Something in the Water (18 page)

‘OK,’ Jack agreed, pushing himself upright. ‘Let’s do it.’

‘We haven’t got time for a proper X-ray,’ Owen said as he operated the controls on the monitor. ‘This should do just as well, though. Ultrasound scanner – just like they use on pregnant women.’

They exchanged a look. Jack scowled, and Owen swallowed, turning his attention back to the equipment. ‘OK, we’re set.’

He took hold of the scanner, making sure there was enough flex on it to use properly. Then he nodded at Toshiko. ‘Open her top.’

Jack pushed the lapels of her lab coat aside and then pulled the neck of her top down away from her throat. Owen spread some clear gel around the skin of her neck and chest with his free hand and then placed the scanner against the flesh.

The screen showed a fuzzy mixture of lines and shapes like a particularly bad TV reception. It looked like nothing to Jack, who said so.

‘Wait while I get my bearings,’ Owen told him, twisting around so that he could check the view on the screen while he moved the scanner. ‘Ribs. Sternum. Thorax.’ He pulled a face. ‘Looks OK to me.’

‘Would one of those things show up on that?’

‘No reason why it shouldn’t, even if it’s very small. Which, judging by the thing that came out of Bob Strong’s throat, it won’t be.’ Owen moved the scanner into a different position, monitoring the result carefully as the grey smudges on the screen shifted and coalesced. ‘I can’t see anything,’ he said at last.

‘Can’t see anything as in you can’t tell, or can’t see anything as in she’s all clear?’

He shrugged. ‘As far as I can tell, she’s all clear.’

Jack frowned. ‘How can that be? She’s had all the symptoms. Hell, we all have …’

Owen switched the scanner off and put it down on the tray by the monitor. ‘I don’t understand it.’

‘That’s because you’re a man,’ said Toshiko weakly.

Gwen had circled right around the Plass and was now standing directly in front of the water tower.

‘Any sign?’ she asked, still scanning. The wind from the bay made her eyes water. She had to keep blinking to make sure her vision wasn’t compromised.

‘Nothing,’ Ianto’s voice sounded in her ear. ‘I’ve combed the area three times and run a face-recognition program we stole from the FBI. Anyone who’s even looked towards one of the cameras has been checked by computer, but no hits for Saskia Harden.’

‘She’s here somewhere, I know she is,’ Gwen murmured.

‘Very perceptive of you,’ said a voice behind her.

Gwen whirled around – but there was no one there. She stared at her reflection in the tower, rippling under the constant flow of water which slid down the mirrored surface.

A soft laugh tinkled like glass in the water.

Just for a second, Gwen thought she saw a face in the water: thin, sharp, silvery like a slug trail. She caught her breath, surprised, and then the face was gone, dissolving into the flow of the water like a mirage.

Gwen felt the hairs on her arms and neck stirring. There was something here, something unnatural. Something she should notice.

And then, with a slow, cold dread, she realised what she had missed. It was so obvious she wanted to shout, to kick, to scream out loud. But all she could do was cough, and point. ‘I can see you,’ she gasped, pointing at the fountain. ‘I know you’re there.’

And the simple realisation of it allowed her to see, to perceive, what no one else around her could. Standing on the paving slab right in front of the fountain, right in front of her, was Saskia Harden.

She seemed to be tall, although she was only Gwen’s height. She still gave the impression that she was looking down, though, with eyes that were as cold as the morning frost on a lawn. Her skin almost white, her lips wide and slightly parted. There was only a glimpse of darkness between them. She wasn’t beautiful, or even pretty, but she was striking. In a room full of gorgeous women, it would be Saskia Harden that all the men turned to look at.

‘Took you long enough,’ she said to Gwen. Her voice was as cool as mist.

‘Standing on that paving stone,’ Gwen muttered. ‘You’ve got quite a nerve.’

‘Works, though, doesn’t it? Not even you could see me – not even when you were looking right at me. What is it? Perception filter? Chameleon field?’

Gwen stood very still. She tried to concentrate, to gather herself, to ask the right questions and say the right things, but her head felt muzzy and her chest and throat hurt like hell. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked eventually.

‘Taking over,’ Saskia replied.

‘I mean here, now, at Torchwood.’

‘Checking out the competition, of course,’ she replied, casting a quick, cold glance up and down Gwen. ‘Can’t say I’m worried.’

‘We’re not competition. We don’t want to take over the world.’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe not – but you’re the only ones who will try to stop me.’

‘Sooner than you think,’ Gwen said, reaching behind her waist for her gun.

‘No.’ Saskia raised one long finger, curling it like a talon. Gwen felt herself stop, fingers barely touching the metal of the automatic stuffed into the back pocket of her jeans. She knew she should draw, knew she should aim and fire in one smooth motion, but somehow she couldn’t move. She had to see what the woman was going to say.

‘No,’ Saskia repeated. ‘Not advisable, dear. I can move a lot faster than you can. I’d bite your head off before you’d even got a hand on your weapon. And we wouldn’t want that, now, would we? I’m still picking dog hairs out of my teeth after all.’

She smiled – a wide, wide smile that told Gwen this was no human being. This was a creature capable of biting the head off a pit bull terrier. The lips had parted and for a second she saw the teeth inside – rows of sharp, uneven little spikes like clusters of dark knitting needles.

‘What are you? Where are you from?’

‘It hardly matters. It was such a long time ago.’ Without seeming to care that she was taking her eyes off Gwen, Saskia tilted her head slightly so that she could look briefly up to heaven. ‘My world disappeared – vanished without trace. I came here because I had to. There was nowhere else for me to go. Sad, but here I am. And here you are – but not for long …’

Gwen coughed, crunching up as the pain ripped through her chest, covering her mouth automatically. She spat the blood onto the ground between her feet, breathing hard.

‘Oh dear,’ said Saskia. ‘Not feeling very well?’

TWENTY-THREE

Toshiko’s eyes were blinking open. They looked raw, but she was fully conscious. Jack and Owen simply looked at her, open-mouthed. She raised a hand weakly, and Owen instantly reached out and grabbed it, holding it tight in both hands. Toshiko opened her mouth and said, ‘I … feel … all right.’

‘Well you look bloody awful,’ said Owen.

‘I mean … I’m alive.’ Toshiko took a breath and then coughed, painfully, and Jack, moving suddenly, helped her into a sitting position.

‘Boy are we glad to see you!’ Jack gasped.

Owen was frowning. ‘Here, what did you mean, “because I’m a man”?’

‘Wrong sex,’ Toshiko smiled weakly, pulling herself into a sitting position with some help from Jack. ‘I worked it out in the lab, but I … I just couldn’t go on … I was so tired.’ Her voice disappeared into a faint croak. ‘Mouth’s so dry.’

Owen gave her a glass of water from the sink. ‘Drink this.’

She gulped at the water greedily, wiping her mouth on her sleeve, trying not to gag or cough again. Then she put an air of professionalism on like a coat and said, ‘Check yourselves using the ultrasound.’

Owen switched the scanner on, and, not bothering with any gel, pulled open the neck of his shirt and placed it on the flesh of his throat. He coughed, and the image on the monitor spasmed in time.

Jack peered closely. ‘Still looks like a blur to me.’

Toshiko pointed. ‘No, look. There.’ She traced a fuzzy shape on the screen with her finger. ‘See that lighter patch? Hold the scanner still. Stop coughing. There! That’s it …’

The shape on the monitor suddenly came into a kind of focus. A grey, foetal shape. Like a tiny doll that had been pushed into a ball. As they watched, it moved slightly, changing position like someone asleep. Owen coughed again.

‘Homunculus,’ said Jack quietly.

Abruptly Owen yanked the scanner away from his throat and began to gag, turning to throw up into the sink. He coughed and spat out blood and a heavy amount of slime. ‘I can feel it moving,’ he gasped. ‘Inside.’

Jack grabbed the scanner and put it against his own neck. After a moment’s examination, the same picture appeared out of the grainy blur on the screen. ‘Me too,’ he said.

‘Because you’re male,’ Toshiko told them. She sank back onto the autopsy table. ‘I managed to isolate the alien cells. They’re formed by minute spores which lodge in the mucus membrane of the throat. They’re a kind of bacteria, but one that it is infinitely more complex and adaptable than any kind of bacteria on Earth …’

‘Take it easy, Tosh,’ warned Jack. He put an arm around her and helped her back into a sitting position.

She leaned heavily on him but shook her head. ‘There’s no time for that. I have to tell you all this. The alien bacterium infects the throat, causing the swelling and sores which it feeds on as it grows. But the spores require a certain chemical to begin the transmutation process – testosterone, and lots of it.’

‘So what are you saying?’ Jack asked. ‘It only affects guys?’

‘Yes, in a word. Both men and women get the symptoms – but only the male of the species goes on to fertilise the spores and grow a new homunculus.’

Owen boggled. ‘You mean I’m pregnant?’

‘Well …’

‘But I’m always so careful.’

Toshiko smiled despite herself. ‘It’s not technically a pregnancy, any more than it would be a pregnancy if a tropical fly laid its eggs under your skin and allowed you to incubate them until they hatched. The homunculus is more of a parasite in that respect. It uses you, feeds off you, and then, when it reaches maturity, it emerges.’

‘Killing the host,’ Owen realised.

‘Wait a sec,’ Jack interrupted. ‘Maturity?’

Toshiko nodded weakly. She was still far from well, but she was pushing herself to make the report, her voice hoarse and cracking as she spoke. ‘The alien mucus cells multiply at an incredible rate … completely unlike anything found on Earth … The creature that grows is alien, but it takes on many of the aspects of its host’s DNA – not incorporating it but copying it. Using it like blueprints or plans, if you like. So at a very basic level it has two arms, two legs and a head simply because its host does. But what finally emerges is not an infant. It’s mature, but just not fully grown. A true homunculus.’

‘But it carries on growing,’ Jack said. ‘We saw it happen – that thing Bob Strong threw up, it was really small, but when Gwen saw it outside it had grown two or three times as big in minutes.’

‘That’s about it, yes.’

‘So there’s another fully grown one of these things out there,’ Owen said.

Jack was already running up the steps out of the Autopsy Room. ‘Ianto! What’s going on with Gwen?’

Ianto turned to look at Jack as he bounded up to Toshiko’s workstation. ‘It’s not good. Gwen’s found Saskia Harden …’

‘What?’ Jack bent over the desk and peered at the monitor screen, which showed a view outside the Hub – directly above them, in fact, right in front of the water tower. Gwen was standing talking to a blonde woman in a raincoat.

‘She’s … unusual,’ Ianto conceded.

Jack raised an eyebrow. ‘I like unusual.’

‘Well, I know that, but …’

‘She is kind of cute, though, isn’t she?’ Jack grinned wolfishly at him. ‘In a bite-your-head-off way.’ Then the smile died in an instant, his jaw hardening. ‘And I mean that literally. She’s a stone-cold killer, Ianto, a vicious predator from another world. She’s made from bile and snot and blood and stagnant water, but she can make it look any way she wants.’

‘Like sugar and spice and all things nice,’ Ianto murmured, fascinated.

‘Yeah.’ Jack was suddenly overtaken by severe chest cramps and a harsh, tearing cough. He collapsed onto the desk, slid to one side, doubled up in pain. The blood bubbled on his lips. ‘Ah, hell …’ he groaned, spitting it away. ‘It’s getting bad …’

Ianto was coughing too. ‘I … I can feel it in my throat … moving, squirming around … I want to cough it up but I can’t.’

‘Don’t worry, you will,’ Owen said as he joined them. ‘When it’s good and ready it’ll come all right.’

Toshiko arrived, shooing Ianto out of her seat and taking her place at the keyboards. She scanned the screens with an expert eye.

‘What are you doing here?’ asked Jack. He was leaning against the rail like a boxer on the ropes. ‘Tosh, you have to rest …’

‘She can’t rest,’ Owen said. He was sinking to his knees by the workstation. ‘We need her.’

‘I have to find out how to stop the homunculus growth in the three of you,’ Toshiko said weakly. ‘If we leave it too long you’ll die. Or at least Ianto and Owen will. Who knows how it will affect you?’

Jack shrugged, and Owen said, ‘So leave her to get on with it, if you don’t mind …’

Jack nodded at the monitor showing Gwen and Saskia. ‘What’s going on with those two? Can we get sound?’

Ianto reached over and pressed a switch, and Gwen’s voice was channelled through the speaker system.

‘I’m not scared of you,’ Gwen said.

Saskia smiled. ‘Yes you are. I can see you trembling.’

‘I’m ill.’

‘I know. But don’t worry. It’ll soon be all over.’

There was a tiny crackle in Gwen’s ear. She tried not to flinch as she heard Ianto’s voice. ‘Gwen. We can hear every word. But listen – Tosh is all right. I repeat, she’s all right.’

Then, before she could take the news in, she heard Jack’s voice. He sounded tired and weak, almost unrecognisable as his words slurred into her ear: ‘Tosh isn’t infected, Gwen, and neither are you. It doesn’t affect women. Only us guys.’ There was a long, scraping cough. ‘Man flu, eh?’

Gwen smiled, and stood a little straighter. Her hand moved behind her back and gripped the butt of her gun.

‘Naughty,’ said Saskia warningly.