Trace Memory

time.'

Michael frowned, not really understanding what Jack was talking about, and resumed eating.

'Look, Michael…' said Jack. 'I understand that things must be a little crazy for you, but.

He trailed off. Michael had dropped food onto his shirt and was frantically dabbing at it with a napkin, while occasionally glancing up at Jack in embarrassment.

'Sorry,' he said. 'I just… I don't normally eat like this.'

'It's OK,' said Jack. 'You were hungry.'

'What were you going to say?'

'When?'

'Just now. You said things must be crazy for me, and then you stopped talking.'

'Nothing,' said Jack. 'It's nothing.'

'You still didn't answer my question,' said Michael, before shovelling another forkful of food into his mouth.

'And which question was that?' asked Jack.

'How? How come you don't get any older?'

Jack sighed. 'It's not that I don't get any older,' he said. 'I do. Everyone gets older. I just do it a little slower than most people.'

'But how?'

'I don't know,' said Jack. 'I'm waiting for an answer, but I guess I've got a lot more waiting to do.'

'You sound sad,' said Michael. 'I thought nobody wanted to get old.'

'Like I told you,' said Jack, 'everyone gets old.'

As Michael scooped up the last remaining morsels from his plate their waitress came to the table, handing Jack a note. Jack opened it and read:

Jack,

No reason to be afraid, old chap. I may be able to help you out with your concerns. If you really are looking for answers I'd suggest you turn up at the fairground, Barry Island, 9pm sharp tomorrow.

Ciao.

'From the gentleman across the street, sir. He said he wanted you to read it…?'

The waitress pointed through a window on the other side of the cafe, and looking across the street Jack saw a man standing beneath the awning of a neighbouring restaurant.

It was Hugo.

TWELVE

'Well what time will you be coming home?' Rhys's voice was tinny and vaguely crackling at the other end of the phone line. Another thing they needed to put on the wedding list: a new phone.

'I don't know, love,' said Gwen. 'Like I said, something's come up at the last minute. I won't be here much longer, I promise.'

'I cooked you tea and everything,' said Rhys. 'Spaghetti bolognese. I even bought that cheese you like.'

Ah, spaghetti bolognese, thought Gwen. Rhys's current, culinary way of saying sorry. She was tired of it now, of course, after so many apologies that had sent him running to the kitchen after a quick jaunt to the nearest supermarket. Spag bol, as he called it, and a bottle of the supermarket's best own-brand red wine. Even though she hadn't gone to the supermarket with him, she could so easily imagine him pulling faces at anything that cost more than a fiver.

'We'll eat when I get home,' said Gwen.

'But what time's that going to be?' asked Rhys. 'I'm bloody starving now, and it's gone ten o'clock. I got work in the morning.'

He was right, of course. He may have been the one cooking spaghetti bolognese, but why should he have to wait for her until midnight or later? Gwen sighed.

Across the Hub, Owen was reading through a backlog of archive materials relating to the 1953 explosion and to the investigation which had followed it. He signalled to Gwen several times, waving his hand in the air, but Gwen shook her head.

'I'm sorry, Rhys,' she said into the phone. 'I've got to go, seriously. I won't be long, love, I promise.'

She said goodbye to him, and then the line went dead.

'What is it?' she called to Owen. 'What is it that so desperately needed my attention?'

'Look at this,' said Owen, pointing at his screen. 'I've managed to find something on the Orb investigation. But that's not all.'

'What is it?' asked Gwen, crossing the Hub and looking down at his monitor.

'Here,' said Owen, tapping the screen. 'Says the investigation into the explosion failed to find a cause, though it was believed… God, I think I need to get glasses or something, or is the print just really small? It was believed that Rift energy could not be ruled out as a factor. Jack was right. Then it says nothing happened at Torchwood Cardiff for another fourteen years, when 'key personnel'… who the bloody hell are key personnel?

Anyway…

Key personnel… investigated the 'Hamilton's Sugar incident'.'

'And that was?'

'Your guess is as good as mine. I've searched everything on our database. I've gone through everything we salvaged from Torchwood One. Nothing. Not a sausage. That's the last information I can find relating to Michael. The trail goes cold, and it wasn't particularly hot to begin with.'

Owen got up from his workstation.

'Anyway,' he said, 'I'm going to the Boardroom to keep an eye on Michael. I've got a really bad feeling…'

'What about?' asked Gwen.

'I don't know,' said Owen. 'But I have.'

Toshiko stared at the Orb. She'd listened to everything Jack had said, but even now it made little or no sense. In her time with Torchwood, she had grown accustomed to so many strange and inexplicable things. She had seen spaceships and aliens and she had travelled in time, but this was different.

It was her nightmares. She realised that had something to do with it. Listening to Jack talk about the Vondrax, and to the others describing what they had seen and heard… It was as if her worst childhood fears had been proven to exist.

The monster under the bed was no longer a dark fantasy explained away by an infant's overactive imagination; it was real.

The Orb itself was now quite dead. The readings she had picked up earlier seemed to diminish by the minute, leaving just the metal husk. The first metallurgy tests she had been able to perform confirmed one further, perplexing detail. Whatever metal the ball was made from could be found nowhere on the periodic table. It shared properties with titanium and zinc, without being identifiable as either. Though it appeared to be quite hollow, with a crust no more than a centimetre thick, it weighed in excess of forty kilos.

The engravings on its surface looked like ancient hieroglyphs but, from the little she knew of Egyptian, Sumerian and other writing forms, it had nothing in common with anything from Earth. Why should it? If Jack was to be believed, this thing was probably older than the Earth itself.

And then there was Michael.

Poor Michael, as she had taken to thinking of him. It was clear to her now that the Michael asleep in the Boardroom had never met her, that their experiences in Osaka had not yet happened to him. Where would this end for him, she wondered? She felt so redundant and helpless. Why wasn't there anything she could do for him? With all the technology they had at their disposal, they were still able to do nothing more than