I'm very sorry folks this chapter has a few words my mother wouldn't like in it. If I offend I apologise, but hey it is an adult show and we would all get a little upset if this happened to us….
It also might finish in a funny place as I realised I was passing the 8000 word mark for one chapter and while I know you are all avid readers I thought I should spare you that pain. Which of course means the next installment is close. Oh and yes I win the dumb dumb of the day for uploading the full chapter and then having to delete it. ;-)
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The team got out of the SUV in a deserted car park next to a deserted soulless tin building, the weeds vying with the scrubby shrubs planted round the parking spaces. They took up what Gwen liked to call the "Torchwood Formation" some how reminiscent of Reservoir Dogs. Jack with his dark glasses, Tosh and Gwen slightly behind with Owen and Ianto at the rear mainly looking behind them. Jack preferred to call it the "Flocking Geese" move.
Tosh tapped away on her hand held and supplied the code for the main door, they went into a shabby carpet tiled reception area, empty and dusty.
"Someone forgot to water the plants." Said Ianto crushing the leaves of a once vibrant yucca into more dust.
"Wenters Windows, declared bankruptcy about eight months ago, all stock and machinery auctioned three months ago, building returned to the trading estate owners at the same time, no interest in the building since. The keys are held by a Fire Dragon Securities, check the building once a week on Thursday afternoons, drive past on a Saturday and sometimes Monday even though the contract requests daily visits." She said ignoring everyone else till the information was out there. Ianto dusted his hands and wrinkled his nose, he didn't like dust and he knew Jack would be thinking of ways to clean the reception desk with his arse, what was it about offices?
"Anything on the Rift signatures?" asked Jack snarkily
"Oh, they seem to be emanating from an office on the mezzanine over looking the workshop, far end."
"Always the far end of anywhere." Said Owen
Gwen cupped her hands round her eyes and peered through a dusty glass panel into the workshop, it was empty, she looked up and could see the mezzanine and the gantry running round it and located the stairs and was about to tell the team when she noticed Ianto was already holding the door open. Jack held his finger against his lips and motioned for the others to follow, Tosh couldn't make out any life signs but just to be sure.
He peered in the first two doors, a thin slit of re-enforced glass allowing the general staff to check if their boss was in before they entered, but they had left a long time before. They got to the last door, the gantry ended in the tin wall as Jack looked through the glass again, he could see four metallic objects, not too different to the type that would form the casing for big naval shells. He looked closer but couldn't see any signs of life, sometimes the Rift did weird shit like that without sentient intervention. Gently he pushed the door open, it squeaked slightly and Tosh followed him taking readings all the time. Gwen, Ianto and Owen, the latter starting to mank at being pulled away from a perfectly good autopsy, followed like small puppies. Tosh moved closer into the object and Jack hunkered down next to her, careful not to touch the metal till Tosh had identified it, Owen came to watch over her shoulder.
The door slammed shut behind them, the room went dark and Ianto was the first to turn and see three dark figures against the wall, as if they had come from the shadows. Two of the figures moved before he could shout a warning rushing across the room grabbing both Tosh and Gwen by the hair and pulling them backwards, the third figure coshed Owen across the head and he went down with a crash. With Gwen and Tosh both on the floor, heads together and a gun in the assailants hand the second figure seized Jack round the neck and forced him down onto his knees. Ianto whipped out his own weapon and started shouting a warning as the free figure came behind him and smacked a butt of an unknown weapon across the very back of his head, he saw stars but instead of falling to the floor he felt his head snap back as the aggressor grabbed his hair.
"Is it her?" asked a voice from behind Ianto. The dark outline snarled at Tosh slapping her face and throwing her onto her front, snapping a pair of what looked like handcuffs but they moulded themselves round her arms and when her ankles were kicked behind her back the implement grabbed them like a vine tendril. Having subdued Tosh he turned his attention to Gwen pulling her up by her long dark hair, she screamed as it sniffed her then licked her face with one long movement from jaw to hair line. She screamed more protest and Jack joined in as the creature slapped Gwen and used the same restraints on her, linking them with Tosh who moaned at the new movement in her ankle, a little blood trickling down her chin where she had bitten the inside of her mouth. Owen wasn't moving just inches away from them.
"Who the fuck are you and what the fuck do you want?" Shouted Jack twisting round to try and see what was happening.
The lights suddenly came back on and they were staring at three very ordinary looking men, average height, average build and very average looks.
"Where is she?" asked the man holding Ianto, pointing a gun at Jack. The voice had an almost reptilian tone to it, the sort of comedy hiss you did when you were pretending to be a snake.
"Who do you want?" Snarled Jack
"Her, the other one, she was seen leaving your lair."
"There is no one else, this is it, you got the whole team, now let us go." He said trying to twist away but it was futile. The man behind him had snapped on a pair of standard issue plastic cuffs so tight he was already loosing the feeling in his right hand.
"We need her, we want her, she can help us." He hissed again. "Stop protecting her and we will let you all go."
Suddenly the penny dropped for Jack, Jenny had told him she thought she was being followed.
"She's gone, you chased her away." Snarled Jack
"I don't believe you, we saw her yesterday." Said the gook behind Ianto pulling his head back and putting the gun under his chin "Tell the truth and no one gets hurt."
"She's in the vaults." Shouted Gwen frightened that their assailants were starting to turn nasty. "Tell us why you want her and we might be able to cut a deal."
The gun was taken away from Iantos chin but was left cocked,
"I'm happy with this one" said the one behind Gwen, his voice was rather childish and didn't belong to the body, jerkily he raised his hand to stroke it down Gwens cheek. Gwen pulled away and started screaming creating a diversion, Ianto used it and pushed himself up driving the top of his head upwards to smash the jaw of his aggressor while Jack body barged the man behind him. It nearly worked, if Jack had only been able to grab his Webley a second earlier he would have been able to loose off a shot behind him before using a trick he had learnt in the travelling fair to kill the man behind Ianto with the gun still behind his back, but he hadn't realised the cuffs went through a belt loop and his reach was restricted. Enraged the man behind Ianto smashed a fist into his face then cracked the gun butt against his left temple flooring him and sending him spinning into the wall. For good measure he kicked and kicked at his torso but stopped when the gun shot rang out.
Fearing the worst for his colleague the man holding the girls had shakily raised his gun towards Jack and finally pulled the trigger. Tosh saw the bullet hit the side of his temple and knew that it had been a lucky killer shot, how long it would be fatal for remained to be seen but she still gagged as his body fell to the floor face down.
"What did you do that for?" Screamed the enraged Gwen.
He man behind her bent towards her in a jerky almost robotic way but was stopped by a click from Jacks antagonist.
"Careful!" he gurgled, he touched Jack and then Owen, blowing out a heavy breath in disgust. "We need a back-up plan and if we kill anymore one of us might have to stay."
"Where are you going?" asked Gwen conversationally, trying to buy time for Jack to come back and save the day, somehow.
"Home." Said and man giving Ianto a last kick. "As a last resort we can use this one, strong body but it'll hurt like a bitch getting it working again"
"We can help you get back home, do you have a ship, do you need it fixing Ianto over there is brilliant at repairing things, or did you ride the Rift? Tosh can help you get back to the right place." She said squeezing Tosh's fingers.
"Have I have a programme that predicts Rift activity." She said from her position face down and spitting blood. She wasn't lying she told herself, you just couldn't tell where it would leave you.
"We don't need your help, we have our own transport, we just need you, so clever yet so frail. We wanted her she is not as frail as you, but beggars can't be choosers." He laughed and pointed, doubling over comically, at the man behind Tosh and Gwen. "Even if some of us do make the wrong choice in transport unit."
The cogs were ticking round in Gwens brain, you could almost hearing her thinking, it was invasion of the body snatchers all over again. Why oh why couldn't they just take over a donkey or a Dalmatian or something? The jerky movements were like he was drunk, or had a stroke, dear god she thought they were taking over their brains.
"Who were you before?" she sadly realised that these had once been people.
"We like clever people, we like to know what they knew, we'll let you have their knowledge too, not that you'll remember it of course."
He advanced towards her, Gwen was running out of options, she tried to scrabble away but the things that bound her to Tosh tightened painfully, she groaned as she looked around Ianto was still unmoving and Owen seemed unconscious, if he could be. She braced herself as his hand came towards her closing her eyes and hoping it would be swift. Instead she heard the most wonderful sound in the world, Jack dragging air in for his first breath.
The taxi seemed infuriatingly slow as it finally made it's way to the business park, she tried to get him to stop on the road outside the business centre that housed the Department for Economy and Transport. However he insisted that he would make sure she was safe and take her right to the door. He was obviously scared she was going to take his licence away, she waved at him from the door hoping he would move so she could run round the corner to the abandoned unit that the Torchwood team were in but he just waved back. So she straightened her jacket and walked in towards the security desk.
"Can I help you?" asked the guard in the ill fitting suit.
"You can, but not in the way you normally do, act normal I need your help, I'm with Torchwood." She gambled on the government knowing who they were.
"The tourist people?" he asked and without pausing for breath carried on "I often take in parcels for them when I'm down in the Bay, what can I do to help, you do a wonderful job you know stops bloody sightseers bothering us."
She was slightly poleaxed by the sidestep from what she was expecting.
"Look I think that guy is a spy for the Scottish tourist board, I'm off to a meeting with a manufacturer of meat products who want to make Welsh haggis and I didn't want him to know." It sounded preposterous but it was the only thing she could make up on the spot.
"Tricky those Scots, I don't blame you putting him off the scent, they'll be wanting Welsh Cakes next." He smiled and looked over her shoulder in what he thought was an inconspicuous manner but was so obvious even a blind man would have known. "He's gone, coast is clear" he whispered dramatically. She nodded her thanks and walked away quickly looking both ways as she exited the door and then doing a quick left turn. Had she looked back she would have seen the guard pointing right for the meat packing plant.
She moved quickly through the low shrubbery that surrounded the car park and covered the 500 yards to the back fence of the unit she wanted in record time, record time for kitten heels anyway. The fence was high chain linked metal so she scanned the outline plans on the PDA for an opening, another 50 metres and there was a gate she walked quickly to it and used a hair grip to open the padlock. In the distance she could see the SUV parked by a corner of the building made of glass, using the same code as Tosh supplied by the brilliant emergency programme she entered the grotty reception area. Training of many years ago took over and she automatically looked up and in every corner before ducking behind the old reception desk and opened the briefcase. She checked both guns and slid the barrels open before cursing herself for not testing the weapons in the Hub, she had no idea what the recoil on these things was and to do it now would just warn the assailants she was there. Tough, you work with what you have she thought stuffing one gun, safety catch on, in the waist band of her skirt and the two spare magazines in each jacket pocket. With a last look at the map, the infrared and muttering a small prayer she moved swiftly and silently up the stairs.