Pack Animals (16 page)

The Mondeo’s rear wheels were slowly vanishing below the surface of the ice.

Gwen’s eyes widened. ‘That’s not good.’

Rhys saw that her breath wasn’t clouding in the air any more. Things were warming up, and quickly. The Vectra lurched, and the ice around them crackled and snapped.

They didn’t need to discuss it. Both of them wrenched open their doors, and flung themselves out of the car. Rhys could feel the ice beneath his feet turning to slush. Gwen skidded around the car, tottering a little on her heels. She grabbed his hand, and together they half-ran, half-skated their way over to the embankment.

The ice gave way as Rhys jumped for the edge. The river water was still icy cold, and he sank into it up to his waist. The embankment slanted down into the water, and his trainers slid and scraped on the slimy concrete below the water as he tried to prevent himself vanishing beneath the surface.

Gwen wasn’t so lucky. The heels of her boots punctured the melting ice, and she plunged right into the river. She surfaced, spluttering at the shock and indignity. Her teeth chattered. Rhys perched on the angled concrete edge, reached out to her, and together they managed to escape the river’s freezing embrace.

Only once they had scrambled over the slimy green surface of the concrete and onto the higher, dry area of the embankment did they dare to look back.

The fog had entirely dissipated. The hard white surface of the water had become translucent. In the middle, the riverboat bobbed in the current, now that the river’s icy grip had released it. Close to the vessel, the tail end of Rhys’s beloved Vectra blurped and bubbled as the car sank into the Taff.

SIXTEEN

Ianto Jones lay on the cold slab of the Torchwood morgue. That much was encouraging, anyway – he hadn’t completely lost feeling.

Owen pulled the portable X-ray away from above him. ‘You still there, Ianto?’

‘Very funny.’ Ianto faked a hearty laugh. ‘Can I get up yet? This thing is bloody freezing. And so were your hands.’

‘What did you expect?’ said Owen. ‘I blame poor circulation.’

‘What?’

‘Mine, not yours.’

Ianto sat up, and dangled his legs over the edge of the slab. He peered down at the tiles, and was aware for the first time that this was going to be trickier than he thought. How far up was he? He couldn’t see how close to the floor his feet were. ‘What’s the diagnosis then?’

Owen had stored away his equipment. ‘I can’t see anything wrong with you.’

‘Ho ho,’ said Ianto.

‘I might get some more from a post-mortem on the other guy.’ Owen indicated the ginger-haired corpse on a stretcher against the wall. The head end was away from Ianto, and he had a gruesome view of a flat cross-section where the visible portion of the dead body suddenly ended, as if it had been guillotined.

‘The corpse is half there, half invisible,’ explained Owen. ‘Should give us some clues.’

‘The hospital is gonna want that gurney back,’ said Jack. ‘Along with the rest of the ambulance.’ Toshiko had pushed Jack’s wheelchair over to the viewing gallery. Ianto saw them both peering down into the well of the medical area. Even though he was invisible, Ianto felt naked and vulnerable in front of them.

Owen tapped at his analysis computer, and the flat-screen panel beside him resolved itself into a series of scans. ‘Hard to do a full physical examination,’ he admitted, and waved his bandaged hand at the display. ‘Easy enough to confirm that vital signs are OK. Nothing unusual with your blood pressure or resps, Ianto. But fluids analysis is a bit tricky, ’cause I can’t see it to test it. Or in the case of blood, I can’t take a sample. So the reference ranges on these charts are meaningless.’

‘We can tell that you’re literally invisible in the optical spectrum,’ noted Toshiko. She walked down the short flight of steps, and pointed at the display. ‘Actually, as far down as ultraviolet at one end and up through thermal infrared at the other. Wavelengths in air between about two hundred and eleven hundred nanometers.’

‘Mind you…’ Owen tapped another control, and the image changed. ‘I was able to take X-rays. You’ve got no broken bones. And the best I can tell from the ultrasound scan is that you have no serious disruption to your internal organs. So while this is an unusually severe and persistent injury, it doesn’t look like it’ll be fatal. In A&E, I’d probably send you back to your GP…’ He stifled a laugh. ‘Except he probably wouldn’t be able to see you for ages.’

Ianto’s exasperated groan filled the room. He knew this was Owen’s revenge for all the ‘dead’ jokes Ianto had been using on him.

‘I’m so hungry,’ Ianto’s voice shivered. ‘But maybe I’ll freeze to death first.’

‘Oh yeah. Tosh wants to analyse your invisible clothes,’ agreed Owen. He indicated the empty slab to Jack. ‘He had to take them off anyway, ’cause they were covered in tiger shit.’

‘Wait a minute…’ Jack cocked a saucy eyebrow. ‘Am I hearing this correctly? Ianto is sitting there… naked?’

‘Like, but unlike, one of my recurring nightmares,’ said Ianto’s voice in a plaintive tone.

Jack stared at the ceiling and laughed aloud. ‘Oh, that is
such
an unfair advantage in naked hide-and-seek…’ He trailed off as he realised Owen and Toshiko were both looking at him. ‘What?’

Owen shook his head sorrowfully. ‘
So
don’t want to know,’ he told Jack.

‘It’s a bit… creepy having you walk around the place like that,’ Toshiko said.

‘I kinda like it,’ said Jack.

‘He’s naked.’

‘You say that like it’s a bad thing.’

‘Here’s an idea,’ suggested Owen. ‘I could bandage your head. Like the invisible man. I’m good with bandages. Medical doctor, trained and everything.’

Ianto was unimpressed. ‘I’d prefer a cure.’

‘Not sure there is one,’ Owen confessed. ‘We haven’t even got the device that did this. Your Achenbrite mates must have taken it with them.’

This piqued Jack’s interest, and he leaned on the rail to call down to Toshiko. ‘Any information on Achenbrite yet?’

‘It’s collating now.’

‘OK, patch it through to the Boardroom. We’re about to start.’

Toshiko pointed at his wheelchair. ‘Do you want a push?’ Jack seized the chair’s wide wheels in his strong hands. ‘Give me a head start. See you in five minutes.’

‘See ya,’ grinned Owen.

Ianto sighed so heavily that papers moved on the work surface beside him. ‘Am I going to stay like this?’

Owen cocked his head as though contemplating this calamity. ‘May depend on new cell growth. Difficult to test anything on that dead guy.’

‘I thought that nails and hair grew after death?’

Owen stroked his own clean-shaven chin. ‘Take it from an expert, that’s a myth. Best you can hope for is that your cells renew visibly as they get replaced. We’ll only know that by waiting.’ He was fighting not to smile again. ‘You should keep a record of what you notice. Maybe some regular entries in your diary, Ianto.’ The smile couldn’t be suppressed any longer. ‘You could write it in invisible ink.’

‘We’re out of invisible ink,’ said Toshiko immediately.

‘How can you tell?’ Owen responded. Toshiko and Owen giggled like kids. Ianto said, ‘I am still here, you know.’

Owen smirked. ‘If you’re blushing, mate, no one can tell.’ He pondered the empty space where he thought Ianto was.

‘I’ll see you in the Boardroom,’ snapped Ianto. ‘Even if you won’t see me.’

He jumped down onto the freezing cold mortuary floor and stalked away to the sound of Owen and Toshiko’s laughter.

Gwen sat at the Boardroom table while she waited for everyone to gather. She turned over the few MonstaQuest cards from Rhys’s pack that hadn’t floated off downriver. They had dried out, but were crinkled and discoloured, and they smelled a bit, too. She sniffed her own fingers surreptitiously. Even after a thorough shower, she wasn’t convinced she’d entirely washed away the dank stench of the River Taff. Toshiko would be the first person to notice that, but Toshiko would also be the last person who’d ever want to tell her.

When Toshiko came in, she was fiddling with some bit of alien tech she’d retrieved from the Vaults. As soon as she was seated, she began to tap notes into the table-top computer in preparation for the meeting. The tech was like a squarish PDA with undulating edges, and it sat on the velvet bag from which she’d taken it.

‘You OK?’ Gwen asked her. ‘Owen check you over after your concussion?’

‘Yeah. Yes.’ Fussing made Toshiko embarrassed. ‘How’s Rhys?’

Gwen laughed. ‘Gone home for a hot bath.’ She smiled at the thought of him dripping his way through the November streets, drawing curious looks from passers-by. Just as she had, until she’d found the blessed anonymity of Torchwood’s invisible elevator in Millennium Square. ‘Under the circumstances, I decided it was only fair to let him go to the match later.’ She sniffed her fingers again. ‘What’s keeping the others?’

Toshiko grimaced. ‘They were a bit upset about the mess around their desks.’

‘Not your fault.’

‘You know how house-proud Ianto is. I hardly dare drop biscuit crumbs.’

‘Still, you’ve got a new friend,’ added Gwen.

‘Yes,’ agreed Toshiko. ‘I think I could grow to like that pteranodon after all.’

‘I
hate
the damn thing,’ said Ianto’s voice from nowhere, yet nearby.

Toshiko startled, and put her hand to her mouth. The chair next to her at the table shifted sideways a little.

‘Well, you’re not the one who has to clear up all the pteranodon crap,’ said Ianto. ‘And what do you mean, “house-proud”?’

Toshiko’s face flushed. She put her hand down again, and tried to sit a little straighter in her chair as she recomposed herself. ‘I’m sorry, Ianto. I forgot you were here.’

Ianto sighed noisily. ‘Time was that I didn’t need to be invisible for that to happen.’

The Boardroom door slid aside. Jack breezed in, propelling his wheelchair with powerful movements. His lap was full of equipment, papers, and assorted objects rescued from the Hub’s main chamber. When he bumped into the edge of the desk, items clattered down onto its polished surface.

‘Quite a mess,’ he grinned. ‘We rescued some bits for the meeting. Couple of unbroken PDAs. Notepads that didn’t get covered in dino-blood.’

‘I’d just cleaned that floor,’ Ianto said. ‘You could have eaten off it.’ There was a distinctive sound that Gwen eventually worked out was Ianto’s stomach rumbling. ‘I could murder a meat feast.’

‘It will not look pretty when you chew it,’ Owen said. ‘And it will look disgusting when you’re digesting it.’

‘So I’m going to starve to death, am I?’ Ianto asked defiantly.

Owen tutted. ‘You’re not going to look pretty if your new cells do become visible.

Jack patted thin air. Gwen wasn’t even sure if Ianto’s head was under the hand, or whether he was kidding around. ‘OK, I’ve changed my mind,’ announced Jack. ‘Ianto, go get some clothes on. Don’t wanna see your organs walking around the Hub like a bag of giblets.’

The empty chair pushed back. ‘So I should go and get dressed now?’

Owen had a wide, pleased grin on his face. ‘Who said you couldn’t in the first place?’

‘OK, let’s review what we’ve got so far.’ Jack picked up a pack of MonstaQuest cards. ‘Multiple alien incursions, all described on these illustrated cards.’ He placed the pack on the desk like he was playing a strange game of solitaire. ‘Weevil in the church of Holy Innocents. Another Weevil attacking a bus full of people.’

Toshiko indicated another card in Jack’s collection. ‘That one there, the bat-creature. That was at the shopping centre.’

‘Ooh, nasty,’ said Jack. ‘That’s a Kiroptan. An omnivore. Lots of teeth, little discrimination.’

Gwen pushed forward the tattered cards she had retrieved from the river. ‘Mahalta. Attacked Rhys’s car. No, no,’ she waved away Jack’s concern. ‘He’s OK.’

‘These names are wrong,’ Owen observed. ‘That one says “Antebellum”, not Mahalta. That Weevil claims to be a “Toothsome”.’

‘Someone’s created these without knowing what they are,’ said Jack.

‘Gareth Portland. Printed them up from his home workshop in Rhiwbina.’

‘Classy,’ smiled Jack.

‘Now out of action,’ continued Gwen, ‘after that convenient fire. Killed his girlfriend and his business at the same time.’

Jack shifted some of the cards around the desk before him. ‘But do these things
reflect
reality, or do they
cause
it?’

‘There’s something else,’ Gwen said. She presented several more MonstaQuest illustrations. ‘Element cards. Rain, Snow, Fog, Lightning… Inexplicable real events that we’ve seen in the last twenty-four hours.’

Toshiko punched up a new display on the flat-screen. ‘Spikes of Rift activity correspond to all these locations in that time period. It’s rare to have so many localised peaks of such intensity. One big burst you could understand, plus the usual background leakages. But these are extraordinary. And they map to the freak meteorological manifestations Gwen mentioned.’

Owen frowned. ‘What about the Brakkanee at the zoo? No freak weather. No card. Just coincidence?’

‘I saw one of those cards in the tiger enclosure,’ said Ianto’s voice in the doorway.

They all turned to look.

‘And the whole place was sodden,’ continued Ianto. ‘I heard the keepers talking about a crazy downpour that happened when one of their keepers was killed…’ His voice dropped as he must have seen they were all gaping.

Gwen coughed and apologised. ‘Sorry, Ianto, it’s just…’

‘It’s just you don’t expect to see a suit walking around on its own.’ Ianto’s voice came from just above the neatly knotted tie that encircled the neckline of an empty, maroon-coloured shirt. Give him credit, thought Gwen, he’d made an effort.

The suit pulled out a chair, sat on it, shot the cuffs of its shirt, and placed its sleeves on the desk. ‘So, these cards. Too much of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?’ The sleeves seemed to draw Jack’s pack of MonstaQuest cards across the desk and started to riffle through them in mid air.

Toshiko was displaying more screens of analysis. Gwen’s heart sank a little. Toshiko loved her histograms and her pie charts, but sometimes it was like she was lost in the detail and missing the obvious. After listening to her explain the statistics, Gwen interrupted: ‘So, what you’re saying is that there’s been an increase in alien incursions around Cardiff, but that the Weevil attacks have increased most of all. Even in places where we didn’t get them before?’