Torchwood: Fall of The Four
A Parody Among Us Prequel
Starring Fiona Shaw
* * *
There's a radio in the wreckage. Miles and miles beneath the surface of the earth, it lies. In the ruins of Glasgow, it waits, one of it's receivers crushed by a fallen bit of scaffolding, the little wires poking out of it like some kind of awful Christmas Tree. It's still there, although it's been so long. A very long time. It whispers out to the world -
"Hello? Can You Hear Me? Is This Working? Hello? Hello? This is Torchwood Commander In-Chief Maureen Willows and we're under attack! Can you hear me? I repeat, We Are Under Attack!"
And it's still speaking.
Maureen Willows was by most accounts a strange woman who saw things not in the eye of a bureaucrat, but somehow chose to become one. She had a very good relationship with the staff. That was always important, a good relationship with the staff. If you didn't work with your workers, they saw you only as an opponent. Which was why it was very important to her the people at Torchwood Four felt she was part of the same team.
She had killed a man last week, and that had put a damper on that, but you couldn't be picky about these things. He had accidentally injested a Wirrn specimen and simply had to be put down, but people just didn't get it these days.
Torchwood Four employed 400 people, and only 25 had enough security clearance to not be subject to twice-monthly retcon. Hopefully they would be over it next week.
A light on her otherwise ordinary desk flashed blue, and one of her agent's voices came out. "Commander, you scheduled a Staff Meeting in Twenty-Three minutes, will you be attending?"
Oh, damn. Maureen nearly spilled her coffee. "I will be there, lieutenant." She said, calmly. One had to project some kind of authority. Otherwise you simply don't get on.
* * *
"This is my newest project," Tom Richardson said. "Based on an extrapolation of the data available to us of the fall of Canary Wharf, I've discovered a base design alloy similar to that which could be found in a void sphere."
"In a Void Sphere? You work fast." Eliza remarked. The fall had only been months ago.
"Yes," Richardson replied, not so humbly. "Think of what we could do with this! A brand new, hyper conductive yet undegrading alloy. New filiments can be designed. Our spaceships, our planes, can be twice as fast, three times as fast!! Electrical Overload will be a nigh-impossibility. If we loop this back on itself, we have a chance of something more than that. This electrical form is the first step towards breaking the time barrier. We can exist outside of time itself." He said, exuberant. Excited.
Rare for him, Maureen thought, resting her hands on her fingers contemplatively.
"Outside of Time?" She asked, to clarify.
"In the void, the space between dimensions." Richardson said, excitedly dashing formula onto a whiteboard. "I mean, it's only the first step, and I've only just started with my theorizing, but - but it's excellent work. This is, this is a Game changer."
Maureen raised an eyebrow. "Excellent. Scrap it."
* * *
There had been three other topics from her senior officers at the meeting, all of which paled in consequentialism compared to Richardson's discovery. She wasn't sure what to think of it. Richardson had not been one for the scientific method until recently. His mind had gone from one of action exclusively, to one almost mad, enthralled by the possibilities surrounding him.
Maureen was walking out of the meeting, adjusting the lapels on her pantsuit when Richardson ran up to her, frantic.
"Richardson. You better not be wasting my time." Maureen said.
"Commander." He said, intently. "Do you not understand what I've discovered here?! Why are you asking me to shut the greatest discovery in Human history down?"
"Oh, I understand perfectly what you've done. You've taken the device that caused the fall of the Canary Wharf, the highest level of casualties in Torchwood history, and have decided to fiddle with it." She said sharply. "While your work is promising, Mr. Richardson, as you say, it is a rough draft. The negatives far outweigh the positives."
"I could do so much." Richardson said, angrily.
Maureen did not raise her voice. Being angry tended to be awful for her stomach. "Mr. Richardson. Shall I repeat myself? You are to drop it. I have enough problems in this job without temporal incursions as well." She walked off.
Richardson stood there as she walked, and he boiled with fury.
This wasn't how it was going to go.
* * *
"Eliza, I'm sending out authorization to terminate the Sphere project." Maureen said, returning to her office and clicking the blue glow on her desk with a manicured finger.
"There are only two officers engaged in work on the Sphere Project. One of them is low-level. Do you want me to request a retcon?"
Richardson had a partner? This didn't click. Maureen mused. He wasn't the friendly work together type. Yet- yet this was all too smart for him, wasn't it? Who was he working with?
"No, send them up here. I want to talk to them." Maureen said, closing the comm.
* * *
"Stacy Kingston, reporting as you asked, Commander." the young woman said nervously. Pink sweater, labcoat, long gorgeous hair pinned up in a bun. Thin glasses she probably didn't need.
"Stacy Kingston...you're..."
"Lieutenant Richardson's partner on the Sphere project. Enlisted. I only joined two weeks ago." Stacy said, quickly, wrinkling her nose as she smiled a little.
This was wrong. She had been there two months. She was just subject to the retcons.
"Ah, yes." Maureen said.
"May, I, achem, um, say, what an honor it is, to meet you, um, ma'am? I, I've never met anyone in charge before. I'm - I'm usually, like, downstairs, you know. Uh, chugging along, doing the paperwork. Science stuff. I'm sorry, I probably sound so awkward -"
"No," Maureen said. "No, you're fine. Stacy Kingston, you say? You've been working with Richardson on the Sphere Project?"
Stacy nodded. "Uh, yes. Just the science stuff."
Maureen struggled not to gasp in surprise. "Just the science stuff?"
"Oh, yeah. All the formulas, calculations. Analyze the data Lieutenant Richardson brings in. He - he does the coding, um-"
"You're doing every single aspect of the scientific areas involving the Sphere Project?"
"Minus the Coding. Yeah, I, I'm really rubbish at coding."
This young intern - brainwiped every two weeks - had discovered the data and the formulas relating to the successful development of a Void sphere from a small fragment that Richardson had brought back. This random intern they had typing away documents in their lower levels had invented Time Travel.
Maureen, usually a decisive woman, was unsure how to respond.
"Come upstairs for now. Your project is terminated, but your work is exemplary, and I fully intend to use you in the future."
"It's just scribblings, really." She said, intently, but Maureen led her upstairs.
"You're american?" She asked.
"Yeah. I got the accent from too much television."
* * *
Eliza and Lieutenant Gordon were purging the files on the Sphere Project from the Torchwood drive. It was a slow and tedious process. There was so much work.
"How did they make all this behind our back?" Eliza mused.
Gordon shrugged. "We don't look often into what the low level operatives are doing. Who knows if Miss Kingston has done a project like this each time before she'd been retconned?"
"It's concerning." Eliza commented.
"You near being done?" Richardson asked, walking in. "Commander Willows wants you."
"Yes. We're just metabolizing the data." Eliza said.
Richardson reached into his pocket. "Oh. That's a pity." He said, unveiling a gun and firing a shot into Eliza's head. She collapsed onto the floor.
Gordon swore in shock. "You killed her!"
"You killed me when this project ended." Richardson replied, firing again. Gordon's head splatted into the wall from the gun blast.
* * *
Maureen sat down at her desk once more. Unsure of what the future held. What she could even do.
Stacy shuffled awkwardly in the corner. "Um, so, what do you want me to d-"
Maureen sighed. "You have to understand the position I'm in. I don't know what I can do. Do I retcon you? Torchwood still hasn't documented the effects of long-term retcon use over more than two-years. It's fine to use on the grunts, but someone like you - someone that brilliant - I could be leaving you a much less smart woman."
"I...I don't know what you're talking about, but I don't like the sound of it."
"...Go help Eliza and Gordon shut down the Sphere Project. I'll give you my decision in an hour."
Stacy turned, and stepped out.
Maureen could tell she was scared.
...But was she scared of her? Or something else...
* * *
The door slid open at a touch, and Stacy walked down the steps towards the lab where the Sphere data was kept. She felt melancholy. She felt strange.
Opening the door to the lab, she felt bile rise in her throat.
The bodies - oh god, she had never seen a body, much less two -
red
so much red
She tried to go, but the door slid shut.
Richardson smiled. "I had to do it," He said, happily. "I had to -"
the blood
"You - you- killed-" She tried to get the words out.
red faces
bloodied limbs
"Of course I did. And now it's your turn." Richardson raised the gun.
The Comm rared to life. RED ALERT. RED ALERT. HOSTILE ON THE PREMISES. LIEUTENANT RICHARDSON IS TO BE APPREHENDED ON SIGHT.
"Or perhaps I could do with a hostage." He smiled wickedly. "I do need to get to the getaway car after all."
"The - the sphere isn't working yet - the theorums, the time - it's not ready for temporal flight, much less travel into the void -" Stacy blubbered.
"Stacy, Stacy, Stacy." Richardson said, fobbing the gun. "Do you really think I give a damn?"
* * *
The Light was Infernal. Temporal Fissure Collapse. Maureen recognized the symptoms, if not the feeling.
The Red Alert alarms blared. Maureen swore as she saw the bodies. Good Agents. Murdered.
The Torchwood Tower shook. Girders fell. The hallways glared red with emergency lighting.
Maureen ran. Desperately trying to -
"Oh. Hello, Commander." Richardson smiled, holding a gun to Stacy's throat. "I have a hostage!" He said, taking a lot of joy into it, even for a traitor to the Torchwood cause. "Now, if you don't mind, I think I'm going to take my void sphere and make my getaway, shall I?"
"Why are you doing this?" Maureen yelled, trying to maintain her rapidly dying authority.
"You pissed me off." Richardson grinned.
Maureen reached out with a gasp, only for Richardson to turn the gun on her and fire.
As Stacy screamed, She fell.
* * *
Maureen's bleary eyes - speckled with bits of her blood - could make out Richardson's shape taunting Stacy down the corridor.
He clicked open his cell phone. "Oh, yeah. It's done. No, no, don't worry. I've killed all of them. Oh, yes. Thank you, Mr. Summers. You've been a blast. Yeah, yeah, all hail the Committee. Let me get out of here."
He turned, nudging Stacy with the gun towards the exit.
Damn it -
Maureen couldn't get up. Gunshots did that to you.
She saw her blood leak onto the floor.
Struggling to open her phone, she spoke into the comms.
"Hello? Can You Hear Me? Is This Working?" She coughed up blood.
"Hello? Hello? This is Torchwood Commander In-Chief Maureen Willows and we're under attack! Can you hear me?"
Static.
"I repeat, We Are Under Attack!"
Her head glazed over, and she dropped the comm. The Comm played out her words as she slipped into death.
"Hello? Can You Hear Me? Is This Working? Hello? Hello? This is Torchwood Commander In-Chief Maureen Willows and we're under attack! Can you hear me? I repeat, We Are Under Attack!"
* * *
The Void Ship. Stacy stared with awe and horror - it was nowhere near complete, and Richardson was moving to launch it.
"Get in." He said, nudging her with the gun.
"The time differential!" - she tried to explain, but he was adamant.
"In," he hissed, shoving her into the Sphere. Oddly more spacious than it looked on the inside.
"Time could shatter, we could be-" She blubbered to no avail.
He stepped in with her and shut the entrance. The Sphere levitated into the air - and punched through the world. Time burnt.
Torchwood fell.
* * *
Stacy didn't know what to do as the sphere rocketed.
They were outside the world now. They were in the void.
Richardson poured something in a bottle and offered it to her.
"What?" Stacy asked.
"A Retcon and Sedative solution." He said, gravely. "I'm going to spend a long time out here. And you're going to go to sleep, and wake up a new woman."
"You're forcing me to forget all this? That you're a madman?"
"Absolutely." Richardson said bluntly. "I made you into what you are, and now I'm going to take it away."
"What do you mean?"
"An intelligence enhancing solution developed by my friend Carl Summers. I dosed you while you weren't aware."
"You - you what?"
"The Committee has no further use for you, I'm afraid. At least for now." He proffered the retcon. "Open up."
* * *
The building is a pile of rubble. Rock, cinder block, scaffolding and rebar - and it goes down far and deep.
Ivy has grown over the wreckage, creeping over it slowly. It reclaims the world - eventually, if given enough time.
In the ruins of Glasgow, it waits, one of it's receivers crushed by a fallen bit of scaffolding, the little wires poking out of it like some kind of awful Christmas Tree. It's still there, although it's been so long. A very long time. It whispers out to the world -
The last words of a dying woman call out to the world.
And they're never going to stop.
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