Anythingdrabble Challenge 40 - Not as advertised

[m_findlow]

Title: Not as advertised
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairings: Owen, Jack, Gwen, Tosh
Word Count: 500 words
Rating: PG
Notes: Written for Challenge 40 - Sponge at anythingdrabble
Summary: Jack's explanations get lost in translation.

'Oh, look who decided to turn up eventually,' Gwen teased, watching Owen stalk in through the door.

'Bite me, PC Cooper,' Owen grumbled. 'There'd better be coffee since you've obviously been waiting for me,' he replied, seeing Gwen, Jack and Tosh all huddled around something on Tosh's desk.

'Actually, there isn't,' Jack replied. 'Ianto's at home with the flu so you'll have to make your own coffee arrangements.'

'What about you lot?'

'We already went out and bought some,' Tosh replied. 'We'd have bought you one if we thought you were going to get here before it went cold.'

'Typical,' he added.  

'Now, as I was saying,' Jack continued, leaving Owen to ponder his own misfortune, 'it's basically a super duper sponge. It'll absorb absolutely everything it can,' he said, discussing the grey object that had come through the rift last night.

'So, what do we do with it?' Gwen asked.

Jack shrugged. 'Leave it here. It'll eventually decide when it wants to go home and just, shoop,' he said, making a gesture as if it would just fly away.

 

As they left and went about their day, Owen didn't give the thing another thought. Clearly Jack wasn't concerned about it, and Owen had a pile of work to get on with. He didn't even  care when the rest of them left at six, leaving him up to his elbows in alien autopsy.

He slipped his scalpel carefully into the main torso cavity and suddenly the thing exploded, shooting great volumes of thick yellowy fluid all over the table and the floor, well more than he imagined the body could contain.

'Bollocks,' he swore, seeing the mess. Teaboy would kill him if he didn't clean this up. He used every tissue and towel he had, but there was too much goop. Then he spotted the sponge thing on Tosh's desk. What had Jack said, super duper? That ought to do the trick. He picked it up and began running it around the floor when the sound of the door signalled Jack's return.

'Owen, what they hell are you doing?' Jack asked.

'Cleaning,' he replied. 'But this isn't working very well.'

Jack raised his eyebrows. 'And you're surprised?'

'You said it was a sponge!'

'Not a cleaning sponge, you idiot. A knowledge sponge.'

'Never even heard of one of them. If it's not for cleaning then why's it got all those holes in it?'

Jack rolled his eyes in a way that would have made Ianto proud. 'So it can absorb stuff? Sound, atmospheric samples, liquids, living cells...'

'What would it do that for?'

Jack sighed, having to explain. 'It's a research vessel. They get sent out into the galaxy to learn and take samples. Only the scientists who collect this one are going to be mightily peeved that you've gunked it up all full of alien guts and blood. They're gonna think Earth is a planet of cannibals or something.'

'Or just idiots who can't explain things properly,' Owen replied.

Comments

[bk_forever]

If Owen hadn't shown up late he would have heard the whole explanation. It's not Jack's fault.

I love the idea of a knowledge sponge but I pity the scientists who get this one.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's not going to give them much apart from the fact that earthlings are really grubby creatures, and often not very smart.