Torchwood: Exodus Code

synaesthesia.
    Hollis slid the chair he’d been sitting on across to Jack, who straddled it. Hollis parked himself on the edge of Eva’s desk, his weight nudging her. She lifted her head and looked into Hollis’s dark eyes. ‘You’re awful sexy.’
    Hollis winked at her.
    ‘Geologists,’ explained Shelley, appearing next to Jack, ‘and other scientists use what’s called a geologic time scale to map the history of the Earth. The time scale describes the relationships among critical biological and geologic events, using strata studied in volcanic rock formations, fossil analysis, population growth as well as climate and oceanic changes.’ Shelley tapped her pen to her leather journal, opening a chronological spiral above Jack’s head, spinning the conch shape only slowing it down at critical points as she spoke. ‘There have been numerous cataclysmic events that are marked on the geologic timeline. The breaking up of land masses, the freezing of the polar ice caps, the mass extinction of dinosaurs and other plant life, to even a minor ice age in the northern hemisphere. All of which suggests the Earth adjusting and shifting to balance her systems.’
    Jack leaned over the back of the chair, looking directly at Eva. ‘So, yes, Eva, the
Ice Maiden
has been monitoring the oceans for me, but I was hoping that you’d not find anything out of the ordinary. But then when the behaviours of certain women started to be affected, especially Gwen’s, and when I discovered that Gwen had carved a message to me on her arm, then I knew there was a connection between the two events. First tremors and changes in the body of the Earth and then tremors and changes in the bodies and minds of women, especially a woman I’m close to. Not a coincidence.’
    ‘So what’s the connection?’ asked Vlad.
    ‘When Shelley confirmed what was spewing from the hydrothermal vents then I understood that women who were synaesthetes were being affected for a reason, but not the one I initially thought.’
    Eva pushed away from her desk. ‘I can’t get my head around this. I need some fresh air.’
    She wobbled to her feet, and all the tequila shots had their effect, toppling her into Vlad’s arms.
    She smiled up at him. ‘You’re very sexy too.’
    Vlad rolled his eyes and sat Eva back down at her desk.
    ‘Go on,’ she said, resting her head on her desk. ‘I’m listening, Captain Harkness, sir. Mister bossy spaceman. I’m listening.’
    Jack pointed to the seven vents that as of today were all visible above the surface of the oceans. ‘Each one of these vents triggered synaesthesia in clusters of women living close to them. I think their heightened synaesthesia was simply a by-product of these deep-water vents. I think the Helix Intelligence, the sentient force at the centre of the Earth, was looking for me.’
    ‘But,’ interrupted Hollis, ‘and I say this from quite convincing experience, you’re pretty much all male. How come you’ve been affected by this female hormone.’
    Jack smiled at Hollis. ‘Thank you, but my DNA, my cell structure, is much more complex than yours and much less a dichotomy between male and female chromosomes and if I’m right about my dream, about some of the… the hallucinations I ’ve been experiencing then, because I’ve connected with the force at the centre of the Earth before… it wants my DNA to free itself.’
    ‘It’s as if Jack’s the helix’s exodus code. It’s way to escape back to the universe,’ said Cash.
    ‘The Helix Intelligences are sentient astral forces,’ Jack explained. ‘They’ve existed everywhere in the galaxies before any life forms. They may in fact have been responsible for the first life forms. They are neutral, impassive energy forces. But I think after this helix was trapped in the Earth’s core, over the eons it has absorbed many of our human passions, especially the ones that make us dangerous to each other – anger, hatred, revenge. Think about how much blood has spilled on this planet since the beginning of time, never mind in the last seventy-plus years. I think it needs my life force to break free.’
    Cash started to laugh, a loud deep infectious one.
    ‘What’s so funny?’ slurred Eva. ‘The world’s facing annihilation and you’re laughing.’
    ‘My Calvinist father was right all along,’ chuckled Cash. ‘The world is in the hands of a spiteful, vengeful God. He must be rolling in his grave.’
    ‘So what are we going to