He walked back into the main area of the Hub, calling out to Jack as he carefully placed the rucksack and alien gun down.
‘Don’t feel bad that I worked out the code for the weapons warehouse. You did a fantastic job of keeping it secret, honestly, you really did. Took me ages and ages. It’s no reflection on you at all. It’s just that I’m very crafty.’
He knelt down in front of Jack and Gwen. He turned to Gwen first.
‘I don’t know if either of you can hear me, but if I don’t make it back from this. . . Gwen, sometimes you drive me bloody mad, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. You’re brilliant, and gorgeous, and so brave, and we’re lucky to have you.’
He turned to Jack.
‘Jack. You know how I feel. I think I know how you feel. You brought me back from the brink, so many times, and made me feel so alive. I didn’t think I’d ever feel like that again. So thank you. In all the madness, you’re the one person I know I can rely on. And that counts for a hell of a lot.’ He hesitated, then grinned. ‘Also, you’ve got a great arse. But you already know that.’
Ianto stood up again and went to a computer screen. ‘If anything goes wrong, you’ll both be looked after. I mean, in the way you wanted.’
He recorded a video message for Rhys, explaining what had happened, and what to do. Then he recorded another one for Martha Jones at UNIT, telling her what to do with Jack if Ianto didn’t make it back. He knew he could rely on her to do what was necessary. Sure, she’d probably spend a few months trying to figure out another way to cure them – and who knows, maybe she’d even succeed – but if it came to it, she’d finish the job as Ianto had asked. He closed the messages, and set up the server to send them in twenty-four hours. If he didn’t come back, then at least things would be taken care of.
He turned back to Jack and Gwen.
‘Right, then. I’ll be off. Do some killing and maiming. Hopefully I’ll see you soon.’
Before he left, he gave Jack one last kiss. And he made sure it was a good one.
He looked at Gwen after kissing Jack. He shrugged, and gave her a long kiss too, one that was almost as good as the one he’d given Jack. He glanced over at Jack. ‘What? Not like you don’t get to snog everyone. And I think I deserve it.’
He walked to the main exit of the Hub, taking one last look back. And then walked out.
The SUV screeched to a halt outside the warehouse, and Ianto stepped out, bringing his rucksack with him. He strode towards the front door.
Inside the reception area, Salina the bored receptionist was tapping away at her computer when Ianto walked in. He put his rucksack down, which clanked and rattled. He coughed politely. She looked up.
‘Hello. Me again. Get Alix-with-an-I to come out and play, would you?’
‘Hold on.’ She clicked a button on the intercom.
Ianto smiled at her. ‘Your coffee’s rubbish, by the way.’
She just shrugged.
Ianto continued. ‘And your attitude doesn’t help. If you don’t care about the coffee, why should anyone else? It’s lacklustre. Uninspired. When you take a sip, it should get you excited about the day. But yours? It’s like licking a damp, smelly towel. One that’s been left in a musty cellar. If you’re not going to do it properly, don’t do it all. Coffee’s too important for that. I don’t normally talk this much. It’s just that you’re not really filling in your side of the conversation, not at all, and I just feel compelled to keep talking about nothing. Do you get that a lot? People just rambling on at you?’
She shrugged again.
Ianto nodded. ‘Thought so. Your attitude to conversation is the same as your attitude to coffee. Oh, thank God.’
His last sentence was a reaction to Alix walking through the door, finally.
‘Hello, Mr Torchwood. That was quick.’
‘Not for me, it wasn’t. Thought I was going to end up talking myself to death.’
‘I meant, you were quick getting the money.’ He pointed at the bag.
Ianto smiled. ‘Ah, right, I see. Well, it’s not like that, exactly.’
He pulled out the massive alien gun and switched it on.
Alix stared at him. ‘Mr Torchwood. This really isn’t wise.’
‘Oh really? Why not?’
‘Because I have more toys than you do. And more people.’
‘We’ve already established that. So bring out your two little friends, and let’s get this over with.’
‘Oh, I’ve got more than two friends.’
Alix snapped his fingers, and ten large men came through the warehouse door. They surrounded Alix, protecting him and aiming their guns at Ianto. The largest one stood right at the front, in Ianto’s line of fire. He looked like he was made of gorilla meat, a huge stack of it, painted to look roughly like a human being. He was actually human but, in Ianto’s line of work, he could be forgiven for having to take a second look to make sure.
‘Ah,’ said Ianto. ‘I’d kind of planned on only having to deal with two of them.’
‘This is Sean,’ said Alix. ‘Say hello, Sean.’
‘Hello, Mr Suity-Man,’ said Sean, chuckling. The other large men chuckled with him.
‘Don’t make fun of the suit,’ said Ianto, shaking his head in disapproval. ‘Just don’t.’
‘So,’ said Alix. ‘Now that we’ve established our dominance in this little game of posturing, perhaps you’d be so good as to hand over the money. Then we can give you the antidote, and we can all go on our merry way.’
‘Right,’ said Ianto. ‘That’s not going to work for me. You see, I don’t have the money.’
‘You need more time?’
‘No. I didn’t even try to get it. I knew it would take too long, and I can’t risk wasting any more time.’
‘I must have misunderstood. What are you saying? What’s in the bag?’
‘No money. But a whole load of guns.’
Sean chuckled again, but stopped when nobody else joined in. There was an awkward silence.
‘The thing is,’ said Ianto, apologetically. ‘I know there’s quite a lot more of you than I’d expected. But I’m going to have to go into that warehouse behind you. And I’m going to take the antidote from you. Without paying.’
They stared at him for a moment.
Sean burst out laughing. The other large men joined in this time. Ianto laughed too. Even Alix cracked a smile, amused by the situation. There was general hilarity for a good minute or so.
When the laughter gradually died down into occasional snorts, Ianto shrugged at them. ‘It’s true,’ he said, smiling.
Sean stepped forward slightly. ‘And how are you going to do that, Mr Suity-Man?’
Ianto stopped smiling. ‘Well, I’m going to walk forwards. And I’m going to blow open that door, with this.’ He waved the alien gun. ‘And if you try and stop me, I’ll have to hurt you, probably kill you. You see, I really don’t care what happens to any of you. Whether you go to prison, hospital or the morgue. Makes no difference to me. You deliberately set Torchwood up to get infected with that virus, so you could blackmail some money out of us. So right now, all I care about is getting that antidote. And if I have to kill every one of you, then I will. And I won’t even look back or think twice about it.’
The mood grew solemn, as the others realised how serious he was.
‘Won’t look back, eh?’ said Sean.
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, you should have looked back a minute ago, when Matt came in through the door and pointed a gun at your head.’
‘Really.’
‘Yep.’
Matt was a few steps behind Ianto, aiming his gun, just as Sean said. But Ianto didn’t even bother looking. He smiled. ‘You expect me to believe he’s really there?’
Sean looked uncertain. ‘Well. . . he is.’
‘Right. And suppose I shoot you in the head? Will Matt shoot me?’
Sean was acutely aware that the alien gun was pointing right at his hea
d. ‘Damn right he will.’
‘OK. But – and please do correct me if I’m getting this wrong – you’ll be dead before he shoots me, is that right?’
Sean hesitated. He looked over Ianto’s shoulder quickly, at Matt.
‘Matt, shoot him now—’
But Ianto was already firing the gun over his shoulder. He aimed the gun back at Sean again, before anyone could react. Behind him, he heard the sound of Matt slumping to the floor. Ianto looked surprised.
‘Well, what do you know. He really was there. And I’d have bet good money that you were bluffing. Now I feel silly.’
‘This has become tiresome,’ said Alix. ‘Take him.’
‘OK, wait!’ Ianto held his hands up, aiming the alien gun away from the men. ‘Look, there’s way too many of you, I won’t be able to get you all. Let’s just talk about this, and work something out.’
‘Kick the bag over here first,’ said Sean. ‘Give us the guns, and that fancy gun thing too.’
Ianto nodded. He slid the rucksack over to them, and threw his gun to Sean, who caught it in one hand. Sean leaned down to open the rucksack. Ianto closed his eyes and blocked his ears.
‘Wait!’ shouted Alix. ‘Don’t open—’
BANG! Inside the rucksack, the five flash grenades went off, creating an enormous, bright flash of light and an incredibly loud bang.
Everyone in the room staggered backwards, temporarily blinded and deafened.
Everyone except Ianto. Who opened his eyes, unblocked his ears, and got to work.
He pulled two guns out, and dived to one side, firing at the men, who were now firing blindly all around them, desperately trying to hit him. Some of the men were hit by friendly fire, but most were taken down by Ianto, quickly, coldly, efficiently. He got two immediately, and carefully got the rest, using bodies as a shield, moving around silently, always moving, always getting closer to the warehouse door. The last few men that survived, he gave a choice.
‘Drop your guns, and walk out of here. And I won’t come after you.’
One of them did, running out, eyes streaming from the flash grenade’s after effects. Two stayed, and struggled to reload their guns. Alix disappeared into the warehouse, slamming the door behind him.
Ianto marched up to the remaining two men, and swiftly took them down with a succession of hard kicks and punches. Salina the receptionist popped up from behind the bullet-ridden desk, and ran for him with her own gun, but he ducked, then knocked her out with a roundhouse punch. He looked down at her.
‘See? When you put some effort in, it’s much better. Miserable cow.’
He reloaded his weapons, picked up the alien gun, and stepped over to the door.
Inside the warehouse, the door exploded off its hinges and Ianto ran through the smoking doorway. At the other end of the warehouse, Alix was crawling on his knees, still having trouble seeing. He fired his gun over his shoulder, unable to focus on anything. Ianto walked right up to him, getting a bullet in one arm for his trouble. He shot Alix in the leg to slow him down, kicked the gun out of his hand, turned him over, gripped him by the hair, and slammed his head into the concrete.
‘Where’s the antidote?’
‘I’m not going to—’
SLAM! ‘Where’s the antidote?’
‘I’m not telling you—’
SLAM SLAM! ‘I can do this for a long time. Where’s the antidote?’
‘Why don’t you—’
SLAM SLAM SLAM! ‘How long before your skull cracks? How long before you start bleeding into your brain? How long before you turn into a drooling vegetable? WHERE. IS. THE. ANTIDOTE?’
Alix’s eyes glazed over with concussion, and he gave up. ‘Crate G21. Same crate as the virus.’
Ianto walked away without another word, and found the crate. He opened it and found several packets with syringes inside. He read the labels, and checked them against his own list that he’d printed off from the Torchwood files. Alix had told him the truth – it was the antidote. While he was at it, he took all the containers of the virus, too, so he could dispose of them safely later.
He walked back over to Alix, who could see a bit better now, but was still concussed. He glared at Ianto.
‘You’ve made the biggest, and last mistake of your life. I’ll find you, Mr Torchwood. I’ll find you, and your friends, and I will make sure th—’
‘Save your breath,’ said Ianto, activating a small, purple cylinder and placing it on the ground. The device started beeping. ‘This is a Tregennan demolition bomb. Makes big boom-boom. Better start crawling – you’ve got sixty seconds to get out.’
He held up his stopwatch, and clicked the button. He turned to go.
‘You shot me in the leg,’ said Alix. ‘I can’t make it out that quickly.’
‘Give it a try,’ said Ianto, as he walked towards the exit.
Alix swore under his breath, and started crawling slowly away from the bomb.
Outside, Ianto got into the SUV and phoned Rhys.
‘Rhys, it’s Ianto. Meet me outside the Hub in thirty minutes. I need your help, it’s urgent.’
He hung up before Rhys had a chance to argue or ask questions. Behind him, the warehouse exploded in a massive fireball. The sixty seconds were up. Ianto started the SUV, and drove away.
And, as promised, he didn’t even look back or think twice about it.
The SUV came skidding to a halt near the tourist entrance of the Hub. Rhys, who had been waiting nearby, ran over.
‘What’s going on? Where’s Gwen? Bloody hell, are you all right? You’re bleeding.’
‘It’s just a flesh wound. I hope. Gwen’s inside, and I’ll need your help.’
They ran into the Hub. Rhys saw Gwen and Jack on the sofa.
‘Gwen?’ He stared at her, then at Jack, realising something wasn’t right. ‘What’s happened?’
Ianto got two antidote syringes out, and walked over to them.
‘They’ve been infected with a virus. It sends a feedback loop into their mind, meaning they can’t think about anything or do anything, it’s sort of a waking coma.’
‘You what??’
‘This is the antidote.’
Ianto rammed the syringes into their arms, and pressed the plungers.
‘But it doesn’t just work by itself. You have to coax them out of it. You need to talk to them while it works through their systems, and remind them of every single strong, positive memory you can think of, anything their mind can latch on to and use to focus itself back.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this had happened before now?’
‘Rhys, we don’t have a lot of time. I’ve given them the antidote, now we need to make it work. I’ll explain everything after, we can have a great big rollicking Welsh argument, but right now we need to pull them out of it. You take Gwen, I’ll take Jack.’
‘What do I say? Just, sort of, nice things that happened to us?’
‘Yes, anything like that. Stronger the better.’
Rhys knelt down by Gwen, Ianto sat with Jack. They both started talking, Rhys self-consciously, Ianto quickly and efficiently.
‘Er, right then,’ said Rhys. ‘Hello sweetheart. Good memories. . . God, they’re all good, at least, you mainly remember the good ones, don’t you? Right, well, where to start? Our first kiss. First date. First time we. . . you know. Moving in together, we were so scared, but excited, we didn’t leave the flat for three whole days. Me mate Steven thought I’d had an accident or something, cause I wasn’t in the pub all weekend, he was a right laugh. The day we got married. That was fantastic, it all worked out in the end, even though I was convinced these muppets would mess it all up.’ He glanced over at Ianto, awkwardly. ‘No offence, like.’
Ianto wasn’t listening.
‘The day we all had to go to the five-star hotel, to avoid meeting our previous selves,’ he said to Jack. ‘And the meal we all had that evening. That time in the Hothouse, when Gwen caught us, and you kept doing impressions of her
reaction. Naked hide and seek. After we stopped those alien parasites from infecting everyone, when everything turned out OK, how relieved we were – then we all went and got totally rat-arsed. You were dancing on a table, and Tosh was shoving fivers in your belt. Me and Owen said she was paying too much, that you’d do it for a drink and a wink, and I spilt my drink all down Gwen’s cleavage. Laughing, just laughing like we’d never laughed before, in case we’d never get another chance.’
They both carried on, digging deep, getting as personal as they could, neither one of them caring about being overheard now. Desperate to save the person they knew, the person they loved.
Suddenly, with a gasp, Gwen snapped out of it. She tried to stand up, but staggered back onto the sofa.
‘Easy, easy love,’ said Rhys, gently. ‘You’re OK. You’re OK.’ He pulled her to him, holding her tightly, kissing her head.
They both looked over at Jack, who was still catatonic. Ianto was still talking, non-stop, trying everything he could think of.
‘That time we came into your office, and we’d all switched clothes just to make you laugh. Gwen was in my suit, Tosh was in scrubs, and me and Owen were wearing Gwen and Tosh’s clothes. You laughed so hard, the coffee came out of your nose. Then you made me wear. . .’ He glanced over at Gwen and Rhys, slightly self-conscious. ‘Made me wear it again the next night.’
Gwen and Rhys smiled, but were concerned now. Jack still wasn’t coming out of it. Ianto kept going.
‘You getting that bloody clown mask, and sneaking up on us all, for days on end. Me and you dancing at Gwen and Rhys’s wedding. The time we saved that kids’ party from the Astracane leeches, and they let us have a go on the bouncy castle. The stopwatch.’
Jack still wasn’t responding.
Ianto looked at the other two, panicking. ‘He’s not coming out, I don’t know what else to try.’
‘There must be something,’ said Gwen.
Ianto stared into space, thinking. And then he thought of something. He smiled, and looked back at Jack.
‘How about that time when—’
Consequences Page 15