Torchwood: Exodus Code

had laptops open next to them; only one had a stack of books. The room was quiet except for the occasional cough or throat-clearing, the low burring of an incoming text message, and the tap-tapping of fingers on keyboards. But in Jack’s head the noises were ever present, the flashes of faces and fragments of memory bordering his vision every minute.
    Since that afternoon, the image of the beautiful woman from the mirror had haunted Jack’s peripheral vision, reinforcing for him that his visions, especially the woman’s face, and the sighting of the puma, were related to whatever was happening to female synaesthetes around the world, and he had a strong feeling that all of these things were preludes to something much worse, something he needed to get ahead of before it was too late.
    ‘They mostly come in here for the free Wi-Fi,’ said the librarian.
    ‘Or a nap,’ said Jack, nodding towards one of the scholars, whose chin was resting comfortably on his chest.
    The strange woman’s face lingered faintly in Jack’s peripheral vision.
    ‘Bernie, I need some research done on a few items, including some information on an Inca tribe called the Cuari,’ said Jack, slipping two sheets of paper across her desk. ‘I’d be happy to compensate you for the work if it cuts into your day.’
    She scanned the two pages. ‘That won’t be necessary. For a few days, let them find the toilet on their own.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Jack, standing to leave, ‘and I’d appreciate it if you kept this between us.’
    ‘Captain, I may not be as fast as the internet, but I can keep a secret.’ She folded the paper and slipped it into her desk. ‘How may I reach you with the results?’
    ‘I’m leaving the country soon,’ said Jack. ‘If you could email the information to me, that would be great.’

42
    DR OLIVIA STEELE lived in a whitewashed Georgian mansion off the St Andrew’s Road, west of Dinas Powys Common. The house was tucked in the woods, its closest neighbour barely visible in the deepening dusk, except as jags of orange light bursting through the trees.
    Jack stopped in front of the iron gates at the entrance to the driveway. The only evidence that he had found the right place was a small brass plaque beneath an intercom on the gates that read, ‘Steele Manor’, which Jack thought appropriate for a doctor who healed people’s heads or a confused superhero. Jack had called ahead to make an appointment. When he pressed the bell to announce his arrival, the gates swung open immediately.
    The winding canopied approach was long and narrow. The road eventually opened onto a large circular driveway fronting the house. Dr Steele was waiting for Jack at the front door. She led him into a marbled foyer where another woman, dressed in a black jersey dress, revealing ample hips and a perfect décolletage, took Jack’s coat while Jack tried his best not to stare.
    ‘My assistant, Win.’
    Win smiled, accepting Jack’s coat while asking if he’d like tea or coffee. Jack said coffee, then followed the doctor to a sitting room off to the left of a wide, carpeted staircase.
    The room was comfortable and warm, expensive without being excessive. A fire burned in a marble hearth, an original Mary Cassatt hanging above it. Jack smiled. He had met Mary in Paris once or twice during the War. She would have appreciated the irony that one of her paintings hung in a psychiatrist’s sitting room in the twenty-first century.
    Jack settled in a high-backed leather chair. Dr Steele sat opposite him on a matching leather couch. In white linen pants and a loose yellow shirt, her skin soft and pale, she looked, Jack thought, ten years younger than he remembered.
    She folded her hands on her lap, crossing her legs at her ankles. ‘Captain Harkness, I must say your phone call intrigued me, especially since currently I have a full ward of women experiencing breakdowns similar to your –’ she arched her brows – ‘sister’s. And, according to many of my colleagues around the country, mine is not the only psychiatric floor full of female patients.’
    Her assistant carried a silver tray into the room with a decanter and two crystal glasses on it. Setting it down on the table between them, she said, ‘I thought you both might prefer a cocktail instead of coffee.’ She rested her hand on the doctor’s shoulder in a way that suggested she was more than just an assistant.
    ‘What would I do without you?’ The doctor placed her hand on