m_findlow

Title: Banding together
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 2,751 words
Content notes: Sequel to my own fic Homecoming. Spoilers for Big Finish audioplays Uncanny Valley, Fall to Earth, and The Torchwood Archive.
Author notes: Written for Challenge 9 - Frank Sinatra Song Titles (My way) at ficlet_zone
Summary: In the aftermath of Jack's return to Cardiff, bigger troubles are beginning to brew.

Ianto returned from the kitchen with a tray containing two mugs of coffee. He was surprised to find Jack curled up on the sofa under the blanket he himself had been snoozing under only an hour before.

From the deep slow breaths he was taking Ianto could tell Jack was deeply asleep and would stay that way for some time. Time enough for him to have done some digging of his own to find out a little bit more about what Jack had been up to before he’d dropped in unexpectedly, looking like a drowned rat. After months of no contact from Jack, Ianto was overbrimming with questions. Where had he been, what had he been doing, and had he managed to get to the bottom of The Committee and stop them?

It didn’t take long before a police report came up, flagging a serious car crash that had left the occupant, one famous recluse and tech genius Neil Redmond, dead. That wasn’t coincidence. Ianto grabbed his keys and headed out, safe in the knowledge Jack would still be asleep when he returned.

He flashed his credentials at the police station, taking custody of the body on the premise of being from the Coroner's Office. For good measure he hacked the police systems, also commandeering what was left of the vehicle, having been towed to an impound several miles away. He didn’t want them finding evidence that Jack had been in the car. They’d already tried to pin him for the murder of George Wilson. Another high profile death with Jack’s fingerprints on it would be much harder to hide. In a city as small as Cardiff, Jack would be hard to hide.

A quick search of the vehicle uncovered a gun, no doubt the one that had been responsible for the bullet hole in Jack’s coat. The one he’d probably hoped Ianto hadn't noticed. He pocketed the gun, and ran a blue light torch over the car. The lack of blood was mystifying. A car crash and a fatality but no blood was almost unheard of. Not impossible, just highly unlikely.

When he retuned to the hub Jack was still asleep, just as he’d predicted. You have so much explaining to do, Ianto thought, eager to find out what had been going on these past few months. Even tonight's events left more questions than answers. He was still running database searches to cross reference anything to do with Neil Redmond with the research on The Committee they had so far when the monotony of waiting for the computer search sent him drifting off to sleep, head slumping on his elbow on the desk.

A hand on his shoulder woke him. He looked up to find a disheveled Jack standing over him, hair sticking out all over the place, still dressed in the pajamas Ianto had forced on him.

'Hey.'

'Sleeping on the job, again?' Jack joked. 'What would the boss say if he were here?'

'I made coffee and you didn't even drink it. I should be the one who's offended.'

Jack chuckled. It was such a good sound. 'For the record, I did drink it. It was cold, but it was still amazing.' Jack heaved a sigh. 'I have so much to tell you I don’t even know where to begin.'

Ianto fixed him with a serious look. 'I know about Neil Redmond,' he said, cutting to the chase. 'I know he died last night and that you were somehow involved. Why don’t you start there.'

Jack slumped into the desk chair next to him, suddenly looking tired again. He rubbed a hand over his face.

'I took the liberty of having the body transported here so Owen can run an autopsy,' Ianto informed him, 'but perhaps you can shortcut the process.'

Jack's hand dropped from his face. 'You have the body? From the house or the car crash?'

Ianto frowned. 'The car crash, of course. Unless you're telling me you killed someone else as well?'

'I didn't kill anybody,' Jack insisted. 'Why was the body at the morgue?'

Ianto's expression was one of confusion. 'I would have thought that was obvious. Dead bodies in suspicious circumstances generally end up at the Coroner's Office.'

Jack's blue eyes bored into him. 'If you’ve got the body then you need to show me.'

Ianto calmly lead Jack down to the morgue, though they both knew the way. He selected one of the many identical doors that lined the walls on three sides, fortunately at waist height and no higher. He pressed a couple of buttons on the front of the cryo-chamber inside and it hissed quietly as it withdrew itself from the wall, the top sliding away to reveal the body inside.

'He's in one piece,' Jack declared, sounding mystified.

'Shouldn't he be? You don't normally lose a limb in a car crash. In fact, he looks pretty good for a dead guy,' Ianto observed, 'even after he’s been frozen in one of our cryo-chambers for a few hours.'

'That’s because he’s not really dead. Hand me a scalpel,' Jack instructed.

Not really dead? He was beginning to wonder if Jack had lost his mind as he retrieved a set of medical equipment.

Jack made a large incision in the side of the torso, roughly triangular, and then pulled back the flap of skin. 'Meet Neil Redmond,' Jack said.

Ianto stood there in awe of what was under the skin. It was all bright silver mechanics and computer chips. 'My God. He’s not human.'

'He’s AI.'

Ianto leaned closer to the body. 'But he looks so real. I mean, I’ve seen him do press conferences and everything. Even read articles about him being a bit of a playboy. How is this possible?'

'Because Robo Neil here has been learning how to be Neil Redmond for years. The real Neil never survived the car crash the way they reported it. He was crippled, forced to live out his days in a wheelchair as a recluse. He taught him.'

'But why?'

Jack sighed, remembering his conversation with Neil last night. 'Gave him a second chance at living, I suppose. He lived vicariously through a version of himself that could walk and talk and carry on like nothing had ever happened. Only he lost control. The AI ended up controlling his life.'

That’s loyalty Jack. That’s love. Redmond's words came back to him. Jack cast a glance back at Ianto. It was still the early hours of the morning. Ianto should have been at home asleep. Instead he'd been out, covering Jack's arse, doing the things that Jack himself should have dealt with. That was loyalty. That was love.

'You went out there to blow his cover,' Ianto surmised, breaking him from his thoughts. 'And he tried to kill you.'

Jack caught Ianto eyeing his arm now fully healed. 'It was only a graze. It didn’t kill me. It was when I was trying to make my getaway that he strangled me. I couldn’t control the car anymore. I had to crash it if only to stop him.'

'You died.' It was a statement rather than a question.

Jack nodded. 'Yeah. It was worth it, though. Even then he didn’t die so easily. He was in two halves, ten feet apart. That was how I left him. Someone must have been following us, pulled the two halves back together and shoved him in the car wreck. That's why I was confused when you said they'd taken him to the morgue. When I'd left him, he didn't even look like a human. There was no way even the dumbest police officer could mistake him for human.'

'There was a gun, too.' Ianto held up the plastic bag that had been stored at the end of the chamber.

Jack frowned at it. 'And I’ll bet you anything someone put my fingerprints all over it.'

'The Committee?'

'Got it in one.' Jack shook his head. 'I should've cleaned this up the minute I got back. I didn't think The Committee would mobilize this quickly. I thought I had time. I was going to call in the team and then-'

'And then I started fussing over you and you were too exhausted to argue,' Ianto finished for him.

Jack's expression softened. 'Yeah. First time in a long time I've actually felt safe.' They locked eyes for what felt like an eternity to Jack.

'I'm glad, then,' Ianto replied, his gaze not leaving Jack's for some time. When he finally did break away, his eyes cast back down at the AI corpse lying in the cryo-chamber. 'You say the real Neil Redmond is dead, too?'

Jack nodded again. 'Robo Neil realised he wasn't going to play along anymore and killed him. He has a castle about fifteen miles outside Cardiff.'

Ianto gave the tiniest nod of acknowledgment. 'I know it.'

Of course he did, Jack thought. He'd done his homework.

Ianto's head dropped sideways in thought. 'If The Committee got to the AI, is it possible they also took the real Neil's body?'

Jack frowned. 'Why would they let the morgue have the AI body? Why not give them the real one? No one would know he was paralysed once he was dead. As soon as they cut him open they'd realise the truth. The Committee needed the AI to continue operating the company, selling Gallotyne to anyone and everyone.'

'What's Gallotyne? I tried to find out about it, but it's all very proprietary. Even the Torchwood systems couldn't hack in and find out anything useful.'

'I know. That's why I had to go straight to the source. It's a missile guidance technology,' Jack replied. 'Supposed to think for itself and prevent detonating over wrong targets. The potential to avoid innocent casualties is huge. Only once everyone on the planet has Gallotyne installed in their weapons and defence systems, The Committee are planning on taking it over, hijacking the systems and sending the planet into a nuclear holocaust that we can't even begin to imagine.'

Ianto ran a hand over the cool skin, hardly able to believe it wasn't real. It felt so real. 'Who has the technology to build something like this?'

'The Ovid Living Doll Company.'

Ianto's eyes shot up to meet Jack's. 'Ovid? Didn't you and Suzie shut them down years ago? I remember reading the file.'

'Blew up their whole Aberfare factory. Only we assumed it was some kind of bizarre mind control that had the locals making robot copies of themselves. Turns out it wasn't as isolated as we thought. Probably a dry run for their real plans, perfecting the technology, working out the kinks.'

'Wouldn't something have flagged in our systems if Ovid were back in action?'

'They kept themselves under the radar. If you went and Googled them now you'd find that the company doesn’t exist. Never did from what I could find out. Neil was instructed to shut it down before anyone knew what they'd been doing. I only got wind of it because a woman who worked there tipped me off. I expect she's dead now, along with everyone else who worked there that knew anything. They were promised salvation when The Committee enacted their plans, but it was just a lie. The Committee don't plan on letting any of us survive.'

'So, there’s more than one of these things?'

Jack shrugged. 'Who knows. If this AI could successfully take over Neil’s life and business interests without anyone so much as noticing it wasn’t really Neil, then who knows who else they might have made replicas of. Key businessmen, politicians, United Nations officials, hell, even presidents. We don’t know who is human and who isn’t anymore.'

'Oh,' Ianto said, feeling a growing sense of dead.

'Oh, what?' Jack asked.

'I've just had a thought as to why they left this body to be found.'

'Why's that?'

'They uncover that he's a robot and frame you in the process. They claim that you substituted the robot Neil in place of the real one and that you were keeping the real Neil hostage. It gets huge media coverage. Gallotyne suddenly becomes unpalatable, but The Committee now have the technology. A new competitor appears out of nowhere and starts knocking on the door of every Artemis customer with a promise to replace all Gallotyne enabled systems with their own software.'

Jack nodded slowly, the realisation sinking in. 'They get rid of me and ensure Gallotyne lives on,' he added. 'It's sick and twisted, but it's almost too perfect.' He glanced up at Ianto. 'What they didn't plan on however, was you going in there to steal the body. They assumed Torchwood would get to the crash site and find it gone. Knowing it was a robot, we'd never think to check the morgue. Before we knew what was what, there'd be police breaking down our doors to arrest me for international espionage and terrorist activities. Oh, Ianto, I could kiss you.'

He raised a curious eyebrow at Jack. 'Foiled their plan by accident?'

Jack chuckled. 'Right now, I'll take any luck we can get.' He sighed and blew out a breath. 'I shouldn't have tried to fix this in my own. I very nearly played right into their hands. I tried to do things my way and look how that turned out.'

Ianto placed a reassuring hand on his arm. 'You weren't alone. Maybe we weren't there with you, but we've been doing whatever we can to find out who they are, what they're planning, and how to stop them. Now that you're back, we can pool what we know. No more running off on solo missions.'

'Pot meet kettle,' Jack teased. 'I'm more worried about you running off on your own.'

Ianto subconsciously rubbed the side of his leg. 'Trust me, my days of taking matters into my own hands are well and truly done.'

Jack grabbed Ianto and hugged him. 'Thank you. Thank you for not being mad at me for leaving.'

Ianto let his own arms reciprocate, enjoying the feeling of having Jack back in them. 'What would be the point? You'd only waltz back in, hug me and say you were sorry, and I'd forgive you.'

'Is that what this is?' Jack asked, pulling away slightly.

Ianto gave him a tired, yet coy little smile. 'I'll leave that to you to decide.'

Jack leaned in and kissed him, properly this time, long and slow. 'Any chance that coffee you offered a few hours ago is still on the table? Hot this time? You don't even wanna know what I've been forced to put up with while I've been gone.'

Ianto managed a small smile. 'I think I can manage that. Then maybe an hour or two of sleep? I suspect we've got a lot of work ahead of us.'

'You sleep,' Jack ordered. 'You've already done plenty tonight. I'll start trying to unravel the rest of their plan. Once Tosh gets in, she can start pulling apart Neil's circuits and see what data she can get off them. One more reason The Committee didn't want us getting our hands on him. I suspect Robo-Neil still has plenty he can tell us.'

Ianto smirked. 'Owen will be thrilled to be off the hook for that autopsy.'

'That'll give him time to help Gwen scour Artemis company records and compile a list of every customer that has purchased Gallotyne technology.'

'How will that help us? If The Committee are just going to go in and sell them a replacement of then same technology then...'

Jack patted the AI. 'Neil was the only one who had all the specs for Gallotyne's design. Chances are, it's right here in his memory banks.' He gave Ianto a look and grinned. 'How do you fancy going into the arms dealer market?'

'We're going to sell them Gallotyne?'

'Or at least a version that isn't prone to being taken over and used to wipe out the entire planet. We get in before The Committee does. Tell them Gallotyne is flawed and dangerous, then sell them an alternative. We flood the market before they even get a foot in the door. Neil designed it to be a safe weapons system. What better way to honor his legacy?'

'And The Committee? You think that'll be the end of them?'

Jack shook his head. 'No. No, I think this is just the tip of the iceberg, but it's a start.'