Fandomweekly Challenge 17 - Backed into a corner

[m_findlow]

Title: Backed into a corner
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M (language)
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: Spoilers for Big Finish audioplay The Conspiracy.
Author notes: Written for Challenge 17 - Altered state at fandomweekly
Summary: Owen is confronted by someone needing answers.

'Yeah, alright,' Owen said, rubbing a hand across his tired face as he listened to Ianto on the other end of the phone. 'Have a good shift, yeah?' God but these night shifts were killing him. He'd be glad when the rota switched next week, leaving Ianto to man the fort. Not that he should probably complain. Twice this week already he'd had to call Ianto in to assist with weevils, playing cat and mouse all over the city. When Jack got back from wherever he was, he was going to get such a bollocking.

It took three attempts to get the key in the lock, twisting it and pushing open the door. He almost tripped on the newspaper lying on the floor, shoved through the letter flap. He bent down to pick it up, wondering how it had gotten there. He didn't get the newspaper delivered. It provided just the right amount of distraction such that he hadn't noticed the man standing just inside his flat, off to the left of the door. The first sign that Owen wasn't alone was the body that wrapped around his bent frame, and the sharp pain of something biting his neck.

He sprang up involuntarily against his assailant, but wished he hadn't as the wave of dizziness swept over him. He fell sideways against the wall, seeing the man for the first time. He was slender and tall, dressed in a long dark trench coat and hat, with the blackest five o'clock shadow Owen had ever seen. Owen's hands pressed back against the wall as another wave of dizzying nausea hit him.

'Who are you?' Owen growled. 'What do you want?'

The man stood there as he pushed away from the wall, staggering a few steps, his thigh clipping that hard corner of the sideboard and sending him to his knees. Owen didn't need a medical degree to know he'd been drugged.

'Why don't you sit down before you hurt yourself?' the man suggested. 'You're no good to me dead.'

Owen shook his head, crawling across the floor. The kitchen. He had an anti-toxin kit in the top drawer if he could just get to it. He kept his head down and crawled, preparing to be assaulted at any moment. Whether it was his perception of time or just sheer luck, he made it there without having to put up any kind of fight. As he reached up for the drawer, a new dread flooded him. His hands. He couldn't feel his hands. His right hand fumbled at the knob but no matter how he tried, he couldn't get it to grip. He clawed desperately at the drawer trying to get it open, ignoring the fact that if he couldn't grasp a drawer, he'd have no luck extracting a needle from a zippered case and injecting himself with an antidote. He let his arms drop as he flailed like a fish out of water, paralysed on the cold kitchen floor tiles.

The man stood over him and gave him a disappointed look. 'Are you done now?'

'Just kill me and get it over with.'

'Weren't you listening before? I told you you're no good to me dead. The paralysis is just a side effect.'

'Side effect of what?'

'Think of it as a truth serum, though far more effective than anything humans have developed.'

Owen froze, but this time it was from fear rather than the drugs. All his Torchwood access codes, entrances to the hub, secret caches of alien technology, all of it. Just forming a cohesive thought was becoming difficult. Lying would be near impossible.

The man knelt down on one knee at Owen's side. 'I have two very important questions for you. Firstly, I'd like to know where your boss is.'

'You and me both,' Owen grunted, trying to sit up but finding his legs refusing to help push him back against the kitchen cupboards.

'I find that hard to believe.'

'Yeah, well he fucked off months ago,' Owen sneered, 'gone to shut you lot down,' he added, surmising that the man was part of The Committee, or at least one of their lackeys. 'Guess he should've just stuck around here and waited for you to come to us.'

'He has something we want.'

Owen quelled the urge to vomit, afraid he might drown it in, slumped as he was. 'An overinflated ego?'

The man was unperturbed by Owen's sarcasm. 'Where is Object One?'

Owen scoffed out a laugh. 'Object One?' That was just a story. Object One or the Red Key, or whatever you wanted to call it was a myth, even by Torchwood standards. 'Doesn't exist.'

'Your Captain has Object One. This much we know.'

Owen grimaced. 'Then you know more than I do,' he said, struggling not to say any more. He'd rifled through the stacks of files on Ianto's desk every night, trying to keep up to date with his own research on The Committee. Every time they got close to figuring out where Jack might be, he managed to slip through their fingers. Owen felt Ianto's frustration just as keenly. Stupid bastard needed their help if he'd just let them get in touch with him.

'What are his movements? Who has he been talking to?'

'Ismir, Caracas, St Etienne, Guangzhou...' Owen felt the words fall out of his mouth before he could stop them. So far, none of them had any connections they could find, but that didn't mean The Committee couldn't tie them together.

The man removed his hat, setting it on the kitchen bench above them. 'Interesting... See, and you thought you had nothing useful to tell me.' He pulled across a bar stool, letting it scrape loudly across the tiles. 'We've got eight hours before that serum wears off and twelve before you have to return to work. I think it will be a very productive time indeed.'