This is a short establishing chapter. The next and subsequent chapters will be much, much longer. But now, something is happening in the Hub ...

Hide and Seek

The Start

"Get down!" yelled Owen, pushing Toshiko under her desk. He loosed off a shot then another before ducking down to join her. He quickly slammed another magazine into his Glock.

"I'm almost there. Just another couple of minutes," she said, typing furiously. She risked a peek at the screen on the desk above and an energy blast tore a chunk out of the wall behind her.

"Damn it! Will you stay down!" yelled Owen pulling her back. He got up on one knee and fired blindly in the direction of the blast before crouching down again. "Why the hell isn't Jack waking up?" he hissed between gritted teeth.

"I don't know."

The sound of gunfire echoed around the Hub and Owen risked a look up at the hothouse. He caught a brief glimpse of Gwen's head before she took cover below the tables to avoid the blasts that shattered the last of the glass walls. He hoped she had not been caught by the falling shards. Movement from the left caught Owen's attention and he looked over, gun coming up to fire if he caught sight of so much as a shadow of the intruder. His finger was tightening on the trigger when he realised it was Ianto.

"Ianto's up again," he reported to Toshiko who was still working her keyboard. "That head wound looks bad." Blood was caked down one side of Ianto's face but he was conscious and mobile and his Glock was in his hand; now it was three to one.

"Owen, can you hear me?"

"Gwen! I thought comms were down. Are you okay?"

"So far. Anything on Jack?"

"Nope, he's still in the pool." Jack had gone down first, blasted by the alien intruder at the start of the current stand-off. "But Ianto's back with us. Your five o'clock."

"I see him. Ianto, you hear me?"

Gwen waited but there was no response. She wriggled on her stomach over the glass littering the floor, trying to keep the piece of sacking underneath her, until she was right up against the wall and looking down on the Welshman. He was half sitting on the steps leading to the interrogation room and cautiously looking round the Hub for sight of the intruder. From the way he kept rubbing at his eyes and shaking his head, she guessed he was still not recovered from the blast that had winged him at the same time as it had killed Jack. She tried the comms again.

"Ianto, do you hear me?"

"Gwen? Where are you?" Ianto had seen Toshiko and Owen cowering in the work area and had assumed Gwen was down. Like Jack, who was floating face down in the murky water in front of him.

"Hothouse. Any movement from Jack?"

"No but I'm sure he'll be back soon." Ianto put as much conviction in his voice as he could, he had to believe that Jack would come back and save them.

"Sure he will."

"Until he does, what's the plan?" interjected Owen. "Toshiko needs another few minutes. Either of you got a bead on it yet?"

"My best guess, it's near the water tower," came from Gwen who had a bird's eye view of the underground base.

"The Rift manipulator," put in Toshiko. "It's after the manipulator, wants to open the Rift!" She put her head above the level of the desk to look that way and another blast sounded. It would have taken off her head if she had not immediately flung herself to the floor.

Shots rang out from all three of the remaining Torchwood operatives, targeted on the origin of the blast. They riddled the area with bullets which ricocheted off the metalwork but were rewarded with a shimmering of the air and a spray of deep blue ichor arcing slowly and rather beautifully to splatter against the water tower. Buoyed with this success, they continued to fire on the invisible alien that had invaded the base and terrorised them for the past quarter of an hour. Blasts of pure energy forced them back behind their flimsy shelters and they waited for a moment before venturing to look in that direction again.

Owen, who was closest, saw the difference first. "The manipulator, it's opened the access hatch!" he yelled, standing up and charging forward.

Gwen was racing down the metal stairway, gun drawn and a hoarse cry of defiance coming from her mouth as she sprinted across the lower level.

Ianto was on his feet, still shaky but not prepared to let the alien succeed in whatever mad plan it had in mind. He ran forward.

Toshiko picked up her Glock to follow Owen and in a brief second saw a bright white light pulse out from the water tower and envelop him. Next it got Ianto and then Gwen before it travelled far enough to engulf her.

And so the scene is set. What has happened to Owen, Toshiko, Ianto and Gwen? Is Jack going to be all right? Read the next chapter to find out ...