Jack and Martha parked on the empty street near the old railway bridge. Upon exiting the car they heard music – obviously the party had already started. Lois had phoned them up earlier to tell them where the brother assumed Kate Wingard's whereabouts were. She was still not here but there was no time to waste on waiting. Especially if what Martha had discovered about the alien was true.
The substance released by it was almost lethal. It caused nerves near the skin to stop working and a person no longer could feel touch, temperature or pain. Movements become harder as it is difficult to analyse the area surrounding the damaged tissue. There had been no time to create an antidote so the best chance Martha and Jack had at stopping the parasite alien was by acting fast and not letting it touch them. They were still unsure how the substance was released.
The two operatives headed onto the meadow and quickly found the group of grown-up looking half-drunk teenagers sitting on the grass or dancing to the beat of a Beyonce song. Locating Kate wasn't hard. Although she could've been described like probably all of the girls there as wearing too much make up, her round face and raven black hair made her easily recognisable. But first it was important to get rid of all these people. Having all those people here was just too troublesome.
Jack walked up to the small speakers with an iPod connected to it. The teenagers looked at him with a feeling of disgust as he passed between them and the half-empty bottles standing next to them; he was an outsider there. Some times he heard giggles and comments like "who's dad is he" or "who invited this freak". He almost stopped when he heard spiteful comments about his coat but decided to leave it. Instead he pushed his ways through the crowd and without a moment's hesitation turned the speakers off. All eyes except for Martha who was looking at Kate were suddenly on him.
"The party's over, get your things and leave and I won't call your parents," Jack said.
"Come on, man, we're just trying to have some fun!" he heard a voice from somewhere in the crowd.
"I won't repeat myself, if you've got problems come here and tell me them directly." Jack's firm voice met with no denial.
With complaints on the tips of their tongues the group of teenagers took their things and walked in their own directions. Only a few remained ready to face Jack. Among them was Kate Wingard. Except she didn't stay because of the party. She was looking around with a panicking look in her eyes searching for something. Martha glanced at Jack and indicated the girl. The Captain's gaze turned to Kate.
Jack knew what was going to happen. "Everybody get away from her!" he shouted at the few people standing near her looking concerned for her.
Kate screamed as the black substance spilt from her arm and enveloped itself around her hands and arms. By the time it got to her head the eyes were already blank. But it didn't just stop at surrounding her body. The substance rose and formed its own head with one black beady eye staring hungrily at the people. Kate's body was just a base for the parasite's own figure. Jack took out his Webley revolver but the arm of the monster had already caught onto one of the people. A blond girl had been stabbed with the alien's claw and tossed aside. Martha rushed to her side. So did a dark-skinned girl.
Everyone else ran away and in seconds the field was empty. The only people left were Jack, Martha, Kate and the two girls. Without any obstructions in the form of protesting adolescents Jack could easily aim and shoot at the creature. The bullet went through making a whole in the alien but the black mass quickly closed it. The alien didn't even react.
Jack saw the alien moving towards Martha and the two girls. He was certain of its aim. It hunted out the weakest prey. He quickly shifted to where his colleague was.
"Martha! How's she doing?"
"She might get through this but I can't be sure," Martha was tending to the blond's wounds.
"I might have to kill the girl. We have no way of securing the alien. We can only hope that it grows weaker without its host."
"No you can't do that!" the black girl shouted desperately. "She's my friend!"
"Would you rather it killed you?" Jack said harshly. This was why he hated having other people around when he was working. They usually got this stupid idea that he was trying to save everybody when his aim was completely different: to protect the Torchwood secret as well as the extraterrestrial creatures and objects and to keep everything under control. None of that necessarily included saving people.
He shot a bullet aiming at the girls limbs hoping to weaken the alien. But the alien protected its host by absorbing the bullet. Jack went for the chest and stomach later but these didn't work either.
"Damn it! We need a distraction!" he said. "Martha, if I could get its attention, would you be able to-" he didn't finish. The look on the dark girl's face distracted him. She was staring at the sky her eyes and lips open wide in shock.
"What's that?" she shouted pointing towards the air.
"Jack, that's-!"
The creature in the air flew down and just as Jack turned around to see it something heavy fell on him. When he opened his eyes he saw Ianto's face dangerously close to his own. He smiled now that their roles had been reversed.
"I see miracles happen twice," he said as Ianto attempted to raise his body. Too weak and hurting to do that he just rolled over freeing Jack from himself.
The Captain stood up and saw an unusual scene. The pterodactyl was fighting with the alien in the air, attacking with its claws and at the same time trying to avoid the creature's touch.
"Jack, quick!" Martha shouted.
Jack shot. Kate fell back blood gushing from her chest
The black mass shrunk into a tiny ball leaving the body of its host. Before it could find another host a white light appeared and swallowed it. Jack furrowed. He saw it too many times to mistake it. But this was too good a timing to be true. The rift didn't just help them like that. He tried figuring out what could be the reason for this strange phenomenon but a quiet moan brought him back to earth from his pondering.
Ianto was already sitting up holding his chest. He was thankful to Jack for being there and breaking his fall but he was still hurting. First the claws pinning into him whenever he started to slide down during the flight and then the landing. He now knew why people always said that landing was the hardest. Be it in flying a plane or being kidnapped by a dinosaur.
"Ianto Jones – the man of the hour!" Jack said looking at him.
Ianto glanced at him. He didn't really feel like it with his bruised chest and spoilt suit.
Before he could give any witty comment they heard a desperate shout.
"Sis! Oh no! Sis! Kate," there was a boy running towards the corpse of the girl with remarkable speed.
"Travis, wait!" Lois voice echoed on the field. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop him," she told Jack when she reached them.
"What did you bring him here for?"Jack asked harshly.
"He wouldn't tell me where to go and..." she stopped under Jack's judgemental stare. She felt pity for him being left alone and on top of that if the girl really lost her consciousness she thought that the presence of her brother might have been a help, an anchor to reality. And of course, she had never expected the girl to die.
"Jack, she didn't know it would end like this," Martha came to her rescue.
"Now on top of taking care of those kids we'll need to hassle with this guy," Jack was clearly irritated.
As if to prove Jack's words the boy now run to them and with his fists started hitting the Captain's chest. "It's all your fault!" he shouted in between sobs.
"See what I mean?"
Lois hugged the boy tightly. "I'm so sorry, Travis," she said. "I never thought that it would come to this."
The brother gradually calmed down as he was sobbing into the girl's shoulder.
"Ianto, I want you to take care of the memories and press for this and the pterodactyl attacks."
"What about Skippy?"
There was no sign of the dinosaur. Busy with the alien they didn't notice when Skippy had gone.
Jack sighed. The main problem was gone but there was still so much work to do.
o*o*o
Tobey and Zoe waited quietly hoping that nobody would find them. For Tobey it was a first. He had always thought hiding in ventilation shafts was what they did in cheap action movies but apparently it worked for Torchwood as well.
It took some time until the commotion stopped. Nobody was looking for them anymore. At least that was what they were hoping for. Now they were sitting in almost complete darkness, the only light coming from Tobey's turned on PDA screen.
"Do you know where we should head now?" Tobey asked.
Zoe shook her head.
"Can you get the blueprints for the building through the network?"
Tobey glanced at Zoe. "I doubt it," he said. "And I don't think it would matter if we don't know what we're searching for."
"Yes, I guess it won't be visible in the blueprints..."
"So are we just going to check all the rooms?" Tobey asked and for some reason he knew the answer was going to be:
"Yes."
They moved down the shaft "sneaking into" each room and listened if there was anybody inside. It seems everybody had already left and they could easily check what was inside which room. At the third room Zoe gasped.
"I think this is it," she whispered as they were glancing down the open shaft. They lowered themselves down, Tobey first to help Zoe afterwards.
The room was spacious with no windows, only lights which were left on. Other than that it looked like a fancy office room. There was a desk with a power mac and several shelves with books and folders. It differed from the previous rooms they were in in that there was artwork on the wall and it was a slightly bigger office than the others. There were two doors, one going to the hallway the other probably leading to some archive room or simply a closet.
"The information should be on the computer," Zoe said.
"We're looking for information?" Tobey asked, finally getting some truth from Zoe.
"I think so," the girl's voice was uncertain. "He said there would be a painting of Galaxy 28 on the wall there so I think this is it."
Tobey glanced at the framed oil painting of what could have looked like space. How Zoe knew what particular galaxy it was remained a mystery to him. He preferred not to ask.
"Are you sure the information will be on the computer?" Tobey asked.
Before Zoe could answer they heard movement on the corridor. The girl pointed at the closet and they quickly rushed there barely avoiding a meeting with a tall man with raven black hair.
The room was much more spacious than they imagined. They could easily stand there without needing to squeeze in between coats and suits. In fact there were no clothes at all. Tobey took out his PDA and the dim light of the screen illuminated their surroundings. No, it wasn't a closet. It was another room. Tobey recognised the big metal boxes with lights and cables to be a computer or several such stations. There were two screens connected to them. Tobey approached the computer and turned the two monitors on. One of them showed a custom user interface but the other caught Tobey's attention more. He saw it before, he had seen it every day since he had started working at Torchwood. It was a rift activity monitor.
Zoe tried the other screen but a password window appeared. "Tobey?"
The man glanced at the monitor and looked for a USB port somewhere on the desk next to the monitor. He found one quickly and connected his PDA. He then found Tosh's password decoding program and quickly tapped in the result that came out seconds later: "Kate16". He accessed the computer.
He looked at the folders on the desktop. None of them looked special but one icon caught his attention. The caption underneath read "Project: Harkness". Jack's last name was Harkness. This couldn't be a coincident. He double clicked it and a window popped up. Among several documents saved inside there was also an execution file simply named "Rift". Tobey swallowed. He opened the program.
"What's that?" Zoe asked but she wasn't refering to the window that appeared on the screen. She was looking at a capsule in the corner of the room that had just lit up.
"It's a rift controlling device," Tobey explained. Facts were coming together forming the truth: a hidden room, a program called "Rift" a device that turned on the moment he opened the file? Not to mention all that being stored in a folder called "Project: Harkness". There was no doubt it was a rift controller. "Basically a teleport and a time machine in one," he explained for the first time seeing the rift from this point of view. Before it was just a phenomenon that randomly took things and creatures and placed them in Cardiff or some other place in the galaxy. Now that it could be controlled and its actions were no longer random "teleport" and "time machine" seemed like perfect descriptions. The idea scared him. "Even Torchwood can't control the Rift!"
"Shut it down then," Zoe said firmly.
"I'll copy it first," Tobey said and dragged the entire folder "Project: Harkness" onto the PDA. He checked through the files. This was worse than he had expected. At first he thought that this was unconnected to their case but it turned out that this kind of thinking was wrong. The girl, the parasite alien, this place, it was all connected. It was all a test. A simple test if the rift-controller worked. He knew Jack had to see this.
But he also realised that maybe he could use the program to reverse the transfer of the alien into the girl. If he could do it in time then maybe he could help this Kate.
Tobey searched through the program and found the log for this morning labelled "test 1". The transferred objects seemed to be tracked and reversing the process was automatic. Nothing too complicated only one command. Tobey pressed the button "reverse" and waited. Nothing but a loading bar appeared. Once it was full a message "operation finished" was printed on the screen.
"Is it done now?" Zoe asked.
"Yeah, I think so," Tobey said still looking at the screen. Nothing appeared in the capsule which only meant that either nothing happened and probably wouldn't for some time or there was another post like this somewhere. He glanced at the screen but none of the folders looked to contain such information. He disconnected his PDA and turned to Zoe.
"I think it's-" he didn't finish.
The girl having procured a steel pole from somewhere smashed it into the rift-controller.
"What are you doing?" Tobey panicked. "And where did you get that from?"
If the sound of smashing equipment wasn't enough to make people outside the room aware of their presence Tobey's shouting did. They heard movement in the other room and Tobey quickly packed his PDA. They needed to run. But Zoe didn't budge just yet.
"Move over," she said and when he was hiding in the other corner of the room she swung the pole destroying both monitors at the same time. At that moment door opened and a tall man came in accompanied by another slightly shorter with a mane of grey hair and a patch of baldness on the top.
"What are you doing?" the taller man asked and moved forward in an attempt to catch the girl.
But they were not quick enough to stop Zoe running the metal pole into one of the computers. Before Zoe did any more damage and got caught Tobey grabbed her hand and they both ran out of the room, barely managing to pass by the two men trying to catch them.
"Stop!" one of them shouted after them.
Tobey and Zoe ran with all the strength they had in their legs. They hunched and covered their heads as they heard shots being fired from behind. One grazed Tobey's arm but the adrenaline prevented him from feeling the pain. The two ran down the hallway and reached the door to the staircase. Tobey, his hand already on the handle, saw a hole appear on the door unbelievably close to his fingers. Without a moments hesitation he opened the door and urged Zoe to go first.
Their descent was quick but with each turn they were sure they would see the guards approaching from the bottom. Somehow they managed to reach the ground floor without any problems. When they ran onto the giant hall the alarm went off.
They saw everybody's eyes turn to them. The building was almost empty but there were two guards next to the door and the receptionist was still behind his desk.
"You!" he mouthed his face twisting into pure anger. "Get them!" he ordered the two bulky security guards.
Their escape route was cut of. There was no way they would get lucky twice and escape without getting caught. Tobey quickly analyzed their options. There was no way they would make it to the front entrance and he didn't see any emergency exit. But they could still go lower. There was a parking lot under the building. He rememebered an entrance to a parking lot right next to the building. Plus, the staircase still stretched to lower levels. He pulled Zoe back and they descended to the very bottom.
This was not much help. He knew that within moments the guards would be on their backs. And he was sure that there were a few people guarding the parking lot as well so he had probably just doubled the number of their enemies. For the time being they seemed to be safe.
They stopped in front of the door to catch their breaths. It was only for a short moment for they were back running towards the exit within seconds. They were almost there when a bright light blinded them. A car had almost hit them. The sound of the klaxon soon followed.
"Get in!" Tobey heard a familiar voice and without a moment of hesitation entered the car with Zoe. They squeezed on the back seat breathing heavily as Gwen made her way out of the parking lot.
"Thank god you were here, Gwen!" Tobey said after calming down a bit. "How did you know we would be here?"
"I didn't, I was following somebody," Gwen's voice was quite harsh. "You're in a lot of trouble with Jack. He phoned me up at one point and said you abandoned your post."
"Oh that..." Tobey remembered that getting out of the office building. "I think he won't mind it after he sees what I found."
"Who's your friend?" Gwen asked looking at Zoe in the rear-view mirror.
"I'm Zoe Bluebird," the girl smiled. "Sorry for getting Tobey into trouble."
"I can't imagine it being your fault," Gwen said kindly.
They dropped Zoe off on the Roald Dahl Place. Tobey stood for a second next to her unable to say good bye. "When will I see you again?" he asked. There was no answer. He was afraid of this. "Will I ever see you again then?" he corrected himself.
Zoe's smiled but there were tiny sparkles of tears in her eyes. "I honestly don't know," she said. "Listen can you pass a message to Jack?" she asked.
"Sure, no problem," Tobey said.
The girl have him a peck on the cheek. He widened his eyes surprised. "Tell him 'Zoe says hi'."
"OK..." Tobey said still a bit overwhelmed.
Zoe smiled and kissed him again, this time passionately on the lips.
Tobey even more shocked raised his arms aimlessly not knowing what to do. Finally when he decided to hug her and return the kiss the girl pulled away.
"Who was that for?" Tobey asked.
Zoe giggled. "Good bye, Tobey."
She ran off.
"See you later!" Tobey shouted after her unable to part with her completely.
"That's Torchwood for you," Gwen said with a sad smile.
She was standing just a few meters away leaning on her blue Honda.
"What do you mean?" Tobey was already returning to the car.
"Romance is short in Torchwood," Gwen said.
o*o*o
"I thought I ordered you to be on stand-by," Jack said, his voice stern ready to reprimand the technician.
"I was but then," Tobey didn't know where he should begin.
"I can vouch for him, Jack," Gwen said trying to help.
"OK, then, tell me what happened that you weren't available when needed," Jack said, still a bit reluctant in forgiving the rookie.
Tobey then went on to relate his adventure with Zoe not omitting any of the relevant facts. He finally ended with Zoe running off on the Roald Dahl Place.
"So, do you know her?" Tobey asked once finished.
"Yes, if she's who she says she is then I met her once not too long ago," Jack answered. "And it also means we probably won't be hearing from her again."
Tobey tried his hardest to hide his disappointment. "Were you and her... involved?" he asked for the sake of his own peace. Putting his own jealousy aside he found himself thinking about how wrong would that be. If he had to start with something he would take the age difference into consideration.
"No, it was only a brief meeting," Jack said not even knowing how much he was reassuring the technician.
Tobey looked sideways. If there was so little chance on meeting her he felt obliged to do what she had asked from him. He closed his eyes tightly and placed a tiny, short peck on Jack's cheek.
"That was from her," he said imagining how red he must've been right now.
Jack couldn't help the whimsical smirk and Gwen put her hands to her lips to hide the smile and stop herself from laughing.
Great, Tobey thought. It was his first time kissing a guy ever and they were all taking it as a joke.
"Thanks," Jack said concealing his chuckling with a very unrealistic caugh. "But Zoe aside have you got the files downloaded from that computer? I can't believe somebody would have the technology to control the rift before us!"
"Oh, I have it right here," Tobey took out the PDA from his bag. He turned it on and quickly accessed the files. But the moment he opened the folder "Project: Harkness" the screen turned black and a video turned itself on.
Gwen and Jack quickly approached to see it.
"That's the man I saw in front of Kate Wingard's house!" Gwen noticed. "He is involved in all of this after all!"
"He's also the man who tried to kill me back at that office!" Tobey added.
The image of the man moved. He opened his lips, "Tough luck Jack!" he said. "It's never supposed to have been this easy. The game goes on, Jack. That's two for me and zero for Torchwood. I'll give you a little hint though: my name is Longrass, I think you've heard that surname somewhere, don't you think?"
The screen turned black and several cracks and sparks came from the PDA making Tobey immediately drop the fried device.
"Two?" Tobey asked. The two senior operatives looked at him dismissively as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Oh..." the technician realized. "The bunnies... But it didn't give him absolutely anything! Why did he do that?" There was the look again and once again Tobey understood what was the answer to his own question. "To test us... To find out more about our team."
"What was that about, Jack," Gwen asked changing the subject to what she thought was more important. "Do you know him?"
"Longrass was his alias back in the old days," Jack said. "I worked with him."
"Is this that Time Agency business? Don't tell me it's connected to your brother again."
"No, this has got nothing to do with Grey. I have to think this through," Jack said. "It's late, and I want you to be punctual tomorrow. There will be lots of work to do."
"You're doing it again Jack," Gwen said. "I can't help thinking that you've never stopped."
"Doing what?" Tobey asked confused.
"Keeping secrets," Gwen explained. "Never think you know everything about this man. There's always something he's not telling you."
"Is that something wrong?" Tobey couldn't understand what Gwen was trying to say. He had always kept to himself and secrets were always unavoidable. "Maybe he doesn't want to disappoint anybody," Tobey voiced his thoughts accidentally. He regretted it instantly but still felt that it could somehow be helping Jack's case.
"Tomorrow I want you all here at nine," Jack cut the discussion short. He was glad for Tobey's protection but Gwen knew enough to know that that wasn't the reason why he kept his secrets. He kept them because they were dangerous. And although Gwen was right that sometimes if he had only voiced his concerns several dangerous situations could be avoided, if he did say what was on his mind everything could've gone even worse.
o*o*o
Tobey stretched out as he finally finished deleting all the entries connected with the alien parasite incident and the pterodactyl. Everybody had been extremely busy cleaning up all the evidence of Torchwood's existence, beginning with press and internet, ending on witnesses' memories. Today he knew that Jack had given retcon to the last two people who had seen the pterodactyl. He knew that one of them was the wife of the attacked man and he could've only imagined how hard it had been on her. Could this really put her mind at ease?
He had finally repaired his PDA but the entire disc had been wiped clean and he couldn't even find the tiniest file from the "Project: Harkness". The folder was protected by the virus against copying and no evidence of Tobey's find remained. Neither on the PDA nor in physical form. Their raid the day after Tobey's break-in provided no new evidence. The entire eleventh floor had been cleaned of any proof of the rift-controller's presence. Even the bullet holes in the walls and the door mysteriously disappeared. Tobey was amazed at the speed at which it all had been done. It hadn't even been one entire day and there was nothing left.
He noticed Jack was in an irritated mood which could only be soothed by Ianto's miracle coffee. Tobey took a sip from his own cup.
He remembered their conversation about secrets. He had a few of his own. He opened the internet browser. He made sure nobody was looking and typed in "driving course Cardiff" into the search bar.
o*o*o
The notebook fell on the desk with a quiet thump. Jack looked up from his seat and saw Ianto staring intensely at him.
"What is it?" he asked taking the notebook in his hands and shuffling through the pages. It was the same one Ianto had been hiding when he found him in the archives.
"I want you to tell me what this is," the office-boy demanded. "Someone suggested I should just confront you about what was inside instead of investigating on my own. So I want to hear it from your lips. Why would I ever write a 'diary' of 'your deaths'?"
Jack put the notebook back on the table. "You tell me," he said. "You've already looked inside haven't you?"
Ianto shook his head. "It's your privacy. I won't force myself into your life without your consent. But I have seen your name on one of the graves in the cemetery."
"Lots of Jack Harknesses in the world," Jack said. "Could've been anybody."
"Except it wasn't. It was you. I don't need that notebook to figure it out."
Jack looked up. "So you've figured it out already?" he asked. He smiled. He could easily tell when Ianto was lying and right now it seemed that he may have had suspicions but nothing concrete. "You haven't got a clue have you?" he said.
"I just want to know want to know what's so important you would go to such lengths to protect it. I just hope when it comes to it it won't turn against you. That's all."
Ianto left without a word of goodbye. Jack stayed engrossed in his own thoughts wondering if he should've just told Ianto everything. Or at least most of it. But he liked it better this way. He knew Ianto would give up now. Or pretend to, anyway. That was what he liked about him. He did his job no questions asked and never nosed into what was not his business. But this time he was connected to it all, believed that each fact brought him closer to getting his memories back. And Jack feared that it would.
o*o*o
Travis looked around everywhere but refused to have his gaze fall on the coffin his sister was in. Her death still hadn't reached him and he didn't really pay a lot of attention at the funeral. His mother's hand was holding him firmly, otherwise he would've just run away.
He looked around the people gathered. Most of them were his family but he also recognised a girl, Kate's friend Diana. He didn't like her. He didn't like any of his sister's friends. But he preferred her to the other one called Maria. She was stuck in the hospital after getting hurt in the same accident his sister was killed in. He wished it was her who died in the accident and not his sister.
He looked further beyond the graves. He saw a man in a black coat with pure black hair much like his own. And then he suddenly remembered what had really happened that day. His sister's death was not a traffic accident. It wasn't an accident at all. Tears flew down his face. She was shot by that man. In his mind he called him all the worst names he could imagine. Some he didn't even know he had learnt. He didn't know the man's real name but unconsciously he remembered one word which he knew was the reason for this tragedy: "Torchwood".
o*o*o
Jane woke up in her own bed unable to remember how exactly she had reached there. It had been three days since her husband's death and two days since she had met that weird dark-haired man. She recalled his name. Mr Longrass he had said he was called. She remembered what she had been doing before falling asleep and she remembered that strange man calling himself Captain Jack Harkness. He had given them - she recalled being with Sarah - a drink and then she fell asleep. It was exactly as the dark-haired man had predicted. Jack Harkness had expected her to forget but the pill that she received from Longrass counteracted with the drug. She still remembered the pterodactyl and the Captain. The man was right. It was all their fault.
Longrass called them "Torchwood".