Torchwood: Medusa
Chapter 8
Thursday
"You know Toshiko it does look very interesting, but it looks very much like a grainy black and white photograph of a geek!"
Owen squinted his eyes, and twisted his face. "I stand corrected – a geek in a bad suit wearing NHS glasses!"
"Takes one to know one!" Gwen quipped.
"You don't know much about 1930's nor 40's fashion Owen!" Jack said, standing behind them, in the conference. "I had a suit like that!"
"You're kidding!" Owen replied straight-faced, straightening up. Watching Gwen, Jamie, and Travers grinning like lunatics. "Toshiko, please continue!" Jack said sitting down.
"Doctor Elias Carr-Bright!" Toshiko continued, slightly frustrated and trying very badly not to show it. "One of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century!" Another picture was projected onto the screen. "He was so intelligent, at the age of four, he was doing complex mathematical equations, as well as studying physics, and geometry!" A picture showed the young Carr-Bright, with his parents, a mini-me of his father. "He was privately tutored on his parents' farm outside Winnipeg in Canada. Won a scholarship to Toronto University, and studied Theoretical Physics with engineering!" The screen showed an alumni photograph, of Carr-Bright graduating in 1928, at the age of twelve.
"I bet he was bullied at school!" Owen remarked.
"Please Owen, one smart ass remark per day is all we can bear!" Toshiko glared at first Owen, then Gwen for interrupting her.
"From 1929 until 1936, he worked on his parents farm, where he patented a number of inventions. In 1936 he emigrated to Great Britain, where he met this man!" The picture changed.
"That's Sir Robert Watson-Watt!" Jamie said deep in thought. Toshiko grinned, somebody in the room recognised the man. Six pairs of eyes looked at Jamie.
"He's the inventor of the RADAR!" Jamie smiled.
"Carr-Bright and Watson-Watt worked very well together. However Carr-Bright was driven by the fringes of science, to push new boundaries. Eventually they fell out in 1938, Watson-Watt is a name remembered by history, Carr-Bright forgotten!" Toshiko's voice drifted off. A kindred spirit that she sympathised with.
"Except for this, a paper on Quantum Mechanics, that he got published while he worked with Watson-Watt!"
"Ok Tosh – what's the connection?"
Jamie breathed deeply. "His name appeared on the crew list for HMS Medusa in 1943!"
Jack grinned. "I love this girl, great work Toshiko!"
"So we have a name that shouldn't be on a list?" Armitage whispered from the top of the conference room table. "What is it to do with the disappearance of an aircraft carrier in 1943?"
"We have a crewman who shouldn't have been part of the crew!" Jack added. "Who just so happened to specialise in pushing the scientific boundaries."
"We have a body" Owen remarked. "That shows rapid signs of aging!"
"The hub's computer's and the UAV's picked up a lot of tachyon pulses!" Jamie leaned back on his chair. "Are tachyon's and quantum mechanics linked?" He looked over at Toshiko.
"On a cellular level the scanners picked up tachyon traces minute quantities, but it was definitely there." He folded his arms, pleased that he now had something worthwhile to contribute to the discussion.
"Terence's camera's did pick up the heat source from something very very hot from within the ship!" Jamie displayed a holographic representation of the ship, and compared it, to the UAV's infra-red image. "The location was the aft hanger deck!"
"We've just put together a few more pieces of the jig-saw puzzle!" Jack smiled, as he reached behind him. Everybody watched as he struggled for a few moments, then with great effort produced, a large black leather bound book, that was dropped onto the conference room table with a loud thud, and corresponding dust cloud.
"What is that?" Gwen said, waving away the dust cloud from her general direction.
Jack responded with a trade-mark know-it all grin. "This Gwen, in the days before computer systems, is a ledger book!" The book was opened very, very carefully. "This was how accounts were kept!" He had already marked where he wanted with a book-note. "Like all secret government organisations, Torchwood being no different, the work that you did was classified, but the one thing that was kept for scrutiny was…"
"Finance details!" Ianto casually said, from sitting beside Armitage and Sam. Jack smiled. "From June 1938 to November 1943, Torchwood funded Dr Carr-Bright's research!"
Jack paused. "To the tune of several million pounds per year for five years. The expenditure was signed off personally by the Torchwood-One Director, and his Majesty the King!"
"Oh boy!" Jamie said. "I think I know where this could be heading!"
Jack nodded. "I hate saying this, the ship is expendable. It's whatever was inside that ship is what is important!"
"That close on to nearly five hundred men disappeared for!" Gwen whispered quietly.
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"I've managed to get for us a Merlin, on call from 7pm tonight!" Jamie grinned at those who looked at him with perplexed looks. "It's a helicopter!"
With the exception of Ianto, Sam, and Owen, all were gathered round the 3D imagery gathered by the UAV's the previous night. Particularly the glowing white hot source of heat from the Carrier's hanger deck.
"You want to try to land on it Lt Commander?" Jack glared at Jamie. "Until we know precisely what it is down there, we observe strictly from a distance!"
"I thought that was Torchwood's operating style, venturing where Angels fear tread?" Jamie grinned in a retort.
"In our line of work Lt Commander, it's usually the Angels that we fear!" Jack turned round. "You'll get your shot at glory!"
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"What's in here?" Sam curiously peeked through the grating on an ancient bolted wooden door numbered 75. Owen viewed her lithe figure, in jeans and blouse, so flexible, so…he shook himself out of the day-dream. "Very dangerous!" He peered in.
"Some arms dealer traded those in, they're four of them sealed in a solid black granite block." He paused, the arms dealer was from another galaxy, a shape-shifting sociopath. Owen closed his eyes in disgust to get rid of the memory, I can't believe I snogged it!
"Zero-point energy storage units!"
Sam smiled. "You're talking like Toshiko?"
Owen caught a glimpse of it. "In there, you have something the size of a five pence piece, that could run the city of London's energy needs for ten thousand years, or a bomb that would make Hiroshima, look and sound like a fart in the wind!" He turned away. "We'd throw it back into the rift, but we would not know where it would end it up. Jack has the keys to unlock the room."
"Why's that then?"
"Because he believes humanity and what is in that room, would be a lethal combination if it were let out!"
Sam glanced briefly at Owen. Like something I can mention!
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"Close to twenty five million pounds, Torchwood financed Carr-Bright before and during the war – what would that of got you?"
Jamie looked intently at the ledger book. Ianto glanced closer, appearing to recognise something.
Toshiko sipped a mug of coffee. "The best of everything, labs, material, testing facilities, and the best brains in the country!" Jamie listened intently. "Before the war, it was the British Empire and Nazi Germany that were neck and neck for the development of an atomic bomb – then kaput!" He exclaimed, snapping his fingers. "All work stopped, and it was moved to the United States as part of the Manhattan Project!"
Toshiko grimaced. "The Americans did have Oppenheim, Einstein, and the vast technical resources to accelerate the development!"
"This is just a theory – what if Torchwood with Carr-Bright as their lead, had their own Manhattan Project, one that would if it ended the war, keeps us as world power, and preserves the empire!"
"That's scary!" Toshiko commented.
"It's a possibility!" Jamie responded. "With all the paperwork and secrecy it has generated Toshiko, I think we're nearing closer to the truth!"
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"He's good Josh!" Jack observed the conversation between Jamie, and Toshiko. "A little arrogant, but that's drilled into all you military types!" Jack grinned. Armitage sighed. "Can I trade Owen for him?"
Armitage sighed. "Hell no!" Was Armitage's reply.
"You're looking at a future UNIT team leader, maybe overall Commander!"
"Feeling your age?"
"Yes - time has that habit of creeping up on you when you least expect it!"
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"I didn't know you're a film-buff Ianto!" Ianto blushed slightly at Gwen's remark. Especially when all eyes in the central hub were focused on him, holding a reel of 18mm film.
"I'm not that sort of film buff normally film-noir Gwen for the record, there is something I noticed about this particular uncategorised film reel!"
"Sloppy work Ianto, your standards are dropping!" Jack joked. Ianto patiently waited until the sniggers had died down. Jack nodded for the flustered Ianto to continue.
"For the antennary of equipment bought for Dr Carr-Bright's classified experiments in July 1941, there was a record number for 18mm film reels."
Ianto turned round the film reel to show the labelling to the table. "That matches this film reel!"
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TEST SUBJECT 021 – 21st JULY 1941
A black and white test card appeared for twenty seconds on the screen. Aside from the mechanical clicking of the ancient film projector, nobody said a word.
Elias Carr-Bright appeared on the screen, again very briefly talking to a number of technicans all in the white jackets, and tweed suits that seemed to be all the rage, outside somewhere, there was buildings, barracks presumably. Wartime fashion, Jack mused. The projector appeared to be hand-held by two people, and was man-handled to another area.
It was an open area, a parade ground. However in its centre was a semi-spherical wire-mesh like metallic cage. Inside were a number of. White rabbits. The camera panned out, to show four lightning rod type conductors, two each either side of the cage. What looked like miles upon miles of electrical wiring, all leading to mass of camping table, monitoring equipment, and electrical generators roughly one hundred meters away. The scientists and technicians calmly walked or jogged away.
The camera then focused solely on the cage. For a few moments the cage was there, the rabbits munching on the bedding of the cage. A timer on the film appeared on the bottom right hand corner. It started to countdown from five seconds. I suppose Torchwood didn't have to worry about PETA those days. Gwen watched.
Zero. There was a flash of light, and the cage disappeared, only a circular scorch mark smouldered where the cage was remained. Another timer appeared, counting upwards. It showed, one minute fifteen seconds. The camera remained focused on the spot. Owen half expected Elmer Fudd to appear saying I got those pesky wabbits, but nothing.
Two, three, four minutes passed. Five minutes.
At five minutes thirty five seconds, there was a longer less intense flash of light. Then the cage reappeared, rabbits happily hopping about if nothing had happened at all.
A black screen appeared, and the film cut out.
"Does somebody want to fill me in on what just happened?" Armitage looked around the conference room. "Anybody?"
