Out of the Rift - Chapter 4
Jan. 10th, 2009 06:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theatre_girl79Rating: R (for some violence and some eventual nudity and innuendo... hell, it is Torchwood)
Synopsis: A disturbance in the Rift, and the aftereffects are not exactly what they team figured it would be.
Disclaimers: If you recognize them, then they belong to BBC, RTD, and all those wonderful people. I'm just letting them play for a couple of days.
Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Somehow in the last fifteen minutes it had been decided that Gwen, Jack, and Mary Jo would shower and get the goo off of themselves, and out of their hair. Ianto, the consummate gentleman would take care of getting the still unconscious Joanna cleaned up. In the meantime, Carole, Tosh and Owen headed to Carole’s car to get changes of clothes and down to the pool to gather the rest of the equipment, while John attempted to clean the condo.
Carole, Owen and Tosh decided to take the freight elevator straight down to the car garage and then work their way up to the pool and back to the 17th Floor. Carole closed the heavily padded door and right after she hit the button for the basement the iron gate closed across the gap with a thud.
“No, this isn’t creepy at all,” Owen muttered as Carole settled in for the ride.
“Didn’t you guys take any of these elevators,” Carole asked.
“No, the first thing we had in this building was the space squid,” Tosh stated.
“And we know what happened after that,” Carole retorted. “Hold on. Just why were you on that elevator to start with?”
“We were trying to pinpoint this energy signature. At times it almost seems like two signatures at war with each other. We couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from.” Tosh gave a quick glance to her PDA. “And we still haven’t figured it out.” Her brow furrowed in thought as the elevator slowed down for the first floor, and then continued to the basement.
As the old-fashioned elevator came to a rest, Carole grabbed the gate and slid it open, pushing open the solid door on the other side. The door almost seemed as if it could have come off of a meat locker. They exited into a well-lit grayness. The basement was constructed of metal and cement, gray, dreary cement. Carole led the way down the sloped ramp towards the security desk and then out to the parking garage. As they passed the security desk, no one was there to greet them. Carole thought this was odd, but wondered if it was just because it was a slow Sunday and maybe the man had to really go to the bathroom.
She led them down the next hallway and past the vending machines and through the sliding door into a secondary vestibule that connected the main lobby and the underground parking garage. As they stepped off the carpeted bit of floor into the cement garage, their shuffles and footsteps echoed off of the walls, but no other sound could be heard. Carole picked up her pace and briskly walked to the attendant’s office near the main doors. No one was in the office.
“Did they all have to go to the loo,” Tosh asked.
“I don’t think they’re at the loo,” Carole interjected. She looked around into the different parts of the garage that she could see from her main spot. Her feet were itching, she wanted to run, yet stayed put. This did not feel right.
“All right, just how do we get to the bloody car,” Owen asked.
“Shhhhh…” Carole held up her hand for silence. She strained her ears to hear anyone or anything, but she heard nothing. No movement, not even a scuttle, or a piece of paper falling to the ground. She turned to the other two. “We need to get our stuff and get out of here.”
“How do we get the car? How do we get in it?” Tosh looked a little alarmed.
“They leave the keys in the cars, we just need to find it.”
“Out of how many cars?” Owen held his arms out to indicate the expanse of the garage.
“Deduction my boy. Deduction. They always leave the keys in the cars, and if not, I usually leave my window open enough to get in, just in case. It is a secure building.” She leaned to the side looking down one row of cars. “And, if I am not mistaken they usually park my car in just a couple of areas, which is….” She turned around and looked down another row. “Right there!” Carole pointed ahead about 100 feet deeper into the recesses of the garage.
The trio sprinted to the car, making Carole breathe a little heavier than usual. Owen looked at her and she waved him off. Reaching the car, she ran around the driver’s side and pulled the door open, grabbing the keys off of the dashboard. She ran around to the back of the car and popped open the trunk. Tosh and Owen looked in and Owen let out a whistle.
“Impressive.” He reached down into the trunk and Carole slapped his hand away.
“They are mainly props, and we don’t need anyone else getting hurt.” She grabbed her duffel and Mary Jo’s bigger duffel and handed them to Owen.
Owen’s arms dropped down with the added weight. “What do you have in here? A whole other arsenal?”
“No, an autopsy kit, including the table.” Carole’s eyes flicked to the side, watching Owen’s reaction. She smiled as he tried to not act surprised. “No, just clothes and other things. Take those, and I will grab…” Her voice trailed off and she rummaged through the trunk. She pulled out the double-edged boot dagger, the tanto, and another extra long dagger. The boot dagger she slipped inside her belt, while the tanto and second dagger she slipped inside her duffel. She then slammed the trunk down, the bang reverberating off the walls and other vehicles.
Suddenly the hairs on the back of Carole’s neck were standing at attention. A cold chill passed through her body. She slowly moved her head and looked at Tosh and Owen. They both nodded in agreement. She shook her head yes, pocketed the car keys and walked around the car, scanning the parking garage for any kind of movement. She looked back at the two of them and then as if on cue, the three of them took off at a fast trot across the garage, past the attendant office, past row and row of parked cars and back to the sliding doors. They couldn’t hear anyone behind them, but there was a palpable feeling of fear. When they got to the door it didn’t open.
“Shit,” Owen muttered as he slung the bigger duffel over his left shoulder. There was no movement in either hallway. They peered through the window of the sliding door to no avail.
“I’m getting nothing, not even a reading,” Tosh said, holding out her PDA. The blank screen seemed to mock them.
“I wonder if frat boy had any friends,” Owen said to no one in particular.
Carole looked up at that sentence, her eyes growing wide as she remembered the dozen or so young looking boys playing Frisbee and lounging in the same vicinity on the Lakefront. The two Torchwood team members looked at her in surprise.
“Oh just fucking great,’ Owen muttered.
Carole looked back to the door and tapped on it. It didn’t surprise her that the door didn’t open, she just needed to do something. “Think, think,” she said aloud. “The security guard isn’t here to open it from the inside, and we don’t have Joanna’s pass key…” She looked up at the stairs next to her. “They go to the secondary parking garage, and the lobby.” Her mind started racing. “One of the main doors should be open and we can grab the equipment from the pool.” She looked at Owen and Tosh as she grabbed the banister. “Let’s go,” She said as she started up the stairs.
The trio came upon another set of glass doors. The first one they tried was locked, but the second one was somehow unlocked. Carole said a small prayer of thanks for little blessings as they ran through the revolving doors. They peered through the glass double doors that led into the lobby. The lobby was quiet, and deserted. The silence was starting to weigh on Carole. She could feel it pushing in on their consciousnesses.
“This is not right,” Tosh muttered.
Carole shook her head in reply. She looked into the lobby again and could see no movement, not even a breeze fluttering the newspaper sitting on the credenza by the elevators. She prayed to whatever God, or whoever was listening that they were all hiding somewhere safe. She then resolutely turned to the glass door to her right.
“Okay, let’s grab whatever we can and get out of here,” Carole said as they stood before the doors to the pool area. She then looked down and saw the blinking light indicating a pass key was needed to get in. “Oh crap.” She looked up as Tosh pulled something out of her pocket. It looked incredibly familiar to Carole, but at the moment she couldn’t place it.
“This should help,” Tosh said as she held the alien decoder next to the key coder. The coder blinked green and the door opened.
“You couldn’t remember that downstairs,” Owen exclaimed.
Tosh looked a little taken aback. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I forgot. We only used it here earlier, and even Ianto doesn’t know how I got us in.” Tosh looked contrite.
“Hey, we needed to get up here anyways, and even now I don’t think the freight elevators would take us here.” Carole looked at the two as she held the door open. “Now, let’s go.”
They trotted through the doors into the carpeted hallway. Five feet into the hallway, they passed by a freight elevator, with the pass key coder blinking at them. Owen grunted at Carole.
“Okay, one freight elevator. Sorry,” she chimed in. “Wait, just wait a minute. You got on at the first floor, not the lobby. There’s no stairs leading from the pool to the pool terrace like it did in the 20’s and 30’s.”
“Just how old is this building,” Owen asked.
“1927. And that still doesn’t answer why you got on at 1 and were dripping wet?” Carole stopped and turned to Owen and Tosh. “What did you do, climb over the wall and the railing?”
Owen and Tosh exchanged a look and Carole began to laugh.
They hurried up the stairs to the pool, Carole still chuckling to herself, imagining them hiking up a five-foot ceramic wall and over the decorative railing to the former pool-side patio inside the historic building. She mentally wondered who helped who, and who’s bright idea it was to begin with.
They stopped in front of the door, a door that looked as if it belonged on a ship, with a portal window and all. A stench greeted them as they walked through the door into the pool area. Where normally the smell of chlorine would assail her nostrils, instead she suddenly felt like gagging. “Oh sweet Jesus, what is that?” She fought to hold the bile back as she buried her nose in her shirt.
“I guess space squid decay a lot quicker than earth squid,” Owen said as he looked around the pool area.
Tosh put her hand over her mouth and nose. “It wasn’t this bad earlier.”
Carole looked over and saw a deep blue pile of flesh half in and half out of the pool. The water in the pool looked black, and Carole was sure she saw an arm floating in the corner nearest her. The smell was so horrible she could taste it. They spotted the metal lockboxes that Torchwood normally carried, along with a couple of duffels on the other side of the pool.
Carole started to head along the immediate side of the pool when Tosh grabbed her sleeve pulling her back.
“What is it,” Carole asked.
“Don’t go that way,” Tosh said.
“Why?”
“Ink,” Owen said as he dropped the duffels he was already carrying and headed for the stockpile.
Carole stared down at the tile floor surrounding the pool and saw the thick bluish-black liquid in heavy puddles all the way to the wall. It was then she saw something on the outskirts of one of the puddles of ink that made her shiver. It was pinkish, as if it had been flesh, most likely human flesh, at some point in time.
Owen started around the pool, the long way with Tosh on his heels when there was a blur from behind the space squid, on the opposite side of the pool.
Carole and Tosh looked up in surprise as a dark-haired boy grabbed Owen around the neck. He looked like one of frat boy’s friends, but Carole couldn’t be sure. Instead he gripped Owen around the neck as Tosh pulled her weapon. Suddenly the boy began to glow.
“Crap, crap, crap,” Carole said as she came upon the pair of men.
“It is mine,” the boy hissed at them. He began to glow even more, holding Owen as a shield, but Owen did not glow. The boy’s light grew brilliantly, but yet Owen did not glow.
Without preamble, it let out a wail and violently threw Owen into the pile of space squid across the pool. Carole moved back, pulling out her dagger. Like hell she was going to be microwaved. It dove for the nearest living thing, moving with impressive speed, as it grabbed Tosh. Owen struggled to his feet, pieces of decaying squid stuck to his jeans. Tosh look terrified as the glow enveloped her and she too began to glow. Owen pulled out his gun, coming around the pool, but the boy had her in too tight of a grip. All his attention was on Owen as Tosh opened her mouth in a silent scream.
“LET HER GO!” Owen moved closer as the creature took a step back, back towards Carole.
She summed up her courage and took a chance. Without a sound she lunged forward, her dagger front and center. She pushed her body into the boy’s back and brought her hand around and in between him and Tosh. The dagger dug in as she sliced her hand backward, segmenting it’s neck. It let go of Tosh, tossing her forward to the ground. Owen ran over, sliding down next to her, protecting her. Carole fell back against the wall as the boy turned to her, pure hatred in it’s dark eyes. Suddenly it opened it’s mouth and the same blood-curdling inhuman keen came forth as it clutched at it’s throat.
Carole ran and ducked behind a nearby lounge chair as the creature blew up just like its counterpart upstairs. She peered up, around the stinking black goo and looked for Owen and Tosh. Owen rolled over. He had covered Tosh to protect her as the alien exploded. So now his front had decaying space squid on it, and his backside had black alien goo on it but they were both safe. He pulled Tosh up and held her steady a moment.
“How are you doing,” he asked to Carole over his shoulder.
Carole looked herself up and down. “Ewww… okay, except for the ‘alien blood’ all over my arms and shirt.” Carole wrinkled her nose at the gloppy feeling on her skin. She wiped her arms off on her already ruined shirt. Carole walked over to the two of them. “Tosh, are you okay?”
“I think so, I should be okay.” She seemed to get steadier on her feet.
“What made you do that.” Owen turned and glared at her. “You put yourself at risk.”
“I couldn’t let it, I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. And what if it came for me too? I would still need to fight it.”
“What made you think severing the artery would work?”
“Lucky guess,” Carole smiled at him. “At least for now it was impersonating a human, so I hoped it took the impersonation a little too far. You know, like the gay entertainers who go way too far with their Cher impersonations.”
Owen just shook his head and walked over to the stockpile. He looked at the bags and lockboxes and the other two duffels they already had and divided the lot up, giving Tosh the least amount to carry.
Their trip back to the freight elevator they had passed earlier and up to the 17th Floor was uneventful but slow, especially compared to the last ten minutes. When the got to 17, Tosh brought out her weapon as Carole and Owen’s hands were really full. Warily they approached Joanna’s condo door, looking into every nook and cranny. At the door they rang the bell and knocked.
“It’s only us,” Carole called through the door.
To their relief Ianto opened the door and grabbed a couple of the duffels from Carole. As she stepped into the main room, she was thrilled to see Joanna awake and cleaned up, but she did look like hell. No one could blame her. Carole smiled at Joanna glad that whatever that thing was was gone. Although if it had not been destroyed, she shuddered to think at the revenge thoughts that already ran through her head. She looked down at the blood on her shirt and a wry grin spread across her face. She quickly squashed it and looked over as Ianto began to go through one of the Torchwood duffels and pulled out a neatly folded blue shirt and blue pressed pants. He then rummaged out a folded pair of briefs and a white t-shirt. She couldn’t help but smile at the attempt at normalcy.
“How are you guys doing,” Carole asked as Gwen stepped out from the bedroom in a folded sheet.
“I’m better,” Joanna meekly said.
“Good once I get dressed,” Gwen stated as she grabbed a small carry-on and headed back towards the bedroom.
“Where’s Mary Jo and Jack,” Carole asked, looking around the room.
“Right here,” Jack said as he walked out of the bedroom stark naked and wet and went right over to Ianto who was still holding his clothes. “We shared the shower to save time.” He took his clothes from Ianto as the younger man just looked down, a small smile on his face.
“Jack,” Owen said.
“Not enough towels,” Jack replied.
Carole’s mouth dropped open as Mary Jo trotted out of the bedroom wrapped in a towel. Her hair was dripping wet, but she had a smile on her face. Carole held out Mary Jo’s duffel to her. “Lucky bitch,” she muttered as she handed it over.
Mary Jo continued to smile. Suddenly Mary Jo stopped smiling as she noticed a smell coming off of her duffel. She looked down and noticed a patch of black goo. “Gross! How did this get goo on it?”
“Probably from me,” Carole said as she pointed out her shirt.
“Run into trouble,” Jack said from by the windows as he was pulling up his pants.
“You could say that,” Owen said as he stepped from behind Tosh and the full onslaught of the smell came with him into the room.
Joanna looked almost green and Mary Jo clutched at her stomach. Carole in the meantime began rummaging through her own duffel and pulled out a black t-shirt. She ripped off her polo shirt and stood there in her black bra.
“Oh come on now!” John stood up from his chair and turned towards the windows, only to see everyone’s reflections in it. “Madre de Dios.” John turned back around.
“Get over it, I’m in theatre, and it’s only my shirt that got slimed.” Carole slipped the black t-shirt on over her head. “Happy now?”
Gwen came back out from the bedroom fully clothed. “All right, what’s going on now,” she asked, her hands on her hips, under her shirt.
“We were just about to find out why there were all ‘slimed’,” Jack said as he buttoned up his shirt.
“Frat boy had friends,” Owen said.
Mary Jo’s gaze turned towards Joanna with a look of “oh” on her face, and then she looked down and realized she still had only a towel on. She walked back into the bedroom with her duffel, leaving the door open part-way to hear.
“And oh yeah, space squid apparently has a rapid rate of decay,” Carole chimed in as she tried to keep her throat clear. Just the memory of the smell was bad enough.
“And where are the friends?” Jack buttoned on his suspenders and pulled them up.
“We didn’t actually see multiple friends Jack,” Owen said. “Just the one, and Carole finished him off before he could finish us off.”
“What?” John turned on Carole and stalked over to her. “Are you fucking crazy?”
“What choice did I have? It attacked Owen, had Tosh, and I was probably next. I couldn’t stand by.” Carole stared her friend down.
“Fighting aliens is their specialty, not yours,” John stated.
“You saw what it did to Joanna. It was doing it again. Did you want it to get me?”
“It is not your job.”
“None of this is our job, but it is here, and I don’t think we have a choice.” Carole’s temperament seemed to match her red hair. “I could have ran. I could have ran out of this building, but I didn’t. Do you think I want to go head-to-head with aliens who want to kill us? Hells bells, hell no! I have lost too many people in my life, and I am not losing anymore. Get this, I actually care about you guys.” Her speech ran over anything John tried to say in-between sentences.
Jack stepped in between the two of them. “Hold it. This is not what we need.”
“Don’t,” Joanna meekly said from the couch.
John and Carole looked over at Joanna and the fire seemed to melt a little. John and Carole finally backed away, to their respective corners.
“All right,” Jack said as he buttoned up his cuffs. “I think we need to get out of here and establish a base off-site.”
“I could really use some good computer equipment,” Tosh said.
“More space would be quite preferable,” Ianto stated.
“Any place safe,” John put in.
“Right, but where? Where can we get the stuff we need and the space?” Jack put down his collar.
Carole looked up. “How about the elevator at Signature?”
“What elevator at Signature? It’s a one-story building,” John snidely commented, not even looking at Carole.
“I know,” Carole pointedly said.
“Wait, what’s Signature,” Jack asked.
“Signature is a small private terminal at O’Hare airport,” Mary Jo said as she came out of the bedroom, dressed except for her trainers. “It is used by mainly corporate jets and small private airplane owners. Hidden in the back corner, it is only a single floor on the ground. I never saw an elevator there.”
“I know you never did,” Carole said and looked at the group. Finally she threw her hands up in the air. “Oh come on!”
John turned back to the group. “How many one-story buildings need an elevator?”
“Oh,” Ianto said.
“And I am not surprised,” John said as he tried to find a non-goo covered spot to sit on. Leaving John to clean the condo was not the best idea.
“If you don’t mind, I’m grabbing a shower first,” Owen said as headed into the bedroom with his own duffel. Just as he walked into the bedroom, Mary Jo’s cell phone rang, in the voice of Captain Jack Harkness. Owen chucked the phone into the main room where it landed on the floor, right next to a pile of black goo. “Shut him the bloody hell up already.”
Mary Jo grabbed up the phone and answered it. “Hello?” She listened intently for a moment and then turned to the group. “Naomi and Omni are downstairs. They are about to go pull into the parking garage.”
“No!” Carole, and Tosh said this in unison.
“Tell them to pull up by the freight access door by the main entrance. And tell them to NOT get out of the car.” Carole headed for Joanna’s bedroom. “I’ll find her clothes. Get ready to evacuate.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-11 12:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-11 02:27 am (UTC)And now, I'm curling up with Jack and Seren and Torchwood and Doctor Who novels ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-11 02:29 am (UTC)...I must talk
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-11 10:12 pm (UTC)Speaking of space squid, about to go enjoy their last residence. I cannot think of certain places the same way after writing about them.