John and Ken
Monday, May 31, 2021
Despite multiple quick trips, Ken Phillips still marveled over the instant transportation. The teleporting ability, as John called it, came from a nightmare the day Ken walked out on John months ago. Ken wondered more than once if there was a connection.
John stepped out of the bedroom with damp hair. Ken smiled. Their relationship was the strangest he'd ever been in. And oddly, the healthiest. It took nearly drinking himself to death and inpatient therapy to realize it. The price for the happiness was the unexpected and traumatic that circled Torchwood like sharks in a horror movie.
"What?" John asked.
"You're gorgeous."
John laughed and headed for the kitchen. The insane self-confidence was his greatest strength and weakness.
Ken followed him. "I found a good restaurant. We can tour Edinburgh castle and eat without needing a change of clothes."
John poured himself a mug of coffee. "Day trip?"
"Yeah." Ken took a moment. "Are we still going to Disney World?"
"Rex is working on it. It would be best to have a passport. Which requires citizenship paperwork."
"Didn't Ianto establish all of that when he set-up the marriage to resolve the custody issue?"
"It's a problem with the US. Rex needs to create a solid background from birth." John sipped his coffee. "A mistake could result in terrorist suspicions."
"I wouldn't want Rex's job."
John smiled. "No one does. That's why he has it."
After teleporting, John Hart knew immediately there was a problem. It definitely wasn't Edinburgh. Between the temperature and the trees, they were in the wrong hemisphere. The first time his teleporting ability malfunctioned. He hadn't thought much about the unexplained ability.
"Where are we?" Ken asked.
John flipped open his wrist strap and scanned the area. The fact that he still wasn't sure worried him. He checked for the nearest office. The error message said he attempted to access the Falkland Archives.
"South America."
"Why?"
John wished he had an answer. "Check your portal device."
Ken quickly found it in his pocket. "It's not working."
That made no sense. John used his wrist-strap to send a message to Global.
"What country is this?"
John turned to look at Ken. "I don't know."
"Your eyes are blue."
John swore in one of the more colorful languages he knew. "Look for anything unusual. Trees, animals."
Ken turned around, looking at the area.
John's wrist strap beeped. Puzzled, John accepted the incoming message.
"John." Dael sounded weak. "I have no idea if this will reach you. Something happened in Cameroon. The last thing I remember I was in the hospital."
It made him think of the report he read about Rex's experience in London. The Dael he knew was lost to a time change. From what little he remembered from the ambush and CN interrogation, she had something to do with it. That happened fifteen or sixteen years into an alternative future. He never asked her age but guessed she was around thirty at the time.
"Who is she?"
"A future Torchwood agent."
Ken turned back to John. "We couldn't have traveled through time."
John scanned Ken for chronons. The results were inconclusive. "I don't know."
Ken moved closer to John.
John chose a spot with no obvious problems and they sat in the grass by standing stones. He'd seen Stonehenge once. It had similarities and differences. Neither explained where they were or how. Unsure of what else to do, he remotely connected to a Torchwood satellite using his wrist strap. There were various options for determining their location. Figuring out the year would be more complicated if it was an issue.
"We're in in northern Brazil. The Solstice Archaeological Park or the Stonehenge of the Amazon."
"Better than Columbia?" Ken was hopeful.
"Yeah. It's a tourist attraction." What concerned John wasn't the location but how they got there and why. The only Torchwood connection in Brazil was Aman. At least that he knew of. There had to be more to it.
"The blue eyes and the teleporting is connected to an ancient being?"
John nodded.
"Is this a message?"
It had to be. The initial dream involved an outing with the first Anwen he met that never happened. They were at a castle with gargoyles. It seemed to be about fighting his demons and losing. When Ken left, John went off the deep end until he was forced to get his act together to protect Ken.
"The question is what. Dael probably betrayed me."
"Was she a lover?"
John looked at Ken.
"The first dream involved Anwen as an adult."
Another similarity occurred to John. "When I attempted to use a portal device, I was drugged with CN. It resulted in an unexpected time shift." He paused. "I reappeared in Forest Farm hallucinating monsters." The current Anwen freed him from the Rift and tracked him from Whitchurch hospital.
"Could it be trying to talk?"
"In what way?"
"The ancient beings aren't like us?"
John nodded.
"How do we talk to someone who speaks a language we don't understand? Gestures or pictures."
John didn't have a better idea. "Say the ancient communicates with pictures. Why didn't I have another dream?" He wondered aloud.
"You reacted badly."
Or the ancient wanted a different effect. "The dream had me and Anwen at the ruins of a castle. We were there to investigate a Torchwood situation."
"We were going to Edinburgh as tourists," Ken commented.
"Our relationship is different."
"You didn't answer my question about Dael."
John wondered if it could be secrets. There was a lot Ken didn't know. "We were lovers. Casual."
"What happened in Cameroon?"
"It was an ambush. I killed four men before they incapacitated me." John didn't want to remember. "I was given an interrogation drug."
Ken hugged him. "How did you escape?"
"They underestimated me." John wrapped an arm around Ken. "Dael knew I had a personal connection to Anwen, but not where I came from. She didn't know I was a recovering addict."
"Could this be connected to that?"
John realized something. "Yes. Africa, Brazil and CN." Ronald Beaupre, Bashiri and Aman Oliviera, and the third gen biomechs that targeted the kids in Nova Scotia.
A flower, similar to the one that grew near the willow in Cardiff, sprouted next to his hand and rapidly grew.
"What does Dael have to do with any of this?" John thought aloud, watching the flower.
Blue light surrounded them. When it faded, John and Ken were in Edinburgh.
Ken exhaled sharply, relieved. "Can we take the train home?"
