David Llewellyn - Trace Memory

'Is this thing safe?' asked Michael.

'Oh yeah,' said Jack, laconically. 'We'd never be allowed to have one of these things if it didn't stand up to all the… you know… rigorous… er…'

The platform began to rise up above the Hub.

'Rigorous what?' asked Michael.

'Oh, you know,' said Jack. 'Health and safety stuff.'

Michael stood a little closer to Jack and a little further from the edge of the platform as they passed up through the ceiling of the Hub and, seconds later, found themselves standing in front of the Millennium Centre.

'Where are we?' Michael asked.

'Michael Bellini…' said Jack. 'Welcome to Cardiff.'

Michael looked up at the colossal steel dome of the concert hall. Walking around the base of the water tower, he saw the stream of streetlights leading off to a vanishing point on Lloyd George Avenue, and then the piazza of restaurants on the other side of the square. When he'd come full circle, he saw the lights of the barrage reflected on the sea, and then the floodlit façade of the Pierhead Building.

'I'm home,' he said, laughing to himself. 'It's Tiger Bay, isn't it?'

Jack nodded.

'That's right,' he said. 'You're home. Let me show you around.'

Ianto didn't look himself. Gwen had never seen him look this way before. His stoicism, his trademark Ianto Jones imperviousness, had faded somehow.

She rapped her knuckles on the door of Jack's office, and Ianto looked up.

'Penny for your thoughts,' asked Gwen.

'Cheapskate,' said Ianto. 'Never heard of inflation? Thoughts are a bit pricier than that these days.'

'OK,' said Gwen. 'A pint down the local tomorrow for your thoughts?'

Ianto smiled. 'That's more like it.'

'So…?' said Gwen. 'What's on your mind?'

'It's nothing,' said Ianto. 'Just tonight.'

Gwen understood. For a quiet Sunday night, and compared to some Sundays it had been quiet, the last few hours had been an emotional experience, though not necessarily an unhappy one for her. She'd forgotten all about the argument in the sofa shop, and was now thinking of home, and Rhys.

'Did Jack tell you anything?' Gwen asked. 'I mean about Michael?'

Ianto nodded. 'Just when you think you know him…'

'I know. Tell me about it.'

Gwen smiled, but she couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy that Jack had opened up to Ianto and not her. Hadn't there been a time, not so long ago, when they would have shared such things? Weren't they still close?

Jack's time away had put a strain on the whole team, it had changed things, there was no doubting that, and tonight had brought a peculiar focus to this. Jack was like a box full of secrets sometimes, and every time a new box was opened it seemed to contain another box, like ever diminishing Russian dolls.

Owen hadn't spoken for a while. It was unlikely the others would bother him while he was down here, which gave him time to think clearly, without distraction. He thought about the friends he had made at the hospital; people he very rarely saw these days. He'd been convinced, in his youth, that he'd know those people, the other trainee doctors, his colleagues, for the rest of his life. He'd see them every now and then, of course — it was hard not to in a city the size of Cardiff-but they had little to talk about. He'd tell them he was working on a research project, but keep it intentionally vague.

If he told them what he did, day-in day-out, he imagined they'd probably think him insane, but even if they did believe him, he thought they'd probably pity him. They'd never quite be able to understand the part of him that loved this, that thrived on it. They'd never understand his reasons or his rationale, and they certainly wouldn't understand why he pitied them.

He was about to leave the holding cells when the lights flickered once, then twice in quick succession, and Janet, staring up at the ceiling, let out a long, mournful howl. He'd seen the Weevil act this way before, of course, but this time it was different. Something was very wrong.

Toshiko crossed the Hub with a cold can of Coke, pressing the can gently against her eyes. It was something she did when she was tired and her eyes were beginning to feel puffy. She doubted whether it had any particular scientific benefit, but it always seemed to wake her up.

She'd looked up Clarke's Third Law on the internet, after Jack had gone to the Boardroom, hoping it would give her some kind of answer to the mystery of the Orb, but it didn't. Clarke's Third Law was the kind of thing only a sci-fi nut would know. A sci-fi nut, or Jack Harkness.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

She laughed when she read that, and went back, still laughing, to the Orb. How could something so small, so seemingly insignificant, contain so much power? Even with her scientific, investigative mind, it still puzzled her. How had all that energy got in there? How and why did it get out?

It was too late for her to be asking these questions. She knew that. No matter how many times she dabbed her eyes with the ice-cold surface of the can, she needed to sleep. Sleep was often a luxury at Torchwood. She'd lost count of how many times a night of slumber had been interrupted with a phone call and word of some imminent catastrophe in another part of town. Toshiko had begun to think of holidays as quaint things other people had.

She was about to shut down her computer and pack up for the night when she felt an icy chill on the back of her neck and heard an all too familiar voice say her name.

'Toshiko…' the voice rasped. 'I smell something sweet.'

'I just can't believe it,' said Michael, running down towards the water's edge. 'That — over there — that would have been the place where all the bananas used to come in. They used to come in from Brazil in those days. And over there…' He laughed. 'Over there was this place, you know, where the sailors would go when they were on shore leave for a bit of how's your father…'

Jack could hardly keep up with him, but for a moment it was as if all his memories of that night, over forty years ago, had faded, like a bad dream. Michael looked almost happy.

'But where are the docks now?' Michael asked. 'I mean, if this is all fancy bars and restaurants, and that bloody great big opera house, where's the docks?'

'They're gone,' said Jack. 'They went a long time ago.'

Michael's ebullience waned and he stopped running.

'Really?' he said. 'Everything's gone?'

'Things change. The world changes. People change.'

Michael nodded pensively, and then walked slowly along the waterfront, gazing out over the sea.

'That's where I worked,' he said, pointing out across the water at a distant headland. 'That's where we all worked.'

He leaned against the black railings and smiled wistfully at the lights on the water. He'd thought, for a moment, that he was home, but he knew deep down that home was very far away.

Owen raced up the steps and into the Hub only for something to hit him full force in the chest, flinging him back against the wall. As he gathered his senses and looked up, he saw them for the first time.

The Vondrax.

One of them held Toshiko in the air by her throat, while two more were methodically stalking around the Hub, tilting their heads in a curious, almost childlike fashion, as they examined each workstation. One of them came to the Orb, and picked it up as if it weighed next to nothing.

Owen's gun was in its holster, but that holster was slung over a railing in the Autopsy Room. He cursed himself for leaving it there but, as he tried to stand, that same invisible force struck him once again, pinning him down. One of the investigating Vondrax turned to him, lips curled back, its rows of metallic, pointed teeth gnashing together, and it smiled. The thing actually smiled at him.