Pack Animals (21 page)

‘Hey, there’s a big picture of a Weevil in that window,’ Jack noted. ‘When did that become NFC?’

Toshiko looked blankly at him.

‘Normal For Cardiff,’ explained Jack. ‘Remember when we had to cover up every Weevil appearance? Looks like MonstaQuest has made them mainstream.’

‘I’d be more worried about that Halloween display in the next window,’ Toshiko told him. She even shivered a little.

Jack checked it out. ‘What… you’re frightened of clowns?’

‘They’re scary clowns,’ she muttered defensively. ‘Like Stephen King’s “It” clown.’

‘Yeah, but…’ Jack was grinning. ‘Clowns?’

Toshiko pretended to ignore him as she steered around the building and into the loading bay. A white stretch limo squeezed past them on its way out. Toshiko parked the 350Z next to the Torchwood SUV.

‘I’m going in,’ said Jack. ‘Looks like Gwen and Owen are already here. You can base yourself in the SUV.’

With that, he struggled from the car and limped into the building.

Jennifer Portland hated people being rude. She called over to the policeman who was at the crash barrier, but he seemed to be ignoring her.

‘Excuse me,’ she called to him, ‘I need to get into the store.’

The constable had taken off his cap and was scratching idly at his blond hair. He was engrossed in his conversation with another officer. ‘It was going to be bad enough on crowd patrol for the match,’ he told her, ‘but this is just madness.’

‘Yeah, right, Andy,’ she laughed. ‘You’re just sore because you haven’t got touchline duty for the international.’ The female officer had spotted Jennifer now. ‘Sorry, madam. You can’t come through here. There’s been an accident. As you can probably see.’

‘The overturned bus would have been your first clue,’ the policeman muttered under his breath.

Jennifer could certainly see. Even without the crash barriers, the street was mostly blocked by the mangled wreckage of a bendy bus. Soil and debris showed where it must have struck some road works and tipped over before smashing into the front window of Wendleby’s. An accident investigation team had set up floodlights in anticipation of dusk. The blue flashing lights of the remaining ambulance speckled the area. A large crane was slowly manoeuvring itself into position on the far side.

Jennifer smiled politely at the officer, and turned away. No point in arguing, and no time for it either. She took a slim cylinder from her handbag, no bigger than a lipstick. Its surface looked like wet tar, but the device felt firm and dry between her fingers. Jennifer didn’t know which alien race had created it. She only knew what it could do.

She squeezed the device, and it buzzed quietly. When Jennifer turned to the police officers again, she saw them twist away, nauseated. When they faced towards her, the feeling got worse. Once they turned away, the effect reduced.

Jennifer slipped under the barrier and marched towards the store. She avoided looking at the blood and glass that spilled from the broken-backed bus, keeping her eyes on the shop displays instead. One large window was filled with Halloween costumes – cackling witches, illuminated pumpkins, and some cruel-faced clowns with fangs in their huge red mouths. The next window was decorated with cartoon monsters, and a poster that declared: ‘MonstaQuest Demonstration Today. Wendleby’s Toy Department, Fourth Floor.’

She pushed through the barrier that had been placed inside the store to prevent customers leaving by the exits nearest to the accident. The late-afternoon shopping crowds had not diminished, and Jennifer used the nausea device to part the crowds and make her way to the escalators unimpeded.

As she negotiated the top of the second-floor escalator, an old man in a pork pie hat became wildly disoriented by the nausea device, and staggered into her. The device jolted out of her hand, bounced once on the rubber handrail, and dropped into the down escalator. Jennifer dithered for a moment at the top of the up escalator, undecided about whether to try and retrieve the device.

The crowd behind her began to recover their composure, a continuous stream of people pushing past as they continued onto the floor. No time, decided Jennifer. She had to press on, and reach the fourth floor. Reach Gareth before Torchwood did.

David Brigstocke hated the crush of Saturday shopping. But today, he decided, he hated Eleri Francis even more.

This was a trivial news assignment, and he believed Eleri must have known that. He was supposed to be covering the aftermath of the bus crash in the street outside, but his editor had sent him into the store and up to the toy department instead. One of the Wendleby’s staff had phoned the radio news office with a tip-off that Martina Baldachi had been spotted buying gifts. More likely one of Martina’s PRs had tipped them off. ‘Send Ieuan Walters,’ countered Brigstocke. ‘Isn’t that why we have an Entertainment Correspondent?’ This was the same old office bullshit. It had been like this since he’d overheard them talking about him in the canteen, in Welsh, stupidly assuming that he couldn’t understand. They’d understood him, all right, after Brigstocke confronted them and explained what he thought of them. In Welsh.

‘Ieuan’s at the Mid-Wales Beer Festival in Llanwrtyd Wells,’ Eleri had replied. ‘You’ll find the toy department on the fourth floor.’

Brigstocke had managed to have a bit of fun at Martina Baldachi’s expense during the interview. That wouldn’t go down well with Eleri, he supposed, but with a live feed it was too late for her to do anything about that. Now he was on a down escalator, evaluating whether he still had time to get to the crash site, when he spotted a familiar figure hobbling into the store.

Captain Jack Harkness.

Brigstocke caught up with him by the service lift.

‘It won’t come any faster if you keep pressing the button like that.’

Brigstocke was pleased to see Harkness’s exasperated reaction.

‘Kinda busy.’

‘As always,’ replied Brigstocke. ‘You’re looking good for someone whose foot was almost severed at the zoo.’ He watched Harkness involuntarily look at his own left foot. ‘I spoke to the paramedics, Jack. You can’t fool medical professionals about that kind of thing.’

Harkness gave up on the service lift, and limped across to the escalator instead. He paused before stepping on. At first, Brigstocke thought he was being cautious about his injured foot. Until he realised that Harkness wasn’t entirely sure where he was going.

‘You want to help?’ Harkness had narrowed his eyes, looking for a reaction. He leaned in close to speak into Brigstocke’s ear. ‘That kid you were interviewing earlier? He’s a terrorist suspect, and we need to track him down. No, put the digital recorder down.’

‘It’s a phone,’ said Brigstocke. ‘I’m calling the police.’

Harkness closed his hands over the phone, folding the casing shut in Brigstocke’s palm. ‘We
are
the police.’

‘No you’re not. I’ve talked to the police about Torchwood.’

‘Do you want to help or not?’

Brigstocke licked his lips as he pondered this. Across the aisle from them a customer lift dinged as it arrived at their floor. Brigstocke put his phone back in his jacket pocket. ‘Toy department. Fourth floor.’

Brigstocke jumped into the lift and held the door, gesturing for Harkness to join him. As well as helping, it kept him close to his quarry.

Harkness limped over. Before he got in, he tapped at his ear and said: ‘Ianto? Hold off for a couple of minutes.’

Gareth Portland hated everyone. They bustled past him where he sat at his stand on the fourth floor, unconcerned whether he was alive or dead.

But he was so alive. More than he had ever been in his whole life.

The Visualiser purred in his hand. It spoke to him. Reassured him. Knew him. Loved him.

The world moved past Gareth Portland, uncaring. So it was time for the world to change.

TWENTY-ONE

When Jennifer Portland saw her son sitting alone in the toy department, she thought her heart would finally break.

All around this area of the sales floor, eager children squealed with delight as their parents guided them through the toy displays. But there was no clamour about the MonstaQuest sales stand. Gareth sat to one side of it in a bucket seat. Stacked piles of unsold card packs teetered beside him. His head was bowed, and he was studying his hands. It brought back sharp and painful memories of seeing her teenage son at home, after another awful day at his savage Secondary, slumped in an uncommunicative heap at the dinner table.

The MonstaQuest stand was flanked by two cardboard monsters. They were exaggerated caricatures from the pack, blown up to life size, standing guard, designed to attract customers. Jennifer recognised them as a Weevil and a Hoix.

She approached quietly. Gareth was studying the VIP tickets he’d been given for the international match. A couple of students strolled up to pester him.

‘I’m on a break,’ Gareth told them without looking up. Jennifer suddenly realised how long it was since she’d heard his voice.

The students wanted to buy the tickets from him. Gareth responded not by looking at the students but by clutching the tickets to his chest. It was a protective gesture that Jennifer recognised from his childhood, that she’d seen him do with a favourite toy.

‘They’re not for sale,’ Gareth said.

‘Come on, Harry,’ one of the students said to his mate, tugging his arm. ‘We’ll have to try the touts instead.’ He kicked the leg of Gareth’s chair. ‘Don’t want your lousy tickets, mate.’

‘Or your stupid card game,’ added Harry. He prodded one of the stacked piles of MonstaQuest cards, and it toppled over against the foot of the Hoix.

Gareth stood up angrily, but the students had already strolled off. Jennifer saw a murderous look in her son’s eyes. She’d seen that in the Achenbrite CCTV cameras earlier. It was a cold, unspoken fury that warned of coming violence the way that dark clouds threatened rain.

The Visualiser device was in Gareth’s hands. It was only when he looked up again that he saw his mother watching.

Jennifer walked over to him. ‘Come on, Gareth,’ she said soothingly. ‘Time to stop all this.’

Gareth stared at her like she was a stranger.

Gwen was still giggling at Owen in the cargo lift.

Owen didn’t find it funny. ‘Well, it looked real enough to me.’

‘Don’t worry, Owen. It’s definitely dead now.’

A cardboard Weevil lay crumpled in the corner, the remains of a MonstaQuest display item. Owen had taken one look at it as they were about to board the lift and put a bullet through its forehead. Gwen’s first reaction was to duck from the ricochet. Her second was to burst out laughing.

‘It was coming towards me,’ persisted Owen.

‘It was falling over,’ Gwen corrected him. ‘It’s funny, but when you’re embarrassed you don’t blush any more.’ She looked more closely at his cheek where Martina Baldachi had whacked him. ‘Did that hurt?’

‘Didn’t feel a thing,’ Owen said. ‘Hope it doesn’t bruise, though. Don’t want to spend the rest of my death with fingerprints across my face.’

The lift bell pinged.

‘Fourth floor,’ said Owen. ‘Kitchenware, furniture, children’s toys, and alien technology.’

Before the doors slid open, there was a mighty thump against the other side, accompanied by angry shouting.

‘Keep your hair on!’ called Owen. ‘They won’t open any faster if…’

His voice trailed off as the doors parted. Beyond the lift, two huge gorillas were hurling furniture across the sales floor. Gorillas in alien uniforms. Terrified shoppers and Wendleby’s staff were scrambling to get through or over the displays and away to safety.

Gwen unholstered her handgun. Owen was ahead of her, already out of the lift and stepping over the remains of the coffee table that had been hurled against the outer doors.

One of the creatures broke off from its bombardment, and swung onto a tall, freestanding unit. Racks of cutlery tumbled off and clattered to the floor. A young sales assistant stood below it, petrified. One of her friends seized a skillet from a display of pans and lashed out wildly. The gorilla casually reached out one long arm and simply batted him away into a rack of electrical goods.

Owen waved away some shoppers who had raced from the next department to see what all the noise was. One woman was struggling with her many bags of shopping, while her husband yanked the sleeve of her coat and told her to leave them. The short argument was abruptly ended when the nearest gorilla landed right in front of them with a thump, opened its huge mouth and bellowed a savage roar straight into their faces. The woman shrieked, flung her shopping aside, and fled. The gorilla began to pick curiously at the abandoned Wendleby’s bags.

Two other shoppers were angling their mobile phone cameras at the creature. ‘Are you insane?’ Owen yelled. Before he could reach them, there was a swirl of brilliant white light from over by the sofa beds, and one of the gorillas melted away into nothing.

Owen rushed up to the nearest shopper, a bristle-headed lad in a bomber jacket who bore an uncanny resemblance to the gorillas. He smacked the camera phone from the lad’s hand. ‘That could have been the last picture you ever took.’

‘It will be if you smashed my camera, you jerk!’ He was bunching his fists, squaring up to Owen.

Owen held up his compact double-action 9mm pistol so that the lad could see it clearly. ‘Talk to the gun, ’cause the face ain’t listening.’ He was pleased to see the bloke was shocked into silence. ‘Get out of here before you’re killed. Could be that thing that does it, could be me.’ Owen switched on his earcomms. ‘Ianto, you there, mate?’

‘Receiving.’

‘Take out the mobile phone network.’

‘Doing it now.’ Ianto’s voice crackled in his ear. ‘Got some activity up there?’

Gwen was in on the conversation now. ‘We might need back-up. Are those Achenbrite boys on standby with their capture equipment? These things look like the biggest gorillas you ever saw.’

‘Gorillas?’ said Ianto. ‘You don’t see many of those in Wendleby’s.’

‘They’re not picking out fabrics,’ said Gwen. ‘They’re in combat gear.’

‘Oh,’ said Ianto. ‘So they’d be guerrilla gorillas, then?’