'Me too,' said Ianto. 'But I always did that anyway.'
For a while they sat drinking coffee and watching the splashing waters of the fountain without saying another word. Ianto wasn't sure that he'd ever had this kind of friendship with somebody so new before, where he didn't feel the need to fill the silence, where it didn't feel like he had to keep talking. He liked it. He more than liked it.
'Come on then, Welsh Man,' said Lisa. It was the nickname she'd given him when they'd first met, during his initial training, pronouncing it in such a way that it sounded like the name of a super hero. 'Time for work. Another day, another dollar.'
'Ianto, we need to take the quarter three expenditure for Inf Ret and mark it up for the attention of Graham Evesham at UNIT. He said he needs it by eleven. Have you got that?'
The voice belonged to Ianto's line manager, Bev Stanley. It was Bev who had carried out his first interview for the job. On that occasion, she had been sweetness and light personified, but that veneer hadn't taken long to crack. Now, just a week into his job, Ianto had come to realise that Bev only used that act in interviews. The rest of the time she was busy trying desperately to transform herself into a clone of Yvonne Hartman, the Director of Operations. She bought her clothes from the same shops, styled her hair in a rough approximation of Yvonne's, and was forever telling the others amusing or witty things that Yvonne had said to her, usually at the kind of functions she was only ever rarely invited to:
'Oh, Yvonne said the funniest thing at the Intelligence Community Awards at the Grosvenor the other night.
'Yvonne and I were talking the other day, and she said...'
That kind of thing.
Now she was barking instructions at him, instructions that made very little sense after just six whole days of working in the department. His predecessor, a nervy guy by the name of Simon, had left under a storm cloud and had said very little to Ianto except: 'Watch Bev. She's got a mean streak a mile wide.'
He had some idea of what Bev was talking about. It had something to do with any incidents in which those who passed through Information Retrieval were also dealt with by UNIT, and the way in which the two organisations would split the costs of rendition and transferral, but other than that it was all still a mystery to him.
As he searched through the different drives on his PC for the quarter three budget, Bev stepped back out of her office.
'Oh yes, Ianto. We're expecting a visitor at some point this afternoon, from Cardiff. His name's Mr Cromwell. If he turns up any earlier, make sure you offer him tea or coffee, and if I'm away from my office call me on my mobile immediately, OK? He's to be treated like a VIP.' She paused, as if in thought. 'Actually, offer him tea or coffee and biscuits. And not the cheapy brand chocolate digestives, either. Give him the Hobnobs.'
Ianto suppressed a smile and nodded. When Bev's office door was closed once more, he chuckled to himself before carrying on with his work.
The staff restaurant was on the forty-eighth floor of One Canada Square, and it was possible to see the whole of the city from its windows. It was so high up, in fact, that it was possible to see beyond London, to the green belt that existed beyond the city limits. It made London, the sprawling metropolis, seem curiously small.
When Lisa met Ianto there, she was carrying a box of chocolates.
'Look what I've got!' she said, beaming.
'Of course,' said Ianto. 'I'd forgotten. Valentine's Day. Got an admirer, have we?'
Lisa laughed. 'No, silly. Colin gave them to me. Because I haven't had a day off sick in twelve months.'
Ianto nodded toward the box. 'So that's what we get, is it?' he said. 'For a year of good health? A box of chocolates?'
'Yeah. Well... It's better than a kick in the teeth, isn't it?'
'I suppose.'
Lisa looked down at the box. 'Authentic Belgian Chocolates,' she said, reading the packaging. 'Made in Ireland.'
They both laughed.
'So how's your morning been?' Lisa asked. 'Full of fun and laughter?'
'Yeah,' said Ianto, sarcastically. 'A laugh riot from start to finish. So are you going to open those chocolates or did you just bring them up here to show off?'
'Bit of both, really,' said Lisa. 'Hey, listen, I was talking to Tracey, and she reckons you're not the only Welsh man in Inf Ret.'
'What do you mean?'
'That man who turned up? The one who slipped past security? She said he's from Wales too.'
Ianto frowned. 'How come I work in Inf Ret and I don't know this, but Tracey works in Data Process and she does?'
'Tracey gets all the gossip.'
'So he's from Wales?'
'That's what she said.'
'Invaders From Wales?'
'Something like that. So, you want a chocolate or what?'
Ianto couldn't quite work out what the point in him signing the card was. It was a card congratulating Linda Wells on giving birth to a bouncing baby boy, Josh, 7lbs 3oz. The thing was, Linda Wells had left Torchwood over three weeks ago. He had never met her.
Even so, he felt a certain degree of pressure from the others in the office that he should sign it, especially when Martin, who sat three desks away, said, 'Simon would have signed it, but he's not here, is he?'
That then left Ianto with the quandary of what to write.
He tried to think of something witty, but then realised that he didn't know Linda, and so didn't know her sense of humour. He settled on, 'Congratulations, Linda – Ianto'.
No kisses. That would have been grossly inappropriate considering they'd never met.
He was handing the card back to Martin when the old man entered the office. A very old man in a long, cashmere coat and trilby hat; the kind of hat Ianto thought people had stopped wearing years ago. He walked with the assistance of a black walking stick, and it took him an age to get from the door to Ianto's desk.
'I'm here to see Bev Stanley' said the old man. 'I'm Mr Cromwell, from Torchwood Three.'
Ianto frowned.
'Cardiff,' the old man said abruptly.
'Oh, of course,' said Ianto. 'Um... If you'd just like to take a seat... Can I get you anything? Tea? Biscuits? We've got Hobnobs.' He closed his eyes and wondered whether he was blushing. Had he really just asked the old man if he'd like a Hobnob?
'I'm fine, thank you,' said Cromwell. It was practically a growl.
'Oh... well... If you'd just like to take a seat... I'll call Bev now.'
He lifted his phone and called through to Bev's office, telling her that Mr Cromwell had arrived. Bev was at the door within seconds, suggesting to Ianto that, though she looked composed, she had literally dashed from her desk.
'Mr Cromwell!' she said, smiling in a way that Ianto now knew to be quite false. 'It's an honour to have you here. Really, it is. Did Ianto offer you tea or coffee?'
Cromwell nodded and made a gruff affirmative noise in the back of his throat. 'So he's here?' he asked.
'Yes,' said Bev. 'We've got him in Holding Room 4. Quite a turn up for the books. We thought at first he might be somebody else, but then he said something... We made the connection. How many years has it been?'
'Too many,' said Cromwell. 'And I'm sure I don't need to remind you of what happened last time.'
'Quite,' said Bev. 'Shall we go through and see him? I'm sure the two of you have a lot to catch up on.'
Bev walked Cromwell across the department, and through the security doors at the other end of the room. Those doors were clearance A5 and above, with A1 being the highest clearance in the organisation. Ianto was at clearance level C10.
'So what do you think that's all about?' said Martin leaning across his desk to watch them leave. 'All very mysterious. Very hush-hush.'
'It's about the intruder,' said Jason, a spotty youth who provided most of the IT back-up for Information Retrieval. 'Somebody got in here last night. S'about as much as I know.'
Ianto said nothing. He focused instead on the task of finishing a spreadsheet for
the department's projected expenditure in the next quarter. It was an interminably dull job but, as he kept reminding himself, somebody had to do it and, for now at least, that somebody was him.
He had not been working for more than another fifteen minutes when the alarm rang, and a pre-recorded voice came from the overhead speakers:
'Please be aware that an emergency situation has been reported in the building. Could all staff please make their way toward the nearest exits in a calm and orderly fashion and meet at their arranged fire assembly points.'
Ianto looked at his colleagues. Each one of them had turned very pale.
'What is it?' Ianto asked. 'A fire?'
'No,' said Jason, who already had his jacket on and was walking briskly toward the doors. 'The fire alarm sounds different. This is something else.'
Ianto was the last to leave the office and, before he disappeared through the door, Martin turned to him and said, 'Come on, Ianto. We have to go.'
They filed out of Information Retrieval and found the concourse between the different departments on the twelfth floor already crowded with people, some of whom looked terrified, some merely bewildered.
'Has this happened before?' Ianto asked.
'Once,' said Martin, who was now sandwiched uncomfortably between two very large women. 'About two years ago. But it turned out to be nothing.'
Just as Ianto was beginning to comfort himself with the thought that once more this might be 'nothing', a terrific boom shook the building, rattling framed artworks on the walls, and causing several to stumble as they made their way toward the exits.
'Oh no...' said Martin. 'I really, really don't want to die at work. I can't think of anything worse.'
His words did little to calm the rest of the crowd, who were now in one of the stairwells. One man was trembling and pale, and Ianto noticed a woman clutching a crucifix. The pendant seemed so weirdly conspicuous in a place like Torchwood.
Ianto looked up the stairwell and saw hundreds if not thousands more staff crowding the stairs all the way up to the point where the spiralling banister reached its vanishing point. He wondered whether Lisa was anywhere in the crowd.
There was another boom, and now some of the people on the stairs began to scream. 'What about Bev?' Ianto asked. 'She was still in the holding rooms. And the old man...'
'Forget about them,' said Martin. 'They're probably safer in there than we are out here. Oh... Oh God... Don't let me die in this bloody place.'
Ianto tried to calm Martin but it was no use. He, along with many others on the stairwell, was now in a state of abject panic.
It took nearly half an hour for them to get out into Canada Square itself, and all the time the alarm was still ringing, and every few minutes what sounded like another explosion could be heard. One of the doors on a lower level had been sealed shut and had armed guards either side of it, who yelled at the staff to keep going. Ianto looked at each one briefly, and wondered whether anyone might be stuck on the other side of those doors, before he carried on walking.
Out in the square he heard someone call his name and saw, to his joy, that it was Lisa.
'Thank God you're all right,' she said. 'I was so worried.'
'Me too,' said Ianto. 'What's happening?'
Lisa didn't answer, as if she hadn't heard him. She simply looked at him and smiled, a smile he couldn't quite read, but which he felt the urge to mirror.
'It's a Code 200.'
Ianto looked past Lisa's shoulder and saw Tracey, smoking a cigarette and looking as if Ianto and Lisa's 'moment' was an inconvenience to her. Tracey was short and blonde, with a streak of pink in her hair and three rings in her left ear, much to the chagrin of her managers in Data Process.
'We don't know that,' said Lisa.
'Definitely a Code 200,' said Tracey. 'Apparently, if a Code 200 goes on for longer than forty-five minutes they've got the go-ahead to push the button.'
'What button?' asked Lisa, cynically.
'Self destruct,' said Tracey, evidently trying to sound matter-of-fact. 'There's a button on every floor which only A2s and above have clearance for. If a Code 200 situation can't be resolved in less than forty-five minutes, they're authorised to blow the whole building up.'
'How the bloody hell do you know all this, Tracey?' said Ianto.
'I know people,' said Tracey, tapping her nose and taking a deep drag on her cigarette. 'I am the knower of all things.'
Ianto and Lisa were about to laugh, but then they heard the sound of smashing glass and, somewhere twenty storeys up, guns being fired.
Then silence.
The alarms, the gunfire, everything fell silent, and with it too stopped the chattering of the enormous crowd that had assembled in Canada Square.
'Is that it?' said Tracey. She almost sounded disappointed.
The journey home was longer that evening, or at least it felt longer. Ianto looked out through the windows of the carriage but his thoughts didn't stray as far as envying the fancy apartment blocks or the occupants on their balconies. He thought about the day he'd had, and about the looks of anguish and panic on the faces of the people on the stairs. It had scared him. He'd never tell anyone this, of course. Who could he tell? Lisa and Tracey seemed to have taken it all in their stride.
They had been ordered to return to their offices and carry on, as if nothing had happened, but when they returned Bev was no longer there, and the door to the holding rooms was sealed off. There had been a brief period of confusion, before a man from Human Resources came down to tell them that they'd have a new manager by the end of the day. Bev Stanley's name was never mentioned again.
One or two people had taken the rest of the afternoon off, including Martin, but Ianto hadn't known what else to do apart from work.
At the flat in Canning Town, he made himself Supernoodles on toast and a cup of tea, and sat in front of the television listlessly watching the football and waiting for his flatmates to come home. They were full of stories about eccentric customers and irritating managers, and he laughed with them, but his mind was elsewhere.
At a little after seven, as was always the case on a Tuesday, his mother phoned. She asked him whether he'd eaten, and not wanting to tell her that his evening meal had consisted of Supernoodles and toast he told her he'd had sausage, beans and chips for his tea. Then she asked him how his day had been and what had happened.
'Oh you know,' he said. 'Same old same old.'
'But you didn't meet him?' Owen asked. 'Michael, I mean. You didn't actually see him?'
Ianto shook his head.
'It must have been Michael,' said Gwen. 'The visitor. The person they were talking about.'
Ianto shrugged.
'So Cromwell and Valentine were Torchwood,' said Toshiko, 'and they were tracking Michael for some time. For years. And it all goes back to this.'
She pointed at the metal sphere that now lay on the table. The others gathered around, looking down at it.
That's all well and good,' said Owen, 'but we don't know what this is. All the files say is that it was found in the Arctic. No known origin, no history, nothing. I mean, what is it?'
'You want to know what it is?'
They looked up from the ball and saw Jack, standing at the door of his office.
'I'll tell you what it is.'
NINE
'That,' said Jack, 'is a Vondraxian Orb.'
Owen laughed and shook his head. 'Of course it is,' he said. 'How could I forget? There's a picture of one in my Bumper Book of Orbs.' He paused. 'I'm sorry, Jack... What did you just say?'
'It's a Vondraxian Orb.'
'And what's one of those when it's at home?'
'Oh,' said Jack, crossing the Hub to the table on which the sphere lay. 'This is not at home. It's a very, very long way from home and it most certainly does not belong to us.'
Owen shrugged. 'Haven't the owners heard of finders keepers?'
'The Orb,' said Jack, 'was buried under arctic ice for almost 3,000 year
s before it was discovered in 1953. An expedition was launched to dig it out and return it to Britain before the Russians could get their hands on it. It was that metal ball that was inside Michael's crate. It was that metal ball which exploded the moment it was taken off the ship, killing three dockhands and leaving Michael with his, shall we say, untimely affliction.'
'But what is it?' asked Owen, losing patience.
'The Vondrax,' said Jack, 'are said to be one of the oldest sentient life forms in the universe.'
'So how come we've never heard of them?'
'Because even amongst enlightened folk such as ourselves they're like a myth, a fairy tale. The legend goes that they were born within the first few nanoseconds of the Big Bang. Tosh, you said you were picking up an electromagnetic wave, like radiation, but that it was harmless to humans?'
Toshiko nodded.
'And you said that the wave came and went, increasing in volume and then decreasing?'
'Yes, Jack.'
'That electromagnetic wave was tachyon radiation.'
'OK, Jack,' said Owen, deadpan. 'Now I know you're making this up. I did A-Level physics, and we most certainly did not discuss tachyon radiation.'
'You wouldn't have,' said Jack. 'Nobody here discusses tachyon radiation because nobody here knows about it. Why should you? The amount of tachyon radiation in the universe has been steadily depleting since the Big Bang. But this stuff is potent. Oh boy, is it potent...'
In the Boardroom, Michael was dreaming. He wasn't sure whether the dream was a memory or not. There were faces that he recognised, and yet he could name none of them.
Through the windows of an ambulance he saw trees. It was funny seeing them from this angle, lying flat on his back, strapped to a gurney. Only an hour ago, he would have been screaming his way through this experience, but now he was calm. He found it hard to focus, at any one moment, on any of the things that had been troubling him. He had only vague memories of the little girl in Japan and the monster that was terrorising her, or of the cities full of cars that he had seen.
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