Torchwood cascade CDRIP.tor (audio story)

torchwood_cascade_CDRIP.tor was the sixteenth story in the Torchwood - Monthly Range by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Scott Handcock and featured Naoko Mori as Toshiko Sato.

Publisher's summary
WARNING: The unauthorised reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Your downloads are monitored. Internet piracy is a crime and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison, a fine of £250,000 or death.

Come on, we've all done it. We've all downloaded a cheeky little something we shouldn't have. After all, what's the harm, eh? You never get caught. No-one knows. No-one knocks at your door and tells you you're about to die.

Turns out, there's something hiding in the internet. It knows what you've done. And it's going to stop you.

Plot
Tosh takes a train to London to meet with Stephen, a former employee of Torchwood One who has become aware of a series of twenty-seven disappearances in which all but one of the victims shared a birthday and died at the exact same time. The disappearance of the exception, Nikki, was recorded as a voice message for her girlfriend Janet, in which she claimed that she saw somebody and heard a voice telling her that she was going to die. Although Nikki does not share her birthday with the other victims, Janet does and she used Janet's ID to illegally download music on Choosic, a torrent site which the other victims also used.

Janet's account inexplicably became Stephen's whilst he was investigating and he fears that he will be the next to disappear, having seen a man invisible to others watching him with his head cocked to one side. He takes Tosh to his home where she uses the technology he salvaged from Torchwood Tower to look into the victims, finding that some sort of computer virus has caused people with other birthdays to disappear and that it is now targeting those with Stephen's. They head to the nearby home of Max, another Choosic user who shares Stephen's birthday and who has been suffering from headaches just like him.

The virus starts using Max as an interface to communicate with Tosh and Stephen and is trapped inside by Tosh isolating the torrent, after which she downloads it onto a data stick and Max dies. It hurts Stephen to blackmail Tosh into freeing it, but she decrypts its encoding and downloads its infected torrents from the internet before updating her profile settings to change her birthday to become the virus's target. She locks the virus away in a hidden cache in the Torchwood systems which only she can access and returns to Cardiff per her agreement with Jack to return the same day, thanking Stephen and advising him to make a new life without Torchwood.

Although Tosh told Stephen to forget her number and move on, he leaves her several messages asking about the possibility of them entering a romantic relationship and fails to get a response due to her having been killed. Unaware of this, he wishes her a good life in his final message to her. The virus is apparently deleted when Tosh's profile is erased, but it says that Torchwood is never the end.

Cast

 * Toshiko Sato - Naoko Mori
 * Stephen - Robbie Jarvis
 * Max - Ashley Kumar
 * Nikki - Rachel Handshaw

Worldbuilding

 * Nikki left a message for her girlfriend, Janet Wicks.
 * Tosh mentions that Torchwood recently dealt with a water dragon in Cardiff Bay.
 * Tosh gets a call from Owen, who asks her about Kyraxian blasters.
 * Stephen offers Tosh tea or coffee.
 * Toshiko had a brother whose death the computer virus blamed on her, saying that she had abandoned him.
 * Max listens to internet pornography downloaded onto his computer through headphones.
 * The virus is a product of Erebus Audio Ltd.

Continuity

 * All the victims with a given birthday died at exactly the same time. The Sontarans would go on to use a similar method of assassination using the ATMOS devices. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem)
 * Stephen and Tosh discuss Torchwood One and the Battle of Canary Wharf. Stephen uses the phrase "If it's alien, it's ours." (TV: Army of Ghosts / Doomsday)
 * Stephen is aware of Toshiko's feelings for Owen Harper. (TV: Greeks Bearing Gifts et al.)
 * Tosh says some people considered her a criminal before Jack released her. (TV: Fragments)
 * Several months later, Stephen calls Toshiko to see if she is okay after hearing news of multiple explosions in Cardiff. He never gets an answer. (TV: Fragments / Exit Wounds)