Jack was gobsmacked. There just wasn't another word for it. When you work closely with the Rift, you should get used to the abnormal, should know never to take anything for granted. But this? From someone who appeared to be 21st century Earth human, simply displaced by a decade in time and an ocean in geography? I mean, he MIGHT have expected it from a weevil, or even from Myfanwy (he hadn't, of course, but they were alien enough that if it HAD occurred to him that it was possible, he might have expected it from one of them). But some things were just universal. It was like discovering that you could use ice cubes to start a fire.
He couldn't help it. He stared.
"You don't like Ianto's coffee?"
The woman at least had the good grace to look embarrassed.
"That was rude, wasn't it?"
She turned to Ianto, who was also staring at her in shock.
"Sorry," she smiled sheepishly "It really was really good, for coffee. It's just, it's coffee and I never could get a taste for it."
Ianto was opened his mouth, and then shut it again - doing a remarkable imitation of a large-mouthed bass.
She cringed a little - what was her name? Jamie, wasn't it? Yes, Jamie. He'd at least gotten that from her before she'd blearily asked for coffee.
"Well, I mean I got it down." On the defensive now? Good, she should be. "Never drunk a full mug of it before unless it was mocha, so that's got to be…"
She broke off.
"I'm just digging a hole, aren't I?"
Jack struggled to find the right words, but all that could come out was what he'd said before.
"You don't like Ianto's coffee? But… it's practically orgasmic!"
"Careful sir, that's harassment."
At least Ianto seemed to have recovered his composure - of course when WASN'T Ianto Jones composed and professional?
Jamie (if that was her name) rolled her eyes - at Jack's stammered reaction, or at Ianto's response? Didn't matter.
"Yeah, well, I don't really like sex either. I'm not exactly normal, never said I was."
Wait, she didn't like sex either? That's right, she'd something about being asexual when Owen was being obnoxious when she'd first come through. But Ace wasn't completely abnormal - not really any rarer than being omnisexual like Jack himself.
"Besides," she continued "I did just tell you I dreamed about you wearing a squirrel costume."
That's right, she did, didn't she?
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Jack glanced at Ianto, who smirked at him - probably at the bizarre imagery her words conjured up.
"I'm sorry. That wasn't very professional."
She turned back to Jack. Before, she'd been slumped forward, eyes barely opened, maybe even swaying a little. Now she sat upright, self-contained and composed, calm and alert.
"Can we start again, pretend the random dream slash coffee dissing bit didn't happen?"
She turned again, handing Ianto the empty mug. She smiled - a smile universal to tourist guides and restaurant hostesses.
"Sorry Ianto. It really was good."
Ianto raised an eyebrow - calling her on her white lie, since she'd already made it clear the coffee hadn't actually appealed. She still smiled, but now there was a touch of embarrassment, self-deprecation.
"Made well, anyway."
Ianto nodded. This he could accept - everyone knew it was true anyway.
"And I think it's working now. So, thanks."
Ianto took the mug.
"Right, well."
He gave her a small half-bow. Typical Ianto.
"I'll leave you to it then."
Ianto left, and the woman turned back to Jack.
He probably should have been pulling himself together while she and Ianto had exchanged… whatever it was they exchanged. But he was still thrown off guard.
"You… don't like Ianto's coffee?"
The woman sighed - reminding Jack a little too much of a childhood schoolmistress he'd once had.
"Well, whether I liked it or not, it is working."
She smiled at him.
"So thanks. Now, you said we had to talk?"
Right. Of course. He'd been so gobsmacked by her reaction to the liquid gold that Ianto had gotten for them (she'd actually finished her mug and said "blech"! How was that even possible?) that he almost forgot why she was in his office in the first place.
"Ok. Um. Yes, well"
Damn it. He was the leader, the hero. She wasn't even in her own world. It was his job to look after any of the refuse that came through the Rift, he shouldn't be stammering like a flustered schoolboy.
"So, you came here through a Rift in time and space. A spaciotemporal Rift."
"Yes, I suppose I did."
This wasn't going well. He was the expert - she should be confused and he should be explaining, helping her work her way through this massively life-altering event - not asking her as if he were confirming which plane she'd flown in on. Fine. If he couldn't carry this interrogation himself, he'd put it on her. He took another deep breath. Squared his own shoulders.
"So, Jamie, right?"
"Yeah."
"Tell me what you know."
She cocked an eyebrow up, and he could have sworn that she must be related to Ianto.
"What I know?"
She smirked - smirked was the wrong word, but the right one wouldn't be coined for another four centuries - and he'd forgotten it anyway.
"Well, let's see. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. And God said 'let there be light,' and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and he called the light day and the darkness he called night, and there was evening and there was morning, the first day."
Seriously? She was reciting. She was reciting...something, anyway. Jack had never been particularly interested in religion, but he was pretty sure that was one of the creation myths. The Christian one, maybe? He vaguely remembered that the first words of the Holy Bible (did anyone actually CALL it that? Every bible he'd ever seen had those words stamped on the front, but…) were "in the beginning," so that was probably it, wasn't it?
She broke off, and grinned sheepishly.
"Sorry, couldn't resist being a bit of a smartass. I guess that's not very professional either."
No, it wasn't. Wait, what had she said?
"Smartass?"
"Oh yeah, you guys don't say that over here, do you? You'd say smart-arse, because an ass is just a donkey, right?"
She had to be enjoying his confusion, the way she kept adding to it. It had been way too long since he'd had any sort of serious cross-cultural contact. This was… irritating.
"So, you just quoted the first what, hundred words of the bible from memory?"
"Of course. Well, eighty-one anyway. The first day's eighty-one words."
She knew how many words was in that bit she'd recited? Who learned that shit anyway? And why?
"Why?"
"Would you rather Jabberwocky?"
"What?"
She shrugged, like it was no big deal.
"I grew up in a Christian home in America. In the South. It's what you do. Memorize stuff, especially from the Bible."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"You know, America? That other country that speaks English, other side of the pond? We make all the movies you watch?"
"Yes, I know what America is."
"Well, anyway, yeah, I guess America's a bit more religious than the U.K. is."
She paused, staring out at nothing for a second. She shook her head and sighed.
"Doesn't mean it's any more REAL, though. Sometimes I think we'd be better off if it WASN'T the dominant culture, then you wouldn't have people convincing themselves they're actually Christians when all they're really doing is fitting in and getting a bunch of social status."
Great. Not just quoting from some mythical holy book, but actually going off on social commentary about the role of religion in culture. This was NOT the sort of thing Jack wanted to get into - not now, not ever.
Something of what he was thinking must have shown on his face. She sighed, and looked him in the eye.
"Look, I'm sorry. I really don't know what you want to know from me. I'm from a whole other culture, a whole other continent, not to mention ten years in the future, in a time when ten years means an awful lot has changed. Yeah, I lived 2007 before, but it doesn't mean I remember the differences - it's too easy to forget and start talking about looking something up on someone's facebook when only recent uni grads even HAD facebook back then. I don't think even I had facebook then."
"What's facebook?"
He thought it sounded slightly familiar - maybe Tosh had mentioned it at some point? She was the one who was most in touch with technology, though he couldn't remember where he'd even heard of that.
"Social media platform? Anyone can find out pretty much anything about anybody - wow, you guys don't even have a term for 'facebook stalking' yet."
Social media. That's right, now he remembered. Despite at least four separate EMP attacks which fried just about all electronic equipment on the planet, nearly the entire 21st century had been dominated by interlocking networks covering all of the Earth - people were so addicted to having their friends at their fingertips that every time something destroyed that connection, its rebuilding had been the first priority. He hadn't realized how close it was. Jamie was still talking.
"And it's so ubiquitous in my time now, that I remember not even noticing until about the fifth readthrough when the writer had someone use another person's facebook profile to figure out that they'd be more likely to write themselves a note on their computer instead of on paper - because Tor...T.. Tormalia wouldn't be able to erase it if it weren't online."
She paused. He didn't miss the stumble. It almost sounded like she was going to say Torchwood before catching herself. But that didn't even make sense. Although come to think of it, wasn't erasing a note on a computer something that Ianto had done after he'd retconned Gwen, back before they'd hired her? And that had been a definite stumble. He had to ask.
"Tormalia? What's Tormalia?"
She shrugged, didn't meet his eyes.
"Oh, It's a secret organization, set in Cardiff. TV series. Um, a dysfunctional group of outcasts who, um, fight crime."
"Never heard of them."
"Well, of course not. They're secret. They're also on TV, they aren't real."
She was definitely hiding something.
"I'm still not sure I understand."
She was squirming now. He fixed her with a hard gaze.
"Oh. Well…"
She pulled her lips together, pinning them between her teeth. She closed her eyes, grimaced. She seemed almost...embarrassed.
"I, um, write fanfiction."
Whatever Jack was expecting her to be hiding, that wasn't it.
"You write fanfiction?"
She flinched, just a little, then nodded. This was...
"You don't really seem the type."
Suddenly she was talking really fast, clearly nervous and defensive.
"Yeah, well… I do try really hard to get it right, make it realistic instead of just wish-fulfillment. Why do you think I recognized Cardiff?"
Jack twisted in his chair and leaned back.
"I did wonder about that, actually. I assumed you'd come here on holiday or something."
"No, never been across the pond. Never even left the lower forty-eight, actually."
"So, what? This… Tormalia films on random sidestreets in cardiff enough for a viewer to know where everything is?"
"No - well, I mean, yes, but…"
"But what?"
"Well, that's the other thing besides facebook I forgot isn't ubiquitous yet."
"What's ubiquitous?"
"Google streetview. There's a satellite map, but then you can zoom in and put your little man on one of the streets, and you actually see it, in 360 degrees."
Really. Of course Torchwood had access to CRIMNET and the CCTV cameras, but they were Torchwood. He hadn't realized how close they were getting to a day when every map and street was publically accessible to anyone.
"So, you just, what, get on your computer and log into a public database or something?"
"Yeah. Like I said, I'm kind of obsessed with Tormalia, so I kind of got a little obsessed with Cardiff too. I even watched a few scenes and cross referenced with the map so I could figure out exactly where in the city the monster was stomping around in the season one finale."
Monster stomping around Cardiff? That sounds like really bad science fiction. Was this Tormalia on the air, or even in production yet? He'd have to get Tosh to hack into the BBC networks and see if there was anything on record.
It took a second before he realized the rest of what she'd said.
"You did what?"
"Well, I mean it was fun. I was going to use it, in at least one of the fics I'm working on, I just hadn't got there yet. I just… I like finding stuff and cross-referencing and all that. Figuring out where things are, it's… it's fun."
"You have a strange idea of fun."
"Yeah, well, if I don't like coffee or sex, I've got to get my fun somewhere, right?"
"I guess."
He leaned back and thought about it. He remembered the times that the CCTV just didn't have enough resolution for Tosh's programs to do their job, and how sometimes the human element was needed. That time that Ianto had identified a suspect (who turned out to be a victim of alien possession) when technology could only narrow it down to a hundred odd possibilities by going through it "the old fashioned way - with my eyes." Computers could run forever, but humans needed breaks. Maybe it would be a good idea to have an extra pair of old fashioned eyes - especially if cross-referencing stuff manually was Jamie's idea of fun.
"You know," he commented, "you might fit in here pretty well. We could always use another tech."
She stared at him. She opened her mouth - the calm, collected 'professional' he'd been interviewing suddenly disappeared into a startled, stammering, jibbering mess.
"I'm, I'm not a tech."
He did try not to enjoy it - but he'd been so completely thrown off balance earlier by her complete distaste for heaven on earth in a mug, that he wasn't very successful. Still, he tried to maintain his own "professionalism," the same way she had.
"Maybe not in your world, but it sounds like just living a few years ahead of us might give you an advantage, and if you like to search databases and cross-reference - hell, that's most of what we do."
"I'm… Jack, I, I'm flattered."
She was still so flustered. He couldn't help it, he grinned in amusement.
"Come on, why not?"
"I'm...I'm going to say no, Jack. I'm sorry, I just… this isn't…"
Finally he had a bit of pity on her.
"It's a lot to take in, isn't it?"
He stood up and offered her a hand. She took it, hesistantly.
"Why don't we head on up to the board room? Meet the team - we can figure out where to go from there. Will that work?"
"I… yeah. Sure."
He grinned. Whatever else this day had brought, he was enjoying this new challenge. Maybe a little more than he should - but this could be good.