Torchwood: Exodus Code

off the coast of Wales, Captain, seven.’
    ‘What!’ said Eva. ‘That’s impossible. It’s just impossible. It takes at least a million years for that kind of geologic phenomenon to happen. The Atlantis Massif is at least two million years old.’
    ‘What the hell is the Atlantis Massif? Sounds like a breed of dog,’ said Cash, feeling more out of his league every minute of this conversation.
    ‘Shall I explain?’ asked Shelley.
    ‘Please,’ said Jack, giving Vlad back his chair. Jack stood in front of the screen, watching all the vent chimneys flashing on the map. Crossing his arms, he stared at it, his jaw clenching and unclenching in sync with the pulsing lights.
    ‘The Atlantis Massif, named after the lost city of Atlantis,’ explained Shelley, ‘is a submarine mountain in the North Atlantic approximately twelve miles under the sea, rising at its peak approximately 14,000 feet. It can be found off the northern coast of Africa and east of the Mid-Atlantic mountain range.’ With a wave of her hand Shelley brought up a computerised image of the underwater mountain in the space between her and Jack. ‘Eva is correct. This massif is 2.5 million years old.’
    ‘And,’ interrupted Eva, ‘the two or three other core complexes on the ocean floor like this one that have been discovered are at least that old too. The Earth simply does not respond to change that quickly.’
    ‘So, Shelley,’ said Cash, ‘let me see if I understand this correctly.’
    ‘I can talk more slowly, Cash, if that will help.’ Shelley giggled.
    Despite her growing anxiety, Eva laughed too. Jack shrugged as if a sense of humour was exactly what you’d expect from a Torchwood program.
    ‘These tremors are creating hydrothermal vents and they in turn are forming chimneys like this one,’ Cash said, ignoring them. He pointed to the growing conical structures they were seeing from their underwater probes.
    ‘That is correct.’
    ‘And these geological phenomena are happening at a speed of evolution that’s impossible,’ Cash caught Jack’s eye, ‘at least by the rules as we know them?’
    ‘Also correct.’
    ‘If all that’s true,’ said Eva, finally regaining some composure. ‘Then what’s causing the eruptions in the first place?’
    For the first time since he and Eva had started monitoring these deep-water events two weeks earlier, Vlad was beginning to worry that something pretty bad was happening underneath the sea.
    ‘Have you ever heard of the Gaia theory?’ asked Jack.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Eva, ‘but it’s a theory with only a few disparate threads to prove it.’
    ‘Oh, there’s a few more threads still to be found,’ said Jack.
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘Trust me.’
    ‘Gaia is one of the ancient names given to the goddess of the Earth,’ said Shelley. ‘The Gaia theory was named after her and it maintains that all living organisms, including the Earth itself, are part of a complex process of self-regulation that strives for balance and sustainability. This stability, this balance, is dependent on three important functions: the salinity in the oceans, the oxygen in the atmosphere and keeping deformation and destruction caused by the human population in balance with both of those things.’
    ‘Otherwise,’ asked Vlad, ‘what happens?’
    ‘The balance is disrupted,’ said Jack, ‘and the Earth can no longer sustain life as we know it.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘Listen,’ said Jack, ‘We know that global warming is out of control, that the Earth’s atmosphere is already damaged, maybe beyond repair, and we know that global warming is affecting everything from weather to crops to species extinction. If we now have hydrothermal chimneys suddenly flooding the oceans with metal sulphides, then we’re well on the way to desalinating the oceans and completely disrupting the Earth’s ability to self-regulate.’
    Eva was poring over the data that Shelley had summarised, using a series of calculations and simulations that would have taken her and Vlad months to complete.
    ‘Jack, you need to look at this,’ Eva said. ‘We now have a comparison of all the dates and times of the deep-water events with the reported synaesthesia incidents in the world.’
    The three of them stood next to each other, watching the map light up as one by one, the dates of the outbreaks of synaesthesia flashed in orange next to the already pulsing red of the deep-water vents.
    Vlad looked from one to the other. ‘That’s