Part 2

Cardiff, July 2004

The Hub. Jack couldn't remember when it had been given that name. Sometime between the two world wars he was sure. He'd managed to get away a lot during those times. If he wanted to go off and fight for King and Country the excessively patriotic suits that he'd worked for sure weren't going to stop him. Better him than someone important. Besides, he'd had to avoid himself and the real Jack Harkness in the 1940's and being over-seas was a great way to do that.

It was at some point in that period of time that Torchwood Cardiff had expanded, that the underground rail link between all the Torchwood bases had been proposed, started and then shelved. It had been too difficult, too costly and thanks to extensive bombing, too obvious. The warehouse that they had once used had been badly damaged, and it had made sense to shift operations into the half finished station and the labyrinth of tunnels that had already been built below. The warehouse above had gone back to being a warehouse, and had been a great cover for some of the more conspicuous events of the last sixty years, however the decline of the docks had made a well maintained building too obvious and it had been left to crumble. The land above was eventually sold, sold and resold. Torchwood had of course carefully steered and sabotaged prospective projects for the land, keeping what lay below protected, even going so far as to completely derail efforts to build an opera house on the site. Eventually though, Torchwood had found its solution. The Oval basin it was originally called, and Torchwood even coughed up most of the money for it, although the Millennium Commission and the Welsh assembly took the credit.

Torchwood was still coughing up money for projects in the area; the Assembly building which was due for completion in another two years, and the Wales Millennium Centre which would open in November. Jack was rather proud of that. If Torchwood One noticed what he was doing, or how he was doing it, so far he'd had no comeback and as far as Jack was concerned it was about time Torchwood gave back a little to the people of Cardiff. After all, they'd stalled every major hope the city had had for revival for nearly thirty years. Jack knew all too well One's interest in Cardiff, and knew for a fact they would quite happily see the whole city die out, just so they could get their hands on the rift. Jack had no intention of letting that happen.

So while the Plaza above, now called Roald Dahl Plass, was the centre of Cardiff Bay's new hope, down below with its tangled mix of Victorian brick, 1920's and 30's tile, sixties concrete, 80's steel, 90's furniture, and technology dating from the earliest days to the far flung future, the Hub rumbled on. Home sweet home for Torchwood Three.

It was designed to deal with a lot, this amalgam of eras and technologies they called home, but the one thing the Hub wasn't, was a hospital. There were actual Hospitals for that. They had a medical bay of a sort, but the amount of actual healing achievable in the white tiled pit was only what could be achieved with someone sitting on the autopsy table. The fact that it had an autopsy table rather than a bed was the biggest clue to the fact that it was rather more equipped to deal with the dead than the living.

That was why Captain Jack Harkness currently stood outside a sturdy lead lined door, his gaze fixed through the leaded Georgian wire-glass window into what had once been just another room amongst the many that sprouted off the maze of underground tunnels. Now it was a makeshift hospital room, complete with monitors, bed, the apparently pre-requite assembly of tubes, wires and things that went beep that were part and parcel of 21st century medicine, and last but by no means least, a patient.

The man from the cemetery. The mystery, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a deliciously tight T-shirt. Or at least he had been until he'd been put in one of the white gowns they placed human bodies in before they went into storage.

Through the bruising on the man's face, Jack could see he was young. Barely more than a kid really. And handsome. His features weren't striking, but there was just something about the planes of the young man's face that Jack hadn't failed to notice.

It was a pity really, that he had ended up here. It was a pity that he could very well cost Jack one of his team. More than a pity.

To say Jack was furious with Owen would be an understatement. As he watched the doctor through the glass, the younger man busying himself around the room, Jack cursed the burden of secrecy he laboured under. Cursed his own foolishness. Cursed the seal that surrounded the door.

Not for the first time since he'd watched powerless to speak up in time in the cemetery, Jack cursed Owen Harper for removing the hood of his suit. He should have known better. He did know better.

Maybe it had been shock. Shock at finding what should have been a body still breathing and apparently unharmed other than being unconscious and bruised. Maybe it was just pure impulsive idiocy. Jack wasn't sure he wanted to know either way.

It didn't really matter in the end did it? Owen had taken his hood off, and as result exposed himself. To what exactly he'd exposed himself none of them were sure, but he'd been exposed. The anomalous readings Tosh had been picking up in the cemetery had centred around the young man now lying on the bed. They were like nothing any of them had ever seen, and way beyond anything they could understand. Was it energy? Was it radiation? Was it a life form? They had no idea what had come through or how it had caused the damage they'd seen. Had it brought some kind of illness with it? Alien viruses, bacteria or micro-organism? Had the young man in the bed been what had come through? Or had he just been an innocent bystander? Had he been attacked by some kind of weapon none of them had ever seen or heard of?

They had no answers to any of these questions; the readings had totally overwhelmed their equipment, blinding the highly sophisticated mix of future and alien technology to all but what Tosh had started calling 'The Pattern'. Even the medical equipment. It sat in the room silent and useless, fried by their attempts to attach it to the young man on the bed.

He'd known from the start that they couldn't just leave the boy in the hands of a civilian hospital. He was too much of a contamination risk for a start, and until they had any idea what they were dealing with their work was all about containment and protecting the public. Even if the young man wasn't a contamination risk – something which Jack fervently hoped for Owen's sake – then there was still the fact that whatever 'The Pattern' was it would fry, melt or explode any piece of equipment any hospital tried to hook him up to. Not suspicious at all.

They were going to have to quarantine Owen anyway, so why the hell not let the doctor tend his patient rather than stick him in cold storage until they could figure it out? It made sense, but that didn't stop Jack from feeling the headache the whole situation was causing pounding behind his temples.

Raising his hand to his earpiece, he activated it. "Tosh, you get that vid link to the room set up yet?"

"All done." Tosh's voice came through the earpiece, a worried edge to her usually soothing tone.

"Good. Conference room, everyone. Five minutes. Owen?"

"I heard." The far less soothing, and definitely unimpressed voice of Owen Harper answered. "I've already got the com on."

Jack didn't bother to reply, although part of his mind rebelled feebly at letting Owen's choice of words pass by uncommented on. He wasn't in the mood for it, and although under normal circumstances Jack wouldn't actually let that stop him, it was clear Owen wasn't in the mood for it either.

The irritation had been clear in the other man's tone, but as afar as Jack was concerned, Owen could be as annoyed with him as he liked. Hewasn't going to risk his team, the city or possibly the world for the young medic's foolishness. Besides, Owen wasn't really annoyed at Jack for confining him and the Captain knew it. Owen might be reckless but he was still a doctor; he understood all too well the risks. No, Owen was annoyed with himself and maybe a little scared. And if being grumpy with Jack made Owen feel better about the precarious situation his own stupidity had put him in, then Jack could deal with it, for now.

Five minutes later and as directed Tosh and Suzie were in the conference room, both looking harassed, frustrated and worried. Owen's face seemed unusually large on the big screen mounted on the wall at the far end, his fatigue more than obvious. It seemed like weeks ago Jack had watched the doctor and Suzie bickering, but in reality it had only been a few hours.

"So, give me something." Jack ordered as he strolled through the door, coming to stand where he could be seen by both Tosh and Suzie, and also by the camera feeding the terminal that had been set up for Owen.

"No luck so far indentifying the energy pattern I'm afraid." Tosh admitted a little nervously, fidgeting in her seat as all eyes in the room turned to her, her eyes flicking to Suzie with something like desperation.

With a smile, the darker-skinned woman picked up the thread. "I can't say for certain, but I think we can rule out some kind of weapon. It too fluid, too erratic. None of the samples we brought back from the site show any kind damage beyond superficial scorching. No molecular agitation or loss of cohesion. If it is a weapon, I can't see what it's supposed to do."

"Same thing down here." Owen broke in. "He's got, I wouldn't even call it a burn really. There's a few patches of skin that look a bit like mild localised sunburn, or like he's leant against a hot radiator. They're already fading. No symptoms of radiation poisoning, at least of a kind I can identify."

"What about his vital signs?" Suzie asked curiously. "Are they still stable?"

Owen shrugged, "His heart rate fluctuates, I've taken to taking his pulse every ten minutes or so. Never same result twice, but nothing dangerous. Other than the fact he's out cold, sleeping beauty here is probably healthier than I am."

"So we have nothing?" Jack sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "What about contamination? We know this guy is leaking off some kind of energy, there's a few hundred pounds worth of smoking medical equipment downstairs to prove it. So is this... pattern transferable? Is it dangerous? Have we been able to tell if it's brought anything else with it?"

"No idea." Tosh shook her head. "We've used the most advanced equipment we have and... nothing can read through it. If there are any potentially life threatening mico-organisms or viruses, the system would usually pick them up instantly, simply because it doesn't recognise them, but the best I can tell is that our guest is completely saturated with whatever this energy pattern is and because of that, we can't read much of anything else in the entire building."

"Are you saying this pattern is spreading through the hub?" Jack frowned worriedly.

"Yes and no." Tosh sighed, again glancing at Suzie who shrugged. "In a way The Pattern works like radiation, from a single fixed point it is... well radiating. But it is a form of energy, only it's not transferring. It's just... there, in the background. The closer to it we try to look, the more it interferes. Up here it's barely even a bit of noise on the scanners, down in the quarantine room it's like trying to hear a moth's wings beating in a crowded pub."

"Nice analogy," Jack praised, his expression letting Toshiko know the praise was meant for her work as much as her descriptive language. In response, the petite Japanese woman smiled shyly and ducked her head.

"As wonderful as that sounds," Owen cut in with an audible eye-roll. "What it really means is I'm stuck in here until you lot can work out a way to see what's actually going on." Owen paused briefly, then his shoulders sagged slightly. "Even if you could see, it's too soon to tell if there's any risk. For all we know whatever is happening here could manifest over a period of days rather than hours."

"Agreed." Jack nodded sharply. "So Owen remains in quarantine until we can find a way to know one way or another."

"Well I have my riveting companion here, shouldn't be too much of an imposition." Owen threw in with more than a little sarcasm.

"Tosh, keep working on finding a way to see through this thing." Jack began to give out orders, Toshiko nodding in acceptance. "Suzie, I know this isn't exactly your field, but help Tosh any way you can on this one. I'm going to head down to the archives, see if I can find something we might have come across in the past that can help us."

"Jack." Suzie stopped the captain as he moved to turn. Sliding a file across the desk, she rose from her seat. "There's still a lot of background checking to do, but that's the preliminaries on the ID. I checked the drivers licence we found in his wallet, it's legitimate."

Jack nodded in acceptance, picking up the file and flicking it open as Tosh and Suzie rose from their seats to leave, and Owen vanished from the screen. There was a scan of the aforementioned driving licence accompanied by a couple of photographs, clipped to the single sheet of paper. Scanning the file, Jack shook his head. "Welcome to Torchwood, Ianto Jones."

Tbc...

Thank you to everyone who left feedback! Very much appreciated and I hope you enjoyed this next part as much as the last.