Weevil by Chanel
Dragging myself out of my bed, I groaned as my head pounded with a killer headache. As I began fumbling around in the dark for my clothes, I refused to open my eyes until it was vitally essential. Stumbling out of my room and down the stairs, I whined a little as the light in the hallway battled with my eyes. By the time I reached the bottom step, mum was already onto my case - standing in the lounge doorway with her eyes scouring disappointingly at me. I glanced at her before making my way into the kitchen. Grabbing the orange juice out of my younger brother's hands, I downed the whole thing before looking around the room in search for another drink to guzzle on. After consuming most of the liquid in the kitchen, apart from the cleaning detergents, I slumped down at the breakfast bar opposite my brother.
"Mum, Sammy stole my drink!"
"Do you have to shout?" I asked, bowing my head in my hands as mum walked into the kitchen.
Mum tutted as she handed me a mug of coffee. "Why do you always get yourself in such a state that you can't cope with life the next day?" mum asked. "Kieran, hurry up and have breakfast. I'll drop you off at school if you're ready in time."
I looked up at her, squinting as the light blared in through the kitchen window and straight at my face. "I don't even know why I'm like this - I didn't even drink anything."
"Yeah right, Sammy," mum laughed, lacking pity. "I know what you're like - a meal with the girls always turns into a competition for who can get drunk the most in the quickest time."
"But it wasn't like that," I argued, confused as to what did happen. "I can't remember anything that happened last night. Or yesterday for that matter."
Last night.
Strutting through Cardiff city centre in heels and dresses of varying length, it felt so good to be reunited with the girls. I had just recently qualified as a trainee doctor and began to work at the city hospital. Since graduating from uni, none of us had the chance to meet up so when we did manage to meet up with one another, we cherished every moment.
"You will not believe who is pregnant!" Stacey announced. "Kerry Smith!"
"Who would screw that?" Nicola joked as we walked down the street towards the Italian restaurant. "I mean, she's a lovely lass but by God, get under that and you've not got much chance of surviving."
"Can you believe it?" I paused. "We're all growing up - getting careers, getting married, having kids. Life is flying by and we have no control over time."
"Did you guys see that?" Jess asked.
"See what?" I asked, confused as to what she was referring to.
"It was like some sort of beast - some sort of.. alien?" Everyone laughed at Jess' remark. "None of you believe me, do you?"
All the other girls replied with a chorus of 'no', but instead, I looked at her. Her face was serious - she wasn't joking about this at all. "Come on, Jess," I smiled, putting my arm around her waist. "Lets get you a pizza. You look like you could do with some good Italian food."
I didn't know what to believe these days. With my field of work, you hear so many stories of 'alien attacks', but our superiors just tell us that the patients are delusional so we should just make humour of it all.
Sat around the table in the restaurant, everyone was having their own little conversations about how their lives were going.
"So Sammy, how's the love life?" Michelle asked.
I sniggered. "Love life? Next joke."
Separate conversations carried on, filling the table with noise. Sipping on my wine, I couldn't help but still get a bit suspicious over what Jess said earlier. Aliens? Aliens in Cardiff? It sounded absurd - comical in fact - but I couldn't help question whether it was possible.
Jess stood up and squeezed her way past the chairs.
"Wait up," I smiled, standing up and following her out.
Walking away from the table, Jess looked at me and sighed. "They don't believe me, do they?"
I shook my head.
"Do you believe me?"
I looked at her and then looked down the corridor in search of the bathrooms.
"Sammy?"
"I believe you."
Walking into the bathrooms, we were interrupted with a loud scream coming from one of the cubicles.
"Hello?" I called out.
After no reply, I knocked on the door of the cubicle that was locked close.
"Is anybody in there?" I asked, knocking again.
"Sammy, what's going on?" Jess questioned, standing behind me.
"Hello?" I knocked for the final time but after getting no response, I turned back to Jess. "Look after this." I handed my bag to her as she looked on, confused as to what was going on.
Walking into the cubicle beside the locked one, I kicked my heels off and stood on the toilet. Peering into the closed cubicle over the separating wall, I found in even more confusion. There wasn't anything in there, yet the door was locked.
"Sammy!" Jess screamed from outside the cubicle.
Rushing out, I was met by a fierce creature. One I hadn't seen before, not even on movies. It was stood in front of me, towering above my 5"7 build. Dressing in some sort of PVC blue boiler suit, its skin on its face was all shrivelled up and it was baring its fang-like-teeth at me as it had Jess's body in its grip.
"Sammy, help me," Jess cried in terror - her eyes fixed on me with a wide stare.
"Don't panic," I said to Jess, trying to reassure her - and myself. "Just keep calm."
"Sammy," she whaled.
"Let her fucking go," I shouted at the beast, trying to find something in the bathroom that would allow me to distract the creature as I saved Jess.
Grabbing the soap dispenser from the wall, I hurled it at the creature's head, making sure I didn't hit Jess in the process. As the dispenser bounced off the creature's head, making a 'boink' noise as it did so, it threw Jess across the room. She hit the wall and fell to the floor instantly. Her body was lying on the ground in a motionless heap. I looked at Jess and then back at the creature that had managed to barricade its way into the cleaner's cupboard at the far end of the bathroom stalls. As it knocked all the cleaning products and toilet rolls off the shelf, I ran up to the door and locked it, subsequently locking it in the cupboard. It continued to bang on the door as I ran back over to where Jess was still laying, not making any movement.
"Jess," I whispered as I checked for all signs of consciousness but she was completely out of it.
Before I had chance to do anything, the door to the bathrooms flung wide open and in walked a group of four people. "Weevil?" the man in front of his entourage asked me before they split up in different directions.
I looked up in confusion, trying to work out what was going on. One of the other men made his way towards Jess and placed two fingers on her neck.
"What do you think you are doing?" I asked, fighting his hand away from Jess' neck.
"Trying to find a pulse?" he laughed as if I was supposed to know why a group of strangers had barged their way into the girl's bathrooms after some creature had just attacked my best friend.
"Leave that. I can do it. I'm a doctor," I argued.
"I'm a doctor too."
"Well, I think I'd rather me treat my best friend than some stranger that doesn't even look like he's a paramedic, let alone a qualified doctor."
"Look, I don't mean to be a dick but in the time that we've spent arguing over who's gonna treat this girl, I could have treated her. So do you mind just shutting up for about five seconds so I can see what's going on?" the man asked.
Defeated, I shuffled back and let him get on with that he was supposed to be doing. I looked over at the cleaner's cupboard to see the guy in the coat aiming what looked like a deodorant spray at the door as his female assistant prepared to unlock the door.
"I wouldn't do that if I was you," I exclaimed. "It's not human. I don't know what it is but it certainly isn't human."
"Weevil," the guy in the coat smiled to me, before resuming his original pose.
"Deodorant won't solve it. It's not body odour," I replied.
"This isn't deodorant. This is anti-weevil spray. Although, it could be used as deodorant.. I've never thought of that. Could be useful in the case of a weevil breakout.." The guy in the coat turned around to look at me and flashed a smile. "Thanks for the idea."
"On the count of five. One, two, three, four.." the woman paused as she slowly began to unlock the door to the cleaner's cupboard, where the creature was still barging around, causing all sorts of bangs. "Five."
The door flung open and the guy in the coat sprayed the "anti-weevil" spray at the creature. The beast then slowly began to fall to the ground, whimpering as the spray surrounded him.
"Gotcha," the woman smiled, leaning down to pick up a roll of toilet tissue that had managed to find its way out of the cleaner's cupboard and throwing it back into the cupboard.
"Shouldn't we tidy up the cupboard? Make it look like nothing happened here?" another man, wearing a suit, asked.
"Ianto, that is a cleaner's cupboard. A cleaner cleans."
Another woman walked into the bathroom, carrying a little handheld computer device in her hand. "By the looks of the tracking system, that's the last one."
"Good job, guys," the guy in the coat smiled to his team as he bent down and grabbed the creature's hands and locked them together in some makeshift handcuffs. "Back to the SUV we go."
"Hold on a sec," the so called doctor paused as I turned back around to see him examining the cuts on Jess' arms. "She's been attacked. I need to take her back to the hub. Make sure she's not been infected with anything."
I looked at him. "The hub? Who are you people?"
"The less you know, the better it is," the guy in the coat explained as he began to bring the creature towards the main door. "SUV."
The team of people followed him out of the door, leaving me sat in the middle of the bathrooms floor, looking at Jess as the doctor picked her up in his arms. What had just gone on? Who were all these people? What had happened to Jess? What was that bang in the toilets for? What was 'the hub'? What was I going to tell everyone back at the table?
The doctor guy carried Jess out of the bathrooms.
"Are you coming or what?" he called, obviously for my benefit.
Reluctantly, I stood up and made my way out of the bathrooms. As I did, Nicola was making her way into the bathrooms.
"Where you off?" she asked, looking at me suspiciously.
"Jess managed to slip over on some soap on the floor and banged her head on the soap dispenser so I'm gonna take her to the hospital to get her checked out - just to make sure she's okay," I lied, impressing myself with how quick I could think of a cover up story.
"Okay," Nicola smiled, blatantly falling for my lie. "Give us a text when you're done at the hospital."
"Will do." Before I had chance to reply with anything else, the doctor from before appeared at the end of the corridor. "I'd better go. Taxis here. I'll see you tomorrow, hopefully."
Running down the corridor, I caught up with the doctor guy.
"So what's your friend's name?" he asked as we walked out the fire exit of the restaurant without anyone noticing.
"Jess," I paused. "Jess Hodgson."
"And yours?"
"Sammy Jones."
"Well, Sammy. Nice to meet you."
He held out his hand for me to shake but I looked at his hand and then back up at him. "What is going on? Who are you lot?"
"I'm Doctor Owen Harper," he replied, withdrawing his hand and itching his shoulder, as if he didn't even have his hand out for me to hold in the first place. "That thing in there was a Weevil - an alien that lives in the sewers of Cardiff, only sometimes they manage to surface and it's our job to track them down so they don't harm anybody."
"But they hurt my friend?"
"She'll be fine. She's in good hands."
I shrugged my shoulders. "So who are you guys? The police? The army? The government?"
He laughed. "None of them."
"Well, who are you then?"
"Get in."
Before I had a reply, Owen shoved me into a car's open door and I fell onto a seat. Jess, who was now conscious, was sitting beside me, talking to the guy in the coat from before, who had taken up residence in the front passenger's seat. Owen closed the car door, leaving the car in darkness, apart from the odd blue flashing light from all the computer devices welded to the interior and the streetlight shining in through the front view window.
"This is Sammy Jones and her friend, Jess Hodgson."
"Sammy, my name is Captain Jack Harkness - but you can just call me Jack. I'm the leader of Torchwood Three and it is a pleasure to meet you," the guy in the coat said, introducing himself as he turned around to smile at me with his pearly white teeth.
"Torchwood?" I asked.
"Outside the government," Jack began.
"Beyond the police," the other people in the car, minus me and Jess, chorused in unison before Jack had the chance to finish his sentence.
"But what do you want with us?" Jess asked, holding onto her cut arm. "I don't get it. Why us?"
"Because you are the only people to encounter a weevil without us being there and managed to survive."
I gulped.
"Why did we survive then?" Jess asked. "What did it want in an Italian restaurant anyway?"
"Mushroom risotto is my guess," Jack smiled. I didn't know whether he was joking or being serious because from going by the last few minutes, his facial response was the same for both sarcasm and seriousness.
Ianto began to drive the car, or 'SUV' as they called it, down the back alleys of Cardiff.
"I'm Gwen," a woman sat behind us smiled in a strong Welsh accent, leaning over the seats to introduce herself to me and Jess. "And that's Toshiko with the computers."
"Why are you telling us this stuff?" I asked. "I mean, I am right by thinking that we're not supposed to know you exist, right?"
"Right," Owen replied. "But for some reason, the weevil didn't want to kill you two when he had chance to kill you and we wanna know why."
"Exactly," Jack nodded, turning back around to look at us. "You two are very lucky to be alive."
Walking across the paved area beside Millenium Centre, I looked around in confusion - why were we brought here? Owen, Gwen, Toshiko and Ianto had all disappeared off, leaving me and Jess under Jack's supervision. We walked down towards Cardiff Bay and towards a little wooden shack that was built beneath the bay. This couldn't be the hub they were taking about, could it? It was tiny.
Jack led us through the door and into a little office that resembled the headquarters for a tiny taxi firm, not an agency that supposedly dealt with aliens. Walking through another door, we found ourselves in a long, concrete chamber-like corridor. Jack didn't let us have enough time to look around as we hurried along the corridor, following after him, our heels clonking on the floor as we did so. After entering a lift, I looked at Jess, who looked back at me in the same confusion - where the hell were they taking us?
Without any warning, the lift stopped and the doors opened to reveal a little room with a huge cog in front of us. As it rolled to the side, Jack swiftly walked through the door and through another caged door that flung open seconds before he walked through it. We followed him in and was mesmerised by what we saw. However, my attention was drawn to a human hand that was stood up right in a glass container of purple illuminated liquid on a table beside the entrance. Some steps at the other side of the entrance led up to an area of computers where Toshiko was tapping away at the keyboard, completely ignoring everything else in the room. Jack led us up the stairs and past the computer monitors.
"Jess, you go down there with Doctor Owen Harper and he'll sort you right out," Jack smiled. "Sammy, come with me to my office."
I was reluctant to leave her but Jack insisted I accompanied him to his office. I watched Jess disappear down some more steps into a sort of basement operating theatre, where Owen was sat on a stool, looking right back up at me with a mysterious glare.
"This place is," I paused, trying to think of the right adjective to use to describe it. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was beyond my wildest dreams. "It's huge."
"Things don't always look as big as they really are at first glance," Jack slyly smiled to me, insinuating a second meaning to his comment but I completely ignored it and continued to look around.
We walked past another desk that was surrounded with computer monitors, similar to the one that Toshiko was working at and then walked through glass doors into a private office. The decor of this office didn't seem to fit the rest of the place; outside had a futuristic feel, yet the office seemed like it had been transported from the 1940s. The only thing out of the place with the 1940s feel was a computer that stood in the far corner.
"So Sammy," Jack said as he sat down on the chair behind the desk. "What do you do for a living?"
"I'm a student doctor," I replied, fighting the urge to address him as 'sir' - for some reason, I felt as if I was in high school detention with the head teacher.
"And your friend; what about her?"
"Jess works in a beauty salon," I paused. "But we did go to the same high school."
"Interesting. Which high school was this?"
"Green Road High in London. I was born in Cardiff but then lived with my dad in London until I moved back to Cardiff to live with my mum for university with Jess but Jess dropped out after the first year."
"What were you studying?" he asked, looking as if he was concentrating on trying to puzzle the pieces together.
"Medicine."
"Hmm," Jack paused. "I don't suppose you've ever encountered a weevil before, have you?"
I shook my head.
"Anyway, drink?" Jack asked, pulling a bottle of scotch from the drawer in his desk.
"Sure," I smiled. I didn't really like scotch - it was a drink my grandfather always used to have at Christmas, but after the night I had experienced, I could sure do with some alcohol. Jack handed me a glass of scotch and watched me down the glass in one, smiling as I did so. "Thanks," I said, putting the empty glass back down on the desk.
Today.
Feeling around in my bag from last night for my phone, I groaned as I saw a text from Nicola, expecting it to be the low down on what happened last night. My past criteria for a night out where I couldn't remember a thing the next day usually consisted of: number one, pulling some guy; number two, needing the girls to save me from going home with the guy I pulled - or in some cases, another guy, and in some even rarer cases, both guys at the same time; number three, projectile vomiting in the bathroom of some club; number four, crying over some ex-boyfriend at 4am in a bar; number five, getting a lift home by police for attempting to pole dance on a street light whilst singing children's nursery rhymes as I walked home.
"Hope Jess is okay this morning. I've got a few hours free at lunchtime. Didn't really get to talk to you much last night so wanna meet up for a coffee? Don't worry if you're busy - we can rain check. Nic x"
I saw one word - 'coffee' - and automatically replied with yes. Dragging myself back up the stairs and into my room, I sighed as I flicked through my wardrobe in search of something to wear today and realised that my younger sister had managed to steal my favourite shirt while I was asleep. I would not be ever seeing that again. That was one of the down points of living back at home with your mum, your step-dad and your half-brother and half-sister — Isobelle and Kieran. Isobelle was seventeen years old and was a nightmare for stealing all my clothes. Mum told me that the only solution for the problem was for me to gain weight so we weren't the same clothes size anymore - typical.
Walking along the high street towards the coffee shop where I arranged to meet Nicola, I felt grateful as the summer sun lit up Cardiff: it made a change to the usual drizzle that had happened over the past few weeks. Typical British weather. As I walked into the coffee shop, I saw Nicola sat at a table in the far end of the shop, already with two mugs of coffee. She waved at me as I made my way over to her. I wasn't sure what I was more happy about - the coffee or the muffin she had got already for me.
"Sorry, I'm late," I apologised. "Mum had to borrow my car since hers decided to break down this morning as she dropped Kieran off at school so I had to get the bus here."
"It really isn't your week this week, is it?" Nicola asked, taking a sip of her coffee.
"What do you mean?" I laughed, tipping a sachet of sugar into my latte.
"Well, first there was last night with you having to take Jess to hospital and then your mum nicking your car," Nicola explained, looking at me from over her mug as she took another sip of her coffee.
"Jess was in hospital?" I asked, beginning to panic. "Is she okay?"
"Yes.." Nicola paused. "You took her."
"I did?" I noticed Nicola looking at me with a suspicious look. I didn't know what was going on but I knew I had to say something. "I mean, yeah, I did. Sorry, I think I must have had a dodgy drink last night when I got home."
"What time did you end up getting home?" Nicola asked, calming down the suspicion.
"Um, I'm not sure."
"Well, you texted me at 1am."
"Really?" I asked. "What did I say?"
"Sammy, are you feeling alright?" Nicola laughed.
I didn't reply. What was going on? Why couldn't I remember anything that happened last night? "Yeah, I'm fine," I smiled. "I'm just being stupid. Sorry."
I got my phone out from my bag and flicked through the messages that I had sent last night. There was one to mum. There was one to Michelle. There was one to my boss. But there wasn't one to Nicole. Why wasn't it showing up on my phone? Did I delete it last night? All these questions were going around in my head but I didn't have an answer for them - not one. The only thing I knew was something really weird was going on.
"So how was the pizza?" I asked. "Gutted I missed it."
"So nice. Don't worry. We're all gonna plan to go on another meal out in a few weeks once Lucy is back from Australia so you'll have to make up for it then," Nicola grinned.
"Jess can pay for my share as compensation for making me miss pizza," I joked, going along with what Nicola had told me about last night.
"So what happened last night with you and that guy?" Nicola winked.
If I wasn't confused before, I certainly was confused now. "What guy? What are you on about?" I laughed. "There wasn't a guy."
"There was. You know when you came out of the bathroom and told me you were taking Jess to the hospital. This guy appeared at the end of the corridor and you looked at him and then, all of a sudden, you dashed off in the same direction."
"I have no idea," I smiled. "There wasn't a guy though. Jess and I got in a taxi, went to the hospital and then after the hospital, we got a taxi home. No guy."
Nicola didn't seem to have bought my lie, but neither did I. The fact I couldn't remember anything that went on last night and now there was apparently some guy involved too didn't make my suspicion any less aroused. I needed to find out what was going on, and, more importantly, what happened last night.
As soon as I got into my room, I closed the door behind me and dialled Jess' number. Sitting down on my bed, I was determined to find out what happened last night. Hopefully Jess would have some indication as to what happened.
"Hello," Jess' voice answered on the other end of the telephone line.
"Jess, it's me."
"Sammy, what the fuck happened last night?"
"That's what I was ringing you about. I can't remember anything," I explained, beginning to panic. Why didn't she have any recollection of what happened last night either?
"Same. The only thing I can remember is getting ready to go out because I dropped some nail varnish on my sofa and I noticed it this morning. But something must have happened last night as I have these marks on my arm - it looks like animal claw marks."
"Claw marks?" I asked.
"I'm getting pretty freaked out and I'm close to calling the police."
I paused for a moment. I knew getting the police involved would be a bad idea - I don't know how I knew, I just knew. I also knew I had to act fast before Jess began to freak out even more than she already was. I could work out what happened by myself, but I first needed to reassure Jess.
"I think I remember," I blurted out, without even a moments consideration as to what I was going to say.
"What happened?" Jess asked.
"We went to the Italian restaurant. You needed to go to the toilet so I said I'd come with you. When we walked into the bathrooms, you slipped and hit your head so I said we'd get you checked out at the hospital incase you had concussion or something. I didn't want you going home alone with a banged head without getting it checked out first so we got a taxi to the hospital. You got seen to and discharged. Then we got a taxi to mine. Cocoa decided to jump up at you when we got in and accidentally scratched your arm, which bled a bit. You took your paracetamol that the hospital told you to take but then we decided to drink a bit. Then you got a taxi home, drunk as a skunk."
"That actually sounds like something we'd do," Jess laughed.
I took a silent sigh of relief. "What are we like, hey?"
"I know. I was so worried when I woke up this morning. I didn't think we were drinking," Jess said.
"The wine bottles in my recycling box beg to differ," I lied. "At least now I can say I've experienced mixing prescribed medication and alcohol first hand."
"Good point," Jess joked. "I woke up thinking we had been attacked by some alien or something."
Then it hit me - 'WEEVIL'.
"Don't be silly, Jess," I said, putting on a fake laugh. "Anyway, I've gotta go pick up Kieran from school since mum's car has died. Speak soon."
"Alright, take care."
"Don't go mixing alcohol and paracetamol anymore," I joked before hanging up the phone.
Why did the name 'weevil' just jump into my head? What was it? Why did it sound so familiar? Grabbing my car keys off my bedside table, I jumped up from my bed, like I was on a mission - well, I suppose I was. I was going to find out what happened last night, even if it took weeks. I would find out. The story I told Jess wasn't even partly true. We never went to the hospital. We never came back to my house. We didn't drink wine. There was no wine bottles in the recycling bin. Cocoa would never harm a fly, let alone one of my best friends.
Running down the stairs, mum appeared in the doorway. "Sammy, do you mind if I.."
"I'm gonna go pick up Kieran from school," I smiled, much to her surprise. "What time does he get let out?"
"Three twenty," mum said.
I looked at my watch. I had ten minutes. My mission couldn't be postponed for anything, apart from picking up my brother from school.
"See you in a bit," I smiled, kissing mum on the cheek before running outside to my car.
"Sammy, where's mum?" Kieran questioned as he opened the passenger door of my car.
"Kieran, just get in. I don't have time. I need to be somewhere but I promised mum that I'd pick you up so get in."
Kieran got into the car and threw his rucksack onto my backseat, messing up my neatly arranged soft toy collection. I looked at him and rolled my eyes. "Seat belt," I said, looking at him until he clipped his seat belt in.
"Sammy," Kieran paused. "Can we have a trip to the cinema on Saturday night?"
"I don't know, Kieran," I said as I began to reverse out of the parking spot in Kieran's school car park and managed to get out of the car park before all the other cars had even managed to turn their engines' on. Kieran sighed as he knew I was about to give an excuse. "I have a lot of studying to do and I'm pretty behind already."
"It doesn't matter then," he said, sighing again.
"But I suppose I could spare a few hours on Saturday to take you to the cinema if you want," I smiled.
"Yes!" he beamed.
"On one condition."
"What?"
"You get my pink and white shirt back from Isobelle's room by tomorrow morning at 9am," I grinned. "If it is not in my wardrobe by 9:01am tomorrow, there's no cinema. Alright?"
"Alright."
Retracing the route we took yesterday from the meeting point in the car park in the middle of Cardiff's city centre to the Italian restaurant, things slowly began to come back to me. I was starting to remember certain things. I remembered that one of the girls had told us that Kerry Smith, a large girl who used to be in our first year seminar group at university, was now pregnant. Then I remembered Jess saying she saw something, claiming it to be an alien beast and then none of us believing her. By the time I reached the restaurant, I knew I had to make my way into the toilets to try and trigger off any other memory over what happened last night.
"Closed" a sign on the front of the restaurant said.
I looked at the opening times and then looked back at the sign again in confusion. I even tried to open the door but it was locked. Looking in through the glass, I noticed that the whole restaurant was now empty. Everything had been removed from it - even the cute little white whicker tables and the authentic paintings that hung on the walls. After a few moments, I wandered down the street and cut through an alley that led to the back streets behind the restaurant. My suspicions were growing the more I was investigating.
As I got to the back yard of the restaurant, I looked in through the windows but even the back of the restaurant was closed off and deserted. Turning back around, I was met by a tall man with a dark blue military style coat on. He leaned against the wall with a huge smile across his face and his arms crossed, as if he had been waiting for someone. I looked over my shoulder to see if he was looking at someone stood behind me but there was nobody.
"Yes, I'm looking at you," he laughed.
I was confused. "Why?"
"Because you've impressed me."
"I'm sorry. Do I know you?"
"Sammy, my name is.."
Then I slowly began to remember. "Captain Jack Harkness."
"I have to admit, I didn't think you'd manage to do it as it only takes certain people with high intelligence to do it, but you have managed to do it, so well done."
I looked at him in confusion. "What's going on?"
"Sammy, last night, I gave you an amnesia pill of my own design, laced in a sedative. Along with the scotch, you were out within seconds, giving me enough time to get you and your friend, Jess, back to your own houses and leaving no clues as to what happened last night."
"Torchwood."
Jack nodded.
"Weevil."
Jack nodded again.
"You wanted to know why the weevil wouldn't kill me or Jess."
"Hey presto, you've nailed it."
"Then why did you drug us?" I asked.
"Two reasons. One. We couldn't have you telling anybody about us. Torchwood is a very secretive agency. Two. But, most importantly, when the weevil attacked, you didn't run away screaming or alert anybody else of it. You dealt with it in your own manner - capturing it in the cupboard and then helping your friend. The amnesia pill would be the second test to see if you were intelligent enough to work it all out, even after having your memory wiped."
I looked at him in confusion. "But.."
"Sammy, that weevil didn't attack you and we still need to find out why."
"So what do you want me to do about it?" I asked, still confused as to what was going on.
"Come back to the hub."
Jack led me towards a huge black car at the end of the alley and opened the back door for me. Sliding in, I looked around at all the gadgets.
"Nice to see you again, Sammy," a guy in a suit smiled to me from the driver's seat. "I'm Ianto."
"Nice to meet you," I smiled.
The car slowly began to drive through Cardiff's city centre as I sat in the back, trying to still work out what was going on. I vaguely remembered most of last night's occurrences, but I did not understand why Jack had drugged me so I'd forget everything and then turn up and help me remember what happened. Why was he testing me?
As Ianto and Jack sat in the front of the car, talking quietly to themselves, I sat in silence, thinking about last night. As Jack said, the weevils had a chance to kill me and Jess but didn't. Jess managed to get away with just claw marks and I was left untouched. Why didn't they kill us? I began to retrace everything possible that linked me and Jess up together - everything from growing up together in London to what colour dresses we were wearing last night. Everything seemed so irrelevant. That was until an idea hit me.
I rummaged around in my bag and pulled out my idea.
"I've thought of something that could be why the weevil didn't kill me or Jess."
Jack turned around, looking interested in what I had to say. "What is it?"
Last night.
Getting out of my car, we were already five minutes late for meeting up with the girls for our meal at the new Italian restaurant that had just opened up in town. The reviews of the place were outstanding and I had developed a real craving for a proper pizza since walking past Pizza Hut last Saturday on my way home from work. Waiting for Jess to get out of the car, I fixed my fringe to the side with a bobby clip that I found in the side pocket on my car door - I wasn't that surprised though as I probably had a whole bobby pin distribution centre hidden in there with the amount I use for work.
"Sammy, can I borrow your perfume?" Jess asked as she finally got out of the car after applying another coat of lipstick. "I left mine at home."
"Sure," I said, leaning over to the glove compartment and pulling out my perfume bottle.
"Thank-you," she smiled as she squirted some on her neck and wrists.
Today.
Instead of replying to him, I just handed over my bottle of perfume. "It's just hit me now but I remember last night you had this sort of weevil.. um, anti-weevil spray thing and I said how it was a deodorant. Well, what if the ingredients of the spray are actually in the perfume? It would make sense as I use that perfume every day and have done since it was released a year ago. Jess borrowed my perfume an hour before we had the weevil encounter because she left her perfume at home, which is why the scent wasn't as strong on Jess as she's only used it the once and if I've used it roughly three times a day for a year, I've probably got a more stronger scent of it because it is in my skin, which correlates to the fact that they only touched Jess and didn't kill her when they had the chance to kill her and they didn't touch me."
"Sammy," Jack paused. "You absolute genius."
I smiled victoriously to myself.
"We'll get this tested back at the hub." Jack smiled at me again before putting the perfume in his coat pocket.
By the time we got back to the hub, I had managed to remember everything that happened last night. It was probably a good idea that Jess didn't know anything that happened and that she still believed my slightly tweaked version of events. Although Jess was my best friend, she did love a bit of gossip every now and again; and something like this would have made her have a field day, especially since she was part of it.
Walking through the many doors and gates to the centre of the hub, I was met by Gwen. "I thought you'd do it," she grinned. "Welcome to the team." Jack quickly shook his head at Gwen, leaving me in confusion. "Oh, ah," Gwen paused. "Need to go finish off this report. I'll see you in a bit, Sammy."
"Tosh, run tests on this and the anti-weevil spray. Any similarities report back to me," Jack ordered, throwing my bottle of perfume through the air towards Toshiko who was ready to catch it from her desk station. "Owen, take Sammy for the tour of the hub," Jack said to Owen, who was sat beside Gwen. "And Ianto," Jack paused. "Coffee."
As everyone dispersed to do their thing, Owen walked across the room to me. "So, rumour has it that you've managed to solve the mystery of why the weevil didn't kill you or your friend," he said.
I shrugged my shoulders. "It's not confirmed yet - just a suggestion."
"Your perfume and the anti-weevil spray have the same ingredients?" He asked. "What's it called 'Weevil by Chanel'?"
I smiled. "Something like that."
"So this is the hub. There, we have Gwen's desk," he pointed to where Gwen was sat, typing at her computer.
I followed him up the steps towards where Toshiko was stood, doing tests on both my perfume and the anti-weevil spray. "This is where Tosh works," Owen said, showing me a desk with computer monitors surrounding it at every angle. "Then, this is where the magic happens." Owen led me down the steps to a sort of operating theatre. "This is where I perform autopsies on the aliens who die or perform life-saving operations."
"Or in most cases, that is where he plans his next mission to womanise Cardiff," Toshiko butted in as she walked down the steps and grabbed a pipette from the equipment trolley.
"What can I say?" Owen said, turning to me. "Ladies love me."
"So how do you operate on all these aliens and save all these lives if your head is as big as Mars?" I asked.
Toshiko smirked at me as she walked back to her station. Owen looked unimpressed by my question. "Let's finish the tour," he groaned.
After finishing the tour with Owen, he showed me the cells - looking at the weevil that was hiding in the corner, whimpering to itself.
"Where did it come from?" I asked, watching it sympathetically.
"Nobody knows exactly. They came here due to the rift that runs through Cardiff."
"The what?"
"Rift," he repeated. "Its a weakness in space and time, like a passage between one space-time to another."
"So you mean people can go from one time to another time just by going through it?" I asked, amazed by what I was hearing.
"Technically, no. It doesn't work like that exactly, but yes, people and objects can fall through time because of it."
"Whoa."
"Owen, do you mind if I take Sammy off your hands?" Jack asked as he walked into the cells.
"Sure," Owen said, before quickly disappearing up to the main part of the hub, leaving Jack and I in the cells with the weevil.
"I guess you're gonna need to wipe my memory again now since I know all this stuff that I shouldn't know," I paused, preparing to say goodbye to all this amazing stuff for the last time.
"Why would I do that?" Jack asked. "You'll only work it all back out again."
"So you expect me to go about my usual life knowing that all this amazing stuff is out there?"
"Well, you could join us - if you wanted to, that is."
I looked at him in disbelief. Could I really do it? Could I really quit being a doctor after I had just graduated university, especially after all the hard work and effort I put into my studying to come out with a first? Could I really give up saving lives of patients in hospital and help save the world from alien attacks and such instead?
"Hell yeah!"
Jack smiled as he looked at the weevil. "Oh, and by the way, your theory was correct - your perfume had similar chemicals to the weevil spray."
"So that's why I haven't been pulling guys in the last year or so," I joked.
