First
broadcast September 2nd, 2011.
To recap, Oswald Danes
left a bloody faced Kitzinger without a laptop, Gwen Cooper was deported by the
CIA, back to Wales, and Jack, having been shot was losing blood in the back of
the SUV, driven by a snivelling Esther.
‘Day 61 of the Great
Depression, and the government has announced that all medical Overflow Camps
will now stay open. Under the new emergency laws, Category One patients must be
taken for disposal. Campaigners have called this institutional murder.’
Late in the evening, an
old man walks his dog past a chemist shop in Swansea when the sound of a car
nears. He stops and watches as the car straightens up in the road and ram raids
the front of the building, creating one hell of a mess. CCTV is fired at, as
the driver gets out, removing their balaclava.
Gwen Cooper heads to the
back of the store, for the hard drugs, and loads up a bag of the kind she
needs. She turns her gun instantly at the first sound from inside the store and
glares determinedly at the man, with the dog. He begs her for some Metanec, for
his wife, who is bad with the arthritis. Terrified of losing her should he go
to the doctors, exclaiming that his friend Huw Jenkins ‘went up in smoke’ after
only having a bad back. Gwen tells him to help himself but to hurry, as it
won’t be long before the blues and twos arrive.
As the sound of sirens are
heard in the distance, Gwen heads off in the other direction, on foot.
Gwen stands outside her
mother’s terraced house holding two pizza boxes, and glances warily up and down
the street. From a room above, on the opposite side of the road, a surveillance
guy watches her silently, a mobile phone in his hand, reporting back.
‘OK,
relax. She’s back. She’s only been for pizza.’
Gwen steps inside the
house, and opens the pizza boxes. Packed neatly inside are the stolen drugs
from the chemist. Rhys reads off a list of orders, from Reynolds and
Llewellyn’s, and mentions Iris Price, someone who thinks that having a headache
warrants her to be top of the list of priorities. Gwen suggests that if she
wants that, she will have to pay double.
‘That’s
the same policy as Phicorp.’ Rhys adds, irking Gwen just a touch.
Mary hands Anwen over to
Rhys as Gwen holds up the diamorphine that Mary needs to give to her husband,
currently sleeping downstairs, hidden from view.
‘That’ll do the trick. Come on.’ Mary says. She’s a tired, elderly woman
with the constant threat that her husband will be one day discovered and taken
from her.
Downstairs in the
basement/cellar, she and Gwen sit with Geraint. It’s horrible seeing him so
unwell, so unlike the man he used to be, and administering painkillers to him,
in a cellar, and not in his own bed, in their own room, breaks her heart time
and time again.
Up at the topmost point of
Scotland, at St Margaret’s Halt, Esther nurses Jack back to full health. His
bullet wound healing, he lies in bed watching her redress his wound.
‘The
infection’s almost gone.’ She says pleased at her handiwork.
‘Yeah,
the gunshot didn’t kill me, but I think you will.’ He smiles.
‘I’ll
go into the village tomorrow, see if I can buy a steak, get you some iron.’
She says. ‘As long as they don’t start
asking questions again. That last guy creeped me out. If he’s still there, I
think we should move on.’
‘We’re in Scotland. We can’t go much further
north.’ Jack replies,
concerned.
‘Yes,
we can. Keep running for as long as it takes.’ Esther says.
‘I
remember when you were too scared to leave home.’
‘Yeah, that was a long time ago. You were
the strong one, standing tall. Look at you now.’ She remarks.
‘And
now you’re a vampire.’ Jack comments.
‘More
like a gunsmith. Closest thing to a weapon we’ve got.’ She says, stowing
another plasma bag into the fridge, where more are hanging.
‘Esther,
my blood isn’t magic. It didn’t make me immortal. They can’t have cloned it or
copied it.’
‘All the same, Jack, they took your blood
and they keep trying to spill your blood. Someone wants you dead for a reason,
and I think this stuff’s the only hope we’ve got.’
Back in Swansea, Gwen
resumes her Torchwood trawl through endless internet search results regarding
The Blessing. Page 56 of 12 million.
‘God, I need Esther.’ She moans.
Rhys breaks some news to her
that, under the circumstances he’s not sure she’ll be happy about – he’s not
entirely happy with the prospect either, but work is work, and as Gwen
explains, it’s not his fault, the money would come in handy.
‘It’s funny, isn’t it? When they first opened
the camps, we all protested. Second time we’re all too busy looking after
ourselves.’
‘Aye, all part of the plan to wear us down.’
Rhys remarks.
‘Yeah,
but what is the plan? What’s it all for, Rhys?’
The electricity goes out,
plunging them into darkness, albeit for the laptop.
‘Oh
great. That’s just what I needed. That’s. Bollocks.’ She shuts the lid of
the laptop.
Rhys leans in closer.
‘You know those power cuts in the seventies.
Nine months later there was a baby boom because people took advantage of the
dark.’ He grins. Gwen
smiles, grins and chuckles, and snuggles up.
Back over the Pond, in the
CIA building corridor, Rex picks up a stray sheet of paper from a stack of
papers in the hallway and hands it to a woman currently sorting through
paperwork.
‘Here.
This could be the one piece of paper we need. Come on, focus people.’ As he
spies Charlotte at her desk he calls over to her as he reaches his own office.
‘Hey,
you been here all night? Don’t you have a home to go to?’
‘Not any more, she left me, remember?’ Charlotte replies.
Rex apologises, but as a
parting shot, suggests that while she’s going to be around, that perhaps she
could clean the place up a little. Charlotte replies in true fashion, by
raising her middle finger.
‘Really?’
He replies, laughing at her response.
Despite knowing the
outcome of this story, before we found that out, the connection between Rex and
Charlotte, was entertaining and quite endearing at times. If Esther hadn’t been
a character in the story, I would have enjoyed seeing these two sparring more
than once.
In the office, Shapiro
sits behind his desk smoking on a cigarette. Rex points out that the No Smoking
law still exists. Shapiro points out that now however, smoking isn’t going to
kill anyone.
‘But they still haven’t changed the
building’s insurance.’
Rex points out.
‘Insurance companies went bust along with
half the western world. Oh, did I tell you? Gas allowances have been halved.
You are way over limit.’
Shapiro adds.
‘Well,
what do you expect me to do, walk to work?’
‘Hey, don’t complain to me.’ Shapiro replies. ‘Recession became depression. We’re all being rationed, even the CIA.’
‘OK, well, since you’re too busy
housekeeping, then you probably won’t be interested in this.’
‘What is it?’
‘A lead.’ Rex smiles, proudly.
To his team in the main
office, Rex explains the lead.
‘All right, it's 1928 and there's a guy
hanging in the cellar of the Giordano butcher shop and they're selling tickets.
For two dollars, you can watch him get killed and come back to life again. So,
who knows if it's a miracle or he's Harry Houdini? Either way, it's news. So,
plenty of people wrote about it.’
‘Yeah, but that's where the records
disappear. I've told you, Ablemarch, Costerdane and Frines, they went through
the archives. They scrubbed them clean.’ Charlotte reminds him, as if Rex hadn’t listened the first
few times she’d explained.
‘Look at this place, Rex. We have tried.’ Noah backs her up.
‘According
to the census of 1930 the population of Manhattan was one million eight hundred
sixty seven thousand. That's more people than live there now. Allow for an
average of two children per family across three generations, by 2011 we're
looking at a potential six million descendants. That's six million suspects. We
have to find and interview six million people.’ Charlotte says.
‘So
do you see? That proves my point. You're looking too close at the facts.’
Rex grins.
‘What else should we be looking at?’ Charlotte asks.
‘Fiction. Look, I'll trade you six million
people for one short story. Because the London office, they found a story. It
was published in 1935. The Devil Within. Now, it's just pulp fiction, it's all
blood and Satan and that kind of shit, but it contains five points of reference
identical to the Harkness case, which is more than a coincidence. Now I believe
the author was in that cellar. He saw Jack Harkness die, decided to write about
it. And his name was Victor Podesta.’
‘Then we follow the Podesta family.’ Shapiro replies, confidently.
‘Oh, sir, this is where it gets interesting.
You see, the Podestas owned a grocery store about ten blocks east of the
butcher shop and they had connections to organised crime. Now, the youngest son
John was stabbed to death back in '27. Unsolved, mob related. But check this
out, now we jump to 1938, and the whole family just disappears. I mean all of
them. Mom, Pop, Victor, daughter Emmeline, just all gone. Well, look, maybe the
Podestas changed their name. Who knows? Maybe Emmeline married into the Three Families.’ Rex continues.
‘We could look for a marriage license.’ Noah replies.
‘And
where would we check that, hmm? The Manhattan Central Repository?’
‘Damn it, every time. The most effective
thing they did was burn that place down.’ Shapiro replies bitterly.
‘Yeah,
and that was 1965. I mean everywhere we turn this conspiracy spans the whole of
the twentieth century.’
‘People, come on. This is me you're talking
to, remember? You're forgetting about the younger brother, the murder of John
Podesta, unsolved. This is where we got lucky. The case was bagged, tagged and
locked away, just sitting on a shelf collecting dust for almost ninety years.
We still have the murder weapon.’
‘With blood on it? Is that blood?’ Shapiro asks staring at the details on
the large screen in front of the team.
‘We have blood. We have DNA. We can trace
the family.’ Rex
smiles, happy they have something to go on.
‘All
right, everybody.’ Shapiro gathers the troops. Charlotte looks just a
little concerned now. ‘Let's make a DNA
profile and start looking for matches. Good job. Come on, let's go. Let's go.’
As the team disperse, Charlotte informs
Rex that she has Jordan and Carlyle, two DNA specialists who they had used with
the O’Grady case, and indicates that they’re fast, and would he want them on
this case too. Naturally, Rex is keen for fast results.
In a quiet park, on an
exceptionally large bench, Jilly Kitzinger is visited by a man known only as
the Blue Eyed Man, a rep from the Three Families. He thanks Jilly for coming
but is welcomed with a less than enthusiastic response. Jilly is not happy
with her new line of work, sitting in a
nondescript office distributing for a Harry Bosco.
He slides over to her and hands her a one
way plane ticket to Shanghai. The name on the ticket is Lucy Statten Meredith.
‘You’ll
be travelling under that name. In fact, that is your name from now on. But the
Families want to meet you in person.’ He tells her, getting to his feet. He
looks almost regretful as he tells her it would be the last time they would
meet.
‘I’m
rather jealous. They’re taking you to The Blessing.’
Rhys is folding washing
while Gwen is entertaining their daughter with nursery rhymes when there’s a
knock on the door and the Gestapo are
standing at the doorstep. Rhys quickly glances through the net curtains and
Gwen slips into action mode, handing Anwen over to her husband before
whispering loudly to her mother in the cellar. She grabs a cloth and removes
the lightbulb over the cellar steps. She informs Rhys to take it upstairs and
flush it.
Finch, a balding man in
his late forties, bespectacled and evidently a known jobsworth knocks again a
little more impatiently this time. Gwen shouts ‘I’m coming’ as she prepares the
place.
‘If you don’t open the door, we’re legally
empowered to knock it down, Mrs Cooper.’ Finch calls from the other side of
the door. Gwen opens the door but blocks the entry.
‘You
must be Gwen Cooper. Ralph Finch.’ He replies, introductions out of the way. ‘Can we come in?’
‘Not without a warrant, no.’ Gwen replies, defiantly.
‘Oh,
not necessary, I’m afraid. I have reason to suspect you may be illegally
harbouring an unsupported Category One deceased person. And according to the
Emergency Powers Act, reasonable suspicion is all I need. You keep an eye on
the front. Gentlemen, we're in.’ He pushes past Gwen who follows after him.
‘Oh, I’m going to complain. I’m going to
take this to the top. Just you wait and see. I used to be with the police.’ Gwen growls.
‘Yeah, very much in the past tense as I
understand it. Up you go, boys. Check the rooms upstairs.’ Finch orders the officers.
‘My
father is dead. He’s gone. We never said goodbye. No funeral. No chance to
mourn him. For all I know he was just thrown into a furnace still alive.’
Rhys ambles downstairs.
‘I can’t even have a bit of peace in my own
bathroom. You allowed to barge in like this, anyway?’
‘Husband, Rhys Williams. You never shared
his surname, which says a lot. But we’re still missing one person. So, where’s
Mary, Gwen? What’s keeping your mother so busy?’ Finch enquires, curiosity eating away at
him.
Below stairs, Mary pinches her husband’s
nose to stop him making a noise, terrified he’ll be found out.
‘Shopping.’ Gwen replies, irked by the man,
standing in her living room.
Rhys looks edgy as Finch
tries the light in the cellar. Curious, Finch takes this to mean something of
importance is worth checking out downstairs, and taking a torch from an
officer, heads downstairs. Gwen in the meantime, holds a carving knife from a
knife rack, behind her back – as you do!
Having been told that there are only rats
in the cellar, Finch isn’t surprised to see a squeaking four legged creature
scurrying from the torchlight, but informs her that it’s a mouse, not a rat.
Seriously, that was a mouse? I would hate to consider the size of the rats
in comparison.
Unable to find what he was
looking for Finch informs Gwen that as her father is still unregistered, that
he can’t leave her alone, until he is absolutely certain that Geraint Wyn
Cooper is in fact, dead. He suggests that Gwen and her family take a great deal
of care.
Gwen closes the door on
the men and heaves a sigh of relief that no trace of her father was found in
the house, however, down in the cellar, Mary is exhausted. It had taken all of
her strength to keep her beloved Geraint quiet. She cries against her daughter.
Back across at the CIA
office and Charlotte breaks the surprising bad news that the DNA trace came
back as negative.
‘There’s
no bloodline from John Podesta on file. I tried everything.’ Charlotte
tells Rex.
Both Rex and Shapiro
curse. Charlotte tells them she will keep looking but holds out little hope.
Just as she’s leaving, Rex asks her to send him the digital format of the
Podesta short story, that they have on file.
Despite her protestations
that the story isn’t worth reading, due to its quality, Rex insists. It’s at
this point that I feel he knows something relating to his team, and whether or
not he suspects Charlotte, is yet to be discovered.
In Swansea, the Valley
Bara Bread van pulls up near number 72. The driver wearing a thick grey hoody
over a checkered shirt and tshirt, and a red baseball cap, carries the
groceries into the house, let in by Mary, who suggests he head straight for the
kitchen. Used to the
Shocked, Rhys comes in still holding
Anwen, only to find a bloody faced man on the receiving end of one of his
wife’s cooking pans.
‘What
the hell are you doing?’’
‘Look at him, for God’s sake! Look at him!’ She exclaims angrily. ‘It’s Oswald Danes in our house.’
Mary is horrified as she
enters the room. Gwen glares at the injured man on the ground.
‘You
touch my daughter again and I will kill you.’ She threatens. ‘Take her out of here, Mam, now.’
Mary takes Anwen out of the room as Gwen
goes to attack Danes again, until Rhys pulls her away, afraid she will be
arrested for murder. Of course, Rhys has no qualms about calling in an angry
mob and letting them rip him to shreds.
‘Tell
me quickly you bastard…what do you want?’
‘Jack Harkness. The men who smuggled me into
this country, they brought Harkness in seven weeks ago and they brought him to
you. And then you, in turn, found him a haven. Now I paid good money for your
name, Gwen Cooper, so I really need to see Jack. And you will do exactly what I
ask.’
‘Why should I?’ she asks.
‘Because
I have a name. I have the name of a man. I have the name of a man who created
the Miracle.’ He tells her, proudly.
In the CIA office across
the Pond, Rex and Shapiro are still in their office. It’s late into the evening
now. Rex is concerned that someone is leaking information, he’s certain of it
and he’s certain Shapiro knows too. Perhaps it’s not from the department but
someone is hindering their investigation at every turn, so Rex hopes that he
can keep this investigation just between the pair of them. Shapiro agrees and
asks him what he’s found so far.
‘Victor
Podesta. I figured anyone who writes pulp fiction is gonna want to keep on
writing, even if it's under a different name. So, I ran the short story through
the pattern recognition software identifying key points of similarity in prose
styles.’ Rex explains.
‘Did you find him?’
‘I found three hundred and twenty. You see,
it's more difficult with that sort of fiction because everyone writes the same.
And that's only the ones in the database. But, out of that there's around forty
six with pronounced similarities scattered all across the world. Look at this.
Twenty two in the US, nine in the UK, one in Sweden. We've got Argentina,
Germany, Japan. And I've got to check them all out.’
‘Well you’d better get started.’ Shapiro informs him. ‘The latest from the White House is that
they're gonna stop all immigration. China closed its borders, now we're gonna
do the same. Every passing day, we are taking one step closer to a
dictatorship. And we don't even know who the real dictators are.’
Across the road from
Gwen’s mother’s house, the surveillance guy receives a phone call, from Gwen,
asking him if he’s seen her car keys. Curiously as to how she has his number,
she informs him that she doesn’t care who he works for, he’s wasting his time
where he is. It’s Jack Harkness they’re looking for and knowing Jack, he
wouldn’t turn up in a month of Sundays, and suggests he take the night off.
‘Do
you think we’re stupid?’ The surveillance guy laughs.
From behind him, the deep
voice of Captain Jack Harkness causes him to turn around.
‘Yeah,
now drink this. It won’t harm you. You’ve had it before.’
From his phone, Gwen
confirms this, informing him that she gave it to him before. Jack gives him an
ultimatum either drink the water, or he’ll leave him with nowhere to put a hat.
The guy drinks some of the water, and within seconds, passes out. The bottle of
water, as with the bottle he gave to Esther at the start of the first episode
is laced with Retcon.
Gwen is overjoyed to see
Jack, in far better condition than their earlier meeting. She hugs him,
apologises for hurting him, then hugs him again. Esther can only look on. After
their embraces, Gwen leads them into the kitchen where Danes is trussed up like
a chicken, sat on a seat in the middle of the kitchen.
‘Jack. I was told the correct form of
address is Captain. You once asked me for help. So you can remember that, the
rest of you, the Captain invited me in.’ Danes says, looking to Jack.
A little later at the
table, Esther sets up the laptop, Gwen sits beside her, Jack stands. Before
they start, Gwen wants to know if Danes really said at the trial that Suzie
Cabina should have run faster. Oswald confirms it.
‘Right.
Okay. Because let me tell you, Oswald, I used to be a policewoman and I worked
with paedophiles and murderers, and God help me, I saw men so alone and damned
and wretched. But that's not you. That's nothing like you. Because for the
first time in my life I've met a monster. Is that clear?’
‘Oh, I feel very special. And well said.’ Oswald tells her. Rhys wants to kill
him. Gwen calms him down. Esther calls them back to the table keen to get this
man out of their lives as fast as possible. She wants the information he has.
Oswald however is curious as to what will
happen to him once the information is given. Rhys aims to kill him, making him
a permanent Category One. Gwen and Oswald both know that by doing that, it
would trap Gwen. Her husband a murderer, of a, murderer. And even if he didn’t
kill Oswald but called someone else into the frame, it would all come back to
him. Oswald also knew that if Gwen went to the police, that he too could tip
them off about whatever may be holed up in the cellar, that Gwen and her family
have been casting eyes towards.
‘Okay,
there may be deals to be made. There may not. But before we can decide
anything, there needs to be a full and fair exchange of information. Mister
Danes, there's no going back. You need to tell us what you know.’ Esther
tells Oswald.
Oswald tells them of Jilly Kitzinger,
employed through Phicorp to look after him. He informs them of the laptop he
stole from her when he fled. Gwen sighs.
‘For
God’s sake, is that it? We raided her file way back.’ Gwen replies almost
exasperated.
‘Wait a minute. Wait, wait. As soon as I'd
stolen the laptop, good little Jilly did exactly the right things. She changed
the passwords, opened new accounts, deleted the old ones. But I was watching.
And I know my way around online better than most. I know how to keep myself
hidden. So I shadowed her, and I've been following Miss Kitzinger these past
two months. Here's a funny thing. Yesterday at twelve midday she disappeared.
Her entire profile online vanished. Jilly Kitzinger ceased to exist.’
Jilly steps off the plane
at Shanghai airport.
‘You said you had the name of a man.’ Jack says.
‘Soon as I say this, I’ll be at your mercy.’ Oswald realises.
‘Yes.’ Gwen confirms.
‘Tell us his name!’ Jack presses.
‘I'll
have to trust you. Remember that. I'm trusting you. One man's name keeps
reoccurring. Kitzinger was employed to send him information. And his name's
Harry Bosco.’
Despite Gwen’s lack of
knowledge of Bosco, Esther knows only too well.
‘You
think you’re so clever, Oswald? Is that really all you had?’
‘It’s a name.’ He replies.
‘Harry Bosco isn't a man. Harry Bosco's a
process. It goes back to Vietnam. It was the first war to be televised and the
government didn't want US networks taking feed directly from the Vietnamese,
because for the first time information was beyond their control. So they put
agents into every newsroom, every major TV network, filtering the output for
the public. Cleverest of them all was a man called Harry Bosco.’
‘What did he do?’ Jack asks.
‘He'd alter information. It was subtle. He
did it by mistranslation. He couldn't censor or change, but he could manipulate
the English translation. Change one word, change the entire meaning. If you say
victims instead of bodies, you influence public opinion. All the channels use Harry
Bosco these days.’
‘My point still stands.’ Oswald says after Rhys calms down. ‘The name's still important because
Kitzinger works in PR. Why would she be handling this Harry Bosco process?’
‘To be fair, it’s a good question. Why would
the families hire Jilly to do all this in the first place?’
‘She’s translating it?’ Jack asks.
‘What’s she mistranslating, because the
three families changed their name, now Jilly’s changing words? Maybe they’re
connected.’ Esther
switches on Jilly’s laptop.
A little while later, Gwen
returns with take away.
‘Chicken
and chips. Didn't have any fish. Too expensive. World gone mad.’
Rhys comes in with the beers, and when
Oswald requests his, Rhys shakes the can and sprays the froth over Danes,
laughing. Jack looks on disdainfully. Gwen embarrassed by Rhys’ behaviour.
‘Hey, they've been going great guns, this
lot. You know, going through someone's emails, yeah, is like reading their
diaries.’ Rhys says.
‘So
what did we find?’ Gwen asks.
‘Another
problem. Jilly processed this clip from a local news station in Shanghai. It's
got three layers of language. It's in the local Wu dialect dubbed into Mandarin
and then she sent it out for English subtitles. How are we supposed to know
what's wrong or right?’
‘What, nobody speaks Chinese?’
‘What do we do? I can’t go down to the take
away and ask Kenny.’
Gwen replies.
‘Esther?’ Jack says, with an all too knowing smile. She smiles back.
‘Yeah, I know.’
In the CIA office, Rex’s
phone rings. He’s a little surprised to hear Esther’s voice on the other end.
Shapiro is using his own office as a meeting room, for the other analysts, and
insists they leave the room immediately.
‘Top
priority, clear the room. Let’s go. Let’s go.’
Back in Swansea, Esther
explains further, putting the phone on speaker. Rex discovers that Jack didn’t
die, he also deduces that they’re in Swansea, after hearing Gwen but he’s a
little curious about the other voice in the room, belonging to Oswald Danes.
Esther brings him back to
the problem.
‘We need help, Rex. We need the CIA. We need
translations specifically.’
Rex offers his services,
unable to trust anyone else in his team. He asks of the language required.
‘Mandarin. We think there’s something in
Shanghai.’
In a Shanghai restaurant,
busy with only one customer, stand the waiters, waiting. Jilly walks towards
the tousled haired man at the table on his tablet and mobile phone. She
introduces herself, unfortunately, she uses her own name, and fails the ‘test’.
Taken aback by the whole new failed identity, she takes a seat and looks across
at the man opposite.
‘OK, I keep wondering, why me?’
‘You’re a storyteller.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Look at you.’ He says looking up. ‘The nails, the coat, the lipstick. From the moment you walk through
the door, you tell a story. You might have noticed we're kind of good at
keeping quiet. So we need you. We need experts.’
Jilly is interested in his
story.
‘I’m
the latest chapter in an epic.’ He tells her. ‘Once upon a time there were three wise families. Then they went out
into the world. One family took politics, one family took finance, and one
family took media. But that's all in the past. The stories yet to come, they're
the best.’
Jilly is curious. Is there a story about to
break, perhaps about the miracle? The young man talks in riddles, and she has
no clear clue what the Families need from her. When she suggests a couple of
ideas, the man tells her she’s not aiming high enough. When she questions him,
he tells her.
‘We
need you to write history.’
‘I can do that.’ She replies. Happy with her response,
he closes his tablet, and puts away his phone. He comments on her recovery of
the conversation and her hair, calling it a work of art.
‘If
you ever come here at night, try the mitten crab. It’s a local delicacy.’
He gets up to leave as she asks him.
‘So, what do you want me to do next?’
‘Stay in your hotel and wait. When we’re ready
you’ll be taken to the Blessing. I hope you survive.’
Somewhat shocked by his
statement, Jilly questions him.
‘Some people die. The Blessing, it kills
them. Good luck. You won’t see me again.’
Between Mary Cooper’s home
and Shapiro’s office, an English translation of a news clip from China shows a
badly burned young man sobbing, apologising several times, including to his
mother, stating he’s so ashamed, but saying through tears, that it was a
godsend that his life was saved, after he burned down a hospital and was caught
up in his own fire. Jack picks up on the word Godsend and asks Rex if he heard
it. Rex confirms he had already seen the clip before, but says that the
original Wu dialect is different again. And that it wasn’t godsend the man said,
but Blessing. It was mistranslated on purpose. Esther and Jack smile. The
Blessing is in Shanghai, but how do they get there when the borders are closed?
Jack knows of a contact
from his early days with Torchwood, a man who worked out of Hunan Province.
Esther looks at the clip again and wonders why a man would burn down a
hospital, it makes absolutely no sense at all, and does a little digging,
turning up another mistranslation.
‘The Mandarin says medical facility but I
looked up the address. It was a blood bank.’
‘Blood again.’ Rex replies.
‘It’s always about blood. Why is that?’ Gwen asks curiously.
‘Wait, wait, wait. Okay. Run a check on
that, but reference it with Kitzinger. She has a second clip in Spanish.
There's a second blood bank in Buenos Aires. A blood bank destroyed by fire
twenty four hours before Shanghai, five days before the Miracle.’ Suddenly the team discover a little
more of a pattern on the blood.
‘I
had Argentina.’ Rex replies. ‘Right
there. John Forester died age seventy six in La Boca. I think he was in the
cellar with Jack. But that man said Miracle in Shanghai, yes?’
Rhys stares at the
inflatable beach ball globe in his hands, at the words Shanghai, and then to
Buenos Aires, suddenly he starts making his own conclusions. But before he can
do anything about it, the front door is smashed down and armed police enter the
establishment. Esther quickly stows her case under the table, Gwen concerned
for her Dad calls to her husband, who heads to the cellar. Jack and Danes stand
by the kitchen sink, hands freely able to raise above his head, uncuffed.
Finch steps into the room
and addresses Gwen and is interested at the number of people in the room.
‘We’re just visiting from London.’ Jack calls.
‘Don’t worry. Anyone can leave the house under
their own steam, is of no interest to me.’
Rhys comes up from the
cellar. Finch seizing on the assumption that there would be a bounty downstairs
for him, uses the latest in technology. A Thermal imaging app from his phone,
and heads down the stairs to seek out Gwen’s dad.
Outside in the street,
poor Mary is held back from entering her own home. She already knows that if
they find her husband, it’s all over.
In the cellar, the thermal
imaging locates Geraint Wyn Cooper and the armed officers prize the protective
door apart. Gwen is beside herself with grief and begs Finch not to take him
away. But jobsworth Finch is following orders and orders the man be taken out
of the house, to be ‘disposed of according to the laws of the land.’
As Geraint is later loaded
onto the ambulance, Mary is handed the tablet to sign. Finch offers his
condolences but anyone can see it’s read off a script and the man feels nothing
for the pain and hardship he is dealing out.
Jack stands on the
doorstep near Gwen on the cold evening. He could offer her sympathies, but he’s
known Gwen long enough that no amount of ‘I’m sorry’ will fix this.
‘What do you want to do?’
‘Go to Shanghai. I don’t care if we have to
walk. I will travel the whole bloody world to put this right, Jack.’
Rex looks to Shapiro for
permission to go off the grid with the information he’s been given. He also
makes it clear that even without permission that he would go anyway. Shapiro
asks about backup, should it come down to it.
‘Well then and only then will I contact you,
sir. Minimum notice. Because if we’ve got a mole, I can’t risk anyone finding
this out. But this could be it sir, this could be the Blessing.’
Shapiro wishes him luck.
Back in Swansea, Jack
laments of an old Torchwood deal where they tracked down a black market trade
in alien artefacts coming out of China. ‘Skullion
metal and coins, things like that. We closed it down but the route stayed open
for arms dealing.’
‘We’re
gonna trust arms dealers?’ Esther is less enthusiastic about that.
‘I don’t care. I’ll do it.’ Gwen is going all out for this.
The decision now, is which
city to go for. Is it Shanghai, or Buenos Aires?
‘It’s
both, you bunch of nuts.’ Shouts Rhys getting up from the sofa, with his
soft ball globe. ‘You can’t see for
looking, can you? Eh? Look. Right, Shanghai, Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires,
Shanghai. Opposite sides of the world. Quite literally, opposite sides of the
Earth, yeah? Yeah? So whatever's going on, there's got to be something
connecting them.’
Gwen can’t believe it’s that simple, but
as Esther checks on the computer, it proves Rhys is correct.
‘They’re
antipodes of each other. Two massive population centres balanced on either side
of the planet.’
‘As the old saying goes, count your
blessings, because it turns out there’s two of them.’ Oswald points out.
Gwen curious as ever
wonders what it means. Esther suddenly sees it. It’s been right under their
noses all this time.
‘Look at the PhiCorp logo. The letter phi, a
circle with a line through it.’
‘A line through the world.’
‘The Blessing. The Miracle.’ Says Jack. ‘We need to find out. We can get into Argentina no problem.’
Esther can see that they
need to investigate both ends, so Jack and Gwen choose to go to Shanghai, while
Esther will travel to Buenos Aires. Danes speaks up, demanding to go with them,
because it’s plain to see that leaving him with the husband, could seriously
ruin Gwen’s life forever.
After much thought, Danes
got his answer. He was travelling with Jack and Gwen to Shanghai.
In Shanghai Jack, Gwen and
Danes hare across the tarmac towards the security fence and climb over it,
while at Buenos Aires, Rex awaits Esther, carrying her attaché case. She greets
him with a hug. Rex explains to Esther that he had to get her bag through in a
diplomatic bag which means should someone be alerted to the Embassy
notifications, then they were mightily screwed. And to prove this fact,
Charlotte discovers the alert on her mobile and alerts the Families.
In Shanghai, Jilly is
dropped off in an alleyway by the taxi cab. Walking through the alleyway, Jilly
feels a little apprehensive, unsure of what lies ahead for her. She spies a
woman in a grey pointed outfit, waiting for her. Walking over, she is greeted
by the older woman, who is known as Mother.
The Mother welcomes
Kitzinger to Shanghai. Not wishing to screw things up a second time, Kitzinger
corrects the older woman by confirming her new name is Meredith. Mother laughs
it off, not caring whether she be Meredith or Kitzinger.
‘The men enjoy those sorts of games.’ She tells Jilly about the feeling from
the Blessing. ‘It started as soon as we
dug deep enough. I think it’s the Blessing’s attempt to communicate.’
Mother leads Jilly down to
the ‘buttcrack of doom’ where she looks upon it and finds it exhilarating.
‘I've
seen people look upon The Blessing and end their lives. There's a brilliant
truth about that, because each and every time that person was hiding something
vile. Isn't that wonderful? It's exhilarating, the damage it does. I wonder
what you'll see.’
Jilly stares into the
abyss, at the exposed rawness of the rock, where tiny pieces of debris fall in
through the middle. Mother asks what she can see and what would the Blessing
tell her about herself, as those who had come to look at it before her, saw
something vile hidden within them, and many had killed themselves because of
it. When Jilly looks into the vast rock drawing debris through the middle of
it, that looks very much like…well, you all know what it looks like, right?
‘That
I’m right.’ Jilly replies, emotionally. She leans over the edge to look
deep down the dark space below them. ‘How
far does it go?’ She asks curiously.
‘All the way to the other side of the
world.’ Mother replies.
In a Buenos Aires
warehouse, Rex’s wound concerns him. He’s looking worse for wear and at this
point we have no idea what gruelling punishment he had recently endured, so
another twinge from the wound, we think nothing of it. But when you think about
how close they are to the Blessing, it’s interesting how strong those twinges
become, the nearer they become.
Gwen talks to her from a
small hovel in Shanghai, comparing theirs to Rex and Esther’s accommodation,
although Gwen has the added bonus of sharing a room with Oswald Danes. Esther
smiles.
‘Just
started looking for that Blessing. God help us. We're in two of the biggest
cities on Earth. Try starting with the family of that arsonist, and I'm gonna
go to a local library.’
‘You look after that weapon, OK? Jack's
blood has got to be important.’
Gwen tells her. They end the phone call. Jack gets up and instantly feels pain
from his wound. Gwen is beside him instantly and leads him towards his bed, on
the lower bunk as Oswald looks across from his. Gwen eases Jack back on the bed
and examines his wound, noting with shock that it’s still bleeding. Discarding
the dressing on a chair, she fails to see the drop of blood that drips onto the
floor, and move like lightning speed across the floor as she redresses Jack’s
wound.
Jack feels tired. He feels
now, as a mortal that he’s going to die.
‘Fine
place to die, in old Shanghai.’
‘You’re not dying. Don’t say that.’ Gwen for sure can’t bear the thought of
losing Jack, not here. Not now.
‘I’m tired Gwen. This mortal life, it hurts so
much.’ It’s at this that you realise that although Jack is dragged back to
life, as if dragged over broken glass, that the pain doesn’t last for an
immortal. So, struggling through a constant nagging pain, would take him back
to those times before the Doctor, before Rose and her immortal life giving
powers.
‘Well,
now. Can't say I've been to China before, so I'm not well versed in their
customs. But I've got to say I never knew about that.’ Oswald says
following the blood drop. Jack and Gwen follow the line too, Jack pulling
himself up from the bed.
‘It’s
your blood.’ Gwen says. ‘No wonder
it’s killing you. I think, I think it’s showing us the way. It’s The Blessing.
It’s somewhere over there.’ She says, looking out from the window at the
bright centre of the city. ‘And I think
whatever it is, it’s calling you, Jack.’
Jack stares out across the
city in mild horror at what lies ahead, for him.
Join
us for the final chapter in our June issue – The Blood Line.
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