by Gary Russell
TWENTY-ONE
Jack Harkness knew every nook and cranny of the Torchwood Hub in Cardiff. At least, that’s what he’d always thought, but clearly there were bits he wasn’t that good on because somehow he was lost.
The corridors had been hollowed out of the solid rock beneath Cardiff Bay a century or so earlier, but had fallen into disrepair between the wars. Only a few direct routes to the basement rooms were regularly kept up to date. Recently, his team had opened a few more up – some of which had been done while he’d been away all those months ago.
Hell, they’d even built a new Boardroom! How cool was that?
How cool it’d be if he could get there now. It was defendable.
But here in these corridors with their junctions, shadows, low ceilings and sudden maze-like twists and turns, he felt dead vulnerable and hopelessly lost. He was running, probably for his life.
And who from?
He’d been in the Hub, talking to Gwen, when Ianto had called him on his cell phone. Mobile. Whatever.
‘Where the hell are you today?’
‘Jack – you gotta get out of there,’ Ianto had yelled, loud enough that the others had heard him.
Jack gave Owen and Gwen an ‘oh my god, has he been drinking’ look and told Ianto to calm down.
‘Who’s with you?’
‘Owen and Gwen. Tosh is down in the Boardroom. Oh, and the Weevils are in the Vaults, as normal. I think that’s it. You OK?’
‘Get. Out. Jack. Now!’
Suddenly the phone reception screeched and went dead. Jack nearly dropped his phone.
Gwen shot a look at Owen. ‘I’ll go find Ianto,’ she said and, before Jack could stop her, she was gone.
Except for that brief moment when she stopped by the rolling door and looked back at him.
Just for a second.
One look.
By the time the door had rolled closed behind her, Jack had the Webley out and ready.
And then he had started running.
Now he was lost in the corridors. He slowed to a halt, pausing while he tried to work out where he was, tried to come up with a plan.
He felt the hard steel of a pistol on the back of his head.
‘Owen? What exactly is going on?’
‘Don’t move, Jack. I’m sorr y. God, I’m really, really sorry, but you don’t understand what we’re doing here.’
‘Too damn right I don’t.’
‘Please, Jack.’
That was Toshiko. So she was in on it, too. Whatever ‘it’ was.
‘Another coup, Owen? This is getting really tired.’
‘Jack, you’ve got to understand, we’ve found a way to help the world.’
‘I thought we were already doing that.’
Toshiko came into view. ‘No, we mean really help it. Change it. Make ever ything better. Instead of just squirreling everything away, we could actually use it to better mankind.’
Jack just shrugged. ‘Heard that before, guys. It’s what brought down the Institute in London. I thought we were better than that.’
Owen nodded, understanding Jack’s concerns. ‘And that’s why we need you. Our moral compass. They never had that. They never had you.’
‘And what do I need to do for your brave new world, Owen? What’s the price? Cos I’ve been around, you know. I realise there’s always a price.’
Owen and Toshiko glanced at one another.
‘And Gwen?’ Jack continued. ‘Is she OK with this?’
‘Gwen’s… undecided, if I’m being honest,’ said Toshiko.
‘Honesty, well that’s good. Keep with the honesty programme, Tosh, and tell me what you need me for. Cos I have a feeling I’m not gonna like it.’
‘You’re right, Jack,’ Owen said, in a suddenly calm and strong voice. ‘You’re not.’
Jack saw his eyes. Solid black, like the heart of a black hole had consumed him from inside. He looked at Toshiko. She was the same.
‘Shit,’ said Jack, and Owen shot him dead, straight through the forehead.
When Jack awoke, he couldn’t move.
He opened his eyes, but he was in an opaque nothingness, although it was solid, he was sure of that. He tried moving. Nope, held rigid, and all he could do was look slightly left or right with his eyes. Nothing else moved, although he could feel his body.
So he was trapped, encased in something that held him still.
He became aware of tiny pinpricks on his skin, like a million tiny needles painlessly pressing against him.
After more than 150 years, Jack knew his own body, he knew every millimetre of skin and muscle and tissue and how it should feel at any given moment. And whatever this was, it was wrong.
Something loomed into view above him, misshapen, distorted. It spoke, the sound distorting through whatever it was that held him there. He realised it was Owen Harper, his eyes still consumed by the black.
‘Jack,’ he was saying. ‘Not sure if you can hear me, but every few hours, you’ll suffocate. And then come back to life.’
Wasn’t the first time that trick had been tried, Jack thought ruefully. But why?
‘And when that happens, the energies your body gives off will enable us to open the Rift and, more importantly, control it. We are going to use the Rift to build a new Torchwood Empire and make Earth a better home for everything trapped upon it.’
Interesting use of words. So whatever was inhabiting the others, it was trapped here.
Jack noted to himself that he’d automatically dismissed the notion that Toshiko and Owen and probably Gwen were doing this voluntarily. Something had taken them over.
Good. At least he wasn’t being betrayed by his team.
He realised that the pinpricks were tiny wires into his skin, and that this had been worked out meticulously. And no matter how good Toshiko and Owen were, bless ’em, they couldn’t have achieved this with just their technological savvy.
Aliens? Rift aliens? Something else?
It didn’t matter. He was trapped, and encased in some kind of holding prison, unable to move and would, eternally, be living and dying and powering the aliens and their plans.
Great.
There was nothing he could do. Except wait for help from Ianto or someone else.
Jack smiled. Because he knew that Ianto would find a way. Because he was Ianto.
A long time passed. A lot of deaths and rebirths. Jack had no idea of time or space any longer – it was all he could do to keep sane.
Then, one day, a series of cracks appeared in the compound that held him.
He heard lots of noise, gunfire perhaps, and clearly some bullets had hit the thing he was in.
His vision clouded with scarlet. Had he been shot? No, no someone else had, directly above him, on the surface of the compound.
He knew then that Ianto was dead. Somewhere inside his head he felt something sever and die.
And he understood. Ianto had got himself shot, somewhere above him, deliberately. Knowing that his sacrifice was the only way to break the compound holding Jack.The crimson running across his vision and down tiny splinters in the compound towards him was Ianto’s blood.
Jack felt himself tense. Anger, hurt, pain, betrayal, fury. All of those came together as his cheek felt a drop of Ianto’s blood hit it.
Summoning every primal ounce of strength in him, Jack Harkness screamed in rage and pushed himself up, ignoring the searing pain as the compound shattered and sliced into him, ignoring the awful sensation of pure light hitting his eyes, blinking away the brightness and the blood.
He was standing there, threads of wiring torn away from his body, facing a group of armed guards, suited workers and Toshiko, her eyes now black, her face snarling.
‘Kill him,’ she screamed.
As if in slow motion, the guards raised their automatic weapons, but Jack was driven by something more powerful than good sense or logic.
He was driven by the death of Ianto Jones.
He reached fo
rward and snatched a gun from a guard, swinging round, firing as he did so, not giving a damn who died as the spray of bullets went out. This wasn’t a time to care, this was a time for revenge. Revenge for the future of Earth, a future that was going to be destroyed if the aliens weren’t stopped.
He watched as a couple of guards fell astonished before him, grabbing another weapon and firing it equally indiscriminately, determined to ignore the bullets that were now peppering him. Without him, the alien plan probably couldn’t work. But he was going to take as much down with him as he could, just in case.
He saw Tosh suddenly gasp and a black… cloud erupted from her mouth, nose and eyes, as whatever alien was there fled her. Dark light – somehow he knew that was the phrase. On the ground at her feet, Owen’s body, already dead, convulsed as the aliens left that too.
Jack dropped to the ground, as the bullets from the remaining guards did their work. He let himself roll back, taking the last armed guard down with him, and took in the water tower behind him, the exposed Rift Manipulator flashing away, as its power was disrupted.
Summoning the very last vestiges of life within him, Jack fired straight into it, and with a series of explosions, the Manipulator exploded.
He was aware, as if hearing it from a million miles away, of the huge rumble. Aware of screaming people running out of whatever building they were in, ignoring the dead and wounded around them. Aware of the Dark combining and racing towards him.
Jack crawled over to the water tower. He realised that Toshiko was there with him, tears flowing down her cheeks. As they hit the base of the tower together, Jack shoved his hand into the burning Manipulator, ignoring the pain as his finger burned and blistered, melted flesh and bone.
He screamed as Toshiko grabbed him, held him, sobbing her apologies.
‘Not your fault,’ he gasped, every breath pure agony.
‘Theirs.’
And they both watched as the Dark sped towards them.
And Jack wrenched everything out of the Manipulator.
The staff at St Helen’s Hospital were in panic. All the power in the hospital had cut out and no one knew why. Then they felt the ground shake, as windows exploded and a hundred car alarms in the car park roared into life.
Gwen Williams convulsed as the Torchwood equipment designed to extract the baby from within her failed.
Unseen by the doctors and nurses, a tiny cloud of Dark light emerged from Gwen’s mouth as she screamed. It vanished immediately in a silent explosion, dying before it could find a new host.
A couple of nurses went into professional overdrive, immediately preparing Gwen for a caesarean.
Rhys was beside her.
An hour later, Rhys Williams held Geraint Williams Junior in his arms, singing Welsh rugby songs to him.
Gwen, smiling and exhausted, had just come round.
‘What happened, Rhys?’ she asked. ‘I can’t remember much of anything. Like a fog has been lifted.’
Rhys took her hand. ‘There was an explosion, love, at the heart of Cardiff.Terrible – a whole section of the city has gone, there’s just a crater.’
And Gwen looked at him as memories flooded back.
She cried for half an hour. The nurses took the baby to the nursery while Rhys looked after his wife.
every so often, she’d say, ‘I didn’t know what I was doing or thinking,’ and ‘I let them control me,’ and ‘I’m so sorry,’ but Rhys didn’t care. He had his wife back and safe and alive and well and a perfectly healthy baby.
He did though have things to say to her when she was calmer. Two things in fact.
First that, lovely as Geraint was as a first name, he thought Jack Ianto Geraint Williams was a better choice. Then he said something she’d never forget.
‘Torchwood, as we knew it, has gone, love. Jack, Ianto, Owen and Toshiko, gone. But there still needs to be a Torchwood of sorts. Someone’s got to carry on doing what you lot did.
‘So you and me, yeah? Together. And we’ll find more people: new Tosh, new Owen. And we’ll make this place safe again. Somewhere safe for the baby to grow up.’
And Gwen hugged him harder than ever before.
TWENTY-TWO
The bucket hit the ground with a loud crash, and coins spilled everywhere over the road.
Gwen Cooper awoke from whatever dream she’d had with a gasp.
She could see people around her, clown faces on all of them. Not just the street performers but what appeared to be normal members of the public. Bits of the last few hours juddered into her mind, and she remembered that the plan was to lure people here, to get the Light inside them… for safekeeping. Just a race of alien life forms that needed temporary hosting, until their own habitat became available again.
Something about a diary. And Bilis Manger. He was their… friend?
And that awful future world where she’d been infected by Dark light… and Torchwood had tried to dominate Earth and been destroyed.
‘Jack!’ Gwen yelled at the top of her voice.
Everyone else in the street turned and looked at her.
As one, they marched towards her, card players throwing cards at cars and doors where they stuck, a mime imitating her every move as she made it.
And the people, the average normal people, their movements jerky as if they were trying not to let themselves be moved along by whatever it was that made their eyes shine.
That was all scary enough. But it was nothing to the dozen or so standing to one side, watching her like the others but through eyes that were pitch black, dead almost.
And Gwen knew that Dark light, knew it from the vision of the future. It had been inside her, made her turn away from Jack, from Torchwood and very nearly from Rhys and her baby.
Baby. My God, would she and Rhys have kids one day?
Yes. Yes they would. Yes, she was going to get married, and Torchwood would survive, and there was no way she’d let Owen and Toshiko fall to this Dark light, whatever it was. Because the future was not cast in stone, it was malleable, fluid.
Somehow, they’d been given a chance to make sure this didn’t happen. That’s why Bilis had put the Light inside her. A forewarning.
She had to find Owen and Toshiko, warn them and…
Oh.
She looked again at the Dark light people. The clown to the left. The golden statue woman in the kimono.
Shit.
The clown was Owen.
The statue was Toshiko.
Was it too late?
She tried to sidestep the crowd, but they seemed to anticipate her every move… But they weren’t attacking her, they were actually making her walk back down the street, towards the place where she and Ianto had met Bilis.
Where he had put the Light inside her.
Oh my God, they weren’t threatening her, they were keeping her apart from the Dark light group. From Owen and Toshiko.
She didn’t need to go forward, she needed to go where they were herding her.
And again, as she turned and ran, not entirely sure where she was going, she yelled out, really, really loudly, ‘Jack!’
In 6 Coburg Street, Jack was sitting in the armchair, and Ianto was crouching down beside him.
Bilis Manger stood by the window, arms behind his back, a gun pressed against his head by Idris Hopper. Well, not so much pressed as jabbing him like an insect, thanks to Idris’s shaking hands. Holding a gun wasn’t something the average Secretary to the Mayor’s Office did on a daily basis.
‘Jack!’
They all heard Gwen’s voice from outside.
Jack looked up at Ianto. ‘Let her in.’ He then nodded to Idris, who gratefully lowered the gun and handed it over to Jack.
A second later, Ianto came back into the room, with Gwen close behind him.
She looked about her. ‘Nice place you have here, Bilis. Decorate it yourself?’
Jack and Idris exchanged confused looks.
‘Ah,’ Bilis said. ‘Perception filters. Useful t
hings, I’m sure you’ll agree.’
He clicked his fingers and they were inside a shop. Bilis’s clock shop. A Stitch in Time. Outside, people were walking down a Cardiff arcade, staring at other shops.
He clicked his fingers a second time, and the room became Coburg Street again, although clearly this was a surprise to Gwen.
‘The place takes on an appearance that seems familiar. It shows you an environment where you might expect to find me. Gwen, here, associates me with clocks, as did Ms Sato. Hence the shop we met in once before. The rest of you expected to see the insides of an old Victorian two-up two-down, and that’s what you got.’ He smiled at Jack. ‘Or did you see something else?’
Jack smiled back. ‘That’d be telling.’
Bilis nodded. ‘We have so much in common, you and I. A shame we find ourselves on opposing sides. Nine times out of ten.’
‘Jack,’ Gwen cut across them. ‘The people outside, they’re inhabited by Rift aliens, the—’
‘Light, yeah we know,’ Ianto finished. ‘Providing hosts until we can get them home.’
‘Then we got it all wrong,’ Gwen said. She turned and pointed at Bilis. ‘He’s not the enemy.’
‘This time.’ Bilis bowed. ‘Well, I’m just saying what you’re all thinking.’
‘We have to get Tosh and Owen back,’ said Jack. ‘I have a plan, but I need them at the Hub.’
‘A plan?’ asked Bilis. ‘Perhaps you would care to share your plan, Captain?’
‘Not yet.’ He looked at Idris. ‘You in?’
Idris was horrified to hear his own voice reply, ‘God, yeah.’
‘Good. Bilis, you now have the book, the diary. That should be able to store the light creatures, if they trust you enough to go back into it.’
‘Correct.’
‘Then why’d you give it away to start with?’ asked Ianto.
And for the first time, Bilis’s demeanour lost its benign, slightly patronising look.
‘The Light had a job to do, helping Abaddon. By keeping the diary away from the agents of the Dark and Pwccm, I ensured that the Light could not be harmed. Once Abaddon was destroyed, the Light were vulnerable, so I needed to get the diary back and return them… to where they belong. To survive. To protect this planet in my Lord’s absence.’