Trace Memory

SEVEN

Basement D-4, according to the files, had been completed in January 1942. The other storage areas had been running out of available space, and Torchwood had first looked into hiring private contractors to construct a further two large storage spaces as early as 1910.

It had been a large-scale operation, building such spaces so deep underground, and the construction firm was paid handsomely. It was 1915 when work first began on the auxiliary areas, and Torchwood had informed the firm that the entire facility was a part of Britain's war effort, and as such should not be discussed with anybody.

This was not necessarily untrue, of course. Many pieces of technology stored in Torchwood Cardiff would go on to assist, in whatever small way, Britain's role in the Great War, and there were items brought back from the battlefields of Europe which, belonging to neither the Entente nor the Central powers, were also kept there.

By the beginning of the Second World War, the two new areas had been filled to capacity, and so a further two were constructed between 1941 and 1942 in the same part of the Hub, known then as Level D, once more under the smokescreen of serving a role in the war effort. Basement D-3 was filled with 'materials' by 1949, and so D-4 came into use.

'Well, this is all very fascinating,' said Owen, sitting back in his seat and giving an exaggerated yawn. 'Although I'm sure a potted history of Torchwood could have been included in my training, and saved me the bother of doing this n-'

'Wait… I've got something,' said Toshiko, sitting at the neighbouring workstation, and pointing at a screen. 'Audit, March 1954. Looks like they carried out an audit of everything they had in storage. It took five of them the best part of a month. That's a lot of alien toys to count.'

'I'm not sure I'm following you.'

'Here,' said Toshiko, touching the screen. 'It's a catalogue of everything that was collected before March 1954. Michael said he was helping to unload a crate, and that the crate exploded. Don't you think it's likely that if something out of the ordinary was in that crate it would have been brought here?'

Owen glanced across at her and nodded appreciatively. 'That's some good lateral thinking there, Tosh,' he said. 'I bet you're good at crosswords.'

'Actually, I hate crosswords,' said Toshiko. 'But I'd really like to see what's in that basement.'

'Tosh?'

'Yes, Owen?'

'Do you ever feel like a character in Scooby Doo?'

Toshiko laughed. They were walking down the steps toward Basement D-4, or rather they were treading very carefully. The lighting in this part of the facility was poor; fluorescent tubes that hadn't been changed in many years, only some of which still worked. Most of them were grimy or encrusted in cobwebs and dead moths.

'Sometimes,' she said. 'So who would you be?'

'Oh, Fred, definitely,' said Owen.

'Really? I was thinking you remind me more of Shaggy.'

'Yeah?' said Owen. 'Well, you know what they say. Shaggy by name, shaggy by nature.'

'What about me, then?' asked Toshiko. 'And if you dare say Velma, I'll-'

Toshiko had modified one of her counters to specifically target the electromagnetic wave she'd traced to both Michael and the basement, and it suddenly began to crackle a little louder.

'It's weaker than the reading I'm getting off Michael,' she said. 'I've never seen anything like this. As far as I can make out, it's like a kind of radiation which is harmless to humans…'

They were now standing before the entrance of Basement D-4. Toshiko punched the code into the security panel, and the door opened for the second time that night.

'Ladies first,' said Owen, peering cautiously into the gloom.

'Oh,' said Toshiko, 'you really are a gentleman.'

She walked into the storage area, and Owen followed.

'November 1953,' said Toshiko. 'There was only one acquisition that month. No real description of it, except to say that it was an artefact discovered on a British polar expedition. The source was unknown. The records say it was originally meant to be kept here on a temporary basis, after being shipped in directly from the Arctic. They were supposed to keep it here for initial tests before transferring it to Torchwood in London, but that didn't happen.'

Three of the room's walls housed eighty individual doors, like the doors of a locker, and in each door there was a keyhole.

'We're looking for container two-three-seven,' said Toshiko.

They began checking the numbers on each door, until eventually Owen said, 'I've got it.'

He pointed into an upper corner, at a locker door that was eight feet off the ground.

'Great,' said Toshiko. 'Did you bring a stepladder?'

Owen raised a sardonic eyebrow.

'OK,' said Toshiko. 'You'll have to be my stepladder.'

'What?'

'I'll climb onto your back.

'How much do you weigh?'

Toshiko scowled at him. 'What sort of a question is that?'

'Well, if you're going to climb on me…'

'I'm not that heavy.'

'I'll get a ladder…'

'I'm not that heavy, Owen. Come on, it's the only way. It's hardly going to work the other way around, is it?'

'Hey… I'm not that heavy.' Sighing and shaking his head, Owen stood before the wall full of containers, and braced himself ready for her to climb onto him.

Toshiko looked around the room, as if expecting somebody to be watching them, and jumped up onto his back.

'Whoa, easy,' gasped Owen. 'What do you think this is, a bloody rodeo?'

Toshiko stretched out with the key. 'I can't reach it,' she said.

'I'll go find a ladder,' said Owen, turning already, as if about to walk out with Toshiko still on his back.

'Rubbish,' said Toshiko. 'I'll get up on your shoulders.'

'What?'

'Just turn back around and I'll get up on your shoulders.'

Sighing, Owen did as she said, and with both hands pushing down on his head Toshiko climbed up onto his shoulders. He wobbled from side to side to get his balance but eventually stood firm.

Toshiko leaned forward again, and this time found that she could reach the container, sliding the key into the lock and turning it. The door opened. Toshiko felt a wave of warm air, and she could smell something, a static charge perhaps, like the aftermath of a thunderstorm.

She reached into the locker. Inside there was a wooden box, on which the label 'ITEM 4797 24/11/53' had been stamped. She held the box with both hands and slid it back towards the open locker door, pushing out a cascading shower of dust in its wake.

'You'd better hope I don't sneeze,' said Owen.

'It's really heavy,' she said.

'How heavy?'

'Really, really heavy.'

The box rested on the edge of the locker. Just one simple lift, thought Toshiko, just like picking up a television, put the weight against your chest…

As she pulled the box free of the locker, it quickly became apparent that it was even heavier than she'd thought. The sudden addition of the extra weight sent Owen stumbling back. The box fell to the ground with a loud crash, and both Owen and Toshiko fell flat on the floor.

'Ow!' said Toshiko. 'I landed right on my coccyx.'

Owen giggled.

'You said co-'

'It's not funny,' said Toshiko. 'I'm in quite a lot of pain, actually.'

They both looked at where the box had fallen. The box itself was now smashed beyond repair, its splinters scattered around the room. The artefact lay exactly where it had fallen, on top of a floor tile that was now cracked in half.

'How heavy is that thing?' said Owen.

'I told you. Very.'

'Not as heavy as you, I bet…'

'Hey!'

It was a metal sphere, about the same size as a football. At first it appeared quite smooth, but as they both crawled closer towards it they saw that it was covered with finely detailed engravings. One side of the metal ball was cracked open, but neither of them could see what was inside.

'Did we just do that?' asked Owen

'No,' said Toshiko. 'Look around the edges of the crack. It's melted, like something burnt its way out from inside.'

Owen climbed the stairs into the Hub, holding the metal ball to his chest. He liked to think he had a certain youthful athleticism, but even so he was exhausted. The ball must have weighed forty kilos, at least, and it was a long walk from Basement D-4 to the Hub.

Gwen and Ianto were at their workstations, their eyes fixed upon the screens. On a third screen, between the two stations, there was a CCTV image of Michael sleeping in the Boardroom.

'What's Michael sleeping on?' Owen gasped, still struggling with the weight of the ball.

'Inflatable mattress,' said Ianto, turning in his chair. 'Left over from our camping trip. One of the few things that didn't get trashed. I couldn't find the pump, so Gwen blew it up. She's got a set of lungs on her, that girl.' He pointed at the metal ball. 'Is that a present for me?' he asked.

'Not quite, no.' Owen wheezed. He got as far as the nearest table and put the ball down. It landed on the surface with a heavy thud. 'So while I've been slogging my guts out carrying that thing up the bloody stairs, what have you two been doing?'

'Michael said there were two men,' said Gwen. 'Cromwell and Valentine. They visited him in the hospital. Asked him some weird questions. We've been trying to find out who they were.'

'Any joy?' asked Toshiko.

Gwen nodded. 'There was nothing on our database for Valentine, so I did a cross-check of all data from 1953. Much more joy.'

She span back so that she was facing the screen.

'Kenneth James Valentine. Born 1921 in Newport. Worked as a carpenter from the age of fifteen until 1941, when he joined the Royal Dragoon Guards. Was present during Operation Overlord, otherwise known as D-Day, when as part of the Twenty Seventh Armoured Brigade he took part in the landings on Sword Beach. Was injured in combat and shipped back to Britain where he spent the remainder of the Second World War convalescing. Joined the Cardiff Borough Police in 1947, and then… Well, that's it.'

'That's it?' said Owen. 'What happened? Did he die?'

Gwen shook her head. 'There's no record of him being paid by Cardiff police after 1950, but there's no death certificate. Nothing. He just vanishes.'

'And what about Cromwell?'

Gwen turned to Ianto. Ianto looked from Gwen to Toshiko and Owen. He seemed cagey.

'I kind of already knew,' he said quietly.

'What do you mean?' asked Gwen. 'What did you already know?'

Ianto pointed at his screen, and the others gathered around him. On it there was an image of a man in his mid thirties; sharp beady eyes focused on the camera. It was a standard black and white portrait, taken in the 1950s, like a passport photograph. Next to the image there was a microfiche of his typed resume:

NAME:

CHARLES ARTHUR CROMWELL

BORN: 06/03/1915

DIED:

14/02/2006

MARITAL STATUS: Divorced, no dependents

EDUCATION: Brunei Grammar School, Port Talbot, 1926–1933 Exeter College, Oxford 1933–1937

MILITARY etc: Royal Navy, 1938–1941, Lt Cdr MI6, 1941–1945 Torchwood, 1945–1975

'Oh my God,' said Owen. 'He was one of us.'

'But what about Valentine?' asked Gwen. 'If Cromwell's file is on there, why isn't Valentine's? It's like somebody's wiped him out of existence.'

'There's one other thing,' said Ianto, turning back to his screen and pointing at the photograph of Cromwell. 'I've met this man.'