necessary_child | (no subject)

Jack doesn't like it either,

He doesn't say so, though his set face and increasing pallor does so for him.

"Sam," he says, with forced casualness. "Level and form of destruction preferred?"

Sam doesn't say anything for a few moments, and doesn't even seem to have heard.

Then, distantly, "The computer. Either of you capable of hacking?"

Sam, it goes without saying, isn't.

"I am, but I can't read Earthian," Atton says.

"I can do it," Jack says, and moves towards the console.

By 51st-century standards, Jack's good with computers - it comes with the con-man territory. By 21st-century, he's very good. It's never been his primary area of expertise, but with future knowledge and help from alien tech, Torchwood are the little cyber-terrorists that can.

"Let me know anything you need, otherwise I'm thinking take out all links, hopefully get anything networked as well."

"Yeah, I've heard," Sam tells Jack, with a heartbeat's flicker of a smile.

"Get all of it gone. They must have recorded their results somewhere in there, but see if you can find who they're working for as well - and how they knew how to find me in the first place."

Another brief pause, as if his thought processes are running through treacle. "I need my stuff back, so see if you can find out what they did with it. Sword, dagger and crown."

Atton just hangs back, peering around the room.

"Gotcha," Jack says, and sets about convincing the system firewalls to sit down and shut up.

Sometimes he really misses the AI sentinels they had up. They tended to be immune to flirting, but at least you could try it.

Layer one access is almost embarrassingly easy, which follows when he realises there's practically nothing useful in it whatsoever. He does take the liberty of overriding a few electronic locks while he's there - escape routes are such tricky things - then gets down to wrestling with denser code layers.

"Might take a little while to get there. Things look quiet, for now?"

Oh, Jack. Did you really have to?

Sam winces. "Jack, you might as well have said 'How hard can it be?' or 'This is going to be Walford's best Christmas ever!'."

And, right on narrative cue... shouting and running feet. Sam doesn't seem to mind too much, though: he'll feel better for an opportunity to punch things and set them on fire.

Atton positions himself so that he's facing the door, tapping a few of the touchpads on his gauntlet.

"Sorry, this is a little distracting!" Jack says, stroking the keyboard absently.

Once upon a time, that would actually have helped.

Back in the present, Jack starts unscrewing the back of the console to get at the hardware.

Sam leaves Jack to it - the intricacies, or even the basics, of computing are a mystery to him, and he's quite happy with that. Like Atton, he turns to face the door, eyes still but watchful.

Straight-faced, "Do you know, I get the impression there's no point in asking this lot to surrender."

Funny how these things happen.

"You don't know that. They might be friendly."

Behind them, Jack swears in Centaurian and glares at an errant wire.

"Yeah?"

There are flames dancing around Sam's fingers now as he watches the door, expressionless.

"Well, I'm not."

A large wave of guards appear, more than were in the first group. The leaders get a fireball to the face by way of demonstration.

Atton shrugs.

"Okay, then." The vibrodisk is cast out into the guards with a flick.

Patching his wrist strap into the hardware costs Jack a few painful electric shocks, but rewards him with an agreeable-sounding beep and the dropping of the other security levels.

He grins.

"I'm in. Give me a minute, and we're good."

"I thought we were that already," Sam says over his shoulder: some wanton destruction seems to have lifted his mood. He thrusts his arm out, palm flat, and magical force throws guards backwards.

"I kinda smell burnt flesh. Are you on fire, Jack?" Atton says without looking around. "Ah, dammit, where's the disrupter function. Here!"

Atton levels his gauntlet at the guards, releasing a blast of red energy that tears apart everything in its path - flesh, metal, concrete, brick, everything to varying degrees.

"Just a little bit," Jack says, staring intently at the screen.

He's found some kind of mission statement, or what looks like it thoroughly dressed up in medical jargon. Words like 'anomaly' and 'object,' he realises quickly, mean Sam, and are skated over to talk at much greater length about hypotheses on tissue sampling, practical applications - medical and industrial.

Link to a sketched business model with marketing suggestions. Nice.

Jack copies the files to his wrist strap. Even if Sam doesn't want to see them, he should have the option of knowing the details. Then he turns his attention to some of the medical logs, to see where conclusions might have been stored apart from the system.

"Time knows I hate technology," Sam says admiringly, looking at Atton's gauntlet, "But I have got to get one of those."

It's SHINY.

He glances back at Jack, just before more guards arrive. "How're you doing, Drama Queen?"

"S'not for you, though. S'not."

"Getting there," Jack says, scrolling through some of the logs with a frown on his face.

The descriptions, even skimming though, cause a tiny place in his chest to tighten painfully.

The dates on each log are more worrying still.

"...How far back would you say you were snatched, Sam? Need to run a search here."

"This is because you are selfish and mean and should be ashamed of yourself!" Sam admonishes Atton, magically yanking a gun out of a leading grunt's hands.

But the fight can only do so much for his mood, and his expression hardens again. "A few months, maybe a bit more?" he calls to Jack, sounding dubious. "I wasn't conscious for most of it."

"You should be ashamed. A few months? Kriff, Sammy."

Jack doesn't say anything, mostly because he doesn't trust his voice.

It's... well, it's in the months still, but going by these logs, it was more than a few.

Later. Sam can find that out later.

He keeps searching.