Sync (audio story)

was the twenty-seventh story in the Torchwood - Monthly Range by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Lisa McMullin and featured Indira Varma as Suzie Costello and Annette Badland as “Margaret Blaine”.
== Publisher's summary ==
Torchwood vs Monsters!
Margaret Blaine is the Mayor of Cardiff. She's also an alien who'll do anything to get off the planet Earth. When a spaceship crashes outside Cardiff, it seems like the answer to her prayers. But she's not the only person at crash site.
Suzie Costello works for Torchwood, but strictly to her own agenda. When a spaceship crashes outside Cardiff, it seems like the answer to her prayers. But she's not the only person at the crash site.
Bonded by an alien device, Margaret and Suzie find themselves on the run from Torchwood, the police, and six warp missiles that'll destroy them, Cardiff, and most of the Western Hemisphere.
== Plot ==
Blon goes to investigate a crashed Elyrian spaceship in the hopes of leaving Earth in it and meets Suzie, to whom she becomes attached by the ship's control circuit bracelets before it explodes. They flee to ensure that they are not found by the emergency services or Torchwood and are unable to get further than ten feet from one another without being shocked by their bracelets, which inform them that a rescue pod is on its way to the location of the ship's pilot and that warp missiles capable of destroying Cardiff are after them. With Blon unable to use her personal teleport to get away, the two of them head off to find the pilot.
Suzie pushes Blon in the path of a truck to kill her and get a lift with the driver, but Blon survives and causes Suzie and the driver to pass out mid-journey by releasing gas. However, Suzie survives the crash and takes her to a lock-up full of incomplete alien artefacts where she runs a scan on her laptop to find the pilot and Blon again tries to kill her after removing her skin suit, only to let her go when the laptop finds the pilot and Suzie points out that Blon does not know her password. They steal a car and are forced to abandon it as they near an industrial estate to avoid the police.
Suzie and Blon meet the Elyrian pilot in a warehouse and learn that they are bonded to one another because of infant-protection protocols which the pilot disconnects once the rescue pod has arrived. This does not stop the missiles, however, and Blon tries to steal the pod, but Suzie forces her out at gunpoint and throws the bracelets inside as the pilot enters the Rift, making him the missiles' target. She admits that the Elyrians had asked her for asylum in return for stolen Dorgan technology and that she tipped the Dorgan off as part of a cover-up.
Although Suzie and Blon consider killing one another, Suzie promises to protect Blon from Torchwood in return for her keeping her contact with the Elyrians a secret. They part ways, with Suzie calling Blon her friend after she teleports away.
== Cast ==
* Susie Costello - Indira Varma
* Margaret Blaine - Annette Badland
* The Pilot - Raj Ghatak
== Worldbuilding ==
* Blon identifies the spaceship as Elyrian.
* Slitheen skin suits, and indeed Raxacoricofallapatorians within, can withstand getting run over by cars.
* Blon first thinks that Suzie is a UFO spotter, then that she's a collector of alien artefacts, and probably a conspiracy theorist as well. She asks Suzie if she has a tin foil hat.
* Suzie has a car.
* The driver is from Bridlington.
* When Suzie uses a laptop, Blon remarks, "How CSI." She also wonders if the computer has solitaire.
* Blon's first hunt was in the dark.
* Owen Harper has a key to Suzie's home. When he calls, she tells him there's left-over pasta bake in her refrigerator, which he's welcome to eat.
* The pilot believes his ship was shot down by the Dorgon.
* The pilot promises to tell all of Elyria of the kindness of Earth's people, promptly before his death.
* Blon and Suzie contemplate friendship.
== Notes ==
* Uniquely, the trailer for this story was presented by Indira Varma and Annette Badland in character as Suzie Costello and Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen respectively, as opposed to Big Finish executive producer Nicholas Briggs. After reciting the Big Finish slogan, We Love Stories, they both laugh maniacally.
* This audio had the working title, Suzie and Margaret.
* The image of Blon on the cover is infact a reuse of a promotional image depicting Kist Magg Thek Lutiven-Day Slitheen from Revenge of the Slitheen.
* Blon says "I'm a minor political celebrity, get me out of here", referencing the TV show I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!
* This story was recorded on 25 September 2018 at the Moat Studios.
== Continuity ==
* Blon acts as the Mayor of Cardiff, while disguised as "Margaret Blaine". (TV: Boom Town)
* The device that bonds Suzie and Blon together is similar to the device Captain Jack Harkness would use to bond the Ninth Doctor and Blon together later. (TV: Boom Town)
* Blon has a personal teleport. (TV: Boom Town)
* Blon excretes a poisonous gas as a defence mechanism. (TV: Boom Town)
* Blon says her family will eat her alive if they see her. (TV: Boom Town)
* Cardiff lies on an interdimensional rift. (TV: Boom Town et al.)
* Blon tells Suzie about her first hunt, just as she would again later to the Ninth Doctor. (TV: Boom Town)
* Owen has a key to Suzie's place. The two were later established to have been involved in a sexual relationship. (TV: They Keep Killing Suzie)
== External links ==
Category:Series 5 (BFTW) audio stories
Category:2019 audio stories
Category:Stories set in Cardiff
Category:Stories set in 2006
Category:Slitheen audio stories