Peter Anghelides - Another Life

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘Just now?’ she asked. ‘Or back in Balham.’

He didn’t reply.

‘I heard you rummaging about in the bathroom cabinet,’ she said. ‘Maybe you are like the police, after all.’

Owen walked over to the dining table, aware that he didn’t want to crowd her. ‘This isn’t an investigation, Megan. And before you say it again, it’s not just an attempt to get a shag for old times’ sake.’

‘Not just an attempt..?’ she asked.

‘Be serious. I do want you to join us in Torchwood.’ Her face was blank now, or wary at best. Owen tapped the computer screen with his finger. ‘I recognised you in Second Reality after you used a few familiar phrases. You know, “safe of taxis”, that kind of stuff. But even before that, I recognised something else. You just loved all those confrontations and crazy monsters and weird shit. Be honest, it’s a hell of a lot more fun than A amp;E.’

He watched her reaction now. Moved across to the sofa and sat down beside her again. ‘So imagine, Megan, having that excitement for real . Every day with Torchwood. That’s what I did. That’s what I do. Jack brought me in from my former life as an SHO. Rescued me.’ He held out his hands in an open gesture. ‘This is the real me.’

Megan stared right into his eyes, like she’d made a decision. ‘Come on! I’m sitting here not sure whether to throw you out or call you a psychiatrist. What happened to you, Owen?’

‘So why aren’t you throwing me out then,’ he insisted, ‘right now? Or why aren’t you making some excuse about how you’ve got another date to go to tonight, or you’re due back on shift, or you have to feed the neighbour’s cat…?’

‘My shift does start soon. About an hour and a half…’

Owen leaned closer to her. ‘And here I am. Still. Why? What are you thinking? What suddenly started to make sense?’

Megan pulled her hand away from him, uncertain. The window panes across the room rattled in the violence of the storm outside. ‘Listen to that racket,’ she said. ‘Before you got here, they were saying on Wales Today that this is the worst flooding Cardiff’s ever had. Since records began. But Ramsay, one of the other SHOs at the Royal, he comes in from near Bargoed. And they’ve had nothing up there. River’s running a bit higher near him, that’s all. Driving in, he said, it was like hitting a wall of water. How can that be?’

Owen said nothing. Urged her on with his eyes.

‘That thing you said when you arrived,’ she continued. ‘The vampire thing. I thought you were joking. But you were serious, weren’t you? I mean, really serious.’

He smiled, nodded at her.

She stared at him. ‘No, this can’t make sense! You’re actually offering me a job with this Torchwood. “Save the world from alien infestation. Competitive salary, plus dental”?’

Now he grinned at her. He slipped the Bekaran tool from his pocket. By twisting the central section, he folded it out to display a screen as wide as a pocket calculator. ‘State-of-the-art equipment. Look at this.’

He ran the scanner over her outstretched arm. The display showed the ribbed beige surface of her jumper.

‘Digital camera, very nice,’ she observed.

He shushed her, and adjusted the resolution. As they both watched, the ribbing pattern slowly faded away, and they could see Megan’s pale, freckled forearm. Owen tugged her arm gently, getting her to stand, and then he turned them both to face the mirror above the sofa. He stood behind Megan so that they could see themselves reflected in the octagonal mirror. He moved the Bekaran device over her forearm again, up above her bicep, across her shoulder blade, and then over her breast. The material of her white bra showed in the display, reflected back to them. Owen thumbed the resolution further, and the bra melted away to reveal the skin of her breast and, comically flattened, one nipple surrounded by the pale brown areola.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Megan said. ‘Who made that? Where’s it from?’

‘It’s Bekaran,’ said Owen from behind her, his lips close to her ear. ‘We don’t know where they come from. Ugly things they are. But they have some pretty neat gadgets.’

In the display, Megan’s nipple was now erect. ‘Can it go further?’ Megan giggled. ‘I mean, can it scan deeper? Show the lactiferous ducts? Or as far as the pectoralis muscles?’

Owen thumbed the device and the skin disappeared as the scan displayed a subcutaneous layer, but quickly flicked it back again. ‘I’d rather not.’

Megan turned to face him, eager to see the device for herself. He showed her how to adjust it, the touch-sensitive plates at its rear that looked and felt so unlike any human design. ‘I can show you more,’ he urged her. ‘I can take you to Torchwood now, show you everything.’

‘Steady on, Owen,’ she told him, ‘I’m on duty again in an hour. Let’s see how this thing works, then…’

She ran the device over his jacket. Owen could see the display reflected in the mirror, over her shoulder. He helped her position her palm and fingers on the device, holding the back of her hand like a caress.

After a few false starts, Megan was able to adjust the scan. Owen watched his jacket dissolve in the display, then his crumpled shirt. She focused on his nipple with its little halo of short dark hairs. He felt her hand move down, until he could no longer see the display reflected. He could feel the device pressed lightly against his body. Slowly down his midriff. Over his navel. Below his belt now, pressing against his crotch.

Megan smiled as she studied the display. ‘I see this thing has a zoom facility.’

Owen raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘I didn’t know the scanner could do that.’

‘I wasn’t talking about the scanner,’ said Megan.

Owen lifted up her hand and took the Bekaran device from her. ‘When does your shift start?’

‘About an hour,’ said Megan, and took his free hand in hers. Guided it over her breast. ‘So we still have time for a shag. For old times’ sake.’

How did you come to be here? Everything recently seems to be a blur of noise and lights and the stink of early evening. Even at the best of times, no one in the city is going to stop to ask ‘Are you OK?’ or ‘Are you lost?’ or ‘You seem hurt, is there anything I can do?’ The usual crush of people on a Sunday has thinned anyway, and nobody gives you a second glance when they’re already too busy hurrying past to get to their car or bus or train, to get away from the city, to get home to their family, to get out of this foul evening weather.

The gunshot wound throbs. You’ve never been shot before, though you’ve shot others on service in Kunduz Province. They told you it was nothing like you’d expect, and they were right. At the moment of impact, there had been no pain; it was instead as though you received a violent shove in the shoulder that spun you around. The landing’s window had loomed in front of you as you turned, and you raised your arms in an instinctive survival gesture before the frame and glass gave way and you tumbled over and through and down, down.

A drop of that distance into the rubbish skip might have killed you. That would have been a definitive end, no respite, no escape, no one else to go to. And you couldn’t allow that to happen, not now, not after getting this far. But the black bags of decaying waste were bloated, and cushioned your fall. The stench of rotting vegetables still clings to you now like some foul perfume. You could pass yourself off as one of the homeless vagrants who in the day clustered around the station steps for financial scraps, except that the rain has driven even them into deep cover.