Almost Perfect

IANTO IS JUST MURDER ON THE DANCE FLOOR

They stood on the threshold of the club for a few moments, unable to believe what they were seeing.

Torchwood had shown Gwen a lot of things. She’d seen a fair bit of carnage inside, outside and underneath nightclubs. This was unlike anything she’d ever seen. Even when she was young and going to festivals in Fungus’s camper van. This was…

She remembered being a bit stoned and leaving the folk tent, getting a falafel and then accidentally wandering into the techno tent. This was the nearest thing – suddenly plunged into a dark place filled with endless noise and bodies and lights and screaming and a vague feeling of panic and revulsion mixed with a wonder about how she could ever fit in and be cool here.

The club, with its blood-red walls and mirrors and lights seemed to stretch into infinity. The dance floor was packed, packed with topless men all dancing, dancing the same little dance moves, all at the same time, all of them staring ahead, their muscles twitching, their eyes white, looking like racks and racks of meat in a disco abattoir. Just moving to the beat, swinging like they were on rows of meat hooks. Just empty meat dancing and dancing and dancing.

Sweat dribbled down the mirrors and columns and pooled on the ceiling and the floor. She could see the odd figure, passed out but propped up by those dancing around it. Slack jaw staring at the ceiling, collecting drops of sweat.

She thought briefly of that YouTube clip of hundreds of prisoners all doing synchronised dancing to Michael Jackson. It was kind of like that. Only crammed in all together, and the guys were semi-naked and really, really hot.

The smell was incredible. It was an actual proper stench – of hundreds of different types of sweat, of stale dry ice, of spilt beer, of decay and death and blood.

And then she noticed the pulsing music, the way the walls, the lights, the twitching bodies were all pulsing like a heartbeat. Regular, somehow sickening.

Ianto turned to her. ‘This could be heaven, this could be hell,’ he breathed. All he could see was row after row of beautiful people, somewhere near a state of rapture. And the music and the music and the beat and the lights and the music and-

Gwen slapped him. Pretty hard, he thought.

‘Sorry,’ said Gwen flatly.

‘Thank you,’ he replied rather crisply. ‘It’s strangely… compelling.’

Gwen shrugged. ‘Oh, I dunno. Dancing, I can take it or leave it, me. But look at all this. What the hell do we do?’

Ianto paused. ‘They’re behaving like a mass. They’re just standing there – not even lifting a foot off the floor. We should find what’s causing that. Perhaps we could stop that.’

‘Yep,’ agreed Gwen.

‘We could find Jack. See if he can help.’

‘Also good,’ said Gwen.

‘We could also find out why the walls are breathing.’

‘Um. Yeah.’

Actually, they made their way awkwardly to the bar. No one seemed to notice them. Everyone was dancing, dancing, dancing, their eyes rolled up, enraptured.

Gwen giggled. ‘It’s like the nineties, but no one’s tried to hug me or backwashed in my water bottle.’

Ianto nodded. ‘I’ve been to parties like this too. But normally in abandoned warehouses. Not, you know, on Charles Street.’

The pounding was starting to really beat down on Gwen. She looked at the DJ, who was mixing away at his desk, but without even looking at it. It was really, really creepy. As she leaned on the bar she sensed the beat travelling through her. She tried to move and found it harder than she thought, as though the surface of the bar was really, really sticky. She finally got the attention of a barman, who beamed at her glassily. ‘What’ll it be?’ he asked.

‘Are you the manager?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘He’s on holiday, really. Upstairs.’

‘Who’s in charge?’

He shook his head again. ‘The music’s in charge.’

Gwen rolled her eyes. She could see Ianto leaning forward, trying to flirt with the other barman who, frankly, had too many muscles and too small a T-shirt to be really interested. Bless, she thought. She turned back to the barman. ‘Look – who is in charge? Who pays you?’

The man looked puzzled. ‘We haven’t been paid. We’re here for the love. The power.’ He grinned suddenly, raffishly, and then started to bang his head to the music, drifting gently away.

Ianto joined her. ‘Nothing. It’s like I’m invisible.’ Finally!

Gwen nudged towards the fire escape. ‘Let’s go out to the smoking garden,’ she said, and strode off, edging around the side of the club, past untouched drinks and a group of men who were leaning back against the wall, dancing as though stuck to it. All of them wore the same lopsided grin.

The smoking garden was creepy. It was packed, but no one was smoking.

At each table in the freezing night sat boys in T-shirts, their hands clasped around long-dead cigarettes. All of them were just staring ahead, nodding in time to the beat.

‘Seriously, seriously wrong,’ said Gwen, watching as the rain plopped into unguarded drinks.

‘Wrong and creepy,’ agreed Ianto. He reached into his enormous handbag and pulled out a tiny pop-up Snoopy umbrella. They huddled under it and watched the sodden crowd.

Gwen peeped out from under the umbrella. A fire escape led up to a second floor. She pointed it out. ‘I was told the manager had gone on holiday upstairs,’ she said.

‘Yeah,’ agreed Ianto. ‘They said something about a Brendan and a flat.’ He checked his PDA. ‘There’s nothing about a Brendan here on the records. We should be looking for a manager called Rudyard.’

‘Rudyard?’ laughed Gwen. ‘No one is called Rudyard.’

Ianto held up the PDA. ‘Here he is. He’s got a beard and everything.’

‘Right,’ admitted Gwen. ‘Well done, Miss Jones. Ten Points to Hufflepuff. Now come on – let’s climb up the fire escape. If Jack’s here, I bet that’s where he’ll be.’

Ianto pointed in alarm at his shoes and Gwen smiled.

‘Honestly, Ianto, nearly a week and you still haven’t learned – it’s practical pumps for missions.’

Ianto winced. ‘I know, Gwen, but these look so good.’

Gwen patted him on the shoulder. ‘It’s a sacrifice worth making. I’ll give you a bunk up.’ And so, in the rain and the music, Gwen found herself hoisting Ianto’s ankles onto a rusty ladder.