by Dan Abnett
Davey raised it. The yobbos gawped.
‘Bugger off, you tossers, or I’ll do you up a treat!’ he declared, brandishing the blade.
They looked on. They stared. They fled like a bunch of nancies down the street, scattering in all directions.
Davey picked up his string bag of books and went indoors. He put the bayonet back in the umbrella stand, and locked the door behind him.
He made himself a cup of tea. There was still no sign of the cat. The bowl of food had been left uneaten.
He sat down with the three books he’d borrowed. Each one was an illustrated volume on modern sculpture. He was sure he’d seen the thing in the shed, or something like it, before. Glynis had loved sculpture. They’d once gone all the way to Bath, to see a modern art show. 1969. He’d gone along with it because he had loved to see her happy.
It had meant nothing to him then. It meant something to him now. He flicked through the pages, stopping at various images: Brancuzzi, Epstein, Giacometti. That’s what he had seen. Lean, attenuated bodies made of metal; cramped, pigeon-chested torsos; flaring slipstream limbs; burnished, angular heads.
But not still. Moving.
Humming.
Walking.
Gwen pulled the Saab into the dead lot. They could both see the SUV parked ahead of them.
They got out.
Gwen looked around. James fitted his Bluetooth.
‘Jack? Tosh? Hello?’
He paused, listening. His expression had turned sour.
‘What is it?’ Gwen asked.
‘Jack says boiled egg,’ said James.
They started to run.
TWELVE
Old warehouses lacking roofs. The bones of the city’s vanished industry. High-walled stone sheds with bare socket windows and roof-tile avalanches on the floors. Pigeons, weeds, puddles of rainwater.
No Jack. No Tosh.
‘Spread out,’ James said. They wandered around the derelict spaces, keeping each other in sight. There were scraps of metal tracks inlaid into parts of the concourse hardpan where freight trucks had once shunted. Broken lead raingoods spilt green stains down scabby brick work. In places, there were little caches of junk — wrappers and cartons, doorless fridges and defunct cookers. The residents of Butetown evidently used this place to dump their junk. Oddly, there was no evidence that the homeless lingered here, in what Gwen thought would be a typical location. What kept them out? Old attempts at fencing and boarding had long since perished and given up the ghost.
Ghost. An unfortunate word to bring to mind. It was broad daylight, closing on noon, but the place felt clammy and haunted.
Gwen paused below a massive brick archway that demarcated the plots between two warehouses. Part of a bas-relief inscription decorated the curve of the arch:
MILL ER amp; PEA ODY MBER FOUR POT 1 53
Lower down, newer signs had been fixed to the brickwork with wire and rivets. Red lettering on white fields:
KEEP OUT DANGEROUS STRUCTURE DANGER OF DEATH
She tried her phone again. She’d lost count of the number of attempts she’d made to reach Jack in the previous forty minutes. Since the ‘boiled egg’ message to James, nothing had been heard from their illustrious leader.
Dialling tone, connecting.
‘Please wait,’ said a voice. ‘We are diverting you to the voice mail box.’
‘James! I’ve got voice mail!’ Gwen called, keeping the phone pressed to her ear. That was an improvement. Until then, they hadn’t even got a connecting tone.
James hurried over to join her from the far side of the place.
‘Hi,’ said a recording of Jack’s voice. ‘This is Jack. Message me up good.’
‘Jack, it’s me. Where are you? We’re here. Where are you, for God’s sake? We’re looking everywhere. Call me back. OK? It’s Gwen. OK?’
She hung up.
She glanced at James.
‘I left a message.
He nodded. ‘If it’s…’
‘What?’
‘I was just thinking. If it’s boiled egg, well, it’ll be hard boiled by now. We’ve been here half an hour.’
‘Forty minutes, actually. This can’t be the right place.’
‘Ianto’s directions were specific. Besides, the SUV is here. They’re here too, somewhere.’
‘Somewhere.’
‘Maybe they went for a beer.’
She frowned. ‘What?’
James pointed up at the arch inscription. ‘Well, it’s MILL ER time.’
Gwen glared.
‘Not the moment for a bad joke? No?’
‘No.’
‘You’d think I would have sensed that.’
Gwen turned in a full circle on the spot, slowly scanning the abandoned site around them. ‘Nobody’s here. Nobody comes here. Nobody would come here.’
He nodded. ‘Not unless they wanted to make an Ultravox video. And it was 1981.’
‘Except for that, maybe. Let’s go back to the SUV and sweep out from there again.’
They started walking. Gwen’s phone started ringing.
She hoped it wasn’t Rhys.
There was no caller ID on the screen.
‘Hello?’
‘Gwen?’
‘It’s Jack!’ she hissed at James. ‘Jack? Where are you?’
Something unintelligible gurgled back, something with the vague semblance of Jack’s accent. It sounded as if he was on a train, in rush hour, and going through a tunnel.
‘Jack? Jack? Say that again! Where are you? You sound like you’re on a train!’
‘Gwen we-did- can’t really Mary-seriously…’
‘Jack? Jack?’
The line went dead.
‘Bugger!’ Gwen cried. She tried redial.
‘Bugger!’ she cried again.
Her phone rang again immediately. It made her jump so much, she almost dropped it.
‘Yes? Jack?’
‘On a train?’ his voice said, clear as a bell. ‘On a train? People on mobiles always say that. “I’m on the train,” they say, like that. It’s a cliché. Was that humour, Gwen Cooper?’
‘Shut it! Stop babbling! I said the train thing because you sounded like you were on one. Quickly, before the line goes dead again, where are you?’
‘We’re in the chapel.’
‘The what?’
‘St Mary’s.’
‘Where the bloody hell is that? We’re in the… Where are we, James?’
‘The derelict warehouses Ianto sent us to. Off Livermore.’
‘You get that, Jack?’
A fuzz of static.
‘Jack?’
‘I said I heard,’ Jack replied. ‘You’re in the right place. St Mary’s is smack in the middle of it. Little old chapel, used to be sweet and quaint, boarded up now. Can’t miss it.’
‘We missed it.’
‘It’s right there.’
‘We’ve been here three-quarters of an hour and we can’t find you.’
Silence.
‘Jack?’
More silence.
‘Jack!’
‘I was thinking,’ Jack answered.
‘We’ll don’t.’
‘Pardon me. Look, you parked where we did, right?’
‘Right next to the SUV.’
‘You just walk from there, straight through the doorway dead ahead. You-’
White noise, like surf across shingle, washed his words away.
‘Jack? I’m losing you.’
‘Gwen? I lost you there for a sec. Did you hear what I said? Start at the SUV, in Number Three Coal Depot, and head through the north door. We’re standing beside-’
Scrambled, alien voices, static, gone.
‘Jack? Jack, you bugger?’
The message on her mobile’s screen read ‘CALL ENDED’.
Her phone rang again, two trills, then rang off. Another feeble trill, and dead again.
‘What did he say?’ James asked.
Gwe
n looked up at the arch.
MILL ER amp; PEA ODY MBER FOUR POT 1 53
‘Number four depot,’ she whispered. She looked at James. ‘We’re in the wrong place.’
‘We are?’
‘We’ve overshot,’ Gwen said, and started to run back across the echoing space.
As she ran, her phone tried to ring again, and gave up mid trill.
James caught up with her. They crossed back through an empty, dank vault of loveless Victorian stone, until they could see the SUV and the Saab through a crumbling doorway.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Here is where he means…’
They wove around each other, staring out at the brick shell enclosing them.
Her phone rang, sharp and echoing in the cold space.
‘Jack?’
‘I keep losing you. The signal’s bad.’
‘Jack, we’re right there. I can see the cars and the north door. Where are you?’
‘Where are you? We’re right here, outside the chapel.’
‘What bloody chapel?’
‘The funny little chapel with the graffiti and the boarded-up windows.’
‘There is no bloody chapel, Jack.’
A pause. She thought she’d lost him again.
‘Gwen?’
‘Yeah?’
‘How many windows in the west wall?’
She turned and counted. ‘Thirty-six. Three rows of twelve.’
‘Middle row, third window along from the right. Big chunk of masonry missing from the lower left-hand corner?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s a broken chest freezer halfway along the east wall, under the third window. Zanussi. There’s nothing in it except for an empty bottle of Tango.’
‘Hang on.’ Gwen hurried over. Zanussi chest freezer. Bottle of Tango. ‘Yes.’
‘Second-storey window above you. Three pigeons. One’s got a white mark on its head. Looks like a balaclava.’
‘Yes.’
‘Right in the middle of the floor. A rainwater puddle making a figure of eight. Beside it, a piece of curtain track with seven, no eight curtain rings still attached to it.’
Gwen stared down at the puddle and the broken curtain track at her feet.
‘Jack, how can you be seeing these things?’
‘Because I’m standing right there. Right beside the puddle.’
‘Oh God,’ she said. She felt the Wooof. Gwen didn’t get the Wooof much, not any more. The things she’d seen as part of Torchwood, it took a lot to properly Wooof her out these days.
But this did it, with bells on. Her skin prickled and crawled. The hairs on her neck stood up.
‘Jack?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m standing beside the puddle too, and I can’t see you.’
‘Ah. I was afraid of that.’
‘Jack?’
James was right beside her. ‘Gwen? You all right? You got the Wooof then, didn’t you?’
She nodded. James knew about the Wooof. In his capacity as the team’s Master of Analogy and Jargon, he’d coined the term.
‘Should I be scared?’ he asked.
Gwen nodded again.
‘Where’s Jack, Gwen?’ James asked.
‘Right here,’ she replied.
‘Wow,’ he said. ‘Big Wooof. I’m tingling. You sure?’
‘Jack?’ Gwen said.
‘Yes, honey.’
‘Are you still there? Here, I mean?’
‘Yes, Gwen.’
‘I really… I really can’t see you. Or Tosh. Or this chapel place you’re going on about. Can you see me?’
‘No. No, I can’t.’
Gwen swallowed hard. ‘Jack, one thing.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Is this a joke? Because if it is, I’ll knee you in the nuts next time I see you.’
‘Fair comment. No, it isn’t a joke. Swear to God, my skits are never this elaborate.’
‘OK, so where the bloody hell are you?’
Dead air for a few seconds, then Jack answered, ‘I have a nasty feeling Tosh and I may — and I do stress “may” — be kind of… in 1840. Strange as that may seem.’
‘1840?’
‘Yup. Kind of.’
‘1840?’
‘While you linger on that, Gwen, may I ask you a question?’
‘Yes, Jack.’
‘Is it getting dark where you are?’
‘No.’
‘Ah, OK. Just here then. Not a good sign.’
‘1840?’
‘As I said, kind of. Still, you have to see the up side.’
‘What up side?’
‘These phones,’ Jack’s voice said. ‘Great coverage.’
Owen walked into the Hub, feeling like shit. It was noon. He had his ‘sorry I’m late’ all ready, but there was no one in sight.
Water lapped down into the basin. The air was damp and fresh. Data scrolled across the flat screens on vacant desks.
‘Hello?’
Something with leathery wings clacked and took off from a perch high in the vault above him. Owen sneered up. ‘Not on my head, not today. I know what you’re like.’
He went over to his work station and hit start-up. The screen blinked as it came on. He started running through his daily log, and launching some software. X-Tension 07, Eye-Spy v. 6.1, Normal Mailer. Maybe there’d even be a message telling him where everyone had gone to.
He had a headache. He was coming to the conclusion that it was going to be his lot in life to have a headache all of the time.
A suspension field ignited in front of him. Data streamed across a Lexan dome.
This wasn’t his work station. This was Toshiko’s. What the hell was he doing here?
How did he know her passwords?
There was something in the blue glow of the suspension field. A containment box, unlocking itself with a clack and a hiss. The magnetic collar ring turned. Had he done that?
‘Owen?’
‘Ianto? Hey, mate? Where were you?’
‘Having a lie down in the Boardroom. I’ve got a murderous headache.’
‘Me too. Where is everyone?’
‘Didn’t you get the call?’
‘I overslept,’ Owen said.
‘In the last hour or so? Didn’t you get my messages?’
‘No.’
‘Owen?’ said Ianto after a pause. No response.
‘Uh, Dr Harper?’
‘Yeah. Mmmh. What?’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m just…’
‘I don’t think you should.’
Owen looked around at Ianto. His eyes were bloodshot. ‘Is Jack here?’
‘No.’
‘Then I’m in charge. Me. I’ll do what I want and you’ll do as you’re told.’
Ianto smiled. ‘I don’t think it quite works like that.’
‘Does today!’
Ianto stepped closer. ‘Owen. You’re sitting at Tosh’s station. You are systematically disabling the firewalls encasing the subject specimen. I can’t allow you to do that.’
‘Go and make me a nice cup of coffee, would you?’ Owen replied.
‘Don’t make me hurt you.’
‘You wish. Funny. I’m laughing, see? Aha ha ha.’
‘Owen.’
‘Get lost!’
Owen’s fingers were racing across the keyboard. Inhibitor codes were flashing up, and were being cancelled, one by one.
‘Listen,’ Ianto said. ‘Jack told me this thing had to be locked away. Vaulted. In an isoclave.’
Owen kept typing code. ‘Jack doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’
‘Owen-’ Ianto warned. He looked at the screen beside him. He saw the firewalls closing down, one after another.
‘Coffee please,’ Owen said, working furiously. ‘Coffee. Please. Now coffee. Make it a big one. Big big one.’
Owen reached over to press a key. His hand stopped dead. Ianto had grabbed it, holding it back.
&
nbsp; ‘Coffee!’ Owen cried, and slapped Ianto in the face with his other hand.
Ianto reeled, but recovered. He looked mortified. Without further words, he slugged Owen. Owen fell backwards off his seat onto the deck, dragging Ianto down with him.
Owen shook and went still. Ianto scrambled up. He saw the screens. He saw the last of the firewalls collapse.
Suspended in a cold blue glow, the Amok trembled and rotated.
Ianto punched blindly at various keys. It was too late.
He sank back, gazing at the wobbling light.
‘You’re big,’ he said. ‘Big big big.’
THIRTEEN
James had used his spare key to open the SUV. He lugged a portable scanner system and some other bits of kit into the empty warehouse space that was not as empty as it looked. He started to unpack the anonymous, brushed-steel flight cases.
Gwen completed a third circuit of the shed. She tried her phone again. Jack had been cut off mid conversation by a squall of interference, and there had been nothing from him since.
She dialled a different number instead. ‘Ianto? It’s Gwen. Why aren’t you picking up? Ianto, it’s urgent. Call me or James as soon as you get this.’
She walked back over to James.
‘Something’s wrong,’ she said.
‘I thought we’d pretty well established that.’
‘No, more wrong than just this. Something’s going on at the Hub.’
‘Ianto still not answering?’
She shook her head.
‘We’re not having much in the way of telephonic success today, are we?’ he observed.
She sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose, her eyes closed. ‘Can’t believe I’ve got that headache again, on top of everything else.’
‘You too?’ James stood up. ‘I’ve had a killer head for about the last five minutes. Came on like a switch.’
‘Just like Thursday’s?’
‘Just like Thursday’s. You don’t suppose there’s another one of those things around, do you?’
Gwen didn’t answer. A breeze hustled litter across the ground. The muted sensation of haunting that had clung around the site earlier had been replaced by a palpable feeling of malice.
‘Can you even begin to explain what’s going on here?’ she asked James.
He was still setting up the system, snap-extending the aluminium legs of the folding stands that the sensors clipped to. There were six altogether, and he was arranging them in a wide ring around the centre of the warehouse. ‘Some kind of Rift phenomenon?’ he suggested. ‘A crack, a fold, an overlap? A spatio-temporal slip? A cleft? Dimensional transcendence? A chronal bifurcation with-’
