The Undertakers Gift (6 page)

The Hub was abnormally quiet. She could see Ianto watering the plants in the Hothouse; a dark, silent, ghostly shape beyond the glass and ferns and bottles.

She shivered again and stared at the old, complicated machinery contained in the base of the water tower. The mirror panels surrounding the Rift manipulator were covered in algae, and with the constant trickle of water it looked more like a botched plumbing job than a super-complex control system for a time and space anomaly.

It was Gwen’s turn to monitor the Rift sensors. Torchwood’s semi-organic computer system ran its own routine of checks and balances on the powerful temporal energies the Rift contained, but day-to-day data analysis required human consideration. She glanced at the photo stuck to her workstation, reaching out to touch it gently. No more Tosh. No more Owen.

And soon, no more anyone.

If this Undertaker’s Gift thing was as bad as Jack thought, then the three of them were up against the end of the world. Again. What was it the Hokrala lawyer had said?
A world of suffering?

Ianto stepped as quietly as a cat into the pool of light which surrounded her workstation. He stood as neatly as a cat as well, feet together, all tidy and groomed and contained. He carefully placed a fresh mug of coffee down on her workstation, making sure it was on a drinks mat.
Great
, thought Gwen.
He’s watered the plants and now he’s watering me. I am a plant.

‘Shouldn’t you be checking on our guest in Cell One?’ Ianto queried.

‘Shouldn’t you be checking that Hokrala writ?’ she asked. She looked at him and smiled sweetly.

‘Ah. Touché. Coffee took priority, I’m afraid. It usually does.’

‘That’s avoidance tactics.’

‘Psychologists call it displacement activity. Finding other things to do instead of the ones we should be doing.’

Gwen nodded thoughtfully. She picked up the mug and sipped. ‘Good coffee, Ianto.’

‘Slow-roasted Arabica. It contains natural antioxidants. It should help.’

She looked up at him over the rim. ‘Help with what?’

‘Sometimes it’s easy to slip into a poor frame of mind. In this line of work it’s hard not to become morbid. Drink the coffee and immerse yourself in work. Does it for me.’

‘O-kay.’ Gwen sighed and ran a hand through her hair, keen to change the subject. ‘Where do you think this Undertaker’s Gift could be, then? Somewhere in or around Cardiff, allegedly.’

‘How big is it, do you think?’

‘How big does a temporal fusion device need to be? The size of a house? A car? A football?’

‘A pinhead?’ Ianto blew out his cheeks. ‘We know
nothing
.’

‘I’ve set the Rift scanners to detect the kind of energy signature the computers say would be indicative of a temporal fusion device,’ Gwen said, tapping the keyboard array. ‘It’s got to be high-end alien tech, and it’s got to give off some kind of signal, even if it’s just a general power leakage. . .’

‘Any luck?’

‘Absolutely nothing.’

‘Tried anything else? A radiatory numospheric scan may show up something unexpected.’

‘Already tried it. Didn’t show anything.’ Gwen pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if that’s good or bad?’

‘You mean the whole thing may be a hoax after all?’

‘Or it could just be very, very well hidden.’

Before Ianto could reply, his earpiece alerted him to a call from Captain Jack. ‘Ianto? I’m coming in and I’ve got company. Get a detention cell ready, will you?’

‘Successful fishing trip?’

‘You shoulda seen the one that got away.’

TEN

Kerko flew across the cell and hit the wall, hard.

Instantly he whirled around, fighting, but the door had already slammed shut and the sound of bolts being thrown echoed around the chamber.

He pounded on the door, but it was useless. He was trapped. Imprisoned.

Jack Harkness walked calmly around to the unbreakable transparent fourth wall of the cell and regarded the Blowfish coolly.

‘So this is it?’ Kerko blazed. ‘A Torchwood dungeon!’

‘This isn’t a dungeon,’ Jack said. ‘It’s a holding cell. We’ve got dungeons if you want ’em, though.’

Kerko spat at him.

Jack watched the yellow sputum slide down the plastic and shrugged. ‘Missed,’ he said.

‘You kill my brother and I end up in the slammer,’ the Blowfish snarled in disgust. ‘How does that work? It’s not fair. It’s not justice.’

‘Torchwood isn’t an agency of justice,’ Jack said. ‘We’re here to salvage any alien or anachronistic technology that comes through the Rift. Flotsam and jetsam from across time and space, washed up on our little patch of beach. Or as we like to call it, Cardiff.’

‘Bah.’ Kerko paced angrily around the cell.

‘We try to keep the twenty-first century smelling – however slightly – of roses,’ Jack went on, leaning casually against the wall. ‘So we utilise, catalogue, store or destroy anything that doesn’t belong here. Where do you think that leaves
you
, Kerko?’

‘Shit creek.’

‘You got it.’

Kerko scowled. ‘You killed my brother, man. I’ll get you for that.’

‘Ain’t gonna happen, pal.’

The Blowfish pressed his scarlet face against the wall, right next to Jack. His breath steamed against the plastic. ‘I’m gonna kill you. That’s a promise!’

‘Y’know what I hate, Kerko? The smell of bad fish. The sooner we get you into the freezer the better.’

‘Up yours.’

Jack tapped on the glass. ‘I’ll be back soon to ask you some questions. Hope for your sake you’ve got some answers.’

And then he turned and walked away, leaving Kerko to smash his fists against the cell walls and scream for revenge.

Jack walked along the row of empty cells until he came to the last one. Gwen was standing in front of it, arms folded. She turned to look at him.

‘Blowfish hoodies?
Really
?’

‘Better believe it. One ended up under a truck, though. Messy. Kerko back there is understandably upset. It was his brother.’

‘Oops.’

Jack arched an eyebrow. ‘So when did you get so callous, Mrs Cooper?’

‘I can’t stand Blowfish,’ she replied. ‘Give me a Weevil any day – at least you know where you are with them. They don’t have an attitude, just bad breath and big teeth.’

‘Along with an insane urge to bite your head off. Some would call that attitude.’

‘Yeah, but they don’t
argue
with you.’

Jack laughed. ‘Thing is, we’ve run right out of Weevils.’

‘Still no sightings?’

‘Nothing for the last fortnight. It’s like they’ve just disappeared – or gone underground. I mean,
deeper
underground.’

‘There must be a reason for that.’

‘Could be anything. Right now I’m just glad we’re not having to spend time rounding Weevils up.’

Gwen pursed her lips, considering. ‘What are you going to do with your Blowfish, then?’

‘Well, short of having him stuffed and mounted – please, no jokes – freezing is about our only option.’ Jack frowned. ‘I want to question him first though, when he’s had a chance to cool off.’

‘What about?’

‘Recent Rift activity. Kerko’s one of the few things to come through in the last couple of weeks that we can actually communicate with. There’s been lots of stuff and a fair few aliens, but. . .’

‘You mean like our friend in Cell One?’ Gwen nodded her head at the nearby cell. ‘Mr Quiet.’

Inside the cell was a large blob of orange-coloured jelly, roughly humanoid in shape but transparent, and with no discernible features, organs or clothes. It sat, silent and unmoving, on the concrete bench opposite. If it had any eyes then they would probably be staring at the floor. It had been in the cell for the last seven days and hadn’t moved. It didn’t appear to need any food or sleep but it was quite obviously alive. The glutinous mass which made up its body shifted occasionally as a thick bubble of some kind of gas oozed slowly around inside it.

Torchwood had stumbled across the creature on a building site. Two workmen had died when they had poked the thing with their shovels – the jelly appeared to be electrically charged to a lethal degree.

Dressed head-to-foot in rubber – and probably not for the first time, thought Gwen wryly – Jack and Ianto had manoeuvred the creature to the Hub and led it, completely unprotesting, to Cell One. And there it had stayed ever since.

‘Still no response?’ Jack asked.

‘Nothing,’ Gwen shook her head. ‘Just a big, fat
zero
. Not a word or a peep or a squeak. I’m not even sure it
can
make a sound. Maybe it’s mute. Maybe it only communicates by telepathy, but I’ve run an ESP scan on it and it just doesn’t register, so it’s unlikely. I’ve tried talking to it, shouting at it, whispering, singing, signing, playing music, tapping, even reading the
Daily Mail
out loud, everything. . . But no reaction. It just sits there like a. . . like a great big jelly.’

‘Marmalade,’ said Jack. ‘Ianto reckons it looks like it’s made from orange marmalade.’

‘Shredless,’ Gwen agreed. ‘Shredless marmalade that carries a 50,000-volt electrical charge.’

‘Hey – maybe that’s what we should call it: Marmalade.’

‘Nope. I had a cat called that. Besides, Ianto wants to call it Eja.’

‘Eja?’

‘E-J-A. Electric Jelly Alien. Cute, don’t you think?’

‘He is, but the name isn’t.’ Jack tilted his head to one side, watching the strange, silent creature. ‘Anyway, I think I prefer your idea.’

Gwen was puzzled. ‘My idea?’

‘Zero. As in we know zero about it; it tells us zero; and the chances of anyone surviving contact with it are zero.’

They stood in silence for a few more moments until Jack cleared his throat. Gwen looked questioningly at him. ‘How are you, Gwen?’ he asked, with only slight hesitation.

‘Fine. Why?’

‘Missing Rhys?’

‘Of course. But at least the flat is tidy.’

He smiled. ‘How’s the Glock?’

Gwen raised an eyebrow, not expecting the question. ‘It’s OK. Good. Light weight, which is a bonus. Smooth. Easy to handle. Laser sights work OK. Ianto says he wants me to try it with some different ammo. Hollow points, thermium impact rounds, that kind of thing. Why?’

‘I want to make sure we’re all armed all the time right now.’

For the first time Gwen noticed that Jack’s Webley was in its holster. He never usually carried his gun in the Hub. ‘Worried about the assassin?’

‘I need to know that when it really counts we can all do the job.’

Gwen blinked. ‘You mean with a gun? You know I can.’

‘Sometimes it ain’t that easy.’ Jack took a deep breath. ‘Sometimes it isn’t in the heat of the action that you have to do it. Sometimes you’ve gotta look the enemy right in the eye when you pull the trigger.’

‘I know.’ Gwen frowned. ‘What’s this all about, Jack?’

‘It’s about being able to make the right choice. Between life and death. I need to know that we can all do that when it really matters.’

Gwen stared at him. Her eyes were big and deep and black, just like they had been in the dream.

ELEVEN

‘Hey, Ianto. Anything on that writ yet?’

‘Still working on it.’ Ianto looked up from a workstation and his eyes narrowed as he watched Jack sweep across the Hub. ‘Is that a tear in your coat sleeve?’

Jack looked down at his arm and fingered the thick grey material of his greatcoat. There was a short, rough slit next to his elbow. ‘Knife cut,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Blowfish fancied himself in a fight.’

‘Leave it with me,’ said Ianto with a tut. ‘I’ll fix it.’

Gwen followed Jack into his office. ‘What’s got into you, Jack? You’ve not been the same since the Greenway funeral.’

‘Leave it.’ Jack threw his coat down and slumped into the seat behind his desk. It overlooked the rest of the Hub via a large circular window. He stared out of it, pointedly not looking at Ianto, who was quietly and neatly carrying on with his work.

‘No.’ Gwen folded her arms. ‘I won’t leave it. All that business about making a choice – whether we could look someone in the eye and kill them. If you meant could
I
shoot someone in cold blood, then I’m not sure I could. It depends. It’s a decision you can only make at the time.’

‘I just want to make sure we’re all on the same wavelength, that’s all.’

‘You mean that
I’m
on the same wavelength. Or don’t you trust Ianto to make the right choice either?’

‘I trust both of you. You know that.’