Chapter Text
PART ONE
into the valley of steel
CARDIFF, WALES
April 2009
Universe A.2
When the day is finished and the world—hell, all of reality—is saved, Mickey Smith steps out of the Torchwood base where he stayed the night and crosses the Roald Dahl Plass. He finds himself in the same spot overlooking the bay where he’d once realised that the girl he loved was really, truly leaving him. It’s more cheerful in the early morning, grey waves lapping against the sea wall, gulls mobbing some tourist family to steal their chips, cyclists whirring past on their way to work.
He’s crossed universes before. It’ll be easier this time. The air feels clearer in his lungs. He made his goodbyes the best he could.
Thing is, he’s used to being the one left behind, not the one doing the leaving.
“Morning, Mickey. Penny for your thoughts?”
He turns. Behind him: Martha Jones, from UNIT, approaching with a smile and two cups of coffee. She offers one.
“Cheers.” He accepts the coffee, steadying himself on its warmth, and tucks his grief behind a smile. “Oh, I dunno. Weird being back here. Nice, but weird.”
“I bet. Took me ages to get my bearings after I left the TARDIS. If you need to talk…” She waggles her cup at him, raises her eyebrows.
“Yeah,” Mickey says, relieved. “Yeah, I'd like that.”
#
LONDON, ENGLAND
February 2007
Universe A.1
When the day is finished and the world—or London, at least—is saved, it’s just the two of them in the car. Jake’s giddy with the success and the adrenaline of it all. Cybermen destroyed, Battersea going up in flames, fearing the zeppelin would catch fire with them inside it. He can’t stop grinning.
Then he remembers that there’s work to be done before they can go to Paris, to pull down Lumic’s factories one after the next. There’s work to be done, and it has to be done tonight.
His smile slips away, and Mickey doesn’t seem to notice.
“So, I was thinking,” Mickey’s saying, hand on the steering wheel, eyes on the road, “I know we’ve got places to be and all, but I’ve gotta go to my gran’s first. Make sure she’s okay, you know?” His voice flips up on the last note like he’s trying not to sound scared. His gran had EarPods. Ricky used to worry about her.
Ricky.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” Jake says around the lump in his throat. “I’ve got things to take care of. We’ll head to your gran’s, then I’ll take the van. I’ll pick you up when I’m done.”
#
The first thing Jake does is take care of the body. He has to drive a circuitous route to dodge the soldiers’ checkpoints—though who knows if they’re bothering with curfew right now—and it takes him a while to find the body. He felt too uncomfortable to ask Mickey Oi, where’d you watch yourself die?
No. Not yourself. They’re different people; Jake has to get that knowledge in his veins as quick as he can. To Mickey, though, it must’ve felt like watching himself die. Same face. Had Mickey even seen someone die before? Can’t have been easy. He’s holding up well, considering. Or maybe he’s like Jake, waiting for the right moment to fall apart.
The longer Jake searches, the stronger an unreasonable voice grows inside of him, insisting that Ricky could’ve made it. It was dark. Mickey might not know what he saw. Ricky’s tough. Ricky’s smart. Maybe he played dead. Maybe he got knocked out, but now he’s on his way back to the Preachers’ base, not knowing if Jake’s alive—
Then Jake sees the body slumped by the chain-link fence. He knows the slope of those shoulders, the cut of that jacket. The Cybermen didn’t even move Ricky’s body after it fell.
His grief is a knife. It’ll cut him if he's not careful. Jake’s hands tremble as he parks the van, hops out, and kneels on the damp London pavement. The Cybermen didn’t close Ricky’s eyes. Now the eyelids don’t stay down. His body is stiff with death and smells of smoke and lightning, and Jake cannot get his eyes closed. It’s the indignity that gets to him. Jake has lost other Preachers. Mrs. Moore is dead in the remains of Battersea Power Station; he doesn’t even have her body to bury. He and Ricky both knew it could end like this.
Jake had always assumed they would go down together. In the morning, he tells himself, he’ll be glad to be proven wrong.
He kisses Ricky’s cold forehead and scoops the body into his arms.
#
The first thing Mickey does is go to his gran’s house. His heart pounds when he rings the doorbell, Jake and the van nothing but a screech of tires in the distance. Rita-Anne Smith, in this world, had EarPods. When deciding to stay, Mickey took it for granted that she’d survived the night. Doubt creeps in as minutes pass and nobody comes to the door. Is she stranded in the street somewhere after being snapped out of her trance? How far from home did she walk? He doesn’t know how she’ll figure out where she is if nobody helps her. Her eyesight hasn’t been good enough for street signs in years. Or could she have been one of the Cybermen in the factory they destroyed? Maybe it was more mundane, and she tripped trying to walk home—tripped and broke her n—
Across the street, a door opens. A voice calls out:
“Ricky? Ricky Smith? Is that you?”
Mickey turns. Standing in the glow of her front door is Mrs. Chan, whose living room window he’d broken when he kicked a football clean through it at the age of twelve. Her shoulders are hunched against the cold in a cardigan too thin for February.
“Yeah,” Mickey says, finding his voice. “Yeah, hi, Mrs. Chan. Have you seen my gran? Only she’s not answering the door, and—”
“Your gran’s in my living room,” says Mrs. Chan. “Worried sick about you, too. Come in and sit down.”
There’s a lump in his throat. All he can do is follow her inside, into the living room where his gran sits on the couch. Without the shiny metal things in her ears, he looks just like he remembers her. She’s had the same hairstyle for forty years. When she stands, wringing her hands, he catches a whiff of the same perfume that pervades every one of his childhood memories.
“I found your boy,” Mrs. Chan says. Mickey goes to Rita-Anne, grasping her hands in his. Her brow softens. She lifts a hand to his face, and he thinks for a moment that a slap is coming—but she holds his jaw instead, as gently as anything, and says in a voice close to tears,
“Ricky. Oh, Ricky. You're alright.”
For the first time, the magnitude of his lie descends upon him.
#
Rita-Anne fusses over Mickey from the minute they leave Mrs. Chan’s house. He learns that she did wake up from Lumic’s trance in the middle of the street, with no clue where she was—but Mrs. Chan was in line behind her and helped her safely home. He’ll buy that woman flowers in the morning, if he’s able.
As soon as they’re through the door, Mickey goes to the hall cupboard. The hammer and nails are exactly where he thought they'd be, covered with dust.
“Ricky? Where are you tearing off to now?” his gran asks in the hallway behind him. “Don't tell me you're running off with those friends already—”
“I'm going to fix that carpet,” Mickey says. He doesn't usually interrupt her, but the words fly out of his mouth, all wobbly. “On the stairs.”
“Now?” He can tell without looking that she's surprised. Maybe Ricky didn't do much without being asked a thousand times, either. Or maybe Ricky had been off trying to save the world. It doesn't matter. The world's as safe tonight as it ever will be, so it's time for Mickey to make it safe for the one person who matters.
“Right now,” he says firmly. “I've been putting off for too long.”
And he kneels down at the base of the stairs, right where he found her years ago. It’s too easy to remember that way. Her skin was cold when he tried to check her pulse, tried to remember any first aid, as though first aid could fix a broken neck. Mickey banishes the image from his mind as best he can, holds the nails between his lips, and begins to work.
#
Jake drives for hours, trying not to think about the body in the back. Trying not to think about anything but the next turn. There’s little traffic on the streets of London tonight. He sees the bodies of Cybermen collapsed on the ground, their helmets only shards of steel glinting in the headlights. He sees other bodies, too. Smaller. Softer. People who resisted conversion. The police, or whoever’s left to clean up Lumic’s mess, will be busy tonight.
The Preachers have a tiny shack in the countryside, a few hours out of London, where Jake learned how to throw a punch and fire a gun. There’s a field beside it which goes golden in autumn. It’s not what Ricky deserves, but under the circumstances, it’s the only place Jake can think to go.
He should call Mickey. This trip will take longer than he expected, and he never told Mickey when he’d return. Mickey isn’t used to the Preachers’ methods. No cell phones, because phones can be tracked. Ricky used to disappear for missions at all odd hours, with only a sticky note to say he’d gone, and no indication of when he’d be back. Jake would pace the house and see that everything was in order—water supplies topped up, lamps working, van filled with petrol—and if he ran out of busywork before Ricky got home, he would invent more. Jake called it surveillance, when all he did was scan the radio, the news, and every transmitter they could intercept, listening for Ricky’s name.
You can’t keep doing this to me, he would say when they were alone, his fists in Ricky’s shirt, his forehead pressed to Ricky’s, his breathing heavy. You could have died. How long am I supposed to wait for you?
The fight’s bigger than we are, Jake, Ricky said. You knew the risks when you joined.
And if you die, what happens to me?
Ricky had kissed him then, long and hard and sweet. Their moments alone were small and stolen.
You survive.
Jake breathes deep, and the smell of ozone hits him. He exhales, sick, and drives onward.
#
When Jake returns in the morning, it’s Ricky’s gran who opens the door. He can’t remember her name, but he recognizes her from the photo Ricky keeps in his wallet. Kept. He’d barely glanced at her yesterday, but he remembers her shouting when he swept Mickey away in the van, thinking he was Ricky. Christ. Hard to believe not even twenty-four hours have passed.
Now, Jake looks somewhere over her left shoulder. She frowns and speaks sharply.
“Who is it? What do you want?”
He hesitates. He doesn’t know how much Mickey’s told her, and Jake’s always been a rotten liar. But she looks better than he feels, so maybe Mickey has a different approach to the truth.
“I’m one of Ricky’s friends,” Jake says. True enough. “I said I’d come by this morning.”
“You’re one of the ones with the van,” she says dubiously. “I recognise your voice. What makes you think you can go around, pulling my grandson away when I haven’t talked with him in over a year? Who gave you the right?”
Jake squirms. “Sorry, miss. I don’t know if he explained—”
“Oh, yes, Ricky spun a pretty story. Said it’s for my own good. That the people behind this business with the EarPods were after him.” Her voice rises. “What kind of trouble are you getting my grandson into? How am I supposed to know he’s still alive if he never even calls?”
Jake’s throat closes. He’s been numb to the pain for most of the morning, but this digs a finger in the wound. He opens his mouth to lash out, then grits his teeth. He can’t bring himself to shatter her world. He doesn’t know what Ricky would want him to do. Allowing the lie to stand feels half like betrayal, half like mercy.
It’s then that the man who looks exactly like Ricky appears behind his gran.
“Jake!” he says, with a cheer bordering on frantic. “Didn’t hear you pull up.”
“Yeah.” Jake decides, abruptly, that he doesn’t need to be here. He doesn’t want to explain what’s happening. “Look, I’ll wait by the van. Let me know if you’re coming.”
He turns back and strides away. Ricky’s gran behind him says “Where are you going? Ricky, what’s he talking about?” If Jake wanted to, he could eavesdrop on R— Mickey’s response. Instead, he opens the passenger door to the van and grabs a half-empty pack of cigarettes from the glove compartment. The thing is stuffed full with parking tickets.
They were deliberate, Ricky protested. I was fighting the system. Park anywhere, that’s me.
Jake shuts the compartment again as quick as he can and settles against the hood of the van. Puts the cigarette between his lips, flicks the lighter a few times to make it catch. The Smiths’ voices are white noise, easy to tune out. Ten minutes. That’s all Jake needs. Long enough for the nicotine to kick in. Even the ritual of smoking calms him, loosening his shoulders as he draws the smoke in, softening his brow as he lets it out.
He’s stamping out the cigarette on the pavement when Mickey approaches.
“Sorry about that. I’m ready now.” He squints at Jake. “You all right, boss?”
Jake must look a right mess. He swallows hard. “Fine,” he says, in a tone that brooks no further discussion. He gives the cigarette one last stomp and hops into the driver’s seat, urging the van to life as Mickey climbs in the other side. He gestures to the cup holder, where he put the wallet he took from Ricky’s body. “His ID’s there. Keep it on you. There’s some cash, too. All yours.”
Mickey takes the wallet and examines the driver’s licence. “When did you…” He glances up, and he must see the dirt-encrusted shovel behind the driver’s seat, because his voice goes very quiet. “Oh.”
There are a number of things Jake could say. He could apologise—he didn’t consult Mickey before making him party to identity theft. He could tell the truth. He deserved better. Wish I found him a tombstone, at least. But any of those things require verbally acknowledging the events of the last eight hours, and if Jake does that, he’ll come apart at the seams. He can’t afford that, not when there’s work to do. The Doctor had said We can mourn him when London is safe, but it doesn’t feel safe, not yet. Maybe it never will.
“Got a few things to take care of before we leave town,” Jake says. He doesn’t look at Mickey. He hasn’t looked Mickey in the eyes all morning. “It’ll take a day or two, at least. If you want out, now’s your chance.”
“I promised to help,” Mickey says. “I’m not backing down now. Said my goodbyes already, anyway.”
Jake exhales. “Right, then. We need to find Mrs. Moore’s family. Tell them what happened.”
“Angela Pryce, right? I can find them.” Mickey pauses, and Jake’s skin crawls with the sense of being examined. “Look, mate, if you need some time… I mean, we don’t know when Lumic’s factories are all supposed to go off. Could be we’ve got time to spare.”
Jake’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Or we might not.” A tiny confession slips out, the closest he can get to vulnerability: “I wouldn’t mind a change of scene.”
#
Mickey stays on the laptop in the kitchen while Jake goes for a shower. He hasn’t had a tour yet, and it feels rude to make himself at home in the Preachers’ place when he doesn’t know whose stuff he’d be going through. Part of him expects more Preachers to wander through the door at any minute. There had to be more than Jake, Ricky, and Mrs. Moore; three mattresses lie around the front room, three others propped up in the hallway. A long men’s coat hangs from the washing line, dusty brown corduroy, not the kind of thing Ricky or Jake would wear. Probably. Maybe the all-black fatigues are a uniform, not a lifestyle choice.
He has so many questions.
It doesn’t take long to locate Angela Pryce’s family. Mickey’s always been good with computers, and it’s easy enough to pop Angela Pryce, London, missing into a search engine. Someone put up a missing person flyer about a year ago. There’s a nice photo of her and her family: a respectable husband and two sons, about Mickey’s age. He wonders how they’re doing. Why they think their mother left. At least Jackson Smith had said goodbye before drifting out of his son’s life.
Mickey’s thoughts go back to Jake. The shared camaraderie of the previous night seems to have evaporated on the pavement. Mickey can only trust that it will come back, once Jake’s had time to go through whatever grief this is. Jake hasn’t looked straight-on at him once in the light of day, but the fact that he hasn’t gone back to snapping insults is, Mickey figures, good enough for now. It doesn’t need to be all smiles and slapping each other on the back 24-7.
Then again, Jake’s the only person in this universe who knows Mickey’s name—aside from Pete Tyler, who seems to have well and truly fucked off to nowhere. Loneliness tightens around Mickey’s chest. It was one thing to leave his mates behind to travel in the TARDIS, when he knew he could pop back home for a gig and a laugh. They’d have to find another bassist for their band. Mook, Sally, Patrice—they’ll have to find someone else’s couch to crash on when their lives go topsy-turvy. God, he didn’t even think of that. Will they think he’s dead?
“Mickey?” Jake’s in the doorway, red-eyed and exhausted but looking a little fresher. His hair’s still damp, sticking up in all directions. “Fuck. I forgot to light the fire. You must be freezing.”
“It’s not that bad. I found some blankets. I couldn’t figure out how to work the radiators.”
Jake crosses to the fireplaces and crouches, tossing some logs on before fiddling with petrol and a match. A fire roars to life a second later. “The radiators don’t work. Legally, this building’s unoccupied—the council shut the gas and water off before I got here. We’ve—” His voice catches on the plural. Finds it incorrect. “There’s a generator to power all Mrs. Moore’s gear. You get used to the rest. I’d suggest sleeping in here, though. It’s the warmest.”
“Right,” says Mickey, curling further beneath his blankets. “Look, if you want—my gran’s place could probably sleep us both. I know it’s not easy, but she’d let us stay, and she’s got central heating, running water—”
“No.”
He’s known Jake for less than a day, and he already knows that tone. There’ll be no arguing the point, and no asking for an explanation. Mickey tries to bounce back from it. The Preachers have lived like this for long enough; surely he can adjust.
“Okay. No problem. Anyway, I found the Pryce family’s address. It’s not too bad a drive from here. Dunno how we’ll explain all this, though.”
“Think we could fake a Torchwood badge?” Jake asks dryly, and this is the first of many parallel universe jokes that Mickey expects will go straight over his head. So he shoots back with a joke of his own:
“What’s that for, lumberjacks?”
It gets a snort. Under the circumstances, it’s as good as a laugh. But Jake must catch the confusion under the humour, because he looks over his shoulder with disbelief. “You don’t have Torchwood back in your world?”
“Nah. Sorry, boss.” Mickey grimaces. “You’re gonna be doing a lot of this, probably.”
“It’s like MI6—you have MI6, yeah?—it’s like MI6, but for aliens.”
There is a part of Mickey that wonders, briefly—despite everything he’s seen and experienced, despite having been doubted by his own friends in this precise way—if he’s been saddled with a total nutcase. Somehow, the idea of Mickey believing in aliens is easy, because he’s seen them (and one of them stole his girlfriend.) The idea of everybody on Earth knowing about aliens, when he got so many strange looks when he tried to tell his friends the truth, is… annoying.
“You know about aliens?” Mickey says.
For the first time all day, Jake looks him in the eyes. It’s a look so full of pity that it makes Mickey wonder if Jake does consider him an idiot, after all.
“Do you… not, usually?”
“I mean, I do. There was this one made of plastic under the Thames—” He cuts himself off. It’s a bad memory, that stinking foundry. “Rose and the Doctor took care of it. Before, y’know, running off in his spaceship for a year. When they came back, I helped them stop some other aliens from taking over the government and blowing up the Earth. Never a quiet moment with those two.”
The pity turns to a blank-faced stare before Jake eventually says, “I don’t think I’ve even met an alien.”
“Well, you met the Doctor,” Mickey offers. Jake rolls his eyes.
“I mean, he’s weird, but—oh. You weren’t kidding.” He runs his hands over his face and groans. “Jesus. Right. This is… I can’t do this right now. I want to hear about it, but it’s all too…”
Mickey holds two thumbs up. “It’s a lot to take in, I know. Don’t worry. I’ll save it for the road trip.”
“Cheers.” Jake stands and stretches his arms. “In any case—sleep there if you want. But if you don’t want your feet hanging off the ends, take a mattress. Ricky slept over there.” He nods towards an alcove that Mickey saw earlier, given some privacy by ratty red curtains. His shoulders are tight again; Mickey can see the tension running a line through his body. “His bag should still be there with clothes and all. Take whatever. I’ll let you get settled.”
“Sure. Thanks, Jake.”
He gives Mickey a stiff nod, then disappears down the hall to do whatever the hell actual rebels do with their spare time. Mickey follows his directions, extricates himself from his blanket nest, and pulls aside the curtain shielding Ricky’s sleeping quarters. Looks like it used to be a pantry, with the doors and shelves all taken out. Now there’s just a thin double mattress, half-heartedly made, and a kerosene lamp, with a duffel bag at the foot of the bed.
A whiff of tobacco and mildew rises from the mattress when Mickey sits there. Strange. He didn’t think Ricky was a smoker, but maybe that’s projection. Mickey’s never had much time for the habit—watching his granddad smoke a pack a day put him off it pretty quickly. Part of him wonders instinctively, cruelly, if that’s why he was faster than Ricky. Better lungs.
When Mickey puts his hands on the zipper to a dead man’s worldly goods, he sees himself clinging to that fence, lightning coursing through his body.
He gets up sharpish. Maybe he’ll take the couch, after all.
#
Jake makes the mistake of looking at the news. Well, trying to. He doesn’t trust the big broadcasters, not when most of them are funded—through one shell company or another—by Cybus Industries. But now that Lumic’s gone and killed the president, maybe someone will be interested in telling the truth. He needs to know how bad it looks.
Every news channel based in London is broadcasting an empty studio. Except one. In one, a South Asian woman sits at the news desk, a piece of paper in her shaking hands. She’s wearing a flannel shirt and still has a work ID lanyard around her neck. Her cheeks shine with tears.
“... of England going under curfew until the threat is gone. If you’re just joining me, I’m Angie Raha. I—I’m a camera person, usually, so please bear with me. We’re currently reporting on the deadly attacks in London. President McEwan is dead. The total death tolls are unconfirmed, but initial reports from the NHS emergency service estimate the number to be in the thousands. The police are still uncertain what caused the attack to end, but many believe that it may be related to the explosion at Battersea Power Station late last night…”
Jake closes the tab, sets the laptop on the floor beside him, and rests his head in his hands.
He’s felt for years like the world is ending, but never like this. Change is slow, his dad always said. But it’s only been twenty-four hours since he pitched up to a homeless encampment with his little camcorder, thinking that taking a video of the kidnappings might make any fucking difference. His life has splintered into two pieces: before and after.
The longer he dwells on it, the stronger a fear wells up in his guts. If the Doctor and Mickey and Rose hadn’t fallen into their universe at the right time, where would London be right now? Where would Jake be? Dead on the grounds of Pete Tyler’s mansion at best, a brain in a metal suit at worst.
At least Mickey seems confident. One of them ought to be.
There are things Jake should do. He could pull out Jimmy’s cache of weapons and take the time to clean the guns—there are more of them than he or Mickey will need. (Jimmy held high hopes for the Preachers’ recruitment rates. It might’ve worked out if the Preachers hadn’t kept dying.)
He’ll have to teach Mickey how to use one, probably. Some hand-to-hand, too. Basic conditioning. Mickey did well enough taking down the guards on Lumic’s zeppelin, with the help of Mrs. Moore’s tranquilisers. Who knows if any flesh-and-blood people will be guarding the other factories? They’ll have to be prepared for anything.
It’s hard to think through any of it when Jake’s brain feels like sludge in his skull. All he wants is a bottle of bootleg whiskey and a quiet corner to nurse it in.
Instead, Jake pockets one of Jimmy’s burner phones, parks himself on the front steps of the tenement, lights his third cigarette of the day, and places a phone call. It doesn’t take long to get through.
“Albert Simmonds speaking. Who is this?”
“Hiya, Da.” He cradles the phone against his shoulder as he curls his knees to his chest. “It’s me. It’s Jake.”
Stunned silence pools on the other end. Then, in a voice close to breaking: “Jake? Where are you, son?”
“I’m still in London. I’m okay.”
His dad must hold the phone away, because Jake hears his muffled shouting. “Dottie! Sam! It’s Jake! It’s wor Jake, he’s alive!” Something rustles. “Jake? Are you still there?”
A wave of homesickness beats against Jake’s ribs, like the lashing of a tide. He’s never been a good son. It doesn’t matter.
“I’m here, Da,” Jake says. He fights to keep his voice even. “Wanted you to know I’m safe. I… Sorry I never called. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“It’s been three years,” Albert says. “Where are you? Your friends said you just disappeared. Do you have a place to stay?”
“I do. I promise. I was… I don’t know if you’ll believe me. I was part of this group trying to stop the—the disappearances, all the things that led up to this shite with Cybus Industries. We never thought it would be this bad. But I didn’t want to put you or Mam or Sammy in danger. So I stopped calling, in case they came after you. Christ, you must think I’m a nutter.”
Albert hesitates and slips around the question. “But you’re safe?”
“I am, Da, really.”
“And—and the law, Jake, are you in any trouble with the law?”
“No.” Not yet, at least. He’s never been caught for his crimes. “No, there’s nothing like that.”
“What about your friends? From this group?”
Jake’s hands shake. “They didn’t make it.”
“Oh,” Albert says, and Jake can hear the weight of it, can perfectly picture his father by the kitchen phone. His rounded shoulders, his rumpled shirt. His secondhand grief. “Son, I’m so sorry.”
They’ve never been good at emotions, the two of them. There’s a reason Jake called his father, not anybody else in the family. His father will let him keep his wounds to himself.
“Thanks, Da,” says Jake. “Look, I don’t know when I’ll be able to get home next. There’s a lot to do here. Whole city’s reeling after last night—I have to help. But how’re all of yous doing? Everything all right?”
“We’re all fine. Divvin’ you worry about us. Take care of yourself, won’t you?”
“Aye, I will.” Jake picks his head up. He’s left the door open a crack, so he can hear if Mickey’s calling for him, but it’s not that which catches his attention—it’s the laptop beeping. An incoming transmission. “Da, I’ve got to run. I’ll call when next I can, all right?”
“All right. Take care, son.”
“You too. Oh—and if you’ve got them EarPods, take them out. Tell Mam, tell Sammy, tell everyone.” Jake cannot stress it enough. “That’s how it all started. The EarPods. You hear me?”
“I trust you. We’ll tell everyone,” Albert promises. Jake’s shoulders relax a little.
“Good. Bye, Da. Give Mam and Sammy my love.” He flips the phone shut, stubs his cigarette out by the door, and runs back inside to the laptop. Mickey’s halfway down the stairs already, a curious look on his face. But Jake’s there before him, tapping the keys to open up the transmission. Mrs. Moore’s decoder is already at work, and soon Gemini’s modulated voice is filling the air.
Pete Tyler wants to arrange a meeting.
#
In the daylight, the Vitex millionaire’s mansion is a battlefield of broken glass. Security guards stand in front of the boarded-up windows while police officers prowl around the crime scene. Pete himself meets them at the driveway, looking haggard, a cup of coffee in his hand.
“Drive around to the back,” he tells them when Mickey rolls down the window. “There’s a guest house. We’ll have some privacy there.”
Mickey doesn’t miss Jake’s dismissive snort, but at least that’s the worst of it until they follow Pete’s directions around to the back of the estate. The guest house is no mother-in-law shed, but an actual house, bigger than the Preachers’ living quarters by half. Its manicured rose bushes and gleaming windows show no signs of last night’s trouble.
“Who the fuck were his guests?” Jake mutters as they park. “Marie Antoinette and the kids?”
“Just don’t suggest executing him again, yeah? I’d rather have him on our side.”
Jake rolls his eyes. The gesture doesn’t fill Mickey with confidence, but he hops out of the car and tries to put on a brave face. Pete wouldn’t have asked them here if he didn’t think they could do good work together. Mickey only hopes that working together might mean more central heating in his future.
“You boys want coffee?” Pete asks at the door. He turns and heads inside without waiting for a response. “It’ll be do-it-ourselves. The staff who made it out last night, the police are interviewing them. Told the rest to take a few days off.”
“DIY is fine,” Mickey says quickly, because Jake’s mouth is already open for a sarcastic comment. Jake scowls and shoots him a look, which he ignores in favour of looking around. Rose’s dad—well, not-dad—has done well for himself in this world. The guest house is painted in bright colours, artwork hung on the walls in gilt frames. The floor is laid with black and white marble in elegant patterns.
Mickey would be more impressed if he hadn’t seen pre-Revolution Versailles. Only for five minutes, mind, but it’s tough to hold a candle to Louis-the-whatever’s court. Now that was fancy. Gold trim on the walls, mirrors everywhere. It had intimidated Mickey even more than the murder spaceship.
To his credit, Pete makes their coffees himself, with some posh espresso machine. Then they’re all seated in the living room, balancing their coffees on some little plates. Jake keeps staring at the one in his hands like he might snap it in two.
“Look,” Pete begins once they’re settled. “I’ll cut to the point. I’m too old to run around fighting the good fight and blowing up power stations. But you know as well as I do that Lumic’s got more Cybermen out there, and nobody’s safe until they’re stopped.”
A vicious smile carves Jake’s face. “Oh, good. Something we agree on.”
“Who was it that gave you that tip-off about Lumic’s recruitment drives?” Pete asks. There’s a warning note in his voice. “Who told you that Lumic would try something at the party?”
Mickey puts a hand on Jake’s shoulder. It’s the wrong move—Jake flinches away and narrows his eyes at Pete. But he leans slowly against the settee, listening for now. Maybe he should break some plates, if it’ll take the tension out of his jaw.
“It’d be good to have help,” Mickey says, trying to be diplomatic. “What’re you thinking?”
“You’ve got the codes to stop the factories. I’ve got the personal phone numbers of Britain’s best, and the money to get you food, flights, hotels, and as many guns as it’ll take to make him happy.” Pete jerks a thumb at Jake, who responds with another sharp-edged smile. Mickey makes a note to keep these two apart as much as possible. “Or do the Preachers have other donors?”
From the state of the Preachers’ squat, Mickey doesn’t know how they’ve been affording food, let alone the guns they have already.
“You’ve seen Lumic’s files,” Jake says quietly. “He’s got half the country on his payroll. What makes you think your friends will help?”
“Hopefully, some kind of moral compass. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll find leverage on them.” Pete shrugs. “It’s not a quick fix. But you heard Lumic. Cybermen will be hitting the streets soon. We need to move fast, and that’s where you come in, yeah? How many of the Preachers are there?”
There’s a long silence. Mickey finds his coffee very interesting.
“Just me and him,” Jake mutters. Pete exhales slowly.
“All right, it’s not ideal. But you know how Lumic operates, you’ve got his files, and you’ve got the code to hack the emotional inhibitors. Which puts you in the unfortunate position of being our best bet.”
“Pete’s right. We’ll do better with him on board,” Mickey urges softly. He takes a risk. “What would Ricky do?”
Something flashes behind Jake’s eyes. Anger, maybe. Panic. Grief. His jaw works, and his mouth flattens to a thin line—but then his shoulders drop. The fight leaves him. He holds out a hand to Pete. “Fine. S’pose you’ve been helping us all this while.”
They shake hands. Pete says, “Where did you want to begin?”
“We were thinking Paris,” Mickey offers. “Gotta start somewhere. And I always wanted to go to Paris.”
Pete nods. “I’ll see what connections I can make with the authorities there. Keep you boys from getting into too much trouble. And I’ve got the locations of Lumic’s British conversion centres from his files. If you tell me the code, I can pass it onto my contacts in Torchwood, make it easier for them to take down the factories here. Leaves you two free to go to France.”
“Consider it done,” says Mickey.
The remainder of the day passes that way: sitting in Pete Tyler’s living room with as much coffee as the man can brew, pulling out maps and laptops. Jake and Pete throw around the names of different weapons, different freedom fighters for the Preachers to contact, countries Mickey’s never heard of. They talk about logistics and budgets and how much training Mickey will need to pull his weight. Jake may not have led the Preachers, but it seems he’s been in the business of revolution for more than a year. He insists Mickey learn to use a gun and some hand-to-hand—and despite his objections to killing, Mickey eventually agrees. He doesn’t want to kill anyone, but he doesn’t want to die, either, not with his gran and Jake needing him. It slowly sinks in that this is a war they’re fighting now, not just a one-off battle, and there could be people who still want Lumic’s plan to succeed.
Well. He wanted to be more than the tin dog. Now here he is: Mickey Smith, centre of a revolution.