Torchwood/Doctor Who: Fanfic: Insider

[m_findlow]

Title: Insider
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Characters: Mickey Smith, Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 3,317 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Any, any, Fine, I'll do it, but you're gonna owe me for this!" at fic_promptly
Summary: Mickey thought his life was getting back on track.

Mickey Smith was finally getting settled in to life back on Earth. His Earth that is, not the alternate universe version that he's spent the two years prior to that living in. It shouldn't have felt that different, but without his Gran and not hanging out with Rose anymore, it really did feel like a different place. One thing however that he didn't mind was not getting caught up in any more crazy adventures. Fun as it was, he was glad to be leaving daleks and cybermen well behind him. Three months into a new job that was working out well, and a potential date on Saturday night with a girl called Chrissie who he met down the pub after work, and life was looking up.

The last thing he expected on his walk home was to be grabbed from behind and mugged.

'Get his arms. Make sure he doesn't see us.'

Hang on. His brain struggled with the familiar voice and his body struggled with the strong grip that held him.

'Sorry, Mickey Mouse!'

Zap.

'He's waking up,' came the voice.

Oh, his head hurt. He must be dreaming as his eyes came into focus, seeing the head leant over him. There was no way he wasn't imagining it.

'Please tell me I'm imagining you,' he said.

'Not that lucky, Mickey.'

'Captain Cheese,' Mickey muttered.

Jack stood over the top of him, grinning stupidly. 'Hey, you could try to pretend that you've missed me,' he said, pretending to be hurt.

'You come in here, knock me out and now you expect me to be nice to you?'

'It'd help. We did just save your life after all.'

'Now, I know you've lost it. You're the one mugging me.'

'Speaking of mugs,' Jack mused. Ianto came in with three mugs full of tea. Handing one to Jack and a second to Mickey.

Great, now they were just making themselves right at home as well. 'Who's the butler?'

'Assistant,' Ianto corrected.

'Fiancé,' Jack added, meeting Ianto's eyes.

Mickey looked at Ianto and then back at Jack. 'No, seriously? You and him?' Jack shrugged. 'You're mental.'

'I'll try not to take offense to that,' Ianto quipped. 'Mind you, I've been telling Jack that for years.'

'Sorry, Mickster, but you just aren't my type,' Jack apologised.

'Alright,' Mickey said, pushing himself upright on the sofa, realising it was his sofa, and being slightly annoyed that Jack had knicked his keys and broken into his house. 'Is one of you two clowns going to tell me what’s going on?'

Jack grinned over the top of his mug. 'Ianto, would you like the honours?'

'You've been implanted with an alien microchip which has been transmitting data from your visual cortex. There's a race of aliens that have been using this transmitter to gather intelligence.'

'You chipped me? Like a dog?'

'Not us. Them,' Jack scolded. 'Keep up.'

'So, why'd you clock me one then?' he said, trying to massage the ache out of his neck.

Ianto continued his explanation. 'We deactivated the transmitter so that you're no longer one of their little spies, just temporarily.'

'We had to make sure you didn't see us attack you, though,' Jack added. 'They just think you fell over or fainted or something. Come tomorrow they'll be receiving you loud and clear again.'

'You mean it's still in me? You didn't take it out?'

'Yep. Shouldn't be a problem getting through airport security though. You've been wandering around undetected for days.'

'Hang on,' he said as his brain caught up. 'They've shoved a chip in me, without my knowing, and you've been following me? Bloody hell. You're serious, aren't you?'

Jack sipped his tea nonchalantly. 'You had reason to doubt me?'

'Do you always turn up when things are going to shit?'

'That's the job in a nutshell,' Ianto replied.

'Why would they be tracking me? What's so interesting about my life?'

'No idea. Chips, football, beer, Hollyoaks...' Jack yawned theatrically. 'Don't know why they'd bother. Probably bored out of their brains by now.'

Mickey tried to stop and think for a moment. He'd been in worse situations, but all of that craziness was over now. He'd come back to Earth to start over. Adventures with The Doctor and Captain Cheese were part of history. At least they had been.

'How'd you find out?'

'Your company was recently acquired by someone we've been keeping an eye on. Only then did we discover that the owners before the ones who just sold out, bought the company from someone else calling themselves the Torchwood Corporation.'

Mickey smirked. 'You're telling me you lost track of your own company?'

Jack stared down at him disdainfully. He was never fully going to get over what a balls up London had made of things, and here he was, still cleaning up their messes. He cleared his throat loudly and pressed on. 'Turns out we're not the only ones interested in this recent acquisition. They've pissed off the wrong aliens, and now we're stuck in the middle of corporate espionage. They wanna know what your company is up to, and it's employees like you who are unwittingly going to do that for them.'

'So, what now? We go back in there and bust some heads?'

'Now you go back to your job,' Jack replied. 'Only this time, we see everything you do. Whatever subliminal messages they've been sending should give us some indication of what they're after.'

'Subliminal messages?'

'You forgot to tell him about that part,' Ianto informed him.

'Ah, yes, they're also sending you invisible signals to get you to go certain places. They're looking for something specific. We want to know what it is before they do.'

Mickey shook his head. 'You lot are barking. You want me to be some kind of guinea pig?'

Jack settled his hands in his lap, still perched on the arm of the sofa, looking down at Mickey. 'Think of it more as a double agent. We’ll be with you the entire time. All you have to do is act normal and do whatever your brain tells you to do.'

'Great,' Mickey replied, sounding anything but enthused.

'Tell me you haven't missed this just a little bit?' Jack said, grinning. 'The old band back together again.'

'And here I was thinking Jackie was the only one who could twist my arm,' he moped.

Jack smiled again. 'Get some sleep. You've got a big day tomorrow,' he said, handing him a blanket that had appeared seemingly from nowhere, or at least from the hand of Jack's sharp-suited colleague.

'Hang on, where are you lot sleeping?'

'Your bed, Mickey. There's two of us and one of you. It’s a bit hard to fit two people on a sofa.'

'Not that it hasn't been done before,' Ianto quipped.

'Unless of course you'd like to join us and make it a threesome?' He waggled his eyebrow.

'Sofa's perfect,' Mickey quickly agreed.

He was surprised to wake up the next morning and smell something wafting from his tiny kitchenette. Ianto was in there, cooking. 'Scrambled eggs?' he asked, poking them with the spatula.

'Cheers,' Mickey replied, feeling a bit rough from his night spent on the lumpy sofa. 'Where's Captain Cheese?'

'Making a few calls, checking in with the team back at the hub.' He made it sound so mundane. 'Toast?'

Mickey perched himself on one of the kitchen stools. 'How'd you put up with him?'

Ianto smirked, stirring the eggs. 'He’s easy on the eye. And he knows what he's doing. Mostly,' Ianto qualified.

'Alright, let's say I go along with this. What happens when you find what you’re looking for?'

'We're hoping it doesn't come to that. We're still trying to figure out how to deactivate the rest of the network. Chances are you're not the only one, but yours was the only signal we could pinpoint and trace. We had to be practically on top of you to be close enough to mess with their transmitter. Going back in there will maintain the illusion that no one is watching until we can find out more.'

At this point, Jack entered the kitchen.

'Once you're inside, keep an eye out for anything suspicious,' he instructed. 'If you think someone is acting out of sorts, get close to them. We should be able to pick up if they're transmitting a signal once your within range and we can kill it.'

'Why me? '

Jack shrugged. 'Wrong place, wrong time.'

'Story of my life,' Mickey chuckled.

'Are you ready?' Jack asked.

'Do I have a choice?' he asked rhetorically.

'Lie down.'

'Huh?'

'We're about to reactivate the transmitter. You need to make it look like you just woke up. Here, take this,' Jack said, handing him a tiny earpiece. 'Once you're back online, we can't be seen. You can communicate with us though this. It's voice activated. We've hacked the transmitter's visual feed so we'll be watching. Ready?'

Mickey took the tiny earpiece and slipped it in his ear, completely invisible once it was lodged deep inside. 'Fine, I'll do it, but you're gonna owe me for this.'

The pair of Torchwood operatives disappeared out the door and into the big black SUV that was parked further up the street.

When the transmitter came back online, he didn’t feel any different. Then again, he hadn’t known that someone had shoved a chip in his brain and was giving him subliminal messages, either. He really had thought he’d left all of this well behind him. 'Should've known Captain Cheese would come along and ruin it,' he muttered.

'Hey, I heard that,' piped the voice in his ear, forgetting that they would see and hear everything now.

Mickey set off down the street, trying to ignore the feeling he was being watched. By the time he stepped off the bus and entered the plain looking office building, he’d almost managed to forget the whole thing. Just play it cool, Smith, he told himself.

'You getting all this?' he asked under his breath.

'Every last sexy leg in a skirt' Jack replied.

'Not what I meant.'

He greeted a few of his mates good morning and proceeded towards his desk. He'd never had a desk job before, but this wasn’t so bad. His computer was banned from Facebook but apart from that it was pretty okay. He was almost as his desk when he suddenly felt compelled to head back the other way towards the kitchen.

'Don’t drink the coffee,' Jack warned.

'Why? Is it drugged or something?'

'No, just that Ianto will never forgive you if you do.'

'Right.'

Once he got as far as the kitchen, he spotted the corridor that ran much further back into the building. He’d never been down there, or seen anyone else go out through that door either, come to think of it. Apparently it just lead to a carpark and a place for keeping the dumpsters, but now he was just itching to know what was behind the door at the other end. Whether that was because he knew something was shifty or because someone was reprogramming his brain he couldn't tell.

Before he had a chance to think, he saw Stinky Phil wander past him and down the hall. Everyone hated Phil. He was the office manager and he had the worst body odour Mickey had ever smelled. Probably going out the back to have a smoko next to the dumpsters. No wonder he stunk.

Phil stopped for a moment and turned back looking straight at Mickey. 'Smith! Are you loitering when you should be working?'

'Just clocked on,' he replied.

'Well, get your coffee and get on with it,' he said, before turning back as continuing down the hall.

'Nice boss,' he heard Jack say.

'Least you don't have to smell him,' Mickey replied. 'Man's never heard of deodorant.' Even as he said it, he saw Phil disappear behind the door at the end of the corridor. Quite literally disappear. He didn't open it so much as he walked straight through it.

'What's behind door number one?' Jack asked, having seen the exact same thing.

'Let’s go find out.'

Mickey checked behind him, seeing that the three people who’d been milled about near the kitchen entrance had all disappeared back to their desks, coffee in hand. None of them had apparently witnessed what he just had.

As he came to stand in front of the door, he reached out for the handle, only to find his hand went straight through it, just like Stinky Phil.

'Ooh, perception filter. Very nice,' Jack remarked. 'I think we know now why he stinks. He's not human.'

'And I'm just supposed walk through this?' Mickey asked. 'I'm not going to get sucked into another dimension or something?'

'Unlikely,' Ianto said. 'I mean, it could be a transmat portal. Always a small possibility, but unlikely all the same.'

He wasn't sure he believed Ianto but his brain was going into overdrive urging him to follow Phil. It must have been that stupid chip. Mickey sucked in a breath and stepped through.

Once on the other side, there was no car park, no dumpsters, no executives-only kitchenette, or stationery cupboard, just a huge room with a hulking piece of machinery sat right in the middle of it, glowing bright pink and purple. He expected to see Stinky Phil standing there, but he was nowhere to be seen.

'What the hell is that thing?'

'Ooh,' came the exclamation from Jack.

'Yep, that could explain a lot,' he heard Ianto add.

'What?' Mickey said, feeling very left out of the picture.

'It’s a quasar mind reductor.'

'Yeah, gonna need you to be more specific than that,' Mickey replied. 'Tiny little Earth brain, remember?' He stepped up closer, feeling the small radiant heat emanating from the huge machine as it hummed a low sound.

'Ever wondered how the stock market works?' Jack asked

'Not really, no.'

'Well, people go around all day, every day, buying and selling stuff, and the price is dictated by the demand for certain investments. Only some people prefer to just buy and sell stuff they don't need so that they can make a profit out of the fluctuations in price.'

'And this is important why?'

'Well, a mind reductor allows you to alter the perception of certain things, make one investment appear less favourable over another. Effectively it means you can capitalise on changes in the market in order to make a profit. And this thing can transmit that signal for thousands of light years, meaning you can control the decisions of a lot of people all at once, causing minute shifts that have huge ripple effects in the price of stocks.'

'Insider trading, in other words,' Ianto replied.

'Isn’t that like illegal?'

'On Earth, yes. Other planets, not so much.'

'So, they’re screwing with the stock market?' Mickey asked

'Yup. Just not the one on this planet. The guys who’ve had you being their little gopher are going to be mightily pissed off if they aren't already. They’re what you’d call intergalactic investment bankers, and this baby has been screwing with their portfolio valuation.'

'So, I’m meant to destroy it or something?'

'Oh, no,' Jack said. 'Definitely not. That’s what they want you to do. Destroy it and you could be sending the entire universe's financial system into chaos.'

Mickey huffed loudly. 'Would you stop talking about me like I don’t have a say in my own actions?'

'But you don’t,' Ianto replied. 'Not in relation to this. Now that they know what it is and where it is... ah yes, here they come.'

'Here what come?'

What Mickey couldn't see was the CCTV camera feeds from the rest of the office and the two dozen or so people who were suddenly being compelled to join him.

'We should probably do something about that,' he heard Jack say. 'Once there’s enough of them down there....'

'Already on it,' Ianto replied. There was a fizz and a crackle and Mickey’s head felt like it was about to explode.

'What the hell did you do?'

'Just fried their chips. The computer kind, that is. Whist you've been down there exploring I've been working on the link between your chip and the others in the network. That ought to stop everyone from receiving subliminal messages, you included.'

'Won't they just come down here and take it anyway? Once they now know where it is?' He pictured a bunch of aliens suddenly storming in with massive guns, ready to take the thing apart or blow it up. Or maybe they'd just send down a giant laser beam from space and obliterate the entire office block.

'They might, except they know that if they step foot on a Level Five planet, Torchwood are gonna send their arses straight to a Shadow Proclamation prison ship,' Jack explained. 'They can look, but they can’t touch. As if they weren't pissed off enough already.'

'Oh, but abducting people and sticking stuff in their heads is okay?'Mickey said, feeling indignant.

'Universal law is somewhat grey and complicated,' Jack replied, as if that made it okay. 'They'll claim it was just observational research of primitive species.'

At that moment, Stinky Phil made his reappearance. 'Smith! What are you doing down here?'

'Okay, you need to stop him,' came the order from Jack. 'We assumed someone had just stumbled on something they shouldn't have, but he's in direct violation about twenty laws.'

Lost for ideas, Mickey did the only thing he could think of. He crash tackled the guy.

'Please don't hurt me!' he wailed, as Mickey had him in a headlock. 'I was only doing what they told me!' Mickey let go and Phil shriveled up into a sniveling ball on the floor.

'Not what I thought he'd go with,' Jack said, referring to Mickey’s efforts.

'Inelegant, but I suppose it works,' Ianto replied.

When Mickey walked out of the office, past all his fellow co-workers who were looking dazed and confused, complaining of terrible headaches, he found Jack and Ianto out the front, waiting for him. Stinky Phil was already cuffed and in the back of the SUV.

'Good job, Mickster,' Jack beamed.

'So, what happens now? They get to just keep this thing here, screwing up somebody’s stock price?'

'As if we’d ever let that happen, Mickey. By the time anybody realises what's happened, we’ll have come in and done a little programming of our own. What should people invest in, Ianto?'

'Candy floss,' he replied. 'You can’t ever have too much candy floss.'

'An excellent idea. I couldn’t agree more. Maybe toffee apples as well? I do love a good toffee apple.'

Mickey looked at the pair of the like they'd gone mad. 'You're gonna fix it so aliens put money into some company that makes fairground junk food?'

'Why not? Who's it gonna harm?'

'So, what happens to me now?' Mickey said.

Jack shoved his hands in his coat pockets. 'I’d start hunting around for a new job. Without their lucrative intergalactic share trading business I suspect the company that’s operating as a front will probably go under by tomorrow.'

'Great. I finally get a job I like and you have to come along and mess it all up.'

'We can always use a spare hand at Torchwood,' Ianto suggested.

'No,' Mickey and Jack both replied in unison.

'Okay...' Ianto said, stepping away from the argument.

'No offence, mate,' Mickey said, 'but life is a whole lot easier without you lot in it.'

'On that we’re agreed,' Jack said, reaching out and shaking Mickey’s had before dragging him in to an embarrassing bear hug. 'But if you’re ever in Cardiff, call me and we’ll have a drink. I know a great little bar where the locals aren’t really locals at all.'