Trace Memory

TWELVE

'Well what time will you be coming home?' Rhys's voice was tinny and vaguely crackling at the other end of the phone line. Another thing they needed to put on the wedding list: a new phone.

'I don't know, love,' said Gwen. 'Like I said, something's come up at the last minute. I won't be here much longer, I promise.'

'I cooked you tea and everything,' said Rhys. 'Spaghetti bolognese. I even bought that cheese you like.'

Ah, spaghetti bolognese, thought Gwen. Rhys's current, culinary way of saying sorry. She was tired of it now, of course, after so many apologies that had sent him running to the kitchen after a quick jaunt to the nearest supermarket. Spag bol, as he called it, and a bottle of the supermarket's best own-brand red wine. Even though she hadn't gone to the supermarket with him, she could so easily imagine him pulling faces at anything that cost more than a fiver.

'We'll eat when I get home,' said Gwen.

'But what time's that going to be?' asked Rhys. 'I'm bloody starving now, and it's gone ten o'clock. I got work in the morning.'

He was right, of course. He may have been the one cooking spaghetti bolognese, but why should he have to wait for her until midnight or later? Gwen sighed.

Across the Hub, Owen was reading through a backlog of archive materials relating to the 1953 explosion and to the investigation which had followed it. He signalled to Gwen several times, waving his hand in the air, but Gwen shook her head.

'I'm sorry, Rhys,' she said into the phone. 'I've got to go, seriously. I won't be long, love, I promise.'

She said goodbye to him, and then the line went dead.

'What is it?' she called to Owen. 'What is it that so desperately needed my attention?'

'Look at this,' said Owen, pointing at his screen. 'I've managed to find something on the Orb investigation. But that's not all.'

'What is it?' asked Gwen, crossing the Hub and looking down at his monitor.

'Here,' said Owen, tapping the screen. 'Says the investigation into the explosion failed to find a cause, though it was believed… God, I think I need to get glasses or something, or is the print just really small? It was believed that Rift energy could not be ruled out as a factor. Jack was right. Then it says nothing happened at Torchwood Cardiff for another fourteen years, when "key personnel"… who the bloody hell are key personnel?

Anyway…

Key personnel… investigated the "Hamilton's Sugar incident".'

'And that was?'

'Your guess is as good as mine. I've searched everything on our database. I've gone through everything we salvaged from Torchwood One. Nothing. Not a sausage. That's the last information I can find relating to Michael. The trail goes cold, and it wasn't particularly hot to begin with.'

Owen got up from his workstation.

'Anyway,' he said, 'I'm going to the Boardroom to keep an eye on Michael. I've got a really bad feeling…'

'What about?' asked Gwen.

'I don't know,' said Owen. 'But I have.'

Toshiko stared at the Orb. She'd listened to everything Jack had said, but even now it made little or no sense. In her time with Torchwood, she had grown accustomed to so many strange and inexplicable things. She had seen spaceships and aliens and she had travelled in time, but this was different.

It was her nightmares. She realised that had something to do with it. Listening to Jack talk about the Vondrax, and to the others describing what they had seen and heard… It was as if her worst childhood fears had been proven to exist.

The monster under the bed was no longer a dark fantasy explained away by an infant's overactive imagination; it was real.

The Orb itself was now quite dead. The readings she had picked up earlier seemed to diminish by the minute, leaving just the metal husk. The first metallurgy tests she had been able to perform confirmed one further, perplexing detail. Whatever metal the ball was made from could be found nowhere on the periodic table. It shared properties with titanium and zinc, without being identifiable as either. Though it appeared to be quite hollow, with a crust no more than a centimetre thick, it weighed in excess of forty kilos.

The engravings on its surface looked like ancient hieroglyphs but, from the little she knew of Egyptian, Sumerian and other writing forms, it had nothing in common with anything from Earth. Why should it? If Jack was to be believed, this thing was probably older than the Earth itself.

And then there was Michael.

Poor Michael, as she had taken to thinking of him. It was clear to her now that the Michael asleep in the Boardroom had never met her, that their experiences in Osaka had not yet happened to him. Where would this end for him, she wondered? She felt so redundant and helpless. Why wasn't there anything she could do for him? With all the technology they had at their disposal, they were still able to do nothing more than observe.

It was as she drew sketches of some of the engravings on the surface of the Orb that Toshiko saw it. In the corner of her eye, on one of her monitors, a shape moved out of the shadows in Basement D-4. She turned her head quickly to look at it, and was sure she saw it clearly, if only for a split second.

The silhouette of a man wearing a bowler hat.

No sooner was she facing the monitor than the shadowy form had vanished. She took in a deep shuddering breath and quickly checked the motion sensors within the vault.

There was nothing there. There was nothing left for him to do, as a doctor. He'd carried out every necessary test, written every report that needed to be written. The professional part of his role had been satisfied, and now he was just here, in the Boardroom, with the patient. With Michael.

Michael was sleeping a little more easily now, curled up on one side in a foetal position, breathing quietly, his eyes resting beneath his eyelids.

'You're going to be OK,' Owen said. At first he felt ridiculous talking to someone who was asleep. It was something you did with people in comas, of course, but not somebody who was simply sleeping.

'I wish there was more we could do for you, mate, really I do. It's just that sometimes we don't have the answers. Oh, of course, Jack knows a lot, but not everything.

I'm not sure we'll ever be able to stop this from happening to you. I mean… tachyon radiation.

I'd never even bloody heard of it until an hour ago. And those things… the Vondrax… If they came for you before I guess they'll be coming for you again.'

He took a deep breath.

'But don't worry, mate,' he said. This time we'll be waiting for them.'

Jack didn't hear Ianto enter the office. He didn't even know he was there until he felt a hand on his shoulder and heard his voice.

'Are you OK?'

'Yeah,' said Jack, putting his hand over Ianto's and squeezing it gently. 'Yeah, I'm fine.'

There was a moment's silence before Ianto spoke again.

'It's been a funny evening, hasn't it?' he said.

Jack frowned.

'Funny?' he said. 'Funny how? Funny ha, ha or funny peculiar?'

'Oh,' said Ianto, 'funny peculiar. Definitely funny peculiar. Well, it's not two hours since I had my feet up and was watching Goldfinger.

It's felt like a long night.'

'Every night's long,' said Jack.

'Are you being enigmatic with me?' asked Ianto. 'You know most of it goes over my head. I'd have to wade through the collected works of Sartre before I could properly get inside that skull of yours.'

Am I that enigmatic?' asked Jack.

'Sometimes,' said Ianto.

There was near silence again, but for the soft humming of machines.

'Should I be jealous?' Ianto asked.

Jack span around in his chair.

'What do you mean?'

Ianto pointed at Jack's monitor, where Jack had been watching an image of Michael sleeping.

'What?' Jack asked. 'What are you talking about?'

'We've all met him before,' said Ianto. 'Before we came here. You said yourself that you knew him before tonight.'

'And I did.'

'How well?'

Jack said nothing.

'If there's anything you need to do,' said Ianto, 'you should just do it. I don't own you. I can't stop you.'

Jack looked up at Ianto and smiled weakly.

'It's not as easy as that, is it?' he said. 'The kid who's sleeping in the Boardroom doesn't know me. He doesn't know what happens next. That's my past and his future. I can't say anything to him. I can't stop it from happening.'

'You can't stop what from happening?' asked Ianto. 'What happened?'