Pack Animals t-7

by Peter Anghelides

  The dead men had been caught in the middle of a poker game. None of them were holding their weapons, which were still racked against the wall. A conventional set of playing cards, along with pound coins and fivers, were scattered across the table. But Ianto saw other, larger cards on the table – brightly coloured MonstaQuest images of deadly creatures. He recognised the one named ‘Bludgeon Beast’ as a Hoix, but the ‘Destructor’ and the ‘Janbri Warrior’ were new to him. The fourth one simply said ‘Sandstorm’.

  Ianto discovered that he had backed himself against the wall, as though desperate to get as far away as possible from this carnage. He sidled along it, aiming for the exit door again, and his foot caught on a dismembered arm. Its hand clutched at a PDA-device. Ianto recognised it – some of the Achenbrite staff he’d seen at the zoo had been using them.

  Wincing with distaste, Ianto recovered the PDA and studied the screen. It showed the image of a surveillance suite with banks of monitors. It had the same décor as this meeting room, including the blood smears up the wall. The blurred image was from a CCTV camera high up on a wall. In the centre of the room it showed the piled bodies of the MonstaQuest creatures, and another dead Achenbrite man.

  Ianto reversed out of the meeting room. He skirted the wall carefully to avoid the spitting flowers, traversed the corridor, and tried the opposite door.

  This led into a conference room, and a real contrast to what he’d seen elsewhere. The overhead lighting revealed that everything was in its place, undamaged. A wide table with a polished walnut top dominated the space. It had an in-built keyboard, and two speaker phones with satellite microphones sat at its centre. One wall was a huge display screen made up of sixteen large flat-screen monitors. A sign opposite identified a ‘Monitor Room’.

  Ianto’s feet sank right into the plush carpet as he made his way over to the door. Through the window in it he could see the surveillance gear that the PDA had shown him, the mashed remains of an Achenbrite security guard, and the clumsy pile of dead monsters. His hand was on the door when a commotion from behind him was accompanied by a shouted warning.

  ‘Get away from that door!’

  Ianto whirled on his heel. In the frame of the opposite doorway stood a thin-faced, middle-aged woman in a well-cut business suit. Her trim copper hair starkly outlined her head, though the effect was spoiled by the gas mask that covered her face. Angry eyes peered out at him through the top of the mask. The woman wasn’t armed. Both hands were occupied holding a flat black rectangle, like she was carrying a box of chocolates.

  Behind her, two Achenbrite guards in grey boiler suits and gas masks were using long-handled sprays to soak the outer corridor. Ianto could swear that the plants were making high-pitched squealing sounds.

  ‘Get away from the door,’ repeated the woman, her voice metallic through the mask’s speaker. ‘Please.’

  He hadn’t touched the door handle. How could she tell he was there? He hadn’t left any footprints on the carpet. But he was still holding the Achenbrite PDA.

  He stepped to the left of the door, but at the same time tossed the PDA in a shallow arc to the right. It bounced and scraped across the conference table. Ianto stopped by an open cupboard full of stationery, and held his breath.

  The woman’s eyes had followed the PDA as it came to rest against one of the conference phones. When she looked back again, she didn’t stare at the Monitor Room door, but directly to where Ianto had moved.

  ‘Thank you.’ She set the chocolate box down on the conference table. With her hands free, she could peel the gas mask backwards over her head. She shook her copper hair straight again, and returned her gaze to where Ianto was still trying to hold his breath. She looked straight into his eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was calm, and slightly amused. ‘We had to asphyxiate those creatures in there. The gas has not dispersed, and it’s highly toxic to humans.’ She set down the gas mask, and retrieved the flat box. ‘Come in, boys,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘No need for your masks.’

  The two Achenbrite guards stepped into the conference room, their gas masks clipped to their belts. They flanked the woman, each taller than her by a head. Ianto could see a family resemblance in their eyes, and in their coppery red hair.

  ‘Thank you, boys,’ said the woman. ‘I thought you should meet Mr Jones, who has decided to make an appearance.’

  Ianto muffled a gasp. She knew his name. And she knew where he was.

  The woman tapped some recessed controls on the chocolate box. A wide angle of pale lilac light shot across the room in a two-second flash. Ianto blinked involuntarily as it dazzled him. When he opened his eyes again, the woman was still staring at him. In fact, she was looking him up and down appraisingly. The two men beside her grinned. It was one of those ‘your flies are undone’ moments, and Ianto’s instinct was to look down and check. And that’s when he first saw his own feet again. Not to mention everything else.

  He reached out to the stationery cupboard, grabbed a notepad, and covered up his crotch.

  ‘Lovely to see you, Mr Jones,’ smiled the woman. She gestured to the conference table. ‘Would you be more comfortable if you were seated?’

  Ianto shuffled over and slid into a chair. He kept the pad of paper in his lap beneath the table.

  His options appeared to be limited. There was no way past those big red-headed guys. The conference phone was within reach now – was there any way of dialling the Torchwood team fast enough before he was stopped? And what was the number for an outside line, anyway?

  ‘Hello, my name is Jennifer Portland. Oh, well, I suppose you already know that.’ She sat next to him and offered a handshake. It seemed rude not to accept it. The skin of her hand felt pale and cool, but her grip was firm.

  Jennifer pulled one of the conference phones across the desk towards them. ‘Right then,’ she said briskly. ‘Let’s call up your friends in the car park, shall we?’

  The wall of monitors sprang into life opposite them. It was displaying an image like a jigsaw with sixteen large rectangular pieces. In the centre was the Torchwood SUV, monitored from a pole-mounted CCTV camera. Wall speakers pulsed with the telephone’s dial tone and the musical notes of the number going through.

  ‘Hello?’ answered Gwen’s voice.

  ‘Please stand by for a three-way call,’ said Jennifer.

  She tapped further numbers into the phone, and within half a minute she had connected a video call to the Hub. Toshiko’s somewhat surprised face appeared in the upper-right flat-screen. ‘Picture-in-picture,’ whispered Jennifer to Ianto, as though she was doing a demo in an electrical shop.

  Jennifer raised her voice to speak to the rest of the Torchwood team. ‘Thank you for joining this conference call,’ she said. ‘We urgently need to talk about MonstaQuest. And as you’ve shown up in person…’ At this, she couldn’t resist a sidelong glance at Ianto’s carefully positioned notepad. ‘… I think it’s now my turn to reveal all.’

  NINETEEN

  Gwen hadn’t expected it to be this easy to get into Achenbrite. A big red-headed guy, barrel-chested, big as a set of drawers, escorted her and Owen from the SUV and into the building. He’d not been surprised when they drew their handguns, and even raised his hands voluntarily like he was under arrest. She and Owen let him lead the way.

  Their journey through the Achenbrite building ended in a luxuriously appointed conference room. On the way, Gwen had seen the bloody evidence of several violent struggles, including a gory side room full of mutilated corpses. A surveillance room just beyond where she now stood contained another dead man and a heaped pile of alien corpses.

  When she settled into a chair at the head of the wide conference table, Gwen saw there were fresh scratches across its polished surface.

  ‘Been in a fight?’ she asked Ianto.

  Ianto said he’d scratched the table when he threw a PDA onto it.

  Gwen indicated his left arm. There were scrapes on Ianto’s skin, and his shoulder was smeared
with dried blood. He licked his thumb and wiped ineffectually at the brown-red marks. ‘That’s where the bushes outside scratched me. These people haven’t laid a finger on me.’

  Jennifer Portland smiled benevolently at this reassurance. But her emotion seemed brittle. Gwen wasn’t sure she liked her. The woman was in her mid-fifties, calm and composed in her seat beside Ianto. ‘They haven’t put any clothes on you, either,’ responded Gwen tartly.

  ‘He’s got that A5 pad,’ observed Owen. ‘Or was he just doing dictation?’

  Gwen nodded to the two red-headed men on the other side of Jennifer. They’d been introduced as Jennifer’s sons, Chris and Matthew. They studied the Torchwood people sullenly. ‘Didn’t one of you have a spare boiler suit?’

  ‘We’ve had more pressing problems than clothing,’ Jennifer snapped. ‘You’ll have seen the people who died here today. Seven members of staff, including…’ She paused for a little breath, regaining her composure. ‘Including Toby. One of my sons. He was at the zoo.’

  ‘Yeah, we saw something of him,’ Owen said.

  One of her other sons reached across and squeezed his mother’s hand. Her only acknowledgement was a slight inclination of her head.

  This smallest of gestures made Gwen feel more sorry for the woman. ‘What happened here today?’

  ‘Gareth.’ Jennifer’s voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘I thought he was returning the device he’d stolen.’

  ‘The catalogue thing?’ prompted Gwen. ‘Is that what brings the creatures through the Rift?’

  Jennifer nodded. ‘Three of them. A Hoix and a pair of Chantri Golems. They overwhelmed my team before they could respond. Chris and Matt managed to transfer them into the surveillance suite, and I flooded it with kolokine-7.’

  Gwen looked at the nearby Monitor Room, nervously wondering whether the air seal on the door was impervious to alien toxic gases. ‘In there?’

  Jennifer nodded. ‘Transmitted them into that room through the PDA’s video signal, and asphyxiated them.’

  ‘All right…’ Jack’s booming voice interrupted them. The image on the wall of flat-screen displays wobbled and steadied itself, resolving into a giant close-up of Jack and Toshiko. They were looking into a camera on Toshiko’s desk back at the Hub. ‘We’re all set here.’

  ‘What kept you?’ asked Gwen.

  ‘Wait and see,’ he responded. ‘OK, Mrs Portland. Whadda ya got?’

  Jennifer looked up at Jack’s image as it loomed over the whole room. ‘We need to combine our resources, Captain Harkness.’

  Jack’s shook his head, a huge gesture on the display. ‘You don’t get it, Mrs Portland. You think you’re in charge here, but you’re not. You’re really not.’ He leaned in, and seemed bigger than ever. ‘We know you’ve gotten your hands on some kind of alien tech. We know you’ve used it today in the mall and the zoo and in the centre of town. We know you tested it beforehand – an earlier visit to the zoo, a dogs’ home…’

  ‘A farm,’ prompted Toshiko.

  ‘Yeah, that poor guy is never gonna work out where his alpacas went. What were you hoping? To sell the stuff? Exploit it? Salvage what was left of your late husband’s failing electronics firm?’

  Gwen studied Jennifer’s reaction. She didn’t seem angry. A kind of weary resignation hung on her pale face.

  ‘Torchwood has been picking up the pieces of your “tests” for months,’ Jack went on. ‘And today, Achenbrite carelessly lost control of that device at the zoo. Nearly killed one of my officers. Nice to see ya, Ianto,’ he added.

  Jennifer’s composure seemed to slip. ‘If your officer here hadn’t tampered with it, that device wouldn’t have killed my Toby.’

  ‘Are you blaming us?’ Jack’s tone was steely.

  ‘I’m saying that it’s not as simple as you make out.’

  ‘Alien tech never is. Leave it to the experts.’

  ‘Experts, indeed!’ Jennifer Portland sniffed loudly. ‘You’ve seen our work. We were able to control your communications network. We recognised your infiltration of our systems. And we have the equipment and expertise to contain the creatures from the Vandrogonite Visualiser.’

  ‘Oh, wait a minute…’ That had surprised Toshiko. ‘Why do you call it that? Vandrogonite was just our best guess about its origins.’

  ‘I know,’ said Jennifer smoothly. She tapped at the keyboard built into the conference desk. One of the sixteen flat-screens changed to show a computer display.

  ‘Picture-in-picture,’ Ianto told Gwen.

  ‘That’s a Torchwood file,’ said Toshiko in an aggrieved tone. ‘You hacked our system?’

  Ianto chuckled, then turned it into a cough. ‘Not funny,’ he said. ‘Very serious, of course.’

  Toshiko’s head shifted slightly out of frame. Gwen could hear the clattering noise as she tapped furiously at her own keyboard.

  ‘OK, we’re officially impressed.’ Jack settled more comfortably into the centre of the picture. ‘So, where’s the fire? You don’t need us, right?’ His sarcastic tone suggested otherwise.

  Jennifer seemed to be taking a deep breath before speaking. ‘Yes, Captain Harkness. We need your assistance.’

  ‘And we should help you… why?’

  ‘Because we have all of this.’ Jennifer touch-typed a swift series of keystrokes.

  Toshiko gave a cry of amazement. ‘Wow!’

  The computer display flat-screen now showed the three-dimensional rendering of the Achenbrite warehouse. Gwen recognised it from their planning session in the Hub. The difference was that the whole of the blue wireframe was alive with brighter spots of light, like a firestorm over the whole complex. And she knew that indicated Rift activity.

  ‘I’ve turned off the non-disclosure field,’ Jennifer explained.

  Toshiko’s head kept popping back into frame as she reeled off a list of what she could see. ‘The whole place is awash with Rift energy. You’ve got dozens of pieces of alien tech… peak traces for recent incursions… residual hot spots where living creatures have penetrated…’ Her voice trailed off incredulously.

  ‘You’re offering us this?’ asked Jack. ‘Because you sure ain’t gonna fight us with it any more.’

  ‘We weren’t fighting you in the first place,’ retorted Jennifer. ‘We were trying to contain the damage done by Gareth.’

  ‘We’ll just take it all,’ Jack replied coldly. ‘Close you down. This isn’t a negotiation. That’s the lesson you’ve learned today, Mrs Portland.’

  Jennifer slammed her palms down, and Gwen felt the angry vibrations through the conference table’s surface. ‘I don’t need a lecture, I need your help. I want Gareth back. I want my son. I’ve lost too many good men today from Achenbrite to care about anything other than that. We can’t contain this any longer. Torchwood certainly can’t, that much is clear from your fumbling attempts throughout the day. We need to work together.’

  Jack leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. His image still dominated the room. Gwen saw something in that look. Maybe he wasn’t telling them everything, but Jack could sometimes let his hurt pride get in the way of doing what was right.

  So she leaned forward on the conference table and said to Jennifer: ‘Tell me about Gareth.’

  Jennifer’s eyes darted to Gwen.

  ‘Gareth?’ Jack was saying on the screen. ‘That’s your son with the mental problems who’s walking around town with a Vandrogonite Visualiser?’

  ‘Jack!’ snapped Gwen angrily. ‘Just listen to her!’ Sometimes, she thought, he really didn’t get the whole Good Cop part of things. She smiled at Jennifer. ‘Go on.’

  Jennifer looked to her two sons. The woman who had seemed so in control when Gwen had first entered this conference room was now close to tears.

  The older of the two sons, Chris, held her hand again. ‘That Visualiser thing,’ he said. ‘It was part of our first find. Up at the Rhiwbina dig. We thought it was just an alien toy, y’know. And Gareth wasn’t interested in Achenbri
te.’

  ‘Gareth’s a sensitive lad,’ interrupted his mother.

  ‘Mum, he’s not right,’ Chris told her.

  ‘Stop it!’

  ‘Face it, Mum! Look at what he’s done here. The mood swings, the obsessions… is it any wonder? None of us have ever been able to control him. You can’t. Dad never could.’

  ‘Don’t speak that way of your dad. If he were alive today…’

  ‘… he still wouldn’t be able to control Gareth!’ shouted Chris. ‘He’s unstable.’ Now Chris was talking directly to Gwen. ‘He loves his warcraft and his games and his computers, but he’s got a gap up here when it comes to real people.’ He tapped his own temple. ‘You saw what he did to his girlfriend, didn’t you?’

  Gwen kept her expression neutral, though her heart was racing now. ‘So what’s been going on, Chris?’

  ‘Gareth stole the Visualiser. Thought it was a toy. To be honest, it seemed harmless enough, and it kept him happy and out of our hair. He based that card game of his on the contents of the catalogue, set himself up in the garage where he was lodging. Got a lot of interest for MonstaQuest from toyshops and the Press. But then we saw the monsters started appearing for real…’

  ‘And you thought you could just tidy up after him,’ said Jack. Gwen could feel the cold anger in his words. ‘Achenbrite are way out of their depth here. That Vandrogonite device is fuelled by emotions. The MonstaQuest cards just add to the excitement. And Gareth’s unstable. You gave a blow torch to a pyromaniac.’

  ‘No, worse than that,’ said Ianto. He emphasised his point with urgent hand gestures above the conference table. The writing pad slipped from his lap, but he no longer cared. ‘Gareth isn’t controlling that thing any more. He thinks he is, but it’s using him. Those flowers you found at the mall, Tosh? They were here too, in the corridor. Alien flora. It’s like the device is trying to create the ideal environment for the creatures it brings through.’