More than a hand was needed. The big man bucked and unseated Gwen. She flew off him and landed on her backside. The big man got up on his feet, blinking and looking around, spoiling for more. He found himself face to face with Jack Harkness’s perfect white smile.
‘Rough night?’ Jack asked.
‘Fwuk yoh!’ the big man spat, his words mangled by his cracked front teeth and swollen tongue. ‘Iss mihhn! Mhhy ttuhhn!’
‘Your turn?’ asked Jack. ‘OK, fellah.’
Jack threw a perfect, Marquis of Queensbury right hook that slapped the big man’s head to the right. Drops of blood sprayed out, like Raging Bull.
‘’ahstard!’ the big man snorted, and swung a punch back that was so telegraphed, it might as well have been announced by a butler. ‘Big big big!’ he yelled, his slurred emphasis resting on the middle ‘big’.
‘Yes, you are,’ Jack replied, ‘but you know what they say…’ A jab to the gut folded the big man over. An upper cut finished the job.
The big man curled up on his side on the ground, groaning and dazed. Jack stepped back, rubbing the knuckles of his right hand, and smiled again.
‘And the winner is,’ Owen remarked snidely, helping Toshiko up. She was bruised around the throat and having trouble breathing.
‘All right?’ James asked Gwen. She nodded and held out her hand to let him pull her to her feet.
‘You’re bleeding,’ she said, pointing.
‘Just a split lip,’ he replied.
‘Tea, cakes and Band-Aids later,’ said Jack. ‘Were we all just brawling for fun, or-?’
‘Those bags,’ coughed Toshiko, pointing down the path to the two, forlorn Sainsbury’s carriers. ‘It’s called the Amok.’
‘Is it, indeed?’ asked Jack, cocking his head in curiosity and stepping forwards.
‘It’s mine!’ the old tramp moaned. He was cowering by the fence. ‘It’s mine! It’s my go!’
‘Not any more, I’m afraid,’ Jack told him. ‘Stay there.’
Jack approached the bags. The rain pattered off the bulging plastic. He could smell the contents, and the experience wasn’t pleasant. He crouched down. Gwen and James appeared on either side of him.
Jack glanced at them with a rueful grin. ‘Lucky dip,’ he said. He put his hand into one of the bags.
Behind them, the tramp wailed out a deep, anguished howl. It almost obscured Toshiko’s call of ‘Be careful!’
Jack pulled out a few objects that made him, Gwen and James grimace. ‘Oh, joy,’ Jack said. ‘This is why I love the job so.’
‘Just tip them out, I would,’ suggested Gwen.
‘And if it’s something volatile?’ asked James. ‘Something delicate or sensitive or, you know, explosive?’
‘Just tip them out anyway,’ said Gwen. ‘That’s got to be better than having to stick your hand in shit.’
Jack turned both carrier bags out onto the path and began to sift. The rain rinsed the exposed contents: pieces of clothing, matted with black dirt; a crushed Marlboro packet filled with a collection of stubbed-out cigarette butts; part of a Rubik’s cube; the fashion cover for a mobile phone; something furry and mauve that had once been a motorway services sandwich; the tail of a kite; a toothless comb; more bits of torn, stinking clothing; a single, scuffed Adidas trainer in a child’s size; eight disposable plastic forks and spoons held together by a red Post Office elastic band; a Happy Meal toy; part of an electric toothbrush; another clip frame, smaller than the first, holding a photo of a mother and father proudly displaying a small baby on a windy beach somewhere; a safety pin; an out-of-date copy of Exchange amp; Mart with several pages torn out; a Bic pen with no innards…
‘There!’ James said, excitedly. ‘What’s that by the phone cover? Is that it?’
Jack held the object up. ‘It’s a Pikachu-head Pez dispenser,’ he said solemnly. He checked. ‘It’s OK, though. It’s not loaded.’
‘Oh,’ said James. ‘It looked like-’
‘Like what?’ Jack inquired.
‘A Pikachu-head Pez dispenser, now I see it, obviously,’ scowled James.
‘My head really hurts,’ said Gwen, ‘otherwise I’d be laughing and taking the piss right now.’
‘All right!’ James snapped. ‘It looked like…’
‘What?’
James muttered something.
‘Say again?’
‘A piece of exotic technology,’ James said slightly louder and reluctantly.
Gwen pursed her lips. ‘Even though my head does hurt, that’s fantastically funny. Should I alert the rest of the team James just made a tit of himself?’
‘No need,’ said Owen. He and Toshiko had joined them. He looked at James. ‘End of the World, huh?’ he asked. ‘If it hadn’t been for us pesky kids?’
‘Shut up!’ Toshiko growled. She was still rubbing her throat and the colour had not yet returned to her rain-streaked face. ‘This is still serious. Something’s affecting these people. And us, or am I the only one whose head feels like it’s about to pop?’
‘What do you know, Tosh?’ Jack asked.
Toshiko coughed, tryng to clear her voice. ‘Whatever Torchwood has been tracking this last week is here, in this vicinity. It’s aggressive and it’s spiking. It’s driving people in range out of their minds. Background cerebral flooding. We’re all feeling it. It’s killed one boy already. His name was Huw.’
She gestured back up the path at the pale, tangled heap of limbs.
‘Huw,’ said Gwen, with a glance at James. He was dabbing at his split lip.
‘The victim was talking about abstract numbers before he died,’ said Toshiko. She pulled a compact digital recorder from the pocket of her coat and sourced the right playback with expert flicks of her gloved thumb. ‘Here…’
‘There are… there are numbers, and there are two blue lights and they move, and they move about, like this,’ a tinny voice said through a background rustling of rain and pocket lining. ‘They move. They move. They move about. They’re big lights. Big big big.’
‘Lights? And numbers?’ Toshiko’s voice asked.
‘Big big big. Flashing and moving. Blue. Oh, sometimes red. Red is dead. Blue is true. Big big big.’
‘Big big big,’ echoed Jack, mimicking the emphasis.
‘That’s what his girlfriend said too,’ said Gwen.
‘Along with a load of old bollocks,’ James added.
‘Then the tramp there arrived,’ said Toshiko, ‘and said-’
She thumbed the playback again. ‘Huw had the Amok, but he lost,’ the ragged voice recording declared. ‘Donny had it before him, and he lost too. Before Donny, Terry. Before Terry, Malcolm. Before Malcolm, Bob. Before Bob, Ash’ahvath.’
‘Before Bob who?’ they heard Toshiko ask.
‘Ash’ahvath.’
‘As in the Middlesex Ash’ahvath’s?’
There was a spluttery, sniggery sound on the playback ‘You’re funny. I don’t know no Ash’ahvath. It was just the last name on the list.’
Toshiko clicked the device off.
‘Huw had the Amok, but he lost,’ repeated Jack, deep in thought. ‘Donny had it before him, and he lost too. Strange.’
‘Yeah,’ said Owen. He frowned. ‘Uh, how?’
‘He said “lost”, not “lost it”,’ said Jack. ‘If it was an object, they’d have lost “it”. But they just “lost”, as if-’
‘As if it was a game,’ said Gwen.
‘Exactly as if it was a game,’ Jack agreed.
Toshiko held the recorder out again and clicked it on. They all heard the tramp’s voice crying ‘You can’t have it! It’s not your go! It’s my go!’ She clicked it silent.
‘The lumberjack told me it was his turn,’ Jack said. ‘I didn’t really understand what he meant at the time.’
‘So…?’ asked Owen.