Torchwood: Exodus Code

behind what was happening.
    It wasn’t until day five that Jack witnessed something that was the breakthrough for which he’d been searching, the understanding that might help him bring Gwen home.
    *
    Jack was stretched across the couch in the living room reading to Anwen. Rhys had gone to fetch Mary from the hospital and bring her home for tea. Gwen and the other women remained sedated and mostly incoherent, their families taking turns sitting watch all day at their bedsides, vigils that were occurring all over the world where clusters of women had been afflicted.
    ‘No,’ said Anwen as Jack opened the colourful new alphabet book he’d bought for her. She turned to the bright red apple on the first page with a speckled worm crawling through its core carrying a bag of books.
    ‘A is for Apple,’ said Jack.
    ‘No,’ said Anwen, slapping the picture of the apple.
    ‘Oh, I’m pretty sure that A is for Apple,’ laughed Jack, ‘at least in this universe.’
    Anwen grabbed the book from Jack and began to flip through the pages until she reached L where there was a picture of a large luscious lemon with striped straws sticking out all over it. She poked her finger at the lemon and said, ‘Apple.’
    No matter how insistent Jack was, Anwen was unyielding.
    He carried her into the kitchen and showed her the fruit bowl. ‘Anwen, show Uncle Jack the apple.’
    He held her forward and she picked up the only apple left in the bowl. He peeled it and cut it into slices, and they shared the snack, while he thought things through.
    Later at dinner, he told Rhys and Mary what had happened.
    ‘She recognises the shapes,’ he told them. ‘So what was confusing her? Do you think she might be colour blind?’
    Mary was clearing the table, stacking the dishes in the sink. ‘I don’t think she is. She has no problem pointing out colours in her rainbow book.’
    ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Jack, filling the sink with water and suds to wash the dishes. ‘No worries. Maybe she was just mixed up.’
    When the house was quiet and everyone asleep, Jack tiptoed downstairs and sat at the dining room table. In the pale moonlight beaming through the windows, he sorted all the information he had gathered, including the image of the women in the mirror, into a narrative of sorts.
    By the time the sun came up, Jack believed he had hit on something, and it unsettled him.

35
    THE SECURITY GUARD on duty outside the locked ward had been eyeing Jack suspiciously since coming on duty at the shift change. He instinctively deferred to a senior officer, but this man’s uniform looked oddly old-fashioned – as if he’d stepped out of a vintage comic book. ‘You’re the kind of man me mam warned me of,’ the guard muttered to himself.
    Now the man was violating the locked ward’s protocols. Looked like he was going to break into the ward with all those nutty women. Before the guard could call for assistance, Jack returned to the desk and handed over his belongings, including his coat, a leather wrist-strap, his passport, and his phone all of which the guard looked at quizzically before dropping into a Ziploc bag. Once Jack had signed the visitors’ log, the guard buzzed him into the ward.
    ‘Keep your voice low, your head high and your hands where I can see them at all times. D’ya hear?’
    Jack saluted. ‘Loud and clear.’
    Pausing at the door, Jack was overwhelmed with the sharp pine scent of antiseptic, the metallic odour of blood, the heavy breathing and the quiet moaning of the patients invading his senses at once. His fingertips began tingling. He stared down at his hands. He opened and closed his fists, but this served only to spread the stinging to his knuckles where he felt a dull throb.
    When he looked up, three fiery interlocking red rings shimmered before his eyes. Jack stared over at Gwen quietly moaning in bed below a high barred window. The rings were identical to the image she’d carved on her arm. Jack exhaled slowly. The rings floated in front of his field of vision, bouncing like an animated 3D image on an invisible screen inches from his face. He glanced from Gwen to each of the other women in the ward. The rings followed his line of sight.
    Jack took a deep breath, reaching his hand up to touch one of them. The image danced in front of his hand. No matter what Jack did, the rings remained between him and whatever he was looking at.
    ‘Oi. What’s going on in there?’ asked the guard, his voice