David Llewellyn - Trace Memory

'It was Japan,' said Michael. 'I was in Japan, and the city… Oh my God… The city…' He looked around himself, at the streams of traffic moving up and down the street, at the taxi cabs and buses steering their way around the stationary police car, and then he looked up at the buildings.

'Like this,' he said. 'It was like this. So many cars. But this… I know this street. Is this St Mary Street?'

Gwen nodded.

'Wait…' said the young man, looking at Gwen, 'I know you. You were in that place. Under the ground. I know you… No puzzle too puzzling, you said.' Andy looked at Gwen, who shrugged and shook her head. 'So…' he said, a trace of scepticism in his voice, 'you were in Japan? When exactly was this?'

'Just now,' said Michael. 'Ten seconds ago. Just now.

There was a man, in a bowler hat. He had… Oh, God… He had these teeth, and these eyes… And the girl Keeping one hand on Michael's shoulder, Andy turned to Gwen and whispered, 'We'll need to take him in if he's in this state. Probably Care in the Community. But he's a liability out here, so if you radio back to the station and tell them we're bringing him in, they can get on the blower to a psychiatrist. Saves us faffing about back at the station.'

Gwen nodded sheepishly and dived back into the car.

There was a trick to unlocking the door to their flat, but be damned if she'd managed to work it out yet. Every day, without exception, she'd find herself getting increasingly frustrated, wiggling the key from left to right, and then up and down. Trying not to push the key all the way in. Pulling the door back towards the door frame and pushing it away. Eventually, as was usually the case, Rhys opened the door for her from inside.

'Having trouble?' he asked. 'You know, you'll be buggered if I'm ever away somewhere when you get home.'

'Ha ha, very funny,' said Gwen, sarcastically.

'So…' said Rhys, 'how was your day?'

'Don't,' said Gwen. 'I don't want to talk about it.'

Rhys followed her through to the living room, where Gwen kicked off her shoes and threw her jacket over the back of one of the chairs at the dining table.

'Why not?' he asked.

'Because it was rubbish,' said Gwen, dropping herself down onto the sofa and putting her head in her hands.

'I was rubbish. I was just rubbish.'

'What do you mean, "rubbish"?'

'I mean I was rubbish,' said Gwen. 'I just followed Andy, my new partner Andy, I followed him around like this stupid bloody… toddler or something. Something was wrong. Everything that came up, I just froze. I didn't know what to do. I just stood there. I was useless. I was worse than useless. I was rubbish.

I don't know what was wrong with me…'

Rhys sat down next to her and put one arm around her shoulder. He stroked her hair and then pulled gently on her earlobe.

'You weren't rubbish,' he said. 'You aren't rubbish. You just had an off day.'

'Rhys, how long have I been there now? It shouldn't have been like today. It was like something was nagging at me all day. Like I had something else on my mind, but I can't work out what it was. Maybe I'm not meant to be doing this.'

Rhys looked at her, wide-eyed.

'Oi, now…' he said. 'None of that. You're good at your job. And it's what you've always wanted to do.'

Gwen nodded, tearfully. 'Apart from when I was six,' she said with a crumpled smile. 'When I was six I wanted to be She-Ra.'

Rhys laughed and, leaning forward, he kissed her on the cheek and then the lips. 'I believe in you,' he said, running his hand through her hair and smiling. 'You're so brave, doing what you do. I couldn't do it. I'd never pass the physical, for one thing!' He laughed. 'Did I ever tell you you're my hero?'

'Oh God,' said Gwen, pulling away from him and laughing. 'Bette Midler? Rhys… Are you trying to tell me something?'

Rhys laughed, falling back into the sofa. He looked at her again and smiled.

'I mean it,' he said. 'I'm so bloody proud of you.'

'We've all met him,' said Gwen. 'I knew I'd seen him somewhere before. You see so many faces, and you forget most of them. It wasn't until I heard what Tosh said. It suddenly made sense. We thought he was nuts…'

'So did we,' said Owen. 'Well, who wouldn't?'

'But why us?' asked Gwen. 'Why did he turn up in our pasts? And what about Ianto? And Jack?' She turned to Toshiko. 'The man in the bowler hat?' she said. 'It was real?'

Toshiko shrugged. 'I don't know,' she said. 'I'd forgotten everything until tonight. At first… when I saw Michael… I just thought it was, you know, déjà vu or something. Like I knew his face from somewhere, but I couldn't place it. But then… suddenly I remembered everything. All I know is that it felt real at the time, and if I think about it, I can hear that… that thing's voice, and I can smell its breath. It was just horrible.'

'So something's coming for him,' said Gwen. 'Michael said he'd seen a man in a bowler hat. Tosh, you've seen that too. Something's coming for him.'

'And I've got one other question,' said Owen, gravely. 'How do we even know we can trust him?'

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.