Dan Abnett - Border Princes

He left the flat and set off on foot, intending to pick up some bits and pieces at the upmarket deli and grocers he liked to use. It was a good walk — he usually drove — but the sun was coming out, he was in no rush, and he felt he needed the exercise and the air.

His head was a little muddy. He’d lolled around in bed far too long, and polishing off a whole bottle the night before had been a mistake, nothing paracetamol wouldn’t cure.

Jack, Ianto and Owen were arranged in a little, conspiratorial huddle in the work station area of the Hub when Toshiko arrived. They all looked at her and nodded hello. Owen looked especially sour. He yawned.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked, taking off her coat.

‘Sorry to drag you in, Tosh,’ said Jack, not sounding sorry at all. ‘A little situation has come up.’

‘Situation?’ she asked.

‘A confluence of events,’ said Jack. ‘Pull up a chair. I’ve already run through this with Owen and Ianto.’

‘Where are Gwen and James?’ Toshiko asked, sitting down.

‘I haven’t called them,’ said Jack. ‘Not yet. You’ll see why.’

Toshiko glanced at Owen. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

‘Just listen to Jack,’ said Owen, darkly.

‘OK,’ said Jack. He held up the black tile. ‘This has been doing weird things all night. The pattern’s changed a couple of times. You got to figure that we’re on some kind of countdown now.’

‘But still nothing on any of our systems?’ asked Toshiko.

‘Nothing at all.’

‘Nothing we can see,’ said Owen, pointedly. Toshiko didn’t fully understand the reference.

Jack put the tile down. ‘I was kicking my heels here, trying to come up with something and failing miserably. I got hung up on the idea that maybe one of the events that’s occurred recently, maybe in the last week or two, might hold a clue. After all, there’s been plenty of wild stuff going down. I went through everything I could think of, every angle, every loose end.’

‘And?’ asked Toshiko.

‘I found this,’ said Jack.

‘We don’t know that it’s connected to your doohickey in any way,’ Owen objected.

‘True, we don’t,’ Jack replied, tapping some keys on the nearby work station, and angling the flat screen so that Toshiko could see it, ‘but even if it’s not, this is a doozy. It’ll roll your socks right up and down.’ He looked at Toshiko. ‘Figuratively.’

Fuzzy black and white footage appeared on the screen, jerking frame by frame. Jack skipped through the time code with a blurting whizz or two of the picture.

‘What am I seeing?’

‘A little data-capture I carried out last night. This is the mini-mart in Pontcanna on Thursday. Security-cam footage taken at the time James and I cornered your con man.’

Toshiko leaned forward. ‘What exactly am I looking at?’

‘You’re looking out across the checkout lanes towards the store front,’ said Jack, freezing frame and pointing, ‘from above and to the right of the lanes. These are just shoppers here, OK. Checkout girl, checkout girl, checkout girl… OK. Let’s punch it.’

The footage began to play in real time. There was no sound.

‘There’s our guy. He’s trying to get out. The tubby guy there with the shopping cart has blocked the lane. And there’s James. He’s running up, he’s spotted the guy. The guy sees him. Decides to use the tubby guy’s cart as a weapon and… bingo.’

‘Whoa!’ said Toshiko. ‘Run that back. Did I see that right?’

Jack stepped the footage back and replayed. ‘Our guy rams with the cart and… pow!’

‘That’s not possible,’ said Toshiko.

‘And yet,’ said Jack.

‘How?’ she asked, looking up from the frozen screen image at Jack.

‘I’ve always envied Captain Analogy’s upper body strength,’ Jack said.

‘Stop making fun,’ said Toshiko.

‘Maybe the trolley wasn’t as heavily loaded as it looks on the footage,’ said Owen, ‘just empty boxes.’

Jack shook his head. ‘Nobody, and I mean nobody, slings a shopping cart the entire length of a store, not even an empty one, and especially not by gripping it at the top. You could shove it a fair way, tip it over, sure, and if you got under it, you could probably lift it and toss it a few yards, but not what we just saw.’

‘PCP, something like that,’ said Toshiko.

Owen shook his head. ‘He was clean as a whistle on the labs, and don’t you think we’d have noticed if our mate was off his chuff on hard drugs? So off his chuff, I’m saying, that he’s experiencing freakazoid physiological effects?’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Toshiko.

‘Don’t say anything,’ said Jack. ‘I got something else to show you.’

The snack trolley made its way down the aisle.

Gwen sat up and looked for some change. The rocking of the train was making her sleepy, and there was still more than half the journey to go. As she reached over, one of the magazines slipped off her lap.

She bent over to pick it up. She wanted to take it with her. There was a whole feature on Glenn Robbins and her career after Eternity Base that James would want to read. She folded the magazine open on the right page to remind herself.

The trolley was taking ages to arrive. It was having trouble negotiating its way past the students’ backpacks. They were getting up to move them, apologising.

Come on, I need bad train coffee , Gwen thought.

She noticed the small boy with his mother again and smiled. He was playing with a bright, plastic Andy Pinkus toy.

She thought about James. That put a bigger smile on her face. It was kind of sweet. She’d only been away a few hours, and she missed him, really missed him.

On cue, the MP3 offered up another track by Torn Curtain.

‘Coffee, tea, madam?’ the snack girl asked.

‘Sir?’

James realised he was being spoken to. He frowned. On the other side of the seafood chiller counter, the assistant was holding a taped-up plastic bag towards him.

‘Your fish, sir.’

‘What?’

‘I’m sorry, do you want this, sir?’

‘Yeah, thanks.’ He took the heavy little pack and put it in his basket. Where had his mind been? What had he been thinking about? He’d just completely zoned out in the middle of the shop.

He thought the walk might have helped his head, but it was worse. He had a pain behind his eyes, and his ears felt as if they were slightly blocked up. Everything had a boxy, hollow sound to it.

He wandered on through the shop, ignoring the expensive, pre-packed dinners with their enticing photos. Veg, that’s what he needed.

Why was that man looking at him?

Oh, he wasn’t.

He’d seemed familiar though. Where had he seen him before?

James drifted into the fruit and veg section. What did he need? He couldn’t remember what he was intending to cook. He had to turn the package over in his basket to read the label.

Sea bass. Right, sea bass. He needed tarragon, shallots, garlic, some new potatoes, some mangetout.

He pulled a plastic bag off the roll, and went over to the trays of garlic bulbs to select a couple. They looked good. The skins were the colour of vellum. They were some special quality strain of garlic, according to the label.

Someone reached in past him into the tray to pick up some garlic. James looked down at the invading hand. That was just rude. People could wait just a moment, couldn’t they?

There was no one beside him. The hand was his hand. He stared down at it. It didn’t look right at all. He didn’t recognise it.

James shook himself. He closed his eyes and opened them again. The hand was still there. It didn’t look like his, but it was. The fingers wiggled. It made a fist. He could feel its attachment to him.