1
It's a group of teens serious and well dressed. Aged from twelve to roughly eighteen. They sit on their heels under a sparsely elegant tent, small wooden desks with embedded screens in front of them. The tent is on a lawn surrounded by lush foliage. People walk about and vehicles glide quietly overhead.
A utopian scene.
A classroom under the open tent, a breeze ruffling hair as the children sit, watching their teacher as she takes the class.
"Now that the war's over, our soldiers get to come home, yes?" a girl asks her teacher who is walking amongst them calmly.
"Some of them. Some will be stationed on the rim planets as Peace Enforcers." Ms Hartman tells them softly.
"I don't understand." A boy says, "Why were the Independents even fighting us? Why wouldn't they look to be more civilized?"
"That's a good question. Does anybody want to open on that?" she asks the class.
"I hear they're cannibals." A girl says quietly.
"That's only Cybermen." A boy answers with a sneer, "And they don't eat, just assimilate."
"Cybermen aren't real." A voice calls out.
"We know full well what they are. They attack settlers from space, they kill them and wear their skins and rape them for hours and hours –" another boy says gleefully and Hartman holds up a hand for silence.
"It's true that there are... dangers on the outer planets. So let's follow up on Borodin's question. With all the social and medical advancements we can bring to the Independents, why would they fight so hard against us?" she asks the class and they all look around in silent confusion at the question.
"We meddle." Ianto says quietly.
"Ianto?" Hartman turns with surprise to focus on the quietest class member.
Ianto is a dark, intense young man, writing with one hand and "typing" with the other. (Typing consists of holding a long wooden stylus and tapping either end down different columns of characters on a desktop screen.) He is a good two years younger than the other kids.
"People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run don't walk we're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right." Ianto says quietly with a solemn quality to his words "We're meddlesome."
Hartman gently takes the stylus from Ianto's fingers as she kneels to smile softly as him, "Ianto, we're not telling people what to think. We're just trying to show them how."
She violently plunges the stylus into the boy's forehead
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A 24 year old Ianto is sitting in a metal chair, needles stuck in his skull (one right where the Ms Hartman had stuck him) being adjusted by a technician. A second monitors his brain patterns.
The lab is cold, blue, steel. Insidiously clean.
"He's dreaming.
"Nightmare?" another asks disinterestedly.
"Off the charts. Scary monsters."
"Amp it up. Delcium, eight-drop." Tanzanaki demands. He is not instantly likable - nor gradually, for that matter. A cold man and more than a little satisfied with himself.
Behind him stands a Government Inspector, observing and making him a little nervous. The Inspector is in shadow, but his uniform indicates no substantial rank, nor does the eagle-crested baton longer than a ruler that he clutches in one gloved hand.
"See, most of our best work is done when they're asleep. We can monitor and direct their subconscious, implant suggestions..." Tanzanaki is explaining his methods when Ianto starts convulsing, mewing in misery. The Inspector starts forward, slowly. Tanzanaki continues to speak as if nothing is happening "It's a little startling to see, but the results are spectacular.
Especially in this case. Ianto Jones is our star pupil."
The Inspector steps into the light. He is rigid, cold, staring at the man in the metal restraints with no emotion at all. His name, as we will very soon learn, is Owen and he speaks softly "I've heard that."
"He's a genius. His mental capacity is extraordinary, even with the side-effects." Tanzanaki gushed.
"Tell me about them."
"Well, obviously, he's unstable...the neural stripping gives them heightened cognitive reception, but it also destabilizes their own reality matrix. It manifests as borderline schizophrenia... which at this point is the price for being truly psychic." He gushes.
"What use do we have for a psychic if he's insane?" Owen asks with interest.
"I don't have to tell you the security potential of someone who reads minds. And he has lucid periods - we hope to improve upon the... I'm sorry, Sir, I have to ask if there's some reason for this inspection?"
"Am I making you nervous?" Owen asks as he turns to eyeball the man squirming in front of him.
"Key members of Parliament have personally observed this subject. I was told their support for the project was unanimous. The demonstration of his power…" Tanzanaki flusters about.
"How is he physically?"
"Like nothing we've seen. All our subjects are conditioned for combat, but Ianto... he's a creature of extraordinary grace." Tanzanaki sighs.
"Yes. He always did love to dance." He drops to one knee, slamming his baton to the floor. As the top pops off like a bouncing betty (the grenade), flying up over Owen and Ianto's heads and then bursting forth in a flat circle of blue energy that bisects the room, flowing through the staff's heads and knocking them out.
Owen rushes to Ianto, gently removes the probes from his head and swabs him, whispering "Ianto. Wake up. Please, it's Owen. Ianto. It's your brother. Wake up..."
Ianto begins to stir as a noise moves Owen to the door, looking out and removing his uniform to reveal an orderly's tunic beneath.
Ianto is suddenly next to him. He jumps a little.
"Owen." Ianto says in a dry tone.
A beat, as they face each other, Owen fighting emotion.
"They know you've come." Ianto points out with a cant of his head.
As a guard looks at a monitor. He mostly resembles a secret service man - more bureaucrat than thug. A second man rolls into frame on a chair behind him, also watching the screen.
Owen walks Ianto through the corridor. They approach a pair of double doors.
"We can't make it to the surface from inside." Owen turns suddenly as he hears footsteps, people heading at them from the other side of the doors. "Find a …"
But Ianto has, impossibly, scampered up over some lab equipment to the dark top of the corridor, where he holds himself in a perfect split, feet against the walls and outstretched hand holding the sprinkler for support.
The doors burst open and two doctors pass by, hardly noticing the lone orderly.
Passing right under Ianto.
A ventilation shaft beckons. It's small, 15 feet by 15 feet. Goes a long way up and a long way down. One wide hinged window looks in on the hall inside. Owen and Ianto approach with quiet haste.
They slip through the window. Owen shuts it, wedges his baton into the handle as the security team approaches. They fire at the glass, but their lasers have no effect.
Wind whips Ianto's finger length curly hair about as he looks up to see a small patch of daylight visible ten stories up. Sees the sky blotted out by a ship that hovers above them.
The Ship is floating over the grass of rolling hills, the city gleaming far beyond. This facility is well hidden. A gurney-sized section of the ship's belly detaches and drops down ten stories, cables spooling it out of the ship. It comes to Owen and Ianto and stops suddenly.
"Get on!" Owen demands.
He is standing by the window - and the Security Agent is right behind him, smashing at the window with all his might.
Owen helps Ianto onto the gurney, and then jumps on himself as the Security Agent cracks the glass. The two are whisked up in the gurney, Ianto on his knees, Owen standing beside him holding one of the cables –
"Stop."
The action freezes.
"Lovely. Lovely. Backtrack."
The action rewinds, taking us back to the moment of Owen and Ianto on the gurney just before it rises.
"Stop."
There is a motionless beat, Ianto frozen in that crouch, and he steps through what we now see is a hologram of the event.
The Government's man. We'll just call him the Agent. He is thoughtful, a little removed. Well groomed, a suit too nondescript to be a uniform, too neat to be casual wear. He is in the Records Room which is long and bare but for drawers of holographic records, a set-up for watching recordings (where the image of Owen and Ianto floats), and a table with computer and chair. The Unit Agent crosses to the table, looks over some papers.
"Biograph. Owen Harper Nee Jones."
As he looked up at the screen Hart snarls softly.
He will find them.
They will pay for this.