Better Natures: Memory
Chapter Two: In Which Things Are Not Always What They Seem
It wasn't exactly typical to have kids around the Hub, but Martha couldn't help but smile at them as Clyde followed Luke around, the two trying to figure out what the various and sundry alien artifacts actually did. Ianto had objected, at first, to their presence in the Hub, but Martha insisted on Sarah Jane's assistance, and Sarah Jane insisted that the children be kept close by. Martha had gotten Ianto to relax when she keyed a recorder on them, although she'd not mentioned her real reasoning: there were a few artifacts around that no one had figured out yet, and for all that they were kids, they weren't typical kids. If nothing else, they were at least a fresh pair of eyes, and at best might figure out something on their own. "I have to admit," she said to Sarah Jane, who stood beside her, "I don't know how much of a basis in biology and physiology you have. Can you follow along with this?"
"More or less," Sarah Jane admitted. "I'm no expert, but I learn quickly. So this is the retcon chemical here?" She pointed to one string being displayed on the computer screen, a chain of molecules representative of the cause of one-half their current problem. "And this is the immunisation drug here." A gesture at a similar chain below. "You don't yet know why they're interacting?"
Martha nodded. "It looks like it might have something to do with the bits here and here," she said, pointing to two identical off-shoot bits on the chains. "It's a new thing on the aerosol retcon; it's what allows it to remain stable in a mist state. But if it's bonding there with the immunisation, then it might explain why the drug got through his system so quickly. Luckily, it appears that the bond isn't permanent -- in fact, the retcon appears to be breaking down the immunisation, at least in my sample, and then dissolving itself. It's being processed in the liver. After this is all over, we'll likely have to replicate the immunisation just so that we can get Jack protected again."
"There are worse things," Sarah Jane pointed out. "The memory loss could have been permanent. You're certain that when the retcon is processed, the memory loss will fade?"
"As certain as I can be without having him right in front of me," Martha replied. "There's only so much I can do with a non-live blood sample." She turned back to her work. "The problem now is finding an antidote. Not that we're likely to need one, but if we can accelerate the breakdown of the retcon in his bloodstream..."
"Then all the better for it." Sarah Jane glanced around the Hub. "Do you see the boys around at all?" she asked. "Luke and Clyde, I mean. I haven't heard them in a few minutes."
Martha glanced over at the monitor she was using to keep track of them, the one that was tracking the recording. "Looks like they're down a level," she said. "They should be fine, there's nothing to dangerous down there. They may stumble across the Quiet Room, and there's nothing in there to worry about. Just can't record them in there, that's all."
Up by Mickey's station, where, once upon a time, Tosh would be sitting, Mickey and Ianto were going over CCTV feeds. "Still nothing, Gwen," Ianto said into the comms. "We're tracking you fine, but there doesn't seem to be any sign of Jack in any footage for the last twelve hours."
"What about the footage from the battle itself?" Gwen asked. In the background, Ianto could hear Rhys speaking to someone -- perhaps a newsstand owner -- in a raised voice. Speaking at someone was, perhaps, more accurate. "He doesn't show up there?"
"As it happens, the battle footage itself isn't in the CCTV archives," Ianto replied. "We see some of the aliens show up -- we're still trying to find a match for their image in the archives, but nothing yet -- and then it goes to static. By the time it clears up, the aliens, and anyone who might have been involved in fighting them off, are gone."
"Which doesn't leave us with much to go on," Gwen pointed out. "Except -- Ianto, can you trace the CCTV footage, see if anywhere else has gone to static, either before or after the attack?"
Beside Ianto, Mickey, who was listening in on the conversation, thwacked himself on the forehead. "On it," he said. "Should have thought of that before."
"Mickey's working on it now," Ianto informed Gwen. "We should have results for you shortly."
"Call me back when you do," Gwen ordered. "And Ianto? We'll find him."
"That we will," Ianto agreed. "Never doubted it for a moment."
Gwen tapped off the comm and moved back towards where Rhys was arguing with the newspaper vendor. "Rhys? We've got a lead," she said. "Or might have, anyway. Ianto's going to call me back when we know more."
Rhys flipped off the man at the newsstand and stepped away with Gwen. "Sorry about that," he said. "I started to talk to him about rugby, and he..."
"Said something about your team?" Gwen supplied, smiling softly. "Oh, Rhys. Whatever would I do without you?"
"You'd miss out on cheese toasties, for one," Rhys replied. "Best cheese toasties in Cardiff, those are!"
They continued down the street, Gwen keeping one eye out for anything out of the ordinary. Rhys, for all that he continued rambling, was doing the same, she knew. "Rhys?" she began, at one point, and all at once he shut up and his attention was focused on her. "Do you hear that?"
It took a moment, but Rhys eventually nodded. "Kind of like... bees," he said, "with a kind of whine? Like you get sometimes with... A mains hum! That's it. Bees, and a mains hum."
"Yes, exactly." Gwen looked around, trying to track the source. "It's coming this way!" she said, as it got louder. "Quick, in here. Ianto!" she continued, reaching up to tap her comm headset as she all but pulled Rhys into an alcove between two buildings. "The aliens, they're back. Track our location, get the CCTV on it. We'll hold them off, but be ready in case we need you. We're not far from the Hub right now."
As she got his confirmation, she pulled her gun from the small of her back and handed it to Rhys. "I know you've not had much practice with these," she said, "and I'm sorry to force it on you now, but do you think you can handle that?"
It settled into Rhys's hand, and his thumb traced along the safety -- not yet flipping it off, but he knew, at least, where it was when he was ready to do so. "I think I can manage," he replied. "But what about you?"
Gwen reached down into her boot and pulled out a second gun, this one looking not at all like a modern handgun. "Always carry a spare," she said, and she flipped a switch. The gun began to spool up with an audible hum. "Besides, this one carries rather a larger punch than that one does."
Down the street came the sound of marching, and the buzzing whine began to make sense: the aliens who now approached where carrying large, heavy-looking blaster weapons from which the disconcertingly loud sound was being emitted. "Be ready," she said, "and if I say run, run, no questions asked, straight to the Hub, all right?" Rhys nodded, and the two of them sighted down their weapons -- Gwen with experience, Rhys with confidence born of too many action movies. "Fire at will."
She and Rhys began to take down the invading aliens, almost every shot of Gwen's firing true, brilliant bolts of arcing energy shooting from the tip of the gun to the invaders. Rhys's less frequent shots began a bit wide, at first, but by the fourth he was hitting aliens every time, natural talent (that, later, would have him sick to think about, these were living creatures he was shooting, even people of a sort) making up for lack of experience. Before long, the aliens had been routed, and while it didn't seem that any had been killed, there were very few among the small force that had escaped without any injury at all. "They won't be back soon," Gwen said. "Rhys, are you all right?"
Rhys was looking at the wall beside him, where a blast from one of the alien weapons had struck close to his head. The stone of the wall was melted away, a long, ugly gash, jagged-edged, betray what could very easily have happened to him if it had struck a few inches closer. "I think I'm going to be sick," he said, dashing back out onto the sidewalk and throwing up in a bin.
Gwen reached into her purse for a bottle of water and came up behind Rhys, handing it over. She surveyed the destruction around them. "Ianto?" she said, tapping her comm headset once again. "All clear. Any luck on your end?"
"We didn't lose CCTV," he told her, "so whatever caused the interference before, it sees to be centered around Jack somehow. Which is both good and bad. The bad news is that it means we'll have a harder time tracking him. The good news is that we can try and track him through the static signals on the CCTV. It should give us a rough area to work in, at least."
"Stay on that, then," Gwen replied, "and get back to me when you've got something more. Do you at least have a direction for us, yet?"
"It looks like he headed south from the site of the attack, so roughly towards the Hub," Ianto replied. "From there, we're not sure yet. I'll get back to you as soon as I can."
"All right, Ianto. If I don't hear from you before, I'll ring in an hour to check in. Gwen out."
Roald Dahl Plass wasn't quite what Donna had expected. There wasn't all that much to see there, nor things to do. There was, however, a little tourist shop thing that looked like it would hold brochures, pamphlets, and maps, little things of that sort. "Should we start there?" Donna asked her companion. "Or do you want to try somewhere else?" Jack was looking at the tower, his attention caught. "Jack?" Donna said, trying to get his attention. It didn't work. "Oi, Jack!" That was accompanied by a thwap on his arm. "You in there, Spaceman?"
"What? Oh, sorry," he said, and if Donna had paid attention she would have realised that he was a little calmer, a little less given to flirting (... only slightly less) than he had been when they'd met. He was certainly less exciteable. "Sorry, it's just... something about this seems familiar to me. Like I've been here before. But I can't actually remember it."
"Like deja vu?" Donna asked. "Happens to me all the time around London. Loads of places I hadn't been. There's a reconstruction of Pompeii in one of the rooms in the British Museum, and I almost started telling the curator how they'd got it wrong! Doesn't mean anything."
Jack gave her a long look. "I wish I had your confidence in that," he said, "but we already know that something's missing from my memory. Maybe it is related to this Torchwood. It's the best lead we have, isn't it?"
Donna nodded, and the two walked over to the tourist building, figuring that, if nothing else, they could ask whoever was there if they'd heard anything about Torchwood. Which, of course, was exactly when someone -- a tall-ish man wearing a suit and, Donna noted, the most flamboyantly pink shirt she'd ever seen on a man. "Jack!" he called. "You're back!" He glanced at the woman with him and rolled his eyes. "And up to your old tricks, no less," he continued. "But why've you brought her back here?"
Jack narrowed his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said, "do I know you? Do you know something about what's going on here?"
The man's face fell, Donna noticed, although Jack didn't seem to react. "I'm sorry," he said. "I thought your memory had come back. I'm Ianto Jones. We..." A pause, a mere moment's hesitation, but it was there. "... Work together," he finished. "And you?" he asked, turning to Donna.
"Donna Noble," she replied, "and I'll thank you to remember it. Do you know something about Torchwood? Or about the aliens who attacked earlier?"
Donna was too preoccupied to notice Ianto blanch when she mentioned that particular name. "I'm sorry, Ms. Noble," he said. "We do know something about the attack, yes, but not as much as we'd like. If you'll both come with me, I'll see what we can do about explaining things to you. As much as we can, at the very least." He smiled softly, sentimentally, at Jack. "I imagine you'll find the Hub interesting, sir," he said. "You told us once that even you found it intimidating, your first time in."
"My first time in? You make it sound like I'm something important around here."
"You are, Jack. You're our leader."
The Hub itself, Donna thought, was rather dank and a bit dim for her tastes, but as secret bases went she supposed it wasn't so bad. "And this is just... sitting here under the Plass, is it? Has been for how long?"
"Over a century, at this point," Mickey told her, a tall, dark and handsome that she'd been introduced to first thing upon getting down there. "Torchwood's been around since Queen Victoria, Torchwood-3 since not long after. We're pretty much the only ones left now, though."
"Must be lonely," Donna said. "I can't imagine what it must be like to be alone against the universe. And it's all on top of this... rift in time and space?" For just a moment, a sharp jag of pain cut through her head, and she winced, but Mickey had turned away and didn't notice. "Aren't you afraid it's going to... I don't know, fall in?"
Mickey shrugged. "I asked the same thing myself, actually," he said, "but it apparently doesn't work quite like that. The Hub is actually... not physically on top of the rift, it's not like the rift is below it. The rift goes right through the Hub, and through the rest fo Cardiff. This is just the best place, really, to keep track of it. Kind of the center, I guess you could say. If something does happen, we're actually safest here than anywhere else in the city. Eye of the storm, that kind of thing."
Donna looked across the room where Jack was talking to Ianto, and a woman who'd introduced herself as Dr. Martha Jones. "And you're all responsible for taking care of anything that falls through?" she asked. "And Jack, too?"
"He's our leader," Mickey confirmed. "Has been for longer than I've been around. He's older than he seems."
An older woman, one who Donna hadn't yet met, came out of one of the tunnels, followed by two young men. Early teens, they were, if Donna didn't miss her guess. "Do-" she began, her eyes falling upon Donna, but she cut herself off. "You must be Ms. Noble," she said, instead, and there was something behind her eyes that Donna couldn't identify. "Sarah Jane Smith. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'd like you to meet my son, Luke, and his friend Clyde Langer."
"What, you've got boys working for Torchwood, too?" she asked. Jack, she noticed was eying not only the woman, but both boys, too, appraisingly. Sizing them up. "Oi, stop that, Spaceman," she said, "they're not even old enough to drink."
Jack held his hands up in a, "Who, me?" pose, and Sarah Jane just laughed. "It's all right, Ms. Noble. I'm rather used to it from Jack; in this instance, he's perfectly harmless. Although I suppose I should remind him that if he lays one hand on my son, I'll have his bollocks for earrings. As for working for Torchwood, no, we don't work for them. We're associated on a more... informal basis. I don't hold with the guns, you see. Luke and Clyde do assist me; don't let their youth fool you about their capabilities. I do, however, do my best to make absolutely certain that they come to no harm."
"So what about me, then?" Donna asked. "Don't think I haven't noticed. Every one of you knows me somehow, but I haven't got any kind of gaps in my memory like the good Captain there, nothing to explain why I wouldn't remember you. What's going on?"
Glances all around, between Martha and Sarah Jane most significantly.
"That's something we can't tell you," Martha said, the first to speak up. "There are reasons, I will tell you that, but there's a promise we've made that we can't break." She hesitated. "And you, too, Jack. You made the promise. If you remember what you know before you remember the promise, remember it now. You promised not to tell."
"What do you mean, you promised not to tell? It's about me, and that means that I bloody deserve to know!"
There was a lull, as Donna stared everyone down, until finally Ianto -- with Gwen's still out on the streets with Rhys and Jack's incapacitated, he was the de facto leader of Torchwood -- stepped forward. "I'm afraid that for your own protection," he said, "we're going to have to put you both in protective custody, at least until you recover your memory, Jack. Ms. Noble, I regret the necessity."
"Oh, bollocks to that!" she exclaimed. "I'm leavi-AHH!" With a ear-splitting screech, Donna fell to her knees, clutching her head. "I'm leaving, I'm leaving, I'm leaving-"
Jack reached down, his hand going to her shoulder, and she stilled, her words quieting as she lost consciousness. "What was that?" he asked Martha, glaring at her as she moved to take Donna's vitals. "I think we deserve an answer, don't you?"
"You'll remember soon enough, Jack," Martha said. "We'll move you down into a cell for now, in one of the more quiet areas. It'll give you both a chance to rest. Ianto? Mickey? Would you help Donna, please?" Martha looked at Sarah Jane, worry in her eyes. Of everyone here, they were the only ones who had traveled with the Doctor for any length of time and still remembered it; Mickey, too, knew some of what there was to it, but he'd not been along anywhere near as long as either of them. Without Jack to help, this was going to be a lot for them both to carry. "I'll be down in a few moments myself, Jack, to take some scans, and bring you both some food. If I'm right about what's going on with Donna, then things may be a little worse than we expected."
Jack scowled, but nodded. "As long as the accomodations aren't too bad," he said. "I'm not about to sit around in some dank prison cell."
"Only the finest for our brilliant leader, sir," Ianto assured him, he and Mickey helping Donna to her feet. Even now, she was coming to. "VIP cells are this way. If you'll follow me?"
Sarah Jane and Martha watched them go, Luke and Clyde going off on their own again. "This is going to be difficult," Sarah Jane said. "And even moreso to watch it happen. Do you think she's breaking through?"
"That's what I'm afraid of," Martha said. "I'll take some retcon down with me when I go down to do the scans, enough to cover a couple of days. If what the Doctor told me is true, that should be enough to restore the blocks keeping her away from the part of him that she carries." One secret too many, he'd said, a too-short phone call after Martha had tried to reach Donna and her grandfather said not to call back, to never call back. "'One secret too many,'" she repeated, this time aloud.
"What was that?" Sarah Jane asked. "Did you say something?"
"Oh, nothing," Martha replied. "Just an old memory coming to the surface. Listen, what did the Doctor tell you about Donna?"
Sarah Jane sighed. "Only that holding him in her head, the way she was, was too much. That she'd burn out. 'Too brilliant for a human mind,' he said, and it sounded more like he was talking about the sun, or fire, than intelligence."
"Yeah, that's what he said to me." Martha moved back to her own console and began tapping away again. "I wish I knew how the biotransfer mechanism worked. There might be another way to solve it. Something that would bring the old Donna back without risking her life."
"If there is, you'll find it." Sarah Jane laid one hand gently on the other woman's arm, a gesture of comfort. "If there's anyone brilliant enough to match the Doctor, it's you. He speaks highly of you, you know. You were the only one of us who tried to contact Donna before he warned us not to, did you know that?"
"But that was months later!"
"He didn't think we'd try, somehow. I can't imagine why not." Sarah Jane stopped, took a moment to think about it. "Although I suppose I can, truly. Until you, I don't know that any of us have ever tried to get ahold of him before, after we left him. Or after he left us. You're an anomaly, Martha Jones, you and Donna Noble both."
Martha shook her head. "You did it, too," she said. "He told me about it, you and he working together at that school."
"Coincidence, nothing more," Sarah Jane told her. "I wasn't looking for him, I was following the case. He just happened to be there. You not only reached out to him afterwards, you made certain that you had a way to get ahold of him before you walked out of the TARDIS." She smiled softly. "We're all special in some ways, Martha, especially to him, but have faith in the fact that you're one of his best."
Martha flushed, blood rushing up to darken her skin. "Thank you, Sarah Jane," she said. "Coming from you, that means more than you could possibly imagine."
The first cells the group passed were, yes, dark, dank, and looked terribly uncomfortable. Donna was thankful that they passed by them on the way to another wing of the cells area. "I still can't believe you're locking me up," she said. "Doesn't it matter that I'm a British citizen? I have rights!"
"I do apologise, Ms. Noble," Ianto said, for the seventh time. "These are extenuating circumstances. I trust that by the end of the day, you'll either understand, or not remember this encounter." He winced when he said that last, knowing the instant that the words came out of his mouth that he'd spoken too rashly.
"Not remember?" Donna said, her voice reaching screeching tones. "Why wouldn't I remember? What are you going to do to me?"
Mickey opened the cell door and ushered Jack and Donna through. He looked worriedly at Jack, who'd been quiet, too quiet, these last few minutes. "Nothing to hurt you," he said, reaching out to key the general Torchwood code into the door lock. "I swear to you, anything we do will be for your own protection. Will you trust me on that?"
Donna looked around the 'cell', taking in her surroundings. The room was painted a pleasant, neutral colour, and there was actual furniture, not institutional metal hanging off the wall. Instead of the toilet she was used to seeing in prison movies, there was a small door off to a separate room, with toilet, sink, and stand-up shower. "Well, at least the accomodations could be worse," she said.
"Yeah," Jack agreed, but his tone belied his words. "All the finest in lush incarceration accommodations. Where's the room service menu?"
Sidling in behind him, Ianto moved to where a desk stood against one wall. He opened the drawer and pulled out a folder which, upon opening, was revealed to contain a number of take-away and delivery menus. "The phone only calls up to the main part of the Hub," he explained, "or to one of our comms if there's no one up there, but we'll order anything you want." He put the folder back down on the desk and looked seriously at Jack and Donna. "This isn't a prison," he said. "Not the way you're thinking. This is protective custody. This is where we put the people for whom it's too dangerous to go outside, or who might be a danger to those outside, but not to us. It's for your own safety," he insisted again, and Donna couldn't help but wonder whether he was trying to convince them or himself. "We're not going to treat you poorly."
Donna picked up the folder and began to thumb through it. "In that case," she said, and when she looked up she was startled to see that Ianto had already pulled out a notebook and a pen. "Right. In that case, can you get me a green salad and a vitamin water? There's a nice little deli- ah! Here's the menu."
"I'll just get a selection of dressings, shall I?" Ianto asked, already jotting things down. "And you, Jack? Anything for you? Or would you just like me to order you the usual?"
Jack stared a moment. "... The usual will be fine," he said, wondering what the hell it was he'd be ordering on a regular basis. "And I'll have a beer, thanks."
Ianto nodded. "It may take a few minutes, I imagine we'll all want to order something, but it shouldn't be more than half an hour." He nodded to Mickey, who stepped outside and began to head back up to the main part of the Hub. "Is there anything else I can get you two? There's a panel in that cupboard there that has access to the Hub's music database, so you can listen to most anything from Earth and a few of the surrounding planets, and there are a few hardcopy books in there, as well, and some hand-sets that'll get you into the Hub's literature database. No television, I'm afraid, but I wouldn't be surprised if Mickey's got some movies on there."
With that, and looking pained for some reason that left Jack and Donna both wondering, Ianto left, closing the door behind him. There was a very final-sounding ka-chunk as the deadbolt fell into place. "Well," Jack said, looking around. "There are worse places to be. What say we test out the bed?"
"Not if you were the last man on Earth," Donna retorted, "and there were no sheep."
Jack laughed at her. "This is Cardiff," he pointed out. "There very well could be."
Having heard that Jack was found -- with Donna Noble of all people, and Gwen had to wonder what serendipity or bad luck had managed that -- Gwen and Rhys had decided to stop in and grab a quick bite before parting, Rhys heading for the flat and Gwen back to the Hub. "Well, this day could have gone worse," Gwen said, sighing. "At least he's safe, now, and Martha assures me that his memory will be back soon."
Rhys nodded, and held the door of the chip shop open for Gwen to leave ahead of him. "Could definitely be worse," he said. "D'you want to keep looking for those aliens?" Rhys added, looking around. Their last encounter had only been a couple of streets over, but from the look of this one you wouldn't know it. "They might cause more trouble."
Gwen shook her head. "No, it should be fine," she said. "We've got a program running now, watching the CCTV for them. Now that we know for certain that the static was following Jack, for whatever reason, we don't have much to worry about with tracking the aliens."
Nodding, Rhys reached to the small of his back, under his coat, where he'd stashed the handgun that Gwen had loaned him, handing it back to her. "I'm well glad to be rid of this," he said. "Look, don't worry about making it home tonight," he continued. "If you want me to run over later with anything, though, don't hesitate to ask."
Gwen gave him a long look. "Not that I mind," she said, after a moment, "but why are you being so accommodating about this?"
Rhys shrugged. "I suppose it's because I know that... With you and Jack, there's never going to be any problems," he said. "You've both got this... thing, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't mind it, but I'm not second in your heart, I don't think, not to him and not to Torchwood. I may not be first alone, but sharing first place isn't so bad, after all."
Gwen couldn't help the smile that broke out over her face at that. "Oh, Rhys," she said, leaning up to brush her lips against his cheek. "I'll see you at home later," she assured him. "I may be late, but I'll be there."
"And that's why I don't mind you staying out," Rhys said. "Because I know that in the end, you'll always come home to me."
It wasn't a kiss on the cheek that Gwen went for that time, and the kiss, which grew more passionate by the moment, may have gone on far too long for standing on the sidewalk in public had there not been a small explosion down the street. Without even thinking about, Gwen held the gun back towards Rhys, who took it from her and ducked down behind a bin. Gwen took out her spare sidearm and threw herself around the corner of a building. "Rhys! Back here!" she said. "We might be able to escape through this alleyway!" Rhys started to move, but ducked back when some blaster fire came far too close to comfort. "On three, Rhys! There's a brief pause when they recharge. One, two, three!"
Rhys practically jumped across the space between the bin and the alley, and he and Gwen took a moment to settle their hearts before they moved, sacrificing stealth for speed, towards the end of the alley.
Which was a dead end.
"Bollocks!" Rhys exclaimed, looking around for some place to take cover. "D'you think we can get back out?" he said, but it was too late. Already the aliens were at the head of the alley and turning in.
"We'll have to fight," Gwen said, ducking behind the garbage bin belonging to the chip shop. It, at least, would offer some kind of cover, and more than the flimsy boxboard that was the only other detritus in the alley. "We fought them off before, we should be able to manage it again. I just wish I knew what they want."
"You could try talking to them?" he asked, ducking into the alcove offered by the back door of the building on the other side of the alley.
Gwen started to roll her eyes, then stopped. They hadn't actually tried that, assuming that because there had been the previous firefight against Jack, the aliens were some kind of invader. But what if they were just looking for something? "Thank you, Rhys, you may have just saved us," she said, slipping her arc blaster into her sleeve and slowly standing up, hands in the air. "Excuse me!" she called, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. "My name is Gwen Cooper, and I'm a representative of this planet. May I ask what it is that you're doing here?"
The aliens stopped, and, in a very human manner, looked at each other in confusion. It was the first chance Gwen had to get a really good look at them. Their skin was a pale blue, and looked almost scaled, but not quite. They were the standard bipedal humanoid, leading Gwen to wonder why, exactly, that was such a popular form across the universe, and wore very little in the way of clothing, not that they had anything Gwen recognised as sexual characteristics to cover. One of them stepped forward, and said something in a series of clicks. "I'm sorry," Gwen said, "I can't understand your language. Do you have anyone who speaks English? Or another Earth language?"
There was a moment as the aliens spoke amongst themselves, and then one of the produced a device, a glowing orb that had a cable he -- she? it? -- extended to a port on the side of its neck. "I apologise," it said, and the voice that came from the orb was almost disconcertingly normal, a formal voice that Gwen wouldn't have been surprised to hear from any British butler. "We mistook this world as an aggressive one, and acted accordingly. We search for a thing of great importance to us, a secret long lost. Might you know how we could find it?"
"A secret?" Gwen asked. "What kind of secret?"
"A secret hidden in a song that was ending," the speaker explained. "It's- I apologise. There doesn't seem to be any way to translate it into your language. Is there anyone on this planet who might speak our language?"
In her head, Gwen swore most vehemently at the fact that Jack didn't have his memory. If there were anyone around who'd be likely to speak an alien language, it would be him. "Unfortunately, not at the moment," she explained. "There's a possibility that someone might come up, but for the moment we're stuck with the translator." She waved Rhys out of the alcove, and he moved up to join them. "We'll go by the Hub first, all right?" she asked, keeping her voice quiet so that the aliens, hopefully, wouldn't hear. "I don't want you out there alone with these aliens out on the streets, not if they're going about as open as they have been. And I don't want to be alone with them, either." Rhys nodded, and his hand went to his back, where he'd stashed the handgun once again. He didn't pull it out, not yet, but it was ready if he needed it.
"Okay," Gwen continued. "I work with an organisation called Torchwood. If anyone can help you, it will be us. Is there -- do you all need to come, or could we take only a few representatives? It will make it easier to travel about the city if you're not in a large group."
A few moments of the same clicking that formed their language, and then the speaker turned back to Gwen. "If you tell us where you would like to go," he said, "we can go there immediately. It's a go-places device," he explained.
"A go-places- a teleportation device?" Gwen asked, trying to clarify.
The speaker said. "Yes, a... teleportation device." He nodded formally. "How do you wish to be designated, Speaker for Earth?"
"You can call me Gwen," she said. "And you, Speaker?" It seemed best to try to use the same title.
"I am called Tek'var," said the Speaker. "Now, Speaker Gwen, if you will stand close? A few of us will accompany you and your mate to the place of your working as the rest return to the ship."
Gwen glanced at Rhys, who looked nervous, but her hand on his helped to calm him. "It'll be okay," she said. "Teleporting's not so bad, and if they speak of it so casually, they must rely on it enough to make certain that it's in good working order."
"If you say so," Rhys replied. "All right, we'll go with the teleport." He and Gwen stepped a little closer, and with a flash of light, the alley stood empty once more, a small breeze and a few rats the only inhabitants.