I got a review! so this is for AllyRawr.
Gwen studied the rift monitoring system on the screen of her computer, nothing no spikes at all, she zoomed in more looking for the tiniest dot that could be a peak or a trough. Nothing not even one pixel of movement. So what had caused Jack and Louise to lose 2 layers of perception, they couldn't be seen or heard. Maybe that was a good thing she wasn't sure yet.
"Jack have you tried eating something? Does it show or does it disappear?" she saw a chocolate bar from a pot on her desk float in mid air and then open itself and then a bite was taken out of it, she watched at it magically disappeared into nothing.
"Well that answers that; you don't become visible when you eat!" she typed away at the computer and she suddenly heard Jacks unmistakeable chuckle. She span around. "You're laughing, Jack I heard you." He looked at her a huge grin on his face he patted her shoulder. That was a yes she though, something had changed.
TWTWTW
Miles drudged through the streets of Cardiff the equipment he needed to take the readings in a leather messenger bag over his shoulder his PDA in his hand. Typing away and waving it around, on a dry day he'd have been drawing strange looks by now but the awful weather was keeping the good people of Cardiff city inside. He looked at the readings on the screen; they showed nothing out of the ordinary. He rummaged around in the bag pulling out a device that he had been told had been designed by a former Torchwood employee, one Toshiko Sato. The device had been fashioned out of an old hand held computer, it was a bit larger than the new ones but it served its purpose very well. The screen shone in full colour, the colourised spikes telling him what was very very wrong. There as a huge energy spike that he didn't recognise but he knew wasn't right. He pulled another scanner out of the bag and attached it to the other with a small pull out cable, then attached a small probe and ran it across the floor the spike flicked on and off. He marked the floor with white permanent chalk pen where the spikes where there was a crack in a ziz-zag no longer than two metres long, a fault line. He smiled to himself, tapping his earpiece.
"Gwen I think I found where our humble leader lost his looks."
"What do you mean?"
"There's a crack in the street where Jack and Louise were, as some residue compounds I've not seen before."
"Thanks Miles take a sample and get back here."
"I will do my only concern is that if someone else crosses this line the same thing will happen to them also what if it has already happened to them?"
"Good point, well mark it off and then head back and I'll do a scan for missing persons in the area."
"Great err...could someone get a towel on the radiator for me I'm soaked and freezing."
"Yeh sure Jack will do it for you."
"Well it's not like he could argue!" they laughed and Miles gathered up his instruments and carefully stepped around the crack in the ground. He dropped his PDA as he put the computer back into his bag exasperatedly he bent down to pick it up without thinking and moved over the crack in the concrete.
TWTWTW
Suddenly the rift monitor went crazy. Gwen looked at the readings on the screen and located the source it was coming from the road where Jack and Louise had been, Jack went over to her shoulder and he knew what had happened. He tapped Gwen to tell her he was leaving and he ran to the TARDIS to see how Louise and Ianto were getting on.
"You know I think Miles has joined us in the land of the invisible." She looked shocked and started to type frantically on the PDA.
Apparently Miles is now like me and Jack! We need to sort this fast. Ianto looked worriedly at her. Then Gwen ran to the entrance to the TARDIS.
"A huge energy spot has just appeared over part of Cardiff, I think I know where the energy from the perception stealing crack is going!" Jack looked at Louise.
"This is just getting worse and worse." He said to her.
"It will get worse the more people step over it and if there are more cracks Cardiff..." Louise let her sentence hang; Jack looked at her worriedly knowing what she was saying. Louise kept looking at Jack as Ianto pulled the leaver down in the TARDIS and it shuddered. Suddenly they flickered into view.
"Now that's a hell of a lot better." Jack stated loudly.
"Jack we need to track that source." Gwen said quickly.
"Welcome back to the world of the visible," Ianto smiled at Louise.
"Clearly whatever this is it's been waiting till it's got enough energy to show itself." Jack looked at Ianto who was still holding down the lever that had bought Jack and Louise back into reality. Louise followed Jacks gaze and looked at Ianto.
"Ianto you can let go of that now." She said it softly, smiling, he let go. Louise knew what Ianto being able to operate the TARDIS meant but didn't think she was ready to admit it to herself or to Ianto.
"Gwen, locate that energy field. Oh and Miles!" she nodded and ran back to her work station. Jack bounded after her to his office and Louise walked out of the TARDIS Ianto followed her. Then the lift started to descend towards them with Miles on it, Ianto felt relieved he was still visible. He stepped off of the step and ran up to his work station plugging in the equipment to extract the readings. Louise went to watch over his shoulder. Looking at the spikes that where appearing on the screen. They all loaded and the highest peak flashed menacingly. Louise looked at the reading.
"What is that?" asked Miles, Louise lent over his shoulder and tapped the keyboard, the screen annotated itself, she scanned it quickly.
"That reading is off the scale, it's weird why would there be that amount of Huron energy in the middle of the street in Cardiff."
"Did I just hear heron energy?" Jack chose that moment to walk out of his office.
"Yes over that crack where we were earlier."
"Why does heron energy sound bad?" Miles asked Ianto.
"Because it is." He said plainly. Thinking back to when that taxi driver had been sending people to Hell because they where sinning. He shuddered remembering how he'd bought Jack back from there. It was not a place he wanted to visit again but he knew this time was different.
"The energy is spreading right over the bay like a cloud." Louise looked at Jack and they ran for the entrance to the Hub. The cog wheel opened and they belted up the stairs and out into the tourist office throwing open the door and running out as they rounded the corner they saw it a massive back cloud much more sinister that your average storm cloud. Black and crackling with energy, sparks spitting off it now and then. Ianto, Gwen and Miles came up behind them they all stared. Transfixed by the sight the cloud was churning and moving as if forming itself into a shape. That's when Jack realised that's exactly what it was doing they all watched transfixed at the cloud shifted its shape. Turning onto what looked like a vague human shape, it kept changing back into it s cloud form again.
"How the hell are we going to stop that?" Gwen looked at Jack.
"I don't know but we will we're Torchwood there's no alien to big."
"What stopped the Huron energy last time?" Miles asked.
"We did but we just confiscated the box of matches!" Gwen looked at Miles as she said it.
"We're going to have to trap it!" Ianto muttered.
"Yes." Louise said suddenly they all looked at her. "Ianto you're a genius, we can trap it."
"In what exactly?" Miles looked at her, "we don't have alien traps!"
"Yes we do in the archives." Ianto said it was his turn to be stared at, "it says so." They all hurried down in to the Hub and Ianto went over to his computer pulling up his electronic archiving system. He scanned down it and tapped a few keys but soon the scanned in image of the original document flashed up on to the screen.
Torchwood archive,
In case of large alien, see instructions below.
In dockside incident 20 years ago Torchwood operatives found an alien artefact that when activated they couldn't move out of the perimeter of the device. Use of this instrument is restricted to emergency protocols. Not for use on humans.
Use of this instrument may well result in death if used on human's air inside is toxic. Never tested on non-human life forms.
