Title: How do you solve a problem like a weevil
By: BellaGwen
Pairing: gen
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Torchwood and its characters belong to the BBC, not me. I'm just having some not-for-profit fun.
Note: The 'Jones' character in this fic is old Jones from my other fic, 'The New Arrival,' but you don't need to read it before reading this.
Summary: Captain Jack and his team investigate abnormal weevil activity but someone is captured by an old enemy. Will the team survive?

***

1.

It might have been daytime outside, but the only clue that the work day had begun was when steps, voices and the smell of coffee started to fill The Hub.

Captain Jack had stopped watching the clock a long time ago. What was time to him when he didn't sleep, didn't age. Yeah sure he wore a watch, but not because it told the time. He looked down at the ‘alien tech' on his arm and smiled. ‘Handy gadget that,' he though.

"Coffee sir?" It was Jones, always arrived first. Ran the place like clockwork, even if he was starting to look a bit old.

"What would I do without you Jones?" Jack smiled, walking across the hub to his friend and accepting his first steaming mug of the day. He liked it burning hot. It made him feel more alive.

"Aha, the new girl's here. Still anxious to make a good impression," Jones observed on the small cctv screen over a nearby desk.

Jack laughed. "She'll be taking over your job soon." Jones raised his eyebrows in bemusement, but said nothing as he took his own coffee away towards his ‘office' upstairs.

"Morning Suzie," roared Jack, as the young woman appeared through the Hub door.

She regarded him calmly as she made straight for her workbench. Yes, it was a desk, but she preferred to call it a workbench. It wasn't like she did much paper work there anyway and it was piled with bits and bobs of machinery and tools.

"Jack" she acknowledged him with a nod. It wasn't that he made her uneasy, but sometimes she just didn't know what to talk to him about.

"So what did you get up to on your weekend away from us?" he followed her to her desk and propping himself on it looked like he as settling in for a chat.

"That is for me to know and you to find out," she grinned at him.

"Ooo," his eyes widened. "Is this the perfect Miss Costello hinting she's been up to no good?"

Suzie could feel herself blushing just a bit.

"You have," Jack was triumphant.

"She has what?" a deep Welsh voice asked from behind them.

"Little Suzie's been a naughty girl," Jack teased, but was disappointed when his computer expert just shrugged and turned towards the coffee pot.

"About time one of us was," Gethin Bryant muttered under his breath. He was annoyed he'd been at his desk all weekend when Wales had been playing a Six Nations match in Cardiff.

Jack heard him but ignored the comment. They'd already had words this weekend and he didn't want it to kick off again.

As he walked away from a relieved Suzie and back towards his own office he reflected that being the boss wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

He sat into his leather chair, one of the perks of the job, and regarded his team. Suzie, young and brilliant, but inexperienced and a little nervous. She tried to hide it but he could see it in her when they responded to an emergency call.

Then there was Gethin. God the man was an awkward bastard. Committed though. Thorough. There was nothing that man could not do with a computer, even the alien technology that ended up in his hands. It was like he was one with the machine sometimes, Jack thought. But damn him if he didn't always have an opinion, on everything. Still, Jack wouldn't have had anyone else as his second in command.

The desk to his right was still in darkness, the computer still off. He knew that was only because Jones had turned it off the night before, on his energy saving drive. Someone in London had memo'd him about it. He rolled his eyes. Like when you were chasing aliens you worried about something like the electricity bill. He muttered something uncomplimentary about bureaucrats.

‘Harry better not be late,' Jack though. They had work to do this morning and ‘Dr Marshall' — as the shiny nameplate on the desk read — was going to be an important part of the plan.

His thoughts returned to Suzie. He couldn't see her, but he could see the sparks coming from her desk as she tinkered with something. She'd been here two months now and was fitting well into the team. She was quiet, but friendly. Seemed to prefer her ‘toys' to people half the time, he though, but could be counted on to back them up and get he work done.

Still, he worried she needed a bit of confidence about her job. He'd start putting that right today. Whenever they could get down to working on his plan.

Jack opened a file on his desk and looked over a report on recent weevil activity that Jones had prepared the day before. There was definitely something going on, the report concluded. Weevil sightings were up. A lot. And it wasn't even Halloween, when half the population of Cardiff seemed to be baby weevils.

Starting this morning they were going to investigate and find out why.

He heard a shout of delight from outside and looked up to see Gethin waving him over.

"I got it," he drawled in his Welsh accent, beaming in delight. "I figured out the little bugger." He pointed to what looked like lines of zeroes and ones speeding across his computer screen.

"It's the camera link up," he explained, assuming the air of a teacher. "I've finally put it all together so where ever you go in Cardiff I'll be able to see you."

Jack was pleased. Gethin had been beavering away at trying to link up all the police security cameras and private cameras to their system for while. There were security barriers to be broken and Gethin had even spent several nights out putting satellite links to some of the private cameras in useful locations that were not part of the police network.

They had been discussing how the new system would work for a while when the sound of singing could suddenly be heard coming from the stairs.

Harry, always singing, always took the stairs.

He waltzed into the Hub, cheeky grin on his face as he looked around to see where everyone was.

"Morning boss!" he blew a kiss at a frowning Jack. "Suzie darling," he caught her and swung her around. He held out his arms to Gethin. "Fuck off you bloody idiot. Some of us have work to do."

Jack caught himself smiling. He'd never tell anyone, but he had a soft spot for Harry and it pissed him off how he just couldn't stay annoyed at him.

"Right, everyone in the boardroom," Jack shouted, "We're on."

*****

Two minutes later the jovial atmosphere had turned serious as Jack outlined the plan.

"We need to sort out these damn weevils," Jack was saying as Jones slipped quietly into the room and handed out copies of his report. "And we need to do it fast. So..." he looked around, "Harry, I want you to go talk to that ER nurse. Find out exactly what she saw. Gethin — time to put your new toy to work. See what caused the disturbances at the weekend." He passed a list of places with dates and times written beside them to him.
"And Suzie," he turned towards her. Her time had come. "I don't think it's been foxes going through the bins in this housing estate. Talk to some people."

He was relieved to see she looked eager, not scared. Maybe he'd underestimated her.

Jack took the last job. The city dump. He'd been tempted to pass it off to one of the others, but it was his turn. Damn weevils. Sewers and dumps. But there was no time to think about that.

"OK, everyone keep in touch, now go."

2.



Two hours later and the crew had made very little progress. Lots of people had seen weevils lately, but they'd know that this morning before they left the Hub Jack thought as got into the black Torchwood jeep. He stank. He made a mental note to thank Jones in advance for the cleaning he'd have to do inside the jeep.

His com beeped.

"Jack, it's Harry, you there?"

"What's up doc?" Jack never got tired of teasing Harry.

"Jack, we've got a problem," the voice that came back wasn't laughing, or groaning at the old joke. "I'm at the marina, you need to see this."

"Ten minutes." Jack swung the jeep around and pointed it towards the coast.

*****

He made it in eight.

"Michelle, that nurse," a breathless Harry greeted Jack as he screeched into the car park, "she showed me an assault victim from Saturday night. But Jack, he had teeth marks." He paused to gasp a breath. "Weevil teeth marks."
He was running again back towards the boats. There're weren't many. It was February. "They found him down here so I came down for a look, and, jesus Jack," he gasped again, stopping and leaning his hands on his knees. "Look," he pointed to the muddy exposed shore.

Jack felt his stomach heave. It was a body. Well, truth be told, it had been a body. He could make out legs, part of a torso, an arm. But the head was gone. So was the other arm. The mud around it was darkened. Must have been from blood. It was a messy corpse.

"What the hell happened here?" Jack demanded.

A blank look from Harry was his answer. They stared at each other for a moment before Jack's mind kicked into action.

"We've got to get that out of here," he said, starting to run back towards the jeep. In seconds he was back with a roll of black plastic and a hard case. Harry recognised the body bag.

"Get it into that and into the jeep," he barked an order. Then he tapped a button on his ‘watch.'

"Gethin," he demanded over the com. "What have you got from the marina, Saturday."

The answer was almost immediate. "Not a lot Jack, only one camera. What u looking for?"

"You'll know when you see it. We're heading back in."

Jack helped Harry to haul the heavy plastic back to the jeep. They did a quick check of the area but any evidence had long been washed away by the tide.

It was only as they pulled onto the busy road back into the city that Jack had a chance to check in with Suzie.

*****

Harry was wiping something slimy off his hands onto a clean cloth as Jack called Suzie over her com.

There was no answer. "Come on Suzie, this is important. Answer me damn it," he yelled starting to get worried. He didn't like it when he didn't know where all his team were.

There was an unusual crackling noise over the com and the men just about heard Suzie's voice.

"What's she saying?" Harry asked. "Where is she?"
Jack shushed him. "Suzie, can you hear me. Talk to me Suzie."

Static again. And then a scream.


*****

"Jack. I think I've got what you wanted from the marina," Gethin's voice came over the com as, for the second time that morning, Jack pulled a u-turn and changed direction.

Ignoring the blowing horns, Jack yelled back. "Forget it Gethin, Suzie's in trouble. Get that estate up on the screens now. I want to know where she is."

"I'm on it," Gethin's reply was urgent but took on the calm timbre he always had in emergencies.

Noone spoke for what seemed like an age. Then it was Gethin to break the silence.

"I've got her car. Malvern Walk, near the chipper."

"Can you see her?" it was Harry this time. "No," was the bare reply.

Jack cursed the slow traffic getting in his way as he sped through the city towards the sprawling upper class area. There would be gardens, big ones, he'd even heard one or two houses out there had swimming pools. In Cardiff! But it wasn't the social standing of the locals he was thinking about. It meant there were plenty of hiding places for, well, for whatever they were looking for. For Suzie.

As the jeep pulled into a central parkland area Jack screeched to a halt and the two men fell out. They stopped, looking around in the grey rain that had started to fall. It was quiet. Totally silent. Weird, thought Harry. It was the middle of the day but there wasn't a soul around.

They stood looking around.

"Over there," shouted Harry as he stared to run across the grass. Jack saw him heading towards an area of trees and followed him.

Sliding to a halt on the wet grass Jack saw the look of horror on Harry's face. "It's Suzie's," was all the younger man said pointing to the leather jacket on the ground.

It was shredded across the back, and it was covered in blood.


3.


It was times like this that Captain Jack wished he had the men under his command that his title suggested.

He and Harry were picking their way through the small wood, desperately trying to track Suzie.

They'd made some progress. There had been flattened grass, then some trampled scrubby bushes, and even the odd droplets of blood on leaves to guide them, but then the ground had become paved again, and led back to the road and they'd run out of ‘track.'

There was nothing for it but to go back to the jeep.

As Jack and Harry sat there in tense silence, waiting for Gethin to search through cctv footage again, their thoughts returned to the mutilated body in the back of their jeep.

"What do you think happened to it?" Harry asked, desperately trying not to think about the blood on the ground.

"If that was done by a weevil it's no weevil we've ever seen before," Jack said ominously.

"Nothing Jack, sorry," Gethin's voice.

"OK. We're coming back in."

"Jack, what about Suzie?" Harry demanded.

"That thing back there could be our only clue," Jack gestured into the back of the jeep. "We're taking it back and you're going to tell us what happened and who did it."

*****

An hour later Jack paced the hub as Harry carefully examined the corpse, in his sunken autopsy room.

Every few minutes Jack would pace in that direction and look expectantly at Harry.

Harry had started ignoring him. He'd speak when he had something to tell him.

Jack turned to Gethin. "Anything?" The new cctv gadgets were working overtime but had yet to find Suzie.

Another computer was running a trace programme. It was trying to find her mobile phone signal.

"I thought these things were state of the art," Jack hissed.

"They are," Gethin answered, "give them time."

He walked to his office. Sat down. Stood back up, walked towards Harry. He hated feeling useless and right now that thing, whatever it was, could be tearing Suzie apart. He shook the image from his head.

Harry was no longer prodding and poking the body, he was doing something on a computer.

"What you got?" Jack bounded to the desk.

Harry looked gaunt. "This is weird Jack. It's weevil alright, but not as we know it."

He tapped some buttons and medical scans appeared. "See this," he pointed to what could have been bite marks. Jack, and Gethin who had joined them, looked over his shoulder.

"Now this is a weevil bite mark," Harry held up a photograph, "but this is our new friend." The differences were clear. "More teeth, longer teeth, bigger jaw..." he trailed off.

"Super weevils?" Jack was confused.

"It's not just that," Harry tapped some more buttons on his keyboard, some test results that Jack and Gethin didn't understand appeared.

"Where this poor bastard was bitten, well, weevils leave a kind of a signature, like DNA. This is different too," Harry tried to explain.

"What do you mean different?" Jack demanded.

"I don't know. I don't know what it means. But I think we're dealing with some kind of advanced weevil."

"What, less stupid?" Gethin asked.

"No, I don't know. More vicious," Harry said hesitantly.

Jack opened his mouth to speak but at that moment a noise like an alarm started to come from one of the computers.

"The phone trace," Gethin exclaimed as he ran to the machine. He studied the screen for a split second then announced: "I've got her."

*****

The Torchwood jeep would have sped through the city if the beginnings of the afternoon rush hour didn't keep getting in the way. Gethin was helping. Jack made a mental note to really thank him for that cctv linkup.

The signal for Suzie's phone was weak, and it was moving, but it was slow and Gethin was able to follow it.

They were heading for the old city waterworks. "Goddamn sewers," Jack cursed. No wonder they hadn't been able to find Suzie on the street cameras. Whoever had her had gone underground.

"The signal's not moving anymore." It was Gethin. "They must have reached their destination." It was preferable to think that than something more fatal.

Jack knew they were all thinking the same thing. He cursed himself for not sending them out in pairs this morning. He'd been in too much of a hurry to get this sorted.

As he and Harry approached the old water works he surveyed the grey building in the failing light. It had been deserted a long time ago. Broken windows gaped like open mouths up along the grey wall, the dull colour broken here and there by childish graffiti. ‘I woz ere.' "Well now I'm here," Jack braced himself and strode towards the entrance to the Victorian sewer network.


4.

"I didn't sign up for this," Harry thought in disgust as another suspicious object floated past him in the shallow sewer water. If he could move without looking down he would, but falling in that shite would be even worse than having to look at it.

The two men were slowly making their way along a dark, round tunnel. It was just high enough for them to stand, but not to walk alongside each other.

The only light came from the alien metal device in Jack's hands as he led the way. It made a soft beeping sound and a dull blue light blinked in time. They called it ‘the tracker,' because that was what it did. All you needed was some DNA from your prey and it worked like the world's best bloodhound.

Now they were looking for the ‘Super Weevil.' Harry shuddered, thinking about what it had done to that body in the bay.

Jack stopped ahead of him. Gethin was talking softly into their ears, through their coms.

"No change. If she's with that phone then you're not far away," he whispered.

He wasn't boasting, but it wasn't Jack's first time in a sewer. And he was worried. There were no rats. Not one. Something down here had scared them away. "Or eaten them all," Harry had helpfully suggested when Jack mentioned his suspicion a few minutes into their search.

The tracker started beeping a little bit quicker. Harry felt the cold metal of the gun he was carrying. He'd never wanted to pick up a gun before he got this job but hell, it did make him feel a tiny bit better right now.

"Urgh, what is that smell?" he gasped as a wave of stink hit them. Considering they were already in a sewer pipe he was almost impressed how much worse it was.

"Look," Jack stood aside.

Harry liked to think he had a stomach of steel but what he saw made him spin round and empty its contents into the sewer water at his feet.

"Jesus Christ what is that?" cursed. Jack's face reflected his own disgust.

They had come to what looked like a junction in the sewer. Two main pipes, corridors, whatever they were called intersected and opened into a small cavern.

There were electronic devices, what looked like an operating table, some kind of advanced computers. Weird to see in a sewer but not the worst sight greeting them.

On the table, hooked up to the computers, was a weevil. All around were what could only be described as body parts. But not just weevil. Some of them were obviously human.

There were bits in jars of liquid, bits oozing on a table, bits dumped on the ground.

Harry saw Jack close his eyes, trying to regain his composure. ‘At least he didn't puke,' Harry thought.

They approached the table slowly. "It's dead," Harry gasped, not realising he had been holding his breath.

It was true. The machines were all turned off.

Jack started to inspect the machine closest to him when he heard something. He looked at Harry. He'd heard it too. They froze.

There it was again, muffled. Jack walked in the direction he thought he heard the sound coming from. He was surprised to see an opening in the wall.

Motioning for Harry to follow Jack slowly crept through the opening into a small, dank room, and there, on the floor in the corner was Suzie.

"Suzie!" Harry exclaimed as they ran to her. Jack loosening the cloth that was gagging her and Harry pulling out his Swiss army knife and cutting the rope around her ankles and wrists.

"Are you ok?" Jack looked intently at Suzie. She nodded. "We've got to get out of here," she rasped. There was fear in her eyes but she was calm.

Jack was glad to see her jump to her feet. If she could walk and run their escape would be faster.

He could see Harry looking at Suzie's cut and bloody back, her ripped shirt. His questioning expression was answered with a nod from the doctor. "I'm fine," Susie hissed, catching them. "Now can we just go?"

*****

They were half way back along the sewer to the old water works when they heard the roar of anger.

Running all the way, they had left the alien tech behind this time. They'd regroup, get fixed up, debrief Suzie and come back for it better prepared, better armed, Jack had made a spur of the moment decision. Getting Suzie back to safety and fixed up was the main priority now.

"Keep running," Jack urged on the others. Suzie had stumbled at the sudden noise and Harry had stopped to help her. "Go. Run, run, run."

They sloshed through the shallow water, running towards the end of the tunnel. Gasping for breath the three barrelled into the metal ladder, leading up to the building above.

Jack urged first Suzie and then Harry up the ladder. He had to make an effort not to panic when he heard the angry roaring come nearer.

He looked up and saw Suzie climb through the opening. Harry was half way up the ladder when Jack saw a hulking figure coming towards him.

"Jack!" he heard Suzie shout down to him.

"Close the door."

She started to protest... "Just close it." Jack wasn't looking up any more but he was staring into the gloom, his gun aimed.

The daylight from above went out as he heard the door clang shut. He gripped his gun and waited.

*****

"We can't leave Jack," Suzie cried, her composure finally slipping as the clang of the metallic door fell shut on the sewer entrance.

"He'll be ok." Harry had to drag her towards the jeep. "Come on, you need help."

He knew Jack would be ok. He'd treated him enough times to know Jack was special. But he couldn't tell Suzie that, even to calm her. He'd promised Jack.

Suzie was crying as he got her into the jeep. "Stop struggling," he snapped as he tried to clean her wounds with his first aid supplies.

Gethin was shouting in his ear. "Here, talk to him," he shoved his com into Suzie's hand.

*****

Underground all was quiet.

Jack stared hard at the figure in the gloom. It wasn't pitch dark but he couldn't see far.

"Show yourself" Jack shouted. He might as well get it over with.

He was more stunned than if some kind of monster had appeared when a cultured and precise voice came back out of the darkness.

"Captain Jack Harkness. Well, we meet again." And into his line of vision stepped a tall, broad man. He looked gruesome. He wore bloodstained surgical scrubs and held a glowing alien weapon in his hand.

Jack blinked in surprise. Standing before him was a man he had last scene in ion-shackles, a billion light years away, in another time.

"Director Orlaa," Jack's face turned into a grimace. "What are you doing on this planet?" If his crew had been there they would have seen the hatred on Jack's face.

When he'd been left behind to rebuild the Dalek ravaged earth, in another life, this man had been his curse. A clichéd mad scientist, Doctor Maximillian Orlaa had taken advantage of the chaos, carrying out horrible experiments on men, women and even children.

It had been a good day for Jack when he'd finally caught up with him. The last he knew the Director had been on death row but now... he was here.

"Back to your old tricks," Jack said with distaste.

Orlaa laughed. "But this time there is no one to stop me."

"You're sick," Jack spat, he raised his gun, "this time I'm going to finish the job myself."

"You won't shoot me. You couldn't do it last time. You won't do it this...." The words died on his lips as Jack pulled the trigger. Orlaa's face was stunned, as he fell backwards and splashed into the shallow water.


5.

They'd gone back to clean up the mess later that night. Jack, Harry and Gethin. Suzie had stayed at the Hub with Jones. She'd wanted to go back but Jack had point blank refused. She had objected to going home, not when she knew about what had been going on. They compromised. She stayed in the Hub and wrote up a full report. Under the careful eye of Jones.

Harry had patched her up. But she was still sore, and she wouldn't be sleeping on her back for a while. Still, she couldn't help feeling that in some way she had finally been accepted as a full part of the team.

Jones watched her from across the Hub as she typed. He saw her stretch, then wince. He'd always felt a bit like a parent to the Torchwood members and he settled in at his desk, to watch over the place till the others got back, trying not to think about the condition of the jeep when it got back from its retrieval mission at a sewer.

The three men got back to The Hub a few hours later. They'd scavenged a lot of advanced computer equipment from the make-shift lab. Jack knew what kind of records they would find saved there and was in no hurry to analyse it. Again.

It was the middle of the night outside when all five of them sat down around the boardroom table. Jones had brought coffee and muffins, a godsend wherever he had conjured them from.

Jack looked around at his team. He was proud of them. He told them that. "One of us was in danger today," his gaze fell on Suzie, "and we got her back. Well done everybody."

There were weak smiles around the table.

"Go home," he told them, "there's no more we can do here tonight."

One by one they quietly left until Jack thought he was left alone, staring out over the desks and workbenches. A voice close behind him startled him.

"I don't like it when you do that. On your own." It was Harry. "Today I though.... I mean I didn't think you would...." He didn't know what to say next. He leaned forward and rested his head on Jack's shoulder and breathed out the stress he'd been holding in.

Jack didn't move.

Harry stepped back and Jack turned to face him. "Trust me."

***