Torchwood: Exodus Code

between the three worlds. It is the key to keeping the universe in balance.’
    Jack carefully unfolded the cloth, and was shocked to see that tucked in the back were a series of letters that Renso had written over the years to Jack.
    ‘Were you the friend that my grandfather wrote those letters to all those years ago?’
    ‘I loved your grandfather, Isela.’
    ‘He loved you too,’ said Isela. She stood and held out her hand. ‘Come. I’ll take you to my mother.’
    ‘Thank you,’ said Jack. Before crossing the lush courtyard with Isela, Jack skimmed across the pages, tore out the relevant ones, and handed them to Vlad. ‘Do what you need to do.’
    Cash sent Hollis and Sam to watch the other gates. ‘If the CIA want this girl bad enough, they’ll charge in and take her. Jack, we have less than four hours to get you up the mountain.’

69
    LEAVING GWEN STRETCHED on a lounger singing in Welsh to herself under the watchful eyes of Eva and Vlad, Jack trailed behind Isela inside the main house. His field of vision was contracting. Running ahead of him, Isela looked as if she was moving along a narrow tube. The ache in Jack’s joints and the drumming in his head had worsened. He hobbled across the foyer.
    ‘Jack,’ said Cash into his earpiece, ‘it looks like the helicopters are going to have to make one more run. We’re safe from Captain Anderson’s unit until then. She’s got a guard on the edge of the canyon. She knows we’re still in the compound.’
    Isela led Jack along a narrow side passageway decorated in blue and white-flecked wallpaper and a plush carpeted floor.
    ‘The walls and the ceiling in this part of the house are all soundproofed and shaded to make it easier on my mother.’
    They stopped outside a pair of arched double-doors with the three-circle symbol that Gwen had carved on her forearm displayed in the centre.
    ‘What’s wrong with your mother?’ asked Jack, even though he already knew.
    ‘The doctors have a long list, but they say the main disease is vitiligo. She can’t go out in the sun. She has no… no…’ She was struggling for the word in English. ‘
Color en piel
?’
    ‘Pigment?’
    Isela nodded. ‘She has no pigment, so she burns up in the sun. Oh, and she’s sensitive to sounds and touch and so many other things. It’s why I want to get away from this place.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because it is the mountain that’s making her sick and one day it will make me sick too. My grandmother said so, and my mother says so. My father refused to name me after my mother and grandmother because he believes the name is cursed.’
    ‘What should you have been named, Isela?’
    ‘My Cuari name is Gaia.’
    Jack flipped to the pages with the most writing in his notebook. There it was. Her grandmother’s name scribbled across the page, the guide Jack now recalled had taken him into the mountain to sacrifice him to the Helix Intelligence, to the astral force locked inside the Earth’s core.
    In the line under the name Gaia, Jack had scribbled,
means goddess of the Earth
.
    ‘I will go inside first to prepare her for you.’
    *
    When Jack entered the room, the first thing he noticed was the silence. Every noise in his head shut down. Then he realised his knees were no longer aching, his heartbeat had steadied itself, and the rock in his gut had gone.
    The walls were dressed in a similar flecked fabric to the hallway but inside, instead of blue and white, the colours were maroon and gold. The carpet was thick, soft and black, and the tall arched windows were made of smoked glass. The view of the mountain and a tiled fountain were visible from the draped four poster bed where Isela’s mother was propped in front of layers of soft pillows.
    ‘I’ve been expecting you,’ said Gaia. ‘The mountain won’t wait much longer.’
    ‘Then you know what’s happening? To the world?’ asked Jack. He tasted ginger.
    ‘Of course, it has been marked in the mountain since the beginning of time, noted in the beads by my ancestors and written in the scrolls by yours. It’s part of the prophecy.’
    ‘But then you also must understand what has to happen.’
    She smiled sadly at Jack and then at her daughter. ‘I’ve known my entire existence. It is what a star guide is born to do. There are so few Cuari left. The prophecy must be fulfilled this time.’
    Jack walked closer to the bed. Gaia let out a painful ear-piercing wail. Jack quickly backed away.
    ‘Everything about you