing something. What was it?

“Medi-kit!” she exclaimed.

She fumbled in her vest pocket and pulled out a hypospray. She removed her vest slowly, in extreme agony as she pulled it over her shoulder. She blasted the hypospray into her shoulder and a thin blue liquid hissed on contact with the raw meat there. She screamed as it cauterized the wound. Bile filled her throat, but at least she was no longer bleeding.

The door slammed open. Rose tried to hide behind the exam table, but it was no use.

“Rose? Rose!”

John. With a sigh of relief Rose let go of her consciousness and fell into oblivion.

Ch. 31:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/461283.html