Another Life. Part 24

The hammer came down onto her head.

Through her head.

Onto Toshiko's desk.

Two of the flat-panel screens burst into a bright shower of sparks and gla.s.s and shards of plastic. Owen recoiled from the explosion, and fell onto his back on the metal grating beside his own desk.

Within seconds, Ianto was on him, water spraying all around the area. Owen's eyes stretched wide, unbelieving, furious. Ianto took full advantage of his disorientation, and smashed him hard across the face with the back of his hand. Owen was no match for the bigger man, and Ianto was able to twist the hammer from his grasp and cast it aside. It bounced off under the nearby desk with the chime of metal on metal.

Ianto sat on Owen's chest, pinning him to the floor. He plucked a syringe from his pocket and, one-handed, popped the protective cap off the needle before plunging it into Owen.

Over by her desk, Toshiko flickered and faded and vanished. Owen saw this, and his head slumped against the floor in frustration. 'Second Reality,' he spat in disgust. 'Oh, very good, Tosh.' His tired eyes looked at Ianto, who was still pressing down on his chest. 'D'you mind getting off, mate. You're getting me all wet here.'

It was weird, decided Toshiko, to see yourself interacting with other people. The whole thing was quite different to seeing yourself on video, because you got the complete picture of the surroundings as it happened. Seeing the back of her own head made her want to get her hair cut as soon as possible. And did she really have that little bounce in her gait? Why had no one mentioned it before?

She had watched the whole sequence from her vantage point in the Boardroom on the first floor. She'd crouched there in the dark, waiting for Owen to locate the image of herself that she'd projected at her desk. There had been one nervous moment when Owen had made his way through the Boardroom and onto the balcony by the coffee machine, but he had been too fixated on the fake Toshiko at her desk below to notice the real thing lurking under the conference table, petrified and holding her breath.

Once Owen had committed himself to the attack, and fallen through the insubstantial image of Toshiko, Ianto had leaped up from his hiding place and injected the powerful sedative into him.

'Bit of an awkward moment there,' Ianto called across to Toshiko as she came down the gantry steps to join him. 'He almost trod on me in the basin as he charged through. Splashed water down my snorkel. Thought I was going to choke to death for a moment.'

Toshiko was beside him now. 'Nice work, Ianto.'

'You clever girl,' Owen slurred at her from beneath Ianto. 'Using the Second Reality Second Reality software to make me think that was you.' software to make me think that was you.'

'I'll take that as a compliment,' she told him.

Owen grinned a wide, lazy grin. 'Don't be too pleased with yourself, Tosh. I heard that call from Gwen.'

'What do you mean?'

His eyes flickered on the edge of unconsciousness. 'I have another life left. Back in... back in my ship. Your friend Jack...' Owen swallowed hard, took a deep breath, exhaled it. 'Got a feeling he's going to be... the most useful of all.' He summoned up the strength to wink at Ianto. One last smile for Toshiko. 'See you again. Soon.'

After she'd contacted Toshiko, Gwen sat quietly in the cavernous room with her back to the central cylinder. The churning, lurching movements of the alien vessel had begun to subside now, and the flicker of green lights in the unseen ceiling was settling into a regular, uninterrupted illumination of the area around her.

She studied Jack from a distance. His breathing was regular, but he remained deeply unconscious. Gwen mentally rehea.r.s.ed the sequence of events that Jack had explained earlier. But now he was trapped in the cage, nothing seemed clear any more. Everything seemed wrong, impossible.

Jack took a sudden, shuddering breath, like a man surfacing from water and gratefully gulping at the air. His eyes widened, accustomed themselves to the light. Focused on Gwen. 'Hey,' he said cheerfully. 'I was beginning to think things weren't working out.'

Gwen forced herself up from the floor. Turned her back on him. Began to operate the panels that sprouted from the top of the control cylinder, just the way Jack had shown her. The urge was to rely on what she knew from Earth technology to feel the rea.s.suring click of a light switch or hear the firm clunk that a car door makes that tells you it's closed. Her short training session at these controls with Jack earlier had made her nervous and frustrated. It was more a mental contact than a physical one. She began to doubt that she'd manipulated them correctly, until she heard the sound of running water in the distance.

She panicked for a moment, realising that her scuba gear was a long way from her down the corridors. Until she saw Jack's mask and diving cylinder on the floor. She s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, and tried to remain calm as she slipped the harness on her back, strapped it across her midriff, fitted the mask over her eyes and nose.

The water began to gush into the chamber. It swilled across the floor, and swirled against the central cylinder and around her feet. In his cage, still clear of the incoming water, Jack's eyes registered his alarm.

'OK.' He had raised his voice to make himself heard over the sound of the water. 'You can let me outta here now, Gwen.'

She continued to check that her scuba set was working.

'Gwen? Gwen!'

The cylinder was half-full, and open. The air-hoses were securely attached and not kinked.

'C'mon Gwen. You can let me out now.'

She adjusted her mask, getting it comfortable. Not time yet to put the mouthpiece in.

The cramped cage couldn't be comfortable for Jack, but he was showing her his biggest, cheesiest, most rea.s.suring grin. 'Tosh did it, y'know. She trapped Owen. He's locked in the cells. Right next to the Weevil, imagine that! So it's OK to undo these straps now, Gwen. We did it! We can get outta here!'

'You mean, I I can get out of here,' she told him. can get out of here,' she told him.

No, that was a mistake. Jack had told her not to talk to him. Not to get drawn into a conversation. She bit her bottom lip in frustration and annoyance. Jack saw it. Knew he was getting through. The incoming water was splashing up against the bottom of the cages now. Gwen leaned back against the cylinder and looked at Jack. She thought she saw a calculating glance, a transitory look that was gone almost as soon as she spotted it.

He winked at her. 'Time to go, Gwen. Place is flooding.'

'You warned me not to listen to you.'

'That was then, and this is now.' A note of studied exasperation in his voice. 'You said it yourself, my plan's gone so horribly wrong. Completely t.i.ts-up.' He could evidently see from her reaction that what he'd said had surprised her.

'How very interesting, Jack. Now, how would you know I'd said that?' His eagerness was evolving into worry, and then anger, as she continued to speak. 'Because you were unconscious when I called Tosh. So either you were faking it, which wouldn't be good. Or you heard it when you were possessing Owen. Which would be even worse.'

'Please, Gwen. This really isn't what I planned.' The level had reached his waist now. He wriggled impotently as the cold grey water lapped around him in the cage. 'Please Gwen. I'm begging you.'

'Pleading?' she asked him. 'That's so not Jack.'

'G.o.d dammit!' he flared, shaking the cage as he struggled against his restraints. 'That is me now! Up to my a.s.s in seawater, you think I'm gonna reason reason with you, Police Constable Cooper? Think I'm gonna conduct a debate with you? Observe the niceties of reasoned argument? with you, Police Constable Cooper? Think I'm gonna conduct a debate with you? Observe the niceties of reasoned argument? Get me the h.e.l.l outta here! Get me the h.e.l.l outta here!'

The water had reached her chest now. No more time to talk with Jack. Gwen inserted the mouthpiece. She ensured that there was a watertight seal between the breathing set and her lips.

Water slopped around her face and ears. She could hear her own breathing as she tried to inhale through her mouth regularly, calmly. Still she watched Jack in the cage as the churning seawater eddied around him, splashing in his face, making him splutter. He was shouting at her still, his bound hands thrashing and scratching at the bars in a futile effort to release them.

Jack wailed and pleaded and screamed at her. The last thing she could hear before the water rose over her ears were his threats.

'If you don't release these clasps for me, I will get outta here once the water has short-circuited the system. And then I am gonna bust your a.s.s. You will regret this, lady. I will make you regret this...'

The water continued to rise over her face mask.

You're unable to keep your temper. The anger and desolation and anguish consume you. It's not like the hunger this time, not the exquisite agony of physical want. It's the knowledge that you are no longer in control. Not of your body. Not of the elements. Not of the woman who has trapped you here to face this alone.

The sea has reached your chin now. It's cold and dark and there is no comfort for you in its chill embrace. With your mouth clamped shut, you can just angle your head a little higher, keeping your nose and eyes above the water. Staring at the top of the cage. The last thing you expected to see, and the last thing you will see.

You consider what's inside yourself now. What there will be next. And it is so dark and lonely and empty. You knew that Sandra Applegate believed in everlasting life and a better place to go. Guy Wildman's unreasoned agnosticism allowed for something beyond death. But when you explore your heart now, there is nothing inside you. Nothing. Blankness, blackness.

Close your eyes now. How long can you hold your breath?

Your lungs burn. They ache for air. Every fibre of your being is telling you to open your mouth and your eyes.

You so want somewhere to go from here, but you don't remotely believe there is anywhere left. You are not Bee or Wildman or Tegg. You are not like them. You know there is nothing more.

You are- Jack's face was underwater now, angled up to the last pocket of air in the cage. With her head underwater too, everything seemed closer to Gwen. Images were magnified, even in the greyish sea water. The sound of her own breathing, the noise of exhaled air, was loud and close.

She wasn't sure she could bear to watch this, but knew somehow she wouldn't look away. Think of how he had killed the Bruydac Warrior. He had told her that she should imagine him as that man, who showed no mercy to a defeated enemy. He was someone who should suffer the same fate, if it came down to it. He should be allowed to die, helpless and alone.

That wasn't Jack in the cage any more, cajoling and begging and threatening. Thrashing at the restraints in fury and desperation. It was the Bruydac Warrior. So wasn't she just doing the same thing that Jack did earlier?

Didn't that make her the same? Or, knowing that about herself, didn't it make her worse?

The bubbles from Jack's upturned face slowed to a trickle and stopped. His eyelids opened. His mouth gaped abruptly as the breathing reflex overcame him. His chest convulsed as he sucked cold grey water into his lungs in a final, choking rush.

Cold, grey seawater surrounded Gwen, so she couldn't feel the hot salt tears on her face. She forced herself to watch Jack until his seizures subsided.

Once he hadn't moved for ten minutes, she knew for certain that Jack was dead.

THIRTY-TWO.

The mesh grating tilted up and over and toppled with a clanging echo. Gwen emerged from beneath it, surging out of the water in the basin and sending waves slopping over the edges across the Hub floor. Through the mask, she could see that she had broken the surface. She tore it off and eagerly gasped down clean, fresh air. Or as fresh as it got in the Hub. Even the slightly damp atmosphere of the main level made her feel home and safe.

Behind her, Jack's body floated face down in the water of the Hub basin. She had released it from the bonds of the cage in the ship and desperately dragged it behind her through flooded corridors, along an open stretch of the Bay, and finally through the interlocking junctions of the Hub's underwater entrance.

She'd found Jack's body a dead weight while it was in the water. Now she tried to drag it from the basin. It was more of a struggle than she had antic.i.p.ated. Her body was telling her to stop, to rest. Gwen's legs and arms throbbed with dull pain, and she had to fight for her breath.

Eventually, she got her hands under his armpits and half-dragged him, half-fell with him onto the Hub floor.

Jack's body was supine on the chill metal of the walkway by the basin. His staring eyes were gla.s.sy, empty. His skin showed as a ghastly pale blue, his full lips were dark, and there were rings of black beneath his eyes.

She slumped down on the grating beside him, and removed her diving cylinder. Sat watching him. Urging him.

Why wasn't he reviving? She'd seen him take a bullet in the forehead and return to life. But she didn't know for certain if anything could kill him. An illness, a devastating injury... or maybe the inability to recover immediately? He'd been dead for at least half an hour this time.

She rolled him over so that he was p.r.o.ne on the floor, and began to push beneath his shoulder blades. Water spurted from his mouth and through the grating into the basin.

Gwen pulled him onto his back again. Her mind raced, and she couldn't focus on what to do next. She'd so believed that Jack would spontaneously recover once he surfaced that she was now panicking about the right course of action. What had they taught her in that Basics of First Aid course? Was it safe to give him oxygen from her diving cylinder? Or was that too much pressure? Did she need to empty the lungs of water? Or was it CPR first? Oh G.o.d, she hadn't even checked for a pulse! There was something about having to give CPR within a quarter of an hour of someone collapsing. And how fast did brain death occur after they've stopped breathing?

Jack eyes stared up at her, glazed, sightless. They were unfocused, peaceful, unaccusing.

She pinched his nose, tilted his head back. You were supposed to do that, weren't you? To extend the airway, or something. She parted his lips, sealed hers around them, and exhaled.

There was no response.

Time to start chest compressions? No, she thought. One more breath. She positioned her mouth over his again.

'Gwen?' There was a clattering sound from the spiral staircase across from her. Toshiko was hurrying down it, two steps at a time. 'What's going on?'

Toshiko hurried across the basin to join her. Gwen hardly registered that the walkway had now re-emerged as the water subsided. She was too preoccupied in devising some excuse about what had happened to Jack, why she was pressing her face to his. But if he was dead, then what was the whole b.l.o.o.d.y point?

'Jack had to abandon his scuba gear halfway back from the ship,' she lied. 'Ran out of oxygen. Only for a short time.' She could barely speak now. 'Oh G.o.d, Toshiko, I think he's dead. But he can't be...'

Toshiko's look was grave. 'Gwen,' she began gently. 'How long has he been without air?'

Gwen didn't know what to say any more. Didn't know how to explain.

She gave a little shriek of surprise. Jack had abruptly rolled over towards her, and barfed sea water over her legs. Her shriek turned into a shout of elation and then to laughter. She threw herself on him and hugged him tight. Let him go almost immediately, as he began to choke in her embrace. Apologised when he slipped back and smacked his head on the floor. Laughed again. Laughed, and thought she'd never stop.

With Toshiko's help, Gwen got Jack into the medical suite and onto a bed.

Jack was making a remarkable recovery. He'd spent some time explaining to Gwen and Toshiko and Ianto about the Bruydac Warrior too much time to be plausible for someone purportedly recovering from a near-drowning. 'Don't make a fuss, Jack,' Gwen hissed close to his ear while Toshiko was busily wrestling a couple of monitors into position on the other side of his room. 'You'll just draw attention to yourself. Lie down and try to look like you're at death's door, for G.o.d's sake.' She sat down on the bed beside him, and tried to look concerned.

Toshiko smoothed the electrodes onto Jack's chest, and adjusted the sensitivity of the monitor by his bedside. The machine began to make an encouraging ping sound. 'You're a better patient than Owen. You won't be surprised to hear that.'

'How's he doing?' Jack's voice was a rasp.

'How do you think?' smiled Toshiko. 'Doctors make the worst patients. At least we don't have to strap him down any more.'

'I bet he was glad when you released him,' said Gwen.

'I said we don't need need to strap him down any more,' replied Toshiko. 'I didn't say we'd actually undone his restraints yet.' to strap him down any more,' replied Toshiko. 'I didn't say we'd actually undone his restraints yet.'

A roar from the next bedroom confirmed that Owen was awake and probably listening. Toshiko grinned at them, and slipped out of the room.

Jack sat up in his own bed. He placed his hand over Gwen's on the cover, and squeezed it rea.s.suringly. Ianto was sitting in a chair against the wall, pretending not to notice.

'Owen's gonna be fine,' said Jack. 'The Bruydac Warrior must have relinquished control a moment before the sedatives rendered him unconscious. Because it didn't want to be captured alive by Tosh and Ianto.'

'And it knew it had somewhere else to jump. It knew you were waiting.'

'Right.'

'And it tried to jump again when it thought you were dying.' Ianto was unusually animated, excited at his own cleverness in working out what had happened. 'You had it fooled there, eh?'

Jack exchanged a look with Gwen. 'Yeah.'

She squeezed his hand in acknowledgement.

'But it really had nowhere to go, because there were no more hosts. And its true form was dead.' Ianto sc.r.a.ped his chair nearer to the bed. 'It abandoned the victims when it had to escape. Which explains why that implant in Owen's spine has burnt out. Like the ones in the other... er... victims?'

'Yeah.' Jack leaned forward on the bed, and ran an exploratory hand up his own back. 'Y'know, I gotta have this thing removed. Otherwise I'm gonna set off the alarms every time I check in at the airport.'

He had leaned too far forward and dislodged one of the electrodes. The monitor beside him flatlined, and an alarm went off. Toshiko hurried in from the other room, her face full of worry until she saw Jack sitting on the bed and laughing at her.

Jack allowed Toshiko to fuss about him and reattach the electrodes.

Gwen's mobile began to buzz in her pocket. After such a long silence, it was a surprise to hear it again. She flipped it open and saw that it was Rhys calling.