Torchwood: Medusa
Chapter 7
Wednesday Evening / Thursday Morning
"It's very kind of you to escort me back to my hotel!" Sam, smiled as Owen held her jacket for her to put on. The grin on his face was something to behold, Gwen noticed as they exited through the gift shop.
Jamie glanced at his watch. "One am!" He said concerned, rubbing his eyes. "Do you guys work normal hours?" Toshiko thinly smiled. "Social life does not come as standard with this job. Is it the same with UNIT?" Jamie yawned. "Oh yeah!" Travers was snoring on a chair beside them, oblivious to the world. Jamie glanced at his watch. Toshiko noticed it. "I've got a private call to make, I'll be back."
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"Project Medusa!" Jack sat with his feet upon his desk. Armitage stood in the doorway to his office, noting the piles of paper-work scattered on the floor, which were dank and musty files almost a century old. "A project so secret it was given the same level of security as Operation Overlord and the Manhattan Project, Lt Colonel, yet nobody knows what it is!" He remarked in frustration.
"The files?"
Jack threw a bundle of papers at Armitage, which scattered across the office. Armitage crouched down and picked up a sheet, then noticed why Jack was more annoyed than his usual self. Great big chunks of paragraphing had been censored, blackened out with a thick black marker pen. From all the paperwork scattered about the floor, every sheet of paper was censored.
"I can see how this poses difficulties!" Armitage casually remarked. "However – from what I've seen of your team, and mine this shouldn't prove an obstacle!"
Jack folded his arms, and gasped. "That's a hell of a compliment Lt Colonel, and for an encore I'll untie the Gordian Knot once we've solved this little caper!"
Armitage grinned.
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"Hello, it's Lieutenant Commander Jamie MacKenzie, ward sister." Jamie sat down on the steps that circled the Road Dahl Plass. "I'm just checking up on Pamela Williams's condition." Jamie braced himself against the cold wind that blew in from the bay, he watched the couples and crowds leave the rows of pubs, clubs, and restaurants that seemed to thrive in this part of Cardiff, people getting on with their lives. Moments passed, as he listened to the specialist ward sister's report. "Thank you Ward-Sister." He switched off his mobile. No change, the same as it was yesterday, and the day before, and the day before. The same for the past eight-teen months, I think you need to move on. A voice told him.
"Is this seat taken?" A familiar voice, snapped him out of his thoughts. He looked up. "No – it's free, Gwen!"
Gwen sat down, beside him, and on a step lower.
"Everybody's breaking up for the night!" Gwen smiled. "The excitement is too much for one day!" Jamie checked his watch. "Then we'll begin it again in six hours!"
"How do you cope?" Gwen's voice seemed distant. Jamie thinly smiled. "I love the job, my father was Navy, my Grand-father was Navy, you learn to deal with the difficulties. You?"
"Not very well. I keep people that I care about in the dark, they keep asking difficult questions, which one day I might not be able to lie about!" Jamie adjusted his collar against the wind. "You're lucky Gwen." Jamie sighed. "The people I care about have got lives of their own to even bother asking me about mine!"
"Who are they?"
"My family, sister, mother, niece and nephew!" Jamie smiled warmly. "What about your Dad?"
"Captain Andrew MacKenzie, Royal Navy, posthumously awarded the military cross in Falklands, April 1982." Jamie drummed his fingers on the cold concrete. "He was killed in action attempting to defuse an Argentinean air force bomb which didn't explode within the engine room of HMS Arrowhead during an attack on the San Carlos landing ships." Jamie leaned forward, clasping his hand. "Unfortunately the bomb wasn't a dud, it exploded while he was working on it, killing him, and sinking the Frigate. I was six; there is a picture of me on the front page of the Daily Record, accepting his medal from the queen!"
The cold wind was starting to bite now. "Let's get back to the hub."
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Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Lt Colonel Armitage, Toshiko Sato, and Lt Commander Jamie MacKenzie. Too bad, you're not on it Owen. Sam re-read the note from Billis. She heard Owen coming, and put it back into her jacket pocket, which was casually slung over a chair in her Millennium Hotel's Hotel room. But that's not to say I can't have a little fun. From the reflection on her hotel room windows, he walked in, gently closing the door behind him. The chinking of wine glasses meant he had been successful. She turned round, and smiled. Sam could read him like a book.
"One bottle of very expensive red wine – South African I think!" Sam grinned, at Owen trying to sound snobby. "How did you manage that?" She replied.
"The less I reveal about my techniques the better for all of us!" He placed the bottle of wine, and glasses on the small table that was next to the window. Sam walked the few steps over to Owen. "I have ways of making you reveal your techniques Dr Harper!" She leaned forward, her lips touched Owen's. She gently broke away. "Tell me everything!" She huskily whispered.
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"Interesting!" Toshiko ran the name again to be doubly certain. Elias Carr-Bright, it wasn't a name that leapt out at you, if you glanced at it.
"Tell me you have something Tosh?" Unknown to Toshiko, Jack had crept in behind her. His foot-steps masked by Travers' snoring.
"I think I have!" She smiled, turning around. "It's a…"
Gwen and Jamie walked down the spiral stair-case, laughing and joking. Toshiko noticed this, and briefly frowned for a moment. Jack caught a glance of her disappointed frown. "It can wait for tomorrow kiddo!" He got up, and patted her on the shoulder. "Have a nice hot bath and a long lie!"
She quickly locked her terminal. "Thanks!" She whispered.
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Advanced technology from races thousands, no millions of years more advanced than ours. Sam lay wide awake, the thin hotel sheets, covering her naked body. Owen lay sprawled beside her, deep in a blissful sleep. Out of this world weaponry that was stored deep inside the vaults below the hub that could lay waste to armies and destroy cities. A ripple of excitement pulsed up her spine. Unheard of medical technology that could cure diseases, and perform miracles, that Owen had demonstrated to her. She could see why she was chosen for this mission.
Sam slowly got up from bed, mindful of not disturbing Owen. Tonight would be the night, when history would change. Totally oblivious to being naked, she walked across the hotel room, to the huge curtained off bay windows, slowly she prised them open, the Cardiff skyline at 3am was peaceful aside from the usual light pollution, her room offered a fantastic view.
Sam wondered where she would be in forty eight hours time. She turned round, and smiled, Owen was stirring. Sam went to close the curtains; inadvertently she looked down into the streets below.
A man was staring at her from the street below silhouetted by a street lamp. Sam felt them bore into her. Cold black reptilian eyes.
Billis was watching her.
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"Are you doing anything tonight?" Rhys said whilst fixing his tie in the living room mirror. "Should I be?" Gwen replied watching him, anticipating having to fix the tie, like a million times before. "It's the company's Christmas party tonight at El-Gringo's, you know that new Mexican place that opened up recently?"
"What time at?" Gwen asked dreading the answer.
"Eight pm – but the office will be totally plastered by then, we're finishing up at five!" Rhys smiled pleased at the knot, in the mirror. He turned round. "That's if Torchwood allow you away!"
The final sentence had a sting in it. "Do your lot have Christmas parties?"
Gwen glanced disapprovingly at the attempt of a Windsor knot. "It's a hush-hush you know, special-ops we don't even know we have one until we get there." She said walking over. "I'll try to be there – haven't I always been at your company's Christmas parties?" Gwen with both hands gently loosened the tie's knot.
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Sam yawned, as she made sure her hotel room was locked. Owen has left an hour ago, stating he did not want to arouse suspicion. The memory of their early morning love-making, Sam thinly smiled, was of an energetic, frantic affair but none the less very pleasurable, she had no doubts that it would much be the same tonight!
Sam turned around to walk down the corridor to the lift. She stopped abruptly startled at Billis who stood three feet away.
"Sorry I…"
Billis slapped her.
The pain stung Sam as she gasped. Billis looked at her, completely unemotional. "You are a stupid girl." He whispered. "You are pacing all that your Grand-father and I have worked for in jeopardy!" He paused. "For some stupid one night relationship with that individual!"
Billis stepped forward. His eyes met with Sam's. Do not think for one moment my girl that you are not expendable!"
He whispered. "Terminate this relationship immediately or I shall take matters into my own hands!"
