Dan Abnett - Border Princes

‘Are you still there? Here, I mean?’

‘Yes, Gwen.’

‘I really… I really can’t see you. Or Tosh. Or this chapel place you’re going on about. Can you see me?’

‘No. No, I can’t.’

Gwen swallowed hard. ‘Jack, one thing.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Is this a joke? Because if it is, I’ll knee you in the nuts next time I see you.’

‘Fair comment. No, it isn’t a joke. Swear to God, my skits are never this elaborate.’

‘OK, so where the bloody hell are you?’

Dead air for a few seconds, then Jack answered, ‘I have a nasty feeling Tosh and I may — and I do stress “may” — be kind of… in 1840. Strange as that may seem.’

‘1840?’

‘Yup. Kind of.’

‘1840?’

‘While you linger on that, Gwen, may I ask you a question?’

‘Yes, Jack.’

‘Is it getting dark where you are?’

‘No.’

‘Ah, OK. Just here then. Not a good sign.’

‘1840?’

‘As I said, kind of. Still, you have to see the up side.’

‘What up side?’

‘These phones,’ Jack’s voice said. ‘Great coverage.’

Owen walked into the Hub, feeling like shit. It was noon. He had his ‘sorry I’m late’ all ready, but there was no one in sight.

Water lapped down into the basin. The air was damp and fresh. Data scrolled across the flat screens on vacant desks.

‘Hello?’

Something with leathery wings clacked and took off from a perch high in the vault above him. Owen sneered up. ‘Not on my head, not today. I know what you’re like.’

He went over to his work station and hit start-up. The screen blinked as it came on. He started running through his daily log, and launching some software. X-Tension 07, Eye-Spy v. 6.1, Normal Mailer. Maybe there’d even be a message telling him where everyone had gone to.

He had a headache. He was coming to the conclusion that it was going to be his lot in life to have a headache all of the time.

A suspension field ignited in front of him. Data streamed across a Lexan dome.

This wasn’t his work station. This was Toshiko’s. What the hell was he doing here?

How did he know her passwords?

There was something in the blue glow of the suspension field. A containment box, unlocking itself with a clack and a hiss. The magnetic collar ring turned. Had he done that?

‘Owen?’

‘Ianto? Hey, mate? Where were you?’

‘Having a lie down in the Boardroom. I’ve got a murderous headache.’

‘Me too. Where is everyone?’

‘Didn’t you get the call?’

‘I overslept,’ Owen said.

‘In the last hour or so? Didn’t you get my messages?’

‘No.’

‘Owen?’ said Ianto after a pause. No response.

‘Uh, Dr Harper?’

‘Yeah. Mmmh. What?’

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m just…’

‘I don’t think you should.’

Owen looked around at Ianto. His eyes were bloodshot. ‘Is Jack here?’

‘No.’

‘Then I’m in charge. Me. I’ll do what I want and you’ll do as you’re told.’

Ianto smiled. ‘I don’t think it quite works like that.’

‘Does today!’

Ianto stepped closer. ‘Owen. You’re sitting at Tosh’s station. You are systematically disabling the firewalls encasing the subject specimen. I can’t allow you to do that.’

‘Go and make me a nice cup of coffee, would you?’ Owen replied.

‘Don’t make me hurt you.’

‘You wish. Funny. I’m laughing, see? Aha ha ha.’

‘Owen.’

‘Get lost!’

Owen’s fingers were racing across the keyboard. Inhibitor codes were flashing up, and were being cancelled, one by one.

‘Listen,’ Ianto said. ‘Jack told me this thing had to be locked away. Vaulted. In an isoclave.’

Owen kept typing code. ‘Jack doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’

‘Owen-’ Ianto warned. He looked at the screen beside him. He saw the firewalls closing down, one after another.

‘Coffee please,’ Owen said, working furiously. ‘Coffee. Please. Now coffee. Make it a big one. Big big one.’

Owen reached over to press a key. His hand stopped dead. Ianto had grabbed it, holding it back.

‘Coffee!’ Owen cried, and slapped Ianto in the face with his other hand.

Ianto reeled, but recovered. He looked mortified. Without further words, he slugged Owen. Owen fell backwards off his seat onto the deck, dragging Ianto down with him.

Owen shook and went still. Ianto scrambled up. He saw the screens. He saw the last of the firewalls collapse.

Suspended in a cold blue glow, the Amok trembled and rotated.

Ianto punched blindly at various keys. It was too late.

He sank back, gazing at the wobbling light.

‘You’re big,’ he said. ‘Big big big.’

James had used his spare key to open the SUV. He lugged a portable scanner system and some other bits of kit into the empty warehouse space that was not as empty as it looked. He started to unpack the anonymous, brushed-steel flight cases.

Gwen completed a third circuit of the shed. She tried her phone again. Jack had been cut off mid conversation by a squall of interference, and there had been nothing from him since.

She dialled a different number instead. ‘Ianto? It’s Gwen. Why aren’t you picking up? Ianto, it’s urgent. Call me or James as soon as you get this.’

She walked back over to James.

‘Something’s wrong,’ she said.

‘I thought we’d pretty well established that.’

‘No, more wrong than just this. Something’s going on at the Hub.’

‘Ianto still not answering?’

She shook her head.

‘We’re not having much in the way of telephonic success today, are we?’ he observed.

She sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose, her eyes closed. ‘Can’t believe I’ve got that headache again, on top of everything else.’

‘You too?’ James stood up. ‘I’ve had a killer head for about the last five minutes. Came on like a switch.’

‘Just like Thursday’s?’

‘Just like Thursday’s. You don’t suppose there’s another one of those things around, do you?’

Gwen didn’t answer. A breeze hustled litter across the ground. The muted sensation of haunting that had clung around the site earlier had been replaced by a palpable feeling of malice.

‘Can you even begin to explain what’s going on here?’ she asked James.

He was still setting up the system, snap-extending the aluminium legs of the folding stands that the sensors clipped to. There were six altogether, and he was arranging them in a wide ring around the centre of the warehouse. ‘Some kind of Rift phenomenon?’ he suggested. ‘A crack, a fold, an overlap? A spatio-temporal slip? A cleft? Dimensional transcendence? A chronal bifurcation with-’

‘Whoa. You’re just saying long words now, aren’t you?’

‘Yes I am. Actually, I’m trying to reassure you. I thought if one of us sounded like they were in charge…’

‘Oh, I’m in charge,’ said Gwen fiercely. ‘I’m in charge, me, so very in charge. Look at me, being in charge. Come on, boy! Get those scanners set up! Pronto!’

He grinned. ‘Yes, boss. You could help.’

‘I’m in charge,’ she replied. She stared at their surroundings. The sky visible through the incomplete roof was an ugly shade of white, bruised with grey clouds. ‘This place has got a really nasty feeling about it, hasn’t it?’

‘Yup. Getting nastier by the minute. Oppressive. Very much like my headache.’

‘What do you really think is going on? And skip all that bifurcatory hooey this time.’

James fitted the last sensor in place on top of its tripod. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I have a hunch Jack and Tosh have stepped on an insanely malignant cold-spot and been drawn away from us against their will by the unliving appetite of some spectral entity.’