Chapter 35

"What is it?" Jack demanded, automatically assuming the role of leader. Beyond the bruising that still surrounded Ianto's eyes he could detect a sense of alarm. The light hearted banter and gentle ribbing were abandoned as he recognised the serious expression on Ianto's face.

Ianto had the map spread out in front of him and had drawn several circles on it with a highlighter pen.

"I take it that we agreed that the plants at the police station got there the same way as the one Owen found in the garage – seeds, or whatever, stuck on the outside of vehicles parked on Albany Road?"

"Yeah – that's the only thing that could explain the distance they'd travelled." Jack rested a hand on Ianto's back and leaned over to try to work out what he was looking at.

"But if there are plants on the platform at the central train station, they couldn't have got there by human intervention surely – they must've got there by wind." Ianto pointed at the central train station on his map. Tosh, didn't you suggest that the seeds or spores were likely to be dispersed by the wind?"

Tosh shrugged as she moved to stand on the other side of Ianto to get a better view of what he was studying on the street map.

"That seems logical for a plant that produces pollen with air sacs – oh, I see what you're getting at. Hang on, I'll check that data I was looking up yesterday." Tosh dashed across to her computer and quickly pulled up a file she had set aside when the emergency at the police station had taken priority.

"Let me guess – the prevailing weather conditions a week ago would have included fairly strong winds coming from the north and north-east, across the city and towards the Bristol Channel, yes?" Ianto asked, even though he already knew the answer. He felt Jack's hand squeezing his shoulder tightly and was reassured by the unspoken encouragement.

"Yes, you're right… and if I superimpose the wind charts for twelve hours either side of the time when the SUV was parked on Albany Road on top of a map of Cardiff –" Tosh expertly manipulated the displays on her computer to represent graphically what Ianto had described, a looped sequence of broad white arrows moving steadily from the top right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner of the screen. "Got it – and Albany Road is almost directly to the north east of the train station."

"Hang on! That means-" Jack blurted out, clutching hold of both of Ianto's shoulders as he suddenly caught onto what had caused him to call out for their attention.

"Directly in between the site of the first incidents, involving people who'd been on Albany Road, and the central train station, here," Ianto indicated the locations he'd already circled on his own map. "We've got St David's shopping centre, the Capitol Building and the Castle."

Tosh shook her head slightly as she muttered under her breath.

"It's worse than that – once we factor in lateral drift and dispersion by warm air currents from those buildings, it's not so much a narrow corridor, but more of a cone shaped zone of dispersal." Tosh's fingers flew as she dragged out a shape not dissimilar to a witch's hat from Albany Road across the city centre.

"Oh, that's not good." Jack shook his head as he looked from Tosh's 3-D display to Ianto's paper map. Both told the same story. "The Millennium Stadium is in the danger zone as well."

"There's a six nations match against England at the weekend. It'll be packed, it always is." Ianto ran his hand through his hair. It was one thing evacuating a train station for a few hours, but calling off an international rugby match was another matter entirely.

"They are all places likely to be crawling with people outdoors. This just gets better and better." Owen was angry with himself. He should have known better than to think they'd got the situation under control. "We need to act fast, arrange evacuation procedures, and get any pedestrians off the streets and indoors. No way can the emergency services cope with the potential number of victims, without someone dying. There were less than ten affected first time round with one plant, thirty odd at the police station and another twenty say from the train station, so that means we could have at least another hundred go down. Maybe more."

"OK, first off, we need to contact Kathy – she's seen first hand what these plants can do, she'll be on our side. I'll talk to her - those locations that Ianto listed all need to be cleared and then searched for plants. Owen, any update on how we can kill them quickly?"

"I've not finished the full analysis of them yet, but I'd suggest paraquat. If our purple alien plant uses light energy, which we're assuming it does, then paraquat will act on contact and destroy the whole plant by generating reactive oxygen species – don't ask, it's all to do with electron carriers. It's the best thing going for wiping out weeds quickly. There's just one problem."

"Name it." Jack snapped.

"It's been banned by the EU since 2007." Owen shrugged apologetically. "It's lethal to humans by ingestion and over 90% of the fatalities caused by it were self administered."

"Damn-"

Ianto coughed and looked uncomfortable as he became the centre of attention.

"Um – we've got some. It's in the secure domestic chemicals store."

Owen gave Ianto the type of glare that said, in no uncertain terms, 'we're talking about this later' and then shook his head in resignation. He'd make sure that if there was any left after dealing with the alien plant that he'd supervise its storage.

"How much have you got stashed away?"

"Enough. It can be diluted for use."

The silent exchange between the doctor and Ianto wasn't missed by Jack. If the chemical had been banned in 2007 and Ianto had managed to get hold of some… the dates made sense, the Battle of Canary Wharf had been in July of that year. Without knowing there was a queue, he made his mind up that he'd be having words with Ianto later on the matter of stockpiling chemicals used to commit suicide.

Jack made the call to Kathy Swanson who was more than willing to arrange the evacuations of the sites identified as potential risk areas. She'd seen the chaos that had ensued at the police station and would rather avert that if at all possible. It wasn't difficult for her to persuade her superiors to authorise the operation under the guise of further gas leaks in the city. They had even put in the call to British Gas to send in vans to lend credibility to the cover story. Fire appliances were to be placed on standby, equipped with supplies of paraquat and protective clothing, they would be best equipped to gain access to the plants in order to destroy them if there were more than Torchwood could cope with.

With Kathy's assistance, local radio stations, including Red Dragon, broadcast alerts warning people to avoid the city centre for the rest of the day. Hotels and bars were prompted to instigate happy hours in a further attempt to keep as many people off the streets as possible. Jack was impressed at her creativity and imagination and idly wondered what it would take to recruit her to Torchwood.

Whilst Jack was busy liaising with the police, Owen had been in touch with the hospitals, who'd passed on his warnings to general practices and walk-in clinics in the city to be prepared. That left him to prepare emergency kits for each team member as well as the face masks which had proved invaluable earlier that day.

Tosh set to work on calibrating scanners to detect the signature antigens of the alien plant if they were present in the air. A quick check of the latest results on Owen's analysis gave her cause to frown, but she factored in the differences to ensure that the scanners picked up all variants of the alien pollen. There were sufficient variations in the biochemical make-up to require additional data to be input into the hand held devices, but she put it down to natural genetic diversity. However, she made a note of her observations and figured that she'd have to time to check them out later.

Meanwhile, Ianto made it his priority to seek out appropriate kit to help them deal with the plants. He found two slim canisters that could be pressurised and used to spray liquids accurately from a distance of several metres and set them to one side, ready for Owen to fill with the herbicide. To begin with he was ready to dismiss the armoury, thinking that weapons would be of little use to them in this instance, their adversary was incapable of running away from them or shooting at them, indeed it was the most insentient foe they'd dealt with for a long time, even if it could strike at them without them being aware of its presence. On second thoughts, Ianto decided that it wouldn't hurt to take a few flame throwers as a precautionary measure. If in doubt they could just torch a whole bunch of the plants without getting too close.

Relieved that they would be getting back up from the police in keeping civilians out of the way, Jack turned to the task of working out who should check which sites. It was then that Gwen came storming into the Hub, with Rhys in tow, alarmed at the news breaking of evacuations across the city.

"My god, Jack! What's going on out there?"

"Where the hell have you been?" countered Jack immediately.

Ianto watched on from the sidelines, wondering if they knew just how alike they were. It occurred to him that they didn't even realise that their poses were a mirror image, each with hands on hips, feet apart, ready to snap.

"Nice of you to join us, Gwen." Ianto strolled over and held out his hand to Gwen's husband, giving it a firm shake. "Good to see you, Rhys."

"Oh, Ianto, pet – your face!" Gwen exclaimed, seeing for the first time the swelling and bruising across his nose and around his eyes. She subconsciously raised her hand to her own face in sympathy.

Owen nudged Tosh who looked at him and winked. Neither of them had made a fuss over the state Ianto was in, both of them just pleased he was back with them. They were also sensitive enough to know that it would only serve to make Jack feel even worse than he already was about Ianto having been attacked in his cell.

"Nothing broken. I'm already feeling much better." He walked over to take his place next to Jack and reached out to put a hand on his arm, having noticed the anguished look in his face when Gwen had pointed at his bruised nose with horror in her eyes. "Where have you been then?"

"Visiting Andy Davidson in hospital. He was affected by the pollen. They discharged him this morning, so we gave him a lift home."

"Is he alright now?"

"Yes, thanks." Gwen gave Ianto a confused look, not sure if Owen had been winding her up about him now being her boss. It was odd that Jack was just standing there, grim-faced, not saying a word. They'd have normally ended up screaming at each other first before reaching an uneasy truce, especially when she had Rhys with her.

"Good, glad to hear it. Now, as you can see, we've got a bit of a crisis to deal with. Jack – do you want to explain?"

In a few words, Ianto had defused the situation and handed over control to Jack, seamlessly and without loss of face for anyone concerned. Jack didn't have a clue how he did it, but he was inordinately grateful that he could and more than a little bit proud of this man who'd stand by his side through thick and thin.

"We've good reason to believe there are alien plants shedding pollen at the train station, hence the cancellation of all services via Cardiff Central."

"Bloody hell," Rhys stated succinctly. As someone who worked in transport, he was only too aware of the chaos that would entail.

"Yeah – luckily the police are on our side this time and are assisting with the evacuations."

"What? After all the crap we've been through?" Gwen could hardly believe what she was hearing.

"This is more important than any petty disputes and thankfully the police agree with us. The problem we now face is that there could well be more plants growing anywhere between Albany Road and the train station, possibly as far out as the Millennium Stadium."

"So what are you doing about it?" Gwen demanded, getting back into her stride of questioning Jack mercilessly.

"Searching the major sites – rooftops, exposed areas where there might be enough soil for these things to grow. Owen reckons they can be killed with herbicides, so we've got some ready to take with us."

"Right then, well who's going where then?"

"I'll go to the Castle," Ianto volunteered. "I've read those bloody brochures so many times, I know the place better than most of the tour guides."

"We'll take the Millennium Stadium then-" Gwen turned to look at Rhys.

"What do you mean 'we'? This is no job for a civilian, Gwen," Jack growled, angry that he seemed to be losing control once more.

"Jack – you might want to reconsider that." Ianto spoke up softly. "If I'm right, I bet Rhys here would spot something out of the ordinary at the home of Welsh rugby faster than any of the rest of us. What do you say, Rhys?"

"Damn right I would, man. There's a game on this weekend and Banana's got us tickets – I've got added incentive."

Jack glared at Ianto briefly before shaking his head slowly.

"Alright then – this once. But no cock-ups like when we took you to the warehouse to deal with the space whale, OK? This time you do as you're told."

"Yes, Jack. Bloody hell, I'm not that stupid you know-"

"Tosh – why don't you equip Gwen and Rhys with scanners, masks and paraquat while Jack finishes giving orders?" Ianto caught Tosh's attention, knowing he could rely on her to help him prevent a fight between two men.

"Yes, Ianto, no problem."

Ianto kept hold of Jack's arm as Tosh led Rhys over to her bench. Gwen was following, but paused long enough to dash back quickly to plant a kiss on Ianto's cheek.

"What was all that about?" demanded Jack.

"Power sharing, Jack," Ianto replied calmly. "You can be all macho and bark commands and I'll just do what I always do … make sure things get done."

It was at that point that Jack began to wonder how many of his decisions had been Ianto's all along.

"Fine – then I'll take Capitol Tower."

"Good idea – you're definitely the man for tall buildings."

"We'll take the shopping centre then," Owen pointed from himself to Tosh.

"How long do we have to find these plants, then?" Rhys asked as he looked up from the picture of the purple leaved alien plant that Tosh had handed him.

"As long as the police can keep the public out of the way, I guess." Jack shrugged.

"Actually – it's a bit more urgent than that." Tosh looked up from her lap top, chewing her lower lip nervously as she took off her glasses and set them down.

"What do you mean, Tosh?" Jack sighed, knowing from her nervousness that it had to be bad.

"These plants have an incredibly short life cycle. Working on the evidence we've got so far, there's not much more than twenty four hours between them releasing pollen and then dispersing ripened seeds, ready to germinate and then, within one week, the new plants are apparently mature enough to flower."

"Damn. That means we've got less than a day to find and destroy all the plants before they disperse their seeds and start up all over again. We've gotta stop this now."

"There can't be that many of them -" Gwen protested.

"Don't you get it? It's like, what are they called? Daffodils? Those yellow flowers that make those big seed heads-"

"Dandelions, Jack. The daffodil is the national flower of Wales." Ianto rolled his eyes in despair. He wondered just how much time Jack had actually spent in Wales.

"Yeah – those ones, you start off with one plant with a few flowers and each one makes hundred of seeds and they get blown around by the wind, landing and germinating, each then producing hundreds more seed and before you know it, they're everywhere."

"Except this bloody thing grows ten times faster than your average dandelion. Its population size could grow exponentially." Owen explained the enormity of the problem they faced. "Oh fuck, we've got to find every single bloody plant before any of them get around to making seeds."