Gary Russell - The Twilight Streets

Twenty minutes later, Ianto had told them all he knew. The four of them were down in the Boardroom, staring at the big screen, and Toshiko was giving one of her lectures.

‘As Ianto realised, Tretarri has been the focus of a lot of weird and wonderful happenings. Mysterious fires. People trying to live there but unable to stay for reasons they couldn’t explain. Even animals go a bit doo-lally if they enter the area.’

‘“Doo-lally”?’ asked Owen munching on chilling pizza. ‘Not another new technical term?’

‘I quite like “Doo-lally”,’ said Ianto, which got a smile from Toshiko.

‘Oh well, if suit-boy likes it, we’ll adopt it as Torchwood’s new motto. “Everything’s a bit Doo-lally”.’

‘People,’ admonished Gwen. ‘Back on the subject at hand, yeah?’

Owen smiled at Toshiko. ‘Sorry, Tosh. I gather we’re back in the sixth form.’

Toshiko then outlined the current plans the Council had to refurbish Tretarri. ‘This will result in two things, at a guess. I stress “guess” – we don’t actually know.’

‘We don’t actually know why we’re doing this in the first place,’ Owen said. ‘I mean, it’s not as if we even know this is Rift-related.’

‘It’s Jack-related,’ Ianto said quietly.

There was a pause, then Owen looked at Toshiko. ‘Guess Number One, nothing happens and a crappy bit of Cardiff gets a facelift. Guess Number Two, all hell breaks loose as contractors etc go doo-lally as they try and work there. Right?’

‘Spot on.’ Toshiko smiled.

Gwen looked at the guys. ‘Ianto, can you research a bit more, find out about this Gideon Tarry person, see if there’s anything in his past we need to be aware of.’

‘Like he’s a Rift Alien in disguise?’

‘That kind of thing. Owen? I want you to plough through the medical records of people connected with Tretarri with me, find out if there’s anything we can extrapolate today that they couldn’t ten, twenty or fifty years ago, yeah?’

‘Yes ma’am.’ Owen gave a mock salute. ‘I’m also keen to work out what it is that knocks Jack for six, but no one else.’

‘Good. Tosh? Can you take your portable Rift Detector Thingy-’

‘More technobabble,’ laughed Owen. ‘Love it.’

Gwen silenced him with a look. ‘As I was saying before something annoying buzzed in my ear, can you see if you can get into Tretarri and locate anything Rifty?’

‘I walked in easily enough,’ Ianto stated. ‘But not for long enough to notice anything. Although…’

‘Yes?’

‘Nothing I can put my finger on. But Jack… I think Jack saw something when I went in. But he never said what.’

Owen shrugged. ‘Is the plan to get this wrapped up before Jack comes back?’

Gwen nodded. ‘So, Ianto?’

‘Few days left I reckon, if I understand the files. It seems to take him never less than four days in total to recover.’

‘Hey kids,’ said a voice behind them. ‘What’s going on?’

The others looked at Jack framed in the doorway, grinning and clearly full of fitness and health. And, as one, they turned and stared at Ianto. They were not pleased.

An hour later, they were still in the Boardroom, with the addition of coffees all around.

‘I have noticed,’ Owen said quietly, ‘that when it’s just us, no coffee.’

‘Jack arrives,’ agreed Toshiko, ‘and oh, look, the coffee gets made.’

‘Delivered,’ Gwen added, ‘by hand.’

Ianto just shrugged. ‘I like Jack. The rest of you? I can take you or leave you.’

And he grinned wolfishly at them.

Toshiko suddenly remembered the teasing a couple of days before. She looked at her coffee in alarm. ‘Ianto, you didn’t…?’

‘Didn’t what?’

‘Nothing.’

Ianto smiled inwardly. Gotcha. Paranoid about coffee.

With Jack now at the head of the table, Gwen brought him up to speed.

‘Really guys,’ he said, ‘you don’t have to do this.’ He placed his PDA on the table and slid it over to Toshiko. ‘Although, by all means sift through this. It’s what I recorded at the site.’

Toshiko scooped the PDA up. ‘Jack, I think we all want to sort this. Not just for you but we’re all scared Ianto will poison us if we don’t.’

‘Slowly,’ added Owen.

‘In the coffee,’ Gwen clarified at Jack’s quizzical frown. ‘Teamwork,’ she finished.

Jack shot a look to Ianto, who just smiled back, stretched his arms, then rested his head on his hands.

‘OK,’ said Jack. ‘Sometimes the humour still passes me by.’

‘Who’s joking?’ muttered Ianto. He smiled around the table, then stood up and started clearing the coffee mugs away. ‘Collecting evidence,’ he whispered to Owen as he passed behind him.

Jack looked at Gwen. ‘I want Owen to run tests on me, get to the bottom of my problem. Then Tosh should go look at the site and-’

Gwen held up a hand. ‘Got it covered, Jack. All sorted. Teams briefed and ready to go.’

Owen and Toshiko wandered out. Ianto made to follow them, but hung back just long enough to hear Jack and Gwen.

‘You enjoy taking charge, don’t you?’ said Jack, not unkindly.

Gwen just said what they all thought. ‘You left us once Jack. God knows you could do it again. Now this – someone has to be ready to step up and get the job done when you’re somewhere else. Still your team, Jack, but never underestimate us. Let the bad guys do that.’

As she left the room, Jack looked at Ianto. ‘I never underestimate anyone on this team. Do they really think that I do?’

Ianto gave a shrug. He hated this conversation. Permutations of it had arisen a few times recently. ‘Couldn’t say, Jack,’ he just said. ‘But I don’t think it’s a reflection on you, just something you’ve instilled in them. Not a bad thing.’

Jack stared at him a moment longer. ‘Been a long time since I wasn’t the last voice on things around here. Takes some getting used to.’

Ianto slammed the tray of coffee cups down, making Jack jump.

‘Damn it, Jack – it’s not like that. They’d follow you into fire if you told them to. But you’re not the most predictable man in the world. If they are going to die for you, for Torchwood, give them enough credit to make their own decisions about where, when and why they’re doing it.’

Ianto took a deep breath, picked the tray up again and looked Jack straight in the eye. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so.’

Toshiko stood at the corner of Bute Terrace, her PDA discreetly hidden under a newspaper she had bought.

She had no idea what the paper was, or what any of the headlines were. Whatever the news was today, she had most likely heard about it ten hours previously, as the Torchwood computers sifted every line of communication across the globe, flagging up anything interesting. Exactly who decided what was interesting, Toshiko had never quite understood – although she and Jack had modified the Hub’s computer systems together over the years, neither of them was entirely sure where it had come from in the first place, whether it was set up in Cardiff or had been something imported from London or somewhere else. Jack remembered, he told her, that one day when he’d visited the place it wasn’t there, the next it was. But this was at a point when he wasn’t regularly working for the Institute, so it could’ve been added at any time between those points. As systems went, it was probably the best in the world.

Jack had told her once that UNIT had enquired if they could borrow her to upgrade their systems, but he’d fobbed them off. She knew that Jack Harkness wanted Toshiko Sato’s expertise for himself. And she was more than content with that. She and UNIT weren’t exactly… mates.