Fandom: Torchwood

Characters: Lisa Hallett

Author: m_findlow

Rating: PG

Length: 1,766 words

Content notes: Pre canon. Spoilers for Doomsday and Cyberwoman

Author notes: Written for Challenge 202 - Messenger

Summary: She can't help Ianto, but she can warn him.


The ghosts hadn't seemed scary at first, but now she wasn't so sure. There'd always been a couple of them, wandering the office halls, or pointlessly standing around doing absolutely nothing next to people's desks. She'd gotten used to it whenever they turned on that ghost machine. It was run like clockwork, twelve pm on the dot every day. She'd tried taking her lunch break when they turned it on, as there were less of them in the building's main cafeteria, and the quaint little coffee shop downstairs by the water. It was distracting trying to work with them standing there anyway.

Ianto had stood her up again today, promising to make it up to her. She knew he enjoyed his job, even if it seemed a bit mindless and boring to her. Half of what he said when they sat around their tiny kitchen counter eating spag bol didn't make any sense. He'd been given the job of trawling through their old archives, to sort out all the old paper files that no one wanted to be responsible for. It was all stuff about Torchwood back in the day, wild stories of alien encounters and the cowboys who'd been in charge of Torchwood. Half of it was made up, they both agreed. People would have known if that sort of stuff was going on in the city. It wasn't like these days where you could hide stuff behind computer programs and the Official Secrets Act. And Torchwood wasn't like that anymore. They were doing good things for the community, and the ghost machine project was just the beginning. An uncertain beginning, but a beginning all the same.

She didn't really want to have lunch on her own. Sharon was busy nattering on the phone as always, and Casey was moaning about some report that simply had to be done else he wasn't going to have a job to come back the tomorrow. Couldn't they have lunch at half one instead?

She was still sat at her desk, trawling through bland emails and links on their intranet, trying her best to ignore the ghosts while she waited, when the first yelp went up. A second scream followed it and over the low partition she could make out the ghosts; only they looked more solid, silvery and glinting in the cold office lighting. She frowned, squinting. They looked more like a robots than ghosts. Then she saw the arm reach out and grab the nearest person. 'Delete. Delete,' the creature intoned and the young man crumpled to the floor. She didn't have to know anything more to know that he was dead.

Panic tore through the office, people scattering in every direction, some cut off by the ghosts, continuing to decry the word delete.

Somehow she managed to wind her way through the crowds, out towards the hall. People were rushing all over the place, cramming into the lifts. Instead, she headed towards the back fire exit stairwell. Her phone nearly slipped out of her hand as she tugged it from her pocket, dialing the only number that mattered. Please, please pick up, she begged.

"Hello, you've reached Ianto Jones. Please leave a message."

'Ianto? Ianto, oh God, listen. Something's gone wrong. Whatever you're doing, get out. Just get out. Meet me by the water, in front of that curry house. Be careful.'

She flew down the first half dozen flights of stairs, clamoring with several dozen other people, none of whom was Ianto. He was down on one of the lowest levels most likely, but there was always a chance that he'd had to come up for something else, so she kept her eyes peeled. She'd have been able to pick him out in a crowd in a heartbeat.

As she powered down flight after flight of stairs, the power began to flicker, eventually plunging her and the stairwell into darkness. The fear hung thick in the air as people stopped, waiting for something else to happen. She wanted to push past them and keep going, but she'd have to feel her way down the blackened stairs, and there were too many other people blocking her path.

'What's out there?'

'Who cares.'

'We should see if there's other people who need helping.'

'Sod them.'

She dialed her phone again.

'Ianto, please call me back. I need to know you've made it out.'

'Maybe there's none of those things out there now. They'll have turned off that machine, surely. They're just ghosts after all.'

'Ghosts who can kill people.'

There was a crunching sound, like metal on concrete, and a sound came from two flights below her.

'Delete. Delete.'

They were coming up the stairs. She didn't wait, just threw herself through the door of the closest floor as the screaming began.

It was like an alien world on the other side. All the lights were dimmed, and there was a reddish glow emanating from the rooms that lead off each side of the long corridor. Hearing more metal footsteps, she sidled into the nearest doorway, pushing through the thick plastic sheeting. She leaned back against the wall and let out a shuddering breath as the sounds of footsteps faded away. She felt sick realising that they were headed for the door at the end of the hall which lead to the stairwell.

She gripped her phone hard. Too scared to call and be heard, she tapped our a message instead.

"Please let me know where you are. L."

As she watched the envelop icon disappear, something grabbed her from behind.



When she opened her eyes, she knew she was alone. She didn't know how, but it was like she could sense it. Pain. There was so much pain. Someone had attacked her, one of the metal robots maybe. But she was alive. Thank God, but she was alive.

She tried to get up, but everything hurt. She couldn't see how she was injured, only knew it from the searing pain in her limbs and torso. She couldn't move. Was she paralysed?

She remembered the phone that had been in her hand. It still felt like it was there, as if her terror had kept it clutched tightly despite everything. From where she was, she had no chance of seeing that her phone lay abandoned on the floor ten yards away.

She had to call for help. She tried 999 but in her mind all she could see was ones and zeroes dancing across her vision. She tried again. Everything was ones and zeroes. She was typing out the right thing, she was sure. It didn't make any sense. She couldn't see that her hand was made of metal, and that the phone she imagined was there was only a fiction created by the databank implanted in her mind.

"Ianto, I'm scared. Please help me."

Everything seemed to be coming out in circles and slashes but it made sense to her. In her head they were still letters and words, still had meaning beyond bits of data, unaware that was all they were now.

So much pain. Ianto would find her, though. She'd gotten out the message. He knew she was in trouble. He'd be able to find her using her phone's GPS location - a company mandated requirement, so that they could keep track of all their employees at any given time. He'd find her and save her. He was still alive out there somewhere. Unconsciously she'd searched her new hive mind, checking all the records that had been deleted and knew that his wasn't among them. To her conscious mind, it was just a gut feeling. Ianto was a survivor.



Time stretched on for an eternity, and all the while she was there alone, burning, drifting in and out, hearing screams and then nothing. No one came for her. She was going to die here. She could feel her body shutting down, so hard to breathe, and numb in between ravaging bouts of pain. Her injuries, though she couldn't see them, trapped as she was in some kind of metal clamps, were too much. In her head she'd calculated the probability of survival down to fifteen decimal places. So many zeroes and a one. Always ones and zeroes.

She dialed the number again, desperate for it to answer, but just as happy to know that if this was her last moment, she'd at least be able to hear his voice one more time.

"Hello, you've reached Ianto Jones. Please leave a message"

'Ianto. I love you. I just need you to know that. I'm sorry. I love you.'

The words came out an indecipherable metallic gargle, but to her ears she spoke every last one of them, though she had no breath left for speaking. A tear slipped down her cheek, warm and wet. The machines hadn't removed that part yet.

She pictured how different things had been just a few hours ago. This morning she'd been in the kitchen, sipping coffee, and watching her lover's slender hands so lovingly spreading marmite on her toast. He was wearing the cufflinks she'd bought him for his birthday, the Mr Men ones that had Mr Fussy on them. It was revenge the Little Miss Chatterbox mug he'd given her last Christmas. She'd been wondering when he was ever going to pluck up the courage to ask her to marry him. It was adorable how he could be so shy sometimes. Yes, Ianto, yes! Just ask the bloody question! Mr Brave he certainly wasn't.

She gasped as she felt something in the room with her. She knew it without knowing it. A presence.

'Ianto?' she called out, hissing as another flash of pain tore through her body.

There was no response, but she could tell that the thing was getting closer. It surrounded her, and more ones and zeroes zipped around her. It, whatever it was, was coming for her. It wrapped around her mind and she fought it as hard as she could. She cried out as it showed her the truth of what she'd become, what she was about to become, and what it was about to do.

"Ianto, you have to stop them. Kill them. They're not human. They meant to kill us all. Tell everyone you can that they must be stopped at all costs."

She hoped that he'd receive her message before there was nothing left of her. The thing inside her mind was so strong she could barely hold it off.

"Ianto, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Human emotion virus detected. Deleting...