Idris looked Jack straight in the eyes, and then sighed. ‘If this was a movie, Harkness, I’d be sixty, bald and looking over my shoulder in case the Nazis burst in.’
‘You’ll never go bald.’
‘Donald Pleasance. Or Laurence Naismith.’
Jack headed out the door. ‘How long?’
‘Three hours for a rough estimate.’
Jack looked back and smiled. ‘Even those guys were beautiful when they were your age. Probably. And Idris?’
‘What?’
‘Thank you.’
Jack pulled the door shut and headed back out into the night air. He crossed down towards the river, deciding to take the scenic route back to the Hub. It was a busy night and, for the sake of ten more minutes, strolling through Hamadryad Park would clear his mind, let him focus.
FIFTEEN
Owen Harper was on the verge of throwing the blood samples against the walls of the Autopsy Room. Somehow, flecking the white brickwork with red splatter seemed more worthwhile than what he was doing right now.
‘I can’t do it, Jack,’ he yelled, knowing no one could hear him, cos the Hub was empty. ‘Whatever you’ve got in your body, I can’t isolate it!’
He kicked the autopsy table instead.
It was just as melodramatic, but less destructive. Although his left toes might not agree for the next minute or so.
‘Stupid, stupid…’
He turned back to the screen projected on the white wall behind him. Jack’s blood. Jack’s DNA. Jack’s tissue samples. If he’d had any, frankly, he’d have happily tested Jack’s faeces, sperm, anything that might help find out what made Jack Harkness unique amongst mankind.
‘Are you trying to find out what stops him going into Tretarri?’ asked a silky voice from above him. ‘Or to isolate what actually makes him come back to life?’
Owen didn’t look up into the Hub. He knew it was Bilis. The idea that the little old man could come and go no longer alarmed Owen. He took a deep breath and carried on working. ‘If you’ve anything useful to add, tell me. Otherwise, piss off out of the Hub, I’m busy.’
And Bilis was in front of him, hands behind his back, smiling, head slightly cocked as if listening to something.
‘There’s a cry in your head, Owen,’ he said. ‘A sound. A connection. To our chum in the cells, and all the others out there.’
‘Dunno what you’re talking about, mate.’
‘Yes you do,’ Bilis said simply. ‘You’ve known for a long time. But you don’t tell anyone else, do you? Because it frightens you. You know there’s something of the Weevil about you. On one level, it’s just a post-traumatic thing. You identify with their bestiality, because you know that beneath the snarls, beneath the aggression, are intelligent, communal beings who need one another. And, like the Weevils, Owen Harper wants to believe he can survive alone, when what he really needs is a good hug.’
Owen just stared at Bilis, then forced a smile on his face. ‘You should go into counselling, mate,’ he said.
And he turned back to his blood samples, so Bilis wouldn’t see the frown. A frown because Bilis, damn him, had a point.
Not so much the loneliness – Owen had got accustomed to that, but no, the Weevils thing. He did find he had some weird connection to them. And that scared him because he couldn’t work out why he was drawn to them.
He felt Bilis’s hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry Owen. It will make sense in the future. And for that, I am truly sorry.’
Owen shook the hand off. ‘You are ten seconds away from being shot,’ he said.
Bilis laughed a soft humourless laugh. ‘Oh we know that’s not going to happen. But other things are that will be life-changing for you. And I can’t help you. No one can. Remember how fragile life is, Owen Harper. As a doctor, you know that. Learn to cherish it.’
And Owen saw something on the floor. A revolver, just lying there, a curl of smoke petering out above the barrel.
Then it was gone. And so was Bilis.
Owen searched the Hub, the lower levels, the upper levels and even the Boardroom, but no sign.
Exactly how he wound up in the Vaults, staring at the Weevil in its cell, he couldn’t remember.
But now he was there, unaware that, as Bilis had earlier, he had pressed his hand against the plastic door. On the other side, the imprisoned Weevil pressed its own hand to the door.
‘Why are you here?’ Owen asked it. ‘How do you cope in this alien environment?’
The Weevil said nothing.
Owen pulled back. Jesus, he was talking to Weevils. What was going on with him these days?
‘Poor bloody thing,’ he thought. ‘Shoved into an alien environment, a cage with so many security doors to stop you getting out to where you think you belong. Waiting for something to go wrong, waiting for the security systems to go down like before. Giving you access to the forbidden Hub and beyond that the wastelands of Cardiff, the sewers, the landfills, the-’
Of course! That was it, they’d been looking at this all the wrong way round.
Owen belted from the Vaults back to the Boardroom.
And that was his mistake – he was so determined to contact Jack, to warn him, because he’d figured it out.
Because he was Owen. Because he was always the fool who rushed in.
And because he never saw the bigger picture.
Never saw what was behind him.
‘Jack,’ he slammed his fist on the comms system, knowing that, wherever Jack had gone, he’d have his cochlear Bluetooth activated. ‘Jack, listen to me!’
Nothing.
‘Damn it, Jack, I hope you’re just being bloody-minded and can hear me anyway. Listen, it’s not that you can’t get in, you can. There’s nothing in you stopping you, it’s deliberate. Not your body or anything. Tretarri itself is locked to you. You need a key… No, that’s not it. It’s… it’s like a lockdown here – at some point, you are going to be let in, but on the town’s terms! Shit, Jack, it’s a trap waiting to be sprung. It’s a trap and that’s why it’s got Tosh. She’s bait, Jack. You’ve got to get back here – now!’
Nothing.
‘Jack! For God’s sake!’
‘I knew it would be you,’ said Bilis, standing behind him. ‘You’re so methodical, leaving nothing to chance. If at first he doesn’t succeed, Owen Harper tries and tries again.’
Owen was round, ready to fight, but Bilis was so much faster.
‘I blocked the comms system, sorry,’ said Bilis, as he grabbed Owen’s hands. ‘If Jack tries to call in, he’ll get Craig Armstrong’s
Owen was expecting an easy fight – Bilis was what, seventy-five, eighty? Weedy, stick-like, bit theatrical?
But Owen was wrong, and Owen was on his knees, then prone in seconds as Bilis crushed his hands as if he were a pneumatic vice.
Owen heard a shriek of unendurable agony and realised it was his own voice, and then the darkness took
