"Just where are we going, Jack?" asked Gwen, as the SUV accelerated towards the M4 junction. Orange sunrise washed the tarmac as they hung onto the over-door handles as Torchwood headed east.
"A little detour to talk with our opposite number," Jack replied, opaquely, pushig his sunglasses up his nose. Gwen, Ianto and Owen looked at one another. Ianto shrugged.
"But there are no opposite numbers," Toshiko replied. "Unless we are going to Scotland?"
"No Torchwood 1," Ianto mused, dully, looking out of the window.
"Scotland?" Gwen asked, glancing back towards Cardiff as the rising sun glinted off the tall buildings lit up the fields. How was she going to explain that to Rhys?
"You don't know everything," said Jack, vaguely as the Severn Bridge glittered ahed of them. Tosh used the universal remote to open the service lane. They sped along, turning onto the M5 and headed north.
It took just over an hour for the specially modified range rover to pull onto a quiet A road, onto a B road, then through some smaller lanes. The M6 was well behind them, and they were now well nortj of Bimingham.
"We're here," said Jack, striding down a path which led to a single house, once part of a terrace but was now the only building on the side of a moorland.
"Where?" asked Ianto, looking at the poor brickwork and crcked frame.
"The grim norf?" said Owen, looking around the hilly landscape, then back to the house. "Looks like it's full of life to me."
"It has old fashioned charm," Tosh replied, diplomatically. Gwen snorted.
"It a dump! Who'd live here?" she added, scornfully Jack swung round, his coat flaring out as he raised his arms, grinning.
"It's Torchwood 4. And, it has a perception filter on it. Don't you think some hi-tech joint would get spotted in an instant?"
At the iron gate, which just appeared to be an ordinary, decrepit barrier to getting to the weather-beaten front door, Jack pulled out his ID card. The gate swung back on its rusty hinges, banging against the beginning of a rockery with tiny plants growing in the cracks.
The team follwed Jack up the uneven cracked path. A grey sky filled up behind the house, a yellow line underneath it was all there was to show it was morning.
"Looks like rain," Gwen commented, grimly.
"This has to be a mistake," Owen said to Jack, accusingly. "You said Torchwood 4 was gone."
"I said it was lost," Jack replied, not turning around. "That we'd find it some day. In fact, I said it had been lost. It was lost, in 1941. Perception filter has kept it on the edge of notice of people, up here, alone, on this moor." Jack swung his arms round as if to emphasise the space around them. "It's been here the whole - "
A sound, like two screeching cats came from within the house. It was getting louder, then quietened down, then the volume got up again.
"Celia, you're breaking my heart...!" A record played on its player as they entered the front door, its edge spinning as wildly as the woman sitting next to it was moving her arms. She didn't seem to notice the others as they walked down the hall, but got to her feet when she saw Jack.
The team stared. The woman had her fair hair in a springy Edwardian-style. She was wearing an orange sixties minidress and drainpipe trousers with army boots.
"You look marvellous, Mallory," he said, catching her in his arms and embracing her closely. The woman, a little unsteady on her feet, clung to Jack's shoulders to prevent herself from falling, and she tottered back, her army boots squeaking on the herringbone inlaid floor.
Then, she looked at Jack again and ran back to him, kisssing him on the lips. Jack, in turn, was returning it, eagerly. Gwen, Tosh, Ianto and Owen exchanged looks.
Then, the woman looked over Jack's shoulder and eyed each one of them, warily.
"You.. brought them?" All four of Torchwood 3 tried to smile or wave or say hello. But Mallory just turned away.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you in advance, kinda an emergency."
"Hello?" Gwen called again, hoping to release the tension. "We're from Torchwood 3." She didn't look back. "Pleased to meet you."
Mallory turned for a moment, frowning at Gwen before looking down into her hands at the tech Jack had placed in them.
"I can fix this now," Mallory said, and without another glance at the four, making her way through a door out of the room.
"Friendly, I don't think," Owen complained to Jack as the captain closed the door behind Mallory.
"Torchwood 4," Jack breathed, hands behind his head. "I do like to visit, once in a while, see the beginnings of the future."
"Mallory?" Gwen asked. Jack said nothing, but grinned.
"Was that our faulty transmission transducer unit?" Tosh pointed towards the door.
"And it will be good as new in a few minutes. Better." Jack sat down on the sofa, the only thing that looked new in the living room.
"So, we're just going to wait?" Owen looked around the room. "So, where's the tech? All I see is old person kitch.
"That's for me to know," Jack said. Tosh picked up the arm of the record player and moved it from the record.
"Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits," Gwen said. "Original, 1969. It really is ancient around here."
But, within moments, the door opened, and Mallory returned, smiling across to Jack and holding out the transducer. Tosh looked at it, noticing the new casing and a change in lights. Jack tossed it to her, and she negan to examine it.
Her smile dropped when she noticed the Torchwood 3 team were stitting next to Jack.
"Who are you?" She looked uneasy at them, as if it was the first time she had seen them.
"We're with Jack," Gwen said, carefully. Mallory looked across to Jack, questioningly.
"You didn't tell me other people were coming..."
"I'm sorry Mallory; we're kinda in a bit if a hurry."
"And you." Owen couldn't resist a jibe.
"Pardon?"
"Your style..." He was suppressing a derisive laugh, with which Gwen became infected, and snorted.
"It was mum's," she replied, face inexpressive. "The boots were my grandfather's." Mallory turned and walked down the hall to the front door, stopping at and, not turning around, stood there, arms folded.
Gwen got to her feet, shooting Owen a warning look as she approached Mallory. She did not turn as Gwen spoke
"We haven't been introduced. You don't know us." Mallory swung round, arms still folded.
"And you don't know me." She scanned the people on her sofa, pushing past Gwen. "Good. Stay away."
"'C'mon, gorgeous girl," Jack soothed. But Mallory stalked past him.
"Don't follow me," she called, "I'll bring it out. And you must go."
Then the door slammed.
"Touchy!" Gwen walked back over to the sofa and sat down - and down - on the old seat.
"Weird and touchy," Owen echoed.
"Wow!" Tosh breathed, but she was still looking at the transmission transducer. "It is better than new, Jack!" she marvelled. "Lightweight casing?"
"New alloy, never been seen before."
"4D capability?" Can send data into the future. Not receive it, though. She's working on that. And you guys," Jack warned, pointing between Owen and Gwen "Do not be rude about her again." Owen shook his head.
"Come off it, Jack. Torchwood 4? She's cracked!" But Jack was giving him a long, cold stare.
"Where do you think all your retcon comes from? Who assays all your substances, your materials, your metals? The remote, the SUV? The organic computer, for Christ's sake!"
There was silence. Then the door handle moved, and Mallory stepped back in, the leather soles of her grandfather's boots squeaking on the floor.
"Give it to me," Mallory conceded.
"Can you do it?" Jack asked. He handed her something, around which Mallory curkled her hand around it.
"Of course I can do it." She reached into the pocket of her dress. "Here." All four of the Torchwood 3 team watched as Mallory passed back something equally enigmatic. "They will help him." Then, she turned her pale blue eyes onto the people on her sofa.
"Why did you bring them?"
"I'm sorry," Jack replied. "I know how you feel about the unexpected." He strode over to her, his back towards Tosh, Owen, Gwen and Ianto, hugging her.
"I miss him," she said softly.
"I know you do, beautiful." Then, Mallory broke off from Jack's embrace.
"I'm sorry. I'm not good with people.
"I'll say," muttered Owen, rolling his eyes.
"You're doing great," Jack encouraged. "Now, do I get a preview of the language unit you've been working on." Mallory looked back to Jack.
"Yes. But they must wait in the garden."
"Then, I'll take them," Jack said. "You go and get it ready."
"See?" Owen declared, sullenly. "Nutcase."
The sun had risen and was pouring its rays onto the neat flower beds and trim grass of Torchwood 4's garden. Ianto took a stroll aroung the lawn's perimeter, inspecting all of the flowering plants, neatly tethered and well tended.
Most seemed to be ordinary: daffodils, forget-me-nots, clematis, snapdragons. Amd some specimens of tall, gangly plants with no flowers they could see dotted here and there.
"Funny," Gwen said. "This is a more northerly latitude to Cardiff, and it's only February. We haven't had any spring flowers out yet."
But, before they could debate the point further, Jack ws beckoning them in, through a sliding glass door which led into a room which was, well, if not exactly like Torchwood 3, the most well-equipped living room in the world.
"The only thing missing is the Bond villain," Owen said caustically.
"What is it?" asked Tosh, amazed as words appeared on the screen.
"It translates," Mallory replied, not looking at them.
"So does Google Translate."
"No, it translates - everything. Jack brought it to me, damaged."
"An alien device which translates?"
"Not only translates, but translates meaning, effect, emotion. It was only programmed for alien languages, but - "
Then Mallory switched it off.
"I'm sorry that you don't want to show us more. Like you showed me just now?" He prompted.
"It is dangerous," she turned to Jack. "You told me that."
"It has caused the death of three people, trying to use it."
"Oh." Mallory crossed the wooden floor and sank down into a tall, wing-backed chair.
"Is there something wrong?"
"No." Mallory shook her head.
"May I see it?" But Mallory looked past Jack.
"They need to go."
"But - " Jack made to protest.
"I said, you need to go!"
"You don't even know who we are!" Owen protested.
"Owen Harper, recruited to Torchwod after your fiancee had an alien growing in her brain." She shot a look to Tosh.
"Toshiko Sato. Briliant engineer. This, or life imprisonment." That had been in Japanese. "Brilliant mathematician and engineer. Unappreciated."
"What's she saying?" asked Gwen, defensively."
"I am saying," Mallory said, in Welsh, as she tucked her hair behind her ear amd got to her feet, "that Miss Sato is unappreciated."
She sat back down before her computer then looked up, inspecting a little row of lights above a computer monitor. Gwen opened her mouth to say something, but Ianto replied in Welsh.
"I think we've met."Mallory looked at him.
"Nac ydy," she replied, before smoothing out a piece of ancient-looking newspaper onto the formica-topped table. Then, Mallory picked up a watering can from tbe windowsill.
"Ianto Jones - Torchwood so-called 1."
"I am sure we've met."
"No," rebutted Mallory, their eyes meeting for a second.
"And, for the benefit of those of us that don't speak mangled?"
"Is this...the doctor?"asked Mallory in English, looking at Owen as if she had never seen a human in her life before.
"Our medical doctor," Jack replied. "But we don't have time for this." He held out his hand for the device. Mallory took it from the computer port and placed it in Jack's hand.
"And me?" Gwen pushed. Mallory looked her up and down.
"You, Miss-I-Can't-Keep-My-Nose-Out?"
"Rude!" declared Gwen, loudly, folding her arms.
"Yes," agreed Mallory. There was no malice in her voice,
"And it will work on Weevil?"
Mallory then undertook a long speech in painful detail. All of T3 stared at Mallory as she laboured over the technical points. Except Tosh, who drank it all in
"Batshit crazy," denounced Owen, quietly, hands on hips. "I mean, look at this place. Full of old..."
Yes?" Mallory asked. "My father's. I came home to look after him. He was devastated after...that..." Mallory looked at Jack, pointedly.
"I do know you," said Ianto, suddenly. "I came here, once, to see Roderick. You were in the garden, you were reading."
"Hmmh," Mallory replied, as if recalling some time long ago. "My dad's not alive any more. Cancer. I've never met you, Ianto Jones," she replied, in Welsh.
"I'm sorry to hear that," said Gwen, politely. Mallory stared at her, then back at the tech.
"It's alien," Jack explained. Mallory turned her head to him.
"Of course it is. When is it not?" Then, she looked back at the translaton decive, taking it out of Jack's hand. "Give me half an hour." Mallory looked past Jack. "You can wait in the garden."
"Who is she, Jack?" pressed Gwen as they went from the oppressive living room into the late winter morning sun. Butterflies had begun to get busy around the buddlea; bees were musing around the wildflowers.
"Mallory, daughter of Roderick Collier. Her mother was...of Torchwood 1." Jack walked past them and gazed at the roses.
"Roderick, here at T4 and Archie up in Glasgow kept the Midlands, North and Scotland going. Gerard and Roderick, now, they were a team." Jack shook his head in admiration.
"Set up transport links, connections with the police, cyber tech. Roddy was devastated when Mallory went off the rails."
"Went off the rails?" Owen laughed. "Looks like she's never been on the rails."
"Hey!" Jack swung around and bore down on Owen. "I will not have you being rude to Mallory. She's a little eccentric, that's all. She's alone here, and off grid. I'll not have you be rude about her. Now if you'll excuse me I'll see if she's done."
"But she can be rude to us, now Jack, is that it?" Gwen shouted after him."
"I could have done that programming," mused Tosh, a hint of bitterness in her voice.
"She's the daughter of Roderick Collier and a woman...Wren Smith," Ianto said. "I do remember her. She was sitting over there, in that tree." They all turned to look at the oak tree in the centre of the garden with the remnants of two ropes falling from one of its upper branches, seat long gone. Its decay contrasted with the neatness if the garden.
"She was sitting there, on a swing, big summer hat on her head, all crouched up, almost invisible. Her dad was upset with her about something. They'd argued."
"What did you have to see her father about?" asked Gwen.
"Supplies," Ianto replied. "He developed most of the prototypes of the weapons we have now, laser scalpel, isotope tracking, even DNA anslysis from alien tissue samples, before even the University got hold of it to develop fingerprint analysis.
"Retcon?" asked Tosh.
"Well, if it wasn't him, it was Archie; I remember...Lisa...telling me, they were celebrated...famous...but preferred isolation and obscurity."
A voice came from thee wooden cellar door. The iron latch fittings clicked and Jack leaned out.
"Owen, may I trouble you for just a coupla moments?"
"Probably gonna bore me to death about programming," came Owen's sardonic retort. Gwen giggled. But Toshiko looked cross. She folded her arms brusquely.
"What?" sotto-voce'd Ianto.
"That's me," she snapped back as Owen strode across the lawn.
"Noooo," soothed Gwen, looking towards the house. "She's...cracked that one, dancing all over the place."
"No, I meant..."Tosh began, then took in Ianto's expression. "Nothing."
"I'll leave them to it," said Jack as he returned out into the garden.
"Why is she so important?" Gwen asked Jack as they looked at the goldfish in the small pond near the boughs of the oak tree.
"What Torchwoods do you know?" He looked at his three subordinates.
"Well, Torchwood 1, London," said Ianto promptly. "Torchwood 2: Glasgow. Archie MacLeish."
"You told me about him!" Tosh exclaimed. Ianto nodded his head.
"He wanted to show me his collection of Razzle and Mayfair. Eugh."
"And Torchwood 3. That's us," finished Gwen.
"And Torchwood 4," added Jack, hands in his pockets.
"Torchwood 4 doesn't exist. You told me that yourself, Jack," Ianto replied, hotly. "You told me it had come to a sticky end because a piece of alien tech."
"Yes, it did," Jack smiled. "And it is also fully functioning and active."
"Huh, wait, why haven't we ever - " began Toshiko. "You've never said..."
"And no time today, either," Jack replied. "We've got one pissed off alien to destroy." He looked back to the house. "She is feeling a little under the weather: I sent her Owen because we need her to be well for and ready for what comes next after we use the language device on the weevils."
"To programme it," Gwen mused.
"She's very good at languages," said Ianto, sounding impressed.
"She knows 'em all," agreed Jack.
"All the languages?" Gwen asked, sinling down onto the bench next to the pond.
"Yep."
"On Earth?"
"Nope." Jack put his thumbs through his braces straps and stretched the elastic. "She knows the ones in the galaxy too, and the next three galaxies. It's hard to get reliable language examples from all there. But I help."
There was silence. All three of the Torchwood 3 team stared at Jack.
"No-one can know all the languages on Earth," Gwen persisted, doubtfully. "There must be thousands."
"Six and a half thousand," Ianto clarified, looking at his PDA. "That's not counting the peoples we don't know about."
"She can't know every language in the world; that's just impossible. And I mean, she's not very old, is she?"
"3rd September 1977 she arrived," Jack mused, softly. "She was just a tiny little thing, it took me all my effort to hold onto her mom, but, I wasn't strong enough. So, after, it was her dad and Mallory. Until Roddy died, then - "
A scream erupted from the house. Jack looked at the door, back at his employees before racing back in.
Gwen got to her feet, Ianto and Toshiko followed. They crept living room, where the record player stood, now beredt of disc. Crying was coming from somewhere inside the house, along with muffled speech, staccato'd and brusque. Gwen went to the door and opened it.
"Everything all right?" she called.
"Terrific,"called back Owen, his one word dripping in sarcasm. He appeared, lookimg cross, his hand bandaged, blood oozing between the cloth. Gwen gasped
"What happened?" Tosh asked.
"She did!" shot back Owen, waving his hand towards the door. "She bit me, the little bitch! I'm gonna - !" He broke off as Jack appeared at the door, Mallory just behind him. She was wearing Jack's greatcoat, her legs abd feet were bare. When she saw the others staring at her, she turned, and walked away.
"It's done," Jack said, frowning at Owen. "And I'm not going to tolerate your language towards Mallory like that." Owen gave him a surly look.
"But she bit me, the animal!"
"And you have a patient on your hands - she'll need a check up in about a week's time."
'You're joking!" exclaimed Owen, but Jack ignored him.
"Ianto, Gwen, get back to the SUV. Tosh - " He handed his tech expert the metatransducer that she thought was beyond repair. "Take this; you'll find it's like new."
"But...!" Tosh protested, lookingbover the sleek sperical surface of the embergy converter amd back to her boss's face. It was crushed to pieces by the alien spacecraft. She mended it in half an hour?"
"Ten minutes," Jack specified. "She was just running some diagnostics.
"But how can she - " Tosh began to argue, but Jack held out a hand, gesturing with the other to the front door.
"No time, Tosh. We need that language programme to combat the Sycorax.
Tosh got into the SUV, still staring at the sphere as Jack used a card to close all of the old house's doors, a reverse of what he had done when they had arrived.
Gwen looked over to Tosh's hand, as did Ianto and then Owen.
"It's fixed," Tosh said in wonder.
"She made it, after all." Gwen grinned
"I knew someone could never speak six and a half thousand languages!"
"Try twenty thousand. And there was nothing wrong with the pressure recognition software; a graphene later was out by point two of a picometres. Tosh, you should find it's working accurately now she fixed it." Jack handed her a thin, titanium-coated device about the size of a credit card. Tosh smoothed her index finger.
Then, she took out a small tin from her inside jacket pocket and pulled out something as thin as tissue paper. The mid-morning sunlight shone through it, turning it pale green. Tosh placed it on the piece of thin body tissue. The recognition device.
"Yes, full match," Tosh confirmed, reading off her PDA. "Says "High Dogon"."
"High Dogon," repeated Jack, slapping his leg. If I were to have put a bet on dang, I would have put a lotta money on High Dogon."
Jack pulled the SUV off the rough track, leaving the old, dilapidated, lonely building in their wake. It took until they had got back onto the M5 before anyone spoke to anyone else.
"Who is she, Jack?" Gwen asked, as she recalled the a face appearing at the front window, blurring to nothing as the perception filter had kicked in.
"She's the one that makes our tech; not just makes it, designs it, builds it, programnes it. She is the genius - the meta-genius who has accelerated Torchwood - all Torchwoods - so quickly into the 21st century. Without her, we would be nothing."
"Without who?"
"Without her," Jack repeated. "Mallory Tern Collier. Torchwood. Torvhwood 4."
88888888
A knock on the door of a detached house in Penarth brought Gwen hurrying down the stairs. They had been back less than ten minutes from Anwen's gymnastics lesson and she was trying to locate the dancing bag for her daughter's ballet which was after tea.
A familiar grin on a familiar face met hers and Gwen felt her eyes widen in surprise.
"Gwen Cooper!"
"Williams," Gwen corrected, holding onto the door handle for physical support. "I've been Gwen Williams for twelve years now."
"Good to see you too. May I come in?" Reluctantly, Geen stepped aside.
"You look just the same," she sighed as the man stepped into the hall.
"I have a favour to ask, for which you have already been remunerated if you check your savings account later, and which you can keep regardless of your decision." Gwen widened her eyes, expectantly.
"Well, not a favour, exactly. But a proposal."
"Tea?" Gwen turned to the stairs. "Anwen! Can you come down here now? You need lay tbe table, love!"
At once, a girl of about eleven appeared at the top of the stairs, long black hair bouncing around her pale face. She hurried down, keeping her eyes fixed on the man, who grinned at her, before going past her mum amd i to the kitchen.
"No, I can't stay long." He turned to the still open door, raising a key fob towards the range rover parked next to the kerb, waving an arm.
"Two boys got out and hurried to Jack Harkness's side.
"You locked two kids in the SUV?"
Gwen Cooper, meet Roderick and David. May we come in?"