Almost Perfect Part 23

'Well,' hissed Gwen, 'why don't you wear some?'

'Oh, it just hasn't felt right, really,' said Ianto. 'You know, I just don't think I've got the figure for them. I worry they'll make my b.u.m look fat and squidgy.'

'Oh, b.o.l.l.o.c.ks,' hissed Gwen. 'You've got a lovely pair of child-bearing hips on you.'

'Have I?' Ianto looked genuinely pleased. 'Oh, that's nice.'

'Now, shut up, princess, and let's get on with it.'

The two of them started down the corridor, the flashlight gently glinting around them.

It all looked very dark, and the thump-thump thump-thump of the club became overwhelming. of the club became overwhelming.

'Considering everything I've heard about gay grooming, it really reeks of BO in here,' said Ianto.

'Yeah,' agreed Gwen. 'Smells like a teenager's bedroom.'

Ianto pulled the pheromone sniffer out of his pocket and waved it around. 'Well, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l,' he breathed. 'Jack's off the scale.'

Gwen cast her torch around the corridor. 'I'm not sure I like this,' she said.

They both heard the voice calling for help. It was a quiet voice, almost a whisper. Both jumped.

'Jeez!' wailed Gwen. 'I'm switching on the b.l.o.o.d.y light.' She fumbled her hand along the wall. 'Blimey, they've papered it with that velvet stuff they use at Indian restaurants,' she said, her hands brushing along the warm, slightly damp surface. 'It's like moss.' Her fingertips brushed up against what felt like a socket, and she reached out for the switch, but instead she felt something move and her hand went into the wall, into something warm and wet and- it licked her.

She screamed and screamed and screamed, feeling it bite down.

Ianto ran up to her, his flashlight showing her hand embedded in a mouth in the wall.

Both shrieked.

'Do something!' wailed Gwen, helplessly.

'I don't want to touch it!' yelled Ianto.

'You're b.l.o.o.d.y squeamish when it suits you! It's biting me!' shouted Gwen.

'But it's a ... mouth... in a wall! It's wrong!'

'I don't care, it b.l.o.o.d.y hurts!' Gwen was starting to cry. Ianto tried pulling her by the arm, but Gwen just shrieked more. Ianto let go and stood back, hands on hips, trying to work out what to do, trying to block Gwen's shouts.

He noticed something something oddly wrong. And then he saw the light switch, and flicked it.

Pause.

Gwen and Ianto were in a corridor of flesh the walls were a kind of thick, coa.r.s.e meat, breathing and rippling. Lumps and occasional limbs protruded at various points, fleshy trails hanging down from the ceiling, twitching slightly. Apart from the mouth that was eating Gwen's hand, there was the back of a head further down the corridor, and an ear.

'Can you switch the light back off?' hissed Gwen.

'No,' replied Ianto. 'This is just so horrible.'

'It's still eating my sodding hand!' wailed Gwen.

'Oh, sorry,' said Ianto. He grabbed a biro from his handbag and jabbed it into the mouth. 'Gag reflex,' he explained as Gwen pulled her hand out, gasping with the pain. 'I don't suppose you brought some Dettol?' she asked.

Ianto was just staring at the mouth, which was mouthing 'Help me' over and over again.

Gwen shook him. 'Come on.'

She dragged him down the corridor, both of them recoiling from the carpet, which appeared to be made up of matted human hair, streaking in colours and patterns and whorls and lumps through to a door.

The door, embedded as it was in meat, appeared to be a normal little Victorian-effect door, with a shiny gold handle. She pushed it open and, without thinking, flicked a switch on the right.

This room was worse. She stepped into it.

Ianto followed her, and breathed out raggedly. 'A Living Room. Oh my G.o.d.'

It had once been a quite nicely decorated, minimalist room all white paint and polished floorboards. But it was now covered with lumpen flesh, twisting and veined across the walls, occasionally bursting out in cancerous bulges, or half-recognisable shapes. The whole room flowed across and hung away from a big bed, the covers turned down, the pillows scattered randomly about.

Tufts of hair poked up through gaps in the floorboards.

'I am going to be sick,' announced Gwen, starting to look round for somewhere to hurl.

'Gwen?'

She recognised Jack's voice and spun. She and Ianto ran towards a shape, roughly the size of a grand piano and covered with a dust sheet.

Ianto pulled away the sheet, and they both gasped.

'Ladies!' beamed Jack. He was, to their horror, entwined, impossibly entwined, in a heap of about sixteen naked men, enmeshed in the floorboards and protruding into the wall. When Hieronymus Bosch sat down to paint h.e.l.l, he'd left out the bit where they played Twister.

'Jack...!' began Ianto. He tasted vomit, swallowed, and went silent.

Gwen's reaction was different.

'Captain Jack Harkness!' she barked. 'When will you learn that you can't solve a problem by s.h.a.gging it?'

'Hey!' said Jack, managing a shrug. 'It's a one-size-fits-all solution.' His expression shifted under Ianto's basilisk glare. 'Ianto! This isn't what it looks like. Have you met my friends Eric, Adam and Tristan, wasn't it?'

'Hi,' said some voices.

'Nice to meet you, I'm sure,' said Ianto crisply. 'Do I actually ask for an explanation or just take pictures for the alb.u.m?'

Jack clucked, disapprovingly. 'This genuinely isn't an orgy. We're simply fuelling a vastly complicated energy exchange through the violent excitation of our bioma.s.s.'

'Uh-huh,' said Gwen. 'That would be the obvious explanation.'

'Seriously,' said Jack. 'It's an attempt to power that alien device. But it's not working well.'

'Evidently,' Ianto looked like he was chewing bees.

Jack sighed. 'This is serious. You need to do something. We're approaching critical ma.s.s.'

'Riiiight.' Gwen giggled. 'Oh, Jack, what a mess.'

'I tried to stop it. I failed,' Jack told them. 'It's got out of hand. I don't think they know what to do. Have you got-' And then: 'They're coming!'

The room's fleshy walls bulged, parted and extruded, swelling and tearing as the Perfection strode through.

They were both looking their best, gloriously naked. The entire meat of the room just shuddered.

Brendan nodded at them, crossed to the kitchenette and lit a cigarette from a packet on the table.

Jon walked over to Gwen and Ianto. 'How did you get in?' he demanded.

'Fire escape,' said Gwen.

'Ah,' said Jon. 'It's just that we've got psychic shielding up.'

'Is that so?' said Gwen. 'Only we're Torchwood.'

'Jack's friends.' Jon smiled at Jack. 'Well, it's sweet that you tried a rescue, but it's not going too well. And I don't believe that you got through our shields without help.' He turned to look at Ianto. 'And you you've been touched by the machine. You're wearing Christine.' He ran a finger across Ianto's hair, and Ianto tried not to flinch. 'She suits you. Lovely work. It's not lost its touch. Where is it?'

Ianto had recognised their voices. These were the b.a.l.l.s of fire. Those cruel, sing-song voices. They'd torn apart that boat in their fury, they'd wrecked lives looking for that machine, and they'd thrown up this unholy horror around them, all to show off their dreadful power. And now one of them was staring him in the eye and smiling slowly.

Bren looked up, tapping ash out. 'Have you brought us back the machine?'

'Would it actually help?' asked Ianto.

'It'd stop all this,' Brendan waved his cigarette around the room.

'Really? Could it make all these people better?'

'Oh probably. It can do all that, and make us G.o.ds again, and give you back Captain Jack. Lovely.' Brendan considered. 'And maybe that's the right thing. Or maybe this is our wake-up call.'

'What do you mean?' asked Jon.

'Why should the party stop? With the machine, we could expand again.' Brendan had stood up, spreading out his hands. 'G.o.ds need room to breathe.' He started to glow.

'I think you should stop,' said Ianto, very quietly.

'What?'

'Just once, wouldn't it be nice to just go back to how things were? Everything's changed. But what about a bit more of the same?'

'I agree with the skirt,' shouted out Jack. 'I think you're both in danger of doing something very, very stupid.'

Jon shot him a glance. 'Looking like that, you manage that sentence?'

'I am not without a sense of irony,' muttered Jack.

Brendan advanced towards Ianto. 'Give us back the machine.'

'No,' said Ianto. 'I don't think it's safe in your hands any more.'

'Really?'

'No.'

Jon reached out a hand and, barely moving, he gently picked up Gwen and threw her screaming into the wall. She stuck fast, half in, half out, her hair sucked and pulled back. She screamed and struggled and only succeeded in vanishing further in.

Jack screamed back at Gwen. Ianto ran from the room.

Behind him he could hear the Perfection laughing.

IANTO JONES COULD TEACH.

YOU, BUT HE'D HAVE TO CHARGE.

Ianto sat on the fire escape, sobbing to get his breath back. He opened up his handbag, and took out the bag with the alien device inside.

'Oh, you,' he thought. 'You've caused so much trouble. What the h.e.l.l do I do now?'

He opened the bag, and tipped the device into his hand.

Captain Jack Harkness, at your service! Boomed a very familiar voice in his head. Boomed a very familiar voice in his head.

'Why are you doing that?'

I'm the voice of who you most admire, Ianto Jones. Great shoes, by the way.

'Thanks. But I wish you wouldn't do him.'

Oh, come on, Ianto. It's just a bit of fun. Puts you at ease, doesn't it? Admit it. Just a little?

'It's comforting, yes. But it's not right. You shouldn't sound like him. Not when I'm trying to work out what to... do...'

It's really easy.

'Is it? Can you make everything right? Can you? Jack and that room and me?'

Yes. Trust me, Ianto.

'I'm not sure I can. I've seen what those creatures did looking for you.'