‘I know what you meant,’ said Owen. ‘I am actually good at what I do, you know?’
‘Owen-’ she began.
‘No arguing tonight, please,’ said Jack, holding up a hand.
‘Look,’ said Owen. ‘There are two reasons James is better off here. One, we’ve got better kit and technical medical support than any hospital I know of. Two… well, he’s not actually hurt that badly.’
The other three looked at him. Owen shrugged. ‘I know, he’s a mess. And you told me what he went through. But it’s basically just bruising and cuts and stuff. The blow to the head and shoulder were the worst of it, and even they were comparatively minor. Our beloved Captain Analogy was bloody, bloody lucky.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Gwen.
‘I scanned him thoroughly,’ said Owen. ‘Some muscle tearing and a slight crack to the cheek bone, but no head trauma to speak of. At any rate, not the sort of head trauma you’d expect after being punched out by a mad killer robot.’
‘Just keep him under observation,’ said Jack. He rose to his feet. ‘Just now, Owen said it was all over. It isn’t.’
He looked at them. Their faces were solemn, waiting for him to continue. His head bowed slightly, thoughtfully. ‘When I realised what we were up against in Cathays,’ said Jack, ‘there was one clear upside to it all, as far as I could see. God knows, a Serial G is a big deal. As we chased around after it, I remember thinking, “At least this is it. At least we know what the warning was all about now.”’
Jack took the black tile out of his trouser pocket and held it up. It was still flashing.
‘If this doohickey is supposed to alert us to an approaching threat, or to an imminent war, the Serial G wasn’t it.’
Jack chuckled humourlessly to himself. He tossed the tile down onto the conference table. ‘I was so sure. When I saw that heap of junk stomping around, I was so damn sure.’
He looked around at them again. ‘So, we’re left wondering… What is it? What is it really? Was it, maybe that strange grey thing that managed to be both invisible and kill a Serial G in the same afternoon?’
‘It didn’t seem like a threat,’ Toshiko said. ‘It was on our side.’
‘We don’t know that,’ said Jack. ‘All we know is that it wasn’t on the Serial G’s side. That’s not the same thing at all.’
Gwen got up. ‘I’m going to look around Cosley Hall.’
‘We’ve been through this, Gwen,’ Jack said. ‘There’s no point.’
‘I think there’s a point,’ Gwen replied.
‘I’ve done it. I’ve been there,’ said Jack. ‘There are no clues.’
‘That secret doohickey was doing nothing for years,’ said Gwen, pointing at the tile on the table. ‘Now look at it. What makes you so sure something hasn’t suddenly changed at this Hall place too?’
Jack hesitated.
‘Just because there was nothing to find last time you were there, doesn’t mean there’s nothing to find now. That’s logic, see?’ she said.
‘She has a point,’ said Toshiko.
‘She’s not going to Cosley Hall,’ said Jack.
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s ten thirty at night and the place will be closed. She can go in the morning.’
Gwen stood for a second longer and then sat back down. ‘That,’ she admitted, ‘is also logic.’
A bridge, a river, a palace. Shades whispering along the tops of the high walls.
Below the old, fossil bridge, the boiling river torrent thunders along its deep, stone-cut channel. The river is a mile wide. The sides of the stone channel have been polished like glass by the action of the river, year after year. Violet moss, soft as velvet, fringes the channel and coats the underside of the bridge.
Starlight glows on the silver-green bricks of the high walls and towers. The palace seems as insubstantial as smoke, or like a translucent husk of brittle, scaled skin sloughed off by some vanished reptile. Pinpricks of fire stipple the fur-black expanse of the sky.
It’s cold. The air is clear and hard as crystal.
The shades are restless. They murmur and scratch, making soft, dry noises like a breeze stirring through desiccated leaves.
They see him on the bridge. He has passed through the gate, along the causeway, and onto the ancient bridge approach. The night wind stirs the old ribbons and garlands hung from the bridge’s arches.
He doesn’t want to run, although he knows he must, as much as he knows that it is ultimately pointless. The palace is a gravity well, its pull too great for him to resist. Nothing ever escapes from its orbit.
One foot, then another. His pace picks up. He’s running, as he always knew he had to. He smells the air, the musky scent of the dried flowers in the old garlands. He hears the echo of his own footsteps along the wide span of the bridge.
The clear note of a siren sounds from somewhere far behind. The shades on the high walls begin to move, scuttling and scratching. It takes them no time at all to close the distance. They are fast, like birds whirling in a flock, whipping darting shapes.
Still running, he looks over his shoulder. They have reached the bridge. They are on the bridge. They are rushing towards him.
One leaps-
James opened his eyes.
‘What the hell was that, then?’ Gwen asked.
James had some trouble identifying where he was. It wasn’t his bedroom, or his flat. It was a small room, with a single bed. Two lamps, set to a low level, provided a modest night-light glow. A bank of functional, clinical machines, flickering with a few display lights, filled the wall behind the bedhead.
Gwen was sitting on a chair beside him.
One of the care rooms, that was it. One of the Hub’s care rooms that they only used occasionally, for overnight guests or long-term invalids. Tosh had been in one for a week after Operation Goldenrod.
Which was he, he wondered, guest or invalid?
He moved, and the pains in his shoulder and face decided him.
‘Take it easy,’ Gwen said. ‘Did you dream again?’
‘Mmm,’ he said. His mouth was dry.
‘Another dream for the man who doesn’t dream?’
He cleared his throat. ‘How about,’ he swallowed, ‘a drink? The man who doesn’t dream has a mouth that’s not been swept.’
Gwen handed him a beaker.
‘Better,’ he said.
‘Remember anything about this dream, then?’ she asked, placing the beaker back on the night stand.
He breathed deeply. ‘Um… a bridge,’ he said finally. ‘Over a river.’
‘Where was it?’
‘In my dream.’
‘Ha ha. I mean, was it a real bridge or what?’
‘I think it was a real bridge. Yes, I’m sure it…’ his voice tailed off and he shook his head slightly. ‘No, it can’t have been. It was too old and too ridiculously long to have been a real bridge.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I was being chased, I think.’
‘By what?’
‘The usual nightmare monsters that you can’t quite see.’
‘And how would you know,’ she asked, ‘if you never dream?’
‘I’ve heard people talk about dreams often enough,’ James said. He looked up at her.
‘What time is it?’ he asked.
‘Two o’clock in the morning.’
‘You should be in bed. You need sleep.’
‘I was dozing. I wanted to stay here.’
‘That’s nice. You didn’t have to.’
‘Maybe I did.’
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ she replied. ‘As all right as everything usually is in Torchwood. One thing, though.’
‘What?’
‘I was wondering if you could do me a favour?’
‘What would that be?’ he asked.