Pack Animals

‘Unless it’s the tiger?’

‘That’s a lot of tiger pee,’ muttered Jack.

A public announcement was echoing faintly on the still air. All the loudspeakers were in the main pedestrian thoroughfares, but some of the words carried into the tiger enclosure. The zoo was closing, and visitors were requested to make their way immediately and calmly to the exit.

The big observation window allowed Ianto to see the arrival of two armed zoo staff, their tranquillising rifles unslung. Something about the window made Ianto take a closer look at the brick-and-concrete wall, or as best he could across the moat. That gap must be about five, maybe six metres wide.

‘We should leave,’ Jack said. He had covered over his wrist monitor again, and was ready to go.

Ianto studied him curiously. ‘Can’t we help?’

‘Not our job,’ snapped Jack immediately. ‘We catch aliens, not escaped zoo animals.’

Ianto wasn’t in such a rush to depart. ‘See there? To the left?’ He pointed to a line that ran parallel to the transparent wall of glass.

‘A crack in the brickwork?’ ventured Jack. He looked more closely. ‘It’s too clean to be a crack in the mortar.’

Ianto nodded. ‘You heard what that woman was blubbering about. Someone removed that wall, let the tiger out, and then replaced the wall. She didn’t imagine it. But they didn’t get the alignment perfect, and you can still see the join.’

He was about to say more when a commotion beyond the large glass wall caught his attention. Whatever it was, the armed zoo staff immediately swung around, pointing their rifles cautiously. One of them waved frantically at the other nearby staff to get them to move back and away, while he began to move cautiously forward.

‘We need to get a closer look at that wall,’ Jack said to Ianto. ‘This moat’s too wide. Need to get around the other side.’

‘No ice cream then,’ sighed Ianto.

‘What can I say?’ replied Jack. ‘I’m a cheap date.’

The pair of them ducked back through the double-gated exit from the tiger compound. Ianto kicked sand and straw and tiger shit off his boots on the second gate, and hurried around to inspect the wall beside the huge glass observation window. The last of the zoo visitors were meandering away from it, shooed off by blue-and-yellow zoo staff like so many straggling geese.

Ianto dismissed an aggressive zookeeper with merely a stern look. ‘Where d’you think those riflemen were going?’ he asked Jack.

‘Tiger hunting,’ replied Jack. ‘Better watch out, Mr “Safety First”.’

Ianto rolled his eyes. He and Jack were unarmed, because Ianto had made them leave their handguns securely locked in the SUV, and the SUV securely immobilised in parking section ‘Rhino 6’. Instead of arguing, he studied the wall. The artificially straight vertical line through the brickwork was even clearer on this side. And half- buried in the dried mud at the foot of the wall was an irregular-shaped device of unfamiliar metal. ‘Alien tech,’ grinned Ianto, and began to speculate on what he might christen it.

‘Wait,’ Jack warned him, ‘we’re being watched. They’d drawn the attention of a small group that stood at a closed fast-food concession, next to the zebra enclosure. Ianto recognised the big ginger wardrobe who’d blanked Jack earlier. The guy was talking to three other big blokes, all of them in non-standard grey boiler suits. You could make out the crossed-keys motif even from this distance. Ianto turned his head to catch what one of them was shouting.

‘… still unsecured! Never mind the damned tiger, get it. D’you hear me? Get it, collect the equipment, and get out.’

And that was the point at which the tiger ran past. It charged around the corner of the chain-link fence that surrounded the large zebra enclosure, hugging the lower rail like a racehorse entering the final few furlongs. It was an orange-brown blur, barrelling at them, running for its life. Or for theirs.

Ianto instinctively flattened himself against the wall. Jack interposed himself between the animal and Ianto. The tiger charged towards them, past them, and struck the plate-glass window of its former enclosure. The animal’s beautiful head connected with a sickening crunch, and it reeled back and slumped down almost at once.

The four men in grey boiler suits watched dispassionately. That was strange. Another odd thing was that they each carried a small suitcase.

Armed zoo staff emerged from the other side of the zebra enclosure, and raced over to the stunned, bewildered big cat.

‘The tiger’s never been up close to the glass,’ Ianto breathed. ‘So it thought it could get through. Running for home. They must have spooked it.’

‘They didn’t spook it,’ said Jack darkly. He had snapped open his wrist device again. ‘There’s more Rift activity.’

Ianto nodded. ‘It’ll be this alien tech here that-’

With a whistle of air and a whump of displaced grit, the bloodied carcass of a zebra slammed down onto the ground right beside them. Ianto jumped back to avoid getting sprayed. The animal’s head had been ripped off, and blood continued to gout from the neck, staining the black and white coat with vivid new red stripes.

‘That’s a more likely explanation,’ said Jack slowly, and pointed.

The chain-link around the field opposite quivered like a plucked string. The dead zebra had been flung right over it, fully twenty metres. And the alien monstrosity that had tossed it that distance began to howl. A hole further along in the fence revealed how it had got in. The remaining zebras were running in panicky circles on the far side of their paddock.

The monster was a nightmare creature of ragged scales. A ridge of plates ran from the tip of its thrashing tail until it bifurcated at the shoulders and ran to the crown of two independently swivelling heads. Each surveyed a different area of its surroundings, baring an impossible number of slivered teeth at the humans below.

The bruisers in the boiler suits leaped into sudden activity, snapping open locks on their cases. If they had any sense, thought Ianto, they’d be fleeing for the exits with all the other zoo visitors. Instead, they were coordinating their movements around the double-headed creature.

‘It’s a Brakkanee. Stay still,’ Jack told Ianto in a low, insistent voice. ‘It relies more on sound than sight.’

‘No wonder that tiger fled in terror.’

Jack studied his wrist device. ‘It’s a killing machine. It could handle a whole pride of tigers and not get out of breath.’

‘It’s not a pride, it’s an ambush of tigers-’

‘Not now, Ianto!’ And with this, Jack was haring off towards the zebra enclosure, staying on the grass verge to reduce noise.

Ianto chased after him. Jack didn’t look pleased when he saw that he’d followed him.

‘Maybe it’s not as bad as it seems,’ joked Ianto.

‘Yeah, right,’ hissed Jack. ‘The big monster that slaughtered that zebra made a little mistake. It’s really sweet and lovely and kind to smaller animals. What a pity that ninety-nine per cent of Brakkanee give the rest a bad name.’

The Brakkanee breached the chain-link fence, peeling it back as easily as a net curtain. One head loomed towards them, hissing.

Jack had already activated his ear-comms to call the Hub. Ianto tried to tune in and listen, until he remembered his earpiece was back in the SUV’s glove compartment. Trust Jack to have conveniently overlooked his own.

‘She’s gone shopping?’ Jack was saying incredulously. ‘All right, send Owen then, if he’s nearer.’

The Achenbrite boiler suits were removing equipment from long pockets in their baggage. Jack reached the big redhead, and asked him to move back to safety with an insistent: ‘We’re Torchwood.’

The bloke reached out one meaty hand and pushed it into Jack’s face. ‘Leave it. It’s under control,’ he said. He sounded Scottish.

Jack stumbled back from the shove. ‘If this is under control-’ he began.

One of the armed zookeepers fired her tranquilliser gun. The feathered pellet slapped into the Brakkanee’s head, and hung stupidly from its scaled cheek. The huge head shook in irritation, swooped down, and brutally