Trace Memory

'I mean I was rubbish,' said Gwen. 'I just followed Andy, my new partner Andy, I followed him around like this stupid bloody… toddler or something. Something was wrong. Everything that came up, I just froze. I didn't know what to do. I just stood there. I was useless. I was worse than useless. I was rubbish.

I don't know what was wrong with me…'

Rhys sat down next to her and put one arm around her shoulder. He stroked her hair and then pulled gently on her earlobe.

'You weren't rubbish,' he said. 'You aren't rubbish. You just had an off day.'

'Rhys, how long have I been there now? It shouldn't have been like today. It was like something was nagging at me all day. Like I had something else on my mind, but I can't work out what it was. Maybe I'm not meant to be doing this.'

Rhys looked at her, wide-eyed.

'Oi, now…' he said. 'None of that. You're good at your job. And it's what you've always wanted to do.'

Gwen nodded, tearfully. 'Apart from when I was six,' she said with a crumpled smile. 'When I was six I wanted to be She-Ra.'

Rhys laughed and, leaning forward, he kissed her on the cheek and then the lips. 'I believe in you,' he said, running his hand through her hair and smiling. 'You're so brave, doing what you do. I couldn't do it. I'd never pass the physical, for one thing!' He laughed. 'Did I ever tell you you're my hero?'

'Oh God,' said Gwen, pulling away from him and laughing. 'Bette Midler? Rhys… Are you trying to tell me something?'

Rhys laughed, falling back into the sofa. He looked at her again and smiled.

'I mean it,' he said. 'I'm so bloody proud of you.'

'We've all met him,' said Gwen. 'I knew I'd seen him somewhere before. You see so many faces, and you forget most of them. It wasn't until I heard what Tosh said. It suddenly made sense. We thought he was nuts…'

'So did we,' said Owen. 'Well, who wouldn't?'

'But why us?' asked Gwen. 'Why did he turn up in our pasts? And what about Ianto? And Jack?' She turned to Toshiko. 'The man in the bowler hat?' she said. 'It was real?'

Toshiko shrugged. 'I don't know,' she said. 'I'd forgotten everything until tonight. At first… when I saw Michael… I just thought it was, you know, deja vu or something. Like I knew his face from somewhere, but I couldn't place it. But then… suddenly I remembered everything. All I know is that it felt real at the time, and if I think about it, I can hear that… that thing's voice, and I can smell its breath. It was just horrible.'

'So something's coming for him,' said Gwen. 'Michael said he'd seen a man in a bowler hat. Tosh, you've seen that too. Something's coming for him.'

'And I've got one other question,' said Owen, gravely. 'How do we even know we can trust him?'

SEVEN

Basement D-4, according to the files, had been completed in January 1942. The other storage areas had been running out of available space, and Torchwood had first looked into hiring private contractors to construct a further two large storage spaces as early as 1910.

It had been a large-scale operation, building such spaces so deep underground, and the construction firm was paid handsomely. It was 1915 when work first began on the auxiliary areas, and Torchwood had informed the firm that the entire facility was a part of Britain's war effort, and as such should not be discussed with anybody.

This was not necessarily untrue, of course. Many pieces of technology stored in Torchwood Cardiff would go on to assist, in whatever small way, Britain's role in the Great War, and there were items brought back from the battlefields of Europe which, belonging to neither the Entente nor the Central powers, were also kept there.

By the beginning of the Second World War, the two new areas had been filled to capacity, and so a further two were constructed between 1941 and 1942 in the same part of the Hub, known then as Level D, once more under the smokescreen of serving a role in the war effort. Basement D-3 was filled with 'materials' by 1949, and so D-4 came into use.

'Well, this is all very fascinating,' said Owen, sitting back in his seat and giving an exaggerated yawn. 'Although I'm sure a potted history of Torchwood could have been included in my training, and saved me the bother of doing this n-'

'Wait… I've got something,' said Toshiko, sitting at the neighbouring workstation, and pointing at a screen. 'Audit, March 1954. Looks like they carried out an audit of everything they had in storage. It took five of them the best part of a month. That's a lot of alien toys to count.'

'I'm not sure I'm following you.'

'Here,' said Toshiko, touching the screen. 'It's a catalogue of everything that was collected before March 1954. Michael said he was helping to unload a crate, and that the crate exploded. Don't you think it's likely that if something out of the ordinary was in that crate it would have been brought here?'

Owen glanced across at her and nodded appreciatively. 'That's some good lateral thinking there, Tosh,' he said. 'I bet you're good at crosswords.'

'Actually, I hate crosswords,' said Toshiko. 'But I'd really like to see what's in that basement.'

'Tosh?'

'Yes, Owen?'

'Do you ever feel like a character in Scooby Doo?'

Toshiko laughed. They were walking down the steps toward Basement D-4, or rather they were treading very carefully. The lighting in this part of the facility was poor; fluorescent tubes that hadn't been changed in many years, only some of which still worked. Most of them were grimy or encrusted in cobwebs and dead moths.

'Sometimes,' she said. 'So who would you be?'

'Oh, Fred, definitely,' said Owen.

'Really? I was thinking you remind me more of Shaggy.'

'Yeah?' said Owen. 'Well, you know what they say. Shaggy by name, shaggy by nature.'

'What about me, then?' asked Toshiko. 'And if you dare say Velma, I'll-'

Toshiko had modified one of her counters to specifically target the electromagnetic wave she'd traced to both Michael and the basement, and it suddenly began to crackle a little louder.

'It's weaker than the reading I'm getting off Michael,' she said. 'I've never seen anything like this. As far as I can make out, it's like a kind of radiation which is harmless to humans…'

They were now standing before the entrance of Basement D-4. Toshiko punched the code into the security panel, and the door opened for the second time that night.

'Ladies first,' said Owen, peering cautiously into the gloom.

'Oh,' said Toshiko, 'you really are a gentleman.'

She walked into the storage area, and Owen followed.

'November 1953,' said Toshiko. 'There was only one acquisition that month. No real description of it, except to say that it was an artefact discovered on a British polar expedition. The source was unknown. The records say it was originally meant to be kept here on a temporary basis, after being shipped in directly from the Arctic. They were supposed to keep it here for initial tests before transferring it to Torchwood in London, but that didn't happen.'

Three of the room's walls housed eighty individual doors, like the doors of a locker, and in each door there was a keyhole.

'We're looking for container two-three-seven,' said Toshiko.

They began checking the numbers on each door, until eventually Owen said, 'I've got it.'

He pointed into an upper corner, at a locker door that was eight feet off the ground.

'Great,' said Toshiko. 'Did you bring a stepladder?'