Peter Anghelides - Pack Animals

‘Yes,’ admitted Toshiko, sounding a bit disappointed to have her analysis so comprehensively summarised. ‘I’ve done a deep-dive analysis of the available data. Looked for a possible further link. And I think I found one. Remember this?’ She indicated the alien tech on the table. ‘It was unearthed in the archaeological dig around the motte at Twmpath.’

The device lay on its soft velvet cover. The closer Gwen looked at it, the more the velvet appeared iridescent under the Boardroom lights. Like the lining of a coat her mum used to have. Toshiko cupped the device in her hands and closed her eyes.

‘The usual question, then,’ Owen said. ‘What is that?’

Toshiko raised her hands, like a votive offering. ‘It’s a kind of catalogue.’ The image on the wall-hanging flat-screen smoothly transitioned into a matrix of alien glyphs and images.

‘Monster hotline?’ sniggered Owen.

‘Two large Weevils, please. Make one of them extra spiky,’ Ianto suggested.

The image flickered. ‘Be nice to me,’ said Toshiko quietly. ‘It’s controlled by strong emotions.’

‘Er… find your happy place, Tosh,’ suggested Jack quietly. ‘Put them on the screen, and not on the table.’

Toshiko concentrated. The illustrations on the flat-screen whirled and rearranged themselves. ‘Recognise these?’

‘Hey, the gang’s all here,’ said Jack. ‘Kiroptan, Mahalta, Weevil… ooh, Hoix and Vondrax too, I see. All our boys, and some others to make up numbers.’

The image flickered back to the original display when Toshiko opened her eyes. She lowered the device to the desk. ‘Twmpath Castle is on the northern edge of Rhiwbina. Isn’t that where you said Gareth Portland lived?’

Gwen nodded. ‘Maybe Gareth has a device just like that. Used it as the basis for these cards he’s been creating?’

‘Interesting,’ said Ianto. He’d been shuffling the scattered MonstaQuest pack around on the table. Now the cards were sorted into neat piles. Typical Ianto, thought Gwen. ‘There are more Weevils in this pack than all the other creatures put together.’

Gwen had a thought: ‘Like pawns in chess?’

‘There are thousands of other creatures listed in this catalogue.’ Toshiko held up the squarish device, and its curved edges caught the light in the Boardroom. ‘A whole menagerie. We could barely cope if just one of each kind came through.’

‘An alien zoo,’ said Ianto.

‘With the gates wide open,’ snapped Jack. ‘The predators are escaping. And in Gareth’s hands, they’ve got a season ticket to Cardiff.’

Owen sounded less convinced. ‘C’mon! This is just one guy toying with us, isn’t it? We find him, give him a smack, and confiscate it. He’s stumbled on this bit of tech, found he got more than he bargained for.’

‘Could that explain all these?’ Toshiko had stood up to point at the flat-screen. It showed her original analysis of unexplained deaths across South Wales. ‘The device may bring the creatures through the Rift. But each set of MonstaQuest cards is like a tarot pack. They focus the mind of anyone near a Rift fault line who is enthusiastic, creative, or highly emotional.’

Gwen recalled the games shop owner, and how he’d unwittingly conjured up a fire creature. ‘And when it appears?’

‘The victims reinforce it,’ said Toshiko. ‘Their surprise or horror makes the manifestation corporeal. And deadly.’

‘Like those people on the bus,’ recalled Owen. He looked more worried now.

‘It can’t be just one guy.’ Jack stared at each of them in turn.

Gwen recognised it as the way he commanded their attention, got their respect. Through the urgency of his words and the fierce passion in his eyes when he looked at you, looked into you. Or, in Ianto’s case at the moment, through you. Gwen saw Jack’s gaze falter as it reached the empty suit. Was that confusion or tenderness? Maybe a bit of both.

‘Achenbrite are involved in this, too. They must be. Their operatives disrupted our comms at the mall and during the bus attack. They were on the scene at both the mall and the zoo. And it was their device that injured Ianto.’ He pushed his wheelchair back from the desk. ‘We reconvene here in half an hour. Gimme information, and gimme options.’

Jack was on crutches when they got back to the Boardroom. The metal sticks were propped against his chair. He had his damaged foot up on the desk, and was perusing it with the curiosity of a kid examining a scabby knee. Gwen winced when she saw the savage scoring in the skin of his lower leg. His foot still seemed to be attached only by chunks of raw flesh, like hammered steak.

He lifted the leg back below the desk. ‘Sorry.’

‘You must get used to it.’

‘Never do,’ he said. He tested his forehead with an exploratory finger, and checked his reflection in the shiny surface of the desk.

Jack settled himself into his seat between Owen and Toshiko. On the opposite side of the desk, Ianto’s suit made itself comfortable in the chair next to Gwen. The suit had brought a plate of freshly made sandwiches on wholemeal bread. ‘My special tuna mix,’ he murmured to Gwen.

Across the table, Jack was ready for the meeting to start. ‘All right. Tell me about Achenbrite.’

Toshiko sat up a little straighter in her chair, if that were possible. ‘Achenbrite is a shell company that sprang into new life over the past year. Someone’s done a good job erasing records and back-ups from Companies House. I did manage to pull a few details through a back door in the Compliance Unit in Natgarw, because one of the investing companies received a late-filing penalty. Parker Plastics, registered in Plas Hendre, and owned by the late Henry John Parker. Better known to us when he was alive as an enthusiastic collector of alien ephemera.’

‘That’s telling,’ mused Jack. ‘And now?’

‘No evidence of it manufacturing anything, nor providing services. Not enough history for tracing payroll through HMRC – no VAT, nor NI, no Income or Corporation Tax. They don’t even appear in Yellow Pages.’

Jack clutched his face in mock horror.

Toshiko tapped up the details on the flat-screen. A warehouse complex rotated on the display, a three-dimensional rendering in blue wireframe. Key areas were labelled or highlighted with brighter spots in the image. A translation key filled the lower left of the screen.

‘The Achenbrite facility is a single-storey unit,’ Toshiko explained. ‘Built on a place where there was significant Rift activity in previous years.’

Ianto snorted. ‘Where isn’t, these days?’ The suit of his sleeve was reaching out to the plate of sandwiches, but Toshiko slapped his hand away.

‘Difference is, now there is nothing.’

‘That’s not very likely.’ Jack frowned at the display as though this would disprove it. ‘There’s always some Rift trace around anything in Cardiff.’

‘Like background radiation,’ agreed Toshiko. ‘You could understand it might quiesce…’

‘Quiesce?’ interrupted Jack. ‘Is that even a word, Tosh?’

‘All right, fade away to nothing. Vanish. The complete absence of it makes the factory stick out like a sore thumb. Usually I look for evidence of raised energy levels, not gaps in the field.’ Toshiko flipped the display to an aerial shot of the Achenbrite offices. Three intersecting circles displayed over the top of it, like a Venn diagram. ‘Too regular to be accidental. They’re concealing themselves from detection.’

‘Too perfectly,’ noted Jack. ‘What else?’

‘All the other conventional evidence suggests that it’s empty. It has no apparent power requirements because it’s not connected to the National Grid, and yet you see that there are lights on. So someone’s home. I hacked the Royal Mail, and there’s nothing there either. What kind of business has no post in or out?’