[#185] Foolhardy (Torchwood)

[badly_knitted]

Theme Prompt: #185 – Recklessness
Title: Foolhardy
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG
Bonus: Yes.
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Jack wants to confront the 456 in a show of bravado that Ianto’s sure will only get people killed.



Jack had always had a reckless streak, since long before Ianto ever met him. It was probably true even before he became immortal, because Jack was that kind of man, all about the action, seldom considering the consequences. Not that he’d had a lot of time recently for careful consideration of anything. Ianto and Gwen hadn’t either, forced to go on the run thanks to a black ops team trying to kill them.

So far, the ragged remains of Team Torchwood plus one had managed to keep one step ahead of their would-be assassins. Mostly. Jack got himself killed, blown up along with the Hub, and bits of him taken prisoner, but Ianto managed to carry out a slightly implausible daring rescue simply by going about it in a way no one could have expected. Forklift trucks weren’t the obvious choice of getaway vehicle, but since Jack had been encased in cement it had been the best alternative Ianto had been able to come up with on short notice.

What mattered was that it had worked, the military forces were caught flat-footed, and now the team, reunited, were in a marginally better position than they had been. There was still a lot to figure out, they were lacking resources and needed time to regroup if they were going to find a way of stopping the 456 from doing whatever it was they were planning, but Torchwood existed to deal with alien threats. Ianto had to believe that given enough time, they’d succeed.

They made a temporary base of operations in one of Torchwood One’s old warehouses. Pooling what cash they had with them, Ianto was able to go out and buy essentials: food, drink, clothes for Jack… There wasn’t enough for the equipment they needed, technology didn’t come cheap even if they could have bought second-hand, so they were forced to resort to stealing laptops and cell phones from the unwary. It was a little jarring seeing people behaving so normally, sitting outside cafés with lunch, or cups of coffee, when every child on earth might stop at any moment to chant in unison. Hard to imagine anyone being so unconcerned as to act like nothing was happening.

With their stolen tech set up, and with a little outside help, they were able to get more information, and what they learned was not good. The 456 wanted ten percent of earth’s children, and instead of refusing, the British government was preparing to capitulate to their demands.

The more the team heard, the worse it got. The Prime Minister was trying to get other heads of state to follow his example, and sacrifice hundreds of thousands of children, maybe millions worldwide. Obviously, Torchwood couldn’t allow that, but what could they do? Only one of the 456 was on the planet, in a specially built tank in Thames House because it couldn’t survive in earth’s atmosphere.

“We have to go there, confront it, refuse its demands,” Jack said, and Ianto knew his lover wanted, at least in part, to make up for handing over twelve children to the aliens back in the sixties.

“What good would that do? You can’t just tell them ‘No’ and expect them to just shrug and leave. If they don’t get what they want, they say they’ll wipe out everyone on the planet.”

“Then we’ll have to kill their emissary!”

“How?”

“Shoot up that tank it’s in. If it can’t survive in our atmosphere…”

Ianto didn’t let Jack finish. “You seriously think shooting at the tank will have any effect? All you’ll do is risk getting yourself killed by a ricochet. The tank’s bound to be made of bulletproof glass. You’d be better off opening the airlock, except that you wouldn’t survive in its atmosphere any more than it could survive in ours. Besides, that would still leave the rest of its kind aboard their spaceship. What would stop them carrying out their threat? You’d be dooming the entire planet!”

“Then what do you suggest? That we sit on our hands and do nothing? This is no time for stillness! We need action! We’re running out of time!”

“We need to think things through, come up with a plan that at least gives us some chance of success.”

“Fine, you sit here and plan; I’m going to Thames House and open the airlock! Maybe if I kill their emissary, they’ll get the message.” Jack turned to leave the warehouse.

“You want to get yourself, and God knows how many innocent people killed? I always knew you could be reckless with your own safety, but your life isn’t the only one you’d be putting on the line. What about all the people working in Thames House? What if the 456 has other tricks up its sleeve? They offered an antivirus in exchange for twelve children last time. An antivirus for an epidemic that they probably started. Who knows what might be released into the air if you threaten it?”

“So I’ll evacuate the building first!”

“And if the 456 releases an airborne toxin that escapes the building, then what?”

Jack hesitated just inside the warehouse, clenching his fists. “What do you want me to do? Just let them take all the children the government plans on rounding up?”

“Of course not. We use the Torchwood resources we have access to on our servers and find a way to destroy not just the creature in Thames House but the ship it arrived on. They use a radio frequency to contact us, so maybe we could use that to turn the tables, send a signal back that could… I don’t know, disrupt their weapons, break communications between them and the children, just something!”

“A constructive wave. Use the 456 frequency and turn it back on them, amplified. It could work, but…”

“But what?”

“We’d have to transmit it using a child as the centre of the resonance.”

“There’s one in the tank with their emissary.”

Jack nodded. “Let’s do it.”


The End