A succession of crouching figures was walking quietly past the door as McGill looked out. They wore white jackets like doctors but had big hunched shoulders like gorillas. Their heads were hard to see in the gloom. It looked as if their heads were covered with white scarves.
"Stay quiet," he repeated to Tosh. She had sat up in bed and was blinking.
"Why should I be quiet? Someone is singing in my head." She closed her eyes dreamily. "It's Caruso. Listen..."
The line of figures extended from the reception desk off to the far end of the corridor. He had not explored that far so had no idea what was down there or how far it extended.
"Are you singing 'La Bohème'?" she demanded. "No? Then it must be your friend Enrico."
McGill stepped lightly back to the bed. "You must be quiet, Miss Sato. I'm not sure what's going on here. This is supposed to be a safe wing. But I don't like the look of this. Why so many in such a small place?"
"Maybe they've come for me, Doctor Doctor Man," she giggled. "I have a lot of fans. My job is very important and lots of people want my autograph." She tried to pull back the top of the sheet around her waist, but her hands were feeble.
"I doubt that very much, Miss Sato. I've seen some weird things with U*N*I*T, and these people fit into that 'weird' template."
"Oh," she chuckled letting her head fall sideways. "Weird in what way? Has a pterodactyl eaten one of your friends? Or your house disappeared into a pool of lava?" She looked stupid but smug. "And that Harriet Jones ate my salad once. That hurt."
McGill placed his flat hand close to her mouth trying to persuade her to be quiet. "Ssh. We can share tall tales over marshmallows, Miss Sato," he whispered. "I have a particularly amusing tale of the Roman Baths in the city of Bath. I'll tell you it if you can keep quiet for the next few minutes."
Tosh giggled again. "Ha. What happened? Did you break a fingernail? My friend Jack has a story about the actual Romans in the Roman Baths in the city of Bath." She thought briefly. "I might not tell you. It's a bit rude."
McGill sighed and walked back to the door. He was sure that the stealth door would hold, but he did not want to invite attention. Ianto's e-mail had said that the door was tuned to the biometric data in his U*N*I*T pass and would only open for a small list of people. But the walls of the other rooms might be a different story, particularly if the stealth tech had been installed in a hurry.
The bodies in the crowd had moved, but more figures had appeared, quietly filling the corridor. This time, McGill could see that the head covering was more than a scarf, it was more like a whole-head pillowcase.
"Golly," he hissed. "That's some kind of Klan fetish they've got going on there."
"Are you a Scotsman, Doctor Doctor Man? I don't have great experience of Scotsmen," queried Tosh.
McGill turned back to her. "Please be quiet, Miss Sato. My name is Doctor McGill. I suppose we're Irish. But more pleasantries later."
He turned back to the window. And gasped. One of the covered heads was turned to face the camouflaged window. Instead of two eye-holes there was only a single cyclopean hole in the center of the face, circled by bold red concentric circles. He could see only darkness within the hole in the hood.
"I think they heard us," he hissed. "Stay back from the door."
He turned back to the glass of the window. The first hooded face was joined by another, and then another, all staring at what must have been a blank wall, but fixed on the point where he was standing. All the hoods contained a central outlined eye-hole.
"If they break in, Miss Sato," he whispered. "There is nowhere to run to. Perhaps if you stay still, they might overlook you."
The faces all crowded tighter around the window. There was no knowing how many were outside now. The corridor might be full.
McGill was drawn to the central eye and its darkness within. Gloved fingers intruded from around the head and poked and prodded at the red circles and finally tore the fabric around the eye. Within was a glimpse of a tiny flame.
McGill screamed in agony.
:::
"Still shielded," noted Ianto as he pushed open the door. He wiped a few cookie crumbs from his lips and straightened his shirt around his necktie.
"Was that locked?" asked Jack. "Better check. We wouldn't want anyone accidentally stumbling in here." He was still smiling.
They both stood still as the door slammed shut. Black handprints were scuffed along the enameled floor leading to the solitary bed.
"Tosh!" shouted Ianto reaching forward.
They could see their friend slumped oddly under the sheets. But on top of her was a crumpled figure and blood distributed from hands to eyes and everywhere else.
There was a crackle of electric power and a gust of heat. The bed shimmered and disappeared along with the two people on it.
"Shit!" shouted Ianto. "Did they teleport? What was going on?" He slapped his left hand on his forehead.
"No, you idiot, Ianto," Jack replied. He was shaking his head. "Didn't you see? It was your genius stealth shield. They used it to hide themselves."
"They? Why would Tosh try to hide? It's us." He stepped toward the empty space. The bloody handprints neatly stopped a short distance from where the bed had been. "Are they still there?" he speculated.
Jack walked up beside him. "It looks like an improvement on your design. Instead of pretending to be a wall... Well, it pretends not to be anything."
Ianto felt carefully along the wall in front of him, but it was weird. The wall felt flat and straight, but what he saw did not quite match with what he could feel. "We're almost a yard away from the wall, Jack but I can feel the tiles with my hand."
Jack paced back to the door and the quietness of the corridor. "No-one out here. And no-one in here. What are they running from?"