‘You mean, we’re just caught up in a battle between alien light creatures from another dimension? That this has nothing to do with us?’ Ianto shook his head. ‘Just another day at Torchwood then. So… where does this Revenge for the Future thing come in?’
Bilis shrugged. ‘I’m not sure – it was what the Light said. It’s why Greg Bishop said it when possessed by them. It’s why it’s in the diary, which is what can keep the Light alive – the ink it made from their life essences.’
‘OK.’ Jack took a deep breath. ‘Light: they need to be back in your diary for safekeeping. Dark, they need to go into the prison box. Neither actually live naturally in the Rift energy, but both have used it as a mode of crossing the dimensions. On the mark so far?’
Bilis nodded.
‘So what actually released them. Here and now?’
‘I doubt they are from the here and now,’ said Bilis.
‘Revenge. For the Future. Something we did – I did? – in the future will release them? I release the Dark light, and the Light light want revenge on me for that?’
‘Hence the trap, Jack,’ Bilis stepped towards him. ‘You had to be old enough, wise enough to be prepared. I can’t tell you what the journey you are going to embark upon will show you. I only see possible futures and none I’ve seen explains the Dark’s release. But the Light wanted you here for a reason.’
‘He could be lying,’ Ianto said.
‘Ya think?’ Jack sighed. ‘But whatever it is, I need to know. Ianto, Idris, if this goes wrong, I want Bilis, bullet, back of the head before he can vanish.’ He looked at Bilis. ‘Got that?’
‘Kill him?’ Idris was horrified.
‘Um, problem Jack. I don’t have a gun any more.’ Ianto smiled sheepishly. ‘Sorry.’
Bilis produced Ianto’s pistol out of thin air and placed it in Ianto’s palm. He smiled and put his hands round Jack’s clenched fists. ‘A show of faith. I need the Light saved and the Dark imprisoned. Or I will have failed. And I never fail.’
‘Well, except with Abaddon,’ Ianto said.
‘Not helping, Ianto,’ Jack said.
‘Sorry.’
‘Look at me, Jack.’ Bilis’s face filled Jack Harkness’s field of vision.
Jack gasped as the old man’s eyes flared with the halogen brilliance of the Light.
And it poured into Jack’s own eyes.
TWENTY-ONE
Jack Harkness knew every nook and cranny of the Torchwood Hub in Cardiff. At least, that’s what he’d always thought, but clearly there were bits he wasn’t that good on because somehow he was lost.
The corridors had been hollowed out of the solid rock beneath Cardiff Bay a century or so earlier, but had fallen into disrepair between the wars. Only a few direct routes to the basement rooms were regularly kept up to date. Recently, his team had opened a few more up – some of which had been done while he’d been away all those months ago.
Hell, they’d even built a new Boardroom! How cool was that?
How cool it’d be if he could get there now. It was defendable.
But here in these corridors with their junctions, shadows, low ceilings and sudden maze-like twists and turns, he felt dead vulnerable and hopelessly lost. He was running, probably for his life.
And who from?
He’d been in the Hub, talking to Gwen, when Ianto had called him on his cell phone. Mobile. Whatever.
‘Where the hell are you today?’
‘Jack – you gotta get out of there,’ Ianto had yelled, loud enough that the others had heard him.
Jack gave Owen and Gwen an ‘oh my god, has he been drinking’ look and told Ianto to calm down.
‘Who’s with you?’
‘Owen and Gwen. Tosh is down in the Boardroom. Oh, and the Weevils are in the Vaults, as normal. I think that’s it. You OK?’
‘Get. Out. Jack. Now!’
Suddenly the phone reception screeched and went dead. Jack nearly dropped his phone.
Gwen shot a look at Owen. ‘I’ll go find Ianto,’ she said and, before Jack could stop her, she was gone.
Except for that brief moment when she stopped by the rolling door and looked back at him.
Just for a second.
One look.
By the time the door had rolled closed behind her, Jack had the Webley out and ready.
And then he had started running.
Now he was lost in the corridors. He slowed to a halt, pausing while he tried to work out where he was, tried to come up with a plan.
He felt the hard steel of a pistol on the back of his head.
‘Owen? What exactly is going on?’
‘Don’t move, Jack. I’m sorr y. God, I’m really, really sorry, but you don’t understand what we’re doing here.’
‘Too damn right I don’t.’
‘Please, Jack.’
That was Toshiko. So she was in on it, too. Whatever ‘it’ was.
‘Another coup, Owen? This is getting really tired.’
‘Jack, you’ve got to understand, we’ve found a way to help the world.’
‘I thought we were already doing that.’
Toshiko came into view. ‘No, we mean really help it. Change it. Make ever ything better. Instead of just squirreling everything away, we could actually use it to better mankind.’
Jack just shrugged. ‘Heard that before, guys. It’s what brought down the Institute in London. I thought we were better than that.’
Owen nodded, understanding Jack’s concerns. ‘And that’s why we need you. Our moral compass. They never had that. They never had you.’
‘And what do I need to do for your brave new world, Owen? What’s the price? Cos I’ve been around, you know. I realise there’s always a price.’
Owen and Toshiko glanced at one another.
‘And Gwen?’ Jack continued. ‘Is she OK with this?’
‘Gwen’s… undecided, if I’m being honest,’ said Toshiko.
‘Honesty, well that’s good. Keep with the honesty programme, Tosh, and tell me what you need me for. Cos I have a feeling I’m not gonna like it.’
‘You’re right, Jack,’ Owen said, in a suddenly calm and strong voice. ‘You’re not.’
Jack saw his eyes. Solid black, like the heart of a black hole had consumed him from inside. He looked at Toshiko. She was the same.
‘Shit,’ said Jack, and Owen shot him dead, straight through the forehead.
When Jack awoke, he couldn’t move.
He opened his eyes, but he was in an opaque nothingness, although it was solid, he was sure of that. He tried moving. Nope, held rigid, and all he could do was look slightly left or right with his eyes. Nothing else moved, although he could feel his body.
So he was trapped, encased in something that held him still.
He became aware of tiny pinpricks on his skin, like a million tiny needles painlessly pressing against him.
After more than 150 years, Jack knew his own body, he knew every millimetre of skin and muscle and tissue and how it should feel at any given moment. And whatever this was, it was wrong.
Something loomed into view above him, misshapen, distorted. It spoke, the sound distorting through whatever it was that held him there. He realised it was Owen Harper, his eyes still consumed by the black.
‘Jack,’ he was saying. ‘Not sure if you can hear me, but every few hours, you’ll suffocate. And then come back to life.’
Wasn’t the first time that trick had been tried, Jack thought ruefully. But why?
‘And when that happens, the energies your body gives off will enable us to open the Rift and, more importantly, control it. We are going to use the Rift to build a new Torchwood Empire and make Earth a better home for everything trapped upon it.’