Wishverse 1.07 - Part 5 of 6
Aug. 8th, 2009 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wiseheartTitle: The Many Departures of Gwen Cooper
Author: Soledad
Fandom: Torchwood
Category: Heavy-duty Gwen bashing.
Rating: 14+, just to be on the safe side.
Genre: Romance/Angst, for this part. Plus some dark humour.
Series: Wishverse.
Warning: repeated character death(s) in each chapter.
Timeframe: "Greeks Bearing Gifts". Major spoilers. This is an AU, though.
Summary: Many different ways to get rid of Gwen Cooper, while keeping the episodes as canonical as possible.
Disclaimer: the usual: don’t own, don’t sue! Everything belongs to RTD and BBC. I used a great deal of rewritten original dialogue, though.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
EPISODE 07 – GIFT HORSES, Part 5
Author’s notes: Continued from Part 2. Obviously.
This story will be posted in several short parts rather than in one big chunk, as it serves better the development of the relationship(s).
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It took the doctor about twenty minutes to clean up the autopsy bay and join Andy at his own computer. He didn’t look any less efficient without the white lab coat, wearing a leather jacket. He sat down, flashing on the skeleton’s digital image, and started a search of his own, having the compute: checks Cardiff A&E for cases between 2000 and 2002... presumably from the time when he worked there, or so Andy guessed. Lots of names scrolled by in alphabetical order with numbers after them.
By that time, Andy was well into his own research program, trying to pick out all unsolved murder cases with unexplained chest traumata, as far back as there were any police records available.
“Jesus,” Owen breathed, seeing the amount of records scroll by on both screens. “You better call in, mate; we’re gonna be here for days!”
“I already have,” Andy replied; thanks to Toshiko’s bravery earlier on that day, Inspector Henderson was still in a magnanimous mode and allowed him to help out the Torchwood team. “I’m glad the records are digitally stored, at least. Imagine leafing through this amount of paper folders in some dusty archive.”
“That would be a job for Teaboy,” Owen commented.
“Actually,” Ianto said dryly, placing a mug of coffee in front of each one,” my archives are digitalized, too. At least the case files are. It’s the bloody artefacts that need to be dug out manually every time.”
Owen gave the coffee mugs a suspicious look, noticing that the liquid in them hadn’t the same colour or texture.
“Since when do you know how PC Andy drinks his coffee?” he asked, almost accusingly.
Ianto shrugged. “Since Gwen started dragging him in whenever she needs something from the police. It’s called eidetic memory; I’m sure they mentioned it to you at medical school.”
He gave them a bland smile and glided out of the room elegantly, as if he’d been wearing skates. Owen glared at his retreating back with a scowl.
“One of these days I’m gonna wipe that stupid grin from his face!” he growled. “Who the fuck he thinks he is?”
“Someone who knows the Archives by heart and makes the best coffee on the planet?” Andy asked. “Leave him alone. He’s a nice bloke, if a bit weird.”
“A bit weird?” Owen echoed incredulously. “Mate, you don’t know what you’re talking about! Teaboy nearly got us all killed, just a couple of weeks ago!”
Andy shrugged. “So he made a mistake; a grievous one, seeing how worked up you are about it. So what? We all make mistakes. Let’s hope he learned from it.”
“There are mistakes and there are mistakes,” Owen countered. “And then there’s such thing as lying to us and betraying us, putting the whole city at risk.”
“Must have been some mistake,” Andy commented, hoping to learn more about it, but the doctor was cautious.
“You can say that,” was all he replied.
“Well, your boss didn’t fire him,” Andy pointed out, “so there must still be hope for him.”
“Cos Jack’s addicted to coffee,” Owen said darkly. “And he has the hots for Teaboy; had from the first day on.”
“As far as I can tell, your boss has the hots for anything on two legs,” Andy said, grinning. “Or has he sorted you out? Is that why you’re so mad at Ianto? Is it jealousy?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Owen snorted. “I’m not the one making cow eyes at Jack.”
“Nah,” Andy agreed. “That’s definitely Gwen. Now, could we leave Ianto alone and get on with this bloody research? I still intend to get at least some shut-eye tonight.”
“You can forget that,” Owen gave the file numbers on the screen a sour look. “There’s no way we’re getting this done before tomorrow; and I’m not even speaking of an early tomorrow here. There are hundreds of cases!”
“Perhaps if we cross-checked them with the Torchwood database, we can narrow down the search a little,” Andy suggested.
Owen looked at him in surprise.
“You know, that’s the first decent idea I’ve heard all day!” he said.
Andy shrugged. “Despite the impressions Gwen might have given you, police constables are not selected on the basis of stupidity,” he said.
“I’m beginning to believe that,” Owen typed away on his keyboard furiously, starting the program to cross-check unsolved murder cases with the Torchwood archive files. “Let’s see where this brings us. I really hope you’re right about narrowing down the…”
He trailed off as the file numbers rearranged themselves on the screen. There were considerably less now, but still dozens of them… maybe a hundred or two.
“Still an awful lot,” Andy commented, “but it does look a little better now.”
Owen nodded. “Yeah. Let’s spill them between us, shall we? I’ll take them from A to K; you take from M to Zed.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Andy agreed, and Owen transferred the data for him to Gwen’s workstation.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Upstairs, in Jack’s office, Ianto slid a mug of his trademark, industrial strength coffee in front of his boss. The stuff could have held a spoon and would have classified as a means of chemical warfare in various countries of the planet.
“Coffee, sir?” he murmured politely.
Jack looked up from the alien gadget he was still fingering. His usually so bright blue eyes were clouded with worry.
“Thanks, Yan,” he said. “I really need this right now.”
“Problems with the artefact, sir?” Ianto inquired neutrally. He didn’t want to make the impression as if he’d be spying, but he did want to help, if he could.
Jack shrugged. “The problem is, I know I’ve seen something similar before. I just can’t remember what the hell it was,” he glanced at Ianto. “Any luck with the Archives?”
Ianto shook his head. “There were hints at similar artefacts, but those were all larger ones. I remember Torchwood One used to have a report of some sort of transport capsule that looked like a wrought metal cage – exactly like this thing, actually – but it said to have been able to take two persons, so it had to be considerably bigger.”
“Not necessarily, if it belonged to an alien species that was either small by evolutional design or capable of changing the size and density of their bodies,” Jack reminded him. “And our found did have traces of alien materials, even after two hundred or so years.”
“Point taken,” Ianto allowed. “But if this is some kind of transporter device, there has to be a control mechanism somewhere.”
“Oh, I’m sure there is,” Jack said. “Those people, whoever they might be, had to program it somehow. I just don’t have the faintest idea how to access it.”
“What about making a holographic scan; a three-dimensional one?” Ianto suggested. “Then I can run it through the digital archive. Compare it to similar devices in the database. Perhaps we’ll find an indication where the control panel is hidden.”
“Good idea!” Jack said, his enthusiasm returning. “A very good idea, in fact! When did you get so smart, Ianto Jones?”
Ianto rolled his eyes. “You know very well that I was a junior researcher at Torchwood One, sir. I used to do a bit more back there than preparing coffee, washing the dishes and putting away dead bodies.”
“I’m getting the impression that you’re doing a lot more than that even here,” Jack said. “The Archives are nowhere near the mess they used to be before you joined us.”
“Actually, sir, they weren’t in so much of a disarray as you might believe,” Ianto answered. “My predecessor – Constable Davidson’s uncle – used to keep them quite neat. The… mess you spoke about only started after his death. Especially when all that stuff your team has scavenged from the ruins of Torchwood London got dumped in, uncategorized.”
Jack shook his head in amusement. “Sometimes I believe this place would be drowned in chaos without you.”
“That, sir, is a correct assumption,” Ianto replied without false modesty. “Now, if you need any assistance with that holographic scanner…”
“Nah,” Jack made vague shooing gestures with one hand. “I’ll manage. Look up those other items in the database. I’ll transfer the image to your workstation when I’m gone.”
“Very good, sir,” Ianto collected the meanwhile empty coffee mug – sometimes he wondered if Jack absorbed the stuff by osmosis or by applied psychokinesis – and returned to his workstation.
After he’d washed out the mug and cleaned the coffee machine, of course. A man had to set his priorities properly.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Approximately five hours later, Andy and Owen were still cross-referencing murder cases with the Torchwood database. Needless to say that the latter was a lot more detailed and thorough concerning weird murder cases – plus, it went back in time much longer.
“I’ve found here a case named Marmer,” Andy said, accepting the umpteenth mug of coffee from Ianto, who had periodically appeared with refreshments during the evening. “Heart removed. This says records and post-mortem passed to Operation Lowry… whatever that is.”
“Operation Lowry is a codename for unsolved murders, all committed in similar fashion,” Ianto explained, placing a mug in front of Owen.
Owen glared up at him in suspicion. “And why would you know about such things?”
Ianto shrugged. “I’m the archivist here. I know all codenames by heart. In fact, I’ve even created quite a few of them. It’s all part of my job, in case you haven’t realized yet.”
“And how do I get access to these case files?” Owen asked, his annoyance obvious.
“By asking the archivist nicely,” Ianto replied. “Oh, wait… that would be me, right? My, but that could be a problem, considering you’ll need a specific Torchwood security clearance for that. One that only Jack can give you. Or me.”
“I see,” Owen said snidely. “And what do I have to get the bloody clearance? Grovel at your feet?”
“Actually,” Ianto answered, completely unfazed by the doctor’s hostile attitude, “a simple, polite request would do. I’m not unreasonable – bare extraordinary circumstances.”
“Like hiding your cyber… your homicidal girlfriend in the basement?” Owen snapped.
Ianto held his glare without as much as a twitch of his eyelashes.
“That would be such a circumstance, yes,” he replied simply. “Now, do you need the clearance or not?”
“You know that I do!” Owen fumed. “You’re just enjoying…”
“Then ask,” Ianto interrupted. It was undeniably a bit childish, but Andy couldn’t really blame him for giving the doctor a hard time. One couldn’t be rude and insulting to people on a regular basis and except them not to indulge in a little retaliation.
Owen rolled his eyes. “Okay, Teaboy, you won. So, could we please get the clearance for the fucking case files?”
“I wouldn’t call that polite, but for the good of Torchwood, yes, you can,” Ianto leaned in from Andy’s left and hit a few keys on Gwen’s keyboard.
The picture of the skeleton zoomed closer immediately, and a dialogue panel appeared in the middle of the screen, saying: “Torchwood Clearance Code 45895. Please add codename.” Ianto stepped away from Gwen’s (formerly Suzie’s and now temporarily Andy’s) computer.
“It’s all yours,” he said simply, but didn’t leave the room. Perhaps he was curious, too.
Any typed “Operation Lowry” into the search field and hit Enter. A new window opened, showing lots of different dead people, all with gaping exit wounds in their chests. On the left side of the screen, the cause of death was noted for each victim, who were labelled only with their case file numbers.
“Heart removed,” Owen whispered. “Heart removed. Removed... How far back does this go?”
Ianto checked the dates. “The oldest case is dated from 1883… only a couple of years after the foundation of Torchwood Cardiff,” he replied. “That’s a bit… unsettling. Whatever killed these people clearly has been around for more than a century… or longer.”
“Look at their faces!” Andy whispered in horror.
Most of the victims didn’t have much of a face left – some even were just text case files, without any picture at all – but one thing was the same on all photos. Their mouths were wide open, as if they had been screaming in horror in the moment of their undoubtedly violent deaths.
“This is… this is completely impossible,” Owen stared at the screen, shocked. “They all had identical deaths, with identical expressions on their faces… We need Tosh to extend the research. Perhaps UNIT has more cases in their archives.”
“Tosh’s gone home hours ago,” Ianto informed him. “Jack wanted her to rest after today’s excitement.”
“Where’s Jack then?” Owen asked.
“Out on some kind of roof, I reckon,” Ianto replied with a shrug. “It’s that kind of night again.”
“What do you mean?” Andy asked with a frown. “Is he suicidal or what?” He couldn’t understand how these two could be so calm about their boss standing atop of some skyscraper in the middle of the night. Were they nuts?
“No,” Ianto explained. “It means brooding time. Which he usually spends on the roof of some obscenely high building, as he has no fear from great heights.”
“Why would he do that?” Andy asked, a little bewildered.
Ianto shrugged. “Brings him closer to the stars, he says. Plus, it’s unlikely that he’d be bothered there.”
“Well, though shit,” Owen snapped. “This time he’ll just have to deal with being bothered.”
“If he has a mobile phone on him at all,” Andy said.
“Jack never goes anywhere without his headset,” Owen replied. “Sometimes I think he even sleeps with the bloody thing… am I right, Teaboy?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Ianto answered. “But I intend to find out.”
“Do you now?” Owen said nastily. “And why is that?”
“Cos it’s my job to know everything that happens within the Hub,” Ianto replied simply. “You call Jack. I’ll be in the Archives if you need me; still have a search of my own to complete.”
“Thanks, but we’re doing just fine without you,” Owen told his already retreating back.
Andy grinned. “Were you implying that the two shag each other?”
“Well, it’s a fact that Jack is gay,” Owen replied with a shrug. “If Tosh were right and he’d really shag anything that’s gorgeous enough, he’d never have been able to keep his hands off Gwen.”
Andy looked at him with genuine pity. “Only you would describe Gwen Cooper as gorgeous, doc,” he said. “She’s many things, among them selfish and easy, but gorgeous… that’s a vastly different category.”
“What do you know?!” Owen scoffed.
“I know exactly what I’m talking about,” Andy replied, “and so does half the police station. Trust me, you aren’t the first… erm… stress relief in her life – nor are you gonna be the last one. Now, weren’t you gonna phone that boss of yours?”
Owen gave him a decidedly unfriendly glare but pulled out his mobile phone and hit the speed dial nonetheless.
“Jack?” he said when the call was picked up on the other end of the connection. “Get your arse back here; you need to see this.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“So, what have you found?” Jack asked half an hour later, leaning over Andy’s shoulder.
“Dozens of similar cases,” Owen replied grimly. “One hundred and sixty-two documented ones, to be accurate. From as long back as the foundation of Torchwood Three, at the very least. We have no idea if there were even more before… or if there are other cases we don’t even know about.”
“Operation Lowry, huh?” Jack looked at the data. “I remember when Aristide Lowry put together that collection; it was gruesome work no-one else could have gone through with. He must have had an iron stomach, the old chap. How I could have failed to associate our skeleton with those cases is beyond me. I should have remembered.”
“Perhaps because the skeleton is older than all the documented cases?” Andy supplied.
Jack shook his head. “That’s an explanation but no excuse. I should have remembered,” he looked at Owen. “What made you think of checking the A&E records, though?”
“The fact that our victim apparently had his heart removed,” Owen explained. “It reminded me of that girl…”
“What girl?” Andy asked.
“Some murder victim,” Owen replied. “I’d only been qualified six months when they brought her into the hospital, with a big, gaping wound in her chest, her face twisted into a mask of pure agony. She couldn’t have been older than seventeen; I wanted to throw up. Never seen anything like that before.”
“Must have been one hell of an initiation for your alter career,” Jack said. “After that, facing what we’re doing here all the time couldn’t have been much of a surprise.”
“Not really,” Owen admitted. “So we apparently have an alien on the loose – an alien with an unhealthy appetite for human hearts; one who’s been murdering people for at least two hundred years. How the hell did it manage to remain under the radar for so long?”
“Perhaps it’s a shapeshifter,” Jack replied with a shrug. “Or it’s capable of jumping from host body to host body like that alien gas thing Gwen managed to release on her first day at work for Torchwood.”
Andy’s eyes widened in surprise. “She did what? Man, you have to tell me the whole story! I so need some blackmail material against her!”
“Later,” Jack said impatiently. “In my opinion, the key to this whole mystery is the alien artefact we’ve found on the building site. I’ve set Ianto to search for similar founds in the Archives. Let’s hope something will turn up.”
“You really think there would me more such… such gizmos?” Andy asked doubtfully.
Jack shrugged. “It has been my experience that similar things tend to turn up from time to time here. Two hundred years are a long enough time, statistically, for that to happen. Anyway, I’ll be in my office, trying to figure out how this thing works and what makes it tick. You can go home when you’re finished with your search, but be back in time tomorrow.”
“That would be today,” Owen commented sourly. “Not that it would be the first time, of course. Sometimes I wonder why I still keep my flat.”
“That’s Torchwood for you,” Jack answered.
“Do you want me to come back, too?” Andy asked hopefully.
Jack grinned. “Well, you’re in on the case; you can as well help finish it. I’ll clear it with your superiors.”
“Awww, thanks!” Andy was pleasantly surprised. He thought he’d have to fight harder for the right to eventually see the case solved.
“Thank me when we’ve all gotten out of this mess unharmed,” Jack warned him, and then ran up the staircase to his office.
Owen sighed. “Well, mate, let’s get to work. The sooner we finish this bloody search, the earlier we can get out of here and into a bed – which I, for my part, begin to feel a definite need for.”
~TBC~
Author: Soledad
Fandom: Torchwood
Category: Heavy-duty Gwen bashing.
Rating: 14+, just to be on the safe side.
Genre: Romance/Angst, for this part. Plus some dark humour.
Series: Wishverse.
Warning: repeated character death(s) in each chapter.
Timeframe: "Greeks Bearing Gifts". Major spoilers. This is an AU, though.
Summary: Many different ways to get rid of Gwen Cooper, while keeping the episodes as canonical as possible.
Disclaimer: the usual: don’t own, don’t sue! Everything belongs to RTD and BBC. I used a great deal of rewritten original dialogue, though.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
EPISODE 07 – GIFT HORSES, Part 5
Author’s notes: Continued from Part 2. Obviously.
This story will be posted in several short parts rather than in one big chunk, as it serves better the development of the relationship(s).
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It took the doctor about twenty minutes to clean up the autopsy bay and join Andy at his own computer. He didn’t look any less efficient without the white lab coat, wearing a leather jacket. He sat down, flashing on the skeleton’s digital image, and started a search of his own, having the compute: checks Cardiff A&E for cases between 2000 and 2002... presumably from the time when he worked there, or so Andy guessed. Lots of names scrolled by in alphabetical order with numbers after them.
By that time, Andy was well into his own research program, trying to pick out all unsolved murder cases with unexplained chest traumata, as far back as there were any police records available.
“Jesus,” Owen breathed, seeing the amount of records scroll by on both screens. “You better call in, mate; we’re gonna be here for days!”
“I already have,” Andy replied; thanks to Toshiko’s bravery earlier on that day, Inspector Henderson was still in a magnanimous mode and allowed him to help out the Torchwood team. “I’m glad the records are digitally stored, at least. Imagine leafing through this amount of paper folders in some dusty archive.”
“That would be a job for Teaboy,” Owen commented.
“Actually,” Ianto said dryly, placing a mug of coffee in front of each one,” my archives are digitalized, too. At least the case files are. It’s the bloody artefacts that need to be dug out manually every time.”
Owen gave the coffee mugs a suspicious look, noticing that the liquid in them hadn’t the same colour or texture.
“Since when do you know how PC Andy drinks his coffee?” he asked, almost accusingly.
Ianto shrugged. “Since Gwen started dragging him in whenever she needs something from the police. It’s called eidetic memory; I’m sure they mentioned it to you at medical school.”
He gave them a bland smile and glided out of the room elegantly, as if he’d been wearing skates. Owen glared at his retreating back with a scowl.
“One of these days I’m gonna wipe that stupid grin from his face!” he growled. “Who the fuck he thinks he is?”
“Someone who knows the Archives by heart and makes the best coffee on the planet?” Andy asked. “Leave him alone. He’s a nice bloke, if a bit weird.”
“A bit weird?” Owen echoed incredulously. “Mate, you don’t know what you’re talking about! Teaboy nearly got us all killed, just a couple of weeks ago!”
Andy shrugged. “So he made a mistake; a grievous one, seeing how worked up you are about it. So what? We all make mistakes. Let’s hope he learned from it.”
“There are mistakes and there are mistakes,” Owen countered. “And then there’s such thing as lying to us and betraying us, putting the whole city at risk.”
“Must have been some mistake,” Andy commented, hoping to learn more about it, but the doctor was cautious.
“You can say that,” was all he replied.
“Well, your boss didn’t fire him,” Andy pointed out, “so there must still be hope for him.”
“Cos Jack’s addicted to coffee,” Owen said darkly. “And he has the hots for Teaboy; had from the first day on.”
“As far as I can tell, your boss has the hots for anything on two legs,” Andy said, grinning. “Or has he sorted you out? Is that why you’re so mad at Ianto? Is it jealousy?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Owen snorted. “I’m not the one making cow eyes at Jack.”
“Nah,” Andy agreed. “That’s definitely Gwen. Now, could we leave Ianto alone and get on with this bloody research? I still intend to get at least some shut-eye tonight.”
“You can forget that,” Owen gave the file numbers on the screen a sour look. “There’s no way we’re getting this done before tomorrow; and I’m not even speaking of an early tomorrow here. There are hundreds of cases!”
“Perhaps if we cross-checked them with the Torchwood database, we can narrow down the search a little,” Andy suggested.
Owen looked at him in surprise.
“You know, that’s the first decent idea I’ve heard all day!” he said.
Andy shrugged. “Despite the impressions Gwen might have given you, police constables are not selected on the basis of stupidity,” he said.
“I’m beginning to believe that,” Owen typed away on his keyboard furiously, starting the program to cross-check unsolved murder cases with the Torchwood archive files. “Let’s see where this brings us. I really hope you’re right about narrowing down the…”
He trailed off as the file numbers rearranged themselves on the screen. There were considerably less now, but still dozens of them… maybe a hundred or two.
“Still an awful lot,” Andy commented, “but it does look a little better now.”
Owen nodded. “Yeah. Let’s spill them between us, shall we? I’ll take them from A to K; you take from M to Zed.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Andy agreed, and Owen transferred the data for him to Gwen’s workstation.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Upstairs, in Jack’s office, Ianto slid a mug of his trademark, industrial strength coffee in front of his boss. The stuff could have held a spoon and would have classified as a means of chemical warfare in various countries of the planet.
“Coffee, sir?” he murmured politely.
Jack looked up from the alien gadget he was still fingering. His usually so bright blue eyes were clouded with worry.
“Thanks, Yan,” he said. “I really need this right now.”
“Problems with the artefact, sir?” Ianto inquired neutrally. He didn’t want to make the impression as if he’d be spying, but he did want to help, if he could.
Jack shrugged. “The problem is, I know I’ve seen something similar before. I just can’t remember what the hell it was,” he glanced at Ianto. “Any luck with the Archives?”
Ianto shook his head. “There were hints at similar artefacts, but those were all larger ones. I remember Torchwood One used to have a report of some sort of transport capsule that looked like a wrought metal cage – exactly like this thing, actually – but it said to have been able to take two persons, so it had to be considerably bigger.”
“Not necessarily, if it belonged to an alien species that was either small by evolutional design or capable of changing the size and density of their bodies,” Jack reminded him. “And our found did have traces of alien materials, even after two hundred or so years.”
“Point taken,” Ianto allowed. “But if this is some kind of transporter device, there has to be a control mechanism somewhere.”
“Oh, I’m sure there is,” Jack said. “Those people, whoever they might be, had to program it somehow. I just don’t have the faintest idea how to access it.”
“What about making a holographic scan; a three-dimensional one?” Ianto suggested. “Then I can run it through the digital archive. Compare it to similar devices in the database. Perhaps we’ll find an indication where the control panel is hidden.”
“Good idea!” Jack said, his enthusiasm returning. “A very good idea, in fact! When did you get so smart, Ianto Jones?”
Ianto rolled his eyes. “You know very well that I was a junior researcher at Torchwood One, sir. I used to do a bit more back there than preparing coffee, washing the dishes and putting away dead bodies.”
“I’m getting the impression that you’re doing a lot more than that even here,” Jack said. “The Archives are nowhere near the mess they used to be before you joined us.”
“Actually, sir, they weren’t in so much of a disarray as you might believe,” Ianto answered. “My predecessor – Constable Davidson’s uncle – used to keep them quite neat. The… mess you spoke about only started after his death. Especially when all that stuff your team has scavenged from the ruins of Torchwood London got dumped in, uncategorized.”
Jack shook his head in amusement. “Sometimes I believe this place would be drowned in chaos without you.”
“That, sir, is a correct assumption,” Ianto replied without false modesty. “Now, if you need any assistance with that holographic scanner…”
“Nah,” Jack made vague shooing gestures with one hand. “I’ll manage. Look up those other items in the database. I’ll transfer the image to your workstation when I’m gone.”
“Very good, sir,” Ianto collected the meanwhile empty coffee mug – sometimes he wondered if Jack absorbed the stuff by osmosis or by applied psychokinesis – and returned to his workstation.
After he’d washed out the mug and cleaned the coffee machine, of course. A man had to set his priorities properly.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Approximately five hours later, Andy and Owen were still cross-referencing murder cases with the Torchwood database. Needless to say that the latter was a lot more detailed and thorough concerning weird murder cases – plus, it went back in time much longer.
“I’ve found here a case named Marmer,” Andy said, accepting the umpteenth mug of coffee from Ianto, who had periodically appeared with refreshments during the evening. “Heart removed. This says records and post-mortem passed to Operation Lowry… whatever that is.”
“Operation Lowry is a codename for unsolved murders, all committed in similar fashion,” Ianto explained, placing a mug in front of Owen.
Owen glared up at him in suspicion. “And why would you know about such things?”
Ianto shrugged. “I’m the archivist here. I know all codenames by heart. In fact, I’ve even created quite a few of them. It’s all part of my job, in case you haven’t realized yet.”
“And how do I get access to these case files?” Owen asked, his annoyance obvious.
“By asking the archivist nicely,” Ianto replied. “Oh, wait… that would be me, right? My, but that could be a problem, considering you’ll need a specific Torchwood security clearance for that. One that only Jack can give you. Or me.”
“I see,” Owen said snidely. “And what do I have to get the bloody clearance? Grovel at your feet?”
“Actually,” Ianto answered, completely unfazed by the doctor’s hostile attitude, “a simple, polite request would do. I’m not unreasonable – bare extraordinary circumstances.”
“Like hiding your cyber… your homicidal girlfriend in the basement?” Owen snapped.
Ianto held his glare without as much as a twitch of his eyelashes.
“That would be such a circumstance, yes,” he replied simply. “Now, do you need the clearance or not?”
“You know that I do!” Owen fumed. “You’re just enjoying…”
“Then ask,” Ianto interrupted. It was undeniably a bit childish, but Andy couldn’t really blame him for giving the doctor a hard time. One couldn’t be rude and insulting to people on a regular basis and except them not to indulge in a little retaliation.
Owen rolled his eyes. “Okay, Teaboy, you won. So, could we please get the clearance for the fucking case files?”
“I wouldn’t call that polite, but for the good of Torchwood, yes, you can,” Ianto leaned in from Andy’s left and hit a few keys on Gwen’s keyboard.
The picture of the skeleton zoomed closer immediately, and a dialogue panel appeared in the middle of the screen, saying: “Torchwood Clearance Code 45895. Please add codename.” Ianto stepped away from Gwen’s (formerly Suzie’s and now temporarily Andy’s) computer.
“It’s all yours,” he said simply, but didn’t leave the room. Perhaps he was curious, too.
Any typed “Operation Lowry” into the search field and hit Enter. A new window opened, showing lots of different dead people, all with gaping exit wounds in their chests. On the left side of the screen, the cause of death was noted for each victim, who were labelled only with their case file numbers.
“Heart removed,” Owen whispered. “Heart removed. Removed... How far back does this go?”
Ianto checked the dates. “The oldest case is dated from 1883… only a couple of years after the foundation of Torchwood Cardiff,” he replied. “That’s a bit… unsettling. Whatever killed these people clearly has been around for more than a century… or longer.”
“Look at their faces!” Andy whispered in horror.
Most of the victims didn’t have much of a face left – some even were just text case files, without any picture at all – but one thing was the same on all photos. Their mouths were wide open, as if they had been screaming in horror in the moment of their undoubtedly violent deaths.
“This is… this is completely impossible,” Owen stared at the screen, shocked. “They all had identical deaths, with identical expressions on their faces… We need Tosh to extend the research. Perhaps UNIT has more cases in their archives.”
“Tosh’s gone home hours ago,” Ianto informed him. “Jack wanted her to rest after today’s excitement.”
“Where’s Jack then?” Owen asked.
“Out on some kind of roof, I reckon,” Ianto replied with a shrug. “It’s that kind of night again.”
“What do you mean?” Andy asked with a frown. “Is he suicidal or what?” He couldn’t understand how these two could be so calm about their boss standing atop of some skyscraper in the middle of the night. Were they nuts?
“No,” Ianto explained. “It means brooding time. Which he usually spends on the roof of some obscenely high building, as he has no fear from great heights.”
“Why would he do that?” Andy asked, a little bewildered.
Ianto shrugged. “Brings him closer to the stars, he says. Plus, it’s unlikely that he’d be bothered there.”
“Well, though shit,” Owen snapped. “This time he’ll just have to deal with being bothered.”
“If he has a mobile phone on him at all,” Andy said.
“Jack never goes anywhere without his headset,” Owen replied. “Sometimes I think he even sleeps with the bloody thing… am I right, Teaboy?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Ianto answered. “But I intend to find out.”
“Do you now?” Owen said nastily. “And why is that?”
“Cos it’s my job to know everything that happens within the Hub,” Ianto replied simply. “You call Jack. I’ll be in the Archives if you need me; still have a search of my own to complete.”
“Thanks, but we’re doing just fine without you,” Owen told his already retreating back.
Andy grinned. “Were you implying that the two shag each other?”
“Well, it’s a fact that Jack is gay,” Owen replied with a shrug. “If Tosh were right and he’d really shag anything that’s gorgeous enough, he’d never have been able to keep his hands off Gwen.”
Andy looked at him with genuine pity. “Only you would describe Gwen Cooper as gorgeous, doc,” he said. “She’s many things, among them selfish and easy, but gorgeous… that’s a vastly different category.”
“What do you know?!” Owen scoffed.
“I know exactly what I’m talking about,” Andy replied, “and so does half the police station. Trust me, you aren’t the first… erm… stress relief in her life – nor are you gonna be the last one. Now, weren’t you gonna phone that boss of yours?”
Owen gave him a decidedly unfriendly glare but pulled out his mobile phone and hit the speed dial nonetheless.
“Jack?” he said when the call was picked up on the other end of the connection. “Get your arse back here; you need to see this.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“So, what have you found?” Jack asked half an hour later, leaning over Andy’s shoulder.
“Dozens of similar cases,” Owen replied grimly. “One hundred and sixty-two documented ones, to be accurate. From as long back as the foundation of Torchwood Three, at the very least. We have no idea if there were even more before… or if there are other cases we don’t even know about.”
“Operation Lowry, huh?” Jack looked at the data. “I remember when Aristide Lowry put together that collection; it was gruesome work no-one else could have gone through with. He must have had an iron stomach, the old chap. How I could have failed to associate our skeleton with those cases is beyond me. I should have remembered.”
“Perhaps because the skeleton is older than all the documented cases?” Andy supplied.
Jack shook his head. “That’s an explanation but no excuse. I should have remembered,” he looked at Owen. “What made you think of checking the A&E records, though?”
“The fact that our victim apparently had his heart removed,” Owen explained. “It reminded me of that girl…”
“What girl?” Andy asked.
“Some murder victim,” Owen replied. “I’d only been qualified six months when they brought her into the hospital, with a big, gaping wound in her chest, her face twisted into a mask of pure agony. She couldn’t have been older than seventeen; I wanted to throw up. Never seen anything like that before.”
“Must have been one hell of an initiation for your alter career,” Jack said. “After that, facing what we’re doing here all the time couldn’t have been much of a surprise.”
“Not really,” Owen admitted. “So we apparently have an alien on the loose – an alien with an unhealthy appetite for human hearts; one who’s been murdering people for at least two hundred years. How the hell did it manage to remain under the radar for so long?”
“Perhaps it’s a shapeshifter,” Jack replied with a shrug. “Or it’s capable of jumping from host body to host body like that alien gas thing Gwen managed to release on her first day at work for Torchwood.”
Andy’s eyes widened in surprise. “She did what? Man, you have to tell me the whole story! I so need some blackmail material against her!”
“Later,” Jack said impatiently. “In my opinion, the key to this whole mystery is the alien artefact we’ve found on the building site. I’ve set Ianto to search for similar founds in the Archives. Let’s hope something will turn up.”
“You really think there would me more such… such gizmos?” Andy asked doubtfully.
Jack shrugged. “It has been my experience that similar things tend to turn up from time to time here. Two hundred years are a long enough time, statistically, for that to happen. Anyway, I’ll be in my office, trying to figure out how this thing works and what makes it tick. You can go home when you’re finished with your search, but be back in time tomorrow.”
“That would be today,” Owen commented sourly. “Not that it would be the first time, of course. Sometimes I wonder why I still keep my flat.”
“That’s Torchwood for you,” Jack answered.
“Do you want me to come back, too?” Andy asked hopefully.
Jack grinned. “Well, you’re in on the case; you can as well help finish it. I’ll clear it with your superiors.”
“Awww, thanks!” Andy was pleasantly surprised. He thought he’d have to fight harder for the right to eventually see the case solved.
“Thank me when we’ve all gotten out of this mess unharmed,” Jack warned him, and then ran up the staircase to his office.
Owen sighed. “Well, mate, let’s get to work. The sooner we finish this bloody search, the earlier we can get out of here and into a bed – which I, for my part, begin to feel a definite need for.”
~TBC~
