we don't belong here, it was a mistake imprisoning our souls [open to multiple]

[i_jones]

If there were any witnesses - but there aren’t, Ianto makes sure of that, smuggling his equipment out into the Ramble after the park has closed for the night, as close to the rift center as he can get without a boat. As far as rift manipulators go, it isn’t much:: two car batteries, a laptop, and what might be (underneath heavy modification and a liberal amount of cables) two tall computer towers. If he’d had space and funding and probably a lorry he might’ve gone for something enclosed, maybe a homemade Stargate sort of aesthetic, but. Needs must.

He rubs his gloved hands together as he waits for the laptop to boot up. According to his exhaustive mental checklist, all that’s left is a final software check and calibration. It will all check out, of course, he’s spent the two months since he arrived writing and rewriting the software based on Tosh’s work. That was patchy in places, although it was easy enough to fill in the blanks. The rift manipulator itself might’ve been more of a challenge, had he not the blueprints of Torchwood’s original committed to memory. Getting the requisite parts (or their equivalents) was more difficult, but he didn’t take up with Romac for the cushy flat. Though that was a bonus. He would’ve liked to get in with the rebels as well, undercover, maybe, nick some of their rift knowledge and equipment (if any), but getting caught by either side was too great a risk.

The laptop bleeps and begins the checks. For tonight’s test - because he’s hardly going to throw himself into this thing headfirst without a trial run - he’s got his jumper from when he first arrived. If all goes well, he’ll try his trousers the next go around, and if necessary, his shoes. The socks are already gone, disappeared accidentally in a preliminary test to determine the right frequency. They’re in some New York, somewhere, he supposes.

He sets the jumper in its place equidistant from the towers as the laptop gives its final bleep. The dialogue box gives the all-clear, but he scrolls through the results just to make sure everything is within set parameters. He may be giddy with excitement, but he’s not stupid. After a double-check of the equipment, the batteries, and the connections, and quick prayer to Saint David, Ianto initializes the program and brings up the timer. The machine is set to power down after three minutes total, one to warm up, one to run, and one to cool down. He can’t very well come close to turn it off when it’s running, not without lead boots and a tether or three. That gives him a minute to get a safe distance away - very generous for the five meters that he walks, taking up place behind a small tree on the path, but better safe than sorry.

After an interminable wait filled only by the hum of the rift manipulator, something gives, tugging the jumper through the dirt with an unseen hand. It inches slowly at first, then tumbles in jumps and starts, until suddenly, as though buffeted by the wind, it’s pulled through the doorway and disappears into the light. Ianto breathes a heady sigh of relief and chuckles. Some homeless New Yorker in his universe will probably find themselves a nice new jumper. He has no way of knowing for certain if it made it through to the other end, but the rift manipulator has acted accordingly with his calculations so far. That’s as certain as he’ll ever be.

The machine makes a knocking sound and its whine changes, kicking up in frequency. In another minute, it should be safe to approach. Ianto’s nerves are thrumming with anticipation to examine the readings and the adrenaline of an impossible experiment. It’s almost overwhelming, his need to get to the machine, to see the results - every second faster that he works is one second sooner he’ll be home. He almost trips over his own feet.

Not yet, he reminds himself, and then his heart rattles, and his boot slides half a foot down the path. The empty branches swing overhead and stars dance in front of his eyes and Ianto grabs for the meager fence that delineates the path, using one of the posts to get his bearing and come up to one knee. There’s a nauseating pull at his stomach, like a fishhook in his gut, like the cutting winds of the Brecon Beacons at his back, pushing him toward the doorway.

Any moment, he thinks, any moment now the machine is going to stop, with one second to go it will power down - but no, and he grabs the small tree that stands in the path, wraps his arms tightly around it and digs his heels into the ground. The bad guy always gets away, the bomb always goes off, things always go to hell. There are no last second rescues, not really. He tries to clear his mind of white hot panic, tries to think of a way out, because he always has to try, and he thinks - well, he’s an idiot, he thinks, he shouldn’t have put the power source so close to the doorway, but maybe he can get to the laptop, take it down, or disconnect a battery before the pull gets too great.

Whatever he does, he just needs to do it before the pull gets too great, before he’s shredding his gloves on the dry bark of the tree as he scrabbles to hold on, he’s clawing at the dirt for purchase and heaving for air to scream, he’s grabbing onto the short fence as it bows and breaks, he’s rolling and flinging an arm out and catching a cable that comes undone as he comes face to face with the light that streams through the hole in reality.

A second later, the machine’s shriek cycles down to a dull roar and then judders to silence. The doorwary flickers and winks out. The dust over the path settles as the lights on the towers fade from green to red, and then to nothing. The water and the city beyond murmur blithely onward.

The air shifts, warbling with the haze of a desert horizon, and then snaps. A low rumble starts ripples in the lake, circling out across the water toward the fountain. The laptop shreds the silence, howling a warning klaxon. The tremor crescendos, thundering to a roar, and in a brief blaze of white, Ianto is flung from where the doorway stood, skidding down the path. He rolls to a stop on his stomach and a final groan against the dirt heralds the end of the drumming. In the ringing quiet, he clenches a gloved hand, and the smoke from his smoldering coat coils through the branches above.

Comments

[aly_brighteyes]

Aly has already learned that New York is not a place that ever goes dead quiet. Cars honk and people seem to be on the move at any given hour. It offers a great deal of freedom for someone young who knows how to dress whatever part she's playing. Tonight it's a tired student wandering with a coffee cup in hand.

It makes an especially convenient excuse when something just blazes in her Sight. Aly's never been the type to leave things be and she lets her feet carry her, putting on a quizzical look.

"Did you hear something funny just now?" she calls at a distance. In her Sight, she can see the contraption, but from a distance a person of average vision wouldn't be able to see it in the dark.

[i_jones]

Priorities. Ianto takes a moment to take stock of all his limbs - accounted for, thought alternatingly numb and tingling - and pushes himself up onto one elbow to get his nose out of the dirt. His skin feels wrong, sticky and pulling, stretched too tight. He breathes in to clear his head and smells something acrid. Smoke. Is the rift manipulator--

His body connects the dots before his mind does and he flips onto his back, groaning again as the foreign feeling resolves itself as burning, sharp and clear, painful enough that he almost doesn't feel it at all. The smoke around him hovers and begins to dissipate, source extinguished. Good. Good priorities. Well done, Icarus.

The sound. Right. The noise that had startled him to awareness. He prays it isn't the police. He can't explain himself out of this sort of machinery. "Fine," he croaks out to the void of the night sky, watching the fog from his breath push the smoke away. The more intelligent parts of his brain aren't awake yet. "Fine, sorry," he tries again, a little louder.

[aly_brighteyes]

"Are you a scientist?" Aly asks, raising her eyes toward the contraption in the distance. Alianne of Pirate's Swoop observes coolly in the background while she plays Aly Homewood at the front. "Is that safe?" Then as a carefully added afterthought, she adds, "Are you all right? I've got a phone if you need a call to the hospital...?"

Her Sight adjusts and Aly memorizes everything about the man's face before homing in on the wreckage, also doing her best to memorize the unfamiliar parts.

[i_jones]

So many questions that he's not nearly cognizant enough to answer. Baby steps. He abandons his plan to sit up before he can try it. His brain is still reverberating around his skull; he'll let it settle down a bit. He takes another bracing breath and coughs, which uses muscles in his back he's sure he never had, and the nerve endings there light up for an extra rake across the coals. Just for good measure.

His back-up excuse of 'weather experiment' is lost in the jumble somewhere, and later he will regret not having remembered it, because he was looking forward to using that line. "No," he answers finally, remembering, at least, that he ought to do that. "Er... maybe. Not sure." That's in order, mind. Some sort of order. One of the words sticks out - hospital, yeah, that's a thing. But not, because he hates hospitals. That other thing, though. The TARDIS. He almost blurts that out, but catches himself. She's supposed to be a secret.

Another spiderweb of pain crawls along his back and through clenched teeth, he concedes, "Maybe hospital, yeah."

[aly_brighteyes]

When it comes to injuries, Aly's Sight isn't quite so reliable as its ability to identify sickness, but even with unaided vision she can take in the stiff and unsure movement and put the picture together.

"Should I call for an ambulance?" She's already dialing 911 (apparently a very important number) as she asks. Approaching, Aly sits down on the cold earth and looks at him. "I'm Aly, by the way."

[i_jones]

"Aly," Ianto echoes, like it will help him remember, like he will remember any of this in ten minutes, given the throbbing in his skull. "Ianto."

He gets a better look at her when she sits and prudently withholds any comments about being found out by a hipster uni kid. Better that than the police. Or someone monitoring the rift. There'd be too many questions and scant few answers about his equipment and its dubious origins.

His equipment. Damn. "Er," Ianto starts, and raises his shoulders from the ground just slightly, managing to tuck his elbow up to hold himself up. Something - somethings inside him are grinding unnervingly like sandpaper. "Not... not so keen on ambulances. Hospitals. Could you..." Ring someone who could be trusted not to ask questions or pass on any answers? Yup, that imaginary person. Ta. "I don't--"

He closes his eyes. His expression crumples briefly, but he recovers. "My... weather equipment," he continues, quieter, not so consumed by shock that a little wryness doesn't creep into the words. "It's very." Dangerous. "Classified."

[aly_brighteyes]

"But you're hurt," Aly insists. Interesting, very interesting. Someone doesn't want his activities known, which only serves to make Aly all the more curious. "I can't just leave you be."

The lies twinkle in her Sight. Of course, she has to use her eyes to pick out what might be half-truths (the human language is so malleable) but Aly's used to that.

"I couldn't possibly just let you go on."

[i_jones]

"Flesh wound." I mean, come on. He's pretty much in one piece. He isn't being eaten alive by parasitical alien bugs. He isn't crushed under concrete and steel. He is almost definitively still male. The world, as far as he can tell, isn't ending. He's had worse.

His mind churns through possibilities. Ring - no. Or try - no. Crawl back to the... not likely. He's left with a choice that is, frankly, a little crass for his taste. But it seems appropriate. I couldn't possibly. Please. "Look, I--" Halfway through the gesture, he realizes he has to reach into his inner breast pocket with the wrong hand. It involves a bit of flapping and twisting of his wrist, but he manages. If he went flat on his back to use his occupied hand, he thinks, he'd never get back up again. "Here."

He brandishes his wallet, a slim, black silhouette. No identification, no credit cards; it's New York, for god's sake, he's not stupid enough to keep those with his cash. "My mobile- my cellphone." He gestures with the bi-fold toward the small table upon which the laptop (and his phone) are set. "I'll call my meteorological colleagues. For your trouble - which I appreciate," he adds, aiming for charming. He tosses the bi-fold in her direction.

[aly_brighteyes]

"Oh no! I couldn't!" Aly dithers, despite the fact that she not only holds the wallet, she plucks out the cash with a little sleight of hand.

"I have to stay and see that you're all right!"

Around her neck, she can feel Trick stirring, listening, and quite likely feeding all of that information to Secret with Daine. It's not even close to the network of spies she's commanded in Rajmuat, but she'll never be ungrateful for the Darking that lives around her neck in the disguise of a bead necklace.

"Please?"

[i_jones]

Ianto sags and drops his chin, muttering something a little more musical than usual in Welsh. "Look," he reiterates through gritted teeth, extending his arm inch by laborious inch (with added assistance from the other once he's at a certain angle) until he's sort of, but not really, sitting up. "I'm trying to help you. Us."

He rolls his shoulders to dislodge what feels like pebbles embedded in his back and his face spasms into a deep frown. It helps a little, the movement, gets the blood flowing back to his numb extremities. The twinges and aches are fading, bit by bit. Good sign. "Middle of Central Park. After hours. Foreigner with a suspicious device. Someone else will have noticed - guarantee it, actually. Surprised I've not been packed into an unmarked van yet."

Honestly, he is. Not that he's complaining. Ianto shifts carefully until he's sitting on his knees, supported by two palms flat in the dirt. "Want to stay?" he asks, flipping a switch from beleaguered to chipper. "Bring me that laptop. And a rock. Big one."

[aly_brighteyes]

Aly's estimation of him rises. Not enough to give back the money, but enough that she nods and does as he says.

"I didn't even think..." she says, the self-centered young adult who never has to worry about being packed away like that. It is, to Aly Homewood, someone else's problem.

"I'm sorry. Yes. Of course."

[i_jones]

He doesn't offer any comment on her revelation, given that he is somewhat responsible for their shared predicament. In focused silence, he ejects the disc from the proffered laptop. It goes in his coat pocket. He flips the computer over to remove the battery as well. This method is, again, rather heavy-handed for his liking, but for lack of more refined tools, he takes the rock and cracks the computer casing in a few strategic places so he can pull the hard drive free.

That goes in a pocket as well. Obvious subterfuge, but without the programming, the equipment is at best glorified electromagnets. He stops to wipe sweat from the back of his neck. Sighs. "I appreciate this, Aly, but I think it's best you go home. Have a cuppa." Then, "Tea." States. Right. "Romac will be here soon." One way or another. "Do you... ?" He waves his hand dismissively. "Well, if you don't, best not. Bad all 'round."

[aly_brighteyes]

Aly jumps and dithers appropriately at the way the computer's information is violently removed. Inwardly, she appreciates his understanding of what must be done. It almost makes her sad to know she's going to have to follow him at some point, keeping very, very far away from trusting him.

"Are you very sure?" she asks, concerned on the surface but taking that self-protective step back.

It'll be quite useful, as well, to find a good tree in which she can watch the proceedings.

[i_jones]

"Extremely," he answers, absentmindedly scrubbing at the surface of the laptop with his glove. Fingerprints. Like that will help - like the rest of it won't be damningly obvious to the right people. "I didn't see you tonight." The opposite is left unsaid. He's not expecting anything. He doesn't particularly care anymore.

"Don't worry," he adds, looking up with a strained smile. About what, he can't say.

[aly_brighteyes]

"Of course not," Aly replies, her tone nervous.

Meanwhile, she sharpens her Sight and steps backward quietly, sticking to the path until she thinks a normal human will be out of range. Then she takes to the trees.

[i_jones]

Of course not.

Ianto allows a buffer of a minute and then abandons his composure, drawing inward as much as he bruised back will allow and cradling his head in his hands. Fuck, fuck, fuck he aches. He gives himself a solid thirty seconds to get the moaning and groaning out of his system, and if his eyes are a little wet, well, there's no one around.

For the moment. He's alone for now, but he still has no idea if there are more witnesses or interested parties. He needs to clear out, and the list of people he can call upon is too short.

He finds his mobile fallen from his pocket a meter behind him and crawls to it. The screen is spiderwebbed with cracks and the body has split down the back, but it still works. After a brief internal debate, he texts Topher.