The Twilight Streets

TWENTY-FOUR

With a swift kick from Jack, the doorway to the top of the roof stairs gave way, flying off its hinges and skidding across the asphalt. Jack pelted through, Gwen and Ianto at his heels.

‘I don’t think it was locked, actually,’ said Ianto.

‘I wanna look cool, OK?’

Ianto made a ‘whatever’ with his fingers and followed the others to the dish. Jack was up and on it, already grabbing the base of the aerial.

Gwen tapped her comms. ‘How’re we doing, Tosh?’

Toshiko’s voice echoed back to her from the Hub. ‘You’re doing fine, Gwen. I’m less convinced by Owen and me, frankly.’

‘We’ve lashed the Rift Manipulator into Tosh’s computer and old man Bilis there is putting the box inside,’ reported Owen.

There was a beat.

‘Well?’ snapped Jack.

‘He’s not exactly one for urgency, Jack,’ Owen said.

‘Can he hear me?’

‘Can now. I’ve patched the comms through to-’

‘Bilis, it’s Jack. I don’t have time for you to mess about. Get that damn box in there and opened up.’

They heard Bilis’s voice. ‘It is ready.’

‘So are we,’ said Ianto, as he and Gwen finished connecting the cables to the aerial.

‘How bloody primitive is this,’ Jack muttered. ‘A hundred years of alien tech, and it looks like Ianto jump-starting the SUV.’

‘Oi, the SUV never needs jump-starting,’ Ianto retorted.

Jack grinned. ‘I just have an image in my head of you with jump leads and a pole. I was saying the SUV to save Gwen’s blushes.’

‘Oh don’t mind me,’ Gwen said. ‘I gave up listening to you two hours ago. Days ago. About a year ago actually.’

‘Yeah, well, some of us don’t have that luxury,’ Owen said in their ears. ‘Thanks for the image, guys. We good to go, Tosh?’ There was no verbal reply, but Owen’s voice came straight back. ‘Tosh gave me a thumbs up. I like to think that’s Kabuki for “yes”. And not “we’re all gonna die in flame and devastation”. But you never know, it could mean both.’

Jack sighed, pulled the box of electronic gubbins from his pocket and looked up. ‘Now would be really good, guys,’ he said.

Gwen was looking over the edge of the roof at the mass of black-eyed people gathered at the foot of the building, like ants. She thought for a moment of Idris Hopper, trapped in that house a few miles away, raging against all this. For all she knew, Rhys could be out there too. And all their friends, family… anyone, everyone.

Ianto joined her.

‘I really, really hate heights, me,’ Gwen said.

‘You should go on a date with him,’ Ianto said, jerking a thumb in Jack’s direction. ‘To him, up on a place like this, that’s a great night out. But when I suggested a rollercoaster once, oh no, that was a death-trap apparently.’

Gwen laughed.

Then she stopped and looked Ianto in the eye. ‘What happens now, Ianto? We saw the future.’

‘We saw a future. A future corrupted by this Dark light stuff. In a few minutes, it’ll be gone and that future won’t happen.’

‘How will Owen and Tosh get over this?’

‘They will. Tosh will feel guilty and get introspective. Owen will never mention it again. That’s their way of dealing. You?’

Gwen shrugged. ‘You’re right. I’ll ignore it. And I’ll tell Rhys that if I ever get pregnant, we’ll have a home birth. Or go to Spain.’

‘Guys? Please!’ That was Jack.

‘Jack?’ And that was Tosh. ‘I’m ready wheneveryou are.’

Jack pointed at the box of electronics at the foot of the mast and the thin wires attaching it to the aerial. ‘Ready as we’ll ever be.’

‘Residual energy from last night’s activity… connected. It works, Jack, it works!’ Toshiko coughed slightly. ‘Sorry. Rift… activating… now!’

And, sure enough, above their heads, Jack, Gwen and Ianto watched the crimson ribbon of the Rift flare into existence, now bereft of extraneous light creatures.

‘Hooray for us,’ muttered Ianto.

Jack was at the electrics, twisting the dial Tosh had set up.

Gradually, above their heads, the Rift began to fluctuate. The ribbon of energy moved, until it was in a direct line from the top of Stadium House to the area of Tretarri.

‘Now Bilis, now!’ snapped Jack.

‘He’s gone,’ Owen confirmed from the Hub.

Wharf Street, Tretarri.

A spike of Rift energy stabbed into the new concrete, and all the lights exploded. Bilis ignored the flying glass. Another ribbon of energy connected with the ground, earthing itself. The windows in every house exploded outwards, but still Bilis refused to let it affect him.

Ianto pointed west. They watched a streak of Dark light rising upwards.

‘Well, that’ll be Idris I guess,’ Gwen said.

Jack tweaked the dials on the box. ‘Let’s hope we’re in time,’ he muttered.

And another thin black spike of raw Dark energy speared up, this one from below, shooting past them and into the Rift energy ribbon.

Ianto watched and saw the assembled citizens drop to the ground one by one, as the Dark light fled their host bodies, hungry for Rift energy.

After a minute, once the last person had dropped, the Dark light stopped pouring up.

‘We’re done, Tosh.’

Bilis raised the diary and began flicking through the pages faster and faster. The light creatures were escaping from the ink and being drawn into the safety of the Rift energy and back under the ground, to keep whatever existed beneath the surface caged. Their eternal task.

He noticed the face of Greg Bishop, momentarily etched amongst the lights in the Rift ribbon. It seemed… serene.

One day he might tell Jack Harkness about that.

Then again…

‘Oi, Bilis,’ someone shouted.

He looked up. Idris Hopper was rushing out of 6 Coburg Street, no sign of the Dark in him now. ‘What’s going on?’

Then Idris hit the ground. The street was shaking and, one after another, the houses of Tretarri began to crumble. The roads were splitting asunder; building after building collapsed in upon itself.

After a few moments, it was all over. The whole site was nothing more than rubble and dust.

Bilis knelt down to the ground, quite effortlessly for a man of his apparent age. He gently pushed his hand into the cracked roadway and retrieved some grey ashes.

He sniffed them, then smiled. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a wooden box, identical to the one back at the Hub, currently filling up with the imprisoned Dark. He opened the box and deposited the grey ash inside it.

Snapping the box shut, Bilis Manger smiled and stood up again. He straightened his cravat and brushed the glass and detritus from his jacket.

‘Goodbye Jack,’ he said quietly. ‘Until the next battle, of course.’

And he vanished into space or time or wherever it was he came from.

The diary flopped to the broken-up ground, just an old empty book.

A few flames licked up from the torn roadway, where electrical cables had been damaged. Thirty seconds later, Tretarri and the diary had combined into one massive funeral pyre to the past.

At the Hub, Toshiko was monitoring the Rift, noting the new energy racing through it, energy she’d never seen before. And hoped she never would again.

Energy that, she knew all too well, could destroy the future.

She glanced up at Bilis’s wooden box in the base of the Rift Manipulator embedded in the water tower. The box seemed to be growing darker by the second.

And then the last blink of Dark energy was gone from the Rift. She closed the connection, ignoring the shower of sparks as her computer fried.

‘Now!’ she barked at Owen.

‘Always me has to do the dangerous stuff,’ he muttered as he ran across the Hub to the tower.

‘We make a good team,’ Toshiko murmured, more to herself than to Owen.

If he heard, he said nothing. He just slammed the lid down, turned the key and yanked the box out. ‘What now?’

‘Jack?’

Jack’s voice came out of the ether. ‘Now we get some sleep.’

‘What about this box?’ asked Owen, but there was no reply.

‘Perhaps you should sit on it till they get back here?’ laughed Toshiko.

Owen gave her a look that suggested that he didn’t find the idea that funny.

Gwen knelt in front of the rubble of Tretarri and let some of it sift through her hands. She spotted a half-melted collection bucket a few paces away.

‘I remember that,’ she said. ‘But the rest of it’s fading. I can’t remember the future scenario much at all now.’

Ianto opened his mouth as if to speak, but then closed it. ‘No,’ he said, surprised. ‘Me neither.’

‘Jack?’

Their leader just gave his whitest smile. ‘I don’t dream, remember?’ he said.

‘I wonder where Bilis Manger is now,’ Ianto looked around.

‘Who cares,’ Jack said. ‘We could still write what we know about him and his motives on the back of a postage stamp. Not sure I like that.’

‘Well, some poor bastard at City Hall is going to have fun explaining this,’ said a voice behind them.

Jack didn’t turn around, just smiled. ‘Idris Hopper. Saviour of the City of Cardiff.’

‘And it won’t be me.’

Gwen smiled at him. ‘Oh go on, they might make you Mayor!’

Idris shook his head. ‘Tell me, Gwen. Jack told me that his amnesia pills didn’t work on you. Is it true?’

Gwen was slightly stumped at this. ‘Um, well, not exactly. I mean, they would have I think, but something in my head snapped and I broke through them.’

‘One in 800,000, Idris.’ Jack took a bottle of pills out of his pocket. ‘I just happen to be standing here with the only two I know of. Why?’

‘Give me one Jack. Please. A really, really strong dosage. I want to wake up tomorrow not remembering any of this. Or you lot. No disrespect, Gwen, Ianto, but me and Torchwood. Don’t really want to know.’

‘Might not work,’ Gwen said. ‘No matter what strength.’

Idris shrugged. ‘Another risk worth taking. Let’s face it, if I’m knocking on your door in twenty-four hours, asking for a slice of pizza and a look at a Weevil, then you need to go back to your chemistry labs, Jack.’

Jack tossed him the bottle. ‘Strength five is safe. For humans. Take two, Idris. And good luck.’

Idris took two pills out and threw the bottle back.

He doffed his head at Torchwood, turned and walked away, the pills still in his hand.

‘Will he?’ Ianto asked.

‘Dunno, to be honest.’ Jack smiled a little sadly. ‘I hope not.’

‘Because he’s a useful contact?’ Gwen brushed dust off her hands.

‘No,’ said Jack. ‘I just quite enjoyed his friendship.’ He sighed. ‘Let’s get back home. We’ve a box to bury in concrete.’

‘You mean, I have a box to bury in concrete,’ Ianto moaned.

‘Well, I’m sure we’ll help you bury it,’ said Gwen.

‘But mixing concrete?’ asked Jack. ‘Not these hands.’

‘Nor mine,’ added Gwen, linking her arm through both Jack and Ianto’s as they began to walk towards Grangetown and then on to Cardiff Bay. ‘And I’m sure Owen and Tosh will find better things to do…’

Three weeks later, Idris Hopper was at Bristol Airport, holdall on his shoulder. He’d checked his cases in, got his boarding pass and was about to board the 14.25 to Shoenfeld.

He looked back over his shoulder, suddenly. Didn’t know why, but he felt like someone was watching him.

There was no one he knew. A couple of kids and a woman, waving goodbye to grandparents. A middle-aged lady with a briefcase passing it to a flustered businessman. A couple of other people were standing there, presumably making sure their friends or relatives got on the plane.

There was also a man, and something in Idris wondered if he’d seen him before. Dark hair, square jaw, blue eyes. Wearing a long military-style coat. Oh. He looked a bit like Tom Cruise, that must be what it was.

Idris walked onto the plane.

‘Mr Hopper, Guten Tag. Seat 23C, window, straight down the aisle. Danke.’

‘Danke,’ he replied, and made his way to his seat.

Small plane, he thought. Two seats, aisle, two middle seats, other aisle, two seats, window. Nice onboard entertainment system, but it was a short flight, not much point in a movie. Might get an episode of Frasier or The Simpsons in though.

He chucked his bag in the overhead locker and settled down, watching the other passengers come aboard, hoping, as travellers always do, that no one would sit beside him.

Not that Idris minded people. But it was that natural instinct – the same on buses and trains – to hope that no one sits close by you.

Oh, bad luck.

‘Ah, my seat. Good afternoon,’ said his fellow traveller.

He carried nothing other than a newspaper. He sat down and smiled at Idris.

Old man, very neat and precise. Old-school English, even the cravat was there. But his eyes seemed to burn with intellect and life.

Then Idris noticed he was carrying something under the paper.

It was a small wooden box.

Second thing in fifteen minutes that had seemed somehow familiar to Idris. But a box was just a box.

The old man saw where Idris was looking.

‘Sorry,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘I wanted to carry him with me.’

Oh. Oh, right.

‘Umm, your father?’

‘No,’ the old man said, smiling. ‘No, although in many ways, he was like one to me. No, I used to serve a very wise and wonderful master, but he died a while ago. I have only recently been trusted with my Lord’s ashes and am taking them to be interred out of Britain.’

‘Right. I’m sorry. Clearly he meant a great deal to you.’

‘Indeed. And you, sir? Why are you travelling today?’

‘Oh, me? I, well, I got a job offer. Out of the blue actually. And for some reason Cardiff felt a bit… you know, cloying after living there so many years. So I thought, hell, Idris Hopper, why not? Why not take a gamble and do something exciting with your life? So, same basic job but in a new environment.’

‘You speak the language?’

‘Yes. Need to in my line of work. English, German, French, Italian and a smattering of Russian. Not much Welsh, mind.’

The old man smiled at this. ‘Excellent. I admire a man who can converse freely.’ He shuffled in his seat. ‘Well, if you will excuse me, I need to rest for a while.’

‘Oh, not at all,’ Idris said, secretly glad he wouldn’t need to make conversation with the nice old man and his rather scary box of ashes.

The old man gave Idris one last look before turning back to his snooze.

‘A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr Hopper. And good luck in Berlin.’