Dan Abnett - Border Princes

‘What…’ Gwen began. ‘What did you see?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Toshiko said.

‘Me neither. Ever,’ said Jack. ‘I’m with Tosh on that. We saw something, something I quite cheerfully shot at. Let’s leave it at that. Gwen got us out before it fed on us. We’re alive. That’s all that matters.’

Silence.

‘So, are we done?’ asked Owen.

‘There’s one last thing,’ said Jack. He took the small, black tile out of his pocket and put it down on the table-top where they could all see it.

‘What’s that?’ asked Owen. ‘Also, why’s it flashing?’

‘This,’ said Jack, ‘is one of my secrets. After what’s happened today, I want to share that secret with you. I believe it’s only fair.’

‘Need to know?’ Gwen asked.

Jack nodded. ‘Exactly that. Today has shown me I’m not omniscient.’

‘I could have told you that,’ muttered Owen. ‘And if I’d had to, that would have proved the point, kind of, wouldn’t it?’

Jack refused to be baited. ‘I know stuff, sometimes, and I keep it from you guys. It occurs to me I’d damn well better share, because there may come a time when one of you knows better than me. That time comes, like it nearly came today, you’d better be ready and know everything. Be ready to act, in case I can’t.’

‘So what is it?’ asked James.

‘Well,’ said Jack. ‘This is… frankly, I don’t know what it is. I understand it to be an early warning, an alarm.’

‘Where did it come from?’ asked Toshiko, between shivers.

‘No idea,’ said Jack. ‘It’s been in the Institute’s keeping since Victoria founded Torchwood. The notes say it pre-dates that foundation. This… thing has been handed down for eight or nine generations by families and antiquarians in the Cardiff area. It was entrusted to Torchwood for safekeeping in 1899 by a Colonel Cosley, a local landowner.’

‘As in Cosley Hall?’ asked James.

‘Yeah, that’s the one,’ said Jack. ‘Story goes it was given to mankind to bear warning of a terrible threat. A war, perhaps. It would sound the alarm if that threat ever came close.’

‘Pardon me,’ said James. ‘“Given to mankind”? Doesn’t that rather suggest…?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Jack softly. ‘It really does.’

‘Why are you sharing this with us now?’ asked Gwen.

‘Because for the 108 years it’s been in Torchwood’s possession, and for all the time it’s been in human hands prior to that, it’s been inert. For the last six weeks, it’s been flashing like that.’

‘Meaning?’ asked Owen.

Jack shrugged. ‘Meaning something’s coming. Or something’s already here.’

Jack watched the sun rise from the roof of the St David’s Hotel. Wednesday. Let it be a quiet day. A business-as-usual day, where everything turned out to be a false alarm. They deserved that.

The Cardiff skyline gleamed and shone in the first rake of daylight, like some heavenly city, like one of Blake’s visions of Jerusalem. A beautiful city. A beautiful day. Let it be a beautiful day.

‘This is nice.’

‘I thought so,’ said Jack.

‘Very nice. A very nice start to the day.’ Toshiko smiled at him. ‘Can we do this every day?’

‘Probably not. I thought I’d save it up for mornings where I had to check up on my friends.’

Sunlight streamed in through the café’s wall of glass. Coffee and brioche had been delivered to their table.

‘So, getting that part out of the way, are you OK?’ asked Jack.

Toshiko nodded. ‘Amazingly. I didn’t think I would be. I was a wreck last night, exhausted and everything. I really didn’t think I’d be right for days or weeks.’

‘But you’re OK?’

‘Well, you being nice to me like this helps, but yes. Really. Clear-headed. Calm. I slept well. I don’t think we realised how much that thing was in our heads until it went away.’

Jack asked a passing waitress for some water.

‘How about you?’ asked Toshiko.

‘Famously robust,’ Jack replied. ‘Full of rude health.’

Toshiko buttered a slice of brioche. ‘Do me a favour?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Don’t start apologising. It’s not like you and it freaks me out. What happened yesterday happened. I’m fine. Just get to being flippant and cocksure and slightly devil-may-care. OK?’

‘Sure. OK.’

‘That’s the Jack I know.’

‘OK. This breakfast is on you, by the way.’

She grinned. ‘Better. You’re getting it.’

‘There was this thing I was going to ask you, though,’ said Jack. ‘Just one thing and then I dump the sentiment completely, I promise.’

‘Go on?’

‘How long do you think I can keep people for?’

‘Keep people?’

‘In Torchwood. All sorts of things might whittle down the ranks, but I never considered attrition.’

‘That you’d wear us out?’

Jack steepled his fingers in front of his face. ‘That the work would wear us out. All of us, Tosh. Time was, not long ago, we’d handle a case every week, or every two, not counting false alarms. Then it was two or three a week. Now look at us. Look at this week alone. I’m trying to keep the team on track, and I’m thinking, “Wow, we’re understaffed.” I’m also thinking, “For God’s sake, we’re going to burn out.” It’s twenty-four seven, and it seems to be getting worse, not better.’

‘We’ll just have to take it as it comes,’ Toshiko said.

‘I never thought,’ Jack said, waving a butter knife at her, ‘that people would quit or, I don’t know, die on me due to pressure. Nervous collapse. Mindmulch.’

Toshiko sipped her coffee. ‘If you’d asked me this yesterday, I’d have shared your worries, because yesterday was horrible. But today isn’t, and it’s not going to be.’

‘You sure about that?’

‘I’m a scientist. I have graphs, with arrows on them.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘The law of averages owes us a quiet few days. A few Bartoks.’

Jack nodded. Then he half-frowned. ‘Why do we call them that?’ he asked.

He examined his bruised ribs in the bathroom mirror and flexed his arm. Not so bad.

Gwen called out something from the other room, but he couldn’t hear her over Torn Curtain playing on the stereo.

‘What?’ he called back, rinsing his razor under the tap before rubbing shaving balm into his cheeks.

She wandered into the bathroom behind him, and dropped a bundle of clothes into the laundry basket. She was pretty much already dressed for work.

‘I said, where did we put the sleeve of the Andy DVDs? And also, aren’t you ready yet? We’re going to be late.’

‘I’m there,’ he said.

‘You all right?’

James smiled. ‘Weird dreams last night.’

‘About what?’

‘Haven’t a clue. I just remember them being weird.’ He really couldn’t remember them. They were a solid aftertaste in his mind, but try as he might, he couldn’t actually bring back their content. ‘You’re very perky,’ he remarked.

‘I feel great.’ She went out again. Then she called out from the other room.

‘What? If you turn the music down, I can hear you.’

Torn Curtain dropped away a couple of dozen decibels.

‘I said Andy. The box for the Andy disks.’

‘It was there on Saturday.’

‘I know. It’s not here now.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Nothing. Acting out of guilt.’

He was about to ask her what she meant by that when his nose tickled. He dabbed it. A tiny nosebleed, from the same nostril that had bled the previous day. James got some loo roll and blotted it. Just a tiny trickle. He peered at his face in the mirror, rotating his jaw and opening his eyes wide.