Torchwood: Slow Decay (10 page)

‘Does it come with instructions?’ Rhys asked.

Scotus laughed. ‘At least you’ve retained your sense of humour,’ he said. ‘I appreciate that. Too many people come through that door having lost all hope. They sit there, grey and dull, pleading with me to help them. You, on the other hand, still have a spark.’ He gestured towards the blister pack. ‘You take one tablet, with water, when you want to start losing weight, and the process will start. You take the other tablet when you have achieved the weight you find most aesthetically pleasing, and the process will stop. It really is that easy. You don’t have to avoid anything, like alcohol or drugs, but I would advise some changes in your dietary patterns if you wish the weight to stay off after you’ve taken the second tablet. My receptionist will provide you with a diet sheet when you leave.’

‘How does it work?’ Rhys asked. ‘I’m assuming… some kind of steroid?’

Doctor Scotus shook his head, and Rhys was struck again by those thin wisps of hair that seemed to float around his head like a halo. ‘Ah, trade secret, I’m afraid. The Scotus Clinic needs to protect its intellectual property rights in our revolutionary dietary treatment. It’s a cut-throat business, Mr Williams, and I do not intend that our competitors get a jump on us. Suffice it to say that they are a combination of plant-based esters and sterols distilled from a rare orchid that I discovered in the upper reaches of the Zambesi river. The orchid has yet to be classified by science.’

‘You’re an explorer?’

Scotus reached out for the framed photograph on the desk in front of him, and turned it around so that Rhys could see it. ‘I was, once,’ he said. The photograph showed a young man with long blond hair in a light khaki jacket and trousers. He was squinting, as if staring into the sun, and his face was glossy with sweat. Behind him, the background was a patchwork of different hues of green: leaves, vines, bushes, an explosion of plant life.

It took a few seconds for Rhys to realise that the man in the picture was Scotus. He looked only a few years younger than he was now, but he was at least twice the weight: his jacket and trousers were straining to contain the flesh inside, and his face ballooned out into a series of curves: cheeks, chin, forehead, all fighting for space on his skull.

‘My mission is to make people thin,’ Scotus said, ‘and my reputation is your guarantee. You’ve seen, from your friend Lucy, that the tablets work.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I couldn’t help but note from her records that the address we have for Miss Sobel is wrong. Do you know if she has moved recently?’

‘She moved in with her boyfriend,’ Rhys replied, ‘but I think she might be moving out soon. Is there a problem?’

‘No problem.’ Scotus smiled reassuringly. ‘It’s part of our regular follow-up process. We wanted to check that she was happy with the weight that she had lost. We do offer a money-back guarantee, you know.’

‘That’s good to know.’

‘Do you have Miss Sobel’s current address?’

‘I’ll get her to get in touch with you,’ Rhys said, cautiously. He thought he’d better check with Lucy first that she was happy with her address being given out.

‘Of course, she works with you, doesn’t she? Which reminds me – I forgot to ask. For the records. Where is it that you work?’

Rhys gave Doctor Scotus the name and address of the transport and shipping company, wondering why he felt faintly uneasy about it. Perhaps it was the eagerness with which Scotus typed the address into his computer, a half-smile on his face. Eventually, the Doctor looked up.

‘Thank you, Mr Williams. It’s been a pleasure meeting you. The tablets are yours – please feel free to call if you have any questions, or need any advice. You can settle up with my receptionist on the way out: we accept all main credit and debit cards. It’s a one-off payment – no ongoing commitment required. And, as I said, we do offer a no-quibble money-back guarantee. So far, nobody has taken advantage of it.’

‘Thanks for your time.’ Rhys reached out to shake Doctor Scotus’s hand.

He could feel Doctor Scotus watching him all the way to the door.

‘All right – what is it?’ Mitch said, weighing the alien technology in his hand.

‘It’s not a gun,’ Gwen said, ‘and it’s got nothing to do with drugs.’ She took a sip from her cappuccino. They were both sitting in a small Italian-run café not too far away from the police station. Mitch had a large mug of milky coffee in front of him. He’d asked for a strong white coffee several times, getting louder and louder, until Gwen translated it into a
venti latte
with an extra shot. The world was changing in ways that people like Mitch found it difficult to keep up with.

‘I’d already worked both of those out,’ Mitch said. His face still looked naked to Gwen, without that bushy moustache he used to have. ‘The question is: what
is
it?’

‘Some kind of games platform is the best we can come up with,’ Gwen lied smoothly. ‘We think one of the kids built it himself. You can see the design is completely different from anything Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo are putting out. It’s possible that the fight started over this, but it’s much more likely it started over a girl, or drugs, or something.’

Mitch grunted, still weighing the smooth, lavender-coloured object in his hand. ‘So why are Torchwood hanging on to it?’ he asked eventually.

‘We think it might contain some proprietary software. We need to download what it contains and check who the owner is.’

‘And that’s what Torchwood does?’ Mitch said, his face expressing his disbelief. ‘Investigates copyright theft?’

‘It’s a big problem,’ Gwen said, evading the question. ‘Lots of new software and Internet start-ups in Cardiff.’

‘All right. Keep us informed, luv. Did the video footage from the nightclub make sense?’

‘Just about,’ Gwen said. ‘I could see the device clearly, but not what they did with it or what they were saying. But it’s all grist to the mill. Thanks for making that copy for me.’

Mitch drained his
venti latte
in one go. ‘Warm milk,’ he complained. ‘They always make it with warm milk, these days. Tastes like something from a kids’ nursery. Look, I’ve got to get back. There’s a briefing on. Keep in touch, and if you ever want to come back…’

‘Thanks, Mitch. I appreciate it.’ She watched him weave through the closely packed tables. He’d been a colleague, and she hated to take advantage of him.

She turned her attention back to the device on the table. An emotional amplifier, Toshiko had said. Something that took emotions and boosted them.

She and Rhys could do with a bit of boosting. Everything between them seemed trivial these days. Where was the grand passion they had started off with? When they made love, it was comfortable, nice, friendly. When they argued it was as if they just didn’t have the energy any more.

Gwen ran her hand across the blistered surface of the device. She should be getting it back to the Hub before Jack realised she had taken it. She’d had a good reason, of course, and Mitch had learned nothing from it about aliens, or about Torchwood – but Jack frowned on Torchwood staff taking alien technology out of the Hub once it had been booked in.

And yet…

Gwen wondered what it would be like to make love with this device amplifying every feeling, every caress. What would an orgasm be like with this device accentuating the rush of sensation? What would it do to her? What would it do to Rhys?

Would it, could it, save their relationship?

She slipped the device into her handbag.

She was sure Jack wouldn’t miss it for another few hours.

SIX

The further one went from the central atrium of the Hub, the darker it got. Toshiko had been walking for fifteen minutes now, along tunnels lined with damp red brick liberally scattered with circular blemishes of yellow fungus. Lights had been attached to the ceiling at some stage in the past – by Ianto perhaps, or by one of his predecessors – and linked by cables. They cast a strong orange light in a perfect circle underneath them, casting long shadows from the small blemishes in the brickwork, and leaving pools of darkness halfway between each pair of lights. For Toshiko, walking along the tunnel was like walking through an eternal sequence of rapid sunrises and sunsets, days and nights in rapid succession, leading her either forwards in time or backwards as she moved: she wasn’t sure which.

It was a peculiar fantasy, and Toshiko wasn’t normally prone to fantasies. She considered herself a rationalist. Physics was all there was, as far as Toshiko was concerned: everything, in the end, came down to the movements of molecules, of atoms, of elementary particles and, ultimately, quantum energy twisted into multi-dimensional loops and strings.

She and Owen often had this argument, late at night, when there was nobody else around in the Hub. Owen tried to persuade Toshiko that her belief in quantum physics, loop theory and superstrings was itself a faith, given that she couldn’t actually buy them off eBay (and, as far as Owen was concerned, everything he needed in life could be bought online or obtained from a bar). In response, Toshiko logically proved to Owen that biology – the science he had spent his life following – didn’t exist, being partly biochemistry, which was just a branch of chemistry, and partly classification of forms, which was just stamp collecting. And chemistry itself was just a branch of physics because it depended on how atoms and molecules interacted. Owen got really tetchy when she got to that point in the argument, and either put his headphones on and turned the music up loud or just stalked off in a huff. And that left Toshiko feeling like she had lost the argument, because the last thing in the world she wanted was for Owen to stop talking to her, and that was something that physics just couldn’t explain.

Openings in the brick walls on either side of her provided glimpses of large, brick-lined chambers, some containing piles of crates and some row upon row of metal shelving filled with anonymous boxes. It was the Torchwood Archive; Ianto’s domain, where the various bits of alien technology that Jack and the team had found, confiscated or otherwise obtained were now stored. Not for any particular purpose, but just to keep them out of the way.

A shadowy figure stepped from an opening ahead of her, and Toshiko stopped dead, putting a hand to her mouth to suppress a sudden scream.

Gwen lit the aromatherapy candle in the centre of the dinner table. Sandalwood and cedar-wood: that should set the right mood, if the search she had done on the Internet before popping out to the shops meant anything at all.

As a thin trail of smoke drifted up towards the ceiling, she stood back and looked at the table. The sweet white wine was open and cooling in the ice bucket, the good cutlery – the stuff with the beech-wood handles which hadn’t come out of the cupboard since Rhys’s sister had come to visit the year before last – was on the table and the food was cooking gently in the oven. Chicken breasts marinated in lime juice and orange juice, then wrapped in Parma ham and left in an oven dish on gas mark 4 for three-quarters of an hour. The smell was making her salivate already, and the food still had a quarter of an hour to go. The asparagus was in a dish, ready to pop in the microwave when the chicken was ready, and she even had a little parmesan to crumble over the asparagus when it was cooked. It didn’t matter that Gwen thought parmesan smelled like puke and asparagus made her pee smell terrible; Rhys liked them, and this was all for him.

She crossed the room to the light switch and turned the lights down, just a little bit more, then went across to Rhys’s pride and joy, the stereo stack system that he’d bought, piece by piece, from an audio specialist in Cardiff, and set the CD going. The Flaming Lips burst from the speakers in a fanfare of confusion. Quickly she pressed the stop button and selected something quieter from the rack. Suzanne Vega; that should do. As the strains of ‘Luka’ drifted across the room she allowed herself to relax. Just a little bit.

Just two things left. One of them was Rhys.

She had texted him earlier, and told him he needed to be home by seven p.m. He’d texted back saying that he was in the centre of town on a job, but he’d be back on time. It was five to seven now, and she was beginning to get a little edgy.

Which reminded her. The alien device. She didn’t want to be edgy when that was switched on. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and held it, then let it out gently, visualising her tension flowing out of her with the breath. It worked: she could feel muscles that she didn’t even know were tense letting go and she could feel her fingers unclenching.

She had put the alien tech beneath the candle, in the middle of the table. She wanted it somewhere central, and that was the best place. It even looked like something decorative, albeit something one might buy from a seaside craft shop to remember a holiday by, rather than pick out of an Ikea catalogue. For a while she had thought of hiding it in the room, or beneath the table, but that had seemed wrong. Having it in plain sight somehow made her feel like she wasn’t actually manipulating Rhys’s feelings without him knowing.

Of course, explaining to Jack how wax had spilled on it was going to be tricky, but she had until tomorrow to think about that.

Gwen quickly ran her fingers over the blister-like controls on the ribbon encircling the device. Gwen had been listening carefully when Toshiko had been demonstrating the device, and she was sure she remembered what to touch in order to get a generalised amplification of emotion within a few feet of the device. All she had to do was think sexy thoughts, and hopefully Rhys should pick up on them. His sexy thoughts would echo back to her, and with luck they might not even get to dessert. Which was a shame, because she’d prepared a coffee crème brûlée, just in case. Well, she’d bought a coffee crème brûlée at the supermarket at least, and it had been expensive. Well, they were on a two-for-one deal, but it was the thought that counted.

Gwen took another deep breath. Was this right? Was she doing the right thing? In the short time that she’d been with Torchwood she’d seen what happened when people took alien devices home and tried to use them. It rarely ended well, and Jack came down hard on anyone who tried – but this was her and Rhys. This was their future. Jack didn’t understand, he didn’t have a life of his own, as far as Gwen could tell, but if Gwen lost Rhys then she would have lost the one anchor she had to the real world. Despite the risks, despite the danger, she had to try.