Torchwood: Divergence
Book Two: Adferiad
Chapter 10
The three friends looked at each other, the same thought running through all their minds. There was a major problem brewing in the sewers, and it was apparently up to Torchwood to sort it out.
"That is really not good and definitely not a coincidence," Jack remarked, following Cooper to her work station. "Run a search from the middle of last month to the first week of this one. See if you can find any signs of Rift activity in the vicinity of St. Helen's during that span. I'm gonna take a drive out to St. Mary's, peek in on the S-L, see if their numbers have gone up or down."
"I… was going to check the CCTV footage of our group in the Vaults," Ianto offered uncertainly. "See if they've shown any empathic reactions like they have in the past when other Weevils were hurt or in serious danger. But I can come along if you like… look at the recordings when we get back."
"Concentrate on the footage," Harkness advised. "Their behaviour might clue us in to their habitat being invaded by something worse than they are. Good call. I won't be long, and it's probably safer this way."
He stepped over to give his partner a quick kiss so the younger man didn't take offense at being left behind.
"You're right," the military jumper clad Changeling nodded, rolling his eyes in an 'I forgot' way. "Better if I'm not there to freak them out. Be careful anyhow. Do you have enough spray?"
"Spray, hoods, choke-loops, and .38 calibre insurance," Jack reassured, catching the SUV's key fob when the twenty-six-year-old tossed the item his way. "My comm is on, so if either of you run across anything significant, let me know."
Then he was striding out the door, great coat flaring behind him.
"Used to like a good Weevil hunt, me," Ianto sighed, usurping Turlough's station to work at since the redhead and Martha were still out taking care of a piece of alien tech that had turned up in the kitchens of a restaurant in Pen-y-lan. "Now I can't get close enough to say 'Hi', let alone spray or capture one."
"You helped Jack bring in Joan," Cooper pointed out. "No spray needed he said."
"That's because as soon as she saw me she started to cower in terror," Jones frowned. "And I thought we'd be deaf from the moaning and keening before we got back here and tucked her into the cells."
"Oh," his friend breathed with raised brows. "Jack neglected to mention that bit."
"Probably traumatic repression," Ianto murmured unhappily, starting the CCTV footage he wanted running on one of the monitors in front of him. "Any luck with Rift activity."
"So far, everything is coinciding with things we responded to and none of it was around St. Helen's," the former PC complained, fairly sure they hadn't missed anything.
There was silence between them for a span then, both concentrating on their individual tasks. Suddenly Ianto noticed something, ran the video back and peered more closely at the screen.
"Gwen," he called urgently. "Check the Rift activity for November 28th and 29th. Both Janice and Judy went into a brief but full voiced duck and cover around 4:00 pm on the 29th… same thing at random times the next six days."
"No spikes," Cooper reported. "But… the readings do look odd somehow."
Ianto came to join her at her station, squinted at the graph she was tracking through.
"Wait," he advised after a moment, pointing to an area on the display. "Right here… 10:36 am on the 28th. No significant surge, but the level of Rift energy starts going up gradually in a kind of wave pattern. Peaks at 12:22 pm then fades away. Can you find out the location the original increase generated from?"
"Um…" the raven-haired woman rattled away at the keyboard, and finally a map popped up with a flashing red dot on it. "Within half a kilometre of St. Helen's."
"Jack," Ianto had immediately activated his earcomm. "Gwen and I may have found something."
[Me too,] Harkness replied. [St. Mary's church is missing about a third of its normal population. The ones that are here are a mix of super skittish and extremely irritable, and quite a few have injuries. Cuts, gouges, gashes, big areas of missing skin, one's even minus its left arm to the elbow… looks like it was torn off and it or the other Weevils used something to cauterize it. I'd say that something big, mean, and hungry must be in the sewers.]
"And it's definitely around St. Helen's," Gwen informed the Captain. "Ianto found footage of the Weevils here cowering and moaning in their cell the afternoon of the 29th. And we came across a rise in Rift energy on the 28th that was so gradual it didn't set off the alarms or register anything coming through. But its origin was within half a kilometre of St. Helen's and the problems with the Weevils started about two days after its occurrence."
[So, we need to find out what's moved into that part of the sewers,] Jack responded, sounding grim. [This could get ugly. Anything that can mangle Weevils like what I'm seeing, and make their population drop this drastically in only a few weeks, is bound to be serious trouble. You two see if there are any reports of large animal sightings in that area, or even just strange occurrences. Something to give us an idea what we're dealing with. I'll be back to the Hub in about fifteen minutes.]
The cog-wheel door rotated open just then, admitting Martha and Turlough… and the big metal box they carried between them. It was nearly four feet long and two square, the surface a strange, smooth satiny copper colour.
"What is that?" Gwen gaped, trying to remember if a size had been mentioned in regard to the piece of tech they'd gone to retrieve.
"Quinstekian fine particle, self-recharging population annihilator," Turlough informed them. "Also known as a QFPRA-1 in some circles, and still in its really bloody heavy presentation case. Only two were ever made. They were meant to defeat the race's long time enemy and save what little remained of their people.
"Unfortunately, it turned out that a catastrophic error had been made during its construction, and the particle energy it fires only works on creatures native to Quinsor Prime. So, when the creator tested the prototype on a group of enemy prisoners in the middle of the Capital city, all it did was wipe out the entire remainder of the Quinstek race and most of the fauna on the planet within about two hundred kilometres of the weapon."
"What happened to the prisoners then?" Cooper queried with a slight frown.
"Died of starvation before the Phellbosa rescue party arrived," Turlough shrugged, he and Martha hauling their find to the Armoury for later cataloguing. "But they were honoured as great heroes and credited with bringing down the Quinstek Empire."
"Please tell me this is just a really twisted joke the two of you came up with," Gwen gaped, looking from one to the other as they returned to the work station area.
"Actually," Ianto put in from the array where he'd checked the CCTV footage earlier. "I did a search on the name Quinstek. There's a report in the Archives from 1962 about a carnivorous plant that had been eating people's pets around Trowbridge. According to Torchwood freelance operative, Captain Jack Harkness, it was from a distant planet once inhabited by the Quinstek. A race, who tragically destroyed themselves with a doomsday weapon meant to wipe out the population of the neighbouring world they'd been at war with for centuries, but that ended up only working on their own kind instead. Turned them all to dust."
"So, it's not dangerous to anything from Earth, yeah?" the former PC prodded as their co-corkers prepared to pick up their own projects from earlier in the day.
"If you had enough fingers to depress all the trigger pads at once and actually got it to fire," Martha reassured. "You could shoot a human point blank and all they'd get is a thirty second endorphin buzz and a mild headache."
"Speaking of which," Ianto warned his teammates. "Hub sensors are picking up a low-level ammonium chloride emission from that thing even in its case. We'll likely have to Archive seal it and box it up down in the ventilated long-term storage catacombs. Otherwise, it'll start giving everyone headaches."
"Hold on," Cooper suddenly piped up. "Ammonium chloride? There's an inspection report here about the sewer blockage near St. Helen's. The initial prompt for sending in a crew was an unusually high level of ammonium chloride venting from the storm drains there."
"You don't suppose that weapon and whatever's eating Weevils are related, do you?" Ianto offered hesitantly.
"They came through the Rift weeks apart if the sewers were invaded around the first of the month," Turlough frowned. "How could they possibly have anything to do with each other?"
"Maybe they're from the same planet," Jack called from the invisible lift. "Pretty much all that was left alive on Quinsor Prime after the Quinstek evaporated themselves, were a few species of grazing animals, some ocean dwellers, and swampland predators that were out of that weapon's discharge range. The plant we dealt with in the 60's looked like a common privet bush at first glance, but once you parted the foliage there was a tooth filled maw just above the root ball. They shared their native territory with creatures that lived in the mud and water of the swamps. Big, fearsome things, like a sick combination of an octopus and a saltwater crocodile, called Xhoquitts. They were ambush predators that would eat anything the serration edged suction cups on their tentacles could latch onto… including each other. If anything could wipe out Weevils on the scale I saw at St. Mary's, one of those could."
"Could we honestly be lucky enough to have the perfect tool to get rid of it sitting over there in the Armoury?" Martha asked, hardly daring to believe it might be true.
"There have been a few rare occasions in the past, when that's exactly what happened," Harkness nodded. "But we won't know for sure if we've got a match, till we can get into those sewers and actually find what's set up housekeeping. Definitely a project for daylight hours. Tomorrow we'll find a way for a human to fire the Annihilator, take it and a few other potentially useful toys into the pipes and tunnels near St. Helen's Hospital and hope we really get lucky."
The team all nodded their understanding and started to split off to their work stations.
"But for right now," their leader announced, drawing everyone's attention once more. "I brought back dinner."
The American stepped back over to the paver stone lift, and produced a large brown paper bag.
"Lois should be down any minute," he smiled, beckoning to his team. "The Boardroom is calling and I have a whole sack packed full of warm meat pasties that are just begging to be eaten."
"Everyone to the kitchenette for drinks," Ianto advised, already veering that way. "I'll fetch plates, cutlery and condiments, and be right behind you."
The entire Torchwood team were gathered in the Boardroom in very short order, Gwen let Rhys know she was having a bite with the others so he wouldn't delay his own meal, and the food began to disappear. Tomorrow could be a complete horror, but tonight was all about a much-needed group break and some good old fashioned comfort food.
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AN: Sewer fun coming up! Think they'll find an octo-croc? Or something worse?
Thank you to those reading the story. And thank you to those who have followed, favourited, and reviewed. NM