m_findlow

Title: The great race
Author: m_findlow
Prompt: 2 - Lucy, races, flag, on a holodeck at wintercompanion
Rating: Thirteenth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Pairing: PG
Content notes: Spoilers for all seasons of both series, and the Torchwood Big Finish audioplays.
Length: 33,192 words
Author notes: Beta'ed by beesandbrews. I don't own them, they belong to their respective creators.
Summary: A new adventure awaits two old friends as they compete in the greatest race of a generation.

The interior of the station was little better than the exterior. What had once been gleaming steel was now decayed and rusted. A bare handful of solar-powered lights cast dark shadows across the bending corridor. Lucy imagined that in its heyday, it must have been able to service at least forty ships all at once, providing fuel and supplies, and a place for its crew to rest up and grab a decent meal.

There was a strange feeling about the place as they slowly navigated the labyrinth of passages. The Doctor pulled out her sonic screwdriver, holding it out in front of her like a weapon. Its gentle violet glow lit the way, but did nothing to shed any light on what made the place feel so unsettling.

'You too, huh?' Jack asked. 'This place has creepy written all over it.'

The sound of hurried footsteps raced towards them and Jack raised his gun, readying to fire. Two panicked looking Felthosians came streaming towards them, out of breath and looking like they'd seen a ghost.

'Don't go down there, whatever you do,' one warned them, barely stopping before the pair hurried away.

Lucy caught sight of the pale blue flag clutched in one of the Felthosian's hand as the pair ran back towards the airlock and their ship. 'They were just trying to put us off,' she said. 'They made it out okay.' She kept going, the Doctor following behind and Jack bringing up the rear, gun still raised.

Off to the side of the corridor was a room, its door open and inviting, unlike all the others they'd passed. Inside was a flat square panel on the left-hand wall and a small table with a series of blocks beneath it. Once Jack stepped over the threshold, there was a hiss as the door slid shut behind him, sealing them inside.

Lucy picked up one of the tiles and studied the strange markings on it, before looking up at the wall panel. 'I think we have to put these on the panel in the correct order to unseal the door.'

She spread the tiles across the table, sixteen in all, each the size of her hand. 'I don't recognise these symbols.' She tried twirling them to different angles, but each pattern was symmetrical no matter which way the tile turned.

'Sixteen tiles. Only twenty one trillion combinations possible,' the Doctor commented.

Jack picked up a tile, scrutinising it. 'There must be some kind of correct pattern. I'll bet once you crack it, it releases the flag.'

Lucy looked around the room. For the first time she noticed that there wasn't just one door, but ten of them, each like hours on a clock, encircling the whole room. 'What if different combinations open different doors? This could be just one of many rooms leading to the right one.'

'Ah, the old "room full of doors" trick,' the Doctor said. 'Well, only one thing for it, really.' She picked up a tile and stuck it on the wall panel, followed by another. She picked up a third and hummed. 'You know, I never was any good at sudoku puzzles.'

'Well, let's keep going and see if anything happens,' Lucy suggested. The two of them continued slotting tiles up on the panel until all sixteen were in place.

'There we are,' the Doctor said, standing back and looking pleased. 'It's very... er... patterny.'

From behind them came a gentle hiss as one of the doors very slowly began to slide upward, just a few inches.

'What do you know?' she said. 'Beginner's luck. I had a feeling about this place as soon as I stepped inside, like I'd been here before. Must be that tricksy muscle memory kicking in.'

Jack frowned. As the door began its inexorable ascent, all he could see were two silver objects peering out from under the gap. He reached for the panel and pulled one of the tiles away, watching as the door came to a halt, letting out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.

The Doctor looked disappointed. 'What did you do that for?'

'We're looking for a flag. Whatever that is behind there doesn't look like one.' He remembered the terrified look in the eyes of the racers who'd ran into them in the corridor. If that was theatrics meant to put them off, they were damn good actors. 'I think we need to figure out this puzzle to reveal the correct door. The others might be something unpleasant.'

The Doctor sighed. 'Well, aren't you just a killjoy?'

'You're the one who wanted me to take less risks.' The old Torchwood leader instincts inside him were kicking in. He needed to put the safety of the team ahead of everything else.

She sighed. 'Fine. Let's do it your way.'

They pulled the tiles off the panel and began rearranging them on the table.

'This one is more squiggly, and this one is straighter,' the Doctor said. 'Let's try alternating squiggly and straight.'

They slotted them back into the panel and another door began to slowly slide open, revealing more silver objects. The first door also began to continue lifting, the silver objects looking more and more to Jack's mind like feet and legs.

'Okay, not that, then,' she said. They pulled off the tiles and both doors ceased moving again. 'Most squiggly to least squiggly? Or the other way around?'

They tried both. Two more doors lifted open and the previous two shifted ever upward.

'There's something standing behind those doors,' Lucy said, watching knees come into view.

The Doctor turned and looked at them for a full minute before it dawned on her. 'Oh, Doctor!' she cried, slapping her forehead. 'So many memories, where do you keep them all?'

'What? What is it?' Jack said, a rising panic in his voice.

'Cybermen. Behind those doors. Sarah Jane and I trapped them here years ago. That's why this place felt familiar.'

'Ten doors,' Lucy said, counting them off.

'One flag, one way out and eight Cybermen,' Jack surmised.

'And twenty-one trillion combinations,' Lucy reminded him.

They tried more combinations but each set another door sliding open. 'That's door number eight,' Jack said, pulling the tiles off the panel to stop its ascent, only this time all eight doors continued to slowly rise. 'They're not stopping.'

'But we removed the tiles!' Lucy protested.

'I know!' Jack tried to calm himself. 'They must be in some kind of language, but I've never seen it before.'

The Doctor barked out a laugh, full of mirth. 'And you call yourself a Time Agent.'

'I know plenty of languages,' Jack shot back. 'Not all of us have the luxury of having the TARDIS translate everything for us.'

'It's convenient!'

'Well, it's not very convenient right now!'

'Somebody think of something!' Lucy demanded. She shifted from foot to foot, trying to come up with ideas. 'Maybe we should just keep flipping tiles until we get it right.' She started gathering them all up and setting them down in one pattern after another. As she did, the doors began to speed up their movements. More than half a Cyberman could now be seen standing behind the first door, its metal fists bunched up.

'Stop, stop, stop!' the Doctor cried. 'It's making it go faster!'

'Okay, so random attempts won't work.' Jack brushed a nervous hand through his hair, trying to fathom the solution. 'We have to show we know what we're doing.'

'Which would be great if we did!' Lucy said, exasperated.

Frantically, the Doctor pulled out her sonic screwdriver and scanned the tiles for any kind of clue. 'Argh, why do things always have to be made of wood?'

Jack drew his gun and pointed it around the room whilst Lucy and the Doctor continued to try and figure out the puzzle. His gun would be almost useless against a Cyberman but he had to try and give them more time. It was only as he looked over his shoulder, that he saw Lucy holding the tile in her hand.

'Wait!' Jack spun and grabbed Lucy's wrist.

'What?'

He saw the tile in her hand. Really saw it for the first time. Her finger covered the top half, whilst her thumb covered over the bottom corner leaving just a quarter of the pattern visible. 'I know that,' he said, barely able to contain his surprise. 'That's Galactic Standard for the number eight. It's backwards and upside down, but that's definitely an eight.' He grabbed another tile, using his hand to isolate one corner. 'That's a two.'

'Oh, my goddess, you're right!' Lucy said.

'They're numbers. Inverted and multiplied to look like a pattern.'

They scrambled to switch tiles around, desperately slapping them into place on the four by four panel. Simultaneously all the doors ceased, the highest one revealing all but the head of the Cyberman lurking behind. Jack and the Doctor both pointed their respective weapons at it, waiting for it to duck under the door and come after them. Instead it remained exactly where it was.

'Can it see us?' Jack whispered.

'It may have been set only to activate once the doors are fully opened, but I can't be sure,' the Doctor whispered back.

Both of them spun as another door slid upward. There was no Cyberman hidden behind this door, only their flag, propped on a silver pedestal.

'Wait here.' Jack crept slowly towards it, gun and eyes firmly fixed on the Cyberman just feet away. He leaned forward and reached in, fingers curling around the thin metal rod. Once he did, all nine doors slid back shut, and the door through which they'd entered re-opened.

Lucy heaved out a breath. 'Let's get the hell out of here.'

'No argument from me, but we can't just leave them here.' Jack turned towards the Doctor, his expression serious. 'We both know how dangerous they are.'

'And yet a real Cyberman wouldn't have just stood idly by when there were beings it could kill or convert.' Her brow furrowed, deep in thought. 'Who could have known they were here in the first place?'

Jack pulled a face. Did it matter? 'You're saying we just leave them here? What about the next people who come along? They might not be so lucky.'

The Doctor pulled out her sonic screwdriver and ran it along all four edges of the panel. 'It's connected to the doors somehow. A little tweak here, a bit of sonic disruption there, and voilà. All the doors are now disconnected from the panel.'

Jack looked at her askance. 'Seriously? You couldn't have done that earlier?'

'All the doors,' she clarified. 'Including the one that led us to that flag, and our way out. You didn't really want me locking us in here forever with them, did you?'

'So, none of the racers who come after us are going to be able to win their flag, even if they figure out the puzzle?' Lucy asked. 'Assuming they can get inside at all.'

'Exactly. It's the only way to be sure.'

'So, that means we're officially in last place again,' she said, looking annoyed.

'But, competing in a considerably smaller field,' the Doctor replied, trying to find the silver lining.

'So, let's get this thing scanned and get going,' Jack said. He didn't want to be within a hundred light-years of a Cyberman. 'I'm not hanging around here in case there's more of them just waiting to delete or upgrade someone.' He paced back out the way they came, having spotted the holodeck near the entrance when they'd first entered the way-station. He stepped up onto the platform, setting down the flag in the central console and grabbing the chip as soon as it appeared. Once he stepped down, he held it up between his fingertips.

'You're sure you wanna keep going?' he asked. 'They've tried to kill us twice already.'

'And a dozen more racers have been through exactly the same as us and survived,' Lucy replied. 'We're better than them. They'll slip up eventually. We won't.'

'Doc?' Jack asked, looking across for a third opinion.

'What the lady says,' she replied. 'Who's better than us?'

'Okay.' Jack reluctantly handed over the chip. Being in the middle of a death defying adventure was suddenly a whole lot less appealing than it had been when he'd first arrived at the aeroport, looking for a cheap thrill to quell his lackadaisical mood. Still, they had the Doctor on their side.

The Doctor snatched the chip from his fingers, grinning. 'Oh, cheer up. Now who's the wet blanket?'

Part five...