"Tosh," Owen called over his shoulder. Tosh looked up from her work.

"Yes?"

"What do you make of this?" Owen tapped the monitor he was staring at with a finger. Tosh walked over to him and peered at the screen over his shoulder.

"Oh my god. What on earth is that?"

The monitor showed a map of the Rift hotspots in the area around Cardiff, and they were going mad. For a few brief seconds, each marker would flash red before reverting to its inactive white color. They did this patternlessley, flickering on and off like strobe lights at a concert. Tosh and Owen stared at the monitor in shock. They hadn't seen anything like it.

Tosh was turning her head to call Jack when all activity on the monitor ceased. The flashing red blips extinguished without reason or warning. Tosh and Owen exchanged perplexed looks.

"Jack," Tosh called shakily. "Could you come here for a moment?"

Jack emerged from his office.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"It just went mad," Owen explained when Jack joined them at the console. "Every hot spot on the map flashing on and off at once. And then it just…stopped."

Jack frowned.

"What could have caused it? Tosh?"

Tosh shook her head. "I don't know. I've never seen anything like it, either."

"Well was there a pattern to it? Some sort of continuity? Anything?"

"No. No pattern. Nothing."

Jack sighed. He had a bad feeling.

"Owen, call Gwen. Ask her if she's received any calls from the police, of if she's noticed anything strange. I'll call Ianto. I don't know what's happening here, but it can't be anything good. Tosh, start checking recent news and police reports from the areas near rift hot spots. CCTV images too. Look for anything out-of-the-ordinary." Owen and Tosh nodded, and hurried to carry out their appointed tasks. Within moments, Gwen and Ianto had arrived, and the four of them were combing through news and police reports, hunting for a glimpse of the supernatural.

Alice wandered out of Jack's office several hours later. She wore a sky blue dress and a frown.

"What's going on here?" she asked, directing her question at Owen. He looked up from his monitor just in time to see her approach, intending to make a sarcastic remark about aliens being even lazier than humans that died in his throat once he took her in. She was stunning. He supposed he hadn't noticed it before because she'd been too busy using his memories as a form of private torture. Shaking his head in irritation, he turned quickly back to the computers.

"Rift activity," he said shortly. "Something we've never seen before. Jack's got us on the hunt for spillover."

"What do you mean 'something you've never seen before'?" Alice asked.

"He means that," Ianto said as the monitors lit up again.

Owen sighed. "Jack," he called over his shoulder, "It's happening again!"

"Same as before?" Jack emerged on the balcony.

"Same as before," Owen confirmed grimly. "Aaand it's stopped."

"Keep looking," Jack said as he turned back towards the office door. "Let me know if anything else happens."

"Cheers," Owen muttered.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Alice asked.

"Yeah," Owen said without looking at her. "Call us a pizza."

###

Long after the pizza had been delievered and consumed, the team was still at work—or at least Owen was. The Rift had continued to activate sporadically, always in the same manner, but no reports of strange happenings in Cardiff or any of the surrounding areas had surfaced. Admitting defeat for the night, Jack had sent Tosh and Gwen home, leaving Ianto to man the front desk while Owen watched the local news and drank cold coffee. Alice was asleep on the couch. Every now and then, Owen twisted around to look at her; he knew he was being stupid, paranoid, but she made him uneasy even when she was sleeping.

He forced himself to turn his attention back to the news. Nothing was happening. The announcer droned on about the price of petrol and something the Prime Minister had done that had made the people angry. The people were always angry. It was what Owen hated about politics—nothing ever got done because everyone was too stupid to put aside their moral standards and work with each other instead of against each other.

"One thing I've found out about humans is that the qualities they hate the most in others are the qualities that they themselves embody."

Owen jumped and slopped some of his coffee on his shirt. He turned round. Alice's eyes were open, but she hadn't moved from where she lay. He wanted to look away from her, but the unnatural brightness of her eyes held him in place.

"Please stop," Owen said through gritted teeth. Alice ignored him and sat up.

"Something's coming," she murmured. Her voice had an eerie quality to it, like it came from someplace else, someplace far away.

"What?"

She stood. Her gaze was fixed straight ahead, on something he could not see.

"Something's coming," she repeated, in the same unnatural tone. "A storm is emerging from the void."

At that moment, one of the monitors began to flash. Owen watched it for a few moments. When the activity didn't cease, he called for Jack. When he emerged from the office a few seconds later, Owen relaxed. He didn't think he could have gone another moment alone with Alice's eyes fixed on him like that.

"Consistent Rift activity," Owen said as Jack approached. "It's just a few miles out from here. D'you want me to go check it out?"

"Good idea," Jack replied. "Maybe it'll shed some light on what happened earlier today."

Owen was halfway out the door when Jack called his name.

"Owen wait. Take Alice with you."

He suppressed a groan. That was the last thing he wanted.

"And why do I have to do that exactly?"

"She hasn't really left the Hub since she got here. We can't keep her cooped up like this, and she can't exactly go out on her own. This is a perfect opportunity for her to get some fresh air and a look at her surroundings."

"Fine," Owen sighed. He gestured at Alice without looking at her. "Let's go."