Chapter Twenty-Four
****November 28th*****
When we returned to the centre hub it was nearly ten o'clock at night. Jack had walked at my side as I went to sit by Tosh so that we could watch the CCTV footage of Jack questioning Suzie. When he started walking away, he did it slowly (without being suspicious) and prepared to turn around and help me the moment Owen called for him. Although the power of the glove/Suzie being alive was stronger here, and that sense of wrongness was pushing down on me, I was able to reinforce my shields and stay completely focused.
As Jack disappeared down the stairs, Gwen following behind him without being asked, Tosh turned to me. "Are you okay?" she asked in concern.
"I'm fine. Tired and a headache, but otherwise fine." I answered. Owen nodded his agreement with my assessment, when Tosh turned to him questioningly.
"Here." Ianto appeared suddenly carrying a tray of coffee. Owen and Tosh accepted their normal coffee with a thanks.
"Thank you, Ianto." I said with a smile when I realised that Ianto had brought me caramel tea as opposed to coffee. It was his way of saying he was concerned about me, and was hoping that I would take the time to relax and get some sleep. Ianto nodded his head, and disappeared down to the archives while the rest of us turned to the CCTV footage.
Suzie was sat in a wheelchair. Ianto had found her a shawl to cover the hole in the back of her head, but the bruising could be seen under her chin were the entrance wound was.
"How long's it been?" Suzie asked when Jack took a seat opposite Suzie at the table. Gwen remained leaning against the banister.
"Three months." Jack answered.
"When can I die? I just want to go. Can't you leave me alone?" Suzie asked, sounding tired.
"You seem to be stuck." Jack answered, putting it as simply as he could.
"Am I gonna stay like this? For how long?" Suzie demanded.
"Don't know." Gwen was the one to answer when Jack just stared at his ex-employee.
"Can I see my father?" Suzie asked.
"No." Jack answered bluntly.
"You wiped your records. We had no trace of him." Gwen explained, still trying to be kind where Jack was just being blunt.
"So, he doesn't even know that I'm dead?" Suzie said, her voice taking on an edge I couldn't identify. It was almost upset, but there was something else under it. Another emotion that I wasn't really awake enough to identify.
"Well, you're not anymore." Gwen said, trying to be comforting.
"This is sick." Suzie muttered, looking back down at the table.
"You started it. Right now, we've got an investigation underway. Pilgrim. You visited these Pilgrim meetings and gave an amnesia pill to someone called Max. How do we find him?" Jack asked, getting back to the reason why they had revived Suzie in the first place.
"What for? What did he do? He was just an ordinary bloke." Suzie asked confused.
"We think the Retcon triggered a psychosis. He's started killing." Jack explained.
"How many victims?" Suzie asked curiously.
"Three. Same as you." Gwen responded as Owen leaned forward so he could activate the mic.
"We need to know. How much Retcon did you give him?"
"Owen. Hello." Suzie greeted, recognising his voice easily. "Scared to face me?"
"You frighten the shit out of me, yeah." Owen answered, bluntly as always.
"What about Toshiko? Is she still here?" Suzie questioned. Owen looked questioning at Tosh who indicated that she didn't want to say anything.
"Yeah, she's here. All the gang. Happy days. But the amnesia pills, how many did you give him?" Owen demand to know.
"One a week, every week, for two years."
"That's 104 amnesia pills in one man." I breathed in shock.
"Who's that? Is that that girl…? Raven?" Suzie asked, having heard me through the open channel.
"Christ. No wonder." Owen said, choosing to ignore Suzie's question due to the seriousness of the situation. Two amnesia pills were the normal 'maximum' dosage given to anyone person over a four-month period. After that, the pill could have damaging effects on a person's psychology.
"What the hell did you do that for?" Jack demanded, knowing as well as Owen the mental effects of the Amnesia pill. He had been there when they first developed it and tested it – first on animals and then on humans when they thought they understood its negative effects.
"I just, I wanted someone to talk to. About this place. It was driving me mad. And he was just. He listened, that's all. He just listened. Every week, as soon as I'd finished talking, I'd give him the pill." Suzie explained.
"You overdosed him." Jack informed her.
"I didn't know that. Keep getting it wrong, don't I? Is that why you brought me back? Did you think I wasn't guilty enough?" Suzie asked, a whine creeping into her voice.
"What was his surname?" Jack asked, bringing Suzie back on topic.
"I don't know. All I ever did was talk about me. It's all my fault, isn't it? Never bloody stops being my fault. Can't you just let me die?"
"You don't get off that easy." Jack responded with a frown.
"Yeah, you did warn me right at the beginning." Suzie looked at Gwen then as she finished her statement. "He said, this is the one job you can never quit."
"Then let's get to work. Come on, Suzie. Just like the old days. There's gotta be something." Jack said, pushing the photo's towards Suzie so she could see the murder victims.
"Hold on. There's someone missing. This girl came every week. Student, blonde. She's not in these photos." Suzie said, frowning as she moved the photo's around.
"Who was she?" Jack asked, realising that this girl was probably the next on the list.
"Lucy. Lucy Mackenzie. Said she worked at a club." Suzie answered. Tosh immediately turned to another screen and began looking for this girl.
"Which one?" Jack asked, hoping to narrow Tosh's search down.
"Tired." Suzie muttered.
"Come on, Suzie? Which club? For God's sake, this Max is killing every single member of Pilgrim. Now tell me. Lucy Mackenzie, where did she work? Which club?" Jack demanded.
"Wolf. The Wolf Bar." Suzie answered. Jack got up and ran quickly up the stairs, a plan forming in his head.
While Jack, Owen and Gwen went to the Wolf Bar in hopes of stopping and capturing Max, I disappeared to Jack's office. I didn't want to be in the same room as Suzie, especially when Jack and Owen weren't close, just encase I collapsed again. Suzie was with Tosh at her desk, but I trusted Ianto to watch her back, so I didn't feel too bad about leaving her. When I first entered Jack's office, I quickly realised that it wasn't the glove causing me problems because it was stood on Jack's desk next to the knife and the feeling of wrongness didn't increase with my proximity to it like it had before.
So that I didn't fall asleep and lower my shields, I found the original OSA that all members of Torchwood had to sign, and grabbed my note book and a highlighter. It would take a long time to just get a back bone of the new Secrecy Act for Families that I wanted to write, but I decided to start getting the basics now. That meant going through and highlighting the key points of the Secrecy Act that needed to stay with an orange highlighter, making note of things that needed to change with a green highlighter, and making notes in a note book about any ideas that occurred to me as I went through.
I was about fifty pages in when Jack entered his office. He shrugged of his coat and put it on the stand before joining me on the sofa. I closed the book and put it to one side before leaning into Jack, seeking his support and the lack of pain that his grounding brought.
"Did you capture Max?" I asked.
"Yeah. He's in the holding cells. Owen's doing an assessment now. Suzie's back in the integration room." Jack filled me in. "So it isn't the glove affecting you then?" Jack questioned, nodding to said object.
"No. There was no difference when I entered this room. I think… I think the feeling is coming from Suzie because her life force isn't natural." I told him honestly.
"We'll sort this out." Jack promised, pulling me closer.
"I know we will. I'm just scared to sleep because I don't want to lower my shields even a little." I admitted. And I was tired, it had been a long day and my mental and emotional health had taken quiet a pounding.
"Well then, you can tell me what you were working on. That will probably keep you awake for a bit." Jack said, smiling down at me with a charming smile.
"You know earlier, when I said we needed to re-write the secrecy act?" I questioned him.
"Yes." Jack nodded his agreement, looking intrigued.
"Well, I was thinking that we should have a separate Secrecy Act for families to sign. That way, the team isn't isolated to just the hub. They can tell their husbands and wives, and sisters and brothers. The family members they are closest too." I explained. "It also means that we can get a psychologist on pay role, who we can send members of the team too when we can't deal with a psychological problem."
"I like the idea." Jack agreed. "But the logistics…"
"I know, it's going to take a lot of planning. Let me work through what we have for a Secrecy Act right now and see if it's possible. Then you can help me present it to the Crown." I told him.
"If you need help, don't hesitate to ask. I have experience in writing such things when I re-wrote the Torchwood code of conduct." Jack offered.
"I'll probably have questions about why certain sections were added as amendments."
"Yes, there have been quite a few. Most of them have stories by them as well." Jack said, smiling in amused remembrance.
"Well, don't tell me them now. I won't be able to remember them." I told him with a giggle.
"Okay." Jack agreed, smiling pleased that Raven was relaxing instead of being tense and in pain like she had been when he first entered the office. "You know, I have the paperwork to make you my second. Me, the Queen and Prince William have signed everything. It just needs your signature now."
"Will any of my duties change, if I take second?" I asked him curiously. I knew that Jack had been planning on making me his second, but we hadn't actually officially discussed it beyond the joking comments Jack would make about how I was already filling the role.
"No. You're already doing the work of my Second, if not more work than would be expected of you. The paperwork just means you get paid more and that you can act in my stead if I'm unavailable." Jack responded.
"You know that I don't actually spent my Torchwood pay check on anything but food, and you pay for half of that anyway since it's for both of us. I don't know what I'm going to do with all the extra money." I sighed. I had already brought a whole new wardrobe (which was being stored with Jack's things), and I couldn't think of anything else I would need. I would have to start thinking of ways of investing the money so that it didn't just sit in my account.
"Maybe one day we can get a house." Jack mused thoughtfully.
"That would be nice. The maintenance would be a nightmare, and I imagine we would still spend a lot of our nights at the hub. But it's a thought for the future." I agreed. "You know this would be my second promotion since I joined three months ago."
"It feels like more than three months." Jake admitted. "I have no idea how I got along without you."
"I think that's the point. You didn't." I laughed. His paperwork pile hadn't exactly been small before I joined, and his organisation and communication with other authorities weren't great.
"Don't remind me." Jack grumbled with a slight glare before he broke into a smile and joined me in laughing. Just enjoying my amusement.
"Oi, lovebirds." Owen appeared in the door way with a scowl. "You're gonna want to see this."
Jack shared an amused look with me before helping me stand and following Owen down into the cells.
"Okay, so your name is Max Tresillian. Can you confirm that? You live at 106 Endeavour Terrace, is that right? Parents, Sandra and Dave, yeah? You're inside the Torchwood facility."
The moment Owen said Torchwood, Max went from blank faced staring to charging at the holding cell door and hammering on it as he shouted in anger. Jack raised an eyebrow while I just frowned. All I was getting from Max was confused hatred that wasn't really directed. Before Owen said Torchwood, Max had been blank, emotionless.
"And five, six. Keep watching. Soon as we reach ten…" As Owen finished Max sat down quietly, and his emotions faded to calm nothingness again. "Just stops dead. If this is a drug-induced psychosis, it's a very specific one."
"Like he reacts to the word Torchwood." Jack nodded his agreement. Immediately, Max was up and hammering on the door.
"Thanks, Jack." Owen glared in reproach.
"Sorry. But if that's caused by Retcon, then we've got a million more problems on the way. Let me know what the scan says." Jack ordered, about to leave the room.
"But what about Suzie? What are you gonna do with her?" Owen questioned before Jack could leave.
"No idea. What do you think?" Jack questioned in turn.
"You're the boss." Owen reminded Jack.
"Torchwood." Jack said blandly before leaving the room. I followed after him as Owen turned back to trying to figure out if Retcon triggered the psychosis or if it was the overdose.
Jack returned to his office so he could complete some paperwork while he tried to figure out what to do with Suzie. I contacted Detective Swanson, giving the information we had on Pilgrim and Max who fit the DNA profile of the killer. With that done, I returned to going through the Official Secrecy Act. We were interrupted nearly ten minutes later by Gwen storming into Jack's office.
"I had a boyfriend who used to walk into rooms like that." Jack greeted Gwen without looking up from his paperwork. "The grand entrance. It got kind of boring. Although, he was one of twins, so I put up with it. Twin acrobats. Man, I gotta write that book. Maybe even illustrate it. I can talk for a long time. A very long time." Jack looked up at the end to find Gwen staring at him with her hands on her hips. She was ignoring my presence in the corner, preferring to deal directly with Jack instead of acknowledging any authority that I may hold since I was much younger than Gwen.
"It takes me a while to piece things together." Gwen started. I frowned, confused.
"Meaning?" Jack questioned, leaning back as he tried to figure out what had triggered Gwen's latest crusade.
"Suzie had the glove. You put her in charge of it. But tell me, Jack, did you ever ask about her father?"
I stiffened. Gwen was blaming Jack for what Suzie had done. She may have not said it in as many words, but that was the meaning she was putting behind it. Jack may have been the boss, but he didn't control his team. He let them have free will and free thought, he didn't try and impose on his employees lives outside of Torchwood unless he felt he didn't have much choice because it was affecting them at work.
"How do you mean?" Jack questioned, choosing to ignore the accusation behind Gwen's words and focus on what was so important about Suzie's father that it had sent her on a moral march.
"He's got cancer. He's been dying slowly now for years. And what do you do? You give his daughter the one device that brings people back to life. Is it any wonder she got obsessed?"
"Oh, so is this all my fault?" Jack questioned, leaning forward. Sometimes he felt like he had given Gwen too much leeway, because even when she went too far and he punished her, she was still here questioning his authority. Perhaps he should make it clear that Gwen is not, nor will she ever be, his second in command. Because he knew that that was what was giving her the sense of entitlement to question him.
"Well, isn't it?" Gwen demanded. "Did you ever stop and think? Did you ever look at Suzie? Did you ever think what that glove would do to her? Did you?"
"Gwen, have you ever studied human psychology?" I suddenly asked, standing and moving to Jack's side. I wasn't going to let her blame Jack for something that wasn't his fault. "No? Then let me explain something to you. The human mind is a very complex thing, but there is somethings we have learnt about it. Everyone has the capacity to become a killer if given the right circumstances. For example, protecting family or protecting people we deem innocent. Every employee of Torchwood is placed in a situation where they have to decide if they are taking this one being's life or letting everyone else die. This is a decision you have never made before Torchwood, but you have made in the three months you have been working here.
Before the glove arrived, Suzie had been working at Torchwood for three years. Isolated from her family, her friends and the real world. Experiencing stress and strain after stress and strain. Trauma like that takes a toll on the human mind. Tosh and Owen found ways to cope, ways that allowed them to keep their humanity. Suzie found Pilgrim, a place she could talk. But she didn't have anyone there who could understand. So when Jack gave her the glove, when Suzie started noticing the changes in her own psychic, she ignored them. Buried them and hid them from the team to the point where she didn't even notice that she had become compromised until it was too late.
That combined with a personality, or drive, that prevented her from feeling the guilt you or me would for killing someone, meant that she killed those three people to achieve her goals. That is a personality type that she was probably taught from a young age – your goals are worth everything and anything. She was never taught when to stop, where the boundary was. It was something Jack had taken note of previously, which was why he tried limiting Suzie's time with the glove by making her do paperwork or go out on other missions. It didn't do any good since Suzie just took the glove home without Jack's knowledge.
So, Gwen Cooper, don't you dare come in here blaming Jack for Suzie's death when he isn't remotely responsible and he did what he could to look after the members of his team. And you should remember that it was you who felt so guilty about Suzie's death, believing it to be your own fault since she died when you joined the team, that you pulled Suzie back into this world for good."
Gwen stared at me in shocked silence, while Jack raised an eyebrow at Gwen. "Is there something else you wanted?" Jack questioned Gwen calmly. He had nothing else to add to the lashing that Raven had just given, and he was making a mental note that Raven was very sexy when angry – especially when she was angry on his behalf.
Before Gwen could formulate a response, Owen's voice came over the coms. "Jack, Raven, can you come to the conference room for a sec? Something I need you to see. Kind of urgent."
Jack got up, and together we left Gwen standing in his office thinking through her actions and trying to decide what was right and what was wrong.
"I was going over Suzie and Gwen's medical records. I ran them through the philemon filter. Watch the footage." Owen explained why he had called them to the conference room. On the screen was the footage of Gwen bringing back Mark. The screen was mostly green, but there was a white energy flowing around the resurrection gauntlet.
"This is the moment when Gwen brought back Mark Brisco, the husband. See? Now look at his death. See? The energy flow stops just as he's about to die." Just as Owen described, the white energy connected Gwen and Mark, but when Mark died, the energy cut off.
"The Glove feeds on Gwen's energy to bring the dead back to life. It would explain why there was a time limit. If you want to bring someone back for good, then it would be a life for a life exchange." I realised.
Jack cut me a sharp look, just as the implications of what I had just said hit me. If Suzie was still alive then it meant Gwen was paying with her life.
"Exactly. Look at the footage from when Gwen brought Suzie back."
The knife acted as a bridge, connecting Suzie and Gwen but the stream of life was much stronger before levelling out, but not disappearing.
"With Suzie, it's a permanent connection and she is getting stronger. It's still going on right now. She is draining the life out of Gwen."
"There's always a price." Jack said darkly.
"How do we stop it?" Tosh asked in worry.
"We've got to kill her. Suzie's got to die." Jack answered.
"Again?" Tosh asked shocked.
"Who's going to do it?" Owen asked, not looking anyone in the eye.
"Like you said, I'm the boss." Jack answered, drawing his gun and running from the conference room.
It was less than a minute later that Jack turned on his com. "Toshiko? Where the hell's Suzie? And where's Gwen?" he demanded to know angrily.
"Interrogation room." Tosh answered as we headed to her desk so she could log into the bases' CCTV and find Suzie because from Jack's question, the logical conclusions would be that Suzie wasn't in the interrogation room anymore.
"No, they're not. Find them, fast."
"I can't see them. Hold on. Scanning. Nope. Nothing on internal scans." Tosh said as Jack reappeared in the hub, a scrawl on his face and his gun still drawn.
"What's going on? Where've they gone?" Owen demanded angrily.
"Just keep looking. Bring up the SUV." Jack ordered. He prayed that Gwen hadn't been stupid enough to sneak Suzie out of the hub to take her to her father, especially after what Raven had said to her.
"Still there. I'll try exteriors. What about Gwen's car?"
"What's she doing?" Owen breathed in shock when they found Gwen helping Suzie get into the passenger seat of her car.
"Getting herself fired." Jack responded.
"Unbelievable." Tosh muttered.
"How stupid is that, thinking she could just drive off." Owen agreed.
"Come on, let's go get them." Jack made to move away from the desk when the power cut off and the doors locked. I stiffened, this had only happened once before; when the cyber-women had invaded the base and lockdown had activated.
"What the hell? Ianto! Ianto!" Jack called. As the only person on base that he couldn't see, Ianto would be logical assumption to having activated the lockdown but he had no reason to unless something in the archive had gotten loose.
"Captain." Ianto appeared, holding a torch.
"What happened?" Jack demanded to know.
"But, I thought you must have done it. We've gone into lockdown." Ianto responded with a confused frown.
"It's a hundred percent. The doors are sealed. We're locked in." I reported to Jack, having gone to check the doors while Jack was calling for Ianto.
"Everything's gone. Computers, mobile coverage, the lifts, everything. We're sealed in." Tosh reported, having tried to activate her computer to keep an eye on Gwen or reverse the lockdown but she didn't have anything.
"How long does Gwen have before she dies?" Jack asked Owen.
"Two hours, maybe less." Owen admitted reluctantly.
"Come on, think. If Suzie set up the lockdown, how did she do it?" Tosh asked confused.
"Entered an override?" Owen suggested. That's what I had done when I locked down the base to prevent them from coming in after me.
"No, she's officially dead. The computer wouldn't give her access." Tosh disagreed.
"Jack, Suzie couldn't have physically started the lockdown, Gwen wouldn't have let her. But we have a guest." I told him urgently.
Jack swore and took off to the cells, Owen and me following while Ianto and Tosh continued trying to break the lockdown.
"Stopped for me. The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality. Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me." Marx was saying in a chant as he rocked backwards and forwards.
"Is that a poem?" Owen asked, not recognising the words, but identifying the phrasing as that of a poem.
"Because I could not stop for death." Jack identified.
"By Emily Dickinson." I agreed
"But what does it mean?" Owen asked.
"It's a verbal trigger. Say it out loud, maybe repeat it a hundred times over and the Hub locks down." Jack explained. He had a verbal trigger programmed to him as well, but he wasn't aware that Suzie had known that the system was capable of holding a verbal trigger.
"But if that's part of the system, Suzie must've installed a vocal command programme way back." Owen realised the implications of what Jack was saying.
"Back when she was alive, yeah. Max is just a Trojan horse. Suzie planned this right from the start." Jack agreed, leading the way back to the hub so they could fill Tosh and Ianto in.
"Max, the Retcon, everything. It's all been a hoax to get us to resurrect Suzie." Jack said in frustration once Tosh and Ianto were up to date.
"She gave Max a whole complex of subconscious triggers." Owen agreed. Only mildly relieved that the other people they had given Retcon to were safe.
"Like, she dies, Max becomes a time bomb. He doesn't see her for three months and, wham, the orders kick in. He follows Suzie's programme and starts killing." Tosh said, trying to wrap her head around what she had been told. It had been hard enough to believe that Suzie had murdered three people, but now she had to come to terms with the fact that Suzie's plans had been far greater than that.
"And the whole chain of events forces us to bring Suzie back." Jack sighed. He was really starting to regret letting Gwen talk him into using the glove. He should have destroyed the thing after what it did to Suzie.
"If she could lockdown the Hub, she must have installed a way of reversing it just in case." I told them with a frown. My mind was stuck on the poem that Suzie had chosen. The book Jack had picked up in Suzie's locker was well warn and the only poem book I remember seeing from when we were packing up her flat. That book might just be the key to getting out of the base.
"Yeah." Jack agreed, frowning and going through all the possible ways to stop a lockdown.
"I've got reception, sir." Ianto's calm welsh vowels drew everyone out of their thoughts.
"How did you do that? We're sealed off." Jack demanded, running over to Ianto who was stood by the water tower.
"Just used the Water Tower as a relay." Ianto explained handing the phone over.
"Nice work, Ianto. But who the hell do we phone?" Jack questioned, realising that he didn't have many contacts outside of Torchwood who could help them with this.
"The police. Swanson's still at work for another hour." I answered, taking the phone and dialling the numbers I had memories.
"Detective Swanson." Jack greeted when the call connected.
"You'd better not be wasting my time." Swanson greeted, obviously recognising Jack's voice.
"As a matter of fact, I was wondering if you could do us a favour." Jack said, swallowing his pride in the face of the situation they had found themselves.
"What, the humble police helping the mighty Torchwood? Why don't you just help yourselves, like you normally do?" Swanson asked snarkly.
"Because our security protocols have locked us in our base. And a member of our team has about two hours left to live if we can't get out and find them," I answered bluntly, knowing that Jack wouldn't want to say it.
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. Before they heard a sigh. "What do you need me to do?"
"I need you to go to the library and get the book of poems by Emily Dickson's. We need it to override the lockdown." I explained.
"Alright, I'll phone you back when I've got it." Swanson agreed tiredly.
"Be quick, where on a time limit." Jack reminded her just before she hung up.
"Kay, I've got the book." Swanson called back nearly ten minutes after she hung up.
"What does the book say?" Jack asked impatiently.
"Er, I don't know, what am I supposed to do?" Swanson asked Jack, and I rolled my eyes. Jack had held the book, he knew how big it was.
"Find I Could Not Stop For Death. Read out the next verse."
"What if it doesn't work?" Swanson asked as the flipping of pages was heard.
"Read out the whole book." Jack responded seriously.
For twenty minutes, Jack and Swanson read every line of several different poems. The longer it was taking, the more frustrated Jack became. Gwen was running out of time.
"Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed. Nope."
"Wait a minute, just had a thought." Tosh suddenly interrupted Swanson before she could read the next line "If words cause the lockdown, maybe numbers reverse it. Try the ISBN. Every book's got a different number."
"You getting this?" Jack asked Swanson.
"Yeah. Hang on, I'm looking." Swanson responded as Jack wondered closer to Tosh.
"Read it out." Tosh ordered, moving so she could type on her keyboard.
"But the keyboards aren't working." Jack pointed out.
"But the membrane underneath might just recognise the code." Tosh said hopefully.
"Okay, got it. ISBN.Zero one nineEight six zero zeroFive eight five."
The moment Tosh finished typing in the last number, the power started returning to the base.
"That's it!" Jack cheered. "Everybody, move, move. Kathy, thank you." Jack said, running from the base. Owen and I followed behind while Tosh and Ianto began searching CCTV and the Torchwood tracking devices for Gwen and Suzie.
"I've got the tracker on Gwen's car. It's a hospital. Giving you the coordinates now." Tosh reported over the coms as Jack sped through the city. Although Owen was the normal dangerous driver, when they were in a truly deadly hurry then Jack was the best driver because he could drive at a consistently high speed without slowing down or hitting anything.
"On the way. How long's she got?" Jack asked as Owen switched on the Sat-Nav which was patched to Tosh's computer so Jack new were he was heading.
"It's only a guess, but I'd give Gwen about forty minutes." Owen answered seriously.
"Detective Swanson, I want the road ahead clear. We're gonna break the speed limit, big time." I warned Swanson. It was something I tried to do when Jack was driving because wherever we were heading we generally needed to have been their five minutes ago.
Jack was about five minutes out from the hospital when Tosh informed them of a change in directions. "They're moving again. Can't predict a specific destination, not yet."
"Suzie will be trying to get away. To get out of Cardiff. That should narrow her options down." I told Tosh. The gloves influence was getting stronger, so either Gwen's death was getting closer or they had nearly caught up.
"Right." Tosh agreed.
Suddenly Jack's phone rang so he activated his hands-free, allowing him to talk while driving. The only person who had his phone number was members of Torchwood which narrowed the number of callers down to either Gwen or Suzie.
"Hello?" Jack greeted.
"Did you like the poem, Jack?" Suzie asked, and my eyes narrowed in anger. Had Suzie called to taunt Jack?
"Suzie, don't let her die. The glove is killing Gwen and keeping you alive." Jack said, hoping to appeal to Suzie's morality.
"I know." Suzie responded calmly.
"Then stop."
"But I get to live. Why would I stop?" Suzie voice sounded like she was close to tears as she questioned why she wouldn't get to live.
"For Gwen's sake." Jack responded, hoping it would be enough.
"She replaced me. Now I'm doing the same to her. Isn't that fair?"
"Suzie, we've got a tracker on that car. We're gonna catch up, I promise." Jack said, realising that reasoning wasn't working.
"And what happens then?"
"If she's dead, then I'm gonna kill you, Suzie Costello. I promise, I'm gonna kill you for the last and final time." Jack said darkly.
"But would you, when there's a part of her that's now me? Could you really do that if I'm the only thing left of her?"
"Just because you're taking her life, doesn't mean you have any part of her Suzie. That's not how this works." I told her, answering instead of Jack whose face had blanked at the question.
"She's a real find, this one. Gwen Cooper." Suzie said after a moment. "She's better than me. She's so much better. I was never any good. Jack, I'm sorry."
"Suzie!" Jack shouted, punching the steering wheel when she hung up.
"Jack, she's heading for the coast line on the B587. It's a place called Hedley Point. There's some sort of ferry goes out to the islands. Get a move on." Tosh reported.
With a destination in mind, Jack slammed his foot on the accelerator. "Owen, how long we got?"
"Minutes." Owen responded, prepared to jump out of the SUV the moment Jack pulled to a stop.
As Jack pulled up to the small dock, they saw Suzie pulling Gwen who had collapsed. Jumping out of the SUV they ran forward as Suzie kissed Gwen on the head and started running to the Quay. Owen stopped at Gwen's side, while Jack and I approached Suzie pointing our guns at her. I was shaking slightly, the strain from being close to Suzie trying to overwhelm me, but Jack needed me so I focused through it
"Let her go." Jack ordered Suzie.
"I can't." Suzie answered. And she was telling the truth, she truly didn't know how to stop the glove from draining Gwen.
"Let Gwen go." Jack ordered again.
"I can't." Suzie denied again.
"Owen, how is she? Owen, report!" Jack shouted over his shoulder, not turning away from Suzie.
"I think we're too late." Owen answered.
"Not yet." I contradicted tightly, the strain clear in my voice. "But we're running out of time."
"If I kill you, does she live?" Jack asked Suzie, taking strength in what I had said.
"But you can't, Jack, because look at me. I'm the last thing left of Gwen Cooper. Can't you see it? Just the smallest bit of her?"
"Not one bit." Jack answered, firing. Suzie fell but didn't die. "Owen, anything?" Jack questioned.
"Nothing." Owen denied.
"Can't die." Suzi laughed even as Jack shot her twice more. "I'm never going to die."
"The connection. The glove. Jack the glove." I called to Jack. I hadn't stop long enough to pick up a com since I wasn't supposed to be in the field.
"Tosh? Destroy the glove. It's keeping them connected." Jack informed Tosh, guessing what I meant.
"Captain, my captain. Do you want to know a secret? There's something moving in the dark and it's coming, Jack Harkness. It's coming for you." Suzie said laughing, as Jack kept shooting her in an attempt to get her to stop.
Suddenly Suzie died and Gwen gasped for breath, struggling weakly against Owen.
"Whoa, whoa." Owen said, gently trying to sooth her. "It's okay. It's okay."
