Title: Uncanny
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 2,387 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 422 - Spooky
Summary: Ianto’s ability to know what’s just around the corner is alarming his teammates.



‘Ah, I see it's cleaning day,’ Jack remarked, walking by and seeing Ianto armed with his bucket and scrubbing gear.

‘Yup. It’s not often these days that the council shuts off the water tower for maintenance,’ he replied, looking enthused by the prospect of cleaning. ‘We have to schedule ours with theirs, taking advantage of being able to give it a good scrub without getting saturated.’

Jack grinned lasciviously. ‘Oh, you know me, Ianto. I do so love a bit of wet t-shirt action.’

‘Keep it for after hours, Captain,’ Ianto warned him. ‘I intend to have this water tower gleaming today.’

‘Do I at least get to watch?’

‘Don't you have other work to be getting on with?’

‘Supervision is my priority always.’

‘And your strength,’ Ianto teased. ‘Go supervise from afar or I'll have you volutntold into helping me.’

‘Exiting stage left,’ Jack said, knowing Ianto would make good on that threat.



‘Setting up early, Gwen? Ianto asked, coming in to set down the coffee and platter of pastries in preparation for the afternoon briefing. His arms ached in a good way from all the morning’s scrubbing, but the water tower was indeed sparkling in a way it hadn't done in months.

‘You know me, Ianto. These computers never play nice when I want to present something,’ she said, wrangling with HDMI cables and power cords. He set the mugs of coffee down on silver coasters in front of each of their respective chairs, knowing exactly where everyone liked to sit, having their particular brew ready for them.

As the others began slowly filtering into the room, taking their seats and waiting for Jack to swan in last of all, Ianto grabbed Gwen’s laptop and shifted it just a few inches to the left, away from the pile of printed handouts she had ready to distribute. She turned around and reached across to grab something and one of the cords got caught on her arm, whipping it across the table and knocked her coffee over, spilling it. In the split second it happened she swore and then panicked. ‘Ianto! The lapt–’ Except the laptop wasn't where she'd left it, and missed the coffee spillage by inches, instead soaking into her handouts.

Ianto was there moments later with a pile of serviettes to mop up the worst of it before it could drip over the edge and stain the carpet.

‘Klutz,’ Owen said.

Gwen scowled back at him. ‘It was an accident. God, I thought for sure it was going to fry the laptop. Tosh would've killed me. I swear it was right there.’

‘I moved it, just before,’ Ianto said.

‘Why?’

He shrugged. ‘No reason, really. Just seemed like the thing to do.’

‘Spooky,’ Gwen remarked. ‘Like you knew.’ She sighed. Didn't save my handouts, though.’

‘They were probably boring reading,’ Owen quipped.

‘We can always print more paper,’ Ianto assured her. ‘Can't print laptops. Not yet anyway. Tosh is still working on that one.’



‘Ianto, we've got a runaway!’ Jack said, jogging from his office and already donning his coat.

‘The others have gone home for the day,’ he replied.

‘No time to wrangle them,’ Jack said, rushing past him. ‘It's just you and me. If it's what I think it is, we need to hustle.’

‘Hustle it is, then,’ Ianto said, grabbing the SUV keys and chasing after Jack.



‘I hate blowfish,’ Jack complained as the SUV bolted through Cardiff’s streets, trying to get a lock on the blowfish’s whereabouts.

‘If I'm not mistaken it appears to have stolen a rather expensive Maserati,’ Ianto remarked. ‘There’s alarms going off at the city's dealership just minutes ago in the same general location. I doubt that’s a coincidence.’

Jack groaned. ‘Urgh, what is it with them and nice cars?’

Ianto ignored the comment and focused on the computer screen in front of him. ‘Just getting the low jack information for the stolen car.’

‘No need,’ Jack said as a bright yellow sports car whizzed past them at the intersection where Jack had been contemplating running the red light. ‘Dammit,’ he swore, having to shift gear and completely change direction, held up by a massive lorry that didn't much care for Torchwood’s flashing blue lights. Jack did his best to harry after it.

‘He's nuts,’ Jack said, remarking after the fact that the blowfish didn't even know what the brake pedal was seemingly for. ‘If he makes it to the M4, we'll never catch him. The torque on that thing will eat up that road and we'll never catch it.’

‘Go right,’ Ianto instructed.

‘But it just went left!’

‘Go right. Just trust me.’

Jack didn't have time to chew over it, instead just taking Ianto at his word and swerving the SUV right, so fast that the left hand tyres left the road temporarily but thankfully didn't roll the car.

‘You're kidding,’ Jack muttered, amazed to see the car swing out just in front of them, now only a few metres in front. Jack floored the accelerator and rammed it from behind, sending it fishtailing before slamming into a rubbish skip on the kerb, coming to a halt, the driver knocked unconscious by the sudden arresting motion.

Jack hit the brakes before the SUV went piling into the crashed car and then twisted his head to look at his passenger. ‘How did you know?’

Ianto shrugged. ‘I dunno. Going left should have had us eventually catch him, given the options ahead of him, but for some reason I just knew that he'd take a wrong turn and that going right would put him right in our path.’

Jack jumped from the SUV, quickly moving to the smashed up Maserati and sedating the unconscious blowfish before it could cause further trouble. They were difficult to sedate on a good day so getting this one cuffed and restrained whilst it was out cold would make like a whole lot easier.

‘Nice work, Ianto. Risky, but it worked.’

Ianto flushed at the praise. ‘I do my best, sir.’

‘Shame about the car,’ Jack said. ‘Mind you, I'd prefer it in blue.’

‘I'll make a note of it for Christmas, shall I? Just don’t get your hopes up.’



‘Careful with that, Owen,’ Jack said, leaning over the railing to watch as Owen began examining the canister. ‘We don't know what might be in there. I mean, nanites probably, but programmed to do what?’

‘If anything at all,’ Owen replied. ‘Thing looks like it's been banging around in space for a few hundred years.’

‘Still.’

Owen rolled his eyes at Jack’s abundance of caution. ‘Gwen, hand me that laser tool.’ She did so, passing to him where he began sliding it into an opening of the external containment unit they had the canister stored in. He slid his hands into the gloves and began using the tool to make a tiny hole in the corner, just a few nanometres long to take a sample. Instead, the moment the laser hit the metalloid casing, it exploded, breaking the containment barrier.

‘Everybody stay calm!’ Jack yelled, attracting the attention of Tosh and Ianto who'd been at their computers. Jack rifled through a drawer and tossed a device at Owen as he flew down the steps. ‘Owen! I need you to check for exposure.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said, snatching the device. ‘Sodding stupid thing shouldn’t have done that.’

Jack’s jaw clenched as he waited. ‘Agreed, but if there were nanites inside then we need to be sure they haven't found a host.’

‘What happened?’ Tosh asked, coming to the railing.

‘Stay back,’ Jack ordered. ‘They've only got a small window to find a host. Don't come any closer.’

‘Clean,’ Owen reported, handing the device back to Jack who shoved the sensor in his finger to test his own exposure.

‘You need to test Tosh,’ Ianto said.

Owen shook his head. ‘She wasn’t anywhere near it. Neither were you. No chance of transmitting it without being in close proximity.’

‘I'm clean, too,’ Jack said, passing the device to Gwen.

Gwen winced at the sharp finger prick. ‘Me too,’ she replied, breathing a sigh of relief.

‘Owen…’ Ianto was giving them a hard glare.

He huffed. ‘Fine,’ he said, tossing the device at Tosh. ‘Knock yourselves out. If we’re all clean there’s no chance–’ his last words were cut off by a squeak from Tosh.

‘Oh my God. How is that possible?’ She twirled, showing the red glow from the top of the device. ‘Ianto, you’d better test yourself as well.’

‘I'm clean.’

‘You can't know that!’ Owen retorted.

Ianto glowered at him. ‘Two seconds ago you were telling us not to bother and now you're making demands?’

‘Just take the damn test!’ Jack ordered. ‘Then we'll all be certain.’

‘Fine.’ He let the thing prick his finger, watching it glow green. ‘See? Told you.’

‘Tosh, get yourself down to decontamination and Owen will have an antiserum ready for you when you get back,’ Jack said. ‘Not that I think the nanites will do any damage, but we'll deactivate them just to be sure.’

‘In the meantime…’ Owen said, glaring at Ianto, then looking at Jack.

Jack nodded. ‘He's right. Ianto, there's absolutely no way you could have predicted any of that. Somethings going on with you and I'm charging Owen with finding out what it is.’

‘Something?’ The word dripped with scepticism. ‘There's nothing wrong with me.’

‘Oh, no? You just happen to know stuff before it happens? I don't know why I didn’t see it earlier. You knew that blowfish was going to take a wrong turn last night.’

‘And you moved my laptop just moments before I would have spilled coffee all over it,’ Gwen added.

‘So, I just happen to be a little bit more cautious than everyone else.’

‘That's not normal,’ Owen agreed.

‘I said it was spooky,’ Gwen said.

Owen snorted and began looking at Ianto like he was the one infected with something. ‘Spooky? It's downright creepy and wrong.

‘I anticipate,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘It's a skill.

‘Hey, I'm all for having a psychic on the team,’' Jack said, trying to deescalate the situation. ‘All the psychics at Torchwood suddenly just upped and left one day.’

‘They saw what was coming?’ Owen teased, having heard the joke more than once.

‘Clearly. Don't want Ianto running away on us, too. His coffee making skills are too valuable.’

‘Good to know you care,’ Ianto said deadpan.

‘Owen, you know the drill. Find me an answer,’ Jack said.

Owen snapped on a fresh latex glove. ‘With pleasure. Come here, SpookyBoy. I’ve got a few surprises of my own for you.’



Owen put Ianto through a gauntlet of tests, then experimented, adding more tests, the last of which had been hours of mindless computer games: click the blue square but not that blue circle when they appear. click only if you see the word green and it’s actually green and not any other colour. Then there was a silly game of computer pong that wouldn't let him finish until the computer beat him, which took hours and only ended because Ianto lost concentration. It felt tedious and pointless.

‘Well, it's not psychic abilities,’ Owen finally announced.

‘I could've told you that,’ Ianto grumbled, slumped in the chair opposite Jack’s arms folded and sulking.

‘I went through the CCTV to see what you’d been up to before all this weird stuff started happening. Lo and behold, guess who was tinkering around the rift machine?’ Owen arched an eyebrow at him as he flipped the laptop screen around, showing the CCTV footage.

‘I wasn't tinkering, I was cleaning. And it was filthy just so you know.’

‘Well, you were cleaning in and around that old rift machine,’ Owen said. ‘You must have gotten too close and been zapped by it and now there's a little bit of your brain that is wired about sixty seconds ahead of the rest of you.’

‘What's that supposed to mean?’

‘It means you know stuff before it's happened. Your brain recognises the information it hasn't seen yet and is trying to translate it backwards into real time. You're not predicting what's going to happen. You've actually seen it happen but your brain doesn't know what to do with that information except try to use it early. It's reacting to something that's going to happen before it's happened.’

‘Sixty seconds? Hmm… That's not going to be enough time to predict the lotto numbers.’

‘It shouldn't even be possible to experience cognition in two different chronologies at once. Your head should explode or something.’

‘Well, let's be thankful it didn't do that,’ Jack said, studying the notes Owen had simultaneously emailed to him. ‘Good news is that it seems to be dissipating as your neuroplasticity corrects for the anomaly. You're losing cognitive prediction at a rate of about five seconds per hour.’

‘So, by tomorrow morning I'll be normal again?’

‘Insofar as you ever were normal to begin with,’ Owen snarked.

‘All the same, I think this is a good reminder for us all that we need to be careful around the rift machine. It’s technology we don't understand fully.’ Jack turned to Ianto, I don't need to tell you you're on light duties for the next twelve hours until Owen gives you a clean bill of health.’

‘And yet you still do. Even an idiot could have predicted that.’



Jack raised an eyebrow as Ianto set down a mug of freshly brewed coffee and three chocolate hobnobs on a plate. It was well before lunch and way too soon for Ianto to be treating him, especially when he was sure he was in the doghouse for putting Ianto on light duties since yesterday. ‘I thought you were cured from the effects of the rift machine?’

‘I am. At least that's what Owen's tests indicate. Ah,’ he said, realised where Jack was going with his question. ‘It doesn't take a psychic to know when you need coffee and biscuits.’

Jack chuckled realising his own paranoia was ill founded. ‘True enough.’ Then he gave Ianto a cheeky grin. ‘Can you tell what I'm thinking now?’

Ianto rolled his eyes. ‘That definitely doesn't take a genius. Or a psychic. But you never know. You might still manage to surprise me.’