Chapter Eighteen
Trace watched as everyone but Jack went to the workstations to grab their pizzas. Realizing where Jack was going to head, she quickly went back to her room. Just as she sat down, there was a knock at the door.
Staying silent, with a blank face in place, the teen watched Jack open the door before informing her that they have food. He waited as she stood up and turned off her music before the two headed out to join the others.
When her father just handed Trace a slice and turned around, she was a bit surprised. "I can stay?" she asked, wanting to see if it was true.
"No antics, then, yeah, you can stay," Jack replied before grabbing his own food and starting to eat while standing.
Slowly, the girl sat down on the couch with Tosh between her and Owen. As she looked down, Trace grimaced inwardly when she saw that she, too, got to eat the meat feast. Glancing over at the medic, she raised her eyebrows in a questioningly manner before asking, "What the hell are you doing to your pizza?"
"Uh," Owen glanced at Jack, who had his own eyebrow raised, waiting to see the answer. "I just don't feel like eating meat today."
"Since when?" she continued, hoping this would play out so she could remove the meat on hers without any questions.
"Well, I-I, uh…huh," he sputtered, trying to come up with a valid reason.
"We have reason to believe it may not be completely…safe, so I'd take it off yours as well," the Captain came to Owen's rescue.
"O-kay," Trace replied, secretly glad to be told to.
"Ianto, what've you got?" Jack asked as everyone turned their attention to the pacing man.
"I've narrowed it down to three potential sights – only one warehouse is unoccupied. It's just outside Merthyr."
"Makes sense," Owen piped up, "Who knows what goes on there?"
Jack spoke up again. "We've got to shut the operation down, neutralize whoever is doing this, and identify the alien meat."
"Alien meat?" Trace spoke up, both to keep up the charade and to confirm what she heard earlier.
Gwen received a text message as Jack answered, "Yes, alien meat," before looking to Tosh. "You can coordinate."
Suddenly Gwen said she needed to check on Rhys, her boyfriend, and Jack told her to find out how much he knows.
As she left, Trace heard the Welshwoman say, "That's not what I meant."
Once she had disappeared through the cog door, everyone finished the meal in silence.
When everyone as done, Jack started giving out orders.
"Toshiko, you know what to do. Ianto, Owen – head out to the warehouse."
"What ware-" Trace started to ask when the Captain interrupted her.
"And you," he said, pointing a finger at her, "are going to stay here and not do anything funny. Tosh will be here, so don't even try to sneak out. Got it?"
The two had a small staring contest before the teen grunted and nodded her head.
"Good." Jack turned to the two men. "What are you still doing here? Go!"
The girl watched the pair leave before turning to see Jack step onto the invisible lift. "I'll wait for Gwen up there," he explained as it started to move.
Looking over at Tosh, the Japanese woman gave her a small smile before Trace shook her head and went back towards her room.
However, after only about twenty minutes of trying to do some homework, the teen was antsy again. So, she brought it out to the main part of the Hub. That way, she wasn't completely alone.
She was just finishing her math homework when she heard Tosh speak. "I've got blueprints of the warehouse. The stock has to be in the central area. Having fun?"
For a few seconds, Trace was confused, but then she remembered the headset that the woman was wearing. Realizing this was her chance to get a bit clued in on what was going on, she quietly walked up behind Tosh.
Looking over the smaller woman's shoulder, she was able to see the blueprints on the screen.
A few minutes later, however, Toshiko realized she was being watched. "What are you doing?" she asked, turning around.
"Uh, just looking. Pretty interesting stuff," Trace told her. Unfortunately for the girl, that was a bad move.
She had to spend the rest of the time with everyone else out listening to the other woman explain some of the programs on the computer. She was actually glad to see Jack, Owen, and Ianto walk in.
"You better not be bothering Tosh," was the first thing out of Jack's mouth, as he was in a bad mood.
Trace made a noise of indignity before replying, "No, I was not. Tosh here was explaining some of her programs to me cause I was curious." She stopped herself from adding so there, realizing how childish that would've sounded.
"Really?" her father asked suspiciously, "So what did she teach you?"
"Well, I, uh," she started, trying to recall something, when Tosh responded quietly, "It's alright. This stuff's a bit complicated, I don't really expect you to understand it."
Jack watched as his daughter silently thanked the computer genius before she headed into the kitchen.
After spending a little time in the kitchen trying to find some junk food and avoiding her father and his team, Trace stepped back into the main area.
She saw Ianto, Toshiko, and Owen in the lounge area with drinks and her father standing on the catwalk across the Hub.
Walking closer, the teen listened as the team talked.
"Well, this is unprecedented, a fiancé finding out," Ianto said. Curious, she stayed quiet, just listening.
"Mainly because we're all sad and single," Tosh added.
Owen piped up. "Speak for yourself. I am better off without that kind of hassle."
Trace looked back up at Jack as he walked towards the greenhouse; the two briefly made eye contact before he went back to watching Ianto. She idly wondered what it would have been like if he hadn't lied to her mum before shaking her head. All this talk of fiancés and stuff is getting to me, she thought.
"Maybe the answer is to go out with someone who knows what you do," she heard Tosh say.
"Look around you, Tosh," Owen countered, "Only we know what we do," before walking away.
Trace thought about how blind the medic was. She had only been there two weeks and even she could see how Tosh felt about him.
Soon after, she heard the lift working. Looking up, the teen saw Gwen and some man who must be Rhys on it. I guess it works without Jack's wrist strap thing after all, she thought.
Everyone could hear Rhys say, "Wow!" As the lift kept descending, they also heard him say, "Who could've thought this was here?"
Suddenly, the pterodactyl flew around, surprising the newcomer. "That looked so real!" Trace rolled her eyes as she heard Gwen say that it was. As the two touched down, Rhys replied, "They're extinct, Gwen."
Staying in her spot by the couch, the girl watched her father approach the lift. "In your timeline, yes," she could hear him say as the two men shook hands.
"Captain Jack Harkness. Thanks for dropping in, Rhys."
Slowly, Trace started edging her way closer to the others as Gwen stepped off the lift, introducing everyone.
"This is the rest of the team – Owen and Toshiko, Ianto, and over there is Jack's daughter, Trace."
Something about the casual way the Welshwoman said "Jack's daughter" didn't sit well with Trace, but she couldn't quite put her finger on. Although, it was the truth.
"Pleased to meet you," Rhys said enthusiastically before Jack officially welcomed the man to the headquarters.
"They're bigger than mine," she heard Rhys jokingly whine, making Gwen giggle and her own father smile. The teen glanced at the rest of the team, none of them were smiling.
"So, Gwen tells me you catch aliens."
Jack nodded. "That's right."
Suddenly Owen spoke up, "There's a rift through space and time that runs through Cardiff, Rhys, and stuff slips through it from other timelines and planets and it's our job to monitor it."
Trace silently applauded the medic's tone of voice as he explained Torchwood while Rhys finally stepped off the platform.
She couldn't help but roll her eyes when she heard the oblivious man ask Gwen if she was sure this wasn't some kind of weird cult.
But Gwen ignored his comment, instead saying, "You saw that alien in the warehouse. Go on."
He still seemed a bit nervous so Jack asked what he saw. "Uh," Rhys started, "It was like this huge, shapeless beast filling the space, like a mound of flesh."
"So it's one massive entity, as opposed to several organisms?" Toshiko questioned.
When Gwen nodded, Owen spoke up again. "The latest tests reveal high levels of chloride, so it probably lives in the water. I reckon it came through the rift into the sea, and it's beached itself."
Jack added his own two cents, "Like a giant manatee," causing the medic to nod.
Trace just stood there and watched the team work out all the information, paying attention to what they really do for the first time.
"But how did they get it there?" Ianto asked, "That warehouse must be fifty meters long."
"Um," Rhys started to answer, "Maybe it was smaller when they found it, because they said it's growing."
That surprised everyone. "So it's not dead?" the Captain clarified.
"No, it's breathing. Its eye opened."
"So the protein chains are regenerating despite the mutilation, so not only is it replenishing its own flesh, but it's increasing it, giving them a brand-new meat supply," Owen explained.
"It would last them for years, then." "If we understood how it worked, we could feed the world." "We could release a single…" The rest of the team spoke in quick succession, giving Trace a headache while trying to comprehend all of this.
But Jack put them back in their place. "We're talking about dodgy pies and Merthyr, okay? And the fact that they're cutting it up alive," he paused to look at Rhys, "Which we could've put a stop to already, if it wasn't for you."
But Rhys interrupted, "I thought my fiancé was in danger."
"Well, Mr. Caveman, she wasn't. She can handle herself," came the immortal's retort, causing his daughter to raise an eyebrow in amusement. It amused her further to see the man ignore Gwen's warnings.
"All you did tonight was mess things up. Now we have to think of a way to get back in. And thanks to you, they'll have tightened security!" he continued.
Rhys tried to defend himself again, stating, "Well, if you stopped and asked me exactly what I saw in there, instead of showing off round the place-"
Wrong move, Trace thought a bit gleefully as Jack asked Ianto if he showed off, which the latter replied, "Just a bit."
Then Gwen's fiancé continued with his little tirade, making her headache grow stronger still.
"You'd know that I got out by telling them I wanted a job as a delivery boy. So rather than cock things up, I found you a way to get in! But if you can't handle that, big boy, then you can stuff it!"
When he got in Jack's face, Trace's eyes widened a bit. So he's a little tougher than he looks, she thought.
But her thought process was ruined when she heard her father tell Gwen, "This is quite homoerotic." Then the teen had some very unwelcomed images flash through her mind.
But the Welshwoman did not agree. "No, no, no, no, Jack! He is not getting us in!"
The girl watched as her father said, "Team meeting," adding a, "You too!" to Rhys. The Captain then went to leave before he turned around and walked up to her.
"Not you." "But, that's no-" Trace started to complain, but the immortal was having none of it. "I said no! Go finish your homework."
She watched him march away, the team following, for a minute before huffing and heading back to the couch. As she picked up her next assignment, she suddenly wondered how he knew she didn't finish her homework.