Title: Killer Dolls
By: Craig
Pairing: Jack/Ianto & OMC/OMC
Fandom: Dollhouse/Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: character death
Disclaimer: Russell Davies owns Torchwood, Joss Whedon created fiction, E4 is responsible for Skins and HBO produced Oz. This is nonprofit fanfic.
Summary: Torchwood's friends are attacked by a highly competent covert operatives team. What is its connection to the shadowy 'Dollhouse' in Los Angeles?

***

As the SUVs screeched up, Jack took in the grisly spectacle. This indicated some close combat experience. Lois nodded:

"Cam and Jack, take care of this. Ianto and I will be following close behind. Martha, get in touch with UNIT about this. I wouldn't ask, but..."

"No, it's okay, I understand."

"Lois, I'm not getting CI psi from the assailants. That's unprecedented."

"Then be careful."

In Los Angeles, an elegant woman put down the phone, angrily bringing her hand down on the desk. She snarled: "Who the hell was responsible for this?! Has Rossum UK completely lost its sanity?!"

***

Cam and Jack ran into the building first, nodding at each other to seperate. Close behind, Lois followed as Martha tried to contact UNIT and failed:

"What the hell is going on here? Are they still responding to the xeno hate crime crisis?"

Ianto whistled: "Over here, Martha. It looks like the MPHETA defences were hacked into. Tactical says it almost looks like techniques used against Russia during its Chechnyan War. What is it, Rex?"

"Nah, that's impossible, mate. I know the person who did that. Our paths crossed in Bosnia. Only she's dead. Her name was Elana Dubrovski and she's got a major hate on for that country. She lost her husband an' baby daughter to Russian crossfire and joined the Chechnyans as one of their black widows. Check her security file."

"I see what you mean. She's dead, according to this NATO flag. You're sure this hack is her MO?"

"I'm getting another two positives on facial search. No. No, impossible. One of them's from US Department of Justice databases on deceased felons and the other is an Iraqi War death notice from our own Defence Department."

Martha frowned: "What else can you tell us, Ianto?"

"It can wait. Combat initiated." Rex called as shots echoed from the building.

To Lois, her assailant looked like a seventeen to eighteen year old girl. However, the appearance contradicted the weapons competency she was displaying, aiming for Lois' location, hemming her in, as she returned fire. And why was she cursing in Cyrillic?

Cam was tackled by a burly tall man, with a tattoo on his exposed left arm. He spoke in a peculiar midatlantic accent: "Okay, hot stuff. Time to break your neck."

However, Cam rabbit-punched him in the stomach: "Weren't expecting that, were you? Now get this, mate. This is a British government installation and you are committing an act of war."

"Oh, we know that."

"And who the fuck is 'we?'" -And moreover, why can't I get a telepathic fix on you, you bastard? It keeps sliding off. Unless...nah, it can't be. Shit.

Cam's distraction had enabled the other to slash upward with a broken glass bottle, slicing into his calf. The pain seared into him and he used telekinesis to throw a filing cabinet desk at the intruder, hard. To his shock, the other man guessed his move and brought up a metal plate as it hit an opposite wall. At which the other grabbed a stiletto knife from an adjacent table and slashed it again, up at his forehead. Cam jerked back, but it caught him on his temple, drawing blood. Momentarily dazed, the other slashed again. Cam gritted his teeth as the pain seared across his teeth:

"You're good. I'll give you that. What I wouldn't give to have you stretched out, tied up on a table while I rape that hot arse of yours..."

"Yeah? Not with you on the top end, shithead. Laugh this off, fuckwit!" Cam shoulder-charged the other, flinging him through an adjacent window.

Under other circumstances, Jack would have been quite attracted to his attacker. Only in this case, there was an air of desperation and ambivalence unlike the exchange between Cam and his assailant:

"Keller! Take our quarry, get into the car and do not engage! Operational parameters fulfilled. As for you, Cap Harkness, sorry about this..." He brought up a handheld bazooka and the room erupted with fire and pain as Captain Jack Harkness died once again, even if temporarily.

"Jack!" Ianto yelled, as Lois sprinted into a clearing, exchanging fire with the unknown contradictory female assailant as a red SUV careened out of an alleyway and into...nothingness. Lois cursed:

"Damn it! Cloaker! They're using transtemporal contraband. Cam!" As he staggered out of the burning MPHETA building, Martha tried a certain blue cellphone. Its tone was dull and empty. She put it down as Rex, Mickey and Andy ran into the building, carrying a bleeding, dead and hideously mutilated Jack out of there.

"Shut up, both of you!" snapped the younger woman as she put an end to the quarrel between her two involuntary companions:

"Tell that to amateur hour over here. You stupid piece of shit. You compromised my shell identity. I ought to-"

"Yeah? You were *told* not to engage, so what happened? You did so, with one of Torchwood's most deadly operatives. So don't give me that shit unless-"

"Elana to Rossum UK. Primary target success report. No personnel lost. Secondary target transit in progress, out."

Ignoring Jamie and the fusion of psychopath and serial killer in the back seat, the unearthly chilled and sure young woman accelerated the SUV toward their next target...

Sarah-Jane Smith.

***

Torchwood's SUV tore through the darkening streets of London. Cam Grant gritted his teeth as Martha applied anaesthetic to the cut on his head, leading Rex Benton to grit his teeth and squeeze his lovers hand. Across the seat, Ianto held Jack close as he jerked back into life.

Lois glanced in the rear-view mirror: "We seem to have a series of corpses, reanimated. Jack, please tell me that there isn't a real-life zombie apocalypse or anything similar."

He shook his head, whistling as he saw Cam's battered condition: "Did the other guy survive after you reciprocated, buddy? 'Cause that looks heavy duty."

"Yeah, well, not all of us get a delayed-effect out of jail card, Harkness. Ouch."

"That took longer than usual, Jack," Ianto said, as he clicked his stopwatch shut.

Martha nodded: "No wonder. There was a small-scale electromagnetic pulse, localised at the building. From experience, we know that disrupts your cellular anti-apoptosis. Lie back, you."

Rex managed a shaky smile: "That's my line, Martha."

"Mickey knows better than to cross me. Cam? I mean it."

Abruptly, the colour drained from his face: "Oh, hellfire. I don't know how, but I'm picking one of those bastards up on psi. Lois? They're attacking Croydon. They're after her. Sarah Jane."

The SUV screeched around as Jack tried to contact her, or her Mr Smith AI. But the remote cameras told a grim story as he patched in. The house was aflame, the UNIT guards posted to protect her were dead, and the grinning psychopath known as "Keller" had Luke Smith in the yard, as Sarah Jane fought with the female intruder:

"She's good." Cam said, impressed.

"Aye, the Doctor taught 'er Venusian Aikido. Even so, she's got forty or so years on that younger lass. Whoever she is."

Ianto cleared his throat: "Effie Stonem. Thing is, that's not her fighting with Ms Smith. She's got the accent, combat experience and psychopathic personality of a Chechnyan black widow."

"All right, boys. Why? That sounds like Dissociative Identity Disorder, except that can't be induced. Or can it?"

"Blazes, that would make sense. It's probably why I couldn't get a telepathic fix on them. But, Jack? That sort of vile, unethical medical experimentation doesn't become possible until near the end of this century. There's no way it could be here this early. Not without major neurological trauma to the subjects."

"Are you talking *induced* multiple personalities?! But in standard clinical practise, DID is usually the result of heavy psychological trauma, like child sexual abuse or survival of genocide. That has to be covered by UN anti-torture conventions, medical codes of professional practice-" Martha gasped, nauseated at the implications.

"NO!!!!" Cam screamed as Effie Stonem seized a moment of distraction and took the advantage, and smiled in taut satisfaction as she plunged a knife deep into Sarah Jane's chest.

The SUV broke through a gate as Cam charged forward, intent on freeing Luke from his assailant: "Scumball? Unhand that kid now, or face the consequences."

The younger male assailant cleared his throat: "Right, this time we are disengaging. Did you hear me, Keller? No more macho bullshit. This gets reported to Rossum. You get canned. Now leave the kid and come on."

From their last contact, Cam knew that Keller was immune to bodily telekinesis directed at him. He kicked a hubcap off the SUV, sharpened its edges and sent it on a boomerang arc. Keller was forced to let Luke go, as Jamie Dow slugged his counterpart. Effie Stonem leapfrogged the SUV as the other man gunned the engine.

"Corporal Dow? If that's you, you don't have to do this. You're not a psychopath like those two. Leave them. Leave them and do something to set this right!" Lois called.

In an instant, Dow made his decision and rolled out of the vehicle, sending a fusillade at Keller, narrowly missing him. The American cursed and their Audi rocketed from the Croydon property.

As they turned, Martha looked up, tears in her eyes: "I can't stop the bleeding."

"No. No," said Cam, fighting the throbbing pain from the reopened wound in his head," not her. I won't let this happen. I refuse to. Stand back, Martha."

Jack caught him by the shoulder: "Hey. She wouldn't want this."

"You know what she means to the Doctor. To Rex. To anyone who's ever met her. I saw my own husband and daughter murdered before my eyes, Jack, back uptime. Luke won't go through that."

Shoving Jack aside, he took Sarah Jane's hand in his and channelled telekinetic energy through it. Old wounds reopened on his body and scars throbbed with raw pain as he concentrated on healing her slowing heart and patching up her body- thyroid, liver, kidneys, brain- as he felt Rex move behind him:

"Cam, it's killing you."

"I have to do this, Rex. I have to try."

"Not at the cost of your own life, Cam. Thank you, though. Thank you for giving me the time to say goodbye to Luke and tell him how proud of him I am and how much I love him. Now let go my hand. Martha? You know I have terminal injuries, no matter how much this poor, brave man here wants to believe otherwise."

"Do as she says, Cam. Goodbye, Mum. I love you too..." Luke sobbed, as Sarah-Jane nodded to Jack. He broke the contact and tasered Cam, as Sarah Jane fell back, closed her eyes and gave up the valiant battle that had been her life.

And the sudden quiet was only broken by a tall, blond man being held by his lover as he sobbed pure, unalloyed grief at the gaping wound that had been torn in all their hearts.

***

In the gathering darkness, a launch pitched and accelerated through the Bristol Channel waves, heading outward to the North Sea. Onboard were Lois Habiba, Jack Harkness and Cam Grant.

"Are you sure that there's no talking you out of this?"

"No, Cam, there isn't. That evil little bitch murdered one of the unacknowledged heroes of covert malignant ET counter-offensives. According to Jamie Dow, Rossum UK's technology completely erases the personality of the previous occupant of that body and overwrites it with a replacement. Unfortunately, the replacements in question are psychotic killers. I accept your choice not to be the one to take her out."

"Hey, I volunteered. I knew the lady too and respected her. Except we'll probably both be needed to deal with Chris Keller, or the aberrant tin soldier that has his body."

"At least our men are out of danger, Jack." Cam said quietly.

"I doubt completely. Rex was right. Luke needed to be protected against a further attack from any other Rossum black ops and Ianto is off protecting Martha from any reprisals." Jack responded.

"One question, boys. Was this a 'fixed point in time?'"

"All the data that we have back in the 23rd Century is a video clip of Sarah Jane's state funeral. So yes, we knew she would die at some point, but not how. Dear Gaia. Damn Rossum's charnel house science to the abyss. She didn't deserve to go that way. Especially not her."

"That's what vengeance is for. And as I said, Cam, I have no problems with the fact that you can't kill someone who looks like a seventeen year old girl. Because of your own daughter and the way she died."

"You're getting quite good on the firing range, though, Lois. You don't need that telepathic patch I provided you with."

"It's called insurance, Cam. Jack's immortal, you aren't. We've already lost Sarah Jane and I swear I won't let them destroy you too."

"How are you coping?" Ianto asked as the SUV accelerated into the UNIT compound, awaiting Commissioner Tegan Jovanka and her bodyguard, Special Operations Convener Lara Johnson.

"I feel like I've been kicked in the guts. Aunt Sarah. Those bastards murdered her in cold blood. If Luke weren't so vulnerable and needed me right now, then I'd be with Cam and Jack and Lois out there in the bay. I hope that they find that Keller bastard and stomp him to hell. Martha, did you get the Doctor?"

"Number Eleven answered. Apparently this was new to him. Someone named River Song replied after he lost it. He's takin' it badly. There's some shit wi' the Stone Angels that they 'ave to get o' the way first. What about yer end?"

"Thanks to Mr Jones here and his extraordinary hacking skills, we've got the Rossum UK mainframe data. I've compiled it with neurological data patch-ins which demonstrate the serious consequences of using this technology on human beings and I'm including the United Nations Conventions on Torture on this sort of thing. I've been on the phone to the British Medical Association and the Lancet editors."

"Whatever shit went down during the Iraqi and Afghan Wars, I can't believe that this was a British government-authorised operation."

"They launched a terrorist attack on a British government ministry. Damn. Stomach ready, Ianto. Johnson came with her."

Tegan embraced Martha as she stepped from the SUV with her briefcase. Both women looked stricken. Both had known Sarah Jane Smith and both wanted to slash the canker that had led to her murder out at its roots. Ianto nodded to Johnson, still bitter at the chain of circumstances that had cost Torchwood the lives of Gwen Cooper and Rhys Williams.

After a moment, they gently disengaged. Martha said: "This is monstrous, Tegan. From what I can make out thanks to Ianto, Sarah Jane and MPHETA were both conducting investigations into Rossum UK's neurotech. This technology is unconscionably dangerous, both to the targets of these acts of terrorism and assassination, and it should be banned outright."

Johnson nodded: "I know you both don't trust me, but I thought Dr Jones-Smith needed reinforced protection. And I'm so sorry about the death of Ms. Smith. She was a magnificent woman."

"Under the circumstances, Agent, we've decided on a ceasefire. Lois Habiba, Captain Harkness and Cameron Grant are off to the location of their testing facility. Sorry we couldn't let you know in advance, but Rossum UK is using time-contraband proscribed technology and that's our line of work."

Johnson raised an eyebrow: "Harkness and Grant. I'd hate to be on the receiving end of that. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind giving some serious attention alongside them."

"Who's on the Hostile Paranormals and Extraterrestrials select committee?"

"Dame Emma Peel is the head. We lucked out there, Martha. Given her LibDem connections, the Deputy Prime Minister will be sitting in on this."

Seventy eight kilometres to the north, a launch had made landfall.

***

As they ran ashore, a fusillade of bullets ripped across their path. Cam deflected them and they went astray, while Jack called: "Give up, both of you. We know you're there and if you execute those hostages, you will not walk off this island alive. That's a promise. And we keep our promises."

"Oh, like you promised to serve and protect MPHETA and keep its personnel safe? Captain Harkness, you disgust me. You are immortal, yet you seek to withhold our beneficial technology from those who want what you take for granted."

"I have *never* taken it for granted. What you are doing is monstrous. Effie Stonem had a life before all this happened. Now she's gone and you have occupied the brain and body that was once hers. That is an obscenity."

"Hey, Grant. Still want a piece of your ass!"

"Oh, I'm so not scared, Keller. You're worse than your psychotic bitch associate. At least she's fighting for a cause, even if her motives are twisted, dangerous, twisted and wrong. You're just the ghost of a man who got a misguided second chance. And you won't get a third. I don't need psi to stop you, shithead."

Ignoring the dull throbbing in her head, Lois ran out and delivered covering fire as her male associates headed for their respective targets. She had one of her own in mind:

"Oi! Black widow! What's the matter, afraid of equality on the firing range?"

"I have a name, you pitiful child." In response, gunfire raked the stone monument where Lois had sheltered a moment before. But using her own telepathic patch, Lois had calculated her assailant's position and returned a fusillade at her opponent. There was a shriek of pain and the other woman hissed:

"You will pay for that!"

"Like the stolen body you're wearing, I am not what I seem, lady. You are a terrorist. You have attacked British government facilties and killed good men and women. It ends here."

"You are a naive, inexperienced little girl."

"You are a crazed murderess who tries to rationalise what she's doing out of fanaticism. Isn't it enough that you killed innocent civilians in Moscow? Sarah Jane Smith was quality. You may not have been the one who shot her, but you were part of the team sent to do that. Adn I will make you regret that."

In the interim period, her opponent had loaded a bazooka and fired it at her position, but again, Lois was too fast for her. However, there was a scream from the rock herm behind which she thought that she was sheltering. Leaving her position and venturing closer, the woman who had usurped Effie Stonem's body grinned at the leather jacket and the hand beneath it, as well as the red liquid leaking from it. Then she realised what was wrong, as her eyes fell on a transponder tannoy. She turned and ran, but then Lois tackled her.

The two women rolled down a grassy bank toward the edge of a precipice, trading blows. The other woman snarled at her and yelled obscenities in Chechnyan, as Lois' hand fastened on her gun and slammed it against the other's temple. But her assailant had located her own knife:

"As you were. One of us will not leave this field alive. My apologies. You were a formidable enemy. But I am not a merciful woman."

A shot rang out.

Cam Grant slammed into the hybrid 'doll' that combined military experience and psychopathic former prisoner Chris Keller. He parried an attempted blow with a piece of wood by slamming it against metal:

"Damn you!"

"What's the matter, you thought this was going to be a walkover? Wrong, you pathetic bastard. You murdered Sarah-Jane Smith and I'm going to beat you to a pulp for it."

"Words. Don't you get it? I'm a hybrid. I'm immune to your little telepath vaudeville tricks. You're going to get slammed into the wall and then I'm going to fuck you hard and then slit your throat."

Cam laughed and hit the other in the stomach: "I don't need to be a telepath to get the better of you, Keller. It's not even you. You're a clone, mate. And while I don't have anything against genetic dopplegangers, you have the same flaws and -unnnh!"

"Overconfidence?" Keller connected and began to pummel Cam mercilessly, until Cam slammed a piece of gnarled driftwood up against his temple. There was a cracking and fizzling sound and Keller yelled in agony. Cam suddenly realised that he was able to read the other's mind and seized his chance. He wracked the other's skull and shorted out Keller's Rossum neural net. Keller fell to the ground, lifeless.

It was almost over.

***

Ianto undressed as Jack lay naked on the bed. He seemed to be thinking about something: "Ianto, I want to try something different."

"Which means? I think we've tried virtually everything in my sexual reportoire except spitroasting. And you enjoy it too much when I spank you."

Jack sauntered off the bed: "Come over here. I want to get on top this time."

His lover raised an eyebrow: "What brought this on?"

"Well, partially a hideous thought about what Cam would pull if he'd ever found out that I was a power bottom. I can hear it just now- 'oh, you selfish withholding bastard! And I'm just jealous because you're better hung than I am!'"

"Er, I suspect Rex would disagree. Actually, he thinks that you and Cam are probably equivalent handfuls. So to speak. However, my answer is hell, yes. I've been wanting this since we fell for each other."

"I should warn you, I'm fairly big in some places."

"Oh, definitely. That's what I've been looking forward to. About nine inches pre-metric. Lube."

"Why does it smell like your coffee?"

"Because I wanted to seduce you with it, all over again..."

Seconds later, Ianto writhed in ecstacy beneath him on the bed for the first time, while Jack gasped in pleasure himself, forgetting for a moment that Sarah-Jane's funeral was two days away. But only for an instant.

In a bed several kilometres away, Cam and Rex lay together entwined: "This is probably a first for us."

"With a kid in the room down the hall, you meam? We couldn't very well leave Luke on his own. Rex, I've got a certain question I need to ask."

Rex watched as Cam produced a small box with a turquoise ring inside: "Is that what I think it is?"

"Rex Benton, will you marry me?"

"What do you think, y'gorgeous big bastard. 'Course!"

"Thank you, Rex. I never thought I'd be at this much peace, ever again. Question two. Do we adopt Luke?"

"Kid needs a family. And I guessed this would happen ever since Aunt Sarah's will left custody t'you. Let's do it, then, straight after the civvy. Now, how do we celebrate?"

"More wine an' sex, I reckon. To us. To our lad down the hall. An' to Aunt Sarah."

"To you, Sarah-Jane Smith. And other absent friends."

THE END

***