by Dan Abnett
‘Jack wants us in the Boardroom in ten,’ said Gwen.
‘OK,’ said James.
‘All of us,’ said Gwen.
Owen nodded.
She climbed the stairs to Jack’s office. He was at his desk, cleaning his revolver.
‘Hi, come in,’ he said.
She came in and sat facing him.
‘Anything new?’ he asked.
‘Nope,’ she said. ‘Oh, one thing. Reports of civil disturbance down on the point this afternoon. Round about the same time we were up to our necks.
‘Where?’
‘Exactly where we were last Thursday night. Where we recovered the bloody thing from in the first place. There was some fighting, a mini-riot. A couple of cars set on fire, windows smashed.’
‘You’re getting this from?’
‘I checked the police system. The whole thing went away again as quickly as it started, with no one willing or able to explain what the hell had been going on.’
‘It all went away again?’
‘At about the same time our migraines eased and we started to remember how to spell our own names again.’
‘And the police are saying?’
Gwen shrugged. ‘Someone’s suggesting it might be some kind of chemical poisoning event, a toxic spill at one of the Bay’s industrial depots. Environmental teams are checking. It has happened twice in a week, after all.’
Jack smiled sadly. ‘Well, they’ve written a cover story for us, at least.’
‘We going to start this meeting, then?’ she asked.
‘Couple of things I want to say to you first,’ Jack said, closing his old gun’s frame and sliding it back into its leather holster. He screwed the lid back on the small bottle of gun oil, and put it away in the cleaning kit with the bristle push-brushes.
‘Can they wait for the meeting?’
‘No,’ said Jack. He tossed two oil-smudged cotton wool pads into his waste bin and got up to put the cleaning kit away in a drawer. ‘The first thing I want to say is thank you. You saved me today, Gwen.’
‘Oh, no, I just—’
‘You saved me,’ Jack insisted, sitting back down. ‘Me and Toshiko both. Despite everything, despite the... circumstances under which you were operating, you stuck to it. You stayed right there and, crazy though it was, you came up with a trick to get us out.’
He looked over at her. ‘It was a damn crazy trick, Gwen. Damn crazy. Using one threat to combat another. How did you know it would work?’
‘Honestly? I didn’t. It seemed to have some resemblance to logic at the time. But – at the time – I was a girl with a jack-hammer going off in her head and serious big hand/little hand differentiation issues. So I think we were lucky, really.’
‘I’ll take luck, any time it’s offered,’ said Jack. ‘Again, thank you.’
‘Please,’ she said, ‘you’re going to make me blush.’
‘Yeah, well you’ll hate the second thing, then. The second thing is sorry.’
‘Oh, what for?’
Jack sighed. ‘I know I’ve already apologised about tearing you all off a strip last week, but seriously, I need to do a lot more. I handled this whole thing really badly. Like—’
‘An amateur?’ she suggested.
‘Oh yeah,’ he grinned. ‘I had no business calling you that.’
‘I told you the other day,’ said Gwen, ‘the best we can ever hope to be at this is amateurs. You too. We should be proud of that. Anything that doesn’t kill us makes us learn for next time. How can we expect to tackle the mysteries of the bloody Universe head-on and know everything about everything? A piece of alien technology put you right off your game today, Jack. But it’s the end of the day, and we’re all still alive, and Cardiff isn’t a smoking hole in the ground populated by shuffling zombies, so, you know, yaaay us.’
Jack rose to his feet. ‘Speaking of mysteries, there are some left, of course.’
The mood in the Boardroom was subdued. Everyone shuffled in like they were hung-over. Ianto brought in a tray of drinks.
‘Decaff,’ he said, handing them out. ‘I thought that might be best.’ He glanced at Jack. ‘If that’s all?’
‘No, you sit too,’ Jack said. ‘You weren’t a bystander today. I’d appreciate your input.’
Ianto hunched his shoulders and sat down.
Jack took a sip of his drink. ‘Mmm. So, what are we calling that?’
‘Twenty-seven?’ said James. They all smiled, even Toshiko, who was huddled in a shawl and seemed to be shivering.
‘Absolutely,’ said Jack. ‘I’m tempted to go even higher. This is the post-game analysis, so I want your comments. Speak freely. But first, hear mine. I was as much to blame as anyone for what went down today. More so, in many ways. So, sorry for that.’
No one spoke.
‘OK,’ said Jack. ‘Moving on. It was a twenty-seven. Any other remarks?’
Owen half-raised his hand. ‘I let it out. I acted like a prat. I think I smacked Ianto as well, so I suppose I’ll be the one sitting on the naughty step.’
‘You were under the influence,’ said Jack.
‘As usual,’ Owen replied.
‘You know what I mean,’ Jack insisted. ‘If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else. Ianto tried to stop you because he was the only one of us who hadn’t actually touched the darn thing. It’s my belief that once someone touches it, it doesn’t let them go, not even when it was dormant and contained. It was always going to get free again.’
‘The riots this afternoon seem to support that idea,’ said Gwen.
‘It had a real range on it,’ said James. ‘It got to us over quite a distance.’
‘There is a question none of us have asked,’ said Toshiko. ‘Where is it?’
‘And why did it stop?’ Jack added. ‘I mean, it had us, and then—’
‘I’ve had the Hub systems scanning for it,’ Ianto said. ‘Nothing, not a trace. It’s gone. Maybe it went back where it came from?’
‘Doesn’t seem likely,’ said James. ‘Jack’s right, it had us, it really did. It was winning.’
Jack looked at Owen and Ianto. ‘You two were here. Either of you remember anything?’
They shook their heads.
‘Hub monitors? Security?’
‘I’ve been through the logs and the playback. There’s nothing useful,’ said Ianto. ‘Though it’s fair to say the records are incomplete. There’s a whole chunk of the day’s Hub-monitor log that’s effectively blank, like it was jammed or erased.’
‘Anything else?’
‘There are signs that the Hub was violated,’ said Ianto. ‘Certain entry traces and system intrusions. But I don’t think they’re anything. I think they’re all part of the damage the Amok caused. It got into everything.’
‘Unless,’ said Owen. ‘Unless someone or something came in here and removed the Amok.’
‘Like who?’ asked James.
Owen shrugged. ‘I dunno. Given our security, I guess that’s too scary to contemplate.’
‘I want us back to alpha scoping for the next week or so,’ Jack announced. ‘Extreme vigilance, twenty-four seven. If the Amok’s still out there, I want to know about it. Any hint of it, any hint.’
Toshiko and Ianto nodded.
‘So, are you going to tell us what happened to you?’ Owen asked Jack.
‘A little Rift-slip,’ Jack replied. ‘Something on the books I’d been looking out for. The Torchwood Archives have notes regarding St Mary-in-the-Dust. A phantom repeat-incursion. A temporal eddy trapping a little parcel of place and time like a fly in amber, and returning it to our reality on a fairly regular basis. I’d been keen to take a look around, next time it showed up.’
‘What was it like?’ asked Ianto.
‘An old chapel,’ said Jack. ‘Thing is, there was a reason it kept coming back. There was something in there, probably the extra-dimensional presence that had edited the chapel out of our time in the first place. An
d it was hungry. Hungry for energy. It came back here to feed.’
‘What...’ Gwen began. ‘What did you see?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Toshiko said.
‘Me neither. Ever,’ said Jack. ‘I’m with Tosh on that. We saw something, something I quite cheerfully shot at. Let’s leave it at that. Gwen got us out before it fed on us. We’re alive. That’s all that matters.’
Silence.
‘So, are we done?’ asked Owen.
‘There’s one last thing,’ said Jack. He took the small, black tile out of his pocket and put it down on the table-top where they could all see it.
‘What’s that?’ asked Owen. ‘Also, why’s it flashing?’
‘This,’ said Jack, ‘is one of my secrets. After what’s happened today, I want to share that secret with you. I believe it’s only fair.’
‘Need to know?’ Gwen asked.
Jack nodded. ‘Exactly that. Today has shown me I’m not omniscient.’
‘I could have told you that,’ muttered Owen. ‘And if I’d had to, that would have proved the point, kind of, wouldn’t it?’
Jack refused to be baited. ‘I know stuff, sometimes, and I keep it from you guys. It occurs to me I’d damn well better share, because there may come a time when one of you knows better than me. That time comes, like it nearly came today, you’d better be ready and know everything. Be ready to act, in case I can’t.’
‘So what is it?’ asked James.
‘Well,’ said Jack. ‘This is... frankly, I don’t know what it is. I understand it to be an early warning, an alarm.’
‘Where did it come from?’ asked Toshiko, between shivers.
‘No idea,’ said Jack. ‘It’s been in the Institute’s keeping since Victoria founded Torchwood. The notes say it pre-dates that foundation. This... thing has been handed down for eight or nine generations by families and antiquarians in the Cardiff area. It was entrusted to Torchwood for safekeeping in 1899 by a Colonel Cosley, a local landowner.’
‘As in Cosley Hall?’ asked James.
‘Yeah, that’s the one,’ said Jack. ‘Story goes it was given to mankind to bear warning of a terrible threat. A war, perhaps. It would sound the alarm if that threat ever came close.’
‘Pardon me,’ said James. ‘“Given to mankind”? Doesn’t that rather suggest...?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Jack softly. ‘It really does.’
‘Why are you sharing this with us now?’ asked Gwen.
‘Because for the 108 years it’s been in Torchwood’s possession, and for all the time it’s been in human hands prior to that, it’s been inert. For the last six weeks, it’s been flashing like that.’
‘Meaning?’ asked Owen.
Jack shrugged. ‘Meaning something’s coming. Or something’s already here.’
SIXTEEN
Jack watched the sun rise from the roof of the St David’s Hotel. Wednesday. Let it be a quiet day. A business-as-usual day, where everything turned out to be a false alarm. They deserved that.
The Cardiff skyline gleamed and shone in the first rake of daylight, like some heavenly city, like one of Blake’s visions of Jerusalem. A beautiful city. A beautiful day. Let it be a beautiful day.
‘This is nice.’
‘I thought so,’ said Jack.
‘Very nice. A very nice start to the day.’ Toshiko smiled at him. ‘Can we do this every day?’
‘Probably not. I thought I’d save it up for mornings where I had to check up on my friends.’
Sunlight streamed in through the café’s wall of glass. Coffee and brioche had been delivered to their table.
‘So, getting that part out of the way, are you OK?’ asked Jack.
Toshiko nodded. ‘Amazingly. I didn’t think I would be. I was a wreck last night, exhausted and everything. I really didn’t think I’d be right for days or weeks.’
‘But you’re OK?’
‘Well, you being nice to me like this helps, but yes. Really. Clear-headed. Calm. I slept well. I don’t think we realised how much that thing was in our heads until it went away.’
Jack asked a passing waitress for some water.
‘How about you?’ asked Toshiko.
‘Famously robust,’ Jack replied. ‘Full of rude health.’
Toshiko buttered a slice of brioche. ‘Do me a favour?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Don’t start apologising. It’s not like you and it freaks me out. What happened yesterday happened. I’m fine. Just get to being flippant and cocksure and slightly devil-may-care. OK?’
‘Sure. OK.’
‘That’s the Jack I know.’
‘OK. This breakfast is on you, by the way.’
She grinned. ‘Better. You’re getting it.’
‘There was this thing I was going to ask you, though,’ said Jack. ‘Just one thing and then I dump the sentiment completely, I promise.’
‘Go on?’
‘How long do you think I can keep people for?’
‘Keep people?’
‘In Torchwood. All sorts of things might whittle down the ranks, but I never considered attrition.’
‘That you’d wear us out?’
Jack steepled his fingers in front of his face. ‘That the work would wear us out. All of us, Tosh. Time was, not long ago, we’d handle a case every week, or every two, not counting false alarms. Then it was two or three a week. Now look at us. Look at this week alone. I’m trying to keep the team on track, and I’m thinking, “Wow, we’re understaffed.” I’m also thinking, “For God’s sake, we’re going to burn out.” It’s twenty-four seven, and it seems to be getting worse, not better.’
‘We’ll just have to take it as it comes,’ Toshiko said.
‘I never thought,’ Jack said, waving a butter knife at her, ‘that people would quit or, I don’t know, die on me due to pressure. Nervous collapse. Mindmulch.’
Toshiko sipped her coffee. ‘If you’d asked me this yesterday, I’d have shared your worries, because yesterday was horrible. But today isn’t, and it’s not going to be.’
‘You sure about that?’
‘I’m a scientist. I have graphs, with arrows on them.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘The law of averages owes us a quiet few days. A few Bartoks.’
Jack nodded. Then he half-frowned. ‘Why do we call them that?’ he asked.
He examined his bruised ribs in the bathroom mirror and flexed his arm. Not so bad.
Gwen called out something from the other room, but he couldn’t hear her over Torn Curtain playing on the stereo.
‘What?’ he called back, rinsing his razor under the tap before rubbing shaving balm into his cheeks.
She wandered into the bathroom behind him, and dropped a bundle of clothes into the laundry basket. She was pretty much already dressed for work.
‘I said, where did we put the sleeve of the Andy DVDs? And also, aren’t you ready yet? We’re going to be late.’
‘I’m there,’ he said.
‘You all right?’
James smiled. ‘Weird dreams last night.’
‘About what?’
‘Haven’t a clue. I just remember them being weird.’ He really couldn’t remember them. They were a solid aftertaste in his mind, but try as he might, he couldn’t actually bring back their content. ‘You’re very perky,’ he remarked.
‘I feel great.’ She went out again. Then she called out from the other room.
‘What? If you turn the music down, I can hear you.’
Torn Curtain dropped away a couple of dozen decibels.
‘I said Andy. The box for the Andy disks.’
‘It was there on Saturday.’
‘I know. It’s not here now.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing. Acting out of guilt.’
He was about to ask her what she meant by that when his nose tickled. He dabbed it. A tiny nosebleed, from the same nostril that had bled the previous day. James go
t some loo roll and blotted it. Just a tiny trickle. He peered at his face in the mirror, rotating his jaw and opening his eyes wide.
‘Stop looking, I’ve found it,’ she called.
James blinked, not hearing her. He continued to stare at his reflection. ‘Gwen?’
‘I said, I found it.’
‘Gwen!’
She poked her head around the bathroom door. ‘It was under the ficus.’
‘Not that. Look at my eyes.’
‘Your eyes?’
He turned from the mirror to face her. She came closer. ‘Look at my eyes,’ he repeated.
‘Is this some kind of trick to get me in grabbing range, because we do not have time?’
‘Gwen—’
She inspected his eyes. ‘They’re lovely. What do you want?’
‘They’re OK?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘Just for a second there, they looked like they were—’
‘What?’
‘Different colours.’
‘Your eyes?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Let me look again.’ She stared more carefully this time. ‘Two lovely brown eyes, check.’
‘The right one looked blue just then.’
‘You imagined it. Now shake your tail-feather, we got to go.’
She walked back out of the bathroom. James took a final look at himself in the mirror. His eyes were brown.
‘I just need to find a shirt,’ he called.
‘I ironed you one,’ she called back.
‘What?’
Gwen reappeared in the bathroom door and held out a clean, pressed white shirt for him.
‘You didn’t have to iron me a shirt,’ he said, taking it.
Gwen thought about that for a second. ‘Bloody hell, I didn’t, did I?’ she said, with genuine surprise. ‘Sorry. Must be the guilt.’
‘Yeah, what was that about guilt?’ he asked, pulling on the shirt as he followed her into the lounge.
‘I haven’t even been here a week, and your flat was beginning to look like someone had conducted controlled explosions of your books, clothes and crockery.’
James buttoned his shirt and glanced around. ‘Blimey,’ he said. ‘It looks like—’
‘What?’
‘It looks like... like the maid’s been in.’