m_findlow

Title: Mass employment (Part Two)
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairings: Jack, Suzie
Word Count: 6,013 words
Rating: PG
Notes: Written for Challenge 98 - Factory at anythingdrabble
Summary: Jack has taken an interest in the latest census data. Spoilers for BigFinish audioplay "The Torchwood Archives" and "Uncanny Valley".

Suzie turned around to study the factory workers. Some of them were piecing together mechanical parts, others were stitching together clothes behind giant sewing machines. Others were tending to large vats, stirring something inside them that was both steaming and steaming and rather acrid smelling, even from this distance. 'Do you know what the really strange thing is?' she asked.

'I think we've already established quite a list,' Jack replied.

'No one here has even taken any notice of us. I mean, we've been stand here, poking through their time cards and not one person has given us the eye.'

'Maybe they think we're just the quality control inspectors.'

'All the more reason I'd expect a few wandering eyes.'

Jack made a point of singling out the friendliest looking worker on the floor near them and made to approach. 'Hi there, Jean,' he said, spotting her her name tag as she hunched over her sewing machine. He perched himself on the edge of her workbench and smiled. 'By gosh, Jean is such a lovely name,' he gushed, turning on what Suzie knew to be his standard charm offensive. 'I had an auntie named Jean. Baked the most amazing apple pie. I bet you'd whip up a mean apple pie when you're not stuck in here, slaving away.'

Jean's gaze drifted up to him for a moment registering him there, before dropping back to the garment scrunched up beneath her overlocker needle.

'No time for chit-chat, huh? That boss of yours must be a real slave driver. What's say I buy you a drink after work? Then we can have a proper chat. Get to know one another. What do you say?'

The machine started up again and Jack had to pull his hand away before it and the fabric he'd been leaning on got sucked under the ravenous needle and thread.

'I'll be at the pub, waiting for you,' he said, standing back up.

'Someone completely immune to your charms,' Suzie teased. 'That must be a first.'

Jack fixed her with a firm look. 'Not a first,' he replied, knowing he was referring to her. 'My ego will survive, if that's what you're worried about.'

She rolled her eyes at him and turned around. She was forced to come to an abrupt halt as she nearly walked straight into one of the workers, marching across the factory floor with a large, heavy apron tied across his front.

'Sorry,' she apologised, 'Um...' she found herself searching for his name tag on his shirt and then, having spotted it, looked back up at his face. Ivan? Not a terribly uncommon name, but... She looked back down the way they'd come earlier. There was Ivan still standing there mutely near the door. The Ivan she'd nearly stacked into simply kept walking, eventually reaching the large vats and bending down to adjust some kind of pressure nozzle.

'Wait a minute. If that was Ivan, then who...' Her confused gaze drifted back to Jack.

Jack turned on his heel, taking a full three hundred and sixty look around them, before Suzie noticed him frowning at a large roller door next to a forklift. He marched over to it and threw open the large sliding door, revealing an army of people just standing there. 'But wait, there's more,' he announced.

Suzie stepped inside the huge storeroom, wall to wall with human figures standing there in neat little rows. There must have been at least two hundred of them in here, varying in age from small, children through to elderly old women.

'I think we now know why they haven't been doing any deliveries,' Jack said. 'They're not making to custom order. They're stockpiling.'

Suzie wandered between the statues. 'My God, they look so real.' She reached up and touched the face of a woman, flinching as she pulled back her hand. The skin felt so lifelike. 'I've never seen anything like them.'

'They're certainly high quality,' Jack agreed, fingering the uniform of one dressed as a postal worker, 'but not exactly what I expected.'

'You thought they'd be inflatable?' She wouldn't admit that she'd once bought one online, partly for a laugh and partly to see if they were any good, but found that the cheap latex was cold and clammy and none of the bits she was interested in gave her any sense of erotic pleasure. Oh well, it had only been forty quid and now lived in a temporary storage shed along with everything else in her life she'd lost interest in. Taking home a bloke from a bar was far more satisfying, and taking home someone from work was even better. She didn't have to bother with the chitchat, sussing them out as an unlikely serial killer candidate, before taking them to bed. Owen wasn't the greatest shag she'd ever had, but he wasn't the worst either. And he was just so bloody convenient. Never expected her to call back or leave whining messages on her voicemail asking her whether she thought they'd been good enough in bed and could they hook up again? When her conquests started stalking the same bar for nights on end hoping she'd show, she knew she'd have to give up going there for a few months, just until Mr Desperate gave up his futile efforts. Owen at least didn't do needy or kiss and cuddle or "was it good for you?". He wanted the same thing she did - a decent shag without all the baggage.

'Maybe we could take one home with us?' Suzie suggested.

Jack smirked at her, raising a cheeky eyebrow. 'Suzie Costello, are you suggesting we have a threesome?'

'In your dreams, Jack. I was thinking more along the lines of having it man reception. What about this one?' she asked, picking out bearded old man in his sixties. He looked about as Welsh as they came and just boring enough to detract anyone from hanging around too long. She held its arm up to wave at Jack, and then suddenly its other arm reached across and clenched tightly around her forearm.

'Shit!' she cried out, pulling hard to free her arm and backing away from it as quickly as she could. As soon as she was out of reach, the man's arms relaxed back at its sides, as if it had never moved in the first place.

Jack gently grabbed her by the arms, standing protectively over her. 'You okay?'

She nodded. 'Yeah. Just caught me by surprise, that's all.'

He kept his grip on her for a few moments longer, watching each and every one of the mannequins for any sign of further movement. That was so Jack, she thought, trying to be all chivalrous. It didn't fill her with that same sense of surety that she assumed he meant it to. Everyone swooned over Jack's attentions. Most girls in Cardiff would, chew off their right arm to have him touch them like that, but not her. She wondered what he'd be like in bed. Would he be all gentle and nice or would he be feisty and domineering? It probably wouldn't take much to get him into bed, but she didn't want him going all honorable on her halfway through. Besides, once she'd heard him begging her to let him go over the edge she'd probably lose all respect for him. There was nothing more undignified than a man begging for his orgasm.

'How did it do that?' Suzie asked. 'Just start moving all on its own?'

'Must have some kind of artificial intelligence programming.'

'You mean it can think for itself?'

'React to external stimuli, yes,' Jack agreed.

Suzie scoffed. 'Half my dates can't even think for themselves.' And that was kind of how she liked them, if she was honest.

'You should frequent better bars,' Jack replied, finally letting his hands drop from around her arms, stepping closer to the army of dolls. 'You know, usually these kinds of things are made to be appealing to the eye. They are for pleasure after all, but just look at that guy over there,' he said, pointing. 'He's more butcher than butch, if you know what I mean. You're gonna have to get me pretty drunk before I take him home for the night.'

As Suzie studied each of them she spotted two more Ivans and another Jean amongst them. 'They're just copies,' she said. 'Why are they making copies of themselves?' If they could fashion these dolls into anyone, make them look so truly lifelike, why not make them into attractive people, just as Jack had pointed out before. Just the thought of the ones done up as children made her feel sick. Were there really people put there ordering sex dolls in the form of children? She supposed it was better than using real children, but not by much.

'I think the copies are making copies of themselves,' Jack said. 'And I don't think it's got anything to do pleasure. They're being built for some purpose - meant to blend in with the everyday - but why?'

Suzie turned her head to stare back out through the roller door at the factory beyond. The lack of response she they'd gotten from the factory workers could have been attributed to them being drugged or put under some kind of hypnotic suggestion, but just as easily Jack could be right. They could just be more of these mechanical dolls.

'But if these people aren't really people.. What happened to the real villagers? Hard to hide the bodies of a hundred people without anyone noticing.'

'There are ways,' Jack replied darkly. 'We don't even know how long this had been going on. Maybe these AIs have been replicating themselves for decades, palming themselves off as the real deal.'

'I suppose it would account for the unusual census records. And why there's no other shops in the village, or any need for them.'

'Who needs a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker where all you really need is to plug yourself into the wall to recharge? I'll bet you anything the power usage in this region is through the roof.'

'So, what do we do now? Take one back to the hub and pull it apart? Find out how they work?'

Jack shook his head. 'We don't know what would happen if we tried to take one. We have no idea how strong the actually are. And...' he said, shoving his hands deep into his coat pockets, 'I've seen replicating AI technology before. If it feels threatened, it'll do anything to survive. A few dozen can wipe out an entire planet.'

'So, what are you suggesting? That we destroy them?'

'That's exactly what I'm suggesting. We blow up the whole place. A few carefully placed blocks of enriched ephilium will send this place and everything in it sky high. We keep a few in the back of the SUV.'

Suzie's eyes blew wide at the admission

'Don't worry,' he said, looking completely at ease. 'Totally stable and safe in its current form. Needs a good old electrical charge to make it go off with a bang.' He chuckled. 'You didn't think I'd really keep unstable explosives in the SUV, did you?'

'I sometimes wonder,' she replied dryly.

'Should be more than enough to do the trick. The town of Aberfare will jut be another victim of old buildings falling into disrepair, faulty electrical wiring and vandals. It'll be nothing more than a pile of ash before anyone finds it.'

'Shouldn't we be trying to find out more? Like who's behind this place. Why they need all these robots?'

'If they've been doing this as long as we think, they're bound to have left a trail. We'll find it, but in the meantime, we'll have put a serious dent in their plans, whatever they are.'

Suzie took one last glance back at the workers as she followed Jack back out towards the loading bay. In fairness, they creeped her out now and she wouldn't be sorry to see them obliterated. The sooner they got out of here, the better. Before any of them decided they were fed up with their visitors.

As she began walking again, she nearly collided straight into the back of Jack, who had suddenly stopped without warning. 'Oi, watch it!' she complained, shoving her hands into his back to stop herself. She waited for the barbed comment in response but it wasn't forthcoming.

Jack instead knelt down and picked up something from the floor. As he held it up to his face, pinched between his thumb and forefinger, Suzie could see a small silver disc. 'What is that? A part for one of the robots?'

He frowned as he held it between his fingers, a look of disbelief on his face. 'It shouldn't be here,' he muttered, as if only to himself.

'Shouldn't be here?' It didn't look like a thing special as far as she could tell. Anywhere else, she would have simply regarded it as a foreign coin and proceeded to ignore it. 'Jack, what is it?'

'A bad penny,' Jack murmured. He cast his gaze back up at her. 'Suzie Costello, meet Torchwood Object One.'

'Object One?' She'd never even heard of it.

'The very first alien artifact even discovered by Torchwood after it was established, and also the most cursed object ever uncovered.'

'Cursed?' Suzie pulled a face. 'There's no such thing as curses. That's all just utter bollocks.'

'It's true,' Jack insisted. 'This thing has brought me nothing but trouble for decades.'

Now she knew Jack was being ridiculous. He hadn't worked for Torchwood for decades. Ten years maybe. Fifteen at a pinch. Certainly no more than twenty. He wasn't that old after all.

Jack held it up for her to get a good look at the plain silver disc. Apart from a single eight pointed start etched onto one side, and small at that, it was otherwise unadorned.

'This shouldn't exist,' Jack told her. 'I threw it into the rift years ago to be rid of it. I just don't understand how it could have ended up here.'

Suzie shrugged at the comment. 'You said yourself that the rift is unpredictable at best. It probably just spat it right back out. We know it basically only goes one way most of the time.'

'Also incorrect,' he replied. 'We just don't know where the other end is, or whether it has an end, or multiple ends, maybe thousands of ends that branch out from it, or just drifts around all of time and space, sucking into it whatever it likes.' He squinted at the disc, eyebrows knitting together in a mixture of anger and confusion. 'But here? So close to Cardiff, and in this timeline?' Jack shook his head. 'No. It's too close. All of time and space, a million trillion places it could have ended up and it landed here. That is no coincidence.'

'Can we destroy it? Leave it here to be blown up with everything else?'

Jack chuckled, thought it wasn't with any sort of cheery amusement. 'Believe me, I've tried.'

'So, let's just chuck it back through the rift again and forget about it.'

He shook his head again, shoving the disc deep within his coat pocket. 'Too risky. It wants to be here. It's going to keep finding a way to come back. And in the meantime it's going to cause trouble of a kind we can't even begin to imagine.'

'So, we lock it up. No one touches it. No one even knows about it.' She reached out and put her hand on his arm. 'Just us. Our little secret.'

He shrugged out of her touch 'No. I ignored it for years and that was a mistake. Even locking it up won't stop it. It causes trouble wherever it goes. Unless...'

Suzie caught the strange expression in Jack's eyes. She could sense an idea brewing in his mind. 'Unless what?'

He waited for her eyes to lock into his. 'No one said we had to keep it.'

Suzie folded her arms. 'And who would you suggest keeps it then? Archie?'

'Not Archie. Torchwood One.'

'Torchwood One? Are you mad?' She'd heard Jack come up with a lot of crackpot ideas over the years but this time he'd well and truly lost it.

Jack heaved a sigh. 'Torchwood One has coveted having this for as long as I can remember. They don't know what it is, what it does, or why it's so important. They just know it's Object One, and they'd given anything to have it locked away in their possession. They don't care what it is, they just want it. When they ransacked Torchwood House, they took everything of any value, but the one thing that they really wanted was this. When they didn't find it Yvonne came knocking on my door. She was convinced I had it, that I'd stolen it, and that I was going to somehow use it to bring down Torchwood One.'

'Someone has a bit of a God complex,' Suzie mused.

'So,' Jack said, a glint forming in his eye as his plan began to form, 'let's give them what they want. But I need your help to do it.'

'Me?'

'Yes. You're going to be the one that calls Yvonne and tells her the good news. You've been out on an investigation with me - totally unrelated, which also happens to be true. You've found Object One. You also haven't mentioned it to anyone, especially not me. And, you're willing to let her have it in exchange for some quid pro quo.'

Suzie gave him a look of sheer skepticism. 'And she'll believe that?'

'That a young, ambitious female Torchwood agent might like to get one up on her boss, who also happens to be a major pain in Yvonne's pencil-skirted, peroxide-bleached, power-suited backside?' He grinned. 'You betcha she will.' He tugged the disc out of his pocket and held it out to her.

She took it and lay it flat in the palm of her hand, brushing a finger over its unpolished surface. 'I thought you said it was cursed? Do we really want to give them something cursed?'

Jack snorted. 'I thought you said you didn't believe in curses? Besides, they're nothing more than a glorified research and development installation. No rift. No aliens. What's the worst that could possibly happen?'

Suzie gave it one last look before slipping it into the back pocket of her jeans. If Jack thought it would be fine, who was she to question it?

'Come on,' Jack said. 'Let's get this place lit up like a St David's Day parade. After that, you've got a very important phone call to make.'