When last we saw our heroes, they were on the bus, headed away from the cemetery, and had just seen a headline about Weeping Angels popping up on social media!

This chapter re-introduces a character who appeared in my previous story, "The Pleasure Vortex," (but don't worry, his adventure with the Doctor is recapped) and also the concept of his recovery. It's a way for me to describe what I think he might be going through at this stage of life. (BTW: In my mind, he looks a bit like Adam Driver. Not sure if that makes sense to anyone else, but there it is.)

Enjoy!

CHAPTER 5

It had been a semi-disastrous visit to Oystermouth. They had gained one very important piece of knowledge, but they'd got cornered by Weeping Angels, and a man had died. After such an event, on the bus ride back to the TARDIS, Jack wanted to know what the Doctor had thought would happen when he, Jack, confronted the Weeping Angel.

"Well, I foresaw two possibilities," the Time Lord answered. "One, you'd be zapped back in time and the Angel would be able to gorge itself on the enormous potential energy of an immortal man. In that case, we'd have a rogue Angel on our hands. But, I thought the second possibility was far more likely… the Angel wouldn't get to you because you cannot die in the present."

"Wait," Martha said. "You were willing to risk creating a rogue Weeping Angel?"

"I had a plan B, Martha," he assured her.

"What could possibly tame a rogue Angel? What was your plan, Doctor?"

He got evasive. "It doesn't matter! It's a solution that is unneeded, isn't it? So let's talk about something else."

"Okay, how about… signal," Jack said, trying his phone again. "Okay, here we go, got a signal now. Oh… oh, dear."

"What?" Martha asked.

"I'm looking at the internet newsfeed that comes up when I open up my phone, and… look." He turned it to face them.

"Social Media Blowing Up Over 'Haunted' Cemetery in Swansea," Martha read aloud.

The report was accompanied by a photo of a Weeping Angel with one hand reaching forward.

The Doctor grabbed the phone out of his hand, and quickly scrolled away from the image, and began to read. He started to speak after a minute. "Someone caught photos of the Angels moving around in the cemetery," he said, darkly.

"What? How?" Martha wondered.

"Someone had the wherewithal to notice that the statues weren't where they'd been last seen, nor were they necessarily remaining in the same positions," the Doctor shrugged. "And not terribly surprising, the digital camera was found by a maintenance crew, having been dropped in the grass."

"Yikes, so someone took photos of the Angel that killed them," Martha mused. "That must've been terrifying."

"Should we try to get hold of those photos?" Jack said.

"No need," the Doctor said, again, darkly. "One of the maintenance men posted the photos on Facebook. They've gone viral."

"Oh, shit!" Jack responded, loudly enough that the folks at the front of the bus turned and looked. He waved at them in apology, and turned back to the Doctor. "So now thousands of people have those images piping into their homes?"

"Maybe not thousands yet, but it says here that the maintenance man, Casey Dreyer, has since gone missing," the Doctor answered, staring at the phone. "His wife says it's like a locked-room mystery… one minute, he was there in his basement den, surfing the web, the next minute he had vanished. No sign of forced entry, nor violence. She didn't hear him leave, and his car is still parked out front. No footprints, no indicator of foul play…"

"Oh, my God," Martha groaned, burying her head in her hands.

"So, if thousands of people haven't seen them now, they will soon," Jack said. "Something like this is going to cause some curiosity."

"Yep. Hang on," the Doctor said. "Looks like there are several Angel statue-related stories… Okay, this one says that several people have gone missing in a similar manner. Four people, to be exact, and they are all Facebook friends with Casey Dreyer."

"Okay, Doctor, Facebook and social media are nowhere near what they're going to become, but…"

"This is still not good, you're right," the Doctor interrupted.

"What do you mean?" Martha asked.

"Are you familiar with Facebook? Started up about four years ago, I think? Twitter started up two years ago…"

"Yeah, I know what they are, but haven't had time to participate. Been going to school. And in the Master's world, they were shut down completely."

The Doctor now looked exhausted, daunted. "Well, in the next two years, they are both going to explode. And in the next five, they will more than explode… they'll literally cause seismic societal shifts," the Doctor said. "I actually cannot overstate the influence it will have in the twenty-first century. It causes a whole new Zeitgeist, a whole new way of seeing and relating to the world."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, and just a few years down the road from your time. And if we don't get those pictures under control…" the Doctor said, pulling his hand down over his face, harried. "In 2009, Facebook experiences a huge membership surge, as does Twitter. Eventually Instagram and Snapchat will arrive…"

Jack commented, "Social media in the next fifteen years is enough of a clusterfuck as it is. Add the Weeping Angels to it…"

"And there'll be a way for the Angels to breed. The result will be more disappearances, localised paradoxes, followed by larger paradoxes, time cones that swallow up people and events, and possibly overall destruction of the universe as we know it," the Doctor finished.

"But you can't just delete them from Casey Dreyer's account, because his friends have seen them, and they've been shared and reshared exponentially," Jack said.

"Right. Like a virus," Martha commented. Then she added, "And nothing can actually be removed from the internet."

"It's going to become a web now. Not just Dreyer's friends, but friends of friends of friends of friends who shared the photos, anyone who looked at them more than once," the Doctor said.

"And the way people scroll through their social media, you know they'll all see them several times," Jack mused.

The Doctor took a deep breath and sighed. "Okay, well, at least we know who patient zero is – that's got to be something."

"Patient zero," Martha said, weakly. "Funny."

The Doctor went back to scrolling the news on Jack's phone. He read aloud, "Cryptic Video About 'Angels' Appears on YouTube, Has the Internet Wondering."

"Oh, fantastic," Jack said.

"There's a link," the Doctor said, then cautiously looked up at his Companions. "Do I dare?"

"We need to know what it's about," Martha said, cautiously.

Jack said, "Let me," and the Doctor handed the phone back.

He said, "Thank goodness for the Smartphone." He touched the link, and a YouTube video came up, buffered for a moment and then Jack said, "Whoa! It's… it's… him!"

"Who?" Martha asked, moving to look over his shoulder.

"Glenn O'Keeffe," Jack said, pausing the video on a still of the man's face. "And it's had over a hundred thousand views."

The Doctor's face melted into a deep frown of disbelief. "Glenn O'Keeffe? Half-Eternal Glenn O'Keeffe?"

"Yeah."

"The guy from the Pleasure Vortex? The one who absorbed all those people's joy, including Martha's?"

"Yeah," Jack repeated. "Looks like he's sitting in someone's living room. I'll assume it's his mother's."

"Play it," the Doctor ordered.

And there, on the screen was a somewhat gaunt man with an accent from Newcastle, wearing a white dress shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, sitting on a sofa. He cleared his throat, and began to speak. His eyes were downturned with concern, and his voice quavered slightly.

"Right. Hi. My name's Glenn. And… I guess I'll just cut to the chase. Today, my mother and niece went missing. I've heard about these haunted Angel statues on the internet that have got everyone's attention. I saw pictures of them when my mum showed them to me on her computer – her friend had forwarded them to her, and others, via e-mail. They were… they were… well, they gave me a terrible chill. Most of you don't know me, but suffice it to say…" and at this point, Glenn gave an uncomfortable chuckle. "I'm sensitive. Like, a lot more sensitive than most people… to all kinds of energy, both bad and good."

"Truer words were never spoken," the Doctor muttered.

"But the Angel statues, they don't just… they aren't just… it's not just some bad vibes that comes from an image. The Angels are more than that, and I'm guessing there's no one who will talk about it. More accurately, there's no one left who can talk about it. The Angels are… maybe evil, somehow. Evil, or not of this world. Or else they are harbingers of something. But they're not just photos on a screen. I won't warn people away from looking at them, because I know what will happen if I do that. I'm just saying, they are…"

He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I feel in my guts that my mum and niece's disappearance has got something to do with the Angels. And something tells me it's not a police matter. The police won't find anything." Glenn took a pause, and then looked into the camera meaningfully. He slowed down his speech for effect. "So, I've made this video as a plea, because there are people in this world, and other worlds, who can stop this sort of thing, solve just this sort of problem. People who may know what's happening. And I've known people like this. In fact, I was in their midst just a couple of weeks ago. They are clever. They are in-the-know. And you all can think I'm barmy or something, but I am hoping against hope that those people, the ones who know, see this video. Because I just got my mum and niece back in my life, and I can't lose them now. And I don't know what to do next. If you know me, and you are someone who can help… please help. Please. You know where to find me."

"He's talking to us," Martha breathed. "Isn't he? Why wouldn't he just say, Doctor, help?"

"Because he's cleverer than that," the Doctor answered.

"Candace Raiden will have briefed him on the Doctor," Jack said. "What he can do, why most folks don't mess with him, what happens when attention gets drawn to him. He wouldn't just drop the Doctor's name or mention Torchwood willy-nilly."

"Right. Chaos," Martha sighed. "And he just wants his family back. And we're going to help him, aren't we?"

"Of course," the Doctor responded, taking her hand and squeezing it, but not having the slightest idea of how to help.

It was another ten minutes before the bus dropped them off outside the Potter's Wheel, next to which the TARDIS was parked. But as soon as the trio boarded the vessel, the Doctor set a course to Newcastle, and the neighbourhood where Glenn O'Keeffe now, apparently, lived with his mother and niece.

Trouble was, when last they'd seen him, he hadn't been fully ready to see his family, so he had asked to be dropped off at an inn.

It now loomed across the street, lit up in the dark, but nothing special. "Right, I forgot about this bit," the Doctor said, crestfallen. "We don't know where he lives."

"Let's go in, and see…" Martha offered.

"See what?" the Doctor asked.

She didn't answer. She merely crossed the street because there was a lull in traffic, and bounded up the stairs, and the Doctor and Jack followed.

She went through the front door first, and approached the desk. There was a woman there, reading a magazine. She looked up at Martha with a friendly expression, but did not say anything.

"Hi," Martha said. "I'm wondering if you can help us with something. Has someone called Glenn O'Keeffe, perchance, left a message with you?"

The woman's face fell. "Erm…"

"I'll take that as a yes," Jack muttered.

The woman said, "My manager said not to give it to anyone unless they can answer the questions. Said he was left strict instructions."

"What are the questions?" the Doctor asked.

"Erm…" she said, pulling a folder from a drawer. "Number one: What's my niece's name?"

"Hannah," Martha answered.

"Correct. Number two: Who was my employer when we first met?"

Jack answered this time. "Candace Raiden, a.k.a. Candenna Raidaken."

The receptionist consulted a different paper. "Erm... correct. Number three: Where do my powers come from? That one's a bloody weird question."

"Eternity," the Doctor answered, with a deep scowl. "Next?"

"Number four: Have you had your holiday in the South of France?"

The Doctor and Martha looked at each other. The Doctor said, "That's a question?"

"Yes," said the woman, nervously. "Have you?"

"Erm... yeah," he said. "Yeah, we have."

"Good," she answered, with clear relief, and handed Martha an envelope. "The instructions say, if they answer the first three correctly, but haven't had their holiday, send them away until they've had it."

Martha laughed. "Seriously?"

"That's what it says here," said the woman. "Funny, no-one else has answered any of the first three questions right. Never had to ask the fourth one before."

"Okay, how long have you had this message? This set of questions?" the Doctor asked.

"About forty-eight hours," the woman answered.

"And how many people have come looking for it?" he wondered.

"Five or six," she answered. "Internet nutters. I could tell straight away that they weren't going to answer correctly."

"How?"

"Because Mr. O'Keeffe left a description of the people who might legitimately be able to help him, and know the answers. Guy in a suit, another guy who looks like a Ken doll, and a pretty black woman who is probably more sensible than either of the other two."

Martha shrugged with a smile. "Yep, that's us."

"So you know Mr. O'Keeffe?" the Doctor asked.

She nodded. "We were at school together. Can't say we were ever friends - always found him a bit creepy. Shame about his mum, though. I hope you lot can find her. And the niece."

"Do you have a description of the internet nutters who've come asking?" Jack wondered.

"No, just… you know, single guys who probably live in their parents' basements still."

"Doctor, there's an address here," Martha said, pulling an index card out of the envelope.

The Doctor turned to the woman and said, "Thank you for your time."

Glenn O'Keeffe was no nutter. He may have seemed like one at different times in his life, but he was actually eminently sane, and knew exactly what he was doing at all times. It's just that, he hadn't always done, as they say, the right thing. And it had been a fun, easy way to live. He had had money, a certain prestige, an enjoyable job fucking up people's lives…

He was now reformed, but he still frequently felt in danger of relapse. He felt like an addict, white-knuckling it through sobriety, waiting somewhat helplessly for the day when something pushes him over the edge. But it wasn't like Ex-Villains Anonymous meetings were held on a regular basis. On occasion, he thought about standing up in front of a group of people and saying, "Hi, I'm Glenn, and I'm a havoc-holic," and he would chuckle bitterly. The only "support group" he had were the Doctor, Martha Jones, and Captain Jack Harkness. So, it was good that they were coming back into his life.

Though it was no excuse, he felt he came by the villainy honestly – his conception occurred on a fluke, when an Eternal being had been able, temporarily, to affect this Ephemeral realm. Out of curiosity about bodily pleasures, and without any creativity for wooing a human woman, the Eternal had raped Glenn's mother. The result was him: half Eternal, half human. Eternals are naturally detached from the Ephemeral/human experience – they don't value life particularly, because they do not fear death.

Needless to say, Glenn had always felt like an outcast. He burned bridges everywhere he went, including with his mother - or so he thought. But his mother's generous spirit just kept on inviting him back in. He found it annoying. So, when he found the Pleasure Vortex – a way to use his powers for actual personal gain, and on a different planet, no less – he hadn't hesitated. Basically, his job was to use his Eternal ability to read, absorb, and wield energy to steal people's joy, and frequently, it caused their suicide a few days later. He intentionally didn't think too hard about how the work was affecting these folks, because he and Candenna Raidaken, the mastermind behind the Pleasure Vortex, were minted. In his darker moments, he reasoned that most people didn't deserve joy anyhow, so his work was a service to the universe. And it was satisfying to feel he had found his niche.

Until he had stolen the joy of the wrong woman. Namely, Martha Jones. When Candenna had ordered him to do so, he had had no idea what he'd get himself into. He did not understand who Martha was, nor with whom she travelled. That is to say, he hadn't known he was messing with the Doctor, and how hard he could get taken down. If he had understood, he wouldn't have bothered. The Doctor was impressive, terrifying, and chilled him to the bone. No-one else had ever worked out what he was doing. No-one else had ever known what an Eternal was, let alone comprehended the origins of his power and the implications of it. And no-one in the universe was bound to fight harder for Martha Jones.

And then, Glenn had made the wrong decision again, to try and steal Jack Harkness' immortality. That had not only pissed off a Time Lord, but had caused two "eternal" forces to go to war inside Glenn's body, and turned him into a vegetable: conscious, able to talk and think, but unable to move or live. He put himself and the Doctor at a stalemate, but had crumbled when Martha herself had appealed to his humanity. She didn't give a toss for his Eternal side, but dug into everything that made him squishy, sentimental, and vulnerable. She had talked about her mum, and his, reminded him of his niece, and that everyone deserves a chance to love.

Yes, she had used love and compassion to convince him to stand down. These were two things he had never really thought about before, and suddenly he understood their potency. People working together, being together, preserving each other, being grateful for each other… it was like magic. She managed to show him how beautiful those things could be. The fact that he hadn't had any choice in the matter… well, he preferred to believe that he had had a choice.

And now, here he was, back in Newcastle, trying to rebuild his relationship with his mum, get to know his niece… well, he was trying, before the haunted angels had got to them. He desperately wanted right now to do something drastic and alarming to get them back. He wanted to start questioning people, go to that cemetery and shake down the staff, use his powers to scare the living hell out of someone.

But he demurred, in favour of asking for help from folks who might actually have some vague notion of what they're doing. For years, he had been the weirdest guy in the room. With the Doctor and Jack around, he didn't come close, and that was quite freeing.

It had been about two days since he'd posted the video, and left instructions at the inn. Just now, he was in his parlour, having tea (and a little whiskey), trying to lose his thoughts in the television. He had promised himself that if three days passed with no word from the Doctor, he would try something else. Something good and productive, rather than violent or aggressive…

And there came a knock at the door.

When he opened it, there they stood, like guardians. Saviours.

"Oh, thank God," he breathed.

"You rang?" the Doctor asked.

"I did," Glenn replied, and he stepped aside, to let them enter.

Well, I hope you are all here for Glenn O'Keeffe once again to join the fray!

Previous chapter had crickets... what are your thoughts on this one? Leave me a review and let me know. :-)

Thank you for reading!