James Goss: Almost Perfect

‘Jack!’ Gwen didn’t quite shout. ‘What do we do? Can we stop this?’

Jack’s look turned shifty. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps he does die. Perhaps not. That’s the problem. He dies in the future, his corpse turns up here. But if we prevent him from dying – what happens? It’s a massive ticking paradox inches away from a colossal space-time rift.’

‘Are you saying we do nothing?’

‘Not… nothing. I’m just saying that we might not be able to do anything. There’s two ways of looking at it. And one of them argues that we can spend the rest of the week trying to save Patrick Matthews – and somehow, he’ll still die. Do we really want to spend the next week in one of those films about doomed teenagers who die with hilarious consequences? Kind of hoped we were classier than that.’

Gwen thought about it. Rhys liked Final Destination way more than she did. That was a fact. Her left shoe was more wet than her right one. That was also a fact. You couldn’t even go out for a meal in Cardiff these days without causing a space-time paradox. Third fact. Hmm. She glanced at her watch. Not even 7pm. This was turning into another long day.

‘Right.’ Ianto’s voice was soft and echoed across the Hub. ‘We’ve got a week to work out who’s going to kill him. Failing that, we just turn up on the night.’

Jack started to open his mouth to argue, but Ianto carried on speaking. ‘It’s the least we can do. Maybe it’s fated that he’ll die. But maybe we can find the killer. What does it say about that on your flowcharts?’

Jack spread out his hands helplessly, and for a second looked like a farmboy with a missing cow. ‘To be honest, we never got to the end of the flowcharts. They were really big, the print was very small, and most of us were bombed by that point. See what you can find out about him, I guess.’

Later Jack sauntered over to Gwen’s desk. They’d spent the last few minutes pretty much not making eye contact. ‘So,’ he said, ‘are we going to have a row about this?’

‘I dunno, Jack,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a million things on, I’m soaking wet, and I just want to get home, shower and put some warm, dry clothes on.’ She managed a weak smile. ‘But doing nothing feels… wrong. I want to try.’

‘Really?’ Jack was looking directly at her, nearly smiling. ‘Potential paradoxes are really, really bad. You behave nicely around them, and the universe doesn’t end. Trust me – I’ve spent chunks of the last century not bumping into myself. You get a knack for how to behave around paradoxes. Approach them like male models – very carefully and only from behind. If we can save him, then we will. But I can’t have you following your heart on this one. It’ll go horribly, horribly wrong. I need to rely on you to do the right thing.’ His smile suddenly flickered on. He sipped his coffee. ‘Is it me, or has Ianto’s coffee got better since he’s a woman?’

And, with that little misdirection, he was gone, bounding back to his desk.

That was bloody useless, thought Gwen, miserably. A few reassuring words, a bit of sexy banter, a lot of que sera sera . She looked back at the photo of Patrick Matthews floating across her screen. According to his Facebook status, he was booking a holiday. Bloody hell, thought Gwen.

Hi, I’m Ross. I’m with the No.

Too old.

Hi, I’m Terry. I’m

God, those teeth .

Hi, I’m Roger. By name and

Tosser.

Evening, gorgeous. I’m

There is not enough vodka in the world .

Actually. I’m fed up of all of them. Can you make them go away?

An hour later the phone call came in.

‘A bar full of skeletons?’ said Jack.

Tombola’s was one of those places. It was hard to see why anyone would go there for a drink unless it was for a reason. It wasn’t a bar you’d drop in on. The brewery were baffled. Clearly, the architect had put a lot of work in, and the décor was very nice – quite modern, quite classy, quite solid wood and cosy bunk beds. The beers were nice, the food wasn’t bad, the music wasn’t offensive. It was all very safe and ordinary – and the folk of Cardiff avoided it like the plague. Which meant it was easy to book it for a function – so it was popular with book groups, societies, and so on.

It had needlessly roped off an area for speed-dating. The area was full of corpses. All dressed up. All ready to go. All dead.

‘Well, they’re all men. I think we’re looking for a woman.’ Jack smiled. ‘Forget Mister Right – we’re looking for Miss Wrong.’ He stuck his hands on his hips and grinned broadly.

Jack Harkness, thought Gwen, I love you, but sometimes, you can be very hard work.

An hour later and they’d managed to collect twelve wallets and mobiles and only destroyed two bodies. Miraculously, Ianto had managed to avoid getting any of the dust on him. Whereas Gwen was caked in dead people. She was mentally rehearsing comebacks for any witty comments that Rhys might manage when she finally staggered in. But that wasn’t going to be for a long time.

Ianto confirmed there wasn’t any CCTV footage. ‘But, interesting development – the place was booked for speed-dating. And, as far as anyone can tell, this was it. The bar staff agree that everything was going on very much as normal, and then… all of a sudden… this.’

‘Yeah, but that’s stupid,’ said Gwen, a little harsher than she’d intended. ‘There are twelve men here. Where are the women? You don’t just get one woman – it’s normally a group. Fuelled on zambuca and desperation.’

Ianto reached into a large pink rucksack and pulled out a scanner which he ran over each of the bodies. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘No abnormal emissions, no radiation traces. Slightly elevated static electricity.’

‘Really?’ said Jack.

‘Yes. Twenty-three per cent. Same as over the rest of town.’

‘Oh.’

‘Right. This is peculiar.’ Ianto was scanning the room. He shrugged, which pushed back the straps on his shoulders. ‘No… something’s odd here. Each skeleton… it’s… perfect. Full set of teeth. No bones broken. Great posture. No fillings.’

Gwen laughed. ‘Twelve Welsh men without a single filling?’ The skeletons sat at various tables across the room, all in postures of polite attention.

‘So,’ said Jack slowly. ‘Apart from the mysteriously vanishing women, someone is taking men, making them physically perfect, then killing them?’

‘Don’t forget about sending the odd one back through time,’ put in Ianto.

‘Marvellous.’

It had been a long, long night, thought Ianto, but he had one thing more to do.

He was walking down St Mary Street. It was raining, but Cardiff was in full party mood. Tight hunting packs of single men, pumped arms and white shirts, strode past. Little groups of women stood queuing sulkily outside clubs. Everywhere were bouncers, flyer girls, and police just, you know, waiting.

And it was freezing. Last time he was out on the lash he’d been wearing a duffle coat. Now all he had to keep the elements at bay was a mini-skirt, a pair of tights and a light denim jacket. The rain was slicing through him. He was dying with each step.

Around him were girls wearing less and laughing more.

A gust of icy breeze lifted his skirt, and he heard some men across the street make a ‘Woooooo!’ noise. He glanced across at them, and they barked back.

Ianto cursed under his breath and carried on walking. ‘Lovely night for a spot of MurderRape.’ He got stopped briefly by an enormous queue outside a club. He stood there for a bit, trying not to jostle, sensing the ogling glances of the men, and the strange, jealous glares of the women.