Chapter 1

Golden, evening sunlight blazed at the top of the Grand Canyon, North Rim wall, shining like a beacon in the dim twilight of the Bright Angel Canyon. The sound of running water could be heard echoing around the rock walls, coming from the Bright Angel Creek, as it made it's way to the Colorado River. The only people in the valley, were two, dark skinned women, who wearily 'flumped' down onto one of the picnic benches at the Cottonwood Campsite, shrugging off their rucksacks. They took out their water bottles and eagerly took mouthfuls of the refreshing water.

Trish Jones had arranged this trip for her little sister, Marla, after passing her exams and becoming a doctor. The whole family were so proud of her, and after the years of hard work and study, she wanted her to get away from it all for a week before she started her clinical placement at The Republican Hope Hospital in London.

Marla reached over and held her sister's hand. "That was one hell of a hike, but God was it worth it to see that view," she said, looking up the valley at the canyon.

"Yeah, isn't it just, I'm glad I applied for the backcountry permit when I did, apparently they go like hot cakes."

"So you arranged all this before I even took my exams?"

"Well yeah, I always knew my little sis' would make it."

"I wish you'd have told me you knew I was going to pass, 'cos I sure as hell didn't."

They both laughed, and Marla nodded at the rucksacks. "We'd better get the tent up; it gets dark and cold pretty quick when the sun goes down."

They quickly put up the 'sprung' tent, which had pre-formed wires that unfolded into the shape of the tent, and fastened it down to the earth with hooks and guy ropes. That done, they put down the foam mattresses with their sleeping bags on top.

"There, set for the night," Trish said with a satisfied smile.

Marla had hung the rucksacks on the T-pole, and put the food in the metal box by the picnic table, before rummaging through to see what they could have for supper. Trish was assembling the small Primus stove, ready to boil some water for a cup of tea, and cook whatever Marla brought to the stove.

"Bread rolls and sausages, how's hotdogs sound?" Marla said, sitting down next to her sister in the tent opening.

"Brilliant!" She made two cups of tea, and then put the frying pan on the stove to cook the sausages. They drank their tea whilst the sausages were cooking, and Marla stood up and wandered over to the creek, where she'd put some cans of beer in the water to chill them down. When she returned to the tent, Trish was just putting the sausages into the rolls, when she saw the refreshments on offer.

"Hah! That's perfect."

They ate their hotdogs, and drank their beer as they chatted and looked over the guide brochure to hiking the North Kaibab Trail.

"So, we've seen the Roaring Springs on the way down, tomorrow we should see the Ribbon Falls, it looks fabulous," Marla said, showing her the pictures in the brochure.

Trish agreed with her, and they carried on drinking their beer and chatting about everything that close sisters talked about. When they had finished, it was dark, and the sky was cloudless. Being from the city, they had never seen a night sky with no light pollution, and they both gasped in wonder at the clarity of the stars and nebulae

"Oh my God, it's beautiful," Trish said. Marla was too awestruck to speak. "LOOK! Shooting stars, quick, make a wish."

And Marla did make a wish, she wished that this special moment she was sharing with her sister would never end. "C'mon, let's lie in our sleeping bags and watch the sky," she said, and they slipped off their hiking boots and padded body warmer jackets, and wriggled into their warm cocoons.

After a few hours of oohing and aahing at the celestial show, the air got really chilly, and it was time to zip up for the night. Trish slipped her boots and jacket on and went to the small toilet shack on the other side of the small campsite. When she came back, Marla did the same to empty her bladder for the night.

When she came out of the shack, she noticed a bright glow behind a rocky outcrop where the creek made a ninety degree turn. She knew from the brochure, that some people did night hikes along the trail, and presumed it must be some of those. Why were they using that bright a light though? Was there an emergency? Maybe they needed some medical assistance.

She thought about disturbing her sister, but there again, it might be nothing, so she decided to have a look first of all and see if she could offer any assistance. She laced up her boots, and set off with her torch in hand, to walk the few tens of yards, to look around the bend.

Torchwood South Tower, New York.

Special Operations Despatch Office. 03:55 hours EST.

"Todd, we've got an alert from the emergency phone at Cottonwood Campsite in the Grand Canyon, and radio communications from a ranger at the Pump House Ranger Station," Steven Adams told the shift supervisor.

Todd Hunter walked over to the high tech communications desk. "What's the alert?"

"Missing woman, a doctor, hiking with her sister. Went to the toilet and never came back."

"Damn, not another missing person, that's the fourth one this month."

"Ah, these women are foreigners, Peoples Republic of Great Britain."

"Right, get a team on the airship, and get over there ASAP. Also, check the satellites; see if one was over the area, we might get lucky. I'll contact our colleagues in London and see what they can find on these women, see if there's a reason why one of them would go missing, although I doubt it."

He went through to the supervisor's office, sitting down at the desk and speed dialling Torchwood One at Canary Wharf in London. Andy McNab's face appeared on the video phone.

"Todd, good to see you, how's your father?" Andy said cheerfully, they were just on change of shift as it was 08:00 in London. Todd's father was Gene Hunter, head of Special Operations in New York, and Andy's counterpart over there.

"Hi Captain; Pop's fine thanks, he'll be on duty at 08:00. I'll get straight to the point Captain, we've just had a report of another missing person in mysterious circumstances, and I know you've got a couple of agents in the field investigating alien abductions."

"Oh, right, what have you got?"

"A young British woman disappeared from a campsite in the Grand Canyon, right from under her sister's nose."

"Any details?" Andy asked, pressing a button on his desk that changed their status to amber.

"Steve on Despatch is just talking to the ranger who took the emergency call; I'll put us on conference…. Steve, I've got Captain McNab on the line, can you recap what we know."

"Ranger Kovac, can you repeat what you just told me for my supervisors please," Steve asked.

"We received an emergency call at about a quarter to one Mountain Standard Time, from a distraught woman with a British accent. She said she had fallen asleep while her sister went to the toilet shack. She woke up around half twelve, realised she wasn't in the tent and went looking for her. When she couldn't find her she used the emergency phone."

"Do we have an I.D yet for the missing woman?" Todd asked.

"Marla Jones, a newly qualified doctor, on vacation after passing her exams. Her sister, Trish Jones reported her missing, both women are from London," Ranger Kovac said.

"Good work Ranger," Todd said. "We'll be in touch, Steve, any luck with the satellites?"

"Yes, believe it or not, there was one right over the Canyon at the time; I'm just downloading the data now."

"Great news Todd, I'll get Chrissie to review the data, it might be the break we've been waiting for."

Location: Unknown

Time: Unknown

Marla opened her eyes, and wasn't sure if they had obeyed, it was still pitch black darkness. She blinked, and it was still pitch black, no help there then. Her ears were working though, she could hear a humming sound coming from all around her, and her sense of touch was working also, she could feel the smooth floor she was sitting on was gently vibrating. What all that meant though, she had no idea.

She got onto her hands and knees, and started to crawl forwards, hoping to find something familiar that she could relate to. She had a flashback to the Cottonwood Campsite, and the bright glow coming from around the bend in the creek. She stopped crawling and knelt down when she realised what she had seen around that bend.

"Oh my God!" she gasped. "It was a flying saucer!" That's all she could remember, before opening her eyes on the blackness here. But that was ridiculous, there were no such things as aliens and flying saucers. Even that thing all those years ago with the Cybermen, they were man made, and the stars going out, wasn't that some sort of natural phenomenon in the atmosphere?

She continued her crawl for another couple of feet and 'clunk'; she hit her head against something. Putting her hand up and feeling, she realised that it was a wall, presumably of a room that she was in. She put her ear against the wall, and was certain she could hear some kind of guttural clicking and jabbering, as though someone were speaking in a bizarre language.

Without warning, the background hum increased in volume and pitch as she was pressed against the wall by her own weight. Whatever kind of room she was in, it was accelerating at high speed. The pressure eased off as whatever kind of vessel the room was in, stopped accelerating, and cruised at a constant speed.

And then, sometime later, she wasn't sure how long, maybe an hour, maybe two, she slid along the floor, and bumped into the opposite wall as the vessel apparently decelerated.

'Why has someone gone to all this trouble to make me think I've been abducted by aliens?' she thought to herself, convinced that she was on an airship. What happened next though, would take some explaining with conventional wisdom. He eyes started to see light, a hazy, blurring light that surrounded her body, and then she was sitting in a small, featureless grey walled room.

"Do you speak English?" a soft, friendly female voice said. "Parlez-vous français...? ¿Habla usted español…? Sprechen Sie Deutsch...?"

As she blinked against the unfamiliar light, it took her a while to realise what was going on, the woman wanted to talk to her.

"English…, I speak English," she told the disembodied voice, as she stood up.

"Language identified, Sol Three, English. No further speech is required from you. Please cooperate with all instructions, you will not be harmed, but failure to comply will result in punishment."

"But where am I, what's going on…."

"No further speech is required from you. Please stand still with your hands by your sides."

"Why, what's going to happen?"

"No further speech is required from you. You will not be harmed during the induction."

"Induction…?" Three mechanical arms lowered from a metre diameter disk on the ceiling until the ends were at her waist height.

"No further speech…." The arms started to rotate around her, emitting a web-like material that started to wrap her body in a tight cocoon, holding her in place, by three strands from the mechanical arms. "... Is required from you."

Marla screamed. "What's happening? HELP! HELP!"

"No further speech is required from you. You are now safely immobilised for the placement of the obedience collar."

"What obedience collar? There's been a mistake, I…."

"No further speech…."

"Is required from me, I know, you said. Will you stop saying that?"

"... Is required from you."

Three more arms, only about a foot in diameter this time, started to descend. They were supporting a ring of gold metal, which was approximately three inches wide, which went over her head, and rested on her shoulders. The arms dropped the ring and retracted back to the ceiling, as the ring contracted towards her neck.

'Oh my God, they're going to strangle me', she thought and started to scream. She couldn't struggle, because the cocoon wouldn't let her. The gold ring gently fitted itself around her neck, and stopped at a snug fit. She stopped screaming, when she realised that she wasn't going to be choked.

"Obedience collar in position; obedience collar is now active. Any failure to comply will now be punished."

"Really?" she said sarcastically. "Do your worst."

There was a jolt in her neck, the kind you get from a static discharge, which made her yelp. 'Okay', she thought, 'Maybe I'll shut up for a bit'.

She felt a soft sponge press into her back and turned her head to look, as the black mattress lifted her feet and lowered her head to form a floating bed. A circular doorway opened in the wall, and she started to move feet first through the door, turned left, and moved down a featureless, grey corridor. Another round hole opened in a wall and she passed through into a room she could only describe as a zoo.

She floated past cages, six feet square and made of hexagonal shaped mesh that formed holes that were six inches in diameter. That wasn't the worst of it though, because the cages contained all manner of creatures from her nightmares. Scaly, furry, red, green, blue, grey..., human.

A round hole opened in one of the cages, and her 'bed' floated in head first, coming to a rest, two feet off the floor. She just lay there, in shock, trying to think of a rational explanation for what was happening. An elaborate practical joke? It certainly wasn't funny. A science fiction film's special effects, but what the hell was she doing in the film?

She looked to her right, and saw a naked woman with green, reptilian skin, wearing a rather fetching metallic blue collar, who was squatting over a hole in her cage, having a pee (charming). To her left, there was a young blonde woman, sitting cross legged and naked except for a diamante collar. The special effects department must have overrun the budget, because she was just an ordinary human girl…, who looked vaguely familiar.

It was her face that caught Marla's eye, she had her mouth open, and was looking at her in astonishment, as though she knew her and was amazed that she was here…, wherever here was? When she turned her head, she realised that the cocoon around her shoulders wasn't as tight as before, and started to strain against it. Yes, it was starting to dissolve, she could feel it, it was starting to creak and crack.

With a satisfying splitting sound, she managed to pull her right arm free, noticing that the sleeve of her lumberjack shirt was no longer there. 'Uh-oh', she thought, as she managed to pull her left arm out and the same thing happened. The web of the cocoon was now crumbling, and so was her clothing with it, by the time she'd brushed the last of the web off her, she was naked and very self conscious.

"What kind of perverts are they?" she said, and immediately got a jolt from the collar. "Aaargh."

She heard a cup banging on a cage and looked over to the blonde who was making a cutting gesture across her diamante collar, and putting her finger to her lips in the universal gesture of 'shush'.

{"Hi,"} she mouthed silently. {"I'm Rose."}