Another Life. Part 16

They went into resus. Majunath and another doctor were attending to one of the other patients from the RTA, and waved away Megan's offer of a.s.sistance. 'Thank you, but no,' Majunath said. 'I think we may be on the final cycle here, anyway. One more, I think, Doctor Wilkins.'

Owen nudged Megan. On the opposite side of the room was the body of another road traffic accident victim, waiting to be portered away to the morgue. A blood-stained white sheet had been drawn up over the face. Megan was about to pull it away, but Owen indicated that she should leave it. He helped her position the scanner to one side of the corpse, and the photorealistic image of the sheet slowly melted away to reveal the hairy skin of the victim. 'Through the epidermis to the dermis.' Owen narrated the scan like a medical lecture. 'Look at that, you can make out the individual blood vessels, the nerves... he's a bit of a bear, isn't he, so look at those hair follicles... and through the subcutaneous adipose layer... and now that we're through the bas.e.m.e.nt membrane, we can see the muscle and bone...

'Look there!' Megan pointed excitedly, trying to keep her voice down and avoid alerting the doctors working on the other side of the room. 'The sternal end of the fifth rib is split.'

'Sternum bifidum, very good,' breathed Owen. 'That's quite a rare neuroskeletal anomaly. If this poor bloke was still alive, we might be able to explain why he sometimes got respiratory difficulty. Bit late for him now.' He studied her reaction. 'Not too late for some of the others.'

'I think we should stop, if everyone agrees?' Across the room, Majunath had abandoned the resuscitation. 'Time of death, 8.46 a.m. Thank you everyone.'

Outside resus, a young nurse hurried up to Megan. She was a short, thin girl, and her neatly pressed uniform and eager manner marked her out as a new starter, late teens at most. Her badge told Owen she was Roberta Nottingham. 'Can you come through to eight, Megan? Mrs Boothe is a bit distressed.'

'OK, Bobbie, I'm right with you.' She moved off after her, explaining to Owen as they walked: 'Pregnant woman, mid-twenties, also in that RTA. Date of confinement is next Thursday.' She paused before Owen pulled back the curtain, and whispered to him: 'That was the driver we just saw in resus. Her husband.'

In cubicle eight, a small woman in a blue surgical smock watched them with frightened eyes. 'I can't feel him moving, doctor. Is he going to be all right?' Her fingers splayed out protectively over her pregnant b.u.mp.

'OK, Leanne.' Megan moved across to hold her hand and smooth the hair from her pasty white forehead. 'We'll see. They're going to have a bed for you in maternity really, really soon.' From Megan's expression, a pleading look at Nottingham over the top of the pregnant woman's head, Owen could tell this was unlikely to be true. Nurse Nottingham frowned discouragingly, with the smallest of head shakes.

'Non-stress test?' Owen asked.

'This is Dr Harper, Leanne. He's come to offer a second opinion.'

Nurse Nottingham said to Owen: 'Excellent foetal heart rate. Two accelerations in twenty minutes, both at least fifteen beats above the baseline heart rate, and both lasted for least fifteen seconds.'

Leanne looked panicked. 'What's wrong? Was the baby hurt in the accident? And where's Barry? What's happened to my husband?'

'The ultrasound showed no sign of any problems with the baby, Leanne. Let's concentrate on you and the baby for the moment. Don't worry, try to stay calm.'

Owen said to the nurse: 'Can you go and check on that maternity bed please, Bobbie? Thanks.'

The nurse stepped out of the cubicle, pulling the curtain back into place as she left.

Owen took the Bekaran device from Megan's pocket. He ran it over the pregnant woman, without removing or lifting her smock. He indicated to Megan that she should study the scanner image. The blue-patterned smock material vanished, then the mother's skin, muscle, and suddenly the baby was visible.

By adjusting the resolution, Owen was able to show the position of the baby's limbs, the head, the placenta, the mother's bones. He gave the mother a running commentary of rea.s.surance as he did so, while all the time checking for Megan's reaction to what he was showing her.

'That's just amazing.'

'I've been so worried,' Leanne told them, unable to see the image on the scanner. 'I could hardly go in a car since the last accident, and now I've gone and got in another one.'

'The last accident?' asked Megan. 'When was that?'

Leanne heaved a great sniff, and then an equally large sigh. 'About ten years ago. I was only about thirteen or fourteen. My mum's car got rearended on the M4.'

'That's a long time ago, Leanne. Were you or your mum hurt?'

'She was all right. I was in the back, where the truck smacked into us. Broke my pelvis. I was off school for a month.'

Owen indicated the scanner image. 'There's where the pelvic fracture was, can you see? It's healed completely. And now look at the baby's head...'

He stood up, and gestured to Megan to come with him. 'Should be fine, Leanne,' he said as they stepped through the curtain. 'Back in a minute.'

The staff-room was empty. Owen sat down at the coffee table, and played back the scan images on the Bekaran device. 'Can you see the distortion in the pelvic bones? Not something you might have picked up before the birth.'

Megan stared. 'What do you mean?'

'Cephalo-pelvic disproportion,' said Owen. 'I don't think her pelvis is big enough to let the baby through the birth ca.n.a.l.' He switched off the image. 'As if she hasn't got enough to cope with, after losing her husband tonight.'

Megan took the Bekaran device from him. 'This is just astonis.h.i.+ng.'

'I told you.'

'This could speed up diagnosis for the whole department. Owen, they're stacked up in rows out there in reception, a night like this. We could get them through twice as fast. No, faster faster, I bet! Just by having these for triage. And the whole idea of waiting forever to get an MRI or an X-ray...'

'You're missing the point,' sighed Owen. She looked at him, baffled, and he continued: 'It's not this technology that's important. It's where it comes from. What it implies about other alien tech. This is the good stuff, right? This is what can make things better. Us having this is like a group of chimpanzees having a digital camera. If they work out what the b.u.t.tons do, even by accident, well they can take nice pictures and look at them. They might not be David Bailey, but it's better than scratching shapes in the dirt with a stick. Thing is, it's not going to do them any harm if all they want to do with this thing they've found is to wipe their a.r.s.es on it.'

He could see from Megan's widening eyes that she was beginning to understand. She'd stood up and walked to the window now.

'What if the chimps found a hand grenade?' she said.

Owen nodded. 'What if they found a grenade launcher? What if they found a flamethrower? What if they were given a box full of anthrax spores?' He leaned forward. 'And what if they weren't just chimps?'

Megan s.h.i.+vered, as though there was a draught at the window.

'Torchwood's not just about potential benefits,' said Owen. 'It's about real and present danger.'

Megan stared out of the staff-room window, into the storm. After a very long pause, she faced him again. 'I want to see the rest.'

Owen didn't have time to reply. The staff-room door opened, and in walked Nurse Nottingham. 'There's a bed on maternity, Megan.'

'Excellent,' Megan replied, shooing her from the room as she followed her out. 'Keep it, even if you have to get in it yourself. I'll write up the notes, but tell them it's CPD and they should prepare for a Caesarean. Don't mess her about with a trial of labour, she's been through enough already. They can explain to her. But someone's going to have to tell her about her husband.'

They were at the registration board now. Megan started to write up notes in Leanne's file, explaining to Mr Majunath about a 'suspected CPD', so that she didn't have to oversell her diagnostic brilliance. Owen, however, had seen something on the whiteboard, scribbled in blue marker pen against cubicle six.

'Sandra Applegate,' said Owen.

Majunath looked up. 'Yes. She's the jumper I mentioned earlier. Threw herself in front of one of our ambulances.' The senior consultant shook his head slowly in disbelief at the madness of the world. He picked up the phone with one hand, and his other hand raced down a list of numbers pinned to the wall. 'At least, we a.s.sume a.s.sume she jumped. She has had a fall, obviously. But she appears also to have a gunshot wound. We're going to have to inform the police...' she jumped. She has had a fall, obviously. But she appears also to have a gunshot wound. We're going to have to inform the police...'

Owen had already peeled off his white doctor's coat, and dropped it on a nearby trolley. He reached into his jacket pocket, and brandished his Torchwood ID at the astonished senior consultant.

'Don't bother with that phone call,' he told Majunath. 'I am am the police.' the police.'

TWENTY-TWO.

'Where's Owen?' asked Tos.h.i.+ko Sato's voice Gwen turned from her desk to see Tos.h.i.+ko standing by the entrance to the Hub's main area, bedraggled and dripping rainwater on to the floor. 'Couldn't he drag himself in here like the rest of us?' She brandished something in Jack's direction. Her apparent intention to look intimidating was spoiled by the bedraggled newspaper that she'd been using as an improvised umbrella.

Ianto managed to sound as though Owen's absence was his fault. 'We couldn't reach him this morning. I haven't seen him since yesterday afternoon. He wasn't irradiated any more, and said he was going out to celebrate. Didn't say where. He was a bit grumpy.'

'What are you, his mother?' asked Jack.

Tos.h.i.+ko peeled off her wet coat to reveal wet jacket and trousers. They looked almost as wet as the coat. 'The radiation has changed him.' She affected an American accent, ignoring Jack's mocking look. '"Doctor Owen Harper, physician, scientist. An accidental dose of radiation alters his body chemistry. And now, a startling metamorphosis occurs. Owen Harper is... the Incredible Sulk."'

Gwen laughed along with her. '"Captain Harkness, don't make me grumpy! You wouldn't like me when I'm grumpy!"'

'Thank you, ladies,' said Jack firmly. 'Owen going AWOL is not our only problem right now. Doesn't help, but let's save the a.s.s-kicking for when he's in range.' Gwen watched his reaction. Behind his cheerful sarcasm, he was keeping something from them. Not information, she was sure. He'd not keep that from them. More likely to be his own worries about Owen, things that she knew he felt but that wouldn't help them at the moment, stuff that would only get in the way. That would be typical of Jack rea.s.suring, supporting, keeping them focused. In the police, she'd seen several teams deteriorate into helplessness when the head of the investigation had lost it in front of them. Their guv'nor, raging at a briefing meeting. Or cursing over a pint at the local pub. Revealing his own frustration, his own powerlessness and, by implication, theirs. Not Jack. This guv'nor wasn't like that. He gestured towards the Boardroom: 'Shall we?'

Within minutes, they had been succinctly briefed by Jack. 'So, it turns out that we still have two more fuel rods to locate. And our missing soldier, Sandra Applegate, is probably hunting them down as we sit here.'

'You think she could have survived that fall?'

'Gwen, she did survive that fall. Unless someone was waiting for her to drop from the window.' Jack paused, as though he was considering the likelihood of this. 'So how can she be so resilient? Did she know she could make it? No, that shot merely carried her forward and she couldn't stop herself.' Another pause for contemplation. 'The other soldier, Bee, faced his death like there was nothing to fear. And Wildman... could he really have thought he might survive that drop from the eighth floor? Maybe there's something else that could survive a drop like that, but the autopsies showed that Bee and Wildman were human... What are we missing?'

His statement was punctuated by a roll of thunder from outside.

'Whoa,' Jack laughed. 'Timing, huh? And that must be some kinda storm, if we can hear it all the way down here. Ianto, run upstairs and close the bathroom window.'

Ianto looked for a moment as though he might take this request seriously.

'The weather has deteriorated dramatically,' Tos.h.i.+ko told them.

'Oh, you think?' smiled Jack helpfully. 'Are you dried out yet?'

Tos.h.i.+ko ignored him, and punched up some images on the meeting room main display. 'Here are some views from around the Bay area... the city centre...' More images. 'The wetlands... out into the Bristol Channel...'

The views came from traffic cameras, security cameras, CCTV. The images varied between grainy monochrome in half-lit areas through to higher quality colour shots of well-illuminated buildings. What they all had in common was that they showed chaos and devastation. In the shopping areas of the city, the pedestrianised streets were awash with streams of water carrying sc.r.a.ps of newspaper and discarded fast food containers. Shop awnings were ripped from their metal structures, and flapped madly in rage. In one road, cars crawled through a torrent of water that reached their sills. In another, a white van had slewed off the carriageway and into a post box. A park bandstand was whipped by the trees and bushes that bordered it. The foliage was thras.h.i.+ng about as though it was alive.

It was Monday morning, the start of the rush hour, but nowhere were there crowds of people. The few individuals Gwen could make out were struggling along, leaning into the rain and the wind like adventurers struggling against a foreign climate. The selection of images continued with a security camera on a boat in the Bay. She watched with growing incredulity as the camera surreally kept the seats and railings of the boat steady in the frame. Behind the boat, Bay water churned. Pa.s.sengers were flung around like discarded dolls in a toy-box.

'It's getting worse,' Tos.h.i.+ko observed.

They were looking at an apparently endless queue of traffic on the motorway. Gwen thought it looked like a s.h.i.+vering snake made up of flickering headlights. Windscreen wipers madly, fruitlessly swiped away at the water. In the grey daylight and the endless deluge of rain, it was impossible to tell the colours of cars, and only the sodium orange of the motorway lights gave any indication that this was a colour image. 'Could it be worse?'

'You'd be surprised,' replied Tos.h.i.+ko in a tone that suggested the exact opposite. Her fingers danced over the keyboard again, and a different picture emerged on the main screen. A long queue of traffic still, but this time bright suns.h.i.+ne sparkled off the metal trims of the motionless cars, and their vibrant colours were clearly visible.

Gwen wondered if Tos.h.i.+ko had switched to the same stretch of motorway at an earlier point, but the timecode on the image showed it was a live feed. 'Where's that?'

'Eight miles further up the M4,' Tos.h.i.+ko explained. 'The end of the same queue. But look at the weather.'

Jack looked as amazed as Gwen felt. 'How?'

'The effect is localised.' More keystrokes. 'Here's the most recent satellite pa.s.s, about twenty-three minutes ago. It's like a typhoon, but restricted within an eight-kilometre radius.'

'Radius means a circle,' said Jack. 'So where's the centre?'

Tos.h.i.+ko overlaid a pattern of lines on the satellite image. 'From an a.n.a.lysis of the variables, it's out in the Bay. And you can see from the Bay cameras that there's nothing out there except for plenty of churning water and a crowd of seasick sailors.'

Gwen studied the composite image. 'It's underwater.'

'It's underwater,' confirmed Tos.h.i.+ko. 'Something must be coming through the Rift, below the surface. My projections show that if it continues then it will create tidal waves across the Bay. Maybe out into the Bristol Channel, too. The Wetlands Nature Reserve is flooding already-'

Jack laughed humourlessly. 'Aptly named.'

'And you saw what's happening out there above the water. A couple of water taxis were sunk by freak waves. They're struggling to prevent damage in the Roath Basin the lights.h.i.+p berthed there has already smashed into the quayside.'

'Yeah, great place for a lights.h.i.+p.'

Gwen laughed at Jack's sarcasm. 'You'll never become a Blue Badge Guide with that att.i.tude.'

'The tourists wouldn't like the stories I could tell them about Cardiff.'

'h.e.l.lo?' interrupted Tos.h.i.+ko. 'Do you want to see these data and schematics?'

'Data,' Jack said. 'That's like information, right?'

Tos.h.i.+ko gave him a freezing look. 'Or I could just stop now. Go and do some more correlations of the variables on my own.' She paused, as though to let this sink in. Jack affected to look contrite, and Gwen stifled further laughter. Tos.h.i.+ko continued: 'The telemetry from the boreholes is so confusing, it's as though water is flowing uphill. Thing is, even though there have been unexpected tidal surges way up the Rivers Taff and Ely, it's all caused by this localised weather system.'

Gwen tried to put the information together in her head, and could see a flaw. 'If it's localised, then where is all this rain coming from?'

'Think of it like a localised typhoon. It's sucking water from the Bay. Dropping it back over the local area in this huge thunderstorm.'

'So why's the Bay not emptying?'

Tos.h.i.+ko looked at her, surprised. Gwen was started to feel like a slow pupil in the GCSE Geography cla.s.s. 'Where do you suppose the water there came from in the first place? Out in the Bristol Channel. And beyond that, the Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Imagine that lot dumped all over the vale of Glamorgan.'

Gwen's head was starting to spin. 'But a typhoon typhoon? A tropical storm, in Cardiff?'

'And I estimate that it's only Category 2 at the moment. The only good thing I can see is that the eye isn't moving. It's still out in the Bay. Or at least...' Tos.h.i.+ko checked some more figures. 'It's encroaching very slowly. But whatever is coming through, it's still coming.'

'And there's nothing to say that it won't suddenly get a s.h.i.+ft on,' said Gwen. She thought about what Tos.h.i.+ko had explained to them the previous evening. The slow tsunami. Suddenly, it didn't seem so slow after all.

Jack slapped his hands on the table, an unexpected sound that startled Gwen. He was no longer pensive, he'd reached his decision.

'So, no Owen. We'll have to work without him. Ianto, keep trying his number and locator. Gwen and Tosh, you're gonna have to get out there into the Bay, find out what this thing is. Take the mini-sub, that needs two. And I'm going back to Wildman's apartment. I'm gonna find those missing power packs if I have to tear the place apart. Hey, I may tear it apart anyway, it already needs a makeover. Apart from that, who can tell? There are too many variables at the moment.' He thought about this briefly. 'D'you see what you've done to me, Tosh? You've got me using the word "variables". Now I know know I've been sitting here too long.' He picked up his greatcoat from a nearby chair where he'd draped it earlier, and prepared to leave. I've been sitting here too long.' He picked up his greatcoat from a nearby chair where he'd draped it earlier, and prepared to leave.

Gwen watched Tos.h.i.+ko for a reaction. She was shutting down the various programs on her computer, getting ready to follow her latest instructions from Jack. But Gwen hesitated. Despite her police training. Despite that instinct to obey orders without questioning every detail. Despite the copper's belief that the guv'nor a.s.signs the jobs, picks the people, and doesn't have to say why. Somehow, in Torchwood, that was different now. After handling the stuff that she had that they all had in the past couple of months, she'd begun to believe that asking the obvious questions was what kept you alive.

'What about Sandra Applegate?'

Jack was shrugging his greatcoat over his shoulders. 'What about her?'

'D'you think she's human?'

Jack gave them a wave as he left. 'Enjoy your dive, ladies.'