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  'I wish I knew,' he said.

  Together they fell nine storeys, a moment that to Michael seemed stretched out into infinity, a moment when he was always falling, when his whole life had been little more than a descent. They crashed through the surface of the water in an embrace and plunged deep down into the black sea, deeper and deeper until the light from the surface was barely strong enough for them to look into each other's eyes. Michael smiled, briefly, and then breathed out, his last breath rising to the surface in a volcanic storm of bubbles. Jack did likewise, and moments later they died in each other's arms.

  The black Land-Rover ground to a halt before the burning ruins of the Hamilton's Sugar warehouse, the magnetic blue beacon light still flashing on its roof. As Cromwell stepped out of the vehicle, he saw that the place had already been swept by the army, something he was far from happy about, but then there was no plan in place for this. Tonight had taken them all by surprise.

  It was embarrassing, truth be told, that a KVI substation could be in operation only a mile and a half from Torchwood and them not know about it. How long had this place been operational?

  The few surviving Russians had already been cleared from the site, taken away in armoured cars by the ground crew, while a fire team now worked at putting out the flaming ruins. Cromwell guessed that the whole site would be one big waste ground within a few hours, all evidence of the events that had taken place that night taken away for analysis or bulldozed into the sea. The incident at Hamilton's Sugar would never have happened. At least not officially.

  Pausing to light a cigarette as he surveyed the destruction, Cromwell turned to the woman who had driven the Land- Rover; a tall brunette in a black miniskirt and leather jacket. She was already taking readings, walking around the rubble and the patches of blood where bodies had been, pretending not to notice the lustful looks from some of the soldiers.

  'Lucy?' said Cromwell. 'Anything?'

  'Nothing,' Lucy replied. 'They're gone.'

  'All of them?'

  She nodded.

  Cromwell took a long drag on his cigarette and shook his head.

  'So much death,' he said.

  He was walking towards the edge of the quayside when two soldiers approached him, carrying a covered body on a stretcher.

  'Sir, Captain Turner said you might want to see this,' said the first, indicating the body.

  Cromwell nodded, took another drag on his cigarette, and lifted the sheet. Though covered in blood and ash, one side of the face partly staved in by falling masonry, it was the scar that identified the corpse. Valentine was dead.

  'So it goes,' said Cromwell. 'Goodbye, Mr Valentine. Take him away, boys. Do with him what you will.'

  Cromwell sat, a little awkwardly, on one of the mooring posts on the edge of the dock. Age, he felt, was starting to creep up on him. There had been a time, which didn't feel so long ago, when he would have been the one running around the ruins, noting every last detail, taking readings. He'd have shrugged off, or at least blocked out, the more gruesome details, like the pools of blood or the recognisable fragments of tissue and bone. Those days were leaving him now. How much more of this did he have left in him? Five years? Ten?

  His moment's contemplation was interrupted by the sound of splashing water. He turned around suddenly, and looking down at the sea saw a figure emerging from the surface. It was a man, a man who gripped a rusting ladder with both hands and pulled himself, gasping as if in pain, up onto the edge of the dock. For a moment he lay there, on his side, coughing up water and simply staring into space, as if his mind were a million miles away.

  'Harkness...' said Cromwell, but the man did not acknowledge him. Instead, he got to his feet and walked away, past the ruins of the warehouse, past Lucy, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind him.

  'Jack?' called Cromwell, but it was too late.

  Jack Harkness was gone.

  SEVENTEEN

  Jack's office was silent but for the whirr of his computer. He hadn't spoken in perhaps a minute. Ianto leaned back against one of Jack's archaic filing cabinets, drumming his fingers on one of the metal drawer fronts, and sighed.

  'But Valentine?' he said. 'Why did they wipe all his records?'

  'Embarrassment?' said Jack. 'Desperation? I don't know. They were different times. There weren't just aliens and the Rift to think of.'

  Jack was quiet now. He wasn't in the mood for questions. As he'd told Ianto about the events at the KVI substation, he'd glanced occasionally at his monitor, and at the image of Michael, sleeping. The whole night had felt like a cruel dream; the kind of dream you have in which a loved one who has died comes back and, halfway through, you recognise it for what it is: a lie.

  'But it's worse than a lie,' thought Jack, 'because it's a lie you tell yourself.'

  'So where does this leave us?' asked Ianto.

  Jack looked at him quizzically. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

  'I mean, if he's here now.

  Jack shook his head. 'He won't stay,' he said. 'The guy sleeping down in the Boardroom... None of those things have happened to him yet. He's still alive, for one thing.'

  'But maybe you could stop it... I mean...'

  'No,' said Jack. 'Not in this universe. In this universe, Michael always goes back to 1967. He always dies.'

  'So there's nothing we can—'

  'No.'

  Ianto thought about this for a moment. He'd been thinking of Lisa, ever since he'd told the others about his encounter with Cromwell at Torchwood One. Those days seemed a lifetime ago, now. Lisa seemed so many lifetimes ago.

  'You need to go to him, then,' he said. 'Now, I mean. Go and talk to him. Just... just be with him.'

  Jack nodded, and smiled. As he walked out of his office, Ianto caught his hand, and held it for a second before letting go.

  'So these Vondrax?' said Gwen. 'They look like people?'

  Toshiko shrugged. She was examining the Orb, while Gwen sat at her workstation sipping coffee that was still a little too hot.

  'Kind of,' she said. 'I can't remember. Or at least I couldn't remember. Until now.'

  'And they wear bowler hats?'

  Toshiko nodded.

  'But why?' said Gwen. 'Why do you think they wear bowler hats?'

  'I don't know. To fit in?'

  'It's weird. It just reminds me of something Jack said a while ago. He said that in an infinite universe there must be a planet full of civil servants. Maybe that's the planet they're from...'

  Toshiko laughed softly. 'I've seen one of them, Gwen,' she said, 'and they were not civil servants.'

  Then she looked at Gwen with an expression serious enough to kill Gwen's smile. She looked strangely scared, as if the memory were enough to still terrify her.

  Jack stepped out of his office and walked across the Hub.

  'Having fun?' he asked. It was the kind of line that would normally be accompanied by a smile, but he said it softly with little trace of emotion.

  Toshiko looked up from the Orb. 'This thing,' she said. 'There's no tech. No moving parts. The metal is a new one on me.'

  'Have you named it yet?' asked Jack.

  Toshiko frowned. 'What do you mean?'

  'Well, it's a new metal. Nothing like it on Earth. You should name it. Something like Toshikinum. Or Torchwoodium, if you're not into the whole egocentric naming thing.'

  'Torchwoodium it is,' said Toshiko. 'I just can't figure out how it works. Or rather, how it worked.'

  'And I don't think you ever will,' said Jack. 'That thing is probably older than this planet. Maybe older than this solar system. The creatures that made it were working with technology as old as the stars themselves. It's Clarke's Third Law, Tosh. Clarke's Third Law.'

  'You said that earlier, Jack. What's Clark's Third Law?'

  'I'll tell you some other time,' said Jack. 'I have to go see how our visitor's doing.'

  As Jack headed down towards the Boardroom, Toshiko left the Orb on the table and followed him.
>
  'Um, Jack,' she said. 'I've been thinking.

  Jack turned. 'About what?'

  'Well, about the Vondrax. If they follow Michael, and Michael's here... Well... What do we do if they turn up?'

  Jack breathed deeply. He could still see the Vondrax in the underground corridor of the KVI substation, and the bullets passing through them as if they were made of smoke. He'd been immune to them, but the others hadn't been so lucky.

  'They don't like mirrors,' he said, glancing across the Hub, and Toshiko followed his gaze.

  'I wonder,' said Owen, peering through the glass of the holding cell. 'Do you have regrets? Do you sit in there sometimes and think, "How the bloody hell did I end up here? What did I do to deserve living in this little bloody room a hundred feet below Cardiff?'"

  In its cell, Janet was hunched over in one corner, breathing quietly but for the occasional grunt. It was hard to know whether the Weevil was listening to him or not and, if it was, whether it might be able to understand a single word he was saying.

  'I wonder what you think of us,' said Owen. 'I mean, apart from as food, obviously. I wonder whether you've got a favourite.'

  Janet looked at him, its deep sunken eyes peering out of the shadows, recessive glints of light almost lost behind its gnarled, bestial features.

  'I bet I'm your favourite,' said Owen. 'The amount of time I spend down here. Our little chats. Well, I do all the chatting, you just seem to sit there and grunt, but that's OK;

  Owen tapped his feet on the floor and laughed softly. Sometimes, when he was down in the Vaults, he'd see himself, as if having an out-of-body experience, and find the whole scenario ridiculous. It was, of course, ridiculous, and yet there was still something strangely comforting about it. Some people paid for therapy. Owen had Janet.

  Michael was waking as Jack entered the Boardroom. He sat up on the inflatable mattress, yawned and rubbed his eyes.

  'I'm still here,' he said, smiling.

  'Yep,' said Jack. 'You're still here.'

  Michael looked around the room and then at Jack.

  'I wonder how much longer,' he said. 'First time I was only there five minutes. Then the next time it was hours. How long have I been here?'

  Jack looked at his watch. 'Just over three hours,' he said. 'It's getting late.'

  Michael frowned. 'Is it?' he said. 'I didn't know what time it was. You don't have any windows.'

  'No,' said Jack, laughing softly. 'We wouldn't.'

  There was a long silence between them, a silence that was strangely comfortable, Michael thought, for two strangers.

  'So,' said Jack. 'Are you hungry? Thirsty? Is there anything I can get you?'

  'No,' said Michael. 'I'm OK. I'm still a little queasy. It's the... the thing. When it happens. It always leaves me feeling a bit sick.'

  Jack nodded. 'Anything you wanted to do?' he said. 'Maybe watch a little twenty-first-century TV? I mean... It's not that great. Mostly repeats and celebrities dancing. And talent shows.'

  'No,' said Michael. 'It's OK.' He paused and then looked up, his face illuminated by an idea. 'Actually, I was thinking. Maybe you could take me outside?'

  'I don't know...' he said. 'Maybe it would be better if—'

  'Oh please,' pleaded Michael. 'You said we were in Cardiff. I'd like to see what it's like. Now, I mean.'

  'OK,' said Jack. 'You win. But no running off anywhere. And you'd better prepare yourself for a bit of a shock.'

  Ten minutes later, Jack and Michael were standing on the platform at the base of the water tower.

  'Is this thing safe?' asked Michael.

  'Oh yeah,' said Jack, laconically. 'We'd never be allowed to have one of these things if it didn't stand up to all the... you know... rigorous... er...'

  The platform began to rise up above the Hub.

  'Rigorous what?' asked Michael.

  'Oh, you know,' said Jack. 'Health and safety stuff.'

  Michael stood a little closer to Jack and a little further from the edge of the platform as they passed up through the ceiling of the Hub and, seconds later, found themselves standing in front of the Millennium Centre.

  'Where are we?' Michael asked.

  'Michael Bellini...' said Jack. 'Welcome to Cardiff.'

  Michael looked up at the colossal steel dome of the concert hall. Walking around the base of the water tower, he saw the stream of streetlights leading off to a vanishing point on Lloyd George Avenue, and then the piazza of restaurants on the other side of the square. When he'd come full circle, he saw the lights of the barrage reflected on the sea, and then the floodlit façade of the Pierhead Building.

  'I'm home,' he said, laughing to himself. 'It's Tiger Bay, isn't it?'

  Jack nodded.

  'That's right,' he said. 'You're home. Let me show you around.'

  Ianto didn't look himself. Gwen had never seen him look this way before. His stoicism, his trademark Ianto Jones imperviousness, had faded somehow.

  She rapped her knuckles on the door of Jack's office, and Ianto looked up.

  'Penny for your thoughts,' asked Gwen.

  'Cheapskate,' said Ianto. 'Never heard of inflation? Thoughts are a bit pricier than that these days.'

  'OK,' said Gwen. 'A pint down the local tomorrow for your thoughts?'

  Ianto smiled. 'That's more like it.'

  'So...?' said Gwen. 'What's on your mind?'

  'It's nothing,' said Ianto. 'Just tonight.'

  Gwen understood. For a quiet Sunday night, and compared to some Sundays it had been quiet, the last few hours had been an emotional experience, though not necessarily an unhappy one for her. She'd forgotten all about the argument in the sofa shop, and was now thinking of home, and Rhys.

  'Did Jack tell you anything?' Gwen asked. 'I mean about Michael?'

  Ianto nodded. 'Just when you think you know him...'

  'I know. Tell me about it.'

  Gwen smiled, but she couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy that Jack had opened up to Ianto and not her. Hadn't there been a time, not so long ago, when they would have shared such things? Weren't they still close?

  Jack's time away had put a strain on the whole team, it had changed things, there was no doubting that, and tonight had brought a peculiar focus to this. Jack was like a box full of secrets sometimes, and every time a new box was opened it seemed to contain another box, like ever diminishing Russian dolls.

  Owen hadn't spoken for a while. It was unlikely the others would bother him while he was down here, which gave him time to think clearly, without distraction. He thought about the friends he had made at the hospital; people he very rarely saw these days. He'd been convinced, in his youth, that he'd know those people, the other trainee doctors, his colleagues, for the rest of his life. He'd see them every now and then, of course – it was hard not to in a city the size of Cardiff- but they had little to talk about. He'd tell them he was working on a research project, but keep it intentionally vague.

  If he told them what he did, day-in day-out, he imagined they'd probably think him insane, but even if they did believe him, he thought they'd probably pity him. They'd never quite be able to understand the part of him that loved this, that thrived on it. They'd never understand his reasons or his rationale, and they certainly wouldn't understand why he pitied them.

  He was about to leave the holding cells when the lights flickered once, then twice in quick succession, and Janet, staring up at the ceiling, let out a long, mournful howl. He'd seen the Weevil act this way before, of course, but this time it was different. Something was very wrong.

  Toshiko crossed the Hub with a cold can of Coke, pressing the can gently against her eyes. It was something she did when she was tired and her eyes were beginning to feel puffy. She doubted whether it had any particular scientific benefit, but it always seemed to wake her up.

  She'd looked up Clarke's Third Law on the internet, after Jack had gone to the Boardroom, hoping it would give her some kind of answer to the mystery of the Orb, but it didn't. C
larke's Third Law was the kind of thing only a sci-fi nut would know. A sci-fi nut, or Jack Harkness.

  Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

  She laughed when she read that, and went back, still laughing, to the Orb. How could something so small, so seemingly insignificant, contain so much power? Even with her scientific, investigative mind, it still puzzled her. How had all that energy got in there? How and why did it get out?

  It was too late for her to be asking these questions. She knew that. No matter how many times she dabbed her eyes with the ice-cold surface of the can, she needed to sleep. Sleep was often a luxury at Torchwood. She'd lost count of how many times a night of slumber had been interrupted with a phone call and word of some imminent catastrophe in another part of town. Toshiko had begun to think of holidays as quaint things other people had.

  She was about to shut down her computer and pack up for the night when she felt an icy chill on the back of her neck and heard an all too familiar voice say her name.

  'Toshiko...' the voice rasped. 'I smell something sweet.'

  'I just can't believe it,' said Michael, running down towards the water's edge. 'That – over there – that would have been the place where all the bananas used to come in. They used to come in from Brazil in those days. And over there...' He laughed. 'Over there was this place, you know, where the sailors would go when they were on shore leave for a bit of how's your father...'

  Jack could hardly keep up with him, but for a moment it was as if all his memories of that night, over forty years ago, had faded, like a bad dream. Michael looked almost happy.

  'But where are the docks now?' Michael asked. 'I mean, if this is all fancy bars and restaurants, and that bloody great big opera house, where's the docks?'

  'They're gone,' said Jack. 'They went a long time ago.'

  Michael's ebullience waned and he stopped running.

  'Really?' he said. 'Everything's gone?'

  'Things change. The world changes. People change.'

  Michael nodded pensively, and then walked slowly along the waterfront, gazing out over the sea.

  'That's where I worked,' he said, pointing out across the water at a distant headland. 'That's where we all worked.'