Clark Goodson paced the
office as the old Major sat behind the desk, silently deliberating. A clock somewhere in the dark wood
upholstered room ticked heavily.
“Don’t beat yourself up Sgt. Goodson; your
moment of triumph is within your grasp.”
The major croaked from behind the desk. He cleared his throat, age was
getting the better of him, time was not on his side.
He pushed the brown manila folder across
the desk towards Goodson.
“There has been a spate of weight loss pills
on the market recently that have had some unwanted side effects.”
Goodson scoffed. “There are always weight loss pills with side
effects, what’s so special about these?”
He viewed the folder from the centre of the room; he was still kicking
himself for failing the mission.
“These pills...” the major continued,
“...are alien in origin. Once taken the
weight literally drops off.”
“These were reported through UNIT, those
Adipose, a few years ago.”
“These are different, those had levels of
fat that walked, these are eggs, once taken, manifest in the body and begin to
hatch. A body can incubate up to a
hundred small eggs; the outcome is not always good for the humans concerned.”
Goodson snatched up the folder and read
the document. “How many are we talking
about here?”
“They came into the UK three months
ago. Initially their results weren’t
documented, those wishing to lose weight never returned to health clinics,
never returned to hospitals or doctor’s surgeries; they were literally never
seen of again.”
“So how do we know these exist?”
The major pushed a folder of a dead 56-year-old
woman across the desk, her belly had been ripped open outwards.
“The nurse who attended her on a regular
basis for fungal nail infection arrived at the house to find Mrs Jenkins, not
in a good state of health, she was complaining of stomach cramps and within the
20 minutes, Nurse O’Grady attended to her patient, she reported hearing the
sound of tearing and of blood coming from the blouse in Mrs Jenkin’s stomach
and then a creature or two popping out through the buttons to say hello. Naturally the poor woman was beside herself
and was reported to have bashed these creatures over the heads several times,
ignoring the pleas from the patient. Of
course, there was nothing she could do to stop the arterial bleed. And when she reported this incident, the
woman was already dead, and only the crushed remains of whatever had lived in
her body were evident. I would think,
Sgt Goodson, that Torchwood might listen to you with a story like this.”
Goodson smiled and nodded. “I think they just might.”
“And if they don’t. You could always get rid
of the opposition.”
It was early morning when
Lexy awoke. She padded through to the kitchen
and switched on the light. She jumped
when she saw a man sitting at the table, more so when he groaned.
“Jesus Jack, you startled me. What are you doing in the dark?” She padded barefoot to the kettle and
switched it on. A cup of milky coffee sat
with a cold film over the top, there was a patch of stickiness on the tiled
floor where the coffee mug had been cleared from last night.
Jack glanced over at Lexy and smiled
awkwardly. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare
you.”
“What’s happened, you’re not usually sitting
in the dark unless you’re brooding over something?” She sat down next to him, her hand near
his. “Talk to me Jack.”
Jack sighed. “You know...”
He paused. “When I first saw him
in the hospital I couldn’t believe he was the same boy.”
“Yes.”
She smiled. “If anything he looks
like his father.” She smiled. Jack nodded.
“Yeah in a lot of ways.”
“Jack, what’s happened?” She pressed as the kettle clicked.
He sighed heavily and studying her hand
placed his over it. “Protection took on
a new level for me last night.”
“Oh Jack you didn’t.” She pulled away.
“Guilty as charged. He came in here as I was making coffee. He made the first move Lexy, before I could
think, I was kissing him back.” He
inhaled deeply again and sighed. “If
Porlicanthus was alive today.”
“He’d rip your throat out.”
“He did that a few times, usually after...”
Lexy shook her head and made two
coffees. “I’m going back to London. I can’t stay here.”
Jack turned to face her. “Because I slept with Mitchell?”
“No, because....” she sighed and turned to face him. “I miss my work. Heiney called last night,
there’s a new influx of alien refugees coming in and I really need to be there
to get them housed before UNIT or other agencies find them. We’re thin on the ground now, after
Wolf.” She subconsciously placed a hand
against her lower abdomen and Jack’s smile fell.
“Oh Lexy.
How long?” He reached his hand
out to hers, brushing the fabric of her top.
“At my calculations, I’m about 8 weeks. It would account for the sickness, and little
blue dipsticks rarely lie, Christ it’s going to be awkward in the delivery
room.”
Jack snorted with laughter. “You’re going to have a puppy.”
It was never easy knowing
when you awoke what day or time of day it really was, and he missed not
knowing. In the safe house, the only
daylight came from the small cubby hole in the bathroom that filtered light in
from the tiny window, that only opened a fraction, and thankfully enough after
a dodgy take away, avoiding nasty lingering odours. Mitchell missed his grotty bedsit, and he
missed viewing the hairy scary ninja spider on his ceiling. He also missed
Wolf. He wished the man had identified
himself, it would have made the one sided conversations easier if Wolf had
really spoken to him. He was certain
he’d heard voices one time after a beating. He was certain he’d seen a man move
about the room, tending to his injuries.
Mitchell sighed as he laid there on his
back in the bed, staring up at the plain white ceiling one hand under the
pillow, the other below the duvet, against his belly. He turned to face the empty space beside him,
the dimpled pillow and the scrumpled bedsheet.
It still smelt of the Captain whom he’d bedded last night. He had the same staying power as Mitchell, he
didn’t flake like Reuben, or collapse in a sweating heap like Brody.
He still didn’t know who Jack was, didn’t
know anything about him other than he’d promised to look after him. He’d promised a lot last night, promised him
a job with good money and prospects. A chance to hone his skills and show the
team what he was capable of, but there had been the dark undertone. If he lost
control, Jack wouldn’t hesitate in putting a gun to his head and pulling the
trigger. He hadn’t said it in so many
words, but the tone of voice and the little portions of silent thought that
Jack hadn’t realised Mitchell possessed, had trickled into his psyche. Jack didn’t know Mitchell at all.
Mitchell padded barefoot to the bathroom
and closed the door, locking it. He
released the lock on the window and peered out inhaling the cool air and
feeling it automatically cling to him, beckoning him out into the morning, or
afternoon...no it felt like morning, not quite warm, birds weren’t in full
song, past dawn, most definitely. He
took a shower but left the shave, he quite liked the stubble, it suited him, he’d
decided. He pulled on his fresh clothes,
slipped his feet into his sneakers and ate the last two slices of pizza in the
fridge with the milk just on the turn.
Locating the key in Jack’s coat pocket he
unlocked the main door and drank the remaining milk while sitting in the overgrown
garden hidden behind a bush, and stared out towards the sea, watching a tanker
on the horizon moving slowly away.
‘Teddy’ Edwards loved
pies. Meat pie, egg pie, blueberry pie,
apple pie, basically anything with the word pie at the end that was edible, he
ate. And that was the problem. At 45 stone, Teddy ‘The Pie’ Edwards was in
need of a diet, and if he continued the way he was going, he would be dead
before his life saving operation to have a new heart valve fitted. But Teddy
hated exercise; he did enough living in a house where the bathroom was up a
flight of stairs. He had invested in a
stair lift but had broken it the first day of installation. It still hung limply against the banister
rail. He was waiting for the installers
to return to take it away and give him his money back. They said ‘money back
guarantee if you’re not completely satisfied’ he’d made absolutely certain he’d
covered all bases. The sales rep who had
visited had as much as said that given Teddy’s size and weight, their top of
the range stair lift would take his weight.
Hmm, he thought, happy to take his money!
And then it came, plopping on the
‘Welcome’ mat in the hallway, the jiffy bag with the answer to his
prayers.
LOSE THE WEIGHT IN FIFTEEN DAYS AND NEVER BE
CALLED A LARD ARSE AGAIN!
He used the litter grabbers to pick the
packet off the mat and huffed and puffed into the kitchen, working up a sweat
just from the ‘exercise’. He tore open
the packaging, slipped on his glasses that pinched the bridge of his short
button nose and quickly glanced at the bumf that came with the item. He lifted
out the 11cm tall blue plastic container with the twist lid and peered
inside. The pills were no larger than a
cod liver oil capsule. They were bullet shaped and mottled grey and came with
no sugar coating like other pills. He
pulled open the fridge door and lifted out the bottle of full fat milk,
unscrewed the cap, took two pills considering that given his size, two might
work quicker, and washed them down his gullet with the milk.
“Well Teddy boy.” He said putting the milk back and wiping the
cow juice from his mouth and chin. “Let’s
see if these live up to expectations!”
He read the bumf in more detail.
‘Take
one tablet a day and flush the fat away!”
Teddy frowned, it perhaps wasn’t the best
advertisement blurb he’d seen for a while and he didn’t want to spend the next
two weeks camping out in the bathroom, he wasn’t completely sure how he’d
explain that to the plumber if he blocked the toilet. Contented with the
possibility of losing the pounds, he grabbed the potato chips, located the tv
remote and sprawled on the four seater sofa and watched whatever passed as
amusement on the idiot box in the corner.
Marley sat alone in the
Coffee Shop overlooking the Bay. The sea was calm; it had the promise of a good
day. A black and white photograph sat in
front of her of a woman in her late sixties, carrying two bags of shopping,
weighted out evenly in both hands, an older man with a flat cap smoking a
cigarette; his eyes squinting against the waft of the smoke walked beside her,
his hands free. They were walking back
from the shops, along a road lined with trees and parked cars, and old council
houses tainted black from years of neglect, boarded front windows, she
remembered the street well. As a child
she’d played in between the parked cars – there was never traffic during the
day, only at night when folks were returning home from work.
Marley sighed and placed her cup back on
the saucer and lifted the photograph to view closer. She smiled sadly, it was her mother and
father - yet it wasn’t. She would never
see her parents again, and they wouldn’t even know why, yet here were two
people with another Marley Hanratty who would enjoy Christmas, and Easter, and
Sunday lunch. Who would have laughter and arguments and hugs and kisses, and
cuddles. She felt the tears fall down
her face as she saw what she was missing, and the reality of living in a world
where she didn’t belong and cried.
Gwen Cooper sat in Jack’s
office. She sat behind his desk and read
the manila folder telling of diet pills with deadly side effects. Clark Goodson sat on the opposite side,
dressed in an impeccable suit, light blue coloured shirt, smart tie, hair
slicked to the side, he looked uncomfortably familiar and Gwen was trying not
to think about it. When Goodson had
first lingered outside, she’d been curious.
Allowing him into the building, she’d spilt her coffee in the main
office as he stepped through the double doors, and for three seconds she
stared, her heart in her throat, total disbelief and felt the tears well up in
her eyes.
“You’ll have to wear something else to
work.” She spoke as she continued to
read the same paragraph, her mind still working overtime. She’d glanced up a couple of times hoping her
imagination had been playing tricks on her but it wasn’t.
“So, you’re going to hire me?”
“Trial period only. Have you viewed the creature?” She asked lifting out the details of a small
bloody creature the size of a young ferret with razor sharp teeth and short
arms. It was too mad to be true.
“Chelsea...lab technician she has it in
Tupperware at the lab. It’s a bit
crushed but should still be able to distinguish what it might be, or could have
been.”
“What happened to the person...Connelly who
was meant to be covering this?”
“No idea.”
Goodson paused. “I had the folder
in my flat, Jase Connelly was a good friend, he and I, well we used to help
each other out. It wasn’t unknown to trade details.” He crossed his left leg over his right and
straightened his jacket. Clark studied
Gwen Cooper. He felt he would have his
work cut out trying to convince her that he was a trustworthy employee.
“How
many reported cases?” She eventually
looked up. She could still see him, even
when he spoke there were traces of a voice from the past.
“Aside from the five cases reported
there.” He produced another sheaf of
paper from the inside of his jacket pocket and passed it across to her. “I did my own research, there’s a
pharmaceutical firm, small but operates out in Caerphilly, they were testing
people with various drugs, to see the side effects, I routinely checked off all
the names of the candidates from their database, six are missing.”
Gwen opened the folded A4 sheets and
viewed the information. A list of names
and addresses hand written in black biro with a tick to show they’d been
located and a large red X to show those still to locate stared back at her.
She’d remembered the case at the Pharm,
and Dr Aaron Copley, the day they’d lost Owen the first time, she lingered a
moment too long. She sniffed,
straightened up and focused her attention on Clark.
“The final decision rests with Jack, Captain
Harkness, but as he’s not here at the moment, I’m in charge. We work as a team here, if there’s trouble we
need to be able to locate you, keep your Bluetooth on at all times.” She slipped an ear device across the table in
a swift movement, locating one in the drawer to her right. Jack always seemed to be ready for
emergencies.
Gwen rose from the seat pushing the chair
back and walked to the door. “There are
any amount of computers here pick a seat and make it your own. But lose the suit!” She smiled lightly, proffering her hand she
held it out to him.
“Welcome to Torchwood!”
Mitchell had shifted in
the seat several times on the drive into the car park beneath the new Torchwood
building. He felt a little off colour
and his stomach was growling and making all manner of noises.
“You sure you’re alright?” Jack asked for the umpteenth time since
they’d left the house.
“Yeah, probably just something I ate last
night!” He looked at Jack with a smirk.
“Hey there’s nothing wrong with me. More likely some of the junk you’ve been
eating of late, like cold pizza?!”
“It was all I could find. Besides I’ll pick up something later for
lunch, might settle it down.”
Mitchell stared up at the large building to
the left of the Torchwood base, the towering Millennium Stadium and at the high-rise
buildings all around him. He felt like a Borrower standing in the world of
giants!
“Come on I’ll introduce you to the
team.” Jack laughed. He swiped his card and entered the building,
taking the stairs two at a time. They’d
only reached the seventh floor when Mitchell groaned and broke wind.
“That pizza is coming back to haunt you!” Jack shook his head.
They eventually reached the 17th
Floor. There was a lingering odour of
reptile that they’d still not managed to eradicate. There had been no more sightings of Elvis or
any other crocodile but it didn’t mean that the spirit of the creature wasn’t
still lingering. Mitchell screwed up his
nose. Moving along the corridor through
the plush offices still with computer systems at every desk, Mitchell felt the
hairs on the back of his arms and neck prickle at the static the computers were
giving off, it was an odd feeling. He
looked at Jack, an insane thought filtering through his mind and slipped his
hand into Jack’s.
With a crack of electricity shooting from
Mitchell into Jack’s hand, the ex time agent yelled loudly and pulled his hand
free, but already the electricity had fired through his entire system and
raised every hair on his body. Mitchell
fell about laughing.
Jack scowled at Mitchell and rubbed his
palm, he could still feel numbness at its centre. “The hell was that?”
“Static electricity! The plastic rug and the electric build up in
this room, it was only a matter of time.”
“And you built it up?”
“You know when you push a trolley across a
plastic lino in a supermarket and you put your hands on the metal trolley, be
surprised what a kick you get.” He
looked at Jack, his hair had suffered an explosion of its own and Mitchell
couldn’t help but laugh again. He
attempted to flatten it down, but after one static shock, Jack was less
inclined to be zapped a second time.
“I can do it.” He shook his head but a smile crept along his
lips, tilting the corners. He
laughed.
“So how many people do you have working for
you?” Mitchell marvelled at the empty
offices.
“Enough!”
Jack replied pushing the double doors that led into what they’d managed
to cobble together into a Hub.
A section of Level 17 held enough computer
systems, rooms leading to various other rooms yet to be given a title, a small
cubby kitchen that smelt of take away foods and pot noodles. Three members of staff were talking about
nothing in particular, one on a phone staring at a computer screen, long brown
hair and a deep regionalised Scottish accent, and a dark haired Welsh woman
talking to a man in a suit who turned to face them as they walked into the
room.
Jack smiled as he saw Gwen but as Clark
turned to face the man in charge, Jack’s smile slid like snow from a
mountain.
“Ianto?”
There was an awkward pause.
“No, Jack, this is Clark Goodson. He’s just started with us, and he’s now going
to go home and get changed and come back with coffees and doughnuts!” She knew immediately she’d said the wrong
thing, but food and coffee was something she was used to and Ianto had always
brought what they needed.
Jack faltered for a second before blanking
Clark. He looked directly at Gwen before
moving to his own room, shrugging off his coat.
He called over his shoulder.
“Gwen.
My office. NOW!”
Gwen paused a moment and sighed. She
looked at Clark and smiled. “It’ll be alright.”
She closed the office door behind her, her silhouetted figure reflected
behind the white glass door that she leant upon.
In the outer office Mitchell remained
where he stood. He wasn’t sure about the man in the suit, he also didn’t know
who the person was who Jack had emitted in a loud whisper, but knowing how
reluctant the Captain was at revealing anything to Mitchell, even about his own
father, he doubted he’d ever find out.
The woman who had sat at the computer
appeared at his side and smiled at him.
She smelt of peaches, fresh and tinged with another scent, another
perfume, it was nice and he smiled at her.
“I’m Marley and you are?” She held out her hand to him and he shook it.
“Mitchell. Just Mitchell!” He smiled back. “So, is this it, is this Torchwood?”
Jack was now sat behind
his desk, his coat hung on an old coat stand they’d acquired from an antique
shop in Penarth. The manila folder was
closed and facing him on the desk, his drawer was partly opened and he pulled
it out to review the missing contents.
Gwen countered.
“Ear piece, if he’s going to be working for
us he’s going to need one.”
“I thought the decision to take on staff was
down to me Gwen.”
“You weren’t here, and you’ve not answered
any of my calls since you left for London.
What happened? Was the phone exchange down, did you run out of money,
forget to top up a card, where the HELL WERE YOU?” She stared at him, remaining where she stood,
watching him, reading his facial expressions.
Then she softened and moved from the door and sat down facing him. “Where were you Jack, am I such a bad person
that you can’t talk to me?”
“It was awkward!”
“What’s awkward about locating your son?”
Jack shot her a look and she felt she’d
won the first round. “Lexy told
me.” He narrowed his eyes and she just
won round two. “Rhys and I were in the
supermarket and she was in front of us, I can’t remember what we talked about
but the mention of your name and she felt she had to offload about Mitchell!”
Jack sank back in his chair and
sighed. He looked away, staring above
the door at the dust webs that hung and swayed in the heat of the room.
“He’s not my son!”
“But Lexy said...”
Jack sighed and looked back at Gwen, her
big brown eyes imploring him to spill the beans. “It’s complicated!”
“Jack, everything we do is complicated, but
if you can’t talk to me...”
He inhaled deeply and leant forward
resting his elbows on the desk, his mind shifted to the manila folder, the old
calligraphy written title on the front, familiar to him. Not his writing granted but written in such a
way that reminded him of a past, before Gwen, before Alex and after Emily. He heard Gwen speak then looked at her as
her voice rose.
“Who is he Jack?” She implored.
“His father used to work with me, for
Torchwood, it was a long time ago, many many years ago, so far away...” Jack drifted again and Gwen grew tired.
“If you don’t want to tell me, fine, but we
still have a job and one we need all hands on deck for.”
“I don’t like him.” Jack’s eyes narrowed.
“He looks like Ianto, I know, but it’s the
suit, as the last time he came here...”
“Wait he’s been here before?”
“Jack, I’m handling this. I’m not sure I trust him either but I think
if he’s with us, then we can keep an eye on him.”
Jack’s eyes darkened. “Who is he?”
Gwen composed herself, she sat up in the
seat and studied Jack’s face, a face she knew so well, by his mannerisms, his
reactions, she knew when to speak and when not to, not out of
subservience. She’d learnt it working as
a police officer, you could wade in and yell and shout but you’d get nowhere,
so you judged when the right time to speak and be heard, rather than yell and
be ignored!
“Clark Goodson. He used to work in Intelligence.” She paused.
“Since he’s been out of service he’s worked for surveillance and
insurance fraud companies in and around Cardiff and last job was working in the
office that was mostly affected by Elvis.
The body we were searching for was the person he was investigating for
stealing property from this site and flogging it on auction sites. Everything checks out. “ She paused.
“But...you still don’t trust him?”
“It’s that thing about having your friends
close and your enemy’s closer! I don’t
trust him no, but I haven’t been able to trust anybody since...” She trailed off. She wanted to believe deep down that she
could trust the milkman not to be working for some secret agency still out
monitoring Torchwood, but she couldn’t.
And Barry Betts the postie now didn’t deliver to her door after being
pinned to the inner door with a Gloch 17 forced against his head and the voice
of an angry Welsh woman threatening to give him several air holes in his skull,
while Anwen clapped as Postman Pat delivered to Mrs Goggins on the television
without any threat of death at all!
Jack sighed again. He placed his palm on the folder and nudged
it towards her. “So what’s this, work or
a decoy?”
“Diet pills.”
His brow arched and Gwen shook her
head. “Not like those, and not like the
Adipose, these are different again.
They’re eggs. Seemingly when you
take a pill you’ve swallowed minute eggs which hatch inside of your body and
eat their way out of you.”
“So, an incubation host.” He flipped open the cover and read the
details. “How many are we looking at?”
“According to Goodson, they came in about
three months ago and he has one of the specimens in a lab in Swansea, it was
sent for analysis and so far, is still in Tupperware!”
Jack visibly shuddered and Gwen frowned.
“Jack?”
“I’m alright. Just one of the last times...it doesn’t
matter. Right, I guess we go to Swansea
and see what we’re up against. Do we
have any of these pills to test?”
“So far no, I was in the process of dealing
with this when you came in. So, tell me
about Mitchell?”
“Not now.”
Jack rose to his feet, lifted his coat from the hook and shrugged it
on. “Right now, we have a creature to
view.” He paused at the door and turned
to smile at her, the boyish grin of old.
“We will talk but later, OK?”
“When you didn’t call I thought...”
“I know.”
Jack met her gaze and smiled.
Jack stepped into the main office, Marley
and Mitchell were sat at her computer desk, a mug of coffee each although
Mitchell wasn’t touching his. He looked
pale and sweaty and Jack paused before he left with Gwen.
“Gwen and I are heading out to
Swansea. Marley, when Goodson returns I
want his full employment records and details sent to the F.M.E.O. file, and I
want you to set up a file for Mitchell.
Have a card issued with his data and one for Goodson.” He looked at Mitchell.
“Get some painkillers for that stomach ache
then I want you to locate all the details you can on these people.” He gave him the sheet of paper for the names
ticked and crossed by Goodson. “I want
to know who these people were and who they worked for, if there’s a link to
them, and who it is, who supplied them with the pills. I want it on my desk before I return.”
“And when are you back?” Mitchell asked.
“Good question. See you later!”
The journey was quiet bar
the sat nav feeding directions for the next alternative route into Swansea avoiding
the road works that never ceased to crop up along the M4. This time it seemed to force the vehicle
users into single lane traffic for several miles. Abandoned diggers, dumpers and rollers were parked
along the hard shoulder without sight nor sound of any workers, and it wasn’t a
Bank Holiday. Jack wasn’t overly
worried, he focused on the road ahead, but his mind kept slipping as to how to
work Mitchell into the conversation, and how he was going to skirt some of the
issues. Telling Gwen that Mitchell might
one day become like his Uncle, Wolf was a little too much information. She’d smiled when she’d asked about him, that
same familiar excited smile when she knew he was hiding information from her. Such as the time Toshiko had taken young
Tommy Brockless out on the town. Or when
she was excited about her wedding to Rhys and she couldn’t stop talking about
all the wedding plans she had. He found
himself smiling.
Gwen wondered if she’d made the right
decision taking on Goodson. It wasn’t as
if she doubted her judgement, she’d made some good calls in her time, but the
fact Jack didn’t approve of him just made working with the new operative a
little awkward. If he screwed up, would
Jack hold it against her? Would he ever
tell her that he was disappointed in her choices? Admittedly when Clark Goodson had stepped
through the double office doors and walked up to her, she swore her eyes were
playing tricks on her. She’d gasped,
she’d remembered that, her hand went to her mouth and she felt a build up of
emotion that almost spilled over, and the last thing she wanted was to show a
complete stranger her vulnerable side.
Jack took a left turning and drove them
away from the motorway, she glanced at the sat nav that was now having a near
melt down. It wasn’t unusual for Jack to
take a different route but she was certain she’d not heard the sat nav say,
take the next left.
“Where are we going?” She asked searching for detour signs, any
signs.
“Coffee!”
It wasn’t much to look at
any more, the Gegin Fawr, had once been a busy little cafe that saw much of the
passing trade before the motorway. Now it only saw the dribs and drabs from the
village, unless by chance road works opened up a gap. Captain Jack Harkness sat his Styrofoam mug
on the dash of the 4 x 4 vehicle they had acquired and stared out across
rolling fields, the driver’s door open to the sound of the motorway slowly
moving thanks to the single lane traffic.
Gwen cradled the cup on her lap, her
fingers running along the corrugated grooves.
A partially eaten Danish sat on the dashboard beside a packet of soft
mints she’d grown fond of recently – she blamed Marley!
“Lady Barlow, Lexy, works for Torchwood, but
she’s freelance. I knew her years
ago.” Jack began. He continued to stare out of the windscreen,
his mind drifting back. Gwen listened
without interruption. “She works in
London, along the Summergate Road, there’s a small clinic there that caters for
the less fortunate and often the ‘alien’ of the community.” He turned to face Gwen, holding the cup
lightly, still too hot to drink. “She’s
a doctor, a good one.” He paused, before
continuing.
“Mitchell’s father, Porlicanthus, wasn’t
what you’d call human, not completely.
He was from the Ciu Sioux tribe, a...er...lycanthrope...” He paused for effect, while Gwen’s mind
worked out what he was telling her. He
saw the penny drop and her eyes widened.
“A werewolf?” She almost spilled her coffee. “Are you saying...” She set the coffee on the dash and turned to
fully face Jack. “...that Mitchell is a
werewolf?”
“Perhaps, although we’ll not know until the
third alignment of the planets, which will happen in about 8 months time, which
is when Mitchell turns 25!”
“And, so...oh god, we’ve left him with
Marley!”
“At the moment Mitchell is safe, unless he
loses his temper, but..” He saw Gwen’s
concern heighten. “...but he only loses
it with me. He doesn’t know much about
his family, he grew up in care. I put
him in care when he was about three years old.”
“Why?”
She narrowed her eyes at Jack.
“Porlicanthus was looking after him after he
was...separated from his mother. We had
to do that, together they would have been catastrophic. He grew up with...”
“Wait...just a minute, if Mitchell wasn’t
separated from his mother...what would happen?”
“Mitchell comes from two different races of
people, two very powerful people, but the one who I hope to God is still locked
up, if she were to ever get out would destroy mankind forever. I’m serious Gwen, we had to get Mitchell away
from her, or he would have destroyed us all!”
Mitchell stared at the
computer screen. Locating the people on
the list had been fairly easy, child’s play, locating their National Insurance
data and personal data through the Torchwood software, bypassing all Laws of
Data Protection, every avenue open to him, he now stared at the computer at his
own information. He’d been logged at
various sites over the years, from the children’s home run by old Greer. He mused at the surname they’d given him, and
already knowing that Jack wasn’t his father, he had to wonder the reason for
the identity change. What was his real
surname? He read through his medical
details sent over from Lexy. In his
entire life, several injuries that had been fairly major hadn’t required
medical attention such as a hospital stay over until the last, when Brody had
tried to kill him. He’d been reported as
falling from a tree, hit by a car and knifed, but judging by all the injuries
he’d sustained, he’d not received medical attention such as hospital care, and
within a few days his injuries had healed up.
That bothered him. It had only
been after the dealings with Brody that he’d grown increasingly sick, too sick
to eat that he’d been ill and close to death.
But he thought back to that moment, when he’d been beaten, when they’d
brought him to Cardiff, when he’d had surgery, he was up within the week – who did
he know that would be up and running about after such an ordeal?
Marley pushed her chair back and
sighed. He glanced over.
“I’m going for something to eat, you’re very
welcome to join me.” She was sweet, her
Scottish accent soft on the ear, electrifying on his mind. He found that sometimes when she spoke he
lost all sense of anything.
“Mitchell...” She called snapping him out of his daze. “I’m going for food is there anything you
want?”
“Um no, I think I’m ok.”
“I tell you what, I’ll pick up something
anyway, who knows when they’ll be back.
If Clark comes in there’s some paperwork he needs to fill in, data about
employment that kind of thing.” She draped
her brown leather coat over her arm, lifted her recently acquired shoulder bag
over her shoulder and left the building.
He watched her leave by the CCTV monitoring from her computer screen. As the glass door clicked shut after she
left, Mitchell got to work.
The security in the whole building was a
sham. Understandably Torchwood, after
he’d been given the spiel by Marley was still finding its feet and this whole
building required a decent surveillance system, but for Floor 17 and the outer
doors it was air tight, she’d told him.
Locating her password and entering the
mainframe of the Torchwood layout, he was amazed to find so many breaks in
security that it was amazing that anything truly worked efficiently. Given that he now had the building secure, it
was time to play.
Swansea University laboratory
was adjacent to the hospital and was located at the left of the hospital car
park, through the double glass sliding doors and into an elevator going down to
the ground floor. From there it was
three doors along past reception run by a tired woman in a pinafore frock who
couldn’t wait for the weekend to arrive.
She asked them to sign a visitors book and gave them both Visitor ID’s
and a small map, scribbled on the back of a memo about cut backs on coffee
breaks, for the lab in question. They
discovered the lab to be where the music was at its loudest. They found a single lab technician, wearing
lab coat, and black converse, playing loud music while still wearing
headphones.
Jack winced at the sound, it wasn’t that
he disliked music but he wasn’t entirely certain ‘Dirtbag Gruesome’ was his
kind of thing. The lab technician was
deep into the music and while waiting for a certain scan to complete belted out
the bridge to a minute of air guitar – with feeling. As she turned to finish off the song with
‘You can’t screw with me mother fucker!’ she realised two people in civilian
clothing were watching her gyrate half way across the floor in some serious
guitar playing solo. She stopped
singing, momentarily paused, pushed her hand into her lab coat bringing out a
remote switch and muted the sound on the cd player and got to her feet.
“I wasn’t aware I had visitors today?” She pulled the earphones off, they hung
limply like hoodie ties, swaying in the middle of her chest caught on a metal
pin badge of ‘The Clash’.
“Sorry, we did call ahead.” Jack lied throwing a matinee smile towards
the young rock chick with the black hair and black make up. “Captain Jack Harkness, I believe...” He observed her name tag. “that you’re familiar with Clark
Goodson?”
Chelsea looked back at Jack naturally
shaking his hand but curious as to why Clark had sent a man dressed in World
War II costume and a woman in skinny jeans and black leather jacket.
“He never mentioned you. What was it about?”
“You have a creature in Tupperware, sent to
you for analysis.”
“Oh that.”
Chelsea walked to the unit near the cd player, clicking it off and
opened the fridge, squatting down in her tight black leggings, viewed the
selection of Tupperware on offer. She
lifted out one, put it back lifted out another, put that back, third time lucky
she lifted the 9in x 7in plastic container that was 3in deep and placed it on
the counter.
“There’s not much of it really. Hang on.”
She walked to a drawer containing files and pulled out the middle of
three and let her fingers do the walking.
A quarter of the way in she lifted out the folder containing the details
of the find.
“Don’t you keep anything on computer?” Gwen mused.
“Oh these old things, that one over there
with the sticker, crashes every time I need to run a deep tissue analysis, and
that one by the bin, I don’t know how many times I’ve called for
maintenance. Sometimes it’s easier
adding everything to the paper files. I
have an iPad, granted it’s not ideal, but it’s efficient.
Jack prised open the lid and pulled back
almost immediately screwing up his nose at the rank odour. Inside the tub lay a half crushed 8” long
bloody brown shaft of bone and tissue which on first impression looked like an
erect penis with short useless arms like a raptor and razor sharp teeth on a
head that once bore eyes and a savage mouth.
“Yeah it pongs a bit.” Chelsea concurred.
“What were the findings?” Jack asked, putting the lid back on.
“Fish.”
“Excuse me?”
Gwen frowned. “Fish?”
“Yeah, here.” She opened the folder and traced her finger
down the findings and tapped her finger against the first set of tables with a
code of numbers. “I took samples and ran
them through a series of rigorous tests and the findings came back as fish
source. So I ran the scan against the
type 1 and type 2 codes that it flashed up, which brings it up as having traces
of Amazonia.”
Jack’s face darkened. Chelsea continued.
“I thought it was kind of weird given the
location, and the fact that the last time I saw something like that I was
watching John Hurt’s stomach rip open and a monkey wrench creature screaming.”
Gwen raised a brow. Chelsea explained.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen the film
Aliens? According to Clark that’s what
this creature did, which made me laugh because, there’s no such things as
aliens right?” She said it so
matter-of-factly that Jack snorted.
“What else did you find out?”
“That’s the crazy thing about this, there’s
a code of DNA that I don’t recognise.
Aside from the fish coding there’s this...” She pushed the sheet towards Jack and an
array of 5 coded digits stared back up at him.
Gwen craned her neck to see but they might as well have been the digits
for a barcode for Crinkle Cut chips as they didn’t register as anything she’d
heard of before.
“Thank you, Chelsea we’ll take these and any
other details you may have for this.”
“Er excuse me but this is my work, you can’t
just take this without due authority.”
“We’re Torchwood, I think that takes care of
the authority and paperwork side.” Jack
lifted the folder as Chelsea slapped her hand over it and glared back at him.
“I said NO.
I need to see what the results of the third test are.”
Jack paused. “What third test?”
Mitchell smiled to
himself. In the space of three hours
he’d successfully mastered the Torchwood software, had implemented three
separate security systems to fully route through the entire building, testing
fire alarms, swipe cards and altered all the internal and external swipe card
systems. He’d secured the roof after
making his way up and onto the asphalt and been able to, if he’d wanted,
dismantle any part of the communications ports.
It had felt good to be in control.
But there was still one thing left to
cover – the stairwells. Armed with
enough cable which he’d located in one of the engineering rooms downstairs, he
began to set the CCTV monitors at the right angles carrying with him a portable
monitor to check each one against the other.
He also rigged up heat sensors and motion sensors for when the team were
either all in or all out. Who or
whatever was in the building that shouldn’t have been there, he would know
about. He was almost done tweaking the
CCTV, but there was always one that had been placed in the wrong position, always
one that teetered on the edge of the stone stairs.
Mitchell wasn’t scared of heights, he’d
mastered higher than this, he’d scaled buildings, shimmied down drainpipes,
heights were no bother at all!
He first became aware of the problem as he
angled the camera and reached down to collect the monitor from the next stool
he’d used as a table. His stool wobbled,
something cracked and doing everything possible to counteract the freefall he
missed the first three steps but landed and bounced and scraped, cracked and
bashed bones and skull and lay still on the landing before the next flight of
stairs.
Despite the cool breeze
the day was dry and while she wandered along the high street drinking her take
out coffee and eating a sandwich, Marley window shopped. It was one of her favourite pastimes, the
other was rummaging in charity shops. It was where she’d located the shoulder
bag, an imitation designer bag, big enough to hide the Glock 17, a set of ammo
and her phone.
She was settling into the job which
pleased Gwen. Back in Glasgow her job
had been fairly mundane, filing and a bit of field work and the occasional
patch up when a field operative had bitten off more than he could chew. The chance of locating the crocs and uncovering
the work at the Estate had been something of an adventure for her, but dealing
with crocs in the work place, dealing with death on a grand scale, dealing with
the fact she was miles from home and no way of ever getting back, it was a lot
to deal with. So long as she was busy,
Marley could tackle anything, and right now, tomorrow’s work clothes and a
decent pair of shoes was her way of dealing with stuff.
She’d been trawling through thrift stores
for a few hours before she realised she’d left Mitchell alone and Jack and Gwen
might be back. Carrying the clothes, a
nice plain cotton pastel yellow top, pair of jeans and leather ankle boots all
for under a tenner she quickly bought a tray of cakes and sandwiches and made
her way back to the Hub.
Clark was already waiting. He’d rung the bell, a metal buzzer sunk into
the brickwork. No answer came back. He’d waited a while, pulled out his phone and
called in. Still no answer.
Marley, slightly out of breath frowned.
“Is no-one letting you in?”
Clark shook his head. “Been here half an hour, thought perhaps it
was part of my initiation test but the side door was closed too.”
Marley handed the tray of food to Clark as
she rummaged in her bag for her card and swiped it. An angry buzzer declined her card.
“What the hell?” She tried again and again but every time it
refused her access.
“Who’s in there?” Clark said handing back the tray of cakes and
taking her card, wiping it against his trousers before trying again, receiving
the same result.
“Mitchell!”
The Tupperware sat between
Jack and Gwen in the 4 x 4 vehicle, along with the data and the results of the
third test. Gwen had marvelled at the
results, and the slide show that were also part of the third test that also sat
inside the folder between them. Also
sitting beside the Tupperware and the folder was a blue plastic bottle
containing diet pills. It had been
retrieved from the house of the late Mrs Jenkins. Chelsea had run the third test on the pills and
the startling results and although she’d not carried through the full extent of
what these pills became, the crushed creature was enough to ascertain that
whatever was incubating in the bodies of humans up and down the country wasn’t
good!
It was a quiet drive back as the sun set
behind them and dragged the darkening night sky as if attached to the tow hook
all the way to Cardiff. Street lights
greeted them as they drove into the city and two fed up Torchwood staff met the
light beams of the vehicle as they sat on the front steps, half of the
sandwiches and doughnuts already eaten and two Styrofoam mugs empty beside
them.
Jack parked up in his usual spot and
jumped out, leaving Gwen to carry their find before locking the vehicle. He came over to greet them, the cold air
snatching his breath as he spoke.
“What are you two doing out here, where’s
Mitchell?” He said, curiously.
“Probably in the building warm as
toast. We’ve been trying to get in since
lunch time and...” she trailed off.
“Have
you tried calling him?” Gwen pulled her
card from her back pocket and swiped it.
The card reader refused her access.
“What the hell?” Marley smiled
inwardly. Gwen swiped it again. Jack used his and still the building refused
them entry.
Jack ran around to the side entrance and
keyed in his code, again it was denied.
He pulled out his phone and contacted the office. He turned to face the others.
“No answer.”
Flipping the strap on his vortex manipulator he pressed two buttons and
the wrist strap over rode the security code, the door clicked and opened and
Jack smiled. Before he opened the door fully, he unholstered the Glock 17, not
as comfortable as his old Webley but still as effective. Gwen and Marley
followed suit. Clark removed an old Colt
.45 and checking they weren’t being watched, entered the building and closed
the door tight behind him.
Jack was already working his way up the
stairs. He instructed Clark and Marley
to take the rooms while he and Gwen took the fire exits. They split up.
On the 16th
floor Jack’s blood ran cold, a patch of fresh blood lay on the landing before
the next flight, and up every step droplets of blood and a hand print.
“Do you think it’s Mitchell?” Gwen said sensing only too well that if he’d
been the only person in the building, but then given that the young man was
likely a werewolf, would this be food he’d just located?
Jack continued up the stairs. The hand rail was sticky and red and several
times it had been gripped tightly. He
didn’t want to think what might have happened.
Instead, he ran up the last remaining stairs to Level 17 following the
trail of blood in droplets all the way to the Office. Another bloody handprint met him at the
double doors.
Maintaining battle stance, he edged into
the room, scanning his gun this way and that as he looked along every computer
desk and monitor, under every table and chair, inside any unlocked cupboard,
Gwen followed suit on the opposite side.
Every computer flickered on as they passed
it, the swirls of the alien software greeted them. It was like a sea of computer screens all
moving in sync.
Jack entered the main office and saw the
light of the fridge, curious he peeked in.
More blood, this time mingling with water, the tea towel drawer lay open
and the first aid kit was missing from the corner by the kettle. Jack pointed for Gwen to check along the
corridor leading to the roof while he checked in the rooms alongside the
kitchen.
Inside his own office, lying semi naked on
the leather couch was Mitchell. His eyes
were closed but he was alive, if only by the fact his chest rose slowly. The open First Aid kit lay on the floor, its
contents emptied around it, a bloody needle with adrenalin shot lay used on the
floor. Mitchell’s clothes were dumped beside
it.
Jack holstered his gun and edged closer to
Mitchell. The young man’s head had taken
a beating but an ice pack lay beside him melting into the tea towel. As Jack tilted his head to the side of Mitchell’s
body he saw for himself the extent of the bruises and obvious breaks along his
right side. He smiled lightly commending
the boy for treating himself, but he was not forgiven for keeping them outside.
“Hey...wake up!” Jack brought a chair over and sat beside him,
feeling for a pulse, found one racing.
He checked his pupils, and winced.
“Oh god...Mitchell wake up. Come on, wake up.”
Gwen glanced in hearing Jack speak and saw
Mitchell. “What’s happened?”
“I don’t know but either someone got in
or...check the CCTV, perhaps that’ll shed some light. I think he’s concussed, his right pupil is
dilated.”
“He’s got the ice pack that should help
bring down the swelling.” Gwen put the
Glock on the desk and brought up the CCTV over the past 10 hours and skimming
through endless hours of Mitchell in and around the building, located him at
the specific point and winced. “Ouch!
Jack, found it. He was on the
stairwell, but I tell you, despite what happened, he’s been very busy. Come and see for yourself, I’ll call Marley,
tell her to come up.”
It was a few hours more before Mitchell
awoke breathing in the scent of the Captain’s coat as he lay on the sofa. Jack was sat at the desk reviewing the data
taken from the lab and the details Mitchell had collated for him earlier. There seemed a link although it was pretty
thin, as were most related diet links.
He’d dealt with diet pills before, pharmacies using whatever means
possible to hoodwink people into paying vast amounts of money for schemes that
rarely worked. But this went beyond
losing weight, this put the human race at risk and it wasn’t something he could
ignore and leave for some other poor schmuck.
He smiled softly at Mitchell as the young man stirred and opened his
eyes. Tomorrow they would locate the
first man on the list with the red X beside his name.
Except Teddy ‘The Pie’ Edwards wouldn’t be
available for comment because Teddy was already dead. Teddy had fallen asleep in front of the
telly, as he did most nights, only tonight he wouldn’t be waking up to take any
more pills, as whatever had hatched out of his belly was now loose in his
house.
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