Story disclaimer: I own none of the following. Many of the references in this story are owed to the writers and the rest of the team(s) involved in the creation and production of Torchwood and Doctor Who. Without them, this story would not be possible. My character Teya owns me. I am making no money from this or any of my other fics posted on this site.
Scene Fifteen – Cardiff, Present Day
Teya had left the Hub with eyes misted by tears she had refused to shed for so long. She cursed Jack for making her feel again, after so many years of nothing but hate. She ran it off, and by the time she reached her SUV, the tears were nothing more than dried salt streaks on her cheeks. The stinging in her yellow eyes was a welcome relief, reminding her that she was still capable of feeling even after everything. She unlocked the SUV with the zapper, heading straight for the boot and her holdall, from which she pulled out a black leather jacket. It had been a long night, despite her restful sleep, and she was so tempted to take a nap, but she now knew one thing. There were other Everlarths on Earth.
She had overheard enough of Ianto's briefing to know of their presence, and now she feared for her life on two accounts. She had to know if these Everlarths were friends of her father's; and whether or not they were, she needed to know if they were hunting her or oblivious as to her presence. The idea of seeing her own people again, whether friends or enemies, was an interesting one, certainly she had never expected to see one of her own kind again. She intended to track them down, but she did not mean to do so unprepared. She had enough weaponry accidentally pilfered from Torchwood London when she had taken the SUV to see to that.
Even so, she sat behind the wheel for several minutes, her mind caught up by the thought of seeing one of her own. Could it be her own father, come back to claim her? Or one of his men coming to seek their rightful ruler? She smiled at that thought, knowing the chances were millions to one, but daring to dream. It had been such a long time since she had dared to dream… In a surge of annoyance at her own childishness, Teya slammed her palms against the steering wheel, sending jolts of sensation up her lower arms. She turned the key in the ignition, feeling the engine roar to life. Within moments she was on her way out of the city centre. If nothing else, she owed it to them to get to them before Torchwood could, to try and warn them of the danger they were in. If they turned out to be her enemies… well, then Jack and Torchwood could do as they pleased.
It was quiet in the Hub, with Jack still hiding in his quarters and the others still beavering away. Gwen was already tracking Teya, not daring to trust Jack's assessment of her, a map of Cardiff displayed on one of the screens and a little red dot bleeping quietly. Ianto glanced up as the bleeping increased in frequency. "She's moving faster." He commented to no one in particular. Gwen looked up as he spoke, and then quickly turned her attention back to the rift activity reports. The reports had come up with nothing significant, so she had also turned her attention to dragging up the police reports from the mid-eighties so that Ianto could compare them with the current ones. She made no reply to Ianto's comment and the silence stretched between them. Owen would have made some sarcastic comment, Gwen figured to herself, something just to fill the gap in conversation. No doubt someone would respond by throwing a pen at him, or sniping some comment back…
"I think I've got something…" Gwen's attention had been brought back to the rift activity reports. Ianto tossed aside the autopsy report he'd been reading for the third time and came to stand beside her. "Look at this. There was nothing special in the rift activity reports, so I set the computer to cross reference them with a few of the other reports – gas emissions, freak weather patterns, UFO sightings… The computers just thrown up a link between the rift activity report, the neutrino emission report and the UFO sighting from two weeks ago that we were sure was a hoax…"
Ianto watched as a graph was displayed on the screen, with time passing along the horizontal axis, levels of activity up the vertical axis. They watched as the two lines on the graph peaked and troughed seemingly randomly, but suddenly both peaked together, right on a dotted vertical line that indicated a UFO sighting. It wasn't a massive peak, but Gwen knew that at last they had something. "There you go."
"How did we miss it?" Ianto asked.
"The neutrino emissions suggest a form of cloaking technology – very Star Trek - from the spike we're showing here only a very rudimentary form." Jack made them both jump, having snuck up behind them. He was already dressed in his long coat and ear-piece, and appeared to be back to his normal self, face his typical mask plaster with Hollywood grin. "Probably not complex enough to maintain during rift flight, but maybe enough to hold up whilst stationary or cruising. Good job, Gwen."
"So someone sees a UFO coming through the rift, but it's as good as gone when we go after it. Great." Ianto grumbled. "How the hell are we supposed to find it, and who does it belong to?"
"We can find it easily enough." Gwen smiled, pulling one of Tosh's gadgets out from under a couple of others. "We simply track the neutrino emissions to their source. Whether or not we'll be able to see it when we get to it..." She shrugged without finishing her sentence.
"So we need a way to interupt these neutrinos?" Ianto half-asked, half-suggested.
"Already got one." Jack tapped his vortex manipulator. "Ianto, you're with me. Gwen, I hate to do it, but I need you to track down Teya. Make sure nothing happens to her, and make sure she's not up to anything untoward."
Gwen frowned. She was partly aware of what it cost Jack, having just lied to Teya and as good as told her he trusted her, to order her to do that. A nod was enough to tell him she understood, but Gwen did not draw Jack's attention to the program already tracing Teya. Ianto and Jack headed for the garage after only a moments delay for Ianto to download a neutrino tracking programme onto the transportable device that Gwen had given him. Gwen watched them go. Like Ianto, she paused only to transfer the tracking programme onto a PDA, before following the pair out to the garage a few moments later, a gaping hole already left by the absent SUV.
"Jack?" Gwen pressed her ear-piece as she climbed into her car.
"Gwen. We're heading north. Where's Teya?"
"Heading north-west. No way she's on foot, she's moving too fast."
"But where's she going?" Gwen knew from his tone that the question was rhetorical. "Gwen, keep in touch. Don't let her see you. Teya has a nasty temper, and I don't want either of you getting hurt."
"Understood." Gwen clicked her ear-piece again, cutting off the signal. She smiled at Jack's careful praising of both their abilities, but did not fear for her safety. For now she would accept his advice about keeping hidden.