Jack Harkness stood at the end of a long road. At the far end was a huge brick wall, creating a cul-de-sac of Wharf Street. Off Wharf Street, four other roads to the left. The right of Wharf Street was just a solid row of Victorian terraces.
The four roads were also lined with identical two-up, two-down terraces. All workers’ cottages, built for the dockworkers in 1872. Back then, the land had been owned by one of the local businessmen, Gideon ap Tarri, who wanted his men well housed with their wives and kids.
At the other end of the four side roads, a street identical to Wharf Street called Bute Terrace.
Six streets of houses, creating a neat square of land.
And all the houses empty. Just as they had been in 1902 when he’d first been drawn here. And all the other times. 1922 – that’d been a good year. And in 1934, that old woman who threw things at him…
Unchanging. No sign of wear and tear. Just… there.
Jack was about to step forward when something that hadn’t happened on his previous incursions suddenly occurred.
A dog, a small brown cocker spaniel, lolloped towards Wharf Street from behind him, panting slightly. It brushed past his leg and into Wharf Street. Momentarily it stopped and cocked its head, as if listening, Jack thought. Hearing something on a frequency that dogs can but humans can’t. Then it carried on moving, and then turned left into the second linking road. Jack had no idea what the street was called; if it had a sign, it was on the facia he couldn’t see from where he stood.
The dog was gone, completely out of his field of vision, so he moved left to look down Bute Terrace. The dog didn’t re-emerge, so he assumed it had found something to amuse itself with in the side road.
Anywhere else, of course, he might just have wandered in to see what the dog was doing.
But this tiny block of streets known as Tretarri was off-limits to Jack. It always had been. Ever since 1902, when he’d first stumbled on it, drunkenly one night. (Oh, that was a good night. That showgirl. And the sailor. Together…) He’d tried going in but had woken up flat on his back, exactly where he stood now. And, for the next two days, he’d played host to King Hangover of the Hangover People.
Same on his other visits – he physically could not get into Tretarri. If he tried, he felt sick.
He stepped forward. Nope, tonight was no different, the nausea was wrenched up from the pits of his gut in a split second – maybe a bit stronger, a bit more nauseous, but always the same sensations. He tried to ignore it, to force himself forward. If he was going to throw up, so what? He was still going to try.
He put an arm out but, just as he’d found the last time, something stopped him. Like a barrier – an invisible barrier.
He tried to fight the wave of hot and cold washing over him, tried to ignore the churning in his stomach. He was Jack Harkness, fifty-first-century Time Agent. He’d fought monsters for God’s sake. How could a crappy little block of streets in one city on Earth give him this much grief?
Then he staggered back.
‘I give up,’ he muttered to no one in particular.
One day, he’d break through this. It was a mystery, and Jack didn’t much like mysteries. Well, not insoluble ones. Not insoluble ones that made him want to bring his lunch up. And yesterday’s lunch. And probably the last week’s worth of lunches.
He turned away from Bute Terrace and tried to focus on that party going on down by the docks.
But no, even thinking about drinking, gambling, girls and boys couldn’t convince him to head there.
He needed rest. Sleep.
And annoyingly, like last time, he knew it’d be three days before he’d be fit and ready again.
He wandered into the darkness, trying not to stagger and lean against the lamp-posts as he headed back to his den.
If he’d taken one last look back, he would have seen the spaniel standing at the edge of the street, its eyes glowing bright with an unearthly white halogen light. He might have seen what could also only be described as a smile on its face.
But normal, Earth-based dogs can’t smile, so he’d have dismissed that as a by-product of his nausea.
Four days later, he was back at Torchwood Three.
His defences were up immediately. Rhydian wasn’t on reception duty, but unconscious on the floor, his breathing shallow but regular. Jack sniffed his breath – Rhydian had been drugged then.
He went down into the Hub.
Turing’s Rift predictor was wrecked, bits of it strewn about the floor, and a dark, charred hole at its heart.
Of Tilda Brennan, Llinos King or Greg Bishop, no sign.
Tilda’s office, far side, to the right of the Torchwood train station sign, was empty. Drawing his Webley, gripping it in both hands, Jack expertly explored the Hub, checking the walkway that ringed the walls, the Committee Room at 9 o’clock to Tilda’s office, on that walkway, and then looked down into the sterile Autopsy Room.
Nothing.
He crossed under the Committee Room to the steps at the back of the Hub, glancing into the Interrogation Room. Llinos was lying across the table.
He was in there in seconds, checking Llinos’ neck for a pulse. Faint, but there.
Both Rhydian and Llinos, alive but unconscious. Why?
He took the steps down into the bowels of the Torchwood base, leading to a series of interlinked tunnels and passageways. To one side, he passed the Vaults where alien prisoners were kept. Nothing.
He went further, down a few steps to the basement area, a vast room of nothing but filing cabinets – details of Torchwood incidents, staff and records going back to its inception in 1879.
Around the corner, the huge Victorian morgue, rows of wooden doors hiding… whatever. He was never comfortable down there. As a man who couldn’t die, being in close proximity to those that had, made him… uncomfortable.
There was a noise, a whisper.
‘Jack.’
It had come from the direction of the Vaults, and Jack eased himself along the tunnels back there.
‘Greg?’
Revolver ready, he went into the Vaults, aiming rapidly into each cell. Empty until he reached the last one. The alien he’d got from the railway station, dissected, its face contorted in agony, spread-eagled on the floor, entrails everywhere.
‘Jack…’
He swung around.
Greg was in the doorway, his face swollen and bloodied, his right arm (his gun arm, Jack knew) twisted at an angle, clearly broken painfully in at least two places. His beautiful blue eyes were staring at Jack in silent apology.
But the most surprising thing wasn’t Greg. It was Tilda Brennan, holding Greg in front of her as a shield, a pistol jammed against his forehead.
She was holding Greg in an arm-lock around the throat, and clutching a diary of some sort.
‘You couldn’t just sod off and leave us alone, could you Jack?’ she spat. ‘This is your fault.’
Jack shrugged and threw a look at ‘Neil’ the alien. ‘What did you learn from that?’
Tilda snorted. ‘That whatever race that piece of crap is from, they’re easily stopped.’
‘Is that what Torchwood One wanted?’
‘I’m not working for Torchwood any more,’ she said quietly.
‘Kinda guessed that,’ Jack replied, keeping the Webley aimed straight at her, but with an eye on her twitchy trigger finger.
He knew that, if he fired, there’d still be that split second, that moment when the noise of the Webley could startle her enough that she’d fire too, spreading Greg’s brain across the room just as his bullet did the same to hers.
He wasn’t going to take that risk – he didn’t owe Torchwood enough for that.
But he owed Greg.
