Winter companion: The great race (Part nine)

[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.

They took turns piloting the ship around the course whilst Lucy slept. In between bouts of flying, Jack continued to toy with the ship's systems, assessing what damage the asteroid field had done to their less critical functions, and repairing what he could. It took his mind off his conversation with the Doctor and it helped him relax. There was a saying back on Earth, something to do with idle hands, but Jack couldn't remember it anymore. How much more of what he'd heard on Earth had he since forgotten? How much would remain in another hundred years, a thousand, a million? Suddenly the ghosts seemed less of a nuisance. Rather than wishing they'd go away and leave him alone, Jack prayed they'd stay with him so he wouldn't forget them.

A hundred laps ticked by, then a hundred and forty, and then a hundred and sixty. Jack and the Doctor quietly shared stories of places they'd been and things they'd done. The Doctor told Jack about her trip aboard the New Titanic and how she had met Alonso. Jack regaled the Doctor with his own tales of their adventures together, finally confessing that they'd been separated at the end and had never reunited.

'He was an outrageous flirt,' Jack said, chuckling.

'As soon as I saw you two in that bar, I knew I had to play matchmaker,' she replied. 'A shame you didn't have longer together.'

'Blips in time,' Jack said, remembering where he'd picked up the phrase.

'What's blips?' came a muffled voice from behind him.

'Ah, she wakes,' Jack joked. 'You missed all the fun and dirty stories.'

'You really didn't,' the Doctor assured her.

'We're into the last twenty laps,' Jack reported, 'and you'll be pleased to know we passed another three racers thanks to your little tip.'

'Drax?' Lucy asked. 'Please let him be one of the three.'

Jack grimaced. 'No sight of him,' he replied. That bothered him. How much lead time had he given Drax by failing to stop him at the last checkpoint?

'Do you want me to take over?' Lucy asked. It wasn't the bossy demand to return to the pilot's seat, but a gesture to give him a break.

Jack slid out of the chair. 'Be my guest. Doc, why don't you grab some zees before the next checkpoint? You've been going longer than any of us.'

They switched seats, Jack resuming his place as co-pilot, whilst the Doctor took the back seat. It would be nice just to have a few moments to close her eyes and let her mind drift. Something had been niggling at the back of her brain for ages now, but she couldn't put her finger on what exactly. That was the problem with having such a huge mind. Maybe if she just let it wander, the thought would come back to her, like a stray puppy sulking at the door to come in.

'So peaceful out here,' Jack commented. 'It's funny how huge orbs of planets can just drift by, like they're nothing more than leaves floating on the wind. It makes you feel very small indeed.'

'Mmm,' Lucy hummed in agreement.

'That's it!' The Doctor cried, bolting upright.

'Geez, Doc!' Jack complained, clutching at his chest. 'You wanna warn someone next time you do that.'

'What's wrong?' Lucy asked, tearing her eyes away for just a split second before remembering to keep them on where they were flying.

'I remembered what I wanted to ask!' the Doctor exclaimed.

Jack gave a look of askance. 'That's it? You scared the hell out of us for a question?'

Her eyes were bright. 'It's about this race. Fifteen million credits, I mean, phew, but that's a lot. More than ten times the prize money for the second biggest race.'

'We know, Doc. What's your point?'

'Doesn't that make you wonder? Why such a big prize?'

'Reward for not being killed?' he replied sarcastically, having had his fill of life threatening situations for the time being.

'Well, sure,' she said, 'but why not just double the second biggest prize? It'd still be the biggest by a mile.'

Jack thought about it for a moment. 'I suppose the hype makes it more profitable. Anyone who's a half decent flyer would probably want a slice of the action. People come from all over to watch it and spend up big while they're here. A boon for the advertisers as well.'

'And have you seen any advertising since we've been here?'

'Huh. I haven't, come to think of it. Usually these kinds of things have billboards all over the place. The sponsors end up getting more of the limelight than the competitors. When I was wandering around before the race, I don't remember seeing a single logo slapped on any of the ships I walked past.'

The Doctor saw the perplexed look on Jack's face. 'Why would they do that?' Companies pay big money to have their name splashed all over a ship.'

Jack paused, mulling it over. 'So, if they're not making millions from advertisers, how are they funding such a huge prize?'

'Exactly. Oh! Why didn't I realise this earlier?' she cried.

'Probably because we were too busy trying not to die,' Lucy replied.

'Who did you say was sponsoring this race?' the Doctor asked.

Lucy gave a dismissive wave. 'Erebus Corporation, who else?'

The Doctor frowned. 'Huh. Never heard of them.'

'Me either,' Jack said.

Lucy turned to both of them, a look of incredulity on her face. 'Seriously? They're everywhere around here, throwing money into medical and technological research, scholarships, donations to research organisations and universities. They must be the richest company this side of the known universe. Everybody knows them. I don't know what rock you two have been living under.'

'They sound very benevolent,' the Doctor replied. 'So, why put good money into something as egotistical as a race? Surely there's better uses for that money.'

'And where does all their money come from?' Jack asked. 'What exactly is it that they do?'

Lucy pulled a face. 'I just told you.'

'No, I mean, what do they do to earn that money? Do they sell anything? Provide a service?'

'I dunno. They just... own stuff, like other companies. There's always some news item about them having bought another medi-tech.'

'So, they're a really big hedge fund,' the Doctor said.

'But who are its investors?' Jack asked.

The Doctor grabbed Jack's wrist and shoved her sonic screwdriver against it before flipping it open and letting a holographic display beam upwards, showing a brief summary on the history of the Erebus Corporation. 'Hey,' Jack complained, pulling his wrist back. 'If you wanted something Googled, you only had to say so.'

The logo came up, three crescent moons, each intersecting in a triangular fashion, with its points facing outward, slowly spinning.

'It looks familiar for some reason,' Jack said. 'Nuclear waste symbol gone wrong?'

'There nothing useful here,' the Doctor said, scanning through the data on file. 'It's all polished PR rhetoric. Just a pretty information memorandum and nothing else. Not even so much as a spiel on who's behind the corporate shell. "A collaboration of like-minded contributors dedicated to the furtherment of sentient species",' she read from their mission statement.

'Doesn't exactly scream petrol heads, does it?' Jack said. 'Erebus, Erebus, why does that seem so familiar?' he wondered. 'Hey Doc, how good is your connection to the TARDIS?'

She narrowed her eyes at him. 'What do you mean?'

'How close do you need to be?'

'She always knows where I am.' In fact, she was mightily put out that she wasn't asked to race with them, being left behind for a more inferior ship. No doubt she'd cause trouble when they returned, giving the Doctor what for as punishment.

'So,' Jack said, continuing his train of thought, 'at any point in time we could potentially connect to her?'

'You'd still need something that can transmit across time and space, but yes.'

'So, a vortex manipulator might do the trick? With a few modifications?' he asked hopefully.

'What is it that you're asking me, Jack?'

'Before Torchwood was destroyed back on Earth, I made sure that a copy of our database was uploaded to the TARDIS.'

'Ah, so that was you.' She knew they'd been in cahoots, Jack and her beloved TARDIS. Even after she'd gained access to the database, the TARDIS would only let her look at certain things, like some kind of absurd parental lock. There were clearly things there that Jack hadn't wanted the Doctor to have access to. Like his collection of CCTV footage from the hub. That was purely for the TARDIS's enjoyment, if she was so inclined to watch his greatest hits compilation.

Jack looked momentarily sad. 'A lot of people died gathering that information. I didn't want it falling into the wrong hands, or being wiped completely. That database is their legacy. Mine too.'

'What makes you think Torchwood knows anything about them?'

He shook his head, as if he was unable to dislodge a niggling feeling at the back of his mind. 'Just a hunch. It can't hurt to look, can it?'

'If this is just an excuse for me to fix your vortex manipulator...'

'It's not. Come on, you know me. Aren't you curious?'

Of course she was. It should have been her middle name if she'd had one. 'Give it here, then.'

He reverently loosened the strap, taking it off. How few times had he done that, the Doctor wondered, and still the skin underneath was the same colouration the rest of his arm. There wasn't a tan line to be seen.

The Doctor took the vortex manipulator and began working on it with her screwdriver, using the device like a precision welding tool to reconnect just the right circuits to allow for a small time stream to be able to reach out across space and link up with her TARDIS. It was delicate work.

Confounded manipulators, she mentally cursed. Who in their right minds had devised them, and then handed them out to anyone with a taste for peril and a gun strapped to their belt?

If there was one thing the Shadow Proclamation had gotten very wrong, it was setting up the Time Agency. In her opinion, no one should be allowed to meddle with time. Unless you were a Time Lord, of course - which she was. Time Lord? Or was it Time Lady, now? That didn't sound right. Whatever. She dismissed the question of semantics, focusing on the task at hand. The point was that it was okay for her to interfere with time because she knew what she was doing. Well, most of the time, anyway.

'There,' she said, handing it back. 'You're officially connected to TARDIS Wi-Fi. Go forth and satisfy your curiosity.'

'Thanks.' Jack flipped open the small panel on the top and keyed in his search criteria, including a copy of the Erebus Corporation logo. Tosh's brilliant algorithms, along with Ianto's superior filing system, would be able to hunt down anything even remotely connected to the search terms. Having unfettered access to all of the old Torchwood files made his heart ache. He wanted just to open up a mission report and start reading it, reliving some of their adventures. Even one of Owen's autopsy reports, which would have normally made for tiresome reading, would have been a welcome breath of air. And as for those after-hours CCTV collections…

It didn't take long at all before results started coming up. The resulting search wasn't just ringing a bell for Jack, it was the entire St Paul's Cathedral going off in his head. Now he remembered why the word Erebus made him feel uneasy, and what made the logo of three crescents cause his skin to crawl. Three moons, three families. Jack's expression turned dark.

The Doctor began to frown in anticipation of the answer. 'You know who they are, don't you?'

'Yes. And they're not the benevolent do-gooders they lay claim to be. Erebus is the name of the planet they came from originally. Their real name is The Committee.'

'Who are The Committee?'

Jack turned his chair around to face the Doctor and knelt forward, resting his elbows on his knees. 'I don't know much about them, but what I can tell you is this. Back at the end of the nineteenth century, there were two organisations monitoring alien activity on Earth. The first was Torchwood, set up by Queen Victoria,'

'Yes, yes, I know all about that,' the Doctor said, trying to rush him. 'Ungrateful woman. She'd have been inside the belly of a werewolf if it hadn't been for Rose and me. She hated me. That's why she set it up. Torchwood. Public enemy Number One, I think they called me.'

'Trust me,' Jack said, 'she mellowed in her old age, and she became a staunch supporter for Torchwood doing the right thing before she died.' He still laughed at memories of chasing aliens with her on horseback through the streets of London.

'Anyway, there was Torchwood, and across the pond in Russia, there was the KVI, set up by the Tsars. One day, Vicki and Alexi got together and decided they wanted to test their muscle. They managed to enlist a group of aliens from Erebus to come down and put on a show, pretending to be the big, bad aliens. They wanted to know how Torchwood and the KVI would fare against a serious threat.'

The Doctor folded her arms. 'I'm guessing that this little exercise had a price tag attached to it?'

Jack nodded. 'In exchange they traded them some technology that Torchwood had acquired through the rift. Big mistake. The aliens used that technology to fashion themselves into what they call The Committee, and started taking over other planets in Signus A, Omega Centauri, and Andromeda star systems. They stripped those planets of everything valuable and decimated their populations.'

The Doctor frowned in confusion. 'But how could Torchwood have come to know all this?'

Jack grimaced as memories from his Time Agency days came back to haunt him once more. 'I ran into them once on Kepri 5. I was still with the Agency back then. At the time we weren't exactly there to stop them. Our mission was merely to prevent civil unrest, whilst they basically raped and pillaged.' The guilt-ridden look on his face spoke volumes, as he tried to push past the admission. 'They were looking to begin a fresh invasion, and mentioned planet Earth as their next target. So, I told them there was no intelligent life on Earth and I sent them on their merry way to a little mining outpost far, far away.' He cast his eyes down at the floor before continuing. 'I figured two thousand lives lost was better than six billion.'

'No lives lost would have been best,' the Doctor replied, her distaste for the Time Agency clearly reignited.

Jack wrung his hands. 'I know. I'm not proud of it.' He squirmed uncomfortably in his seat before carrying on with his story. 'Anyway, somewhere along the way, The Committee found out I'd lied to them about Earth. They found me - found out that I was working for Torchwood - and have been trying to take me out of the game ever since. They're powerful and almost impossible to infiltrate. I spent six months crossing the continents, trying to figure out just how far their connections reached. After I left Earth for the last time, I figured I must have finally given them the slip.'

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. 'Every level of government has been manipulated by them, and they remove anyone who gets in their way, even replacing them with AIs so no one will be any the wiser.' He fixed his gaze on the Doctor, his blue eyes fierce. 'Torchwood couldn't stop them. Our founders created a monster race and gave them the technology to make them unstoppable.' He blew out a long breath. 'I just had no idea they'd spread so far and become so powerful.'

'But what do they really want?'

Jack chuckled, a mirth-filled sound. 'What do they want? To be the most superior race of beings in the universe.'

'So, they buy up other companies for their technology?' Lucy asked.

'And hand out money for research and development, but I'll bet you anything, the scientists that end up creating those new technologies never see them again.'

Lucy paused, her expression thoughtful. 'Come to think of it, I have heard rumours. Prestigious leaders in their respect fields on the cusp of a breakthrough disappearing, or committing suicide. The press reported them as being under immense pressure to produce results, or so obsessed with their work that it had driven them to self destructive behaviour.'

'And how many more less well-known researchers have been dealt with in the same way?' Jack added.

Lucy shook her head. 'That still, doesn't explain why they'd want to spend so much money on a race.'

'Gathering the best of the best to compete in the most brutal race ever devised, once every generation,' the Doctor said, thinking out loud. 'Oh! That's it! Stupid Doctor!' she cried again, making her teammates jump. 'Genetic superiority.'

Jack felt his hand tense involuntarily around the arm of his seat. 'Doctor?'

'Research is one thing, but what you really want is a few live samples. Find out what makes them tick. Yes! But how? How do they get access? Oh!' she said, slapping her forehead again. 'DNA scanners! The holodecks are fitted with full DNA scanners. Oh, that's clever. Compare DNA from each racer and find out what markers make one racer better than the next. Every time we passed a checkpoint, they were checking us out.'

'They're looking for species to wipe out? Species that might threaten them?' Jack asked.

'No, better than that. They're looking for species to breed with. Well, not breed, perhaps, but to replicate the DNA strands that give them an advantage, quick reflexes, increased intellectual capacity, even the ability to go without sleep. We're just experiments, rats running around a maze looking for cheese, bacteria festering in a petri dish…'

Jack was appalled, if not for the fact that Earth had been responsible for giving The Committee their power in the first place, then for being unable to stop them years ago before their power had stretched to this far corner of the universe. 'What do we do, Doctor?'

'Well, that's obvious, isn't it? We win the race so we can get an appointment with The Committee. Who was the winner of the last race?'

Jack ran a fresh search, logging out of the Torchwood mainframe and checking the TARDIS's data core. 'A Gravelliean trio won the race,' he said. He read on, looking at news feeds from the time. 'Last seen celebrating their win a few hours after the race at "The Lotus" in the Vegas Galaxy before taking off with their winnings.' There were no further reports after that. 'You don't just become a recluse after winning fifteen million credits.'

'Exactly. Kidnapped in all likelihood. I'm sure there were some very well paid researchers more than happy to run further experiments on them.'

'I don't want to be experimented on,' Lucy said, sounding scared.

'You won't be,' Jack assured her. 'I won't let that happen.'

There was a series of three staccato bleeps from the onboard computer. 'We've completed the final lap,' Lucy said, feeling less relieved than she ought. There was a flash of light, and there, in the middle of their transmat field, was their flag. On the navigation display was a set of coordinates just a few minutes away.

The Doctor stood up and walked over, picking up the flag. 'One step closer,' she said.

Once they docked at the small space station, Lucy paused in front of the holodeck, reluctant to step inside.

'It'll be fine,' Jack said, coaxing her forward. He watched as the Doctor paced around it, looking at it from all angles with an inquisitive eye. She crouched and poked her screwdriver next to it just moments before Lucy stepped on. 'It's fine,' she said, looking up at Lucy. 'I just want to see what's really happening when it activates.'

Bolstered by the advice of her two friends, Lucy stepped up, letting the holodeck scan her. She kept her eyes locked on Jack's for reassurance. The Doctor's sonic screwdriver hummed and whirred as the scanning slowly checked her from the tips of her golden toes to the last strand of black hair on her head, finally relinquishing another chip into her waiting hand.

'Anything?' Jack asked.

The Doctor dusted off her hands. 'All in working order.'

'I'm not, like, infected with anything, am I?' Lucy asked.

'No worse than getting an x-ray,' the Doctor promised.

Lucy's face scrunched up. 'What's an x-ray?'

Jack chuckled and wrapped an arm around Lucy's shoulder as they walked back to the ship. 'Just ignore her,' he said. 'And keep your references chronologically up to date, Doc.'

The Doctor jogged after them. 'Are you calling me old?'

Jack laughed out loud. 'But still looking fine. I'd sleep with you.'

'Don't even joke about things like that!'

Part ten...

Comments

[bk_forever]

Damn the Committee. Will the universe never be rid of them? They're the worst kind of news. I hop Jack and the Doctor can come up with a plan to deal with them.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

The Committee seem to be scattered all across time, putting their machinations into play. Who knows what they're real endgame is.