Heart and Soul
Part Two -Revelations
Chapter Eight
Gwen walked through the rolling door of the hub shaking her umbrella free of rain drops.
The Hub lay in deep shadow with the only light coming from Jack's office. With just enough light to make her way to the main light switch, she pulled it down and snapped it into the on position. As she did so, the hub lights flickered on, filling the main arena.
Walking to her desk, she opened her umbrella to dry and placed it beside her work station. Now putting her bag next to the key board she turned slightly as she glanced towards Jack's office. The door was open. She let out a small sigh of relief; it meant Jack was having a better day.
On better days he was conscious of hub activity and was involved on some level. Bad days meant the door remained closed and only opened on the occasion when Jack left the hub for hours and sometimes days at a time.
From her work station she could just make out he was absorbed with a task at his desk.
This she took as another good sign. Jack had shown little inclination to engage in the day to day operation of Torchwood since his return. He was more than willing to join in any activity outside the hub. However, sitting at his desk doing the more mundane tasks was something he had avoided until recently. She took it to mean that Jack was slowly beginning to come back to them.
She walked across to his office to say good morning. Walking up the short flight of steps she entered his office and stood in front of his desk. From the stack of completed paper work she guessed he had been up for some time.
"Still raining?" he asked, looking up briefly at Gwen before returning his attention back to the report he was working on.
"Much more and I will start building that ark," Gwen replied smiling.
"Coffee?," she asked.
Without looking up from the task in front of him, Jack reached out for the mug on his desk and held it out towards Gwen.
Taking the mug, Gwen walked back down the steps crossed the main floor and made her way to the kitchen area. Here she found the filter coffee flask hot and quarter full. She picked it up and sniffed; it smelled rank. Either this was left over from yesterday or Jack had made it. The coffee hadn't eaten through the flask, so she figured it had just been left on over night
With a practiced movement she poured it down the sink and set about making a fresh batch. She filled flask with fresh water and took out the old filter full of dregs and put it in the bin. Opening a drawer she pulled out a new filter and fitted it into the filter compartment. She was emptying the sachet of ground coffee into the filter, when a noise caught her attention.
An old fashioned alarm bell had begun sounding off, it was clearly audible but muffled like it was coming from deep within the complex.
"Jack, can you hear that?" she called out.
Getting up from his desk Jack walked to the door of his office and stood looking around tilting his head as he listened for the source of the alarm.
"Yes I can," he replied walking around the hub trying to get a clearer indication of where the sound might be coming from.
Quickly turning on the coffee pot, Gwen joined him in as they tracked the noise through the corridor down towards the ground floor vaults.
As they went down the stairs, to the second basement level, the sound became increasingly louder.
At the end of the corridor they found the source of the alarm. There were four large bells with one sounding off. It size and design meant once it went off it would be heard all way into the main area of the Hub.
Underneath the alarms was an old fashioned square electrical board. Its age was evident by the large faded and slightly peeling letters which read 'PUMP CONTROL' in black across the top.
Under the letters were five rows of indicators, each with two large indicator bulbs, one red and one green, with four smaller bulbs following on. Each row was labelled Pump Control Sub-Level from A to E.
Pump Control Level A 0 0 o o o o
The large indicator bulb for Sub-Level E had gone from green to red while three of the smaller bulbs were green and the other red. As Gwen watched the remaining bulbs each in turn went from green to red.
While Gwen was studying the board, Jack looked for a way to silence the large red bell. The sound was deafening and it was hurting their ears. It was so loud, Gwen thought she could feel the vibration of the sound in the bones of her face. After a brief struggle and a sharp jerk he pulled out a large black wire and the alarm went silent.
"Thank You!," Gwen stated, taking her fingers out of her ears, shaking her head as the ringing in her ears continued.
"What?" Jack shouted back at her.
"I said, Thank you" she shouted back.
"What?" he repeated.
'I said, THA..." she halted, realising he was teasing her.
"Okay," Jack stated as he examined the board, "If I understand this correctly this board is telling us that."-"
He was interrupted as a second alarm bell now began to ring out. They both immediately looked at the board as the sub-level D indicators now went from green to red. With a swift, forceful move, Jack pulled at the back of the board and jerked a second wire and the second bell was silenced.
"As I was trying to say, I think we had better check the lower vaults," he said, indicating to the stairwell at the end of the corridor.
It became clear as they walked down the steps into the lowest vault that it was flooded. Water was lapping almost to the top of the fourth step. They took a moment to survey the flooded vault.
There were several old fashioned cells with bars, each stacked to capacity with what looked like old broken furniture. Bits of unidentifiable machinery and a large number of large tea chests stacked against the walls in stacks of twos and threes. They had found what looked like the Torchwood equivalent of an attic or shed, where things that had long passed their usefulness had been stored. Added to this was two feet of water which as they watched crept a little further up the fourth step.
"Anything important kept down here we need to be aware of?" Gwen asked Jack.
Jack looked around and replied, "Possibly; old equipment maybe...we haven't used this level for decades." He paused then added, "as far as I am aware."
"So the answer to my question is no, you have no idea what's kept down here," Gwen stated.
Jack looked sheepish. "No," he replied.
