Another Life. Part 10

'Where is this?'

Egg Magnet laughed. 'Hey! First-time offender, nice one! This is the Sin Bin. A place for reflection on your misdemeanours in Second Reality Second Reality. Got to pay the penance before they'll let you back in.'

'Pah!' said Owen. 'I'll just log out and log back in again somewhere else.'

'Nuh-uh,' Egg told him. 'You'll end up here every time you log in, until they decide otherwise. So, whatcha here for, mate?'

'You first.'

Egg puffed out his chest grandly. 'Started a fight in the Surer Square. Again,' he added with perhaps a new note of regret. 'Now, what's your crime?'

Owen shuffled his feet. 'I trod on a seal.'

This amused Egg hugely. The silver-haired figure giggled and giggled. Energised by this hilarity, Egg hared up the steps around two sides of the tower until he stood next to Owen. 'Nice job! That's a new one on me.'

'I suppose I may have upset a couple of twins, too.'

Egg was delighted by this information. He offered his hand. Owen attempted to shake it and realised he was still holding his empty c.o.c.ktail gla.s.s. After swapping hands, he was able to return Egg's firm grip.

'You're Glendower, aren'tcha mate?' said Egg. 'I remember you from the other day.'

'And you,' said Owen, 'are Dr Megan Tegg.'

Egg Magnet looked shocked. He tried to take a couple of steps away from Owen. This was more difficult than he'd expected, because it was a movement up the stairs, and Owen was still tightly holding his hand. 'Says who?' Egg said feebly.

'Megan Tegg. It's an anagram of Egg Magnet.'

'So what?' insisted Egg Magnet. 'So is...' There was a distinct pause while he worked it out. 'So is "Get Egg Man".' Owen sat down on the stairway, and patted the step next to him. It was wide enough for them both to sit side by side. 'I know you in fleshs.p.a.ce. In the real world, I mean,' he corrected himself hurriedly. 'Er... in the flesh. So to speak.' Egg seemed to be giving up the pretence now. Or rather, Megan was not pretending any more. 'How do you know? I haven't told you anything.'

'You've told me more than you think,' he replied. 'Remember what you said about preferring a nice cup of tea to a c.r.a.ppy cup of tea? And what else... oh yeah, that thing about "safe in taxis"? You might as well have suggested we have a kebab-throwing compet.i.tion in Woodrow Road. Nearest to the late-night postbox wins?'

'OMG,' said Egg, oddly.

'You what?'

'Oh my G.o.d,' said Megan. 'You can't be!'

'I am,' he said. 'I'm Owen Harper. Dr Owen Harper, actually. But you'd remember that...' He showed her the empty c.o.c.ktail gla.s.s. 'You know what this is? Vodka, tequila and lime. A Hawaiian Seduction. We bought these in the Kington Club. That's when I told you that joke about Hawaiians.'

'So you're trying to seduce me?' Megan asked.

'I'm trying to convince you.'

'What's the difference, Owen?'

'So it's Owen now, is it?'

'This could be a trick. I've read about people like you. People online, they're not always who they claim to be.'

He offered her the Mage's sungla.s.ses. 'I can see your real details. You're in Cardiff. You're logged in as Egg Magnet, but your user ID is '

She took the sungla.s.ses from him cautiously. Peered through them. 'What's an IP address?' she asked. She could obviously see more information about him through the sungla.s.ses. 'And what's Torchwood?'

'IP address is like the phone number of your computer. That's how it knows where you are. And Torchwood...' He paused to consider this. 'There's so much more to tell you about Torchwood.'

Megan handed the sungla.s.ses back to him. 'Hey,' she said, 'that's weird. The picture on my screen just got a whole heap better. How'd you do that, mate?'

'All part of the service.' Owen didn't know how, but wasn't going to tell her. An unexpected bonus by sharing the sungla.s.ses through the Torchwood system, probably.

'The detail in the graphics is fantastic. Look at that! You can see chips in the brickwork. And your outfit, mate... wow! Hey, mine isn't too shabby either!' She stood up and twirled around. Owen's heart fluttered for a moment, because spinning around was the method by which players left the game. But Megan's avatar gave a little bow, and then sat down next to him again. 'It's my day off work,' Megan explained, 'I'm back on duty this evening and then overnight. Thought I'd spend Sunday morning b.u.mming around in here. Shouldn't really be playing the game, I suppose, but it's a bit addictive isn't it? Mind you, I was p.i.s.sed off when I got banished to the Sin Bin. I was about to log off. But now... well, here we are.'

Owen wondered if she was going to log out of the game after all. He blurted out, 'Can we meet up?'

'We are meeting up.'

'No, I mean in Cardiff. I'm in Cardiff, too. Now. I want to discuss something with you. In person. Make you an offer, sort of.'

Megan laughed, and nudged him with her shoulder. 'I remember that from the night we first slept together.'

'At the college ball,' he smiled.

'It really is you, isn't it, Owen?'

'It's not that kind of offer,' he said.

'Yeah, that's what you said then, too.'

Time to be more a.s.sertive, Owen. Take the initiative, if you want her to understand Torchwood. That's what Jack Harkness would do in this situation.

No, screw Jack Harkness. It's what Owen Harper would do.

'I'll prove it, Megan. If you want to. You can ring me. Now, on my mobile.' He gave her the number. Got her to read it back to him, to make sure she'd written it down.

Then he logged out of the game.

He eased his head out of the helmet-mounted display. The games room came back into focus around him. He got up from his terminal and had a big stretch.

The large window to one side looked down onto the lower floors of the Hub. He could see lights on in the Boardroom, where Tos.h.i.+ko had been working earlier. She'd looped the sponge thing on a thread around his neck, and then left him to do his own thing while he ran through the decontamination. She had phoned up to him a couple of times, and he'd abruptly told her to leave him alone. He examined the Geiger counter now, and saw that the reading had improved but was still too high.

Owen sat quietly at a table by the pinball machine, and thought about Second Reality Second Reality. The initial excitement of it, then the disappointment when he found out who the partic.i.p.ants really were, and their humdrum reality. They had to go back to that when they logged out of the game, back to their drab personal first realities. He at least could come back to this, to Torchwood. Even if he couldn't be more like his avatar in the game.

Owen pulled his s.h.i.+rt collar away from his neck with a couple of fingers, and studied his pectoral muscles through the gap in the material.

His contemplation was interrupted by the sound of his mobile phone. The display told him: 'Unknown Caller', and a phone number he didn't recognise.

Megan was calling him.

He was back in the game.

SIXTEEN.

They drove through the pouring rain. A chain-link fence topped with barbed wire stretched off into distance as far as Gwen could see. Warning signs on the enclosure flashed past at regular intervals: 'Ministry of Defence Property'. After she'd seen a dozen of them, she'd worked out that the rest of the wording on them was the stilted formality of the Official Secrets Act describing the risk of arrest and prosecution for 'unauthorised persons'.

Eventually, Jack pulled the SUV over onto a gra.s.s verge. A painted notice on stout poles indicated they'd reached Caregan Barracks, home to Y Cymry Deheuol Y Cymry Deheuol, the Southern Welsh Regiment. Parked under this sign, also angled up on the verge, was Gwen's black Saab.

Tos.h.i.+ko got out of the Saab and walked towards them, clutching a plastic bag under one arm. Gwen wound down her window so that they could talk.

'Only just got here myself,' said Tos.h.i.+ko. She held out the keys to the Saab. 'Want to swap?' Gwen accepted the keys and got out.

Tos.h.i.+ko took the pa.s.senger seat, next to Jack. 'Here's your s.h.i.+rt,' she told him, and pa.s.sed him a tissue-paper parcel from the plastic bag. 'I chose you a blue one. You know, for a change.'

Jack wriggled about in the driver's seat as he started to remove his jacket and braces.

Gwen stood in the rain, feeling it soak into her hair, wondering how much longer he was going to take. She saw that Tos.h.i.+ko had demurely faced away from Jack as he pulled on the fresh s.h.i.+rt.

While he dressed, Jack leaned across the car a little so that Gwen could hear him through the window. 'Let's be cautious with the armed forces, OK? In the face of alien weirdness, the military instinct is to involve UNIT at the first opportunity. We can do without that kind of ha.s.sle. Follow my lead.'

'Any other last-minute pearls of wisdom?' Gwen asked him. 'Only I'm getting drowned out here.'

'That's nothing,' said Tos.h.i.+ko. 'You should see it in Cardiff now. Much heavier than here, and still deteriorating. The worst seems to be confined to the Bay area. It's like a microclimate.'

'Microclimate as in "tiny amount of sun"?' retorted Jack, and put the SUV into gear again. 'We might as well be in Manchester.'

Gwen drove after them through the entrance. They showed their IDs and, after some further consultation, the sentries lifted the red-and-white-striped barrier to allow them in. A jeep with two armed soldiers escorted them past the crisp tramping of a drill practice, and into the visitors' parking area. One soldier was a stocky youngster with Slav features, the other was tall enough to look thin in comparison.

The army buildings were squat, low affairs. Grim and dreary in the afternoon's grey light, with wide and shallow-sloping roofs that glistened in the rain. Few had more than one storey, white stucco walls with aluminium-framed windows punched into them at regular intervals. One of the buildings had a second storey clad in stained dark timber, and it was towards this that the soldiers steered them.

The Torchwood team walked together between their escorts, Tos.h.i.+ko in the middle.

'What can you tell us about the base commander?' asked Jack.

Tos.h.i.+ko was able to read information off her PDA as they walked. 'Daniel Yorke. Lieutenant-Colonel. Queen's Gallantry Medal 1988. Played hockey for Combined Services. Graduate of Sandhurst. Did special duties in Afghanistan. Were you looking for anything in particular, Jack?'

'Just hoping to make polite conversation.'

There was a laminated notice affixed to the wall outside the base commander's office. It detailed, in brief, the expectations of soldiers at the barracks. The list started with 'Selfless Commitment to put others before you', went through 'Courage', 'Discipline', 'Integrity', and 'Loyalty', and concluded with 'Respect for others to treat others with decency at all times'.

After five minutes with Lieutenant-Colonel Daniel Yorke, Gwen wanted to drag him from his own office and press his nose up against the notice so that he could read the last one. Press it quite hard, in fact, pus.h.i.+ng firmly on the back of his s.h.i.+ny bald head.

They had remained standing in his spa.r.s.ely decorated office. He had not invited any of them to sit in either of the two chairs on the near side of his large, uncluttered desk. Nor had he risen to greet them or shake hands, remaining ramrod straight in his own chair.

Yorke's territorial hackles had already been raised by the authority that Torchwood a.s.sumed. But his mood had soured further when he learned that this Torchwood delegation was run by a Captain from the RAF, someone he would conventionally outrank. It was plainly as much as he could bear to take instructions from the shabby individual before him, who had his s.h.i.+rt tails hanging over the front of his trousers and a coat with a huge tear in the sleeve.

And worst of all, Gwen could tell from the lecture they were getting, was the fact that Jack was an American.

'British Army's held in the highest regard. All round the world. Respect that was hard-won over recent years.' Yorke spoke like he had to pay for every word in a telegram. 'Northern Island. Falklands. Bosnia and Kosovo. The Gulf, obviously. And countless peacekeeping ops throughout the world.'

'Yes, sir,' Jack said as Yorke took a rare pause to draw breath. 'We appreciate that.'

'We?'

'Torchwood,' said Jack calmly.

'Ah. I thought you meant the Americans.'

'My team are not American.'

'You're telling me that you're English, then,' said Yorke.

'Welsh,' Gwen told him, emphasizing her accent. 'And Doctor Sato here is j.a.panese. What's your point?' Jack nudged her with his elbow. 'Sir,' she added lamely, as though that might rescue the situation.

Yorke had barely met Jack's eye throughout the conversation. He preferred to keep looking back over his own shoulder, through the second-storey window and out over the grounds towards the a.s.sault course where distant figures struggled under nets and over walls. It also gave Gwen the impression that he was studying the crown and pip on his shoulder insignia. As the conversation continued, he was considering his position in more ways than one.

'Our professionalism in the British Army doesn't come through chance,' Yorke continued. 'We attain it by constant, thorough and tough training. Y Cymry Deheuol Y Cymry Deheuol produces the best here.' produces the best here.'

Not good enough to p.r.o.nounce Welsh properly, you English twerp, thought Gwen.

'Look at them out there,' said Yorke, nodding towards the a.s.sault course. He turned back to his desk and clasped his hands together on its buffed wooden surface. His lizard eyes flicked across his visitors, and the unspoken comparison was clearly 'and look at you in here'. But instead he said: 'Those youngsters out there started with reveille at 6 a.m. They've performed drill practice, map reading, first aid and rifle handling. A six-mile run and a drill test we call "pa.s.sing off the square".'

'Busy morning,' said Gwen, and got another nudge from Jack.

'They are the best.' Yorke seemed to be addressing his comments now to the two soldier escorts who still stood at the back of the room behind them. 'And the best are taught by the best. So, no need to have dragged your team all the way out here on this lovely Sunday afternoon, Captain Harkness. We can conclude this investigation ourselves.'

'Was Sergeant Anthony Bee one of the best?' Jack said.

Yorke's fluent lecture stumbled to a halt. 'I really cannot comment at this stage of the investigation,' he said eventually. He'd stopped looking out of the window. Jack certainly had his attention now. He tried to rally again. 'It's "Anthony", by the way. With a hard "t".'

Jack ignored Yorke's attempt to rea.s.sert his superiority. He scattered six photographs carelessly onto the Lieutenant-Colonel's tidy desk. 'Recent brutal murders from the centre of Cardiff. Do they look familiar?'

Yorke gave the photos a cursory examination without touching them. 'You can't expect me to believe that these vagrants have any connection to Caregan.'

Jack shoved the photographs across the desk, closer to Yorke. 'Not the people. Their wounds.'

Yorke considered the evidence briefly before pus.h.i.+ng it slowly back across his s.h.i.+ny desk. 'That's something you'd need to ask Doctor Death.'

'You're kidding me, right?'

'The MO. He's Doctor Robert De'Ath. It's a joke.' Yorke forced his thin lips into a tight, mirthless smile in an attempt to ill.u.s.trate this.

'I'm sure Gwen will bear that in mind,' said Jack. He turned and said to her: 'You can start with the Medical Officer while Tosh and I finish up here.'

Yorke stood up, annoyed that Gwen was already moving towards the door. 'You may have jurisdiction here-'