Torchwood: Exodus Code

in Marmite. At least she was eating, thought Jack, forcing down a corner of her toast, the taste repulsing him.
    ‘You don’t count,’ snapped Rhys. ‘And if you did you’re not exactly proof that Torchwood isn’t at fault considering that you’re the only one still standing.’
    ‘Hey, you’re still standing,’ said Jack. ‘And you’re doing fine, too.’
    He walked over to his laptop and pulled up the TV news. Water traffic in the channel had been restricted. A parade of international scientists and geologists were trying to get close enough to the geyser to examine it. The geyser was slowly turning silver.
    ‘Look at that,’ whistled Jack. ‘It’s actually quite a magnificent sight.’
    The geyser looked like an explosion of silver fireworks against the setting sun. Jack stared at the jet’s pulsing spray, letting the images and the noises in his head rise to a deafening roar, knowing that the answer to what was causing this madness and this geological anomaly were locked inside his mind.

40
    FLIPPING OPEN THE notes he had made earlier in the day and the file that Andy had given him, Jack went back to the original three police reports and spread them out across the table. The three woman whose files Andy had homed in on were of different ages and ethnicities – the university librarian was white and middle-aged; the second woman was black and in her thirties; the third, Lizzie, was the madwoman from the supermarket. Jack lined up their photographs next to each other.
    ‘All of these women are, according to their families and their friends, peaceful and law abiding,’ said Jack, ‘and yet in all three cases, like Gwen, they behaved in a bizarre manner and in the process of their… their madness, they physically harmed themselves.’
    Jack picked up the photograph of the librarian, handing it to Rhys. ‘Ginny Davies plucked out her eyeball with no mind to how painful it must have been. She told the student who sat on her until the medics arrived that,’ Jack picked up the notes in the file and read, ‘that she “couldn’t look at the world that way any more.”’
    ‘That’s horrible,’ said Rhys, looking sadly at the attractive woman who had partially blinded and seriously disfigured herself . ‘Do the police have any idea what she meant?’
    ‘The police have no clue, but I think she may’ve been seeing things, hallucinating perhaps, and whatever she was seeing broke her mind.’ Jack stopped and stared at Rhys.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Nothing… nothing,’ said Jack, going to the sink and pouring himself some water. When he’d thought of the second woman’s mind breaking, he felt as if the memory he’d been trying to snag last night in the SUV had for a fleeting second flashed fully formed across his mind. Then it was gone, leaving a thin trail behind, a lingering bad taste in his mouth.
    Jack gulped the water before returning to the table.
    ‘This is Moira Firth, 24, a waitress. She’d just served dessert to her family of four when she headed into the kitchen and confronted her husband, the chef, with a long rant about his adultery and then she picked up a butcher’s knife and tried to cut out his heart.’
    ‘Jesus,’ said Rhys, taking the photo of Moira from Jack.
    ‘Think yourself lucky that I showed up when I did,’ said Jack, ‘and that it was only your face Gwen was sick of.’
    ‘I’ve never seen these women in my life before, and I’m pretty sure Gwen hadn’t either. But here’s the thing, Jack. Gwen was raging at me, but she was really angry at herself too, at not being able to be the action woman she used to be, at how she was a terrible mother. It was like she’d let out all the frustrations she’d always kept inside about being a mum and a wife and the sacrifices she made for Anwen and me.’ Rhys wiped his sleeve across his eyes. ‘But I made sacrifices too, you know, Jack. I’ve always supported what she wanted to do, and I’ve protected her the best way I know how.’
    Jack turned quickly. ‘What did you just say?’
    Rhys cowed a bit under Jack’s stare. ‘Well, maybe my job wasn’t always all about saving the world from aliens or anything but it was still important to me.’
    ‘Rhys, don’t be such a— Not that part. The Gwen part. Say again what she was yelling at you about.’
    ‘Mostly about how she was a bad mum, and a bad wife and how she didn’t want to be one any more,’ Rhys choked back a sob. ‘I can’t believe that was