EIGHTEEN

Ianto unclipped his seatbelt as the SUV slowed to a halt. He worked out that it was easier to use the muscle memory of unlatching it than to look for the belt buckle. It was too disorienting to work out where his invisible fingers were in relation to the things he was trying to manipulate.

Owen parked the SUV behind the For Sale hoarding that hid a defunct print company from the main swag of the industrial estate. This meant they wouldn’t draw attention to themselves by parking right in the Achenbrite car park. But it would also require Ianto to pad barefoot over an access road and across the car park.

Toshiko’s voice filtered through the SUV’s speaker phone. ‘You’ll be out of radio contact, Ianto,’ she explained.

‘I appreciate that,’ he murmured. ‘No earcomms.’

Owen laughed. ‘That’d be a giveaway. Not much point being invisible if whatever’s stuck in your ear floats around in mid air.’

They’d decided that even the ‘virtual contact’ lenses could draw attention, in the way a couple of flies might catch the eye of an observer. So Ianto was going in to Achenbrite literally naked. No clothes, no comms, and no weapon.

‘Well, anyway, you’ll have to memorise a sixteen-number access code,’ continued Toshiko. ‘So I made it 2738-4947-3354-9937.’

Ianto started to groan halfway through the numbers.

Gwen sucked air through her teeth. ‘Yeah, Tosh. How’s he ever going to remember that?’

‘He can use the alphanumeric keypad to type in the corresponding letters from the start of a memorable phrase.’ Toshiko’s voice sounded pleased. Ianto imagined she was doing that little ‘aha’ smile that Jack seemed to find so adorable, the one that meant she knew she’d been especially clever. ‘The phrase I’ve chosen is Creu Gwir fel Gwydr o Ffwrnais Awen.’

Ianto should have guessed. ‘Very funny,’ he said, though he didn’t feel amused.

‘Ohhh,’ said Gwen. ‘That bit of poetry on the front of the Millennium Centre.’

‘Exactly,’ said Toshiko. ‘I thought I should choose something you see every day, Ianto.’

Ianto threw open the rear door of the SUV. ‘You’ll be sorry,’ he called back into the vehicle. ‘You know that, Tosh, don’t you?’

‘What does he mean?’ Gwen asked.

Toshiko giggled, said she’d explain later, and ended the call. Ianto slammed the door and slunk away.

None of the adjacent business units seemed to be busy, so there was no one to hear Ianto’s curses and sharp cries of pain as he traversed the roughly pitted surface of the roadway.

He kept to the side of the route up to the Achenbrite building, and avoided the sharp gravel by treading on the path’s edging to spare his feet. The icy cold concrete of the border froze his soles. Low branches snagged in the hairs on Ianto’s legs as he balanced. Their thorns scratched his skin, maybe even drawing blood, though how would he be able to tell?

The original plan was for him to tailgate into the building immediately after one of the Achenbrite employees. After hopping from foot to foot in the cold air for ten minutes, he could tell that was never going to work. No one appeared to be entering or leaving the building. Where had everyone gone? Owen had reported the place was buzzing with activity earlier when he’d dropped the memory sticks. Yet now it was mid-afternoon on a busy Saturday, and it might as well have been Sunday for all the activity around the place. Impossible to tell what was happening inside the building, either, because even the main reception had opaque glass windows.

So it was time for Plan B, which was to use the access authority that Toshiko had remotely programmed into the Achenbrite security system.

Ianto raised his hand to the reception door, to shade it as he peered through. He stifled a laugh at the absurdity of attempting this with invisible hands. He resorted instead to squinting through the door, noting with curiosity how his invisible breath condensed and became visible on the smoked glass.

The main area and front desk were deserted. He turned his attention to the proximity badge reader at chest height by the door. It had a recessed display screen, with a keypad for anyone who needed to get conventional access without an ID card.

He tapped in the sixteen numbers and waited. Of course that number was something he saw every day – it was identical to his supposedly secret Torchwood login code. And he’d chosen it for exactly the reason that Toshiko had just explained to Gwen. She was giving him a coded message that he would understand but Gwen and Owen would not: sneakily telling Ianto that she had cracked his personal login.

The door buzzed open, and Ianto slipped swiftly inside. The only risk was if any security camera saw the door move on its own.

The warmth of the entrance area and the soft texture of its carpet tiles were a welcome change. A couple of CCTV cameras poked out of the wall as visible deterrents to intruders, but it was evident from their stillness and extinguished indicator lights that they were not operational. That was odd.

The main desk was still unoccupied. When he checked behind it, Ianto found papers scattered across the desk and on the floor by the overturned chair. It was as though the receptionist had rushed away somewhere. They’d left their display monitor unlocked, too, so Ianto had a look at the information on that.

One side of the screen displayed the name Trevor Swanson, because that was the alias Toshiko had specified in the system to allow coded entry. He smiled at the picture she’d chosen to accompany it: a photo of Barry Nelson, who had once played James Bond on TV. Toshiko knew Ianto’s enthusiasms, as well as his password.

He stopped smiling when he saw what was being cross-referenced on the other side of the screen. Names and faces scrolled upwards: Douglas Caldwell, Gerald Carter, Lydia Childs, Gwen Cooper, Suzie Costello, Harriet Derbyshire…

A list of former and current Torchwood operatives in Cardiff. How the hell could Achenbrite know about them?

Ianto stared around the reception as though, impossibly, he might be observed. There was no one there, and the CCTV was dead. Yet more than ever he felt his own vulnerability as he stood by the all-too knowing screen, naked and defenceless.

He keyed in his access code at the next proximity badge reader, and slipped through into a linking corridor.

There were two further doors to either side, and another one ten metres away at the far end. A fluorescent tube sputtered behind a transparent ceiling panel. Halfway down, above head height, was another pair of CCTV cameras, but their lights were dead. By the time Ianto had walked far enough to examine the cameras, the carpet tiles felt gritty under his bare feet.

Ianto hunkered down to check, and discovered a scattering of fine sand. Some of it had drifted up against the skirting. It built into a higher, heaped pile against the far door. Rooted in the sand, fitfully illuminated by the overhead light, a row of four thin-stemmed double-headed flowers nodded in the breeze.

Wait a minute… what breeze?

He shuffled away from them, his feet scuffing sand. The flowers twisted their heads around to face him. Ianto sprang high into the air and away. The petals on the double-headed blooms snapped open, and a shower of seeds spurted onto the spot where Ianto had been standing only moments earlier. Some of the scattered seeds struck the wallpaper just above the skirting, where they stuck and quivered like little darts.

Ianto scrabbled to locate the nearest handle, then wrenched the door open. It was a meeting room, and it was in darkness. He slapped at the adjacent wall, finding the switches by touch. As the lights pinked and fluttered into life, he hurried into the room.

The dismembered bodies of half a dozen Achenbrite staff had been discarded across the meeting room. They slumped against the wall or over the table in the centre. In some cases, their limbs had been ripped off, ragged flesh the only visible remains in grey uniforms darkened with purple blood. Further smears of blood and savage indentations in the plaster walls bore witness to a fight with some huge creature.

Two corpses were decapitated. The eyes of the others were wide, the faces twisted at the final sight of some unknown horror. An undulating surface of sand half-buried the furthest bodies, like the ripples on a beach at low tide. Against the far wall were more of the double-headed flowers, though these had collapsed in limp rows. He could see where their seeds had sprayed over the dead bodies and taken root.

The dead men had been caught in the middle of a poker game. None of them were holding their weapons, which were still racked against the wall. A conventional set of playing cards, along with pound coins and fivers, were scattered across the table. But Ianto saw other, larger cards on the table – brightly coloured MonstaQuest images of deadly creatures. He recognised the one named ‘Bludgeon Beast’ as a Hoix, but the ‘Destructor’ and the ‘Janbri Warrior’ were new to him. The fourth one simply said ‘Sandstorm’.

Ianto discovered that he had backed himself against the wall, as though desperate to get as far away as possible from this carnage. He sidled along it, aiming for the exit door again, and his foot caught on a dismembered arm. Its hand clutched at a PDA-device. Ianto recognised it – some of the Achenbrite staff he’d seen at the zoo had been using them.

Wincing with distaste, Ianto recovered the PDA and studied the screen. It showed the image of a surveillance suite with banks of monitors. It had the same décor as this meeting room, including the blood smears up the wall. The blurred image was from a CCTV camera high up on a wall. In the centre of the room it showed the piled bodies of the MonstaQuest creatures, and another dead Achenbrite man.

Ianto reversed out of the meeting room. He skirted the wall carefully to avoid the spitting flowers, traversed the corridor, and tried the opposite door.

This led into a conference room, and a real contrast to what he’d seen elsewhere. The overhead lighting revealed that everything was in its place, undamaged. A wide table with a polished walnut top dominated the space. It had an in-built keyboard, and two speaker phones with satellite microphones sat at its centre. One wall was a huge display screen made up of sixteen large flat-screen monitors. A sign opposite identified a ‘Monitor Room’.

Ianto’s feet sank right into the plush carpet as he made his way over to the door. Through the window in it he could see the surveillance gear that the PDA had shown him, the mashed remains of an Achenbrite security guard, and the clumsy pile of dead monsters. His hand was on the door when a commotion from behind him was accompanied by a shouted warning.

‘Get away from that door!’

Ianto whirled on his heel. In the frame of the opposite doorway stood a thin-faced, middle-aged woman in a well-cut business suit. Her trim copper hair starkly outlined her head, though the effect was spoiled by the gas mask that covered her face. Angry eyes peered out at him through the top of the mask. The woman wasn’t armed. Both hands were occupied holding a flat black rectangle, like she was carrying a box of chocolates.

Behind her, two Achenbrite guards in grey boiler suits and gas masks were using long-handled sprays to soak the outer corridor. Ianto could swear that the plants were making high-pitched squealing sounds.

‘Get away from the door,’ repeated the woman, her voice metallic through the mask’s speaker. ‘Please.’

He hadn’t touched the door handle. How could she tell he was there? He hadn’t left any footprints on the carpet. But he was still holding the Achenbrite PDA.

He stepped to the left of the door, but at the same time tossed the PDA in a shallow arc to the right. It bounced and scraped across the conference table. Ianto stopped by an open cupboard full of stationery, and held his breath.

The woman’s eyes had followed the PDA as it came to rest against one of the conference phones. When she looked back again, she didn’t stare at the Monitor Room door, but directly to where Ianto had moved.

‘Thank you.’ She set the chocolate box down on the conference table. With her hands free, she could peel the gas mask backwards over her head. She shook her copper hair straight again, and returned her gaze to where Ianto was still trying to hold his breath. She looked straight into his eyes. When she spoke again, her voice was calm, and slightly amused. ‘We had to asphyxiate those creatures in there. The gas has not dispersed, and it’s highly toxic to humans.’ She set down the gas mask, and retrieved the flat box. ‘Come in, boys,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘No need for your masks.’

The two Achenbrite guards stepped into the conference room, their gas masks clipped to their belts. They flanked the woman, each taller than her by a head. Ianto could see a family resemblance in their eyes, and in their coppery red hair.

‘Thank you, boys,’ said the woman. ‘I thought you should meet Mr Jones, who has decided to make an appearance.’

Ianto muffled a gasp. She knew his name. And she knew where he was.

The woman tapped some recessed controls on the chocolate box. A wide angle of pale lilac light shot across the room in a two-second flash. Ianto blinked involuntarily as it dazzled him. When he opened his eyes again, the woman was still staring at him. In fact, she was looking him up and down appraisingly. The two men beside her grinned. It was one of those ‘your flies are undone’ moments, and Ianto’s instinct was to look down and check. And that’s when he first saw his own feet again. Not to mention everything else.

He reached out to the stationery cupboard, grabbed a notepad, and covered up his crotch.

‘Lovely to see you, Mr Jones,’ smiled the woman. She gestured to the conference table. ‘Would you be more comfortable if you were seated?’

Ianto shuffled over and slid into a chair. He kept the pad of paper in his lap beneath the table.

His options appeared to be limited. There was no way past those big red-headed guys. The conference phone was within reach now – was there any way of dialling the Torchwood team fast enough before he was stopped? And what was the number for an outside line, anyway?

‘Hello, my name is Jennifer Portland. Oh, well, I suppose you already know that.’ She sat next to him and offered a handshake. It seemed rude not to accept it. The skin of her hand felt pale and cool, but her grip was firm.

Jennifer pulled one of the conference phones across the desk towards them. ‘Right then,’ she said briskly. ‘Let’s call up your friends in the car park, shall we?’

The wall of monitors sprang into life opposite them. It was displaying an image like a jigsaw with sixteen large rectangular pieces. In the centre was the Torchwood SUV, monitored from a pole-mounted CCTV camera. Wall speakers pulsed with the telephone’s dial tone and the musical notes of the number going through.

‘Hello?’ answered Gwen’s voice.

‘Please stand by for a three-way call,’ said Jennifer.

She tapped further numbers into the phone, and within half a minute she had connected a video call to the Hub. Toshiko’s somewhat surprised face appeared in the upper-right flat-screen. ‘Picture-in-picture,’ whispered Jennifer to Ianto, as though she was doing a demo in an electrical shop.

Jennifer raised her voice to speak to the rest of the Torchwood team. ‘Thank you for joining this conference call,’ she said. ‘We urgently need to talk about MonstaQuest. And as you’ve shown up in person…’ At this, she couldn’t resist a sidelong glance at Ianto’s carefully positioned notepad. ‘… I think it’s now my turn to reveal all.’