friend Jack…’ Owen swallowed hard, took a deep breath, exhaled it. ‘Got a feeling he’s going to be… the most useful of all.’ He summoned up the strength to wink at Ianto. One last smile for Toshiko. ‘See you again. Soon.’
After she’d contacted Toshiko, Gwen sat quietly in the cavernous room with her back to the central cylinder. The churning, lurching movements of the alien vessel had begun to subside now, and the flicker of green lights in the unseen ceiling was settling into a regular, uninterrupted illumination of the area around her.
She studied Jack from a distance. His breathing was regular, but he remained deeply unconscious. Gwen mentally rehearsed the sequence of events that Jack had explained earlier. But now he was trapped in the cage, nothing seemed clear any more. Everything seemed wrong, impossible.
Jack took a sudden, shuddering breath, like a man surfacing from water and gratefully gulping at the air. His eyes widened, accustomed themselves to the light. Focused on Gwen. ‘Hey,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I was beginning to think things weren’t working out.’
Gwen forced herself up from the floor. Turned her back on him. Began to operate the panels that sprouted from the top of the control cylinder, just the way Jack had shown her. The urge was to rely on what she knew from Earth technology — to feel the reassuring click of a light switch or hear the firm clunk that a car door makes that tells you it’s closed. Her short training session at these controls with Jack earlier had made her nervous and frustrated. It was more a mental contact than a physical one. She began to doubt that she’d manipulated them correctly, until she heard the sound of running water in the distance.
She panicked for a moment, realising that her scuba gear was a long way from her down the corridors. Until she saw Jack’s mask and diving cylinder on the floor. She snatched it up, and tried to remain calm as she slipped the harness on her back, strapped it across her midriff, fitted the mask over her eyes and nose.
The water began to gush into the chamber. It swilled across the floor, and swirled against the central cylinder and around her feet. In his cage, still clear of the incoming water, Jack’s eyes registered his alarm.
‘OK.’ He had raised his voice to make himself heard over the sound of the water. ‘You can let me outta here now, Gwen.’
She continued to check that her scuba set was working.
‘Gwen? Gwen!’
The cylinder was half-full, and open. The air-hoses were securely attached and not kinked.
‘C’mon Gwen. You can let me out now.’
She adjusted her mask, getting it comfortable. Not time yet to put the mouthpiece in.
The cramped cage couldn’t be comfortable for Jack, but he was showing her his biggest, cheesiest, most reassuring grin. ‘Tosh did it, y’know. She trapped Owen. He’s locked in the cells. Right next to the Weevil, imagine that! So it’s OK to undo these straps now, Gwen. We did it! We can get outta here!’
‘You mean,
No, that was a mistake. Jack had told her not to talk to him. Not to get drawn into a conversation. She bit her bottom lip in frustration and annoyance. Jack saw it. Knew he was getting through. The incoming water was splashing up against the bottom of the cages now. Gwen leaned back against the cylinder and looked at Jack. She thought she saw a calculating glance, a transitory look that was gone almost as soon as she spotted it.
He winked at her. ‘Time to go, Gwen. Place is flooding.’
‘You warned me not to listen to you.’
‘That was then, and this is now.’ A note of studied exasperation in his voice. ‘You said it yourself, my plan’s gone so horribly wrong. Completely tits-up.’ He could evidently see from her reaction that what he’d said had surprised her.
‘How very interesting, Jack. Now, how would you know I’d said that?’ His eagerness was evolving into worry, and then anger, as she continued to speak. ‘Because you were unconscious when I called Tosh. So either you were faking it, which wouldn’t be good. Or you heard it when you were possessing Owen. Which would be even worse.’
‘Please, Gwen. This really isn’t what I planned.’ The level had reached his waist now. He wriggled impotently as the cold grey water lapped around him in the cage. ‘Please Gwen. I’m begging you.’
‘Pleading?’ she asked him. ‘That’s so not Jack.’
‘God dammit!’ he flared, shaking the cage as he struggled against his restraints. ‘That is me now! Up to my ass in seawater, you think I’m gonna
The water had reached her chest now. No more time to talk with Jack. Gwen inserted the mouthpiece. She ensured that there was a watertight seal between the breathing set and her lips.
Water slopped around her face and ears. She could hear her own breathing as she tried to inhale through her mouth regularly, calmly. Still she watched Jack in the cage as the churning seawater eddied around him, splashing in his face, making him splutter. He was shouting at her still, his bound hands thrashing and scratching at the bars in a futile effort to release them.
Jack wailed and pleaded and screamed at her. The last thing she could hear before the water rose over her ears were his threats.
‘If you don’t release these clasps for me, I will get outta here once the water has short-circuited the system. And then I am gonna bust your ass. You will regret this, lady. I will make you regret this…’
The water continued to rise over her face mask.
You’re unable to keep your temper. The anger and desolation and anguish consume you. It’s not like the hunger this time, not the exquisite agony of physical want. It’s the knowledge that you are no longer in control. Not of your body. Not of the elements. Not of the woman who has trapped you here to face this alone.
The sea has reached your chin now. It’s cold and dark and there is no comfort for you in its chill embrace. With your mouth clamped shut, you can just angle your head a little higher, keeping your nose and eyes above the water. Staring at the top of the cage. The last thing you expected to see, and the last thing you will see.
You consider what’s inside yourself now. What there will be next. And it is so dark and lonely and empty. You knew that Sandra Applegate believed in everlasting life and a better place to go. Guy Wildman’s unreasoned agnosticism allowed for something beyond death. But when you explore your heart now, there is nothing inside you. Nothing. Blankness, blackness.
Close your eyes now. How long can you hold your breath?
Your lungs burn. They ache for air. Every fibre of your being is telling you to open your mouth and your eyes.
You so want somewhere to go from here, but you don’t remotely believe there is anywhere left. You are not Bee or Wildman or Tegg. You are not like them. You know there is nothing more.
You are-
Jack’s face was underwater now, angled up to the last pocket of air in the cage. With her head underwater too, everything seemed closer to Gwen. Images were magnified, even in the greyish sea water. The sound of her own breathing, the noise of exhaled air, was loud and close.
She wasn’t sure she could bear to watch this, but knew somehow she wouldn’t look away. Think of how he had killed the Bruydac Warrior. He had told her that she should imagine him as that man, who showed no mercy to a defeated enemy. He was someone who should suffer the same fate, if it came down to it. He should be allowed to die, helpless and alone.
That wasn’t Jack in the cage any more, cajoling and begging and threatening. Thrashing at the restraints in fury and desperation. It was the Bruydac Warrior. So wasn’t she just doing the same thing that Jack did earlier?
Didn’t that make her the same? Or, knowing that about herself, didn’t it make her worse?
The bubbles from Jack’s upturned face slowed to a trickle and stopped. His eyelids opened. His mouth gaped abruptly as the breathing reflex overcame him. His chest convulsed as he sucked cold grey water into his lungs in a final, choking rush.
Cold, grey seawater surrounded Gwen, so she couldn’t feel the hot salt tears on her face. She forced herself to watch Jack until his seizures subsided.
