Torchwood: Exodus Code

my Gwen saying all those awful things.’
    ‘That’s just it,’ said Jack. ‘I don’t think it was the Gwen who loves you and Anwen. I think it might’ve been the part of Gwen that’s always been locked in her subconscious that somehow took over and wanted to hurt you.’ Rhys looked appalled at Jack’s train of thought. ‘Perhaps that part of her doesn’t want to be a wife any more.’
    ‘I don’t believe that’s how Gwen feels. Not deep down,’ said Rhys. As he spoke, he slumped further over his beer and the photographs lined up in front of him.
    ‘This is going to get much worse before any of these women get better,’ said Jack, ‘but it will get better. And you will get Gwen back.’
    ‘Do you reckon there’s something in the drinking water?’
    Jack shook his head. ‘There’s definitely something connecting what’s happening to all these women here and abroad, but it has nothing to do with the water. I think something alien is attacking these women.’
    ‘I don’t get it,’ said Rhys, slurring his words, exhaustion and lager finally breaking him.
    Jack turned back to his laptop, staring at the image of the geyser, believing that he finally did. The lip of the sun was kissing the horizon. Jack’s fingers tingled at the sight, the geyser like a stiletto stabbing the centre of the sun.

41
    AFTER DINNER, JACK drove to the university library. The hunch that had gripped him when he was looking at the sunset still held him in its sway.
    A librarian accosted him as he stood staring at the shelf on the History of Religions in the Reference room. The woman was in her mid-sixties, short white hair, dressed in grey slacks, a crisp white blouse with a string of pearls at her neck. A pair of pink plastic reading glasses were perched on the end of her thin nose.
    ‘Sir, may I help you? You look lost.’
    ‘More than you’ll ever know.’
    She smiled at him as if she knew exactly what he meant, even though Jack was no longer sure that even he did.
    ‘You do know we’re closing in thirty minutes.’
    ‘I know,’ said Jack, following the woman over to her desk. ‘I’d like some information.’
    ‘I can sign you on to one of our computers, but you’ll have to finish your search in fifteen minutes, I’m afraid.’
    ‘Actually, I’d like the help from you, if that’s possible.’
    ‘From me?’ she said, putting her hand on her chest and exclaiming as if he’d offered her a bouquet of roses and a box of chocolates.
    ‘Yes,’ he said, smiling, offering her his hand. ‘Captain Jack Harkness.’
    ‘Bernie Sanger.’ She shook Jack’s hand.
    ‘Honestly,’ said Jack. ‘I’d rather have you help me instead.’
    ‘Are you serious?’ she said, offering him a seat in front of her desk. ‘Is this one of those reality shows, and I’m going to be viral on YouTube tomorrow?’
    ‘Of course not,’ laughed Jack. ‘That would be a mean thing to do.’
    She rolled her eyes. ‘Of course it would, but that hardly seems to matter much nowadays. We like watching bad things happen to people. We’ve become a mean-spirited society. Look at the way everyone’s treating the families of those poor women, as if they’re lepers. You’d think we’d travelled back in time and hadn’t learned a thing about psychology.’
    ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ said Jack, taking out a sheet of paper with a picture of the design Gwen had carved on her arm.
    Jack believed that, in a fleeting moment of lucidity before she had attacked Rhys, for some reason Gwen had wanted to remember the image. Jack knew Gwen well enough to believe that the image was a message of some kind for him. This image was somehow vital to saving Gwen and the other women.
    ‘It’s just that I never get asked for help much here any more,’ continued the librarian. ‘I’ve become nothing more than a glorified room monitor or a polite guide to the nearest toilet. I don’t even have to re-shelf books much, so few are checked out.’
    ‘Sad, isn’t it,’ said Jack. He looked round the impressive room, its wood-panelled walls, wide windows, and rows of books looking the same as it had in the nineteenth century, when he had first been there. There was something comforting in being surrounded by books all day every day, thought Jack, even for someone like him who was finding comfort in so few things now.
    One or two tired-looking scholars and a handful of eager students were hunched over the long rectangular tables. All of the patrons