Torchwood First Born (22 page)

The children stepped aside. Standing there, silhouetted in the flames of the burning pub, was the short figure of a schoolgirl.

'Jenny!' I cried.

I couldn't read her expression. She marched towards me, and I realised the others had gathered around her like a guard of honour. I could hear each tread of her sensible shoes as she approached.

Strange how the brain filters sounds. She didn't say anything, I couldn't see if she was smiling. Her head was tilted slightly to one side. Curious. Or appraising. Or...

'Get up, please, Mr Williams,' she said, gently. I noticed again she sounded more mature. She reached down a hand and helped me up. I saw her face for the first time. Lit by the flame, she looked more confident. Gone was the empty-eyed placidity of earlier. Instead, her eyes were clear and focused and the smile was no longer empty. Her round, soft face now looked more angular, and I could have sworn she was wearing make-up. There were flowers in her hair, such beautiful flowers.

'Oh,' I said.

'Hello,' she said.

'Makeover?' I asked.

'Mentally,' she nodded. 'Sorry about earlier, I was working through some stuff. My head is so jumbled.

So many thoughts. It's difficult being a grown-up.'

She turned to face the village. 'Hello, Everyone!

Good evening. I'd just like to reassure you that you're all going to be OK. I realise that might take some believing, but can you have a go for me, yeah?

I've got a lot on.'

'Jenny!' cried Mrs Meredith. 'What do you mean?

What's happened to you?'

'Hey, Mum!' Jenny beamed. 'It was time for me to grow up. What happened earlier made me realise that something was wrong. I couldn't be a child for ever. And the other children here needed a leader.

There is one more of us - up at the Weather Station.

He wants us to be angry warriors! I don't agree. I want us to be normal children.' She paused, and her smile was confident, self-aware. 'We won't get that right, but then being a kid isn't about being perfect.

We're going to try to be better from now on.'

The other children nodded, all at the same time.

Behind them the pub burned away. Not perhaps a great symbol of a new dawn.

'Anyway,' Jenny continued, 'I know that's quite a lot to take in. So we're going to go away now. We must go to the Weather Station. See you later.'

She turned around and strode off, and the children of Rawbone followed.

There was a silence apart from the crackle of burning building.

'OK, then,' laughed Megan Harries. 'Curious comes in all sorts of colours these days.'

'Bugger me,' said Nerys.

Then the heavens opened. And I mean
literally
opened.

The sky boiled. Remember that 'It could be you!'

lottery advert - kind of like that. The roof of the hangar was torn off. The sky above us seethed with red clouds, glowing and reaching down, pouring light into the hangar. The Juniper Tree stirred and stretched up into the sky which cascaded down around it.

It was, I have to say, bloody impressive.

Sebastian rocked back, hand clamped to his head.

They're not following me!' he gasped. He spun round and faced Eloise. 'Why not? What's wrong with them? What's happened to them?'

Eloise shrugged. T don't know. Perhaps... perhaps you can only push their nature so much. You're a step too far, Sebastian.'

Sebastian shook his head. 'No!'

The Juniper Tree started to shake along with Sebastian, going from a rustle to a roar.

'
Nor

The voice, when it came, leaked through a loudspeaker. As a voice it was strange, a product of an ancient piece of machinery.

We all stood back.

'No!'
repeated the voice. '
We have received your
message. What has happened here?'

'Evolution!' cried Sebastian, proudly. 'Humanity has taken your seed pods and is making them into a mighty army. Even now this seed bank is birthing my brothers in arms. We shall be a mighty force. We shall reach out across the whole planet. We shall give it to you.'

'We do not want it
,' said the voice.

'What?' Sebastian looked startled.

'We are explorers. Not soldiers'

'I don't understand,' Sebastian cried.

'Not soldiers'

'But... but then why was I created? Haven't I pleased you?'

'The children were designed to adapt to their
surroundings, to learn. What kind of world is this?'

'A violent one! A gloriously violent one!'

'Not a world for us.'

'I can make it a world that you're proud of.'

'Who did this?'

In desperation, Sebastian grabbed hold of Eloise.

'She did! She ran the experiments! She created me!

She made me!'

The sky shifted and the Juniper Tree reared up.

The whole sky was squinting down, glaring balefully at Eloise.

'Oh my god,' she said. 'I was just doing what I was told to... what I was made to do...'

The voice made a thunderous noise.'
You stole our
children. You ruined them.'

Eloise hung her head. 'Yes,' she said, sadly.

'Why?'

'Because... because I was asked to.'

'Why?'

'It was glorious!' yelled Sebastian, furious at being ignored.

'No,' shouted Eloise. 'I tried not to... but I ran out of excuses.'

'Excuses?
The voice rattled the speaker. '
That is
not how we do things'

'No,' said Eloise, sadly.

Wait!' cried Sebastian. 'I can make all this right for you!'

'Will you give us back our children?

'Yes!' said Sebastian. 'And I shall give you this world.'

' Why would you do that ?

What other reason could you have?' Sebastian looked puzzled.

'Wait!' called Eloise. 'I can try! I can try and make them good again!'

'NO!' screamed Sebastian. He hit Eloise brutally.

She fell back, gasping in shock.

The strange voice gasped.'
What did you do ?

Sebastian grinned up at the tree. 'It was all her fault. I punished her!'

'Why?

'To make you happy.'

'Why would this make us happy?

'That's all I want you to be!' protested Sebastian.

There was a dreadful pause. '
What kind of world
is this?

Without thinking, I spoke. 'It's a bloody great one.

You're just looking at the wrong bit of it.'

'Explain.'

'This isn't what we're about. We're nicer. We're smaller. We're just kind of weird and awkward and all of us trying our best to get through the day.

Ordinarily we don't want to kill, or to take what doesn't belong to us, or to do anything nasty.'

'What are you... about?'

I pushed a hand through my hair, 'We're about an extra hour's sleep. About another slice of toast, about getting a seat on the bus, about never having enough money, about getting a message from an old friend that makes you drop everything. About having bad ideas but doing them anyway.'

'But why aren't our children like this?'

I shook my head. 'They look like us. But they're not.'

Sebastian shoved me aside, screaming at the Tree. 'Don't listen to her. We are better than them!

Her evidence is selective!'

'Of course it is!' I shot back. This is just my point of view. It's not evidence. I'm not arguing for my species.' Well, maybe I was. "We do terrible things to other people and to each other for the stupidest of reasons. We have such short lives and we waste them. We are dreadful. I can't think why anyone would want to be like us.'

'But we do. That is how we learn.'

'And what have you learned?' I asked it.

The vines twisted, awkwardly.'
It has been a good
way. Previously.'

'My way is better,' snarled Sebastian. 'Look at me!

They stole your children, perverted their creation...

but have made something magnificent.' He pounded his chest, proudly. 'I am a wonderful accident. Your children are the true owners of this planet. Not these...' He indicated me, Eloise and Tom with a wave that said 'these old things'. 'Me. I am the child of the future. I offer you this world.' And he smiled.

The Tree fell silent.

Eloise stood up, warily and joined me. 'Imagine that,' she said. 'All those other planets welcoming these seed pods. A race of kindly, noble explorers.

And we spend so much time imagining invaders...

that we turned their children into them.'

'It's so human of you, Mummy,' taunted Sebastian.

Eloise stepped forward and stared up at the plant.

'I am so sorry. It's all my fault.'

The Tree stirred again.

' You accept responsibility V

Eloise nodded, ever so quiet and sad. 'Just... just enough of it.' She made a gesture, her hands helpless.

'My parents taught me to own up before you got found out.' A tiny, sad little smile. 'My brother and I used it against each other, terribly.' She paused.

'But it was a system of sorts. It worked for us as a family. So...' She patted Sebastian on the shoulder.

He turned away from her. 'I'm saying now. I'm sorry, Sebastian, for what I did to you.' She looked up at the Tree. 'And I am sorry for what we have done to your children. There is much you could have learned from us. Instead you've just learned to fear us. And I can't say I blame you.'

There was another pause.

'Are you finished?' asked Sebastian.

Eloise nodded.

Sebastian broke her neck.

'There!' he beamed.

We all stared up at the sky. Anwen started to howl again. She clearly had her mother's instinct for knowing when the world was going to end.

It's all right,' I said, lifting her up to my eyes.

'Daddy's here. Daddy's going to make it all OK.'

Daddy was lying through his teeth.

I had hoped we'd escaped all of this. We'd left Cardiff, our old friends, our whole life behind us.

We'd started again. Because of Anwen.

But suddenly it was business as usual. Strange lights in the sky, and Gwen elsewhere. Trying her best to sort it all out. I had thought that, if ever something like this happened again, at least we'd all be together. Instead, no such luck.

Which left me with very little to do, other than to look after Anwen as best as I could, while the sky above us glowed blood red.

Josh and Megan Harries were standing next to me. 'Never seen anything like this before,' announced Josh. He had the forced casualness of someone who was determined to talk about the weather, no matter what else was happening.

Megan clearly didn't think much of this as a line of conversation. She was pacing around nervously, and then began to play with Anwen, an element of nervousness in her cooing and finger-waving. As though, if Anwen smiled, then maybe it would all be all right.

I looked around us. At Nerys, with soot in her hair, at Davydd, slumped despairingly on the gravel of the pub car park. At the rest, looking up into the sky. No one was telling us anything. There was nothing to go on. No one was even going to lie to us and say there was nothing to worry about.

I just hoped that whatever happened would be quick.

Eloise's neck broke with a wet snap.

There was time for three different expressions on her face - surprise, fear and pain. Then she fell to the floor with a sigh, her empty brown eyes staring up at the Tree.

'Bones and water,' announced Sebastian to the Tree. 'That's all they are.'

Tom was making a noise, so Sebastian hit him. I stayed quiet, sizing up what to do.

'One down,' Sebastian shrugged, then implored the tree. 'Now, more. Give me my brothers.'

The tree shook and rustled, the leaves peeling back and the pods swelling. They started to droop to the floor.

Sebastian rushed to the first one. The pod split and ruptured, shrivelling to a husk as a copy of himself forced its way out.

The newborn Scion stood up and opened its eyes.

They were clear and blue and they stared around at the world in momentary wonder, taking it all in.

He reminded me of Anwen when she first wakes up of a morning. Surprise, wonder, working things out in equal measure. Then the Scion's face changed. It knew why it was here. It smiled, but it was a smile of triumph. He and Sebastian grasped each other warmly.

'Welcome,' said the older Sebastian. 'There is no time to waste.'

Around them other pods split and cracked and dozens of other Scions began to fight their way out. It was beginning. The air filled with the terrible stench of those flowers.

This was Sebastian's moment, and the triumph flowed across his face. The new Scion's features moulded themselves into a mirror of Sebastian's, and, for an instant, the two wore identical expressions.

Then the new Scion frowned, puzzled.

'What?' demanded Sebastian, but the new Scion didn't answer him. Instead his eyes passed over the room, confused. His mouth opened, and a series of clicks emerged. A hand reached up to his head, holding it like it hurt, and then he broke away from Sebastian, staggering backwards, reeling.

'What is happening? What?' cried Sebastian, reaching out for his brother. The Scion fell back, withering and collapsing into his shell with an agonised hiss.

Around Sebastian, the other new Scions were flailing unsteadily. Some had not even managed to leave their pods, and a steady hammering came from inside them as the half-emerged figures started to writhe.

Sebastian, surrounded by dying copies of himself, screamed. 'What's wrong?'

The Tree shook. '
You.'

'What?' He glared up at the twisting branches.

'What do you mean?'

The leaves rubbed against each other, rustling and crisping.

'You... sicken us. Your thoughts are poison.'

A giant leaf drifted to the ground by Sebastian.

The edges were brown, autumn spreading to the heart of the leaf within seconds.

'What?' Sebastian cried.