Torchwood: Exodus Code

‘Tell us how you knew this was going to happen! Tell us! Because if we’re sailing to the end of the world we deserve to know everything.’
    Jack glanced over at Cash, who nodded. Jack moved away from the flat screen. Cash shot him.

55
    JACK GASPED, ONCE, twice then sat bolt upright, a bleeding hole in his forehead slowly healing.
    ‘Fuck me,’ said Vlad.
    ‘Still not operational,’ said Shelley.
    ‘I need a shot,’ said Hollis.
    ‘Bring the bottle,’ said Jack.
    ‘I thought your head would be less of a mess than your chest,’ said Cash, helping Jack to his feet and returning his Webley to him.
    ‘I appreciate that. My head’s taken more bullets than I care to think about. Takes me out instantly and the pain on the recovery is more tolerable. A bullet to the chest hurts like hell before it kills me.’
    Hollis set the tequila bottle and glasses on Vlad’s desk, poured each of them a shot, refilled his glass twice, made sure Eva, whose face was frozen in horror, drank hers before he grabbed a chair from the mess and dragged it into the comms room.
    ‘I knew you had better recovery abilities than most,’ he said, grinning and handing Jack a glass, ‘but that’s friggin’ ridiculous.’
    Despite the pounding headache, Jack laughed, knocking back the tequila.
    Then everyone began talking at once, the craziness, the ridiculousness, the amazement over what they’d witnessed filling the room. Finally, Jack whistled and brought some semblance of order to their curiosity.
    ‘So you’re like immortal, darlin’?’ asked Hollis.
    ‘Not really. I can die, and, believe me, it hurts to die, but I heal, so technically I’m able to resurrect, which, I guess, if you stretch the definition a little, does make me immortal.’
    ‘But how is that possible?’ said Eva. ‘Is it because of what happened with the Miracle? Did you not get cured after that happened?’
    ‘No, Eva, I’ve been unable to stay dead for a very, very long time. My cell structure was altered, oh, a couple of thousand years ago in my timeline.’
    ‘And Cash knew?’
    ‘Cash’s grandfather was a colleague with Torchwood in Scotland.’
    Cash nodded. ‘The auld bugger was full of secrets, but a few of the important ones he left with me.’
    ‘So I’m guessing,’ said Hollis, ‘with that kind of power you’ve seen some things we haven’t. Am I right?’
    ‘Oh, you’re right.’
    Jack pushed his hair from his eyes, rubbing the closing wound as he did. ‘And it’s from my longevity, my experiences, that I think I can explain what’s triggering these changes in the Earth.’
    Eva took another shot of tequila.
    ‘A long time ago,’ said Jack, ‘a dear friend and a brave woman told me a story about energy forces called the Helix Intelligences.’ Jack shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘Sarah Jane said it was possible that when our solar system was forming one of the helixes was trapped in the centre of the Earth.’
    Eva held her glass out to Hollis who refilled it. Again.
    ‘My first inkling,’ continued Jack, ‘of what might be happening under the sea and to me, and to all these women, including Gwen, was a hunch, a response to the fragment of a memory, and the urgency of a thin voice in my head reminding me of Sarah Jane’s story.’
    ‘Great!’ snorted Eva, recovering from the shock of what she’d witnessed, the tequila helping too. ‘We’re supposed to trust you because of a voice in your head.’
    Jack shrugged. ‘Listen. I know this is difficult to get your head around—’
    ‘You think?’ said Eva.
    ‘But I think given how quickly these chimneys are forming we don’t have much time to act.’
    Eva exhaled a long exasperated sigh. She sat at her desk, close to tears. Vlad put his hand on her arm. This time she let it stay.
    Hollis passed her another drink. ‘It’ll cure what’s ailing you, darlin’.’
    She shot back two.
    Jack refused another, but Cash joined Eva and shot back two. ‘Can’t have the lass drinking alone.’
    ‘I know about the Helix Intelligences,’ said Vlad. ‘There was a cadre of physicists in the 1960s – some said they were a cult and spent too much time experimenting with LSD. Anyway, they posited a theory that a powerful sentient astral force was caught in the Big Bang and part of the astral force broke off and was later fused into the centre of the planet. The energy force gives the Earth its organic nature and it’s from this sentient force that life evolved and