9.17 on a typically Welsh Wednesday morning. It was cold, it was raining, and Gwen Cooper was late for work. She shielded her mobile from the rain with one arm as she strode through the Plas towards the bay. With no free hand, her hurried breakfast, a golden slice of toast, was perched precariously between her teeth.
9.18. Jack would be doing paperwork, or prowling the Hub. Perhaps she could sneak in; Bypass the irritated glances he would undoubtedly resort to, rather than get into an argument.
9.19. She'd never be able to sneak around the guard dog. Bless him. Ianto would know she was late whether he caught her coming in or not though. He knew everything; a fact he never hesitated to share. Just as long as Owen didn't realise.
9.20. He'd really lay into her, despite the numerous times he'd come in late with a hangover and they'd ignored his incessant bitching and moaning. The cog door rolled back and she glanced around. No Jack. No Ianto. No Owen. One Tosh.
"Morning Gwen," she called from the workstation, glancing up briefly at first, and then double taking, "God, you're soaked. Can I grab you a towel?"
Dropping her toast onto a stack case files on her desk, Gwen pulled off her jacket and gave her hair a good run through with her fingers, "No thank you, Tosh. I'll be just fine." She replied, taking her seat and rolling over to Tosh's desk, "So what's Jack got you doing today?"
Tosh's monitor screen showed several layers of spiky lines that, if they were in a hospital, could've been mistaken for a heart monitor. However, unlike a heart monitor, the pattern on the spikes and troughs was completely random.
"He said there was some strange rift activity last night. Nothing to trip our alarms, but certainly enough to look into it," she explained, her eyes always fixed on the strangely behaving line, "The strangest thing is, that, we've tried to pin point a location, but whenever we try, it seems to come up with millions of locations; billions even, all over the world." A particularly large spike appeared on her monitor, and she quickly isolated it and sent the information to Jack, "It's not like it's an error either. Jack's checked and double checked the number of locations, and it's correct. Whatever it is that's come through the rift has scattered, or it's been here long enough to travel right under our noses."
"And if it has been here for that long," chipped in Ianto as he entered the room laden with a tray or coffee cups, "Then why has it suddenly decided to show up now? That's the question." He placed down two cups on the desk and smiled, "Hello Gwen, nice to see you. We were wondering where you were."
"Jack's not angry is he?" she asked, looking up towards the office which the pet pteradactyl had decided to roost on.
"He's too busy to be angry," sighed Ianto, "Trying to get more information on this irregular activity. No strange sightings, no CCTV, nothing from the police, no reports. Nothing. You're probably better to just leave him and help Tosh to be honest. Unless you want to dig and try and find something that may relate to all this?"
"I might just do that," she replied, rolling back to her desk with her coffee, only to find her breakfast was gone. A quick flick of her head, an observation of their work area, and she decided that the pteradactyl did look a little smug. So with a grumbling stomach, she set about searching the web for all things weird.
Before the team had even realised, it was lunchtime. This was the first time Owen had reared his sarcastic head from his lair. And it was only so he could retrieve his sandwiches which Ianto had picked up from the local bakery.
"BLT. Excellent. Just what the doctor ordered," Owen said through a chunk of bread, silently snickering at his own joke.
"Tuna and Sweetcorn sandwich, granary bread," sung Ianto, placing a neatly wrapped paper package on Tosh's desk, "Caesar Salad," another package found it's way to Gwen's hands, "And a lightly toasted ham and cheese baguette."
Jack swept the sandwich out of Ianto's hands, smiling gratefully as he did so. "Tosh, how's the rift activity monitor looking?" he asked, peeling back the paper and sinking his teeth into his lunch, "What did you get, Ianto?"
He grinned and held up a moderately large beef pasty, "I've been craving one of these all day."
Daintily brushing some crumbs from her lip, Tosh turned back to her computer, "There's still the same amount of signals Jack. It's clearly no harm to us."
"You know," drawled Gwen, finishing her mouthful, "I'm just curious, but are any of those signals here? In the Hub?"
Tosh felt a little bit silly for not thinking of that, and set about her keyboard, quickly focusing in on the Cardiff Hub. Four dots appeared, marking out the sites of rift activity.
"Are you sure it's not people, Captain Obvious?" snapped Owen, "You, me and the girls."
Ianto coughed forcefully, and when four pairs of eyes turned to him, he raised his eyebrows in a manner that seemed to say 'Where will you be getting your coffee from, from now on?'. Jack turned back to Owen, his head tilted in a scolding way.
"Oh yeah. Teaboy."
"I dropped your sandwich on the way back," Ianto said dryly, watching with carefully disguised glee as Owen's face turned and he slowly put the offending lunch item down.
"Anyway, back to business. Four signals from the Hub?" Jack said sharply, rubbing his hands together as he finished his baguette; and in record time.
"Um. Three."
"You said four a second ago Tosh."
She reloaded the screen. Still only three.
"Let me have a look at that," said Jack, clearly unimpressed by Tosh's counting skills. He reloaded the screen again. Three dots.
"There were four. Then three. Now there's only two. What's going on here?"
Ianto wandered past them all and carefully placed his rubbish in the bin, "You must've been hungry, Jack. You've finished your baguette already."
Jack frowned and glanced up to the half eaten tuna and sweetcorn sandwich just below eye height. "Tosh. Leave this with me. Finish your lunch."
Confused, but relieved, she grabbed the paper package and rolled away from the desk. Gwen threw her empty salad pot at the bin and silently cheered as it made it way cleanly in. Into rolled his eyes at her childishness, but couldn't help but smile. Tosh screwed up her paper bag and dropped it in the bin, watching Jack work at the computer.
"Two signals. I think I may be right."
"About what?"
Jack still looked unsure to Gwen and Ianto, but nevertheless, they were intrigued to know what the Captain thought he knew.
"You gunna eat that, Owen?"
With an angry glance at the sandwich, Owen pouted and pushed it away, "No thanks."
Shrugging, Jack grabbed it and made quick work of Owen's lunch. As soon as he'd brushed his hands on his trousers, he reloaded the screen. One signal.
"Hm. Rift flavoured."
"I didn't really drop it," confessed Ianto smugly.
After hearing Jack's final conclusion about the sourse of the rift energy, Owen turned to the coffee boy with an incredulous look, "Ya know, I'm kinda glad I didn't eat it after all."
"So where's the other one coming from?" asked Tosh, looking around curiously, "Isn't it shopping day tomorrow? There's no other food in the Hub."
"I bought my breakfast to work," admitted Gwen, "But I thought the pteradactyl ate it."
"What did you have for breakfast?" asked Jack, checking the floor.
"Toast."
At that point, the red lights began to flash, and the cog door started rolling slowly back. Being closest to the door, Ianto pulled out his gun and headed up the stairs, shortly followed by Gwen and Jack. They didn't see anything at first, but on closer inspection they noticed the slightly bitten slice of toast crawling across the floor. It moved in a similar fashion to a slug, a similar speed too. Jack bent down and picked it up between thumb and forefinger.
"Hello."
The slice of toast arched up, almost folding itself in half. Being a slice of toast, there wasn't much it could do to defend itself. Well, that was what Jack thought until it launched at his face and stuck with the force of a startled cat. Ianto and Gwen lunged at Jack, each grabbing two corners of the toast and pulling it away, needing much more force than they had expected, holding it as tightly as they could without breaking it.
Jack took several quick deep breaths, and looked down at the toast. "That's some seriously feisty cereal. Take it down to the vaults."
Jack had insisted that they set up some translating equipment in the vaults. Tosh wasn't entirely sure why, because she was positive that toast couldn't talk. But then again, before today, she'd been pretty positive that toast didn't try to smother people too.
"OK you, it's time to talk. Who are you? Why are you here? How did you get here?"
Tosh stayed by the translator equipment. By the vault entrance stood Ianto, Gwen and Owen. They couldn't be blamed for being curious since none of them had ever seen a piece of toast being interrogated.
"Answer me!"
There was a pause, and then, in a voice that hardly fitted a slice of toast, it replied, "I am Delalothope. My kind have invaded your planet to claim it as our own, and your people as our slaves."
Ianto laughed at this point, and Jack shot him a halfhearted glare.
"Who are your people?" Jack asked, catching Ianto's contagious laugh and trying to hide it.
The toast pressed itself against the clear wall of the cell, and this time Gwen laughed. It seemed so ridiculous. And yet, quite cute. She turned to Ianto and whispered something in his ear. They both laughed. This seemed to infuriate the toast, which undulated angrily.
"We are the Delphralopentepapenisians..."
"Aah. You guys," Jack replied knowingly, "This is a new look for you, isn't it?"
The toast shuddered and pounded the floor with what may have been it's feet, "Release me at once, arrogant fleshy one!"
"No can do. If your kind is here to invade, we should probably do something about it," Jack sighed, suddenly realising something, "We've had bread for years. Generations. Millennia even. Why haven't you taken over before."
"I have no reason to tell you our invasion plans...!"
"Gwen, eat him."
Gwen stepped one foot into the hallway and looked towards the cell.
"OH GOD NOT AGAIN!" screamed the toast, clearly traumatised by it's earlier experiences.
"Now talk, Loafy."
"OK! OK!" snapped Delalothope, falling into something that resembled a human sitting position, "We, the Delphralopentepapenisians, are a fearsome race of creatures, seeking to claim planets and enslave races. I found this place, and I thought that it would be the perfect base to take over this planet from. Our great warlords send out billions and billions of scouts all the time to find new places to conquer. The scouts germinate..."
"You're plants?" asked Owen, suddenly interested.
"Wheat, to be precise," replied Jack, "A crop that has been around since the birth of farming."
"It was your kind, your ancestors, that helped us begin to spread on this planet. Your 'farming' helped our kind procreate, building an army of scouts that would eventually send information back to the home planet to tell our warlords that it was time...but..." The toast bowed it's 'head', "There were some unforseen problems. Your kind seems to be quite resourceful. Once our scouts are ready to reproduce, you take them and make us into this...this...abomination!!!"
"It's called brea..."
"I don't care! It is frail! Your kind devour us before we can even start sending our messages back. Biting us. Smothering us in vile sticky substances. And the digestion - OH GOD THE DIGESTION!" He took a moment to calm, "You put us through unbearable heats, and yet it only makes us aware of the oncoming pain and suffering. Your kind are monsters!"
By this point, the whole team had internally cracked up. There was no way they could stop people from eating bread, or making toast for that matter. Who would believe that bread was actually made of sentient beings from outer space? No one, that's who.
"OK," muttered Jack, "He's what we're going to do. We're going to let you go."
The toast looked up, "Good! So you should."
The vault was unlocked, and Jack carried the toast from the cell, up into the main Hub. With an evil cackle, the toast leapt from Jack's hand and flew towards the exit, only to be caught in mid-air by the low swooping pteradactyl, tossed up and swallowed.
"And that's all there is to it," chirped Jack, brushing his hands together and smiling, "Evil beings always take advantage of a kind deed. And Myfanwy likes bread. Quite anti-climactic. Anyone want to go to the pub?"