Torchwood: Fanfic: Flying high

[m_findlow]

Title: Flying high
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Torchwood team
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,756 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Any, any, How come paper cuts are more painful than major surgery?" at fic_promptly
Summary: Paper cuts are the order of the day when the city is overrun by origami

'We’ve got incoming!' Ianto announced, ducking behind his very sturdy looking umbrella just moments before it was pelted by two dozen paper planes.

The whole plass was littered with tiny folded aeronautics, being those that had generally succeeded in hitting their target, bending noses and damaging wings in the effort. Those lucky enough to escape from being hit were merely buying themselves time as the next wave turned back for another go, determined to kamikaze themselves in the name of God only knows what.

Jack was standing there on the plass, being bombarded by planes, shooting uselessly at them with his webley to no effect.

'Where the hell did they all come from?'

'Blew in on the east wind is what they're saying.'

'Well this is no use. Let's go back inside until we can figure out what the heck to do with them.'

It turned out that going back inside to the hub was a bad idea.

A handful of planes fluttered inside as they all travelled down on the invisible lift, not wanting to risk getting attacked by any more on the way back via the tourist office. Unfortunately, as those planes got inside, pieces of paper everywhere throughout the hub began folding themselves into tiny aircraft and began zipping about in vicious circles around the water tower, whipping up a mini cyclone within the confines of the hub.

'Whatever it is, it's infecting every piece of paper we have!' Gwen cried.

'And I just got a month's worth of reports neatly filed and everything!' Ianto complained, swatting away a few rogue planes with his now folded umbrella, hitting them for six, but nearly taking out Owen's head in the process.

'Oi! Watch where you're swinging that thing!'

'This is madness,' Jack exclaimed. 'Tosh, do we have any idea what's going on?'

Tosh was three steps ahead of him, already tucked safely under her desk, laptop in hand trying to get a fix on the readings around the hub.

'There's some kind of biological anomaly in the air.'

'Biological? You mean the paper isn't haunted?'

'No, there must be something alive using the paper as a vehicle.'

'Okay, so we need to catch one and analyse it.'

'Couldn't we just use one of these?' Gwen asked, holding up a poor crumpled plane which had its wing sheared off in the attack.

'Probably best we get a live sample. I think that one's dead.'

For all their desire to attack the team, they'd thought it would be a simple task to catch one, but the planes zipped and swooped at phenomenal speed, always just a fraction too quick for them to get a proper handle on. Each time they tried, several more would dive in to defend their comrades, forcing them to give up their efforts.

Jack almost managed to clutch one before hissing with pain and inspecting his hand, finding a long, thin red slash as it had snuck out of his grip.

'Argh! How come paper cuts are more painful than major surgery?' he said, shoving the bleeding cut in his mouth, sucking it and wincing.

Eventually with a bit of clever thinking, Jack was able to corral one into a corner, where Owen managed to scoop it up as it zipped past using a small rubbish bin.

'Gotcha!'

They quickly extracted the plane and swabbed it for biological material before it could make its escape, the paper going limp a few seconds later. Tosh began running analyses on it, whilst Owen began doling out the boxes of sticking plasters, allowing them to patch up the myriad of cuts.

'It's some kind of microorganism,' Tosh said, turning the screen towards Owen so that they could confer on a medical and biological opinion. The team had locked themselves inside the weapons store until they could figure out their next move, it being the only paper free space in the hub, and deemed safe whilst the cyclone of white continued throughout the hub, and throughout the rest of the city. People everywhere were huddled under desks and in toilets, trying to escape the onslaught. Even the newsreaders were at a loss, their news reports having gone rogue on them before they could read them out.

'It's multiplying at a staggering rate,' Owen said, watching the tiny organisms on Tosh's screen.

'But what are they? said Gwen. 'Clearly they must have come through the rift.'

'Arborimites,' Jack said, having run them through the hub's extensive database. 'Apparently they live in trees. They must have decided that paper was a good home for them, or maybe they're angry that the paper isn't trees anymore. They're supposed to be otherwise harmless, according to this.'

'They don't look too harmless,' Ianto said, observing several dive bombing the door, crumpling helplessly to the floor upon impact. He almost felt sorry for them, but no sooner had they fallen to the floor, more pieces of paper folded themselves up and began whizzing about.

'It's says they're a hive mind species,' Jack continued. 'Shadow Proclamation designation delta nine five theta. That means there's no leaders, all of them rank equally.'

'Are you suggesting that if we could appease just a few of them, the rest might follow suit?' Tosh asked.

'Worth a shot.'

'If they like trees, perhaps we could taken some out to the arboretum. Maybe that'll show them we haven't killed all the trees,' Ianto suggested.

'Good thinking. Tosh, have we still got one of those personal force shield devices that has some charge?'

'Secure archives. There's two.'

'Okay. I'm going out there,' Jack announced.

'Take this,' Ianto said, offering his umbrella.

'It'll be quicker without, but thanks for the offer. You can kiss my wounds better later.'

It wasn't long before Jack found himself assailed by planes from every which direction, their pointed noses and sharp edged wings biting into any piece of exposed flesh they could find. He fumbled with the lock on the safe, finding it very hard to concentrate whilst being peppered by stationery. He knew there was a reason he hated paperwork, but this was ridiculous.

Quickly hauling out several items from the safe, not fussed about putting them back, he finally got a hold of one of the small pebble devices and threw it to the ground, activating it immediately. It shot up in a glow of white light, capturing a good dozen or so paper planes in its wake. They pecked uselessly at the sides of the glowing walls, confused, and causing the rest of the planes flitting about the hub to slow down, also confused by this new turn of events.

Jack picked up the pebble and dragged the cell behind him, like a shimmering butterfly net. The others took the opportunity to leave the safety of the weapons store in the confusion, all of them headed for the door that lead to the car park and the SUV beyond.

Jack placed the pebble device in boot, and the team clambered into the SUV.

Exiting the underground carpark, the streets were chaos. Everywhere there were cars that had been abandoned, some crashed into light poles, or each other, as hundreds of paper planes continued to fly around, attacking anything that moved. The streets were generally devoid of actual people, all cowering inside shops or their cars; anywhere there was no paper.

'I hate to think what the business district must be like,' Gwen said, imagining whole reams of paper shooting out of copier machines and filing cabinets, assaulting law clerks and secretaries.

'Not to mention the curator of the national museum who'll be tearing his hair out if they've spread to the vaults. Hundreds of manuscripts could be being destroyed as we speak,' Ianto added.

Jack pressed down harder on the accelerator, flicking on the windscreen wipers to flick away the dozens of white objects pelting the glass and obstructing his view.

'It's like a blizzard,' Tosh said.

'We'll be there in less than ten minutes hopefully,' Jack said, swinging the car wildly to avoid a pileup between an articulated lorry, two Vauxhalls and a Fiat Punto.

Jack sped through the gates of the arboretum and ignored several signs along the way that loudly declared "do not walk on the grass", driving the SUV up and over the kerb and deep inside the lush greenery, finally coming to a stop underneath an impressive oak.

'Time to find out if this'll work.'

He pulled the pebble prison out of the boot and dropped it on the ground, next to the large tree, before pressing a few buttons on his vortex manipulator, deactivating the cell. The paper planes flew around in a few dizzying circles, upwards into the branches, weaving their way around, before dropping to the ground, inert and unmoving. Owen walked over and picked one up, running another swab along its undercarriage and wings, having Tosh run it though the SUV's computers.

'All clear,' she announced. 'I think they must have decided they liked the trees better.'

'The question is, will the rest of them agree?' Jack said.

Leaving Gwen and Owen behind at the arboretum, Jack drove the SUV back out onto the streets so that he, Tosh and Ianto could see if there was any change. Thankfully, it seemed that the further they drove, the less planes they saw, most now just littered all along the ground, abandoned, and a handful looking dazed and confused before fluttering impotently to earth, or floating their way back in the direction of the arboretum.

'I think they got the message,' Jack said.

'That's a relief,' Ianto replied. 'I didn't fancy a whole week of cloudy with paper planes as the forecast.'

Satisfied that all the Arborimites were slowly making their way to their new nesting home, the team packed up the SUV and began to head home, staring out of the windows at the huge clean up job of papers littering every street, and no doubt every home and office. That was to say nothing of the mess that would greet them when they arrived back at the hub.

'I thinks it's high time Torchwood went paperless,' Jack said. 'Not only will we be environmentally friendly, but also intergalactic species friendly.'

'At least until the next alien comes along who hates electricity or computers,' Owen muttered.

'You can please some of the galaxy all of the time, you can please all of the galaxy some of the time, but you can't please all of the galaxy all of the time,' Jack replied.

Comments

[bk_forever]

Yikes! I really hope none Of Torchwood's classified paperwork escaped and that everything in the archives is stil safe inside locked filing cabinets!

I wonder if paper money was affected too...