Another Life

Owen broke in, laughing again: ‘…because the “i”s are too close together!’ He looked at Egg thoughtfully for a moment. There was something very familiar about him. Owen closed his eyes and listened to Egg talk, trying to concentrate on the words and not his appearance.

‘When we met outside the Surer Square, I thought that you’d be S.I.T.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Owen, knowing already.

‘Safe in taxis,’ Egg said. He indicated Owen’s clothing. ‘The whole medieval thing going on here, I didn’t think you were looking to pick anyone up. And then I started to think you might be a gay man. Dressed up like that, with the false-looking boobs and everything. Not that that’s a problem,’ Egg added hurriedly. There was a pause which felt like he was pondering this. ‘Though I did meet one strange woman earlier who kept asking me to open hailing frequencies. Do you think that’s some sort of code?’

‘Don’t even go there,’ said Owen. He had taken the Mage’s sunglasses out of his pocket, and put them on to look at Egg.

Egg chose exactly the same moment to leap abruptly to his feet. He stared at his watch. ‘Oh God, no! My shift’s due to start. Sorry, gotta go.’ He offered Owen a theatrical shrug. ‘Laters, mate.’ And with this, he twisted on the spot and spiralled out of existence.

Owen stared at the empty space where Egg had been. Only it wasn’t Egg, he now knew. The sunglasses had confirmed his growing suspicion. The text floating in the air around the avatar’s head had revealed him to be [email protected], connected to Second Reality with an IP address in Cardiff.

The name should have given it away earlier, even before the coincidences of what had been said. Egg Magnet. Megan Tegg.

She was the girlfriend he’d walked out on in London six years ago. What was Dr Megan Tegg doing in Cardiff?

ELEVEN

Someone was shaking him, pushing on his shoulder. The instinct was to lash out with his elbow. He resisted that temptation while he tried to orient himself.

Owen was still wearing the helmet-mounted display, and his head rested on the keyboard of his work station. When he lifted his head, the image displayed by the helmet didn’t change: it was the two-dimensional screensaver, which told him in stark digital numbers that the time was 05.58.

Oh shit. He’d dozed off while playing Second Reality. After a period of inaction, the game had obviously disconnected him and then his computer screensaver had kicked in on timer.

He struggled out of the helmet. The same screensaver on his desktop computer screen clicked over to 05.59. The rest of the room was in shadows, the main lights not lit and most of the other terminal screens still switched off.

When Owen’s eyes adjusted to the contrast, he realised it was Ianto who’d woken him by pushing his shoulder. It wasn’t like him to touch Owen, to touch any of them really. The lad could throw the Torchwood SUV into a hairpin turn, knock a Weevil down with a well-placed blow, and run a hundred metres like Christian Malcolm. But he wasn’t the sort to put a comforting arm around someone or punch them playfully on the arm, and he’d die rather than hug you. Ianto never gave a second look to Gwen or Toshiko. And Jack was always hitting on him, so he was probably gay, hiding in the closet with the lights off and hoping no one could hear him breathing.

Ianto looked at Owen sheepishly. ‘I didn’t think anyone was in this early. I thought I’d better wake you before…’ He trailed off and looked over his shoulder. From elsewhere, in the R amp;R area, came the distinctive sound of Jack whooping with delight to the sound-effect noises of a handgun.

‘Yeah, right. Sorry,’ Owen muttered.

Ianto gave him his serious look. ‘You don’t want to get addicted to this, do you?’

‘Don’t you start,’ mumbled Owen. ‘You’re as bad as Tosh. No, I was… um… testing some new software for her.’

‘I understand,’ Ianto nodded solemnly. ‘Are those breasts part of the test, then?’

Owen looked down at his hands. Instead of seeing the blue data-gloves, he could see Glendower Broadsword’s deerskin gloves. Second Reality had logged him out, but Toshiko’s 3-D rendering software and projectors were still active. And so Owen still sported a magnificent pair of tits. Ianto’s smile looked like it might split his face in half.

‘All right, yeah,’ Owen warned. Ianto had obviously rumbled that he’d not been working hard all night. Perhaps he could brazen his way out of this. ‘So what? I met someone online who was interested in cybersex.’

Ianto’s smile evaporated in an instant, and a fleeting look of panic flashed over his features. This was a more extreme reaction than Owen had anticipated, but it was pleasing nonetheless to wipe that smirk off his face. Perhaps Ianto was more prudish than he thought. One of those valley boy Welsh Presbyterians, no doubt. Chapel every Sunday. They wouldn’t like him being gay, would they? Churchgoer… yeah, that would explain why he was wearing his smart suit at this time on a Sunday, at the crack of dawn. ‘What are you doing here so early, Ianto?’

Ianto looked shifty. ‘I might ask you the same thing, Dr Harper.’ There was another big whoop from the R amp;R area that suggested Jack had reached another level. ‘But perhaps I won’t.’

With a swipe of his hand, Owen disconnected Toshiko’s equipment. Glendower’s costume dissolved into the ether around him. ‘If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.’ He gestured towards Jack. ‘Has he been here all night?’

‘No,’ replied Ianto. ‘He got back about thirty minutes ago.’

Owen nodded and moved off.

In the R amp;R area, he found Jack was enthusiastically engaged in a shooting game. It had amused him some months previously to install Zombie Death alongside the other twenty-year-old arcade titles like Asteroids and a pinball machine themed around Bat Out Of Hell.

‘Jack!’ Owen adopted a tone of breezy familiarity. Better to try and blag it at this stage. ‘How are you getting on?’

‘I’m wiping you off the scoreboard buddy,’ Jack replied. ‘All those high scores you had? Not any more!’ He hefted a plastic gun, designed like an old-style revolver and attached by a stout cable to the base of the arcade game. On the display screen, a phalanx of the slavering undead menaced a cowering crowd of hospital patients and nurses. ‘Tosh told me about her 3D game technology. But you know, I’m kinda traditional about these things. Prefer the classic look. Retro.’

You’re telling me, thought Owen as he studied Jack’s collarless shirt and braces.

‘I thought I’d try it left-handed today,’ continued Jack nonchalantly, ‘to give you a chance.’ He loosed off a brisk string of shots. The machine pinged in approval as the zombies exploded into dusty pixels on the screen. Jack gave another great whoop of celebration. ‘Oh yeah! See that?’ He pulled Owen closer to the machine and tapped the screen with his finger. ‘That means I get an extra life. But…’ He affected to look forlorn. ‘… I can’t stay here all day. OK, you take it from here.’ He tossed the gun in a short arc through the air so that Owen could catch it. Owen decided he wasn’t going to be fazed by this challenge, and took up position in front of Zombie Death.

Jack stopped at the door on his way out, and considered Owen’s posture. ‘Have you done something to your tits?’

Owen couldn’t stop himself touching his chest self-consciously. ‘No. I switched the game off.’

‘Well, you gotta start working harder on those pecs, buddy. I can recommend a good gym. Is the Wildman autopsy done?’

Owen tried not to let his ‘Oh, shit!’ feeling show on his face. He still had to complete that, because he’d got sidetracked by Second Reality. ‘Sure, I’ll finish up shortly,’ he lied. While Owen was looking at Jack, in the Zombie Death game his character was dragged to the ground by the attacking monsters and devoured.