Fans Fiction Viva Torchwood Pt 7 by Doreen Freitag

‘Planet Earth’ was breathtaking. It looked like a giant ring-shaped space ship and it was standing on several crooked stilts. The ball-like Death Star protruded from it. The entrance of the hotel looked like the lowered loading platform to E.T.'s space ship and an X-Wing starfighter hovered above it. One restaurant was called ‘Nostromo’, which made Catherine shiver. She really didn't want to know what was on their menu.

Jack drove the car to the backside of the hotel and parked the van next to one of the delivery entrances that was situated between two of the stilts.

Catherine was already in her place and had opened the hologram map of the glove. ‘Can you see Gwen?’ Rex asked her over his shoulder.

‘As far as I can tell she should be in the very top of the Death Star,’ Catherine said with a disheartened undertone.

‘Great, so we'll meet the emperor himself up there,’ Rex grumbled.

‘Okay, let's go,’ Jack said and jumped out of the car. ‘We'll enter the space ship via hangar E. It would be very helpful if you could later guide us our way out of the ship through there, Cathy.’

Catherine nodded and Jack opened the door next to her again and leaned inside. ‘Sweetheart, I'm counting on you. I know you can do that. You do want me back, right?’

‘Yes, Luke,’ Catherine replied, smiling, ‘please come back to me.’

‘That's weird,’ the Captain said. ‘I always thought I'd be more like Han Solo.’

‘Well I don't care,’ Catherine replied quietly. ‘I just want Jack Harkness back.’

Jack smiled at her. ‘And you'll have him back. You should know that you don't get rid of me that fast.’

He placed two fingers under her chin and pulled her head to him for a last kiss.

‘World War Two, stop making out and get here!’ Rex Matheson shouted from the outside.

The Captain winked at Catherine one last time and then closed the door from the outside. Catherine turned towards the monitor. Now she could see entrance E approaching from Jack's point of view. That made her smile. A few seconds later she would have seen herself kissing the man wearing the contact lenses.

The men had reached the building. Gate E consisted of a loading platform for cars and trucks and an entrance. This had to be where the hotel coordinated the laundry – there were dozens of wagons with fresh household linen in the huge room behind the door and the bed linen had the ‘Planet Earth’ logo printed on them.

A young lady sat behind a counter and thumbed through her magazine with a bored expression on her face. Rex and Jack approached her. The CIA agent showed her a police badge and said: ‘Good evening. We’re investigating the laundry theft from the day before yesterday. Could you tell us where we can find the administration?’

The woman didn’t look like she was really thinking about the matter. Her eyes showed a lack of interest when she had heard the word ‘administration’. Her hand vaguely showed Rex and Jack the way to a hallway behind the room and she muttered: ‘The elevator’s back there. Second floor.’

‘Thanks a lot, Miss Johnston,’ Jack said after glancing at her name badge. She looked up, surprised, and when she met the Captain’s eyes, she suddenly seemed interested again. Apparently Jack grinned at her because she smiled back at him coyly.

When Jack followed Rex into the hallway, Catherine sent him a message through the contact lenses: ‘Careful. I see everything.’ She also could have told him via the headset, but she thought it was better to tell him via the lenses. The Captain’s answer was an amusedly smile.

Rex looked around and for a second he seemed puzzled, then he just shook his head in an annoyed manner. ‘Creep in somewhere with you without attracting attention – that’s nearly impossible.’

Catherine was looking at the map where she could see many red dots. Unfortunately, the image didn’t show the area around Jack and Rex. Therefore, she could only roughly tell where the Weevils were. Rex had taken the second coded chip so she could see where the two men had to be.

‘I think you’re approaching two of our friends,’ Catherine said, but wasn’t really sure. The next second she could already see how Jack and Rex had run around the corner and suddenly were face to face with two Weevils. When they saw the intruders, they screamed and attacked Jack and Rex immediately. Rex shot into one of the Weevil’s legs; the other one attacked Jack before he had even had the chance to pull his weapon.

‘Oh God, I’ve missed this!’ the Captain shouted while he wrestled the Weevil. Suddenly he pulled a small spray out of his pocket and sprayed right into the monster’s face. The creature screamed and fell onto his knees. Jack grabbed its arms, wrapped a metal band around its wrists and pulled the ends together so they could form an inseparable ring. He then did the same with the Weevil’s feet.

‘Ready for transportation, sir,’ he reported to Rex Matheson and saluted.

Rex stared at him. ‘Well sometimes you do surprise me, Jack.’

‘Be prepared. Most of the time I’ve got an ace up my sleeve,’ the Captain replied and started to move the Weevil to one of the laundry wagons. The CIA agent helped him to handcuff the other Weevil and then throw both of them into the wagon. They then moved the wagon to a linen room and locked it from the outside.

‘Cathy, you need to think of something. Next time, we need to know that we’ll meet Weevils before they’re face to face with us!’ Jack said, breathing heavily and leaning at the wall next to the door.

‘They’ve recognised us,’ Rex said when they waited for the elevator to arrive. ‘Apparently Hank and Spikey have given them personal descriptions of each of us.”

‘Here,’ Jack said and handed him a spray and a handful of metal bands. ‘I found them in my suitcase.’

The elevator arrived and the two men entered it.

Meanwhile, Catherine had connected her laptop with the part of the hotel’s computer system that was accessible for her and opened up a floor plan on the second monitor.

‘And now?’ Rex asked.

‘Go to the first floor,’ Catherine said. ‘There you should find a passage about 50 metres left of you.’

While the men entered the elevator, Catherine studied the hologram map. If there only was a way to coordinate the positioning data with the floor plan!

She carefully examined the glove. There was a small dent at the barrel band. Could that be a link? Someone must have programmed that thing somewhere. Of course the connection could also be wireless, but Catherine hoped that the alien designers and programmers stuck to the basics.

‘Okay,’ she said quietly, ‘there’s an access point so I should be able to get into the system somehow.’

‘What did you say?’ Jack asked, observing the door in front of him.

‘Nothing, I’m thinking,’ Catherine replied, distracted by her computer.

‘Think faster, gal, we’ve reached the first floor,’ Rex said impatiently.

The door opened. The floor in front of them was empty and so the men headed left, like Catherine had told them.

Catherine knew that what she was about to do now was complete nonsense, but she had always been of the opinion that you should at least try everything.

She pulled her purse that was lying on the backseat over to her and foraged in it. After five endless seconds she finally found what she was looking for. She pulled out a cable that was about fifty centimetres long and that had several adapter plugs at each end. That cable was nearly twenty years old and Catherine had got it from her former instructor. It had become some kind of lucky charm for her over the years and helped her in many different situations. For that reason it was always somewhere in her bag. You never know when you need to connect two things.

And Catherine was really glad about that fact now. She had to link alien technology with a terrestrial system.

One glance at the monitor told her that Jack and Rex had just reached the passage. The hologram showed red dots close to them.

 ‘Be careful! It’s flashing everywhere around you.’

‘Tell us something we don’t know, Cathy!’ The Captain replied and Catherine could now also hear impatience in his voice.

She plugged a fitting adapter into the laptop. Then she observed the glove again. She only had one try because only one adapter on her cable was small and narrow enough to fit.

‘Open sesame,” she muttered and plugged the cable into the glove’s port. Catherine felt like the glove literally absorbed the plug. She couldn’t tell exactly but it looked like the port changed to fit to the adapter. For one moment, nothing happened. Then the hologram flickered and her computer started to sweep. Followed by a collapse of the hologram map.

‘Damn it!’ she shouted.

‘What? What’s going on?’ Jack hissed. ‘I can’t see the cursor in the contact lenses any more. It’s as if you were offline.’

‘I don’t know Jack. I’ve connected the glove to the computer and…’

‘You did what?’ Rex shouted. ‘Have you gone mad?’

Catherine was about to wish she were somewhere else, far away from the two men, when the hologram map came back online.

It looked different than before. She could see the entire floor plan with all of the red dots through Jack’s eyes.

‘Honey, I don’t know how you did that, but you’re a genius.’ Jack Harkness was stunned.

‘Can you see that, too?’ Catherine said and almost didn’t believe him.

‘What? What can you see, Jack?’ Rex wanted to know impatiently.

‘The glove extracted all of the data from our computer and combined it to one image,’ Catherine answered on behalf of the Captain.

‘Now I can see exactly where we’ll meet Weevils and where we won’t,’ Jack explained. ‘You’re a blue dot next to me and Gwen is on the top floor of the casino.’

‘Great,’ Rex said. ‘Well, then don’t forget to tell me as well.’

‘Cathy, remember to tell Rex all of the necessary information in case I’m distracted,’ Jack said. ‘And by the way: excellent job! I knew you were the right one for this job.’

Catherine took a deep breath to control herself. Every compliment her boss made her felt like an invisible kiss to her.

Jack and Rex now moved forward much faster. The Captain could lead the way himself and avoided the areas where he could see Weevils.

They had reached the Death Star and could hear busy pings, buzzing and muttering.

‘Looks like we need to go through there,’ Jack realised. ‘The staircase on the outside is filled with Weevils. Only inside of the casino there are stairs that lead up. But we need to be prepared to find human guards up there.’

‘Okay, let the games begin,’ Rex said, opening up the door leading to the casino and stopped, overwhelmed of what he saw in front of him.

You could almost see the entire globe from the inside. Several levels with different kinds of games and gambling machines were built around a centre pillar made out of glass, containing an elevator and a staircase. The architect had used glass everywhere possible to keep the transparent character. There were areas with blinking slot machines and others with table-top games. Around the centre pillar they had built a huge roulette wheel with many tables around it.

All of the casino’s interior was adapted to a star ship’s command bridge. Also, everywhere was something that blinked and there were light effects and holograms to complete the impression. Small R2-D2 robots drove around and sold chips to the numerous visitors. The employees working at the tables were in costumes so you really had the impression of being on an intergalactic space station.

‘Wow,’ the Captain said, ‘that’s a wonderland of memories. John Hart surely would love this. Well, I suppose he already knows about this.’

An R2-D2 approached them. ‘Would you like to change coins?’ he asked.

Rex leaned down to him. ‘No thanks. Is your friend C3PO here as well?’

When the robot didn’t answer but turn away from Rex as soon as he heard the word ‘no’, the CIA stood up again. The Captain must have given him a strange look because he said: ‘What? I’ve even been in a Star Wars fan club!’

Jack hesitated for a moment, then he laughed and patted on Rex’s shoulder.

‘I understand that. We’ve all been through that. I’ve always been into Luke Skywalker. And you?’

Rex rolled his eyes and turned away from Jack, then stepped further into the hall. Jack was right on his heels.

Catherine saw how Jack scanned the room with every step he made. She knew that from now on she could be sure he saw every single move in the room – even if he didn’t show interest in anything that was going on around him.

The men reached the roulette tables. A young man in a Star Trek costume was the croupier and with his ochre shirt that had the symbol of the Starfleet printed on it he looked just like a young James Kirk.

In Catherine’s eyes, Jack glanced at the hotel employee for a bit too long. She narrowed her eyes to slits when the young man looked up and showed an interestedly smile.

Catherine was about to cough slightly when Captain Jack Harkness walked past Captain James T. Kirk, grabbing his shoulder and whispering: ‘Sorry, but I’m happily spoken for.’

For a short moment, Catherine couldn’t think properly anymore. What Jack had just said, had attracted her full attention. Until that moment, it hadn’t been clear to her whether Jack had just heavily flirted with her or not but this statement showed the opposite. Did she really win the Captain’s heart?

‘I know you’re smiling,’ she could hear the Captain say. And then she really laughed.

‘I think Han Solo is right for you,’ she messaged him. ‘Now go and finally rescue Princess Leia!’

Rex and Jack had reached the circular stairs around the elevator and started climbing them. There was a door to the different areas on each floor. When they had reached the last of the public floors, they saw that the rest of the stairs had been cordoned off and there was a sign that read ‘private’. From here on, the walls also weren’t made of glass any more so the staircase wasn’t visible from the outside.

‘Well, we’re here for private business,’ Rex said dryly and climbed over the barrier.

One floor later they ran into two guards who looked at them with a cloudy expression on their faces.

‘This area is not open to visitors of the casino,’ one of them said, looking slightly more friendly than the other one.

Rex showed them the coding chip. ‘We’re from Parker Dam. We need to talk to the boss. About where to send the Vidal Junction consignments from now on.’

The chip seemed to be enough of verification. The two guards stepped aside and let Jack and Rex past. This time, Jack didn’t glance at them closer – Catherine knew that he didn’t want to push his luck.

Rex and Jack reached the top of the staircase. They could see a small hallway through a glass door from there.

‘Looks like this time I had an ace up my sleeve,’ Rex said amusedly. ‘But it seems like they don’t tell everyone everything. The Weevils have recognised us – the guards there didn’t have a clue. They must have thought that no one can pass the monsters anyway. At least this shows us that the families aren’t yet as organised as they have been. What do we do now? Shoot our way through there?’

‘I don’t think there’s too many of them up here,’ Jack replied. ‘I can only see one bigger room on the floor plan that this hallway leads to. And three smaller rooms. Gwen’s signal is coming from the one on the right, after a corner. Let’s try to get through there. If we encounter problems there, we can still try and shoot our way through there, like you said.’

‘Is there also a plan C?’

‘Yes, but I won’t tell you yet.’

Rex squinted his eyes in a sceptical manner, but didn’t say anything else. He pulled his weapon and opened the door to the hallway.

Jack had also pulled his weapon and the two men entered the emperor’s command centre. In contrast to the area downstairs, the interior looked very exclusive and chic. Every sound was absorbed by wood panelling on the walls and a thick carpet.

They could see no one and hear nothing. Catherine observed how Jack scanned every corner of the hallway and she knew that he was searching for surveillance cameras. But there were none and that was a mystery to her, as well as to him.

The two men carefully turned right and soon reached the corner with the room containing Gwen’s signal. They got in position to storm the room and on Jack’s signal they jumped around the corner simultaneously.

Two systematic shots into their legs from the guards who had already waited for them later, they fell to the floor. Catherine screamed in shock when she saw the floor approaching through Jack’s eyes as he fell down. Next to him she could also see Rex falling to the floor.

‘Ah, damn it,’ the CIA agent yelled in pain and grabbed his bleeding lower leg. ‘They’re more organised than we thought.’

Jack must have been in pain as well, but he already scanned the hallway again. There were two guards standing in front of them, still pointing their guns at Rex and him. Steps were approaching from behind them. A man wearing a dark tuxedo and a woman looking like an Amazon stopped next to them and pushed the guards away.

‘Get up!’ the woman shouted and now pointed a gun at them herself. To Catherine’s surprise, Jack and Rex indeed got to their feet. If she had such a wound on her leg, she wouldn’t have been able to stand up.

The man wearing the tux approached them and held out one hand. ‘The chip,’ he said brusquely. Rex pulled the coding card out of his pocket, sighing, and handed it over, a cloudy expression on his face.

‘Now come along,’ the Amazon said and guided the group into the big main room of this floor. The two armed guards followed her. 

Fans Fiction Viva Torchwood - Chapter 6 by Doreen Freitag

Chapter 6

‘Why do women always have so much luggage,” the Captain asked jokingly when he put Catherine’s travelling bag from the Chevrolet into the van. Actually Catherine’s travelling bag wasn’t very big. ‘Have you even got everything a woman needs for a journey?”

‘I don’t know what you think a woman needs for a journey but I think I’ve got everything I need,” Catherine replied and gazed at Jack’s old leather suitcase, which was very obviously bigger than Catherine’s.

Jack, who had seen her gaze, said: ‘You don’t want to know what’s in there. But I’m starting to wonder whether we will ever get to open our bags on this trip.”

Once again Jack sat down behind the wheel and they headed North on the Interstate 95. When they passed the motel near the road Catherine was thankful for not having to sleep there. There hadn’t even been a coffee machine in their room.

Thinking of coffee suddenly let her stomach rumble and Rex Matheson also seemed to be hungry because he unpacked three mugs filled with coffee – that wasn’t really hot any more – and a box of doughnuts from another box he had taken with him.

‘Wow, Rex, you’re getting ahead,” Jack noticed, grinning, and almost ate the first doughnut at once, then had a huge gulp of coffee.

Catherine also helped herself to a doughnut.

When she later examined the glove, she noticed that she could zoom into the holographic map up to a certain distance, but it wasn’t close enough to locate the weak signal of Gwen’s coding unit. However she hoped it would work when they were closer to Las Vegas.

After Rex had explained all of the different devices in the van to her and started to be a bit more friendly, the scenery that flew by made Catherine tired and she cuddled up in her seat. Just a bit later she was fast asleep. She didn’t even see Jack smiling at her through the rear mirror.

‘Cathy, we’re there.’

A hand caressed her cheek and Catherine was awake immediately. Jack had stopped at a petrol station and the sky was dark. She could see the blinking lights of the city that never sleeps only a few miles away. Rex, however, wasn’t there – he had to be in the building.

Jack was leaning in the car’s doorframe next to Catherine’s seat. ‘Did you sleep well?” His eyes wandered over her face and she hoped that there wasn’t any trace of saliva in her face. Apparently there really wasn’t because Jack bent forward and blew a kiss onto her lips. She immediately was more awake than ever before.

‘When do you sleep, Jack,” she asked while she got out of the car and stretched.

‘I’ll be able to sleep again when I know that I’ve got Gwen back,’ Jack said and turned towards the flashy city again.

Catherine got the glove that she had put onto the seat next to her, then she had a look around. Jack had parked behind the petrol station building so no-one would disturb them – only if they had to go to the toilet. Rex also came back to the car in this moment.

She put on the glove and again she could feel this weird coldness inside. She activated the holographic map, which showed up immediately. His eyebrows up, Jack watched Catherine zoom into the map rapidly. Just a second later, they could see Las Vegas in front of them. What they couldn’t see when they were back in Vidal Junction now showed up in detail. All of the Weevils were in one building and there also was a small, blinking light blue dot among them which made Jack cheer.

‘That’s her! If they didn’t take the coding unit from her then she’s exactly there. Come on, let’s save Gwen!’ Jack turned towards the van and almost crashed into Rex Matheson, who was still looking at the map and shook his head in disbelief.

‘What,” the Captain asked. ‘Hey, CIA, what is it that you don’t get?”

‘That’s the ‘Planet Earth’,” Rex replied as if it explained everything.

‘THAT’S the ‘Planet Earth’,” Jack asked amazed.

‘What’s the ‘Planet Earth’,” Catherine wanted to know. She hadn’t heard of this hotel before, but the two men seemed to know the name.

‘The ‘Planet Earth’ was opened about half a year ago,” Jack explained. ‘It’s all about Science Fiction in there. They have a huge model of the ‘U.S.S. Enterprise’ in their lobby, you can also eat in there, and the amusement hall is in a round building which looks like the Death Star from ‘Star Wars’. The staff are all wearing costumes so the guests can feel like they’re on an intergalactic base.”

‘Well, then we know how they’re hiding the Weevils. Because they aren’t,” Rex realized. ‘But there’s something else that alarms me and Jack. After the Miracle Day, the CIA tried to follow the traces of the string pullers. And there wasn’t a direct evidence, but many of those traces ended at the ‘Planet Earth’.”

‘But I thought you got those people back then,” Catherine said. ‘Didn’t the explosions in Shanghai and Buenos Aires kill the leaders?”

Jack shook his head. ‘Oh no, Cathy. They surely were important people for them but those three families are all around the globe. They’ve got their folks everywhere. And when we ruined their idea back then we did harm them, but we couldn’t stop them.”

‘And now they seem to use that Rift near the Parker Dam,’ Rex added. ‘You can already imagine what they’ll do with all of those weapons, drugs and Weevils.”

‘Okay,” Jack sighed. ‘Let’s get Gwen out of there. Everything else needs to wait until Torchwood is complete again.”

‘I hope you’ve already got a plan for that,” Rex replied. ‘It’s most likely that they already showed our faces to those monsters and that the first one will already get us in the lobby.”

‘That shouldn’t stop us,” the Captain clarified. He searched for something in the pockets of his coat and revealed a small, flat capsule.

‘Well, you get to prove your broad equipment now,” he said and turned to Catherine. ‘Did you bring a small mirror with you? I don’t want to crawl into the rear or side mirror.”

Although she didn’t know yet what he needed it for she searched for a mirror in her handbag and found one: a quite large hand mirror.

‘Okay, you win that point,” Jack laughed. He opened the small box and put in contact lenses in front of Catherine’s mirror.

Catherine observed him, puzzled. ‘And how am I supposed to understand this?”

‘Here,” Rex shouted from the van. ‘I’ll show you.”

Jack and Catherine entered the back of the van. Rex Matheson had turned on a computer and Catherine could see herself looking at the monitor. She turned around and looked right into the smiling Captain’s eyes.

‘Contact lenses with cameras,” she asked amazed and he nodded.

‘Rex needed some more time back then,’ he stated with an ironic undertone in his voice. Rex snorted disdainfully.

Catherine looked back to the monitor where she could now read the words: ‘Contact lenses with cameras.”

‘Wow,” she said, ‘those things really read what I said!”

‘Type something into the keyboard and I’ll be able to read it,” Jack asked Catherine.

Catherine moved closer to the monitor and it took her a second to figure out what she should write. Then she typed in some words. When she didn’t get a reaction from Jack, she turned towards him.

He looked at her with a serious expression on his face. ‘I hope so, too, Cathy,” he said quietly and it was the right answer to what she had typed into the keyboard.

‘Okay, the lesson for the highly intelligent pupil is over,” the Captain then said and took his place on the driver’s seat. While he started the engine, he explained his plan to the other two.

‘Rex and I will go in there. You’ll stay here in the van and you’ll be able to see everything I can see. If for some reason our mini headsets will fail then you’ll still be able to read everything someone says to me. You’ll also check the holographic map and warn us if a Weevil comes too close to us. You’ll lead us to Gwen. Savvy?”

‘Aye, Captain,” Catherine said and tried to sound hopefully.

Jack drove the car into the blinking city. Soon he left the Interstate 95 and drove towards the Las Vegas Boulevard on the Beltway. Then they entered the city’s colourful nightlife and Catherine didn’t know where to look first. They first passed ‘Luxor”’s majestic pyramid, then the ‘Bellagio”, whose water fountains showed a great spectacle, skilfully illuminated. They had reached their destiny after ‘Caesar’s Palace”. 

Fans Fiction Viva Torchwood by Doreen Freitag

Chapter 5

Translated by Birte Scheider

Catherine had just put her mobile phone back into her pocket after her conversation with Jim Stuart when they could hear more gunshots from outside. Car doors were slammed and a car drove away.

One moment later, Rex Matheson and Jack entered the mini market through the back door again, breathing heavily.

The CIA-agent was dirty, as if he had been lying on the ground, and there was a bullet hole in one of his sleeves. He didn't seem hurt, though, because he moved his arm as if the hole wasn't there.

‘What the hell is going on here,’ Matheson asked and kicked against a news rack, which fell over with a huge noise.

‘Where's Gwen,’ Catherine asked. Her colleague should have been here long ago.

‘Hank and Spikey took her,’ Jack replied and Catherine's head jerked around.

The Captain put his weapon back into his shoulder belt and was staring to the ground with an absent air. When he looked at her, Catherine could suddenly see all of his emotions, the fear of another loss and the fierce resolution of bringing Gwen back.

Meanwhile, Rex Matheson was on the phone and he was talking loudly, describing the delivery van with which the two men and Gwen had left in the direction of North.

‘This won't be any good,’ Jack told Catherine. ‘They'll change the car as soon as they can or they'll go into hiding and we've got no idea who we're dealing with. Seems like there is something much bigger behind all of this.’

‘Let's go back to the warehouse. We've got a well-equipped van there, for investigations.’ Matheson was about to leave the mini market.

‘Shouldn't we keep looking here? Just for a short while,’ Catherine said. ‘It's unlikely that we'll find something, but the two didn't seem really smart to me, either.’

Rex Matheson indefinably looked at her for a moment, then shrugged. ‘They were at least smart enough to shoot at our tyres.’

Jack had already started examining the counter. ‘But they don't know more than those action movie tricks, Rex.’ He bent down and opened a drawer. ‘Ah. Well, what have we got here?’

He pulled the drawer out of the cupboard and put it onto the counter. Rex Matheson and Catherine approached him. The drawer was filled with new passports, which seemed real - or deceptively real.

‘So what are these desert-rambos actually doing here,’ the CIA-agent shouted. ‘Are they providing Weevils with documents here, where there is no-one else? And then they set them on the people?’

‘I think that's actually quite close to the truth, Rex,’ the Captain replied and gazed at the piles of documents pensively.

The footpath back to the warehouse suddenly seemed a lot longer to Catherine than it did before, when she had walked to the crossroads arm in arm with Jack. And she felt like this happy moment was only a memory from a different, distant reality.

Here and now she was suddenly in the middle of a real Torchwood case, Gwen had been kidnapped by alien smugglers and everything they would be doing from that point of time on was dangerous and left no room for mistakes.

‘You, take care of that broken car over there,’ Rex Matheson snapped at the assistant who approached them from the warehouse. He led Catherine and Jack to the ATV which was parked next to the rear front wall. ‘This is our investigation van. Well-equipped with the latest technology and also suitable for small lab analyses. Now we only need a direction we can head towards.’

‘Can I see the room with the finds,’ Jack asked. ‘Maybe we'll find another hint.’

‘Gwen was just examining some kind of metal chip card when you called her,’ the CIA-agent replied. ‘I think she put it into her pocket because she wanted to show it to you. We've got a second one. They were found near two of the human corpses.’

He showed them the way to the back entry of the building. In a room which originally must have served the delivery handling someone had put all found articles onto shelves. Rex Matheson sent the security guard out of the room and closed the door. While they had been at the mini market, someone had brought the metal glove here. It now lay on a table in a corner of the room. The rest of the so-called finds weren't more than black, indefinable chunks to Catherine.

Jack approached a box with black loops on one of the shelves. ‘These seem to have been the collars for the Weevils,’ he said and got one of the loops out of the box.

Rex handed him a small object. ‘Here, the second chip.’

Jack looked at both objects in his hands and Catherine could suddenly see a small slot at the side of the collar that was facing away from him.

‘Jack, look,’ she said, took the collar and turned it in her hands so the Captain could see the slot.

He understood immediately and fit the two pieces into each other. A small beep came from the collar and a series of small blue dots ran around it.

‘Like arming an alarm system,’ Catherine said. ‘Do you think they programmed the Weevils with them?’

‘That makes sense,’ replied Jack.

‘That makes sense?’ Rex Matheson was angry. ‘Nothing makes sense! Why did we find forty-three Weevils here in a warehouse in Vidal Junction, California, programmed with collars and alien stuff? What were they programmed for?’

‘If I knew that, I was already on my way to wherever Gwen is,’ said Jack. He pulled the chip out of the slot and leaned on the table with the metal glove on it.

In this moment, his wristband gleamed and blinked pulsating and suddenly a pillar of light appeared in the middle of the room. Jack's head jerked around and he stared at it with puckered brows. When Catherine was about to close her eyes because the light was too bright, it faded again and a male figure appeared in it. When the light had vanished completely, there stood a man with a huge grin on his face. He was wearing a short red army jacket from Napoleon's time, which had seen better days, an Asian sword and a cowboy's weapon belt.

‘Jack,’ he said, and his grin got even bigger. But when he saw the frozen expression on Jack's face, his gaze showed slight uncertainty.

‘What do you want,’ the Captain wanted to know.

‘Don't you want to introduce me first,’ the man asked and looked at each of them hopefully, stopping when he saw Catherine.

‘No,’ the Captain replied shortly.

‘Who's that, Jack?’ Now Rex Matheson wanted to know who that strange man was and he had already placed his hand on his weapon. ‘I always thought you were the craziest person here, but Mr 18th Century beats the pants off you.’

Jack inhaled resignedly, then he said: ‘This is Captain John Hart. We have worked together a very long time ago.’

‘Worked together...,’ John Hart repeated. ‘Alright, I think I can't expect a more friendly description. And? This is supposed to be your current team? A chocolate brown wannabe-agent and a hot-blooded ginger?’ He glanced at Catherine again and didn't pay attention to the angry CIA-agent in the background. ‘Is she as fiery as she looks like?’

‘Stop it, John,’ Jack hissed.

But Catherine was used to those kind of chat-up lines. ‘You wouldn't believe how fiery I can be, Captain Hart,’ Catherine replied with a snappish undertone.

She didn't look at Jack Harkness whilst saying this - otherwise her face would have turned fiery red as well - but his laugh showed her that she had hit the right tone.

‘Wow, she's even hotter than your aggressive Miss Cooper,’ John Hart said and nodded impressed. ‘Speaking of which, where is she?’

‘I hoped you could tell me, since you appeared so unexpectedly,’ Jack said. ‘There must be a reason that you came here just in this moment.’

‘Your shrewd power of deduction keeps surprising me, Jack,’ John Hart laughed. ‘There is indeed something I want to tell you. In the course of my, uhm, practises, I stumbled upon something I thought you should know.’

‘In other words: you're deeply enmeshed in it,’ Jack Harkness replied contemptuously.

‘Would I ever do anything illegal,’ John Hart asked and lifted his hands in an innocent way.

‘Yes,’ Jack and Rex Matheson said simultaneously. The man wearing a red jacket looked at Catherine angrily because she had to force herself not to giggle.

‘Well,’ he snapped, ‘do you want to know what I want to tell you or should I leave again? I can't stay forever.’

‘Oh, please, Captain Hart,’ Catherine said courageously, ‘if you can tell us something that will help us finding Gwen, we'd surely be grateful.’

‘That was my plan,’ John Hart replied, glanced at Jack and then smiled again. ‘A bit to the east of here you can find Parker Dam, a dam which ponds Colorado River. A natural Rift established there. It's not as big as the one in Cardiff, but it's active enough to get several things through. Alien drugs and weapons and Weevils. You can control them with those collars.’ He pointed to the loop Catherine still held in her hand. ‘I only know what's happening at the dam but it looks like something big is about to start. Weapons and drugs are brought to Phoenix, the Weevils were brought here to Vidal Junction.’

‘Do you know what they wanted with this,’ Jack asked and got the glove from the table.

‘Wow, how did it get here,’ John asked surprised. ‘They're usually brought to Phoenix. This really is a good catch for you.’ He stretched out his arm and Jack handed him the glove, even though he was reluctant to do so.

‘It's fine, Jack, I won't steal it - even though it's quite tempting to leave with it right now.’ Captain John Hart looked at the glove as if he was unsure whether to leave or not, but Catherine could see him deciding to stay. She inwardly gave him a bonus point and felt like Jack also did because he relaxed a bit.

‘This is a Triple,’ John Hart said. ‘It's much more rare than the common gloves. The others can mostly only be used for resurrection, but this one has a few other extras. Ready for a little demonstration?’

Captain Hart put on the glove and pressed the panel on the palm. In no time, a hologram showing a map with many small and red flashing dots appeared in front of him.

All of them came a bit closer and studied the map.

‘That's the surrounding area,’ Rex Matheson said.

‘Here in the warehouse are lots of red dots, some are in Parker and others are further in the north.’ Catherine uttered her thoughts. ‘Are they the Weevil collars?’

John Hart whistled through his teeth. ‘Jack, you should keep this young lady here in your team. She really can do the math.’

‘I already noticed that,’ Jack said and started smiling again. This sent one of those warm waves, which she knew pretty well by now, through Catherine's body.

‘So with this map we can see where exactly Weevils are,’ Matheson summed up.

‘And where there are Weevils, there's Gwen,’ Jack said hopefully. ‘Since they drove north, I think they're heading towards...’ He squinted his eyes to see the area in more detail. ‘Las Vegas,’ he said amazed.

‘What's this small blue dot,’ Catherine asked and pointed to a place on the map that was close to the warehouse.

‘Blue shows the controllers. They are coding units shaped like chip cards. You program the collars with them. With the base station on the glove here you can code the maps. The hologram says one of them should still be here in this building.’

Catherine wanted to answer him, but Jack briefly touched her arm so he could speak instead. ‘Why are you telling us all of this, John? Why are you harming your so-called practises?’

Captain Hart shrugged. ‘As long as everything was going on normally, I didn't think about it. But there has been more and more action throughout the past few weeks. I realized that something was going wrong when I knew that you were in the US.’ He grabbed the wristband at his left wrist and Catherine saw that it was quite similar to Jack's.

‘Maybe,’ Jack Harkness replied impatiently. ‘But why? Why are you helping us?’

‘You know why, Jack,’ John Hart said and his eyes had a sad glance. ‘I owe you something. I owe you more than I could pay you back in my life. Also, I might not take laws too seriously, but this doesn't mean that I'll watch when Earth is destroyed. Is that enough for you?’

Captain Jack Harkness nodded seriously. ‘Yes John, it is. Thank you.’

John Hart pulled off the glove and handed it to Jack. Then he opened the cover of his wristband and typed something into the control panel underneath it. He looked at the others. ‘Any further questions?’

‘Are you going back to the dam,’ Rex Matheson asked.

‘Sure, at least one of us has to hold the line.’

This answer even made the CIA-agent smile.

‘Good luck with finding Gwen,’ Captain John Hart then said. ‘I've got to go now. Got a hot date.’

He activated his wristband and within the blink of an eye he had disappeared in a bright blue light beam.

‘Well, I guess you can't say goodbye more dramatically than him. Nice toy,’ Catherine said slowly and glanced insinuatingly at Jack's wristband.

The Captain laughed. ‘Yeah, it is. But unfortunately, mine doesn't have all of the functions any more. A - let's call him a friend imposed some restrictions on me a long time ago. But even though I can't travel with it any more, it can still do a lot of stuff, right, Rex?’

‘As if ascertaining your body's degree of salinity was such a great function,’ he said.

‘That was only a - what do you call it nowadays? - an app,’ Jack laughed. ‘I'll show you a few impressive tricks at the next opportunity, Cathy.’

The way he looked at her whilst saying this made Cathy tremble inwardly and she could feel how she blushed.

‘Enough flirting for now,’ Rex Matheson said. ‘We've got work to do. Why didn‘t you tell him about the coding card?’

‘John doesn't have to know everything,’ the Captain replied. ‘Even though he seems to be on our side this time, it's better for him if he doesn't know everything.’

He handed Catherine the glove. ‘Here, I think you can handle it best. If Gwen's chip card still works, we'll find her with this. But never use it to touch someone.’

When they left the warehouse, they were blinded by the Californian sun again which was already low in the sky.

Jack put on his sunglasses and headed towards the CIA-van they would drive from now on. ‘Looks like we'll reach Sin City just in time for the vespertine glitter-appearance.’

‘Have you been to Las Vegas before,’ Catherine wanted to know.

‘Vegas is always worth a trip,’ Jack replied and winked. 

Fans Fiction Viva Torchwood by Doreen Freitag

Translation by Birte Schieder

CHAPTER 4

     After having parked the car they approached the destroyed warehouse. The road tanker had done a good job. The side of the building facing the road had a huge hole in one of the walls and pieces of something that had been molten beyond recognition were proof of the great heat that must have existed at the site. The building was surrounded by yellow tape and a couple of signs reading ‘Danger of collapse’ warned people not to enter the warehouse.

    Rex Matheson lifted the barrier tape and all of them approached the building. They could still smell the burning. With a movement of his arm, the CIA agent pointed them in the direction where he had found the corpses. One after another they entered the remains of the warehouse and reached the burnt room.

  Jack and Gwen had gotten out their flashlights and pointed into one corner of the room, where three corpses laid on the floor. Catherine had to cover her mouth with her hand and tried to fight back a choked sound. Comforting her, Jack put his hand on her arm.

  ‘We left those for you,’ Matheson explained and grimaced with disgust. ‘We've already had the others fetched up. Overall, we have found forty-six bodies in here, three were human and forty-three were your Weevils. No idea how they got here.’

  Gwen stooped over the corpses. ‘They're a female and two males. They seem to have worn some kind of collar.’

  ‘All of them did, by the way,’ Rex Matheson added. ‘But there's another reason why I wanted you to come here. We also found it in this room.’

  He stepped towards an intact metal table which was covered in grime and lifted the canvas covering the item which laid there.

  Jack inhaled abruptly and exchanged alarmed glances.

  There on the table was a glove made out of metal, which was free to move in every single piece of the glove. Also it seemed to have survived the fire with almost no damage.

  ‘You know what that is?’ Matheson asked astonished.

  ‘The Risen Mitten,’ the Captain said quietly. ‘I didn't think I would see such a thing ever again.’

  ‘A glove for resurrection?’ Catherine had understood the words and asked the question.

  ‘It's a vicious thing,’ Gwen answered in Jacks name. ‘I almost died from it once. And another one wasn't really lucky for Owen, either. So I wouldn't really say it's a positive thing.’

  ‘But this one is different,’ Jack said and approached the table. Catherine could see how the Captain didn't want to touch the glove. He had his hands deep in the pockets of his coat and only stooped over it with his upper body. ‘It looks much more filigree and agile and it has some kind of sensors at the fingertips and a control panel built onto the palm. The others didn't have that. Must be an update and I actually don't want to know all the extras this one has included. Pack it in and take it back to the headquarters with you. And be careful that no one pulls it on and touches a corpse with it - just for fun.’

  ‘All right, I'll tell Jim, he'll have everything arranged,’ Rex Matheson said and quickly left the room.

  Out in the sunlight again, they first squinted and tried to get used to the brightness of the Californian desert.

  ‘What else have you got?’ Gwen wanted to know.

  ‘There's a collecting space where we file more finds which haven't been completely burnt. I can show it to you if you want to.’ Matheson pointed towards the less destroyed end of the warehouse.

  ‘Have the people here already been questioned on the fire?’ Jack asked and while putting on his sunglasses, he turned his gaze towards the crossroads with only a few buildings.

  ‘No, until now we've had everything classified,’ the CIA agent replied. ‘I wanted to wait for you to come here.’

  The captain smiled meaningful, but only Catherine, who was standing next to him, had seen his amusement.

  ‘Well then I'd say that Catherine and me are heading to the supermarket,’ the Captain decided. ‘Maybe someone over there can tell us something about this issue.’

  ‘Okay,’ Gwen said, nodding, ‘I'll have a look at these finds with Rex, then.’

  ‘Come on, Scully,’ Jack smiled and offered her his arm. ‘Let's begin with this old-fashioned way of investigative work.’

  ‘I can't remember Mulder and Scully to be working with linked arms,’ Catherine, who had linked arms with Jack with a laughter, said while they left. Being close to Jack Harkness, it was easy to push the displeasing memories of the corpses in the warehouse away.

  ‘Well, that's what makes us two special. I like to handle things in my own way. But after all your hair looks a lot like Agent Scully's.’

  Catherine smiled back at him and they walked towards the crossroads in silence, their arms linked. Jack's face showed a grumpy expression when he looked at the huge white rooster on the roof of the mini-supermarket. Catherine figured it was supposed to show the range of articles, but in her eyes, it didn't really do its job well.

  ‘I hate chicken!,’ the Captain said and turned towards the entrance door.

  They entered the small and stuffy room. The market seemed to be empty, except for one person.

  A tall man with a muscular build approached them from the counter and stopped in front of Jack, his arms crossed. Chewing a gum, he gave him a once over. ‘Can I help you, sir?’

  They might not seem like a typical tourist couple, but Catherine couldn't think of a reason for this weird welcome.

  ‘No thanks,’ Jack replied, ‘we don't want to buy anything. We'd just like to ask you some questions.’

  ‘You'll also have to pay for those,’ another male voice said, coming from an adjoining room of the small supermarket.

  ‘Don't you get involved, Spiky! I'm doing that on my own.’ While he said that, the giant turned towards the adjoining room and Catherine could see a Beretta under his belt. She stepped backwards, alarmed.

  Jack immediately grabbed her hand and quickly pulled her back next to him. Addressing the man in front of him, he said: ‘We're here on behalf of the CIA because of the burnt warehouse over there. Did you notice anything unusual in the last couple of days?’

  ‘I think you're in the wrong place, sir.’ The giant's smirk became more and more self-complacent and Catherine could see the white chewing gum he had between his yellow teeth.

  ‘But you did notice that the warehouse was on fire, didn't you?’ Catherine asked uncertain and could feel how, all of a sudden, Jack was all tensed up.

  ‘Lady, I don't like to repeat what I said,’ the giant said and moved his arm in her direction.

  Jack immediately positioned himself in front of Catherine and stopped the man from approaching them by holding his hand forward. ‘Okay, keep calm. We just had a question and we're doing our job. There's no reason to go mad, okay?’

  The man stepped backwards. ‘So, if you want to buy something, then you're welcome to do so, but no one will answer your questions here.’ He turned abruptly and left Jack and Catherine in the room.

  After he had disappeared in the adjoining room, Jack and Catherine could hear parts of a muted argument.

  ‘I don't like this at all,’ Jack said and got his mobile phone out of his pocket. A moment later, Gwen was on the phone. ‘We need your assistance here. Looks like we stirred up a hornets' nest here.’

  The Captain had just finished his sentence when the giant entered the room again. He had pulled his gun. ‘Hey, what did I tell you, mister? You can either buy something now or you will immediately leave my shop, understood?’

  Catherine could feel her heart beating fast. So this was how it felt like when a situation was about to escalate and life was in danger.

  Jack grabbed Catherine's hand and pulled it up in the air, together with his. ‘Okay, okay, you're right. We're leaving now.’

  All of a sudden, the second man entered the room through the small door. ‘Hank, have you gone mad? You're ruining everything. We can't let them go now!’

  They could hear a car approaching quickly from the outside.

  ‘Shit,’ the giant shouted, lifted his gun and aimed at Jack. All at once, Catherine realised that the man was about to pull the trigger and instinctively threw herself between Jack and the man.

  Just like in slow motion, the man fired his Beretta. Catherine could feel how Jack pushed her away from him. She fell to the ground and was horrified to see how the bullet hit the Captain in his heart. Then he was catapulted backwards, hit the wall and lay there, lifeless.

  ‘Hank, you're such an idiot,’ the other man screamed and pulled the giant into the adjoining room. Catherine could hear them opening another door which must have lead outside. Then they left.

  ‘Jack!’ Catherine rushed up to him and kneeled down in front of him.

  A car stopped in front of the supermarket, the tyres crunching on the broken rocks.

  Steps quickly approached the entrance door. Rex Matheson and Gwen stormed into the room. They must have summed up the situation with one glance because they immediately focussed on the small adjoining room. They deigned to look at the Captain for a second time, however.

  Catherine looked at them in disbelief. Captain Jack Harkness was lying on the floor, dead, and they didn't even care?

  She stared at the lifeless face and could feel the tears coming.

  ‘Jack,’ she whispered and caressed his cheeks in despair. She didn't want to lose him before she had even had the chance to properly get to know him!

  And she was still alone with the dead man. What was going on here?

  ‘Gwen,’ she shouted, loud and demanding.

  Gwen finally turned around and looked like she remembered something she forgot to do. She exchanged a quick glance with Rex, which Catherine couldn't quickly interpret, and quickly came to her.

  She squatted down next to Catherine and cupped her tear-flooded face with her hands. ‘Listen, Cathy! Jack is all right! He'll be with us in a second again. Trust me, okay?’

  In this very moment, Catherine would have believed every promise that Jack wasn't dead, so she nodded hopefully.

  ‘Stay here with him,’ Gwen said. ‘Rex and I will try to find the men.’

  ‘Okay,’ Catherine whispered and put her hands on Jacks chest protectively.

  ‘Good,’ Gwen replied and smiled at her to encourage her. Just shortly after that, she had left the room with Rex.

  Catherine left one hand on Jacks shirt. She couldn't feel a heartbeat. But in the past few weeks she already had experienced so many unusual things, that she just hoped Gwen could keep her promise.

 

  She brushed Jack's hair out of his face with her other hand and tried to stay calm. It broke her heart to see his motionless face and his closed eyes.

  For a couple of - how it seemed - never-ending seconds nothing happened and Catherine started to doubt Gwen's words again. She started to panic. Tears streamed down her face and one fell from her chin onto Jacks lower lip. It lay there like a pearl and seeing that let Catherine become desperate.

  Then, suddenly, he woke up, breathing in deeply. His head bounced up and fell down again, but his eyes were open now. The tip of his tongue slid over his lower lip and he frowned, he must have tasted the salty tear. For a moment, he looked around as if he was searching for something or somebody. Then his eyes found Catherine.

  ‘You can't imagine how glad I am to see you,’ he said and smiled happily.

  ‘Jack! You're back again! I thought I lost you.’ Catherine laughed and cried at the same time and caressed his face again and again without really noticing it. She couldn't believe that these eyes looked at her again and that his cheeks got a healthy colour again.

  Suddenly his hands grabbed her fingers and stopped her movement.

  Catherine noticed what she had been doing there and could feel herself blushing. ‘I... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... I just...’

  Jack didn't reply. He lifted his hands to her neck and softly pulled her head down to his. When their lips met, Catherine felt like a light, golden flash just went through her body. Jack kissed her with such passion that thousands of small fires and sparks appeared in her body. She felt such an overwhelming stream of energy rushing through her body that she couldn't help but moan with surprise.

  When Jack eventually stopped kissing her, Catherine could feel her body glowing with energy. Just like every single cell of her body just had been renewed.

  ‘Jack, what was that?’ Catherine asked. She felt inebriated.

  ‘I think you call it a kiss,’ he smiled and his eyes glowed from satisfaction, like she had never seen it before.

  Catherine shook her head. ‘THIS wasn't just a kiss!’

  ‘Didn't you like it?’ he quietly asked.

  ‘Yes, it did,’ she said and caressed his face again. ‘And I want more.’

  ‘Aha. That's what you get from it,’ he jestingly replied and slowly sat up. When he looked into Catherine's eyes, he could see how insecure she was and added: ‘But I'll tell you something, Cathy. I also want more. A lot more.’ He ran his thumb over her lips and Catherine enjoyed the prickling that came from it. When he took his hand away, she sighed malcontent.

  He got to his feet and flattened his coat, while he examined the bullet hole in the cloth. He didn't look too happy about it. ‘But first we'll have to save the world again. Are you coming?’

  Catherine smiled and got to her feet as well. ‘Aye, Captain.’

  Jack pointed towards the door through which Rex and Gwen had disappeared before. ‘Through there?’

  ‘That's right,’ she answered. Before he could run through the door, she grabbed his hand and stopped him. He turned around.

  ‘Jack, does that mean that you're always coming back? Every time?’

  He took a deep breath and pulled her into his arms. She breathed in the flavour of the coat's cloth and patiently waited. For the answer she knew and feared.

  ‘Yes, Cathy, that's what it means. I'm always coming back.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘It's been far too long already.’

  ‘That's cruel.’

  He held her away from him and looked into her eyes. ‘Yes, it is.’

  For a moment she could see an unimaginable old agony which tore his soul apart, and shivers ran down her spine. When he noticed that, he closed his eyes and pulled her to him again for a deep hug.

  The sound of a gunfight from outside brought them back to reality. Jack grabbed Catherine's shoulders and said: ‘Stay here and call this Jim in Rex's office! If we called the local police, we'd have to explain too many things and who knows who else is mixed up in all this.’

  He pulled out his gun and exited the supermarket through the rear exit.