Something in the Water

TWENTY-TWO

Gwen stopped to lean against the rail as another coughing fit came. She was shaking and her head was pounding. She hacked and coughed and then spat the result out into the bay. After a few moments, the cold wind blowing in across the water started to refresh her, flicking her hair back from her face, drying out the sweat.

She took a deep breath of the freezing air and stood up straight. This was no time to be ill. She had a duty to perform. With an effort she turned around, leant against the rail with her back to the bay and turned her full attention on Roald Dahl Plass. She could see the water tower and the bronze armadillo shape of the Millennium Centre. There were plenty of people around, but she couldn’t see any tall blonde in a raincoat. There were a hundred places she could have gone, heading away from the Centre, into the cafés and restaurants which surrounded the area, or further into the city. But somehow she didn’t think Saskia had gone. All her instincts told her that the woman was here somewhere. Why else would she come and stand there, watching them, waiting for them? Her business was here, with Torchwood, with the Rift itself.

‘Gwen?’ Ianto’s voice. He sounded rough. She wondered if she sounded as bad to him, and thought that she probably did. ‘I’m checking all the CCTV cameras in the area. No sign of Saskia Harden as yet.’

‘OK, good,’ Gwen responded. ‘Keep checking. She’s here somewhere, I’m sure of it.’ She started back towards the Plass, looking everywhere but still talking. ‘How’s Tosh?’

‘Not good.’

‘OK.’ Gwen swallowed with difficulty and pushed on. She watched a patrol car coming from the direction of Lloyd George Avenue, blues and twos going like mad. She wondered how long it would be before there were ambulances here and army trucks and soldiers in NBC kit.

Jack and Owen lifted Toshiko onto the autopsy table. Neither of the men would look at each other; neither wanted to be the one to acknowledge what this felt like. All the time, Owen was muttering under his breath, ‘She’s gonna be fine, she’s gonna be fine,’ as he busied himself around the room, gathering equipment, wheeling monitors over to the table, plugging in cables.

Jack slumped against the stairs, hands cupped over his mouth as he coughed again. He knew from the taste that there was blood, a lot of it, and something else, too. A thick, foul slime he was bringing up from Hell itself. He spat it out into a cardboard dish and groaned.

‘This going to work?’ he asked eventually.

‘How do I know?’ Owen retorted. He was powering up a piece of machinery by the side of the autopsy table. He still wouldn’t look directly at Toshiko’s still body. ‘We’ve got to be sure, though, haven’t we? We can’t do anything until we’re sure.’

‘OK,’ Jack agreed, pushing himself upright. ‘Let’s do it.’

‘We haven’t got time for a proper X-ray,’ Owen said as he operated the controls on the monitor. ‘This should do just as well, though. Ultrasound scanner — just like they use on pregnant women.’

They exchanged a look. Jack scowled, and Owen swallowed, turning his attention back to the equipment. ‘OK, we’re set.’

He took hold of the scanner, making sure there was enough flex on it to use properly. Then he nodded at Toshiko. ‘Open her top.’

Jack pushed the lapels of her lab coat aside and then pulled the neck of her top down away from her throat. Owen spread some clear gel around the skin of her neck and chest with his free hand and then placed the scanner against the flesh.

The screen showed a fuzzy mixture of lines and shapes like a particularly bad TV reception. It looked like nothing to Jack, who said so.

‘Wait while I get my bearings,’ Owen told him, twisting around so that he could check the view on the screen while he moved the scanner. ‘Ribs. Sternum. Thorax.’ He pulled a face. ‘Looks OK to me.’

‘Would one of those things show up on that?’

‘No reason why it shouldn’t, even if it’s very small. Which, judging by the thing that came out of Bob Strong’s throat, it won’t be.’ Owen moved the scanner into a different position, monitoring the result carefully as the grey smudges on the screen shifted and coalesced. ‘I can’t see anything,’ he said at last.

‘Can’t see anything as in you can’t tell, or can’t see anything as in she’s all clear?’

He shrugged. ‘As far as I can tell, she’s all clear.’

Jack frowned. ‘How can that be? She’s had all the symptoms. Hell, we all have …’

Owen switched the scanner off and put it down on the tray by the monitor. ‘I don’t understand it.’

‘That’s because you’re a man,’ said Toshiko weakly.

Gwen had circled right around the Plass and was now standing directly in front of the water tower.

‘Any sign?’ she asked, still scanning. The wind from the bay made her eyes water. She had to keep blinking to make sure her vision wasn’t compromised.

‘Nothing,’ Ianto’s voice sounded in her ear. ‘I’ve combed the area three times and run a face-recognition program we stole from the FBI. Anyone who’s even looked towards one of the cameras has been checked by computer, but no hits for Saskia Harden.’

‘She’s here somewhere, I know she is,’ Gwen murmured.

‘Very perceptive of you,’ said a voice behind her.

Gwen whirled around — but there was no one there. She stared at her reflection in the tower, rippling under the constant flow of water which slid down the mirrored surface.

A soft laugh tinkled like glass in the water.

Just for a second, Gwen thought she saw a face in the water: thin, sharp, silvery like a slug trail. She caught her breath, surprised, and then the face was gone, dissolving into the flow of the water like a mirage.

Gwen felt the hairs on her arms and neck stirring. There was something here, something unnatural. Something she should notice.

And then, with a slow, cold dread, she realised what she had missed. It was so obvious she wanted to shout, to kick, to scream out loud. But all she could do was cough, and point. ‘I can see you,’ she gasped, pointing at the fountain. ‘I know you’re there.’

And the simple realisation of it allowed her to see, to perceive, what no one else around her could. Standing on the paving slab right in front of the fountain, right in front of her, was Saskia Harden.

She seemed to be tall, although she was only Gwen’s height. She still gave the impression that she was looking down, though, with eyes that were as cold as the morning frost on a lawn. Her skin almost white, her lips wide and slightly parted. There was only a glimpse of darkness between them. She wasn’t beautiful, or even pretty, but she was striking. In a room full of gorgeous women, it would be Saskia Harden that all the men turned to look at.

‘Took you long enough,’ she said to Gwen. Her voice was as cool as mist.

‘Standing on that paving stone,’ Gwen muttered. ‘You’ve got quite a nerve.’

‘Works, though, doesn’t it? Not even you could see me — not even when you were looking right at me. What is it? Perception filter? Chameleon field?’

Gwen stood very still. She tried to concentrate, to gather herself, to ask the right questions and say the right things, but her head felt muzzy and her chest and throat hurt like hell. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked eventually.

‘Taking over,’ Saskia replied.

‘I mean here, now, at Torchwood.’

‘Checking out the competition, of course,’ she replied, casting a quick, cold glance up and down Gwen. ‘Can’t say I’m worried.’

‘We’re not competition. We don’t want to take over the world.’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe not — but you’re the only ones who will try to stop me.’

‘Sooner than you think,’ Gwen said, reaching behind her waist for her gun.

‘No.’ Saskia raised one long finger, curling it like a talon. Gwen felt herself stop, fingers barely touching the metal of the automatic stuffed into the back pocket of her jeans. She knew she should draw, knew she should aim and fire in one smooth motion, but somehow she couldn’t move. She had to see what the woman was going to say.

‘No,’ Saskia repeated. ‘Not advisable, dear. I can move a lot faster than you can. I’d bite your head off before you’d even got a hand on your weapon. And we wouldn’t want that, now, would we? I’m still picking dog hairs out of my teeth after all.’

She smiled — a wide, wide smile that told Gwen this was no human being. This was a creature capable of biting the head off a pit bull terrier. The lips had parted and for a second she saw the teeth inside — rows of sharp, uneven little spikes like clusters of dark knitting needles.

‘What are you? Where are you from?’

‘It hardly matters. It was such a long time ago.’ Without seeming to care that she was taking her eyes off Gwen, Saskia tilted her head slightly so that she could look briefly up to heaven. ‘My world disappeared — vanished without trace. I came here because I had to. There was nowhere else for me to go. Sad, but here I am. And here you are — but not for long …’

Gwen coughed, crunching up as the pain ripped through her chest, covering her mouth automatically. She spat the blood onto the ground between her feet, breathing hard.

‘Oh dear,’ said Saskia. ‘Not feeling very well?’