CHAPTER 2: Origins
Inside the elevator it was quiet. Gwen didn't start up a conversation, and I wasn't going to either. When we're tracking down aliens we're not exactly the chattiest bunch, you need a strong mind set when you deal with the carnage we do. I wondered how I had gone from being an average American college student studying abroad in Cardiff, to working in Torchwood.
I was walking back from my college friend Wendy Medwin's place; it was dark, shortly before midnight on a Friday. We'd just gotten done cramming for a microbiology test for Monday. I didn't live that far away, and it had been a nice day so I'd just walked over. It was cold that night, and I had begun to regret walking over. My jacket wasn't nearly warm enough, and I had been frightened of being mugged or something. I had heard a voice behind me, "Where're you going, sweetheart?" I was creeped out, I began walking faster trying to out pace whoever was behind me. I only made a few strides when I was grabbed from behind. I dropped my books and my purse on the pavement, and couldn't help but scream. A reptile-like hand covered my mouth stopping my scream, "Shhh," the thing covering my mouth whispered in my ear. I couldn't move my arm to get my elbow into the stomach. I was going to try to step on the foot, when I heard the double click I knew so well.
"Hold it right there!" a male authoritative American-sounding voice came from behind.
The alien, for that's what I deduced him to be, swung both of us around to face my rescuer. The man that had come to my rescue wore clothes I swore I'd seen in World War II films, looking like he had just popped out of one. I didn't care; all I wanted at that moment was to get away from the thing holding me back. We all just looked at each other for a moment. Then the military man had fired his pistol twice.
I was pulled backwards and landed hard on the cement. My head hit the cement kinda hard, but the majority of my fall was taken by my bottom. Reluctantly, I turned to face my attacker. It was entirely black with an exoskeleton and was seeping green-gray goop from the entry wounds. The green-gray goop was also quickly making a puddle. I picked up the gun the alien had been carrying, and stood up. Still looking at the alien, I asked the man in the coat, "Are you sure it's dead?" Two more shots, from a different gun answered me. Without thinking, I took shelter behind a dumpster until I realized the coast was clear. I peeked around the corner of the dumpster, the military man was no where to be seen. I looked at the gun in my hands and thought it looked so foreign. I'd never seen a pistol like it before. Now my fingerprints were on it, I wasn't going to leave it with that dead alien, so I picked up my books from the ground and brought the pistol home.
I hurried inside my apartment and after dumping my purse on the coffee table, hid the pistol in the linen closet on the bottom and all the way back. If anyone was digging through the closet looking for the gun, they'd have to lie on the floor to reach it. I dumped my books on the kitchen table near where my backpack sat in one of the chairs. I flopped down in a chair next to my backpack. I pulled my microbiology notebook closer to me and drew a picture of the gun I had hid in the linen closet. I was going to look up the make in a book I'd have to hunt down in the library at school. In the margins of the paper I wrote a description of the man I had seen, along with the alien. I closed the notebook and placed it under my microbiology book. I yawned.
I headed to my bedroom and dressed into my pajamas. They're nothing special, just shorts and a t-shirt. After brushing my teeth and stifling another yawn, I returned to the kitchen to turn off the lights. At least that was my intention until I saw the man from the alley sitting in my living room.
"Most people would scream then start crying if they had been in your situation." He said. He was definitely an American like me.
"Guns don't scare me," I said, "so who are you? Hunting down aliens in the night," I trailed off. He looked at me like I was weird for saying the word alien.
"You hit your head." He insisted.
"It's not that bad." I glared at him, knowing he knew I wasn't kidding and really wanted an answer.
"I'm Torchwood." He stated. I looked at him quizzically, so he continued, "Cardiff is the home of Torchwood three. Torchwood tracks down alien life and arms the human race against the future, and I really need that gun you picked up."
"I don't know what,"
"Of course you know." He cut me off, "You bent down to pick it up. I'm here to switch with you." He held up my wallet.
"How did you get that?" I asked.
"When you were grabbed your books and purse fell. You left this behind."
He was lying. I keep my wallet in the hidden zipper compartment in my purse. There was no way it could have fallen out. There was some reason he had stolen it, "So what did the background check you ran say?" I asked him, looking straight into his face.
There was a small twitch of his facial muscles. He peered at me for a few seconds before answering, "Caden Phyre, 20 years old, home town of Wausau, Wisconsin currently going to school for ballistic science. No criminal record. Has a brother still in Wisconsin along with two parents and some extended family, need I go on?"
"Got me," I said, "anything else you need to know?"
"Where you hid the gun you took from the alien."
"How can I be sure you won't drug me as soon as I fork it over?" Again, his facial muscles twitched, I must have hit right on, so I continued, "Before I tell you and you drug me, just tell me who you are."
He glared at me for a bit, and then his facial muscles relaxed, "Captain Jack Harkness."
"Linen closet. Lay on the floor and reach your hand forward, it's in the back."
He leaned forward and placed a small white pill on the coffee table.
"If you think I'm taking that willingly, you thought wrong."
"I figured you might say that." In one swift movement, he stood and in two long strides he crossed the distance between us. He had pulled a handkerchief from inside his coat pocket. Still holding it in his hand, he placed it over my nose and mouth.
I started to struggle, but he was at least half a head taller than me and must be three times stronger. I held my breath as long as I could, but then I couldn't resist any longer, I needed air. I took a deep breath. Shortly thereafter, I blacked out.
XX
The next morning I woke snuggled underneath the blanket I normally throw off the bed and onto the floor. I figured I must have been really tired the night before. I thought about it, but I couldn't remember what I had done the night before. My head was a bit sore, and I figured I must have fallen sometime because my bottom was tender. In the kitchen, I fixed myself some cereal and cut up a banana into it. When I reached for the refrigerator door to grab the milk, my hand froze. I looked at the calendar. I knew today was Saturday, but I didn't remember going to the study group at Wendy's the night before. I knew I would never miss a study group, especially one the weekend before a big exam.
I picked up the phone and called Wendy.
Wendy picked up after the second ring, and asked tiredly, "Hello?"
"Hey, it's me," I told her, knowing she would recognize my voice, "Was I over at your house last night?" I had to know if somehow I was off on my days of the week, or if I had missed study group.
"Of course you were, why are you asking me?"
"I don't know. I don't remember what happened last night." I felt stupid telling her this, but in the back of my mind I knew she would be the one person that would understand.
"If it helps, you left my apartment around midnight, you told me you were going straight home. You're not the 'let's take a detour' type person, something could have happened on your way home."
Hey, at least she was throwing out theories. "I have no idea. I can't remember anything I did yesterday."
"Maybe you wrote something down somewhere."
"Maybe," I said. I sat at the kitchen table and pulled out my microbiology notebook. I leafed through the pages, "I found the notes I took yesterday," I paused, "at least they're dated with yesterday's date. Your handwriting is in the margins," I flipped to the last page, "oh my gosh."
"What?" Wendy asked.
"Um, can I call you back?"
"Sure," she said, "are you okay?"
"Fine, I think I just found something, I'll call you later." I hung up without hearing her response. Drawn on the last page in my notebook was a picture of a strange gun. I peered at it for a few minutes trying to make sense of it. It wasn't like any other gun I'd ever seen. It looked like a cross between a Thompson Contender and a revolver, only it seemed curved. The bullet I had drawn next to it seemed too small to be for that gun. I wondered what kind of gun could be curved and still work?
The handwritten notes in the margins were definitely my hand writing. I'd written a note about some alien and a man who looked as if he'd popped out of a World War II movie. I don't have that good of an imagination to create some person I'd never met, and I certainly didn't believe in aliens. I decided I'd have to retrace the steps back from Wendy's apartment to see if anything came back.
A half an hour later, I was standing in the middle of the alley between Wendy's place and mine, just looking around, trying to figure out what had happened. I had gone straight to the alley. I realized that if anything happened last night, it was here where no witnesses would be. I closed my eyes, trying to picture the man in the World War II outfit. A hand came down on my shoulder and I jumped. Just before I yanked my eyes open, I saw the man in the World War II coat shoot a gun in my direction, but the bullet never hit me.
"Wendy, you scared me."
Her blond hair shone bright in the sunlight. "Sorry, I didn't mean to. I was just heading over to your place to see if you're okay."
"I'm fine."
"Liar," she said, "I want to help. There has to be a reason you don't remember."
"I know I was here."
"What about the clothes you were wearing last night?" Her blue eyes sparkled. They only sparkle when she's up to something.
"What about them?" I asked.
"Well, if they're ripped, it should mean that you were grabbed, if a gun was fired there would be blood splatter covering it, and you should be able to see what happened through the splatter."
"No need," I said, "There was a man over there." I pointed to where the man in the World War II jacket had been standing, "He shot a gun in my direction." I paused, "He was aiming at something behind me." I remembered the description I had written in my microbiology notebook. I wasn't going to tell Wendy about my alien theory.
"You mean someone?"
"I don't know. But this man did shoot at something behind me. If there's any splatter on my clothes, it would be on my back. I don't thing I actually saw what got shot."
"Obviously you had a rough night. Let me take you to lunch."
"Yea," I looked once more around the alley, "let me just grab my purse."
Back in my apartment, I approached the coffee table in the living room. I looked down at the table and saw a round little white object the size of a pill. I picked it up and looked at it closer.
"What are you looking at?"
"I think it's a pill," I turned to look at her, "I don't own any white pills."
"Do you think someone was in your apartment?"
I closed my eyes and tried to picture the pill. The man in the World War II coat had held it out to me, his name popped out to me like graffiti would on a dark brick wall, "Jack Harkness."
"Who?"
"Jack Harkness. I think he said something about being a captain or something."
"Was he in the alley?"
"Yea," I told her, "I think he shot whatever was behind me."
"You let a killer in your apartment? You should be lucky you're alive."
"No, I see him in my mind, but I don't feel fear. I think he saved me." We just looked at each other for a few minutes, until I broke the silence with, "Let's go get some food."
XX
Wendy decided to treat me to my favorite Mediterranean food place, the Ouzo Café. It was a perfect day outside; the sun was shining down warm light upon us without a cloud in the sky to block it.
Wendy and I had decided to walk. Ouzo's wasn't that far from my place, and us both being, in a sense, poor college students, we didn't always have money for public transportation, though it wasn't that expensive.
Wendy had lived in Cardiff all her life and knew all the alleyways and shortcuts to get everywhere. I would never take some of her shortcuts by myself, but with Wendy with me, I'd go anywhere.
We were walking through one of the alleys and a black SUV was quick approaching us. It was going quicker than normal SUVs would in the same alley. I grabbed Wendy's jacket and pulled her back to the alley wall behind a dumpster so she wouldn't get hit.
Was it just my imagination, or had I seen the word Torchwood on the side of the SUV. The word wasn't that large, just large enough to be noticed. It came back to me that the Jack Harkness I had met last night had said the word Torchwood.
I heard his American voice in my head, "Torchwood tracks down alien life and arms the human race against the future." I remembered turning around the night before in a different alley, and seeing that alien laying dead on the alley floor. All the pieces fit now.
Without a word to Wendy, I took off after the SUV. It had traveled a way down the alley and was already turning a corner. I had to run to keep up. It was headed to the waterfront. The SUV took a few sharp corners and I had problems keeping up with it. I lost visual as it turned yet another corner. I pushed my aching legs just a little harder to catch up. When I rounded the corner, the SUV was nowhere to be seen. My heart sank.
In front of me was some shack. Its wooden door looked like anybody could kick it in, and the little porthole of a window was too high to see inside.
This couldn't be Torchwood. Torchwood's base wouldn't be in some shack, with all the alien technology they'd taken from aliens hidden behind a weak wooden door. I turned to walk towards the Wales Millennium Centre, back in the direction I had left Wendy.
"Miss me?" an American voice asked from behind me.
I turned back in the direction of the shack and saw the man in the World War II coat, but I had to be sure, "Jack Harkness?" I asked.
"In the flesh, you know, not many people can overcome the Retcon."
"The what?"
"Retcon," he said, "it makes you forget."
"I think you wanted me to remember." I said.
"What makes you say that?" he asked.
"You're sloppy," I told him, "you left the amnesia pill on my coffee table and you didn't go through my books to see if I had written anything about you or that gun."
"Do you want a job?" He asked.
The offer had come from nowhere; I was confused, "What?"
"I asked you if you wanted a job. I figure you know how to shoot, and you carry yourself well in situations others would be reduced to tears in. We're a bit short-handed, and I think your talents could be of use."
"My talents don't have a college degree yet, would I be able to finish school?" Why was I asking details of the job? I had only met this man last night, but he had saved my life.
"Once you work for Torchwood, you don't work anywhere else. It's a job for life. If you can handle school and work, be my guest. I should warn you that you can't talk about Torchwood to any outsiders."
"Why?"
"They'll think your crazy, talking about how you hunt aliens to arm the human race against the future." He said bluntly.
"Yeah,"
He made a follow me gesture and we stepped onto a cement square, "Going down," he punched a few keys on his wrist band, and we began lowering into the ground.
"You have a lift in the middle of a public place? Won't people see you?"
He just laughed.