3

"You think those guys are the ones abducting the locals? Why?" The air smelled fresh and slightly metallic, not dank and stale like Tosh had expected.

Suzie continued tapping the screen on her cell phone. "Because it's what they do."

"Don't think you're going to get much of a signal in here."

"Signals fine, he's just not answering."

"He?" Tosh scanned the empty space they stood in.

"Jack."

Suzie tried the number again. "Shit. Right, well either something is wrong at the meeting point or he's gone"—Suzie glanced at her—"out."

"Out?"

"Yes, out." She pocketed the phone, crossed the tunnel and started slapping the far wall.

She knew the routine by now.

"Can I help?"

"No. Won't open for you."

"Seriously? Another secret door? Where's this one go to? Oz?" Owen snarked with open annoyance as he tried his own phone now.

"Nowhere, it's what's inside I'm after."

"You ever heard of 'X marks the spot'? Given the trouble you had getting into this place, I think an X would come in real handy." Tosh wondered if now would be a good time to panic, when, once again, a door flashed into existence and a room appeared.

Not a room, a garage.

She really should have been more surprised. Maybe she'd used up all her shock for the day. A rectangular shape glided out of the space.

Like a pontoon boat without the pontoons, it stopped a few feet in front of her. A larger vehicle remained parked inside.

She backed up a few steps.

Disbelief trickled down her spine as she inspected the hovering vehicle. No wheels and no noise. Not really a car—no roof, only inward facing seats around the edges.

"Hover craft, I presume?" she asked, deciding the science fiction theme worked as good as any.

"They call them cruisers."

"Of course they do. Who's they? And why is this tunnel connected to the bar?" Her voice echoed around them.

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.

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A piece of ice slid slowly down the length of Ianto's spine and ended up somewhere in his balls. He felt them shrivelling to the size of acorns, and he had to fight the instinct to feel if they were still hanging.

"What other men?"

Jack shook his head. "Just tell me what you remember. Did anyone buy you a drink?"

"What the hell is going on, Jack? You know where we are, don't you? And you also know why we're here."

Linking both hands behind his neck, Jack paced toward the far wall before coming back. His face was grim, and from what Ianto could see, all of Jack's muscles were tense.

"No. I don't know where we are, but yes, I do know why we're here. Or at least I thought I did. From what we know they've never taken two men before―only one―but this changes things, and I don't like it one bit."

With every word Jack uttered, Ianto had a feeling he'd fallen into some rabbit hole. Since waking up, he'd tried hard not to think about why he'd been abducted and imprisoned, he'd tried even harder not to freak out, to totally lose control, and he thought he'd managed it, but now he could feel himself coming apart, inch by slow inch.

"Who are they?"

"We don't know." Jack let out a breath and then dropped his hands. As he did so, Ianto noticed him wince, but Jack's sore shoulders weren't Ianto's concern right then.

"Okay, here's an easier question. Who the fuck are you?"

Jack hesitated, as if he wasn't sure he should divulge that little bit of information, but then he capitulated, though his reluctance was obvious. "I'm a cop. Undercover."

Was Jack for real? An undercover cop? "So it was your intention to get yourself captured and thrown in here?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Jack shrugged, the width of his shoulders emphasizing the movement.

"Because it's my job, and these guys need to be stopped."

"Doing what?" Ianto pressed his back into the wall, its coldness exacerbating the chill filling his chest. "What's going to happen to us?"

"I don't know. The others…" Jack shifted, putting himself closer. "The others were asked to perform sexual acts before they were released."

"Sexual acts?" Ianto felt his legs go weak, and right then was glad of the wall behind him. "Fuck!"

"Look, it's not that bad―"

"Not that bad! Are you kidding me? We've been put in here so some deviant can have his way with us! How can that not be bad?"

"You could have been brought here to be tortured." The calm tone Jack used set Ianto's teeth on edge. He pushed away from the wall and stormed up to the bigger guy.

"That's not fucking funny. You better find a way of getting me out of here because I'm not getting it on with you or anyone else."

"There isn't a way. I told you. No one has gotten out of here until they've complied with the captor's instructions, which was to jack off. That's all they had to do."

Ianto shook his head and straightened to his full height. He still came ridiculously short of Jack's six foot odd inches, but he didn't care. "But there are two of us. You said only one man at a time had been brought here before, right?"

"That we're aware of, yes."

"Then it makes sense to assume they've upped their game. They must have gotten bored with just one guy, and now they want to perv on two, and I doubt it's to watch us jack off together."

It didn't take a genius to figure Jack had come to the same conclusion, and by the look on his face he wasn't any happier with the idea than Ianto was.

What Jack wasn't telling Ianto was that these beings had been taking young men from the gay area of town because they wanted to see how they fitted together. Their anatomy, as these beings were single sex and predominantly saw the gay community as most like theirs.

The first few victims had not survived the injuries sustained from the invasive probing, the later victims had to be retconed due to the horrific images they couldn't get out of their heads.

Especially the rape as more than one of these Gerfs had tried their own genitalia in a too small space.

"I'm sorry, but there was no way we could have known they were going to change their tactic. The team I was working with has been watching the park for weeks, waiting for a chance to catch them taking off with someone. When nothing happened I set myself up as bait. We didn't expect them to take anyone else, not when I was an obvious target."

"If your team was watching you, then they should know where you are. Weren't you carrying a tracking device?"

"Does it look like I'm carrying a tracking device?" Jack scowled, but Ianto couldn't tell if it was from being questioned or from the way Ianto gave him a quick once-over.

"I meant before you were stripped."

"No. We didn't think we would need one. Each victim's last recollection was of being in the park before they found themselves in here. Once they'd done what they were asked to do they were dumped back in the park, so that's where we focused our attention."

Something in Jack's tone changed, and it triggered Ianto's suspicions.

"What's the last thing you remember?" he asked. It wasn't that he suspected Jack was lying, but he was sure there was more Jack wasn't saying.

Jack dropped his dark gaze and then reached up to rub the back of his neck.

He winced once again and rolled his shoulder, reminding Ianto of his own aching muscles.

"It wasn't the park. I was supposed to meet up with my team outside, and we were going to set up the sting, but I was still a couple of streets away."

"Did you stop to talk to anyone?" The flash of amusement on Jack's face caught Ianto by surprise, and when he smiled, Ianto almost smiled back.

"What?"

"You're very composed. Most guys I know would be freaking out by now."

"I am. Trust me."

Jack's mouth turned up a little, but then he sighed. "I don't remember talking to anyone. Everything after I hit Oxford Street is gone."

"That's where I was, at the Lion's Den."

"And you didn't know it was a gay bar? Oxford Street is pretty much full of them." This time Jack's amusement was plain to see. His eyes lit up and there was a show of teeth, and even as Ianto watched, Jack's muscles visibly relaxed.

"I've only just moved to the area, and I'm not familiar with the city."

"But these guys are, and they must have been watching you come from that direction."

"So you think they're deliberately targeting gay men?"

"Yeah, that's why I volunteered."