Dan Abnett - Border Princes

TORCHWOOD
BORDER PRINCES

Dan Abnett

BOOKS

Contents

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Version 1.0

Epub ISBN 9781409073192

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Published in 2007 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing.

Ebury Publishing is a division of the Random House Group Ltd.

Dan Abnett 2007

Dan Abnett has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

Original series broadcast on BBC Television

Format BBC 2005

Torchwood and the Torchwood logo are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

The Random House Group Ltd Reg. No. 954009. Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at www.randomhouse.co.uk.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 563 48654 1

The Random House Group Ltd makes every effort to ensure that the papers used in our books are made from trees that have been legally sourced from well-managed credibly certified forests. Our paper procurement policy can be found at www.randomhouse.co.uk.

Torchwood is a BBC Wales production for BBC Three
Executive Producers: Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner
Producer: Richard Stokes

Project Editor: Steve Tribe
Production Controller: Peter Hunt

Cover design by Lee Binding @ Tea Lady BBC 2007
Typeset in Albertina and Century Gothic
Printed and bound in Germany by GGP Media GmbH, Poessneck

For Gary Russell

Also available in the Torchwood series:

ANOTHER LIFE
by Peter Anghelides

SLOW DECAY
by Andy Lane

ONE

The End of the World began on a Thursday night in October, just after eight in the evening.

It began with filthy, spitting rain creeping inland from the Bristol Channel, with a black SUV hammering east along the Penarth Road, with the bleep of a text message received.

Scale of one to ten? Owen asked. He was driving, peering out at traffic barely visible in the veil of rain.

One being slightly pressing and ten being insanely urgent? Jack wondered from the passenger seat.

Yeah.

About twenty-six, twenty-seven, Jack replied mildly. He held up his mobile phone so that Owen could glance over and read the screen.

THE END OF THE WORLD.

Captain Analogy strikes again, said Owen.

Theres only room for one captain on this team, Jack replied, flipping the clam-shell mobile shut. Uh, Owen... he added.

Looking at Jacks mobile had taken Owens eyes away from the road long enough for tail lights to bloom bright like distress flares dead ahead. Owen stood on the brakes, rocking the SUV nose down, and downshifted to go around.

Headlights blinded them, oncoming and bright. A horn blared.

Owen made a tutting noise and hauled the SUV back into lane. Lurched hard in his inertia-reels by the drastic deceleration-acceleration-deceleration, Jack maintained a surprisingly beatific composure.

Sorry, said Owen, hands tight and white on the wheel. Sorry about that.

No problem.

You seem remarkably relaxed.

Its the End of the World. A head-on prang on the Penarth Road seems somehow trivial by comparison.

Ah, said Owen. The traffic ahead began to space out again.

Of course, said Jack, he could be wrong.

Hes usually right, Owen corrected. Captain sorry, Analogy Lad has a nose for these things.

The text bleep sounded again.

Whats he saying now? asked Owen.

Boiled egg, said Jack.

Owen floored the accelerator.

Boiled egg . Four minutes or less.

Gwen ran across the road in the sheeting rain towards the messy huddle of buildings cowering by the riverside. There were lights on in a nearby pub, a late shop, and a row of houses. The hiss of the rain was like persistent static.

The buildings directly ahead were derelict, and seemed to have been left in a state of schizophrenic disarray, undecided whether they wanted to grow up and be warehousing or a multi-storey car park. The pubs neon window ads reflected in the long puddles on the road; pinks and reds and greens and Magners and Budweisers , stirred and puckered by the rain.

James was waiting under an arch of old, blackened brick. He started moving the moment she reached him.

Boiled egg? she asked, as she ran along beside him. Really ?

Really.

End of the World, or just the End of Cardiff?

The latter is merely a sub-set of the former, he grinned. Besides, Im just relaying what Tosh told me.

Where is she?

Round the back.

And what did she tell you?

This is the blip shes been seeing for a week, on and off. First real, solid fix.

And its the End of the World why?

Her systems crashed eighteen seconds after she painted it. I mean crash crashed. Forty-nine per cent of the Hubs down. We left Ianto in tears.

Its aggressive, then?

On a scale of one to ten? he asked.

Your scale or Jacks?

Mine.

And?

He shrugged, running up a short flight of rain-slick concrete steps. Twenty-six, twenty-seven. It freaked the crap out of Toshs computers and theyre, you know, kind of the best us evolved apes have ever manufactured.

They came out onto a vacant lot, tufted with virile weeds. The eastern end of the gravelly lot, marked by an ailing chain-link fence, was flooded with standing water six inches deep. Gwen could smell the river. The wind was cold, and held the particular tang of Autumn fighting a losing battle with Winters point men.

Oh! she said, suddenly unsteady. Christ on a moped, did you feel that?

He nodded. Nausea: a wallowing unease that reminded her of the car sickness shed suffered as a child on family day-trips, the big back seat of the old Vauxhall Royale, stopping and starting in the tourist traffic all the way to Carmarthen.

Ive got a headache, James said. Have you got a headache?

Yes, said Gwen, realising she absolutely had. It came on suddenly.

Like a switch?

Like a switch, yeah. I cant thick straight.

Thick?

What?

You just said thick.

I meant think.

I know what you meant. I cant thick straight either. Im having real trouble focusing.

You mean trouble, said Gwen, pinching the bridge of her nose.

What?

You said stubble, but you mean trouble.

I didnt.

Gwen looked at him. The cold rain spattered down on them. She was getting visual disturbance; squiggles of yellow light and peripheral flashes in the corners of her vision. Shed never suffered from migraines, but shed read enough to know that this was what migraines were supposed to feel like.

What the bloody hell is this? she asked. She was slightly scared.

I dont know, he said. He managed a grin and put on the beaky voice of his favourite cartoon character, But I aint gonna get in no flap.

That made her laugh. Jack was Torchwoods rock and soul, but James was its heart. He could make her laugh in the face of the End of the World. Or Cardiff, whichever occurred first.