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.

It didn't take Jack long to find the great lump of leather-clad opponent, passed out in his seat. The short journey from the transmat, located inconveniently in the loading dock, had Jack puffing and out of breath from the thin atmosphere left inside the vessel. By the time he'd unstrapped Drax from his seat and dragged the dead weight to the other end of the ship, he was beginning to feel light-headed and see stars swimming in his vision. He quickly keyed the signal on his wrist strap, activating the responding transmat beam, and let it carry them back to safety.

His head cleared quickly once he was back on board, sucking in deep lungfuls of air. Reaching into his pocket, he extracted a plastic cable tie, and cuffed Drax's meaty hands behind his back. Jack stood there for a moment, admiring his handiwork and mentally calculating Drax's strength. For good measure, he added a second pair of cables around Drax's thick ankles, before leaving him to wake up on his own at the back of the bridge.

'Do you always keep handcuffs on you?' the Doctor queried, as she watched him work.

'You never know when you might wanna tie someone up,' he explained.

'And we'll conclude that line of questioning right there,' she replied.

'He won't be grateful,' Lucy warned them.

The Doctor gave a noncommittal shrug. 'He doesn't have to be. You can please some of the people all of the time-'

Jack jumped in before the Doctor could finish. 'And there's just no pleasing others.'

The Doctor shrugged. 'Close enough. So, are we finishing this thing or what? I'd hate for that rust bucket we passed twenty miles back to come clunking past and pip us at the post. We've got a meeting with The Committee to attend.'

Lucy slid back into her seat, her companions following suit as she powered up and set course for the final leg. She could almost spot the glowing stadium in the distance and hear the roar of the crowd, though perhaps that much was imagined. She set the ship at a cruise - fast, but not breakneck. She was fairly certain there was no one left who could catch them now, but she didn't want to put any further strain on their already battered ship.

There was a garbled cry from behind them as Drax regained consciousness.

'What am I doing on this ship with you scumbags?'

Jack crossed to stand over their unwanted passenger. 'These scumbags just saved your miserable life, so shut the hell up before I repay you that knuckle sandwich you gave me earlier.'

Drax struggled against his bonds. 'I'd rather be dead.'

Jack knelt low and close, lowering his voice to a growl so the others wouldn't hear. 'It can be arranged.'

'We're almost there,' Lucy called back. Her display was highlighting a red circle for them to land in, setting the ship down exactly at its centre. As they disembarked, they could see a single white console, packed with flags for each of the competitors. Lucy reached in, selected the correct colour and pulled it out.

'The holodeck is just over there,' Jack indicated. 'What do you suppose happens when we log the flag?'

'Only one way to find out,' the Doctor replied, snatching the flag from Lucy and marching towards their final goal. All around them, the bleachers full of spectators reached up high into the sky, cheering them on. They paused momentarily before the holodeck, before the Doctor stepped up onto it. In a blaze of white light, the crowd gasped in awe as all three of them vanished from view.

When they were ejected from the beam of light, Jack knew they were somewhere completely different, another planet, even another time. It was the sensation of having travelled through the vortex, which he knew well; a kind of tingling, like having soda running through your veins. 'We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto,' he muttered.

'I know,' the Doctor grinned. 'Don't you just love that fizzy feeling all over?' She gave a little shake, expelling the remnants of chrono-spatial energy from her fingertips, before casting her eyes around their new location.

Grey. Everything was grey, muted and monotone. Their respective outfits clashed horribly, so much colour against their drab surroundings. The room couldn't have been more sparsely fitted, a few circular windows, frosted to block out the view, and one long bench with five plain grey chairs lined up behind it in a neat row. A hidden doorway slid open with an almost imperceptible hiss, and from without came five equally grey-suited individuals.

Jack watched them with nervous anticipation as they moved behind the bench and took their seats. It was hard to say what species they were, humanoid in general shape, but lacking any defining features, like an artist had begun molding them from clay, but never finished. They stepped into the room and wordlessly sat down in the five chairs.

The Doctor stepped forward. 'Hello,' she said, giving a friendly wave and a smile.

'You are not registered,' came a voice. It was impossible to tell which of them had spoken. None had any mouths to speak of, and the sound seemed to come from all directions at once. Jack tensed beside Lucy, unnerved by it.

'Oh, I know,' the Doctor replied. 'I figured the two hearts might get your attention,' she said. 'You have been scanning us, after all. I figured it was time to come and meet you all personally. It's a bit rude to map someone's genome without asking them first, you know.'

'Your concerns are not relevant to us.'

'My team's done quite well, I think.' She turned to Jack and Lucy. 'You don't mind if I call you my team, do you? Team Doctor? Ooh, I like that. Team Doctor. We should get t-shirts printed.'

Jack stepped up. 'You're The Committee, right? Or at least people claiming to represent them?'

'The human has spoken,' one voice said. 'Records of previous humans show low intellect.'

'Artesian dermal layer demonstrates superior resistance to extreme temperatures,' another intoned with the same monotonous voice.

Lucy bristled. 'They have names, you know,' she piped up, clearly offended at being talked about like she was nothing.

'So, what if they're a little rough around the edges?' the Doctor said, intervening. 'Their hearts are in the right place.'

'Species Three is unknown to us. Species Three shows potential. Name your species,' came the request.

'Time Lord.'

There was an awkward silence, as if the panel were conversing between one another without speaking. 'Records indicate that species Time Lord is extinct.'

The Doctor tutted, as if disappointed in the Committee. 'Well, you had better update your records then, because I'm very much alive.'

'It is done. Further research to be conducted.'

'Oh, no,' the Doctor replied. 'I've already done quite a bit of research about you and I've decided that you're not very nice people.' She tossed her screwdriver in the air, making it do a little three-sixty spin before catching it again and pointing it at the holodeck. 'Did you enjoy the race from your cosy little boardroom here?' she asked, switching her screwdriver to the opposite hand and giving the holodeck another little zap.

Jack leaned closer. 'What are you doing?' he whispered.

The Doctor ignored Jack's question. 'You were testing us, weren't you? Throwing obstacles in our path to see how we'd tackle them.'

'Balance, intelligence, agility, strength, endurance, coordination and speed. These are things we seek to bring to the next generation.'

The Doctor stepped forward again, throwing her hand over her shoulder and giving the screwdriver another little flourish behind her. 'You know what the problem is these days? Nobody knows how to make things anymore.' She turned to her companions. 'Isn't that such a shame?' she said, before returning her attention to the panel of five. 'I mean, look at us. Once upon a time we crawled out of the oceans and wandered about on the beach, wondering what to do. Then we had to forage for food, make tools to catch and kill things. Then we discovered fire, learned how to turn rocks into metals, forged better tools, weaponry, Made houses, traded goods, developed currency, created stock markets. Look at us now,' she said, throwing her arms wide and turning to take in the whole room around her. 'All technologically savvy, but who's making everything for us now? Computers, that's who. We took everything we knew from our brains and dumped it into robots so they could go around making things whilst we sipped our pineapple cocktails by the pool and thought about how very clever we were.'

She tapped the end of her sonic screwdriver thoughtfully against her lips. 'See, that's the problem now. Without the computers and all that magnificent data from our brains, we lose the ability to create. That's not to say we won't be able to create things again. There's always smart people out there with a mind for such things, but it's going to take a very, very long time, don't you think?'

'Time Lord's opinions are not important to the ultimate design.'

The Doctor carried on, ignoring the comment. 'You see, what I realised as we were playing your little game was that you wanted to know what makes us tick. Every time we scanned our flags, you were scanning us. You wanted to know what it was that made us capable of figuring out the solutions to your little puzzles. What evolutionary traits did we possess that made us physically and mentally superior?'

The Doctor wandered behind Lucy, resting her hands on her shoulders. 'Was it the cat-like reflexes?' she said, continuing past. 'Or was it the strength in those muscles?' The Doctor raised Jack's arm and gave it a squeeze. 'Or maybe it wasn't any one of those things.'

'All scans will be compared to historical data.'

'Yes, yes, you'll scour your fancy computers looking for anomalies and explanations. Which bit of which chromosome does what? But you won't find what you're looking for. Because what really makes someone special isn't down to whether they can piece together a puzzle or fly halfway across the universe. It's what's in here,' she said, laying a hand over her two hearts. 'Honesty, integrity, loyalty, friendship, teamwork, empathy. Your computers don't know what those things are. They're just machines. They can't feel. Even your best AIs are only replicating learned behaviours. They can produce emotions on demand only when a set of preprogrammed conditions is met.'

'Artificial intelligence is only a means to an end. We have the universe's most cutting edge medical and genetic specialists working on customised foetal DNA engineering. If not our generation, then the one that comes after us.'

The Doctor sighed. 'It's always about the DNA, isn't it? Only, while you were scanning me, I had this thought. The holodeck can do a DNA scan, sure, but a full map of a person's genome? That's a lot of data, and I mean, a lot. Trillions of terabytes, and that's just for one competitor. But where could a holodeck store so much data? It'd have to be connected to something else, a server somewhere, big, with lots of processing power. And you thought you'd be clever. Oh, so clever. Why wait until the race was run? Why not get those boffin computers of yours working on the problem straight away? So, you uploaded everything to your master server. And boy oh boy, do you have a lot of data on there! Why, I daresay that's where you keep everything, from how to make a microwave oven right down to the financial records for every company you've ever owned. Why, with all that knowledge, you could probably, oh, I don't know, control a good chunk of the universe?' She frowned. 'What do they call that back on Earth, Jack?'

'A dictatorship,' he replied, scowling.

'Yes, that's right. A dictatorship. People don't tend to like dictatorships because the people in charge of them don't much care for the people they control. They tend to rise up against them.'

'We have control of every government and organisation. Rebellion is futile.'

'You might want to check your balance sheet, then,' she said. 'I think you'll find that Erebus Corporation's share price has just taken a dive, since it no longer has any assets.'

There was an unsteady pause. 'What have you done?'

She gave another little nonchalant flip of her sonic screwdriver. 'See, what happened was when you scanned me, and in all the time you've been letting me stand here waffling on about evolution and the wonder of variety in the universe, I programmed a little virus into your systems, wiping all of the data you collected.'

The Doctor sensed their growing unease, the silence hanging in the air as they formulated a response to the news. 'That is not possible. Master servers are not connected to any other systems.'

'Except for this cute little holodeck here,' she replied, pointing down at it with her screwdriver. 'Oh, don't worry, the data isn't lost. Of course I backed it up. It just so happens that my friend here has a very nifty little device on his wrist that allows me to transfer your data across time and space, right into the data banks of my TARDIS.' She leaned over the bench, setting her elbows on it. 'That's time and relative dimensions in space, in case you were wondering. And she now has everything The Committee ever stored, including the identities of every insider and AI you've planted in every government across all the galaxies. I think the governments of those respective planets will be very interested to know about that, don't you?'

Featureless heads turned to one another, before all five reverted their blind gaze back towards the Doctor in unison. 'We started with nothing. We will rebuild again.'

'Yes, and it might take another two hundred years, or two thousand years, but we'll be watching for you this time, because the one thing your Committee didn't count on was me. Because I'm the Doctor.'

One of the Committee members lunged forward, showing a speed and agility it didn't seem capable of possessing. Jack quickly drew his Webley and pointed it right at his head. 'Hold it right there,' he warned. 'No one touches the Doctor.'

'Put the gun down, Jack. It's not necessary.'

'You wanna bet? I've dealt with these guys before. They don't mind guns.'

The Doctor reached out and gently pushed Jack's arm down, keeping her gaze fixed on The Committee. 'You want to rule the universe? Go open up a chain of stalls that sell candy floss. Everyone loves candy floss,' she said. 'Except the dentists, maybe.' She shrugged. 'Oh, well, you can't win them all. Be remembered for being good. That's all that really counts for anything.'

The five of them sat there transfixed and unbelieving. Jack could barely believe it himself. He wished they had proper faces so he could see the looks on them. 'We'll be watching,' he said, repeating the Doctor's warning. 'So, don't try anything.'

The Doctor turned to her two companions, coaxing them back to the holodeck. 'Come on, you two. Let's go out there and take our spot on the winner's podium. Because who doesn't love a bit of public adoration?'

It was strange, standing there, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of spectators, cheering and letting off fireworks and flares, celebrating their victory. In a way, they were celebrating the wrong thing, the winners of a race, rather than the downfall of the most powerful organisation in the universe, yet it felt good all the same. Jack even laughed when they brought out the trophy, so heavy that it took all three of them to loft it skyward in triumph.

Jack couldn't help but be amused by all the people he passed, wearing their security tags which marked them as event staff. They were so friendly and helpful, just innocent bystanders, unaware that the empire keeping them employed had crumbled underneath them.

Somewhere out there, Jack knew there was a second set of people, tasked with watching their every move. At some point in the next forty-eight hours it would have been their job to make Jack and his friends disappear. Jack wondered what story they would have fed the press to cover it up. Victims of overindulgence at their victory party, or a tragic crash on their flight home, perhaps?

None of that mattered now. They had their own victory to celebrate. Tonight was theirs to paint the town red. For the crowd though, the partying would continue long into the night and the days that followed. And a handful of souls would go home doubly happy, having put money on the underdogs to win.

The three of them eventually slipped away, having had their fill of photographs, autographs and interviews about the thrilling and often dangerous race, which had been carefully watched by all from hundreds of hidden cameras. Many still couldn't get over Jack's tightrope walk, or Lucy's amazing dodgem-style flying through the asteroid belt. Or that completely insane corkscrew maneuver through a field of deadly laser beams. Maybe it was even that heroic finish line rescue that won them over. No one however mentioned Jack's miraculous recovery from being crushed in the stone doorway. Whether the cameras had been at the wrong angle or the footage mysteriously doctored, none could say. Either way, Jack and Lucy were the stars of the show and crowd favourites, which was just how the Doctor liked it.

Part twelve...