Fic: Build a Better Mousetrap

[aibhinn_fics]

Title: Build a Better Mousetrap
Author: aibhinn
Rating: G
Characters: Jack, Owen, Tosh
Summary: Radiation + lab rats = a very bad thing in the Hub.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not making any money. Please not to sue me.
Author's Note: Written for round 1.09 of writerinadrawer. Prompt: Lockdown! Additional required element: an animal.


"I don't believe we're doing this," Tosh grumbled as she shined her torch underneath yet another bit of machinery. "We're on our knees, searching for rats."

"For rats that got exposed to alien radiation and became capable of chewing their way out of a wire cage," Jack corrected her. He'd removed the grating in front of the Rift machine and was down there, doing his own searching. "Looks clean under here."

"I still can't believe rats could mutate that quickly just by exposure to alien radiation," Tosh muttered, and stood, wincing. "Or that I'm kneeling on concrete, wearing what were beige trousers."

"You've still got a bit of beige in a couple places," Owen said with needle-sharp sarcasm as he emerged from the medlab, his own clothes filthy from his apparently fruitless search. "Think those knees are pretty much done for, though. Reckon you won't be wearing £100 trousers to work again any time soon."

"Shut up, Owen," Jack snapped. "You're not off the hook for this yet."

"What, so now it was my fault that the alien artefact we found was the alien equivalent of uranium?" Owen shot back, stung. "Or that someone who shall remain nameless, but whose name rhymes with Ianto Jones, set it down next to my lab rats when the boss called to ask for help and left it there for the best part of twenty-four hours?"

"Leave Ianto out of it," Jack said. "He didn't know."

"Yeah, well, neither did any of the rest of us," Owen pointed out. "So it's hardly fair to go blaming me."

"I'm not interested in blame," Jack said. He pulled himself out of the hole in the decking and replaced the cover. "I want those things caught and caged somewhere that they won't be a security risk. If they can chew through a wire cage—"

He was interrupted by an electrical buzz as the lights dimmed, brightened, and then guttered out, replaced almost immediately with a dreadfully familiar red glow. As they all stared wide-eyed at each other with matching expressions of oh, shit, tell me this isn't happening, every door in the Hub closed and locked tightly in a series of final-sounding clangs.

There was silence for a moment, before Tosh said, in a voice of utter shock, "We're in lockdown!"

"Yeah, thanks for that news flash, Tosh," Owen said, rolling his eyes.

"The rats must've got into the power cables, cut the power to the Hub." Jack swore roundly and creatively, picking up his torch. "Let's go. At least we have an idea where they must be, if they've managed to cut all the power at once." Owen and Tosh fell in behind him, flinching backward as he stopped and swung around to face Owen. "And from now on," he said, "no more rats. Find something else for your experiments."

"Oh, yeah, that's a solution," Owen said. "'Cause irradiated bunny rabbits would be so much easier to deal with."

"You could lure them out with a carrot," Tosh offered, a small smile playing around her lips.

Jack turned back around and strode towards the stairs to the basement. They hurried to catch up. "I'm more likely to employ the stick than the carrot right now," he growled.