Sanatorium Park; Cardiff, Wales
Timing was a recurring concern. Jack Harkness knew it wasn't unusual or even uncommon to have unrelated situations. Aliens and artifacts passed through the Rift randomly. With the changes, and the growing number of concerns, he questioned everything.
The scene was chaotic. Emergency workers had barricades established. Several police cars, two fire engines, and a morgue van. Two reporters were setting up equipment just outside the barricade. It would be a media circus before long.
"Torchwood," Jack announced to the officer at the nearest barricade. He smiled and the young man looked down and blushed.
Gwen shook her head. "I can't take you anywhere." She sat in the passenger seat with one of the tablets from the hub.
Jack smiled as he parked. "What do we know?"
"Not much. Teenagers walking in the park found what they believe was a body. They reported an alien probe eating it." That amused her. "Responding police officers assumed the kids were high. They still haven't ruled it out, but they did find what may have been a body with some type of metal thing embedded in it." Pause. "Padrig Toller, the senior constable, opted to call us instead of the morgue because the surrounding vegetation is dead."
"Have they considered it's a bio-hazard?" A ghoulish display made more sense for Halloween.
"No. Karlen Bryn, the other constable, suspects it's a prank. She's worked security at universities for extra cash and says it looks like a student prank."
Jack doubted it. "Have they secured the area?"
"Yeah. Hold on." Gwen tapped the screen. "Toller is now reporting the tent placed over the remains is dissolving."
"Evacuate the park. Possible hazmat situation. Get a helo in the air for additional photographs." The police should have done it immediately. Bizarre situations in Cardiff hadn't been a secret for years.
Gwen grabbed her mobile from the charger. "Could this be a distraction, Jack?"
"What?"
"Moss-Probert has called in favors, destroyed evidence, and there are no witnesses. I make progress on tracing one of their affiliate companies and suddenly we have a strange body."
"What would the distraction accomplish?"
Gwen held up her hands. "I don't know. Give them time to make evidence disappear?"
"Call Ianto."
They climbed out of the van. Curious voices carried. People watched. Jack couldn't help but wonder if a public spectacle was intentional. The hub changes made him more paranoid than usual. But it did looked staged. What he could decide is what it accomplished other than distracting them.
Gwen made the call as Jack lead toward the river. The area showed a lot of foot travel. It would be a reasonable assumption that anything planted there would be quickly and easily found. The remains were on a patchy grass area next to the River Ely. He could see why the kids described it as an alien probe eating a body. It looked like a low budget horror film.
Jack stepped into the trees and flipped open his wrist-strap. "Scattered alien metal, a few broken devices, and a malfunctioning miniature maintenance bot. Decay from the body suggests it came from a morgue."
"Distraction," Gwen concluded. "Can you deactivate the bot?"
Jack tapped his wrist-strap. "Tell the police it's not dangerous, but will take hours to clean up. The park needs to stay closed."
"Why would Moss-Probert do this?"
"I don't know." Jack paused to think. "Call Andy. Tell him to monitor all emergency calls. Anything unusual or involving Moss-Probert, we need to know immediately."
Hughes Flats
Anwen Williams sat at the kitchen table watching an old western. She wanted to watch a new one, but that required figuring out how to get passed the child safety controls. She eyed her wrist-strap briefly. From watching her uncle, she knew it could control certain technology. She had no idea how it worked. With her father working off restless energy on his to-do list, he could walk through the room at any time and catch her.
Then the back door alarm sounded. Anwen stood and hurried for her stash of weapons. The irony wasn't lost on her. Her parents objected to most streaming videos as being inappropriate and had no problem with her tech. Finding and securing it required simple scans.
"We have a security breach," her dad said into his mobile. "I don't know." His tense body language answered one question. Mom and Jack were across town.
Unsure of what else to do, Anwen made a decision. She stepped back into her bedroom and flipped open her wrist-strap. "John Hart."
After a moment, he asked, "Miss me?" He sounded puzzled.
"The back door alarm went off. It's just me and dad. I don't know where mom and Jack are but they're not close."
"Five minutes." John disconnected.
John Hart entered through the back entrance. Then paused, listening. His hearing was impressive, and he heard nothing. He scanned the building with the basic security equipment he installed earlier. There were five intruders. One in the stairwell. They were trying to manually unlock the doors. They had no idea how the tech they used to enter worked. Steven entered from the roof. He would handle the fourth floor.
Unsure of a better approach, John contacted Anwen using their wrist-straps. "I need to talk to your dad?"
Rhys asked, "Who is this?"
"I'm John. I work for Torchwood London. Are you armed?"
"Yeah."
John quickly explained the situation. "Do not engage unless you have to." From what Anwen had said about her father, he doubted the advice was necessary.
He quickly disrupted their ear pieces and headed for the stairs. The look out was on the second floor. Just below him, John removed a miniature stun grenade from his pocket, and tossed it up the stairs; it detonated. He withdrew his holstered gun. When he peered around the corner, the man wasn't dazed. A shot grazed John's arm. He tossed a second grenade and instead of waiting, as he had before, he spun around the corner and caught the man preparing to withstand the grenade.
The man was still alive. John hurried around the corner, and shot him a second time point blank in the head. Then ran up the remaining stairs. He could only assume they were biomechs although he had no idea how. With that in mind, he quickly jury-rigged two different types of grenades before opening the third floor door. He tossed them together, destabilizing a second biomech. It was messy, but solved the problem.
The Williams' door was open when he reached it. John heard a shot before he stepped in. A man, dressed all in black, was backing toward the door. He underestimated Rhys Williams. Another shot sounded and the man fell. Rhys stepped out of the bedroom.
As the intruder died, he started to transform. A black mass bubbled from an artifact in the man's chest. A crunching sound and metal crashing followed. It didn't take much to guess what was happening.
"Get back in the room. Shut the door!" John retreated quickly to the hallway.
"What happened?" Anwen asked over his wrist-com.
"Dead man's switch." John didn't have time to explain. "Can you sense the creature by the door?"
"Uh." Anwen closed her eyes and concentrated. When she realized she wasn't looking for an energy signature, but a negative, she found it. "I can sense it. I don't know what it is."
"Throw it into the Rift."
"How?"
"I don't know. I never asked." John sighed. "You can throw it into the Rift."
Anwen had a different idea. She focused on the beautiful ribbon over head, feeling the familiar, tingling energy. She channeled the energy into the nothing, and the Rift absorbed it. And lost her balance immediately, feeling dizzy and nauseous. "Is it gone?"
John quickly scanned the area. "Yeah."
"I don't feel well."
"Rhys, you need to put her in the shower. As cold as you can get it."
"Everything glows." Anwen sounded high.
