Peter Anghelides - Pack Animals

Gwen tapped the cards against her chin as she thought about it.

‘Never mind,’ said Rhys. ‘Fog seems to be clearing a bit now. There’s the Stadium, see? Blimey, I’ve wanted to have a trip down the Taff for ages. Didn’t think I’d be doing it in the Vectra, mind.’ He considered the icy river. ‘D’you think Green Flag will come out this far?’

‘I doubt it,’ laughed Gwen.

‘Told you we should have gone with the RAC.’

‘Look over there.’ Gwen pointed through the shattered windscreen. She was showing him where Gareth had abandoned his Mondeo.

‘I hope that little shit has got third party, because I am gonna sue his arse off.’

‘No,’ said Gwen. ‘I mean it’s sinking.’

The Mondeo’s rear wheels were slowly vanishing below the surface of the ice.

Gwen’s eyes widened. ‘That’s not good.’

Rhys saw that her breath wasn’t clouding in the air any more. Things were warming up, and quickly. The Vectra lurched, and the ice around them crackled and snapped.

They didn’t need to discuss it. Both of them wrenched open their doors, and flung themselves out of the car. Rhys could feel the ice beneath his feet turning to slush. Gwen skidded around the car, tottering a little on her heels. She grabbed his hand, and together they half-ran, half-skated their way over to the embankment.

The ice gave way as Rhys jumped for the edge. The river water was still icy cold, and he sank into it up to his waist. The embankment slanted down into the water, and his trainers slid and scraped on the slimy concrete below the water as he tried to prevent himself vanishing beneath the surface.

Gwen wasn’t so lucky. The heels of her boots punctured the melting ice, and she plunged right into the river. She surfaced, spluttering at the shock and indignity. Her teeth chattered. Rhys perched on the angled concrete edge, reached out to her, and together they managed to escape the river’s freezing embrace.

Only once they had scrambled over the slimy green surface of the concrete and onto the higher, dry area of the embankment did they dare to look back.

The fog had entirely dissipated. The hard white surface of the water had become translucent. In the middle, the riverboat bobbed in the current, now that the river’s icy grip had released it. Close to the vessel, the tail end of Rhys’s beloved Vectra blurped and bubbled as the car sank into the Taff.

Ianto Jones lay on the cold slab of the Torchwood morgue. That much was encouraging, anyway – he hadn’t completely lost feeling.

Owen pulled the portable X-ray away from above him. ‘You still there, Ianto?’

‘Very funny.’ Ianto faked a hearty laugh. ‘Can I get up yet? This thing is bloody freezing. And so were your hands.’

‘What did you expect?’ said Owen. ‘I blame poor circulation.’

‘What?’

‘Mine, not yours.’

Ianto sat up, and dangled his legs over the edge of the slab. He peered down at the tiles, and was aware for the first time that this was going to be trickier than he thought. How far up was he? He couldn’t see how close to the floor his feet were. ‘What’s the diagnosis then?’

Owen had stored away his equipment. ‘I can’t see anything wrong with you.’

‘Ho ho,’ said Ianto.

‘I might get some more from a post-mortem on the other guy.’ Owen indicated the ginger-haired corpse on a stretcher against the wall. The head end was away from Ianto, and he had a gruesome view of a flat cross-section where the visible portion of the dead body suddenly ended, as if it had been guillotined.

‘The corpse is half there, half invisible,’ explained Owen. ‘Should give us some clues.’

‘The hospital is gonna want that gurney back,’ said Jack. ‘Along with the rest of the ambulance.’ Toshiko had pushed Jack’s wheelchair over to the viewing gallery. Ianto saw them both peering down into the well of the medical area. Even though he was invisible, Ianto felt naked and vulnerable in front of them.

Owen tapped at his analysis computer, and the flat-screen panel beside him resolved itself into a series of scans. ‘Hard to do a full physical examination,’ he admitted, and waved his bandaged hand at the display. ‘Easy enough to confirm that vital signs are OK. Nothing unusual with your blood pressure or resps, Ianto. But fluids analysis is a bit tricky, ’cause I can’t see it to test it. Or in the case of blood, I can’t take a sample. So the reference ranges on these charts are meaningless.’

‘We can tell that you’re literally invisible in the optical spectrum,’ noted Toshiko. She walked down the short flight of steps, and pointed at the display. ‘Actually, as far down as ultraviolet at one end and up through thermal infrared at the other. Wavelengths in air between about two hundred and eleven hundred nanometers.’

‘Mind you…’ Owen tapped another control, and the image changed. ‘I was able to take X-rays. You’ve got no broken bones. And the best I can tell from the ultrasound scan is that you have no serious disruption to your internal organs. So while this is an unusually severe and persistent injury, it doesn’t look like it’ll be fatal. In A amp;E, I’d probably send you back to your GP…’ He stifled a laugh. ‘Except he probably wouldn’t be able to see you for ages.’

Ianto’s exasperated groan filled the room. He knew this was Owen’s revenge for all the ‘dead’ jokes Ianto had been using on him.

‘I’m so hungry,’ Ianto’s voice shivered. ‘But maybe I’ll freeze to death first.’

‘Oh yeah. Tosh wants to analyse your invisible clothes,’ agreed Owen. He indicated the empty slab to Jack. ‘He had to take them off anyway, ’cause they were covered in tiger shit.’

‘Wait a minute…’ Jack cocked a saucy eyebrow. ‘Am I hearing this correctly? Ianto is sitting there… naked?’

‘Like, but unlike, one of my recurring nightmares,’ said Ianto’s voice in a plaintive tone.

Jack stared at the ceiling and laughed aloud. ‘Oh, that is such an unfair advantage in naked hide-and-seek…’ He trailed off as he realised Owen and Toshiko were both looking at him. ‘What?’

Owen shook his head sorrowfully. ‘ So don’t want to know,’ he told Jack.

‘It’s a bit… creepy having you walk around the place like that,’ Toshiko said.

‘I kinda like it,’ said Jack.

‘He’s naked.’

‘You say that like it’s a bad thing.’

‘Here’s an idea,’ suggested Owen. ‘I could bandage your head. Like the invisible man. I’m good with bandages. Medical doctor, trained and everything.’

Ianto was unimpressed. ‘I’d prefer a cure.’

‘Not sure there is one,’ Owen confessed. ‘We haven’t even got the device that did this. Your Achenbrite mates must have taken it with them.’

This piqued Jack’s interest, and he leaned on the rail to call down to Toshiko. ‘Any information on Achenbrite yet?’

‘It’s collating now.’

‘OK, patch it through to the Boardroom. We’re about to start.’

Toshiko pointed at his wheelchair. ‘Do you want a push?’ Jack seized the chair’s wide wheels in his strong hands. ‘Give me a head start. See you in five minutes.’

‘See ya,’ grinned Owen.

Ianto sighed so heavily that papers moved on the work surface beside him. ‘Am I going to stay like this?’

Owen cocked his head as though contemplating this calamity. ‘May depend on new cell growth. Difficult to test anything on that dead guy.’

‘I thought that nails and hair grew after death?’

Owen stroked his own clean-shaven chin. ‘Take it from an expert, that’s a myth. Best you can hope for is that your cells renew visibly as they get replaced. We’ll only know that by waiting.’ He was fighting not to smile again. ‘You should keep a record of what you notice. Maybe some regular entries in your diary, Ianto.’ The smile couldn’t be suppressed any longer. ‘You could write it in invisible ink.’