(PARODY AMONG US): 7.10 Aftermath

Torchwood Parody Among Us

7.10 Aftermath

Starring Scarlett Johansson, Natalia Cordova Buckley, Ian Alexander, Jason Hughes

Previously On Torchwood

A Long time ago, Carl Summers kidnapped some children and used their imagination to create an intelligence serum - Now, Yvonne Hartman and her supporters have been fired from Torchwood. Object One is to be tracked down and destroyed, and Torchwood's new director, Cherry Classified has arrived and is unsure what to do with her newfound leadership - and the agents that are undecided on this new future for Torchwood... 

Now, The Hub

Anastasia slowly stepped down into the hub. Today another wall was invisible and there was a glowing rod attached to the floor that Ash was applying. "Hey, Ash." Anastasia said, walking in.

"Brilliant to see you," Ash replied. "The new director's going to want to see you."

"Why?" Anastasia said, setting her bag at her desk. "I thought we had been demoted."

"We have," said Ash. "And incidentally, without Stacy, the Coffee machine is broken."

"Curses." Anastasia muttered.  

"Say hello to the director for me," Ash said, and Anastasia stepped into Cherry's office.

"Director." Anastasia said, doing a small bow thing. 

"Oh god, please don't do that, this is stressful enough without me being treated as some almighty officer thing," Cherry said, taking some sort of cheap sports drink out of her bag. 

"I'm sorry. I'm not sure how I should be working here, without all this-" 

Cherry sighed. "I'll level with you. I've never prescribed to the Jack Harkness or Yvonne Hartman models of leadership with all of the secrecy and 'I'm the big strong hero person,' I don't like that. I'm an open book. I want to try to rely on people, see their opinions, and do what I view is the best option in that scenario. I don't want to punish any of you for liking Yvonne. I mean, I sort of have to, but I don't want to treat you any differently, not really. You did what you were told. And so I'm bringing you in here, and I'm telling you the facts, okay?"

She pointed to a screen. 

"You remember Carl Summers? Richardson's former foremost rival and your first mission at Torchwood. Child Abductor. Murderer. Nasty, Nasty Man." 

"Hard to forget."

"He's been murdered in his cell in prison." Cherry said, bluntly. "Well. This is one hell of a first day on the job, huh." 

"Welcome to Torchwood." Anastasia said, calmly. 

The bell rang on Andy's doorstep. He sighed. Today had already been exhausting, he'd dealt with one too many seminars, and he hoped to god this wouldn't be anything major. 

He opened the door. 

"Um...Yvonne?"

Yvonne stood there on the doorstep, in the rain, her usually immaculate hair soaked, and her suit absolutely dripping with water. "Andrew." Yvonne said, exhausted. 

"Oh, um, hi, Yvonne. It's, uh, nice to see you." Andy smiled. 

"Andrew, I'm sorry." Yvonne said, dejected. "Can I come in?" 

* * * 

Cardiff Penitentiary. 

Anastasia had only visited once or twice before, but the place gave her the willies. 

Prisons did that. Nowadays they were filled to the brim - the more people that were locked up the more money the agency behind the prison got. 

It disgusted her. As she and Cherry walked into the cell block, there was jeering, yelling from the prisoners. The Warden sighed, and explained that the more recent inmates were still rather rowdy, and they'd get them into shape, and she and Cherry moved on, deeper into the cell block.

The Warden was right. As they went deeper into the place, the rowdiness somewhat subsided. There were plenty of people lying in their cells - dejected and almost comatose, staring at the stone walls and iron bars that had kept them there for so long. Not even registering anything else anymore. 

It's horrible - Anastasia nearly said as such, but Cherry quieted her. 

They couldn't fix the worlds institutions, that was the job of other people. They could only stop new problems from arising. 

Anastasia didn't agree, but they kept moving. 

"Carl Summer's cell block," The Warden said. "Some kind of suicide." 

Summers was strung up, hung from the ceiling with a rope that the prison definitely wouldn't have let him have. 

The Warden didn't seem to notice, and they moved off, leaving Cherry and Anastasia to it. 

As if this sort of thing was routine. 

"You think the Warden's paid off?" 

"Possibly," Cherry replied. "This is obviously murder, but the Warden definitely doesn't want to acknowledge that. Would make him too culpable. Come on, let's search his cell." 

Anastasia winced as they stepped into the small decayed room that they would have had him spend the rest of his life in. 

Good and Evil, Right and Wrong. She knew these things, it was all she had known since that stupid camera - and her brain kept telling her all of this was so very wrong and evil - but yet it had a purpose. 

She didn't like that. 

"We know Carl Summers had connections to the Anarchist movement - do you think this could have anything to do with the Committee?" Cherry asked, calmly, searching the room - which didn't have much minus a toilet, a sink, and a deflated looking mattress.

Anastasia didn't know. She leaned down, searching and found something in the cinderblock wall. "Cherry-" she said, handing her a small piece of stone that was dislodged - behind it, a book. 

"Whoever killed Summers, they may have been looking for this." Anastasia said, picking up the book. 

Sun Tzu. The Art of War.

"Let's get it back to the lab, have Ash get a look at it." Cherry replied. "Besides, I've been meaning to talk to the others..."

* * *

Andy had given Yvonne a cup of tea and a blanket and sat her down on the couch. "Yvonne, we haven't-we haven't talked in ages. Where have you been?" 

Yvonne sighed. "Oh, Andrew - I'm sorry. Torchwood is combustible, you know that. And I, I well, I didn't want to see you get hurt again." She rubbed her forehead, exhausted. "It was inconsiderate, but I thought It might have been easier for you. Let you move on from all of this." She sipped the tea, groaning. "I'm a proper weasel, aren't I?"

Andy smiled. "Oh yes, every time." 

"There's nowhere I can go. I am so used to having favors from people- being able to rely on the others that owe me to help me survive- and I don't even have that anymore." 

"You have me." Andy said, leaning back on the couch with her. He kissed her on the forehead. 

A moment of silence. 

"Oh good then, can I hide Object One in your basement?" 

* * *

The Hub

Cherry and Anastasia returned to the Hub to find a disheveled Hunter trying to make Coffee. "Slight issue." Hunter commented. 

"What?" Cherry replied. 

"Ash ran out, saying something about how he's figured it out. They went off the grid, I can't find them anywhere." 

 "You're right to inform me," Cherry said, whipping out her mobile. It buzzed for a moment. "Tania- I need you to determine the locations of the children that were kidnapped by Carl Summers."

"Not my job," Tania replied. "I've left Torchwood. With Colchester and Yvonne. The way you treated them was miserable, and let's be honest - I never had much to do anyway."

Cherry grumbled. "Yes, yes, yes, fine, but I need to find those Children. I have a hunch, and it's a horrible one. Could you please-" 

Tania sighed. "Fine, but I'm done being the Rhys Williams of the team. This is it." 

Cherry hung up the phone, growling. "Okay, okay, How does anyone get anything done around here-" she trailed off. 

Cherry snapped her fingers. "Lightbulb!" She said, snatching Sun Tzu out of Anastasia's hand, and dropping it onto her desk, watching it fall open. "Most viewed page." She said, determinedly. 

Scrawled in the margins were notes from Carl Summers. "Get Stacy to analyze this." Cherry said. "I'm starting to piece it all together."

"Hunter, Anastasia, if I'm right, and I usually am, shit is about to hit the fan. Grab the guns, We're moving." 

* * *

Cardiff Penitentiary

"Why are we going back here?!" Anastasia asked. 

"Because I'm catching on. Carl Summers' original plan was to hijack the imagination of kidnapped children to create an intelligence boosting serum. Even though he totally failed, it was a while before we managed to stop the operation. And you saw the prison- there's something wrong happening there, I know it."

"But, the prison was normal. Like, depressingly normal." Anastasia said, sullen. 

"Carl Summers was a criminal mastermind and you're telling me the most illicit thing he had going in that place was a hidden copy of Sun Tzu? Not buying it. Not buying the Warden either, we know they're corrupt at a glance. There has to be a reason they're in place there." 

"The Committee have previously utilized Government infiltrators to manipulate Human History." Hunter commented.

"Yeah, but Prison Wardens?" Cherry chuckled. "Oh no, we stumbled onto something back there- and we nearly walked away without a look. Because it's the perfect place to hide something- in a depressing part of our own society that we don't wanna think about because it makes us," Cherry made a faux gasp, "-feel sad." 

They slammed into the parking lot. 

Anastasia bit her lip as they stepped out of the Smartcar and back into the prison. 

* * *

"Oh come on!" Andy swore. "Yvonne, for the first time in ages I thought that you had changed - that you might have cared about me, that you wanted to start something up again, but you - just- you always have an ulterior motive, don't you?"

"Oh, so planning ahead is a sin now out of nowhere? Andy, I am trying to save lives." 

"Yvonne, face it. You're fired. You have to learn that someday - someday you're going to need to step away." 

"That'll be the day I die." Yvonne said, sharply. 

"Your career is dead."

"Nonsense. I work in politics. I have great hair and I get paid to lie." 

"Torchwood isn't politics, Torchwood is -Torchwood is-" Andy sighed. "It's awful. That's the thing, it's awful. I wanted to get into it for so many years, Yvonne. I wanted to be a part of it, thinking that I had something to offer, because, well, if Gwen did it, why couldn't I? Except I screwed up, Yvonne. I didn't know it was hell until I was too far in. You. Jack. Norton. And I love you all to death, but- but it's just not healthy. I stepped back, I'm doing policework now, just that, and even though I could be gunned down in the street by some thug any day, you know what? I feel normal, and I feel safe. It might be time for you to feel that."

Yvonne sat back down. She sighed. "You're right." 

"Wait, what? You agreed with that?" Andy asked, bewildered. 

"Of course I did, Andrew. You make a lot of sense. Normalcy here on out. Just let me get a quick smoke, okay?" Yvonne strolled outside the house. 

On the doorstep, she clicked her phone on. 

"Colchester, Andy's a no-go."

"He's unwilling to house Object One?"

"Affirmative. It's time for Plan B. I need you to Contact Gwen Cooper..."

* * *

As Anastasia came back into the prison she felt the oppressive atmosphere sink down on top of her. 

She reached for her gun out of instinct. Her fingers shook. The stone grey walls, the iron bars, the sunken people sitting in their cells. She moved down the hallway, each step an effort. And as she reached Summers' cell - just for a moment - his hanging corpse, dead-eyed and unnatural, looked just like her uncle. For a moment she could see herself firing the bullet into his chest, and for a moment she saw the blood-soaked Weevil with his face. And then it was gone, it was just Summers' body, but she fell to the floor

Oh my god

Oh my god she had killed him 

She had killed her uncle, and she hadn't thought about it for weeks 

oh god oh god

somebody help me please somebody 

anybody

please 

* * *

"Mr. Warden." Cherry said, walking into his office. "Nice to meet you again, I was wondering - incidentally - have you been using the prisoners here as illegal manual labor by having them torture children for the intelligence fluid that Carl Summers used?"  

She pointed her gun directly at his forehead. 

"Who cares what I've done, lady? The Committee paid me enough to not care about you filthy government-." The Warden said.

"Thought so. You know, I've met like 'insane' people before, like, cats with human heads, dictators, the goddamn purple people eaters, but I've never met an 'insane person.' Well, yeah, I have, but an insane person like you, that's something! Because you're batshit- you're fucking evil - but you still pass as normal. So morally decrepit and without boundaries, but if I met you on the street, I'd be like, oh, hey, normal friendly person! It's really rather impressive to meet someone so villainous who doesn't ominously tread around in black leather!" Cherry smiled, cheerfully, as if this sort of thing excited her, but she was clearly furious. "I like to consider myself well read." Cherry said, completely changing her train of thought, like a good friend of hers was apt to do - "And, I don't know, I still can't remember - but some guy, William Something, he said, like, pretty famously 'Let The Punishment Fit The Crime.' And you know, I prescribe to that." She paused. "I'm going to lock you up in one of your own cells." She said darkly. "And I'm going to leave you there for the rest of your life."

* * * 

Hunter, entered the basement to find the halls filled with canisters of orange liquid. Filled with children. 

You know, it would have been enough mentally for him, to have dealt with this once.

They had taken down the Kingpin, but the operation was still going.

The Children - these ones weren't as young - shriveled in those tanks, dead-eyed and horrific. The prisoners manual labor that the Warden had forced them to do - it was this. 

"Brayden Hunter! So Nice To See You Again!"

No. 

He turned and aimed his gun at Rainn.

"We sent you to prison." Hunter yelled.

"Yeah, man! This prison, you numbskull." Rainn smiled. "Nice to really get to, like, you know, talk. I only really got to meet Ashley, the little-"

"Don't speak of them like that." Hunter growled. 

"Oh, you've come far. Brayden Hunter - suddenly a champion of Social Justice. " Rainn laughed mockingly. "What do you think of my work? It's double purpose you know. Your little boyfriend figured it out." She said mockingly.

"What do you mean?" 

"Well, when you take the intelligence out of something, what do you have? A body. What are the Committee? Minds with artificial bodies. Conspiracy aliens, a cloud-based invasion force. So put the two together -"

"Oh my god." Hunter said. 

"The Children are the invasion force. Every single child we took, that's returned to their families, they haven't been the same. You were meant to capture Summers. All so the children - with new brains in their bodies - would come home to their parents, ready to strike when the Committee ordered. And when Mummy and Daddy tuck little Timmy in for bed at night after watching TV, he brains their heads in with an ax- Oh, nothing could be better. The perfect invasion force. Once the Children take over Cardiff - there's plenty of ways the Committee can wipe the face of the earth clean."

Hunter's voice shook. "What do you mean, Ash figured it out?" 

"Oh, well he came here without backup. Like a silly little Torchwood agent, all bravado, no skill."

"What did you do to him!??!" Hunter seethed, and Rainn laughed. 

"There's no way that you can stop us." She replied, devilishly. "Say Hi, Ash."

Ash groaned from a cage in the corner. "Hi Ash," he muttered. 

"Ash!" Hunter called. "You've been remarkably quiet." 

Ash moaned. "You try and talk on this many drugs-" He coughed out. 

"Yeah, we injected him with a good ol' poison." Rainn smiled. "Our plan is near completion. Sorry, must dash. But you know what's a nice fun idea- We aren't even going to activate the children yet. You're just going to wait. Any day, any hour, any second now, a tenth of the children in Cardiff are gonna become quite hostile indeed. I wonder which will kill you first - them - or the paranoia." 

And Rainn strolled back up towards the Elevator.

Hunter pointed the gun at her. 

"Oh, come on, ameteur! You only have time to do one thing, stop me, or save him. I know how these things work." She said, laughing, and she stepped into the Elevator, and she was gone. 

Hunter threw the cage open, and grabbed Ash, on the verge of unconciousness. He was dying, his heart beating slower and slower. Hunter reached into his pocket, and grabbed the Torchwood standard antitoxin, and injected it into Ash's arm. 

Ash became more steady gradually, and Hunter grabbed his chest. 

Okay, um, CPR. 

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

Ash gasped, "Oh my god," he said slowly. "I'm alive, oh my god, I'm alive, I'm-" he trailed off. 

"Did you just kiss me?" 

"Um," Hunter said awkwardly. "It was CPR." 

"Oh come on," Ash said. "You don't have to be embarrassed. We work in Torchwood." 

"That's mostly why I'm embarrassed." Hunter laughed. 

Ash kissed him again.

Later

"So, how was the first day?" Marsha asked. 

"Humanity is doomed." Cherry replied. "Any second now, the Committee is going to rain down on us, and there's nothing Torchwood can do to stop Cardiff from dying. I've analyzed Tania's work on the Children - and the Sun Tzu book, but -" Cherry placed her head in her hands. "But I don't know when anything is going to happen. All I know is that Summers was killed as a cover up - or something. You know, It doesn't make sense. The Committee is playing 7 dimensional chess and I'm stuck with the regular 2."

"And guns." Marsha replied. 

Cherry sighed. "Torchwood never wins with guns - they win with ingenuity. They just have guns. Look, Marsha, I'm going to need you. I don't know how Torchwood is going to cope. I show up, and it's five seconds from the end in sight. Ash and Hunter started making out, probably because they don't think their lives are gonna last very long. What can I do? Torchwood is not ready." 

Marsha sighed. She came over to Cherry, and gave her a big hug and kiss on the forehead. "I don't know. I don't know." 

* * *

Anastasia knocked on the lighthouse door. 

Opened it. Empty. 

Of course. Object One doesn't want to be killed, why would it be here?

"Object One?" Anastasia asked, not expecting anything. "I'm not here to hurt you. I just want to talk."

Her phone in her pocket began vibrating, and she picked it up. "Hello?" She said to the static. 

"I'm here," Object One said through the phone. 

"Look - you're the only one who knows. About my Uncle. About What I did to him."

"Yes?"

"I need to talk about it." Anastasia said, her eyes beginning to water.

"Okay. Let's talk."

This Story (Hypothetically) Starred

Scarlett Johansson as Cherry Classified

Natalia Cordova Buckley as Anastasia Rodriquez

Ian Alexander as Ash

Jason Hughes as Brayden Hunter

Tracy Ann Oberman as Yvonne Hartman

Tom Price as Andy Davison

Rebecca Root as Tania Bell 

Paul Clayton as Mr. Colchester

Lisa Kudrow as Marsha Classified

Cher as Object One 

Wilford Brimley as The Warden 

Uma Thurman as Rainn