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Flotsam & Jetsam
Disclaimer: Not mine
Note: Not betaed - if someone wants to volunteer, I'd be grateful
Chapter 1
Gwen splashed through the puddles on the walkway. Her flashlight illuminated nothing but more concrete walls, darkened by water. She stopped as she came to an intersection, peering cautiously around the corner she was on, then quickly in the other direction. Her hand raised to her earpiece. "I've got nothing here. Give me a direction."
Ianto's voice sounded in her ear. "You need to head North. Rift activity is increasing again, so keep a sharp eye out."
"Will do." She looked around again. "Ianto? I'm a little turned around. Which way...?"
"Left, then go right at the tunnel about 50 meters down."
"Got it." She slipped around the corner, gun in one hand and flashlight in the other, and raced on. The dim and infrequent lights in the tunnels started to flicker as she came to the next turn. She stopped with her back against the damp wall and cautiously looked around the corner. She tapped her earpiece again. "I'm getting electrical effects here - how are you doing? Any activity where you are?"
"Nothing here." Jack responded.
"Rift activity is starting to focus about 30 meters from you, Gwen," Ianto said.
"I'm on my way. Ianto, give me directions. Gwen, don't do anything until I get there."
She waited, peeking around the corner every few seconds as Ianto's instructions to Jack indicated his progress. It was a few moments later when she heard Jack again.
"Ianto, I took a wrong turn. Which way?" Jack's voice was stressed.
"No, you're showing right where you should be. Go straight ahead, the tunnel you're in dead-ends into the tunnel she's in. Turn right and you'll see her."
"Ianto, there IS no straight ahead. There's a wall in front of me." A half-second pause, and Jack spoke again. "It's not concrete. I don't know what it is. It may be an effect of the rift. Find me another way."
Gwen could hear Ianto curse under his breath as he rerouted Jack. She glanced around and felt like doing a little cursing herself. "Guys? There's light coming down the tunnel. Still dim, but it's getting stronger, and it seems to be from something big."
"Rift energy is spiking." Ianto's voice was urgent.
"Gwen!" Jack's voice cut across Ianto's. "Get out of there! Now!"
She turned and ran, holstering her weapon as she fled. 50 meters then left, she knew, only it curved in a way she did not remember, and unless she had missed it in the flickering light there was no tunnel to the left. She thought she had gone back the way she came. "Ianto! This isn't the tunnel I came down - where do I go from here?!"
"You're not..." Static overwhelmed Ianto's voice for a second. "...left, you need to turn... tunnel, the rift..."
"Gwen!" she heard Jack say, then there was nothing but static. She hurried on, hoping she could get far enough away from whatever was happening in the rift to re-establish communications. She tried to keep in one general direction when she had to choose at a junction, but was turned around by the twists and hopelessly lost. The static was a steady hiss in her ear.
She stopped at last to catch her breath and calm down, leaning against the wall. She jerked away almost as soon as she touched it. She knew what concrete felt like, and this was nothing like it. She reached out and touched it cautiously. It was slightly darker than wet concrete, and smooth; it looked almost like plastic, but felt closer to metal, without the coolness she would associate with a metal wall. It was nothing like she had ever seen before. She slowly shone her flashlight up and down the tunnel; it was the same plastic metal as far as she could see. She must have gotten turned around and approached the rift again - this had to be the same stuff Jack had run into.
The hiss in her ear suddenly rose to a painful roar, and she dropped her flashlight as she clawed it away from her ear. She gasped a second, wondering if her ear were bleeding from the noise, then cautiously lifted the earpiece to her other ear. She heard nothing, and put it back on and tapped it. "Jack? Ianto?" Nothing happened, and she wondered if communications were completely down or if her unit had somehow burned out. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to force herself to relax. She was spooked, not that she would admit it if anyone asked. Actually, she was pretty sure that if she could just talk to them she probably would not be half as anxious, but right now she was cut off and far too close to whatever was happening to the rift.
She opened her eyes and saw the reflected light of a flashlight heading in her direction from ahead in the tunnel. With luck, it would be Jack, but she knew better than to trust to luck in this job. She picked up her flashlight, which fortunately had landed facing away from whatever was approaching. She retreated down the corridor and around the corner of a crossing tunnel, turning off her light as she waited to see who - or what - approached. She eased her gun out of her holster and took shallow, silent breaths, feeling the adrenaline pumping through her veins.
It did not take long. She identified the gait as human, or at least humanoid, and pressed herself against the wall, head turned to see it as it passed. Human, she saw, as it moved into the junction, or close enough to pass as one. But not Jack, or some sort of maintenance worker. It - he - was male, as far as she could see in the reflected light, carrying some sort of flashlight analogue in one hand and something gun-shaped in the other. She held her breath, hoping it would continue straight on, but it started to look down the tunnel she was in.
She brought her flashlight and gun up, flicking the light on as she aimed both at the male. "DON'T MOVE!"
It would have been a little more impressive if he had not mirrored her moves, leaving both of them pointing weapons and lights at each other. Neither moved, each watching the other silently and waiting for the other to make the first move, or for backup to arrive. The male looked human, but the clothes labeled it as either alien, alternate timeline, or from some point in the future. It wore a close-fitting black top and pants, with something that was somewhere between a short sleeveless jacket and a vest over his top. A bracelet analogue twisted around his forearm, and silver glinted on his ear, on that little bit in front of the canal that probably had some fancy Latin name. Another patch of silver lay against the skin at the bottom of his throat, apparently unsupported, and glinted as his throat moved. Tense seconds passed, and then the sound of running feet came down one of the tunnels in the direction she had originally come from. Both of them tensed as the running feet moved closer.
"Hold your fire! Hold your fire!"
Relief flooded through her as she heard Jack's command. She shifted her balance back and risked a half-second glance in his direction. He was running toward the pair of them, long jacket flapping behind him, his gun out but pointed at the tunnel ceiling. She tensed again as more footfalls echoed from other directions.
"Hold your fire! Nobody move!" He stopped facing the side of the pair of them and panted for a moment. "Everyone just calm down, all right?" He waited a moment; no one moved. "All right," he said in the gentle voice he sometimes used when trying to talk out of doing something violently stupid. "Now, just give me your gun, nice and easy. No one's going to be hurt. Just give it to me and we can get all of this settled."
She did not move her eyes from the male, who did not move. She glanced at Jack, wanting to follow his lead on this - he was the expert.
He was focusing on her, not the male, his eyes concerned. His hand was out, making a gently coaxing gesture. And there was a patch of silver against his skin at the bottom of his throat, a glint of silver halfway up his ear, which had not been there before. His long sleeves hid most of his arms, although she could see the edge of his wrist strap, but the gun in his hand wasn't the Webley he had carried - that he always carried - when they parted company less than twenty minutes ago. He was carrying something that bore more than a passing resemblance to the gun the male in front of her carried. She abruptly was not at all relieved at his presence. She wondered if she was actually seeing Jack, or an alien wearing an illusion, or if he was a hallucination. Her gun hand wavered, moving an inch in Jack's direction before snapping back to cover the strange male. "What is going on here?" she asked in a low tone.
"Give. Me. The gun." He seemed fully focused on her, but his free hand flashed out in a stopping gesture as strange two women, dressed much as the strange man was, ran up. "Hold your fire!"
The women stopped, guns out but down, their eyes moving back and forth as they took in the tableau. Jack slowly brought his hand back down and out, reaching toward her again, as he slipped his own weapon back into his holster with the other hand. "The gun. Give it to me."
Gwen's eyes darted back and forth, her terror rising. There were so many possible explanations for what was going on, and if she chose wrong not only could she die, she could doom the others as well. If these were shape-shifters, nothing would prevent one of them from taking her shape and going back to join Jack, and getting into the base...
"GWEN! DO IT NOW!"
Almost reflexively, her hand moved and her gun slapped into his palm. His other hand grabbed her wrist and yanked her to him, his arms folding around her as he pulled her against his chest. "It's all right. It's all right."
She gasped, then stilled. He felt like Jack, he sounded like Jack, he smelled like Jack. She panted against him as her terror started to ebb. "What's going on?" she demanded again, fear and confusion lacing her voice.
"It will all be all right, Gwen. I'll take care of you. I promise."
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